#which is not being generous enough to her poor woman has never said a word to me about it and she actively asks me to watch more together

[poughkeepsies]

the gay agenda is desentisizing my mom to gay people by showing her 9-1-1 episodes with all the queer characters where she can't help but like them and root for them

[crazylittlejester]

honestly, the fandom dismisses wars trauma a little too much. Have you noticed it’s always never brought up in his character studies? And when it is, it’s totally brushed off him and cia had a WEIRDDD age gap. It’s also weird hyrule warriors never acknowledges this. I honestly don’t think it’s gonna be recognized in LU but idk. It’s just weird how quickly the fandom brushed over all that. What’s your opinion? Cuz you have cool opinions lol

Disclaimer: Everything you’re about to read is my opinion and my interpretation of a game. I’m not talking about headcanons (unless otherwise specified), I’m just talking about my experience with the game and everything else. All of this is from MY perspective interacting with the canon material from both Hyrule Warriors and Linked Universe. Also! I am dyslexic, my bad for oddly autocorrected words or weird spelling mistakes

A huge reason I started yapping so much on this blog was because I saw a lot of people either actively disliking Wars, making fucking INSANE comments about his body, overly sexualizing him, or just straight up dismissing him all together and it helped me get over my posting anxiety because it genuinely made me so upset. He’s been my favorite character since only a few posts into LU (i originally liked Twilight better based sheerly on design but it took like only a few posts before that changed), and I love HW Link in general, and I thought it was actually crazy that more people didn’t like him. I’ve written several of my own characters studies on him, some of which I’ve posted, others lay trapped in my old laptop in the form of a full on analysis paper, never to see the light of day

You can send a full grown man to war and he will come back with trauma, imagine what happens when you grab some poor teenager and tell him everything relies on him. Literally forget Cia for a minute, Link as a teenager was taken and shoved into a full on war where his men turned on him and in order to survive, he had to kill. Monsters and hylians alike, it was him or them, and he’s the one who made it out. Not to mention he was constantly running all over the battle field trying to prevent the hylian captains from being defeated, and he most certainly lost many people he cared about just because he couldn’t get there in time. He had to carry around the guilt that this war was started because some sorceress was obsessed with him ON TOP of that

This was said earlier by an anon on a post I reblogged, and I’ve been saying it myself for months but I will say it again: If Warriors had been a girl and been obsessed over that same way, I fucking GUARANTEE you people would be taking it more seriously

I literally just typed in the character name and the game she’s from and that is what google had to say about her. If an older man was described as ‘harboring serious affections’ and having a ‘desire to claim’ a teenage girl I literally don’t think it would’ve been glossed over or ignored like it is

I don’t think nintendo was ever gonna elaborate or really recognize it in the game, they never go super in depth on anything in Zelda games from my experience, and I doubt Jojo will really get into it in LU mainly just because she has so much going on with eight other dudes and potentially two more (based on the header on the linked universe blog)

I saw a lot of characterizations of Warriors and opinions of him that made me so confused and also a bit mad, such that he is a womanizer or a stupid twink (of which he is neither), and that’s a huge reason I started writing fanfiction for this fandom. Firstly to just create more content for my favorite character because I rarely saw any that focused on him, and secondly because I didn’t like some (NOT ALL) of how I was seeing him characterized. (i cannot emphasize enough: NOT ALL people in the fandom characterized him this way, I saw plenty of amazing and beautiful characterizations of Warriors)

I do not think he is a womanizer at all, in fact I fully believe his flirtatious behavior is a defense mechanism. I think his ‘woman problems’ are the fact that he’s afraid of women (especially older women) he doesn’t know or trust, but also that’s just my opinion. And I am genuinely a bit worried that now that people have stopped talking about how they noticed he seemed off a few updates ago and now that they’re saying he’s back to normal that people are going to start reducing him to a stupid dramatic twink again, as if Warriors was not the one who came up with the initial plan to fight Dink and was not the first one to fight him. As if this is not a man who lead a god damn army. As if everything he’s done and everything he is no longer matters because he’s ‘pretty’

anyways I have a lot of thoughts about him in general and im just glad the fandom has been treating him better as of late, but i am a bit worried it’s just gonna go back to how it was

thanks for the ask!! sorry i got a bit carried away 😭

[eatmangoesnekkid]

One unspoken virus that plagues female bodies due to growing up and being conditioned in a western colonial capitalist patriarchy is the lack of reverence, respect, and honoring we have for our teachers and inspirations/muses. Growing up in a world created out of the male mind and male philosophy, we are groomed to be less collaborative and more competitive and "takers," taking resources from the feminine, without acknowledging our sources, whether it's another woman/femme's work or resources of the earth. We have adapted to being sneaky and slick.

Everything is recorded. We do not get away with anything. The desire "to take" from other women is a 'bottom-feeder' scarcity consciousness. When a woman or womb owner holds this type of consciousness in her system, she births babies who become adults who do not feel like they are good enough and they further the unconscious scarcity imprint into future generations. When you take words I have written like "friendships can be deeply romantic" but do not credit me as the source of your newfound wisdom and simply shift words around, it is still recorded and felt by those with intuitive gifts. I am devoted to letting those whom I love know how much I adore them. Within the last 10 years, there has not a single close friend I’ve had who hasn't received a message of me sharing my love of them at some point. This is the lived experience the quote was birthed from. In the last 30 days, I have sent voice notes to a woman I follow on instagram who writes beautiful things about heterosexual relating and bridging the gap between women and men. I'm not a heterosexual woman, but I love reading her work. She expands my own consciousness of love so I reached out to her just to let her know how much her work inspired my own flow of love in a pure way and thanked her. Reverence for another human can be so activating for the psyche and requires extreme vulnerability, which is one reason it is so hard for most people to honor other people without feeling less than. We have forgotten that we are all Gods, that’s why. 🪶🙏🏿🕊️ Years ago, a couple from Atlanta came to visit me and my lover in Europe. When they arrived, I was the only one at home and when my lover came home from work, I met her at the door as usual—which was really no big deal to us. Ha, I will never forget when we turned around and saw the sheer shock on their faces from witnessing how we greeted each other after being a part for "only 7 hours" —one of them said. They were shocked that we had that so much reverence for the presence of the other. But to me, reverence is human. It is love. It is the nectarous flow of one’s inherent wellspring of vulnerability. Recently I spoke to a past mentor of mine from 2008 who is 22 years older than me, a mentor who I have expanded beyond in consciousness and lived experiences. I find traits of a good mentor to be one who can help evolve students beyond their own capacity and limitations, maybe begin to actually to revere the student’s growing beyond the mentor’s capacity overtime. This is what our relationship is like now. She is genuinely happy for everything I am and everything have become. In all these years, I have felt nothing but sheer love and appreciation from her at different stages of my journey. I told her how much I loved her for who she divinely is. I showered her with compliments and sent her a cashapp for no reason at all. I did not reach out to her to talk about myself. I only spoke about her --her beauty, sass, heart, worth, and value. Women who can not acknowledge the gifts and beauty of other women and only want “to take...” will always be poor in a myriad of ways. Heart-centered womanhood. Women can turn this world around when we begin to get deeply honest about what is living in our bodies and truly become women again and understand the level of power within it. Please consider revering/honoring those women who help to move you forward into new ways of being that will expand into limitless possibilities. Not become envious them, not steal their work but truly hold reverence and love and even cheer them on. Doing so helps to create more and more connection and love stories and less separation, fear and violence in our world. Everything is connected to everything, you see. The aim is to get better at loving and sweetness than we were conditioned to be at extracting and taking. When we do, a secret garden of vitality blooms abundantly, like the generous nectar that Spring and Summer summons from human bodies. Because beautiful people impact us in beautiful ways when we allow. Never forget that. --India Ame'ye

[adragonsfriend]

"If Anakin had just been able to be open about his family..."

Frankly, if Anakin and Padme had been open about their relationship during the war they would've been that couple that everyone knows is pretty but dysfunctional, and whom no one wanted to invite to parties because of the risk of Anakin publicly trying to get into fights.

Don't get me wrong at all I think Anakin and Padme have the potential to be a good couple that that good for them and the people around him, I love the ship in general (even and sometimes especially for the fact that it's a messy one), I think they're characters with great chemistry and enough overlapping values to work together. That said:

We need to stop with the idea that openly having a family (while simultaneously being a Jedi or not) would've automatically fixed a single one of Anakin's issues.

This is going to get spicy and not be as well written as my usual kind of post, cause I'm tired of this idea. Fight me if you wish (but before you do, think really hard about whether this post is actually mad at you or if it's talking about someone else).

If you're familiar, Jane Austen put it best in Sense & Sensibility in this conversation where Elinor (the main heroine) and Marianne (her sister) discuss Willoughby (the man who played Marianne, unwittingly actually fell for her, then left anyway when an opportunity to marry rich came along, and afterwards came to confess than he was miserable despite his new wealth and now believed he would've been happier if he'd married Marianne and been comparatively poor),

Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word, "Selfish?" In a tone that implied, Do you really think him selfish? "The whole of [Willoughby's] behavior," replied Elenor, "From the beginning to the end of the affair has been grounded is selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections (he intended to play Marianne), which afterwards when his own were engaged made him delay the confession of it (he didn't tell Marianne he actually fell for her when he had the opportunity), and which finally carried him from Barton (he left her when the opportunity to marry rich appeared). His own enjoyment, or, his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle." "It is very true. My happiness never was his object." [said Marianne] "At present," continued Elinor, "He regrets what he has done, and why does he regret it? Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed (he's rich now), he suffers from no evil of that kind, and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself (he doesn't like his new rich wife). But, does it follow, that that had he married you, he would have been happy? The inconveniences would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses, which because they are removed he now reckons as nothing. He would've had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would've been always necessitous, always poor. And probably would soon have learnt to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife." --Chapter 47

(Please excuse any mistakes in the quote, I was typing it out from listening to the audiobook)

Point being, circumstances do not automatically change people. We largely create our own realities and our dissatisfactions with those realities. A greedy person who refuses to change themself will be dissatisfied no matter what they gain in life.

And Anakin is greedy when is comes to his relationships. Not for money, but the way he wants people to make him feel. It's the whole arc of his character over the prequels and the originals. He learns to love selflessly from Luke, right at the end of his life. It's so important. It's the most important moment in the whole of Starwars, and to claim that Anakin was loving well before that moment diminishes it. Anakin's love for Padme did exist, and it had its good moments, but it was not selfless or giving like his love for Luke became in that moment.

Being open about his relationship with Padme would not have changed that quality of it. Openly having kids would not have changed the qualities in him.

Could he have found the people and time and motivation to face and deal with his issues while having a family, especially if the war somehow ended? Of course.

But having bio kids wouldn't've fixed him any more than having a padawan did. Being with Padme openly wouldn't've resolved the fact that she has a job she cares about , and is a full person who can't cater to his feelings all the time. ("Nothing matters more to me than the way you make me feel.")

Side note, but the utter hypocrisy of criticizing Yoda for assigning him a padawan and then turning around and saying, "but if he'd just not had to hide that he was having kids..." is wild. A knight raising a padawan is going to get a so much communal help and oversight from the community around them (as we see in clone wars), as oppose to a parent in a nuclear family format. If Anakin was "too young and totally unprepared for a padawan," and "Yoda shouldn't've done that," then Anakin was infinitely less prepared to be responsible for actual infants.

The only way being able to be open about his marriage would've helped him is that someone outside the relationship might've tried to step in and been like "please get help." And frankly, that's not actually anyone outside the relationship's responsibility to do. Also, Anakin displays plenty of red flags that have literally nothing to do with his relationship with Padme that people advise him to deal with, which he does not deal with.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Anakin could've left the Jedi. He was free to put down his laser sword and have the househusband arc he deserved at literally any point. And frankly, if his ONLY two options (and this is absolutely a false dichotomy) were commit mass murder or "fail" his duty to the Republic by retiring, I think we can all say which of those is better--both for the Republic and, for Anakin's soul or whatever.

When Ahsoka lost faith in the Jedi she was brave enough to make the decision to leave and find her own path. She left and discovered she still wanted to help people, just in other ways. Literally no one (in world or fans) considered her a failure for opting out of being a soldier in the war. Anakin could've done the same, and it was only his own ideas about status and attachment and violence (and yeah some genuine sense of duty too) that stopped him from doing so. In fact, he is the one to yell at Ahsoka that "The Jedi are your life!" Because he wants her to stay in his life.

Romantic relationships don't fix people.

Becoming a parent doesn't fix people.

People can fix themselves. When they do, it's often partly so they can be better to the people in their lives, be those spouses, friends, children, whatever--but the relationships themselves, the presence of those people in and of itself, is not what does the fixing.

It's effort. The genuine effort to act better. To follow their best impulses over their worst. To take themselves out of risky situations. To build good habits.

The idea that Anakin had to have a spouse, or had to have children in his life either to be happy or to not murder people is Hollywood and/or Sith propaganda, and we should treat it no differently than any other, "her magical vagina will cure him of his issues," or, "let's have kids to save our shitty suburban marriage," narrative.

[houseofbrat]

Something like this was always coming down the pipeline. Whatever the reason Middleton’s disappearance from public life eventually turned out to be, it was never going to be something fun. And now we know the precise shape of that darker reality. This video was followed by commentary from journalists and online mouthpieces that anybody who speculated about her whereabouts ought to be ashamed of themselves. Helen Lewis wrote a piece for the Atlantic headlined “I Hope You All Feel Terrible Now.” But it’s not guilt the public ought to be feeling. It’s a more wide-ranging kind of disgust about monarchy in general. I don’t blame Middleton for any of this. She knew what she was signing up for in joining the royal family, sure, but I think it’s right and human to feel sorry for a mother of young children who has received a cancer diagnosis. That said, turning the blame on the public at large is disingenuous. Yes, the speculation online has been insane. People undoubtedly took it too far, with the TikTok sleuthing, the prurience with which many engaged in conspiracy theories about where she had gone. The jokes look in very poor taste now. But it didn’t have to be like this. The manner in which the palace went about handling this situation produced that situation. We’re in the odd but useful position of being able to compare what happened with Kate Middleton’s cancer directly with the cancer of another royal at the same moment, King Charles. There, the palace announced enough information to keep nosy hordes at bay, and they did it promptly. What the palace apparently decided to do here was to allow speculation to reach fever pitch over a period of weeks, release an obviously doctored photo of Middleton, blame her for the editing job, approve a grainy piece of bystander footage of her leaving a farm shop, and patch all of this up by trotting out a woman fighting cancer to sit alone on a bench and tell us, in the kindest words they could write for her, to leave her alone. So, a big part of why this feels bad is that massive public relations failure by the palace. But it is also, to a large degree, an inevitable consequence of the fact of whom the royals position themselves to be, and the friction produced by their status in Britain. It’s important to remember that Middleton is not a celebrity in any normal sense. The Kardashians, people of perhaps equivalent fame, do not owe anybody any information about themselves, although they choose to give out a lot of it. But the royals do owe the public, in order to justify their existence. Middleton is a person whom the palace deemed it appropriate to parade out in front of the world media just hours after giving birth to each of her children, hair done, makeup applied. A person whose job, that which she earns taxpayer money for, is to appear in public: to shake hands, to be photographed, to grace schools and businesses with her presence. And she has to do this in strict accordance with the palace’s idea of what a princess ought to be. Polite, modestly dressed, humble, uncomplaining, smoothed of any rough edges that might constitute a personality. The idea that a person like that could just disappear, and people wouldn’t wonder where she was, is ludicrous. The royal family turns its members into figures who exist purely as spectacle, as glossy, likable ciphers for monarchical power. They have taught the public that they exist for us to see. That’s a hard lesson for people to unlearn.

