#like not only are you gonna abandon your extremely young son in the care of his grandmother and never visit

[dannybobany]

Really sad omori headcanon I have (small spoilers) (Basil thing)

So, it’s never said which side of the family basils grandmother was on, but in my head she was basils maternal grandmother (as in his mom’s mom) and while this was something I just arbitrarily decided one day and didn’t give a lot of thought to…. Thinking of it now I can’t help but imagine that towards the end of her life Basils grandmother began to mistake Basil for her daughter,

And Basil wouldn’t correct her, wouldn’t tell her how she was mistaken and he was not his mother, he would let her believe that her daughter was there for her, that she had not abandoned them both … because not only did Basils parents leave him in the darkest days of his life, but they left Basils grandmother in the dying days of hers

Basils mother left her son to take her place, to let his hair grow out more then usual, to let his grandmother call him “daughter” when her real daughter had left them both behind :(

(We may not know much about Basils family but where there is potential I will FIND the angst and I will share it with everyone I can to make you all sad too)

[anambermusicbox]

September 29 Day Countdown (26/29): 2016-2018 Radio Interviews on 动感101《小畅翻牌》

2016/12/20

(2:00) Interviewer, knowing Ukraine has renowned music schools, thought Zhou Shen went to Ukraine specifically to study music before she found out he actually was in dentistry and then switched to music; she asks why he went to Ukraine to study.

Zhou Shen: Simple! Because it’s cheap. (T/N: it’s extremely extremely cheap compared to studying abroad in other countries, and Zhou Shen’s family was quite poor)

(3:00) How did you win your parents over?

ZS: I didn’t. I told them, “Hey, I don’t think I can do this” and they were like “What?” I said, “I really can’t do this.” At first, they didn’t really understand what I was going through at the time. They said, even if I had to retake a year or two, they wanted me to keep going. They said, then take some time to improve in the language. I said, “I really can’t do this anymore,” they said no, and later I went against their wishes and applied to the music conservatory anyways.

(7:30) ZS talks about how he didn’t talk to his parents for months after switching schools, until finally his parents told him, “Then in the future, whatever you do is no longer our concern” and then hung up on him. 

ZS: (8:10) They said, okay we’re not giving you money for school, you figure it out yourself. But parents are like this: they say things but don’t go through with it. So they gave me money for tuition but nothing to cover living expenses. (*laughs*) (Interviewer: They said, whether you eat or not is no longer our concern) Yup. (*laughs*) They said they’d give me money for living expenses only if I studied medicine or language. So I had to borrow money from a classmate for food. I held out for 2 months, starved for 2 months before they said, okay since you’re this persistent, even though we’re still against this- (Interviewer: They still don’t want their son to starve to death) Right, they didn’t want to lose a kid. (*laughs*)

Interviewer: (9:00) When did their attitude finally soften towards your decision? 

ZS: After the Voice. (T/N: ZS didn’t tell his parents before he competed on the show; they found out along with the rest of the public when it aired) [...] They thought, ah okay he’ll be able to take care of himself now, he knows what he’s doing.

Interviewer: (9:50) Are they proud of you?

ZS: Oh yeah, they’re absolutely embarrassing. (*laughs*) After the episode aired, my parents- they run a small business, and customers who came by, my parents would be like, “Look :) who this is :)” and the customer would be like “…??…uuhh who is-“ “ITS HUAN YAN, OUR SON SANG IT!!!” (*laughs*) and then the customer is like “uuhhh ehhrmm….” I wanted to die from the embarrassment oh my gOD, it was so awkward. So awkward. Afterwards, I started avoiding being with them when they were with people. (*laughs*) They- they’re parents; they were happy, and then they started to worry. (*laughs*) This career... how long would I be able to do it for...

(11:50) ZS talks about how surprised he was by how popular Big Fish was; after only a few days, a lot of covers started appearing online. The singers for Big Fish and Begonia’s other OSTs were very big names, Eason Chan and Lala Hsu.

ZS: At first, they planned to have another very big name singer to sing Big Fish (T/N: it was supposed to be Faye Wong!), but because of reasons, their plan never came to fruition. The song’s lyricist, Yin Yue, she’s really too good to me. She kept insisting to the director, “Zhou Shen can sing this song, you should let him try,” but the director honestly didn’t care. The production company and the director, they wanted someone had enough influence to promote the film. (Interviewer: But congratulations to them, they ended up choosing the right person for the song! :D)

(19:30) ZS: “[After Masked Singer], my parents, they posted a WeChat moment they was quite touching—they said “Our son sang so well and seeing him work so hard—we want him to continue singing.” (Interviewer: Oh so they go online often?”) Yeah, only because I spent years teaching them.” (*laughs*) 

(19:45) ZS: “Every time I come home, my parents play my songs non-stop. I asked them, aren’t you sick of listening to it? Later I asked my sister, and she told me they play my songs all the time everyday. I felt like, wah (Interviewer: “All these years of being a host, and my own parents are the most avid viewers of my program.”) Wow… auntie uncle, I’m very sorry… (T/N: LKJNASFDFA THIS MADE ME SPIT OUT MY FOOD I WAS EATING HAHAHA) they’re gonna hate me. [...] I think, being a parent is really such hard work.”

2016/12/17

(5:30) ZS talks about how he didn’t sing at all during in his middle school years. Interviewer asks whether he ever tried to conceal his being different from everyone else.

ZS: Actually, when you listen to me talk, I- all these years I’ve already gotten accustomed to making my voice lower, it’s a force of habit. I’ve forgotten what my regular voice is supposed to be like. If I relaxed my throat while speaking it would sound like this—thinner, higher. But now I can’t go back.

(7:50) Interviewer asks whether he’ll try out different styles of music:

ZS: I think right now, people don’t know me well yet. I want people to first know who Zhou Shen is, what kind of songs he sings, and then try other genres, and only then will people want to listen. If release a song, people will be like, who’s Zhou Shen and won’t try listening to it—and if they listen and it’s a genre I’m not good at? Wow, no one’s going to listen.

2018/02/03

(1:50) ZS: “Well for one thing, I really hate my voice. (Interviewer: Why?) A male with this kind of voice is really weird. (Interviewer: It’s unique! It’s memorable. Can you find other people with this kind of voice?) Yup. My dad. (*laughs*) One time, my manager called my dad and he- “Hello?” “Oh hello auntie-” I was like “wAIT WAIT WAIT that’s my dad” (*laughs*) (Interviewer: Can he sing too?) No way, he scares people to death when he sings, he can’t sing. (*laughs*)

(7:45) After Big Fish was released:

ZS: Everyone seemed to like it, it felt- Eh? This is great. After about two weeks though, comments started to appear like: “just found out a man sang this and I feel like vomiting, I deleted this song immediately.” And it wasn’t just this one, there were many comments like it. It was extremely upsetting. I felt like, one of those characters in a sad drama, the kind that gets abandoned and they’re crying like “what did I do to you to make you treat me like this? TT^TT”

Interviewer: It’s like, even if there’s a whole pile of positive comments, if there’s one negative, that’s the one you pay attention to. Even if there are 100 nice comments—

ZS: —if there’s one hurtful comment, that’s the one that sticks with you, exactly! Everyone has this tendency.

(7:20) ZS talks about his duet with Guo Qin again (see translation from another interview talking about it here), how he was just as nervous as he was in his own blind audition and how he would’ve blamed himself if she had lost: “She’s 17—super young, makes me so mad—and she was sitting so calmly; meanwhile, I was standing there, all my limbs trembling—like, who’s supposed to be helping who here?” (*laughs*)

(14:45) About how he’s grateful that he didn’t get popular overnight: 

ZS: If I got popular overnight, I think it would’ve been over for me. Because my singing really did need improvement. Also, I think my album is really important in that in helped me get through a bottleneck period. At that time, I felt like, no matter how I sang it didn’t sound good. I felt like, can I even sing? But the process of recording this album helped me to see where I needed to improve. 

So if I got popular overnight, it really would’ve been over for me, because my singing wouldn’t have improved. It would’ve stopped there. (Interviewer: And you would still believe that you’re really good.) Everyone around you is praising you like (*rapid clapping*) “You sing so well!! You sing so well!! Look at how everyone wants to hire you to sing, you sing super well!!” It’s over- it would really be over. […] I quite like progressing one step at a time.

(18:10) Zhou Shen talks about how, when he got eliminated on the Voice, he wasn’t crying because he lost, but because suddenly going from spending so much time together as a team and having such camaraderie to all but four eliminated was too heartbreaking.

ZS: (20:20) When I got eliminated, I was actually really happy. I don’t like competing, and I felt I didn’t have any pressure on me anymore. I felt bad for Li Wei because I knew there would definitely be a lot more pressure on him now, because now he has to represent our entire team in the future competition. 

After our PK, he—because we both cried so hard—he said (*shrill crying voice*) “Zhou Shen I’ll carry your name and compete to the end!! TT^TT” (*Interviewer laughs*) and I replied, (*shrill crying voice*) “You shouldn’t give yourself so much pressure, don’t carry my name just sing TT^TT” (*laughs*) 

You don’t understand how hard we were crying. After the PK, there had to be a 25-minute intermission because Na-jie had to cry too. So she’s there crying in the mentor area and I’m crying in the eliminated area and Li Wei’s crying in the advancement area. [...] During the blind auditions, every single person earned their place in the team one by one, and now all of them are being taken out one by one—it was quite brutal.

2018/02/10

(1:30) Zhou Shen talks about how he has a longer process to be accepted compared to other singers, because they first have to get over the fact that a man has this type of voice before they truly listen to him sing. Some people react like, WOW amazing!! while others are on the other end of the spectrum:

ZS: Once, I was at a restaurant and at that time, they were broadcasting the blind auditions of the Voice. The restaurant owner just happened to be watching it, and when I appeared, he was like “Eh? Who’s this- WAH-“ and immediately changed the channel. I was like ??? D’: ????? “…can I have some water?” (*laughs*) He changed the channel right in front of me, you know? He didn’t recognize me. It was- (*makes disgruntled noises*) It was really upsetting.

(2:20) ZS, about being on Masked Singer: “That was the first time I felt acknowledged by the sentence ‘wow this girl sings so well!’”

(20:30) In the three years since your debut, have you ever seen a fan who, because of your songs or your voice, their life changed?

ZS: Have I seen that personally? That would be impossible, but I have read about it in letters and comments. There was one comment, this person—they had depression, the kind that they were being prescribed medication for—but they started listening to my music and slowly started to become happier, their mental health improved. I was so astonished—music is really so powerful.

Another one was- to be honest, men with this type of voice are actually not uncommon. It’s really not just me. Once, I was at karaoke with an old schoolmate—middle school or high school, I forget—and he said, “because of you, Zhou Shen, because you sang in that competition [the Voice], I’m now brave enough to sing at karaoke. It feels like, even with this kind of voice, I can sing too.” That moment—I was so moved.

2018/05/19

(3:45) ZS talks about how Gao Xiaosong was really satisfied with how the album turned out, and how Gao Xiaosong is actually really thin.

Interviewer: Why do you always have to mention that? No one is asking about whether he’s fat or thin.

ZS, joking: How else do you think I got this album—I kept complimenting him as thin (T/N: HAHAHAHAHA)

[mrsjadecurtiss]

A different ask! What do you think Roose actually feels about Ramsay? Just before the Red Wedding he talks very dismissively about how Ramsay could be executed for his crimes, but obviously he knows Robb's never gonna get the chance so maybe he cares more than that. But Ramsay (probably) killed precious Domeric? What does he actually feel about him and potential Walda baby(-ies)?

Thank you for your question :) I have divided my answer into points regarding the different aspects of your ask.

What do you think Roose actually feels about Ramsay?

In regards to the Roose-Ramsay relationship, some facts are important:

Roose did not raise Ramsay, and as far as we know did not interact with him in his childhood beyond the two times the miller's wife came to him after his birth. ("She was never to tell the boy who had fathered him." - Reek III, aDwD) All he knew about Ramsay was that he was his son, had his grey eyes, and was "wild and unruly" (the reason Ramsay's mom demanded a servant).

"Lord Bolton has never acknowledged the boy, so far as I know," Ser Rodrik said. "I confess, I do not know him." - Bran II, aCoK

Ramsay only came to the Dreadfort in 297AC (after Domeric died). This is extremely recent - for context, we have Dany chapters in aGoT taking place as early as 297AC, and the War of the five Kings starts at the end of 298 AC according to this timeline.

As a consequence, since Roose leaves the Dreadfort for the War of the five Kings, he assumed a paternal role for Ramsay in between 297AC and at most very early 299AC (The timeline has the battle of the green fork in January 6 and he'd need to travel to the south before that in the first place). This is only between 1-2 years depending on how early or late that year Domeric died (Shoutout to @blueagia who made me realize this timeline years ago).

Ramsay is violent and cruel, but not stupid (Roose even says he is “cunning” in Catelyn VI, aSoS). He was able to present himself as an ally to Theon in aCoK, and it stands to reason he might have given a salvagable impression to Roose at the beginning while he was testing the waters. Ned Stark is a just man who tried to execute the remote-living Jorah Mormont for slave trade; Since he never went after Ramsay, we can assume whatever Ramsay did during his time with Roose was discreet enough that word did not get to Lord Eddard, and so at the beginning Roose must have had no reason to complain too much about Ramsay's conduct either.

Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew. - Jon VII, aDwD

"No tales were ever told of me. Do you think I would be sitting here if it were otherwise? Your amusements are your own, I will not chide you on that count, but you must be more discreet. A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours." - Reek III, aDwD

Roose gets a legitimization for Ramsay as part of his benefit from doing the Red Wedding, showing that back then he still had an intention of keeping him as his son and heir. However, returning from the war in the south shows Roose how bad Ramsay's political decisions are when left on his own, including:

Leaving Donella Hornwood for dead, horrifically abusing Theon who is a valuable hostage and a potential ally, being unable to keep good optics and alienating his allies ("Surely you misspeak. You never slew Lord Eddard's sons, those two sweet boys we loved so well. [...] How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known? Only Lady Barbrey, whom you would turn into a pair of boots … " - Reek III, aDwD), abusing his wife "Arya Stark" who is beloved by their Northern allies, and more...

We see in the aDwD Theon chapters that Roose is still giving Ramsay advice and counsel (see again the Reek III quote), however he also appears to be despairing of him:

"I know." Lord Bolton sighed. "His blood is bad. He needs to be leeched. The leeches suck away the bad blood, all the rage and pain. No man can think so full of anger. Ramsay, though … his tainted blood would poison even leeches, I fear." - Reek III, aDwD

We also see in later Theon chapters that he frequently holds meetings without Ramsay:

[Roose:] "The hall is not the place for such discussions, my lords. Let us adjourn to the solar whilst my son consummates his marriage. The rest of you, remain and enjoy the food and drink." - The Prince of Winterfell, aDwD

Lord Bolton was not alone. Lady Dustin sat with him, pale-faced and severe; an iron horsehead brooch clasped Roger Ryswell's cloak; Aenys Frey stood near the fire, pinched cheeks flushed with cold.  - A Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

[Lady Dustin said] "Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that." - The Turncloak, aDwD

Implying he is losing faith in his son, or otherwise does not trust him or value his input when it comes to political situations; a bad omen considering heirs like Robb usually sit with their fathers in councils.

My impression is that Roose initially adopted Ramsay as an heir for the following reasons:

- Sentimentality, since Ramsay is a son of his own blood ("I should've had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well … but the babe did have my eyes." [...] "Now [Domeric's] bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?" - Reek III aDwD). As a member of a patriarchal society, Roose was raised with the expectation that he will continue his bloodline, and so likely has the wish to be succeeded by his son.

- Practicality, since Ramsay is already an adult, so he doesn't have to raise and invest in another child for years ("That's for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House." - Reek III, aDwD). [Speculation: For a new son, he would also have to remarry, and both his prior wives are implied to not have liked him ("The two before her never made a sound in bed" - Reek III, aDwD) while he also doesnt speak of them with fondness - so he might also prefer to be single and raise his bastard instead of having to deal with yet another unpassionate/unloving marriage (considering he's middle aged and uncharismatic, a young new wife wouldn't be thrilled about him), until he finds a marriage that provides him a good benefit (like the Frey money + alliance).]

- The belief that, despite Ramsay being raised a peasant and having violent tendencies, it is possible to "educate him" so that he becomes a functioning member of society (see again my point about Roose counseling him). Roose possibly initially projects some of his own personality on Ramsay (Compare this meta i wrote).

During aGoT-aSoS he must have still thought Ramsay viable, which is why he has him legitimized by the crown. He has not known Ramsay closely for long; This explains why he kept him around even though he is so unfit as an heir (it takes time to fully realize that), but also explains why he is so dismissive of him, as that short time of knowing him as an adult would not make him fond of Ramsay the same way one might be fond of a child they raised.

Roose then realizes after the war, as seen in a Dance with Dragons, that Ramsay is not a fitting heir. What this means for the later books is open for now... Will he abandon Ramsay? Use him as a scapegoat? Or still try to salvage him? I personally believe he is starting to see Ramsay as a danger, and is starting to think about how to best get rid of him.

Just before the Red Wedding he talks very dismissively about how Ramsay could be executed for his crimes, but obviously he knows Robb's never gonna get the chance so maybe he cares more than that.

My belief is that Roose is fundamentally selfish and worried about his own skin. While he has the goal to establish Ramsay as a capable heir, he prioritizes his own safety and reputation. By distancing himself from Ramsay's crimes in front of the other Northmen, he can't be blamed for them; by using Ramsay as a scapegoat for Bolton crimes, he himself can wash his hands from the involvement and won't be hurt if any crimes come to light. If he keeps pointing attention at how Ramsay is wild/cruel/treacherous, then the northmen are more likely to suspect/blame Ramsay than the "peaceful" Roose. Also, even if he cared for Ramsay, he would never openly admit it because it's something that could be used against him (same reason as to why he generally keeps his emotions under wraps).

If you compare this scene from aCoK (where Ramsay is believed dead) with the scene you mentioned from aSoS, you can see that to prioritize his own safety and reputation he will sacrifice Ramsay; but he will also defend Ramsay ("Yet he is a good fighter, as cunning as he is fearless.") as long as it serves his interests, of course while still keeping an emotional distance.

One important thing about Roose is that he does not always say the things he actually thinks; When looking at his quotes it is not only important to look at what he says, but which intentions he has with his words and what effect he wants them to have on the person listening. Compare this quote by grrm:

Lord Bolton may well have all sorts of things in mind. Whether or not he would act on any of those thoughts is another matter. Roose is the sort of fellow who keeps his thoughts to himself. - SSM

But Ramsay (probably) killed precious Domeric

"Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison." - Roose in Reek III, aDwD

This is speculative, but I personally believe that case is not as clear-cut as it is made to look. Poisoning Domeric does not necessarily seem like Ramsay's style; i often see people in fandom suspect that his mother is actually the culprit. I personally suspect the first Reek of killing Domeric - we know he once stole perfume, meaning he knows his way around the castle, and he also got looked at by a maester implying he might know the maester’s chamber where poisons could be kept. He has ample reason to hate Roose, who let him live with the pigs and had him whipped and later sent him to live with Ramsay, but also seems to have interest in improving Ramsay's status ("She made him, her and Reek, always whispering in his ear about his rights." - Reek III aDwD). He is also known to be inseperable from Ramsay, so if Ramsay went to meet Domeric, Reek would come with him.

Either way it could be that Roose just didnt initially believe Ramsay killed Domeric since it looked like he died from sickness, and only later changed his mind on this issue - note that Barbrey Dustin, whom he is implied to have regularly spent time with shortly before the quote about Ramsay killing Domeric, seems to be a believer that Ramsay was the murderer, so she might be the one who convinced Roose; And maybe Ramsay's bad conduct during the time of the war aided to make Roose believe her. Changing his mind on this could influence his decision on what to do with Ramsay come the Winds of Winter.

Or alternatively, if we’re keeping closer to the text, he just thought the positives of keeping Ramsay outweigh the negatives of him being a kinslayer; however it seems odd that Roose, who is so worried about his safety, would adopt a man if his first act he knows of was this treacherous and dangerous. Then again he frequently verbally states that he does not see Ramsay as a threat, which can be read in different ways depending on if you take it as a literal statement or as a tool to enact dominance over his dangerous son.

"All you have I gave you. You would do well to remember that, bastard.” [...]

“I know what he said. You're to spy on me and keep his secrets." Bolton chuckled. "As if he had secrets. Sour Alyn, Luton, Skinner, and the rest, where does he think they came from? Can he truly believe they are his men?"  - Reek III, aDwD

What does he actually feel about him and potential Walda baby(-ies)?

I think he would like to have a son that continues his values and manages to be a capable heir to continue the Bolton line. Domeric was the ideal son, talented and competent, and Roose invested a lot of time and money in giving him a great education. Now that Domeric died and all of this is down the drain, and Roose himself isn't getting any younger, he wants to have a new heir in a way that's the most convenient for him. It appears to me like he is currently weighing the positives of each option (Ramsay or new Baby), and it might even be that he has already come to a decision, considering how he is starting to grow frustrated with Ramsay.

"I have become oddly fond of my fat little wife. [...] Ramsay will kill [all the sons she bears me], of course. That's for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House." - Reek III, aDwD

In line with my earlier point about Roose’ words also being about the effect and not just the message, I believe the line about him being ok with Ramsay killing his sons might be very calculated towards the fact that Roose knows Theon is to report everything he hears back to Ramsay. If Ramsay hears this, he is placated, because it confirms that he is still the main Bolton heir - which means that he does not have to think about harming Lady Walda (because the sons are no threat to his position), and he does not have to think about harming Roose (because he just has to wait until he can succeed him).

Of course all of this post is based off the first five books, so the interpretation may change once the next book comes out or through a different reading of the lines.

[fulokis]

Wrote this little dadneto in the MCU thing, so have fun. ‘

____

Erik Leshner stood in the collapsed building, next to the bomb siting on the floor looking harmless. He could barely look at the destruction around him. He had left his children in their hands, two of the only people in the world who knew why he had to abandon the twins. Now they were gone, their bodies lie somewhere underneath the rubble their last breaths long gone from their lungs.

The songs of war had moved into the distance, leaving their path of destruction in their wake. A path that his children had been right in the middle of. Erik wanted to scream, to tear the broken building off of its foundations and throw it far away. But deep down he couldn't, he was still too numb from hearing about the tragedy. Not only that but he couldn't destroy  the  resting place of the Maximoffs no matter how hard he tried.

Irena and Oleg, Erik wasn't even sure how he had known them. Perhaps it was through Magda, or perhaps he pondered he had known one of their parents a long time ago. Either way he knew them and despite being so closed off, liked them. They liked him too, by some twisted logic they trusted him and adored him like family. So when he ended up at their door asking them to take the twins, the only reason they hesitated was to make sure Erik had been sure of the decision.

Erik had never been sure of the decision. Now standing here among the wreckage he felt even less sure, as if he had made the wrong one. One of thousands of wrong decisions that he had made in his life. One of many more yet to come. Still Erik couldn't help but wonder how any of this would have turned out had he decided to keep the twins with him. He told him self over and over again that the outcome would have been worse. He could have had an attachment to them, and then have them ripped away from him. Just like so many other people he had cared for throughout his life.

Erik turned to face the giant hole in the building. Snow and ash fell on his hair making it look much more gray than it was. The smell of the cold mixed with the smell of burning wood and plastics from the nearby rubble where buildings once stood. Erik couldn't help but turn again to take a look over the destroyed apartment, hoping to find the bodies to give them a proper burial. All he could see were the shattered remains of items that had belonged in the apartment.  Most items held little to no significance, a broken TV playing some sort of sitcom, the couch where they had told the Maximoffs that they were expecting, the small guest bed strangely still intact.

Erik took a double take, the bed as he had remembered it was hardly steady. For it to survive the initial bomb blast was nothing short of a miracle. An extremely unlikely occurrence considering there was what appeared to be a defective bomb sitting right next to it. That's when he noticed the room itself was not nearly as damaged as it should be. One side had been obliterated, whilst the other remained almost perfectly intact. The other three small rooms of the apartment seemed to be gone themselves, with nothing but piles of concrete in their place.

Erik walked over slowly to the bed and closed his eyes in relief as he heard the squeak of a terrified child from under the bed. Erik chose a slab of concrete to sit down on, trying to make himself less intimidating to the child underneath the bed "Its okay I'm a friend." He said in broken Sokovian.

"You don't speak Sokovian that well." Came a young boy's voice from underneath the bed.

"No I don't. You however speak English quite well for someone your age."

"I'm not young your just old." The child said sticking his face out slightly eyeing Erik with curiosity.

"Peitro don't." A second child's voice came out from under the bed, much softer than the boy's.

