#now this poor child is sad AND can communicate with dead people

[anotherfandomtrash]

Look! A sick victorian child from the epilogue! *adopts him* 

[reticent-writer]

Blood demon art: Plants P1, P2, P3, P4, P5(current), P6,

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　

Rengoku gave you a ticket as the man approached. You gave it to him to punch.

'Somethings wrong.' you thought as you smelt the newly punched ticket. Its faint but you can definitely smell lower moon Enmu. The lights started flickering and suddenly you were back at the infinity castle. In your father's experiment room.

'this can't be right.' you looked around to find something- anything out of place. Nothing.

You could hear footsteps approach the room.

The door opened.

"Papa!" You ran up to him as he kneeled getting himself ready for impact as your body hugged him, a near bone crushing hug if he was human.

"I'm sorry papa, I only wanted to see the flowers I never wanted to cause you trouble." You sobbed into his shoulder as he comforted you.

"What are you talking about, Y/n? What flowers, you have a flower garden in here?"

"Oh right my flower garden. Can we go there I wanna show you something." You pretended to be confused, You realized this was a dream. You didn't wan to wake up.

--------

"Ah little Y/n your father is worried to death over you, let's get you home yeah." Enmu said from the first car.

He sent a child to bring you to him.

It's uncommon for a demon to sleep as soundly as you but it was also hard for you face reality. You caused many problems for your father and against his wishes. However, you weren't guilty of it. In fact your glad that you were able to see the outside world and meet so many people... The same people who want to kill demons.

You want everyone to get along but it's not that simple. You'd rather not think about it.

What a mess, a sad tragedy.

"Did I do good?" The child brought you laid you in front of Enmu.

"Yes you did, A wonderful dream awaits you."

The poor girl fell to the ground. dead.

"Y/n~ I would what you could be dreaming about." Enmu pet your head. "I would've never thought my little spell would work on you."

--------

*back in the dream*

Dragging him to your flower garden you sat him down it the center.

"Blood demon art: Botanical Communication." (name is a work in progress)

As your demon art activated the flowers around started to dance and change color creating a beautiful display of mesmerizing imagery. You danced with the moving flowers as they formed each image. Muzan clapped and encouraged you to continue.

The images you made mimicked the things that you have seen on your time outside of the castle.

This might be a dream but It's the happiest you've been in a long time.

'I should wake up now... I should- shouldn't I'

--------

The train has now been completely taken over by Enmu. You were in his 'head' with the conductor to watch over you. It wasn't long before Hanafuda and the boar man to know that and start attacking it.

They successfully killed the lower moon and broke the spell on you.

You woke up in tear on the ground. Looking around you see the derailed train behind you. You try and push you self up failing to see you right arm and leg have been broken.

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　

Tag list: @american-idiot21, @unhappy-filling

Y'all ready to see Akaza. I'm making a poll in the next one. You decided how the story will turn after that.

[scarfacemarston]

It all sort of happened quietly but the lead writer for rdr left rockstar Kojima-style bc of the similar direction the company is taking. Afterward nothing new ever came about, no dlc, no continued online content, and no attempt to even look like they were trying. It’s really sad but we’ll probably never have any official rdr game content come out again. The closest we could probably get is the writer making a new western series, since with all the grace they gave it after he left I doubt rockstar would be kind enough to let him take the IP and characters with him even once it’s completely dead.

Tbh it sort of feels like the entire gaming industry is in a dark age? I’m having a hard time thinking of one major company that hasn’t heel turned towards pay-to-win mechanics and child gambling. It’s such bullshit

Ah, that makes sense. What a damn shame. As I've said before, I was surprised their corporate minds didn't think that there is SO much money that could be made out of the series. I am still finding lost files for rdr 2, but nothing that says anything about a DLC. Just cut content. It’s obnoxious that they couldn’t even finish the story for us. Even if it would be one final set of missions

Red dead online ONE as in Red Dead Online from the FIRST Red dead game is actually still up and running and pretty active. I have the game on ps3 and I THINK those who stream it can access it as it is. You can play as ANY character from the game. IF you have access to it, I highly recommend you play it. It’s not the same as rdr 2 online, but it has a lot of good going for it. Today was the funeral, I think I heard?  I didn’t get to attend. I’m out of town for work.  Poor OC Alex and poor Abigail Marston don’t get to have their days in the sun anymore. (Actually, you can play as Abigail in red dead online 1, but still.) I have to agree with you. Gaming culture needs a revamp and it starts with the creators. People are like, "Why do you focus on so many older games/fandoms." Games are broken upon release . There are too many transactions as you said. Finally, they are too damn expensive and we can't even get the tech right. Except for Lego Star Wars which I waited for reviews, I haven't bought any "new" games. I always wait at least a year or two. Which apparently makes content "Too old". To be fair, RDR 1 was from 2010 and the 2nd one was 4ish years ago. And then fandoms can also make or break the experience. RDO has brought a lot of people together and a lot of people have made friends. I have. But the friends I have now agree with me that it's so expensive to buy games and have the time/energy to play them. It takes more effort. RDR woke something up in people. I think there are other games like that, but as things break down, that's becoming less and less. Vampire the Masquerade is my other huge favorite game series. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines from 2004ish was a disaster but it still had a lot going for it. The community of developers still came together and VTM Bloodlines is STILL beloved and thriving. I personally am not interested in anything. Bloodlines 2 had a little promise years ago, but again, the writers were LET GO after they did a ton of the writing and they basically wanted to steal a lot of the work (FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND). A new publisher has picked it up. but I don't trust it either. It's just going to fail ad games like VTM Swansong just doesn't have the same magic, and horror. Same with the so called visual novels or IPs like Werewolf the Apocalypse. Game IPs that have been around for decades. Hell, even animal crossing and other nintendo games are going for some seriously shady practices.  It is what it is and it's so unfortunate. It really is.

[luxshine]

After my bit of a pause with RRR (Which, in case you haven't watched it, you should watch. I am in love with those two idiots) I am back to Stranger Things and to find that damn it, Billy is not dead yet.

I REALLY need to stop cheering before I actually see the dead body.

And now there are two of them. I know that the second one must be either the Mind Flyer or a new monster of the season, but still. Two Billys. And none is dead. Series, you will lose me if I get more Billy than Steve in this season.

GOOD to see that Hooper put the fear of god into Mike. I still think Mike's an idiot because what kind of idiot teenager who HASN'T been living 13 years in a bunker doesn't know NOT To do hanky panky when your girlfriend's parents are at home!

AAND Hooper goes back to being an ass. Ok, series, go back to the good people. I need to see Steve.

AAAND again, Joyce is the first one to see something is wrong. Because Magnets don't de-magnetize just like that.

AAAAND Nancy is once again a terrible girlfriend. No, seriously, I hate the Wheelers. ALLL the Wheelers.

AWWW!!! Dustin and Steve are such great friends now. And Steve is SO Happy to see Dustin, to hear about the girlfriend, to hear about how he ended up listening to Russian communication, and Dustin wants Steve help!

Ok, series, dump everyone else. I want to see one hour of just Dustin and Steve. Robin can come, she's also very cool.

Oh, Eleven is FINALLY Talking to Max. It only took her a whole frigging year to realize that she needs a girl friend.

Poor Will. Seriously, get new friends. And a new crush.

Max has dumped Lucas five times? Man, she should keep him dumped.

And I'm so glad that El is now having a friend who is teaching her that yes, there's more life than boys.

Fuck. Billy is still alive. Or, worse, cloned. But we still have the exact same actor, so I will count him as Billy.

Oh, he may be Billy, but he is not in his best. I am still hoping he dies.

Lucas's sister is a terrible costumer.

Robin is still an amazing person and I love her. And I love how Dustin trusts Steve's judgment. And I insist I want more Steve and Dustin in this series.

On the other hand... Nancy is still terrible, and that old lady is great!

CARY ELWES?! First I get Mike from the Goonies and now It's Westley? This is so great! Even if he has all the markings of dead guest star walking. I just hope that he dies AFTER Billy.

Max, you are a child but you should ALREADY know that "What's the worst that could happen?" Is asking for trouble.

On the other hand, FINALLY someone is caring about getting El some socializing, some personality and some life away the men who control her life. GO YOU MAX!!!

Joyce is on her way to become the biggest scientist in town, isn't she?

Oh, Weird Al in the soundtrack!

And Science teacher is back! I Forgot his name, but I like him!

... I just re-read The Green Mile. And omg, that Rat? That rat is not Mr. Jingles.

Nancy is the worst girlfriend... and the worst reporter as she just missed the BIGGEST lead of her case for being a jerk.

And oh, hey, the BLOB!

Billy is so wrong. But yeah, I can see him surviving until the end of the season. SIGH.

The obligatory 80's clothes montage with the girls was perfect. The part with the boys... not so much. And seeing El laugh and smile? Oh, that was so perfect. She totally needed a girl friend.

Will, get a new crew.

Steve can't turn off his babysitter instincts.

Mike is an idiot. El needs a better boyfriend. And she knows it! I love that he got dumped!

Will, seriously, get a new crew.

Ah, Hooper and his attempts to date are... sad. But he's going to get stood up, isn't he?

People need to stop telling Joyce she's seeing things that aren't there. She's two for two.

Robin is amazing. She gets to be babysitter two. Not shipping her with Steve, their vibe is totally siblings. But she needs to join the party officially. The Dustin party, not the Mike party because Mike is an idiot and so is Lucas.

Hooper is too drunk and I don't like that.

Oh, evil Russian is here and he was talking to the Major so... Cary Elwes is evil, not just slimy. Gotcha.

And Billy is being sort of controlled, sort of threatened, sort of dunno what, into being a serial killer.

Not that I thought that he wouldn't become a serial killer without help.

[peppermint-chocolate-cherries]

Sorry, I may be a Canadian aromantic that usually avoids posting about current events, but today I'm annoyed.

Let me tell you about how my nephew exists because of an abortion. No, not in the "getting an abortion in high school in order to lead a fulfilling life" narrative. He was conceived only a month or so after an abortion.

My sister was pregnant twice in 2018. The first conception was in December 2017, approximately. She is married, already has a daughter, and she and her husband were ready to have another kid. About two months or so in, she goes in for a checkup, and they make a sad discovery.

The fetus in her womb was dead.

Since we're in Canada and have better healthcare up here, she and the doctors immediately booked the appointment for a type of inducement to remove the dead fetus from her womb. Yes, also known as a type of abortion.

The operation happened sometime around March 2018. My sister recovered just fine, got back to sexual activities, and got pregnant again around April 2018. This fetus was healthy, and so was born at the end of December. The baby boy is now 3.5 years old, and has endless energy and the world's potential at his fingertips.

I've seen the stories that circulate around here about abortions being needed for medical purposes when a fetus dies in the womb. I've seen the stories about how women are pressured by their church communities to refuse abortions, and who end up dying because a dead fetus was rotting in their womb, only for those same church people to say "God works in mysterious ways".

Really? Would you folks say my sister should've let that dead fetus rot in her womb? Would you deliberately ignore that, by having the abortion, she was able to carry on living and produce a healthy child? Would you have wanted me to lose my sister? My niece to lose her mother? My parents to lose their daughter?

And what if it was God's will for my sister to miscarry this first fetus, so that the next one could thrive? For saying "God works in mysterious ways" a lot, you're forgetting the parable of the Good Samaritan. While the first two people ignore the poor man on the road and let the man suffer, it's the person who helps the poor person who Jesus praised. Have you not considered that human science and medicine is what God wants? Have you not considered that God's way is for us to help each other in kindness and compassion, rather than condemn whose who don't follow your ways? Why is the "Pray for God to do this for someone" the default answer to bad news, when a human can just do something to solve the problem?

So, once again, why are you preventing women from having abortions to remove dead fetuses from their wombs, then saying "God works in mysterious ways" when those women die preventable deaths? Wouldn't it be God's way to save their lives, so that they can go on to make them as religiously fulfilling as possible? What if their next child was meant to be the next Einstein? What if their next multiple children solved all the world's problems?

Oh yes, I'm spinning that old-fashioned narrative on you. Because of an abortion, my nephew exists, and therefore has the world's potential in front of him. He could prove to solve the world's problems, and make it into the history books.

But no, you wouldn't have let him exist, would you? Because my sister had to have an abortion on a previous fetus before she could conceive him? You would deny the world the next Einsteins, the next heroes, the next history-makers, simply because their mothers had another fetus die in their wombs before they could be conceived?

So I ask you one final time, are you saying that, if choosing between a dead fetus and an energetic 3-year-old boy with the world's potential at his fingertips, you'd choose to protect a dead fetus?

[theorist-influencer-untitled]

8.26.23 Saturday

Yey! No work tomorrow but no day off for me...hahah... and huhuh...

Angels, I badly need a job and money and I just wanna compete in a good way that I can speak English and if americans will tell me that I have a problem hey! JOE AND JANE YOU GUYS AREN'T PERFECT!

I need a job and money angels, it is challenging for me to master this "fucking job" but really challenging.... This call center thingy... But I wanna think of it as a game... I want my wave-mates in 468 to grow as a mature agent of Iqor...

It is just weird, I feel fat, ugly and old angels... I wanna be skinny suddenly, seeing Tin2x one of my wavemates but she is still on her 20's...

10:55 am

Well,that's life people will say they care for you but they have different deep within... I have no guilty feelings coz I'm real...

I just need money and I feel irritated working in a call center, the flow of character of people are all different with each other... You can't expect a true friendship but there is... I have to stand alone and flow and just be thankful on some new good souls along the way... I just wanna work coz I need money and I wanna beat the job of course... There will be intimidation and complexities...

I started to work and bloom in Cebu Pacific Air... Where I felt that I was loved by and cared by those people that I considered my FRIENDS....They never put me in the middle of shame... They always covered me with their wings... I bloom and somehow they wanted me to flip my wings but I'm always a child... Now that I can they are all gone...

Sometimes I wanted to cry but my real friends are all gone... I can't flip my wings coz the people around me now simply wanted to smash me...

12:06 noon

I'm so happy I'm able to fix my baby John's ears... Now his ear dirt is normal... Normal ear dirt of dogs are just like the earwax of human's ears...

But I need some collagen on my hands and feet and most specially down there...

12:41 noon

I need help angels, for oil,ginger,onion and garlic plus the chicken cubes for Neko and Lalah...

I will pay the gasul... Still, waiting for Uncle Jun's sponsored food...

Thinking of our body soap here and I need to do my laundry...

Angels, I'm having a hard time here... I paid Ely as well just a 1/4 of my entire credit...

John changes his behaviour since this Thursday crime but he loves to eat bread... If this dog will die, I will go with my dog...Coz I know there is a ritual in this world... So, frustrating I can't go up or can't prove myself... I never have the chance to travel as well.

I'm so frustrated... I wanted oven and I wanted a collagen....

1:06 pm

It feels like someone is dead in this house... Where is Judas?

1:24 pm

This ate Liza is tanga2x stupid and tuso! Will explain later...Not a true friend...

Ate Liza is communicating with the other seller of food and store like the other carinderiaz...They are updating each other angels...

Ate Liza is just copying ate Cha....Then, ate Cha and her husband went to Japan already... And I figured out it from the past months that this Ate Cha is communicating with ate Liza...

I went to other carinderia'Z that if I can buy an 80 pesos adobo instead of 60 pesos, the other carinderia'Z said it can't be that way... I just need to buy 2 separate 60 pesos chicken adobo, I asked a favour if they can make it 80 pesos on 1 order...

I went to Ate Liza she is just copying other people's decision... Meaning will never be real on me...

People in my wave are innocent...There are wealthy kids in call center and some are owning a car... I feel sad and it is really depressing in my part.Those rich kids are just wanting to sit and earn all day but there are wealthy kids.... My Uncle's are innocent as well... Those wealthy kids they just acquired the skills a long time ago and happy earning and simply sitting but it took time for them to learn it as well...But! My point it doesn't mean it is just a call center everyone is poor... There are some wealthy or rich or upper kids inside the call center.

1:59 pm

That Aunt Teresa is on her "silent snapping" and if I sent a message Uncle DD will text or call me...It sounds weird but analyze the situation angels.

Uncle DD is receiving the fundings from Japan if there is or will cover or shoulder...

I will pay the gasul and I don't have extra...

3:23 pm

I just need to rest and later will do my laundry... I need to drink tea later as well coz I feel super bloated...

