#anyway the point… the POINT… is that any attempt at discussion with this often feels doomed to fail. I am trying to make peace with that.

[physalian]

On Punishing your Characters with SA

***Trigger warning for discussion of SA in fiction***

Because I am still recovering from the bizarre alternate reality I fell into where “SA is hot and if you were a survivor you’d think so too” is at all an acceptable and defensible stance to take, I want to talk about punishing your characters, and the means through which we go about it.

This post is NOT condemning stories that go “we know this is awful, you’re here because it’s awful, we’re all gonna have a good time with it anyway”. Or, your usual Dead Dove.

This is instead critiquing stories (and their authors) who either think:

SA is kinky

SA is just a run of the mill thing that happens in adult fiction, especially fantasy, it’s par for the course

If you’re a fan of either or both and plan to attempt to justify them, you have been warned, turn back now. My tolerance for harassment about this is at an all-time low.

Disclaimer:

I am not hating on BDSM or a character whose kink is feeling helpless and controlled. BDSM is, after all, consensual, and there’s mutual respect involved. Nor am I hating on a character who is attempting to self-medicate in a harmful way and they and the narrative know it.

Keywords being: Consent, mutual respect, and self-awareness

Which is completely lost in stories that either romanticize SA or toss it in there for shits and giggles and cheap drama.

—

In fantasy in particular, rampant SA is kind of ridiculous and getting worse. It may be for “mature audiences” but often the stuff written for kids and families has more “mature storytelling” in that it can show you horrible things without being gratuitously r*pey. Characters suffer other hardships and get the same point across.

And SA is one on the list of many things in fiction that usually isn’t written with the grim reality of a realistic aftermath. Things like broken bones that heal with supernatural speed, head injuries with cherry-picked symptoms, and grief and mourning.

We don’t want to derail the whole narrative to focus on the nitty gritty recovery period of a one-time event that moves characters from A to B. That’s just how fiction works. They absolutely deserve to be written better with proper awareness and understanding, they’re just not what this post is about.

But SA is different, because it’s often treated like this horrible threat, this scandalous thing…while then not being written with the respect and tact it deserves, written like a character merely got tortured, interchangeable with any other kind of suffering but with ~titillating undertones~.

Because, odds are, the average person won’t ever know what it’s like to be tortured, or suffer debilitating injuries from an accident, or have to live with the long-term disabilities of a major head trauma or coma. But far too many of us do know SA intimately, and the flippant way it’s tossed around in fiction will never sit right with me, especially when it’s romanticized and glorified.

So in short, I’d like authors who toss it on like a garnish to pause and think: Are you prepared to write the consequences of the situations you throw your characters into? If not, then write something else.

There is of course many levels to including SA in fiction, and its importance in the story should be proportional to the effect it has on a character’s arc and how much time is spent discussing with it and dealing with it, as with any element of backstory.

Having it be a distant memory in a side character’s backstory as just A Thing that happened to them years ago should demand, bare minimum, a cracking of that character’s worldview. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

If it’s just another incident and this character grew up with or is surrounded by those who take advantage of them (first of all, writer beware, that is a daunting story to tackle) the trauma of this individual event might be insignificant to them in the grand scheme of things, but it should still matter to them and how they see themselves and how they interact with those around them. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

And if you’re setting up a character’s first encounter with SA, however horrific it is, or it’s this encounter with this character that makes it unique, and it’s going to be a big moment for them and the story, it had better fucking matter to them once it’s over. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

It's a whole different world if this is a Stockholm syndrome story, where it is very, very clear that this relationship is fucked-up, but the character has no idea and they themselves romanticize and glorify their abuser—in those stories, it is understood that they’re an unreliable narrator and that their thoughts on what’s happening do not align with the author’s. (Most of the time. People unironically and uncritically love and want to have relationships like Harley Quinn and the Joker, without having any experience on what it’s actually like, but most of the time the comic writer tries to make it clear that she’s a victim. Most of the time).

—

I have two characters in two different WIPs who suffer this, more than once. A handles it a lot better than B. More time has passed and the perpetrator for A was a clear cut villain, while B's was someone they trusted. Neither spends every waking moment defining themselves by their abuser, but the impact of what happened to them shows up in multifaceted ways.

A is self-conscious about their body, as it still bears marks from that encounter. Some intimate things they used to enjoy or would have enjoyed are now off-limits. Certain conversation topics are triggering. And because everybody knows, they have a permanent reputation they can never escape, hanging over them even when nobody mentions it. They have mostly healed emotionally and have healthy romantic relationships, but it’s not something they’re ever going to forget.

B blames themselves and any chance at physical intimacy is now lost to them, though they were already asexual to begin with. They’ve told no one and anyone who would guess or might know, they’ve lied to, to protect their abuser. The SA happened among other hellish circumstances, when they have nightmares, it’s all tangled up together. But they’re also quiet and kind and thoughtful and you’d never know unless you knew.

Did I have to give SA as a backstory to both characters? No. I didn’t have to, I chose to, understanding the responsibility involved, and for these two characters and how it impacts them, SA can’t be exchanged for any other violence. It’s SA, specifically, that hurt them so badly.

People react to and adapt from and heal from SA in different ways and not everyone all the time suffers daily reminders of it—those two characters don’t—but even something as simple as having that survivor always keeping their door locked, or always having their back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind them, or wearing more layers than necessary, or if they are a little bit shy or skittish or skeptical, at least shows that you, as the author, tried?

You didn’t just write it in a vacuum? You acknowledged that SA is its own kind of horror?

And lastly: If you’re using SA as a way to punish your characters’ choices, whether it’s the narrative punishing them for being painfully naïve and stubborn, the villain who “deserves it”, or a symbolic death of innocence, just please be prepared for pushback from your audience if your message is: There are situations where SA is the victim’s fault and deserved.

You don’t have to spend pages and pages distracting from the plot, but if you’re going to have your character assaulted, you owe it to them to let them hurt and heal.

Otherwise, why is it here?

[cinnamonest]

I do want to also continue my primary momcon storyline at one point, but with the recent delinquent/bully Ajax posts I am now contemplating modern small town au delinquent Ajax but instead of student/classmate it's momcon…

Poor single mom who is already judged and ostracized by the small town community for being a single mom who had her baby way too young, unmarried, and with a deadbeat at that, made so much worse by the fact that your precious baby boy is a notorious problem child, treated as a menace and threat to the entire town. Hearing people mutter about how that's what happens when some girl that can't keep her legs shut has a kid with no father, how the whole household is messed up in the head, how his lack of inhibition must be hereditary.

Everyone knows him, and by extension, everyone knows you. Who you are, what your marital status is, the fact that you’re the mother of the town menace. You were hoping to live quietly, avoiding negative judgement as much as possible, but unfortunately, that proves not doable when your son is constantly drawing attention to himself in the worst of ways.

You’re always profusely apologizing whenever you get called to the school, bowing your head and squeezing your eyes shut as you promise for the umpteenth time that you'll talk with him and that it won't happen again, unable to look the faculty in the eye, knowing from experience how much their disdainful, judgmental glares hurt. Knowing what they're thinking in their heads even if they don't say it out loud, what they probably say to each other once you leave. How it's your fault, how you have no control over your child.

Or that one line that still hurts you to think about, that time you overheard two other moms with kids on the playground mutter about how they do this or that with their children, or how they would never have a kid without a present father — or else they turn out like that kid…

You were told that once before to your face, back when he was little — that you needed to hurry up and find a step father for him, or else he'll become a bad kid — because he's a boy and everyone knows boys don't obey their mothers the way they do fathers, you know? Sure they love them and all, but once he gets older he's going to start seeing you as small and weak, socialized by other boys and culture into feeling superior to you, and everyone knows that turns into blatant disregard for your authority.

But it's because of him that you can't — you tried, but he always drove away every man you dated, always reacted very badly whenever you got a new boyfriend, being mean and hitting and kicking and setting up cruel pranks and making the man miserable until he told you he couldn't do it anymore and left you alone again. Eventually it gets to be too much for you to handle, and you resign yourself to give up for now, maybe try again when he’s older and mature enough to have a serious discussion on the matter.

Or maybe wait until he’s grown and moved out — if that ever happens, seeing as when you bring up the future, he insists that he’ll stay here and take care of you, says I could never go off somewhere and leave you here by yourself, Mama.

Regardless, you do try and work with him, get him to behave better, but you just can’t. It’s incredibly frustrating. Everything you say goes in one ear, out the other (maybe those people had a point when they said he wouldn't respect your authority). You fuss at him as you wrap the little band-aids all over each of his fingers where they’re scraped up from the fight of the day, but he just smiles, seems to not really be paying any attention, just happy to have your attention and see you worrying over him.

He always dismisses you with ease, promising you he’ll do better and won’t beat anyone up again, but you can very easily tell he doesn’t really mean it at all. And his actions follow suit — you often get a phone call from the school the very next day.

He doesn't really have friends anyway, your attempts to get him to socialize with other kids always ended up leading to fights instead. But that's okay, he doesn't need friends, he says, he has his Mama.

You do feel like it's your fault. Why did he become so violent? Surely you did something wrong. But at the same time, you don't feel like you did anything bad to him, because if nothing else, Ajax is ferociously defensive of you.

You lose count of how many times, after being called in about yet another fight, your son proudly tells you he was defending your honor — yes, he may have cracked that boy's skull open against the brick wall of the building, but he only did it because that bastard had the nerve to call his Mama a whore, so he deserved to have his face disfigured like that. Yes, he may have put three kids in the hospital, but only because they were doing the thing teen boys do where they joke about fucking someone's mom, and he couldn't stand for that, he had to teach them a lesson so they think twice before doing that again. And it's true that one time he did stab someone, he'll confess to that, but it was because that guy spread rumors that his Mama was hooking to make money, and he couldn't stand for that.

This becomes a very well-known thing with him, which creates a bit of a conundrum — on one hand, most people learn to shut up about you if there's even a possibility he's within earshot. However, some of the other rowdy, bully-type boys know that talking about Mama is like his berserk-button, a guaranteed way to get a reaction out of him, so they go out of their way to set him off, believing they can just run away before he can get to them. Usually they stop once they get proven wrong about being able to run and get beaten up badly enough, but there's always some kid dumb enough to try, thus the violence is endless.

Not to mention those cases are worse. Normal fights get a visit to the nurse, but if the motive involves you, he's far more violent. The thankfully few, but nonetheless increasing number of times you had to pick him up from jail were almost all related to those fights in particular, that got so out of hand they warranted a teacher or bystander calling for help. Not to mention he's not at all hesitant to hunt offenders down in town to hurt them, away from the school authorities (who are always keeping an eye on him), so he'll get more punches in before a townsperson notices and calls for help.

And much like the school faculty, the law enforcement always gives you these awful, hurtful looks of disdain, a condescending tone in their voices when they ask if you're here to get your kid again and sighing when you nod your head. A few have the nerve to tell you that you really need to do something or else it's only a matter of time before he does something you can't just bail him out of.

And he's always so cheerful when you do come get him. A bit sheepish, apologizes for the inconvenience of you having to drive out here to come get him (not for the act that got him put there in the first place), but otherwise very smiley and touchy and grateful.

Very, very touchy. He's always been like that. He was a cuddly kid, always lifting his arms up in a gesture to be picked up, always clinging to your sleeves. He never went through that phase most boys go through, where they think they're too old to be spending time with their Mom or get embarrassed by affection and push her away or distance themselves from her. You were always grateful for that, it was heartwarming that he always seemed to be proud of you and happy to be seen with you.

But he does get very, very touchy. Always wrapping his arms around you. When you come to school events, visiting distant relatives (who all dislike him, but stopped bringing it up when you got defensive), even when you go grocery shopping (he always comes along, insistent on helping you), he's always coming up behind you, resting his head on your shoulder and keeping his arms looped around you from behind. And sure, he's never stopped kissing you on the mouth and not your forehead or something, but that's normal for some families, right? And it's only for a second, so it's not weird.

People do notice. You see the furrowed eyebrows and wrinkles noses and perplexed expressions, people leaning over to whisper something in another’s ear.

But at the same time, how could you ever bring something like that up? How could you possibly be mad at him for showing you affection? It's not as if you don't like it, it's just somewhat inappropriate in public… but it would surely hurt his feelings if you told him not to, so you say nothing.

You’re so, so grateful for him. He’s always there for you, always so loving, and has never even complained about having to go without a lot of things other people have.

And because he sees you struggling so much financially, by the time he’s a teenager he gets that itch where he feels like he has to prove himself, because how can he just sit back and let his Mama provide for everything, when he’s technically The Man of the household?

So soon enough he’s telling you — rather, insisting, no matter what you say — that he wants to help you pay for expenses.

It’s not consistently timed, but every now and then, he sometimes comes home to pull wads of cash out of his pockets, handed over to you with a sweet smile… and where did he get that money? Don’t worry about it, is all he’ll willingly say.

You know there’s no way anyone in this small little town would willingly hire him, since everyone knows who he is, and he’s coming back around the same time as he normally would… except sometimes he goes out in the evenings every now and then for just a few hours, when he never did that before, and takes his bag with him for some reason, and you know now that you think about it you recall the local news talking about a string of break-in thefts and increase in drug usage and — no, no, you know what? You decide to not think about it. Your mind has had as much as you can handle and you decide to tell yourself your beloved baby boy has some lucrative job he just never talks about for some reason or another. If you can convince yourself of that, well, that’s the first step to blissful ignorance, so you just cup his face in your hands and kiss his sweet face and tell him you’re so thankful and how much you love him and feel your heart melt when he looks so happy and proud of himself for you saying so.

But because he’s at least starting to show some self-awareness, understanding money issues and such, you figure this is a good time to get him invested in his own future.

You’re also a little worried about said future, given that the prospects for partnership in such a rural place are already sparse. Since everyone knows him, people guard their daughters and watch him like a hawk, tell them to stay the hell away from that boy, and they do listen, keep their distance. This troubles you, you bring it up to him — if you get a bad reputation, you’ll scare all the girls away! — and for once, he actually has some reaction.

But you’re not scared of me, are you?

Of course, you coo and fuss and say of course not — he's your baby, even if he hurts others, he's always so soft and sweet to you — and that seems to make him content, and anything you say about future prospects thereafter goes ignored.

Well, he ignores anything about prospects for him, at least. It's a different story when it comes to you.

Because the subject does come up once again. If you can just get a wealthy man, you say one day, you can easily make life so much easier for the both of you. You could get him a good education without debt, really set him up to have a bright future.

But the moment you mention it, his expression contorts with some amalgamation of shock, disgust, outrage, concern. He shakes his head and grabs you so firmly by your shoulders and says you can't be serious.

He'll be fine without college. No other man is going to appreciate you like he does. Love you like he does. No way can he let some guy just come in and invade the space you two have always shared. It would feel wrong, it would feel so foreign to him to have someone else living here when it's always been just you two. Besides, so many men would just use you, hurt you, leave you, he doesn't want to see you get hurt — and he'd never hurt you.

He's insistent, actually, on not going off to study. He wants to stay home, he says. He can't just leave you all alone! You'll be so lonely and you might replace him with another man— ah, you might get a boyfriend, and he couldn't be there to keep the guy in line.

And if some other man hurt you— well, he would do something really really bad, something that would get him locked up for a long time.

You don't want that, do you?

Because then, if some guy dumps you — which would inevitably happen, that's just how guys are, they'd use you and leave once they got bored or decided to replace you.

Like Dad, he says.

And sure enough, you tense up — he knows exactly what to say to make his words sting, he knows how much it hurts you, knows it's digging up pain you've tried to bury. You want to think he wouldn't do that on purpose. He's just distressed and the words came out without thinking.

But that pain is the hook to get you to listen. Because, he says, then if he goes away too, you'll be all alone without him. You'll have no one, and everyone in town already judges you, how would you ever survive without him? You need him, don't you? Could you really deal with the guilt of knowing it's your fault he would be locked up?

You try to reason with him, and his grip on your shoulders grows so tight it hurts.

For the first time, you feel a little scared of him, as he looks down at you — when did your baby boy get so much taller than you? — with a dark look in his eyes.

You find yourself shrinking back. Stammering out a soft little okay, nodding your head, saying you understand. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat.

And with that, he's immediately back to normal, smiley and happy and relieved you understand. He just doesn't want you to get hurt, is all. Because he loves you. You know that, right?

As long as you stay with him and him alone, he won't have any reason to really hurt someone. So, you know, his future hinges on your decisions, because he just can't help himself when it comes to defending you.

But that’s unlikely to happen on its own (everyone avoids you because of him and all), which is why you'd have to deliberately choose to pursue another man, which would make what happens your fault. He'll chase off any guys that get too close on their own.

Just don't put him in a position where he's forced to kill someone, and everything will be fine. You'll always have him, after all.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the Asshole for taking my SIL to an anime convention?

My (42M) SIL (29F) has autism and was living with my MIL until she suddenly passed away from heart failure back in 2022. My wife (40F) and I both knew SIL likes to cosplay and go to conventions. Figuring that’s something she and MIL did together, I decided to tell her I want to take her to an anime convention the following year. We chose one that worked out for all of us, timeline wise, along with the costs of transportation, hotel, etc.

Now, this may be a controversial opinion, but I hate anime; nearly all of it is hypersexualized (aside from one, which I’ll get into in a moment). It makes me cringe that my oldest daughter (13F) loves anime, and that that’s all she ever wants to watch. Personally, I feel she’s getting too old for cartoons, but since I also have two younger children, I let it slide.

Prior to actually leaving for con, SIL had sent emails of videos and blogs all about attending anime conventions. Clearly eager to prepare us. She also had outbursts over all sorts of things and lashed out at us on multiple occasions; her emails were often filled with negativity, and simmering rage. In between all of this, we had her relocate to an apartment closer to us.

Anyway, SIL, my daughter, and I go to the airport, we get to the hotel and check-in. We explored the city for a few hours. Now, before all of this, SIL claims she has a “low heat tolerance”, and complained the entire time whenever we walked from Point A to Point B; yes, the city the con was at has good transit and yes I insisted we walk anyway. It’s good exercise! This led to her throwing a fit when we reached a museum I really wanted to check out. We took an Uber back to the hotel and I don’t hear from her again until the next day when we met up to have lunch.

She’s cosplaying a character I don’t recognize and doesn’t tell me anything about them when I asked; it was clearly supposed to be a boy character, though.

Next day, I got a text from SIL; she unexpectedly got her period. Great. Since she asked, I run and get her some pads, only to have to wait an hour in line. Also great. She’s cosplaying another character I don’t recognize. Some magical creature or a doll of some kind. Anyway, us three go into one of the viewing rooms to screen this anime SIL was insistent on showing us. Some Sherlock thing. My daughter likes it, and I’ll admit, I enjoyed it too; I think it is very kid friendly.

Last day, once again, I don’t see or hear from SIL until we meet up in the hotel lobby waiting for our ride to the airport. Seems she had a good time though. She was dressed as one of the kids from that hero anime my daughter likes. She also bought my daughter an axolotl plush (her favorite animal). Going through security was hell; SIL had the nerve to have an attitude the whole time (again later claiming she was overheated and cranky from her period). After we got home she claimed she was never traveling anywhere with me again.

In the days following, she returned the luggage my wife had leant her, having booby trapped it with a photo with the glass broken. Then informs me that her account was overdrawn (I would have gladly paid for more than I did, if she hadn’t been so bitchy).

When we went to her apartment to discuss this, she made the same claims: that she was tired and cranky from the heat, made worse from her period, that I was stressing her out half the time, but that she was grateful despite that because when her mom died, anime conventions were the first thing she was ready to give up.

She also claimed the photo she broke was taken the same year she first attempted to take her own life, and that triggered a panic attack on top of the meltdown she had after returning home.

And the kicker: apparently her mother barely spent any time at conventions, and only sometimes tagged along because she “wanted a vacation”.

Now she claims that I -I repeat I- ruined that Sherlock anime for her. And now is planning to attend a few more cons…Alone.

So what say you? Am I the Asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[gilverrwrites]

reader having to adjust to michael and adam in the same body together (maybe a twinge of angst), but reader slowly grows to love michael just as much as they love adam <3

Growing to love Michael as much as you love Adam

Author note: This is very Michael heavy, I think at some point I wanna do something that either more Adam centric, or fully about them both. Also I have some ideas brewing for an actual fic, maybe?

Rating: General

Genre: Fluff, mild angst.

Words: 982

Please remember: Not to worry about thing's you cannot control.

Seeing Adam after so long was surreal.

He’d changed so much; he wasn’t just older, taller, stronger.

He was always laid back and practical, but now he’s more self-assured and perceptive. 

And surprisingly well-adjusted for a man who had just spent more than a millennia in hell.

In some ways, it was easy to fall back into strides with him. He’d grown and changed, but he was still the man you loved.

The hardest part was Michael.

Sometimes it felt like you were the 3rd wheel. You knew Adam first, you loved him first, but Michael had known him longer. Try explaining that to literally anyone.

