#using virtues to raise children

[timikaschambers]

The Seeds We Plant Series #

Hi there! Often, we blame the storms in our lives, but the storms don’t cause us to fall. It’s our foundation that we need to consider and build to withstand life storms.  Check out The Seeds We Plant Series #18: Assertiveness on Create a Generational Love Cycle, and let me know your thoughts. The Seeds We Plant Series #18: Assertiveness by Create A Generational Love Cycle With Timika S…We…

[dandylovesturtles]

Made myself emotional over the “Leo and Donnie chose to be twins” headcanon.

———

“By the way, it’s Leo and Donnie’s birthday next Thursday. You’re coming, right?”

Draxum looked up from his work organizing next week’s lunch schedule to look at Michelangelo, sitting on the counter and swinging his feet. Celebrating individual birthdays wasn’t a thing that the yokai did, but Draxum had been forced to accept that the boys could not be dissuaded from this human tradition. He’d been to two birthday parties now, for Michelangelo and Raphael respectively, eating cake and presenting them with some small trinket he purchased.

He’d known that he would have to go to more birthday parties at some point. But he wasn’t expecting two at once.

“Why on the same day? I can’t imagine the blue one wanting to share.” Actually, he couldn’t imagine Donatello wanting to share, either.

“Oh,” said Michelangelo with a laugh. “That’s ‘cause they’re twins!”

Draxum stared at him. “Twins? What kind of nonsense is that?”

Mikey tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“They’re entirely different species, for starters,” Draxum pointed out.

“I mean, we all are, but we’re still brothers.”

“Yes, by virtue of your shared DNA donor and the circumstances of your raising.” Draxum waved that off. “But “twins” refers to a situation where two children are born at once, especially as the result of a split of a fertilized egg. Which is absolutely impossible in the case of Leonardo and Donatello. Even if I were to be charitable and simply consider them “twins” for having the same hatch day, I can tell you they do not.”

“Uh, okay,” said Michelangelo, unimpressed. “But they’ve always been twins, so I don’t think it matters to them.”

“Why not? I would think it would matter to Donatello especially, since he claims to be scientifically minded.”

Michelangelo laughed. “Not everything is about science, Barry. Not even to Donnie.”

“Then his decisions about when to apply science and when not to are inconsistent and confusing.”

“Well, it’s their birthday, so they get to pick.”

“I am certain that is not how birthdays work.”

“It’s how it works for us!” Michelangelo slipped off the counter. “We’ll see you on Thursday, right? It’ll mean a lot to them if you come!”

Draxum was fairly sure Leonardo in particular would prefer he didn’t, but that didn’t matter. Now he had a mission: he had to correct this strange incongruence.

“Yes, I will be there.”

“Yay!” cheered Michelangelo. “Okay, see ya Dad!”

He squeezed Draxum around the waist on his way out. Draxum was finding he didn’t mind that as much as he used to.

———

Leonardo and Donatello’s party was just as loud and obnoxious as the other two. Blue and purple decorations covered every inch of the old subway station, strange music blared from unseen speakers, and a horrendous amount of junk food was spread out over a table. It was the same group of people present today as there ever was, the eclectic mix of humans and yokai that the boys considered family, but it felt like a crowd three times the size with the amount of noise being made.

Draxum stood off on his own for most of it, his slim birthday present already delivered to the table stacked with gifts. He’d been a little shocked when Donatello and then Leonardo came by to say hello, since he’d been prepared to be ignored by both of them. It was… nice, maybe, that they did that. Even if Leonardo just wanted to make jokes at his expense.

For most of the party, the two birthday boys seemed to be competing with each other for attention. In fact, the longer he took it all in, the whole affair seemed like a clash of ideas. The purple decorations were neat and tidy, geometric patterns and hard angles. The blue decorations were whimsical, uncoordinated, and haphazard, and there were places it seemed someone had deliberately covered up some of the purple with the blue. Leonardo wanted to play rock music and Donatello wanted to play techno. The cake was a mess because they’d both requested different themes for the decorations. There were arguments between the two of them every few minutes, and according to the human girl April this was “typical behavior.”

But why? They weren’t really twins. They didn’t have to share this day.

Hopefully Draxum’s plan would fix all this nonsense.

When it was time for gifts, Leonardo loudly declared that he was going first, sparking an argument. They squabbled for a bit before agreeing to play rock-paper-scissors, which was apparently what they did every year.

Leonardo won the game and celebrated obnoxiously while Donatello scowled at him. Then he gestured at the gift table - which Draxum, in his efforts to stay out of the main throng, was closest to.

“Hey, Barry! Grab me a gift! Make it a good one.”

Draxum sighed but reached over to take one of the blue packages, checking the tag to make sure it was for Leonardo. “This one is… to Leo from Donnie,” he read.

“Oh no, not that one. Our presents to each other are always last.”

“Because they always get sappy about it,” said April with a laugh.

“Do not!” yelled Leonardo at the same time Donatello hissed, “You take that back!”

“Uh, yeah you do, and you know I’m right.”

Draxum ignored the petty argument to look back at the gift table. If they weren’t going to be satisfied with his choice, he might as well give them his own gift.

He lifted it, in its sensible brown packaging, off the table and handed it over.

“Why not start with this? It’s to both of you from me.”

“Both of us at once?” asked Leonardo. “Oh man, you’re throwing off our whole system, Barry.”

“Yes, but he’s giving it to you,” Donatello pointed out, “which means my turn is still next.”

“Uh, no, if it’s for both of us then it counts for both of us, which means it comes back around to me!”

“Ooooh no, you do not get to loophole your way into opening two presents in a row-“

“Ahem!” Draxum loudly cleared his throat, getting their attention. “Would you please just open it?”

“Yikes,” said Leonardo. “Touchy.”

“Some people just don’t understand the sanctity of opening birthday gifts,” said Donatello with a sniff. But he leaned in to watch as Leonardo tore off the wrapping paper and opened the box.

They were both silent for a moment, staring at it. Then Leonardo said, “Uh, no offense, Barry, but what is this?”

“It’s a… scientific study on how twins are formed during the gestational period,” said Donatello, pulling the paper clipped thesis from the box. “Oh, there are more in here… Also about twins.”

“Uh…” Leonardo blinked at it, clearly bewildered. Well, he was always a bit slow. “Thanks…? I think?”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the scientific literature,” said Donatello, “but this isn’t really my area of study and Leo does better with training manuals and textbooks than research papers.” He looked up at Draxum. “Is there something about this we aren’t getting?”

“Yes there is,” said Draxum, sweeping his hand around at the entire party. “I am here to correct your mistaken assumption that you are twins.”

The room fell silent. Donatello set the paper back in the box, staring at him. Leonardo’s brow creased in anger.

“We are twins, though,” he said, setting the box aside like it was burning him.

“No, you are not. There is simply no way that the two of you could be twins. It is biologically impossible.”

“You think that I’m so stupid I don’t know that?” Donatello demanded, getting up from the chair he was sitting in. “Are you doubting my intelligence?”

“Yes, if you honestly think you are twins with him, then I am.”

“Uhhh, Draxum,” said Michelangelo quickly, stepping between him and the now furious Donatello, “this was a… funny joke, but you can stop now-“

“This is not a joke. I am simply explaining the facts.”

“Yeah, well,” now Leonardo was on his feet, too, “the facts are that me and Donnie are twins. Always have been, always will be.”

“You are not,” Draxum insisted. “And given what I have seen here today, I’d think you’d both be relieved, since you clearly don’t enjoy being twins!”

Both boys looked like they’d just been slapped in the face. The rest of the room had gone completely silent, like everyone was collectively holding their breath.

Donatello broke first, turning on his heel and marching out of the room, his hands balled into fists and his shoulders hunched up as high as they could go. “Dee!” called Leonardo, and then he was scurrying off after him. There was the sound of a heavy door slamming, then silence.

It didn’t last long.

“Draxum!” roared the rat, actually getting up from his chair to get in Draxum’s face. “You come in here and upset my boys on their own birthday!?”

“Seriously not cool, Drax,” said the human April. Cassandra shook her head in shared disappointment behind her.

Draxum pushed Lou Jitsu back, scowling at his accusers. “I was only explaining reality! This is really the rat’s fault for letting their delusion go on so long.”

“Delusion!?”

“Barry!”

“Rat!?”

“Ooookay,” said Raphael suddenly, stepping his way into the middle of the fray and starting to herd Draxum back toward the exit. “That’s enough of that for now.”

“I am simply trying to explain-“

“Trust me, hoss, you wanna step away from this one,” said Raphael, and his tone was angry but surprisingly measured. “Come on.”

They retreated to the sewer tunnels outside the subway station. The smell was much worse out here, and Draxum wrinkled his nose.

“Alright.” Raphael heaved a sigh, folding his arms. “So here’s the deal. Mikey likes you, and I guess I kinda do too, so I’m gonna try to help you before you completely torpedo your chances with the rest of the guys. Which, you kinda did already, but maybe we can turn it around.”

“I still don’t understand why they’re so upset,” said Draxum. “Surely it was obvious they aren’t twins.”

“Uh, yeah, they know they aren’t twins by bio-whatever,” agreed Raphael. “They ain’t stupid.”

“Hmm.” Draxum turned up his nose. “Donatello isn’t stupid, maybe.”

“Leo ain’t stupid, either, he just pretends like it.” Raphael pinched his brow. “Listen, that isn’t the point - the point is they already know they didn’t come from the same egg or hatch the same day or whatever. They’re just twins anyway.”

“But how? That doesn’t make sense!”

Raphael sighed again. “Alright, look. Dad didn’t know when we hatched, right? But we all wanted birthday parties like we saw on TV, so he let us pick.”

“Yes. And for some reason Leonardo and Donatello chose the same day.” Draxum could figure that much out on his own.

Raphael nodded. “I was the biggest and oldest, and Mikey was the littlest and youngest, and Leo and Donnie were just kinda sandwiched in the middle. I think at first they just wanted a thing. Somethin’ that set them apart from me and Mikey, ya know?”

“Not really,” said Draxum. Raphael glared at him, and he sighed. “But go on.”

“So they picked the same birthday and called themselves twins. I think Pops just so glad they were actually getting along that he agreed to it. And I think he thought once we got to the day, and they realized they were really gonna have to share it, they’d both demand their own day instead. I know I thought that was gonna happen.” He smiled at the memory. “But the day came, and… they fussed the whole time just like they do now. Arguing about what kind of cake they wanted and who got to open their present first. But they didn’t ask to split. They kept it the same day, and they kept calling each other twins and it just stuck, until we didn’t question it anymore.”

“…They are both stubborn,” Draxum pointed out, and Raphael laughed once.

“Yeah, guess they are. But that’s not what this is.” Raphael shrugged. “They chose each other back then. Maybe at first it was just to have a thing, but then it became real. And every single year they keep choosing each other. That’s why they’re twins.”

Choosing each other as twins… Draxum furrowed his brow. “It’s not normally a choice,” he pointed out finally.

“Yeah, well, our family doesn’t get a lot of choices, so just let ‘em have this one, okay?”

“…Fine,” Draxum finally relented. “As long as it’s noted that this is purely a social designation, and not a biological one.”

“Uh, sure, whatever.” Raphael rolled his eyes. “Glad we got that cleared up, though. Think you can come back to the party and behave?”

Draxum wrinkled his nose at that phrasing, but nodded. “Yes. I will not bring it up again.”

“Good!” Raphael’s smile abruptly transitioned into something much more dangerous. “Because if you make my little brothers upset on their birthday again, I’ll remind you what it was like when we were enemies.”

Then the smile was back. “Now let’s go in!”

He walked back to the subway station, leaving Draxum to follow on his own. Draxum couldn’t help but sigh wistfully.

Raphael would have made a great general for his army.

———

The boys had already returned by the time Draxum got back. They were opening more gifts, and he noted they were wearing hoodies now - though they had apparently decided to swap their signature colors. They were smiling and chattering, and any hint of their earlier upset was gone.

Until Draxum stepped into their line of sight, and both of them went rigid, wary of him.

Apparently just talking to the red one was not enough. Draxum would have to do more. What a pain.

But he didn’t want the boys to hate him. So he sighed and launched into it.

“I… am sorry. I shouldn’t have said you aren’t twins.”

The boys looked surprised at that; slowly, their posture loosened back up.

“And… to make up for my present, I will… take the two of you wherever you want to go in the Hidden City.” The next words were painful, and he ground them out. “My treat.”

Leonardo and Donatello shifted their gaze from him to each other. They were silent, but it didn’t seem like they needed to talk to have a conversation.

