#i'd rather have my dad teach me these things too

[george-weasleys-girl]

YULE TIDE REQUEST COMING IN HOT BC ITS COLD

Could you write something where the Weasleys are heading to spend Christmas at the order after Mr Weasleys attack (so could be a bit angsty to start), and on their arrival they find Y/N there with Sirus, her Dad and her Uncle Moony, telling her and the trio how they set up the old order back in the day and reader talks about setting up a new one, but the twins (Fred is her bf) didn't know who her family was as she kept it secret, all these years, even more so as Lupin teaches them all Defence Against The Dark Arts. Maybe a bit of akwardness at first when she explains why she couldn't tell them (rumours going around the magic world etc), but cute fluff after when they continue discussing the order, open presents etc. I need cute fluff 🥰

❄️Yuletide Celebration❄️

Fancy Meeting You Here

I goofed and posted this early.🤦‍♀️My only other option was to delete it. So, here it is. Merry Really, Early Christmas! 🎁

Fred Weasley x Fem!reader

~•~

"It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake’s fangs that keep wounds open," Arthur had explained. "They’re sure they’ll find an antidote. Though, they say they’ve had much worse cases than mine, and in the meantime, I just have to keep taking a Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour."

It was touch and go for a while, but you'd never know it talking to the Weasley patriarch. Despite excruciating pain and losing half his body weight in blood every day, Arthur had remained in high spirits throughout the whole ordeal.

Fred wished he could say the same for himself. Oh sure, he played it off well enough, making jokes and being silly, but truthfully, it had scared him. The knowledge that his dad could've died had shaken him to his very core, and he had no idea how to handle that.

He was certain things would've been better if his girlfriend was by his side. But, sadly, her parents had insisted she come home for the holidays, leaving him to muddle through on his own.

~•~

"Y/N!" Fred ran toward, picking her up in his arms and twirling her around. "I can't believe you're here!" He exclaimed before a confused look settled on his face. "Wait... why are you here?"

His girlfriend gave him a sheepish grin. "There's something I need to tell you."

Fred sat back, stunned. "Sirius is your dad?"

"Sirius Black?" George echoed.

"Yes, Sirius Black is my father." Y/N confirmed.

"But, how?" Fred blistered.

"Well, you see, when a man and a woman - " George began.

"Shut up, George," Fred cut his eyes over at his twin. "I know how," he looked back at Y/N. "But, you know... how?"

Y/N had to stifle a grin. "It's a long story, but suffice it to say, my mum isn't in the picture. My Uncle Mooney took care of me while dad was in Azkaban."

"Wow... " George marveled.

"Why did you tell me?" Fred asked.

"I had to keep it secret. Dad's on the run. Death Eaters are everywhere, and we're starting the Order back up."

"The order?" Her boyfriend looked excited at the prospect. "The Order of the Phoenix?"

"Yep," she confirmed. "With Death Eaters crawling out of the woodwork again, not to mention the possibility that Voldy could come back if he hasn't already, they thought it be a good idea to revive it. And Grimmauld Place will be the headquarters this time around."

"Wicked," Fred replied. "So, my girlfriend is in league with infamous Order of the Phoenix."

Y/N laughed. "I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that. But, yeah, kinda."

"Well," George clapped his hands on his lap and stood. "That's all I need to know right now to know this is going to be an awesome Christmas." He looked at Y/N. "Just a suggestion. You might wanna wait until Harry gets here to get into the fine details. That way, you don't have to tell it twice."

Y/N nodded. "Yeah, good idea."

George grinned. "Well, I'm gonna go find something to eat and let you two catch up."

Once George was gone, Y/N scooted closer to Fred. "I'm glad we get to spend Christmas together after all."

"Me too," he smiled. "It's been a rough couple of weeks."

"I'm really glad to see you're dad's doing better. I was really worried about him."

"So, was I," Fred admitted, his cheeks growing hot. "I - I really missed you being there with me."

Y/N smiled, pretending she didn't notice the lovely blush rise up across his cheeks and pulled him closer. "Well, I'm here with you now."

"I'm glad," Fred gave a small grin and looked down, trying to hide the stubborn crimson that'd taken up residence on his face.

"But, you know," Y/N continued. "You're failing in your duties as a good boyfriend."

"What?" Fred looked up, eyes wide.

"You've been here for a whole half hour, and you haven't kissed me once."

"Oh dear, you're right," he sat up straight, and his usual, confident cockiness came roaring back. "I must do something about that immediately."

~•~

@milivanili99 @fancy-pantaloons @turvi @zvummyummy @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @georgie-weasley @nighttimemoonlover @jsjcue @wzrd-wheezes @fredweasleyyyyy @hufflepuffie @alexistonks @anvaaryn @samshifts @asuperconfusedgirl @superduckmilkshake @mysticsheepsoul @gemofthenight @1lellykins @junerprsh @sierraluvz @wolfkill16 @smallsweetvanillabean @costheticbabe @thatonepersonwhocantwrite @charmedfandomgal @loveosewood @hanne-montana @rhunew @greenapplegrass @lizzytrees @spididerman

[maya-chirps]

It's a little funny and a bit odd to me that there are some people who still don't take fanfiction seriously regardless of its content or even understand what it is. I could point out that there's a lot of literary classics that could be considered as fanfic, but honestly I'd rather just talk about how my dad uses them to teach his students.

My dad is a college professor that teaches legal writing for pre-law school students and one of the things he often does is assign classical books to students to read to get them used to reading English because not everyone here is that good at that. Reading is a good way to familiarize yourself with how a language works especially in formal settings and let's you learn words that you may not be familiar with.

Okay, you improved reading ability, that doesn't really improve writing and not everyone wants to start writing long documents in legalese. My father decided that an easy way to get people invested is to use what they learned from he stories and have his students make their own continuations or plotlines — he makes them write fanfiction. He didn't call it that until we brought up that it sounds like fanfiction and we've been calling it that since. He makes his students write what are essentially alternate endings, fix-it fics, and continuations and at times, even RPF.

One of his students, who was once my sister's classmate at high school so that's why he brought him up, wrote an RPF story where he was a general in the war and my dad was once a lower ranked officer who got killed in action and then submitted that for an assignment like that's objectively funny that my dad just accepted a fic where he dies written by this 19-year-old.

Writing these stories may seem silly but they genuinely improve your writing ability and especially if you were not that familiar with writing in the language you're writing for.

He's not even the only teacher that uses fanfic to engage with students since I myself had had teachers that essentially made us do the same thing. Hell, I had a writing teacher in art school that made money off of Wattpad before too and was very open to fanfic.

It cannot be understated how something as silly as fanfic has genuinely helped so many people learn how to write even professionally and especially for people who may not be that used to a the secondary language they needed to write in.

[akwolfgrl]

I'm a great fuck but better lover part2

Everyone piled into the galley, still sleepy and soft, except for Luffy was filled with energy staring hungrily at him. Sanji placed a player of sliced ham, sausage patties and bacon in front of him before serving the rest of the crew their breakfast. Starting of course with Nami-swan, then Usopp, Luffy, and Zoro. As he placed Zoro's plate with a side of rice he gave his boyfriend a kiss on the lips.

“Awww no fair,” Luffy whined.

“You got a whole plate of meat! Do you really need a bowl of rice!?” Sanji yelled at his greedy captain who was currently pouting.

“I wanna kiss too,” Sanji wasn't expecting Luffy to say that at all. It was probably a one-time thing, no big deal.

“Yah Sanji, why don't you give our captain a kiss,” Nami interjected, and Sanji could never say no to a lady…even if it meant giving his captain a kiss.

“Fine,” Sanji rolled his eyes. “If you take your hat off at the dinner table, I'll give you a kiss on your forehead,” Sanji could at least try and install some table manners in their captain, he probably won't even accept this deal Luffy was rather attached to his straw hat.

“Hmm, deal!” Luffy took off his hat and Sanji placed a kiss on his forehead. “Yay!” Luffy cheered and dove back into his meal

“Sanji, is this shakshuka?” Usopp asked changing the subject, which he was glad for.

“Yes it is, why?”

“My dad used to make it before he left, mom and I tired to recreate but never could get it right…but you did could you maybe teach me how to make it?”Usopp asked .

“I'll consider it,” Sanji knew he had to work on his issues with men, with the other chefs at the Baratie they all fought and bikered with each other. There had been no need to learn how to act any other way. But other than Zoro the crew wasn't like that. Usopp was weaker and younger than him. Although if it was from distance Usopp would have the advantage. But wasn't sure he could trust Usopp in the kitchen, maybe start with something small. “Now what doesn't everyone want to drink?”

“If you have champagne I'd love a mimosa,” Nami asked.

“Of course I do Nami swan!”

“Milk!” Luffy asked, his mouth surprisingly empty before he shoved more food into the gaping maw.

“Sake,”

“Just juice,”

Sanji took his own seat after getting everyone their drinks, as the room filled with the sounds of everyone enjoying their food. It was nice to be right there with everyone as they enjoyed his cooking.

“Oh by the way, I picked something up the other day,” Nami said while sipping her mimosa.

“What did you get?” Usopp asked her…if Sanji didn't know better he'd say it sounded rehasered.

“Why I'm glad you asked Usopp. I bought a watermelon,” Nami grinned. Why was she pretty when she looked evil?

“Oooo! That means Sanji can crush it!” Luffy cheered. “And I get watermelon!”

“Fine after the dishes are done,” Sanji had already agreed to this the last time it was brought up.

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

august 17, 2021 3:00 p.m. yonsei university

[grant] did your dad apologize for being a dick, though?

[henry] of course. he was a good person and realized he was being a bit weird. he just hated noise. i think he'd have been happy to be born with a set of noise-canceling headphones attached to him.

[grant] except maybe he liked your mom’s noise from that day forward!

[henry] he did, but even if he hated it, he was probably glad to have hers back after a while. almost half the time they dated, they didn’t even live in the same country.

[henry] my mom worked at an art shop somewhere in seoul, and my dad had this sweet gig working at a museum in paris while getting a doctorate and doing some traveling, visiting art museums on every continent. he got the doctorate, but gave up the job to come back and marry my mom.