Although honestly, explaining any part of Adam, Michael, and your whole dynamic to anyone would be complicated.

Now that they’re free of the cage, Michael could so easily return to Heaven. He could repress Adam's mind, take his body, and do as he pleases, but he doesn’t. He’s sacrificing everything for him. How are you supposed to compare?

Sometimes Adam will clock out of a conversation, absorbed in something else with Michael.

They have stories, and inside jokes you can never really be a part of.

It’s lonely, waking up in an unexpectedly empty bed.

Being stood up because Michael had other plans.

Raising the issues with them garners sympathy and promises of change from Adam, but Michael is less responsive, which doesn’t give you much hope.

Change is a three-way street in this case. 

However, you suspect they discussed the issue between themselves at some point, because change does come.

You’d finish dinner with Adam, but Michael would help you clean up.

He has offered to use his mojo, "so much faster and easier", but Adam doesn’t want to rely too much on it. You tend to agree, unless you’re feeling lazy.

And Michael is always quick to agree when you ask. Who knew Michael could be the naughty one.

You’d plan a game/puzzle night, which Michael would get invested in, and take control of. Especially if it is strategy-based.

You’d come home at the end of a hard day, and often, Michael was the one who would listen.

At first it was:

“Your whining is displeasing; I implore you to stop.”

But over time, he becomes more sympathetic, more interested in your feelings and day-to-day life.

Until he greets you with questions about your friends, or on-going dramas. Asking if you have had a better day today.

He asks you a lot of questions. Mainly about Earth, humanity, and culture at first. Adam is a sufficient guide to the human world, but he is a little behind the times.

And you can’t deny how cute he is when he repeats slang words back at you, or attempts to use them.

“What is ‘clickbait’?” “You’re home, how was work? Please ‘spill the tea’.” “Your clothing? Oh yes, it is ‘slaying’. Is that the correct term?”

Adam, who is also learning many of these words for the first time as well, is cringing so hard in their head.

Over time his questions get more personal. Your friends, family, hobbies, etc.

He knows a lot of it already. From Adam talking about you in the cage, from his memories, and from listening to conversations you have had since reuniting. They’re both always there really, even if you’re not interacting with one directly.

But there is a difference between first-hand and second-hand experiences.

And you enjoy having someone else to talk to about these things, another perspective.

You’d grown to like his company, for an Angel he's surprisingly compassionate, at least when he wants to be anyway.

Eventually, he trusts you enough to divulge information about his own family and his very long existence.

Sometimes you would wake up in Michael’s embrace. Which wasn’t necessarily unpleasant.

Even in the dark and the silence of night, you can tell the difference.

Adam's touch is soft, warm, and comforting. He makes you feel at ease.

Michael is solid, and protective. He makes you feel safe.

Until eventually, while you don’t quite feel like you’re on par with Michael, you do feel welcome.

You like him in fact.

Maybe you like him a little too much, considering he is not your boyfriend.

Your feelings for Adam haven’t lessened at all, but how can you spend 50% of your time with Michael, who is insightful, wise, inquisitive, and so damned cute. Who makes you feel safe, and valued...

And not develop some feelings.

Which complicates things further. It puts you on edge. Makes you worried about accidentally crossing a line.

How is one supposed to act around their boyfriend when their boyfriend isn’t their boyfriend, and also you have feelings for both the boyfriend and the not boyfriend, you know? Totally relatable, right?

All those mixed feelings of inadequacy when compared to Michael and the uncertainty when spending time with him are not happy or healthy ways to feel in a relationship.

You have to broach the subject, with them both, and Michael has something to say immediately.

“We are not in competition. I can assure you Adam loves us both in different ways, in equal measure.” But he’s not Adam half the time. He’s you! You’re not Adam, you don’t love me, I don’t know how to behave around you. “Are you certain you are human?” What? “Humans are not the most astute. However, sometimes you are as dense as osmium.” Are you calling me stupid?! “I urge you to stop and consider your words for a moment. I find it incredibly upsetting and frankly offensive that you believe me to be so incapable of loving you, as foolish and naïve as you may be.”

Adam knew, the whole time. The whole damn time.

He just needed the two of you to figure it out on your own first.

There’s a lot of conversation to be had between the three of you from there.

[gonzo-rella]

Headcanons: Starting Your Freshman Year at Greendale and Joining the Study Group

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Requested by: Anon

Headcanons for being a new freshman at Greendale and becoming a member of the study group?

Ohh sorry i didn’t clarify! it doesn’t matter to me, i just liked the idea of the reader kinda being the baby of the group, so maybe everyone is in their later years at greendale?

Relationship(s): The Study Group (Jeff, Britta, Annie, Troy, Abed, Shirley and Pierce) x gn!reader (platonic)

Warnings: References to underage drinking. (Let me know if I need to add any)

(A/N: I started writing this literal years ago, but I rewatched the Community Christmas episodes today and it’s made me want to rewatch all of Community and start writing for it again. Not enough people write for it, and not enough people write gender-neutral-reader fics. This was like 90% done so it was a good place to start again. I went with making it so the reader joins the Study Group during season 3, since I had the idea of using the reader to replace Todd in the episode where none of them want to work with him. I haven’t followed the canon of season 3 verbatim, since it’d have made writing this kinda difficult (plus I haven’t seen season 3 in years). So, this is more general. I’m hoping to work through my list of Community requests from years ago throughout 2024, since I’m hoping to get more into the habit of putting aside time for writing.)

When you decided on taking Biology 101 during your first semester at Greendale, you were bound to learn of (and witness first hand) the notorious Study Group.

Your hope that you wouldn’t be roped into their borderline-narcissistic antics was killed when you were given Pierce Hawthorne as your lab partner.

To say he was annoyed would be an understatement.

Oh boy, did he make it known that he abhorred having to be your lab partner.

In fact, most of them seemed to hate the idea of being stuck as your partner, which was at least a little hurtful.

When Abed rearranged the lab partner pairings based on some mental computer wizardry, you got put with Jeff, who was a bit more subtle with his annoyance.

You spent most of that night standing there awkwardly while Shirley cried about being the least popular member of the Study Group, or trying to be some kind of mediator between these friends who you knew only from rumours and observing them.

You also had to rescue a turtle from being burned alive by Britta, which sent you over the edge into a fit of fury.

Annie was the one who apologised to you for everything, and, much to the chagrin of everyone else, invited you to join the study group.

Perhaps she didn’t expect you to take her up on the offer, but you did anyway.

Your first study session with them made them realise that you fit in well with the group.

Even Abed liked your presence, because he believed it ‘changed the status quo without being like when sitcoms add a kid character in a desperate attempt to boost the ratings’.

(He compared you to Frasier from Cheers)

For a while, though, you did feel a little isolated from the group, considering you were often the only one to comment negatively on the group’s questionable behaviour, which they saw as perfectly normal.

However, you adjusted to being in the group alarmingly fast, to the point of getting carried away in the Study Group mentality like the rest of them.

As the baby of the group, you were treated as such, despite being at least a bit more mature than Troy and Abed.

For example, if Jeff and Britta were in the middle of a heated discussion, you’d be told to ‘stay out of it’.

Abed, early on, would analyse you to figure out how exactly you fit into the group, such as deciding what archetype best describes you.

There’s also a chance that he would create and manipulate situations in order to test your personality.

Jeff would shut this down as soon as he figured out what Abed was doing.

In an effort to try and include you more, Annie would force each member of the Study Group to do an activity with you. 

Annie invited you to a one-on-one study session.

(Also, if you’re taking any classes that she took in her first or second year, she’ll lend you her old materials, like notes, textbooks, study cards etc.)

Shirley took you to the mall with her and her kids, treating you like one of her own kids.

Troy and Abed introduced you to Inspector Spacetime, which you quickly became a big fan of.

(Watching it became a Saturday night ritual for the three of you)

Britta brought you along to a protest which ended in the both of you in jail.

(An irritated Jeff would have to come bail you both out, and Britta would beg him not to say anything about it to Shirley or Annie)

Pierce gave you $1000 to tell Annie that he’d taken you to the zoo.

Jeff invited you over to his apartment for beers, which resulted in you both getting wasted and having a tearful heart-to-heart with one another.

Despite adopting the Study Group mentality to a certain degree, you would be the least susceptible to the group’s dumbassery due to joining so late, which meant you’d often be the one to pull the group out of the stupid shit they were doing.

At the very least, you’d pull Jeff out of it, and he’d take the lead and sort out everyone else.

If you weren’t that close to your family, you’d probably spend holidays over at Shirley’s upon her insistence.

(I love love love the idea that she makes a custom Christmas stocking for you the first year you come over)

In a weird way, the Study Group became your family, albeit a dysfunctional one.

After your friends all graduated, you stayed in touch with most of them, even before you were reunited because of the Save Greendale Committee.

It’s safe to say that, even if you do join late, you’re still accepted as one of them, for better or for worse.

[nukaberries]

Heyo! If it's not too much trouble, could I get the FO4 companions reacting to a Sole who's super good with wild animals? Like the animal friend and wasteland whisperer perks but they're out here cuddling wild molerats and are able to pet Deathclaws. If that's not too much to ask, thank you muchly. Love your stuff!

I don't play around with Animal Friend and Wasteland Whisperer as much as I'd like to. I did once befriend a Deathclaw in Fallout 3, who died about five seconds later. He was great while he lasted though. Anyways, I'm glad you're enjoying the requests, thank you so much! I hope this one lives up to your expectations!

//

Companions React to an Animal Loving Sole (Includes: Cait, Codsworth, Curie, Danse, Deacon, Hancock, MacCready, Nick, Piper, Preston and X6-88)

Cait She'll immediately assume that Sole has some kind of death wish the first time she sees them carelessly approaching a wild Molerat with their hand held out. It's only when Sole doesn't lose a limb to the creature that Cait finds herself somewhat impressed, although, she makes a comment about how they'll probably catch all sorts of diseases from 'that rodent'. She doesn't think too much of it afterwards, that is until she finds Sole coming back into Sanctuary with a Deathclaw in tow, it's at that point that Cait will start to question Sole's sanity. Eventually, she gets used to finding Sole hanging out with Radscorpions, as though they aren't known for killing people without hesitation. She still finds it weird and she still isn't happy about that one time she woke up to a Radroach casually jumping around her head, but it becomes one of those things about Sole that she just accepts.

Codsworth Having known Sole for as long as he has, Codsworth is no stranger to his old friend's affinity for all different kinds of animals. He can still recall the amount of stray dogs and cats that Sole had brought into their home before the war, despite their spouse worrying that one might jump up at Shaun one day. If anything, Codsworth actually likes that this is something that hasn't changed about Sole - there's a lot of bad in the Wasteland and Codsworth knows better than any of the other companions how much this new world has changed Sole, so he finds it comforting to see some aspects of him are still the same. Of course, Codsworth is still sure to keep his distance from the creatures that Sole befriends; sure, they may like Sole, but who's to say they'll feel the same way about his robot companion?

Curie She loves having the opportunity to see the creatures of the Commonwealth up close and if Sole's happy to befriend every Mirelurk in sight, then Curie is more than happy to join him. Once Sole gets an animal to settle down, they usually tend to warm up to Curie immediately after - there was an incident with a Radstag kicking her over once, Curie doesn't like to talk about it. She also finds it interesting to see how the different animals in the wasteland have adapted and mutated to their environment and is more than happy to discuss it with Sole, if they're willing to listen.

Paladin Danse Initially, he thinks that stopping to pet every abomination that they come across is a waste of both their time and he makes this very clear to Sole. He tries to shut down Sole's attempts to befriend these animals as often as he can, although sometimes he can't help but find it quite mesmerising to watch a Deathclaw peacefully wander about right before his eyes. Still, it's only when Sole manages to tame a whole pack of rabid molerats that Danse wonders if their odd love for animals isn't so bad after all, not that he'd ever swallow his pride for long enough to admit that to Sole.

Deacon He does try to get used to the idea that Sole is going to pet every dangerous, man-eating creature that they come across, but it just freaks him out way too much. The stray mongrels following them around and wanting to play fetch are cute, even he can't deny that, although he'd prefer Dogmeat over them any day, but there's no way he'll ever get used to turning around and seeing a Deathclaw following after them like a big puppy. All Deacon asks is that Sole doesn't take it personal if he leaves them to fend for themselves when it comes to dealing with animals, he'd just prefer not to give a Molerat head scratches if he can help it.

Hancock Considering Sole chose to take him on their travels, he doesn't find it all that surprising that they'd want to pick up every other ugly stray they come across too. Admittedly, it's probably one of his favourite things about travelling with Sole, he'll never warm up to any of the bugs - Mirelurks are a firm no for him - that somehow become docile in Sole's presence, but he's got a soft spot for the Molerats. He'd love to bring one back home with him, for the sake of having some company and a mascot for Goodneighbor, but he gets the feeling nobody else in town would approve of that, so for now, it stays a simple daydream for him.

MacCready Once he gets over the shock of a pack of friendly Yaoi Guais swarming him and Sole, he's immediately jealous of this strange talent his friend has and wants to know how they do it. He refuses to take Sole not knowing for an answer and makes it his life goal to befriend at least one animal out in the Wasteland, of course, this ends with a dog bite on his arm and a bruised ego, especially when Sole manages to calm down the dog that had just attacked him. After that, he figures it's best for his own safety if he leaves the animal befriending to Sole, but he does ask for his own pet Deathclaw more times than he can count - not that it'd be very practical to have around Duncan, but a man can dream.

Nick Valentine There's not a lot left in the Commonwealth that can shock Nick Valentine, he's near enough seen it all and so, although Sole is expecting a much bigger reaction from the synth detective, he just accepts it. Besides, he once came across a girl roaming Boston Commons with a Sentry Bot for a best friend, a Mirelurk Queen isn't exactly that big of a surprise in comparison. That doesn't mean he won't go out of his way to pet any animals that Sole manages to tam on their travels, his favourite was probably the Radroach that Sole taught to roll over.

Piper Wright She genuinely thinks that she's having some kind of fever dream that first time she sees it, there's no way Sole would actually be sat at their campfire with a Mutant Hound sat on their lap peacefully. After pinching herself a few times and accepting the reality in front of her, Piper doesn't hesitate to dub Sole "The Wasteland Whisperer." If anything, she likes the bonus of not having to worry about fighting off any creatures whilst they're out on their travels, she just wishes that at least someone back in Diamond City would believe her when she told them about her Vault Dweller friend who can tame even the most vicious of creatures; even Nat thinks she's full of it.

Preston Garvey The first time that Preston saw Sole tame an animal was the Deathclaw back in Concord and for a moment, he was convinced that he was already dead and he just hadn't realised yet. At first, he wasn't sure how to bring it up to Sole to question it and so he decided not to question their odd talent at all, that was until he started travelling with them and they came across a Radroach nest. Preston still can't quite believe that there's someone out there that can befriend any animal they come across no matter what, but he finds it remarkable and he really doesn't mind when Sole brings animals back to Sanctuary. He's actually rather fond of the Yaoi Guai Sole brought back after going to clear out a settlement, he just hopes that they stay friendly, for everyone's sake.

X6-88 He doesn't see the point in befriending any of the creatures out in the Wasteland, it's far better to simply put them out of their misery after the generations of mutation they've had to endure. He makes this known to Sole immediately, which seems to offend his travelling companion, after that, he decides not to comment on it at all, aside from a few eye rolls and scoffs here and there. Of course, he doesn't complain too much when it comes to having the extra back up of a Deathclaw during a fight with raiders or Super Mutants.

[dayz-ina-daze]

Y’know… I feel like Sol was introduced an arc late

I think he would have fit so much better in The New Prophecy instead of The Power of Three… Maybe that’s just me, though, because I haven’t seen a whole lot of people discussing this idea, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I wanted to share what I’ve come up with so far

The New Prophecy is, obviously, about the Clans losing their homes and the chosen six setting out into unknown territory to find somewhere new for them to settle. It’s been a while since I’ve read TNP, but I think I remember enough to have some interesting points to bring up…

So buckle up and bear with me y’all. It’s Spotty Speaks time once again

Everything up to the chosen Clan cats finding Midnight can stay the same. The same journeying and angst and coming together as friends, etc. But, instead of just finding a badger at the sun-drown place, they also find a cat with her: her page, Sol.

For the most part, I think that Sol’s backstory should stay the same, sans some tweaks in the later portion. He was born a loner to his mother, Cinders, who separated he and his littermates to live as kittypets when she could no longer adequately care for them. He adopted the name Harry from his housefolk, but always felt the restless itch to do more and be more that prompted him beyond his garden often despite his lackluster skills. This urge would drive him into the paws of the visiting Firestar and Sandstorm, which is where a major portion of Sol’s backstory changes: He is now one of SkyClan’s founders. (I think that Harrypelt would be a funny name for him lol; Firestar might have mistaken his name for “Hairy”, so his prefix doesn’t get altered too much, or maybe something like “Fluffypelt” or something similar, I don’t know lol)

This works with the rough timeline between Firestar’s Quest and TNP, as well!

But just as he wasn’t satisfied with kittypet life, the rigid structuring of Clan life didn’t scratch Sol’s itch either. He wasn’t a grand hunter or even a half-decent fighter, he was someone who thirsted for knowledge and invention, but his Clanmates had been so firmly rooted in Firestar’s ideals of tradition that they stunted all of his attempts to grow and experiment that eventually he grew embittered, became sick of it, and just… left. Ultimately, he would stumble upon Midnight, an elderly badger who was both a polyglot and a soothsayer who was searching for other animals to share her wisdom with, to pass on and entrust all of her knowledge to someone so that she could retire and live the rest of her days in peace. This intrigued Harry enough for him to want to learn from her, and to honor his transformation into becoming her page, Midnight renames him “Sol”; she names all of her pages after celestial concepts, as she herself once was renamed.

When the Clan cats roll by Midnight, Sol is with her. There’s an obvious tension between him and the Clan cats due to his distaste for them, but he follows his mentor’s example of hospitality while the Clan cats rest as best as he can. I imagine he’s a little older than Crowpaw, but a bit younger than Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt, so he’s more comfortable with the younger cats of the group. Squirrelpaw especially intrigues him; he distantly recognizes Firestar in her attitude and coat, but not enough to put his finger on it just yet.

What would be personally most intriguing to me: Midnight instructs Sol to be the Clan cats’ guide through the mountains, as she predicts there is what they are seeking on the other side. When Sol protests, Midnight states that their duty is not only as keepers of knowledge, but also as guides to any who are lost; the Clan cats will need to know when to stop their travels, anyway, so Sol will be able to help with that. Sol eventually agrees, but he still grumbles about it. So Sol is now accompanying the traveling cats; they encounter the Tribe, Feathertail is killed, they find the lake. Sol follows the Clan cats back to the forest, where he seems especially intrigued by the rattled state they’re all in. He’s the primary guide to the Clan cats as they return to the lake, but he’s especially chatty with Blackstar and the ShadowClan cats, before Hawkfrost catches his attention and the two begin to talk as well. Leafpaw is also intrigued by Sol, and Sol with her; Sol is especially talkative with the medicine cats. Mothwing gets bad vibes from him, but she can’t explain it.

The Clans come to the lake, Tallstar dies but appoints Onewhisker as his successor before he does so. Sol still lingers amongst the ShadowClan cats, but as he belongs to no Clan, he just kind of slips between all the Clans and chats with everyone, namely Hawkfrost and Leafpaw, though their conversations are very different.

The Clans settle into new spots around the lake, but Sol still disregards all of the early boundaries set. This unsettles most of the Clan cats, but many are willing to overlook it on account of how Sol led them all to their new home; he’s an honored guest of the Clans, and is under ShadowClan and Blackstar’s direct protection on account of how scarily close the two had grown over the course of the journey. Blackstar’s faith had been shaken due to several losses during the journey, as well as his general fear that their ancestors had not followed them to their new home, which Sol wholeheartedly took advantage of to essentially use Blackstar as a puppet figurehead for his own desires, masquerading as someone who could see the future and soothe his troubles without the need of “some silly dead cats”.

Sol barely speaks to the traveling cats anymore, and all of the traveling cats get the sense that something in Sol’s demeanor and goals has shifted.

Later, Mudclaw announces his rebellion. Unbeknownst to most of the Clan cats, Hawkfrost and Sol are some of his direct supporters, Sol especially, so ShadowClan is politically on Mudclaw’s side. Mudclaw orchestrates a grand battle with the help of Hawkfrost and Sol to kill Onewhisker, as most of WindClan is on his side due to their respect for Tallstar’s dying wish; I imagine they host their meetings at the Moonpool, which Leafpool discovered with Sol at her side. He’s very ingrained in several huge Clan events now.

Off to the side, Brambleclaw is appointed ThunderClan’s deputy.

