#be made to kill that parent. the parent whom you inevitably chose.

[donnatroyyyy]

I think a lot about how Kon is TECHNICALLY a rape baby and/or an allegory for a rape baby and how that must feed into his self-loathing so much.

[captnjacksparrow]

If you don't factor in her obsession with Sasuke do you like Sakura?

I don't have any problem with her Obsession with Sasuke... Really... Yeah, I said this as one of the reason in many of my posts... But that reason is just a mere supplementary to an already written novel.

I mean she was introduced to the readers as someone who wants to steal the kiss of a guy... Did I hated her at that time?? Not really.

Her Insensitive & Asshole behaviour towards every other characters we came to love and adore... Is the biggest problem in her. And Sakura was doing all these because of her Obsession with Sasuke. She would put Naruto, Ino, Sai, Kiba, Lee, Her parents, Tsunade, Karin even Sarada under the dirty ditch if that could get her Sasuke.

My point is "Was it worth??? Was it necessary??".

Naruto was also insanely obsessed with Sasuke. But when Sasuke was planning to destroy Konoha, didn't Naruto say, "Sasuke, Our battle will be inevitable, if you do attack Konoha..."????

You know what this scene is equivalent to??? On my first watch, It reminded me of a typical Girl asking a boy, "Hey dear, If there is a situation where Your Mom and Myself were in grave danger, and you could save only one person... Whom will you save?? Who is more important to you, me or your mom??".

The Guy will say, "Of course my Mom. But I would die with you anyway... Because I can't live with a regret of letting my mom die... But also I can't live without you... So, I'll save my mom and die with you"

Naruto did the exact same thing here...

Did Naruto started to hurt anyone or indulge Sasuke to hurt other people under the name of the love???

No, Right??

And what did Sakura do??? She left Sai, Kiba and Lee exposed on the middle of the road... She was planning to kill Sasuke, Fakely confessed Naruto knowing full well that Hinata love him... Geez.

There is this misconception that "Independent and Strong girls needs to be Violent, Badass and Kick the ass of other men". But that’s not true at all. Feminine Women can also be Independent, Strong and still they can achieve their goal.

Take for Example, Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones. A Thoroughly hated Character in the Fandom.

She started out much like Sakura. Like an Annoying Idiot who puts a boy over her family... She hated her Family and Home because it was boring and dull... She wanted a pretty prince in shining Armour to come save her... And When a situation presented itself, instead of Choosing her own Family... She chose her Prince. And her naive decision was what later came to shoot her foot in a worst way possible... 

Because she ended up losing her family (they were all massacred). Her Home was burnt... She was made to strip off her clothes in front of many People... She was intentionally left to be raped by some angry mob. Her Father was beheaded And the reason behind all of her miseries was that sadistic Prince she always wanted for herself...

To be factual, she became a Pawn for other’s Game.

But instead of being a Damsel in distress and waiting for someone to come save her.... She started to use her wits and practical thinking (She is not a Warrior type), and decided ‘Enough is Enough... Instead of being abused by all these people... Let me stand up for myself... I want to reclaim my Home... That’s my place... Now and Forever’. She has a good administrative and tactical skills.

You see... A Character who started out very similar to Sakura evolved into a Mature woman and ended up becoming a Queen who was loved by many people in the End. Oh, By the Way... She didn’t end up marrying anyone though... She contextually said, “I don’t need any man to rule my Home”.

However, the Fandom still hates her from the bottom of their heart... Because the Fan Favourite, Badass character ended up committing Genocide.... Whereas the allegedly “useless” AKA the most Feminine Character ended up becoming a queen. 

I too hated Sansa in the beginning just like how I hated Sakura... But as the story evolved... My feelings also evolved the same. Today, 90% of the fandom hates her through their bone... But I fall on the 10% of the people who admire her despite she had never shown the trait of Kick Ass, Slay bad guys type... She was gentle, patient, kind and yet sharp-tongued by calling out Bullshit as Bullshit.

Don’t you think I would have also loved Sakura if only she had not ended up being an Asshole to atleast one person???? Atleast one????   

The Reason I brought Naruto dying along with Sasuke scene is to show that Had Sakura been empathetic and considerate to other people and stopped Sasuke from destroying other people.... then Her Obsession would have been justified... 

The Reason I brought Sansa Stark is to show that Had Sakura. at some point, realized that losing/disrespecting the Bonds she had with others for the sake her sex drive is Simply not worth it... Then her Obsession for Sasuke would have been justified...

It’s okay to have priorities.... Naruto has one, Sasuke has one... Sakura prioritizing Sasuke is not a problem at all... But AT WHAT COST????

[fernthefanciful]

A princess is a creature of grace, poise, decorum. They are soft, gentle, patient. I, however, was none of those things, much to my parents’ despair.

 They only brought that upon themselves, of course. A firstborn daughter, a royal invitation to greet the new monarch not sent, and therefore an insult perceived by a powerful magical being. You know how the story goes. I was cursed and, in my story, there were no blessings to gentle it. No other wishes for my future, or what little she left of it. Just a creature of shadow and talon which appeared, damned the bright vision my parents had of my life, and vanished.

  My childhood was a moderately happy one, even with the dark cloud of the curse hanging forever in my periphery. My parents loved me. My sisters, when they were born, did the same. And I of course love them with all that I am. My parents hired tutors, made sure I learned what it meant to be a monarch, made sure I was prepared for a future of rule. They simply made sure my sister learned as well.

  “Just in case.” My father would say, his gaze flitting across the empty hallways as if something unseen was always listening, always watching.

  And when I got too restless, when the green of the forest and the blue of the lake called to me and I couldn’t help but give in to the need to run, to chase, they took me riding. We’d make trips, have picnics, run around on the heather-filled fields and watch the sky change her colour with the setting sun. For the longest time, we were as happy as we could be.

  My eighteenth birthday was a beautiful and clear full moon night. The air rife with the scents of fresh bread and roasted meats of the feast held in honour of my coming of age. Gentle and joyful music filled the ballroom as people danced and laughed all night.

In an empty hallway, as far away from people as I could get, I screamed and cried as my body tore itself apart. As the wildness that had always lived inside of me wanted out. The howl that tore from my newly changed throat was loud enough to wake the entire city.

  I should have been terrified. I should be lamenting the turn my life had taken, all the things I now no longer could do. I should have felt all of those things. But when I made my way out of the castle and into the forest, the ground soft underneath my paws, the silver moonlight a gentle caress on my fur, I couldn’t help but think that his curse tasted a lot like freedom.

  The wildness that had always lived inside of me, the parts that longed to shed the tight clothing and even tighter responsibilities of nobility, were torn from the inner shadow where I had hidden them and shoved into the light. The parts of me that wished to run, to hunt, to feast, finally had a chance to be free.

  Things changed after that.

  Now, people are wary, afraid. My parents try, they really do. To teach me to act normal, ladylike, human. It’s of no use. The wolf lurks under my skin, peering out of my eyes.

People whisper about how much of a waste it is, such a shame, that a curse has changed me so. They don’t see, they don’t understand. The wolf, the wildness, the hunger, has always been there. It is me, the deepest parts of my soul given physical form.

  Life goes on. My sister, perfect, composed, kind, steps into the limelight. Or is pushed, I should say. To placate those who question my place at Court. Meanwhile I am forced into the background. An animal in the shadows meant to be forgotten.

  My wolf balks at the idea of corsets, of rules, of restriction. Doesn’t understand the need for playing nice with nobles it doesn’t like. She’s a creature of instinct, simplicity, and therefore, so am I.

  I spend my days roaming the grounds, protecting what is mine. The people of the city avert their eyes as I go past. Whisper about curses and how they spread, about what it means for the Kingdom that their princess is now a different creature altogether.

My wolf claims the entirety kingdom as her territory and as I get older, I travel further. Checking in daily with the people on the far edges of the lands. The misfits and the outcasts. The ones with wisdom and magic who have been pushed towards the edges of the kingdom long before I was born. Hatred and fear pushed us all here, to the lands where the briar grows three men tall. Where the trees and the shadows move on their own and where the water of the lake is always smooth, no matter how fierce the storm.

I help where I can, chasing off the foxes for the farmers, climbing trees to hang fetches and talismans for protection, bringing food to those who need it most. Most time is spent drinking tea and discussing life with the old lady whom everyone calls ‘witch’. She teaches me all she knows. Things the tutors at the castle never knew to teach me. About the plants and trees that grow, the animals that roam deep within the forest. About life here, on the outskirts of society, and all the peoples and creatures that are part of it. Here, the people look me in the eye. They bow their heads in respect but never in fear. The bravest of the children ask to card their hands through my fur. The old woman laughingly gifts me a crown of twigs and burrs and rowanberries the colour of blood. Every time I’m in my human skin I wear that crown with pride.

  One day, deep within the forest at the edge of my territory, I meet her. The being who has brought all that was hidden within me to the front and then illuminated it. I shift back to human, standing before her, naked and open, but never vulnerable, thanks to her. I thank her for the gifts she has given me. For the freedom and power and strength. The look on her face when I name her fairy godmother is priceless.

  She smiles at me then, a flash of razor-sharp teeth. I bare my own fangs back at her. She asks me then, if I understand. How they are being treated. Those who do not fit in, those who are made of wildness and shadow and blood. How they are shunned because of what they are.

  She tells me this will change, once I am queen. When I tell her that I never will be, that my parents will never find a match for me, she simply laughs and tells me not to worry. After all, I have a fairy godmother now.

  She keeps close after that. Always watching, always near, but never interfering. Not unless I ask her to. So when war, inevitably, finds itself at our borders, I ask for her aid. I stand in the middle of the bloodied battlefield, staring at the incoming forces. The wolf in me is itching underneath my skin. She wishes to hunt, to kill, to feel flesh rip underneath her claws, blood filling her mouth as she tears them apart. So I call out to my fairy godmother, asking if she would join me for a hunt, before I shed my skin along with my humanity and charge forward.

  The battle is brutal and short. The enemy army is better trained, but not against the army of outcasts led by myself and my fairy godmother. Their swords and shields quickly fall against our teeth, claws and magic.

Afterwards, I greet my father on the battlefield. Bare and covered in blood. There is fear in his eyes, yes, but also respect. And, for the first time, trust.

  Things change once again. I am brought back into the castle, but nothing is the same. I spend most of my time in the forests, still, but I also find myself fighting. Training with weapons other than tooth and claw. Weathered old men, tutors, hired by my father to teach me all they know. I learn how much I don’t know, how much there is still to learn. I earn my scars, even if they never stay for long. I earn their respect, even if it is hard won. I am no longer alone, some of my people from the outskirts join me and never leave their princess’ side.

  It doesn’t take long before suitors come from all over the world, wishing to marry one of my sisters. Singing praises about the small kingdom that could so quickly put an end to war. That could tame monsters and wild things. Silly men, none of us were tamed, we simply chose to fight.

  My parents and sisters work hard to get the most advantageous matches. To make sure that both the kingdom and my sisters will continue to grow and prosper. Bargains are struck, feasts are had. One by one my sisters move away, happy with their chosen husbands. All of them are visited by a giant wolf at least once. They know to treat my sisters well, or one night feel the sharp tips of my fangs against their throat.

  Years later I am gifted another crown. It is a beautiful thing. Delicate golden flowers and bright shining gems. It feels uncomfortable to me the way all pretty things do. “It might not suit you,” my father tells me, “but you have earned it.”

“As you have earned your rest.” I tell him.

“You will be wonderful, my Queen.”

  Rumors start spreading, about the Wolfqueen, the Wild One, sitting upon a blood-red throne. About the Kingdom of monsters where beasts, fae and man live free. About the Queen with the Iron Heart, who turns away all who wish to court her, and kills all who dare more.

  It’s not that I do not want someone at my side. I do. I wish for the love that my parents share. That my sisters eventually found with their husbands. But all those who come for my hand, those who finally dare when I have no more free sisters left, come for just that. My hand but not my heart. They are all poised and polished. Perfect little princes who look towards the wealth of the castle but away from the wildness within me. They are afraid to meet my wolf’s cold, assessing gaze.

  Some even try to change me, to find the human underneath the wolf. They only try once.

  For years, I rule alone. Through another war, through a plague born of magic, through prosperity and abundance. My people always by my side but no one to claim my heart.

  But then, a commotion. A man, dressed in furs. No scars on his body, but plenty on his soul. His eyes glowing the same gold as mine in the gentle torchlight. A wildness in them that my wolf recognizes. A challenge that my wolf is eager to take, to rise up to.

  “Your Oracle told me to come here.” He tells me, “I asked for guidance, to find what my heart truly desires, and she sent me to you.”

  My fairy godmother steps up behind me, laying a hand on my shoulder. I can’t see her, but I know she is smiling a smile of sharp pointed teeth. No doubt the oracle he speaks of.

  “My Queen,” he continues, bowing deep, his eyes never leaving mine, “I came looking for connection, for freedom. I believe I will find it with your time and your company. Will you grant me it?”

  “And what, my prince,” for if my fairy godmother sent him, he can only be that, “will you grant me in return?” I lean forward, eager, hungry.

  “Loyalty,” he steps forward, onto the dais, “companionship and understanding.” He leans over me for a single, challenging moment, before kneeling before me, baring his throat. “Perhaps in time even love. But for now, the thrill of a hunt. Of a chase.” He grins, baring sharp fangs. A breath, and a beautiful black-furred wolf sits in front of me.

Oh – the hunt is on. A thrill goes through me as I shift, ready to run, to chase him down and claim him for my own. For if one thing is certain, it is that I am a wild thing, a Queen, a hunter, but never, ever, prey.

(First posted on my website)

[littlemisssquiggles]

Is it just me or is anyone else getting slowly uncomfortable with the fact that Ruby is still trying to act like everything happen was not her fault or a result of her poor judgement. Dor example, when Penny brought up Ironwood and team RWBY's disagreement. Ruby look generally surprised that Penny was even thinking about Ironwood. It is lowkey, Team RWBY ruined that the alliance with Ironwood fell apart in the first place. Even Oscar apologized about confronting Ironwood alone. But I don't feel any ounce of sorriness from Ruby about how bad this situation has gotten. This situation ia only going to worse now that Oscar is gone. I firmly believe Penny will betray them or disappear and try to confront Salem on her own as a sacrifice but it will be futile. It just seems Team RWBY made so mistakes and lied so much...

...What I personally don’t get is why are folks (fans as well as the actual characters within the show) placing all the blame for the heroes divorce from working with the General and the Atlesian Military on Ruby Rose and Ruby Rose ONLY while ignoring the all-important that detail that it was in fact the actions of Yang Xiao Long (and by extension Blake Belladonna) that landed the group in hot water and not really what Ruby did.

Don’t get me wrong anon-chan. You are correct in the fact that Ruby’s choice to deceive the General was the first mistake the heroes made and while I agree that Ruby does deserve to be pulled up for that failed leadership choices, she isn’t the only person meant to be on trial here for the repercussions of their mistakes. Are we forgetting that the bit about the heroes choosing to lie and withhold the truth about Salem was all brought to light before the General and ironed out by Oscar?

Are we forgetting that back in RWBY V7CH9---after the others left to go assist in the evacuation down in Mantle with the Ace Ops, Oscar and Ironwood had a discussion where not only did the little prince shed light on the truth about Salem but he also explained the rationalization behind the group’s choice to withhold such information from the General for so long.

When Ironwood called out RWBY in his office in V7CH11, it wasn’t for their choice to withhold the truth about Salem---it was actually regarding how Robyn Hill learned about the Amity Project. A secret that was revealed to the Happy Huntress by Yang and Blake in V7CH7 and as far as I’m aware of, the Bees never informed the others about what they had done on the night of the ambush.

We got no scene afterwards that confirmed this (at least to my recollection). Not even during the brief meeting between RWBY and Oscar at the start of V7CH8. As far as the audience is aware, Yang and Blake acted on their own to reveal the Amity Project to the Happy Huntresses and failed to alert the others.

