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sweeter-innocence-fics · 2 years

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My Sweetest Downfall - Chapter One

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Work Summary:

Eddie's back from the Upside Down, but things aren't exactly how he left them. Hawkins is in pieces, his friends are scattered and the love of his life is... pregnant?

Eddie Munson x Harrington!Reader

Chapters: Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Epilogue

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 1498

Read on AO3.

Masterlists.

Taglist: @mrs-kai-anderson @ang3l1te @missryerye

Taglist info

Prologue

Notes:

warnings for shitty parents, mentions of weight gain, severe depression, grief, canon-typical violence

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~ FOUR MONTHS EARLIER ~

It felt as though you’d been asleep for days, but no matter how much you slept, your body was still tired. At this point, you pretty much only got up to use the bathroom. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d showered.

There was no point to any of it. Eddie was dead. Hawkins was in pieces. Your friends were just as broken and traumatised as you were. It’s not that you wanted to die, but you didn’t want to have to live anymore either.

Your door opened. Your mother knocked while she was still opening it, so you wouldn’t have had a chance to react if you’d tried. When she took in your state, she put her hands on her hips. It was a motion that reminded you of Steve, but it wasn’t half so charming when she did it.

“You’re still in bed,” she said curtly.

“Feel sick,” you said. It was only half a lie. You felt physically awful, but not the kind of sick that sleep could chase away.

She let out a deep sigh – the kind that made your stomach twist and turn unpleasantly – and sat down at the edge of your bed. You tensed as she brushed your hair out of your face.

“It’s such a shame to see you wasting your life like this,” she said, faux-sympathetically. “You’d be pretty if you weren’t so lazy. And you’ve put on a few pounds, too.”

A year ago, this would’ve led to a fight. You’d had all manner of screaming matches with your mother. But right now, you couldn’t even muster a glare. You felt totally numb.

“Mom,” Steve’s voice from the doorway made her turn her head. He had a stern look on his face. “You’re not helping.”

She threw up her hands. “Of course not. I’m a terrible mother, after all.”

Steve grimaced. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

You pressed your face into your pillow as they argued. To his credit, Steve seemed to have successfully pulled her away from berating you.

Your parents had been home for a week. It was the longest period of time they’d been home in years, and it was hell. You hadn’t had the most stable relationship with them before the Upside Down had come and torn your lives apart, but now there was a gulf between you and them that you doubted would ever close.

Steve, at least, understood. He’d been by your side as your world had come crashing down. He had seen the things you’d seen. If you wanted to talk about it – which you didn’t – you knew that he would be there.

You felt rather than heard your mother getting up to leave. She and Steve were still arguing. She slammed your bedroom door, which jolted you out of the doze you had been slipping into.

You frowned. As awful as she’d been about it, she wasn’t wrong. You rolled out of bed and padded over to your ensuite. Your toothbrush and shower things lay untouched for several days at least, and you winced.

Deciding to start with your teeth, you scrubbed them thoroughly until they no longer felt disgusting and furry. The thought of tackling your hair right now made you feel dizzy, so instead you put it up in a shower cap as you washed the rest of your body. It would be even worse when you actually tried to deal with it, but you tried not to think about it. Thinking about it made you anxious.

You kept the hair hidden under your shower cap as you dried yourself and put on a t-shirt and sweatpants. At least they were clean.

Getting back into bed was tempting, but you wanted to use the momentum you had from showering to at least make some sort of appearance downstairs today, so, reluctantly, you made your way down to the living room.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” said your mother as soon as your foot hit the bottom step. You almost turned around right there and went back to bed, but then she said, “Just in time, too. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” You glanced over at Steve, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He offered you a small, half-smile.

“Tomorrow morning. There’s still time to change your minds, you know,” said your father.

“We’re not coming with you,” Steve insisted. It had been a strong point of contention for the entire week they’d been here. “We have friends here, and responsibilities.”

“Oh of course.” Your mother threw her hands up, glaring at Steve. “And I’m sure these ‘responsibilities’ are more important than your own lives. My children throwing their lives away because they don’t want to say goodbye to their friends! Not sparing a thought for your poor parents! What do you expect me to do if you die in this hellhole town?”

A cruel, cynical part of you wondered if your mother would prefer it if you died. It would certainly bank her sympathy for life from her high-society lady friends. She sure did love being the centre of attention.

But no, of course not. Your relationship with her was strained, but she still loved you. Or at least, you hoped she did.

You and Steve had been the perfect children, once. He was captain of the swim team and a social butterfly, all set to follow your father into the world of business. You had been a straight A student with all of the extra-curriculars that made colleges fall at your feet.

But you weren’t those people anymore. Steve had graduated high school with no desire to go to college, and now he was working a minimum wage job at a video store and spending all his time driving a bunch of teenagers around town. You had painted your nails black and started smoking weed with the school’s resident super-super-senior, and your grades had suffered for it.

That thought caught in your throat. Eddie was gone. And your parents were still disappointed in you.

“We’re not going to die,” said Steve, sounded more certain than you knew he felt. “But we have people in this town who rely on us. We can’t leave Hawkins. Not yet.”

“And what exactly would you do if we decided to sell the house? May I remind you ungrateful children that your mother and I are providing the means for you to stay in town?” your father asked through gritted teeth.

You couldn’t suppress a snort. “Sell it to who? You said it yourself. Hawkins is a hellhole. No one is moving into Hawkins, and anyone from here who has the kind of money to buy this place has already left town.”

Your father glared at you, but you held your ground. “I can see there’s no point in trying to persuade you, so I won’t waste my breath. Suit yourself. We need to get packing.”

You stepped to the side so that your parents could both walk past you up the stairs. Steve was watching you carefully, so you offered him a weak smile.

Your familial obligations complete, you made your way back up to your bedroom.

~ PRESENT DAY ~

Eddie’s head was spinning. Your words were bouncing around inside his head.

You’re dead. You died months ago.

“If you’re really Eddie,” said Steve, breaking through his train of thought, “what happened in the Upside Down? How did you survive?”

“I…” Eddie tried to think. He had been in the Upside Down. Demobats had swarmed him. They had torn chunks of his flesh away, leaving him bleeding and in pain. And then, nothing. Trying to remember what happened after that point brought a searing pain behind his eyes.

He couldn’t answer Steve’s question. His eyes flickered to you, almost on instinct, as if you might be able to somehow help.

“Hey,” said Steve sharply, pointing his bat in Eddie’s face. “Don’t look at her. Look at me. How the fuck did you get here?”

“I… walked.” That much was true. Steve stared at him incredulously. “I honestly don’t remember how I got here. I just know that I was being attacked by bats, and then I was on my way here. That’s the truth, I swear.” Steve was at a loss for words. Eddie’s eyes darted to your baby bump. “Is that-”

“Don’t,” Steve interrupted. “If you have anything to say, say it to me. You don’t get to talk to her until I’m sure you’re not a zombie, or possessed, or-”

“Steve,” you said, your voice small. He turned to look at you, and Eddie took the opportunity to steal a glance too. Your eyes were bloodshot and watery.

Steve’s expression softened. “We’re gonna sort this out, okay? I’m gonna call Hopper, he’ll know what to do.”

“Hopper’s alive?”

Steve ignored him. “Let’s go.” He gestured to the stairs. “You go first,” he said to Eddie. “I’m not turning my back on you.”

With a deep sigh, Eddie obliged.

Next Chapter

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x harrington!reader #steve harrington x sister!reader

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alterboyx · 24 days

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Incredible punk community story I learned today

I meet a farmer selling a ton of heirloom tomatoes and some vegan no bake goods, at the Pagan Gathering (can’t call it the Pagan Festival bc the previous runner didn’t put it on AND stole the name but that’s other drama).

Anyways. Teaches me about all of them. On a whim, I ask her to do a video with me telling me about the different tomatoes, and doing taste tests. She agreed! I think it turned out really well.

Afterwards we chat a bit more and she mentions she’s in a punk band. I’m like holy shit what band? And she names. Well. A band I used to be in. Playing the instrument I used to play! Literally my replacement.

She also just met my other ex-band band just the other day, and mentioned that the guitarist of it was also in her band before and I’m like.

Huh. That’s uh. That’s definitely not true. Bc when I formed my new band, we started getting popular locally, and the old band I had left kept trying to get us to do a show with them. They asked me about it, and when I was uncomfortable with it, they were actually very supportive.

We had talked about that band plenty, and talked about the only other band she’d been in since she moved to the state.. but I just say huh weird. Not tryna start shit. She also says she might have remembered it wrong.

I’m on edge bc I left both bands for being treated like shit, and I’m worried about what they tell other people in the community. Turns out there was a wee bit of shit talked but not by name and she saw through it.

Well, she’s lived a hell of a life so far. It’s not just her farm, or the community spaces she runs. She joined a band offhand before even knowing bass, and then immediately going on tour with them - with no songs prepared! - and they were purely random improv! Insane.

Last year, she goes to a very beloved antifa dive bar we all frequent. She goes to see a band called Pussy Maggot, which she assumes is going to be a badass punk girl band based on the name. Instead, a bunch of white guys wearing fake afros get up on stage!

She’s like well, fuck these guys. They start rough housing and shoving each other - until they throw one guy into her that SHATTERS HER LEG.

So, she has to have all these metal rods put in. She can’t really walk for a year. Gets depressed as hell. Meets the singer of her current band and they hit it off, he tells her she should join!

She’s in her 40’s, wheelchair bound, asks the singer (23 now I think?) what the hell they’re talking about. Singer is like so what it’s fucking badass join on!

So she did. I know at least one other bass player dropped out after me, so she is #3+. I’m anxious and admittedly still hurt from my experiences with the previous band, but she takes ZERO shit and gives zero fucks so they can’t push her around or bother her. It sounds like they also have grown and sorted some shit out, which I’m glad to hear.

Anyways. Fuck Pussy Maggot, and all hail two spirit farmers with metal legs who slay on bass. 🤘🎸

#punk life

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electronicbreadpatrol · 5 months

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I messed up the post

The other thing I've been studying is people faking 'disassociate identity disorder' they'll make videos like; "my alters have diffrent hand writing!" I'd like to introduce these ppl to some of the patients my analyst trainer was treating. In particular a woman who was molested that upon mention would become entirely catatonic, utterly vacant. And you could do that at will, so she and the other paranoid patient were incredibly fragile, they had a teinues grasp of reality in general. Theres a method of lacans which amounts to redirecting thought patterns, essentially you are redirecting those memories for ; a gesture, putting a stress ball in their hand, etc. Theres a famous case of this, a French woman told lacan the nazis would wake her up at six, and he basically rubbed the side of her cheek, the reason being for the German word for secret police and the French word for gester so gestapo ---> gester. She mentioned decades after she still can almost feel his hand. So the idea being you want her to think gester at 6am.

I don't agree with zizek in so far as he states you should be depressed anxious etc as a result of the society you live under, I completely disagree, you should not feel x y z, you will feel x y z. Assume as a child you walked in on your parents getting dressed, you would be totally horrified, because children aren't really interested in any of that, BUT they are especially horrified by their parents being nude. This is not some "dur dur you want to bang your mom" point, of which freud did not say (dont be retarded) the sexual stages of development are not inherent sexual, except for the one during puberty, it is just describing a child's development over all. For example children who were excessively punished/ scolded during potty training may become analy retentive later in life, which is freuds point that things children experience are often much more traumatic, regardless of said trama is rational. Peoples minds will actually fill in the blank, you could completely make up a trama all in your head, which is not dissimilar to the idea of AI hallucinations.

The oral stage; a new born can't use their hands, they communicate with grunts, cries, and they chew on things. Meaning their main mode of communication or interactions with the world are entirely from their mouths.

But socially western society is schizophrenic regarding children, they simultaneously demand the child has fun & they demand more mature adult behavior from them. Which repressive de sublimation, this sort of inversion of orthodox freudianism, "just do it" amounting to a sort of englishtened hedonism. Diet coke for example, the result of this sort of liberal frame work is coke without coke, liberal tolerance with intolerance etc. A sort of push towards hedonism being placed above all other concerns, but while espousing rhetoric about the downtrodden. It can result in a sort of survivors guilt, which liberal markets have an almost brilliant solution. When you buy coffee, automatically a donation to charity is sort of baked into the final price. Which is precisely what I mean by "coke, without coke.

Désir de la mère etc etc etc etc, Wunsch, désir, there is no true English translations, unless you're content with "wish" being the closest one

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laceyyu · 10 months

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with @lxighmadxson; leigh's home Alex gets some big news.

Alex

It had been a couple of days since Alex had first seen Leigh and realized she was in town. They had been talking at the stables while they worked, but he had yet to see her home or meet her daughter. He would fully admit that he was curious to meet her daughter along with a few tidbits about her that he was never going to ask outright. It would come in time. After all, it had only been a few days. Alex had told Leigh he could stop by that evening a couple of hours after work was officially over. It might not be a date or anything, but he wanted to clean up a little bit. He could hear his mom scolding him if he'd gone over in his usual worn clothes as a guest. Before the outbreak he would have gotten her some flowers or perhaps a bottle of something, date or no date, but he'd been short on time and those sorts of things weren't all that common nowadays. Alex didn't want her to feel he thought it was super serious, or worse, romantic in nature. So he came with just himself. Knocking gently on the door, he waited for Leigh to open it, taking a deep breath as he told himself there was no reason to be nervous.

Leigh

"Alli-gally, put Luna-belle down. She's trying to eat, sweetie." Was Leigh a little anxious about this? Absolutely. When Alex said he could come by that day, she went into full on panic clean mode. Which was hard, considering there were still a few rooms in the house she was still renovating and cleaning and boxes of stuff piled in the room that shall not be seen to take to the supermarket or junkyard. It wasn't that she was worried about Alex seeing the house in the state it was - it was that he was about to meet her daughter. Their daughter and she wanted everything to be perfect. Although she was still worried about his reaction. Her pot of chili was on the stove simmering as she did another sweep of her living room to make sure she had picked up everything off the floor. Allison was still carrying around Luna, who looked as if she had resigned herself to her fate. She'd make it up to Luna later. Leigh heard the knock on the door and breathed in deeply as she stepped up the door, although any nervousness she had was completely masked the moment she opened it and spotted Alex. "Perfect timing. Just put the chili in a simmer." She stepped aside and waited for him to come in before closing the door. "You look snazzy. If I didn't know any better, I would think you were trying to impress me."

Alex

The little bit of the house he could see was in perfect condition, and he wondered how much help Leigh actually needed with it. Not that he cared if she didn't and she had only used it as an excuse to try and get him to come over. It simply meant he wasn't sure what to think. Now he was left with overthinking about his outfit. Did she have any inkling of how nervous he was? Was she as anxious as he was? If so, she didn't show it. Alex was trying not to show it, but he had never been a good liar. The whole situation was more awkward than he wanted it to be.

"I think my mom might come back from the grave if I wore my work jeans over to a pretty girl's house for dinner, and I didn't think you'd want ghosts making everything cold," he said, smiling. He'd meant for it to be a joke, but the topic of what had happened to either of their families hadn't come up since their first conversation. They'd stayed on overly neutral topics. He didn't want to depress Leigh by mentioning his dead mom for the first time, but at that point it was too late. Instead he tried to change topics. Alex cleared his throat and looked back to her. "Chili smells good. Thanks for inviting me over. I shoulda said that earlier. I wasn't sure if I should bring something over, since a nice bottle of merlot isn't exactly easy to find around here. But I'm happy to be put to work if you need anything else. Feels kinda backwards for a newly-arrived mom to be inviting people over for dinner when everyone should be helping you." Yes, the gentleman in him wanted to help her, but he also just wanted her to be comfortable and happy. Admittedly she seemed to be doing pretty damn well by herself, not that Alex doubted her either.