Days before the battle is scheduled to strike, Sol and Leafpool run away from the Clans together to be free — though it’s primarily due to Sol’s cowardice. He doesn’t want to be caught up in the battle, but he’s grown fond of the medicine cat and doesn’t want to see her fall. The rebellion strikes just as Midnight finds Sol and Leafpool; she instructs Leafpool to return to the Clans, and for Sol- Harry, to leave them. He’s caused more than enough damage to the already-fragile Clans. When Leafpool asks what Sol means, he refuses to answer, so Midnight explains that Sol has been deeply ingrained in the beginnings of a coup that would forever change the flow of the Clan’s fate should three toms rise to power in the same breath, with a last that has already been broken to Sol’s will. Sol bristles and calls his mentor crazy, but Leafpool trusts Midnight; she’s seen all the evidence herself, after all, and she’s able to connect the dots fairly quickly.

Leafpool returns to the Clans. Sol does not; he stays at Midnight’s side. Sol’s fate is unknown at the end of The New Prophecy, but his intention was always to undo the rigid Clan structure and make room for change and growth — and, if that couldn’t be done, then he’d just destroy the Clans as a whole. But his version of growth was covered in thorns, and the cats he used were blind to his manipulation.

In the aftermath…

Mudclaw is killed despite his support.

Hawkfrost is killed by Brambleclaw after he attempted to coax his half-brother into murdering Firestar so they could claim leadership together, as Leopardstar was weakened by fighting on behalf of Mudclaw at Hawkfrost’s suggestion.

Blackstar, shaken, steps down upon hearing of Sol’s treachery and how he had fled; he retires and becomes Blackfoot again. Russetstar steps up.

Brambleclaw might also step down, feeling horrified at how he was tempted to finish the job Hawkfrost had started and claim leadership for his own. I’m not sure who would replace him, though - maybe Sandstorm?

Leafpool discovers that she is pregnant.

And Sol is still thought to lurk in the wilds, with many Clan cats paranoid that the unusual, cunning tortoiseshell tom still studies the Clans, watching them from the shadows until he feels he can return again to finish what he had started… And in the meantime, the Clans vow to strengthen themselves to never again allow an outsider to shake them so badly that they nearly destroyed one another.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Do you think Marius still loves Armand in the last books? Does he want Armand to return to him? Marius seemed to have left him in the past

The short answer is YEAH OF COUSRE HE LOVES ARMAND TO DEATH but let’s talk about this for a minute!

The question of whether or not Marius loves him is the easier one to answer. Armand is one of the great loves of Marius’s life! In the beginning of TVA (when he’s just spent however much time thinking Armand is dead) he’s a DISHEVELED MESS! And at the beginning of B&G he’s super lonely and isolated and seems worried about stuff he’s done recently and people in his life being mad at him. (Benji & Sybelle Incident? Something else?) I think when you look at a vampire like Marius, it’s remarkable that he makes it 2000 years only turning THREE fledglings (not counting when we get to B+S and Viktor bc that gets into like, vampire favors and isn’t really for himself LOL), vs a character like Lestat who made 3 fledglings in his first 11 years. These are the great loves of Marius’s life and not decisions he made lightly! And while I think we can (and have) sort of untangled selfish vs. selfless love in Marius’s life, I think it’s really important that 500 years later he couldn’t forgive Santino. Is that on his own behalf alone or on Armand’s? There’s a lot of unpack but! He loves Armand! He does!!!!!

But anyway on the topic of returning to each other;

I think their last conversation in BCtu sort of opens a door that they’re going to speak to each and work things out. Canonically, that’s all the information we get. We also never explicitly get information about like, what exactly is wrong between them presently. We know that

they had a big fight at the end of TVA but that they calmed down

Armand has been afraid of Marius because he's scared that Marius doesn't still love him like he used to

in ROA Marius said he had the savage & ignorant soul of a child.

I always assume there's just 500 years of tension and conversations they've avoided, but we also never get a confirmation that they HAVEN'T had these conversations off screen anyway. So canonically, all we know is that they just had a traumatic experience and want to talk to each other.

Also canonically, they’re making another attempt at Vampire Commune and we don’t have an answer of like, will it stick this time, will it dissolve like Night Island, is it sustainable AT ALL to have a small group of the elite making rules and holding dominion over an entire culture???????? Reader’s choice lol.

But it leaves a question of like, what does returning to each other look like in this setup—they’re in touch now, they can find each other, they have cell phones, Armand can come and go at the Château as needed, Marius has a room at Trinity Gate, etc. Their relationship is civil and functional at this point. And does “returning” mean to be exclusive companions and to fuck off? Will Marius leave Court? Will Armand come and stay more often?  Idk ! 

These are questions that have 100 different answers because it’s all headcanon, but, what we know by the end of the series is that they’ve gone through something traumatic and Armand and Marius are going to talk to each other. What is that conversation about? What is the result? We don’t know. Armand is letting his FEELINGS THE FUCK OUT in this book as if he's had therapy, and Marius says he thinks Armand is ready to open his heart, if that gives us any clues! But does opening his heart mean "I am feeling vulnerable and brave to tell you how I feel because I almost lost you" or "I'm gonna read you the fuckin riot act because I did that to Lestat as well" ? lol Either way the thing here is that it's ARMAND'S decision and not about whether or not Marius left him in the past.

I think something that often goes overlooked in character discussions is their inherent inhumanity, and I really dislike the “thEyRe MonStErs” easy out of a lot of analyses, because it’s more than that. The entire purpose of the series and the reason the series was unique is that built a world where they’re MORE THAN. It’s not about simply being a monster—there’s nothing simple about it. And not being human doesn’t mean it’s all negative and all evil. What it means is that it’s Extra. They feel things on such a deeper level than we do, their brains function differently, and they’re immortal. They have all the time in the world to forgive each other when they want to, and they’re social creatures who want companions! The older you are, the scarier it is! It’s horror! Like even Marius’s relationship with Mael is so fucking special because like, as much as they put each other off, it’s like, someone they each still have, that’s been constant, and the world would look so different without them.

It just reminded me of this line in Six Feet Under (sorry I’m obsessed, I think everything always comes back to SFU for me LOL) but when Brenda says she used to think as she got older that she’d have more people in her life and that the opposite was true. So anyway for Marius like, regardless of if we want to get into selfish/selfless, Armand is one of the most important people in his life, and has been around for a quarter of Marius’s life, and nothing would be the same if Armand wasn’t around. 

And without the distraction of The Parents in the modern age I wonder if he’s like especially fragile and traumatized about losing people? Is he still traumatized by losing Pandora? And losing Armand the first time? It’s great that they have cell phones and a community now so no one gets too far from each other, but gosh.  

I don’t know what returning to each other looks like, as far as where canon left. Like, does the Château collapse? Is Daniel with them? Asking if Marius wants it is like, yeah maybe he would want Armand around Court more for moral support. And maybe if he decides to step away, and get space, maybe he would want Armand there with him as a safe place to land. When the Court inevitably collapses, will he want someone around? 

In the past, Marius tended to isolate himself in times of stress; is he still like that? Has the loss of The Parents changed this for him? Will Daniel and Armand allow him to isolate? Idk ! !!! 

But anyway sorry I’m rambling but my point about not being human and about being Extra is that there are a lot of parts in the series where vampires have a relationship or forgive each other even after they’ve deeply hurt each other or committed atrocities. Louis and Armand come to mind, so do Louis and Lestat, David and Lestat, Pandora and Santino. Even Marius calming down enough to be in his situationship with Avicus and sorta metamour to Mael. They are not human, they are capable of forgiveness. There are atrocities that humans are capable of never forgiving because we don’t have time to get over it. How can we even know how much time it takes to heal a grudge if we don’t live long enough to test it?

Even knowing that, 500 years still wasn’t enough to forgive Santino for what he did to them. Like sure if we wanna dunk on Marius and remind ourselves that he’s an arrogant self-centered jerk sometimes, and we could say that he’s mad at Santino for what he did to MARIUS—it’s not just the ego this time. He took Armand. He separated Marius and Armand. He destroyed their home. And even if they cooperated a few times in the 20th century, by the time B&G happens, he's been able to read TVA and knows what happened, what Santino did to him, what he did to the boys. (Like, did Marius read TVA? Did Armand ever tell him this privately? We don't know! But we do know that this is now been published for EVERYONE to read which is probably re-traumatizing for everyone involved and now everyone knows hajkgsdl)

So anyway, like. I know this has kinda been a non-answer because we’re talking about stuff that didn’t happen in canon and everything past BCtu is going to be our own headcanons. But I can say: Yes, Marius loves Armand deeply, and vampires are capable of incredible levels of empathy and forgiveness for each other, because their lives are too long and bleak and painful not to.

As to the idea that Marius left him in the past, personally I don’t agree! 

Marius not rescuing Armand from the cult is often misunderstood in fandom, but I could see why someone would point to that as a clue that Marius has left him in the past. It’s not that simple, though. Marius is too injured to save him, doesn’t even know if he’s alive,  and by the time he finally finds Armand he finds the cult situation too complicated to navigate. Don’t forget that Marius has pretty severe religious trauma, and is one of the characters who was turned against his will. By a cult!!! So to see Armand thriving with a cult is so triggering and disappointing, and I don’t think he’s strong enough to risk being rejected if he goes to rescue Armand only to learn he no longer wishes to be rescued. 

I would say that’s very unlike leaving him in the past, it’s more like seeing him as another one that got away. 

And then when they reunite in QOTD it’s during another extremely traumatic event in Marius’s life—we don’t know details about how everyone left Night Island or where everyone went, but what we DO know is that Marius lost The Parents—>Armand attempts suicide about a decade later—>Marius commits the big B+S Fuckup shortly after learning Armand is okay—>Marius fucks off to Scandinavia with Daniel to lick his wounds because everyone’s mad at him. 

VC skips around a LOT, and there’s so much that we don’t learn about, so much that happens between books and off screen. Like, we don’t KNOW how Marius wound up with Daniel. We don’t know exactly how much longer he stuck around in New Orleans after TVA, we don’t know what he and Armand were gonna talk about in BCtu before the series ended. And that’s the enD oF IT THERE’S NOTHING ELSE!

Marius truly doesn’t leave anything in the past, that’s the thing about him.

He’s still traumatized by the way he was turned. He still tries to sculpt his identity around what his life was as a Roman. He committed to the burden of The Parents for 2000 years, even when he was overwhelmed and wished he could stop. He spends centuries painting Pandora’s face over and over and over when he can’t find her. He still thinks Mael is a bumbling redneck from the woods. He still wanted Santino killed, even when they’d been civil with each other in QOTD and up to TVA.

And in BCtu when he’s living at Court he’s like, trying to embrace himself, allowing himself to be a weirdo because he’s around his own kind now. HE QUITS PANTS, YOU KNOW WHAT? HE ALWAYS HATED PANTS, LET’S NOT. 

I think even as humans there are so many things that shape us forever, that we never really move past. Even when we leave something in the past, it shapes us, it allows us to leave it in the past. People and events in our lives carve into us, whether we like it or not!!! And part of the horror of immortality is that it goes on, and on, and on, and on, your physical body gets hard and cold and monstrous, more and more uncanny, physically impervious, but their BRAINS AND HEARTS ARE STILL TENDER!! 

So no, no, I really don’t think Marius ever left Armand in the past. I think he left him to the cult because he thought Armand wanted it, I also think he gave Armand space after a disastrous fuckup. When he goes to speak to him at the end, he says it like ARMAND is the one that’s ready. He’s waiting for Armand! Marius was there the whole time, ready to be called upon if someone needs him! He lives to serve! 

Armand was his baby and one of the great loves of his life, the first (and only) fledgling he made because he truly wanted to. Marius loves him so much!!! 

[pluralcollector]

it takes two to make a story: one to deliver it and one to receive it

a toh emperor acolyte au fanfic.

(emperor acolyte au by tumblr user pespillo.

warning for allusions to and discussions of child abuse, both physical and psychological / emotional. assuming you're familiar with the emperor acolyte au that this is set in, you can expect similar heavier themes.

king is humanoid in this story.)

“every story has a happy ending if you wait long enough. death is only the end if you assume the story's about you. wouldn't you prefer to escape stories and endings altogether?”

--paraphrased from an episode of “welcome to night vale” by joseph fink and jeffrey cranor (but then we added some inferences)

“i’m the hero of this story, don't need to be saved. (hey, open wide, here comes original sin.)”

--quoted from “hero” by regina spektor

“how does our story end?” king asks, his voice rippling through the previous quiet like the chiming of a bell that signals the termination of one thing while shepherding in the next -- a clear and clean distinction that hazards no space for ambiguous twilight.

king’s been watching the collector read for well over an hour, a habit he indulges in not infrequently (though he prefers to avoid describing it as frequently -- such convoluted employments of language help keep king’s paradoxical state of being just slightly more palatable, and he's never counted with much of that to begin with).

usually, the collector interrupts their reading swiftly anytime king makes his presence known within the same space (the same applies to some instances of the collector noticing king's presence without king intending to, but at other times the collector can prove remarkably adept at discerning when king, like a feral cat or a skittish rabbit, wishes to be in the collector's proximity without directly engaging them), greeting him amicably before inviting him to hear about whatever fabulous and fantastical adventures they're reading through this time around.

king, in turn, tends to promptly acquiesce, though he is usually more interested in just hearing the collector talk than in the content of books themselves. it works out for both of them this way: the collector gets to ramble enthusiastically about something they're really interested in, and king gets to be soothed by the continued production of the voice he's grown simultaneously most familiar with and in most need of hearing.

today, though, there is a slight modification to that routine: the collector has delved into a particularly engrossing escapade, and thus has refrained from immediately reacting to king’s presence. that's fine, king thinks: he'll wait; just being able to see the collector is almost as good as hearing them, and he's in no rush anyway.

king can discern the outward signs of the collector struggling between the gravitational pulls of king's presence and the book in their hands, their gaze periodically flickering towards king for an instant before scrambling back to locate whatever sentence they were in the middle of reading, reminding king of a compass that's been placed by a magnet and thus lost all sense of orientation, floundering in erratic pirouettes as if every direction could somehow be pointed at simultaneously (as if pointing at every direction simultaneously could communicate some secret, meaningful logic, and not merely an unhelpful paradox). this fortifies king's resolve to remain patient, but desires often clash unsettlingly within him, and, as time drags on, king starts feeling like a piece of furniture that has become so old and commonplace that it no longer elicits any reaction from whoever selected it as a suitable addition to their household, and this proves too disconcerting for king to not immediately attempt to dissolve.

hence king’s question: “how does a story like ours end?”

he phrases it differently the second time around, having become embarrassed -- as well as alarmed -- by the potential implications of the question he's rather carelessly blurted out in his haste to entice the collector to pay attention to him. both versions encapsulate feelings he's been mulling over for quite some time now, though he's unfortunately just now figured out how to parse them with deceptively effective concision -- unfortunate because he would have much preferred to have put that question to himself in the privacy of his own mind before alerting the collector to its existence.

at least the collector is paying attention to him now.

the collector sets down the heavy, leather bound tome they've been perusing and quirks a quizzical eyebrow, regarding king with surprise. this has the (presumably) unintended effect of making king feel like a bug that's unwittingly wandered into a glass jar and is now being scrutinized closely by the owner of said jar, which is hardly any improvement on the unnoticed furniture scenario.

king meets the collector’s gaze with steady solemnity, endeavoring to expose none of the loud, messy feelings presently thrashing within him like a shark hauled out of the water by a pair of inexperienced hands that hold on despite understanding viscerally that it will lead to getting bitten and the shark escaping back into the sea anyway (perhaps putting up the appearance of struggling, like refusing a gift before capitulating to the giver’s insistence purely as a pretense of politeness, is important in some interactions, but king does not think this is one of them -- now that he's dropped this load unexpectedly and unceremoniously onto the collector, he'd rather pretend that's always been his intention).

the collector stares at king silently for a handful of seconds, understanding dawning on his complexion with a steady slowness that reminds king of flipping through pages of stop motion illustrations, appreciating both how they must all play out in more rapid conjunction and how distinct and essential each individual snapshot is. king isn't sure if other people also experience this clarity while interacting with the collector or if it is yet another curious quirk of king's special closeness to them.

“i don't know, king,” the collector answers honestly, both eyebrows furrowed with obvious concern now, their pupils darting almost imperceptibly as they take full stock of king’s appearance. they vocalize with a seriousness that mirrors king’s, though king suspects theirs is more genuine. “i’ve never read a story like ours.”

there's a pause in the conversation, the collector raising a thumb and index finger to frame their chin and tilting their head sideways as if to examine a painting from another angle, their mind clearly churning with the effort to provide their best friend with a satisfactory or at least worthwhile answer. but, strive as they might, they have to admit when they're stumped, and they'd rather say so to him than pretend otherwise.

king waits a breath’s length longer for the collector to muster something further -- only once he realizes he's been holding his breath for an uncomfortably long period does he exhale -- another bell ringing to signal a transition.

“you really don't know then,” king remarks, trying not to sound disappointed while also feeling that concealing how he really feels might prove a dire mistake in this situation -- the conflict between not hurting the collector's feelings by exposing his own feelings and not hurting the collector's feelings by withholding his own feelings as present and alive as ever.

“i don't,” the collector confirms, apparently uninjured -- but not unbothered -- by king's disappointment. their eyes are swirling with growing worry, gray clouds gathering into each other’s embrace and steering steadily towards a downpour.

the last thing king wants is to make the collector cry, but perhaps he doesn't deserve to ask a question like this without being punished a little -- it is, he recognizes now, a bit cruel of him to even confront the collector with it.

what other answer could the collector possibly give king without lying? did king just need to hear directly from the collector what he already knew to be true? is this just another one of his petty, ill-mannered attempts at making someone else feel as bad as he does because he's so self-righteously indignant by being completely alone in his grief? or was some part of him -- some awful leech of a part of him -- actually hoping his best friend would lie to him?

if the collector had lied, king is now forced to wonder, would he have been relieved and pretended to believe them? or would that have been exactly the excuse that leech part of himself always seems to be seeking out like warm blood to stage a vicious and melodramatic upending of their entire relationship, claiming -- as he'd surely claim to have been certain of all along, even though he is presently not -- that the collector does not trust him enough to award him the truth, and, adding insult to injury, thinks king could ever fail to slice through such a shallow farce? (this hypothetical scenario somehow coexisting with the one where he is eager to be lied to and to internally gaslighting himself into believing he really does not know he is being lied to and what both of their behaviors suggest about their relationship).

“that's worrisome,” king states flatly, more to avoid saying nothing at all as he feels himself start floundering in his own internal ruminations and dissociating from the reality presently surrounding him, as if he really does believe he can just drop these potentially highly distressing things on the single most important person in his life with neither warning nor explanation, then silently retreat into himself without a care for its potential consequences.

king spent too much time alone with his own thoughts when he was younger, blurting things out aloud because there was no one around who could or would answer, slowly and effectively desensitizing himself to any and all severity that they might carry.

numb to his own feelings then, and, now, also numb to how his feelings make others feel. it's a hard habit to smother.

“more worrisome than feeling yoked to a predetermined destiny?” the collector inquires, smiling slightly in a fashion that clearly conveys that he intends the question in a lighthearted, theoretical, thought experiment sort of way -- not in relation to any specific real world situation.

yoked, king thinks, finding it, for a moment, exceedingly amusing that anyone would use that word in a conversation not about cattle or some other beast of burden type -- an effect of just how much the collector reads, this aspiring literati tendency to season their otherwise perfectly ordinary statements with the occasional poetic lingo.

but then king considers the actual implications of being described as yoked, even in a metaphorical sense, and gets the dreadful sense that maybe he is a beast of burden type -- he's certainly a beast, and he was certainly raised to shoulder burdens, so what really sets him apart from an ox physically yoked to the plough they will someday collapse next to, dead from the exhaustion of doing nothing throughout their life except dragging it along for someone else's benefit?

king tries to muster some compassion for the collector's careless misstep by focusing on how profoundly apologetic they look after quickly realizing the potential implications for him, but, alas, it does not succeed in softening his tone when he next speaks.

“at least back then i knew what to expect, and i could prepare myself,” king snaps sulkily, seeming to shrink into himself as he wrinkles up his dirt smudged nose, but with the careful calculation of a snake that only withdraws to aim better upon lunging. “but a story that doesn't adhere to a formula is sure to be filled with unexpected plot twists, and how am i ever supposed to get comfortable with how things are when i’m always expecting them to change?”

despite the tension boiling between them like a cauldron of soup that's seconds away from spilling over if the heat isn't quickly and dramatically toned down, the collector smiles with pleasure (and a dab of pride) at king’s reference to literary tropes -- proof he's been paying attention during their rambles.

the collector decides to try continuing the conversation through this lens -- perhaps it can help king feel less antagonized if he is not so obviously

being discussed.

“surprises are good in a story! they can lead to something entirely new, which has never been experienced before!” the collector proclaims, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically to be entirely credible, but king does find the ease with which they deflect his animosity without anything like an equally acerbic retort quite the relief (as well as a target of envy).

at times like this, king gets the intoxicating sense that there is no insult, argument, or otherwise hurtful remark either of them could make that their relationship could not somehow survive -- intoxicating because it occasionally tempts him to recklessly test the collector with an egotistical need to prove to himself just how valuable he is to them (too valuable, he hopes, to be permitted to push them away so easily), but also because it might someday actually lull king into a false sense of security.

