#and the person w the most status even when the abuse is obvious

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Estelle Vacker and Auberon Dizznee meet when they are going to foxfire, they start dating when they are about 15-16 keep their relationship secret because Etstelle’s family would have a fit.

Auberon’s twin sister Soreya (who went to Hinterland not Foxfire) didn’t like the idea of her brother dating a Vacker because she was worried that her family might get him banished to get away from Estelle, because that had happened to other people in the past. she ended up telling Oriana (the teacher at Hinterland) who tries to talk Auberon out of dating Estelle because he’s talentless and she’s a telepath and a Vacker.

Auberon wasn’t worried because Estelle knew that she would be disowned and didn’t care, she had insisted that her family would never get him banished and Auberon told Oriana this, but she wasn’t convinced.

he proposed to Estelle when she graduated the Elite levels, her family found out, but instead of threatening to disown her, they said they would get Auberon banished just like his sisters said they would. the treats would also include his family as time went on, but Estelle is convinced that it’s just a bluff and continued with the wedding planing. they thought maybe if Estelle got pregnant with his kid her family would have no choice but to let them get married (they where like 20 and very dumb)

that’s not what happened, when her family caught wind of her pregnancy, they conjured up a lie that not only involved Auburn but Soreya as well, to punish him for wasting her first child. about both of them being involved in questionable activities (idk what they are) and made up proof. getting them both banished and causing Auberon’s entire family to hate Estelle because they saw it as her fault.

Estelle was forced to marry her #1 match not even two months later and everyone around her pretend like it was perfectly normal and like Aubron never existed.

Estelle’s new husband was physically, verbally abusive and controlled every aspect of her life, making it so she couldn’t get out because she had no friends. it’s not like elves believe abuse anyways.

she ended up getting pregnant with his twins and when he found out he was furious and caused her to go into labor early, with the twins the boy Marcel ended up with cerebral palsy while the girl Odette,was fine. Marcel couldn’t walk well and was mute, their father called him it and kept in locked in the house not letting anyone know he had a son. while he acted like Odette was his pride and joy at least in public. if she made any sort of mistake he would berate her and tell her to stop acting like a twin unless she wanted to be locked in the house like her brother.

while Marcel was unable to speak he was just as intelligent as ever other child, and his mom knew this because she got in the habit of having Telepathic conversations with the twins to keep them quiet when their father was home.

when the twins where 11 she got pregnant again and had a little girl named Vivianne but they called her Vivi. when she was four she knocked over her fathers work and he smacked her, the screamed at her for crying before throwing her in her room. Marcel heard her crying and came to comfort her. when Odette came home from school Vivi had a bruise on her face so she didn’t have a hard time figuring out what happened to her baby sister.

the twins stayed with Vivi until she fell asleep and decided that instead of telling their mom who they thought was going through enough as is that they would take matters into their own hands.

they found their father in his office and Odette went inside while Marcel stayed outside. Odette knew she was the favorite and thought maybe he loved her enough to listen to her, and stop hurting them. so Odette asked their father why he hit Vivianne, he told them to leave and when they didn’t he started screaming, it escalated to the point that he threw s decoration off his desk at her and hit her in the head drawing blood and causing her to fall to the ground.

Marcel heard her fall and came in the room as quickly as he could to find her bleeding, he was furious and was done with his father treating them the way he did. Marcel wished that he could make his father hurt in all the ways he had hurt his family, he imagined all the things he would do if he could fight if he was bigger, and how much pain he would put his father though. he would make sure he never hurt his mom or sisters again. the images he imagined almost felt real.

he was snapped out of his thoughts by his mom holding his face and transmitting the words “Marcy Stop” over and over into his mind

he snapped out of it to see he father bleeding and unconscious on the floor, and Odette crying on the floor trying next to him get him to wake up.

while he treated her badly her father still acted like he cared about her at times and unlike Marcel she loved him, and didn’t want him to die. as confusing and conflicted it made her feel

this is all i have written in one place atm but it keeps going (i wanna make this a fic)

HOLY SHIT that's so intense oml ;-; yeah this is exactly the type of 'Vacker Legacy' bullshit that family would try and keep covered up huh-

This is so good though, it really shows the issues with letting families and status have so much power and also provides a really interesting dimension to Dex's early books dislike of Fitz.

I love Estelle, Odette, Vivi, and Marcel ;-; lowkey I think Marcel deserves to kill his dad. As a treat.

How do they get along with Fitz Alvar and Biana? What about the rest of the family - like did they all know about Estelle's husband?

Lmao all my hcs for Vacker cousins were 'they're the most unbearable pieces of shit ever' so this is much better

[horizon-verizon]

There is an enduring sense in the fandom that if you cannot structurally change the entire or major parts of an oppressive status quo, it's somehow better that one does absolutely nothing. Bc you're "messing up the stability of an already stable social order, which proved itself to be the best or most reliable bc it's endured for so long".

And I despise it. Because it essentially means that any effort except a huge, topsy-turvy one where the whole system gets upended or severely so doesn't matter. (At the very least those that don't seem like it.)

It's a perfect partner to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. & people use it not just against Rhaenyra but Dany, Rhaenys, & Alysanne!!! Any Targ woman, really. Aegon V, if one mentions his laws. Ironic, bc Jaehaerys had progressive laws for peasants ONLY bc of Alysanne, but it's obvious why they prefer the female-heir denying Jaehaerys over Aegon V!!!

Coupled with this sense, some say that these women are totally complicit in those systems bc use they happen to be born into royalty or aristocracy, actively use their privileges at times for their own ends instead of ALWAYS to create or influence others for groundbreaking policies & laws, or manage to just escape certain abuses other women face bc they were reserved for the specific task of having children for their male spouses.

Daenerys was a bridal slave, for example. She doesn't face SA from random men every other night, but that doesn't stop the risk of her facing that fate if she were to ever fall out of her husband-owner, Drogo, favor. That doesn't stop her haters from arguing that she should have done more for Mirri & those Lhazareen women, that she even profits from slave labor when she clearly is allocating and directing funds from taxes to the city of Meereen! From ignoring how all those she freed are not still slaves, that the slave masters time and time again have said, point blank, that she is a danger to their enterprise CONTINENT-WIDE!!! She makes mistakes and the biggest one compromising too much with the slave owners of Meereen, yeah, bc she is in the beginning of her leadership journey, and still she manages to inspire loyalty, faith, and hope in many of her followers and she also still manages to keep most people alive w/o actually giving all the way in and that terrifies the slaveowners! For good reason. Read the last few pages of the last book and tell me that she won't come for their necks, either literally or figuratively idc. She's obviously not fucking up so bad or has totally failed in her role as a protector, and she will make mistakes as other leaders before her and after her will! Why this level of negative & bad faith scrutiny?!

And let's go to Rhaenys the Conqueror. She created the rule of thumb & the rule of six, where no man could legally beat their wives to death when she decreed that the rod could not be thicker than the husband's thumb and he could not whack her more than 7 times. Some argue why didn't she outlaw wife-beating entirely if she and her siblings conquered Westeros. First of all, these are the very same people who bleat abt how the Targaryens destroyed and colonized Andal culture without bothering to offer material evidence of such. If Rhaenys & her siblings actually have "colonized" the Andal-FM lords, & it was Andal custom for men to beat their wives indiscriminately…then the Targs couldn't have actually destroyed any part of Andal "culture" and replaced it entirely with Valyrian ones where seemingly men could not beat their wives at all! If you can even consider this "destroying culture", as I'm sure a few would argue. If anything, this was a cultural compromise, and it obviously functioned and was intended as a form of protection for women when before there was absolutely none! Aside from male relatives, but that's not system-wide, makes such cases seem not serious enough or that people across communities shouldn't care too much about others when you personalize it, AND that just reinforces the idea that only men have a property claim over women, be they biologically family or by marriage. Secondly, if you argue that Viserys should have obeyed the "laws" of male primogeniture bc he is a feudal king--the "Protector" of their customs and interests--that is only supported by the swords & loyalty of lords, that the GC of 101 proves that (as if Jaehaerys also didn't use that to enact his own will passively for a male heir), then why is it that Rhaenys seems to do something along those lines and WORK with the current Andal customs, her efforts--which actually are protective to those who needed protecting!!! Rhaenys & her siblings were new monarchs of a newly unified-ish realm, & as unifying conquerors tend to do, they opted for the strategy that would keep them seated bc it made "the lords" comfortable that they would not force them to change the bulk of their religious and cultural practices. Not only did Visenya & Rhaenys arrange strategic marriages that both benefited them and those married (their families), but Aegon made it a point to go on progresses and hear various lords and peasants' issues to arbitrate. Which made it so that these lords felt they would not be led by a leader who'd enforce his laws willy-nilly without considering his subject's conditions or desires. It is in this context that Rhaenys, we could see and assume, was taking a bit of a risk with not one but 2 new laws against men's "rights" over their wives' bodies!

There's Alysanne, who took it a step further in her women's courts, and the right of first nigh abolishment, her attempts at the Citadel, & the Widow's Law. Again, if not for her, Westeros and KL would be 3 steps behind in infrastructure and women's protection. Alysanne was a Queen Consort who had even less power on her own than Rhaenys & Visenya and we see that she had to convince Jaehaerys to implement his laws; it took Septon Barth's interference/support for Jaehaerys to even go along with the abolishment of the right of first night! Later with Viserra, I believe that she arranged the much older Theomore to Viserra bc it coincided with Jaehaerys' plans for that marriage alliance between the Manderlys and the royal house. And to please or to go along with some of her husband's plans was to also add onto her own power…bc a royal Consort only has power by their monarch spouse gives them license to influence and status! Was it clumsy writing? Of course, it was pretty bizarre and partly due to how F&B is written as a historical document despite how this portion of history is better documented than others. Did Alysanne indirectly cause Viserra's death in her refusal to relent from her suspicion that Viserra was trying to become queen, as she interpreted it? Arguably. and I think that GRRM was telling us that over time and over the disappointments w/Jaehaerys, she slowly got more determined to retain any sense control…and where does her control end up coming from? Yeah, GRRM is showing that tightrope, I think.

Rhaenyra was not actively progressive in policy nor direct action as all the prior 3, but to argue that she should be feminist so that the usurpation and the femicide done against her becomes unjustified is absurd! Oh, she wasn't a feminist at all or progressive, she didn't implement any sort of law at all for women or smallfolk [did Aegon?! or Alicent?! or Aemond? Daeron, Otto?! so why are they better?!!!], so that's why she shouldn't be queen even though by the very "law of the land", she is by right the heir to this throne that never actually was about who would make a good, consummate ruler in the first place. 🙄.

So there is a vague & un-discernable, forever shifting, & impossible goal-post-level of feminist activity or "being" that these nihilistic or conservative naysayers use against women being leaders or even passively having positions of power that may still benefit the women of Westeros through setting a precedent &/or actions of necessary intervals that build on the past ones under conditions that are already limiting how much they can do or say in order to be able to put forth those feminist (really proto feminist), anti-slavery, etc., progressive steps--on a damn psychological and psychosocial level that:

diminishes how much brain power and time a woman can put to policy or things outside of the "house" because their power depends on the husband's regard towards them

makes it much harder for women to really commit themselves or fully expect to implement their goals & dreams for any sort of change (or even dream of any) when there's such subtle and unsubtle obstacles in their way: Rhaenyra, her stepmother an siblings plotting against her and then the usurpation, that we see in the microcosm of how the treasury stolen from her and the crown led to the smallfolk turning against her at KL AND the ongoing war, thus preventing her from really establishing herself as Queen/ruling at all; Alysanne, I described with Jaehaerys; Rhaenys, Andal patriarchy; much less, in Rhaena the Black Bride's case, find just actual happiness and plain old security against male aggression!

provides a setting where women become more compelled to compromise with some patriarchal ideas/practices to maintain a certain level of power or defense (there's a thing line to measure and transgress the "right way" and without other's judgement and impatience or lack of faith adds an additional pressure of, outside of fiction but applicable)

leads up to Daenerys having to have the strength to pursue her goals on with her own instincts and compassion and wit, work harder than most men would face in her position...not that any could since men cannot and have not largely had the bridal slave’s experience!

Anyway, all of it ignores or tries to hide the fact that it is exactly that undisrupted male authority over female (of any class or wealth) & under-classed people that is the true destabilizer and destroyer of lives. That there is still so much meaning and real impact in what people like Alysanne and Rhaenys did/do and huge upheavals or entire sweeps of structural change like Dany does takes measured steps!

That through multiple Targ women dying form childbirth, raped, murdered, or sidelined and critically limited in political authority or agency, this becomes so obvious! you cannot oppress half of your population, reduce them to sex-giving broodmares who you can kill if you think they have a male heir on the way or have cheated on you and call yourself progressive! You're actually 10 steps behind where you're supposed to be because half of you is not involved enough in the development of your society!

We wanna be all "feudalism is bad", "blood purity is bad", "the Targs didn't end feudalism so they are the most evil and responsible for all evil in Westeros" but when they see someone either passively or actively seem to make any progress to mitigate the pressures and power of patriarchal boundaries or concepts or whatever....they go screaming "not feminist enough" or "they're actually just like everyone else"! And some of us will also try to say that Daenerys is either entirely too much like her colonist ancestors or she will end up that way as D&D published because she is Targaryen (a bio-essentialist argument) to argue about why SLAVEOWNERS should stay in power!

And it all is very anti-intellectualism, anti-critical thought or introspection and examination...because on closer look and investigation, you will see how F&B is a text that was always anti-misogyny on GRRM's part (attemptively) even as it is misogynist as an-in world text! And it's on purpose--both the writing and how people wax "it's a dragon show, nothing at all to do with misogyny or wokeness!"

Because then you are not challenging the status quo...because you can't reason through it or against it and when it happens in seemingly harmless manifestations people will think it innocuous.

[lovelyiida2]

SUMMARY: Todoroki isn’t known to his class for being the most “social” among others. How does he prove them wrong? Obviously create an online fake relationship with a girl from another class!

SERIES

Warnings: grandpa Todoroki, nervous fucking wreck Todoroki, vulgar language, abuse, angst, ENDEAVOR, possible spelling errors

WORDS: 1.58k

—

meet me by the empty classroom on the floor above the cafeteria.

Okay, goodnight.

Seen

That doesn’t mean good, not at all. Usually with your personality you’d be the type to always say goodnight.

Fast forwarding to the next day during lunch time, Todoroki didn’t even eat breakfast. And performed terribly during training, it was obvious to the others that something was on his mind.

He even sat out during a sparring match with Bakugo, which he usually always is up for. Skipping the lunch rush he went straight to where he was needed.

Are you okay? Will the friendship end? He doesn’t want it to, he hasn’t been this happy in so long. Not to say that he’s using you as a distraction—but you’ve helped him a lot.

He waited an extra 20 minutes before you arrived, quietly shutting the door behind you to make sure no one knows the presence of you both.

You sat down at an empty desk and began to eat your food silently. Spotting a chair with wheels at the corner of the room, he walks and sits in it and slides to your side.

“Hey L/n, I know what I said last night—well today. It was really bad and I overstepped the boundaries of our relationship, I’m sorry.”

Looking over you frown at his apology, you sigh and drop your chopsticks. “Don’t feel that way, my friends think you’re my boyfriend.”

Todoroki’s heart skips a beat.

“W-what?” He stutters, you chuckle nervously.

“They think your my boyfriend because if your status y’know? We can’t just meet coincidentally without benefiting from each other. So they think ‘oh I need you for my studies and you need me as some cheat sheet to rise in ranks’ it’s just irritating!” You say.

“So you’re not mad at me?” He says. You side eye him and roll your eyes.

“I just admitted all my hardships relating to your issues and that’s all you have to say?” Todoroki’s eyes widen.

“No! It’s just I thought—“

You laugh at his reaction, “I was joking, if I was really mad at you I wouldn’t have shown up. My pride would get the best of me and we probably be friend anymore” you chuckle.

‘Not friends anymore?’

Just thinking of the topic hurts him, you can see how much your comment made him feel.

“But! I don’t want to not be friends, you’re a one of a kind friend that I wouldn’t want to loose…” you look away embarrassingly after your confession.

He smiles, “I feel the same way.”

After that heartfelt moment, you guys were like the way you were before. The both of you came to an agreement to be fake boyfriend and girlfriend, and to keep the relationship strictly online. And to keep you away from his friends, you keeping your friends away from him was inevitable due to his status.

The rest of lunch was just normal conversation, you even shared your food with with since he didn’t get any lunch. Somehow the both of you started to talk about family.

He learned that you got into UA off a whim, one point away from being under qualified in the written entry exam. You family never believed you’d get since they never did even though they were all very smart. When you got your results back you cried.

You also told him your family go on yearly trips out the country and do many other things that he could only wish of doing.

“What’s it like being the son of the Endeavor? That must be cool!”

“It isn’t, trust me” you look at him, wanting to ask why. But you could see through his body language he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Well, do you have any siblings?” You ask instead of pushing any further, he nods. “Yeah, they don’t go here though, they’re in their twenties” he says.

“Really? Wow they must be nice”

“M’yeah their cool, wanna meet them?”

Wait, he didn’t mean to say that.

“I’d love to!”

“We can walk to my house after school”

He didn’t mean to say that!

It’s just when you smiled at him it’s like his mind went completely blank.

And before he knew it, the both of you were at his doorstep.