"It's okay I don't bite." Erik said, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. They had both survived, and since they had survived one or both of them had manifested their powers.

"What are you doing here?" The boy asked still timid but not nearly as much as his sister.

"I was looking for survivors Peitro." Erik said.

"Hey how'd you know my name!" Peitro yelled.

"Your sister told me." Erik replied knowing he just lied to his kid.

"Oh." Peitro said, inching further out from under the bed, "You look funny, kinda like the people on the TV."

"Peitro!" The girl cried slapping him on the arm.

"Wanda what was that for?!"

"You don't know if we can trust him, besides that wasn't nice." Wanda said.

"You can trust me Wanda." Erik said, "I won't hurt you I promise."

A DVD case flew out from underneath the bed, clearly propelled by something other than a child's physical hand. Erik attempted to dodge the object but failed when it veered off what appeared to be its projected course, hitting him in the shoulder. Wanda peaked out a bit testing the water trying to see if Erik was telling the truth. "You promise?" She asked hesitantly.

"I promise." Erik said reaching a hand out. The girl slid from under the bed into the pale light of the street lamps reflecting off the snow. Erik had expected her to be covered in bruises and cuts, but all he could see was dirt and grime. "What day did this happen?" He asked softly his heart sinking as Wanda took his hand. She looked pale, and it was clear that she hadn't had any food or water in a day or two.

"Friday." She said a distant look in her eyes. Erik could feel his heart clench, last he had checked his watch it was one in the morning on Monday. These children— his children had been stuck up in the building for two full days. Sitting waiting for either the bomb, the exposure, or the lack of food and water to kill them. Erik silently cursed as a tear ran down his cheek. "Are you okay?" Wanda asked.

Erik took his free hand and wiped the tear away, "I'm okay." He said to her trying to reassure himself that he wasn't about to lose it and add to the chaos. "A little ash in my eye that's all."

"What's that?" Peitro asked pointing to the tattoo on Eriks wrist.

Erik looked down and slid his sleeve up a little more so that the twins could see. "I'm an orphan like you." He said quietly, "Some very bad people took my parents away from me. Then they gave me this tattoo and told me to work. There was a lot of killing, and a lot of families were torn apart."

"Are we gonna get torn apart?" Wanda asked.

"No." Erik said, "You two won't because I know you two will stick to each other like glue."

Wanda turned to face Peitro and the boy nodded. "Are you going to take us with you?"

Erik felt his heart sink. That was the exact question he was asking himself. "No, I can't. My work doesn't leave me much time for family."

"What do you do?" Peitro asked.

"Why are you here then?" Wanda asked.

"Slow down." Erik said aiming the comment towards his son than his daughter. "I work on top secret missions for the US government. Missions that don't allow me to have a family." Erik said knowing he was yet again lying to his children. "As to your question Wanda, I knew your parents."

"I would remember you." Wanda said.

"I knew your parents a long time ago, before you were born. I'm sure I knew them as very different people than you did. When I heard about what had happened I had to see. I'm glad the two of you are alive."

"Barely." Peitro said "I'm starving."

"How about this, I take you back to my hotel room and you can clean up and sleep? I'll take you two to the orphanage in a couple days." Erik said knowing it was a stretch. The truth was he needed to make himself scarce soon otherwise the authorities would find him, an occurrence that was sure to become nasty.

"No." Wanda said, "We go to the orphanage in the morning."

"I understand." Erik replied. He did understand, to the twins he was a stranger. A stranger looking to use them rather than it being out of the kindness of his heart. They were probably right, had they been any other kids he would have used them, or even disregarded them and left them to die.

"What now?" Wanda asked.

"Tell us a story!" Peitro said, running to where the bookshelf used to be at a slightly inhuman speed. "Aww they’re gone." He grumbled running back to his sister and Erik.

Erik smiled softly, Magic and superhuman speed, just what the situation would have needed. Magic was in the twins veins, and their mother was quite gifted with her magic. Speed on the other hand seemed to be a new addition to the mutant tree, but that didn't mean that it wasn't predictable. After all Peitro had seemed to be constantly moving around in the womb, and the one time Erik had called Irena, she told him they couldn't stop Peitro from running off.

"Do you have any stories?" Wanda asked looking at her father.

"Yes I do Wanda. Not in books though, stories in my head."

"Tell us one!" Peitro yelled.

"I know the perfect one." Erik said standing up and sitting on the guest bed back against the wall. He patted next to him and one twin sat on either side of him. "A long time ago there was this group of people..."

"Is there any action?!" Peitro asked.

"Why is it always fighting?" Wanda asked "Why can't you accept a peaceful story about people?"

"Shh, there's plenty of both." Erik consoled the twins before starting the story again. "This group of people were fighting for people like them, people who were different."

"Different how?" Wanda asked.

"These people had powers, abilities beyond your wildest imaginations. They fought so others like them and their children could live in a world that accepted them. Some of them looked different, and had strange appearances. Some of them looked like you or me, but had powerful abilities that one would never be able to guess."

"Like flight?" Peitro asked.

"Yes like flight." Erik confirmed the soft smile returning to his face, "They created silly little names for each other, each one embraced a part of who they are. They called themselves the X-men."

"Are the X-men real?" Wanda asked.

"Maybe they were. This was so long ago no one is quite sure. I doubt if they were real they are still around anymore." Erik said pausing to collect his thoughts. It had been so long ago on the beaches of Cuba where he had stood, in his mid twenties and full of rage and anger. That man that had stood there was gone, replaced with a much more dangerous combination of those primal emotions.

"Keep going?" The boy asked leaning in closer to Erik.

"Only if you don't interrupt any more." Erik teased.

"We won't we promise." Wanda said sending a glare towards her brother.

Erik continued to tell the twins the exploits of the X-men. How in the end they saved the world, and how they were held as heroes among the people they had fought so hard to gain acceptance from. How in the end they were forced to keep themselves a secret for fear that they would be hunted down despite their heroics. How even though heroes can do all the right things sometimes life makes them walk a different path.

Erik finished the story and looked down. Both twins were snoring softly, having fallen asleep likely for the first time in days. Erik couldn't keep in the tears, he could feel as they ran down his face. The cold making the trails of moisture they left behind burn on his skin.

He still remembered the last time he had held them like this. Three days after they were born Magda had come down with a fever. Three days after that she was dead, not even the hospital was sure what had happened. Erik still could feel as both newborns were in his arms fast asleep unbeknownst about their mother in pain and agony next to them. He could still feel the tears as he watched the doctors rush in to try and save her. The numbness when it was all over and when the sun rose. He still felt the pain, sometimes as if it were happening all over again. 

That was the first time the twins had lost their parents. Erik knew he changed after that, he always knew he would. Now sitting here holding the twins he realized they never even knew that they had lost their parents before. For them this was the first time they had experienced this, pain that lasts for a life time. Erik had given them up so they wouldn't have to experience this in the event he got into some trouble he couldn't simply solve with magnetism. Ironically that didn't save them. The act meant to save them and let them be children had failed.

So what was stopping him from taking them home? Living a quiet life somewhere? Erik knew the answer, he was afraid. Afraid to loose again. He knew that if he knew them, and then lost them things would go bad very fast. He didn't want that, Magda, his mother, anyone who had loved him, didn't want that. The anger and rage he held would explode, and Erik knew that if he were to explode the world might not be around anymore.

Peitro stirred a bit, and Erik looked down to make sure he was still asleep. Both twins looked a lot like their mother. They had inherited the dark brown hair and the same shaped nose. Peitro's eyes were just like Magda's. Wandas eyes were like his own, as well as her personality. Erik feared for her, not about what had happened but rather what would happen and what events might set her down an even darker path than the one she walked.

Erik sighed, exhausted from finding his way to the small country. He had seen the news, the several city blocks leveled by bombs. Thousands dead by the estimates and thousands more injured. He had come as fast as he could, unfortunately he feared he was not fast enough.

He pulled both twins in closer to him, in the hopes that his body heat would be able to keep them alive for the next few hours. Neither one seemed to mind or maybe they were to tired to even care. For a second Erik could imagine that they were at the little home he and Magda had bought, sitting in the room with the skylight watching the stars. But they weren't and they never would. Erik placed a small kiss on the top of each twins head before drifting off to sleep himself.

Hours later he was woken by the flashlight of a Red Cross worker. Erik wasn't expecting them to have shown up, but it was for all the better considering the twins had to go back into normal society. Although most people would write the story of him floating the three of them in the air down to the ground as the overactive imagination of a child.

The volunteer that had climbed over the building started speaking Sokovian. Erik could barely understand them, and neither twin was up, "Ich spreche Deustch." Erik said without thinking. 

"Um." The young woman said, "Do you speak English?"

Erik chuckled, "Yes I speak English."

"Are you hurt? Are either of your kids hurt?" She asked, slowly trying to remember the right sounds to say.

"No. The kids need food and water though." Erik said softly looking at the twins. They looked worse than they had previously, something Erik attributed to the lack of light at night.

"You are fine?" She asked confused.

"Yes, I'm a friend to their family." Erik said.

"You were not here when the bombs dropped then?"

"No." Erik said.

"Can you carry them?" The woman asked signaling some people at the bottom of the building.

"Yes." Erik said, "One at a time though." The woman nodded at him and Erik stood up sliding Peitro to lie on the bed while scooping Wanda in his arms. Erik nodded at the young woman and she helped direct him to the edge of the building where there was a makeshift rope ladder. Erik took hold of the ladder with one hand holding tight onto Wanda. Erik climbed down carefully trying to protect Wanda from the wind blowing snow and ash their way. Erik made it down and placed Wanda on a makeshift bed in the back of a pickup truck. Erik repeated the same thing with Peitro nearly falling a couple times due to the wind.

Erik placed Peitro next to his sister and looked at the two of them sleeping peacefully next to each other. He sighed knowing what had to come next. He didn't have the heart to wake them up, they needed their sleep. "Don't loose each other." He started to whisper to them "Don't let anyone push you down. Stand up for one another and stick together. The world is hard and cruel, having someone by your side will soften the blows. I wish I did. Don't forget who you are either, don't loose yourselves to the pain and rage. Just remember who you are and you'll be fine."

Erik stood up and looked at the young woman who had climbed down after him. "Can I trust you'll get them somewhere safe?"

"You are not taking them?" She asked confused.

"No." Erik felt his voice crack, "I can't." The woman nodded at him and the small band of volunteers packed up the area. Their sweep had yielded no one except the twins and there was no reason for them to stay in the area. Erik watched as they climbed in the back of the truck protecting his kids. He watched as the trails of exhaust disappeared off into the distance. That was it he knew, he was lucky to even get this chance. For the second time in his life Erik Lehnsherr had abandoned his children, and this time he was even less sure of his decision. But now it was over, he would never see them again, and he knew that was for the best.

[buccigang-headcanons]

La Squadra Backstories!!!! Stream of consciousnesss style!

So literally I just sat down and wrote down exactly what I thought. I have not edited these at all lmaooo. But I made long drawn out backstories for our underrated assassins so enjoy!!

T/W + C/W - idk I talk about people dying in a lot of ways. Child abuse, drugs, severe illness, dead cats. This stuff is a mess I really didn’t censor it. But nothing is described in detail cuz I’m too lazy for that.

————

Prosciutto cuz he’s at the top of my mind. Mmkay he and Pesci are brothers but not by blood. Pro was an orphan, I still wanna make him Russian, and pesci’s extremely kind and gentle family adopted him when he was like 7. They were like literally a garden catalogue family. Perfection. The parents died when pro was like 15, Pesci was 13?? Idk the age difference I’m just making shit up now. And Pesci had no fucking idea what to do, they didn’t have any other family, and pro was like “I’m still basically a hardened criminal from living on the streets of russia most of my childhood, so joining the local mafia should be a piece of cake”. It was.

Risotto..... fuck it. Polpo is risottos dad. I’ve seen that so much and fuck it I’m here for it now. Idk how I feel about the whole Mariah from part 3 being his mom that seems too coincidental. But either way, he is half Spanish. I don’t think he’s ever been in touch with his Spanish roots at all, but that’s what he is. Polpo had too much fun on vacay in Spain. But it was a once night stand and polpo, a skinny king back in the mid 70s, fucked off to do mafia stuff and didn’t know about this kid. Risotto never knew his father. Time goes by, about the time he’s 10, rizzo’s mom moves to Italy to find the man she once loved. Since the 70s, she has been married and divorced 4 times, disowned by her entire family, and she speaks only of Polpo, the man who swept her off her feet and then disappeared into the night. Leaving only this child with his matching eyes. So they live in Italy, risotto is about 13 now and his mom has been searching seriously for polpo for about 3 years. One day, she gets too close, mafia takes her out. Risotto is all alone in a country he has lived in for less than 3 years. So he decides to take revenge against the mafia. He goes to hunt them down. (I’m too lazy to write out how. Gets a gun. Basically the scene in part 5 where the kid is like “you killed my father and now I’m gonna kill you!!” But he chickens out???) yeah except rizzo didn’t chicken out, he stood firm and killed 2 of them. The other 2 surrendered, and immediately asked rizzo to take polpos test. He did. And he unknowingly met his father, the man his mother had died looking for. He stared into his fathers eyes, black sclera reflecting each other, and passed his test with ease.

Wowwwwwwwww alrighty then that was something. Let’s shake out those jitters because fuck that was intense and let’s move onto some happy shit.

Melone!! Always a bottle of joy. He was a phenomenal student, a perfect child. Perfect grades, perfect attitude, perfect looks. Onlyyyy tiny thing is he murdered cats and buried their heads in the back yard. But that was his only flaw. Aaaaaaaand mayyybe trying to use his extensive knowledge of molecular biology and genetics (even at as young as 11) to asexually breed said cats.

But, apart from that, absolutely perfect specimen of a young boy. And he kept that up until college. Until the rape accusation. Melone had no interest in having sex with her, he swore under oath in open court, he only wanted to “extract her essence” in the hopes of making her amazing genetics stay pure for centuries.

Due to his previously amazing school record, he was allowed to plead not guilty by reason of insanity (because the justice system is bullshit) and was released to his parents. During this whole process, Melone’s mother had begun to grow suspicious of her son, wondering if there was something wrong with him. This led her to explore the crawl space under the garage, more commonly known as “Melone’s childhood laboratory”. The cat skulls alone were enough to set her off. They allowed him into their home long enough to fool the court, but parole officers don’t pay attention, and they kicked him to the curb a month later. Broke, alone, and with no real skills other than his genius mind and gorgeous body, he became a prostitute. It was only a few months before he wandered up to a gigantic white haired man with angry eyes and asked if he wanted a date. Instead of declining, our good ol rizzo just knocked him out cold and brought him home. The rest is history. Literally because I can’t think of what would happen between that and Melone joining the mafia. I assume he was just their house pet for a little while before he decided he wanted a stand too.

Oh good lord these are getting insane. Better keep going. Okay I have no idea what’s about to come out of my head for ghia but oh Lordy. Might as well start. Ghiaccio wasn’t always quite as angry, but it’s actually gonna be a sweet story. Kinda. He used to act perfect, even tho he always felt the anger inside. He was forced to bottle it up and put on a happy exterior always. His mother was Belgian. (From experience, Belgian mothers (Flemish in particular) will beat you until your ass is raw if you talk back). Italian father, they lived in italy. He had 4 sisters, he was the middle child of 5. Around high school, he started acting out. Of course this was due to all of his bottled up anger from the past 15 years. 4 shattered sinks, 16 holes in the drywall, and one classroom fire later, Ghiaccio was expelled from school. His parents were too busy brimming with joy about the success of all his sisters that they didn’t take much notice to him. “If you’re going to behave in such a manner you might as well leave” his mother said. She was past the point of caring enough to beat him. So he left. 16 and with no where to go, he wandered the streets. After a year or so, Ghia had gotten used to that life, and was angry at everyone, sometimes when he wasn’t even angry. Anger had become his coping mechanism. Screaming was easier than talking. Until one day, he screamed at a blonde man in an intersection. Prosciutto was driving back to the squads hang out, boxes of takeout in the back seat of the car. He had chosen to not stop at the red light, just for fun, and nearly ran into our blue haired teenager. Ghia proceeded to cuss him out for a good 4 minutes in the middle of this intersection before pro cut him off. “Get in the back. “ he said, with his own special brand of brotherly love. “I know how you can put that anger to good use”. Ghiaccio, having no real reason to object, got in the back seat. Prosciutto was silent the rest of the drive and Ghiaccio yelled about all the take out food, now splattered on the backs of the seats due to the sudden slam on the brakes.

Y’all I don’t even remember the other la squadra members. Let’s do sorbet/gelato because they have zero backstory or personality so I can just ramble. *Clears throat* let’s begin. These fuckers. Friends since birth. Grew up together, always really close. They were both dirt poor, but because the only school nearby was a decent public school, when were able to slightly experience middle class living. They liked it. They wanted to see upper class, and once they did, they wanted to be there. These two were money grubbing bffs, I’m talking josuke and okuyasu, but like waaaaay more intense and also violent. They both left home around 14, together of course. Gelatos father had left them a few years prior, and his family were on the brink of starvation. Figuring they didn’t need another mouth to feed (and completely abandoning his post as family patriarch lol) he left with sorbet, who’s family had all died in various ways over the years. Most recently, his older sister being taken by some illness that was probably easily treatable, but with no means for a doctor, she died in days. The boys left home and school, and made a living by pickpocketing tourists and occasionally launching into larger heists. They made a decent living for themselves, but eventually started spending their money on drugs. It’s was sorbet first, heroin was really good to him for awhile. Gelato was against it, knowing it was the reason sorbets family had been so poor to begin with. His father was an addict, and despite holding down a job fairly well, spent all his earnings on drugs. Eventually he became too dependent, lost his job, and OD’d. But around this same time, when the boys were 16/17, they were starting to realize their feelings for each other. Confused teenaged minds full of budding love led to Gelato giving in, and soon their days were filled with heroin fueled ecstatic sex. They lived like this for awhile, existing in half reality, until one day they chose to set their pickpocketing targets on a short man with close cropped gray hair. The plan was perfect, sorbet bumped into the man and gelato passed by to grab his wallet, and suddenly they were the size of mere ants. In an instant, they were returned to size, left to wonder if it was real or just a hallucination from long term drug use. But they didn’t run. Formaggio introduced himself, with a loose handshake and a pause to spit out some tobacco, and promptly invited them to a “party”. Although, Formaggio was honest in his promise, this party did have drugs.

Cheese boys turn!! Seriously who am I forgetting??? Illuso my mirror man! Am I forgetting someone else too?? Idk. But shut up Kel it’s cheese boys turn.

So. Formaggio. Probably the most chill childhood. Lower middle class, pretty average, but he was quite gifted with sports. Soccer was his main, and also a fantastic competitive swimmer. (Okay I have a separate hc that Bruno is really good at soccer so hol horse up a moment so I can imagine those 2 playing soccer together in friendly competition. In my lil au where Bruno is in la squadra because I say BruPro exes rights please and thanks.) but anyway, he got really good at soccer and was offered a scholarship to play at a fancy pants private high school when he was 14. Of course his parents made him go, this has been the family’s dream for years, and formaggio’s as well. So high school is amazing, he’s starting to attract attention from universities even tho he’s barely in grade 11 by this point. And it’s all really amazing until he realizes. This isn’t what he wants. And it’s just that. He doesn’t want to play soccer anymore, he doesn’t want to potentially be famous. He just wants to be a kid. So he leaves school, he leaves home, he wants to start over. And he wanders into a diner and sees this small group of weirdly dressed men. At this point, it’s rizzo, pro, Pesci, and ghia. And he’s staring at them because they’re dressed like circus clowns but their aura is so murderous. And then the one who looks like a giant pineapple starts staring back. Pesci gets up and walks over to Formaggio. “I know you! You’re that amazing kid soccer player!!” And he just goes on and on about shit he read in the news (70% of it was false) until pro comes over and yanks his idiot brother away. Pro starts asking Formaggio questions, thinking he could be a good target. Stupid little rich kid. But to prosciuttos surpise, Formaggio is just a down to earth kid with no more money to his name than he needs to pay for this meal. Prosciutto takes him home after that. He doesn’t really offer any explanation.

(The rambling at the beginning of this paragraph actually happened lol so I paused for like 4 hrs oops)

Alright we are back. Had to leave to go to therapy and then scream at my mother and cry to my boyfriend but we are ready to go! Illuso and I really hope he’s the last one and I’m not forgetting one. Illuso was raised in an orphanage from infancy. No idea who his parents could even be. Fun fact: one of the nuns at the orphanage (cuz it’s an orphanage in Italy in 1980, they’re catholic.) nicknamed him Illuso because he was always pointing at things that weren’t there. As a tiny baby and a child, he would always be looking at things no one else can see (yes illuso is a natural stand user fight me). The nuns called him illuso as an insult, hoping to shame him into stopping. He never did. When he outgrew the orphanage, he decided to join the priesthood. He was 19, a priest in training, when the mafia came to the orphanage. They were collecting, and illuso knew they didn’t have the money this month. He tried to talk the mobsters down, but that went about as well as planned. 4 bullets to the chest, 3 open heart surgeries, and half a dozen resuscitations later, Illuso was released from the hospital. The orphanage had been shut down, and no one knew what had happened to the children or the nuns. With no where to go, illuso knew of one place that could use talents like his. The talents of steadily stealing money from the starving children of the church for a decade. It was during polpos test that illuso’s stand manifested. Not due to the arrow, but to protect its user from the other stand. Illuso was able to avoid Black Sabbath by hiding in his newfound mirror world until it was time to return the lighter to polpo (kinda cowardly but whatever.) he was assigned to risottos group by chance and was the last to join excluding Melone. But they loved him as if they had found him themselves.

[fundielicious-simblr]

For personality, 3 and 9! For background, 2 and 3. For relationships, 2. And for fun facts, 16 and 17 :) You can pick whichever sim you like!

This is gonna be a LONG one, so grab your popcorn and get ready to scroll 

ooo I think I might pick the first 6 sims from the ‘heir’ family, so I’ll do from Adalynn to Reece - let’s also assume that they’ve already mentioned reading the Bible/devotionals etc because to write it down 6 times would be hella repetitive.

Personality

[3] What are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any particular “favorites” (food, books, and so on)?

Adalynn - One of her favourite hobbies is to play the piano, but with 5 children she doesn’t get to do it as much as she’d like. She also loves spending time out in the yard cultivating her different plants and flowers, when she lived at home she and macie were in charge of their large garden, and now she mainly focuses on growing fruits and vegetables that her family can eat, she’s hoping to one day add a beehive for fresh honey but for now she’s happy with what she’s got.

Barrett - He’s interested in any kind of handiwork, while living at home it was him that maintained different items around the home that needed to be upgraded. Fishing is also a great love of his, probably his favourite, for a while he worked on a fishing boat, but when he and Kyleigh had the triplets he changed jobs to one that would pay more and was more safe.

Macie - Her absolute favourite hobbies are cooking and gardening, she cooks all of the meals for the family and enjoys experimenting with things grown in the garden. She loves taking care of babies whenever she has the chance, which with the family she’s got means there’s always a baby for her to take care of. 

Zoe - Zoe’s absolute favourite hobby is to sing and make music, in-game her character autonomously sits at the piano to play music all the time so I think it fits her personality well. She also spends time writing music, so she’ll read books on music theory from time to time.

Maggie - She took her favourite hobby and turned it into a career, she’s been into photography since she was young but prefers to take more editorial pieces that let her be as creative as she wants. With encouragement from Shane (her husband) she’s gotten more into fantasy series that I imagine are popular in the sims that she never had exposure to as a child (think Divergent series, the Hunger Games trilogy, and the Twilight Saga for true teen cringe)

Reece - Like Maggie, he also took his favourite hobby/interest and turned it into a career, when he’s not working on his freelance programming jobs he’s working on an app. It’s a personal project that he enjoys doing to destress when work get’s a little too much. In my head he’s also going to dabble in robotics, so that’ll appear some time in game.

[9] What are they most afraid of?

For this one, let’s assume they’ve all said “other than going to hell” because again, that shit gets repetitive real quick. Even these are pretty repetitive since its normal for people to be scared of losing loved ones.

Adalynn - Something going wrong during pregnancy or birth, the delivery with Joshua (#5) went wrong and could have ended very badly. The issue with Adalynn is that it’s been put into her head that home births are the best thing, so while she’s afraid of something going wrong, she’ll need her husband Mason to step in and let her know that she has other options.

Barrett - Something happening to his wife Kyleigh in labour and him having to care for their (right now) 9 children. So far the various births of their children have been fine, but there’s always a chance of something happening. There’s also the fear of something happening to someone in his family like his parents and siblings.

Macie - Deep down she’s afraid she’s never going to find someone to marry, she’s in the sims equivalent of her 30s with no man in sight. There’s also the fear of something happening to her family, they are her everything so she hates to imagine something bad happening.