“besides,” the collector adds, waving one hand in the air with such fluidity that a cornucopia of tiny, prismic stars burst like confetti from the tips of their fingers -- an entirely unconscious and -- to king -- entirely endearing use of magic. “a story with no surprises isn't much fun to read!”

king’s mouth twists sideways to land somewhere on the spectrum of smile to snarl, his upper lip curling back in that characteristically animalistic fashion that he is simultaneously proud of and disturbed by, without quite reaching the point of exposing his fangs any more than they normally protrude from his mouth -- a compromise between the desire to backtrack to explicitly addressing himself and following his best friend into this detached anonymity, as if either of them could ever mistake this conversation for anything other than what it has been from the beginning: king’s -- and now, as king has so selfishly dragged them in, also the collector’s -- anxiety over the future of their relationship.

“it can be… reassuring,” king tries, as cautiously as a hiker that is as noisy as possible in hopes of scaring away any nearby predators, king’s halting words and darting gaze an implicit plea for the collector to gently steer him away if he wanders too close to territory that might prove too treacherous for even the two of them to navigate at this stage in their shared and individual development.

the collector waits quietly for king to continue, patient and expectant as a hound plopped down at the foot of their human companion in anticipation of the occasional, much relished head scratch -- a comparison king instantly detests and chastises himself internally for even conceiving of, certain it's just him who keeps projecting his weird hierarchical complex onto the collector, and any mention of any of this to them would leave them utterly baffled (and serving as further proof of how out of touch with reality king has become that he can not even be friends with another person without constant anxiety over either being exploited or him doing the exploiting).

“to not have to be guessing all of the time. to not have to struggle to understand what is happening and why,” king offers by way of explanation, gripping both of his hips so he can tap his fingers nervously against them, his tail swishing just as restlessly as a dog that thinks there might be a reason to wag happily but isn't quite convinced they won't be disappointed by the complete withdrawal of the hoped for reward. king hates exposing uncertainty, but this, naturally, only heightens the outward signs of it.

“to be able to just go along for the ride, without doing any additional work,” king huffs, sounding -- to himself, at least -- exactly like a child that knows he'll  be told he's correct if he's just petulant enough about it, because no one else wants to deal with arguing with him anymore.

sometimes, it feels simply impossible to turn off the urgent sense -- which instilled in him years ago -- that he has only ever earned anything through coercion and domination, through the bullying of people that would rather give him his way than deal with the wrath and cruelty that they're certain -- that eveb king is certain at times -- would follow any failure to do so. in king’s mind, he is always only ever a tiny emotional flare away from reverting back to his most bestial qualities, a monster whose vision turns red with fury and can no longer distinguish between an acceptable and drastically disproportionate response to any perceived slight. even in a casual conversation between best friends, king does not feel safe to be around.

“as a reader,” king clarifies quickly. “a reader doesn't always want to deal with the emotional whiplash of surprises. it can be pleasant to not be surprised.”

the collector watches king pensively and he can tell that they agree with him, both in a literary sense and, more pressingly, in regards to life itself: there is comfort to be distilled from mundanity, from the repetition of routines and the fulfillment of expectations, from a seed planted in the ground and watered regularly growing into a sprout and following the steps laid out in a manual building a functional radio and eating lunch together with a best friend being filled with fun chatter and laughter and the same sense of revival and renewal that the rare good night’s sleep provides but by far more easily and more reliably.

“besides, king blurts out, continuing with an urgency that suggests if he does not share it now he might quickly forget it forever and then no one will ever know about it, “nothing is ever really new. even the unexpected relies on expectations, which means it also follows a formula, albeit a more hidden one. but it can still be cracked.”

the collector raises their eyes from the spine of a book they had been idly tracing, affixing king with the excited glimmer that he recognizes from invitations to go exploring and play grudgby and dance together. even if the collector’s lips have not moved, king can see that their eyes are already smiling.

“what's your strategy then?” the collector asks eagerly. “do you try reverse predicting outcomes? figure out what the obvious cliché would be and expect the opposite?”

“i’m afraid i may already be doing that.”

there it is: king once again making explicit that he is still thinking -- still talking -- about himself, that this entire conversation, to him, revolves around him (even as he knows an equally critical part of it is entirely about how the collector fits -- and will fit -- into king’s life, choices, future). does it make king seem honest and vulnerable, in that peculiar manner others sometimes find compelling, or is he just coming off as hugely egotistical?

perhaps all deliberate vulnerability is, to a degree, an egotistical act: to expose -- to offer -- one's vulnerability is to assert it is of value, that one’s struggle matters not just to oneself but to someone else, too.

what if this doesn't matter to the collector like it does to king? what if the collector doesn't care about king’s anxiety regarding the future, doesn't deem it worth attention, or -- worst of all -- finds it laughable? has king just lost respect in the mind of the collector, has he been diagnosed as weak, ridiculous, neurotic?

while king is agonizing over the potential disaster he may have deliberately staged, the collector is doing their own calculations, peering at their best friend as if through the wall of a cell, wondering if enough pressure has swelled around them to permit the process of osmosis that might lead the collector straight through the barrier and into the shell of an abode that king has sequestered himself within. too much pressure, and the collector may well be forced back out -- but it might be worth the journey if they can reach king through that distorting blockage for even a brief moment.

the collector decides to try.

“would you prefer to still have everything laid out for you by someone else?” the collector asks at point blank, eliciting such a choking gasp from their best friend that they feel the impulse to take it all back, apologize, and promise to never bring such things up again, but they muscle through their own defensive barrier and determine to endure the stabbing discomfort exuding from both of them. “it might seem like it was easier when you thought you didn't have any options, when you thought no decision you made was your own, but…”

the collector trails off, biting their tongue from the embarrassment of having lost their nerve at the most crucial moment. king, however, has heard enough to draw his own conclusion.

“i’m a coward, then.”

king spits out the words like a bullet he hubristically thought he could catch between his teeth but instead let jam into his tongue, resentful yet matter-of-fact, accepting of something else he has failed to hate into nonexistence.

astonished, the collector’s eyes go wide as he shakes his head, trying and failing to muster any verbal opposition.

as for king, his eyes roll towards the back of his head, an arc as smooth and graceful as it is dismissive. the collector cringes reflexively.

“to miss being controlled, to want to go back to it, to think it's the only way i can be -- i’m a coward for that,” king continues, crossing his arms over his chest and shooting his best friend a defiant glare -- a misdirection of the contempt he feels for himself.

the collector, to king’s surprise, does not answer with any trace whatsoever of anger, instead reaching for king’s hand -- which, upon registering the familiar and coveted warmth of the collector’s skin, immediately releases its grip on his arm and capitulates to being cradled by the collector’s like a wild animal that knows there is no point even trying to swim against the river’s tide, that, wherever it might lead them, they are better off submitting passively to its will.

there can be great comfort in such a giving in, but king is not quite ready for it yet.

“being afraid isn't the same as being a coward,” the collector says softly, taking a step towards king so they can stand closer, so their fingers can thread freely through king’s claws while their equally warm breath sprinkles his face like the misty spray from a waterfall -- gentle, refreshing, and agonizingly ephemeral.

it doesn't have to feel ephemeral, king thinks, then nearly laughs aloud at the notion: like he'd ever have the courage to tell his best friend how intensely he longs to feel that warm breath on his face, those warm fingers cradling his hand, this warm proximity between their bodies -- without having the entire experience dampened by the certainty of its brevity, by not being able to simply say -- with words or otherwise -- please just stay this close to me for a while longer. king really is a coward.

“but it leads to the same,” king contends gruffly, like he's refusing some medicine he knows will help him feel better because he's determined to just weather the symptoms until the illness resolves itself (while also knowing this particular illness can not resolve itself on its own).

“i can't imagine ever thinking of you as a coward, king,” the collector counters, correctly ascertaining that king’s anxiety balances precariously on the collector's perception of him but managing, unknowingly, to set off a different source of said anxiety. “not after everything we've been thr --”

“so you don't have any expectations for me, then?” king challenges with blatant hostility, his upper lip successfully retreating into that dastardly snarl that makes him look and feel like an old and battered beast that just doesn't know how to stop picking fights with everyone and everything. “i’ve already fulfilled my role as poor, sacrificial lamb -- suffered enough to earn eternal adoration, regardless of everything i do after!”

king is shouting and he knows it's alarming the collector, tightening their muscles and quickening that normally pleasant breeze of a breath of theirs, but king has moved squarely into wanting to see the same despair that consumes him reflected in someone else -- it suddenly feels like the only way he can ever come even close to being understood.

the collector, king knows, is highly empathetic, and with none more than king himself. king really is a monster for doing this to them.

“i could do nothing for the rest of my life and you'd keep on loving me just the same, no more and no less than if i’d done any number of other things instead!” king yells. he knows he's gone too far, burdened them both with this terrible experience, but he can't stop, not when every despicable feeling he's ever harbored for himself is suddenly bubbling up his throat and no one but him seems willing to state aloud the veracity of it all -- if his best friend won't condemn him, he can do the work for both of them.

“it's all the same to you, even if i were to - were to - to -!”

king is sharply cut off in the same instant he realizes he is entirely out of breath, his eyes widening with a trickle of panic as his unoccupied hand clutches the area across his chest that guards his heart. he wheezes for a smattering of seconds, gaze lowering to the library floor with a melangé of shame and despair.

the collector remains silent for a spell, which feels as eternal and bewitching as actual magic, their eyebrows furrowing with the agonized consternation that only encountering king’s pain can elicit in them. the collector sucks on their inner cheek, eyes darting across the covers and titles of the various books scattered across the table, as if their recollections of how the stories contained within them were resolved could provide the collector with some answer, with some formula to carry the two of them safely through the trials before and between them.

king stiffens as he feels the collector lean closer, but otherwise restrains himself from reacting. slowly and gently, the collector cups their palm around king’s cheek, and nudges him towards meeting eyes with them.

king’s breath catches in his throat like vomit he refuses to expel, striving with feverish impotence to reverse the process and fill his lungs with enough carbon dioxide to force him to pass out and thus escape this situation altogether.

unfortunately for king, life has honed him into far sturdier material, and he's disappointed by the sharp inhale that parts his lips like a knife prying open the shell of a still living oyster. he's still panting slightly, trying to recover from momentarily depriving himself of oxygen, when the collector speaks.

“i love you, king,” the collector begins simply yet intensely, hitting king quite like he has never heard such words from his best friend or really anyone else before and thus proportionally deluging his nervous system with both ecstasy and terror, the sort of whirlwind thrill that he imagines must keep recreational skydivers hooked to periodically flinging their lives in death’s direction. he wants terribly to hide his face behind his hands and run away, find some niche he can crawl into and expire without ever being found again, but he is even more intensely transfixed by the delectable sound of his best friend’s profession and, like with the echoes of a bell that continue to ring in his ears long after the bell itself has stilled, he can do nothing to rid himself of it.

“loving you doesn't mean i don't expect anything from you,” the collector continues gently. “but it does mean i won't stop loving you just because you diverge from those expectations. you're full of surprises, king, and that's a big part of why i love you!”

the collector’s words taste so sweet to king that he is reminded of those excessively elaborate confections that the collector is so fond of indulging in: whipped cream and meringue and sugar cubes that melt on his tongue the instant they touch it -- so ephemeral he can only continue to enjoy them by eating copious amounts of them, and even then they eventually run out and he is left with a yearning for their return.

it's that kind of yearning that king feels for the collector, a need for company and conversation and closeness and comprehension that is never fully satisfied, that always begs for more. king is like a child that failed to develop object permanence, but with his relationships: anytime the collector isn't actively paying attention to him, the strength and certainty of their friendship might as well never have existed.

“besides,” the collector adds, a suspiciously mischievous sentiment tugging one corner of his mouth into a lopsided smile, like they've just orchestrated a marvelous heist or other such plan to get the two of them into a lot of fun and a lot of trouble. king envies their ability to find such carefree joy in the midst of this situation.

“it's not like there's a limit to loving someone. there's no set amount of love you can either gain or lose forever. i’m constantly finding new reasons to love you. and if there's ever trouble between us, well, we can work it out -- and then maybe our love will be even stronger because we got through that together!” the collector says, seeming quite convinced by this theory.

king wants so profoundly to also believe it that, for a moment, he allows himself to imagine a future where he does -- it's a fleeting vision, like reading an especially fanciful science fiction story, but even implausible stories reveal something of what is plausible.

“love evolves as relationships do,” the collector concludes with an air of satisfaction, as if they have indeed reached the conclusion of a particularly stressful story, one in which, despite the greatest of odds, everyone ends up happy. “it's not quantifiable. it's qualitative.”

king is so shaken by what the collector has said to do much besides stand there, rigid as a mouse that knows moving in any way will give its position away to a nearby predator and thus seal their demise -- though he does manage to lift his gaze when he feels his best friend’s fingers brush against his forehead, watching utterly transfixed as the collector guides a lock of dark, curly hair away from his face and tucks it behind his ear.

“you really are cute when your hair gets all over your face,” the collector murmurs, with such naked tenderness that king thinks they must certainly mean those words only for themself, having only accidentally -- and, judging by the unperturbed serenity that frames their facial features, unconsciously -- uttered them aloud. “you have such gorgeous hair…”

and there it is, king thinks: the possibility of a different kind of love -- a love that makes room for the sort of physical and emotional intimacies that king daydreams of but dares not make known with any sort of declaration or request; a love that can encompass and account for the fervent intensity of king’s feelings for the collector; a love that requires no secrets from either of them and instead demands a radically transformative honesty in all matters; a love that might entail king finally placing his own hand on the collector’s cheek and feel comfortable in the certainty that this gesture can only ever be a welcome and pleasant caress, and not the dangerous proximity of his claws to his best friend's throat. but whether the collector is thinking -- or, indeed, has ever even considered -- this sort of love, king has no way of judging for certain. and so, with a regretful resignation that has become entirely too familiar to him, he lets the moment -- the opportunity -- pass them both by, offering his best friend nothing beyond a steady and attentive gaze.

even if king can not express his true appreciation for the collector’s proclamations, he will, at the very least, ensure they know he's paying attention to each and every word.

the collector smiles with a serenity that king finds himself perplexed to be the target of, fiddling with the strand of his hair and managing to wrap it around their finger -- a sight that elicits a soft chuckle from deep within the collector’s throat and a ricocheting heartbeat from king. it all looks to king like nothing more and nothing less than an excuse to remain this physically close to king, and king, despite his outward guardedness, hopes against hope that the pleading within him for the collector to just continue this way indefinitely somehow permeates through his petrified expression and reaches his best friend.

despite his yearning -- or, perhaps, perversely, because of his yearning -- king can not bring himself to say anything back to the collector, so the moment, once again, goes no further.

king tried not to visualize punching the petulant muscle that is his heart.

“here, why don't i tell you a story?” the collector offers, breaking a spell king is now fairly certain both of them are pretending to not be aware of.

the collector performs a small jump to propel them into the air, pirouetting on their way up until they're hovering next to one of the shelves in the bookcase that are too high to be reached by king. he watches anxiously as his best friend runs their index finger across various spines, considering each title for a moment before moving onto the next.

“i’ve read some pretty fun ones lately!” the collector exclaims, shooting king an amicable grin before seeming to decide none of the books presently within reach will do for their best friend and instead churning up something from memory -- king always prefers when the collector gives stories their own personalized spin, after all.

when king doesn't respond, the collector adds hopefully, “it might help get your mind off what's bothering you. and, if not, well… at least we'll spend some time together, and that's always nice, right?”

the question feels, to king, entirely rhetorical, but he nods his assent anyway, which -- mercifully -- broadens the collector’s smile to the point that the dimples in his cheeks become visible, like beautiful islets that only rise above the water when the tide is at its lowest.

“is it an allegory?” king asks, more to force himself to start using his vocal cords than anything else, though it's also true that he's hoping to dispel the residual anxiety that buzzes around him like a flock of gnats that just won't give up on their quarry.

“every story is an allegory if you're willing to put yourself in it!” the collector answers breezily, sweeping aside the various books scattered across the table with magic so they can take a seat right at the center of it, legs crossed and hand beckoning at their best friend.

king finds himself unsettled by this response, but climbs onto the table anyway, plopping down in front of the collector with a pair of eyebrows that remain stubbornly -- and frustratedly -- scrunched.

“okay,” king concedes. “let's find out what allegory we can find in this story then.”

the collector beams, then reaches for king’s hand again, meeting no more resistance than the first time around. king swallows with noticable difficulty.

“i’m glad you said we,” the collector says, drawing attention to something king had neither consciously intended nor noticed until then.

king thinks, but doesn't say: i’m glad there's a we to speak of, and i keep having to say we aloud just to remind myself we are a real thing.

king stares blankly for a moment, then nods. the collector squeezes king’s hand.

“once upon a time,” the collector begins, swirling their unoccupied hand around to conjure a small bubble of iridescent magic, which projects objects from the scene they describe. “there was a sea, and on that sea there was an island, and within that island there was a jungle, and inside of the jungle there was a temple, and at the heart of the temple there was an egg.”

the collector pauses -- clearly for dramatic effect -- the magic bubble swelling to accommodate a rendition of what this mysterious scene might look like, each couple of words uttered by the collector compelling it to zoom closer and closer, until king can see the white marbled walls and platinum statues and obsidian pedestal where a single egg balances precariously.

king squints at the image, wondering how much of it is due to the collector’s imaginative creative license and how much faithfully adheres to the descriptions they read in whatever book they are now paraphrasing for him.

then the hair on the back of king’s neck starts to stand up and he swats at it reflexively, like it's some kind of bug he can just scare away. unsettled, king turns away from the magic bubble.

the collector, mistaking king’s behavior for disinterest or -- worse -- displeasure with them, tries making the narration more interesting.

“the egg was the last of its kind, and it had waited, for a very long time and all on its lonesome, to be ready to hatch,” the collector continues, nudging the magic bubble towards their best friend so it's once more within his line of sight. king realizes with a start how he's made them feel and opens his mouth to muster something like an apology -- or, at least, a plausible explanation -- but nothing comes out. he briefly considers just fleeing the scene.

“the egg might have well hatched with no one around to witness it,” the collector says solemnly, before adjusting to a far cheerier timbre: “were it not for a young witch that happened upon the mysterious temple and its egg at precisely the right moment!”

watching the peculiar egg in the illusion start to crack, king feels his stomach contract painfully, like he's being warned about having just ingested something poisonous.

“the witch decided to take the egg back with her to her home, where it was able to hatch in her company. and the name of the creature that emerged from that egg was --”

“stop,” king says, the word almost too quiet to be heard by even himself, but with all the telltale alarm of someone trying to stop another person from stepping right in the middle of ongoing traffic.

the collector feels that alarm constrict around their chest like a rubber band snapping back into its smallest size, but their mouth is already open and words are continuing to spill out of it, until --

“stop!” king yells, fury nestled like a cuckoo's egg amidst his every effort to have a nice, normal time with the collector, to not burst with a pyroclastic flow of emotions that suffocate everything before even becoming aware of its approach.

the collector, apprehending the intensity of king’s command, slices through the word they were in the middle of uttering and adds no more from the story, but they can not help sputtering out puzzledly, “what? why?”

“this story could never happen,” king states, firm but with a pleading that he hopes the collector can discern just well enough to heed.

“stories aren't only about what could happen,” the collector counters, still struggling to understand why their best friend’s demeanor has shifted so drastically, what has upset him so clearly and profoundly.

king lowers his gaze in lieu of offering an answer, so the collector also stares down at the ground, as if this could somehow lead them to perceive whatever is troubling king.

after a tense pause, the collector offers hopefully, “it's an allegory, remember? what happens isn't what's import --”

“i don't care about the allegory in this story,” king mumbles. the implication -- that king himself doesn't want to become part of the story -- goes unaddressed, but king has spoken with a finality that the collector knows well enough to respect.

the collector nods in comprehension and contracts the fingers of their hand into a fist to make the magic bubble burst. king expects to only feel relief at its disappearance, yet discovers a strange yearning alongside it, like nostalgia for something he can't be certain he ever experienced.

“where did you even find a story like that?” king huffs angrily, more an admonishment than an inquiry, which he immediately realizes is cruel of him and wishes he had the magic to make disappear like his best friend did with the bubble.

the collector, however, seems less perturbed by king’s acerbity than intrigued by the prospect of answering. their lips twist into a pensive frown as they scratch the back of their head, seemingly genuinely stumped by the task.

shrugging their shoulders, the collector states casually, “somewhere in the restricted section of the library probably! it's a pretty big place, and there are so many old journals from long dead witches and demons in there. i tend to forget what happened in which.”

this information does nothing to assuage king’s unease, but the possibility that everything the collector just told him was an entirely fictional composite of multiple different sources does, on an intellectual level, relieve him: it is truly a story that could never happen, that never has happened.

there's another uncomfortable pause, king trying half-heartedly to come up with an excuse to leave that won't further injure his best friend, the collector fidgeting by running a hand across their forearm while chewing on their lower lip.

then the collector has an idea, and blurts out brightly, “hey, i know! why don't you tell me a story? that way, you can decide what kind of story it is!”

king stares at his best friend perplexedly for a few seconds, as if this has never even crossed his mind as an option -- which, he's equally baffled to realize, it hasn't.

