#been hoarding this ask for a while not bc i didnt want to answer it but because i really needed to marinate the answer. let it sit.

[adeleine-everyday]

hello adeleine what is your favorite color

day 138

when the world is so full of color and vibrance, how can you choose just one?

[sun-stricken]

Don’t have to answer if it’s not your style, but headcannons for overprotective dragon slayers to new demon slayer gray?

Random person: you’re all dragon slayers?

Slayers: yeah, why?

Random person points to gray: why’s he here?

Slayers: he’s adopted

anon you have no idea how much i love you for asking this, ive been waiting for an excuse to do this, i am a SLUT for anyone and anything being overprotective of Gray

i don’t believe in canon or timelines so use ur imagination

i like to think of Gray as person practically everybody ends up really liking, and a total cat magnet.

And dragon slayers r just big cats. So Gray already had close friendships with them

so when they realized ‘holy shit hes like us now’ their protective instincts went in overdrive

Natsu, Wendy, & Sting didnt even try to hide it; constantly trying to make sure hes comfortable and felt safe and didnt sit alone confused and scared by all these new things he has to deal with

Natsu definitely drags him onto impromptu jobs and fishing trips with Happy, in an effort to get away from people, or just so they can spend time together, the reason is unclear

i think dragon slayers as a whole are like violently touch starved, and thats what Sting focused on mostly.

he would drape himself over Gray when he felt like the other needed or wanted it but wouldnt ask

it helped Gray get more comfortable for sure

Wendy, as a healer and friend, tried to give him every piece of advice she knew, offering remedy after remedy to help ease him into his now heightened senses

Gray tried to explain to them once that his abilities are fairly different from theirs, yes he has heightened senses, but his instincts and needs were a hell of a lot different than theirs; that only spurred them on more, making them try to research everywhere they could about demon slayers

Rogue & Gajeel were more subtle with it (not by much tho), they understood when needed it quiet, when he just wanted company without the talk

If Gray was having a hard time, whether or not it was bc of his slayer magic, Rogue would offer up Frosch and sit with him, offering silence or white noise. whatever he needed

Gajeel probably thought he was subtle but he absolutely was not, like asking Gray if he wants to run errands with him when places theyre at get too sensorially intense

he tried to ask Levy about everything she knew abt demon slayers without being too obvious, when she kept sending him knowing glances he just asked (very resigned) for some books on the matter.

there was surprisingly little

But he made do and probably studied every piece of literature there was on the matter

The others probably found out and teased him even tho they did the same thing (they also probs asked him to drop a list of books for them)

Now, Laxus really was subtle

telling Gray to go home when he was visibly pushing himself

talking about his new sound canceling headphones and then conveniently leaving them near Gray

or little compliments abt how his new magic is coming along, quiet support type shit

also staring someone down to get them to shut up if they’re being too much

i feel like they turned from ‘one of our own’ protective to overprotective when they realized ppl werent as accepting of demon slayers as they were with dragon slayers

Most ppl exposure to slayer magic is limited to dragon slayers, who refer to themselves as dragons. so when a demon slayer pops up, the correlation isn’t pretty, and their actions are even worse

While Gray understands people must just scared or confused, so he doesnt blame them; he has a hoard of extremely protective dragons who think differently

Wendy had to be physically restrained by multiple people after she heard people calling Gray a monster

Natsu genuinely considered burning alive someone who refused to pay Gray after he finished up a job

Gray definitely now had scary dog privileges, the dog being every single dragon slayer he knows

Laxus zapping people who so much as look at Gray wrong, or frying whatever electronic (ik its lacrimas but work with me) device they have.

or both

Them all hyping up (in their own ways) Grays physical demon features when they start showing up

Post joint guild party at Sabertooth: some guy talking shit abt how Fairy Tail could allow a demon into their ranks, how he is gonna hurt someone. They are now guildless and only eating through a straw and a face not even a mother could love

Someone at an event giving Gray a backhanded compliment and immediately getting death stares mixed with a violent increase of magic in the air that would make the gods shudder

Remember when i said Grays a cat magnet? its not just the dragon slayers who adore him, its their exceeds too

if u asked them to list their favorite people, Gray is in the top 5 for all of them

im stealing another hc from someone and saying Gray fosters cats, and Happy may or may not of gotten jealous once or twice over the pets and scratches that were supposed to be his

If Rogue loses Frosch and Gray happens to be in town 70% they’re probs together

The incorrect quote u put is so canon in this universe btw

Gray “Honorary Dragon Slayer” Fullbuster

i have so many more but neither of us are prepared yet

[twooowars]

if there is a hell i KNOW my father in law is going there when he dies. where the fuck do i even begin? this story will just Have to exclude little details. there is so very very much and it's been transpiring over the course of a few years.