Imogen West-Knights, "The Hideous Circus of the Monarchy," Slate

[cast-you-dxwn]

For the if they had a kid meme. So which child are you doing? Lol

• Name: Selene Morningstar (Daughter of Charlie and Tacitus)

• Gender: Female

• General Appearance: Her twin brother, Helios, inherited all of their father’s physical menace. Selene is built much like her mother, tall and thin, though perhaps a bit more endowed in the hips and chest, with a wiry sort of musculature that is not in any way apparent unless you have stoked her ire enough to end up within her grasp. With her father’s piercing golden eyes and Roman nose, standing head and shoulders over her mother, Selene cuts a decidedly more autocratic figure.

• Personality: Explosive, in a word. Possessed of all of her mothers excitability with all of her fathers intensity, it is not particularly easy to land yourself in Selenes poor graces, but she has none of Charlie’s reluctance to displease or propensity to appease. Her shitlist is not a safe place to be, and not just because she has had the most powerful men in Hell wrapped around her finger since she was a little girl. All of that being said, she is an affable woman, with her mothers bright eyes and charming smile, easy to speak to and quite willing to extend a hand of friendship, though it should be understood that this is a privilege that has disastrous consequences if betrayed.

• Special Talents: Selene inherited her father’s wings, those of a raven, as black as midnight, feathers seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it.

While both of the twins have some manner of energy manipulation, Selenes is much more like that of Charlie’s, bursts of glittering, disorienting light much like a firework. Like her mother she is also capable of short-range transportation in bursts of glitter, something that has driven her Aunt Niffty to a near mental break more than once.

She is not aware of it, but she is possessed of a far lesser version of her grandmothers siren abilities. She cannot enthrall or entrance others, but she is shockingly charismatic. The more she talks, the more one tends to agree with her point of view.

• Who they like better: She definitely trails after her mother once she gets a little older and gains an appreciation of politics and social maneuvering. Selene has a great deal of respect for Charlie, and most often confides in her mother or seeks her out for advice over her father.

• Who they take after more: Definitely Charlie. Her physical abilities definitely come from Tacitus, but her affable personality and genial manner are all her mother’s doing. If it ever came down to it, Selene would more than likely be the twin who becomes Hells Monarch, something her brother would have no issue with.

• Personal Head canon: In adulthood, Selene does not have a high opinion of any of the Sins. She loves them dearly, but views them as one might their fuckup aunts and uncles who never really grew up. Satan might be an exception, though she is somewhat incensed by his braggartry. She adores Paimon, however.

• Face Claim:

[drowninginthoughts27]

7/9 Early Word Count: 1060

@jegulus-microfic

“James, what the fuck! It’s only 4:30 in the morning!” Regulus groans, shoving his head into his pillow.

“I’m going for a run, I'll be back by the time you wake up again, don’t worry,” James gently whispers

“Yeah but it’s so early, you usually don’t leave till closer to 5 am,” he groans, eyes pressed firmly shut.

“Yes but today is special, I wanted to get out of the house earlier,” He kisses Regulus quickly on the crown of his head and slips out the bedroom door before Regulus can process any of what James just said.

Quite frankly, he’s too tired to bother doing much thinking. So he nestles back into the covers and falls asleep rather quickly.

———

James has been working his ass off trying to organize this surprise for Regulus. Lots of planning and communication had to go into this to make everything absolutely perfect.

You see Regulus has wanted a pet cat for about as long as Regulus knew they existed. Even before James had met Regulus, Sirius would go on long tangents about how badly Regulus wanted a cat. But despite all this he’s never had one of his own.

Walburga didn’t approve of pets. To her Sirius and Regulus were close enough. And then Regulus had college. Working himself to the brink of exhaustion nearly every day to pass all his classes with picture perfect marks.

But with Regulus having just gotten his degree he now has much more time on his hands. Hence it being the perfect time for James and Regulus to start a new chapter of their life; getting a cat together.

James had been researching for a while now, longer than they had even been dating if he’s being honest. But recently he’s been looking more and more for the perfect cat for the two of them.

He knew Regulus would want to adopt a cat. Both of them really weren’t a huge fan of buying one through a breeder. James also knew Regulus wanted an older cat, one that wasn’t as welcome in its former home. One Regulus could relate to a bit more on that matter.

So James has spent almost all of the free time he had apart from Regulus researching cat adoption centers. He had narrowed it down to a local rescue center near where they lived. And he had reached out asking about the cat that had been in the facility’s care the longest.

That’s how he had ended up with a small female calico, 4 years in age. The poor cat had been between several houses, none of it the cat's fault at all.

He had arranged for the cat to be dropped off at 5:30 that evening. He had also decided to hold off on naming it; Regulus would want to do that.

But in preparation for the cat's arrival he has to buy the necessary supplies. He couldn’t have bought them earlier or Regulus would have gotten suspicious. So instead he opted to go out and buy everything after his morning run.

Thankfully there’s a pet store near their home. It’s at the end of the route he takes on his morning runs so it works out pretty well.

It opens at 7 in the morning. So hopefully he can get there after his run and be home at a bit before 8; about the same time as he normally would be.

———

It’s 5:28 now, the woman with the cat should be here shortly.

James had hidden all the cat supplies in his office before he went to go wake Regulus up.

He had gotten a litter box, food and water dishes, a variety of different cat toys, multiple cat beds (he didn’t know which one the beds she would prefer), and a plethora of other things necessary for cat parenting. He had even stood in the cat food aisle for a solid 15 minutes before an employee had helped him out, recommending a few different brands of food.

There’s a knock on the front door causing Regulus to look up from the book he had previously been reading.

“Who’s that?” He questions, shifting over from his spot on the couch to peer toward the general direction of the entrance way.

It takes James an immense amount of self control to contain his own excitement. He struggles profusely not to smile like a little kid on Christmas Day, but that’s what this all feels like to him. He’s very obviously extraordinarily giddy.

James gets up from his spot next to Regulus, shrugging in an attempt to appear nonchalant as he walks over to the door.

Sure enough there's a lady standing on the other side of the threshold. A cat carrier in one hand and a clipboard with paperwork clipped to it in the other.

“Regulus, sweetie,” he calls, “Come here, I have a surprise for you.”

Stepping out from the living rooms moment later, Regulus stops dead in his tracks. A distant look on his face and his skin getting increasingly more pale. For a second James worries that he fucked up immensely.

But all of those concerns are almost instantly dissolved as Regulus runs over to hug him rather suddenly. Burying his face in the crook of James’ neck.

“You got us a cat?” He mumbles

“Yup, I got us a cat. Well more like I got you a cat,” James chuckles.

Regulus looks up to acknowledge the lady and more importantly the cat.

With a smile on her face the lady speaks up, “Alright, so we just need to sign a bit more paperwork and then you guys should be good to go!” She says rather cheerily.

“Okay that sounds great! Come in, Come in!” James responds, ushering her into the house and into the kitchen.

———

The lady had just left and the cat has been let out of its carrier to start exploring its new forever home. Regulus remains seated at the kitchen counter and watches in awe as the cat slink curiously around the living room. Occasionally stopping to look into other rooms.

“So what are you gonna name her?”James asks, breaking the pleasant few moments of silence.

Without hesitation Regulus responds, a warm glow in his eyes, “I think the name Ophelia would suit her, don’t you?”

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Addendum to the chapter 1 post that I thought of later:

“Not this afternoon—haven’t got time. I must mosey up to the North End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can find out what is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors. He has puzzled me, but I’ll find out what is wrong with him if he’ll only live long enough.” This is Eric's best friend, a well known doctor, cosplaying as, like, 1900s Dr. House. No concern for the patient's well being, just a Mystery that must be solved. No wonder Eric has such a low opinion of doctors!

(Sidenote: those of you who Anne, what is Gilbert like as a doctor? Because TBC didn't have a great opinion of them, and this book is not shaping up to be too complimentary either. Did LMM just have a fairly poor opinion of doctors in general that colors her work?)

On to chapter two, and we meet an actually sympathetic character! Larry West seems like a lovely young man, and I hope he recovers fully and that he and Agnes Campion are blissfully happy together. Unlike either Eric or David, Larry actually seems to care about the people under his charge, i.e. his students. I already want him to be our protagonist instead.

"The former looked more like a benevolent old clergyman or philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat hard, although just and honest, man of business that he really was." Kilmeny of the Orchard, sponsored by the Better Business Bureau! There is absolutely an interesting thread to tease out across LMM's life and work that connects Eric Marshall to Barney Snaith, but I want to read more of this book before I make further commentary on that. But it does appear that Maud's opinions on rags-to-riches businessmen, uh, Evolved over the years.

Actually never mind, I'm gonna girl who's only ever read The Blue Castle this book a tiny bit more. Compare:

"And then those girls were as pretty as pinks, now weren’t they? Agnes was the finest-looking of the lot in my opinion. I hope it’s true that you’re courting her, Eric?”

and

“Prettiest girl in Montreal,” said Dr. Redfern. “Oh, she was a looker, all right. Eh? Gold hair—shiny as silk—great, big, soft, black eyes—skin like milk and roses. Don’t wonder Bernie fell for her. And brains as well. She wasn’t a bit of fluff. B. A. from McGill. A thoroughbred, too. One of the best families."

Women aren't really people, they are trophies and objects to be collected and revered. Barney grows out of this mentality through his travels. Eric... well it remains to be seen about Eric, doesn't it?

"Perhaps I am. When a man has had a mother like mine his standard of womanly sweetness is apt to be pitched pretty high." So we're getting the standards by which Eric judges a future wife and the role she will be expected to play. He wants a society hostess, a woman who can step seamlessly into his mother's shoes. He wants her to be sweet and serene and, presumably, beautiful and delicate like his mother in her portrait. David and Mr. Marshall both basically want him to marry Ethel Taverse -- beautiful, well brought up, good lineage, of the Right Sort. Eric... honestly Eric has such fantasy standards for a woman that in a different book the resolution would be that he realizes that he's gay. He's doing that doesn't-realize-they're-queer-yet thing of, "it's not that I don't like [expected other gender], it's just that I haven't found anyone yet with [vague laundry list of impossible qualities]." I know that doesn't always translate into queerness, but it's an experience that definitely rings true to my baby ace teenage years before I had the words or knowledge to accurately describe my experiences.

"In all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you over there will be that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in a spare room bed. And if that does happen may the Lord have mercy on your soul!” Go to PEI, but don't consort with the locals! The Wrong Kind of Woman might tempt you! This book is a great primer on how classism and eugenics go hand in hand, isn't it?

So our plot has been set up for us. Eric, a young man in possession of a good fortune, is off to Prince Edward Island, where he will soon find himself in want of a woman to be his wife. She will either be a commoner, whom his family and friends think isn't good enough for him but whom he loves and will stand up for, or she will be a secret aristocrat, whom he will pluck out of her shabby surroundings and return to her birthright in high society. I want this book to go with option a, because it's more interesting, but from what I know of it it veers closer to option b instead.

(What he needs is an Anne Shirley to whack him upside the head with a slate and tell him to stop being such a jerk, but I'm not holding out hope.)

[divinegrey]

NEON LIGHTS / jinx x fem!reader

THE VANISHER SERIES, part 3

third part is finally here! hope you guys like it. i’ll be following the canon storyline in arcane until the last episode, but this takes places somewhere in between episode 4 and 5. here’s the link to the masterlist if you need to catch up!

prompt: jinx being jinx tries fiddling with things she doesn’t know. the vanisher is there for her. 

words: 1858

warnings: PTSD, traumatic events, references to bodily harm, references to abuse

The Last Drop is ripe with people from all over the Undercity coming for their nightly inhale of Shimmer smoke or their drinks. You, however, err on the side of caution, what with your mask protecting you from the fumes. Shimmer is not a drug you’d ever like to touch, regardless of you having a place in the trade as the Vanisher who makes people go away if they fuck with the shipments. 

You do it for the money. That is all. 

However, there’s a difference to the vibe tonight. You notice it with an overwhelming clarity as Sevika practically stomps out of the room and down the stairs with heavy footsteps. It’s annoying, frankly, because she’s making a ruckus, and you’re there trying to enjoy the music. 

(Not really. The music is piss-poor and the drinks are worse. If you wanted quality booze, you wouldn’t go to the Last Drop. You’d go into your own stockpile you’ve been hoarding for years.)

You shuffle the deck of cards you’ve been playing with for the past hour. As you move through the kings and queens, you spot all of the neon specks of paint that have ended up on the cards as a product of playing with Jinx. 

Jinx, who always seems to figure out a way to bend the rules so she can win. Or, she’ll make new ones. While usually you like to stick to the rulebook, there’s something to be said about the excitement that Jinx brings to the table. It can be both a headache and unpredictable, but you can’t deny that it isn’t fun. 

Which is why you’re curious about Sevika’s mood. Nothing puts the woman off-kilter more than Jinx. If it has anything to do with the explosion caused during the Progress Day party in Piltover, then it was definitely the blue-haired engineer. Jinx used her bombs. Again. Which isn’t a bad thing. Just… loud. Louder than you’d prefer. 

Wordlessly, you gather your paint-dappled cards in hand, slide them back into the metal case, and stand up. If Sevika’s that mad… you’ll have to do some damage control, off the record, no payment necessary. Prompt investigations will be required to see what loose ends need to be tied up. 

Let’s get one thing clear; you aren’t a fan of Silco. In fact, you aren’t a fan of Shimmer and drugs in general. You’ve only been working with Silco for a short time, maybe less than two years, but you’ve never touched Shimmer. Ever. You already went through enough brainwashing as it is. Your mentor never made it easy on you. 

But before you start making things easier on Silco as a favor, you walk past Sevika and towards the back of the Last Drop. Like anyone, Jinx has her own secret place. You followed her one dull afternoon to figure out where it was— you remained completely out of sight the entire time— and it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise that she chose an abandoned wind generator silo to be her hideout. What says Jinx more than creaking fan blades and the persistent threat of danger?

Sevika grunts at you when you walk past her. Whatever got shoved up her ass, you don’t want to know. 

Going to Jinx’s hideout takes less than a few minutes. You tend to walk fast, plus you know all of the routes in Zaun like the back of your hand. Alleyways and rooftops are your best friend when it comes to traversing and parkouring. You pull yourself through one of many hatches that leads into Jinx’s hideout. 