Hmm... About the new girl I figured out that she is already having a one son when she was 15 years old... Well, I was able to work with her professionally yesterday... She is just 20 or 21 years old having a 6 years old son...Her name is Angie ,she is a blonde girl and super skinny smaller than me...

I still wanna acquire the skills in Iqor, my aim is to beat the job nothing else.. I wanted to be a product manager but I know some people inside the room didn't accept me and I'm fine with it...

Remember that I posted here that I have so many things to explain and I didn't have time to make a long explanation here... This is the moment while resting...

Wait....

3:34 pm

First I didn't know anything at the backstage of Iqor... I don't have guilty emotions on something or on someone...

I did enter having a clean slate....I was and still never a judgemental... I did and do respect people's character.... But I'm not sure if I can keep my clean slate coz I'm adjusting to the nature of job in call center... Meaning being in the call center is different on other industries or companies that I worked with way back... I really wanna beat the nature of the job! I feel offended and degraded...

I was in Cebu Pacific Air my position there was "ground attendant or CSA ( customer service associate)"

Being a Product Manager it is not about being the master of the floor... For example my previous manager or supervisor in Cebu Pacific Air can get the title of being a Manager or Supervisor or Team Leader even without knowing the entire flow of the call center floor. Coz he is already old and having wisdom in the world and he knew how to balance the situation in the work fleld...This is somehow difficult to understand for matured people only....

Well, I'm just explaining here if they can't accept me well then it's fine... But I still wanna dig deeper on Iqor who to target for me to be able to stay and get the skills as in master it and go up and be a leader as well...

In my wave at 468, since I'm again a newbie in the call center world... I chose Mia or Bella to be our team leader if ever we are going to be in the same group when time comes that we are going to be on the floor of Iqor... Coz they will never kick me out if I have struggles on the floor.

Mia is my friend and Bella is my sisterhood... But all of them are my wavemates and I have nothing against on anyone... It's just that I see something on Mia and Bella that I can't find on other people inside my wave at 468.

4:21 pm

I'm so scared angels my right foot is twisting again inward... I have right leg cramps... Argh! My pelvic is still aching...

7:35 pm

Thank God John ate his dinner with me... Probably he is angry when I'm not in the house..

I still feel panic and I still need money... I wanna do collagen on my feet and hands and down there... I wanna do gluta... I need to keep a job angels...

8:06 pm

Grrr... The water in our village is so slow on the faucet... Uncle Jun said probably coz everyone is in the house using water... I wasn't able to wash my clothes... Grrr....

Water,water,water please tomorrow... Return the normal flow of our water here in the village...

I wanna have dimple angels... I feel super ugly... I need botox... I need to keep a job... I need to fix my butt as well... I need a scrub...

9:21 pm

Classical music that I really like angels... Aside from procrastinating... It is so good to feel and close your eyes...

10:04 pm

Baby,Darling and Sweetheart...

Can you fucking marry me Mike??? I WANNA GO HOME MIKE ...

10:15 pm

Still here... Just here and I don't know....I feel so frustrated...

Mike???? Home... Home???

Hold-up??? Or Procrastinating???

10:55 pm

I feel bitter Mike... My film is flop Mike... Mike I wanna be a product manager but I need time.... I want to be admired by or own a company... I wanna have my own Pet Store... Now, this call center thingy I feel that it is really hellish but I need money Mike and I need a job... I'm losing xfactor as an individual... A lot of women went up but I'm always just a supporter for 16 years Mike... I feel fat, ugly,old and wrinkled...

I feel so ugly Mike... I feel so ugly and still self-pitying... I need money and I need to keep a job Mike... I need that "untouchable status"... It is not easy over the phone, I'm so offended Mike...

11:28 pm

Our lives are just like film Mike... I couldn't go up and be a star just for once...Since 2007 Mike, I'm always low and always the 2nd or last choice of everyone... Always a wall flower Mike... You didn't even care... I still have windblow trap... Dying for nothing... Even a real film of being a real Zombie now, can't even have it... Still, can't buy Starbucks... My S-bones are aching but I'm not guilty but they just keep on hurting me here...i

It is unfair to die Mike, it is unfair not to have or own the "dinosaurs" me, my baby-John other dogs that I love and some good souls like some family and friends and people along the way...

[suzyqrara]

Genesis 9 and 10

Genesis 9:

I am so tired.  I could only have slept one-hour last night and I feel dead.  This stinks because I have a full long day ahead of me.  

Chapter 9 is the chapter that tells us GOD’s first covenant with us. He said we are not allowed to murder anyone.  If a person murders another person, they are subject to be killed. He said he will never flood the world again to wipe out the race. He said the rainbow if made to remind him of his covenant. 

Noah did something silly and got drunk + some that left him lying naked in the tent.  His youngest son exposed him by telling his brothers.  His brothers covered his father with a cloth and helped him. Once Noah recovered he felt embarrassed and he courses his youngest son for seeing him naked and telling his sons about it.  So he curses his son’s poor baby.  The baby is named Canaan.  He was cursed to be a serpent.  His family would also be serpents or at least have too work very hard to reach the top. 

This of course, makes me sad. I don’t understand why Noah cursed his younger son’s child.  His younger son didn’t even do anything wrong. Noah should not have exposed himself and he is mad that his youngest son saw him naked?  Don’t get naked then…So I don’t believe that his younger son’s family should have gotten cursed. He didn’t do anything at all. So this makes me mad at Noah and God for allowing such a curse to affect a child who didn’t do anything and has a parent that is only guilty of seeing his father’s poor decision. This makes me feel that people can be cursed for no reason at all and that is that.  These generational curses is what brings struggle to our daily lives and people live with these curses probably for no reason at all but they do. I am learning that GOD is unfair, or he allows unfairness. This makes me sad. I feel like our family’s curse is dying alone.  This is unfair because I didn’t do anything to deserve the curse to play out in my life. I am expected to accept it and my child needs to accept it as well.  This is crap and it makes me very angry. This is unfair. Reading other people’s interpretations, it says that Ham did something that was wrong and that’s all we need to know. I still think he should have had a curse on him not his innocent baby who literally didn’t ask to be in the world. Now the baby has to hold this Burdon all his life for nothing that he did. #injusticetoCanaan. Reading a bit further on google, Canaan’s whole community gets wiped out by GOD.  GOD is wiping out people again.  OMG.  He promised he wouldn’t though, right? I skimmed through it a little but I do not know if this is for real or not.  

Genesis 10:  Today was a rough day and mostly it was because I was getting sick this morning.  I could not sleep the night before and I was exhausted.  I read Genesis 9 this morning and I had so many questions about why poor Canaan was given the short end of the stick.  I was doubting GOD and wondering how GOD could allow Noah to curse a child and his descendants.  I’ve been reading about other people’s interpretations of this, but it didn’t help. I felt so disappointed and sad all day. I decided to read more tonight as I allow the tea that I drink earlier to go through my intestines and out my body.  As I read chapter 10, it told me that Canaan had multiple children and each one formed their own clan.  So, it’s not that every single child of Canaan had the curse. He was the ancestor of 10 different clans including the Canaanites who were wiped out by GOD later in the Old Testament.  There was one thing I read from a guy’s interpretation, and he said that it wasn’t a curse that Noah set out on his grandbaby, it was a prophecy.  Chapter 10 does support this since the other clan weren’t wiped out entirely. He knew that one of Canaan’s clans would fall behind and be wiped out by GOD.  I feel like as I continue to read and keep this story in mind, it may make sense?  I feel having faith is believing those things that don’t make sense.  GOD didn’t call us out to make sense of his word.  He calls us out to have faith and trust him. Everything that has happened in the past and that will happen in the future, there is a purpose and that’s all we need to know. Chapter 10 talks about the descendants and family tree of all of Noah.  It talks about how language became different.

[xtrablak674]

There is so much to unpack here...

Let's first clarify a few things, I haven't said more than ten words to this cousin in the last four years. In our most recent correspondence if you could even call it that, I sent her two messages, one that Techu was dead, and the second a screenshot of the post I posted on her late aunt's FB page. All of this was about five weeks ago, she has been texting me ever since with no response whatsoever on my part. I didn't even "read" the text, so she wouldn't get a notification that her messages were received.

My lack of desire to correspond with her started when we were talking about the death of her aunt about two years ago, she said to me clearly, that she doesn't respect boundaries. I had attempted to make it clear to her that if we were to speak I didn't really wish to discuss her aunt. She said clearly that no one will tell her what she can or can not speak about. I said I respect that and ceased all communications.

Truthfully boundaries are contrived by society as a rules that allow folk to interact in a civil manner. Without them I think our relations would devolve, potentially into violence if not very hostile disagreements. If we can't concede how we will engage around certain topics, that is the basis for the proliferation of tensions, anger and resentments. I have no desire to subject myself to such negative emotions, because she has so many unresolved issues. #HardPass

Boundaries help me to keep my mental health intact, staying away from topics or people that are triggering or upsetting. There's a reason that trigger-warnings are a thing! Certain things can be disruptive to folks, and even if they are on a road to healing this can arrest any progress they have made and potentially do more harm than good.

This isn't quite my situation, but I can't pretend to have a conversation with someone about someone I literally despised for their very toxic and abusive relationship toward me. I don't have the capacity to hold their adoration and my disdain at the same time, so its best for me to just avoid the topic. But she choose not to respect my needs and I chose to disengage. If you can't honor my requirements, I don't have to fuck with you... #Facts

Next point, who said someone hated her? If anything I have a great amount of compassion for my first cousin once removed. She was sexually assaulted by her eldest brother when she was a little girl, and in my opinion that trauma has informed the rest of life, even now as a grown woman. She has never healed from the assault and it doesn't help that her mother never acknowledged that the violence actually happened. I overstand that baggage and the compounded emotional interest that can come from not processing and unpacking childhood traumas. #BeenThereGotTheTShirt

But I have never been the enemy, out of all of my father's family she was easily one of my favs. But her demons are so large they won't allow us to occupy the same space and this has always aggravated our attempts at a relationship.

Who is doing something vicious to her? I did something passive, I chose not to engage, there is nothing remotely vicious about that.

God brother? Now I am not sure if she had told me previously that my father had made her mom my god parent, that is the only way I could be her god sibling. I can't deny or confirm this because of my estrangement from her mom and my father being long dead.

Lastly, regarding her cousin, I am not sure why she thinks I would be the conduit to him. I have never played that role and if she actually spoke to her other cousins she would find that Laurie has taken on a more active role with her aunts last surviving child, and would actually be the best person to discuss my Uncle Allen.

What is so sad to me is that the mental health of all of my alleged 'family' is so poor yet in so many of their eyes, if I am even thought of, I am the person with the problem. And I realize the close lines of paranoia that my assessment and this cousins paranoia, nearly mirror each other. But I think unlike her, I have found myself slowly but surely vindicated in confirming these untoward feelings about me. I would be remiss and inauthentic to say that everyone has this position. I have noted a handful of these people who seem to genuinely care. I will acknowledge after so much betrayal from even closer quarters that it feels safest to keep everyone at a distance.

[Screenshot by Brown Estate]

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

So do you guys remember my post about Jedi meeting their birth families and being chill with it? 

I’ve been thinking a bit - a lot, for like a year - about all the headcanons around Jedi’s biological people, and there are really only two possible cases that seem to get explored: the pure of heart, flawed but loving, desperate parents who ‘had’ to give up their precious child to the Jedi and didn’t feel they had a choice (most commonly seen from the more Jedi critical parts of the fandom, but not always), and the horribly abusive no good parents at all who gladly dumped their baby onto the Order (which appears to be the way of some Jedi fans to ‘justify’ the adoption into the Order as legitimate, which really shouldn’t be the point because adoptions are just as legitimate without abuse factoring in).

What’s kinda sad is how little we’re willing to explore all the possibilities, maybe because we don’t want to be perceived as on the wrong side of the fandom by our own pals. We all deal with just so much bad faith discourse that we smooth out any sort of human drama and nuance to try and have clear cut narratives that are so black and white that they must prevent bad faith interpretations. Jedi have to be perfect pure angels that have never done anything wrong to be recognized as good, because we’re afraid that if we write them in an interesting way people will jump on the opportunity to accuse them of all sorts of stuff.

Well, I’m tired of vanilla fics and good guys vs bad guys when dealing with purely human everyday stuff. Bad guys are for the galactic battles, the epic clash of eternal forces. When dealing with how Jedi younglings come to the Order, we can have plenty of amazing, heart-wrenching drama and warm, happy moments where all sorts of good and regular people have different goals and meet and clash without anyone being at ‘fault’ or being to blame for it. I want to see (*sigh* to write) complex, difficult situations that can’t be perfectly resolved but where people do try and everyone feels like a *person*.

With that out of the way, what about:

- the unanimously proud communities, so honored that their daughter will represent their people and traditions among the Order, wear their clothing and bear their name

- the desperate mother with proud relatives, who doesn’t want to give away her child, but feels pressured into it by well-meaning relatives. The Master feels her reluctance and tries to reassure her, but she insists that it’s fine - and it is, she wants it to be, she wants to believe it’s for the best but it’s just so hard...

- Stass Allie’s parents, who saw their niece Adi GAllia go to the Order a few years prior. Their two families are influential on Coruscant, but with Adi already in the Order, do they need to send Stass too? Will people think they’re making a grab for power? Will Stass be better off over there, with her cousin? 

- Tiplar and Tiplee’s parents. How many children do they have, besides their twins? Is it easier to let your children go when you know they will be together? Did they make the Master promise they wouldn’t be separated no matter what? Did they dress them in matching outfits, or were the Jedi the ones to come up with that?

- the teenaged single mom who cries tears of relief when she realizes her baby will have a good life

- the single dad who can’t bring himself to let his daughter go, because she’s his whole world. The Master presses, not fully understanding, because she would would give up everything for the good of her Padawan, including her relationship with him if need be. The dad still says no.

- the struggling addict parent who is glad to dump that kid (but who still wakes up at night crying, cursing the Jedi, cursing themselves - who get their life back on track for their next kid, maybe? Who meets more Jedi and is thankful after all, or who never does and stays bitter, but better...)

- the family using the adoption for clout, and the consequences for the Order PR-wise, with the younger Jedi having to let go of the bitterness and the anger

- the communities with their own customs surrounding the Force that the young Knight or the wise Master’s inexperienced Padawan struggle to grasp and accept

- the happy parents who are mildly Force-sensitive themselves but didn’t know (or did know, and expected some of their children to be sensitive too), with the Master or the Knight pondering what their own life would look like as a civilian, maybe a parent themselves, maybe giving their own child to the Order like those are doing now. Would they do it? If they could met that hypothetical version of themselves, what would they say about the life they have? 

- the superstitious, incredulous or religious parents who are just glad to get a real explanation for the floating rocks, instead of all the theories and the judging and the gossip

- the ones who are desperately poor, and so very grateful, and the younger Jedi struggling with this, wondering if that’s why they were given to the Order as well. Struggling not to judge, because they wouldn’t be happy to give up their own younglings no matter what, right? Learning to be grateful, and understanding, and compassionate. 

- the parents who decide to give their child away against the community’s pressure, finding comfort in the Jedi’s genuine desire to support them

- the siblings struggling not to feel betrayed by their parents’ choice - and the jealous ones, the proud ones, the amazed ones, the ones who were just toddlers and spend their life holding onto faded memories

And on the flipside to all of that, what about:

- the Jedi who find a baby among dead bodies, like Mace and Depa, and are so thankful they could save this one tiny light

- the Knights filled to burst with warmth and pride as the three of them get this little toddler to giggle on the way home

- the baby who has been screaming in the Force for weeks, wanting to go home, and who finally gets to feel a presence caressing his mind gently, telling him someone is coming

- the Masters who hold the little ones at night, when those who miss their old home feel lonely or sad, rocking them and singing to them

- the Jedi who have their niece, nephew, cousin, or sibling arrive in the Creche, who call their birth family to reassure them that it’ll all be okay, and yes, ‘the child will know who I am, don’t worry, we keep our names. I’ll help them along the way, I’ll keep an eye on them.’

- the Knight who shows up somewhere and experience a supersonic boom because that’s the one, this little one will be his Padawan, he knows it

- the Knight awkwardly trying to comfort the parents, but she can see that they can see that the baby has already latched onto her, and she senses their turmoil

- the Master feeling that the child won’t be suited for the life of a Jedi, and saying that, even as it’s so hard to turn away from those sparkling baby eyes and that little mental tug 

- the Padawan balancing babbling triplets on his shoulders, because they’re from a species that makes a lot of babies

- the Master-Padawan pair visiting a child a lot during the transition period, and bonding with the other siblings as well

... Just... a mess of relationships and love on all parts, with understandings being reached, people finding peace and joy, and the opposite of all that, all acknowledging that there are no bad guys here, just complicated circumstances.