[henry] and she won out, to be honest. him teaching here was a prestigious position, and his family are pretty well off because they're in banking and all, so she got to quit her job after marriage, have me, and just sculpt for fun.

[grant] that’s the dream, right?

[henry] i think so.

[grant] it’s nice to be genuinely in love but also to support each other’s passions, too, whether that's helping them pursue a job or a hobby. i mean, that’s everything. that's the deepest form of connection. oh yeah, definitely the dream.

[henry] for sure. there wasn’t much for my mom to help with because she was never wealthy and her parents weren’t either, but she was a huge moral support. she was my dad’s biggest fan. sometimes getting a doctorate sucked, and he wanted to quit, but it was hard to quit with her on the sidelines cheering.

[henry] that’s like me and soobin. not much i can do on the money front because i'm not rich and i won't take money from my parents, and i couldn’t help with her medical school because i'm a certifiably terrible student, but i can be and am her cheerleader.

[henry] and i may not have been a photographer without her. being an artist is the worst career choice unless someone else has money to throw at the bills. and i make an okay salary! i have solid clientele booking all year long, but i don't charge what i "should" because i feel wrong asking too much money to do wedding photos and all. that shit's expensive - i'll take a small cut off the going rate so they get all they want for the big day.

[henry] besides, the one thing in life that makes me nervous is clients being unhappy. everything else about a wedding goes away except the photos. if they're unhappy, i'd rather the pricing not be an extra issue, you know? at least let it be a cheap mistake.

[grant] but you would have still pursued this, right? i can’t imagine you not at least trying it out. you have always been set on some kind of photography as a career. even when you were having a crisis around college graduation about whether you should pursue high-brow art or something very human and realistic like you do now, you never questioned if photography was your truth.

[henry] i would have. i've always known it was my goal. i just think the financial stress may have worn me down eventually if she wasn’t willing to shoulder an extra share of the burden. like i said, charging people themselves is a strange thing, and you just never know what can happen. sure, i did end up with a good brand through putting myself out there on social media, but that was no guarantee.

[henry] if that hadn't worked out, i'd have been in trouble. and when you don't have a lot of clients or reach, you have to be conservative and sometimes that hurts you on growth. blah blah blah. point is, i owe soobin a lot, both for financial support and her total faith in me.

[grant] well, teamwork makes the dream work and all that!

[henry] hey, you're part of the team, too. there's no one else i'd rather call at 3AM asking to check the red balance on my pictures because everything looks green to me. and as it turns out, having a friend with a massive family who host many events requiring photography is excellent for clientele building.

[yelenasdiary]

Forbidden || Meet The Characters - Kate Bishop

No Warnings | 0.6K

Forbidden Masterlist

I hear you've met my sister; I hope she didn't chew your ear off! She has a habit of doing that, but I think that's one of the many things I love about her. Since our parents left, things have been a little off, strange, I guess. I miss our mother's cooking. I miss my father's pointless jokes and him watching me do a little target practice near the barn. But I'd be lying if I said that Y/n doesn't fill that hole. We both miss our parents, but we have each other and somehow, we have been able to make things work. 

The little money I make from hunting is enough to cover the basic things we need from the general store and what is left over we put away to help cover the repayments at the bank for the land we live on. Everybody knows that our parents have gone on a business trip, but we haven't told anybody our worries about them and how they are yet to return. That would do more damage than good, especially for my sister and me. 

What to know about me, well, I'm not sure what Y/n already mentioned by our father, Derek taught me how to use a bow! I went with him one day for a day trip to Olsen, some guys owed him money, so we went to collect. I started outside the Salon while dad handled business, I was only 15 when a drunken man came stumbling out and attacked me. I'd never been more scared in my life. I watched as my father beat the drunk old man, almost to death if I didn't stop him. I spent a few weeks afraid of being on my own, so I asked him to teach me how to defeat for myself. He taught me how to use the bow, how to punch a man nice and hard and how to handle a knife. He also thought it was a good idea to teach Y/n some helpful tricks. 

After the attack, I looked at life differently. I'm very protective over Y/n, maybe a little too protective but somebody has to be. Father isn't home a lot, not since he established Bishop Publishing. A lot of his time is put into that, and our mother is mostly out doing the things dad can't do. So, most of the time it was just Y/n and I.

When I'm not out hunting or just exploring, I'm usually writing, playing the cello or helping Y/n with the ranch. We love taking Lucky basically everywhere we go, he's sort of a town favorite! I don't normally take him hunting with me, I like that he is a bit of extra protection for Y/n when I'm not around but don't tell her I said that. She thinks she can look after herself, she can but like I said, I'm protective over her. 

I like to write things that come to mind or things I see, I have a few journals hidden away for a rainy day if my father ever wanted to allow me to publish a book or two, but the conversation always seems to be shut down whenever I mention it. I also don't mind cooking, here and there but Y/n mostly does it and I think she rather enjoys it a lot more than she thinks. Once a week we go to the Salon in Blisswater where Mr Barnes already has a meal waiting for us. It's a bit of fun watching the men get frustrated over blackjack and telling stories while drunk. The people in Blisswater are like a second family I guess you could say, which is refreshing to know. 

Well, if there is anything else you'd like to know, just ask! But for now, I am needed elsewhere. Bye now!

Taglist: @madislayyy | @riveramorylunar | @teganmiller | @kyleeservopoulos | @yelenaslyubov | @kacka84 | @lesbiarmy | @meurgen | @caporal-nino | @sl-ut | @scarletwidowblackwitch | @dogtamer415 | @mousetheorist | 

If you want to be on the taglist for this series, please see the masterlist. It's link at the top of this post.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for refusing to join my dad's bootcamp?

I am adult, and F. When I was still a toddler, my dad (T) got thrown out of the house by the head of family (i don't actually think i'm related to the head of family? it's more like three or four large families living in the same place tbh) because he had killed a guy (intentionally) and disabled a girl for life (accidentally - well she wasn't the one he was targeting).

Anyway, I didn't know that when T came back at the head of his own group of families (he'd basically been chosen by another, already formed group, to take over their head of family who had died of sickness) and he asked that my twin brother (B, same age as me, at the time we were teens) and I join him because we were his children and it was only fair. Nothing was said about our mom being allowed to come too or anything? It was a bit fishy and people refused to let us go anyway.

But the thing is, ever since T had been banished, the whole group/family has been treating B and I like complete, utter garbage. The only person who treated us well was our mom. B even got an adult assigned to watching over him so he didn't because some psycho killer or something, just because he looks like our dad ig. Now, having an adult watching over each child as they are teens is a thing in the group i'm in, it's not shocking, but there's a relationship based on trust supposed to be born of this care, and here it was the contrary, so it sucked. PLUS! We didn't know why we were being treated like that, because no one told us what had happened to our dad! The adult who didn't trust B only took us aside when we were like 12 to explain to us that the guy was a monster. And he only did it because our dad had been trying to contact us and he wanted us to hear our family's side of the story before T's.

When I was around 15, I snuck away in the middle of the night to join my dad because i was sick of the bullying/harassment/mistrust. When it became public, B was put on the spot (he didn't know i'd left for that either) and refused to join me, which stung but you know. That's his choice and I respect him. It seems that everyone trusts him much more now that he's made a public display of loyalty.

When I came to live with T, I realized he was, actually, a complete POS and I shouldn't have come. But also, people in his group actually treated me well, so I didn't regret my choice. When T realized I didn't want to become a mini version of him, we became rather distant, until he left the group entirely (through no choice of his, may i add).

I learned later that, before I joined his group, he found a side chick with whom he had twins too, but she left before he knew she was pregnant. I learned that when she outed the boy twin (H, at the time a young adult, he's what... twleve years younger than us?) as T's son at a public gathering, like six months ago.

Since then, I've learned that T has been rekindling contact with B and H, when he took contact with me too. He basically tried to persuade all three of us (no sign of his other daughter, but she's in medschool so i suppose that's not the profile he was looking for) to join his bootcamp in which he'd teach us how to become "better versions of ourselves". Because he's an AH and because I've been learning all these years since he left that I shouldn't build my life around what others want me to be, I refused to join his bootcamp, and I advised B to refuse too (i'm not close enough from H to give him this kind of advice).

But now i'm thinking that, since he couldn't spend our childhoods with any of us, maybe he's just trying to keep in contact, you know, through teaching us and bonding with us, with sports and workout being the only things he knew how to do so that's what he focused on. Maybe I'm making a mistake, and seeing, as an adult, what he's like, would give me more perspective? What if i'm being as narrow minded as the bullies from my childhood? IDK what to do.

AITA for not joining my dad's bootcamp?

