#sort of like the whole father figure I never got to experience / son I never wanted type deal

[illithilit]

That moment when you realize that Mourndax is so flippant about everything bc ofc he is. Man's barely had any agency in his life under his parents' control, and he's less than five years removed from that. He hasn't exactly had time to learn how to make decisions of his own, and acting like you don't give a shit what the outcome is, or that you've simply changed your mind about it for no particular reason is a lot easier than admitting to still remembering how much the leash hurt when pulled on.

[masterofthewarcry]

no, no you don't GET IT. okay - so he's only a little kid when his dad goes off to war and dies, right? he doesn't know his dad. all he knows is that his dad was a great warrior favored by athena, and that he has to avenge him (IMAGINE a little kid sitting by his mother's feet while she spins wool telling him he has to avenge his father some day, imagine it). so he grows up a little, following in his father's footsteps to become a great warrior, and then BAM he gets thrown into full blown WAR at fourteen. it's epigoni time people. he's the youngest there, this is the first time he's ever experienced real battle, and its in THEBES where his dad (who's ghost has been haunting him the whole time) DIED. anywhere he steps on the battlefield could be the very spot where his dad died. but he makes it through. they take the city, sack it, go home.

and that in itself is enough to make a man a legend, right? but almost as soon as he gets home, there's trouble in calydonia (where his grandfather is supposed to rule, but he gets usurped by an uncle or cousin or something). so he fucks off to calydonia to sort that out and ends up having to fight in ANOTHER huge battle to reinstate his grandfather as the king. but again, he pulls through, makes it out alive and goes home.

he gets married to aegialia, who's significantly older than him and who he doesn't know all that well just in time for adrastus (the king of argos and one of the original seven against thebes) to kick it. now, i'm not saying that adrastus was something of a father figure to him, but i think it makes sense narratively. so adrastus kicks it, and he inherits the city of argos, again being very young and not knowing much about ruling. he doesn't really get a chance to learn though because BAM it's trojan war time baby!!

so he gets together all the able-bodied argives (which is a LOT, like he's bringing a significant portion of the greek force) and they sail to aulis to meet up with the rest of the gang. sthenelus and euryalus (two of his buddies from the epigoni days) come with him - i like to think that they're like older brothers to him; sources he can look to for advice and support. ANYWAYS everybody gets to aulis, he goes to meet the rest of the kings and as soon as he introduces himself, everyone's talking about his father.

but its fine - even though he's proven himself to be a more capable warrior than his father was already. hes not here to cause a scene (no, they have achilles for that - but they dont have him yet so hold that thought), hes here to do a job. and do a job he will, because someone has to go fetch achilles from hiding! better send the young guy who MIGHT be able to hold his own against the strongest warrior in the world if he decides to fight back. and odysseus, of course.

they couldn't be more different, he and odysseus. odysseus is older, he's not been in a battle like this before, he has a son, he's generally regarded as a good king. whereas all he's ever known is war, he barely knows his own wife (DEFINITELY not enough to have a son), and he knows next to nothing about being a king. yet they hit it off. odysseus is charismatic and funny and he's ENRAPTURED by the way he talks about ithaca. he's never known anything like that. argos is home, sure, but ithaca is EVERYTHING to odysseus.

they collect achilles, with some trickery, and the real trojan war starts going. ILIAD TIME it's been nine years. he and odysseus are buddy buddy now (athena boys in business fr), achilles is on the fritz throwing a temper tantrum (NOT in a useful way on the battlefield). agamemnon is talking about giving up. menelaus ALMOST got paris's ass but aphrodite spirited him away. he and odysseus are holding this operation together. he's putting all this previous war experience to good use absolutely KILLING IT on the battlefield. he's going after aeneas, and then aphrodite, and then ARES the GOD OF WAR HIMSELF. achilles has NOTHING on him at this point. but the whole army is still praying for achilles return.

but it's fine - even though he's single handedly running the show at this point. he gets shot through the foot by paris and odysseus pulls it out because THEY WATCH EACH OTHERS BACKS, they look after each other. NIGHT RAID TIME, he and odysseus hit the town (and by hit the town i mean kill ~14 men under the cover of darkness and steal their horses), common athena boys W. they wash all the blood of themselves in the sea together afterwards, classic bro activities. he's feeding himself with odysseus's stories at this point because the way he talks about ithaca really does make it sound like something worth fighting for.

achilles comes back- OOPS, we thought it was achilles but its NOT its patroclus in his armor and now hes DEAD. achilles comes back for real, and now HECTOR is dead. who's that up on the walls of troy with a bow is that-? BAM, achilles dead, shot by paris. things are looking bleak and good at the same time. the palladium needs to be stolen so they can sack troy? easy money. NIGHT RAID PART 2, stealing the palladium time. easy money until odysseus decides to try and stab him in the back. he's devastated - his closest friend, caught up in the idea of having all the glory for himself. they've switched positions, now he is the one who wants nothing to do with this war, and odysseus is the glory-hungry king. heartbreaking.

TROJAN HORSE, the time is finally ripe to sack troy. everyone's behaving badly, people are getting raped on temple steps, it's a mess. odysseus throws a baby off the walls of troy. he's one of the only ones who doesn't get caught up in it because he's tired. he's tired of war and he wants to go home, even though argos is nothing like the home he's built in his head. there is no wife and son to return to. he knows nothing about being king. the rocky coasts of ithaca do not await him.

troy burns. the war is over, the ships are loaded with spoils, he sets sail for home. he arrives to find that sthenelus's SON, his BROTHER's SON has been fucking his wife and usurped his throne. and for a minute, it looks like he's about to go to war again, but he's tired. he's tired and it's his best friend's son, and it's a woman he never really got to know or care about and it's a throne he never asked for. so he just leaves. he takes his spoils, gets back on a boat and leaves. for ithaca.

he doesn't know how odysseus is going to react when he shows up. but, as it turns out, he didn't have to worry about that because odysseus isn't there. but penelope is. wise, patient penelope who listens to him talk about the war at troy and odysseus and how he's so tired. penelope who says, stay.

so he stays. and he waits for odysseus. and he learns things that aren't war. he learns what it feels like to carry a little boy on his shoulders. he learns what it feels like to have dirt under his nails and a sore back after a long day's work at the plow. he listens to penelope talk about odysseus, and shares his own stories too. he learns that he likes penelope, a lot.

enough that when the suitors start pouring in, he fends them off as best he can. he won't marry her - he won't do that to odysseus, but he will help her unravel the funeral shroud she's weaving each night. he will hold her while she cries for her husband who is likely dead at the bottom of the sea. he will start teaching telemachus his way around the blade when he asks.

and when odysseus does return home? he almost gets stabbed. odysseus is FURIOUS that someone he TRUSTED would come to court his wife, but that's not what happened at all, he's been protecting her the best he can. teaching his son to do the same. he's been waiting for odysseus with them. it's a teary reunion, of course, and then it's a bloodbath and then all the suitors are dead. he washes the blood out from underneath his nails for the last time.

see? do you see? it's about being HAUNTED by the legacy of a man you didn't even know, and it's about EXPECTATIONS and it's about figuring out what YOU want instead of what you're 'supposed' to want, and it's about GROWING past being a warrior and learning to be a PERSON, and it's about LOVING someone in a way that's beyond platonic or romantic. do you get it now? do you get it?

[dirtytransmasc]

I LOVE your Spider and Quaritch headcanons! I beg of thee to grace us with more

(I got a day off cause of a blizzard in my town and I finally have the motivation to tackle my oldest unanswered asks, I am so sorry y'all had to wait this long)

miles always wanted to be a good dad, never had the time to think about it back on earth, his life was hell there was no way he would do that to his own kid, but when paz was pregnant it brought out the father in him. but between the fact that miles had no idea how to be a father, to be gentle, to love, after the hell that was his own life and lack of personal relationships paired with the fact he would never be allowed to claim spider as his own or even have a relationship with the kid if he wanted him and paz to be safe; his relationship with spider is so strained yet so desperate because every part of his soul is being lit on fire to claim his child, but he has zero idea how to build that relationship or even just, be a dad. its even worse because this new na'vi body is biologically rendered to be intense parental figure, all new sorts of parental instincts that are driven down to the primal level overwhelming him as he clumsily, like the newborn he is, navigates that tie between him and his son.

spider is aware of this, to some extent, he can feel quaritch trying, even if he's clueless, and he feels some amount of pity for him. he also feels nice being taken care of; quaritch protects him, nutures him in a way not just a captor trying to get on his sweet would, but a father. it reminds spider of jake, and it makes his stomach tie into knots.

quaritch attempts to integrate with na'vi life way more then he needs to for spider's sake.

when spider left him on the little island, he felt like he was gutted right then and there. he knows he can't force spider to love him, he would never do that to his son, would never force him to live a life he didn't want. he tries to lead a life spider would be proud of until they reunite.

he sends cupcake out over the metkayina village, sending her to be with spider for days at a time, making sure spider isn't alone. when she goes back to miles he lives vicariously through her memories of the boy.

he still wants to kill jake for how he treats his baby.

when spider was still back with the squad, it felt like he was finally whole, like he had his kid, his family, and no matter where they were, in the forests, back at bridgehead, on the sea dragon, it felt like they were home.

everyday miles was away for spider he made him things, keeping them in his pack. beads for his hair and songchord, knives, carvings. by the time they're reunited spider could probably make 10 songschords with all his dad had made him, each one with a story, as he would find out; miles had pushed his fragile memory, prodded out each and every memory he had of spider, of what little childhood he got to experience.

quaritch connects to eywa because of spider, he wanted to see what spider saw, he wanted to know why he was so loyal to this planet, these people, despite the hell they put him through. it all made sense, he wanted to protect her just as much as he wanted to protect spider. he know's why spider did it all, and it drive him to do the same.

quaritch 'woke up' all because of spider's existence.

he threatened ardmore, risking getting in serious trouble, when she implied bringing spider back in after miles won his trust, to 'see if her remembered anything now'. he even tells spider this, because he was done keeping spider in dark, he makes it clear just how far he's willing to go to keep him safe.

spider put a braid in quaritch's hair right before the village/tulkun incident and he never took it out.

[carewyncromwell]

“Are we too far apart? Two worlds among the stars? You’re gonna take a piece of my heart if you leave... So it’s two separate ways, Or am I too late to say, I wanna fight for what we got? ‘Cause I believe in family...in family...”

~“Family” by TobyMac

x~x~x~x

I gotta say, I didn’t think I’d become so attached to Carewyn’s youngest cousin Tristan when I decided to write for him in that one drabble I did, but...yeah, here he ended up as a young adult with Carewyn in my sketchbook! Go figure! XD

But yeah, this is Tristan Cromwell, age 18, and dressed to the Goth Victorian nines. Yes, that is his aesthetic -- he would’ve 150% been that Tim Burton-obsessed weirdo kid, if he’d been raised in the Muggle World. I see this being him reaching out to his now-nearly-30-year-old cousin Carewyn at the Ministry of Magic, specifically talking at that one fountain in the center Atrium, which has gone through some changes since its pre-Wizarding-War days and especially since the Wizarding War itself. As you can see, Tristan’s grown up a lot since he appears in that drabble -- a bit personality-wise, yes, but definitely physically. Tristan ends up being the tallest and lankiest of all the Cromwells at 5′11″, making him both an inch taller than his father and the same height as his deceased grandfather, Charles. It also means he towers over Carewyn, the smallest Cromwell at 5′3″.

Despite his and Carewyn’s differences, though, Tristan as a young adult really becomes all the more motivated to fix the rift in his broken family. (I’m not joking, while working on this, I must have played Scott Shattuck’s cover of Waiting on a Miracle a good twenty times, imagining it as a theme for adult!Tristan.) As Blaise’s only son and heir, he’s presumed to be the one who’ll have to take on the mantle of leadership for the Clan, even while the youngest of the Cromwell cousins, so Tristan feels an obligation to do what his father has been unable to and bring Carewyn, Jacob, and Lane back into the fold. One lesson Tristan does internalize that Blaise never does, however, is that love is about sacrifice, not just possessive control...a lesson bolstered by his interactions with his favorite "bastard cousin,” Carewyn. I could even see Tristan seeking out Carewyn’s help with getting a position at the Ministry as an adult, since his father’s influence is far less than Charles’s was back in the day and Tristan’s lack of real-world experience, connections, and social skills hampers him in his job search.

“I’m a Cromwell! I’m not supposed to have to struggle to get the respect owed me.”