“Todoroki I’m nervous, what if I say something rude to your dad?” You say, worry in your voice.

“He’s not here today, he’s on evening shift” he says, you mouth an “oh” turning your direction to the door.

Before Todoroki could find his keys, the door already opens. “What are you doing here this early?” A masculine voice says.

A tall man with white hair and grey eyes stares down into Todoroki’s soul like a parent catching his child in the act. He rolls his eyes and turns his head to you.

“My friend wanted to meet you,” the man then turns around. He lets out a small gasp, “my god, I didn’t even see you.”

You bow when he meets contact with you, “hello I’m Y/n L/n, please refer to me as L/n. It’s very nice to me meet you!” You feel a pair of strong hands touch your shoulders as they push you into a straight posture.

“No need letting the whole neighborhood know if your presence, I’m Natsuo! But you can call me Natsuo-kun.” He gives out a warm smile before turning around and leaving the two of you.

“Fuyumi, Todoroki has a guest~” Natsuo teases. Todoroki’s older sister comes in the doorway confused before seeing you, looking at her younger brother than back at you, she smiles.

The female has white hair as well like his brother, but instead had red streaks of hair all around her head.

“Oh, hello! You can call me Fuyumi-chan. You must be hot come in.” You bow are her offer and take your shoes off at the door.

“What brings you here?” She asks.

“Oh, well me and your brother are good friends and he brought the both of you up in conversation and offered for me to see you,” Fuyumi looks at Todoroki and giggles.

“That’s not very Todoroki like, you must be one of a kind?” She says. You blush at her comment, Todoroki jumps in. “S-she’s just a friend Fuyumi!” He stammers.

“Well how about you and your friend go into your room and wait for dinner to finish?” She looks at you and winks, you nod and follow behind Todoroki like a lost puppy.

When walking into Todoroki’s room your mouth hangs open. His room gave off a old traditional Japanese style that just reeks of wealth.

“Your room is so nice…”

“Thanks”

Sitting down on the floor you shuffle to the kotatsu.

About 30 minutes past by and the both of you were have a great time. Todoroki hasn’t felt comfortable at home in a while, spending his time with you was truly relaxing.

Hearing the door jiggle, he turns around to see that it wasn’t Fuyumi with their food, it was his dad. The smirk he had on his lips fell to a strong frown. You’ve never seen him so upset before.

“Why are you here?” He spits at him.

“Today is my day off, don’t be a dumbass” he spat back. Looking over at you, your eyes don’t meet his demeaning gaze as they focus to your twirling fingers.

“How’d you get past security?” His voice strong and intimidating, you swallow you spit and look up at him. “I-I was invited by your son, Mr. Endeavor” you say quietly. You wanted to introduce yourself, but you were too scared to.

Endeavor frowns at your words and steps up to Todoroki. Looking down at the sound of his heavy footsteps you flinch at the sound of a loud slap echoing throughout the room, than a slam to the group.

“No visitors on my day off, you know better,” Endeavor takes one more look at you before slamming the door.

Looking over you see Todoroki, his chest heaves as he breathes in and out deeply, hearing his mutilated cries as his teeth clenched. His fists were balled, they were clenched so hard they were turning red.

He knew to never bring you over here, yet he did anyway. He knew something would happen, and yet he brings you anyways.

He never wanted you to see him this way, not like this. He didn’t want to tell you yet—he’s so angry.

Walking over you hold him, bringing him into your embrace, “are you okay? I should’ve never came over if I knew I was overstepping his day off…” you talk to yourself in a quiet tone.

“You should leave,” he says.

“I can just stay until after dinner–“

“You need to leave!” Todoroki yells, you finally see his face, hot with anger and tear drenched. You flinch at his words, backing away you shakily nod and stand.

He saw the way you flinched at him, the fear in your eyes was like a mirror of him and his father.

“Bye Todoroki” leaving out his door, Fuyumi packed up the dinner for you. As if she knew you weren’t able to stay.

He knew Fuyumi made regular soba and not cold soba, so he wasn’t going to eat it. But since you were here, he was willing to try it for the first time. He wanted to have a special memory establishing his first friendship.

Instead, he turns his lights off and cries himself to sleep.

I know, very sad ending for today’s chapter. But things will get better for him :( ALSO! My ask box is open!!! Please recommend me some things to write!

TAGLIST: @suckerfor-fanfics @kunaigirlx44 @softbkg

[zukkacore]

Btw this is gonna be rly incoherent but tbh I think the fact that too many idiot white ppl w too much influence in media write terrible storylines w/ antagonists that are the worst most villainaized strawmen of an ideology/social movement that is either real or an allegory for a real thing has really harmed our ability to talk abt the portrayal of activism & the representation of basically any anti-establishment characters in media.

Like. Yes it’s obviously shitty writing when antagonists are like. People who have good points but also do bad things like kill people to show they have gone “too far” (gag), but that’s the irritating thing about it. Any indication from the antagonists to criticize or change the status quo of the world is met with SO MUCH resistance, it creates this like..... idk, knee jerk reaction from anyone w half any sense b/c we know villainizing social justice causes is um.... wrong and bad. Because these antagonists are so obviously strawmen, they’re so flat that it removes the stories of literally any nuance. But idk, I feel like In an attempt to overcompensate we act like no activist movement has ever been incomplete or flawed & that media has no right to portray a movement which isn’t 100% palatable—which I feel like doesn’t do anyone any favors bc it’s just not reflective of history, and it’s not even reflective of modernity. And I don’t mean this in a “well there’s always two sides of the story, why can’t you sympathize with oppressors too!” kind of way. I mean more that participants & leaders in activist movements have intersecting identities that give them both privlege as an oppressor & marginalization as an oppressed person and that like... is important to shape the kind of activism they participate in and influence. I mean,

1) plenty of awful people who had bigoted views have been championed as the leaders of social movements—first wave feminism in America being a prime example bc they were mostly uh, racist white women who had no intention of fighting for suffrage for poc... I think we can all agree that anyone opposing women’s suffrage would be seen as uh, wrong, both then and now but also keeping in mind the limitations of first wave feminism is also important bc otherwise you’re just glorifying a revisionist history

2) tbh the bigger a movement gets the more it usually gets watered down to be more palatable and nonthreatening, and also the more it’s likely gonna be co-opted by capitalist companies being opportunistic, the less power it has, so like, any bite that used to exist is probably long gone. (Again, examples: more and more mainstream normalization of lgbt acceptance & feminism is a good thing but let’s not act like things like pinkwashing & rainbow capitalism aren’t exhausting & just putting a fresh coat of paint on an old problem...)

3) as much as I hate the individualist explanation when it comes to antagonists in media “this singular person is a moral failure” or whatever, sometimes ppl irl.,,. Just straight up co-opt social movements bc they’re opportunistic & see it as a way to gain social capital. Like. I think we all can probably name a celebrity that maintained a woke personal brand then turned out to be a piece of shit...

But like, idk, at the same time, I don’t think most western white writers have the nuance to portray the complications of reality when they’re still out here being like “well Vulture made some points but he kills ppl so spidey has to stop him :(((((“ & “Bane made some points when we made him an obvious parallel to the occupy wall street movement but also he has a bomb :((((“ & “The earth queen is a horrible person who conscripted an Airbender army and abuses her power but zaheer wanting to kill world leaders bc we don’t understand anarchism :((((“

Anyway y’all are free to disagree with me I guess

[ramblingandwritings]

Enric Pryde fluff alphabet

I thought I might as well make this since I've done the NSFT version

A = Activities (What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?)

He likes date nights, going out to get dinner and maybe seeing a show. He'll also just sit with you and quietly handle reports. If he can then he'll show you the most ridiculous ones

B = Beauty (What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?)

Your willingness to stick up for yourself and call him out when needed

C = Cuddling (how do they like to cuddle?)

He's the big spoon but cuddling while sleeping isn't that frequent for him

D = Dreams (How do they picture their future with their s/o?)

Ideally, he'd like to retire with you to his large house and spend the rest of his time with you

E= Equal (Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?)

He's the dominant partner in the relationship, but he doesn't expect to make every choice for you and large decisions are made together

F = Family (do they want one?)

No, he doesn't. He's too old and he doesn't want to try and raise a child at his age. Even if you got with him when he was young, he still doesn't want it

G = Gifts (how do they feel about gift giving? What are their habits when it comes to this?)

He gives a lot of gifts to make up for his absences and also just to show love. He appreciates it when you get him gifts but don't get him something that only takes up space

H = Holding Hands (when/how do they like to hold hands?)

He doesn't do the whole handholding thing unless he's in bed

I = Inspiration (Did their s/o change them or the other way around?)

You've rubbed off on each other. He's no doubt made you more ruthless and you've gotten him to ease up and be less serious somewhat. The people that work with him are very thankful for that

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?)

Not really, he's confident in the relationship. It annoys him if someone flirts with you and they're aware of your relationship but it's more because he sees it as disrespect

K = Kiss (Are they a good kisser?)

He's alright at it for the most part. They can be pretty rough at times and those aren't anything special really. The best ones are when he can actually slow down and make it sensual

L = Love Confession (How would they confess to their s/o?)

He confessed when he was home on reserve in the First Order. He made sure you felt the same before he did, he wasn't about to accidentally humiliate himself. Finally saying I love you was a weight off his shoulders that he didn't even realize was there

M = Marriage (Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?)

Yes, he does. He asked you in private and was far more casual about it then you thought he'd be. He's more relaxed about his relationship with you in public but other than that it's the same relationship but now with rings

N = Nicknames (What do they call their s/o?)

Pet, but mostly he just calls you by your name

O = On Cloud Nine (What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?)

It's obvious to those that have known him for a while because his face softens when he sees you and he's not as harsh with you. He tries to make your job easier for you in suble ways without abusing his power

P = PDA (Are they upfront about their relationship? Are they rather shy when others are watching?)

Nope. Your relationship surprises most of the base when they find out because he doesn't talk about it and he doesn't like being asked about it by others unless they have good reason

Q = Quirk (Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.)

You'd think it'd be Enric's rank in the First Order but it's actually his status from his time with the Empire. Nobody wants to mess with him and because of that nobody messes with you

R = Romance (How romantic are they? Cliché or rather creative?)

He can be if he really wants to be but normally he only goes all out for important events and he keeps it simple

S = Secrets (how open are they with you?)

He has to keep some things from you because they're confidential but he's pretty upfront about most other things if you ask him

T = Time (how long did it take you to get together?)

Over a year, it took a while for him to make things official

U = Understanding (How good do they know their partner?)

He's great at reading people and he listens when you tell him something. He remembers things you forgot about telling him and things you mention offhand. It's safe to say he knows you pretty well

V = Value (How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?)

You're important to him but his job comes first and it always will. He made that explicitly clear when you got together

W = Wild Card (A random Fluff Headcanon.)

He spent a majority of his time in reserve with you. It was the longest time you've spent together with no interruptions or work

X = XOXO (Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?)

Hahaha, no. He shows love through acts of service and gift giving

Z = Zeal  (Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?)

He'll personally murder anyone that tries to harm you but he won't betray his job for you unless circumstances are very, very dire

[dabistits]

To talk about Twice and villainy is to talk about class and criminality (IV)

(Masterlist)

cw: references the dehumanization of “terrorists,” like, irl

The trash of society

“Disposability” is a framework that interrogates the way human lives are valued. Arising from observations about material disposability in the rapid industrialization of post-’45 and the increasing hold of mass-production and consumerism, “disposability” eventually expanded to an investigation of the human cost of this modern landscape. Theorists raised the question of how the disposability of human lives could be understood in tandem with the disposability of material goods, linking together issues of class, poverty, migration, imperialism, race, production, and consumerism. In essence, disposability as a framework investigates how human lives come to be rendered as disposable—and thus, like waste, byproducts of a lifestyle of endless growth.

This concern is one that receives frequent exploration in fiction that delves into the framework of humans-as-waste; for example, the sci fi dystopian short story Folding Beijing follows a waste worker in his efforts to fund the education of his adoptive daughter, who he found abandoned outside his waste-processing station. Although the conditions in BNHA aren’t nearly as grim, there are nevertheless clear connections drawn between its villainous characters and the concept of humans-as-waste, to the point where villains refer to themselves or are referred to by others as “trash.” Quirks may have effected a massive social upheaval, but that didn’t do away with, only shifted, the specifics of the idea that there are people who are deserving and people who are not, innocent people and criminals.

Throughout the series, we see characters mistreated while a society of deserving innocents looks on. There was little concern from the public when Izuku was mocked and bullied for his Quirklessness, when Rei was sold into a marriage for the benefit of a wealthy and abusive pro hero, when five-year-old Tenko wandered the streets alone, and when Jin was left to fend for himself as a teenager. Under the framework of disposability, they might as well have been rendered “waste,” as Zygmunt Bauman writes: “[t]he story we grow in and with has no interest in waste[...],” instead

“[w]e dispose of leftovers in the most radical and effective way: we make them invisible by not looking and unthinkable by not thinking. They worry us only when the routine elementary defences are broken and the precautions fail—when the comfortable, soporific insularity of our Lebenswelt which they were supposed to protect is in danger.” [source]

It is, interestingly, a bigger-picture version of the charges Shigaraki Tomura directs against the world of BNHA: like Bauman says, the innocent civilians are oblivious, recognizing neither the fragility of their peace nor the artificiality of it as it is maintained by heroes, unwilling to acknowledge the "leftovers”—the people who weren’t saved—until they return as villains and that very peace is threatened.

As for the leftovers themselves, they feel their alienation acutely. According to Bauman, to be “redundant” in a productivity-driven economy is to “share semantic space with ‘rejects’, wastrels’, ‘garbage’, ‘refuse’—with waste.” He outlines the conditions of redundancy thusly, describing it as a kind of “social homelessness”:

“To be redundant means[... t]he others do not need you; they can do as well, and better, without you. There is no self-evident reason for your being around and no obvious justification for your claim to the right to stay around. To be redundant means to have been disposed of because of being disposable[...]”

The experience of this kind of disposability is evident in BNHA, as class and exploitation seem to be highly correlated with social isolation. The members of the Shie Hassaikai were used and abandoned, and bonded strongly to one another after joining Overhaul. Jin’s experience of “social homelessness” shows him walking alone through empty city streets, before he ends up talking to his own clone below an overpass. Jin, too, finds companionship in joining a group, the League of Villains, but fears of disposability and further isolation plague his thoughts. Whether or not he genuinely believes League of Villains would abandon him, Jin feels the need to continue justifying his place among them. The societal bleeds into the personal; Jin’s disposability to society, best represented by his interactions with law enforcement and with his employer, also becomes an anxiety in his interpersonal relationships. Horikoshi’s decision to characterize Jin in such a way makes it impossible to ignore the larger issues that created him; namely, class issues that reflect real-world concerns.

As Jin sits below the overpass, talking to his clone, he asks whether he went wrong somewhere. The other Jin responds that it must have been “being born without an ounce of luck.” Bauman comments on unluckiness thusly:

“In Samuel Butler’s Erewhon it was ‘ill luck of any kind, or even ill treatment at the hands of others’ that was ‘considered an offence against society, inasmuch as it [made] people uncomfortable to hear of it.’ ‘Loss of fortune, therefore’ was ‘punished hardly less severely than physical delinquency’.” [source]

These observations are perfectly applicable to the characters we’ve met. It’s often the “unlucky” who get treated the worst: Izuku was bullied relentlessly for his “unlucky” Quirklessness, and Rei wound up trading her “unlucky” marriage for an institutionalization of ten years. Jin was fired from his job after an “unlucky” accident, fell into a life of crime, and is finally killed by the same hero who offered him a second chance. When Dabi probes Tokoyami Fumikage in an attempt to make him contend with Jin’s “ill treatment” at Hawks’ hands, Tokoyami dismisses it and justifies Jin’s execution, undoubtedly because it would be uncomfortable, possibly even world-shattering, to acknowledge Dabi’s charge. The fact that these people have been unlucky, or have even been actively mistreated or failed by others, turns the public’s gaze away in an attempt to escape the discomfort elicited by these embodiments of society’s waste. For the “redundant” to remind society of its human cost—or even to remind the non-redundant of the small gap of bad luck that separates them—they become objects of revulsion, to be forgotten or discarded as quickly as possible. Rendered “invisible” and “unthinkable” as leftovers, they become “ontologically non-existent.” [source]

Some of the anxiety towards the “redundant” is precisely because the framework of “becoming waste” is permeable. This permeability accounts for the possibility of transforming from citizen to disposable human; perhaps, then, when “all it takes is one bad day,” the line which separates citizen from villain is just as permeable. In the framework of hero society, it may be argued that villains are not simply redundant waste, but the trash whose alienation hero society relies on in a highly visible way. "The disposable, the waste as objects and humans, inhabit a place of exclusion from society which provides not only an unrecognized space of reinforcement for society itself, but also the fuel and the labor for maintaining the status quo.” [source] In BNHA’s terms, not only are villains excluded from a deserving, innocent society, they are also the fuel for maintaining it by embodying its opposite—the guilty and undeserving—their exclusion constantly reinforced through the public spectacle of their arrests and the public idolization of heroes. Villains are no longer simply inert leftovers that can be easily ignored, as Bauman described; villains have broken past hero society’s elementary defenses, and threaten the Lebenswelt of deserving innocents. While their visibility transforms villains back into an acknowledgeable existence, the very act of breaching their invisibility renders them a kind of waste that must be permanently disposed of.

