#also i had to pare my writing down for the dean one bc i know next to nothing about coal mining in kansas

[tiarnanabhfainni]

i wrote another fic about generational trauma and the winchesters, this time featuring deadbeat mom extraordinaire mary née campbell, displacement, emigration, the american wake and just really missing your mom.

gonna quickly tag a few mutuals who might be interested but also you can find the fic under the cut

@uhuraha @myaimistrue @nonsensegnomes

American Wake

On a mild summer’s day in 1950, a wedding took place in Normal, Illinois. Dressed in a simple white dress that she had inherited from her mother, Millie Walsh looked up at the man who was to be her husband in daze of transcendent happiness. She had good reason to be besotted. His name was Henry Winchester and he was a dashing young academic of the supernatural with a fascinating air of mystery that surrounded him. They had met the previous year when he had come to her home in New York on a fact-finding mission. Millie fell in love after only two minutes of conversation.

With such a buoyant adoration to carry her through, Millie was perfectly happy to relocate to a state far from her family and friends to build a new life with charming debonair Henry. She knew about the supernatural elements of his life. How could she not? But it was a trade she was perfectly willing to make for the opportunity to create a family with him.

And she paid dearly for that decision. Millie lost a husband and was left to raise her four year old son alone.

It was all entirely avoidable of course. The Winchester name was not her inheritance by birth. No Cupid had ever marked her name for Henry. It was by no means a match made in heaven. If not for love, Millie could have lived a life completely divorced from the less-than-natural.

After her husband’s disappearance her heart hardened and she abandoned the Winchester name and any association with the supernatural. Packing her bags for Kansas, she returned instead to the ways of her own people. For Millie’s family had a long history of leaving their pasts behind them.

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Millie’s maternal line can be traced back to a small town in Limerick, Ireland now known by the name of Patrickswell. The farm where her grandmother was reared would likely have been a fair few miles from the town itself but it’s difficult to be precise about these things since many of the records of the era were destroyed in an explosion during the Civil War of the 1920’s.

Bridget Ó Laochdha lived in a hard place surrounded by tough people. There was no work in the surrounding towns and villages and her family was forced to eke out a living on rented land. Most of the local community spoke little to no English and spent most of their day-to-day lives conversing and working through the medium of the Irish language.

The Ó Laochdha family was no exception to this rule. Bridget - as the sole member of the family with more than a rudimentary grasp on the foreign tongue - had been translating for her father at the market for most of her young life.

The rugged countryside that surrounded them was austere and beautiful but there was darkness around every corner. Violence engulfed the region as the Land War raged around them. The threat of eviction was a constant sword of Damocles over their heads and the precarity of the political situation left a permanent mark on Bridget’s development.

Bridget loved her family, of course she did. She loved the language she spoke with them and the easy rhythm of her life. But she knew that there was a brighter future out there somewhere on the other side of an ocean. Somewhere she wouldn’t hear constant news of Whiteboys, Invincibles and their clashes with the police. Somewhere that was safer, where she might get a job and support her family from afar. All she needed was the means to get there.

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Mary idolises her dad when she’s young as children are prone to do. Her family are heroes who straddle the line between the known and the unknown and keep the world safe from the evil lurking in the shadows.

As a teenager, she joins the family business and she’s a natural. She excels particularly at getting information out of young witnesses. She sits amongst small groups of girls, nodding along to conversations about music, miniskirts and make-up and nudging the topic of discussion slowly around to the subject of her father’s latest hunt. Mary’s good with the guys too, she finds that a well-placed laugh or look can get her most of what she needs.

But intel is not the only area where she excels. Mary’s a sharpshooter and she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. Hand her a shovel and she can dig a grave just as fast as the boys. She even knows the best technique for washing blood off her hands.

She’s on a path to be one of the best in the business. And she hates it.

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Although many people left Ireland to try their luck in the United States in those days, it was still a difficult path to tread. Tickets to get to New York were expensive and hard to come by. Buying a ticket at the harbour was as likely to get you scammed as to get you a place on the boat.

Bridget was fortunate in that her local parish priest was looking to sponsor a few young hopefuls on the trip across the Atlantic and offered her a place. That decision might have been the hardest any in her family had ever had to make. To leave behind everything she knew and understood for the small chance that her life could be better. She made that choice nonetheless.

The tradition of The American Wake was one that dated back to the famine years in Ireland to mourn the departure of a loved one to that far off place across the ocean. There would be no real way to send letters home consistently and economic conditions meant that the emigrants would likely never be able to return home. What do you do when you are setting up to grieve someone who is still alive? You hold a funeral.

On Bridget’s last day in Limerick she cried until her tear ducts ran dry. She sat in the centre of the room and listened to the keening women wail around her. Her father could not speak his sadness but he stood beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder, bowing his head in silent prayer. Her mother held her face in her hands and whispered one last goodbye.