Fortunately for however proud and entitled Tristan is thanks to Blaise’s toxic influence, he also is painfully aware of his duty to his family and is determined to be the best Head he can be...even if it required him taking a desk job he’d be miserable at.

“Wouldn’t I, what, prefer to do something else? Obviously. I’ve been locked up inside nearly my whole life -- you don’t think I don’t wish every day I could just pack my bags and go running off into the sunset on some whirlwind adventure, the way your brother does? Hell, reckon even your precious Quidditch player’s able to do that sometimes, with how much travel he must get up to...

“...But...I can’t. Not when it’d break Father’s heart. Not when the whole Clan needs leadership, and just about all of them presume it has to be me. It’s not like it could be anyone else, really. Elmer’s not the leadership sort, and Arsen and Kain...they can’t even score a promotion with the Hitwizards, let alone take charge of the Clan. And Heather, Dahlia, and Iris, feh -- the Manor would probably get burned to the ground in a week if they called the shots.

“I was raised to do this, by my father. I have to do this, the way he has -- but I can’t do it his way. Not just because the Cromwell name’s been tarnished and Father can’t help me get ahead the way Grandfather did for him, but because...well...”

“...You’re not your father.”

“...Yes. And...if anything is going to get better, with our family...if I’m ever going to make things right...I can’t be like him, either. No matter how much I love him and no matter how much I want to make him proud...if I’m going to make that dream come true, I have to do things my way.

“So just...put in a good word for me, will you? Maybe Father’s word doesn’t have weight here at the Ministry, but yours does. You’re the Ministry’s Star Prosecutor, after all. Even if I do have to be stuck indoors all day, well, at least it’ll be a different ‘indoors.’ And I know Father will be pleased, if I ended up in your Department. Sure he’ll see it as the perfect excuse to try to lure you back home...”

Tristan’s lips were curled up in an amused, mischievous smirk, when he said this: one that made him more closely resemble that thirteen-year-old boy Carewyn had seen back at the Cromwell Manor during the War.

As one can expect, Carewyn didn’t flaunt her influence around to get Tristan a job the way he wanted...but, feeling some compassion for her cousin, she did line up several promising Ministry internship opportunities for him -- one with the Department of International Magical Cooperation, one in the Department of Magical Games and Sports’s office closer to Quidditch League Headquarters, one at St. Mungo’s sponsored by the Accidental Magical Reversal Squad, and even three for the Department of the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. None of those opportunities, however, were in Wizarding Law. 

Sorry, Tristan -- but I think you’ve had more than enough of being stuck indoors.

After much deliberation, Tristan selected one of the internships for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, specifically the one that required him to work with the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau, exploring more humane methods of transport for the creatures across Muggle-occupied areas. Tristan’s extensive knowledge of magical creature anatomy ended up being very helpful in this task -- though the best part of the experience, by far, ended up being when he was able to finally see a real-life Welsh Green for the first time. After only ever knowing such creatures as models and drawings in books, Tristan almost couldn’t breathe when he was able to actually reach out and touch one, with his own hands.

Blaise would probably be more than a little disconcerted about his son ending up so close to such a dangerous creature -- but in that moment, Tristan couldn’t keep the huge grin off his face as he ran a hand gently along the dragon’s comb, rubbing his wet eyes on his sleeve. He’d never been so happy in all his life.

[hamsamwich23]

Can you tell us more about twenty. Their relationship with the puppets and Owen. They sound and look quite unique. A good unique

I got two asks asking about Twenty, so yeah I absolutely can! And I'll tag @emilythezeldafan because they were also one that asked about him sjdjdjdd

Please do not tag this as in///vad/er z/im (I'm trying to stay safe from that fandom mess)

Twenty facts (and some other random information)

Twenty is a 16 year old (in current times) hybrid who ended up on this earth due to his own dimension being destroyed thanks to an event known as the Z/im void.

He was cloned as an irken in the beginning however since he wasn't supposed to actually be cloned or even exist (he's an extra smeet), he was used as an experiment for five years

His genes were mixed with those of an extinct alien species

Until this dimensions Miyuki got him out of the situation and ended up raising him like he were his own son

He's technically an alternative version of Zim, and used to be known as Zimaki

He's trans, he realized this at a younger age. And chose his name based off the last number on his PAK serial number (20)

He's the one who made the puppets prosthetic legs...he also broke into the warehouse because he took a job to investigate the place (from this Earth's Dib)

He lives alone, and unlike canon z1ms base, his actually looks like a normal household (because it is, aside from the lab in the basement)

He's very good with science and machinery, and has some knowledge on medical skills

He's also an excellent baker

He's currently dating Scout

He actually got saved by scout when he went into the warehouse and almost got experimented on by Riley

Riley dislikes bringing this up)

His current form is not because of the curse on earth (due to irkens somehow being unaffected), however it does help him blend in well with this, since he is now nothing out of the ordinary on Earth.

Dib, 18, moved away after his father was judged (and found guilty) by Mortimer, as it was finally a chance of freedom for him. He and Twenty are still friends.

(m3mbrane was punished with death for illegally experimenting on innocent people affected by the curse, for context)

Gaz still lives at home with a family member who's taken over as caretaker. She and Twenty also still talk

Gaz also talks to scout (mainly online, they play video games together)

Miyuki died when he was ten, she has died saving him from being eliminated, however the blame was twisted and put on him because he was the only one there with her.

Miyuki is technically haunting him, and can go anywhere as long as twenty is there. It's unknown if he knows she's watching him or not.

Since the whole warehouse incident with Owen happened way before he was born, twenty only knows about Owen from what is recorded and from what the puppets have told him

He has a good relationship with Mortimer, Mortimer being the one who made it so Scout was allowed to leave the warehouse whenever she wanted to, and let twenty keep his life seeing that there wasn't any reason to kill him

He's also got a good relationship with Daisy as the two can get along on many things , and they both enjoy baking, although daisy. Can get competitive

He and Nick get along at times despite Nick being antisocial a good amount of time.

Twenty and Esmeralda get along as well, Esmeralda seeing Twenty as an older brother sort of figure

He's not exactly fond of Riley, due to her experiments on Scout. He does however do his best to be kind to her and help Daisy convince her to take the right actions

He eats bugs. I'm not kidding

He uses bugs in the food he makes (only for himself though). It's part of some sort of craving for smaller animals/bugs/fish from whatever he was combined with

He doesn't know what the extinct species was, and he may never. Probably not since his own dimension where they were was destroyed

So he can only guess, estimate and hope.

I hope this helped a little bit!! Feel free to send in more asks about this guy, I appreciate anything

(I also give you permission to draw him, if anyone wants too, his refs are somewhere :])

EDIT: ESMERALDA IS AN OC THAT BELONGS TO MY PARTNER IN AU CRIME, @silent-bull !!! IMSOSORRY

[thissliceofnonsense]

So originally I wanted to see if I could write season three of rottmnt myself...

Based on fandom ideas mostly. There is so many interesting fanfictions and AUs that I thought I could take bits and pieces from the fandom and write a season three.

(I really wanted to participate in the fandom somehow because I was in an apathy spiral at the time of seeing rottmnt and I've never had an obsession for this long. It's the reason my world isn't so monochromatic anymore and I owe it a lot. )

What ended up happening is that I looked at all the fandom ideas and deleted episodes and thought "What if I wrote a 'fandom version' of rottmnt, with a season for each of the turtles?'

Because Mikey could get his own season with more Mikey-centric episodes because a lot of his got cut. Also also he could have a character arc surrounding how he is the most powerful mystic user out of the four. He also has the most powerful and changing emotions, and I can speak from experience in saying that emotions are extremely difficult to control. Plus, if one were to make the first season Mikey-centric then as soon as he figured out that Baron Draxum was 'family' then he would start the whole 'You're actually a good person' thing and Baron Draxum is just annoyed. That could factor into his characterization that he tries to keep everyone together even if it makes him upset. I think I could also include the "the turtles were made to be destruction machines and bring havoc upon humans" because I feel like being told your purpose is to destroy things would hurt a lot, especially to Mikey because his favorite thing is to create. *The possibilities*

Donnie would get season two, and perhaps everyone else (especially Mikey) is using Mystic powers to do all sorts of things - actively replacing his tech. I would place the "Donnie's gifts" episode here instead, with the changes that they don't use his gifts correctly despite all the time he spent on them + replaces them with mystic powers. This sends Donnie down a spiral where he tries to figure out how mystic powers work scientifically - probably how he found the library - and it leads him to consoling in Baron Draxum. Here is where all of the separation AUs play in, because Donnie gets validation from a parental figure + someone he can do science with without being told that it just messes things up. I imagine that this season centers around Donnie's thinking that the others care more about what he can do for them - his tech - than Donnie himself. And Baron Draxum - while being validating - is still furthering that thinking. (Perhaps something from 'Like father, Like Son' here where Draxum mentions that he only created Donnie out of curiosity and Donnie thinks that this is confirmation that the only thing that matters is his tech, basically turning his own special interest against him. Which... ouch.) This would lead into the 'Witch Town' episode where the others tell Donnie that what matters is him, not his tech. (I also think it would be nice for him to make tech that utilizes mystic powers for now, then he would be able to make tech with mystic powers later).

(Also also I'm obsessed with backstory so I think it would be fun to include backstory episodes where all of the misbeliefs came from + turtle tot episodes. I saw from a Pinterest post that Raph might have gotten kidnapped when he was younger - Leo might have been there- hence why he was so protective of Mikey.)

Leo would get season three, which would be basically the movie + bits and bobs from Cass's apocalypse series from @somerandomdudelmao (Which I've been obsessed with.) Because I feel like if Leo understood the gravity of what his mistakes caused (the world he destroyed), then his "I'm useless" way of thinking would devolve into "they are better off without me". And I think turning the movie into a season instead would allow for more Casey Jr. backstory and some fun with the prison dimension. I've seen some animatics and ideas floating around where Leo would have some consequences of staying in the Prison Dimension (in addition to almost dying.), mostly in the form of having the Krang infect his head - in a final attempt to escape - , and he has to fight against his own thoughts and eventually defeat the Krang (I haven't thought about this one a lot but I imagine it would have a lot of 'here's the aftermath')

Raph would get season four, which would be the Shredder, Karai (I think that's how you spell her name) and the foot clan, because Karai really needed at least a few episodes before killing her off. I imagine she would go on a "field trip" (Zuko style) with each of the turtles + April while trying to get the pieces for the shredder's armor. They would also learn about their family legacy bit by bit + the nimpo thing. Since Leo is the leader now, Raph would probably go all out in a "protective older sibling" mode, and every time they lose to the shredder he blames it on himself. They lose their home and Karai dies. And I think a few extra episodes to how they deal with the loss and how they keep losing to the shredder. (Maybe they go to April or Draxum's house for a bit??) Perhaps Raph pushes himself too far and (if I remember correctly) April - as Karai - tells Raph that he is trying his best because he loves his family and that's what matters. Overall I think the finale episodes just needed a bit extra time to fully develop.

This is still a bunch of really messy ideas and I think I would have to reread a few fanfics and rewatch the series, but it would be fun to try this out I think.

[gaywriting]

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice & Virtue book review

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice & Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (2017)

⭐️⭐️⭐️✖️✖️

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go courting trouble, is all.” “We’re not courting trouble,” I say. “Flirting with it, at most.”

this book was given to me by a friend for a birthday gift years ago. i didn't get around to finishing it until July this year. i didn't think i had a lot to say about it, but this is the longest review ive made so far :P

the story follows Henry "Monty" Montague, who were born as his father's heir to the family lordship in 1700s England. Monty struggles with himself and his relationship to his abusive father, who expects him to be the perfect son, and so Monty often seeks escape in life’s easy pleasures. The only person he holds dear is his childhood friend Percy, who he is completely in love with. One summer Monty manages to convince his father to sponsor a Grand Tour around Europe. Monty is excited to spend time with Percy, while Percy is happy to be distracted from the troubles in his life. Oh, and Monty’s sister Felicity is there as well.

this book was lovely! i feel like if i had read this book when i was younger i would have completely lost my mind about it, but alas i am now an old judgemental grandma and so there were some things that didn't impress me too much, which ill speak a little about, but all in all it was a fun book, with the my fav kind of main character (V Chaotic Bisexual) and some fun adventures and interesting plotpoints. i might have gone into it thinking it was a different kind of story (mostly historical and a little vague pinning towards Percy - that's not what we got) but that's on me and tbh you'll never hear me complaining that stuff's too focused on the romance. though i feel like they tried at one point to justify everything with some sort of explainy science, which just made things a little silly in my opinion. the relationship between Monty and Percy was Very cute and there were moments that were super satisfying and lovely to read. however some things that were being said and done that just didn't sit right with me. it's hard to explain properly, since i see where Percy comes from and if this was real life i wouldn't fault him for flipping his shit over Monty's stupid antics, but this is a romance book. And i couldn't help but feel like maybe Percy were being a bit unfairly cruel and mistrusting of Monty in some parts of his points during their arguments. Monty deserved to be called out for his actions but he's also a person who are in an abused living situation and his bad way of behaving were his own way of surviving. it needs to be addressed, and i'm glad it was, but i think it needed to be done with more thought, than just Percy saying cruel untrue things to him. these idiot boys and their horrible communication skills.....