[septembersghost]

my queue was supposed to run out tonight (11/19) - i'm nothing if not someone who clings to dates and anniversaries, and exactly a month ago, i realized i had enough posts stowed in it to last until today. of all the days. kismet. you know when it's time to go. but i ended up adding some posts from my (still copious) drafts, and no matter how i finagled it, it was impossible to make them all fit by the time today ended. so it gets a little bit of extra time. maybe, in honor of this blog's existence, that's fitting.

you all know this, i've said it, typically in gratitude, many times already. this blog was never meant to last. i came back in november 2020 expecting a couple of months, maybe to be here until the new year. i told very few people, anticipating the goodbye, not wanting to cause anyone undue anguish when i had to vanish again. something i didn't expect was the sheer (admittedly devasting) emotion that would tie itself to those two weeks when i started interacting again, nor that it would have any outreach or impact, but somehow it did. then time kept spinning on, extending itself, gossamer threads unfurling each day. my following kept growing, far beyond what i could have anticipated, greater than i'd ever established on any of my previous blogs. moving around is unfortunately a pattern at this point, every time for reasons that felt quietly catastrophic. not being able to pay bills for a while. angel's death and the ensuing difficult circumstances. so here, i kept anxiously imagining why i'd eventually have to leave, how to plan for it. poverty issues. the homelessness we were facing through the entirety of a couple of years until last august (and my dad having to be the saving grace). worsening health issues. i never knew, i couldn't predict it, i just worried about it. often tried to brace for it. maybe i got too comfortable this year, because this was when i started to think it wouldn't happen, that i really could stay. little did i know. and the reasons...are not reasons i ever fathomed, why would i have? how could i have? i wish it weren't so. (i wish a lot of things.)

i thought sometimes about the words i would leave you with, none of which are suitable now. i almost wrote nothing, yet found that feeling wrong, couldn't leave without something about parting.

thus it turns out i'm leaving before it's strictly necessary, before it's the fear of personal catastrophe coming to fruition, not knowing what i'll do or where i'll metaphorically go, as that is the downside of chronic illness and isolation narrowing this to my sole outlet. (lyrics keep running through my mind, there are always lyrics stuck in my head. no matter where i go, there'll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question, yet more to believe...teach me to be more adaptive...help me say goodbye). my body is in such a fragile state right now (my mind not far behind) that maybe what i need to do is rest. just rest for a while.

this blog was never meant to grow the way it did, to take asks and have conversations like i did, that was a somewhat new (sometimes scary! often fun) experience for me. it's one that will never be replicated. to my loyal and lovely anons, i'm so sorry that i had to cut you off unexpectedly and couldn't reinstate communication - i know that you weren't able to reach out to me as soon as i did that, and that certainly wasn't your fault, it was a response to the tenor of this website. i apologize for the hundreds of messages i never had the chance to answer. i'm appreciative of the things you shared with me and all the times we got to talk.

i sincerely hope some of you learn to be kinder and wiser and less reactionary and more willing to learn and to listen rather than to attack those who have never wronged you and who do not deserve that. i'm being too nice, but i hope you learn that misusing your supposed social justice to do harm and foment hatred and stew in ignorant cruelty makes any principles you purport to have utterly void. my hope for that is low at the moment, but it's still got to be there. waiting to be found.

to those of you who have never been anything but kind, you are true treasures, the lights in the darkness, the loving and compassionate embodiment of human spirit. some of you have (quite literally) helped keep my mom and me alive, and i can never repay that or do enough in this life to quantify it. some of you have been here for me every single day, to listen and laugh and cry and understand. i don't think i would've bothered to fight through these past three years had i not had your presences in my life. i wouldn't have had as much of a reason. there are times when i still haven't felt like i had a reason, i struggle through so many varied griefs, but then i continued to wake up, and would come on here and find something joyful or beautiful or affirming that someone had sent or posted, and it gave me an anchor. there are passions and interests i shared or discovered here that were so uplifting and enlightening, and i will carry them in my heart always. being here to find those was such a blessing. being here with you to indulge in them was such a blessing. thank you. i pray your continued paths have more of that ahead. look at all the things you've done for me. there are certain things that once you have no time can wear away.

you know that line from the wizard of oz?: hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. maybe that isn't true, maybe our hearts being broken is proof of something. there are people who hurt me on such a profound level who i know weren't affected by it at all, but i refuse to define my sensitivity as a negative. my softness (too soft for all of it, indeed) does not quite provide me with a weapon, but it doesn't crumple. hearts can be broken repeatedly and still beat, which i've thought about a lot lately. shattered souls just make a new mosaic. it's a different picture than it was before, but the color and light persists. and in the remains of that, a handful of people have shown me depths of caring and resilience that i wouldn't have gotten to hold onto otherwise, which is an extraordinary thing. the precious rarities have to mean something more, don't they? i would think so. i believe it. or i'm trying. i keep trying with all my might.

maybe i stayed too long at the fair. maybe this is a consequence of overplaying my hand, gambling a little too much with time to where it had to teach me something. maybe i needed the reminder that sometimes we have to fight to retain our spirits, and other times we have to retreat. maybe i needed a reminder that all that extra time was a miracle. i don't take it for granted.

whether we've spoken directly, be that consistently or in scattered flurries, whether we've interacted in very personal ways or simply in liked hearts on the dash, i hope there was goodness and light in it. i hope there's a memory i leave here that's sweet. (as long as i'm borrowing phrases, i hope you'll think of me fondly sometimes.) i hope there was something warm and enriching here. i hope you know what you've been and meant to me. i said so many times that this blog was my cozy haunted house - the ghosts will linger here forever, and i know they'll never mind if you want to step in and visit.

with all my heart, i love so many of you so dearly. i am so lucky to have your friendships. please move gently through life. please hold onto the things that illuminate it for you, and provide that where you can. please do your best to repair even the smallest of tears in the world. you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

there must be lights burning brighter somewhere.

something yet remains. i remain. and i do my best to be brave.

[roseharpermaxwell]

RWRB FirstPrince Parental Angst Recs

Ellen and Oscar's divorce, the loss of Arthur - my faves below are for when you need some angst.

sometimes when he looks at me (i know that he needs you) by MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays. NR, 1k. A letter left by Arthur Fox before his passing, addressed only to “Whoever takes care of Henry after I am gone.”

the moment i knew by @coffeecatsme. G, 1.9k. “No.” Alex’s response is shaky but quick. “I’m not blowing the candle without her.” He feels the pitiful look of his dad at the back of his neck but he doesn’t look up. If he moves at all, the spell will be broken, and Alex won’t be that kid crying at his birthday because his mom didn’t show up. 

Or, 5 times people he loves leave Alex alone on his birthday, and 1 time one doesn't.

bright, beautiful, bold by rizcriz. T, 2.2k. All these years, Henry’s sat in regret.

And his father.

He knew.

He drags in another shuddering breath, aching and wet and filled with something soft that he can’t quite place—something that eases that heavy burden on his chest. Something that unfurls from his gut and tugs on it, as it were held there by a string, and that string is currently fraying. As if every breath brings with it some semblance of relief.

Or, Arthur wrote Henry a letter for his wedding day.

Please Don’t Leave Me Alone by beckettbucket. G, 2.3k. When Henry and Alex have their first ever fight as a married couple Alex can’t help but spiral, thinking of his own parents and the fighting that led to their eventual divorce.

I've carried this song in my mind by @kiwiana-writes. T, 2.5k. Henry lays eyes on Alex Claremont-Diaz for the first time in Rio, and it sends such a shockwave of longing and terror into the universe that Arthur feels it.

Or, five times Arthur tries to get Alex and Henry together from beyond the grave, and one time two times his intervention isn’t needed.

eyes full of stars by Standinginmoonlight. G, 4.3k. On his seventh birthday, Arthur teaches Henry how to look for Orion.

Or: Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor loses his father and spends the rest of his life looking for Orion.

Fragile and Composed by SatinBirds. T, 4.8k. If Alex and Henry had met before Arthur Fox died, would that have changed anything?

Never Truly Leave by @clottedcreamfudge. T, 5.3k. "We found something in Arthur's things," Catherine says, without any preamble. "I've never really... gone through his personal effects properly, until now. It's been rather too difficult for me to face." Alex nods.

"I found something for Henry, but it's... Well, it's actually for you."

Alex blinks at her.

never be so polite (you forget your power) by Standinginmoonlight. M, 6.3k. The one where Arthur Fox leaves letters for his children.

i see you (your whole heart) by @indomitable-love. T, 7.3k. ‘I think he’s excellent,’ Arthur says, picking up a knife from the pot of jam to spread over his toast. ‘It’s refreshing to see someone be so unapologetically themselves. I think we need more of that.’ He glances at Henry. ‘I think that everybody should be able to be exactly who they are, without shame.’

---

Five times Arthur tried to tell Henry he knew (and one time Henry told him).

(if I didn't know better) I'd think you were listening to me now by @theprinceandagcd. T, 7.9k. “What are we supposed to say?” he finally rasps, and Bea leans toward him until she can rest her head upon his shoulder.

“I think…” Her breath trembles. “I quite think he would like to hear about our lives and what we’ve been doing.” ---- Over the years, Henry visits his father's grave to tell him about what's going on in his life, from meeting devastatingly handsome Americans at the Olympics to taking his daughters to meet him and everything in-between.

Count to Ten & Breathe Real Deep by @sparklepocalypse. E, 8.1k. Someone clears their throat behind him, and he spins around, hands still gripping the hem of his shirt. “Sorry, hi, I – shit,” he stammers as he takes in Princess Beatrice’s friendly expression and her brother’s more taciturn one. “Sorry, shit. God, sorry. Uh, hello, um… Your, uh, Maj—”

“It’s Your Royal Highness, but please, no titles here,” Princess Beatrice graciously says, saving Alex from himself. “Call me Bea. It looks like we’re teammates! Hen, too.” She nudges her elbow into her brother’s ribs, and he nods wordlessly.

Alex tries to replicate his mom’s politician smile as well as he can. “It’s an honor,” he says, giving them the little bow drilled into his brain before he and his mom had departed for London, through repetitive How to avoid being deported by the English monarchy lessons. “I’m Alex Claremont-Diaz.”

(Or, Alex and Henry meet at a youth charity event as teens.)

5 Times Henry Hated New Year's + 1 Time He Didn't by @hgejfmw-hgejhsf. M, 9.1k. “This is my curse,” Henry mutters, and Pez laughs across from him.

“You can hardly be responsible for the weather.”

“So the glaring fact that every single New Year’s Eve on record in my life has been an utter disaster means absolutely nothing to you?”

“We’re going to make it, so no, it means nothing to me,” Pez says with cheerful optimism despite the constant fluttering of white beyond the plane windows.

OR

5 times throughout his life that Henry's New Year's countdown has been ruined, and 1 time that it isn't.

matchmaking from beyond the grave: a guide by arthur fox by softcinnamonroll. T, 12k. Funnily enough, Alex actually liked his quirky little gift. When he could, he used it to help the spirits who asked for his help, to complete their unfinished business and move on. Most of the time, it’s for spirits who never got to do something random like… go to a bar or something stupid like that. Nothing too serious or demanding of Alex’s time.

Until he met Arthur Fox.

[or; Alex can see the dead. Enter Arthur Fox who really thinks Alex should meet his son, Henry.]