A livable life?

Heroes do not kill. This is stated in 251 by the death-seeking Ending, who, despite his best efforts, is spared an unceremonious execution at the hands of a hero, who the readers know is a domestic abuser. The deathless resolution to Ending’s conflict, then, further compounds the horror of chapter 266, when Jin is eliminated with extreme prejudice by Hawks, who admires the aforementioned hero. The irony is shocking and bitter as readers witness the violation of one of heroism’s fundamental tenets, broken no less for the elimination of one of the series’ most sympathetic villains, after Hawks himself concedes that Jin is “a good person.” It may be said that heroes do not have carte blanche to kill, but neither is it an inviolable principle, and of course a no-kill mandate says nothing about the ways villains have been injured or tortured at the hands of heroes. While arguments can be made about the imminent risk of certain occasions, the issue remains that it’s often the most vulnerable people who pay the highest price for maintaining a nebulous definition of societal “safety” (a “safety” which always seemed to exclude certain people), a concept that is primarily defined by the state and the policing class. Furthermore, the willingness of a hero to kill in defense of hero society begs the question: who may be killed without consequence, and under what circumstances?

In her collection of essays addressing responses to terrorism, Precarious Life, Judith Butler writes:

“Certain lives will be highly protected, and the abrogation of their claims to sanctity will be sufficient to mobilize the forces of war. Other lives will not find such fast and furious support and will not even qualify as "grievable."”

The notion of a “safe” society hinges on the protection of those sanctified lives, at the expense of vulnerable lives deemed “disposable” through poverty, homelessness, or criminality. A threat against the deserving innocents or the murder of a hero unites every other hero and every citizen in public mourning, and then in opposition against murderous villains—there is no such mobilization for the suffering of Quirkless kids, abused women, or orphaned, destitute teenagers. The threats against their well-beings are considered part-and-parcel to their world—normal, unavoidable, and indeed not violence at all. Certainly, a murdered villain will not find such unanimous grief nor anger mobilized in the wake his death, not even directed toward changing the isolated, impoverished conditions which made villainy an appealing choice in the first place. Jin’s death is privately witnessed and privately mourned, only by those who comprised his ibasho. It’s through these uneven displays of grief that Butler questions: “what counts as a livable life and a grievable death?”

Butler argues that certain lives are removed from the bounds of “normative” humanity, and thus “grievability.” Violence against vulnerable lives is dismissed or legitimized by the state through their dehumanization: in the world of BNHA, villains are “presented [...] as so many faces of evil” and treated as mere vessels of a killing instinct.

“Are they pure killing machines? If they are pure killing machines, then they are not humans [...]. They are something less than human, and yet somehow they assume a human form. They represent, as it were, an equivocation of the human, which forms the basis for some of the skepticism about the applicability of legal entitlements and protections.”

This kind of dehumanization is, of course, explained through the claim that certain people are “dangerous,” a designation which (as Butler points out) is determined by none other than the state itself.

“A certain level of dangerousness takes a human outside the bounds of law[... T]he state posits what is dangerous, and in so positing it, establishes the conditions for its own preemption and usurpation of the law[...]”

Perhaps, then, if villains are something other-than-human, something so dedicated to violence that they can be stopped only through death, no "sanctity,” and no law, is violated if they are killed.

The ability of the state to designate certain people as “dangerous” is linked to another political strategy: defining the difference between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence. Butler explains:

“The use of the term, "terrorism," thus works to delegitimate certain forms of violence committed by non-state-centered political entities at the same time that it sanctions a violent response by established states. [...] In this sense, the framework for conceptualizing global violence is such that "terrorism" becomes the name to describe the violence of the illegitimate, whereas legal war becomes the prerogative of those who can assume international recognition as legitimate states.” [source]

In the world of BNHA, clearly such a discernment exists between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence. Although certain readers have been quick to draw the “terrorism” analogy, the series itself tends to differentiate between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence not through charges of terrorism, but through the designation of “hero” and “villain.” Legitimate violence is wielded by heroes in defense of the state, in defense of property, and against villains, whereas illegitimate violence is wielded by villains against the state, against property, and against heroes. This difference between “hero” and “villain” is, in actuality, insubstantial as far as the question of morality, as even labeled villains such as Gentle Criminal behave within a palatable frame of ethics, while some career heroes are just as capable as villains of taking and ruining lives; nevertheless, the state has a vested interest in strongly promoting the idea of this divide—of legitimate, heroic violence as moral, justified, and legal, and illegitimate, villainous violence as immoral, unjustified, and unlawful. In this way, the state can engage in “legal war” with very little questioning or dissent from its populace, and it further delegitimizes the violence of its opponents. The violence of heroes is justified, and therefore they have an understandable human rationale; on the contrary, the violence of villains is unjustified, it is attributed to their innate violence, which is incomprehensible and inhuman.

“The fact that these prisoners are seen as pure vessels of violence [...] suggests that they do not become violent for the same kinds of reason that other politicized beings do, that their violence is somehow constitutive, groundless, and infinite, if not innate. If this violence is terrorism rather than violence, it is conceived as an action with no political goal, or cannot be read politically. It emerges, as they say, from fanatics, extremists, who do not espouse a point of view, but rather exist outside of "reason," and do not have a part in the human community.” [source]

No one personifies this better than Tomura himself. He is named the “Symbol of Terror” by AFO, and is undoubtedly viewed as such by the heroes and civilians of BNHA. It has been repeatedly emphasized that to everyone but the League of Villains, Tomura is not so much a human as he is the embodiment of thoughtless destruction. Tomura is referred to as a monster, as someone unshackled to humanity, as an “it,” as something that cannot be reasoned with. This is an idea that Horikoshi himself seems to play into somewhat, because although Tomura voices certain critiques of the hero system, he nevertheless seems to remain rather apolitical in who or what he decides to target. It’s Jin, then, who lends a political voice to the villains by criticizing pro heroes from his very first narrated chapter, but even a clear articulation of his grievances gets him no understanding reaction from the hero in front of whom he raises these charges.

While the fictional heroes may see villains as nothing more than vessels of violence, it can be argued that Horikoshi himself went through an extensive effort to depict the rationale and humanity of the villains. As I’ve stated before, Jin is very clearly connected to the real-world struggles of certain Japanese citizens, making him real and relatable in ways other characters may not be. At the same time, the rationale and humanity that Horikoshi recognizes are things that heroes like Hawks can’t grasp: as someone who idolized a hero as a child, and who was, for better or worse, enveloped by the hero system, he does not question the legitimacy of the hero system. Hawks understands only unluckiness in Jin’s circumstances, and shows little awareness of the fact that Jin was failed by the very society Hawks defends, that his suffering was both enforced by the legal system and by his boss, and ignored by institutions supposedly designed to help. Jin, of course, is not so obtuse—he reiterates his awareness that he is one of those disposable, ungrievable lives that heroes don’t save, and he is ultimately proven right—when Hawks’ offer of rehabilitation is rejected, he instead moves to kill. Jin, and other villains, are so thoroughly dehumanized, likened to killing machines, that it doesn’t occur to any hero that they can possibly be reasoned with. 

Could there have been any other conclusion? I don’t believe so—not without a significant shift in thinking from heroes. For many of the villains, there’s very little to gain from rejoining the society that they were ejected from. Bauman writes that, for “disposable” humans:

“Unwelcome, tolerated at best, cast firmly on the receiving side of socially recommended or tolerated action, treated in the best of cases as an object of benevolence, charity and pity (challenged, to rub salt into the wound, as undeserved), but not of brotherly help, charged with indolence and suspected of iniquitous intentions and criminal intentions, [they have] few reasons to treat ‘society’ as a home to which one owes loyalty and concern.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that Jin rejects Hawks’ offer of a “socially tolerated” rehabilitation into the society that both caused and ignored his suffering, which he has no reason to believe wouldn’t outcast him again for another slip-up. Of course, he instead chose the place he was understood, where his mistakes were met with patience, where he wasn’t forced to justify his presence, where his sense of belonging felt stable. The people he called his ibasho were a home, a place he was allowed an ontological existence—the very inverse of that old, disposable life.

Conclusion

Bubaigawara Jin should be read as class commentary. The various obstacles in his story are all too reflective of the systemic issues of real-world Japan, concisely highlighting the shortcomings and common abuses of the alternative care system, the justice system, and the workplace. It’s also highly likely that Horikoshi himself is aware of economic inequalities on some level, which seems to reflect in the obvious and less-obvious ways he addresses class in BNHA. I think this probable intentionality is important, as it can lend itself to our speculation on the series’ messages and themes. Importantly, if Jin’s story is a commentary about the real-world trials of economic marginalization, then surely this also applies to the way he is treated by heroes and by wider society. Beyond simple evaluations of “X did this, which forced Y to respond,” certain narrative choices may be better understood as a pattern of illustrating disposability, of the way this fictional society creates “human waste,” and to relate them to real-world patterns of which lives are considered worth saving.

I somewhat downplayed the real-world inspirations for Bauman and Butler’s texts, because I believe those are true and serious topics about capitalism and war that should be discussed on their own merits, unrelated to a fictional series; however, they also perfectly show how certain beliefs in the real world are transferrable to BNHA’s world. Because these beliefs are transferrable, readers’ reactions to certain narratives in fiction are rooted in certain truths we believe about the real world as well. For example, it would pointless to call the League of Villains “terrorists” as a condemnation, unless someone believes that the charge of “terrorism” in itself tells us anything meaningful about morality. As Butler has explained, and as real life shows (e.g. through the designation of black radical groups like the Black Panthers or antifascist groups as terrorist organizations), the term “terrorism” alone holds no inherent moral implication. Imagining that the label of “terrorist” can meaningfully convey anything about morality, and that "being a terrorist” removes a person from the boundaries of “normative humanity” (and thus due legal process in-universe, and reader sympathy out-of-universe) reflects an ignorance about certain real-world political processes.

Injustice in the world doesn’t only take the form of obvious oppression and violence; manipulation is also involved. There is a vested interest by the ruling class in guiding the ways people think and perceive reality, teaching us what we deserve and don’t deserve, what prices are acceptable and unacceptable to pay for human life. These lessons must be rejected from the outset, leaving rules and definitions open for interpretation. What qualifies as violence? Is violence more than a physical act of harm? Is it violence to isolate “unproductive” members of society? Is it violence to deny them food and shelter? Is it then violence to cage and execute them when they do not non-violently accept their subjugation? What forms of violence are unacceptable and why? Where does violence really begin?

Dismantling oppression can only be achieved by questioning its very foundations and the language used to justify it; fiction, by enveloping us into a new reality—a new world with new rules—should make this questioning easier if we’re willing to divest ourselves of certain beliefs fed to us by those in power. BNHA, as imperfect as it is, certainly tries to raise some of these questions about the designations of “heroes” and “villains,” about the deserving and undeserving, about who is saved and who gets left behind. I would go further, and argue that to invest legitimacy into the hero system is to invest legitimacy into everything that perpetuates it: the poverty, the violence, the disposability of those judged “villainous,” and the idea that agents of the state are uniquely positioned to enact legitimate violence. Confronting crime means eliminating the need for it and the conditions that give rise to it, and only then, not a moment before, will the problem of villains largely cease to exist.

[sondepoch]

Day 5

10 Days (Jumin Han x Reader)

You didn't expect to find yourself locked in an engagement to Chairman Han, but with your own mother forcing you into it, you have no way of denying her. But as time continues and things change, you begin to develop affections for your fiance's son: Jumin Han. But the sad truth is that there's nothing either of you can do to stop the marriage, and you only have these 10 days before your future becomes reality. 10 days with Jumin Han.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | ✔

MASTERLIST

How much time passes before you understand what's happening? How long is it before a thought finally finds it way back into your stupid, foolish head, and you realize the consequences of kissing the son of the man you're engaged to?

Too much time.

You're on top of Jumin, straddling him with two legs on either side of him. His kisses are slow. Passionate. Lips trailing down to your neck, he sucks on the skin ever-so-gently, and it's only when you hear the lewd sound of your own moan that reality hits you.

You stiffen.

And Jumin notices.

"(Y/N)...?" Jumin asks, raising his eyes to yours.

"We can't do this," You murmur breathlessly. "We can't. I'm engaged. To your father."

With those final words, Jumin's eyes widen the slightest—as if he too had forgotten the fact—and you pull yourself off him. But he pulls your wrist before you can leave the couch.

"That can change."

The man's eyes are earnest, as if he genuinely believes what he's saying. But he doesn't know the truth. "We're meeting your mother tomorrow, no, today. In twelve hours, she'll be here, and you'll be free of your engagement and we can..."

You turn to Jumin. "We can what? What is there for us to do?"

"This," Jumin murmurs, stealing a chaste kiss from your lips. You let the moment linger, basking in its tranquility, before pulling away.

"My mother won't let me cancel the engagement, Jumin." You cast your eyes low on the ground. "My personal desires don't matter. I can't go against her wishes."

"You can." Jumin encourages.

"No, Jumin. I can't." You stand up, brushing past him to get to your room, ignoring even Elizabeth's innocent meow in your haste to hide your tears. Only when you get to your room do you allow them to fall, whimpering softly over your own inability to control your fate.

You press your back to the door and slide down it, trying your hardest to keep your cries quiet.

It's not fair.

Your whole life, you've been the perfect daughter. Even your mother had struggled to find excuses to take her anger out on you, until your father had sacrificed his life to save you from being hit by a car. From that moment onward, she had only needed one reason to hurt you: the fact that you were even alive.

Pitiful, isn't it?

It was a drunk driver who ruined your life so.

But your mother was still furious.

She loved Father, you realize bitterly. After that whole escapade with Jumin, you had your first taste of what a true relationship would feel like—if only it weren't forbidden to you—and you'd come to realize that whatever your mother felt for your father was akin to your feelings for Jumin.

It's not fair. You think, choking back a sob. It's all so unfair. Why must you pursue Chairman Han when you would be so much happier with someone else? You bite your lip as your mind automatically fills in the blank. Why must you pursue Chairman Han when you would be so much happier with Jumin?

The media would love it. The corporate heirs of BC-Sonic and C&R uniting in holy matrimony to pave the way not only their families but the enterprising future of their companies.

And Jumin's actually my age, you think, scoffing at the fact that he's still older than you.

You sigh.

You've stayed with Jumin barely five days, and he's already been the perfect gentleman. The perfect husband. And from those kisses, it's obvious that he wouldn't be opposed to a relationship with you.

Your heart feels a little bit lighter when you think about the prospect of a future with Jumin. It would be a future free of everything you'd been chained down to since your adoption.

It would be a perfect future.

But it's a future I can't have, you think bitterly, before dragging yourself to bed.

And that thought lurks in your mind for the rest of the night, through early morning, and during breakfast when you and Jumin sit opposite each other, separated only by the extravagant sea of dishes prepared by his private chef.

He sits across from you, already handsome and ready in suit and tie, despite it still being early morning. He cuts into an onion and cheese omelet, expression calm and controlled.

Even when he doesn't try, he's perfect.

And I can't have him.

"(Y/N)..." Jumin trails off, interrupting the silence. "We should speak. About last night."

You bite your lip. On the list of the many things that kept you up last night, this impending conversation was ranked high.

"Last night was a mistake, Jumin. We can't let it happen again."

"You expect me to believe you truly desire my father over me?"

"I expect you to understand that I have to desire your father over you."

You hate the bluntness of your voice, and how stern your responses are to Jumin's gentle questions, but you have to be firm. Because even a moment of weakness may lead to a recap of yesterday's events. And you can't let that happen.

Breakfast passes by quickly.

Too quickly, for your liking.

By lunchtime Mother will be here, you realize with a start. And for the first time since your arrival in this apartment, time seems to fly by. You do everything in your power to make things feel slower, the most mundane of tasks that make minutes feel like hours. But nothing works.

For the first time, as you close BC-Sonic's feedback logs, you find that the four hours you spent reviewing department productivity rates flew by and you have scarcely fifteen minutes before your mother's expected arrival.

And she's never late.

So all you can do it wait.

Jumin tries to maintain a facade of calmness, but you can tell by the way he's constantly straightening his tie that even he's nervous to meet your mother. Is he regretting inviting her here?

He should, you think, memories of childhood abuse flooding through your mind. The sheer thought prompts your hand down, where you massage the damaged skin on your outer thigh before you forcefully move it away.

The past is the past. And after this meeting, it will be behind me.

In another room, Jumin's grandfather clock chimes twelve times.

Midday. Noon. 12 o'clock.

Twelve hours ago, you'd been on this same couch, arms wrapped around Jumin without a care in the world. Now, all your thoughts are of the diamond ring on your finger and a single knock.

Your mother.

She only ever knocks once, too certain of her status to ever bother with more. It's an insult that I even have to knock, she'd told you once when you asked her why.

Your eyes dart up to Jumin, who instantly gets up and walks to open the door.

"Hello, Mrs. (L/N)." His tone is courteous, charming even, and your mother glances at him, eyes wary and cigarette in hand. You can see the distrust in her eyes, but she finally responds with a polite nod, her voice laced with only a thin tone of superiority.

"You were very discreet over the phone, Jumin," Your mother says as she places her purse on the couch opposite you, seating herself. Even with Jumin in the room, you can't help but feel like the same seventeen-year-old girl you'd been the last time she'd hurt you.

