#to her adult cousin. she did see it as ‘logical’

[kingcunny]

Ever think about how EVERYONE was cool with the idea of Viserys marrying Laena and no one mentions her age? Rhaenyra's like "if he has to", Mellos and Lyonel are giving him big thumbs up, Alicent says "I bet she'll be great", Rhaenys and Corlys are both seeing this as logical...

Only Otto mentions it. And he's wanting Alicent. And only Viserys hesitates over it... because he would prefer Alicent.

when viserys is talking to lyonel about it and he does that little head shake after “she will mature.” almost a sort of ‘you dont get it’

i think when viserys went out to meet laena, go on that walk in the gardens with her, he had the most intense deja vu. he had gone on almost this exact same walk with aemma when she was this age. 12 years ago. hes a grown man now and aemma is dead. but here she is again, same age as when he met her, time has passed for him but not for her. and i think that freaked him out. he didnt want to go through that again.

also says something that viserys puts so much stock in ottos opinion. asking for his advice outside of the small council (essentially saying his IS the small council as far as vis is concerned). and even though everyone else is telling viserys marrying laena is the right option, having otto back him is all he needs to decide to go for alicent instead.

[brujitaadinbo]

I'm posting again after a while; I was watching The Mandalorian, all seasons, again (sorry, I can't help it)

And I think I can answer some of the questions that "haters" of season 3 or the series have tried to bring up about "why if Bo Katan regrets her behavior before, she doesn't cry or they don't talk about Satine ??

For a start; I feel that in this season 3 the time of the series format passed very quickly, too quickly, to the other past seasons. This absolutely did not help the plot much, which was somewhat lost. BUT….

First, Bo has definitely been shown in very sensitive ways this season 3, it is not necessary for her to cry too much to realize that she appears sad, disappointed in herself and tired.

IT IS OBVIOUS that the pain of her past, her sister and her entire career are shown through symbolism, the Kryze castle, the throne, when they destroy said castle, all that, everything bad that she did or that she step, he leaves with the fire, with the destruction of those icons and symbols of his past.

The destruction of the saber that separates the Mandalorians and causes Bo Katan to lose herself in her power, Guideon himself talks about those talismans, all those symbols of power and empowerment that they show us must be destroyed because Bo Katan is a brave, confident woman. , formidable, just as Din Djarin tells her, she doesn't need any of that to stand out and she's going to prove it.

Although we are strong women, we also have our weaknesses, but true power, the empowerment that enriches us, is what makes us strong through our loved ones, our people, acting correctly and that makes us feel satisfied.

When he decides to walk with Din and Grogu it is because although they have not done things correctly, they are also looking for a way to fix the disasters and do it as best as possible. Din started this job and knows that Bo Katan is the one for Mandalore. she resurfaces, she is the daughter born of this place, she has sacrificed everything, she is the one who most deserves this opportunity. It bothers me a lot when they only pigeonhole their relationship as “somewhat forced”, “meaningless” or not “romantic” at all, sorry but… it doesn't have to be romantic, on the contrary, it is appreciated that it is. because their connection is emotional, their connection goes beyond something physical or superficial and they have worked on it to create a pure bond, a bond that takes them to something beyond if they want to give themselves the opportunity, they are partners. , they go hand in hand together, not at the wrong time, not as a competition, but as a journey for both of them, so in Plazir 15 that is the message they want to give us from these two Mandalorians.

Love in SW doesn't have to be shown with flowers or silly romantic quotes or stuffed animals. Love is demonstrated in subtle acts such as caring, saving, protecting, guiding, advising, consoling, something very human but that can also happen in any other galaxy and is real.

And I'm sure that the path of these Mandalorians will unite again, without the need for bombastic scenes, weddings or silly things. Love blossoms in them and we will know how to see it.

The fact that this green child has crossed their paths as a new hope, it is obvious that love seeks to stay in this new nucleus.

It also bothers me when they talk about Bo being pigeonholed as a mother or wife and that is misogynistic. Let's see the panorama clearly, at no time is there talk of "maternal instinct" because that would be pigeonholing us women and here in The Mandalorian 3 it never happened. That since season 2, both Din and Bo can be seen and notice that parental sense, the impulse or parental instinct to protect the child, is logical and normal because we all have developed that instinct, adult humans, taking care of the little ones, for love, affection, affection, responsibility, etc. Between brothers, cousins, family, father, mother or children, even with our pets, because we are sensitive, empathetic and sociable beings and it is scientifically proven.

That Bo becomes attached or has affection for the child is because Grogu is nice, he has earned his place in Bo's heart and because the two have a connection, it does not affect anything in the story or characters, on the contrary it contributes. And that's not why she is pigeonholed as a mother, there is nothing wrong with motherhood because it exists because it is okay if you want to live it or not and Bo Katan can do it if she wants to or not, it is her decision. But she can be a mother figure, she can be a figure of respect for Grogu, affection and appreciation, a guide and an important part of his life. She can serve something else and not just war and combat. He can do so many things and his knowledge of war should not limit him.

I really appreciate that they gave this interaction to the main characters. No matter what happens, I take away the best messages from the series and this season.

I hope the rumors about "it's the last of The Mandalorian" "Bo Katan will no longer appear in the movie or he will die" "There will be no more Din and Grogu material"

be that, just false rumors I await you with much love to Din, Bo and Grogu.

this is the way.

[vi-who-sims]

Gilmore Girls: Mini Legacy Challenge

Hi everyone my name is Vi, this mini legacy challenge is based on one of my favorite television shows, Gilmore Girls. I tried to play it as close to the story as possible but added a few twists.

I hope you enjoy it. :)

◈ Basic Rules:

Gender is not really specific to any of the generations, although I will specify what gender is recommended/what the gender is in the show.

◈ Generation One: Lorelai “Trix” Gilmore the First

You’re Lorelai “Trix” Gilmore the First a very modest woman. Born into a rich family you’re determined to keep that money in the family. Even if that meant marrying your cousin… well second cousin.

Traits: Proper, Self-Assured, Lazy

Aspiration: Mansion Barron

Career: Stay-at-Home Parent

Gender Recommended: Female

Rules:

Start in a home worth 50,000 Simoleons

Marry your “second cousin” (keeping the Gilmore last name)

Have at least 1 boy and 1 girl child

Become a widow when your Heir becomes an adult 

Move across the “world”

Reach level 6 of the Parenting Skill

Reach at level 3 of Mansion Barron Aspiration

Optional:

Complete the Mansion Barron Aspiration

Reach level 10 of the Parenting Skill

Reach the top rank of Vampirism

◈ Generation Two: The Richard Gilmore

Growing up you were very close to your mother and always did your best to make her proud. You always did well in school and ended up at a prestigious university thanks to your hard work. At university, you met the love of your life and knew she was who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. The only problem… your mother doesn't approve and tries to get you not to marry her.

Traits: Overachiever, Materialistic, Ambitious

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Career: Business: Management Branch

Gender Recommended: Male

Rules:

Always get A’s in school

Graduate College with Honors

Go to Britechester for Communications

In your last semester of University, you meet the love of your life (they must be mean and a snob)

Marry your lover although your mother doesn’t approve

Have a falling out with your mother (never reach the red)

Don’t talk to your mother again until your child is a teen

Have only 1 child

Fall out with your child when they runaway as a teen

Reach level 7 of the Logic Skill

Reach level 8 of the Business Career

Reach level 3 of the Successful Lineage

Optional:

Complete the Successful Lineage Aspiration

Max Logic Skill

Reach level 10 of the Business Career

◈ Generation Three: Lorelai Gilmore the Second

Growing up you were the only child. Your mother was overbearing and mean at times but you brushed it off until your teen years. You were never of fan of the frivolous life your parents lived. You were fine just hanging out with your boyfriend at home. Although that leads to a baby. Being a pregnant teen is bad enough but having your parents fight with you over your baby caused you to leave home for good.

Traits: Slob, Goofball, Good

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Career: Run an Inn (Use 4 Rent)

Gender Recommended: Female

Rules:

Argue with your mother growing up never become more than friends.

Never have more than 2 friends in your childhood

As a teenager date one of your childhood friends

Become pregnant as a teenager

Drop out of high school

Break up with your boyfriend in your third trimester

Runaway from home with your child is an infant

Move to a small town and live in a one-room house until you are halfway through young adulthood

Become best friends with a Sim in the small town

Run an Inn together that you buy when your child is a teen

Don’t date until your child is a teenager

Reconnect with your parents when your child is a teenager

See them once a week from then on

Reach level 8 of Parenting Skill

Reach level 4 of Entrepreneur Skil

Reach level 6 of Comedy Skill

Reach level 3 of Serial Romantic Aspiration

Optional:

Reach level 10 of Parenting Skill

Reach level 5 of Entrepreneur Skill

Reach level 10 of Comedy Career

Complete Serial Romantic Aspiration

Have your Inn reach 5 stars

◈ Generation Four: Lorelai “Rory” Gilmore

Growing up you were raised by a single mother doing her best to make the two of you survive. You did have much contact with your father and you honestly didn’t miss his presence. You spent most of your time studying and having your nose in a book. You always excelled in school but this caused you not to fit in even from a young age. You only had one close friend in school and didn’t talk to many people until high school. Although many people were 

Traits: Overachiever, Genius, Bookworm

Aspiration: Academic

Career: Writer: Journalist Branch

Gender Recommended: Female

Rules:

Reach level 8 of the Research and Debate Skill

Reach level 7 of the Writing Skill

Reach level 8 of the Journalist Skill

Reach level 3 of the Academic Aspiration

Only had one friend all through elementary school.

Read at least 4 books a week

When becoming a teenager visit your grandparents once a week

Halfway through your teen years, you switch schools to a fancy private school for genius’ (make one of their everyday outfits as a school uniform)

Always have an A in school

Graduate high school as Valedictorian

After “switching schools” you meet a boy who is new to town and you immediately fall for each other. You date for a little while but break up.

After breaking up go to a high school party and kiss a boy from your school.

Get back together with your ex for a short period of time until you meet someone new (a bad boy)

Have a fling with the bad boy but never make the relationship official

After you graduate high school you go to your Grandfather’s alma mater Britechester University for Communications

At University you meet a party animal who instantly falls for you and does everything he can until you give in

Date him until you graduate college where he proposes to you and you say no.

Right before you become an adult woohoo with your college ex and your bad boy fling.

