#and at the same time. the ones of a 14 year old girl whose parents are going through a messy divorce

[sheila--e]

Metallica isn't even that good they're mega repetitive after a while, but man do the songs get absolutely stuck inside of my brain. good at getting that shit to stick in the crevices of my head

[caramel-ribbons]

I just watched Avatar for the first time all the way through, and yeah, it’s great, but the one thing that surprised me was how different Katara was compared to the fandom interpretation I’d seen and internalized before watching.

Like, before you watch Avatar, you’ve seen all these memes about Katara and her mom, and based on those memes, you assume it’s one of those lines you have to get used to hearing at least once every episode. But then you watch the show and realize that she only talks about her mom maybe five or six times per season and you also realize she only brings her up when she’s trying to comfort someone or empathize with them because that’s how she processes her grief and that’s one way she connects with people.

Or you hear the infamous line, “then you didn’t love [our mother] the way I did” and you prepare yourself for one of the worst character assassinations ever only to see the scene after nearly three seasons worth of context and realize she was kinda right. She’s been the mother, the nurturer, the comforter. She’s been patient, gentle, and accommodating where everyone else has gotten to be insensible and reckless and childish, and the one moment where she allows herself to feel her grief, suddenly she’s this evil bitch and not, y’know, a 14 year old girl whose been thrusted into adulthood in a way no other character has. A 14 year old girl who should be allowed immaturity and raw emotion and anger instead of the patience and grace she’s been forced to extend to every character without even the smallest amount of gratitude or even consideration in return.

Or you see all of the clips where Katara puts Aang in the “friendzone” and you expect to have this wishy washy back and forth where Aang is putting his feelings out there only to have Katara neither commit nor express any clear reciprocation or rejection. Then you watch and realize that, as cute as the ship is initially, that there’s never a point where Aang returns any comfort or grace to Katara despite her always doing this for him to the point of coddling. That for as much as Aang says he loves her, he never seems to outgrow his perception of her so he can recognize her as someone who feels grief, anger, and pain as much as she expresses love, kindness, and maturity. And instead of having moments where he learns to see her beyond her strength or compassion, you’re instead given moments where Aang forces his feelings onto her, both romantic and non-romantic, and Katara is expected to just…shoulder those feelings the way she shoulders everyone else’s.

Katara is the most misunderstood character in the show. As much as people recognize the complexities of Zuko, Sokka, and Azula, they struggle to do the same for Katara because they see her struggles as somehow lesser, and therefore, less deserving of sympathy. They can handle her so long as she’s being endlessly patient and loving and kind, but the moment her endless love, patience, and kindness runs out, she’s suddenly this annoying bitch who can’t shut up about her mother or reciprocate Aang’s feelings. But Katara’s trauma does matter as much as anyone else’s. No, she wasn’t banished from her kingdom. No, she didn’t lose her entire community, and no, she isn’t the only one who lost her mother. But the difference between her and everyone else whose experienced loss because of the Fire Nation is that she’s never given time to process her trauma. Aang gets to lean on Katara constantly. Toph gets to express her feelings to Katara, and yeah, Sokka also lost their mother, but unlike Katara, he isn’t put in the position of being a substitute for everyone’s parent. He even admits that he sees his sister as a mother. The only characters who ever comfort Katara or allow her to vent is Zuko and her father and that’s, like, three scenes in a show where the other characters are consistently given opportunities to seek out Katara for unconditional support.

The fandom interpretation of Katara has been so bastardized that even those who haven’t watched the show know her for this fanon version and not for who she is. She’s such an interesting character beyond her fandom limitations, though. She’s brave, hot-headed, and hopeful as well as gentle and caring. She wishes to learn waterbending, not only because she wants to fight in the war, but because she wants to continue her culture’s practices because, and people often forget this, she also lost an entire subculture within her already fractured tribe. And she wants to defeat the Fire Nation both because of her deep love and empathy for other people, but also because she wants to avenge her mother. But because some of the fans have reduced Katara to a bitch who constantly whines about her mother and friendzones Aang, you wouldn’t know any of this, and it sucks because she’s the only character whose been dumbed down to such an extent.

[chizoies]

STRAWHATS FAMILY AU

The Lore Drop:

Alright,in this alternative universe the whole gang is a family. Robin and Franky are married and they are the parents. Brook is Franky’s adoptive father. Jinbei is Robin’s biological father. Brook is African (Nigerian (Bantoid))American and he was never married. Franky is caucasian, his roots comes from Turkiye. Jinbei is Indian, he married Olvia, she is Brazilian. So Robin is half Indian half Brazilian.

Only Luffy and Chopper are Frobin’s biological children.

When Robin and Franky got married, they had realised that they are rich enough to set on a quest to help the children of need so they went to see the world. HEAR ME OUT it makes sense because um Jinbei is a very respected doctor and Brook is a renowned musician; Franky own a ship/boat/cruise fix company and Robin is a doctor in the archeology field 😁 they are rich rich

First, Luffy was born. And their first destination was Japan. That is where they adopted Zoro. He was in Juvenile. They sorted out things and adopted this child to save him. Cause he was innocent. Luffy was 6 and Zoro was 10 when this happened. (I know the punishment age range is after 14 in Japan but the crime they were accusing him of was so severe or something that they had to, like you should know I’m just making shit up leave me alone)

After a few months they go to Finland. That is where they adopt Nami. A Swedish girl who was in the hands of a gun mafia that killed her sister and mother. She was 9. So they fight fight and get her.

The new year comes, and they decide to go to Mozambique. That is where they meet Usopp! When Franky and Zoro was walking through streets with full of shops and all, they run into Usopp (same age as Luffy) who was selling things he built. Usopp’s father Yasopp left their home when he was born, and her mother dies of sickness. The social workers does not give shşt about the poor. Franky sees this spark in him. He and Zoro buys things from him. And at the end of the day Franky asks if he wants a family they can be one to him. Usopp refuses because of his sick friend Kaya. Saying that he cannot leave her. Later in the week, yk the drill they show everyone that Kuro is bad person blah blah, they both save Kaya and Usopp. Usopp accepts to be part of their family.

They make BIG AHH turn and go to France. They drop at some seaside town. Such a nice touristic place. But so many shop owners with rent complaints. The mayor of this town goes againts its country’s law and increases the rents per SECOND. They dig down this mystery by accident and find out that the mayor is a evil motherfrucker scientist. He also has a son , Sanji (10 yo), whose very much so sweet. They want to fight the scientist but the country is actually supporting him. Since his products and the stuff he does supports the economy or something. So they technically kidnap Sanji. But Sanji needs it. With Franky’s relations they get him a fake id and all that. But they promise that ona day they will have enough power to defeat him. Sanji is happy.

The next destination is Canada. That is exactly where Franky and Robin decides to make another child 😁

After that they go to Egypt. They come across an organisation that Robin did her internship, the one that ran by Sir Crocodile. They find a lost child named Vivi. Vivi is an 8 year old who is getting used by Crocodile. They save her, save the country, yay! Allthough Vivi was a part of their family for a quite time after they learned that Vivi was a princess, they help her to meet her father. The Strawhats leave Egypt and promise eachother that they will meet again.

After 9 months Chopper is born. And the family is complete for now. But they are still in a quest to help children. Or to collect them lol. After a while the grandpas also join their quest. And yeah thats it. I would binge read it if someone makes a fanfic about it.

[samble-moved]

reminder that homura is a middle schooler. she is 13 or 14 years old, depending on source. she is not old enough to drive or have a permit. she is not old enough to live on her own (it's implied her parents are out of the picture in some way — in the US she'd need to be in adoptive or foster care, or at least have a guardian or social worker, but this appears to be handwaved in the series and none are ever shown). she cannot vote. she is not old enough to get a job (earliest i've seen is 14 in the US, and that's usually in not great environments, in summer, and for low pay and short hours). she is only "independent" in the sense that it's forced upon her by lack of any adult support — nobody helps her fill out school transfer forms, she lives alone, she has no shown family or even mentions of relatives, nobody visits her in the hospital, etc.

i say this because a lot of "anti homura" arguments act as if this information doesn't exist, and that homura is "actually an adult" or at the same level as one due to looping. she canonically is not. her brain and physical body are not developing, she is only learning walpurgis tactics and memorizing test answers. her brain is not developing so she's not "mentally 26", like is often claimed by "homura is a predator" truthers. i'm not even going to touch on how weird and borderline creepy it is to say "she's a child but so mature for her age (from extreme, repeated, potentially pre-series trauma), so she must be an adult and can be treated like one".

there is a reason that children are typically tried differently in the US. unless "tried as an adult" for very serious crimes, it is widely accepted that children (and even young adults) are more impulsive, think less rationally, and are generally "less responsible" for their actions due to not having the experiences of a full grown adult. children are less mature, more prone to "overreaction" and panic, and are immature — because they are kids.

homura is a child. she also has extreme trauma, potentially from before the series even began (where are her parents? are they just neglectful? dead? why isn't there even a single adult helping her?) that is never helped or addressed. homura doesn't get help for any issues she has (obvious ptsd and depression, borderline delusions over the past being "just a dream" in wraith arc). she is not some spoiled, rich, mentally stable almost-adult who's never faced a consequence. she is a young and traumatized teenager, young enough to be a middle schooler, and has experienced:

neglectful, absent, missing, or dead family/parents

watching her friends die horrifically almost a hundred times

having zero adult support at all, no caseworker or help

bullying, half being because she's disabled

having her soul ripped from her body without consent and learning if she ever loses her soul gem (or god forbid accidentally drops it somewhere), her body will basically be "dead"

learning she and all her friends turn into eldritch horrors when they die, a process shown in rebellion to be something they are aware for (aka the horror that witches aren't "just" bodies being moved, they are actively and constantly suffering and aware to some degree the whole time)

learning that the witches they fight are girls around their age who fell into despair, and not purposeless monsters

learned of the prospect that witches can potentially "regrow" via familiars, thus if their consciousness transfers, this shows the possibility of literally eternal suffering as the witch is "reborn"

realization that, the more she tries to save madoka, the worse the situation gets

having a full on breakdown with delusions in wraith arc, thinking maybe madoka was all just a hallucination or a dream she had

finding out in rebellion it wasn't a dream, but then thinking she betrayed madoka by not stopping her from contracting

becoming a witch whose whole theme is based around suicide and wanting and waiting to die, but not being able to

being a witch whose familiars are malicious towards her and belittle her

trying to "fix" her believed betrayal of madoka by making a new world, ending up hated by sayaka and isolated from her friends

is still stuck as a witch while the last event happens!!! (her soul gem is never shown purified)

all of this while she is 13-14.