Zoe - Other than losing her family, it would be losing her ability to sing. It’s one of the non-familial things that brings her joy.

Maggie - Losing control of her life, growing up everything she did was dictated, and now that she has more freedom to make her own decisions she’d hate to lose it.

Reece - Reece is scared of becoming a horrible person, he saw with Stacie’s dad and (in less extreme cases) other men how easy it is for power to get to someones head and for them to hurt the ones they’re suppose to love. Men are given all the power and can run wild with reckless abandon at the expense of their family, and Reece would hate to put his family in that position. 

background

[2] What’s their family like?

These 6 are all siblings, so I’ll do one large group answer and try and get all the perspectives in. Their family is a large, very conservative, fundamentalist family with links to many others who believe the same things as them. Their grandfather was a well known politician so they grew up knowing that they were related to someone great, but they never experienced the wealth that one would think comes with having famous family. In their childhoods they experienced a working class/lower middle class lifestyle due to their father not having a full time job other than being a pastor. The older girls took on the brunt of the child rearing as they aged and as a result have more of a mother/child bond with some of their younger siblings, and when a girl gets married there is a lot of tears when they move away. Their parents have your classic fundamentalist christian relationship, their father is the head of the family, under him is their mother, and lastly is them; their mother defers to their father on all decisions, but in this case she realised early on that she has domination of how the home is run and therefore has a bit of leeway to subtlety get what she wants. The children were to obey their parents immediately and without hesitation, so as they grew up, got married, and were able to make their own rules - some struggled with the new found freedom whilst others flourished. With 13 children there’s a lot of personalities and not everyone gets along 100% of the time, so there’s a lot of effort put forward for them all to get along as they’re always seeing each other. 

[3] What factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold?

oo this is interesting cause this is something you’ll see more of in a series I'll be introducing in a bit, but for now I’ll explain their ‘leanings’.

Adalynn - She and her husband Mason are like their parents and remain very conservative Fundamentalists (skirts only, homeschooling their children etc), they also practice the quiverfull (QF) lifestyle and abstain from family planning as they feel God will bless them with however many he sees fit for them. Their parents (and Adalynn’s grandparents I guess) joined an organization called the ‘Centre for Learning and Life’ (CFLL) and attend many homeschool conferences arranged by the organization for those who use their materials. Due to the connections they gained as a result of her grandfather, several members of her family (including her parents) are asked to speak at events on their different areas of speciality. She and her husband actually met at a conference.

Barrett - he and his wife Kyleigh are also like their parents and remain very conservative Fundamentalists (skirts only, homeschooling their children etc), they too practice the quiverfull (QF) lifestyle and abstain from family planning as they feel God will bless them with however many he sees fit for them.Their parents joined an organization called the ‘Centre for Learning and Life’ (CFLL) and attend many homeschool conferences arranged by the organization for those who use their materials - these two also met at a conference that they attended with their families.

Macie - Macie is still unmarried and therefore lives at home. She has the same viewpoint as her parents and older siblings, and should she marry she would live the life her parents did. She attends conferences with her parents, and now is even asked to speak to encourage girls on the value of purity and modesty. 

Zoe - Right now, Zoe and her husband Francisco fall into the category of fundamentalist, but not necessarily QF. They’re both against hormonal birth control, but have been looking into Natural Family Planning as after the birth of their son Javier Jr, Zoe would like to change things up and have more of a chance to plan things out. Zoe still does attend some homeschool conferences when she can, but now her priorities are different.

Maggie - Maggie and her husband Shane are conservative christians, they’re more secular than her immediate family but still conservative enough in comparison to the average sim.

Reece - Reece and Stacie are technically fundamentalists as that is the stance of the church they attend, but in their home they don’t subscribe to every single belief in an orthodox way (see personality Q9 for the reason why) They’re open to children, but with Stacie’s health issues being a factor they’re happy as long as everyone is healthy.

Relationships

What’s their friend group like? What role do they play in it?

Adalynn - Her main friend group are her sisters Macie and Zoe, as well as her sister in law Kyleigh. She doesn’t have much time for socialization but is friendly with the ladies at church and loves fellowshipping before and after a service. With her sisters, Adalynn’s role is the motherly one I guess, always there to lend a listening ear and be a shoulder to cry on. She’s the oldest and has therefore done the most emotional labour on behalf of her siblings. 

Barrett - He’s close with his brothers (despite the age gap), his male cousins close in age to him, and his brothers-in-law. Sometimes a group of them will plan a fishing trip, or a hiking trip, or even just plan to go to the gym together. As the oldest boy, a lot of them look up to him for advice on different things.

Macie - Her closest friend in proximity to her right now is her mother, but she’s also got a great bond with her sister’s Adalynn and Zoe. They formed a strong bond over the course of their childhood, which continues to be strong even after her sisters got married and moved away. Macie’s role amongst her sisters was to always be the voice of reason in terms of the proper way things should be done, she’s also always willing to do something to help someone even if it is a detriment to herself.

Zoe - Zoe is close to her sisters mentioned above, and is now slowly forming a friend group of other military wives whose husbands are deployed in the same area that she is. Amongst her sisters, Zoe is the one to try her hardest to cheer someone up when they’re upset, and it always recommending them something that all cheer them up.

Maggie - Maggie has found a group of girls at her church and at her work that she gets along great with, her gregarious personality means that she’s always making people laugh and can crack joke after joke without pausing to take a breath. Maggie is also close to her sisters, but she’s closest to Macie as they were together a lot growing up, she’s close to her younger sisters as well and also takes on the role of joker in that friend group.

Reece - Reece is close to his brothers and his cousins, his easy going personality means that he can insert himself into any friend group and get along with most people. His quiet yet thoughtful nature means that people can ask him for advice and get thoughtful and helpful answers.

Fun Fact

[16] Which Deadly Sin do they most correspond to? Which Heavenly Virtue?

oo this is interesting, let me pull them up and workout who is who

Adalynn - Sin: Gluttony - She really should've stopped having children like 2 kids ago, but here she is pregnant with kids 6&7 // Virtue: Patience --> She’s honed her patience after years of caring for her siblings and now her children.

Barrett - Sin: This one was a toss up between lust (9 children with idea how many more in the future) and gluttony (having too many damn children) // Virtue: Diligence - He’s willing to put in whatever work is needed to feed his family.  

Macie - Sin: Envy - She’s jealous of all her siblings finding love whilst she’s single // Virtue: Chastity - she loved the extreme modesty rules her parents set in an effort to remain pure, and as a result teaches others about said rules.

Zoe - Sin: Pride - Zoe is talented and she knows it, she’s been praised for her talent since she was a child meaning she’s well aware of her skills // Virtue: Kindness - She truly is really nice, her sim in game has some of the best relationships with other people and a great reputation.

Maggie - Sin: Envy - Maggie spent her childhood envious of other people with more freedom than her to do what she couldn't, she was so envious that she married barely out of high school to make her own rules. // Virtue: Liberality - Maggie is always giving to charity and wants to spend her own money on her own choices, with charities being one of them.

Reece - Sin: Wrath - this is purely from when he and Stacie were still getting to know each other and he had to keep himself from whooping Stacie’s dads ass for being a dunderhead. // Virtue: Diligence - like his brother, he’s willing to do anything necessary for his family.

There was also 17 - but I have literally 0 experience with tarot cards 😂

WHEW this was a lot, but like I said, I enjoy doing these - as I was writing I literally added in somethings that I felt just matched the sims personality, so I have to go update the google doc 😂

[echodrops]

*Slides in on a office chair* Now that you shared some of your HaaH headcanons for Shiro and Hunk, can you do Lance and Lotor?

Didn’t want to post these until I finally had some time to update them a bit and trim out spoilers, but I got a second last night, so here you are:

HaaH Lance and Lotor headcanons:

(Under the cut to save everyone’s dash)

First, a warning: Neither one of these characters’ backstories or plot event headcanons remotely line up with the show, one because I originally wrote most of this stuff around the time season 2-3 was being released and two, because I stopped watching Voltron after season 6 and have no intention of watching the rest of the show due to my dislike for the directions the writing took. I went back and updated some stuff, such as the names of some of Lance’s siblings, to more closely match what came later in the show… but for the rest… I’m just gonna do my own thing and pretend canon does not exist.

Lance:

- The literal definition of “rich as fuck.” When relaxations on economic policy were passed in Cuba that increased opportunities for private business, Lance’s grandfather made a solid deal for three massive sugar refineries. Today, artisanal coffee houses across the world utilize the sugar refined in Lance’s family’s factories.

- Grew up in a giant villa on the peninsula just outside the town of Varadero, on a sprawling property that included a long stretch of beachfront and individual bungalows for visiting family members and the family’s several live-in staff members.

- The whole family is incredibly down to earth despite this. Lance’s aunt and grandmother insist on having a hand in every family meal, Lance’s parents always make time to be involved in the children’s activities, and Lance was taught from a very young age never to take advantage of people, regardless of their position in the world.

- Lance is the baby of his immediate family by almost ten years. He was an accident that occurred after Lance’s mother believed she was too old to become pregnant. Of course his parents never treated Lance like an accident and loved him, but still, Lance has never been able to shake the idea that he wasn’t planned—and therefore he wasn’t wanted.

- He has four older siblings, two sisters and two brothers.

- All of Lance’s siblings are extremely successful in their careers. Lance’s oldest sibling, his sister Veronica, is a captain of the Cuban Navy and commands the impressive warship Audaz. Lance’s second oldest sibling, his brother Yuniel, is a decorated conservational ecologist working to protect Matanzas’ native forests. Lance’s third sibling, his brother, Marco, is a famous solo folk musician who made it big in Cuba. Rachel, Lance’s closest sibling, runs an immersion-based cultural heritage museum that preserves the rich and complicated history of Cuba and its people.

- In short—Lance grew up surrounded by the rampant success of his older siblings, watching as they excelled at everything they pursued—which just bred a greater and greater sense of insecurity in him, as he feared he would never be able to measure up.

- On Lance’s eighth birthday, in an attempt to cheer up his very depressed youngest son, Lance’s father dragged the family’s telescope down to the beach so that they could watch a space shuttle launching from the cape in Florida. At first Lance couldn’t work up the slightest interest, but when he finally saw the huge plume of the shuttle, arcing off into the unknown depths of space, he had a Moment™. Lance knew, right then and there, exactly what he was going to do with his life, something that none of his siblings had ever achieved: he was going to go into space and explore worlds unknown.

- Lance decided that he had, absolutely HAD, to go to Galaxy Garrison when he grew up. This part worried his parents, who pointed out that Garrison was not only in another country but also a solely English-speaking school and extremely competitive. Nonetheless, Lance was determined that he would not settle for anything less than the absolute best.

- Was totally that space obsessed kid. Still thinks Black Holes are the coolest thing in the universe. His parents bought so much “Astronaut” ice cream that they probably kept that entire industry afloat.

- Lance attended Garrison’s summer Astrocamp in Arizona when he was nine. Quickly made friends with his cabin-mate, Hyrum Tava. The nickname “Hunk” came about from a slip-up when Lance tried to compare his new friend to one of his favorite American cartoon characters, the Incredible Hulk.

- Even after leaving the Astrocamp, Lance and Hunk stayed close friends, exchanging frequent emails and phone calls, which helped Lance stay on top of memes popular trends back in the states.

- Shiro was Lance’s cabin leader at the Astrocamp, and his kindness and exciting stories about actually visiting space(!!) made a huge impression on Lance. Lance… may or may not have had a celebrity shrine to Shiro made of photos and news clippings taped to his wall for several years. Whatever, every kid does it and he took it down eventually, gosh!

- Identifies as bisexual, but has never successfully dated anyone, male or female. Due to several bad experiences and close calls, Lance doesn’t talk about his sexuality or express any attraction to men except around people he is extremely comfortable with. Hunk has known for years, of course. (In fact, it was Lance’s struggle with his feelings that helped Hunk develop strong sympathy for LGBT people, despite the fact that his religion is very against it.)

- Never had a real kiss. Might be just a tiny bit desperate to have a real first kiss.

- Also might buy a bit too much into the idea of needing to be stereotypically attractive to fit in. Although his nightly beauty regime is now a comforting routine, it originally stemmed from Lance being extremely self-conscious about his looks. He’s more comfortable about his body than he used to be, but he still frequently compares himself negatively against others; do you know what kind of hell it is to have to share a locker room with people like Shiro?

- Cries at the drop of a hat. Sad book? Sad movie? Abandoned kitten? Dropped something on his toe? Tears times ten thousand. Lance was never pressured by his family to “man up;” in fact, he was always encouraged to empathize, so Lance is extremely sensitive to others’ feelings. (He and Hunk are a great fit in this regard.) He can perceive even minute changes in people’s emotions and is always ready to cheer up people who are down.

- He can’t read Keith for crap though. Not really his fault. Keith’s a literal alien.

- Lance’s extreme empathy actually backfires on him. Because being sensitive to others is second nature to him, it’s often hard for Lance to remember that not everyone is as perceptive as he is. Lance has, many times, mistaken the other paladins’ obliviousness for indifference. Everyone on the ship cares deeply about Lance and would never want him to feel bad about himself—but not everyone on the ship is perceptive enough to notice when Lance’s insecurities are affecting him.

- Wasn’t put in the cargo pilot classes at Garrison because of his flight test scores—most green cadets have zero flight experience and all do pretty badly at first. Lance was placed in cargo class because he scored too high on a combat sensitivity test, indicating that he was a poor fit mentally for becoming a soldier. Fighting monstrous looking aliens is one thing, but Lance would have coped very, very badly if he’d ever been required to kill another human being.

- Struggled to fit in at Garrison. After the crushing disappointment of ending up in cargo class, Lance also dealt with a lot of people treating him like an outsider because he was an international student. “Why is someone from Cuba trying to join the U.S. military? Are you a spy?”

- Couple that with the complicated student visa process and how his status as an international student might affect his ability to take part in Garrison-sanctioned internships and cross-border activities, and Lance felt utterly alienated at Garrison in his first few months.

- May… or may not have done exactly what his parents taught him not to do by looking for a scapegoat to take out his frustrations on. Keith, the lone wolf, ace pilot pretty boy who was too cool to even talk to the rest of the cadets (really thought he was too good to even make eye contact with Lance, huh?!) was an obvious target. Keith had every single thing that Lance had ever wanted in his whole life—the combat class, the talent, the prestige, the respect, the effortless looks—and he didn’t even seem happy to have it!

- Lance had never hated anyone before in his entire life, but Lance hated Keith—Keith basically came to stand in for every obstacle in Lance’s way, every mocking insult thrown Lance’s way, every harsh reminder from the professors that he’d never even be close to good enough, never measure up when someone like that existed… Lance started to honestly believe that the only way he’d ever be able to achieve his entire life goal was if Keith was taken out of the picture—something that proved unfortunately true when Lance was bumped up to combat class the moment Keith went missing from Garrison.

- Lance never actually said any of this stuff to Keith’s face before Keith left Garrison (Lance dreaded his parents finding out he’d been rude), but he would shit-talk Keith to anyone who would listen, a bad habit that was reinforced by people actually accepting Lance more when he started gossiping and spreading rumors than when he’d just tried to be genuinely nice.

- Even though he’d like to repair his relationship with Keith now that they’re teammates, Lance has no idea how to do that after so much time has passed. He really has no clue how to treat Keith normally after building him up into such a bitter rival. It’s… a work in progress.

- A big fan of RPG games and roleplaying. Definitely gets the most in-character when it comes to Monsters and Mana. His favorite thing about meeting new cultures is discovering nifty space items that look like key items from video games. Used to play old school RPGs with his cousins every afternoon. Playing with Pidge is extremely nostalgic for him.

- Has a host of other hobbies that don’t get much use inspace but are nevertheless impressive: he can surf, dive, and was part of a traditional dance group all the up until he left for Garrison. He doesn’t tend to think much of his hobbies as they’re not exactly practical skills you need every day in a space war, but the other members of Team Voltron are quietly impressed whenever they’re reminded of the cool things Lance can do.

- Lance has the strongest bond with his lion of any of the paladins. His connection with Blue is so innate that he can actually activate Blue’s abilities from outside his lion.

- The first one of the paladins to transform his bayard and the only one whose bayard can take three forms. And no, none of the three is a sword because what was the point of that, even??? Lance can wield his standard blaster, a long rifle, and dual pistols. The strength of theshots from Lance’s bayard can be consciously controlled—his thoughts and intentions determine whether a shot has the strength to kill or merely stun.

- Lance’s incredible aim isn’t a natural talent. Actually he’s spent hours and hours in a shooting range he found in the castle, working on perfecting his shot. Just like the gladiator levels on the training deck, the targets in the range keep getting harder and harder, but Lance is progressing very well. No one but Coran knows that Lance has been training so hard with his bayard, since Lance desperately wants to pretend his skill is all natural and has sworn Coran to secrecy. Coran covers for him by pretending he’s sent Lance off on absurd cleaning missions all the time.

- Is 1000% Coran’s favorite of the paladins. Coran won’t even try to lie if asked. Although Coran has never expressed it out loud, he sees Lance as an example of the brave, kind-hearted son he would have hoped to raise—if his son had survived the war. (On Lance’s part, although he’s also never shared this, Coran reminds him very much of his beloved uncle, who passed away when Lance was very young, but whom he still remembers well and extremely fondly.)

- After his uncle passed away, Lance’s aunt moved in with Lance’s parents permanently, and Lance essentially helped to raise his two very young cousins, Nadia and Silvio. Lance does have very good experience with children—unfortunately for him, what human children respond well to doesn’t always work for Galra kids!        

Lotor:

- Has not spent 10,000 years kicking about the universe. We’re not doing that weird “If he’s immortal because of the rift creatures then how come his governess is still alive?” plot hole song and dance routine from the actual show. Lotor was born after the war decimated the Alteans 10,000 years ago, but due to Haggar’s condition (aka being, you know, dead), he was essentially unable to live on his own and was placed in cryostasis very shortly after being born.

- Roughly 20 years before the discovery of the Blue Lion on Earth, Haggar used advancements in quintessence manipulation technology to successfully revive the infant Lotor. But she didn’t wake him for no reason—she has a very specific intention for her son, a long endgame plan, of which Lotor and even Zarkon are currently unaware.

- We’re also not doing that dumb “How could Haggar—the only remotely Altean-looking being in all of Zarkon’s presence—possibly be my mother?” plot from the show either. Lotor is aware that Haggar is his mother, although he has never been able to infiltrate her research facilities and therefore has no idea how an Altean scientist ended up where she did, looking like she did, and siding with the Galra against her own people.

- Because his parents’ past and his own origins are such a mystery, Lotor is obsessed with learning the truth of the war, the Alteans, and every hidden secret from that time period, including Voltron and the mysterious “rift.” He devours any information he can get on this period of history, and especially on Alteans, voraciously.

- But even though he’ll take any pieces of information he can get, Lotor’s real favorite obsession is mythology. He’s a deep lover of folklore and fairytales, bestiaries and local legends, and more than one assassin has traded a good story in exchange for having his life spared. Lotor may or may not hunt for space cryptids in his spare time. However, no single legend occupies Lotor’s mind as much as the legend of the mythical realm of Oriande, home of the ancient Altean alchemists. As practical as he tries to appear, Lotor has never given up his deep-down childish wish to be the one who finds the promised land of Oriande and prove it is real. But when he thinks back… Where was it that he first heard about Oriande, again? Who told him…?

- That entire thing with the hidden Altean colonies is just… not going to happen. The writers were bad and they should feel bad. Although Lotor has looked, after 10,000 years and plenty of centuries of hiding any Altean connections, distinguishing those who still have Altean blood has become essentially impossible.

- Part of the reason Lotor has looked for Alteans is that he was born with a bizarre grab-bag of Altean instincts and abilities and no guidance on how to deal with them, because he’s certainly not going to reveal to Haggar that he has unexplained talents like precognition and the ability to speak to planets. Growing up with half of his bloodline extinct has been ROUGH on Lotor.

- Speaking of growing up… Even though he remains the crown prince on official record, Lotor took the first opportunity he could to leave his parents’ sphere of influence, and he has not physically been back to Galra Central Command in more than ten years.

- Lotor is effectively a universal wanderer. Aboard his personal ship the Urbanus (a Destroyer-class star cruiser which has been heavily modified and improved by Lotor himself), Lotor and his generals travel wherever they like, both within the Galra Empire and outside it, dodging Haggar’s frequent attempts to re-exert control over Lotor and even more frequent assassination and kidnapping attempts from Zarkon’s enemies.

- Although Lotor has a very specific goal in mind, progress on this goal has been slow and painstaking, and he’s often left waiting for the next bare bones clue to chase after; this has resulted in the young prince having an unfortunate abundance of free time, which is dangerous for everyone involved. In between progress on his mysterious life’s goal, Lotor and his generals frequently get into trouble with small planets, local governments, militaries both official and off-the-books, giant monsters, and at least two hundred museum curators. They may or may not be wanted for grave-robbing in 13 different star systems.

- Basically he’s space Indiana Jones, if Indiana Jones was still 20 and also purple and also not being paid enough to be a good guy.

- All that said, as much of a devil-may-care rogue as he’d like to be seen, Lotor did spend all of his childhood under the thumb of the empire’s brutal authoritarian dictators, and he is therefore every inch a crown prince; as befitting one of his stature, he speaks eight languages fluently, flawlessly matches his formal dress to the occasion, knows exactly which piece of silverware to use when, can engage in political battles of wits and diplomatic machinations with the best of them, and has been training in armed combat since he was three years old. Lotor’s impeccable manners and steely leadership ability were literally beaten into him, to the point that now, even among trusted allies, he sometimes finds it difficult to turn off his cold, calculated princely persona.

- Not that his generals really let him get away with that kind of thing for long. Only those who have lived with multiple older sisters can truly understand the constant state of teasing and mortifying blackmail that Lotor lives in. On official record, Lotor’s generals are a crack team of terrifying bodyguards; in practice, they’re more likely to be dragging Lotor for all he’s worth than rescuing him. They might keep up formal appearances in front of others, but they’re effectively a close-knit family behind the scenes.

- It’s not a coincidence that all of Lotor’s generals are women; besides generally being awful, most Galra men make Lotor uncomfortable. From a human standpoint, Lotor is ridiculously tall and powerful; but from a Galra standpoint, Lotor is a thin, unhealthy-looking thing whose stature doesn’t command authority or respect in the slightest. It’s exhausting feeling like you have to constantly prove yourself, so Lotor prefers to spend time with a group that doesn’t invite negative comparison.

- However, it should be noted that a Galra man having only female friends has completely different connotations than a human man having only female friends—Galra women are, on the whole, considered more aggressive, bloodthirsty, and over-bearing than Galra men, so any Galra man who would choose to surround himself with that many women must either be out of his mind or incredibly badass.

- When asked what it’s like to live with four beautiful women, Lotor is basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ personified. Despite living together for years, none of the generals are romantically interested in Lotor and he’s not romantically interested in any of them.

- Many people have incorrectly assumed that Lotor and Axca are a pair, but Lotor helped Axca escape from a slave colony and she will never let another man touch her in her life. Axca is extremely grateful and loyal to Lotor, but given that Axca was Lotor’s first real friend, he’s just as grateful to her.

- If you think I’m killing off Narti, you’re out of your mind.

- Despite the fact that Lotor does not feel connected to the Galra Empire or the Galra as a whole, he’s somewhat more traditional and more likely to conform to Galra social standards than he wants to admit (even to himself). He insists that he has no interest in upholding the classic values of the Galra or meeting their expectations for how a prince should behave—but in truth, it’s impossible to fully kill that deep-down desire to just fit in. When push comes to shove, Lotor always finds himself falling in line with the Galra’s oldest and most deeply ingrained beliefs.

- With Lance in the “has never had a real kiss” club. Is not with Lance in the “wants a real kiss” club. Lotor is actually uncomfortable with being touched by strangers (36 assassination attempts will do that to you) and doesn’t make real friends, let alone anything closer, remotely easily. Some people are open books; Lotor is that one book from Harry Potter that bites people’s fingers off when they try to open it. Once you’re in his inner-circle, he’ll let you hang all over him, but before that, the space bubble is ten feet in every direction.

- Doesn’t actually put any special effort into his appearance. He just Looks Like That™.

- In fact, he actually kind of hates that stupid cowlick hair that’s always in his face but no matter how many times he cuts it off or slicks it back, it just keeps falling right back in his eyes. He’s basically given up at this point.

- His sword’s name is Eris and it was actually forged in the heart of a dying star.

- Kova the space cat hates Lotor. Lotor hates Kova. It’s a mutually antagonistic relationship. Somehow though, Lotor never makes any effort to get rid of Kova and Kova never takes the opportunity to leave. No one else understands it either, especially since Lotor gets along great with basically every other animal he meets.