" "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because you're a wreck! Complete shambles. I've spent years chasing you around, making certain you didn't drink yourself to death or pass out in a gutter (...) you've not been yourself. Not for a while. And I couldn't have you making this worse. I'm sorry, I just couldn't." "But you didn't even give me a chance," "(p. 161) wish i could quote this whole argument, i feel like it shows my point really well

"I can't quite wrap my head around this strange reversal between us, because it is always Percy who is the sensible one and me with the feverish notions. But here he is, proposing we run away together with nothing but each other like some sort of star-crossed pair in a broadside ballet, and while my heart is ready to burst for loving him, love is not a thing you can survive on." (p. 429)

idk i do love them both and them growing to figuring out how to open up about their feelings to each other and trust each other were lovely to experience, but i also were kinda more on Monty's side on most of the arguments and i really don't think he deserved That Much shit, like he fucked up a lot but he did it sexily and handsomely so i for one forgive and forget easily. at the end when Percy apologise and Monty tells him he doesn't have anything to be sorry for i sat there like :/ he does tho... honestly i shipped Monty more with the pirate captain Scipio they befriend than with Percy. Scipio, despite his weird name and occupation, were so nice to Monty and so encouraging for him to be a better person AS WELL AS being true to himself. I read The Gentlemans Guide to Getting Lucky (won't be making a whole review on that...) and in that Mackenzi Lee specified that Monty apparently thought of Scipio as a father figure. that shouldn't be a surprise reveal i think, like that should be made obvious through dialog in the actual book.

also "abso-bloody-lutely" is used several times amd doesn't make any sense and brought me completely out of it i hate it

i didn’t dislike this book, i found the romance-y bits absolutely adorable, and Monty is my all time fav kind of character. Mackenzi Lee manages to bring the reader along a crazy adventure around the beautiful places of Europe with amazing characters and with a brilliant sense of humor. and that is why i have bought the second book, that’s Felicity’s story (helps that it's wlw), and ill get around to reading that at some point. i know there’s a third book following the Goblin as well, but we’ll see how i feel about the second book.

[blackenedwhite97]

Coming Out [Poly! Erasermic x {Fem}Reader]

Hello! this was a requested fic from like before Christmas. I'M A MESS I KNOW I'M SORRY! I’ll be catching up at some point, I'm in my final sem at uni and have MAJOR senioritis. Me no do unless me have to. Instead, now I just spend my time staring at the existential abyss the threatens to swallow my ceiling and think about everything I'm procrastinating. But I digress...

Content Warning: This story is of a negative experience coming out as poly to your family, this deals with rejection from the reader's mother, father, and a grandparent. This story demonstrates Homophobia, xenophobia, traditionalist and conservative values and attitudes and may be triggering to some folks.

This story includes a Polyamorous relationship

Polyamory: the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.

Word Count: 3.7 K (A baby story)

Y/N --- 4:06pm

Hey can my roomates come to dinner?

DAD --- 4:06

You mean the gays?

Y/M --- 4:08

Please don’t call them that. Neither of them are gay anyways, there’s more than just gay or straight.

DAD --- 4:10

Yeah whatever. Let your mom decide.

MOM --- 5:12

Sure, they can come.

Mom --- 5:23

Gma might be coming dinner tho. Maybe talk to them?

That conversation should have been enough of a warning for how the evening was going to transpire. At news of your grandmother attending dinner, you panicked and tried to back out of your plans. You had been growing steadily farther apart from your parents anyways, barely seeing them more that once a year if that. It’s not like they didn’t have their suspicions anyways, to them you were a single woman living in the big city sharing an apartment with two gay men. Not that they’d ever been to the apartment. If they had they might have notice that one of the two “bedrooms” was being used as an office. Earlier on in the relationship you were so deeply uncomfortable being around your parents alone, that you had Shouta come with you every visit because you were so paranoid you were just going to come out on the spot.

At first your parents were sure that you and Shouta were together. He had subconsciously cleaned up quite nice the first few times he met your parents anyways, wanting to make a good impression on them if you finally did tell them about your polyamorous relationship. Then as time went on you got busier and started to see them less. Shouta’s parents lived in the suburbs and you saw them on holidays, plus Shouta had come out to them as being bisexual a long time ago and hadn’t felt much pressure to hide the polyamorous nature of your relationship to begin with. Hizashi’s mom was still a city dweller in her 60’s and on top of doing the cute mom things like baking fantastic cookies and handing down family jewelry to the daughter in law, she’d also taken Hizashi and Shouta to their first pride in Tokyo and had an in-home recording studio where she recorded for local punk bands. She was, quite literally, a cool mom.

You gnawed vigorously at your thumbnail, not quiet biting the whole way through, instead riddling it with dents and cracks. Chewing your nails wasn’t a habit you’d always had, it became a sort of silent worry thing you started to do when you got to your agency and had to remain still and quiet during briefings, no matter how terrible the news was. Your ruined nail beds were an atrocity to Hizashi, who had paid several times for you to get a manicure to get your nails short and evenly trimmed so you could manage them on your own. You still somehow found a way to gnaw on the short squared off nubs of your nails though, and it drove him nuts. Shouta cared less, his hands were in ridiculous shape, he was callused and bruised, cracked and flaking all over the place and Hizashi would regularly force moisturizer on them. Shouta cared more about figure out the root stress, it’s not that Hizashi didn’t, he just didn’t know how to, so he settled for pampering you.

“It’s dead.” Hizashi huffed from the bedroom door. “Obliterated, actually.”

“Hmm?” You looked up from your phone, you hadn’t been reading any of the messages in the chat for a good few minutes and just let your eyes unfocus instead. You yanked your thumb from your mouth and hid it below the table like a child caught with a sweet they’d snuck from the kitchen before dinner, you knew he saw.

“Your nail.” Hizashi gently patted the end of his hair with his special fluffy towel that he’d convinced you and Shouta he needed to control his frizz (which he didn’t have) and padded towards the kitchen table where you sat. He placed a kiss on the top of your head as he strode around you.

“What’s up, love?” he murmured softly, leaning against the table next you. One of his legs propped up on the chair to your right and leaned down to look at your phone screen.

“This is going to go horribly.” You breathed, panicked as you set your phone down on the table.

“You don’t know that.” Hizashi looked back up at you and smiled sweetly.

“Not everyone’s mom is a cool rocker lady in her 60’s who lives in the heart of downtown still and is fully supportive of her child’s bisexual polyamorous relationship with their childhood best friend and an ex-small-town girl with an ultra-conservative family.” You huffed out in one long breath.

“That was oddly specific.” He chuckled softly. “What about Sho’s parents, they’re conservative?”

“Yeah, but his parents are at least polite and send us both Christmas gifts every year and keep any and all of their shittier opinions to themselves because they want their son to be happy.” You groaned dramatically, dropping your head onto his thigh, using the extra meat to muffle the noise.

“Y-your-” Hizashi’s leg twitched from the vibrations of your groan. “Your parents want you to be happy too, Y/n.”

You groaned into his thigh, trying to explain the difference between your parent’s and Shouta’s. Hizashi laughed and gently grabbed the side of your face, lifting it so you were no longer muffled by his leg.

“Try again.” He instructed.

“They only want me to be happy if it fits into their rigid frame of what acceptable happiness looks like.” You explained again.

“Hey,” Hizashi ran his thumb back and forth across your cheek, “have faith, baby. They’re your family, they love you.”

If only he’d been right.

Shouta was the know it all, the one that way always right. Hizashi on the other hand was quiet used to being the one that was not always right, he had no hubris about his intelligence what-so-ever. So much so that sometimes you and Shouta had to remind him that he was intelligent and offered a lot of knowledge and wisdom in many many ways: public speaking, social relationships, radio scripting, he spoke two languages fluently as well. However, this one-time Hizashi wished dearly that he had been right, that he was an insufferable know it all who never got it wrong. It was a different twisted feeling in his gut, sitting the back seat watching you try to keep it together in the front seat, than the usual mild embarrassment that faded after a couple of minutes when he was wrong about something. That was damn near luxurious compared to the painful knot tearing into his stomach.

The silence in the car was so dense and absolute that it almost physically gagged Hizashi and Shouta, the two of them were too afraid to say anything and break it. It felt as though the heavy silence was keeping you from breaking, as if it were applying enough pressure at all sides to keep the thin veneer of composure you were managing together. You felt it too, along with the heavy weight that was nearly crushing your chest, the thick doughy lump clogging your throat and the tremble in your lips. You took a deep breath, it getting caught halfway and freezing in to an unrealized sob that you pushed down.

Shouta huffed and pulled off to the side of the dark country road, slowing into the gravelly shoulder. He turned in his seat to face you, undoing his seat belt so he could fully turn his body. You kept your eyes out the window, trying with all your might not to let the tears that clouded your eyes to fall. You knew you’d need to cry about this, about your parents and their conditional love. You knew that this was something you would need to deal with, but you didn’t want to at this moment. You wanted to go home, take some sleeping medication and go to sleep, you wanted to wait until the open wound in your chest had stopped bleeding to begin treating it.

Your father was being facetious about your living arrangement as usual, whenever he was faced with Shouta and Hizashi his first reaction was to constantly point out that fact that you were a woman living with two men and that if they weren’t gay that one of them should have married you by now. Shouta and Hizashi had taken these comments like water rolling off of a duck’s back, Hizashi even grinned and mumbled something about your father tempting him. You could have kept your mouth shut, you could have kept your cool but Shouta’s hand was brushing against your thigh and you felt it tense into an annoyed fist. Something about Shouta’s minimal reaction lit a fire in you, more like an explosion. It was a surge of very sudden and very ferocious courage that lasted a split second and no longer. You’d practically shouted it, the ringing in your ears drowning whatever words you’d used out.

You were met with complete and utter silence, shock and fear thick in the air. You’d almost believed for a moment that you hadn’t done it, that you’d just shouted randomly and just scared everyone. But then your dad stood up, his shocked open mouth flattening out into a hard straight line, this jaw swelling as he clenched it.

“W-what?” he growled, stepping back from the table as if you were a threat.

You were ready to backtrack, you were so ready to just laugh and pretend you were fucking with him. But you spared a glance to Shouta and Hizashi, their faces pale and guilty. They, regardless of what you could say in an attempt to cover up what you’d just said, were basically admitting to it already. You instinctively shrunk back into your chair like you’d do when you were younger at the dinner table whenever something uncomfortable would come up. You could tell everyone was at a loss for words, the difference was that you were scared and at a loss for words, Shouta and Hizashi were shocked and at a loss for words and your father was steaming angry and at a loss for words.

Your mother, who had always been the least confrontational of the two turned away from you and almost in a show of disgust immediately went to comfort your grandmother. It was as if you were an afront to goodness, an act of moral atrocity being committed in front of them. Your father began to barrage you with passive aggressive questions and accusations towards Shouta and Hizashi. He was trying to understand while at the same time refusing to give you a chance to explain. You stopped listening after the first few sentences that came out of his mouth, falling back into an internal monologue filled with regret. He must have said something exceptionally terrible because in an instant Shouta was standing, his arm reaching out to separate you from him and he was shouting. Shouta never shouted, he barely voiced any form of annoyance or frustration in general when it wasn’t a learning moment for his students, but here he was on his feet volleying harsh word with your father.

Hizashi, you realized was attempting damage control, his hands raised and his voice lower than either of the other two men’s. You blinked back into the present, as noise filled your ears, you mother was crying, your father and Shouta were shouting and Hizashi was rambling panicked. You took a couple of deep breaths and stood up on shaky legs, gripping Shouta’s protective arm for support, and looked your father in the eyes. He faltered at the direct eye contact and you saw an opening where there was less shouting to contend with.

“Stop,” you hissed through gritted teeth. “this is why I never wanted to tell you! Why I was perfectly okay with living away from you guys for the rest- This is why I haven’t been home.”

