#it's about a dad who's husband dies and leaves him as a single father but it's not all bad since he finds a new boyfriend

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

that scene is from jjk (jujutsu kaisen) the panda is panda he's a cursed corpse and the girl is maki who's a cursed item user

Oh that was jjk???? I do remember something about a panda being involved! It was like a guy can't speak cause if he does he turns into it. The guys a corpse too???? Sucks to be him.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Handle With Care - Aaron Hotchner x Reader

Summary: Reader and Aaron meet for the first time before she starts as a full-time nanny for Jack.

Notes: Hopefully will be at least 5 parts! I'm excited to be writing again :)

Word Count: 4.6K

I always believed in new beginnings, but as I stood on Aaron’s doorstep, rolling a suitcase in one hand and a Vera Bradley duffel bag in the other, I was tempted to question my resolute thinking. It had yet to fail me. Not when I was hardly eighteen and living on the other side of the country, vying for my spot at the esteemed culinary arts program. And not when I’m twenty-four with a stint as the private chef

Professional chef turned nanny–for my father’s beloved mentee, no less. My parents, ever supportive and ever loving, practically held an intervention when I showed up on their suburban door step a fractured shell of the bubbly daughter they dropped off at the airport. 

Five years later, I’m sleeping in the same bed. I had nightmares about leaving once again. And yesterday I gave up that bed for a full-time position as Aaron Hotchner’s live-in nanny. Aaron, who I never even met, is my father’s protege. He knew him as a whip-smart, young lawyer from a family Law dynasty at Quantico. My father took him under his wing and even after his early retirement from the BAU they would get together for an annual work lunch. 

I was nearly finished with my final year of the Los Angeles Culinary Arts Program when my fathers called to say that Aaron’s wife was murdered. I remembered thinking how lucky Dad was and how brave Daddy had to be. With one day off saving the world and the other left to hold down the fort with an awfully anxious only child daughter. 

One year later, I was unemployed and completely blacklisted from the culinary entertainment industry for reasons beyond my control and without my fault. I gripped the suitcase, my chipped fingernails so jagged they punctured my skin. 

Aaron had a nice house with a manicured front lawn, a big wrap around porch, and a fully furnished backyard. Clearly, he was a man with a lot of education and a lot of smarts to top it off. He worked hard. It showed, these neighborhoods of Arlington, Virginia weren’t cheap. No wonder my dads were dying to relocate to Georgia. 

The door swung open before I could work up the courage to ring the bell or knock on the dark cherry wood. Aaron answered. He wore a dark green men’s quarter zip that was pushed up, showing off his forearms. His dark, charcoal gray watch shone as he let me into his foyer. 

He had a foyer.

And a house that smelt like warm cinnamon and musk. 

“Y/N,” Aaron said, nodding to me with a smile, “Please give me your bags. And we’ll go sit and chat before Jack comes. His grandma is still in town and brought him to the zoo.” 

I complied. There wasn’t a need for me to protest. And clearly, by the looks of those forearms, he would have no problem handling my bags. I only brought a single suitcase, a duffel, and five boxes of books. Aaron’s mother-in-law, Lorriane, had been staying with them since Haley died a year and a half ago. But her husband broke his hip. Apparently, Aaron had added a mother-in-law suite for Lorriane and judging by the looks of his home, the suite I’d be living in for the foreseeable future was twice the size of my studio in LA. 

“Thanks.” I said, grabbing a seat on the brown fabric sofa, “My dad said I had to say hello to you for him. He still raves about you. Like all the time.” I chuckle, watching as Aaron hands me a glass of iced tea. 

“Marty’s a good man. He and Gideon built the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Our team is in constant debt to him.” Aaron spoke so formally, gesturing for enthusiasm with his hands. 

“Yeah, well. He’s always just been dad to me.” I smiled, the man I knew showed up to my field hockey games even if it meant holding office hours there. He was the most there dad I could ask for– maybe it was neck in neck for the both of them. 

“So Jack?” I said, breaking the silence. “How–how’s he been?” I couldn’t help but wonder. My dads had a close friend who helped them with their surrogacy journey, so while I didn’t have a mother in the traditional sense, the woman who I’ m half of  was still alive and in my life. Debra was more like an aunt to me, fun and spirited and eternally youthful. But I still had her. 

Unlike Jack, who’s Earthly ties to his mother were shredded in an horribly violent way. 

My dad hardly ever cried, but when he called and told me that Aaron’s wife died I could hear it in his raw voice. Aaron’s a man cut from the same cloth a Dad; stoic and responsible. He was a wall of somber trepidation, but somewhere deep inside I could make out the man that wasn’t cataclysmically destroyed. 

“Jack is…he’s a strong kid. I put him in therapy after it happened. He still goes once a week. Laura, she’s his therapist. She’s wonderful. Truly has helped Jack work through all this.”

“That’s good. That’s really good, Mr. Hotchner. It seems as though Jack has a solid foundation here.” I say, unsure what to say exactly. I can make an omelet six different ways, yet it’s lost on me to know what to say to a widower with a little boy. If I had to bear even a fraction of their grief, I’m sure it would break me. I would crumble. But these two boys? They’re a good man in the storm. And I know in my bones, it’s entirely Aaron’s doing. If that man is anything, he’s steady. 

“It’s Aaron. Please, Mr. Hotchner reminds me of my father.” He cringes, the lines on his eyes creasing, “Your dad said you’re a professionally trained chef? Unfortunately, Jack’s still squarely in the dinosaur shaped chicken nugget and baked tater tots phase. It’s been a struggle to get him to try anything new…for…for awhile now, if I’m being honest.” 

I nod, thinking that Jack’s food discouragement might stem from losing his mom. “Well, the way I see it, Jack lost his mom at how old? Four and half? That’s when we’re starting to really know what we like and don’t like to eat. His life was turned upside down and shaken all around when you lost her. So maybe he needed some consistency in a world of chaos. Not that your home is chaotic, it’s lovely and clean and happy. It’s just…loss…”

“Losing your mother as a toddler really fucks up your life.” Aaron says. He speaks so definitely, as if he means everything so ardently you could cast it into stone. 

“Yeah.” I add, somberly. “But I think we can get him to branch out. Make it a game. I’d love to cook with him. I can get him kid-safe tools so he can be involved in food preparation and cooking. Oh! Maybe Jack and I can have a garden. I’m sure that will get him eating vegetables and fruits.” 

Aaron’s neutral expression slowly transitions to a soft smile. He thumps his fingers on the wooden table, as he looks out through the deck. I could feel him glance back at me and then to the yard again. 

“I think that a garden would be lovely over on the side. It’s far enough away from the pool and patio.” Aaron offers, sipping his tea. It’s sweet tea, too sweet for me. Working in kitchens throughout my program has trained me to not only tolerate black coffee, but to actively seek it out. He smiles, his grin defining his face. “Good idea.” 

I feel heat at his praise. I like doing well, who doesn't? But after a series of mishaps and bad luck, an 'atta' girl is my Hail Mary of the month. I simply nod. “Simple things to start so he can see some quick results. I’ll get him super involved in it. Make him feel like he’s a part of a team.” 

“I work a lot. My team flies across the nation, as you know. It takes me away from here for days on end. It was getting too much for Lorriane. And how her husband broke his hip.” Aaron shakes his head, “Honestly, you couldn’t have shown up here at a better time.” 

He runs his pointer finger over the water rung pooled on the coasters. “Jack’s a very easy kid. Reasonable. But shy. He was shy even before Haley…even before last year. I’ve brought him to the pediatrician because he stopped talking for a while, but she said that we’ve all survived an immense trauma and our brains simply process and live through that trauma differently.”

Sitting there, I couldn’t help but think how lucky this little boy is. His dad was running up the hill; pushing that boulder up and up and up for an eternity. It must be an awfully lot to carry, without anyone to share the load. 

“Yeah. I’m sure it is? Is he going into Kindergarten after the summer?” I ask, wondering if Jack went to Kindergarten on time or if Aaron and his grandma kept him home when they lost Haley. 

“Lori, Haley’s mother, taught preschool for thirty-five years. She told me to keep him home for a year, let him be a little bit older and get the help he needs to heal and then send him. So I listened. I think that was one of the only decisions I made as a team this year.” 

Sympathy must have colored my face because Aaron’s demeanor shifted quickly. He sat up, sipping his iced tea and wiping his hands on his jeans. “So basically your weekdays are around 8am-7:30pm. And occasionally on the weekends when the team does have to be on location But recently, I’ve been trying to transition to a more leadership position at headquarters. Hopefully, that’ll mean less traveling.” 

I quickly journaled the hours down in my notebook. Live-in nannying hours are not for those looking for a job to allow them the life of leisure. Naturally that couldn’t possibly be true for a position whose main coworker is a five and a half year old boy. 

“Alright. So that’s summer hours. We’ll need to brainstorm lots of stuff to do all day. Maybe the library?” I write a small note to get ideas and have them approved by Aaron.

He nodded, “Yes, summer hours are a lot, but Jack will be going to a couple camps that his therapist recommended. So you can get a couple hours each day to yourself. I am ready to compensate accordingly. Between my new role at the BAU and other personal investments, we live comfortably. How’s $2,500 to start and then we’ll discuss a raise in the future. And naturally your room and anything you may want to eat or have will be covered by me.” Aaron says it again in a way that leaves no room for argument. He must’ve been a great lawyer; no wonder dad adores him. 

“That’s quite a lot of money.” I’m shocked and my face does a horrible job of hiding it. “I’m not a professional nanny. I’m good with kids. Really good. But I don’t do this for a living. This is you doing me a favor because if it wasn’t for you, I’d be a waitress at my dads’ country clubs” I cringed, my mind instantly filtering in an image of me serving one-time sorority sisters bottomless mimosas for an Easter Brunch. 

“I apologize if you though that it was up for discussion, Y/N. Your first month’s pay will be $2,500 each week. And then it will increase to $3,250 each week. If I’m asking you to work 13 hour days plus one weekend a month? I better be paying you that much. And you’re still on Marty’s health insurance?” 

I rolled my eyes, of course dad mentioned that to Aaron and of course Aaron double checked. Aaron just might have Marty, JD beat when it comes to thoroughness. “Yeah, till I’m 26. And that’s like…a year and change away.” I say, implying that it’s not up to me, or Aaron even, to know how long I’ll be with him. I wasn’t sure if I would ever venture out to LA again; not after what happened that sent me back here for good.

But the thing about food is that everyone wants good food, no matter where they live. And right now, the ones that wanted something good in their lives, lived in a lovely Colonial home on Moss Avenue. 

“I guess there’s no arguing with you, prosecutor.” I say, my voice increasing just so that it balances the line between teasing and something else…something else I should be too ashamed to admit. 

It elicited a smile from him and all of the sudden it was completely worth it. Aaron finishes his tea, and places it into the sink after dumping the remaining ice chips down the drain. 

“Non-negotiable. It’s in your contract. Along with a health insurance package should you need to go off Marty’s name. Plus all that tax information that I’ll get you someone to walk you through it.” Aaron explained. 

“Thank you.” I replied, grateful that it was both all above the table and that I would be given the resources to help me figure it out. Looking at the pile of paperwork in my lap, I was sure that if Aaron didn’t offer legal literacy assistance I would be way in over my head. “That’s wonderful. Really.” 

“I just…I just want my son to be a good kid with a good childhood. That’s all. I want to be there for him and if I’m not there, I want the next best thing there. You know?” Aaron said and I’m not sure if it’s a plea or statement. Or if it was stuck somewhere in the middle; lost at sea like Aaron was himself. An island unto himself, drifting as the tide rolled in. 

I break the silence. “What was Haley’s favorite meal?” 

Aaron smiled. His eyes, crinkling again. “She had chicken piccata on our first date. And we ate it at our wedding. And when she found out she was pregnant with Jack she made it for me.” I nodded, understanding the important link between food and memories. 

“Let’s make it. For Jack and you and Lorianne to share tonight before she leaves. It’s going to be a big transition for him to go from having grandma all the time to me, someone very new.” I expressed, hoping that I didn’t sound bossy or as if I wanted to parent Jack myself. 

“That’s a lovely idea, Y/N.” Aaron sighed. “But I never was much of a chef. I wouldn’t know the first place to start.” 

He leaned his hands against the table, a slight smile breaking the formidable since that had fallen between us in the moments before. I smiled back, standing from the table to reach my tote bag. 