- He’s not a pacifist by any means, but he is painfully practical and knows that, on occasion, sparing the life of one’s enemy nets more gain than indiscriminately crushing opponents beneath his heel. More manipulative than outright aggressive, he’s easily capable of twisting even the worst of situations to his advantage. Has an unfortunate tendency to be overly cunning—sometimes the tricks and twists he comes up with are unnecessarily full of flourish just because he thinks manipulating people like pieces in a board game is extremely entertaining. Riddles and mind games are Lotor’s favorite—the more convoluted, the better.

- Although most people refer to him by the basic “Prince Lotor” (Lotori Ahn in Galra), Lotor’s full name and official title is Lotori Kir Ahnja Avel i’ya ne Daibazaal, His Royal Highness Prince Lotor of the First Star. As the emperors and empresses of the Galra are said to be physical representations of the goddess, the firstborn children of emperors/empresses are always called “the first star,” after the supposed first creation of the goddess.

- Extremely competitive, but mostly about weird things—like sure he’s going to win if you challenge him to a swordsmanship duel, but challenge him to a staring contest? Your eyes will rot out of your head before this boy will blink. Do not think he will let you beat him in a spelling bee. More than once the generals have had to drag him away from getting involved in the bizarre competitions of the alien cultures they come into contact with. He was 1000% ready to learn to knit eight-armed sweaters with Rikrik fur, thank you. Would totally take up pig-farming JUST to win an Earth state fair.

- Likes to collect interesting artifacts and trinkets of lost civilizations by force if necessary. His ship is basically a floating museum at this point. The generals are starting to worry that they’re going to have add a whole ‘nother deck for all the war prizes Lotor wins himself. Lotor’s gathering hobby extends to games too—he’s a big fan of games that involve sets of items, like Renni, the Galra collectible card game. Would 110% be that Magic the Gathering nerd back on earth.

- In terms of other interests, Lotor is the picture definition of a Renaissance man. Although he’s not a flawless genius savant in every field, he is wicked smart and has studied a vast array of subjects; he’s a capable engineer, a skilled mathematician, a deft philosopher, a good scientist, and extremely well-read, and he is not going tolet you forget any of those things at any point in time. Lotor is always going to be better than you, please just accept your fate.

- Art is… another story. He might be able to sketch detailed architectural blueprints without breaking a sweat but ask him to draw a dog and you’re going to be in for some trouble.

And that’s more than enough for now I think! XD

[missing-fanfics]

A Family Mystery Uncovered

Include the following in your story:

⟡Sunday ⟡secret ⟡wallpaper ⟡swap ⟡sister ⟡curiosity ⟡island ⟡notebook ⟡marathon ⟡demand

A/N: ello Sarah here. Hope you like this weird mess. Honestly these end up really weird and pretty garbage, but hopefully mildly entertaining.

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: nothing I think...?

