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likeafairytale · 10 months

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“ I need to talk to my daughter. Alone. ” – Triton to everyone, about Calypso

Morgana, Aeron, and all the guards left as soon as Triton asked it. The only two ones who didn't want to leave were Malachai and Nathaniel, and it was quite normal. In front of them, inside a big aquarium were their little sister who seemed miserable. Her eyes were on her brothers, silently begging them to stay, because it was obvious that she was scared of staying alone with their father. When the High King of the oceans noticed his sons were still behind him, visibly determined to stay in the room, he frowned and looked at them as if they were stupid.

❛What did I just asked.❜

❛It's a family matter, Nathaniel and I sh-❜

❛You both leave. Now.❜

❛Can we take her out of the aquarium, then?❜

❛No. She stays where she is for now.❜

Triton's voice was so firm, it made the boys understood that it wasn't a suggestion, but an order, and no one could go against Triton's orders, not even his sons. Both hesitated, but they knew they couldn't do anything, and it could be worse for their sister if their father is angry. So, against everything, they left the room, leaving Triton and his daughter, alone.

Calypso was hoping her brothers would stay. She knew she was about to be scolded, and she was scared. She'd rather be with Aeron than her father, which showed how much she feared him. Automatically, her eyes were looking for her father's favourite golden dagger, and she was relieved to not see it on him. Quickly, her attention was on her father's face when he started to walk around the room. He said nothing, just walking, sighing from time to time. From her aquarium, Calypso followed him, fearful.

❛Father, I-❜

❛I was always good to you, wasn't I?❜ He suddenly asked, surprising her. She was ready to answer, but he cut her short by raising his finger to silent her. ❛Whatever you wanted, I gave it to you. When you wanted to nurse your brothers after their training because you missed them, I let you do. When you wanted a seahorse, I gave one to you. You took the finest music and singing classes thanks to me. I let you do your little light tricks for my friends, even singing your prettiest songs sometimes, even though it's not a little girl's place to be around lords. It is a secret for no one that you are my favourite daughter, the Realm's delight, and I gave you everything. I only asked for one little thing in return. I had one rule, which was?❜

❛... Not going to the surface...❜

❛Then why did you disobey me?!❜ He screamed, and she jumped with fear. ❛This rule was made to protect every merefolk. I was trying to protect you! From imbeciles, and leeches. Not to mention your own poor judgment.❜

Closing her eyes and hoping to disappear, she tried her best to not cry right now, showing weakness wouldn't be the right way to handle the situation and would probably anger him more. She was hurt by his last comment, and felt ashamed of herself, but she guessed she had it coming. Looking on the ground now, she heard him coming closer to the glass, and instinctively, she backed off while starting to bite her nails, something she always do while anxious.

❛One simple rule and you manage to break it! Wandering is one thing, Calypso, but going to the surface is deadly. Now look at you. Locked behind glasses like a vulgar goldfish.❜

❛I am so sorry, father...❜ The little mermaid managed to whisper while opening her eyes. ❛I didn't know this would happen...❜

❛You should have been cleverer.❜ He snapped back, and all she did was nodded to that. ❛You put all of us in danger. The village knows about the existence of mermaids now.❜

❛But, you can do something, right? So they won't hunt us?❜

❛Sure, I could, and will, erase people memories of you thanks to the trident and a little rain. But I could never trust you anymore, Calypso. Not before years.❜

❛I promise I'll never do it again! I'm sorry, father, I swear I'll stay in the castle!❜

❛Did you enjoy your time in the aquarium?.. I hope so, because this is the last time you will be in seawater before a long time now.❜

❛What? What do you mean?❜

Calypso frowned to his cryptic comment while she came closer to the glass, softly touching it. Her father walked away, which hurt her even more. He called for the guards and while they entered the room, the little mermaid watched as her brothers came too, even if they weren't called. The three of them knew that Triton was aware of their presence, but didn't care about it anymore, now that he had his little chat with his youngest daughter. With just a sign of the hand, he ordered the guards to take her off the aquarium, and Calypso started to panic. She knew she would have to shape-shift, and she knew the pain will be excruciating, and instinctively she tried to hide herself by going to the bottom of the aquarium. But it was too late, one of the man grasped her arm at the last minute, and she was out of the water in no time.

The girl was dreaded that moment, but she knew, deep down, that she couldn't avoid it. As soon as she was on the ground, her fin disappeared to let place to two legs, and as she predicted, the pain was awful. She tried her very best to not scream, but she couldn't help but whine with pain. Immediately, Malachai and Nathaniel came to her, and she rest on the latter's shoulder while he held her. It lasted just a few seconds, but it was like hours in her mind, and the pain was so strong that she felt as if all her strength was gone. She was suddenly tired and all she wanted was to go back home and sleep. Never see Aeron again, and forget about whatever happened here.

Speaking of the devil, Aeron and Morgana entered the room. Even though she tried her best, Calypso couldn't help but looked at her kidnapper, and she frowned when she noticed how grim he was. Maybe he was scolded too, but she didn't have time to think about it further that Triton came closer, helping her to stand up, which was difficult to do. Calypso looked like a little lamb trying to learn how to walk for the first time, which she actually was.

❛Tomorrow you will be wed. To him.❜

❛What?!❜ The three siblings asked in unison, all of them equally confused.

❛You must understand that you have to be punished. That I can't trust you to not do it again, but more importantly, what would the people would say once they'll learn that the High Princess was with a boy on her own for weeks. No respectable lords would want to marry you anymore.❜

❛But I was tricked! I was kidnapped, you cannot do that to me, father, please!❜

❛Father, this is so drastic... Perhaps we should talk about it.❜ Malachai intervened, but Triton brushed it off.

❛Where is your bracelet?❜ The High King suddenly asked, and Calypso, Nathaniel and Malachai looked at her wrist, before she looked at Aeron's one, a look that was followed by her brothers who both gasped.

❛Why did you do that?...❜ Nathaniel whispered to her, but her attention was on their father.

❛We aren't supposed to give our bracelet to any one, you know that. He won't give it back to you, and you surely can't go back home without it. So you're stuck now. On land. With him as your husband.❜

❛I do not want to...❜

❛You do not have the choice!❜ Once again, he raised his voice, which made her jump once again. ❛Plus, let's not forget about the pending war. This could serve us, to have them as allies and not enemies, don't you agree?❜

Calypso said nothing. All she did was sending some death glares to Aeron, who seemed equally annoyed by the situation as she was. Finally, she nodded to her father's words, and he seemed content with this answer, because he backed off and left the room, followed by the guards. The little mermaid wanted to cry now. She wanted to go home, but she understood that she had no home. At least she had nowhere she could call home because for sure, the Fae kingdom won't be that to her. She blamed Aeron for her fate and for kidnapping her in the first place, she blamed her brothers for not finding her sooner, she blamed her father for this decision, and very deep down, she blamed herself for being so stupid and a hopeless romantic, thinking that someone could actually be interested in her.

She left her thoughts when she was suddenly lifting from the ground by Nathaniel, who piggyback her just so she won't have to walk to the inn they were supposed to go, since it was impossible for them to go back to the ocean and be back in time for the wedding for the following day. The girl spent her night silently crying into Nathaniel's arms, cursing the day she met Aeron.

#calypso le fey #calypso x triton #calypso writing prompt #writing prompt #poor baby #i do not like it completely btw #that's how everything started #we hate triton throwing all the 'good thing' he did to her to make him look like a good father #when he truly is the worst #but that show all he did was love bombing her #which is awful #she needs good people and good thing in her life okay #i'm sorry it's long #icanbeyourgenie

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raisindave · 4 months

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[Chapter 18] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

Content Warning: Depictions of violence and sexual harassment.

Stilettos echoed down the carpeted hallways, orienting yourself by following the thumping bass toward the outer decks. Stiff hair from overzealous hairspray made your hair feel more like a helmet that extended over your back, though in this state, any additional armour is welcome. A horrifying shift in your balance caused by underwater motors whirring into action made you splay your hands over the wood-panelled walls, and your eyes swung around to recollect yourself. This boat is no longer a floating extension of the land. It’s headed into the open ocean, temporarily disconnected from the umbrella of the Task Force’s immediate protection. At least you still had the Coast Guard’s shelter, though that could easily be changed if Marín deems it so- and more likely than not, he will.

“Actual, did I hear that correctly?” Ghost’s smooth accent rolled through the microphone in your ear. Has he been listening in the whole time? Have they all been? You don't have time to process how embarrassing that is.

That you were. Soon to be swaying on the stern, waving away safety, under the arms of someone who was an enemy to everything you’ve ever held dear. Though, to be fair, that mainly amounted to a goldfish and your uncle. The boat was speedy for its size, watching in horror masked as awe as the land mass disappeared into a memory on the horizon. Overhearing boastful Spanish banter about hitting 70 knots on this castle of a yacht from Marín across the railing, your heart went still.

“Ah, there’s my dorogoy,” Ogievich extended an arm to you, now standing on the balcony as you watched in horror as the shore drifted away.

“I missed you, my darling,” you responded, sliding under his sweaty arm, “This ship is so confusing,” you pouted.

“You should always be accompanied by a strong man, my baby. You never know what might be lurking out to get ya’,” He muttered in Russian, taking the opportunity to dig his fingertips into your hips in a playful scare, sparking nerves that had been pricking for far too long.

You let out a startled squeal that you played off as the best flirtatious banter you’ve ever seen. Selling this act was your only lifeline. A performance you could win an Oscar for. You couldn’t not come off as a sultry, slightly drunk, high-class Russian whore. Everyone in your proximity was a threat. One slip-up, and you’re doomed to a fate worse than death. Every time you wiped clammy palms on your dress, it came with the need to pull up your dress once again, the frequency of this motion becoming more and more apparent. They're going to notice. They know you're not one of them.

Calm yourself. It’s fine. Some of the best soldiers in the world are probably counting every pore on that fucker’s nose through a sniper right this second. Samantha there has been feeling this way for days, without the protection of an elite task force. Do your job and calm-the-fuck-down.

You caught the image of Samantha in your peripheral, under the arm of Marín. The sweet girl looked miserable. Sunken eyes, raw and dark, told the story of a girl who could scarcely reach a lower low. The look in her eyes when she met your stare again, her brows furrowing in confusion as you held her gaze yet again; it was everything you needed to swallow your nerves and take control of your mind.

Your team was working on a tight clock. If you reached international waters, the Coast Guard's aid came to a hard stop. The aerial exfil option, faster and more efficient, would be eliminated. Satisfied with the send-off, the patrons returned to their libations, drinking and hollering to their heart's delight. Your heart pounded in your ears. This whole operation is now spring-loaded, promising to blow like a jack-in-the-box. The incoming transmission only solidified your inclination.

“Calling all, lethal is not authorized.” Graves loudly piped up through the microphone, his voice stern and cutthroat.

The call made your blood run cold. A chorus of Roger and Yes Sirs echoed through your earpiece that was now connected to the Task Force’s external channel.

“Alfa team is a quarter klick from Tango’s three o’clock.” The familiar Scottish tone of Soap crackled into your ear.

“Bravo on ten, standing by half klick.” Rudy’s voice spoke, the sound of gusting wind nearly drowning his speech.

“Coast Guard mothership a klick out, but standing by with helos,” Laswell added.

Turning over your shoulder, sloshing black waves offered useless inky darkness. Void, chopping waves barely reflecting twinkling stars above, diffused by meandering streaking clouds. Even squinting, it's impossible to see anything meaningful in the lifeless dark. For just a second, a split second, you saw it. A white glint you’d learned to identify from years of service. The glint of a sniper’s scope, impossibly faint, and entirely invisible to the untrained eye.

“My sweet, why don’t we get in the hot tub, hm ?” your company’s voice caught you off guard, hot, putrid breath ghosting over your neck as he spoke.

Disgust washed over you. No. Don’t curl your lip, don’t gnash your teeth.

“I don’t know, I didn’t bring a suit, handsome,” you purred in silky Russian, the softness of your own voice catching yourself off guard.

“A dip in the tub sounds like an excellent idea, eh ladies?” Marín spoke up on your behalf, as if he understood your Russian conversing, an eager voice booming into your conversation. He tightened his grip on Samantha, squeezing her tight, her eyes raising to you lifelessly.

“I’ll have to get changed, my heart,” you concurred in Russian, “You said I shouldn’t go alone. Can I bring this one to the lady's room? You know how girls like to move in groups.” Your voice was soft and seductive, pouting your lips as you spoke.

“How could I ever say no, my baby.” He murmured in Russian to your ear, raising his head from your proximity to speak to the group, “The girls will get changed and be back.”

Marín seemed displeased by the thought, his mind clearly working over Ogievich’s words. Dreadful silence fell over the conversation, save for the deafening music blaring from towering speakers. After the pause, he relented, flicking his hand in a dismissive wave and releasing his vice on the target. This is your chance.

Extending your hand with a smooth grin, giddily giggling, you took Samantha’s hand, squealing like a schoolgirl as you led her into the indoor section, skipping with delight. Dodging the nearest bathroom, you instead opted for the farther option, meeting confused resistance from the target. Pushing her past you into the bathroom, you flickered your eyes up and down the hallway before whipping the heavy door shut. Her face met yours with furrowed eyes, grey eyes trying to make sense of you.

“Samantha,” you breathed, standing tall, dropping the feigned higher-pitched tone of a girl speaking in front of men.

She looked more shocked, eyes growing wild with confusion, brows lowering further as she took a step backward, fumbling against the sink.

“I’m a federal agent. I know your family. We’re bringing you home.” your eyes pleaded for her to make sense of your actions.

Her mouth opened like she was trying to speak, not even a breath coming from her cracked lips as her face contorted with uncertainty. She nervously raised her fingers to her ears, her back flush to the back wall.

