#instead of being her best friend he’s now her best friend’s older brother which establishes not only their inherent closeness

[megarywrites]

Finished chapter 2 earlier! So far, haven’t made too many significant changes beyond rewording passages that needed it, but I think the next chapter will be when I start making some big(ish) changes

[8loveletters]

"is this everything you dreamed of?"

pairing: kim mingyu × fem reader

genre: smut, mutual pining (or: mutual lowkey unhealthy obsession lol), little fluff at the end

word count: ~4.7k

content warnings: mingyu is a few (like 3) years older than reader, reader is smaller than mingyu and has somewhat longer hair, voyuerism, mutual (kinda) masturbation, dom!mingyu, oral (both receiving), tit sucking/nipple biting, spanking (literally once), unprotected sex, doggystyle, big dick gyu.., filming a sextape (not to be seen by anyone else), creampie, multiple orgasms, sir kink, praise kink, manhandling, lots of pet names given by mingyu (baby/pretty girl, princess, sweetheart, etc. (but also slut/whore..)), mingyu is a lil rough but also a softie,, lmk if i should add anything else!

summary: you've been hopelessly in love with your best friend's older brother for the past decade. you've fantasized countless times about a future in which you could be together. but you've accepted the fact that it will probably remain just that -- a fantasy. that is until your best friend and roommate's weekend trip out of town leads to a rare opportunity. will tonight finally be the night that all your dreams come true?

this weekend would be the first time you were going to be completely alone in a really long time. you and your roommate have been best friends since middle school. so, it only made sense that you would move in together and become roommates when you went to the same college together.

now, it's been a couple years since you graduated but you're still living together. you both enjoyed it though. being with each other practically 24/7 never put a strain on your relationship the way you had heard from others that it might. but you knew the time would come soon that you would have to part ways as you both established yourselves in your careers and became more independent. also, you knew it was only a matter of time that one or both of you would find a romantic partner you were serious enough about to move in with. and this weekend seemed like the first step towards that for your roommate.

she and her boyfriend were taking a weekend trip together for the first time. before that, however, she was going to take him to meet her parents and older brother. it was a way of seeking their approval before taking this next step in their relationship. but frankly it seemed like just a formality, as she was so head over heels for him it probably wouldn't matter whether they approved or not.

you were bored in bed scrolling through your feed while some dumb reality show played on your tv as background noise. you saw the picture your best friend posted earlier that night of her, her boyfriend, and her family taken at the restaurant they had met at to eat dinner. you smiled when you saw how happy she looked. her boyfriend was good to and for her and you knew how excited she was to introduce him to them. you were relieved it seemed to have gone well by the looks on everyone's faces.

however, your eyes eventually locked onto the one face you were trying your best to avoid: her older brother mingyu's.

mingyu was a few years older than you and your best friend. you met him the first time you ever spent the night at her house at the beginning of the first year of middle school. you really hadn't developed any interest in boys yet, and your new friend's awkward older brother was no exception to this, so you really paid him no attention. that, of course, changed over time the more you grew up and became more interested in boys and the more he grew up and became more handsome.

your crush on him really started to grow your freshman year of high school. he was a senior at your same school and seeing him everyday in the hallways in addition to the multiple days a week when you hung out at your best friend's house instead of your own just intensified your feelings more.

you never let onto it though, not wanting to make your best friend uncomfortable. so many girls in your grade already gushed about him around her and you could tell how awkward it was for her. it did make you a bit jealous though, other girls talking about how attractive he was. even though he'd never date them, focusing more on playing sports and hanging out with his friends than fooling around with any girls despite his playboy looks, you couldn't help but feel jealous when they stated the obvious -- that he was hot as hell.

after that year, though, he went off to college and you saw much less of him during those years. you would think that would make your lame high school crush fizzle out, but well, absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say. you cherished anything you could get. the times you would be at the same family functions as your families had also become so close over the years it was like one big extended family. or the time he helped you -- sweaty and shirtless -- move furniture into the new apartment you and your roommate had rented in the dead of summer. or the times he'd be on a roll posting the most boyfriend-coded pictures on his social media for days on end before disappearing from them again for weeks.

and now, after all these years, you still can't bring yourself to commit to a relationship because you just can't stop thinking about him. and you had met some really good people over the years who would be really good partners. but you just weren't ready yet. you just weren't ready to give up on the delusion that you and mingyu could still somehow end up together.

you couldn't stop yourself from clicking the tag on the picture and scrolling through mingyu's profile for the millionth time. you also couldn't stop your mind from wandering straight into the gutter while your free hand wandered underneath the waistband of your sweatpants.

you know it's wrong. you've known it was wrong for about 10 years now. but you just can't help it. you want mingyu, your best friend's brother, desperately. in the worst way possible. you turn off the tv and toss your phone on the bed, letting yourself yet again be immersed in the fantasy of having mingyu deep inside you. you tell yourself if this dream could become a reality just one time, you'd be satisfied and able to move on. but for now, you try in vain to pleasure yourself with just your fingers even half as much as you're convinced his cock would be able to.

so lost in your delusions, you don't even hear the front door of your apartment open and shut.

at dinner, mingyu's sister had asked him to stop by the apartment on his way home. she had forgotten to water her plant and she figured you'd probably be out with your other friends since it was the weekend. maybe you might have heard him struggle twice before finally entering the passcode correctly, but your bedroom was farthest from the front door and you had left your bedroom door open only a crack out of habit. plus, not much could be heard over your pathetic moans and whimpers thinking about the man who was now in your apartment.

mingyu was never the most observant person, so he didn't notice anything as he went to water the plant. even when he did think he heard something, he just chalked it up to maybe the walls being thin and it being a neighbor with their tv up too loud. so, he set the watering can down and started to leave the apartment. that is until he heard something akin to a siren's call: your voice. after all these years, it was unmistakable to him.

his mind tried to convince him he didn't hear what he thought he did. while his body, more specifically his cock growing harder by the second, led him toward your bedroom door. toward a sound he had only dreamt of: you moaning in pure ecstasy. as he reaches your door, his brain tries one last futile attempt to persuade him that you must have left your tv on and that's what he's hearing. as a good guy looking out for your electricity bill, he'll just pop in real quick and turn it off...

mingyu slowly pushes the door open and sees exactly what he was both hoping and dreading at the same time.

you are sprawled out on your bed in just a tiny tank top and panties, your sweatpants discarded at some point to the middle of your floor. mingyu cannot believe how beautiful you look biting your bottom lip with furrowed brows, hair all disheveled. his hand has a mind of its own as it quietly unbuckles his belt and releases his throbbing hard length from his slacks.

mingyu knows it's wrong. he's known it was wrong for about 10 years now. you were his little sister's best friend. he should not ever have been attracted to you, nor should he still be. but he was and he is.

countless nights over the years he dreamed about you two being together. but he could never cross that line and initiate anything. especially since he could never quite gauge how you really felt about him. he thought there was something to the looks you'd give him, and the way you'd blush when you realized he'd noticed. but then you'd usually act so indifferent or at the most cordial when you were around him. so he was always wondering if those lustful glances were all in his head. but it was just enough to always keep him wondering about what it would be like to be with you. so much, that it was hard for him to be in any kind of serious relationship. no one could compare to you, even if it was just an idealized version of you.

"mingyu!"

his blood runs cold and he stops in place, hand mid-pump down his thick cock. he stays frozen in place like a thief who has just been caught red-handed. when his eyes look up from your hand in your panties that he was focusing so intently on to your eyes, he realizes they are still shut. you haven't seen him. then, why would you have screamed his name..?

"mingyu, please. i want-- need you so bad." you are desperately chasing a high that won't come because your fingers just aren't enough. mingyu realizes immediately what's going on.

you're fantasizing about him while you touch yourself so desperately. this finally confirms that all these years he really wasn't crazy. you wanted him just as badly as he wanted you.

his body takes over once again giving his mind no time to even try to be rational. within seconds mingyu is hovering over you on your bed.

your eyes shoot open and you scream, heart nearly stopping. when you come to your senses and realize that the man over top of you is, literally, the man of your dreams and not some random intruder you relax slightly. but that doesn't last long before your entire body is burning with embarrassment as you try your hardest to push him away from you and cover yourself.

"mingyu!" no matter how you say his name it drives him crazy all the same. "w-what the hell are you doing here?!"

"my sister asked me to stop by and water her plant and-- well none of that matters now. what i want to know is what you were just doing?"

mingyu is still towering over you, your attempts to move his large frame amusing at best. the look on his face is something you've never seen before, like that of a ravenous wolf staring down its meal.

"i, uhh, i was just--" you shift under his gaze and turn your head slightly. if you can't get away from him you at least want to hide how hard he's making you blush right now.

"cat got your tongue, baby girl?" his smirk is so evil, his voice so cocky. "how about i give you the rundown? you were playing with that pretty little pussy of yours imagining it was me deep inside you and not your fingers. sound about right?"

you can't bring yourself to look at him directly, but your body is fighting hard to let him know he's exactly right. with much resistance, you're able to give him a slight nod. but it's not good enough.

mingyu grabs you somehow both roughly and gently by the chin and forces you to look him in his beautiful brown eyes that are saturated with lust. "use your words, darling. is that what you were doing?"

"y-yes.." it's soft but seems to satisfy him and he lets go of your jaw.

"well this is no good. all these years i never dared try anything because it didn't seem you felt the same way. but here you were so desperate for me all along." mingyu repositions himself so he can spread your legs apart, eyes locking onto the soaked fabric of your panties. your face is still burning but your body gives up on trying to resist him anymore and you keep your legs spread wide while he stares for what feels like ages. "oh y/n... if you really wanted me this badly, all you had to do was ask."

"i--" your voice catches in your throat, but you gather all your strength and try again, way too needy to care about how pathetic you're about to sound. "i don't just want you mingyu.. i need you.. been dreaming about you in my guts for years now.."

mingyu chuckles and cups your cheek with his large hand, looking down at you like you're the most adorable thing he's ever seen. "well then, tonight i'll make all those dreams a reality for you."

within the time it takes you to blink, mingyu crashes his lips into yours, all but devouring your lips with his own. his kisses are passionate and sloppy, giving away just how much he's been waiting for this moment as well. he trails more kisses down your neck as you unbutton the nice white dress shirt he was wearing and throw it on the floor near your sweatpants. he clumsily takes off his slacks and underwear, leaving himself fully exposed while you were still (barely) covered by your small tank top and panties.

you take in his form, his chiseled body and long, thick cock making you clench around nothing and bite your lower lip. he smirks at your reaction for a moment before quickly moving down to the end of the bed, positioning his face between your thighs right in front of your dripping core.

without warning he drags his tongue along the length of your cunt over the ruined fabric. your moan makes him smile wide, fangs on full display. "mm, baby, already so wet just for me." he places a few kisses on your thigh, surprisingly soft compared to the rough ones on your mouth moments before. the teasing becomes too much for you though, and you buck your hips up on instinct trying to get more contact on the place you need it most.

you whine as mingyu pulls his head away and forces your hips down onto the mattress. "not so fast, sweetheart. i need to hear you say exactly what you want from me. be a good girl and ask nicely, and i'll give it all to you."

"your tongue.. need your tongue on my pussy. please, mingyu."

mingyu gives you a satisfied nod and wastes no time ripping your thin panties clean off you and tossing them aside. he dives straight into your folds, lapping at your cunt like a dog who hasn't drank anything in days. the sensation quickly becomes overwhelming and when he moves to focus his attention on your clit, you're brought closer and closer to the edge. you manage to get a few words out at a time between moans and heavy breaths. "mingyu, i'm so close.. c-can i please come?" you catch on quickly, knowing he probably wouldn't let you unless you asked nicely.

and it seemed to work. mingyu nods and lets out a hum of approval and that's all you need to allow your orgasm to overtake you. your hands grabbed at his thick, dark hair as you pulled him closer into your core, hips rocking back and forth as you rode out your high.

mingyu licked up all your juices as you came down and then looked up at you, chin wet and eyes looking even hungrier than before. he crawled back on top of you, kissing you somehow even more wildly than he had before. once he felt you had had enough time to recover from your first climax, he effortlessly picked you up and swapped your positions in one swift motion. he was now the one laying on his back while you were over top of him. you knew he must be strong with the way he was built, but you were a little speechless at the maneuver he just pulled off like it was nothing. once you snap out of it, you take advantage of your position being literally on top and try to take a bit of the control in this situation.

"now it's my turn to make you feel good. would you like that, hm? like to see me choking on that big dick?" you grind your core down onto his rock-hard member as you ask, eliciting a quiet groan from mingyu's throat. when he doesn't answer right away, you decide to rephrase the question in a way that makes him feel he still has all the control. "can i please suck your cock, mingyu?"

he nods and you get right to work. you position yourself between his legs and are a bit taken aback when you see just how big and thick he is up close and in detail. you lick your lips at the sight and get started. you bob your head up and down a few times, stopping only part of the way down as you don't think you'd be able to take all of him. this isn't good enough for mingyu however and he suddenly wraps your hair tight around his hand and pushes your mouth down his full length. the pain of his tip pushing at the back of your throat brings tears to your eyes, but it feels so good at the same time.

after bringing your head back up and letting you catch your breath for a moment, mingyu starts relentlessly fucking your mouth. the sounds that fill the room are so filthy and it's like music to his ears. "look at you. so pretty while i fuck your mouth. such a beautiful little slut for me." you moan at his praises, tears streaming down your cheeks. the vibration of your voice around him is enough to finally push him towards his climax and his thrusts become sloppier but more forceful. "fuck, baby, feel so good choking on my cock. you ready to swallow my cum like a good little whore?" you do your best to nod your head in agreement and seconds later you feel him unload down your throat. when he's finished, he pulls out and you swallow hard. you open your mouth to show him you took it all and he smiles, a little out of breath. "good girl."

the way he praises you makes your heart skip a beat. all you've wanted for so many years was to be with him like this. and even if this is the only chance you ever get, you're glad you could make him feel good and be his good girl for the night.

you think mingyu might need a minute to recover, but you're amazed when he's ready to go again almost immediately. he quickly sits up and begins messily making out with you again. as he does, he finally pulls off your tank top which somehow has stayed on this whole time. once your tits are free he takes a moment to look at them in awe. then, he's kissing and sucking on them just as gently as he had your thighs earlier. you appreciate the way he can be so rough and so gentle with you, making you feel better than anyone you'd ever slept with before.

the stimulation on your nipples heightens your arousal, but you need more. "mingyu.."

"what is it, princess?"

"please-- can you please fuck me? need you inside me now." your last word comes out more like a moan as mingyu lightly bites your sensitive nipple before pulling away to look you straight in the eye.

he can see the way your eyes beg for him and he just can't keep you waiting any longer. he throws you onto the bed on your stomach, the way he can just toss you around so effortlessly like a doll turning you on even more. he positions you with your head down on your pillow, ass up in the air as he gets on his knees behind you. then, he notices something that catches his eye: your phone that you had tossed onto the bed next to you earlier. it gives him a naughty idea and he grabs it quickly and before you can react, he's got the camera app open and recording a video.

"mingyu, what are you doing?!" suddenly you feel shy all over again.

"just filming a little something so you know this wasn't a dream." as he says this, he runs his tip through your folds, camera angled perfectly to capture everything. your shyness subsided and all you can think about is him finally rearranging your guts.

"ah, don't tease," you whine. "please put it inside. please, gyu." the nickname and the begging tone of your voice somehow make him harder, if that was even possible. he intends to oblige, but first, he hands you your phone.

"i'll give you all that you're begging for and more. but you gotta keep the camera on that pretty face of yours while i fuck you stupid. got it, baby?"

you nod and feel mingyu's hand come down and smack your ass, clearly not content with your lack of a verbal response. "not good enough, dear. need to hear you say it. do you understand?"

"yes, sir."

he groans, showing he clearly likes when you address him this way. as soon as you get the camera angled perfectly on your face, mingyu slowly starts pushing into your entrance.

"oh, fuck." you both say it simultaneously. his cock is so thick inside you and your pussy is so tight around him. you're not sure all of him will even fit, but he keeps slowly pushing in further and further until he bottoms out with a deep groan.

"that feel good, princess?" he stays still inside you, giving you time to adjust to his massive size.