Charlie Weasley x Fem!reader

~~~~

There was a slight problem arising in the Burrow. Charlie Weasley had a secret. Now secret’s aren’t always a bad thing. Often times they are kept for a perfectly good reason and deserve to be kept. Molly Weasley understood that perfectly well, thank you. That didn’t stop her from becoming very angry at the thought that her second born son was keeping a secret from his own mum.

It started when Charlie would refuse to come back to England. Claiming that their was so much work to be done in Romania. No one batted an eye at his excuses. This was Charlie Weasley we’re talking about, it’s not like he did anything scandalous.

The lies to not return home shifted to being about work to being about his health, his home, to other workers at the sanctuary. It had been a solid 6 months until the last time he’d stepped foot into the Burrow.

This is what had been the last straw for Molly Weasley. Her curiosity clouding her judgment as she aparated to the Dragon Sanctuary.

⟡

With careful steps you stealthily made your way to the unsuspecting dragon. It’s dark grey tail swished in content as it dosed happily in the early Sunday sun. You couldn’t help but smirk to yourself as you remembered Hogwarts’ saying, never wake a sleeping dragon, my ass.

With a loud battle cry you launched herself onto the Hebridean Black’s back. He awoke with a start and cried out in surprise and anger. He started to trash around and spit fire up into the air, trying to kill any danger. You laughed loudly and ran a calming hand down his back and lightly humming.

“Good morning Ewan!” You yelled as you gripped onto his shoulder blades trying not get bucked off. The dragon calmed down slightly when it realised it wasn’t in any real danger. Smilingly brightly, you slid off the dragons in a rather awkward manor. Ewan spun around quickly and started to growl at you.

You put my hands to your hips and glared at the dragon like a mother scolding her children. Although Ewan was still considered a baby he was damn well old enough not to growl at you.

“Yeah yeah save the complaining for someone who cares.” You snarked strolling over to the bucket you dropped as you jumped onto the dragon. His angry expression changed rather quickly when he was the container of food you were bringing to him. For a fierce dragon he sure was a softy for food.

You placed the bucket down and tossed a deer leg into the air. Ewan jumped up and caught it with a satisfying clamp of his powerful jaws. You sighed dreamily as you watched him eat. Ewan was a being you loved to adore and also piss off.

“Oi! Y/L/N!” Someone shouted dragging your attention away from your handsome dragon. You tightened your ponytail and spun around to see a rather buff ginger man walking towards you.

“Charlie!” You yelled grinning at him. He rarely would come into the nursery area, but whenever he did you made sure to leave him in a much better mood. Ewan usually left him with a new sick scar for getting too close to his adoptive mother. But all this was very worth it to Charlie.

You hastily ran over to him and pulled him into a chaste kiss. Both smiling too much to do anything further.

“If I would’ve known you were visiting me I would’ve worn my sexy dungarees.” You teased with a smile. Charlie grinned and pulled you to him with a content sigh. He gripped you by the waist and put his chin on you head.

Ewan growled as he watched the two of you. With a loud huff he took flight and dramatically flew the couple of yards to you.

“Someone jealous.” Charlie said in your ear as Ewan landed loudly in front of you both “He’s always in a constant demand for your attention.”

You smirked at your dragon and pulled away from Charlie regretfully.

Charlie snickered as he watched you tackle the young dragon to the ground. Ewan snorted with glee and chased you around the field.

You had the idea to start building bonds with the dragons in order to be able to do your job safer in the future. This meant you were constantly in the nursery and at this particular moment, playing and taking care of an orphaned Hebridean Black.

You were on the rescuing team when they found him off the coast of Gills cowering for fear in an abandoned nest on the Island of Stroma. You had immediately bonded with him and you stayed with him the entire way back to Romania from Scotland.

Charlie smiled at his girlfriend as you ran around the nursery. You had always done things unconventionally around the Dragon Sanctuary. As a newbie this had gotten you burns and reprimands from your superiors. But as a very experienced magizoologist all of your insane ideas only brought better results than anyone had ever seen.

You were the first person to tame and ride a dragon. Her name was Yeva, you had raised her from a newborn hatchling to a proud powerful adult. The beautiful Ukrainian Ironbelly was a fierce thing to be reckoned with and with a grinning witch on her back, her danger doubled.

Charlie grinned as he watched you run towards him. You unceremoniously slumped down next to him on the beautiful green grass. You grinned as you watched Ewan run around chasing his tail. You watching him in great interest before noticing just how many similarities he had with a dog. Sure an extremely dangerous dog, but a dog nonetheless.

You scribbled your findings into your trusty notebook. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration and Charlie couldn’t help but smile softly as he stared at you. You were simply sitting on the ground, your body covered in dirt from rolling around with Ewan all day. Charlie never thought you looked more beautiful.

You looked up, feeling Charlie’s eyes on you. A grin graced your face, but when you saw his intense expression your smile softened.

“Charlie darling, what is it?” You asked, your voice soft. You tilted your head and moved to sit facing him a little better.

Your notebook was shoved to the ground as Charlie surged on you. His lips meeting yours and you melted against him. His arm snaked around your waist. Soft lips and a passionate kiss, love pouring from him and into you as his tongue traced the inside of your mouth as if he was trying to memorize it. He felt so incredibly warm under your touch and his love burned your skin, absolute adoration coursing through you straight from his own heart.

You felt as if you had just run a marathon but you loved the burn in your lungs. Nothing would separate you from the man you loved. He was the one to break the kiss but leaned his forehead against yours. Both of your eyes stayed shut as you stayed in your intimacy, catching your breaths.

A laugh bubbles up in you as you pressed a quick peck to his lips before standing. His eyes stayed close even after you pulled away, staying in the moment. He opened them after a few moments to see you brushing off your very dirty work clothes.

“Come on big boy let’s go make some lunch. You have Norberta duty today and you need all the energy you can get.” You said giggling. You offered a hand to pull him up which he accepted with a groan.

“I still think you rigged that.” Charlie said swooping down and gathering your notebook and the bucket that once contained deer legs. You snorted and rolled your eyes.

“You can’t rig a game of exploding snap. You’re just a sore loser.” You quipped and reaches up to ruffle his hair. “Unless you’re a really really smart and good looking dragon expert who swapped yours out for a bad one.” He narrowed his eyes at you and shook his head.

“You’re gonna regret doing that.” He said as a mischievous smile spread across his face. Your eyes widened and you took off running to your shared hut. Charlie was faster and grabbed you by the waist and hurled you up. You shrieked out a laugh as he threw you over his one of his broad shoulders.

“Charlie!” You screeched as he started running and you bumped on his shoulder uncomfortably.

“Sorry darling I don’t listen to cheaters!” He yelled and you laughed harder as he ran with you.

Charlie stopped running abruptly as he carried you to your shared hut. The lights were on inside and a comforting scent of food wafted from one of the opened windows. He placed you down carefully, both of your expressions going hard as he pulled out his wand and caustically walked towards the door.

Charlie’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped once he saw his mother bustling around the kitchen. She didn’t seem to notice either of you walk in and you cocked your head to the side trying to see the intruder over Charlie’s shoulder.

“Mum?” Charlie exclaimed finally gaining her attention. She froze from making a seasoned chicken fly towards the stove.

“Charlie dear! I came in to see you but realised you were gone.” She said smiling brightly. You cowered behind Charlie, becoming shy in the presence of the woman that raised your boyfriend.

“Erm mum. This is Y/N.” Charlie said rubbing the back of his neck. Molly’s eyes widened as she noticed you behind Charlie’s stocky frame. “My uh...girlfriend.”

You suddenly wanted nothing more than to blend into the wallpaper as Molly stared at you with an unreadable expression. Charlie cleared his throat and grabbed your hand that was shaking. He ran a thumb over your knuckles trying to soothe you.

Molly watched this exchange and snapped out of her trance. She smiled brightly and rushed over to the two of you.

“Hello dear, I’m Molly. I didn’t know Charlie had a girlfriend, you are very pretty.” She said pulling you into a bone-crushing hug. You laughed as she pulled away. Charlie watched you two with an adoring smile.

“How long have you been together? What’s your name? You work here too? Is Charlie treating you well? You live together?!” You blinked trying to keep up with her questions. You looked to Charlie for help as Molly started to overwhelm you.

“Sorry about that Mum it’s just that I didn’t want to overwhelm Y/N when we were just getting to know one another. It wasn’t intentional to hurt anyone.” He said stopping Molly from her rapid questions at you.

Molly made tea for the three of you. As she sat in your small living room, you and Charlie remained in the kitchen.

“She seems absolutely wonderful, I don’t know why you were so nervous for me to meet your family.” You said taking a sip of the Irish Breakfast tea in your hands. Charlie sighed and leaned against the counter.

“That’s just my mum. If you met my brothers or my sister you’d go running for the hills.” He huffed. You raised an eyebrow at him.

“If they’re anything like you then I’m sure I’ll love them. And even if they’re weird, so what? Weird is more interesting.” You placed your mug down and wrapped your arms around him. His tense posture relaxed as you nuzzled your face into his neck.

“I love you.” You mumbled as he pulled you closer to him. He rested his head onto your shoulder.

“I love you too.”

[actually-2000-mice]

Can we please

CAN WE PLEASE

CaN We PlEaSe

talk about how fucking gorgeous the finale of les mis is

Like these isnt a single part of this song that isn’t just amazing

I particularly love “take my love for love is ever lasting, and remember the truth that once was spoken to love another person is to see the face of god” like if that isnt the most beautiful gorgeous shit ever then what the fuck is. Like just this whole musical is amazing and I love it with all my heart and I just every single character is amazing and essential to the story and just fuck man. 

I also think it is also very interesting because now you finally see Valjean just.. tired.. He has lost everything, then gained everything, then lost everything again over the course of his life. He is tired his life has been hard and difficult and honestly I think this adds so much more meaning to the words “come with me where chains will never bind you, all your grief at last at last behind you, lord in heaven look down on him in mercy” Up until the end he is constantly on edge that he is going to be sent back to prison in his mind the law is always chasing him and he is waiting for it to catch back up to him because honestly in the end I don’t think he still fully believes he deserves to be free and that’s why he is willing to give himself up to Javert as soon as he makes sure Cosette and Marius are okay and that Cosette is going to be safe. He doesn’t stay out of jail because he believes that he is a good man who deserves to be out of jail he stays out of jail because Cosette needs him an he loves Cosette. In death he is being freed by this fear of going back to jail and fear that he deserves to go back to jail as Fantine extends out her hand with this offer of come with me, come to a place where chains will never bind you. She then goes on to say “ all your grief at last at last behind you” His whole life has been full of grief from the very beginning, I mean he stole bread to help his sister and then his sister fucking abandoned him, although he wasn’t super close to Fantine he genuinely cared about everyone and losing her was a pain in itself especially cause he blamed himself (or at least probably blamed himself for this loss) he was there when all the barricade boys died, he thought he lost his daughter and son in law. She is once against extending this hand to allow him to put away his pain his grief his fucking hard as fuck life and go be happy finally and truly I mean this poor man. I then find the line “lord in heaven look down on him in mercy” then continued by him saying “forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your glory” fascinating because like idk maybe this just is me not understanding something about mainstream Christianity cause turns out my cult was a bit different but in the end Valjean was a fundamentally good man even down to the reason he was in prison, he might not believe it but his whole life was centered around helping other people, he didn’t care for his own life he wasn’t selfish even before jail, did jail harden him a bit yes but the bishop melted away that hardness and you see this amazing selfless man who just wants to help other people emerge and I think thats amazing. I don’t really see what needs forgiving and this might be coming from the same person who didn’t understand why we needed to repent every single day but I don’t think he really has anything that needs forgiving he was the literal definition of a g o o d person. Idk if anyone made it this far in this post and understands that line feel free to explain it.

The song then segments into some of my favorite lines in the entire show “take my hand and lead me to salvation, take my love for love is ever lasting, and remember the truth that once was spoken to love another person is to see the face of god” Now part of what is so fascinating about these lines is who says them The first line and second lines are said by Eponine and Fantine and the third line is said by Valjean, Eponine, and Fantine. Now I find this fact particularly fascinating because If you think about it Eponine and Fantine both lived lives that were God damn hard and might even be seen as bad lives or get them marked as bad people by others but in the end they were fundamentally GOOD people who both were given a terrible hand in life and died young. Fantine probably died around 23 ish the brick is really unclear on it but she was young she couldn’t have been older then 17 when she had cosette she was basically the equivalent of some teen who “falls” for a college dude gets knocked up and dumped but on top of that she also was an orphan living on her own. She then needed to provide for her child whom she had living with other people to avoid stigma and she loved her child so deeply that she was willing to give her life to help her child potentially have a better one. She ends up wrongfully getting fired and has to turn to prostitution in order to help her child, she didn’t want to turn to prostitution but she had no other choice this is a 21-22 year old CHILD we are talking about here. She ended up dying without ever seeing her child again even though she desperately wanted to this was the child she gave her life for and she never got to see her again and she was only about 23. Now there’s Eponine Eponine appears to be the antithesis to Cosette, where cosette had a childhood but a good life 8+ Eponine had a relatively good childhood but a terrible life after about the time cosette left. there lives parallel each others in a way but not really at the same time but what makes it that she only appears to be the antithesis to Cosette is the fact that she is a very good person who genuinely cares about the people that she loves very much like cosette. They show the audience and reader how how and where someone was raised really determines so much in their life and in the end compliment each other rather quite lovely if you think about it.   But Eponine was handed a very bad hand in life a hand that led to her dying at no older then probably about 16-17 (I don’t remember is her exact age is if stated) to an outside viewer she was a scammer and a thief when in fact she was a good caring person in a bad situation being abused by her father and just doing what she had to in order to survive and in the end she ended up dying with no one to really truly remember her with in a few years. Now this makes the fact that the two of them are the ones who are saying “take my hand and lead me to salvation, take my love for love is ever lasting” very very interesting because of two reasons 1) because “lead me to salvation” they’re both people to who outside people look like beyond saving I mean you have a prostitute and a thief most people will look at that and judge and think they can’t be saved but here they are looking out to salvation looking to make it to salvation who will make it to salvation because they’re at heart really good people and were doing what they had to in order to survive and help the ones they love 2) “take my love for love is everlasting” Love is all they had to give its all they had to offer but they obviously loved fiercely because thats all they have to give but it is everlasting and is what really really matters in the end. Look at Fantine and Cosette and Eponine and Azelma and Eponine and Marius. Love is all they really had to offer those people but they gave every ounce of love they had and they did everything in their power to help those people cause they loved them dearly. I think it is also very important that it is the two of them saying it cause it gives these words so much more meaning then if literally any other character had been saying it because of their extremely specific life circumstances and how they ended up living and dying. Now we get to the third line “and remember the truth that once was spoken, to love another person is to see the face of God” This is said by all three of them if I ever get a phrase fucking tattooed on me its gonna be this one because h o l y f u c k okay so like Valjean pitches into this one. these three characters have arguably gone through the most out of almost every single other character in this story their lives have been thing after thing after thing gone wrong and hardship after hardship. Now I would say it means more that valjean stayed out of the last one because he had money he had the ability to give more then just love even though he did give so much love it gives the words more meaning that thats all the other two really had to give. But with this line he pitches in to love another person is to see the face of god, the highest best thing you can do is to love another person. In loving another person you see the face of god himself, it is the closest you can get to seeing god’s hand in all of this and I find that beautiful. These three loved with all their might they saw the face of god through all the pain all the suffering because they loved. It speaks to the importance of love because in the end this story would not be the same without the love that is intertwined throughout it, the love that shown through the suffering. In the end honestly I would say this can be applied to our own lives because love trumps all and that’s something I feel like the world has always failed to see love can and will win in the end and you really see this with this beautiful musical.

So then (sorry y’all thought I was done but nope bitch I’ve got more to say) the music transitions to the kinda reprise of do you hear the people sing. “do you hear the people sing lost in the valley of the night it is the music of a people who are climbing to the light. For the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. They will live again in freedom in the garden of the lord. They will walk behind the plow shed they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward. will you join in our crusade who will be strong and stand with me somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see, do you hear the people sing say do you hear the distant drums it is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes. will you join in our crusade who will be strong and stand with me somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see do you hear the people sing say do you hear the distant drums it is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes” Okay oh boy oh boy oh boy do I have stuff to say about this part. Okay so theres a lot to this and I doubt y’all want to hear another 2000 words from me but lets start from the beginning of this. What I find so cool about this is that it really connects the little blurb at the beginning of the brick  “So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century - the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labour, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.” to the musical because it really is a call to action to us now. They don’t end the musical with Valjean dying to they choose to reprise do you hear the people sing they don’t let the story end because the story isn’t fucking over. Nothing ever got solved in the book because it is a story about the miserables, about the poor, about the disadvantaged, the hurting the people of france. There are no “bad guys” in the book because all of them are suffering and there is no clean ending to it all because they were all still suffering and still are. Thats why this story drags in so many fans even now over 100 years later because all of this still largely holds true today because there are still injustices people are still hurting and need help and we need to fucking do something. That future is still on the horizon it is still coming and we need to do something about helping it bring it to past. I could do deeper analysis on each of these lines and the connections in les mis but that would easily be another 2000 works and so I will spare y’all this time. Sorry for the long post I hope y’all enjoy it. 

[slcters]

 「 avan jogia. cismale. he/him. 」i hope that #lexsquad member「 SLATER MALIH SAVALIA 」adds me to the squad ! the 「 TWENTY THREE 」year old 「 LAW 」 major has been apart of the squad since 「 OCTOBER 2018」and seems to be the 「 DELPHIC 」of the group.「 SLATER」is a「 SENIOR」 and seems to enjoy 「 WRITING & PLAYING MUSIC 」but you can always find them at a squad party , too !

TW:  CHEATING, ABANDONMENT, PORN MENTION, DEATH, DRUGS

Anyways lemme give you some info about my man and try to keep it as short ( I lied ) as possible I’ll have some wanted connections at the end so hit me up to plot cause I live for that :) 

NAME: SLATER MALIH SAVALIA AGE: 23 MAJOR: PRE- LAW SENIOR @ LEX POSITION: A DADDY HOBBIES: givin 0 Fucks, living life to the full, writing, being an PI on his dad, spiting his family n causing problems as a FUCK U. BORN: LONDON, ENGLAND. SEXUALITY: A truE WILD BISEXUAL :”)

BACKGROUND: 

So Slater was born in London, England however when he was younger he moved around a lot with his parents until they settled in LA. Mainly for his dads business and his mum had previously lived there too.

His mum was a travel writer which explains why they traveled a lot, his father runs a few escort agencies + brothels ( nevada only we do it legal here )  and also started up his own pornographic production company / film studio in LA. it would probably now be one of the biggest in the world.  ( think vivid entertainment meets brazzers ) u know FILTHY RICH SHIT.

Both his parents were obviously away quite a lot, his dad ran so many businesses and hmm was hands-on lets say but the household was pretty calm when he was fairly young. his mum was super attentive and loving and just such an amazing role model and always wanted to take him with her to show him the world when she had to leave. i think he definitely was a mummas boy.

at about 8/9 however would’ve been when things kind of came crashing down for him. he really caught his dad cheating on his mum w/ one of the porn stars he hired from the studio. His dad would’ve really asked him NOT to tell him mum because it would break their family up. obviously, slater was like terrified of the chance of losing his family so he just pretended nothing ever happened.

he was so conflicted because he was keeping this huge secret and he had so much guilt but he didn’t wanna be the one to ruin things. Like his dad basically used him as a cover like expecting him to lie for him for a long time. it would’ve really eaten away at him. like it would’ve not been a one-time thing, but slater was in denial for sure.

i think one day slater would’ve slipped up in one of his lies for his dad and his mum ended up fighting out what happened and it was such a mess. it would've led to their divorce and god that was.. SOO messy. they defs didnt have a prenup and like the custody.

I think lowkey he was miserable being with his dad, he had so much resentment and sadness there. he would’ve been okay being with his mum the whole time.

His dad was really the type of parent that would use his kids against each his ex wife like they would use slater to pass on messages and being like no u can’t have him for that day etc etc And not taken slater into consideration.

his dad though really tried his absolute best to bring his mum down which was sooo sad to see, like watching her get put through the ringer by his dad and she just became a bit of a shell of who she was, because he obviously had more than enough money to do it and didn’t want her to see a dime of it even tho he.. RLLY BE LIVING THE HIGH LIFE.

slater would’ve just been back and forth between them both up until he was about 15 when his mum, unfortunately, passed away due to drugs. which was SO UNEXPECTED.  i think there was definitely a lot more to it, like she definitely was self-medicating to help go through the still pending divorce. which would’ve lasted years. 

anyways losing his mum devastated slater because truly she was like a best friend to him, she was. he always enjoyed the weeks at his mums more than his dad and now he knew he’d be stuck there.

he fights a lot with his dad still about everything that happened and what he did, he blames him for it and putting a LITERAL KID in the middle.

anyways though since the separation his dad had like a myriad of “ girlfriends” around who were probably all young enough to be like a step sibling tbh. he never took to any of them until his stepmom. who shockingly he actually really likes. shes one thing keeping his family together atm.

 Anyways as you can imagine slaters dads business was huge and his dad is truly raking in the money but slater has always felt uncomfortable spending or even benefiting off it which is why he’s extremely secretive considering he knows where it comes from and he doesn’t exactly support his dad let alone he doesn’t want to have to explain that to people and get them looking into his family.

his father has really tried and put up this front though as if he’s a huge family man now and is conservative and super religious and smh that pissed off slater to the max. he’s like that dont make no fucking sense..

 when he high school hit though they were going to country clubs all that shit slater hated basically. he truly didn’t mind acting out just to spite his dad knowing hey your a family man what are you gonna do about it??

this drove his dad so crazy and only meant more rules were put on him, it was about the only attention his dad gave him.

when hey fight though its really wild, you know slater throws it in his dads face basically just some fucking pimp and exploits people and he’s never gonna do that and he’d rather have nothing than follow in his footsteps

i think his dad has been fined multiple times for some shady shit going on in his businesses. plus its been common knowledge in the depths of the industry they heavily provide them w/ alcohol drugs etc. probably has had an issue with the treatment of the people hes hired. lawsuits.  there's more under the surface that even slater doesnt know.

there would’ve been a bit of a scandal where his dad employed one of his dumbass country club friends daughters aka someone even slater knew to star in one of his adult films

 but regardless like he knew he really was fortunate he lived an extremely privileged life, like he would be set for life, could sit do nothing and its good. he just never had a huge interest in it unlike his father who really always said that he would take over everything someday and it would turn into a huge family business. and he was like yikes someone come tell him.. no thanks. 

 His dad and him definitely had a rocky relationship after his moms death, he  didn’t parent very much and just left his stepmom in so many uncomfortable situations but honestly

 He saw her more as a friend though then a mum but she was the best parental figure he’s ever even had. She’d genuinely try so hard to make sure his dad was acting like one like telling him he’s going to his sons gigs or else even though slater knew his dad would come for 2 seconds to appease his wife then leave.

But growing up he’s always been super careful of who’s around him and who he lets into his life probably as a result of how secretive his family has always instilled in him to be.

 Like his dad keeps saying we’re family we come first, and he never wanted slater to be sharing that with people about what they did.

 But he has such a resentment to his dad, like he thinks he’s a mess he has a wife he doesn’t give a fuck about a son he doesn’t see, he does god knows what he just is so convinced he can’t turn out like him ever. 

I think people genuinely think he must not come from money because the amount of people who have ever met his parents or seen his house is a handful if that. 

Like he’s always hanging out at other people’s places and just he’s never been really extravagant unless its to purposely spite his dad yikes. that comes from anger.

Like he really got himself a job even though his dad said he could come work for him just cause he was like yeah I don’t want to run ur dumb company and make money off it u pos? 

His dad has definitely been investigated a few times for shady practices. slater definitely started looking into law for that reason, like he genuinely thought he wants to actually be able to put guys who screw the system and own huge corporations and think they can pay outta anything in jail.

meanwhile his dad thought great a lawyer who can defend our family business smh so he supports him He has no clue slater would rather take him down.

hes on the dl investigating his dad himself. who wanna help.

PERSONALITY

losing his mom AND one his best friends showed him that he needs to really do everything he wants to and in that moment which does make him selfish at times 

i think he has abandonment issues, i think like when  his best friend who was kinda the reason he came to lex, happened to pass away also triggered that again ( TBD WHY im leaving this open for plots ) and that really shook him all over.

he really almost feels cursed at this stage.

he was pretty sheltered tbh because his dad wasn’t trusting AT ALL and at first was homeschooled until High school so he didn’t exactly grow up outgoing or being able to have many people at his place or tell them about his life.

i think theres not many people who know he’s related to his dad business, even tho his dad business iS HUGE and legit is his last name. and hes like yeah ha coincidence right??? not my dad at all.

He’s super fucking blunt though like he may be secretive with his personal life but his ass does not hold back which has gotten him into way too many problems. 

He just feels like he grew up lying about so much, his dad was like we don't want people taking advantage of you if they find out who you are and use things against me.

 he hated that and all the secrets about his dad he kept so don’t expect him to hold back on feelings or thoughts back at all 

LOVES to spite and piss his dad off even if that means 30+ students at his dads place during a business meeting lets do it.

He acts a lot without thinking like he sucks at planning anything and a lot of time he seems a little flighty and that he doesn’t take things serious enough esp his relationships

.He’d really go above and beyond though for anyone who’s proven to him that they can be trusted like he’s been known to be all in he either gives it everything or nothing so he goes extravagant

will try everything once.

wild child tm.

 his ass was kinda like living it up. he’s like on the brink of i dont want to just use my dads money but he’s like if i am though i wanna use it to actually do something decent, like get a law degree and be something, travel like his mum did. hes obsessed with the thought of like following in her footsteps BUT HE. NEVER ADMITS IT.

feelings who are u?

 He’s definitely a realist and a little bit cynical too, like he’s seen way too much shit to really have some ideal look on life. 

He doesn’t believe in some fairytale or things just happen for a reason or really in fate or anything like that. 

Like he doesn’t think love fixes everything and someone can be your happiness at all . hes like clearly its only problems so.

He’s only ever really had one serious relationship and a bunch of other casual things but that was just nothing to him

 He’s not closed off to them but he picks and chooses what he gives, but he’s just doubtful how someone’s gonna mix well into his life 

He definitely seems aloof and a bit cold but I mean after a drink and 5 minutes he’ll be picking your brain on just about anything 

loves writing in general, usually lyrics and music though.

secretly Loves a good midnight dnm overlooking the water with a trusted friend

 Awesome at getting himself out of situations he can be pretty convincing lbr

lowkey has abandonment issues. 

connections: donnt say im trash i know.

extra drama - his STEP sibling. aka child of his step mom. 

his best friends sibling, aka the one who passed away :”(

someone whose mum dated his dad WILD.

A TABOO FLING OR CRUSH, basically he got with someone he shouldn’t of, we can decide reasons HOWEVER I’D LOVE if the other chara was the ex of his friend who passed away. HED FEEL LIKE SHIT for having feelings. the angst. and the we cant do this its wrong.

I mean... someone who actually WORKS FOR HIS DAD. i would die, could be an escort, a sex worker, someone who is signed to his dads production company, can be a pornstar or more like a cam star too.

someone who is a huge tease and rlly makes his ass beg to be with them. make him work for it honey.

ooo a really GOOOOD friend and they’ve always been “ platonic” but theres this weird sexual tension and they both know it, but like ooo it could risk the frienndship n makee it weird and like ugh.

like someone whose parents hates them hanging around w/ slater bc of his family, maybe bc they ran in the same circles from back home but they just.. cant stay away from each other.

someone hes kinda dated but they realised we’d be better off as friends even tho weve seenn each other naked, it was fun.

One of the people from back home that found out all about his entire family when the scandal was exposed. They could’ve been friends or enemies.

AN ex!! pls he defs has broken some hearts or THE ONE WHO BROKE HIS :) IF U DO THIS U WILL GET SO MUCH LOVE

An enemy Maybe someone against his family or someone he just can’t stand!

THE damn girl his fucking dad tried to employ to be in his damn movie! My ass would do wild shit for this one wild WILD SHIT.

unrequited love, someone's heart he broke without even realising it

A confidant someone he can really confide in tell-all his dumbass shit too, like his protective ass would really care for this person

Someone who’s into music as much as him pLS!! like someone who can just jam with him late nights

He needs that dnm kinda friend 😂

A fwb that’s self explanatory:)