“Squink,” you breathed, recalling the familiar nickname, and crossing your forearms over your chest in the mimed hug motion Laswell insisted she’d recognize.

Like the flick of a light switch, her face dropped. Lips barely parted, air crackling with recognition as she took a long moment’s pause. Then a belligerent, gut-wrenching sob poured from her throat. In a matter of seconds, her face was slick with tears, hiccuping and clutching to your biceps as you saw her knees buckle under her. Her grip was like a vice on your arm, lacking the energy to keep her head up, her neck craning as she wailed at the floor in anguish.

“What’s going on in there?” A patron you didn’t recognize spoke up through the door, his voice hot with irritation, “What’re you doing to her?”

A flash of movement. The flimsy door locks were no match, and he flung the door open, snatching your wrist and dragging you into the hall, feeling your cheek collide with the smooth walls. Reeling, you turned to meet a tall man in a beige suit, pupils dilated to saucers, the definite consequence of drug consumption.

He approached you quickly. The furious eyes of a man seething toward you made your hackles raise, weighing your odds of a physical altercation. He has the size and the range of motion, but you have the skill and finesse. If you were quick, you could lead with a pump-fake punch, and hit him with a solid groin kick. The tightness of your skirt could hinder your accuracy. All thoughts of violence were snuffed when you spotted it. When he lifted his arm to point to you in his approach. The pistol on his belt holster. Plan B: go limp.

“I- She get nervous. I talk to her. Five minute,” you murmured in fractured English, mirroring the syntax of a Russian attempting to speak English rapidly.

His fury didn’t waver. In a second, his hand was on the scruff of your dress, gripping the tight nylon with crushing force, forcing all air from your lungs.

A deafening crash. Vision goes black. Your own cold fingertips dig into your palm, and you realize you are still conscious. Opening your eyes, there stood Samantha. Squink. A Wall lamp she had wrenched free had been crashed over the back of the head of the suited assailant. Your eyes flashed up to hers, her eyes wild and terrified. The energy in the room became electric with trepidation.

“Cricket, take the target to the B2 engine room. Take the staff corridor at your six. Stand by for further details. Alfa-Bravo, move in.” Laswell’s voice calmly ordered into your ear.

“Engage, engage, engage. ” Price’s voice boomed through the mic.

The passage of time stopped. Analyze. The body, the gun, the girl. Move. Muscles aren’t moving. Go. Go. Go.

Practiced hands flickered over his belt, rolling his limp body. Palming the steely luxury embellished revolver, you flicked the revolving chamber in a familiar motion. Unloaded. Fuck. Move the body, the body, the body. He’s breathing, but soon to wake. Heaving with every ounce of strength, kneeling in stilettos, making your balance uneven, your blood surged with adrenaline and sheer vivacity. Propping the heavy patron upright in a seated position, you raised your crouched gaze to Samantha. Her face is a picture of raw horror, but still looking at you like you were a tall glass of water in the Sahara desert.

“Come. Now.” your voice surging from your throat was raw and husky.

Pistol in hand, drawn as if it were loaded, you weaved through the staff corridor, the clacks of high heels flurrying down double-backing steel stairs echoing over the iron walls. Samantha’s heaving breath behind was a welcome sound, swinging the pistol down adjacent hallways to rapidly identify any personnel, wherever present. Another staircase. B2, and there’s the engine room. That’s the hideout. Cranking frigid iron under calm, trained fingertips, winding the wheel of the latching door and ushering the target inside, then pushing the door shut behind you and rewinding the latch.

“Target is in position. Standing by,” you spoke into your bangle, receiving stern confirmation from overwatch.

Panic had long subsided, now replaced by unbreakable willpower and skillful diligence, instincts that had been long since drilled into you through years of practice. Your head was on a swivel, nerves electric with expectation, catching the inaudible pattering of a rat behind the churning engine. The gun that rested in your palms, much like the entirety of your role in this mission, was entirely for show. Decorated, with the appearance of being lethal, but lacking any of the capacity to actually control any situation. All bark, no action. That’s what your life has been. The appearance of control is all a thin illusion in the name of keeping up appearance. Devoid of all agency, a victim whomever’s hands were on you for the current circumstances.

“Cricket, approaching your position,” Gaz’s voice entered your ear, offering a momentary opportunity to hear chopping helicopters through his microphone.

“Roger,” your voice responded without even recognizing it as your own.

Eyes caught Samantha’s again. Her face was pale, void, with flickering eyes. She stood crouched in the corner beside you, still armed with the lamp from earlier, now significantly bent. A softness washed over you, and a new instinct flooded into your skull.

“We’re getting you out of here, Squink,” you breathed, nodding in her direction.

Her face contorted, scrunching into a raw, ugly cry that she had clearly been holding for days. Weeks. Though you weren’t in the clear yet, something said that she deserved to die with a little hope in her system if things did go south. A knock at the door. Gentle tapping that made both of your heads snap to attention.

“Grant,” the muffled voice of Price called from behind the steel.

Cranking the door open once again, you were met with an unfamiliar sight. Price, and who you assumed to be Gaz, were outfitted with heavy gas masks and steel tanks of reserved oxygen protruding from the mouthpiece. Recognition clicked, and you holstered your gun down the front of your dress and whipped Samantha’s mask to her, sliding your own over your face. Leading down the winding halls, the upper deck was mortifyingly silent despite the thrumming music still audible from your position. Practiced crouching soldiers flickered the signature red munitions of non-lethal beanbags, firearm flashlights swinging to check every corner. The upper deck was a blur of yellowish fog, seeing waving lights of neighbouring firearms flickering over you as you approached. A blinding spotlight overwhelmed all senses, squeezing your eyes shut as they scrambled to adjust from the darkness you had previously inhabited, as chopping helicopter blades overwhelmed your remaining senses.

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mamahersh · 2 years

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Don’t have much to say about mag 177-179. I was already spoiled on what would happen with Basira, though I did spend of all 177 thinking: “Wow! Gaslighting the Hospital is definitely a new one!” I think that’s the most normal Spiral statement we’ve had yet tbh.

The Flesh processing center in 178 def was interesting: the implied worse ways to be processed and only just trying to be useful and yet failing anyways... I dunno, something about the rather unsubtle message about underpaid hourly work in a capitalistic greed way but at the same time pointing out how it was fueled by the inherent desire to be wanted (or in this case, useful).

And of course, Basira having to kill Daisy. I had managed to forget what Jon sounds like in pain, and after S3-4 I’d say that reflects more on my goldfish memory than anything else. This series truly was written for the Tumblrinas in the audience I swear...

In any case, off we go towards the last half of the season! Still on track for listening to 198-200 the day before we’re supposed to get the announcement, so the hype is still real.

#tma #tma s5 spoilers #the magnus archives liveblog #mag 177 #mag 178 #mag 179

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bonmonjour · 1 year

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Some Thoughts

“A few years ago, I was in DC in the summer. The week of July 4th, to be specific. On America’s Independence Day, I was on the wharf, a few miles south of the Mall. This was during Trump’s presidency, and this year, he had decided he wanted his own military parade. There, on the wharf, the most I saw of that was the planes. I saw Air Force One fly by, though I didn’t get a picture. At one point, a few fighter jets flew over and it was at that moment that my outlook changed completely. “The wharf on that day was not a war zone but hearing those jets and feeling how they hurt my ears, I pictured what hell those in the Middle East must live through. Imagine those planes and the bombers flying over your land, over your house, day after day for years. Imagine a star of metal, falling from the sky and lighting your neighborhood ablaze. Imagine the sound and sight of those buildings collapsing, the rubble falling. The things that are usually relegated to the newspaper once before moving on with their lives suddenly became real for a second. “That is the reality for the millions living in occupied zones all around the world. In Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and (most relevant to the past week) Palestine.”

I wrote that more than two years ago at this point (writing October 9th, 2023) and unfortunately it still holds true. It was the week that the IDF shot worshippers in Al Aqsa during Ramadan, and civilians chanted “may their names be erased.” I think the reason I never finished what I started writing last time is because I bit off more than I could chew. I was all over the place, frankly. With this, I hope to talk about what Palestine is like, what this conflict is about as far as I understand it, (de)colonization, settlers and violence, and perhaps end with some thoughts on propaganda and the international “community.”

This week, Gaza broke down its prison walls. War has broken out, Netanyahu has promised genocide on the captive population of Gaza, and the international press stands against Palestine. All too predictably. Many, incredibly many, official statements include the word “unprovoked” in their descriptions of Palestine’s rebellion. For some reason, perhaps even intentionally, no one’s memory can be bothered to be longer than that of a goldfish. The very state of Gaza’s existence today is horrid proof of Israel’s wrath–the open satisfaction of its anger and hatred against the people it dispossessed.

I don’t even have to go back to 1948 to find examples of cruelty, nor to 2014. Nor really to 2021, but I wrote this then and I’m re-using it. The second week of May 2021 began with the seizure of Sheikh Jarrah by Israeli settlers. Imagine if, one moment, you’re sitting in your house, and the next, your door’s been broken, and an Israeli family starts moving in. You try to argue, they harass you. Attack you. Force you to the streets. They break the shop windows and burn the buildings. These aren’t terrorists working for some shadowy organization, these are average everyday Israeli men and women who participate in this theft. On top of the seizures, Israel controls Palestine’s food, their mud that passes for water, their electricity, and their movement. ("I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly." —Yaov Gallant) They could be bombed at any hour of night or day without warning. Residents are frequently subject to the whim of Israeli military and police; they are always at risk of physical violence, lethal and sexual. The whole of Gaza has been blockaded since 2005. 44% of its population is under 15 years of age, with a further 21% being 15-24 years old. Half of Gaza’s population has lived their entire life–their entire development–inside this open-air slaughterhouse, never having been allowed to venture out.

What’s perhaps even worse is that the children trapped there are used to it. Two years ago, there was a video going around of a little girl jumping on her trampoline while in the left of the video, a building goes up in flames with thunder ascending from the earth. She kept on jumping. This literal hell, this world of fire in the sky and brimstone on earth, is the only one they’ve ever known. What happens to the ears when all one hears are bombs exploding, guns firing, jackboots marching, and children crying? What happens to the eyes when all one sees is stars of fire and brimstone on earth; structures falling and your impending death a furlong in front of you? What happens to the mouth and stomach when the food is dung and the water is mud? And to call that just another Thursday takes an inhuman, immorally inflicted amount of desensitization. Each day, nay, each hour, you hear of how so and so many kids were killed in such and such a bombing. Those kids had families, mother and father, brothers and sisters, they had dreams and hopes. They wanted to live, and they were snuffed out, and relegated to being a statistic in the morning paper that peoples’ eyes skip over. Even right now, Israel orders houses, apartments, schools, and hospitals be bombarded. White phosphorus has gotten involved.

These hellish conditions are part of the reason for why Palestinians even fight: freedom from that. This conflict that has raged for over 70 years now has never been about religion, as some might be inclined to believe. It is not a simple story of Jews contesting the Holy Land with Muslims. Yes, no one should ever forget the atrocities of the Holocaust committed against Jews, but Jews are not immune from fascism–no group of people is. From its very inception, Zionism was meant to be a colonialist project intended to drive out the mostly non-Jewish Palestinians, settle the land, and create a Jewish nation-state. When you have a nation (ein Volk) and a state (ein Reich), it shouldn’t come as a surprise when eventually someone decides to complete the quote. On the other hand, Palestine is not all Muslims. There are plenty of Palestinians of other religions, most notable for European Christendom, Christians. If this were strictly a religious war, a crusade for the Holy Land, why would European Christians, many of whom are anti-semites (let’s face it), side against Christians in the Holy Land? Just as Spanish colonialism was never about which god the Aztecs should worship, the conflict in Palestine was never about which of Abraham’s children should get exclusive right to live there. I have not seen many liberals come at it from the religion angle, but for the few that do, they always side with Israel because to them Islam is a barbaric backward religion that murders queer people and rapes women, and so why should they support that. Almost always, they end up being ridiculously racist, and the one I had the misfortune of seeing was arguing with a Muslim woman.

Israel is a settler-colonialist state founded on the dispossession of Indigenous people. As such, the only way forward for Palestine is decolonization. Eve Tuck and K.W. Yang’s 2012 paper, “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” gives the definition of settler-colonialism, what it entails in terms of relations, and its incommensurability with other social justice movements.

Settler colonialism operates through internal/external colonial modes simultaneously because there is no spatial separation between the metropole and the colony. For example, in the United States, many Indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed from their homelands onto reservations [mirroring the removal of Palestinians from their homes into Gaza or the West Bank], indentured, and abducted into state custody, signaling the form of colonization as simultaneously internal… and external… with a frontier… The horizons of the settler colonial nation-state are total and require a mode of total appropriation of Indigenous life and land, rather than the selective expropriation of profit-producing fragments (5). Land is what is most valuable, contested, required. This is both because the settlers make Indigenous land their new home and source of capital, and also because the disruption of Indigenous relationships to land represents a profound epistemic, ontological, cosmological violence. This violence is not temporally contained in the arrival of the settler but is reasserted each day of occupation. This is why Patrick Wolfe (1999) emphasizes that settler colonialism is a structure and not an event (5). In order for the settlers to make a place their home, they must destroy and disappear the Indigenous peoples that live there… For the settlers, Indigenous peoples are in the way and, in the destruction of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous communities, and over time and through law and policy, Indigenous peoples’ claims to land under settler regimes, land is recast as property and as a resource. Indigenous peoples must be erased, must be made into ghosts (6).

Basically, what these passages illustrate is that due to Israel’s very nature as settler-colonialist, apartheid ends up being the only situation. Israel lays claim over the whole land, but as long as a pocket of Palestine exists, it exists as a colony within Israel’s contiguous claim. Thus, Palestinians are turned into colonial subjects, subject to different law than that of the metropole. To make this relatable to Americans, many of the indictments against George III are the unfair application of the legal system between Britain itself and the colonies across the Atlantic. In the region, if an Israeli and an Arab commit the same crime, they are subject to different laws in different legal systems: the Israeli to civil court, and the Arab to military court.