Leigh

Whether Alex knew it or now, Leigh could see that there was something stiff about him as he walked into her place. Was he....was he nervous? Why the hell would he be nervous? He shouldn't be nervous. If either of them should be nervous, it was her because she was about to drop a piece of news on him that was going to change his life forever. "Ahhh, mothers are terrifying, in life and death. I guess that's fair. But seriously, you don't need to dress flashy for me, Brookes. Unless you are trying to impress me, in which case, then yeah, always dress like this." She had noticed how he commented about his mother being dead and as much as she wanted to know more, she wasn't sure if he was ready to talk about that. Hell, she wasn't sure if she was ready to talk about what happened to her family, but if he asked, she would share.

She led Alex into the kitchen and over to the stove. She smiled as she lifted the lid and looked into the pot. "That's sweet of you. You didn't have to bring anything, but I appreciate the thought. But if you're offering some help, I was going to get some pudding made for dessert. Think you can handle making some pudding?" Leigh opened the drawer and pulled out the box of old chocolate pudding jello and tossed it to him. "Might be easier than me showing you my project room that I'm about ready to burn to the ground. I swear, thinking about it gives me anxiety." She laughed a little as she heard the footsteps of Allison in her playroom. "Unless....you wanted to meet my daughter first?"

Alex

Alex still wasn't sure why he was so nervous. Maybe there was some part of him that wanted to impress Leigh. Maybe he was worried Leigh was upset with him about the way they had ended things before the outbreak. Maybe he did want to impress her. There were all too many possibilities to think about. The one thing he knew was that he wanted things to go well between them. He wanted their friendship to be able to heal and go back to how it had been before, minus the sex. Alex made no comment on wanting to impress her, simply smiling and nodding in acknowledgement.

Catching the box of pudding, he briefly held it up to read the box and confirm it was indeed pudding. How she had gotten hold of it he had no idea. "Talk about impressing people. I don't think I've had pudding since a few years before the outbreak." It wasn't a huge loss - Alex had never had much of a sweet tooth. While he might take a bite or two, he was pretty sure there were other people who would enjoy it more than he did. At most he might take a small portion to take to Cass, knowing she would be much happier having it than he would. Between everything he'd forgotten that he was supposed to meet her daughter. "Uh. It's whatever you think would be best? I'm good with whatever. Don't wanna bring Allison out just to meet me, I doubt she's that worried about meeting her mom's... co-worker." Old friend. Ex. Co-worker seemed the safest option.

Leigh

Leigh laughed as he examined the box. "I was able to bring some of these with me from Texas. Allison loved them and our storehouse had an abundance of them. I'm hoping some more pops up in the future, but if not I'm working on alternative measures to make it." She laughed a bit as she stirred the chili. And give her a minute to weigh her options on when she wanted to reveal to him about Allison's parentage. Part of her wanted to get it out sooner rather than later, even if it meant that their dinner got cut short. She could wait to tell him until later in the night, but then if you was excited about the knowledge, he would have missed out on some ample bonding opportunities. "Well, the chili might be another couple minutes, and Allison is a great assistant when it comes to putting. How about we go check on her and see if she's torturing our poor Luna Belle some more." She put the lid back on and wiped her hands on the towel as she turned to Alex. "Luna is her Kitty that we brought with us. She loves her to death." She nodded her head to follow her as she left the kitchen and walked into the side room where Allison was playing dolls while Luna watched from the bookcase. "Ally-gally, come here sweetheart. There's someone I want you to meet."

Alex

"Alternative measures? Consider me interested. It was a major deal when our previous compound was able to whip up our version of a cake, but Redwood seems to be able to find more stuff than we had." Somehow someone always managed to be able to pull through with finding hard-to-find things. "No worries, I can be patient." Alex was fine going with Leigh's lead. She was the one who knew her daughter best after all. It would likely be a quick and uninteresting meeting, probably not even worthy of interrupting the girl. There was no reason for Allison to be interested in him when he was just some guy to her, not that he cared. He smiled at the thought of Leigh and her daughter with a cat. Sure enough, the cat was patiently watching the little girl in her playroom. Leigh called to her daughter as Alex leaned against the doorway, waving at the girl as she looked towards her mother and him. "Hey, Allison. I'm Alex. Your mom has told me quite a bit about you." It was good that he'd spent time with Oliver and Henry recently, reminding him a bit of what kids were like since it had been so long beforehand. Allison peered up at him with big blue eyes, seemingly curious. "Hi!" She set down the two dolls she had been holding and turned more towards him. "What kind of things did she tell you about me?" Alex laughed at her bluntness, kneeling down to get on her level. "Well," he trailed off, pretending to think of what Leigh had mentioned. "She told me that you like your cat a lot, for one. And chocolate pudding. And you're curious, and excitable, and ask a lot of questions," he teased.

Leigh

Leigh kept back, observing the two of them with pure interest. She wondered if he would notice a familiarity or not in her. Like how her eyes were the same shade of blue or her ears mirrored his own. But it seemed to go unnoticed so she let them interact. In fact, it made her smile and laugh a little at her little one's bluntness. "Sweetheart, why don't you go clean up and then meet us in the kitchen so you can show Alex how we make pudding, okay?" Allison smiled and got up to run down the hall to the bathroom. "She keeps me on my toes. Luna too. But she's been doing that since she was born. She was a month early and I didn't think she was gonna make it. Hospitals were shut down and we were holed up on my aunt's ranch when she came."

Alex

Soon Leigh was telling Allison to go wash up, and Alex stood back up to let the girl get ready before he was back next to Leigh. It had been the first time he had actually seen Allison, and the sinking feeling in his stomach only got worse when he watched her run to wash up. Alex internally shook his head and chided himself for thinking the thought in the first place. If he went down that road it would be a very awkward, miserable dinner. "I'm... sorry to hear that. I know that had to be a difficult time, but I'm glad both of you made it." He gave her a soft smile. Still no mention of Allison's father yet, which only made that sinking feeling worse. "Guess she was excited to be here." Five years ago the sentiment would've made sense, but it was hard to think of being excited for much of anything in their current world. Yet he still wanted humanity to prevail. Allison was resilient, though - in a lot of ways it was better that she didn't know the world before she was born. The two adults made their way back into the kitchen. Alex leaned against the counter, not sure what to say in the couple of minutes they had before Allison would come back. "Allison seems to be doing pretty well, despite being a preemie, at least. Not that I'm an expert in childcare or anything like that, obviously," he tried. The words came out fumbled, but he was fairly sure she knew what he was trying to get at.

Leigh

Leigh takes a moment to watch her daughter leave. Not just her daughter. Their daughter. Cass' advice rings in her ears and she prepares herself to tell him. "Yeah, I am too. She's a fighter, kind of like her dad." If she was going to drop this bomb on him she wanted to lay some groundwork down first to soften the blow. Well, maybe not blow since Cass assured her that he wanted kids. So hopefully this would be good news to him. She takes in a deep breath and turns back to Alex, the most reassuring smile she could muster. "I'm sure you're interested to know who that is, especially with her age. And don't pretend like you haven't been wanting to ask because I know your tell. Cass told me I should come right out and say it so I will and I know it's going to be a lot so....brace yourself." She pauses as she chews on her lip to give him the second but not too long that he would be freaking out. "Allison she's.....she's your daughter. You're her father and I thought you might want to know. Before you ask, yes, I'm sure." Her fingers were dancing together nervously as she waited for his reaction. Oh God, she hoped he wouldn't freak out too much.

Alex

It was the first time Leigh had mentioned Allison's father, yet it wasn't exactly much to go on. Then Leigh started talking about her father - really talking about him, and the sinking feeling in his stomach went deeper and deeper. All he could do was stand there in silence while he waited for the blow. She's your daughter. Alex was doing everything in his power to not be sick. He didn't know what to do or what to say, not that he knew what to think in the first place. He had a daughter. An actual flesh-and-blood child. A tiny human that had been made with a part of him and a part of Leigh. The next few moments seemed like hours and yet only a millisecond since he still hadn't said anything when Allison was walking into the kitchen after having washed up. Allison was his daughter. If it had been up to him, he would've scooped her up into his arms to press her close to his chest and hold her there until he felt ready to put her back down. He had missed so much of her life already. Three of the most important years of one's life, and he hadn't been there for a single second of it. If he hadn't already felt sick to his stomach, he definitely would've become so at the thought. Yet as much as he mourned knowing he would never get that time back, the optimistic part of him said that he needed to appreciate the fact that they were here now. He was there for her now, and that was what mattered.

"I'm ready to make pudding!" Allison announced, confidently striding up to the two adults and waiting for her mother to commence the pudding-making. Alex couldn't help but wish Leigh had told him when he would have more time to process everything. How was he supposed to get through the dinner now? He felt ready to pass out. But now more than ever he needed everything to go smoothly. Most importantly, he needed Allison to like him.

Leigh

Leigh stood there, patiently waiting for him to say something. Do something. Anything, really because right now, the silence and lack of reaction was starting to worry her. She didn't move towards him because she didn't want to freak him out more than he already was. "Alex?" she asked, hoping that she could break his trance and get a word out of him. She was preparing to approach him but Allison came running out, her dirty blonde curls bouncing with each bounding stride she made to them. "Oh you are, are you?" Leigh asked, scooping her off the ground and holding her. "I think we should go make some pudding then, huh? Why don't you go sit at the table and Mommy will be right in to start. Okay, Ally-gally?" Allison nodded and Leigh planted a kiss to her cheek before setting her down. She waited for Allison to run into the kitchen before turning back to Alex. "I know it's a lot and I will not blame you if you decide to run out that door right now. It's crazy but I just thought you should know sooner rather than later so that way if you wanted to be there for her, you could. But like I said, I will not blame you if you decide to walk out."

Alex

Alex was too dazed to do much or say anything while Leigh had Allison go into the kitchen, but it gave him time to get out of his trance enough to watch the interaction between mother and daughter. He wanted to be the one to pick Allison up and kiss her cheek and call her cute nicknames. Once Allison was out of sight, Leigh turned to him and said she would be okay if he walked out. That got him out of his trance. The dazed look on his face was replaced by one of surprise and then upset. "What? No, that's not.... I'm not going to leave. I'm never going to leave, I - it's just a lot to process. I don't know what to say or do right now, and I'm freaking out, but I can definitely tell you I'm not leaving." Alex had been through hell and back during the apocalypse, but even when he had been torn down he had gotten back up eventually. The only thing that could destroy him was not being able to be there for his daughter. He swallowed, shaking his head as he looked at her with sad eyes. "Allison is my daughter, and I would die before leaving her, okay?" It sounded dramatic, but it was the truth. Within a minute Alex now had a completely different set of priorities. He would do anything for his daughter. No matter what happened between him and Leigh, or whether Allison ended up liking him, or anything else that might come between the father and daughter - nothing would ever change that. "I don't know how to do this right now. I need her to like me, but I'm not sure I can put on a good enough act to try and make things seem normal. Dammit," he said, swearing under his breath as he attempted to take a couple of deep breaths and think of the best plan of action. "We need time to talk, and she's right outside, and for all I know she's already wanting for me to just leave. I'm just some guy, y'know? God, I don't know if I can do this."

Leigh

Leigh felt like she could breathe when he said he wasn't leaving. She didn't want to go but if he had decided to, she wasn't going to stop him. Just learning that you had a three-year-old daughter was a lot to take in and process and some people needed the space to do so. But he seemed pretty adamant that he wanted to be there and be a part of Allison's life and to Leigh, that was more than enough. "I understand....how about I put on a movie for her and while she's watching it we can talk, yeah?" Alex's worry that Allison wasn't going to like him was almost endearing but she understood the fear. She remembered worrying about being a terrible mom and her daughter growing up to hate her through her entire pregnancy and even now. "She doesn't want you to leave. That I can promise you. In fact, when I told her you were coming over for dinner, she was very excited to meet you. If I had she doesn't know yet because I wanted to be able to tell her with you there. But I also wanted you to meet her first." Finally she stepped forward and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder to squeeze. "It will be okay. I'll help you through this."

Alex

The idea of not spending more time with Allison wasn't one he loved, but at the same time Alex knew he and Leigh needed to talk so he felt more comfortable going forward. If nothing else, he wanted to know if she had a plan when it came to telling Allison about her parentage. He didn't have any experience with telling a toddler some random man they had barely met was their other parent. Alex nodded. "Yeah, I guess that would be best." He began calming down a little more as Leigh reassured him, nodding. He waited for her to put on a movie for Allison, once again wishing he could go up and hug his daughter. Patience, he told himself. Leigh was clearly open to Alex being a part of Allison's life; he didn't need to worry that he wouldn't be allowed to spend time with his daughter. It sucked that he didn't magically have a relationship with their daughter, but with a little time and effort he wanted to believe that he and Allison would work up to that.

Within a couple of minutes Leigh was back in the kitchen, now leaving a more substantial block of uninterrupted time for the couple to talk. Alex wanted to hug her, to somehow show he appreciation for everything she had done and everything she was doing, but it still felt too soon and too risky in case it made her uncomfortable. "So...." Alex trailed off, no longer having zero topics in mind but so many he didn't know where to begin. "There's so much I wanna get to, but I'll be anxious the entire time if I don't have some idea of what you're thinking. On anything, really." He forced his body to relax, looking towards her. "I meant what I said before, of course. I want to be here for her. I want anything you're okay with to be honest. Whatever you're willing to give." As much as he wanted to immediately get to be a happy family with Allison, he knew it wasn't that easy. Allison's comfort and happiness were the most important thing. He trusted Leigh to make the best decisions for their daughter.

Leigh

Leigh gave Alex a moment as she walked into the kitchen. "Honey, I forgot that Alex and I need to talk about important stuff. Once we do, we'll make pudding, promise. Why don't we go watch Finding Nemo?" Allison pouted but gave in and it didn't take long for Leigh to get her set up in her bedroom and the movie playing. She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead before joining Alex back in the kitchen.

She wasn't sure if she should sit down or stand up or offer some form of condolences or apologies. She opted to stand by the stove in case she needed to check on the chili and give him a moment. Her hands rested on the counter as she waited for him to start because she could see the wheels turning in his head. "I honestly want you to be here for her but I don't want to push you into anything you're not comfortable with. If you want to watch her or take her for a bit or anything, I'm okay with it. She's your daughter too and if I had had it my way, I would have wanted you involved since day one, but obviously things happened that were out of our control." She shifted a little, leaning back against the counter. "You're not a total stranger to her, y'know. She doesn't know your name or that it's you, but I've told her all about you. How you were my best friend and we worked together on the ranch. That you loved to ride horses and were almost as good as me. How you're kind and sweet and funny. That you had to move away to go take care of other horses and would love to get to know her. So you're not a complete stranger."

Alex

Slowly but surely Alex was beginning to process everything and what it meant. He nodded as Leigh explained what she was thinking. "It's not so much what I'm comfortable with as what she's comfortable with. I don't want to force her into anything she doesn't want. As much as it sucks, I'd rather take my time to make sure she'd comfortable." He couldn't imagine any three year old would be thrilled with the thought of some strange guy picking them up and taking them for a few hours, especially without Leigh being there. "I'm not upset about everything you did, just so you know. I mean, I'm upset that it turned out this way and that I missed so much of her life already, but I don't blame you. Not everyone would've told me so soon. I'm kind of a mess right now and don't think I can come up with some grand speech, but I appreciate everything you've done." It wasn't Leigh's fault that the world had gone to shit. She had done everything she could have done. She was a good mom, and their daughter was happy and healthy and here. That was what mattered.