This is your first time here— the decor is all too Jinx, with neon paint splattered everywhere. I know where it came from now, you think, remembering your equally paint-splattered playing cards. There are tinkering tools spread out at the center of the fan blades on a desk, and then Jinx herself hunched over something you can’t see from this angle. 

You take a moment to analyze what exactly it is that she’s working on, but your answer is soon delivered when a blast of blue electric light comes from a device. 

Hextech? 

You barely have enough time to brace yourself on the hatch when the surge of light grows, and a thunderous force pushes you away. On the fan blade, you see Jinx blown back; when the dust settles, Jinx is still on her knees, hands over her head. You hear faint sobs. 

Fuck. 

You leap down, not sparing a single thought to how loud you’re being as you sprint across the creaky fan blades. 

“Jinx?” You stop a few feet from her. You become keenly aware that emotions aren’t your strong suit; you can pick people apart with their facial expressions to determine their thoughts and feelings, sure, but when it comes to actually needing to do something about them? Like helping? That is where you fall extremely short. 

However, you know Jinx well enough to guess that what she needs right now is grounding. Gently, you lower yourself to a knee. 

“You’re in your hideout,” you say firmly, but not so loudly that it scares her. She twitches, clutching her head harder. “We’re on one of the giant fan blades. I’m on your right, about a foot away from you.” 

Jinx curls in on herself and starts saying something, repeating it, and it’s not until the third or fourth time that you manage to make out what she’s saying; “I only wanted to help, don’t leave me, please.” 

A flashback? Traumatic memory? You spare a glance to the alcove, where two dummies of people sit on a couch. Related to them? Has to be. 

“I’m going to touch you now on your back, is that okay?” You ask, your voice warm and gentle. When she doesn’t respond, you inch closer, remove your glove, and lay your palm flat on her back, just barely touching one of her cloud tattoos on the base of her spine. 

Her head snaps up. She looks at you, and in her eyes, you see someone else. Someone smaller, buried away. Jinx launches herself into your lap, arms wrapping around your shoulders. You’ve come to expect this, the way she hugs so aggressively. She tries to make herself small, curling up into a ball. 

You’ve never helped her through a trauma episode. You’re not sure if you’re doing it right in the first place. Regardless, you do what you feel is right and rock her back and forth, letting her get out the worst of it. Her fingers are clutching the hood of your poncho, so you rub your bare hand up and down her back. 

What could’ve triggered such an event?

You focus on your breathing, making it long and slow for her to pick up on. Replicating the pattern takes some time, but eventually, Jinx is breathing in time with you. Her grip has lessened, and you feel her shaking less in your lap. Through it all, you remain consistent in your touch, having removed both gloves now for her to feel the warmth. You pray she doesn’t notice the heavy scarring around your fingers and hands. But knowing Jinx, she already has. 

“I can’t do it,” Jinx whispers, her ear pressed over your chest, listening to the slow thumping of your heart. She shakes her head, blinking back the tears that threaten to come out. “Every time I try I just— I see them and I can’t do that again, I can’t do it, Van, I can’t.” 

“Grief and pain never go away,” you begin, crossing your legs and moving her to sit more comfortably. You exhale, putting a hand on her face so you can look her in the eye. “You learn to grow around it so you become bigger. The grief will always be the same.” 

“I don’t want it,” Jinx mutters. 

“I know,” you reply. You brush her bang out of her face. “But all we can do is understand what we went through. What changed us. What made us this way.” 

Jinx reaches up and takes your hand. For the first time in a while, you feel fingers ghosting over the marks marring your skin. It’s curious— you know she’s wondering what happened, what caused these scars, but there’s a glimmer of respect in her eyes. As well as recognition. She understands that you understand. 

“Whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve, I have faith in you, Jinx,” you continue. “You’re more than capable of doing anything you set your mind to. Including that.” You gesture to the device with a nod of your head. “You alone can do it. You don’t need my help. Or Silco’s for that matter.” 

Jinx’s eyes widen. You fear you may have said something wrong, done something to offend her. You understand that Silco is the reason she’s alive… but is she aware that he isn’t the be-all and end-all? That her validation shouldn’t be based on his approval? No, you think. No, she isn’t aware. If Silco was the only person there for her, then that’s an awful role model. Even I can see that. 

“But…” Jinx trails off. 

“Listen to me.” You hold her hand. You press your forehead to hers and you don’t fail to notice the hitch in her breath. “What you do for other people does not decide your worth. You are in control of that narrative. Do you understand?” 

You look past Jinx briefly to see the mirage of a woman staring at you, arms folded over her chest. Strapped to her forearms is the same technology you wear. When you blink, she disappears. You turn back. 

“But why?” says Jinx, and you can feel your heart cracking in your chest. Underneath it all is anger. You know Silco has gone too far. You know he’s enabled Jinx’s worst behaviors, the angriest parts of herself that come to the surface. But can you really blame him when your mentor did the same? When your mentor took advantage of you and molded you into the person she wanted you to be?

You weren’t always a killer. Once, you were merely the forgotten child of a large family who never cared for you. 

“I know it’s hard,” you whisper to her. “I know. But believe me, no matter how much of a jinx you think you are, you’re more than that. I’m more than the Vanisher, you’re more than Jinx.” 

What she says next catches you off guard. “What’s your name?” 

When you try and think of it, all that comes up is fuzzy white noise that causes a dull pain in the back of your head. You put a hand to your temple, rubbing the spot to try and get it away. Jinx follows, placing her hand over yours. 

“I don’t remember,” you admit. 

Jinx swallows, her throat bobbing. “Mine was Powder before…” 

“Hey,” you say. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I understand.” 