Yet amidst all of the tears and the heartache, a sense of relief made its way into Bridget’s bones and settled in her spine. There was death and loss but a future there too. A brand new life in a brand new land. And while they’d never say it, her family was relieved too, she could see it in their eyes. This was one less mouth to feed, one less person to clothe. The money she will send home in remittances would lighten her father’s load by a considerable degree.

As she boarded the boat in Cobh, she stared at the ticket clutched tightly in her hand and thought not of what it had taken from her but of the life it stood to grant her.

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When Mary meets John for that second date outside his mother’s house, she knows that this is it. That he is her ticket out.

She clutches his body in her lap and cries and she doesn’t know what to do. With death and destruction all around her, Mary makes the only choice she can.

Deanna’s body still lies abandoned on the kitchen tiles. But isn't it better, in a way, that she never had to face her daughter leaving her behind?

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The first impression America made on Bridget was not a positive one. No sooner than she arrived at Ellis Island, did they take the last vestiges of her home away from her. Bridget Leahy took her first step onto foreign soil without even her name to console her.

Her first job in New York was that of a kitchen worker in a large airy home in the employ of a family belonging to the upper echelons of East Coast society. Her hours were long and her fingers near scrubbed to the bone. Since her food and board were covered, every penny that she earned was sent home to Patrickswell.

While her English had served her well in local markets of Limerick, she found that they were quite inadequate here among native speakers. She sat around the table in the servants’ quarters with the others who worked in the home and listened as conversations happened all around her. They all spoke so fast and the topic of conversation switched so quickly that she couldn't quite keep track. Bridget simply did not have the vocabulary to contribute and so she stopped speaking entirely.

The longing for home was like a physical wound lodged just under her ribs and sometimes she wondered how she continued to breathe through the pain.

The only times that she could recognise herself was on her rare evenings off when she made her way down to the local Irish dance hall. There she could allow young men from Inchicore, Kilrush and Listowel to spin her around a room to the music of home and forget where she was for just a few hours.

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It is impossible to overemphasise how little the role of a housewife suits Mary Winchester. The sundresses feel awkward on her form and the kitchen still feels like a foreign land.

The other mothers in the neighbourhood all seem to speak the same language as they switch tracks fluently between complaining good-naturedly about their husbands and swapping recipe cards. Mary has never felt more out of place.

She doesn’t know where she fits or how to contribute. The loss of her mother is like a crater in her chest and she doesn’t know where to lay down all of the grief she holds in her hands. She thinks she would be better at holding her children without it.

When it all gets too much, she sheds the skin of Mary Winchester and leaves her small family behind to retrace the Campbell path. She might not be able to get her family back but she can pretend to be home for just a small while when on a hunt.

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In a small catholic church on an intersection, Bridget Leahy married Mick Walsh of Tyrone in a small, private ceremony. As a married woman, she left the world of employment behind and started the task of homemaking in their small Manhattan apartment. She did her best to keep the rooms aired out and clean but the grime of the city was ever present.

When she looked out of the window and saw grey dusty streets she couldn't help but compare the view to green fields and the fresh air of the Limerick countryside. Her husband worked in construction, building monuments of steel to the sky that looked towards an American future while she remained stuck in an Irish past.

When Bridget’s pregnancy first became obvious to the couple, they were delighted. This was their chance to build something of their own on American soil. A family.

When her waters broke, the women of the neighbourhood rushed into her room to oversee the birth and refused to let her husband in so he could hold her hand.

In another life maybe Bridget stayed at home and married a local boy in Patrickswell. Maybe she gave birth at home next to her parents’ fireplace with all of the women of her family around her and her mother stroking her hair.

Maybe she was destined to die in childbirth no matter where she was but at least at home the last voice in her ears would have been in a tongue that was her own.

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Just like Millie Winchester née Walsh before her, Mary Winchester let the supernatural into her home in a desperate grab for the life that she wanted to build.

And just like her mother-in-law before her, a demon crashed through the walls and destroyed every semblance of a family that she had found.

[fcklifeex]

Finn Balor - Request 1

Request: Heeyyy girllll so I just wanted to say a few things and I'm sorry if I just came out of the blue. First of all your writing is amazing so you deserve the writing spot in wwe bc that dean ambrose fic is now my fave bc it was so cute ☺️ and if I can I would like to request a story with Finn balor where you guys have a young child and they have a nerf gun war ending badly??? Cute and funny with a tad bit of angst . Sorry if it's weird

Paring: Finn Balor/Reader

Y/N - Your Name //  Y/S/N - Your Son’s name

I woke up to the feel of something hitting me, opening my eye only to be hit in the face again.