RIDE OR DIES etc

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS.

ANYTHING IM SOOO OPEN FOR PLOTTING

[randomfandomfamily]

now that youe caught on ninjago, even thought both the show and movie are wayyy diferent, whats your thougts on them?

—

Hoo boy, thoughts. I’ve always got plenty of those!

This is so long, oh my god, I’m so sorry.

Well, I loved them both, for sure! The characters in the movie were obviously changed slightly, but not so changed that I couldn’t immediately recognize their personalities. Like Cole’s DJing for instance. That’s definitely not a thing he really did in the series, but he does have a musical background, so it made  sense. Nya and her motorcycle (that she was riding inside the school building… for some reason) was also a neat thing. She said she did the paint job herself, and I can only assume she built it as well, a nod to her many talents. Little details like that always get me, I don’t know what it is. And dude, Jay was such a sweetheart. I have, like, a whole essay about Movie Jay (which I will not put here, don’t worry, this is already going to be too long).

The only real issue I had with them was how quickly they dismissed Lloyd after the incident with the cat. Like, come on, he was trying to do a good thing. They really out here acting like they never did any dumb shit in their lives. And then they decide to listen to Garmadon of all people? Really? Come on, guys. But honestly, that’s my only real complaint for them.

Speaking of Garmadon, what a heccin’ lad. Series Garmadon and Movie Garmadon are damn near complete opposites. Series Garmadon loved his kid, and Movie Garmadon couldn’t care less about him. Then towards the end of the series Garmadon kinda just “Yeah, for sure that crazy chick is my daughter, why not?”, but at the end of the movie we figure out he actually does have some semblance of a conscious.

I was kind of surprised that Movie Garmadon straight up murdered his brother, though (well, kinda). Especially since they were definitely planning on him having a redemption with Lloyd. I thought it was gonna be a deal breaker for sure. But we still got our father/son redemption in the movie (and it looks like we might be getting it back in the series too? idk, the Oni seemed to think he cared about Lloyd in any case).

Now for the younger(?) brother. Everything Wu did in the movie fucking cracked me up. He’s a little more eccentric than he was in the series, but good god was he funny. I must have replayed the Hard Knock Life scene at least five times.  g r e e n .  Wu’s always got iconic lines, both in the series and in the movie. Like, I really wish I had a gif of him from Season 11 shouting “GIVE ME THE TEA!!” so I could send it to people when they got stuff to tell me.

And now for my boy! Lloyd! Too good for this world! I feel like he was more realistic in the movie, what with his teenage impulsiveness (unleash all of the weapons), the Issues™ with his dad, and I like that he was actually a teenager instead of just inhabiting the body of a teenager. Series Lloyd was forced to grow up extremely fast. He was literally an elementary schooler one day, and a high schooler the next. Series Lloyd is still mentally very young, despite his physical appearance, and the series didn’t do a fantastic job of portraying it. But they did a great job portraying the sixteen year old movie version of him. Also, the bullying? How he was trying so hard to keep smiling and act like it wasn’t bothering him? I wanted to hug him so badly. He had more reason to destroy that stupid city than Garmadon ever did, but he still kept everyone safe.

I also really want backstory on how he met the other five ninjas. (i know we’re not really gonna get it, but i will write it myself if necessary)

Oh! And I am so glad he actually had a mother present in his life in the movie. She was so sweet, and trying so hard. Her love for Lloyd made me so soft. She obviously knows that shit happens around the city, that song about him was literally on the radio, and she just wants to give her boy all the support she can. Even if he feels like he doesn’t need it. Also, I appreciate that there was no immediate forgiveness on her part when it came to Garmadon. Trying to shove him in the pool, grabbing him by the collar, pushing him out of her hug with Lloyd. Yas, you spicy queen. He fucked up, call him out. She’s just such an important part of Lloyd’s life, and I wish Misako in the series could have been more like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Misako in the series. I just have very strong feelings about a few of her actions. Like maybe we don’t dump our children at the worst boarding school in the history of ever. With no explanation. And never visit. Like seriously, she wanted to prevent him from fighting and/or becoming like Lord Garmadon, and so she decided to give him abandonment issues? Somehow I don’t think that worked. (also, does she even know how old he is? or how long she left him alone? because i feel like at some point she should have noticed she should have noticed her nine year old son was roughly the size of a fifteen year old). That aside, she is pretty kickass. Not as cool as the movie, but still pretty cool.

Honestly, I just love the whole Ninjago thing in general. Series, movie, it doesn’t really matter. I still love it. And oh my fuck this is so long! Jaysus, I am so so sorry. I don’t know how to give short answers. Ever.

[all-things-skam]

eliott protecting lucas from his dad ( maybe you can also add him a bit of him confronting lucas’ dad over the fact that he financially and emotionally abandoned lucas?)

Anon: Bonjour! Could you write something about Lucas’s dad (he can be a right arsewipe or just a bit dodgy) and other people reacting to it? Thanks \••/

Anon: Overprotective Elliot please

-

Title: Father, dear father

Ship: Skam France | Lucas Lallemant and Eliot Demaury (Elu)

Lucas’s dad wasn’t the father of the year. He was shallow, self-centered and always late.

The young couple had been waiting for him at the restaurant for over an hour and Eliott was starting to get impatient. They had ran across the city to get to this damn dinner in time yet, Lucas’s dad had yet to show up after sixty minutes. Sixty-two!

After twenty minutes of waiting they grew tired and Eliott suggesting ordering some drinks. But as the time passed, he grew more impatient. Lucas knew how exhausted Eliott was having come from a long shift at work, so he agreed to order some entrees and they could order their meal once he arrived. But now, they were long finished their entrees and it was clear that Eliott was not having it.

“If he’s not there in five minute, we’re leaving. I’m not gonna wait here all evening for someone who can’t bother warning that they’re going to be late. That is, if he’s going to show up.”

“He’s going to show up. He told me he would.”

Eliott raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like last week when he said he’d transfer you your part for the rent?” Lucas narrowed his eyes at his boyfriend. “Sorry.”

Eliott was right though.

Lucas owed two months of rent to Mika and his dad still hadn’t transferred him the money after promising him he’d do it. Lucky for Lucas that Eliott had some spare money he could let him borrow. Lucas felt bad for taking so much money from Eliott. He had worked hard to earn this and should be using it for college next year, not pay Lucas’s late rents.

Checking the time on his phone, Eliott stood, about to pull on his jacket when Lucas stopped him.

“Eli, please. Sit down,” Lucas insisted.

Tonight was the first time Eliott would meet his dad and Lucas had been stressing over this dinner for days, hoping everything would go smoothly but, his father’s tardiness was getting on Eliott’s bad side which was not good.

Eliott was already not a fan of how the man left Lucas alone to deal with his mentally ill mother. He was fifteen for fuck’s sake. At fifteen, you should be making new experiences and skateboarding with your friends. He shouldn’t have been the one dealing his schizophrenic mother, it was his dad’s duty - even if they were getting a divorce.

It was almost 8pm when a familiar face took a seat in front of Lucas, acting as if nothing happened. He snapped his fingers at the waitress passing by, calling for a rhum on ice and gave his son a cold hello before glancing at the unfamiliar face.

“I’m Stéphane, you must be Elio.”

“It’s Eliott.”

“Did you change your shifts at work? You used to have weekends off,” Lucas asked, trying to justify his dad’s tardiness.

The man pulled his eyebrows. “I wasn’t at work. Why would I be at work on a Saturday?”

“What held you back, then?” Eliott asked, saying what Lucas didn’t dare asking.

A part of him understood why he didn’t ask. From what Eliott knew, Stéphane had left Lucas and his mom and moved across the city in a condo. Lucas was probably afraid of discovering that would break his heart like his dad having a new girlfriend. The divorce had been finalized two months ago, it was a bit fast to be moving on and it was unfair to Lucas’s mom who had no say in this divorce yet was still under Stéphane’s responsibility.

“I’m sorry?”

“We agreed to meet here at 6:30, and it’s 8pm.”

“Did we?”

“Lucas sent you texts and called you two times, did you not read them?”

Lucas put his hand on Eliott’s thigh, squeezing, silently asking him to calm down. He didn’t want his boyfriend to get into an argument with his dad on their first meeting.

“Well, at least I’m here,” he laughed, but Eliott was not having it. It was anything but funny.

The waitress came with Stéphane’s drink and brought a menu table for him.

Eliott was now protectively holding Lucas’s hand. He was hoping that holding the younger boy’s hand would prevent him from lashing out at his dad, that Lucas’s touch would calm him down. Eliott was never a particularly violent person and he rarely got angry. But, when it came to Lucas, it was a different story.

He gave the man a stern look and just shook his head. “It was you who wanted to meet up, maybe consider being on time next time,” Eliott muttered bitterly in a quiet voice.

Stéphane took a sip of his drink and, just as he put it down, his phone went off. He checked the screen and smiled. “Excuse me. I have to take this, it’s my fiancé.”

As soon as Lucas heard the word ‘fiancé’, he felt like he’d been stabbed. In every argument with his mom he would say that he would never make the same mistake again and that he would never get married. Just another one of his lies and this was not the time for Lucas to find out. He had left his mom and him to their own devices just to go and play happy family with some other women. What was worst was the smile that rose on his face as he talked to her on the phone.

Everything was hurting in that moment. Lucas felt tears filling up his eyes, he knew he was about to cry but he didn’t want to cause a scene at the restaurant so he quickly stood up and ran to the bathroom.

“Lucas?” Stéphane said, watching his son leave the table, completely clueless. He told his fiancé that he would call her back in a minute and hung up. “What’s up with him? Is he feeling sick or something?” he asked Eliott. Does he not know what he did wrong?

Eliott wanted to follow him, knowing he might need comfort, but he had something else to do beforehand.

“I was holding myself back for Lucas but now that he left, all thanks to you, I might as well be honest with you. Do you know how much this dinner meant to him? Beside his mom, you’re all he has. He keeps giving you chances, thinking you’ll do good yet, you fail him every single time. Do you know the amount of stress Lucas has to handle every single day because of you? You’re either not sending the rent on time or texting him something frustrating or not even listening to him when he needs someone. You’re his father, you should be there for him! But no, you abandoned him. Lucky for you I’m here to make sure he has a roof over his head and food in his stomach.”

Eliott was aware of the gravity of his accusation but, it was all true. Stéphane had abandoned Lucas both emotionally and financially and Eliott wasn’t okay with that. Children should be loved and supported, not tossed aside when they don’t grow up the way you wanted them to.

“He lost his entire family because of you and has to manage everything on his own while you’re out here, living some sort of a fantasy life, as if Lucas and his mom don’t matter anymore. I get that taking care of a mentally ill can be exhausting but don’t abandon them like some defectful toy. Do you enjoy hurting people? Is that why you abandoned them? So you could start a new, ‘perfect’ family where no one is faltive in any ways?”

He took a deep breath trying to tone down his anger. This man infuriated him.

“He barely get any sleep because he’s so stressed out about everything. He worries sick about his mom, worried if one day he’ll get a call that she has done something terrible to herself. But, you wouldn’t want to hear all of that would you? You’re too busy sticking your head in the sand. When Lucas talked me into meeting you, I was willing to give you a chance. I thought, maybe he’ll prove me wrong, maybe he’s a nice man.” Eliott shook his head, laughing at himself. “Pardon me for saying this but, you fucked up big time tonight. Showing up late was one thing but answering your fiancé during this dinner was beyond disrespectful and extremely hurtful for Lucas. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll got pick up the pieces of the mess you made.” He stood and too Lucas’s jacket from the back of the chair. “Don’t wait for us. We’re not coming back.”

He made his way to the bathroom and pulled a crying Lucas into his arms the second he saw him, not caring if he’d get his nice shirt wet. It was just clothes. Lucas looked like he wanted to say something but the only thing he could do was bury his face in Eliott’s chest for a minute.

“He lied… H-how could he?” His bottom lip trembled as he looked up at Eliott, blue eyes red from crying, tears on his face. “H-how could he do that to us? How could he replace us so fast?”

Eliott wanted to tell Lucas that his dad was an asshole and that he didn’t deserve Lucas’s love but realized a public bathroom wasn’t the place to have this conversation.

Instead, he gently rubbed Lucas’s back, knowing that it calmed Lucas down. “Let me take you home, get you cuddled up in my bed. We can even order in from your favorite restaurant to make up for this shitty dinner. I told your dad we were leaving, you don’t have to go back.”

Lucas rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the tears. “I can’t just leave and give up on this. I have to talk him eventually…don’t I?”

“You don’t have to. Not tonight.”

Lucas sniffled and nodded. ‘‘Okay. Let’s go home.’‘

Eliott kissed his cheek and helped Lucas with his jacket, taking his hand as they exited the restaurant without looking back.

[lpdwillwrite4coffee]

BLOODY SUNRISE CHAPTER SEVEN

Two days.

Two days of heading east. Of trudging through forest and abandoned crop fields. Of discovering suburbs or towns only to find them razed or overrun with Geeks. And more fences.

Each time they came across a chain link barrier, Booker got quieter, almost brooding. Whatever quip he’d been about to hurl at her died on his tongue and he’d slow his pace, fresh disappointment and sorrow washing over him.

He never said why though. But Caitlin could guess.

Their options were running out. Their path was being chosen for them, forced to go the even longer way around. And their supplies were dwindling.

They finished the last of their water on the morning of the third day. Booker immediately pulled out his map and crouched down to read.

“Any viable sources for drinking water are south west from here. And…” He squinted up, gauging the sun’s position. “If we keep going this direction, we’re gonna land smack dab in the middle of a hot zone.”

Caitlin sighed. “What?”

“Atlanta is a day’s walk that way,” he said, gesturing. “If we keep trying to go around, we’re gonna end up in some trouble.”

She wanted to yell and pull her hair. Instead she just exhaled roughly and planted her hands on her hips.

“I spent a week getting away from Atlanta only to wind up back there.”

Booker stood, refolding his map. “It’s my fault,” he said. “I thought there’d be a way to go up and around, but…”

“Okay, so now what?” She couldn’t focus on the time lost. Only on moving forward.

Locking eyes with her, Booker said, “We go south. Fill up our water supply, then we head west.”

Caitlin nodded. It was all she could do. “Alright.”

She felt him watching her as she swung her pack over her shoulder and started walking.

After a few moments, Booker was on her heels. “I know what you must be thinkin’.”

“Oh?”

“You’re thinkin’ I’m an idiot for gettin’ us lost. For leadin’ us towards a hot zone.”

She cocked her head to look at him. “You’re a mind reader now?”

“I really did think there was a way—”

“Booker.”

“—I just thought if we stuck to the forest, we’d have better luck at avoiding any—”

“Booker.”

“But we’ll figure it out, we’ll—”

“JACK.” She stopped, spinning on her heel to face him. “I’m not mad at you. I don’t think you got us lost. You made a judgement call and it didn’t work out. So stop projecting your insecurities. It’s extremely unattractive.”

She started walking again but could feel him watching her still.

After a moment of silence, he called, “Did you just call me attractive?”

“Should’ve left him for the Geeks,” she muttered, marching onward.

                                                               ***

Late afternoon sun cast the surrounding land in a golden glow. Caitlin squinted in the light, shielding her eyes.

“Hold up,” Booker said, slowing his pace. “You see that?”

It took her a second, but then she spotted the wire wrapped around a few saplings. It was a perimeter marking, with pieces of metal dangling from it. A homemade alarm.

“People,” she whispered. There wasn’t a house in sight, but it must be closer than they knew if they were that close to their warning system.

“Maybe…” He swung his rifle off his shoulder and held it at his side. “Stay close, Meadows.”

They maneuvered under the wire, stepping lightly and keeping their eyes open wide. After another ten minutes they found a second row of wire and cans, this time with stakes in the ground, pointing up and out to impale any Geeks that managed to make it that far.

“Booker, I—”

“Jeremiah!!” A woman yelled, and Caitlin heard the distinct click of gunmetal. “Trespassers!!”

“Shit,” Booker hissed, making a move for his rifle.

“Hold it,” a man called. “Don’t you move, son!”

Caitlin’s heart was in her throat. Her legs shook with the need to run.

Lifting her hands, she scanned the thin tree line for faces. Several yards away, she spotted the woman aiming a hunting rifle at them.

“Booker, they’re armed,” she whispered.

“Yeah, kinda figured that one.”

Heavy foot falls alerted them moments before the man stomped through the brush. Tall, barrel chested with a round belly, he wore a white button down and suspenders. Not exactly what Caitlin had been expecting.

“You bit?” He yelled, adjusting his grip on his shotgun. “Scratched?”

“No sir,” Booker called back, holding out his hand and gun to show he didn’t mean trouble. “Neither of us. We were passin’ through.”

“Ain’t you seen the perimeter?”

So subtly she nearly missed it, Booker shifted his weight, putting himself just a few more inches between Caitlin and the man.

“Yes sir, we did. Made us a little optimistic there might be people ‘round.”

Booker’s accent thickened as he spoke, and Caitlin silently appreciated his knowledge of code switching. Sound like you’re a neighbor, get treated as a neighbor.

“There more of ya?”

Booker shook his head. “No sir, jus’ us. And we don’t mean y’all any harm.”

The woman stepped through the tree line then, her long greying hair in a braid over her shoulder, white dress and apron fluttering in the breeze. Her gaze shifted to the man—her husband, Caitlin guessed.

“Jeremiah…”

“Constance, be smart.”

Booker didn’t move. They were clearly having a conversation made purely of subtext neither of them understood.

The man took a step forward. “Y’all God-fearin’ people?”

Caitlin bristled at the question, but Booker didn’t even blink.

“Psalm 121, verses 7 and 8,” Booker called.

At that, the man started to lower his shotgun. “The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.” He grinned. “Welcome Brother, you have been delivered.”

Staring at the back of Booker’s head, she made a dozen mental notes to ask about that particular exchange.

The woman lowered her weapon and out of the brush stepped several more people—all aged twenty to nine, and armed. Most of them were boys, but one girl about ten years old in a floral dress held a teddy bear in one hand and a pistol in the other.

“Did you see them before?” She whispered to Booker.

“Yep. You?”

“No.”

In total, the family was about ten strong.

The pit in Caitlin’s stomach grew.

“Sorry about the less than hospitable greeting,” Jeremiah called, striding over. “We’ve learned it’s better to be gruff first and apologize later.”

“No offense taken,” Booker said.

The men shook hands, but Caitlin took a step back, eyeing Jeremiah warily.

Maybe she just hadn’t been around people in so long, especially people different than herself, but… something felt off. The memories of the first family to take her in rolled over and over in her mind. The openness, the kindness, the general feeling of ‘we’re all in this shitty situation together’… It was a stark contrast to Jeremiah’s gatekeeper attitude.

“I’m Booker, this is Caitlin.”

Jeremiah reached for her hand and she took it on impulse.

“Nice to meet you, young lady,” he said, squeezing her hand just a little too hard.

“You too.” It was a lie. Her legs still trembled, begging her to bolt away and drag Booker with her. She stayed planted.

“The house is just up this way. Ya caught us while we was doin’ chores.”

Caitlin didn’t move until Booker did. She stuck close as they followed the family up to their cabin.

As they walked, Jeremiah talked with Booker like he was an old friend—the result of having the same creed, she guessed.

She listened in as Jeremiah explained the cabin was his daddy’s and kept just for vacation and hunting trips, but when the world went to hell, he’d brought his family there to stay safe and away from the roaming ‘biters’ as he called them. He quoted scripture so many times Caitlin lost count, all about how it was the end of days and that Christ was soon coming again.

It wasn’t the Bible talk that made her nervous. It was the unsettling glint in his eye. Like he’d just decided he was running for Mayor, too friendly, too chatty, too happy to have them stay with them. All while his wife was silent, his children keeping their distance from them.

From him.

The house was larger than Caitlin anticipated, and well protected it looked like.

Secluded. Far away from any main roads. No neighbors.

She tried to shake the disturbed feeling, but it clung to her.

As they made it up the front porch steps, Constance spoke for the first time since they’d accosted them.

“We’re making stew for dinner. Y’all are welcome to get cleaned up. Maybe wash your clothes.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Caitlin said. “But I’m not sure how long we’re staying.”

“Well you’ll stay the night of course,” Constance said, a desperate tremor in her voice. “Y’all look tired and in need of some good food. We’re happy to have you.”

It felt final. As if the decision had already been made. Caitlin fought not to grimace.

Booker had been led to the other side of the main room by Jeremiah, and while the distance was maybe only a few feet, it felt too far for her comfort. With a polite smile, she wandered over to Booker’s side. The men were in the middle of discussing how the cabin had managed to maintain hot water and electricity with the right amount of propane and generators.

“Excuse me, can I borrow him back for a moment?” She asked, already reaching for Booker’s arm.

“’Course, darlin’.”

She’d grown accustomed to Booker’s voice saying that word and hearing a stranger call her that made her spine go rigid.

The family all milled around—younger children running off to play and the older boys hovering, looking like they were trying to puff up like their father.

Booker followed her back onto the porch, careful not to let the storm door slam.

“I don’t—”

“Shh shh,” he cut her off, pulling her to the other end of the porch away from the open windows. “Whisper.”

She nodded and crossed her arms. “I don’t like this.”

“I know that wasn’t the friendliest of greetings.”

“It’s not… Booker, something’s… off.”

He furrowed his brow, dark eyes locking with hers. “Whaddya mean?”

Caitlin bit the inside of her bottom lip, unsure if she should open a wound she’d only just managed to close in hopes of getting him to understand.

“This guy… his family…” She shook her head. “Booker, I don’t want to stay here.”

He sighed, leaning against the porch rail. “I know that back there shook ya up—”

“It’s not—”

“But Cae, they’re offerin’ us food. Water. Shelter. A hot shower—something I definitely haven’t had in…” He sniffed himself. “A very long time.”

Caitlin ground her molars.

“It’s almost dark,” Booker continued. “We’re out of food, and we’re at least another half day’s trek to anywhere that might have supplies.”

Her legs began to shake again, muscles screaming to run, run, run.

“We’ve managed on our own this far,” she countered, staring up at him. “We don’t need them.”

Booker watched her a moment and then took her by the hand, pulling her further away from listening ears.

“Talk to me.” He turned to face her, watchful gaze on the door to the house. “Just this mornin’ you were sayin’ how we needed supplies, we needed a safe place to make camp and rest up for a bit—”

“I know, I know what I said,” she interrupted, annoyed that her own argument was being used against her.

“Okay, then what’s changed?” He waited but when she didn’t speak up immediately, he added, “Meadows, I wanna understand, okay. I’m here, I’m listenin’. You’re sayin’ you wanna leave, turn down their hospitality, I gotta know why.”

Caitlin swallowed, throat abnormally tight. “He reminds me of my stepdad.”

Booker blinked, waiting for her to continue.

“Overly nice to company, while his family is stock still and quiet, terrified of making a wrong move they know they’ll pay for later.” She folded her arms over her stomach. “And his wife? She’s too insistent on having us stay, probably because she knows he’ll be on his best behavior while we’re around.”

“I didn’t see any bruises…”

“Oh, Booker, come on,” she snapped, about to turn away from him.

“No, I just… I don’t wanna make assumptions about a man we don’t know.”

Pegging him with a glare, she said, “I know him. I know men like him. He’s good at fooling people into thinking ‘no, not him, he could never.’”

Booker inhaled, glancing at the darkening sky. “Cae, I know you’re scared… and bein’ around people again is nerve wrackin’ for me too. It’s hard to trust anyone anymore. But turnin’ our backs on shelter and food this close to nightfall… I dunno...”

A sharp pang of betrayal was quickly followed by a sour feeling in her stomach. Maybe he was right… she’d been distrustful of Booker when they first met, and he was a good man. Just because someone was like her stepfather didn’t mean history was repeating itself.

And the prospect of a hot shower and warm meal was alluring.

“Okay,” she relented. “You’re right, we need a safe place to rest. It’ll be fine.”

Booker wrapped his hand around her arm, gently squeezing in reassurance. “One night, two tops, and then we’re on our way again.”

She nodded, forcing down the lump in her throat.

The porch door swung open and Constance stepped out. “Supper’s ready. Y’all hungry?”

                                                               ***

After nearly inhaling their venison stew and rolls, Constance showed them to the bathroom upstairs and laid out some toiletries for them. She told them to pile their dirty clothes outside the door and she’d throw them in the wash.

Caitlin watched the woman, searching for signs she’d been right before… or wrong. It all felt smudged and blurry, like wiping a hand over something written in chalk.

Booker insisted Caitlin shower first, keeping subtle watch by the door.

It was an action that had her eyes pricking with unshed tears. He might not agree with her about Jeremiah or his family, but he wasn’t about to leave her vulnerable and alone.

After three weeks of rinsing off in creeks, sponging off with stolen paper towels and rags, and keeping her hair in a tight ponytail, stepping under the warm spray was almost orgasmic.

She moaned like it was anyway.

“Do I wanna know what you’re doin’ in there?” Booker called through the door, smirk audible.

“You wish,” she responded, lathering up her hair.

She could hear his chuckle even over the water’s spray.

If she wasn’t afraid of using all the hot water, she’d have stayed in the shower for an hour. But once she was clean, rinsed, and cleaned again for good measure, she turned the water off and wrapped herself in a towel. It was a little thin, but the air was warm enough she wasn’t concerned with catching a chill.

Finger combing her hair, she opened the bathroom door to let Booker know she was done. He stared up at her from where he was sat on the floor, and immediately averted his gaze.

“Your turn,” she said, one hand keeping her towel closed at her chest.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Alright.”

Caitlin grinned to herself. “Oh look, there are those red ears again.”

Booker stood up in a hurry. “Just tryna be polite, Meadows.”

“Where are our packs?” She asked before he could close the door.

“Tucked ‘em away in that room over there.”

“Thanks,” she said, padding down the hall in her bare feet.

Quickly digging out her only other set of clothes—bra, panties, grey tee shirt, and jeans—she got dressed facing the door, holding her breath so she could hear someone coming up the stairs.

No one did.

When she was dressed, she yanked her shoes back on and sat on the end of the hope chest at the foot of the twin bed, waiting for Booker.

After a few minutes, the door opened.

“Jesus, Cae.” Booker pulled up short, one hand keeping his towel around his hips. “Why ain’t you downstairs?”

“I was waiting for you,” she said, sitting upright.

She expected him to tease her, but instead he just nodded and shut the door behind him.

Her gaze tracked the movement, momentarily stunned by how much of Booker was on display. Rivulets of water followed the curve of his muscular back, disappearing beneath the edge of the towel. His Marine Corps tattoo wasn’t the only ink he’d collected—a family crest covered his right shoulder blade, and a black and white lion’s head was high up on his left bicep.

He had the tanned complexion of someone who worked outside shirtless more often than not. Had the physique to match too.

As he turned, Caitlin forced her stare to the floor, hands fidgeting in her lap.

Grabbing clothes from his pack, Booker stood at the foot of the bed to lay them out.

He grinned. “Now who’s blushin’?”

Rolling her eyes, Caitlin stood up. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

“’M hurt, Meadows. Don’t tell me I’ve let myself go.”

“Jackass,” she muttered, striding out into the hall and shutting the door.

“Beg your pardon?”

Jeremiah was stopped on the stairs, eyeing her.

“Oh, uh…” She glanced over her shoulder. “It was… nothing. Sorry.”

He didn’t comment, just continued up the stairs until he was only a couple feet from her on the landing.

“Y’all gettin’ settled alright?”

She tried to seem relaxed but knew it wasn’t working. “Yes, thank you.”

“Shower’s nice, ain’t it?” Jeremiah took a couple steps closer. “I praise the Lord every day we had the foresight to put in extra generators a few years back. And those propane tanks too. ‘Course, we never imagined what we’d be usin’ this place for…”

“I’m not sure anyone knew to expect this.” Her gaze darted behind him, wondering if she would be better off excusing herself or if waiting at the door with Booker in ear shot was safest.

“The day of reckoning is upon us,” Jeremiah continued. “The good book gave us all the signs. Least that’s what I told my congregation anyway.”

Caitlin squinted up at him. “You’re a pastor?”

“Yes’m. Holy Bible Church, about five miles down the main road.”

Something sickly curled in her gut. A pastor that took his family and ran, hiding out in the woods, armed to the teeth with weapons… It didn’t feel very godly to her.

Just then the door behind her opened and Booker walked out.

“Sir,” he greeted Jeremiah. “Thank you again for lettin’ us get cleaned up.”

“Oh, o’course,” Jeremiah said. “Now, y’all save room for dessert?”

Caitlin blinked. “Huh?”

“Constance made a pie. C’mon ‘n’ have some.”

He started back down the stairs and Booker brushed by her, touching her elbow gently.

“Y’alright?”

She nodded, decidedly ignoring the churning in her gut.

                                                               ***

Dessert with the family was only mildly uncomfortable. Caitlin felt like they were being watched, but not just as outsiders. It was like they were being tested, observed for anything Jeremiah deemed unsavory.

When they finished, Caitlin started to take their plates to the kitchen, but Constance jumped up, taking them instead.

“Let me,” she murmured, quickly rushing into the other room.

As Caitlin settled back in her seat, Jeremiah leaned forward, pegging her and Booker with a stare.

“Now, I’m happy to have y’all here,” he started, and Caitlin’s heart rate double timed. “But there are some house rules we follow as the good Lord has bestowed them on us.”

The more he tried to sound devout, the worse he came across.

“We’re a Christian family, and as such we don’t believe in committing sins of the flesh. Things like premarital relations are against God’s teachings. So, I’m afraid y’all will have to sleep in separate rooms.”

Booker started to chuckle, opening his mouth to speak, but Caitlin jumped in.

“Oh, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said, voice as sweet as she could muster. “We are married.”

Booker cocked his head, careful to keep his expression neutral.

Jeremiah’s stare narrowed. “Y’all ain’t wearing weddin’ bands.”

Wrapping her arm around Booker’s in an affectionate gesture, she leaned into him. “That’s actually my fault. See, it’s actually coming up on our one-year anniversary, and I’d taken our rings in to the jeweler to get them cleaned and… Well, I was gonna get something engraved on sweetie’s here—” She squeezed Booker’s arm, hoping he understood.

Go along with this.

Back me up.

Please.

“—But the day I was supposed to pick them up… The virus outbreak happened.” She held Jeremiah’s gaze, unwavering. “Didn’t even occur to me to try to get our rings. Especially since they’re just material possessions. And a marriage is more than that, right?”

Jeremiah hummed, but he didn’t look completely convinced. “Tell me about your weddin’, Booker.”

Shit.

Booker’s stare met Caitlin’s for a split second before turning to the man, grinning.

“Oh man, did she hate our weddin’,” Booker started, hand covering hers and giving a gentle pat and squeeze. “We both wanted somethin’ simple, real easy, ya know? I’d’ve been happy goin’ to the li’l chapel by the base, but her mom was not havin’ it.”

He squeezed her hand again, thumb rubbing a circle on her palm.

Follow my lead.

I’ve got your back.

We’ll be fine.

“Mom wanted all the family there,” Caitlin supplied with a smile.

Booker nodded. “Both our mamas wanted half of Texas there,” he said with a laugh. “And then nobody liked the food we picked.”

“I thought a taco bar would be a good idea.”

“But my mama wanted sit down style, real classy to impress her friends. And then her daddy—”

“Oh gosh.”

“Her daddy refused to walk her down the aisle if she wasn’t wearin’ pure white.”

Caitlin feigned a giggle. “I’m fair skinned, pure white looks awful on me.”

“I still think you looked gorgeous,” Booker said, looking to her.

“You have to say that, you married me.”

Booker squeezed her hand again, reassuring her.

“Anyway, when it was all said and done, the day itself was a disaster.” He tilted his head towards her once more. “But every day since then has been a blessin’. And it ain’t really ‘bout the day, it’s ‘bout the marriage, right?”

Jeremiah took the bait, believed them totally by the look in his eyes. “That’s right, son. A marriage bond is a blessed thing, ain’t that right Constance?”