I pulled out an apron, the kind that criss crossed over my back. It was denim blue with a canvas front and large pockets. 

“Move over,” I said, tying my apron, “It might be your kitchen, Aaron, but for tonight you’re kicked out” 

The chicken ended up being more chicken piccata adjacent than a true representation of the dish. I mixed a seasoned blend of flour and spices for the dredging. Then, butterflied and pounded the chicken breasts into thin pieces. 

Aaron’s kitchen was spacious and airy. There was a large island with barstools on one side and lots of pantry and cupboard space on the other. I stood at the island, dredging the chicken in seasoned flour before placing it nearly on paper towel lined trays. The chicken, thinned and butterflied, didn’t take long to cook in the oil and butter. 

I let the skillet heat up till the oil, butter, garlic, and capers produced a mouthwatering aroma. Aaron gave me a bottle of white wine, imperative to make the sauce taste even better. I added freshly squeezed lemon juice and lemon slices to the pan sauce, letting the brown bits cook a little bit more. I scraped the edges of the skillet, incorporating the sauce even more. 

I placed the chicken back into the pan, letting it absorb the lemony, garlicky flavor of the sauce. The sauce thickened, forming something that was similar enough to chicken piccata. I added a bit more butter to the pan, along with some lemon. I figured that it would stretch a little bit more for some sauce for the pasta on the side. 

The chicken was simmering in the pan and the pasta water nearly boiling, when Jack came home. He looked like his father, but must have gotten his lighter colored hair and eyes from his mother. 

Aaron walked into the kitchen with Jack, his hands resting on Jack’s shoulders protectively. Jack’s shy demeanor was evident as he peered over at me. I smiled and waved as I finished the pasta. 

“Jackie, this is Ms. Y/N.” Aaron introduced me to the young boy, who stood shyly by his father. “We talked about how Grandma Lorraine needs to go back home. And we’re gonna have a friend come and live here.” 

Jack nodded, his little mind clearly spinning and spinning to make sense of all this. He was clearly well adjusted, even for losing his mother at such a young age. 

“Hey, there Jack!” I smiled. “I made a good dinner for you and your dad. I heard you went to the zoo with Grandma. I love the zoo. Especially the tigers.” 

Jack nodded, eagerly walking around the kitchen island to talk about the zoo. “Yeah,” he said, “I liked the monkeys. They were funny. The babies were learning to climb and jump.” 

I nodded, plating up some food for Jack. “Super cool. They’re kinda like little people. The way they act and play.” I placed the plate on the counter. “I used the Cars plate. It was way too cool not to.” I crouched down and whispered to Jack, “Just make sure your dad doesn’t swipe it. Between you and me I can see him eying it from here.” 

Aaron chuckled, reaching high to grab not one, but two plates. He handed one to me before telling Jack to go sit for dinner. “You’re joining us. It’ll be good for us to get to know one another.” 

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Nothing you do would be an intrusion. And it’s good for Jack to see that we’re friends. He’ll be more trusting of you.” 

I nodded, understanding that it was very important for Jack to become used to me. Especially considering Aaron’s job could take him away for days at a time. 

“Alright.” 

Aaron nodded. “Sit. I’ll get your plate.” 

There was an understanding that washed over me. An understanding that Aaron was the kind of man that didn’t ask for things. He was simply used to things he wanted being carried out. I envied that security. Maybe if I had even an ounce of it I would still be hacking it out in LA. Or maybe I wouldn’t have needed to figure it out because I would’ve figured it out already. 

Jack and Aaron went back and forth, swapping facts about dinosaurs. Jack was squarely in the dinosaur phase. Five minutes in, and I already had promised to help him find a dinosaur coloring book, with dinosaurs besides just the “cool ones”. 

“Uncle Spencer says that some dinosaurs had heads as big as a car!” Jack said, practically shrieking with excitement as he recounted all the facts a certain Uncle Spencer had told him. 

“Uncle Spencer’s so smart. And he’s a kid!” Several of Jack’s stories started with the aforementioned Uncle Spencer and I couldn’t help but wonder where the connection lay. Especially if, like Jack claimed, Spencer was a child. Sometimes some cousins are so far apart in age they’re more like an aunt or an uncle. Perhaps this was the case.

“Spencer is on my team.” My face must have shown my confusion. I always wore my emotions and thoughts on my sleeves, something that failed me several times over. Most notably when my friends in LA would get hit on by men at bars in the most vile of ways. One of the blessings of being deemed unapproachable by men was being left alone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t burdened by their lack of tact in seducing women. “And he’s 28…yes about 28 now, and has been on the team since he was 23. He’s brilliant. Jason Gideon, who worked with Martin, scouted him when he was hardly 21. His mind works in ways that are simply unexplainable.” 

“Which means he must have some pretty sick dino facts?” I ask, my question causing a prickly smile to appear on Aaron’s face. Jack giggles, he must enjoy seeing his father smile. It seems that even though the boys find themselves moving alone, smiles are few and far between. Especially from the elder Hotchner. 

“And three phDs.” Aaron cut the rest of Jack’s chicken, sliding his plate over and reminding him to at least try the vegetables. “It’s like these kids are getting younger as fast as they are getting smarter. Sometimes I just look at Spencer and my knees hurt. Then again, I’m pretty sure I would beat him in anything athletic. Even though he’s much younger.” 

I raised my brow instinctively, smiling. “Was that a joke?” I deadpanned. “My dad said you made two jokes the entire time he knew you. And the first was…”

I stopped myself short. But it was far too late. Aaron, like myself and my father, knew when the first joke he made to my father was. His wedding day. My father had long retired, and moved his mind and soul far, far away from the BAU. He trusted Aaron and Gideon to handle it. Instead he decided to live as himself, freely with his husband and their daughter in the suburbs.

If there was one thing that I shouldn’t have done the first night working with a nanny family consisting of a widower and his son, it was to bring up the marriage of the widower. 

When Aaron married his late wife, Haley. My fathers attended, but I didn’t even remember. It must’ve been one of those times that Nana would sleepover. I remembered it was painting nails, ordering Chinese, and watching Walker, Texas Ranger and Family Feud. I remembered it as falling asleep to my Nana’s snoring as Home Shopping Club glowed on her ancient TV set and waking up to her chocolate chip pancakes. My father remembers it was the first time his young protege made a joke. And Aaron remembers it was the day he married the love of his life. 

“Daddy?” Jack said, cutting through the silence, “I don’t like veggies. They’re too mushy.” 

“Don’t eat them, bud.” Aaron, murmured, his voice laced with a guard that I hadn’t noticed till now. It was careful, like he crafted each tone and cadence before he spoke. “We’ll figure it out, Jack. Come on, let’s show Ms. Y/N her room. Where she’ll be staying.” 

Each sentence is clipped and calculated. I nod, smiling as Jack stands next to his father. 

“I’ll clean up.” 

Aaron nodded, thanking me as he took Jack up to get ready for bed. Minutes later, the kitchen was back to normal and a couple extra meals were packed away for leftovers. I left a note on the counter for Aaron in the morning. 

Lunch is in the fridge.

I always like to make extras! 

Have a nice day

Y/N

Aaron returned, without Jack. “You didn’t have to do the whole kitchen. I don’t expect that. This isn’t a housekeeping job, it’s taking care of Jack.” 

“I don’t mind. Being a chef…or I was a chef, as much as a pain in the ass cleaning and dishes can be sometimes it’s a good way to finish it all. I don’t know…I don’t make sense.” I chuckled, trailing off in a rambly way that fully gave away my nerves. My previous blunder had shaken me, especially since Aaron seemed completely unnerved, even though I knew it stung.

“I suppose, sometimes I used to stay late to do all the paperwork, even though the interns usually will do it for us.” Aaron wipped his hands on his pants.“Anyway, let me show you to the room. I had it cleaned over the weekend and put Lorianne up at a hotel for a couple nights so there wouldn’t be any issues or crossover.”

Aaron led me through the rest of the house. It was neat and tidy and I didn’t expect anything else from someone like Aaron, even though he does have a young, energetic son. There was just something meticulous about him. Something so put together and careful. And then there was me. Messy and complicated and unsure and terrified. Anyone would be that after having the carpet pulled out from under them. And I couldn’t name a bigger carpet than having to bury your life. 

There was a locked door that led to what Aaron explained as my private area. “Jack and I won’t come over here. From the time that I get home in the evenings, or frankly, some days, till I leave in the mornings is your own. This is your spot in the house, but my housekeepers that come twice a month will clean in here, if you’d like.” 

I nodded, grateful for that added bonus. The small attachment was the size of a studio apartment. There was a kitchenette with a nook tucked into the corner with the windows. The furniture matched the rest of the house, clearly Aaron had spared no expense to add this attachment. The queen sized bed was pushed up against the wall and nestled into the corner. Next to it was a nightstand with a lamp. And, as I turned the corner, was the crowning jewel. 

“Are those built–ins?” I asked, staring in disbelief. “Those are so gorgeous. I have like, easy, a ton, of books. God! Can I use them?” I turned, practically jumping from joy as Aaron chuckled reluctantly. 

“Of course. This room’s yours.” Aaron must’ve carried my bags into the bedroom while I was cooking because all of my belongings sat on the floor near the set of love seats and armchair. “I’ll leave you to get settled. 8:30 okay for tomorrow?” 

I nodded, stunned beyond belief as I opened my boxes of books. Aaron handed me a set of keys, one to the house, the shed, and the other to my area of the house. 

“You’re the only one that has a copy. If you want others made, I’ll cover the expense.” Aaron explained. “Have a good night, Y/N.” 

“Good night,” I replied, hooking the keys onto my set. “And thank you for this room. It’s nicer than my apartment in LA.” 

Aaron leaned against the doorframe, “Of course, I think Jack'll be very happy. It’s been hard to trust others. With him, honestly…Jack’s all I got left.” I had known Aaron for about three hours, heard stories of his skill and professionalism and talent for years, but he wasn’t someone that I had known, let alone even met. But in those three hours, I could count several times where I saw a sliver of emotions.

“I’ll leave you to it.” 

“Night.” 

“And Y/N?” Aaron said, stopping me as I reach down to start shelving books, “Food does hold memories. You’re right. I needed it. We did. Jack and I. He needs to remember her.” 

“Food has memories.” I said, shrugging, “You’re gonna have to learn I know more than you think I do.”

Taglist

@reidsbookclub @boldlyvoid @pear-1206 @this-is-calm-and-its-anne @little-jana @pastelpinkflowerlife @sarcasm-and-stiles @ilovefictionalmennn

[luminouslywriting]

what do you think would be the reactions of the different men when they’re falling for a single mum? I think going with the time it’s more likely a young widow than a girl with a kid out of wedlock but who knows maybe John Brady just feels the desire to make an honest woman out of a poor girl at church who’s man ran off or Bucky takes to teaching his neighbors kid baseball because he sees their mom is stressed… just whatever guys you think would fit this

Nonny, this gave me actual brainrot so I hope you enjoy this so much 🥰🤍 as always, my requests are open and I don’t mind spam haha! More under the cut, cut for length, light spice sprinkled in:

Bucky Egan: (I had to run with the baseball idea haha)

-Absolutely the type of man who does not care about the past sexual history or life of a partner....and he's kinda looking for someone to date at the moment??

-But there's this kid on his block who's about six and he watches this kid attempt to throw a baseball every day and it just pains his soul because the form is awful and where is this kid's dad??

-So one day, he rolls on over to the yard of said kid and just starts offering pointers—he always wanted to be a baseball coach in his free-time and he just hasn't gotten around to it yet

-This sweet little boy makes him a deal that if Bucky comes over and teaches him how to throw a ball, lemonade will be made and given by you (his mom) and he will help Bucky paint his fence

-Bucky thinks it's a swell idea and it's at this surprising point to you that your son brings in the attractive war hero Bucky Egan straight to the kitchen and demands lemonade

-Well you and Bucky get to talking and you tell him that your husband died in the Pacific pretty early on in the war and your son has never really known a father

-That being said, it's a slow burn. He really enjoys getting to spend time with you and your son and he's afraid that he'll mess things up. But then your kid is inviting Bucky to dinner and you're telling him that it's no problem and you usually make too much food anyway.

-And somewhere along the way, he starts thinking of your house as more of a home to him than his own lonely home that he purchased. So naturally, this man panICS and has to call Gale and ask what he should do because he doesn't want to spook you or ruin the nice thing you've got going on.