“What in the…” I sat up to see my son shooting both Finn and I with a two nerf guns in hand.

With a laugh, i nudged Finn who slept like a dead man. 

Finn rubbed his eyes, leaning up on his elbows slowly realizing what was happening before he started laughing.

“There's the birthday boy!” Finn smiled sitting up in bed.

Today was Y/S/N’s 4th birthday and each year after he went to bed the night before, we’d leave one present in the room for him to wake up to then he’d get the rest later in the day.

This year, my amazingly thoughtful husband decided our son was old enough for a nerf gun without any consideration of how extremely annoying it would be for the rest of us.

“Daddy, daddy - play with me!” Y/S/N yelled in excitement as he tossed the second gun onto Finn.

Unfortunately, our baby also had no sense in aim and it landed right on his groin. Finn toppled over in pain but the kid was already running out of the room and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You find this funny do yah?” He grunted as he cupped himself.

“I’m just adoring the fact that I was right.” With a laugh, I leaned in to give him a kiss before getting out of bed to throw on a robe.

“You’re not right!” He protested as his lips curled into a smile unable to keep from laughing.

“I’ll make breakfast.” I laughed, brushing him off as he ran out of the room in his boxers to chase after our little brown eyed boy.

After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I headed downstairs into the kitchen, pulling out everything I needed to make pancakes and played some music off my phone. Seeing as it was only 7 in the morning, the birthday party wouldn’t be for hours giving me plenty of time to set up later.

The sound of two sets of footsteps could be heard all throughout the house and I smiled to myself watching them come down the stairs, shooting mercilessly at each other while they laughed.

It really was so heartwarming to see. Finn was on the road a lot and he was always tired but he never let it show when it came to anything our son and I wanted to do.

I danced around to the music, mixing the batter when suddenly I was covered in batter when an array of nerf bullets shot into my mixing bowl.

“Finn! Y/S/N!” I yelled but I couldn't help but laugh when they both attacked me with kisses, as apology.

“Sorry mama!” They said simultaneously as Finn kissed my cheek and head while Y/S/N kissed my hip and stomach.

“I married a child.” I laughed to myself as I grabbed a towel to wipe myself off while they ran off shooting at each other again.

Suddenly a high pitched squeal can't from the back stairs.

“Shit.” I heard Finn’s voice followed by our son crying. “Y/N!”

I immediately stopped everything and ran towards the sound of the crying to be met by blood on the stairs and Finn holding our son.

“What the hell happened?!” I asked, cupping the baby’s face to find the source of the blood. He had a rather large cut on the bottom of his chin and I looked at Finn demanding an answer.

“He tripped on the stairs and hit his chin, i think he needs stitches.” Finn said taking a closer look.

“I told you he wasn’t ready for a nerf gun!” I hit Finn in the arm before walking into the bathroom to grab a towel and covering the baby’s gash. “Now we have to take him to the hospital, on his birthday nonetheless!”

“He’ll be okay, it’s just a small cut.” He returned trying to sooth the crying child. “Right buddy?”

I shot him and evil look and we rushed to change into clothes before strapping him in the car with me in the backseat still holding the towel on his chin while Finn rushed us to the hospital.

In the emergency room we checked him in and were quickly ushered into the back. The boy hadn’t stopped crying and I hadn’t stopped fuming at Finn.

“Hey, these things happen babe. He’s a kid.” He tried before pressing a kiss on my head.

“I know he’s a kid, that doesn’t mean he should be almost dying at every turn!”

Finn laughed and ruffled the baby’s hair. “He didn’t almost die, he just learned a lesson about running up stairs, right bugger?”

Teary eyed, the baby nodded and Finn shot us both a smile. Soon the doctor came in and I held Y/S/N while they gave him a total of 4 stitches underneath his chin. To my surprise he didn’t cry or scream out, he just braved it all. After the doctor was finished, he gave our son a sticker and a high-five before stepping out to review aftercare with Finn.

“Look at you.” I smiled down at the baby. “You were so brave.”

“Good job, bud!” Finn smiled as he walked back in and gave him a high five. Now you’re just like mommy and daddy! Look.” He said lifting his chin to show his and I lifted my head to do the same.

Finn had gotten his while wrestling of course while I had gotten my scar from being a clumsy child just like Y/S/N. I guess I was a little harsh on Finn. These things happen all the time.

“Yup, now you’re officially part of the club.” I joked, kissing his head.

After checking him out, we strapped him in the backseat again while Finn and I sat up front on the drive home.

“I’m sorry about freaking out.” I said quietly.

Finn looked over at me, taking my hand in his to lace our fingers together as he drove. “Don’t worry about it, I like when you get into mama-bear mode.”

