#i just think they both resent their dads for being so shitty

[eddie-mylovely]

just bc Steve has daddy issues doesn’t mean he has a daddy kink. he definitely looks for a father figure, just not in the bedroom. both Steve and Eddie would cringe at the thought of calling someone daddy in a sexual sense.

[munsonsreputation]

i can't talk to you when i'm like this

steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: [2.1K]

warnings: warnings: no use of y/n, established relationship, reader has a history of shitty ex's, steve accidentally makes reader cry, a lot of angst regarding past relationships (feelings wise), steve's shitty childhood & terrible dad (brief), fluff at the end (yes because i am a softie)

summary: steve never raises his voice at you, but the first time he does, you can’t find it in yourself to tell him what's really bothering you when you’re seconds away from breaking down.

You hate how the tears coming springing to your eyes the second Steve raises his voice a little too loudly beneath his already apparent annoyance.

Your brain blanks out the second it bellows against the walls and comes hurtling down to your eardrums. It feels like glass shattering in a million different ways, cutting you open and killing you with a thousand cuts.

He’s frozen in front of you, blinking with a look of oblivion on his face because he’s waiting. His arms still held wide open after he asked a question: one that was posed with a tone too sharp for your liking.

“Why are you making it such a big deal?”

His usually sweet and gentle tone was long gone, or at least that’s how you heard it. Instead, it dribbled with irritation and resentment meshed all in one. The kind that sounded like he was fed up and wanted nothing to do with you anymore.

He was just trying to do a sweet thing by picking you both up some coffee and yet here you were starting an argument — you always had to ruin a good thing.

Your teeth dig into your gums, trying to find any way to hold off on the waterworks that you know are about to pour any second now. Cloudy orbs shoot down to your bare feet, trembling against the floorboards while you excuse yourself from the kitchen.

“I’m g-going to the bathroom.”

Your voice is delicate yet not the kind that Steve knows like the back of his hand — the one where you keep it so quiet like an oath when you whisper you love him when you think he’s asleep and no one else is around to hear it.

This time the oath is broken, cracked, just like your voice, torn at the seams between fear and panic. Its edges are frayed and tattered, and its tenderness that is usually formed out of affection is long gone as it cuts through your chest and causes your back to heave as you walk away.

He knows he messed up.

It’s stupid. You shouldn’t be so worked up over the barista leaving her number on Steve’s cup. But you are. You’re worked the hell up and you want him to understand why it is such a big deal to you.

It’s upsetting because you shouldn’t be this wound up and insecure. You know Steve would never even dare to dial the numbers left on the cup, let alone remember the name she left on there. He’s head over heels in love with you the same way you are with him — yet you just don’t get it.

You don’t get the way this makes your insides turn and the thoughts to start whirlwind in your head. At first you were just upset about the number, maybe even just mildly irked — but then the second Steve’s voice came to you like that… that’s when you entirely forgot how to even tell him how you felt.

Now you just felt stupid for making it such a big deal and turning it into this.

“Breathe….” you murmur to yourself jaw trembling as you try not to tense.

The tears finally roll when your back collides with the bathroom door and your shaky fingers lock it shut. Your heart feels like it’s on fire, one that consumes your entire being and engulfs you in the bluest blue instead of the blazing red.

The only thing keeping you from collapsing is the door that’s holding up your weight and it’s not long after that the person you love yet are avoiding is on the other side making it more difficult for you to attempt to make it seem like it’s not a big deal.

“B-baby… I’m so sorry.”

The apology comes in an instant, and you could almost feel his breath hitting your neck from behind the wood. You know it’s genuine…Steve has never ever made you cry. You feel now like you’ve taken everything out of proportion — you should’ve just giggled and said ‘oh that’s cute! too bad you’re my boyfriend!’

All of the things you wished you would have said play in your mind like punishment for the way you’ve acted. How you know you’ve turned the tables on him and made him look like the bad guy when he was far from that.

He was just shocked to come home and hand you your favorite drink only to be asked about the barista he barely gave his attention to. Your accusing voice after he did something nice wasn’t something he was expecting.

Your throat tightened, eyes squeezing shut as you tried to cover it up and make it seem like you weren’t upset. You shuffled from the door, towards the sink, turning it on yet making no move to put your hands under the water.

“I’m fine! I—I just had to wash my face!” You lie, trying to cover your tracks as if Steve doesn’t already know it.

There’s been times when things have upset you, not things that Steve has done, but things that life throws at you and most of the times you hate how wound up you get. Without failure, you sneak away, just wanting a moment by yourself to cry without anyone feeling bad for you or asking questions because they’ll never get it. They don’t understand that the littlest things can trigger something inside of you to completely shut down from the rest of the world.

No one gets it… but Steve does.

“Baby,” His voice is stronger this time, yet tender, “please, can I come in? I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean…”

Your fingers finally come in contact with the frigid water, dabbing the droplets over your eyes attempting to get them to settle instead of looking like you were just crying. There’s a sniffle that comes from you as you clear your airways and a pathetic smile that you press onto your face to try to hide how you’re really feeling.

The water shuts off and you’re opening the door, cutting his apology off altogether.

“I’m fine, Steve!”

Your voice isn’t swaying even with the volume it carries and neither with the faint laugh you give him when you meet face to face. Your lashes still bear the droplets of salt and your cheeks tinted red with the path they’ve traveled down.

He can feel the pain in your voice and see the wobble of your chin as you hold back everything inside. He hates that you feel like you have to mask how you’re really feeling when, in actuality, you should be furious at him for what he did.

“Baby,”

Sadness joins his concern, and he doesn’t bother to hide it — he’s not sure he can when his eyes leak the same emotion, “Baby, you’re not fine…I know you’re not fine.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes unconvincingly. “I literally am, babe… it’s cool. Everything is fine.”

He knows that now you’re trying to reassure yourself rather than him. Trying to play it off and make it seem like everything was okay. Like he’s just supposed to accept it and let you hold everything inside like torture when that’s far from what he wants.

Your attempts to brush past him are futile when his hands come out to hold your shoulders, his fingertips kneading your tense skin. He can feel the blood rushing from under your clothes and it’s not the kind of warmth you usually carry — you are blistering and if he looks hard enough, he can see the way your chest is trying to level itself out as you hold back.

It takes everything in you to not draw your eyes away from his because you don’t want him to know that you’re still feeling it. Feeling stupid and at the same time nothing at all because you don’t know what to feel anymore. There’s a whirlwind of emotions and none of them you can put a finger on because you’re just lost.

You just don’t want him to think you’re crazy… like you reacting to him raising his voice like that was something that would daunt him away.

One of his hands stops its movement on your skin, raising up to your cheek and cradling you gently. There’s a crease between his brows and his eyes seep with regret and guilt. His lips part and the words that leave them come in whispers and fragility — croaks and cracks guiding them.

“Everything isn’t fine… I acted like an idiot and raised my voice at you. I’m sorry baby, I—I never meant to do that on purpose. It just came out, but that isn’t an excuse.” He shakes his head at himself disappointingly because he knows better.

Steve was far from perfect in his own eyes, but he knew better because all his life if there was one person he didn’t want to be like, it was his dad. The dad that used to scream at his mother, and scream at him, and scream at the world when everything went wrong, and didn’t know how to talk if it wasn’t screaming.

He’d never forgive himself if he made you feel that way or even became a smidge of what his father was. But it wasn’t him who he was blaming for this — this was all Steve himself, and he knew that. Accountability needed to be taken from himself because the only person he was hurting was you and it was going to be okay.

Not in the heat of the moment, not ever.

You hadn’t even noticed you had tugged your bottom lip between your teeth, the faint taste of iron trickling onto your tongue when you realized you were biting down on the skin too hard trying to stop yourself from crying.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry baby, please just—just tell me how to make it better.” His voice pleads and reasons, wanting to make it right with you anyway he could.

You close your eyes, letting the tears fall as you feel his thumbs wipe them away. He’s done this times before, wiping away your tears that had spewed from another’s doing. Never did he ever think he would be the cause.

“I-it’s nothing… it’s stupid, I’m stupid and dramatic.” You swallow thickly, sniffling and twisting your fingers in your hand to fight off the lingering feelings.

He shakes his head. The obvious look of disapproval for your words covers his face because this was far from your fault. Sure, he was bewildered about the whole incident, considering he didn’t even know the number was left there until you brought it up, but for him to not know how to convey his frustration better was the real issue at hand.

Not the accusation, not the stupid number, not the oblivious girl who left her number: it was him, Steve’s idiotic actions that got you both here.

“Stop, don’t talk to yourself like that.” He insists, staring deeply into your eyes, searching for a reason why you were blaming yourself,

Your jaw shakes roughly before a sob rips through your mouth. Tightening your eyes to try to get the tears to stop, yet they don’t cease no matter how hard you try. Frustration builds inside of you because you should be over it by now. The fact that he apologized and was here trying to comfort you should be enough.