homura is not some cruel adult playing god because she is bored and likes the power trip and wants the world to burn. she is a deeply traumatized and mentally ill child who never got help. she is not a predator — and i honestly don't know if that is more of a "she's a predator because she's the most openly sapphic" or "she's a predator because she's traumatized and thus 'acts weird' due to trauma" belief nowadays in most anti-homura spaces, i've seen both. she is not a murderer or rapist or whatever else i've seen (yes, "homura is a sexual predator" claims exist, despite this never once even being implied). she is not an abuser — you can argue she's cold or rude, but she is not "an abuser".

if a child like homura existed irl (and they do exist), a professional's first thought would not be "this is an evil, irredeemable, abusive predator who can be treated like an adult", it'd likely be a reaction of horror and deep concern of "what happened to this child to make her act this way?". someone being "the perfect victim" — that is, being soft, demure, sweet, docile, flawless — in response to trauma is a harmful myth for a reason. some trauma victims will react with anger. some may be overly happy in an attempt to prevent further abuse. some, like homura, end up acting "cold" to try and avoid being further hurt. it doesn't mean homura doesn't experience emotion, hates her friends and wants them to suffer, is a predator, is "a bad person", etc.

think! when you write posts about how homura is actually an evil, awful, no good, very bad person with no positive traits, remember she is a middle schooler. of course, she's not a "real" child, and thus doesn't exist to have her feelings hurt over it, but consider this: would you say these things to/about a real child? are you aware that "real children" (often victims of trauma themselves) relate to homura due to this? i was one of them at 14ish, and while "homura is evil [for acting like a traumatized child often does]" discourse never left me particularly hurt, i know it does genuinely upset several people i know. and if you had, say, a real life child relative who acted "cold" after seeing their friends die horribly, would you call them an evil and irredeemable abuser as well?

[picturejasper20]

A lot of people in the phandom talk about how Season 3 was when Danny Phantom went downfall, and while i agree with the idea, i believe that the series was starting to show some of these cracks in Season 2 that later collapsed on Season 3.

For starters, we have the Season 2 first episode ¨Memory Blank¨, whose main purpose was to give Danny a logo in his suit so they had to make the portal explode on him again. It is an episode that doesn't much sense in the timeline and it is very confusing. It doesn't change much aside from Danny having a logo.

Later we have episodes like ¨Reign Storm¨ and ¨The Ultimate Enemy¨, considered to be the peak episodes from the series by many for a reason. The issue with these episodes is that they were setting up for pretty interesting things- but they never had a proper paid off. I have talked before about how the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire never appear again after Reign Storm in spite of how important they were. There isn't any mention of them in the episodes that followed. The same goes to The Ultimate Enemy, a mutual of mine, @pedanticat, pointed out how the special was setting up for Clockwork to be a mentor figure for Danny, which didn't get much followed except for a later episode.

While "The Fright Before Christmas" has some good moments, it is frustrating how Danny has to put up with Jack and Maddie's childish argument that ruins for him and Jazz what should be a special time of the year. It is quite gross that a 14 year old teenager has to deal with something like this and the adults are never called out for it.

I do enjoy "Secret Weapons" a lot but one main issue it has is that it semi rewrites Jazz's character, making her be incompetent at ghost hunting when in previous episodes (My Brother's Keeper and Maternal Instincs) and later ones she isn't seen having this same kind of issue with using fenton gadgets. I believe it was written like this so the status quo wouldn't change much in the show.

From here is where things start to get more messy, with "Beauty Marked" having very cool things but giving a mixed message regarding gender (potraying all girls who like fashion and buy clothes as brainless and Sam being the only girl who is clever). Not terrible since it still fun to watch but questionable in message.

"Masters of All Time": Another dumb alternative plotline episode that doesn't add much to the series and was a whole wasted of opportunity of showing how Jack and Maddie's relationship with Vlad used to be before the proto-portal accident. Pretty insulting to previous characterization established for Vlad as antagonist among of a lot other weird messages and implications. Not much else to add that hasn't been said before in my blog or by some of my DP mutuals.

"Double Cross My Heart": I don't remember a lot of this one but i do know i didn't like the whole idea of Danny stalking Sam + ¨If someone else that isn't Danny likes Sam, it means that they are faking it¨. I do know that as whole this appears to be one of the most disliked episodes from the series.

"Reality Trip": Looking back this episode has a lot of really cool things, specially some exploration of Freakshow's characterization and Jack and Maddie as parents. The GIW being main antagonists is great too. The whole problem that brings this whole special down is that the events that take place don't have any real impact and most of the characters, including Jack and Maddie, lost their memories of learning about Danny's identity as Phantom. This has to be one of the most insulting moves the series did, all because for the sake of keeping the main status quo. It makes me wonder why Kindred Spirits couldn't have been the double part episode instead, since it is related to one of main plotlines (Why Vlad gave Valerie all that gear) and is about one of the main antagonists (Vlad Masters), something that was a lot more important that Freakshow.

As you can see, Season 2 was already starting to show problems that later defined the writing of Season 3. You have things like inconsistent characterization (From Secret Weapons to Masters of All Time), lack of proper continuity ( What i already said of Reign Storm ending and also Valerie not having a major role after Flirting With Disaster) and episodes with weird timeline plotlines that go nowhere and don't have a real impact. (Memory Blank, Masters of All Time and Reality Trip) It is a season that, aside from the first episode, it stays pretty well until the first half, then in the second half it kinda falls apart, with having some episodes that are pretty solid and others that are a mess for different reasons.

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

Season 1 episode 4 [The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding] - part 2/2

- [Claudia] "We do like mortals do. We fight, we eat, we laugh, we sleep, we love. And then the phone rang last night. And all the easy times stopped." - ooof. How to destroy familial domesticity: bring back the real world.

I love, love, loooove Louis' coldness and casual cruelty at his mother's wake. And looooove the family solidarity. Oh, Daddy Lou's fighting with his sister? Time to show our fangs and have his back.

- Oooh, a Lestat and Claudia scene! Dad teaching his kid all the true, important ways to make it in the world. And accidentally making her realise some things she'll never get to have, stuck as she is as a young teenager. But the blood kinda makes up for it tho.

- "Uncle Les says I gotta practice killin' both the one and the plus one at the same time, but I came away understanding something else tonight. I can't quite put it into words, but it's like something opened up in my head, in my body. I've been 18 for 7 months now, and it's time I started acting like it."

Aaaaand there it is. Happy hunting indeed. Happy until the reality hits back...

"I've lost my appetite, I can't sleep!" - welcome to hormones. Can't say I know first-hand what you're going through but good luck. Oh, no, but this is waaay too adorable. The giggling and the skipping and the flowers and the staying on the balcony waiting for Charlie to look up...

- "Everyone in my family looks younger than their age." - yeah that's one way to put it I guess.

Aaaand exit Charlie, pursued by a terrified horse. Taking this opportunity to say a lil something about how book!vampires are basically asexual in the way that their desire and pleasure express themselves through the blood, blood drinking and blood sharing. While the show being a visual media for a modern audience decided to make human sexuality also a part of vampire sexuality, all while keeping the blood as this irresistible force and the source of everything. Don't really have an opinion one way or another, except to say, please we need more asexual representation that still shows that ace people can find and express desire and pleasure outside of sexuality.

- Lestat taking on the ugly role of teaching Claudia about control and how it's hard for vampires to make lasting connections with mortals... Parenting's hard.

- [Louis] "Vivid writer, isn't she" - I'm kinda glad we don't get Claudia's own words about Charlie's death, knowing the writers they would have given us another lyrical prose that would have made us all bawl our eyes out.

The way Daniel is visibly impacted and heartbroken reading Claudia's diaries: he is deeply compassionate. And you can't read people and write about them without a certain level of compassion and even empathy. "Anne Frank meets Stephen King" indeed.

- [Louis] "Claudia was... everything." - ouch. Break my heart, won't you. It's the way Louis is physically struggling to talk about her, the way he needs the pebbles of his zen garden beneath his feet to anchor himself solidly enough to talk about her.

- "It's funnier when they fight in French. And diary, you'd think a girl whose mama died in childbirth, whose daddy gave her away to a mean old auntie who beat her 'cause no one said she couldn't, who died in a fire but came back by the blood magic of two demons, well, you'd think that girl wouldn't know what funny was. But you'd be wrong, diary. And if I told you, dumb diary, that that same girl was being raised to kill like her demon parents did, to take two souls a day so she could stay in the same flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body as her mind and spirit turn 19, 20, 25, 63, 358, you dumb, dumb diary, I bet you'd say to anyone who'd listen 'Fun? Fun? How does she even get up in the morning?' Well, let me tell you something, you stuck-up, flower-covered, three-dollar fancy fucking paper diary, I'm doing just fine. And how do I know that? 'Cause the first man I killed called me the devil, and the last boy I killed, the last boy I'll ever love in this world, called me an angel. So that means I'm on the right path. And that means there's so much more fun out there to have. I'm just getting started."

THE INTENSITY, DAMN.

The crescendo of Claudia's voice overlayed by the music and echoed in the angrier and angrier words. Wow, I need a minute.

Between the "losing my mind in the coffin" scene, that "madwoman in the attic walking down from the attic" scene and the "the sun is a deadly laser" scene, someone needs to give Bailey several awards. And the writing team needs these awards too.

Show!Claudia actually has a backstory, not very detailed but still there, a miserable, painful human life, 14 years of misery and pain - she had a life, she had experiences before becoming a vampire; unlike book!Claudia who was 5 when she was turned, told Louis she couldn't remember her human life before being Louis and Lestat's, and doesn't have her own narration in between Louis' recollections.