"mm, yes, feels so good. filling me all the way up so fucking perfectly." you make direct eye contact with the camera as you speak, having enough foresight to know how hot it will be when either of you watches it back later.

mingyu takes this as his cue to finally start moving in you. he pulls back slowly, almost pulling all the way out before harshly thrusting back into you. you basically scream as he hits your sweet spot, nearly dropping the phone before quickly repositioning it. he then starts thrusting in and out of you at a steady and relentless pace.

the room, and probably your entire apartment, is filled with your moans and the sounds of skin slapping against skin, the camera capturing it all along with the tears that begin falling down your cheeks once again.

"fuck, baby, you're so tight. feel so fucking good clenching around me. better than i ever imagined. is this cock everything you dreamed of?"

"fuck, mingyu. so much better. so much bigger. fuck, just like that. please keep using my pussy just like that. it's all yours. i'm all yours, mingyu." you just keep babbling on, coming closer and closer to exploding again. the way you keep clenching around him is bringing mingyu back to the edge again as well.

"damn, baby, i'm so close. tell me where you want my cum and i'll let you come as well."

"inside. please, sir. i want you to come deep inside me. fill me up, please, gyu." you meant it when you said you were all his. and you wanted all of him, every last drop, inside of you.

after a few more strokes you both started coming undone. you tried your best to keep the camera focused on your face, but the video was probably going to come out just as shaky as your whole body was right now. mingyu painted your walls with his thick, hot white ropes of cum that mixed together beautifully with your own juices.

he stayed inside of you as you both caught your breaths a little. he reached forward and grabbed your phone from your hand, and focused it again on your cunt as he slowly pulled out. once his member was fully removed, he zoomed in on your hole as the mixture of liquids began to leak out and down onto the sheets below you.

once he felt like he got all the footage he needed, he locked your phone and threw it back onto the bed. mingyu could see you were too exhausted to move much on your own, so he went into your bathroom to get some towels to clean both you and the sheets up a bit before crawling into bed and cuddling with you.

he began petting your hair and showering you with praises. "you did so well, pretty girl. took my cock so well and looked so beautiful coming undone just for me." he kissed your forehead and you snuggled up closer to him, feeling so safe and warm in his big arms, comforted by the sound of his heart beating through his chest. you lay just like this for a bit before looking up at mingyu.

"thank you." he looks at you confused, cocking his head to the side like a curious puppy.

"thank you for making my dreams come true. even if it was just for one night.. i'm so happy to finally be with you like this."

mingyu looks a little upset at your words and you start to panic internally, fearing you've said something wrong.

"you don't have to thank me. i've wanted this just as badly, you know. but--" he stops for a moment but eventually continues. "was this just a one time thing for you?"

you're taken aback by how upset and almost insecure he seems, compared to how confident he had been all night.

"no!" it comes out a bit more panicked than you intended and you tried to calm yourself before continuing. "i just assumed.. i mean, would you want to do this again?"

"of course i would. you're the only girl i've wanted for years now, y/n. now that i've had you, i don't think i can ever let you go."

"but what about--" you stop yourself, realizing it would be weird for both of you to bring up your best friend and his younger sister while you're both laying naked together in bed after what you've just done. "are you sure?"

mingyu rolls over on his side, getting in a better position to look you in the eye and show you how sincere he is. "i've never been more sure about anything in my life. i'm completely yours, as long as you'll have me."

your eyes start to well up and you blink a couple times, mostly to make sure one final time that you're really not dreaming, but it also causes the tears to start streaming down. mingyu quickly wipes them away and caresses your cheek.

"of course i will, mingyu. you're literally a dream come true for me. like i told you earlier, i'm all yours."

mingyu pulls you closer to him and kisses you long and hard. when you finally part he just rests his forehead on yours for a moment and smiles, eyes still closed. when he's finally soaked up the moment, he quickly gets up from the bed leaving you a bit confused. he then walks around to your side and picks you up bridal-style without warning. you squeal at first and then start to giggle. he finds it so endearing how adorable you are and chuckles along with you.

"come on, pretty girl. let's go get properly cleaned up and get some well-deserved rest." he carries you across the room toward your bathroom so easily, as if you weigh nothing in his arms.

"yes, sir." your voice is so teasing now, completely unlike how you said the same phrase earlier that night.

"don't tease me, love. not unless you're ready for round two."

you smirk as you look up at him, still holding you while standing still in the doorway to your bathroom.

"i'm ready if you are."

a/n: this is my first nsfw piece so i hope it's okay 👉👈 any constructive feedback is greatly appreciated!! also, if you liked this please check out my other works here, and please reblog instead of just liking!

[pumpk1n-writes]

~ Masterlist ~

🌺 ~ smut || 🌸 ~ fluff || 🍄 ~ angst || 💐 - requests || 🪷~ series

Scream (1996)

Billy Loomis

🌺 Jealousy, Jealousy Is The Venom In My Veins {finished on 3/19/2023}

➥ in which Billy Loomis sees Stu flirting with you and decides to show everyone that you belong to him {ft. jealousy, smut, marking, bottom!reader, reader being a little shit, stu also being a little shit, stu being a wingman, not an established relationship}

🌸💐 Stuck In Purgatory {finished on 3/21/23}

➥ in which the reader and Billy get in an argument and they flinch. Billy makes it up to you in the best way he knows! {ft. Fluff!! G/N reader, lots of hugs, kisses, and cuddles, your wonderful author sleeping on the highway tonight, a teensy bit of death and murder, reader was in a past abusive relationship}

🌸💐 Don’t Make Me Leave {finished on 3/25/23} || Part Two

➥ in which Billy and the fem!reader are best friends and he accidentally gets her pregnant. {ft. pregnancy, fluff, mentions of sex}

Stu Matcher

💐 Supposed To Be Safe {Finished 3/24/23}

➥ in which the reader comes home to a bloodbath, and their big brother at the center of it all {ft. big brother Stu, Billy is protective of the reader, mentions of blood and ✨murder✨, poor little traumatized reader}

💐 Oops? {Finished on 3/26/23}

➥ In which the child!reader suspects Billy and Stu as the new Woodsboro killers and starts snooping. Fortunately, what she finds instead is much much better than murder! {ft. mentions of serial killers, child!reader, fem!reader, Big Brother Stu™}

Sidney Prescott

🌸💐 Take Care of You {Coming Soon!}

➥ In which Sidney’s younger sibling barely escapes the Woodsboro Massacre and turns to their older sister for comfort.

Poly!Ghostface

🌺🪷 Tell Me All About The Dark Places You Hide {Part 10 out now! - last part}

➥ in which the reader figures out that their best friends are the infamous Woodsboro Killers and decides to help them. {pt 1; pt 2; pt 3; pt 4; pt 5; pt 6; pt 7; pt 8; pt 9; pt 10}

🪷Venom In Her Kisses {Coming Soon!}

➥ in which the boys decide it would be a good idea to try and seduce the fem!reader and try and win her over to their cause. Unfortunately for them, she’s already decided to figure out who Ghostface is — by any means possible.

Shadow and Bone

The Darkling

🍄🪷 Sweet Sweet Little Lies {Coming Soon!}

➥ in which General Kirigan finds someone more powerful than Alina, and possibly even more powerful than himself. Someone much more willing to help him achieve his goals.

🌸💐 In Your Head {Coming Soon!}

➥ In which the reader arrives back at the Little Palace bloodied and scared, and is comforted by none other than the General of the Second Army himself. {ft. mentions of war, mentions of blood and gore, flashbacks to the battle, fluff}

Outer Banks

JJ Maybank

🌺 Strike A Match {Finished on 3/26/23}

➥ in which the reader is afraid of the dark and JJ comes up with an idea to distract you. {ft. established relationship, fingering, aftercare, little bit of fluff, nyctophobia, JJ being his adorably cocky self, slight overstimulation, praise, hair pulling, marking, no use of y/n because it makes me want to scratch my eyes out, use of love and darling}

Criminal Minds

Spencer Reid

🌸 Sweet Disposition {finished on 3/28/23}

➥ In which Morgan and Garcia lock you and Reid in a room so you realize that the feelings you both harbor for each other are, in fact, mutual. {ft. Fluff}

The Sandman

Dream of the Endless

[twig-tea]

Love in Translation--Everyone Is Right This Show Is Great

Ok so I was convinced by these great posts by @bengiyo here and @lurkingshan here to catch up and prioritize this series.

But then I watched Minato's Laundromat s2 instead (which was a disappointment, bad decision).

And then I lied again and watched Only Friends ep6 as cough you may have noticed based on my posting this past 24hrs.

But now I'm finally actually keeping my word and prioritizing Love in Translation lol

And of course, they were totally right, this show is so good!

I'd already seen episode 1; it was chaotic but cute, and already established the older/younger brother dynamic as well as the chemistry between the two leads and the full cast of supporting characters--who bengiyo rightfully points out are delightful.

Episode 2 hits the ground running and the next few episodes flew by on my catch-up binge; as lurkingshan said, the pacing on this show is FAST and really enjoyable. With the absurd premise established they jumped right into character development and pining! I love a grumpy on the outside because he has too many feelings on the inside character, and Yang is perfect. He fell so hard so fast for Phumjai's sunshine charisma (which bengiyo is so right, is a rare breed of happy and energetic but not annoying). And I love that they've established pretty clearly that Phumjai needs someone to believe in him (hello, Dangerous Romance's Khaotung, I see you), and that Yang warming up and trusting him is going to be the thing to sway his heart. Yang clearly being aware of his feelings and helping Phumjai talk to Tammy anyway is giving me so much of the good kind of pain! I love a pining while helping my love interest with their romance because I am secretly a simp even though I seem cold character. Yang's tiny smiles give me life. And I also really love a smile through my pain because I desperately want to protect everyone around me at cost to myself character, so this show is really giving me everything I could want and then some.

Love in Translation is so good at earning every emotional response the characters give... lurkingshan talked about this in her pitch and I'm going to double down because this show keeps surprising me in the best way. Yang is not just jealous, he knows something. Phumjai is not just inexperienced, he's never been trusted to stand on his own or make any decisions for himself. There's a reason why Phumjai hesitates and why Yang pulls back. Every time there's a character decision that moves forward the plot that in any other show would be handwaved away, it's explained and given context and I am LIVING. I can't wait to find out why his brother is so overprotective, for example, because I now trust this show to give us that.

I can't talk about this show as much as I want to without spoilers so cutting the below for those who have been convinced but don't want to be spoiled. But for those who have not yet been convinced: Below the cut I talk about how this show queues up annoying narrative tropes to undermine them. I also just want to say while I'm still above the line, the chemistry between the two leads is excellent:

this show is very pretty (some really interesting shots and use of the store aisles for framing, as well as lovely colour grading):

the interpersonal drama is so far quite good at staying interwoven with actual work (I know absolutely nothing about running a mini mart but at least they do seem to do work in a workplace show, and at least some of the episodic challenges are about work/sales), and the comedy is not too slapstick. At least one side couple (involving Ngern! My beloved) has an arc clearly forming and I am hopeful the other will too.

And for you colour girlies, @respectthepetty has written brilliantly about the colours in this show meaning things (and already been proven right).

TL;DR Love in Translation is so far a really, really enjoyable viewing experience!

Oh hi! For the record, I will be potentially spoiling through episode 5. This is just me gushing about stuff that might be spoilery, don't expect any brilliance here lol

God I love how this show tees up tropes to undermine them. Tammy is an influencer, but Phumjai fell for her because they met in person and she made him feel competent and listened to. Tammy is a player, but Phumjai is aware and makes no demands. Phumjai made Tammy feel like someone really cared about her and so she decided to be serious about him (rather than Tammy playing into the evil woman stereotype). Yang is clearly already aware of his feelings, but decides to help and Phumjai go on a practice date, and doesn't hold back, AND gives the older brother a baller speech about letting people make their own choices. Phumjai isn't totally thoughtless about Yang during the practice date, he doesn't just focus on Tammy and chooses things Yang would like. And then when he goes on the date he doesn't sublimate, Phumjai realizes something is going on and goes to talk to Yang, who kisses him!!! Phumjai reacts badly and avoids Yang, but it's because he realizes he has a crush and thinks he needs to make it go away rather than because of gay panic. Yang starts pushing Phumjai away, but it's because he's literally under threat rather than because he's scared of having emotions, and he doesn't want to risk Phumjai's safety. And this also puts Yang's intensity, anger, and seriousness about the business and how its doing in context because (I think) he owes folks money and is very worried about being found before he can pay them back.

And because the show gives good reasons for why these characters have these reactions or make these decisions, the show is also able to explain when these reactions or decisions change! Yang doesn't just forget about his crush or his history with Tammy, she proves to him she's serious this time with her actions. Yang thought he was safe and he finds out he isn't, so he stops pursuing Phumjai.

What I'm really, really hoping for in the next ep: we know from the trailer that Phumjai bolts, I'm assuming because Yang says something unclear to push him away again, and Tammy finds him. I'm really hoping this gives Phumjai and Tammy a chance to air things out, and for Yang to realize he needs to be honest with Phumjai about what's going on so that they can ~please for once, BL gods~ face their troubles together!

Also can I just go off on a rant and say how much I love Phumjai? At first I was afraid he would be annoying either because he's so sunshine or because he's incompetent or both, but besides his obsession with Tammy (which I will admit at least is motivating for him lol) he is actually really dedicated to his job and works really hard. Love that Phumjai's recruits are already on his side and defend him to Yang, even moreso than Tag, Phumjai's so-called best friend (I am side eyeing you sir) does to Phojai.

Really holding onto hope that this show keeps surprising me because I'm really enjoying every time it does it!

[idolsummons]

Side Muse: Wen Li

The history of the Li family can be traced back hundreds of years to Zhiyuan Li. Zhiyuan did not make a name for himself in the traditional ways, such as plying a trade or becoming a well-renowned artist; rather, he became known for rising up through society through his study and extended use of dark magic. He married Lingyi Feng, a woman from a family which had both wealth and knowledge of dark magic, and together they had children of their own, to whom they passed down their knowledge and riches, who in turn passed it down to their children and so on.

In the modern day, the Li family is still prosperous, and though their history and practices have been forgotten to society at large, dark magic is something which is still passed down to the children in the family, who begin learning their dark practices when they are old enough to speak and read at even the most basic level.

Wen Li is the "middle" child and only female with three siblings: her twin brothers, Chun and Qiu being the oldest, with herself in the middle and a child brother, Bao. Each and every one of them is no exception to learning dark magic, and are even expected to help the younger siblings with their practice (and it was so difficult for her to learn from the twins, who relied heavily on one another to cast more powerful magic).

Since the moment she was able to read and write, Wen had a fascination with the family archives, an expansive library filled with everything one might ever hope to know about dark magic and its various sub-classifications, coupled with a desire to write.

Her very first writings were made up instructional pieces for dark magic and her characters casting such spells. Of course, as a child, these often took the form of summon a puppy or turn the whole sky into a rainbow.

As she grew older and learnt more of the magic passed down by her family, Wen grew out of writing such things, and instead turned to the fantasy genre. At the age of 12 was when she first conceptualised the world of Yaoguo. With few friends to speak of in reality, she spent every spare moment she had in this world, drawing maps, creating characters and creatures, putting them in situations and pitting them against one another.

It was through perusing the family archives at the age of 13 that the young writer and eager reader made quite an interesting discovery: a series of rituals which were carried out not through blood or human sacrifices, by drawing a sigil on the ground and chanting words, but rather, through the act of writing.

Poetry was the key to it, and a language long forgotten to humankind the scribe's tool. The text promised near anything the writer wished could become reality, with the caveat that the work had to be published in such a way that many eyes would fall upon it and many would read it themselves, whether aloud or internally; the more who read the passages, the more tangible the writer's desires would become.

And so, rather ecstatic about the idea and having nothing to lose were it unsuccessful either due to her own failings as a writer or the spell being nothing but the ramblings of a madman, Wen established a new species for her world and incorporated the language as their own - some of the greatest writing of all time is nothing more than borrowed ideas, after all.

Her first wish was a simple one: to become a famous and revered writer.