God Save the Blessed American President Mom by @zipadeea. T, 31k. ["June stopped by at lunch; she showed me a delightful channel called Hallmark, which repeats the same story every hour after they swap one round of white, straight, small-town conventionally beautiful actors for another. It was entertaining.”

“June and I used to play a drinking game with those. Take a shot every time someone goes ice skating, sledding, or leaves the big city for their tiny hometown.”

“Good lord, you must’ve been sloshed in the first ten minutes.”]

***

On December 4, 2021, an attempt is made on President Ellen Claremont's life.

Alex gets shot instead.

The Cost of Anything by clottedcreamfudge. E, 50k. "You’d give anything to have him back, wouldn’t you?”

“That can’t be a surprise,” Henry says ruefully, trying to pull himself from the brink of something a little darker than maudlin. Perhaps he should switch to water after all.

“‘Anything’ can encompass rather a lot,” Taylor says reasonably, and Henry sighs deeply, pulling his drink a little closer to him on top of the bar.

“Yes,” he agrees, “and yet.”

“And yet.”

Henry misses his father; of course he does. He'll always miss his father, because that's what you do when someone you love leaves you. He's grown accustomed to the feeling of missing Arthur Fox and, while he'd give anything to bring him back, it's possible he hadn't considered the implications of such a vague thought.

After all, it's never going to happen.

I only tag an author once per post, but I'm still figuring out firstprince author handles. If you see one I may not know or find a broken link, please give me a heads up!

Master List of RWRB FirstPrince Recs

Master List of Recommendations

[agirlwithdemonblood]

The Broken Fan - Chapter 1

Pairings: Jensen Ackles & Reader (Read as first person!)

Series Summary: Always a nobody, always invisible, will this convention change things?

Chapter Summary: Growing up was never easy for me, but finally I may have found some light in my very dark world.

Warnings: Mentions of death, parents death, mentions of abuse, homelessness, anxiety, ect

Series Masterlist here! Main masterlist here!

Do you ever feel like if you disappeared today, nobody would notice? The world wouldn't stop, your disappearance wouldn't be plastered on milk cartons or across news channels, nobody would even know or care. That was my life. Nobody knew me, or cared for me. Nobody noticed me, not really. I was a ghost, an invisible presence left alone, all alone.

My parents died when I was a baby, I was too young to remember who they were or what happened really. I know what my Aunt told me, they wanted a night to themselves, so she babysat me. Around 4 in the morning she received a phone call saying that they passed away, asleep in their beds when the fire took their lives.

I don't even remember having parents, I have photographs of us together, but their faces are unknown to me. I didn't know them, I didn't get the chance.

After the fire, I stayed with my Aunt. Things were weird there. She'd look at me with such heartbreak and disgust and I had no idea why. I was just a kid, what did I do?

But I must have done something wrong, because when I turned 6 she told me she couldn't take care of me anymore, and the next morning two kind people packed me in their car and drove me away. I never saw my Aunt again.

My first foster home was alright, I was happy for a little bit. There were a lot of kids in the house, various ages, both sexes. I didn't like the kids too much. They were loud and annoying, and hyper. They always wanted to play stupid games like hide and seek, or tag. I didn't want to play dumb games, I wanted something real. I wanted to connect, to have somebody next to me.

And eventually, I did.

Henry, my foster dad, was always there for me. He actually cared about me, noticed me, heard me. He would spend hours at night reading me fairy tales until I fell asleep, and during the day he'd teach me things like how to ride a bike or read.

I had an actual connection with him, he was the closest thing to a father I ever had, and I loved him more than anybody. I thought I finally had somebody permeant in my life, but I was wrong.

My foster mom Sandy didn't like me. She hated the fact that her husband had his attention on me, and she thought it was strange for a six year old to bond with an older man rather than the children all around me. She said it wasn't healthy.

So he was taken away from me. After many tears shed and heartbreaking hugs, I said goodbye to the only person who's ever seen me for me, and moved to a new foster home.

The new home was horrible. The parents weren't friendly, and I was the only child in their care. I was forced to follow their schedule which consisted of three boring things, every day.

Cleaning, school, homework, food, bed. No reading fairy tales, no riding my bike, no playing with toys.

I hated it there. I felt so alone, so invisible. So I left. I ran away thinking I'd be better off somewhere else. But as a 7 year old girl, I didn't get very far and as soon as I returned, things got bad.

At first, it was the belt. My foster dad would smack my arms hard, than my legs, sometimes my face if I was a bad enough kid. If I cried or continued to disobey, the belt was replaced with his palms. This happened for years, non stop torture.

I didn't stop trying to run away, every few months I'd take off, praying that nobody would find me, they'd leave me alone but everytime I was brought back and beaten worse.

Finally, the parent's gave up on me and I went to another home. But I was so angry, so filled with anxiety and rage that I drove away anybody who could possibly care for me.

By the time I was 18, I had been in 13 Foster homes. My last one wasn't too bad, but I didn't talk, I barely ate, I didn't connect. I didn't want another Henry situation. I didn't want to care about others because I knew they'd leave me.

And I was right.

On my 18th Birthday, my present was a knock at my door from my parents telling me I've aged out and I need to leave. I received a check to get me started, a bag of food, and a cell phone, than I was left alone.

The money wasn't much, definetly not enough to get an apartment so I decided to get a car instead. I ended up using all my money to buy a crappy little Honda Civic and I've called it my home ever since.

Sleeping in my car wasn't half bad, I had my own space, I didn't need to listen to anybody or share it with anybody, it was all mine.

One night I parked beside a motel that had free Wifi, and I was bored so I decided to find something to watch, I never really watched TV or movies, but tonight I wanted to.

The first show I found was something called Supernatural, and for some reason I felt a connection, like something was telling me to watch it.

God, am I happy that I did.

The show felt like home, it gave me something to look forward to, something to provide me comfort on the hardest of days. I felt connected, like I knew the characters and I was living their life.

And one of the characters, Dean.. He awoke something inside of me that I never knew was there. He made me feel like I wasn't crazy, that life was hard but I needed to keep going.

The more I watched, the more I started to feel like I belonged somewhere. The show pulled me out of the darkness slowly, convincing me that life was better if I was here to live it. It gave me hope. It allowed me to breathe again.

Today is my 25th birthday, and I was celebrating like I always did, drinking beer in my car and listening to music while mindlessly scrolling through a page for Supernatural fans.

I froze when I glanced about an article about Supernatural's newest convention, which happened to be a few hours from where I lived. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about going, people like me don't go to shows or events like this, but I needed this. I really needed it.

I checked my bank account and nearly leaped with joy when I realized I had enough for a ticket, living in my car finally payed off.

Without hesitation, I bought a ticket for the convention and for the first time, I felt excited. I felt hope beaming inside of me. I could finally be surrounded with people with similar interests, and feel normal for once. Hopefully.

The next morning, I walked into the office building I worked at, and made my boss Brad a coffee, like he always expected. Knocking on his door, I took a deep breath before entering, walking towards his marble desk and placing the coffee on the table.

He nodded before taking the cup in his hand and sipping it, like he always did. His eyes flickered up towards me when he noticed I haven't left yet.

"Do you need something?" He asked.

I swallowed hard and stepped closer to the desk, "I just wanted to ask you something if you had a moment."

He nodded for me to go on and I shook off the anxiety nearly suffocating me. Confidence, I need to have confidence.

"I was wondering if I could take a week off starting Friday evening, there's somewhere I need to go out of town."

He stared back at me, the silence was suffocating, the tension high. He shook his head and looked back down to the papers scattered across his desk.

"No, sorry that won't work."

It felt like a punch to my gut, I haven't taken one day off, I constantly worked overtime, I did everything and anything for this ass, and I can't take some time off?

I swallowed down the nerves and sat in the chair in front of his desk, noting the way he stared at me confused. "Sir, all due respect I have been working non stop for the past 7 months and I have never asked for a day off, I've never taken a sick day and I always have my work done, all I need is-"

Before I could finish my sentence, his hand was raised, eyes locked on mine. "I said no Y/N, is that all?"

I could feel tears welling in my eyes as I stood from my spot, making my way towards the door. Anger was bubbling through my system and I felt like I couldn't breath.

I turned quickly and sighed, "Actually, there's one more thing."

He scoffed and looked up towards me, awaiting my response. I swallowed hard and frowned, "I am not going to be back tomorrow, I quit."

His mouth dropped open and he stared back in shock, but I didn't stay long to hear whatever response he was going to throw at me. I rushed as fast as I could out of the building back to my car. I slammed the door as the tears rushed down my face.

What did I do? Why did I quit my job for a convention? What the hell was so special about this damn show.

I finally let go of all the feelings I was holding onto, bursting into sobs of pain and frustration. Life was harsh and unforgiving, every moment of hope was washed away.

The only thing I had left was the convention, and even than I was clearly going to be the outcast, the weird girl who looks like she's never showered or slept a day in her life.

Maybe it would be okay. Maybe things would be different here, the fans seem nice enough online, why wouldn't they be in person?

And if Dean Winchester was still inside Jensen, I knew he wouldn't look at me like I was garbage, if he ever even noticed me.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Chapter 2 coming soon stay tuned!

Like, comment, and reblog, feedback is my fuel 💕

[thotsforvillainrights]

May I request the all villain dads (and moms if there are any) when their s/o was pregnant?

(I've had to go back and dig through the masterlist because I was assuming you mean all the parent AU and I couldn't remember who all was written about. There are a few that already exist when looking on either the new or ESPECIALLY the old masterlist pinned. Also the Au's help too. I'm going to just do some off the top of my head because it would take me a while to hunt these characters down. Also I'm sorry if everyone can't fit themselves into this one. It's a specific one so you'll have to forgive me!)