With a small laugh, i brought his hand up to my lips to press a kiss against it. “I love you.”

“Love you too baby.” He smiled before looking in the rear-view at the baby. “Now - who’s ready for their birthday party?” “Meeee!” Y/S/N yelled excitedly from the back.

*Gifs not mine!

I hope you enjoyed, and as always - let me know if you have a request!

[amygriffissourkitty]

Eleanor and Peter’s Cozy Vancouver Wedding

Eleanor and Peter decided early on that they didn’t want a large wedding. Instead, they preferred a smaller, more reflective wedding.

“We wanted to create a celebration of our love and commitment in which we could be truly present in the moment,” Eleanor said. “Having a big wedding was something we felt would detract from that.”

Thanks to the wonderful Andrea Fernandez for capturing this intimate wedding in Sooke, British Columbia so beautifully!

Eleanor Dean, 32 & Peter, 30

Location: Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Wedding Date: October 16, 2016

Number of Guests: 6 at ceremony, 50 at reception.

Wedding Ceremony Location: Bridge House, Point No Point Resort, Sooke, BC.

Wedding Reception Location: Prospect Lake Community Hall, Saanich, BC. We had a separate party but chose not to have a photographer there. I will speak mostly to our ceremony.

     What are some the challenges that you faced planning an intimate wedding?

We had a lot of discussion about the purpose of a wedding ceremony —was it a public declaration to family and community, or a personal statement of commitment and to some extent, a demonstration of independence as a couple? How much a mixture of both? We knew what felt right for us but it took a while to unpack what our hearts were telling us. Once we had a “vision,” a goal of what we wanted to create (yes, we wrote a mission statement!), the rest fell into place very quickly. In fact, we began to realize that a lot of details were superfluous, and that creating the atmosphere we wanted didn’t come down to material things. Having a clear goal helped a lot in our decision making. We had a destination ceremony at a resort, and a DIY reception one week later at a community hall. It was like a whole week of celebrations.

  Was it difficult to pare down the guest list?

We both come from relatively small families, so we kept our ceremony guests to immediate family. The ceremony was basically a destination wedding for us plus nuclear family. We also had a reception a week later for friends and family. It was hard to keep small, but we made some rules and stuck to them.

             Did you have any issues with the small guest list from friends and family? If so, how did you address them?

There were certainly family members who did not understand our limitations on numbers or what we were trying to achieve. There were others who were entirely supportive. Thankfully the resort had their own limitations regarding our venue—the ceremony venue was the first, clear thing we determined—so we could somewhat put the blame on them!

           What were the highlights of the ceremony?

Eleanor: My highlight was our ‘moment of silence’. Instead of vows, we chose to have a minute of quiet. Both Peter and I love yoga and it was a way to focus on being present in the moment. We stood holding hands. I couldn’t tell you who else was there because I was so happy holding hands and looking into the eyes of my new husband. It was lightly raining, and the smell of the forest and the ocean was fresh in the cool air. You could hear the waves crashing on the beach below. A lot of people were skeptical when we told them we were having a silence. It wasn’t solemn, it was just a perfect pause to consciously make a memory. Lots of people say your wedding vows can be a blur, so this was a great way to be together. I also loved the family meal we had in the evening. Our venue was a big house with a kitchen. We had bought enough food for a small army! My sister and her husband cooked an amazing eight course meal for everyone, part of which was prepared by candlelight after the power went out in a storm! Knowing that these two people wanted to share their talent and passion for cooking and put in this work on our wedding day was so special!

Peter: My highlight was the part where we got married.

       What were the highlights of the reception?

We never thought of the reception as a reception but more of a dance party. We had a Scottish ceilidh, dancing and a live band. We had friends performing poetry, songs and dances. Seeing all these people from different parts of our lives dancing together, laughing and smiling was very special. It was a great way to get people to join together.

                      What was the best thing about having an intimate wedding?

Being able to remember it! The reception was a blur and we only had 50 people. I can’t imagine a bigger event!

            What advice do you have for couples who are considering an intimate wedding?

We found it very helpful to write a vision for what you want. It could be fun, bright party or romantic and classic. We both imagined a story of what our wedding would be like and picked some key words. Once we had this, it was like a touchstone for all the decisions we made. I found it so easy to go overboard and get excited about grand things, so it was helpful to ask myself does it contribute to our vision? Sometimes the answer was no, and we saved some money! Sometimes the answer was yes, and it justified an expense.

  Vendors:

Location: Point No Point Resort

Hair and Make Up: Carly Flint, The Green Kiss

Photography: Andrea Fernandez

Flowers: Rook and Rose

Ribbon: Nine Bark Farm

Cake: Ruth and Dean

Wedding dress: Reformation

Cake Topper: Blush Type

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