Those woohoo's lead to pregnancy

Optional:

Max Writer Career

Complete the Academic Aspiration

Reach level 10 of the Research and Debate Skill

Reach level 10 of Writing Skill

Read one book every day

Never know who the other parent of your child is

◈ Generation Five: The Baby

You’re raised by a single mother with lots of love to give. You saw your grandparents and great-grandparents once a week and formed a good bond with them. You were extremely close with your grandparents. Spending so much time with your grandparent their creativity rubbed off on you. This caused you to fall in love with art.

Traits: Outgoing, Art Lover, Unflirty

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Career: Freelancer Career: Painter Branch

Gender Recommended: Male (gender is unknown but I feel a male sim fits)

Rules:

Reach level 2 of the Photography Skill

Reach level 7 of the Painting Skill

Reach level 3 of the Painter Extraordinaire Aspiration

Paint at least 3 times a week

Get nothing higher than B’s in school

Become best friends with your grandparent

Always be at least good friends with your parent

As a teen become curious about your other parent

Ask your parent about it

When your parent doesn't have answers you go searching

Although you get stuck at a dead-end

Become a 3 Star Celebrity by selling paintings

When you become a 3-Star celebrity your other parents see your last name and reach out

Find out who your other parent is

When you tell your parent you guys get into an argument

Your parent comes to terms with your findings after a while

Get to know your other parent and form a relationship with them (and your siblings if the parent has other kids)

Optional:

Reach level 5 of Photography Skill

Reach level 10 of Painting Skill

Complete the Painter Extraordinaire Aspiration

Paint 5 times or more a week

Become a 5-Star Celebrity

[loquatenjoyer69]

WRT the Shinobu vs Seiji paying Ban poll, this made me think about how Ban would actually get money, and given that Matoba (Seiji) made it sound like the Ban family was a branch of the Matobas or in some other way part of their clan, I don't think Ban was like a contracted employee or anything like that...

I imagine the way it works is that exorcist families that are under the protection of another clan obviously gain the benefit of the power of the head family being used to protect them, and in return they offer their own powers, resources, and probably money. Additionally the Matoba family (or clan?) probably like (searching for words)...when they receive or hear about exorcist job opportunities, they list them or in some other way make them known to the community, it seems like (based on Natori saying he takes job assignments from the Matobas in the Cousin arc though I should look at the raws again to see what he actually says...).

I wonder if they primarily keep this within the clan. I think that would be the more logical move, because then any money that was made from that job would in part come back to them if one of their own family members didn't take on the job. It would be weird if the clan was just handing out free jobs to outsiders, unless taking a job from them involves agreeing to pay them a cut, which I could also see happening... But it still seems like you'd want to keep that stuff mostly within the clan, if only as another benefit and incentive to stay with the clan.

This raises the question of why Natori was given the assignment for Mitsuru but it's not hard to come up with plausible explanations about that so it's not that concerning to me.

Anyway so as for whether or not Seiji or Shinobu pays more, I guess I don't know that Seiji really paid Ban since I don't think Ban was like employed by Seiji personally. And whether or not he is paid by Shinobu depends on what his reasons are for following her and what the nature of their relationship are. Like, is he following out of loyalty and making money off of jobs they do (if they still do exorcism...they have to get the antiques budget from somewhere right? How successful is Shinobu's writing career)? Is he loyal to her and she's financially compensating him, meaning she makes enough money off writing to support another adult, or she still somehow has access to Matoba money (did she make a separate bank account when she left, did she sell a bunch of her old stuff, how does banking in this situation work actually...)? Is he literally employed by her for some purpose such as bodyguarding, antique hunting, menacing...? Do they both earn money and split it evenly? Does he have a side job? Who can say...

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Character Ages in Animorphs Fic

In response to a few questions on my Eleutherophobia fic series, I wanted to spell out the logic of the character ages I’m using.

Jake is 13 when the war starts, 16 when it ends.  This one’s canon: in #53 he says “I was just thirteen when I started. I’m sixteen now.”

Tom is 16 when the war starts, 19 when it ends.  This is an educated guess.  In MM4, which is set at the same time as #1, “Tom” borrows his mom’s car and drives it across town, apparently legally.  So presumably he’s at least 16 when the war starts.  But Jake also says “Tom was going to live out the rest of his years till his eighteenth birthday locked in his room” if their parents found out he’s got a “handgun” (dracon beam).  So at least 16, but not much older, if there are “years” before he’s 18.

Rachel is 14 when the war starts, 17 when it ends.  This one’s pure speculation, but.  The reason I headcanon Rachel as a few months older than Jake is how she sees him early on in the war.  In #2 especially she seems to look at him like a little brother: “Jake is like me, being a little crazy... It bothered me that he was a faster diver than I was.” Later, when she tries to protect him by getting him to leave, she says “Sorry Jake, this time I’m the boss” and tries to dump him off, confirming with a fake plea and “If he had lied to me, he would answer now” — and then she’s shocked that he did lie and didn’t answer her.  Unlike the others, who start the war looking up to Jake for various reasons, Rachel dismisses him as a potential leader at first, and only gradually comes to respect him enough to follow his lead.  As somebody who grew up friends with many of my first cousins, I can relate to the struggle to see the ones younger than me as adults, even the ones that are within months of my age.  Throw in Rachel’s relative level of maturity, grasping almost immediately that “They’ll probably [kill] me but at least they’ll never find out about the rest of you” (#2) in contrast with Jake’s view (according to Marco) that the war is “some video game” (#1), and I just think it fits the characters.

Eva is 36 when the war starts, 39 when it ends.  More speculative still!  However, I like the idea of Eva coming from a relatively traditional gender role: we know she’s Catholic (Visser) and immigrated at a young age (#20).  We also know she’s “incredibly beautiful” (#15) with “shampoo-commercial black hair” (#30) and she had a somewhat troubled marriage to a genius astrophysicist (#15) where she did almost all of the housework and childcare (#5).  She’s also physically fit enough to climb mountains and sail sailboats unassisted.  So I headcanon Eva being younger than Peter, married by 20 and with a kid by 23, and having a pretty traditional marriage — Peter with the only income, Eva a full-time parent — before Edriss shows up.

Anyway, Jake’s literally the only character with a canonical age, and K.A. Applegate has said that there were no attempts to plot a coherent timeline for the series, so I don’t think that any of these are the One True Way to interpret Animorphs.  They’re just my preferred interpretations.

[e-adlirez]

Why are you this ick about the friendship things in the books? I mean, for a book series that aimed for preschooler shouldn't it be expected for the books to have a lot of corny messages about friendship and love? Like, I feel like you gave way too many expectations for a silly kid series

Okay yeah that's fair, maybe my expectations for the series is holding the bar a bit high, and it might just be a me thing (I could never get into MLP for the life of me)

But hear me okay

The reason I don't like the power of friendship being mentioned in the books is because it clashes with what I've seen of the series so far.

See one thing the books did very well was allow you to imagine that the girls are grown-ass adults in university. They are very good at selling the bit that the girls are adults, without infodumping the crap out of it. For the best look into how this is done, see graphic novels 1-4, as well as the main books that were done in the older artstyle. The way the books are written allows you to really believe these girls as grown adults-- there are occasions where the books' age sticks out a bit... too much, but most times, it's smooth sailing, and the girls are very believable as adults.

Case and point: I got into the books when I was eight years old, and one thing I appreciated and still appreciate about the older books is the fact that the immersion is on-point. The books are rated 6-10, but only in terms of the language level (it's short and easy to read is what I'm saying). The plots of the books are well-written, and most importantly, the books do not treat you like a kid as you're reading. You'd be surprised how valuable that is nowadays,,,

Even the friendship bits in the older books worked hard to sell the bit in a way that it fits with how the stories are written, which is very grounded and realistic, actually (minus the cheese puns):

The girls gave Thea a fancy jade and called her "the keeper of our friendship"? Friendship bracelet logic, which is a very valid logic. Colette's cousin mentions the girls' friendship? Well yeah, it makes sense in that scene because she's hosting a fashion walk, and the girls literally carried and were kinda the reason why Julie's finals project wasn't completely scrapped; that part where the friendship bit is mentioned is literally the perfect moment for a cheesy-ass speech. (There's a really good one in non-English Shipwreck too but that's a story for a whole 'nother day.) The way the plots are written is very down-to-earth and grounded, and the inclusions of the friendship bits back then reflect this. This was the way the bar was set for me, and thus it's how I judge the later books.

As the series progressed, things got more explicit with the age range. Nothing atrocious, but you could tell things were getting more and more openly kid-friendly. You know it's progressed when more than a handful of people mistake them for being highschoolers instead of grown-ass adults in university.

There is still action, and there is still adventure and shenanigans that you get fully immersed in, but if you're like me, you would be happily immersed in the adventure, trying to solve the mystery alongside the girls, but also hoping and praying to your holy deity of choice that a friendship bit doesn't come up in the year of our Lord 2024.

Only to die inside when it is brought up and the delivery sounds so blatantly sugary it can give you a cavity. The kind that hurts to see stick out like the sorest thumb.

So yeah, my standards might be high, but my standards are high because I've seen the series reach that bar before, and I know they can do it again. I am mentally ill for this franchise dammit /affectionate

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Early Signs

It is time for day 3 of my pride prompts! This time, it is Early Signs!

We'll meet our favorite headcanoned lesbian as we get to learn some signs she was into girls way before she came out.

Read on ao3 or under the cut.

When Yamila Sanchez was one year old, there was a boy at her daycare that everyone joked was her boyfriend. This was because they shared a mattress at nap time, and also traded pacifiers once. In retrospect, it’s kind of odd to ship children that still crap their pants on the regular together. Maybe they shared a mattress at nap time because the daycare had a small budget and all the children shared mattresses. And maybe they traded pacifiers because they were 1 years old and loved to put things in their mouths, and so they curiously wanted to try out the other one's pacifier. By using the logic that there would be something “romantic” between two toddlers, the same thing could have been said when one-year-old Yamila on the regular went up to kiss the face of another one-year-old girl at her daycare. But that was instead seen as her just being “affectionate to her friend”. And I mean, she was 1, so that was probably what she did, but it was interesting the girl was seen as a friend and the boy that she spent less time with was joked to be her “boyfriend”.

When Yam turned four, she got asked by her aunt who she was going to marry when she grew up. She said she wanted to marry Stephanie from Lazytown. She was so pretty in her pink hair and Yam always sang and danced along whenever she saw her on screen. As she told her aunt that’s who she wanted to marry, her aunt laughed.