~Pregnancy Reactions~

headcanon|scenario|imagine|match-up|drabble

Kai I'd imagine would be shocked at first but a small bit of relief would wash over him. Symptoms hit you hard at first so it had him rather worried about you. He was wondering if you'd been overtaken by some awful sickness. It didn't get any better when the morning nausea had kicked in. Now that he has a reason behind your suffering he at least doesn't have to worry as much about you as before. Now he can focus all his energy on the child at this point because how in the Hell could he possibly pull off being a father??? Stain or Dabi probably disappear for a very long time. I mean so long that you think you're going to be a single parent. I imagine Stain will come back to his senses long before Dabi. Luckily Dabi doesn't stay gone so long that you end up breaking things off with him. They both have reasoning of needing to clear their heads. Fatherhood has never been on the To-Do list for either of them. Nagant is surprised the transfer treatments worked. She's extremely relived when the doctor told you the transfer would be successful and the two of you were going to be parents. You both knew what you were taking on having going into this head first. Now you have the rest of forever together to figure things out. Nemoto would be the type to immediately accept things as they are. You're pregnant? Very well, then let's begin our new life as parents. He might even start to finally reconsider his blind support of Chisaki and the yakuza. That devotion was long since shaken when he'd first fallen for you. His duties have shifted. There's a small one growing that he needs to worry about now. Twice is panicking and half happy about the news. Maybe a tiny bit more panic kicks in when he starts realize just what exactly he's in for. No walk in the park but he'd be so fulfilled when he gets to meet the little one someday. They say things seem to connect when you hold them for that very first time. He's certainly no exception to this. ReDestro is prideful and over the moon at the news of course. Not just an heir to the cause but also a small piece of both you and him combined? Well that's just like magic to him. He opens his mouth and I swear he doesn't shut up about the news to anyone willing to listen to him. On and on all day long about the things he'll teach them and all the love he's got to give. There couldn't be a better husband nor father than ReDestro. Skeptic is...well...skeptical of the situation. Do you know just how much of a burden this could be? Well, when he brings it up like that then it might hurt your feelings. He's looking at things logically. Children are a massive responsibility to him. This isn't just a dog or cat...this is a living human being. He changes his tune near the end of the pregnancy. He loves you, he spends most time researching so much. He's got a digital book in his head with parenting info. He finds out soon enough that it's still not enough. Parenthood isn't easy but he's very thankful to be a dad and thankful for going through the experience with you. He's not so sure when his mind changed so much about things. But as he lulls his baby to sleep and places them gently in the crib at night, he realized he couldn't have a better life than the one you've given him.

[thestupidhelmet]

Oooh can I get 23 & 24 for Q and Z? 🤍

Queer (LGBTQ+) AU Headcanon: Eric/Buddy, Fez/Buddy

Eric/Buddy: They enjoy going to car shows together. Eric sighs at all the cars he thinks he'll never be rich enough to own. Buddy rubs his back and says, "I am. Pick out your favorite. I'll get it for you on our eleventh anniversary."

Eric: That's nine years from now, but ... I can wait.

Buddy: Who said I was going by years?

Eric [curious and flirtatious]: What are you going by?

Buddy: The eleven-minute anniversary after you choose the car you want.

Turned on and feeling loved, Eric kisses Buddy. Fortunately, no one sees them (it is the 1970s in Wisconsin after all; they've got to keep themselves safe).

Buddy [teasing]: I hope you love me for more than my money.

Eric: Actually, I'd rather be able to pay for the car myself. I'd also prefer to be the one who can buy you expensive things. So, if anything, I love you in spite of your money.

Buddy [caressing the back of Eric's hair]: We've got to work on your ideas about traditional gender roles.

Eric: But we're both men.

Buddy: And ... ?

Eric [partially understanding]: We're both men! So we can both be the bread-winners, bring home the bacon -- and why are there so many food metaphors for making money?

Buddy: Eric, if you weren't so cute, I'd be pissed. But even if you were dating a girl, she should be able to "bring home the baon," and I don't mean food.

Eric: Right. You're right. ... Say, can we swing by the Piggly Wiggly before going home? I've got a hankering for bacon now.

Buddy: Sure, and you can pay for it.

Eric: And you can cook it because I burn anything that touches a pan.

Buddy: Your mom's a great cook. Didn't she teach you any skills?

Eric: Oh, she tried. And my dad tried to teach me how to aim a flashlight, and you know how that went.

Buddy laughs and slings his arm around Eric's shoulders. "Let's go find your dream car."

Eric stops him and says, "Wait, wait. I already have my dream guy. The car can wait a few more years."

Buddy, touched, returns Eric's earlier kiss. They enjoy the rest of the car show then have an early dinner where bacon is the main course.

---

Fez/Buddy: Fez doesn't withhold his affection for Buddy in school, but he does express it surreptitiously (because 1970s Wisconsin). When leaving notes in Buddy's locker, he copies Jackie's penchant for dotting her I's with a heart so that if people spot Buddy reading these notes, they'll think a girl wrote it.

📝: I'm potentially going to write a Fez/Buddy fic, and I don't want to spoil what I've already planned. That's why my answer for them is short in comparison to that for Eric/Buddy.

Zennie (Jackie/Hyde) Interaction: Eric/Buddy, Fez/Buddy

Eric/Buddy: They go on a double-date with Jackie and Hyde at the bowling alley and have a friendly competition. The scores are close. All four of them are good bowlers, and Jackie and Buddy both have custom-made bowling balls.

Out of respect for the fact Eric and Buddy would put themselves in danger were they to make out during Jackie and Hyde's turns (or at any point during their date in the bowling alley), Jackie and Hyde stick to subtler PDA.

Eric and Buddy, though, have come up with a secret code for what they feel. High fives, low fives, a shoulder pat, a back pat. These all mean different, significant feelings.

Jackie, having gotten close to Buddy and generally having empathy, is angry on his and Eric's behalf that their love can't be expressed out in the open. She and Hyde, who supports Eric a hundred percent, join a movement for equal rights for and ending discrimination against gay people.

---

Fez/Buddy: Jackie invites Fez and Buddy to spend a weekend at her family's ski cabin with her and Hyde. Word gets out to the rest of their friends (Fez was too excited about it to stay quiet), and Eric and Kelso want to spend the weekend there, too.

"It's just for couples," Jackie says.

"I'm dating Donna," Eric says.

Jackie narrows her eyes. "For now."

Eric: What's that supposed to mean?

Hyde: It means, Forman, she doesn't know if you two are gonna stick it out.

Kelso laughs at the unintended innuendo, but Donna is annoyed and says, "We're engaged, so you both can shut it."

After the initial shock -- Eric's included ("That was supposed to be a secret!") -- of Donna's announcement, Jackie says, "Fine. Then the trip is only for couples who aren't engaged."

Kelso: That's not fair! Fez and Buddy'll never get engaged, so they'll always be invited to the ski cabin.

Fez: Kelso, that is not the problem you think it is.

Hyde: Yeah, man. They could get engaged, but no one can marry 'em. Not legally. 'Course, I'm never gettin' married, so they could take my spot if that was freakin' possible.

Jackie: Steven, your ideas about marriage will change. And so will the country's. If two consenting adults love each other, them getting married hurts no one. It'll actually help society! Imagine how much more revenue the wedding industry will generate. It's economics.

Fez: And the rate of divorce among heterosexual couples keeps increasing, so heterosexuality does not automatically equal a happy marriage.

Hyde: Exactly. Which is why I'm not gettin' married.

Jackie: Today.

Hyde: Ever.

Fez: I would like to marry Buddy someday. We've been together almost five years, and we're the only couple among us who hasn't had a break-up.

Hyde: Me and Jackie haven't broken up.

Jackie: Today.

Hyde: What's that supposed to mean?

Fez, Eric, Donna, Kelso: You know what it means.

Jackie: Never getting married?

Hyde doesn't know what to say.

At the ski cabin that weekend, Buddy and Fez give Hyde a talking-to. Hyde thanks them but says he and Jackie'll be fine.

Buddy [holding Fez's hand on the main room sofa]: If you don't care about losing her, you will be fine. I, however, would be devastated to lose Fez. I think he feels the same way about me --

Fez: I do.

Buddy: Which is why we're so careful. One or both of us could get killed simply for loving each other. What's the worst thing if you marry Jackie in the future, that you're happy?

Hyde [after a moment, mumbling]: That we get divorced.

Buddy and Fez: What?

Hyde: Nothin'. ... Nothin' compared to what you two have to deal with. If either of you tell Jackie I'm not against marrying her someday --

Fez [scared]: You'll out us at school?

Hyde [shocked Fez would think that]: Hell no! I just want to tell her myself is all. And, uh ... you guys should invite us to your next activism meeting. Think you'll get two new members.

Hyde leaves Buddy and Fez so they can go skiing together -- and so he can have an important discussion with Jackie.

Jukebox Ask Game

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"Urgh, my head. Where the hell am I?"

Theo looked around anxiously at his surroundings, but didn't recognize a single landmark. He was in a desert, he could tell that much. Probably not Arkhelios though. Anyone could see the Bellamy house from far away and it was nowhere to be found. The last thing Theo could remember had been saying goodnight to Adam and climbing into bed for the night. There weren't any memories of leaving school or arriving at any desert. This had to be a dream of some kind.

"It is a dream of sorts," a loud, somewhat familiar voice called out. "I could send you through the actual waves of time, but not as far and not as fast. Even magic has its limitations and I'd rather not fight through the currents of the Ocean unless I have to. Very few warlocks are permitted to physically cross the boundaries of time."

"You-you're that Maricourt that visited me before," Theo said, holding his throbbing head. "Evren's friend. Rio something."

"Master Reogus," the warlock corrected. "I'm one of the last Guardians of Time, and yes, a dear friend of Master Thorne. I wanted you to see something, little demon. To understand the future, one must understand the past."

"Wait, my voice is different and and hands are bigger!" Theo gasped, running his hands over himself to find that his body had changed quite a bit. While he couldn't see his reflection, he could feel the heavy weight of demon horns on his head and could feel the difference in his overall size. "I'm an adult? Is this a trick? This has to be a trick!"

Reogus smiled.

"The waves of time are fluid," he replied cryptically. "Sometimes the only method of navigating them is to change your vessel. As I've just stated, you are unable to flow with the waves to the past, only to my recreations. It it still incredibly taxing, and your natural form will adapt to the currents. The change is not permanent."

Theo audibly sighed with relief. Trying to explain to his teenage boyfriend why he had an adult body would have been a nightmare. His father would have had yet another breakdown too.