But something inside of you won’t let it die. The silence is filled with the memory of his voice shouting at you and the face that he stared back with.

“I—I don’t want you to think there’s something wrong with me.” You croak, covering your face and turning away from him to save you the embarrassment.

But he strays to where you are, sticking beside you with a comforting hand resting on your back, “Sweetheart, nothing is—”

You sob one more, this time with a grunt that is direct to yourself. Stomping your foot against the cold tiles, your hands come down to grip the edges of the counter tightly. Your reflection in the mirror is only half of what you feel, and when Steve steps behind you, all you can see is guilt, but at the same time patience knowing he’s ready when you are.

You try your very best to at least keep your sobs at bay just enough for you to speak through them and for him to understand.

“You’re not gonna wanna be with me anymore knowing I can’t—I can’t talk to you when I’m like this! I don’t know why, but I can’t… it makes me feel stupid, like I’m crying over something so tiny and now I’ve totally forgotten why we were even arguing in the first place.”

He clicks his tongue, shaking his head and reaching in front of you to bring your hair back and away from your face. His eyes keep yours in the mirror, watching at you with such a gentleness that even now doesn’t falter.

“We weren’t arguing. I was just dumb and raised my voice when you were asking me about it.”

You move your sights from his to the bottom of the sink, shaking your head, “No, b-but I shouldn’t have reacted like that and made you look like the bad guy when yo—”

Your voice is traveling faster than you can think, spewing out words so hastily like you have to make him understand that it’s not his fault, but yours. It takes your breath away, hiccuping and coughing between a sob that leaves your mouth and bobbles in your chest.

Steve’s instantaneously rubbing your back, shushing you and trying to get you to calm down knowing you going on and on like this wouldn’t do you any good. He understands that you feel a lot of things very deeply and sometimes it isn’t an easy task to get them all out at once: he knows it and he’ll spend forever with you until you got it all out.

“Hey, hey, baby, c’mon… breathe,” He coos, his palm never stilling on your back feeling the deep breaths in and out, watching the tears fall down your cheeks and drip onto the counter.

It’s a kind of scene he hates to see, the one he wishes he could take from you and shoulder instead because watching you in such a state breaks his heart more than he could imagine. And this time it stings a little more knowing that he not only cannot shoulder your pain, but was the one creating it this time.

“Talk to me, please. What’s going on? Why’re so you upset at yourself and not at me?” He begs, trying to get a glimpse of what you’re feeling so he knows where the root is.

“B-because… I made it such a b-big deal.” You hiccup.

When you swipe angrily at your eyes with a ferociousness, that’s enough to make Steve step in and take it from here now that he knows where you’re coming from. A warm hand comes down onto your shoulder, pulling at you just enough for you to face him completely, weakly hanging your head low not knowing if you were strong enough to see him just yet.

“You didn’t make anything a big deal. I promise, we’re okay.” He whispers quietly, cupping your face in his hands, and bringing you face to face, “You’re not stupid and I could never think that you were. You’re human honey. It’s normal for you to be upset by things.”

“B-but I…I don’t want you to think you did something wrong—“

He stops you with a shake of his head. “But I did. I did something so wrong. I yelled when I shouldn’t have, and I made you feel like shit.”

Steve desperately needs you to know it. That this was his fault and no one else’s. That him making you feel like crap was the worst thing he could have ever done, but he was willing to man up to it and try to make things better, and at the same time he would understand if you wanted nothing to do with him after this.

Still, even after his words, you’re somehow even angrier at yourself, mind blaring at you for being such a dramatic person for making him go out of this way with all of this. That this was surely your fault and yours only, and if you didn’t take it off his plate, it was just something he would use against you one day to realize that he didn’t want to be with you anymore.

It’s what they all did — held it over your head and made you feel like you were wrong for feeling how you felt, so instead it was best not to feel anything at all. To hide it away and hope that being noncombative meant that everything was going to be okay and it wouldn’t give them a reason to run.

“I-it’s my fault—” You pinch your eyes, gulping back a cry as you shake your head in his hands.

His brows pull together, eyes squinting at you, not completely understanding why you’re doing this.

“Hey, stop, it’s not your fault. Don’t do that. Don’t take the fall for me,” Steve assures you with a sternness to his soft voice, continuing to wipe the seeping tears.

Somehow you can’t let it go, “But—”

“But nothing.” He starts, his voice composed yet unyielding in his tone.

He can’t stand it, clutching your face a little firmer, hoping that you would peek your eyes open to see him because he desperately needs you to. The second you do, your face twists again with heartache, praying that he would just let you go and walk out already, because by now, he probably thinks you’re insane — there’s no way he’s not thinking it.

His lips part, trying to find the right words to say, needing the perfect ones to get through you because he hates how you won’t let him take the fall, the one he so rightfully deserves to come crashing down on. You are everything to him and in some ways the feelings that you feel hit him right in the heart, and right now is no different, but there’s a wall between you both and his only goal is to knock it down completely.

“I—I don’t know why you feel like you have to protect me, but I promise you don’t.” He whispers, watching as you try to calm yourself, little sniffles going in and out and broken cries leaving your mouth.

His thumbs rub back and forth across your cheeks, soothing your withering skin. Slowly but surely your cries die little by little, eyes fixed on his, trusting that he means everything that he says, because Steve isn’t like the others — something that you should’ve known judging from his character alone.

“If I do something that makes you upset or sad, you should be able to voice that, not keep it in. I don’t ever want you to feel like you can’t tell me when I’ve done something wrong. I—I want you to feel safe and okay around me, enough to know that my love for you isn’t gonna change, just because you bring something up. You have every right to be upset, and angry, and disappointed, everything.”

He says it like he means it and you know it’s because he does. He lets every word hang from the stars as if he put them up there, and points them out just for you to know that they are there and true, because that’s all he ever wanted. For you to know that every word he speaks comes from his heart, and no matter how many times he needs to repeat it, he’ll do it over and over again, just so you know it’s real and until you believe them and know he won’t ever break them.

“Don’t ever blame yourself for me, please? I-I don’t want you to do that to yourself because I’m here and…and every time I fuck up or make a mistake, I swear I’m gonna own up to it and try to fix it. But I’m not gonna let you take the blame, okay?”

Being with Steve for so long still feels so new, especially when you know he isn’t like the rest of the boys from your past. He’s patient and kind with a big heap of understanding. Like everyone else in the world, he’s guilty of his own poor moments, but he’ll be damned if he takes that out on you or makes you feel like it’s your responsibility.

“I’m so sorry, baby.” He murmurs, letting his hands fall away from your face, letting you decide what the next move is.

The tears that escape are more so in between the remains of the sadness being washed away with tears of love and gratitude. Your arms wrap around his torso, pulling yourself into him and burying your face into his chest where the tears soak through his chest. Without a second thought, his arms envelop you, rocking you both back and forth as he presses kisses on the top of your head.

It mends your heart not merely because he’s just sorry, but because you didn’t get plenty of sorries before. Left only with sweeping things under the rug and pretending like nothing ever happened — it never solved anything and never gave you much.

But Steve gives you everything and so much more.

A big chunk of you feels like you don’t deserve him because he seriously is the best person with an even better soul wrapped up into one and yet he chooses you — every day. He sees you through all the good and the bad and never makes you feel like you’re alone even when you could be a distance away when you’re right beside him.

When you talk too much, say too little, or sometimes say nothing at all — he’s there giving you a listening ear and comforting shoulder to lean on whoever you need it. And on the days when you can’t talk to him when you’re like this… he’ll wait until you’re ready and show you that he’s always going to be there every step of the way.

He’s everything you could have asked for and more.

You pull your face away from hiding, resting your chin up on his chest as you stared up at him.

“I’m sorry too. I—I shouldn’t have been so indifferent earlier and just told you what I was feeling from the get-go.” You sniffled, rubbing your hands over his back, smiling faintly when he nodded understandingly.

He knows that sometimes he might not quite get it, might not see things in the same light as you, but he would never try to dismiss your feelings. He would sit beside you through the storms and sunshines, knowing that he was learning more about himself and you with you in his life.

That because of you, the younger version of himself got to heal his deepest wounds and open himself up to a love he only through he could dream up. You were here making him a better version of himself, all while he was doing the same for you. Showing you that the scars and fears of your past didn’t have to live in the next person you met — that you could let it go and open yourself up to the love you deserved.

His love.

“I forgive you only if you forgive me,” Steve grinned, swiping away at the dampness on your cheeks.

You grinned, nodding up at him. “Of course, I forgive you.”

“I love you so much… nothings ever gonna change that.” He hummed, cupping your face, taking you all in for the person he loved so dearly.

You closed your eyes blissfully before a kiss was placed on your lips.