The mix of emotions was so much that Alex didn't feel he could cry, otherwise he would have as Leigh told him what she had told Allison about him. It was going to be one of his next questions - how much Allison had asked about her father, if she even realized she was supposed to have one. His heart broke at the thought of the two girls by themselves, Leigh doing her best to keep them alive and still telling her about him. Finally he broke down and moved to hug her. Physical touch felt like the only way he could possible convey what he was feeling in that moment. How much he appreciated everything Leigh had gone through and done beforehand. Careful not to have either of them touch the stove, he brought her body close to his and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so, so sorry I wasn't able to be here before. But I'm here now. I want to be there for everything. For both of you," he murmured.

Leigh

"Of course, and I want to work with both of you so she can get comfortable with you. But I think you're not giving yourself enough credit. How could she not love you? You're Alex freaking Brookes. You're incredibly loveable." Plus, she didn't want to miss out on watching Alex bond with his daughter. The idea was completely adorable in her imagination and she wanted to witness every moment of it. Why wouldn't she want to see her daughter bond with her father? She relaxed a bit but felt even moreso when he said he wasn't mad for her not telling him sooner. His appreciation warmed her and she smiled at him. "Thanks, Alex. That means a lot."

Part of her worried about telling him about what she told Allison about him but she felt like it was important to her that he knew that she wanted to keep Alex alive to Allison even when she didn't think he would ever get to meet her. She didn't move when he walked up to her and she was shocked when he enveloped her in a hug. She froze before wrapping her arms around him and hugged him back. "Hey, you don't have to apologize," she muttered as she rubbed soothing circles on his back, "None of this was your fault. I'm just glad you're here and can get to know her and that she can get to know you too." She kept a hold on him and without really thinking she turned her head and kissed his cheek. "Everything? What, you trying to ask to move in?" She was teasing, of course. "If so, I got a whole room for you to clean up before you do."

Alex

Obviously Allison was the most important thing at the moment - for the rest of his life, hopefully, but there was also a new surge of feelings for Leigh as well. Alex wouldn't have blamed her if she was mad at him for how they ended things, and perhaps there was still some bitterness there that he couldn't see. For the most part, though, it felt all too easy for things to go back to how they had been despite everything that had happened in the past four years. So easy that it scared him a little bit. He looked down so she couldn't see the tiniest hint of pink appear across his cheeks, grinning to himself. "I think you're a little bit biased there. But thank you." Whether it was true or not, the words meant a lot to him. He could only hope that it was as easy as Leigh seemed to think it would be to start kindling the relationship with their daughter.

He wasn't sure if the hug would be too much, if she wouldn't want to hug him back, but Leigh ended up with his arms around him as well. Physical touch felt like a boundary they shouldn't cross. Alex still felt the urge to pick Allison up off her chair in the other room and hold her close to him for the entire rest of the evening. Even if he and Leigh weren't together anymore, she was still the mother of his child and he wanted to protect her. Both of his girls. Leigh's kiss on his cheek didn't help his overwhelming emotions any. She was teasing on him moving in, which made him worry about being honest with her, but he wanted her to know that he was all in. "I mean... I would. If you asked," he admitted. He paused for a moment, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, that's probably too much. I can't imagine it would be good for Allison to have me move in or move in at the farmhouse when everything is still so new. We can think about all that later when it comes to it. I don't want to force things to go too fast with Allison. Right now my focus is her," he assured.

Leigh

Leigh had absolutely been joking about him moving in because, well, she didn't think he would take it seriously. He had his siblings and was living in the big old farmhouse and they had only just reunited and he had just found out he had a daughter with her. Yet when he said he would, she was actually taken aback by it. But in a good way. She wanted to be a family with him, even if they were just friends raising their daughter together. "Really?" She asked, pulling back just a bit so she could see his face and thus, his reaction. "If you wanted to, I wouldn't say no, but yeah, why don't we finish fixing up this place and get you more acquainted with her. I'm sure she'll be trying to draw on your face in no time." She laughed a little as she stared at Alex. "Damn I've missed you." It slipped out before she could stop herself. It might have been too much so she quickly followed it with, "How are you feeling?"

Alex

It was once again presumptuous to practically offer them to move into the farmhouse when he had two other housemates to think about. At the same time he couldn't imagine Sol and especially Cass saying no to having Leigh and Allison moving in when they both would know how much Alex wanted to bond with his daughter. Just before Sol had moved in he and Cass had talked about how big and empty the farmhouse felt sometimes. There was more than enough room to have the five of them there. "Of course, really. I hate thinking about missing anything with Allison. Whether you wanted me to move in here or you and Allison to move into the farmhouse, I would make it happen." Speaking of Cass, another thought dawned on him. "Wait, you said something earlier about Cass saying something. Does she already know?" It hurt to think that Cass might've known about his daughter before he did, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't matter that much. One less person to break the news to. Alex tried not to think about the way his heart beat a little faster when Leigh said she had missed him. "I missed you too," he said. Even if Allison wasn't a thing, he had missed her. He'd never wanted things to end between them the way they did. It had all happened so fast. "Good, I think. Overwhelmed, but good. I have a daughter." He couldn't help but grin with the last sentence. He had a daughter. It still felt surreal, and he imagined it would for a while. "After everything that's happened, I honestly thought I would never be a dad even though that's always been the one thing I'd wanted since I can remember. And now you're here telling me that adorable little kid out there is ours.... There's nothing in this world that could repay that gift even halfway." The desire to protect and love his daughter was overwhelming in itself. "What about you? I can't imagine what you've been thinking and going through this past month."

Leigh

When she told Alex about Allison, she never would have guessed that he would immediately want them to be housed together so quickly. But here he was offering and she couldn't deny that the want was there. "I mean, I wouldn't mind moving to the farmhouse with you so that Allison could be close to her family. But wouldn't you need to check with your sister first?" She didn't want to intrude.

"Yeah, I told her earlier," she admitted, "I wanted her opinion on how best to give you the news. Figured she'd know how best to tell you." And boy was Cass right. She was so relieved that he was happy with the news and she could see it on his face. She laughed and shrugged as he asked about her. "It's been an adjustment but I think I'm finally settling in here. And you're here so it makes things so much easier."

Alex

"Yeah, technically, but I'd be more surprised if she said no than I am to find out Allison's my kid. Trust me, we'd be happy to have you two move in. There's more than enough space, and Cass loves kids," Alex assured. Maya was planning to go back to her own place, so soon enough it would be the three adults alone in the farmhouse. Alex hadn't outright asked Sol how he felt about kids, but he would be surprised if the older man made a fuss about it. It was easy enough to ignore people with how big the house was anyway. Not that he could imagine Sol being anything but welcoming to Cass's (and his, if he wanted) niece.

He nodded, understanding Leigh's reason. Alex couldn't imagine being in her shoes and having to tell someone that you hadn't seen in several years that you had their kid. "I'm glad you're settling in. Everything I said before stands. Now more than ever. If there's anything you need help with, I'm here. I want to be here for Allison, of course, but I'm here for you too, okay?" She was his friend and the mother of his kid - her comfort and happiness was right below that of Allison in terms of importance. Plus there was the fact he felt guilty that he hadn't been able to be there when she was pregnant and the first few years of Allison's life when she needed his support the most. Yes, the circumstances had been beyond his control, but guilt was rarely rational. For Leigh it meant he would go above and beyond to try to feel he was making up for the time lost. Not just for Leigh and Allison, but himself as well.

Leigh

Cass did seem quite thrilled to be an aunt to Allison so she did believe Alex. Plus it would be good for Allison to be around her family and it would be a lot easier for Alex to get to know his daughter and Cass her niece. "Well, if it's okay with Cass then I'm okay with it." In Leigh's eyes, there wasn't anything that could end up going bad in this situation. And it would be nice to be around family again, considering she had just lost hers.

Alex's sincerity in wanting to help her with whatever she needed was so sweet. In fact, she was pretty sure her heart was melting. "I appreciate that, Alex. I really do. You can help me with a couple things right now, actually." She let go of him so she could gently hold his face in her hands. "One - don't feel guilty about this. It wasn't your fault and you're here now. You can't change the past so just be there for her now. And two...." She lets go and nods in Allison's direction, "Go get to know your daughter."

Alex

"Good. Guess I'll hold off on getting you settled in here then. I'll talk with Cass and we can think about when to start everything." Alex couldn't help but think about Allison and her comfort first and foremost. It would be a big change to be living with her mom all the time to being in a relatively new town and living with three other people, all new family members that she'd never met before. It was a lot for anyone, much less a small child.

His eyes briefly went to her lips before they were back making eye contact. "No promises on the guilt, but I'll try." It was a lot easier said than done. In all likelihood he would feel some sort of guilt about it for the rest of his life, though over time he would stop thinking about it. Eventually it would become only a small passing thought. "The second one I can definitely promise, though." He grinned, winked, and they parted in order to start the long process of making their family whole again.

#ft. leigh #leigh 002 #discord: leigh #allison is so lucky look at how hot her parents are

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servin-up-surveys · 1 year

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survey #156

What are three of your favorite things to photograph? Details in nature, animals, and I REALLY wish I could shoot more vast, impressive landscapes. I also had an incredible amount of fun the one time I shot boudoir for my then-best friend, it was so fucking fun and amazing to help her feel attractive and beautiful in her body, especially as a more plus-sized woman. She loved them and it was the most fun shoot I've ever done.

In your opinion, what are three of the most relatable songs ever? Uh, jeez, idk. Too much to pick from, lol.

When was the last time you took a selfie you thought you looked beautiful in? By pure coincidence, it was somewhat semi-recently; I almost never, EVER take selfies, and even less often do I think I look okay in them, but I took two I thought looked pretty good like, a month or two ago?

Do you play many online games? No; the only one I ever play is World of Warcraft, but I've been barely playing it at all for a while now; I seem to go through phases of logging on more often and then not at all.

Have you ever forged a note for something at school? No.

Do you know anyone who's been adopted? I have at least one old friend that I know was adopted.

Have you ever broken a rib? No, that sounds so fucking miserable.

Where did you last bleed from? My bottom right gum area because I had a tooth extracted. I am so glad I'm no longer tasting solely blood, ugh yesterday was ROUGH. Doing it aaaall over again in a month...

When I go to a new restaurant and have no idea what to order I… I go for a sort of food that I generally always like, like chicken tenders and fries.

If you knew me well, you’d gift me… Money for a tattoo lmao

Does anyone else know who your first crush was besides you? The Internet haha bc I've identified him in past surveys asking about first crushes, but I don't think anyone who might know both of us knows.

Do you feel shy around someone when you are first getting to know them? Oh absolutely, I am extremely, excruciatingly shy.

Have you ever fallen asleep in class? No.

Have you ever been afraid of the world ending? No, I don't at all believe that's predictable.

What is unfair about your life? Mental illness. It's not like I make a conscious decision to become abysmally depressed or so anxious I can barely function.

[TW: SELF-HARM] Have you ever self-harmed? Yes, primarily in high school. It's not something I've done in a long time, all it ever did was make me hate myself more than I already did.

Have you ever shoplifted? Nah.

Do you know who your father is? Yeah, thankfully he's been in my life since I was born.

Have you ever had an emergency surgery? No. When I had my cyst I went into the hospital wanting that because of how much pain I was in, but instead they cut and drained the cyst, but oh boy was I conscious and SCREAMING, there is no fucking way in hell they numbed me enough for that procedure, even morphine wasn't calming me down at all.

Do you think you are fat? I factually am, it's not unknown to me.

Have you ever dated a guy after your friend did? No.

Is your mom your best friend? I would definitely consider her such, after Girt. The amount of shit this woman has done for me is unreal.

Do you find any of your friends hot? Yeah, mostly female friends I have, but it's in a platonic sort of way.

Can you go to an actual beach in the state you live in? Yeah, go east and you're hitting the Atlantic. People tend to prefer South Carolina for their beaches, though, but they're of course still crowded here too.

What animals have you ridden? Just like, horses and ponies at fair-like things.

Ever been brought home by the cops? No.

Describe your natural hair? It's brown and extremely thick, healthy too. It will sometimes get lighter highlights in hotter months if I see the sun enough.

What's a pet peeve you have about guys? This does NOT apply to every guy, at all, but in general I don't think it's debatable that they're generally more sex-driven than women, and that often leads to problems.

If you could change something(s) about your outer appearance, it would be: I'd be a healthy weight.

Are you against animal testing? I am VEHEMENTLY against animal testing, the fact that it's still practiced is barbaric to me. We're "alpha species" my fuckin' ass, by using other forms of life as goddamn guinea pigs, we're nothing but animals.

Where do you wish to live as an adult? Well, I am an adult, but in terms of where I settle down when independent, I'm not certain, but in complete realism it's probably going to still be in this general area, despite how badly I want to move to the mountains of western NC; it's just a very long drive from where we're at, and it's important to me and Girt that we keep touch with our families. I don't want it to be a massive, lengthy drive to see our loved ones.

Where is your favourite place to get fries? Bojangle's or McDonald's, depending on my mood. Bojangle's fries are a fuckin' delicacy if you're in the mood for something really seasoned, but a lot of the time, really just classic McD's fries are great.

Do you know anyone who was raised by their grandparents? Uhhhh I don't THINK so.

Are there any waterfalls nearby? No big, even remotely impressive ones, no. The best you get around here are dams, but those aren't like, real, natural waterfalls at all.

Do you prefer coffee or tea? I hate both; I've never had any of either that I liked. I THINK I'm most likely to discover a sort of coffee product I like though, there's such a serious variety. I think with enough sweetness to it I'd be fine. The taste of tea has always made me cringe with how much I dislike it, which is basically an alien reaction here in the south, where "we" are fucking insane over sweet tea, lol.

Have you taken a painkiller today? Yeah, I'm not rawdogging getting a fuckin' tooth yeeted out lmao

Have you had a nap today? No, but I went to bed very early last night, and though it took a long time to fall asleep, I definitely got some good hours after yesterday.

Who cooks most of the meals in your household? My mom. I never cook-cook, I'll just use the microwave or air fryer if I want to make something myself.

Do you have gluten intolerance or know anyone who does? I don't, but I know Sara was open about having it, though I don't "know" her anymore. I know at least one cousin and her mother also have it.

Your favorite store as a teen? Hot Topic.

You get 2 pizza toppings, what are they? Pepperoni and sausage, ig.

Ever dipped your pizza in ranch? I feel like I've tried this before? I don't remember what I thought, though.

Ever order a lobster for yourself at a restaurant? No; I hate crab and have heard lobster is similar, so I'm not interested in trying it.

Have you had Apple Jacks cereal? Yeah, that's a fave.

Most famous person from your town/state? lol I googled it and apparently Michael Jordan is from NC, I think that's a name most people in at least the USA know. There's a few other big names.

Does your best friend wear glasses? Yeah, he and I are both blind as shit without our glasses, haha.

Who is closest to you in your family? My mom.

Have you listened to a Britney Spears song today? No, but I do like her well enough. Every now and again I'll listen to a couple classic songs by her.

Do you have a pet turtle? Nah, turtles as pets have never interested me much. They're great animals, just not for me as a pet.

French fries or onion rings? Fries, for sure. I don't really like onion rings.