Then they finally looked back at Draxum, slow grins growing over both their faces.

Eerily matching, very evil grins.

“Oh,” said Leonardo, happily menacing. “I think we can think of something.”

“I concur,” said Donatello in the exact same tone.

Oh, thought Draxum. Maybe they really are twins.

[sunderwight]

Liushen AU where SY transmigrates into SJ's older brother, and subsequently nopes them right out of the slavery backstory by using his general knowledge of the story and actually being an adult in a kid's body to just leave (basically) with SJ and YQ.

SY carts them both up to Cang Qiong for the next sect trials. It's actually not all that hard, the trickiest part is getting enough to eat and finding safe places to sleep between leaving the slavers and taking the trials (SY manages just barely, with considerable help from his new little brothers.) Nobody bothers to go after them because it's before Qiu Jianluo and this style of human traffickers mostly operate by virtue of their merchandise having nowhere else to go. Chasing down runaways is an expense not worth indulging, given that most of them either come straight back or die of exposure.

Anyway, they take the trials, and as expected YQY gets chosen to become a personal disciple for the sect leader, and SJ gets chosen by the Qing Jing Peak Lord, but also as (kind of) expected (by SY alone) nobody wants SY. He's older the Yue Qi, so too old, and unlike YQ and SJ his cultivation potential isn't striking enough to make any exceptions for him.

SY, however, can't leave it at that. He's spent more than five minutes with the street kid codependency gang, so he's gotten attached to both of them. And he knows what will happen if they're left to their own devices and The Plot proceeds accordingly. (Also, they keep threatening to not stay at the sect if SY doesn't stay too, for some reason.) So with a heavy heart and internal candle lit for himself, SY heads to Bai Zhan Peak. Which is the only peak that accepts disciples by way of them turning up and refusing to leave.

SY's not much of a fighter. He actually really hates the atmosphere on BZP, he's not bad at physical cultivation (his health's pretty good in this life, ironic considering how much worse his situation was) but the random ambushes and survival-of-the-fittest stuff is just not his brand. But that's okay, because it turns out that BZP actually DESPERATELY needs disciples on the actual peak who are interested in things other than fighting and cultivating their own strength. Stuff like, filling out requisition requests for An Ding every time things break, apologizing to An Ding every time things break again, organizing schedules, browbeating senior disciples into actually teaching, educating disciples on virtually any artistic or social skill, hosting lectures on how to beat vicious beasts without just overpowering them, and etc.

Okay so some of this stuff isn't and has never actually been on Bai Zhan's curriculum but Shen Yuan is going to make this place tolerable. And stop these children from needlessly getting acid burns or lyme disease or scurvy or whatever. He keeps internally chewing out Airplane for designing a sect system that means there are a lot of largely unsupervised 12-year-olds running around the wilderness on a mountain picking fights all the time. (When he actually meets Shang Qinghua and figures him out he switches to doing it in person, of course, in twice-monthly bitching sessions that look a lot like budding friendship.)

Of course one of the worst offenders is the Liu kid, who SY would suspect was actually raised by wolves if he didn't know for a fact that Liu Qingge has a younger sister, and also the kinds of nice clothing and letters from home that strongly imply not only does he have a family, but that the family is pretty well-off. Liu Qingge is at first deeply offended by SY being a BZP disciple. He rarely fights anyone, and uses tricks and evasion tactics whenever a fight can't be avoided. And he does other annoying stuff, like pestering him about meals and baths and lecturing him on identifying dangerous plants and the early signs of qi deviation. This is not what their peak is about! He should get with the program already! Just fight stuff until you're too tired to keep fighting stuff!

Also SY's younger brother, SJ, is pure evil (at least according to baby Liu Qingge) even though his other younger brother (?) is cool and nice.

Anyway, Liu Qingge stops complaining about SY after their first mission together, where Liu Qingge doesn't lose a fight but does get into a kind of pyrrhic victory situation where he's really badly hurt, and it's SY who helps him win (correctly identifying the monster and then pointing out its weakness) and takes care of him afterwards and gets him safely back to Cang Qiong. SY expresses surprise at LQG actually being polite to him, and LQG realizes that he's been a colossal ass if people think he wouldn't be grateful to someone who saved his life, so the usual Liushen dynamic proceeds from there. Liu Qingge starts bringing SY fans he leaves behind and hunts down animals that are supposed to be useful for bolstering weak cultivation, SY invites LQG to tea and keeps the critters as pets, etc etc.

SY doesn't get the Head Disciple position, because that's only acquired via beating the current peak lord in combat and lol no. Also he's not interested in stealing it from Liu Qingge, to whom it rightfully belongs (in his mind). But that's fine, because Liu Qingge takes the position when the next generation ascends and then he lets SY exclusively handle all the peak duties SY actually likes (mainly teaching). It's perfect -- Liu Qingge gets to focus on his War God antics and occasional administration/meetings without having to deal with students his has no patience for, but the disciples of BZP don't get neglected because SY is actually teaching and organizing classes and student care. BZP hasn't enjoyed a golden age like this since it was founded!

Things are pretty good overall, but Shen Yuan knows that it's only a matter of time before The Plot shows up, and so he can't rest completely easily.

Meanwhile, the will-they-or-won't-they bets on Liushen have been going strong for a while now. The thing is, most of their martial siblings are convinced that these two are already "together", and just being circumspect about it. Those who know SY well (like SJ, YQY, and SQH) know better but think that SY's romantic obtuseness is to blame, whereas those who know LQG well (LMY, WQW, and MQF) are pretty sure that it's actually LQG's obtuseness that's the problem. Of course it's actually both of them, so efforts to "fix" matters by getting through one of their thick skulls inevitably run afoul of the other's.

An additional complication is of course: SJ doesn't like LQG (mutual), and now that he's the leader of his own peak, he wants to poach SY to come and live there. Not only so he can have one of the 2 people he trusts actually close at hand, but also because SJ also hates actually teaching the atrocious little brats on his peak, and would like to have SY come and do it for him. YQY is still a total pushover for him too, and is also now the sect leader, so YQY agrees that SY can change peaks if SY and LQG both agree to it.

Liu Qingge, of course, is a no, but he's a variable "no". He's not going to hold Shen Yuan against his will or anything.

As for Shen Yuan, it's... complicated. He doesn't really like BZP, but it's gotten a lot better than it was at the start. These days he's actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, and it's more comfortable, but it's still a rough and rowdy place with fewer creature comforts, libraries, or other appealing points than QJP. Also, if he goes to Qing Jing to teach, he can personally ensure that SJ doesn't go around persecuting any of his students!

But... SJ never lived with the Qiu family in this AU, and even though SY's not totally clear on what the PIDW backstory for SJ was, he knows he's a better guy now than the scum villain in the book was. He has a reputation for making cutting remarks, not for being an abusive snake or a lecher. SY's honestly less worried about him doing anything bad at all, and there are other people on QJP who can teach. It might even be good for SJ to promote more people to fill out a social circle he can rely on! That guy needs more friends, seriously.

And QJP really doesn't need more layabout literary intellectual types who get into pointless arguments, which is all SY would be if he went there. Just yet another nerdy scholar for the rich kids with middling cultivation that the peak favors to ignore. At least on BZP he's filling a gap.

SY is clearly torn, and the fact that SY's considering it has LQG upset, and LQG doesn't handle being upset very well, so of course they have an argument about it. SY storms off to cool his head and LQG is like, this is it, he's gone to Qing Jing Peak, I've drive him off by being too aggressive and he's probably remembering all those times I told him he didn't belong here and oh no what have I done maybe if I build him a heated bath and get him books he will come back???

Turns out that SY just went to An Ding to vent at SQH while SQH was like "I think you would have fewer problems if you and Liu Qingge just got married and my disciples could call you Shigu to your face instead of behind your back" and SY threw melon seeds at him and sulked on his fainting couch (which is always cold for some reason...)

Thus begins the Liushen Divorce Arc where SY tries to be anywhere but BZP or QJP, Liu Qingge tries to figure out what thing he can punch to fix this not-punchable problem, SJ is like "I don't see what the big deal is they should break up Liu Qingge is awful and I want my brother to teach my classes for me" like the spoiled youngest sibling he's finally allowed to be, YQY is trying to moderate this Hades vs Demeter situation and is all "well maybe SY could spend half the year on QJP and half on BZP?", and Liu Mingyan is going "I know my brother if this doesn't work out he is going to die single and pining like an idiot" and so keeps conscripting other disciples to y'know, lock SY and LQG into storage closets together (ineffective: LQG can punch through walls) or at least get them in the same room (underestimating SY's willingness to yeet himself out of windows to avoid awkward social interactions.)

By the time Luo Binghe joins the sect (as a Qiong Ding disciple), the drama is in full swing and is the main topic of gossip across most of the peaks.

[orbitsaturn]

the virtues of a hero.

─ he truly believed that the noblest of characters were the ones hailing from nature.

until he met you.

kinich x reader angst + 2.8k words TW: death + graphic imagery spoilers for kinich's character stories

────────────

Kinich always wished for freedom. It was an escape from the wars in his household, the violent voice of his father ringing through the walls, and the arguments that plagued his home every week.

He hated his father.

He hated how his family fell apart because of his violent outbursts, hated how he always yelled at his mom and hated how he chased his mom away. He longed to get away from his father, to be free from the negativity that consumed his life, he wished for freedom.

On his seventh birthday, he got what he wished for.

"Dad, do you know where mom went?"

Kinich looked up at his dad expectantly, the smell of alcohol hitting his nose. It was his birthday today, usually, he wouldn't ask for anything but the curiosity of where his mother is ran through his mind often.

But he came to regret his words for years to come, the moment he mentioned his mother, his dad was instantly enraged.

"You little brat!"

The giant figure above him looked at Kinich with stricken eyes, the sight filling the young boy with dread. That wasn't his father anymore.

That was the monster who ruined his family.

With the looming figure's hands raising to hit the boy, he fled. The figure chasing him in pursuit. It was terrifying for a boy his age. He ran through the highest cliffs in Natlan, the sight of the monster behind him pervading him with the sense to flee.

"You wretch! Come here-"

As the man yelled at him he lost his footing due to the steep terrain, plummeting down the cliff. Only when Kinich's adrenaline wore out, did the realization hit him. He stared at the body of his father down the cliff. Kinich slowly crawls down the steep terrain, his palms and knees getting abrase from the rocks.

"Dad."

"Dad."

"Dad!"

"Dad?"

Kinich can only yell for the prospect of his father responding. Any response, whether it'd be a movement of his hand, the utterance of a groan, anything that could show that he's still alive, but there was nothing. The only thing that in his hearing is his own voice, one that's growing wearier and wearier. Yet the only thing in his sight was his dad's lifeless body.

Kinich's father was dead.

His father, the man he lived with for years, the man who frequently yelled at him, and his mom, the man he detested was dead.

Kinich's stomach churned, and the sight of the lifeless body overwhelmed the young boy. He could only stare in a daze before tears threatened to spill out of his amber-green eyes.

The only thing he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, scrunched his nose, twisting his face to prevent any tears from spilling. His lips pressed shut, preventing the whimpers that threatened to come out.

He hated his father, but he was still his father at the end of the day.

It's absurd how you remember a person's greatest qualities, even if they were a terrible person once they're gone.

Kinich could only bury the times when his father would spoil him with sweets, how heroic he looked when he would secretly watch him use his grabbling hook, and how he would always hug him when his mother was still around.

Kinich gained his wish for freedom, yet the only thing he truly gained was solitude.

───

After the departure of his father, Kinich became adept at living alone. He never sought help from anyone, and he didn't trust anyone.

Thoughts of his old life often plagued his mind. He questioned why he still kept the old alcohol bottles from his dad, why images of his family frequently haunt him in his dreams, and why he would ever ask about his mother on his seventh birthday.

All of this was witnessed by Elder Leik, the individual responsible for the children's education in the Scions of Canopy.

So when Kinich visited the market he was approached by the elder. The young boy was offered education in return for courier services. Yet, Kinich refused, and he bid goodbye to the elder before returning to do business at the tribal market.

But that wasn't the last time he'd see the elder.

Every time Kinich visited the market, he'd be met with the familiar face time and time again with the offer of an education. So after months of the elder's insistent offers, he finally relented.

───

Curious stares permeated Kinich's figure, yet the intense looks from peers his age didn't bother him. All he needed to do right now was listen and leave after to do more substantial activities anyway.

"Kinich have a seat anywhere you like!" Elder Lief exclaims with a big smile, happy to see Kinich attending a class.