“Oh, Yamila, but isn’t there some cute boy in your preschool group you’d like to marry?”

“Nope!”

Her aunt chuckled and turned to the other adults. They all were sure sooner or later Yam would get a crush on a boy. 

When Yam was six, she played with her barbies in her room. She had several barbies, and one Ken. Ken was sitting in the corner of the room, and he was naked. Yam had taken off his clothes and put them on a barbie. In her pretend play, one barbie had taken his clothes because she was pretending to be him to fool his girlfriend. Yam laid down on her belly, as she held up the two barbies. 

“You look different!” the girlfriend barbie exclaimed.

“I just ate something, that’s all,” the barbie in Ken’s clothes replied. 

“Oh, ok! Kiss me!”

“Of course, babe.”

Six-year-old Yam felt something rush inside her as she slowly made her two barbies kiss. She didn’t know what it was… but she liked it.

When Yam was nine years old, she was playing The Sims 2. Her cousin had shown her how you could make your sims “woohoo” - which meant that they got under the bed covers and did what Yam understood as the thing you do to have children. It was a whole cutscene and everything. 

Yam had only used this to make her sims have babies, but today was gonna be a different experience. She had created a household of two girls. Best friends, who shared a house together. She built up their friendship a lot, and clicked on the options you could have when talking. One of the options was… flirting…? 

Yam thought you could only flirt when it was a man and woman. But you can flirt when it’s two girls?

She decided to try it out. Indeed, the same animations as when it was a man and woman played out as the two girl sims started flirting. Then came the option to kiss. Yam looked around, as if she didn’t want anyone to see, and then she clicked on it. It tickled inside of her as she saw the two pixelated girls kiss. 

Then it hit her… could it be possible to…? 

She took both girl sims to the bed. She clicked for the options.

Yes. They could woohoo.

She didn’t know why, but she had never felt this curious and excited in her entire life. Her heart started beating faster as she clicked on the woohoo option, and watched the cutscene play out…

When Yam was 12, she was at a birthday party at her classmate’s house. She chatted with Jimena, Jim for short, who was her best friend. She had known Jim for years, but they hadn’t become best friends until they ended up in the same class in middle school. 

The birthday girl decided to call everyone over for a game of truth or dare. Yam always thought that was a fun game. This was because the truths and dares she’d have to do were all silly and funny. But today, as they spinned the bottle and it ended up on Yam, things got different.

“Yam, truth or dare?” the birthday girl asked.

“Truth!”

“Okay… who do you have a crush on?”

What a boring question. Yam had a good answer. “No one!”

“Don’t lie,” the birthday girl said. “Everyone has someone. It’s not possible to have no crush. You do have one, you just won’t admit it.”

“But… I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Stop lying!”

“Yam never lies,” Jim said. Yam smiled at her. 

“You’re her best friend, Jim,” another girl said, “Can you tell us who Yam’s crush is?”

Jim looked at Yam. “She… has not told me.”

“See, she has one that not even her best friend knows about.”

“No, no! If Yam had a crush, she’d tell me! We tell each other everything!”

“Yes… yes, I would.”

The other girls sighed in defeat. Yam was relieved they didn’t pester her about this anymore.

When Yam was 18, she came out as a lesbian to everyone she knew. The reactions were different depending on the person.

“Oh! How fun!” some of them reacted.

“You are?” some others reacted.

Some of them even said “Wow! I never would have guessed!”

There were some early signs. But maybe only Yam herself thought they were obvious.

[xaospoiesis]

06.26 / Funeral season

When I was a kid, a bunch of people died at around the same period. I dubbed it “funeral season”. I think it lasted years, a lot longer than my brain can understand.

One of those people was my grandfather. My memories of him are all linked to disease. He had prostate cancer, I had no idea what that was, other than it made him so ill that I once went to see him at the hospital but couldn’t physically be in the same room so I had to see him through a window. I waved, he waved back. He went back home after that, I think he was on hospice care, a nurse would come, but the rest of the time my grandma, ever so devoted to him, would care for him.

He died on a sunny day, during the summer I think. 2004. I was 10. We were in the garden playing, I had said good morning to him and he had said it back. The sun wasn’t down yet that he was gone. My father announced it to my sister, my cousin and I. Such a direct way too. It was the first time someone I knew died. My sister screamed in surprise and I watched how birds came out of the trees. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel sad.

All I’ve ever seen grandpa be, was ill. The rest of who he was, has been told to me through stories, very sparse, of how he was grand, important, intelligent. What a man to follow behind, what a standard to reach. I’ll never reach it. I don’t want to reach it.

Because I’d only remembered him sick, in hospitals, in wheelchairs, the smell of his hospital ward (that one I remember the best, I catch a whiff of it on people sometimes, randomly, it’s been 20 years and I can still remember), in my ten year old mind, it was a logical conclusion. All the meds, all the care, the doctor appointments, they had to say it was getting worse for him. I put all of that together. Adults where I was born don’t tell children a thing. They’re meant to exist only outside of the sphere of adulthood, not “real people” yet, objects, in a sense, belonging to someone. Objects don’t get to be sat down and explained to and comforted. I don’t think I needed comfort anyways. Not for grandpa’s death. I expected that.

But I didn’t feel sad. Other people did. Said so. My dad asked before the burial if I wanted to see him, I said no. I felt guilty for doing so. But I didn’t want to see his corpse. It wasn’t grandpa anymore, just the envelope. I didn’t want to see grandpa without grandpa being there. I didn’t cry then either.

I think I cried once, by forcing myself to. Because I felt abnormal for not doing so. I cried for not crying. For feeling a bit off. Not human enough, maybe something was wrong with me. So I cried for that and used it to fake some semblance of grief. Told myself “I’m so sad, I’ll miss you grandpa” it was a lie, but I was thinking maybe some higher power would see that and not be mad at me for not being truly sad, maybe I’d fool it. It was the middle of the night, no one saw, no one heard. The next day I claimed I had cried to my cousin, she nodded in approval. I did well.

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

My childhood friend drowned at the beach during a family barbecue. The news came all the way to our house. It’s a really small island where I was born. Everything is known so fast. I saw her family get in the car that morning, I waved goodbye to them. After her death, none of them were ever the same. Her sisters, her father, her mom. The baby boy that came later never got to know her or how she was really funny, really bold, or how watching Bridge to Terabithia reminds me of her.

She drowned. I was distraught. I didn’t cry. Her I genuinely grieve. I think I’ll grieve her forever. Quietly.

That day, after the news reached us, my father came to pick us up. We went for a drive. We didn’t talk. Adults didn’t tell children things. Maybe it was to remove us from all the other adults talking about funeral arrangements already. On the drive, a single ambulance went by. Normally, it’d go to the hospital the other way, since it was closer. This ambulance was headed to the other hospital, the one closed to where we all lived. I didn’t dare talk. I didn’t ask my dad. But something in my chest assumed. She was in there. Or just her corpse. Without her in it. I didn’t look back once it passed by, I couldn’t. My chest hurt a little. I really didn’t want it to be her, any of it to be true. I didn’t cry but everything after the ambulance is a blur. I don’t remember much after that.

Other deaths, other silences.

And I keep thinking, now, if they had tried cpr (it wasn't taught up until my sister entered middle school around 5-6 years alter), maybe, just maybe she would still be around. Or maybe she wouldn't. It's not like what-ifs can change anything.

[kindoffruity]

Smitten - Chapter Two - Aonung's POV

Summary: Aonung is Neteyam's biggest fan and no matter how strong he is, Neteyam is baby.

Mild warning: This chapter has a teensy bit of violence, not much though. Also, this is my Avatar universe so what I say goes. It's not cannon-compliant at all.

Smitten - Chapter Two - Protect - Aonung's POV

Most people knew not to mess with Aonung, being the chief’s son usually gave him enough stature to not be bothered with. Though that logic didn’t apply to other eldest sons of chiefs. To elaborate more on the situation at hand, Aonung had to think back to what he could have possibly done wrong to end up here. 

It had been a few hours earlier at the center of the reef when a few ilus had rode in with them a select few young adults from the neighboring Ta’uni clan.

It wasn’t determined as a threat, the clans were more like cousins if anything, so it didn’t gather the attention of many people besides Aonung and Tsireya. 

“Welcome,” Tsireya greeted happily, she was usually too welcoming for Aonung’s liking. He felt a bit uneasy as they all chatted, Aonung recognized one of the males in the group had received their Iknimaya and had their first tattoo. He had just recently completed his coming of age ceremony. 

Aonung completely missed the name of pretty much everyone in the group, he knew they were here for something. 

“Enough with the small talk, what is it you want?” Aonung spat, he was usually the one to speak his mind freely regardless. 

“Excuse my eldest brother, he usually isn’t this rude.” Tsireya apologized for him, smacking his arm. Aonung looked unamused as he stared at the outsiders. 

“I have come to seek the sea princess, I am a man worthy of being her mate.” 

Finally, Aonung thought to himself. He knew they wouldn’t have rode from another reef to their home just to sit in a circle and be friends. 

“No,” The siblings spoke in unison, “How dare you insult my sister by thinking because you completed your Iknimaya you could come here and ask for her hand.” Aonung knew he had no right to his sister, and as much as he hated Lo’ak this would easily be a downgrade. 

Some more words were exchanged, Aonung could admit, most of those words weren’t nice. He couldn’t remember specifics but he did know the altercation had gathered some attention and at some point, someone had swung first, not him though, he learned his lesson last time with the Sully’s. 

Next thing he knew, he had tackled the unknown Ta’uni member and a full on fight had broken out. He could hear Tsireya practically weeping in the back and only really pulled out once he heard Tonowari, his father, shout. 

He pulled off, knuckles bruised, a busted lip but surely he looked a lot better than the other who scrambled to his feet and retreated with his friends. 

Perhaps that was Aonung’s mistake, he had chosen to walk away like his father had asked rather than to finish the fight. 

—-------

Aonung had been looking for a cave that would remind Neteyam of home, it had a large pool of water, near the ocean with a good amount of sand, and a mix of trees. It almost seemed like a small rainforest only a few minutes away from the reef. 

Not far behind him were the Ta’uni boys from earlier, this time they had brought a few more men with them.

“Take the ropes off and fight me like a man.” Aonung called out, his voice echoing in the cave walls. He had been ambushed, even though he was clearly stronger than most of them they had the element of surprise and he had only been one to their group of six. 

“There isn’t even a need to fight, look at you, we could just leave your pathetic self here and no one would come for you.” 