[billys-lover]

Hi!!!!! Could I please get a ship?

I'm 18, I'm bi, I use she/her pronouns, I'm 5'3 and I'm pretty chubby, I'm black with dark skin and I have pastel pink locs right now but I like to dye my hair a lot!!!

I'm an infp and a Gemini sun, Libra moon, Gemini rising (with great decision making skills as you can imagine).

I have adhd and I tend to not speak until I'm spoken to, but once I start talking I don't stop easily lol. If I'm talking about something I'm especially interested in I can literally go on for hours at a time. I'm really into witchcraft, mythology, most cartoons, all of the twilight movies except new moon cause I don't like seeing ppl get sad, and languages, of which I'm currently learning seven (almost none of which are remotely useful lol) I especially love dead languages, rn I'm learning ancient Egyptian and Latin and I am ✨obsessed✨.

I'm a huge history nerd but I hate hearing about war and politics because they can be kinda triggering for me, i don't rlly like violence unless I know it's explicitly fake (so supernatural horror movies r usually good but if it seems to plausible I start to freak out lol). I'm incredibly sensitive but I think since I talk so much and overthink constantly I'm a lot more likely to just communicate with someone instead of arguing or fighting with them, (not that I can or would want to fight anyone I hate all physical activity so much lol) and I love love and being romanced but I have pretty bad trust issues

My favorite genre of music is probably hyperpop even though I listen to literally everything (one of my favorite songs is an Icelandic lullaby about the ghost of a child calling out to its mom) and I almost always have headphones on at 100% volume.

My receiving love languages are acts of service, gift giving, and quality time and my giving love languages are gift giving and quality time, I'll cry while watching anything even though I hate crying in front of people, and I love literally all animals (except centipedes, they scare me a lot) and would jump in front of a Mac truck for literally any stray cat, and I can and have walked into mildly unsafe areas for the sake of getting a better glimpse at some raccoons

!!! <3 <3 <3 thank you!!! I hope you're having a good day !!!

i had so much fun writing this?! i hope you enjoy it! also i’m so sorry i haven’t been very active this week:( i’m getting stuff written i promise! anyways, i ship you with…

SIDNEY PRESCOTT!

- i feel like this poor girl would drool over you 24/7

- please let her help you dye her hair.

- she's too scared to dye her own hair so she’d love to do your’s instead! 

- she can totally understand the whole not speaking unless spoken to thing 

- i have such a strong feeling that this girl is super duper shy so please don’t stop talking! maybe add her into the conversation too! - loves to hear you talk.

- please tell her about your day!?!

- sidney would love the twilight franchise. i know it.

- watch them with her!

- you watch cartoons too? name your favourites to her and you two will watch them all night.

- will sit there in absolute shock when you speak to her in a different language.

- she finds it beyond attractive.

- “where did you learn that, doll?”

- loves the fact that you dont quite do slasher films because of her past trauma... obviously.

- but if one day you decide to watch a slasher film that isn't too gory or doesn't show much violence then she’ll be willing to watch it with you as long as you're comfortable! 

- just please cuddle her. she needs it

- she promises she’ll cuddle you back!

- i’m convinced you would barely fight.

- you're both willing to talk about what's bothering you and unlike her ex billy, you wont scream (wink wink) and shout at her.

- would definitely take her a while to get into hyper pop but i feel like she’d quite enjoy it!

- loves when you give her gifts and will give you the cutest shit as a thank you.

- WILL GET YOU A CAT AS A GIFT!!!!!!

- and will kill centipedes for you even though she's quite scared of them herself

- what can i say! she loves you. 

[whitexwingedxdoves]

losing grip | one shot

Pairing: Maggie Rhee x Platonic! Reader Warnings: Language, Angst. Summary: It had been years since your best friend disappeared and you never thought that when she returned, it would end up in an argument.  A/N: ahhhhhhhhh, I hope you all like this one! I worked really hard on it and it’s an idea i’ve had for the longest time. 

It was quiet in Alexandria today, the wall was almost finished and the new builds were well underway.  Standing in your kitchen, you hovered over Negan who attempted to work some kind of magic on the pipes under your kitchen sink. It seemed like he was finally finished after making a few comments on how clogged your drain had become.

“So is it fixed now?” you seemed a little short with the former saviour but he still managed to strike up that obnoxious smile, wiping away any dirt from his hands with one of your fresh hand towels.

“All done.” He threw the towel to the side and flicked the tap on to prove his handy work.

This time you offered him a genuine smile and the room filled with silence. You were still trying to get used to Negan being a part of the group and it was hard but you had to try, you promised Judith. Which is why you accepted his offer to help with your plumbing.

But it’s hard to let someone in when they took someone away from you.

“Better go,” he spoke softly before pushing past you, making his way to the door. You nodded in his direction and watched as the door closed behind him.

You had never felt so conflicted before, on one hand you hated Negan more than you’ve ever hated anyone but on the other hand, he was proving that he was trying to change and you couldn’t deny what he had done for the community.

You couldn’t dwell too much, the sound of your door reopening caught your attention. It was Carol this time, a welcomed distraction.

“Knock knock.” Her perky spirit only confirmed her visit was a good one. Thank god. “You have a visitor!”

With her ominous words, you cocked a brow and peaked around her as she pushed your door back open.

You recognised that face instantly.

The day Maggie left you were on a run, the details of that day had been lost throughout the years but the one thing that remained sketched on your memory was the way you felt when Enid broke the news that your best friend had left, without a word. For years you’d cooked up the perfect speech for when Maggie finally returned, if she ever did. You’d rehearsed it in the shower, in bed at night when it seemed impossible to fall asleep and every moment in between the words you had so carefully thought out would play on repeat in the back of your mind.

Now, with Maggie Rhee standing right in front of you, your carefully thought out speech seemed to completely disappear along with all the anger you held. None of it mattered now because she was there, right in front of you... in the flesh. That infectious smile gleaming on her face as if nothing happened. It broke you. You ran into her arms and held her so close that you were sure if she was any closer you’d become one person.

Tears stained her shirt as you sobbed into her shoulder, she was crying too which only made you sob harder. You never wanted to let go, scared she might take off again if you did and you most definitely wouldn’t let anyone or anything take her away from you now that you had her back.

Eventually, you did let go and when you did you noticed that Carol had left, giving you both space to really catch up.

“I’ve missed you,” you managed to whisper.

Maggie’s head dropped a little, a look of guilt washing away her smile. It seemed a lot was being unsaid, but neither you nor Maggie felt now was the right time to bring it up.

“So, what do you get up to?” you forced small talk, guiding the woman to your dining table and offering her a seat.  

“Everything” she laughed, taking a seat right beside you.

You laughed along with her, it was nice to hear her laugh again... it was nice to hear her again. You fumbled with your fingers, picking at the dead skin at the sides of your fingernails.

You can tell Maggie was feeling some type of way, her body was closed off and she could barely even look you in the eye.

“Maggie, it’s-“ just as you opened your mouth, you noticed the expression on the widow change and she cut you off.

“How could you just let him into your home like that?” Finally she looked you in the eyes but just not in the way you had expected.

 “After everything he’s taken from us!” Her eyes seemed to fill with tears but you knew by the way her words hissed, they weren’t tears of sadness. She was mad and confused. You could hardly blame her but yet you still bit at her words.

“Are you kidding me right now? Maggie you’ve been gone for years!” A squeak broke your voice and your tears matching Maggie’s “You have no idea what we’ve dealt with, what we’ve done to make sure we stay safe.” You could feel your heart beating out of your chest and tried desperately to stabilize your breathing but it didn’t seem to work. 

“And you think Negan is the answer to that?” The woman scoffed, shaking her head. You had only ever seen her this mad once. 

“Negan has done more for this community recently than anyone else. He put Alexandria first when the rest of us were too wrapped up in our own bullshit, so yes Maggie, he was the answer!” It felt like a fever dream, never had you imagined you’d plead Negan’s case to the women whose life he destroyed. 

Maggie’s face seemed to harden, her jaw clenched and the tears just stopped rolling down her face. Her head slowly tilted in your direction and it seemed like a lifetime had passed since someone had spoken. Once her eyes settled on yours a tear finally fell and she spoke in the softest tone you had known her to use “So is that enough to forgive him for what he’s done or have you just forgotten?” 

You were in pure disbelief. Have you forgotten? It seems like she had forgotten. 

“How dare you say that, I lost people too because of him! It wasn’t just you!” Perhaps you shouldn’t have said that. You did lose people but she lost the most. 

There it was again, that silence. You had to break it, you couldn’t allow yourself to dwell on your words. “You left me Maggie, you left me on my own” You whispered, wiping away the fresh tears with your thumb. It was like you were reliving the moment, like you were right back at Hilltop being told by Enid that your best friend had gone. 

You pushed away from the table and paced the room, chewing your bottom lip as you thought over your words. “You didn’t even tell me you were going! You just left me when I needed you the most!” Turning to finally meet Maggie’s gaze, you were taken back by her expression. 

She looked so sad, which in return made you feel guilty. You hated that it was your doing that she felt that way, almost making you forget why you said those things in the first place.

“I needed to get away,” Maggie snapped but the look of regret never left her face.

A scoff left your lips as you listened to her poor excuse “You’re all I have left in this world, Maggie and you just left because you couldn’t handle it? I could have gone with you if-“

“No.” Taken back by her words, you furrowed your brow as you waited for her explanation but it never seemed to come.

“What do you mean, no?” You were scared of her answer but you needed it. Maybe it would help you get over six years of being in the dark. 

“I couldn’t be near you.” It felt like someone had ripped your heart out of your chest. You struggled to find air and instantly fumbled for something to hold onto.  “You remind me everything I’ve lost” It was like she was trying to soften the blow but it only made it worse. 

You clutched onto the kitchen counter behind you and used it as an aid to control your breathing but for the second time today, the sound of your front door swinging open became a welcomed distraction. 

This time it wasn’t Carol. 

A little boy ran across your kitchen and into the arm’s of Maggie and there was no confusion on who that little boy was. 

Hershel. 

You watched as he wrapped his arms around his mother with a smile that matched hers. It was almost as if you were dreaming. The last time you saw Hershal Rhee, he was struggling to walk and form sentences and giggling at your attempts to play peek-a-boo. 

“Mommy, is this Auntie Y/N? The one you always talk about?” The boy questioned his mother, finally looking over at you. 

God did he melt your heart. 

Your eyes filled with tears, as Maggie nodded at the small child. With confirmation on who you were, Hershel giggled remembering a story his mother once told him about how scared you were of chicken’s when she had first met you. You’d have laughed too. 

He was wearing a baseball cap, just like the ones that Glenn used to wear, and it broke your heart just looking at him. 

He looked so much like his father that it hurt to look for too long but you simply couldn’t take your eyes off him. That’s when you realised that Maggie would never accept Negan, despite what good he’s done or will do, she had a constant reminder of what he was capable of. 

Hershel pushed away from his mother and walked in your direction. When he got closer, he stretched his arms out, welcoming you into a hug and you caved instantly. 

You wrapped your arms around the boy and held him tightly, just hoping you weren’t hurting him. With all you had, you held back the tears and pulled away from Hershel when he squirmed slightly but still gave you his best smile when you came face to face. 

“Mommy was excited to see you again!”  He looked over his shoulder, just to make sure he hadn’t stepped out of place with his words because just like his name sake, he was taught to be polite, after all he was part Greene. 

You too looked over at Maggie and watched as her eyes softened at his words, only slightly peering up at you. 

“We were both excited.” Hershel corrected himself.  

Maggie fumbled with her back pockets, keeping her tears at bay as she watched the wholesome moment unravel. It was good for her son to be here, around the people who helped her get to this point but the lingering thought of Negan made it hard for her to fully commit to her return home. 

“Mommy, can I go play with RJ?” Once his mother gave him a nod, Hershel’s face lit up and he made a run for the door. 

Without a second thought, the two of you followed him outside, stopping at the railings of your porch to quietly observe. There was something infectious about the way the two boys laughed as they played, so much so you found yourself giggling along with them, Maggie too.

“I'm not asking you for forgive Negan” You watched as your words ripped the smile from Maggie’s face but she didn’t dare look at you just yet “I just want you to be happy” you whispered trying to catch her gaze “You deserve to be happy, you both do” 

Maggie finally looked up at you, doe eyed as a small smile took its place on her lips again. You offered her the same smile.

A lot of things were said the day Maggie came back but in time you’d soon forget them and all you’d remember was the way you and your best friend laughed along to the sound of children playing.

[mamabearcat]

9: a missing moment from canon 💜

Okay. Sorry in advance. This ended up a lot angstier than I'd planned.

The thing is, Kagome is a modern girl in a very violent and unforgiving time period, and I'm sure she saw a lot of things that she wasn't emotionally prepared for. And she's such an empathic character, she would take those situations to heart, and they would affect her a lot.

I'm going to put this under a read more. Contains a death (not main character) and canon level violence. I'm going to put it in my AO3 one-shot collections as well.

“Kagome? Can I get the kettle out of your backpack?”

Kagome startled at the sound of Sango’s voice so close to her, and the soft touch of a hand on her shoulder. Suddenly she realised that everyone had been setting up the camp around her while she’d been sitting on a tree root, silently staring into space.

“Oh Sango-chan, I’m sorry, let me help!”

Sango smiled at her wanly, her lips barely turning up at the corners, squeezing Kagome’s shoulder gently.

“It’s fine Kagome-chan. Just rest here a moment.”

“O-okay.”

And she was left alone with her thoughts again. Swirling thoughts she didn’t really want. Thoughts she wished she could bleach out of her mind, like Mama did with the stains on white tablecloths. Soak her whole self in a bucket of bleach to be hung out on the line, and go back to being sunny carefree Kagome, who’s main worry of the week was if she managed to remember the quadratic equation for that math quiz. Not the Kagome who had just seen that village. That hut. Not the Kagome who had held that boy. Not the Kagome who… killed.

*

“Here, there’s someone alive over here!” Shippou called out frantically, his tiny paws incapable of pulling aside the ruins of the toppled and still smouldering hut. In a flash Inuyasha was there, lifting heavy boards, kicking aside matting and broken furniture until he could make his way inside.

“Inuyasha!”

Kagome followed him into the partially collapsed hut, medical kit in hand, but Inuyasha turned to block her view.

“Don’t go in Kagome, you can’t do no good in there.”

There was a faint, gurgling cry, and Kagome slipped under his outstretched arm to glance around the room. There had been fire. There were arrows. There was blood. There was a woman, her eyes open but no longer seeing, her torn clothing no longer protecting either her modesty or the horrific end she had come to. And there was a boy.

He was young, probably around Souta’s age. But the gash across his throat and horrific burns covering half his face and chest made him look monstrous, and Kagome had to clench her teeth hard against the bile forcing it’s way up her throat. The smell was horrific, and she panted for a moment as she knelt next to the boy, trying to get herself under control. His one eye focused on her face.

“Ma…” he gurgled. Kagome glanced aside to the woman on the floor and then back to the boy, concentrating her gaze on the unmarked side of his face, smoothing the blood soaked hair off his forehead as she gathered her courage, then forced herself to take stock of his injuries for a moment. She blinked quickly, fighting back tears. Even if she tried to treat those burns, the amount of blood he’d lost from where his throat was cut, the actual cut itself – she had no way to fix this. Even a modern hospital would have trouble fixing this. She took a deep breath.

“I’m Kagome, and I’m going to give you something to take the pain away”, she said softly.

She reached into her medical kit and took out the tiny dark bottle that Kaede had given her. The one that came with extremely strict instructions and should only be used in very specific circumstances. There was no way she could save this boy. Left for dead by samurai soldiers and then horrifically burnt by the hut they’d set alight. The hut that had once been his home, his safe place. They had arrived too late to help, long after the samurai had left. She couldn’t do anything to take those violent memories away for him. But at least she could take his pain away.

Being as gentle as she could she dribbled the mixture into the child’s mouth, humming softly to him and stroking back his hair as she waited for the medicine to take effect. Gradually the ragged breathing slowed and his eye rolled back as a great sigh, and then another left his body.