Jinx exhales shakily. You hold her tighter. In the neon lights of her alcove, you hum a song you haven’t heard in years into her ear.

~~~~~

A/N: very slowly dropping some lore about our very own vanisher. hope you folks enjoyed the soft moments, our girl jinx deserves them. likes and reblogs are appreciated <3

[mypoisonedvine]

The Wrong Idea | Lee Bodecker x reader

summary: you weren’t exactly a rebel in the eyes of the law, but that didn’t mean you cared for the corrupt, alcoholic town sheriff.  and that certainly didn’t mean you would care at all for him marrying your mother.  if only you’d known how much worse it could get...

word count: 4.5k

warnings: smut!! (heavy dubcon/noncon), age gap (reader is 19), stepcest, loss of virginity, pain kink, creampie kink, infidelity, degradation, oral (m and f receiving), spanking, choking, slapping, daddy kink, authority kink, subtle ddlg themes?, reader’s mom being toxic af

You’d never cared for the Sheriff.  Even you, being generally a well-behaved young woman, thought he was a little too intense and a little too corrupt.  Up until now, you’d assumed your mother agreed with you on that, because she never protested to your complaints about Sheriff Bodecker and his ‘fascist reign of terror’ as you called it.  Apparently that was a poor assumption, though.

“You… what?!”

“I never told you we were seein’ each other because I knew you had your childish rebellion against him and his police force,” your mother explained with a demeaning eyeroll.  “But now that we’re engaged, I can’t hide it anymore.”

“How long has this been going on?” you asked quietly, still in shock at what you were hearing— and unable to take your eyes off of the sparkling diamond wrapped around her finger.

“Oh, I’d say… about two months now,” she decided.

“Two—” you stopped and started over, so bewildered that you couldn’t finish your original sentence.  “You’re engaged after two months?”

“Don’t make that face at me, you look so ugly when you scowl like that,” she frowned.  Of course, she could never miss an opportunity to nag you.  “He’s a respectable man, and he treats me well.  The wedding is in three weeks— and he’s generous enough to let you live with us after that.  Says there’s a spare bedroom for you in his house.”

“His… his house…” you slurred, suddenly feeling light-headed.  “I’m… we’re moving…?”

“Yes, honey, and with your work ethic it’ll take you the whole three weeks to pack up, so you should start now,” she informed you with that cruel, fake smile of hers.

She walked away as you sat down on the couch, staring off into space, trying to comprehend what you just heard.  It’s not like you thought your mother was flawless or anything, or that you and her had a perfect relationship, but you thought she would’ve been a little more… gentle about all this.  She could do better than him anyways!  But she didn’t care about that, only money and status.  You could almost laugh at her small-mindedness to think the Sheriff of a nothing-town like Knockemstiff was actually plentiful in either of those things, but right now you couldn’t laugh.  You couldn’t even cry as you packed your things and said goodbye to the home you’d known your whole life.  You were just numb.

//

You couldn’t look him in the eye when you arrived at his house, duffel bags in hand and shoes stained with the dry red dirt of summer.  It was nicer than your old place, and if it were anyone else’s you’d say it had charm, but everything was tainted because you knew it was his.  You could sort of tell that this had been his bachelor pad for a while, but it had a half-assed attempt at hominess with the rug in the living room and a centerpiece on the kitchen table.  He even had a TV, presumably funded by bribes and all his other nefarious dealings— meaning you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to watch it.

“Nice to meet ya, properly,” Lee greeted, though his monotone didn’t come across as particularly impassioned.

“Thank you, Sheriff,” you mumbled quickly, hoping to get this conversation over with.

“You don’t have to call me Sheriff anymore, you know.  Not in the house, at least.”

You nodded but said nothing, following him as he motioned for you and moved into the hallway.  You trailed behind him, noticing the eerie lack of any personal effects on the walls (no family photos, apparently, and not much of a family to photograph in the first place from what you’d heard), and stopped when he reached the door at the end.

“This is your room,” Lee informed you stiffly.  Opening the door, you were horrified by the assault on your eyes of pink.  Pink everything: pink wallpaper, a pink fuzzy quilt, pink bedframe.  There were even assorted stuffed animals on the bed, disturbingly enough.

“When my mother told you she had a daughter, did she not mention that I was grown?”

“You may be nineteen, honey, but you’re nowhere near grown,” he scowled.  “She didn’t tell me she had a daughter until two days before the weddin’.  This is what I managed to... improvise, since then.”

You almost had sympathy for him, just in that you two were both victims of your mother’s eccentricity.  Almost.  

“Must’ve inherited your expensive taste from your ma,” he frowned.  “Sorry, princess—” the nickname made his lips curl like the word itself tasted sour— “but this’ll have to do.”

“Oh, I’m nothing like her,” you sneered back, “cause I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole.”

“What are you two chatting about?” your mother’s voice called from the kitchen.

Both of you answered at the same time: “Nothing!” 

With a grimace, you dragged your bag into the room and shut the door in his face.  It was those little acts of rebellion that had to tide you over.  You weren’t audacious enough to do anything actually cruel, or illegal, but you weren’t going to make this any easier for him.

At first it was just refusing to leave your room.  That worked for a week, until you realized you were going to starve to death.  So then the only times you saw him were at the dinner table, which you made into a protest by pretending he didn’t exist and refusing to answer his questions.  You occasionally relented when he asked you to pass something from your side of the table, but you never looked at him while you did it.  

He didn’t seem angry or sad about your determination to avoid him, if anything it seemed like he was happy to pretend you weren’t there either.  And that should’ve made it easier, but for some reason it bothered you even more.  You realized that maybe his attention did matter to you, even though it was negative attention that you were hoping to inspire, but you knew that was ridiculous and you tried to fight it.  Still, for all your plans to never see him, you sure did think about him a lot.  You thought about where he might be, so you could be somewhere else.  You thought about what he must be doing at work, and how he was probably continuing to be a nasty mean drunk as frequently as possible.  You wondered if he and your mother were making love just across the house, although you were lucky enough to never hear anything.  Just knowing that could be happening made you feel sick, even though you realized it was none of your business.  

You sometimes found yourself listening for it at night, just in case.

//

Your mother had decided to spend her new husband’s money on a trip, but the man himself couldn’t tag along— too much work to do, apparently.  The prospect of being left alone with him was nightmare fuel, but you didn’t even try to ask her to stay… you knew she wouldn’t listen.  She’d been totally absorbed in her own world since the wedding, seeming to be very fulfilled by the social role of ‘Sheriff’s wife’ to the point that she had lost all interest in her former position as ‘your mom’.  

There was a balance to the silence with her gone, though.  You avoided him, he avoided you; it was a tense truce, but a survivable one.  At least without her, nobody was going to try to make you two get along.  Friday night was different, though.  This time when he came home from work, you knew you were stuck with him until Monday morning.  That thought made you realize that you needed to get out and you didn’t care if you weren’t dressed for it.  It was hot, and it was just a walk so nobody was going to see you in this miniskirt anyway, right?

Too bad Lee was sitting on the couch, still in his uniform, not giving you any mind but likely to harass you before you could make it outside.  You figured if you just walked casually enough, he wouldn’t even notice, so you made your way towards the door.

“You’re not going out like that,” he announced suddenly, seemingly without even looking up from his newspaper.

“Says who?” you deflected quickly with a raised brow.  It wasn’t that you wanted to pick a fight, but you just couldn’t understand why he would even care what you were wearing.

“Says the guy who doesn’t want you to give all the neighborhood boys the wrong idea.”

“What idea?!” you asked, crossing your arms.  He shot you a look, quickly raking in your body and outfit which made you feel more observed than you cared for.

“The idea that you’re a slut,” he explained coldly.

You gulped at his words but tried to keep a poker face.  You didn’t let it get this far just to give up.  You were so sick of his shit; what made him think he could boss you around when he’d never even tried to get to know you?

“What makes you assume that’s the wrong idea?” you shot back, fighting the nervousness in your voice.

You hadn’t expected him to stand up instantly, the coffee table wobbling a bit when his knee bumped into it.

“The fuck did you say?” he hissed.

With his teeth bared at you he looked like a predator, and you felt like small, helpless prey.  You tried to muster some of your former confidence, but everything came out shaky and weak.  “I— I said that maybe it’s not the wrong ide—”

He pounced, crossing the room and slamming you back against the wall, a hand at each shoulder; you instantly cowered, shrinking back and turning your face away from him as far as you could.  You never thought he’d put his hands on you like this.  Your heart was pounding so loudly that you were surprised you could hear his hoarse whisper.

“Watch your tone with me.  I’m not kidding around.”

“I’m an adult,” you weakly fought back, “I can do what I want.”

“Not in my fuckin’ house you can’t!” he bellowed.

For some reason, it all hit you at once.  All the emotions you’d been suppressing since your mother had gotten engaged— all the anger and fear and betrayal and indignation, they came bubbling up before you could stop them.  

“I don’t even want to be in your ugly fucking house!” you cried in response.  “I don’t wanna be anywhere near you!  You’re a fascist and a tyrant and a pig!”

You expected him to get more aggressive but he suddenly stilled.  It was the scariest anger, that outwardly-calm type that made your blood go cold.

“Go to your room.”

You didn’t question it, turning to walk away (any excuse to get away from him, right?), but you didn’t expect him to follow you in and shut the door behind the both of you.

You were paralyzed with fear as he stepped past you and sat on your bed.  It was sort of strange as you realized you’d never seen him in your room before.  He stood out against the somewhat childish decorations, but you were in no mood to appreciate the humor of the situation as he patted his knee.

“Lay across my lap.  Don’t make me tell you twice.”

He couldn’t possibly be doing what I think he’s doing, could he? you wondered to yourself, but did as he asked.  You realized you’d never been so close to him before, the warmth of his body radiating through his clothes.  He smelled like cologne and booze, although you didn’t think he’d actually had much to drink yet today— at least compared to his normal habits.  It was almost worse to think that he wasn’t acting on drunkenness now.

“It’s prob’ly too late for it, but you are in serious need of discipline, young lady.”

You had no idea what he was talking about, but your body reacted to it differently than you expected.

His fingers slipped between the top of your skirt and your skin, having to pull pretty hard to get it down due to how tight it was.  You bit your lip and hoped he wouldn’t notice your arousal, but as your pussy was exposed, you could feel the breeze from the ceiling fan and you knew you were undeniably wet.  You didn’t know why, but you were.

“Count them for me,” he instructed coldly and before you could ask what you were counting, he brought his hand down firmly.  You felt his wedding ring in the slap and it made you feel a little sick.

“O-one,” you stammered.

He delivered four more, alternating cheeks, and you tried not to react with visible pain.  But as the intensity increased, you realized that not reacting might’ve actually been making it worse.  Either way, you couldn’t stop yourself from crying out when the eighth made your whole body lurch forward from the force.

“Eight!” you squealed, but both of you noticed the way you pushed your hips forward.  Unintentional as it may have been, you were trying to rub yourself on his thigh, desperate to be touched where it felt like all the energy of your body had focused.  You were sure you’d never been so horny before, and now your clit was nearly throbbing.  What the fuck is wrong with me?!

He quickly delivered the final two slaps before grabbing your neck, hoisting you up until you were on your knees before him.  He examined your face closely and you tried to keep your lip from shaking.

“You’re worse than I thought,” he hissed.  “You are in dire need of a punishment.  You should thank me for going so easy on you so far.”

You realized when his grip on your jaw tightened that he was being literal.  “Thank you, for going easy on me…”

“Where’d that fire go, huh?  Guess you’re all talk,” he laughed.  

He roughly shoved his fingers into your mouth, moaning lowly as your tongue rubbed against the pads of his fingers.  “This fuckin’ mouth.  You just don’t know when to keep it shut, do you?  Come on baby, open up.  I’ve got a better use for it than your fuckin’ disrespectful attitude.”

He used his free hand to work on his belt right in front of your face, and your eyes went wide.

“Don’t act so surprised sweetheart,” he said with a hint of irritation, “this is exactly what you’re asking for.”

You gasped a bit when his cock was freed from his trousers, springing up and already red at the tip.  You’d never seen one this close before and it was intimidating in every way.

“Like what you see?  You’re so wet for it,” he purred.  You tried to speak but words abandoned you. 

It was all a blur as he held your mouth open and shoved his cock inside— it tasted like skin and salt, and the size made your chapped lips crack until you worried they would bleed.  His moans were deep and gravelly, making your skin break out into goosebumps as he pumped smoothly into your pliant mouth.  He slapped your face a few times, not quite hard but plenty strong enough to make it sting.  You winced with each impact, the tears which had welled from your gagging finally falling down and dripping from your chin.

“Suck on it, princess, like a popsicle… fuck yeah, like that,” he groaned, and your mind resisted obeying him but your body was completely at his mercy.  “Aw baby, ya look so good chokin’ on my cock.  Is that what you were gonna go do in this slutty little outfit you’ve got on?”

You tried to shake your head but he was holding you down, not even giving you a chance to breathe.  His protruding stomach rubbed against your forehead when his cock was this deep in your throat, and the disgust and fear somehow made your arousal stronger.

He let you go, finally, and you pulled back with a gasp and a cough.  You weren’t given much reprieve, though, as he started to tug at your blouse as well.

“No, wait,” you whimpered, weakly trying to bat his hands away.

“Wait?  I think I’ve been waiting long enough,” he growled.  “Your ma’s a fuckin’ tease, hasn’t touched me since I got her that ugly fuckin’ ring.  Let’s hope you learn from her mistakes.”

Your blouse was torn open and tossed aside, leaving you only in the pulled-up skirt and your bra.  Reaching up to cover yourself, you were discouraged by the shockingly-gentle brush of his hands. 

“Don’t cover yourself, sweetheart, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured.  His gaze made you feel hot all over, and it wasn’t just because of the summer weather outside.  “Nobody ever looked at ya before?”

You shook your head, looking down at the floor.  A finger under your chin guided you to look up at him.  

“Nobody ever touched ya before?” he pressed, his stare boring into you.  You shook your head again.  “Fuck,” he whispered, but then he started to smile proudly.  “Knew you were a good girl, princess, you just didn’t wanna act like one for some reason.  You gonna be good for me now?” 

You nodded weakly, swallowing as you tried to comprehend what was happening.  

“Then I’ll be good to you, too,” he promised darkly, a shimmer in his eyes that made you throb between your thighs.  “Come get on the bed, pretty girl.”

You almost resisted, but it was your need driving you now, not your mind.  You had been waiting too long to let a boy touch you, and now that a man had touched you, you felt all kinds of wrong and yet craved more.  Before you had even finished sitting down beside him, he was slipping off your bra and pushing you back onto the quilt.

“Sheriff!” you yelped instinctively, a little disoriented as he started to climb on top of you.

He chuckled, clearly amused by your unexpected appeal to authority.  “Wanna know a secret, sweetheart?  Wanna know the real reason I said you didn’t have to call me that anymore?”  He leaned down, his breath hot and moist against your neck when he spoke: “Because it made me so fuckin’ hard when you said it.”

He pressed his cock, still wet with your spit, against your thigh; maybe just for emphasis, a reminder that he was still hard and wasn’t anywhere near done with you.

“What are you gonna do to me…?” you asked weakly, your voice so wavering and broken that you cringed just hearing it.  

“Just gonna make you feel good, princess,” he smiled, and before you could ask what that would entail, he was groping your tits in his large, calloused hands.  A low groan echoed in his chest, and you tried not to squirm as he teased your nipples between his fingers.  They were already hardening from the moment he’d touched you, but somehow it was getting even worse when he played with them, watching your face and surely seeing the shame you wore there.

His hands trailed lower, rubbing your waist, your thighs… you found yourself anticipating that he’d remove your panties, so much so that when he did, you quickly lifted your hips to help him slide them off.  You couldn’t believe how easily you were letting him do this to you.

“I can tell how much you want it,” he taunted lowly as the fabric slid down your legs and was tossed to the floor.  “I can smell how much you want it.”  He growled a little before diving in, licking a thick stripe through your folds and taking a moment right at the end to tickle your clit with his tongue.  “So fuckin’ sweet, princess; I knew you would be,” he praised.  You were forced to wonder how long he’d been thinking about this.

The noises were beyond obscene and you felt your face burning— but there was a burning in your gut, too, and shooting down your legs.  You’d never felt like this before (being a very good girl who never even touched herself), but you knew that if he didn’t stop, you would come.  And you really, really wanted to come.

Everytime he put pressure on your clit, your leg quivered involuntarily.  It was nearly too much, the sensation so powerful it almost hurt, but he pushed you right to the edge without knocking you off.

“Please,” you found yourself begging before you could stop it, “please, Sheriff—”

“I’m not your Sheriff anymore, sweetheart,” he informed you gruffly, popping up from between your legs with the entire bottom half of his face covered in your arousal, “I’m your daddy now.  Go on and beg your daddy to fuck you.”

Eyes shot wide open, you stared back at him in bewilderment.  Rage flashed in his eyes, and he snarled as his hand suddenly wrapped around your neck, tightening and choking you. 

“You heard me,” he groaned through his teeth.  “Beg me.  To fuck you.”

“Daddy,” you stammered, hoarsely fighting to speak through the pressure on your throat, “fuck me, please.”

He slammed his cock into you and you nearly screamed.  It burned and you instinctively tried to crawl away but, of course, his weight on top of you made it impossible.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groaned.  He laid down on top of you entirely then, slipping his arms under your torso and holding you tightly.

Each thrust made you feel like you had reached your limits, as if you couldn’t be stretched further which was probably true.  And yet, in spite of it (or worse, because of it), you found yourself moaning and writhing under him, even arching your back to make his movements smoother.  He laughed a little as he bit at the shell of your ear.

“You love it, baby,” he moaned, “you love my cock.”

You couldn’t respond, just sob as you clutched at the shirt still on his back, your jaw tight as you tried to bear the pain.  

“It’s not always gonna hurt like this,” he promised between heavy breaths, “s’gonna feel good soon.  Gonna make you feel so fuckin’ good, pretty girl.”

Truthfully, you weren’t sure if that meant that this would happen again or not.  At the moment, you were incapable of thinking that far ahead, too focused on the way the sting of the stretch was melting away and morphing into such powerful pleasure that you couldn’t even see straight.

He kissed you, and only then did the weight of it hit you.  Who he was, what he was doing, what you were doing… it had been distant and vague before, but something about his tongue inside your mouth made you remember that the metal digging into your back was his ring; that the lips on yours were sworn to somebody else— and at that, the one exact person that made this so fundamentally wrong.

Tears welled in your eyes, gentle sobs shaking your chest.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, pulling back and kissing your tears away, “feels good, don’t it?  Feels good when daddy fucks you?”

You knew speaking would only make you cry more, so you only nodded your head shamefully.

“That’s my good girl,” he moaned as he fucked you deeper, harder, rougher.  Your fingers held onto the back of his neck, running through his hair and pulling him closer.  He kept mumbling praises but they fell on deaf ears, pleasure clouding your mind and making every hair on your body stand upright.  He didn’t stop as he reached down between your bodies and laid his hand over your stomach, growling with satisfaction at what he found there.

“I can feel me inside ya,” he grinned.  “Feel that, sweetheart?  Feel how deep I am in your wet little cunt?”

When you didn’t answer, you got a quick slap to the face.  “Yes,” you replied quickly, “yes, I— I feel it.”

He buried his face into the crook of your neck, biting you there until you nearly screamed.  You couldn’t figure out why something so objectively painful only pushed you closer to your peak, making every spot inside you more sensitive, but somehow it did.

“Gonna come, pretty girl?  Want daddy to fill you up?” he groaned against your ear, pushing down on your stomach even harder.

“Yes, daddy!” you sobbed.  “Please!”

“Fuck, you’re squeezin’ me,” he hissed, “don’t fuckin’ stop.  Keep milkin’ my cock and m’gonna fill ya up so good, princess…”

You couldn’t stop even if you tried— your orgasm hit you in powerful waves, your head falling back as your walls clenched involuntarily (as did your fingers and toes, so hard that your nail tore the sheets a little bit, which you wouldn’t notice until the next day).  He grunted as he came, pumping into you with each thrust until you felt more full than you ever had before, in a way you could never describe.

The two of you stayed like that for a moment, him catching his breath and you losing yours as his weight threatened to crush you.  “Fuck,” he groaned as he sat up and pulled out.  He grabbed your legs and held them up for you, staring at your abused pussy and making you feel uncomfortably observed.

“Push it out for me, wanna see my come leak outta ya,” he purred, moaning a little when you did as he asked.  It felt even hotter as it gushed out of you, and you mindlessly bit your lip.  He tucked his softening cock back into his trousers, rezipping them and buckling his belt.  “We’d better get ya cleaned up, huh princess?” 

The bathroom wasn’t far, so he carried you, setting you down to stand on your own as he started to draw a bath.  You watched him, although you weren’t really watching him so much as staring into the void of space that happened to be in his general direction.  You were so out of it that you didn’t even register when he turned around and smiled at you with an air of pride.

“You look so good like this.”  

It pulled you out of your trance, though you had to ask him to repeat himself with a mumbled “huh?”

“I said you look good like this,” he explained, stepping closer.  “Fucked out, braindead, just my empty-headed fucktoy.”

“I… I don’t…” you began to disagree.

He used your jaw to turn your face to the mirror, and you gasped when you saw yourself: your hair was a mess; your whole face was red, especially your eyes and nose from crying, but plenty on your cheeks where he’d slapped you; your lips were swollen and slick; bruises were already forming on your arms where he’d grabbed you, and along your neck and shoulders where he had bitten you.

His form dwarfed yours as he stood behind you, looking at your reflection with a smile.

“Look at us,” he announced wistfully, “one big happy family, huh?”

[forestlingincorporated]

I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People. 

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them. 

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent. 

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.) 

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction. 

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children. 

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically. 

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation. 

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear. 

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect. 

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?) 

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but... 

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7. 

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.) 

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics. 

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two. 

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about. 

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural. 

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries. 

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance. 

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other. 

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent. 

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart. 

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist. 

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well. 

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child. 

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive. 

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you. 

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt. 

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh... 

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating? 

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting. 

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t. 

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so. 