“i,” king stammers, feeling like he's just been pulled onto a stage and told to dance in a style he knows nothing about (a real scenario he has ample experience with, also thanks to the collector). “i don't know any stories… besides the ones you've told me, i mean. and you already know all of those better than me, so…”

king deliberately trails off, hoping that will be the end of it -- but also, mysteriously, delightfully, relieved when it isn't.

the collector can be quite insistent, and, despite the chagrin at being dragged out of his comfort zone, king is glad the collector deems him worth dragging along.

“really?” the collector asks, with a surprise that bears no judgment, only curiosity. “you didn't hear any when you were little?”

a bout of sweat breaks out across king’s temples as he's forced to -- however briefly -- consider a truthful answer to this question -- he arrives at nothing so concrete as images or even words, but there are a lot of feelings that he instantly realizes he can not allow to proliferate for even a nanosecond.

“i don't remember anything from when i was little,” king states decisively, as much for his own ears to hear as the collector’s. he starts repeating it in his mind, like some kind of warding spell (knowledge of what he needs to ward away at all costs being part of what he is warding away), even as he utters different words aloud: “if i ever did hear any stories, they're gone now.”

like everything else from when i was little, king could add, but doesn't. it's not true, anyway: nothing’s gone, not entirely -- he just prefers to believe every recollection he ever has from his childhood, whether merely a vague yet arresting emotional aura or a full-blown, multi sensory hallucination, is some fantastical fabrication, the manic misfirings of his twisted, knotted, broken neurons, and not in any way reflective of any real past experiences.

to the collector, it's like the sound of a door slamming shut in their face before they ever even tried to open it. they sigh wearily, but elect to push no further.

both friends descend into a silence that feels like a scab that's been scraped all over again and bleeding anew, and king thinks maybe the time has finally arrived for this entire interaction to come to an end.

but king just sits there, making no attempt, either verbal or physical, to leave. he's stuck remembering something the collector once said to him, not long enough after the day of unity for him to not feel like it was somehow part of the same, uninterrupted event.

this can be a new beginning, the collector told king. you can start over -- with me!

king wants to believe in that vision more than he can recall ever wanting anything else in his life, to feel that this -- where he is sitting right this moment -- is part of a new beginning, with none of his past attached to it: no preface, epitaph, or prologue -- just the first chapter in what will certainly sprawl into a vast and exciting epic.

with the collector. a new beginning for king’s story, with the collector by his side this time.

the question that keeps tormenting king is whether a new beginning, even with the collector as part of king’s story, is enough for a new ending as well -- it's always possible they are merely rehearsing for the same grand finale that marked the end of his past, violently aborted and still aching life.

king is so deep in the labyrinth of his own ruminations that he doesn't notice the collector’s face brighten.

“so invent one!” the collector exclaims, looking proud to have come up with what seems to them the perfect solution. “make up your own story, one you want to tell!”

king isn't sure about that. the things he comes up with that make it onto his tongue and through his lips are rarely things he wants to tell. and so he can only imagine that any story he could come up with would amount to much of the same, like being betrayed by the inadvertent flushing of his face or poisoned by a beverage he brewed himself.

the collector says every story is an allegory if you are willing to put yourself in it, and king can only hope he would be positively unwilling to put himself in any story he concocted.

yet the collector is staring at king expectantly, full of a love-laced conviction that he is capable and willing to step up to this task, and he feels he has reached the limit of times he can disappoint his best friend in one afternoon.

so, worn down by fatigue and a desperate desire to prove his best friend’s faith in him is not ill-founded, king sucks in a deep breath, and begins.

“there was once… there once was,” king mumbles, uncertain how to even open a story he has not thought out ahead of time, a story he is now determined to somehow improvise in its entirety -- and all it takes is the slight widening of the collector’s smile to muster the foolishness to continue.

“in the beginning… that was not the beginning,” king starts over, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. “there was… a child from the stars… and there was also… a titan.”

king pauses to swallow anxiously, a disruption probably only noticeable to himself.

“they were both very young when they met... and they were both very old when they were still friends… at the end… that was not the end…”

king stops, feeling that the story has reached its natural conclusion after only those couple of lines (isn't it the collector who once said, brevity is the soul of wit?), but the collector is still watching king expectantly, eyes wide and sparkling, lips arched into an enchanted grin, like a child that's being given a special treat for behaving so well all day long -- and, king knows (oh, how he knows), the collector has been very, very good to him, and not just today. it'd feel cruel to withdraw such a prize at this point, and king is willing to believe many things about himself, but cruel… well, cruel is one he certainly doesn't need to be collecting more evidence for, so best to avoid it whenever possible.

so king tells the kind of story he thinks the collector would enjoy -- full of silly characters, ridiculous problems, and absolutely chaotic adventures -- because, as it turns out, the kind of story king wants to tell is one that the collector wants to hear.

[ninjatrashpanda]

Season 8 Episode 2 Write-Up

Folks! I did it last week, I’ll do it again! And probably for every new episode we get! I liked doing it, and several people followed me for it, so why not, right?

Anyway, 8x02 was still a fantastic episode, even if I didn’t necessarily like it as much as 8x01. I’ll hold off on making a full judgment until next week, when we have the full trilogy in front of us. So, without further ado, beware the cut, for it is long.

1. The Opening Scene

Right off the bat, this feels like the earthquake episode. We’re immediately introduced to the victims of the week, from the sports team, to the business guy, to dog lady, Jem (the hero of the hour!) and his dad, and the elderly couple. I particularly love that Jem is introduced to us by having him walk into the cockpit and talking to the pilots about how much he loves and knows about planes. He’s just instantly so endearing! And his dad seems super encouraging, too. Some of my favorite characters of the week (or weekS I guess, in this case) in a while, honestly!

“Beautiful girl!” “He is.” made me laugh. All of these people just seem super nice, all things considered, and it’s nice that this dog lady isn’t as much of a piece of work as the other dog lady in the earthquake episode.

Also, same Dennis, I don’t like the window seat in a plane either. I’m much too scared of heights like you.

2. The 118

So there’s been a lot of discussion already about Buck spiraling over not knowing why he tackled Gerrard out of the way, and Hen, Chim and especially Eddie not really caring and dancing around instead. And personally, I’m a little torn. Yes, Buck is technically making a big deal out of nothing, and technically his emotional state is not anybody else’s concern. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Buck is asking for reassurance from Eddie, only for Eddie to basically blow him off and dance away instead. Like, at this point a lot of us have pointed out that Buck and Eddie’s relationship is quite uneven, and I think this is part of that.

That being said, I actually do get Eddie. Eddie very often, at least to me, seems like he doesn’t feel his emotions properly. When he’s angry, he seems annoyed at best, his sadness is usually some slightly wet eyes and some subdued facial expressions, etc. It’s part of why it makes such an impact when he ends up exploding, emotionally speaking. Most of this obviously comes from several decades of emotional repression, because Eddie wants to protect his pride, because he doesn’t want to seem weak. There’s a good chance he subdued his emotions forcefully when he was younger, and then, gradually, they numbed down on their own.

This is actually something the show has brought up before in several episodes, like in “Kids Today,” (3x01) where Eddie says his dad always told him to “brush it off” when things didn’t work out for him, or in “Hero Complex” (5x17), where it’s part of the generational trauma that Ramon has inherited from his father (Why is Abuelo Edmundo so romanticized in fanfics again?), and then gave to Eddie. They even bond over it and both vow to get better together, because they both realize that in their attempts to appear strong and capable, they caused themselves and others to get hurt.

So, how does any of this relate to this episode? Because it shows us, like many times before, that Eddie deals with emotions and the like by not dealing with them. He probably genuinely thinks that relaxing and having a dance party is good for Buck, because it’s distracting him from those pesky feelings nobody wants to feel. 

You could make the argument that Eddie has learned several times over that dealing like this is bad, (and I agree!) but even ignoring that Eddie has been unfortunately static in his development for a while, healing isn’t linear and people are bound to repeat past mistakes. I’m actually kind of hoping that this is some sort of set up for Eddie’s character arc this season! I really, desperately need him to have a good one that actually sticks this time, because the last few seasons have been disappointing in that regard.

Lastly, before I stop with overanalyzing Eddie over a silly dance party scene, do I wish that a certain subset of shippers reacted to Eddie doing what they predicted Tommy would do with the same level of vitriol? Yes. Am I surprised they don’t? No, because hypocrisy is a BoB standard at this point.

Also, Buck and Gerrard are gonna end up golfing together because Buck feels guilty. That’s my current theory, and I’m sticking with it for now.

3. The Funeral Flashback

Right off the bat, I want to say that we don’t appreciate Pepi Sonuga as Young Athena enough. She was fantastic back in Season Three, and now she comes in four years later, looking exactly the same, and repeating it. That woman is absolutely fantastic!

I don’t think I need to say much about the funeral itself. We all cried, I’m assuming. Athena’s speech was beautiful, the music was perfect, and the dispatcher giving Emmett his last honors gave me huge flashbacks to Kevin’s funeral. Just an all around well done scene.

Also, shoutout to Gina Torres being both a paramedic captain in present day Austin, Texas, and a dispatcher 30 years ago in LA, California lmao.

4. Athena and Dennis (And Dennis’ flashback)

I’m torn. Just…so torn. Because Dennis is just all around such a nice, genuinely good guy. Like, he can leave prison. He made a deal to do that. He can go back to his family, can go back to being a social worker, can go back to helping people…and he decides not to without Athena’s blessing. Because he understands just how much his actions hurt her, and that all the good he did didn’t mend the hole in Athena’s heart. He understands that Athena deserves closure, and to have a say in how her fiancé’s murderer is punished. And he accepts it and is willing to give up his freedom to give it to her.

And honestly, I think this is what’s gonna lead to her forgiving him and giving him her blessing to go through with the deal. She’ll realize just how much Dennis is like Bobby. All the qualities she loves about Bobby are right there, in Dennis, and she’ll realize that his killing Emmett wasn’t malicious, just like Bobby setting the fire wasn’t, and that if she can look past Bobby’s actions because of how much he repents, she can do the same with Dennis. Just like with the Gerrard and Buck golfing theory up there, this is my current Athena theory, and I’m sticking with it until Thursday proves me either right or wrong!

The flashback was pretty informative in a very short amount of time, and I really like that! I love that they threw in the part about every other inmate hating Fulton for hurting kids, which is, reportedly, Truth in Television. If you mess with kids, being in prison is the least of your concerns.

I also appreciate that they picked just a normal looking dude to play the pedo! I feel like too often, TV shows and movies typecast a certain look in these roles (overweight, balding, conventionally unattractive) and then try to make them look creepy on top of that. Them picking a guy you might see while out grocery shopping, who on top of that looks pretty easy going and friendly, is not only a nice change of pace, it’s more realistic. Kudos to you, show!

Also, apparently Maxwell Fulton is just Jeffrey Epstain. Should we start a “Fulton Didn’t Kill Himself” meme?

5. The Crash

Captain Dominguez joins bee driver guy from last week in “Characters who had family and loved ones In Universe who now grieve for them, but we don’t really care.” Also, casual reminder that her body, while hopefully already dead by then, will fall to the earth and literally splatter into goo unless it drops into a body of water, which would still cause damage to the body, but wouldn’t turn her into a red blot. At least bee driver guy’s family had his body. Let’s hope Dominguez doesn’t go splat in a neighborhood with kids! 😃

I love the chaos of the initial crash! Everyone getting thrown around, the copilot having an open fracture and being unconscious, Jordan’s oxygen mask being broken (Why was it broken? Did it break right now? Was it broken beforehand? Either way, it shouldn’t have happened, what kind of airline is this???), the whole thing is so well-shot! Exceptional camera work, seriously!

Also lmao at Athena’s phone actually working. She’s got great service!

Honestly love, love, LOVE that they brought back the air traffic crew from Season Five! It’s a nice bit of continuity and a callback for us to turn into the Pointing Leo meme!

6. Hot Shots

“Help me, help me, I’m in here.” I don’t know if they’re implying that that’s what it’s gonna sound like in the finished episode or if it’s just to help the actors space their pauses and the real audio is getting edited in later, but still, it made me cackle. Great call back to Season One, too!

Also, is it just me or is the director going “It’s a TV show!” “They’re not putting their visors down!” etc. just Tim throwing shade at us all lmao? Callum Blue is amazing here, too, the sheer condescension in that “Marcus!” had me fucking rolling!

“He’ll be gone after a week, but you…you’ll still be here!” And that lip bite??? He wants Bobby. He so wants Bobby. Which is understandable, you know, I desire Peter Krause carnally, too, but like…you’re laying it on a little thick there, mate. I also love how genuinely scared Bobby looks right after lmao.

7. Back on the plane + Maddie calling the 118

Okay. So. Uh, I don’t think the copilot has an open fracture anymore? More like something  stabbed and is now stuck in his leg? I don’t know, can anyone clarify?

“That’s not good!” No Jem, a hole in the plane is not good! Should I question why the people weren’t moved away from the tear before now? Probably not. Let’s just appreciate that Athena somewhat knows what she’s doing here.

Her speech is great, too. It’s at moments like this where you realize “Oh yeah. That’s Angela Fucking Bassett in the silly wee woo show.” The delivery, the actual monologue, how she rallies and speaks to everyone. I feel like if Athena’s cop storylines centered more around moments like this, about her showing empathy to people, about her building people up instead of her going rogue and “doing what’s right” I’d enjoy those scenes a lot more.

Maddie only being in this episode to tell everyone that Athena is on a crashing plane, and that they’ll coach a bunch of civilians through triage, yet they still got JLH to cry is peak, and I mean that seriously! Let JLH cry! She’s so good at it!

Athena going to leave a (possibly) dying message to Bobby on his phone is heartbreaking enough, her not doing it and instead just saying “I love you, baby,” is somehow worse??? 

“Everything should be fine!” *disconnects call* “We should probably evacuate the airport!” Nick from air traffic control, you will always be famous to me💖

8. Back to Bobby

So Brad is either completely insane, or a really, really dedicated method actor. Or both. Also, is it just me or is he not just admiring Bobby, he tries to be Bobby? Like, he yells at his “co-writer” (likely story <.<) and then instantly asks Bobby to go up to a remote location on a mountain to method act about firefighting. That’s…concerning. I still think he’s hilarious, but also…he’s a little creepy…

9. Triage and everything else on that plane

I don’t think there’s much I can say about this that hasn’t already been said. At the end of the day, 9-1-1 is about how humanity is good. People are good. And I don’t think any scene before has quite encompassed that as well as the one where everyone is working together on that plane to treat each other. Maybe the scene in Season Two when everyone breaks through the police barricades to help lift the ladder truck off of Buck’s leg, but this one is still the best show of that philosophy in my opinion.

Jem helping Athena with the plane is amazing, and I desperately need Tommy to be in Thursday’s episode, if only so he can tell Jem that he did great and has a bright future in aviation in front of him!

Probably the highlight of the entire episode for me is Tia (and by extension Edward and Pru) saving Jordan’s life. “Does anybody here have erectile dysfunction?!” and “Perks of being geriatric, dear!” are both class af lines that I hope we keep talking about because, come on!!!

“You’re making a prison shiv. Where did you learn how to do that?” Ma’am, I think the better question is, how do you know he’s making a prison shiv? Were you in prison too? Did you make a shiv yourself? Did you ever shiv someone, either to save your life or just for fun? So many questions about coach lady here! I love how nonchalant Dennis is about having been in prison, too. Like, sorry not sorry, right now he has no reason to care lmao.

Tia and Jordan having a moment was super cute, but I can’t help but think about the future here.

“Daddy, how did you and Mommy meet?”

“Well you see kids, we were in a crashing plane, and I was vomiting up pink foam, so she made me inhale boner dust to save my life! We fell in love instantly!”

Honestly, Tia, Edward and Pru working together to save Jordan’s life might just be the highlight of the episode for me. I love Jordan and the dog in the end there, super cute 💖

“I’ve never shived anyone!” I don’t believe you, coach lady! I bet you shived a whole bunch of people, actually!

“You’re gonna cut it open, just like a sausage.” Chim. Chim why? Chim, please, why?!

Okay, so, part of me is still super delulu and wants Tommy to rappel down and land the plane (fingers crossed!) but if that doesn’t happen, then I want Jem to do it. Like, lean into the crazy and have the 10-year-old with the hyperfixation land the giant passenger plane on the freeway! I would fucking celebrate it! I’m not lying!

Also, thank you for being smart, Dennis! I swear to Christ, why isn’t Athena calling Elaine to tell her about the list?! I get that Bobby is the person Athena trusts the most, but Elaine should be the obvious person to call. This just seems like a really weird writing decision. Honestly.

Which then leads us to Donna deciding to go “We’re gonna be okay! 😀” Girl, have you ever seen a movie or TV show before?! You never say this kind of shit before the crashing plane isn’t safe on the ground! Everything that’s now going wrong is your fault, Donna, and I hope you know it!

“Whatever situation Athena is in with Dennis, I’m sure she has it under control!” Cue the plane literally falling out of the sky lmao.

AND THEN JEM BECOMES ATHENA’S COPILOT! I love it! I love this random ass child so much, I cannot describe it 😭 Can we keep Jem? I want to keep him, please!! He literally just saved that plane, this is why I love this show! Like, yes, actually, I do want that child to land this plane! In fact, I hope Tommy rappels down and takes the pilot seat while Jem has the copilot one, and then they land the plane together! Will that happen? Probably not! But I can be delulu if I want to!

10. The last Five Minutes, from Bobby to Athena

First of all, Brad has five wives! Is he mormon? Is it proper polygamy? Is he officially married to all five women at once? Cause that’s bigamy and Athena told us in Season Five (I think?) that that’s a big No No.

“Athena’s on that plane, isn’t she?” “She’s flying it!” “Of course she is, what else would she be doing?” I love how Bobby is just not even surprised at this point. “Yeah, my wife is always in completely insane situations, this isn’t anything new.”

Buck’s fucking Shocked Pikachu face when Bobby decides that they’re stealing the truck sent me xD But hey, another “Like Father, Like Son” moment right there. Stealing a firetruck for a woman, who would’ve guessed!

“Brad…whatever.” So Buck has no idea who Brad is. This random stranger just jumped into the truck behind him and Bobby and said “Alright, boys. Let’s saddle up!” and Buck has no clue who this guy is or why he’s here or why Bobby has no reaction to him anymore. I can’t wait for next episode to see some interactions between all three of them!

So, uh, the last part with the copilot waking up and then having a heart attack was kind of pointless, right? Like, it’s not just me? Like, the copilot has a heart attack, so now Athena and Jem have to land the plane, except that was the plan from the beginning, so what changes here exactly? Yeah, the copilot would’ve been a better candidate, but Athena was already gearing up to land that plane herself.

Also, Jem is, as of the end of this episode, flying the plane by himself!

Final Thoughts

This was a much more action heavy episode than last week, which is great! It is, but I usually prefer the character interactions and moments, and I kind of missed them this week. That being said, this might still become my favorite opening disaster yet! Yes, even more so than the tsunami! It all depends on how Thursday’s episode goes.

The passengers all treating and rescuing each other was amazing, Brad is still fun (though I’m starting to suspect he might be in cahoots with Fulton? idk), and Angela Bassett is Angela Bassett.

As for Thursday, do I hope Tommy comes in to land the plane (with assistance from Jem)? Yes! Do I think it’s actually going to happen? Eeeeeeh. I’m prepared for it not to, and it won’t be a big deal if it doesn’t, but I can still dream!

Anyway, share your own thoughts with me! Send me asks if you want to! Have discussions with me! Or, you know, simply feel my appreciation for you for reading my jumbled mind lmao.

