#went into this thinking she was just a mean babykiller

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

Dark Forest Resident: Laureldawn

Aliases / Nicknames: The Queen Butcher

Gender: female

Sexuality: bisexual

Family: Foggybeetle (mother), Petuniaripple (father), Whirldew (sister), Blackkit, Fallowfire (daughters), Nettleblossom (son), Nacrekit, Tidekit, Lakekit (granddaughters)

Other Relations: Beechfur (mentor) unknown Dark Forest mentor

Clan: ShadowClan

Rank: medicine cat

Characteristics: loving, strong StarClan bond

Murder Motive: to prevent bad mothers from having kits

Number of Victims: 5+

Number of Murders: 5+

Murder Method: ripping out throat

Known Victims: Foggybeetle, Snipheart, Auburnslash, Brushfall, Thorntalon

Victim Profile: pregnant queens

Cause of Death: unknown

Cautionary Tale: ??

Story:

Maybe her life would’ve been calmer if her mother had been kinder, instead of…how she was.

Foggybeetle could scarcely look at her without complaining about how difficult her birth had been, and would often tell the young Laurelkit how, if she was smart, she wouldn’t dare have kits.

When Sorrelpelt had her litter, Laurelpaw wanted to retch.

That was what happened?!

Scarcely had she recovered from that horror, she overheard Foggybeetle announce that she was expecting. Memories of her own kithood flashed through her young mind, and she made the choice that, no matter how well Foggybeetle had raised her, her mother would not raise another litter.

Once her mother was disposed of, she pretended to mourn, but her dreams were filled with a new place, a place where she found support better than her Clan ever offered her.

It was this place that gave her the idea of how to prevent undeserving mothers like Foggybeetle.

Queens to be came to her, and she assessed their personality with calm detachment, her dark mentor whispering in her ear.

Snipheart was old, 153 moons, and a strange one to boot. She would not be a fit mother.

Auburnslash, the deputy, was a notorious grouch, who had a history of not being a fan of kits.

Chirpspore was the first to pass. Efficient, friendly, and a rather sweet queen, Laureldawn approved of her, and let her be.

Brushfall was next. A sweet, if airheaded queen, who tended towards being a busybody. She would not be a fit mother.

When she learned that she herself was expecting, she panicked a bit, asking around to learn of her own virtue. Since the overall opinion seemed to be positive, she allowed her kits to be born.

And they were adorable! Blackkit, Fallowkit, and little Nettlekit. Three little bundles of fluff that she doted on.

But the world wouldn’t let her happiness last.

Blackkit, just two moons old, died of greencough.

And when she was grieving, and vulnerable, mourning her firstborn, stupid Thorntalon decided to announce her own pregnancy.

She kind of brought her fate upon herself.

But fate soon caught up with Laureldawn herself.

Additional Information:

--Submission by @ambitiousauthor

[jewish-vents]

Being ethnically Jewish, adopted by goyim, and only connecting to my heritage and my culture as an adult was hard enough considering I became an adult in 2016. Since then my dad has become a full-blown conspiracy theorist, Trump supporter, and rabid Islamophobe. He's gotten involved in this weird offshoot of Evangelicals who think nothing bad can happen to "the Jews" (he NEVER calls us Jewish people, or people at all) so according to him there is no rise in antisemitism. Things have been like this forever. There is no rise in hate crimes or hate speech. The CIA, FBI, NSA, NAACP, and Jews are all lying or mistaken because his conspiracy buddies say so.

I get called slurs and babykiller and pedophile every day when I go to work on campus. (Apparently goyim think we lick babies' private parts? Their kinks baffle me.) My coworkers make pointed remarks or talk about hoping Hamas wins and look at me just daring me to get offended or fight them or report them to the department head, who they and I both know would side with them. I am taking care of my disabled father and my newfound stray-who-chose-me dog, I have been repairing the attic and spare room because my sister and her daughter have to move in at the end of the month due to their rent being hiked up suddenly, and I am recovering from having a bleeding ulcer back in December, during which I lost over half the blood in my body.