Furthermore, it’s not just the internal colonialism of Arabs that Israel is interested in, such as “segregation, divestment, surveillance, and criminalization.” No, Israel needs Palestinian land as well, for lebensraum and for capital. The violence of this (recent, remember Sheikh Jarrah) settlement is reasserted every day that the settlers remain settled, and the Indigenous people remain dispossessed. The need for land as lebensraum also necessitates the total elimination of Indigenous peoples from the land “because the presence of Indigenous peoples–who make a priori claims to land and ways of being–is a constant reminder that the settler colonialist project is incomplete” (Tuck and Yang 9). That is, the very existence of Palestinians is a daily reminder to the Zionists that Zionism is incomplete. Thus, the only way to complete Zionism, to complete the project of a “Jewish homeland,” is for Palestinians to be made into ghosts.

They go on to say the following about decolonization:

In this set of settler colonial relations, colonial subjects who are displaced by external colonialism, as well as racialized and minoritized by internal colonialism, still occupy and settle stolen Indigenous land. Settlers are diverse, not just of white European descent [or European Jewish, in this case], and include people of color, even from other colonial contexts. This tightly wound set of conditions and racialized, globalized relations exponentially complicates what is meant by decolonization, and by solidarity, against settler colonial forces… Decolonization in a settler context is fraught because empire, settlement, and internal colony have no spatial separation (7). Though the details are not fixed or agreed upon, in our view, decolonization in the settler colonial context must involve the repatriation of land simultaneous to the recognition of how land and relations to land have always already been differently understood and enacted; that is, all of the land, and not just symbolically. This is precisely why decolonization is necessarily unsettling, especially across lines of solidarity. “Decolonization never takes place unnoticed” (Fanon, 1963, p. 36). Settler colonialism and its decolonization implicates and unsettles everyone (7).

What they mean here is that real geopolitics is complicated. There is no one demographic that is completely the victim or completely the perpetrator. In the US, there have been many, many people who came here fleeing from hard times in their own countries or were brought over to face a hard time in this country. It doesn’t matter what non-Indigenous group it is (the Africans who were stolen to be slaves, and their descendants; the Irish, Italians, Swedes, Germans, Poles; immigrants from China, Japan, India; refugees from Central America and the Middle East), they are still settled on stolen Indigenous land. They are still settlers. And so, it doesn’t really matter who lives in Israel, how they got there, or why they came, because ultimately, they settled there on stolen Palestinian land and thereby continue the everyday settler-colonialist violence against Palestinians.

Tuck and Yang further bring up the complication of immigration. Basically, immigrants must abide by pre-existing laws; settlers upend pre-existing laws. As an immigrant in Canada, I do not establish my own laws, I have to abide by Canadian law. The settlers who came here hundreds of years ago did not abide by pre-existing laws of the Indigenous peoples. And even in me having to abide by Canadian law, I am upending the pre-existing Indigenous laws. Israeli settlers in Palestine do not follow the pre-existing laws of the Palestinians, they bring their own law with them. Immigrants who come to live in Israel have to follow the Israeli settlers’ laws (and be complicit in the upending of laws and ways of being that went before.)

I think this is one of the reasons why decolonization is such a fraught issue, incommensurable with many other social justice movements. To me, decolonization is a non-negotiable that every colonized people deserve. My own great-grandfather, who I knew for about 6 years, was probably one of the worst people I’ve known: he yelled at me, he was mean to my grandma, he was apparently a physically abusive father. Despite all his flaws that I would never defend, he was born and grew up under British colonialism. Even he deserved to have Britain’s knee off his neck. I’ve seen quite a few posts I can bring up here.

Many people, usually liberals, are offended at the mere suggestion of supporting Palestine because apparently Palestinians (just in general, I guess. Twitter: where nuance goes to die) are racist, they’re misogynists, they have a barbaric religion, they hate queer people, and on and on and on. I frankly don’t give a single shit. I don’t care if they were even the rudest, meanest, ugliest people on the planet interpersonally. For the sake of argument, even if every Palestinian was a barbaric racist, sexist, and queerphobe, they would still not “deserve” Israeli colonialism. Being colonized is not some punishment doled out by the colonizers for some flaw of character. J.K. Rowling is a horrible, wretched woman responsible not only for crimes against humanity (the Harry Potter books /j), but also for spreading her vile transphobia all across Britain and the rest of the world. Even on her, I would not wish rape. Because it’s not some punishment for flaw of character. It is easy enough to fight for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to fight for the miserable and corrupt.

On the other hand, I’ve also seen some people defending Israelis (is that the right phrase?) by pointing to anecdotes about how nice the Israelis they know are. I’m sure they’re sweet, kind people who say nice things to you, and bring you gifts and knick-knacks and so forth. They’re still settlers on Palestinian land. Not to compare everything to the Nazis, but I’m sure many, many German citizens who moved to SS-occupied Poland as part of the Race and Resettlement Bureau’s initiative were good and fine citizens if you knew them. They probably greeted you friendly, threw parties, gave gifts, and so forth. And yet, they were complicit in the actions of the Reich. My own grandma is one of the nicest people I know. Frankly, she spoils me whenever I visit. She’s nice to all her grandchildren, she gives us all gifts and money, she’s well respected in her community. She still thinks “Hitler wasn’t that bad” (real quote) and supports Modi’s BJP. Even the nicest people can be complicit in horrible violence, and even the most wretched can be victims of that violence. Personality and attitude mean absolutely nothing.

One thing that all this discourse around settlers seems to take for granted is that the situation in Anglo countries today is at all anything like Israel/Palestine today. The people who throw out strawmen about “if the Native Americans started decolonizing, should they gun you down too?” and the people who say “Yes” both seem to hold to that. The reality is that in the Anglo countries, most of the settlement was done hundreds of years ago. All the Native land has already been divided up and settled by the White men, the freed slaves, the European migrants looking to get their free acres. The Homestead Act and Dominion Lands Act were passed more than 150 years ago. For settlers and recent immigrants who buy land today, they buy it from another settler/immigrant, and so on. No, the situation in Israel/Palestine is much more akin to the first European settlers that came to the New World in the 15th and 16th centuries. There is a reason Opechancanough and his men killed 347 people in Jamestown. Maybe it wasn’t justified, but they did have reasons. Maybe another example is the German settlers in SS-occupied Poland. Their very presence, very settlement, in Germany’s eastern occupations was predicated on the resettlement of the Poles that were there before elsewhere.

And let’s be honest, it’s not like the average Israeli citizen is the paragon of morality. Israeli civilians chanted from the Book of Judges “may their names be erased” when Al Aqsa mosque was thought to be on fire during Ramadan. Civilian children signed missiles meant for Lebanon. Ordinary civilians are largely the ones seizing Palestinians’ homes. It was civilians treating the massacre of Gaza as “the best reality show in town.” It’s Israeli civilian settlers calling for lynchings in occupied Jerusalem. I could sit here, safe in Canada, saying Palestine should’ve done this or that, but I am not the victim of Israel’s daily violence. I will not make grand-standing moral judgments on how the victims of colonialist abuse should respond to their abusers. I could debate whether an Algerian child wanting to cut a Frenchman into pieces was morally right, but I can’t deny that there were very real and valid psychological conditions for the child wanting that.

Someone also brought up the notion of “sins of the father” and I think that’s very interesting to think about. In general, I say it’s not very leftist to blame children for their parents. Children are not their parents’ property, nor are they responsible for something done before they were even born. But as I’ve mentioned, settler colonialism is a structure. It doesn’t matter whether you personally went out and killed a Native and stole his land, you live on stolen Native land nevertheless. You materially benefit from your ancestors’ settlement and perpetuate settler-colonialist violence. Without any notion of “sins of the father,” projects like reparations or LANDBACK do not make any sense. After all, who am I to give this land back to the Musqueam, I didn’t take it. I think perhaps a comparison to other structures like patriarchy or white-ness might be apt here. Even though any given man might never have committed violence against a woman to explicitly maintain patriarchy, nevertheless he benefits from the structure of patriarchy. I did not come up with laws or social norms treating women as lesser, but still I inherit them and am responsible (at least in part) for what happens to them: whether they are perpetuated or abolished. A white person living today never invented the concept of race, played no part in coming up with concepts of racial supremacy or polygenism, but still they materially and psychologically benefit from being white in a world where white people are still at the top at the expense of others. However, despite the complicated web of relations involved in settler-colonialism, the fact of the matter is that no one chooses to be born a white man, but many a white men have chosen to be settlers. Or in this case, nobody chooses to be born Jewish, but many Jews have chosen to settle.

I keep coming back to this quote from Gerrard Winstanley, a proto-communist writing during the time of land enclosures in England:

The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures, men, and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to you, their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword; and so you justify the wicked deeds of your fathers, and that sin of your fathers shall be visited upon the head of you and your children to the third and fourth generation, and longer too, till your bloody and thieving power be rooted out of the land. (A Declaration, p. 2)

Notice that he does not say, “till you, bloody thief, be rooted out of the land.” No, he says, “the power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword” and “that sins of your fathers shall be visited upon the head of you and your children… till your bloody and thieving power be rooted out of the land.” The power of settler-colonialism is what needs to be rooted out, not necessarily the people.

Palestine’s only main way out is violent rebellion because no peaceful supplication will ever be satisfying to Israel or its friends. Israel doesn’t want a subjugated Palestine; it wants an extinct Palestine. And also, a note on terminology, under Israeli law, every resident of Palestine is a combatant. Every bit of violence in the name of resistance Palestinians do can be labeled as the action of combatants. Palestinians are often called “terrorists,” and Palestinian resistance “terrorism.” The word itself means nothing. Groups like ISIS, the Taliban, Hezbollah, etc. can all be called terrorists. As can the US government. And so can the protestors fighting against Cop City or against pipelines. Thus, the usage of “terrorism” gives a very easy way for anti-Palestinian people to portray their resistance-violence as akin to ISIS-violence. These takes often come from those who think Hamas is Palestine or statements like “What did you think decolonization was going to look like?” are blanket excuses for war crimes.

All that said, rape and the indiscriminate killing of children is morally reprehensible and should be condemned equally. I say “equally” because Israel massacres Palestinian children everyday, and commits sexual violence against Palestinian men and women, boys and girls. And yet, there is never any international outrage at these daily occurrences. After all, Palestinians are not human, right, why should we care? I don’t know if the video of the woman in the back of the truck is real. If it is, then obviously Hamas’ actions should be condemned. Hamas is not a paragon of virtue either: they’re a right-wing anti-communist Islamic fundamentalist organization that openly wants to kill Jews. They should not be praised for who they are. But still, they are the enemy Israel created for itself. Even today, they threatened to air the killing of civilian hostages.

However, funnily enough, that woman is the only incident I’ve heard brought up against Palestinian rebellion. Every day Israeli men rape Palestinian women, and I don’t see the outrage online. But when those ‘barbaric’ Palestinians might have done it, suddenly the whole timeline is equating “support for Palestine” as “support for rape and beheading and etc.” This, even though many Palestinians say the evidence is lacking. I do think a part of this selective outrage is the racism involved. Palestinians fighting against their oppressors are “terrorists;” Ukrainians fighting against theirs are brave warriors. Israeli war crimes are downplayed; Palestinian groups’ war crimes are blown up to “those brown savages are coming for our women”-levels of racist. The number of posts I've seen along the lines of “Palestinians are sand-dwelling rape monkeys” is so incredibly disheartening. In short: war crimes are bad; Hamas and Israel both doing war crimes is bad; resorting to racist caricature to criticize Palestinian groups is also bad. The unfortunate reality is that pretty much every armed force has partaken in sexual violence against women and children. This does not change the validity of the cause they fight for. Sexual violence is not legitimized by anti-colonialist causes, nor does it delegitimize the causes.

I’ll end this by just mentioning how none of the violence that Israel does ever matters to those outside. Israel can commit flagrant war crimes–collective punishment, executions, rape, white phosphorus–and receive no backlash from the leadership or media in its ally countries. Israel knows that it can do this with total impunity. It can steal homes and massacre children on camera, have that video footage published by major outlets and still expect no punishment. Not even a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to. It’s that same gall, that same flagrant arrogance that allowed them to literally bomb and collapse a building that housed the offices for the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and others back in 2021. It truly speaks to the effectiveness of their propaganda and the sickness of their ideology that other press outlets will voluntarily cuck themselves by defending Israel in attacking their fellow journalists. The amount of brain worms it takes to look at reality, refuse to accept it because it doesn’t fit your preconceptions, invent a fictional narrative, and then accuse the victims of being the real aggressors is truly staggering. Israel will constantly play up their “right to self-defense” so that people will sympathize with them, and they will accuse anyone critical of them of antisemitism. No matter what Israel does, the reaction will always be “Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop,” without an ounce of support for Palestine’s right to not be wiped off the face of the earth.

#own post #palestine

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astriexxe · 1 year

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Newsies thoughts by my slightly frazzled post-bewsies brain with my goldfish memory and inability to use words

- someone (I really wish I could remember who but it was right near the start and so much has happened since) dropped an apple. Like he threw it in the air and just did not catch it.

- Morgan was on for Albert!!! And that was very good I did enjoy that

- sitting in Brooklyn I finally got a good view of splasher getting given the coffee

- Lindsay Katherine!!!!! She gave Katherine *so much* personality I loved it she was just so good I really loved her watch what happens it was amazing.