“I know, I love you too.”

💌 reblogs, tags, comments, + likes are greatly appreciated! leave a comment and let me know if want to be added to my taglist!! 💌

a/n: hi all, I hoped you like this little one-shot/imagine... i had this one sitting in my wips for awhile and it was nearly finished but I didn't have the inspiration to finish it until now. I don't usually write angst bcs i am a fluff girl, but this concept just came to me bcs like a lot of people when someone raises their voice at me...i just freeze and i don't know what to make of it and i just start crying. i think steve would be super apologetic and i wanted to write this bcs i needed some stevie!comfort so yeah... i hope you all enjoyed!!!

taglist: @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world @givemeth @steveharringtonswife @astolenkiss @loving-and-dreaming @awkotaco24 @engenelxver @elfiaaaa @pbs-theundeadmaggot @johnricharddeacy @gaysludge @keerysfolklore @micheledawn1975 @ihatepeanutss @bakugouswh0r3

[j2hoes]

Foreign Exchanges. (Anthony Vaughn x Reader.)

Summary: Moving school in the middle of the year is never easy. Let alone from an entirely different country. Despite Y/N trying to garner the least amount of attention possible, she still manages to catch the eye of a certain brunette.

Word Count: 1.5k

Gif Not Mine . Requests are open!

Warnings: Mature language.

A/N: My first Ant fic and I’m debating making this a series but you’ll have to let me know what you think! Anyway just a short one to start us off but there’ll be more soon. Don’t forget requests are open!

“I’d like you all to offer a warm welcome to our new student Y/N Y/L/N, she’s moved here all the way from the UK! So let’s show her some of that Hartley spirit.” The teacher, who introduced herself as Jojo, announces to the class. All of them staring at me with blank stares. “Go ahead and say a few words.”

She nudges my shoulder gently before I can decline the offer. Encouraging smile on her face. There are no smiles from my classmates however, only bored faces who couldn’t be less interested in my arrival. For which I’m grateful. I’d seen this school on the news prior to my enrolment, I know these students are brutal. I mean, a sex map? Dad wasn’t too happy about sending me here though he didn’t really have a choice, no other schools were admitting students this late into the term.

“Um hi, I’m Y/N. It’s good to be here I guess.”

“Does anybody have any questions for Y/N?” Jojo offers, attempting to find a way for the class to get to me.

Numerous hands raise and I let out a groan internally. It’s bad enough that I’m stood at the front of the classroom like a new shiny toy but to now be subject to whatever ridiculous questions these teens can come up with is a new form of torture. One that I am really not looking forward to.

Jojo points to her first student, allowing them to be the first to ask. “Why don’t you have a proper British accent?” The girl seems genuinely curious, eyes focused on me as she combs her fingers through her orange hair. Stickers adorn her face along with colourful eyeshadow to match her bright outfit. She has a gentle aura surrounding her, which makes me relieved as I realise her question wasn’t meant in malice and more so pure interest. Maybe these kids won’t be so bad?

“Um, I think the accent you’re think of is the Queen’s English. There isn’t many people that talk like that really, maybe a few down south but I grew up in the North East. None of us talk posh.” I tell her, watching as she seems to take notes as I speak.

“Thank you Quinni, Spider what about you?” Jojo asks, pointing to the tall blonde that is hunched over at the back of the class.

His eyes flicker up to me, giving me the once over though he doesn’t seem too impressed by my presence.

“Yeah, what is it with you and all the other poms having bad teeth?” The boy pipes up, I notice the two boys next to him laugh. Though the one in the baggy outfit makes eye contact with me and a flash of guilt appears on his face.

“I don’t have bad teeth actually. Nobody I know does and to be perfectly honest, that stereotype is deeply rooted in classism and while the UK faces a major cost of living and wealth gap crisis, I don’t think it’s funny to joke about things like that. Do you?” I retort, causing h the pink haired girl and her friend to applaud my mini speech. Both offering cheers.

“Okay any more questions that aren’t going to cause arguments?” Jojo asks, a few hands lowering as they don’t want to get in trouble. “Yes, Amerie?”

“Do you miss home?”

“Yeah, yeah I really miss it.” I start, thinking of everything that I had to leave behind. I know this was the best decision for my family, but I do hold a slight resentment towards being here. “Don’t get me wrong, Sydney’s great and all, but I miss my friends, my house, my pets, I even miss the shitty pub from down the street.”

“Thank you Y/N, I feel like we’ve got to know you a little bit more now, so feel free to take a seat and we’ll get started.”

The only open seat is next to the girl that Jojo called Amerie. Smiling as I take my place, I open my notebook and begin to doodle swirls and other patterns across the page. Focusing on that rather than the subject being taught. It’s some form of sex education by the sounds of it. However, it seems very outdated and heteronormative. Nothing worth listening to anyway.

Upon hearing the bell ring, I begin to pack away my things and watch as a few students mutter things towards Amerie. “Map bitch.” “Cunt.” and “Crazy bitch.” Just to name a few. I realise that may be the reason she had nobody sat next to her and figure it may be best to avoid her if I want to stay under everybody’s radar.

Finding my locker, I begin to turn the lock with great difficulty. Back home, the numbers simply connect and the door clicks open, that doesn’t seem to be the case here though. Fiddling with the dial, I hear the bell signal the beginning of the next class and I huff, annoyed that I’m having this much trouble with a stupid locker.

As the hallways clears out, I continue to twist and pull at the lock. Bag dumped on the floor as I try with all my strength to pry the door open. With no such luck, I throw a quick kick to the locker beneath mine, leaving a dent in the door slightly. Slumping with my back again the metal, I find myself face to face with the boy in the baggy outfit.

Not previously noticing how cute he was, dark hair hidden beneath a beanie, a couple of curls escaping. Boyish grin plastered across his face and piercing brown eyes staring directly at me. I won’t even try to deny that Australia has one up on the Uk in terms of boys, they’re just so much cuter over here.

“What did the locker do to you?” He jokes, taking the slip of paper with the locker code out of my hand.

“Bloody thing won’t open.” I mumble, stepping out of the way as he demonstrates how to open it with ease. My cheeks tinged pink as I fear my outburst may have been unnecessary.

“I thought you Brits were supposed to be good at containing your emotions anyway.” He leans against the locker beside mine, watching me as I stuff countless books into the small space. Normally this would make me uncomfortable, yet there’s there’s something about him that makes me feel warm and calm.

“Nah we love our fair share of violence.” I tell him, smiling as I do so, remembering the amount of fights that used to take place on my estate daily. Providing free entertainment for all the neighbours. “We’re polite, but piss us off and we’ll knock you into next week.”

He laughs, folding his arms across his chest as I close the locker door. His eyes gaze over me as I turn to face him properly. Noticing the small cross necklace hanging from his neck, I can’t help but imagine what it would look like against his bare skin.

“You religious?” I ask, nodding towards the chain.

“Nah, I’m Ant.” He brushes off my question and tucks the necklace beneath his shirt. Clearly a touchy subject that perhaps I shouldn’t have brought up. So instead I attempt to lighten the mood.

“Ant?” The word escapes my mouth as a slight giggle, unable to hide the amusement his name brings. “And your mate’s called Spider?”

“Yeah, stupid right?” He chuckles, playing with the straps of his bag. Almost as if he’s nervous. “We’ve been best mates our entire lives. My real name’s Anthony but nobody calls me that. Same with Spider, his name’s Spencer. Kids started to call us Ant and Spider when we were like six, guess it just stuck.”

“That’s cute.”

Picking up my bag, I throw it over my shoulder. Figuring I should probably head to my next class despite being extremely late already.

“Hey, about Spider.” Ant reaches for my arm, clearly sensing that I’m about to leave. “I just wanted to apologise, he can be a bit of a dick but he’s a nice guy deep down.”

My arm tingles where he’s touching it, feeling the slightest of move of his fingers. As though my nerves are on fire. Suddenly hypersensitive to any little movement he makes. I know I shouldn’t be feeling things this intensely, hell, I’ve just met the guy. Yet he sparks an excitement in me that I haven’t felt in a while.

“Honestly it’s sound. You don’t need to apologise.” I assure him, offering a smile, I see his shoulders relax. “I can handle a prick like him any day.”

“Yeah you certainly shot him down quick.”

As he removes his hand from my arm, I’m quick to begin walking away. Cheesy grin on my face as I recall the interaction in my head despite it only happening seconds ago. I feel dizzy with excitement, my feet feel like they’re walking on clouds and I almost miss the shout from behind me as I go to turn the corner.

“Hey, do you wanna get high?”