-Gale definitely has to reassure him that if you both clearly want him there, then he should just go for it; Bucky deserves to be happy too.

-But he DRAGS his feet in the process....right up until your son accidentally calls him dad after hitting the ball with the baseball bat

-And then there's actual panic between you and Bucky and he's trying to apologize because clearly he's overstepped

-It would be at this point that you have to tell him that it's quite alright and you'd really like to get to know him more...because you like having him around and clearly your son adores him

-CUE THE FIRST KISS (first of many, might I add)

-It's the most darling domestic thing and he absolutely views your son as his son and he's never been so happy in his life

Gale Cleven:

-I think the most logical move here is that he finds you after Marge's passing. It was a short and love-filled marriage for them, but it was gone so quickly.

-He's devastated, naturally. And he doesn't really have anything left in Wyoming, so he sets out for Wisconsin.

-Now the thing about this is that John Egan has married Josephine Pitz—and Josephine Pitz's best friend is you. Your husband was a Marine during the war and died in action, leaving you with two little kids.

-You're doing your best but it's hard being a working single mom during the early 1950s.

-Cut to Josie and John setting this up just so

-Bucky makes the point that your car needs some work and you're a good friend of Josie's

-So this is how Gale Cleven is introduced to you—matchmaking via car-service haha

-Your two boys? Absolutely just wanna watch him work and wanna hear about everything that he's doing to the car

-But you're no fool and you know that Josie and Bucky are trying to set this up for the two of you

-So you just flat-out confront him about it and tell him that they're trying to be sneaky and that you're sorry he got caught up in their schemes

-But the thing is?? He's perfectly happy and used to their schemes. There's also the fact that this is the safest and calmest he's felt since Marge died.

-So he admits that he'd be willing to give this thing a chance if you are

-So it's a slow-burn for the two of you as you're trying to navigate around the fact that you've both already lost a partner and the fact that you have kids

-But he's so good with them and helps with the homework and genuinely just tries his best

-It's not a surprise to anyone when you're married a year later

Robert Rosenthal:

-On his way to the Nuremberg Trials, he meets you—a young lawyer who has recently just found out that you're pregnant (not that you're telling anyone that).

-You two become fast friends and he finds out that your husband was a British RAF Pilot who died. He's entirely sympathetic and sweet about the situation.

-The pair of you team up for the trials and it's amidst the preparations for the Trials that he finds you doubled over with morning sickness. This man assumes that it's the flu. Babe, it is not the flu.

-So a few weeks into you being sick and dealing with the trials, he's getting real concerned and you just have to spill the tea that you're pregnant.

-Not gonna lie, Rosie's heart shatters a little bit for you. It's not as if you want to leave the Trials to deal with pregnancy but you're also a whole ocean away and who do you have to rely on?

-Well he makes a promise that he's gonna help you through it

-And along the way, he's absolutely falling in love with you—with your dedication and kindness, the way that you're soft about the baby and continue to focus on work, and the way in which you're so determined to do everything entirely on your own

-He definitely very quickly makes you an offer that you're a little befuddled by

-The offer is marriage—and the thing is?? It's a damn good offer. You're a recent widow trying to do her job at the Nuremberg Trials, just found out you're pregnant, away from home, and have no support system

-So naturally you accept and this is a marriage born out of convenience and kindness to you....but there is so much affection and care.

-He's had feelings for you for a while and he's perfectly happy taking his time in the relationship and understands that you might not reciprocate the feelings in the same way.

-If nothing else, at least you'll be provided for, your child will have a father, and you'll always have a friend by your side

-It's at this point that your feelings start to develop because he's just such a good person and treats you so well and so clearly loves you

-The two of you are icons during the trials (Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal), and he comes back from Europe with a wife and daughter on his arm....and no, he didn't tell anyone so it was quite a shock to everyone.

John Brady: (Also decided to run with it haha)

-Listen, this man has a picture perfect plan for what he wants to have happen when he gets home from the war and that's all fine and dandy, but this man was NOT planning on you haha

-You faithfully attend the same church as he does and it's pretty obvious that you're pregnant.....

-But man the gossip is bad. And he's not one to listen to idle gossip and just believe what people say. But evidently your fianceé had run off when he found out you were pregnant and had taken any chance of a reputable life. It's ROUGH, okay??

-And the thing is, John Brady is out here just trying to do his Christian duty by seeing if you need any help over at your house....because he also passes it on the way to Church and YIKES, your yard is going through it

-It's the first time that someone just offers to do something nice for you??? You're so thrilled about it

-So he comes over that summer and does your yard work for you and you make little sandwiches and he gets to have lunch with you

-The thing is, you two get to talking and he finds out that you weren't even planning on having kids for a while anyway and it was YOUR former man who wanted to do the deed and refused to help out in any way. This is entirely a man's folly and has ruined things for you.

-Now he feels bad, he does....

-But he's not trying to make a move or anything. At the moment anyway haha. Instead, he invites you to spend some time with his sisters because you need friends anyway and they all have kids so they can help you know what to expect for pregnancy.

-Well it's all going great and he's pretty happy with the fact that you now have a support system and he's starting to make some waves in work. And then the yard is done and finished.

-And for some reason he's offering to help with the plumbing and the inside work too? It's definitely not because he's worried about you and it's definitely not because he's very very attracted to you in any way shape or form lol.

-I don't think anything actually happens until you're right ready to pop....at which case YOU kiss HIM because you're just real impatient

-And he doesn't get to respond to anything because your water breaks and he's taking you to the hospital

-So while you're in labor, this man is processing the fact that he MAYBE really really likes you and has already planned out the rest of your lives together, but that's BESIDES the point

-He still feels like he's taking advantage here....right up until you have a son and you name him Johnny because Brady was the only person that was kind to you during pregnancy and this man just melts on the spot, professes love to you—and tells you that he wants to take care of you for the rest of your life.

-Chef's kiss tbh

[thesimulacrasimp]

Okay so im gonna just throw randomly my thoughts on sm6 while rewatching it cuz why not, I was doing the same thing for hazbin hotel so why not spooky month too?

So yeah, SPOOKY MONTH 6 SPOILERS WARNING‼️

Ok im just gonna say: that starting scene with thieves was kinda funny. Also rewatching it, im starting to suspect that this giant spider thing in Lilas attic have her husbands soul, IDK WHY, I JUST FEEL LIKE IT, it just looks so important, it even appeared twice in the ep: in the begining n in the end.

Also ARE WE JUST GONNA IGNORE HOW JAUNE CALLED LILA "HOT STUFF"??? WHILE HAVING A HUSBAND?????? A HUSBAND THAT SITTING NEARBY HER WHEN SHE SAYING THAT???????? ARE THEY IN A POLY RELATIONSHIPS HOLY FUCKING SHIT????????????? IM EVEN MORE INTRIGED NOW

Okay so Skid does know and remember his dad, I just was thinking that his father left/died when Skid still wasnt born or when he was very little so Skid doesnt even know that he had a father, but no he does remember his dad, so that means he presented for quite long time in Skids life.

Also im really suprised how big Pumps house is, well i mean— he said that his parents work alot so ig i shouldnt be suprised-

Poor Ignacio just wants some peace– *watched the ep a lil longer* Oh hes kinda fucked up actually---

Also for some reason i find kinda interesting that Ross n Rob were kinda comforting Roy every time they were on the screen like "We're here for you, Roy" etc etc, so im thinking maybe something bad happened to Roy? I mean he looked kinda frustrated n angry, so maybe somethng between him n his parents?

Okay but can we talk about how Moloch look so much more scarier than before?

Okay so--- get ready for my rambleling bout my boy Dexter-- HE LIVED WITH HIS MOM N ALOT OF CATS😭😭😭 N HIS MOMS PURE GRIEF BOUT HER LOSS WAS GENIUNALY SO SAD TO WITNESS 😭😭😭😭

Okay so looking at Skids impression when Father Gregor asked him bout his father-- yeah i think his dad actually died---- but i can be wrong ofc

Okay- im sorry but-- why does Kevin n Radfords interactions make them look like a couple--- I AM SORRY BUT----

Also the way Father Gregor gave Kevin holy water was really funny to me, it was like: "You know these children?? Yeaahhhh i feel bad for u, kid. Here have some holy water, just in case...." ALSO the fact that ppl started coming in the store ONLY after Radford sprinkled holy water in it-- DOES THAT MEAN THAT THERE WERE DEMONS IN IT THAT WERE KEEPING PPL AWAY???

Dont mind me guys, im just a little crying :')

Okay but the way how Skid n Pump were SO exited to see Moloch again was really funny n cute at the same time

Okay... This is the part when i literally teared up. I know it was just Moloch trying to fool Father Gregor to give him kids but idk.... It still made me tear up for some reason, and i even know the reason: i just miss Dexter so much n i didnt expect him to appear so much times in this ep, I just think hes a precious boy who deserved better. I KNOW THAT HE WAS KILLING ANIMALS N I DONT APPROVE THAT AT ALL, but hes still a sweetie idfc.

Also why would Patty need a gun so immediatly?..

Also that part when Moloch were wandering around the town n Father n spooky bois were trying to catch him was so funny and entertaining

Poor Pelo got ooffed again. Press F.

AND OMG THIS PART WHEN MOLOCH POSSESED SKID N PUMPS BODIES AND THE FATHER EXORCISMS THEM WAS SOOOO COOL, I DONT EVEN KNOW WHY, I THINK I JUST HAVE A THING FOR DEMONS N EXORCISM.

And this is the part where i actually cried alot. Poor Skid doesnt know that its not his fault at all.. Also even if Father Gregors words were kinda mean, that Lila is irresponsible mother, I cant disagree with them. Yes, she is an alone mother, but it doesnt give her permission to just leave her child to himself n his friend n go drink n then spent time w her child drunk. Yeah i know, that she leaves him to mr Wonder n Susie, but lets be honest, were here even a single time when the kids didnt just leave the house n cause problem? No. So i think the Fathers words are make perfect sense, n Lila should think bout it. Also a lil thing i just thought bout, why would Lila throw away her husbands stuff? If he actually died why would she do this? Or hes not dead n he just left for some reason? Idk

Also OMFG THAT OOGA BOOGA JUMPSCARE GOT ME SO FUCKING GOOD, I WASNT READY FOR AT ALL

and so ummm i think thats it. It took me 1 hour to write this lol.

[j-l-kepler]

Baldur's Gate 3 Tav Ask List

1, 19, 23, 52, 89, 90, 91, 104 xx

(@bladesandbhaalspawn)

OHOHOHOHO THANK YOU FOR THE ASK PROMPTS

I wasn’t sure which of my Tavs was being asked for, so I’m using Briar Lockren, my half-drow Gloomstalker Ranger since I haven’t posted much about her while the Twins have quite a few deets about them! Plus, these questions felt like they applied to her best (and you may get some deets on her Dark Urge companion as well…)

[ANSWERS BELOW THE CUT]

1. What is their backstory and why did you choose it?

Some OOC background about Briar, I didn't originally make her as a Tav. I made her months ago as a fake Companion Quest called The Weary Ranger. I made a full Companion Guide with fake screenshots as a creative exercise and got very attached to her. This is one of those screenshots:

Like with all of the REAL Companions, I based her backstory on exploring the theme of abuse. The other companions focus on different aspects of parental abuse, abuse of power structures, sexual exploitation, systemic exploitation, etc., so I decided to focus on abuse in romantic relationships and dealing with an abusive ex.

[CW for abusive partners, implied coercion and sexual abuse, violence, etc. - I'll also be brief with her backstory and try to be specific when necessary]

Briar was raised in Luskan by her single father in the Cult of Cyric. Her dad was a full drow while her mother was 3/4 drow. Basically, Briar's mom had an affair with a half wood elf and left Briar in her husband's care before eloping, so Briar's dad was never really keen on actually taking care of her. His hands-off approach mixed with the prejudice against her in the Cult made it tough for her to accept their teachings.

Her closest friend was a boy her age named Ronan Amberclaw (I think I called him "Rowan" elsewhere, my bad lol). He was the underachieving son of the sect's leader, so the pressure was ON. Ronan and Briar were basically inseparable growing up.

Skip ahead a few years to when they're in their late teens - Briar's basically left the cult while Ronan's decided to stay. They've been friends forever so Briar doesn't hold the cult thing against him (the start of her blinders). They enter a rose-tinted romantic relationship. Briar (a rogue at this point) is persuaded to help Ronan's activities because they're fighting Banite uprisings. Briar's able to justify her involvement because, to her, it's the lesser of two evils.