Your mother gasped a ragged, tear-filled breath. She’d expressed before that she’d wished she could see you more often, that she’s noticed you’d been coming home less and less. You’d been good at covering it up, saying you were busy with work and simply couldn’t get the time off. You knew that what you’d just said hurt her, not in the way it should have. It hurt her because you’d just told them it was their fault that you felt unwelcomed here and not because you were afraid of your own parents.

“How long?” she breathed.

“Three years.” You sniffed, hand tightening around Shouta’s wrist.

“THREE?! THR-” your father bellowed in disbelief. “For three years they’ve been brainwashing and forcing themselves on you?!”

Suddenly you understood why Shouta had leapt up, you had just now caught up with the conversation. Red hot anger flared up in your chest, the mere insinuation that you were being forced in anyway to be with your partners filled you with utter rage.

“No!” You growled, for the first time in your life matching your father’s volume. “For three years they’ve been by my side, showing up at the hospital when I got hurt at work, celebrating my promotions at the agency, helping me make a home that I feel safe in and actually fucking caring about me!”

There was silence again, this one was thin but not light in anyway, like it was a delicate thread barely holding a great weight from falling and crushing you.

“We care for you.” You mother said darkly.

“No,” you swallowed hard, “you haven’t for a long time.”

“Get out.” You father growled.

Hizashi was already moving, grabbing your coats from the back of the chairs and pulling Shouta by the arm away from the table. It took you a good long second to move, even then it was because Shouta latched onto your shoulders and Hizashi tugged him along.

“I’m sorry.” Shouta whispered, his hand finding yours in your lap. You kept your eyes focused out the window at the pitch-black fields with barely visible for off golden dots of light. You couldn’t talk.

You heard Hizashi shuffling around in the back seat, scooting closer to you and his hand joined Shouta’s, pulling up onto the storage compartment between the seats. It was cracking, that veneer.

“It’s not your fault.” Hizashi murmured.

You sniffed hard, biting int you bottom lip. Of course, it wasn’t your fault that your parents didn’t accept you, that you weren’t good enough or right for them, that you weren’t on par with the apparent morality of the rest of the family. It wasn’t your fault that they were backwards people with terrible ideas of how a person should be. It still didn’t hurt any less that you couldn’t meet those backwards ideals, that you couldn’t be the right kind of person for them.

“Y/n,” Shouta whispered, gently grabbing your chin and turning your face towards them.

They were looking at you the way a mother looks at her crying baby in the first few months, the desperate need to connect and nurture glowing in their eyes. They were filled with worry, with pity, with understanding but also, with fear. No doubt, what had just happened had been traumatic for them too. Looking into their emotion filled eyes you felt that veneer shatter, falling away and unleashing that mournful sobbing that had been trapped inside.

Shouta pulled you towards him, holding you firmly to his chest placing his head atop yours. You vaguely felt Hizashi disappear from you for a moment, but you were too preoccupied with the trembling muscles seizing violently in your chest. Then you felt him sliding in behind you, only now realizing he’d stepped out of the car and slide in through your door as he shut it behind him. He draped himself over you rubbing circles into your back.

“It’s not your fault.” He murmured into your hair over and over again.

At first you didn’t really focus on it, thinking it idle words of comfort but the more he said the more it sunk in. The more your realized that you were holding onto the hope that there was something about this, about you, that you could fix. With every repetition of those four words that false hope chipped away and that heavy weight in your chest began to fall away. It was still painful, it still felt like you had a pen festering wound that you’d never fully heal from, but it also felt lighter. It felt as though a burden you’d believed was yours to bear was suddenly the responsibility of the many.

“You don’t have to change,” Shouta whispered softly as your sobs ebbed into weak beaths, “they do.”

That reignited some tears, to hear what you needed to said so plainly. Shouta was good at that, putting those intangible thoughts and feelings into plain words. You cried until the tears and the worry and the late hour caught up with you, until your head felt heavy and waterlogged and you slumped backwards into Hizashi sniffing. You cried until your wavering breaths evened out and your tired mind fell to silence. Hizashi pulled you into his lap and cradled you against him like a parent holding and oversized child, running his hand slowly through your hair.

When you awoke you were swaddled thoroughly with the fuzzy blanket from the couch Shouta hated because it shed and sandwiched between the two men who snored away. As you blinked in the early morning light that just barely peaked through the blinds you noticed the red rims around Hizashi’s eyes and deep-set circles under Shouta’s as if they both been awake all night. Shouta was still in his dress shirt and Hizashi had stripped down to his boxers and pulled his hair back into a sloppy bun. Neither were properly snoring which told they hadn’t been asleep for very long.

You tried to ignore what had happened last night, what had led to the heavy feeling in your head and crusty dry eyes and tight cheeks. You tried to pretend that they had stayed up for work, that they you had swaddled yourself up in the blanket nor because you were sad but because you just wanted to be cozy. Then you heard a phone vibrate on the nightstand and any and all work towards denial washed away as you dreaded checking it. It could just be a work thing, it could be Hizashi’s phone even though he’d never had it on silent even once since you’ve known him. It could have been Shouta’s vibrating against the wooden table even though you could see his slightly peeking out of his back pocket.

You sighed and sat up, daring the smallest of glances at the nightstand. It was your phone screen that was lit up, several notifications on the screen. You groaned and laid back down, scrunching your eyes shut begging for sleep to suddenly and miraculously take you. It buzzed again and you huffed. Fine. You’ll check it. I guess someone could be dying. I do stop that from happening for a living.

You very cautiously crawled over Hizashi and reached to get your phone, electing not to look at it until you settled back between your boys. You scrolled though your notifications, weather, news, a work email, a second email from a contact that made your blood run cold and three missed calls and two answering machine messages from the same contact. Grandma. Your hands trembled at you unlocked your phone and typed int your voicemail password. You held the phone up to you ear and listen to the first message which was more or less just some frustrated grandma noises and mumbles about the inconvenience of technology, followed briefly by a set of hellos. If you hadn’t been ready to shit yourself, you’d have laughed. Then the second played and you had to take a deep breath to hold yourself together enough to keep listening.

“Hello? Hello? Y/n? Oh shi- well this is just ridiculous. Y/n, I don’t know if you can hear me, or maybe this is your answering machine, I don’t know I can’t hear too well but-” her soft worn voice said into the phone, “I want you to know that I love you. Your parents love you too, even if they did not act like it tonight.”

She paused and your eyes welled up with tears, a lump forming in your throat. It was this strange feeling of pure sadness but also happiness and relief.

“Those boys,” she continued, “probably would have killed your father last night if they had the chance. I’m not saying I get it, but they sure do love you, sweetheart. I quite like the blond one he is very-”

The message cut off and the automated voice asked you what you wanted to do with the message. All you could do was laugh, laugh and cry. You were still sad, still in pain, but it was already starting to feel less life-ending.

“Hey,” Shouta mumbled blearily, “S’okay. I’m here.”

He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you close, trying to pull himself from sleep. You hugged him back and massaged the back of his scalp gently.

“Listen to this.” You sniffed.

He nodded and you pressed repeat, listening to the whole second message through again. You watched as a smile spread across his sleepy lips and he laughed softly. He pouted suddenly when it ended, his eyebrows pulling together as much as his drowsy state would let them.

“What?” you asked, worried he’d heard something you‘d missed.

“Why does she like Zash more?” he grumbled, barely awake now.

You smiled and curled into him, electing not to answer knowing that he wouldn’t like being told that Hizashi is more sociable than him. Besides, you smiled to yourself, he’d be asleep in a matter of seconds.

You were still hurt; you still had that big open wound in your chest. But with Shouta and Hizashi at your side you knew you’d heal; you knew they’d give you anything you needed. You knew that your grandmother was right, that these two boys loved you very much.

[shinidamachu]

I need some Inuyasha as a great father (more like DILF, amirite?) headcanons, can you help me out?

I'm here to serve!

• It isn’t until they’re happily married for at least one or two years that the possibility of children are brought up.

• At first, they took that time to relearn each other, enjoy their company and make the honeymoon phase last a little long. They did spend three years apart, after all. There’s so much time to make up for, so many catching up to do before they’d even think to throw a kid into the mix. Plus, being a modern woman, Kagome would know how to avoid pregnancy the best her new circumstances allowed and how important that time alone is for a newly-married couple.

• They never actually had the child talk because Kagome just assumed that’s where their relationship would naturally lead to, given her motherly tendencies and Inuyasha’s history of ultimately giving her everything she wants. For his part, Inuyasha knew she wanted to be a mother someday and he'd be lying if he said he never indulged the fantasy of fathering her children. However, he has serious trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that, in reality, Kagome would still be up for it if he were to be the father. He could never dare to ask of her more than she has already given him. Be that as it may, it was not a big deal because it was not a dealbreaker. Nothing was.

• But with time, Kagome would have noticed how good Inuyasha is with Hisui and the Mirsan twins. How his relationship with Shippo had developed from a sibling banter to a makeshift paternal relationship. How people like Shiori and Bunza would look up to him like he was some kind of movie hero. How every kid in the village seemed to adore him despite his grumpy demeanor.

• And Inuyasha would have noticed the way Kagome would look at him whenever he so much as interacted with a child, the way her smell would spike significantly.

• She, of course, was the one to make the first move, jumping him one night, after they had spend the whole day stuck with babysitting the Mirsan children and popping the question.

• Inuyasha was relutant. There was a part of him that was adamant on making her happy and even believed having babies would make him happy too. On the other hand, he was terrified. Terrified of how her body would react to childbirth, of if her spiritual powers would accept his demonic energy. But mostly, about what would happen once the baby was born. The last thing he wanted was for Kagome to go through everything his mother had to go through. Or for another kid to face the same prejudice he did. Besides, he grew up with no father figure whose steps he could follow. He didn’t know how to be a father.

• Kagome assures him that they won’t have a baby until they’re both ready and on the same page, that they have time and that Inuyasha will be a great father.

• Inuyasha believes her.

• Then it is him felling some type of way whenever he sees Kagome around kids. And something deep inside desperately wishes to find out what would their children look like, what would it be like to hold and take care of someone born from their love.

• Finally, he caves.

• Inuyasha wants a big family, considering how lonely his childhood was. Kagome finds it pivotal for their first-born to have a sibling, since she had Sota and their relationship was one of the most important things in her life. That’s why they’d have two children minimum, preferably a boy and a girl. However, giving how dangerous and uncomfortable childbirth can be, especially without the perks the modern era provides, I don’t think they’d have more than three.

• Naturally, Inuyasha relies on Miroku for advice and the latter is more helpful than not. Except for the times Inuyasha asks or says something that makes it way too easy for Miroku to mess with him. Like the time he told Inuyasha that if he doesn’t get Kagome whatever food she craves while pregnant, the baby will be born looking exactly like that food. And Inuyasha believed him.

• And if you thought Inuyasha was protective of Kagome before... oh boy! He’d be almost overbearing, but Kagome would see it as endearing. Most of the time. Sometimes, though, a woman has got to have her privacy. He also becomes more attentive, more gentle, sweeter.

• After their first child is born, Inuyasha gets a makeover of sorts. He’s always borrowing the Fire Rat to Kagome and the baby anyway, so he figured it’d be more practical to just pass the clothes on to them already and get something new for himself.

• It’s white.

• Inuyasha becomes taller, stronger. And often lets Kagome experiment with his hair with braids, top nots... and ponytails.

• Old Myoga is the first one to notice the resemblance. And it’s true. He’s the spitting image of Toga. Former enemies and allies often mistaken him for Toga and Kagome thinks the look on their (and Inuyasha’s) face is hilarious.

• Sesshoumaru does not care for it (I stole this one from @heavenin--hell).

• Inuyasha hates his human nights even more because now his vulnerability also means he might not be able to protect his family as he usually would (Together Changed by @goshinote and @lostinfantasyworlds inspired this one). Plus, the black hair and lack of dog ears confuses the baby, who cries and fusses for a good while until realizing it is, in fact, Inuyasha holding them (this one I saw in an adorable fanart I can’t find).

• But since he needs way less sleeping than humans and he spends the New Moons up anyway, Inuyasha gets a lot of quality time with their infant at night, which allows Kagome to actually get a good night sleep unless the baby is hungry.

• The Beads of Subjugation get dooled and chewed on. A lot.

• A little contest takes place between Kagome and Inuyasha about what the first word of their first child would be, with Kagome going for “dada” and Inuyasha going for “mama.”

• Kagome wins.

