#anyway ultimately it was a foregone conclusion that they would forgive him

[pencilofawesomeness]

what were the dragon's reactions to hearing acnalogias story?

(sorry this took so long for me to answer)

Man, that scene kicked my ass. I tried to write it from a few different perspectives but it felt too... repetitive? I guess? Couldn't nail the tone. But it's a good question to ask.

Sting was the newest to the fold, so knew Acnologia the least. However, he had been operating on the coping thought of "dragon slayers are meant to slay dragons" for a year at this point, because Weisslogia's implanted memory, so the full impact didn't really set in for him.

Wendy, sweet Wendy, really has a hard time imagining it all. Acno? Hurting their parents? Seemed fake. Except Acno doesn't lie and he's really upset over this, so maybe it did happen. Conflicting points of interest, for sure, because she loves them both. Still hard to imagine that Acno used to be bad though. It's like if your straight-laced parent, whom for all your life wore sweater vests and drove the speed limit and discouraged violence went "oh yeah when I was in high school I was in a gang and did drugs and killed people."

Rogue was admittedly a little cowed. Had to rethink everything and re-contextualize, for sure. Its the gut instinct of "oh no my dad" versus the fact that he had been observing Acno for months at that point and he seemed legit, but he's also six so his confidence in his profiling is not the best. (Except Rogue is very good at people watching.) Obviously the fact that Acno is visibly distraught and has never done anything to hurt them won out. After all, Gajeel had yelled at him and said nasty things too when they met and didn't quite remember each other, but they're brothers now, so things change. Kids this age roll with things very well.

Gajeel was pissed at first—he doesn't like being lied to, for one—but then it quickly switched to being more upset that Acno looked one word away from leaving forever. His unresolved abandonment issues didn't handle being left behind again, so he mostly yelled at Acno to get his shit together at this point. Teen angst at its finest. Later though, it pieces together everything he knew from Metalicana and the others and realized it tracks. But Acno has nothing to gain from telling them this if he was still like that, so clearly he's different now.

Happy is also a baby and doesn't really understand the severity of it at the time. It's the sort of simple moral formula: you did something bad, you said you're sorry, and it's better now.

Charle, despite being the same age, absolutely is on guard around him for the next few months and religiously watching over Wendy and all of the others because those boys have bad self-preservation. Charle, for magic reasons as we all know, comes pre-packed with trauma and trust issues. But. Acno gets its so he just lets her be vigilant around him and lets her have space and eventually she calms down and has an epiphany about dragon slayers and people in general. Her thing actually comes up a bit in this oneshot I want to do with her and Erik soon, when Erik first gets adopted.

Laxus doesn't have any emotional stake in this but it definitely re-contextualizes stuff. He keeps calm but has a momentary small crisis of "wait did this guy kill my dad because he was insane back then, or...?" and then quickly remembers he has loads of evidence that Ivan was insane and that Acnologia still, ya know, saved his life. He's got this moral gray stuff figured out, and clearly Acno isn't still Like That. Plus it makes sense to Laxus now why Acno bailed so hard and fast when Laxus was a kid, because he's watching it now in real time. It was the bone deep guilt.

Natsu, actually, understands Acno's whole ordeal the most, on a conceptual level. Because he's spent countless nights thinking about Zeref at this point, and how Zeref has caused soooo many problems and so much damage but Natsu still cares and still wants Zeref to get better and Not do those things. Acnologia is now proof that that can work. That someone can be awful and then choose to stop being awful. It definitely hurts him deeply that being separated from Igneel was, in part, *because* of Acnologia (and this dawns on all of them) but like... what's done is done. At this point, it's equally hard to imagine a life without Fairy Tail or without Acnologia. So. It's just life and how it is.

[youngwidowofbrooklyn]

Open letter to a foul weather friend.

I won��t lie, after my husband died, I wondered if you’d heard. I secretly hoped you’d reach out with kind words and offer some comfort. There’s a part of my heart that will always want that from you, even though I’ve learned the hard way that your friendship has always been conditional, unpredictable and temperamental.  