Her trembling hand slid down his face to close his eye as the silent tears came. Tears for a little boy she would never know, a boy from a different time, but who in essence was probably very similar to the little brother she loved.

Inuyasha stood behind her silently, waiting for her to be ready to move aside. For a while, he’d sat in the hut with Kagome and the boy, listening to her quiet hum and the gasping breaths of the boy, watching the movement of the gentle hand. But in the end, he hadn’t been able to sit still any longer, his fingers twitching helplessly, and had gone outside to dig the graves. At least with that he was useful.

When Kagome finally wobbled to her feet, he picked up the little boy, barely a weight in his arms, and carried him outside to place in the grave. When he came back for the mother, Kagome had found a charred blanket to wrap her in, and had closed her eyes.

When the graves for all the villagers had been filled and Miroku had chanted the sutras, with Sango laying some wildflowers she’d managed to find not far away, Kagome had leaned on Inuyasha bonelessly, holding Shippou in her arms. It felt like she should still be crying, but her tears had dried up to be replaced by a feeling of emptiness. A hollow rage that had no where to go.

And that rage still filled her. The unfairness of it. There had been no reason for the people in that small village to have died. There had been barely twenty of them. It had obviously been a small farming community, a poor one, with nothing worth stealing. The only thing stolen had been their lives, their dignity, by men who had no compassion or soul.

“Kagome?”

Little Shippou was standing there in front of her, holding out a plate. Plain rice, with fish cooked over the fire.

But one look at the blackened blistered skin that she usually loved to eat had her bolting into the darkness as far from the camp as she could manage before she collapsed over a large tree root, hurling the meagre contents of her stomach onto the forest floor. The dry sobs came then as she gripped the bark under her fingernails, feeling them bend and crack as she put all her strength into it.

“Hey.”

Inuyasha was there, holding back her hair, his hand warm on her back.

“It’s not fair”, she gasped. “They didn’t deserve that. It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not fair”, he said, his usually gruff voice gentle.

“And I know what you’re going to say. And I know it too. I need to be tougher, harder. I need to get used to seeing things like that. I need to be stronger.”

The hand on her back rubbed gently.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything of the sort.”

He sighed then, and she felt herself being pulled backwards into his arms as he picked her up and moved away from the meagre pile of vomit, sitting down against a tree closer to the campsite, holding her tightly against him, kissing her forehead.

“You are a good person Kagome. Kaede woulda done the same.”

“I’m not a good person”, she whispered. “I killed him Inuyasha. That little boy.”

“No you didn’t.” He ignored her shaking head. “He woulda died anyway, all alone. You gave him peace, and you were there for him when he needed someone the most.”

Kagome shut her eyes, and he turned her face to his.

“Look at me. Kagome look at me.”

His eyes were the most earnest she’d ever seen them, and she couldn’t help the small sob that escaped her.

“You don’t need to be hard. You don’t!”

He stroked her hair gently as she pressed her face into his chest, tears streaming.

“Your heart, your… softness. It’s one of the things I like about ya the most. Because that soft heart a yours looked at a shitty hanyou like me and decided I was okay.”

She snorted at him through her tears, pushing at his chest with a weak fist.

“You’re better than okay, dummy!”

“Better than okay”, he chuckled. “I’ll take that. But I'm be'in serious here, you don’t gotta change, alright? Not one bit a you. You stay the same Kagome. I could never have sat beside that kid like you did. You keep be’in you, and I’ll be here to look after you.”

“O-okay…”

They sat silently for a while in the darkness, the only sounds the crackling of the nearby campfire and the wind in the leaves.

“Do ya think you could eat a little, or do ya need to go to sleep.”

“Maybe… just… not the fish.”

“Fair enough. Can ya walk?”

“Yeah.”

When they got back to the campsite, Shippou was crying in Sango’s arms as she murmured soft words to him, and Kagome’s heart lurched. Letting go of Inuyasha’s hand she held out her arms.

“Shippou, I’m okay", she said, trying to make her tone light and encouraging. "You didn’t do anything wrong, I was just sad. But I bet if you gave me a hug, I’d feel much better?”

Seeing her, Shippou bounded over to her and into her arms, hugging her tight, sobbing out his apologies for making her ill, and she hummed to him, stroking his soft hair away from his forehead. Here was a little boy who needed her right now, who she could help. And that made the rage lessen a little.

But she would never forget.

[summonerscenarios]

So, mc adopting at least one of each of the Child mobs, how would that go?

IT MAY BE 4AM BUT THAT'S NEVER STOPPED ME BEFORE LETS DO SOME MF HCS.

Sadly I was only able to work on two of the mob kiddos as I didn't want this to get too long but I still hope its okay~!

Also just a heads up a lot of this is a pure waffle of information based on my own interpretations of the mobs so here's hoping I did a good job with them lmao.

---------

It wouldn’t have been the first time you’d ended up inadvertently adopting someone, nor will it be the last knowing your luck. It’s not like you intentionally do anything to draw people to you, it just so happened that the things that you did and situations you got wrapped up in led to you getting to know all kinds of people in the process. And those people saw you in all kinds of ways - most saw you as friends, others saw someone else in you, more than a few made no attempts to hide their blatant flirting - and, rarely, a few would even see you as a role model,a mentor or parental figure to look up to.

You honestly have no idea why, after all, it’s not as though you go out of your way to make particularly responsible decisions (if anything, you get yourself in enough trouble that you’d imagine you’re anything but a role model) but a lot of the younger transients and students seem to flock towards your presence, looking for comfort, advice, or just someone who respects them. At first it was just the younger members of your guild that you technically took under your wing - as the Guildmaster you assumed it was only natural to look out for them, and you’d long gotten used to protecting Agyo and Kijimuna, wanting to make sure that the only thing they had to worry about was having the chance to be kids rather than getting dragged into the Guild’s app-based affairs. It’s not like responsible parental figures are easy to come by in this world of app-battles and fighting, so that’s perhaps why when you start taking a more protective, nurturing role with the younger ones that more of them begin popping up.

Surprisingly, the ghosts are some of the first mob children that you noticed began flocking towards you. Roaming spirits are unusual but certainly not rare, and it honestly breaks your heart a little to see so many young ghosts lingering around in the unexplored corners of the city, searching for one thing or another. Things feel...off, for a while before you can pin down the issue - you start feeling as though you’re being watched when you’re in the guildhouse by someone other than your teammates, and when your attempts to shake off the uneasy feeling doesn’t work, you decide to bring it up to your fellow Guild members in case it’s someone trying to spy. You want to make sure it’s not someone who can bring danger to the guild, but you don’t have much of a chance to set up a search of the building when the D-evils come tottering into your field of view, screeching up a storm and motioning towards an otherwise unassuming corner of the window.

Turns out you weren’t the only one noticing the other presence, as Shiro’s D-evils seem to have picked up on it to - and when your attention snaps over to the window to see what they’re pointing to you barely catch a glimpse of the flickering figure of a ghost child as they disappear from view. From that point on you start spotting the child more often - he’s shy or wary, always lingering someone just out of the corner of your eye but never getting any closer almost like he’s afraid. He seems to have taken an interest in you though, especially whenever the younger guild members come around to spend time at the guild, and it isn’t long before you notice that he’s intently watching the way you watch over and care for the kids of the guild - he looks almost sad in these instances, but never dares to get any closer and disappears as soon as you turn to look at him. Over time it becomes almost normal to have a resident ghost at the guild (though Agyo still shudders at the mention of ghosts despite having seen the kid plenty of times since arriving). He seems to be more at ease after a while of watching you, and things finally come to a head one day when you’re playing videogames with Hanuman and the other kids, noticing that the little ghost has wandered far closer than he’d ever done in the past, watching the small screen setup on the floor with an avid interest that seems far happier than the forlorn looks he’d had before. Taking a chance you tilt your head to look over at the ghost child, motioning him to come over and join; he disappears for a moment, startled, but right as you start to worry you may have scared the kid off he rematerializes, inching hesitantly closer and closer till he’s hovering beside the rest of your group, eyes fixed to the characters on screen with a child-like wonder.

You aren’t quite sure how this ended up with you adopting the ghost child yourself. It’s just one day you were talking about how you were pretty much adopted by the teachers at school and how you’d like to pay it forward some day, and the next you were talking about ‘son’ this, and ‘might as well take the kid under your wing’ that - you were practically acting like an impromptu parent for like a fifth of the people you knew anyway, so what was actually adopting a child? Toji had just about choked to death when you’d made the unfortunate decision to announce that fact mid-drink, and Shiro spent more than his fair share of time probing you with the legal questions surrounding a student adopting a child, ghost transient or not. Ryota seems incredibly excited by the idea however, gushing about being an uncle and wondering if your new son can eat and if so what his favorite food is - plenty of questions for a later time.

Ghost is certainly the most clingy of the children you end up adopting, and it’s clear from the get go in the sense that the poor little one is essentially glued to your side from the moment you take the venture to actually adopting him. With few things remaining in the physical world to cling onto, the familial bond is something that the little one cherishes and he absolutely refuses to budge on letting it, and by proxy, you, go. For a while he actually fears you’re going to leave him and take back what you said about protecting him and being a good parent. He of course had parents once, and their lack of presence at his side now paints a tragic picture no matter what way you look at it, so the kids got more than a few attachment issues you need to work through. Ghost doesn’t really talk too much, instead relying on gestures and interacting with things around him to talk to you and others - it takes a little bit to get used to if you’re unfamiliar with some of the gestures but it’s easy to pick up as time goes on.

Definitely one of the more well behaved children of the bunch, given that once you’ve convinced him that you’re not abandoning him he’s dead set on making you proud. He gets antsy when you’re not around, spending most of his time at the guild when you're at classes, but he takes to following Agyo around instead during these times. Agyo’s more than a little startled at first, and is a bit awkward about the whole situation as he processes it, but before long Agyo’s not only getting along with your ghostly son, but he’s also teaching him the ‘lion dog duties’ that he’s been teaching you - you’ll never quite forget walking in to Agyo giving the poor kid a detailed rundown on the upkeep of the guildhouse and all that it pertains.

It was supposed to only be the one child, you swear, but damn if you haven’t got a bleeding heart and a knack for attracting trouble. Word travels around fast about your adoption, and as more people learn about your impromptu push to parenthood people start coming to you for help - namely, kids with nowhere else to go. Maybe it’s your bleeding heart or savior complex, but before long one kid becomes two, and then two becomes three, and soon enough you’ve got four kids on your hands.

There’s no denying that things get a little bit rocky when you start taking in other children. Despite the other kids in the guild, Ghost has technically been the only child up to this point, and with your attention shifting from both him and the other children at once it’s a sudden change - one that you thankfully discussed with him first to make sure he was okay. Even with the okay though, Ghost is more than a little anxious when you bring the second child, a nether sprite, ‘home’, especially because of how loud she is by comparison. Nether sprite is an absolute ball of energy and mischievous to boot, so she more than makes for an interesting parallel to the otherwise quiet Ghost you’ve been taking care of the past few months.

She’s a handful, especially during the first few weeks that she’s settling in - it takes her a while to really start seeing the place as home, and even longer for her to even consider you a parental figure (she’s seen you as more of a babysitter till you proved you were willing to stick around and put the effort in to be a good parent). Once she does settle in however she takes to the place quickly, and, to your surprise, your two kids become thick as thieves. The Nether sprite catches on quickly to how Ghost communicates, and given his penchant to linger around those he’s close to and follow them around she’s more than happy to drag him all over the shop from one activity to another - it’s a surprising development but one you actively encourage. Unfortunately as I mentioned she’s still mischievous, though tones it down from anything too troublesome if it’ll cause you too much grief.

However that hasn’t stopped the amount of times you’ve gotten calls from someone about the kind of trouble you two little ones have wound up getting themselves into - looks like they both picked up your knack for getting intentionally and unintentionally dragged into the weirdest events (sure, it’s fun when you do it, but having your kids doing it only serves to give you grey hairs from the stress.) And things only get crazier once the other kids end up coming along, for both better and worse - but that’s a story for another time.

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | Chapter fourteen

Chapter fourteen

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Warnings: talks of spencers major anxiety, parental death tw (not Diana or bob and Linda), trauma talks, computer hacking and new members joining the family...

word count: 4k

from the beginning <3

Taylors biggest surprise that weekend was what she had planned for Amoreena that night.

She set up a fort in the theatre room, they had every snack imaginable and any movie of her choice to watch. Karaoke in the corner, popcorn being popped in a theatre-style machine, and 3 different, matching child and adult, princess dresses for them to choose from.

It was all an elaborate plan to keep her preoccupied until bedtime, which Taylor offered to handle so that her parents could have a little wedding night date alone.

They’re all ready for a wonderful night when Spencer’s phone started ringing.

“Hello?” Spencer answers, sneaking away from the girls so he could hear better.

“Spencer, I am so sorry to interrupt you this late, but we have a situation… it’s not something that should be discussed over the phone. Do you have someone to watch Amoreena while you and Y/N come into the bureau? As soon as you can?”

His stomach drops, he feels instantly sick. “Not until you tell me who’s dead, who’s dying or who’s trying to kill us.”

“No one is, Spencer, it’s not a case or criminal related, it’s… personal, someone is here to see you,” she sounds serious and Spencer is still just as worried.

“I’ll tell the girls,” he responds before hanging up.

Y/N is standing right behind him, listening with wide eyes as she waits to soothe his panic. They worked like a well-oiled machine, she could physically feel his anxiety and in return, something about her just being there made him physically feel better.

“What’s wrong?” Taylor asks as she appears behind Y/N, Amoreena now off changing into one of the dresses she picked.

“They won't tell me on the phone but they need me and Y/N back at Quantico as soon as possible,” Spencer explained with a pale face, “we can go in the morning.”

“I’m fine watching Amoreena for the night, there’s a hanger down the road with a few of my dad’s planes, I can have someone take you to Virginia within the next hour? It's only 7 pm, I’m sure you can be back before bedtime?” Taylor offered her services for the 100th time that day, “It’s not a problem, really, and they wouldn’t call if it wasn’t serious, they’re the FBI after all.”

With that, they said goodbye to Amoreena and told her they’d be back before she woke up in the morning. If not, she had Y/N’s cellphone for the night to call them before she goes to sleep and when she wakes up, so she won't bother Taylor that early. (Even though Taylor said she wouldn’t mind early morning Amoreena cuddles.)

He was anxious on the drive to the small airport, the old man named Norman, chartering them that night was incredibly kind, they were granted lading access in Quantico and before he could prepare, they were up in the air. He chatted up a storm with Y/N on the headset radio as Spencer overthought the upcoming chat with JJ and stared out at the world below them.

On queue, he jumped from anxious to scared when they land, before getting in the shuttle from the airstrip to the front entrance, but he’s so incredibly terrified when it comes time to actually start the walk to the bullpen.

“Will you come in with me?” His small voice asks as she is pinning a visitors tag on her shirt.

“Of course,” she smiled, taking his hand as they walked into the elevator together.

He grips her hand tighter as the elevator stops, dipping and returning to the right height and making his stomach drop the same way a rollercoaster would. He hated that feeling more than anything, having it alongside the anxiety wasn’t helpful.

He can see JJ and another girl sitting together at his old desk. She’s smiling at whatever JJ says, she looks exactly like Amoreena just with box-dyed black hair that shines purple under the lighting. She’s in all black, she pushes her glasses up her nose with her sweater hiding her hands, Spencer knows she’s a foster kid from just her posture.

“JJ,” Spencer makes their presence clear and the little girl turns to him with a huge smile, running to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Hi?”

She’s sobbing ten and he doesn’t know why or even who she is, he lightly holds her with complete shock on his face. He stares at JJ with wide eyes and a gaping mouth as he communicates the confusion and terror with his eyes.

“This is Josephine Elliot, or Jo as she likes to be called, her parents passed away a few months ago and she recently found out her biological father was actually a sperm donor and not her moms husband,” JJ explains a little before sighing and sitting on the edge of the desk.

“She hacked into the sperm bank and found your name, and google led her to the FBI and they stopped her at the second gate, the first only let her in thinking she was your other daughter, Amoreena.”

“I’m so sorry,” the poor girl wipes her tears with her sweater sleeves, “I don’t know why I hugged you when you don’t even know me, ew sorry.”

Spencer pulls her back into a hug, “it’s okay, you don’t have to worry about wanting a hug ever again. You can have whatever you need from me.”