[tetedurfarm]

can't remember if i ever really gave the full story here, but some of you may remember a couple years ago when i was constantly losing rabbits around around weaning age from a mystery disease and i'd like to talk about it to maybe help others. it has now been over a year of implementing the new weaning protocol and my losses have dropped from 90+% to almost zero.

obvious tw for animal death and discussion of disease.

symptoms: no appetite, severe grimace, bloating, dehydration, occasionally diarrhea. necropsy revealed discolouration of the kidneys on some animals but not all. symptoms would occur suddenly and kill within 48 hours. bodies were often found with legs extended and heads thrown back against the shoulders. some close to death animals would show neurological signs (shaking, stargazing, unable to stand,) attributed to bloating pressure on the nerves inside the body.

attempted treatments: force feeding with critical care mixed with electrolytes, probiotics, and sometimes caecotrope slurry. five days on five days off five days on treatments of toltrazuril dissolved in water; syringed to animals who would not willingly drink. treatment with corid on the five days off. multiple doses of simethicone oral suspension daily for bloating. banamine for pain. cleaning cages between growout groups with bleach, virkon, and torching.

lastly, i took a freshly dead rabbit (euthanised by me because it was near death anyway,) to a local exotics vet for professional necropsy. vet diagnoses: massive amounts of cocci. however, treatment with powerful coccidiostats were not having any significant impact on kit death, especially in winter, when conditions are wet.

i was genuinely at a loss. i spent about fourteen months (longer than i know i should have, and i still feel very guilty about it) trying to get a grip on this disease. i was at my breaking point. i was losing entire litters overnight, within two weeks of weaning them. coccidiostats helped a tiny bit but clearly it wasn't just the cocci that was the problem. however, no other disease i could find listed on any of the rabbit disease and treatment website or books sounded remotely close to what i was experiencing. the symptoms were so generic (rabbits love coming down with mysterious gut problems), and the necropsy done by the vet had basically found nothing else.

thoroughly cleaning the walls, floors, feeders, and water cups of each cage with bleach and a torch had a marginal but noticable affect not on how many kits became ill, but on how long it took them to become ill.

this was a disease that affected almost exclusively young rabbits. i have had four adult rabbits become infected with the disease; of those, two survived the above treatment regimen. all other deaths (and there were a lot,) were kits around 6-9 weeks of age.

but absolute chance i was having a little bit of a crisis on my rabbit breeder's discord server about how i was one more dead litter from getting out of rabbits entirely. which...if you've been here a while, you know is a huge fucking deal to me. it was not possible for me to go scorched-earth on cocci in my current barn, which is open-fronted with dirt floors, so my only remaining option was to cull or rehome my animals and try again once i had a new barn that i could clean more easily. in the midst of throwing around last-ditch effort treatments to look into, i offhandedly mentioned that bleaching cages helped a little.

and then @/bonefarm said 'well bleach doesn't touch cocci, so if bleach helps, it's probably bacterial.'

which led to: 'y'know it almost sounds like clostridial disease, like you vaccinate hoofstock for'

so i thought y'know what. fuck it. a vial of CDT vaccine is ten bucks at the co-op. it literally cannot make things worse. so when my next litters got to weaning age, i bought a vial, some 22 gauge needles, and jabbed them all on their way to the growout cage. in two weeks - the point in which normally, if they hadn't already started dying, they definitely would begin dropping - i revaccinated them.

and then none of them died.

when i tell you i nearly cried.

it took a few more months to really get a full hold on the situation, as the weather in washington in fall and spring is unpredictable and can put a lot of stress on a kit already dealing with leaving mom and being in a new group situation with other rabbits it may not know, but i was starting to get litters where i would maybe lose one or two, and most litters all kits lived to butcher age. i also learned that timely revaccination is ABSOLUTELY necessary as they can and will start dying again. as is cleaning out the cage after each group. but for ten dollars my rabbits were suddenly staying alive.

now the routine is, a week or so before i wean kits (around 4-6 weeks of age), i vaccinate kits with CDT. now i use insulin needles, as they are 1cc syringes (you typically won't need more than that,) and the tiny needles are easier on little baby bunnies, but the smallest gauge needles you can find (at my feed store the smallest they carry is 22 gauge) works just as well. in two weeks i buy a new vial and revaccinate.

the dosage is .1cc per pound (~0.5kg) of weight, so a vial goes a long way.

i still lose the occasional kit, and sometimes there'll be a couple that get icky but get over it in a couple days, and those are animals i don't keep back for breeding to try and build some sort of resistence to it. in the future i hope to not have to deal with this, but it will probably take years. hopefully the new barn with better climate control and concrete floors will cut down on the bacterial load in the animals by a lot.

i don't know why this is a problem i am dealing with, but i can't be the only one. if you're out there dealing with mystery GI disease in your rabbits that won't respond to other treatments...consider stopping by your local farm store and buying a little vial of CDT vaccine and some needles.

[gretavanlace]

Poppins (part 8)

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: adult themes, illusions to sex, angst, alcohol consumption, etc

*We’re getting down to it, only two (possibly three) more chapters to go ❤️

It feels like the air has been punched clean out of your lungs, but just as quickly, logic takes over and shakes you straight.

Obviously, you’ve misunderstood…and you tell him as much.

“I guess I’m not following you, Josh.” You attempt a casual laugh and nudge his shoulder with your own, scrambling for normalcy. “But, I suppose it really isn’t any of my business, anyway.”

His stare remains locked on Lily, with that proud, faraway look that so often softens his expression when he watches her. “You’re following me just fine, sweetheart. You’re just a little off kilter because I sort of threw it at you. I’m sorry for that.”

Funny, you’ve never actually had an ‘I must be dreaming’ moment…but you’re certainly having one now. That has to be it, you’ve conjured this jumbled up mess inside your head.

You’re at home, still sleeping off the blunt shared with Jake. Right? No, you can feel the warm humidity of the day building in the air, there is the faint knock of a woodpecker lost somewhere in the trees, there is the sound of him breathing, waiting, existing, beside you.

This is no dream - but it’s every bit as confusing as one.

Afraid she might overhear, you pitch your voice less than a whisper, so quiet you almost don’t hear your own question, but Josh does.

“Yes, she’s Jake’s,” a gently possessive edge nips at his tone. “Biologically. It doesn’t matter, that little girl is mine, and I’m her’s. But yeah, that’s what I meant when I said I could never repay him. Look at her…”

A smile breaks across his face, warm, gorgeous, and absolutely beaming with adoration as he studies her pointing something out in the sand. Her buddy leans in closer to inspect her discovery, as they carry on what seems to be a very serious discussion.

“He gave me my favorite girl. My everything. I would’ve died for him before, now I’d do it with a smile just because he asked. How could I ever level the playing field?”

There’s that playing field making its appearance again, albeit for a very different reason this time around.

“I don’t understand.” And you don’t. You’ve never understood anything less in your life. You can’t get a read on how, or why, or if it really even matters. It’s like someone has taken all the facts you’ve ever known to be true and mixed them all up. Nothing makes sense. Nothing fits. The puzzle is jumbled and missing pieces.

“It’s a lot, I know.” He shrugs, already intimately acquainted with the situation that has ripped the rug out from beneath your unsteady feet. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but if I’m being honest…which I guess is exactly what we’re doing here…I didn’t want him to beat me to it. I wanted to be the one to tell you. I really don’t even know why, and it sounds stupid now that I’m saying it out loud.”

“He never said a word.” The moment you speak the words, you remember Jake’s, she looks like her dad.

Josh leans back against the weathered wood bench and crosses his ankle over his knee. You’d like to ask him how he’s so casually fucking with your head, but you know this really isn’t about you at all.

“Of course he never said a word. Our stoic mystery man, whom you can’t seem to quit. Just remember, my love, still waters run deep. There are a great many things that Jacob has never said a word about. He would have, though. Eventually. Something about you seems to just drag things to the surface for us. Sorceress.”

He’s only teasing. Likely trying to lighten the heaviness of the conversation, but you blush all the same. As only Josh can, he both grins at the pink in your cheeks, and pretends not to see it, to spare your pride.

The way they speak - so alike in sound, inflection, turns of phrase, poetically laced and lovely - only serves to confuse you further. At times, it's like being with the same man who just happens to have split personalities.

“A great many things Jacob has never said a word about,” You muse,” Bigger than this?” You’re not sure you want to hear the answer.

A laugh, easy and genuine, trips out of him, louder by far than anything that has been murmured thus far, “Fuck, I hope not!”

Lil’s head snaps up, attention hooked; though her friend is more interested in watching her reaction than what she is reacting to. “Daddy said a bad word!” The accusation in her tone makes him sigh, defeatedly.

“No, I didn’t!” Josh holds his hands up in innocence, clearly enamored by her tiny cross examination. “Daddy said truck. We were playing the rhyming game.”

“Like we play in the car on the way to Gramma’s?” She shouts over, with disappointment now coloring her end of the exchange…she delights in catching grown ups misbehaving.

“That’s the one.” He smiles with an exhale of relief, like a little boy who has just successfully evaded punishment. “Never, ever, tell anyone how coolly I just lied to that angelic face.” He adds through his teeth, smiling with a wave in her direction.

“That angelic face can be brutal.” You giggle at his nonsense. “Last week she caught me eating one of those vegetarian sushi rolls you hog for yourself, and milked me for extra goodies at snack time for days in exchange for silence.”

“Jokes on you,” he rolls his big brown eyes as if he can’t believe your behavior. “I count them, and I knew it all along.”

“Yeah, well, you just admitted to counting your sushi rolls, so who should be ashamed of themselves, here? ‘Cause it isn’t me.” You’re joking, but only a little.

After an absurdly easy stretch of silence, he turns serious and quiet again, “Look, I know that I dumped this on you, and I know you’ve probably got a million questions…you deserve answers to every single one of them. Come to mom’s with me, yeah? She’s making a big lunch. Sammy’s bringing the dog. It’ll be fun. We’ll eat, she’ll eventually insist on keeping Lil for the night and we’ll go home. I’ll make you dinner and we can talk.”

“Talk? Is that what the kids are callin’ it these days?” You grin, how is everything always so easy with him? This shouldn’t be so casual. It shouldn’t feel this normal to joke about sleeping with him while grappling with something so monumental.

Incidentally, why are you joking about sleeping with him? Because you want to put it out there, that you’re still thinking about it, that you still want it…that’s why.

How do they do this? Both of them. It hardly seems fair. Or normal, for that matter. And he has the nerve to talk of sorcery?

The wind is fluttering through the leaves, rustling them like a soothing psalm. It causes your thoughts to wander…which seems odd; how could you be thinking about anything but this nuclear bomb he has just detonated inside your head. But somehow, wander they do, your thoughts - and you find yourself eyeing the trees, trying to hone in on the one lucky enough to have earned Jake’s favor.

Like always, Josh seems to know what you’re thinking. “It’s across the park. Over closer to that little pond where Lil likes to feed the ducks.”

“What?” You adopt a puzzled expression, though you cannot for the life of you fathom why. Josh knows. Just like his brother, Josh always knows.

It is a frustrating, exhausting fact, but a fact all the same.

“Jake’s tree.” He clarifies, proving what you already understood to be true…that he can peer inside your head and heart as easily as he could were you made of windows. “It’s over by the pond. Would you like to see it?”

“No.” You brush your hands over your arms as if you’ve caught a chill, though the air borders on muggy.

“Okay,” He nods, completely at ease with this unusual situation you’ve found yourselves in. “Would you like to see him?”

Awkwardly, you watch those leaves as they wave and dance together, anything to save from meeting his eyes.

“Is okay to say yes, love…” he taps your knee, just an innocent ‘hello’, and so different from the last time he touched you. “I’d like to see him too. He’ll undoubtedly be at our mother’s lounging around like he owns the place. Come with us.”

“Do they know?” You venture tentatively, “Your parents?”

Your eyes are on him now as he shakes his head. Sometimes you forget how truly beautiful he really is and then you wonder how you ever could.

“Contrary to popular belief, Jake and I can keep a secret.”

“Not even your mother?” You find this hard to believe, as much as Jake taunts his twin for being a ‘mama’s boy’, he’s just as bad. They trust her with everything.

Josh nods at Lily, who is now flouncing her way over like a fairy who has misplaced her wand…all swishing ponytail and laughing eyes. “Not even her mother.”

The windows for questions has slammed shut, leaving all of yours to slam against the pane of glass like dazed birds.

~

“Rosie, get down!” Sam’s voice barks across the kitchen, startling you out of your thoughts. Rosie, unfazed and standing on her hind legs, continues to peruse the veggie plates and chip bowls Karen has set out on the counter, sniffing out delicious scents and temptations.

“Rosebud, I swear, if you don’t—“

“Samuel,” Karen scolds, snapping at him with the hand towel she’s been toting around. “Get off your ass and get her. Stop acting like an idiot in my kitchen.”

Sammy lopes over and grabs his faithful companion by the collar, lovingly tugging her away. “I don’t come here to be treated like I’m five, ma.” He complains, sweeping open the back door.

“Shut up, and go help your brothers.” She’s turned away from him and smiling, but judging by his returning smile, he has heard the adoration in her admonishing words.

At the table, bathed in the warmth of Karen’s sunny kitchen, you watch Jake and Josh confer near the enormous lilac bush Kelly has insisted be torn out.

“Too close to the septic system.” He’d informed the room when everyone protested ripping such a beauty from the earth, “The roots are gonna screw it all up and not a damn one of you are gonna want to come help clean up the aftermath.”

Of course, the boys have been tapped to help, as Kelly insists there’s no time like the present, and of course, Sammy has been shirking his duties ever since. True to form, rather than joining the twins, he opts for a chair to toss a tennis ball to Rosie from.

Your heart warms watching his honest and open face laugh gleefully as she chases down her bouncing prey. He is the sweetest gem, and you wish you knew him a little better.

But, as it so often does, your attention wanders back over to Josh, in his casual weekend wear, clean and crisp…and Jake, looking gorgeously rumpled and out of place in the domesticity of it all. You know he smells of ember and the Booker’s he is currently nursing out of a plastic tumbler to ensure Lil doesn’t ask questions.

You miss them both. They feel very far away as you watch on, smiling when they raise their arms to point something out to Kelly in perfect, unplanned, synchronicity.

Karen is suddenly beside you, staring out across the deck as well, chomping on a baby carrot. “It’s fun to watch them, isn’t it?”

She offers you a veggie and you take it, nodding in complete agreement around a bite.

“See how they mirror each other?” She marvels softly, wistful for her babies. “They’ve always done it. Even in the hospital, one would move, and there would go the other. Josh had terrible colic - briefly, thank god - and Jake would tense up even before Josh made a peep, like he could feel it coming. They’re each other's keepers.”

Be it motherly intuition, or perhaps just the nostalgia of having all of her boys home at once, she has chosen an ideal time to share. With the men all outside either tending to chores or shirking them, and Lil napping on the couch, you have her, and her memories, all to yourself.

“Tell me more about what they were like.”

If she senses something more behind the question, she doesn’t let on. “They were terrors. Little monsters, just awful. But, gentle angels at the same time. Always quick with a hug or a thoughtful comment. Even when they were just tiny things, they honed in on people and just sank their little teeth into heart after heart.”

“Some things never change then, I guess.” You shouldn’t have said it and long to take it back. They get their empathetic third eye from their mother, and you know she’ll clock the situation for what it is.

But again, she stays mum on the subject of why you seem just as wistful as she.

“They struggled so hard in school,” she finally confides, eyes on them as they begin wrapping ropes around the root of the bush that, evidently, must go. “It was painful. Mostly because they were just so intelligent, but it was all locked away when it came to brick and mortar schooling. They just froze right up behind those little desks.”

You knew this. Josh has explained their plight a hundred times over, wringing his hands with worry that Lily-bit might struggle to overcome the same mountains. Still, it’s so difficult to imagine them, easily two of the most intellectually enriched, well read and spoken human beings you have ever met, grappling with crippling learning disabilities.

“We worked with them endlessly, and hired tutors, and they tried so damn hard.” Her voice wavers a touch, as if she’s swallowing down tears. “When the pieces started falling in place for them, Josh took to reading faster than Jakey. He had these phonics books he liked, and they would hole up in their room for hours while Josh helped him sound the words out. I used to listen at the door. It was like magic…Josh would utilize all the inner workings of that shared mind they can access, and somehow, he’d make it make sense for his brother. He’d remind him to slow down and really see all those turned around letters so kindly it made you want to crumble. Josh was the only one Jake ever went to for help, you couldn’t have paid him to be that vulnerable with anyone else. And Josh just soaked it up, helping Jake connect those dots. He’d grow so ecstatic and proud with each tiny success.”

You both laugh as Josh shoves at Jake’s shoulder, pointing angrily at the lilac and their task, clearly unhappy with something his twin hasn’t executed to his liking.

“That’s when I knew he’d be a teacher.” Her hand, so warm and maternal, pats your shoulder. “Josh, that is. We knew Jake’s fate the minute he was old enough to crawl towards a guitar.”

“The music man,” you watch him nip at his cup, leisurely and mellow, even as his brother barks orders at him.

“The music man.” She concurs, crunching into another carrot. “Always. Have you ever seen him play a song by ear? He’ll listen to it once and just stare off into space like nobody’s home. But really, he’s plucking all those notes out and locking them away. Next thing you know, he’s got it. Just like that. It’s incredible. Kelly and I used to look at each other and think, where in the hell did he come from?”

“Josh, too,” you offer, though of course she knows. “He sings to Lil all the time. Makes up these dumb little songs to make her laugh, or to help her remember something. And he sings in the shower because he seems to think it’s a magical box where no one can hear him.”

“Ah, yes,” she laughs, sliding her plate closer to you, ever the ‘mom’ wanting to nourish anyone who walks through her hallowed halls. “The shower concerts. He used to steal all the hot water constantly. It was worth it, though, to listen. They had a little band for a while. Did you know that?”

In your mind’s eye, the few pictures you’ve seen, pop up to say hello. “Sort of, but Josh kinda blew it off when I asked. Said he just helped Jake out with a few gigs when they were kids.”

A belly laugh, so much like her sons’, trills out of her. “It was way more than that, that liar. Used to have to drag them to all these shitty bars and parties. Samuel played bass. A friend of theirs, the drums…or sometimes Josh. That was always interesting. They were a mess, all over the place, but they had something special. And that’s not just mom talking, everybody said so.”

“So, what happened?”

“They started gaining a little recognition. Started being invited to play at the nicer places around town, and that was the idea all along, we thought. But, suddenly, Jake wanted nothing to do with it.”

Jake calling it quits would have been the absolute last thing you would have deemed to be the nail in the coffin.

She senses your surprise and nods along with it. “He finally told me why one night. Came in after having one too many at one party out in the woods or another. I sat him down at this very table right here and I know he thought I was about to climb up his ass about tapping a keg with his friends or whatever the hell they did that night, but really, I wanted to drag the truth out of him. The truth that mattered.”

“And?”

She leans back in her chair, shaking her head as if she still can’t believe it. On your end, you watch Josh snatch the cup from Jake’s grasp to steal a sip of his own.

“And, it made sense…his reason. Once he said it out loud it made so much sense I still don’t know how I’d missed it. He said things were falling together too cleanly for the band. That he knew they were headed for something that would be too heavy to easily put down, and that he knew it wasn’t what Josh wanted.”

A sigh sounds sad, but her eyes swim with pride for her youngest twin. “I told him he should let his brother make that call, but he’s always been wiser than the rest of us when it comes to Josh, and he said ‘That’s the thing, ma. He’s always gonna choose what I want. He has to think he’s choosing what I want.’”

Your throat feels tight with tears bitten back, “The way they have carried each other all through life is just…” you fall silent, lost for apt words.

“Yeah, well, they used to beat the hell out of each other on a regular basis, too, but that is for another day..” She nods toward the doorway behind you, and you turn to see Lil, rubbing her eye with one fist, and clutching her blanket with the other, as she stumbles nearer to coherency and her grandmother.

Karen scoops her up and whispers in her ear…Lil nods along and nuzzles her blankie, which is actually an old shirt of her daddy’s cut in half. Maroon and decorated with strange, colorful, geometric shapes, it has been her comforting companion for as long as you’ve known them.

“Okay, then…” Karen stands and deposits her favorite person down on her teensy feet. “Time to get this lunch finished up.”

Lily is sent off with a bribery popsicle to play with Rosie and Sam, as the two of you begin preparing to feed the brood.

~

“Why do I always find you up here, poppins?” He’s leaning against the doorframe, like the casually dapper lead in some movie he would never watch.

You turn away from the desk, where you’ve been gingerly touching relics, as though strolling through a particularly lenient museum.

You love this space, and you make no apologies for it. “I like it in here. Comforting chaos is kind of your brand. Both of you. Why do you always seem to be sneaking up on me in here?”

He grins softly as you lob the question back at him. “I suppose I am always sneaking up on you, aren’t I? Looking for you, searching you out, hunting for my girl.”

Hunting for my girl…jesus.

A gentle hum is your only reply as he slips into the room, kicking the door closed with the heel of his boot. He has showered since the lilac bush incident, and stepped into clean clothes that still somehow look disheveled.

His hair is still slightly damp, and you long to bury into it, to breathe in the perfume of fresh shampoo and him.

“You spoiled me last night, you know, babe.” Down he plops on his bed, the crowned royal head draped across his sovereign throne, just as he had been the last time you found yourself in this room with him. “Why don’t you come over here and allow me to indulge a little more, hmm? Can you be quiet, pretty girl?”

“Jake.”

He kisses the air lazily in your direction, folding his hands behind his head against the pillow, like you haven’t spoken his name at all, “C’mon, baby, I haven’t had my dessert yet.”