Aonung glared, wriggling in the ropes that had bound his wrists and ankles together, he had gotten pretty beat up in the midst of everything. A multitude of bruises adorning his stomach and legs where he had been kicked and punched, his hair had been ripped out of his bun letting his curls out in a messy frame around his face. 

“Take these ropes off and see just how well I can fight. You needed six men to take me down, I can handle you like nothing.” Aonung licked the blood from his lips, his body flexing as he tried to break out of the burning rope. 

A knife was pulled out and Aonung finally thought the other was going to release him so they could have a real fight except the unsharpened part knife was pressed against his neck, “You talk too much.” Aonung quieted his mouth trying to think of how he could get out of the situation. He was outnumbered, tired, and frankly his whole body ached from the group having attacked him. 

“That's good, be quiet.” 

In the midst of the silence, there was a loud screech from an unknown animal, the group all looked up and around nervous with the unfamiliar screech. 

“Is that.. An Ikran..?” The knife was dropped and the leader turned to process what the large Ikran had been doing, it had been circling the cave from above with loud screeching and then it suddenly dropped down and flew right past the group knocking a few of the Ta’unui clan members off their feet. 

“Why would an Ikran be near the reef- Where is your rider?” 

There was very visible panic as they tried to stand guard from the large creature.

Aonung snorted, behind the bruised lips and jaw was a smirk, “Not even Ewya will help you out of this one..” 

As if Aonung predicted the future, Neteyam had leaped out of hiding with his bow and arrow- and the cute waist belt Aonung loved so much. 

Neteyam had smacked the leader directly in the face with the bow, clearly taking him by surprise as fell back. Neteyam landed on his feet directly in front of Aonung, dropping down in a stance over Aonung’s legs, his blade out and ears pointed back as he hissed in a threat to the group. 

“What is a forest na’vi doing here- how barbaric-” A few hushed whispers and insults that stirred Aonung up but his focus was immediately brought to Neteyam.

Everything else happened too fast, Aonung didn’t even get a good look at Neteyam but he looked at his posture and immediately knew Neteyam was angry. Neteyam was fast, the bow had been placed by Aonung’s feet and Neteyam had taken off. 

Aonung could only sit helplessly and watch as his boyfriend had dragged every single member of the Ta’uni’s. Aonung winced as he watched Neteyam grab the smallest member and practically toss him like he was nothing, knocking him into the wall and unconscious. 

Neteyam was strong.

 Aonung could let out a dreamy sigh as Neteyam had defended him, even as Neteyam drop kicked and slammed his bow at the back of someone’s head- Aonung could only think about how his body made every move look graceful. 

“I think I am in love..” Aonung muttered quietly as he stood there tied up, he knew Neteyam could handle it himself otherwise he would have freed him. 

Neteyam was bouncing around, barely breaking a sweat when Aonung noticed someone about to sucker punch Neteyam from behind, Aonung’s feet were moving on their own and he pushed his shoulder and head into the unnamed attacker, his hands may have been tied up but he wasn’t going to just let Neteyam take that hit for him. Aonung rolled off with a grunt, his hair sprawled out around him as he tried to push himself up with only his feet. 

“Ma’Aonung!” 

Aonung hadn’t been expecting that, nor did he expect for Neteyam to break his bow across the back of the last member of the group. 

Aonung grunted and finally was able to push himself up to his feet, panting a bit with strain as he was finally able to take a look around. Neteyam had single-handedly taken out six guys by himself and was literally unscathed. 

Despite the fact that Neteyam had no injuries he looked like he was about to start crying, “I thought I lost you..” Neteyam spoke but it was in english and Aonung couldn’t understand him at all. 

“Are you okay? Did you get hurt- Why are you crying?” Aonung tried to wriggle out the rope on his wrists, finally they were cut off revealing deep dark bruises. Aonung was more concerned with inspecting Neteyam who had ripped through the group like they were nothing. 

“I am fine! Look at you! I should have been there sooner!” Neteyam cried out and Aonung sighed softly, grabbing him and pulling him for a tight hug. “Look at me, I am fine. You came just in time, I knew you would come.” Aonung said softly, being extremely gentle with Neteyam. 

The group had gathered themselves and limped out, absolutely baffled that such a monster like that would need consoling after nearly killing them.

From the top of the cave Lo’ak and Tsireya watched, they had arrived mere minutes before, “Neteyam is scary when he’s angry.. He walks around like the perfect child but his temper- Awful.” Lo’ak had only been there long enough to see his brother bash his bow into someone’s back but that told him everything he needed to know. 

“I think they are very cute together, Lo’ak don’t you think?” Tsireya said softly, her arm wrapped around his, she looked up at him with large eyes and Lo’ak felt inclined to agree with her.

“Nope, did you see my brother? He single handedly took down all those guys. Where was yours? Tied up like a princess- Hold on! FISH LIPS WATCH THOSE HANDS!” Lo’ak shouted. 

Aonung had only been hugging Neteyam, sure his hand had ended up on his lower back, it was a given. Aonung looked up, tensed, hearing the shouting, “Why are they here…” He grumbled.

Tsireya gasped, ducking out of sight and smacking Lo’ak’s arm. “Hush they saw us! We must go!” She pulled Lo’ak away fast. 

.

.

.

.

[thattargboy]

What’s your perspective on the fight at Driftmark?

Short answer: I don’t blame Aemond (or. I blame him a little because disrespect, but the kid lost an eye so he gets sympathy points), I especially don’t blame Rhaena or Baela, they did nothing wrong 🥰. I kinda blame Luke and Jace because they were the ones with the knife, but mostly their parents because why was no one watching these kids???? Should there not have been a guard outside their rooms or something????

Very long and repetitive answer: I understand that as soon as Laena died Vhagar was a free dragon, and “technically” Rhaena had no claim over her. That doesn’t change the fact that she was an eight year old girl who has just lost her mother (who had ordered that dragon to kill her and that definitely factors in), so I understand why she felt entitled to try to claim her and why she hadn’t attempted it yet.

So yeah needless to say, claiming Vhagar during the night of the funeral was very disrespectful on Aemond’s part. Does it make sense why he did it? Absolutely. He was like 10 (?12?) being bullied by his big brother and his nephews and he wanted to prove himself by claiming the oldest and biggest dragon in the world because It Be Like That, and yeah he was technically right in like that Rhaena “should have” tried to claim Vhagar. But like I said. Eight year old girl at her mom’s funeral. And also Rhaena understands what it feels like to feel inadequate over lacking a dragon so really Aemond what’s your play?

Also we have no idea that Vhagar would have even accepted Rhaena if she did try to claim her, but honestly I think she would have. No real reason there other than vibes so feel free to disagree.

Ultimately, Baela, Rhaena, Luke and Jace should have gone to guards or their parents if they thought something was going on with Vhagar but then again they were kids so I don’t blame for not doing so, and I think we all have taken something into our own hands when we kids that we should have went to adults for (I do however blame their parents for not having anyone watching them and instead banging on the beach at his wife’s funeral). But like. They weren’t being watched and they took things into their own hands, like kids do, and they reacted very emotionally and got into a fight (and no, 4v1 is not fair, but also they are all like 12 and under. I know y’all have seen playground fights like that in your youth. If they were older I’d be like oh yeah fuck all four of them), like kids do.

And honestly if Aemond didn’t lose an eye I probably would just be like “haha little shit got what he deserves,” because like. Not to sound like Bobby B here cuz fuck that guy but. Kids fight. It’s a thing they do because like emotional regulation is undeveloped and all over the place. It’s over. (Thinking about it because that scene was an obvious parallel to the one in GoT, making that comparison with Cersei and Alicent is both genius and fills me with rage)

But to get back on track, Aemond did lose an eye, and y’know permanent mutilation and a scuffle between cousins (and uncle/nephews) are two very different things.

Jace never should have brought the knife and honestly for once I can’t really see the kid logic there. I guess I can compare it to like being a kid and thinking you hear a burglar and instead of waking up your parents you grab a bat (okay now I’m seeing the kid logic, Jace you’re free to go. Still why did he even have a dagger in the first place kid’s like 9???)

And then there’s Luke, who I’m giving some leniency because he’s the youngest, but again even a 7 year old knows better then to cut a boy’s eye out.

Like yeah from his perspective Aemond was about to brain his brother with a rock so yeah I kinda get it. But us as viewers are not 7 year olds in the middle of a fight, and we could see that Aemond was not moving, and really Luke should have been able to see that too but also, need I say it again? A kid in the middle of a fight. I honestly kinda thought it looked like Aemond was gonna put it down but no one else seems to think that so I’m just gonna assume I’m wrong

Ultimately what I think the problem was no one was punished. Back to sounding like Bobby B because obviously none of the kids should have tortured (or sharply questioned) or lost an eye as compensation (really girlie, charging with his knife is iconic but very stupid). But to bring it back to the playground thing, if that was fight in an elementary school all of those kids would have been getting in trouble.

Instead Viserys threatened his wife and children over the truth. So. Yeah. Fuck all the adults in that situation.

(Also I do understand and sympathize with both Alicent and Rhaenyra in that scene. Alicent’s son has been made permanently disabled and no one is on her side not even the child’s father, it makes sense that she kinda snapped, and yes even though it is the truth, calling her children bastards puts their lives and their inheritance in danger, of course they’re both going to try and protect their children it’s what mothers do. Understandable and sympathetic, and even justifiable doesn’t mean they were exactly in the right however.)

Westeros needs some sort of man price, at the very least Luke should have been made to apologize (and then apologize again when he’s older and actually means it instead of laughing at the pig) and in a world where we got more episodes and they emphasized that this is a family we’re watching tear itself apart I would have liked to seen Aemond at least try to put water under the bridge with Rhaena and only Rhaena (and maybe Baela but she wasn’t really involved) when they’re older.

(Like maybe if we got to see Aegon and Helaena’s wedding, and Rhaenyra’s family was invited. That could’ve been cool.)

All that said (and sorry for saying so much), the way everything played out makes sense and I wouldn’t change it except like I said with like older Aemond and Rhaena attempting to make amends before shit hits the fan.

[britcision]

(UGH I WROTE A BIG LONG THING AND TUMBLR FUCKING ATE IT SO YOU GET WHAT YOU GET)

Kara wanders into the first class not really expecting to find anything.