And added onto all of this work, I can't even come home to peace and quiet. I come home to more and more conspiracy garbage. My adoptive dad was always emotionally abusive and has untreated Bipolar Disorder. He's never been kind to me. But now he's dehumanizing me, saying things like "the Jews and people" as if those are separate categories, rambling about "the mystery of the Jews" which appears to be how we survived if people actually hated us (which is apparently in question), and constantly, consistently, repeatedly talking about the Holocaust. I got up to get peanut butter for breakfast because I'm so busy that breakfast is two spoons of peanut butter and I couldn't even get that this morning without being told actually, it's Jewish people's fault for dying during the Holocaust because they knew it was coming and could've gotten out.

I'm a bad person.

I snapped. I just started screaming. Not words, not even syllables, just full-body, loud, long screams to drown out everything he said. I screamed until my voice gave out and then I clamped my hands over my ears, shut my eyes and waited until I had enough breath to bolt for my room, throw on non-pajama clothes, and went to work. I can't take it. I can't take this. I can't deal with this. I didn't apologize and I'm not going to because if I do I might have to hear more of it and it's too much. When I was a kid he used to get angry and refuse to talk to me for days, sometimes weeks. I am actively begging Hashem to let that happen because I just can't take this anymore.

I'm 24. I'm not even 30 yet and I feel ancient. Childhood feels like a half-remembered dream. I don't remember what it was like to feel safe anymore. I had a fine day at work because I've started... I don't think it's exactly dissociating? I imagine myself as a main character in a video game narrating the contents of a visual novel. 'Angry Coworker #2 is overly dramatic. You wonder how much of it is performance,' I narrate to myself in the second person, eating lunch, 'and how much, if any, of her emotion is genuine. She is giving a 2012 early YouTube caliber performance. Your smile should look appropriately strained so she thinks her attempt has succeeded, lest she escalate to full-on theatrics.'

This cannot be healthy. But the last therapist I had just taught me to feel guilty for thinking about the part or things I can't control because that means I have only myself to blame for feeling bad. The therapist before that I caught zoning out on me mid-session and totally not paying attention. The one before that kept telling me that the things that stress me out don't actually effect me and I was self-victimizing because the rest of the world doesn't "have" to effect me.

I am coming apart at the seams. I am consistently narrating my own life in the second person and not eating dinner because then I'd have to encounter my father and working on something because if I work I don't have to think. I don't know how long I can keep going like this. If I ever scream at work like I did at home, I'd be fired, and pretty rightfully so.

I'm so tired. I can't deal with everything. I can't kill myself because there's too much work to do, too many people depending on me. I can't keep patiently gritting my teeth and listening to another hot take on "the Jews" every morning. I just want to sleep. I just want to lay in bed and forget about everything. I can't do this anymore. I also have to.

.

[thecorteztwins]

More Alt-Marauders time! This time it’s Pyro and Claudine in “Left Untold”, Madelyne and Shinobi in “Motherly Instinct” and then a couple of untitled Haven and Sebastian snippets that didn’t evolve into full things. I hope you enjoy!