It started with her family reading her first novel at age 14 and collecting their feedback, and ended at age 16 with the publishing of the first novel in The Yaoguo Fables. Perhaps it was a fluke that her first novel became a best seller not only in China but around the world, but as she published more novels and put in riskier and riskier rituals, Wen knew that it was only possible for the words to indeed be imbued with magic.

Now 24 with six novels in The Yaoguo Fables series under her belt, Wen Li has even more fame and wealth than all others in her family. Having never been much for socialisation, she lives in a remote manor where she can focus on her writing without being disturbed, save for the occasional calling of her family (she's considering writing in a ritual which would see them visit less often). The Yaoguo Fables is a global sensation and its popularity is ever on the rise, and many wish for the reclusive writer to make a public appearance if only once. However, it would take more than a written ritual for her to work up that kind of courage...

[topperscumslut]

“why do you even like topper?” *deep breath*

imagine you’re 16 and your brain isn’t fully developed and you just finished your sophomore year of high school, and you’re ready to have the best summer of your life with your beloved girlfriend. you’re both like crazy rich, and you hate the poor kids in your town and everyone thinks it just cuz they’re poor which probably isn’t entirely untrue, but they also all have a huge victim complex and believe poor=good and rich=evil and they can do whatever the fuck they want with no consequences. in fact, you don’t even hate ALL the poor kids cuz there’s actually a very high working class population on the island none of which you’re seen having any problems with besides these four kids who probably don’t shower and have some weird nickname for their friend group. whatever. so you’re at a party one night with your girlfriend and one of these drunk rascals starts basically harassing her and not letting her leave so you stand up for her and throw a drink in his face and at this point he’s ready to throw down. so now you’re in an all out brawl with this guy and his best friend and you and the best friend are just beating the ever loving shit out of each other until the guy from before literally holds a loaded gun to your head and gets you to stop.

the next day you’re chilling with your girlfriend and your two best friends, one of which is her psychopath brother, and she likes to do quirky little things like pretending to die to prank you. cute! so you’re talking to her little sister about how you’re worried about her and how much she means to you and the little sister is like “oh yeah btw she’s cheated on every guy she’s ever dated and the guy you were beating up last night works on our dad’s boat and is stealing from us but she let it slide and started flirting with him so that’s fun” which isn’t untrue but is also an extremely dramatized version of what went down cuz the sister’s like 13. and you’re probably thinking just trust your girlfriend over her sister, she’s with you for a reason (definitely not social status and your hot bod, which she ironically accuses you of later on) and she only has your best interests at heart and would never do anything to hurt you, right? to which i say lmao you’ve clearly never watched this show. you’re already done with this punk ass bitch and we’re not even a full two episodes in, so you decide to let your girlfriend’s dad know that his employee has been stealing from him, like any logical human being would do. you try to talk to your girlfriend about the fight from the night before and confront her about flirting with this guy and letting him steal from her family, and she tells you you’re being irrational and the fight (and you getting threatened with a loaded gun) is your own fault.

a day or two later, things are good with your girl again, you’re hanging out and treating her like a queen and you go to a party with her and y’all are drunk and kissing and she promises you she’ll never, ever cheat on you and this girl is dtf so of course you ask for consent like three times like a gentleman and she says yes but then changes her mind and stops you and you get upset (this is one of the only things he’s done that’s actually pretty fucked and i can’t really justify lol) but still handle the situation a lot better than you could have cuz instead of pressuring her of begging her to put out you’re just like “ok whatever fuck this” and walk away from the situation and then her brother (your established bestie) who’s three years older than you peer pressures you into doing lines of coke. cool! so the next day you’re hanging out with said evil brother/bestie right and one of the poor kids that’s friends with the guys you fought is walking on your golf course just doing his job and your friend has the grand idea to fuck with him and you’re like “ok dude, calm down, he’s just minding his own business not hurting anyone let’s just leave him alone and play some golf please bro golf with me bro” and this piece of shit is like “lmao no” so he goes over to the guy and starts harassing him and even tho you know it’s wrong you kinda go along with it and start antagonizing him too cuz you wanna prove to your older best friend that you’re cool but then he starts beating the absolute shit out of this guy and you’re like woah woah woah holy FUCK and get him to stop cuz he’s about to kill this mf and you’re checking to make sure the guy is okay and then y’all go about your day and kinda just pretend that didn’t just happen ig? until the dude your friend just beat up gets convinced by his friend Gun Boy that it’s a great idea to sink your probably $100k family boat to get back at you guys… cuz, ya know, that’s reasonable. why go after your friend who did 99% of the damage, right? so then you get absolutely reamed by your emotionally abusive mother who blames you for the boat sinking and tells you everything is your fault. fun! and who do you blame for this? not even the guy who sank your boat, no! you understand why he’s upset! you go to your friend like “hey bro, wtf is wrong with you, stop beating innocent people up now I don’t got a fuckin boat” but your friends are dicks and gaslight you into thinking this is all the guy who sank your boat’s fault and you should get back at him so y’all beat him up. funky! meanwhile unbeknownst to you your girlfriend is out of town cheating on you with the guy she found stealing on the boat.

anyway the next day is this really huge party and you’re so excited to go with your girlfriend and have an amazing night with her but you’re a little worried because she fully ignored you the day before and you’re not really sure what’s up. so she completely stands you up at the party and arrives with her family instead of with you and tries to ignore you the whole time until you confront her and tell her you’ve been worried about her and she refuses to tell you where she was the day before and gets mad at you for asking. anyway she sneaks off with this guy that she’s cheating on you with and you see them together but you’re not really sure what you saw so you ask her about it and she gaslights you and says you’re being crazy and too controlling of her. neato! so of course since you’re a sad insecure teenager you let it get to your head and you believe her and are like man, i was being an asshole and i should’ve just trusted her, she’d never do that to me! so you go to her room and apologize profusely to her and tell her how much you love and trust her and how much she means to you and then you find out she’s not actually there, who’s there in her bed? plot twist: her little sister who admits to you that she’s out cheating on you. fun! so you go find her with this guy and at this point you’re wasted trying to drink the pain away and you and the guy are fighting up on this big structure and you’re pushing him and he pushes back and falls thru the railing and almost dies lol. even though it’s very obvious from your shocked and terrified reaction that you didn’t mean to push him to his near death but now your girlfriend and the fandom hates you but you don’t know the fandom part because you do not know that you are a fictional character. great! however you immediately forgive her for cheating on you and try to fix things and she’s just like “fuck you you almost killed my boyfriend” and you split on her cuz you’re heavily BPD coded and call her a slut and everyone’s like “bUt tHaTs mIsOgYnIsTic” yes but it’s also not false lmao.

now this guy she’s apparently dating, who’s pretty much an orphan has been adopted by her evil father (cuz her entire family is insane besides her poor sweet innocent little sister) and they’re technically siblings ig which is really uncomfortable but anyway now they’re living together. awesome! anyway some really important plot shit goes down that you know nothing about and the sheriff gets murdered it’s all real weird but everyone including your now ex girlfriend’s dad, who you don’t know yet is an evil mastermind and he’s the most trusted man on the island, is saying that the guy your ex left you for is the one that shot the sheriff and since you have been given no reason to trust this douchebag you immediately believe it and even help the police catch him like the good citizen you are until your ex tells you the truth, that it was her psycho brother that killed the sheriff, and you’re kinda not sure whether to believe her or not but she’s like “if i was lying and framing someone, why would i say it’s my brother?” so you’re like “oh shit you right fam” so you decided to help her and her new boyfriend by disguising yourself as him and going out into a sea of armed police men ready to shoot him down, risking your life, while your ex and her new boo run off into the night and escape into the ocean in the middle of a storm and are presumed dead. lovely!

anyway some time goes by and you’re mourning your “dead” ex who you’re still in love with while putting some distance between yourself and her brother which was a weird enough friendship to begin with cuz you’re 16 and he’s 19, and don’t get on me cuz that’s the age difference of me and my bestie cuz i have a plethora of friends ranging from ages 16-22 whereas this goofy mf only hangs out with two 16 year olds and his evil dad. it’s real weird. not only that but he’s just really busy with the whole covering up the murder thing and doesn’t really talk to you anymore. you’re worried about geometry tests, he’s worried about how to cover up a murder, y’all are in very different stages of life with very different priorities rn. and all your friends are like “omg of course this poor kid from the janky side of the island did it good thing he’s dead right” and even though you don’t like this mf at all you still stand up for him to your friends cuz you know he’s probably innocent and you (unsuccessfully) try to stop a fight from breaking out between one of your friends and this guy’s best friend (the one with the gun) over it cuz there’s a time and place to beat a bitch and breakfast at the country club is Not It. and also you see both sides so you’re like *peace and love* but they still beat the shit out of each other lmao.

anyway surprise! your ex is alive and her and her boyfriend are back! interesting! but her brother is still fucking insane and she’s willing to testify that he is indeed the one that shot the sheriff so he tries to murder her but you show up just in time and save her life and beat the shit out of her brother cuz who the fuck tries to drown their sister like why were you ever friends with this dickface. so you let her stay the night with you to make sure she’s safe from her murderous brother and give her a phone that you can track her location on and even though it’s clearly established that that’s not something you actively do cuz you know it’s none of your business and only for emergencies cuz she keeps putting herself into dangerous, near death situations that she had never been in before this new guy, everyone (the fandom) thinks you’re a stalker now. groovy! oh also her boyfriend is now jealous of you that you saved her life and is mad at her about it. anyway a couple days later she watches her dad supposedly kill himself and you immediately rush to her aid while her boyfriend is just like “he was a bad person get over it” so she breaks up with him and you and her start hanging out more, and you let her stay at your place for a bit since she can’t stay with her (now ex) boyfriend or her family.

a couple days after all that you all go to a party together and you’re not quite sure how she feels about you since she just got out of a relationship but you still love her and you are her are getting along really well, you both forgive each other for the pain you’ve caused each other in the past and things are starting to feel like they did this summer when you guys were together. so you try to kiss her at the party and she shoots you down, and since you’ve grown as a person instead of getting offended by her rejection this time you totally get it and are 100% respectful of her boundaries, and blame yourself for trying to make a move in the first place. meanwhile her ex is talking to some pick me girl who’s saying terrible things about her, and she decides to go confront them which leads to this girl insulting her and you standing up for her while the other guy just kinda… stands there. so you’re like “hey man, what the fuck, you’re gonna let this girl talk about her like that?” which leads to y’all getting into yet another fist fight cuz the peace and love attitude did not last long lmao. anyway you talk to your ex and she thanks you for all you’ve done for her and promises you she’ll never disappear on you again like she did last time. so you make plans with her and you show up to her house cuz she’s back living at home now for some reason and encounter her psycho brother who tells you she blew you off to go hang out with this other guy again, which you don’t believe cuz she wouldn’t do that to you, right? (she would) anyway she’s out doing god knows what with him and before you know it, lo and behold, she disappears and is presumed dead again!

a month goes by and you try your best to get over her, she’s missing and presumed dead and even in the insane chance that she did come back, she’s made it clear she’s not interested, so you try to move on and have a life outside of her and her insane family for literally the first time. anyway, it’s been a month and guess who’s back, back again. your ex! and her boyfriend that she got back together with! wonderful! also turns out her evil father is actually alive and ALSO tried to kill her lmao. so she’s back but she’s trying to ignore you cuz she knows if she so much as looks at you it’ll piss her boyfriend off, but you’re rich and she’s not anymore since she decided to cut off her family so her and her friends have the grand idea of making you their errand boy and convince you to steal your dad’s truck (also you have a DAD? what???) to commit a train robbery of some ancient artifact which is apparently extremely important to boat sinker’s heritage. so you’re like ok whatever, i would do anything for this girl, like literally anything, and you do it. and the whole time her entire group of friends is ordering you around like you’re their servant (damn, these poor kids sure are entitled), and berating you for not being down for committing a felony, running from the police, wrecking your dad’s truck, and almost dying. when the job’s done there’s not so much as a thank you, just you having to go home and answer to your furious parents.

a couple days later her and her boyfriend get into a fight cuz he decides to rub in her face the fact that her dad tried to murder her, but they’re still together. so you invite her to a party that you’re going to (cuz you’re somehow not grounded??) with your group of friends who also happens to be her old group of friends from before she started slumming it with the poor kids. so you’re talking just the two of you at the end of the night and you tell her how incredibly sorry you are for anything you’ve done to hurt her and how much she means to you as a friend cuz you’re soooooo totally definitely over her for sure and then she kisses you. SHE kisses YOU. and you’re like fuck yeah, maybe she actually likes me, maybe I’m finally enough for her (you’re not). anyway she spends the night with you and you maybe fuck but idk it’s unclear. so you take her out to a nice breakfast the next morning so she knows you care about her and she’s not just some one night stand. that night you see her at a fancy party and her broke ass boyfriend sneaks in telling her they need to leave to go to south america. what for? you don’t know, you’re a side character that only exists to be her boy toy when her boyfriend is treating her like shit.

anyway she confesses to her bf that she cheated on him with you and he decides to beat the shit out of you, but this is a nice anniversary party and you really don’t want any trouble and you’ve also grown up a lot and are tired of fighting so you’re like “c’mon bro, please, let’s not do this here” but he’s furious cuz who gets with another guys girl, right? lmao oh wait. it’s almost like that’s how they started dating in the first place. so he starts swinging at you the whole time you’re begging him to stop bcuz you’re tired of fighting and trying to change from your old ways, you’re just tired bro. but he keeps beating the absolute shit out of you even far past the point that you’re already unconscious while his girlfriend begs him to stop. so what do you do (when you regain consciousness the next day, that is)? what literally any sane person would do and press charges. so you ask your ex to testify on your behalf bcuz she saw everything but when the day comes she tells you she can’t do it and begs you not to press charges bcuz her boyfriend needs to flea to south america to help his dad (who was presumed dead and lost at see but is actually alive) who’s been abducted (and this is actually the truth, believe it or not!) and she promises you that her bf will be gone and out of your hair but that she’ll stay on the island with you and will not go with him. so you begrudgingly agree to drop the charges, your mother of course taking the opportunity to tell you what a failure you are for not going thru with it. your ex says she’ll call you tomorrow night but she never does, and who do you happen to run into? none other than your ex best friend himself, her psycho brother, who tells you that she stood you up and is off with her boyfriend. and you’re all like, no, no way, she would never do that to me, things are different this time, she made a promise! and for once in his life he’s actually right and he’s like “oh yeah? check for yourself.” so you drive to her boyfriend’s house and lo and behold, there she is, fucking him. now look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t burn that fucking place to ashes. look. me. in. the. eyes.

[sea-owl]

I'm posting this separate from the au ask that started it mainly because they were just trying to have fun, and I honestly do like the prompt they sent. Unfortunately, certain aspects of it spilled this.

I know many, and I myself have done it, immediately have someone Penelope knows "helps" her with Whistledown from the beginning, but in all honesty the more I sit on it the more I think this is something Penelope had to do on her own. Or, at the very least, she needs to establish by herself. Yeah, she technically had her solicter, but the way that read it honestly came off more as a business mentor than anything else. I think having someone there from the beginning would have led her to blow up on them as she felt they were probably trying to put a leash on her or control what she writes no matter how well meaning they would have been. Lady Whistledown wasn't only a business for Penelope but also an escape.

Alerting Anthony for seasons 1 and 2 would really depend on how far things went before Whistledown was the only out Colin and Eloise had. Anthony says himself in season 1 that thanks to Whistledown saying Marina was pregnant before she came made sure no one even suspected Colin being the father and then them risking what happened to Berbrooke in the beginning of the season when he was basically run out of town for fathering a child out of wedlock. If it was early, then yeah, Anthony can definitely intervene, and hopefully, Colin's dumbass listens because that was another big thing in season 1 that I barley see being brought up, which was that Colin did not listen to anyone who tried to give him advice. Not his mother, his brother, or Penelope.

Then comes season 2, where Eloise is basically doing what she wants and like Colin the season before not listening to anyone's advice. She's also not being careful and putting herself and her staff in danger by coming to the bad part of town in diamonds and silk. She's caught by the queen, and as shown by Genevieve and Penelope's discussion, the queen would only think Penelope is only trying to save her friend if she could get a meeting with the queen at all. Penelope also saved Eloise's virtue being called into question by saying she was seen at political rallies instead alone with a working class man. She could still leave the house and attend functions. If they found out about Theo, Eloise could practically say goodbye to the life she's known and Theo would have a target painted on his back. Plus you would also think having a reason not to attend balls would be something Eloise wants. She's always saying it after all.