So much time has passed since then.

But only the exterior scars had healed. Inside, you're just as frightened now as you were then.

"I was wondering if we could discuss the details of (Y/N)'s engagement to my father over lunch," Jumin states calmly, and you try your best not to let your terror show on your face.

"Oh?" Your mother turns to Jumin, and you're relieved that she's not directing her question at you. Your palms as already sweaty and you can feel your threadbare thoughts loping into knots as you try to calm yourself. "And what could there be to discuss about two people in love?"

Jumin swallows, evidently not prepared for your mother's show of ignorance. A moment of silence passes before he speaks.

"I think that's the matter to discuss itself: whether these two people are indeed in love."

"It's very bold of you to make these claims, Jumin." Your mother says, smiling and taking a puff of her cigarette. Her smile is empty, though, and you can hear the hissing snake of accusation in her words. "What do you have to say about this, (Y/N)?"

Your mother turns to you, and her (e/c) eyes have never been so intense as they are now. Her gaze is penetrating as she stares you down, challenging you.

"W-well," You stutter, trying to hide the tremble in your voice. "I think...that love...is a very strong word."

"Do you doubt that Chairman Han loves you?" Your mother states.

"N-not at all. I never mea—"

"Then it's only right that you should return his feelings wholeheartedly." Your mother offers you a smile, and her expression is prideful. I win, you can almost hear her say.

You can't bring yourself to say anything else. All you've said to her for the past two and a half decades has been in agreement with her. You'd been trained to tell her "Yes Mother" and "As you wish" without any hint of resistance.

Even if you knew what to say to her, you doubt you'd have the courage to.

Thankfully, Jumin steps in.

"For the sake of my father, I think that it'd be wiser to postpone the engagement until a time when (Y/N)'s feelings are more...developed. If such a time should come, then I think all parties involved would be pleased to watch her and my father partake in the marriage."

"If such a time should come? Jumin, are you doubting my daughter's feelings for your father? That's quite rude, I must say. If I were you, I'd apologize to (Y/N) at once for such a callous comment."

A fire lights inside you, at your mother's rudeness to Jumin. His eyes are round in surprise as he looks at you, and you fear that your mother's words have already gotten to him, so you speak before he can.

"Mother, Jumin is right."

The moment those words leave your lips, it's as if the apartment has dropped ten degrees. It feels like winter, and the chill rage radiating off your mother is truly terrifying. Her glare is ice cold, and you pull your eyes away. Instead, you look at Jumin who offers you a nod of encouragement for what you're about to say.

"I don't want to marry Chairman Han."

With those words, Jumin smiles at you. You can tell that he's proud you finally mustered up the courage to tell your mother the truth...but the moment you turn your gaze back upon your mother, you quickly realize that the truth isn't going to be enough.

"You think I don't already know that, (Y/N)?" Your mother drops her cigarette on the ground, lighting a new one before taking a sharp puff. "Very well. It seems I have to remind you why you obey me. Jumin, lock the door."

No...

"Pardon? The chef will be in with appetizers any moment now, so—"

"Lock the door."

Not in front of Jumin...

"(Y/N), strip."

Please don't...

"Now."

But your body betrays you, and you're no longer a proud businesswoman in her twenties. You're back to being the same foolish child your mother spent years abusing, and your fear won't let you do anything but obey.

With shaking hands, you remove your top.

"(Y-Y/N)!" Jumin sputters out, his temporary shock overridden by the sight of you actually meeting your mother's absurd request. "This is madness, don't—"

"This is the real world, Jumin." The snake that had been hiding behind your mother's words had finally come to play, and it was a hissing monster, vicious as it was cruel. "You made the decision to get in the way of my relationship with my daughter, so now you will see the consequences of your actions. Very good, (Y/N). Stand up."

Now wearing nothing more than your delicate (f/c) panties and a bra, you force yourself to stand, ignoring the vigor at which your legs are shaking. You keep your eyes fixated forward, unable to look at your mother or Jumin or anything else that might make your tears fall.

Your mother approaches you, ignoring Jumin and his attempts to stop her.

Even then, as he stands in front of your mother, telling her how ridiculous she's being, he doesn't understand the severity of the situation. For such a shrewd businessman, he still doesn't realize what's happening.

Your mother approaches you, drawing the cigarette from her lips.

And then you see the realization dawn on Jumin's face. He figured it out. Why you'd been terrified of your mother, why you were marrying Chairman Han at her request, why you had begged him to cancel today's meeting.

Child abuse.

At least, it had been child abuse. Once you turned eighteen, your mother decided that she had enough power over you to free you from the shackles of pain, and your skin had begun to heal, the burns fading into scars.

Until today.

Your mother twists your neck painfully and forces you to look her straight in the eye as she presses the hot end of the cigarette down against the familiar spot on your thigh. The scars had just begun to fade, you think helplessly as tears ran down your cheeks, the pain familiar but excruciating nonetheless.

You stood paralyzed before her as she continued to dig the hot stub into your upper thigh, bringing back years of memories from when you'd stood before her just like this with no escape before her merciless hands.

But Jumin steps in.

"Mrs. (L/N)!" He practically shouts, all but yanking your body away from your mother to pull your smaller form into his. Now he, too, is trembling, but he wraps his arms protectively around you. "Security! SECU—"

"Jumin," Your mother interrupts, a threatening glare on her face. She drops the cigarette she was holding onto the floor and pulls a lighter from her purse. With a single flick of the thumb, a flame has appeared. She holds it dangerously close to your skin. "Call your guards, and I will make certain that (Y/N) here endures much worse than anything she's had to handle with me. You both need to accept the truth. (Y/N) will marry Chairman Han. That is final."

Your mother returns to her seat on the couch, acting as if nothing had just happened, casually lighting another cigarette.

"Mrs. (L/N)," Jumin pleads. "Why are you doing this? I am the corporate heir to C&R, a marriage with me would be far more beneficial than o-"

"Oh? You want to marry each other? You two children are in love, is that it?" Your mother's smile is unamused. "Yes...I was in love with (Y/N)'s father before she ruined everything. Whatever affair you have going on here makes no difference. The press statement was released yesterday. I've already spoken to Chairman Han. He wishes to wed you immediately, (Y/N)."

"How immediate?" Jumin voices your thoughts, and you're so relieved that at least he has the courage to speak. The last of your strength sizzled with the cigarette your mother drove into your thigh.

"More immediate than you'd think. If I were you, I'd give your father a call. It seems that C&R is in some serious trouble," Your mother smiles pleasantly, confident once more in her power over you. "And he wishes to tie the knot with BC-Sonic down as quickly as possible to minimize damage. There's nothing either of you can do to change that."

Your mother stands up, confident that with her decision, this 'meeting' is concluded. "Do not call me again, Jumin. Apart from seeing (Y/N) at her wedding, I do not wish to see either of your faces ever again."

Your mother doesn't bother bidding either of you farewell, simply taking her leave. She's finished what she came here for and reasserted her power over you in the process with that cigarette.

Your eyes drop to the familiar spot on your thigh where the old scars have been further uglified by the fresh mark. At the very sight of the burned skin, you lose the last strength in your legs. If not for Jumin's quick reaction, you would have collapsed.

"(Y/N)?" He murmurs, holding you up. He uses his thumb to wipe your tears away. "Shit. Please don't cry, (Y/N), please." Jumin cradles you, and you let out a distressed sob.

You'd thought you were finally free, but your mother just demonstrated that it doesn't matter how far you flee or who you're with—the abuse will never end.

"Everything will be okay," Jumin murmurs, picking you up and carrying you bridal style. You continue to cry into his chest. Nothing will be okay. If your future had been sealed before, now it's airtight. Your mother won't let you do anything to change that.

You whimper as Jumin sets you down on the cold countertop in the kitchen, still half-naked. You tremble when he momentarily steps away, but Jumin is quick to pull you back into his arms once he has an ice cube in his hand. The kiss of the ice is biting as he rubs circles into your thigh, but it's still nothing compared to the pain of when she was actively harming you.

"Everything will be okay," Jumin repeats.

No, it won't, you want to scream at him, but your current state renders you unable to do anything more than tremble in his arms.

Before you register it, Jumin has carried you to what you imagine is his bedroom, lying you delicately under the several blankets. He never releases you, never halts his ministrations with the ice, never stops wiping your tears away.

He doesn't leave your side, not even for a second.

"I'm so sorry, (Y/N)" Jumin murmurs once your cries have died down. "If I'd known that she'd...I wouldn't have...it's my fault. I'm so sorry."

You offer Jumin a weak smile, hating the expression of guilt he's wearing. He looks better when he's smiling.

"Don't blame yourself," You finally manage to say. "It's over. She's gone, and I won't need to see her for a long time."

At the back of your mind, you recall her words about Chairman Han. He wishes to wed you immediately.

"The future might be set in stone, but we have the present, don't we?" You say weakly, smiling up at Jumin.

"Don't think like that," He protests, pulling you up so he can look you directly in the eyes. "I'll get you out of this. You don't need to marry my father. You can marry...someone different."

"Someone like you, you mean?" You respond. The very thought brings a smile to your face. "I can't. I'm destined to be with your father. It's...it's for the best."

"Best for who? If you marry my father, only he gets happiness, and that's if you manage to convince him that you're genuinely in love with him. That's one person. But if we were to be together," Jumin brings a hand to cup your cheek. "Then the two of us are happy."

"When I wed your father, it won't just be him who's happy. It'll be the whole world. And the media. Everyone in C&R. And...and I think it'll make my mother happy."

Jumin instantly frowns when he hears that last part. "How could you compromise your own happiness for hers? She's abusive, (Y/N). She just burned you with a ci—"

"She's my mother," You say firmly.

"Adoptive mother."

"Exactly. She chose me because she wanted me to bring her happiness...and I stole her happiness when Father protected me from that car and sacrificed his life for mine. If I can give her even a little bit of it back..."

"Don't do this," Jumin whispers. "Don't let yourself get trapped in the guilt."

You sigh.

"I don't have any other choice, Jumin. If I displease Mother, you know what will happen."

"I'd protect you," Jumin murmurs, his voice getting desperate. "I'd do everything I could for you."

But you can't accept his love.

"I know you would, Jumin." You tell him, leaning your forehead against his as you did just last night. Only this time, the atmosphere is gloomy and miserable, both your minds heavy with the knowledge that your futures lies not in each other, but along separate paths.

And no amount of love, passion, or desire will be able to change that.

MASTERLIST

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 |  ✔

Word count: 3.5k

Notes: Woohooo! My hand has (mostly) healed and I am back in action! All the ideas have been stacking up - you're going to get so much content from me these next few days. :D And this series will officially begin updating on Saturdays AND Wednesdays! Whooopeeee! (sorry im so happy to finally be able to write again)

Comment & Like

Next Update: 4/29/20

I do not own the rights to Mystic Messenger or any of the characters within it.

[lemongogo]

hey im the anon abt gyutaro/ume and i dont remember what happens to demons after they die ?? did i miss smth ? regardless i wanna ask what do you think their fate should be ? cause on one hand i think they're just victims of a cruel world who took the first way out they could find but on the other hand it doesnt rlly justify all the slaughter, and i also think abt the demon slayers who also suffered horrible fates and used it to fuel their determination to save other people from that pain

hi !! i don’t think kny ever explicitly mentions what happens to demons after they die (as in we never have concrete evidence of where they go or how their lives after are spent), but i think the general consensus is that the demons go to hell. 

in some cases, the family can decide to go with them (ex: rui and i think akaza? if i remember correctly?) but their fate is pretty much sealed from that point forward i believe. 

heres a pic of gyuutarou and ume, actually, in chapter 97 !!

but yeah !! thats something i think about a lot tbh. as you mentioned, many of the demons we’ve seen have either been groomed into demonhood (rui, ume, susamaru, etc.) or had their pain and suffering exploited (akaza, gyuutarou) for the sake of advancing other demons’ plans (muzan, douma, etc). so i agree ! a lot of these characters are unfortunate victims in themselves and its impossible to view their stories without incorporating the struggles they’ve had to face as both humans AND demons. especially considering that lots of these individuals experience muzan’s abuse regardless of their status relative to him (such as with the upper and lower moons). i think this is best explained through akaza’s relationship with muzan,

(ch. 67)

(ch.156)

and further explored though tanjiro’s observation of rui’s death. he notes that being a demon, for most, is an existence punctuated by extreme grief and despair, and that’s equally supported, i think, by the humanization of these demons following death. that their original conscious is restored (albeit with knowledge of everything they’ve done) and are oftentimes plagued by the guilt of what’s happened.

(ch.43)

what he says here is probably what sums it up for me. that while it’s important to condemn these demons and hold them accountable for the truly awful things they’ve done, it’s also important to consider the suffering they've experienced through existence alone. its so !! complex !! and thats what i love about kny. i love how .. you have some demons who are entirely despicable and bask in the carnage they create, but you also have some for whom demonhood was simply what appeared to be the only answer towards living a healthier life or righting the wrongs that’ve been done to them (usually with false promises and manipulation unbeknownst to them). and .. its so hard to figure out where to.. draw that line. or view these characters at least. because you sympathize with their pain, but you also realize that their actions have caused endless pain for many hundreds of people. tanjiro losing his entire family, giyuu losing his. shinobu watching her sister die before her very eyes, and kanao the same. the ubuyashiki family’s curse or the slaughter of himejima’s children. you look at characters like sanemi, shinobu, or giyuu and understand that you cannot invalidate their view of demons either. while kanae and tanjiro may find hope and humanity in demons, they exist as monsters who feast on pain to everyone else. its important not to discredit their perspective when making a personal choice to observe the demons’ hardships yknow. shinobu’s anger is just as warranted as tanjiro’s optimism and that neither are wrong for how they personally feel demons should be handled after death. 

im like. AAAAAAAA theres so much to it , its really hard for me to condense into a few sentences AHAHA im so sry for making u read this if u still are. but . i guess i’m not too sure. i think maybe, had i experienced the same pain as those above, it would be easy for me to say the demons deserve to go to the worst hell imaginable regardless of what they’ve gone through because that history isn’t accessible to everyone like it has been the audience (or that they’ve seemingly made the conscious decision to cause harm w/o understanding the ways in which demonhood obscures their original conscious/morality). but at the same time, you have those like tanjiro whose world view is shaped by positive encounters with demons like nezuko, tamayo, yushirou, etc. where it seems very evident that . theres more to it than what meets the eye. 

one of my friends ive talked to about this had a rly good perspective on it thats kinda stuck with me since !! she said she likes to view their conclusion as some . separation of identity?? if that makes sense?? that the demon side of them goes to hell while their human form goes to heaven (or division into whichever afterlife). and !! i think thats a really neat interpretation because there’s obvious descrepancy between demon personas and human personas. that the demon personas are like. exaggerations of their flaws, almost (akaza becoming hellbent on battle spirits and physical victories when hajuki’s fury & determination was fueled by love in a sense) while their human personas are the truest sense of self. and depending on which influence there is (muzan vs the appearance of loved ones), their identity changes accordingly. so ! idk ! thats one nice way of looking at it. holding their demon personas accountable while also recognizing that many of these characters deserve some form of healing after many hundreds of years of abuse. its hard because ofc i don’t want to negate the harms they’ve caused but its also? not cut and dry given the environment they were placed in and the fact that muzan’s blood essentially removes their humanity against their will you know. so in this way at least you have both forms of self receiving the proper conclusion. 

whwhwhw so im. !!!!!!!!!!!! ah !! i can’t say i have a definite answer but i think the one above is smth thats comforting to me. i think the story settles with sending them to hell once they’ve regained their past self but also .. “softens” it by providing them company by their loved ones who are willing to go w them?? so thats rly cool to look at too. because it holds them accountable for all that’s happened but also.. recognizes that they’re not wholly responsible for it either and that .. even in hell they’re able to keep their connections and human emotions/experiences . its tragic yet oddly. fitting, i think, of the kny narrative. while i like the aforementioned interpretation, i also really.. appreciate the way its set up in canon too. like yeah i want the best for them but also. it fits in with the tragic nature of demonhood and what it meant for them all. oddly enough. 

u make a good point too !! about demon slayers experiencing the same hardships but using their pain to help others. i think a lot of it is plainly chalked up to luck in terms of.. what they were exposed to following tragedy. how shinobu and kanae were saved by himejima, tanjiro saved by giyuu, kanao picked up by shinobu and kanae, sanemi given the guidance of kagaya while akaza was killed by muzan during his lowest moment, ume and gyuutarou were cornered by douma, rui misled by muzan, etc. i think circumstance is definitely a large factor in determining the paths that were taken. such as sanemi’s anger being validated and heard by ubuyashiki vs, say, akaza’s same anger being intentionally exploited for muzan’s gain.

aaa anyways. theres a lot 2 be said about this. like. SO much on my mind and obviously the extent of muzan’s abuse goes far deeper than what’s briefly mentioned here but.  i love talking about the complexities of kny . and how i view the demons vs the corps and how each of them have grown into their respective stories . AA but ill end it here THNK U >> also so sry for making u read thru all of this i get so excited i could talk abt kny all day long if i had the chance AAA 

[apricops]

Do you think that the "increasing trend of implying that for a guy to be gnc is a signifier of being bigoted and misogynist e.g. racist femboy, predatory softboy, etc." comes from the same place as the accusation that Miley wearing dreads made her racist? Do you suppose women think that those men are appropriating femininity? 'Cause I've seen that argument from TERFs, except directed at trans women.