Have you ever had a storage locker? If so, what is/was stored in it? No.

Do you have a gas, electric or induction cooktop? Uh... I've never used the stove since living here lol, but I'm quite sure it's electric.

Are you interested in plants? Oh for sure, at least as an observer and not a caretaker; I enjoy looking at them, lightly learning about the ones I'm very attracted to, and I mostly take photos of some sort of plant, be it a flower, tree, or whatever, so I value them a lot. There's a pretty big part of me that wants to start taking care of indoor plants, especially for my room remodel, but I just have an honest feeling I won't stick to it so I don't wanna take in a plant and kill it.

How far away is the nearest capital city? Raleigh is about an hour away from us by car.

What was the last movie trailer you watched? The Five Nights at Freddy's one, god I lost my shit when it was IMMEDIATELY pointed out just how fuckin stoned the animatronics look, omg please fix it 😭😭😭 I do plan on seeing it though, I really don't understand the franchise's lore very well, but it's a fun series.

Are you expecting anything in the mail? No. Well I mean Mom said she's ordering some final plugs for my earlobes at some point, but it's been a while. I'm just glad the gauges aren't falling out all the time now that they're healed better, I think.

Do you hate cars with loud exhausts? Yes, it's annoying.

What's the altitude of your town or city? I feel weird giving exact numbers, but it ranges from quite below 100ft to not even 200ft.

Do you like movies with vampires in them? Vampires are cool, but I'm not gonna automatically be more drawn to a film just because it has one.

If you have a pet, what is its favourite treat? If you don't have a pet, what's one of your favourite treats? :) GOD Cookie is a spoiled brat when it comes to food; if you have any, she wants to try it, and it's gotten bad because Mom has trouble telling her no unless the food just straight-up isn't okay for dogs. I'm not certain what her favorite ever is, however I do know she's crazy for fries; Mom can't ever have fries from anywhere without sharing some with her. Roman's not big on treats, and he's also VERY weird with being offered food that's not in his bowl, like he doesn't know if he's supposed to eat it and will generally just sniff his a treat given to him to where he pushes it across the floor, like you cannot watch this cat examine a treat without laughing, it's so strange. He even comes to Mom when she gets a treat out for Cookie, like he wants one, and then acts like he never learned how to fuckin eat lmao. Venus has only ever been fed originally f/t mice and now f/t rats; I'd like to let her try a pre-killed chick one day because variety IS good for them and certainly stimulating for them, but it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to buy; ball pythons are notoriously picky and she's been on a major hunger strike before, so I don't want to buy food she's not going to eat. It's one of those things I'd just offer her if the opportunity presented itself.

Do you remember the first house you lived in? No; we moved into what I fully consider my "real" childhood home when I was literally just a baby, I have zero memories of the house I was born into.

When was the last time you threw up, and do you know why? Maybe close to a month ago and we're not going into why lol

Who was the last person you said "I love you" to? My mom, before she left to clean the church she volunteers at.

Have you ever worn a tiara? Haha yeah, I'm sure I did in my childhood at some point, and I remember on one of my teenage birthdays, I wanna say my 17th, my then-best friend Summer got a tiara with my age on it and made me wear it out to dinner, lol. I'm sure I still have it, probably in my treasure box.

If you plan to have kids, what will you tell them about Santa Clause? IF I have kids I'm most likely going to keep the tradition going, like it's just fun and exciting for kids; you're doing no real psychological harm with something like that, it's innocent and I've never seen a kid NOT excited about Santa.

Do you think that pet stores are cruel for keeping animals in small cages? lol oh hunny, there are problems even bigger than tiny cages going on in chain pet stores. Yes, it's cruel. I fucking hate places like PetSmart or Petco, where it's about just pulling money in, corporate doesn't give a microscopic shit about the quality of life of its animals while there.

If you have ever been employed, have you ever been attracted to your boss? What about a co-worker? No.

Do [would] you avoid kissing your [possibly hypothetical] significant other when you or they are ill? Yes, at least on the lips. I'm the one that's dumb about it, if you're sick *I* don't mind simple kisses, however I shouldn't be that way; for right now though, since we don't live together, we don't really deal with this, if one of us is sick we tend to stay apart for both of our benefits.

Does it annoy you when people make their default of them kissing someone? No, why the hell should it????? People are allowed to love each other and be happy about it???????

If ambidextrous, do you prefer writing with your right or left hand? I'm not ambidextrous; I only write with my right hand.

Do you enjoy trolling? No, it's not something I get pleasure out of or anything, I've got better shit to do. And when *I*, an extremely non-busy person, says that, it means shit REALLY is not important.

Have you ever had a close encounter with a shark? Not knowingly, but it's possible. I'm going into their home when I decide to swim in the ocean, so.

What is a song you heard long before it became popular and everyone liked it? I can't think of a song, just a band: Train. I grew up hearing them because my mom's a fan, so I also became one as a kid, then "Hey Soul Sister" came out and they were big with other hits following. I have no idea how big they are now, but I still like them. "If It's Love" is even one of my top picks for a wedding song, lol.

What do you think of excessively long names? What about their shortenings? No opinion, I really just don't like making anyone feel bad about their name. Plenty of longer names are beautiful.

Can you learn the lyrics of a song by ear, or do you have to search them up? Both, but I almost always need to see the lyrics first; my auditory processing disorder makes me really bad at figuring out lyrics, ESPECIALLY for things like death metal and stuff (hell I think most people struggle with that one), I've got no fuckin' clue what you're saying. This happens regularly even with songs where the lyrics of performed quite clearly.

Do you like the name Amy? It's not high on my list of favorites or anything at all, but I think I like the name because I always associate it with Markiplier's literal gem of a girlfriend haha.

Have you ever got an x-ray? How about a brain scan? Multiple x-rays, and I got I think a CT scan when I got a concussion; it was that or an MRI, don't recall. I know CT scans are shorter though, and mine WAS very brief if I remember right, but I mean I was concussed, I don't remember things that well with a bruised brain lol.

#survey #surveys #random questions #personal questions

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

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*rubs hands together*

The first thing to talk about with this episode is the pacing, and I think this might contribute to why people think it’s the best/least bad of Season 4 (personally, I’d rather watch “Furious Fu” but that’s just me; also, this isn’t the only contributing factor as to why I think people might feel this way, but I’ll get there later).

The episode has a very serious pacing issue, particularly with its more intense scenes. There’s only one minute of time dedicated to Ladybug landing on her bed, de-transforming, and her snapping at her friends plus them leaving. More time was spent on Chat Noir and Ladybug in the movie theater and Ladybug storming out.

I particularly remember watching the episode and getting eighteen minutes in, at which point I had the realization of, “It feels like nothing’s happened?”

This episode is supposed to be a big gut punch, but the season has been going by at the speed of sound, like they’re trying desperately to play all their cards at once (Lukanette break-up, Adrimi break-up, then Alya is told Marinette’s secret identity). Instead of letting things build and play out for a while in the interest of suspense, the show just throws whatever will get a big reaction out of the fandom (whether positive or negative) and it doesn’t care how shoddily put together everything is. The first two episodes feel like hastily put together drafts, and while this one is technically more put together, it still feels like a draft.

Let’s just start with Chat Noir, who feels completely out of place in the episode. Not only does he imply that he intentionally calls Ladybug “Bugaboo” (which she has told him to stop doing) in order to get a reaction out of her, but when Ladybug insists that she doesn’t want to talk, he tricks her into thinking that he has a good location to do so (and my heart breaks a little at how readily she trusts him) only to then take her to a romantic movie, then shush her when she calls him out for it because she “said she didn’t want to talk.”

Gee, and people wonder why she didn’t tell him her secret (even outside of “Chat Blanc” existing)?

And... look, I know it’s a joke, but I do not find it funny. The “joke” is basically that Chat Noir is taking advantage of the situation to flirt with Ladybug, and though I find it at least mildly cathartic that Ladybug is unaffected by all the people staring at them while Chat Noir is embarrassed, this episode is coming right after the one where Kagami broke up with Adrien, and here Chat Noir is getting his flirt game on. I already talked about all my problems with “Lies” so I won’t do it again, but I’ll just say that it’s not a mystery why Ladybug doesn’t want to talk to him and would rather avoid her problems.

(Not to mention that Ladybug knows that Chat Noir likes her, so talking about her romantic problems with him is awkward to say the least and would come off as insensitive.)

Honestly, at this point I feel like they must be building to something with Chat, like Ladybug finally going off of him with no mercy and that forces him to give up/fall out of love for her because reverse love square, but if that’s what they intend to go for, then that means Marinette is going to fall for this guy who’s repeatedly disrespected her feelings for multiple seasons, almost abandoned her and let Paris drown because she wouldn’t tell him a secret that wasn’t hers to tell, and just generally all the other things he did????

Ugh, I don’t wanna think about it. Let’s just move on.

Talking about Ladybug and her rant next, it basically summarizes the whole show in a nutshell, but simultaneously casts a shadow of sorts over “Truth” for people who maybe missed the episode entirely (which is also sort of the show in a nutshell). I mean, Ladybug confirming to the audience that she was genuinely in love and happy with Luka (you can’t watch how depressed she was over the break-up and not think that) was great, but Ladybug’s dialog implies that Luka “hated secrets” and that’s why they broke up, when Luka was more just... hurt that she couldn’t be honest with him, and he didn’t actively hate secrets. Marinette broke up with him because she felt like she had to; because she had to keep ditching and lie to him.

In addition, what she says also hints to the audience that they’ve both held and kissed each other, which not only indicates cowardice on the part of the staff (”yeah this happened but--um--off-screen; we’d still like credit tho plz”), but may perhaps go back to the theory I had about how Adrimi and Lukanette were supposed to last longer in Season 4 but their arcs got cut (based on the Adrimi kiss having supposed to have gone off). This could mean that Ladybug’s statement was originally accurate to canon but the scenes got cut and the scriptwriters just awkwardly left it in, which is made more awkward by the cinema scene in “Truth” that felt like Luka and Marinette were kissing for the first time (again, alluding to the whole, “this entire season has been a draft” thing).

Also, if you think about what that actually means - that Luka and Marinette did have successful dates and kisses but they were off-screen - then all it adds up to is that showing Marinette happy and comfortable was something that the series didn’t deem as “interesting/fun enough” to show, because Marinette being happy isn’t something they want to see; only watching her be miserable, which is exactly what Ladybug says, along with how everything was “almost too simple, too easy,” because Marinette isn’t allowed to have nice things without being jammed through the wringer first.

And... sure, let’s say that Chat Noir thought the movie was genuinely a good idea; let’s assume that it could be a joke, him wanting to flirt, and him believing that it’d make her feel better somehow.

If that’s the case, then where’s the apology when it fails miserably? Ladybug goes from her semi-anxious state at the start of the episode (a little scatterbrained but ultimately just looking for a distraction), to outright enraged by the movie, and then to this upon leaving the cinema.

She just got her heart broken from being forced to break up with a boy she genuinely wanted to be with and there’s not a single, “Okay, maybe coming here was a bad idea, I’m sorry,” (which could’ve been seen as another joke with the audience like “lol no duh Chat Noir” so there’s no excuse not to have it) or, “My bad, that was insensitive of me. I really thought this would’ve helped but I wasn’t thinking about what you would’ve wanted.”

No. The only people Chat apologizes to are the other people at the theater because he’s embarrassed by Ladybug’s reactions, yet he himself feels no remorse for taking her there and has the gall to go on now about how he’s “there for her if she wants to talk.”

Again, it’s no wonder Ladybug doesn’t want to open up to him.

And I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that Marinette suddenly has all this free time. It’s one thing for her to have a little more time now that she’s broken up with her boyfriend (likely avoiding spending time with him altogether now), but “Truth” went out of its way to talk about all of the emergencies she had to deal with and how she doesn’t have any spare time. which is causing her to become forgetful and lose track of certain events (patrols with Chat, dates with Luka, etcetera), yet Marinette spends most of “Gang of Secrets” simply sulking on her bed. It’s so jarring to go from “Truth” where she was doing “too much” (which I called them out on for not describing what the “too much” she was doing was) and now “Gang of Secrets” where she’s not doing anything.

It’s almost like they invented that plot point to break Lukanette up and it served no purpose outside of it.

Furthermore, the scenes of her finally talking to Tikki and then deciding to live as Ladybug does nothing outside of making the plot more predictable, the latter because of the “Alya almost sees Ladybug” moment (an obvious indicator that Marinette is losing control and is struggling to maintain her secret identity due to her emotionally breaking down) and the former because of Tikki herself and what she doesn’t say.

Because, really, think about what actually goes on in the scene. Marinette (eyes rimmed red and filled with unshed tears, as she is for a good chunk of the episode) is venting to Tikki about - yes - her love life, but also that she has to lie to everyone in order to keep her identity a secret. The fact that Tikki focuses solely on the note of Marinette’s love life and not say a word about the identity/lying issue or even consider telling Marinette, “hey, this is clearly too much for you, you should tell someone, I think the benefits outweigh the risks right now,” really proves that the episode tried to avoid the topic altogether to try and make the ending more shocking (which ironically made it more predictable).

So yeah, not only does Tikki’s dialog with Marinette provide nothing except for a line about how she can’t help Marinette with love issues due to kwami not falling in love (alright, I guess aros can’t give good love advice then or have any input whatsoever), but Marinette’s line about lying to everyone being why she can’t pursue Adrien nor Luka is repeated in the very last scene of the episode. The only reason that scene and the scene after exist is because the writers needed Marinette to be emotionally devastated enough to leave for her balcony as Ladybug for the almost-reveal to Alya and so Rose would get close enough to the dollhouse to have an almost-reveal with the Miracle Box, making the scene feel further contrived because the emotional punch of Marinette wanting to live as Ladybug lasts for barely any time at all.

And it could’ve served a purpose, like if Ladybug had genuinely left and Alya finds her goggles and towel, recognizing them from a news story about how Ladybug had gone to the swimming pool after losing her temper at the cinema, which could’ve led to Shadow Moth making the girls believe that Ladybug was no longer heroic and had kidnapped Marinette, or... heck, Ladybug coming back inside would’ve been so much less jarring if she came back because she heard the girls’ voices talking about the dollhouse and had to hurry (but of course, then they’d have to point out the ridiculousness of Ladybug not hearing Alya calling her and the girls not hearing Ladybug literally shouting for Shadow Moth to come fight her, even though the kwami heard the girls calling for Marinette from the balcony).

But instead, the entire scene feels off and unnatural, forcing every part of it in order to get to where Marinette has to snap at the girls to make them leave.

(Oh, by the way, just a little detail to add to the annoyance: they bothered putting Tom and Sabine in the episode when the girls are leaving, clearly saddened by something that happened, and neither parent even bothers to go and check on Marinette to see if she’s upset or just to see what might’ve happened. They’re such a “blink-and-you’ll-miss it” moment in the episode and it’s not like I’m surprised because they’ve done this multiple times by now but really?)

As for the girls themselves... oof, where do I even begin?

Alright, first off is the annoyance that they assume Marinette’s problems relate only to lovesickness. Marinette has been an anxiety-prone mess throughout the entire series, and suddenly now the girls care about Marinette’s love problems on an emotional level rather than “we’ll meddle sometimes unless we don’t feel like it and be wholly inconsistent on how much we push for it.”? It’s not that I don’t see how they came to the conclusion (hearing that Luka and Marinette broke up and now seeing Marinette is depressed, it checks out), but considering they bothered noting that Marinette hadn’t told them anything, one would think they’d come to the conclusion of, “okay, we haven’t talked to her, we have no idea of what’s going on, maybe we don’t know her as well as we thought then and shouldn’t make guesses.”