Returning from the kitchen with a pitcher of iced tea, Constance nodded jerkily. “Sure is.”

Booker’s thumb pressed against Caitlin’s palm, and it instantly grounded her. The twisting in her gut, the dark edges of panic, all seemed to fade if only for a moment.

“Then the boys can bunk up and they can take the spare,” Constance offered, pouring tea for Jeremiah first. Looking over at them, she said, “It’s not much, but it’s comfy.”

“I’m sure it’ll be perfect,” Caitlin assured her. Her empathy for the woman was growing by the hour.

While convinced, Jeremiah still didn’t look exactly happy. “Guess that’s settled then.”

His tone was one she knew too well, and the dread returned, threatening to choke her.

She didn’t even realize she’d been clutching Booker’s arm with a vice grip until he caught her eye.

                                                               ***

A mattress. A real mattress.

They were getting to sleep on a real bed, with sheets and pillows and a floral quilted bedspread.

Caitlin wanted to pinch herself.

“See?” Booker whispered, shutting the door. “Silver lining.”

“It’s a little small… We’re gonna get extra cozy.”

Booker faltered from where he was grabbing a pillow off the bed. “I was… just gonna…” He motioned to the floor.

Caitlin wanted to smack him. “I’m not gonna deprive you of sleeping in a real bed, Booker. You’re just as exhausted as I am. Besides, what if they walk in and see you on the floor?”

“We pretend we had a fight and you kicked me outta bed?”

“And you really think they’ll buy that?”

“Prob’ly not.”

“Exactly. So be an adult and pretend to be my husband already.”

She turned down the covers and started to climb in when Booker made a noise.

“You’re sleepin’ in a bed with your shoes on?”

Caitlin leveled her stare on him. “I have slept with my shoes on every night since this hell began. And I’ve never been woken up in the middle of the night and had to run. So…”

He nodded. “Ahh, so it’s a Murphy’s Law kinda situation.”

“Yup,” she said, settling in on her side of the twin bed.

“Want me to do the same?”

She grinned. “I should tell you no, so I’ll have a thirty second head start, just in case.”

Booker shook his head at her and climbed in, still in his boots. “One of these days, you’re gunna feel real bad ‘bout these jokes if somethin’ happens to me.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll pour one out for you and move on.”

Shifting to get comfortable against the pillows, he said, “I prefer Johnny Walker Blue, if the occasion ever comes.”

“Noted.”

The bed really was small for two people, but Caitlin was so bone-deep tired, she was already dozing off halfway through rolling onto her side. She vaguely remembered mumbling ‘goodnight’ to Booker before she was out.

                                                                               ***

Run! Run! Run!

Caitlin awoke with a violent jerk, gasping for air.

“Shh, shh, hey,” Booker’s voice was right in her ear. “It’s alright, you’re safe, Cae.”

Sucking air into her lungs, she tried to sit up, but something kept her pinned. “Jack?”

“Y’started kickin’ in your sleep,” he murmured. “I was worried you’d roll outta bed, so…”

She slowly understood, could feel in the dark what he meant. Her back was pressed firmly against Booker’s chest, his thick arm around her waist. His hand was balled into a fist against the mattress, she guessed as his way of assuring her he wasn’t coping a feel.

“Y’want some water, or--?”

She shook her head. “No, no, I’m…” She took a deep breath. “I’m alright. Thank you.”

He started to lift his arm off her when she grabbed his wrist and kept him where he was.

“Just in case,” she murmured, letting her head settle back on the pillows.

She felt him nod and adjust his position a little, attempting to give her space.

It wasn’t necessary. They might’ve lied about being married, but they’d gained a level of intimacy in their time together. To call each other friends felt weirdly hollow, but there wasn’t another, more accurate word for them.

Friends. They were friends.

Easing into the mattress, Caitlin closed her eyes and tried to remember the sounds from the trees. The birds. The crickets.

And then Booker started humming “Jolene” by Dolly Parton, and she almost cried.

They weren’t friends. They were something else, something more careful, something fiercer. Viscerally interdependent. A blood oath made by children in a backyard fort—Innocent and vicious with the same swipe of a blade.

“Thank you,” Caitlin croaked, pressing her face into her pillow.

Booker’s response was a soft pull of his arm, securing her, and a smooth transition to the next verse.

[leafenclaw]

I think I saw “MoriJoanLock” going around, but I honestly hate most portmanteau ship names so I’m just going to go with “Sherlock x Jamie x Joan” x)

Thank you for your ask, @almostshadydelusion :D Sorry it took so long to answer. With the finale so close, I had trouble focussing on anything else.

Also for some reason my brain is unable to do short so as with the previous ask, since it got a bit too long to avoid the cut, I’m putting this in a text post and tagging you to make sure you see it. Hopefully you don’t mind the 8k words (D:) of elaborate headcanons and fic plots lol.

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

I actually really liked your version so I’m not sure I’m ever going to top that. x)

Okay so how about... I’m gonna go with a world in which werewolves are less tied to the cycles of the moon and more like shapeshifters. They can control when they transform, it’s just that when it’s the full moon they have no choice to be in wolf form. No matter whether they’re in wolf or human form though, they always keep their human mind, they don’t become berserk at all, but of course their wolf bite is still extremely dangerous and infects whoever they bite whether it’s the full moon or not. Because of that, werewolves and humans live separately, and anyone who crosses over the territory borders is either killed on sight in human territory or bitten and forced to join a clan in werewolf territory.

So with those rules in place...

Jamie grows up in a werewolf clan in the forest near the borders of human settlement, and she’s endlessly fascinated by the way humans live so she keeps sneaking out of the forest to spy on humans. When she’s around 12, she meets Sherlock, a human boy of 15 who similarly is endlessly fascinated by werewolves. They’re a perfect match, often sneak out to meet each other in secret, and together they form the childish dream to change society so that humans and werewolves stop hating each other. As they grow up, they even start making plans for it because Sherlock comes from an influential human family and Jamie’s talents make her next in line for leadership in her clan. Eventually they fall in love and start a secret relationship, which only makes them more eager to change society because now they have the added motivation of wanting to be together.

But shortly after Sherlock turns 18, Mycroft catches him and Jamie kissing and reports Sherlock’s illegal meetings to Morland, who of course won’t abide one of his sons spending time with werewolves. Sherlock is sent away to hunter school and told he’ll never see his werewolf girlfriend again. He refuses to move on or study werewolf hunting even though he’s not allowed to leave, but then six months later, Morland tell him Jamie was caught by other werewolves trying to sneak into the city and subsequently killed by her own clan. At first Sherlock refuses to believe it, but then Morland sends him a necklace he gave to Jamie years ago, one he knows she would never remove if she had a choice. She must be dead. Sherlock is heartbroken and slips into deep depression.

Enters Joan Watson, who also goes to hunter school, and whose mother was bitten by wandering werewolves and forced away from the city. She refuses to let Sherlock slide into despair, and does her best to hold him together, being the friend he needs when he most needs one. Sherlock ends up telling her a little about Jamie, their relationship and how they were separated, but never reveals she was a werewolf.

Years pass, Sherlock and Joan slowly fall in love, tentatively start a relationship. Sherlock is 21 when he graduates and gets a hunter license, and he’s determined to hunt down the werewolves who killed Jamie – a goal Joan is very supportive of, even if it shows attachment to a dead girlfriend, because she herself wants revenge for her mother. It’s not all that clean-cut though, because Sherlock doesn’t want to kill all werewolves, just the ones responsible for taking Jamie away from him, while Joan is hell-bent on hating every last one of them. So they never really talk about that because it’s kind of a sore point, but that’s okay because they have a lot of other things to talk about anyway (or not talk when their mouths are busy doing other things).

Meanwhile Jamie, of course, isn’t dead at all. But she was caught by her clan trying to sneak into human settlement to find Sherlock, stripped of her collection of human things (including the necklace) and, similarly to Sherlock, was sent away from the border. The werewolves say she needs to be taught anti-humans rhetoric and leadership skills because she’s been hailed as one of the most promising future leaders since she was a child, but she won’t be allowed to become head of the clan unless she has the proper attitude. Jamie knows it’s useless fighting heads on when she’s on her own against a whole clan, so instead she agrees to go through the training and schemes on her own so that when she’s finally leading her own clan, nobody will be able to stop her from doing whatever the hell she wants (which amongst other things includes finding a way to be with Sherlock).

Three years after being separated, Sherlock starts patrolling the borders with Joan, both of them fully fledged hunters now and both very intent on getting revenge for their loved ones. Jamie is still too young to head a clan, but she’s given more and more responsibilities, and one day when word gets out that two very aggressive hunters keep patrolling the borders Jamie is given the task to scare them away.

Once she gets there though she quickly recognises Sherlock of course, so she throws caution to the wind and runs to him – except Joan, who doesn’t know who the hell this girl is, only sees a werewolf running towards them and thinks Jamie is about to attack. So she attacks first, shoots a silver arrow with a crossbow that barely misses Jamie. Jamie naturally falls into fight mode, attacks Joan while Sherlock is going through all the stages of shock and grief because holy shit Jamie is alive.

When Sherlock finally realises he needs to do something, his current girlfriend is about to be killed by his ex-girlfriend. He yells at Jamie to stop minutes before she kills Joan, and Jamie reluctantly does but requests that Joan goes away. Joan of course refuses to leave her boyfriend alone with a werewolf, and Jamie is all sorts of betrayed by the fact Sherlock moved on from her (because from her point of view Sherlock abandoned her first and then went on to cheat on her with a human). So in a reaction of anger she transforms into her werewolf form and almost bites Joan, until Sherlock jumps in between them and Jamie ends up biting Sherlock instead.

Joan threatens Jamie with her crossbow and forces her to run away, then rushes Sherlock to the nearest hospital, but there’s nothing they can do to stop him from being infected. Sherlock has until the next full moon to put his affairs in order and leave the human world behind, because from the moment of his first transformation, he’ll become contagious to other humans and killed on sight if he stays on the wrong side of the border. Joan is in a state of distress because she’s about to lose Sherlock the same way she lost her mother, but when Sherlock finally admits that the only reason becoming a werewolf bothers him is because it means he’ll lose Joan (becoming a werewolf himself and/or leaving human civilisation doesn’t bother him), she finally starts asking questions she should have asked years ago, starting with why is Sherlock so fascinated by werewolves and why doesn’t he believe they’re as dangerous as they’re made to be.

Sherlock answers her questions and tells her, amongst other things, that werewolves aren’t so different from humans, that it’s just like another culture built around exile and the stigma of an infectious condition. And Joan realises that, beyond the lust for vengeance because of what happened to her mother, the real reason she wants to eliminate werewolves is because she wants humans to stop living in fear of the next time one of their loved ones will be taken from them. She wants to make a difference and change the world for the better, and she’s starting to think maybe there are other ways to do that. When Sherlock shares the dream he and Jamie once had, Joan (reluctantly at first, but as time passes more and more enthusiastically) agrees that since Sherlock will be a werewolf from now on, she could work on the human side to try and change minds.

Neither Sherlock nor Joan were ever any good at following the rules, so once comes the time to part ways, they promise to come back see each other once a month, on the night of the new moon (when the werewolves are the least active and most likely to sleep through the night). The moment Sherlock leaves, Joan goes back to the human side, finds Morland, and tells him in no uncertain terms that if he ever cared about Sherlock at all, he’ll help her now change minds about werewolves because it’s 100% his fault Sherlock was bitten in the first place (considering he’s the ones who lied about Jamie being dead, and how that precipitated the next events). Joan is a force to be reckoned with, and Morland respects that. He doesn’t agree with her goal, but he admires Joan’s mettle and agrees to lend her his influence so that she can have enough standing to be heard. The job of changing minds will be her own.

Meanwhile Sherlock crosses over to werewolf territory and meets with Jamie again, who is extremely remorseful. Of course it’s Jamie so she won’t just become Sherlock’s carpet because she regrets biting him, but she tells him she understands if he’s angry with her and would rather she keeps her distances from now on, and she apologises. Sherlock, who was upset to leave Joan behind but never really angry to become a werewolf in the first place, tells her that on the contrary, he would rather have her close because he missed her, but that she owes him a debt for what she did. That makes Jamie a bit defensive at first, but when Sherlock explains that the way to repay that debt is to join him with Joan and work towards the goal they dreamed about when they were kids, Jamie agrees even if she doesn’t exactly like Joan’s inclusion (because she’s territorial about things, including people, that are hers lol but she’s logical enough to know without a human liaison, it won’t do any good even if they do change the werewolves’ mind).

The trio starts meeting every month to discuss their progress. Joan is slowly gaining traction in the human council, especially now that she gets more direct help from Mycroft (who misses his brother and now regrets telling on him), and Jamie is quickly rising up the ranks in her clan. Jamie and Joan at first hate each other and only work together reluctantly, but as time passes, they gain huge respect for each other because they’re both leaders, and from there a friendship develops, then attraction that grows despite how hard they fight against it. Sherlock meanwhile struggles with his feelings for both of them, because he still loves Joan and they never officially broke up, but he was in love with Jamie first and never stopped, and now Joan is away and Jamie is right there in his face all the time. He has a good self-control and their cause is bigger than themselves so he holds back, but he struggles and unbeknown to him, Joan and Jamie both struggle with a similar situation.

Tension between them finally explodes on the day Joan has her first big win with the human council and gets tasked with writing the first peace treaty between humans and werewolves. When she hears the news, Jamie impulsively grabs Joan and kisses the hell out of her. She didn’t expect Joan to answer in kind, but then they stop thinking and they’re soon making out in front of poor Sherlock who’s doing his best impression of a goldfish. After that, of course, they really need to talk about this because now Sherlock is the one feeling hurt and possessive, even though he isn’t sure which one of them he’s possessive of. After a good talk where they finally manage to be honest with themselves and each other, they come to the natural conclusion that all three belong together. And when the peace treaty is signed and both communities are allowed to interact without repercussions, they can finally move in together and make it so. (And Joan, of course, is overjoyed when she’s finally allowed to be reunited with her werewolf mother.)

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Joan and Jamie are fishermen wives (as in they’re both sailors and married to each other) who often go on long sailing trips in the middle of the ocean. Joan is extremely rational while Jamie is prone to dramatic flights of fancy, so after a few years of being married, Joan stops reacting whenever Jamie starts yelling stuff about mythical things like krakens and selkies because they always turn out to be stuff like tiny jellyfishes and absolutely normal seals.

Sherlock, on the other hand, is an impish merman who likes to play tricks on sailors. He finds Joan’s and Jamie’s boat one day, and Jamie is the one to spot him, but of course when she starts yelling that there’s a merman in the ocean, Joan just rolls her eyes. So Jamie starts on a quest to prove to Joan that Sherlock exists, while Sherlock is delighted by the challenge because usually sailors just freak out once they see him.

It goes on for a while, Jamie playing coyote to Sherlock’s roadrunner, until Jamie finally manages to trap Sherlock and Joan has a freak out and forces Jamie to release him. Sherlock, intrigued, decides to come back and actually talk to them this time instead of just teasing and running around, because he always expected humans to try and kill him if he was ever caught instead of scratching him under the chin and letting him go.

Of course, that’s made a little hard because Sherlock doesn’t actually speaks or understand human language, and neither Joan nor Jamie understand Mermish. So Jamie takes on the challenge of trying to learn how to speak Mermish, and Joan takes on the challenge of trying to teach Sherlock how to speak English. Unfortunately, while Sherlock ends up understanding a bit of English, he doesn’t have the proper anatomy to speak human languages and while Jamie tries very hard to catch the nuances of Mermish language, she doesn’t have the ability to reproduce it vocally.

For a few days they despair of ever being able to communicate with each other, but then Jamie remembers that Sign Language is a thing (and it’s even a thing that she once learned, years ago), so the next time they go back to land she picks up her books about sign language, dusts off her knowledge of the language, and sets up to teach both Sherlock and Joan how to speak with their hands. As time passes and they manage to communicate at last, Sherlock falls in love with both Jamie and Joan, and they fall in love with him as well. They never really talk about that though, or rather they do admit at some point that they love each other but they refuse to act on it because the difference in species makes it a bit awkward on both sides.

Then Sherlock decides he wants to be human and join Jamie and Joan’s world because he loves them and wants to be able be with them properly, so he goes to see a Sea Witch. The price to pay for being human is heavy, and if you saw The Little Mermaid you already know what it is: Sherlock loses his voice forever and has to get both Joan and Jamie to kiss him before three days pass, otherwise he’ll become the Sea Witch’s slave algae.

Thankfully, Sherlock has the advantage of Sign Language that Ariel didn’t, so once he becomes human and manages to swim to Jamie’s and Joan’s ship, explaining the situation only takes a few minutes. The women of course agree to kiss him to break his curse (Joan perhaps a little more reluctantly, not because she loves him less but because this whole thing is making her head spin and she doesn’t deal well when her rational notions of the world are challenged in this way), and from that moment on they live happily ever after and I can’t believe I wrote that kind of fluff urgh someone please kill me XD

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Joan is the witch! As a child she’s very gifted and precocious, starts magical training earlier than her peers and wins several magical awards while she completes her schooling.

But that level of talent comes with its challenges, and when she does the familiar calling ceremony, instead of your regular pet or wild animal, she inadvertently attracts Geminis, a very particular species of supernatural familiars that are shapeshifters and always come in twos: Sherlock and Jamie, the trouble-making pair of the Gemini world.

It takes twice as much strength to tame two familiars, and to top the difficulty, those two aren’t exactly the easiest bunch to get along with because they didn’t exactly plan to settle down with a witch so early (they enjoyed the freedom of being able to roam the planes of existence together, where time doesn’t have any meaning, but now they cannot do that anymore since they have to be able to answer to Joan’s callings). But with effort, communication, and a lot of patience, they learn to respect each other’s needs and to work together, and along the way end up forming deep bonds of attachment to each other.

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Okay so this one I’ve actually held in my writing folders for almost a year now and will absolutely write it one day if I ever clear up my plate.

Set in season 1. Joan just became Sherlock’s protégée and he’s sending her all over the city on random errands, allegedly so that she can learn more about the city’s travel routes (no matter that she’s a New York City native and already knows most of that stuff). One day as she got to an antique store early and needs to wait a few more minutes before she can pick up Sherlock’s package, she decides to head to the nearest coffee shop and treat herself while she waits.

The coffee shop is utterly pleasant and fancy, lots of wide open spaces, lots of tall windows, an area with tables and another with sofas, and in the corner with the best light, there’s an easel with an unfinished portrait. Something about the character on the canvas seems familiar somehow, but since it’s basically just a vague silhouette with eyes right now, she shrugs the impression off.

While the barista is taking Joan’s order, Jamie walks in the coffee shop (which she owns) and gets the shock of her life seeing Joan there. She could quickly disappear before Joan sees her of course, but she’s curious and no matter what happens, she’s confident she’s still the most dangerous person in the room so why not play? So instead of running away, she comes in and takes over the job of her employee, makes Joan’s coffee, introduces herself as “Jamie” but doesn’t give any last name, and subtly appraises her in a playful manner.

Jamie’s “playful” is unfortunately a little off by society’s standards, so it comes off as overly familiar and slightly flirty. Joan is very flustered but also fairly flattered by this beautiful lady’s interest, and since she has a bit of time left and the coffee is amazing, she stays around to chat a bit longer. When she finally has to leave, she promises herself to return as soon as possible.

Time passes. Joan comes back to see Jamie at the coffee shop regularly, and the more she does the more Jamie is baffled because she cannot for the life of her figure the woman out but she’s starting to look forward to her visits solely to be baffled some more. She keeps working on her portrait in the corner of the coffee shop, but on a whim starts adding another character. (It was initially meant to be a stylised painting of Sherlock, but now it’s becoming a painting of Sherlock and Joan, it’s just not yet detailed enough that Joan can realise what it is.) (And to be fair, Joan is too distracted by the pretty artist-dash-coffee shop owner there to really pay attention to what she’s working on.)

On the other hand, Joan’s and Sherlock’s relationship progresses at the same pace as it does in the show, they learn to trust and rely on each other, form a strong emotional bond, things are going well over there. Until one day Joan gets called to a crime scene while she’s chatting with Jamie, and she decides to bring Sherlock a cup of coffee. Jamie slips up and prepares the coffee to Sherlock’s preferences, which she learned while they were in London, and Sherlock gets the shock of his life when he takes the first sip because very few people aside from himself manage to prepare a coffee that’s perfect for his taste.

Sherlock immediately starts asking questions about the coffee shop, initially out of enthusiasm because wow damn if they make coffee that good he really needs to visit, but soon enough out of desperate, burning curiosity because this “Jamie” Joan is talking about sounds a lot like Irene, and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up but he’s confused and desperate and he doesn’t understand how that could be possible but what if she was still alive?

So Sherlock and Joan run back to the coffee shop, and by this point the story can take two different roads and I’m not sure which one I like best.

Option 1: Jamie realised she slipped up and disappears before Sherlock and Joan come back, leaving behind a smug message along the lines of “of course this was all very deliberate and now, gotcha! hahaha haha ha” (think, like, same energy as the scene in the media room with Sherlock lol). She keeps doing her work as Moriarty but things get murky because she’s attached to Joan as well as Sherlock now, and while she’s desperate to regain control of her own life and reassert her dominance over them, there’s a line she’s unwilling to cross when it comes to people she has developed feelings for (by the sheer fact that she doesn’t have them for many people in the first place). Meanwhile Sherlock and Joan are confused and hurting and everything is a mess.

Option 2: Jamie doesn’t realise she slipped up and when Sherlock and Joan come rushing in, she’s trapped in a predicament because of course Sherlock recognises her straight away, but she cannot fake PTSD and mental confusion this time because Joan has known her stable and well-balanced for months now. So she gets out of it by faking amnesia, tells them she woke up in a hospital a little under two years ago with no memory of her previous life, just strange dreams sometimes and my, what’s your name again, Sherlock is it? You feel familiar somehow, did we know each other? Following this Jamie does her best to explain stuff away (how she “inherited” the coffee shop from a “strange man” who was by her bedside when she woke up, how she figured out she could paint when she saw someone doing a sketch in a park, etc.) and keep the gig up, but everybody’s emotions are roiling in all directions and again, a mess.

It’s probably not a story that ends well, but who knows? We’ll see if I ever get around to writing it. =)

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

Normally I’d go with Jamie as the professor because ACD!Moriarty was one, but in Elementary Sherlock is the one who has a teacher vibe, you know? So it kinda makes me want to explore a universe with Sherlock as the professor who has a stellar reputation because his academic research is groundbreaking, and Joan and Jamie as two ambitious and rival students who apply for the position of teaching assistant.

Both of them are extremely talented in their own way, and Sherlock is a bit of a big softy so he hires both of them because he’s unable to decide which one is more “deserving”. Joan and Jamie fully expected to have to keep fighting against each other while working for him but they quickly realise TA work isn’t exactly what they thought it would be when they discover Sherlock is A Mess in... I was going to say “in his personal life” but really it’s more like in every area of his life that isn’t directly related to work. He barely sleeps and when he does it’s curled up on a chair in his office, forgets to eat when he’s working, never cleans his office, he’s the only one who understands his filing system, etc. Turns out the two girls have to put their rivalry aside just to be able to get this train wreck back on track because Sherlock dropped tea all over the answers for the next test and now it’s unreadable, he has no idea where he mislaid Jamie’s computer last time he borrowed it (it’s probably somewhere on his desk but that’s almost a landfill by this point), and why is Joan yelling at him now? Oh yes, the mould in the jar on the bookshelf, yes that’s supposed to be there, don’t touch it please it’s toxic and could kill them all.

Neither Joan nor Jamie are willing to take that kind of crap for long. But they really need the teaching and the credentials, and also Sherlock is kind of adorable when he gets excited about something so they don’t want to just quit either, and they’re unable to hold a grudge for long ‘cause jeez, he’s cute and damn, he’s an amazing teacher when he’s actually teaching them. So they all learn to make it work, Jamie and Joan never let Sherlock get away with his crap, Sherlock learns to appreciate that and get his life a little more together (at least enough to stop antagonising everybody else), and somehow along the way they all develop feelings for everyone involved. By the time Joan and Jamie are ready to graduate, their three lives are all so tied together that the idea of parting ways with any of them is unbearable. So they don’t, and they stay, and they make it work somehow.

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

As I said in my previous ask, all iterations of Sherlock are always the princess, so we’re going to start with that. x)

So! Prince(ss) Sherlock grows up with Joan as his best friend. Joan is born from common folks, but her friendship with Sherlock allows her to follow her interest in becoming a knight, and she’s so good at it that Sherlock hires her to be his bodyguard and constant companion. The two of them have a very close bond and everybody expects them to become a romantic couple, but Sherlock is on the asexual spectrum so he only very rarely experiences sexual attraction (and doesn’t for Joan so far), and Joan is aromantic and while she enjoys sex, she isn’t interested in a romantic relationship at all. So while they do get very close and definitely love each other, their bond isn’t so easily defined by conventional terms. They decide after a few years that they should marry anyway, because nobody else will ever understand what they want from life, they don’t want to be parted from each other, and people are starting to talk. They figure they’ll adopt heirs when the time comes and live their life the way they want in the meantime.

However, the day just before the wedding, a dragon swoops in from the sky and kidnaps Sherlock, which leads Joan to laugh a little despite her worry because as it turns out, when he was young, Sherlock spent all his time saying that since he was royalty, it was inevitable that a dragon at some point would try to get him. She’s still not going to let that dragon get away with her fiancé though, so she packs up gears, takes a horse, and starts going after them.

Meanwhile Sherlock expected to be threatened or put in a dark cave and forgotten for days on ends, but instead he’s brought to a tower filled to the brim with more books than he could read in a lifetime. The dragon is a bit grouchy and tells him to get comfortable, very sorry but if you have to blame someone blame your father Morland who refused to pay a debt, and please don’t scream, my ears are sensitive. What? No I have no intention of eating you, what the hell are you talking about? You humans, pff. Even if I ate meat, I bet you wouldn’t taste any good with all the crap your species consume.

Sherlock is a curious prince(ss) and confident that Joan will come and save him at some point, so in the meantime why not follow the dragon’s advice and get some more knowledge into him. After a few hours of reading he starts asking questions.

“I thought dragons ate meat, how come you don’t?” “What do they teach you in human school? Dragons never ate meat. We’re vegetarians. Meat. Pah!” “How long am I expected to stay here?” “Until your father pays his debt. It shouldn’t take too long. He has incentive now.” “... you mean me? You expect him to pay to get me back?” “Of course.” “... I think you were mislead as to what kind of relationship we have.” “Aren’t you family?” “You know, this may be the only moment in history where ‘not all [families]’ is a valid argument?” 

*dragon grumbles and snorts a bit of fire*

“So uh, what’s your name?” “[unintelligible screech]” “Please tell me? Since we’re going to spend a lot of time together, we should at least be properly introduced.” “That was my name.” “... oh. I’m never going to be able to repeat that. Would you mind if I gave you another one then?” *dragon snorts* “How about... James? You look like a James. Wait, are you a male? I can’t really tell from here.” “Dragons do not have human genders.” “Ah! My apologies. Hmm. Jamie then. It’s gender-neutral, and it’s cute. Fits you. :)”

Jamie the dragon goes back to grumbling, Sherlock goes back to reading, then Jamie brings some food to Sherlock (surprisingly good, even though it’s nothing like he ever ate at home), Sherlock asks more questions but this time about the subjects in the books he read, Jamie is a hoarder of knowledge rather than gold so she’s eager to answer and discuss, and as the days pass those two realise they’re actually enjoying each other’s company a whole damn lot.

Meanwhile Joan is on her way to the dragon’s tower. All the towns she passes through tell her that the dragon she’s looking for must be the new one they call Moriarty (because it came one day from over the sea) and that its tower is just a little bit further up the road. “Just a little bit further” turns out to be about three weeks away, and by the time she gets there, she’s starting to wonder if Sherlock is still alive.

Thankfully, the moment she steps inside the tower, she comes right in the middle of a fight between Sherlock and Jamie, who have taken to bickering over their knowledge of human culture (Sherlock never went anywhere but reads a lot of books, and Jamie went everywhere but their dragon perspective makes it so that most of what they see humans doing is incomprehensible to them).

“Uhm... Sherlock?” “Watson! Excellent timing. Can you please tell Jamie here that humans most certainly do not eat sand and dirt?” “I saw them mix it along with water and then heat it in a cooking pot. Are you going to tell me you don’t drink water next, or that food doesn’t come out of a pot?” “Sherlock.” “What you saw was probably people mixing mortar, you big cold blooded reptile!” “Mortar is solid and friable, you tiny hairless monkey! That thing they cooked was a liquid!” “A very thick liquid.” “FINE, A THICK LIQUID! THAT’S STILL NOT MORTAR!” “SHERLOCK!” “What?” “You were kidnapped?” “Was I? Oh yes, I was. Jamie, this is Joan Watson, my best friend and fiancée. Watson, this is Jamie, the most stubborn dragon I have ever met.” “I’m the only dragon you met, you idiot. But it’s nice to meet you, Joan. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

Disasters, the both of them.

After sorting that situation out (and chewing Jamie out a little because who the hell kidnaps a prince(ss) on the day before their wedding?! if anything Jamie owes them big time for the wasted wedding expenses lol), Watson disagrees that Morland won’t repay his debt in exchange for Sherlock, Sherlock is his child, he most certain will pay... at some point... probably not in a hurry though. But she does agree that there are better ways to make him spit whatever he owes Jamie, and they start making plans.