But as time goes on, Ronan begins to lie about his activities more and more, and becomes more and more possessive. He gaslights, belittles, coerces and controls her, and does so in ways she can justify to himself. She continues to enable his activities, turning her blinders on full.

This goes on for years, until one night Ronan does what he's basically been primed to do his entire life: murder his father and take over the cult. This gets him recognized by Cyric, and he becomes his Chosen. Briar can't exactly excuse that - nice, decent people don't get recognized by Cyric, that just doesn't happen. Ronan, in the blink of an eye, drops his pretenses and makes it very difficult for Briar to look past his intention. She bolts, but not before receiving a brand of Cyric on her arm. Ronan's cursed her.

What does this curse entail? Metaphysical levels of horrible luck, the kinds of bad luck that can leave a happy village smoldering. Ronan visits her in nightmares, wraiths haunt the edges of her vision, and life SUCKS. Making connections means people die. Settling down means people die. Briar's options are go back to Ronan, or wander around until she dies.

Ever the optimist despite everything, she takes up the mantle of a Ranger, inspired by stories of similar souls who have ovecome impossible odds (such as Drizzt). She vows to hunts the beasts she attracts. In her mind, she's being selfish since she doesn't want to return to Ronan, so she vows to be strong enough to make up for the harm she causes.

Three years later, while wandering around Cloakwood, she gets picked up by the Nautiloid and spat out about a tenday away from Baldur's Gate. The tadpole in her head cuts off the effects of Ronan's curse and his ability to spy in on her.

Mielekki's race that was long.

19. What's your Tav's personality like at the start of the game? Does it change as the game goes on?

At the start of the game, she's fresh off the heels of 3 years of nightmare-fueled insomnia, so she's pretty lethargic and spacey. She's so used to a life out of her control by this point that she's quite passive, but also emotional and observant. She carries herself with a quiet sensitivity, and is deceptively capable when she's actually lucid. Underneath it all is a deep self-hatred and a desire to be stronger. She's constantly ensuring she pays for her past passivity, believing her lot in life isn't the result of a vindictive asshole but rather some kind of divine judgment. It's easier than actually pinning blame on the person who's been hurting her all this time.

Though her moral values don't change much, her personality and outlook on life become a lot more outwardly optimistic quite quickly. She becomes louder and easy to fluster, she's receptive to conversation and far more courageous and outspoken (I don't have any specific art of that lol)

She's already a moral guide for the Dark Urge (after all, he's the main character of the save Briar's in), but she's much more ready for it. As she encourages him to fight his Urges and live for himself, she internalizes the lessons she teaches and has started learning to advocate for herself too.

Basically, she's learning the answer to "do all my friends secretly hate me or do I just need to go to bed" is "you just need to go to bed". Quality of life really does improve when you can get 8 hours of sleep instead of having to run on 2 hours a week because your evil ex boyfriend is haunting your dreams with evil God magic.

23. What's their opinion of Emerald Grove? Do they help the tieflings or side with the druids?

Aha see this is one of the questions I was like "oh this is MEANT for Briar".

Siding against the tieflings was never an option for Briar. She knows what it's like to have no place to turn to, and she would give anything for safety and comfort. However, Briar's also quite familiar with Druidic circles thanks to her time spent in Cloakwood. Hell, at that point in the playthrough, she was a Ranger-Druid multiclass of Mielikki (I changed that once I recruited the hireling Dyven since he's a cleric so I didn't need an extra healer anymore). She's run into nicer circles AND the Shadow Druids, so Kagha's dogma struck her as odd for a druid of Silvanus. Something didn't smell right. She and Durge investigated further and were able to liberate Kagha from the Shadow Druids AND stop the Rite of Thorns!

52. What does your Tav think of Dame Aylin?

Dame Aylin is everything Briar wants to be, and everything she is. Briar adores Dame Aylin for her strength and resilience. She wants to have her fury and is inspired to reflect on her own situation. It's thanks to that that Briar is able to start allowing herself to be angry about what Ronan's done to her.

But on the other hand, Briar sees the exhaustion too. Just like Aylin, she's tired of having to fight against those who would see her victimized. She wants rest, peace, tranquility.

She wishes to be as strong as Aylin, and she wishes for the day neither of them have to be.

ACT 3 SPECULATION TIME

So this playthrough's only reached Act 3 recently, so the rest is speculation or how I think the playthrough ought to go based on what I know and how the characters have worked out thus far! OBVIOUSLY, SPOILERS FOR ACT 3 AHEAD

89. Does your Tav side with the Emperor or do they free Orpheus? Do they become Illithid to use the Nether Stones or does one of their companions do it? Do they give the Nether Stones to the Emperor/Orpheus?

The team already doesn't really trust Emps. Seeing as their whole arcs are about defying the odds and breaking free of their shackles, Durge, Briar & Dyven aren't exactly keen on Emps' strategy involing keeping Orpheus sedated and under his control to be exploited. How convenient that freeing Orpheus just... isn't an option. Hm. Interesting.

Since this is a no-Companion run (that is, the main 6), there won't be any companions to turn Illithid. I can't see Durge letting Briar throw away her future to become illithid, and I can't see Briar letting Durge do the same so.... sorry, Orpheus.

As for the Nether Stones, that's a bit of a blindspot for me. I can't imagine they'd give them to the Emperor if Emps isn't keen on cooperation.

90. Do they betray the Emperor/Orpheus/their companions for the Absolute?

ABSOLUTE-LY NOT. That's not even a question for her. Any ideations she has on the idea are on the same level as "What if I murdered my terrible boss" - she's not seriously entertaining the temptation. That kind of power just isn't worth it to her. Not after she's seen what power does to decent people (note: I don't think Ronan was ever really a decent person, but her perspective is a bit different from mine in this regard).

101. Did your Tav recruit Minsc? What's their opinion of him?

I wanna circle back to #91 in just a sec.

The Weary Ranger is a HUGE fan of the Beloved Ranger. Though she's more obviously inspired by stories of Drizzt, Minsc's exploits have always enchanted her. Actually meeting him is a dream come true. His blunt, optimistic and straightforward approach to every situation is exactly the kind of influence she needs. After all, her other mentors up until then have been a bunch of morally-conflicted dadfailure-coded sad sacks (and Halsin), so having someone who can cut through the bullshit and do good for the sake of it is refreshing!

91. Does your Tav get a happily ever after?

I think she will. Considering the relationship between Cyric and a certain skeletal freak at camp, I can absolutely see her curse becoming a non-issue after the story proper.

I think she and Durge will go their separate ways on good terms, and I think she'll follow Halsin. She'll settle into a home for the first time in forever with someone who she loves and is loved by.

I don't know if she'll stay there or if she'll get up and explore the Sword Coast on her own terms someday. She's not particularly maternal, nor do I know if she ever will be. But she's young with a whole life ahead of her to decide what she wants - and the room to do so on her own terms.

The scars of her past won't go away. Her brand will be gone, but the twisting remnants of her curse mark will stay tattooed to her skin. Her nightmares will be mundane and they might never go away. She will grieve the boy she fell in love with and think about him every time she stares up at the same stars they used to give stupid names to as kids. Someday, she’ll let him go, and every day until and after that will be a struggle.

But I assure you: she will be happy.

ANYWAY Thank You For These Awesome Ask Prompts!!

I had lotsa fun with this~ Briar is a character who is very near-and-dear to my heart. Not only is she a remake of my first D&D character, she was extremely cathartic to write while dealing with a pretty severe low point in my life.

ALSO SORRY IF THIS WAS WAY TOO LONG AND ALSO NOT THE CHARACTER YOU WANTED TO LEARN ABOUT LMAO

[nychthemeron-rants]

Daddy Angel AU

Niffty's mom:

Niffty's mother in this AU is a Japanese American woman named Hana Tanaka living in Brooklyn, New York. She worked as a seamstress in Angel's gang's territory.

Hana was a close friend of Molly's in life, and this is how Angel met her. Due to Angel being much more respectful to women than any of the other gangsters, being very charming, and protecting her and the rest of Molly's other friends from some creeps once she developed a huge crush on him. Eventually, everyone except for Angel figures out her crush because she isn't subtle, but Angel is too preoccupied and gay to think anything of it.

Then, one night, Molly and her friends were drinking at a bar that Angel's gang owned at the same time as Angel and some of the other gang members. Angel's buddies start giving him shit for never having a girlfriend and never pursuing women, and soon the teasing starts heading to "prove you aren't gay" territory. Since at this point its common knowledge Hana has a thing for Angel, they point him to her as someone who'd be easy to seduce. And she is.

After, Angel feels horrible and guilty. He admits he only had sex with her to get his buddies off his ass, and that he doesn't want anything more with her, that he views her as a great woman, but just not his type. Hana is crushed but asks if they can stay friends. When Angel agrees, she has him swear not to go around telling people what happened, given the repercussions of a woman losing her virginity before marriage in the 1930s. Angel swears.

A while later, Hana finds out she's pregnant. Still single, she panics and goes to Angel to see one last time if there is any chance he'd be open to a relationship. He says no, and when she presses, he says says that she's a great woman who deserves a man who will actually be able to love and provide for her, two things he can't do. She relents and leaves without ever mentioning she's pregnant.

Next that Angel hears of her its Molly telling him that she's moving to New Jersey. Angel is disappointed because he did consider her a friend but doesn't think much of it.

Meanwhile, Hana had told Molly everything, and Molly swears to be a good auntie, even if Hana doesn't want Angel to know that he's the dad. Over the years, Molly and Hana keep in touch, send letters, call, and occasionally meet up. Angel mostly hears and communicates with her through Molly. He even has seen pictures of her and her daughter, though he thinks its odd that her husband is never in any of the photos...

Niffty is born when Angel and Hana are both about 20, Angel dies at 35, when Niffty is 15, still under the assumption that Hana married and had Niffty with a husband that doesn't exist. Hana is upset by this news but had long since moved on and only mourns him as a friend and mourns that Niffty will now never get to meet her father.

Hana never marries. She raises her daughter, Niffty, as a single mother by claiming her husband died and she's too grief-stricken to remarry. Its extremely hard, but despite all odds they pull through. This is especially miraculous as Niffty has always been very clearly mentally ill and people had pressured Hana to institutionalize her. In fact, this threat is a large part of why she never remarried, a husband could send Niffty away without Hana's consent. Hana instead did everything she could to help and protect Niffty and got her all the way into adulthood.

She encourages Niffty to go to college, both to find a husband and to get an education so she has options if she can't find a husband. Unfortunately for them both, Niffty does find a husband early on and drops out to marry him.

Hana can tell that this asshole is bad news, but she can't get through to Niffty. So the marriage goes through. She makes her daughter's wedding dress.

Suddenly she barely hears from her daughter and after only a few years she gets a call that Niffty had killed her husband and had been arrested. And then in what felt like a blink of an eye her baby had not only been institutionalized after years of trying to prevent exactly that, but she had died from a botched lobotomy.

Wracked with grief, Hana moves back to New York to be with friends and family. There, she spends the rest of her life as a beloved pillar of the community and maintaining her friendship with Molly, serving as an aunt to her kids. She passed peacefully in her 80s and now resides in heaven, still friends with Molly after all this time. However, she is horrified by the knowledge that Niffty is in hell.

[mortalmab]

It’s “brag about my mom” hours

My mom was raised by a PTSD ridden WWII vet who self medicated with alcohol, beat his wife and kids, and didn’t believe in birth control. My mom had nine siblings (Irish Catholic). She was one of the only ones to go to college. Her mom believed in cooking for her husband and since he liked liver and Lima beans, they ate that a lot and it made my mom sick to her stomach every single time but she wasn’t allowed to leave the table until she had eaten it all, shown him her plate, and had it deemed clear enough to be allowed to be done. Basically, she had a shitty childhood and her father was a terrible person because he himself was hurting but refused to get help because “men don’t need that.”

And I had no idea until I was an adult. My mom decided the cycles of trauma and abuse ended with her. She told my dad when they were getting ready for kids that there was NO good reason to hit a child and if he ever did it would be the last time he saw them. So my brother and I were never spanked as children. We were automatically given trust and privileges and those were revoked if we broke that trust until we had earned it back.