And in reviewing the episode where this happened (V7CH7)---I noticed that it was actually Yang who made the call to reveal the truth to Robyn since Blake looked to her for approval first before spilling the beans to Robyn. 

So essentially Yang is to be held responsible for relaying the Amity Project to the leader of the Happy Huntresses…and then choosing to not tell the rest of the team?

This is what has been bugging me about the showrunners’ choice to have Yang be the one to call out Ruby for her mistakes in leadership. This presents Yang as a hypocrite in my eyes since in my opinion, she has no right to pull up Ruby while ignoring that she herself is responsible for the group losing their alliance with the Military.

Let me say this again---it was NOT Ruby’s choice for the group to deceive the General about Salem that caused their inevitable rift. It was Yang’s choice for her and Blake to tell the Happy Huntresses about Amity. THAT is what Ironwood called RWBY out for last season. And let me also remind you of the detail that while the WHOLE team knew about Ruby’s choice, NO ONE else other than Blake knew about Yang’s (as far as I know).

So yeah, while I agree with you on your lack of sympathy towards Ruby right now since she does deserve to have her leadership questioned, at the same time, I hate that all the blame is being slapped on Ruby’s shoulders when it isn’t entirely her fault. Yang is ALSO responsible yet she gets a slap on the wrist by the PLOT. Nah son! I’m not liking this angle at all.

Ruby deserves to be called out yes, but someone NEEDS to tell off Yang too and pull her up too. From where I’m standing, both sisters screwed up and got the group in trouble. So I’d like for someone to confront Yang too and at the moment, I’m banking on it being Blake since, judging by the first episode, she didn’t look too keen on what Yang said to Ruby by calling out her leadership. Not to mention that when the teams divided, Blake sided with Ruby and NOT Yang which, to be me, is very interesting. So I’m hoping this leads to Blake standing up for Ruby in the event of another confrontation and blame game, leading to the Belladonna girl telling off Yang.

I understand the show has been “strengthening” the bond between the Bees since V6 (as a result of the story potentially leading into the two huntresses being paired up romantically) however I would have mad respect for the writers if, not only did they have Blake be the one to reprimand Yang for her poor choices but additionally if that leads into the two girls finally discussing their relationship and all the things that was left unsaid between them from seasons ago since Blake’s return.

Not saying this will occur. Just saying that if it did, I’d have nothing but mad respect for the writers for this bit of good development between the Bees.

As for Penny P---I agree with you on the possibility of Penny betraying the heroes. If her option for her to surrender over the Staff of Creation to Salem in exchange for her kingdom’s salvation wasn’t a clear as day red flag then I don’t know what is. It’s as blunt as a bullet to the foot, m’dude. 

It is very evident with her expressions and mannerisms that Penny is emotionally stunted by the tension between the two hero factions (our heroes and the Atlesian Military) with whom she shares affiliation with. It’s like watching a child suffer through their parents going through a bitter divorce and custody battle knowing fully well that things aren’t okay while simultaneously being assured that all will be well (when it isn’t and probably won’t be in the end given the tone of the opening and season thus far). Ruby and General Ironwood---the two core leaders of both hero factions---are like the dysfunctional parents in this scenario and Penny, as the party member who is linked to both of them, is being forced to choose a side. At least, that’s how it felt when Ironwood contacted Penny.

Again it’s like watching a child in a dysfunctional family where one parent is forcing them to choose between the other while ignoring the child’s feelings in this predicament. It’s all there. In this moment, Penny is like a child. Even the way she’s been talking to everyone feels more child-like and innocent than usual.

And Ironwood giving Penny the guilt trip by placing the fall of Mantle in her hands---it is such a manipulative move. I hate it for what it’s doing to Penny right now in the show but I love it at the same time for what it could eventually lead into for her character and arc later in the story.

The point I’m trying to make here is that I do think Penny will betray everyone in the end. Without a doubt. Given the beef between both sides, I feel as if we’re likely to see Penny ultimately chose to take matter into her own hands---disowning BOTH sides and choosing to do things HER way out of what SHE felt was best for EVERYONE.

In the beginning, Penny started off on Ironwood’s side with the Military (mainly) back in V7. Then in V8, she’s with RWBY and the others. However I think in the end, Penny will revoke her alliance with both sides of heroes, deeming them all unfit to lead and help anyone right now; essentially holding their current squabble accountable for the tragedies of both Atlas and Mantle (which…she wouldn’t be wrong for saying).

And thus, this will culminate in Penny doing the very, very stupid---I mean gullible thing she said she would do. The thing everyone warned her not to do. For this squiggle meister’s perspective, I’m anticipating that Penny will probably betray RWBN to side with Ironwood just so she can be given access to the Staff of Creation in the Vault of the Winter Maiden. Then once the Staff in revealed, Penny will then betray Ironwood and take the Staff to Salem as a bargaining chip for Atlas’ salvation.

From here, she will either be destroyed again---killed on the spot with the Winter Maiden powers going straight to Cinder or…who knows, maybe there’ll be another twist in there where Penny is kept alive to be made into Salem’s Maiden of Magic in place of Cinder Fall who she’ll probably end up punishing yet again for her insolence (since we’re probably going to see Cinder defy Salem again due to her greed). Or perhaps…Penny 2.0 has always been a pawn of Salem since her rebirth and has been unknowingly playing our heroes---both sides---like a fiddle since the get-go. Or something like that. That’s how I’m seeing it. But this is just my thoughts on that.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[trashficdumpster]

Rhea was pleasantly surprised to find out that Byleth seemed to take great satisfaction in helping others. It was only befitting of Sothis’ vessel to share the same benevolence the goddess possessed. It pleased Rhea even more that Byleth was willing to fulfill most any request she personally asked, no matter how menial the task. While most of the other faculty found their new co-worker’s subdued nature unnerving, Rhea could read Byleth’s face and tone quite easily. After all, Sitri had been much the same way. Until she met Jeralt.

Jeralt Eisner. Rhea was still rather fond of him, despite his apparent betrayal. She could allow him to keep his distance from her as long as he never raised his sword at the church. He’d taken his title as a Knight of Seiros back with less reluctance than expected. For this, Rhea thanked her mother above – Jeralt was an excellent soldier and commander. His presence around the monastery made Rhea more comfortable. In his youth, he reminded her of Wilhelm, which is why she supposed she favored Jeralt all those years ago.

As Rhea reflected on Jeralt, her thoughts were inevitably pulled to the last, painful memory she had of Sitri – her twelfth attempt at creating the ideal vessel. She had come to see Sitri almost as a daughter. Her poor health barred her from ever hosting Sothis’ power, but killing her to take the crest stone back was too cruel. It would have been no different from those monsters slaughtering Rhea’s kin in Zanado. When the sickly girl had announced her engagement to Jeralt, Rhea had given her blessing without a second thought. Jeralt brought Sitri to life. She was owed at least that much for all her suffering.

Sitri had come to her one day absolutely radiant with joy. She was pregnant. Rhea had schooled her expression into a gracious smile, hiding her shock. This was something the archbishop never would have anticipated. How was this possible? Surely Sitri would lose the infant early on.

But she did not lose the child.

As Rhea’s twelfth attempt lay on her deathbed in a pool of blood that could not be staunched, she asked that her last moments be spent with the archbishop, whom she saw as a mother. Jeralt had nearly been thrown from the room, not wanting to leave his wife’s side. The babe had entered the world without a sound nor a breath nor a beating heart. It would be even more painful for Jeralt to go on without even his own child. Rhea had held her…daughter’s hand gently, and leaned in close to hear her final words. Save the baby, Sitri had croaked, delirious in her death throes. Rhea’s mind had scrambled for anything to say, anything that might comfort the girl before her. In any other circumstance, she would have offered some platitude – that the goddess would prevail – but that seemed wrong.

And then Rhea had glanced at the stillborn infant. Perhaps not all was lost. Sitri’s body could not handle the power of the crest stone. Although she never turned into a demonic beast, her health had always been fragile. But Sitri’s child possessed Rhea’s blood – Sothis’ blood – from both parents. Rhea whispered to her dear Sitri that she would be able to save the infant, and though she hesitated divulging what the cost would be, Sitri had only sighed with relief and nodded as she lost consciousness.

With a heavy heart, Rhea had cut open Sitri’s chest and removed her mother’s crest stone. It seemed large in her hand as Rhea hovered over the stillborn babe. She’d carefully implanted the stone in the girl’s chest cavity, next to her un-beating heart, and sealed the wound with white magic honed over many centuries of healing wounds. There would be no scar to mar the child’s flesh. No evidence of the procedure.

Rhea had cloaked Sitri’s body in a white blanket and had her most trusted monks take her to be embalmed deep under the monastery. There had been a tense, hopeless few moments before the baby girl finally took a breath. She had leaned in to listen to the infant’s breathing, only to find that even her sharp hearing could not pick up on a heartbeat. The child began to move, but no sound left her throat. No scream to announce new life.

But the baby lived. Against all odds, Rhea’s hasty operation had succeeded. Nothing in her centuries of experience had ever suggested that this was possible. It was a leap of faith fueled by a dying wish. Rhea was torn between sorrow, having lost someone who had shone so brightly, and hope for Sothis’ return. Surely it was auspicious that the crest stone brought life to a still heart.

And so, Rhea had washed her bloody hands clean and swaddled the girl in clean blankets to present her to Jeralt. As she’d gazed at the newly minted father weeping as he held the puny life in his hands, Rhea promised herself she would prevail in her mission to revive the goddess. This loss would not be in vain.

Rhea was pulled out of her reminiscing as Catherine announced a visitor’s presence. “Lady Rhea, Byleth is here to see you.” As always, Catherine’s voice was loud and clear even through the thick wood of the doors to her personal quarters. Rhea crossed the floor of her room quickly to open the door herself. She saw Catherine guarding the entrance rather aggressively and Byleth standing there with a bewildered look in her large blue eyes.

“You summoned me?” The young professor asked. Catherine seemed suspicious. Rightfully so, Rhea reasoned, seeing as she rarely received anyone in her chambers.

“Yes, I did. Catherine, please let her come in.”

Catherine frowned, but obliged at once. She adjusted Thunderbrand on her belt and assumed a more relaxed stance.

“I believe Shamir has some information pertinent to your next mission. I think the professor is more than capable of protecting me in your stead.” Catherine’s brow twitched as it did when she was irritated, but only nodded curtly and left Rhea and Byleth alone without complaint. Rhea beckoned the other woman in and closed the door behind them. She pulled the only chair in the room from her private dining table for Byleth to sit.

“You will have to forgive my manners. It’s not often I entertain others here.”

Byleth took her seat without saying anything. She seemed a little apprehensive, but not afraid. Rhea took the opportunity to take in the sight before her. The muscles of Byleth’s arms and legs looked thicker, and her face was fuller than when she had first arrived. She looked strong and healthy. For a moment, Rhea allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to be held in those arms when her mother returned. It would feel safe and warm, she thought, and the world would be right again.

“You look well,” Rhea finally said, “I take it you are growing accustomed to monastery life?”

Byleth nodded slowly, still unsure. “Yes, Lady Rhea.”

“Please, when we are together like this, I am speaking to you not as the archbishop, but as myself.” Rhea smiled gently. “Ah, you must be wondering why I invited you here. I simply wish to know you better. Jeralt and I used to be quite close, so I feel as though you are something akin to family.”

“He…never mentioned you until we arrived at the monastery.” Well, that certainly wounded Rhea. It was clear that Byleth was like Jeralt – blunt – but honest. At the very least, Jeralt hadn’t turned his daughter against her.

“While it hurts me to hear that, I suppose remembering his time here might bring forth some unpleasant memories.” The way Byleth sat up straighter did not slip by Rhea’s watchful gaze. “Unfortunately, I feel that it not my place to disclose those particular memories. Would you like to hear about how we came to meet?”

If Byleth was disappointed, she did not show it. “I’d like that very much.”

And so Rhea told Byleth the tale of how Jeralt, a brazen young mercenary, took as blow meant for her. He’d been mortally wounded, and Rhea had taken it upon herself to heal the boy. She omitted exactly how she managed to save Jeralt’s life, of course. Rhea went on to explain how she had offered Jeralt a position as a Knight of Seiros and how he quickly earned the respect and admiration of his comrades.

“He quickly became the prime example of what every knight should aspire to.”

“I had no idea. Thank you for telling me.” Whatever tension Byleth held in her posture had long disappeared. “I was wondering if you know about my mother? He must have met her here, if he spent so much time as a knight.” Her large blue eyes were full of questions. Rhea’s heart throbbed in her chest. She had met many orphans over her long life. Not knowing one’s parents was unspeakably painful – and knowing one’s parents and having them ripped away hurt even more. And yet, Rhea had not figured out how she would tell Byleth about Sitri.

A loud series of raps on the door saved Rhea from an uncomfortable explanation. It was a double-edged blade, though, as it meant her time with Byleth was at its end. Rhea placed a hand on Byleth’s shoulder in a placating gesture. It warmed her that the other woman did not shy away. “That is for Jeralt to tell you. I would not betray his trust. But know that you are always welcome here.”

“I understand. Thank you again.” Byleth stood and made her way out, only for Seteth to come in. He frowned slightly, and Rhea knew he wanted to say something.

Her relative chose wisely and kept quiet on the matter. He finally spoke when Byleth was out of earshot. “We have word that Lord Lonato of House Gaspard is amassing troops to challenge us. The western church must be suppressed before they sow more discontent.” Rhea’s good mood spoiled in an instant.

“How many knights do we have in the monastery?” Rhea’s voice dropped low as she felt hot rage bubbling through her body. Those who dared bare their fangs at her would be crushed.

“Not very many. Many of them are out doing patrols or running drills.”

“House Gaspard does not have a standing army. A handful of trained infantry at best.”

“No, but Lord Lonato has received support from a local militia.”

“Those numbers are inconsequential. Send Catherine and her battalion. The Black Eagle House will join them. They will subdue Lonato’s men and bring the western bishops back here for judgment.” Seteth grunted his begrudging agreement and left to give the orders, leaving Rhea alone with her thoughts. The traitors would be taken care of shortly. This knowledge calmed her as she made her way to the Star Terrace to pray to her mother.

As of late, Rhea swore she could hear the faintest whispers in response to her prayers. What the whispers said, she could not tell. But when she finished her worship and took time to meditate, her mind was drawn back to Byleth’s hopeful eyes.

[cosmicjoke]

Ash, Yut-Lung, and the Fundamental Difference between them:

Okay, so I rewrote this, better able to get into words what I originally intended to say.

Something that gets talked about a lot are the similarities between Ash and Yut-Lung, and the theory that if Eiji hadn’t come into Ash’s life, Ash himself might have become as monstrous as Yut-Lung.  What makes them similar gets discussed plenty.  They both had brutal, abusive upbringings, they were both trained and utilized by their abusers to be efficient killers, etc…  But I want to focus on what makes Ash fundamentally different from Yut-Lung, and use that difference to argue for why I don’t think Ash ever would have become like him, with or without Eiji’s influence.

That fundamental difference is this.  Ash chose, and was able to choose, love, while Yut-Lung chose, and was only ever able to choose, hate.

That may not sound like a lot, but it is an objective truth about these two characters that, when boiled down to their most essential selves, means everything.

Ash always had a heart open enough to receive and give love, despite the cruelty and miserable brutality of his life.  Because of that openness of heart, when he was offered kindness, when he was offered friendship, he was able to accept it, and trust in it.  That’s remarkable, when one considers Ash had been given, in his young life, every reason NOT to trust in anything or anyone.   When he’d been given every reason to be wary, and suspicious of everyone, and to suspect ulterior motives behind every, friendly gesture.  And Ash does often approach people at first with that wariness and suspicion.  He approaches everyone at first with caution.  He would be a fool not to, given his life experiences.  But even still, with all of that fear and uncertainty, ingrained in him by years of enduring the most severe and traumatic kind of abuses, he is ABLE to TRUST.  That is simply extraordinary.  