You want to go to him. God, how you want to go to him. You want to climb on top of him and fuck his beautiful mouth until you fall apart, and then you want to lie with him in this silent world it seems time has forgotten. You want to be his while her face smiles out of all those curling, yellowing, snapshots. She was so beautiful, a stunning package to hide all the ugliness she had in store for his precious heart.

But, you want truth even more.

“Would you have ever told me?” Your question - accusation? - comes a whisper.

He sits up slowly, eyes locked in and narrowed on yours. He knows what you’re asking, but he’s trying to make certain. You let him watch you for the longest stretch, with his pretty face tilted, studying, observing, until you’re fighting to sit still under his white hot scrutiny.

“Yes.” He nods, at last. “I think I probably would have. It’s interesting, isn’t it? The way you coax the truth out of us. Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”

There they go again, singing different verses of the very same song.

“She’s what you gave up?” You lean forward, hushed and hungry for answers. “Like we talked about?”

He nods again, barely perceptible in the movement. “Like a kidney, right, poppins? Only so, so much worse.”

Questions gridlock inside your head as he shakes his own. “I told you before, it isn’t my story to tell, babe…and that’s just the way this one has to be.”

He closes up shop with a blink and saunters, calm and cool as ever, over to the door. “C’mon then, Mary Poppins, if you aren’t going to allow me to have my way with you, we really should rejoin the others.”

~

“Would you like something light?” Josh peers into his fridge while you watch from your perch on the counter. “I just picked up some strawberries from that little stand around the corner, I could make us a big salad. Fruit, nuts, romaine, a nice vinaigrette?” He holds up the basket of berries proudly. “Look how fat they are. Fucking beautiful.”

“Whatever you want, Josh,” you smile at his enthusiasm, as well as his eagerness to please.

He turns his attention to the pantry, and your pulse picks at the memory it conjures. “Pasta?” He holds up a box of angel hair, shaking it around invitingly. “I could whip up some butter and herbs, get you drunk on carbs.”

“Seriously, whatever you want is fine. Order a pizza for all I care.”

True to his predictions, Lily remained at the Kiszka homestead, and was half asleep in Jake’s arms by the time the two of you took your leave. And now here you sit, aching to blurt out question after question while he forages in his kitchen to put together a meal you couldn’t care less about.

“Alright,” he nods, and back to the fridge he goes, finally turning to face you bearing an untouched container of his beloved veggie sushi rolls. “Pretties for the thief?”

“It was one damn piece, Joshua.” You laugh, rolling your eyes at his ridiculous name calling.

“Grab a white and a couple glasses,” he nods over at the wine rack.

You do as instructed, and join him where he has settled in the living room, placing the stemware carefully on the coffee table before uncorking the bottle of reisling you selected. It should be chilled, but neither of you have ever cared much to begin with.

On his elegant end, he loudly wrenches open the plastic container and slides it over unceremoniously.

Without cheers, he tips his glass and then shrugs, “Okay, sweetheart, this is the story of myself, my Lily, and my idiot brother…”

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @jakesgrapejuice @doodle417 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @alisonwonderland29 @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @sparrowofthedawn @xserenax-13 @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @tripthelightjaketastic @jakeslovehandles @poofyloofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @gretasmokerising @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @thelvnternskeeper @paintmyhouse @tripthelightfandomtastic @tripthelight-fanfic @mckenna4 @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @thewritingbeforesunrise @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @rhythm-of-space @highladyofasgard @jordie-gvf-admin @calumspretty @sunfl0wer-power @sad1lynn @starcatcher-jake @gretavangroupie

[hiiragi7]

(Warning for discussion of abuse)

There is a certain ableist and classist feel to the way that a lot of people talk about highschool education and graduation that I've noticed. "I bet they never graduated highschool" is often used as an insult and to imply stupidity, for example. I've noticed this trend for a long time, but struggled to put it into words.

While education is important, I often feel very put down by the amount of emphasis placed on being a highschool graduate (and, on the opposite end, the disdain for non-graduates). I never graduated, due to a variety of factors; I suffered very extreme abuse starting in first grade from the school environment (As a diagnosed autistic kid growing up in SPED in the 2000s, ABA was the standard), I was being abused at home, I moved schools a lot, I struggle with several disabilities which impacted my ability to learn and developmentally I was never really at the same level as my peers besides in English and art, I developed chronic physical issues while I was still in school due to a genetic condition, and finally, I was kicked out of the house when I was 17 by my parents and I just never ended up going back to school (not that I could have graduated anyway due to a variety of issues).

I was never able to learn quite right and that lead to me falling further and further behind. By the time I was in middle school, I was already so far behind my peers that even if my teachers had wanted to help me learn the content, there was so much they would have had to teach me that it would have been impossible for them to fit it into the time I had with them, especially when they had a lot of other students to attend to besides me. On top of that, I had already given up on my own education sometime during elementary school, so any attempts that were made by my teachers were not well-received by me. I had already developed a complex web of trauma responses to anything to do with school by that point.

It seemed that I was caught in an impossible situation where between the trauma I suffered with and my autism, I could not tolerate even being in a classroom setting, much less learn in it, but there were no other options, which lead to chronic activation of trauma responses which overwhelmed both me and my teachers as well as everyone else in my life. There was also no understanding for me in these settings either, and nobody informed enough to realize what was going on with me and why I was constantly either shutting down and unresponsive or having severe panic attacks. Rather, I was called lazy, manipulative, not trying hard enough, making excuses, acting out for attention, and a slew of other insults as well as near-constant punishments which only served to traumatize me further.

To this day, I only have a second grade education in math. I do not know multiplication, division, algebra, physics, chemistry, and a variety of other subjects. Attempting to study school subjects gives me flashbacks no matter which method I use, whether it's online or with another person or on my own. I am gifted in English, but otherwise I do not know many of the things that people are generally taught in school as kids.

When I tell people I never graduated, often the response is "it's okay, you can still get your GED!" as if me not having graduated is a character flaw that I must eventually work to fix. It makes me feel as though my worth and value as a person is tied to whether or not I have at least a highschool education, and that without it I am less worthy of people's time.

Going back to my initial point, if not graduating highschool makes you "stupid", you must also consider who in practice is unable to graduate highschool - I find it is often disabled kids, traumatized kids, and impoverished kids. Not all of them, I'm sure, but definitely a lot of them.

Tying intellect and a person's worth to whether or not they graduated highschool fucks over those who couldn't through no real fault of their own and frames them as lesser for it. How can you say you believe in disability rights when you shit on those who are too disabled to complete school? How can you say you are against classism when you view people who could not graduate due to having to work full-time as lesser than you?

I feel that regardless of how much people insist they are an advocate (or how much they say "No no, when I said people who don't graduate are stupid I didn't mean those people, I only meant what I see as the acceptable group of non-graduates to call stupid"), there are biases at play regarding perceived intellect and formal education. I am viewed as inherently less-than when people learn I did not graduate. My lack of a highschool graduation certificate or "at least" a GED is viewed with pity by just about everyone I talk to.

I don't have a neat way to wrap up this post, but I do think it is important for people to examine their own biases when it comes to discussing formal education, as well as the overlap of non-graduates and marginalized groups, especially as it pertains to disability politics and capitalism.

[jaskierx]

[CW for discussion of severe mental illness (PTSD) and suicide]

I want to add my perspective to the conversation about canyon people picking and choosing which disability rep is worth telling. It’s really offensive to me because I’m mentally disabled so it feels like these people are glossing over the mental illness rep in the show.

I hesitate because i do not want to seem like I’m chastising people for acknowledging the physical disability rep. OFMD has better physical disability rep than any show I’ve seen, while I’ve seen many shows with mentally ill characters. I also do not want to give credit where credit is not due, because ultimately these characters don’t have any diagnosed mental disabilities. However, I don’t think that that subtracts from the representation because 1)the show obviously takes place before many mental health diagnoses that we have now did,2) even if those diagnoses did exist, the crew would not be able to access them, and 3) I think the show is clearly trying to tell us that characters are suffering from PTSD, or at the very least struggling to process a traumatic event, they just don’t have the words to describe it as such.

Many characters exhibit what would today be classified as symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. In this fandom we often joke about that, especially Ed’s (which is more than okay), but I also want to appreciate the way that season 2 deals with the trauma of the kraken era. They freak out and have flashbacks over blindfolds and birthday cakes because of what they’ve been through. They have interpersonal conflicts due to differing ways of processing the trauma and not seeing eye to eye on each others own unique experience (Lucius and Pete come to mind). Lucius takes up smoking to cope with the pain. Ed dissociates (I think, because he doesn’t remember wanting to have a talent show) and is literally suicidal, first passively (“you mean curl up into a ball and die?”) and then actively (the whole storm thing). He also turns to using drugs to self medicate.

Anyway sorry for the novel I just wanted to add my perspective because this show means a lot to me as someone who’s mentally disabled and I want to know if anyone else with a mental disability feels the same/differently.

no don't apologise this is a really good point!

i've posted about it a few times and so has glam and several other people whose links i don't have to hand but the depiction of ed's mental illness and his suicidality is fucking spot on and the show absolutely deserves all the praise it gets for that

especially because it's quite possibly the first show i've ever seen that depicts suicidality in a way that manages to be accurate without being pitying and manages to be hopeful without romanticising the issue. the show brings ed to his lowest point and then shows him being helped to come back from that by people who love him. it tells us that there's always a way for things to get better and that you can get there by yourself but it's easier if you have help, and it tells us that this help is available because there is always going to be someone waiting for you even if you doubt that. it never shows ed as 'cured'. it never shows stede being angry with ed for his symptoms. when lucius suggests that ed might just be 'broken', stede very quickly shuts him down and the show makes it clear that the narrative is on stede's side here.

and all of this just doesn't get brought up by izzy stans. discussion of mental illness portrayal tends to be one of the following:

ignoring ed's arc altogether to focus on izzy's suicide attempt and his 'i want to go' line while he's on his deathbed (and in a massively different place to where he was in s2e2) and using this to pretend that the show's message is 'disabled queer people deserve to die' (yes unfortunately this is a take i have seen with my own two eyes)

writing ed's arc off as an example of 'magic dick' and using this to pretend that he was fine as soon as he got stede back

ignoring ed's arc completely and instead insisting that he's a violent serial killer and abuser with anger issues who traumatised the crew and will inevitably physically abuse stede and kill all their inn's customers

ignoring all portrayals of mental illness completely because they will deliberately downplay the disability of every other disabled character in order to centre izzy

the canyon will bend over backwards to centre izzy and to view the entire show through a lens where he is their longsuffering protagonist who can do no wrong and it's led them to ignore so much of what makes the show great

[andreal831]

heyy!! I had to through all your metas and I really love how detailed they are. Some I agree with, others not so much but love your efforts anyways.

Your Elijah metas reminded of a discussion I had with a mutual a while ago on a what if scenario. So basically the two of us were discussing our own hc on genderbent Stefan Salvatore and my mutual was a major Elijah stan and it had her wondering how would the two of them workout.

For the sake of this discussion lets call her Stefanie. And the scenario is if Stefanie met Elijah as before canon (the 20s?) and in canon but Stelena weren't dating.

The stuff that I am most curious about are :

Which one of them warms upto to the other first and what is it draws them towards eachother? What hobby do they particularly bond over?

What would be Elijah's reaction to what Katherine had done to her when she was human?

What personality traits about eachother would they adore and which one would they dislike?

Would Elijah be surprised that for the Ripper Of Monterey, she's the exact opposite in person, as vampires like that aren't often to come by? Would he have helped her blood addiction issues before Klaus popped up?

If it turned into a love triangle, would Stefanie really nope out considering what happened the last time it happened? And how would they really navigate Klaus & rest of the family + Damon?

Let's say somehow they managed to crossover to TO, how would things fall into place & what changes? Do you think they'd ever go three way relationship with Hayley?

Most importantly, would they be able to overcome their family/sibling trauma and go separate ways? I think Stefan(ie) has stayed away from Damon more as their relationship was openly antagonist vs the forced co-dependency with the Mikaelsons, so perhaps it's her who suggests and encourages it. Or do you think it's Elijah who does it first?

Thank you for going through all my metas! That's impressive considering I know how long they are.

I've never really thought about Elijah and Stefan (or Stefanie) romantically. I think they may be too similar in all of the wrong aspects.

One issue is that neither of them are the pursuers in the relationship. As you pointed out in a previous post, it's a little strange for Stefan to have pursued Elena in Season 1. We don't see him like that for any other relationship. Caroline had to practically force him to admit he had feelings for her. And Elijah is the exact same way. Hayley had to nearly die before he even kissed her and then he still disappeared.

They both feel unworthy of love and even scared to let themselves care for someone given their histories. I could see a scenario where they had to work together for a common goal and become friend to lovers. But again, it would be a miracle for either of them to make the first move.

I think their main thing in common is their willingness to sacrifice everything for those they love. Unfortunately, TVDU didn't spend a lot of time developing outside hobbies for the characters so it is always difficult to say what they would enjoy doing together. But I guess for both of them, their family is their hobby. Elijah and Stefan(ie) both spent most of their lives attempting to reign in their brother. They would definitely bond over that.

I would have loved a storyline where Stefan(ie) was actually able to deal with what Katherine did. Especially, having someone that actually cares. Elijah gets very protective when he feels someone was taken advantage of or harmed by someone much stronger than him. Likely because of his childhood. I think knowing what Katherine had done would have been the nail in the coffin for any lingering feelings Elijah may have had for Katherine. I don't think he would harm Katherine, but would warn her to stay away and if she didn't listen it may become lethal.

They would both really appreciate the other's loyalty and trust. But this would also cause issues. Stefan(ie) would be loyal to Damon and Elijah to his family. Their families often were working in opposition of each other which would cause problems. Stefan(ie) would hate how logical Elijah could be. How he could reason away any terrible deed. Elijah would hate when Stefan(ie) would try to push morals. Elijah understood sometimes you bend morals for those you love, something Stefan(ie) did often, yet never wanted to admit it.

Going off of that, I don't think Elijah would be surprised by the Ripper of Monterery. Elijah's done his own share of killing. I also don't know how compassionate Elijah would be to a Ripper. The Mikaelsons never seemed to struggle with blood lust, even right after they turned. I think Elijah would not fully understand what it means to struggle since he had such amazing control over it. Now, he does have the whole Red Door scenario, but I've talked about how that is more metaphorical than a hidden ripper inside him. His killing was never because he lost control. Elijah didn't tend to have a lot of patience for people losing control. He would try to help, but there isn't a way to 'fix' being a Ripper and that would have been frustrating to Elijah.

I guess there could be a love triangle and they would all probably just fall into it since the show made all of these characters incapable of removing themselves from love triangles. But again, they would not navigate the families well. This is why I always say I can't get into cross show ships. The Mikaelsons and TVD gang were always meant to be enemies. Making them anything else cheapens all of the pain they've caused each other and honestly just forces the characters to be OOC.

Maybe if Stefan(ie) and Elena were never a thing and, as you said, Elijah and she had a relationship before all of the TVD events, we could have seen Stefan(ie) siding with the Mikaelsons, but I still think that would be OOC. Stefan(ie)'s entire life was devoted to repairing the damage of her past. She wouldn't appreciate the fact that Elijah wasn't trying to be a better person himself, he was only concerned with making Klaus a better person. But, again, Stefan(ie) was good at rationalizing doing bad things for those she loves as well. If anything, being with the Mikaelson family would definitely make her a worse person. Elijah would not have tolerated how Damon treated Stefan(ie). We already saw he didn't like how Klaus treated Rebekah and Damon would have the unfortunate reality of not being a Mikaelson to make Elijah hesitate.

I think a Stefan(ie)/Elijah/Hayley dynamic would be interesting. Stefan(ie) would definitely be the least dominate of the three. I don't know why but I can't see Hayley and Stefan(ie) getting along. Similar reasons as to why I think Elijah and Stefan(ie) would have problems. Hayley was very much like a Mikaelson, willing to justify terrible things in the name of family. While Stefan(ie) did this as well, she still maintained kind of a moral superiority (even if it wasn't super justified) and Hayley would hate that. She would constantly call Stefan(ie) out on it, pulling Elijah into the middle.

I would love to think that they could help each other overcome their familial trauma, because lord knows they both have a lot, but I don't think they would. They were both so stuck in it that they needed people who didn't have that same trauma to help. They could relate to each other but then they would both justify their codependency because "it's family." While yes, Damon and Stefan(ie) had more time apart than the Mikaelsons, I disagree that it was any less codependent. Anytime Damon showed up, Stefan(ie) dropped everything to take care of him. It's why Lexi tried to force Damon away. Because, even when Damon was torturing Stefan(ie) (ie killing Lexi), Stefan(ie) couldn't bring herself to push Damon away. When Damon wasn't around, Stefan(ie) was fine, but as soon as Damon showed up (cause that man could not stay away), Stefan(ie) fell back into their toxic relationship. Damon would get jealous of Stefan(ie)'s relationship and insert himself back into her life. Stefan(ie) wouldn't be able to walk away. Same thing with Klaus and Elijah. Neither of them could truly encourage the other to walk away because they know they wouldn't walk away from their own family.

Thanks for the ask! This was really interesting!

[skylarsblue]

★Bittersweet Discussions★

✭Red Dead Redemption✭

★Fem!Reader, use of Y/N, mention of Isaac & Eliza's death, attempted mugging, mention of abusive family, trauma bonding(?), hurt comfort, mostly fluff though. Same universe as ★Sugar Cube★ because I'm stuck on them. Not proof-read.★

It was a bit upsetting leaving Valentine, it was a pleasant town with a lot of charm, but it was clearly getting a bit too hot. Rumors of Leviticus Cornwall and Pinkertons swarming around were cause for concern, so the time left in the area was limited, ticking down quickly. Which is what prompted Y/N to practically beg for more excuses to go to town, be it for simple errands or for theft. She wasn’t picky which.

Dutch wasn’t going to decline her want to contribute, not when she’d truly proved how good she was at swindling without bloodshed. But, he didn’t trust her all that much. She supposed it was fair, she hadn’t been around too long, and when they found her, she was essentially a damsel in distress. She wasn’t too concerned in proving herself to the man either. That odd, foreboding feeling he brought with him never left. Though, she managed to hide her skeptical glances whenever he’d get into a speech.

Arthur mentioned it once, and she felt what he said rang very true. Dutch had a gift for speaking. She held her tongue, but she couldn’t help but agree. He had the gift of speech, and that was really it. A lot of words that sounded relevant or full of purpose, but when she truly listened, it felt aimless. Walking in circles. It was a lot of mannerisms that commanded respect and big words of empty encouragement, things that made him sound like a level-headed leader. She’d met men like that before. Mostly preachers. Not that Dutch was a holy man, Lord no.

That aside, she’d managed to grab a few wallets and pieces of expensive accessories on the outskirts of Valentine. Mostly by acting like she needed help. She felt a bit guilty when a stranger was particularly nice, but it was a matter of survival. It went smoothly, but if it hadn’t, she could’ve handled it on her own. And even if she couldn’t, her shadow, a couple yards behind her at any given time, made her feel safe.

Arthur Morgan, on his dusty colored Clysdale mare, hand often hovering on his holster. Watching carefully from a distance. He’d had plenty of adrenaline spikes that day, watching her act so well. Maybe she’d do well in plays. He was sure she’d be quite the sight on a stage, perhaps with a musical element, under bright lights and dressed glamorously.

“Alright, I think we should calm it down now. We’ve gotten lucky but who knows how long that’ll last.” The man commented, leading the horse to walk beside her. Y/N chuckled to herself as she tucked a gold pocket watch into her skirt pocket. “Fair point, sir! We’re close to town anyway. What did we need again?” She questioned, tilting her head up toward him. 

Arthur sighed fondly, shaking his head. “You’re the one with the list, sweetheart.” He reminded, looking back down to her. Y/N gazed at him fondly. The brim of his hat left a heavy shadow over his eyes, eyes she found herself dreaming of more often recently. The warm sun radiating over his face, illuminating freckles and smile lines.

“Right, my apologies.” Y/N replied to him, looking for the paper on her person. She wondered if he was aware of how much she liked him. It had to be obvious by now, they had a whole secret language purely for asking for affection. He still asked her for sugar, almost daily. But whatever was between them, it wasn’t labeled. She wondered if it should’ve been, or maybe it would’ve been better to leave it be. It wasn’t like it meant much, putting a word purely to describe the emotions in the air between them. 

That, and she was far too nervous to ask.