LEFT UNTOLD “Man, family drama, eh?” Pyro said, stepping into the kitchen where Claudine was fixing a drink. There was...a lot going on, at the moment. Shaw and his son. Haven and her brother. Madelyne and her....er, was the teenage Cable the same Cable that was her son? Pyro wasn’t clear and he wasn’t getting close enough to that mess to find out. “Mm,” Claudine replied, eyes not leaving the bottle she was pouring from. “Glad I don’t have one,” Pyro added. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to tell you whether I do or not?” “Well, it’d make conversation. But uh, not DYING to know either.” It was true, Pyro was not usually into that kind of thing, getting close with folks needlessly. But lately, he wasn’t opposed to it either, if only because everyone here seemed to have a real interesting story. If he had to listen to somebody’s personal tragedy, it should at least be intriguing and unique, and this crew had that in SPADES. “Suppose I’m just a little curious about you, since I know a bit about everyone else now,” he admitted. She looked at him now, glass in hand, smiling in that damnable Cheshire Cat way she had that he was SURE she did deliberately for the purpose of driving other people nuts, “Does it worry you? Not knowing? Or are you curious for another reason?” “I’m a writer, love---a journalist, once,” he put his hands on his body waist and stuck out his slim chest a bit,  “I follow leads, follow stories, figure things out. Just instinct. If I feel like there’s a story...I want to know it. And you got one, I’m sure---from before that old ghost got his hooks in you. But you ain’t all THAT important to me either, so don’t flatter yourself. I wasn’t digging, just asking.” Claudine smirked a bit, “Yes, I do have a story. I have a “me” from before Sinister. But I like having it to myself. I don’t have much to myself anymore, you know.” “Yeah---I understand that. “ He did. He understood all to deeply wanting to keep some kind of control, when things were out of your control, your body turned against you into the weapon killing you, yeah, he understood that. He understood it painfully well. “Well, it’s getting so I could choke on the tension in there, what say you and I go out and not talk about ourselves at all?” “Sounds like a time, St. John,” she put down the drink, “I’ll put on my dancing shoes.” They went out to Bangok that night, and then a few hip Eastern European clubs, and they didn’t talk a word about themselves all night. *** MOTHERLY INSTINCT “I can’t believe this,” Shinobi was near panicking, “Of all the times not to have Haven on board!” “Excuse me?” Madelyne turned a look of irritation towards Shinobi, and then picked up one of the infants. There was at least a dozen, all visibly mutation. This one was a lovely sea-green color with upward-curving little horns. Madelyne held it perfectly. “She’s not the only one with motherly instincts around here, you know.” Shinobi, in fact, did not know. He was completely surprised by this information. Madelyne didn’t have mom vibes, not even MILF vibes---well, hot step-MILF, maybe---she wore a black leather keyhole top and stiletto heels and she was totally kickass and he LOVED that! But she wasn’t all...nice. She wasn’t mean, until she got tired with his attempts at flirtation, but she was...well she was the most normal person on here, he supposed, her and Pyro. But a mom? That did work out well for him though, because... “Oh, uh, well, you’ve got it well in hand then,” he said, and started to leave, only to have Madelyne telekinetically pull him back by the velvet color of his sparkly satin purple blazer. “Not so fast, pal,” she said sternly, “There’s a LOT of kids here, and even telekinesis won’t let me watch them all at once.” She could use her telepathy to put them all to sleep, but she damn well WASN’T going to do that. It seemed to be common for telepaths to have issues around consent, for even the best and most benevolent of them to use their powers in ethically dubious ways at times, but in Madelyne’s case, one could understand why agency, even for infants, would be something she’d be defensive of, to say the least. “But I don’t know anything about them!” Shinobi whimpered. He couldn’t take care of babies, HE WAS BABY! Madelyne was unmoved, “Well you’re gonna learn!” A few hours later, they were seated on the floor crosslegged, each one bottle-feeding one of the little shit machines. Shinobi was still kind of weirded out by the whole thing but, after many disasters, had been deemed by Maddie to be ‘doing alright’ at last. “So uh, how’d you learn all this, huh?” Shinobi asked “You used to baby sit?” He could SO see her as a hot babysitter. Seducing the dad...or the mom...oh man... “I had a son,” she said flatly, in a hostile tone that got through to even Shinobi that she didn’t want to talk about it. “Oh,” Shinobi said, and assumed the kid must have died. Then, in the true fashion of the idiot that he was, asked   “With Cyclops or my dad?” “Cyclops!” Madelyne exclaimed, in shock at very idea of other suggestion, so much so distracted her from even being mad that he’d pried, “God, Shinobi, I