#maybe his parents gave him some trauma too so he just accepts it

[shower-phantom-ideas]

God can u imagine bruce just having this blank face of confusion. Then maybe he thinks the other ghost was messing with him so he just admits to Phantom what happened. Like “hey chum im sorry I didn’t mean to step all over you like that it’s just some ghost kidnapped me and told me you are two years old? Told me you imprinted on me and im your parent now. He seemed so serious I believed it. I don’t wanna be a helicopter parent. I will try to respect your boundaries bucko”

Queue Danny getting his cute lil green blushy cause wtf he imprinted on The Batman!!! Who told Batman his dead age?!??? Oh geeze how awkward.

“Uhhhh ok so listen. Im not “two years old” thats just my death age so im 16 ok”

Batman gets a moment of relief until it clicks that this kid died at 14. Hes always around too so does that mean he is alone? No one else to go to? Is Batman the first one to show compassion to the point the kid would imprint on him??!? Jail ghost said Phantom picked him so does this mean Bruce is the first person Phantom saw as a parent figure. Oh god but he was horrible to him in the beginning. What kinda after life this kid been living.

The Batman gets locked up in walkers prison! 😲

Walker left the zone to arrest him too why? Because clearly he is neglecting the child king! Smh. 😔 Walker greatly respects the rules but now that King Phantom is in place he respects something more. This child has brought order back to the zone (not really he kinda just wrote off some rules for Walker to enforce to get him out of his hair) and even after Walker imprisoned him too! So now hes back to his old ways of bending the rules to fit his whims. But this weird Bat Man person is deserving of a harsh punishment, that or a good thrashin’, for how hes done gone and treated their new King! Can’t the man tell the boy has a familial bond with ‘em? For cryin out loud the youngin already gave em core charm! No all the others can clearly see plain as day that hes apart of the boys family. (Danny made Batman an ice ward that helps protect from other ghosts… or so he thought oops it’s telling all the other ghosts that hes Danny fam)

Yet despite all this the man still is refusing to bring the kid into his fold. You don’t just go on and do that to a young one. Their King is only a baby and now this man has gone and ignored him like hes plans to go out to get some milk and never come back. Can’t he see how this is affecting his development? Walker wont have anyone doin that to his ghost King No Sir. Hes gonna education this man himself if he has to. Rehabilitation is something he can do. It’s within his jurisdiction after all.

[thebirdsandthebats]

Okay @s-p-r-i-n-g-t-i-m-e I’m sure you know plenty BUT I’m going to use your wonderful and hilarious comment on this as an excuse to talk about Bernard, bc I realized recently that there are plenty of ppl who haven’t read most of the comics he’s been in. So get ready for my long overdue:

UNPACKING BERNARD DOWD + HIS TRAUMA (for those who cannot keep up with comics but want to get to know him)

So to start, Tim met Bernard years ago ofc, when they were in high school. It’s established pretty quick that Bernard is an extremely Unserious guy LMAO, the first thing he does is literally circle Tim and try to feel him out socially, see what kind of guy he is. He’s the kind of guy who gets himself in trouble with his big mouth, and seems to enjoy poking at Tim and testing his patience. By the time we meet Bernard again in the recent years, he’s grown a lot, but at his core he’s still the light-hearted, fun, goofy guy with very strong opinions. Just less stand-offish, maybe

Throughout the time Tim spends at this school though, Bernard does experience some wild shit. He lost Darla (somebody he really cared about), he experienced a shooting at his school, and then Darla came back from the dead, kind of scared the hell out of him, and used him to contact Tim again. It was kind of played for laughs, but like. That’s gotta fuck you up. (Robin #140)

Obviously this is the kind of thing that maybeee has a lasting effect on you. And BECAUSE Tim Drake: Robin got cut so short and the writer had to rush to wrap up the series, we’re left to fill in a lot of gaps and draw conclusions about the years we didn’t see Bernard ourselves. But we absolutely get some insight as to his life after Tim left that school and we stopped seeing him in the comics. Spoiler alert: it was hard.

In TDR, Bernard discusses the the cult that he’d been in that Tim saved him from in Urban Legends. He says that “he’d accepted himself”, but others hadn’t. Obviously there’s the natural reading that he means his queerness (which has me chewing through drywall), but I think that he’s speaking very broadly too. Bernard is a very odd example of a civilian, because he’s always getting dragged into things much bigger than him. And even before that, he had his big ideas, his conspiracies, his loud personality. He tended to rub people the wrong way in high school. Then in issue #7 of TDR (the Bernard pov issue my most beloved, weird pacing aside) Bernard refers to this “oozy, sticky feeling” that he ALWAYS feels when Tim isn’t around. He says when he’s alone it’s harder to put one foot in front of the other. To keep GOING. To wake up every day.

I think that Bernard has always felt like an outcast. (Robin #121, he doesn’t fit into any clique). He wasn’t as okay with it as he acted. And I think he wasn’t getting any attention from his parents. (Batman: Urban Legends #5, Bernard’s parents nonchalance to the days leading up to his kidnapping)

So just like Bernard explained to Tim, that feeling got bad. and he wanted to let go. The chaos monsters, the cult, all of it was a means to an end. But then Tim agreed to see him again, and I think that sparked something in him. Because he started learning to fight. When he was tied down to that alter and Tim was saving him, I think it fully sank in to Bernard that he didn’t want to die. Reconnecting with Tim gave him hope and made him really feel something good for the first time in ages.

So now that they’re dating after the cult fiasco, we get to know this current Bernard. A less goading, maybe calmer Bernard. But he’s still himself, of course, rambling about his ideas and making bad jokes and sticking to his guns (he has NEVER been a pushover, no idea where people get that idea?). I think a lot of people complained that Bernard mellowed out too much in terms of attitude, but I think if he seems “nicer” it’s because 1) he’s grown now. It’s been a while since we last saw him, and he’s clearly changed a lot. And 2) because he’s dating Tim now. He likes him a lot, and he’s an affectionate partner. He wants to lift Tim up.

But the fact that he was pulled into a cult still remains. And as lighthearted as Bernard tries to be, that traumatic experience still happened. It said in Urban Legends #5 while Tim was searching for him that Bernard had welts on his arms and legs and had been acting different, so it’s not like he was just snatched up on a whim. He’d spent significant time there. For those who haven’t read much abt the ways cult trauma specifically can fuck you up, I recommend doing a search if you’re in a good headspace for that and want to understand him more. because it’s pretty bad.

And then! yeah. you guessed it. Bernard gets kidnapped again. Chained up next to a BOMB that’s counting down. RIGHT WHEN HE’S WORKING ON HEALING FROM ALMOST BEING SACRIFICED BY A CULT.

And surely this can’t get crazier. He’s almost died twice in the past 6 months. except, remember his parents? In TD:R #7, we really see a little more of his relationship with his parents. He doesn’t live up to their standards, and his dad specifically seems to just want to argue with him. The restaurant they’re at is attacked, and everything goes to shit, and. you know, I think these panels really speak for themselves.

And for the record, when it’s revealed that everyone is seeing their worst fears, Bernard’s parents fears are not about him.

So now Bernard has to deal with that. And we start to see that Bernard is really not as okay as he’s tried to be. He keeps a baseball bat by his door because he’s been kidnapped twice now. And just when he’d likely thought things couldn’t get worse, he heard the Chaos Monsters were back. I can’t imagine he feels safe. He lashes out for the first time since all this has happened and yells at Kate and Tim, because while they’re doing what they feel is necessary to save more people (AND I DONT BLAME THEM AT ALL), Bernard can’t talk about it.

And I will forever be sad and insist that TD:R got cancelled too soon, just before we could get into the really juicy stuff, because things had to be wrapped up pretty quick and this was the only comic Bernard was consistently appearing in. But when Tim is giving himself up to the chaos monsters, Bernard goes out and rallies anyone he knows can help. Things were rushed because there was no more time to flesh out the story the way it could have been, but I’m including these panels just because I love Bernard Audacity Dowd using a fucking flashlight and shadow puppet to call Batman. geeking out for a minute. And then leading the battalion to save Tim with a SLEDGEHAMMER. gay people rule.

So yeah! While I see the vision of how a lot of Bernard’s trauma was meant to be semi-resolved and let him come to peace after saving Tim back, we just didn’t have the time for him to heal properly. I’d give anything to get inside his brain again. UHH IF YOU READ THIS I HOPE YOU LOVE BERNARD NOW and don’t come at me if I left something out, some of my comics aren’t with me rn. Bonus TimBer for the road:

[kinardsevan]

spinning bottles (i ain't got a guy for that)

(or read on ao3)

Tommy Kinard was the guy with all the answers, at least to all of his friends. He was the one that got the phone call when someone needed their car fixed, when they needed last-minute tickets to an event, when they were trying to figure out the maintenance on a rotary-winged machine. He was the guy that people called when they needed a shoulder because, when he was willing to let them in, he was a damn good listener. He was the guy who, on more than one occasion, had picked up the phone for his old army buddies at 3 AM, only to find out they were out at a dive somewhere, well past bar-close because they’d drunk themselves to the bottom of a keg trying to forget shit they’d done half a world away.

But he was also the guy that stared at his phone without answers or a person to call when it was him buried inside a bottle. He was the guy that fixed his own problems, was desperately trying to find a way to spend his time in the air when he wasn’t on shift. He was the guy that couldn’t get it together for his girlfriend of two years when she needed him to get it together the most. And that felt like everything else was just fucking failure.

He tilts up the bottle of Jack to his lips and takes another long sip from it, staring emotionlessly at the beige walls inside his bathroom.