I put this ask off for a couple days because I had a lot of thoughts behind that post. I really meant it when I said I was trying not to pass immediate judgement on it, because it's one of those... all-in-the-subtext things, it's just that very often the subtext seems so clear and obvious that it doesn't seem like subtext, just text.

Because the whole thing stands at an interesting nexus. The progress of the thought from most of the replies was "individual complaints about gnc men (Jeffrey Star, Nick Robinson, etc.) -> warning that gnc men are also capable of being predatory -> the comments are seen as specifying and singling out gnc men as especially or uniquely predatory -> it's proof of how Feminism Has Failed Us Once Again by looping right around to a cisheteromisogynist-with-a-side-of-fries statement that gender nonconformity is inherently bad," and the only people at any point explicitly making the claim that gnc men are unusually predatory are setting it up as a strawman.

But like I said that's just one way of taking it, there are parallel discourse channels that are *also* dogged by the unspoken assumption that there's a direct and causal relationship between the oppression one faces and/or the degree to which they don't conform to the mainstream vs. their leftist tendencies, the idea that e.g. if someone's queer or a person of color then it unlocks secret levels of Proper Leftistness, and the initial statements above could *also* be seen as a warning of how a guy being gender nonconforming doesn't mean they're inherently less capable of being bigoted or abusive, and if the discourse tides were moving in a different direction, that would probably be what all of the replies are about, which isn't even mentioning the strange ways gender is hashing out on the internet with 4chan femboys later realizing they're trans women or guys who enjoy being effeminate in ways that give off Trans Girl Vibes but are nonetheless contented in their status in being feminine guys. Gender is a fuckin' mess.

(Addendum: w/r/t the TERF thing, it's not that they thing """""men""""" in the TERF-dogwhistle-sense are appropriating *femininity,* but specifically appropriating *womanhood,* which for TERF rhetoric is defined as a mixture of base reproductive capacity and also specific forms of misogyny being defined as an experience which is inherent and universal to """""women""""")

[melonmayhere]

Chapter 5: Light

❥ Synopsis: With dealing with a hard life of having abusive parents, you get a chance to live a life away from them. You meet new friends and feel happiness since...forever...however, not all stories end in happiness do they...?

❥ Warnings: Swear Words, Mentions Of Death, Heated Argument

❥ Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of the characters, however, the obvious random characters are mine :P

❥ Taglist: Open! (Send me an Ask please!)

❥ Status: Ongoing

❥ Author’s Note: Get ready for a rant 🤪

Previous | Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Next

It was the next morning after hearing the news about your parents from Noah.

“W-what happened!” You breathed.

“Mom and dad went to the casino late at night as usual. But when they came back from the casino, they were drunk and...” Noah looked down before returning his gaze to you. “And then they got into a car crash.”

You stared helplessly at him before looking down and falling onto your knees.

Even though you hated both parents, you knew that neither one deserved it... Absolutely no one in the entire world does...

You laid in your bed and stayed there for hours. You only ever got up once to change into a more comfortable outfit to sleep in. Most of the time Kuroo and Kai would knock in the door asking if you was okay, but you didn’t answer them. You couldn’t face them. You clutched the blankets tightly before falling asleep again feeling your stomach growl for food and water...

It was past seven and it was already dark, you only just woke up a few minutes ago, and yet...you felt uneasy you couldn’t help but think about what Noah said...and your mind started to swirl around with different outcomes if they did survive, or at least if they died a different way, from smoking or something...

You were thinking about your parents so much to the point you didn’t hear Kuroo and Kai unlocking your door and barging in.

“Hey y/n! It’s party time!” Kuroo leaped onto your bed.

“Ya, y/n! Get up! Bokuto and the others will be here soon! We’ll party hard! They texted me saying that they wanted you to make them something delicious! So c’mon! Get up!” Kailee shook you.

“We also got you ice-cream, cookies-n-cream!” Kuroo grinned.

“We also got you fruit tarts~!” Kai added. “So hurry up and get up!”

“Ya!” Kuroo began to pull away all of the blankets, while Kai stole a pillow and began to whack you with it. They repeated this for about five minutes before you snapped.

“I swear to god, Kailee. Leave me alone or I’ll beat your dumbass up!” You growled.

Kailee winced at your words. You’d never in life swore or yelled at your best friend ever. At that moment, you knew you’d mess up, but it was too late on going back because Kuroo began to get defensive.

“Hey! If you are gonna yell at anyone, yell at me! I was the one who planned all of this, I just forced Kai to come along, okay!?” Kuroo stated.

Whipping your head around to face Kuroo, you spat. “Always defending this bitch, huh?”

“Don’t you dare call her a bitch.” Kuroo snarled.

“You do realize that there are other people in the world that maters more than her right?”

“Of course I-”

“It’s always about yourself and this bitch, isn’t it? Always. I don’t care for you two anyways, leave.”

“Make me.” Kuroo glared.

You knew you were too weak to even push the guy. “You never know your place, you rooster bastard.”

Kuroo stood his ground. “Excuse me? I always know my place, it’s you that don’t.”

You laughed. “Are you sure about that? When was there ever a time you knew when to back down? Even with Noah being here, you still glared him down.”

“I did not glare him down, I-”

“Glared him down. It’s okay Kuroo, you can admit it, you were jealous.” You patted his shoulder. “Now that you can see I am right, you can leave now. Oh and please take your bitch of a dog, with you.”

“Don’t call her a bitch.” Kuroo repeated.

You smirked. “Make me.”

Kuroo looked down at you while you looked up at him with a smirk. You and Kuroo stayed like this for two minutes before you yawned.

“Me tired. And you go bye bye.” You waved goodbye to him as you began to make your bed.

“What happened.”

You looked over at Kuroo. “Hah?”

“What ever happened to you?” Kuroo began. “What ever happened to the sweet and optimistic dorm mate I had? She was more than just a dorm mate to me, she was my friend, heck I would’ve and should’ve called her my best friend. She was-”

“Like hell you would’ve-”

“She was one of the greatest friends I had because of her personality. Sweet and optimistic, but mess with her and you’re dead. Y/n was one of those friends I could ask about love advice, she was one of those friends that I’d go to first if I killed someone. Y/n was one of those friends who, to me, I’d do anything to have in my next life.” Kuroo looked at you. “Where did she ever go? Please, tell me where. Because she was truly my best friend.” Kuroo helped Kailee up and they began to walk over to the door. “If you ever find the friend I am looking for, please, tell as soon as possible.”

You watched as they left. Not in spite with regret. The first second you yelled at Kailee, you knew you were doing something wrong. And now that Kuroo spoon filled your brain about that what was happening, you couldn’t let it go. It felt like something was stabbing you, and badly. You heavily lifted your gaze from the door and it turned to your phone. You needed someone and you needed them now. You turned on your phone and after a few seconds, your phone blew up with a bunch of messages and missed calls from your friends and Noah. You swiped them all away and looked at your contacts to see if there was anyone you could talk to. You obviously couldn’t text Kuroo or Kai, and Noah wasn’t an option...at least not right now...you scrolled down some more until you came to the very end. Seeing one name, you knew this was your only chance on getting help, so you tapped on their contact and began to message them.

You silently thanked him before cuddling with yourself on your bed. You closed your eyes shut. The memories of your two friends was still swirling your head. They way Kuroo spoke with such painful words, and the way Kailee stood there afraid. You started to cry thinking of some kind of excuse of thinking about why you yelled at them, but you knew you weren’t just looking for an excuse, but an apology. Tears silently streamed down, then you heard your dorm door bell ring. You silently got up before looking at the bottom of your door. Only two shadows stood on the other side of it.

“Don’t go in there. The hurricane hasn’t cleared yet.” That was Kuroo’s voice.

“I’m still going in.”

“Good luck.” Kuroo said as he walked away, then your door opened.

Closing the door behind him, Nishinoya called out to you. “Y/n?”

“I’m on my bed...” You mumbled with a sob.

Following your voice, Nishinoya makes it to the bed and reaches out for you. You take his arm and immediately, warmth flows from him to you.

“It’s so dark in here, give me a second and stay here.” He then gets up, but you take his sleeve.

“No...please...please just stay here...with me...” Your voice cracked.

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to turn in your fairy lights.” His reassuring voice is like music to your ears.

You nod before letting him go. Even in the dark, you saw a small silhouette of Noya turn on your fairy lights. As soon as the lights were on, they were too bright for your eyes, so you hid your eyes with your sleeves. Then you began to hear some kind of shuffling and peaked and saw Nishinoya getting out a very fluffy blanket.

“Here.” You were about to take the blanket, but he pulled it to his chest. “Wait just a sec.”

You blinked at him, as he threw your hood off your head and cleared your face from your hair. A smile appeared on his face. “Much better!” He then wraps you with the blanket and you shivered. “Still cold?” Moving closer, you feel his warm arms around your body. You felt like melting.

You enjoyed the warmth, and even dug your nose in his arms.

Coming close to your ear, he asks. “Feeling better?” You could feel his breathe on your skin and you nod.

He pulls away giving you a smile you couldn’t help return. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

A was a few minutes before you began to speak again. “I’m sorry for causing you and everyone else so much trouble. I didn’t even like my parents that much and I’m like this. I’m so sorry...” You looked down.

“Don’t worry about it. It was our decision to worry for you in the first place. Besides I don’t think you should be apologizing to me.” A soft grin appeared on his face and you lightly sigh with a nod.

“I guess you’re right...” Your eyes dropped, however, Noya forced them back on him.

“We both know, I am right.”

You nod again with foggy eyes. Noya’s voice snaps you back to reality. “I’ll give you some time. When you’re ready, we’ll be out in the living room.”

With that, he left.

You stared at your hands as your clouded mind was fixed on one thing.

How to apologizes to both Kuroo and Kai. You knew you fucked up when you yelled at them, yet you still did what you did. Shutting your eyes, you curled up in a ball and tugged on Noya’s blanket.

What do I do...?

...I need to get the hell up...

You forced yourself off the bed and you saw yourself in mirror across from your bed.

I need to get up and ready. I need to apologize to them.

With those words clouding your mind, you jumped off the bed not caring about your skin shivering. You turned on your lights and began to get the hell ready.

Being done, you looked at yourself in the mirror and smiled sweetly to yourself.

I’m back in business.

You were about to leave before spotting Noya’s bag on your blankt-less bed.

You threw your blankets in your laundry bin along with your pillow cases, since they were problem drenched in tears, then you picked up Noya’s bag and everything in it fell.

Beautiful-

You began to put everything back together before spotting something, it was a small present box.

What is this?

You examine it very carefully. The present had a beautiful baby blue ribbon and the box was white, so much that you could tell no one touched it or smudged it with dirt.

I know I shouldn’t be looking, heck, I shouldn’t be touching this, but who is it too?

You couldn’t find the tag that said who it was for and from, so instead of opening it, you placed it inside his bag. You put in his phone, which turned on since it noticed a face next to it. When it turned on, you noticed his wallpaper was him diving for a volleyball near a line. Just seeing a picture like that made you mesmerized.

I didn’t know he played volleyball...huh...

You placed that in his bag before getting the last thing he brought, which was the very fluffy blanket. Without even knowing, you subconsciously cuddled with it before shoving that in the bag.

With your mind clear from being depressed, a soft smile appeared on your face. You grabbed Noya’s bag and began to walk outside your room. Before you grabbed the doorknob, your very skin was shaking with fear.

What if they don’t accept me? What if Kuroo is still mad at me? What if Kai can’t look at me the same way she did when we were in junior high school?

You shook your head before slapping your cheeks. A determined face, and a hopefully mind.

They will and I know it.

You opened your room door and turned to the left and you saw everyone. You walked down the hall and shyly looked at them with a wave of your hand.

“Hello everyone...”

Your eyes met Kuroo’s and you knew it was your only chance to apologize to him and Kai. “I’m sorry, Kuroo.” Then it met Kai’s. “I’m sorry, Kai. Please forgive me. I truly didn’t meant to hurt either of your feelings. I know our friendship can’t be fixed the same way it was when we started living together, however, I’ll do whatever it takes to collect the broken pieces and put it back together.”

Kuroo began to grin. “Heh, I guess the shorty found my friend after all. Your forgiven y/n. However! You can make it up to me by beating Kenma in this damn game!”

Everyone started to laugh and a soft smile formed on your face. You walked over and saw them play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Kenma seemed to have the most kill wins with Kuroo two points away.

“What are you doing standing there! Get a controller!” Bokuto grinned cheekily.

You chuckled nervously. “Ya ya...I’m not sure if I’ll be good though. I mean, I played a few Smash games with Noah, and sure I won some, however, I’m not the greatest and I’m kinda rusty.”

“We don’t know that until we fight!” Bokuto replied.

You took the last controller and sat next to Kai. You felt goosebumps run a shiver around your arm, but Kai rubbed your shoulder.

“You were always a freeze baby back then! Need a blanket?” She teased.

You shook your head. “Nope! But you might after I beat you.” Kai laughed as she lightly punched your shoulder. You laughed with her.

The boys, mainly Bokuto and Kuroo, laughed and bragged about saying that they are going to win. You never liked showing off, however, winning a few games and proving them wrong was something that was always up for grabs.

Fun Facts!

❥ After playing Smash, Kenma was given first place with 62 kills, y/n in second with 58, and Kuroo in third with 55 kills

❥ After playing, y/n made cookies for everyone to eat, with the help of Bokuto and Kailee. Everyone practically drowned in the sugar of the cookies

❥ Kailee forced everyone to give each other their contacts. This includes, Twitter and Messages. Except, Kenma didn’t comply which made Kai pout and annoy him for it. He didn’t like it

Previous | Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Next

Taglist: @chibishae34

❥ Author’s Notes: Haha! Finally finished it! 🤪 Sorry it took so long, I had to rewrite it like five times in one week and the arguement with Kuroo was making me angry so I took, you know, a month to not write and cleaned my profile up. Anyways, hope you enjoyed and now that I have Social Maker and Social Dummy, expect a few new things for the next chapter 😌

[missmentelle]

How to Tell if You Grew Up in a Toxic Household

Most of us have a pretty solid handle on what child abuse looks like. If your parents hit you, starved you, or were sexually inappropriate toward you, it’s relatively easy to figure out that you grew up in a toxic environment. But not all toxic environments are obvious. It��s possible to grow up in a violence-free, middle-class environment, and still have experienced toxic parenting that haunts you into adulthood.  For instance: - Your parents treated you like their therapist, and burdened you with adult problems. Children are not emotionally equipped to handle situations like a parent’s suspected infidelity, family financial problems or a parent’s own experience of abuse; they haven’t developed the emotional tools to cope with these situations, and they aren’t in a position to do much more than panic. In healthy families, parents shield their children from information that they aren’t ready to handle, and they find ways to deal with their own emotional problems that don’t involve burdening their children. If one or more parent turned you into their emotional sounding board from a young age, giving you details about their sex life, emotional life, financial situation, addiction, or any other information that you weren’t prepared to handle, that was inappropriate and probably toxic. 

- You were forced to lie to cover up problems at home. Your parents expressly forbid you from talking about family problems with outsiders, or coached you on what you should say. An incarcerated family member was “travelling”, an addicted parent “just works too much”, a mentally ill parent is “totally fine”. Everything was about appearances, and any distress you might have been experiencing about your home life was pushed aside in the interest of presenting as a happy, stable family. This robs children of the opportunity to get help, or even learn how to express their pain. Even as an adult, you are probably secretive for no reason, and feel panicked at the thought of someone finding out your life isn’t perfect. 

- You were given zero privacy. Children need privacy, and that need for privacy increases every year as they get older. Toxic parents do not respect this. These parents enter without knocking, demand access to all devices, read diaries, rifle through possessions when you’re not home, and scrutinize all monetary spending. They go far above and beyond reasonable monitoring for safety reasons - they question and force you to justify everything you do. They demand to know what you meant when you texted your friend the other day, they want to know why you wasted $5 on junk food last week, they insist that you should have no problem keeping your door open at all times if you have nothing to hide. This behaviour often continues into your adult life - they demand unrestricted access to your apartment after you move out, and will accuse you of having something to hide if you refuse. 

- All gifts and favours came with strings attached. Your parents would often offer you some gift or favour - often something that you didn’t even want - and insisted that you accept it. And once you’d accepted it, they would hold it over your head forever. Your dad offers you his old car that you have nowhere to park, and is in need of costly repairs. If you try to refuse, he sulks, calls you ungrateful, and insists that you never let him do anything nice for you. But for months or years after you do take the car, anytime you displease him or refuse one of his ridiculous demands, he hits you with “I was kind enough to give you a car, and this is the thanks I get??”. Your parents do not view gifts as kind gestures or ways to show their live - they view them as tools to keep you trapped and indebted to them.

- Everything was about them. If you get sick, it’s inconvenient for them, because now they have to rearrange their schedule to take you to the doctor, and it’s stressful for them to have a sick child. If you get bullied at school, it’s embarrassing for them to have to deal with the situation. If you get into your dream college, it’s stressful for them to have to think about paying for it, even if you’re paying for it yourself. Every event in your life is framed around your parent and the impact that it will have on their life - your emotions are never considered or given centre stage. You are frequently in a position of having to comfort your parents, even when the thing they are upset about is actually happening to you. You are constantly made to feel selfish for wanting your own life to actually be about you. 