[casscainmainly]

I think the recent Cass and Jason discussion is very interesting bc like, Jason or even steph in her first appearance take these actions of righteous, murderous (or near murderous) justice bc of the fact that not only have they've been abused, but they're also able to recognise that fact, and feel that despite everything, they didn't deserve to suffer like that (Jason with his murder, Steph with her childhood abuse)

Whereas Cass struggles for most of her series to recognise that she was abused and struggles to properly resent her abuser on the grounds that she didn't deserve it. She resents David for being a killer and making her love him, for making her a killer, but rarely for the actual abuse that came with her training. She eventually recognises it right before the end of pre-52 in batgirl 2008, but not after a long time, and she still tries to save David at the very end after contemplating letting him die.

she does grows to resent Bruce after some time, and confronts him, showing that she's slowly gaining higher expectations for how she should be treated after developing relationships outside the batfamily (coincidentally with Steph, someone who can relate over having a shitty dad, along with her love interests like Kon and Tai)- though Bruce, despite his multitudes of bad parenting moments never truly abuses cass like david did, so there's nuance, and after her fight with bruce, she still has trouble fully reckoning with her abuse (still calls david shooting her 'a game' in front of tim- she knows its wrong but still doesn't act upset about the fact it happened to her).

She kind of sees all the training she went through as a necessary evil in order to have the skills to be a hero- which is somewhat true, but I think it also contributes to her being unable to see herself, even partially, as a victim for large portions of her narrative.

She can understand abuse as something that molds you into a killer, she can't understand being abused and then choosing to be a killer bc of the righteous fury you have at what happened. In Cass' mind her abuse is synonymous with killing. That's the worst thing Cain ever did to her and the reason she ran away. She can't understand someone like Jason choosing it as a way to cope/deal with abuse.

I don't think this is necessarily a ground breaking thought but I think abuse is an interesting lense to look at both Jason and Cass' stories- pre52, Jason's story is about continuing a cycle of abuse. Criminals hurt him, he hurts criminals, and anyone who gets in his way of hurting the criminals, bc even tho he pursues justice, he also pursues retribution, which is hard to do justly. Between that and the whole zombie/living ghost thing, it's downright gothic. Whereas Cass' story is about breaking out of a cycle of abuse- nobody dies bc she let one person die and will never let it happen again. It's just an interesting way to view their differences I think. Good Cass and Jason posts recently!

I LOVE THIS!! I absolutely think abuse informs the way Jay and Cass see the world (and Steph - Steph, in many ways, is the median point between Jason and Cass).

It's the fundamental question that drives Jason and Cass apart. For Cass, her question is: how can I be the victim if I'm the villain? And for Jason, the question is more: how can I be the villain if I'm the victim?

I love this line: "Cass struggles for most of her series to recognise that she was abused and struggles to properly resent her abuser on the grounds that she didn't deserve it." This is doubly complicated by the genuine love David Cain had for her - that panel of them watching the stars kills me every time. This is another key difference between Jason and Cass' abuse (taking Jason's abuse to be his death) - Jason had no love for the Joker, but Cass did love David Cain.

It's why it's so easy for Jason to want to kill the Joker, and so hard for Cass to even be angry at her father. And your point here - "In Cass' mind her abuse is synonymous with killing" - is absolutely on point, because Jason's conception of abuse is the helplessness of being murdered. They are both acting in ways to prevent what abuse means in their minds: as Batgirl, Cass will never have to kill again, and as Red Hood, Jason will never have to be helpless in the face of murderers again.

Any rebuke of their moral codes feels like a denial of the abuse they suffered. It's why Cass can't allow others to kill, and why Jason can't accept Bruce's reasoning for not killing the Joker. It's why these versions of them could never get along. Argh there's been such good Cass and Jason commentary recently, they drive me insane!!!

[yuri-is-online]

... right so who wants to hear my deranged theory about Yuri Tokyo Debunker with no evidence backing it up I believe only as a joke.

The mutual mommy issues and classical music interest made me think that Yuri and Jin could be related. A lot of Yuri's... yuri-ness screams second child syndrome, I couldn't find where or if it was even said but Yuri seems to indicate he was raised to be a doctor. We know Jin's dad is the head of the entire institute, the institute also has a medical branch. Based on what we know about Jin's dad he seems like the old school political dynasty sort, if he had two sons raising one to take over the Institute and the other to oversee its medical branch makes a lot of sense. It would also make sense for Yuri, as the baby of the family, to maybe be closer to their mother than Jin was. If Jin was expected to take over for their father, it makes sense for his dad to monopolize his time and not allow him to spend as much of it with his mom. Yuri could have spent almost all of his time with her, and if Mama Kamurai was particularly sickly (or cursed) Yuri's interest in becoming a doctor becomes extremely significant. It is clear both Yuri and Jin love their mothers, whoever they are, but if she was the same woman their hatred for each other can be explained by a sibling rivalry. Jin resenting Yuri for being mommy's "favorite" and h Yuri hates that Jin is daddy's favorite and gets all the money to do whatever he wants with while he's stuck writing expense reports for his vital research. Jin could even be blaming Yuri for being unable to save their mom, it certainly seems like Yuri is blaming himself already.

If this was the case, I think whatever injury Jin has sustained probably was the breaking point between the two. Yuri probably doesn't want to lose his brother, he seems like the sort who would really desperately want big brother's approval. If Jin turned his help away in disgust then of course that would nuke the relationship between the two dorms. If Yuri really was just Jin's younger brother (oh how phrasing it like that would irritate him) then of course everyone else would see his behavior as a temper tantrum and not a concern. He's just mad daddy doesn't love him, give it a rest. Yuri will get over this soon enough, he's a grown adult... right?

This would also mean that Yuri didn't need to ever have been placed in Frostheim. He always could have been in Mortranken, he just associated with Frostheim because he is the younger brother of the King. And why he hates Darkwick General so much and is so insistent on doing his own thing: he wants to prove he is more than his family name. That he can cure people, that he isn't his father's puppet. This would probably further drive the wedge between him and Jin, that's something Jin wants to do himself but can't on account of being the oldest son. He sees his little brother as privileged in the same way his little brother thinks he is.

Counter Arguments/Rebuttals:

They do not look much alike. Zenji and Jiro + Hyde and Sho do, so the game making them look different is my biggest reason I think this could be wrong. They don't need to be related for their dislike for each other to make sense, it would just be deeply tragic. And could potentially set up an arc where Zenji chews Jin out for being a shitty older brother, he loves Jiro so much he would die (and probably did) defending him. Why is Jin ignoring his brother? Has he no heart? (not to mention why Yuri is so attached to Jiro, little brothers need to stick together)

Different last names. I think this could be explained by Yuri using his mother's maiden name to separate himself from his family, which would further irritate Jin because how fucking dare he use their mom's name like that?

Like I said, this doesn't need to be the explanation for why Yuri and Jin hate each other. He very easily could have just been a student there and failed to help Jin through his injury. It makes just as much if not more sense. My one real reason for holding onto brother theory when that one works is that... fuck that's a lot of students transferring out of Frostheim. Almost too many to make sense if you go with Haku having originally been there too. It almost feels like it makes more sense if Yuri has always been in Mortranken... but not by much when you take into account everything else you need to believe in order for brother theory to be true.

[vastderp]

I Had A Baby Brother

My brother was found dead last tuesday in his apartment.

He died anywhere from Sunday to Monday, and his landlord got worried and checked up on him and found him on the floor with one hand over his face. There was an open jug of methanol nearby. My sister thinks he drank it, I pray he didn't. It was an ugly, fucked up death.

He was in declining health this past decade because he was a paraplegic and uncontrolled diabetic. There are systems in place to help with low income people in his condition, but they were barred from him as he was a convicted felon.

He went from learning to walk again in the physical therapy pool to drinking a gallon of vodka per day, growing more hostile and bitter as the pain got worse, until his body just gave out. He drove away his friends, he drove away his family, and then he hit the floor and never got up.

I was meant to view the body with my sister and her grown kids, but the funeral home couldn't tell us where his body had been sent, and stopped answering the phone on friday before memorial day weekend, and then we had to wait for someone to follow up on my sister's dozens of phone messages, which they finally did, to try and make their little profit.

My sister, who has been handling all of this along with my niece, selected a different funeral home for the cremation because the first one was disgraceful with my mother's death in 2007, and they're disgraceful all over again with my brother's now.

At one point today they finally established contact, and asked how my sister wanted to handle the arrangements for her "father". O how casual the not giving a fuck goes! Dude pressed to make a sale even after she told him how unhappy we were with their work.

All this to say that I have a car full of inherited possessions, unused medical gear, and the shitty fucked up remnants of my brother's shrine to Mom.

Good old Mom may have died almost 20 years ago, but her gentle, loving mission to smother her only son to death (and probably into eternity) is finally successful. Of all of us, I've often wondered who got it worst: The golden child, the scapegoat, or the parentalized invisible middle kid. Now that one of us has effectively committed suicide, I guess it's for the scapegoat and me to hash out who gets second place. My mother crippled him long before his car accident, in one long and winding but uninterrupted line of consequences from his birth to death. I consider it a murder-suicide. Which was which? They were both the killer, and both the victim. Enmeshment is a motherfucker.