- the guys smashed it as girlsies

- what happened to splint Bobbie was on as Hannah but no splint?? (Splint's her newsie right? I'm doubting myself now I'm so tired)

- the kid we had was so good like so sweet but also I understood like every word he said which is always a good thing

- IM SO MAD AT MY BAD MEMORY I WANT TO REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL AND I JUST CANT

- sitting this close I could really just see the emotion in Santa Fe prologue and that was really amazing

- I don't remember it being a thing before recently but I might have just missed it. Davey says the "auspicious manner" line in like a sing song voice and whoever responds (I think it was Henry?? But also I don't remember it being Henry last time I'm going insane why is my memory so bad) like mimics it and that's so good

- George is shorter than I thought he was

- letter from the refuge <3

- someone messed up a line in king of new york and honestly the kid was amazing there was a moment where everyone was like wait huh but then the kid just got on with hit line like nothing happened

- Davey and Jack's interaction after Jack meets Roosevelt is just the best

- the zipline when your in Brooklyn is something else as are the lights in kony

- Mireia Medda <3

- Ryan's Davey <3 I think I'll make a post about Davey

I'm gonna make a better post when I'm feeling less generally weird (it's been A Day) and hopefully I'll be able to remember more and put it into better words. Chances are my lacking abilities to remember which newsies say which lines get worse tho

#newsies uk

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residentdormouse · 1 year

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You Can’t Take these Words From Me

(Or you couldn’t if I had them in the first place…)

@mrsmungus - terribly sorry for the delay yet again. I fear I am getting bad at this. (I need to make better habits.) I was hoping to refresh my memory, since it has been a long time since I watched Firefly/Serenity, and goldfish brain is a killer. But alas, no go on anything streaming here. I just have a fuzzy memory of my love for Kaylee and the fabulous banter. And River’s fight… god that final fight in the movie lives rent free in my brain. Just… just…

It's beautiful... (Did I mention I love fight choreography?)

My Words: Floral, Fuzzy, Food, Far, Firefly

Your Words: Fantastic, Bad, Wolf, Spoilers, Run

Off on the next journey?

Floral

Ten percent of nothing is…. I got nothing sorry.

Fuzzy

The divide between them highlighted further as the group turned to look at him. Unsure where the urge came from, but recognizing its presence, Lloyd raised his arm, vape extended in a silent offer for the kid to join the group. Since Dinny discovered the floor provided effortless access to cuddling with the fuzzy pup, and Tom proved to be infinitely more pleasant company than he offered currently, the seat next to him sat vacant and Lloyd did a small nod towards it.

With quick observation, Harold sized up the object, shrugging.

“...why not?”

Slinking over to the open chair, he flopped down, taking possession of the pen with a forced half smile and a mirrored nod. One puff. Too long. Took way more than what he was prepared for. In the next moment, Harold began hacking up smoke.

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Bateman? You smoke this shit all the time?!"

"Hey, you picked it out."

“Yes, I’m sure the exact type is really making the difference.”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

Despite the somber surroundings, Lloyd had to hold back a chuckle as the two of them started squabbling back and forth. Maybe he wouldn't be the black sheep of the group. As much as he liked the attention at first, the role had gotten old, and the outcome was always the same. More pain, more isolation. Chasing the next high.

Food

Glen had thought everything out, but she couldn't say she was overly surprised. He wasn't the type to halfheartedly jump into things without due diligence. Cooking was a fine example of that as well, and he had out done himself today. She listened intently as she ate, taking in all the different meditation techniques he had looked into.

It wasn't long after the food was gone, and the table cleared, that they both found themselves sitting down by the fire, ready to start practicing.

She closed her eyes, and listened to Glen as he guided her through some posture changes and breathing adjustments. Shoulders up, back, down. Long exhale. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Soft knock at the door.

Her concentration broke completely at the second repetition of the noise, which was a bit louder this time, more insistent. She groaned as she stood up, while Glen set the book he was referencing to the side. She gave him an apologetic smile as he jokingly grumbled about 'best laid plans'.

Far

(Three in one section. Kind of made it hard not to pick just for the sheer proximity..)

The front door closed softly, and she felt Glen sit down next to her before he placed a hand on her back. “I’m sorry…”

A haze had already washed over her, and while his close proximity gave an added comfort, she couldn’t shake it away. “What happened?”

“I pushed it too far. Pushed you too far.” His hand dropped as he leaned back into the couch. Sadness did not suit him, and she felt it pulling at her chest. The feeling affected her worse than the haze.

Mood diversion attempt initiated.

“You, push something too far? Nah, can’t be.”

She gave him a cheeky smile that he somewhat returned, but it never met his eyes. Well, she tried.

Firefly

Another fail at finding this. Ooph. Bad browncoat.

#Mouse's tag games and reblogs #Mouse and Miranda are back on their bullshit #To the next fandom #Allons-y

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asmrrpaddict · 20 days

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Please ignore.

What do you do when your logic brain has beaten your emotional side to a bloody pulp and 90% of the time all you feel is either numb, annoyance, or sadness and then it builds a wall around your emotions and they start to shut down? Logic brain as in keeping track of appointments and work schedules and information that had never entered your mind before even though you have less than the attention span and memory of a goldfish on pot, but you know you can’t stop because you’ve barely scratched the surface of the beginning of a very long road and someone else is counting on you and you try not to make them worry about you and how your doing because they are going through something worse and even though they internalize they expect you not to even though you’re the introvert who already keeps your emotions to a minimum. And AND even though they have a thing, their plan to stop the thing that caused the thing doesn’t work when they ask me to go buy them more of the thing that’s causing the thing. And you can’t tell people outside of family and a few others they have the thing because they’re embarrassed because they did the thing that caused the thing, and they’re worried about the judgment they’ll receive, but you know people are going to look at the things that caused the thing, they are going to worry about the thing! And all you want is someone to hold you and tell you everything will be OK and that you’re doing a good job, but you don’t have to be strong with them and this person is not the person with the thing or your loving supportive family because you selfishly want someone who is there only for you because it’s not the first time you’ve dealt with something like this and you didn’t have that person then and you don’t have that person now.

*Looks at my sentence structure: “You have a bachelor’s degree in English and you made this monstrosity?” My high school English teacher is rolling in her grave.

Wow, this started as a simple one question post.

Kind of snowballed there a little.

😮‍💨

I’m sorry.

I needed a safe space to vent where no one knows me irl. And I do have things that make me happy like my family and online acquaintances who make me laugh and kept me above water during my worst week. I know this makes no sense. Please ignore, I’m all good. 👍

#i’m okay

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moonshrewed · 2 years

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my last supper...?

i distinctly remember my last day of being a christian, i was 15 and often not going to church anymore. the main house sermons were annoying and i was pretty much an angsty mental teen going through shit.

my christian mom had always told me that i had a choice in life of whether i wanted to go down that path of christianity or something new altogether. i was pretty lucky to have that kind of support cause i know theres others worse off than i had it.

anyways, there was a point where i wanted to atleast try to be christian like her and i went one sunday morning to the youth group. ah yes, the youth group. full of angsty, masking teens who were trying to find their place in the world while dealing with their own crap shit at home. well it was at a point where the spread lgbtq was just barely starting to make me understand more about people and life, especially since i had a feeling that there was the big gay among us teens but closeted. but since i was taught from a young age that being gay will send you to hell, i never considered it for myself to be one.

so that sunday morning, in context the two youth pastors were really nice, like super open about stuff and how everyone felt. these two pastors were the reason why i’d want to go to church. there were two, a man and a woman. lets call the man Jason and the woman Julia. now jason wasn’t there that morning, and he was the one that everyone liked. we had games hosted by him, nights of ‘christian dares’ like doing those weird food challanges like banana and sprite or doing the telephone games, ping pong and i think someone swallow a live goldfish at some point too. anyways, jason wasn’t preaching that morning, so all we had was julia. julia was nice too, but she wasn’t as proactive like jason was but she seemed to have a good heart. well, seemed at the very least.

julia began her sunday preach and we were all listening, mind you i never had any friends there but my older sister was more apart of the group when she was home. julia began the prayer stuff and i think asked us to pull out our bibles. while i can’t fully recall what happened before or after the preach, what i do remember her saying was this

“As you know, god and the bible says that it’s a sin to be gay and that you’ll go to hell if you do.”

my mind went blank, and ultimately all the trust that i had in her disappeared as my memories and church trauma triggered every kid pastor that taught me that if you werent a christian then you’d go to hell, and how i would cry to my mom and dad about how the rest of our family, who most were very good people, would go to hell. though my mother often reassured me they wouldn’t, it still stuck with the emotions of it all. and Julia, that fucking bitch julia, all of my rage reminded me of why i don’t like christianity. i remember thinking, “How could she say that? any of the teens here could be gay and you just say that knowing us?? I could be gay!!” and while i didn’t truly know myself to, later on, realize myself as aegosexual, i do remember my hatred for julia, and after that i never went back to that church ever again.

anyways, just goes to show how much you think you know someone, but they just end up being all the same.

#LGBTQIA #religion #christianity #'take me to church' never felt more personal #i swear everytime i hear a christian song from my dad's playlist i have to physically restrain myself from singing it #because its all songs from my childhood that i really liked #its so nice being a heretic #feels good committing heresy in my 20's

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potsandpains · 2 years

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practically perfect in every way part 4

hotch x fem!reader

AN: ooookay im still alive!! let me know what y'all think of this!!!

jack is 6 at the beginning of this, haley is,,, not living (rip) and hotch is aorund 40ish in this! reader is 25-26ish.

summary: aaron is feelin real angsty over how much he likes his son's nanny, and his angst is made worse by said nanny having a boyfriend he is NOT a fan of

plus a little action in this one wink wink

CW: asshole boyfriend??? i think that's it???

part 1:

part 2:

part 3:

/ / /

“Garcia do we have an address for the suspect’s parents?” Hotch said into his phone.

“Yes sir,” she replied, “looks like Kurt and Cheryl are at 1312 y/n Drive. Sending you the address now!”

“Thank you.” He hung up.

How funny, he thought, what are the odds a tiny town with a population of less than 20,000 people would have a street with her name on it?

When he and Morgan rounded the corner to the address, he took a picture of the street sign and sent y/n a text.

AH: Saw your name on a street sign in the middle of nowhere. Funny, right?

She responded almost immediately.

YN: Oh that’s way funny! Any way you could pull some FBI strings and steal the sign for me? It would make for a great wall decoration lol

AH: Something tells me theft of city property might be an abuse of my position. Sorry.

YN: All good, boss man. Only joking lol.

It had been a few weeks since the black eye incident. Their moment in the kitchen (so rudely interrupted by Jack. Aaron loved his son but he didn’t know if he’d ever been so exasperated with him than in that very moment) lingered in Aaron’s memory. His dynamic with y/n hadn’t changed dramatically, but it didn’t necessarily feel like it had never happened either.

She was still her bubbly self, he the stoic grouch she claimed he was. She teased him and he teased back with enough encouragement. But something was different.

He caught her looking at him with the same tender expression he had caught that night more and more, and he wasn’t sure if it was because it was occurring with greater frequency or because she wasn’t hiding it.

He found himself more apt to be close to her. They had never been physically affectionate, but she now gave him a hug goodbye before she left every night, and when he got home from cases he hugged both Jack and her.

He felt like he was back in middle school, losing his mind over hugging her. But he loved being able to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight, even if it was just for a second or two.

Those seconds were precious to him, as she now was spending more and more time with Braden.

Y/n and Braden had met while in line at the grocery store. Y/n was picking up groceries for the Hotchners when she realized she had forgotten goldfish crackers for Jack. So, turning to the person behind her, she asked if he could hold her space in line while she went to grab them.

He said he would, in exchange for her phone number and a coffee date.

At least, that’s how y/n explained it to Aaron. She and Braden went on the coffee date and had gotten along quite well, and had been texting ever since.

Aaron, having never met him, obviously hated him.

He was sure he was fine, really, but he hated that Braden apparently had more guts than he did.

Aaron Hotchner, unit chief of the BAU, an FBI agent who chased psychopaths for a living, had been too scared to act on how he felt, and as a result had to listen to y/n talk about whoever Braden was, heart wincing every time.

He found out who Braden was, naturally.

Besides y/n’s description, he had Garcia run a very thorough background check the minute he got a last name from Y/n. Braden Casey; a high school math teacher who enjoyed dogs, hiking, and reading in his free time. Besides having an odd fixation with self-help podcasts (who listens to 4 different podcasts on how to become ‘the man’?) no red flags arose from the report he received from Garcia, but there was something about him that Aaron simply did not trust.

Y/n didn’t talk about him much. He assumed it was because she was trying to be somewhat professional around him. He hoped it was to spare his feelings.

He tried to be encouraging and supportive. “What’s Braden like?” He had asked her.

“He’s great,” She had said. “I don’t know, he’s always working towards being a better version of himself, and he really wants to be the best person he can. It’s something I really admire about him.”

He hoped that was true.

They dated slowly, he thought. Apparently Braden did a lot of after school tutoring and wasn’t free many evenings and heaven knows y/n was busy with Jack, so they didn’t go out often.

He learned from y/n this was called the “talking stage,” where they weren’t strictly dating each other but were still communicating and maintaining interest.

Thus, another reason he thought Braden an idiot. Y/n wasn’t the kind of person with whom you had a talking stage, he had thought. Aaron thought if he were smart Braden would snap y/n up as quickly as he could. Although, he wished he wouldn’t.

That’s what he would have done, if hadn’t psyched himself out. He tried to convince himself to own up to what he felt and to simply tell her. It would be much easier to have it out in the open if she wasn’t in a committed relationship, right?

But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She seemed happy, and he didn’t want to ruin that by saying “hey, i know you’re my son’s nanny and i'm technically your boss but just a heads up I wanted to tell you I’m so in love with you I can hardly function!”

He didn’t think that would end well.

So he was quiet. And patient. And frustrated as hell.