She cries more, holding on to his shirt as he holds her, shushing her softly and rubbing his hand over her back. It’s weird how safe she seems this early in their acquaintance with one another, but he understands it. She’s so desperate for someone related to her to love her again, to replace what she was missing from her parents, that she’s already accepted him as a father without thinking it through. Without even know what he would be like to her.

When she finally calmed down enough, Spencer led her towards the briefing room so they could have a moment alone to talk. He wanted to know her, and she needed to know him before she made another big decision. He let her know who he was, what he used to do and the rundown on his relationship with Y/N and Amoreena.

“So you met her at the park and got married a week later because you both have dead exes and somehow through fate, you made a kid together?” She summed it up in a way that made it sound ridiculous.

“Mutual trauma is a great bonding tool, I’m sure you probably listen to rock music or anything sad and angry because you know someone feels the exact same way you do? I was like that when I was a teenager. We've both lost someone we loved and then made Amoreena out of pure luck,” he combated her snarky summary with his own profile of her.

“I actually like Taylor Swift, Paramore, Evanescence and Olivia Rodrigo when I need to scream about being sad, thank you very much,” she teased him, finding a very easy rhythm as they got to know one another.

“You’re going to lose your mind when you find out who’s with Amoreena right now,” Spencer smiles, somehow everything just fits together.

“What?” She looks so confused, scrunching her face the same way he did to push her glasses up without her hands.

“It’s a long story, but essentially we were at Taylor Swift’s house when JJ called, she’s watching Amoreena still,” Spencer explained, watching her jaw drop.

“Who the fuck are you, dude?” She whispered, and it took Spencer by surprise. “Sorry, I’m so used to swearing in front of adults lately to get my point across. But seriously, you’re so interesting…”

“Understandable,” Spencer laughs lightly at her strange compliment. “I have a lot of connections, and I’ll do anything to see the people I love, smile, that includes you now.”

“You barely know me and you’re just ready to accept that I’m your kid? Didn’t this just happen to you last week?” She laughs at the insanity of it all, “you’re going to have a million kids at this rate, dude.”

Again, she calls him dude and he knows she’s just trying to distance her emotions as they grow fonder and fonder. A coping mechanism so that she doesn’t get hurt anymore, she’s lost too much and she’s not going to love him just to lose him too.

“My dad ran out on me when I was a kid, I basically raised myself when my mom’s schizophrenia got bad, I know what it’s like to feel alone even when you’re with people who are supposed to love you,” he makes sure she knows who he is inside.

“I’m sorry,” she reaches a hand out for him, holding it softly. “I never really liked my dad growing up, he always felt off… I can’t explain it, but he was never the same guy twice he was either angry, miserable or scarily happy," she explains him and all Spencer can think is how he sounds like an unsub.

"I do miss my mom a lot, I didn’t know what else to do when I found out they couldn’t have babies together and she went to a Sperm bank without telling him. I know the names of your other kids too, besides Amoreena, I’m really surprised you found her mom without hacking the system too but, yeah, Dylan is 6 and Alice is 10, they’re both in DC with the same 2 mom’s, so if you didn’t want me, I was going to see if they would cause I’m technically their stepdaughter in a weird way and if I spent one more day in that foster home I would have ended it all,” it's a Reid rant, she's his for sure.

It takes him a minute to absorb it all, “wait, Amoreena is mine for sure?”

She nods like it’s a stupid question, “could you not tell my just looking at her? The 3 of us have the same face.”

“No, they wouldn’t tell us at the clinic,” Spencer is still in shock but more so that she got into the database so easily, “how did you do it?”

“It was easy, I had all the information about the sample my mom used so I just encrypted an email to the secretary of the sperm bank so as soon as she clicked the link to read more I’d have access to her computer, they didn’t even know I was in the system, they probably still don’t know I was there,” she explains it exactly how Penelope would.

“I don’t want you to think I’d ever not want you,” Spencer holds her hand a little tighter, “I’m not sure what the process will be like trying to get the foster agency to agree to me taking you home with us, but I’ll see what I can do. We have a big house and enough room for you in our hearts if this is where you’d like to be. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, you might hate the farm life and the isolation and all the cousins you now have, but you’re a piece of me and I’m not letting you go.”

She uses her free hand to wipe her tears on her sleeve again, “please, I know it’s not going to be the same but I miss having a family so much.”

He wraps her up in his arms, he knows the feeling all too well. One day his mom was there, the next day she was gone and no one prepared him for that. She never had to do this alone, Spencer wasn’t going to let that happen to her.

“Y/N is wonderful, you’ll love her and Amoreena. We live on a huge farm and there’s a lot to do during the day and people to spend time with, believe me, you’re going to feel so surrounded by the love you won’t know what to do with it all,” he shares from personal experience.

“Okay,” she hugged him tighter, pressing her face into his neck as he talked more, feeling the vibrations of his voice on her forehead to know that he was real. That his words were true and she was going to be taken care of.

“Is there anything about yourself that you’d like me to know? Or any questions you have? I’m sure this is going to be an interesting adjustment,” Spencer asked as he pulled away, looking down into her sweet eyes and seeing the hope she was still hanging on to.

“Is Y/N even okay with all of this? It’s her house isn’t it?”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine with it, she knew I had you and the other 2 out there somewhere, we just never expected to meet you so soon,” he’s as honest as possible, talking to her the same way he would with Henry, she seemed even more mature than him.

“Can she come in here too? I’d like to get to know her as well, see if she’s really as lovely as you say she is,” she smiled, coping with her trauma the same way he and Y/N did, with humour.

Almost like Y/N could feel him thinking about her, she knocked on the door before opening it a crack, “sorry, I have some updates,” she smiled.

Josephine smiled at her, “come in.”

Y/N sat down close to her and placed her hand on her shoulder, “my sister is a foster parent, she called her caseworker and they were able to rush the emergency next of kin paperwork, you can stay with us for as long as you would like to.”

“You’re serious? You barely know me?” She kept repeating that as if she convinced herself earlier in the day that they wouldn’t want to know her.

Y/N wrapped her up in a soft hug and Spencer saw all the tension leave Josephines body as she settled against her. It had been a long time since a mother held her, she didn’t realize how much she needed it until she was in her arms.

“You’re half Spencer, so by default you have a portion of my heart now too. I’m not going to love you as an obligation or because I feel like I have to, I love you because you’re part of him and our family,” she whispers into her hair, “I know what it’s like to be alone, you never have to be... unless we’re smothering you then I get it, but you know what I mean.”

She laughed in Y/N’s arms before pulling back. Y/N held her face in her hands and looked at her gently. She ran her fingers through her dyed hair, “you’re going to fit right in with the 4 of us.”

“Four?” She repeats, wondering who else they lived with.

“I’m pregnant,” Y/N smiles as Josephine lights up.

“I’ve always wanted to be a big sister,” she cried a little, “my mom named me after Jo from Little Women, she said she always planned to give me lots of sisters.”

“If this one is a girl she’ll be Eleonora like—“

“Like the poem, Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favourites,” Jo smiled again.

Somehow, without even being there, Amoreena’s mess of glitter glue was able to patch her older sister's broken heart right then and there too.

“I read really fast, my mom said she was going to go bankrupt buying books for me,” she opened up more and more, the hurt of the memories fading as she remembered them with happiness instead of mourning.

Her mom was gone, but the love of a mother filled her space once more. Y/N took her under her wing, keeping her warm and making sure he grew to be as happy healthy and wonderful as all her other babies.

—

They arrive at Taylor's door once again at 11:30. Amoreena is sound asleep in the spare room, not even able to change out of her princess costume or phone them to say goodnight. Taylor said she had a sugar crash and just asked to go to sleep, reminding Taylor that she had the best day ever before closing her tired little eyes.

Jo was very anxious to meet Taylor too, telling her a similar story to Y/N’s from just a few hours prior. Taylor made sure she was comfortable for the night in another spare room, making her a hot chocolate and some snacks from earlier that day at lunch. She was the best host, a wonderful friend and an even better honorary godparent to these girls of Spencer’s.

“Can I have a hug?” She sheepishly asks before she has to turn down the hall to her bedroom for the night.

Spencer answers by wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to his chest once more, he wasn’t sure how his heart could hold so much love for these girls, and still have room left to make more one day. It was a dream come true to have a family this big, no one was going to believe that he gained 3 kids and a wife in under a month.

He kissed her on the forehead gently, seeing her smile at the contact let him know it was fine. “Goodnight dad,” she whispers, pressing her lips together awkwardly the same way he did before turning down the hall and disappearing into her room.

She had only a backpack of things currently, not expecting everything to go as smoothly as it did. She had enough clothes to sleep in, and Taylor happily provided some old tour perch to her just in case she needed something new to wear. Something to help her ease to sleep that didn’t feel like she was going back to her old life in the morning.

Amoreena was going to have a field day tomorrow when she met her big sister, the beautiful girl who was busy covering her scars with bandaids provided by Spencer, but it would take a lot of time, effort and care to make her feel truly healed again. It was going to be interesting seeing Amoreena adjust to sharing him so early, especially since he knew Jo would need so much more attention to ease her anxiety moving forward.

Spencer sat on the guest bed beside Y/N, noticing all the rose petals and candles on the dresser and night tables, “oh she really had a lot planned for us.”

“She’s the fairy godmother of our dreams,” Y/N agreed with a laugh. “I don’t mind staying up late tonight if you don’t mind leaving on Monday instead?”

“I was going on suggest the same thing,” he smiled at her, leaning in to press their lips together gently for the first time since the wedding that afternoon.

“let's get into our comfy’s and go for a walk on the beach, Taylor left me the keys to lock up when we come back,” she whispered the words against his lips before smiling.

“Can I call Derek before we go? I really need to talk to him,” he’s honest with her as he pulls away, feeling really anxious and shook up at the events of the day. He needed his best friend.

“Yeah, I’ll go check out the rest of the guest house, come find me when you’re done?” She says softly, getting off the bed with a smile and stepping out of the room with a small wave.

He takes his phone out and dials the number, waiting with the phone pressed against his ear as it rings. Again and again, every new hum in his ear making his heart beat faster, “hello?” He’s finally rescued.

“Have you talked to anyone on the team lately?”

“Who died?” It was everyone’s go-to question when they got a phone call like this one.

“No one, quite the opposite actually—“

“She’s pregnant!” Derek shouts, cutting him off and Spencer can hear Savannah asking who from the background.

“Well, yeah, but that’s not why I'm calling,” Spencer replies only to be met with Derek's laughter.

“Penny and I had a bet on how long it would take.”

“She cheated because she knew we were trying,” Spencer takes the fun from him, Penelope always won. “I have another kid.”

“I know man, birth is so cool— well I’m telling him anyway,” Derek is clearly talking to Savannah and him at the same time, “we’re pregnant again too.”

“No, Derek, I’m pregnant and sick as hell while you’re perfectly fine,” she snaps back at him as she takes the phone. “You better be so kind to her Doctor Spencer Reid; rub her feet, make her breakfast, thank every god on earth and the ground she walks on for being willing to make another version of you, do you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am,” Spencer hold back a laugh, wondering when Y/N would have a hormonal switch like that, “but I didn’t mean the one in her stomach, another fully formed human of my creation walked into the BAU looking for me today.”

There’s a rustling through the phone as Derek takes it back from her, “what the fuck did you just say?”

“Her name is Jo, she’s exactly a month younger than Henry and her parents died 7 months ago,” he continues without even repeating the last part, “Derek I have 3 kids now and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Where are you right now?”

“In Taylor Swift's guest house.”

“Spencer, be serious with me, are you doing drugs again?"

“Ask Penelope, she contacted Portia, Rossi’s stepdaughter, who contacted Taylor so I could help Y/N and Amoreena meet her, then JJ called and made us fly all the way to Quantico and now I have 2 children living with me and one on the way. Not to mention, child 1 is extremely jealous about sharing me with people and hasn’t even gotten accustomed to being a big sister, and child 2 is so traumatized she hacked the fucking sperm bank and explained it to me like it was as easy as making a sandwich. I am in over my head here, Derek.”

“Okay, that sounded more like Spencer Reid,” Derek’s calm and happy voice calms him slightly and prompts him to take a deep breath. “If she’s able to hack she’s most likely like Penelope, we can introduce them. She’ll need someone who understands the loss of a parent. Amoreena, on the other hand, you need to spend a day with just her. Take her to the movies, or to see a play or something. Let her know she’s always going to be your little girl no matter how many siblings she gets.”

“Thank you, I needed someone who wasn’t my overly optimistic wife to tell me if I could do it,” he’s overly honest, Derek is his person and will always be his person.

“I get it, thanks for calling me, I’m really glad you’re okay,” he can hear Derek's smile and all he wants is a hug from him. “How was the wedding?”

“Good, we all cried a lot,” he laughs then, “we were supposed to have a big dinner on the beach before we got called into Quantico, so I’m going to go spend time with her now, I love you, Derek,” he rushes the words out so he doesn’t get overly emotional.

“I love you too, Spencer, have a good night,” Derek hands up before they both get too emotional. They always had a knack for making the other cry in times like this.

He lets out a deep sigh before tossing his phone on the bedside table. 3 of his 5 kids were here with him and Y/N now, safe and sound. If anyone else needed him, they could wait.

tag list: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187

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[everlarkficexchange]

Just Close Your Eyes, You'll Be Alright

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt 154: Soulmate au where your soulmates injuries and scars show up on your body tinted in their favorite color. Katniss through the years as she discovers new marks, pondering what it could possibly be, finally figuring out that her soulmate is being hurt way too regularly and in very specific places. Do her parents figure out Peeta is being abused? How do they find and “rescue” him? Or does Peeta live his whole childhood being abused before turning 18? Does he runaway? How do he and Katniss find their way to one another? [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone / @peetamewllark]

Teen and up

AU- Modern setting (but like without cell phones). One Shot. 

Warnings: Canon typical violence, Language, child abuse and neglect, injuries, implied (non-descriptive) underage smut. Nobody dies! Unbetaed. 

-lyrics of Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift, Feat. The Civil Wars - Songs from District 12 and Beyond (2012)

Author’s note: Thank you to @lovely-tothe-bone for her inspiring prompt and to the organizers of EFE, for bringing the challenge back so faithfully, you ladies rock! 

KPKPKPKP

“Look at her!” Papa screeched at the policeman, lifting the back of my favorite pink polka dotted shirt. “You have to do something about this, Sheriff Cray!” Papa demanded, angrily.

  The man just watched, like he didn’t care. Then sat back down lazily, “There’s nothing much I can do, to be honest. Unless you can produce the child sporting the actual bruises, my hands are tied.” Said the policeman.

  I had no idea what the problem was, I felt fine, but ever since my 5th birthday, every time Mama helped me out of my day clothes for my bath, she wept and held me close to her chest, whispering “No child deserves to be treated so poorly,”

  Papa too always made a face and looked sad and angry when Mama showed him my back after my baths. 

  It was funny how bath time could easily be my favorite time of day, but it made the grown ups upset somehow. I just liked that mama would rub ointments on my back, bottom and thighs, carefully and without fuzzing about the time she was spending away from my baby sister, Primrose. Is not that I didn’t like Prim— I thought she was as lovely as a doll— I didn’t mind sharing mama’s snuggles with her either, but it was nice to just feel mama’s warm hands caressing me to sleep every now and then. 

  Either way, I wished someone would tell me what was so wrong with my behind that had the grown ups acting so weird. 

  They were starting to scare me, really.

  “There has to be something we can do! There are genetic tests to determine matchless people, couldn’t we use the same technology to find the markers matching my daughter’s counterpart to identify him?” 

  “Mr. Everdeen, I’m not a geneticist. I wouldn’t know about anything like it… and who’s to say we could use it to find your girl’s soulmate? Then we what? It’ll open an unknown Pandora’s box situation, people would start tracking soulmates illegally or something less than honorable. It’ll certainly set a precedent we cannot foresee the ramifications of!”

  “You’re telling me that there’s some kid out there, somewhere, getting beaten week in and week out, and you’ll do nothing about it?! You’ll allow the abuse to continue uninterrupted?” 

  The man nodded slowly, “You said it yourself, Mr. Everdeen. The kid’s ‘out there, somewhere’, we don’t even know if he’s local, or his age. In any case, I only have jurisdiction over District 12, and I can’t very well launch a country wide investigation on an alleged case of abuse, specially if  we have no victim,”

  “But my daughter’s soulmate is suffering! Who knows what permanent damage this poor child may have as an adult! It’s my daughter’s future we’re talking about!”