• Inuyasha’s fighting style changes. He still says some snarky remarks, but now it’s more to push his opponent‘s buttons down so they would get sloppy than anything else. After all, he has a child to think about and provide for now. He doesn’t have the luxury of gambling with his life anymore. He has a home to come back to and therefore won’t be taking any chances (credit to @born-for-eachother for this one).

• And so he becomes more lethal on the battle field. Pragmatic. Objective. Calculating. Decisive. Cold blooded. Much like... Sesshomaru.

• He had never been more offended on his life than the day Sango pointed this out to him.

• When the kids grow up a bit, Inuyasha and Kagome start to tell them bedtime stories, with the PG version of the story about how the met and defeated Naraku being their favorite.

• Kagome tries to be a reliable and calm narrator while Inuyasha exaggerates the events and the voices, almost always breaking objects of their house in the process.

• After hearing one too many times about the Beads of Subjugation, their child tries to “sit” Inuyasha. Of course it doesn’t work, but he still makes a big deal out of throwing himself on the ground every time they say the word just to hear them laugh.

• The first actual toy Inuyasha buys them is a ball, just like the one he had as a kid, at the same time accomplishing a childhood wish through them and ensuring that they would always have someone to play with.

• Kagome is more protective of their physical state while Inuyasha is more protective of their emotional one (see Fist Fight by @omgitscharlie)

• Inuyasha goes to Totosai and asks him to make a weapon out of one of his fangs to each of their children once they get old enough for it. Not necessarily a sword, just something of their choice and that better fits their personality.

• He would be a just father, doing his best to show no favoritism, treat his children equally and make sure no one felt overlooked or unloved.

• But truth be told, if one of their babies turn out to be a daughter, he would definitelly let her get away with almost anything, no matter how much of a gremlin she is. Daddy’s little girl would have him wrapped around her tiny fingers.

• Life never treated Inuyasha kindly. From a very young age, it was kill or be killed. It wouldn't be too far off for him to think the exact same thing could happen with his kids, therefore he tries to prepare them, to tough them up so they can take it.

• And I believe this sentiment would be significantly amplified with a son, because it would involve the whole “suck it up”, “men don’t cry” and “man of the house” aspect of it. The “it is your duty to protect your mother and sister when I’m gone” too, especially because he couldn’t protect Izayoi himself.

• It’s “tough love”, but it’s love nonetheless. And in the right dose, which I believe Inuyasha manages to nail, it can be very important for one’s development and growth.

• But it’s hard to imagine him being as tough with a daughter. Probably because he sees so much of Kagome on her that the mere idea of seeing her cry simply breaks him.

• Kagome would actually have to step in when it comes to disciplining and saying “no”, because he simply wouldn’t have it in him to do so.

There’s actually a really nice post by @keichanz I reblogged a while ago discussing precisely that, but I can’t find it to save my life (should I start to properly tag my reblogs? No, it’s a lot of work and I’m right not to).

Anyway, that’s all I got for now.

Peace out.

[twinterrors29]

the surprising part is how long it takes him to notice

it’s not until years after his death that Obi-Wan realized that the other Force ghosts were not quite as...tangible, as he is; they got ‘tired’, and weren’t ‘present’ all the time the way he was

Obi-Wan wrote it off as some quirk of his connection to the Force, some difference in his training compared to the others

but Anakin, for all his power, could only show himself to Luke, briefly and without voice

Yoda, for all his years of preparation, beginning even before teaching Obi-Wan himself and extending after his death, cannot interact with the physical world, and yet Obi-Wan has always been able to sit on real surfaces and touch the living at will

not to mention Qui-Gon, who can only ever manifest as a disembodied voice, and even that only rarely, and exclusively to Yoda, Anakin, and Obi-Wan

that belief was shattered by an accidental encounter after the Battle of Endor

Captain Rex (who was still refusing to accept his well-deserved promotion to Commander) wasn’t the least bit Force-sensitive, and by all rights shouldn’t have even been able to see him

after all, none of the other clones he’d sought out over the years since his death reacted to his presence, although he couldn’t bear to visit any of them more than the once

and yet

“shoulda known the rumors of your death were exaggerated, huh,” Rex had muttered, walking up to deliver a slap to his surprisingly-solid shoulder

they awkwardly, but happily, chatted about Rex’s ongoing efforts to track down his surviving brothers for a few minutes before he got called away, leaving Obi-Wan staring after him in disbelief

then he settled in to piece together this new mystery

it’s not like he had much else to do, being dead, and with the Empire largely defeated

and now that he had a purpose to pursue, his ability to interact with the physical realm and non-Force-sensitives came in handy when attempting to research esoteric Force phenomena in a galaxy nearly empty of his own people

first, he drew on dimly recalled memories of a strange incident during the Clone Wars: Mortis, a planet where even Qui-Gon was able to appear, and where he witnessed a series of unusual deaths

with a little digging, he was able to pull up some unexpected references to the three beings he met, the Daughter, the Father, and the Son, in old Jedi legends, and even a reference to Nightsister beliefs regarding the Daughter and Son in particular, but was able to find no reference to others in his state

he found nothing regarding their origins, and little more about their home planet

unable to find Mortis itself again, Obi-Wan instead searched through the remnants of several long-abandoned Dathomiri villages when he was found by a familiar face

“General,” the clone breathed, looking awed

it took a second for Obi-Wan to recognize him; it has been so very, very long, and age had taken it’s toll on his former Commander, but there was no mistaking the curving scar around his left eye

“Cody?”

“I killed you,” Cody looked faint

“no, dear one,” Obi-Wan quickly denied, “you didn’t, and even if you had, it wouldn’t have been your fault”

it took a few more reassurances, but eventually his old friend was willing to accept that he hadn’t, in fact, killed his General

after all, it’s hard to argue that you killed the seemingly-alive and whole man standing in front of you

“you know,” he remarked, sipping at the tea he had made for Obi-Wan, who was politely pretending to be able to drink it, “I probably should have figured it’d be harder to kill you, considering all the stories the men would tell about you”

“oh?” Obi-Wan asked, remembering that Rex had expressed a similar sentiment, “what sorts of stories?”

“that you were some unkillable god of misdirection or something,” he paused for another sip, “all respectful of course, but the rumors had definitely spread back to Kamino before the war ended”

this was news to Obi-Wan, but considering the looks some of the shinies gave him when he welcomed them to the 212th, he could believe it

“they even built these little shrines to you”

“they what”

“yeah,” Cody winced, “I made them take it down whenever I found one, but I know I never found them all”

“speaking of finding,” Obi-Wan seized upon any chance to change the subject, “how long ago did Rex track you down?”

“Rex is alive?” Cody sounded surprised but pleased at this revelation

“ah, I assumed you knew; when I spoke with him recently he mentioned his efforts to find his brothers and remove their chips”

“no, I haven’t seen him since he left for Mandalore back during the war,” he shook his head, “and my chip just stopped working about three years ago”

“just like that?”

“yeah,” Cody squinted, recalling the experience, “I was getting ready to sleep after just another shift on the Devastator, when I felt...”

“felt?” Obi-Wan prompted, feeling an uncomfortable familiarity with the scene Cody was describing from his single visit to his Commander shortly after his own demise on the Death Star

“warm,” Cody eventually decided on, “I felt warm, and by the time the feeling had faded I was myself again”

Obi-Wan expressed his relief to hear about Cody’s awakening, but despite his joy at seeing his Commander safe and mostly happy, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had something to do with Cody’s chip malfunctioning

after eventually parting ways with Cody, who had been sent to explore the slim possibility of starting a settlement on the long-abandoned home of the Nightsisters, Obi-Wan decided to search out the other survivors of the 212th that he had checked in on after his death

somehow, he wasn’t surprised to discover that every one of them was now free of the chips’ control, with no scar on their forehead like Rex’s, and that they were to a man working together to free and organize any of their remaining brothers

and, in each of their ships and bases, he noted, was a loving arrangement of lights and tea bags and plants, all surrounding a still holo of himself

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nie Huaisang is the cutest thing monsters have ever seen, they can be yao dragons or giant turtles one look at nhs and they want to feed hug or kidnapt him nmj trainning involved recovering his baby brother from every monsters nest around qinge

ao3

“I’m sorry,” Nie Mingjue said, his teeth gritted together and his arms shaking from the strain of holding Baxia up. “He’s mine.”

The massive tiger glared down at him over Baxia’s blade, currently stuck in its teeth, and growled something.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said. His legs were shaking now, too. “I know, trust me, I know! I’m human, he’s – young, yes, yes, I know. But he’s my little brother! I’m not giving him up!”

The tiger spat out the blade, knocking Nie Mingjue backwards on his ass.

“And when you change your mind?” the tiger demanded. “Will you abandon him then?”

“No!” Nie Mingjue exclaimed. “Never! He’s my brother!”

“Mark your words,” the tiger said ominously. “Or else.”

It turned and stalked off, its tail waving arrogantly in the air, until its towering white form disappeared into the distance.

Nie Mingjue sighed in relief. “Huaisang?” he called, and a small head popped out of the nest the tiger had started building, blinking owlishly at him. “Come on, come to da-ge. It’s time to go home.”

“But Master Tiger said we were going to play…”

“Yes, well, he wanted to play for too long,” Nie Mingjue said. “Only a few centuries, give or take. Let’s go.”

-

It started back when Nie Huaisang was born.

No, more accurately, it started when Nie Mingjue’s father fell in love with someone he probably oughtn’t have, which according to the sect was not a terribly uncommon problem for him to have, and decided to bring home a bride.

Nie Mingjue could still remember the first time he’d seen the Second Madame Nie. They’d all been lined up to greet her, all the sect and close members of the clan in rows according to rank, Nie Mingjue fidgeting in the inside of the house proper in his first tangle with formal clothing outside of the discussion conferences. She had come sweeping in with her head held as high as a princess, seductive and bewitching.

Every movement had been perfect, the eyes of all the men fogging over in lust and the women in admiration – or visa versa, depending on their personal preferences – and a wicked smile had lit up her face when she had stepped across the threshold, officially becoming the sect leader’s wife, and maybe everything would have gone along with whatever plan she’d had back then if she hadn’t next seen him.

“Oh, look at you,” she exclaimed, rushing over to pinch Nie Mingjue’s cheeks between her hands. “What a delectable little morsel you are!”

“Uh,” Nie Mingjue said, staring up at her with big round somewhat-worried eyes.

“You charming little dumpling,” she said. “You adorable mouthful of meat! Spoonful of egg yolk!”

Nie Mingjue cast his eyes around to see if anyone would be willing to help him.

“My eldest son,” Nie Mingjue’s father said, not without pride – albeit perhaps a puzzled sort of pride. “He’s probably just about old enough to come to the forecourt, if you don’t want him to live with you –”

“Oh no,” she said. “He’s definitely living with me.”

And so she stayed, and Nie Mingjue stayed with her, and she doted on him in a way he found pleasant if mildly disconcerting. Within a year, she was pregnant, and irritated with it; six months after that, she was round and complaining, even though Nie Mingjue solemnly assured her that she was as beautiful as ever.

“This is your fault, you know,” she told him, and he blinked at her. “It is! Don’t get me wrong, your father’s a charming bull when he wants to be, and of course he fucks like a champion stud, but I stayed here for you, my little cabbage roll, my charming chunk of liver.”

She patted her belly.

“That means this here is all because of you. So you’d better take responsibility!”

Nie Mingjue considered the issue for a little. The argument seemed plausible, so he raised his hands and put them on her rounded stomach. “I will take care and watch over him for all my life,” he vowed, and the baby inside kicked his hand in response, sealing the pact.

“Oh you are so cute,” she said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “My darling pork bun! My little fish cake! I could eat you right up, if only you were just a little bit older!”

When Nie Huaisang was born, she disappeared in a welter of blood, but Nie Mingjue’s oath remained.

The trouble started after that.

-

“You can’t raise a cub like that properly,” the winged lion argued, bating its wings as if that would help it make its point better.

Nie Mingjue glared at him. “Watch me!”

“It’s for your own good, little human. He needs his own kind –”

“I’m not listening to a treasure-seeker!”

The lion scowled at him. “I’ll have you know that most humans think I’m good luck!”

“You’re not trying to steal most humans’ little brothers, are you?!”

The winged lion sighed, a deep sound, so very noble and long-suffering that Nie Mingjue couldn’t resist the urge to lift his foot and kick the lion right in the paw.

“Brat!”

“Don’t care!” he shouted. “You leave my brother alone! He’s my responsibility, not yours! Piss off!”

“You can’t even feed him properly -”

“I’ll figure it out!” Nie Mingjue bared his teeth and wished he was old enough for a saber.