/ / /

Around two months into their “talking stage,” y/n had mentioned to him that she and Braden were officially dating.

“Really?” he asked, feigning excitement. “That’s exciting. Congrats.”

“Thanks!” She replied. “I’m excited.”

“So how is that going to work? He seems pretty busy, and heaven knows we keep you busy enough around here-”

“Oh,” she interrupted. “Braden mapped out a schedule of things so we have an idea of when we’re both free. He says he wants to ‘optimize on any free time so this will work’,” She said, using air quotes with a laugh on her lips.

Aaron briefly considered completely chaning every aspect of Jack’s and y/n’s schedule to throw a wrench in Braden’s plans. Deciding to save his pettiness for another day, he simply nodded.

“That sounds very… organized.” He said.

“Yeah he’s kind of funny about that kind of stuff. Blames it on his math brain, apparently. Everything has a system and a place and he likes things done as neatly as possible.”

What was she, his girlfriend or a calculus problem? He thought to himself.

“Well great. Sounds like he’s thought of everything then.” He said.

She shrugged. “Sure seems like it.”

/ / /

“No, I still can’t make it tonight. Yeah, Jack has a big history project due tomorrow and I really want to be here in case he needs help… No, I can’t just call Jess. Look, I’m sorry you bought tickets for that orchestra concert I told you I couldn’t go to weeks ago but I- Yes, I put it on the google calendar and everything. This project is really important to Jack and I’m not missing it... I really am so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Aaron was at his desk in his office, listening (while simultaneously trying not to listen) to y/n pace up and down the upstairs hallway on the phone with whom he could only presume to be Braden.

They had been officially dating for three months, and Aaron couldn’t help but notice that things felt off between the two. He didn’t know what exactly, but something had shifted between y/n and Braden and things weren’t as neat and tidy as before.

He sat at his desk, trying (and failing) to read his book as he listened to y/n and Jack work on his history project downstairs. He was supposed to do a report on a person in history he admired. Aaron had assumed he would pick Abraham Lincoln or the Wright brothers or any other historical figure, but Jack had apparently decided that the most influential person in his world was Dr. John Harvey Keller, who had invented the process of making peanut butter.

An odd choice, but Aaron understood the appeal.

After spending an indeterminate amount of time reading and rereading the same page, he called it quits. Closing his book, he placed it on the desk and began walking downstairs. Maybe at least he could help Jack glue pictures to his poster. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” he said, “I’m halfway there anyway.”

“Okay!” Jack and y/n chorused from the kitchen.

Years at the BAU had made him cautious of unexpected visitors. He double checked for the small revolver he had stashed in the bookcase next to the door. He had always made sure it was nearly above his own reach so Jack could never get to it. Clicking the lock open and taking it from its hiding place in the fake book, he tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, keeping a hand on it as he opened the door.

Much to his surprise, it wasn’t a maniacal psychopath at his doorstep.

It was worse.

It was Braden.

His button down shirt and tie had a defeated look about them with his tie loosened and top button undone.Aaron noticed his slacks were wrinkled. He cocked his head to the side and looked Aaron up and down.

Aaron’s eyes narrowed.

Braden pushed his wavy hair out of his eyes and stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Is y/n here?” He asked.

Aaron decided to play dumb, pretending that he hadn’t done a background search so thorough he knew exactly what was on Braden’s web browser history.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Braden Casey. I’m y/n’s boyfriend. You must be Aaron?” He extended a hand to Aaron.

“It’s Mr. Hotchner, thank you.” Aaron nodded. He reached forward and reciprocated his handshake. It was firmer than he anticipated it to be, but still weaker than his own.

Braden swallowed.

“Come in,” He said, “I know she’s pretty busy with Jack, but let me see if she can come to the door.”

Braden didn’t move from his spot on the porch.

God He really needed to quit being so antagonistic.

“You really work her hard, don’t you?” Braden said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Can’t even give her a night off to go to a concert with her boyfriend?” Braden said it as if he was trying to be funny, saying it almost jokingly, but there was bitterness to his words.

“Y/n sets her own hours.” Aaron responded sharply. “Maybe you should ask yourself why she wanted to be here instead of with you.”

“Easy old man, I-”

“Braden?” y/n appeared behind him, looking at Braden over Aaron’s shoulder. “What are you doing here? I gave you the address to the house for emergencies, you aren’t supposed to come here when I’m working.”

“I think it’s an emergency when my girlfriend cancels our date to hang out with a 7 year old.” Braden said, crossing his arm.

Aaron saw anger flash in y/n’s eyes. “Okay, you come with me. If you have something to say to me, we’re going to talk about this like adults.” She pushed past Aaron, meeting Braden on the porch and grabbing him by the arm and pulling him down the steps of the porch. She looked over her shoulder to Aaron. “Tell Jack I’ll be right back.”

He nodded as she closed the door behind her, placing the gun back to its hiding place and walking into the kitchen to find Jack with a glue stick in hand and paper cutouts of peanuts and Dr. John Harvey Keller stuck to his face. He turned to face Aaron, paper crinkling. “Hey dad! Do you like my pictures?”

Aaron sighed. “They’re great, buddy. I’d like them more if they were on your poster, though.”

Jack rubbed his sticky hands together, grinning at the sound it made. “Do you think I could glue my lips shut?”

Aaron pulled the glue stick from his son’s hand. “Glue is for paper, Jack, not for your skin. I know it’s fun to play with, but you need to use it properly or we can’t use it at all. Do you want to take those pictures off yourself or do you want me to help you?”

Jack began pulling them off one by one. “I can do it. Who was at the door?”

Aaron resisted the urge to sigh once again. “Y/n’s friend, Braden.”

“You mean her boooooyfriend?” Jack said.

“Yes, her boyfriend.” He replied.

“I don’t like him.” Jack winced after a piece of paper that was stuck to his eyebrow came off.

“Why not, buddy?”

“Y/n says he’s really nice but if he’s nice he wouldn’t come to our house and stop y/n from helping me with my homework.” He said matter-of-factly.

Aaron thought about that for a second before nodding in agreement. “I guess that’s fair.”

Jack shrugged. “I wish y/n didn’t have a boyfriend, then she could be here all the time.”

“Jack she’s already here pretty much all the time.”

“She doesn’t sleep here all the time.” Jack said defiantly. “She has a different house she sleeps at. The one where she doesn’t have a bathtub.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m sorry, I know you really like her.”

“I love her.” Jack said, smoothing out the pieces of paper he had glued to his face. They were wrinkly, but hopefully would still work.

Aaron just nodded.

“Dad?”

“Yeah buddy.”

“Do you love y/n?” He asked.

Aaron paused, swallowing. His heart ached as he replied, “Yeah Jack, I do.”

He and Jack were working in silence when y/n reappeared, cheeks flushed and eyes watery. Jack was putting the finishing touches on his poster board and was focused on it when Aaron caught y/n’s attention. Are you okay? He mouthed.

She shook her head, looking down.

Aaron cocked his head towards the doorway. Go head upstairs. I’ll get Jack, he mouthed.

She nodded, leaving the kitchen quickly.

“Jack, that looks great,” Aaron said. “I think y/n is super tired and went to bed. Let’s get you to bed too and then we’ll finish it up tomorrow morning.”

Aaron was thankful that Jack went to bed quickly and quietly. He was a smart kid, and clued into the tension that was lingering in the air. After Aaron helped him with scrubbing glue from his face, arms, and hands, he fell asleep right as his head the pillow.

After closing Jack’s door, Aaron found his way in front of y/n’s. He knocked on the door. “Y/n?”

“Come in.”

He eased open the door and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed, clutching a pillow.

“Hey.” He said.

“Hi.” She said.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yes? No? I’m not sure.”

“Can I ask what happened? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but if it would help-”

“I think that would be good. I should talk to someone about all this, I think.” She said.

He didn’t move from his spot by the door. Y/n glanced up towards him. “You can sit down. I won’t make you stand through this.” She sniffed as she patted a spot next to her on the bed. Aaron sat, making sure to keep ample distance between the two of them.

“Have I ever told you that Braden is on a new kick of listening exclusively to classical music?”

He shook his head.

She laughed. There was bitterness in it. “He said that classical and instrumental music makes him feel good. Read about it in some book that it doesn’t distract you like other genres and allows you to focus on being your “best self.” Anything loud and rambunctious sounds like radio static now, apparently.”

Aaron snorted, but said nothing

“I like classical music fine, I just don’t want it to be the only thing I listen to. I am also a hundred percent sure he still listens to all his normal stuff too but he has this weird thing with me where I think he needs to appear like he’s the smartest guy in the room. Classical music really is fine and there are plenty of pieces I like but when I’m with him, that’s all we listen to. Which is fine because he’s comfortable and just fine but what if I said one day that I hate classical music and it sounds like radio static to me? Would he change? Would he listen to the music that I like? Would he drop the stupid act?”

She clutched the pillow tighter, shaking her head. “I like him, I really do, and we get along well, temperament wise. It’s just that our interests are so different and I-” her voice broke and buried her face in the pillow.

“Y/n.” He said.

“What.” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“Is this really about classical music?”

She lifted her head, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “No, I guess it isn’t.

He remained silent, staring at his hands resting in his lap.

“I think-” She started, “I think it’s about more than that. I just- he cancels things all the time because a student needs help tutoring or he has a math club meeting or something like that and I am so chill about it. I never lose it and I’m super understanding. But the one time I took a rain check on an orchestra concert I told him I had no interest in going to he comes to your house

and makes me feel like I’m the worst person in the world because I apparently didn’t “consider his feelings” when I consider his feelings all the damn time.” She cringed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just- I don’t think he thinks my work is as important as his and that he somehow needs to prove he’s better than me in some way, even though we literally have the same amount of education and I literally have a published research study on- it doesn’t matter. I- I just - ugh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well. That’s another stupid thing.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “He doesn’t want to end things but he wants some time.”

“Like… a break?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“What kind of break?”

“He wants to go no contact for a month. In that month we can date other people and do whatever we like, but if in a month we come back together and we still work, we keep dating.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Aaron couldn’t contain his surprise. “That’s ridiculous.”

“He said it’s to see if we really like each other or if we just haven’t known any different the past few months.”

“Did you agree to it?”

“...I did.”

“Oh.”

“If a month goes by and I still feel the same we can try again. It’s not like we’ll lose our minds and elope if it works out.”

Aaron’s heart dropped into his stomach. He felt a little sick. That was not an image he liked.

“He's-Hotch he is the first guy in ages to treat me decently. He is decent and smart and really good, just a little on the quirky side.”

“Quirky?” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “Is that how you’d describe it?”

“Okay he’s odd and a bit judgemental but I think I should at least try. Don’t you?” She looked exasperated.

“Y/n.” He said, turning to face her. He moved closer.

“What, Hotch?’ She sounded exhausted. She turned to face him.

“You deserve much more than decent.”

She shook her head. “I know. I- I really do know. I'm-”

Aaron interrupted her by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him. She stilled, but didn’t pull away.

“You really deserve the best.” Which is definitely not me, he thought cynically. Or your asshole boyfriend.

Her arms found their way around his waist and she squeezed him tight. ��Thank you.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’ll be okay. You’re smart and capable and lovely, and if he doesn’t see that then I’ll make his life hell.”

“Don’t go all FBI on his ass.”

“I will if I have to.”

She laughed at that, and drew back. “Thanks, Hotch. You’re the best.”

He shook his head. “Just trying to help.”

/ / /

Two weeks after Y/n and Braden started their “break,” Jack got sick. Not just a little sick with a runny nose, he was seriously sick. Fever, vomit, the whole nine yards, all of it.

And y/n was a wreck.

She wasn’t sick herself. She had told Hotch that years of nannying had fortified her immune system so much she rarely got sick anymore, but she was a wreck in trying to help Jack.

He had missed school that day and y/n had stayed home with him. He had been throwing up anything she tried to feed him, and had a fever so high he was sweating through his pajamas. Even worse, Jack was the most ornery sick kid known to mankind. He was stubborn (a trait y/n claimed he got from his dad) and despite how miserable he felt he didn’t like being coddled or being made to feel like a baby. He fought y/n’s attempts to comfort him and screamed with how achy the fever made him.

She had been sending Hotch updates throughout the day. They had just come off a massive case and he had a boatload of paperwork so huge he couldn’t fathom missing a day, even if it broke his heart to do so. He called Jack during his lunch, and was only met with him being furious that his dad wasn’t home to take care of him. Hotch’s heart equally ached that y/n was alone in the ordeal.

She had carted Jack to the doctor the minute he had thrown up (and he had thrown up all over his bed, to top it off) and had come back with no other instructions than “eh it’s just a stomach bug. Let him ride it out and he’ll be fine.”

He had been forced to work late. It was evening when he drove home. On his drive he received a text. Pulling into the driveway, he glanced at his phone.

YN: I think he’s getting better. Still hates my guts, but it seems like his fever is on its way out.

He thought walking in blind was a bad idea, so he sent her a text from the garage.

AH: I just pulled in. Anything in particular you want me to be aware of?

YN: He’s going to be so happy to see you and also probably wants to kill you. Simultaneously. I think he’d kill moving thing right about now.

AN: Noted.

He walked in the house, setting his things on the counter. Making his way through the living room and up the stairs, he found y/n sitting on the edge of Jack’ bed, with Jack clutching his blankets and looking downright murderous.

“Hey buddy.” Aaron started.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Jack said, folding his arms and turning away from his dad.

He cast a glance at y/n, who gave him an exhausted look. Talk him through what he’s feeling, she mouthed.

“Hey Jack. I’m sorry you’re sick. I know you don’t feel good and that’s never fun.”

Jack shuffled in his bed, folding his arms again with more emphasis, clearly conveying his dissatisfaction.

“And I’m sorry I wasn’t here today. It’s hard being sick at home without your dad here.”