Without any word, he heads away from the circle of kids, before a hand pulls him down. Catching him off guard, he looks to the owner of the hand, a young kid his age.

"Sit next to me!" You give him a toothy smile, patting the space next to you, "okay," Kinich obliges, not wanting to bring any more attention to himself if he sat away from the other kids.

"I'm (name)! What's your name?" you whisper to him, and he turns to look at you with an inexplicable look, "Kinich."

"Hi Kinich!" you stretch your hand towards him. He hesitates for a bit before grabbing your hand and shaking it.

"Ahem, now children, settle down," Elder Leif coughs, beckoning the kids to quiet down, "Today we'll talk about our honored heroes and their stories, with each of them deserving to be remembered by their contributions and their self-sacrifice for the nation of Natlan!"

Kinich raises his hand, "Why would they want to sacrifice themselves?" he looks at the Elder inquisitively, to which he responds by gently smiling at him, "It's not a question of why, it's simply a virtue innate for heroes to do whatever they can to help those they love."

"And what did their self-sacrifice get them?" Kinich asks again,

"Virtue is a priceless trait, those with it gain the highest rewards"

"The highest rewards? Like fame or mora? "

"Haha, those are part of the rewards," the elder chuckled, "But that wasn't the reward they obtained. They gained and maintained their virtue, they stayed a hero due to their unchanging morals." The elder gave him a sincere smile.

Kinich didn't really understand how a trait could be the greatest reward for self-sacrifice. Would the forest boar be filled with virtue as they relieved his hunger? And would the river water be a hero since it relieved his thirst?

If anything, he wanted to become a hero to gain the reward of mora.

"Hah! Of course, a dirty kid like you would only think of mora!" a little boy shouted, laughing, "Just leave if you're just a money-grubbing monkey!"

"Children! Mind your words!" Elder Leif scolds them, not noticing Kinich already heading out.

"Wait!" you stood up, grabbing his wrist, "Don't take their words to heart, they're only self-projecting!" you whisper to Kinich, "In fact! I heard them talking about how they don't even need to be a hero since they're well-off already! Ugh! Selfish jerks right?" you give him a reassuring smile.

Kinich stares at you, "oh," he pulls something out of his pocket, "Here, this herb can help you heal your scrape." He looks down at your scraped knee, handing you the herb.

"Wow! Thank you so much!" you reply, waving goodbye to him as he leaves the Learning Lodge.

Although he declared that he only wanted to be a hero due to the prospect of mora. You knew deep down that wasn't the case.

Why else would he look down at your scraped knee with a slight furrow of his brows and the apologetic look he gave Elder Leif when he left without informing him?

───

As the years grew, so did Kinich's reputation. He was incredibly skilled, and more and more people started coming to him for dangerous commissions. Kinich also grew closer to the old man he once found annoying, Elder Lief. The old scholar guided him throughout the years, giving him invaluable lessons that would help him for years to come. Yet the only thing the Elder wanted in return for his teachings was the promise with Kinich to learn what it truly meant to be a hero during his journeys.

He also grew closer to you, the first person who gave him words of reassurance ever since his mother's departure.

You were the complete opposite of him, you had a bright personality, always helping others freely. Yet, you were his best friend, even though he was different from you like night and day, You never judged him for his demeanor, you encouraged it.

"Let the people get mad! I mean, you're only making sure they aren't scamming you right?" You exclaim to him, "Mhm, I'm simply making sure I get paid adequately," he smiles at you amused by your unrelenting support for him.

"Yeah! So keep doing what you're doing." You throw your arm around him, "Don't think about those old geezers complaining," you flash him an earnest look. "Let's buy some Saurus Crackers once you're done for today!" you give him a grin.

"I'll pay using those old geezers' money." Kinich gives you a smirk.

And when you give the smile you frequently flash, he finds himself getting dragged into your world every time.

He didn't understand what it meant to be a hero.

But if he had to pick who would be fit to be a hero,

It would be you.

───

Kinich was still the same old Kinich even when he gained an ancient name and a 'pet' dragon. So when he emerged victorious in the Pilgrimage and threw himself into the Night Warden Wars with no hesitation it wasn't a surprise to everyone. Yet, only one person was surprised, it was Kinich.

You were participating in the Night Warden Wars along with him.

"Worried to see your little partner participating? Heh." The dragon beside him said in an irritating voice, causing him to smack it.

"Hey!" the dragon growls.

He knew how strong you were, and that you could easily fend for yourself. But he had an inexplicable feeling in this gut, one he couldn't identify.

As Kinich's team headed into the Night Kingdom and began fighting off the abyss his gut feeling became stronger.

There was something wrong with this place.

"Kinich!" A yell from his left direction catches his attention, "T-There's something wrong with this place! The creatures they can mask as your─" yet before his comrade could relay the news, he was ambushed by a creature of the abyss.

The creatures were disguising themselves as their loved ones.

The warriors that emerged from the pilgrimage were faced with the vile tricks of the abyss. The faces of their loved ones appeared before them, which caused them to hesitate to draw their weapons.

And that hesitance proved to be deadly.

One by one, many warriors that came down to fight in the Night Kingdom were ambushed. Only a few remaining comrades prevailed through the harsh conditions.

"Kinich?"

A familiar voice called out to him, one he thought he had long forgotten. He turns around, seeing his 'mother', who he hadn't seen for years.

The figure opens her arms to hug him, yet, the instincts and reflexes he honed over the years caused him to swing his weapon.

With one swift movement of his claymore, he cut through his 'mother's' body.

"Wow. Heartless." Ajaw laughed heartily.

"Hah..." Kinich wipes the sweat off his forehead. The situation was getting dire, more and more abyssal creatures were flooding near him. Yet, he didn't relent, one by one he slayed every creature that came near him, each making his heart and body fatigued. Once he was done with all the abyssal creatures in his area he looked around, yet he could only see the wretched landscape of the abyss, with no sight of his comrades in sight.

The continuous fighting made him lethargic, but he had to prevail so his fallen comrades could come back again. He looks up, checking the crack in the sky. It was getting smaller, he needed to find his comrades soon, he needed to find you soon. As he drags his tired body to the other areas of the Night Kingdom, a deep pit of worry fills his stomach.

Is (name) okay?

As he scans his surroundings again he spots you lying on the ground, seemingly lifeless. A feeling of dread washed over him.

"(name)!" Kinich runs over to you with a worried expression. His eyes were quivering, a sense of relief washing over him once he saw you breathing.

You were still alive.

"Kinich! I'm okay, just catching my breath!" You reassure him, giving a tired smile, "No, your arm is gashed," he says breathlessly. With his hands trembling he holds your arm before taking out the gauze in his pocket.

He wraps the gauze around your injury tightly, yet the hold on your arm is gentle, careful even.

Looking at you with concern he shoves a herb in your mouth. Which you immediately spat out in response, you give him a disgusted look, "Kinich! You know I hate that herb!"

"But you gratefully accepted it back when we first met, didn't you?" Kinich laughs before stretching his hand towards you, "That's cause I didn't need to eat it!" You grab his hand and he hoists you up.

"We need to go, the opening is going to close soon." He looks up, the crack in the sky getting smaller and smaller.

"Mm. Let's hurry, you nod in response.

The two warriors run to the crack in the sky with hordes of abyssal monsters pursuing them. It was getting smaller and smaller, they needed to be quick. He made sure you were in front of him, it's okay if he didn't make it back. At least one of you needed to return the Ode of Resurrection, and he wanted it to be you.

He didn't want you to experience the feeling of death.

"Kinich!" You yell, spotting a rift hound that caught up to him. The sight of it preparing to attack Kinich made you act without thinking.

Kinich has a better chance of going back.

Without having the time to react, Kinich finds himself pushed onto the ground. You get slashed by the rift hound but you put it down with the last of your strength.

"(name)!" Kinich yells out your name in horror.

Deep gashes painted your abdomen, causing you to wince in pain. You press on your stomach, trying to stop the bleeding but it barely does anything to no avail. Kinich runs over to you, his eyes quivering, lips pursed together.

"(name). (name). (name). Please." he supports your limp body in his arms. Fumbling in his pockets for any gauze, medicine, herbs, anything to keep you alive.

He couldn't lose you.

He was fine losing everything but you.

He sets you down on the ground, hastily wrapping the scarce gauze he had left on your stomach.

"Kinich," you look up at him, giving him an apologetic smile, "Go without me." His hands stop momentarily, before going back to bandaging your abdomen.

A brief moment of anger flashes in Kinich's mind

"Are you serious?" Kinich looks at you in disbelief. He quickly finishes wrapping your abdomen. He hoists you up, the feeling of your limpening body causing panic to bubble in him.

He should've been the one who got slashed.

Why did you go out of your way to save him?

You cough, before putting a hand on his cheek, "You know you're stronger than me, if anyone was getting out alive, it'd be you." you give a weak smile.

"No, you're making it out. You're gonna be okay (name). Please," his hold on you tightened, "Please don't leave me." he looked at you in distraught, his voice trembling. "(name). Please, please don't leave me."

"I should be the one saying that." you laugh at him weakly, causing Kinich to glare at you, "Go without me Kinich. I'm quite heavy." Your hand falls down from his cheek, your eyes slowly shutting close.

"I really need a good sleep too."

Kinich's eyes quivered, his hold on your limp body weakening.

"(name)."

He calls out to you.

"(name)."

This time he shakes your shoulders.

"(name)!"

This time he yells out your name.

He looks at your face, it looks peaceful even with the amount of wounds that littered your body. He strokes your head, fixing any stray hairs and clearing the hair from your face.

He takes in a deep breath.

He doesn't linger any longer, he stands up and starts heading to the crack again.

He squeezed his eyes shut again, he scrunched his nose again, and his face twisted to prevent any tears from falling again.

The bright light seeping from the crack created a stark contrast compared to the dark environment.

He looks back to the direction where you last stood before the light took him back.

He truly believed that the noblest of characters were the ones hailing from nature.

Until he experienced you.

───

a/n: guys don't worry ode of resurrection magic

ill do part 2 (?)

[daycourtofficial]

Starfall in Autumn

Eris x Rhysand’s sister!reader

Summary: based on the prompt for @starfallweek “characters a and b realize they won’t make it to Starfall. They make the most of what they have to celebrate”

Warnings: pregnancy mentioned as a plot device to keep us in Autumn 🫡, Eris being down bad

Upon your engagement, you told Eris that you wanted to incorporate Night Court traditions into your life here in Autumn. One such tradition included attending your home court’s annual Starfall Ball.

Your favorite night of the year, bringing Eris along to spend the evening with your family. The first few years were tense, and while your family is far from accepting him with loving arms, they do have common ground they can discuss and safe topics for all parties to avoid any fights or arguments.

Usually Eris would spend most of the evening with you or Lucien, but a few years ago he and Nesta began an annual traditional chess match. The two were quite evenly matched, the both of them ignoring everyone in concentration.

This year, however, you were stuck in Autumn, unable to get dressed up. The one night of the year you donned Night Court attire, instead staying in comfortable slippers and a simple black dress.

You were close to your due date, the next heir of Autumn in your womb, and they were much too large for you to winnow comfortably anymore. An unfortunate fact you discovered two months ago on a trip with Lucien, your brother in law suffering the consequences of your motion sickness.

You and Eris made the decision then on no more winnowing, and the Night Court was simply too far away to travel by carriage or horse this far along in your pregnancy.

So the two of you stayed behind, the crisp air, faint smell of apples, and the red and orange leaves doing nothing to soothe the homesickness you felt deep in the pits of your stomach.

Autumn didn’t celebrate Starfall - you couldn’t see any of the beautiful colors that fill the night sky here, not a trace of starlight anywhere.

Eris held your hands as you sat on a blanket, the crunching of leaves as your body hits the earth. You watch the sky as you feel your mate’s warmth next to you.

“Er, what are we doing out here?”

“Patience is a virtue, my love,” he replies, kissing your hand.

“Since when have you been so concerned with being virtuous?”

He leans up, a hand lying across his knee. He looks so relaxed when you knew he had been anything but. Eris was incredibly experienced in caring for babes, having helped raise all of his brothers.

His least favorite part was always the labor. He’d pace outside of his mother’s chambers, his father nowhere to be seen until after the ‘inconvenient part’, as Beron described it. His thoughts would lead him to the worst conclusion, preparing himself to lose his mother, the only softness he’s ever experienced in the world.

And now he was crippled with those same anxieties about you. He swallows those fears down, saving them for later. Now was about you.

“I’m preparing to be a father, dear, I have to put on a front at least.”