I'm super bitter, really fucking sad, and incredibly proud of what's left of my family for how they're coming together now. (Except my dad, who is in another state, petting his dogs, because I don't think he can really deal with this shit).

So what's left? To go put some cologne on his corpse when they finally let us go view what's left of him. He always liked to smell nice and he probably doesn't right now.

They'll cremate him, and give us a ridiculously heavy cardboard box of ashes that we'll have to carry out, knowing it's all that's left of a lifetime of struggling and pain. Probably we're gonna mix his ashes with Mom's, and make that lifetime of enmeshment official.

I hope if they go to the same afterlife, he kicks her in the cooter. I hope she kicks him back. I hope they can see each other with eyes unclouded by trauma, and forgive each other for the choices they both made. I hope they forgive me for still being mad at them both for not being stronger. I hope I will forgive myself for a lifetime of resentment and blame. I sure got enough time for that.

Jason was funny, weird, secretly really smart but never made a point of it. He was stylish. He was a broken man who could have made better choices and didn't, who was happily fed poison until he couldn't live without it, who was basically his own whole ass Pink Floyd song. His violence sent me running into a better life. His death sent me trudging back into a damaged family with gaping holes like torn out teeth, into the arms of my sister, and we reconciled. There's just us two left now, and it's our job to make something beautiful come out of this jerry springer childhood we shared. We're doing our best.

Dozens of catheters still in the package. Leakproof bed padding in a plaid pattern. Gallons of creams, antacids, fiber supplements by the jar, pressure sore ointments, fungus treatment creams, lidocaine pads, antibiotics, antipsychotics, a hash pipe or two.

An entire apartment hoarded with moist towelettes, pressure garments, and cleaning supplies. An entire life choked with mental damages and crying relatives. I put on CeeLoo Green's "Robin Williams" and sobbed until my face felt burned. It helped.

All the usable/safe to give away medical equipment is being distributed to the other impoverished disabled people in his apartment complex, who will hopefully put it to good use. I got his old manual wheelchair because sometimes I can't walk. I'm terrified of becoming more like him, so back to phsycial therapy I go.

The rest?

The memories, the pity, the jug of methanol that I pray he never actually drank, the stain he left on his floor after a lifetime of compulsive tidiness, the shrine to the woman he killed who also killed him? All these things I will keep with me forever. I will honor him. He could have been so much more, for so much longer. He had a whole story I'll never know. He contained incredible kindness and generosity, and also a rage so deep it was fatal. He was only 41.

If you can spare a couple bucks for the gofundme my niece set up, it'd really help make the financial side of this horseshit a little more bearable while we do all the shit that comes with a death. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, for your sympathies, and for reading my fucked up family trauma dump. Rest assured there will be more.

Dear god, will there ever be more.

Send help. Send pizza. Send sad hip hop. Hail Atlantis. Hail Jai.

[lorryicious]

First off, all your Bill art is making me go INSANE omg it’s all so GOOD!!!! Secondly………the parallels……..of Bill having a shitty dad……..and Ford having a shitty dad………..oouuggg GOD!!!!!!

OH MY GOD YES. I took SO many parallels from the stans parents because I THINK ITS SO SILLY. Bill resonating with having a shitty dad makes me AUGH. I mean, I feel like there's totally an intentional reason why Bills dad is BARELY mentioned at all. The only quotes in code are from HIS MOM. His dad was disappointed in Bill initially, while his mom ALWAYS had faith in him until the very end. I think out of all of Euclydia, Bill's mom was one of the few beings to play along with Bill's visions of the stars because SHE LOVED HIM. AND SHES A SUPPORTIVE PARENT. But I also think she couldn't speak her mind even to his father. So when Bill is rattled with visions of things that can't be mentioned, She listens to Euclid's (Bill's dad) advice to him medicine for it. She just wanted a happy family :(

BILLS DAD. EUCLID. I have SO many thoughts on this guy. SO MUCH LIKE FILBRICK. EXCEPT HE HAS NO FAVORITES. An absent father who lies to keep his image intact. Anger issues (Bill had to get them somewhere) while Scalene (Bill's mom) is INCREDIBLY patient with him. She shouldn't be. Bill KNOWS Euclid is a lousy and cruel parent, but he wants to prove to his dad he can be something. He wants to make both of them proud, :( Despite not liking his dad.

Stanford telling Bill about his parents and Bill is just like :D "I have NO idea what that would be like!!" (relating HEAVILY)

I totally think that is another reason why Bill HATES Stan SO MUCH. Stan is SO MUCH LIKE HIM. Similar childhood, similar future. The difference is Stan got to regain his life and family. Stan FACED the past. Bill didn't. Stan lied for years and years and came clean. Bill couldn't achieve what Stan did, and Bill resents Stan for it. This is just my theory on it. But their parallels make me INSANE. They are so similar as characters, especially in their life events, and they are foils of each other in canon. (at least I think that)

[kneelingshadowsalome]

This daughter talk has been fun, but can we talk abt if Konig had a son instead?? I can see the two being treated very differently.

(I think I remember you talking about in a post months ago how Konig would probably put his son into some sort of fighting class from a young age.)

He would probably have play fights with him, too, that get a bit aggressive, and if he had more than one son, he'd make them fight each other. He probably has the poor boy doing push-ups before bed at like 7 years old. Buys him nerfs guns so he can "start to practice early."

He doesn't care as much when his son gets a girlfriend, too. Just a pat on the back🙄.

König with a son… Oh man.

CW: ANGST :)

I mean he adores him when he’s small and can do nothing but wriggle around and look up at him in awe. König is a lowly servant to his daughter(s) but this little guy? He fills him with raw, pure pain. He vaguely recognizes it as some form of love, attachment, furious need to protect… But when the boy starts to walk and talk and run around and do shitty little things, he has to get more stern.

His son smiles a lot with his mother, helps her to bake cakes and pastries, hangs the laundry to dry on his command and then goes out to play for the rest of the day. He’s at the age where kids bully frogs and ants, and it sends a sting through his heart, but what is he to do? Boys will be boys.

He grows height, grows and grows and grows, there arrives a challenge in his eyes. Some trouble with school, the first crush, bone-crushing punches that hit a wall at the far end of the house. More and more resentment in the stare, he’s like a young stag trying to look for a fight and topple his old man.

His ire grows along with the kid's spine: he hasn't deserved the hate, he has done nothing wrong to this kid. If that little wuss only knew what he had to go through in his age...

There could be more laughter in this house, more loving kindness, yes. But at least he doesn’t hit him. At least his son doesn’t have to watch how a grown man abuses mommy. Quite the opposite: his son hates it when he’s kind to his wife, and he’s no better. They’re both jealous of her, of warmth, tenderness and love, and König tries, he really tries to be more understanding and forgiving. His worst nightmare is to become his father, an abusive prick who uses kids and women to feel better of himself.

But he never learned how to be a good dad… He didn’t learn how to be a ‘dad’ at all.

His tries to build a bridge to his son only makes the kid more reckless, and his wife never sees fault in the youngster, she only tells him to be more tender. More soft.

He laughs humourlessly. If he becomes softer than this, the kid will become a total loser and a wimp…

...Wait, what?

Fuck…

[ghiblinsm]

cannon list

first movie:

Wade doesn't actually know anything that really happened to you in the workshop, just bits and pieces that were hinted by Francis.

“You have to live with the shitty thing you did for the rest of your life.”

you love your dad, really you do. but you will always have a bit of resentment for what he signed you up for.

"It doesn't get better, and it doesn't get easier. I can't keep lying to myself,"

during the months you were being injected fluids in your blood, Austin had kept asking his mom to call Wade and see what happened.

“Yo, this is Wade. I’m either out doing mercenary stuff, getting into trouble, or just avoiding your call. Leave a message. Beep”

Anytime Wade sees you with clothes that show your arms and legs, he always thinks about how the scars on your skin were caused by him. (not s.h scars but thunder like scars caused by other types of torture)

“Who knew that bringing my daughter to a workshop full of dangerous crap would be a bad idea? Genius move, Wade. Just chalk it up to another day of being a fantastic father.”

He's never brought it up but sometimes he notices you looking in the mirror a little longer then usual then sees you later in a new outfit of pants or leggings and a long sleeve or cardigan.

"I can't stand to look at my scars, every time I look at them, I'm reminded at what happened. How he failed to protect me and i don't want to hold that against him..."

More often then you two both like to admit, you both make a bunch of self-deprecating jokes about being a bad father/daughter.

Wade: "You know, sweetheart, I always thought I'd be a great dad… but I guess I took 'daddy issues' to a whole new level, huh? Can I put that on my résumé?"