It’s often Shorter who is given as the first, real example of a person who Ash was able to befriend and trust, but rather, I think, it’s actually Blanca.  Blanca’s later betrayal aside for the moment, let’s really look at this relationship, and what it tells us about Ash.

Blanca came into Ash’s life when he was 14.  Ash, at that point, had been trapped within the clutches of Dino for at least three years, possibly four, depending on whether Marvin had found Ash at ten or eleven.  Ash was repeatedly raped and abused by Marvin and Froggy before being sold by Marvin to Dino to work as a child prostitute in Dino’s underground sex trafficking ring posing as a seafood restaurant, drugged and passed around between high powered clients, treated in every way as a disposable commodity, before being chosen by Dino to act as the man’s personal sex slave, raped God only knows how many times, before Dino decided to turn Ash into his own, personal weapon as well, utilizing Ash’s brilliance and natural abilities for his own, personal gain.  While all of this was happening, Ash continued to be preyed upon and targeted by Marvin, who continued to rape Ash whenever the fancy took him.  Ash’s experiences previous to that were in Cape Cod, where Ash was repeatedly and brutally raped by his baseball coach, blamed for it by the police, and, after his father’s abject failure to protect him from said abuse, was forced to kill his abuser to save his own life.

Well, just think about all of that for a moment please.  Really THINK about it.  

It’s the most horrific fate imaginable for any child.  Truly.  It’s beyond words.  Beyond any logical explanation.  Beyond any kind of reason.  It’s a hellish nightmare, almost unspeakable in its grotesqueness.  

So, enter Blanca.  

When Ash first meets Blanca, he doesn’t trust him.  No one can blame him for this.  At this point in his life, what reason would Ash have to trust anyone?  Ever?  In truth, it’s a wonder that Ash is even still functioning in any kind of meaningful way.  It’s a wonder he hasn’t gone completely insane, or simply committed suicide.  With the kind of hell his life has become, like he later tells Eiji, it would have been a mercy simply to die.  It would have been better, than to live the life he was living.  One can assume, then, that only Ash’s veracity of spirit and powerful mind kept him from perishing.  From giving in yet to total despair.  Ash always was and always would be a fighter.  But after suffering the kinds of sickening abuses he did, after experiencing the true depths of evil for which mankind is capable, enduring the worst kinds of atrocities one could commit against a child, Ash’s ability to trust in any person ever again should have been destroyed.  It should have been.

But it wasn’t.  Beyond all reason, beyond all expectation, beyond all probability, it wasn’t.

Ash comes to trust in Blanca.  A trust which runs deep enough that Ash is able to reveal his true self around him.  A trust deep enough that he can look up to Blanca with the honest admiration that any boy with a normal life would his father, or older brother.  A trust which runs deep enough that Ash is able to look at Blanca with a genuine hopefulness.  

Blanca finds Ash after he’s been raped by Marvin, and Ash, thinking Blanca is there to do more of the same, succumbs to a full blown panic attack.  He stops breathing, his eyes go blank with terror as he can only fall paralyzed with horror and resignation, waiting for the inevitable.  

But Blanca doesn’t rape Ash.  He doesn’t assault him.  He instead holds him, and coaxes him to breathe, and lets Ash cling to his chest while he cries.  He comforts Ash, and Ash LETS him.  

Later, while still in the hotel where Ash has so recently been brutalized, Ash opens up to Blanca, and tells him about the abuses he’s suffered at the hands of Marvin and Dino, and again he cries, expressing his pain and rage.  And then, maybe most remarkable of all, Ash shows Blanca who he really is.  He laughs freely and with the abandon of a little boy at how hopelessly square Blanca is.  He completely lets down his guard and simply trusts this giant, dangerous man whom he’s known only a scant, few days.  He lets Blanca see his pain, and his loneliness, and his despair.  And he lets Blanca see how much of a child he still, truly is.  

Later still, when Blanca rescues Ash from Marvin, and Ash looks up at Blanca with so much open admiration, we see again the depth of Ash’s trust.  He believes completely in Blanca at this point.  He believes completely that Blanca won’t hurt him.  He believes completely that Blanca cares.  

After asking in a tone of pure reverence how it is Blanca was able to break Marvin’s wrist so easily, and after Blanca explains that he’ll show him, Ash looks up at him with the most naked and vulnerable hope, and it’s one of the most heartbreaking panels of Ash there is, for how completely you can see his trust in this man.  Exemplified too by how readily Ash goes with Blanca afterwards, following on his heels, sticking to him like a shadow, showing him the kind of trust a child would a parent.

All it took was Blanca showing Ash compassion once, for Ash’s wariness and suspicion to fall away, and for Blanca to help him once, for Ash to trust in him fully.  

After years of the most horrific and terrible abuse imaginable, after years of being lied to, betrayed, failed, and used by every single adult in his life, Ash, with unreasonable quickness, trusts in Blanca, and believes in him.  Believes in his honesty.  Believes in his kindness.

This trust is later extended to Shorter, and Skipper, and Eiji, etc...  The moment they showed to Ash genuine kindness, he took them at their word, and trusted in them without qualm. With everything precious to him.   

Ultimately, it was Ash’s openness of heart and willingness to believe in people, despite all that had happened to him, that allowed him to find so many loving, caring people in his life.  His own ability to trust, and his own capacity to love, which made it possible for him to make so many genuine, kindhearted friends who were so loyal to him, and who loved him just as much.  It started with Ash’s ability to love, trust and believe in others.  It started with Ash’s willingness to open his heart up to them.  

And herein lies the fundamental difference between Ash and Yut-Lung.  

Yut-Lung’s heart was never so open as to trust in anyone the way Ash was able to trust in those mentioned above.  After the abuse Yut-Lung suffered, his heart shuttered closed and refused to open for anyone, and thus he became consumed by his own hate and lust for revenge.  He wasn’t able to accept or believe in the shows of kindness offered him, the way Ash was.  And in his inability to accept or believe in kindness, Yut-Lung lashed out in petty jealousy for the way Ash’s open heart drew friendship. loyalty, and love from others, trying in that petty jealousy to take those things away from Ash, enraged that his own, closed heart was unable to inspire the same.

Ash was ABLE to believe in love, in spite of the torments he’d suffered through.  In spite of the pain, loneliness and trauma of his life, Ash was ABLE to love and be loved in return.  Despite it all, defying all odds and expectations, Ash was able to believe in other people.  Yut-Lung, suffering much the same, was only ever able to believe in hate.  

[justjessame]

Babysitting Butcher Chapter 32

Life as a human guinea pig is a strange thing. First of all, there's the questions. The same questions over and over, to the point where the machines and medical doodads and the noise that became almost normal for me, but the questions became the irritant of the day.

"How are you feeling today, Dr. Taylor?" As I'd squint into the bright light being forced into my marrow it seemed. A muttered reply from me, and honestly the same answer in varying degrees of annoyance or acceptance depending upon the day and how many times I'd been asked it so far. "Uh huh, and are you feeling warm? Is there tenderness in your abdomen?" While they poked and prodded, testing skin, muscle, bone and eventually blood.

Did you know the average human adult has around 1.2-1.5 gallons of blood which equals roughly 10 units? I know this because I wanted to be certain that I'd have enough after all the blood testing. Research would either be the way I kept sane or what finally pushed me over the ledge into complete madness, mark my words.

Billy visited, as often as he could, and every single time he'd greet the head poker in residence with his own version of the repeated question game. "How is she? What's the bloody progress?" At which I would inevitably check the arm that seemed to be their favorite vessel for bloodletting. "How much longer?" And then he'd meet my gaze and focus his attention on ME, rather than on my medical condition.

Yes, I was calling it a condition. If I let the reality of my situation fully grip me, then I'd scream. And I had moments of it, trust me.

How would you feel if every single time the man you loved walked in and spoke about your person as though you were a petri dish experiment before reminding himself, through sheer force of finally SEEING you, that you were in fact the woman he loved?

Now take that feeling you just got from that scenario and add the annoyingly taunting voice of the caped asshole who caused this whole fucking irritating bullshit situation reminding you that you fell in love with a man for whom hatred of supes is as natural as inhaling. Feeling just a hint of discomfort? Just add the sound of beeping, buzzing, and dripping to remind yourself of the fact that this was all happening while I was being held hostage as a "let's see what happens if we try this mixture to counteract the demon juice flowing through her veins" was tried over and over.

Strained. My nerves, body, and brain felt strained. Even after the feeding tube was gone and Billy could kiss me. Even after I was given the go ahead to work from my hospital bed. Frayed would be a kind way to say how absolutely on edge I felt.

And the worse part? I felt like I was missing something. Something important. Something paramount. Just out of reach and as though, even surrounded by my laptop and notes, something that was keeping me out of an important loop.

The longer that I stayed in the 'undisclosed medical' location, the more that I wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Literally anywhere. I started to yearn for Bolivia and the Black Ops team that had gotten caught up in the web of a rogue agent and 'died' implicated in a massive fuck up of epic proportions.

When a rational woman who knows how the inner workings of other people's brains and behavior follow reliable patterns starts thinking fondly of the heat of a tropical place where she had to wade through more red tape than most people would assume humanly possible to unravel the truth, all while hearing the type of rumors about the men she was trying to clear and resurrect from faked death, then shit has hit epic levels of horrible. It did remind me to contact that team to see how their return to their former lives had worked out, and wonder if their leader had gotten over his own tragic ability to attract murderous women.

I wanted to go further than the small courtyard deemed safe enough for me to explore, and near enough to make them taking me off the dialysis machine after another fun round of 'clean her blood again' reasonable. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and watch television at my discretion without interruptions for another round of the questions and poking I wanted, in short, to be back to normal already.

I might have been empathizing with Billy's urge for the Vought wankers (his word, I swear) to find the magic solution so life could go back to the routine we both wanted a return to. Or I might have been trying to only see the positive outcome, since there was a creeping feeling that maybe, just maybe there wasn't an easy fix or a fix at all.

A month passed, with my cabin fever slowly increasing by the day, and with it my internal and external temperatures. Oh yeah, that's right, I might have forgotten to mention that while the steaming was at bay, now it was just my actual body temperature that would fluctuate and freak every single fucking person all the way out. When Billy said I nearly went "nuclear" he hadn't been joking, apparently I could have fucking exploded like a goddamn human time bomb and I didn't want to consider just how fucking messy that would have been for the janitorial staff.

Finally, maybe because I wanted some type of control about the questioning, I started asking some probing ones of my own. And what I found, when they would meet my eyes and answer me as fully as I wanted, was that that creeping feeling was growing more likely.

The issue wasn't simply that they didn't know which variation of Compound V that Homelander had me infected with, it was that as they broke down the components and addressed each one, my body didn't simply fight their attempts, it attacked itself. The asshole, it would appear, had basically chosen the self destruct version, and it was trickier than any puzzle these 'real doctors' had ever come across. I was truly feeling the confidence of having a toddler performing my brain surgery with this knowledge.

Oh and that wasn't all, even IF they figured out how to 'neutralize' the formula inside of my bloodstrain, then there was a probability that I could pass it on to any future children. Isn't that some kind of amazingly poetic bullshit to hear after you chose to evict a foreign invader from your uterus? That the one stabilizing agent I'd had scraped and dumped was the ONLY one that I would ever get to actually be allowed to experience. Remind me to send Homelander a HUGE fucking thank you card, would you?

Early into my first true consciousness, before I found out just how fucked the pompous dick had made my entire existence, Billy had told me that my parents had visited while I was knocked out. Apparently near death experiences make even the weirdest of families reunite. And mine was no different.

Mom became a regular visitor and I was shocked by how much I started looking forward to her visits. She was strangely comforting, and tried to keep my spirits up, she even made peace with Billy. Dad was less frequent in his contact, but Mom told me it was difficult for him to see me look like a shell of myself.

And I did. I looked like a ghost that's haunting what was left of my body. The feeding tube had kept me nourished, but my muscle mass had suffered from the amount of time I was forced to spend in bed. I was constantly tired, my work hours going from nine to six to an hour here, a few minutes there, and the amount of napping I did would make most house cats jealous. The gowns that I wore hung from my frame, my appetite was scarce and I felt like this was the LONGEST goodbye letter ever to be written.

As the days passed, one merging into the next without me taking stock of how much I missed, how much that puzzle of what I was missing had bothered me early on, the negative ideas started creeping in. Homelander's voice grew louder. His smug question about Billy and me and what my condition would mean for the two of us in the end kept pushing through my attempts to distract myself.

I was sitting in the soft chair they'd brought in for me by the window, staring out and thinking of my options when Billy came in for his visit. I heard him, in the background noise of beeps and whirls, ask his questions. I felt him when he was nearer to me, but my eyes stayed on the 'view'.

He started to greet me, but my mouth opened and the question came out without me thinking about it. "How will you do it?" I watched a leaf, one missed by the obsessive groundskeepers, dance in a breeze I wish I could feel. He was confused, his reflection showed that much. "When you kill me, how will you do it?"

"Veronica," I could hear the pain in his voice, the fear hiding behind it. "I wouldn't-"

"Frenchie then?" I tilted my head considering. "MM? Hughie barely managed to make the choice with-" I stopped and took a breath. "Kimiko?" I sighed and pulled my legs up onto the chair, hugging my knees. "I hear she makes quite a mess of her prey." My voice wasn't loud and it didn't sound anything more than resigned, and I was a little curious. "If you can get Starlight to do it, you could make it seem like self defense? Or," I sighed, and bit my lip, "it would finally give you a reason to take her out too."

"Ronnie, love, that's not gonna-" I turned and he flinched when he saw that I was serious and not the least bit upset. "Ronnie?"

"Billy Butcher, I wrote the book on you." My smile felt wrong to me, but right at the same time. "I know you inside and out, or at least I think I do." I had the research on the flash drive that was hooked into my laptop on the bed. "You are single minded in your focus and your focus has been on eliminating supes from the world for a very long time." I turned back to the window, staring past the view and at the reflection of the room behind me. "It was one of the things I found the most attractive about you, I think. That you could see a goal and pound away until you master it." He sat in the chair close to me, but at a distance far enough that he'd have to work to touch me. "So, how will I die, Billy?"

"You'll die safe and sound, of old age in our bed, Veronica." I smiled sadly at this pipe dream of a fairy tale he wanted so badly to believe. "When you're sick of me, remember?" I could hear how badly he wanted it to be true, how much he wanted to hold me and it to all be a terrible dream.

"Never took you for a nursery rhyme and fairy stories fan," my eyes were still on the window. "This isn't going away, Billy, what he put in me isn't going away. And you will start to look at me like you look at him." My eyes found his, and face to face I wanted to force him to see it. "You will. And then, just like you, Frenchie, and Hughie brainstormed about Translucent and the best way to end him, you'll start to consider my pressure points." I gave a harsh, humorless chuckle. "And the funniest part is that Homelander built mine in for you, all you have to do is take me off the blood cleanse for a day and my own body will do it for you." His eyes tightened at the reminder of how many close calls I'd had. "Oops, I guess I just planned it for you."

"Please don't." He was begging me to let him pretend it wasn't the truth, that he wouldn't lose me too, and because of the same supe as Becca's cause of death. "Don't do this."

I smiled sadly, knowing he knew, even without me telling him, what was going to happen next.

[him-e]

Did you watch the joker movie? thoughts?

Yes I did last week!

(spoilers below) 

It’s a great movie, but it’s depressing, gutting. definitely not an easy watch and at times made me deeply uncomfortable because it hits very close to home in many ways. It’s about feeling invisible and unable to experience things like the rest of the world does, let alone fit in; with the struggle to perform normalcy every day while not being in control of your body and mind 100%. Arthur’s uncontrollable laughter response when he’s in distress was more than a trademark or a plot device to connect his pre-Joker self to his villain self, he’s deeply ashamed of it and suffers for not being able to contain it, because it’s twice as humiliating: for himself, and for the people who inevitably think he’s laughing at them and hate him for that (see the scene with the mother & child on the bus)—it isolates him, makes him pitiful at best and a target of vitriolic, barbaric hatred at worst. He’s invisible all the time except when his laughter erupts and makes him visible in the worst possible way—like in the scene in the subway. 