With Marina, Penelope has only known her a few months at best, and in those few months, she has tried to get Marina to choose someone else or tell Colin the truth. Yeah, Marina is her cousin, but when Marina pieced together that Penelope loved him, there was no girl code, no don't date your friend's crush. Y'all would be fighting Marina in real life. Now don't get me wrong, I do feel for Marina's situation, but to be honest, Marina was kinda dumb too. If she was smart, the older lord would have been her choice. He was one foot in the grave already, and all he wanted was an heir. Deals like that one weren't that uncommon. The dude probably had like ten years at best, maybe five. Her and Phillip in the show are another thing I won't get into here.

Penelope has known the Bridgertons for years, loves them, so it's really no surprise when her back was to a wall that she chose the family that was always kind to her and in some ways treated her as if she was their own and better than her own family. And this decision to write what she did, both times was shown to deeply hurt Penelope, who I suspected was crossing a personal moral she thought she wouldn't cross.

Now I'm not saying Penelope is completely innocent, I just get annoyed when people make her be the only one to apologize and give the other characters some sort of high ground when in reality Penelope just told the truth of their own actions. Also, don't say that without her, no one would have known there are other confirmed gossip writers in universe, and word gets passed pretty quickly, as shown when Berbrooke was run out of London. Everyone in the Featherington house, family and servants, knew Marina was pregnant it was just a matter of time before the knowledge got out of the house. The queen easily found Eloise, who didn't bother to disguise herself, so someone else could have easily found her too or followed the Bridgerton carriage. In all honesty, everyone just kinda has some growing up to do. Which I'm hoping the writers really show us next season.

[lorna-davidson]

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Background: pregnancy tw, mention of abortion tw, depression tw

To achieve greatness was the only option Lorna Davidson ever had. At least according to her parents. There is no denying that she was born out of love. The youngest of two daughters and the third of four children, Lorna’s parents had instilled great expectations for how they were supposed to carry themselves in the world. Her mother’s family had always been wealthy but her father was a big proponent of hard work, his family having immigrated to America in hopes of a better life. Together, they had created a stable and lucrative life for themselves. Her father had built his own construction business from the ground up that had turned into him being one of the most sought out contractors on the west coast. Her mother, not one to just sit around and lean into her family’s wealth, was a well known corporate lawyer, bound to get anyone out of any mess. Their childhood was fun if not full of pressure. Though as the younger daughter, Lorna often was able to skate by under her sister’s failures but more often her achievements. Her older sister has always been the model child, the one who achieved the most and did it in record time. Lorna and her brothers often found themselves struggling to fit such a high bar but eventually found their way. Or at least they tried to. 

High school was a substantial time in Lorna’s discovery of herself. And despite her many late nights and dangerous boyfriends and girlfriends, she ended up graduating top of her class and eventually found her way to Stanford. Something her parents wouldn’t shut up about even though it hadn’t been her first choice. She had badly wanted to go to Berkeley instead but either way her parents were glad to know she would still be staying in her home state. But if she hadn’t gone to Stanford, she would have never met Beatrice and if she had never met Beatrice, she would have never met Giovanni. A fact that she used to find beautiful but now thinks of as a curse. If only she had fought her parents harder. 

Her friendship with Beatrice had been easy, almost instant from the moment they became roommates. They did almost everything together which meant that Lorna had been there the moment she met Gio. And had been there to witness them fall in love. Back then, she and Gio had been close, best friends even. Even with all of his ambition and the clear fire in his eyes, college Gio had been calmer, cooler. And they had spent many evenings talking about life, reflecting on their families and building a friendship that seemed built to last. But as Lorna has come to learn in her life, good things only last so long. 

It had been Giovanni who had introduced her to Jeffrey Decker. A name that easily caused a chill these days, if not a total gag reflex. To this day Lorna doesn’t really know if Gio knew what he was signing her up for but she believes he did. Knowingly throwing her into the lion’s den with a man who’s appetite was insatiable and was clear from the moment they met. At least at first he had been charming, sweet even and Lorna who had a track record for fleeting relationships felt enamored by it. She knew that he was married and while she had never been into a married person before, it felt easy to ignore whenever she was with him. Something that still makes her sick to think about. How she could be so naive. But it was nice to have someone she considered established take a liking to her until it got too real. And what had meant to be just a little fling had turned into so much more. 

She can still remember the day vividly. How her first call had been to Beatrice and she had sat with Lorna as she sat on the edge of the tub, waiting to see what lines would appear on the pregnancy test. But nothing could have felt worse than Jeffery's reaction. Another naive moment in thinking that he might want this baby, that he'd see it as a good thing. But she has been consistently naive when it came to him. Instead they fought, or more like he yelled and she cried. But no matter how much he yelled, she refused to give up the baby and she was fortunate enough that Jeffrey's wife agreed. 

Though she had never met the woman, she had become her savior but only for a moment until they made their intentions clear. Lorna would be allowed to have the baby but she wouldn't be allowed to keep it. And despite how good of a lawyer her mother was, even she knew that fighting a family like the Deckers was like signing your own death warrant. The Davidsons also believed it was a blessing in disguise, a chance for their daughter to be free and start over. 

But none of them had to carry the baby. And despite it all, it's still one of the most beautiful experiences of her life. Holed up in an apartment Jeffrey paid for in Tonopah (he made it clear that if anyone saw her and asked too many questions it would be a problem but she was still allowed to stay close) she fell in love with the life growing inside of her. She sang to him, read to him, talked to him, dreamed up a whole life with him despite knowing the reality. Her siblings had been especially supportive, especially her brothers who had become overly protective during this time and still are. 

And it had been her younger brother who had made sure she had a chance to hold her baby before he was taken. It had been a home birth and to this day Lorna still thanks the gods for her midwife. Shepherd had come into the world with ease and when Jeffery and Andrea had arrived, her brother had pretended that there was a problem with the door to allow Lorna a brief moment. She held her son close to her, held his hand, kissed his face and promised him that she'd love him no matter what. That she'd be his forever even if he never knew her. She committed every little detail about him to memory until the door finally opened and just as quickly as he had come into her life, her son was taken out of it. 

After that, it was no surprise that Lorna fell into a deep depression. Her family brought her home to Los Angeles and she lived with her parents so they could keep an eye on her. Beatrice came to visit often but there was no denying that Lorna had become a shell of herself. She thought about her son every moment of every day. It wasn't until Beatrice got pregnant herself that she started to snap out of it and put so much of her energy into being the best godmother she could be to Valentina. 

With an expensive therapist and some damn good medication, Lorna eventually found her way back to herself. While she never forgave Giovanni, she loved the children he had with Beatrice. She started taking the art classes she dreamed of. She started going on hikes with her youngest brother. She helped her oldest sister look after her own children, being an aunt becoming her most fulfilling role. Her older brother who had joined their father in the family business had even gotten her help on certain projects, appreciating the way she was able to visually map out their plans. Her family held her together and she's never forgotten it. 

She went back to school, getting a second bachelor's in architecture and immediately going on to gain her master's. In her free time she took more art classes and eventually started selling some of her paintings along with some pieces of pottery. She put her life back together and found a deep passion that allowed her to both express herself and also have a part in her father's business. Something that has brought them much closer. 

But that didn't mean she didn't keep up with what was happening in Tonopah Valley. As Shep got older she followed along with his school successes and on rare occasions took trips to Tonopah Valley that she told no one about. Not even Beatrice. She always stayed far away but she couldn't help herself. Especially for his school graduations or when he was accepted into the academy. It made her laugh, the idea of her son being a cop considering who his father was. She wondered often if he had a good relationship with Andrea or with his sister in the way she had with her siblings. She kept clippings from the paper or printed articles from his school's website. 

She tried not to do it too often but it was hard to deny just how much it hurt to be apart from him. To know that he didn't even know she existed. 

Which was why she saw her opportunity the moment Jeffreys death had hit the news. She had to read the article over and over again to let it sink in. She cried and then laughed and then her brothers insisted on celebrating. It felt so weird to celebrate a death but even her mother had joined them and she hadn’t seen the woman smile that much in so long. Perhaps her mother was harder on herself than she knew, not having been able to save her daughter sooner. But that news was soon buried by fear when she learned that Shep had been shot. It was then that not even her family could deny that maybe it was time. And though they were all nervous, it was a group decision, one that meant she had their full support

She couldn't do much at first. She took short trips and visited him at the hospital when no one else was around and he was unconscious and unaware of her presence. She read to him, played music for him, just as she had when he was in her stomach. And when he finally woke up, Lorna knew her decision was made. It helped that her godchildren had also relocated to Tonopah Valley and despite how long it had been since she had talked to Giovanni, keeping an eye on him didn't seem like a bad deal either. 

She finally made the move a month ago and has been lying low for the most part until she feels the moment is right. She bought a house in Glenn Estates, mostly because her brothers couldn't bear the idea of her being downtown again and her youngest is currently living with her. He swears it's for the great outdoors he'll get to be near but she knows it's to look out for her. Something she appreciates more than she could vocalize. And while she still does work for her father's company, she's decided to open her own space geared towards folks interested in making and selling pottery. It's a small space and really just a way for Lorna to connect with one of her favorite passions while also selling some of her work. She hosts classes and is hoping to roll out a series of artists dinners per Valentinas suggestion. The space only opened two weeks ago so it's very new and she's been trying to get the word out despite fearing Andrea getting a whiff of it. But she's older and wiser now. And no one is going to stand in her way. Not again.

Headcanons:

Has three dogs, Larry, Moe and Curly. They’re basically her kids considering she never had another one after Shepherd. She can usually be seen around her neighborhood walking with the three of them. Larry and Moe are both Australian shepherds and Curly is a French Bulldog. 

Thanks to her younger brother she loves the outdoors. She hikes often and goes for morning walks. She’s very proud of her garden and tries to do outdoor yoga as often as possible. Her meditation is central to her life now, not entirely sure she could be as level headed as she is without it. 

She’s also big on being green and eco friendly. She drives an electric car but only when she needs to. Most of the time she prefers to ride her bike or walk. She’s also big on farm to table, shopping locally and cooking with local products. Cooking is one of the money things she does most often with Valentina. 

She’s pretty unaware of the dynamics going on in town but is well aware of some of the work that took Giovanni away from Vegas. She’s a bit stunned to see him running for Mayor and hasn’t been looking forward to their reunion despite the fact that he had once been one of her nearest and dearest friends. Her main focus is her son so she’s keen on not getting involved in anything she doesn’t need to be. 

[hochiumi]

Miya's Backstory

Instead of making an entire post about Trofí and trying to format my document onto Tumblr's limited post editor, I'll just link my gdoc here.

Miya and her family come from a planet called Trofí, specifically residing in the Noimosýni sector; they lived there until Miya was about two years old (human age). The reason the Hoshiumi family decided to leave their home planet was due to rising concerns of violence and abuse perpetuated by the Fotiá, and Miya, whose quirk is Ancestral Ki, would’ve become a main target of them.

The Hoshiumi matriarchs had previously assumed they were safe from being invaded by the Fotiá, as the Noimosýni sector was the second strongest and second most secure sector on Trofi; however, the Fotiá managed to penetrate the Noimosýni sector, which caused a lot of turmoil and strife.

With the unsuspecting help of the Uchūbito’s, a Fotiá family, the Hoshiumi family managed to escape to Earth alongside them. This is how Miya became best friends with the youngest child of the Uchūbito family, Uchūbito Sayori.

They arrived on earth three years later—the fastest their latest tech could get them to their destination, but their interplanetary travel constantly improves—and landed in Okinawa, Japan.

The families resided in the mountains of Okinawa, bordered by a small, out of the way seaport village, and continued living as peacefully as possible while trying to adjust to Earth; however, after some time had passed, it was revealed through several scary incidents, that Miya’s human body suffered from some complications during synthesization. This was the beginning of Miya’s permanent admission into the hospital that her parents had established in the small community.

Despite being hospital-bound, Miya was able to go out every now and again due to her strong protests and tantrums, but not without her usual oxygen tank, heart monitor, and wheelchair (her usage of her legs began diminishing with each passing day). Occasionally Miya would sneak out of the hospital and explore the little village to meet as many of the villagers as she could since she only ever got to meet the primarily middle-aged and elderly people that were admitted to the hospital on a regular basis.

This is how Miya became friends with their future classmates: Chiba Akira, Nakano Kazue, and Hanamaki Senna–though Kazue would insist that they were not friends.

Despite Miya’s complications with her human body, she was sought after by the Uchūbito family–particularly Uchūbito Rekka, Sayori’s older brother.

Rekka had been the one to convince Miya that he was the only one on her side in regards to her desiring freedom, and around the time Miya was just seven years old, Rekka began to convince Miya that the village, the island, was not enough for her. For years, Rekka talked Miya into trusting him and his family over Miya’s own; he needed Miya’s full loyalty, convinced that, with Miya’s power, they were unstoppable, even if her parents were to intervene.

Rekka managed to drive a wedge between Miya and her family, and it all started with Maya, Miya’s twin sister. And it was easy, too, considering Maya had already been harboring a bit of resentment towards Miya—Maya had been born with nothing while Miya had been born with everything. 

It was harder driving a wedge between Maki and Miya. The best Rekka could do was make it awkward for Maki to intervene between the animosity her other sisters started to accrue between each other—especially between Miya and Akina, who fought the worst.

After their parents left Earth and went back to their home planet to try and figure out what went wrong with Miya’s human synthesization, Miya’s medical care was all Akina’s responsibility. Akina generally cared about her sisters very much, and she was always a loving older sister; however, the bullying she faced by the village kids for not being human impacted her greatly. She wanted to protect her youngest siblings from the same ostracization she experienced, especially Miya, who was disabled on top of being an alien.

Needless to say, by the time Miya was fifteen to sixteen years old, her relationship with her family was practically ruined, which was precisely what Rekka had hoped for.

Unfortunately for Rekka, by the time he could enact the Uchūbito family plans to return to their home planet with Miya in tow, Class 1-A from the prestigious UA High School came to their village in order to help reinforce the village infrastructure in time for typhoon season.

Nothing grounded Miya to the village more than seeing hero students from the mainland—she had always heard about heroes and in particular, hero students her age, and she even saw bits and pieces of the UA Sports Festival on the television in her hospital room (which Akina would promptly turn off after every time Miya got her hands on the remote, somehow). But in all her life, Yuhi had never imagined seeing them in real life.

Rather than sticking by Rekka, Miya peeped on the hero students, generally from afar to avoid their attention, while desperately wanting to catch it at the same time. Miya knew that Rekka had a specific vision for the world he wanted her to see, but this was the world Miya actually wanted to see.

Miya ended up finally interacting with them one day, completely by accident, when she was playing with some neighborhood stray cats. She had been tailing one of the students the whole evening, wondering why he kept checking back in with the villagers he spent all day with and wandering around the neighborhoods over and over. The kid had big eyes, fluffy-looking hair, and oddly specifically placed freckles.

He seemingly always had a smile and a sense of determination on his face—it was interesting, even more interesting up close, when he walked up on Miya from behind and she almost fainted from shock.

From here, Miya and the boy—Midoriya Izuku, normally, but on duty, he was Deku, apparently—got into an awkward conversation that increasingly became animated. Miya became so enraptured in conversation, she hadn’t even noticed that she followed Midoriya Izuku all the way back to where his class had been stationed.

There, Miya met most of the class; apparently a certain “Bakugou Katsuki” and “Todoroki Shoto” couldn’t join them due to having not obtained their “provisional hero licenses”. Miya didn’t know what any of that meant, even when they tried to explain it to her, but it was fine. Regardless, it was a whirlwind of interactions—from enthusiastic greetings, tired greetings, and overall pleasant greetings, Miya savored all of them and their interesting personalities.

Meeting Class 1-A shifted something inside of Miya, which sparked the beginning of their desire for more than life on the island, line in a small village, and especially, life in a damn hospital.