Eventually all three start on a journey to Morland’s castle (Jamie refuses to fly them there, too much pride to let humans climb on their back, so everybody walks) and get to know each other better on the way there. They find out Joan is great at giving directions and crap at following them, that Sherlock is happy to soak up all the attention and mental stimulation but doesn’t do well the moment he thinks he’s being ignored, and that Jamie grumbles and snarks against them non-stop, but becomes extremely protective the moment someone threaten Sherlock and/or Joan (who quickly come to realise Jamie sort of ‘adopted’ them, they’re Jamie’s humans now, nobody else is allowed to touch them).

Once they get there, Sherlock manages to convince Morland to pay up his due to Jamie (said due happens to be a whole roll of silver coil), but then Jamie takes one look at it, then one look at Sherlock and Joan, then starts grumbling that this is useless now. Sherlock and Joan are like what the hell are you talking about? Jamie explains that the silver coil was to decorate a nesting area and attract a mate but there’s no point now, although they refuse to say why. It takes a whole week (the time to go back to Mycroft’s castle where Sherlock and Joan live) and a lot of cajoling before Jamie admits that while they were travelling, Sherlock and Joan accidentally activated Jamie’s dragon mating bond (suddenly the reason why Jamie became so possessive along the way makes much more sense). So now it doesn’t matter whether or not they accept Jamie within their union or that they cannot even mate with each other to begin with, Jamie will be bonded to them anyway until they die (because dragons have longer life spans than humans so it’s a certainty that they’ll die before her), so if they can just go away now (so that Jamie can brood, rethink all of their life choices, and perhaps go harass cattle or burn a forest to amuse themselves) it would be grand, thanks.

Sherlock and Joan are a little taken aback, but when they discuss it together they realise neither of them really minds. They like Jamie, perhaps even more than just like them, even though the dragon’s default resting mode is “grumbling” and their default conversation mode is “bicker”, and Sherlock’s and Joan’s own union was already out of the norm anyway. It’s not like they were planning to have sex with each other in the first place so being a couple or a trio won’t make any difference, and to be honest they’d be really sad if Jamie left (although they’ll have to teach the dragon some manners because kidnapping prince(sse)s and harassing cattle for the fun of it really won’t do if Jamie wants to stay around).

And so Jamie stays, Sherlock and Joan get married, and everyone lives their best life.

(And then one day, an evil wizard who was threatening the kingdom (he goes by “Odin” of all things) lands a curse on Jamie, who barely manages to burn the wizard to a crisp before suddenly shrinking and losing their scales, and in just a few minutes, poof. No more Jamie-the-dragon, now stands in their place Jamie-the-human, who really isn’t happy to be all pink and squishy and wants their dragon body back ASAP, thank you very much. Sherlock and Joan, on the other hand, suddenly grab each other’s hands and go:

“Ho... ly... mother of... God...” “... don’t take the lord’s name in vain, Watson, at least not in front of the whole courtyard.” “JESUS, Sherlock!” “I know. I know.” “I -- I think I may have a thing for girls now?” “Jamie isn’t a girl.” ”I know, but.. sweet potato on a candlestick, that... of hers, and those...” ”... yeah.” ”Yeah.” “My dear Watson, I think what we have... is a thing for dragons.” “... no shit, Sherlock.”

Then they run to Jamie to reassure them that no no no, the squishy pink thing is fine, and of course we’ll look for ways to break the curse but in the meantime you’ll see it’s really not so bad and there are perks.

And that is how after years of being only the three of them, they finally start on the process of conceiving heirs.)

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to write a romcom scenario with this prompt, so hopefully you’ll find this take entertaining anyway.

Sherlock and Joan meet in college (Joan for some reason earned a scholarship for the best medicine school in England so she went) when Sherlock is a first year sneaking into anatomy classes and Joan is about to complete her studies. They strike a friendship when Sherlock is the only one to agree to help Joan study (which involves prattling off information non-stop without taking a breath) since it means he’ll gain knowledge for himself out of it. Joan goes on to become a doctor, Sherlock drops out of college to become a detective, but they stay in touch even though they don’t live in the same country anymore.

When Joan accidentally kills a patient, Sherlock proposes she comes live with him in London for a while, take a break from everything in NYC and perhaps find a way to reinvent herself. Joan ends up helping on a few cases, they find a nice rhythm together, and become business partners (Joan makes Sherlock stop the drugs entirely before he becomes an addict, and then does her best to keep him mentally stimulated in healthier ways). As time goes on, they develop a relationship that would never be described as romantic by society, but fits the two of them just fine and fulfils their emotional needs of closeness to another.

Meanwhile Jamie is taught criminal mastermind tricks by her mentor but learns the hard way that perhaps this isn’t a career choice she wants to pursue for herself when said mentor is betrayed, caught by the police, sentenced to jail, and then gruesomely executed in prison by one of his rivals even though with his influence nobody should have been able to touch him. Deprived of an outlet for her abilities and ambition, her brain starts to devour itself the way Sherlock’s did in Elementary, and while she doesn’t turn to drugs (it’s a close thing though), she ends up making a string of very bad decisions. One of them leave her pregnant, and that’s the waking call. She decides it’s better she doesn’t keep the baby, but since she doesn’t have the kind of contacts she has in the show, her daughter Kayden ends up being adopted through social services. After that, she does everything she can to get her life together, goes back to university, easily earns all the degrees in mathematics and astronomy with the highest grades in the history of the university she goes to, and starts working on her own research projects while taking a pupil here and there. She becomes very well-known in academia circles, both for her incandescent intelligence and ruthless, almost cut-throat ambition.

A few years pass. Joan is starting to feel dissatisfied, like something is missing in her life. After a lot of soul-searching, she decides perhaps that missing thing is motherhood. But while Sherlock wouldn’t necessarily be adverse to the physical aspect of those things, he refuses to pass down his own genes, so Joan starts looking at adoption agencies and eventually she’s put on a waiting list.

Then suddenly they catch a case in which a couple was murdered, leaving a 7 years old Kayden behind as the sole witness, and as the case progresses Sherlock realises just how frightfully intelligent this girl is and bonds with her more quickly than he ever bonded with anyone. Once they solve the case he mourns the fact that Kayden will probably never be allowed to develop her skills while bouncing from one group home to another, at least not the way she would with a loving family, and Joan (who bonded with the kid as well) asks him on a whim if he thinks they should adopt her rather than a newborn baby. After careful consideration, they agree that it’s the best decision and start putting in the work, and the adoption process is finalised in very little time with the help of Sherlock’s connections and influence.

(I’m aware technically it makes them co-parenting partners rather than a single parent with a child, but let’s be real, we’re talking about an OT3 so having a couple rather than a single person here isn’t exactly getting in the way.)

With the adoption papers for the girl come more information about her life situation. They learn it’s not the first time this kid is adopted, which makes Sherlock unbearably curious (and perhaps a little worried) because this child thinks and reacts so much like himself that he starts wondering if it’s a coincidence: either the kid was his to begin with and one of his previous partners didn’t tell him she was pregnant, or there’s someone else like him somewhere in the world who had this child. So he starts digging into birth records, but the name on Kayden’s is Irene Adler, which is not a name he recognises (aka not one of his previous partners’). Problem is, it’s also not a name anyone recognises when he starts trying to find her, so he keeps hitting dead end after dead end, and is forced to come to the conclusion that if he really wants to find Kayden’s birth parents, he’ll have to bring out his A game.

Meanwhile, Kayden is starting to display an interest and aptitudes in astronomy, so Joan takes on herself to bring her to the planetarium. When that’s not enough, she brings her to the library and buys her books. The books quickly aren’t enough either, and after Kayden raids Sherlock’s personal library and reads everything she can find on space and stars and constellations (and especially after she’s shown to understand the content better than Joan herself), Joan starts tracking obscure and specialised publications. That’s when she brings home “Dynamics of an Asteroid” by Jamie Moriarty. This books stumps Kayden because it’s so advanced, which only makes her more eager to learn. Kayden quickly develops a childhood hero worship for this Professor Moriarty, and when one day Joan hears about Moriarty soon giving a lecture open to the public, she decides that it would make the perfect birthday gift for her new daughter.

So Joan, Sherlock, and Kayden go to Professor Moriarty’s lecture as a family outing, Kayden is ecstatic, but is very disappointed when she isn’t allowed by the organisers to ask her questions by the end of the lecture. Sherlock and Joan, who know that Kayden’s questions would probably be even more pointed and intelligent than any of the questions adults were allowed to ask, decide to try and locate Professor Moriarty so that their kid may have a chance to speak directly to her hero. Jamie though isn’t interested in any kid, no matter how much of a “genius” her parents say she is (she met too many parents pushing their pseudo-prodigies to take those words at face value), so it takes a few weeks plus Sherlock and Joan getting annoyed enough to ambush her at her office before Kayden finally meets Jamie face to face.

And then Kayden works her magic. Her knowledge and interest really is remarkable, not only because she’s a child but more importantly because she displays leaps of intuition and logic that even Jamie’s college-level students don’t. Sherlock is content to soak in the conversation as it becomes more technical, but Joan who cannot follow past a certain point starts seeing the physical similarities between Kayden and Jamie, and naturally comes to wonder whether they might be related. When they come home (after Jamie practically begs them to enrol Kayden in university despite her age), Joan shares her suspicions that Jamie might be Kayden’s mother with Sherlock, which leads Sherlock to want to run right back to Jamie’s office and ask her if she gave a baby for adoption 10 years back. Joan obviously manages to stop him from making an idiot of himself, and instead they come up with a plan to convince Jamie to tutor Kayden directly (first because they care about Kayden’s happiness, and second so that they can perhaps breach the subject and ask discreet questions eventually).

Jamie, when offered, hesitates for a while because she’s never really done well with children, but this one is exceptional so she ends up accepting, especially when Joan and Sherlock say they don’t intend to let Kayden enrol in uni before she’s at least 15. As time passes and they all get closer (all three of them share several eclectic interests outside of the ones that initially brought them together so it’s very easy to talk to each other even outside of things related to Kayden, and that’s something Jamie especially treasures because she hasn’t had many people to really talk with since her mentor died), Joan and Sherlock tentatively bring up the subject of Jamie perhaps being Kayden’s birth mother.

That almost breaks their deal right there. Jamie leaves in a rush and they don’t see her for a month.

But then Kayden shows up to Jamie’s office on her own, wondering why she missed all her lessons, and even though there isn’t a single maternal bone in Jamie’s body, she cannot help being moved by this. This little girl isn’t looking for a mother, she already has one and her name is Joan. What she is looking for is a teacher, and for some reason that privilege now belongs to Jamie.

And so things slowly go back to normal. (Of course, Sherlock performs an illegal DNA test anyway because he’s a nosy little shit, but when the results come back positive, he now knows to keep that to himself.) All three of them engage and challenge each other on so many levels, emotions grow everywhere but everybody repress them best they can, and Kayden acts as the mortar to bind them together. That is, until one evening they have drinks, Joan slips an arm around Jamie’s shoulder as they sit on the couch, and Jamie answers with a kiss that leaves Joan breathless. When the women remember where they are and realise what just happened (and it happened so naturally too), they both apologise profusely and Jamie is about to make a hasty retreat until Sherlock just goes “Or you could stay and, uhm, would you two mind if I joined in?” with a cute hopeful face, and so that becomes a thing.

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

I know usually Joan should be the writer, but she canonically did editing job for her father on the show so I kinda want to make her the editor? Maybe one who writes herself in her spare times.

So in this case I think I’d go with Jamie and Sherlock being rival novelists who are trying to get a contract for their books with Watson Mysteries, Joan’s publishing company. Problem is, they’re both so brilliant in their own right and yet so UTTERLY infuriating that Joan keeps putting off taking a decision, so Jamie and Sherlock decide to make it a competition. And with those two, “competition” is serious business so it quickly falls into the personal sphere, where it becomes a mess of tangled minds that eventually leads to a mess of tangled limbs between the sheets.

(Eventually Joan publishes them both of course, and they all feel a little silly about the amount of shenanigans they got into but since they never would have ended together otherwise, they quickly get over it.)

Hope this is what you were looking for! =)

[Source: Give me a ship and I’ll tell you…]

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT Rewatch 4X14 - Enter the Dragon

Sorry for all the delays with these reviews! I’ve really been DRAGON my feet through this whole season, haven’t I? 

...You don’t come here for smart puns, Regina! XD

Anyway, there’s a nice juicy review under the cut!

Main Takeaways

Past

I love how this plays as the evil version of every “young person melts the heart of older person and convinces them to go back to doing what they love” story! While it’s not a parody -- and is in fact played deadly straight -- it’s funny as hell to watch because of that!

It’s kind of weird seeing such vague mentions of Mal’s backstory. All throughout the episode, we hear clues, but are never given anything concrete. I wonder when or even if we ever would’ve gotten a backstory for Mal and Briar Rose.

Present

Wow, I gotta say, considering how DESTROYED Mal was by what Snowing did to her kid, stealing another kid is just horrible (The fact that he’s turned back into August and she may or may not have known that is irrelevant for me since she stealing a son from his father at the end of the day) ! I don’t know if it’s exactly poorly written or not -- a case of extremism turning her into what she hates or mishandling a character who is supposed to be more balanced between being evil and sympathetic. I guess it’s up to interpretation, but given that the there doesn’t get to be a reaction from Marco to Maleficent over the fact considering how big of a deal it is that she reverted a little boy back into being a grown man, I feel forced to say the latter.

This also applies to Regina too, ESPECIALLY considering her conversations with Marco in the last episode and this is more of a problem than I realized. She’s stealing a child, putting him up against three villains, AND disposing any direct means of contact between herself and her backup. And the fact that Rumple reverts him into being August at the end of the episode changes nothing here because that wasn’t an anticipated move. It’s even more distracting given the gravitas of the moment where Emma and Regina try to figure out whether or not to steal him in the first place. Regina says she’s going to protect him and pull out if he’s in danger, but what does she think they’re going to do to him if not threaten his life? Even just the emotional duress of those kind of threats is crazy to do to a kid. And then to drop her phone so he can’t even be tracked? It’s played as this necessary evil, but is never given the payoff to back up what a horrible and reckless thing this was to do. They STOLE his childhood -- what was essentially his happy ending -- and that has to be answered for by ALL involved parties: Maleficent, Regina, and Emma too for ultimately agreeing to this.

This segment has a really interesting theme of not being overly insistent on complete control. Throughout it, Regina insists to her friends that she can handle the Queens of Darkness. Even as the stakes raise, she makes risky and riskier decisions that she says she can manage. This culminates in a horribly risky decision (See above) that, in her insistence in keeping control over the situation and her sureness that she’s right, has Regina abandon her means of getting backup. And this all ends with Regina, forced by her own hand, to relinquish control to Rumple. I think that this is an important lesson for Regina to learn, and while I didn’t like the big decision that she had to make for lack of a proper fallout (I’ll actually discuss in a bit why I choose this episode to take the issue with it), I think the rest of the story is good!

Stream of Consciousness

-Regina, you trying to KILL ME with the cut of that shirt?! Because it is working!

-Damn, Regina is AMAZING at acting evil! XD

-HOW THE FUCK DID YOU CRUSH GLASS?! ARE YOU THE FUCKING HULK? XD

-I love how Regina looks between Mal’s castle and her book like “I’m gonna get my favorite author to sign my book!”

-Wouldn’t someone just win “Don’t Be a Hero” by only saving themselves?

-I love how there were freakin’ BETS on the game! XD

-We got another Henry and Belle scene!!! Tbh, I wish there was a bit more substance here too. Belle ADORES books and this is literally a mystery surrounding a book! Why couldn’t she give him some advice on maybe where to look or just talk about the nature of books! You have two book fans sharing a scene! Why not use that?

-I would KILL to know how Regina’s night of drinking with the Queens of Darkness went! Like, they drank a whole bar! XD

-To be fair, Emma, Regina’s probably not reaching out because she’s hungover as FUCK after DRINKING A WHOLE BAR! XD

-MAL, DRUNK AS FUCK, SINGED A COP CAR! XD WHERE ARE FICS OF THIS! THIS IS THE TRUE SEQUEL TO “THE HANGOVER!” XD

-”Some drinking.” SOME DRINKING? YOU DRANK AND ENTIRE BAR! XD

-I like how Regina’s “pathetic” flame was more of a matter of nervousness than inexperience. It shows that Regina’s learned a lot during her tenure with Rumple while still having a lot of space to grow.

-Maleficent is introduced as a druggie! She literally stabs herself with something that “takes the edge off!” XD

-”You need to remember who you are.” “That Maleficent had a foul temper, and if you insulted her, she’d turn into a dragon and eat your flesh.” Holy hell! My eyes are filled with hearts!

-”Where the hell have you been all night?” I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT AS WELL!

-NOW WHAT KIND OF CRAZINESS HAPPENED IN THE VAULT?! XD

-To be fair, Emma, Regina’s been ROCKING this undercover mission so far.

-This episode is full of sexy, badass people, but this cake is the sexiest thing of all!

-”Well, look at which two survivors found a dinghy together.” ...Rumple, HOW ARE YOU SO BAD AT BEING KILLIAN? IT’S NOT ESPECIALLY HARD AND YET YOU SOMEHOW FAILED AT IT! It’s like trying to pet a puppy and instead doing a handstand! XD

-I love how Storybrooke can appear on a GPS system! Is someone in town just a really good techie or is Google our new God? XD

-”The only magical thing you’ll find here is duct tape.” Accurate! XD

-”You didn’t ask your questions more forcefully.” Oh trust me, she did. It was scary.

-”One little snafu?” YOU WOULD HAVE TO STEAL A CHILD!

-”Break some rules.” YOU ARE STEALING A CHILD!

-A Pirate’s Oath! XD What the hell? Someone’s just looking to cop a feel!

-I love the fact that it is 100% canon that Regina rode on the back of a dragon. Maleficent gave her the best piggyback ride in the UNIVERSE!

-Wait: GOLD HAS A CABIN?

Favorite Dynamic

Rump-illian and Belle. I absolutely love Rump-illian and Belle’s subplot here. Rumple, for better or worse, knows Belle and is exactly slippery enough to forge a story to get the dagger back for himself but also not infallible as to still fail to  discuss things he wasn’t privy to. Major props have to go to Colin. He’s playing Rumple playing Killian and that is AMAZING! His lines and delivery are just awkward enough to capture Rumple’s failure to perfectly capture Killian, but they’re close enough that they could fool someone who’s just getting to be close with Killian like Belle. He’s always a little off center in how he conducts himself, making the reveal something that could feasibly be guessed but also surprise everyone! And the transitions -- the one at the docks the one as he walks into the pawnshop, and the one outside the pawnshop are done so well as to make the whole subplot even better!

Writer

David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz are in charge of today’s episode! So far, they’ve had a perfect season! But...well… Look. This episode isn't bad, but I do wish the present segment had some more polish. Considering that the three people involved in that final decision are all mothers and to not do more with that idea is really distracting in hindsight.

Rating

8/10. I’m torn about whether or not I should punish this episode for what goes down with Pinocchio. This episode is more setup in that regard than payoff and it’s not bad setup. But at the same time, I do have to ask myself if that payoff was ever going to happen and if it wasn’t, then the setup of something that upon inspection is so fucked up. And I do think that the payoff wasn’t intended to come up -- they had to know -- and so I do find fault with this episode for executing this idea in such an irresponsible way. Otherwise though, the storytelling is really good. Everything makes sense, the story’s engaging, the pacing works, the characters are for the most part in line, and the theme of the past segment lines up in a way that’s subtle, yet effective.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

DRAGON QUEEN - This is my JAM! Look at Regina’s face as Mal enters the room. That is the face of a woman realizing “I am gay for LIFE!” And in the present, could these two flirt any MORE?! <3 Just look at the aspirin scene! Mal and Regina are both letting their guard down (Regina’s being more of a casual spitfire, Mal’s not wearing the jacket and is giving a bit more info), Mal’s helping Regina out a bit, there’s candles everywhere, and there’s a touch of loose tension in the room. It’s enough to make the moment pretty sexy. ALSO, they go on a mission alone and the presentation to it plays out exactly like an impromptu date! This is the BEST! I just love how Regina smiles for Mal. It’s big, but natural and just kind of happy!

Swan Queen - Dude! Emma is so worried about Regina! That panic in her voice is CRAZY and her dedication to having Regina’s back and protecting her really shows how much she cares for Regina! This as some of their best shippy moments by the sheer amount of concern Emma has for her!

Captain Swan - While it doesn’t work exactly, Killian does a really good job assuring Emma that things with Regina will be okay.

Mal/Briar Rose - “What happened to you?” “A Rose. A Briar Rose.” Mal says that line in the same way someone talks about someone who they had a bad breakup with!

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Hi!!! Thanks for reading and shout outs to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales and to the lovely @daensarah! See you all next time!

Season 4 Total (121/230)

Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (34/60) Jane Espenson: (20/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (38/50) Andrew Chambliss: (22/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30) Kalinda Vazquez: (22/40) Scott Nimerfro: (14/30) Tze Chun (8/20)

Operation Rewatch Archives

[ladyloveandjustice]

Mom and I listened to Chernow’s biography of Hamilton before seeing the play and I want to write down some of my favorite hot facts that were basically “WHAT A SOAP OPERA  ALL THESE GUYS ARE SO FUCKING PETTY” dont try to nitpick for accuracy on these they’re heavily paraphrased take them with a grain of salt i’m just writing this so i can remember the basics

-I think actually maybe the most hilarious and admittedly brave thing Hamilton did was very early on, a bunch of revolutionary guys came to lynch his prof from Kings College for being a loyalist. Even though they weren’t on the same side, Hamilton was there for his prof, so he actually BLOCKED THIS ANGRY MOB at the staircase and LECTURED them to give his prof time to escape. He was like “blablabla U GUYS R HURTING THE CAUSE >:(” and somehow they didn’t all kill him and he successfully delayed them. Amazing.

-Hamiltons mom was AN EXTREME BADASS, basically her mother sold her off to marry this mean guy and she HATED HIM and he hated her for not being submissive enough and she was like “screw you” and just..left. So he threw her in prison for adultery! like literally prison! and it was prison that wasn’t even used for anything else she was the only one in the prison. He thought this would finally make her submissive but instead she basically skipped town the second she was let out and NEVER CAME BACK. So she was still married to this dude the whole time, which is why she couldn’t marry Hamilton’s dad. 

(also after Hamilton’s dad left she ran a shop to support her family, which was unusual for a young woman to do back then, but she was independent like whoa)

unfortunately she also had a son with her first husband that she left behind with when she ran away(in her defense, I imagine she didn’t have the means to support him at the time and also would have gotten caught if she went back for him), so her first husband turned her son against her, reminding him all the time that she abandoned him and saying she was evil...so when she died the son basically came in and claimed all of the property she’d left and rendered his orphaned half-brothers homeless.NOT VERY NICE AT ALL.

-James Monroe and two other dudes were actually the ones who confronted Hamilton about possible speculation and he invited them to his house and gave this WHOLE HOUR LONG presentation on his affair, with a bazillion papers and letters as proof. Like about fifteen minutes in, everyone realized they were wrong and were like “okay we’re very sorry for poking our nose into your private matters we believe you we’ll leave you alone” but Hamilton was like “NO I’M NOT DONE YOU HAVEN’T HEARD IT ALL YET” and went through the entire thing in ridic self-flagellating detail while his audience just cringed. Afterwards one of the guys was like “that was one of the most humiliating things i’ve ever witnessed”

-Anyway James Monroe definitely probably leaked the Reynolds documents Hamilton showed him even though he swore not to show them to anyone. YES A FUTURE PRESIDENT WHO COULD NOT BE TRUSTED WE’RE ALL SURPRISED.Hamilton was SO mad about this he wrote to him basically saying “YOU BETTER APOLOGIZE OR MEET ME OUTSIDE” because that was his response to everything.  Burr was actually chosen as the mediator for this because he was friendly to both of them at the time and he basically tried to calm them both down and prevent a duel. Monroe had initially said he believed that Hamilton wasn’t embezzling or speculating or whatever, but then he was like “UH I CHANGED MY MIND I’VE DECIDED NOW YOU ARE” which made Hamilton SO mad. Burr actually chastised Monroe about this, basically like “c’mon, we both know Hamilton would never betray his office, I know it, you know it, It’s Hamilton.” Anyway Burr saved Hamilton from dueling James Monroe.

But do you know who ELSE would have probably been fine dueling James Monroe? ELIZA. She was, rightfully, very pissed at him for exposing something that hurt her so much. Monroe did his time as president, and once it was over, he decided he wanted to patch things up with her (Hamilton was long dead by this time ofc, and Eliza was elderly). So he came to her house and Eliza was Not Happy when a servant reported his arrival. Hamilton’s kids remembered “her voice got low like it always does when she’s angry”. She went to see him in their living room and he was all “So, Eliza, a lot has happened and there was fault on both sides”-

and she was basically like “EXCUSE ME??? IS THAT AN APOLOGY? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE AN APOLOGY. IF YOU’RE HERE TO ACTUALLY APOLOGIZE I’LL LISTEN TO IT. BUT IF YOU’RE GONNA GIVE ME SOME WEAK “BLAME ON BOTH SIDES” BULLSHIT I’M NOT HERE FOR IT. I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING BUT YOU SAYING SORRY THAT YOU BETRAYED MY LATE HUSBAND AND RUINED OUR LIVES. IF YOU CAN’T SAY THAT, THEN GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE”.

Monroe was flabbergasted, and apparently it was too much for him to give an actual apology, so he just left. So let the record show Eliza schooled an ex-president and kicked him out of her house.

-everything relating to Phillip and Hamilton’s duels was super sad. When he was waiting to hear about the results of Phillip’s duel with the doctor (or someone) Hamilton was so overcome with anxiety he actually fainted. He had to be propped up by two people during the funeral because he was so unsteady. Not only did he fall into his first bout of lethargic depression and actually didn’t write anything for a good while (a big deal for him) he didn’t even answer sympathy notes until four months later (also a big deal for him).

-According the doctor, in his own duel, Hamilton knew it was a mortal wound as soon as he was shot. He collapsed, but came to on the boat and the first thing he said was “GUYS BE CAREFUL OF HANDLING THAT PISTOL IT’S STILL LOADED IT COULD GO OFF I DIDN’T ACTUALLY SHOOT IT BUT PLEASE REMEMBER TO TELL EVERYONE I WAS GOING TO THROW AWAY MY SHOT” He did actually shoot it of course, but he fact he didn’t seem to know this makes it seem more likely he just accidentally squeezed the trigger when he was shot.

- the other thing he kept babbling about was how they should get Eliza but break it to her gradually. in stages. Ease her into it. Which it’s nice you’re considerate of her feelings NOW, wish you’d been considerate enough NOT TO DO THE DUEL.

-anyway the description of his death in the bio was very sad and he said he didn’t hold anything against Burr and was at peace though so i guess that’s nice.

-in contrast Burr was such an ASSHOLE about Hamilton’s death omg

-Before I go into WHAT A GIANT ASS JERK HE IS I will give Burr one credit: he believed strongly women were equal to men, and made sure Theodosia was educated in everything, and even had her taught to shoot from horseback. Like he really wanted to make sure his daughter knew how to kill stuff from a horse. i respect that.

-what I don’t respect is that Hamilton actually has EXTREMELY GOOD REASON to feel he couldn’t be trusted in office- there was this whole drama where after New York had a yellow fever epidemic, Burr started pushing this Manhattan water company that would provide clean water to the public, which would be a huge help with yellow fever. He got Hamilton on board with it. But his real plan was actually to sneak in some last minute provisions to the water company bill that basically turned it from a water company to a bank that could complete with Federalist banks. Not only compete with them, but have less restrictions to them. So he basically tricked Hamilton into pushing through a bill that was designed to undermine his own beloved banks. Hamilton was PRETTY PISSED, and I can’t blame him for that. Not to mention, the water company obviously never happened, and other water companies weren’t set up because everyone thought it would be covered- so when yellow fever came back to new york? No clean water, lots of deaths, some of which could have probably been prevented if Burr hadn’t been a greedy asshole.

-Burr showed some signs of regret immediately after the duel, moving towards Hamilton and wanting to talk to him, but he pretty much treated it pretty callously after that. Actually, he want to have breakfast afterwards, and his cousin came to visit and they chatted and HE ACTED COMPLETELY NORMAL AND NEVER MENTIONED HE’D LITERALLY JUST KILLED THE FORMER SECRETARY OF TREASURY. When Burr’s cousin went into town afterwards someone told him what had happened and cuz was like “nah you gotta be wrong i was just with him and he didn’t mention anything like that at all! He seemed completely normal!” then he saw a newspaper and was like “WHAT THE FUCK.”

-he also happily went around sleeping with tons of ladies after the duel and even wrote to Theodosia saying “I actually recommend doing a duel and courtship at same time it keeps ya invigorated” AND WOW WHAT A SUPER APPROPRIATE THING TO WRITE TO YOUR DAUGHTER. Maybe Theodosia was glad to die at sea after reading that. Anyway, the only sign of regret Burr really showed was “the world was wide enough” quote (which might have been a dark joke, but I think there was a grain of truth in it regardless, like Lin Manuel says, who knows).

-Burr was in incredible debt- (so was Hamilton when he died- Eliza’s inheritance from her dad wasn’t enough to cover it but fortunately all of Hamilton’s friends came together and secretly gave Eliza money to cover it which is nice. Jefferson was in SO much debt when he died his entire estate and 200 slaves were all sold to cover it. yeah he didn’t free anyone besides the slaves who were his children in his will, an asshole to the end.) so he left the country to escape creditors in addition to the murder charges and used a pseudonym. 

-Burr also had this weird fucking plan to become emperor of mexico or seize spanish florida or some shit and was plotting it, and he was actually tried for treason because of this! Thomas Jefferson REALLY REALLY wanted Burr to get punished and put all the pressure he could on the Supreme Court to find him guilty and it was test of our constitutional powers- would the supreme court bow down to the president? turns out no, since Burr got off.

-However, he wasn’t unscathed- a SHIT-TON of people close to him died around the time Theodosia died and he was devastated and basically a recluse afterwards (life doesn’t discriminate...) He married a second wife, but she then realized he was fucking terrible with money and was going to drive her into poverty with his shitty land deals (also she was nearly 20 years younger- I wonder if she was counting on him dying and leaving her something and then realized he was going to die and leave her with DEBT instead). So she got- DRUMROLL- ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S SON, ALEX JR, TO DIVORCE THEM. such a asshole move honestly, i gotta respect it, you go girl. Burr might not have been able to tell what was going on though since he was having strokes and stuff. She managed to divorce him JUST IN TIME, on the day of his death.

-honestly i’m most interested in the petty drama of history and how all these people were just behaving like they’re five and fucking up constantly and listening to this biography proved that to me. people are so ridiculous.