Here, the addition of the diaries to the way the story is told not only allows a third party, a third perspective that's no more and no less of an unreliable narrator as Louis' voice, but it also, and I think more importantly, allows for Claudia to speak for herself. She isn't anymore just a footnote in the messy romance of Louis and Lestat. She is her own person, in her own narrative, with her own agency and life. And that's a huge difference between the two versions of Claudia: eternally-5-year-old Claudia couldn't have her own agency, no matter that she was really 40 in a child's body, because that child's body was more of a damnation, a cage, than a teenager's body. At 14 and with make-up, fashion, body language and speech, Claudia can make herself look marginally older, and thus can reclaim some of that agency, of that control. Therefore the issue comes not from the fact that Claudia needs at least one adult to have that agency by proxy, but from the fact that she might never pass for older than 18 and will be taken advantage of. As we'll soon see.

Also she was right, last boy she loved, but not last person, we stan a bisexual murder deranged queen.

And I did tell Lestat, that roof window is a structural failure.

Well, welcome to the Claudia show. That was one hell of an entrance. Crowd's seated for the next part, "Claudia goes Wild party in the Mississippi".

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | part 1 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7

[blueiight]

IWTV E4 “A Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child’s Demanding.” Claudia discussing how it feels to escape poverty to being adopted into wealth, struggling in her existence without peers even during her second childhood and how she does not even care to have the veneer of mortal manners around Louis’s family, what Charlie as her last peer meant to her, and her mortal upbringing prior to Lestat + Louis.

And I realized, what I thought was Heaven was just some nice room. And what I thought were angels were really hell demons.

Uncle Les and Daddy Louis were rich. They had nice clothes and a nice auto carriage and a funny way of being nice to each other.

I gotta go to bed when the rest of the world wakes up, so there's less kids to play with...

Daddy Lou said I had been away from people too long. I didn't know how to behave right anymore. But Uncle Les said, I behaved just fine.

Diary, his name is Charlie. He's got veins like rivers. They flow right down his arms. …Charlie's death ushered in one of the darkest eras in our lives. The oh-so-delicate balance of our oh-so-delicate household was shattered. For Claudia, all humans died with Charlie.

And, diary, you'd think a girl whose mama died in childbirth... whose daddy gave her away to a mean old auntie who beat her 'cause no one said she couldn't, who died in a fire but came back by the blood magic of two demons, well, you'd think that girl wouldn't know what funny was. But you'd be wrong, diary. And if I told you, dumb diary, that that same girl was being raised to kill like her demon parents did, to take two souls a day so she could stay in the same flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body as her mind and spirit turn 19, 20, 25, 63, 358, you dumb, dumb diary, I bet you'd say to anyone who'd listen, "Fun? Fun? How does she even get up in the morning?" Well, let me tell you something, you stuck-up, flower-covered, three-dollar fancy fսcking paper diary, I'm doin' just fine. (diary pages read aloud as Claudia self harms at the end of e4)

IWTV E5 “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart”. Claudia discussing her life/reckoning with the fate of her premature existence.

"Dear Diary, am I gonna be a virgin every single time I do it? Won't my skin down there grow back like my hair does when I cut it?"

Who am I supposed to love? You two have each other. Who's my Lestat? Who's my Louis? I’m not human. What human would want me? Perverts? Like the uncle at the roomin' house who used to watch me pee? Or little boys? And 40 years from now... still little boys? How are you gonna fix it, huh?… (turns to Louis) [Lestat] treats us like shit and you just take it! And you, [turns to Lestat] cruel as the devil ever made, to deny me one love when you’ve got two.

[Talking to Louis in her room after the confrontation at the dinner table] I remember the night I was made, the fire chokin' me, you carryin' me out through the flame and the smokes. But then why'd you take me home? Why not a hospital? …. But I was breathin'! Maybe I'd have a handsome husband by now. Or maybe he'd be plain but with a good disposition. That'd be fine, too. I'd be sweepin' floors, makin' dinners, nursin' babies. Maybe I'd go to church. You think on that some.

How does Claudia react after her rape? She exhibits textbook behaviors.

Co-dependency.

I spend time following Louis and Lestat now that I am my own woman... with no obvious sense of why I follow them, other than meaning slowly disintegrates without them...My companions in immortality.

but wait.. u might ask: doesn’t this contradict what she said years earlier in this same episode about wanting ‘her own Lestat and Louis’? is this Louis or Armand somehow forging Claudia’s diary? or is this a rape victim shortly after the actual experience struggling with her emotional+ mental state and in that frame of mind going back to the immortal family she finds to be a more familiar sort of ‘evil’ than the unknown vampire that raped her, especially after witnessing Louis weep over the grave Grace made of him? to Claudia here, being Louis’s ‘sister’ is balm put onto a bleeding wound.

Hypervigilance over her wider situation ad an Enmeshment with Louis, as they both have endured incredibly traumatizing events (with Claudia being raped + shortly after, witnessing Louis being beaten) and are without Lestat for six years following the end of E5 picking up the pieces. it is Claudia who tends to Louis in his most vulnerable here, and Louis struggles with that, wanting to be ‘her knight in vengeful black’ in return.

She's grown very protective of me. That's what this is. It's why it's hard. She came back altered when she left us. There's a darkness in her that wasn't there before. Give her a little time. [Louis is trying to appease Lestat here in their ‘compromise’, but there is a key bit of truth in his observations here.]

Claudia learned very early on, as early as E4 when Louis asked her mentally about Charlie, how to block her mind off from Louis. and with her traumatic experiences, its all but said that hypervigilance protects her mind further (as shown in the S2 trailer when Armand comments on it). When Lestat steals her from off the train, he also threatens her:

Because if you try this again, Claudia, I won't snap your leg, defile your pocket, and zoom off on a motorbike. I'll turn your bones to dust.

Is it any wonder Claudia draws the comparison to Bruce when she talks to Louis, especially when Louis in the season finale plays the role of a honey trap to the very same lover who almost ‘killed Louis’, as Claudia [and Daniel alike] frame the ending of E5 as abuse + attempted murder, as Claudia seethes , is ‘done enduring?’ and just before she creates her own murder plan:

Or did you kill him, like you did Antoinette, and how you tried to do with Louis?

I have to wonder why, over a year from airing, blogs and reviews claiming to be dedicated to the series rehash the most juvenile questions that the episodes themselves directly answer? How can S2 spec or complex discussion occur, if callout PSAs shutting down any sort of canon-compliant discussion is the way to go? If people constantly exhibit their refusal to meet the show where its at and engage the material for what it is, where can we go from here? AMC IWTV is very didactic. ‘The absence of metaphor is striking’. Yet for all the waxing about loving ‘fucked-up gothic romance’, there is a willful ignorance in understanding where & what makes the situation fucked up to begin with. Or even an interest in understanding the basics of the setting!

[beardedmrbean]

China is being rocked by a series of shocking murders of little girls committed by boys as young as 12.

But, nearly as shocking is how the communist nation deals with juvenile killers — usually letting them go without jail time.

Often, they are sent to mental institutions for just a few years. In one case, a killer was allowed to return to school shortly after his crime.

As China struggles to answer how to hold children accountable for heinous killings, the most notorious of which are committed against other kids, it’s often the parents of the victims who find themselves waiting for justice that might never come.

Gong Junli, whose 8-year-old daughter was brutally stabbed to death by a 13-year-old boy, is among the latest heartbroken parents waiting to see if the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) will sentence his child’s killer to prison.

The single father’s plight made headlines in March when prosecutors agreed to pursue criminal charges against the teen, who allegedly coaxed the girl to follow him into the woods in the Xinjing Township in September 2022, according to Red Star News.

The boy then stabbed her multiple times and abandoned her body in a grove of poplar trees, officials said.

Investigators noted that the 13-year-old allegedly prepared knives, blades, disposable gloves, plastic ropes and other tools for the murder, placing them in the woods where he invited the victim to play.

Officials said the teen showed no remorse for the crime and spoke nonchalantly when questioned by police.

Junli’s surveillance camera captured the moment the young girl was lured away by the teenager, who had come to ask her to join him in the woods twice before.

The grieving father told Red Star that the teenager had allegedly developed a hatred for women after being beaten and scolded by his mother, and had planned to kill her and female classmates with good grades before choosing the 8-year-old as his first victim.

Junli told the outlet he fainted when he first learned about his daughter’s fate, with his family who was babysitting the girl urging him not to see her body.

“You will never recover after seeing this for the rest of your life,” they warned him.

Junli, who has spent his days cutting down trees to divert people away from his daughter’s crime scene, initially believed the suspect would undoubtedly pay for what he did, but he has now acknowledged that he might not ever get the justice he seeks.

In 2021, China lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12. But, unlike the US, children are not sent to detention centers and adult-level punishments are rarely brought when the crime is murder.

Junli’s case is similar to one from last year, where a 4-year-old girl was killed by a boy under 12 years old who pushed her into a manure tank just 300 yards from her home in Hubei.

The case against the boy was dropped in January because of the boy’s age, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The father, who still wants the case to be heard, claimed the boy killed his child “simply because my daughter and his sister quarreled many times over toys.”

The boy is reportedly being held at a psychological corrections facility, the same sentence given to other young criminals under 12.

The lenient sentencing was also the common practice prior to the 2021 amendment, when a 13-year-old boy was sentenced to only three years at a juvenile rehabilitation center after raping and fatally stabbing a 10-year-old girl in 2019.

The victim’s father said the teenager, who was under the former age of criminal responsibility, lured the girl to his home, sexually assaulted her, stabbed her to death and then disposed of her body in the woods in the city of Dalian, Jinyun News reported.

The case caused an uproar in China at the time, with public opinion already at a boiling point after police were forced to release a 12-year-old boy who confessed to stabbing his mother to death.

The child was back to attending school days later, according to Chinese media.

The outrage ultimately led to the 2021 amendment lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 12, but despite the new law, China continues to see an uptick in cases against juveniles.

Between 2020 and 2023, prosecutors charged 243,000 minors, with an average case increase of 5% a year, according to CCTV.

The SPC recently announced that it had handed down sentences against 12,000 minors in the first three months of 2024.

The court also acknowledged that it sentenced four minors aged between 12 and 14 to 10 to 15 years in prison in April, but did not say what their crimes were.