wouldn’t----look there are some things your father is good for but that is NOT one of them!” Shinobi laughed, “Ha! You think he’s sterile? Oh boy did he pull the wool over your---” “No! I mean---being a father---or a mother---isn’t just about getting someone pregnant, you know.” That made her think though...that really was all the “mother” she’d been to Nathan. She’d only gotten to actually care for him for less than a year before...before he was taken. Before she died. Before she tried to...to kill him. And he was left to be raised by the man who had walked out on him, and the witch he had walked out for. She’d reunited with him years later, when he was older than she was, she had cast Sebastian aside to help him...ad he’d rejected her. He’d known what she did, he’d thrown it in her face. She couldn’t blame him---how could he know the full story, that it was out of her control? All he would have heard from his “parents” was that she was the evil witch, the babykiller, the Goblyn Queen, not his real mother, not really. And when she’d run into Nate Grey, drawn to him without knowing why, the version of Nathan from another world, it turned out he’d just wanted Jean too, that wanting Jean in this world was why he’d brought Maddie back from the dead, to be HIS Jean. Everyone always thought that Scott’s rejection was all that mattered to Madelyne, that she was just the Crazy Evil Ex, that she was only bitter over that, over him. No one ever considered how much more it hurt her to have her SON push her away. For god’s sakes Scott’s ship had sailed, but her CHILD...and she’d heard he was a teenager again, on Krakoa? He’d been a grizzled old man when she met him, all the years they should have had together taken away by time travel...could she maybe, now...no, they’d never let her. But that was fine. No one “let” Madelyne Pryor do things. She just DID them. Made her own path. Always had, til she’d found it had already been laid out for her from the start. And still, she’d forked the road---Sinister sure hadn’t planned on Inferno! “So uh, you know all the stuff then,” Shinobi said, snapping her out of it, “Yyou should definitely change the diapers, then.” She realized he was holding out the baby he had been feeding. Holding it VERY far from his body. “Cuz you know how to best. Wouldn’t want them to have a crappy diaper change. I mean that’s why you’re changing it!” Ugh. “Fine,” she said, “Give him here.” She didn’t trust Shinobi not to botch a diaper change anyway. She passed the baby in her arms to him, then got to work with this one, much to Shinobi’s disgust. “That’s kind of cool though, that you were a mom,” he said, once she’d finished up. She looked at him, wondered for a moment if-- “It makes you a total MILF, literally.” Nevermind. *** SMALL HAVEN/SHAW SCENES THAT NEVER EVOLVED INTO FULL FICLETS “I’m telling you, I can’t,” Haven said plaintively. It was a firm statement of fact, and a pained one. Not emotionally pained as was her whiny usual, but physically. And for good reason---her entire right foot was crushed, the bones shattered inside it by the rocks of the terrain they were trapped upon for the moment. But that was really no excuse for giving up and slowing him down, and Sebastian Shaw was not about to let her make it one. “And I am telling you,” he said, looking down at her contemptuously, his tone and expression completely devoid of any sympathy, “That you have to. We must reach the portal. Once there, we can get you a healer. Whinge all you want, woman, but get up!” “Let me lean on you, Mr. Shaw, if you will. I cannot walk on my own, but I may limp that way.” Sebastian furrowed his brows, and crouched down so that he was on eye to eye level with her. Then, with one hand, he struck her across the face in irritation, and then, with the opposite arm, immediately scooped her up and hauled her over one shoulder. It would be much quicker this way than a limping pace.“I want you to know, I would dearly like to leave you, Ms. Dastoor,” he growled, “But I expect Charles would count that in violation of the rules he set regarding your preservation.” *** Neither Madelyne nor Claudine had been able to reverse the bodyswap, so for the time being it looked as though Haven and Shaw had to live in each other, rather than simply with each other. It irritated Sebastian tremendously. It unnerved Haven. “I shall endeavor not to take your clothes off, but understand that this might not be feasible depending how long we’re stuck like this,” he grumped from her mouth, “I already had to use the washroom once. It was an...experience.” “I did as well,” Haven said, from his face. The new gentleness behind its eyes was terrifying to look at for anyone who was familiar with him; Shinobi couldn’t be in the same room with her like this. “Did you look?” Sebastian smirked, an expression her mouth had likely never made before. “Certainly not! I assure you, I am granting you the same privacy that---” “Go ahead next time. There’s a full-length mirror in my bedroom. Take it all in. I expect you’ll see some things you never have before. It would explain a lot about you, Ms. Dastoor.”