He pulls out a bottle of apple cider from the basket next to you two, along with two glasses. He gestures the bottle to you, and you nod. He pours your glass and hands it to you before pouring himself a glass.

You hum as the cool liquid slides down your throat, leaning into Eris as he wraps an arm around you.

You breathe in the cool autumn air, a faint smell of bonfires in the distance. You watch the stars as they twinkle, reminding you of your childhood, of Starfalls past with Rhysand.

Eris senses your nostalgia through the bond, and tightens his grip on you. You notice a few other fae in the clearing, bringing their own blankets, snacks, and children.

“I thought the Autumn Court didn’t celebrate Starfall?” You ask, eyes finding Eris’s amber ones in the dark.

He exhales, the movement of his chest rubbing against you, “we do now.”

Your gaze on Eris was interrupted by a large boom on the other side of the clearing. You look for the source, assuming you’re under some form of attack, until the sky lights up in beautiful shades of red, shining so brightly against the night sky. The red scatters across the sky, fizzling out, making way for the next boom, this one followed by a green light display.

“What is this?” You ask, unable to look away, never seeing anything like it before.

“Well, during the war we were experimenting with new weapons, and one of our scientists invented this powder. We’ve only been able to use it for these big, beautiful displays.”

“Truthfully, they’ve been sitting in storage for years. Beautiful, but not very useful for the war. When we decided on staying here for the holiday, I was trying to find ways to make the day memorable for you.”

You pull your eyes away from the display in the sky, Eris’s pale face lit up in shades of green and yellow light. “Er, you big softie,” you choke out, tears threatening to spill out at the gesture.

It wasn’t the Starfalls of your youth, running around with Rhysand or Cassian, the Illyrians flying you into the stardust until you were covered in it.

It wasn’t your childhood, it was new. And perhaps this would be your children’s childhood - starfalls spent under the manufactured displays, so different from the real thing, but beautiful in such a unique way.

He inhales through his nose, trying not to take the bait, but he knew you were right. He was still rigid and untrusting, but you had smoothed out so many of his rough edges over the years.

“I am what you have made me, my love.”

[sweetadonisbutbetter]

Good day to you, I adore your stories and it would be interesting to read fan fiction about the Hotel Hazbin Adam×Reader | woman| as Adam's third wife who is pregnant with his child, what will be his actions before birth and after, if it seems strange to you, then you can not write or not respond to my request, I will not be offended💗) Have a nice day/evening Sorry for my bad English, I'm Spanish;^

RAHHH THANK UOU SMM ☹️☹️ it’s not strange to me i would love to write this 😁😁 also yr english is perfect!!! i will write this as if they were in heaven, so it’s a little more shocking, and it will be a mix of a fic and headcanons

New Life, even after Death | Adam x AFAB!Pregnant!Reader

Relationship: Romantic Warnings: MENTIONS OF (PAST) ABUSE!! it is a brief mention and doesn't carry much weight but it is there regardless. Mentions of pregancy and birth, light NSFW, Adam being Adam

You needed to check if your eyes were seeing things correctly, or if you needed glasses. After all, there wasn’t any way that you were seeing two lines. You stared at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. After a moment, you snapped out of it before hurriedly grabbing the other test that sat on the counter and using it.

Now you had 7 tests in front of you, all with two pink lines on the little screen. You were holding the last one, waiting with anticipation to see what it would say. However, you knew what it was going to say, the previous ones had the same response. You had to face the reality that you were pregnant.

You are pregnant.

You were wracking your brain as to how this could be possible. You were in the afterlife, there was no way you could be pregnant. Not that you weren't overjoyed, you were elated. In life, you had trouble conceiving, much to your disappointment. It seemed that your husband at the time was also disappointed, killing you after your nth attempt and nothing to show for it. In your final moment, you couldn't help but feel a bit relieved, thankful that you had never had children with that man, in fear that he would do the same to them. After passing with no biological children of your own, you had grown to accept that you wouldn't ever have any.

When you first entered heaven, you were uneasy with how many children's souls there were. However, with time, you grew to enjoy the company of them. Playing with them while on your way to places or when you had the time, before either you had to leave or they were called out too. It warmed your heart and helped heal that small part of you that mourned never having kids. It helped you strive to be better and to experience the joys of being a mother. It was also how you had met your current husband, Adam.

You have no idea how it happened; one moment one of the children was introducing you to the first man, next thing you know, you were walking down the aisle with him standing at the end. You weren't one to complain, he was so sweet and patient with you. He was the first one you told your past to, from your childhood to your trouble conceiving, to even your terrible first husband. He held you tight as you cried and recounted the last half of your life. In turn, he told you of his life on earth. His life was like being married twice, and raising his kids and ancestors. His favorite pastime was watching humanity, the small acts of kindness from one person to another.

Of course, he had his faults, he was human. He would mock and laugh when people did stupid things. When someone he saw as not worth his time, he was known to wave them off without much thought. He would get angry over the smallest of things, and throw small tantrums when he didn't go away. Ever clingy when there was another male, in fear of losing you much like he did both of Lilith and Eve. You could list all his faults and flaws, yes, however, you could also list his virtues. 

All in all, you loved your husband and knew that he loved you in return. It seemed that now, you both would have something to love just as much. You dragged yourself out of your thoughts as you looked down at the test, seeing that it had the results.

You stood in the bathroom that you shared with Adam, holding the final pregnancy test as it showed the same results; the same two pink lines that repeated over each test. Overwhelmed at the prospect of having a child now,  you fell to your knees as tears began to build up in your eyes. You were going to have a baby.

A baby. 

The thought became overwhelming and you sank into a full-on sob. There you were on your shared bathroom floor, crying like a baby as your wings were wrapped around you, doing your best to soothe yourself. Clutching the pregnancy test to your chest, you hunched over so that your stomach was touching your knees. You were so happy, so sad, so confused at the whole thing that once you finished crying, you just sat there for a while, staring at the wall. You were so out of it that you didn’t hear the knocking at the door or someone walking in. 

“Hey sorry to barge in but Adam is looking for yo-oh.” A voice snapped you out. You turn to the voice and see Lute, still fresh in her exterminator outfit. Once she gets a good look at your face, she tenses for a moment, before dropping her weapon and rushing to your side. “Hey- is..is everything alright? What happened?”

Unable to say anything, you pull the test away from your chest, showing Lute. She took a moment, looking at you weirdly before taking it. After a while, her eyes widened as she turned to you.

“How?” She questioned, to which you could only sob-laugh in response. She didn’t say anything, just looking at the test that was still in her hands. You both sat there on the floor for a while, before another voice rang out in the house. 

“Hey, sugar tits. I’m home.” Shuffling came from the front of the house as you and Lute shot up, looking at one another. Both of you scramble to your feet and leave the bathroom, grabbing all the numerous tests and taking the one from Lute. “Damn. Where the fuck is she? She normally runs to greet me.”

Lute picks up her weapon and leaves the bathroom first. She hesitates for a moment, looking back at you with a twinge of concern, to which you nod, assuring her to go ahead. 

“Go ahead. I just…need to gather my bearings first.” She nods and leaves. As she leaves, you hear Adam begin to question her. Now alone in the bathroom once more for a few moments, you do your best to make it look like you weren’t sobbing your eyes out and figure out how to tell him.

You can’t help but think of his reaction. Would he be happy? Upset? You couldn’t fathom the idea of him getting upset, recounting his stories of when he took care of his firstborn. The fondness that was not only in his tone but also in his face showed that he did enjoy being a father. However, it had been over a millennia since he took care of a baby. Would he even want kids? You shake the thought and take in a deep, albeit shaky, breath. Leaving the bathroom and going to the front of your home, there you saw Adam. He stood by the front door, his mask removed and looking entirely bored of the conversation he was currently having with Lute. His eyes lazily move across the room before they land on you, he seemingly brightens before ignoring Lute and running to you. He grabs you by your side, spinning you before pulling you into a kiss. 

Startled by his reaction at first, it took you a moment before you returned the kiss. Placing one arm is thrown over his shoulder while the other flies to his hair, gripping it.  You make sure to keep the test firm in your grasp and not drop any. Feeling him smirk into the kiss, he begins to nip at your lip, attempting to deepen the kiss. You hear Lute clear her throat, stopping both you and Adam from furthering the kiss. Adam smacks his teeth in annoyance, looking at Lute.

“What? Can’t you see I am greeting my beautiful wife?” He says, squeezing you a little closer to him. Lute rolls her eyes before looking at you at the hand that had 7 tests back to you. You don’t say anything but instead smile softly at her, assuring her she can leave.  She nods to you, taking her leave. With Lute gone, Adam smirks, before looking at you and snuggling his face into your neck. Giggling at the feeling of his stubble tickling your cheek, you pull him away by his hair. He grunts softly, the tug not too painful for him. You spend a moment looking at him, smiling at the look of your husband as you swear he has hearts in his eyes. You opened your mouth with the intent to greet him, however it seemed that your voice didn’t agree with what you wanted. 

“I’m pregnant.” 

Once again, it takes a moment before Adam responded.

“What?”

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

He passes out lol

He was not expecting that information after coming back from an extermination

Once he wakes up, you hand him the various tests, all showing that you are indeed pregnant

Very confused as to how you are pregnant like you both are dead? nothing should be working as it would

You both go to the seraphim and ask if they know what is going on

They don't lol

If anything, they are the MOST confused as to how this is happening

After the initial confusion, Adam is overjoyed to be a father again!

Literally tells everyone he talks to in any manner

"HEY FUCKFACE I GOT MY WIFE PREGNANT!" "Adam. That's the mailman." "HE NEEDS TO KNOW-" "Sweetie, no-"

In other words, word spreads fast.

Before you know it, all of heaven is literally congratulating you when you step out of your house

A lot of glaring at Adam, who just smiles and acts all innocent

Now that he knows, say bye-bye to independence.

Of course, he will give you space when you need it, but if you don't say anything he is most definitely hovering over you.

In your first trimester, he isn't as clingy, actually the most laid back throughout the entirety of your pregnancy.

Second and Third are his worst phases, never leaving your side at ALL- literally walked into the women's restroom after you (you promptly kicked him out, stating you just needed to piss)

When you start to show, he coos at your stomach, touches it, and sings rock songs to it.

Also will get you clothing that pronounces your pregnant belly

sure he would get you loose, more comfortable clothing too, but literally is so obsessed with your belly 

Compliments you all the time, rubs you from head to toe when you ask

Coaxes and reassures you that he loves you, even as your body changes 

Speaking of body changing: boobs

He will grow more obsessed with your boobs as they grow bigger from the milk

Will ask you numerous times throughout and post-pregnancy if he can drink from them 

Kinda won’t stop until you cave, he just wants to try it so bad. The last time he dealt with a pregnant woman, was Eve and at that time he didn’t even know it was an OPTION. so seriously heaven-bent on trying it

His other kids, the ones he had with Eve, are elated to have a new half-sibling. 

Because of this, when you throw a parent shower (You and Adam elected to be surprised for the gender), you gain a ton of stuff. Somehow got 3 strollers, a huge chunk of clothing for about the first 1.5 years of the baby's life, and a lot of toys. 

The seraphims even went and gave you a personal gift for you and you alone.

Even with all the preparation, when your water broke, Adam was NOT prepared in the slightest.

Panicked and forgot all the important stuff while you were hunched over, holding your tummy as you waited to be fully dilated. 

You had a private room to yourself to give birth, Adam by your side the whole time, a worried look on his face. He remembered when Eve gave birth, the pain and fear on her face mirrored that of yours.

However, in the end, everything was alright.

After squeezing the life out of Adam’s hand, most likely cutting off all circulation in it, you gave birth to a little girl.

Adam was beyond elated, loving his little girl so much even though she was covered in vernix, blood, and mucus.

Having mainly sons, anytime his daughters just existed in front of him, he couldn’t help but be elated at their existence. 

Couldn’t wait to hold his daughter and feel her tiny hand wrapped around his finger

Not that he wasn’t checking up on you the whole time, he was.

When the doctor and nurses who helped deliver his daughter whisked her away to clean her, his attention was solely on you

Murmuring against your skin, telling you how great you did, how lovely of a job you did, and overall praising you and making sure you were okay.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

“She’s okay?” You say, panting and entirely exhausted. He nodded and kissed your forehead. 

“She is perfectly fine. What about you mamas? How are you?” He asked, wiping the hair that clung to your sweaty forehead. You could only nod as you tried to catch your breath. He smiles, relieved that you are okay.