Along with the sentence, the court issued new guidelines on preventing juvenile crime, where it suggested that courts could hold parents and guardians responsible for their children’s actions.

The court specifically pointed out that 30% of those who committed violent crimes between 2021 and 2013 were from “left-behind” or single-parent families.

Left-behind children are those who stay behind in rural areas while their parents move to work in the cities.

Left-behind children also make up a large portion of bullying victims in China, including Junli’s daughter.

A 2019 survey from the Beijing-based NGO found that out of 14,000 left-behind children, 90% of them said they suffered emotional abuse, 65% experienced physical violence and 30% said they had been sexually abused.

The spate of violent incidents have triggered many to call on parents to return home and focus on raising their children and keeping them out of trouble, with the Supreme People’s Court calling for communities to come together and address the issue.

“Collaborative efforts by schools, families, social organizations and government agencies to build a joint work system to address bullying and solve the problem at an early stage is essential and urgent,” the court said.

[batmanlovesnirvana]

— MICRO SIDEWALK IN GOTHAM CITY

Some reporter : Do you actually believe that the Batman exist ?

Some guy : I mean I don’t know, people believed that Batman was something made up by the Gotham police to scare criminals...I mean why else would they put the bat-signal on their roof.

His friend : I heard he's a black-ops unit of the GCPD SWAT that operates as a pro-active offence unit rather than reactive like regular SWAT units.

A woman waiting for her bus : I hear he's secretly some millionaire playboy with issues. You know the one, his parents died when he was young. Not long later he disappeared for years and returned acting like the same careless ponce... I'm of course speaking about Oliver Queen, head of Queen Industry.

A teenager with his skateboard and croaked glasses that keeps sliding on his nose : I've heard he's immortal. There are all kinds of accounts all throughout history of a "Batman." They've found several cave paintings depicting a man/bat like humanoid. I've heard theories that he was active during the Inquisition and hunted witches. I've also heard that Blackbeard (you know, the pirate) had run ins with a man known simply as "The Black Pirate," whose description has several similarities to The Batman we know of in our time.

Gary, the guardian of apartment C : I heard he runs an orphanage and trains the children to be crime fighters. There are several bat people running around now. How else could he be all over the city?

Miranda, the woman always sitting in front of apartment C and smokes 2 packs of cigarettes everyday : Or a cult of undercity homeless people.

Freddie, in Central Park : There's definitely more than one Batman and they're all trained by a Government Agency. It's just a way for the Government to operate outside of the Law. Maybe the Batman/Batmen is/are independent, but there's no way he isn't working for the government.

Mia, 14 years old : Batman is clearly a vampire or some sort of demon.

Ali, sitting on a bench, taking a secret break from his job at Gotham Gazette : He's obviously some sort of robot, guys. No human being can do those jumps and give that much of a fight for so long barely scratched. I mean, why does hw only works at night? So nobody can have a good look at him.

Ginny, on his left, drinking her coffee : I think he is some sort of meta human I mean how else could he consistently do those things?

Their boss, Robert, behind them, shaking his head : you punks are all wrong, criminals everywhere have always had their own little boogie men. Keyser soze, Ra's al Ghul, The Batman. None of them are anywhere near as real as Mr. Fisk is going to be if you don't quit gossiping like a bunch of school girls and get back to work.

Adam, strolling with his wife Lorelei : Yeah and I really think he’s a woman. My buddy got mugged and a girl in a bat costume beat up the mugger.

Lorelei : Even weirder than that, I heard that the kid with the yellow cape is really a teenage girl.

[bohemian-nights]

It's always interesting how as soon as black women become a love interest in a straight ship 1 of 2 things will happen.

A third thing, the double standards, an example:

Laena x Rhaenyra ship- in the books we know they were close and some fans use the phrase"more than fond of"to reinforce they were a couple(nothing against this couple it's still fiction eh)

Everything normal here.

But when we learnt more about Rhaegar and Elia and their relationship, the sentence "fond" is still used to describe their relationship and now you have people saying "oh they were just friends" "oh he didn't love her" "oh Elia will be okay with Rhaegar and Lyanna being a couple"

First at all, the racism, Dorne is not okay with adultery in marraige, they don't care if if man or woman, UNMARRIED, take a paramour,UNMARRIED; it's different for them, a different mindset

•Convenient how now when their white fave needs to be paired up with a white character(nothing against Lyanna, the girl was 14 year old)when there are POC characters that show interest in them(Elia loved Rhaegar and I can dream he loved her, why? BECAUSE I LOVE ANGST)

CONVENIENCE MY DEAR FRIEND

Read about the Sophie's actress' scandal(if you called that) -just wtf.

Also Bethany's harassment.WTF.

If they are not happy with Sophie being black, then they are free to read the books or ignore it! It's not that difficult.

Bethany is gonna slay this season, so stay mad colonizers😏

Sorry for the rant, tired of this nonsense🤣

Ps: Some people are starting shipping Dettles out of spite, for the racism's nonesense so yeah, IT'S GONNA BE A LONG YEAR HERE!!All of you are doing great sweeties🥰

Don’t apologize for ranting cause everything you said is the truth👏🏽

I hate Laenyra. People mainly hype it up to move attention away from Daemon and Laena’s marriage and center their self insert into their relationship .

Yeah it’s ironic that the same people hyping up Laryngitis and saying all those who oppose it are racistare the same people who love dunk on Elia non-stop and say that she was fine with her husband sleeping with Snow Becky because she’s dornish. The same people hyping up Jon’s parents are the same people who dunk on Dettles.

I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t give a damn about Ravioli and Snow Becky, but I’ll admit that it was GRRM’s intention to make them romantic(it’s definitely not supposed to be grooming even if I find the whole situation weird). I’ll even admit that there are plenty of similarities between Dettles and that ship, but you’d have an easier time finding a leprechauns gold than getting those people to admit the same.

Don’t get me started on the Bridgerton fandom. A bunch of ungrateful bigots who keep making demands of Shonda while at the same time degrading her and saying there are “too many Black people” on the show (and then crying when people call them out for being the anti-Black morons they are).

And I get that Masali hasn’t been officially announced as Sophie, and of course she’s not the only possibility, but she’s the only one whose name that has been circulating around that fits the casting call. Her schedule was cleared last year and she’s got no upcoming projects. She’s following multiple members of the cast and multiple members are following her back.

(Nicola, Hannah Dodd, Hannah New, Victor Ali who is suspected to be playing John, as well as one of the hairdressers who does the main casts hair to name a few. Hell, there was even one of the directors following her, but he mysteriously unfollowed her for some reason).

More importantly, no one else has produced another casting call to contradict said casting call or to show that the role she was cast for is a member of the Stirling family.

(I’m not going to get into it, but if you’re “evidence” hinges on Masali and Victor Ali looking alike please go down to Lens Crafters cause they don’t look nothing alike outside of being dark and Black. It’s fucking offensive as fuck to say they do).

And as I said in a previous ask, the Bridgerton team has cast a role with a specific race in mind cause they were looking for an Indian woman to play Kate(which is how some people figured Simone Ashley was playing Kate when most of Kates fancasts were white women👏🏽).

So the fact that you have so many people running around like a chicken with its head cut off claiming it’s impossible for Sophie to be Black, that Sophie should be x race, or just being racist jackasses is disturbing asf. You shouldn’t have to see this bullshit:

You bet your ass I took screenshots cause everybody likes to lie and hide their hands after typing out the most vile shit.

And yeah I get everyone wants representation, but people keep trying to silence and speak over Black people specifically Black women and that's where we have a problem.

Because for any other group, this behavior would be absolutely unacceptable. Especially if you are making demands that an EP not cast any more people of her race on her show, but with Black women that doesn't matter. They don’t care.

We haven’t even had a fucking fully Black female love interest get her happily ever after with a man(the people saying Masali should be a gender-bent Michael need to have several seats cause you’re creating a OC just because you don’t want to see her as Sophie) like everybody else and yet they want us to step aside and cheer them on. Fuck that.

This is why I don’t believe any of you hateful bitches when you say you care about misogynoir because the moment a Black woman is cast in a role you want, even in a role that’s meant for a Black woman like with Nettles, y’all either start demanding she be cut or made into something else.

This literally happens every single time Black female characters are involved and yet you can’t even talk about it because people want to ignore and perpetuate our oppression.

I’ll leave it there cause I’m too exhausted by all of this drama(it’s making my blood boil), but these fandoms piss me off so much. They make it hell for non-white and especially Black fans to exist within them. Even in shows created by Black people.

[datastate]

onto chapter 8!

GIRL THIS IS NO WAY YOU JUST "LEAVING THAT ASIDE!" REFERENCING YOUR PARENTS' DEATHS. she is going to kill me i'm being so serious

he's too silly oh my god. i hate to say it but i do this exact same shit whenever my siblings are going on trips alone...

also i thought for a moment that miharu was just putting his arms on his waist like this (IT WAS HIS DUMB HOODIE <3)

^ i like them.

you know what that means tobari. if you die there better be some fucked up resurrection shit, okay? don't lose all of banten's stuff... (though he'll probably. give info to miharu i expect...

so hopeful... it is interesting seeing the regenerative properties though :'3 god i hope miharu doesn't end up overly relying on it...

raimei's reaction to it too... god i need to. shake them around in a glass jar like bugs, okay? for their health.

oho... i haven't got much to say here either, but i am very curious if there's a personal connection here, which would make. well. the destruction of some of the banten info devastating, huh...

OH...?

:'] it really is unfortunate that she's right - his reaction would probably just be to. accept that and move forward regardless </333 gwahhh... raimei it's okay. you can still be friends even if you intend to get something out of it all... it's not like you'll betray him right? right! it's fine..... (i really do like characters whose attachments crop up unexpectedly though <3)

HELP. ASKING HIM STRAIGHT UP? & he still manages to slip away with no more than a few dots...