She never forced us to eat. We had to at least take a bite of what we were fed, but we were never forced to finish. No guilting us to eat, no punishment for it. Nor did she ever shame us for eating.

She never let us feel left out or unimportant. Since our birthdays were six months apart, she started a tradition of “it’s my birthday and I get presents, but I got YOU a present for your half birthday and you can have it today.”

She is a neurotypical woman (I’m pretty sure) but she recognized even back in the nineties that her kids had inherited the health issues and mental health problems from her husband’s side of the family so she not only taught us from a young age to be self advocates with our teachers about what we needed regarding academic accommodations, she also worked with tons of different doctors and specialists to help find a medical mix that would help stabilize us. She even put me (and later my brother) in counseling starting around seven to help me learn emotional regulation and impulse control. She fought to get us diagnosed with ADD (which was still a thing back then) so we could get into a school for neurodivergent children.

But I think the most important thing about all this was that I never knew she had had anything but a happy childhood - as happy as ours was - until I was an adult. She never lied to us about Grandpa, but she only told us cute or funny or happy stories about him (he died before we were born). She only told us loving stories about her mom. We never knew the bad things until we were old enough to recognize them as unrelated to our own lives - unnecessary to internalize. She said the cycle of pain stops with me and her kids never had to pay the price.

Anyway, my mom is amazing and I don’t want kids but I always knew that if I did, and I was half the mom she was, I’d be doing pretty okay

[thelordofgifs]

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 2

Narmeleth vs Faramir (son of Ondoher)

Narmeleth:

Elf of Lindon & later the Gwaith-i-Mirdain; crafted & entrapped by a minor ring of power (Lord of the Rings Online character)

Narmelleth!!! I mean. She's got it all. Corrupted by the Gift Lord, Ring-forger, Bane of Fornost, Earnur's Worstie, COOL OUTFIT, Redemption Arc we didn't start the fire

she actually managed to destroy the lesser ring of power "Annatar" had used to corrupt her, which is like, SO impressive considering how long she had been under its influence. She also fought Mordirith (the steward of Angmar) and his new champion Mordrambor (a universally loathed NPC that everyone rightfully hates for personal reasons) single-handedly!! I don't mean alone, the player character was there, but I mean she did it single-handed. with one hand. she lost a hand and kept fighting. and WON!!!

Faramir (son of Ondoher):

The younger son of King Ondoher of Gondor, killed in battle along with his father and older brother. Also a character in Lord of the Rings Online.

more blorboganda later but! he's been hanging out on dagorlad as a ghost bc he snuck out to join the fighting against the wainriders with his dad and brother and they all got killed. really wants to help the rangers of ithilien once he gets out of the 'ghost who had to hang out at torture temple for a thousand years or so' fog

propaGANDA please vote for Faramir "Namesake of the Faramir we know" son of Ondoher he's got it all. Younger brother, couldn't stay behind while his family fought Mordor, rode out in disguise (sound familiar?) but died TRAGICALLY in the arms of the proto-Rohirric Commander. this is not even touching all the stuff he gets into in adaptations. Faramir I supremacy

OK no I can wax poetical on Faramir I Son of Ondoher because his is a tragedy that sets in motion the end of the Kings of Gondor (for an age or two. idk on specific but). Faramir I second son of Ondoher is not content to stay at home, doing his duty, following orders etc. etc. because he LOVES his dad and his big brother SO much. And the thing is, he really really shouldn't go. Hindsight 20/20 and all that but if he leaves there is NO ONE who can take the throne from his dad's direct line (because the Gondorian Council are punks and decide his cool sister Firiel and her extremely cool husband Arvedui can't have it on account of [handwaves] honestly). But the armies they're facing off against are serious business! They're really outmatching Gondor here. They straight up already fought his grandfather King Calimehtar, iand are back for round 2. So what does precious Faramir (I) do? He pulls the OG Eowyn, babey (and let's not forget parallels, PARALLELS about following your father (figure) and brother to war, right? she marries the NAMESAKE of this guy, incredibly cool mirroring here) and gets a disguise and rides with the Rohirrim-before-Eorl (some adaptations call this the Eotheod) to go help. Here's where things get EXTRA angsty HIS FATHER AND BROTHER ARE DEAD. He doesn't know because he's with the Eotheod, but like. The Wainriders killed them. And the Eotheod does help rout the rest of them and eventually, Earnil II future Throne-thief (but it's not his fault) gets the final victory BUT not before sweet noble Faramir is run through with a spear by the chieftain of the Wainriders and DIES IN THE ARMS OF A COMMANDER OF THE EOTHEOD. Like. That's a specific detail we have. Blorbo Blorbamir at LEAST didn't die alone and was discovered to be the prince there. So. Mr. Horse Leader gets to give the news to everyone about the poor guy that died in his arms being the son of the king. But oops! The King and brother are already dead so. Technically the King of Gondor died in his arms. What a day for him, right? Anyway this is still about Faramir who (in the LoTRO adaptation) feels such guilt that he HANGS AROUND AS A GHOST REGRETTING HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DOWNFALL OF GONDOR. Tragicest blorbo. Regret. Precious guy. Vote Faramir I

Round 2 masterpost

[skippyv20]

Dont knoww if this us already posted Skippy 

…Wall Street Journal on Hairy’s Moanwaah….

The Half-Madness of Prince Harry​ Prince Harry’s book is odd. There’s even something half-mad about it. He opens with a dramatic meeting at Frogmore, his former mansion on the grounds of Windsor. It is just after the death of Prince Philip, Harry’s paternal grandfather. For months Harry has been estranged from his father, Charles, and his brother, William—a “full-scale public rupture.” Harry has flown in from America and requested a meeting. The day is overcast, chilly. Charles and William arrive late looking “grim, almost menacing,” and “tightly aligned.” “They’d come ready for a fight.” Harry is tongue-tied, vulnerable, leaves heartbroken. “I wanted peace. I wanted it more than anything.” You feel such sympathy. What could have driven them so far apart? Why are Charles and William so cold? Then you realize, wait—Philip died just a month after the Oprah interview in which Harry rather coolly portrayed his family as remote and hapless puppets and implied they were racist. Harry forgets, in the opening, to tell us that part. But you can see how it might have left Charles and William a little indignant. This is the book’s great flaw, that Harry doesn’t always play it straight, that he thinks “my truth” is as good as the truth. There are other flaws, and they grate. There’s a heightened-ness to his language—he never leaves a place; he flees it “in fear for our sanity and physical safety.” He often finds his wife “sobbing uncontrollably” on the floor and the stairs, mostly over what he fails to realize are trivial things. He is grandiose: “My mother was a princess, named after a goddess.” “How would I be remembered by history? For the headlines? Or for who I actually was?” Lord, he was an attractive man fifth in line for a largely ceremonial European throne; it would hardly remember him at all. (Unless he wrote a scalding book and destabilized the monarchy!) He repeatedly points out that he’s a Windsor and of royal blood. His title means a lot to him. He is exhibitionistic: “My penis was oscillating between extremely sensitive and borderline traumatized.” (Frostbite.) There are gaps in his knowledge-base that wouldn’t be irritating if he weren’t intent on establishing that he’s giving you the high-class rarefied inside dope. “Never complain, never explain” has been an expression of the old American upper class since forever, and I’m sure the British one too. It isn’t special to the Windsors. “An heir and a spare” is old Fleet Street tabloidese. It doesn’t mean, as he suggested on book tour, he was bred for body parts. Famous families often have internal communication problems. The children of those families learn much of what they know from the many books written about the clan. They internalize and repeat observations and stories that aren’t quite right but are now given their insider imprimatur. Harry’s anecdotes tend to undermine the institution of the monarchy. When he was a teenager Britain’s biggest tabloid told the palace it had evidence he was doing drugs. In fact, as Harry tells us candidly, he did do drugs when he was young. The palace, no doubt knowing this, opted to “play ball” with the newspaper and not deny all aspects of the story. This made Harry feel thrown under the bus. His father, he believes, used him as a “sacrifice,” to appease a powerful editor and bolster his own sagging reputation. “No more the unfaithful husband, Pa would now be presented to the world as the harried single dad coping with a drug-addled child.” He reports Charles and his wife, Camilla, were jealous of William and Kate’s “drawing attention away from them.” His stories of jealousy sound like projection. But they also make the book feel less like “Clown Turns on Circus” than something more deadly, especially just before Charles’s coronation this May. Harry accuses the tabloids of violating his privacy, and no doubt they often did. What is almost unbelievable is that he is so unmoored and destabilized by this inevitable aspect of fame, especially royal fame. He implies he left Britain primarily because of the newspapers and their criticism of his wife. But the odd, half-mad thing about this book is that in it he violates his own privacy, and that of others, more than Fleet Street ever could. He is careful throughout to say he is telling his story in order to help others, those who’ve struggled with mental illness or been traumatized by war. It is hard to know another person’s motives; it can be hard to know your own. But I don’t think this book is about others. I think it’s about his own very human desire for revenge, to hurt those who’ve hurt him. And to become secure in a certain amount of wealth. And to show his family and Fleet Street that their favorite ginger-haired flake could make his own way, set up his own palace, break free, fly his own standard, become the duke ofNetflix. This book is classic Fredo: “I can handle things. I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb, I’m smart and I want respect!” It is all so contradictory. He says he wants reconciliation but writes things that alienate, he says he reveres the monarchy and isn’t trying to bring it down but he has gone beyond removing bricks from the facade and seems to be going at the bearing walls. I close with a thought on privacy. Prince Harry violates his own. He tells us too much about himself and others. Once there was a reigning personal style of public reticence about private pain. You didn’t share it with everybody, and you didn’t use it for advantage or as a weapon: I have known pain, you must bow before me. The forces of modernity have washed away the old boundary between public and private. It isn’t good. It’s making us less human even as we claim to be more sensitive. But fully mature people still have a sense of their own privacy, they keep to themselves what is properly kept to oneself. Privacy isn’t some relic of the pre-tech past, as I said once, it is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things—the inner workings of your head and heart, of your soul. You don’t just give those things away. Your deepest thoughts and experiences are yours, held by you; they are part of your history. They are part of your dignity. You share them as a mark of trust. This is true intimacy, not phony intimacy but the real thing. If you tell all the strangers your secrets what do you tell your intimates? A friend said the other day: “Most of the forces in the world are pushing toward exhibitionism and calling it honesty. The assumption is if you keep things to yourself you have something to hide.” But you aren’t reserved out of shame, you are reserved out of a sense of your own value and self-respect. And it doesn’t leave you alone; it means you are part of something larger, a whole world of distinct souls. You shouldn’t violate your own privacy, not for attention or admiration, and not for money. It’s a mistake. And it won’t heal you

Great article!  Thank you❤️

[mariacallous]

As the war drags on, Russian soldiers are continuing to abduct and torture civilians in Ukraine’s occupied territories. One of these civilians is Leonid Popov, a 22-year-old Melitopol resident diagnosed with schizophrenia. On April 24, 2023, after being detained and tortured by occupation authorities multiple times, Leonid disappeared from his home. After three months of imprisonment and abuse, he was transferred to a hospital ward, where he was treated for emaciation. Then, on August 2, Russian forces told Leonid’s dad that he was being released — but hours later, soldiers abducted him again. Leonid’s mom recently told her son’s story to journalists from the independent outlet iStories. Meduza is sharing an abridged, English-language adaptation of her account.

Occupation

Me and Lenya, my older son, moved to the Poltava region a few years ago, while my sons’ father — my ex-husband — stayed in Melitopol. Two months before the war started, Lenya went to stay with him in Melitopol.

Then, two weeks before the war began, my ex-husband got into a car accident. He was hospitalized for multiple fractures and memory loss. My younger son, who’s one year younger than Leonid, also went to see him. Soon after that, fighting broke out and Melitopol was occupied. My children found themselves under a blockade.

I wasn’t worried about my younger son; he’s more like an older sibling. He was with his father, helping him, driving him to get his bandages changed.

But our Lenya is a Rain Man. Growing up, he was always different. A wunderkind, a musician. He played in the orchestra, did ballroom dancing, and played chess, traveling all across Ukraine for competitions and winning first place. He competed in chemistry, physics, and astronomy competitions, and outside of school, he studied at the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was a walking calculator — you could give him any difficult multiplication or division problem and he’d quickly give the answer.