“You gonna pop the question soon, kid,” his dad had commented, the last time they’d talked on the phone. Tommy never called the man out of interest to have a real conversation, but anytime his father called, he still felt some ridiculous need to fulfill a sanctimonious duty of being a good son to the man who couldn’t give two fucks that he’d made it back from Iraq alive. Robert Kinard hadn’t ever been the kind of parent that gave a damn about his kid. He called when he had something to brag about, or worse when he wanted Tommy to give him the details on a publicized save he’d been a part of so that he could use it as water cooler talk. His father didn’t give a damn that coming home from Iraq came with demons. He didn’t care that fighting fires for a living came with scars and loss. He didn’t care that Tommy wasn’t a machine that could just turn everything off, regardless of the fact that he’d raised him to be exactly that way.

Tommy Kinard had been the equivalent of a wildflower growing out of concrete from day one. He’d never fit into the mold of what three generations of Kinard military men expected him to be. He was too soft, too friendly, too giving. And certainly, the military, Captain Gerrard, and his own mother had managed to pick away at the pieces of those parts of his personality. But it never took too long for people to get to the core of who he’d always been if they were willing to try. Howie had been proof of that.

He drops his skull back against the wall, closes his eyes.

Abby deserved better. She still deserves better. He knew she was already going through it with everything happening with her mom. Worse, he knows she needs a partner she can count on in the midst of everything going on. He wishes to God he could be that person.

The problem is, he’s never been enough, not even for her. He could never rise to the bar that’s been set for him in this life, meet her in the light and the darkness and be the kind of man she deserves. Is that his fault? He used to think it was because of all the compounded trauma. That maybe if he just found a way to deal with it all, face the ways in which he was never good enough for his father, and how his mother’s love seemed to turn on a dime (the dime being his father’s presence), maybe he’d finally be good enough.

Except. At some point you have to own it all, right? You have to accept that other people aren’t the problem, you’re just not capable of being the person you should be.

Maybe that would be okay if he wasn’t always failing everyone, all the time.

“I’m sorry,” he’d told her that morning, and he’d meant it. He really was sorry. He was sorry she was losing so much at once. He was sorry he’d lied to himself again, that he could fall in love with a woman, be the person she needed, settle down, and get married. He was sorry he was failing another person that he’d promised he would be better to. He was sorry that he was never enough.

. . .

“Kinard.”

Bobby’s voice cuts through his thoughts like a scalpel through skin, straightening his spine instantaneously as he nears the men’s locker room. He turns, spots his captain standing some fifteen feet away next to the ladder truck.

“Yeah,” he calls back.

“Come see me when you’re on shift.”

He lets out a huff, but doesn’t argue the issue. Rushes through getting ready for the day, into his uniform and then brushing his teeth as a last-ditch attempt to cover up the smell of alcohol on his breath. He’d already had several cups of coffee and gargled with mouthwash before leaving home. (No one needed to know if he threw a shot of Jack into that coffee.)

He exits the locker room as Howie enters along with a few other guys coming onto shift, heads up to the loft, and over to Bobby’s office. Knocks twice, waits on the call-back that it’s okay to enter. He pushes the door open a crack.

“Cap?”

Bobby waves him in, moving paperwork around on his desk. “Come on in, Kinard. Close the door behind you.”

Tommy nods, sliding through the door and closing it as ordered. He crosses the room and takes one of the chairs in front of Bobby’s desk. He rubs his palms against his pants, trying to lose the sweatiness caused by the anxiety of this meeting. No one just asks for a one-on-one first thing if it isn’t serious.

“Look, I’m keen to let you leave whatever personal business happens outside of these four walls to yourself,” Bobby tells him. “But you gotta get it together, kid.”

Tommy flinches a little, clears his throat.

“I’m not finished,” Bobby adds. He takes a long breath, shuffles more papers on his desk before he lifts one, moves it across the desk towards Tommy. His gaze falls to the sheet. He recognizes it.

“Transfer? Bobby-..”

“I said I wasn’t finished,” Bobby continues, just a tinge of admonishment in his tone. “I’m not kicking you out of here, Kinard. But it seems to me that you’re going through something, and I don’t know. But maybe you’ve been going through it for a while. Now, maybe I’m wrong, but sometimes a new scenery can provide a new perspective. I know you’ve talked about pursuing your FAA licenses off-shift, and a new position is opening up over at the 217,” he explains.

Tommy glances down at the sheet again, considering what Bobby is telling him. A new firehouse across town, where he doesn’t know anyone and nobody knows him. A fresh start. A place he could fly, both literally and figuratively.

He looks up at Bobby apprehensively. “You-…but you said-..”

Bobby shakes his head. “Your work has still been acceptable, Kinard,” he comments. “You’re toeing a fine line right now. What I’m saying is…if you want out, there’s a door.”

Tommy nods, looking back down at the sheet. The weight of it all is a lot to take on and consider.

“I know Raglan over at Harbor has you on his radar,” Bobby adds. “Anyone else they get in there is going to have to start flight training from scratch. And I’m not at all saying that the 118 doesn’t need you. But maybe you need the 217 more than we need you.”

. . .

Tommy Kinard is the guy everybody calls. He’s the guy they call when their car is making a funny noise. He’s the guy they ring when they miss out on buying tickets to the fight in Vegas and need a quick connection. He’s the guy his friends reach out to when they need to fly out into the middle of nowhere on a hunch with almost no evidence.

He’s the guy who picks up the phone when they need all of those things.

He’s the guy who picks up the phone and calls his new friend after an awkward basketball game ending and a tour that feels like it’s filled with innuendos. He’s the guy who puts all the effort into showing up for the boy he just started dating because something about all the conversations they haven’t had yet still tells him that being shown up for is important to him.

He’s the guy who had to figure out how to set himself free, maybe at the suggestion of his former captain, maybe a little bit of his own volition. He’s the guy who could only watch with adoration when he watched his boyfriend hurdle through all the steps of coming out in a few weeks when it took him years.

He’s the guy who sat down some five years ago and wrote Abby a letter, mailed it off to her brother, and told her that she had deserved so much better than who he was all those years ago. Mentioned that he’d heard through the grapevine that she was getting married and he only wished the best for her.

Eight years later, he wakes up to sunlight streaming through Evan’s windows, small shadows falling across the pillows from wayward curls. Their legs are tangled, the younger man’s arm tossed over Tommy’s torso while his head is buried against the juncture of his shoulder. His fingers tangle through the curls as he leans in, and kisses Evan’s forehead. The blond hums softly against him, eyebrows raising and then scrunching as his muscles tense and then loosen, his body letting go of the last dregs of sleep.

His blue eyes flutter open, staring straight ahead for just half a second before he tilts his head up on Tommy’s shoulder, smiling wearily at him.

“Morning,” he murmurs, sleep laced around his throat.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Tommy murmurs back at him. He shifts minutely, his spine popping with the movement, but doesn’t move away. Evan presses harder into his side and he chuckles. “Have a good dream, did you?”

Evan yawns, pushes up on his elbow to gain a little leverage, and then lifts his free hand up, fingers capturing Tommy’s chin before he leans down and kisses his boyfriend, morning breath be damned.

“Always having good dreams when I’m next to you,” he states softly between kisses. “Think you can help me solve my problem?”

Tommy smirks into the kiss, tilting up onto his side on the bed before flipping them over, leaning into the kiss for a few seconds before pulling away as Evan grinds his hips up, his mouth finding Tommy’s trapezius muscle.

“Mmm,” Tommy moans softly, biting down on the hinge of Evan’s jaw before he leans up into his ear. “I think I’ve got a guy for that.”

[orbital-obvious]

The Batman (2022) thoughts [pt 2/?] FRIENDS AND FAMILY (w Spoilers)

Kinda squeezing opinion about Batman Allies (mainly Selina) and Bruce's family (which includes his parents and Alfred) into one post but we'll live.

Martha Wayne being a woman with mental health issues that had to have gone to several mental facilities felt like a revelation. I am kinda sad I didn't see more discussions about it in the tags. ESPECIALLY since a lot of her anguish stemmed from Trauma and being so close to the public eye. This is intensifies tenfold if if you relate it to theories like "Bruce is Autistic". Because, HELLO, Martha's family probably viewed her as "wrong" if she exhibited neurodivergent behavior and I keep thinking about possible parllels between her and her son and Thomas accepting her as she is and ahhhhhhh. MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.

Selina Kyle felt much more down to earth in this, which I was thankful for. She felt very... not REALISTIC, rather un-fantastical. She is not Catwoman YET, and is weirded out by costumed weirdo Batman and that made their interactions a lot more potent. The movie also did away with some Catwoman-isms I don't like, what my friend reffered to as "too sexy to be alive".

Actually, I felt as if the movie used wigs to have a visual representation of Selina going into a "role" - being sexy, looking innocent, etc etc, while her no-wig look came into play when she was more her real self - which is part of the movie theme of identity.

That is not to say that Selina wasn't MESMERIZING, btw. They gave her this sparkly/flakey eyeshadow that reflected the light so prettily and made her shine.

Selina red wig look was the best Selina wig look. Gosh, Kravitz made that plastic wig WORK. ALSO NARRATIVE IMPORTANCE. The movie heavily associates black-red with the Batman, so Selina wearing a red wig and black outfit is singling that she is working with the Batman.

no "Hello boys!" from Selina. Thank fuck. Also I kind of enjoyed a version of this character that is not overtly flirtatious. Her romantic moments felt kind of sweet, actually. (I'm going to think about Bruce going "Selina?" when the eyecam gets turned on forever)

So..... Selina and Anika (her "friend" that also worked in the club) were dating, right?