  “Most unfortunate, sir. I don’t wanna seem unsympathetic, Mr. Everdeen, but unless your little girl can figure out a way to communicate with her soulmate, find… an address— at the very least a name— there isn’t anything we can do to help.”

  Papa huffed, his nose flared, “Fine. Thank you for your consideration…Sheriff.” Papa put his big ol’ hand on my shoulder and guided me away, “Come on Katniss, it’s time to go home.”

  I looked up at Papa and reached for his hand. I smiled at him, “It’s okay, Papa. Mama says to give grumpy people time, and they may be nicer the next time we talk to them.”

  Papa smiled at me, but it didn’t crinkled the corner of his eyes, like real smiles did, “That’s nice sweetie… although, that usually only applies to people just waking up from naps, like you and me,”

  I giggled when he picked me up and tickled my tummy. 

  Papa kept talking to grown ups about my back, but nothing was ever done about it. 

  ———————-

I was 11 when our world pitched upside down. 

  Papa was one the foramen on shift at the town’s coal mine when the earth shifted and an entire tunnel collapsed. 

  Prim and I were in school when the sirens went off. There’s nothing worse than to hear the end of your world being advertised so loudly and without mercy. 

  I grabbed my sister’s hand and rushed to the mines; we found our mother there, clinging to the yellow tape cordoning off the site. 

  I should’ve known something wasn’t right when I was the one seeking Mama out, trying to comfort her, instead of the other way around. It was the first time the concept of a soulmate stopped being an abstract notion, and became a reality, because my mother stopped functioning altogether the moment she realized Papa had been hurt.

  I saw how much a soulmate could affect you. It wasn’t only the marks on the skin— those came without conscious pain— it was the fear of knowing that someone you loved was hurting, sometimes badly, and not being able to do anything about it. 

  Mama’s left leg started glowing pink from the shin down at first, and the color began to shift to a darker red the longer Papa laid underground. 

  Unbeknownst to us, my father had been pinned under fallen rock and dirt after pushing a man to safety, risking his own life. The sharp end of a pickax perforated Papa’s leg in the cave-in. The pickaxe worked as a plug, keeping him from bleeding out while he waited for the rescue crew to reach him. 

  Papa laid on the floor of the very last lift to surface with rescued miners. He was unconscious. Had suffered extensive blood loss. The lone medic in the rescue crew couldn’t fix him up right away, but Mama was a nurse, and like a switch flipping on, she ripped off the bottom of her skirt, and tied a tourniquet around my father’s thigh, saving his life at the cost of his limb. 

  My father lived, but his leg had to be amputated. 

  He couldn’t work in the mines anymore, and what little money we got as compensation from his injuries, were put into paying off the mortgage, because Papa decided that having a roof over his family’s heads was far more important than having a leg. 

  The rub was, a roof didn’t fill our stomachs or put a coat around Prim’s shivering shoulders. Mama put a hold on her nursing career, obsessing over Papa’s care, despite his protests. Someone had to pick up the pieces, and that someone turned to be me. 

  I started selling everything I could carry out of the house in my arms: tools, kitchen appliances, small furniture, etc. But we never had many possessions to begin with, so my wares ran out soon, and I turned to our closets for their meager treasures.

  I sold my parents best clothes, along with my sister’s winter boots that didn’t fit her anymore. I looked at my own shoes with longing, but put them into Primrose’s shoe rack, deciding I could manage with Mama’s boots, if I stuffed them with newspaper. Mama never left the house anyway. Neither did Papa for that matter, but he wasn’t dead, just convalescencing, so I left him a pair of footwear just in case, and sold his work boots and his Sunday loafers. 

  The day I was down to the last pair of clothing, we had been slurping on mint tea for the third day in a row from a few old leaves I found in the very back of the pantry. It was the last of our food, besides Papa’s bland diet, but I refused to let on on how precariously stocked we were, until absolutely necessary.

  But, nobody wanted the hand-me-down baby clothes I had for sale, nor the slightly beaten stroller I was pushing around with my ‘merchandise’. 

  Icy cold rain, soaked me to the bone. I was so tired and downtrodden, I ran to the first awning I found, unwilling to go back home to Prim’s sunken blue eyes and chapped lips, asking for something to eat, while my hands were empty. 

  I tripped and fell face first on the umbrella stroller, breaking it irreparably and soiling the few onesies I’d been trying to sell. 

  With my wares ruined, and winded by a sharp pain shooting through my elbow, I limped towards a scraggly apple tree a few feet away. I recognized the place as the alley behind the town’s bakery, just by the smell alone. 

  I cupped my elbow, wondering if I’d broken it or merely banged it up? That’s when I saw the dumpster. 

  Big ugly thing, dirty and smelly. I climbed a wooden crate to dig for anything edible inside, but before I could lift the lid, a screeching voice shouted at me.

  “Get out of there, Seam brat!” 

  I jumped off the crate, startled, and cowed behind the dumpster when I saw the baker’s grumpy wife sneering at me from the warmth of her kitchen’s back door. 

  A boy about my age— I recognized him as one of my classmates from school— peeked his towheaded face around the woman, and although they were a good five yards away, I could see his blue eyes widened as he took me in. The boy slipped back inside, as his mother spewed threats of calling the police on me and whatnot.

  I started debating whether I wanted to trace back and drag my broken stroller over; pretend I was merely trying to dump it in the garbage, while inspecting the trash for food… but the baker’s wife was nicknamed the Witch by all the neighborhood children for a reason. 

  Before my mind was made, a loud, metallic bang resonated into the street from inside the bakery. Yelling ensued, then the sound of a meaty hand against a small face. 

  A few seconds later, the witch was chasing the boy out the back door, “Toss it in the trash, you stupid creature! Nobody will pay money for burnt bread anyway!” 

  The boy scurried by with his head down. 

  My eyes stuck on the bread in his hands, was probably the reason I missed the shiner under his eye. He stopped right in front of the dumpster, but instead of throwing the ruined loaves in, he tossed them in my direction. 

  I didn’t wait around to ask if he meant for me to grab them. I just scooped them up and fled like a bat out of heck. 

  When I got home, Mama gasped in horror. She grabbed me by the shoulders and pressed me to her chest. “Oh no! It’s getting worse. They don’t even care to hide the bruises anymore!” 

  Mama lathered my face with all the medicinal herbs she had at hand, while apologizing profusely for abandoning me and Prim to our own devices. She vowed to find a job, and to take better care of us. 

  “No child should ever suffer like this!” I couldn’t tell if she meant Prim and I, or whoever my soulmate was.

  Mama interrogated me about my whereabouts and how I came upon the bread in my arms, but she seemed to rest easier after a while. 

  When I was finally able to look at my face in the mirror, I was horror struck by the deep orange bruise swelling under my eye. It took three days for the bruise to go away completely even with mama’s careful fingers.

  Coincidentally, the baker’s son didn’t show up to school for the next four days. By the time he did, I had lost any confidence in myself to go up to him and thank him for the bread that fed us for a few days; the loaves were perfect! Only the crust had been charred, but I had a hunch the boy knew that when he threw the bread to me; I was also convinced he burned the bread on purpose, I was just too chicken to ask him why? Which made it even harder to hold his gaze when we crossed each other in the school hallways. 

  All I knew was that because of the selfless actions of the boy in my year at school, my mother seemed to wake from her single minded obsession. The boy with the bread gave our family a sense of hope, despite the fact that it would take some time for Mama to find work and produce enough money for the family. Papa’s medical needs had to be met as well, and he was due a new leg. 

  While those thoughts churned in my head, my eyes focused on a bright yellow bloom across the school yard. The first dandelion of the season! I picked the cheerful blossom, and the idea on how to feed my family until Mama was back on her feet, came to me. 

  After school, I took Prim’s hand and a clean bucket in the other; together we scoured the yard and the woods nearby for all the dandelions we could fit in the bucket. That night, we gorged ourselves on dandelion salad, and the next day, I pulled from under my parent’s bed, the only thing of value we had left in the house, Papa’s hunting bow. 

  “Are you sure you can handle it, pumpkin?” My father asked, watching me carefully.

  “You taught me how to do it,” I said, trying to hide my nerves.

  “I taught you with a smaller bow,” he pointed out, “why don’t use yours?”

  I shouldered the heavy bow, and took a few loose arrows in my hand, “I sold it. These are all we have left now,”

  After a handful of days practicing, I actually shot  something worth eating. Seeing my mother’s blue eyes pop in surprise when I dropped the dead rabbit on the table, was priceless. 

  ——————-

  One early morning, right before summer break, I happened across another hunter… a trapper, to be precise. 

  A lanky, scowling boy, with three fat bunnies tied to his belt, and a fourth hanging in the air by a simple— yet elegant— wire snare. 

  I’d seen his traps before, his prey with their dead eyes and lolling tongues, just high enough off the ground to keep other animals from taking off with them. Papa told me that hunter etiquette was to be observed; if I happened across a trap that wasn’t mine, I was not to touch it, out of respect for my fellow hunters. That still didn’t discourage me from looking! After all, the snares looked like works of art, and I had no idea how to set any on my own.

  “Stealing is a punishable offense, you know,” Snapped the boy, and suddenly I realized just how tall he was. 

  From up close, I could see the beginning of some stubble under his chin. 

  “I wasn’t gonna take it…” I stepped away from the twitching bunny, with my hands raised in surrender. “Admiring your work, that’s all. By the way, I’m Katniss Everdeen, what’s your name?” I asked, trying to be friendly. 

  “Name’s Gale. Hawthorne. So… you know how to use the thing hanging from your back, Catnip, or is that just for show?” He practically bumped me onto my butt, stepping passed me while pulling a knife from his belt to cut his kill down. He turned to watch me, smirking. “That thing looks bigger than you, are you sure you can lift it up?”

  I scowled at him, wondering if he was expecting to see me squirm or something. I was smaller than the average 12 year old, but I was fast and scrappy. 

  “My name is KatNISS. I can shoot my own food thank you very much,” I held my bow aloft and moved so he could see my quiver full of arrows, “my weapons aren’t props or fakes,” I said, haughtily.

  “Yeah, well, it still looks bigger than you,”

  I rolled my eyes, fed up. Any other time I’d meekly shy away, and let him be; but I was feeling stubborn and confrontational, so I pulled my bow, nocked an arrow and let it fly, all in a fluid motion. 

  Gale gaped with a hint of fear in his gray eyes. 

  I felt smug and satisfied. 

  I wasn’t aiming at anything in particular, I just wanted the obnoxious boy to shut it, but by a stroke of luck my arrow pierced a falling leaf, and imbedded itself deep into the knot of a gnarly looking tree trunk. 

  “Wow! That was amazing, Catnip!” Gale said in awe. 

  “It’s Katniss… I’m okay, my father was better,” I said, puffing my chest a little, “I haven’t managed stealth yet, not like Papa before the accident, anyway. He doesn’t hunt anymore.”

  Gale frowned. “Was your dad in the cave-in?” He asked grimly.

  I nodded. 

  “So was mine. He almost didn’t make it.”

  “Same.”

  He just stood there, staring at the ground for a moment, then I tried to play cool, “Hey, I’d be willing to spare some shooting lessons, in exchange for some snaring techniques,” 

  Gale watched me, intently. He finally nodded and stuck his hand out for me to shake, “Deal!” 

  I smiled. Papa always said that good hunting partners were hard to find, and while I didn’t want a new hunting partner— I already had my father!— I could always exchange knowledge with a fellow hunter and improve my game. 

——————-

Papa was fitted with a basic prosthetic leg. He couldn’t run or swim with it, but having the ability to walk without crutches gave him a “new lease in life”, as he called it. 

  He found work doing odd jobs for Haymitch Abernathy, a hermit drunk, with more money than he knew what to do with, and no family to spend it on. The man needed someone to talk to every now and then, and seeing as he and my father were close in age, they developed a strange rapport between them. 

  Still, Papa wasn’t completely confident with his fake leg, no matter how many physical therapies he attended; he still walked with a pronounced limp. Yet, he always had a word of comfort for Mama. 

  My mother often blamed herself for Papa’s disability. 

  He’d tell her that she did the right thing, that it was thanks to her torniquete he was still alive, and she should never doubt her own healing skills. But every now and then, my mother would catch a glance of her permanently grey skinned leg, and silent tears would slide down her exhausted, pretty face.

  By then, I was old enough to know that the soft orange marks hidden under my clothes, meant a kid somewhere in Panem, probably my age, was getting beaten on a regular basis. It was sad to think about, but I’d grown so used to the marks, they felt like a distant happening without a meaningful connection to me. The bruises were there… just shy of a shirt sleeve, or around mid thigh, where they could be concealed by shorts; the way I saw them, they were like oversized freckles that came and went. A nuisance. That’s why watching my mother weep over her shadowy leg, was always unnerving and a little odd. 

  Was I supposed to despair the same way she did over my own soulmate marks? Was I broken or heartless if I didn’t feel as strongly? 

  Until I saw my mother’s grief over her soulmate’s leg, it didn’t register to me just how much the orange bruises were supposed to affect me. 

  I started to think if I wasn’t any better than the person dispensing the punches.

  One day, I was leaning on my parents bedroom door, watching Mama applying soothing oils to her gray leg with the utmost love and care.

  “Why do you rub so much medicine on your leg? It doesn’t seem to be bringing back your normal color,” I asked, staring where her fingers massaged into her flesh. 

  Mama stopped and called me over, to stand on her side of the bed. 

  “Papa is fast asleep, do you see?” She pointed out, kindly.

  I looked past her shoulder, where my father was sprawled on the mattress on his stomach, dead to the world. 

  I nodded.

  Mama smiled, “Do you remember all we’ve told you about soulmates? I’m sure they’ve taught you at school other stuff as well,” 

  Again, I nodded, just a little puzzled. “Soulmates have a very strong bond. They can’t feel when the other hurts, but they can see the marks, tinted in their favorite colors. That’s how we identify our soulmates, because we match and they can see themselves reflected back.” 

  “Exactly.” Said my mother, beaming. “Now, your papa and I are soulmates, and we love each other very much. When Papa’s leg was separated from his body, my body reflected that loss, despite still retaining my own leg. We match. The one thing most people don’t seem to realize, is that the connection goes both ways. I may not feel the physical pain Papa does, but I can still do things to my leg to help him feel better.

  “For example, when he feels phantom itches, I scratch and his itching sensation goes away. When he can’t fall asleep because he’s uncomfortable without his leg, I massage lavender oil on mine, until he relaxes and goes to sleep. Everything I do to heal my body, and take care of it, helps my soulmate feel better.”

  “Is that why you put lotions on my marks? To help my soulmate feel better?” 

  Mama’s lips thinned out; she didn’t like talking about the orange marks on my body. 

  “Katniss,” she said very seriously, “I tend to your bruises because I love you. I worry about your soulmate, because I love you. I try to keep you as healthy and happy as possible, because that will help your soulmate heal faster… because I love you. I can cure your soulmate’s body through yours, but I cannot protect his heart, mind, or feelings. Right now, you both are too young to feel the pull of your bond, but one day, when your bodies have matured, you’ll have this… yearning, to find one another, and then, I just hope, whoever your soulmate is, knows we tried to help.”

  I cocked my head, “Should I be sad every time new marks show up?”

  Mama inhaled a deep breath, “We should feel sad every time a child is mistreated, darling, no matter how we’re related,”

  From that day on, I paid close attention to every child in my class for bruises matching mine. I also kept pomades and tinctures in my school bag, in case I ever saw another kid getting hurt. I wouldn’t say I started to develop deeper feelings for my soulmate after that, but I did feel deeper empathy for my classmates… I just couldn’t stomach big injuries, gore or vomit, but smaller cuts and bruises… those I could manage. 

————————

“Silver Anderson figured out her cousin was dating her soulmate!” A girl in my year was telling a cluster of other 15 year-old girls in the locker room. “Do you remember how Silver has been wearing a turtleneck for the last two days with this darned awful heat?”

  The other girls hummed their yeses. 

  “Well, is because Silver’s soulmate had a hickey on the throat, given by Silver’s cousin, who was his girlfriend or whatever. But apparently the cousin went over to visit Silver with her boyfriend, and one look at the guy’s neck, and Silver recognized the mark!” 

  There were gasps all around. 

  It wasn’t rare to hear of soulmates having relationships with other people before finding each other, but it was almost unheard of a relative dating somebody’s soulmate so close.

  I finished tying up my shoelaces, and started rebranding my hair, making a mental note to double shampoo, to get all the sweat out.