But he doesn’t understand people’s emotions. He was always asking, “Mom, what does it mean when you look at me like that?” When his symptoms flared up, he might jump, leap, laugh. Small children really love him. But he can also be very serious, like a sage. He’s very kind and always ready to help everyone. But he’s also very naive and succumbs to pressure — it’s easy to exploit him.

I begged him to leave Melitopol from the beginning. There were evacuation routes. But he said, “I’m needed here. I have to help people. There are grandmothers who are hungry, and I give them bread, I give them porridge.”

The first abductions

In May 2022, Ukrainian mobile networks were disconnected in Melitopol. My younger son left to look for phone service during curfew and ended up in a military office. He told me that everyone who had tried to get service, around 30 people, had been thrown into a crowded cell. There was a single bucket for all of them to use as a toilet.

There was one person in the cell who seemed drunk. He was screaming incessantly. The soldiers said, “Cover his mouth, or we’ll shoot you like kittens.” Then the terrified crowd started to beat the person. Whenever he started yelling, they would choke him to make him stop. Eventually, he died.

That was on May 21. On May 28, Lenya, my oldest son, went to buy shawarma, and there were a lot of young people standing in the same area. Soldiers came up to them, threw them all [into a car,] and drove them to a military office. There, they tortured Lenya with electric shocks. Afterwards, they let him go, but took his passport.

After that, Anna’s younger son decided to leave Melitopol. During the “filtration” process in Chonhar, Russian soldiers beat him and threatened to drive him out to the steppe and shoot him. He ultimately managed to get out and is now in Europe.

Leonid disappears

In the spring of 2023, I saw an announcement that there would be free evacuations from Melitopol with help from Western volunteers. Lenya didn’t have a passport [because the occupation authorities had confiscated it]. By then, they had already started issuing Russian passports, and I told him to get a Russian passport. But he refused; after the electric shock torture, he had made up his mind never to get a Russian passport.

Still, I prepared all of his documents and arranged for him to be taken to safety in Poland, where I would pick him up, and at that point, he agreed to leave.

The volunteers were supposed to pick him up on April 26. On April 24, his father called him, asking him to come see him. Lenya said that he was on Pushkin Street, five minutes away by foot. 15 minutes passed, then 20. My ex-husband tried calling Lenya again, but he could no longer reach him.

I asked my ex-husband to drive [to the house where Leonid had been living during the occupation]; maybe he was asleep or sick. My ex-husband broke down the door, but my son wasn’t there.

The search for Leonid

My ex-husband and his partner went to the police and the military commandant’s office. They officials there said they hadn’t detained anyone for about two months. (As it turned out, this wasn’t true; they had detained many people.) The police wouldn’t take a statement. They said, “Don’t worry, he might have been detained by soldiers — we don’t have any authority over them. They’ll just look through his phone. If there’s nothing bad there, they’ll let him go.”

I started to worry that Lenya’s disorder would worsen because of his abduction. This had happened before: in 2017, he became unrecognizable. A psychiatrist in Zaporizhzhia said that he needed to be hospitalized. He was diagnosed with “undifferentiated schizophrenia.” He spent three months in a hospital, where he was treated with antipsychotics. When I picked him up, I had to re-teach him how to brush his teeth and hold a spoon.

Later, another psychiatrist confirmed that he does have an illness but said he hadn’t received the right treatment and that his hospitalization had been unnecessary. She prescribed a new course of antipsychotics, and after that, Lenya went into a long remission.

When he disappeared, I went insane: Is he even alive? What’s happening? I was scared that the stress would cause him to lose his memory and his sense of reality again. The doctor had warned me that regression was possible and that he could regress to the level of a 10-year-old child.

I put the information on social media and wherever else I could. Ukrainian journalists contacted me; I did an interview and a story came out. But I hid the fact that Lenya had a mental illness. I thought I would lose his trust completely if he found out his mom spoke like that about him to the whole country.

I don’t know whether Russian forces saw these stories or if it was a coincidence, but after the story came out, someone called Lenya’s dad. He introduced himself as a military policeman and offered to meet. He said he was participating in the search for Leonid and asked a bunch of questions about me and his father.

The man put my ex-husband in touch with another police officer, a soldier who introduced himself as Lev. “Don’t worry,” he said when I called him, “We’ll search for him. We’ll let you know as soon as we find him. You need to be calm, your child is fine.” I trusted him. He also said I should stop talking about the abduction publicly so that Lenya would be released sooner.

“Mom, I miss you’

In June, Lenya’s father received a call from someone who said that he was being held in a military office basement with our son. The guy said our son was in critical condition: unable to stand up, exhausted, and constantly whispering, “I want to eat.” He said they were only given water every two or three days. When they were given food, which didn’t happen every day, it was only in very small amounts. He also said they were beaten. If Lenya wasn’t taken out of there, the guy said, he would die.

The men were being held in a military office in an old traffic inspection building. Lenya’s father went there, and a guard came up to him and said no one was being held there. They told everyone that no one’s in there — but in reality they’re holding a lot of people. (Editor’s note: iStories has confirmed that multiple prisoners were held in the building in question.)

I immediately wrote to the soldier, Lev: “Help! My son’s illness is worsening, he can’t starve.” Lev wrote back that Lenya was fine, he was smiling, and he was even making jokes. He offered to pass along a package once a week. Lenya’s father agreed right away. The soldier helped us organize a phone call, and Lenya had a supervised conversation with his dad.

Lev said that Lenya was allegedly being held for taking photos of military equipment.

He sent me a photo of Lenya and a voice message: “Mom, I miss you, I heard your message and started crying. Look, I have emotions now.” He’d had problems with emotions. As soon as I saw my son’s photo and heard his voice, I was eager to go. But the soldier told me, “It’s not worth it. They won’t let him go. You won’t see him, so there’s no point.”

‘They beat me so hard that I couldn’t use the bathroom for four days’

On July 24, Leonid’s father called me and said “Lenya is now going to talk to you.” I was unbelievably happy. But his voice was so weak. He said, “Mom, I’m in the hospital.” And the connection dropped.

Lenya’s father then told me that soldiers had taken him to the gastrointestinal department to be treated for emaciation. He’s 1.95 meters (6’ 5”), but weighed just 40 kilograms (88 pounds). His father took a video and sent it to me. Lenya’s 22 years old, but he was behaving like a child. He didn’t understand anything; he was just repeating, “I want to eat.”

He ended up in a gastrointestinal unit with doctors who hadn’t left [after the start of the occupation]. The gastrointestinal doctor knows me, my deceased mother, and our family. I knew he was in good hands, that they would help him recover. Lenya started to stand up and walk, and he constantly wanted to eat; they would give him two servings at the hospital.

He felt better after getting an IV. He started talking. But he was only able to tell us a small part of what happened to him. He said, “Mom, you know how you said that there’s a hell? Well, I went to hell. I was beaten by soldiers and by my cell mates.” He shared a prison cell with convicts from Simferopol and Sevastopol. He said that he was interrogated at the beginning, that he was beaten constantly by soldiers, and that he was forced to sign some documents, but he couldn’t remember what they said. He was barely fed and only given water once every two to three days.

I wrote to the soldier [Lev]: “My son is emaciated! And you said that everything was okay!” He asked if my son might have some kind of illness. From the very beginning, I had told him that he’s ill and that he’s not supposed to put through stress. But Lev told me again not to worry.

He said, “I fed your son. I brought him sausages and grechka, and I moved him to a good cell.” I don’t know if it’s true. He had lied to me when he told me that my son was happy, well-fed, and doing fine. And I had desperately believed every word I heard.

I told Lenya that there are good people in the world, like Lev, the soldier, since he passed along packages to him and sent photographs of him. “Well, he also beat me during interrogations at the beginning,” he responded. “But whatever you say.”

Lenya said, “I was so scared to fall asleep. I was scared that they would come and choke me again, kill me. I was so thirsty, but they wouldn’t give water. But most of all, I wanted to eat. Then they beat me even harder. They beat me so hard that I couldn’t use the toilet for four days. Why, mom? Ma, maybe you know what my crime is?”

“I’ll never go back there, right?”

On August 2, the local Investigative Committee called Lenya’s dad and told him that Lenya was being released for lack of evidence. His father picked him up from the hospital and drove him back to the house, but they hadn’t even made it to the door when soldiers arrived in a vehicle with tinted windows: Lev and his partner. Lev said that he couldn’t do anything to help, that the case was still open, and that he was facing pressure from his superiors. He handed Lenya a bag to put over his head, and then they taped him up and took him away. A week has passed and Lev still hasn’t answered any of my messages or the calls from Lenya’s dad.

Lenya’s father called the Investigative Committee. They said that they’re sorry but that there’s nothing they can do to help, because they have no power over the military command. They suggested consulting an international organization. I haven’t received any updates about Lenya since then.

The last time I spoke with my son was about an hour before the soldiers took him. He was so happy that he’d soon be free. “Mom,” he said, “I’ll never end up there again, right?” “No, my son,” I told him, “I’ll come to get you.” He asked me to wait so that he could say goodbye to his friends and his girlfriend, who he’d started dating in Melitopol. He told me, “Mom, I kissed someone for the first time. I’m in love.” I told him that we’ll move to Germany where my younger son is, where there’s no war. I said we’ll go to museums and churches there.

He also managed to tell me that there are a lot of people detained at the military office. Most of them are civilians that have been held since the start of the war. Their relatives are searching for them, but they don’t know that they’re there. Some of them have already died, and their relatives don’t even know.

This the 21st century. Our grandparents survived fascism in 1941. Now it has returned, only to another country. Hitler used to exterminate people with mental illness.

The human rights organization Every Human Being is assisting Leonid Popov’s mother. Its employees told iStories that they filed complaints with various agencies in Russia and Ukraine, as well as UN working groups on arbitrary detention. So far, human rights activists have only received confirmation that these complaints have been received.

After the media report about Leonid came out in Ukraine, a man who introduced himself as a military police officer contacted Leonid’s father and offered to meet with him. The man said that Leonid is fine, that he’s being fed, that he’s not being beaten, and that he was allegedly detained for taking photos of military equipment. Journalists from iStories have identified the number as belonging to Igor Kara, a former Ukrainian police inspector from the Donetsk region who defected to the Russian side after the full-scale invasion. On the phone, he initially denied that he knew Leonid Popov before confirming that he spoke with his father. Kara said: “The case of his disappearance is with the Investigative Committee. The Investigation Committee is searching for him.”

The investigator from the Investigative Committee who called Leonid’s father on August 2 and said Leonid could be picked up told iStories that Leonid has been recognized as a victim in his criminal case: “Investigations are underway to establish his whereabouts. He’s not in our custody. Contact the military commandant’s office. We also contacted them. I can’t tell you their response as it’s a classified investigation. I can’t comment on criminal matters in my department.”

[mermaidsirennikita]

plssss when you have the time also list the "pregnancy important to plot" recommendations, too ❤❤😊

--The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham. The heroine suffered a traumatic late term pregnancy loss when she was young, and has since become an accomplished rakes~ who avoids emotional intimacy. She starts a no-strings affair with a widowed single father who's also very leery of pregnancy because he lost his wife and youngest to a hard birth. They actually use Ye Olde Condom, but it falls off, and she gets pregnant (and attempts... to hide it--he finds out in the most dramatic way possible).

--Rules for Engaging the Earl by Janna MacGregor. Heroine and hero were childhood sweethearts, he went off to war and she married another man and got pregnant. Husband dies before the baby is born, and turns out he was a bigamist, so her marriage is invalid; in order to secure her baby's legitimacy, she marries the childhood friend/sweetheart right before the baby is born. He can't deal with his feelings for her and his shame about his mobility issues post-war, and he leaves for like... a year before she forces him to come back and be a husband. I really liked that this one also dealt with disability and accommodations they make during sex to prevent pain.

--The Viscount and the Vixen by Lorraine Heath. Hero's father is this batty old man, and he brings this young lady to the estate all of the sudden--turns out dad put an ad out for a new wife, promising 10,000 pounds to the woman if he didn't follow through on the marriage. Son is sure that she's just a gold digger, so he finds a loophole in the contract--and marries her instead. Turns out she's not a gold digger, but unbeknownst to him she's left an abusive relationship and is pregnant. She decides to pass the baby off as the hero's, but this becomes a lot harder as they fall in love.