“You little…fine. Fine! I’ll bring you a book on how to feed a huli jing kit, and you keep to it, you hear me?”

“I will,” Nie Mingjue said. “But don’t you even think of taking him away!”

“On your own head be it,” the winged lion grumbled. “Not everyone’s as understanding as me.”

-

“Why are you wet?” Nie Mingjue’s father asked him.

“Water monkeys,” Nie Mingjue said shortly. “There was a nest.”

“Water monkeys? Don’t they normally stay away from people…? Or, I suppose, were these ones feral?”

“Thieves.”

“Ah. Well, nothing to be done about it, I suppose…bad luck for you to run into them here, of all places. But good experience! How many people your age can say that they fought water monkeys?”

“Can we go home?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintively, and rubbed his nose. “How much can you really have to say to the Jiang sect, anyway?”

His father chuckled. “More than either of us would like, unfortunately. But if you’ve had enough of water, which no one can blame you for, maybe you and Huaisang can go shopping in the pier instead?”

That would work, Nie Mingjue thought, and nodded happily.

(Sect Leader Jiang was extremely embarrassed about the ghostly rats in the night-market – he claimed they’d never seen neither nose nor tail of them before the Nie brothers had accidentally tripped over their trap and had to flee from the swarm...)

-

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nie-er-gongzi,” the white-clad cultivator from the mountain said, smiling broadly and saluting deeply.

Xiao Xingchen had made himself famous during his first half-dozen night-hunts alone for his extraordinary grace, bearing and strength, and he said he was on a mission to help the world. He was beautiful, virtuous, and matched each ideal of gentlemanly arts.

Sects throughout the cultivation world were drooling at the thought of enticing him to join them, fighting for the opportunity to put in a good word with him.

Not all sects.

Nie Mingjue stepped forward, purposely putting Nie Huaisang behind him.

“Don’t you even think about it,” he said, hand on the hilt of his saber. “Buzz off, birdbrain.”

Xiao Xingchen might wear white, but Nie Mingjue knew a zhuque chick when he saw one.

-

“I found something for my aviary, da-ge!” Nie Huaisang, seven years old and delighted with his clumsy autonomy, announced.

Nie Mingjue, less than a full year into his new role as sect leader, rubbed his eyes. “Oh?” he asked, only somewhat wanting to scream endlessly into the void, which was better than usual. “That’s nice, Huaisang…”

“Come look! It’s so pretty!”

“I’m a bit busy –”

“But da-ge!”

Nie Mingjue sighed and got up, following Nie Huaisang to the door only to come to a complete stop.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said to the fenghuang currently pretending to be a rooster in a cage, as if anyone would actually mistake phoenix flames for regular feathers. “Do you have no dignity left?!”

-

“You can’t adopt the bashe,” Nie Mingjue said to Nie Huaisang, who pouted. “It eats elephants; we’d be broke within three months.”

He turned to the giant python.

“You can’t adopt Huaisang,” he said. “I will literally murder you.”

-

“Why can’t I go watch the eclipse?” Nie Huaisang complained. “Everyone else is going!”

“I’m not risking a tiangou.”

“The…dog that eats the sun? Really, da-ge, is that even real?”

“You know what,” Nie Mingjue said, “you’re grounded just for saying that.”

Nie Huaisang grinned.

-

“Maybe I want to go and live among the qilin!” Nie Huaisang screamed, fourteen and hormonal about it.

“Well you don’t get a choice!” Nie Mingjue bellowed back.

“You’re not my father! I don’t have to listen to what you say!”

“I’m your fucking sect leader and yes you do!”

“I hate you!”

“I don’t care if you hate me! You still aren’t going to go live in a field with some magic pointy deer and that’s final!”

The qilin herd wisely chose to withdraw.

-

“Da-ge,” Jin Guangyao hissed, and Nie Mingjue looked up from his work at him – he hadn’t heard Meng Yao this upset since he’d shoved him into a closet to get him out of way during the whole dangkang boar hunt debacle. “Da-ge, there’s a dragon outside.”

“Again?” Nie Mingjue said, standing up to stretch and feeling oddly unbalanced. They’d just finished another session with the song of Clarity, so he really shouldn’t be feeling like this; he would need to write to Lan Xichen again about his fears that the treatment really wasn’t working. Lan Xichen would probably only say to give it more time, another chance, but still… “Let me go talk to them. Dragons are the worst.”

“No, da-ge, you don’t understand,” Jin Guangyao said. “It’s not a water-serpent or – or even a jiaolong – it’s a dragon.”

“A flood-dragon is a type of dragon,” Nie Mingjue said, following Jin Guangyao outside. “You know that, it’s in the name, what’s the big – oh, I see. It’s a celestial dragon.”

Jin Guangyao glared at him with an expression suggesting that he was under-reacting, but Nie Mingjue really didn’t have the capacity in him to reach with appropriate fervor at the moment. He and Nie Huaisang had been fighting a lot recently, every little thing escalating into a giant argument, and he was no longer sure if he was doing the right thing in trying to force Nie Huaisang onto the path of his ancestors. After all, unlike Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang had – somewhat different ancestors, on his maternal side.

And, he supposed, Nie Huaisang was old enough to decide otherwise, if he truly wished…

Still, Nie Mingjue was as stubborn as a mule and had no intention of giving up his baby brother without a fight, so he braced himself and went over to the frankly massive creature draped over the entrance gateway and much of the training yard that the entirety of the Nie sect was doing its utmost best to pretend that they weren’t seeing.

Nie Huaisang was sitting on the thing’s five claws – an imperial celestial dragon, apparently – because of course he was.

“Excuse me,” Nie Mingjue called up to the dragon, which turned its head to regard him, an entire production that took nearly a quarter ké to accomplish. “The brat there is mine, please return him.”

“Da-ge!” Jin Guangyao hissed again, but Nie Mingjue waved him away.

“You have raised him well,” the dragon said, which was…a good deal nicer than most of these interactions usually went.

“…thanks?” Nie Mingjue said suspiciously, ignoring Jin Guangyao’s splutters of “It talks?!” “I think?”

“I have chosen to grant you a boon,” the dragon announced.

“…right,” Nie Mingjue said. “If this ‘boon’ is that you’ll take him off my hands, I’m afraid I’m going to have to refuse. He may be trouble, but he’s still my brother.”

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, indignant. “Don’t be rude. I asked him for this!”

Nie Mingjue frowned at him, unable to resist the feeling of hurt even though he’d already told himself to expect something like this. “…you want to leave?”

“No, da-ge, don’t be ridiculous. I asked him to improve your health!”

Ah.

“Huaisang –” he started to say.

“Don’t you ‘Huaisang’ me!” his little brother shouted. “I know you’re trying to hide it, but it’s getting worse, isn’t it? San-ge told me so! He said I should get ready!”

Nie Mingjue made a mental note to strangle Jin Guangyao, who had no right to say something like that to Nie Huaisang even if maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world to emotionally prepare Nie Huaisang for the upcoming bereavement and inheritance he would need to face.

“Anyway, he said to get ready, so I did!”

“You can’t just ask a divine dragon to fix me, Huaisang. That’s not how this works.”

“Uh, it totally does, and I did, and he agreed. So there!”

Nie Mingjue crossed his arms and glared. “And what did he want in return?”

“The boon is a reward for your past merit, not a trade for the deeds of the future,” the dragon said, not even slightly hiding how its whiskers were shaking with suppressed laughter. “You have travelled a difficult road, and borne the weight of it well. And besides…”

“Besides?”

“If you were to die, he would undoubtedly petition the creatures of the underworld to return you.”

“Well, fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, having not considered that. “Fine. Whatever. Heal me and I’ll try to keep an eye on my health going forward.”

Maybe more Clarity? He could try to free up his schedule, get in a few more sessions…

“I just give up,” Jin Guangyao said behind him. “I just fucking give up.”

Nie Mingjue, assuming that he was talking about Nie Huaisang’s nonsense, agreed whole-heartedly.

[logicalbookthief]

Things Left Unsaid -- An Analysis of Rei & Touya

Apparently Rei has been getting a lot of flack lately, all of it undeserved, and since I had a post analyzing her relationship with Touya in the works already, I figured no time like the present.

Disclaimer #1: There are a lot of issues with the writing for Rei’s character that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with how the storyline is using her, which I will address and examine.

Disclaimer #2: I’m someone who, while always curious as to what kind of relationship Rei had with her oldest son before he died, never thought it would be revealed that Touya was close to his mom. I don’t think you get the Dabi we see in Chapters 290-295 without him being so warped by his relationship with his father yet so dependent on his attention that he was willing to kill his brother and himself simply for his father’s acknowledgement.

But that’s what I find so interesting about Rei and Touya -- it’s a relationship that mainly consists of regrets and things left unsaid. There isn’t the anger or resentment Dabi feels for Endeavor, because that intense level of emotion sprung from the loss of the father who used to be his whole world. His feelings toward his mother seem more amicable, but also more distant.

And while she could’ve done some things differently in regards to her oldest, I want to make it clear that the distance between them was very much by design.

After all, Touya was the end goal of their marriage. It was never any secret as to why Enji wanted to marry her and to some extent Rei must’ve realized that this child was not meant to be hers: the child was the transaction, the thing she was needed to create, to give to her husband. Of course she loved Touya and was likely his primary caregiver for most of his life, but there was no doubt that once his quirk manifested and he could begin his hero training, his life would be dominated by his father. Which is what happened.

Here, I would like to point out something I noticed in the flashback chapters. We never see any panels of Enji alone with any of his children during their infancy -- even with Shouto, the perfect child he longed for, we see Rei holding Shouto, sitting by him as he sleeps. Enji is there tangentially. Once Shouto begins his training, that is when we see him with his father.

So to see Enji with Touya when he was a baby, prior to his quirk manifesting, strikes me as a big deal. But it makes sense if you remember that he’d placed all his hopes, dreams and expectations on his firstborn. Initially, it doesn’t look like he even considered the possibility that Touya wouldn’t be his successor or that his little eugenics experiment would fail; this was his first, most optimistic attempt at a masterpiece. So I don’t believe it’s far-fetched to see him spend more time with Touya right off the bat (it’s what will make the eventual abandonment all the more crushing).

However, Rei isn’t seen at all in the snippet of Touya’s infancy, despite us knowing she was relegated to the caregiver role. Rei is literally out of the picture. Compare this to how she features prominently in Shouto’s infancy or how we see her holding a baby Natsuo. You could argue that, hey, we don’t see her holding a baby Fuyumi either, but there’s other scenes where Fuyumi’s attached to her mother’s hip or crying over her being hurt. Things that suggest a closeness, when the only scene we get of just her and Touya is one where they’re at odds. 

As we move further into Touya’s childhood, though, Rei becomes the only voice we hear advocate for him against his father. I’m referencing two specific instances:

When Enji coerces her into having more children to replace Touya now that his father has deemed him a failure, something she knows will hurt their son deeply.

And after Touya lashes out at Shouto, which Rei doesn’t blame on Touya, but rather on his father. She delivers such a satisfying condemnation of his actions, probably the most cutting one Endvr’s received to date, and it so accurately sums up one of his major character flaws.

How can you call yourself a hero when you can’t even face your own son?

The tragedy of it all is that Rei never said any of this in front of Touya -- it was always said in private, just to her husband. That alone took courage, yes, but it would’ve meant everything to Touya to hear her condemn his father aloud. Instead when she does speak to him, she says this:

It’s why I can’t wrap my head around that scene in Ch 302, where after Enji admits he didn’t know what to say to Touya, Rei replies, “Neither did I.” 

When we’re shown in flashbacks during that same chapter that she did understand her son. “He just wants to be acknowledged by you” is quite the indication that she, at the very least, understood the cause of Touya’s turmoil even if she couldn’t fully relate to it herself. So why can’t she say any of this to him?

The answer is in the way she addresses Touya, as it is nearly identical to how Nao addresses Tenko in this scene:

Both Touya and Tenko grew up in similar households: the father had all the power, physical and financial, so the mothers were left to try and comfort their children in a way that didn’t go against their husbands’ desires -- and so, to use Tenko’s own words, they would “reject them with kindness.”

So it’s no wonder that Touya lashes out at his mother after she suggests he pursue other things. He isn’t five like Tenko was, he’s thirteen and has a much clearer understanding of why she says this and why it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s aware of her situation, too.

Just as she was bound by her family, who wanted her to marry Endvr for the money and status, he’s bound by the expectations of his family. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anyone else touch on this detail, but when Touya states that he knows his grandparents sold his mom into marriage so his dad could have a child, we could infer that Touya knows enough to realize that his mother might not have necessarily wanted him.