Clark had come to her, telling her he’d heard something he was sure was Kryptonian, but couldn’t quite parse it. He’d garbled the pronunciation along with the syntax, but still pulled a startled laugh from her

Because that? That certainly wasn’t the Kryptonian Clark spoke, formal and slightly clinical. Kara was pretty sure Clark didn’t understand half the swears, and was mildly surprised he’d pinged it as Kryptonian at all

But it probably wasn’t. There were only so many phonemes, and Kara had had that painful experience often enough; a phrase in a language that sounded just too close to home, but always meant something else here

Clark had pulled out the university directories though, pointing to a series of classes on Alien Cultures from the same building. And then he told her he couldn’t be the one to check it out

He wouldn’t Know like she would. Wouldn’t be able to tell if this was on the level, and didn’t want to get his (or his sons’) hopes up in case it wasn’t

He needed her to go. To tell him if it was any good. And Kara knew damn well what he was doing.

Making it seem like she was doing him a favour, so she didn’t have to go for herself.

Jon was a better manipulator when he was two years old, but Clark wouldn’t ever think of it that way. He thought he was being kind

She made herself annoyed about it anyway to keep the hope from slipping in.

She’d even come early, hoping to get a look at the professor before things begun, and was mildly disappointed when the man himself ran in a grand total of ten seconds before class began

For all he’d pass for Clark in a heavy fog (tall, broad shoulders, black hair and blue eyes) he was so visibly, painfully human. Even if his heartbeat was a little slow

It would have been so nice to find another Kryptonian. Just one other person who remembered their home world. But this was probably nothing, she reminded herself, settling in and missing most of his introduction as she fell into a funk

And was violently snapped out of it by a short, sharp phrase she’d never thought she’d hear again. Fast, easy slang, and then the grinning man translated it to English, and picked some modern slang to match

Kara herself probably wouldn’t have translated it to “have you considered getting good”, but the snickering of the students around her suggested this guy was bang on

The sense of kinship, of being able to share the meaning of a phrase from her home with a whole room of young adults was… well. She hadn’t felt anything like it

And the young professor, Fenton on her hastily checked schedule, kept going

He had sketches of buildings from so far away that the light of their destruction hadn’t even reached Earth. Different architecture styles that would never be built again

He had art, and not just the museum images that had been saved for Kal, there was graffiti, posters, recordings of songs (the quality wasn’t great but Kara couldn’t have cared less)

He had her home, the world she remembered, fashions from the highest class down to the casual daywear most of the population wore

Kara found herself blushing as she remembered the various “alt” styles her preteen self had gone through before deciding on her own. Before she’d been sent where she wouldn’t see any of it again

But it was here now

Kara didn’t realize she’d started crying until the boy next to her pushed a box of tissues across, and she almost asked him why

Superman wasn’t mentioned once

And Kara loved Clark, she did, but the way every conversation about her home, about her culture always turned to him, the cousin she could never share it with…

And she knew it was because this was his home. These were his people, and he was the logical touchstone for any of them.

That didn’t lessen the ache, only noticeable now that it was soothed

Someone asked, of course, at the very end where Professor Fenton - Danny, he corrected one student, with an awkward blush that made her realize how young he was - was taking questions

“What about Superman?”

Danny gave the girl a kind smile, tapping the screen that still showed his last slide

“These lessons are about Krypton, not Kryptonians on Earth. They’ve already had to learn and adapt to an alien culture, so it’s only fair we learn about theirs in return.”

A gentle reprimand, and reminded Kara of something else. The course wasn’t all Kryptonian, but it got a good chunk. Three weeks, six lessons in total, and she would come to all of them

Woe betide any alien invasion or jumped up supervillain that tried to get in her way

The next class would be about food, and Danny was promising to bring in the closest approximations he could to some of the popular foods from the major cities

Street food. Gods it didn’t matter if it was even anything Kara had had before, had ever liked, she would come for all of it

She’d never realized how much she had missed the gritty, day to day parts of home

Kal had fine art, music from great composers, all kinds of videos tucked away to show him his world, but that wasn’t what Kara had lived

She’d just been a kid, a stupid teenager, taking things for granted until she could never have them again

But now… she might

Danny was also offering adjusted recipes for anyone who wanted to try and help him turn the next class into a potluck

Kara didn’t join the rush to the front, students grabbing eagerly for printed recipe booklets, or the steady flow of students leaving the hall

She just sat, breathing slowly and deeply and working her way back to some kind of composure

She couldn’t trust herself to move without breaking something, to speak without shaking, and the professor had almost finished packing up by the time she trusted herself to try

And then he had paused at the end of her row, a gentle, sad smile on his face

“It can be an emotional topic. Realizing just how much was lost,” he said softly, without judgement

He couldn’t know who she was

Did students often cry in this class? Did other people cry for the world, the cultures, the people, all of them now long dead?

Gods Kara hoped so

It was too much to bear alone

She stood carefully, holding out a hand to shake

“Kara Zor-El.”

She watched Danny’s eyes widen, the moment of surprise, and her heart ached. He didn’t recognize her, not herself, but her name… he recognized the Kryptonian

It felt like such a stupid thing to miss, but remembering that there had once been a whole world, so many more people like her that she could never know all their names…

He took her hand gently, almost tenderly, like he was afraid he might break her and Kara almost laughed

“I am so sorry, Kara Zor-El,” he told her softly, and she believed him. That he might actually, truly know the weight of her loss

Even if it wasn’t his too, there was someone else who had seen Krypton, seen its people, and knew they were worth remembering

“It was a wonderful lecture,” she said quietly, and normally the raw emotion in her voice would have embarrassed her, but she just didn’t have it in her to care

Danny beamed at the praise, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. Barest pressure, like she couldn’t crush his bones to dust by accident. Like she was actually as close to crumbling as she felt

“That means more from you than anyone in the world,” he told her sincerely, and she laughed at that. And then he added, “will you be back Thursday?”

She nodded immediately, no matter what else was on her schedule, it could wait. Then she paused.

“I will. I… might bring my cousin. I don’t know if we’ll say anything…” she trailed off, not sure what to say, but Danny was already nodding, diving into his bag

She’d barely noticed he was still holding her hand until it was cold with his absence, but then he pushed a handful of paper into her hand

“No obligation of course, for either of you, but… well, you may like this. Some of the early drafts from my cook weren’t exactly safe for human consumption, and we did have to make some substitutions, but I have a friend in Botany who’s been having real success with some of the Kryptonian and Tamaranean spices, so… that’s the more authentic version.”

He was rocking back and forth on his feet, and Kara just. Stared at him. For a long moment.

Then glanced down at the pages in her hand, and stared at him all over again.

That was written Kryptonian. Hand scrawled, messy and quick, in handwriting not her own and she couldn’t let her grip clench, couldn’t let her hand close and crumple this beautiful, wonderful thing

“How fluent are you?” She asked, her voice now little more than a whisper, and Danny gave a self deprecating little laugh

“Well, not perfect… but I have an affinity for dead or nearly-dead languages. That isn’t my writing though, mine’s basically illegible,” he explained quickly, and Kara gently stroked the sheets flat

A small smile pulled at her lips, something she hadn’t thought of in years.

“It’s funny,” she said, then cleared her throat, continuing in more of her usual tones, “Danny is short for Daniel, yes?”

Danny winced, and there was a story there, but she was lost in the memory

“Yeah…”

“I don’t know if you know this, but… there was a god of death on Krypton. Not a major deity, but… his name was Dan-El, the bringer of balance,” she explained with a wry smile, wishing she could remember more

Dann was smiling again though, and had clearly made his own connections

“I actually didn’t know that… I don’t suppose you’d want to talk more about your home?” He asked gently, snapping Kara’s attention back to his face

“In Kryptonian?” She asked in return, and watched the way his smile made his blue eyes shine

“Whenever you like,” he assured her, pulling out a card and a pen and nearly dropping his bag to juggle all three and still write a number on the back of his card. “You can get me any time with this number, or come by my office, or… anything. Any time, and I do mean that. I would love to hear anything you have to say.”

Something tugged in Kara’s chest, a warmth and a hope she hadn’t felt in ages. Fuck, her own Kryptonian was probably rusty, and that was just wrong

She’d have to teach the boys to speak it more. Teach them the swears their dad wouldn’t know

Maybe they’d want to take the class too

**

Clark was instantly enamoured with Danny and his classes too, and Kara attended every lecture

Even if they had been scripted and the subject matter never changed, she worked her way through them and would have come back every year

But Danny shook things up

Brought different samples, switched things around

And one day, when they’d known each other for a few years and she had come to know Professor Manson from Botany (Kara still had a black thumb, but Sam could make even Kryptonian plants flourish in Earth soil)…

Supergirl and Superman started to come in for guest lectures

Short DPXDC Prompts #649

Danny teaches an Astronomy & Alien Culture class in Gotham University. He knows far more about said cultures than the average professor should know. Almost as if he has first hand experiences on the planets he talks about.

[ellakomskaikru]

I kinda get why Iroh hated Azula ngl. Azula made fun of Iroh for leaving Ba Sing Se when his only son was killed. Even as a kid Azula was cruel and lacked empathy. And she openly talked about Iroh dying so Ozai could rule. Azula didn’t seem to care about her own cousin.

Hello anon.

I don’t believe that Iroh hated Azula, but rather didn’t care much for her. But if he did, it would not be justified.

Azula expressing frustration at Iroh abandoning the siege isn’t something that justifies him hating her. Firstly, Azula was a nine year old child who was clearly influenced by her power hungry and callous father, Ozai. And not to mention, I don’t think that Azula’s comment was actually as bad as some people believe. Azula, since she was very young, has always been very logical over emotional.

Therefore, she would see Iroh withdrawing from Ba Sing Se as a huge waste since he had been close to conquering Ba Sing Se and also because so many soldiers had died trying to get into Ba Sing Se. I’m not blaming Iroh for withdrawing, but I am just trying to explain why it would look bad to Azula. It would also look bad especially when you consider how the Fire Nation viewed showing too much emotion as weakness, and therefore, Azula would have seen Iroh ending the siege out of grief for his son as weakness. It’s messed up, but she is the product of her environment.

Yes, as a child, Azula did display some cruel behavior and have a lack of empathy at times. But, that doesn’t make her a monster. As I have said before, Azula was the favorite child of Ozai, who was already influencing her from very early on. And yes, Azula talked about Iroh possibly dying in favor of her father taking the throne. And yes, it is messed up, but it isn’t as unusual as you think. Of course Azula idealized Ozai over her uncle, Ozai is her father who likely told Azula how much better he was suited for the throne than Iroh was.