Secondly is the “eternal friendship bracelet,” which comes off as a copy of the “Secrets” game from “Syren” extremely manipulative. Mylene goes on to explain that one is supposed to give a secret to the pearl “mentally,” yet when the girls actually show up to see Marinette, they expect to be told the secret directly. I’ve already talked at length about peer pressure and the mental stress Marinette goes through when they mock her and/or meddle for her, but this idea of, “well we all used this friendship bracelet after we mutually agreed to it so now it’s your turn because we said so!” just comes off really bad. I know the episode is going for this idea that their hearts are in the right place, but they’re really not. It feels like they’re the ones in denial and are trying to compensate by forcing Marinette to prove that they’re friends, unable to handle the idea that they might not be as close to her as they thought.

Thirdly, the show acts as if the girl squad are her only friends when we know that’s not true because we’ve seen episodes like “Befana” (the guys in the class), “Reverser” (Marc), “Ikari Gozen” (Kagami), and “Silencer” (Ivan) that all established Marinette having more friends than just them, but for the sake of “drama” and the depressing line of, “at least I don’t have any more friends to lie to,” the episode just pretends like Marinette’s friends are limited to Luka (who she had to break up with) and the girl squad (who she forced to leave and refuse the friendship of).

Fourthly is the actual set-up and the sheer grossness of it all. The girls call Marinette and leave a message about how they much they love her and how she can talk to them “where and when” she wants, and then - immediately afterwards - decide that they’re going to go straight to Marinette’s house completely unannounced, go into her room completely unannounced (not even knocking, by the way), and when Marinette begs them to leave, Alya basically tells her that she’s overreacting. When Marinette demands that they leave, Alya refuses and makes demands right back that they won’t leave until she tells them what’s wrong.

So much for “where and when” she wanted, right? It’s already one thing for the girls to invade Marinette’s privacy and demand/guilt-trip answers out of her, but it’s another thing to give the illusion of respecting her feelings and personal space only to actively plan to go back on it. I can’t tell if it’s a bad draft that they didn’t catch in quality check (you know, the quality check that they definitely don’t have) or just an intentional way to make them seem more sympathetic so Marinette looks worse for driving them out, but either way, it’s awful and I hate it. I would’ve rather had them be all in on invading Marinette’s privacy and learn a lesson in the end than outright contradict themselves.

There are also little nitpicks I could make (like Juleka’s constant mumbling despite Luka’s crush on Marinette playing a role in the episode, Horrificator getting sidelined due to being mute, and the girls’ akumatization ultimately being for spectacle and nothing else, serving no purpose to the plot and being furthered by the fact that Timebreaker goes after Marinette despite it being a bad idea and Reflekta’s power clearly not lining up with any sort of plan), but the real issue issue here comes down to the fact that these are Marinette’s so-called “friends” and the episode refuses to address their actual issues.

Alix, who is known for making rude comments at Marinette (”Gigantitan,” “Chat Blanc,” “Miraculous New York”) and then gives mixed messages by going along with meddling anyway.

Mylene, who is the closest thing to a background character in the girl squad but nevertheless finds her way into being definite voice against Marinette in “Chameleon.”

Juleka, who blamed Marinette for things she didn’t do in “Reflekdoll” and got huffy with her until Marinette apologized for said things.

Rose, who outright screamed at Marinette in “Chat Blanc” over a freaking stuffed animal, which pressured Marinette enough that she snuck into Adrien’s room to deliver her gift which nearly led to the end of the world.

And, of course, Alya; freaking Alya. I don’t even have to go into every single thing she’s ever done because I have a history of giving her absolutely no mercy.

...But let’s go through some anyway because I want to.

“Copycat” - Alya gives Marinette a script and tells her to memorize it, then immediately pushes the “call” button when Marinette hesitates after Marinette had just told Alya that she’s awful at improv.

“Darkblade” - Alya takes a jab at Marinette when Marinette says that she’s too busy to be class representative, implying that Alya thinks that Marinette does absolutely nothing with her time.

“Gamer” - Alya is busy recording the gaming competition when she and Marinette were supposed to be researching for a term paper. Alya then scolds Marinette for wanting to use the competition to get close to Adrien only to do a 180 and put up a fight about it when Marinette decides to quit.

“Animan” and how “The Puppeteer 2″ follows up on it - oh, I’m not going to touch that particular point right now, but keep those in the back of your mind, because I am going to absolutely go off later

“Simon Says” - Similarly to Marinette’s parents, Alya gives zero damns about whatever might be going on in Marinette’s life that's causing her to miss classes.

"Despair Bear” - Alya laughs at Marinette being forced to kiss Chloe’s cheek and then outright compares Marinette to Chloe after knocking Chloe multiple times during the episode (sure, just compare your “best friend” to her multi-year bully, how "hilarious” of you).

“Gigantitan” - Alya has no qualms about mocking Marinette’s over her failures, even if it embarrasses her and she’s been through enough already.

“Frozer” - Alya tries to find ways for Marinette to prevent herself from third-wheeling for Adrien, but when Marinette tries to show character growth by wanting to go, Alya gets into a shouting match with the other girls over how Marinette has “liked Adrien forever and isn’t going to give up now”.

“Catalyst” - Alya claims that Marinette is only salty over Lila out of jealousy when “Frozer” exists and literally is the prime evidence of Adrien liking another girl and Marinette telling Alya outright and very genuinely that she’s not jealous.

“Chameleon” - Alya doesn’t care about her best friend sitting in the back by herself while Alya herself get to sit next to her boyfriend and everyone else in general gets to sit where they want (Alya even acting confused at the mere suggestion that she’d tried to engineer things to let Marinette sit next to Adrien), then not only believes Lila over Marinette but contradicts herself twice (asking Marinette for proof when she has none herself, then claiming that she wouldn’t let her best friend sit by herself).

“Christmaster” - Alya leaves Marinette to babysit so she and Nino can go out on a date.

“Desperada” - Alya suddenly is for Lukanette for literally one episode and doesn’t know how/doesn’t even try to cover for Marinette’s Adrien blindness despite mocking her for multiple seasons over it.

“Reflekdoll” - Alya invites Adrien to something that’s crucial for Marinette to focus on after Marinette has already told her not to and continues meddling to the point where it gets Juleka akumatized (she also doesn’t get punished for it and the blame gets thrown onto Marinette).

“The Puppeteer 2″ - Alya pushes her luck with Nathalie to try and get Marinette to come with her, Nino, Adrien, and Manon to the museum, then traps Marinette in a room with Adrien to force her to spent alone time with him, even abandoning and forgetting about the child that she offered to watch for Marinette so she and her boyfriend can go off alone.

“Miraculous New York” - Alya is told directly by Marinette that she needs help seeing Adrien as a friend, which leads Alya to do the exact opposite throughout the entire special, at one point shouting at Marinette and pressuring her to chase after a car, in the rain, while there’s a supervillain rampaging through Paris, and all of this right after the scheme that Alya had set up caused both Marinette and Adrien to go missing.

And just saying, as Marinette’s supposed “best friend,” Alya sure doesn’t know how to handle her. It was acceptable back in “The Bubbler” when she asked Marinette about signing the gift too late and the same goes for “Dark Cupid,” but by the time we get to late Season 2/3 and Alya refuses to learn Marinette’s weak spots (unless it’s to mock her) and adjust accordingly (like if she’d already made sure the gift was signed in “Chat Blanc,” which would’ve prevented Adrien seeing Ladybug at all due to the time difference), it starts getting infuriating.

A best friend is supposed to cover for their friend’s weaknesses. Alya doesn’t do that; she meddles and often drives Marinette’s anxiety even further up a wall with absolutely no consideration for Marinette’s feelings (”Dark Cupid,” “The Puppeteer 2,” “Reflekdoll,” “Miraculous New York”).

And here, she and the other girls are rewarded for it. Luka actively resisted his akumatization whereas the girls gave in immediately, yet Marinette still opens up to them in the end, likely because they had pressured her and made her feel bad for the secrets she was keeping while Luka was willing to actually wait for her to be ready to talk to him. I can’t put into words how frustrating it is watching these girls trample all over Marinette’s feelings, not have their worst actions called out, and then jump cut post-deakumatization to Marinette telling them exactly what they wanted to know about her love life.

You know what this entire episode is really missing, outside of a coherent plot, properly-paced development, and a basic understanding of rewarding a character for things they’ve held firmly to?

It’s missing the apology. Chat Noir apologizes to a bunch of moviegoers and Rose apologizes for the broken dollhouse, but no one apologizes to Marinette for how they treated her, especially not the “friends” who got rewarded in the end.

“Sorry, we shouldn’t have told you that we’d respect your feelings and then showed up unannounced to make you talk about them.”

“We’re sorry we came into your room and invaded your privacy. You were right to be mad at us.”

“Oh my gosh, Marinette, we got akumatized and we’re so sorry for literally all five of us going after you and probably scaring the living daylights out of you.”

And as if that wasn’t enough, guess what else this is missing? It’s kind of important and brought up directly in the episode, yet the episode simultaneously goes out of its way not to bring it up again.

It’s the reason why Marinette didn’t tell the girls about her relationship with Luka. It’s not there - it’s missing - and the girls never try to pursue the subject. They talk about how Marinette didn’t tell them but don’t think for a second that maybe it’s them who have failed as friends. Instead, they don’t guess anything about why Marinette wouldn’t tell them (which is already strange considering how much they already assume about her) and jump straight to, “well clearly we just need to push for her to talk to us.”

Gonna just go out on a limb here and say that maybe - just maybe - Marinette didn’t tell them because they are habitually pushy in everything they do.

Because they would’ve teased her relentlessly about, “ohhhh you’ve got eyes for Luka? what about Aaaaaadrien~? aren’t you sooo tooorn between both of these cute guys?”

Because they would’ve meddled to force her and Luka together and gotten on her case when/if she ever had to bail on him.

Because their intrusion on her feelings for Adrien had caused her nothing but problems and she just wanted to be with Luka in peace without them forcing their way into things.

Because--hey, wild thought--maybe they’re not really friends???

But the episode completely avoids it, because that would’ve meant addressing it; it would’ve meant acknowledging that they messed up, which - fun fact - they actually don’t do in the episode.

They invaded Marinette’s privacy, insisted that she tell them how she feels (not about them of course because that would imply that they felt like they screwed up), and in the end it’s Marinette who gives them exactly what they asked of her, and the closest thing we get to acknowledging anything is Alix telling her/joking with her that they’ll help her confess to whoever she likes as soon as she tells them she’s ready.

That’s not an apology. That’s not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Even when the five of them are about to get akumatized, it’s not a circle of them saying, “here’s how I screwed up, I could’ve done better but I didn’t and I lost Marinette because of it.”

No. It’s just them talking about how sad the situation is. Mylene has the closest thing to remorse in saying, “I hoped it would work,” but where does it go? A grand total of nowhere, especially because Marinette still takes the bracelet in the end instead of the girls mutually deciding, “okay, maybe the bracelet was a bad idea; how about we all agree on making something together instead, no requirements attached?”

And then the episode has the gall to act as if Alya has gone through character growth when all they did was put Alya through the same thing that Chloe did. I’ll explain that last bit momentarily, but first let’s talk about the whole “growth” thing.

Because there’s no apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing, all Alya does when she’s finally alone with Marinette is do a 180 from where she was at the start of the episode, going from, “friends have to tell each other everything,” to, “hey, if you don’t want to tell me, then that’s your right.”

The crucial part that’s supposed to go in the middle is missing. Instead of acknowledging her failures, Alya just cuts straight to “””being a better friend,”““ but storytelling doesn’t work that way.

It literally would have taken zero effort to fit an acknowledgement into that scene. “You don’t have to tell me everything, I get that now. All my meddling’s done is hurt you and I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t trust me.”

In a world where Marinette has to apologize for everything, has to learn lessons and suffer because the narrative says so, I will not accept anything less from other characters who are trying to develop and improve. That’s not fair to Marinette, nor has it ever been.

Instead of properly developing Alya, the show does whatever it can to get its audience to root for her as Marinette’s “best friend” (ugh) without having to put in the effort of admitting that Alya hasn’t been Marinette’s “best” friend.

Remember when I brought up Chloe? Yeah, “Malediktator” did a similar thing, showing Chloe doing something awful, then being sad (while not actually acknowledging the thing she did wrong), and in the end she was rewarded with a miraculous prematurely.

One show of character from Chloe and Marinette gave her a miraculous. One show of character from Alya and Marinette told her that she was Ladybug.

(Also, for the record, I think Chloe is far worse than Alya character-wise and I’m not comparing their characters; this is just the simplest comparison I can draw here from a narrative standpoint.)

“Miraculer” is another apt comparison, perhaps even more so. Chloe got Hawk Moth in her head after an akuma landed in her photo of her and Ladybug, but Chloe resisted and fought back, ultimately forcing the akuma out of her and freeing herself from Hawk Moth’s control.

But it wasn’t to develop her character; no, it was to convince the audience of Chloe and Sabrina’s friendship so they’d feel something during Sabrina’s happy flashbacks, then lay the foundation of tricking viewers into believing that Chloe might not go to Hawk Moth’s side.

At the end of the day, it was doing something that’s “never been done before” in order for the character to earn brownie points for something that the writers can just have them do because willpower is an easy thing to just write in. “Gang of Secrets” does the exact same thing when Lady Wifi breaks free from Shadow Moth, with Ladybug even hammering it home by talking about how no one’s ever done it before.

And the pacing is - again - awful. Not only is Ladybug banking on this working when she herself says that it’s never been done, but the conversation between her and Lady Wifi where Ladybug tries to convince her doesn’t even take a minute.

It also has nothing to do with Marinette herself; Ladybug relies on Alya’s adoration/friendship with her as Ladybug (you know, after Alya took a photo of LadyNoir kissing and posted it online without Ladybug’s consent, betrayed her by putting information on the LadyBlog that Hawk Moth was able to take advantage of, and is the only hero outside of Chloe to resist returning a miraculous) in order to break from Hawk Moth’s control, because talking about Marinette with Lady Wifi didn’t even work.

(Ladybug also uses her yoyo as a portal to the Miracle Box when this has never been pre-established to be a thing despite Ladybug acting as if she knew it was; further proof that this episode was rushed.)

And of course talking about Marinette didn’t work, because that would’ve meant convincing Alya that her reason for getting akumatized was “wrong” and the episode didn’t want to do that. It didn’t want someone else actually learning something and feeling bad; surely, this is just Alya being manipulated by Shadow Moth and having the power to break free because Ladybug “needs Rena Rouge” and not because Lady Wifi and her friends are chasing after their supposed best friend and that’s--you know--wrong???

Rena Rouge’s reappearance is also yet another thing the episode refuses to address because it avoids the topic of “but my identity--”. At least “Heart Hunter” had the tact to have Kagami question why Ladybug was giving her the dragon again, but “Gang of Secrets” treads as lightly as possible on any discussion of identities outside of Marinette saying that she can’t, as if it were Marinette who made the choice of concealing her identity and not the basic idea of heroing that has been stressed over and over for the whole show.

Even Plagg of all kwami stated back in “Origins” that no one is supposed to know about secret identities, a rule that continues becoming flaky and muddled with each passing season, almost like they kept attempting to retcon and make the audience dulled to the idea so that the reveal in “Gang of Secrets” would be more acceptable.