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet. 

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom. 

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought. 

[safarigirlsp]

I absolutely love this!!! Practical Magic is one of my favorites, and you know Flip is too! PM even has my second favorite tall, dark, and handsome guy. No one else could combine two of my favorites so magically, pun intended! You write Flip so well, and I always love how you write him, and our other favorites too, as manly and masculine! And omg I love the smoking porn! That really needs to be in everything.

Your writing throughout is wonderful and it's always inspiring to me to read how you can so easily set the tone of your story with your writing. My favorite is dark and sexy and romantic all at once, and of course you kill it every time!

Right from the intro, you nail him!

It’s not the circumstances of Flip's past that drive him. The only answer he has is so abominably simple that he doesn’t bother offering it. He likes figuring things out. That never seems to suffice, though. Flip could never understand why. Artists do art because they like it. Cooks like to cook. Cobblers like to cobble, presumably. So why isn’t the same courtesy afforded him? He does his job because he’s good at it. And you’re welcome, by the way. The creeps he’s put behind bars aren’t out to bother decent folk. But if he ever says that, he gets strange looks. It must be that Hey, I just like murder cases doesn’t have the same ring as Interior design just gets my blood pumping, y’know?

This is such a good insight into humans and so well put. I deal with this every day, and I wouldn't have thought to put it so eloquently! And the writing in general is top notch!

He knows there’s always a reason why. And it nags at him until he can ferret it out. The why of it all. Why most of us can tamp down the worst of our impulses when it comes right down to it. Why we won’t jaywalk when there’s a perfectly fine crossing right there. Why we won’t push someone annoying into traffic, even though they really deserve it in that moment. Steal a defenseless old lady’s purse, even though it’s easy, free money. Tie a woman up in her room and rape her. And worse than that.

What is that wrong turn; the wrong word said at the wrong time; the weapon in the wrong hand; the wrong woman who kisses you just right. Money, love, or fury—those are the causes for most everything, in isolation or in some heady cocktail. Flip can arrive at the truth if he has enough time to think, to put himself in that place and time.

This is such a great phrase!

A bad seed from the start who’s relied on people’s decency the way others rely on herd immunity.

Flip and his poor bony ass! 🤣 I love it!

He’s sitting on a metal chair with his jacket folded under him to make it easier on his bony ass

The smoking porn is so on point! Plus paired with hair porn! Win win!

He fishes out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pants and bites one between his teeth carefully, pulling it out. He tosses his head back to get his hair out of the way. The flame on his lighter tends to shoot up and singe his mustache or hair if he’s not careful.

I love the she's a redhead! We need to corner the market on them! 🔥

It makes her wild red hair look like it’s on fire.

This is such a beautiful line!

He knows her voice already and she hasn’t even spoken yet.

I love this, too, and it's so true for Flip!

She would never be safer than in his presence and there is no easy way of saying that.

The description of their eyes when they meet is gorgeous and so vivid! That whole scene was written so well it was like watching a movie, which is extra hard with the quasi-fantasy element of it. It was really well done and beautiful!

I love this touch!

He had heard that if you look into a woman’s eyes and see yourself in them, upside down, then that woman was a witch,

This is probably my favorite part of writing just because I can picture Flip feeling it, thinking it, and being like 'oh, sonofabitch.' Also, who doesn't want to be looked at like that?

He'd heard about this sort of thing happening to other men. They're going about their business one minute, and suddenly there's no hope for them. They fall in love so hard they never again get up off their knees.

I love this analogy! Right up my alley!

But it’s a way back in and, like an overeager vampire, he’ll do anything for an invitation over the threshold.

@in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather

Flip Zimmerman Practical Magic AU

I’m back on my bs! The first wave of whimsigoth has hit me in the year of our lord 2023 and I had the urge to write something with Flip. This is an odd little mix of the movie, book and my own nonsense, and all I can say is I hope it’s not terrible so far :)

CW: strong language, strained family relationships, murder/death, assault, allusions to sexual harassment, but it’s all so devastatingly romantic xD

WC: ~6.5k

*

Flip is working on a preliminary inquiry begun by the attorney general's office. James Hawkins, a local ne'er-do-well, had struck again over the summer.

He lounges on the couch at the precinct. It’s an old thing, it dips in the middle and smells like stale smoke. It’s painted in autumnal tones, the color of vomit and dust. He stretches out his long legs and lays his crossed ankles on the armrest, one arm curled under his head and the other holding up the file. He was going to go home, but then for some reason, it felt more restful to crash on the awful couch than to drive all the way back and sleep. His eyes move steadily across the crawl of letters, only his stomach rising and falling softly; the rest of him is still and focused.

People have long guessed at the source of Flip’s indefatigable drive. Could it be the mysterious failed marriage just out of high school? Does it have something to do with that Star of David necklace that peeks out of his shirt once in a blue moon? Some dark family secret, like a sibling that died too young or a beloved adult that was gunned down and no one ever answered for it? Theories abound and once or twice a year, when someone’s had a few too many, they’ll venture a question. Flip has ways of avoiding it. Sometimes he just stares the asshole down until the question evaporates on the air along with the man’s bravado. Other times, he quips a pithy response and orders another round for the table.

It’s not the circumstances of Flip's past that drive him. The only answer he has is so abominably simple that he doesn’t bother offering it. He likes figuring things out. That never seems to suffice, though. Flip could never understand why. Artists do art because they like it. Cooks like to cook. Cobblers like to cobble, presumably. So why isn’t the same courtesy afforded him? He does his job because he’s good at it. And you’re welcome, by the way. The creeps he’s put behind bars aren’t out to bother decent folk. But if he ever says that, he gets strange looks. It must be that Hey, I just like murder cases doesn’t have the same ring as Interior design just gets my blood pumping, y’know?

He knows there’s always a reason why. And it nags at him until he can ferret it out. The why of it all. Why most of us can tamp down the worst of our impulses when it comes right down to it. Why we won’t jaywalk when there’s a perfectly fine crossing right there. Why we won’t push someone annoying into traffic, even though they really deserve it in that moment. Steal a defenseless old lady’s purse, even though it’s easy, free money. Tie a woman up in her room and rape her. And worse than that.

What is that wrong turn; the wrong word said at the wrong time; the weapon in the wrong hand; the wrong woman who kisses you just right. Money, love, or fury—those are the causes for most everything, in isolation or in some heady cocktail. Flip can arrive at the truth if he has enough time to think, to put himself in that place and time. In the case of Jimmy Hawkins, it’s all so miserably simple.

He’s been aware of this loser for a good while. Hawkins has been selling drugs in Colorado Springs for going on twenty years. A bad seed from the start who’s relied on people’s decency the way others rely on herd immunity. Enough people respect the law to the point of reflex, that someone like Hawkins begins to feel they are unstoppable because they keep driving when the sign says stop, they keep drinking when the bartender says last call, they take the wallet or the ring that doesn’t belong to them, and they take a life through sheer negligence. And no one decisively puts an end to their bullshit until it’s too late. Flip, along with other cops and investigators, had to sit on his hands and unlock the cell to let this slinky parasite back out too many times because he had hurt people in a way that still left room for some sort of recovery. Until now. The moment had finally come that it was officially too late to protect people from him and it was only now that Flip was being released like a greyhound onto a racing track to hunt down a rabbit that was very much dead from the start.

Hawkins had hooked up with some bad types from Arizona and taken to selling rattlesnake seeds and jimsonweed to stupid college kids. They’ll buy anything, especially kids who had never had so much as a whiff of the desert. They don’t know how wary they need to be of something gnarly enough to grow where things go to die. One seed of rattlesnake makes you feel euphoric. It's like LSD growing free and, best of all, it’s totally unregulated. Problem is, two seeds can, and usually do, cause your death. Now that’s an interesting gamble. Made more interesting still by the fact that contributing factors can also make a single seed lethal. Four college kids took that gamble this past summer and it came up snake eyes for one of them. A history major from Philadelphia who had just turned nineteen. Flip was called in early by his friend in homicide, and he saw the kid. On the floor of his dorm room, the whole side of his face black and blue, battered into a misshapen, swollen mess from the violent convulsions he went into before he died. The two investigators concurred that it wouldn’t be considered tampering with the evidence if someone put some makeup on the kid before his parents arrived.

Identifying the bastard was easy. James ‘Jimmy’ Hawkins made sure anyone who met him once remembered him. He walked around in his alligator cowboy boots and a shirt with too many buttons undone, like a saloon wench. His inky hair was arrow-straight and fell into his shimmering green eyes. A certain type of woman couldn’t resist that look to save her life. There was a perpetual smirk etched on his face and he always wore his snake ring. He liked to use it to split lips and gouge eyes in bar fights he started. The man never picked a fair fight. It should have been a simple matter of knocking on his door or sweeping his drunken form off some floor and tossing him in the slammer.

Except no one can find Hawkins. His live-in girlfriend, Maddy, is gone too. They've checked the bars Hawkins frequented and questioned his supposed friends. No one's seen him since late June, when the university let out, and all this rattlesnake seed business happened.

It’s futile and Flip has no expectations of finding Hawkins so easily, but he has to start at the beginning. So he sits on the front patio of the last house Hawkins and Maddy rented, still scanning his rap sheet. He’s sitting on a metal chair with his jacket folded under him to make it easier on his bony ass and doesn’t look up as a figure approaches. It drops a letter into his lap and only then does Flip take notice of the mailman. He informs him the stamp had fallen off somewhere along the way and demands postage due. Flip’s fingers are long, but thick, and he struggles as he fishes for coins in the front pocket of his jeans. The mailman stands there with his hand outstretched and looks on with unimpressed disdain.  

His eyebrows shoot up into his hair when he reads the names. A letter to Madeleine Hallewell, from Prescilla Hallewell. There’s some heft to it. He rubs the letter between it his fingers – it’s all paper. Several sheets and the unread words already feel heavy. It has the feeling of a scolding from mom, even before he decides he’ll open it. The letter is crumpled and torn in one corner, and the flap already hangs open. Were it not practically spilling out as it is, Flip might have taken it to the office and let it be. But the words are all but spilt across his lap anyway and he opens the envelope with his thumb and index finger and peers in. He’ll savor this. He needs a break after the barrage of awful misdeeds Hawkins has left in his wake.

He leans back in the chair, rests his legs on the fence, and wriggles until he finds a comfortable spot. He fishes out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pants and bites one between his teeth carefully, pulling it out. He tosses his head back to get his hair out of the way. The flame on his lighter tends to shoot up and singe his mustache or hair if he’s not careful. He takes a long drag, watching the tip burn orange, receding deeper, and he inhales until he’s sure the cigarette is lit. He holds the breath in his lungs as he stuffs the cigarettes and lighter back into his pants, and then grunts the smoke out. He relaxes in his whole body, slumping into the chair and pinching the cigarette between two fingers.

Prescilla is writing her heart out to Maddy, and he feels his cheeks burn a few times as he reads. She is honest in that awful, naked way that you only allow yourself to be when you know no one will see; when you’ll only do it once. When you’re breaking up with someone who’s been breaking your heart, or when you’re watching them lower a box with someone you love into the ground. Or when you’re letting your sister know exactly how much she’s been eating you alive your whole life.

Someone had broken into the Hallewell home a few nights before Prescilla sat down to write to her sister. Flip estimates it was late spring, but there was no knowing for sure how long the letter had been floating around stampless. Jimmy had apparently written some bad checks in Maddy’s name and someone tracked down the address in Salem as her place of residence, and came to collect. They caught Prescilla on the stairs, as she came down to inspect the noise. She saw strangers ransacking the place and tried to retreat, but they spotted her and dragged her by the hair to the den. There, they choked her and threatened to make her swallow scorpions coated in oil. Even had the arachnids ready at hand, milling hideously around in jars full of amber liquid, in case she gave them any trouble. She described it all so vividly that Flip felt like he was there, clutching the letter harder in his hand, body thrumming with the need to stop the words he was reading. His stomach twisted as he came to the end of the harrowing tale and he felt several sheets of paper under his fingers remaining. He expected Prescilla to tell her no good sister she never wanted to see her face again. That should only take a few lines to convey.

Instead, Prescilla wrote heartfelt pleas for Maddy to see sense, leave Hawkins, and come home. He balked at the words. You have me, Maddy, no matter what. It doesn’t matter how deep you feel you are. I promise you, you are not stuck, you are not too far gone. I will get you out, no matter what. The last three words were triple underlined. Flip frowns. He believes her, and he dearly wishes he didn’t. It would have been better for her that way.

More pages still were filled with insights into the two sisters; the levelheaded one who offered a hand no matter how much she hated the younger one in that moment, and the hellraiser, who burnt bridges and asked questions never. His heart went out to Prescilla. He recognized the same dogged determination in her that he felt about the people he needed to protect. It was something neither of them could help, regardless of what it did to them. In her own words – no matter what, triple underlined.

He feels Prescilla as if she’s sitting with him, shoulder to shoulder as he reads her words, and he’s sure he’s so engrossed in her letter he’s not breathing. When he’s done, he flips right back to the first page and reads it again, like a movie with a twist ending that feels different the second time around you watch it.

Flip folds the letter carefully and puts it not in the case file, but the inside pocket of his jacket. He goes home then and packs his bag. He calls Ron to let him know he’s found a great lead and is going after Hawkins' girlfriend. There’s enough of truth there to appease him. He reads the letter twice before falling asleep and three more times in the air, shielding it jealously from any prying eyes.

*

There is a unique freshness to New England. Where Colorado feels crisp and clear, the freshness in Salem is like a saline solution, clearing his head like a strong cup of coffee after a bad hangover.

Prescilla Hallewell is out in the garden when Flip parks his rented car. She bares her teeth as she pulls at some weeds, backlit by the setting sun. It makes her wild red hair look like it’s on fire. She looks to Flip like she could do anything. She’s cut up a whole bucket full of crimson red roses and they’re stuffed in there every which way, as if they’re garbage she intends to get rid of. Flip only tears his eyes away from her as he circles the car in the driveway, gets a good look at the Oldsmobile parked in front, and matches its Colorado license plate number to the one in his files. She’s up on her feet and wiping at her forehead by the time he’s taking a steadying breath and entering her garden.

She looks up at him and neither speaks for a moment. Her eyes are gorgeous and dark, and he wants to study her expression. The wild locks of red hair that spill from her clip, the slight dew of sweat on her skin, her lips parted in exertion and surprise – they fit perfectly with the words he’s read and memorized. He knows her voice already and she hasn’t even spoken yet.

She takes him in and what he feared triggering happens. She retreats, like a battered woman, wincing away from this tall large man, dark and strange, appearing out of thin air in her garden. It’s smart; he wants to commend her instincts, but more than that, he wants to override them. She would never be safer than in his presence and there is no easy way of saying that.

She blinks and her expression turns more guarded. Flip looks close, he wants to look at her eyes some more, but all he sees is himself, upside down. Refracting, kaleidoscopic, melting, breaking into pieces and assembling again. He’s chasing the swirls in her eyes, the depth he glimpses as it leaps away from him into corners and shadows - the truth he intuits somewhere behind his own image projected there.

He had heard that if you look into a woman’s eyes and see yourself in them, upside down, then that woman was a witch, and it stuck vaguely with him. The way you learned the answers to trolls’ bridge questions and the Sphinx’s riddle, just in case you ever came upon one. Remember that fairies sometimes steal children from their beds and be on your guard, trolls turn into stone at daybreak, so stall them until then, and a woman who tries to lure you in with your own reflection was surely a witch and she was working her charms to ensnare you. The only thing to do then, the story went, was turn the other way and run, and don’t judge yourself a coward either. Witches are canny folk and you never know what they could be after.

Well, Flip sees all six feet and three inches of himself sprawled out upside down in Prescilla’s eyes, and he stares on and on, no intention of running. He was captured not by his own image, but what had slipped just behind him, the glimpse he could not fully read.

*

Prescilla feels her chest constrict. There’s a good sized spade embedded in the ground in the garden and she ponders whether she might reach it and swing, should it come to that. All she has in her hand is a small pair of garden shears. Her body turns cold and her eyes quiver dangerously in their sockets at the memory of those men breaking into her home a few months ago. She told herself she was over it, and it wouldn’t happen again. But it’s terribly clear now she’s more afraid than ever as she tries not to tremble before this stranger standing in her garden.

He’s markedly different from Jimmy’s desert buddies. Conspicuous absence of implements of torture aside, he exudes peace and calm, looking at her with oddly familiar, comforting eyes. They are soft melted honey in the golden light of sunset and his face looks serene, almost glowing.  

“Can I help you?” she asks doubtfully and makes herself take a step forward, even as her knees wobble.

“I’m looking for James Hawkins,” Flip says. It’s hard to choose where to begin, and bringing up Jimmy is the easiest and hardest place to start.

Prescilla tries starting several sentences. He’s not here. Never heard of him. I don’t know where he is. All lies. Her voice won’t come out. “No James Hawkins lives here,” her throat finally unclogs as she offers something not unlike the truth. Jimmy isn’t alive to live anywhere anymore.

“I know that,” Flip smiles and gives her some small respite, tearing his eyes away and casting his gaze down for a moment. Prescilla gulps in a huge breath.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” she shifts her weight and one hip sticks out, curving her waist more and sending the long locks of hair behind her back swaying. Flip finds his mouth is bone dry.

“I’m Flip Zimmerman, with the Colorado Springs police department,” he flashes his badge and she looks at it closely, inspecting every letter and emblem. He half expects her to take it between her teeth and test the metal. He would only smile if she did.

“You’re a long way from home,” she says finally, taking off her muddy gloves and stuffing them into her back pocket.

“I just flew in this afternoon,” he doesn’t volunteer any further information about the case. A part of him hopes they can sit down for coffee and talk about anything else. “Got a room at the Hid-A-Way motel, rented a car and drove right here,” he follows as she makes her way into the greenhouse.

“You must have the wrong address then…” she frowns. She’s gentle and tenacious, and he might be in real trouble here because he can’t control how much he’s responding to her.

“Your letter arrived yesterday,” he goes down a different route. He speaks as though the letter was meant for him the entire time and she blinks in confusion. He produces the envelope from his jacket, worn from its long wandering. It was emptied and stuffed two dozen times in the last 24 hours. It shows all the wear and tear plainly. She knows it instantly. He knows what it cost her to write it.

“You read my letter?” she whispers, as calculations cascade inside her head. All the things she said. Everything she’d confessed in there. The attack. All the recriminations. Every syllable that must seem pathetic to an investigator. The incontrovertible evidence that she knows damn well who James Hawkins is. Her chest feels tighter than before and that can’t be good because her lungs and heart barely fit before.

“Yes, ma’am, I did,” he confesses easily. He’s almost proud to; it’s his intimate link to her.

“It was a very personal letter,” she croaks like something is lodged in her throat.

“Yes, ma’am, it was,” he nods.

She stares at him and massages her fingers into a spot on her chest. Right in the center, it aches and pangs, and she can’t breathe. “I…”she seems to want to start something and Flip takes an eager step forward.

“Yes?”

She just continues to take shallow breaths and only realizes she’s been rubbing at her heart when Flip looks down at her chest. Prescilla stops and swallows. “What are you doing here, officer?”

He deflates a little at her formal address. “I’m looking for your sister, Madeleine. I’m hoping she can help me.”

“I better go get her then,” she says to no one in particular as she resumes rubbing the achy spot in her chest and retreats out of the room.

*

“There’s a cop from Colorado looking for you!” Prescilla whisper-yells at Maddy, who has just finished some arts and crafts with Jet and is rubbing some errant glue out of her cuticles.

“What?” she whirls around and her big brown eyes are as large as dinner plates. “What does he want?” she growls and grabs roughly at Prescilla’s wrist, pulling her closer. The move reminds her uncomfortably of Jimmy and she releases on instinct. “How much does he know?” she demands, preferring the use the few short moments she had to confer with her sister on making a game plan rather than pretending there isn’t a dead body in their garden.

“Well, he seems to know a good godddamn deal since he’s here all the way from Colorado!” Prescilla manages to hiss hysterically as she whispers and is only slightly outraged when she realizes Maddy is putting on a fresh coat of black eyeliner on her waterline and mussing up her pixie haircut. Leave it to her to get gussied up for a murder inquiry.

“Pffft, what can he really know?” she tosses Prissy a look in the mirror and pushes her breasts up and her black crushed velvet dress down to reveal as much of her cleavage as possible. “All he knows for sure is Jimmy hasn’t been around since June. He could be anywhere,” she throws her arms in a circle around her, to indicate anywhere on the globe and makes sure to avoid pointing towards the window that looks onto the garden where they both know very well that his worthless remains are resting. “He hit me, I left him, we haven’t been in touch since.”

Prescilla nods, unconvinced. “And Jet?”

Maddy darkens. “Jet has nothing to do with him,” she narrows her painted eyes and Prescilla almost believes her. Bridget is a lovely child and it’s so easy to pretend that she simply grew on a tree and fell off the branch one day when she was ripe and ready, with no intervention by any man.

“Is he cute?” Maddy asks, leaning in. Before Prissy can find it in her to say anything, she goes on urgently. “Young or old?” If he’s young, she’ll titillate him. If he’s old, she’ll charm him or spin him a sob story. Maddy had a persona for any type of man she encountered. “Well?” she gives Prissy’s arm an impatient shake and the motion dislodges a few words.

“Young. Not too young,” she frowns. “Huh – erm - handsome.”

“Mh,” Maddy gives an impressed nod. It’s not often Prissy is complimentary of a man’s looks. She decides her cheeks could use a few pinches in that case, and rubs her lips together to distribute the remains of a gloss she put on recently.

“Mads,” Prissy follows after her before she can leave the room and she sounds like she’s crying. “He’s…” she can’t quite put it into words. He’s medial. He’s like Prescilla in so many ways that she recognizes instinctively, but couldn’t put into words if she had hours and years of leisure ahead of her. And Maddy isn’t someone who could appreciate it anyway. “There’s something about him I can’t get into now, but--”

“Yeah, yeah, he blows your skirt up, it’s fine,” Maddy comforts and turns to leave again.

“It’s not that,” she doesn’t bother denying anything, it’s insignificant now. “I can’t lie to him,” she announces mournfully and closes her eyes like she might start crying for real.

“Of course you can,” Maddy announces in a full bodied voice and it sounds tantamount to a roar after all the whispering. “Of course you fucking can! Prissy! For the love of god!” her whispers rise in pitch as she begins to panic. For reasons she can’t quite understand, she knows her sister is serious.