RAIMEI. LOOKS AT YOU SO SWEETLY... so little is left but that little still pushes you forward huh...

be niceys to him he is literally the bearer of good news and infodumps

i initially misread this to be "kumohira-sensei will be in trouble" and i was going to gasp for good reasons but then i reread when i saw him lock the door just to make sure (to see if he was doing it for tobari to force him to be uninvolved) and i was like Oh. oh no.

god this sequence is so. just sad to see. but also, buddy you don't have to explain that things went wrong in your life like this; that's pretty clear from you attacking a 14 year old for his. blood.

THE PERSPECTIVE'S SO GOOD 🔥

trembles. is this a case of shared daisho but instead of a tanto it's two full swords... each grown into their own..... (she might've actually mentioned the make of her sword before but shhh shhh let me stare at blades)

RAIMEI... ;_; augh the rest of the scene being obscured with smoke & fire is just. so good. the composition for these scenes always makes me insane... i need to hug her. this is so good; her only real opportunity to take the information &, i'd assume, do what she couldn't manage before (in the sense of, turning her blade against her brother)

also. raises my hand. yuhki kamatani why are there so many older brothers who kill their parents in your story. would you like to talk 🎤

please let me hug her.

i love them so much. nothing more to add really, i'm just glad this was cleared up sooner rather than later, you know...? it's nice to lay the groundwork... it's also cute seeing raimei as the embarrassed one by that, but poor koichi though aegaha <3

just. in general, this was a really good chapter for fleshing out raimei's character further :'] she has such a strong presence in the story so far and i'm having a joyous time & genuinely can't wait to read further into her as it carries on... i think, so far, she's probably my favorite character!!! i'm always weak for characters who are pushing themselves forward solely because there's nowhere else that'll take them, but the fact that she's bound herself to miharu's journey for this, it really does get to me... it's sort of like. finally finding a home that isn't stationary, which is probably something difficult for her at this point too. it's a waypoint amidst all else where she really had to drive herself & come up with others who were allies, but not friends as miharu, presumably, would be fine with or even want to be...

i'm very excited to see how her conflict w her brother comes to a head... and what she'll have to do with herself after her burden's finally released :'] aghhh... my poorest beast.

ALSO YOITE. YOITE. YOITE :-) I'M SO SCARED BUT I'M EXCITED TO SEE HIM AGAINNN

[alloyedclavicle]

What has been happening with Stacy’s Father?

The three songs, Stacy's Mom (Fountains of Wayne), Stacy's Dad (anapantsu), and Stacy's Dad (Sub-Radio) tell the story of the strange ups and downs in the life of one person: Stacy's father.

Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLfasMPOU4 (cw: blatant horniness and almost-nudity, just in case.)

In the original song, we learn that approximately 12-14 year old Stacy's father has walked out. If we are to assume that the music video is an accurate portrayal, it seems likely that Stacy's father "walked out" because her mother cheated on him. In the video, she certainly seems to be too familiar with her masseuse. Now, it is entirely possible that the imagery of the video is wholly in the imagination of Stacy's preteen/teen boyfriend, but I think that "since your dad walked out" is still a lyric rooted in fact.

annapantsu - Stacy's Dad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRk_52uQfMY

Based on the art provided with the video, I feel like Stacy and her friend (this one is a girl, I imagine she dumped her boyfriend over his obsession with her mother) are in their mid-late teens. Perhaps visiting her father (summer visitation as part of a custody agreement?). Here, we see the father as a bachelor, trying to work things out with himself. He's single and seems to be fine with that, but Stacy's friend wants to change that.

Now, we reach the critical assumption of my hypothesis: Stacy's father is gay. He comes out and gets with someone whose identity at the time is that of a man who is interested in other men. They become close, partners at least, if not married. During this time, Stacy considers her father's new spouse as her second parent. I expect that her relationship with her biological mother has deteriorated and is not presently reparable.

Sub-Radio - Stacy's Dad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANlg297AHU

This song includes the line "since your mom came out, your dad could use a guy like me." Carrying on from my earlier hypothesis, I think Stacy's Father's partner discovered herself and came out as a woman. The song doesn't seem to imply the same level of hostility as the original song (her father walked out there), so my supposition is that her father and her - let's say adoptive - other parent, who is now her mother are still close, but no longer romantically involved because her Father is gay.

This is supported by the line "Stacy can't you see it's Mr. Stacy's Mom for me." They are still together in come sense, even if not romantic. This is why Stacy's seemingly-college or post-college boyfriend thinks her dad might be interested, but still calls him "Mr. Stacy's Mom."

I choose to believe that the end of this song sees Stacy's adoptive mother enjoying her transition - perhaps getting advice on girl stuff from her adoptive daughter; Stacy remaining close to both her biological father and adoptive mother; and Stacy's present boyfriend.. well, I don't know. It seems that they're both responsible adults here. Perhaps they get together. Perhaps not. The point is, no one is being harmed in this song - though Stacy herself might be disappointed or hurt if her boyfriend leaves her for her father. Still. Stranger things have happened.

The other takeaway from this trilogy is that Stacy should consider learning how to make better friends with people who aren’t interested in romance with people 20+ years their seniors.

[obstinatecondolement]

One of the issues I have with purity culture in contemporary fandom is that a lot of its most ardent adherents have a very... unexamined approach to a lot of their most hardline beliefs?

CW: discussion of incest, rape, harassment, suicide baiting; references to the lynching of Emmett Till and anti-Black racism

Like, for example, many of them seem to a) have an extremely broad interpretation of what relationships are incestuous and b) do not really know why they object to incest beyond it being yucky disgusting. But here's the thing: lots of things are yucky disgusting that are perfectly fine to do with a consenting partner or partners.

Which leads me to what I believe to be the real issue with non-fictional incest: it is almost always a form of sexual abuse.

I notably saw a group of people (who I do not think would harass people over this, to be fair) very earnestly making the point that you could not ethically ship Saavik and David, because they were "step-siblings."

Let's unpack that. Kirk is the biological father of David Marcus. He did not raise him and only met him for the first time when he was an adult with a terminal degree. Saavik is, in Beta canon, adopted into Spock's family (she seems to have been raised by him and his parents rather than being his literal adoptive daughter, although I haven't read the relevant novels) as a young child. Kirk and Spock, in fandom, are a popular ship.

So like... let's take at face value here the idea that Kirk and Spock are definitely married post-canon and that David considers himself 100% Kirk's son and Saavik considers herself 100% Spock's daughter. Are we to believe that people who met as adults, whose parents get married after they met, cannot ever have a consensual romantic and/or sexual relationship? That this kind of relationship can only be exactly equivalent to one where a sibling sexually abuses another and should be condemned in exactly the same way? Like... really? Do you not think that is enormously insulting to survivors of incest?

To take a more actively harmful example: what are the people who profess to believe that fiction about certain topics can cause real life harm believe they are doing when they tell people to kill themselves? If they actually believe what they say they believe, are they not at best attempted murders by their own standards? Is trying to kill someone not bad? And if they don't believe that they should be accountable for someone taking them seriously and obliging their request by killing themselves... then do they not feel embarrassed to expose their own hypocrisy like that in public?

And it gets even more absurd when the same people claim to support prison abolition, because they have inferred from the social justice internet zeitgeist that that is an extremely progressive thing to support. Girl! You openly believe that immoral fan fiction is a capital offense! But you want to extend restorative justice to violent offenders? Make it make sense. Or do you interpret prison abolition to be a pivot to mob justice where "the real sickos" get what's coming to them, as opposed to a belief that the state's abuse of prisoners is unconscionable? Because I invite you to read Emmett Till's fucking Wikipedia page if you think that's a great idea.

And I hope that I'm not being gauche by invoking the murder of a 14 year old child by racists so married to white supremacy that they thought a Black child whistling at a white woman was punishable by torture and a slow, painful death. This is not that by any stretch of the imagination.

But people have killed themselves over this shit. Children have died because of harassment they got over liking Problematic Things. It's certainly not anything like comparable to anti-Black violence in scale—and being a fan of yucky disgusting fandom content is not a marginalised identity that is literally inescapable without becoming estranged from your family and community for life, and that itself not being an option for most, as is the case of passing for white—but it has been lethal, and to the families of the people who died, I doubt it is any comfort that it was because of fandom bullshit as opposed to systemic oppression. And I do think that the patterns of thinking are parallel here, even if it would be enormously inappropriate to claim a one-to-one relationship between the two. To be fair, I think that the people I am talking about here would not themselves participate in a physical murder, but they may certainly approve of one they perceived to be righteous.

But, ugh, yeah. I'm just sick of people parroting back things they have been browbeaten into believing are Irredemable™ without any fucking reflection at all about why those things are bad and why a proportional response involves harassment and death threats or suicide baiting. I think probably most of these people are afraid to think for themselves, in case they think the wrong thoughts, but at least some of them are aware that it's all a fucking grift and just love harassing people for the rush.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #168

What was the last liquid that you choked on? Water; I took too big of a sip and it didn't go down well, scared Girt a bit lol.

Did you or have you had sex with the last person you slept with in bed? Not literal genital sex yet, no. We want guaranteed privacy for that and living with parents doesn't offer that much.

When you sign your name do you use your middle name? Not unless it's requested.

Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower? I start immediately outside of it, on a towel, but for more space to dry my body I eventually move into the carpeted sink area; the bathroom itself is VERY small, just a shower, tub, and toilet, very claustrophobic, then there's a long sink area with lots of cabinets and even a random closet behind you if facing the sink. It's much more comfortable to finish drying there.

Was your last kiss initiated by you or the other person? I don't remember, we were in bed and a lotta it happened, I dunno who exactly prompted the last one.

Whan getting dressed do you put your pants or shirt on first? Almost always pants first.

Who was the last person you saw totally naked? My boyfriend, I'm sure.

Is your toilet paper on the right or left side of the toilet? Left, for both bathrooms in our house.

Name all the cards that you carry in your wallet. An incredibly expired driver's permit, Covid vaccination card, social security card, insurance card, American Red Cross blood type card, a yellow ribbon suicide prevention card that has a sweet message and then relevant hotlines, and two tattoo artists' personal cards; I've kept them because I kinda wanna collect those by all who tattoo me. Maybe. I'm already missing multiple, so idk.

Do you use a handrail on stairs if there is one? Yes, once upon a time they were basically mandatory for me to stay balanced and I still do feel safer when I'm holding onto it.