But now, with the way they did it and how they don’t even have Tikki comment on the matter, it once again has it look like they’re making it - say it with me, everyone - Marinette’s fault.

Alya says that Marinette has a choice in telling her secret, Marinette insists that she doesn’t and goes on and on about how it’ll change everything, and then just... tells Alya her secret in the end.

And remember all the way back in Season 2? “Sapotis”?

Alya: What were you saying about her secret identity?

Marinette: Ladybug needs it to protect her family and friends. Otherwise the villains could use them to get to her.

Alya: Well, if I knew who Ladybug really was, I'd keep it a secret. I would even help her! Like say, if you were Ladybug, I'd cover for you — when you needed to transform in school, go fight the "baddies", you know?

Marinette: Oh yeah? Well, if I was Ladybug I wouldn't even tell you, to protect you from the "baddies", you know?

Alya: You serious? If I was Ladybug, I'd totally tell you! Because I tell my best friend everything.

And now here we are in “Gang of Secrets,” as if the narrative is saying, “See, Marinette? Alya was right all along, you were just being ridiculous and making yourself suffer for no reason!”

Yet Marinette had a right to keep her secrets. When Alya and Nino learned each other’s identities, Alya took a hit for Nino in “Catalyst” and both of them fell to Scarlet Moth’s akumas. Chloe was a mess and a half because of Hawk Moth knowing her identity. Fu had told Marinette that her miraculous would get taken if she and Chat Noir learned each other’s identities.

The only ones who received no consequences due to someone knowing their identity were Pegase (who Chat Noir and Markov knew), Ryuko (who Chat Noir, Ikari Gozen, and Hawk Moth knew), and Viperion (who Adrien knew). “Chat Blanc” also exists where Marinette got the impression that people discovering her identity would be a disaster, and even all the way back in “Lady Wifi” insisted that not telling anyone her identity was “listening to her head and not her heart,” and the narrative has relentlessly humiliated her for going with her heart, so yeah, probably for the best.

I hate that the episode avoids talking about anything identity-related outside of what comes out of Marinette’s mouth to make it appear like it was her choice all along. I hate that they had Tikki fixate on Marinette’s love problems instead of having her actually support Marinette and admit that Marinette should tell someone before she has a mental breakdown. I hate that the episode inserts Rena Rouge into the plot as if to brush all identity issues away so as to make Marinette’s identity reveal seem less jarring.

Now, of course I’m glad Marinette told someone. Of course I want her to get love and support from someone. Of course I think the benefits outweigh the risks, or I wouldn’t have written multiple fix-its where her identity gets revealed in some way or someone already knows.

But I didn’t want it to be Alya, because I knew how they’d do it. I knew they’d do it wrong and I knew that they wouldn’t have the courage to address Alya’s issues properly.

Those familiar with my blog will know that I’d been taking negative predictions for future seasons for a while and adding them to cards whenever they were proven right. Does anyone remember the Season 4 predictions that were proven correct for “Gang of Secrets,” specifically these ones?

- “Alya will suddenly be portrayed as a good/worthy friend to Marinette in/if there's an episode where Marinette tells her that she's Ladybug”

- “Alya resisting Shadow Moth/fighting back against him will be used to excuse telling Alya Marinette's secret identity“

- “Alya will know that Marinette is Ladybug first because "BFFs" despite being one of the worst candidates for it“

- “The secret that broke Lukanette up will be resolved in episode 3 when Marinette tells Alya“

Each and every one of those were mine, because I knew that whether Season 4 had a proper chronological order or not, the writers would not have the guts to develop Alya first and then have Marinette tell her in a future episode after Alya has properly earned it.

I knew that they wouldn’t take time to develop Alya. I knew that they would have Alya resist Shadow Moth to make Alya look “worthy” of the secret. I knew that Alya would swoop in during the last minute and a half of an episode, insisting that Marinette “didn’t have to tell her anything” when Alya had been pushy and insistent for the entire rest of the episode and the whole series in general, and would ultimately be rewarded with the big secret simply because she’s “the best friend” and that’s it.

The Alya at the end of the episode isn’t the Alya I’ve known for the entire rest of the series before this, or at the very least they turned her into an Alya I don’t recognize.

Alya claims during the ending scene that she knows that Marinette is hiding something beyond her love problems because she - as a reporter and “her best friend” - can sense such things, and all I’m left wondering is

w h e r e ?

Where and when has Alya been suspicious or worried about Marinette keeping a secret from her? What, back in “The Pharoah” where she didn’t immediately disregard Marinette for the role of Ladybug, or “Simon Says” where she vaguely teased Marinette about having a double life, both Season 1 episodes?

Where was Alya in “Truth” saying that she didn’t know Marinette’s secret but knew that she was keeping one? Where was Alya anywhere in Season 3 being concerned that Marinette hasn’t told her something? Where was this “supposedly very observant” Alya when Marinette needed her to out Lila because Lila got her expelled--oh wait, Alya “observed” that Lila did nothing and Marinette was just jealous.

What, is it only now that Alya suddenly “knows” that Marinette is hiding something else? Now, after Alya has already not known that Marinette was literally dating someone, even when Alya had multiples pictures of Marinette and said someone giving each other heart eyes and saw Marinette leaving school with said someone riding on the same bike together, you know, like normal, typical, average friends would?

Where’s the line where Alya acknowledges the problem? Where’s Alya sitting down with Marinette and admitting, “hey, I’m sorry I haven’t noticed this stuff, but I promise I’ll do better starting right now, and that’s how I know now that you’re hiding something else, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that it’s been hurting you”?

I can’t tell you where it is, but I can say that it’s certainly not in this episode. 60% of the episode features the Alya we knew from the rest of the series and then switches her out the second she’s de-akumatized for another Alya who hasn’t done anything that the old one has because she pretends like it didn’t happen.

You know how I know? Because of this absolute gut punch of a line that showed that the series wanted to handwave everything away.

“I know how to keep a secret.”

...Really? Does she now? Well, I hope everyone remembered my point about “Animan” and “The Puppeteer 2,” because I’m bringing it right back.

Considering that “Truth” has been burned into all of our memories, we all definitely remember when Truth shoots Alya and questions her on Marinette’s secret, to which Alya states that Marinette’s secret is, “She’s in love with Adrien Agreste.” Now, at the time of Season 4′s airing, this is very much not a secret, as most characters already knew about Marinette’s crush, to the point where it’d been broadcast on television during Season 2.

But do you know when it was actually a secret? Back in Season 1, specifically in the episode “Animan” where Alya told Nino.

And not only did she tell Nino, but she lied to Marinette by claiming that she didn’t, acting as if Nino knew that Marinette had a crush but didn’t know who she was crushing on, which is then directly proven false as Nino accidentally implies that he does know who it is. This is also after Alya had gotten on Marinette’s case for trying to set her up with Nino, and then she had the gall to say that she wouldn’t spill Marinette’s secret because she, and I quote, “doesn't go around making decisions for other people,“ a statement that is directly contradicted by this little thing known as everything Alya has ever said and done in the entire series.

And while Marinette meddling in Alya’s love life actually ended up working out for Alya, Alya meddling in Marinette’s by telling Nino who Marinette is crushing on comes back to bite Marinette - not Alya (because of course) - in the infamous episode of “The Puppeteer 2,” where Marinette realizes that Alya really did tell Nino that she was crushing on Adrien.

Marinette: You told me you wouldn't tell Nino!

Alya: I haven't told him. Right, Nino? I didn't tell you anything. (elbows him)

Nino: She didn't tell me. And besides, I told her I wouldn't tell.

Then, when she’s called out on it, Alya lies again, and shamelessly so.

Marinette: Why did you tell Nino everything? You promised you wouldn't!

Alya: I didn't, I swear! Besides, even if I had told him everything, he would still be clueless. Ugh, who cares anyway? I've set everything up with Nino, who doesn't know a thing, so you can finally pour your heart out to Adrien, girl!

And now, here we are one season later - and not even half of a season if you go by production code order - and Alya claims that she knows how to keep a secret.

No. No, she does not. In fact, she does even worse because she won’t even admit when she’s spilled said secret. I absolutely refuse to accept that Alya is “worthy” or “deserving” of learning that Marinette is Ladybug when she couldn’t even keep a basic secret like who her friend was crushing on.

And no, it didn’t matter that Nino was her boyfriend, or that maybe she thought it would work out because Nino was friends with Adrien. By that logic, Alya would tell Adrien that Marinette is Ladybug if she heard that Ladybug is who Adrien was crushing on and we all know how that would’ve gone.

Marinette has a right to tell her secret to whoever she wants and I’m glad that a burden has been lifted from her, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy that it’s Alya. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy that, after so many moments of Alya disrespecting Marinette’s feelings, she is the one who gets to hear the big secret that the fandom has been waiting for someone to find out about since the very start of the series.

Luka said it best in “Truth” that the truth is meant to be shared, not taken by force, but Marinette was forced to tell Alya by the narrative because Alya is her supposed “best friend.” It pushed Marinette to her breaking point, forced her to break up with the guy who has respected her agency and feelings since the day they met, and gave her a version of her “best friend” with the same name and face but with none of the responsibility from previous events so that said version was there at the right time and the right place to hear what had to be heard.

And in the end, I end up feeling nothing. Marinette doesn’t even have a “Marinette” reaction to saying it as one would expect; for her to blurt it out and then immediately start panicking until Alya hugs her to calm her down. Instead, Marinette just says it and stares silently at Alya - after blabbing this huge, very big deal of a secret - until Alya goes in for a hug (the “happy/hopeful” ending of which is why I feel like this episode also gets less flak, as the previous two ended off rather depressing/upsetting).

It’s off. Everything is off. The pacing, the delivery, and the logic that the episode uses. The emotion in Marinette’s voice when she’s rambling about how hard it is to keep her secret is so powerful, but then the ending hits and she just says it, breaking the momentum they had going. They pulled the card of Alya walking away too soon when they could’ve saved it, having Marinette go quiet and letting Alya take a few steps away in order to let the moment build before Marinette finally blurts out the secret she’s been painfully holding in.

But they didn’t, and I’m so many levels of dissatisfied. I wasn’t against the idea of Alya learning Marinette’s secret at some point (though honestly, Alix would’ve been a better pick considering that Bunnyx will know eventually anyway, and I say that not even liking Alix!), but not now; not when Alya had so much to work towards.

And now what? What happens now? Now Alya will turn against Lila, not because she learned to have faith and believe in Marinette, but because Marinette is Ladybug, which disproves Lila’s ultimate lie that got Alya’s attention in the first place? Now Alya will be supportive and less teasing/mocking whenever Marinette will be late, not because she understands that Marinette isn’t perfect and has so many other things on her mind, but because she’s Ladybug and has “hero stuff” to take care of? Now Alya will be careful about what she puts on the LadyBlog, not because she respected Ladybug and what Ladybug would want, but because Ladybug is now her best friend and that changes everything?

Because now, Alya has a free pass to all of that, the show making her spontaneously “developed” now so they won’t have to develop her later, and disappointing doesn’t even begin to describe it.

#category: salt #episode: Gang of Secrets #other: ml spoilers #category: long post #word count: over 7000 #other: ask and answer #((I know this is long so I did what I did in ''The Puppeteer 2'' where I had pictures to break it up.))

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echos-newlegs · 3 years

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Hi!! I would love to request number 13 with Tech! I feel like he would definingly ask you to hold hands for ""Science"" (and no other reason why do you ask) Readers pronouns are she/her, and pg or smut whichever is fine :) Thank you so much!

For Science

hhh this would be so cute and we stan him asking in the name of science. Because honestly same,

Tech x Reader: “I just wanted an excuse to hold your hand..”

Warnings: semi smut. I mean it leads up to it, but the moment gets ruined so it’s mainly just kissing, lmao. 😎 I was too tired to actually write smut.

Tech wasn’t really even sure when he started liking you. Of course he always liked you. Who couldn’t? You were amazing, beautiful, strong, courageous, smart.. Plus you not only listened to him, but you rambled with him. But that was besides the point. He was catching feelings for you. The new gunman and technician that clone force 99 was assigned. And he wanted to act upon those feelings more than anything.

He started small. Bringing you caf everyday. Just the way you liked it. It made his day just seeing the smile that came across your face when he would enter the room with a steaming cup for you. Catching you in a small conversation if you weren’t too entirely busy.

Then he started with small touches. Nudging you more, or tapping your arm to gain your attention. Or squeezing your shoulder or patting your back when you accomplished something and he was congratulating you.

You never really took too much time to think about it. You thought he was just being nice, and honestly? You loved it. You were just as touch starved as they were, and the contact made you feel something. Made you feel warm and appreciated.

After a few weeks of this. Nearly a month, actually. He got a new idea.

You were sitting in the copilot seat, waiting for him to make his entry. You had nothing better to do, all your tasks finished. So what better thing to do than sit with your favorite Batcher? Talk with him while he flew you and the gang to the planet that was actually pretty far away. You honestly weren’t too thrilled about the trip at all. Long flights always bored you.

Tech made it into the cockpit. Turning your head as you were slid down in your seat. Hands on your stomach. Eyes watching as he walked over to the pilot seat and began checking over things. “Ready for the trip?” You asked, and caught a glimpse of his smile. “I guess,” he spoke. “Not really much to be ready for.” He flipped a few switches and checked over the gauges as he readied the engines.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you excited about doing the same thing we’ve done a million times, then heading back to 79’s and getting hit on by random strangers?” You were being sarcastic, and it made him snort. Smile spreading across both of your faces. You just loved it when you could make him smile like this.

He sighed when he finally got the ship out of the atmosphere and into light speed. You both relaxing a bit. Though he relaxed more than you, since you were practically already relaxed. Just hitting a few switches here and there for him since he normally always had piloting under control. Which you admired him for.

He reached over and tapped your shoulder. Catching your attention as always. "Hm?" You hummed, watching as he shoved up his glasses using his index finger. "Can I hold your hand?" He asked. His question baffled you. Blinking a couple times, but you only shrugged. Not thinking twice of it. “Uh, sure, you good, goggles?” You teased as you held your hand out. Tech gently taking it in his own. Gloved thumb running over the back of your bare hand.

You noticed his gaze was elsewhere. Not on you anymore. His face even looked pink. “Uh yeah,” he stammered. Mentally cursing himself. Clearing his throat. He honestly thought this out before doing anything. “It’s a test.” “What sort of test?” He should have known you would ask that.

He thought, darting his tongue out to wet his lips. Lifting his head once more so his eyes would meet yours. “I wanted to test out a theory I had.” He spoke, shifting a bit in his seat. His hands now playing with your fingers. You wanted to squeal, it was so cute.

“Have you ever watched an infant grab someone’s finger when a parent, or even someone at random places their own finger in the palm of their hand?” You nodded. “Yeah. On the holo, why?” You were growing intrigued. You always found his spews so interesting. Especially this one.

“That’s known as the grab affect. Infants, especially of the human species, crave touch. Well, really any age of person does. The signs just show as early as infants even up to four weeks before they are born. Sucking thumbs, grabbing their umbilical cord. Or twins will even hold each other’s hands in the womb. It shows in other species of Aliens as well.” He told you, you nodding along with him. “Like when some babies cling to their mothers, like apes for example. It’s a common craving and it all comes down to how our brains are programmed.” He added, bringing a hand up to tap the side of his head with a soft smile. Hand dropping back to his lap.