- You were called childish and immature, but actively prevented from growing up. Your parents implied that there was something wrong with you because you were single, but expressly forbid you from dating, even in your late teens and early 20s. They constantly threatened to kick you out for not following their rules, but did everything they could to prevent you from actually moving out. They called you lazy, but did not allow you to get a part-time job. They wanted you to be “mommy and daddy’s little kid” forever, even if it meant actively sabotaging you or forbidding you from reaching important milestones. They want you at home with them, but they will constantly complain about the “burden” of providing for you, and remind you that everything in the house is theirs. It’s an elaborate mind-game to keep you dependent and obedient, and it’s unbelievably toxic.  - They made decisions for you, and blamed you when those decisions ended poorly. They forced you to go to a local community college instead of going away to university, and now they ridicule you for having a “crappy” education. They forbid you from dating into your early 20s, and now they demand to know why you aren’t getting engaged at age 25 like all their friends’ kids. They chose your career path, extracurriculars and sports for you, and they demand to know why you aren’t excelling at those things. You are never allowed to make your own decisions, but you are held 100% responsible for the outcome of decisions that are made for you - your parents refuse to acknowledge any role that they might have played, and may insist that you had complete free will to make your own decisions, even when you didn’t.  - Your parents only cared about how your success makes them look, and anything less than perfection was an embarrassment. Your parents don’t care if you find your job, marriage or achievements personally fulfilling. They care only about taking credit for your success, looking better than their friends, family and neighbors, and benefiting financially from your status in life. You are never warmly or genuinely congratulated for doing well - perfection is expected, and you are punished for delivering anything less. Even if your parents publicly boast about your accomplishments, in private, they compare you to other people your age who they view as more successful, and demand to know why you can’t be more like them. They might demand that you support them financially, and imply that you owe them for all the money they spent raising you. 

- They constantly prodded at your insecurities, and made fun of you if you got upset or tried to improve yourself. Toxic parents will latch on to one or more areas that their child is insecure about - usually their appearance or weight, but sometimes their intelligence, talent, or athleticism - and constantly poke fun at them, often in public. If the child gets upset, they are told that they “have no sense of humour”, and they are blamed for getting upset, rather than the parent taking blame for saying something shitty. You are expected to laugh along when your failures are used as family entertainment - when your parent points to you and says “look at this chubby one, going back for seconds” or “the great artist of the family, couldn’t even get into art school”, you are treated like the unreasonable one for being emotionally crushed. If you try to improve on whatever area they are criticizing - by losing weight, improving your grades, etc - they treat you like you’re overreacting, and actively try to stop you. They need you to stay insecure so they always have a sore spot to poke at. 

- Your parents insisted that you trust them with your secrets, and then violated your trust. If you refused to tell your parents the details of what was going on your life, they would get upset, accusing you of hiding something or acting wounded that you didn’t trust them. If you were upset, they might even present themselves as a concerned parent and safe space, encouraging you to open up. Once you had, though, your parents would air your dirty laundry to the entire world, no matter how much you begged them not to. The details of your humiliating breakup would be shared among the entire family, your embarrassing medical issues would be openly discussed in front of others at the dinner table, and your secrets would be casually told to your friends whenever they came over. But no matter how often this happened, you weren’t allowed to stop trusting your parents - they would whip out their anger or feigned hurt, and start the process all over again.

- You were told that normal, healthy parenting was “soft” or “abnormal”, and that your parents’ toxic habits would make you stronger. Even if you noticed that your friends seemed to be treated better than you, your parents constantly drilled it into your head that their harsh parenting methods were somehow beneficial to you, and that you should be grateful for them. Your parents sneered at the idea of encouragement or unconditional love and pointed out your friends’ flaws, or insisted that those parenting methods wouldn’t work on you. If you come from an immigrant family, they might have insisted that toxic parenting was part of your culture, and that healthy parenting was an “American” thing. You might even have found yourself defending your parents when your friends expressed concern over the way they treat you.  Toxic families are different, and even one or two of these traits is enough to have a profound emotional impact on you that carries long into adulthood. Your parents aren’t automatically “good” parents just because they fed you and refrained from beating you - if you grew up in a toxic household, you have the right to be upset about that, even if other children had it “worse”. Acknowledging that your upbringing was not healthy or normal is usually the first step in breaking away from a toxic family, and deciding to get help for any long-term effects you may be experiencing. 

[silenthillmutual]

I don't know if you're the right person to tell this to but I think my mom's emotionally abusive. She gets mad whenever I get upset at her and gaslights me(probably??) whenever I call her out. I tried to tell her that she never apologized for hurting my feelings and she responded with, "I don't have to apologize to you" and it just made me feel worse. My family's Christian and all but I'm scared to tell the pastor(or anyone) because I don't want her to get mad at me. Do you have any advice?

I guess I’m a decent source for that, and I’ve got enough spoons today to answer this! 

I’ll be honest with you, a parent reacting with anger whenever you get upset with them is never a good sign. The “I don’t have to apologize to you” response is definitely emotionally abusive, especially if it’s not a reaction in a vacuum; anything as an isolated incident is understandable since we all make mistakes, but this doesn’t sound like a one-off thing. 

I had a couple of friends help me through being gaslit myself; here are a few articles on the topic, all of which are pretty brief:

Were You Born Under the Gaslight?

11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting

a resource post from r/RaisedByNarcissists

I’m not a psychologist in any capacity, but having been through it myself and having sat down and watched a film adaptation from where the term hails, here’s a sort of brief rundown of some things gaslighters will do to their victims:

making attempts to isolate you (from friends, from family members, etc; ex, excessive monitoring of your communications with friends to the point of taking your phone or computer so you can’t contact them, although this may be done subtly)

telling you that you have traits or attributes that do not feel or sound like things you do (ex, telling you that you are “forgetful” or “tend to lose things” even when you are not a forgetful person)

accusing you of lying, whether directly or indirectly (ex. asking, “what did you do with x thing?”, not believing you when you say you haven’t seen it; then when you find it, saying something to the effect of, “so you did know where it was”)

saying things with emotion and then denying there is any emotion behind their words (ex. if they say something to you in an angry way and when you say, “don’t be angry,” they say, “i’m not angry” and look at you like you’re crazy)

making you look bad in front of others (this can be making you look like a jerk, making you look inconsiderate, making you look foolish, like a buzzkill, etc.)

taking on a tone to imply that you are scaring them, even when you have not done or said anything out of the ordinary (if you’re thinking to yourself, “i didn’t even have any emotion behind this, i didn’t even sound angry” and they’re reacting like they’re afraid you’re going to hit you? that’s gaslighting)

whiplash mood swings and honeymooning - quickly going from being angry at you to putting on a convincing happy act in front of others; “honeymooning” is when, after a period of abuse, they start to act really nice and considerate towards you, making you think that they’ve changed, or maybe they do one really nice thing for you as a way to “make up” for their behavior (this never lasts, don’t buy it.)

turning themselves into the victim of every situation (guilt tripping you, especially in situations where you are telling them that they have hurt you. parents really love this one; it’s the “oh so i’m a horrible parent” comeback to any time you’ve ever said “this really hurt my feelings”)

infantalizing you (another parental favorite)

upsetting you in public, covertly, so that only you are aware of what they have said/done

threatening you with institutionalization

Another big one that I don’t think I mentioned here because it’s not one that came up in the film is outright denying that something ever happened. We tend to assume that’s something we’d be able to catch outright, but the truth of the matter is that their lies start out small and they do all of these things above & more for the sake of putting you off balance and confusing you so that by the time their lies get to the level of things you should be able to look at and say plainly, “that’s not true,” you’ve gotten to the point where you feel like you can’t trust your own memory or judgement of things. 

I’ll give a couple examples because the list of potential things they could lie about goes between fairly small stuff to extreme stuff:

my mother claimed once that she was never on her phone during dinner

my mother claiming she’d never seen movies that not only did i remember her commentary on, but i’m pretty sure one of them we actually saw in theatres

her claiming i’d never told her things that i most definitely had told her before

combined with that one: lying about the last time we’d had contact; right before i cut off all contact with her i was able to actually screenshot the dates and times of the last time we’d spoken and send them to her

lying about actual historical facts; in my mother’s case: refusing to acknowledge that ABA had, since its inception, used aversives and was abusive in practices, was the foundation of the conversion therapy movement. i sent her screenshot and link proofs of this as well and she did not appreciate it

she also claimed that she never threatened to kick me out of the house and claimed that i promised her i would start therapy before starting HRT - neither of which are accurate or even remotely believable (you really think i’d up and move w two weeks notice halfway across the country if i hadn’t been kicked out? i have to laugh.)

Another one that did not really get shown well in the film but that I believe i’ve read somewhere and have personal experience with, is that they like to keep you traumatized. It keeps you in a state of like... uncertainty, I guess you could say. It keeps you from feeling completely lucid or in control of things, and more likely to need help and depend on them for continued support. They may also be likely to mess with your head in other ways, like with the use of drugs - and I don’t just mean illegal ones; parents who have control over your medication and make sure you take it do have to potential to keep you up on medications you don’t actually need as a method of control. (Both of these can actually be seen in use in the film Midsommar w/ the suicide ritual being a method of continued trauma and the constant drug use being...obvious. I’m sure it gets used in other places too but that was the first one to come to mind, and Aster does a really good job of showing how effective that shit is.)

I don’t really know what other religions rules are like when it comes to confidentiality. I was raised Catholic, and there was a certain understanding about priests and ethics that pretty much went that unless you had a warrant (and on top of that, a damn good reason; iirc there have been plenty who don’t even testify under oath) they weren’t to tell anyone what you told them in confidence. If you know anything about their ethics regarding that or even feel that you can ask them safely about it, it could be a good place to start if you feel that church community is one where you feel safe. 

The biggest roadblock tbh is age and...idk how else to put this other than status? If you’re a minor there is, unfortunately, not a lot you can do to get away from her or get her to stop - especially if you’re in a situation where she’s really your only parent. Which is sort of what I meant by status; do you have another parent or step-parent, sibling, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc  you feel you could talk to about it? 

I really wish I could recommend school guidance counselors, but I’m not altogether sure they’re equipped with the right materials to help you out there. That being said, if you have a family member that you can trust to help you find a therapist outside of school, that would also be a really good resource; whether you’re an adult still living within that contact or a minor who can’t get away at the moment, a therapist can help you come up with some coping techniques to deal with it until you can safely get away. I’d suggest looking for one who specializes in trauma or in PTSD, esp if they have c-PTSD listed (the ‘c’ is for complex, which is a proposed addition(??) to PTSD that would separate a singular traumatic event from an ongoing traumatic situation like living in war zones, being a POW, domestic violence, etc). PsychologyToday has a search function for finding accredited therapists in your area that should list their specialties, credentials, and insurance plans they take. (And if you’re asked why you need one, honestly, extrapolate on a minor issue. Like tbh you could just say body image issues.) Therapists are bound by license-revoking ethics not to tell anyone what you discuss in therapy unless you are going to hurt yourself or someone else.

[If you feel you’re being monitored too closely at home and don’t have a way to get this information at school, I suggest asking a reference librarian to help you out. A lot of public libraries will have community resource information, and if they don’t have flyers or brochures out, reference librarians’ entire jobs are to help you access information whether that’s in the library or in the community! That’s why I work in LIS, lol.]

Other than that the two big pieces of advice I have are:

Build up a support network outside your family. If you feel you can’t trust them with this, or even if you’re worried about putting them in the middle of a difficult situation - and even if those aren’t concerns for you - it’s always good to have a support network that isn’t connected to the situation in some way. Most of my support network came from friends, a bulk of whom I knew from online, and from coworkers. The first person to tell me I was being gaslit was actually a coworker, who I talked to when I got kicked out and was shaken up about it. I had a p good relationship w my boss and all my coworkers there, so when I had to put in my two weeks’ notice I actually got an offer to stay with my boss in the event that the situation escalated, and also knew I could go and stay with my one of my best friends with their grandad, or their sister. In fact, right when that happened, my friends already had a kind of escape plan half-formed because things had just kind of been getting worse, and for almost a year now I’ve been living with my other best friend. Even if things never get to the point of you having to leave the house, just having people that you can rely on who will be on your side entirely is crucial to dealing with that kind of stress.

If you think or feel you may be getting gaslit - even if you’re thinking to yourself that you’re just blowing things out of proportion or that it’s “not that bad” (a lot of us go through that) - start keeping a journal of things your mother says to you. You don’t have to show anyone. Just keep it for yourself. It doesn’t even have to be anything important; like I said earlier, it can be as simple as off-handed comments about movies you’ve watched or appointments you’ve made or what have you. Write them down when they happen, date them, and then when she says something that you feel contradicts what you’ve already heard - you can fact-check it. You can also do this with screenshots if it’s over text or something, and if you think you can get away with secretly recording her on your phone that might help too. I don’t recommend telling her you’re doing this or pointing out when she’s been lying; in the event she doesn’t outright deny it she could flip it around to make herself the victim or spiral out of control and get worse - this is just for your peace of mind. The goal of gaslighting, to quote the movie, is to “systematically [drive] you out of your mind”. This would just be a way to reassure yourself that you’re not making it up, you didn’t forget, you’re not blowing things out of proportion. 

If you need anything more specific, feel free to let me know! I’m so sorry you’re going through this, it really just fucking sucks. But I believe you can make it! And there is an it - there’s an out, even if it’s hard to get to or takes long. 

[horizon-verizon]

Oh, and of course, Cersei actually admired the Targs (the incest practicers) to maybe idolize and had a huge crush on Rhaegar. Or rather the yearning for what could have been if she married him, concerning his status as the heir apparent and her life as his soon-to-be queen consort instead of being Robert's. She drew them together on dragonback as a girl and wanted to be Rhaegar's wife to become his Queen Consort. If she married Rhaegar, I'd like to know if anon truly believes Cersei would not have done what Alicent did and married her kids w/Rhaegar together, esp since like Alicent, having ultimate and long-lasting rank and power is her ultimate aspiration?

She values blood purity to the extent of it assuring her & her children's grip on their positions hypocritically and ruthlessly (killing Robert's bastards). How do we get that power or secure it in the family, how will she can she assure that her kids have the "purest" possible Targ/dragonrider-legacy blood? Marry them together, let them have incest babies.

She decides to fuck her own twin brother and have THREE of his bastard kids. Yes, she does this to gain power, comfort, & some dignity back that her abusive husband strips from her, she trusts Jaime the most, and she sees him as her "perfect" male self, the embodiment of what she longs to be after years of gendered abuse & barriers to power societal regard or respect. At the same time, she could have cultivated a nonincestuous & trusting relationship...but she willingly chose not to and her reasons are not pure. Incest was never a true issue for Cersei when it came to her own needs. And she doesn't actually care about being devout, as we saw with her and the Sparrow.

Plus, her own parents were first cousins. Incest is EVERYWHERE in ASoIaF, it is part of several cultures' customs. Anon is ridiculous to think Cersei is some perfect exception to this.

.............................................................................................

Show!Rhaenyra believed assuaging Alicent by giving her daughter the means to become the next Queen Consort was the way to establish peace b/t their factions. Especially since she knows Otto wants someone of his blood on the throne, and through Helaena-Jace, that would have happened. But of course, show!Alicent's aim is not long-term glory or success for her house like in the original canon but to take Rhaenyra down several pegs as both "revenge" and envy-fear of her being able to have power without facing the same exact sort of abuses Alicent herself suffers and Alicent not receiving the "rewards" from those abuses of her person.

Some would argue that show!Alicent's pushing her son to be king is the same ambition AND act as bk!Alicent's pushing/working for bk!Aegon to be king. And certainly, we can presume that bk!Alicent:

would feel that marrying her legitimate daughter who she names a bastard was degrading "morally" as well as harmful politically for her own & Helaena's prospects (really just her own, bc she wants Aegon to be king)

was a traditionalist, devout of the Faith and Andal patriarchal ideals

felt envious of bk!Rhaenyra for having all this wealth, admiration, and status, seeing as Alicent herself is an ambitious woman

...but that there is the difference!

Bk!Alicent's aim was always to come out on top before she married Viserys. It's why she marries Viserys, there is no pimping her out or anything. Bk!Alicent never tried to defend Rhaenyra by saying she'd be a good queen, as show!Alicent does in epi 3. So if Show!Rhaenyra had offered to marry Helaena-Jace to bk!Alicent, it would not be because bk!Alicent partially feels Rhaenyra betrayed her and she thinks her kids should not be associated or tied to a woman who has no respect for a friend and her travails. It would be because she believes her son is the rightful king just because he is a boy and Rhaenyra offering this deal would make her think of Rhaenyra as both dumb (as it would be obvious that Alicent would never even contemplate it, with how open she was in hating Rhaenyra & her sons) & suspicious.

At least, Cersei is the one to refuse to go public with their incestous relationship and isn’t out there proposing to marry Myrcella to Tommen, unlike Saint Jaime who call his sister ‘queen of whores’, treat her as his property, and victim-blame her (I tell you, he [Robert] loves me not/And whose fault is that, sweet sister ?), and never spare a thought for Tysha (or Bran for that matter), but thats normal, its because he’s a feminist and teenage girl-coded. No wonder he has some sympathy for Criston Cole, lmao. Do people genuinely believes Jaime is a victim of patriarchy and that his gender doesn’t favor him over Cersei ?? Insane. Can’t wait for him to die. It’s 2023, Jaime isn’t Adam and Cersei isn’t Eve, dude is a misogynistic, racist and hyperprivileged white man and his father’s golden boy. Funny how you all talk like Green/Criston’s stans when it comes to Cersei and Jaime.