I greatly enjoyed this version of Alfred. It was a diversion from the usual interpretation but I think still managed to capture the character's essence. Alfred is Bruce's father (Bruce, keep your teenage-angst-at-30 for yourself, please) - and I enjoyed his prodding trying to get Bruce Wayne to function like a person in society (level: impossible)

There is more staff than just Alfred - Dory the housekeeper, who also seems like a person who was with the family before the Waynes murder. I don't know why, but I really liked this addition. Maybe becasue it allowed my next point, which is-

It's never was outright said, but I got the feeling like Alfred was the Waynes bodyguard, not butler. Which makes a lot more sense in this more "grounded" universe. It also explains why Alfred was so torn about their death and gives better reasoning as to why he felt it was his duty to protect young Bruce. It's not only Bruce the death is eating up, but also Alfred, and perhaps even more so (as Alfred said, Bruce was just a kid). HOWEVER, I think Alfred dealing with those intense emotions and still not spiraling to WHATEVER Bruce had going on makes him a good foil to Bruce and a better mentor/father figure.

I was legit scared they were gonna kill Alfred. Not only cause I LIKE Alfred, but because I could not even begin to fathom the abyss Bruce would have spiraled into.

Martha was an Arkham? Bruce have a connection to ARKHAM? that's a FAMILY? are they in charge of Arkham Asylum? Are any of them alive? I get that the point here was to be like "Bruce Wayne is the prince of Gotham" (as per Falcone- using Prince cause he's the king) but. Like. HUH?

Thomas Wayne was an idiot for consulting Falcone, and that is the best case senario of that predicament. Especially in a city like Gotham. But that's just the thing - Thomas panicked in how this could have affected Martha / Bruce (I fully believe Alfred when he said it wasn't about the campaign) and that made him act out stupid. It's humanizing.

While I think the death of the reporter was way beyond a reasonable reaction, what business does ANYONE have with Martha's mental health? Rhetorical question, of course. Falcone hinted it was a hit piece but tbh I think it was more like a scandalous "tea" and "drama" about a public figure. There is so much to say about the personal life of public personas, prejudice regarding mental health and especially mental health WITHIN the Batman stories. The movie really wasn't about that, but, you know, many thoughts.

[wrinkly-fucking-qtip]

i am neutral towards galladads (more so...towards no), but every so often i tangle with my personal takes (or what i'd love to see) and i wanna share. strap in, it's long. pt. 1

Ian doesn't push the thought of kids. They had a conversation about it after s11x12, but it took some time, it wasn't immediate. Basically, I think Ian relished the idea of being an uncle for a while. After all, it's always Mickey before anything.

They took care of Franny, Freddie (+upcoming kiddo), and Liam when they were asked to as favors. It subconsciously became this mental practice for them. Some unspoken tension kept rising, cause they felt the other was thinking the same thing but went unmentioned. Partially cause Ian decided not to press, and doing so meant breaking that threshold.

I think Mickey brought it up one day probably, Ian felt somewhat defensive at first, but since he always reminds Mickey about the importance of "communication," it'd bite him in the ass, so he gave in and spoke his truth. They had another conversation about it that ended in an agreement to see a "shrink." They started going, it was a deconstruction of years of trauma, fears, repressed emotions, y'know the drill.

Considering that they were between 25-27 when the show ended, I think they engaged in "intense" therapy for like 5-7 years maybe. Trying to talk through the bulks of it, for the purpose of parenting in the near future.

Through that time, they first contacted Debbie, had thoroughly researched artificial insemination (pls mickey thinking he would have to bang Debbie makes me cry 💀), had a lengthy talk with her. I haven't reached shameless far enough to know Debbie's character, but I think she probably gives them informed advice, a lot of "you guys sure you wanna do this??" And I don't think it stems from a place of objection, more so worry. I like to think she eventually caves in and accepts to help them when they're ready. She loves Ian, Ian loves Franny and Debbie (fuck JW for making it seem like he doesn't in s11) and Mickey and Debbie are besties.

(this is a huge reach but I ponder nonetheless) After thinking of Debbie, I think maybe Ian thinks of Mandy. I fully believe (like many other people) that Ian kept in touch with Mandy from time to time ever since she left, and at some point encouraged her and Mickey to reconnect. It's a slow process, but he knows both of them needed it and yearned for it deep down.

He breaks the news to her that they're gonna be parents at some point, sort of fills her in on the process and the years of therapy, gets Mickey to tell her anecdotes too or whatever. The thing is, at some point in the conversation, he yaps about how he has always wanted two, a boy and a girl (because Ian is a dork like that). That Debbie is only gonna do this once for now because...well that was the agreement, ofc, and he just doesn't wanna overwhelm Mick with two kids of their own even though that's what they practically baby sit.

Jokingly (at first), Mandy offers herself as a surrogate in case they aim for another kid. Ian sheepishly declines, that he couldn't ask her after everything she's been through, but Mandy reassures him that shit is different now. Times have changed, and that even though it's a big deal, she'd comply. Ian says he'll think about it, talk with Mick in case shit does happen as to not spook him. It was a pleasant talk.

He talks to Mickey and at first he doesn't know how to handle the thought of two kids, one of them from Mandy, and he almost feels like all this time in therapy could crumble down at the thought of Mandy being a surrogate. They have a long ass talk.

At the end Mickey affirms that he is open to the responsibility of two kids. The whole thing goes like Ian telling him he doesn't have to do this, that he's fine with just one and that he doesn't have to comply just because Ian would love two kids, and Mickey being like "all these years and you still don't get it through your thick skull that you ain't making me do anything I don't want to" (affectionately ofc). He reassures Ian that if he's making these decisions with him it's because he wants to, and he admits he owes a lot of it to that "shrink" they go to he's come to appreciate. It was a lovely conversation tbh and many fears and goals were shared between them.

[princess-of-the-corner]

CC!NextGen

So, in general, Naomi’s adoption, as follows -

Naomi: “Excuse me? Miss Bat?”

Himiko: *takes one look and tries to ignore her instinctive reaction of ‘something is wrong/pinging of my Trauma™’* “Hey kiddo! What’s up?”

Naomi: “Do you think I could be a Hero? Even if I have a villain’s Quirk?”

Himiko: *concerned, but still ignoring the more insistent voice saying 'this is familiar’* “Well, anyone can be a Hero, and there’s no such thing as a villain’s Quirk! Quirks aren’t Heroic or Villainous, they’re just Quirks! All that matters is how we use them. Who told you yours was a 'Villain’s’?”

Naomi: “My parents.”

Himiko, internal: *mini-Himiko slams her fist onto a big red button labelled TRAUMA. Def-Con alarms start blaring, red lights flash, “-all personal, please move to your emergency stations-”*

Himiko: *deep breath, bright smile* “What’s your name, kiddo?”

*a walk 'home’*

“WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF HARRY POTTER BULLSHIT IS THIS!?”

*a few hours later*

Kimiko: “Dad’s back!”

Sato: “Hey munchkins! Himi, I picked up the extr- who’s this?”

Himiko: “That’s Naomi-”

Naomi: “Hi!”

Himiko: “-She lives here now.”

Sato: “O … K, and her parents are-?”

Himiko: “Us.”

Sato: “… since-?”

Himiko: “Three hours ago.”

Naomi, excited: “Bat-Mom said I don’t have to sleep in the closet anymore!”

Sato: “… ah.”

Tooru: “Ok, so does anyone know why Eri just gave me a bunch of her old clothes? Cause Kenichi doesn’t like cats that much, and Kimiko’s too tal- who’s this?”

Sato: “Naomi. She lives here now.”

Naomi, spontaneously growing a cat’s tail and ears: “KITTY-SHIRT!!”

to expand, Naomi tracks down Himiko after a villain fight to ask if she can be a hero with a “villain’s Quirk”, because Himiko technically has a “villain’s Quirk” too, so she’d know, right? Himiko gets a vaguely uncomfortable feeling on meeting Naomi, but tries to ignore it. She occasionally gets similar feelings when meeting certain people, mostly kids, who ping something that reminds her of her childhood. And nine times out of ten, the feeling leads to nothing, or nothing that requires Hero intervention, so she does her best to ignore it, or at least manage it. Then Naomi drops “My parents said I have a villain’s Quirk” and Himiko’s Trauma™ button gets slammed HARD. She needs to do something. Because the fight is all wrapped up, and Himiko’s patrol is done for the day, she offers to walk Naomi home. Naomi, of course, is thrilled with this, and accepts.

So, Himiko is trying to rationalize to herself. Naomi is setting off more warnings the longer they talk, but Himiko doesn’t actually KNOW anything for certain. She’s also aware that her experience wasn’t exactly normal, and also leads her to jump to conclusions on occasion. She’s planning on having a talk with Naomi’s parents, see if she can suss things out, maybe get them access to certain resources. Maybe call in another Pro, just so she has an objective party.

The 'talk’ lasts about ten minutes, during which time the parents are insulting, cruel, shout at Naomi for bringing an “Evil Hero” home, and try to lock Naomi in a hallway closet, which is apparently what happens when Naomi does something her parents don’t like. She only gets to sleep in her room when she’s been “good”.

Given they do all of this IN FRONT of Himiko, it takes very little time to have the pair arrested. Himiko then proceeds to call Saito - I Headcannon her old crush grew up to be a social worker, who somehow ended up specializing in helping Heroes who find kids, he and Himiko are friends now - and tells him what happened, and that she’s adopting Naomi, can he get the paperwork for that started, please? Shinso was at the agency when Himiko calls back to tell them what happened, he says he’ll send Eri over with some of her old clothes. Himiko then goes to pick up Kenichi from daycare, Kimiko from school, and informs them they have another sibling now.