“I find it quite interesting, really. They are saying, and have even in some ways proven that skin on skin contact. Like for instance, holding hands.” He gave your hand a light squeeze,” let’s off a chemical in our brain called ‘Oxytocin.’ It’s a neurotransmitter that helps our brains release feelings of trust, generosity, and compassion.” Tech told you.

You took in this information like it was gold. Watching the words fall from his mouth with an intent look. “They have proven that a lack of touch, which is often known as touch hungry, or touch starved. With children can lead to physical disabilities, such as a stunt in growth. Plus mental ones. It’s most common in adults, the mental issues are. Adults can get severe depression or even anxiety from the lack of being touched, you know?” He informed you, and you shot him a lopsided smile. “You feeling depressed or anxious, Techy?” You asked, and he smiled at that. “Not when I’m around you.”

You felt the blush creeping up the back of your neck. Kriff this was adorable. He is adorable. “They also have found that when fingers are interlaced, like this.” He interlaced your fingers with both hands. Eyes watching what he was doing, carefully. “Heart rate goes down, blood pressure goes down, and it puts your body in a relaxed state. All because of the pressure receptors that are triggered just from holding hands, though interlaced fingers triggers more of those receptors. Which are called the vagal activity,” you hummed and nodded. Watching as he looked up to meet your eyes.

“So..” he trailed off, his voice lowering, and you waited for the question that would soon follow after. “Do you feel more relaxed, mesh’la?” Your lips pressed into a small smile at that question, and you nodded. “Yeah.. I actually do, that was really interesting, Tech.” You told him, and nearly exploded at the wide grin he shot back at you. “Really?” He asked, he always seemed so shocked when you enjoyed his lectures.

“Yeah, I did,” you assured him. Watching as he stood from the seat. Using his hands still interlaced with yours to pull you up from your seat. A sudden burst of confidence flowed through him, like a rush of adrenaline did after nearly being shot on field. Hands squeezing yours as he brought you closer. You nearly stumbling into his chest. Looking up at him with furrowed brows. “Because, I just wanted an excuse to hold your hand.” He nearly whispered. Voice lowered and, well.. Deeper. Your lips inches apart, and you could nearly feel his breath on your lips. Sending a shudder down your spine.

“But with that being said, I do want to test a theory.” You blinked a couple times, then licked your lips. “And what’s that?” He leaned in a bit closer, your noses brushing now. “How much more oxytocin a kiss from you would release, than just holding your hand.” He added, and your smirked a bit. “Then what are you waiting for?”

He leaned in, finally closing the gap between the two of you and it felt so.. Euphoric. Your hands released one another’s to roam each other’s bodies. One of his hands moving to run through your hair, the other resting on the small of your back. Pushing you against him. You had one hand in his hair as well. Your other hand resting on his chest.

The two of you parted. Eyes fluttering open. Looking to one another with small huffs and pants. “So,” you started, and Tech still looked like he was trying to catch his breath. “Amazing,” he cooed. The hand in your hair moving to cup the side of your face. “So fucking amazing,” he murmured, and you couldn’t help but giggle. “How about another, then?”

It didn’t take asking him twice for another kiss. He was pulling your lips back to his in and instant. This kiss was a bit more desperate. Deeper, yet still soft. He wasn’t too rough and it drove you crazy.

Your lips parted in a gasp when he guided his thigh between your legs. The friction making you cling to him like a child. His tongue slipping into your mouth. Exploring and studying every inch of it like it was his job.

You pushed him a bit, and he backed up. Backs of his knees hitting the copilot seat and he sat down. Guiding you into his lap. Never breaking the kiss. Your legs now resting on either side of him.

He pulled from the kiss to spread kisses down your jaw. Lips leaving light and feathery trails down to your neck. Mouthing over the skin. Nipping the areas that had you gasping and nearly moaning. Your hands running under his blacks. Fanning over his stomach, then moving up to his chest. Rubbing at his tanned skin, and he groaned.

You both jumped when you heard the door to the cockpit swish open. Still sitting on his lap since his hands were still placed firmly around you. Your own hands moving to yourself. Techs shirt still hiked up right below his chest. You were both disheveled and practically holding your breaths as you stared at the door way.

Cross was standing there with Hunter. The two had shocked expressions at first, but then Crosshairs look turned into a small. What seemed to be, proud smile. Hunter just looked mortified, then glared. “You’re watching where we’re going, right?” He hissed, and the two of you were frozen. “I have the coordination set for the coordinates.” He clenched his jaw and eyes shut at his repeating of the word coordinates. Mentally cursing himself for not locking the door. “You better be paying attention, and just kissing, Maker.” Hunter muttered and walked out. Back to the bunks to probably lie down.

Crosshair was still leaning in the doorway. Pulling the toothpick from his lips with a smirk. Winking at Tech, then giving you a nod. “I knew you had it in you, Vod, don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t do.” He spoke, then walked out. Door shutting behind him.

Tech sunk into his seat. You still hovering above him. Climbing off a bit awkwardly. “We’ll never hear the end of this” Tech spoke in a mortified whisper. “It can’t be that bad... Right?” “Oh... It’s that bad.”

#bad batch x reader #star wars #star wars writing #the bad batch #the clone wars #writing #tech the bad batch #bad batch tech #tech bad batch #tech x reader #the bad batch tech x reader

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knickynoo · 3 years

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Gonna regret asking this as soon as you answer, but what do you think Marty would’ve done had doc actually died in the parking lot? Like immediately and beyond? And just to spread the pain around, what would doc have done had Marty died by buford’s hand?

This is another one of those asks that got backlogged. Sorry, anon. I've given some thought to these scenarios, though, and, well...I'm sorry. This is gonna be dark.

Had Doc not heeded Marty's warning and actually died (& assuming Marty re-loading the time machine with plutonium and trying to fix things isn't possible for some reason):

Marty would've continued to sit on the cold ground, sobbing for a long while. Einstein would join him, torn between trying to comfort his young friend and whimpering by Doc, trying to get the man to wake up.

Once the initial flood of tears eases, I could see Marty getting angry. Like, the angriest he's ever been. Screaming at Doc, at himself, and maybe finding things in Doc's truck to throw around and destroy. Then another wave of sadness would hit and he'd break down again.

Eventually, Marty would realize he needed to get moving. Someone was bound to see the fire caused by the Libyans' van and also the truck, DeLorean on the street in town, and the man lying dead in the mall parking lot. He'd know that the police would soon be called and that there would be a lot of questions that he'd rather not have to answer, but Marty would be very hesitant to go. He wouldn't want to leave his best friend. How could he? It would be a betrayal. He'd be a coward to run. Doc wouldn't leave him if the roles were reversed. So he'd stay, shivering in the cold night air, trying to figure out what he'll say. What they'll ask him.

After, he'd find a payphone and call the police himself. Upon their arrival, though, he'd lean into his own hysteria and act like he had no clue what happened. Maybe explain he was Doc's assistant and that he'd been asked to come to the mall but he'd shown up late and found the scene as it was already. When it came down to it, Marty would really be too much of a mess to talk to anyone, and the authorities on the scene would just see a distraught kid who needed to get home.

(There's a lot that could probably be said about how things would unfold once Marty got home, but in the interest of wanting to skip ahead, I'll just say that George and Lorraine would be horrified. Scared out of their minds and confused at what had happened. They'd likely do everything in their power to shield Marty from questions and prying eyes in the weeks that would follow)

Oh, right...on top of Doc being dead and Marty having witnessed it (twice!), he'd also have to deal with the whiplash at his suddenly new family. Which would really not be a good situation.

Things would rapidly fall apart for Marty once the dust settled and the reality of things set in. He'd be dealing with a family who all felt like strangers. He'd have no memories of ever having lived with those people. He wouldn't even be able to talk to Jennifer about anything for fear of sounding crazy and scaring her away. His best friend in the world, the only person who Marty felt truly understood him, was gone.

I think some pretty significant PTSD would be likely. Marty would have constant nightmares of Doc getting killed. Of trying and failing over and over to save him. And even with his loving, supportive parents doing all they can, it wouldn't be enough. Marty wouldn't feel a real connection to them or want their help. He wouldn't want Jennifer's help. He'd just want Doc back. He'd torture himself with thoughts of what he could have done differently that night he left 1955 or upon his arrival back to '85. He'd blame himself entirely for not trying hard enough. Not being smart enough or brave enough to have done something to save Doc.

Things would only be made worse as rumors swirled around town. Doc would be solidified as a villain in Hill Valley. A crazy, dangerous man who drew terrorists to their quiet little town and almost got a teenager killed. Marty would have to listen to whispers of people's theories as to what happened that night and hear them express their relief that Doc was no longer around to cause them any trouble. People would shoot Marty sideways glances, either looking down on him for having been acquainted with the deranged scientist or holding pity for him. Classmates would harass and taunt him, wanting to know what happened. Wanting to hear the "real story".

All the while, Marty is consumed by a grief he's unable to escape. He'd probably go one of two ways. Too depressed to function, he'd sort of withdraw entirely from life. Break up with Jennifer, shut his family out, abandon his music, etc. He'd see no real point in trying to make a good life for himself and be too anxious to ever move out of his comfort zone. On the other hand, he could give in to his anger and swing the other way, becoming self-destructive and sabotaging his future--drinking, dropping out of school, and using his fists to deal with any peers who dare to say a bad word about Doc. Either way, he'd be upset at himself because he'd know Doc would want better for him. Expect better of him. But he wouldn't be able to pull himself together because he'd be so stuck having convinced himself Doc's death was his fault.

Where would all of this leave our dear Marty as the years pass? I'm not sure. He'd either spiral totally beyond reach or eventually hit rock bottom and realize that he had to let go of all the sadness and anger and live up to all the potential Doc was always saying he had. At that point, though, he would have lost years to his grief, so getting his life together would be difficult. And...yeah.

That was lovely, wasn't it? Doc's turn!

Had Marty actually been killed by Buford (again assuming using time travel to fix things isn't an eventual option):

I feel like, initially, Doc would skip right past the devastated/crying phase and go immediately to a level of anger he'd never felt before. Do you remember how he acted when Buford was harassing Clara at the dance, especially when she was pushed down? Remember how it took 3 of Buford's guys to hold Doc back?? Yeah, well, take that and multiply it a couple of times.

I think it's quite possible that Doc would attempt to take Buford down right there, which likely wouldn't end well for him. But he wouldn't even care. He was heartbroken already over Clara and then his best friend in the world is killed in front of him. All rational parts of Doc would be gone. And seeing as Buford is, you know, dangerously unhinged and has his little posse with him, Doc might end up getting himself killed a minute or two later as well. In which case...well, that would be the end of this scenario. He and Marty would end up buried next to each other in the Old West.

If Doc somehow managed to survive an encounter with Buford, or if he didn't confront him at all because he was in such a state of shock, I think he'd resign himself to a quiet, lonely life in the 1880s. I'm not sure if he'd stay in town and work as a blacksmith. Maybe? If he wanted the distraction? But he also might move away to a little house and just live off the land.

Not sure how Clara would factor in, assuming she'd return to town to find Doc after getting off her train. I don't know if Doc would push her away, wanting to be totally alone in his misery or if he would cling to her.

Doc would be dealing with a lot of guilt. He'd decide that he was responsible for Marty's death. After all, he'd made the decision to stay in the saloon all night, and Marty had to then track him down. Then he'd taken that shot and passed out, costing them valuable time they could have otherwise used to be well on their way to the train. They could have avoided Buford altogether if it weren't for him, Doc would conclude, and in his mind, he'd essentially forced Marty to have to face the man.

Doc might eventually settle into a routine and go about living his life, but I don't know that he'd ever recover from the crushing guilt he'd feel. Losing Marty would shatter him. Marty was the first person to reach out to him, even with all the rumors and disdain other residents of the town threw his way. Marty liked and accepted him for who he was, something no one else had ever truly done. Marty brought so much good into his life, and in exchange, Doc had done all he could to be there for and protect his young friend--to help him see his own potential. But he couldn't protect Marty, and that failure would hurt more deeply than every other one combined.

Basically, I think that Doc would just lose part of himself after losing Marty. Even if he married Clara and had Jules and Verne and ended up with a nice life, he'd always feel the absence of his friend. He wouldn't ever fully be "Doc" again--more of a subdued, more serious version of himself.

I could see him holding it together for the most part, being a family man, all that stuff. But then he'd have moments where he'd find himself alone and just fall apart. And just to make things extra sad for anyone who's read this far, I imagine Doc taking very frequent trips to wherever Marty is buried, laying a few flowers down, and staying there for hours, crying, praying, talking to himself, or just sitting in silence.

Well. Anyway.

Thanks for the ask?

#back to the future #bttf #marty mcfly #doc brown #asks #anon you said you would regret your ask and I want to know if you do lol

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captaincravatthecapricious · 3 years

Text

Getaway

The trip to Scotland.

cw nausea and vomiting but no details I promise, fainting I think? I don't really remember, dizziness, food mentions, let me know if I need to add something more I haven't looked at this chapter in a while and I a posting in a rush.

Martin’s hand is damp in his. The same tacky, salty grit of the Lonely fog. A little bit of fog trapped between their tangled fingers, or maybe just the anxious sweat of two people who don’t really know each other as well as they should.

If Jon is being honest, it’s not a comfortable sort of hand holding, but he doesn’t care. He will keep clinging to Martin’s hand as if that single point of contact can keep Martin weathered to the physical plane.

It makes packing more difficult, but Jon doesn’t care. Not as if he hasn’t been living out of a backpack for months, or anything. (Longer still if you count living off a shelf before most of his belongings were ruined in the flesh attack). Still, he stuffs in the few items not in his back, and takes a healthy stack of statements and shoves those in, too. Probably depressing that he can fit those in a single bag with all his earthly belongings.

Jon doesn’t feel well.

He hasn’t felt well in a while. But the exhaustion is getting to him. Apparently shredding a person with his mind is a bit rough on the body. Even if the supernatural hunger is more than sated.

Heh. The unnatural feeling of being content and full and powerful at the same time as hallow and shakes and weak. It would be enough to make him dizzy, if he wasn’t already dizzy. If he hasn’t been dizzy constantly since statements were limited to empty paper, as if he hasn’t been dizzy since his early 20s and his POTS diagnosis. (And before, but that’s where he was still convinced it was nothing).

Jon is loathed to let go of Martin’s hand when he starts Daisy’s ancient car. It’s more than a little beat up. Jon tries very hard not to remember Mike Crew’s blood in the back seat. It’s clean now. Mike’s blood and Jon’s vomit long since scrubbed away. Nothing quite like being carsick at gunpoint.

Jon shivers.

He can’t let himself think about Daisy now. Such a confusing jumble of anger and fear and sadness and regret and friendship and comradely and resentment. It’s… it’s too much for him to take in.

He hasn’t ever been able to reconcile his feelings about Daisy, and now it’s worse. Worsened with his exhaustion. They were friends, they were enemies, and he couldn’t give up on her because that would mean that he was also lost. She hurt him and she loved him in a way. He couldn’t forgive her and she was his closest friend for a while. She was terrible, is terrible, but she was all he had and he loved her for being there. It’s too much to think about. And Basira. Christ, he feels terrible losing Daisy like that, and yes he loved her in a way, but he wasn’t in love with her like Basira is, and he knows the helplessness and emptiness of losing someone he’s in love with.

He shakes his head roughly. The bite of headache and way the world sickly twists in and out of focus for a moment distracts him enough to start the car. He looks over at Martin, pale but solid. He reaches for Martin’s hand as he drives them to Martin’s flat.