  “What an idiot! Who gets hickeys from their ‘whiles’?” Snorted somebody. 

  I wasn’t much for gossip, but even I had to agree. 

  ‘Whiles’, weren’t permanent romantic interests, they were just to pass the time while waiting to find your soulmate. ‘Whiles’ were people to satisfy ones curiosity about dating and that kind of stuff, with no strings attached or substance; ‘whiles’ had a bad connotation associated with. 

  “Oh, the boy had never gotten one mark in his body that wasn’t his, so, he assumed he didn’t have a soulmate, and the cousin has already been confirmed to be a matchless.”

  A big “Oh!” Swept the room. 

  Matchless were born without a soulmate, which meant they could choose to be with whoever they wanted as long as they were matchless as well, or with nobody at all. 

  Sometimes I envied their freedom to choose, but other times I felt a sense of safety, knowing there was a person somewhere in the world meant just for me and me to them. 

  Soulmates were genetically evolved to complement one another, but some just wanted to experiment before settling down. Lately, though, matchless births were growing in number, and that upset people for whatever reason, as if the freedom of choice was scary or a curse, then again matchless were usually whiles and those were looked down on. 

  “That’s awful!” Said a girl.

  “I knew Silver’s near freakish obsession with keeping her skin pristine and hidden would bring her issues finding her soulmate someday,” Declared another.

  “I don’t think she wanted to find him,” whispered someone else.

  “Oh well, they did find each other! You can’t hide from your destiny. That’s just silly!”

  “Either way, I feel bad for the cousin, because apparently she and Silver’s soulmate were talking about marriage, since they thought they were both matchless.” Informed the first one. 

  I lost interest in the conversation when it turned speculative, and stood up to shove my P.E. uniform into my locker. 

  Someone suddenly called, “Everdeen, how about those orange blooms on your arms?” 

  My eyes widened, and immediately, I dropped my arms, pulling my sleeves as far down as they would go to cover my soulmate’s private marks.

  “Oh… um… yeah. My mother thinks my soulmate might be an athlete,” I stuttered; Mama had only said such a thing in passing once, when a couple bruises appeared that didn’t match the usual ones. “Also, he seems to work with his hands. Lots of nicks and scrapes.” I wiggled my fingers in front of me. That much was true, my soulmate probably wore those marks freely.

  “Oooh!” A girl, Delly Cartwright, reached to take a closer look. “Could be a carpenter. Or a locksmith? Maybe a farmer!”

  “It could be the blacksmith’s son! Doesn’t Silver have an unmarried brother?” Asked another girl.

  “Yeah… a kid like 10! Ugh, Everdeen, I really hope he’s not your soulmate… can you imagine being so much older than your soulmate?!” Interjected the same girl that spotted my bruises. 

  I scowled. Age was a stupid thing to complain about. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to have an age gap between soulmates… my father was six years older than my mother, and Mrs. Sae from the Soup Corner at the market, was a handful of years older than her soulmate. 

  Still…

  “No. My soulmate is most likely my age. I’ve gotten his marks my whole life,” I shrugged, absently rubbing my arm, where the brand new bruise appeared that morning. 

  “Oh… at least that’s something. Knowing that your soulmate isn’t so much younger than you, and that he might at least have an apprenticeship somewhere,”

  “Right,” I said, turning away, wondering if it was awful of me to wish for a boy who never got marks on his body, like Silver’s pristine skin? At least that would mean my soulmate was safe and treated fairly. 

———————-

Papa and I shared many qualities. I inherited his coloring: olive skin, gray eyes, dark, straight hair, our penchant for singing mountain ballads, and the same quickening of the blood when we got a kill during hunting. Prim favored our mother more closely, with their fair skin, blonde wavy licks and blue eyes, they also were more skilled as healers and more soft-hearted towards animals. 

  The day Prim brought home a half dead cat, riddled with fleas and missing an ear to be patched up and adopted into our family, my first instinct was to drown the orange pelt and be done with it, but Prim got upset and worked up, and I just couldn’t stomach her cries over what I considered to be the world’s ugliest cat… his face was flat, like it’d been smashed against a wall…

  It took a long time to calm my sister down, and Papa made me pinky promise that I wouldn’t kill the fur sack and pretend it ran away, which I only did reluctantly, because I loved my sister and didn’t want her to be crossed with me. 

  Papa asked me to walk with him into the woods, afterwards, which I did readily. 

  Before he lost his leg, we used to go hunting all the time; everything I knew about hunting and foraging, I learned from him. But after losing his leg, we’ve only gone to the woods to hike and get him used to his prosthesis in the uneven terrain. 

  It was good exercise for him. The fresh air seemed to lift his spirits too. 

  We didn’t hunt together anymore. Papa’s tread wasn’t feather-like the way it used to be, prey scattered away before we even saw it.  

  It was alright. We enjoyed being out there together, and he still had lots to teach me about edible plants. Sometimes he’d find one of his old spiles, and then it would hit me: all his knowledge would’ve been lost if he’d died in that cave-in. I would’ve never known where to look for those spiles; I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to harvest sap and turn it into syrup. 

  Sometimes, I had to sit down and catch my breath when those thoughts knocked the wind out of me. 

  I was having one such moment, when out of the blue, my father spoke in a low, calmed tone. 

  “There’s a new chief of police,” he said while sitting on a log, next to me. 

  “I heard.” I wasn’t trying to be snippy with him, but every time a new chief or sheriff was appointed to our district, Papa wanted to run back into the precinct, and demand they look for my soulmate. 

  Appealing to the police never led anywhere. It didn’t matter if they had new staff, they always gave us the same spiel: can’t investigate an abuse case without a victim. They couldn’t go looking for a person without a name or an address. 

  After a while, one just started feeling like it was an impossible task, to help one child feel safe. 

  Papa sighed. “We could try ourselves. I’ve been saving some money, and we could—“

  “What? We could what?” I snapped. “We could go door to door visiting every little town in Panem until we find the bruised up mutt matching me?” I was at the verge of tears. 

  Mama said that once my body was matured enough, I’d start feeling the pull. Well, I kinda felt it, calling desperately. It started around my 14th birthday, when I started having a regular cycle, and puberty was at its summit. 

  First, I was curious about my other half and began cataloguing all the soulmate marks I could see easily. Suddenly I had whole maps of my hands and arms, and legs. Mama suggested I keep track of my hidden marks too, just in case. The curiosity persisted and evolved into an incessant wondering: where was he? How was he getting along? How could I help him protect himself? 

  “Haymitch may have a way, sweetheart. He knows people, and he likes you… he says you’ve got spunk,” Papa smirked.

  I’d met Haymitch Abernathy countless times. He was rude and sarcastic. I usually responded to him in kind, earning myself a host of reprimands from my parents— although Papa still couldn’t hide his pride, despite trying his hardest. 

  “What would he know about soulmates anyway?” I muttered.

  Papa shook his head, standing up, “Haymitch lost his girl, mother and brother all at once during a special outing. There was a car crash. Haymitch was badly hurt, but survived. His family didn’t. His soulmate was 16, so was him. The government paid him excessively for damages and the loss of his soulmate, because it was proved the city had skimped on roadside safety that caused the accident. But money didn’t fill the void of losing his loved ones. Haymitch never recovered. 

  “He told me once that losing a soulmate is akin to drowning. Except you’re still breathing without filling your lungs with oxygen…” Papa picked up the bucket we brought to collect sap, and smiled sadly at me. “Katniss, I may be exaggerating by hounding the police about your soulmate, but sometimes I worry that if we don’t find that kid soon, you could very well share Haymitch’s fate. Believe me when I say that I’d do anything in this world, to keep that from happening to you.” 

  I turned 16 that spring.

  I started carrying a small mirror on me, to try and look over my shoulders into places I couldn’t reach, obsessing over every little mark that sprouted anew on my back. 

  I wasn’t sure if the all consuming watching, and the doubts that kept me up at night, not knowing what was being done to my soulmate, wondering if he’d survive another day, was the pull Mama talked about, or simply terror at becoming the next Haymitch Abernathy. Either way, I became more vigilant for injured teens around me, but a sinking feeling in my gut started nagging at me, that my soulmate was an expert at hiding in plain sight by now… how would I ever find him if he was as adept at camouflaging as I suspected?

—————————

“This spot is perfectly in the middle of the turkeys’ path.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest to glare at Gale, “You just spilled a bunch of blood there. No critter is gonna come this way anymore with that stink.”

  “Turkeys aren’t that smart, Catnip,” Gale looked up from his belt after securing his new catch— his pants were covered in gore from where the rabbit nearly cut its own foot off trying to fight the snare’s grip. “I’m more than confident that if we set traps here, we’ll catch at least a fat Tom…more if we set up a system wide enough,”

  After a somewhat rocky start, Gale and I learned to respect each other’s skills, even joining forces for certain seasons, like deer and turkey hunting. We also fished together on occasion. It was safe to say we had a friendship after three… almost four years of partnership in the woods. At 18 Gale was less obnoxious, but still a stubborn ass. 

  “And I’m telling you, the path is tainted now. We need to put feed on the other side of the bushes, to keep them in the area.”

  “That’ll take weeks!” 

  “Then you shouldn’t have let that bunny bleed to death in here!” 

  “Listen here, Catnip—” whatever he was about to say, died in his throat.

  “What?!” I demanded, angrily, when he just stared at me horror struck.

  “Your nose!” He roared. “Your eyes!” He tumbled forward, and squished my cheeks in his one, long-fingered hand. “There’s more coming!”

  I yanked myself away from him. “Cut it out!”

  “I think your soulmate is getting the shit beaten out of!”

  I grunted and brought my fingers to my face, as if I could feel the changes. 

  Gale had seen some of my bruises, enough to be sure I had a soulmate, but not enough to realize my soulmate was being abused.

  I rubbed under my nose, and the tip of my index came back bloody. 

  I gasped. That had never happened before. 

  “How bad is it?” I asked Gale, frantically. 

  “Um… orange keeps popping up all over your face. There’s some running up your arm right now.” He sounded careful, but frightened. “It’s like… burn marks,”

  I looked down, where indeed, long, fat tongues of intense orange glowed up my left arm. I’ve seen glowing marks before, but always in the tip of my fingers or the sides of my hands, I never connected the glowing with fire— burn marks— but it made sense. I guess my soulmate must handle fire regularly. 

  “What’s happening?” I pulled my little mirror from my pocket, to see my face, and nearly sobbed at the sight.

  One eye was completely covered in orange. Burn marks ran all the way from my elbow up to my cheek, and part of my forehead. My nose had a tiny, bloody smear, and my lip had streaks of orange here and there. 

  Whatever happened, was bad.

  “Fuck… Do you know where he is, by any chance?” Gale winced. 

  “No… but I’m about to find out!” I looked around for a place to sit, then pulled my small knife out of my boot. 

  Once seated, I examined my forearms. The flaming marks started at the elbow on my left arm, and went up on that side, my right arm was free of injury, except for my palms. Both were glowing orange, but not too bad. 

  “Okay… here goes nothing!” I gritted through my teeth, placing the tip of my knife to my arm, I traced the word, “WHERE?” crudely, and just deep enough to break the skin.

  Gale made a face, but crouched closed by, staring intently. “Do you think it’ll work?” He asked dubiously. “He might be unconscious for all we know,” 

  “We’ll see.”

  The minutes rolled by and no answer came. I was starting to panic; all I could think about was would that be the day I became the next Haymitch Abernathy? At least he got to meet his soulmate and have a relationship with her before she died; I had no idea who mine was. Was it worse that way, knowing them and then losing them, or was it worst to never meet them at all? Would I become soulless? Would my entire body turn gray? Would I ever find another soulmate? Haymitch never said if he ever looked for another, but I knew it was possible to get a secondary soulmate if enough time went by. 

  “Look!” Gale shouted. 

  A shaky “D12” appeared under my message. 

  A relieved gasp left my mouth. 

  “District 12! That’s good! He could’ve been all the way in District 4, and then what were you gonna do? Call the authorities there?” Gale muttered, clearly invested in what was happening to me.

  Tears stung my eyes. I wrote: “ME 2” 

  We’ve been in the same district the whole time, and I still had no idea where to find him! 

  I turned the knife back to the first word, and traced a line under it “WHERE?”

  The answer came back faster. “S H”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I moaned,  “What kind of abbreviation is that? Ugh! I’m trying to help you!” I screamed at my arm as if my soulmate could hear it.

  “Seam House?” Gale mused… “No, there are hundreds, if not thousands of houses in the Seam,” he said.

  The Seam was the poorer part of the district, where people like us lived: low income families, miners, laborers and the such. 

  “Ah! Ask if he means Slag Heap? If I was trying to pick a fight with someone, that’s where I’d go.”

  “He didn’t pick a fight!” I snapped, defensive and angry. “He’s been beaten every other day, since I can remember. My parents used to go to the police station every year to see if they could do something about it. Nobody ever did! They always said we needed to figure out a way to communicate with him… well, I’m doing it now!”

  Gale frowned, “That’s shitty. I’m sorry to hear that. The Slag Heap could still be it, though. Many people go there to be alone… if they’re running from someone, there’s plenty hiding spots,”

  That sounded logical, “Okay… but the slag heap isn’t exactly small, and there’s some woodsy area to consider too,”

  “Mmm… asking has been working so far,” 

  “Yeah, but the whole mutilation part is getting to me…” I glared, he wasn’t the one cutting his arm, “I’m starting to get woozy,” 

  “You’re a hunter, Catnip! Blood is nothing,”

  “Animals, Gale! Not my own blood,”

  “There’s no difference,” Gale cupped my face in his hands, to keep my eyes on his gray, steely ones. “we’re all animals. We all bleed the same. Your soulmate needs your help, if I knew who mine was, and I knew she was in trouble, I’d be rushing to them… you can do this, Catnip,”

  I took a deep, cleansing breath, and nodded. “I’ll ask him. As soon as we know where to go… could you please fetch my father? He’ll know what to do,” 

  “You got it, Catnip!” He let go of me, and I felt renewed courage after his weird pep talk.

  Once again, I trace the tip of my knife on my skin, “SLAG H? WHERE?”

  “YES    NE”

  “North East! I told you it’ll work!” 

  “Yeah,” I grumbled, spelling making one last message: “W8 4 ME”

  “K”

  With half a plan in motion, Gale rushed to find my father, and I made a mad dash to the slag heap, where years and years of dumping dirt and rocks removed from the mines had formed small hills and mounds at the edge of the district. 

  “Hello!” I called out loudly. “Can anybody hear me?!” 

  There wasn’t a whole lot of vegetation in the slag heap, only hundreds of disturbed soil pits and little mountains… some were tall and wide enough they’ll easily conceal a person or two looking for privacy. 

  “Anybody here?” I called again.

  A weak cough answered in the distance. 

  I rushed in it’s direction, hoping it was my soulmate, and not a couple trying to steal away a few minutes alone. 

  “Please, tell me where you are!” I called before another round of coughing reached me. 

  “Here to finish me off, sweetheart?” Came a weak, raspy voice from behind me.

  I turned around but saw nothing besides dirt, and sticks, and moss on rocks. 

  I swallowed, “Where are you?” I stepped closer to the heap in front of me, and then…

  “Well, don’t step on me!” 

  I jumped back and looked downwards, and finally saw dirty pieces of flannel and denim, incongruous with the area, and under all the debris, I realized a person had dug a little wedge at the foot of the hill, and thrown the stuff he’d dug out back on top of himself. The disguise was clever, camouflaging himself into the terrain. 

  I gasped and dropped to the ground, pulling handfuls of earth out of the way. A jolt of recognition hit me when a pair of bright blue eyes blinked open and shut, slowly, as if fighting off fatigue. 

  “Don’t go to sleep!” I warned.

  “I’m sorry, but it might be too late for that already. There’s an angel hovering above me, and I’m not sure I’m not dreaming it,” a row of white teeth appeared from the soil.

  My knee-jerk reaction was to chuff and roll my eyes, but if he was throwing me those cheesy lines, it meant he was somewhat lucid, and it was imperative to keep him that way. 

  “How do you know is not a nightmare?” I countered.

  “Because Katniss Everdeen coming to my rescue, and being my soulmate could never be a bad dream. On the contrary It’s only my deepest, most desperate hope, really…” he trailed off, and closed his eyes again. 

  I was momentarily frightened.