What is your favorite drinking game? I've never played one.

Do you have any tattoos that you don't like anymore? Yup. It's a big reason I've gotten MUCH pickier with what I'll allow myself to get tattooed.

Who was the last person to sleep in your bed? Girt, with me.

Do you have a shower curtain or door? Mom's bathroom shower has a door, but the hall shower is curtained.

Who was the last person from your high school graduating class you saw? In person, uhhhhhhhh... I did a quick Facebook friends list scroll and that would be my old friend Tommy, he works at the guitar place where I took my old guitar for pricing advice on selling it. Cool dude and the husband of another friend Rachel.

Favorite farm animal? Either pigs or cows. I kinda think I like cows more nowadays.

Have you ever been sedated or put under anesthesia? Yes. It's still insane to remember JUST how quickly it hits.

Have any of your friends ever cheated on somebody? I know at least one friend who has.

How many instruments do you own/have you owned? I've owned three: a recorder, flute, and electric guitar. Well, I suppose actually four; me and my sisters had one of those electric keyboards, the kind whose keys would light up red to teach you how to play lots of songs, however we ultimately could've made up our own stuff, though we never did.

Do you own or rent your home? Rent.

If you have a significant other, how old were you when you first met them? 14 or 15?

Have you ever felt like you were someone’s rebound? No.

Who is the first person who broke your heart? My dad.

Who would you want to be the flower girl at your wedding? Odds are it will probably be Emerson, my youngest niece.

Do you know anyone with a service dog? I don't believe so.

Who is the most important person in your life (besides yourself)? Girt.

If you have pets, are any of them rescues from shelters? No.

When was the last time you talked to your most recent ex? Over a year ago.

When was the last time you kissed someone who was younger than you? Not since Sara and I were dating.

Would you have sex with someone of the same gender as you? Yeah.

Were you born with hair on your head? Pretty sure yes.

Would you rather have a home birth or hospital birth? I'm going to the fucking hospital and getting an epidural, this is not debatable for me.

Who were your best friends in high school? Summer, Hannia, Alon, Girt, Megan, and Maria. Maybe others, but those are who I remember very well.

Have you ever dated a twin? No.

What was the last food or drink you made for someone else? Last Friday I made my mom a peanut butter sandwich; we were watching my sister's kids and her blood sugar dropped severely and very quickly. This isn't unusual sadly, but it was definitely scarier than what it normally is because she was fighting fainting in front of three little kids that don't at all understand diabetes.

Have you ever auditioned for something? What was it, and how did it go? Yeah, elementary school chorus. I got in. I remember how insanely nervous I was, I've never been the type to sing in front of others.

Have you ever seen your ex’s new partner? If so, what do you think of them? I have no idea who anyone is dating and don't care.

What was the last piece of candy you ate? Uhhhh just a few M&Ms that were left over from something my mom made.

When was the last time you did something “meant” for children? Do you think it’s okay for adults to do these things (ie. watch cartoons, have stuffed animals, dress in cute clothing, etc), or do you think there’s an age beyond which it becomes unacceptable - and if so, why? A couple weeks ago Girt and I played more of Spyro 2 from the "Reignited" trilogy. I VERY firmly believe that if you're not hurting anyone, adults engaging in "childish" passtimes isn't even remotely wrong, and the fact that people are shamed for that sorta stuff is just foul. Let people have fun.

Do you believe there used to be dragons? No, I'm quiiiite certain we'd have found fossils by now...

Who was the last friend you saw, and what did you do together? Girt and I played some of Elden Ring and also watched the first episode of a Netflix show called The Rain.

Who tends to show up in your dreams? Do you ever wonder if you appear in anyone else’s dreams? My mom and boyfriend, and sometimes still Jason. Honestly most of my dreams feature people I don't know whatsoever or am merely acquaintances with, at least that I remember. I don't often do so anymore when it comes to the people in my dreams.

What is something you do to feel better when you’re scared? Talk to Girt or Mom or try to find something to distract myself with on YouTube.

Do you have someone who is protective of you (father, brother, etc.)? Definitely my mom, as well as Girt.

Where was the last place you went, that you hadn’t been to before? The house of I think at least one of Girt's uncles, maybe more though; it was a double-purpose party with a big tent between two houses, and jesus FUCKING christ about ten trillion people were there it felt like, and I know people went into both houses.

When was the last time someone surprised you with their reaction or behaviors? Nice timing, I think it'd actually be when I was with Girt's paternal family. The way he, his sister, and mother have described them, I expected to be much more intimidated by them than I was; they were just some redneck as ALL hell type of guys that were super hospitable, friendly, and goofy. I've been told they're VERY unafraid to hurt your feelings and be just painfully honest and know how to hold grudges that they shouldn't have to begin with, but they seemed nice enough.

Have you ever reached out to a crisis center for mental health support? If so, how was the experience? [TW: DRUG OD/SUICIDE] I tried once, via a suicide hotline's one-on-one chatroom because I was too afraid to physically call on my phone. They were of course busy, and after waiting a pretty long time (I'm talking no less than 30 minutes, pretty sure more) without connecting to anyone, I gave up and overdosed.

Describe the last thing you reblogged? How many posts do you tend to reblog during a day? It was some super cute fanart of Richard and Paul, and this varies quite a lot. I don't aim for a certain number, sometimes your dash is gonna be spammed by me and some days I don't share anything.

Whose house did you visit last? Girt's.

Have you ever played Geoguessr? I personally haven't, but I've seen people play it. It's not a kind of game I would be even remotely good at.

What is your favorite way to eat chicken? As tenders/strips/whatever with whatever dipping sauce I'm feeling at the time.

What style of pizza do you prefer (thin crust, stuffed crust, deep dish, Detroit style, etc)? Pan pizza. Stuffed crust is also good.

Can you see your favorite animal from where you are sitting? (on an article of clothing, a figurine, a stuffed animal, etc...maybe even alive?) Yes indeed, I have a weighted meerkat plush on my desk.

What was the last celebrity gossip you got sucked into? Obviously as a very invested fan of Rammstein I know the dumpster fire that's going on regarding allegations against their singer, and I've kept up with what's going on in concern for all of them since they're all affected by this. I'm just glad it seems to be dying down, there's an investigation going on but they've already said Shelby's "case" is basically non-existent given the lack of immediate evidence, and apparently she doesn't have a great reputation.

Do you own any merch from concerts/comedy shows/broadway shows, etc? I did get a shirt from the Alice Cooper concert, but I'll never fit that again. I of course kept it as a souvenir type thing.

What was the last bug you killed? An ant.

Who is your favorite Star Wars character? I don't care about this franchise whatsoever.

What kind of cheese do you put on your sandwiches? American.

Who was the last person to give you a gift? Girt got me flowers when I "graduated" from physical therapy.

If there was a real Jurassic Park, would you visit it? I'ma be full real... I KNOW I would lmao.

[our-happygirl500-fan]

Steph’s Different Origins

When a comic character is around long enough you start to see different takes & variations of their backstories & origins as the character appears in different stories, continuities or media. As long as a core aspect of the character remains the same (e.g Bruce seeing his parents die, Peter being bit by a spider, Krypton blowing up ect) everything else can be fair game.

Steph’s core aspect to her origins seems to be ‘she wants to stop her dad’ but Steph has been around for nearly 30 years & she’s managed to get a small handful of her origin told & retold in that time.

1. Post Crisis Origin: The original

Stephanie Brown is a girl from a low income household where her father abuses her & her mother, she watches her father go in & out of jail her whole childhood & goes up with an admiration of Batman for being able to put her father in jail. At age 15 she decides to become a vigilante named Spoiler believing it is the only way to stop her father after watching the system fail her family so many times. Steph continues helping people joining the Batfamily becoming Robin & later Batgirl.

2. World Without Young Justice Origin

In a world where Jason Todd & by extension Tim Drake never becomes Robin, Steph becomes Batman’s partner a lot sooner than in the main universe. When she was 13 she watched her father (in this universe going by Crypto King) kill her mother, she begins interfering with his crimes eventually confronting him about her mothers death. Bruce sees her take down her father & takes her in as his Robin 

3. Young Justice cartoon origin

Stephanie Brown was a 12 year old runaway from Bludhaven who gets caught up in the world of superheroes when she gets kidnapped by The Light to be given for experimentation to the Reach, ‘the Team’ ends up saving her & at some point in the two year time gap Steph has joined the Team herself & at age 14 she works under Batman.

This origin is an odd one out as far as Steph origins go as Arthur does not play a part in it.

4. N52 Origin

My personal least favourite of all Steph’s origins. Stephanie Brown is an ordinary girl whose parents divorced sometime in her childhood, her father is a more successful as a criminal than his post crisis counterpart & Steph does not know about his villainy until she walks in on him meeting with other criminals. Arthur then tries to kill Steph & Steph goes to her mother for help. Unlike Crystal’s preboot counterpart who was a victim of Arthur, Steph’s mother is revealed to also be a criminal & accomplice of Arthur. Finding out her family are criminals Steph resolves to stop them herself becoming Spoiler. When her mother flees Gotham city & abandons Steph & her father supposedly dies at the hands of the Court of Owls Steph is taken under Batman’s wing.

5. CW Batwoman Origin

Throughout her childhood Stephanie Brown’s father Arthur would use Steph to test his clues, looking for flaws & only using the puzzles she couldn’t solve to commit his crimes. This activity caused Arthur to give Steph the nickname ‘his little pointer’ as she would point out the weak points in his clues. One day in her teenage years Steph sees one of her father’s clues in the paper & gives the solution to Sophie Moore an agent of Crows Security begging her to stop her father. During the time her father is in jail Steph would graduate from MIT, while there, she joined a club where deciphering code was a hobby. When her father gets out of jail he tries to use Steph in a scheme to get revenge on Sophie Moore only for Steph to reveal she was the one to solve his code. Arthur then tries to kill Steph & himself as ‘he couldn’t live in a world where she was smarter than him’ only for the two to be saved by Luke Fox

[astonmartinii]

lemonade and star-crossed lovers, p1 (JJ Maybank)

Warnings: none yet, swearing? all core characters are aged up to 18, Rafe is 21. 