"Where are we? Why do you think I need to see something in the past? Can I call Evren?"

"We're in Strangetown," Reogus answered, ignoring all other questions. "Before its destruction. Around the year 125 or so, when times were peaceful. This family should be of interest to you."

Theo squinted against the harsh sun to try to get a better look, but he didn't know what to look for. Just because he had an adult body didn't mean that his brain had changed too.

"There's some kids hanging out in their yard. Big deal," he stated. For all the effort the warlock was supposedly going through, his presentation was awfully boring.

"That is Ripp Grunt," Reogus said sternly. "The survivor. The leader of Strangetown through the darkness. Do you not still study history in our academy?"

"Strangetown history is an elective and Adam didn't want to take it," Theo replied. "We live in Pleasantview after all."

If Theo didn't know better, he could have sworn that the ancient warlock groaned beside him.

"The Pleasantview council fought wars against insurgents who were aided by the supernatural. Those blessed with the gifts of Life fought against the darkness. The old monarch of Pleasantview fell and the demons cemented their hold on the country."

"Yeah, Life still messes around with the living," Theo said. "There's a poster in our living area with their various disguises and a number to call. They seem pretty nice though. They killed my grandma to save me and my dad."

"No, this is the old way," Reogus corrected the teen. "Lukas doesn't manifest as Life until 137."

Theo raised a skeptical eyebrow at the warlock.

"That doesn't make any sense. There's always been a deity of life to match the deity of death. It's basic magical theory. Light and dark, death and life helps bind spells and makes magic possible."

"Well, I'm glad they still teach you something in school. You may still want to think about taking more electives, child. There once was a being of Life created together with Death. Life grew greedy over the years and fell away from his purpose. As punishment, the Ocean swallowed him and his followers in its deepest, coldest depths, creating the Void as you know it and all of its demons. For a time, Death reigned alone and it was a dark time indeed."

"Young Ripp lost everything. His family, his friends, his home. For reasons that none of us mortals know, Strangetown was nearly destroyed by the newly forged demons and Pleasantview. Their entire way of life was completely destroyed in the aftermath. Limited technology, and no electricity grids to support them. The people turned to magic and their own communities to survive. If Death had destroyed their lives, the people began to call to Him in rituals to ease their suffering."

"And Ripp Grunt was there, holding the country together. The Spectors, the Smiths, they all rallied around his leadership and the old ways were born."

"The old ways?" Theo repeated, still in shock at the images before him. "Are they magic? Are they in my textbook?"

Theo watched the man before him bow before a flame, whispering a strange language rhythmically to himself. Ripp took a dagger from his side and released a small amount of blood onto some runes, something that looked very familiar to Theo.

"Oh! I know that one!" he exclaimed excitedly. "That's a spell for protection! That was on my exam last semester. This is when people practiced blood magic? This is awesome! People who actually use the same kind of magic that I do!"

"But Death was unbalanced during this time," Reogus said coldly. If Theo had to guess, this guy must have been a teacher at his school when he was alive. He talked like a teacher. "The Great Demons rose along with their blood demon brethren. The council in Pleasantview increased their attacks. It was a time of great suffering. The current Grim Reaper was born during this time. He watched the death toll rise as his father collected the many lost souls with clinical precision."

"Why are you showing me all of this?" Theo demanded. This all sounded like it was getting to the point this strange warlock wanted to make, but Theo wasn't liking the somber change in his voice or the broken look in the young Grim Reaper's eyes. "What's the point? I'll take Strangetown history 101 if that's what you want."

"You are coming of age, child," the warlock said kindly, as if he could sense Theo's discomfort. "To know the past is to know the future. To know your past is to know your future."

"No offense, but this isn't my past. This was millennia ago, I'm fourteen."

"It is the origin of your people," Reogus continued. "It is the origin of your kind. As you said, these are the people who are doing the type of magic that is in your textbooks. As you grow older, you will come into your true power. You need to see what that looks like."

"Um, I'm good now," Theo protested. "If I could just wake up from whatever dream this is, I promise that I'll take the history course. There's a lot of fire and death and creepy things here that probably look better in a history textbook."

"No, you must look closer."

Theo's stomach felt like it was being torn from his body as the warlock manipulated their reality, sending wave after wave of energy through him. A shimmering blue light enveloped him, shielding him as his entire person succumbed to the rhythm of the waves of time.

When he could open his eyes again, Theo found himself in a graveyard in the dark of night. He wasn't normally worried by gravestones, but something felt off about this place. The energy was dark and unfriendly.

When Theo moved to take a step forward, he nearly tripped. His legs were suddenly much shorter than he was used to. A quick look at his hands confirmed the change. He was no longer an adult, but still not a teenager. Had he really been this short as a child? He didn't remember the world looking this small.

"See, young apprentice, this is the result of unbalance. This is the price of an unchecked structure for your kind."

Theo stared in the direction Reogus was pointing and saw two men huddled together in the ruins of a graveyard.

"That's the Grim Reaper again," Theo noted. "At least that's who he is in my time. Victoriana says that her grandparents adore him, that he's this nice, compassionate boss who lets them get away with whatever they want."

"Well, saddled with an embarrassing name, and neglected by any parental figures will sometimes do that to a person," Reogus acknowledged. "He has lived in Strangetown for millenia and protected it as best as he could the entire time. There are limits to the abilities of reapers, though. They cannot change the flow of history unless it is their destiny or if the change has been approved by an appropriate deity. This younger Gee is still in his first lifetime, trying to protect the man he loves from his father. Without Life to balance him, Death was overpowered. All the killing that the demons did went unchallenged. Many people may have died before their time and in large quantities. All of the first Life’s powers went with the demons when he fell. Life's powers were not meant to be used for evil. The Great and blood demons were powerful beyond measure because of this. When the powers of Life are used as a weapon, people suffer. Devastating amounts of lives were lost."

"Yeah, I get it," Theo snapped, starting to realize that this whole mystical trip was really just an excuse for another adult to scold him and make him feel badly about his powers. "Murder is bad, I know."

"Father! Sir! Stop this! We can't keep letting this happen!"

Theo watched as Gee Spector pleaded with Death on behalf of the living. For all of Gee's angry words, Death seemed to be unmoved.

"Father, this can't keep happening. Ben says that they don't have the resources to survive past six months at the food dispersal center. We need to call for help. You knew Life, can't you talk to him about the demons? Why isn't the Ocean stopping this?"

"Life won't listen to me, he never has," Death replied stiffly. "All I can do is my job. It's all for the Ocean to sort out and it is too weak at the moment. I must do my duty and my duty only. I'm sorry that you've developed an attachment to the living. It's unfortunate that they suffer, but it's not my duty to deal with it."

Theo saw Gee's hands tighten into angry fists, but the reaper said nothing. The being in front of him barely looked like he cared for his son and seemed to actively despise the living humans. Theo had never thought of the current Life deity as anything other than a pest who liked to meddle in the affairs of the living, but clearly, they had changed Death for the better over the centuries.

Theo watched what he assumed was the burning energy of fallen souls dispense out of Death’s hands into the air.

"It gets better here, though, right?" he asked his magical tour guide. "Strangetown had enough food to survive? Somehow the Life deity was replaced and things got better?"

Reogus shrugged, happy to finally have the young student's attention.

"Well, since you declined the opportunity to study Strangetown history in school, I guess we'll just have to see what happens next."

[yurisorcerer]

That was really good!

Gosh, I have many thoughts, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate them given that I'm kind of tired at the moment.

So, my main love here is for the characters. I think people tend to sell Dungeon Meshi on its worldbuilding and I do get that (it's very complex and is quite well thought-out), but the characters are what really grabbed me. I don't think there was a single member of the main cast I didn't love. Laios is such a delightfully weird monster manual fanboy and I 100% agree with the people who say he feels neurodivergent and that this feels intentional. Senshi is awesome and it's very funny how the manga is extremely horny for him. Chilchuk brings a profound Divorced Dad energy to the cast that I think is great for bouncing off of the other characters. Izutsumi is interesting by how she contrasts with the earlier party members, I want to think about her role in the story more. I think she was kind of meant to give us an "outcast's perspective" of sorts? I think she's good at being that, but I feel like having blown through most of the manga in a few days may have hampered my appreciation of some of the more subtle aspects of her character.

Marcille, though, is my favorite; as someone who is also a really fussy eater and just kind of tightly-wound in general I found her really relatable. She's also super, super, super pretty and cute but we don't need to get into that right now. I cannot be the first person to point out how, when she becomes the dungeon lord, her behavior starts feeling extremely manic, right? I suffer from delusional episodes that include very difficult to ignore intrusive thoughts, and I thought the whole bit she went into about how being the dungeon lord feels felt very familiar in that respect, and it really hit home for me.

(On the flip side, having your desires eaten by the demon seems similar to depression. I've been there, too.)

Other stuff! I like the whole overarching theme of eating both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for going through one's life. In the very last chapter Marcille says something to the effect of, perhaps this journey was to teach us to accept death, and I don't think that's necessarily the entirety of what the series is going for, but that's part of it definitely. There's a whole circle of life thing going on here. The manga is very....sensory? Lots of focus on taste of course but also scent and feeling. Lots of really strong imagery along those lines throughout the entirety of it.

I set the worldbuilding aside earlier but it is super neat actually, also. I still don't love the general conceits of a western-style fantasy setup, but I think this is honestly about as well as it's possible to do this material. Everyone has a motivation for their actions that feels inspired by experience and history rather than just Dwarves Do X and Elves Do Y and so on. There's a LITTLE of that, but not nearly as much as is typical for this kind of thing. In particular, I liked the orcs. Their usage as a symbol is perhaps somewhat fraught (I'm not the person to make that call either way), but it felt like it was coming from a good place and they're just treated so much better here than comparable people in other media, idk. It felt nice to me.

The art! The art is fucking gorgeous, like, if I wanted to get someone to read this manga this is one of the things I'd mention. The entire dungeon feels so wonderfully lived-in and ancient. You can practically feel the stonework in some panels. (Sidebar here! The anime is really good at capturing this, do watch the anime it's fantastic.)