Something I found interesting was Arthur’s relative lack of guilt/remorse after his first kill (which begins as an act of self defense, but then he deliberately stalks and murders in cold blood the third guy who attacked him). He feels liberated, empowered, intoxicated, but he doesn’t necessarily stop feeling empathy after that. He isn’t irreparably corrupted by this act; rather, interestingly, begins to make himself whole. It’s where he starts believing he can finally become a functional human being, and where his elaborate romantic fantasy with the girl next door begins. I know that part is controversial, but I think it’s less of a *Nice Guy becomes fixated on girl and when he realizes she won’t fuck him goes apeshit*, and more of a fantasy of being accepted and understood intellectually and intimately by a kindred soul—note how he fantasies about her coming to his debut as a comedian, laughing at his jokes, comforting him when his mother is in the hospital, and also voicing his own hatred towards the rich white uptown boys who look down on him every day and contribute to his misery (the only cutting edge in an otherwise completely tame, almost childish self delusion).

It’s a hatred that clashes with his fantasy of fitting in, becoming a functioning part of a deeply ill patriarchal society. Arthur is obsessed with powerful father figures. First he romanticizes Robert De Niro’s character (in a super sad daydream where De Niro/Murray and everyone else praise him for being what he is, rather than violently mocking him as they would in real life), then, when he’s already halfway towards the Joker, he finds his mother’s letters and goes on a hail mary to try to make Thomas Wayne admit that he’s his father. Which he isn’t. (probably.) The whole secret parentage red herring is Arthur’s fantasy of being accepted and loved by these patriarchal, capitalist monsters getting torn apart, layer by layer, and finally annihilated. (he kills all his parental figures—his mother, whom he was in a not-so-vaguely Oedipal relationship with, who was mentally ill as well but also abused him and emotionally and physically stunted him; he kills her because he hates her for what he did to him and because he hates that she, just like him, spent her entire life in a romantic fantasy as a coping mechanism to avoid reality—he kills Murray, and then he ideally kills Wayne too, through a proxy with a clown mask. He does very deliberately, as his adult self, the one he chose to be and painted his face accordingly. And then when all the monstrous mommies and daddies are dead he’s finally free, and so are the people, free to go in the streets and set the system on fire; it’s the dawn of a new era where children kill their fathers and the poor get the upper hand against the rich and the “natural” order is destroyed—or restored, maybe)

The anti-capitalist theme imo is what makes the difference between THIS and your average “Nice GuyTM is unjustly and repeatedly mistreated until he finally snaps” villain origin story, and why I think it’s extremely reductive and myopic to condemn this film for “making a mass murder sympathetic” or whatever the discourse is at again. It’s probably the most explicitly political superhero movie I’ve seen, and not in your usual toothless mcu-style way. Arthur (like his mother before him)is a mentally ill person who was failed by society as a whole in unforgivable ways more than he was failed by individuals. In a world where Thomas Wayne can go on tv and call poor people “clowns” for not being productive, successful adults, Arthur’s best chance at receiving treatment was a condescending, uninspired therapist forced to work with minimal resources (herself another victim of capitalism). And yet, he made that work for him, until the entire therapy project was shut down and even those crumbs were taken away from him, leaving him alone and exposed, with no access to meds and not a single soul to talk to. It’s society’s selfishness, blind greed, middle-class hypocrisy, hatred of poor and disabled people—in short, all those lovely american values—that created the Joker, not mental illness. And not just the Joker, but the riots in the streets, the rebellion against uptown Gotham. 

tl;dr; I know people are upset that Joker makes you want to empathize with a murderer—well maybe for once they fucking should, lol.

[doeeyeddyke]

Some ‘The Namesake’ (Jhumpa Lahiri) Cheat Notes

Characters:

Gogol (Nikhil) Ganguli -  The novel’s primary protagonist. Gogol is an obedient, inquisitive, and sensitive child, close to his parents and sister. The novel tracks Gogol’s growth from child into young man. This growth includes changing his name, to Nikhil, and the gradual discovery of architecture as a career. Gogol navigates, over time, his relationship to his parents’ identity, as Bengalis in America. He also tries to forge his own identity, as a Bengali-American child born in the US. At the close of the novel, Gogol begins reading Nikolai Gogol, his namesake, as a way of getting closer to his deceased father, who adored the writer.

Ashima Ganguli -  Another of the novel’s protagonists. Ashima, at the beginning of the novel, does not make choices so much as she accepts the choices of others. Her parents arrange her marriage to Ashoke, and out of duty she follows him to cold, desolate-seeming Boston. She grows to love her husband, and, later, her son Gogol and daughter Sonia. But for years, Ashima misses her family in Calcutta and yearns desperately for her old life there. Only after many years, and following her husband’s death while away in Ohio, does Ashima realize that the Boston area is her home, and that she is surrounded by friends and a surrogate family there.

Ashoke Ganguli -  The third of the novel’s protagonists. Ashoke is a quiet, sensitive man, and although the narrator does not have access to many of his thoughts, he is nevertheless devoted to his wife and children. Ashoke is also deeply affected by the train accident that nearly killed him in his youth. He gives his son the name Gogol as an acknowledgment of what that writer means to him. Nikolai Gogol and the other Russian writers are also emblems of “foreignness,” of a life lived in exile. This is the life Ashoke has chosen for himself, as a PhD student and then professor in the US, far from his family in Calcutta. Ashoke chose to set out for himself, in a place of his choosing, after the train accident solidified his resolve to see the world.

Sonia Ganguli -  The fourth member of the Ganguli family in Boston. Although the reader very rarely has access to Sonia’s thoughts, she is a constant, calming presence for the family. She goes to school and lives for a time in California, but after Ashoke’s death, Sonia returns to the Boston area, where she practices law and becomes engaged to a man named Ben. Sonia is a steadying presence for Ashima after Ashoke’s passing.

Moushumi -  Gogol’s wife. Moushumi knew Gogol when he was a young boy, and the two are set up on a blind date, in New York, by their parents. Moushumi is a graduate student in French literature and adores Paris. She also adores, in part, the cosmopolitan life she lived there, with a banker named Graham, who left her and broke her heart. Moushumi marries Gogol but, after a time, becomes restless in the marriage, and enjoys more and more the company of her intellectual friends. Moushumi begins an affair with Dimitri, an old acquaintance, and later she and Gogol divorce. Moushumi’s point of view is included, though not frequently, in the novel. We learn, for example, of the dissolution of Moushumi’s first engagement, to the American banker, via access to her own thoughts, although the narrator retains the third person in these sections.

Maxine Ratliff -  Gogol’s second serious girlfriend. Maxine and Gogol meet in New York, at a party. Maxine represents, for Gogol, a life very different from his own. She lives with her parents downtown, in a beautiful townhouse, and shares their intellectual, cosmopolitan life. Maxine does not always understand Gogol’s family’s traditions, but she tries to, and seems to care genuinely for him. After Ashoke’s death, Gogol pulls away from Maxine, leaving her out of the mourning ceremonies. They soon separate.

Ruth -  Nikhil’s first serious girlfriend. Gogol and Ruth meet on the train, from New Haven to Boston, heading back to their respective homes for a Thanksgiving break in college. They both attend Yale. They fall in love and spend about a year together, but Ruth then goes away to Oxford to study for a semester. After this, their relationship becomes strained, and they part.

Dimitri Desjardins -  an aimless academic, and Moushumi’s illicit lover. Dimitri met Moushumi when she was in high school and he was applying to PhD programs. Moushumi finds Dimitri’s information by change, and they begin an affair. Moushumi knows that her tryst with Dimitri is wrong, and that he is something of a slob and a dilettante. But this does not keep her from the affair.

Gerald And Lydia Ratliff -  Maxine’s parents. Wealthy and intellectually inclined, Gerald and Lydia open their home to Nikhil, whom they seem to admire. They are comfortable in their world of New York society, and though they are kind to Gogol, he never quite feels a part of their circle.

Donald And Astrid -  Moushumi’s intellectual friends in Brooklyn. Donald and Astrid are, in Nikhil’s mind, the kind of people who find their own choices to be the only correct ones. Although Donald and Astrid seem open and liberal, they are in fact quite set in their ways. Nikhil is frustrated by what he views as their selfishness.

Graham -  Moushumi’s ex-fiancé. A banker in Paris, Graham, an American, moves back to America with Moushumi, and they plan a life together. But Moushumi realizes that Graham has reservations about the traditions that come with marrying a Bengali-American, and they break up.

Ghosh -  a businessman Ashoke meets on his ill-fated train ride. Ghost tells Ashoke that living abroad is important for any young man. Ghosh himself lived in England until his wife made him return to India. Ghosh tells Ashoke to visit him at his home during the train ride, but Ashoke never has the chance, as Ghosh is killed in the wreck.

Ashima’s Father -  an illustrator in Calcutta. Ashima’s father dies in Chapter 2, as the family is preparing to return to India to visit. His death is very difficult for Ashima, who feels distant from her family.

Ashima’s Grandmother -  given the ceremonial job of naming Gogol. Ashima’s grandmother suffers a stroke early in the novel, in Calcutta, and though she mails a letter with Gogol’s “official” name in it, the letter never arrives. She dies soon after.

The Nandis And Dr. Gupta -  Bengali friends of Ashoke’s and Ashima’s in Cambridge. These three visit the Gangulis in the hospital in Cambridge, after Gogol is born.

Alan And Judy -  Ashoke and Ashima’s neighbors in Cambridge. Alan and Judy are free-spirits and liberals, and though Ashoke and Ashima find them nice and compassionate to live near, they are also confused by the informality of Alan and Judy’s lives, and by the cavalier way in which Alan and Judy raise and keep track of their children.

Symbols:

Trains - Trains appear again and again in Lahiri’s novel, and twice a train accident plays a significant role in the story. The first is the devastating accident in Ashoke’s past, which he barely survives, and the second is when an unknown person commits suicide on the tracks of a train that is carrying Gogol home from Yale. The presence of trains in the novel seems to be a reminder of the constant and inevitable forward motion of life, which advances and accumulates outside of anyone’s control, as Gogol reflects at the end of the novel. It is on a train that Gogol meets Ruth, and on a train that he discovers Moushumi’s affair. Trains also represent motion, travel, and distance, and are a reminder that the novel’s main characters are divided between homes, constantly unsettled.

Graves - In a few moments in the novel, Gogol thinks with longing of the idea of a grave—a place that will bear his legacy into the future, and give him or his family a permanent physical anchor in space. In reality, he knows they will never have such a grave, since in the Hindu tradition their bodies will be cremated. Gogol is first struck by this desire on a fieldtrip to a graveyard of early American settlers, whose odd names give him a sense of kinship with these early immigrants. The feeling reoccurs when he sees the Ratliff’s family graveyard and pictures Maxine returning to this place to bury her parents.

Tone:

Sympathetic 

"And yet the familiarity that had once drawn her to him has begun to keep her at bay. Though she knows it's not his fault, she can't help but associate him, at times, with a sense of resignation, with the very life she has resisted, has struggled so mightily to leave behind." (9.17) 

Moushomi could have been written off as an evil hag after cheating on Gogol but the way the story is written prevents us from viewing her as such; her story is written kindly and we're brought close to her, which allows us to understand her.

Quotes:

"You remind me of everything that followed." (Ashoke)

This is the answer to Gogol's question, "Do I remind you of that night?" Ashoke has just revealed to Gogol why he chose that name for him: because the collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol had allowed him to be identified by rescue workers after the train crash that nearly killed him. This answer draws attention to the tension between life and death; from an accident that nearly cost him his life, his father has emerged and wants to be reminded of the new life he created in his son by giving him the name Gogol.

"It wasn't me." (Gogol)

Gogol gives this explanation to his high school friends after he shares his first kiss with Kim at a college party. When Kim asks him what his name is, he can't imagine telling her it's Gogol - he identifies Gogol as the type of person who could never kiss a girl. Therefore, he tells her his name is Nikhil, and then he has the confidence to kiss her. Later, when he himself is in college, he will permanently change his name to Nikhil and gain confidence with women as a result.

"Gogol frowns, and his lower lip trembles. Only then, forced at six months to confront his destiny, does he begin to cry." (2.71)

At six months, Gogol is already refusing to participate in traditional Indian rituals. He's not ready to confront his destiny, and for much of the book, we wonder if he ever will be.

"He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn't know. Who doesn't know him […] It's a part of growing up, they tell him, of being a Bengali." (3.19)

In kindergarten, Gogol tries on a new, more formal name – and doesn't like it one bit, even though having a pet name and a formal name is Bengali custom. What's interesting here is that he thinks changing his name just might change his identity. He'll become a different person.

Literary Elements:

Imagery Imagery is the use of a profuse amount of description to help create an image  in our minds. This is used many times in this book, given that a lot of what takes up the book is description of what happens throughout Gogol’s life along with that of his family’s.  In fact, it is even used in the first page. Describing the home of Ashima and Ashoke, saying:

“She stares blankly at the pegboard behind the countertop where her cooking utensils hang, all slightly coated with grease. She wipes sweat from her face with the free end of her sari. Her swollen feet ache against speckled gray linoleum.”

With just a few sentences, the author has already created a picture in the mind of the readers, giving a great example of imagery.

Allusion Allusion is basically a reference to another well-known person, piece of writing, etc. An example of this in the novel is the multiple references to Nikolai Gogol throughout the entire novel. He was a Russian author, whom Gogol was named after, his name being a recurring issue throughout the book. There is a scene in which Gogol’s father, Ashoke, gives him a book called The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol, a book by the Russian author

[sadisticscribbler]

Why Suicide?

Why do people kill themselves? I’m not talking about those who attempt suicide for attention, nor do I mean to belittle them, but what of the many more who chose to end their lives?

I am not asking some philosophical question here, but am talking from personal experience. You see, I have just found myself about to take my own life, and would have if I wasn’t disturbed just at the point of no return by a mundane phone call. Maybe because of my autism, but I had to answer the ringing phone which subsequently took me out of what I was about to do.

As a result I was left in some sort of limbo in which my body took me back home, and here I now sit talking to myself via this blog post. So how did I get there, and why do so many people find themselves where I did?

There is no simple reason… or rather there is no single event that in itself triggers suicidal ideation. Contrary to popular belief, suicidal thoughts aren’t caused by moments of depression that need to be “got through”, it is a more serious state of being. Let me explain: I was born suicidal.

As shocking and unbelievable as this might sound, it is true. I first attempted suicide before I was aged three (I drank bleach) which was not recognised for what it was… a genuine attempt to kill myself. I subsequently tried two more times in as many months, but survived them all. But what could have happened, you might be asking yourself, to make me want to kill myself? In a word: Nothing. Or in another: Everything.

For some context, I was born autistic; and I also had a very high IQ. Together, these factors, and the world in which I found myself, made this world intolerable. And it still is nearly sixty years later. The reason I have survived thus far is not because I have found some way to navigate this world, but in spite of it. No matter what experiences I have, it all comes to the same conclusion that I shouldn’t be living in this world. So why am I? For several reasons: external interference (such as my parents as a child), my Catholic faith, but more importantly my constantly trying to deny the inevitable. So what has happened now that these mechanisms are no longer sufficient to stop me doing the only thing available?

Until a few years ago I had responsibilities and family: both extended and my own wife and kids. Then I became chronically ill and unable to work. My parents and brother died and my family fell apart. And then my (now ex-)wife decided I was no longer useful to her and took everyone and everything away from me. I was left disabled and with nothing to my name. I had nothing and no-one… except for one very important friend who stuck by me. Last year she killed herself.