JJ Maybank x kook!reader (super super slow burn) (this will hopefully be a series) 

WC: 4.0k 

Growing up, Y/N always heard jokes about how the eldest daughter was just the mum in a different font. She never used to believe it, but that was when she had present and dedicated parents. Now, it just seemed that with every addition to the Miller family, the less interested Kevin and Julie Miller became. 

So here Y/N was, practically a mother to her three younger siblings. 

Dylan is only a year younger than Y/N but is no less of a hassle, especially when his useless friends decide to crash at their place. But considering they had the most hectic house of Dylan’s friendship group, the Miller household was usually the last option. 

Then there’s Anderson, he’s in his rebellious phase currently, getting to that point where he’s figured out that acting out could maybe get the attention of his parents. Though Y/N wasn’t sure how well his plans were working out. 

Peach is the youngest and practically attached to Y/N’s hip. To an untrained eye, Y/N often looked like a teen mum as she took Peach with her to the grocery shopping. In fact, Y/N was sure that if the kooks in Figure Eight didn’t know her family, they’d sneer at her with the same ignorance that clouded their entire lives. 

Y/N woke up glad - it’s the last day of school. Summer break looms. The idea of boneyard keggers and hot (but equally clueless) tourons, excited the girl. But she knew her summer reality would be looking after Peach, bailing Anderson out of jail and swatting away the affections of Dylan’s stupid friends. 

—————————————

Dylan is already awake when Y/N comes knocking, taking extra close care to his hair. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Y/N said, moving to ruffle his hair and grab the empty plate on his bedside cabinet. 

“Jesus, fuck Y/N, was that really necessary?” 

“Hey maybe if you spent more time on assignments than your hair you wouldn’t have to take so many summer classes - oh yeah, mum might not remember, but I do, and you will be going.” 

“But it’s summer, surely it’s a violation to my human rights to go to school.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive, and maybe when you finally pass this year, you’ll thank me. Breakfast in 10.” 

Dylan just flips his sister off, going back to admiring himself in the mirror. 

Y/N next goes to Peach’s room to find her awake and rummaging through her draws. 

“Hey, princess, what are you thinking for the last day? Third grade finished already, you’ll be my age soon, wheeling me into the retirement home.” 

Peach erupts into giggles, pulling out a little pink summer dress and grabbing her pink sandals to complete the ensemble. 

“All pink, we love. Breakfast in 10, alright, don’t want you to be late for the last day.” 

Anderson’s room is last, Y/N doesn’t bother knocking on her parent’s door. Kevin is probably already down on Judy - his beloved boat. The room is typical of a 14 year old boy, it stunk, his weed paraphernalia was badly hidden and there was a lump of pillows under the cover instead of a boy. 

Shrugging, Y/N picked up the dirty mugs in his room and moved downstairs. She’d been awake nearly an hour now but was still unsure of what to make for breakfast. Opening the fridge gave her the only possible answer, leftover pizza from the previous night and maybe a porridge pot, though considering there were only two siblings to account for, it would do. 

Dylan and Peach joined her in the kitchen shortly after, each taking a slice or two of pizza. 

“No Anderson and pizza for breakfast? Watch out, we'll be calling CPS as soon as we’re outside.“ 

“You don’t know where the bug is? Why does that boy insist on giving me early onset cardiac issues?” 

“Don’t take it too to heart, I’m sure he’ll turn up by the second period.” 

“Okay, go to school now. Dylan, are you okay to drop Peach off, I’ll pick her up.” 

Dylan nods and ushers the youngest out of the door and to his car. Y/N lets out a sigh when she sees them leave the driveway and makes her way to the back door. Through the sliding door she can see her dad, Kevin on Judy instructing John B, the kid who worked on the boat, what to do. Y/N puts two slices of pizza on a plate and grabs an apple and ventures out to the dock. 

“Morning Y/N.” 

“Morning, John B, can I interest you in an apple? It’s all we have I’m afraid.” 

“No worries, any breakfast is breakfast when you’re a pogue.”

“Oh John B, you know I don’t believe in all that sub-par class warfare bullshit.” 

“Of course you don’t, but that’s very easy to say when you’re on the other side.” 

“Touche.” 

Y/N doesn’t say anymore, but moves to give her dad his breakfast. She liked John B and hoped he didn’t see her like the other kooks. Sure Rafe Cameron frequented her house, but she’s nothing like him. 

“Thanks, squirt.” 

Despite the nickname, Kevin was absent as ever, not moving to look at her. 

“You’re children are off to school, don’t worry.” 

Silence. 

“Oh thank you Y/N, I really don’t know what we’d do without you! You’re such a gem, you’re really unappreciated and we don’t deserve you! Thanks dad, I really needed to hear that. Are you coming later?”

“Where?” Kevin grunted, with pizza in his mouth. 

“My graduation? Did you forget that was today?” 

The awkward silence was enough of an answer for Y/N. 

“Sorry squirt, I promised to go to the mainland to pick something up for your mother.” 

With that, Y/N stormed off Judy, towards the house and into her room. When she sat down on her bed she could think about what just happened. She knew her parents didn’t care about her, but missing their first child’s graduation for a small errand to the mainland? 

Now that the house was quiet again, she could get ready - she was graduating today and as valedictorian she wants to look her best. Julie, her mum, is in Washington on some mysterious job venture, Y/N wasn’t told until she came down in the morning a few days ago and saw Julie with her suitcases. She guessed that one positive of her parents’ absenteeism is her ability to steal Julie’s expensive jewelry to wear. 

Y/N looked in the mirror, she did clean up nice when she wanted to. Her lengthy hair is in a half-up, half-down style, with minimal makeup and a red knee-length dress. The dress hugged her figure and complemented her graduation gown perfectly. Too bad none of her family would be there to see it. She knew deep down that Peach and Dylan would’ve attended if possible, and Anderson would maybe even make an appearance, especially if there was food involved. 

Y/N put her matching red heels on and grabbed her cap from her closet. After one final look in the mirror and putting her printed speech into her bag, the young girl made her way down the stairs. 

To her surprise, none other than John B sat in her kitchen drinking a glass of water. 

“You clean up nice kook,” said John B, a smug smirk on his face. 

“Thank you, John. Don’t you have graduation today?” 

 “Eh, yeah. I’m just going for the food though, school isn’t really my thing…” John B looked closer at her cap. “I’m practically the opposite to you Miss Valedictorian”. 

“Hmm, well at least someone in this house noticed, thank you John B. I’m going now, I didn’t notice your van out front, you need a lift to yours?” 

“Is that really on your way, wouldn’t want Miss Valedictorian to be late to her own event, you got a speech ready?” 

“I do as a matter of fact, but I want to be just on time, minimise the time people have to ask about the whereabouts of my parents. So, do you want a lift or not?” 

“Sure thing, Miss Valedictorian.” 

Y/N doesn’t acknowledge the nickname, but secretly loved it, it was a joke, but at least someone was appreciating her achievements. Peach would, she knows, but she’s not really at the point of understanding what it means and the others really are wildcards.

She led John B out to her small car, a baby blue Beetle. The boy smiled at her choice in car, 

“I’m sure that a kook like you could afford better than this.”

“Don’t insult Shelby in her presence, weren’t you ever taught manners? Now get it and give me directions.” 

The drive was fun, not that John B would tell Y/N that. He enjoyed her music choice, Mac Miller blasting from her speakers and the windows were fully rolled down, damned be her hair. 

Y/N neared the chateau and came to a stop. There were a few people sitting on the porch, looking over in confusion. 

“Yo, what’s with the kook-mobile, John B?” The blonde yelled from his seat on the beaten-up couch. 

When John B only turned to Y/N to say thank you, the interest peaked on the porch. The little gang of pogues moved towards the car. 

“John B, I didn’t realise your job came with a taxi service, why did I have to drop you off this morning?” The blonde, once again. 

“Lay off JJ, this is Y/N Miller, she’s the daughter of Kevin, the guy whose boat I work on. She’s on her way to her graduation and offered me a lift.” 

“Since when are kook graduations on the Cut?” The other boy interjected. 

Y/N decided to speak up, “if I knew an act of kindness would cause so much strife, I’ll just let you walk home next time. Now, I do have somewhere to be, so it was nice to see you, John B. I'm sure I’ll see you again this week.” 

“Bye Miss Valedictorian, good luck with your speech,” John B said, getting out of Shelby. 

“You’re the valedictorian?” Kiara finally spoke, face shocked. 

“Yeah, surprising what happens when you show up for school right?” Y/N snapped, angrier than she intended. 

“Oh yeah, sorry. I guess I thought that maybe Sarah would get it, especially if Ward has anything to do with it.” Kiara grimaced, she didn’t mean to offend the Miller girl. 

“You can’t buy the valedictorian title, well I’m sure you could, but not to flex, but my grades were miles better. If we’re being really ironic though, Ward technically does pay for the valedictorian,” Y/N said with a smile, not meaning to brandish her academic success in their faces. 

A chorus of “huhs?” from the pogues surrounding her car told Y/N that they weren’t catching her drift. 

“I’m Ward Cameron’s assistant. Sorry, I didn’t make that very clear.” 

“You have a job, but you’re a kook?” the blonde, JJ, said. 

“Yes, blondie, some of us do have to look out for ourselves, didn’t your parents tell you not to judge a book by its cover. I’ll see you around. Bye John B.” 

Y/N backed out of the road, heading back to Figure Eight, with her graduation starting in 10 minutes, she had massively overstayed her welcome at John B’s. If she weren’t so busy, Y/N always thought she’d like to be friends with John B and his crew, they had an unmistakable family bond that Y/N craved. She loves her siblings but they are still grappling with the idea of give and take, mainly fixating on the taking aspect. 

Y/N pulled up to school, and took out her phone, dropping a text to Anderson pleading with him to at least make it to two classes today. Even with her phone safely away in her bag, Y/N couldn’t quite bring herself to get out of the car. Happy families surrounded her everywhere she looked, she couldn’t handle the stares when she walks in alone. Well, it’s now or never she says to herself. 

Walking isn’t as bad as she suspects, Mr Morgan, her English teacher, meets her at the door and takes her to her seat, explaining the mechanisms of the ceremony and when she’ll make her speech.  