And even though I longed to hear from you, there was something else that I knew - have known for a long time - and that is that our friendship is over. As much as it hurt me to do it, I buried our friendship long before my son was born and my husband died. Two of the biggest life events I’ve experienced which you, by choices you made, were not there to experience with me.

I’ve learned a lot about myself, being a grown up, being a kind person and being a friend, in the last several years. I’ve learned how to forgive and how to expect less from others, so that when I receive more, it’s a delight and not a foregone conclusion. I’ve also learned to respect my own limitations and make peace with them. And I’ve come to know that your friendship is exhausting, painful and absolutely requires more of me than I have the capacity to give, now, and probably forever.

I don’t think you fully comprehend how devastated I was by our final fallout nearly six years ago. You turned your venom on me, caught me completely off guard, hurled nasty, untrue and hurtful accusations at me via text, and refused to answer my frantic calls to try to talk things out with you. I left you a voicemail. I don’t know if you listened to it. I wouldn’t be surprised it you didn’t. I remember that I was so sick that day. I barely had any voice at all, and I was sobbing, and I just wanted to understand why you were so vicious. You didn’t give me a chance. You didn’t give me the respect of hearing me. You broke my heart.

When we were kids, you were the coolest girl I know, by a mile. I know I’ve told you that many times, but I cannot overstate this fact. You were all the things that a teenage me wanted to be: beautiful, tough and fearless. You gave me my first cigarette, and made fun of me when I didn't inhale the smoke of the Marlboro Red, so I made it my mission to learn how to smoke properly. It’s a lesson I have yet to unlearn. You were the first girl I knew who shaved her legs, who had sex. You also stole from me, ridiculed me and ignored me. But even still. I wanted to be like you. I wanted you to like me.

When we met up again in college, you were the first friend I knew who had moved in with a boyfriend. You were friends with all the guys in the cool bands. You smoked pot and dropped acid and went to cool parties. I always felt like a big square when I tagged along.

You introduced me to all my favorite college bands. Your taste was always so much more refined than mine. You showed me Tarantino movies and Wes Anderson movies long before they were usurped by the hipster contingent. You had tattoos and piercings and endless swagger.

God, you were so fucking cool. 

You got into fights with girls in bars, just because you didn’t like the way they looked at you. You were sexy and tough.

You moved away and then got married. Then I moved away. We’d gone in two different directions. 

When your marriage was falling apart, I offered to give you a ticket to visit me in the city. You came, and immediately started an affair with my friend and downstairs neighbor. I felt exploited and discarded.

When you decided to divorce and move to the city, I was ecstatic that we’d finally be living in the same place again. I looked at apartments for you and sent you photos. When you reenrolled in college, I was proud of you. I went out and bought you a few hundred dollars worth of back to school supplies, because I knew you were low on funds, and anyway, you were my best friend and I wanted to show you that I cared.

All along I think you always resented the way I tried to give you things. I wonder if you felt like I was hanging something over your head. I wasn’t. Or at least I didn’t mean to. I just wanted you to be happy. I see now that there’s no way I could influence that.

I tried to help you get jobs. I tried to fix things for you, whenever you complained about things, I responded by jumping into action. I realize now that did nothing but irritate you.

And over the years, the fallouts kept happening. We’d go a year, two, three or more without talking. Then one of us would give in, reach out, and we’d pick up like nothing had ever gone wrong. We’d proclaim our best friendship, our kindred spiritness, and maybe we actually believed it. I know that I wanted very badly to.

I remember meeting up with you after our second or third fallout before the last.  We went to your apartment, you held my feet and I cried and told you how guilty I felt for being angry with my aunt when she died. You told me that you’d been in a bad place with cocaine in the years since we’d last spoken. You also told me you’d been enjoying making out with women recently. You kissed me in my car, and when I backed away, you grabbed my face and said, “Not like that, not like that,” and then put your tongue in my mouth. I didn’t know what to say, but I was so uncomfortable that I just let you do it and then left as soon as I could.

When I moved to New York we resumed our friendship once again, long distance. We’d spend hours on the phone, commiserating over our fears and paranoias. We made plans to visit each other. We schemed and plotted and talked shit about everyone else and proclaimed our undying love for one another.