She doesn’t realize until Sato comes back from the store, Tooru from the agency, that she didn’t tell Tooru or Sato what happened, or that she’d started the process to adopt Naomi. Given the givens, neither are mad, mostly just concerned (for Naomi AND Himiko. After the kids are asleep, Tooru has to cuddle Himiko through a panic attack, while Sato deals with some phone calls and detail stuff Himiko kind of … “forgot”? She spent most of the day in a bit of a frantic haze, no one really blames her for stuff slipping. Though, she’s gonna be rolling up to her therapist appointment that week like, “Susie, you are not gonna BELIEVE this shit-!”). They are, of course, all for the adoption. Tooru is thrilled when Naomi calls her “Shine Mama”. Sato ends up as “Papa Sweets”, but given she started with calling him “Sugar Daddy”, he’ll take it.

At least one person congratulates Himiko on “pulling an Aizawa”. Someone else laments they’ve really lost money now, cause they bet Izuku or Shinso would be the first, but it was Tokoyami and Himiko instead. The amount of money they won is kind of obscene.

(It was Sero. He was NOT expecting to win those bets. Given the amount - these guys are Pro-Heroes now, the money matches - he basically just gives it over to the new parents, for anything the kids need.)

(Aizawa would be more annoyed, but he is currently in the middle of negotiating custody rights for Kuroba, so its not like they’re WRONG.)

(Also, Kuroba and Naomi are friends now. Best friends. Same age, similar backgrounds-ish. Given Naomi is usually the bright, happy-go-lucky, optimistic one, while Kuroba is the lazy cynic, people just look at Aizawa like, “are you SURE she’s not yours??”)

So, thoughts, feelings, opinions? Again, all suggestions, feel free to alter, change, or discard at leisure!

-

Ahahahahahahaahaha

Yeah I do think they’d need to have a long talk but GOD the fact that these fuckers really are just the kinda. ‘ah shit child in need guess they’re mine now’.

[jacenotjason]

hellooo!! helloo!! I have... I have TWO QUESTIONS!! 1. How would each of them react to someone being homophobic/transphobic towards them? 2. uhhh how would they react if they saw their parents? especially the ones that don't like/have never met parents (i was gonna put something else for the second one but uhhh i frogor uh oh)

OH BOY TWO QUESTIONS!! Ok lets all pray Tumblr doenst eat this its gonna be a lot

Ok first question, how would they react to someone being queerphobic to them?

Eddie: “mhm… sure…” he does not care. He deosnt really listen to people in the first place, the second you start trying to offend him he just tones you out. He does not give half a shit. Maybe if you keep talking.. a fuck will fall into his hand!

Poppy: being queerphobic to her?? Eh. Who cares. She lived through a homophobic cult and also bigoted parents, shes got tough skin. Being queerphobic to her children? PREPARE TO CATCH THESE TALONS BIIIITCH

Julie: absolutely roasts you. She takes one look at you and digs up your nastiest trauma some how. Like this “ew a girl dating a girl thats gay (idk how to be homophobic)” “? *looks up and down* okay? I didn’t ask, go tell your mom. Oh, wait shes dead isn’t she? And your father isn’t even present, he left when you were 6 and you had to rely on your Grandfathers homophobic ideology and your Grandmothers abuse. I don’t care what you have to think.” Then the homophobe just lays on the floor in the fetal position.

Sally: “196.251.208.6” get doxxed.

Frank: he just starts crying :( then he goes and tells Eddie and hes gonna stab you

(How do you even be homophobic to someone questioning??) Barnaby: “I know my identity isn’t the root of your anger.. come here, sit down, lets talk it out..” uuuh free therapy? He just summons tea bc all grandpas have the ability to just summon tea

Howdy: i actually have no idea. Ik hes sort of gotten this reputation as violent but hes- guys hes pathetic. He probably just laughs at them and shoos them away, maybe pull the gun from under the counter if he needs to

OK ooo o this ones a little less fun.. if they met their parents

Eddie: quick Eddie lore he was raised in joint custody, his parents hate each other so… uhm.. were getting the gang back together! He’d probably just sit with his face in his hands as his parents fight like “Ohmygod.. guys stop” they blame each other for how Eddie ended up and hes like “Im literally right here”

Poppy: shes long gotten over her fear of her parents. She’s happy and thats all that matters, she’ll happily tell off her parents like a GIRLBOSS YEAAAHHH happily explain how she escaped the cult they sent her too and how happy she is rn

Julie: uhm.. Julie’s parents are dead. Next question. Lmao ok but fr if she like.. came back to life she’d be so happy :3 she, and all the other joyfuls, were raised by a single mom and Julie got all her “men are trash, defend urself, never be afraid to punch a man” type ideology from her mom and her mom was super accepting and she misses herrr :((

Sally: now you may think Sally has a terrible relationship with her parents.. but she doesnt :3 shes unable to see her mom (for agoraphobic, mental health, and also legal reasons) but she loves her a lot. Her mom did sort of raise her in shitty conditions, but Sally doesn’t blame her at all and misses her a lottt wah

Frank: no

Barnaby: ooohh no… so uuh lore for those that dont know, Barnaby’s parents gave him up to the “”””boarding school”””” when he was four and he doesnt remember them. He’d probably be happier then he should to meet them, but most definitely get gaslit by his parents :( like they have what Barnaby thinks is a normal conversation but really isnt.. someone stop it q-p

Howdy: he fuckin loves his dad!! And all his family!!! And he sees them regularly, so itd just be a normal visit

AAA big post ee

Also tumblr didnt eat it thank u tumblr

[everythingwasnormalhere]

i don't really wanna do much today so...

what about an analysis of I've Got You, Brother because i wanna rant about it >:3

(i've been thinking about all this a lot since I wrote it lol)

huge spoilers under the cut so please i beg you don't read it till you've finished the fic ;w;

probably the first scene of this fic i thought while knowing i wanted it to appear in it, was the scene after lucas' funeral. a while before that i already had the headcanon of kevin giving kenny that red scarf of his, but that scene, unlike this one, wasn't fully developed when i daydreamed it.

my kenny, slv kenny, has a lot of trauma as a kid, trauma that shapes his personality later on. yet, he's learned he needs to suck it up, not tell anyone - mainly because his uncle taught him so. lucas was gay indeed, stuart got that one right at least, but after he did what he did to kevin, he decided it was too dangerous. kevin would snitch, surely, he was old enough to know it was wrong, he had proven this. kenny was not.

"never tell anyone about this", he had promised, and so kenny never really specified it - loyalty, fear, who knew. but he couldn't help but take kevin's word that lucas was gone, and maybe that's why he slipped. kevin never asked any more questions, kenny never gave him any more answers.

(Brother by Kodaline - the song this fic took its title from - just started playing, and that is incredibly fitting XD)

"“You look like shit” Kenny pointed out. “You should see the other guy” Kevin smiled, sitting next to Kenny."

a fun fact about this scene, is that i thought of it before anything else in this fanfic, yet with a different theme. i was feeling pretty dysphoric, my parents were being transphobic assholes, nothing new, and i said "why not project this onto kenny?". in the original scenario, kenny would come out to his father, or maybe he'd be outed by some reason, and stuart would be no good about it, so kevin would jump in and defend his brother. then, everything would turn out as it does in the fic.

but slv kenny's agab is left ambiguous, and it will stay that way, which makes the original idea lose all its sense. yet, as i wanted to write it and add it to the story, i figured out another thing the fight could've stemmed from, and rolled with it. it being kenny's birthday was just something that came to me as i wrote, but it makes a sensing way for him to receive his parka so all good XD

next scene is probably the closest these two ever went to talking about their feelings. "He wanted me to go with his friends, he didn't want to hang out with me." was a typical occurence by the time they were twelve/thirteen, which is when that happens. kenny had gone to that type of hang outs a few times already, and always felt as if he wasn't welcome there, his presence and his exit equally unnoticed. butters had always the best intention, but are good intentions ever enough? the spot at the rooftop became kenny's favorite place since that night.

kevin isn't too talkative, or at least not slv kevin, but he knows his brother all too well, as shown in the next scene.

i needed it to be from kenny's pov, even if just to show the shock at "Kevin had never hit him sober." - because kevin had hit him drunk, not even just that, but typically kevin was at least a bit tipsy. him being violent yet sober showed the importance of the situation - and also showed how easily kenny would accept kevin becoming stuart 2.0.

it was short before butters ran away from home, and kenny was going through possibly the worst moments of his life till then. it was also the time in which he would kill himself every other day, trying to find a way that stuck. the broship had broken, kenny's home life was as shitty as always, what was the point? "But- Kenny, I can't let you waste your life like that. I'm probably gonna become a poor drunk guy like mom and dad, but you're smart dude. You have a future. Don't throw it away". those words likely saved kenny's life. kevin knows him, but he's too quiet to show it. yet, when he sees his brother in that state? he can't help but try and pull him out of it.