Like myself she was autistic and very intelligent. We talked endlessly about her decision to kill herself but I was unable to give her a convincing reason not to. This is because everything she said had been correct, and I could offer her (nor myself) any reason not to die. Unlike me she was an atheist and so the threat of eternal torment was not enough to deter her (as it had been doing for me). So I was unable to satisfactorily answer the question: What is the point of continuing to live? And my being unable to save her affirmed her conclusion in that, in my case, if I can’t save the life of my only true friend, then what is the point of my being around?

Before continuing with my journey, allow me to add her words herein as they show not just how I feel but how I and others, I suspect, see the world and why we can’t live in it. This is her final statement:

If you’re reading this, chances are my attempt to leave the world has been successful. If you happen to be religious, please pray for me to be treated compassionately in my next life, as I will be praying beforehand for this as well, as a relatively quick and painless death, despite my lack of religion.

Many people say suicide is selfish. To those, I would want to ask: is it not also selfish to expect someone to live, when existing seems to them intolerable?

None of us ask to be born, but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.

People stigmatise death, especially voluntary death, because to them it seems the most terrible thing they can imagine. To that, I say, what is so bad about death? The universe is so very old and will continue to exist long into the future, perhaps indefinitely. So why does it make a difference if someone dies at 20 or at 80, provided their life was not taken against their will?

As an autistic, I long for a world where autistic people can exist happily, but I’m not sure this can ever happen. I have pretty much given up on the world at this point. It’s not designed for people like me.

So who am I in this world? An autistic, chronically depressed, jobless, homeless in effect waste of space who was born into a female body but probably isn’t. Born to a teenage single mother, raised by a grandmother who is now dead and fated to a life where anything I attach to will be my undoing.

Dying isn’t something alien to me. I first began to think about suicide around the age of 7. As a child, I was intelligent and had a seemingly bright future, but that rarely translates into the adult world.

The only thing I really regret is losing the two people closest to me. Mostly, however, I am sad about losing hope, for it is only hope that keeps us going.

I’m also tired. To quote The Green Mile, “I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time.”

Like my friend I am autistic, suffer from chronic depression with episodes of clinical depression, jobless, and as illustrated above: “a waste of space”. I also have a catalogue of degenerative diseases. So what is there left to hope for?

“Oh it’s the depression talking, and that can be managed” you may be thinking. Sadly no… and not just just due to the mental health teams (who spectacularly failed in my friend’s instance). Depression is not an aberration of thought that can be corrected with a shot of serotonin. Rather it is the cold hard truth of reality that serotonin (naturally produced or chemically induced) obfuscates. This is why it is nigh impossible to help someone resist suicide. And I speak from experience of trying to help others, as well as trying to convince myself. In the end, the only argument against ending one’s life is the I “haven’t done it yet, because I’ve managed to knowingly delude myself”.

But what of speaking therapies… can these help? I would say no. This is because that people like I already see the reality of a hostile world, that no matter how hard we try to improve our lot in life, the full horror of it is a mere hair away. Distraction is no solution. So speaking with a therapist can only succeed if he/she can ‘enlighten’ the person to the ‘knowledge’ that life isn’t all that bad… or that it won’t always be that bad. But what if you’re smart enough, or have experienced enough, to see that what the therapist has said does not change the reality that there is no reason to go on, and that continuing to suffer now is worth the remote possibility that a less terrible time might momentarily punctuate the pain.

But it cannot work… there can be no going back: Once a child realises Santa doesn’t exist, there is no way to recapture nor replace what it meant to believe it. And so, once we have seen the world for what it is, there can be no way back. All that is left is how long we can distract ourselves, and finding a reason to so. Sooner or later one or both of these management techniques will fail. And it might take only the slightest of not-so-bad problems to break it all apart. And this is where I find myself.

I cannot promise that what almost happened tonight to me might not happen again, but for now I am still here writing this post in the hope that someone somewhere might be able to find a way to keep going that I, and my late friend, cannot. So, what was my ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’? I have been trying to cope with losing the only, and most dearest friend on whom I leant very much, and whom I loved very deeply; as well as developing cancer to add to my list of debilitating and very painful medical conditions. The Catholic church has become victim to corruption and evil, including in the office of the Pope. So I truly am alone. The loneliness is immense and the daylight short. I am barely managing to live on my benefits, and it is not easy. And then I receive today notification that my benefits have stopped. So soon I shall be unable to feed myself nor have shelter. So is there any reason not to kill myself? I thought not.

I won’t be out on the street tomorrow, but the time is rapidly approaching. This would be the end of the line for me, so as my friend said, we may be unable to fit into this world, “but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.“

[professionallyprocrastinating]

“Why Peggy had to die” Spitefic

Some idiot said that Peggy Carter had to die in Civil War because she would have shredded Team Cap and supported Tony Stark.

Screw that, have a spitefic...

Peggy Carter-Sousa knew two things with absolute certainty. One, her sense of time and short term memory was skewed, frequently repeating the same conversation several times. (she never realised when it happened, but she knew that it did) Two, she was nearing the end of her life.

Peggy had no regrets about that. Her life had been a good one, dedicated to helping others and saving the world and helping raise her family. Daniel had been amazing, willing to be the house-husband while she ran SHIELD. Once upon a time, she had loved Steve, and a part of her always would, but that time was long past.

Still, she was not dead yet, and until she was six feet under, the world was not going to fall apart on her watch. If certain so-called Heroes couldn’t act their age, then Agent/Director Peggy Carter was more than happy to step in.

Peggy did not have a close relationship with Tony Stark.

She had met him a few times, when she had to drag Howard out of his lab and remind him that if the Director of SHIELD could find time to also be a parent, then he had no excuse. Peggy had refused to have anything more to do with him after the American tabloids had picked up a scandal of Tony, drunk at a frat party, claiming that he’d happily sleep with her (Tony’s actual phrasing had been far more crude) if given the chance.

Peggy had cut off contact and refused to let it bother her. She was familiar with the arrogance of late adolecence, even if she didn’t approve, particularly when coupled with a lifetime of being rich and the centre of attention. Besides, at least half the tabloids, and all of the open-letter rebuttals, mocked Tony for his presumption that Agent Carter would give him the time of day. Peggy chose to take that as a compliment to her reputation.

Howard had been furious.

His relationship with his son had been... rocky, the inevitable result of two strong-willed genius’s under the same roof. Tony, already humiliated by his first negative experience with the media, had not responded well to the truly impressive dressing-down Howard had delivered, and the relationship seemed beyond repair. With Maria acting as Mediator, they had started to at least talk to each other, but then Howard was killed, and the chance was lost.

Now, Tony was repeating his mistakes. He had become very good, over the years, at saying he had made mistakes. Actually working to rectify them, on the other hand... Honestly, why did he have to pick this instance, with this “Final Solution”, to be his hill to die on?

Wanda, a young woman doing her best to atone for acts committed under indoctrination and trauma, had saved hundreds of people from a bomb, and failed to save a dozen or so others. The media, in it’s usual quest for viewing statistics, was ignoring the former fact, and playing up the latter.

Certain politicians, not the least of which was Thaddeus Ross, whom even most right-wingers considered extreme in his views and policies, had seized the opportunity to look as though they actually cared about the people they were supposed to represent. Registration, restricted movement, unconstitutional tracking and violation of civil liberties. Regulations aimed specifically at the enhanced, who could not change who they were by simply putting down a weapon or taking off a suit. (Peggy had apologised to the unfortunate nurse who had recieved a black eye while trying to stop Peggy from storming right out of the nursing home to kick the backsides of everyone involved.)

Shaking her head, Peggy sent a message to Sharon, requesting that she come and sign her out of the nursing home for a trip, a trip that would involve several people being torn a new orifice. Several more messages were sent to Steve, to Wanda, and to people most likely to support them.

Tired, Peggy relaxed in her bed, clicking the machine that would inject a small dose of morphine for the aches and pains that were her constant companion these days. Hopefully she would wake up to a response.

In the quiet hours of the night, Peggy opened her eyes.

A shadowed figure stood at her bedside, injecting something into the drip bag. Peggy struggled to sit up, but the figure reached down and clicked her morphine drip, and whatever he had injected flowed into her veins.

Tall, and male, by his voice, Peggy could do nothing to stop the inevitable. “Sorry, Ms Carter. We can’t have you interfering; you might actually succeed, and we don’t want that.”

[momokiiicos]

The one where Harry accidentally drags himself into a new beginning with Malfoy. He blames it on the shock, really :

“You know how mom feels about strays,” Was what Ron said when he opened the door to the Burrow and found the latter there on a Sunday.

Harry was about to question the weird greeting, when Ron offered a mere resigned shrug and tilted his chin, wordlessly gesturing Harry to go on in. Naturally, curiosity screamed at him, so Harry brushed past Ron to enter the familiar living room.

The scene unfolding there was what made Harry stopped short and had to take a double take. Because the person sitting at the dining table, gingerly sipping from a steaming hot cup of cocoa looking cozy, conversing casually with Molly sitting opposite of him and wearing an unlikely soft and open expression, was none other than Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Harry felt his mouth parted slightly in shock, and for a moment he thought he was seeing things, because never in his 7 years of life knowing his school rival had he seen the man not sneering in anyone’s direction with a haughty expression, let alone engaging in an actual, civil conversation with Molly, a Weasley, without throwing a tantrum. 

It was also the last person he’d expect.

Ron caught up with Harry and stood by his side, watching the scene unfold with such a mildly offended expression that made Harry realized what he was seeing, was actually happening. “Mom has adopted everyone,” Ron said ruefully, “First you. Then Neville. And now…Malfoy. And y’know what, I don’t even care anymore. Come play chess with me when you’re done, Harry.”

And with that, he walked away, leaving Harry no chance to freak out at him and question what the hell did he mean by Harry being “done”. Harry was about to freak out anyways when Molly spotted him from the table and quickly intercepted, so Harry could only look at her. Malfoy was staring at them quietly from his spot.

“Oh, Harry, dear,” Molly squealed in her usual motherly tone, pulling him into a tight embrace, “You didn’t have to bring anything.” The warm smile on her lips made Harry feel all tingly and fuzzy inside, and he momentarily wondered if Malfoy had felt the same. Molly Mother Magic, he called it. He lifted the box in his hands.

“It’s just a cake. Luna made it and dropped by with it. I thought we could share it.” Harry said, in his peripheral vision, he saw Malfoy twitched slightly at the mention of the witch, though his face was blank to indicated anything.

“What a dearie, that girl, invite her to lunch again, yeah? Speaking of which, lunch is almost ready, you kids go talk or something,” Molly pinched Harry’s cheek without warning then left for the kitchen, taking the cake with her. She stopped on her way at the table to do the same with Malfoy, though it was merely a pat on the cheek for him. Harry rubbed his slightly sore cheek.

His and Malfoy’s eyes accidentally caught each other’s mid-air. Harry couldn’t help but notice that without the high-end robes and rigorous suits hugging his body, his grey eyes lost their maliciousness in contrast to the loose sweater he was wearing. So before Harry succumbed to his slight panic thus was forced into a panic ramble, at Malfoy out of all people, he promptly went to see what Ron was up to.

What on earth??

/* /* /*

After an eventful lunch with lots of people and family crowding around the large table, Harry, Ron, and surprisingly Malfoy remained, each of them a cup of tea in their hands. Hermione went to help Molly with dishes, so Harry was muling over a losing game of chess, alone. Malfoy, the ever bastard, who was the only one in the Burrow who had a chance of winning against Ron, took Ron’s side.

“Ha, Harry, you’re losing. Again.” Ron cheered with an air of triumph, moving his knight to K3 which was a step away from checkmate-ing Harry’s King.

Harry put his face into his palms and groaned loudly. Opposite of him, Malfoy casually drawled, “Wow this is such a sight to see : the Golden Boy, losing at something.”

Harry looked up from his hands, to find that there was no smug smirk present on his face, only a pair of grey eyes staring back at him with innocent tease in them. At the same time, Harry found that he itched at the odd sense of loss in him to see Malfoy not picking at him. He guessed the latter was trying to lay low. Harry sighed, “I think you’ll find that I’m in fact hopeless at a lot of things, this being just one of them.” He gestured vaguely at the chess board.

“Quick, Harry, make your move so I can defeat you.” Ron said impatiently, eyes wide with poorly suppressed excitement.

Harry chuckled. “You know you owe me a trip to HoneyDukes by doing that, right?” He said, as he moved his knight to kill Ron’s, inevitably giving his King the chance to be killed in return.

Harry’s chess pieces laid dead across the board, sliced in half in their ultimate defeat. Harry felt mocked. Ron thrusted both of his arms in the air as he cheered loudly, startling Malfoy with his fist punching the air before the blonde in the process. Malfoy regarded him with a mixture of bewilderment and panic, before leaning forward when his space was no longer intruded.

Molly chose to walk in at this moment.

“You got anywhere to go after this, dear?” Molly said to Malfoy, sitting down in the empty space next to him.

“I could go home.” Was Malfoy’s short reply, accompanied with a casual shrug. An obscure silent acknowledgement passed through the air between the two of them, one which Harry could not fathom, so naturally, he was intrigued. Molly’s brows furrowed.

“Do you know when will your, uh, parents come home?” Molly asked, making a poor attempt to cover up her obvious dislike of said parents.

Malfoy made no point to hide his discomfort. “Probably never.” He said, attaching it with an odd chuckle that almost sounded cold to Harry. Harry wondered what had happened that could land Malfoy, out of all people, in the Burrow.

“You could always stay here,” Molly began, a warm smile that Harry was most familiar with. Malfoy’s eyes widened. A rush of déjà vu filled Harry as he recalled all the times Molly had offered the same thing, had opened her arms to welcome him into her own home. And that now was directed at Malfoy, it was most surreal.

However, that was quickly thwarted by Ron, who protested loudly, “But Mom! The Burrow is not an—”

“Ronald! Do think about—”

“I haven’t accepted, Weasley!” Malfoy squawked.

“He could always stay with me,” Harry blurted out. Suddenly, the commotion in the room skidded to a halt, as three pair of eyes simultaneously threw themselves at him. Molly’s, surprised affection; Ron’s, utter disbelief; Malfoy’s…once again unreadable.

“I mean I live alone anyways. There’s plenty of space at Grimmauld,” Harry hurried to explain, giving himself a huge mental grimace. The room was still stunned to silent. The sound of water running stopped. Hermione, as Harry suspected, was indeed listening in on the conversation.

Then Molly’s face turned ecstatic, and she went on about how Harry and Malfoy could come to Sunday lunch together from now on. Ron’s head had thumped down onto the table, so Harry averted his gaze to Malfoy, his childhood rival whom he had not spoken to in months, who out of the blue shown up. Malfoy was looking back at him steadily, brows slightly knitted. Harry could tell the git could not comprehend, and in fact, neither could Harry.

“Draco, what do you say? Would you go to Harry’s?” Molly’s soft voice drew Malfoy out of his staring reverie with Harry, looking up in momentary confusion.

“Ugh, yes. Might as well,” Malfoy all but groaned out, throwing Harry a patented indignant eye-roll. He mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath, which sounded a lot like an annoyed version of “Gryffindors”.

Unknown excitement filled Harry, despite not knowing what propelled him to make the offer. He quietly observed Malfoy for the rest of tea. Malfoy narrowed his eyes at him.

———

(just an idea i can’t get out of my mind)

(shall i continue this ??)

[two-halves-of-reylo]

First Blood - The Jedi Temple

Luke Skywalker attempts to kill Ben Solo in his sleep. Unable to stand the rejection anymore Ben decides to embrace the monster everyone claims him to be and destroy the Jedi temple.

This is the companion piece to “First Blood - Mind Probe”

written by: Shenanigenfilms

“I know everything I need to know about you” Rey spat with a vile tone in her voice. Her eyes flared at him just like they did when the fought in the forest.