*EDITED POST* (9/21/23)

Probably from this recent post that itself has 3 links to other posts where I talk about Cersei as a character.

Um...when did I ever either imply or directly say that Jaime was "a victim of patriarchy and that his gender doesn’t favor him over Cersei"? Or express that he was better than his sister, morally? Or express that Cersei deserved to die more than he did?

Perhaps you have that impression because I never talked about Jaime exclusively once, or you're just going off of what you recently read and horribly misinterpreted the purpose and argument of that post. If the latter, I advise you to reread. If the first, I don't write about Jaime much simply because he doesn't interest me as much as Cersei or Tyrion, no one asked me my thoughts about him, and I'm not thinking of him apart from his relationship with Cersei or Tyrion. His knighthood and masculinity are...not "easy", but direct enough for me to not dwell as much as his other siblings' issues. (look to this post by blankwhiteshield about Jaime) I generally care more about women, children, and other marginalized people in fiction, even when I do sympathize with some white cis straight men some of the time.

I mean pre-Brienne Jaime. That's just how GRRm wrote his arc.

For me, blankwhiteshield's posts about Jaime HERE and HERE both suffice to give me a picture of who Jaime is bc they fill in some blanks I had in my pre-existing assessment of Jaime. Which actually wasn't favorable, anon. I find Jaime to actually be very annoying, and no, I do not think that he is Cersei's victim. He is deluded in some ways as much as her and is not a good person because of the abuse and emotional neglect they all get from Tywin/Westerosi society. I actually should have, since again, there were blanks. You can take a look at those links as well.

Look, Cersei is evil & abusive AS WELL AS a victim of domestic abuse woman & of misogyny since childhood. These are not mutually exclusive nor does it NOT mean that her domestic abuse only and directly caused her power-hungriness and need to control if not every, most aspect of her life and those she sees will help her get or maintain control and a good image of herself. Neither the abuse nor misogyny against her erases the fact that she develops hatred towards women, going so far as to violently and sexually objectify them like w/Taena. (Her using what she's observed men do to affirm power and copying it). Or that she pinched her baby brother's penis at a very young age, showing her classist and blase willingness to target children/one of the most vulnerable groups for her own sense of control over her husband, family, etc., and political power. She is also very willing to sacrifice/risk the entire city for her own control of power, similar to Aerys II. Cersei is complicated and there is nuance to her character, but she is unmistakably evil simultaneously. What I like about her or what I find compelling about her (if you haven't read the post about it) is that I can understand her motivations, and relate in some ways, and from practically babyhood she's been trying to be essentially "good enough" and perfect through external, social values of competency BUT also as someone has said: her need for perfection and power and total love comes across as pure in its own sort of twisted way. Her emotions are so intense and uncontrolled and she remains totally unaware of her loneliness that she comes across as childlike.

I also find it very funny how you're criticizing show!Rhaenyra for wanting to marry Jace to Helaena (I presume, you don't specify but that is the closest betrothal to the one you make b/t Myrcella and Tommen) when you say: "At least, Cersei is the one to refuse to go public with their incestous relationship and isn’t out there proposing to marry Myrcella to Tommen". Because while this would have done nothing to assuage Alicent--which was what Rhaenyra was trying to do--it was also not that bad of a deal for Helaena or Jace themselves. I personally dislike it bc, again, we're erasing Rhaenyra's relationship w/Laena and how she ever made it so that Jace married Laena's daughter...but I digress. OR you probably were referring to Jaime expressing the desire to go public with their relationship, that conversation? Again, what does this have to do with my argument in the post I recently posted and that I assume you're responding to?

[pettishrew]

P E T E R   P E T T I G R E W   B A C K G R O U N D

BASICS:

Name: Peter Thomas Pettigrew Age: Twenty Birthday: August 22nd Job: Obliviator w/ the Department of Magical Accident and Catastrophes House: Gryffindor 

PERSONALITY: 

+ forgiving, analytical, easy-going, optimistic    - forgiving - peter is the type of person that could be stepped one over and over again and he would forgive the person. It would be easy to say he would be bullied had it not been for the rest of the boys, but he probably wouldn’t have even considered it like that. He is so used to being the butt of the joke, or the scapegoat for a situation that he has grown very complicate and even willing falls into that role. This often makes him the best suited to be the mediator to some of the more temperamental discussions between them all.      -  analytical - although described my McGonagall as someone who was not as talented, smart, nor-popular as James and Sirius, Peter is extremely analytical. He likes to think through a situation before acting and being able to weigh and consider the various outcomes. This doesn’t mean that he is unwilling to go into risky situations, because he definitely is, but he likes to know what he stands to lose if things go sour. The world to him is a very large list of pros and cons, he is just ultimately deciding how the chips fall.     - easy-going - as personalities go Peter provides a nice contrast to the rest of the boy because he tends to go with the flow, more excited to be included than opinionated on what they should do. He tends not to harbor a lot of stress and is very passive when it comes to a variety of topics. This makes him easy to be around, and sometimes he provides more of a wall for people to talk at than someone who is actively apart of the conversation. This makes him a stellar listener and someone to confide in.      - optimistic - generally his outlook on the world leans toward the side of optimism, he likes to assure people that things are going to be all right even if it does not distinctly look like it’s going to actually be that way. This is also part of the reason he seemed to get low marks in classes because he was optimistic about the outcomes without always putting in the effort or work to receive a higher one. Overall his optimism is often a welcome change in a world that seems to be getting bleaker by the day. Just because his words are optimistic though doesn’t mean he wholeheartedly believes them. He would just rather lie to placate someone than strike fear in them.  -  fearful, cunning, indecisive, meek    - fearful - peter’s main motivation in life has always been fear. It began when he was younger with his parents and has continued onto his adult life. War, in particular, makes people do things based out of fear, and Peter is not exempt. Him joining the Order in some blind faith act in his friends, in this lie that Gryffindor’s are always brave, and that they are going to win this. He is fearful of what they would think of him if he declines. He is fearful of a future in which he fights and dies. He is fearful of what happens if he lives.  And most of all, his boggart even, has shown that his greatest fear is Lord Voldemort. He is plagued with the unending sense of doom that looms around them, and how inescapable it truly is.      - cunning - peter pettigrew is a head shorter than Sirius their fourth year, and chubbier than him too according to Harry’s flashback. He is literally and figuratively looked over, not just by his friends, but by his enemies too. There is something about him, perhaps it’s his demeanor, that allows people to discredit his malicious intentions and motivations. It allows him to be cunning ( he was a hat stall between Slytherin and Gryffindor after all ) and uses that to his advantage. He was not some bumbling idiot that his memory would like to paint him, but he was smart and used to advance himself, even if it was to the detriment of his friends.        - indecisive - to the annoyance of many of his friends it often takes Peter a long time to make any sort of decision. He is more easily swayed if he his prodded by someone else who has a stronger opinion and this is mostly due to how analytical he likes to be. There are very few things in life had has decided for himself without the proper time to actually consider everything,       - meek - due to his fearful nature the boy tends to not be as outspoken as some of his other counterparts. He leans toward the meeker side and this often means that people who only interact with him in passing do not get to know who Peter actually is, or what would motivate him. This also contributes to why people are able to write him off so quickly despite his obvious talents for not only being supportive but also logical about his actions.  

BIOGRAPHY: ( it’s not the trigger list but the bio has some emotional abuse aspects )

     The Pettigrew Family is not one of any status. Poor Enid Pettigrew fell in love with muggle-born wizard Sean Morivan when they were freshly out of school themselves. Throughout their school careers, they did not accomplish anything worth noting, and this mediocrity continued onto their adult lives. They were distinctly middle class and never strived to provide above their means for their life. They saved where they could, spent minimally, and ultimately were on track to lead a quiet life. That was until Enid realized that she was pregnant, which was not in their life plan, but she had Peter anyway.  It was tight on their budget and it was going to make their lives more difficult, but Enid loved the boy so much even before he was born that there was no contest.        He was particularly close with his mother, but even in his youth, he could tell that there was a coldness from his father that he could not place. Peter tried his best to be just like his father, whether it was in intention or walking stance, his Father was the type of person that he wanted to grow up to be just like. However, Sean wanted less to do with him than that, he tolerated the boy but he was never nurturing. Enid tried to do the best for both of them, but she had her own shortcomings. She would leave Peter alone for long stretches of time so that he slowly learned that in order to survive he would have to care for himself. His existence was regulated to something that was better seen, but not heard, something that he adapted surprisingly well too.       Throughout his youth, his Father would comment on the boy’s weight, or demeanor. His lack of skills when it came to practical muggle things that no one had even taken the time to teach him. His words stung on such a young mind, especially from the person who he strived to emulate most. He was not the only one this fell down on though, because as Peter grew older, the arguments that came from his parents grew louder. Sean would speak poorly about Enid’s ability as a mother, or the way she cooked, it was constant in his words, whether passive or active. He was a big lumbering figure who cast a big shadow. When he got home from work Peter would often hide in the closet in his room, trying to create a reality better for himself in there.         Around his tenth birthday, a year shy of Hogwarts, his Father left out of the blue. It was mysterious and without a reason that Peter could find. Peter took on his Mother’s maiden last name as she reverted back to it and they were a small, but happier family for it. Old habits die hard though and Peter was never free from wishing that his Father would come back. Never free from thinking that he was the reason that he had left in the first place.  As the boy headed off to Hogwarts he was worried about making friends, there were fewer opportunities in his childhood to form those sorts of connections. On top of that, he was unsure about what house he felt suited him best – his Father had been in Slytherin, but his Mother had been a Hufflepuff. There was no exception for what he was supposed to be and thus wasn’t sure what to root for. Luckily after his hat stall, he found himself in a sea of red and gold, making fast friends with Sirius, James, and Remus, who were the best people he had met in his entire life.        He would have liked to think that he knew what friendship was before them, but he didn’t. They were much as a family as anything else he had and for the most part, he considered them as such. He was there to listen if they needed to rant or to help Remus study for his exams, more than anything he was happy to have a place where he felt not only safe but wanted. He had spent so much of his life with a poor opinion of himself that it was nice for the tides of change to overcome him while they were in school.  However, throughout this time there was a lot of issues that Peter dealt with in unhealthy ways throughout his time, because it allowed him to fully experience the traumatic and unhealthy nature of his childhood, in a way that he had never been able to process before in order to spare Enid’s feelings on the matter.        After Hogwarts, it hit him that perhaps throughout his time there he ought to have come up with a plan for his future. It was at the suggestion of one of the professors who had been keen enough to notice his non-verbal spell casting talents that he pursue a career with the Ministry as obliviator. It was not like he had any better plans, so that was what he pursued as the world around him began to shift. At the urging of his friends, he joined the Order – terrified – and began to be considered as someone who was apart of the resistance. In all honesty, the prospect of a war terrifies him. As he goes through the motions of weighing the pros and cons of what the outcome of his war has from him, he is beginning to be faced with the bleak realization that the odds might be stacked against them. He doesn’t dare say it aloud though, because saying it aloud makes it real and it’s better for now that it say a thought experiment. 

HEADCANONS:

H1: Peter has always craved attention. There was always something about him that allowed him to naturally blend into the background. Overlooked, and undervalued, he found himself begging for his parent's attention, begging for the positive attention of an adult.  Enid tried her best and probably came closest to that, but everyone else seemed to pass him by. McGonagall undervalues him, pinning him as a bumbling idiot before he can even display talent. His friends are a beacon, but they are also a metric to which he can be compared. He’s not as charming as James, or a smart as Remus, or as cool as Sirius. Peter is always compared to all the nots that comprise him, instead of the positives. Even if someone else doesn’t do it Peter will do it for himself. 

H2: Peter truly enjoys his animagus form. Most people would have been disappointed with a rat, but it brought him a vague sense of comfort. He enjoys the fact that he is a smaller, faster animal in comparison with a larger animal. Not only is it easier to hide in dangerous situations but he likes being in smaller spaces. While most people might be unsettled and feel claustrophobic, Peter just finds it cozy. Something about the whole practice makes him feel safer. So he wouldn’t change it even if he could. 

H3: Peter isn’t often one for vices, in fact by all accounts he’s a lightweight when it comes to liquor. He does have a pesky habit of smoking cigarettes though. It is something he picked up when he got out of Hogwarts. It was a way to destress from his chaotic job at times. It’s something that he has tried to quit a couple of times, but it keeps coming back to him. With the tensions with the war rising steadily since the Curse was laid out, he’s given up on dealing with that particular vice. He is often chided by his mother about the health concerns with them. So when he’s around the company who knows him well he is more likely to hide the habit than he would otherwise. 

H4: Peter has an intense sweet tooth. Probably to the point where the attendants at Honeydukes know his name. When he was younger he collected a ton of the chocolate frog cards. He is also one that would share the wealth if there were people around him to do so. If chocolate frogs aren’t available Sugar Quills are his next favorite. 

H5: Peter often has a stutter. It’s something that happened when he’s nervous. It was really pronounced when he was a kid. His mother would often tell him to work through it and envision the word. As he got older and grew comfortable so it doesn’t happen as often anymore. However, if he’s really intently nervous it will come out for a portion of the time. He hates it and will do his best to hide it if given the option. 

[writer-dreams]

Polyjuice Potion (End) (Draco Malfoy x Reader)

Hiii! This is the final part of Polyjuice Potion!

Part 1 / Part 2

House: Slytherin

Blood Status: You choose

Warnings: Angst? Possible swearing. A bit of an abusive relationship but its only a slap. A little bit of putting yourself down.

Note: There's a lot of switching POVs in this story. I hope its not too confusing.

Word Count: 3,595 words

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Third Person POV

(Y/n) slowly walked down the halls, exhausted after a whole day’s worth of studying. She could barely keep her eyes open and she felt as though she would pass out at any moment. The sky outside was dark and blank, it seemed that the stars were afraid to come out tonight. She continued trudging her way to the Slytherin Common Room, wanting nothing more than to lay down on the soft mattress of her bed, with her boyfriend’s arms wrapped around her. Speaking of Draco, she wondered where he would be at this time. He was probably waiting for her again, waiting to complain to her about how much time she spent studying instead of being with him. (Y/n) smiled at the thought of her boyfriend, her friends may have hated him but they didn’t see what he was like when the two were alone.

She finally arrived at the Common Room, where she saw Draco sitting on one of the couches, watching the fireplace die out, its embers glowing softly. She grinned at the platinum-blonde male and decided to sneak up on him, creeping behind him before jumping out and wrapping her arms gently around his neck. She felt Draco stiffen up immediately, his whole body freezing up. Suddenly he ripped her arms off of him rather forcefully and turned around to look at her. (Y/n) looked at her boyfriend, expecting a different reaction. She had expected him to snuggle up in her arms and greet her as he usually did, not for him to aggressively remove her arms from him. Then she saw it. The tear-stained cheeks, those red, puffy eyes, those beautiful grey orbs full of hatred. He had clearly been crying, what could have happened to cause him to cry?

“D-Draco? Are you alright?” Y/n asked cautiously.

“Get your filthy hands off me, you disgusting blood-traitor!” He shouted.

“W-What?! Why are you saying this?!” Y/n could feel tears pooling in her eyes. Why had he called her something so hurtful? Why did he look at her like she was nothing but dirt under his shoe?

“Get away from me. I don’t understand how I could’ve ever loved a person like you. I regret it all. I regret us.” Draco spat.

Y/n physically took a step back, feeling the sting of his words. What had happened to the Draco she loved? What happened to the Draco who broke down all of her walls and loved the person he found behind them? What happened to the Draco who didn’t care about blood status and reputations? What had happened to her Draco? Salty tears fell from her eyes as she watched her boyfriend walk up to her slowly, raising his arms. Thinking, he was going to hug her, she closed her eyes and awaited for his arms.

“Draco….Please tell me this isn’t real. You don’t…really regret us, do you?” Y/n asked through closed eyes.

Suddenly, she heard a very audible smack sound and felt a stinging sensation on her cheek. She opened her eyes in shock to see Draco with an emotionless face and a hand raised. He had slapped her.

“It’s Malfoy to you. And yes, I regret us. I regret you. I regret ever loving you.” He said coldly, walking away, leaving a broken-hearted y/n in the common room, holding her red cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was angry, that much was obvious. He stomped down the halls, fury still raging through his blood. Y/n was an idiot. At first, he had been hurt that she had broken up with him, but then he grew angry that she had dumped him, The Slytherin Prince, for absolutely no reason. And then she shows up a few hours later and acts like they’re still together. However, through his anger, he felt a deep pit of guilt build up as he recalled Y/n’s shocked look when he had slapped her and said those horrible, horrible words. Truly, he had never meant to, he had simply acted out of anger. That didn’t stop the pit of guilt from growing, he knew it was wrong to hit her and say such spiteful insults. He knew that even though he was furious, that didn’t justify his actions. He knew he had deeply hurt her. ‘Good, now she knows how hurt I was’ his ego and pride were saying. His mind, however, kept flashing the haunting image of Y/n’s broken expression. He felt like crying, like running to her and comforting her as he used to so often. He wanted to shower her with endless apologies and compliments, he wanted to kiss her soft lips again, he wanted to hold her in her arms and offer his shoulder for her to cry on, but most of all, he wanted her love again. He sighed and ran his fingers through his blonde hair in frustration. Dammit, even when I’m furious with her, I still love her. I’m sorry, Y/n….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Y/n felt completely hollow. Her face was devoid of any emotion and her blank eyes stared up at the ceiling as she lay unmoving on her bed. She felt no motivation to get up and go to her classes today. She wanted to stay here, forever.