So, for the remainder of Class 1-A’s time on the island, Miya stuck to all of them like glue, running herself ragged trying to keep up with their pace and be of use to them. Usually, Miya would be frustrated and embarrassed by her physical limitations and would shy away from interacting with others, but she was determined to make an impression on the Class 1-A kids in hopes that somehow, some way, they could be Miya’s ticked out of the village and into the “real world”.

Obviously, this didn’t sit well with Rekka, who continuously tried to talk Miya out of her obsession with Class 1-A, but Miya wasn’t having it. It got to the point where Rekka annoyed Miya so much that she ended up yelling at him and hitting him. Miya apologized to Rekka immediately, though, and clung to him like her life depended on it, but unbeknownst to Miya, the damage was already done.

If Miya wanted to destroy everything Rekka had carefully and painstakingly worked towards, then he was going to disregard Miya’s feelings entirely and take matters into his own hands–by force.

The day before the first projected storm, Miya spent it with Class 1-A as per usual; however, her heart nor mind was in it. Not only were her nerves on fire after upsetting Rekka, but her body truly couldn’t handle anymore hardwork. Miya was breaking down, physically and mentally, but she couldn’t bear to show this weak side of her, so she kept it all to herself and pushed herself harder than she should’ve.

Things further went awry due to the first typhoon hitting unexpectedly early, and it was much stronger than they all prepared for. And while Class 1-A scrambled to get the villagers and animals to safety, Miya was caught up in the chaos and not faring well at all. The intense weather surge made her physical condition worse, it seemed, and the only person who caught her in her time of need was Rekka.

Rekka grabbed Miya from behind, catching her off guard, and lead her off towards the forest, talking about “their” plans of leaving this planet and seeing more than this world had to offer. Miya struggled and tried to scream for help, but they were weak and helpless after days of pushing their body to its limits.

Luckily for Miya, Midoriya Izuku caught sight of what was happening and came to their rescue. He struggled with fending off Rekka in the midst of a raging storm, and throughout it all, Miya became more and more flustered and unnerved by the chaos.

Ultimately, Miya passed out, but she was soon awakened by her quirk: the raging storm awakened the full power of her hydro ki.

Everyone watched as Miya transformed into her evolved alien form and began to ascend, moving as if she were in a trance. Miya, uninhibited by the limitations of her human body, began to control the flow and intensity of the raging storm by stopping it altogether. It was almost as if they were in a movie. Miya, still unconsciously operating, moved through the small, wrecked village and rectified the damage. She soaked up the excess water, fixed all of the broken and messed up infrastructure, and healed all of the villagers and animals that were injured by the sudden storm.

By the end, Miya descended back to the ground, her body haven’t not reverted back to her human form, but rather her humanoid alien form. She was unconscious and, concerningly, unbreathing. Miya’s medical devices were going off, alerting her sisters that she was indeed in a medical crisis.

Miya’s friends who were used to her medical scares–Sayori, Akira, Senna, and Kazue–worked fast to get Miya to a hospital, allowing Class 1-A to continue helping the citizens around town who were apparently taken care of in the midst of Miya’s trance. Midoriya Izuku meant to turn his attention back to Rekka, but the man had left before being noticed.

In the end, Miya was in a coma for two weeks. Although Class 1-A had stayed for a while longer to continue helping the village during typhoon season, the worst seemed to have passed already, so before they could say their goodbyes and well-wishes to Miya, they had to return back to campus to start preparations for their cultural festival.

When Miya awoke, she was greeted by her sisters and by members of the Hero Public Safety Committee (HPSC). Apparently, word traveled back fast about Miya’s powers, and with more discussion about Rekka and what could’ve possibly triggered Miya’s quirk, the HPSC were insistent on taking Miya into their care.

While Miya’s sisters, particularly Akina, were against the idea, Miya was way more convinced. The hook, line, and sinker for her was the mention of being able to co-study at UA and stay with Class 1-A in their dormitory.

Akina tried to put her foot down about the situation, reminding Miya that she practically died after using her quirk and that her human form is essentially “broken”. But Miya shot Akina down by stating that if Miya stayed on the island, it would be easy for Rekka to try and kidnap her again since no one was ever there to care for her anymore as both Akina and Maki studied and worked on the mainland now. Akina didn’t respond and simply left the room, while Maki regrettably agreed to allow the HPSC and UA to take care of Miya for the time being.

And that is how Miya began training (unsuccessfully) to become a hero with the HPSC and UA High School.

[geekgemsspooksandtoons]

GeekGem’s Friday The 13th AU Timeline

I’m just going to post this for the Hell of it. Whether it’s finished or not. Or if stuff even makes sense. This was talked about with my good friend @lovezdarestevez4ever at one point. I’m just going to post it now to give more room in my drafts.

1935: Camp Crystal Lake is opened and established by David and Louise Christy. In 1969, they gave their son, Steve ownership of the camp.

The camp is based around Crystal Lake in New Jersey. Which is massive and is connected to Atlantic Ocean.

1955: Elias Voorhees is born.

1957: Pamela Voorhees is born. Later in her life, she would meet Elias, and years later, they would soon start a family.

1969: Jason Elias Voorhees is born on June 13th on a Friday. Getting his middle name from one his grandfather’s. Born with severe deformities and being mentally disabled. Particularly hydrocephalus and other issues. Such as the difficulty to grow hair on parts of his head and face, his right eye being crooked and misshaped, an enlarged head, and his front teeth being more upfront than normal.

Despite having trouble finding a house at first. Steve Christy met with the Voorhees and offered them an available home nearby the camp. Even offering them jobs to help them provide for their new child, Elias became a park ranger, and Pamela became a cook.

As the years went on, Pamela had personally homeschooled Jason herself when she had the chance, and kept her son isolated from the community. Because of this, Jason’s education was quite limited, and he hardly questioned his mother. Grasping that his life will be difficult, if not impossible without her guidance. He mostly obeyed all her orders and was taught survival skills. Such as building a fire, using a bow and arrow. But the most difficult part was something that Pamela didn’t force him unless he was ready. Learning how to swim.

A few times, Steve insisted Jason maybe could go to camp. But sometimes, some kids outside or from the camp would see Jason and call him ablest slurs, resulting in Pamela becoming more protective over him. At one point, threatening to kill an older man who indulged on insulting Jason, until Elias stopped Pamela from doing anything drastic.

But because of these times in his life. Jason started putting a sack over his head with a hole to hide his face. Despite his mother encouraging him that there wasn’t anything wrong with him, he felt he was safer with something hiding his face.

Even though Elias loved Jason no matter how he acted or looked like. But because of Pamela’s developing overprotective obsession with their son. Elias simply couldn’t take it anymore, and felt it was best to divorce Pamela and leave. But knowing Jason would still be under someone’s care.

Now with Pamela being the only one to watch Jason as much as she could. She was luckily able to put her trust into a young woman named Alice Hardy in the year 1977 when she was busy with other things. Alice and Jason slowly developed a little friendship/brother-sister bond, but Jason still preferred to be with his mother whenever she was around.

In a way, Alice was the likely the one person Jason had formed any relationship that wasn’t just his mother. Considering there were moments when Alice told Jason there was nothing wrong with him when he kept wearing his sack head to hide himself. And trying to teach and help Jason however she could. Because of these developments, Pamela’s obsession started to lower down.

1979: Because of observing Alice’s treatment of Jason, Pamela finally relaxed and allowed him to attend the camp, thinking he was ready. And even being convinced by Steve that he and the counselors will make sure he’s okay. But this time around, Alice was not working at camp but was with family instead outside of Crystal Lake.

But on June 13th, 1979, something happens when Pamela is preparing a birthday surprise for Jason when he came back. During this time, two new counselors by the name of Barry Jackson and Claudette Hayes were left in charge of watching Jason. But instead, they ventured off into the woods to have casual sex. While this happened, wanting to be brave and impress his mother. Jason took a canoe into the lake. But during this, Jason freaked out and fell out of the canoe.

An hour later, Pamela is informed by Steve and the police something had happened at the camp, that Jason went missing. Due to an investigation, even finding the canoe, and Claudette and Barry had been doing something else. 

After the interrogation of the counselors, it was concluded Jason had died from accidental drowning. But his body was never found, leading no one to being charged for his death. Pamela was mad with grief, seeing the two counselors had not been charged, and Steve allowing such a thing to happen.

When Alice returned to Crystal Lake, she was distraught to learn what had happened. Even apologizing to Pamela, but she didn’t want to talk to Alice.

The next year, the camp was on schedule to be opened again. But this time, like with Jason’s supposed drowning, everything will change.

Unknown to everyone and even Pamela. Jason did survive his drowning, just barely, reaching one of the shorelines. Believing the insults from the campers, seeing the counselors weren’t paying attention to him, leaving him no help. Jason believed he had no place in society, hating his appearance, believing he was born wrong. Including believing he was a burden upon his mother.

Jason purposely put himself into self-isolation, remembering the skills his mother taught him how to survive as best as he could, staying away from people.

-

1980: Camp Crystal Lake was prepared to be opened again for the Summer, with returning counselors like Bill Brown, Brenda Jones, and Alice Hardy. Even Claudette, Barry had returned, believing since they weren’t charged with Jason’s death, they were fine. But also new ones like Ned Rubenstein, Jack Burrell, Marcie Stanler, and even Annie Phillips as a new cook to help out with Pamela.

Despite Steve telling Pamela she didn’t have to return. But she insisted that she did, that it was better to move on from what had happened last year.

But during that day on Friday the 13th, Jason’s birthday. One by one, Barry and Claudette being the first two to die, the counselors were murdered by a violent killer. In order, Ned, Jack, Marcie, Brenda, Steve, and Bill were all killed. Leaving Alice and Annie left alive until Pamela returned from a trip somewhere.

Yet when Pamela came back, she started to not act like her usual self, telling Annie of what happened at the camp last year, and then mentioning she couldn’t let Steve and the others open this camp again after what had happened. Revealing she had murdered everyone else, blaming Claudette and Barry for not being punished for Jason’s drowning, Steve opening the camp again even after last year and inviting them back, and everyone else working at the camp as well. And even blaming Alice for not being here to watch Jason like she usually would.

In a fight for survival, Annie is knocked out by Pamela and Alice tries to survive. After a few struggles and being nearly killed a few times. In an act of self-defense, Alice beheads Pamela with her own machete, killing the grief stricken, but insane and murderous mother.

Unknown if Annie had survived, Alice took out a canoe in the middle of the lake because she felt safer. And in the morning, the police came to the camp, finding Annie still alive and Alice in the canoe. But Alice was asleep and fell into the lake, leading into police officers to save her.

But back at the hospital, Alice endures a traumatic nightmare of Jason’s corpse rising from the lake and pulling her in but wakes up, being told of what had happened, that Annie had lived, but everyone else had been killed. Yet when she asked about Jason, they didn’t find any boy, and no one pulled her in. Because of this dream, Alice felt the dream was formed out of guilt, feeling like she should’ve been at the camp when Jason was still alive. Believing the dream was some sort of punishment.

-

After what had happened at the camp, the news about it is seen across America. With many believing it to be one of the most horrific massacres in history. With many people comparing the event to similar ones such as the 1978 Halloween murders that had happened in Haddonfield, the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and the infamous murders of 20 children in Springwood.

Pamela Voorhees had since become infamous just like other figures such as Michael Myers, Springwood Slasher Fred Krueger, and whoever else. With some becoming very intrigued in her story and her son Jason. Which have become the topics of true crime stories. 

But unknown to everyone is that during the night of that same massacre, Jason had made his way to the camp, hearing the happenings of Pamela chasing Alice. And even witnessing his own mother being behead that night.

After witnessing the death of his mother, and likely one of his only friends beheading her. Jason was forever traumatized, because of this, slowly lost much of his empathy towards other human beings. Even blaming himself in a way for not reaching out to his mother much earlier, feeling like her death was also his fault.

Jason had isolated himself even more, becoming a hermit for the rest of his life.

Despite Pamela’s corpse and machete were brought to the morgue. A tombstone was made and set next to her son’s tombstone. These were both new, and whoever had them put them was a mystery.

-

As the years had gone by since the Camp Crystal Lake Massacre, the campgrounds were left abandoned. But because of Alice’s little story that she thought Jason had tried to kill her. It only inspired a legend when certain things started to happen.

1984: It was during this year on April 13, 1984, that confused people and remains unsolved is something that happened at the Wessex County Morgue. Three employees were there that night, coroner Axel Burns, nurse Robbie Morgan, and Axel’s younger brother, paramedic Roy Burns. Roy was told to stick around to help out the two. But during his outing, Roy had thought he had seen someone around the morgue. He asked if the two if any others were stationed with them but was informed it was just them.

At one point, he thought he saw someone on a security camera or down a hall. Roy had assumed staying up and the work hours had been getting to him. That was until he saw up close a man wearing a one-eyed sack nearly attacked him before running away. Despite seeing through a camera and hearing reports. No, “Sack head” man was found. But something else had happened, the head of Pamela Voorhees from 1980 and her own sweater were missing. Including her own machete. To this day, Roy still has dreams about this unknown man that was in the morgue that night.

But because of this story, it only increased the urban legends surrounding Crystal Lake after what Pamela had done.

-

For decades, a small number of people had disappeared at Crystal Lake. Mainly homeless folks, runaway criminals, and people who were likely looking for trouble such as gangs. Because of these incidents, people started to wonder if Alice’s story had some truth to it despite it being a trauma dream. Including the theft behind Pamela’s own head.

Ghost stories and rumors were told that what if Jason had maybe survived his drowning, or what if he came back from the dead, killing people just like his mother before him. The police assumed it could be just copycats trying to be like Pamela from years before. Even people had thought the person who stole the head of Pamela Voorhees might’ve been a sicko who did some necrophilia.

The old campgrounds have now been dubbed “Camp Blood” mainly by an unknown older man named Ralph Neeley AKA Crazy Ralph. Who had been convinced because of Jason’s drowning, Pamela’s murders, and other incidents that the lake now had a death curse, believing people who disappeared may have been murdered. But because of his drinking issues, most folks ignored him. Even with his wife trying to help him stay sober.

But other things have happened such as supplies being stolen from various places, and reports of seeing a large hermit near the lake. But the reports are seen as something like seeing Bigfoot. Because no one bothers to take a picture.

When in reality, Jason has been living off the land, stealing supplies at times such as clothes. Even killing bears, and whatever other animals to help him survive. In 1984, he risked trying to find his mother’s head at the morgue and bring it, her sweater, and her machete back to the campgrounds. Not wanting to be alone and somehow wanting his mother back, creating a shrine for her.

But it was in 1990 when he finally murdered someone for the first time. When looking through a trash bin and other things behind a building, a very ablest woman started spewing slurs at him when she thought he was a masked homeless person looking for food. He then quickly remembered this woman was a camper ten years ago who had called him different insults and slurs.

Enraged and having enough of being called “Retarded” and dehumanized. In a crime of passion, Jason brutally murders the woman by stabbing her in the side of her skull with his mother’s machete. He leaves her corpse in the bin for people to find the next day, her murder remains unsolved for decades.

Jason begins hearing his mother’s voice talk to him. Telling him to not just kill people who enter the campgrounds, but to protect the only home he’s ever known. And to make intruders pay for what they did to him and his mother. To kill for mother and even bring some back to her.

Because of the effects of his self-isolation getting worse, and his developing hatred and anger towards the world. Particularly adults intruding on his territory or mocking him and his mother. Acts such as sex, drinking, drugs, or even loitering, Jason begins killing more people. But not committing mass killing sprees. More so along the lines of killing an intruder rather quickly or setting up a trap that will get them stuck before he kills them.

Sometimes he would bring the corpses back to his mother’s shrine for a time, then afterwards he would throw them into the lake. Where most people would not find them until one of the corpses or more show up on another shoreline, confusing people.

Jason’s mind had sadly become more broken as time went on. But one thing that sticks in his mind, despite thinking his mother is speaking to him, spending hours alone in his shrine. He hopes that one day, after all that killing, that she’ll finally come back to him. Maybe in the form of reincarnation or anything else.

-

But as the decades went on, many people have moved on from what had happened in 1980. While some haven’t forgotten, the townspeople of Crystal Lake kept going, going on with life. Almost similar to how when people of Haddonfield had moved on with the 1978 murders. But other places like Texas and Springwood had...difficulties with what had happened in the past.