“You’ll have to do the talking,” Prescilla sighs and Maddy falters for the first time. Working together – lying together – the Hallewell sisters are Olympians. They can stick a salto-mortale-into-a-quadruple-axel no problem – if they have each other. Maddy bats her lashes and pouts, weaves her tales of woe in which she is habitually blameless while Prissy scans the details in real time and jumps in with life-saving hedges and caveats providing impeccable plausible deniability, swerving just before Maddy crashes headlong into fatal inconsistencies. It was crippling to be facing an investigator without her safety net, but she took a few steadying breaths, getting her own story straight while Prissy went into the greenhouse to announce her.

*

Prescilla leans slowly in behind the glass door. Like she’s playing hide and seek and has a chance at reaching home base before the investigator spots her. He is tall, but unobtrusive as he glides respectfully from one row of potted plants to the next.

“I’m in the process of moving them inside before winter,” Prescilla announces in a small voice, as if his very interest is an accusation of something. She is semi-satisfied when he winces in surprise and turns to her with unsure eyes. He nods to himself and approaches swiftly, but with care.

“I,” he begins slowly, confidentially, and she leans in before she can tell herself not to, “didn’t mean to frighten you just then. When I showed up.” It isn’t an apology, but he sounds as if his heart is breaking. Her heart immediately flutters and she’s profoundly embarrassed. It feels like he can see her, in her thinnest nightgown because the night was so unusually stuffy, torn and hiked up to her waist as she’s writhing under a strange man’s sweaty body while he squeezes at her neck and her eyes are watering. She’d almost wet herself with fear and as soon as she realized she wouldn’t die that night, that detail had made her feel mortified. And he knows all about it, sans the details she kept to herself, from that damn letter.

“There just isn’t a very good way to show up unannounced at someone’s home,” he continues in the same low voice, speaking only to her. He correctly presumes she never told Maddy about the attack, or if she did, it was only in the briefest of ways. Since the letter had never reached her, he was rather confident Prescilla would not have had the strength to go over everything again.

His joke is gentle and he’s letting her either dismiss the situation or say something snippy in response. He’d be fine with both.

“What did you say your name was?” she asks, having momentarily forgotten her own as well.

“Flip,” he extends a hand in the small pocket of space left between them and whispers his name, hoping she can forget all the other things attached to it, like detective or investigation. She takes it and the feel of her hand makes him calmer and more agitated at the same time.

“A little birdie told me we had a visitor,” Maddy coos as she rounds her way from the kitchen into the adjacent greenhouse and her extended hand precedes her.

Flip is forced to let go of Prescilla and he takes her sister’s hand only for the duration of one swift shake. He pulls out a notepad and Maddy sizes him up in an instant. Oh, boy. He was really handsome, in a way that left her flustered in the most inconvenient way. And he doesn’t seem easy to fool. He didn’t check her out, didn’t savor how soft her palm was, didn’t even reflexively straighten and stiffen the way men do without realizing when a knockout like her walks into a room.

Maddy weaved her tale, with just a dash of weariness thrown in now that she knows Prissy isn’t behind her, ensuring internal consistency. It’s simple enough – Jimmy got violent, she wouldn’t stand for it, packed her bags and drove herself right here to be with her sister. The fact that Jimmy was in the car and had died in the backseat somewhere around the state line of nightshade and belladonna poisoning was incidental. Flip nods at odd intervals and keeps his eyes off of her in the most calculated manner. He makes notes, but it’s gibberish, random words that come to him for no particular reason. Apple pie. Crimson. Sweetheart. He’s halfway through writing Prescilla’s name when he realizes he’s doing it and he blacks it out a pinch too vigorously, paranoid Maddy might have noticed.

Flip continues writing anything at all through Maddy’s fabrication because if he looks at her, she’ll know he isn’t buying a word of it. She wouldn't have had the nerve to take off with her boyfriend's car, and Hawkins wouldn't have let it go so easy. No way. Let her go, maybe. Not the Oldsmobile. He would have caught up with her before she reached the state line, and if not then, then soon enough after.

Maddy, unaccustomed to such a lack of attention, has to try her luck. “Do you mind if I…” she asks in her baby voice, hand traveling scandalously down from Flip’s chest to his crotch, ghosting over the rectangle deep in his pocket. She’s more surprised than he is because he doesn’t flinch at all, not even when the tips of her fingers brush something girthy stuffed in his jeans that definitely isn’t a pack of cigarettes. She wonders if he’ll like the slight blush that blooms in her cheeks as he fishes out his cigarettes and offers her one wordlessly. He has that stern, unreadable expression on his face that either means her panties are about to fly off and she’ll get a spanking, or she’s in actual trouble. She doesn’t blink or look away as he lights the cigarette for her.

Prescilla has her arms crossed under her chest, holding herself back against the door for the duration of the whole conversation. She had wanted to jump in at several points and cut her sister off before she added needless details, but this is the first time she needs to dig her nails into her forearms and physically hold herself back. As Maddy shamelessly flirts, the pain in her chest turns into fire and she wants to push in between them, the same way she wanted to do countless times when they were teens and Maddy invariably started up a conversation with the exact boy Prescilla liked, especially when she pointed out she had seen him first. In point of fact, she and Flip had chatted and had the kind of unspoken understanding one searches for for a lifetime. And now Maddy is looking up him from her freshly re-mascara’d lashes, from that classic blowjob angle, not blinking as she licks her lips and bites a protruding cigarette between her teeth. She inclines her head and lets her long swan neck curve elegantly, exposed by her bold pixie cut for just such purposes as these. Prescilla is almost shaking with the need to say something, anything at all, just to take some of his attention back.

She doesn’t get the chance because Flip gets tired of Maddy’s overtures and decides to use this moment, when she feels victorious and impossibly sexy, to break the news to her. He notifies her, in no uncertain terms and with little tact, that a kid died because of her boyfriend’s antics. Flip peppers in a few other unsavory stories that he is willing to bet she doesn’t know. A girl in Arizona that recently had his kid and had filed a restraining order after one of his attacks left her with a broken nose and a cut across the neck that required several dozen stitches. A ranch in Colorado where he shot every horse dead after the owner wouldn’t sell him his prized stallion. He watches as she realizes exactly who she’s been fucking and calling baby all that time. For all her readily apparent faults, Maddy isn’t heartless. Her eyes water, perhaps because she thinks it could have been her and she’s guiltily grateful it wasn’t. “I’m so sorry.”

"You don't have to make any excuses for who you love," Flip says, finally releasing some pressure. "Don't apologize."

Prescilla feels a tear slip down her cheek and soak into her shirt. Even though he can see straight through Maddy’s bullshit, he’s not cruel. She’s sure that before he introduced the idea that love was blameless, Maddy never once stopped to consider she might not be responsible for everything that went wrong with Jimmy. Shamefully, Prescilla realizes she hadn’t thought of it either.

Flip meets Prescilla’s dark eyes over Maddy’s shoulder and wishes he could be alone with her. Just for a little bit. Just to begin to understand what he’s feeling. He'd heard about this sort of thing happening to other men. They're going about their business one minute, and suddenly there's no hope for them. They fall in love so hard they never again get up off their knees.

He’s exhausted most of his casual questions and it’s time to leave. Prescilla can see it; the mood in the airy, white kitchen shifts and it feels like an evening is winding down -  the coffee is drunk and the guests have their coats on their laps. Maddy thrums with excitement like a light bulb with too much electricity running through it, as though all she needs in this life is for Flip Zimmerman to turn, follow the cobbled road out of her sister’s garden, get in his car and leave, and nothing would ever go wrong for her again. Prescilla sees the same scenario unfold and it makes her bleed on the inside.

Flip senses it. He can feel how her veins throb and her throat scratches, dry and achy as she bites back words. And he feels like he knows what it’s like to kiss her already. Give her the breath she’s struggling for out of his own lungs, hold her up, be her bones when hers fail. A drama is unfolding in a stranger’s kitchen and he feels like a fool. He's not certain how far he would go to cover for someone. He'd never anticipated being in that position before and he doesn't like the feel of it. Yet here he is, dragging his feet and actually wondering if he could look the other way.

The silence has gone on far too long and Flip feels like he’s about to do the thing he never does, and start mindlessly blabbering. “I’ll need to have the car impounded,” he announces to Prescilla because he can’t stop looking at her. She nods and bites her lips between her teeth.

“Naturally,” Maddy is the one to respond and she makes her way towards the back door, herding her sister and the unwanted guest in the direction that leads to this encounter ending.

“It, uh, should be picked up by Friday,” he adds even though nobody asked and Maddy nods happily, opening the door for him wide and standing next to it like an overeager valet. Her stomach drops as Prescilla inhales and Flip is rooted to the spot, turning to her hopefully.

She can’t stand the idea of not seeing him again, even if every moment he spends near them spells out danger. Maddy widens her hypnotic eyes at Prissy, screaming with her death glare to shut up and not dare invite him back. But Prescilla ignores her.

“If we can help you in any way, we would be happy to,” she says and s relieved to recognize the truth of it in her tone. “I don’t think either of us truly understood what kind of man Jimmy…” she barely manages to stomp on her mental breaks before her mouth forms the w in was. “I’m sure he’s done things Maddy never dreamed of.”

“Maybe you could fill in some gaps for me,” he jumps at the straw and turns to Maddy, who is forced into an obsequious smile and a solemn nod. She doesn’t wish to talk about Jimmy’s past or present whereabouts, anymore than Flip really wants to map out the finer points of Jimmy’s pathetic existence. But it’s a way back in and, like an overeager vampire, he’ll do anything for an invitation over the threshold.

“Tomorrow, after work?” Flip asks when he’s at the gate and the two sisters, different as can be, stand a few paces away from him.

“It’s a date, officer,” Maddy flashes him a grin and does a poor job of acting like she couldn’t care less that an investigator is standing right next to the car where Jimmy died that summer.

Prescilla has a hand warming over the spot in her chest that’s been killing her the entire time and follows his every motion as he gets in the car. Flip can feel with a pang when their eyes lock in the rearview mirror, across the whole garden and driveway, and he has the strangest urge to smile, despite it all.

*

@in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @lumberjack00fantasies @safarigirlsp @queeniebee @house-of-cadwyn

[levworship]

cw: dom!reader, fem reader, mommy kink, degrading, dirty talk, oral (fem rec), slight mind break, reader is a lil manipulative. just a bit. probably had errors

summary: you find out while on another blind date with one of mina’s friends that kirishima is just the man for you. he wants to be used, and you’re more than willing to use him.

word count: approx 2.9k

“fuckin’ mina. i’m gonna beat her ass.”

this wasn’t the first time your best friend has tried to set you up with one of her friends. and honestly, knowing her, it more than likely wouldn’t be the last time, either. “but he’s so nice” she’d promise, or “she’s just a little shy,” and perhaps the most common line of “you just have to be a little patient with them”

patient my ass.

your damn patience was beginning to run thinner and thinner the longer you sat waiting at the table for your date to arrive. you’re used to mina’s friends not being the most punctual, but to not show up at all? it was almost insulting. here you were, taking the time out of your busy day to spare some of your sweet time with some rando and—

“hey there, beautiful.” your eyes quickly tore away from the spot you’d been staring at for the past few minutes during your internal rant. part of you wished you hadn’t, because you damn near stopped breathing. typically, you’d never allow a man the satisfaction of hindering you speechless, but fuck. the man before you stood tall and strong, the white fabric of his dress shirt clinging onto his muscles in the most delicious way possible. his hair was slicked up in a style that you could only describe as goofy, and his smile? it was so contagious that you couldn’t help but to toss away the piping hot insults you’d been preparing to shoot his way.

“sorry i’m late. was searching all over town to find these for ya. i know mina said they were your favorite, and well—“ pulling his arms from behind his back, the red-haired man handed you a comically large bouquet of flowers. were they your favorite? no, not at all. but you couldn’t help but to be flattered anyway. “had to look all over town for them. turns out they’re actually pretty hard to find around here. can you believe that?” he chuckled to himself as he scratched at the back of his neck. an unfittingly cute gesture for a man of his build.

you grin sweetly as you grab the bouquet from his large hands, setting them down on the table in front of you and batting your lashes. “these are very beautiful! thank you so much, ...um?”

mina always purposely hid the names of her friends away before setting you up, mostly in fears that you’ll end up googling them and find some not so pretty things, just as you had that time when she tried to set you up with katsuki bakugou. (you noted to yourself that day, stay away from him at all costs.)

“ah- eijirou kirishima!” he filled in for you and held a hand out for you to shake. your eyebrows shot up in realization, leaning forward a bit on the table to shake his hand. you don’t miss the way his eyes shamelessly drift down to your cleavage when you do so. the sight made you laugh.

now you saw why he seemed so familiar at first glance. you’d heard mina talk to you about him on numerous occasions. big, handsome, and dumb. that’s how you’ve always perceived him from listening to her stories and descriptions. and if there was one thing you actually enjoyed about a man, it was how simple they could be. perfect for a woman with your desires.

you open your mouth to return his introduction, but he’s already cutting you off with perhaps a little too much eagerness. “and you’re y/n? did i say that right?” he quirks an eyebrow. “uh- i may have asked mina about you already. a lot.” he flashed you a sheepish smile.

talking to him felt like being a kid in a loaded candy shop. he’d be in the palm of your hand in no time.

the rest of dinner went on moderately better than your previous experiences with these stupid dates. kirishima was a bit of a talker, but you didn’t mind listening if it meant you got to watch the way those puppy dog eyes lit up a little more every time he’d begin telling you a story from his hero work (turns out you were just really behind on the latest hero news), only to quickly become side tracked by one details of his story and trail his way to another mini rant.

finally, you figure you’ve had enough of him rambling. it was time to cut to the point. “does it get lonely?” you asked him suddenly, trying your best to hold in a smile at the way he looked at you confusedly. “i mean- not really? i’m a hero so i’m with people all of the time-“ “that’s not what i meant, red.” hearing you refer to him by his hero name sent visible chills down his spine. just the effect you were wishing to have on him. something about your change in tone knocked him from a highly energetic and charismatic sweetheart, to a blushing and stuttering mess who suddenly couldn’t sit still in his seat. and from just one question, too?

he was almost too good to be true.

“no? i-i mean, yes but... i dunno. i’m busy a lot, a-and i don’t really have time for... yaknow.” “what kind of women do you like? in bed, i mean.” you managed to knock his brain around for a second time as he fumbled around his head for an answer.

“i-i guess it depends?” “hm? what do y’mean?” the way he continued to respond to your nasty questions had you licking your lips. you wanted him. badly. in the most selfish ways possible.

“depends on what the chick is into. i mean- they usually like when i’m on top. but..” you don’t respond this time. instead you look at him expectantly and wait for him to continue his previous statement. something about seeing such a grown man grow so embarrassed that quickly does something to you.

“i guess i wouldn’t mind... having someone take control for once?”

everything from that point felt like a blurred flash. you quickly abandoned the bouquet and called for the bill (which he so generously covered for the two of you) and were stumbling out of the door in no time, speedily walking all the way to your humble apartment. the door had just swung open when you were already shoving him inside.

kirishima spent nearly the entirety of the walk psyching himself up for this. did you know he wanted to experiment with this? had mina told you? how would mina even know? did he even really want this? because by the way he was struggling to catch his breath and connect dots in his mind, maybe he’d gotten too far ahead of himself.

but it was too late for that now. you’d already shoved him all the way down the hall, into your bedroom, and onto your bed before he knew it. you were fierce and impatient. and honestly? he found it quite intriguing.

“red...” you drew him back from falling into his thoughts once again, dragging your knuckles across the rough skin of his cheek. “i said, are you sure you want this?” and he swears he’s never nodded faster in his life, already grabbing onto your waist and hoisting you onto his lap. “yes! yes, i’m sure. please y/n?” and with that, a thread in you snapped.

you pushed him roughly until his head rested comfortably against the pillows, muttering a quick ‘stay’ as you began to fumble with his belt. you’d barely even touched him, yet he still lied staring at you with those same big adoring eyes. he was just too cute for his own good.

it made you want to wreck him.

you practically ripped away his pants and boxers before gently palming at his cock. you had expected him to be big, but not this big. he was long and thick, your hand barely managing to wrap completely around it. wordlessly you crouched down and pressed a gentle peck to his swollen tip, the precum that’d gathered there now sticking deliciously to your lips.

kirishima was getting so restless above you that you could’ve mistaken him for a virgin, hands fisting at your sheets with countless pleas tumbling from his lips. “so impatient, cutie. dont you want to be taken care of?” “i do! i do!” it seemed as if he was completely unashamed of how desperate he must’ve looked right now.

but rather than provide the sweet sweet release you knew he was craving, you tsked and backed away from his cock. much to his disappointment. “you know something, red? i didn’t take you for the selfish type. want me to make you feel good when you haven’t even touched me yet? and i thought you were a gentleman...”

kirishima thrashed below you, fingers digging hard into your hips. “i’m a gentleman! i’ll be a gentleman! i promise!” his lip wobbled cutely. you almost felt bad for having to deny such a pretty face.

almost.

he observed closely as you leaned back on your knees, sliding down the straps of your dress and tugging until your lacy bra was revealed to him. you were going to be the fucking death of him. you couldn’t help but giggle a bit at the way he eyed your chest. “i’ll tell you what.” you said as you reached out and pressed a finger under his chin, forcing him to meet your intense eyes.

“be a good boy for me and maybe, maybe, i’ll let you touch. deal?” and kirishima nodded giddily. truly an obedient little thing, he was.

you gave him a large smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes before patting him on the cheek, moving up to straddle his face and... shit. you weren’t wearing any panties under your dress. the smell of your arousal right in front of his face nearly made him overload, wanting nothing more but to bury his face between your legs until you’re heaving and begging for a break. but he had to be good for you. wanted you to rake your fingers through his hair and call him your good boy while he plays with your pretty tits.

“well? dont you want a tas—” you gasp when his mouth is suddenly on you, every sense of restraint abandoned as his tongue slid across and pressed against your poor clit. it was messy, no real technique behind his frantic movements, but he still had your eyes crossing and your thighs squeezing the sides of his head as ear muffs, his fingers squeezing and prodding at the flesh to keep himself grounded.

the sounds that came from your cunt and his mouth were embarrassingly lewd, the sound of his slurping making your entire body go hot. you were so close to losing your composure and letting him have you the way he wants, but you couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. not when you’ve been craving this for this long.

“kiri..” you couldnt tell if you were whispering or yelling at this point, brain all scrambled from the amount of pleasure you were receiving. you nearly doubled over from the vibrations of the small ‘hmm’ of acknowledgment he gave you. your fingers tangle themselves in his stiff red locks, holding his face still to allow you to grind yourself on his mouth just the way you wanted.

your breath hitched in your throat each time his nose bumped against your clit, his tongue buried deep in your hole as he was desperate to taste all of your juices. you could already feel your orgasm creeping up on you..

“oh, shit! just like that. good- fuck! such a good boy” the praise sends him into a frenzy, now using the pad of his thumb to rub viciously at your clit as his tongue fucked into you so nicely.

“‘m cumming, cumming, oh my god!” you’re hunched over now, eyes screwed shut when your orgasm suddenly rips through you. kirishima’s tongue continued its assault on your spasming pussy, the overstimulation becoming almost unbearable. you tried everything to get him off of you to make it stop. tugging his hair, lifting yourself up- but nothing seemed to be able to separate him from you until you literally shouted his name.

he released you in an instant and allowed you to back away to fully take in his form. everything about the sight was downright sinful. your juices covered the entire lower half of his face, and his hair remained matted with sweat against his forehead. and most delicious of all? he still looked hungry. you nearly said ‘fuck it’ and climbed back on top of him again...

but he needed to be punished.

and it seemed that he knew this too, because the moment your eyes met he was already begging for mercy. “‘m sorry! p-“ “i thought you promised you’d be a good boy? yaknow, i’m not exactly a big fan of liars, red. how could i let you have me when you can’t even follow simple instructions?” he’s silent at this point, eyes glued to the ground with an unreadable emotion splayed across his face.

you huffed as you climbed off of the bed, standing on wobbly legs with your back turned to him. you shook your head as you quickly slid your dress back into place. you originally planned on leaving it at this and sending him home, and perhaps you’d consider giving him a second shot if he begged you pretty enough. but kiri had other plans.

he wasn’t quite sure what came over him, but when he realized that you were planning on leaving him like that he couldn’t help but to jump up, gripping onto your waist once again. “kiri! what are you doing?” “please.” he whimpered into your ear, hard chest pressing into your back and his painfully hard cock rutting against your ass.

you probably would’ve collapsed right there if it weren’t for his tight grasp. “please don’t leave! ‘m so hard for you. want you so fucking bad. i’ll do anything, just- please let me cum. mommy.” the word rolled off of his tongue so sweetly, so heavenly, you couldn’t stop yourself from shoving him back onto the bed and tearing off his shirt.

you licked your lips when he was left completely bare to you finally, hand already working at pumping his cock. “suck a dirty boy. men like you are scum, you know that? getting so upset that you didn’t get your way after being so disobedient? i should tie you up and edge you for the rest of the night just for that” he began to mindlessly shake his head, muttering quiet a ‘no, no..’

“however,” you began to drag your fingernail across his chest, playing with the hairs that rested there, “think i’m gonna let it slide this time. well, only if you thank me properly..”

“thank you mommy!” the way there wasn’t even an ounce of hesitation or shame in his voice had you clenching around nothing. denying him any longer was beginning to be just as much torture to yourself as it was to him. biting down on your lip, you grabbed his cock and started pressing the tip to your entrance.

you began to feel as though you’ve managed to completely break him, watching as he continued to sputter out ‘thank you’s even as you struggled to take his cock in your dripping cunt. the stretch was nearly unbearable at first, but you were never one to back down from a challenge.

you weren’t going to stop until you knew you’ve completely broken him down into a blubbering mess for you. until you were the only thing he could think of. until you had him quivering and begging just for you. the thought of making him into your slave had you bouncing on his dick with energetic vigor.

kirishima was a sight to behold, too. eyes crossed and occasionally fluttering shut, panting like a dog as every bit of his stamina oozed out of him and he had to hold himself back from cumming too quickly.

at one point you caught his eyes glued on to the way your covered tits bounced while you rode him, still clad in your tight dress. you smirked devilishly before reaching behind your back and unclasping your bra, tugging it down with the dress once again and toying with your puffy nipples for his viewing pleasure.

that seemed to be the final straw for kiri, as he was now bucking up into you like a horny mutt. “gonna cum so hard, mommy. please let me cum in you. g’nna fill you up so good. wanna make you a mommy. i want it- i want it- i want it...” with all of his babbling you weren’t quite sure if he was aware of what he was saying right now, but the lewd words still had you spiraling closer and closer.

“cum in me, baby. be a good boy for mommy and give her your babies, okay?” you told him as you gripped his face in your hands.

and like the obedient little thing he is,, he did exactly that.

thirsts and requests for haikyuu and bnha are open.

[liquid-luck-00]

Where There Is Change

Last Name Wayne

@maribat-bdbwm

First *** Previous *** Next

Okay so I know I diverged from cannon, but I think you’ll all like this.