“Y/n! Get your ass up.” Pansy Parkinson screeched.

Still no movement came from the broken girl. Pansy sighed as she stared at her saddened friend.

“Y/n…I know it hurts but we need to go. You can’t just sit around on your ass all day just because of a boy.”

Nothing. Nothing moved nor was a sound made. Pansy knew her friend was going through a rough time but she didn’t want Y/n to miss out on classes.

“That’s it.” She grumbled. She wasn’t going to bother with this anymore. Y/n was stronger than that and she was going to get her moving, whether Y/n liked it or not. “Get out.” She said as she rolled Y/n off the bed. Y/n hit the floor gently before finally sighing and getting up.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go get ready.” Y/n groaned before heading into the bathroom.

The young Slytherin stepped into the girl’s washroom to get ready for the day, despite not planning to in the first place. Clearly, her friend had other ideas. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and saw a heartbroken girl on the glass. This girl had dark bags under her eyes, lifeless (e/c) eyes, and pale skin. It looked like a Dementor had given her their famous kiss, sucking out her soul from her body. The fading red bruise on her cheek was barely visible though it still ached if she touched it lightly. She shook her head in dejection and continued preparing herself for a whole day in Hell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The golden trio sat down at the Gryffindor table, anxiously waiting for their Slytherin friend to enter the Mess Hall. They were still feeling extremely guilty but none of them wanted to tell Y/n what they had done in fear of how she would react. Draco Malfoy was already seated at the Slytherin table, looking…..off. For once, the Slytherin Prince didn’t have a stupid smirk on his face or his ridiculous friends surrounding him. There wasn’t even a swooning Pansy Parkinson next to him. Instead, Malfoy looked broken; a deep frown set on his face, eyes that stayed glued on the wood of the table, a hunched back. He was aimlessly drawing random circles on the table with his finger. The doors to the Mess Hall opened, revealing Pansy waving goodbye to Y/n as their friend made her way to the Gryffindor table. Y/n took a seat and the trio could see how hurt she was. Her once lively eyes were empty, there were dark bags under her eyes, and there were tear-stains on her cheeks. She looked pale and she didn’t bother saying a single word to them as she silently sat down.

“Hey Y/n.” Harry greeted.

“Hi.” She answered curtly.

“Is something wrong?” Hermione asked, though they all knew exactly what was wrong.

“No. I’m fine.” Y/n replied.

Her voice sounded so….lifeless. The trio frowned at her response but they couldn’t question her further as Dumbledore decided to start his morning speech.

After a boring speech, Dumbledore clapped his hands and food appeared on the table. Ron immediately started filling his plate with eggs, waffles and a wide assortment of other food. Slowly, Harry and Hermione also reached for the food. Harry was about to take a bite into some bacon when Hermione gently nudged him and tilted her head in Y/n’s direction. He looked up and noticed Y/n just staring blankly at her empty plate.

“Y/n….you gonna eat?” Harry asked.

“Not hungry.” She said.

“You should eat.” Hermione started putting some (f/f ((Favourite Food)) on Y/n’s plate/bowl.

Y/n simply pushed away the food and got up. “I’m not feeling hungry. I…I’m just gonna go.” She mumbled before exiting the Mess Hall through the doors.

Hermione looked back at Harry, fury in her eyes, “See what we’ve done?! We’ve broken her! Does it make you feel good knowing that she is like this because of something we did?! Do you feel better knowing that we are keeping her safe by torturing her?! Do you consider yourself a better friend now?!”

Harry couldn’t even answer. He did this with good intentions but seeing Y/n now….he wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to protect Y/n or because he didn’t like the idea of one of his best friends with his worst enemy. He looked over at Malfoy, who stared off into empty space with a deep frown and dull eyes.

“Harry…we messed up, big time. We need to do something to fix this. Please. Look at how much both of them are hurting. We did this to them, now we need to do something to repair the damage.” Hermione begged.

Somewhere in his heart, Harry knew that Hermione was right. No matter how much he wanted to protect Y/n, he should never have gone through such lengths to do it.

“Fine.” He answered.

“Wait…what is that?” Hermione asked, pointing to a shiny object laying on the table.

“Looks like…Y/n’s necklace. The one Malfoy gave to her when they first started dating. She never took it off.” Harry said, “The stupid clip always fell off though. It must’ve fallen off again.”

Hermione took the necklace and put it in her pocket, an idea slowly popping into her head on how to help her friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been days since the breakup. Draco felt more and more miserable as the days passed. Currently, the breakup was affecting him more than the mark on his arm. He could handle the dark mark, but he couldn’t handle not having Y/n in his life. She was something he couldn’t just forget about or pretend didn’t exist like he did with the mark. He would mindlessly watch her as she would sit down at the Slytherin table during meals and stare at her plate. He desperately wanted to go over to her and wrap his arms around her, to convince her to eat. Granted, he hadn’t really eaten either however, Draco couldn’t be bothered to think about that. His mind had been too focused on Y/n. Overhead, he heard the loud screeching of owls, signaling that mail had arrived. His owl swooped down to him with a small package in its talons and a letter in its beak. He gently took the items from the bird before it took off to the owlery. He opened the letter first and read the messy handwriting on the paper;

Malfoy,

I know what happened with Y/n. I know that she broke up with you and returned hours later acting like she was still your girlfriend. Acting like…she never knew she broke up with you.

Draco was confused. How could this person have known that? He shook his head and decided to continue reading.

In anger, you insulted her and deeply hurt her. Now...she’s suffering and so are you. Don’t try to deny that you don’t miss her or don’t love her because you know that you’re only lying to yourself.

I wrote this letter because I want to help the two of you. It may seem odd that a random stranger would want to help you but I’ve seen the way you two loved each other and I don’t think something like that should be so easily extinguished. I’m not gonna say who I am nor am I going to meet you in person, I’m just here to offer some advice.

Y/n is a wonderful girl. You don’t find a lot of people like her and you managed to form a strong relationship with her. Love as strong as that shouldn’t be thrown away. Y/n loves you. I know that she was the one to break up with you but I want to say that Y/n is someone who is gentle and has a big heart. She wouldn’t just break up with someone she loves without an explanation. I’m advising that you go talk to her and find out what happened that night. Perhaps you jumped to conclusions. Also, give her the thing in the package, she’ll appreciate it.

Anonymous.

Draco raised his brows in suspicion as the letter ended. This person seemed to oddly know a lot about what happened that terrible night. Nevertheless, they had provided him with some sort of help that he could use to fix his relationship. He opened the small package to reveal the necklace he had first given Y/n when they had started dating. She never took it off, so if it’s off... He didn’t even want to think about it that way. He thought over the letter and this so-called “Anonymous’” advice. Perhaps this person was right, Y/n did seem confused when he was angry with her.

“It’s worth a shot. Not like it can get worse than this.” He told himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had found Y/n at the Astronomy Tower. She was serenely looking at the landscape on the tower’s balcony. He coughed awkwardly and she turned around and immediately froze when she saw him.

“Y/n….” He started, “I-I’m sorry for what I said. I never meant to hurt you and…it ate me up inside. I was just angry that night and I took it out on you.” Draco decided to leave out the part where she had broken up with him, he would look into that later. “You’re not a blood-traitor, you were my girlfriend. I never regretted us but I did regret hitting you. It hurt me to see you hurt by something I did. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I love you so much. If I had a time-turner, you can bet I would be using it to change how this turned out. If you don’t forgive me, I understand. I probably wouldn’t forgive me either. I’m just so miserable without you and I don’t think I can last another day watching you and knowing I can’t hug you or kiss you anymore. I miss you. You don’t have to forgive me but I’m just asking for another chance. Please….”

Y/n averted her gaze from him, her eyes cloudy with tears. “Draco…” Hearing her voice again was oddly refreshing. “You hurt me so much that night.” He hung his head and stared at the ground, wishing he could take it all back. “I didn’t understand why you were angry or why you did those things. You told me that you regretted me. That you regretted us. You said you regretted loving me. What did I do wrong? Am I not pretty enough? Smart enough? Did you simply grow bored of me? I wouldn’t blame you though, I’m just average Y/n. Just Y/n. I don’t compare to someone like Pansy or Astoria.” Y/n cried.

Draco moved to hug Y/n but stopped when she flinched. His heart broke a little at the sight. She was afraid of him.

“Y/n…don't talk about yourself like that. You’re beautiful, clever, talented, and the only one for me. Parkinson and Greengrass don’t matter to me, nor will they ever. I could never get bored of you. I…I love you. That’s the honest truth. I said some really hurtful things that night but I swear that I never meant any of it. Please don’t go. I truly love you and I promise I’ll never do those things again.” Draco begged.

Slowly, Y/n stepped towards him, carefully inching towards him. Her mind screamed at her to not forgive him. After all, he did slap her. However, her heart cried for her to go to him. He may have done all those horrible things but for Merlin’s sake she still loved him. It’s not like she could easily forget how painful that incident was but it was also hard to let go of all the good times they had. It was one stupid mistake versus years of love and trust. She kept making her way to him until she was about an inch away from him.

“Promise?” She asked, holding out a hand for Draco. Draco looked up at her, those stormy grey eyes looking into her own (e/c) eyes.

“Promise.” He answered, cautiously wrapping his arms tightly around her and bringing her to him, holding her like she was going to slip away from him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He sobbed into her shoulder.

Y/n wrapped her arms around him as well, tears flowing down her cheeks and onto Draco’s black suit. She lightly stroked his blonde hair, comforting him and silently signaling that she forgave him.

Draco broke the hug and dug something out of his pocket. He fished out the necklace he had gotten from “Anonymous” and showed it to Y/n.

“My necklace!” Y/n gasped upon seeing it. “The cursed thing fell off again!”

She turned around and Draco helped her put it on again.

“It’s back where it belongs now.” He smiled.

He moved closer to Y/n until he was face to face with her. Merlin, he missed her. He then gently pushed his lips onto hers, feeling relieved when she kissed back. The kiss was full of passion, longing and desperation. Eventually the pair parted for oxygen.

“I love you, Y/n.” Draco said.

“I love you too, you git.” Y/n responded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So? You two are back together?” Harry asked Y/n during breakfast the next day. Y/n looked a lot better than she had been the past few days. She was smiling more and the life had returned to her eyes. She ate food and was more social.

“Yes. Wait a second…how did you know the two of us had broken up if I never told you?” Y/n asked suspiciously.

“Uh…the both of you were pretty depressed for the past week so I just assumed that happened?” Harry panicked.

“Nice try, Harry. The truth. Now.” Y/n demanded.

Harry could see Hermione and Ron give him the death glare as the trio reluctantly told their friend what they had done. By the time the story was finished, Y/n looked livid.

“Let me just…summarize this. You impersonated me and broke up with my boyfriend as me because you wanted to protect me from him all because he was a death eater?! Well guess what?! This whole time I knew he was a death eater! I KNEW THIS WHOLE TIME AND I STILL STAYED WITH HIM! I love you guys but I don’t need your protection nor do I need to be involved in your crazy schemes! Never. And I mean never. Never EVER mess around with my relationships again! I should stop being your friend right now but I’m not going to do that because I understand you had good intentions when you did this. Just never do that again. When were you going to tell me you did this?!” Y/n fumed.

The trio shook their heads, silently answering her question. Never.

“You three caused me a lot of grief. This would have never happened if it weren’t for you guys! Even worse, you were never going to tell me?! Really?!” Y/n seethed.

“Please, you have to forgive us. I promise that we felt so much guilt after what we did. We know it was wrong but we thought it was best!” Hermione begged.

Y/n understood why her friends did this. However, there had to be some consequence.

“Alright. I’ll forgive you if you promise not to do that ever again. However, for this whole month, I’m spending my time with Draco and cutting off any communication from you. Don’t try to talk to me until this whole month is over. I hope you all learned a lesson.” Y/n said, getting up from the Gryffindor table and making her way over to Slytherin table instead. Behind her, the golden trio groaned at the loss of their friend. They watched as she sat down next to Draco and kissed him.

“At least she’s happy.” Ron muttered.

“I told you it was a bad idea.” Hermione said.

“You were part of it!”

“I regretted it the most! And I was the one who wrote the Anonymous letter to Draco, remember?!”

“It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. We can’t change anything about it now. We should just be happy that she didn’t stop being our friend and we should be glad that she’s happy now.” Harry interrupted.

“She’s happy with Malfoy. I suppose we can’t do anything to change that.”

********************

That concludes Polyjuice Potion! Thank you for sticking around and reading this cringeworthy material! I am in NO way romanticising an abusive relationship. I'll leave a number to a place you can get help if you are being abused. I'm going to be moving the rest of my more popular Draco x Readers on here so prepare for more I suppose. I also want to warn that some of those happen to be angst (sorry if you don't like angst or I fail at writing the stuff). Thank you for reading and (possibly) enjoying this. If you have any requests, feel free to ask. Until next time. This post is too long so I'll add the number here; National Domestic Violence: 1−800−799−7233 (Unfortunately, this is the only one I know of. Please feel free to tell me any other ones you know of so I can add them here.)

-Jade

[xianityisafraud-blog]

Christianity is misogynistic.

Misogyny is fundamental to the basic writings of Christianity. In passage after passage, women are encouraged—no, commanded—to accept an inferior role, and to be ashamed of themselves for the simple fact that they are women. Misogynistic biblical passages are so common that its difficult to know which to cite. From the New Testament we find "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . ." (Ephesians 5:22-23) and "These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women; . . ." (Revelation 14:4); and from the Old Testament we find "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4) Other relevant New Testament passages include Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:9, and 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 5:5-6. Other Old Testament passages include Numbers 5:20-22 and Leviticus 12:2-5 and 15:17-33.

Later Christian writers extended the misogynistic themes in the Bible with a vengeance. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, wrote:

In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God's sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil's gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die. . . . Woman, you are the gate to hell.

One can find similarly misogynistic—though sometimes less venomous—statements in the writings of many other church fathers and theologians, including St. Ambrose, St. Anthony, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, and St. Jerome.

This misogynistic bias in Christianity's basic texts has long been translated into misogyny in practice. Throughout almost the entire time that Christianity had Europe and America in its lock grip, women were treated as chattel—they had essentially no political rights, and their right to own property was severely restricted. Perhaps the clearest illustration of the status of women in the ages when Christianity was at its most powerful is the prevalence of wife beating. This degrading, disgusting practice was very common throughout Christendom well up into the 19th century, and under English Common Law husbands who beat their wives were specifically exempted from prosecution. (While wife beating is still common in Christian lands, at least in some countries abusers are at least sometimes prosecuted.)

At about the same time that English Common Law (with its wife-beating exemption) was being formulated and codified, Christians all across Europe were engaging in a half-millennium-long orgy of torture and murder of "witches"—at the direct behest and under the direction of the highest church authorities. The watchword of the time was Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and at the very minimum hundreds of thousands of women were brutally murdered as a result of this divine injunction, and the papal bulls amplifying it (e.g., Spondit Pariter, by John XXII, and Summis Desiderantes, by Innocent VIII). Andrew Dickson White notes:

On the 7th of December, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth the bull Summis Desiderantes. Of all documents ever issued from Rome, imperial or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers . . . [W]itch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use [by the Dominicans Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger]—"The Witch Hammer", Malleus Maleficarum. . . . With the application of torture to thousands of women, in accordance with the precepts laid down in the Malleus, it was not difficult to extract masses of proof . . . The poor creatures writhing on the rack, held in horror by those who had been nearest and dearest to them, anxious only for death to relieve their sufferings, confessed to anything and everything that would satisfy the inquisitors and judges. . . . Under the doctrine of "excepted cases," there was no limit to torture for persons accused of heresy or witchcraft.

Given this bloody, hateful history, it's not surprising that women have always held very subservient positions in Christian churches. In fact, there appear to have been no female clergy in any Christian church prior to the 20th century (with the exception of those who posed as men, such as Pope Joan), and even today a great many Christian sects (most notably the Catholic Church) continue to resist ordaining female clergy. While a few liberal Protestant churches have ordained women in recent years, it's difficult to see this as a great step forward for women; it's easier to see it as analogous to the Ku Klux Klans appointing a few token blacks as Klaxons.

As for the improvements in the status of women over the last two centuries, the Christian churches either did nothing to support them or actively opposed them. This is most obvious as regards women’s control over their own bodies. Organized Christianity has opposed this from the start, and as late as the 1960′s the Catholic Church was still putting its energies into the imposition of laws prohibiting access to contraceptives. Having lost that battle, Christianity has more recently put its energies into attempts to outlaw the right of women to abortion.

Many of those leading the fight for women's rights have had no illusions about the misogynistic nature of Christianity. These women included Mary Wollstonecraft, Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Margaret Sanger (whose slogan, "No God. No master," remains relevant to this day).