Azula was speaking in a way that most children do not speak, and that should be a clear sign that she was being influenced by an adult. And I do believe that Azula actually did care about Lu Ten. Her saying that Iroh should have burned Ba Sing Se to the ground sounded more like she wanted Iroh to get revenge for Lu Ten. Of course, that’s just the way I see it. Overall, Azula’s behavior was not always normal, but unlike you and some others seem to believe it doesn’t mean that she is evil and Iroh would not be right to hate her for her behavior as a child.

Thanks for the ask.

[slightlystrangepsyche]

Cobra Kai, season 5 thoughts

I may have been watching this season with a brain injury and a migraine, which might be why I think it’s the best season ever. Maybe, if I dug deeper I’d find more flaws, but I don’t want to. I’ll start with the couple of gripes I had, and then prepare for me gushing. 

I really don’t like the drinking and driving. I guess Johnny doesn’t even think of beer as booze anymore, but we’re not in season 1 anymore. Johnny shouldn’t have empty coors cans in his van.

The underage drinking. Again, it’s been there since season 1, and the kids did deserve a party, I just don’t understand why the party needs alcohol. Not a good message to sent to the kids watching the show.

My last gripe was when they showed the ultrasound. That was at least a ten week old fetus. They talked about the baby’s legs. I really don’t mind the baby SL, and I don’t even mind all the characters being happy about it, I’m happy for them, but to portray such a new pregnancy as having a fully formed fetus does seem like pro-life propoganda, and dangerous misinformation. 

A gripe I’m in denial about is implying Silver to be Jewish because he used Shalom services to sweettalk a Topanga sensei into handing over the dojo to him. I’m still pissed they gave Johnny’s evil step-dad a Jewish surname, so I am choosing to believe Silver faked it, in order to get what he wanted. 

Silver has always been such a comic book villain, and anybody who knows the KK lore knows him like that, but I think this season did a good job of showing the audience why other people don’t instantly see Silver as a villain. We know his philanthropy and civil demeanour to be an act, but innocent characters don’t, and are constantly blind-sided by him.

I really loved Amanda’s arc this season. It was logical, because this isn’t the Daniel she married, but she doesn’t know the full story of why he’s acting like this. The audience does. And having Jessica be her cousin, and to help her know the history, once she’s in the loop she can understand and support Daniel. 

I think this season is the best season at exploring trauma and how it affects people differently, especially the adults who never talked about it, versus the kids who have learned how to communicate, although some traumas can’t be addressed until they’ve been processed. 

Freaking Stingray has always been my least favourite character. His need to befriend the children, throwing parties with alcohol just to buy their friendship, always irked me. But they way he could only explain what happened, using D&D, it really broke my heart.

This season had the best balance of comedy, character moments and trauma. It was so funny. 

And the more people I see hating on the baby SL, the more I like it. And the idea what the series might end with a big Jarmen wedding. We’ve seen Carmen drink bad orange juice, just because Johnny gave it to her. We’ve seen Carmen be territorial when Shannon was by Johnny’s apartment. The fact that the Top Gun fantasy was Carmen’s and not Johnny’s was a funny reveal, but in character and I’m glad she’s getting what she wants. 

Robby does deserve to be bitter, but that’s not who he is. He is such a good kid, a good man. And he has a lot of love to give, love that he wasn’t able to share growing up, so I can see him doting on a younger sibling. Miguel too. He learned his father was not a good man, but he’s not his dad. He can be an amazing big brother. 

After everything, I just want the characters to be happy, and I know a baby is a cliché way to make everything better, but I don’t think it’s out of character. And I don’t think it implies that childrenless characters are evil, because Chosen certainly isn’t. I can see why people could take that as a takeaway, but not mine.

I do think the show is still trying too hard to be straight, when it is clearly a karate polycule. Having Chozen still pine for Kumiko so he’s not the fifth wheel just screams “no homo” but I don’t care. Kumiko is welcome in the karate polycule. I’m sure Amanda and Carmen would welcome her, just like Amanda invited Ali before, much to Johnny and Daniel’s horror. 

There are so many aspects of season 5 that I just love. At first I was disappointed we didn’t get more Kreese, but I really hope we spend season 6 doing that, and ending it with a cliché wedding or birth scene, where Johnny finally is too happy in the present, and excited for the future, to be haunted by the past. 

My heart sank when I thought Daniel was actually going to help Kreese get out of jail by hooking him up with his lawyer. And the thing is, season 1 Daniel might have done that, regardless of the trauma it clearly caused Johnny. So that reveal, makes my heart soar. 

And as much as I hate Kreese, I really love Martin Kove, and I thought it was really clever how they used young!Kreese for the fight scenes. 

There are so many more things I could rave about. I really enjoyed the balance between the adults drama and the kids, which I haven’t in past seasons. I love all the characters, and am so glad to see them come together. 

The children this season have been much smarter than the adults, which is hilarious, but I do hope to see more communication between the two generations. Anthony deserves to have an adult to confide in, and Johnny clearly wanted to reach out to Devon but couldn’t. 

I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface on this rant about season 5, because there was so much, but it was never too much, and I thought 90% of it was amazing. 

EDIT: I’m not even pissed that Daniel used violence to defeat Silver, or that Johnny got Miguel and Robby to brawl before they could finally talk about what happened. I know it seems contrary to previous seasons, that this season is saying “violence can sometimes be necessary, or cathartic, or funny” but I do think it’s a question of balance. (I still don’t think Daniel breaking Anthony’s tablet last season was funny though). 

[charlottethecuttest]

Hijo Del Corazón

Ship: Camilo/Mirabel

Tags: Fluffy, Late Night Conversations, Implied Cousin Incest.

Warnings: Incest, Cousin Incest.

Synopsis: Little Oscar's two favorite people are his sister Mirabel and his cousin Camilo. And after a nightmare, it is logical for the boy to look for them.

Also posted on AO3

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

 At the age of four, Oscar knew that one of his favorite people in the world was his sister Mirabel.

He knew very well that his mother was Julieta. She was the best mother in the world and made the best arepas in the universe... but she was not Mirabel. Mirabel, who knew how to give the best hugs and how to scare away the monsters that sometimes appeared under the bed or insisted on coming out of the closet. It was Mirabel who told him stories before going to sleep no matter how tired she was. It was she who came to his aid after a nightmare and let him sleep in her bed, no matter how much space he took up or how much he moved during the night. Mirabel was the one the boy turned to every time he got hurt, so that she could give him a little kiss on the bruise, which worked almost as well as his mother's arepas. He loved the fact that his older sister always had time for him, no matter how tired or busy she was. There was always time for a hug, kiss or conversation. She paid attention and spent time with him as if he was the most important person in the world at that moment. Mirabel was truly amazing.

He also knew that his other favorite person was his cousin Camilo.

Just as he knew that his mother was Juliet, he also knew that his father was Agustín, and that he was also a wonderful person... But he was not Camilo. Camilo, who in the summers took him fishing and never got angry, even when he talked too loud and scared the fish away. Camilo, who was teaching him to ride a bike and always encouraged him to try again, no matter how many times he fell. It was Camilo who had taught him how to tie his shoelaces, after attempts and attempts at disastrous knots. Mirabel could tell the best bedtime stories, but it was his cousin who made them real, acting out and transforming himself into each of the characters. Oscar wanted to be like Camilo when he grew up, a person who was always concerned about making others happy, and who wouldn't give up until he made you smile.

At the age of five Oscar got his gift. At first he did not understand very well how it worked. Every time the boy held someone's hands, he saw images, like a movie inside his head. They were scenes involving the person whose hands he was holding. Oscar did not yet know how to control what he saw, so the images were random.

They soon realized that the boy's gift was to see into the past, and when he started asking certain compromising questions to some people in the family (Mira, when did you have a baby? Why doesn't he live here with us?), they realized that they would have to do something so that Oscar would not be able to use his powers all the time. For the sake of the child himself, who sooner or later would end up seeing something inappropriate for his age, but also to spare the adults from other embarrassing situations.

The solution found was a pair of gloves. Little black gloves. As long as Oscar was wearing them his gift did not work. It was not a perfect solution, as the boy constantly forgot to put them on, but in time he would learn.

It was late at night, and that day Oscar could not sleep. He had forgotten to put on his gloves when he left home earlier that day, and ended up taking the hand of a man who helped him up from a fall. He didn't know the man, but he didn't like what he saw. The scene was chaotic, with screams, some people running, others being killed. It all lasted no more than five seconds, but it was enough to imprint those terrible images in the mind of the child, who now, every time he could sleep, had nightmares about what he had seen.

The third time he woke up crying and with his heart racing, he decided that he no longer wanted to sleep alone. He left his room, stopping first in front of his parents' room, but giving up just before knocking on the door, heading for Mirabel's room. Once there, he knocked on the door, as lightly as possible, and called softly for his sister. But there was no answer. He knocked again, but there was no answer. He then decided to open the door, only to see that the room was empty.

He didn't understand. Was Mirabel not there? But she was always there when he needed her. Where could she have gone?

He then went to his second option, Camilo. He knocked on the door again, and this time he got an answer. But it wasn't who he expected.

"Oscar? What happened honey?" - Mirabel answered in the middle of a yawn, stooping down to stand at the boy's height. - "Couldn't sleep?"

"You weren't in your room. Why weren't you in your room? I was scared, I thought you were gone." - He began to cry again.

"Shhh, it's ok, I'm here now, aren't I? Sometimes I don't like to sleep alone too."

She noticed that Oscar was without his gloves and was careful not to touch the boy's hands as she picked him up and carried him into the room. She then laid him down on the bed, between her and Camilo, who had woken up with the noise.

"What happened?" - Camilo asked.

Mirabel shrugged lightly, she didn't know either.

"I had bad dreams..." - Oscar replied, snuggling into Mirabel, who hugged him.

"It's all right now. They were just dreams, no one can hurt you here."

Camilo moved a little closer to the two, stroking Oscar's curly hair. The three of them stayed like that for a while, Camilo and Mirabel even believed that Oscar had managed to sleep. Until...

"Mira... can you sing me a song?" - The boy asked, now calmer.

"A song? Which one do you want?"

"Any one."

She thought for a moment, and finally began, in a sweet, soft voice:

Hijo del corazón Deja ya de llorar Junto a ti yo voy a estar y nunca más te han de hacer mal

Tus ojitos de luz El llanto no ha de nublar Ven mi amor nadie nos ha de separar Si te vieran como yo Te darían su calor

Oscar yawned, he could barely keep his eyes open.