Jack said nothing. Aaron laid his hand on his shoulder and Jack shrugged him off. “Do you want to read a book together? Will that help you feel better?”

Jack shook his head, still keeping quiet. Aaron sighed.

“Jack,” said y/n gently, “you’ve been asking for your dad all day, he’s here now. Are you sure you don’t want to read a story with him?”

Jack threw his covers over his head and burrowed himself into the couch.

Y/n met Aaron’s eyes and gave him a sad smile. “I’m sorry. He’ll lighten up as soon as he’s better.”

Aaron nodding, standing to leave. He was at the door when he heard Jack whisper to y/n.

“Kids are supposed to have moms to take care of them when they’re sick.”

Aaron stilled for a moment, but stepped out of the room, lingering just outside of it. Listening.

The pain was evident in y/n’s voice when she replied. “Jack, honey I’m so sorry. I know you miss your mom.”

“I miss my mom a lot,” Jack said. “but I wish I had a mom now. Y/n, why can’t you be my mom?”

“Oh honey, I love you so much, but I can’t.”

Jack wasn’t whispering now. “Why not? Don’t you love my dad? Why can’t you just be my mom then you don’t have to leave?”

Aaron’s breath caught in his throat.

“Jack- I love you and your dad so so much. But I can’t be your mom. You need to sleep sweetheart, that’s what will help you feel better tomorrow.”

“I want to go to sleep by myself.”

“Okay buddy,” she said. “I’ll let you do that. Call for me if you need me, okay.”

Aaron didn’t hear Jack’s reply as he was quickly making his way downstairs, trying to make his way to the couch without y/n figuring out that he had heard everything.

He hadn’t needed to rush, as it was a few minutes before y/n came down the stairs, looking exhausted. She made her way into the living room and wrapped herself in a blanket as she laid down on the couch. Aaron pretended not to notice how glassy her eyes were, as if she were near tears.

“Hotch, do you… do you think it means something?”

He looked at her, a confused look in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He saw her eyes well up with tears as she shook her head. He rushed to her side, kneeling beside the couch. “Hey- hey it’s okay. Does what mean something?”

“I just… I don’t think it was an accident Jack hit me with that frisbee.”

Hotch raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

“Not that he did it on purpose. It just seems like too big of a coincidence that I found you guys.”

Hotch smiled softly, reaching up to stroke her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

“What makes you say that?” He asked, reaching down to wipe her tears from her eyes.

“You’re looking for a nanny and then your son nails one in the head with a frisbee. Seems too perfect.”

He was quiet for a beat. “I guess you could say that. One could say that you’re too perfect.”

She smiled, shaking her head.

“I mean,” he said, “I did see your name on a street sign in the middle of nowhere. That does seem a little too coincidental.”

She let out a tired laugh. “This is all your fault, you know.”

“How?”

“You’re a scorpio. I always get along great with scorpios.”

It was his turn to laugh. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She sat up, saying nothing, and unwrapped herself from the blanket. She patted the spot next to her on the couch. Against his better judgment, he rose from the ground and joined her on the couch. He draped his arm around the back of the couch, and y/n leaned into his side.

They sat like that for a while. He didn’t know how long. Somewhere along the way his arm left the back of the couch and found its way around y/n’s shoulders. Her hands, previously twisting in her lap, had ended up wrapped around his waist and her head resting on his chest.

He knew this about y/n, but once she started crying it was difficult for her to stop. Even if things were just fine and everything was figured out, if tears had been shed they would keep being shed. Weirdly enough, it was one of the things Aaron really liked about her. She had a tender heart that had a hard time turning off. He wished he could relate.

Slow tears continued to roll down her cheeks as they sat together in the silence.

"I can't really explain why i think this all has to mean something" y/n said quietly after a while, "Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but i can't seem to not think about you."

he paused before replying, thumb rubbing circles on the arm he still had wrapped around her. "I don't know if I ever told you this, but the first time I met you I had a really good feeling about you. Call it a gut feeling, I guess. I don't trust my gut to make decisions for me very often because things usually end up crazy, but I've never doubted, even for a second that you were meant to be here."

A thick quiet coated the room. Too many things he wished he could do, too many things he wished she would say.

“Hotch?” she eventually said.

He hummed in response. She lifted her head to look at him, tears still in her eyes. “I’m really glad you found me.”

Aaron was sure his heart was about to burst. His mouth opened to form a response when he saw y/n’s eyes drop to his lips. His eyes dropped to hers.

When his eyes found their way up to hers, they met him with a look he recognized in himself. It was a look of achingly delicate longing, painted clearly on her expression.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers. He wanted to give her as much time as possible to back off or push him away or tell him off if he was so desperately in love with her he had misread the look on her face.

She did quite the opposite, tilting her chin upward and meeting him halfway. His hand came up to cup her face as hers found its way to grip his forearm as his lips found hers.

It was different than he thought it would be. When he thought about (and he thought about it often) he had always imagined his first kiss with her would be fast, desperate, or so undeniably passionate that he would immediately lose all control of himself.

This was infinitely better, he decided. It was soft and slow and tender and achingly sweet. As her lips slanted over his, he found himself turning towards her, guiding her legs over his lap as his arms found his way around her waist. Her hands came up to rest on both sides of his face as she sighed into his mouth.

Yes, much better. He concluded that this kind of kissing was his favorite. He wasn’t rushed or frantic. They were both exhausted, and had fallen together slowly, comfortably, and he had such a warm, cozy feeling in his chest and in his head and he didn’t know how he had gone this long without kissing her. Hell, he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to stop.

When he did eventually stop, he pulled away gently, y/n’s hands still framing his face. He tightened his arms around her waist, pulling her into a close embrace. Her head found its way into the crook of his neck.

“I’m even more glad you found us,” He said.

He felt y/n smile as she pressed a chaste kiss to his neck. They sat like that for awhile until he felt her relax against him and her breathing slowed. She had fallen asleep.

Aaron sat up from the couch, y/n still in his arms. He carried her up to the guest room and laid her gently in the bed, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he tucked her in the blankets.

“Practically perfect in every way. Garcia was right.”

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@strangunddurm

@realdirectionx

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotchner x y/n #hotch x fem!reader #hotch #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #aaron hotchner imagine #agent hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #bau family #jack hotchner

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sysba · 3 years

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dev ro asks [sfw version]

whenever an author solicits asks I usually go *head empty no thoughts* and suddenly every question I’ve ever known disappears from my brain, and since I bet I’m not alone I thought it might be useful to have a prompts list of sort that you can use whenever you wanna ask a dev something! the list is still pretty short because i have the memory of a goldfish (thanks @ all the friends who helped me find ideas!!) but you’re welcome to send me your faves to be added! 💖

ns/fw version

— misc questions

ROs’ love language (giving and/or receiving)?

what flowers do you associate with the characters?

ROs’ routes described in 3 words?

what are 3 things to put in a circle to summon the ROs?

routes’ angst ratings?

routes’ slowburn ratings?

what is something the ROs want/need/dread to hear?

ROs’ favourite forms of non-sexual intimacy?

when talking about Ratatouille, who refers to the rat as Ratatouille, who calls him Remy, and who just says ‘the rat’?

which characters from other interactive stories would the ROs romance?

or alternatively, if the ROs played IFs, who’d be their favourite character(s)?

what are the ROs’ sleeping positions? + are they willing to cuddle

what do they have on their nightstand?

the ROs as fanfiction tropes / as types of soulmate AU

what makes the ROs blush/flusters them?

what gets their heart racing?

how do the ROs kiss?

+ does the answer change from early relationship/pre relationship to deep relationship?

how do the ROs hug?

ROs as natural elements?

in relationship how often do the ROs tell the mc they love them?

how often do the ROs say "i love you" in general?

what does the ROs laughter sound like?

what do the ROs have as phone background? would they change it after entering a relationship with MC?

similarly, how do they save the mc in their phone and do they change it once in a relationship?

what’s one piece of advice you would give the ROs?

what trait(s) of yours did you give each character + what trait do they have that you wish you had?

which of the ROs would you get along with best/worse (whether it be platonically, romantically, or otherwise)?

what are the ROs biggest fears?

ROs as pictures you already have saved on your phone?

what do the ROs’ voices sound like?

ROs’ favourite cuddling positions (if wiling)?

what are the ROs’ hands like? + who enjoys handholding the most?

ROs as tarots?

how do/would the ROs text? (eg. capslock on, perfect punctuation, emojis overload, etc...)

ROs as greek tragedies?

what are the ROs praised for most often vs what would they most like to be complimented/acknowledged for?

what are unconventional ways the ROs say “i love you” without saying it?

is there something the ROs do when they're in love that would make them cringe/they wouldn’t usually do otherwise?

what makes them feel comforted (affection, food, etc...)?

what are the ROs' favorite movie genres?

is there something in their appearance they are a bit insecure about?

RO's starter Pokémon choices?

ROs as greek words for ‘love’ (x)

what are the ROs’ attachment styles (avoidant, fearful-avoidant, anxious, secure) (x)?

what would be a legend/fable/tale/myth that would really speak to them or that they would particularly enjoy?

would they rather live a long quiet life even if it gets a bit boring, or a short but exciting life full of adventures?

how do the ROs move? are they graceful and elegant? do they fumble and fall a lot? are they good at sneaking up on people? etc...

what’s their main coping mechanism(s)?

each of the ROs finds a treasure chest that contains what they want more than anything in life. what is it?

where are the ROs on the self-sacrificing scale?

if they reflect a specific character archetype, in which way(s) do they subvert said archetype?

what is something that makes them brave and motivates them to fight?

what would their core aesthetic be (cottagecore, goblincore, cryptidcore, royalcore, etc…)?

how do the ROs manage their anger (do they get mad often, do they stay quiet and then explode or get things off of their chest immediately, do they hold grudges, etc…)?

which virtue do they value the most (in themselves and others)?

what would be their favourite constellation and why?

do they tend to obsess over their failures/mistakes or is it easy for them to let go?

if the ROs obtained magical abilities/superpowers that reflected their personality, what kind of powers would they have?

on a scale of 1 to 10, how resistant are the ROs to their partner(s) giving them puppy eyes? + does it change from pre/early relationship to deep relationship?

do they wear or like the idea of wearing mc’s clothes or accessories?

how are the ROs as caregivers?

what kind of sense of humour do the ROs have?

how do the ROs feel about their gender?

— scenarios (fluff)

if the mc was a mind reader for like a day, what’d be the first thing they hear the ROs think when they see the mc

RO and mc got trapped together in a small closet

“and there was only one bed”

ROs’ reactions to finding out the mc’s sketchbook is full of drawings of them

ROs’ reactions be if mc asked them to dance in the middle of night

RO's reaction to a generally quiet/reserved mc bursting out into loud, genuine laughter + what if it was the ROs who caused it?

ROs’ reactions to seeing the mc wearing their clothes

fake date/fake out make out situation

ROs’ reaction to the mc saying "I can hold my entire world in my hands, wanna see?" and then gently cradling the RO’s face?

mc runs towards their RO and jumps into their arms: who picks them up and who sidesteps them and lets them fall?

how would the ROs react to the mc falling asleep on their shoulder?

ROs’ reactions to the mc reacting to their suggestion like, “Fuck yes, you're a genius! Thank you” and kissing them before running off

how would the ROs react if they got caught in a storm together and the mc pulled them into a kiss/asked them to dance in the rain?

how would the ROs react if mc's face lit up with a fond smile at the sight of them entering the room they're in?

who helps build the blanket fort, who’s down to cuddle in it, and who wants nothing to do with it?

how would the ROs react if a mc who kissed them good morning every morning one day forgot to do so? + the other way around, what if the RO forgot to give them their gm kiss?

what is the ROs’ default birthday present for the mc? do they buy something flashy and expensive or prefer something more personal/DIY?

how would the ROs’ feel about meeting their partner's parents for the first time? and what about the other way around?

mc is cold, which ROs are most likely to lend them their jacket?

what are the ROs reactions to be the hunter cuddling them because they’re cold?

how would the ROs react to being called a little meow meow? and which one of them is a little meow meow?

what are the ROs’ reactions to being told they have short energy?

how would the ROs react to the mc needing them to pretend to be their s.o. because of an extremely persistent admirer or something?

what would the ROs do if in crush stage the MC casually stroke their cheek cause they have a stray eyelash on their face?

for the ROs who want to get married and would prefer to propose, how would they ask their SO to marry them?

ROs’ reactions if they were working and mc was like ‘oh. i wanted a hug, but i can see you’re busy :(’?

how would the ROs react to getting home super late and being greeted by a very sleepy mc hugging them and saying "I missed you"?

in a domestic setting, how are they with chores? is there anything they enjoy/hate doing? something they’re surprisingly good/terrible at?

ROs get to pick an outfit for their partner; what do they end up wearing?

— scenarios (angst)

ROs’ reactions to the mc breaking up with them?

how would the ROs react if the mc forgot them due to amnesia?

and how would they react if they forgot the mc?

how would the ROs react to the mc dying?

what would the ROs last words be if they were dying in the mc’s arms?

alternatively, what would they say if it was the mc dying in their arms?

if they had to choose between the mc or the greater good/the world, what would their choice be and would they regret it afterwards?

ROs’ reactions to noticing the mc crushing on someone else?

if the mc had to move away, who would go with them / who would stay put?

ROs’ reactions to the mc saying “I wish I had never met you” + opposite?

ROs’ reaction to the mc being dressed up for a date with someone else and asking them how they look?

what’s one thing that will make the ROs cry?

if the ROs were in an orpheus/eurydice situation, would they look back or make it out without looking?