"This was the first time Kevin had seen his brother in weeks" says a lot about the mccormicks, actually. kenny, spending his days out with his friends or stuck in his room. kevin, not coming home until he has to. they had lost each other, grown up enough to stop needing the other as much. yet, kevin's always up to helping kenny out.

their conversation on the couch, just proves how much they really love each other. kenny doesn't really cuddle with anyone besides butters and his siblings, and kevin isn't much of the type to be physically affectionate with pretty much anyone. yet they enjoy being in each other's company, and they trust each other enough for it. "“Fucked him yet?” Kevin half joked." also shows how much kevin really knows his brother - even after they're not that in touch, he's noticed how close butters and kenny really are. he's also proving to kenny how he will not judge, allowing him to open up if he ever wants to, without fearing a reaction like the one their parents would likely have.

("“I love you”, is what Kevin would've said were he more vocal about his feelings. But he wasn't, so he took a sip of his beer and turned up the volume.". fun fact, they never said they love each other, and now you're forced to live with this information :3)

"“Showed up when I died, haven't left ever since” Kenny nonchalantly said, and Kevin shrugged it off". I don't have much to say about this scene, but fuck me if kenny isn't like this. he's sincere with kevin, yet aware he won't be believed, so he doesn't really press it. kevin, meanwhile, is used to his brother saying stuff like that. if kenny had ever told kevin about his curse? i like to believe kevin wouldn't have hesitated to believe everything about it.

aaand we're at the final arc of igyb!!

(after i took a tiny doomscrolling break bc fingers hurt smh)

i think i should first talk about why i did what i did. and that is, killing kevin off.

you see, in most stories and universes where kevin dies, he does it heroically. saving his siblings from their parents' wrath, getting in the way of a gunshot, taking part in a fight - he dies a hero. that's not how real life works. people just... die. without a warning. without a reason. one day they're there, the next they're gone forever.

kenny thought he understood death, mostly after having died so often, but he didn't. kevin's death, it made him realize people just leave forever, not giving any warning, not saying goodbye. human life is such a fragile thing, and he won't waste his stuck in the shithole of a town south park is. he's terrified of losing his friends the way he lost kevin, he's terrified of permanently dying with nobody to remember him.

he was lucky laura offered to take karen in, because otherwise, he probably would have stayed. but he knows, she'd be kept safe, and most importantly, away from their parents.

and, kenny?

he is going to live.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Oooh, can we get a directory’s commentary on the Blind Starscream AU and the Starscream Knitting AU? I know they are small AUs, but I enjoy rereading them from time to time. Plus they involve my favorite (troubled) Seeker. Also maybe one for Broken Record too because that one was just so gosh darn good! Please and Thank you!

I got you! I love giving my thoughts on the writing! Also I seriously adore the Starscream knitting AU and I have fun with the Blind Starscream AU too. I just ran out of ways to continue them. Any ideas for them would be gladly accepted :3

Blind Starscream

It was born of a request, and honestly I wasn't the most enthused with it because I had no plot to give the AU. It was a concept game rather than a story for me. Not a bad thing from time to time, but I like having a story to follow to write for. However with that said, it is a fun one and I recall having a great time thinking about how frickin funny it must be to watch Optimus yeet water at Screamer because he's scared of the bugger.

Extra tidbit about this AU: Starscream actually thinks its super funny to pretend he can see, but ONLY around ST3V3 the Vehicon. Starscream will act as though he can see perfectly and stare with lightless optics right into the Vehicon's visor. ST3V3 is terrified, but not a spark believes him when he says Starscream can see and absolutely can end their lives. Well, they believe the second part, but most don't question Starscream's blindness.

Starscream Knitting

It has been a VERY long time since I last looked at this AU. I hardly remember where it began, but I know it was made when I still didn't know how to format anything in visually pleasing and rational way. I don't go back and read my old work for a reason. (lll￢ω￢)

That said, I have had one image in my head since I learned about how running a small business works. Starscream, with stupidly colorful packaging, slowly and carefully getting every package done with his giant frickin claws. Oh! And those nails are absolutely manicured so that he can take videos and pretend he's just a really stylish knitter. He will never admit he enjoys his claws being painted a vivid red.

He secretly watches manicure videos online and asks Knockout to do him up every now and then.

Broken Record

Oh boy. The emotions were STRONG with this fic. It was the week before midterms and I was STRESSING. So of course I gave my baby some trauma to make me feel better. I was actually at work most of the time while writing Broken Record. I listened to City of the Dead on repeat the whole bloody time because it set the mood. No escape. No victory. No hope. Only loss.

Tidbit about Smokey in this fic: He did absolutely everything under the sun to make things work, and while not shown super closely in the fic because I enjoy being somewhat sane, he had a DEEP relationship with the team. He came to see Arcee as a sister in a sense. He adored her and looked up to her for many long loops before he had to pull away and then grew to see how badly her grief was hurting her. He wasn't the closest with Bulkhead and Wheeljack, but he shared many long nights alongside them, talking about the slightly happier aspects of war. Bumblebee he saw as a brother and eventually a ward as time dragged on. As he matured, he felt the need to watch over the scout, just as Optimus did. This was never fully expressed in the fic, but if given the chance, Smokescreen would take up a parental mantle if only to honor the fallen. He was especially close with Ratchet, that with the medic being the closest mech he ever had to a father.

Surprising right? You would think he's see Optimus that way. However he can't see Optimus like that. In his optics, Optimus is like a ghost. He learns from the mech, but Optimus is a strange thing for Smokescreen. A living dead mech. As much as Smokescreen bonded to the Prime, it was all a very solemn thing. But him and Ratchet? He loves Ratchet as a son would his father. Ratchet was always there for him, always offering comfort instead of the cold conformation of loss that Optimus gave. I didn't have enough time to write it, but I really wanted a scene where Ratchet tucked Smokescreen in after a long day and even managed to get the truth from him. I wanted to write one loop where Ratchet knew, and all he could do was hold Smokescreen's servo and weep as the loop came to an end.

Another tidbit: I fully intend to write a prequel with Orion and his trial. And let me tell you, what I have envisioned is ROUGH. It will take me a hot minute to write I think, simply because writing Broken Record required me to have a VERY off mental state to make it happen. However when I write it, let me say now that Orion Pax will have no frame of reference and do far worse things than Smokescreen in an attempt to get out. There could have been other ways to get out, but after so long? He just wanted to be free, no matter the harm it caused to Megatron at the Council chambers.

[aj-lenoire]

i say this as someone who legitimately really enjoys shadow and bone on netflix. i personally wasn’t the biggest fan of the original trilogy and i think they really elevated the storyline by streamlining it and changing a few things. i adored the six of crows books, meanwhile, and love seeing characters interact who never met in the books.

all of that being said, i am a little bummed at how inej and jesper have been treated narratively. like i know some stuff has to be cut for time, that’s just how making a tv show works, but the two deleted scenes that were released were both examples of jesper being more than the wise-cracking, smooth-talking sharpshooter. they actually showed him being vulnerable, similar to that flashback with his mother, and they cut them.

and with inej, well, one of those scenes also had her opening up a little about her trauma, or more specifically, about her brother, and i can’t help but feel a little like the writers gave her a brother so it would be easier to get her to stick with kaz and side with him at certain points. meanwhile all of her trauma regarding being trafficked and forced to work in the menagerie is kind of swept under the rug

(THEY KILLED TANTE HELEEN OFF-SCREEN!! THE LYNCHPIN OF INEJ’S ARC ABOUT OVERCOMING HER TRAUMA AND OVERPOWERING THOSE WHO HELD SO MUCH PSYCHOLOGICAL POWER OVER HER!!! AND THEY KILLED HER OFF-SCREEN!!)

this is not me whining about the books being better (well arguably it is a little bit) but i really do urge anyone who likes the show to at least read the six of crows duology, because we get a lot more on how inej feels about heleen and the menagerie—for a long time, she has panic attacks whenever she tries to walk past the building in the street, her standing up to heleen is a huge moment of healing and fighting back for her, and the brunt of that in the show seems to be done by amita suman’s (incredible) acting, rather than actual dialogue and it being the point of a scene—compared to, say, kaz’s trauma over his brother getting multiple flashbacks across the season, and jesper getting a really sweet (if somewhat rushed) scene with his mother and accepting that he’s grisha

now i’m not saying they should’ve had scenes showing inej’s time at the menagerie, but after the first season set stuff up, including jordie and jesper being grisha, i was expecting more expansion on inej’s trauma, and maybe it’s just me but it really felt like “i was forced into sex slavery and duped into signing away my freedom to a horrifically physically abusive woman” had been pushed aside in favour of “i want to find my missing brother and the guy i like has a phobia of human contact”

which, like, perfectly reasonable storylines, and excellently fleshed out (well, one of them anyway), but a core facet of inej’s character and arc is her working to leave ‘the lynx’ behind, and becoming the wraith is a part of that healing, until, by the end of the duology, she leaves that behind too and becomes a ship captain—she doesn’t need to hide in shadows anymore to protect herself.

and she finds her parents! she’s reunited with her family and it’s really sweet! they didn’t need to add in a brother, and i really do suspect it was to make her more sympathetic to kaz—which wasn’t needed! she was exactly as willing to throw down against pekka in the books, when she didn’t have a brother who got kidnapped with her!