Todo aquel que te hizo a ti llorar Te tendría ahora entre sus brazos Hijo mío, mi amor No me importa el sufrir Cómo un sol, tu me das luz y das calor a mi vivir

Mirabel ran her hand through the boy's hair and kissed those auburn curls she loved so much.

Todo aquel que te hizo a ti llorar Te tendría ahora entre sus brazos

Hijo mío, mi amor No me importa el sufrir Cómo un sol, tu me das luz y das calor a mi vivir

Mirabel finished the song. Almost sleeping, little Oscar, nestled in his sister's arms, whispered, before finally falling asleep:

"I wish you were my parents..."

Mirabel and Camilo looked at each other, a little surprised by the boy's speech.

"Sometimes I think he knows more than he lets on. - Camilo said, also almost asleep.

"Who knows?"

Camilo didn't answer, fixing his gaze on the boy his cousin was hugging, at the same time lightly caressing Mirabel's face. They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Camilo kissed her cheek lightly, said good night, and closed his eyes, only to open them the next morning.

Mirabel stayed awake for a little more time, smelling the childish scent that her "brother's" hair exhaled, until she finally fell asleep, with a tiny smile in her lips.

[vaguely-concerned]

So I got an anon ask a long time ago that, from sketchy memory, said something like: Who do you think had the better/worse home life growing up, Graves or TF? And I’m super sorry because it’s gotten lost somewhere on this blue hellsite and I can’t find it again anywhere I’ve looked, but I thought I’d try to write out a post as a response anyway! I’m sorry it’s so late, it took me a while to know how to answer aaand then I had to rifle through my drafts fifteen times to see if I could find it. Again, oops and sorry lol. (In general, if you’ve sent me an ask and I haven’t answered… please know that’s on my little ping pong ball of a brain bouncing erratically around in here, and absolutely not on you.) Also I’m going to mention some stuff around physical and emotional child abuse and trauma in this – nothing graphic or in depth, but just in case anyone needs the heads-up!

Okay, so my personal headcanon/what I’ve built for my fics* is that they’re both only children of single mothers. Graves has no idea who his dad is and Mama Graves possibly has only the haziest approximate idea too haha (none of the candidates would be promising long-term prospects in any case), but in Bilgewater logic he basically grew up with the idea that in having one living parent with any kind of investment in his survival (and occasionally even happiness, an embarrassment of riches here) he might as well have hit the jackpot. TF’s dad died when TF was very little and he doesn’t remember him, and that loss is partially why his mother wasn’t able to do a very good job at the parenting thing. (She probably would have done better with a dependable partner and less depression weighing her down, but there’s some underlying emotional immaturity there too that was the real problem.) Between the two of them he probably did have the safer environment around him growing up, though; child rearing among his people was a good deal more communal and tight-knit than in the gutters of Rat Town, he was raised along with a bunch of cousins/other kids. (He was seen by most of the adults as kind of a weird annoyingly precocious kid – there is a certain kind of adult who’ll get very uncomfortable around an uncannily observant and inquisitive child – and there were Family Politics at play there as well that meant he had a subtle sense of being on the outside already there.)

Graves’ mom was physically and verbally abusive (and drank too much periodically, mostly when he got a bit older) but also had some genuine care for his wellbeing and safety, especially physically, while TF grew up with a largely emotionally unavailable and neglectful mom who collapsed into helplessness and rejection whenever he needed things from her, and then was completely abandoned by her and everyone else in the family in the end. He did experience some much better and more loving connection with his (paternal) grandfather, but his grandfather also struggled with an ever worsening serious health condition that was slowly growing terminal as TF turned eleven or so – by the time he got exiled at thirteen his grandpa was barely awake for hours at a time some days and couldn’t really do anything to help him :(

And now let me try to show my work a bit around what parts of their lore I’ve extrapolated/built this from and elaborate on the long-term effects on their ways of dealing with relationships!

So to Graves being the recipient of indifference feels much worse than anger or conflict in relationships, because his primary attachment relationship taught him that interest, even in the form of anger, was a sign that he mattered to his mother; her anger (often born of fear and boy does Bilgewater offer a lot of things to fear) and insistence on being involved in his life (so he wouldn’t y’know end up being eaten by a warf rat or something while being a dumbass kid lol) were proof that she loved him and that he had some sort of importance in the dangerous violent world he was born into.

He takes TF running away from him as a sign of indifference and rejection/abandonment, which is why it just keeps escalating the rage and hurt in him during the whole chase scene in Burning Tides; to him it reads as more and more proof that TF doesn’t care about him and never really did, that he’s blowing off all the pain Graves has been through the last ten years and that he’s desperate to convey to someone (because I think that’s also part of why he feels he needs TF to listen to him before he actually does anything violent to him; he needs someone to hear and witness how much it hurts, even if that’s not the vocabulary he knows how to use. And he needs TF to listen both because he thinks he’s the one to blame but also because he’s the person he thinks would understand or that it would matter to – aside from his mother he’s the only other person he has actually had such a close relationship with. Some parts of him still know TF as ‘love, safety, home’ even while other parts are on the war path with lethal intent, and the raging parts carrying the abandonment pain go ‘well, then I’ll fucking make him feel this as much as I do one way or the other’ (sinister intent). Even that is still a bid for connection on some level.)

I really think part of Graves’ way of feeling and showing love is grounded in mutuality that way. Even in that twisted form, what he wants from TF is mutual connection. (Which is why TF disappearing into his Cool Magic Gambler Persona TM bothers him so much, because it leaves him ‘alone’ and without that back and forth flow of call and response of connection between them (look at their moment in the crate in the animated short for an example of what I mean – the way their bodies and gazes do an effortless sort of a back and forth sway of expression: TF leans in with a conspiratorial air and stays there as Graves takes in his meaning, Graves leans in eagerly as he gets it and TF smugly settles back against him, and you can see how much they BOTH enjoy it. TF could just have used the card immediately, but his first thought is to share their imminent triumph with Graves and make a moment of it, have a connection. I don’t know how clearly I’ve managed to express it with that, I just go on Vibes and that’s why I write fiction lol. See also the immediate easy back and forth they fall into at the end of Burning Tides, where so much can be left unspoken because they know each other that well, and how it makes Graves GRIN when only like fifteen minutes earlier he notes it’s been a long, long time since he laughed. Which then gets the paranoia briefly kicking in for a moment because that’s Dangerous Territory to his trauma brain, but I really do think that their safe established connection is part of how Graves has honestly been getting back on his feet with surprising speed and ease considering Everything.)

There’s an ability to fully commit to an idea of us without having the I become lost there that I think must have started very early. As lacking and harmful as she was in other ways Mama Graves did provide that sense of unflinching ‘me and you against the world you little shit’ psychological security.

(Graves is also very quick to hear criticism where it isn’t even intended because oh boy Mama Graves always had something to complain about, TF has had to do a lot of baffled ‘…Malcolm, that is NOT what I said where the fuck did that come from’ unpacking with him over the years whenever that kicks in for him)

Meanwhile TF had to learn to fashion affection from indifference growing up: he basically learned from his mom that the best thing he could do for her was to need nothing from her, to make her life as easy as possible however he could and intuiting the things that would accomplish that without troubling her, and if he did it right she would give him some superficial attention and affection, and that’s what love is. Writing it out this is… very very sad. She would also sometimes have unpredictable anger episodes where she’d snap at him instead (often rooted in repressed shame because something in her recognized this is not how it’s supposed to go) – they were rarer but did some real damage whenever they happened. This is where his ability to read people probably started getting honed to its razor sharpness.

As you see there’s a brutal lack of mutuality in this dynamic, and a reversal of how the parent/child dynamic should actually work, the kid desperately having to do their damnedest to regulate the parent to get any needs met at all and not really managing it, because that is the DEFINITION of getting set up to lose, it just can’t work. (And I do think that mutuality Graves freely offers in close relationships is a huuuuuge part of why TF is so attracted to him both initially and enduringly, it fulfills basic needs he didn’t have met as a kid. His mom set him up to give and give and get very little back, but Graves has that basic sense of fairness that he doesn’t want TF to give him something without him getting something of equal value back in return, it just seems against some sort of code haha. There’s no honor among thieves but there is between partners, sort of thing.)

It’s also why he defaults to Flight in very tense situations – when the angry dudes came for him in the incident that lead to his exile he had no one safe to go to for help, and he was one small slip of a kid against a bunch of drunk angry adults; there really wasn’t a lot else his brain knew how to do than get away, and then he’s abandoned for it on top of it all afterwards. Trauma sandwich with shame for mustard holy shit.

I am basing this heavily on the underlying theme in Burning Tides that TF thinks that by running away he’s helping Graves by making sure he won’t put them in a position that’ll invariably seriously hurt (or worse) one or both of them while he’s so angry that he’s not in his right mind, and he’s SO frustrated that Graves doesn’t see that – “Will you ever learn? Every time I try to help you – ”. No, actually, the feeling I get is more that he thinks Graves does understand it – that it’s such a self-evident part of how relationships work that he MUST know it – he’s just ignoring and devaluing it, which is what seems like rejection through TF’s eyes. He’s essentially trying to regulate Graves’ emotions for him in an (innocently instinctive, I think) manipulative way, and he’s hurt and confused as if by rejection that Graves doesn’t accept that or won’t play along with it. “I’m trying to shield you from the consequences of your actions here because I care about you; why won’t you let me???” hahaha. In the process he also can’t take Graves’ emotions seriously or meet them until he’s been chased into a corner and is forced to, because as far as he’s concerned his job is to give them an out from all that and he can’t bear doing ‘his part’ while forced to take in just how broken Graves is inside and what it means; that he’s lost him all over again. There’s no simple ‘okay okay hang on I can fix this by myself one moment please’ here, sunshine.

Interestingly Graves DOES seem to recognize this uh love language of TF’s as it were, when he’s less severely triggered:

Damn me, he’s right. I do things my way. Always have. Whenever I pushed it too far, he had my back. He was always the one with the out.

But I didn’t listen to him that day, and I haven’t since.

And now, I’ve killed us both.

And this is the exact realization that makes him believe TF is telling the truth about what happened back then, and makes him try to save him. It’s not quite forgiveness just like that, all at once, but it is a clearing of Graves’ poor trauma-battered brain’s confusion, like he can finally see both of them clearly again and that there is deep love on both sides here even after everything.