--Waking Up with The Duke by Lorraine Heath. Recommended this a lot recently, hero is responsible for best friend's disability/impotence, best friend asks hero to impregnate his wife for him. Hero and heroine fall in love during the babymaking process, it's all very tense and fraught and emotional and AMAZING. There's a scene where they're alone and he's pushing her dress up and she's like "uh we cannot have sex right now" and he's like that's not what this is about... and he just wants to kiss her belly and feel the baby.... pain...... he also gives her a foot massage..... he's amazing.

--The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath. Recommended this a lot recently too. The hero goes on a safari with his identical twin because twin's wife is pregnant. Twin is killed by a gorilla (yes). Before he dies, the twin requests that the hero pretends to be him so that the heroine doesn't miscarry (which she has several times prior). Hero therefore pretends to be his brother, and gets home when the heroine is around 7-8 months pregnant. There's a lot of him caring for her while she's pregnant, carrying her around so she doesn't have to walk, doting on her. He also tries to use the baby as one excuse for why he's not having sex with her, because he doesn't wanna hurt it--this... does not work for long.

--Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas. This is more towards the end of the book, but the third act issue the hero and heroine (who have been having an affair after he inherited her husband's estate) involves her... riding him a bit too aggressively (she's inexperienced and doesn't realize how close he is, it's not a purposeful Daphne Bridgerton situation) and them having an oops baby crisis that he handles very! Badly! Resulting in a grovel.

--Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt. Hero and heroine got married because she was pregnant out of wedlock by another man (who died). She miscarried right after, and they then lived separately for four years, which he was fine with because he's a widower who isn't over his first wife. She returns and basically is like "put a baby in me, don't worry about falling in love". He acquiesces.

--Duchess by Day, Mistress by Night by Stacy Reid. Heroine is a widowed duchess with a young son, hero is a self made man from the wrong side of the tracks. She hires him to find her governess after the girl disappears, and he... would rather not be paid in money. An affair begins, she knows sexual pleasure for the first time, etc--and then she gets knocked up. He's all excited about it, she's hesitant to be with him publicly, LOTS of hurt feelings abound (and the rare heroine grovel).

--Accidentally Compromising the Duke by Stacy Reid. Heroine plans to compromise a friend by slipping into his bedchamber and getting caught on purpose to avoid being betrothed to a sexual predator, accidentally compromises local scary single father duke. He marries her, but is determined to not have sex with her because he's all scarred about his first wife dying in childbirth. This becomes "well I'll have sex with her, but only, like, oral". This becomes "well I'll put it in her but I'll pull out". He fails, she gets pregnant, he blames her, they separate, THE GROVELING AND ANGST IS A LOT.

--The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt. Heroine is a classy upper class hiress, moves to her new estate and begins an affair with the rough and tumble steward. She gets pregnant, and he actually doesn't want to marry her because self-loathing and social class issues--it's very Lady Chatterley. Has an incredibly satisfying and dramatic ending. Think... Shrek.

--The Courtesan Duchess by Joanna Shupe. Hero and heroine have an arranged marriage, he ditches her right after the altar without consummating it. They're separated for like... 6 years, during which he lives on the continent carousing. She has threats breathing down her neck and needs his heir to secure her future, so she basically... trains to look and act and like a courtesan (and mind you, she's heavily made up and wearing a wig when they reunite, so he doesn't recognize her at all). The hero actually totally falls for her during their fling when he thinks she's a courtesan, and once she's gotten what she need (semen it's semen) she runs back to England. He figures out what happened and shows up in their house and she finds him WAITING FOR HER IN THE DARK SMOKING A CIGAR LMAO. And he's all "THE OTHER SHOE JUST DROPPED" and whisks her away in a carriage, and she's like "I'm pregnant" and he's like "well you're a lying liar who lies so I bet you're lying" to which she vomits on his boots. It's hilarious. I love it.

--This Scot of Mine by Sophie Jordan. Hero is Scottish and comes from a long line of men who all die right after their first child is born due to a family curse. He totally buys this and is very gloomy about it--enter an English girl who's been exiled from her family because she's pregnant out of wedlock. They have a physical attraction and he's like omg great compromise, I'll get an heir by just adopting her baby, and he proposes marriage. Problem: she does not know about the curse, and she is actually not pregnant. She made up the pregnancy to avoid a bad marriage. So her natural impulse is to just... have sex with him and get pregnant, and they have this amazing wedding night (or morning) sex, and then he realizes she was a virgin and is like "great, I'm cursed to die when my first baby is born, and I probably just got you pregnant" and she's like "well you probably didn't knock me up in one shot" (he did) and then she's all "well the curse is surely fake" (enter like five near death experiences for this man immediately).

I will also add that Never Seduce a Duke by Vivienne Lorret is out in February, and that one features a heroine on vacation before she goes on the shelf, who gets into this very convoluted and hilarious game of cat and mouse with a SEXY GLASSES-WEARING STERN DUKE, and they fall in love and fuck and then through a series of events and miscommunications they get separated and she goes home thinking he doesn't give a fuck.... and.... OOPS. A fabulous book, I love it so much.

[hybridanafrost]

So I took some minor OCs from the back of my mind and made Jack the Ripper a wifey and some kids.

Name: Lorena Harlow

Age: 28

Birthday: September 26

Sign: Libra

Magic: Hook Magic

Grimoire: 3 leaf

Occupation: Butcher

Lorena is a young, widowed mother who lost her husband five years ago. After he had passed, she went back to her maiden name. She has two young daughters, Agnes (age 9) and Abigail (age 5). In order to support her family as a single mother, she works at a butcher shop and is very talented at what she does. She has a younger brother named Bennett Harlow (age 25) who works as a blacksmith to help keep the family afloat and look after her kids while she's away. One day, after losing most of his wages to gambling, Captain Jack stopped by her shop to sell her his latest kill. He was impressed by her expert knowledge on meat and hunting and asked what time she got off her shift so he could take her out. She initially rebuffed his offer until he found her at the local bar later that evening. Lorena had been drinking alone, as was her personal ritual of celebrating the day of her wedding anniversary after her husband's death. Jack sat next to her, bought her some drinks, and tried again to pick her up. She told him she had children, a detail that usually scared most men away. That didn't intimidate Jack in the slightest, claiming he found young mothers hot. Letting the booze and her natural urges get the better of her, she agreed to sleep with Jack the Ripper that night. She would quip that he was lucky he was built like her late husband because she liked tall men. The two had their night of passion and realized they were incredibly compatible. They began a friends with benefits type of relationship for half a year before Lorena gave him a genuine shot at a relationship. Jack got along well with her daughters, and the two eventually got married. Yami finds Lorena spooky with the way she can talk so casually about taking carcasses apart with her hooks and calls her "Mama Mantis." The nickname stuck with her among the Green Mantises. They admire her and her cooking very much.

Name: Agnes Harlow

Birthday: April 3rd

Sign: Aries

Magic: Knife Magic

Agnes is Lorena's firstborn daughter with her late husband. Agnes is the only one of Lorena's two children to remember their birth father. Being young and finding it difficult to cope with the loss, she develops anger issues. Agnes can be very sweet but has destructive habits. When her magic started manifesting, she began cutting her own hair. Lorena decided to give Agnes the freedom of deciding what to do with her hair, so it looks like a choppy bob most of the time. Once Agnes wasn't paying attention and cut the bridge of her nose by accident, leaving a scar. She usually covered it up with a bandage because she was insecure about it. After getting introduced to Captain Jack as her mother's "friend," she takes to him very well and begins to idolize him. She stopped wearing the bandage because he made having a scarred face cool. After Lorena and Jack explained they wanted to get married, Agnes wasn't as excited as Abigail was since she didn't want to feel like she was replacing her father for Jack. She did admit that she loved Jack and wanted her mom and sister to be happy. It took her a while after the marriage before she was comfortable enough to start calling Jack "dad." He never expected her to, so hearing it warmed Jack's deranged heart. She hopes to become a powerful magic knight someday.

Name: Abigail Harlow

Birthday: May 25th

Sign: Gemini

Magic: Chisel Magic

Abigail is Lorena's second child with her late husband. Her father died when she was still a baby, so she had no memory of him. The closest she ever had to a father was her uncle Ben. So when Lorena brought home Jack, she was very intrigued and bonded with him immediately. She was the first to call Jack "dad" after he married her mother. Abigail is very creative and enjoys carving or whittling with her magic.

Bennett Harlow profile is coming soon!

[silverloreleysfanfics]

WIP part 10

(I think it's n 10, but I'm not sure. Anyway, this is a new bit)

@26ja I said I wanted to post a new chapter since the last one came in December, but I'm stuck with a bit, so here's a snippet for you from a later section.

I know you are a bit wary about the concept of children of main characters appearing in sequels/fics, so I hope you'll like this anyway.

Fantaghirò was lost in contemplation of the sight in front of her eyes: her husband and son, sleeping peacefully, the boy curled in his father's side with his back to her after tossing a lot of times in his restless sleep. She had no will to sleep herself, wanting to commit that image to memory, so many times she had dreamt of if she couldn't quite believe it was real, that she could touch them if she just stretched her hand. «You're staring» Romualdo sleepily reprimanded, eyes half-lidded. «How could I not? I missed you so much» she whispered back. «I miss you too» was the immediate reply, followed by a sad: «But you are just a dream...» She caught a tear rolling down his cheek in the moonlight and didn't resist the urge to wipe it «I am no dream. I'll be still here in the morning» she assured. Romualdo fell asleep again, more serene than before, the only thing that gave her a bit of solace. She lay on her back, looking at the chipped decor of the ceiling, trying to will herself to rest. «Did you really miss us?» a tiny voice asked. She sat up, surprised by Rinaldo's question and the way he sounded fully awake, despite still being in the same sleeping position as earlier. She leaned on her side and whispered back: «Of course I did. Every single day, every minute, even» «Then why you didn't come back?» he was so serious, too much for a seven-years-old boy «Is it my fault? You didn't want me?» he curled on himself further, his little shoulders shaking, and he wasn't looking her way. She got closer, to find out her son was silently crying. Just how long had he held those questions in his heart? How long did they hurt within him, birthing feelings he couldn't name? Gently, she took him in her arms, not minding how heavy he was. She half-expected him to protest and fuss, but he didn't, waiting for her answer, soaking in the warmth he missed his whole life long. «Rin, I wanted you more than anything in the world» she whispered «Since the moment I found you existed, and every moment after, I loved you more and more. It broke my heart being unable to come back to you...» «I don't believe it. Aunt Carolina said you are the strongest and bravest, and you didn't come back...» «Sometimes the best of our efforts aren't enough» she admitted, carding a hand in his curls «Some times we have to try and try again for a very long time before we can reach our goals. But I promise: I never stopped trying. I always, always wanted to come back to you» she felt her own eyes getting moist and she hugged him tighter, hiding her face in his hair «I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I couldn't be there for you before. I never meant to leave you behind» «Is it because you didn't have a mom too?» «Who told you a thing like that?» «Some people in the castle. They said you weren't ready to be a mom because yours died and you didn't know what to do...» «That's something only people who don't know me can say» she interrupted quietly «If anything, I wanted to be a good mom to you because I didn't have one, to give you everything I didn't have. I'll never stop being sorry I didn't manage, I love you so much and wanted to give you all I could. I still want this and I promise you I'll do all I can from now on» The boy curled further in her embrace «You won't leave me again, right? And dad, he was sad too» «Not as far as I'll be able to prevent it» she affirmed «Rin, leaving you wasn't my choice at all. I was taken away by people who needed me but couldn't send me home again after. I've been looking for a way back this whole time and now I have it. You won't lose me, as long as I can, I'll be there for you» «Okay. I believe you, mom» She almost started to cry all over again at the simple word. Instead, she kissed his head and held him close until he fell asleep again.

[devilsrecreation]

That moment when you come up with angsty headcanons about minor characters

Professor Hermonculus:

He still thinks about why his father hates him. He’s cried about it to Bump on two occasions: After he ran away from home and stayed with Bump and after Any Sport in a Storm when he was thinking about his behavior.

Speaking of which, you know that spiky headed kid with the sloth palisman? Believe it or not, Herm actually related to him. The two were having a conversation before class and at one point, the kid said “My dad doesn’t like me.”, to which Herm replied “Oh…I’m sorry. Mine didn’t either.” ….Yeah

Herm gets jealous whenever he sees parents supporting and genuinely loving their kids, since he never got it in his youth

More of a “What if” scenario, but let’s say Hermonculus got into a little spat with his husband, Gunnar, and the last words he said to him was “You are so annoying sometimes. I wish you would just leave me alone!”