You both stay there for a while while waiting for the doctor to come back. While waiting, you can’t help but think of how surreal this all was. You were finally having your baby, after your whole living life of wanting one, praying, and getting nothing in return. But now? You were watching the door for the doctor or nurse to walk in at any moment with your little girl, as your husband held your hand and stroked your hair. 

Eventually, a nurse entered the room, with a small bundle of pink and purple. Adam stayed by your side as the nurse made his way to your side, handing your baby to you.

“She is perfectly healthy. Just wanting mom at the moment.” He says before leaving you, your daughter, and Adam. Holding her in your arms was a type of bliss you couldn’t help but tear up over. Here she was, your joy, the love of your life, your world, planet, and stars. Tears slip out as you kiss her forehead, the feeling of her wispy hair tickling your lips.

“She looks like you.” Adam softly says after a moment. You look at him and see he has the look of utter softness and love on his face. You smile in return, tears still running down your cheek.

“What? She just came out? I don’t think she looks like anyone just yet.” You say as Adam presses his hand against your cheek, wiping away some of your tears with his thumb. 

“I know. But if she is anything like you, I just know she is going to light up the whole afterlife.” 

You sob a little more, putting your hand over his and close your eyes. 

“How did I get so lucky?”

“I think I am the one that got lucky,” Adam says, causing you to open your eyes. He leans in to peck you on the lips, you lean in turn. After the kiss, you rest your foreheads against one another, relishing in the bliss of the moment. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

RAHH AND THATS IT!!! I HOPE U ENJOYED IT ANON AND ANYONE WHO READ THIS FAR-

i went into this not an adam lover, and i came out one as his no. 1 fan. i love writing characters i wouldn't normally. lets me think about them more than i normally do LOLL I wanted it end it off on the sweet note, so if there is more that was wanted i apologize but regardless, i loved loved lovedd writing this super soft and fluffy

i just checked my word count how is this almost 3k words what the hell

[harunayuuka2060]

Leal and his sister: ...

Leal's sister: Brother, will they be okay?

Leal: Yes. Master Akihiko can handle this on his own.

Leal's sister: Hm. But... Isn't he afraid that his father will try to sabotage his plan?

Leal: I'll prevent that from happening.

Leal's sister: ...

Akihiko: What do you think, father? *smiling*

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: The people here are welcoming.

Akihiko: *chuckles* Right?

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: Son, are you truly going to proceed with the plan?

Akihiko: Yes. I had planned it since I was young.

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: You have hidden your true feelings well.

Yuurin's father: Your mother and I believed you were okay with everything happening.

Akihiko: *chuckles* Well, what could I say?

Akihiko: I'm a man who's been taught the virtues of a woman.

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: *smiles* I know I have no right to say this.

Yuurin's father: But I am proud of you, son.

Akihiko: ...

Yuurin's father: Anyway, here you go. I've signed everything. *He hands him the documents regarding the transfer of wealth to Yuurin.

Akihiko: Thank you, father.

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: Akihiko, when your time comes, will you promise to give me one final call?

Akihiko: ...

Akihiko: *smiles* If it crosses my mind, I will.

Akihiko: Huh? You want me to get a haircut?

Yuurin: Yes. It's fair, don't you think?

Akihiko: ...

Akihiko: *chuckles* Hm. What kind of haircut do you want me to get?

Yuurin: I think any haircut will suit you.

Akihiko: Bald?

Yuurin: ...

Akihiko: *laughs*

Akihiko: I'm just kidding, bluebell.

Yuurin: *sigh* We should go together with Leona-senpai.

Akihiko: Okay~. I think we should do it on your weekend off.

Yuurin: Sounds good.

Akihiko: Alright. I'll talk to you again, bluebell.

Yuurin: Take care, Aki.

Akihiko: You too, bluebell~. *hangs up*

Leona: *sitting next to her and listening to their conversation* Why the hell would he suggest bald?

Yuurin: I'm not sure...

Leona: ...

Leona: I think Leal's a bad influence.

Yuurin: Huh?

Leona: Just think about it, did he use to have a broken sense of humor?

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin's mother: Welcome home, dear. How was your trip to Sunset Savannah?

Yuurin's father: *smiles* It was great.

Yuurin's mother: That's good to know. Oh, by the way, do you want to see my journal? I had so much fun writing on it that I failed to realize that I've written on all its pages.

Yuurin's mother: All I have to do now is pray to Goddess Mnemosyne to watch over our son Yuurin and grant my wishes.

Yuurin's father: *nods*

Yuurin's father: *has waited for his wife to sleep* *holding the journal in his hand*

The servants serving Yuurin: Master? Are you sure about this?

Yuurin's father: Yes. Light up the fire.

The servants: *do as told*

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: Burn everything from Yuurin's childhood. Nothing shall remain.

The servants: Yes, master.

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's father: *watches as everything that can remind his wife about Yuurin burns*

Yuurin's father: ...

Yuurin's mother: Men who show weakness will face discrimination, while strong women will be torn down. We cannot allow such injustice to befall our children.

Yuurin's father: What do you mean by that, dear?

*Akihiko was already born around that time.*

Yuurin's mother: We will raise this child as a girl.

Yuurin's father: ...

The servants: Master, this is all.

Yuurin's father: ...

Akihiko: Destroy the journal. By the next morning, Mother will have no recollection of Yuurin.

Akihiko: She will only remember having a daughter, who is me.

Yuurin's father: *to the servants* From tomorrow onwards, no one should utter a word about your Master Yuurin, especially not to your Madame.

Yuurin's father: Do you understand?

The servants: *bows* Yes, master.

Yuurin's father: *throws the journal to the fire*

*A figure resembling smoke emerges from it, fixing its gaze directly on him.*

Yuurin's father: *bows to it respectfully*

*The figure then heads to where his wife is.*

The servants: *looks at each other; understanding the situation*

Akihiko: ...

*The figure shows itself to him.*

Akihiko: *smiles* Thank you. Thank you so much.

*The figure nods then disappears.*

Akihiko: ...

Akihiko: I hope this will bring you joy, bluebell.

Leal: ...

Leal: Master Akihiko.

Akihiko: ...

Akihiko: I can enjoy my remaining years with Yuurin now. *chuckles*

Leal: ...

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

Patience is the Virtue of a Lady

Summary: As Daemon's wife, you are left humiliated by your errant husband. As the product of an annulled marriage, you are seen as barren and tainted, left to befriend Queen Alicent, gaining the reputation of an unsalvageable woman over the years.

But, the heart wants what it wants, and you have had your eyes on unattainable Ser Criston for years.

Notes: anon’s mind is imploding with the amount of genius in it. thank you for requesting, i was on my knees for this idea

Warnings: smut, religious undertones, afab!reader, daemon is an ass, criston is an ass, reader is genuinely not having a great time (at first ahaha), religious/vow-related guilt, slight size kink?

Taglist: @majesticwren @obsessiveformiyatwins @a-beaverhausen @ilikeitbetterangsty @levithestripper (adding you tentatively, jack, hmu to be added to any!)

based on this request | masterlist | requests are OPEN! (and i'm back to writing!!)

Daemon never cared to hide his straying looks, and you knew of his habits. Whoring, drinking, murdering – and yet, you were lucky for having married a Targaryen Prince. You kept your mouth shut, knowing that you would, otherwise, end like your predecessor, Rhea Royce.

Why Viserys had insisted Daemon marry against his will again, you’d never understand.

You kept your mouth shut, through whores, paramours and treason. You played your part, as everyone did in the court. And when your eyes strayed, they did so secretly and carefully. You chose to stare at someone you could not attain anyway.

A kingsguard was your safest bet at something that would never happen anyway. You seethed against the humiliation of your husband and sought your own distraction. Even when Daemon stared hungrily at Rhaenyra, a girl, you said naught.

Targaryen tradition – you did not know if you could argue with that. But Rhaenyra was barely fifteen. She was beautiful, yes, but even now, the fact that your husband would prefer a girl over you stung.

In the early days of your marriage, you had gone to the sept every day, beseeching the Mother to give you a child, even if your husband refused to touch you beyond a drunken wedding night, in which he had failed to even come close to producing a child. Now, you were glad for your childless state, even if the court whispered that you were barren.

So when Daemon left your shared chambers, which were an order of the king, you bade him goodnight and turned back to your reading. Still, you stared from your balcony out at the small spot outside the Red Keep he always appeared in after a while.

A secret entrance only Daemon knew how to use. You held your breath when a small figure appeared first, silver hair glinting in the moonlight.

Rhaenyra.

A few moments later, Daemon appeared, and they disappeared into the city.

The rumors in the days to come were enough for you to draw your own conclusions, but to your surprise, Ser Criston was soon included in them, which stung more than anything. You’d deemed him safe to keep as your own in secret, and yet, Rhaenyra had not only taken your husband from you, but also him.

It hurt more than the annulment of your marriage that Daemon brought forth. You only nodded through the process, letting the Septon say what he wanted, and Daemon tell as many lies as he needed.

And so, your name was yours again and all you were in court was the former wife of Prince Daemon. Your family seethed, ready to remove you from court until Queen Alicent asked you to become her lady-in-waiting, and you were once again stuck in a court of lies.

Ser Criston grew bitter over Rhaenyra, but instead of becoming your friend, he began to worship Queen Alicent. It wasn’t lust, it wasn’t love, but something queer in between.

In his own twisted way, he once again wanted anyone but you, and it stung when it shouldn’t have. Weren’t you supposed to be past this?

And yet, you tortured yourself, watching as he raised Alicent’s children as his own and continued to barely spare you a glance. The court grew disinterested in you, and you continued to lead a life as quiet as before, turning into a lonely spinster with the years.

Only now, you turned to the Father in the Sept, begging for purpose. For anything to happen in your life that might make it worth something.

And then, Lady Laena died. Beautiful, magical, mysterious Lady Laena, who you’d never known and yet loved for ridding you of your husband was dead.

You attended the funeral, even prayed for her, hoping that she would find peace – a thing you thought highly unlikely for a wife of Daemon. You watched as Daemon once again practically drooled over Rhaenyra, and watched as she did the same. Alicent saw it, too.

“It appears as if some things do not change.” Alicent commented dryly. It was treason, what she said, but her nerves had been frayed for the past few weeks, and she knew you would not speak ill of her to the king. You wouldn’t have made a difference to frail King Viserys anyway.

“No, my queen.” You sighed. “But it is not me he is humiliating this time.”

“That did not make you deserve it.” Alicent replied, ever gracious. She slipped her arm into yours, as if you were still the young, disappointed women you had once been and led you away from the balcony. Ser Criston followed dutifully, and for some reason, it felt as if his eyes were burning into your back.

Rhaenyra and Daemon disappeared together, and everyone in their presence trained their eyes to the ground, pretending not to see. Your hand curled into a fist instinctually, feeling old anger and disappointment bubble back up in you.

Perhaps, if you had been bolder, you could have reigned Daemon in. You could have been queen consort, and saved Alicent all her pain. They were silly thoughts, and yet, they made you leave the room, and make for your chambers.

You almost screamed when you saw a dark figure sitting in them, back turned to you, until you recognized dark curls and white armour.

“I almost thought Daemon had finally sent someone after me.” You mumbled, half to yourself. Criston turned, looking right through you.

“Ser Criston?” You asked carefully. He’d grown older, as all of you had, but his beauty remained to him. Criston stayed silent, still staring.

“Criston?” You tried again, calling him by his first name this time, and slowly, he seemed to see you standing across from him.

“She could have had me, and freedom. She chose this prison, you know?” Criston told you. For a moment, your felt confused, before you realised that he was speaking of Rhaenyra, still heartbroken. Of course.

“What are you doing in my chambers, ser?” You asked. Ser Criston laughed dryly.

“You never deserved what he did to you. Prince Daemon dishonored you.” Ser Criston continued, not answering your question. “A lady so beautiful any a man would have been grateful to have you as their wife, and yet, he threw you away for nothing at all.”

Nothing. He had called beautiful Laena, wild Rhaenyra nothing at all. What treason, and how your heart loved to hear it.

You swallowed down your bitterness, ignoring the fluttering feeling in your stomach as Ser Criston called you beautiful. Yet, you kept your guard up. This place was only an extension of King’s Landing, reeking of corruption just as much. For a moment, you considered whether, mayhaps, this was some kind of ploy.

Ser Criston stood so suddenly you took a step back instinctively. He passed you, and you thought that he was going to leave, tired of your company. Instead, he closed the door in front of him. The lock clicked into place, a cacophony of sound in the silence that hung over the room. You held your breath, praying to the gods that nothing would happen to you.