You: "At least you made the list. I didn’t even make it onto the ‘good daughter’ list. I’m just the bonus kid with the emotional baggage. You’d think I’d be on sale by now."

second movie:

When you first met Russell you could only think about how scary it must've been for him to be surrounded by people trying to say they knew how he felt.

"You’re a mess, Russell. But I took responsibility for your actions, and I can’t just leave you."

when you were put in the ice box prison you kind of gave up, just like you father. except since you saw how much Russell was trying you decided to at least help him not get beat up.

"I’ve spent my whole life trying to do what’s best for everyone else. I forgot to take care of myself."

during the whole ordeal your heart and mind were in-between resentment and pity for your dad. he was acting like the world stopped when vanessa was shot when it didn't. you still feel bad for feeling this way.

"The only way to get through the day is to keep pushing forward, even if it feels like you’re dragging the weight of the world."

a secret you didn't even tell your dad was that when most of the x force died you giggled and sent a video to Austin.

"I'm sorry for your loss...*later* Austin i need to laugh so fricking badly but i can't because i'm with colossus. what do i do?"

Wade's a little disappointed in himself for this one but, when you all were in the ice box prison and he saw you trying to keep Russell out of shit, he thought he could leave Russell in your hands and stay out of everything, despite more prisoners getting violent.

"I want to be the person who helps people. I want to be the person who can make a difference. But I don’t know how."

Third movie

the day Wade tried to join the avengers you were chilling with Austin who was on the phone with Peter and somehow interviews came up in discussion and you heard Peter ask Austin how common alliterative names were because Happy was talking about a disrespectful guy that came in for an interview and had a 'dumb' name.

"I’m just a guy who loves a good time. Who cares about the rest?"

when nicepool led y'all to his honda, you were thinking back to peter's situation with two other spiderman and when wolverine and your dad were in the car you couldn't help but ask nicepool how his y/n was.

"You can’t change the past. You can only learn from it and hope that you don’t repeat the same mistakes."

you were friends with laura for a short while at the age of 11 and when you two met again in the void you both immediately did y'all's handshake out of instinct.

“Life is short! So we should spend it having fun and making memories!”

couldn't really think of more stuff for the third movie that would involve spoiling stuff I have planned so it was cut short.

hope y'all liked it!

"Well everyone loves me" by Rizzy105 on wattpad

[rius-cave]

I think Adam would have nightmares about Cain and Abel thinking he could've prevented the fate of both of them and blaming himself for being a shitty parent? And do you think when he was banished Adam was just hoping he was alive every single day? I also think that Abel was distant to his father in heaven and it broke Adam while in hell he just hopes Cain is out there somewhere.

This is my head canon what do you think?

Oof, Cain and Abel angst is so interesting in the Hazbin context. I wish Vivzie hadn't forgotten they existed 😔👊

It's hard to really tell for sure how Adam feels about the whole situation. Some think he's super heartbroken and traumatized, some think he's just angry about the whole ordeal, some say he himself killed Cain in hell, some say that he just misses his children, etc etc.

I think that, at first, Adam was probably really mad about Cain, alongside his siblings, God LITERALLY had to put a warning over Cain's head so his siblings didn't kill him (and possibly also his father?) so there was a lot of resentment at first. However, with the years, it is completely possible that the resentment mixed with his own human compassion for his children and just wished to see his kid again.

I, personally, like the headcanon that Abel is in Hell tbh LOLOL, but if we're going for him being in Heaven, I think Abel would've been happy to see his dad again BUT then Adam became an insufferable asshole and that's why he stopped hanging out with him.

[sparklyshakespeare]

the case for hyper-femme hotspur

this is my tumblr blog and this is like kind of just what we do heresies

OK so basically okay so

first of all i think anytime there is a character who is so strongly associated with an extreme form of gender expression in our collective zeitgeist (i.e hotspur and hyper-masculinity) there’s something not only extremely fun to play with but incredibly valuable about analyzing the story from the opposite end of the gender performance specturm. also canonically there are like 3 female characters in 1h4 and that sucks. also also don’t you want to see hotspur in pink glitter? i know i do and this tumblr is not a democracy!!

in this hypothetical dream sparkly version of the play, both hotspur and worcester would be women. not played by women, i mean textually explicitly women. this is important!! 

worcester should be very nancy pelosi hillary clinton-esque in the way that this is a middle-aged woman who has been taught that to be successful in her field (politics) she will have to strip herself of most of her femininity and perform a certain level of masculinity in order to be taken seriously. this creates a whole other layer to the hotspur/worcester dynamic when all of a sudden this young, hyper-feminine woman is being taken more seriously and being given more praise than someone who has worked and fought through the bullshit and done it all “right”. she hasn’t earned her place, she hasn’t had to struggle - and worcester resents her for that. (there’s like a whole dissertation to be written about how much of 1h4 changes when only worcester is genderbent, i love you queen worcester you are everything not in this version here you kind of suck lowkey)

henry iv is just a misogynist he just kinda sucks but like this is something we all knew screw that guy

ok now we can talk about hal because i know hes like the one all you little gay people care about. 

to me, it’s never made sense why the Henriad is framed as hal’s hero’s journey. maybe it’s because i’m queer (i’m like actually positive that’s why), but leaving home and finding acceptance and family from a group of outsiders who society has deemed as worthless is the path i’ve watched so many friends walk. having to leave that and return to your shitty dad because “duty calls!” and THEN leaving behind and disavowing the same community that opened its arms to you? i don’t see that as an awesome coming-of-age about learning how to handle responsibility, that’s deeply, deeply tragic. and far farrrrr too true a reality for most members of our LGBTQ+ community here (Bible Belt). SO guess where this version of 1h4 is set!!!!!! anyways, its the Medieval Revival of the ‘70s in the Bible Belt south, the Boar’s Head is a gay bar, and hal is trans. 

hal is trans-masc in some way and this needs to be incredibly explicit (like pronouns pin with trans flag on costume explicit). and then when the news breaks, when “I’ll to the court in the morning.” (we’re cutting the text so this is where that scene ends. cool? cool. cool!), hal takes the pin off. it needs to be like A Moment. it should make me cry, and i cry really easily so that’ll probably be pretty easy to do, but this is a gut punch. 

oh and lady percy is still a woman, they’re gay, because i said so. blah blah blah because look hotspur and hal really were so alike all along and look hotspur is fighting so voraciously because she’s hungry for a world where she can openly and unabashedly be with the person she loves but ultimately because i love lady percy and i love lesbians and this play doesn’t need another man. but also because look hotspur is fighting so voraciously because she’s hungry for a world where she can openly and unabashedly be with the person she loves. worcester and vernon should also both be women and have the blossoming of a relationship but be a lot more discreet about it (worcester should be extremely hesitant). now we get a cool split between younger and older generations of activists in both the feminist and the gay rights movement oooo themes oooo motifs oooo lady gagita 

as far as hal/hotspur parallels go, it’s probably pretty obvious at this point. your dad constantly praising someone who represents, at least in his mind, the ideal concept of a woman, disappointed you can’t be more like her, all the while you’re coming to terms with the fact that you’re not a woman, but he’ll never see that, so what the fuck are you supposed to do?!? it’s a LOT! but i think there’s also something to be said about the less obvious parallel. which is that hyper-femininity is NOT an attempt at ideal polite womanhood or self-Stepfordization, hyper-femininity is in fact the extreme performance of womanhood in rejection of that. hyper-femininity is queer in nature (also hotspur quite literally has a wife but i guess hal wouldn’t be able to tell that just by looking at her) there’s something to be said about the moment hal and hotspur see each other, and then the moment hal and hotspur seeeeeee each other. and go hey, you’re just like me. this person who you’ve been constantly compared to and made out to be lesser than  because you dare to be deeply wildly madly truly you is in fact exactly the same. we’re the same. and oh my god, in another world wouldn’t it have been lovely to just like go dancing together? sucks it’s not another world now we’re going to gay fight each other i guess

[beanghostprincess]

Usopp: They're probably talking about me. I bet Sanji's telling him about that time I poked him in the eye when trying to kiss him. Ohh God what if my dad is showing him embarrassing baby pictures.

Yasopp: what if I'm too clingy? I want to spend time with him and be next to him all the time, but I don't want to come off as annoying. I'm just scared of being alone.... but also scared of intimacy at the same time.

Sanji: that's normal. Like you want to leave them before they leave you. Before they hurt you, I get that. You can only get burned by people so much you just expect it every time. Deep down you know that they would never hurt you but ........hehehe and it's so funny because you're so scared to love and be loved but you fall in love

Yasopp: fall in love so easily yeah....... Usopp is staring at us. (Waving) Hi usopp :)

Usopp: |_•) °°°{they're talking about me}

They are having the deepest of conversations about how they do not know if they're worthy of Usopp's love and they're extremely concerned he will end up getting tired of them-- Sanji telling him about WCI and opening up and Usopp telling Sanji all of his regrets and that he is so so glad Usopp is not resentful. And they're growing closer but Usopp genuinely thinks they are talking embarrassing things about him.