so this dude is a manipulative, abusive, useless, garbage piece of shit whose gaslighting bullshit started decades ago. i won't go too in depth on this part bc i dont want to overshare someone else's information but there will be parts of this story where you may think jesus christ, how is this still going on? buddy i ask myself the same kinds of questions but let ye who has a healthy relationship with your parents cast the first stone. the context needed to have sympathy here is that this is a Long LONG complex situation that we're talking about. for a Bit if background, my partner didnt see or hear from his father between 2015 and 2019. so. take that as you will going forward.

it started about 3 years ago when a series of careless decisions left Me (somehow one of the most level-headed people involved!!!!! if you can imagine!!!!!!!) in possession of literal decades worth of my father in law's hoarded shit. being a hoarder is not a moral failing, but deciding to get rid of the stuff and pawning it all off on your son and his partner is Annoying to say the very fucking least. this was obnoxious but i thought At Most that it was a shitty but temporary situation.

WRONG

he expected us to hold on to it until he was ready to have it back. my partner being Too Patient and Honestly The Real Victim Here for having this man as a father chose to honour this wish. as you can imagine this inch became a mile quickly.

he started demanding to crash on the couch, threatening suicide and claiming domestic violence and things of that nature. i cant confirm or deny the domestic violence allegations but i will say that he has made these claims everywhere he has ever lived. this turned very quickly into him manipulating my partner into letting him move in with us. i knew it would go horribly but my hands were sort of tied (knew FIL could and would use any excuse to isolate partner from his loved ones so ive been treading the Bad Guy line very carefully here). i should also point out that FIL's girlfriend at the time was His Perfect Equal in every way and so my partner was biased towards hating her more, as she was someone he had just met.

immediately i had problems living with him. i have Always hated him because he used to misgender me constantly, so i should state this bias now. he seems to view me through a lens that is transphobic, homophobic and misogynistic all at once - that is to say, he believes i should be responsible for all the housework, and that i should listen to his every word and meet his every demand without complaint. it started out with him talking at me Constantly. i don't mean we were conversing, i mean that this man would sit behind me while i did chores and tell stories about pranks he used to pull in the 80s all day, getting annoyed if i tried to change the topic. throughout the course of these stories it became constantly clearer and clearer to me that he was absolutely an irredeemable piece of shit. to put it bluntly, almost all his stories put him in a bad light and he didnt seem to realise at all. he started to get really annoyed with me in general for not laughing at his bullshit, challenging his constant use of racial slurs, and not appreciating the homophobic comments he made about me on a daily basis. (i know you read "homophobic" and "use of slurs" and now you have a burning question, so i will answer; yes he Does call me a faggot). he quickly became my number 1 sworn enemy. to be extremely clear, yes, the fact that he is sitting and watching housework be done does mean he doesnt do any himself. he has outright stated that he thinks i should be obligated to take care of him. we'll return to this point. fucking trust me.

by this point in the story you're wondering why my partner has not kicked him out of the house. i KNOW. but it does become more complicated when you realise that at the time my partner was working 11 hour shifts every day and FIL was a completely different guy around him. still obnoxious and a bit arrogant, but nowhere near the human waste i had come to know. it started to get to the point where i was furiously angry at this dude 24/7 but my partner had never seen him do more than make an out of touch joke. this is the part where i say something vague about how i have mental health issues that i dont want to air out, but suffice to say that making me look paranoid and reactive is Not a hard task.

one night while i was doing dishes, i stopped to use the bathroom and FIL broke 3 of my wine glasses while i was gone. a gigantic fight ensued where he attempted to convince me i had actually broken them myself and my partner walked in on this happening. this is when i first thought the tides would turn and things would get better. partner atarted to see the issues but wanted to give him the chance to change. at this point he is still under the impression that his dad is someone who is perpetually down on his luck, who has had a difficult life and has been mistreated by everyone around him. basically is treating him like a shelter dog who is lashing out but still good at heart. he hasnt heard the same stories yet as i have of the guy who has had everything in his life handed to him for free, but is such a dickhead that he has fucked over everyone who ever tried to help him and fucked himself doubly in the process. after a certain point it started to wear on our ability to spend time together when i was constantly complaining about his dad instead of talking to him about literally anything else, so i honestly started to carry this on my own for a bit.

anyway, it becomes one of those "sit him down" situations. to remind you, this is a borderline senior citizen and not a toddler. they set out a timeline for him to stop drinking so heavily (alcoholism is also not a moral failing but it does have consequences for the people around you, so i get why he thought this would help) and as it became more and more obvious to my partner that his dad was not actually aiming to reach Any of these goals and had Zero respect for his boundaries, we set up our own little secret timeline for me to get a job so we could afford to move again. (i do have a job rn but i am often unemployed due to uhhh Obvious Reasons). so, things are going well yes? the veneer is cracking, he is proving himself selfish and unreliable. this should be about where it ends, yes?