The legend of Jason Voorhees merely became a scary ghost story to tell children and keep people out of the old campgrounds. It slowly became just a bad memory for the town, an urban legend that sticks in certain communities.

-

2015: 25-year-old Ginny Field is pregnant walking with her 12-year-old stepdaughter, Chrissy Higgins. They get lost and accidentally stumble upon the old Camp Crystal Lake. They are unfamiliar with the stories behind it.

As they look around, with Chrissy getting father, wanting to explore more. They are interrupted by a giant man wearing a sack head. After he tries to get too close, Ginny grabs her daughter and runs away from the man. They both manage to get out of the area and into the public. The man doesn’t follow them anymore.

That same man was Jason who at first, was furious about more people coming into his home. But then became confused when he saw the woman and her child. For some reason, the mother looked oddly familiar to someone, and he tried to get closer, but she outran him.

A few months later, Dahlia Higgins is born.

2016: A month after Ginny proposed to her boyfriend, he dies in a car crash. Sadly, leaving Ginny a single mother.

-

2021: 6 years have passed since that event, 31-year-old Ginny Field Higgins is an official licensed child psychologist. Being a single mother to 18-year-old Chrissy and 6-year-old Dahlia. During the Summer of 2021, wanting to start anew, seeing another job to help them. Ginny moves into Higgins Haven, a property that included a summer home and a barn originally belonging to Chrissy’s grandparents before they were put into a retirement home.

One of the reasons Ginny had moved into Higgins Haven was not just to have a bigger home, but also to work an extra job as an assistant to help out her first boyfriend, Paul Holt. Who had given an invite at the Packanack Lodge, a counselor training center he owns that is a mile away from Higgins Haven, having worked it for about five years.

[under-the-cherrytree]

Heya! Thank you for answering my request! Now, can I get yandere big bro. Not an incest obviously l. teru, kou and tsukasa and hanako with little sis/bro gn s/o?

Now the thing is s/o usually got a mistreat at school due to people jealous of them (kou,teru) on tsukasa & hanako case (a yokai seems to wanting tsukasa & hanako beloved dead)

However s/o seems to not mind it at all. Btw, s/o is student at the school. And seems to be reincarnated after they die, and seems to believed hanako & tsukasa after they said they were s/o ghost brother and s/o reincarnated.

Now what would be the scenario when they find s/o is sitting on the floor. Wet around their hair and their clothes seems to be been damaged. When they Ask what happen s/o said.

"oh, big brother, I'm sorry...i'm really is...today is your birthday...but..." S/o keep cry and then said this while sobbing so hard "today, there's a girl who want me to introduce her to you. But I want to give you the gift and reject her, the girl obviously didn't take it well and...she make her group do this" "i-i...keep...trying to saving money to buy you this caused i want it to be secret...but-i..guess..there's nothing to give to you" while showing a blue (blue sky) (blue light) kou.

Tsukasa & Hanako Case

"big brother...since this is your both birthday I thought it would be better to get you both a gift. But there's a girl who hate me. I didn't even knew why?" And then s/o just said while sobbing "I..know big brother hanako love donut, and and I'm sure big brother tsukasa loves it too...so I baked a homemade donut, but that girl destroy it...she...she said my cook is the worst and people who eat it will puked and not even a ghost want it" "also she steal the necklace that I buy for you two since she say I did not deserved that"

Green (hanako) red (tsukasa)

Headcannon and oneshot again please!

The Minamoto brothers and the Yugi twins with a bullied younger sibling❣︎

Warings: Hinting to murder?, bullying, abuse, slight cursing

A/n: Hey! Of course of course, I try to answer requests to the best of my ability!

I did this with the siblings combined so hope you don’t mind shshjsh

Heehee hope you enjoy, my love~

Teru was your older brother and he made that known to the school

You loved the fact that you were known as Teru’s younger sibling

You loved your brother

But you knew you would be used for it

People would fake being your friend just to get close to Teru

Then once they got rejected, they always blamed you

You didn’t mind, you still wanted to be Teru’s younger sibling

Teru slowly picked up on this

He knew something was up so he told Kou

Those two tried to keep a close eye on you

But while they were there, it look like you had lots of friends

But when they left the bullying begun again

But sooner or later, the other girls true colors will start to show

Teru and Kou are protective brothers

The girls in your class should have known to not get on your brothers bad side

“Teru-nii! Looks like you got a lot of presents!” Kou called out, running to his older brother who was standing at the entrance of the school. Teru chuckled and looked back at his backpack which was full with presents from fangirls.

“Well, I guess I do...” Teru patted his younger brother on the head, making him smile brightly. “Where’s Y/n? Aren’t they supposed to be with you after cleaning the bathroom?”

“They are…” Kou's expression turned into a slightly worried one “but they said they had to go early. They told me something about wanting to get something prepared to give to you for your birthday…”

Teru sighed, he was worried. He already had suspicions that you were getting mistreated in your class but he didn’t know for sure so he never confronted you about it. He has confronted Kou about this and he had the same suspictions as well.

“Well let's go get them!” Teru clapped his hands and made his way towards the building.

“Do you think it's…” Kou didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“Let's hope not.” Teru’s carefree expression lowered at the thought. “Do you know where they went?”

Kou thought for a moment.

“No, but I know they aren’t in the old school building…”

Teru and Kou walked around the school for a while, looking for you in no avail. Kou pointed out little droplets of water that slowly got bigger reaching to the school's lockers. The boys froze when they heard sounds of sobbing. They turned the corner to see you facing your lockers drenched in water. You leaned onto your locker, closing it.

“Y/n..!” Kou called out, making you turn to him. “What happened?!”

“Who the hell did this to you…?” Teru asked, examining your ripped close and abused appearance. You looked at him and only cried more.

“I’m sorry big brother Teru…”

“Y/n, you don't need to be sorry, this isn’t your fault..!” Teru hugged you “What happened..?”

“I-its your birthday today… but there was this girl who wanted me to introduce you to her... but I said no, she didn’t take it too well and did this…” You sobbed into his shoulder. Teru’s grip on you tightened thinking about how this only happened while he was outside with Kou.

“I-I saved my money… to buy you a nice sky blue necklace… and I even got big brother Kou light blue one as well… b-but she destroyed it and I don’t have anything to g-give you…”

“Y/n that’s so sweet! We are extremely thankful!” Kou tried to lighten the mood a bit, giving you a gracious smile. You could see tears pricking the corner of his eyes. Teru was still angry that his suspicions were true, he was praying they weren’t.

“Who did this?” Teru sternly asked.

“I-it’s fine Teru…” You kneeled to the ground picking up pieces from the necklace she destroyed “She already left… there is nothing I can do now…”

“Y/n… please…” Kou kneeled down next to you and put his hand on yours.

“Guys, what would make me feel better is if we got home… can we please go home?” Your voice was begging. You just wanted to be in a warm blanket watching T.V. with your siblings.

That's all you wanted right now.

“Okay… I’m sorry Y/n, let's go home okay!” Teru gave you his jacket which you happily accepted.

“Even though I couldn’t get the gift, it meant the world to me!”

----

You sighed walking to your classroom. It was early and you were tired. You were happy your brothers didn’t ask you about it for the rest of the night, you didn’t want them to worry. You thought you would get a load from the girls who did this to you yesterday but you were shocked when she bowed in front of you instead.

“Y/n! I am so sorry! Please forgive me for what I did to you yesterday! It was very rude of me and I am very sorry!” She was shaking.

“Oh, uh, it’s alright..! No need to bow, I forgive you…” You put your hands in front of your chest, genuinely confused. Once she stood straight up you saw a big red mark on her cheek. She had tears in her eyes but ran to her desk before you could get a better look at her. You looked to Tsuchigomori who only nodded with an apologetic look on his face.

‘What happened this morning…?’

----

“Teru? You still look down?” Kou faced his brother as they both walked to class.

“Sorry Kou… just a little upset by the person who did this to Y/n…” Teru apologetically smiled.

“Well you slapped her, that taught her a lesson!” Kou encouraged.

“Trust me Kou,” Teru’s smile turned into a frown

“If a teacher wasn’t there, I would have kicked her ass.”

Amane found it unforunate you were caught in the crossfire of him and his brothers conflic causing you too kill yourself as well

Tsukasa thought it was great that his younger sibling was now dead too

Gosh Tsukasa-

But what they didn’t expect was for you to get resurrected

You were able to see supernaturals yourself and you couldn’t age from the day you died but you weren’t a ghost like your brothers

Tsuchigamori helped you establish a somewhat normal school life

It was all good for the most part, you were back in school, Hanako was the leader of the 7 mysteries, and Tsukasa was just crazy happy

The fact you are getting mistreated is mostly Tsukasa’s fault

Like he can make a lot of enemies so when the fish yokai (that he killed) saw how close you and Tsukasa were, of course they wanted to kill you

It was also a perk that you were Hanako’s sibling since they wanted to get back at him as well for stealing their princess Yashiro away from them

You were weak and had a human body, you were perfect

Amane had no idea about this, Tsukasa didn’t know you were being abused but he did know he pissed off those fish AND HE PISSED EM OFF GOOD-

You figured you would be a target for yokai since your older brothers are powerful

Of course, you didn’t mind this

You knew this would happen so it’s alright!

But the thing was, it wasn’t so alright with your older brothers

Hanako watched the cherry blossoms fall from the tree that he sat under. It was November 25, his birthday, and you said you wanted to have a talk with the two boys. Normally you would talk to them separately because you knew how Amane felt towards his twin brother, but today you wanted to talk to them together. Hanako cancelled his normal cleaning duty and waited where you said to meet up.

“Amane!!” He heard a scream from behind him but before he could turn around he felt someone hug him, wrapping their legs around his waist.

“Oh, Tsukasa…” Hanako said softly, personally finding this kind of awkward.

“Where’s Y/n?? It’s been so long since I’ve seen them!” Tsukasa removed his head from Amane’s neck looking around for you.

“Oh, they aren’t here yet, and I remember them saying they saw you two days ago…”

“So long ago!” Tsukasa whined and Amane sighed at his childish behavior. It went silent but thankfully Tsukasa quickly broke it.

“Didn’t Y/n say to meet them here 15 minutes ago??”

“Yeah they did…” Amane started to get worried.

“They're late!” Tsukasa pouted.

“You’re late as well Tsukasa… And we should go look for them.”

“I’ll lead the way! I know where their last class is!” He stood up and started marching, Hanako closely behind him.

They walked around the school for a while, watching students run across the halls to their clubs, laughing and gossiping with one another. Tsukasa continued to march, not losing the bounce in his step. They came closer to the sound of someone crying, sobs getting louder as they approached a classroom. The twins looked at each other before Tsukasa opened the door.

You jumped slightly, removing your head from between your legs to look at who came in. You only began to cry more realizing it was your two brothers.

“Y/n…?” Tsukasa slightly whispered to himself, staying at the door's entrance.

“Y/n! What happened?!” Amane ran to you, fearing you were hurt in any way. He put his arm on your wet shoulder, looking around to see if there were any visible bloody wounds. He looked at your uniform which was damaged and had a few cuts in it. Your hair was also wet like if someone poured water on you. Tsukasa slowly made his way over to you, examining you up and down. You couldn’t make out the expression on his face but you knew anger was there.

“I-I’m sorry…” You said a little above a whisper.

“You’re sorry for what..?” Amane asked, moving the wet hair out of your face to get a better look at your soaked, tear-stained face.

“Big brothers...since this is both your birthdays... I thought it would be better to get you both a gift. But there are these fish yokai who don’t like me..!” You picked up a couple red and green gems from the floor. Hanako’s eyes widened.

“I... know big brother Amane liked donuts and I assume big brother Tsukasa likes them as well… but they took the donuts I made you saying my cooking was t-the worst and you wouldn’t want it..!” You continued “And they took the necklace I bought for you guys saying I don’t deserve it…”

“Were they talking fish..?” Tsukasa's voice was cold, eyes wide with rage. You only nodded your head.

“Amane, will you stay with y/n? I have something I need to do.” Tsukasa turned to Amane. Hanako already knew what he was going to do.

He was going to go after the mermaid and her fish. There was nothing he could say to stop him.

“O-okay… do what you have to do…” Amane nodded and Tsukasa left the room.

“W-wait… where is he going..?” You started to get up but Amane sat you back down.

“Hey, don’t worry Y/n… older brother Tsukasa is going to take care of this okay?” Amane hugged you.

“But I don’t mind the fish… it’s fine-”

“No. It’s not.” Amane’s aura grew darker before his loving brotherly smile appeared again.

“And hopefully by tomorrow, you won’t have to deal with those disgusting fish!”

----

“Y/n! Amane!” Tsukasa called out as he walked down the halls. When he approached the door he opened it revealing you and Amane laughing. You were somewhat dry and you stopped crying.

“Tsukasa!” You got up and gave him a hug.

“What happened to those fish…?” Worryness in your voice.

“Don’t worry about it Y/n! You don’t need to worry about them anymore!” He childishly smiled, bringing ease to you.

“Amane approached you two, smiling. He looked to see Tsukasa’s hand that was behind his back covered in blood. Hanako's smile dropped and he went silent. He quickly regained his composure and turned to you.

“Yeah, Y/n you don’t need to worry about those fish. Your big brothers will kill any other supernatural that dares hurt you!”

[phoenixyfriend]

Rex and Anakin Raise a Family: Part Two

Part One

------------------

Anakin takes the news with... not grace, really, but an odd sort of resignation.

"Room to fix things," he mutters to himself, eyes set unseeing on Luke's tiny form.

Twins are often born smaller than single births, Rex remembers hearing somewhere. He hopes that's the only reason these two are so small. Leia feels absolutely minuscule in his arms.

He wishes he could ask Kix.

"Do you want to find Jango?"

Rex lifts his head to find Anakin staring at him with an earnest kind of depression. It's strange, and sad, and not helping with the question. "What?"

"You... you grew up with a lot of family," Anakin mutters, eyes cutting away to the side. "Fett would be a kid right now, yeah? He's... young. And you don't have the family that you used to have, but--"

"I'm not going to go out and find Fett to adopt him," Rex says firmly. "He was a genetic donor and once or twice a teacher. I have no interest in forming any bonds there."

He hesitates, but that was--Anakin was trying. Not succeeding, but trying. "Thank you for asking. It's... maybe if my childhood had been a little different, I'd have wanted that. But I don't, here."

Anakin winces. "Right."

Rex watches his general bounce a newborn, and thinks this is my life now.

There is no GAR to fight for, no brothers to save, no Empire to fight against. They'd thought there would be, but there isn't, not yet. They could find and warn the Jedi, but none of them would know Anakin. Nobody is going to look at Rex and see a clone. He's older than Fett, now.

"We're staying here," Rex decides. Anakin looks up from Luke's little face. "I'll figure out how to get us some Republic Idents. We'll get the twins registered. This planet is safe and out of the way, and we can figure something out for the money. You're a good mechanic, that's honest work, and I'm... I don't know. We've got a ship, so I can maybe do what Fett did and take bounty work. We'll figure something out."

"I can't ask you to stay with me."

"You're not asking," Rex says firmly. "I'm telling you. You don't get to push me away, sir. We're all the other has left, and you're not getting rid of me that easily."

"Okay," Anakin says. "If that's what you want."

------------------

They don't have a whole lot of money personally, but this was Padme's ship. She'd been rich, and prone enough to danger to know the worth of hiding money where she could. They may not have more than a few weapons on here, but they have money.

For now.

Rex knows his general is itching to go to Tatooine, sees the man muttering and twitching about it, needing to do something, and that the something has to do with Tatooine.

"Can it wait?" Rex asks.

Anakin stares at him, uncomprehending.

"Your kids are only a week old," Rex tries to explain. "They need you right now. Is this something that can wait a few months, where I can watch them while you take a week or two to handle what you need to do?"

Anakin takes Leia from Rex, and doesn't bring it up again.

------------------

Rex goes with Anakin, when they visit the nurse. He catches gossip about the two of them, but people don't go out of their way to approach. Mostly, people are just repeating the 'died in childbirth' cover that he gave before, telling each other who the strangers are, and why they shouldn't try to get involved.