The hall, however, is the reminder that Y/N was dreading. The two seats she had booked for her parents sat empty, standing out like a sore thumb in the packed hall. She made her way to the student section with her head down. However, before Y/N could sit she was apprehended by an excitable Sarah Cameron. 

“Y/N! Hi! I heard you’re valedictorian, well done! I don’t know how you managed, with all the work and your siblings, you really are amazing.” 

“Thanks, Sarah.” 

The words sting, despite their pure intentions. She’s a kook, she shouldn’t have to work, and she should have parents who care for her and her siblings, but some things just aren’t meant to be, clearly. Y/N sat in her assigned seat and willed the ceremony to go fast, though she wasn’t looking too forward to her speech. The diversion to the chateau meant that Y/N had no time to look over it again. 

The ceremony started and the hall quietened down. Principal Stoney started her opening speech, basking in the spotlight when the hall door bursts open and interrupts. In the doorway stands Anderson. His hair is disheveled and the clothes are torn, probably from the nightly activities with the skateboard he held in his hand. The boy scanned the hall, eyes falling on the empty seats with the name Miller and then Y/N herself. He gives her a small wave and pushes past the Figure Eights families to the seats. 

Principal Stoney just restarts, a slight bewildered look on her face. 

When it was time for her speech, Y/N didn’t even feel real, like she floated to the stage and was possessed. Her speech went well from what she could gather, Mr Morgan gave her a thumbs up and Anderson hollered, much to the dismay of the families around him. But he was even worse when she received her diploma. 

As families spilled onto the field for fancy food and photo opportunities, Y/N wrangled Anderson to the side before he could raid the food stalls. 

“Anderson, what the fuck? First you didn't come home last night and then crash my graduation?” 

“Hey, I’m sorry about last night, me and the boys got carried away skating and I crashed on Oscar’s couch. I’m sorry, I should’ve called. And as for now, you think I’m going to let my smart-ass VALEDICTORIAN sister graduate without anyone being here to holler? You’re dead wrong.” 

The sentiment fills Y/N’s heart with joy and tears threaten to spill. Anderson’s never been good with feelings, it was nice to know that he did care. 

“Mum and dad can go fuck themselves, if they don’t see how great you are then they’re blind.” 

“Thanks, bug. It means a lot. Now don’t eat too much, people are probably already annoyed that you’re here.” 

Anderson shrugs, he couldn’t care less what they thought, he was here to eat and show off his sister. 

“Congratulations Y/N!” 

The voice of Y/N’s boss, Ward Cameron, was easily identifiable. Y/N puts on her confident face and turns to see the whole Cameron brigade, minus Wheezie. 

“Thank you, Mr Cameron.”

“You know, I just don’t know how you get it done, working for us and dealing with your siblings…” Rose says, the last part fading out as she watches Anderson walk back to his sister with his arms piled high with fancy horderves. 

“It’s tough, yeah, but what wouldn’t you do for your family?” 

“Of course, of course, sorry for any implications, where is the old man, I know Julie is off on business, but Kevin has to be proud, I didn’t see him in the hall?” Ward’s voice feigned sincerity, but the Miller siblings saw right through it. Before Anderson could respond, Y/N replied. 

“Dad is also doing business on the mainland, at the last minute. He’s devastated, really,” it's not convincing, even to her. Y/N can tell she hasn’t convinced the Camerons either. Sarah gives her a sad look, Rose attempts to mirror her step-daughter but fails, Ward looks slightly smug, like he’s trying to hide it but Rafe doesn’t even try to hide it like his dad, a massive smirk on his face. 

“What are your plans for the summer Miller?” Y/N is surprised when it’s Rafe who asks the question. 

“Well, I’ll be working for your dad, if he’ll have me, I still have my volleyball coaching in the tourist season and there’s never a dull moment with these around,” Y/N puts her arm around Anderson. 

Looking for a quick exit, she looks at her watch. 

“Oh, if we go now, you can still catch your last two periods. Kids, am I right?” She gestures at Rose and Ward, “we’ll be off now, I’ll see you next week?” 

The Camerons nod as Y/N pulls Anderson away and towards the car park. But before they can fully escape, they’re stopped by Mr Morgan. 

“You think you can leave without a photo and a proper goodbye, I didn’t think you were that kind of girl, Miller.” 

“Of course not, Mr Morgan, here,” she hands Anderson her phone, “take a picture please.” 

Anderson does so, taking about 50 at once. 

“Okay, okay, let's get one of you two, you can’t not have a proper graduation picture, especially not when you’re valedictorian.” 

Mr Morgan takes the phone and smiles at the siblings. When the impromptu photoshoot ends, Y/N is glad, despite it pushing back her escape. 

“Y/N, on a serious note, you are always welcome in my classroom, you’ve been a pleasure, and don’t tell anyone, but you were my favourite. And you, I hope you’ll be just as good next year sir,” he says turning to Anderson, “although considering you’re here and not in class doesn’t bode well.” 

“Thank you, sir, really. But you are completely right, and that’s why we’re bouncing now, so he can get two at least two periods.” 

Mr Morgan smiles at the two when they start to run to the car. He’s always felt sad for the eldest Miller, and her parents absence did not go unnoticed. 

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

“I’ll see you later, I know you guys will probably crash a kegger, but at least come home before you go?” 

“Yeah, yeah, okay, who knows maybe I’ll see you there?” 

Anderson laughs and gets out of the car, he knows his sister won’t especially when Peach will be home. Y/N watches him go into the building and stays a couple minutes to make sure he doesn’t sneak back out when he thinks she’s gone. 

But Y/N barely gets time to breathe, as she’s down to the elementary school to pick up Peach. The girl in all pink is waiting with a gaggle of friends and shrieks when she sees the blue car. 

“Y/N! Y/N! I got the “most improved” in drama!” 

Y/N opens the door and picks up Peach, spinning her round and congratulating her. 

“Well done, bubs. This calls for a celebration, it’s the first day of summer and the boys won’t be out for another couple of hours - what do you want to do?”

Peach doesn’t even need a second to think. 

“Lemonade stand!” 

Huh? Y/N was prepared for an answer closer to maybe a princess party or surfing lessons, but a lemonade stand? 

“Are you sure?” 

“You said we could do whatever I want!” 

“Okay, okay, let’s go then we’ve got a lot to do.” 

Satisfied with getting her way, Peach got in the car and demanded that the next stop was the craft store. 

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

The next 90 minutes were gruelling. Peach spared no expense, Y/N was lucky that she still had the credit card Julie gave her. But she knew it would all be worth it. And it was. 

Peach chose a spot right in the middle of the beach and the stall was already making a profit. Y/N knew kooks just couldn’t resist the temptation to look good and what was better than giving a generous tip to a child’s lemonade stand? 

But with a successful kook-trap came the kook assholes. Namely Rafe, Topper and Kelce. 

“Three lemonades please. Apricot, right?” Rafe said with a smirk. 

“You know it’s Peach asshole.” 

“That’s a bad word, Y/N,” Peach mumbled, clearly upset about being called apricot of all things.

“Yeah that’s a bad word, Miller, you should listen to Apricot a little more.” 

“Maybe, you should listen to your college professors, oh wait, you dropped out, my bad, must be a bit of an open wound judging by the look on your face. I bet daddy wasn’t impressed.” 

“Excuse me, you bitch, how dare you talk to me like that.” 

“Run along, lap dog, we don’t need your money.” 

Rafe goes to say something but Topper and Kelce hold him back. 

“Bro, don’t get it shit with your pops over a fucking lemonade,” Topper warned. 

With a final “fuck off”, Rafe Cameron stalked away to his car, his gang of cowards following, but not without Topper placing a crisp $20 bill in the tip jar. Peach mumbled and thank you and Y/N just nodded to Topper, too tired to say anything more. 

And if her afternoon couldn’t get any worse, the prickly blonde from this morning strolled over to the stand. 

“I’ll have four lemonades please.” 

Peach gasped and accepted his money right away, getting to work on the drinks. 

“I’ve seen many a kook-trap in my time, Miller, but not many operated by Kooks themselves. Impressive ingenuity.” 

“Thanks - JJ, was it? Peach here won “most improved” in her drama class and this is what she wanted to do in celebration” 

“Cute, Miller, didn’t take you as a softy earlier.” 

Peach announces that she’s finished with the pogue’s drinks, he puts another $5 in the tip jar and grabs the drinks. 

“Miller, there’s a kegger at the boneyard tonight, wanna come? I’m sure at least one of your brothers will crash.” 

“Sorry JJ, someone’s gotta look after the little one, maybe another time, if you can stand being around a kook for that long.” 

“I think I can make an exception, especially if they look like you Miller,” he winks, “boneyard tonight, if you change your mind.” 

Y/N blushed, but she knew she couldn’t, she couldn’t leave a nine year old at home, even if Kevin was there, there was no guarantee that Peach would be fed and given adequate attention. 

“He’s pretty, you should go.” 

“Peach, honey, you know I can’t, I can’t leave you at home.” 

“But I could go to Jenny’s, she’s having a sleepover tonight, I forgot to ask earlier, I got too excited about the lemonade stand.” 

“Okay, you can go to Jenny’s, but promise not too much candy?”

“Only if you promise to go with him tonight.” 

Peach was proving to be just as mischievous as her brothers. 

“Okay fine.” 

“Go tell him then.”

“Huh?” 

“I won’t believe you unless you go tell him now that you'll be there!”

 Y/N groans, but gets up to follow the blonde. As she nears, she shouts, 

“Hey JJ! I’ll be there tonight, at the boneyard, I’ll be there.” 

“Didn’t take too long for you to change your mind then, am I just that irresistible?” 

“No? What? Of course not! It’s just Peach - she’s a master manipulator, and she’s only nine!”

“Sure, Miller, if that’s what you want me to believe, I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

Y/N turned, she should cringe, but she finds herself blushing as she walks back to Peach. 

“Don’t say anything, missy, you’ve done enough, let’s pack up and get you ready for Jenny’s. You young ones are such troublemakers, damn.”  

A/N: I am not American, so I hope that the graduation stuff makes sense, from someone who has no real clue what happens there lol