WRONG

MIL passed extremely suddenly last july. the relationship there is somehow even more complex than this one so i won't even go into it, but we'll just say that this Fucked my partner up mentally very badly. he had a lot of trauma open back up and suddenly became very invested in fixing his relationships with his family members. i have never had to process grief on this level so i cant judge it. he decided to give his dad one more chance and for a little while i tried to be cool with this.

the relationship between FIL and i continued to deteriorate. after the wine glass fiasco i literally have refused to speak to him. this has not changed in about a year. i Hate this man more than i can say and my life is better for not interacting with him. i digress. me ignoring him becomes very Very contentious around the house, again it seems like i am the one Causing the majority of household tension because i am the most reactive to it. this sucks shit but is usually how things go when you are prone to being overemotional. a massive argument ensues between my partner and i where we eventually come to the decision that i will move out for a few months until our lease naturally ends. we obviously didnt break up or i would have referred to him as my ex at some point but i knew removing the buffer would make him see that his dad is a pure shithead. i dont know where else to interject this but the dude has also stolen a total of 26 full packs of cigarettes from me and this alone warrants the death penalty.

so. let's talk about the last 5 months, shall we?

turns out this dude was somehow putting on airs on my behalf. all of his behaviour immediately got more extreme because he felt like he had won. the buzzkill faggot (his words) was gone and he could really cut loose. cutting loose involved such choices as

leaving strangers in the house unattended for hours, resulting in theft on multiple occasions totalling thousands

physically removing important pieces from the shower (the knobs, mainly) whenever i visit and forgetting where he's hidden them so that no one can shower for days

continuing to refuse housework despite the fact there is one less person in the house now to help out and the house is in a neighbourhood with roaches

smoking in the house (we have a pet)

allowing strangers to smoke meth in the house (once again smoking meth is not a moral failing but to reiterate we do have a pet and she is just Two Inch Large)

turning heaters off and even opening windows in the dead of winter (i cant see this one as anything but an outright attempt to kill the mouse as even he ends up walking around in a coat and hat inside when he does this)

taking my partner's food out of the freezer and leaving it out on the counters all day long to replace it with his own shit (which he will not eat, he eats out every day because he cant cook)

tripling down on the racist shit

... and more!

not only did he do all of these things but at some point he has managed to blame every single one of these actions on me. he literally outright said that he doesn't do housework because i should be coming over and doing it. to be clear I HAVE BEEN STAYING WITH FRIENDS AND RELATIVES FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS. at this point youre Really thinking "you've kicked him out, right?" and im pleased to report that we have. but the story is still not over because the cockroach refuses to die and the entire house is filled with his shit. (remember his shit from the beginning? yeah.) he has been given a firm date he Has to leave by but until then we're still dealing with this nightmare human (in my opinion, we should have just thrown his shit to the side of the road, but im trying to be Calm Guy lately). he's reacting to being kicked out by throwing a number of temper tantrums each day, making sure his schedule is Unknowable, and insulting everyone around him at every possible opportunity. also, doing all the same shit that everyone has been mad at him for for decades and continuing somehow to blame it on Me.

so, where does this leave us? well, at the moment we are trying to finalize our next steps. we do actually have a bit longer on this lease than we've led him to believe, so we have until the fall to sort this out. to be honest it is much easier and calmer knowing that i dont have to consider this horrible man or his shit this time. as for where he's going to put it all, i don't know and i dont care. if he chooses to leave without taking it and ditch it all on us, in our neighbourhood i promise you it will all last 3 hours max on the roadside.

im annoyed, angry, and frustrated that all of this happened. but moreso than anything i am so fucking pleased to say that i think i am Finally rid of my father in law. praise be to the unknown cyber being.

there is more to this story, more details of provable lies he's told, more offensive obnoxious and downright horrible shit he has said to me and about me as well as to and about others, the kleptomania, the fact that he has been trying to make me act as his secretary in addition to all of this and file government paperwork on his behalf, the fact he has been pretending he once slept with my mother since 1986, the list goes on so far and so deep that i couldnt possibly write it all down here. but, this is the abridged version of my personal nightmare in-law story. if you read it i hope you hate him as much as i do.