Some other random stray thoughts:

-The circumstances she gets it in obviously suck, but Marcille's dungeon lord outfit honestly serves hard and everyone should get off her case about it.

-I ended up liking the captain of the Canaries a lot more than I thought I would. He's just an interesting character all around.

-I also really love Sissel / Thistle / apparently how you romanize this is a source of some contention. I feel sooooo bad for the guy. He just wanted to keep everyone safe! It's not his fault that his idea of keeping everyone safe ended up being influenced by a lion-headed demon from outside of reality and corrupted into a suffocating hellscape for those same people! OK maybe it's a little his fault

-I like the diversity in appearances across the characters. This is a thing I wish more manga did this well.

-Laios' kingly titles in the final chapter, RANKED from MOST to LEAST badass: 1. Laios of the Three Heads (based as fuck, makes people ask questions when they hear about you in a history book several centuries down the line), 2. The Demon-Eater (badass and very specific) 3. The Vegetable-Armored (basically gets the same reaction as #1, but with a more comedic lean) 4. Demon King Laios (this honestly seems pretty disingenuous but it is dope) 5. The Dragon-Slayer (very generic, also not even the most impressive part of what he did) 6. The Lord of the Dungeon (Crusader Kings 2 auto-generated-ass name) 7. Pervy Tallman (this sounds like a bad comedian)

-I want to kiss Marcille on the lips

-who said that

-haha I wouldn't mind the Canaries coming to arrest me am I right fellow lesbians

-who said that (part 2)

anyway yeah really good manga highly recommended. I'm not sure if it's a (get out the scare quotes folks) "Personal Favorite" per se, but it might become one over time. Usually such things take a bit to settle with me. The fact that I have any interest in reading it again is a good sign, though. 90% of the time when I'm done with media I'm fine with never revisiting it again. Dungeon Meshi I would very much like to revisit, both in the form of the anime that's airing right now and also I think I'd like to re-read the manga in a few years when I'm at a different place in my life to see what I think of it a little farther down the line. I liked it a lot, and I think it will stick with me.

[teeth--thief]

HI UM! i was just looking through your blog and i saw that you really like toptunov and. ummm yeah me too AUSHSHSNSNSNA im so excited :33

i was wondering if u had any resources to learn a bit about him? im gonna read through the books on the drive but if theres anything specific on him i would love to know !!! i read midnight in chernobyl so there's that! but if theres anything else

and um yeah! his whole story and being is so. captivating to me. he was just a guy!!! he told jokes ajd AUGHHH can u tell that im insane

Wow that is so odd that you'd ever think I have an interest in that man. I'm a serious and respectable researcher. So anyway, let's get into my girlfriend, dead wife and favourite boy - Lyonya!

I'm afraid there isn't one definite source to read to learn all about him... what he was up to after the explosion is described in a particularly gut wrenching way in the book by Yuri Shcherbak, (not the translated one, the Russian original) if that's something you're interested in. Midnight in Chernobyl is probably the book to read if one is interested in his person, there's little else you can learn about him from other books, sadly.

I can share any and all interesting bits I do know about him that aren't just in any particular... thing... that I have learnt up until this point in my quest to find out absolutely everything. For starters in Midnight in Chernobyl, Sasha Korol claimed our dear Lyonya got into a drunken fight with the thermodynamics tutor, right? Well, Lyonya's room-mate from collage says otherwise :)

Y.I. (I'd rather not put him on blast in case he'd prefer to keep a low profile) commented under Kupnyi's interview with Korol:

The translation is in the alt text but the jist is this: there was never any fight with any tutor or professor or anyone else (Y.I. says Toptunov was "non-confrontational"). There was, however, an argument between Lyonya and another student, which got reported to the higher ups by a professor who witnessed the whole thing. And yes, his dad saved his ass, just like it's described in the book. Not something he would have been saved from that easily if he actually beat up a member of the teaching staff, I reckon.

Korol is an unreliable narrator, unfortunately. Nothing against him, I'm sure his objective in life is not to make Toptunov look bad, if the fact that they had each others' keys and were always real... close together in pictures - hey, I'm not judging, you guys do you - is anything to go by, but to me it's pretty clear that the years took their toll on him. Perhaps he wanted to make Lyonya seem cooler.

He worked (or interned?) in Kiev, in the Department of Nuclear Safety and Control of Reliability of Reactor Installations. Maybe that's where that one mysterious photo of him, in which nobody knows what he's doing, comes from...

Another interesting thing? Apparently Lyonya wasn't too keen on being a Lyonya. He preferred being called Lyosha. Okay, well, what does that even mean? asks any non-Slavic speaker at this moment. It means that he used a diminutive not for his name - Leonid - when introducing himself, but for the name Aleksey. So much so that in an interview with Stolyarchuk, he just straight up calls him "Aleksey Toptunov". Lyosha is also how (at least one of) his Prypiat neighbours knew him. Given that his name was not that popular in his generation, maybe he felt as if it was too old school... an Old Man's Name.

There are two lost media... bits regarding him, too. I learned about both from @/toptunovleonid on Instagram who is THE Toptunov expert, truly. Nobody does it like she does, 10/10, I'd trust her with my life. One is an apparent article from around 2015 claiming that he was in the collage choir for a short period of time and another being medical documents, perhaps related to army admission or training. He was apparently 185cm and 86kg at, I'm guessing, 18-19. There is literally no "professional" explanation as to why and what do I know this for.

With this weirdly specific titbit, I'm done. For now, at least. Can't share all the things at once, can I? Hope you enjoyed this alarmingly long post. Next time I shall share Every Picture I Have Found Of Him. Perhaps. We'll see.

[starlitangels]

Campfire Songs

Pre-romance. Listen, I was raised by a guitarist. Certain things have to happen when we go camping 2.0k words

—

"Oh—my God!" Elliott exclaimed, swatting at the air. "I swear if I get one more mosquito bite I'm going to lose it."

"I told you to put on bug spray."

"I did, sunshine! It doesn't matter to them!"

I laughed. "Well, you can't blame them for finding you delicious," I retorted. "What was it you said to me a couple weeks ago? You're a... mm... 'legit snack' or something?"

"Shut up," he muttered, dragging his camp chair closer to the fire in hopes that the smoke would drive off the mosquitos. I kept laughing. He rolled his eyes.

We sat by the fire as the last of the sun's rays vanished from the sky, plunging the woods into complete darkness.

Elliott got up from his chair. "Now that it's officially nighttime, it's time for the one last surprise," he said.

I watched him leave the ring of firelight in the direction of his car, my eyebrows scrunched.

He returned with a long, black leather case. Distinctly-shaped. He sat down again and set the case gently on the ground, starting to undo the buckles.

"I didn't know you play guitar," I said.

He shrugged. "I don't play often. My..." He cleared his throat. "My brother taught me how. Our dad had a guitar that he never used. When he died..." Another shrug. "Aaron kinda took custody of it. He taught himself. Then taught me the older I got. Once I was big enough to wrap my hand around the neck." He pulled the acoustic out of its case by the neck and slung the strap over his head, tucking it under his other arm. "I had to learn how to play right-handed though. Because Aaron's right-handed. And it was too much of a hassle to restring the guitar for my left-handedness every time he taught me." A faraway look passed over Elliott's face. "I think he still has Dad's. Took it with him to Dahlia when he moved out for college." He cleared his throat and shook his head. "I learned how to play left-handed after I bought my own guitar." He smiled sadly. "And it kinda feels more natural, but it's also not what I'm used to."

He tuned the guitar, keeping one ear toward the body of it, as he twisted the tuning pegs.

"You can tune by ear?" I asked.

"Eh. Kinda. I'd rather tune by ear than have one of the little tuning things clamped onto my guitar's head, telling me what to do." He laughed, and I joined in. "Not perfect, but I make do."

"You should bring that to my parents' place sometime. My dad would love to jam with you."

He scoffed. "And embarrass myself in front of a professional? No thanks."

"Eli," I chided. "You know my dad. He's not like that. He'll be so proud of you just because you're playing at all."

"Well why don't you play?"

"Oh, he tried to teach me. But he's so good and natural at it that he couldn't understand why I was struggling so hard. So ultimately it just never happened. We both got too frustrated with the other." I chuckled. "Still a good memory, though."

That faraway look flitted across Elliott's face again, his violet eyes unfocusing. "Your dad knows I admire him a lot, right?"

"My dad sees you like his own son, Eli," I returned. "He knows."

Elliott chuckled and started plucking out a simple pick pattern. “Your dad is a good guy, sunshine.”

“I think he’s personally offended on the grounds of dadhood that your dad was such an ass,” I remarked. “And he’s determined to dad you better.”

Elliott laughed. “That’s not hard. The bar is already so low it’s a tripping hazard in Hell.”

I burst out laughing. “Well. My dad will raise it for you. He’s the kind of dad that little kids who aren’t comfortable with stranger adults like immediately. He’s just got friend energy. Or dad energy. Like. My neighbor’s granddaughter doesn’t like adult men at all. She was pretty isolated her first couple years of life due to a sickness and never got exposed to many people. She loved my dad immediately at a neighborhood barbecue and was attached to him all night. Her mom was amazed. It was cute.”

Elliott smiled. “I don’t doubt any of that. Including the raising the bar thing.” He shifted his fingers on the guitar’s neck and started a different pick pattern. A particularly famous one. I smiled. “Come on, sunshine. Let me hear that voice of yours.”

I smirked and cleared my throat. “I close my ey-eyes. Only for a moment—and the moment’s gone…” I sang. Elliott’s eyes immediately closed. A small grin tilting the corners of his handsome mouth. “All my dreams… pass before my eyes a curiosity.” I paused for the music cue. “Dust in the wind… All they are is dust in the wind…”

Elliott joined me on the harmony. “Same old so-o-ong… Just a drop of water in an endless sea… all we do… crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see… dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wi-i-ind… ahhh-ah-ah.”

We smiled and swayed gently as he kept picking at the guitar strings. Most of Dust in the Wind was that same pick pattern.