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

its 2 am, its me, its a new truckdump of songs for just about everybody

Lucio

got a little weekend project planned, gonna kill my parents and deal a worm for unthinkable power and then it all goes downhill from there shwoopsie

Muriel flexing his deal after he got it xdd sidenote do you think asra was immune or did they have a brief period there where muriel totally accepted his only real friend forgot him because he wished for it but at some point asra was chillin in the shop huffing some myhr and went "nice. anyway wow i wonder how my best friend muriel is doing these days"

nah they probly arranged the myhrr thing together ig god how tf do you spell merr fuKIN MYRHMHGR MYRRH also why the hell does morga get to remember him too like what does she care how does this freaking thing work. what cuz she saw him once when he was 3? whats up with that cause i was like hm ok maybe cause she knew him before the deal but then i realised yoU DUMBASS EVERYONE KNEW HIM BEFORE THE DEAL N THEY FORGOT THATS THE POINT so idk whats the metric by which the forgetability is assigned or whatwver those two got some weird thing goin on that i never received an explanation for. it might just be me being a dumbass again tho hkchvndt

this one kinda gave me a asra+ilya vibe specifically their lil colloseum performance i say jolly good show. god that ginger bastard would love ol' chicago.

ok this one is barely anything but going strictly off of the absolute girlboss vibes its putting out its giving me nadia. "is your mother worried. would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother" goes hard

i think i had more but i forgor anyway the actual point of this message is i hope youre doing okay and not regretting putting yourself on a schedule too much dgjyhkvd youre a cool dude n you can do whatever you want forever i hope everything is going exactly your way and if its not then thats absolutely fucking ridiculous but i know youll nail it

@tetsuooooooooooo those are all such good suggestions! I've put them on the playlist and now I'm putting them on the tag ^.^

And may I say that you've just opened a whole new can of worms in my head about Muriel's curse and the myrrh thing?! I mean, let's say there wasn't space or time for Muriel to plan things out with Asra ahead of time, what if Muriel spend several weeks wondering if he wanted Asra to remember him? Finding relief in a place his trauma couldn't reach him for the first time in years, and having to decide between having a completely fresh start without his oldest friend, and keeping this oldest friend around, even if that means keeping the memories of his past life around too -

Or what if he had to figure out the myrrh issue himself, and there was a time when he wanted Asra to remember him but needed to figure out how? Did he do that with Asra's help, showing up at the shop door like "you don't recognize me right now, but I'm your oldest friend and I need your help to figure out how to let select people remember me. Oh and as proof that I'm not lying, here's a list of all your most embarrassing moments since you were seven that I was there for."

Well there goes the next few hours of my day XD

[archiveikemen]

I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind!

How was liams route? Any things you particularly liked or disliked? Also how did you personally feel about his MC ^^

Thank you so much for translating his route and sharing it with us !

Hi anon!

Haha you're welcome, anon~

Personally, I really enjoyed Liam's route!! The pace of the story was comfortable, not too rushed. Liam and MC only professed their love pretty late in the story, so it's kind of a slow burn(?). The flow of the story was smooth too.

About the story:

I mainly liked the way the plot focused more on how MC and Liam's relationship gradually went from being strangers, to protectors of each other's hearts, and then lovers.

I also liked how the story gave us quite a lot of information on Liam's past – stuff like his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his parents' relationship etc. It also gave some details about his curse e.g. when it started being active, how he discovered that he was cursed etc.

While reading the story, I found myself becoming more and more fond of Liam, because I could understand why he's the way he is i.e. a people pleaser.

We could also see the how precious and heartwarming is the friendship between Harrison and Liam, as well as the kind of relationship Liam has with the other members of Crown. I feel that Roger's bond with Liam is a rather special one, because Roger acts like he doesn't care about Liam at all but I can sense that deep down he actually does. This can be seen in chapter 20 if I remember correctly.

My jaw DROPPED when I read chapters 14 to 15. Might've cried a little... ahaha.

Ok I'm talking too much.

There isn't anything I really dislike about the story, although I do feel that the crazy love ending could've been a little more dramatic. The climax of the story felt rather mild, but maybe that's just me.

About MC:

As for my thoughts on Liam's MC, hmmm... I actually don't have a habit of forming any impressions of the MC, so I don't have much to say about her. Liam's MC doesn't have the "I can fix him" mentality. After learning about Liam's past and realizing how it has shaped him to become who he is, she doesn't immediately expect him to change. She accepts that his trauma is a part of him, and all his flaws and shortcomings are what make Liam, Liam.

I personally also think that MC's a rather "real" person ? Sorry, my english is crappy uhhh in case you can read mandarin it's like 她是一个蛮现实的人 . She takes a rational approach to things. When Marie was hurting because of something Liam did in the past, MC told herself that using words to comfort Marie would be pointless because all that's happened has already happened and no amount of "it's okay" can turn back time, reverse everything, unbreak a heart, revive the dead etc. so she just kept quiet and hugged her, let her cry it out.

Overall, I loved how considerate MC is of other people's feelings and the way she respected Liam's boundaries by not deliberately trying to dig up his past because she's aware of how much pain it has caused him.

[weebsinstash]

Oh my god so I tried True Luna again and, I'm just gonna summarize the few chapters I've picked up

>quick recap: Protag Emma has been bullied for years by Sienna the best friend of her brother Andrew, who literally raised her after their parents died, and Alpha Logan. They never believe Emma and basically just tell her that she's jealous Sienna spends time with them. Sienna slowly escalates in aggression over time, and is literally in Emma's house insulting her daily but switching to "loving big sister" in front of Logan and Andrew. After turning 18, Emma is rejected by her mate, Logan, because he deems her too weak, too young, and not emotionally strong enough to be his mate and does not even give her a chance. Her brother even agrees. She literally overhears them talking about how she is not strong enough, when the truth is she's actually been training in combat in secret for years.l with one of the only people truly on her side, Jacob. Sienna even breaks her rib and eventually has her kidnapped and tells the lie that, Sienna will tell Logan and Andrew that Emma attacked her and ran away to be a rogue. Emma is being horrifically beaten and tortured and poisoned while Sienna goes to tell them, and they believe 100% never even doubting that Emma attacked her and plan to punish her. I dropped the story just as she was being rescued and came back bc I got another ad for it and dexises I wanted to see Emma responding to them after being rescues

So recap over, here's just, the bullshit:

>while Emma is getting medical treatment the story keeps cracking jokes about how, oh mates are so possessive of being touched by other males, even with doctors, but it's not fucking funny. Emma is literally needing medical treatment and Logan is growling because oh no men are touching her to. Hook her up to IVs and give her syringes of medicine.... At some point she needs a blood transfusion from Andrew, HER BIOLOGICAL SIBLING, and later on Logan is like "ugh I don't like that she smells like him 😤" like bro she isn't going to fuck her own brother what in the actual hell is wrong with you? This isn't attractive it is actually CREEPY

>speaking of creepy, despite Andrew being her family and blood and the man whonraised Emma, the doc is like, "hey we think there's a possibility Emma could have been raped, can we do a pelvic test and stuff, LOGAN? We need YOUR permission since you're her mate" HE REJECTED HER. Like I understand where they are coming from but, to me, this is the man who caused this entire scenario giving doctors the permission to, just, ugh. Touch her without even asking her, and the test is negative and uh, I bet they won't even tell her they took the test at all

-when she finally wakes up she thinks she is literally dead and in heaven because that is literally the only scenario she can imagine Logan and Andrew coming to save her and she even tells them that. Jesus Christ they hurt her trust so bad

-she has to literallt argue with then so she can have some time alone just to think because Logan for some reason says he accepts her as his mate and Luna and she says she wants time aline to rest and have peace and. Ugh. Later on she's in pain, from the torture she never would have gotten if they had just RESPECTED HER, and she wants to see Andrew, and she thinks "oh, maybe Logan can come too, when he touched me it made my pain go away, maybe I can ask him to hold me"

>SHE IMMEDIATELY follows this up with "oh no but I dared to ask him for some personal space! How awful how dreadful how terrible! I am just so UNGRATEFUL for asking one of the men who made this all happen and gave me trauma to give me some personal space while I'm half dead. I'll just ENDURE THE PAIN SINCE I DESERVE IT"

Now. The reason why this bothers me. Is because, Emma's reaction is kinda normal, she has a lot of trauma and feels silenced and unheard and isolated, but, as a reader, I can TELL Logan and Andrew are not going to face any sort of retribution for this. "Oh their real punishment all along was seeing Emma so hurt because of them" no I actually want them half dead if you want me to be perfectly honest. They face, no real consequences besides hurt feelings and now there are narrative plot points basically forcing Emma and Logan together? Oh we have to cuddle so your wounds heal even if you don't really want to touch me? I'll be blunt and say that's a really uh, rape fic-y concept. It's not even, like, enjoyable because Logan doesn't deserve her at all.

Like, you know what they decide to do? They choose to horrifically torture Sienna for what happened. They're literally going to barely keep her alive and toeture her over and over before they'll eventually kill her. And I found myself literally standing here wishing that Sienna would tell them to their faces "you hurt her so bad she immediately believed you would abadon her" but no, this is treated as Andrew and Logan "winning" and they literally leave rhe torture room "drenched in Sienna's fresh blood". To me, this serves no actual purpose to assuage their own personal guilt and deflect responsibility. Like I am literally sitting here thinking "if I was Emma I would legitimately want Sienna to be let go, not to help Sienna, but to punish Logan and Andrew with the guilt that they caused this"

It's just so unsatisfying to see people be blatantly shitty to someone they are supposed to love, like be literal actual soulmates with, and are still rewarded with that person and for all of this to be presented as like, romance goals. Am I supposed to be like, swept off my feet that Logan is suddenly so dedicated and wonderful where, whenever it shows his POV, he's literally violently jealous and wanting to hurt the ONE person who has truly been on Emma's side, Jacob. Like Logan even immediately accuses Jacob of the one who leaked that Emma is a white wolf just. Because? Like awww, is the little pup jealous he's a piece of shit and that Emma has actually been getting true love and support from other people? Awww, poor you, YOU'RE the real victim here. God it is legitimately so hard for me to find one of these stories where the protagonist actually has any choice or agency. I've been meaning to make a post about the stories I DO recommend though so, maybe soon. I just, know we all like to be angry at fuck ass whack ass men sometimes and just wanted to ramble a lil haha

[fictionkinfessions]

You know when you're kind of stuck between "oh hey it me" and "no no it not me" and then you realize it's an AU thing?