He began to close the distance between you, and you began to back up, until your knees hit the bed, and you fell backwards. Criston was still walking, still closing in on you like prey, and you felt yourself scramble backwards. The headboard stopped your attempt to flee, forcing you to look at Ser Criston.

He stood at the end of the bed, his hand on his sword. Could you make a run for it? Where was there to run?

His swordbelt unravelled, and the weapon hit the ground with a quiet thud. Criston only waited, staring at you expectantly. What did he want?

Slowly, you felt yourself freeze out of place, dragging yourself across the bed towards the end of it, where he stood solemnly. Carefully, you reached up, putting a hand on his shoulder. You heard him inhale shakily.

“Ser Criston, are you alright?” You asked. A pause, then, a shaky breath and a shrug that turned into a shake of his head. “Ser?”

“I’m sorry.” Criston said finally. Carefully, his hand took yours. You stared down, looking at the dark grey glove that covered his hand, starkly contrasting the white of the rest of his uniform. The leather felt soft against your hand, and it was that you tried to focus on, not the fact that you were holding the man’s hand in yours.

“What for?” You asked, smiling up at him nervously. You hated the position you were in, the vulnerability of it. Your neck was craned to look up at him, and you were practically kneeling on the bed. If anyone found you like this, they would accuse you of unthinkable things… Alicent would never forgive you.

“For not defending you. For what I am to do.” Criston said. “Both tarnish my knighthood, my white cloak… tarnishing you.”

You opened your mouth to speak. “What you are about to…”

As Ser Criston pulled off his gloves, cupping your face with his left hand, you trailed off. You could hear your heart beating in your chest. You wanted to pinch yourself. Surely, you were dreaming. This was not real.

Yet, even if it was, you did not care to move away from him. Instead, his lips found yours, soft and gentle in their own way. You felt yourself reciprocate, though you knew that you should not. You should not be doing this, betraying Alicent in this way and yet…

He sighed into the kiss, and the thought disappeared in the fuzz of your mind. You were unable to think, almost unable to breathe. Gods, how long you had waited for this moment. Weeks, months, years.

“Do not give in.” Criston begged. You paused, breaking the kiss to look at him, but no words left your mouth. He repeated his own once, before something shifted in his eyes. This time, he kissed you less softly, and more so like in the bawdy tales your sister had told you. And you found yourself reeling, your hands against his chestplate to steady yourself.

Even as his hands slip under your dress and travel up your thighs, he begged. “Please, stop me.” He whispered. You shook your head in saccharine betrayal and Criston rested his on your shoulder for a moment. His hands left your thighs, leaving the skin hot and burning, and snaked up your neck, cradling your head. They were big, encompassing your skull and somehow, that made your breath hitch.

Hands that were made to kill, and yet, he was holding you so gently, as if you were fragile. A sudden boldness made you speak.

“Do you want me?” you asked. He lifted his head, nodded almost frantically and you made your choice.

Had the distance between you two really been that dramatically large? It felt as if there was no world around you, only your lips on his, his hands touching, holding as your husband should have held you. As you should have held your children.

Oh how you had longed for years, had none of it, and watched as others had been destroyed, by husbands, by children… yet it still felt so deeply unfair that you could not bring yourself to feel guilty for this little thing. Just this once.

You let Criston kiss you, worship you with his hands as he took his time, carefully unlacing your dress, letting the fabric pool around you. Still, you sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at him. He loomed in his armor, dwarfed you from this perspective.

When you were finally in your shift, you could not help shivering. Criston looked at you with worry in his eyes, before he slipped away, stoking the fire in the furnace. The heat did not match the feeling his hands left on your skin.

He stood before the fireplace, his silhouette illuminated as he took off his armor. The chestplate, the padding, all those parts that shielded him when he did his duties were discarded carelessly on the floor, a stark contrast to his eyes, trained to the ground.

The shadows that flickered through the room, created by candles and fire illuminate the muscles of his back as his dressshirt joined his armor on the ground. You could feel yourself biting your lips to keep yourself from making unladylike sounds.

When Criston returned to the bed, you expected him to push you into the bed, to climb atop you and do what Daemon could not. Instead, he fell to his knees before you at the end of the bed. Confused, you stared down at him.

“What are you doing?” you asked him. He did not answer, his eyes dark as he stared up at you, filled with things you would never tell your septon about. His hands pushed up the seams of your shift until it bunched at your hips.

Suddenly, you felt exposed, and your legs crossed automatically. You sat up straight, as you had been taught, until Criston’s hand returned to your knee, patient, waiting. You understood. Slowly, you uncrossed your legs again.

You still felt exposed as Criston began to place kisses on your knee, even more so when his mouth wandered upwards, towards your thighs. He had kissed your mouth, had barely kissed your neck and now he looked like he wanted to devour your thighs.

Criston took his time sucking marks into the flesh of your thighs, marking it as his, you suddenly realized. And how you loved to be loved.

His mouth moved upwards with a pace that was so slow it almost became painful. You felt a moan escape you, covering your mouth immediately. Criston, looking up again, shook his head. You felt confused – wanton sounds, those were condemned by the church. They could not possibly be what he, such a devout man, would want to hear?

Only, Criston wasn’t that devout after all, was he?

And when his lips touched your cunt in devout prayer, you answered in such currency. Eagerly, his tongue licked a stripe up your cunt, flicking the nub at the top with impatient insistence until you felt your back weaken. You let yourself fall backwards onto the mattress with a girlish ease you had not felt in years, but suddenly it was there, and you were floating…

How had the septons dared to tell you all this was sin? How could that be true? How could it be when-

Criston never ceased his movements when you grew louder, trying to contain your sounds to the confines of your chambers. A knot was beginning to tie itself in your stomach, growing tighter and tighter until you were begging Criston for something – you didn’t know what it was, except that he knew, that he would give it to you.

And then, suddenly, the knot was gone, and something else took its place. You weren’t sure if this was something you had ever felt before because it was all-consuming, washing over you like a golden wave and pulling you under. The tension, the pressure, all of it was gone, replaced by white-hot pleasure and your eyes rolled backwards, your back arching off the bed towards Criston.

Coming down from you high, you felt Criston slowly removing your shift, continuing his worship on your stomach and your chest, sucking and biting skin until he felt you squirm beneath him. It was then that he looked at you, smirking, but you could see that his eyes were full of something no one had ever looked at you with.

Not desire, nor lust, for you had seen those in men who eyed you greedily during banquets. It was not the empty, sad stare King Viserys gave Alicent. No, it was the glances Ser Harwin had thrown at Rhaenyra before her death. The look of adoration Queen Aemma had held for King Viserys all those years ago…

You had no need to say the word, for you knew, and it made your head spin. Could it be?

His hands pulled your shift over your head, until you were bare for him. He was still wearing breeches, but you could see the strain beneath them. Filled with sudden confidence, you pulled him towards you, kissing Ser Criston and wrapping your legs around his waist in a desperation to have him close to you.

Your hands fumbled at the laces of his breeches clumsily, until he gently removed them, doing the work himself. You could see Criston’s cock, half-concealed by the shadows between you and the dark, and yet, you knew it was bigger than Daemon’s. The thought of it made you afraid and your face heat up at the same time.

His hand moved languidly while he leaned down to kiss you. When his hips bucked into his hand, you heard yourself beg him for it, and that seemed to change something in him. Suddenly, Criston seemed hungry.

You could feel him between your legs, and then, you weren’t all that confident anymore. But Ser Criston held you close, whispering reassurances and praise until you could feel him enter you. There was a small stretch, a small feeling of discomfort, and Ser Criston halted his movements for a bit.

When you nodded, he began to move, his body rocking into you. He seemed to know what he was doing when he rolled his hips, stimulating that spot inside of you you had no idea existed in the first place.

The first time he hit it, you felt the air knocked out of you from pleasure. And then, the feeling became a rapid addiction. Your hands dragged his chest to yours, your legs wrapping around his waist again in an attempt to urge him to move faster, harder, to make you feel good.

Ser Criston, the perfect white knight, obliged. He snapped his hips against yours, angling them upwards and giving you something that you had not thought would work that way, feel that way.

“Please, Criston.” You gasped.

“Please what? What do you need, my lady?” Criston replied, his words coming in short intervals. He was just as gone as you, you realized, and that only added to your own high.

“Oh Gods,” you began. “Criston, I don’t know, I- please, please,…”

He rested his head in the crook of your neck again, but this time, his teeth found your shoulder, biting down gently at first. The pain was good. It added an edge you had no idea you needed, brought you back down into a realm where you could form some coherent thought.

The knot you had felt before, the tension that had turned into a coil in your stomach returned with a sudden fervency. This time, the feeling was there more quickly, more intense and it was almost too much. At the same time, you felt as if you would die if it stopped.

Criston seemed to feel it, and only later would you realise that your cunt was clenching around him so tightly that he was having difficulty not to moan as loudly as you. But Criston continued, and he pushed you over the edge, leaving you reeling in pleasure as his hand clapped over your mouth to muffle a scream.

He followed soon after, only that he refused to spend his seed inside you, instead painting your stomach with it. You know why he did it, and yet, it somehow still hurt. Before you could ponder too much on the matter, Criston disappeared, returning with his breeches on and a rag in hand. He cleaned you while you lied on the bed, the soreness beginning to sneak in after your high.

Afterwards, Criston lied down next to you. He did not speak, but he did not pray either, and for that, you were glad. And still, he was the one who pulled you closer. You held onto him, basked in his warmth.

Finally, your patience and virtue had been rewarded. You did not waste a single thought on what would come in the future, only that this was right, and no septon nor Alicent would be able to convince you otherwise (not that you would tell them about this to begin with).

You could feel yourself dozing off in your white knight’s arms, until the alarm bells of High Tide suddenly began to rang. As the castle came alive under the signal, Criston shot up, and so did you. Shouts passed your door, and he scrambled to put on his armor.

Never a moment’s peace in this world.

[positivelyholland]

To Our Future Together

pairing: luke castellan x reader

genre: fluff

summary: one night while laying under the stars, you and luke begin to wonder what the stars have fated for your futures together.

warnings: really sappy, not proofread

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seated on a quiet hillside overlooking the ocean, you and your long-term boyfriend shared dreams beneath the canvas of a star-studded sky. The night's serenity lent itself to discussions into the realm of shared futures.

“I might be crazy to say this, but do you ever wonder what our lives will be like once this is all over?” As you raised the question, you noticed Luke’s heartbeat deciding on a quicker pace within his chest that your head was resting on.

“What exactly do you mean by that? If you’re talking about any sort of future together then I’ll be the first to admit I’ve thought a little too much about how good Y/n Castellan sounds,” he says with a slight smirk.

“It does have a good ring to it, doesn't it?” you laughed along with him, “but i guess i more meant that once everything changes, or once we have to leave camp half-blood, what happens to us?”

“I need you to know I am being so serious when I say that you’re it for me. I genuinely don’t think a life without you is possible. The only future I see for myself is one with you, me, and four to five miniature versions of us.”

You found comfort in the warmth that flooded Luke's gaze. You could see it in his eyes, how his once-turbulent past seemed to fade away as he embraced the idea of a family with you, one that echoed with echoes of joy and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

“I one hundred percent agree with everything you said, except the only thing is how I thought I heard you use the number five when talking about how many times I’ll have to go through childbirth,” you teased, “but feel free to correct me if I heard wrong.”

“You’re not hearing things, love. I did say five but I actually dream about ten little ones running around, I'll take as many as you’re willing to give me,” he teased with a chuckle. “Realistically, though, I don’t care much about the details as long as I have you.” 

Luke's fingers gently entwined with yours as you began to paint a picture of the life you envisioned together. With sincerity in his eyes, he listened to your hopes and aspirations, nodding in agreement as you spoke of a home filled with love and laughter.

You spoke of raising children who would inherit the strength and kindness you saw in Luke, a blend of mortal and demigod virtues. His eyes sparkled with a mixture of anticipation and affection as he imagined teaching them about the world and the lessons he had learned.

Together, you crafted a vision of a life where bedtime stories were spun with tales of adventure and the glory days, and bedtime kisses were accompanied by whispered promises of protection and love.

Luke, once with a lost purpose of life, now saw a future intertwined with the legacy of your shared love. The prospect of a future filled with family became a beacon of hope, a testament to the healing power of love. 

And so, beneath the stars, the two of you embarked on a journey of dreams, each whispered promise sealing the foundation of a future built on love, trust, and the belief that together, you could weather any storm.

[wee-chlo]

I'm rereading Harry Potter and it's baffling how people just... pretend Snape was a completely different person than who he actually was?