“You do? Ah you do…You have that look in your eyes from the forest, the time you called me a Monster” 

“You are a Monster!” She countered standing her ground as he walked closer. “Yes I am” Kylo kept his walls to her, even as he became curious about their connection. His last words struck something inside Rey and for the first time she saw someone tormented.

Without warning the sound returned to the room and Kylo felt something wet running down his face. He gently rubbed the mysterious liquid from his face, was it blood? No water…but how?

He stared at his gloved hand as memories started to flood his mind. Blood. First Blood…His first kills. The night he destroyed it all. 

______________________

He wasn’t a boy, but not quite a man. He felt a strange presence above him as he slept, startled with a jolt as Ben heard the all to familiar sound of a lightsaber engaging. But who? Only a few of them had reached that point of their training. Luckily for him he had just constructed his blue lightsaber a few weeks ago. It was crude and needed tweaking but the crystal was strong and pure. 

As if everything was in slow motion Ben summoned his lightsaber spilling his beloved calligraphy set on the floor. Ben was fascinated with tales of the ancient time, it was one of the reason he requested an ancient calligraphy set. To be able to write in an age when it was no longer required. That all now seemed meaningless as he was being threatened by his Uncle who gave it to him as a present. 

Their lightsabers clashed with a terrible crackle and it was as if a seismic charge fell over the training grounds. Ben instinctively force pulled his hut around him not even considering he could die with his uncle. Ben was acting on pure instinct to get away. 

As if some unseeable dark force guided Ben to safety he rolled under his bed giving him just enough protection from the falling roof around him and his traitor of an uncle. Everything went dark.

Ben’s eyes shot open as he felt something cold run down his face. He struggled to pull the ruble of his hut off his, but he saw breaks in the piles and pulled them off with all his might.

He stood shaking the dust off his clothes and wiping the blood from his forehead. he stared at the liquid on his fingers and felt the rage burn with in him. He reached out to the force to find any solace in what just happened. To find any words or feeling of wisdom to guide him on how to proceed as he just possibly killed the only person who could explain anything about what was in his conflicted soul. A voice of a guardian rang through his his mind. “The strongest stars have hearts of Kyber.” 

Ben touched his hand to his chest almost to see if he even had a heart left inside. He was going to harden his heart so he would never be hurt again. Ben was fed up with the shame of feeling like a freak, a creature, a monster. Even his own parents were scared of him, it was the sole reason he was dumped with his Uncle. It was the hope Luke could help him, and now he betrayed him.

Ben’s thoughts came to his only “friend” that he had among Luke’s pupils, The Zabrak Lamu. They first bonded over the crystal ceremony Luke had created. 

In his quest for Jedi Artifacts Luke came across the Crystal Caves of Ilum . Luke had built his own lightsaber years ago with parts he found in Obi-Wan’s hut back on tattooine. But he found the where crystals were and that the crystals shared a special relationship with the Jedi for tens of thousands of years . Jedi younglings traveled to the ice caves to harvest their own crystals, which they then used to build their lightsabers. The Force would find a crystal that matched their destiny as Jedi. Some would never be allowed to feel its power, and the crystal would be cold to the touch. But if you were chose the crystals would call with a celestial hum to the future jedi’s. Crystals lacked color before they were chosen by a Jedi.

Luke had brought several Kyber Crystal Clusters back with him as he felt it was to dangerous to risk the lives of his future students. As the new academy was in strict secrecy for everyones protection until the time was right. 

During his ceremony most lightsabers became blue or green. Ben was actually relived his was blue. He didn’t want a colour that would make him stand out from the rest of the pupils, already feeling like the outsider. But Lamu’s crystal was yellow, something only reserved for the Jedi Temple Guard of the ancient times of the old republic. No one knew this but Ben. In one of his meditation sessions ancient guardians showed their ways of servitude to the order. 

One night a couple of pupils surrounded Lamu and were starting to harass him. They called him terrible names, taunted him, laughed at his crimson tattoo like features on his face from his kind and the black horns that adorned his scull like crown. They poked at him like some animal in a cage and Ben could sense the inevitable fight.

Ben came around the corner to find five students attacking Lamu. He did his best to fight them off but he was no match for the older students. Ben took pity on him, for he knew what it felt like to be cruley taunted for physical features. His were the prominate ears which stuck out. His way of hiding them was to let his hair grown over them. A luxury the poor Zabrak couldn’t have. Ben easily bested the older students with his raw use of the force. Lamu was grateful but now they both had enemies, dangerous enemies.

That night Ben shared with Lamu the meaning of his crystal colour and the ways of the Jedi Temple Guards. How they were anonymous sentinels that disappear inside robes and hide their features under masks. This was a way to show emotional detachment, something both of them desired to hide their deformities. 

This is how the Knights of Ren were born. They would become the guardians of the new temple and they alone would chose whom they viewed as worthy. Ben knew he could use his raw power, and Lamu must have had the same power otherwise his crystal would have been blue or green. 

Ben felt a pull in his chest as he remembered his friend. He tried to keep the rage at bay but he needed Lamu’s help and if they were ever to be what they vowed to become this was the time.

Ben sprinted as fast as he could, tears forming in his eyes, trying to harden his heart but he kept feeling the pull to the light. Lamu nearly jumped ten feet off his cot as Ben stormed into his hut.

“Are we brothers?” Ben shouted. Lamu stared at his friend, he didn’t understand the question, or why he would be asking. He could feel the rage building in Ben as he stood before him. But he didn’t know how to answer.

“I said are we brothers?” Ben was afraid, he didn’t and couldn’t take any more betrayals. He engaged his lightsaber and pointed it at Lamu. 

“Of course we are! Until the end!” He answered. He wasn’t afraid, for his heart was true. 

“Tonight we end this! Tonight we become the Knights of Ren!” 

Lamu had a slight smile on his face, he didn’t care what the reason was or why. He was ready to be what he felt he was always meant to be. 

“Ok but what do we do now?”

“We go one by one and decide who is worthy. I’ll start with the older pupils you start with the youngling” Lamu nodded in agreement, grabbed his lightsaber and made his way to the west side of the camp. Ben kept his lightsaber engaged and made his way to the east side of the camp. 

He was stopped in his tracks as the five students he fought off some time before approached him.

“Whats the matter creature, have another one of you night terrors?” They mocked. “mommy isn’t there to sooth you back to sleep like the coward you are” they continued.

Ben tried not to let their taunts hurt him, but he failed. All he could think to do was extend his lightsaber out in their direction, slowly moving it from side to side begging them to try and advance. “come and say that to me again?”

The boys were not intimidated in the slightest. “what are you going to do with that? What would master Luke say?” Ben didn’t flinch “he betrayed me and I killed him!”

The boys studied Ben and looked at one another. “Liar! Prove it!” They started to surround Ben. “Take a look for yourself, my collapsed hut is over there!”

They studied the horizon and saw what he said to be true. “You killed him? Why? Traitor!” One of the boys had his constructed lightsaber on his belt and advanced towards Ben. Without hesitation Ben easily countered and cut the boy’s head clear off and watched it fall from his shoulders.

A painful surge of energy rose in his body, and he felt the hilt of his lightsaber grow warm. Ben tried to keep himself from being sick. He wasn’t sure if Luke was truly dead, and he acted in self defence. But this time was a cold calculated murder and there was no escape from this. Some of the boys fled in fear others went to their respected huts to grab their weapons. 

Ben didn’t allow them much of a choice. He force pulled them one by one towards him, striking them down systematically. Each time the feeling of painful nausea was replaced by a feeling of calm, and power. Ben’s lightsaber grew hotter and the blade was starting to falter. A loud crackle was starting to form and he felt his crystal crack as it started to “bleed” and change colours. He was no longer going to be the victim, he was in control of his own life and destiny. 

More students came out of the huts to see what the commotion was about. Ben was in a blind frenzy as he struck them down. Some begged for their lives others tried to fight in the best way the could. Ben would only spare the ones who ever showed him kindness which he confused for loyalty. He asked them if they would join his knights and most agreed. They knew if they didn’t it would certainly mean death. Ben demanded as a sign of their loyalty to attack the main temple and burn it to the ground while he searched for an escape for them.

In his search Lamu had returned but to Ben’s surprise he only had two youngling who were just about old enough to join the older pupils. 

“Where are the others?”

“They were a liability, we cant let them escape and expose our order” Lamu said coldly. He never lifted his voice. The boy and girl next to him clearly shaken in fear kept their eyes to the ground.

Ben didn’t dare ask any further questions, but he knew. Lamu slaughtered them all. His crimson tattoo markings were growing more vibrant. He remembered about the Sith and how in their domination a true Sith’s eyes would change in times of great destruction. Ben found himself longing for the same. If he was truly a monster than what better way to look the part. But he couldn’t believe Lamu, Ben was a lot of things but he wouldn’t have killed younglings. He would have wiped their memories or something. But he dare not question for he didn’t want to lose the fragile loyalty of Lamu. 

Finally they found a cargo freighter that Luke had used in his excavations and loaded their perspective students, but there wasn’t enough room. They would need to choose who was worthy. Ben raised his lightsaber and struck down nearly twenty more pupils. When he struck the last pupil Ben felt his hilt give way as his lightsaber crystal shattered causing the beam to ooze out on the sides.

He threw it as the heat was too much to bare. Some of the students sighed a quite breath as they knew they were spared. Lamu announced that he set a course and they fled once and for all into uncharted space, to the unknown regions. Ben rushed to the fresher unit on board. He stood before the mirror but had kept his eyes shut. He held his breath as he was desparatly hoping to see the eyes of the monster he yearned for. Ben gripped the sides of the sink as he willed his body to open his eyes.

Finally he looked but his heart sank. All he saw was his eyes, dark and intense, but nothing else. He gripped his fingers tighter as his screamed in anguish. All that for nothing! He ripped the sink from its bolts and threw it agains the wall watching it smash into pieces. He fell to the floor hiding his face in his hands. He felt the drop of water hitting his face from the broken pipe. He almost wished it would wash away the blood on his hands, but it was too late.

Lamu came to see what the commotion was about. He found Ben in a way he had never seen his brother before. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew Ben needed a fresh start.

“When do we build our masks master?” The word hit Ben like a slap to the face. Master? No one ever considered him a master. Trying to find the words and how to even find the designs.

“We also need names…” it was the only thing Ben could blurt out. He no longer wanted the cursed name of Solo. 

“I want to keep mine…if thats ok master. But we can think of yours?” Ben understood it was a fair request. But he wanted something that was remnant of the stone he hardened his heart to. The Kyber Crystal. 

“What about Kyber Ren, all of the knights tiles will end in Ren” Lamu’s face betrayed him as he felt the name was a bit silly, but he didn’t want to outright say it. He thought of a different suggestion.

“I like Ren but what about Kylo. A combination of Skywalker, and Solo.” Ben hated the idea and started to interject but Lamu cut him off. “I know you hate the name, but think of it as a badge of honour, killing the master who betrayed you, and the name that fuels your power and rage”

Ben couldn’t argue with that logic. “Ok Lamu Ren, Kylo Ren it shall be” Lamu put his fisted hand to his heart and bowed his head in respect “Master”

He rose to his feet and left Kylo Ren in peace.

______________________

Ben Looked at his gloved hand with the drops remaining from his force connection with Rey. He longed to see his brother again, but the knights were in hiding, secret assassins in the far reaches of the Galaxy, doing the bidding of Snoke and the first order. Lamu was no longer loyal to Ben, he was loyal to Snoke. 

He took his lightsaber off his belt and stoked the crossgaurd vents which he later added after the attack on the temple. He chose its design from the ancient battle of the Sith and Jedi on the planet Malachor that happened thousands of years ago. He did love the ancient ways. But he was now wanting to kill it all, to let the past die.

I have tried my best to research as much cannon material and evidence for this origin story. 

Opening line of the flashback matches the line from the Last Jedi Novelisation on purpose

[noksye]

Here we are ! I introduce you a new fanchild (even if he’s more like a fusion) :

Name : Nix (mix of Mist and Nex (murder) and the contraction of Nichts (nothing))

Age : 16/19

Pronouns : He/Him (normal) They/Them (mad)

Facts : 

He doesn’t like ketchup because of its resemblance with blood.

Nonetheless, he loves sweet things (cupcakes are his favorites, you can give him one to be his new bff).

He doens’t understand why people see his pressure means (muders) as something bad. He thinks he works for a great cause and regrets that the majority doesn’t understand him (ironically).

His favorite pastime is to create jewelry – his necklace was made by himself. Unfortunately, successful attemps are rare.

He doesn’t know how to do his shoelaces.

When he loves, he doesn’t count the cost. He has a phobia to lose something or someone he cares about (and he’s really paranoid about that).

He’s a reserved guy the first days you meet him. He needs to judge you to know if you’re gonna be a threat or not.

If you’re a threat, he’s gonna try to kill you.

If you’ll become a friend, he’ll wanna be essential in your life. 

If neither, he’ll be neutral.

He considers himeself as a shield to his relatives.

He kills what he sees as a threat for him or the ones he loves in thinking that would bring him inner peace and outer peace (first goal of his “parents”).

He thinks that without war, there’s no peace, so he sees himself as the one who has to fight against what he defines as “war”.

He’d do anything for something/someone he loves whether it’s a request or if he considers that it’s beneficial to this thing/person.

He’s kinda a stalker.

His L.O.V.E. is actually 1 because he didn’t have the occasion to kill someone in Dusttale (because of the resets) or in the Save Screen (otherwise, when he’ll get some people to “protect”, his L.O.V.E. will quickly up to 18-20, he’s been trained by Dust after all).

“I gain LOVE ‘cause I love 'em.”

He’s probably a Lawful – Evil guy.

Story :

He’s not born from a true and reciprocal love between Murder and Geno. Both of them found a middle ground : the human must stop genocide routes and resets, they played enough. So, they have created a fusion of themselves, by mixing their magics together (the way is pretty close to PJ’s), hoping that the child inherits of their will and be able to succeed where they failed. He grew up in Dusttale, his reference AU via Murder. He could see what his “father” had to do to stop the human. On the other hand, he had the ability to go in the Save Screen, where Geno showed him what his world, the Original, has experienced. Nix thought immediatly that if he needed to protect someone of a threat, he’ll do it before the threat could ever blink. He believes that his “parents” mistake was to wait too long.

In the Save Screen, he has the same capacity than Geno : he can follow something, more precisely someone (someone he encountered and he must know their name), because he doesn’t have the power to keep an eye on a whole AU. Usually, he watches what Murder does with his days.

If he has what he considers as friends or relatives, he can follow them instead of Murder. He can teleport in the world he observes (without necessarily knowing where it is, it’s as if he was crossing throught his monitor screen). But he’ll return inevitably in the Save Screen if he tries to teleport again (his teleportation only works that way).

Chips :

Dusttale!Sans ;

Nix is probably one of the few people to call him by his true name which is Murder. He cares about him, but not like a son with his father, more like a brother – including the fact that he follows him, even if he dosen’t doubt about his skills, we never know. If Murder tells him that a random people is a threat for a random thing he loves (especially what he calls peace), Nix will begin to spy them to study them, get his own opinion and find a proper method to kill them. Of course, if Nix’s judgement is not the same as Murder, he’ll do nothing.

Aftertale!Sans ;

He thinks that Geno has a negative view of his way of doing, but he lets him do, because it works (?). On his side, he belives that his second “father” is someone sad, to whom life has taken everything. So, he must protect him (that’s the reason why he chose to live in the Save Screen after discovering it). He doesn’t feel like he’s as close to him as Murder, but he feels that they have the same passion and the same conviction about “protecting” things, so he finds himself in Geno throught this. And because he doesn’t want to lose that, he has to be the shield.

Nom : Nix (mélange de Mist (brume) et Nex (assassinat) et aussi la contraction de Nichts (rien))

Âge : 16/19

Pronoms : Il/Lui

Facts :

Il n'aime pas le ketchup car ça lui fait penser à du sang.