Not him specifically, but any child — the story has neglected to flesh her out beyond her marriage and motherhood, so we have no idea if Rei wanted to become a mother prior to this arrangement, despite how much she loves her kids now — although it is possible that he might’ve internalized it this way.

So you have Touya, who at least knows with certainty that his father wanted him to exist, yet he comes to understand that his father only wants him if he can meet a specific set of expectations, and if he cannot, he’ll be discarded. If he can’t surpass All Might, he can’t fulfill his reason for existing and his father will have to replace him. So to have his mother urge him to follow a path other than becoming a hero would mean, to Touya, accepting that he is the mistake he fears he is. Of course he isn’t going to respond well to that.

I don’t like when people try to compare Touya’s reaction in this moment to Shouto’s when Rei tells him he isn’t bound by his father’s blood, using that to paint Shouto as the “good” child and Touya as the “bad” one. They didn’t react differently because of any innate sense of goodness or lack thereof -- they reacted differently because the situations are different.

Telling Shouto that he didn’t have to be like his father comforted Shouto, who only knew his father as the bully who hurt his mom. He associated his father, and his father’s fire, with all of that fear and pain -- and thus, he associated the part of himself that took after his father with those feelings. She wasn’t denying his dream of becoming a hero, only assuring him that when he became a hero it could be whatever kind of hero he chose to be, that he wasn’t doomed to be like his father.

Whereas what she tells Touya sounds a lot like what his father told him, which was to give up on being a hero and pursue other aspirations.

Encouraging Shouto to become his own version of a hero still falls in line with what Endvr ultimately wants, which is for Shouto to be a hero capable of surpassing All Might. Whereas this is what happens when Touya continues to train to do that against his father’s wishes:

This is where the framing begins to bother me and where Rei’s characterization becomes inconsistent. 

So in this scene from Ch 302, we see Enji abusing his wife for “letting” Touya continue to train, punishing her for her “failure” to stop him. Obviously, none of that is Rei’s fault. If anything, Enji would be more responsible for preventing Touya from hurting himself since he’s the reason his son is hurting himself in the first place.

Moreover, the fact that he hits Rei over this sort of muddies the water of an previously-established narrative. Since the Sports Festival arc, we’ve known that Endvr abused his wife because she tried to interfere with Shouto’s training. It got to the point where she was terrified of her husband and it drove her to a breakdown. Why introduce this new aspect to the abuse, when it was already established that a) he was physically abusive and b) his motivations for abusing her were explicit to the audience? 

I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense that a man who hits his wife for one reason could find another reason to do it and justify his actions to himself. And while the scene does portray Endvr in a bad light to show how wrong his actions are, literally draping his figure in shadow, why does it even dare to suggest the idea that Rei was remiss in her duties as a mother? Again, the scene isn’t even necessary, since the narrative has long-since showed the audience that Enji abused his wife. 

By itself, the scene would read as further exploration of how Rei was victimized and how it affected her children. When you look at it with the chapter as a whole, though? Remember, this is the chapter where Rei claims that all of the family shares the blame in what happened to Touya, displacing some of the blame that rightfully rests on Enji. 

But my major gripe with this scene is how it reframes the sole moment we get of Rei and Touya alone. Because we know that Rei understands Touya, based on her confrontations with her husband in Ch 301 & 302. Rather than encourage him to be what he wants or acknowledge that his father is in the wrong, however, her advice falls in line with what Enji wants -- to stop Touya from training. And this comes after a scene where we see Enji beat his wife when she doesn’t stop Touya from training.

With all that in mind, it could potentially be read as Rei trying stop Touya for the sake of protecting herself and the family -- I don’t think it’s coincidence that in the scene where he hits her that we see Shouto, Fuyumi & Natsuo all as witnesses who are very distressed by what’s happening to their mother -- at the cost of Touya’s need to be validated. And if executed well or at least better than it has here, that wouldn’t be a bad choice of narrative per se, and it would fit into the pattern where the households the villains were raised in -- notably Shigaraki, Dabi & Toga -- mimic the society they live in, just on a smaller scale.

Except. Does that sort of narrative make sense based on what we already know about Rei?

Certainly, it is natural to want to protect yourself under physical and/or emotional duress by appeasing your abuser. This sort of complicated dynamic appears in the Shimura family, too. Just like in the house that Kotaro built, the Todoroki family revolves around the desires of the abuser and is dictated by his whims.

I would argue that Nao does give us a well-written example of this narrative. From the beginning, it’s established that she loves Tenko dearly. But in the house her husband built, there’s no room to love her son as he deserves. She prioritizes the feelings of Tenko’s father for the sake of maintaining peace in the household and this is established quickly and plainly.

Early on in the flashback, Kotaro exerts his control over the house, while Nao + her parents look uncomfortable. Despite this, we watch as they comply with his rules, all at the expense of Tenko’s feelings. When she stands up to Kotaro at last, it is not where Tenko can see and already too late. It’s a painful story, full of regret and sadness, but it is consistent from start to end. Nobody feels out-of-character or there to prop up anybody else.

So why doesn’t Rei feel as consistent in this narrative?

Because it doesn’t fit with everything we knew about Rei prior to her abuser’s subpar redemption arc.

The way she interacts with Touya would make sense, if this was how she was portrayed from the start. However, her behavior in Shouto’s flashback -- where she was first introduced -- contrasts what we get in the later Todoroki flashbacks.

Let’s compare this to the scenes in Ch 302. Here, Rei interferes on Shouto’s behalf. She advocates for her son in front of Shouto where he can hear. She stands up to his bully/villain and tries to protect him, while also validating his feelings in the process. Directly after this, Enji hits her, not for failing to comply with his demands, but for defying him. 

It is difficult to reconcile this Rei with the Rei we get in Ch 302. And if you try to find an in-story reason for the inconsistency, the options either do a disservice to Rei or make things even more painful for Touya. But I’m sure most of you have realized that I’m going to suggest a reason for this inconsistency that goes beyond the canon.

Because when Rei was first introduced in the story, Endvr was unequivocally the villain in the Todoroki family, not some misguided patriarch trying to atone for his “past” mistakes. Years later and in the midst of his redemption arc, the narrative seems to be intent on making this man more palatable to readers, and it’s used Rei at every opportunity to prop up his efforts to be better. Often, though, it takes some of the heat off Enji by displacing it onto other family members, most significantly Rei & Touya.

Like, you can literally see the difference in the frame from early in the manga to now:

Ch 39: Endvr trains his five-year-old to the point where he’s throwing up due overextension and being punched by a fully grown adult who is also his father. Rei tries to protect her son and gets slapped by Endvr. All the blames rests squarely on Endvr, who is clearly the aggressor and painted as the villain here.

Ch 302: Endvr hits Rei for not preventing Touya from sneaking out to train, knocking her to the ground. Again, Endvr is clearly the aggressor, but oh this time it’s not driven solely by his selfish desires it’s also cocnern for his son; Rei is the victim but oh she also should have been watching him more closely, and oh well why was Touya going out in the first place, when everyone has told him to stop and he knows his mom will get punished for it?

Honestly, I can understand where some people have mixed feelings over Rei’s character, particularly since the writing has done her such a disservice recently. With that being said, however, it takes a minimum amount of critical thinking to recognize that while you can criticize some choices she made, you cannot hold her to the same standard of accountability as Enji, it’s absurd. The power imbalance was obviously tipped in Endvr’s favor, always.

It is a shame, too, that we can’t have more discussions that don’t turn into some readers (a lot of whom are attempting to make Endvr sound less horrible than he actually was) trying to demonize her. It��s doubly a shame the story itself doesn’t bother to flesh her out as a person, instead using her as a prop, because the complex relationships she has with Touya -- with all her children, really -- has plenty of room for exploration. 

Like, there was no reason to add this new dimension of resentment due to her spouting Enji’s words back at Touya, when there was already a source of tension supported by previous canon -- the neglect the Todoroki kids suffered because Rei couldn’t be the parent they needed, due to her declining mental health and eventual breakdown.

Or, if you want to complicate their dynamic further, why not add something that focuses on Rei and has nothing to do with Enji? We learn in the flashbacks that Rei agreed to the marriage more-or-less to please her family, lamenting that she “intended to smile through it to the end,” essentially admitting that her hope was she could grin and bear it. It is telling that she had this attitude before entering her marriage; evidently, she was raised with the idea that she should be acquiescent to her parents’ whims and not express herself if she was only going to be contrary. Maybe she didn’t know how to deal with Touya’s very expressive, very emotional outbursts as a result. And her inability to respond would be the exact opposite of what Touya was seeking.

Not to mention that Touya died, and for the last decade, Rei was under the impression she had lost her son forever. He died while she was hospitalized, torn up with guilt over what she did to Shouto, only to find out that her other son died in a frankly horrific manner, and she could do nothing. By the time she would’ve found out, it was too late to even try to do anything. I can’t imagine what she must’ve felt in terms of regret alone, plus her grief. And I’m still mad we were robbed of her reaction to Touya being alive, because now suddenly there is a chance to do something, to change what was once written in stone.

Or what about Touya’s feelings for his mother, that have yet to be given much depth? As the oldest and most aware of his existence, it seems like he was the first to truly understand his mother’s situation and I can’t help but wonder: If Touya knew he vessel for his father’s ambition, and his mother was sold into role of creating/caring for him, did he question her love for him? Once he found out one parent’s love was conditional, it wouldn’t be a leap for him to consider it for the other. And yet if that’s true, Dabi doesn’t appear to hold any ill-will towards her for that. He was angry at her hypocrisy, because he knows she should understand, but her words to him didn’t reflect that.

All of that is fascinating and so much better than what we got in canon, so far at least. I’m hoping for them interact in the present at least once before the end of the series, and I think they will, but as to how satisfying a reconciliation it’ll be, I guess we’ll have to wait to see how the Todoroki plotline progresses from here on out.

[epicene-humanoid]

some trans Jeff thoughts:

he realized he was trans in elementary school and just went fuck it I'll just start introducing myself as Jeffery and see if anyone decides to stop me (as we know, jeff winger can get away with almost anything)

he got top surgery the second he could afford it (around the same time he started at his law firm), and probably bribed someone to keep it a secret

"I'm jeff winger and i would rather look at myself naked than the women I sleep with" are the words of a man proud of his transition

he's really insecure about his fashion sense, which is why he mostly dresses like the douchey guys at his firm in the start of the show, he thought you can't go wrong with the sleazy lawyer look

he will never admit it but he feels super good about the dean hitting on him, because the dean is a (cis) guy, acknowledging that Jeff is more manly than him

i think he starts out stealth and comes out to everyone one by one, probably starting with abed because he knows abed won't judge him and will probably just see it as an interesting backstory.

abed just says it's cool and maybe worth a prequel exploring Jeff's transition, and jeff asks him to predict how all of the members of the group will react to him coming out.

abed's predictions:

britta will be over-the-top supportive and do a ton of research about trans history, probably put together a slideshow just to prove how progressive she is, and jeff will be a little bit weirded out, but also touched that she did all that for him, though he would never let her know that

shirley will be confused, because she doesn't know how someone she trusts and knows so well could be part of a group she was raised to hate, but ultimately realizes that there's nothing actually against the lgbtq people in the bible, and, as a cool character development arch, starts to advocate against use of the bible to justify bigotry

troy will just think it over and decide that Jeff's physique and coolness are even awesomer knowing how much work he'd had to put in to be like that, and respects Jeff's manliness even more

annie will give him a hug, say something sweet about how she'll always love him, and worry about his health, because even she read somewhere that taking testosterone makes you more likely to have a heart attack, jeff will explain that the risk is still only as high a cis guy, and she'll be the one to always remind him to take his shots

peirce will say at best say "jeff winger used to be a chick?" and at worst call him a slur, either way there's sure to be a lot of misgendering from him, and pestering to know Jeff's deadname (needless to say, Jeff just doesn't tell peirce)

the whole group goes out of their way to keep their beach trips a secret from pierce (the girls don't want him there anyways, he's too liable to be creepy) even though jeff knows that even if pierce saw his scars, all he would have to do is make up a story about some childhood accident and pierce would never question it

sorry this ended up being super long. can I hear some of your headcanons for him?