+ if the ROs were in the role of Eurydice, what is the last expression their s.o. sees before being separated forever?

what if during an argument [in relationship] the mc said something like "i don't want to lose you”

how would the ROs react to the mc being turned against them/being controlled? who has no problem fighting mc / who thinks they can reach them / who tries very hard not to hurt them?

what would they consider worth dying for?

would they ever say ‘because I love you!’ during an argument to justify their actions?

how would they react mc woke up in panic after a nightmare? (in crush or relationship stage)

how would the ROs deal with an mc who never apologizes (because of personality or how they grew up etc...)?

— meme questions

worm meme (ROs’ reactions to the mc asking them “would you still love/date me if I was a worm?”)

similar: “would you still love me if i had no skin?”

‘i want a baby’ meme (ROs’ reactions to the mc telling them “i want a baby”)

who would be the one walking to the counter and saying "excuse me! they asked for no pickles"?

“If I run and leap at RO, they will most certainly catch me in their arms.” what happens next?

children chanting “MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!” meme

"I'd die for you" meme

“Can I copy your homework?” meme

alternative responses to ‘I love you’ meme

‘Storming Area 51 to free the aliens’ meme 1 || 2

stabbing chart meme

flat earth meme

f*ck meme (cursing)

‘a child is crying’ meme

‘i’m too hot’ meme

in which category do the ROs fit in? “Wake me up...” 1. before you go go 2. when September ends 3. WAKE ME UP INSIDE!!!!!

home improvement store alignment meme

‘taste in characters that tumblr would cancel me for’ bingo

#interactive fiction #prompts #ask prompt #ask bait #misc: resources #myposts

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thrndlngs · 3 years

Text

three times shinsou misses the opportunity to kiss you + the one time he seized the moment.

── pairing, shinsou x fem!prohero!reader ── request: x times shinsou wants to kiss fem reader??? pLZ I NEED IT ── author’s note: this was super dope & cute to write. tysm for sending this in. i hope i did this justice and it wasn’t to out of character. also reader has a water quirk & the two of you are in your early twenties. ♡

"'toshi,” you whispered, chest against his as the two of you currently hid from the group of villains. your two agencies had partnered up in attempt to take down a new gang of villains who were transporting drugs from the city to the waters, the two of you were partnered because of how the two of you excelled in your respective agencies, shinsou was sent to aid in your patrols of the waters ── which is why the two of you are currently hiding in a storage closet on a ship.

“shut up.” you don’t take it to heart, you’re sure he means it as nicely as possible - he just lacks a few pages in the ‘vocabulary’ department.

“we need to do something.” you tell him, trying your best to meet his gaze in the tight space (which was nearly impossible because he’s towering over you at the moment). he doesn’t reply, not at first at least, if you looked hard enough you would probably see the gears in his head turning.

“──stop talking, it’s distracting me.”

your mouth quickly shuts, fidgety hands are now at your side, you were starting to get antsy and there was practically little to no room to move around without being heard - or seen for that matter.

“they switch the guards every ten minutes, in the middle of the switch, we run.” the purple haired male explained, taking a peak at the time on his cellphone. the two of you had to endure this for three more minutes. just three more minutes and you would be free.

“three minutes,” you repeated, more to confirm this for yourself. you’re sure you wouldn’t last that long, after all, this was shinsou, the male you’ve had a crush on for quite some time now. how were you expected to last that long?

“──think of it like seven minutes of heaven.”

“we haven’t played that since── “

“yeah, yeah i know, but just think of it like that. don’t think about the closet, just the game.”

you nodded quickly, meeting his gaze as the two of you stood there in silence. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t thinking about kissing him. it seemed like the perfect moment - it was just the two of you. if it were the last day on earth, you at least wanted to go out with a bang. you know?

“let me get comfortable, you can do the same after.” you watched as he places either hands besides your head, slouching a bit against the wall so his back could have some sort of support. he nods to you, signaling for you to do the same.

it takes you a moment, the position shinsou is currently in causes your heart to skip just a few beats. were you disappointed in yourself for letting your mind drift.. elsewhere during a mission? for sure. did you care right now? absolutely not.

you cleared your throat, widening your stance and trying to balance the weight in between your legs to help ease some of the weight ── but there wasn’t really much you could do.

“two minutes.”

this had to be the longest three minutes of your life.

“i think i just tasted my own sweat.” he complained. it feels like he’s sweating in places he shouldn’t produce sweat in.

“i feel like a fish out of water,” you added.

“──gonna start passing out if i don’t throw you in the water soon?”

“says the one whose sweating to death.”

“and you’re dehydrated. guess we’re both shit out of luck aren’t we?”

“yeah, but, i think this isn’t the worst way to die.”

he takes another peak at his cellphone, noting that there’s a minute left before the two of you could finally get out of this damn storage closet. “you’ve got a minute to tell me anything worse than dying like this.”

in hindsight ── there’s a lot that could happen in a minute, that’s the only reason you said something to begin with. “alone, i could die in this closet, alone and then you know, it would be lonely.”

“are you serious?”

“oh come on! that’s pretty serious!”

“it ── it really isn’t,” he’s trying to laugh as quietly as possible and you playfully slapped him in his shoulder.

“okay, well, i wouldn’t want to die alone.”

“mhm, scaredy cat.” his smile is infectious and for a moment, he forgets that the two of you are stuck in a storage closet. maybe now would be the perfect time to kiss you, when it’s just the two of you, waiting to make your grand escape, when the two of your are just centimeters apart.

“now’s our chance,” he whispered, straightening himself to get out first just in case. he doesn’t want to act off of impulses. if he kisses you, he wants to make sure it’s because you want him too.

ii.

“good to see you when you’re not acting like a goldfish who just hopped out of it’s bowl.” the familiar voice teased from behind you, hands folded behind his head. if it were anyone else, you might have tripped them.

“──don’t you have to go buy hair dye now or something?”

“no that was after i made sure a fisherman didn’t take you on the way home.”

“is this what do you do on your spare time? think of jokes that revolve around my quirk?”

he rolls his shoulder lazily, leaning against the apartment railing across from your front door. “they come naturally, no extra thinking required.”

“and here i thought all the hair dye went to your brain.”

this wasn’t out of the norm for the two of you, he would make the first jab and then you would follow suit. sometimes, the bickering could go on for hours ── regardless of task at hand (like the time the two of you were trying to detain a villain and shinsou had told the woman you were a water sprite), it’s an old nickname of yours, he had given it to you back at the sports festival when you were kids. you had earned it when you had almost drown mineta because he wouldn’t stop making inappropriate jokes and you had brought the entire water fountain down on him.

as the two of you stood there in silence, you, had your back against your door, hands folded behind you while he stood parallel, arms against his chest he wonders: is this the time he kisses you goodnight?

“d’ya want to come inside? i have leftovers? we could pull an all nighter like we used to do back in the dorms?” there’s a hint of hopefulness in your eyes and he would feel like absolute shit if he declined the offer.

“only because you have food.”

he doesn’t kiss you goodnight then. and he doesn’t kiss you goodnight when you fall asleep on his shoulder after the second horror movie either. if you were anyone else, he would’ve left without a care in the world, but it’s you and you are different.

so he stays and tells himself that tomorrow will be a new day and tomorrow, he can try again.

iii.

“i don’t dance,” shinsou tells you as you so desperately tried to bring him onto the dance floor. it’s a hero’s gala, everyone from your respective classes at U.A. were here, pro heroes from all around the world and some of your old instructors as well ── these aren’t his thing, you know that. you remember his attitude during the first two hours of the third year’s ‘goodbye party’ - not much had changed. he’s taller, a bit more handsomer and smiles more often.

“you do tonight, come on.” while you had dragged him by one hand, the other desperately tried to loosen his tie because it feels like he’s suffocating.

“──you’ll be the death of me woman.” he’s mumbling under his breath, one hand resting in yours as the other found its place at your waist.

“because i asked you to dance? might i say this is on your list of horrible ways to die?” you teased, offering him that infectious smile that makes him go weak in his knees. he hates to admit the pull you have on him ── he might even go as far as saying you might have him wrapped around that finger of yours and you don’t even know it yet.

“if it’s by your hands i would say it’s a merciful death.”

“a merciful death? i’ll keep that in mind.”

“don’t test your luck,” you know he’s only messing with you ──

you’re to busy enjoying the moment to think of some witty comeback. it’s something about the way your hand seems to fit perfectly in his. or how the two of you are able to move in sync without any words spoken in between the two of you that’s driving you insane.

if you would’ve told your past self that you would be slow dancing with the hitoshi shinsou at a hero’s gala while the world around you disappeared you would’ve laughed at the idea. it would’ve seem silly to you ── stupid even. shinsou and you weren’t rivals like you and bakugou were, but, you had always found yourself trying to one up him.

yet here you were, swaying to the slow tune as you managed to snake your arms around his midsection and rest a head against his chest. maybe this was his chance: with the little distance in between the two of you, dim lighting and dressed to the nines. surely, this would be a good memory to relive later down the road wouldn’t it?

but he wanted to savor the moment. so he decides it against it ── despite the ache in his chest.

iv.

"we did it.” shinsou muses, an awkward hand offered in your direction for you to shake. it’s been six months but your agencies had finally shut down the smuggling operation and you could finally take the break you had so desperately needed. you weren’t sure what to do with the outstretched hand, but, you give in anyways, resting your hand in his as he gave it a firm shake.

“pleasure doing business with you.” you tell him, lips curving into a bittersweet smile. teasing, bickering and ‘playful’ sparring aside, you were going to miss him. you were used to patrolling and doing missions on your own but this was different.

“try not to end up on the other side of fishing hook, yeah?” it’s his way of telling you to be careful in shinsou’s teasing nature.

“make sure i’m the one to grant you the merciful death.” please be careful, is what you want to say. though you couldn’t bring yourself to say it aloud - if you did, it would only confirm that you care about the purple haired pro hero more than you should.

he shakes his head with a laugh, “you’re the only one who gets the satisfaction.”

“it better stay that way ‘toshi.”

he doesn’t know for certain if your agencies would cross paths again. your agency was closer to the waters and he was closer in the city, the chance that you would run into one another again would be slim to none.

he clears his throat for a moment, retreating his hand from yours and placing them at your waist instead. he’s pictured this a thousand times but now that he’s in the moment he couldn’t manage to find the right words. it’s frustrating, really.

“──hi.” you’re holding your breath in anticipation, was this another one of his games? was he going to kiss you? tell you a secret? use his capture weapon and tell you that he’s not letting you go until you admit something embarrassing?

he doesn’t care anymore. doesn’t care if it makes him look like a love sick idiot when he kisses you like it’s the last thing he’s about to do before he dies, he doesn’t care if anyone’s watching or for the wrinkles you’ll cause since you’ve got a fistful of his shirt in a desperate attempt to close whatever little distance the two of you had between you.

you pull away first causing him to pout (which was actually cute but you’d never give him the satisfaction of knowing that) but you do laugh.

“you know,” he muses, a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly, a habit you hadn’t seen in years. “──i didn’t want to let you walk away without something to remember, my little water sprite.”

you rolled your eyes at the choice of nickname but were flattered nonetheless, your own arms finding their way around his neck, “who said i was walking away?”

#shinsou fluff #shinsou x reader #shinsou x you #shinsou x y/n #bnha imagine #bnha drabble #mha drabble #mha imagine #shinsou tbt.#( this is so lame bc i wrote this at 1:43 am while at work JHADKJHDA )#╰ ♡ ✧ ˖ 𝐉𝐀𝐘𝐄 ┊ WRITINGS .

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helliontherapscallion · 4 years

Text

Shenanigans and Love (Adrenaline Junkie Part 13)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: the Warden, mentions of death, phantom pain syndrome, extreme fluff

Word count: 3,226

The light glow of the redstone lamp illuminated your work space. Currently, it was about two hours before everybody was due to wake up and you were hovering over your journal containing your notes on the Warden. Not much was known about the cave-dwelling creature, but you found a couple of books about it at the library. So far, you found out that it indeed didn’t have eyes; it navigated via a mixture of hearing and a vibration network found in the blocks that had the glowing tentacles on them (you now knew that they were called ‘sculk blocks’). The sculk blocks would pick up on movement or touch, it would send vibration waves through the air, where it would reach the Warden’s own sculk stalks. Without the sculk stalks on the Warden’s head, the Warden was defenseless.

You also read about the anatomy of the creature. Known juvenile specimens ranged from seven to eleven feet tall while adults spanned from twelve to a whopping twenty feet tall. While their average lifespan is unknown due to the parasitic nature of the beast, it is known that they are out of their juvenile stage once they are approximately twenty years old. Thinking back on the one in the cave, it was about twice as tall as you were. That was a juvenile mob and it’s probably grown rapidly since then. The thing that killed you so viciously was a juvenile. You shuddered thinking about what an adult could do.

Juveniles are charted to be more erratic in their decisions while adults were known to be calculating and alert. Known weaknesses were known to be the sculk stalks and the heart. It was going to be incredibly difficult to take it down by yourself, but if worse comes to worse, you’d gladly take the beast down with you. Just in case, you left behind a small will with things you were planning on giving to your family. You were going to leave your workshop and your blueprints to Arthur, your collection of diamonds to Tommy and Wilbur, your stock of netherite and gold to Technoblade, and your wealth and life savings to Philza. You requested that Philza take care of Arthur, you couldn’t ask for a better father figure to have than Philza. Only the best for Arthur. In addition, you had a letter prepared for every member of your family. They were still in their first drafts, but they were coming along fast. In them, you detailed how grateful you were for every single one of them and reminisced on your favorite memory you shared with them. You still had about a week and a half left before you planned on attacking the cave, but you always liked to have extra time to complete things.

Your alarm clock sounded with harsh, lazer like beeps before you quickly silenced it. You didn’t need Arthur or Philza waking up so early. Sighing, you hid your journal and letters under a false bottom drawer and gently closed it. You trudged up the stairs quietly and made your way to the bathroom to shower for the day. When you took off your prosthetic, you could feel the phantom pains shoot up your nonexistent wing. In addition to that, the feathered stump and the areas around it felt stiff. The warmth of the shower did nothing to alleviate the pain.