Cependant, il adore les choses sucrées (lui offrir un cupcake fera de vous son nouveau meilleur ami)

Il ne comprend pas pourquoi les dissuasions qu'il utilise (#meutre) sont vues comme mauvaises. Il considère qu'il oeuvre pour une bonne cause et regrette qu'on ne le comprenne pas vraiment à ce sujet (ironiquement).

Il a un passe temps pour la création de bijoux, son collier étant de sa création, ceci dit, rares sont les essais qui aboutissent vraiment..

Il ne sait pas fait ses lacets.

Quand il aime, il ne compte pas. A une phobie de perdre ce à quoi il tient (au point d'en être paranoïaque).

Il est plutôt réservé les premiers jours après une rencontre pour se faire un avis de si la personne est une menace ou non.

Si oui, il va essayer de la tuer.

Si non, il fera tout pour devenir indispensable à sa vie.

Si aucun des deux, il sera neutre.

Il se considère comme un bouclier pour ses proches.

Il tue tout ce qu'il considère comme une menace pour ceux qu'il aime en pensant que ça lui apportera la paix intérieure et la paix extérieure (but premier de ses ''parents'')

Il pense que sans guerre il n'y a pas de paix, donc se voit comme celui qui doit lutter contre ce qu'il définit comme étant la ''guerre''.  

Il ferait n'importe quoi pour quelqu'un/quelque chose qu'il aime, que ce soit quand on lui demande ou s'il considère lui meme que c'est bénéfique pour cette personne/chose.

Un peu stalker sur les bords

Son L.O.V.E est actuellement 1 parce qu'il n'a pas eu l'occasion de tuer qui que ce soit à Dusttale (Resets nombreux oblige) ou dans l'écran de sauvegarde (sinon, quand il aura quelques personnes à ''protéger'', son L.O.V.E va rapidement passer vers 18-20, il a été entrainé par Dust après tout).

"I gain LOVE 'cause I love 'em."

Il serait probablement Loyal – Mauvais.

Story :

Il n'est pas né d'un amour pur et réciproque entre Murder et Geno. Les deux ont simplement trouvé un terrain d'entente sur le fait qu'il fallait que l'humain cesse les génocides et les resets, que ça avait assez duré comme ça. Ils ont donc, par le mélange de leurs magies (à l'instar de PJ), créé une fusion d'eux deux, en espérant que celui-ci hérite de leur volonté et qu'il réussisse là où ils ont échoué. Il a grandi à Dusttale, son AU de référence par le biais de Murder. Il a pu constater ce qu'avait du faire son "père" afin d'arrêter l'humain. De l'autre côté, il avait la capacité de se rendre dans l'écran de Sauvegarde où Geno a pu aussi lui montrer ce que son monde de base, l'original, avait vécu. Il se dit de suite que si jamais il devait protéger quelqu'un d'une quelconque menace, il le ferait avant que la menace ne puisse agir. Il estime que l'erreur de ses "parents" a été d'attendre trop longtemps que tout dégénère.

Dans l'écran de sauvegarde, il a la meme capacité de Geno à pouvoir suivre l'évolution de quelque chose, ou plus précisément de quelqu'un (qu'il connait et dont il connait au moins le nom), puisqu'il n'a pas la puissance nécessaire pour surveiller tout un AU, donc il regarde généralement ce que fait Murder de ses journées.

S'il a ce qu'il considère comme étant des amis ou des proches, il peut les suivre à la place de Murder. Il peut se téléporter sur le monde de la personne qu'il observe (sans forcément savoir où c'est, comme s'il passait à travers son écran de surveillance) mais retournera forcément à l'écran de sauvegarde s'il essaie de se téléporter à nouveau (sa téléportation ne marche que de cette façon).

CHIPs :

Dusttale!Sans ;

Nix est sûrement l'une des rares personnes à l'appeler par son vrai nom qu'est Murder. Il tient à lui, non pas comme un fils tient à son père, mais comme un frère - incluant le fait qu'il surveille ce qu'il fasse, bien qu'il n'ait aucun doute sur ses capacités, on ne sait jamais. Si Murder lui dit qu'untel est une menace pour x chose auquel il tient (notamment la paix), Nix commencera à l'espionner pour l'étudier, se faire son idée, et trouver une façon adéquate de le tuer. Bien sur, s'il n'est pas du même avis, il n'en fera rien.

Aftertale!Sans ;

Il pense que Geno voit d'un mauvais œil sa façon de faire mais qu'il le laisse faire parce que ça marche (?). De son côté, il imagine plus son deuxième "père" comme une personne triste à qui la vie a tout pris et qu'il doit protéger (c'est la raison pour laquelle il est resté vivre dans le Save Screen après l'avoir découvert). Il ne se sent pas aussi proche de lui que de Murder mais il sent qu'il a la même force et la même conviction que lui par rapport à la "protection" des choses, donc il se retrouve en lui a travers ça. Et parce qu'il ne veut pas perdre ça, il doit être le bouclier.

Geno!Sans belongs to @loverofpiggies

Murder!Sans doesn’t belong to me but I haven’t his ref blog, sorry :c

Nix is my baby ♪

[cliche-ish]

Momo

Growing up in Vietnam, I was told and taught all kinds of biases and prejudices about people, some of whom I never even met. To give you a few examples, Muslims are bad people who kill other people. Indians are dirty because they eat with their hands. Black people in the U.S. are criminals. White people are better, polite, or civil, and they would always respect and put women first. Couples who move in with each other or get pregnant before marriage are immoral. Gay people are immoral. I never felt too strongly either for or against those claims when I was younger, since a lot of them were about people living in other places I thought I would never really encounter in my life. But I did think some of them were true. I remember when I was in 7th or 8th grade, when I was hanging out with my friends in front of my school, I saw a gay person dressing in women’s tank, shorts, and high heels for the first time. I found myself staring at the person. The person caught my stare and stared back at me as if that person were saying “What are you looking at?” I looked away. I felt terrible afterwards for looking. “Why did I stare? Why do I feel bad like I did something wrong? I never meant to demean the person, but why did I give that person the look?” I asked myself. I did not know how to feel about the incident.

When I stepped outside my little bubble and moved to the U.S. at 18 for school, it was a whole new world for me. I was so fortunate to get to meet kind, talented, sophisticated, compassionate, complex, and inspiring human beings who are from all sorts of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and nationality. I thought about all the things I was told and realized there were a sea of conflicts within me. All these questions started popping up and haunting me. These are wonderful and good people, yet why are we calling them all sort of bad things? We don’t know these people at all, so how can we judge them? Aren’t there are all kinds of people everywhere? Not all Vietnamese are good or bad. We also have people who kill or are criminals in Vietnam. We also eat with our hands for certain dishes in Vietnam. Not all white people are polite or civil or respect women. Gay people are not immoral people. And whether people move in or get pregnant is their decision and is not an indicator of their morality. It is their life and their choice, not ours, and I am sure they have their reasons, so who are we to judge? Anyone I meet is just as complex as you, me, and another people out there. How and why are we taking an entire community, identity, gender, race, country, or ethnicity, and putting them in a few boxes and labeling them with generic statements that we can’t even prove? It did not feel right to me, because it was and is not right. For 18 years I was ignorant. I knew it was time I shattered my whole belief system and started over.

I do not blame my people in Vietnam for being entirely ignorant. We live under a system that train people to comply and agree to whatever is given to them and never question. It was in our educational system. For instance, our Vietnamese Literature curriculum (equivalent to English classes in the US) asks students to include specific, pre-determined points in their analysis essay for every books or poems in the curriculum, or we will lose points. We are rewarded for compliance, and penalized when we fail or try to break the mold. Critical thinking is not ever taught, if not discouraged. A lot of information about the world we get in Vietnam comes from Hollywood movies, which were not famously known for being inclusive or objective in representing races. Information accessible to the public is also carefully filtered, censored, and curated, and so much of it is often twisted, blocked, or presented from only the sides that were chosen to shape our views in certain ways. That lack of free access to holistic information, plus the no questioning, no critically thinking, has inevitably morphed people’s views about the world in certain, finite ways. Most of the people I grew up knowing are not inherently mean or ill-intentioned (though culturally many of them can be judgmental and nosy). They just did not have what they need to challenge their beliefs or have them challenged. I was one of them, thinking like them, not really questioning. But I have known better, and I am trying my best to refrain myself from that way of thinking (or not thinking), to be open to change my mind, and to stay non-judgmental and unbiased.

Let me tell you a relevant and embarrassing story about me. (I have a lot of embarrassing stories. Stay tuned lol!) After graduating from college, I moved to a different state for my job. My new workplace was a very culturally diverse environment, which I found very cool and at home. One day, I was eating lunch in the break room with a co-worker and very good friend of mine and saw her taking out her lunch. Background info: she is from Nepal. I asked her “Are those dumplings?” and she said, “Yes! I just made them yesterday.” And with all of my ignorance and subconscious stereotype about what an Asian person should be or do, I said, “Wow you did? I just buy them from the store. You are more Asian than I am.” My friend calmly replied, “I am Asian, too, you know.” That was when my world came crashing down inside my head, and I felt like my face just got slapped. I realized what a stupid and ignorant statement I just made. Guess when this happened? Just 2 years ago, after over 4 years of my living in the US and thinking “Hey, I’ve changed. No more stereotyping people!”. I don’t think I had this notion of what being Asian meant before I came to the U.S., but guess what my time here did to me. I was subconsciously associating being “Asian” with things that only represents East Asian people, like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, etc., probably because of what was being presented to me in the TV shows and movies and the social media pages I chose to watch or follow with people looking like me doing the things I can relate to, and from interactions with my college friends, many of whom were East Asians. Guess what, me? Asia is freaking large and diverse. The Middle East is part of Asia. Countries like Kazakhstan Uzbekistan are part of Asia. Turkey is part of Asia. South Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, are part of Asia. This is a very wordy way to make my point that we are all Asians, yet we share very different cultures, appearances, religions, and languages. That break room dumpling incident helped me realize my biases are always going to be there, whether I am conscious about them or not. Yet it is good to be called out, be challenged, and have such slap-in-the-face moments through which I can wake up and realize how troublesome or biased my thoughts can be and change them for the better.

Back to my people in Vietnam, I don’t think my family and many other people are inherently racist, Islamophobic, or homophobic. They just took the things they were told as truths, as their social system desires and designs them to. Not all of them get the opportunity or the right push to leave their bubbles, go out and truly see the world, and meet and get to know people who are different from them. My brother and I, we are more fortunate in so many ways. We are lucky that our parents are both educated people who are very receptive and willing to learn from their children and change their mind, especially my Mom. We are lucky to receive our parents’ support and other upperclassman students’ guidance to acquire our tickets to go live, explore, and get an education in the world outside our country. We are lucky to get to meet people who are different from us and who have changed us in positive ways we could never imagine. We was given the privilege that enables us to learn and embrace the difference in ourselves and in others. And with great privilege comes great responsibility. Now we have the responsibility and honor to share what we have learned with our people, starting from home.

My brother, who has been studying abroad in India and Hong Kong, and I are doing our best to help change our parents’ biased views and eliminate their prejudices. She visited me in the US for the first time during the year that I lived with a roommate who is a Muslim. My roommate bought my Mom flowers to thank my Mom for cleaning our apartment (you know how Moms are haha), and my Mom appreciated her gesture so much. Now my Mom have met a kind Muslim, something that challenged her previous belief about Muslims. My brother also brought back friends who come from India and other countries (I cannot remember which lol. My brother has many friends), to our house in Vietnam, and they stayed at our place. My Mom enjoyed hosting them so much and kept saying how great kids they were. She’s met a few more nice people who are different from her and the people she sees every day. My brother and I get to see the beautifully complex and diverse world outside our little bubble in Vietnam, because our parents have worked so hard to make it happen. Little by little, we are trying to show our parents that world. Hopefully, we can all learn from each other in the process and change for the better.

A follow-up from the break room dumpling story haha. After my ignorant statement, my Nepali friend offered me one of her momos, which is what “dumplings” are called in Nepal. (Now my title makes sense, right?) It was the best “dumpling” I’ve ever had haha. I visited her recently and we made momos again (see picture below). I can now make momos on my own. 😊 Since that day, I have also been very conscious when I am about to make any general statement about Asian people and just use “Vietnamese” or “East Asian” instead. I still think about this story once in a while to remind myself that it is not fun to realize I am ignorant, but this is how I grow, through learning uncomfortably.  

[distant-rose-archive-blog]

Breakfast for the Boys

Notes: Once again, gotta thank @welllpthisishappening for listening to be babble on about this drabble and others like in the works. Without her encouragement, I probably would do nothing with this. Anyway, no Beth or Wes in this one. Strictly Harrison and Captain Cobra. You can read on AO3 here: [LINK]

Summary: Killian meets Henry for breakfast at Granny's sans Emma despite sleep deprivation brought on by his newly-teething son. He quickly discovers he isn't the only fan of bacon and sleep-deprivation does not excuse oneself from being teased by their stepson.

Rating: T

Word Count: 3,900+

 When Killian had found out Emma was pregnant, he had been stunned and more than a little fearful. However, after the initial shock had worn off, he became excited; over the moon in fact. Never in his nearly two centuries of life did he ever really expect to be someone’s father. (There had been a brief glimmer of hope with Baelfire all those years ago but that dream had died almost as soon as it has been begun to form in his head. And sure, he had Henry, whom he adored and loved fiercely, but Killian would never dare to try and replace Baelfire. It would have been a disservice to the man who desired that title so fiercely. No, Killian was never going to be Henry’s father, but he was definitely going to try hardest to be the best stepfather he could be.)

Now that the babe had been born and had been dictating their lives for the past months, Killian was just tired. Constantly. After spending practically centuries captaining the Jolly with a limited sleep schedule, Killian had thought he had at least been prepared for this aspect of fatherhood. He hadn’t. Reality had sunk in quickly and ruthlessly when his son had arrived home. The days seemed to bleed into each other painfully with no end in sight for midnight, two o’clock, four o’clock and six o’clock cries for feedings, cuddles and diaper changes. The worst thing was that it hadn’t petered out over the months like all the parent books promised, much to his dismay. No, instead of sleeping more, his son was sleeping less now that his teeth had decided to come in early. Their sleep schedule was even more messed up now especially since new teeth were not as easy to placate as a nightly need to feed. Though Killian loved his son fiercely, the sleep deprivation was jarring and he felt more like a zombie than he did when he was actually dead.

After six months of no sleep, Killian was nearing the need of his rope. He had gotten to the point where he had started dozing in the most random of places and at sporadic points during the day. All of this was what led to Henry finding him in tilted over in their booth at Granny’s, his eyes shut and his head bowed in preparation of an inevitable nosedive into a large mug of coffee despite the babbling baby in Killian’s lap, tugging rather insistently on his hair.

“Hook, are you okay?” Henry asked, giving his stepfather a concerned once over. He leaned forward to give him a gentle nudge on the shoulder, aborting an ill-fated descent into the hot beverage waiting on the table below.

Killian jolted, eyes blinking rapidly in a valiant effort to bat away the hold of sleep. He sighed for a moment, bringing his only hand up to his face to worry his brow glancing at his son and gently unfurling the boy’s little fingers from his abused locks.

“Just a bit tired, lad,” Killian responded with a barely-there grin. “Your brother hasn’t been the kindest to us. He’s been quite cranky about his teeth coming in and has been very fervent in letting us know.”

“What? Little Han Solo here is giving you trouble?” Henry replied with a wide grin, gesturing to the baby cuddled against Killian’s chest with his hand before leaning forward to gently tousle thick thatch of hair on the boy’s head. Killian absently noted that his son was in dire need of a haircut. (They could get around to that later after they cleaned the changing cot, washed the play toys and fixed the high chair. God, parenthood was more work than either of them had guessed.)

“Harrison, Henry. His name is Harrison. Use it. You chose it after all,” Killian responded with a roll of his eyes. He took a swing from his coffee mug, grimacing slightly as he burned his tongue.