~~~~~~~~~~

The moment that Damian agreed, they left.

She immediately placed their phones and electronics into storage, so this game would be a little more fun.

Mari "chose" the first place that they teleported to was Paris. The irony was not lost on her.

The place that kicked her out was the first place that would open up to her. But then again most of the city adored Marinette they loved Lady Scarlet even more, but that wasn't general knowledge.

She and Damian know it is a matter of time before B figures they left the country, but hey. They mostly stuck to going between super cities in the U.S. before. But right now, it mostly was her showing him around the city the museums and then getting really inspired by the scenery.

If she was prepared with several different sketch books and pencils for both of them it was an added bonus.

She knows she subconsciously picked Paris and after a few hours it might be smart to jump again. So, she let Damian decide on a place where he wanted to go. He did warn her that if they were spotted, they need to leave immediately, but she didn’t really see a problem with it.

Because granted they’re both Wayne's, and Wayne's if you know them well enough, they will be able to hand your ass back to you on a silver platter smiling as if it was the greatest thing in the world.

So, they jumped again.

This time it was her turn to be awed by what they saw.

They were in a small alcove completely hidden; in the cave they were in the face of it was covered by bushes. But looking out she saw the mountains in the far distance it appeared to be a lake no it was larger maybe it was the ocean. Right below her was a lush courtyard filled with plant she's only seen and one other place, but the heat here was tremendous, and the sea that she could see was in the wrong direction. Apart from being far, far, far too close to where she originally thought they were.

She was going to lean forward a bit and completely break through the bushes that were covering them when a hand pulled her back. She looks back and sees her little brother holding onto her.

"We have to stay hidden Nettie, are above the League of Assassins." He whispered so quiet she could barely hear him about ten inches away, so she’s not taking this lightly.