After your shower, you started to make breakfast. Soon after, the other members of the household filed into the kitchen with differing energies. Arthur, the hyper, knowledge craving kid he was, walked into the kitchen with a bounce in his step and his head held high while Philza followed him with disheveled hair and tired blue eyes. With breakfast situated at the table, everyone started eating. You continuously shifting uncomfortably in your seat didn’t go unnoticed by the two as they eyed you after they woke up a little more.

Finally having enough of your constant movement, Philza finally spoke up, “(y/n)?” You hummed, turning to look at him, “yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

You suddenly become hyper aware of your movements as you force your body to sit still. “Everything’s fine, why you ask?”

“You look a little uncomfortable. Are you sure everything’s alright?”

You sighed, “I’ll tell you later. Arthur did you have anything specific you wanted to learn today?”

His eyes shone with the brightness of all of the stars in the universe as he made quick work to swallow his mouthful of toast, jumping in his seat slightly as he chewed. “Yes! I was wondering if you could teach me how to work with comparators!”

“That takes a lot of time and patience to learn, we probably won’t get it all done by the end of the day today. Is that alright?” He enthusiastically nodded, shoving the last bit of toast in his mouth and running off with a mouthful of unchewed bread.

You could feel a slight worry stab your gut, “Arthur, swallow your food before you run! You could choke!”

You watched as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs, vigorously chewed, swallowed, and resumed his sprint upstairs. You dragged a tired hand through your hair and sipped at your coffee.

“Ender, now I know how you felt with us when we were kids. Kid’s gonna be the death of me.”

Your dad chuckled, sipping at his own coffee. “He’s a lot more tame than you four were. Techno and Wilbur weren’t that bad, you were just a tad bit more chaotic, and well, you remember how Tommy was. You’re just way too worried about him. Kids will be kids, they do crazy things and sometimes you can’t stop them. After the couple months of adopting Tommy, I just let him learn from his mistakes. You gotta let them learn from their mistakes or else they’re never gonna learn. It’s just something all parents have to do if they want their kid to grow as a person.”

“That’s tr- wait, parent? Arthur’s my protégé, not my kid.”

He smirked over his mug and raised an eyebrow at you, “really? Cuz you seem awfully worried about him.”

“Dad. I’m just worried that he’s gonna accidentally kill himself. What, can I not be worried about my protégé?”

“No need to get defensive, just trying to point out the obvious-”

“The obvious? Dad, I'm only twenty. I’m not adopting anyone anytime soon.”

“I adopted Techno when I was twenty three,” he pointed out with raised eyebrows, “besides, I think you’d be a great parent. You’re already a parental figure for Arthur anyways, so nothing would change too much.”

You were silent for a moment as you stared at him blankly. You never viewed yourself as a parental figure type before. Your current lifestyle of never leaving your workshop would never be able to accommodate having someone that depended on you. You could hardly take care of a goldfish (you still had Bubbles’ grave in the backyard at your house in L’manberg), let alone an entire human child. Sure, you babysat Fundy when Niki was too busy to, but that was your nephew and it was only for a day at a time. You planned on taking Arthur with you back to L’manberg (only if he wanted to of course), but you didn’t think that far ahead. He was probably going to have to stay at your house. You weren’t cut out to be a parent, you wouldn’t be good enough for Arthur.

Philza, noticing your slightly panicked zoned out state, quickly reassured you, “you don’t have to make a definitive decision right now, you have time. Just- just consider it. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to come to me. I think I’ve raised enough kids to know what I’m doing,” he chuckled to himself.

Your feathered wing dropped in relief as you gave him your best smile over your coffee mug. “Thanks Dad, I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you, you’re a lifesaver.” Right after that, a particularly large burst of pain shot along the length of your nonexistent right wing and loitered in the area around the base of your wing. You bit your tongue at the sudden pain as you felt the muscles twitch.

“It’s no problem, I’ll always be here to help ya.” He smiled at you before his eyes snapped to something behind you. His smile dropped as he eyed you concerningly, pointing behind you. “Is- is it supposed to do that?”

You followed his eyes behind you to your prosthetic wing. The metal was twitching in sporadic bursts with varying intensity. You could hear the slight scratching of the metal clashing lightly against the wooden chair. Though it was very inconvenient, you supposed you should be glad that it was moving with the muscle impulses of the muscles you used in flight. Suddenly, you could feel a muscle directly on the base of your wing twitch as the metal moved in tandem with the impulse. The entire wing extended to it’s full length and knocked over the chair next to you. It stood erect for a bit before another twitch caused another spasm that worked its way throughout the length of your metal wing. This time, the wing reared back to your body and almost smacked you in the face. If you didn’t move, your eye would’ve probably been plucked out by one of the metal feathers.

Your flesh wing puffed up slightly in embarrassment as you turned to look back at the blond man in front of you, “technically? I mean, it’s just the sensors picking up on the twitching. I-I’ll get the chair.”

As you stood up, you grunted in pain as another spasm hit you. This time, your wing extended fully perpendicularly to your back causing the muscles in the base of your nubby wing to be pulled unexpectedly. Hissing, your hand shot to rub at the base of your wing. “Fuck that was a bad one.”

You heard the screech of wood on wood as Philza stood up and hurried over to you, dodging a couple of swings from your wing. His hands were hovering indecisively in front of him. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“Take it off. Just- hhh, just take the sensors off. There should be seven of them, all on my back and shoulders.” You bent over with your hands gripping the table with each spasm of your muscles. You could feel the fabric of your shirt being pulled slightly from your body and the warmth of your dad’s hand brushing against your twitching skin as he hurriedly ripped the sensors off your skin.

Once they were all off, the metal wing drooped limply downwards, occasionally being moved slightly when what’s left of the flesh stiffened. “Good, can you unfasten the belts? There’s three of them, they’re a little- ah, a little tricky. After that, carefully pull the metal out through the slit in my shirt. Make sur- sure the sensors don’t rip.”

You sighed when you felt the wing being taken off from you and pulled through the slit in your shirt. Slumping back down into your chair, you reached a hand around to nead the skin on your back. You could feel the twitching slowly decrease in intensity, leaving a sore feeling in its wake. Your wing was placed gently onto the table in front of you, some parts hanging off the side. “Goddamn, I haven’t had an episode that bad since I grinded out making weapons for the War.”

You could hear water running before a glass was placed in front of you and Philza picked up the chair you knocked over and pulled it up next to you. He started to rub circles around the muscles around your wing. You sighed in content, feeling the knots in your back being relieved, “thanks. That feels good.”

“(y/n)?” A small voice said from the doorway of the kitchen. You shot up and bit back a groan when your sore muscles were moved. The young boy was leaning into the doorway with his hands on the sides and his mop of brilliant copper hair hung downwards. He looked worried and slightly scared.

“Hey Arthur, we can start your lesson soon, I just need a sec.”

“Are you okay?” His wavering tone and small voice combined with the tears slowly filling his eyes broke your heart. Eyes softening, you stood up and walked over to him, pulling him into a soft hug. “Of course I’m okay, you don’t need to worry buddy,” you deepened your voice and spoke dramatically, ‘(Y/n) Minecraft the Great, Conqueror of the Unknown’ will never be taken down!”

He gave a watery chuckle against your shirt and burrowed his head deeper into your shoulder, gripping you tighter. You reached up to stroke his hair and wrapped your left wing around him loosely, shielding him from the world with a protective feathery barrier. You could hear Philza picking up dishes from the table and quietly start to do the dishes. Despite the occasional twitch in your back and the phantom pain shooting down your wing, you directed all of your attention to Arthur. Eventually, he pulled away and wiped at his blotchy face. “Are you still up for the lesson?”

Just as Arthur opened his mouth, Philza interrupted him from behind you, “you’re not doing anything until you feel better (y/n).”

“Dad, honestly it isn’t that-”

“Don’t say it honestly isn’t that bad, we both know that’s not true. You’re on bedrest for today.”

You grumbled to yourself as you stood up and handed your glass of water to Arthur, who sipped at the contents giving you a small “thank you.” Nodding, you were escorted out of the kitchen by Philza and ushered to the couch. Once you were laying down on your stomach, he handed you a book and placed a hot water bottle on your back. Before you could stop it, a pleased hum left your lips as your body relaxed on the couch. “You’re staying here. I better not find you anywhere else when Arthur and I come home.”

You lifted your head up and stared at him with an eyebrow raised, “where’re you taking him?”

The corners of his mouth twitched and his eyes lit up slightly before he put on his stern facade once more. “Just to the village. I need to pick up a few things.”

“And you need him why…?”

“Well, I can’t go without someone helping me! I’m an old man after all.” He started to nudge Arthur towards the door and slipped his shoes on.

“You’re only thirty six, but whatever. Arthur, be good for my dad.”

“Alright (y/n), feel better soon!” He gave you a bright smile before he was pulled out of the house by Philza.

You tried to read, but the nagging worry for Arthur in the back of your mind never allowed for you to be immersed in your book. You knew Philza would never let anything happen to him, but you couldn’t help but worry whenever Arthur wasn’t in your line of sight. You supposed that it was a part of being an avian hybrid; you needed to constantly know if the child was alright. You tried to force yourself to go to sleep, but the pain prevented you from doing so, so you ended up mindlessly watching the seconds tick by on the clock. Before you knew it, your eyes closed and you were put in a light slumber.

You were awoken by the front door opening and laughter filling the house. You cracked open your crusty eyes and groaned as you sat up. You looked at the two with bleary eyes. Arthur was laughing at something Philza said as the blond looked over at you. “Hey hun, you feelin better?”

“Yeah a bit. What’d you get at the village?”

“Just some things for dinner. Arthur, wanna help me cook?”

Arthur, being the walking ball of sunshine that he was, nodded vigorously and started to drag the older man to the kitchen. Furrowing your brow, you called out to them, “do you want me to help?”

“No, stay there. Don’t come in!” Arthur’s excited voice shouted back to you, making you raise a brow at his words. You couldn’t lie, you felt nervous at his words. Just what did he have in store for you? Occasionally, you could hear yelps and bangs, which made you want to go into the kitchen even more. But you held off, trusting Philza.

About an hour and a half passed before you were summoned to the kitchen by an overly excited Arthur. Once in the kitchen, you were in slight awe. Spread out on the table was your favorite meal with the addition of fresh cookies left to cool on the stovetop. “All this for me?”

They smiled at you as Arthur ushered you to your spot at the table. “I… don’t know what to say. I- thank you guys.”

“Don’t thank me, it was all Arthur’s idea. I just helped.” Philza looked over at the blushing boy with a smile.

You reached over to ruffle his hair, “well, thank you Arthur. You know me too well, these are all my favorites!”

The boy bashfully smiled at you, “there’s something else too, but that’s for after dinner.”

You put a hand against your heart, touched, “Two surprises in one day? Ender, you’re spoiling me!” Arthur laughed at you.

Dinner went by fast with light-hearted laughter bouncing throughout the kitchen. The dinner and cookies tasted amazing, your taste buds felt like they were in heaven. After dinner, Arthur drug you to your room with an excited Philza following you two. On your bed sat your wing, but it had colorful things attached to the surface. Furrowing your brow, you looked closer to find various magnets sticking to the iron surface.

They ranged from the nonbinary flag to small mobs to little puns (your favorite ones were ‘olive you’ and ‘bird puns fly right over my head’). You could feel your smile widening at every magnet you saw, your wing fluttering in happiness. One of the magnets made you stop completely though as you stared at it with wide eyes. It was simple, but oh did it make your heart sing in joy and your eyes fill with tears. On the magnet, in big, bold letters were the words ‘world’s best parent’.

“Arthur…” You looked at him through blurred vision. He looked nervous, looking anywhere but at you and shifting on the balls of his feet. You lunged forward and pulled him into a tight hug and wrapped your wing around him, making sure he was as close to you as possible.

Philza watched the exchange with a soft smile before he decided to let you two have some privacy. His heart was full of happiness as he walked downstairs to clean up the kitchen with a bounce in his step and his wings fluttering uncontrollably. He was ecstatic to officially welcome Arthur to his family. Sure, he had a small hand in leading Arthur over to the ‘world’s best parent’ magnet, but it was Arthur that picked out the magnet for you. He knew you were going to make a fantastic parent.

General taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@crybabyjabby @izzybobizzy13 @goldenstarofthunderclan @bunnyz-pxstel @averytiredfanfictionwriter @dcml04 @sparkling-gayyyy @bbigbbrainn @thaticecreambish @kiinokochii @satansphatass @bxkubitch @bxmentchildxx

Series taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@acecarddraws @ravennightingaleandavatempus @dirtydiavolo @yeiras-world @immadatmostthings @hee-hee-haw @jackalopedoodles @m1lkmandan @vanhakirja @im-a-depressed-gay @coolleviauchihadreamerlove @questioning-sanity @camisascam @bongwaterflavoredgatorade @kakamiissad @jayistrash4 @lifestylesleep @speedymaximoff @sun-shark-tooth @appetiteofapeoplepleaser @lestrangenymph @kinismanditory @dragons-lurk-here @rinzyx05 @the-wandering-pan-ace @angelic-scent @shinipii @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander @izzydimensional @used-avocado @laura--444 @wing-non @lovely-echoo @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @mysteryartisticwriter @momo-has-a-gun @misfortunatem00n @w-0-r-n-n @v-kouya @kusuinko @cheybaee @dulcedippers @jaciahbabes

#sbi x reader #sleepy bois x reader #sleepy bois inc x reader #philza x reader #mcyt x reader #platonic #reader is gender neutral #tw: the warden #tw: swearing #tw: phantom pain

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