Little did he know, Gunnar dies trying to help/save someone and Herm is left with the guilt and regret you’d expect someone to have after saying something negative to a person just before they pass on.

He then starts acting a lot meaner to everyone, especially his students. Bump hears the kids talking about it and soon finds Herm bawling his eyes out behind the bleachers. As they both sit down, Bump lets Herm spill everything: from the entire argument, to how much Herm really loved him even though it was never shown, to Herm’s guilt. At the end, Herm was sobbing about how this was all his fault and Gunnar was always right and “I should have been a better husband”. The one person who’s been by his side no matter what is gone and he hates himself for it. For everything he did.

Now ofc, Gunnar’s not really dead in my mind. He’s alive and well. This was just a thought I came up with for no reason

Osran

What if, in order to keep Osran to shut his mouth about the DOU, Belos used Ophelia against him

Like, maybe he’d say something like how Ophelia wouldn’t believe you and judging by how she is with him, she’d leave him in a heartbeat cuz no one in their right mind would stay with such an asshole and a liar. Gives him the whole “You don’t deserve her.” thing and calls him out on his fear of losing his loved ones. As if he wasn’t terrified already, now he’s afraid of the love of his life leaving him if he ever messed up.

Osran would never admit it when he was younger, but his biggest fear was (and still is, actually) losing his family. The problem is, it keeps happening to him.

-He was probably raised by a single parent and took them for granted—gone before he knew it…and he was only 18

-Terra, more or less—they were friends/frenemies when they were little, then they started dating, then they broke up and he lost her as a friend

-Sid Buls, his favorite professor—last time he saw him alive was when he graduated.

- Riley—we know what happened with them

-His palisman, Auspice—same as above

This is a big reason why he humbled himself, this is why he holds his loved ones so dear to his heart, it’s why he was so overprotective of his kids, one of the many reasons why he treats Ophelia like a goddess, and why he tries not to get too attached to new people

He doesn’t want to lose any of them. Not anymore.

Darius:

I wanna see Darius and one other character in a “Raine’s Rhapsody” situation and while battling, someone looking at a picture with Darius and his adopted kids like “Darius…do you have kids?”

And instead of Eda saying “They’re not MINE, mine”, Darius is like “Why do you think I’m doing this?”. All Darius has are Eber, Hunter, and Salem and he is NOT letting anything bad happening to his loved ones

Vitimir:

Oh boy, here we go:

Evangaline once got severely injured when she was making a new potion with Vit

Being with Vit for so long means she can tell when a potion is about to blow up and she pushes Vit out of the way so he didn’t get hurt again. That resulted in an emergency trip to the Healing coven and Vit being overcome with guilt while on the verge of having both a heart attack and a mental breakdown. Eve has a decent home life, so it was no surprise that her parents were PISSED and would have physically fought Vit if it weren’t for Hettie stepping in. Because of how severe the injuries were (she was barely breathing), her parents forbid him from seeing her, even after she was discharged. Not only that, but Vit had to deal with nightmares about her dying due to his mistake, his experiment, she died because of him. Due to this, Vit had no choice but to push her away since he doesn’t want the same mistake happening ever again.

Now don’t worry, Eve DOES manage to study under him again and even figures out the recipe for the potion they were trying to make, but the journey was pure agony for the both of them. Vit loves her like his own and would never want anything bad happening to her.

[shanehughcs]

━ his father was loud laughter and notebook after notebook of solid writing and was also the smell of vodka and staying up too late for his own good. 'dad, dad, please go to bed,' and his father would laugh and say 'not yet.'

Character name: Shane Hughes

Age: Forty-one

Gender identification & pronouns: Cis-male & he/him

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Residential area: Masonboro

Hometown and length of time in Wilmington: San Francisco and moved to Wilmington 7 years ago

Occupation: Florist and Owner of Branches + Vine

Positive traits: protective, loyal, charming

Negative traits: single-minded, stubborn, relentless

Faceclaim: Jesse Williams

TLDR ; Shane Hughes is the ultimate protector. After losing his mother to his father's abuse, his grandmother to old age, and younger brother to a kidnapping overseas, one might wonder if Shane has experienced far too much trauma for one person. But with therapy and gardening, the florist is finally learning how to navigate the minefield of triggers that life seems to throw at him.

PINTEREST / CONNECTIONS

TW: verbal and physical abuse, parental abuse, parental death, grandparent death, mention of kidnapping, sibling death

From the outside looking in, Dominic and Tracy Hughes looked like the perfect couple with the perfect life. But behind closed doors, Dominic was an incredibly verbally and physically abusive husband. The abuse was so bad, that Tracy isolated herself from her family who had begun to ask questions. When the couple had kids, Tracy hoped that maybe it would calm Dominic down. Instead, the abuse just continued. At first, just verbally, but the pain from being verbally abused by your father wasn’t any less just because it wasn’t physical. 

As the oldest child, Shane did his best to try to protect his little brother, Josiah, from it, but their father was a perfectionist who was impossible to please. Nothing the boys could do was ever good enough for Dominic. Anything they did well at, whether at school or in sports, Dominic hounded on them to practice and get better at, but no matter how much they succeeded, no matter how many awards they won, it was never good enough 

One summer, when Shane was 14, he came home from summer camp and found his father and mother arguing near the top of their staircase. Shane watched as his father shoved his mother and pushed her down the stairs. Tracy broke her neck and died on impact. Dominic ordered Shane not to tell a soul or else he would leave with Shane’s younger brother. Shane felt like he had to protect Josiah and lied to the cops for his father. It is a decision that haunts him to this day. 

Shane was so traumatized by his father and his childhood experience, that he swore he would never, ever be a father. Not if there was a chance he could end up like his own father. He feared for his future children’s lives and for his future spouse’s

Shane grew to become a very determined, very protective, young man. He refused to go out of state for college because he refused to leave Josiah at home alone with their father. So he went to Stanford, living at home throughout his studies, until his younger brother was old enough to go to college as well. During his MBA at Stanford, he met and quickly fell in love with Samira Iyer. He was a TA for several of her classes and the two quickly struck up a close friendship. 

Several years after they had both graduated, they finally fell into a relationship and the years they spent together were truly some of the happiest years of Shane’s life up until that point. They even got engaged, preparing to spend the rest of their lives together, until suddenly two pink strips on a pregnancy test sent Shane’s life into a spiral. 

The positive pregnancy test triggered a lot of unresolved trauma for Shane, and admittedly, he didn’t respond positively, instead immediately going into panic mode. He had assumed that because they never talked about kids, they were on the same page about not wanting them. Evidently, he was wrong. Samira wanted to keep the bably and Shane, in a desperate attempt at maintaining his own sanity, knew he couldn’t be a father. He begged Samira to give the baby up for adoption, but Samira knew she wanted more for their baby and herself, so with the decision to keep the baby, she ended their relationship 

Shane went into a very intense downward spiral. He quit his job, which he been in line for a promotion for, broke his lease, and very quickly left San Francisco. Having put together - through bits and pieces his mother told him - that her family lived in a town called Wilmington, Shane packed up and moved there, only telling his brother, who had become a photojournalist and camera man for a international news agency, where he was going. 

In Wilmington, Shane finally settled himself. He developed a relationship with his maternal grandmother, who loved gardening and taught him everything she knew about plants and flowers. He also finally began to go to therapy, to deal with all of the trauma he clearly still held onto from his childhood. When his grandmother passed away, a year after he moved to Wilmington, she left her family’s fortune to him, and it was just enough for him to open his own floral shop, where he could put the skills he had learned from her to good use. 

Five years ago, Shane got the worst news of his life. Josiah, who he loved more than anyone else in the world, had been kidnapped while working on a story overseas, along with the rest of his crew, and Josiah had been killed. Shane was devastated. He traveled back to San Francisco for Josiah’s funeral and saw his father for the first time in years. The two nearly came to blows when Dominic dared to insinuate that it was somehow Shane’s fault Josiah had been killed. But truth be told, the protector in Shane can’t help but wonder if his father is right. 

He returned to Wilmington, having taken several steps backwards on his healing journey and has been continuing to go to therapy to get to a better place ever since. His love for gardening has turned into a bit of therapy on it’s own and there’s nothing better for him when he feels triggered than to go spend some time in his garden. 

[casspurrjoybell-26]

The Contract - Chapter 27

*Warning: Adult Content*

When Donovan told me he wasn't a good person... I now know he was talking about this."

That's..." I start feeling dizzy. "I don't..."

If this was true and Donovan was telling the truth right now... that would explain why the police and investigators couldn't find anything.

Not a single bit of evidence as to who killed my dad.

The hurt I feel right now was like I had lost him all over again.

Standing up and moving as far away from Donovan as I can, I put try to wrap my head around everything he said.

Alex... drugs... hiding evidence.

That would mean he knew all this time, since the beginning.

I believed him, Donovan and his parents had the means and the money to hide something of this scale.

"Is that why you gave me a chance because of this?" I ask, as my voice wavers.

"Is that why you gave it to me, gave me an apartment and expensive gifts? Because you felt fucking guilty?" I shout loudly, glaring violently as my hands start to shake.

"Of course not, I didn't even know who you were until three months ago."

He stood up and tried to touch me, making me whack his hands away from me.

"I found out because my parents mentioned seeing you on TV."

Donovan sank to his knees in front of me, held onto my waist with his hands and rested his head against my stomach as his body started to shake.

"I never should have gone along with it, the times where I've..." He clings to me harder. "I hate myself for covering for her, after all, she's done, I knew what I did was wrong."

"I stopped seeing my family because of what they did, as long as I kept silent, they swore to leave me alone. I was selfish."

His words turn to static as the picture of Alex smiling is glued to my mind, her smiling, laughing, leaving my dad dying in his car as she drove off.

Donovan... he knew about it, yet still came here.

I almost... fell for it.

"I thought you loved me."

Donovan looks up at me, his face serious as he gets up off his knees and puts his hands on either side of my face."

I do love you. I wanted to tell you... but I..."

I whack his hands away from my face.

"Don't. Just don't," I snap angrily, gripping the bridge of my nose as I try and calm down. "Alex killed my dad and left the scene. Your fucking family hid her. For what? To protect your precious drug addict sister? My dad never did a bad thing in his life. He was a teacher. He volunteered. He..." I wipe my eye as the tears fall. "She should have stopped. If she had... maybe he'd still be alive."

My world broke when I heard he was alone, for hours bleeding out in his car, if she had stopped... called someone, anyone, he would've lived.

"Evan," Donovan's face fell into despair. "I don't know what else to say other than I'm sorry."

He's sorry.

He's fucking sorry.

"My mom," I feel humiliated. "Did you know she turned to drugs after losing her husband?" I ask, as Donovan slowly nods his head. "Sorry doesn't cut it anymore Donovan," I spit out. "Your parents should be in prison."

The room falls silent aside can't even look at Donovan.

It makes me furious to know he knew all this time, for three months and said nothing.

"I agree," he finally says, making me look at him. "They should be in prison and I should be right there with them," he laughs bitterly. "I was selfish, to be rid of my family felt like a good deal rather than justice for your father's death. That decision haunts me every single day."

Donovan.

He had to deal with that type of family, that hiding something so big to escape them felt like his only option.

Just what kind of horrible, evil people are his parents?

"Is there..." I swallow hard. "Is there any evidence left?"

Donovan shook his head.

"No," he said. "It'd be impossible to prove anything in a courtroom at this point."

His eyes go wide as he grabs his phone from his back pocket, swallowing hard his fingers type on his phone.

"My sister... Alex, before she died, she wrote a letter to your family," he says slowly, watching my face. "She wasn't the best of people Evan but at the end of her life, she couldn't live with what she had done."

He hands me his cell-phone.

"I took a photo of that letter before everything was destroyed. I've held onto it, hoping that one day I can ask for forgiveness and redeem myself for what I did to your family."

I take the phone and stare down at the screen.

To Mrs. Beckett and family,

My name is Alex and I killed your husband almost a year ago now. If you're receiving this letter, it's because I couldn't live with what I had done anymore.

If I ever by some miracle get to heaven and meet your husband. I can only hope that I can too tell him how sorry I am.

I have caused so much pain and hurt. I wish I could say this to your face and pay for my recklessness but I'm selfish and have nothing left to live for.

Please never forget that your husband was a great person.

Alexandra Marie Steele