She nodded, and they stayed there, silent. The only sound was of graphite on paper.

Then everything changed.

On instinct Marinette shot out her arm, a wooden imperial yo-yo appeared in her hand, with a quick flick of her wrist she stopped the projectile, lodging it within the wood. A quick glance at her brother and she opened up portal behind him and pushed him through without a word, closing it behind him.

She knows that it’s more dangerous if they find him here than her, so she stayed behind.

She removed the projectile and examined it, a blow dart likely with poison, seeing as a liquid was seeping into the wood of the yo-yo. She created a replica of the dart and stored the poisonous one and her yo-yo back in storage.

She took a quick breath and punctured her arm where the dart should have originally landed. And fell to the ground, slumped down.

She kept her face relaxed her body limp and she felt three, four, five separate sickly deathly auras around her. She kept her breathing at minimum, light, almost as if she was asleep. They picked her up and moved her. She realized immediately that she was being taken down the mountain, taken deeper into the League of Assassins.

Five assassins she can take them. But the one thing repeatedly crossing her mind was one phrase.

'How dare these assholes mess with her family! Her little brother! They are going to pay!'

Because she is a Wayne, and Wayne’s protect their own.

She was eventually dropped in a large room, from what she can tell, if the echoes were any indication to what she was thinking the size of the room could be. There were three more auras in this room, aside from the ones she passed to get here. What surprised her was she recognized all three.

Still acting unconscious, she heard a woman’s voice, Talia Al Ghul, speak. "What business do you have to bring this child here?" It was phrased as a question but seemed more like a snarl or demand than anything else.

"She was captured on the grounds. She’s an unknown." Was what was reported by one of the people in who had dragged her down here.

Then she heard a chuckle.

"She’s awake." That voice, she recognizes that voice. Her entire previous plan was now completely out the window. So, she lazily pushes herself up, pulling out the dart once she was on her feet.

"Damn, I thought that would last a little longer." She finally looked up and saw Damian's clone, Heretic, Talia, and Al Ghul. But something was wrong, it was bothering her. Al Ghul, he, he… he wasn’t Demon, he wasn’t her Demon anymore. All she recognized now is his voice, at least that’s what she told herself, nothing else was the same as a person she once knew. The question now is why. "I really shouldn’t have introduced you to the Order, if the result would have been this?" A smirk on her lips and now standing cocky in the middle of a room full of assassins, she is stalling. He is acting like he knows her, but his aura is indecipherable, familiar, but not.

"You should not have, but then I wouldn’t be here today, to thank you, would I? After all you allowed our family to find these pits." ‘Our Family’ she dove into her memories, but now that she needed them, they were far away and fuzzy, God damn it.

"Hmmm, I suppose not. Right now, I really wish I had turned you into a cat permanently. I found the correct spell, so I actually can now." This elicited yet another chuckle from Al Ghul which had everyone else in the room on edge.

"Really now I love to see it, after all I wasn’t able to experience it before you vanished." She quirked an eyebrow at this response, but she didn’t care about his mind games, she was stalling, trying to find out what caused this change. All her mind supplied were the plants outside. Demon wasn’t good with plants, but he was with animals, so how.

"Really you don’t wanna know why am actually here?" She asked, looking so innocent, one might believe that she was there merely an accident or coincidence.

She then turned towards Heretic, death in her blue eyes was all anyone could see, but she didn’t kill him. No, she couldn't bring herself to kill him. He may have killed her baby brother, but he is

Damian’s clone, but that clone was nothing but a poor imitation of her brother. With a snap of her fingers, he transformed into a statue of a panther, mouth opening for a roar. In all accounts looking intimidating, but there’s no way to be scared of a statue.

"That was for killing my little brother." She crossed her arms now glaring daggers towards Talia.

"I wasn’t aware you had a little brother, Lady Cheng." Demon never called her Lady Cheng, no to him she was Malak (Angel), but…

That was when the pieces fell into place. That’s why the older Damian looks like a cross between Demon and Bruce. That’s why Damian turned into a panther cub. Damian is Amir’s reincarnation, the true soul of the black cat. That means, in front of her stood Ra’s, Amir’s older twin brother. That’s why he could read the journal, he is a miraculous soul. And only miraculous souls know the language of miracles, without decades of studying the script. It’s ingrained in them but only accessible after coming in contact with old magic, miraculous magic.

"One, the name is Wayne. Two that’s because at the time that I met the both of you 600 years ago, I didn’t even know I had siblings. So, get this through your head, I don’t care that he is your son or your grandson. He is my little brother. Nothing will stop me from making sure my family is safe." Her voice stayed level, emotion flitted in and out of it, in such a way that it almost seemed inhuman. For more reasons than one, she just sensed one of the Lazarus Pits.

"Scarlet." She heard gasped by the woman next to Ra’s.

"Correct." She glared at them walking closer as she said so. "My name is Marinette Wayne, and you best remember to never mess with creation. I would have thought you would remember that little Lǎohǔ (Tiger)."

By her walk over a sword had appeared in each hand, which she was now holding up to Lǎohǔ‘s neck, while the second was held right at the base of Talia's spine, almost daring her to move. The threat hung in the air, and both knew she was capable of following through.

"Well, I do believe it’s best to catch up over some tea." Lǎohǔ offered, many would have taken his offer. Because if the Demon’s head offers it, it would be your funeral if you refused, but she wasn’t just anyone. "After all we haven’t seen each other, in nearly 600 years, now have we, much must’ve happened to you."

"Hmmm... not really you’d be surprised. By what has become of my life been since meeting you." She decided to put away her blades, for the time being. Seeing as she couldn’t leave without destroying the Pits. The only surviving consequence of the Miraculous wish, cast ages ago. Now time to come up with a plan.

---

"Are you sure about this Pigtails?" Plagg spoke up.

"Ancient magic like this calls for a price." She sighed.

"We know, Marinette, but your little brother." Tikki voiced.

"I'll do everything I can to keep all of them safe." She spoke resolutely.

"But can you live with this?" Tikki asked.

"I have to be able to. Besides I'm pretty sure he is your true kitten, Plagg." She reassured.

Tikki and Plagg united their powers, and were able to destroy the pit, and every other one on Earth. Then disappeared. She opened a gate knowing what is coming.

---

Somewhere in the league of Assassins was the Demon's head and his daughter, looking royally pissed as they watch a timer tick down. Seeing as Marinette decided to freeze them with venom, so she could destroy the Lazarus Pits.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

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[mythicalninjas]

Bloody Season

Donnie and Mikey X fem!Reader.

This is a serie of three chapters about Donnie explaining to his brothers about menstruation. His such knowledge was given by reader through a doubt he had during her period, and from deep researches.

Warning: SFW, blood mention.

Cramps, loss of appetite, lack of good humor, a heat bag being held against your lower abdomen to assuage the anguish, feeling that affliction hot liquid between your legs, "weak stomach", menstrual diarrhea; and also the pre syntoms: sore breasts, desire of sweets; should I continue?

It's frightering of how both body and mind change during the bloody days.

"I don't-".

"You need..." Donnie said softly while hold a sandwish to you.

"Donnie, I... I'm not hungry".

"You haven't eaten yet, Y/N".

"But-" You sighed "Okay..." You whispered, groaning while make effort to sit. You are curently in the Lair on a sofa of the main space. With shaky hands, you pick the delicious looking sandwish and spend a few seconds staring at it, forcing your stomach groan by hungry—which never has come. Being vulnerable and painful throughout those days of the week is something we could only get used a while after; it seems we never get used of it, like it is the first time every month we go through.

All your stomach does is protest to not receive the food, but you have to. Or you would get weaker than before. You bite, chew and swallow; again. Bite, chew and swallow; slow moves.

"Enough" you murmmured, handing the half-eaten sandwish towards the purple clad humanoid mutant turtle, who was only watching you all the time "I don't want it anymore". Donatello could see the discomfort in your eyes "It's okay. At least you have eaten something and this is what the matter" he assured, taking the sandwish and placing his massive hand on your shoulder and pushing you down carefully, making you laying down again. "Rest. If you need something, call me".

You share a weak smile as he walks away. Donatello is the only one besides April who understand perfectly your mensal unconfortable situation; the others know as well but not as much as their smart brother.

"Hey, Don. How's Y/N?" Mikey asked as soon Donnie enters the kitchen area.

"She is okay. Just tired" he explains "Not hungry as normal".

Mikey hummed in confirmation, nodding. Even being difficult to get exactly what is happening to you, Mikey has a deep respect for you; giving you space, silence, sharing support. Because he knew what is going on, but he doesn't know the why of it.

He wants to ask, but a feeling of shame prevents him to do it.

"Don bro..." he called.

"Hum?" Donnie answered while take a simp of coffee with milk and holding a piece of bread with Nutella generously spread over it.

"I know that Y/N suffers by... uh... menstrual season or whatever. But can you explain me why does she has it every month?".

Donnie almost choke with his coffee, wide eyes right at his younger curious brother. Menstruation is kind of thing that just women have, and it might be a delicated subject to be debated about, mainly among men.

"Well, I will explain. But I'll say what Y/N has told me, okay? I'm not an expert on it".

Mikey nodded, taking a seat as prepares himself for the "class". Donnie did as well, picking another free chair and sitting on the other side of the table, right in front of Mikey and signing with his finger for his young brother to lean closer.

"Okay, imagine..." Donnie starts, whispering near to his brother's face "Imagine you have an organ within you, lower in your abdomen". Mikey looked down at his plastron with a question expression "This organ is called uterus, and it was made to create, carry, and support a child" Mikey looked up at Donnie, with many facial expressions traveling over his cute face "Okay so, period is a woman body's way of releasing tissue that it no longer needs. Every month, the feminine body prepares for pregnancy. The lining of the uterus gets thicker as preparation for nurturing a fertilized egg. An egg is released and is ready to be fertilized and settle in the lining of your uterus. When the fertilization does not happen, the uterus eliminates all its stuff it had done. This is why women bleeds in this season" he finished, taking a bite of the bread with Nutella.

Mikey did not say a word, just stared at his brother's eyes.

Donnie tilted his head, waiting for Mikey comment.

"I didn't get it yet" Mikey said quietly.

Donnie groaned "What did you not understand?".

"How a woman can create a child alone?"

"Mikey!"

"Sorry! I know women don't make children alone. There are a fucking rush of questions running in my head now".

Donnie shook his head, biting another piece of his food. He doesn't blame Mikey at all, he knew that he's new into this kind of conversation.

"Okay, well..." the genius continued, calmly "Women are the only one who contain this organ-".

"This is what I was already aware." Mikey said.

"Good. So, the period is kind of "punishment" for women for not get pregnant" the nerdy summed up.

"Really?".

"Yeah".

"That's awful".

"Indeed''.

''But... Why they feel pain? Like, not just cramps, but others stuff".

"What they feel is similar—or same—to pregnancy symptoms. Actually it depends from each woman. For example, Y/N" he points at you "She feels weak, she has loss of appetite, cramps, etc. There are days that she feels okay during her period, but during others days, it looks like she couldn't even leave bed''.

Mikey glanced at you with sad eyes "Poor Y/N. And thinking that she has to go through it every month. I guess I wouldn't handle with it tho".

Donnie shrugged in agreement.

The both turtles spent a few minutes observing you sleeping, their minds—Mikey mostly—lost in a sea of imagines and questions. They want to ask you more about period, but they are deel timid for it. It is weird when men ask women about menstrual cycle, but it could be important to know what happens to women body during this time.

"So, when Y/N will get pregnant to not feel those stuff?"

"Excuse m-!"

They jumped as you aproach to the kitchen area, a tired face and messy hair difining your current mood "Hey, guys..." You greeted, walking towards the fridge.

"Hey, Y/N" Donnie smiled "W-Why did you get up? You had to have called me to reach you something".

"No problem, Donnie" you said with a hoarse voice "I have to make my body move a bit. I was too motionless. I'm okay" You take a simp of water, walking back to the coach.

"Hey, Y/N. Can I ask you something?" Mikey's question makes Donnie feel shivers running down his spine. The genius immediately grabs Mikey's arm to pull him closer and threatened quietly "Don't you dare ask that!".

"Sure. What ya wanna ask?" Noticing their sudden change of behavior, you quirked a brow edge "Is everything okay?".

"Yes!" Mikey responded quickly, and Donnie shares a dork smile.

You shruged, heading back to the couch. You knew they're hidding something, but you're not expecting what is coming soon with Mikey's curiosity.

[lightphieric]

So Aoi and Eric are both orphans who suffered extreme trauma as children, including but not limited to witnessing the brutal murders of their younger siblings (the order of events varies between the two of them, of course). Both of them became rather obnoxious and unpleasant adults who have few qualms about traumatizing and/or killing others. The parallels seem pretty obvious to me, but while Aoi gets to be a cool antihero, Eric is just seen as some unlikable jerk.

Like I said earlier, the key difference here is that Aoi and his sister are espers, and Eric and his brother are not. Psychic powers are an incredible tool for digging yourself out of the lowest point in your life, as it turns out. Most of Eric’s problems come from loneliness or a sense of powerlessness, and there but for the grace of God goes Aoi.

First and most obviously, Aoi still has Akane. Eric was forced to dump Chris’s body and never saw him again, but through time travel hijinks, Akane was able to save herself and remain in Aoi’s life. This doesn’t change the fact that he saw her burnt corpse, but having someone by his side to process that trauma with has huge implications for his mental well-being. Meanwhile, Eric has nobody. He lost his mother, he lost his brother, and now even his father is gone, someone he hated but who was still the only family he had for a long time. He’s desperately lonely, which is why he attaches himself so strongly to the first woman who shows interest without noticing the red flags. 

I also think it’s important to note Aoi and Eric's financial situations. Aoi talks about the struggle to scrape together enough money to buy Akane Christmas presents, and one of Eric’s X-Passes is literally the word POOR - which might be intended in a condescending, “Look at this poor pathetic idiot” kind of way, but I think it has a double meaning. The man lives alone on a food service salary, after all. There is nothing quite so stifling and limiting as poverty, but Aoi was able to rise above it and make enough money to put on the second Nonary Game by playing the stock market. And I strongly suspect that Akane’s ability to exchange information with her future self had something to do with this, because it’s not that easy to get rich from nothing off the stock market without the help of insider trading or psychic powers.

All of this is to say that having these powers can give you control over your own life to a certain extent, and that’s something Eric has none of. Whether it’s from being trapped in a death game or more generally, being unable to change his life for the better, he feels powerless and he lashes out because of it. It’s where his violent temper comes from (and while Aoi is a bit of a hothead, it’s unclear how much of that is an act.)

Look, I know how exceptionally weird it is that in a series about people with cool psychic powers, my favorite character is the one loser without them. But I think it’s largely because of that contrast that I like Eric so much. He’s the best audience surrogate Zero Escape has - like it or not, his reaction is probably the closest to how you would react both to being in a death game and learning about the existence of universe-hopping. And seeing him as a foil to Aoi makes him even more interesting. While the espers are burdened by the fate of humankind, the non-espers are burdened by themselves. And ultimately, which burden is worse?