Granted, Alan Rickman's Snape and Book Snape are two genuinely different people, to the point that I think Movie Snape would be mildly disgusted by Book Snape. Movie Snape came off more as someone who was angry and spiteful to a select few for reasons that ranged from Understandable to Irrationally Petty, but generally very grim and stern, with a good heart beneath it all. Book Snape is a piece of shit.

Movie Snape doesn't have the same cruelty as Book Snape: his targeting of anyone other than Harry is framed in a more slapstick way and his teaching isn't neary as abusive. Neville being terrified of him doesn't have the same implicit showcasing of Snape being abusive but rather Snape being stern and unforgiving while Neville is meek and needs positive reinforcement to flourish.

Movie Snape is stoic, deadpan. I saw a clip of Rickman on YouTube and either he, a commenter, or both noted that a touchstone of Rickman's performance for Snape was that he didn't raise his voice. Not so in the books, where Snape's described several times loosing his temper and screaming, even shrieking. Snape is terrifyingly volatile in the books, in contrast to the movies where even at his most furious, most emotional, he remains in control of himself.

Book Snape is, unambiguously, just a bad person. Not just a bad teacher, a bad PERSON. He is a small, bitter, petty bully who shouldn't be anywhere near children, and honestly Dumbledore letting him near children is probably more of an indictment of Dumbledore's character than the fact that he used to be a wizard supremacist.

And to be clear, while teenage Snape isn't AS bad as adult Snape by virtue of being a teenager... he was also just Not Good. He ran around with Wizard Nazis. Lily called him out on that, on the fact that he was clearly ready and rearing to join Voldemort, that he used Dark Magic on other students alongside his death eater buddies, etc.

James and Co were little shits who teased and picked on students. But Remus and Sirius made a point that Snape and James had a uniquely, mutually hostile relationship. Remus and Sirius state directly that ultimately, one of the primary reasons James targeted Snape was because Snape was "up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts and James hated the Dark Arts".

I've seen people use the fact that James never apologized to Snape as an indictment of James' character but like... when and why would he have apologized?

Genuinely, I think if Snape had made a good faith effort to be a better person BEFORE the death of the Potters, James may have apologized. But Snape at the time of James' death was a literal wizard nazi and honestly? I can't see him feeling terribly bad about bullying him, or at least not feeling obliged to apologize. And even if he had, how would he have done so? Send an owl to wizard nazi HQ?

But I think the thing that made me bristle the most about the books was the gaslighting that happened in book 6.

Remus is... going through it in that book, fair enough, but when Harry is talking to him about his suspicious, he gently accuses Harry of "inheriting James' and Sirius' prejudice" and being "determined to hate [Snape]". Like.... I'm sorry, but did Remus get hit in the head? Are we supposed to just casually forget EVERYTHING SNAPE HAS SAID AND DONE TO HARRY IN THE LAST FIVE BOOKS?!

If anyone came into it with an inherited prejudice and a determination to hate, it was Snape.

Justice for Book 6 Harry, everyone's treating him like he's bonkers but he's right.

[trippingontheescalator]

I've got some headcanons about Vulcan evolution and ancient Vulcan civilizations, and what better way to share them than on here?

So, despite their cat-like tendencies, I think that Vulcans originally lived similar to elephants in segregated, nomadic herds. Like these are cave Vulcans, Australopithecus Vulcans. The women and children lived in one herd, and the adult men were either solitary or in two pairs. The two groups typically only met up during Pon Farr, which coincided with the rainy season. They did not originally form bonds with each other, but women were more receptive to breeding with men who were mentally compatible. Vulcan men evolved to be highly, highly aggressive during this time because like this is their only shot to pass on their genetics in seven years. Because of how harsh the planet is, they might die before the next Pon Farr comes, so they've got to learn how to knock the competition the fuck out. The Vulcans with the highest level of hormones were the most aggressive, and therefore the most likely to pass on their genes, but this was a double-edged sword: it made them more likely to die if the Pon Farr was not fulfilled. The majority of women do not experience Pon Farr, but it isn't necessarily uncommon -- about 10-15% of the female population -- to undergo Pon Farr on some level as well due to naturally elevated hormones.

A thousand years later, women discover agriculture. The women became more settled and create villages, culture, writing, government, etc. The different herds become clans, each headed by a matriarch, and come together under one village. This is when they start bonding children at a young age. Adult males are still not allowed to integrate within the all-female clans. Bonding and the kahs-wan used to be intricately linked. Once a matriarch bonded a boy to a girl, he underwent the kahs-wan: a ritual banishment. He was now considered an adult and was banished from the village. The bond he now had ensured that at the next Pon Farr, he would be naturally drawn to his bondmate, seeking her out from wherever he was in the desert like a homing signal. Now the kahs-wan is like a hardcore camping trip that all genders undergo to prove their maturity.

Of course, not all Vulcan males would return to the village to seek out their mate. Some, instead of remaining solitary, paired up with another man. Vulcan men began creating their own culture and writing, parallel to that of the women, placing particular emphasis on the t'hy'la bond they shared with their chosen other. Women had a similar bond with other women; they had a wife and then a mate who would show up once every seven years.

Well, eventually the men were like "this is bullshit, I'm tired of living in the desert, let me into your village dammit." Now men and women start having real marriages with each other, though men -- who are entering a world that women created and are beholden to women by virtue of needing to mate or they'll die -- occupy a lesser social position. Because they are now settled and have access to steady food and water, Pon Farr is no longer tied to the cyclical rainy season. It's still seven years, but when it starts is now dependent on the Vulcan's biology. Some civilizations have women retaining their wives as their primary spouse and keeping a harem of men. Other civilizations start adopting a one woman-one man system of marriage to ensure that everyone has a mate, though still giving women a powerful loophole in the koon-ut-kal-if-fee. A few civilizations retain vestiges of the old way of life; men remain part of their mother's household and likewise their bonded wife stays with her mother's household, and they only meet during Pon Farr, with the father never meeting his biological children and instead helping his sisters raise his nieces and nephews. Eventually the one woman-one man system of marriage became the most dominant.

Eventually men get equal rights and Surak comes along and is like "logic is better than violence" etc etc etc. There are still matriarchs and the koon-ut-kal-if-fee and the vestiges of the kahs-wan, but sexism is illogical. Though Vulcans are not perfect logic machines, and there are some women who are still a little bit sexist towards men. A man arguing with a man or a woman arguing with a woman might say something like "Your logic is not sound" but if a woman wanted to put down a man during an argument, she might say "Is it your Time?" which is the height of rudeness. Like asking a human if she's on her period.

[achaoticeternal]

— 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵

aemond targaryen x fem!reader

|| aemond, much to his mother’s delight, has fallen head over heels for a kind-hearted, devout follower of the Seven 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧ you were a daughter to a well-established Lord and family in Westeros, evening having to great honor to receive many lessons in a monastery 

✧ you not only had a brilliant mind like the crone, a beautiful innocence like the maid, and the tenderness and warmth like the mother. but your aura also demanded the same respect as the father, the smith and the warrior

✧ your lord-father and alicent were close friends in court, so when he sent you to King’s Landing to learn from the greatest septas the faith had to offer, it was only natural that you be a guest of the royal family.

✧ when alicent had introduced aemond and you, he took clear interest 

✧ aemond noticed the pendant of the maid adorned on your neck, signaling your purity and virginity. he knew then and there you would do anything for your faith and to simply be a good girl

✧ often, he would invite you to attend his own private lessons - except for his high valyrian lessons, since those were sacred to the Targaryens - but you would join him for histories and even answer questions about his own house before he could so much as utter a word. 

✧ he took notice to how you prayed before each meal and drink you took, before each lesson, before bed, while attending tourneys... he liked seeing you kneel in prayer and at night would imagine you kneeling before him like a God. 

✧ soon, aemond made a habit of praying with you when your paths crossed. at meals, he’d clasp your hands together in prayer under the table. at festivals and tourneys, he’d come to you alone and take your hands in his and speak praise to the mother and the father with you.

✧ he used your prayer time as a way of become closer with you, to insert himself into your life — because while alicent raised her children in the faith, aegon had strayed to his promiscuity and his own father never thought much of it all. it gave him a release from the world to just pray with you.

✧ one day, after your lessons at the sept, he met you outside the doors, only to drag you right back through the great doors.

“my-my prince... what are you doing? we’ll be late to your histories lesson!” you spoke in a hushed tone, acknowledging the quiet in a hall of worship. 

“i must confess before the seven... and you,” he explained which caused you to more willingly follow him while his grip still strong on your fore arm.

once at the altar, both of you knelt before the array of candles. both of you lit your own candles to call upon the seven. silence fell between both of you as you made your own prayers to the respected gods.

that was until aemond began to speak aloud, “Father Above, I beg your courage. Mother Above, I beg your kindness. Maiden sweet, I beg your virtue. All of thee to bestow upon me a love, a true and honorable love. The love of the girl who pray with me and i with her.”

your prayer was cut short as his words caught her attention, “aemond...”

“blessed be,” he finished before looking back at you, “my lady, i wish to pray at your side for the rest of my days. would you allow me such a courtesy, and even allow me to ask your Lord-father for your gentle hand?”

he extended a palm to you, asking for your hand if you accepted his proposal. with a smile, you gladly accepted such. with a finally prayer, he escorted you from the sept back to the Red Keep, doting on you while walking arm in arm. 

[stiltonbasket]

what happened when wwx went to gusu summer school in the wrh raises wwx au?

"Thank the heavens," Lan Xichen laughs, when Lan Wangji presents himself at the Hanshi after returning from his latest monthlong night-hunting tour in Huai'an. "Shufu has been at his wits' end in your absence, didi."

Lan Wangji lifts an eyebrow and begins to unpack the basket of tribute gifts he received from the Huai'an magistrate. "Why? My duties were to be delegated to Changyi-tangxiong while I was away; and whatever Shufu might find wanting in his temperament, I have never known him to be anything but diligent."

"No one has dared replace you as head of discipline," his brother says wryly. "And according to Shufu, this batch of guest disciples has worse manners than most."

"Shufu rarely has trouble with the guest disciples," Lan Wangji points out, frowning. The lone exception to this rule was Nie Huaisang; but no one in the Cloud Recesses has ever bothered disciplining Nie Huaisang, even before his older brother was betrothed to Xiongzhang. "Who does he wish me to discipline this time?"

Inexplicably, Lan Xichen only grins at him and scoops a handful of icy-red lychees out of the tribute basket.

"Go to tomorrow's lecture in the Lanshi," he teases, "and perhaps you shall see."

Lan Wangji could not see the sense in this. If one of the guest scholars was being impudent in the Lanshi, Shufu ought to have sent them to the Pavilion of Discipline to receive punishment instead of waiting for him to settle matters; for as Head of Discipline, Lan Wangji's main duties consisted of revising the codex of appropriate punishments and patrolling the Cloud Recesses after hai shi on alternate fortnights.

But the next day, he made his way to the Lanshi as bidden—and the moment he crossed the threshold, he understood exactly who had been making trouble for his uncle, and why he had been left for Wangji to handle.

As ever, all four of the other Great Clans were represented among the guest disciples: Yunmeng Jiang disciples in violet and jade-green, the Jin in cream and gold, Nie Huaisang and his shixiongdi in their familiar black and silver-gray—and by the window, the fiery scarlet and gold of Wen Ruohan's delegation, dressed in silks so fine that they would not have looked out of place upon an imperial concubine.

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes at them. Each one is haughtier than the next, though not quite brazen enough for Shufu to blink at; but then his gaze moves to the disciple sitting at the front, and freezes as the boy rolls his shoulders and turns around to greet Wangji with an insolent, lazy smile.

This is the one, he realizes, as the disciple flutters painted—painted?—lashes at him before turning back to look at Shufu. He is the one Uncle wants me to discipline.

"Wangji," Shufu says, with such open relief that Lan Wangji looks away from the Wen disciple in surprise. "At last. Have you come to attend lessons with the guest disciples?"

Wangji puts his hands together and bows. "Yes, Uncle."

"Excellent. But before you sit down, go take Wei Wuxian to the dormitories, and see that he washes his face and removes those ornaments from his hair."

Lan Wangji nods and takes three great strides towards the Wen disciple. "You heard your laoshi," he says. "Come."

The disciple—Wei Wuxian—gives no reply; but luckily, he rises from his chair and follows Lan Wangji out of the Lanshi without protest. As soon as the doors to the lecture hall fall closed behind them, Lan Wangji opens his mouth to deliver a short lecture on the virtues of modesty and simplicity in dress—only to snap it closed again in shock, for he has never seen a man who painted his face like this outside the theater troupes Xichen used to visit with him when they were children.