The nurse asks only enough questions to get a medical baseline established for the twins. Anakin doesn't volunteer much, and when the Twi'lek woman asks if they'd like her to set up medical files for either of them, Rex has to immediately decline.

He has no idea what his blood is going to turn up. Genetic fuckery and something to deal with the advanced aging, maybe. He's not sure he wants to know, but either way, it's probably not going to be something this small clinic can handle.

"I'll have to set one up if you want to take the lactation aid," she tells Anakin.

"Yeah, okay."

She takes blood. Almost everything is mostly normal, except.

"Your midichlo--"

"I know."

"Are you--"

"Jedi aren't allowed to marry."

She doesn't dig further, just glances at how Anakin's holding Luke, and nods.

"It doesn't seem like there are any complicating factors. I can write up a prescription right now and you should be able to get it filled same-day. There will be a list of instructions and side-effects on flimsi when you pick it up, but I'd like to go over it in person first. Do you want Mr. Torrent to stay here with you as we do that, or to wait in the hall?"

"Up to him."

"I'll stay," Rex promises.

------------------

Three pills a day, one with every meal. Tissue stimulation by massaging the pectoral area, and allowing the twins to suckle even before there's anything to actually drink. Expect soreness and increased appetite, don't drink caffeine or take any form of stimulant while nursing. Here's a list of possible side-effects, the best way to handle the minor ones, and which ones to contact a medical professional about.

All very normal.

Anakin's rarely ever done anything with less than his whole heart, and Rex isn't surprised to know that Anakin is this dedicated a parent as well. He's... he was proud to serve his general, but he thinks there's something just as fulfilling as being by his side here and now. There's something better about helping raise the little ones that would never be found on a battlefield.

"Do you want them to call you Uncle Rex?" Anakin asks during a feeding. "Or... ba'vodu? Or do you want to just..."

"Just what?"

"...we're going to be co-parenting," Anakin says, not meeting his eyes. "And every time I try to suggest you go and find something for yourself, something that doesn't revolve around me, a person you were literally tube-grown for, you say you don't want to leave. So if you're going to be sticking around, really staying for years and years... we could tell them to call you buir. If you want."

"Oh."

Oh.

It's a lot. It's something Rex has maybe fantasized about before, getting to be a parent instead of just a soldier, but he'd also resigned himself to the fact that it wasn't really an option. Even now, he'd just expected to be a friend of the father, maybe an honorary uncle if he was lucky, or--

"Are you sure?" Rex asks, before he can start to hope. "I don't--I don't want to take Padme's place."

"You're not," Anakin says, fierce as anything. "You won't--nobody can ever take her place, but there are people with five parents, or none, and I'm not going to--I don't want to--"

Anakin squeezes his eyes shut and breathes harshly for a few moments. Leia fusses, like she's seconds away from crying, and Rex watches as his general holds the child in his arms closer to his chest, visibly focusing on calming down in a way he rarely, if ever, had during the war.

"It's okay, Papa just got a little upset, it's fine, we're calm, I'm sorry I got sad, honey, I'm sorry you had to feel that," Anakin whispers under his breath as he bounces the baby.

(Raising Force-Sensitive children was never going to be easy anyway.)

"You're sure about this?" Rex asks again.

"You want to be involved in their lives," Anakin mutters. "So... yeah, you should get to be their dad in name, too. And if you use Mando'a, it'll be easier for them to have different names for us."

"People are going to think we're together."

Anakin shrugs. "People think a lot of things."

Rex wants this. He wants to imagine the twins toddling up to him, grins on their faces, calling him buir and meaning it. He wants to have what he saw at the Lawquane's, where a lack of blood connection and a half-sliced age hadn't stopped those children from claiming Cut as their father. He's only thirteen, technically, but he wants to have a family, even if it's as broken as what they've found here.

"I'd be honored, sir," Rex says. "I... thank you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

"You don't have to," Anakin mutters, refusing to meet his eyes. "I can feel it."

Right.

"They already love you," Anakin continues, as if his goal today is to just smash Rex's decorum to pieces. "Part of that is just baby stuff, I think; they don't exactly know more than us yet, but you're around them all the time and are primary caregiver whenever I'm not... not okay. So they love you, so much, and I just... I'm not going to ignore that when you already love them too. So you should get to be their dad. If you want."

He does want.

"I'd like that," he says, and knows that he hasn't bothered shielding in days, so Anakin knows just how sincere that is.

Anakin hesitates, visibly so, and then stands and crosses the room to join Rex on the couch, each of them holding a twin.

A head rests lightly on Rex's shoulder. He lets it.

"There are rites," Anakin says quietly. "On Tatooine, for the slaves lost to the desert. People that died in search of their freedoms, where there's no body to bury but you still need to mourn."

Rex knows this. He says, "the clones had mourning traditions for the brothers who died in explosions or behind enemy lines, the ones we couldn't retrieve."

Anakin knows this as well. He nods.

They sit together, quietly, as calm as they can be for the too-perceptive children in their arms, and they know they need to mourn properly.

Rex can only hold his jagged edges in place for so long.

[brattyfics]

drunk dialing | writer wednesday

Pairing: Angel Reyes x Black!OFC

Summary: Angel's ex-girlfriend gives him a call one night when she has too much to drink.

Tags: Angst, Toxic!Angel, Unresolved Feelings, Alcohol Consumption.

Word Count: 1.5k

1:16.

“She doesn’t need anymore.”

The words barely register over the hustle and bustle of the packed sports bar. Basketball reruns play on the television, old school r&b blaring over the loudspeakers. The bartender takes one look at Summer and the way her frame is slumped over just slightly, the way her dark brown eyes have glazed over, and nods his agreement. From their places on barstools, her friends thank him, not-so-subtly sneaking glances at Summer from the corners of their eyes. She can’t bring herself to care. They don’t understand. She’s drowning in the liquor but also an ocean of misery. The waves steadily pull her down further at each turn.

No one understands, so she takes special care to savor the dark amber liquid as it burns her from the inside out.

2:29.

Last call in the state of California is 1:30 am for any establishment that sells alcohol. Businesses like the bar that so graciously hosts Summer and her friends can stay open later, and they usually do. Most patrons abide by state law, using the time to sober up by stuffing themselves with greasy foods-- pizza, fries, chicken wings. Instead of drinking, they make plans to come back and meet up with the strangers they have become fast friends with or say goodbye to their college buddies in town for the weekend.

If You Think You’re Lonely Now plays as patrons began to shuffle out. Summer hums along.

If you think you’re lonely now, huh

Wait until tonight, girl (If you think you’re lonely now)

I’ll be long gone (You just wait until tonight girl)

And you’ll never find another man that’ll treat ya’ right

And then there are the lonely.

The ones at the bar every evening without fail, using it as home in place of the one they lack. They slide the servers bribes, crisp and crumpled twenty dollar bills across the bar top. She watches with tired eyes as they slide shot glasses back in exchange. Summer thinks she would try her luck if it weren’t for the mother hens watching over her with careful eyes. Her friends-- Aliyah, Jasmine, and Nia already think she’s a ticking time bomb. The last thing she needs to do is give them the ammunition they need to call her an alcoholic.

3:34.

It takes a while for the bar to clear out. Nia has to use the bathroom at the last minute, complaining about it being filthy when she returns. Jasmine mutters an obviously while Summer pitifully sips the last remnants of her drink. The melted ice cubes ruin it, she can’t taste the bourbon at all, but every little drop counts, right?

Summer refuses the hand offered to her by Aliyah as they stumble out into the parking lot. Aliyah hovers with her arms poised to catch her just in case. Nia absentmindedly plays a card game on her phone behind them, and Jasmine heads up the group, her keys noisily jingling as she swings them back and forth. She’s the designated driver and the only one sober enough to drive.

It’s a typical summer night in California, dry but cold and windy, so they quicken their pace. With every step, Bobby Womack’s crooning is stuck on replay in Summer’s mind. The lyrics resonate with her…

When it’s cold outside who are you holding?

...and she’s about to voice her thoughts when she sees it.

“Is that a phone booth?!” The words come out more hysterical than probably they should. Sure, it’s been like ten years since she’s seen one in person, and she didn’t know they still existed, so she’s a little excited and a lot drunk, but it’s just a phone booth. One that’s narrow and brightly lit in the midnight blue of the night. Aliyah, who forgot her glasses at home, squints at the white blob until she can make out its shape.

“I think it is.” She sounds a little mystified herself, and that’s all the encouragement Summer needs in her state. One minute she’s cheesing wide, and the next, she’s sprinting across the street towards the phone booth, giggling and tugging her short dress down the whole way.

The girls yell after her, but she tunes them out, snatching the ice cold phone off the hook. She’s even more enamored when she pulls the heavy metal to her ear and hears the dial tone.

It works!

High heels click loudly behind her. Summer turns just in time to see the girls come to a stop behind her, out of breath and unamused. Jasmine leans over and rests her forearms on her knees. “What the hell?” She hisses, glaring daggers at her friend. Summer ignores her, punching the chunky silver buttons like she’s in a trance. Even inebriated, she knows them by heart. One number after the other, she dials the one person she knows she shouldn’t.

Angel Reyes.

She vaguely registers her friends telling her to put the phone down. She knows that she’s making a mistake, but the armor she wears to protect herself from the world is too heavy. She strips it away, her inhibitions lowered. All she wants is him.

Ring...

“She’s been drinking. We should do something.” Sweet Aliyah is always the voice of reason. Nia sounds bored and over the situation. “This is so dumb.” Jasmine tugs on her arm. “Come on. You’re drunk.”

Ring…

“There’s no harm in a phone call, right?” Aliyah says, but her voice is shaky. She’s wrong, and they all know it.

Ri--

“Hello?” The reception is shitty, and the volume in the earpiece low, but with one word, Summer’s hooked all over again. She doesn’t say anything for several moments, the sound of her harsh breathing the only thing that transmits. There’s a long, tense moment where Summer tries to convince herself to hang up, but then Angel says, “Baby, is this you?” She hates the sob she releases into the phone from the simple words. She draws her bottom lip into her mouth to quiet the sound. Her girlfriends freeze, unsure of what to do.

“Y-yeah, it’s me.”

“You been drinking, mami?”

“Maybe.” Summer sways, and Aliyah is there, using her arm to prop her best friend up. It’s a silent act of support, a reminder that Angel isn’t and shouldn’t be the center of her universe. She has supportive friends, a loving family. She doesn’t need him.

“Where you at? I’ll come get you.” She doesn’t need him, but she’s tempted to tell him to meet her back at Jasmine’s place. It’s only a ten-minute ride from his place, five minutes if he speeds the way she knows he does.

Speeds the way he did when she caught him at Vicki’s with Adelita. He had been acting shady for months, whispering on the phone, keeping odd hours. She had felt like a crazy woman when she put the tracker on his bike, but her intuition was validated when she saw his location. She followed him, expecting to find him with one of Vicki’s girls. Instead, she found him there with Adelita and her protruding belly, rubbing it with his large, ringed hands like a doting father. Like they were some happy fucking family.

Summer had nearly lost her mind, knocking over furniture, breaking bottles from behind the bar. Luckily for them, EZ caught her wrist and restrained her. The sight of Angel shielding that woman, protecting her when he hadn’t protected her feelings, was ingrained in her mind. Realizing that all the men she regarded highly and looked up to as older brothers and uncles had been lying, and helping Angel hide his cheating, was something she would never forget.

Being betrayed like that should have been enough to make her stop loving him, but... it just wasn’t. Summer often found herself wondering what was wrong with her. Why did she pine after a man that hurt her so badly? Sure, Angel’s handsome, and funny, and sweet, and really, really good in bed, but he’s not good. Not for Summer.

She sniffles into the phone, “I don’t want you to. I don’t want you.” She tries to will the words to be true, but the tears gliding down her face tell a different story.

“Why call me then?”

“Too much liquor.”

He snorts out a laugh but then pauses as if considering something. “Yeah, me too.” Summer swears she can make out the sound of Gilly shouting something in the background, but maybe she’s so drunk that she’s imagining things. Maybe she’s making it all up in her head because she longs for their relationship back. She always finds herself back at square one when it comes to Angel, wishing things could go back to how they were, that she could erase all the bad and keep all the good.

You see the night's the time when the needs come out

When your needs come out to breathe

And the jonesing starts and there ain't no way you can sleep, ooh

“You hurt me.” Summer doesn’t bother to hide her bitterness. She knows Angel won’t acknowledge the words because the only pain he can recognize is his own.

“Summer, why are you calling?” His voice has an edge to it this time. He’s daring her to make a decision, pick a side. Either she wants to be with him, or she doesn’t. His gruff tone, the callousness with which he says the words should make her want to turn away from him.

Instead, it makes her heart lurch.

She feels desperate to hold onto him, so she says, “'Cause I-I...I love you.”

Notes: The prompt is from @autumnleaves1991-blog Weekly Writing Challenge. Summer Walker - Drunk Dialing...LODT & Bobby Womack - If You Think You’re Lonely Now inspired this fic. Let's all pretend you don't have to pay to use a pay phone lol. Do you like to see moodboards/covers for fics? Please let me know. Hope you all enjoy!

General Taglist:

@woahitslucyylu @briannab1234 @sheeshgivemeabreak @breakingnewsin-no-oneasked @angelreyesgirl @blessedboo @glimmerglittergirl @apantherinmypastlife @brownsugarcoffy @marvelmaree @starrynite7114 @scuzmunkie @thewarriorprincessxo @sadeyesgf @pearlkitten33 @imanerdychubbyqueen @literaturefeen @ourlittlesecretsoveragain @everyhowlmarksthedead @yourwonkywriter @trulysuccubus @sparklemichele @luckyharley1903

Angel Reyes:

@claytoncardenasbabymama @adaydreamaway08

[rouiyan]

𝘌𝘚𝘗𝘌𝘊𝘐𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙𝘚 [ 𝘫.𝘫𝘩 ]

⧏ extra follow-up scene for someone to bring home ⧐

synopsis — jaehyun is your brother’s best friend, smart, good-looking, and above all, yours.

✧ medstudent!jung jaehyun x (fem.) reader (featuring older brother!johnny) ✧ established relationship au, college au, brother’s best friend au

✧ genres : fluff, angst ✧ word count : 1.6k ✧ disclaimers : discussion of fears, food.

you tilt your head to the skies outside. they're darkening, fast, and you wonder if your ride will be here in time to resuscitate some of the liveliness that has left your soul. surely enough, exam season proved to be the death of you and winter break was the single strand of hope you were holding out for. sighing, you tug the curtain back closed and look to your phone for the nth time that day, your lockscreen comes up blank.

fingers drumming against the handle of your suitcase, you busy yourself with roving your eyes over the lengths of your apartment once more in search of anything you might've missed. another short sigh is uttered and cut off when the rap of knuckles sounds at the door. you're rushing all of a sudden, how did you miss his car pulling into the parking lot when you've just barely parted your eyes from the window?

checking the peephole, something that should be second nature to any female living alone, is long forgotten as you swing the door open just as a second rap is about to ensue. the man on the other side is who you've been needing to see for the whole duration of the afternoon and the weeks leading up to it.

"hey, sorry, i got caught up with a bunch-"

an 'umph' replaces the rest of his words as you fling your arms around him. jaehyun reciprocates well, wrapping his own arms around your frame and bringing your bodies close, a tight-lipped kiss placed on the left of your forehead whilst mumbling into it, "missed me much?" a chortle of sorts escapes your own mouth, muffled by the thick fabric of his jacket, "been thinking about you all day." 

he gives your shoulder a pat, reminiscent of a 'bro pat,' and pulls from you, "we gotta get going, babe." you leave your fingers entwined with his as half of your body reenters your long-forgotten apartment to retrieve your suitcase, of which he takes charge of not a second after. your eyes are on the sky, once again, when the two of you exit the complex, and jaehyun can only question your glances. "something wrong?"

you don't mean to lie to him, but most certainly the words that tumble from your mouth pay no mind towards your sentiments, "nothing, i'm good."

but jaehyun knows you better, likes you more, than either of you are willing to admit. he lets the first half hour of the drive sit in silence. he understands that whatever's sitting on your mind will come to him when you need it to, he knows that you'll share. jaehyun looks over at the cross of your legs and the elbow propped under the window and head propped on your hand. in the faint light that lingers of the sun, he can make out the creases of your brow, the quivering demeanor that sits under the composure you let show. your boyfriend reaches a hand over to your left, lifting it from your lap, finger by finger, and into his palm with tenderness. 

you remove your stare out the window and onto him, his dark hairs falling into place across his forehead, head bobbing to the thrum of whatever song was playing in the background of your thoughts. he squeezes tight at the hand, and really, that's all you need to timidly, reassuringly, voice your worries.