  “Keep talking,” I ordered, brushing dirt off his head. Some of it mixed in with his blood and sweat, turning into a thick mud. I could see more of his battered face; my heart beat erratically against my rib cage, there were so many bruises. “Peeta, keep talking,” 

  His untouched eye opened slowly, a lazy, sideways smile greeted me, warming me up. “You know my name?” 

  I chuckled, startled, “You know mine,”

  “Everyone knows you, Katniss ‘the huntress’ Everdeen!” He reached up, tentatively, and touched the tip of my braid, whispering under his breath, something that sounded like: unreal.

  Just saying his name felt otherworldly; like breathing for the first time. I’ve never uttered it before, for fear of bringing forward memories of that awful day in the rain, by the bakery’s scraggly apple tree. 

  “And you’re Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread. I’ve known your name for a long time, baker’s youngest son, whose kindness saved my entire family from starvation,” I cupped his injured face in my hands, and I couldn’t help the slight tremble in my voice. 

  He seemed to melt at the sound of my voice; then his hands came to touch my face. “I can’t believe it’s you. I can’t believe you found me!” He said, an edge of incredulity and awe colored his tone, but then his face fell, “But, your sweet, beautiful face… it’s all…” a fat tear rolled down his muddy cheek, while his thumb gently caressed my temple and the side of my face. “I’m so sorry, Katniss… I never wanted you to look like this! I always tried to shift positions, so you’d never had to see how bad it got. I’m so sorry,” he was crying so hard, he started to shake and cough.

  It took inhuman strength not to cry myself; I knew he needed me to protect him, and there would be time later to fall apart and feel emotional. 

  “Shush, I’m here now.” I knelt next to him and locked my arms around his head, pulling him against my chest, so he could hear my heart beating only for him. “I’m going to take care of you.”

  “I really hoped it was you. I really did…” he heaved into my neck, his arms wrapping gingerly around my waist, “thank you for finding me,”

  “Of course I found you… I’ve been looking for you for ages,” I whispered, finally giving in, shedding some tears, relieved that the tension, fear, uncertainty, and frustration were finally gone. My soulmate was in my arms, where he belonged! “My parents started looking for you when we were little. But we’re together now,”

  Peeta calmed down some, but he was still breathing too fast, “Now that you have me… what are you gonna do with me?” He asked meekly. 

  I smiled down at him, “I’ll put you somewhere safe, where you can never get hurt again,” 

  He closed his eyes. “I’d like that…” 

  “Peeta, you can’t go to sleep just yet, okay?”

  “I’m so tired, Katniss,”

  “I know,” I cooed. I had no idea I was capable of speaking with such softness. “My father will get here soon, and then we’ll patch you up real well.”

  “I can’t go back to my house though—“

  “You ain’t going there, kid!” Papa said from a few feet away. Gale and two police officers followed closely. 

  I must’ve been completely enthralled with my soulmate, because I never heard them coming, 

  “Even if it’s the last thing I do, I won’t let you go back to that place!” My father stated. 

  And that was that!

  ——————————-

“Tell me what happened,” Officer Darius asked in a soft tone, trying to be encouraging.

  My soulmate inhaled; one eye was so swollen it was completely shut, his other one roved around the room nervously. Peeta locked his gaze with mine, beseeching, and I offered my hand in support. He clung to it like a lifeline. 

  “My mother asked me to burn a pile of leaves and branches in the backyard that had been there since fall, but the branches were damp and it was taking me a while to fire it up. Since it’s the last week to burn stuff, my mom got impatient. She screamed at me, called me incompetent and useless… the usual stuff—“

  “Does your mother call you names regularly?” Asked the officer. 

  “My mom calls everybody names. I guess that’s how she was raised. Her mom used to call her names too…” Peeta shrugged.

  “That’s no reason to keep the cycle going,” my mama grumbled quietly, so only I could hear her.”

  “After insulting you, what else happened?” Prompted the police woman, Officer Purnia.

  Peeta scowled. “I told her I’d pour some lighter fluid on the pile and let it soak for a few minutes, but she wouldn’t hear it. Said I was doing it wrong, I was too stupid, I would never accomplish shit if I couldn’t even light up some dead branches… and, well. I got fed up. I told her she could start the fire herself if I was doing such a lousy job… my mom… she—She doesn’t like to be talked back…” He sagged on his hospital bed, and turned his face away. 

  “What do you mean?” Asked officer Purnia, taking notes, trying to keep an impassive mask on.

  “The first slap landed across my ear because I dared to move away from her flying hand,” Peeta said tersely, “She didn’t like that either, so she took aim again, but with the bottle of lighter fluid on her palm. She practically smashed it against my face.” He stopped to gasp for air, while his good eye filled with tears. “I think fluid squirted everywhere, I smelled like my hair and clothes had been doused in the stuff,” he raked a shaking hand over the singed hair at his temple. 

  I caressed his arm to sooth him. 

  He smiled gratefully at me, and faced the officers to continue. “I’d just put a piece of burning cardboard into the pile. I guess the leaves caught fire during the squabble with mom, and I must’ve lost my balance after taking a plastic bottle full of liquid to the face, because next thing I know, I’m bracing my hands on the ground, on burning sticks, and then I’m on fire myself.”

  Peeta sustained first degree burns on the different spots from his left forearm, up. Luckily, his wounds were managed as soon as we got to the emergency room, and his treating doctor said he would recover, with minimal scarring.

  “How did you end up at the Slag Heap?” Asked Officer Darius. 

  Peeta sighed, “My mom kind of freaked out when she realized I was on fire. She picked up a rag from somewhere and started hitting me with it…” he paused, “in retrospect, I think she may have actually been trying to help me, but… I just saw it like she was still trying to beat me, so I ran off. I tripped, fell, then rolled on the ground, she started calling my name, coming closer to me. I was scared. I took off again and didn’t stop until I fell at the foot of that mound of dirt in the slag heap. That’s when I noticed my soulmate’s note.”

  Officer Darius quirked up a reddish eyebrow, “Your soulmate’s note?” 

  “Yeah… these,” Peeta tried to peel back the bandage over his arm, but my mother put her hand over it, and shook her head. 

  “Here!” I said, immediately shoving my own arm in front of the officers. 

  Both examined my arm. “How did you think of doing that, Miss Everdeen?” 

  “I was inspired by your bosses actually,” I snarled.

  “Katniss!” Mama chided, and then politely addressed the officers. “You see, my husband and I have come to the authorities for many years, urging them to find a way to locate our daughter’s soulmate. You see, she’d started exhibiting her soulmate’s bruises from a very young age, which in my professional experience, were inconsistent with normal toddler scrapes and bumps—“

  “The chief of police always said to find a way to communicate with him, ask where he was… so I did,” I interrupted, haughtily. “I got you a real life victim to investigate. You’re welcome.”

  The officers stared at me, flabbergasted. 

  Mama made a dismaying noise in the back of her throat, but Peeta’s face— burnt, bruised and swollen— lighted up, with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen a person direct at me. 

  Mama interjected, conciliatory, “My husband and I believe, your department should have enough evidence to investigate Peeta’s case, now?” My mother’s searching blue eyes seemed to x-ray the officers. 

  “Well, Miss and Mrs. Everdeen, Mister Mellark, I think we have everything we need for now. Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch.” Said Officer Purnia snapping shut her notebook. 

  “Mr. Mellark, your case worker, Miss Trinket, will be in as soon as the matter of your emergency custody is settled.” Informed Officer Darius, right before wishing us a good evening.

  Peeta frowned, “Are they sending me to like a home or something? What about my brothers? They can’t stay home with my mom… she’ll go nuts on them!” 

  “No, no, Peeta,” Mama spoke softly, “Miss Trinket is already on it. Haymitch Abernathy has offered his house for your brothers to stay at for a few days while things get sorted out. You’re welcome to join them, of course, but your injuries need supervision and several cleanings daily, so Mr. Everdeen and I feel it is in everyone’s best interest if you stay with us, at least until you’ve healed enough.” Mama hesitated, and then patted my soulmate’s hand, “I hope that’s okay with you, but if it isn’t—“

  “It’s absolutely great, ma’am! Yes, I—thank you,” 

  Mama nodded, “Well, I’m gonna go get some stuff taken care of, and check on that case worker. Then they’ll hopefully let us go home… Katniss, I’ll need your help with something before we leave, alright?”

  “‘kay.” 

  “Mrs. Everdeen…thank you,” Peeta said meekly. 

  Mama just stood stoically by the door, “You’re family, Peeta, it’s the least we could do for you.” The door clicked shut leaving me alone with my soulmate.

  We were both silent for a minute. Then Peeta said half amused, half shyly, “I think the guy cop liked you. I caught him smirking a couple of times after your ruthless answers.” His smile was crooked. Boyish. I almost swooned. 

  I shrugged. “I don’t think he cared that much,”

  “Are you serious?” Peeta laughed, “Katniss, you have no idea the effect you can have,”

  I scowled at him, and he just shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or complimenting me. He changed the topic before I could decide which. 

  “So, you’ve been looking for me then?” He sounded nervous, and a little uncertain, “isn’t it weird…we are soulmates, but the only thing I know for sure about you, is that your favorite color is green?” He rubbed his fingers together, then showed me the tips, where he had dark green spots, exactly on the same place I had permanent calluses from pulling on my bow string. 

  I bit my lower lip, studying the thin spidering of green nicks and scratches, were I surmised my own marks have appeared after my daily trips into the woods. 

  “Your favorite color is orange. Not bright, but muted…”

  “Like the sunset,” he finished for me. 

  Mind bonding wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities between soulmates, but my understanding on the matter was, that the bond had to be physically sealed before a pair could develop those empathic connections, where soulmates shared perfectly synchronized thoughts, as if they had one mind. Peeta and I weren’t there just yet, but it felt like we understood each other pretty well already. 

  He just stared at me in fascination, before his face fell, “I hope you don’t get permanently disfigured, if my burn scars don’t go away completely… you are so pretty.”

  I rolled my eyes, pleased that he thought I was pretty, but not really knowing how to respond graciously. I’d never been called pretty by a boy before, not that it’d have the same effect as when Peeta said it… “You’re just saying that I’m pretty because I’m your soulmate,” 

  He smiled sadly, “No… I really mean it. I’ve had a crush on you since I can remember. I just new I belonged to someone since I was like 4, when I saw my first soulmate scratch on my knees. Your favorite colors back then were teal and pink. Your marks were always swirls of the two colors. I liked them. I liked that I belonged to someone who enjoyed colors, like myself… I wondered what your marks looked like, but then, I hoped you never had to see my marks. I was ashamed of them.”  

  My chest tightened, I climbed onto his bed, and pressed my side right against his, “Hey… I’ve like your marks.” I stuttered, “my parents never let me see the ones on my back until I was older, but I liked the ones you got in normal places. Yours appeared as rainbows where we were little.” I held his hand in mine. “I don’t care if we stay fire mutts forever, Peeta, the important thing is that we are together now,” 

  “Thank you for finding me,”

  “Thank you for leading me to you,”

  We leaned our heads together, and fell into an easy silence.

  “Katniss…”

  “Mmm,”

  “We are soulmates.” 

  I tilted my head away, to look at him, “Yeah. We already established that,” I said suspiciously.

  Peeta smirked, “You know, we’re supposed to be madly in love…so, it’s okay to kiss me whenever you want to,” 

  I snorted and rolled my eyes, but he was right. In any other circumstance, I’m sure we would’ve already progressed into couple-y, lovey-dovey stuff. 

  “If you’re already fishing for kisses, that means you’re healthy then!” I kissed his forehead. “But let me tell you right now, cheek and sass won’t take too far, sir,”

  “It won’t?” he pouted, “then I’ll just have to swoop in when I see an opening,” he leaned into me, and I let him plant a peck, full on my lips. 

  My first kiss ever, and all I could register was how chapped his lips were… besides the small fluttering of butterfly wings in the pit of my stomach, of course. 

  “Well, time for a sip of water, and you should rest some too.” I said feeding him the straw in the Styrofoam cup full of icy water by his bed. 

  After he drank, we gravitated towards each other, meeting in the middle. Our second kiss was short, sweet, and full of relief. 

  I liked it. In fact, I wanted another, but Peeta was drowsy after the day we’ve had. 

  “I remember you used to sing, so beautifully, even the birds would stop to listen,” Peeta said, shyly… “would you… mind singing for me?”

  “I don’t sing all that much nowadays, but if that’s what you want…”

  He stared at me expectantly, so I had no other choice. I combed back his freshly washed hair, and started.

  “Just close your eyes;

The sun is going down.

You’ll be alright;

No one can hurt you now.

Come morning light,

You and I’ll be safe and sound...”

  When Mama came back, Peeta was asleep, and so she took me outside while my father sat in the room with the case worker, signing in my soulmate’s release papers, waiting for him to wake up. 

  “I want you to take these,” Mama produced a packet of medicine from a white, pharmaceutical baggie. 

  “Birth control?!” I groaned, embarrassed. 

  “Don’t look so scandalized, Katniss,” Mama rolled her eyes, “You and Peeta are healthy, newly acquainted teenaged soulmates, who will suddenly coexist together in close quarters. Papa and I agreed that starting you on contraceptives is the right thing to do,” she fixed me with a stare that broker no protests, “That said, we are not giving you carte blanche to act on pure hormonal instincts, Katniss. While we aren’t so naive to believe you won’t explore intimacy with your soulmate, we fully expect you to use caution, and make responsible decisions. Is that clear?” 

  I nodded, and snatched the pills from Mama’s outstretched hand. My face was burning with mortification, but I was grateful for my parents’ wherewithal and openness. 

  The next few days proved harsh and blissful at the same time. After 11 years pestering the authorities, Papa finally got the law to prosecute my soulmate’s parents for abuse and neglect. To call it a victory, was understatement. 

  Peeta’s father was declared another victim of the Witch’s abuse, but court ordered him to see a therapist and get evaluated by a professional, before he could come back home to his sons. 

  Mrs. Mellark was charged with endangering a child, battery, abuse and arson. She was court ordered to seek anger management and psychological counseling. She had been abused as a child too, and after watching her son in fire, it finally clicked in her head, that she needed to put a stop to the cycle… late as it may be. She went willingly when the police served her arrest warrants. 

  Since Peeta and his middle brother were still minors, they were temporarily placed under their eldest brother’s care; but the eldest brother was only 19 and had no idea how to be a father figure, so strange as it was, my parents insisted on having them all bunk in our tiny house, which was comically insufficient. Thank heavens Haymitch Abernathy was still willing to help. 

  The grumpy old drunk invited the lot of us to stay at his place for as long as we needed, and after cleaning up all the empty bottles and general messes around his huge house, we could enjoy the place at our leisure. 

  The boys kept working at the bakery, since they needed a source of income, and something to keep themselves occupied. Mama said they needed the normalcy of their business to cope. 

  It was a good thing Haymitch’s house was so big, since Peeta started having horrible nightmares after his mother was released from holding, after making bail; her trial was still pending, but my poor soulmate suffered severe PTSD from the events that brought us together. Neither of his brothers wanted to share a room with him at night…which allowed me to slip in when I heard him crying out desperately and fearfully.

  Peeta would only go back to sleep after I laid beside him and sang, while carding my fingers through his sweat-damped, ashy blond waves. 

  “I’m not okay until I can see you’re safe,” he told me once. 

  After the third night in a row of this happening, I just stayed with him in his bed. My parents didn’t exactly approve— we were still 16— but there wasn’t much they could say to stop us. After all, our soulmate bond trumped any other familial bond; we just couldn’t legally get married and apply for housing until we were both 18. 

  Peeta still woke up in cold sweats at night, but my arms were there to fend off the terrors, and so were my lips. 

  On the night I felt a hunger so consuming and devastating, gnawing at me from my core, radiating to the tips of my being, I was glad my mother put me on birth control. 

  My soulmate gently, but steadily joined us together, cementing our physical bond for the rest of time, while branding his love and adoration to me into my very skin, with fevered lips and shaky hands. We gasped and whispered vows of devotion to one another, and then an explosion of feelings and emotions went off… I couldn’t tell where his life force started, and mine ended. We were one. Sharing a single soul. 

  After, we laid tangled together, our hearts beating as one. Peeta kissed my knuckles, and asked.

  “You looked for me, for years. Real or not real?”

  “Real.”

  He kissed my forehead, “Will you sing?” 

  “Of course,” I combed back his hair with loving fingers, and sang.

  “Just close your eyes;

You’ll be alright;

Come morning light,

You and I’ll be safe and sound.”

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.