“Yeah, only because you said Han was a stupid name,” Henry responded with his own eye roll. It never failed to startle Killian how much of Emma he could see in Henry’s actions as he got older.

“I didn’t say it was a stupid name, Henry. I said that Han wasn’t a real name because it isn’t a real name,” Killian corrected, watching as Henry attempted to fix his little brother’s hair from the wreckage. There was no point. Even without being tousled, Harrison’s hair was a riot that couldn’t be tamed no matter hard Killian and Emma tried. Though he had to admit that Henry was definitely making more process than either him or Emma had made in weeks. He was a great older brother and Killian was proud of him.

“Han is totally a real name, and I’m pretty sure that I could find a ton of famous people named Han on Wikipedia just to prove it to you,” Henry replied, not even looking at Killian; still studying his handiwork with Harrison’s hair.

Killian pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. Normally he enjoyed this kind of banter with his stepson, however it was generally when Killian had the pleasure of more than two hours of sleep. Killian wished that Henry could cut the smart-ass teenager routine and just order his breakfast so they could leave and put Harrison (and himself) down for a nap.

“I’m sure you could,” Killian responded after a few moments. “But I fail to see why since it’s rather moot at this point. The birth certificate says Harrison. We’re not changing it."

“Just think it would be a good nickname for our little space pirate since you know, the entire reason I named him that was because of Han Solo in the first place,” Henry replied with a smirk, bopping Harrison on the nose.

The baby giggled happily in response, trying to reach out and grasp Henry’s hand. Upon missing his older brother, Harrison made a disgruntled noise that Killian now knew heralded the beginnings of a tantrum and immediately reached into the baby bag next to him in haste. He pulled out the wooden Stand-Up Man toy Geppetto had gifted them what seemed like eons again ago at Emma’s baby shower. It was currently Harrison’s favorite toy and often kept the little lad entertained for hours. Killian often fought the urge to hug the older man every time he saw him.

“Look, Harrison, it’s Stand-Up Man!” Killian exclaimed with a mock gasp of excitement as he attached the toy to the table and hastily pulled the string to erect the toy into its stance in hopes of gaining the baby’s attention. It worked. Harrison’s displeasure with Henry dissipated in favor of looking at his favorite toy with newly born interest. Harrison grabbed the string from his father’s hand almost violently before pulling on it in rapid succession, assembling and dissembling the wooden toy so fast that it looked like it was flailing its limbs in a sign for mercy. Killian mentally patted himself on the back for his burgeoning dad skills before returning his attention to Henry.

“How about we table the nickname discussion for when the little lad has a say in it? Say like it, ten? Also, don’t antagonize your brother. At least wait until Leroy gets here so that our eardrums don’t bleed in vain?”

“Fine,” Henry replied in a light tone that suggested he wasn’t taking Killian seriously at all. “Where’s Mom by the way?”

“Your mother is back at the house sleeping for the first time in months,” Killian responded with an almost envious sigh.

Emma had been on the verge of a mental breakdown earlier this morning when Harrison had been in hysterics over his teeth. It didn’t necessarily help that she had still been breastfeeding him and his barely-there teeth were starting to make the experience incredibly painful for her. They had come to the decision to move from breast to bottle…for the third time. (Harrison had been adamantly against being bottle fed since the beginning, much to his Swan’s dismay. “I wish he would just leave my boobs alone.” “Unfortunately, he’s a breast man much like his father.” “Ha, ha. Now for that comment, you have diaper duty for the next change.”) The emotions of the early morning had gotten to her and by the time it had come to meet Henry at Granny’s, she could be barely get out of bed due to her exhaustion. It was then Killian realized that his Swan was in no shape or form to leave the house, and had convinced her to stay behind and get some rest while he met Henry for breakfast. Killian could still feel his own exhaustion weighing down in his bones like lead, but Emma needed rest more than he did; at least that was the mantra he kept telling himself.

“She really needs to sleep, Henry. You can stop by the house later if you want. Hope we’re enough company for you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Henry responded with a casual shrug that didn’t match the slight dismay underlying his tone. “I get it. Have gotten it.”

“Good.” Killian tentatively brought his coffee cup back to his lips, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t burn his tongue again. However instead of a burn, he was greeted with the bitter black being a shade under lukewarm. He smacked his lips in distaste as he studied his stepson, who was doing his best to hide his disappointment. He could kill for a decent cup of coffee at this moment.

“Look, Henry, I’m sorry she isn’t here and it’s just me and the baby. She loves you more than anything and we’re so proud of how you’ve been handling Harrison so far. You’ve showed maturity beyond your years.”

The tips of Henry’s ears went bright red and Henry immediately looked away from him, focusing on the dead winter scenery outside of Granny’s as if his life depended on it. Though Killian could no longer view his entire face, he could still see spots of color on Henry’s cheekbones and an uncomfortable stiffness in his shoulders.

“It’s nothing, Hook. I get it. It’s not a problem. There’s no problem.”

“I know you get it, but it’s always good to be reminded that despite all the new stuff and Harrison, that we still love you, are proud of you and worry about you. And that while we’ve been preoccupied with the baby, we still think about you and care about you and acknowledge how supportive and helpful you’ve been, lad.”

The color on Henry’s cheeks darkened under Killian’s words and he ducked his head a bit into his shoulder in a futile attempt to hide.

“Jeez, Hook. Maybe you’re the one who should have stayed behind if having no sleep means you spilling your guts like this.”

Killian opened his mouth to respond, but never got a chance to verbalize anything as one of the waitresses arrived with his order and thus cutting off the potentially emotional conversation he was having with Henry.

“Here’s your pancakes and extra bacon, Captain,” the blonde waitress, whose name Killian couldn’t remember for the life of him (the only thing his sleep-deprived brain could come up with was Not-Ruby), announced as she dropped the plate in front of him. “And some applesauce for little guy. Can I get you anything else?”

“You ordered without me?” Henry asked in mild annoyance.

“Sorry, lad, I wasn’t thinking when I sat down,” Killian replied apologetically before returning his attention to Not-Ruby. “Yes, I’ll have another coffee. Give the lad a hot chocolate with cinnamon and whatever he wants to eat post-haste if you could, lass.”

“The waffle special with scrambled eggs and bacon too, thanks,” Henry shot off his order quickly, still looking at Killian with some irritation. Killian responded with a semi-sheepish smile and tugged on his ear in a self-conscious manner. He genuinely hadn’t meant to upset him.

Not-Ruby scribbled down the order and turned away to other customers, however not before making a cooing noise and giving Harrison a pat on the head. Killian sighed. It had become one of his pet peeves both when Harrison was in and out of utero when random people felt the need to touch his son. He didn’t quite understand where people got off thinking it was okay to touch the boy without permission. (It had taken some coaxing from Emma to not to attack people who would randomly come up to touch the swollen belly that had housed their son.)

“I can’t believe you ordered without me,” Henry repeated, tearing Killian away from his irritated musings.

“Bad form, I know, but an honest mistake,” Killian said tiredly, rubbing his eyes for a moment before pushing his plate towards Henry. “Look, have a nibble on mine while I try to feed your brother.”

Henry looked bewildered for a moment, looking between Killian and the plate pushed between them on the table.  

“Hook, you don’t have to do that.”

“Aye, I know I don’t. However, it’s not like I’m going to be eating right away. I’m going to have to get Harrison to eat first or he never will. Your brother is almost as stubborn as your mother,” Killian replied somewhat absently as he reached for the small dish of apple sauce and spooned it tentatively to make sure there was no big chunks that the baby could choke on.

“Yeah, but I can wait. It’s really not that big of a deal. I was just busting your chops,” Henry replied, lifting his hands up in mock surrender.

“Henry. Eat the damn pancakes. I can wait. It’s fine.”

Henry sighed like the teenager he was before taking the small syrup container and drizzled it lightly on top of the first pancake. He then picked it up with his bare-hand and folding it like he would with a pizza slice. Killian gave him a slightly disgusted look, but kept the reprimand on proper eating habits to himself. Sometimes he had to pick his battles.

He instead turned his attention to Harrison who was still taking incredible joy in torturing Stand-Up Man. Sometimes he worried about what that meant for his boy. (To say Killian had nightmares about his young son growing up to be the monster he used to be would be an understatement. He just hoped the bloodshed on his hands hadn’t transferred over to his son; the darkness that lingered inside of him, flickering in the back of his mind. No, Harrison would not be stained and broken like him...or even like Emma.)

“You hungry, Harrison?” He asked the infant in a light voice that was dangerously close to cooing, banishing the morose thoughts from his brain. The boy was now old enough now to know his name and looked up from his toy with inquisitive eyes

“Bah,” Harrison replied, waving a fist in the air in response.  

Killian smiled down at the boy, because honestly he couldn’t help it. The child had wrecked havoc on all aspects of his life, but all he could feel was absolute love for Harrison, his son who had inherited nearly all his looks but has Emma’s smile. (Emma’s complaints about Harrison’s uncanny resemblance to Killian sometimes echoed in the back of his mind: “Seriously? If he hadn’t just come out of me, I would have thought you cloned yourself, Killian! There is none of me in there!” “He has your nose, Swan.” “Bullshit.”)

“Look, Harrison! Apple sauce! Yum, yum. Right?” Killian exclaimed, smacking his lips in an exaggerated manner in hopes of enticing his son into eating. None of his theatrics seemed to have any effort however. When he brought the spoon to Harrison’s lips, the boy refused to budge; clamping down his jaw and shaking his head.

“You weren’t kidding about him being stubborn,” Henry commenting as he took another bite out of the folded-up pancake. “Is he normally this hard to feed?”

“Aye,” Killian replied absently as he attempted to bring the spoon to the child’s mouth again. Again, Harrison refused the spoon, giving his father an angry look and thumping his hands against the table as if in protest. “He’s been horrible with solid foods. He seems content to live strictly off breastmilk.”

“Gross.”

Killian didn’t dignify his stepson’s response with a comment, focusing all of his (nonexistent) energy on his petulant son who was more interested in watching Henry eat than eating himself.

“Harrison, Harrison,” Killian called in coaxing tone. He really wished he had free fingers so he could snap for the infant’s attention. Though knowing his luck, Harrison would likely be startled by the sound and cry than anything else. “Look at me, lad! I got food! Yummy, yummy food.”

“Ever think the reason he doesn’t eat is because he doesn’t like apple sauce?” Henry asked, taking one of Killian’s many strips of bacon.

“Perhaps,” Killian responded absently, not putting much thought behind the word.

Killian’s stomach made itself known as he watched Henry munched on his bacon. If there was anything Killian truly loved about the World Without Magic, (aside from indoor plumbing of course!) it was fresh extra crispy bacon. Bacon wasn’t necessarily a foreign concept to him, but it had been so rare to come across it freshly made and hot when sailing. Honestly, he just wanted Harrison to eat now so he could eat himself.

Not-Ruby returned to the table with both Henry’s hot chocolate and his order of waffles. Killian blinked in amazement. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. He let out a low whistle.

“Nice turnaround time, lass,” Killian complimented her with a broad grin that was more animated than he actually felt.

Not-Ruby flushed deep scarlet under the praise and hugged her food tray to her chest, a shy smile edging at the corners of her lips.

“Thank you, Captain. Do you need anything else?” She asked, stuttering slightly on the last few words.  

“Just the coffee,” Killian replied, gesturing to his mug.

Not-Ruby’s eyes went wide with realization that she had forgotten to bring him a refill and she made a quick and quiet apology before racing back to the kitchen. Killian found the entire exchange odd but was too tired and didn’t care enough to fully analyze it. However, he did give a pause when he heard Henry chuckling across from him.

“Something funny, lad?” He asked, already slightly dreading the answer that Henry was going to give.

Henry shook his head, still chuckling while he pushed Killian’s pancakes back towards him to claim the waffles for himself. Henry took a piece of bacon off his own plate and chewed on it a bit before answering. (Killian took this time to make a mental note of lecturing Henry’s eating habits in the future. It seemed the boy needed to be reintroduced to a fork.)

“Nothing honestly, it’s just that Cosette has a massive crush on you,” Henry replied while popping the rest of the bacon strip in his mouth.

“Cosette? Who is Cosette?” Killian blinked. He honestly had no idea what Henry was talking about. Cosette? He privately searched his brain for a Cosette and came up with nothing, much wasn’t surprisingly to say the least since he was barely functioning as is.

Henry made an amused noise in the back of his throat.

“Cosette. You know, our waitress. Blonde. Sweet. Lives with her dad, you know the freakishly strong dude. Cosette. Who is running to get you coffee right now,” Henry explained with an exasperated roll of his eyes.

“Oh. So that’s her name.”

“Why? What did you think was her name was?” Henry asked, picking up another piece of bacon and smirking at Killian.

“…Not-Ruby?”

Henry’s chuckling evolved into full out peals of laughter, which didn’t even subside even when poor Cosette returned to the table to refill Killian’s glass. Henry, blessedly, didn’t say anything more during her brief visit, however she did leave without saying anything to either of them, sensing that she was disrupting some sort of moment between stepfather and stepson.

“Oh my god! Not-Ruby! I need to tell Mom about this,” Henry exclaimed, still coming down from his laughing fit. Killian honestly didn’t see what was so funny about it.

“I fail to see why this is so funny to you. The poor lass must obviously realize she has no chance. I mean, I am very much happy with your mother.”

Henry rolled his eyes. Once again, Killian was stuck by how similar Henry and Emma were mannerisms-wise. (Though one could also argue that Regina had a hand in Henry’s constantly growing sass.)

“Trust me, I’m fully aware of how disgustingly in True Love, you and Mom are. I think you’re just a little too cranky this morning, Hook,” Henry scoffed as he took a sip from his hot chocolate. Killian then watched as a funny expression took hold on Henry’s face.

“What?” Killian asked, exhaustion creeping into his tone. He really needed to sleep.

“Just curious, really. How old will Harrison should be when you move him to solid foods? Like actual solid food. Not the apple sauce or pureed stuff you and Mom claim is solid food,” Henry asked, still looking at him with an odd expression.

Killian frowned thoughtfully for a moment, searching his brain sluggishly for the information Henry was asking for. Normally, Killian would have been able to answer him right off the bat, but everything seemed to be escaping him at that moment.

“Ummm…if memory serves correctly, according to all the books I’ve read, roughly around six, seven or eight months. It depends on the child, really. Harrison is a little on the young side right now, but it wouldn’t be unheard of for him to starting to eat some now. All the books say when the child shows interest in “actual solid food” as you say,” Killian responded as casually as he could.

The corners of Henry’s lips curled upwards at his explanation. It took Killian a moment to realize it, but Henry was smirking at him and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

“Well, I think it’s fair to say he’s interested,” he responded, gesturing to the baby in Killian’s lap with a tilt of his head.

Killian immediately looked down and was greeted with the sight of his six-month old son holding all four pieces of Killian’s bacon to his mouth with both hands, trying his hardest to bite down on the crispy meat with his barely-there teeth. Killian’s jaw dropped at the sight and upon sensing that he had his father’s attention, Harrison merely giggled, a sound that was nearly muffed by the enormous amount of bacon in his mouth. Killian’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to think of something to say.

“You little pirate…” Killian remarked softly when he finally managed to speak. He made a move to take the bacon away from Harrison’s mouth but the boy made a noise in protest.

“I’m so Snapchatting this,” Henry snickered as he pulled out his phone. “Mom is going to love this.”

“More like your mother is going to love killing me,” Killian mumbled under his breath as he tried to fight Harrison for the bacon. The boy, who had until recently tried his hardest to remain on a purely breastmilk diet, was putting up a hell of a fight over bacon.

“Well, at least you can say he’s definitely interested in solid foods now,” Henry replied with a laugh.  

Killian had to chuckle a bit even as he continued his attempts to pry the bacon away. Henry was right. At least Harrison was now interested in solid foods, and even if was salty, greasy bacon, it felt like some sort of victory.