And then they just-- Spend hours talking only about Usopp and how much they love him and I can imagine both of them smoking and drinking together during the party and,,, When they are done and everyone needs to go to sleep asap (Usopp was too worried to drink tho) Usopp carries a very very drunk Sanji to the Sunny and Usopp asks him "What- Uh- Had fun with my dad?" (<- His ass is extremely anxious).

Sanji just hugs him tight and keeps saying nonsense and stumbling between his words like "Mmmmm he was alright. He is- He is very sad. Did you know your father is very very sad Usopp? He loves you- He loves you a looot. I thought he was a shitty guy but your dad is cool. Also, I love you and your stupid face. You are- You are very stupid. Hey, did you know you are the love of my life mmmmmmmmmmm This is comfy. Your dad has. A shitty family. Did you know that? You didn't. He is. He is just like me. Mm. Because we love you. A lot. You- Gorgeous idiot. I like it in your arms. I want- I want to cook-"

"No, you need to sleep" (<- Trying hard to hold back his laughter and incredibly obvious blush)

"Noooo,,,, But I want- I wanted to cook,,, Let's make. A soufflé."

"You want to make a soufflé now?"

"Your dad said he didn't like-- Sweet stuff, But we like you and- And you are very very very sweet, dear,, So I'm making him a soufflé-"

And this just keeps going until Sanji inevitably falls asleep and Usopp can't sleep because he just processed everything Sanji has said and he really does need to have a conversation with his dad-- But at least they get along, so that's something.

[mongeese]

I'm not involving myself in the arguments again, but ep 1 Carol snaps that she "always knew Darryl would do something like this one day" and had a larger reaction to the car crashing than (her phrasing) "losing the kid".

So that's why the initial impression of Carol is that she is mean, and Matt's later dad facts + Darryl referencing Carol calling him fat and Darryl hiding his hobbies from her give a certain impression to people.

I do not care about discourse that happened probably years ago because it simply doesn't matter but I AM a defender of fictional women so I'm gonna reply to this. Know that any bitchiness in this post is not directed toward you specifically anon but rather it is directed toward general misogynistic fandom culture (which is rampant).

First point, Carol snapping at Darryl: obviously that's an imperfect reaction, but she's also just had the bombshell dropped on her that her husband crashed their car and lost their son. I think I can forgive her some anger in this moment. There's also probably built up resentment toward Darryl being expressed in this conversation, because she's falling out of love with him and he is the exact opposite of emotionally intelligent and I'm sure communication has been deteriorating between them for a while. Not ideal, but I can't particularly fault her for it. Also, literally in the same conversation, Darryl asks Carol to ask Darnell about the plays he emailed him, while his son is missing, which suggests that he is not always the most responsible! Perhaps giving some credence to her statement!

Reading the transcript, she didn't have a larger reaction to denting the hood of the car. Darryl said it last and she processed it first, but immediately after she began berating him much more intensely about losing their son. Which, again, is cruel but also understandable, given that in her mind there's no explanation for how he could've lost track of Grant other than gross negligence.

Gonna be honest and say I remember nothing about the context of Carol calling Darryl fat. I'd assume it was either a bit of a mean joke that Darryl took very personally bc his self esteem is in the gutter, or her saying he should lose weight. Neither is good, and I won't defend them, but also, compared to all the other shit characters do in the podcast? So tame.

Darryl hides everything from everyone. That's like, the core of his character. It's entirely possible that any hobbies he hides from Carol is simply because he's ashamed of them for catholic guilt/toxic masculinity/general weird repression paranoia reasons, and not because of anything she said or did.

Ultimately this is a pointless exercise because even if all those things WERE as bad as people make them out to be, I'd still be a Carol defender, because all 4 of the dads canonically do things which are way worse. Glen in particular is undeniably a shitty person (at least until 2/3 through the podcast, where I'm at right now), and Ron isn't much better. Yet they're both fan favorites. Why are they given the grace to make mistakes and be mean and thoughtless and flawed and still be liked, but Carol is hated? Could it, mayhaps, have something to do with the fact that they are men? And thus their shitty behavior is fine, because they're oh-so deep, but clearly CAROL doesn't have that depth, because she's just a woman, and she should be more understanding, and motherly, and caring, etc etc.

Like. I'm just fucking begging people in fandom spaces to have an ounce of self awareness and think about why, maybe, you're so ready to hate the female characters who don't act nice all the time, but you love the flawed tragic backstory men? What dominant power structure and social conditioning could be at work here? You are not immune to internalized misogyny (yes, even if you're a woman)

[deansmom]

The fact that the spn fandom is entirely incapable of a nuanced discussion involving Dean and the relationship with his mother shouldn’t surprise me as much as it did when I came back to fandom, and as much as it still does when I’m forced to see it with my own two eyeballs

Mary Winchester was a person before she was a mother, and I’m going to be so honest with you, I think by the time she died, John didn’t like who that person was. So I think when she died, he did what a lot of people do, which is put the person they lost on a pedestal. And that’s who Dean grew up hearing about, that’s what all of his memories of his mom were contextualized with, this person who didn’t exist. And so then his mom comes back and I think it’s very, very clear to Dean almost immediately that this isn’t the same person John told him about.

In the real world, we have no context to draw from and nothing to compare it to, the experience of getting a dead parent back and to be part of your life again. We can’t know how he felt beyond what we were shown in canon - So of course Dean is thrilled, but he’s also a Winchester and deeply traumatized, and tries so hard to make it seem normal and not internalize his complicated feelings about her and her being alive. He’s dealing with:

Grappling with losing the mother he was told she was and resenting mary for it because she’s standing in front of him

Realizing that John robbed so much from him by denying him the version of his mother who feels like looking in a mirror

The guilt of how and why mary is there

Trying to reconcile his feelings of resentment and anger that he knows should be directed at John, but John’s not there, so they end up getting directed at mary, and feeling bad about that

A deeply traumatized inner child who has his safe person back, and just wants his mom to hold him and tell him it’s going to be okay, but he knows that isn’t fair to ask of her

And meanwhile mary was dealing with

✨trauma✨ from being brought back to life

Having to confront her own failures as a parent (which is silly it’s not her fault she died but y’know, feelings tend to be silly)

Having to reconcile her toddler with the man in front of her who’s older than her being her son

Seeing so much of John’s worst qualities in both of them and recognizing the trauma of a shitty dad

The fact that they had this idea of who she was, and it’s nothing like her at all, and trying to understand why John would lie to them while also probably coming to terms with what looks like confirmation of her own worst fears about who she was as a parent

I cannot stress this enough: the last time her feet touched the ground, she had been married, with a new baby, and a 4 year old, she wasn’t a hunter, John barely knew about hunting, and it was the 80’s. She woke up in what, 2017 and her husband’s dead, her babies are grown men (again: older than her!!!) and the most prolific hunters in the world. Oh, also, angels? God? The afterlife?? Funny story! Like I’m sorry, you wanted her to have well-adjusted coping skills for that????

The Mary hate just gets me because she’s Dean in a different font, and so many of y’all hate her for such superficial bullshit that you could let go of if you took 5 seconds to think about the situation critically for both of them. The only bad guy here is, was and will always be John Winchester. John was there, but Mary tried her best. Mary tried to do what was best for them when she left, because she didn’t want to damage their idea of who she was anymore than she had. Mary literally died trying to save Sam from the destiny that heaven had written for him - John couldn’t be bothered to think about his kids.

And if you think that Dean ever genuinely hated Mary, your critical thinking skills need some work. The thing that prompts his speech in 12.22 is Mary saying to his younger self, ���I only want good things for you, Dean. I'll never let anything bad happen to you.” So he says

I hate you. And I love you. 'Cause I can't – I can't help it. You're my Mom. And I understand...'cause I have made deals to save the ones I love more than once.

I forgive you. I forgive you. For all of it. Everything. On the other side of this, we can start over, okay? You, me, Sam. We can get it right this time. But I need you to fight. Right now, I need you to fight. I need you – I need you to look at me, Mom. I need you to really look at me and see me. Mom, I need you to see me. Please.

Translation: “you’re right. I resent you for not being the person I was sold, I resent you for your death being the thing that ruined dad, I resent you for being the touchstone for so many of heaven’s plans for us. I resent you because you’re here, and John isn’t, and it’s easier to hate someone tangible than someone dead. And if I hate you, it’s only because I can see so much of myself in you, and I’m so incredibly angry that John treated us the way he did. My whole world, my whole identity revolves around you being someone that you never were, and wrapping my head around that is scary, but when I pull my head out of my ass and look around, you were just a kid. And you did your best, you’ve always tried to do what’s best for me and Sam, and I don’t hate you. I don’t know if I like you right now because you’re a stranger, which is scary - but I love you. So please, mom, I’m sorry that I’ve been taking my bullshit out on you. Just… try. For me. Please.”