The musical interlude passed and I picked up the next verse. "Now. Don't hang o-on... Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky... it slips awa-ay—and all your money won't another minute buy-yyy..."

Elliott grinned at me.

We sang the whole song while Elliott played, just snickering between lyrics. Then moved on to a different song, and another, and another. We went on until night had well and truly fallen. The last few shafts of sunlight vanished and inky black-blue overtook it.

When there was a high sky of thousands of stars overhead and we'd gone through every camping song my dad used to play on these trips, he took a deep breath and sighed. "Time for bed, sunshine?"

I pursed my lips and nodded. "I think so."

He slung the guitar strap off over his head and started to gently tuck the guitar into its case. He handled it with such gentle care. For a single, quick flash, a fantasy shot through my head of his long fingers cradling the back of my neck with the same tenderness as his guitar neck as he kissed me.

Ohhh no, no, no. Shut it down, moron, I thought sharply. Elliott is your Best Friend. Nothing more. No more of those thoughts. No kissing.

We got up from our camp chairs. "You go brush your teeth and get ready," I said. "I'll put out the campfire."

He gave me a sarcastic salute. "Yes, captain."

I flipped him off as he walked off to the tiny public bathrooms down the parking lot from the campsite. He laughed and stuck his tongue out before disappearing behind a tree. I rolled my eyes and started to shovel some dirt and sand onto the fire to smother the flames. Elliott would probably be back before I got finished. I considered staying out in my camp chair until he went to sleep in the tent before turning in myself.

Sometimes I wondered if it was just me, or if Elliott noticed the way our gazes lingered on one another. If he noticed the way he touched me slow and gentle, and I did the same for him. We'd become such good friends in such a short amount of time. It felt like he'd always known me, and yet I'd only met him last week. I'd already memorized most of his details. The strange violet hue to his eyes. The tiny nick of a scar on his lower lip from tripping and hitting a sprinkler head as a child. The birthmark on the bone of his wrist that he tended to hide under his leather bracelets. That one dirty blond curl in the middle of his forehead that hung looser than all the others. The exact shape his lopsided smile took when he was up to no good.

I wondered if he memorized things about me. If he'd taken pieces of me and woven them into his heart the way I'd done for him.

Elliott returned while I was still putting out the fire. But instead of turning in and going to sleep, he stayed out with me and helped me finish up.

We turned in. We'd borrowed my parents' five-person tent, our sleeping pads—not full air mattresses—and sleeping bags jammed into opposite corners, with our bags scattered about the middle. Elliott's guitar case joined the clutter.

"Goodnight, sunshine."

"G'night, Elliott."

—

Several Hours Later...

—

I hadn't stopped shivering since I got in the sleeping bag, huddled up on myself, even in my thick pajamas. I just could not get warm. Goosebumps covered my skin and my toes were numb in my socks. I'd tried everything I could think of to warm up, and none of it lasted.

"Psst! Eli!" I hissed, just to see if he was awake.

I heard him make a noise of confusion. "Mm—wha? Sunshine?" He sounded groggy.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

He smacked his lips in thought. "Not really." He sighed as though about to fall back to sleep. Then a sharp rustle of fabric showed him sitting up across the tent. The moonlight through the trees and tent canvas plenty enough to make out his silhouette. "Why? Are you okay?"

"I'm freezing!"

He swore under his breath. "I'm so sorry. I thought you'd be warm enough."

"I'm trying. I just don't have a lot of heat to hold in."

A long silence broken only by the noise of the wilderness stretched between us.

Then Elliott's sleeping bag unzipped. "C'mon. Come share with me."

"What?"

"I'm not going to let you get hypothermia. We're adults. We can be mature about this. Just come share my warmth, yeah?"

I thought about it. "Don't tell anyone about this."

"Of course not."

I slipped out of my sleeping bag and dodged across the tent as fast as humanly possible, letting Elliott welcome me into his. I burrowed down, relishing the warmth that he'd already filled it with, but trying not to touch him. No matter how much I wanted to.

If I let myself touch him, I'd never be able to get enough ever again.

He scooted back down beside me, that crooked smile visible in the darkness. "Better?"

"Mmhmm," I grumbled.

"Can I have your hands?"

"Sorry. I can't detach them from my wrists."

He scoffed in a way that sounded like he was rolling his eyes. "Let me see your hands, sunshine," he insisted.

I shuffled enough to hold them closer to him. He took each of mine in his own. His were warm, throwing my frigid skin into sharp contrast.

He hissed and swore. "You weren't kidding. You are freezing. Come here." Before I could protest, he'd let go of my hands and pulled me flush against him, holding my head to his chest.

I could have cried in relief at his body heat.

"Thank you, Eli," I whispered.

"Of course, sunshine."

I was so exhausted from shivering that I slipped into sleep within moments.

And I dreamt of Elliott. That crooked smile lit by firelight and his curls shining in the light of thousands of stars overhead. Plucking at his guitar strings and sitting on a picnic table in an open field with a fire pit right there, while I sat on the bench of the table near his leg, looking up at him. Singing old rock songs together like there was no one else in the world to see us but each other.

—

Tag list: @pinksparkl

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

july 7, 2021 1:15 p.m. grant's house

[colm] wait, how do you have this recipe then?

[grant] i literally don't know. i found the note with it when i moved to los angeles before and, uh, it just said "xoxo, your boyfriend" at the bottom. like i know vaguely where it came from but my memory stops there.

[grant] now stop deflecting!

[colm] you first.

[colm] but alright, alright. you know the basic shit about my life, right? single mom, dad out of the picture, three siblings all with different baby daddies, and no other family because they disowned my mother for getting pregnant with me as a teen. the white trash experience. but wait, it gets worse.

[colm] my mom’s oldest brother was kind of still there, but not in any real fashion. more like: “sure, ellen, i suppose your son can sit at the back table at my pub and watch hurley on the television until his sisters are done with their after school activities and can walk them home.”

[colm] bastard. hey, ellen, i know you’re nearly homeless and your nine year old son is reading on the internet at the library how to make macaroni and cheese for dinner for all of you while you're busy waiting tables, but i won’t come over to babysit or nothing.

[colm] still, he let me over in the afternoons and was nice enough to teach me how to pour beers and such when i was the right age to do it, so here i am.

[colm] it’s really the only skill i have. despite my degree in philosophy, i was always a terrible student. i have the worst dyslexia known to man and my other jobs in the past were doing security at an airport and moving furniture. real impressive. so, this is miles better in pay and for my sanity.

[colm] besides, if we’re getting real emotionally squishy here, i was so lonely all the time growing up. nothing’s better for your social life than your mom always out working, no other family around, and having to turn down your friends’ invitations to hang out most of the time because you have to look after your siblings.

[colm] going to my uncle’s place was the least lonely place i ever was because all the old men who came as regulars felt bad for me and would talk to me. mostly about sports, but i like sports, so that was fine. i suppose you could say this place i own makes me feel a little less lonely as well.

[grant] i'm sorry things were so–

[colm] ahh, cut that shit out, it’s fine! i'd rather the man with a mammy who beat him not apologize to me about my childhood. i'm over it. fucking sucks but whatever. at least my guardian wasn’t my biological father. that piece of shit’s in prison for life for murder.

[grant] mur–

[colm] he got in with organized crime because he was broke and out of work. oh, and he was way older than my mom. surprise, surprise. classic stab city in the 90s. he actually tried to murder my mother once after she broke up with him, too. that day's hard to forget.

[grant] man, that sounds pretty bad. like egregiously bad. major childhood trauma bad.

[colm] old ellen’s alive.

[grant] uhhhhh, well, some person out there isn’t.

[colm] people.

[grant] oh.

[grant] oh my god.

[grant] anyway, uh, i was just going to say that i'm sorry you suffered. you deserved to have your needs met and you deserved stability and safety. i know nothing can be done about the past but that’s not a fair way for a child to grow up, even if your mother has reasons and explanations for it. and you don’t have to minimize it on grounds of other people’s experiences. bad is just that: bad. it’s not the sad childhood olympics here.

[colm] i really don’t care. i left all of that behind when i came here to live with shannon. you all are very nice to me. you’re my replacement family. you all mean a lot to me.

[colm] maybe replacement sounds bad...but, ah, well...

[colm] i can't believe i'm telling anyone other than shannon any of this bullshit. i feel absolutely disgusting.

[colm] sometimes when i was younger i'd look at other families and wish i had that. i used to wonder what it was like to have a family, and i suppose i finally understand. and it's nice.

[grant] i'm glad that you know we love you. you are a part of us. you are family. hell, i love you dearly. you're a great friend and a great person and you make shannon happy, which is important.

[grant] do you ever talk to your family? like your biological family?

[colm] yes and no. i invited them to the wedding and clearly you know they came. you were there. the only one i talk to often is molly but it’s because they’re the youngest and, well, the most like me, so i try to steer them away from making the same mistakes as me. that is, please don’t become a delinquent and please tell someone you think something’s wrong with your brain when you think there is.

[colm] my mother just pisses me off. i know she loves me and always has but she tries so much harder to show it now that i'm an adult and i can’t stand it. it’s overbearing. it's like, where was all this affection twenty years ago, ellen? and my other siblings...one’s fine, the other i don’t get along with.

[colm] don’t go apologizing about that either.

[grant] i won’t. but i get it. family relationships are complicated. siblings are difficult sometimes.

[colm] do you have–

[grant] i have two sisters. and yes, i don’t talk about them, like, ever. now continue what you were saying!

[colm] don’t get me wrong, i love all of them. i'd die for them. i might not want to talk to them much but i'm not disloyal or nothing. but because i love them, i reserve the right to admit when they’re obnoxious or what they’ve done wrong. it’s a disservice to all of us to lie and say i'm so happy with them and that we get along swimmingly.

[grant] so...you’re admitting things weren’t great.

[colm] i'm alive and not all the way fucked up. that’s good enough.

[colm] but thank you. i know you mean it. you’re like shannon and you say it because you care, not because you pity me, which is what a lot of others do. i do appreciate it.