Not only does he recognize it, he even gets it deeply enough that what he returns is in the same language:

Now, at the end, I believe T.F. I know he tried everything to get me out, like he did all those times when we ran together. This time, for once, I’ve got the out. I can at least give him that.

(Which is also proof that Graves is not unheedingly ‘my way or the highway’ or incompetent in relationships, incapable of taking on another person’s point of view and seriously considering it, or cruel or particularly aggressive in close relationships when not completely torn up by trauma. And again that mutual shared sense of fairness I think is at the base of how their dynamic works. He recognizes what TF has done for him and tried to do for him and what it means, and he wants to return that in kind, not least because it’s the fair thing to do. Again, it’s about the mutuality of it all! Graves may need some time to muddle through and figure it out sometimes but y’know he gets there he gets there eventually lmao, in some ways I suspect he can actually be more mature and levelheaded about interpersonal stuff than TF, who, poor man, is just one big aching quivering abandonment issue most days)

Like when it’s finally clicking into place what’s actually going on, that the care he’d thought was there hadn’t been a lie all along after all – suddenly the world makes sense again. Which seems to be enough for him to meet death if not peacefully then at least not as broken inside as he was before that moment and realization. (TBF TF could probably have been a lot more communicative about his intentions instead of expecting Graves to understand it just from his subtle maneuverings and like Vibes haha, but well that was the unspoken deal with his mother, that it had to be seamless so neither of them had to face what was going on)

It feels like a lot of their current issues in communication comes from Graves exasperatedly being like ‘Tobias I don’t want to be managed, I want you to just talk with me like a normal human being’ and ‘chasing after’ him when he pulls away because he feels abandoned, and TF having forgotten how to like… Person during that decade when he was alone, instead just doing that ‘what does this person want from me (and how can I use that to manipulate them)’ dance he’s gotten FRIGHTENINGLY good at with other people and that doesn’t really work with someone that knows you so well and actually wants your company. It’s going to take some sinking in that Graves doesn’t want him for what he can do for him but because, y’know. He’s him and they’re Partners.

I think TF can handle the current (understandable lol) turbulence in their relationship, but his biggest fear is to be really, truly seen by someone and deemed unworthy and abandoned, having let them that close. So in a weird fucked up way he was more okay with Graves trying to hunt him down and kill him than he would have been if he had looked at him as all that he was and went ‘actually y’know what? Fuck this and fuck you you’re not worth it, I’m just leaving without you’. Truly a “TF, he wants to kill you” “*wobbly teary voice* at least someone wants me for something” “TF NO” situation.

TL;DR: their parents were both terrible and dysfunctional in their own ways, but Mama Graves would n e v e r have left her kid alone on that riverbank; she’d sooner have cursed the rest of them black and blue and flipped them off with both hands before marching off with him. Accuse her of many things and rightly so, but she was no coward and she was loyal as fuck to the few things that mattered to her, she would have tried to fight the devil himself with a frying pan for that dumb fucking kid (if she was sober enough that day ouch). In the other direction TF’s mom would never have hit him. TF had more of an experience of a safe community, but then he also had a much more brutal and complete abandonment at the end of that. There are probably very good reasons Graves left Bilgewater for the mainland when he was barely even more than a boy. …man there are so many ways to mess up a child’s brain huh thank god they found each other and mostly managed to make that work honestly

*With the caveat that there’s some wiggle room for change here as I work on my TF POV WIP and refine the ideas I’ve got in there – change more in the small details than in the big picture concepts, though, I think I’ve got that moooostly settled now? also I really want to stress that this is just my ideas and opinions, if you imagine something completely different for their backgrounds that is Valid haha

[nugnthopkns]

i know you get deja vu

word count: 1.4k

warnings: explicit fem!reader, cursing, it's mild angst up in this b

recommended listening: deja vu | olivia rodrigo

a/n: wrote this short little ditty while avoiding my adult responsibilities lmao. it is not great but i really like the premise, maybe one day i'll do something more with it

Your eyes have to be failing you.

There’s no way he showed up, let alone with another girl – who looks shockingly similar to you. She’s a more polished, more refined version of yourself, and anger bubbles in your stomach the moment you see him walk through the door with her in tow.

When your parents informed you they’d invited Pierre-Luc to your graduation party you shrugged it off. Their reasoning was he’d been a large part of your college experience, and it was sound enough logic. You stumbled across him in a coffee shop during your freshman year and quickly fell into a romance that lasted until a few months ago. The breakup was rather brutal, though your family doesn’t know that, so you didn’t expect him to stop by your parents’ house to congratulate you on completing your degree.

Much to your distaste he does make an appearance, with who you presume to be his new girlfriend. You don’t want to stare at the pair, but you can’t help it – they look good together, possibly better than you and Pierre did. However, you notice that the young woman has on a dress that’s identical to one hanging at the back of your closest. Pierre had bought it for you when you accompanied him to France one offseason, and the thought of him replicating the trip with her crosses your mind.

Finding it too much to be in the same room as him, you excuse yourself from a conversation with some of your father’s business partners and grab your sister by the elbow on the way into the sunroom.

“What’s the matter with you?” She grumbles, upset you pulled her away from a conversation with a boy she has a tiny crush on.

“He’s here,” you whisper shout, doing your best to inconspicuously point to the culprit of your dampened spirits.

“Who?”

“Luc.”

Her expression softens, and it’s clear she feels sorry for you. “Shit. I didn’t think he was actually going to show up.”

You let out a rather strangled laugh. “Me either, but he’s here and I don’t know what to do.”

The two of you stay tucked inside for a few more moments, deriving a plan that gets your ex-boyfriend off the premises as fast as possible without him seeing you. She heads outside first, making sure to grab one of your cousins who’s obsessed with hockey on her way. Together they make a beeline for Pierre, who is beyond excited to catch up with your family. You slip through the door and into a conversation with some fellow graduates in the back corner of the yard. It isn’t interesting, just about future plans, but it keeps you occupied. You’re careful to keep you back turned and your voice low – anything to keep your existence inconspicuous.

Your sister keeps Pierre-Luc busy, chatting to him about how the playoffs went and what his goals for the offseason are. A small crowd gathers around him, mostly just extended family members who haven’t seen him in a while, and he indulges their questions with a kind smile. You can tell your luck is running out, that he’s finally going to spot you in the crowd and rush over to say whatever he came here for. The fates are cruel, and at that moment your mother calls everyone into a circle for a toast.

“I want to thank you all for coming,” she says, pulling you to stand beside her. You can tell Pierre is looking at you, but you avert your eyes and look anywhere but him. Your mother continues talking. “We’re incredibly proud of our daughter for completing her degree, and we can’t wait to see what she does next. If you’re here, we appreciate the role you played in her success. To Y/N!”

Your name is chanted like a chorus, and your eyes meet Pierre’s as he raises his glass. The intensity of his stare makes you blush, and you bury your head into your father’s shoulder, playing it off as being overcome with emotion. More toasts ensue, including one where you thank everyone for their continued support, and then the cake is cut. You try to slip inside, praying that Pierre-Luc and his date will leave, but the devil himself grabs your elbows as you open the back door.

“Congratulations,” he says softly, accent thicker then the last time you heard his voice. You can’t lie to yourself – he looks good. The sunshine has done wonders for his skin, and the tattoos peeking out from his shirt sleeve look new.

“Thank you.”

You offer nothing more to the conversation, which clearly upsets him, but he doesn’t do anything other than knit his brows together. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to speak to him since the last time you did was the screaming match that ended your relationship. You go to make your exit, but the small girl hanging off Pierre’s side speaks.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she smiles. “I’m Maisie. Luc talks about you a lot.”

“Pardon?” You’re caught off guard. Why would he talk about you to his new girlfriend?

The man in question shifts uncomfortably, like he’s going to get caught in a lie. “Yeah, it’s so nice that you guys are still friends.”

There it is. Saying that you split amicably is probably the only way he could convince her to attend this stupid party in the first place. “Ah,” you sigh, “Well not everyone is afforded the same luxury.”

Against your better judgement, you compliment her dress. Maisie thanks you graciously, explaining that Pierre bought it for her and once he’s cleared to leave Columbus they’ll be taking a trip to France, with a pit-stop in Portugal because she’s never been. Your insides churn, but you manage to keep a glaringly fake smile plastered on your face. The conversation shifts, and you find out that she also studies English Literature and expects to graduate next year. You laugh off all the coincidences, but it’s obvious to you and Pierre-Luc that Maisie is a substitute for the person who came before her.

“Why don’t you go get us some drinks babe?” Pierre asks, and the girl skips away after reaching on her tip-toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

You fiddle nervously with the hem of your dress, anxious to be alone with him. “It isn’t what it looks like,” he starts, but you cut him off.

“It’s exactly what it looks like Luc, and don’t you fucking dare say otherwise.”

He lets out a defeated sigh. “So what if it is? I think it’s glaringly obvious that I still love you.”

No shit you think, but you bite your tongue and say something more respectable. “I’d say so. She’s exactly like me, but hopefully she won’t mind being asked to put her whole life on hold.” There’s a bite to your tone that you can’t help, but it sets Pierre-Luc on edge.

“You can’t still be fucking on about that.”

You’re seeing red now, irate that he is still choosing to minimize your emotions. “I am! Because you asked me not to continue school, which is something I explicitly told you I wanted to do, just so I could be a more conventional NHL girlfriend. And then you broke up with me when I said I wouldn’t do it.” You inhale a deep breath before continuing. “I hope you have fun with Maisie in France. You should take her to that little café we went to, in Bordeaux, where we ate so much food we couldn’t walk back to the hotel. And I hope that every time she looks at you like you hang the moon, you remember that you’re recycling our entire relationship because you let it fall apart at the seams.”

Perhaps your emotions got the best of you, because the look on Pierre-Luc’s face is nothing short of shock. You’re taken aback too – your parents raised you better than to say hurtful things, but seeing him again brought up a myriad of things you hadn't yet dealt with. Without another word, you spin on your heel and head inside, slamming the door behind you. It shouldn’t upset you this much, after so many months, but for a reason you’re unwilling to admit to yourself it does.

You sit in the bay window of your childhood bedroom, wrapped in a blanket even though it’s the beginning of summer, and watch as Pierre-Luc presses a kiss to her forehead before thanking your parents for inviting him one last time. Just like him, every relationship you have for the rest of your life will be an attempt to replicate the love you had for Pierre – a never-ending circle of deja vu.

☼☼☼☼

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