Anyways!!! You guys don’t deserve Mary.

[suckinitup]

i saw the words mark winters and like a spell cast over me i started thinking about him again. anyway mark winters hero and ashe villain in that villain oneshot. how does this happen. fucking EAsy. mark gives ashe up.

consider it. there has GOT to be some program with the WATCH for parents who are overwhelmed by their children's dangerous power and need help. this is basically what happened to william. there's gotta be different circumstances and different levels of interference- but ashe isnt even a teenager and he already has a kill count. there is NO WAY he's not being removed from the household for at least the majority of the year until everyone has a better understanding of what he can do and how he can Not Do That Again. in canon, of fucking course mark wouldnt do that. that's mark winters. he'd lose his entire family in less than a week and thats his kid. he cant be sure theyre taking care of him out there or if he'll see him again or whats going on. if ashe leaves, then what is there for him to live for.

but villains mark. hes still mark. he's still hurting. and maybe its not him who's got that heroic little spark- maybe it was his wife who thought they were cool, or he wakes up to ashe sobbing too many times after a nightmare, or he cant stop looking at that fucking book and hating it and he starts to worry that resentment will spread to ashe too. he wants what's best for his kid and the one thing he knows is that ashe won't find that here.

so he picks up his phone. and he calls WATCH.

its rough for both of them. theyve both lost their whole family now. they call every night, then ashe gets busy (because he has friends here, and every time some instructor is harsh with him or something is hard he resents his dad more and more. he knows why he was sent away, but it gets in his head that his dad was scared of him, and thats hard on him. why wouldn't he rather hang out with his friends) and stops picking up the phone as much so it's once a week. then once a month.

mark thinks about killing himself a lot. he lives in a shitty little apartment with horrible neighbours and he goes out to eat every night and he thinks about drinking but he has to stay sober tonight- what if ashe picks up the phone? he cant let his kid hear him like that. and i think he gets offered jobs here and there and he takes them because hey, ashe is gonna come back at some point. he's gotta make sure the kid gets a good present for christmas.

and he gets wrapped back up with overlord.

but the big difference okay. the huge difference. is that he is not responsible for keeping ashe alive. he can take more risks. he can hold grudges. he doesn't have to do the same things that canon mark does - he doesn't have to break his moral code down to its barest essentials (don't hurt kids) like he did in canon. he gets to be fucking PISSED at overlord, and the scientists who hurt him, and every motherfucker who has made his shit life even worse.

thats how he meets tide. they fight a few times, ofc, gotta have that tidalwave viciousness. but then tide has more information than mark does, and mark knows more about the power structures than tide does, so they start working together, and then they dont stop. mark does less and less crimes- tide is valuable as an ally, and his moral code is a fucking pain in mark's ass. he hides his crimes, and then it's more convenient to just stop doing them. tide more often than not has the resources that they need through WATCH and it means that mark gets his ass kicked less often. win/win.

even after overlord goes down, they keep working together. mark never officially agrees to join WATCH but tide quietly keeps giving him new gizmos and gadgets. he gets one of those weird fucking communicator bracelets and tide pretends not to notice how mark modifies it. in WATCH itself tide starts getting scheduled as "tide and wavelength" because where one fucker is the other is too. tide is mark's only friend.

fucking . the clinginess of villains au mark for tide paralleling the clinginess of ashe for the pd in canon ^^ consider. tide feels similarly too he's been lonely as Shit since he stopped getting along w his brothers. they find comfort in each other. they start having beers with each other after work and they start sitting next to each other all the time and they dont talk about it but things Do get more desperate every time one of them goes down in battle. tidalwave ‼‼‼‼

ashe, meanwhile, is getting more powerful. he has mentors who don't snap at him for using the book. they dont try to take it from him or destroy it. they let him keep notes, let him study it, let him learn what monsters are too dangerous and what he can handle. he's learning a lot and he's getting good at it.

and he misses his dad.

mark still calls sometimes, but ashe never picks up. mark sends him cards for birthdays and christmas, and ashe keeps them stashed away in drawers he's scared to look at. he is scared and angry and he is full of many emotions. canon ashe never had to doubt that his dad would help him but au ashe thinks that his dad abandoned him. he's a monster and his dad hates him. its a fuckin stack of dominos where things just fall into place to upset him more and more and more (including the guilt at never picking up marks calls and maybe its not marks fault. ashe Did kill his own mom. of course mark was scared. but ashe can control it now. ashe can protect mark from the book. he can leave, and they can leave, and be a family again and ashe will never have to think about WATCH ever again). so ashe runs away.

he follows the address on the letters and he walks inside and he doesnt see mark. he sees tide. he had been so relieved when he'd finally found mark's apartment- scared and guilty and excited and a thousand different teenage-drama scenarios running through his mind. his dad yelling at him or rejecting him or sweeping him up in this big bone-crushing hug or crying or running or- or- or. the one certainty ashe had was that he wouldnt have to deal with anything WATCH. not here.

but tide is on mark's fucking couch. and mark is asleep on tide's fucking lap. and tide's hand is in mark's fucking hair. ashe had never considered his father getting close to anyone after his mom, and now he's gotten close to tide.

now imagine a teenage tantrum with the power of Big Arms and Rage Without Direction and Abandonment and Hurt and Loss and Super fucking Scary Book. tldr: ashe tries to kill tide <3 mark tries to stop the fighting <3 ashe thinks that he's turned against him <3 tide gets capital h Hurt. ashe runs away again. mark is once again left in the ruins of his own life and just has to fucking deal with it.

[jaskierx]

After being subjected to the canyons utter dismissal of anything Izzy did in s1 I honestly started to feel like I’d been misinterpreting the show. The confrontation between Izzy and Ed in s1ep10 is boiled down to Izzy just “saying some mean things”. Izzy’s controlling and shitty behavior is just him being protective and in love with Ed and it’s actually so tragic that Ed would dismiss Iz like that, guys. Take after take, I began to wonder if maybe I’d blown things out of proportion. Maybe he wasn’t that bad.

But then the gears in the logical part of my brain start turning and I remember why framing Izzy in that light is so frustratingly shitty. Like, okay. We all get that Ed isn’t an evil monster for killing his dad. It was a direct response to feeling threatened after suffering and witnessing his fathers abuse. We can all agree on that. So why is it different when Ed has a similar reaction to Izzy threatening him? Why is it okay for Izzy to berate and mock and tell Ed he was better off dead? Izzy displayed controlling and honestly abusive behavior in season 1. Ed was fighting back against his abuser when he killed Father Teach, and we got that. But suddenly that isn’t the case when he fights back against Izzy? I’m so tired of people acting like mental abuse isn’t as valid as physical. That it was only mean words, and that Izzy did everything out of love.

Homophobic parents can be controlling and abusive “out of love”. They think they’re protecting you. That doesn’t absolve them of their shitty behavior. That doesn’t change the fact that their actions are harmful. The same should be said for Izzy. Ed was mentally tormented by that man‼️ For people to dismiss that and act like abuse can only ever be physical is so disheartening. I’ve suffered both. One is not necessarily worse than the other. It feels so invalidating…I want to engage with fans and talk about this because I feel like it’s important, but if I had anyone argue with me about it I think I’d explode into a pile of silly string. It sucks that this is the state of the fandom 😭

yep people will absolutely bend over backwards to view all of izzy's actions in the best possible light. they give him the benefit of the doubt, they full on make shit up that 'must have' happened offscreen, they rationalise his abuse of ed in a hundred different ways. 'it was for ed's own good' 'he was trying to protect the crew' 'ed was going to get everybody killed' etc

(and often when they post about this it's really telling about their attitudes to stede being femme/gnc - i've seen too many posts along the lines of 'izzy needed to stage an intervention for ed, the talent show was the last in a long line of batshit things he'd been doing because he was obsessed with some ponce')

as many people in this fandom have already pointed out, it's like the canyon thinks that a white guy can say whatever the fuck he wants regardless of how threatening or abusive it is, but the moment the brown guy he's saying it to dares to retaliate to protect himself, he's an abuser and he's completely unjustified and etc etc

i resent being called an abuse apologist by the same people on this website who will unironically post takes like 'izzy wasn't abusive to ed because he wasn't trying to hurt him, he was acting in ed's best interests, ed forced his hand' (sound familiar?) or 'if izzy is so abusive then how come he tried to get ed out before the navy got there' (idk bestie maybe he could've tried not selling the crew out at all? maybe if he really did care about ed he wouldn't try to get his partner killed?)