Yeah so it turns out, I am the ridiculous aristocrat turned pirate, just, I wasn't a land-owner because I was AFAB. And that's why I ran off. Husband, kids (whose conceptions and births were traumatic), all of whom believed I was a woman and so me not being one ironically made my real self a perfect disguise. The guy I had trauma about sort-of-but-not-really killing (it was an accident, also who tf holds their sword in such a way that they fall and it stabs them in the eye? His own damn fault for holding it weird anyway) thought I was someone else (my twin brother who mysteriously disappeared, I think he may have been murdered at some point but that's another story, I borrowed his name, he sort of gifted it to me when he ran away before he was to be married). He figured it out, actually, moments before my crew made a very timely distraction (not that they knew I needed help, but it was a happy accident, for me at least, and men like him don't deserve happiness) and started talking about making good on something he'd always wanted to do but couldn't since I was promised to another man.

I recall being around for the Very Much Male Stuff shown in flashbacks, though, like, as a kid, but with my brother. I think our parents realized it was easier to just let me never leave his side than to try to separate us after I completely shut down and didn't eat, drink, speak, or move without him. I was always a bit tougher than him. I didn't mind the blood, and I think our father wished I'd been born male rather than my brother. I think our mother would have also preferred it the other way around.

Now that I think about it... I could've had a sister, in the same way my twin had a brother, but I told my twin how I felt and he just kind of shrugged and asked if he should call me a boy (I said yes, but only in secret, and he did <3), and this was years before he left. I think he would've told me. So he/him and brother it is unless I get other memories to the contrary later or am talking about a theoretical trans iteration of my twin. And boys can be feminine, too (heck, I was and am now), it'd just be interesting to have trans twins who both ran off at different points in our lives and it's a possibility that I want to acknowledge even if I'm not leaning into it.

He ran off first, so maybe in the end, he was the braver one. Just not in a way society accepted back then. I hope, if my twin was a woman, she took my old name the same way she gave me hers. It'd be poetic and beautiful and I hope she would have known I would have given it freely to her and only her.

Oh and I was not quite as cringe. Like, don't get me wrong, I was a cringey man, but like... Not that much so. Perhaps in a way, my very existence was a canon divergence and the show is about my twin in a world without me. But who I was and who "he" is in the show overlap so firmly in many ways that it's impossible to tell. It's like that version is both of us squished into one character. I wonder what that makes doubles from canons that didn't have twins... That's a really weird thing to think about, good thing I'm too shy to ever go looking for others who share my source and so will never discuss it with any such doubles.

📦

[gaeilmeta]

Whoa

As the early months bustled along, it was only to be expected that a few of Cinderella’s proverbial other slippers might drop and one by one they did. These revelations gave an answer to the baffling question as to why her trove of exceptional endowments had yet to flourish and convey her beyond the confines of a dinky town. They also spoke to the resonating statement, ”....somebody like me” heard on the evening of our genesis.

The first slipper hit the floor pretty hard. As a young girl, she had fallen victim to pedophilia. Fred and Marcia who lived two streets over were Mom and Dad’s best pals and so when her parents went away she was often entrusted to the care of their great friends. Unknown to her parents, godfather Fred used those absences to groom and molest the petite miss left in his keeping.

come here little darling let’s brush back your hair

goodness what is it that makes you so sweet

has me act like a bee to the nectar I swear 

you know, that box full of candy you can’t help but to eat

maybe some tickles will show me exactly what’s where

by your sides, at your belly, on the bottoms of your feet

none of those, then I think it must be hiding down there

I’ll have to dig around for a while under your seat

pull off those panties, get your bottom all bare

and feel in both ends so the search is complete

 

now that you let me you should be ashamed

no good girl would tease me to do all them things

sure as shootin’ it’s you who’ll be blamed

they’ll say you’re one of those angels without any wings

your parents won’t love you, might even send you away

don’t forget too I’m your Dad’s boss down at the mill

he has to listen to me and do whatever I say

I can fire him from his job and I promise I will

don’t worry though I won’t tell a soul about our little play

secrets are safe when our tongues are kept still

You might well imagine how hard it was for Mom when her little girl one day disclosed that Uncle Fred was in fact a perp. Fred and Marcia had been such close and trusted friends, making the enormity of the shock just too unbelievable. More than that, Mom didn’t really want to accept it as possible for her to have failed to protect her daughter. Mom’s initial stupor, unfortunately, left her psychologically injured daughter feeling not only doubted but also at fault for maybe having done something wrong without even knowing what it was that she did. This led to a huge and confused sense of guilt and even regret for having disclosed the foul matter at all. Worse, these malignancies were magnified several times over by the explosive violence and chaos that erupted when Dad was apprised. Needless to say, Mom, Dad and the victim were each branded with traumas that festered within and negatively impacted their family dynamics for years to come.

Next up, we arrive at the adolescent age of fourteen. Being a lowly high school ninth grader, she thought it especially “cool” that several junior and senior boys were interested in her and allowed her to be included in their social circle. The circumstance afforded her an unusual status, making her the envy of her girlfriends and granting her access to the automobiles and alcohol-fueled parties of the older crowd.

One afternoon while walking the roadside home, three of the older boys with whom she had partied pulled up in a shiny new Chevy Super Sport. They invited her to go cruising. Flattered, she accepted. Once in the car, she was immediately handed a bottle of beer and the tour began. After a while, it was observed that riding around with open bottles of beer was of course risky, so it was decided they’d drive to a relatively secluded spot along the railroad tracks that traversed the outskirts of town. There the car was parked and for no particular reason, the quartet began aimlessly walking the tracks with one remaining six-pack in hand. No doubt you’ve already guessed, it was in the woods just off the tracks where she was raped by all three of the boys. When recounting the event she tearfully heaved, “I stupidly thought they were my friends.” As is common among rape victims, she did not divulge the rape to anyone and only first told her mother years later.

Already bearing several severe scars in her still very early life, she naturally found it troubling to continue attending the high school where she couldn’t help but continually encounter the boys who had violated her. None of them were able to look her in the eye and avoided her as much as she did them. Still, that didn’t offer much solace. Floundering academically and at frequent odds with her parents, each being tormented by their individual wounds of heart and mind, she dropped out of school at the very tender age of sixteen, left home and incredibly set out to make her own way. Even with all of her gifts, it was a rough go and before very long she was gradually sinking, a waif amidst forces. She was sheltered only by the good graces of her girlfriend’s parents who allowed her to alternately hop from home to home. During this period she found a job at a pizza joint. It was there that she entered into a relationship which proved to be a grievous error.

At twenty-three Travis Penderson was a budding con man eminently on a path to nowhere. With the greatest of ease, he could fabricate intricate illusions and weave elaborate webs of lies out of the slick silk that slithered freely from his mouth. So consumed by the carbonated schemes he had bubbling in his head, he even convinced himself he would one day birth a surefire plot leading to fame and riches. While deludedly developing this grand plan, Travis in reality survived by smuggling and distributing illicit drugs. He surrounded himself with a squad of wannabe bikies who functioned as mules for authentic hard-core Canadian motorcycle gangs. Travis and his rag-tag cohorts shouldered all of the border crossing perils for chump change while the gangs up north kept the lion’s share of the profits. The crew typified what Randy Newman’s Fat Man would peg as little criminals.

Despite his defects, Travis recognized that the pretty, vivacious girl who took his pizza orders had the uncommon intelligence, talents, and moxie to be going somewhere he never could and figured he might be able to turn that to his advantage. He was also able to sense the vulnerability of her innocence, her dire predicament and her desperation to break out. Consequently, he pounced at the chance to seize the dangling dolly for his very own. She of course knew he was way full of it, but he did have the mystique of an outlaw, had money, soothing drugs and the kind of lies that she needed to hear. Filtered through the eyes of a pressure-cooking sixteen-year-old with meager means and fewer prospects, she regrettably regarded Harley hog riding Travis as a hand of rescue she had little option other than to accept. Thus ensued an oddly symbiotic, more often parasitic, on-and-off textbook relationship of domination, soul-sucking manipulation, psychological abuse and domestic violence that spanned more than four years. 

During the year prior to my strolling onto the stage, she had to her astounding and individual credit almost completely cleansed herself of Travis Penderson. She renegotiated the apartment lease shared with Travis into her name alone and pro se obtained a restraining order against him. With those, she cast Travis out, for the most part ridding herself of the leech save his lame and eventually dwindling attempts to ingratiate himself. Over the previous summer, she had also finished an entire high school equivalency program, begun her part-time modeling and secured a full-time position with the human service agency where we met. Shortly after we started canoodling I moved in with her. My place was more than a half-hour ride away while hers was only a few minutes from the community residence we managed. It was a logistical, financial and personal consolidation that benefited both of us.

Of course, our cohabitation resulted in my coming to know her with greater and greater intimacy. About six months in, the last of the sagging slippers spiraled into what had been up until then a fairly well-camouflaged rabbit hole. Being in the business of applied psychology I should’ve detected the signs sooner. Thing is, I was thoroughly beguiled by romance and the abundant arsenal of expert compensations she had honed over time.