Jon has to do most of the packing for Martin. Martin more attached to him than free thinking individual. Drifting after him, pulled taught by their tethered hands. A balloon pulled along by the wrist of a small child on a rollercoaster. Although Jon can’t fault him for that, he thinks that might be an apt description for how he’s feeling. …Pulled along by unknowable forces beyond his control. And he’s flapping helplessly in the breeze of a battle far bigger than him.

No. Focus.

Martin.

Shove clothes and toiletries and tea and books and a few items that Jon judges to look treasured. A worn stuffed tiger, a few faded pictures, a deck of tarot cards, he even takes the ratty binder that are shoved under the other ones (the nicer ones that Jon has already packed with the essentials), a tattered notebook under a layer of dust, a well loved poetry book, a small box of earrings, and what looks to be Martin’s knitting.

It’s still a pitifully small amount of luggage for an indefinitely long trip. The large first aid kit that he found makes him feel a little better. (Emotionally, but also physically after he downs some paracetamol. He eyes the dramamine, but he’s going to be driving and he can’t risk getting drowsy. It’s not like they have time to stop).

Nausea twists down deep before Jon even starts the car. Catching at his stomach as he settles Martin’s bags in the back seat. Still trying to search out the stains that are long gone.

And oh fuck he killed someone.

And yeah the bastard deserved it, but Christ he feels sick. Sitting behind the wheel, staring blankly ahead.

Martin’s hand in his.

Martin squeezes his hand.

Jon squeezes back.

It’s fine. He’s fine. Just… Just drive.

It’s the next step, and he has always been good at pushing from one step to the next. Don’t worry about what happens next, just drive.

Martin is here and… not fine, but alive and whole, and slowly thawing next to him.

“Hey…” Jon forces his tight throat and tighter chest to allow the word past.

They haven’t spoken since Basira told them where to go and gave them a ring of keys.

This almost shakes Martin out of his stupor. Almost. “Hey,” he echos.

Jon wants to pack so much into a question. How do you ask everything? Are you okay? Do you love me? Do you know I love you? Do you need anything? Are you sure you want to come all this way with me? Are you okay with moving in with me? Are you hungry? If the fog comes for you, will you tell me? But those are too many words. Martin starts looking glazed over when there is too much going on. Too much movement, too many people, too much sound, too many questions. And Jon wonders if the Lonely only served to magnify this, and if so, did he notice? Did Martin hide it well? Did Jon make it worse? What if he makes it worse now, but what if he makes it worse by not saying anything.

“You ready?” This will have to be enough.

Martin nods, apparently not noticing the pause.

Jon tries not to jump out of his skin when Martin starts rubbing circles on Jon’s hand. It’s surprising, but it feels nice.

More than nice.

Jon starts the car.

It’s chilly. Late September. And it’s getting dark. Both in that the sun is going down, and in that storm clouds are gathering.

Jon knows they can’t stop for the night.

He just has to get them to Scotland. Hopefully then it will all be okay.

They stop at a service station just out of the city. Jon gets a black coffee. He buys Martin a tea and a sandwich.

He knows the coffee won’t do his stomach any favors, and will more likely than not set his heart to hammering, but it will be worth it not to fall asleep at the wheel.

He can’t let Martin drive until Martin looks like less like a space cadet.

But Jon hopes the tea brings color back to Martin’s face, even if he can’t quite tell in the sickly light of the service station, or the dim light of the evening as Jon tops up the petrol.

Highway before and behind, and Jon is throwing up. Pulled to the wrong side of the road in the dark and the rain. Trembling as Martin rubs his back and gently pulls back his hair.

They aren’t even halfway there. His heart is beating too quickly. Anxiety? Caffeine? POTS? Nausea? Who’s to say. But Jon is miserable, but there isn’t much choice, because being a passenger will make it worse, even if that would mean he could take some medicine. But Martin is in not fit state to drive. And Martin must know that, because for all his soothing, he doesn’t offer to drive. Or he almost offers, but Jon can see the thought die on his lips. Besides, Jon is fairly certain Martin can’t drive a manual transmission car. Not that Jon is particularly good at it, and stalled the engine twice leaving London.

The occasional car and lorry thunders past. On the side of the road, Jon can feel their movement in his core. He worries how he will get them safely back on the road, as he spits in the dirt.

“Sorry. Let’s go,” he mumbles his embarrassment to Martin.

He tries to ignore the pitying look that Martin has fixed on him.

“Sure we can’t stop?”

Jon shakes his head, and the dizziness threatens to take him down. He sags against Martin for a moment. “Can’t risk it. Perils of being on the run, I’m afraid.”

Martin frowns at him.

“I’m fine. Just… tired and… well, carsick. We’ll be there by morning.”

“Yeah and the fact that you basically collapsed against me is something I’m just supposed to ignore?”

Jon waves him off.

The brief conversation seems to have stolen all of Martin’s words. He quietly gets back in the car, and Jon shudders and sways without Martin’s warm bulk holding him up.

He starts the car, and takes Martin’s hand.

Just a few more hours. Then they can rest.

#the magnus archives #fic #tma #jonathan sims #cane user jon #trans martin blackwood #martin blackwood #the dinghy #jmart #jonmartin #jon has pots #cw anxiety #cw nausea #cw vomiting

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angelicamerlinbarnes · 3 years

Text

Modern AU: "Lilies"

Severus knows Lily is dead before James comes by to tell him. How, you ask?

Well, because she shows up in his kitchen on Sunday morning, translucent, to yell at him about his life choices.

Severus is living in a rundown old white house that he used to share with his wife Lily. She left him for James, a musician travelling with the other half of his duo act, Sirius. Last Severus heard, the two of them are world famous and Lily and James have had a son named Harry.

As it happened, five years ago James and Sirius had come to town for Sirius to reconnect with his little brother, Regulus. As they had a falling out and a difference of opinion regarding their parentage, their relationship remained just as strained and cold as it had always been despite Sirius’ best efforts. While James spent most of the visit having a smoky and lazy affair with Regulus, he met Lily at the grocery store one day and it was love at first sight. She’d left Severus a month later, choosing to travel the world with James, and had had Harry within the year.

During this visit, Remus, who had been married to Tonks at the time with a child on the way, had fallen deeply in love with Sirius, but had broken Sirius’ heart when he chose to keep his marriage vows rather than run away with him. Sirius tried to keep in touch with Remus after he and James left, but Remus never replied, though Sirius never stopped sending letters. Remus’ wife died two weeks after their son Teddy’s premature birth from complications, and Teddy followed in the hours after. Overwhelmed with grief, Remus shut himself away, only going out for work and to drink. The night he got fired from his job as a teacher, he drank so much he got into an accident on his way home, and is now confined to a wheelchair. That, paired with his self-inflicted scars and depression, led to a suicide attempt that Severus saved him from. Now, Remus is still a recluse, though he now works as a librarian, volunteers at the orphanage, and takes the time to have tea with Severus every day.

Severus grows lilies in his garden in memory of his wife, and nearly dies of a heart attack when her ghost shows up in his kitchen one Sunday morning. She yells at him about throwing away his life for her when she was clearly never worth it and Severus yells back at her for leaving him. But while their new living arrangement is a bit stiff, they remember why they loved each other well enough, so they get on fine, though Lily still cries about missing James and Harry nearly every day.

James shows up in town about a week later with Sirus and Harry in tow, saying he came to deliver a letter Lily left Severus upon her death, since she’d been sick for a long time. Severus invites them in for tea, because he’s British and he’s polite, and Sirius spends most of the time staring at Remus’ house through the window and asking questions about him. James holds Harry on his lap while Lily’s ghost fusses over both of them, though neither of them can see or hear her. Severus still hates James for stealing his wife, but it’s faded into a dull ache by now, especially as seeing James is now a single father, though James does assure him that since Sirius is his partner, Harry will be far from alone.

Though originally only planning to stay long enough to deliver the letter, James decides to stick around for a bit for unspecified reasons. (It’s not because Sirius and Remus both just smiled stupidly at each other for five gay minutes when they were reunited. Of course not.) As he usually leaves Sirius with Remus for the two of them to catch up, James takes to leaving Harry with Severus when he becomes too overwhelmed with grief to take care of him. Severus grows fond of the boy, and often translates Lily’s stories for him since Harry can’t see his mother the same way Severus can.

James tries to patch up his relationship with Regulus, but Regulus is not hearing of it, feeling abandoned and hurt since James left him for Lily. This does however make him more perceptible to Sirius, who is delighted to have his little brother back in his life, though his strained and shy relationship with Remus is wearing on him. Regulus tells James and Sirius that he had a partner, Amir, who died in a home break-in and Regulus, who is trans, suffered a miscarriage of their daughter upon hearing the news. Severus and Remus take care of him, though their own unstable mental states make it difficult some days. Working at the library with Remus helps, he says, but still refuses to speak to James and is tolerating but far from welcoming of Sirius. Only at Severus’ advice that he would be a far happier person if he just allowed Sirius into his life does Regulus begin to open up towards both his brother and his brother’s partner.

James stays at Severus’ house per Lily’s request, and Harry grows quite attached to Severus. Remus begins to spend more and more time with Severus, growing increasingly anxious about his strenuous relationship with Sirius. Lily and Severus begin to slip back into a domestic relationship even though she’s a ghost, and Severus tells Remus about it, believing he’s going crazy. Remus shrugs and says he still hears Teddy crying sometimes.

As times passes, James and Severus slip into a limbo of sorts. As James has become increasingly close to Remus through Sirius, they spend more time together than ever before, and end up falling for each other in their shared grief. Still, despite their unofficial connection, Severus encourages Regulus’ feelings for James, believing them the better match and hoping Regulus can find some sort of happiness after all the shit he’s been through. Unfortunately, this all comes to a head when one day Sirius and Remus break up in an explosive fight, leading James to leave with Sirius and Harry in tow. Severus bids them a bitter goodbye and settles into taking care of Remus and Regulus, both of whom are now far more broken than they were before.

Remus tries to kill himself again. Severus is alerted to this by Lily, who has been doting on Remus since finding out about his and Sirius’ love for each other. Severus races Remus to the hospital, getting him there just in time. Regulus is beside himself, and Severus calls James using the hospital phone, saying he thought he and Sirius should know. James hangs up on him, but shows up in the waiting room with Sirius and Harry three hours later. Severus offers to drive James home, since only family can stay and no one is doubting that Sirius is Remus’ husband even if there are no papers to prove it, and by his rights, Regulus is allowed to stay as well. On the way back to Severus’ house they have a conversation about their feelings for each other, though Severus continues to insist that James choose Regulus instead of him. This evolves into a shouting match until their attention is so far from the road that a semi crashes into them, gravely injuring Severus and hurting James severely, though Harry remains unharmed save a few cuts and bruises. James breaks down over Severus’ body, trying desperately to call 9-1-1, but it’s no use. Severus passes away in Lily’s ghostly arms, James’ screams still echoing in his ears.

Severus wakes up in his house, surrounded by the things Lily destroyed in her anger at him and James over the past few months. Lily is pressing kisses all over his face and crying, explaining that he’s a ghost now too, and stuck with her forever. Severus comments that he doesn’t think that’s too bad, and Lily slaps him but laughs anyway, drawing him into a kiss. They stay wrapped up in each other until James shows up at the house with Harry, sobbing and sagging to the ground in the doorway as both Lily and Severus wrap themselves around him, whispering, “Oh, Jamie…”

Sirius is trying to take care of James and Harry, but he’s pretty much a wreck himself, having been sleeping with a record number of men since his and Remus’ break-up and drinking and smoking his problems away. He’s been writing in manic frenzies, mostly songs about unrequited love, and has spent the rest of his time enduring depressive slumps. Remus is released from the hospital and tries to help him, but is struggling to deal with the loss of Severus, even if he has Sirius back.

Regulus begins to shoulder much of the responsibility of James’ care. He watches over James while Sirius and Remus watch over each other, and comes to care for Harry like a son. Sirius loves him for it, and does his best to pitch in where he can. Though his trust issues and grief are incapacitating, Sirius starts to rebuild his relationship with Remus, this time on a solid foundation of trust and truth, though it takes time. He begins to understand, through their conversations about both of the times they fell in love, why Remus chose to stay with Tonks despite his heart belonging to Sirius, and comes to a new understanding of Lily’s choice of James, as she was already pregnant with Harry by the time she left Severus, and in the minds of parents, children come first. Severus is a bit heartbroken to learn that Lily had cheated on him, but is too tired to truly be angry, and tells Lily it’s in the past now. She smiles at him and kisses his cheek.

James, meanwhile, is working himself into a downward spiral. He’s wondered for years whether Lily ever really loved him like he loved her or if she just chose him because of Harry, and he’s also felt terribly guilty for stealing her from Severus no matter how much he loved her. While he tried to treat Severus right, he knew it was a failed pipe dream from the beginning, as he could never truly keep his heart from Regulus’ delicate hands. Severus and Lily both try to speak with him, but in vain, as he cannot see them.

The ghosts try to take care of Harry, though he can’t see them either. As it comes to be, Sirius and Remus rebuild themselves and each other enough to give Harry and James a stable home. Their partnership with James gives him the strength to keep going, and he begins to make things right with Regulus, who seems happier these days despite all his sadness. As the years pass, Severus and Lily watch their family grow. Sirius and Remus marry, adopting four children from the orphanage where Remus volunteers: Luna, Hermione, Newt, and Draco. They and Harry make friends with the Wealsey children from down the street, and James marries Regulus in a quiet ceremony shortly after tying himself to Sirius and Remus permanently. Lily’s body is moved to their town and buried beside Severus, and the two ghosts settle down in their graves, willingly passing on.

And in case you were wondering… (which I know you’re not)

Remus makes Sirius quit smoking. He and James give up their famous lifestyle for their spouses and children, settling in the town where this all began. Sirius and Regulus build a strong relationship that does not fray or break any longer. Sirius is Harry’s second favorite person after James, and Harry makes Remus take him to visit Severus and Lily’s graves at least three times every year. Sirius loves Remus a lot, but that’s okay, because Remus loves Sirius a lot too.

Sirius is James’ favorite person and he loves him so fucking much - Remus too. He misses Severus and Lily every day, but he’s got their son and the flowers to remember them by. He thinks maybe he could have a Happily Ever After here, maybe. If the world stands still long enough.

Meanwhile, Peter has lived in a homeless shelter since he got dumped by his ex-wife Mary, who is a kindergarten teacher now dating Dorcas the karate teacher and Marlene the bartender. He meets Max and their son Seamus there and falls in love with Max immediately, eventually building a home with them on a generous gift from Sirius that allows him to start up his own bakery. Though Remus offers to put him up every time he visits, Peter always refuses, though he bakes him plenty of thank you muffins once he’s out. James comes to Peter for advice about all of his relationships, and Peter indulges him every time, though really he just wants to bake cookies and sleep. Peter is the happiest person in this story how is that possible

Mcgonogall is the head librarian who listens to hard rock and has her wards (Sirius, Remus, and James) over for tea when she needs to give any of them a swift kick in the rump for their stupid life decisions. Dumbledore and Grindelwald are a married couple who grow petunias in their garden and live next to Mcgonogall, since she and Dumbledore are partners. Grindelwald glares at everyone and everything and Dumbledore hums Beatles songs under his breath off-key and brings an open umbrella on his walks on sunny days, so yeah. The Weasleys are the nutcases who run the orphanage and the homeless shelter, Peggy Schuyler is Newt’s best friend and a schoolmate of the children’s, and life is alright.

Yeah I don’t know what this is either.

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