“Here you go. You tell me where to go, boss.” Y/N held up the list to him, speaking cheerfully. Arthur smiled at her enthusiasm as he took it from her hand. A short list of errands and what to get. “The gunsmith, general store. Somethin’ bout talkin’ to the ranch hands, I guess to scope out if there’s any money floatin’ around the livestock.” He mumbled. He gave her back the list as they approached a hitching post, hopping off Dusty. He patted the mare’s neck and rounded to give Y/N the spending money. “I’ll deal with the ranch stuff, why don’t you try the gunsmith.” It was more a direction than a question, but she didn’t mind. Though her face did express a bit of hesitation. “He might not sell to me. I’ve had that happen before, cause, well,” She paused and made a gesture to her being. Not nearly as done up as when they first met her, but still rather put together. Flowy skirt in a pastel color, the little bow around her neck, hair properly twisted up. “If he gives you any trouble, I’ll handle it.” Arthur patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Right, I forgot. I have a big scary cowboy on my side, what was I thinkin’?” She teased, giggling as Arthur rolled his eyes with a sigh. She straightened out his shirt collar and patted him on the chest. “Let’s get these errands done, I wanna see if we have time to get some food that Pearson didn’t make.” She stepped around him to start toward the gunsmith.

Arthur paused for a moment, watching her walk away. His had raised to graze over his collar, as if he’d get to feel the phantom sensation of her hands. He scoffed at himself, tilting his hat down in a moment of embarrassment. He was growing soft, and the worst part was, he didn’t exactly hate it. It was different, and it was pleasant. Not that he thought this little…crush, or whatever it was, would be enough to completely change the kind of man he was. Wanting to be a gentleman to a kind young lady wasn’t going to make up for years of murdering and theft. It was those factors that made in wholy certain he wasn’t worthy of getting bashful over her attention anyway.

From the second he saw her, she seemed to be the opposite of him, even if time had shown they had quite a few similarities. Hell, she’d killed a man the second he met her. Yet, he couldn’t compare himself to her. Not when she seemed so soft and graceful. Not fragile, no, that wasn’t fitting at all. She’d proven several times to be quite the independent type, be it when it came to standing up for herself or problem solving on the fly. However, her atmosphere reminded him of so many sensitive things. 

The feeling of a light breeze on feverish skin, the fur of a kitten, the satisfying burn from a fancy whiskey; the kind that went down real smooth. It wasn’t even limited to when she’d actively interact with him either. Sure, he was particularly taken with her compassionate hands squeezing his shoulder reassuringly after the day had worn away at him. Finding some strange solace in her voice when she said his name so warmly, like it brought her joy to say it. But something about her existence as a whole made him feel that way, it was almost frightening.

Whether she came to him in thought or he watched her from afar, it didn’t matter. There was this anemoia with her presence. He’d never had much of a home, sturdy walls and the safety of a roof. But she felt like that, or, he thought so anyway. However a home was described to feel like, that’s what it was. Though he recognized he wouldn’t really know since he had yet to experience it, and he knew he likely never would. 

He’d felt fondness and love for women, and others, before. Some more brief than others. Each time, there was a familiar thread that connected the feeling, so he could recognize it.

This time was truly different though. Why, he wasn’t sure. He’d tried to think about it, weigh it to past experiences. He wasn’t keen on being left in the dark when it came to anything, much less his own feelings. He’d failed though. All that ended up happening last time was he’d zoned out and came back too having drawn her face in his journal. Again.

At the very least, he liked her, a lot. Arthur felt his cheeks burn, no doubt red, much to his dismay. He rubbed his face with both his hands, continuing to walk as he groaned quietly to himself. He wasn’t old per say, but he felt too old to be acting so callow. Like he was a teenager again. Easily flustered and giddy over the smallest things. He shook his head at his foolishness, dropping his arms, but keeping his gaze at the ground. He inhaled, steeling himself, raising his head.

“Hey mister!”

“Oh son of a-“ Arthur turned and was met with the sight of a gun barrel. There was no Irish accent from this man or his companion, though they didn’t sound local either. He sighed as the stranger pulled back the hammer, finger on the trigger. The one aiming the gun was a pale man, dark hair and eyes, clean shaven and probably not much older than himself. His accomplice seemed younger, still carrying some youthful glow in his cheeks that was oddly unmatched by an unkempt beard. Arthur blinked slowly, looking at the gun. He raised his hands, though his face portrayed an aloof expression, perhaps a bit annoyed.

“I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” Arthur said. “Save it, cowpoke. You speak when spoken to, ya hear?” The gunsman spat. Arthur didn’t hide his face of disgust when he saw some spit leave the man’s lips with the conviction he spoke, thankfully not hitting him. Still gross though.

“I want everythin’ you got, or I shoot you where you stand. Got it?” The stranger demanded. Arthur gritted his teeth. “I ain’t got much to give.” He replied, much to the mugger’s annoyance.

“If you wanna do this the hard way-“ The man and his friend flinched when a woman’s voice broke through the air. Arthur felt his heart sink when he recognized the melodic sound. He looked over his shoulder, as did his adversaries. Sure enough, not too far behind him, the sugary-sweet rabbit he’d rode into town with approached. Her eyes wide with worry, her hands clasped in front of herself. 

“Don’t interfere, woman!” The younger man shouted. “We’re doing some private business here, so move along.” He pulled out his own gun now, clicking the safety off, 

Arthur felt his heart go from his stomach to his throat, blood rushing in quick bursts in his ears. She moved recklessly toward them, in front of him. Blocking him with her arm whilst shouting a protest. Of course, their gun’s aim went to her. That was when she used both hands to cover her stomach, and then pleaded again. 

Arthur was now just as confused as he was anxious. He looked over at her face. He’d seen her fear stricken face before, how her brows furrowed with worry, how her lip trembled when her eyes watered. Her face expressed worry now, but it was different. It dawned on him very suddenly that she’d pulled this kind of thing before when playing a trick. 

She was acting.

“Please, leave him be. Surely there are other people you could steal from!” Y/N pleaded with a whimpering tone. While the younger man didn’t seem to waver, the older of the two seemed to zero in on her defensive stance with her stomach. “We don’t want their money, we want his.” The bearded attacker hissed. “Please, my husband and I are already on hard times as it is. We need to save now more than ever. Just a little mercy, please.” She begged. If it weren’t for him knowing, Arthur would’ve bought the act fully. She really had a talent for it, even if she was using it for thievery. And, well, for saving his skin.

“Lady, what don’t you get?!“ The young man shouted. “Mason, quit!” The elder man sent a swift whack to the back of the other’s head, his gun lowered. Arthur took a step back when feeling Y/N push at him. She gave him a side glance, and it told him enough. He pulled her to him with hands on her shoulders, before wrapping one arm around her torso, turning her to face him. To shield her more.

“Wh- but, you said-“ “We don’t attack expecting mothers, and I ain’t havin’ you widow’er either.”

The act worked, clearly, but Arthur’s quiet demeanor made Y/N feel unnerved. He seemed disturbed in a way, but she couldn’t exactly take a second to ask why. He was playing along, at least, so she kept up her part as the two men holstered their guns. “We’ll be on our way. But I expect you to keep this between us.” Said the leader of the two. “Of course sir, I won’t say a word.” Y/N reassured. With a nod, the man grabbed his accomplice by the back of the vest and dragged him away to their horses. Soon enough, they were far away, and Y/N gave Arthur more space.

She was worried before because of obvious reasons. He’d almost been shot point blank, and that wasn’t great, but he seemed more uncomfortable than she’d expected. He’d had plenty of these situations happen before. She looked him over, his almost detached expression as he adjusted his hat. 

“Arthur?” Her voice spooked him for a moment, but he seemed to click back into reality. “Huh?” He blinked. She clasped her hands together, nervously fidgeting with a small ring she wore, twisting it around her finger. “Are you alright? I’m sorry if I messed something up there, I just didn’t know how else to help without shootin’ them.” Arthur blinked slowly before shaking his head and rubbing his eyes with his hand, letting out a long breath. “No, no. You did great. Just uh, the whole…” He motioned vaguely to her stomach and then around at the air, somewhat aimlessly.

“Oh! Oh, right. I figured that would make them back off. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Y/N said. He’d started walking down the dirt path, she followed beside him. His mood had shifted rather dramatically. She’d seen him annoyed, stressed, downright angry. This wasn’t any of those, which was what made her so worried. He seemed borderline melancholy, and she didn’t know why, but to think she caused it made her a bit sick. “You’re alright. It’s just, an uh, sensitive subject I s’ppose.” He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck while looking at the ground.

That felt more confusing to her, honestly. But she kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t her place to ask, she felt. But Arthur glanced up at her, catching curiosity in her concerned face. There was a lump in his throat that almost seemed to suffocate him. There were very few things he opened up about to most people, especially when it came to things that weighed so heavily on him. He didn’t like bringing up his past, not to others and not to himself. His mind was a stubborn thing and it liked to stick on regrets to the point of making him physically ill. Arthur never handled emotions well, so he’d learned to avoid them for the most part. Not for his comfort, but for his survival.

But she looked so worried, and the air around her was so warm. Arthur looked at her face again and felt his shoulders loosen. He inhaled, holding his breath for a moment, before letting it out in one big huff. The silence stretched a bit longer as they slowly meandered down the dirt path, the air a bit tense. Before he finally unclenched his jaw and opened his mouth to speak, without planning what he’d say. And out it spilled.

“I had a son once.” Arthur said plainly. Y/N’s eyes widened and she almost let her mouth fall agape. She held back her surprise though, not wanting to be rude. She stepped a bit closer though, but kept her hands to herself. “I was young, so was the girl. A waitress I met in a town, lovely girl. I was…reckless, selfish. I knew I didn’t want to stay committed to her but I got’er pregnant.” He explained. He kept his gaze down, whether it was because he was ashamed at the past or that he was admitting sensitive things, she didn’t question. Just listened.

“I wanted to do right by’em. Or, maybe I told myself that to make myself feel less guilty.” He shrugged. “I didn’t stick around, but I didn’t completely leave either. I’d come around when I could to help. Felt it was the least I could do, support’em. I helped make the boy, ya know?” The question was rhetorical but she nodded to show she was listening. This felt so intense and heavy, and she had the distinct feeling the story wasn’t a happy one.

Arthur ran a hand down his face and looked up at the sky before continuing. “At one point, I considered sticking around a little more permanently. Not get hitched to her or nothin’, she deserved better than me, obviously. But Dutch wanted to move further West and I couldn’t take them with me.” He cracked his jaw, clenched his teeth. His nose scrunched up. “Go on, son. Pick what life you want. You can settle down, go soft, force yourself to be a father. Or, you can come with the family who accepted you. Be my guest. That’s what Dutch said to me.” He huffed.

“That’s a terrible thing to say in that situation!” Y/N suddenly spoke, outraged at the callousness. Arthur found himself smiling faintly at her rage. It felt cathartic to have someone on his side, even if it was far too late. “Yeah, never quite got over that. But…I was barely twenty, and, I didn’t know what to do. Dutch raised me and I wasn’t exactly sure how to be a good man.” He grew sad so quickly again. He hit his left palm with his right fist a few times, a nervous tick she’d noticed he had. He seemed to have a lot of them, actually.

“I left, for a long time this time. I didn’t forget ‘bout’em. Though, I remember telling myself they’d be better off without me anyway. To make it easier on myself, as if I deserved that.” He whispered the last part while looking down at his feet. Y/N’s hand reached over to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly. They both came to a stop at a bench in front of the post office, the area barely populated and the sun on its way to set. She subtly guided him to sit down, still listening intently.

Arthur bounced his leg, leaning back to rest against the wall. He swallowed. “Well uh, I came back one day. The place was empty, but the backyard had uhm…two crosses.” His voice grew a bit hoarse. Y/N’s heart broke as she watched him force his face to stay as cold as possible, eyes facing the sky, as if trying to escape into it. “Oh Arthur…” She said in a hushed tone. He rolled the joint of his jaw again, biting his tongue. It weighed so heavily on him and it showed, that was precisely why he didn’t talk about it. 

He looked over when he felt Y/N’s hand gently grab his forearm, caressing the skin with her thumb. Her gaze made his muscles loosen, and while the ache of guilt and regret was heavy on his chest, he found himself able to breathe still. It wasn’t suffocating. 

“I couldn’t possibly understand what that’s like.” She let her hand fall back into her lap, not realizing how much he ached for the contact once it was gone. She looked around and searched her brain for what to say. It was something so heavy, so she wanted to treat it seriously. Though, she also knew a heavy atmosphere made Arthur itch to run away. He wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t fond of the feeling. She patted her lap a bit awkwardly. “I mean, the closest thing I guess I could think of was realizing I lost my brother. But, he’s alive, not- I dunno, why am I even trying to relate? I just,” She awkwardly stammered. “I want you to know I hear you, so I’m trying to relate, but I- I can’t. And I shouldn’t be trying, I’m sorry.” She cringed.

Arthur let out a breathy laugh. “I get it. Thank you.” He reassured, watching her deflate in relief. She handled it clumsily, but the sentiment reached him all the same. She rubbed her hands together, still feeling timid about approaching the topic. She wanted to comfort him, ease the pain, but this kind of situation wasn’t something she could fix with a “good job” and a hug. The woman squeezed her hands together before looking him over, hoping her sympathy conveyed in her face. “I thought of something to say, but I don’t know if it’ll actually help as I intend for it too.” She admitted.

Arthur raised his hand in an encouraging motion. “No, go ‘head. I wanna hear what you have to say.” He nodded. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, inhaling slowly. 

“I think…I think you would be a great father, all things considered.” She whispered. It was genuine, truly. She believed it fully too, and she could only pray it came across. Maybe back then he was young and reckless, but she could see how well he’d do now. From the way he handled the gang, how he talked to Jack like the boy was his own, a leader and while he could be stubborn and gruff, he had the softness important for child development. He felt like a family man, a good one. She’d told him that before, but she wanted to make sure it stuck. 

Arthur rubbed his palms on the fabric of his pants as the words hit him in the chest. He clicked his tongue, allowing himself to smile slightly. “I ‘ppreciate that.” He replied softly. Y/N reached over and squeezed his arm again, smiling at him with so much kindness, it lessened the load of the world again. “I appreciate you trusted me enough to tell me, I don’t imagine it's easy to share.” Her words made him nod again. “It ain’t, and I usually don’t. But you…” He admired her face again. “You’re easy to talk to, I guess.” The woman lit up at that. She’d always enjoyed being told she was nice to be around, that her efforts to make those who cared comfortable to be vulnerable around her worked. It was rare she got an outright confirmation that it was working, it made her feel warm and fuzzy.

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual.” She chimed in, making him look up, brow raised and prompting her to elaborate. “I mean it! I know I might seem naive sometimes, but I’m quite the good judge of character. And you,” She nudged him with her arm playfully. “You’re a good man. I think I’ve explained why before.” He chuckled at that, feeling blood rush to his face as he recalled the night at the hotel. It was a completely innocent night, but a powerful one, which he’d found himself thinking back to it often. Though, saying he wished to feel her dainty hands running over his skin again didn’t sound like something a gentleman would say, even if it was true. 

Arthur shook his head but he was smiling regardless. “I have a feeling you won’t let me argue.” He said, and she gave a confirmative hum. “I’ve met plenty of people in this world, and plenty that superficially act like you. But what makes you different is you feel, well, safe.” She explained. She’d felt awkward before, but saying this, she felt no shame. It was the truth and she wanted him to know it. She appreciated the shades of blue in his eyes in the warm sunlight as she spoke, truly adoring the little details she noticed. Every freckle and line in his skin. “Safe? Me?” Arthur challenged genially. “Yes sir, you. There aren’t many men in this world that have the feeling you do. Like…like walking into a blanket warmed by a fire, after a long walk in the cold.”

The outlaw scoffed and looked away, his elbow resting on his knee, hiding the lower half of his face in his hand. “I mean it!” She insisted, resting her hand on his shoulder. Had her hand drifted upward, just slightly, she’d be able to feel the speed of his pulse in his neck. Rapid and stuttered. Desperate to compose himself, he looked for a way to change the subject, lest he say something he’d regret or melt into the ground beneath him. “Well, I told you about me.” He sat up straight again, clearing his throat as he looked her in the eye again. “Care to share your own? You mentioned your brother. Wouldn’t mind lendin’ an ear, if you’re willin’ to share.” He said. 

Y/N’s mood shifted a bit, and Arthur regretted his attempt at removing the attention from himself, until she prepared herself to speak. “It’s nothing like what you went through, he isn’t dead or anything, just…different.” She explained. Picking at her nails for a moment, she recalled her past. Her father was a mean man, that wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard. But he wasn’t the only member of her family, just the head of it. Her mother was sweet, though, the woman seemed to favor the baby boy she’d given birth to over her daughter. That was a fact Y/N sometimes recalled with bitterness but considered herself mostly healed from. Her cousin came to stay with them later on in life, he wasn’t great from the start, but she didn’t exactly consider him family regardless. Even if others around her went to calling him her brother pretty quickly. But her brother, that always stung a bit more.

“Walter, my younger brother, used to be the sweetest boy. After he was born, my mother got sick, so she couldn’t really care for either of us properly. My father was no good at it, speaking from experience, so I tried to step up.” Y/N explained, shifting her position on the bench for more comfort. “It wasn’t easy, but, after my mother got better I didn’t want to just leave him to the two of them. I liked caring for him, and even though he was a baby, it felt like he actually appreciated what I did.” She laughed at the sentiment. It sounded far more pathetic out loud, seeking validation from the innocent clinginess of a baby. “From the start, he wouldn’t let go of me. Swore up and down I was his favorite person, the best sister to ever live! I held onto that a lot. Especially when he started having a voice of his own, he used to defend me from my father a lot. I know that wasn’t easy. A young man trying to get his father to respect a lady, his rebellious daughter no less.”

Y/N paused as she recalled the various instances of this. How conflicted it’d make her feel, watching the boy she practically raised have to defend her to their actual parents. He did it so valiantly too, even when it caused more grief for himself. Things she wanted to keep him from. Being a punching bag didn’t bother her as much as seeing her brother’s young face contorted in distress and anger. However, being defended after so long felt nice too. It brought a sense of guilt with the comfort, to know someone cared enough to stand up for her against at the expense of themselves, but that last part was what made her sick. 

She sighed. “Then, I guess as he got older, my father’s influence seemed more appealing. I mean, my father was a greedy man, but a successful one. Even if most of his earnings came from me.” Arthur watched as the air around her grew somber, and he felt a stabbing in his chest as her mouth formed a frown. For someone with a smile so sugary sweet, her frown put an acrid, bitter taste in the back of his mouth. “He started agreeing with my father more, pulling away from me. I practically raised the boy but as time went on, he seemed like a stranger. I held onto hope that maybe something would break, that he’d go back to how he was.” She shook her head. “Then one day, my father was goin’ on about how ungrateful I was. How I’d be sorry when he finally gave me away. My brother, fifteen then, came in after hearing the shouting.” She leaned back, staring into the ground with a solemn expression.

“For once, I looked and asked him to help. I had never done it before, but, I was so tired. I wanted someone in my corner and I thought, maybe if he saw how much it was hurting me, he would defend me again.” Y/N raised her hand to her hair, fussing with it a bit, something she did when she wanted to soothe herself. Arthur had seen her do it when arguments broke out between people in the gang or when Miss Grimshaw scolded her amongst all the girls for “lazing” about. “Then he said; “He’s right. And you should learn that by now.” And it hit me like a train, full force.” She let out a bitter, scoff-like laugh. It was devoid of any joy, and Arthur felt his heart break when she blinked back some water in her eyes. “He wasn’t the boy I raised. And I knew that the hope I’d ever see that little boy again was gone. Really sealed that when he did nothing but nod when my father told me he’d finally sold me off.” 

Y/N shook out her hands and pressed her middle finger to the corners of her eyes, sniffling. “Sorry, I went and made this ‘bout me. I didn’t mean to be so selfish.” She apologized. Arthur shook his head and placed a large hand on her back. She exhaled at the light pressure and the pleasant warmth that bled through her clothes. “Don’t apologize. I asked, and it seemed like you’ve been hopin’ someone would listen.” He replied. She hummed, squeezing her hands together. He noted how much closer she was now, practically tucked into his side, and it gave him a sense of solace. “It’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.” She downplayed, and he let out a noise to cut her off. “That don’t mean nothin’. It’s still hard on you, clearly. Don’t go actin’ like my pain mean you can’t have your own.” 

Y/N fought off the urge to swoon under his caring eyes. It didn’t work very well. “Right, thank you, Arthur.” Her voice brought back that warm feeling in his chest, like he’d taken a swig of whiskey. She huffed and patted her lap. “Alright, ya know what, this day has gone sideways.” She stood up suddenly, full of energy as she pivoted to face him, her face bright and cheery once again. The sky behind her had begun to turn pink, the yellows & oranges illuminated her like a halo. “But, we still got time. I say we go enjoy ourselves with the time. I hear the saloon’s got a new dish they’re tryin’ out, and I think you’ve more than earned a whiskey, good sir.” She held out her hand, the other behind her back, standing straight and proud.

Arthur found himself grinning. He reached his hand out, following her guidance to stand up, even if she couldn’t have pulled him if he didn’t allow it. “What happened to those errands?” He questioned teasingly. “We say we ran into some trouble and try again tomorrow, obviously.” Y/N pulled him along, wrapping both her hands around his own to encourage him faster. “C’mon! I’ll pay!” She cheered.