The first red flag went for the most part undetected. Retrospectively it was during the second of our honeymoon months when her customarily cheerful disposition began losing a little luster. Over the course of a few weeks, her usually enthusiastic temperament eroded into a bit of “whatever” which over several more days degenerated into testiness. At work, this transformation was imperceptible, but at home, it showed. We had disagreements, arguments and our first-all out shouting match. At the time, I chalked it up to the adjustments couples need to make when discovering the shiny new object of their affection might not exactly be the dream person that was initially anticipated. A few days further on she missed popping up early to start breakfast. Then came the morning when she complained of debilitating fatigue and took to bed for the next day and a half. This was very much out of character, but she soon recovered, bouncing back to her genial self. All once again well with the universe, it was easy to simply blame the recent irritability on menstrual symptoms.

The second code red flashed another couple of months on. In similar fashion, there were a few weeks of increasing conflict between us. The arguments were worse this round since my budding sense of insecurity was forecasting an inevitable demise to our relationship. Reckoning that the college classes she had begun would soon be broadening her horizons, I figured my days were numbered. The Green Monster was gnawing on my bones and inflaming my formative fears of abandonment. I worried too that our eight-year age disparity would not survive her impending blossom. Her petulance and my colliding apprehensions brought about a few figurative knock-down-drag-outs. As had been the case previously, the tensions ultimately crumbled into a couple of days of bed rest. This time though, Little Miss Sunshine’s narcolepsy exhibited an unsettling resemblance to catatonia and gave me pause for a long hmmmm. As before though, she quickly rebounded and happy days were back again. I probably should’ve assigned greater importance to my uncomfortable observation. In defense, I can only claim that the chubby archer was still very active and had to be dipping his arrowheads into some sort of blinding concoction.

Having witnessed two contentious periods followed by twenty-four to forty-eight hours of sleep bordering on the cadaverous, it finally dawned on me that the arrival of our third round of rifts was likely pointing to issues more significant than merely troublesome menstrual symptoms. Her down days were just too extreme. She didn’t complain of severe cramping or any other customary miseries, and despite our domestic upheavals, she never exhibited other than exemplary behavior at work. Aside from her acute episodes, recoveries from her bleak bouts were relatively brisk and her general physical health was the superior sort enjoyed by most young adults. Menstruation being cyclical clued me to begin thinking in terms of cyclical disorders. She functioned far too well for what was then referred to as manic depression. However, while poking around that subject I came across a couple of abstracts that introduced me to manic depression’s little sister, cyclothymia.

I learned that cyclothymia, or more euphemistically bipolar lite, is a somewhat rarer and less conspicuous chemical disorder. Nonetheless, the condition is formidable and can be difficult to diagnose and manage. It’s characterized by fixed-period mood swings of varying degrees that differ in intensity from person to person. Of course, everyone experiences mood changes, but when one’s affect tracks a pattern rather than normative responses to ordinary conditions, that is to say when the frame doesn’t simply provide a boundary for the artwork but instead either influences, obscures or even dictates the content, the result is problematic. The high side or manic phase of cyclothymia, akin to bipolar disorder, often features pronounced exuberance, impulsiveness, overconfidence, overachievement, insomnia and hypersexuality. The lower end or depressive phase includes irritability, despair, suicidal ideation, lethargy and hypersomnia. With the notion of cyclothymia on the table the pieces of the puzzle began to almost magnetically snap into place. It accounted for her impeccable work performance, the juggling of multiple projects, the adroit social skills, the all-night baking and cooking sessions, the three a.m. fish tank cleanings, and yes, the super-sized sex too. It also figured into her occasional bursts of temper, lacerating slights, distraction, expressions of despair and what I would sometimes refer to as hibernation. The only component left to establish was the duration of the orbit. After a bit of calendar study, the periodicity emerged. It was a sixty-day rotation. The interval initially proved tricky to tease out because it was on an unintuitive, every-other-month sequence confoundingly masked by her closely coinciding menstruation.

The subtle subterranean rhythm of her affliction ran as an obscured undercurrent. She had no practical awareness of her slowly pirouetting chemical warp, no notion of being sealed inside a seesawing jar of molasses, perpetually migrating from a ventral striatum’s elation on one end to an anterior insula despondency at the other. Her world was a water globe menagerie of joy and sorrow, a mosaic of light and shadow rolling across the calendar. Though caught between a breathless present and a monotonous past, the oscillating pattern always escaped her. Intertwined with her menstruation, she experienced the sway as a seamless tapestry of the existential ordinary. Her highs were considered surges of ambition and lows nothing more than the usual consequences of day-in-day-out pressures, punctuated now and then by hormonal collapses. Alike the old adage, she was prevented from seeing the forest for the trees. I, on the other hand, had the advantage of an outsider’s unobstructed perspective. My unique circumstance, being almost continuously in her presence, afforded me an aerial drone’s overview from which to observe her behavior not only in the present but the recent past and predictable future as well. The momentum of her congeniality and diamond-hard dedication to work kept her downward spirals well concealed from clients, co-workers and other casual contacts. She simply refused, via sheer will, to allow the quicksands or her psyche to interfere. It was only when she reached home that she would relent to the exhaustion of resisting her melancholy, give in to its intermittent course and sooner or later be consumed for a day or two.

Once I had convinced myself my suspicions were legitimate, I felt a begrudging responsibility to bring my discovery to her attention and offer what help I could with assessment and management. I use the word begrudging because her disorder served to augment a host of uniquely wonderful and highly desirable qualities. It magnified her intelligence and aural charisma, made her one in a million and ignited the unique spark that caused nearly everyone around her to feel suddenly elevated into the ranks of a special club they hadn’t until just then realized they were members. She was vibrant, fun, talented, entertaining. I didn’t want any of that to be dulled or diluted, and selfishly, certainly not for the industrial strength sex to be diminished even one iota. On the other hand, the middle-school rows, the instances of self-loathing, and the worrisome installments of virtual paralysis, though relatively brief, were no fun for me and immeasurably worse for her. I hated to see her suffer.

Despite making certain she was on an upswing when I first broached the idea of cyclothymia, it still didn’t go over well. Having it suggested to anyone that they might not be in complete control is a frightening and, on some levels, insulting proposal.

“Oh, I get it, you’re telling me I’m a lunatic and should have my head examined because you think I’m so phenomenal and you love me so much!” Stomp, stomp, stomp and slammo goes the door.

Needless to say, for a while it was the source and subject of intense argument, to put it mildly. Only after I had her agree to a demonstration I devised did she begin to entertain the possibility that a cyclothymic specter might be afoot. Without disclosing the content, I wrote down several predictions about her future disposition and anticipated behavior, sealed them in an envelope and had her date it. When my predictions were later opened and proved to be accurate, she assented to confer with a mutually trusted colleague of ours who was also a psychiatrist. Thereafter an extensive exam was pursued followed by medication trials. Before long an efficacious pharmaceutical was found and an optimal treatment dose was established. Much to my surprise and great relief, the medication worked to alleviate most of her symptoms and only marginally muffled her many sensational attributes. Hallelujah!

[bobbydagen24]

aaaaaaaw this is so sweet 😭😭😭😭 I love it

it could fit in with his background while not contradicting too much since he still would have been forcibly separated from her and then went off and looked after himself for most of his life.

maybe they reconnect in present day and she fondly shares some stories of young Branch and what a shy but sweet kid he was

and Branch is kinda embarrassed and ashamed by his Bros hearing about how he used to be after Grandma's death.

tho they actually appreciate it since Branch never talks about that period of his life himself.

plus its just sorta cute to imagine the Brothers hearing about what a precious little autistic Toddler he was 💝💝💝💝

its very easy to imagine him basically being none verbal for a while after his Grandma's death as a Trauma Response plus noise sensitive.

and it would make for kinda an interesting added tragedy if like you said Peppy and the others thought being looked after by this particular person

would only make Branch worse in his Recovery because she wasn't normal by their standards when in Reality Branch was very much a kid with special needs

and she seemed to be able do a Decent Job of looking after him and helping him communicate in a Different way.

sooo yeah while it Technically adds something a bit more nice and wholesome to Branch's Depressing AF Backstory it also adds an extra Tragedy as well.

and like I said I feel it could make for a cute story where Branch and her end up meeting again and Reconnecting in present day

Despite Branch at first maybe not wanting to acknowledge her too much because he just sorta wants to forget about that period of his life

and how he used to be back then Rather than acknowledge it and accept it and also be open and Honest with his Brothers about how he was back then.

besides I just find it cute to imagine Branch and her do eventually Reconnect in present day and Branch still Remembers all the sign she taught him

and they do Reminisce about some things like inside Jokes they made up and little games they used to play which were maybe one of the few ways she could get him to actually seem somewhat happy back then.

Besides Branch gaining a bit of parental love in present day would be nice given he spent most of his life an orphan.

also it'd be kinda sweet if we saw that Branch still used in present day some of the things she gave him to help him cope as a kid

when he's feeling a touch overwhelmed such as the ear plugs for some peace and quite on occasion

and maybe some Breathing exercises she taught him for when he used to get scared and panic all the time when he was younger.

Honestly this is such an adorable little idea you had someone should make this into a Fic FR 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

ANGSTY HEADCANON!!!

One of the foster parents that took Branch in was a deaf glitter troll who taught him sign language. He ended up enjoying learning to communicate with it and even talked more, with it becoming his preferred method. The area they lived in could get kinda loud sometimes but she let Branch wear earplugs whenever he wanted.

He was unfortunately separated from her due to the fact that Peppy and the other trolls thought it would deter Branch from socializing and singing. It ended up having the opposite effect and Branch ran away after that and couldn’t be tracked down for months.