Wei Wuxian's lips are a wet, shining crimson, as if he had dipped them in blood before arriving at the Lanshi; and his eyes are lined with fine black paint and red rouge mixed with some kind of bright, sparkling dust. Worse yet, he had even painted his eyelashes, to make them seem twice as long and dark as any man's lashes ought to be—and as if all of that were not enough, the heavy locks of his hair are fastened with chains made of solid gold.

"Why are you looking at me, Lan-er-gongzi?" Wei Wuxian asks. He puts his head to one side, and despite himself, Lan Wangji hears music; for someone had woven small golden bells into Wei Wuxian's braided hair.

"Enough talk," Lan Wangji says flatly. "Follow me back to the dormitories so you can wash and brush out your hair."

To his astonishment, Wei Wuxian does not object. He keeps pace with Lan Wangji all the way to the compound reserved for the Wen disciples; and then, without another word, he vanishes into his lodgings and leaves Lan Wangji behind to wait for him on the porch.

Puzzled, Lan Wangji seats himself on a convenient stool and wonders why Wei Wuxian had obeyed him so easily. It was only too clear that Shufu first tried to teach him the virtues of simple adornments at least a month ago, if not longer; so why had he flouted Uncle's wishes and honored Lan Wangji's?

Perhaps he is being too obedient, says a small voice in the back of Lan Wangji's mind. Perhaps he has run out through the back of the house, and gone off to frolic in Caiyi.

Lan Wangji frowns more deeply than ever and raps on the door with his knuckles. "Wei-gongzi? Are you finished?"

"Nearly," Wei Wuxian calls. "You can come in, if you'd like."

Wangji highly doubts that Wei Wuxian is really making himself presentable (or at least, not as he ought to be doing) so he enters the house and finds his charge wiping his face with a damp towel.

He lowers the towel at the sound of Lan Wangji's footsteps, and then:

"You were not meant to paint yourself in a different fashion," he says, incensed. "Wash your face properly at once."

Wei Wuxian blinks at him in confusion.

"I have washed it off," he says. "Look."

And then he leans forward and grabs Lan Wangji's hand, drawing it up to the damp skin of his face before Lan Wangji can turn tail and flee. He drags Lan Wangji's fingertips over the smooth bones of his cheeks and forehead, and across the bronzen skin circling his eyes—tanned and not painted, Lan Wangji realizes—and presses his full lips to the heart of Lan Wangji's palm, so forcefully that any traces of rouge left upon them would have been imprinted on Wangji's skin.

"There!" Wei Wuxian says, beaming—and completely unaware that Lan Wangji is very near to bursting out of sheer fury. "I'm as clean as a new jian."

"Your hair," Lan Wangji croaks; for if he dared raise his voice any further, he would scream, and then he would be the one submitting himself for punishment at the discipline pavilion. "Comb it."

Wei Wuxian nods and unravels his braids. Rather than undoing them one by one, he merely snaps his fingers and lets out a burst of spiritual energy; and immediately, the gold fastenings fall loose and clatter onto his dressing-table, leaving the glittering mass of his hair to slide down his broad back like a waterfall coursing down the face of a mountain.

Suddenly, Lan Wangji finds himself unable to breathe.

He flings himself out of the guest house and up the hill towards the Jingshi, where he spends an hour meditating in complete silence before he can bring himself to set foot out of doors again.

"Brother," he says, when he finally works up the courage to return to the Hanshi two days later. "I fear that I may be unable to take over the duty of disciplining Wei Wuxian. He made me angrier than I have ever been in my life."

Lan Xichen—who had heretofore shown no signs of being anything other than a kind, understanding brother—only stares at him, and bursts into laughter.

[etirabys]

Apologies if this is personal and you don't want to answer (or you don't want to answer for any other reason!); if that is the case no worries. But anyway by virtue of the fact that I am (sort of) a linguist I often get curious about people's language situation. You speak English obviously but spent your childhood in Korea, and often went to the English language book store while there? What is like, your personal linguistic history? Like, what language(s) did you grow up speaking, which ones did you learn later and when, etc? How fluent do you consider yourself in both English and Korean? If you don't mind my asking.

Haha, this is a dream scenario for me (someone asking about a situation I find fascinating about myself because I've never met anyone else with that background, but is probably boring to most people). Here's a longer story than you probably want:

My parents emigrated to the US before I was born, stayed for a decade, and moved back to Korea right after I was born. They're conversational in English, and my sister (12 years my elder) is fluent. Speaking English is valuable in Korea, so they raised me to be bilingual. They taught me the alphabet, bought me English language children's books, and sent me to an English language school run by Christian missionaries for preschool, kindergarten, and part of first grade.

My sister left the country when I was three to go to a boarding school in the US, but she came back every year for holidays, spoke exclusively in English to me, and refused to let the conversation move on if I mispronounced a word.

When I was six, my parents moved further away from the missionaries' school and switched me to a neighborhood public elementary school. At this point I was mildly more fluent in English than in Korean. Reading (English books) was a self-sustaining reaction I spent every free hour on. There were fewer interesting Korean books for children. Korea had industrialized ~30 years prior, and the hangeul writing system had only been in full use ~50 years at that point. As far as I knew, there was no CS Lewis of Korea, no Tolkien, no Diana Wynne Jones. In Korean bookstores, many of the prominent books on display were translated – The Little Prince was popular for children, and there was a children's fiction fad around another French author (who afaik never made a splash in the States) whose name I forget.

So I'm reading like 10 hours a day, at the dinner table, on the escalator when my mom takes me while she's shopping, sometimes under the desk at school flipping the pages with my toes, because the teachers don't care. (This is a huge W as far as I'm concerned for Korea – public school teaching is a somewhat competitive and standardized government job, it attracts people who lack great passion for either teaching or controlling children.) Meanwhile my peers don't like me much because my vibes are rancid: I have a compulsive laugh tic I haven't gotten under control, and I don't seem to understand their preferences very well or actively seek to understand them. Fair enough. I have one friend at any given time and she's usually on the fence about me.

When I'm old enough to take the train on my own, some weekends my mom gives me 5000 won for the train ticket + lunch, and I go into Seoul to visit one bookstore that has a 10-shelf English section. I pick a book, spend the day finishing it, and go home. Instead of my English language skills lapsing and being overtaken by the language I'm immersed in, I'm going deeper into English. Which increased the disconnect between me and my peers. I remember overhearing a conversation about an anime (The Black Cat) and eagerly asking if they'd also read the Edgar Allen Poe short story. I wanted to much to talk about shared interests, but it didn't occur to me to "invite myself into their interests" by picking up the manga they talked about.

...this all made my childhood weird in ways that have shaped me hugely but are difficult to describe. I was isolated and not, happy and not, stimulated and not, developing unevenly...

At eleven I discover fanfiction.net, probably one of the most impactful events of my life. I'm running out of physical books, I've read everything five or ten times, but then the computer! has made a deal with me! It contains INFINITE LITERATURE, although sometimes people seemed to misspell things on purpose and I didn't know why. (I had, approximately, never encountered misspellings in written material before.) In return the internet would take MY SOUL FOREVER although I didn't realize this at the time. I post a 100K Harry Potter epic over the next year where Harry is trained by a special assassin cult that lives under a mountain.

My parents have no idea what is on the internet. They're on a new temporal continent with no clue there's a parasite that can turn your daughter into a fujoshi. They do know that they have a worrying child. But! Her grades are really good, especially when she's testing in English. Good enough that although they originally intended not to send me to the US (my sister got depressed and burned out, and they attributed it to sending her to a different country for school), it made much more sense for me to go. I was on track to get a full ride at an Ivy, a carrot they were Not Immune to, and I obviously despised Korea and wanted to leave.

When I arrived in the States, I was terrified of speaking English to real native speakers. My language experience was "reading/writing: 95% English, speaking/listening: 90% Korean". I could perfectly pronounce any English sentence when I tried, but I'd occasionally and bizarrely mix up R and L, or the vowel sounds "ih" and "eeh" if I weren't paying attention. This went away after a year but I felt extra shy and didn't talk much. I'd guess 80% of my social cachet in freshman year came from writing funny Facebook posts.

I remember my time in Korea without feeling bothered by any single aspect, but overall I still have a big sense of "wow I didn't like that", have avoided non-Americanized Korean people since getting here (ten years ago), and now speak Korean haltingly. I'll try to teach it to my children so that they have the option of that cultural connection, but I don't think I can do a good job. It's feels 90% true thinking/speaking Korean is just a normal skill, a thing I do sometimes on the phone – and 10% true that the happier and more whole I become in the US, the more unsettling it feels to speak Korean at all.

[thequeer07puss]

Hera the anti-nurse

Hera is most often considered and worshipped as nurturing and kind (which she is), but it is also important to remember that she is also known as a goddess that can easily destroy the very beings that she raised, not in a malevolent manner, but as a means to make them grow as people, for it is only through challenge and hardship that one’s true strength shines brightest.

As such, Hera is both the nurse that covers her children from harm with her divine hand, and the anti-nurse that forces them to use their own strength to make them grow, like some mother birds who throw the very babies that they tenderly raised off of cliffs to force them to fly.

A prime example of Hera as a nurse and an anti-nurse is Zeus’s most famous child, Heracles, who suckled on Hera’s very own breast for a moment in his infant years. The Queen of Heaven, recognising the strength of this infant who bit her breast while he was suckling, thought that he would grow up to do great things, yet tested his worth vigorously to make sure that her motherly heart was not deceiving her, so she induced madness in his heart and forced him to power through the weight of the iniquity of his family’s murder until he proved himself worthy to enter Olympus (this is also related to the quest for legitimacy that Heracles never asked for, as suggested by this post). This demigod hero, named for Hera’s glory, fulfilled his purpose by proving her right in her assertion that he would succeed, and was rightfully rewarded and immortalised by marrying into Hera’s home through her daughter Hebe, the goddess of youth, of vitality, of eternal valour, vigour, and virtue.

Hera is a goddess that incarnates the light and dark side of motherhood and rulership, also worshipped as a goddess of military power in some areas of Ancient Greece, and as a result it makes sense that she would act as both a shield against evil and a sword that pierces her devotees in the gut after giving them the means to heal a wound. “Hera the anti-nurse” also has the bonus of sounding metal, especially with other epithets like Queen of Heaven and Protector of Men.

[communistkenobi]

genuinely curious, if you think "it's a girl!" and "it's a boy!" categorisations are inherently oppressive, do you believe a world where gender isn't recognized in any meaningful way before the child has means to define it for themself to be the best alternative?

I’m going to use a different abolitionist example to illustrate what I mean: when people advocate for abolishing the nuclear family, they are not saying “get rid of parental relationships” or “get rid of fathers.” They are identifying a specific social relation that is used as a building block of society and advocating for a world where it doesn’t exist, because its existence is the foundation of certain forms of oppression. The western social model where children are raised in private detached housing by a maximum of two parents (and realistically, mostly by their mother - a huge problem in itself!) who have complete control over their material, emotional, and social needs produces a fucking huge amount of adverse outcomes - abuse, trauma, dysfunction, poor health - the list is nearly infinite. And this family model also inherently reproduces class, race, and gender by virtue of the fact that children inherit those things from their parents and are forced to exist in those contexts. And even in individual cases where it doesn’t produce abuse, even if you have very good parents who are not abusive to you in any way, that social relationship is still oppressive, in the same way that having a cool boss doesn’t mean that wage labour is good. A society where children are not entirely dependent on one or two people for all of their needs, where they are free to form meaningful relationships with adults outside of strict categories of family, where children are not legally and socially treated like the property of their parents, where bloodline is not privileged as the dominant mode of intergenerational transfer of knowledge, culture, skill, wealth, etc, is a much better world!

“Gender abolition” is, I think, a poor term for a similar goal, and one that has a lot of reactionary baggage (baggage that is not coincidental - I think its imprecision as a term is useful for terf politics). Abolition of patriarchy is probably more precise - I am advocating for a world where gender is entirely non-coercive, where gender does not produce any oppressive social relations. You can engage in gender as a culture in the same way you can engage with different forms of art, in a way that is purely voluntary. This configuration does not prohibit the possibility of trans people; we would just exist in an entirely different form than the current western, medicalist, patriarchal, white supremacist context we are forced to navigate.

So yes, I think for gender to be truly emancipatory, it needs to be engaged with as a voluntary form of human culture, as a form of art that we do with ourselves and our bodies, and to do this we need to abolish sex distinctions on medical records, gender markers on state documents, gendered facilities, and many, many other things.