"i'm not scared of the dark."

jaehyun waits for you to go on and, when you don't, shifts some of the weight of the conversation onto his shoulders, "i figured as much."

you find your voice a little while after, "and i'm not scared of driving either," musing along to your thoughts and allowing them to be aired aloud as they come, "it's just...things happen in the dark, and well, things happen all the time, but in the dark- you really don't know much when driving."

he's more just trying to nudge you along at this point than actually curious. "are you scared of hitting someone or being hit?" it's that feeling that comes when you care for someone, and when that someone is in the midst of opening up to you and the only thing you can do is receive them well, to reciprocate, to engage and make them feel heard. jaehyun loves the feeling of being the one with whom you open up to.

"both, i mean, what isn't there to be scared about when you're going 60, 70 miles per hours with little to no idea of what's in front of you?" a small, oblique smile etches on his expression, though facing forward, at the way your fingers halt their little trembles and the way your body is now aligned inwards, in his direction rather than out, towards the window. ever so diligent in choosing his words, he's also a great deal prudent in pronouncing his tone placidly when he supports, "perfectly rational."

kicking off a sandal, you hike a leg up onto the passenger seat, tucking it under your thigh and resting your and his entwined hands atop, "you think so? jieun always tells me it's dumb." 

"that's just because it doesn't apply to her, not because she doesn't think it can't apply to you." you wonder how your boyfriend articulates himself so well, even as his eyes are set forth and his other hand swerving the car into the lane beside. you nibble, unconsciously, on a fingernail, also looking out into the vast night before you. "then why did you say it's rational? you're fine with driving in the dark." you can't see a thing but you can hear jaehyun's low chuckle reverberate above the consistent hum of the engine and the whipping of wind, "because unlike your best friend, i have enough heart to pay regards to your fears."

at the lilt of his voice, you revert your sights from the black ahead and onto him. jaehyun doesn't look back; he's driving after all, but the little smile that plays on his lips tells you enough. "hm, i'll have to bring that up to her." there's this back and forth that passes between the two of you, something under the current of your conversation and something that you'll only pick up on when remembering back to this episodic memory. it's sure to be episodic. 

jaehyun doesn't respond, not for awhile, and you know him well enough to understand that silence is also a love language of his as well. it's a month that you've known him. you wouldn't say it felt like years, there were still years worth of things to discover about each other. rather, it feels like the only thing you understand, mutually and in the undercurrent, is that whatever it is that's playing between the two of you isn't just something in the moment, it's the knowledge that it'll be of the long run ahead.

it's like the feeling of when you first meet someone and you already know that they'll be your best friend. like the first chord of a song that you just know you'll never get sick of. the first whiff of a cologne that you know you'll never mind inhaling for the rest of your livelihood. the first month of a love you know will never fade, no matter the years, the miles apart, the fights, the fears.

you wonder if this is what it feels like for everyone else in the world whose first love is also their last. at least, this is what it feels like for you.

your eyes are on the moon when jaehyun breaches the silence, "you know, i'm sorry about today." head snapping to him at the sound of him speaking, you're pleased to see the moon so lovingly glints in the strands of his hair, his irises, the rings on his left hand, and his hand on the wheel. "what do you mean?"

the seeming afterthought of his seems to have been thought out quite well, for he answers almost instantaneously, as if it were at the tip of his tongue, waiting, "for picking you up late, of course." and though you are unrehearsed, you discern and voice your answer in a similar pace, "no, i'm glad you did."

"why is that?"

"because if you didn't then...we wouldn't have had the talk." 

this time, the smile that lights his features is in the crossroads of knowing and loving, understanding and reminiscence for a scene that passed less than an hour ago. jaehyun's hand is now clammy in yours, or yours in his, and he squeezes your palms together then, mortifyingly gross but somehow tolerable in the hands of only each other. a silly smile etched on your face, you glance down to note that the rings that clutter his left hand are absent on his right and that your left hand is bare of any such accessory whatsoever.

he catches the gaze and his smile morphs into one of adoration, affection, unadulterated fondness as he muses, the sound of his voice almost getting caught in the bleakness of silence, "a few years, love, i'll put something on that finger of yours, a few years."

and in a few years, indeed, johnny stands while jaehyun sits beside him. a fork is clinked to the rim of his champagne glass and the gazes of a hundred or so guests turn with intrigue in his direction. he really could go on about how his sister, the bride, had come to this point in her life where a ring would be slid on that finger of hers by none other than his best friend. he could go on about the pumpkin pie, the blanket, the text, the hand soap, the yogurt, the game night. but he doesn't.

instead, johnny, best man to the groom, jung jaehyun, simply announces into the echoes of the reception hall, "i called it."

copyright © 2020 rouiyan all rights reserved.

✧ end note — about an hour later than promised but it's all good (i'm supposed to be on a break anyways, remind me to never say that again because it will probably never hold true). anyways, i hope this tied it all together a little neater than i had left it; i'm quite pleased with how it turned out hehe. okay, have a splendid day, i'll see you around!

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Trollhunters: “the book” versus “the books”

The Book

Trollhunters, a standalone horror-suspense novel by Daniel Krauss and Guillermo del Toro. It inspired the animated series produced by Dreamworks. 

This is the story people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the novel, or, the original novel. 

A general and spoiler-tastic summary: 

In San Bernardino, California, Jim Sturges Junior and his best friend Tobias ‘Tub’ Dershowitz discover trolls are real, and that Jim’s dad had legit reason for his paranoia because James Senior’s older brother Jack really had gotten stolen by monsters when they were kids. Jack works with the trolls, fighting Gunmar alongside Johanna M. ARRRGH!!! and Blinky, and has not aged since disappearing. 

Now they’re recruiting Jim because being a Trollhunter is a matter of genetic predisposition - the amulet is solely a translation device - and it looks like Gunmar’s going to escape from where Jack imprisoned him and they’re going to have to actually kill Gunmar this time, so they need all hands on deck. 

Jim’s crush, Claire Fontaine, is one of several kids who go missing in the next few weeks. Those kids are luckily rescued before they can be eaten, and it turns out Claire has the same genetic predisposition for Trollhunting. 

Gunmar spawns many unnamed babies on the football field during his attack on the surface. Jim’s dad acts as a cavalry in that scene, mowing them down with a landscaping vehicle. Steve Jorgensen-Warner, the school bully, is exposed as a Changeling when forced to touch a football helmet for the rival team, who use a horseshoe logo. We never do learn exactly what was up with Professor Lempke, but he was involved in the rebuilding of Killaheed Bridge (respelled as Killahead in the show) and implied to also be a Changeling. 

The Books 

Dreamworks Trollhunters Tales of Arcadia, a series of six novels by Richard Ashley Hamilton written as supplementary material to the animated series. 

These are the stories people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the novels, plural. 

A general and spoiler-tastic summary: 

The Adventure Begins: overlaps the first couple of episodes, Jim discovering the Amulet and becoming the Trollhunter. Also has some bonus scenes, like Kanjigar pleading with the Amulet not to pick Draal as Kanjigar falls to his death, and Jim’s knife-spinning trick being to dry the blade after cleaning it, and Barbara meeting Claire and Claire revealing Jim got the part of Romeo but learning Barbara didn’t know he was auditioning and Barbara promising to act surprised when Jim tells her. 

Welcome to the Darklands: in the start of the gap between Seasons 1 and 2, showing what the kids told Barbara had happened to her house, how they got the Glamour Mask, what Jim’s first few days in the Darklands were like and some interesting characters he met there, and why Nomura ended up in Gunmar’s dungeon. 

The Book of Ga-Huel: some time in mid-Season 2, a Changeling polymorph tries to assassinate the main characters and Blinky has to thwart a prophecy that implies he will die. Uhl is allergic to iron and thus mistaken for said Changeling. 

Age of the Amulet: early Season 3, a broken Kairosect results in Jim, Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, Toby, and Claire getting sent back in time and fighting a Trollhunter who cracked under the pressure of the job and joined Gunmar. In the present, Vendel’s grandfather has been brought forward in time and wants to eat humans, and Eli attacks Gunmar while under the influence of a grit-shaka. (Previously misremembered in this post as Gravesand - thank you @goodfish-bowl for the correction.)

The Way of the Wizard: Merlin, despite supposedly having almost no power, tampers with the Shadow Staff so they can’t portal from his tomb back to Arcadia, and the cast meets Draal’s mom while walking home, but Draal’s body gets exploded (possibly to justify why he can’t be revived with the Creeper’s Sun antidote they used on AAARRRGGHH) and his soul ends up in the Void. Somehow this is supposed to show Merlin being nice? Porgon the Trickster, who appears in 3Below, is also in this novel. 

Angor Reborn: Jim turning into a troll was a gradual process after the bathtub teleported him to a lake in the forest. During this, he meets troll versions of Romeo and Juliet, befriends a wolf cub, considers running away to live in the wilderness because he can’t fit in among humans anymore, and fights Angor Rot. Meanwhile, Barbara yanks Merlin around by the beard searching for Jim. 

The Other Books 

Yes, there’s more. There were a few “bonus content” books released. These are less likely to be referred to by writers, but handy for artists. 

Jim Lake Jr.’s Survival Guide: A journal written by Jim about the events of Season 1, added to here and there by other characters. (Unlike most of the Tales of Arcadia spin-off books, this one is credited to Cala Spinner instead of Richard Ashley Hamilton.) 

A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore: Volume 48: A glossy book with screenshots and descriptions of key moments and artifacts in Trollhunters Season 1. Has a framing device implying it was somehow put together in the, what, twelve hours?, between Strickler leaving Arcadia and Jim going into the Darklands. There are a few pull-out pages. 

The Art of Trollhunters: A coffee table book with production notes and concept art from the show’s development. This one goes all the way through Season 3.

The Comics 

You know, while we’re here. The comics disconnect from what was established in the show in jarring ways sometimes (like Draal joining Kanjigar on Trollhunting missions in the comics, when the show says their relationship suffered because Kanjigar started avoiding Draal after being called as Trollhunter), but they’ve got some fun ideas in them. 

The comics were written before Wizards aired and do not share a continuity. In the comics, there were Trollhunters before Deya, Deya herself was Trollhunter for at least a hundred years before the Battle of Killahead took place, and Kanjigar was Deya’s immediate successor. 

These, obviously, are the stories people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the comics. 

The Secret History of Trollkind: Blinky tells Jim, Toby, and Claire about the Battle of Killahead Bridge, the trolls’ decision to leave Europe for the Americas, Deya the Deliverer’s death, Kanjigar’s first few centuries as a Trollhunter, with sidenotes about Blinky and AAARRRGGHH’s slow journey from enemies to acquaintances to friends. 

The Felled: After the events of ‘Hero With A Thousand Faces’, Jim returns the Aspectus Stone to Vendel, who tells Jim and Toby some stories about various past Trollhunters: Spar the Spiteful (who met an Akiridion, which I was expecting to come up in 3Below but did not), Maddrux the Many, Araknak the Agile (mentioned here as being one of Blinky’s ancestors), Unkar the Unfortunate, Deya the Deliverer (on a quest to punch Merlin in the face), and Kanjigar the Courageous. Jim then goes to fight goblins with Claire.

[fireinmywoods]

Can you explain trauma Kirk has in the cheating scene? Im new to star trek

Welcome!!! I hope you stick around for a while and become fully assimilated into the strange, delightful glory that is Trek fandom.

I can only speak for myself, but when I talk about Jim’s trauma, I’m referring to two main components (under the read-more for discussion of childhood abuse and Tarsus):

1. Jim’s abusive childhood

There’s a deleted scene from Jim’s childhood in the first movie in which his older brother Sam is shown running away from home. It‘s made clear that the “man of the house” Frank is at the very least verbally and emotionally abusive to both kids, and based on baby Jimmy’s reaction to Frank getting in his face, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that it had or would later escalate to physical violence.

[Note: Because AOS and especially the extended universe are a hot mess, some pseudo-canon sources describe Frank as their uncle (Winona’s brother) while others have him as their stepfather. I’ve gone with stepfather, because I think it better explains why they stayed in that situation as long as they did.]

Sam says their mom doesn’t understand how Frank treats them when she’s not around (i.e., off-planet with Starfleet), which makes the case for a certain amount of neglect as well. Then there’s the AOS tie-in comic Operation: Annihilate, which shows the aftermath of the car incident, and in which Winona is pretty grossly depicted as an enabler of Frank’s abuse, telling Jimmy that Frank just gets mad sometimes and that he basically needs to suck it up and live with it. For the record, this comic is not part of my personal canon, as I think the exchange I’m describing is lazily characterized and does Winona unnecessarily dirty. (“He’s given us a home” - motherfucker, it’s a post-scarcity economy and you work for Starfleet! Get a goddamn apartment!) That said, I do think Winona bears significant responsibility for leaving her kids in that situation, since the most charitable read is that she wasn’t paying enough attention to realize how Frank was treating them. (I know at least one of my fandom friends disagrees on this point, and I’ll acknowledge that I have a dirty lens when it comes to childhood abuse and the enabling thereof. Your mileage may vary.)

Anyway. In this version of events, Jimmy doesn’t steal the car because he’s some innately shitheaded out-of-control rebel like the final cut suggests. In fact, Sam’s exposition tells us that up until this point Jimmy has been an exceptionally obedient, rule-following, “good” child. Here, he steals the car because Sam leaving and his own realization that he’s never going to be good enough to make Frank happy makes something in him snap. It’s a powerful moment which greatly enhances Jim’s characterization, and if you ask me it’s frankly criminal that they deleted this scene.

2. Tarsus IV

TOS Kirk is a canonical survivor of a famine and genocidal massacre on the colony Tarsus IV. Here again canon is a bit of a mess when it comes to Tarsus IV, and fanon has taken that canon and gone absolutely hog wild with it, but it is firmly established that Jim was just 13 at the time, which...woof. That’s dark as hell.

Now, it is not official AOS canon that this version of Jim was on Tarsus IV at the time of the massacre, but it’s also not official that he wasn’t. My take, which I think is shared by many in fandom, is that AOS Jim was sent there to live with family after the car incident as a sort of “get your head straight” move, and also (in my opinion) because Winona finally started cluing in that it probably wasn’t a great idea to leave him alone with Frank.

The TOS extended universe further establishes that Jim was understandably pretty messed up after the events of Tarsus, and that his father’s intervention was crucial to helping him recover and setting him on the path toward Starfleet and the Enterprise. In AOS, of course, George isn’t around to provide that support, and Jim’s already learned that he can’t rely on his mom, and he’s maybe stuck living with fucking Frank again. All of this builds on his earlier trauma in really terrible ways, and he never has the opportunity to actually heal from any of it.

Aftermath: PTSD and the cheating scene

Again, the abuse and Tarsus IV are both semi-canonical at best. However, I’d argue that they should be considered canon, because Jim’s character arc makes a lot more sense when they’re included. This double whammy of unresolved trauma and the almost total absence of emotional support go a long way toward explaining how the boy who grows up to be TOS Kirk in one timeline instead grows into the Jim Kirk we meet at the bar in 2255 of the Kelvin timeline - a “repeat offender,” reckless, directionless, emotionally detached, quick to meet violence with violence, and so very, very angry.

That’s why the scene where Spock lays into Jim for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru is so painful to me. Jim is up on display at the front of this hall, being stared at by basically everyone he knows, and Spock is criticizing him for missing the point of the exercise - specifically, lecturing him about needing to experience fear and control his reaction to it. Imagine how that would land for someone with as much trauma as Jim is carrying, who endured all he did as a powerless child, and who (in my telling of things) suffers to this day from panic attacks as a result. It’s, uh...it’s not great.