And then a mutual friend told me that you were dabbling in heroin. I couldn’t believe it at first, that you would keep something like that from me. And I was so worried for you. I wanted you to be well. I wanted you to stop finding ways to hurt yourself. 

So I tried to set up a network for you, from another state. I confronted you, gently as I could, I asked you to get help, to go to meetings, to go with a mutual friend. You agreed, and, I’ll be honest, I was proud of myself for being a good friend and trying to take care of you from afar. I didn’t realize how much you resented my intervention. I didn’t understand that it was not my place to fight for you.

In truth, your addictions have only ever made you more glamorous to me. I always felt like your mousy, naive little friend. In my mind, the druggy art world that you seemed to gravitate to was so much more romantic than the one I lived in. And if you want to know the truth, if you’d ever asked me to do drugs with you, I would have. I so very much wanted to be a part of your world.

But when the final rift came, I realized some very painful truths. You have never, in the 30 years I’ve known you, shown up for me in any meaningful way. I’m not blaming you. You don’t owe me anything. But I look back on all the ups and downs I’ve had and you made very clear choices to not participate in my life. I invited you to my wedding. You said no. Even though I stood up for you in yours. You didn’t come see my shows, which is fine, really, except....I can’t shake this feeling that you never had interest in celebrating my successes with me.

So, that last fight that we had, which left me shaken and reeling for quite a while, it was the final straw. And my husband, who had been with me for at least ten years of my ups and downs with you, observed, quite astutely as I was hysterical and crying, “Babe. I know she’s your friend, but....fuck her.”

In this latest email you sent to me, you wrote, “There will never be another Tom Bateman.” And you are very right about that. But you should know that he was fed up with the way you manipulated me, he was angry that I kept falling for the same toxic cycle with you. And so, for my own well-being, and to honor my partner, my best friend, I am saying once and for all, it is over between us.

I won’t lie. Since the last contact we have had, I still dream about you. My heart wants us to make amends. I want to be cool enough to be your friend. But after all this time, I don't think it’s possible. You resent me because you think....what? I’m lucky? I’m smug? Do I rub my great fortune in your face? I don’t know....and I don’t care anymore. Whatever you think of me is not my business.

A few months after that fight, I got pregnant, which you now know. Yet another milestone you’ve missed out on. I’m sorry for you about that one, because my son is so special, so wise and kind. It’s a shame you’ll never know him. When I was younger, I’d just assumed that you would be there to know all of my family. Then I grew up, I guess.

When I received your first email after Tom died, a year or more ago, honestly, it gave me some peace to know that you had it in you to reach out, even though you did it in your usual too-cool and not-quite heartfelt way. I wrestled with responding to it for a long while. I saved it and read it and reread it. But ultimately, Tom’s words kept ringing in my mind.

In your second email you advised me that your ex-husband had died. I don’t know what you thought...that perhaps I would see a shared experience in that information? That I would rush to you to express my sympathy? I’m sorry that he died. He was my friend, once. But, no matter how saddened you were by his death, I promise you, it’s nothing like the experience I had holding onto the father of my child while he slipped away from us. Don’t you dare try to invite yourself into the realm that I exist in. You don’t belong here with me.

Tom’s death taught me a lot about what real friendship looks like. There are many people that I thought “of course, that’s my friend,” about ,who just did not show up in my darkest hour. And plenty more who I wouldn’t have expected who have made their presence profoundly known when I needed them most. I have no anger about the way these things shook out. Just clarity.

And on top of that, I know that I can no longer chase friendships. I don't have the strength or the time. I know that I am not a good friend right now. I’ve given myself permission not to be. I need more than I can give. My real friends understand that, and they are here to catch me as I continue to fall.

This morning I woke up to a third, and hopefully final, email from you. It was rambling and in places incoherent. It begs the question as to your mental state as you wrote it. I don’t know what you intended. It was, by turns, loving and defensive. It seems though after three attempts, perhaps it’s driving you a bit crazy that I haven’t responded, which would’ve been part of our usual cycle of friendship/estrangement.

I know you've read my blog. I am not going to write you personally. If you are looking for an answer from me, here it is. Is this what you wanted?

I wish you only the best. I wish you peace and health and love. But you’ve got to let go of me. I don’t have anything left for you.