YES ALL THIS!!! yes yes i’m fully accepting this as canon oh my god

i’m about to type a whole ass ESSAY at midnight because i have been DYING to talk about this for months ajfdksljk,,, this is going to be obscenely long and i might end up adding even more to it as i continue to rewatch the show because there is truly no shortage of trans jeff content (especially when you’re trans and see transness in every little thing ajdkslfkjs)

spoiler warning for literally everything about this show under the cut <3

i 100% agree, i feel like he realized he was trans super young, especially since in the show we see him as a little kid a couple of times. 

like look at little jeff with the oversized sweatshirt and little ponytail!! that’s childhood trans fashion. not to be dramatic but part of me thinks that jeff’s dad left before he fully came out to his family (which gives him even more angst about it, because until that one Thanksgiving episode, he’s never able to prove to his dad that he’s a better man), but part of me thinks that his dad left after he came out (which adds that spicy i-should-have-stayed-in-the-closet guilt that he has to work through). 

either way, because his dad wasn’t there, he had to base his concept of masculinity on something else, which was becoming a lawyer!! there’s some line that’s like “after the dust and divorce papers were settled the only man i looked up to was [the lawyer guy]”. like, replacing your father figure in your mind with the concept of “a job where you can talk your way in and out of anything and distort other people’s concept of reality”? that’s trans.

 and the fucking THANKSGIVING EPISODE... i struggle to watch it without crying hehe <3 yeowch! the dichotomy of willy jr. being the “wrong” kind of man because he’s “too soft” but jeff also not being enough despite adhering to all the social standards of masculinity... fuck!! this whole scene of him telling his dad “i am Not well adjusted” and talking about how he gave himself an “appendix surgery scar” when he was a kid and he still keeps the get-well-soon letters from his classmates under his bed? oh my god. the implication of people loving him not despite his scars but because of them?? trans. i can’t think about this episode for too long or i’ll start yelling.

OH and this scene? where he talks about how his mom got him a girl costume for halloween?? and everyone said “what a cute little girl” and after a few houses he stopped correcting them?? and “once the shame and the fear wore off, i was just glad they thought i was pretty”?? THAT’S TRANS... the man needs validation oh my god... and then in all the halloween episodes we see he has these ultra-masculine costumes (a cowboy, David Beckham, one of the fast and furious guys even though he never watched the movies, a boxer with his DAD’S boxing gloves... god) costumes are about becoming something else and he always chooses to be hypermasculine and that is trans.

THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION EPISODE!!!!!!! being uncomfortable during P.E. is a queer experience. period. but him being specifically uncomfortable in the clothes someone else is assigning to him? trans. “are we gonna talk about clothes like a girl? or use tapered sticks to hit balls around a cushioned mat like a man?” TRANS. and him eventually stripping in public? celebration of transness. and the fact that he eventually becomes comfortable in both the uniform and his own style!! trans!! god i love this episode. 

AND AND AND!!! the gay dean coming out episode!!! where it’s the three of them discussing the best way for the dean to come out as gay despite not entirely identifying with that label!! so we have both frankie and the dean who are sort of ambiguously queer, and jeff who’s a stealth trans man who’s probably only out to only the study group at this point. this scene where the dean and jeff have this like eyebrow communication while frankie is talking is just so cute. queer-to-queer communication. “I am so curious” “oh?” “intellectually.” “oh...” ajfdksljfk this scene just screams high school GSA to me and i love it so much.

and SPEAKING of the dean!! i totally see you on that. i feel like jeff has some internalized homophobia/biphobia (like he’d throw punches over someone else, but when it comes to himself he has a lot of shame). and also seeing the dean so confident in all his different outfits/costumes has a weird affect on him bc it’s like “okay, the dean, a cis guy, can do that, but i as a trans guy could Not because that’s Breaking the Rules”. which, like, throwback to the halloween thing. of course there’s no right way to be masculine, but mr. winger does not know that.

another thing!! the episode where their emails get leaked? that includes his emails with his therapist. fuck!! he was outed to the whole world in that episode!! no wonder he was so fucking angry!! this whole episode (and really any time he mentions his therapist) is so interesting when you think about them as a person he talks to about his transition. OH which adds to the thing with the dean!! “and you told your therapist you wanted to be alone this weekend” and “not you jeff, i know you’ll be visiting your dad” ”I told you to stop reading my emails”. luckily his study group has his back and just makes fun of him for emailing astronauts lmao

and WHO can forget “they’re giving out an award for most handsome young man!!!!” what else is there to say about this line besides: he’s trans. you know he didn’t get awarded enough for being a handsome young man when he was a kid, and no amount of compliments when he’s fully-grown can really make up for that. some people crash a kid’s bar mitzvah to cope with the fact that they struggled to be seen as themselves when they were a teenager <3

also his weird relationship with pierce? where he kind of hates him (understandably lmao) but at times has this almost-friends-almost-father-son relationship with him? especially in this episode where he’s forced to bond with him and ends up having a good time by accident (at a barber shop no less, the perfect place to Be A Man with your Man Friend). idk what to say about him besides the fact that pierce says his mom wanted a girl when he was born and made him dress like a girl (and his middle name is anastasia!) so if they’re gonna do any bonding over transness it’s gonna be that. 

okay one last thing and then i’ll shut up for the night. this episode kills me (and almost kills jeff hahahahelpi’mcrying). it’s a very Trans thing to not be able to visualize your future self, it just is. growing up trans at the time he did? i don’t know what kind of future he saw for himself, but i’m so happy that he ended up with a group of friends who became his family and love him the way they all do. i’m so emotional over this asshole it’s ridiculous. 

in conclusion:

they’re trans, your honor <3

[imaginejamesandsirius]

Hey i love your stories! Can you please write a fanfic where after Lily rejects James yet again, Sirius starts to give James hints that he is into him. Also make Harry time travel to the past while all this is happening. And Harry witnesses a cute Prongsfoot or Jirius or Starbucks. And learns the truth about himself that us parents are James Potter and Sirius Black ?

((A/N: Trans Sirius-- with a brief mention of a trans pregnancy since most of this fic takes place in Hogwarts))

Sirius rubbed a hand in circles against James's back for comfort. Or at least, he hoped it was comforting him, but he wasn't sure if it was having the intended effect. "It's not that bad, mate," Sirius said.

"She looked at me like she wanted nothing more than for me to drop dead," James muttered.

Sirius swallowed and plucked up some courage-- he was always in short supply of it when it came to James. "That's what I mean. She's not interested. Maybe it's time for you to... try with someone else. Someone that already knows you and likes you for it."

"Mm. Yeah," James said, sounding resigned, "maybe." He looked over at Sirius with a small, sad smile. "What happened to 'don't worry about it, Prongs, she'll come around'?"

"You're miserable like this," Sirius said. "If chasing after her is going to make you this sad, I don't care if you end up happily married with five kids, ten years from now. I would rather you be happy now, and only get more happy in the next ten years, rather than be utterly miserable in the beginning."

James laughed, and his smile lost the sadness. "Thanks, Padfoot."

That was more progress than he'd had in the last year. He smiled back.

*

"You make it sound like there's someone just waiting to date me," James said. They were laid out on the Quidditch Pitch, looking up at the cloudy sky. They'd started by pointing out the clouds that they found shapes in, then they started making up elaborate lies for what they saw, then the conversation-- as it so often did when they were talking without direction-- turned to Lily. From there, James admitted that he thought Sirius was right about not trying to date her anymore, and Sirius told him that he would have better opportunities in the future.

"Maybe there is," Sirius said, feeling like his throat had something stuck in it. "Have you taken a look around lately? You're great, and I'm sure someone has noticed that-"

"Mister Potter!"

They both sat up. Professor McGonagall was striding towards them, so they scrambled to their feet. "We're allowed to be out here," James said, sounding both defensive and confused. They weren't going to get in trouble, were they? It wasn't after hours, and the Quidditch Pitch wasn't off limits.

"You need to come with me, immediately."

"I didn't do anything wrong for once," James said, sounding more confused than ever. Sirius felt much the same.

"You are not in trouble," she said, sounding frustrated. "There's a matter the Headmaster needs to see you about."

James started forward, and Sirius did too.

"Your presence is not required, Mister Black," she said.

Sirius stopped in his tracks, blinking at her. Where James went, he went. The professors hardly bothered to give them separate detentions anymore, since they knew there was no point in it. He shared a look with James, and they both shrugged. James left with Professor McGonagall, and Sirius sank back onto the pitch.

Well. Sod everything. He felt like he'd been about to make some progress. James barely thought about other people as a romantic option, and he certainly didn't think of Sirius that way. He'd been about to broach it as a possibility. A very minor possibility. Barely a nudge in the right direction.

He knew what would happen if he told James flat out that he was interested in him: panic and rejection. James would panic when he heard that Sirius fancied him because he hadn't expected it, and when James heard something he didn't expect of this magnitude, he'd run away. James only ran when it was family. His parents. Sirius. Nobody else. Sirius wasn't quite sure when he became part of 'family' and not simply 'best mate', and he didn't know if it excluded him from being a possible partner or not. Once James started thinking about other people, it would be easier to see if he stood half a chance.

*

Harry could never remember seeing his parents. He'd known them when he was a baby, obviously, but that had been it. The complete beginning and end of his time with them. He didn't have any memories. All he had were the photos that Hagrid had kindly given him, and the handful of stories that people had told him. The pictures were great. Harry could look through them a dozen times and not be bored. The stories were barely existent. They were tidbits more than anything else. 'Your father loved Quidditch' and 'your mother was clever'. They weren't full stories about a prank his father had done, or something his mother had done while she was Head Girl. No stories. Just personality traits. He wanted... more. More memories for his parents that were long gone.

He wanted to feel some sort of connection to them. He hadn't meant for that to be taken to an entirely new level, but he should hardly be surprised that his magic had led him to it. Led him directly to his parents at Hogwarts, while they were in sixth year.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Harry said apologetically to Professor Dumbledore, but he couldn't take his eyes off his father. He was only a couple years younger here than he was in the most recent photos Harry had of him. It was strange to think that only a few years from now, the teenager in front of him would be a father. Harry tried to imagine himself doing that, and he couldn't.

"I'm your father?" James asked numbly.

"Yeah," Harry said, adding a nod unnecessarily.

"Who's your mother?"

"Lily Evans."

James's eyes went wide. "Evans? That's- that's not possible. She won't give me the time of day."

"I've been told that you start getting on in the next year or two."

"Told?" Professor McGonagall asked, and Harry hesitated.

"I'm not sure I should say," he hedged.

"Mister Potter," Professor Dumbledore said, and Harry looked over automatically, but the Headmaster was talking to his father. "Could you wait outside for a minute?"

For a second, it looked like he was going to refuse. A small part of Harry hoped that he would, that he'd demand to spend as much time with his future son as he could. But the moment passed and he gave a short nod before leaving the room.

*

"He's my kid from the future!" James hissed into the mirror.

Sirius's eyes went wide. He looked as shocked as James had felt. "What?"

"That's not all. He said that his mum is Evans!"

"What?"

"Apparently we start getting on in the next year or so. He didn't get to tell me more before they made leave the room, but can you imagine? Me and Evans? It was starting to feel like a fantasy, but- I guess we make it."

"Yeah."

He was so excited that he didn't notice how subdued Sirius was. "Merlin, Pads, it's incredible! I can't wait to get to know him. He'll love you. I bet you haven't changed a bit," he said, grinning.

"Ha, yeah, sounds like me."

James heard footsteps on the stairway. "Got to go."

"B-"

He tapped the mirror to end the connection before Sirius could finish getting the word out. He'd apologise for it later, if Sirius was feeling peeved. He shoved the mirror back in his robes. Some of the professors knew that they had them, but there was no reason to wave it around under their noses and risk it being confiscated.

*

By some stroke of fate, Harry got to be alone with Sirius. It made him feel more comfortable than anyone else. He didn't know why, because it's not like Sirius as a teenager was anything like Sirius as an adult. He didn't have the weight of Azkaban on him. He had none of the death, none of the experiences from war. Not to say that he was innocent and carefree here. His parents were utter rubbish, and he'd already run away to live with Harry's father and grandparents.

He was so different that at times, it seemed like he was a different person altogether, but his laugh was the same. When he laughed, Harry knew that he was the same person underneath it all.

It just... made him feel better to be around him.

"Missing home?" Sirius asked. They'd been told to stay inside. Naturally, Sirius had suggested they go out to the Great Lake. Harry had never done it before; it wasn't safe for him, not in his time with who he was. It was beautiful though, with the night sky clear and reflecting on the surface.

"No," Harry said. 

Sirius raised an eyebrow in doubt.

"Missing my friends."

"Ah. I can understand that." Sirius retrieved a pack of smokes from his pocket. He tapped one out into his hand and offered it to Harry.

He hesitated before accepting it. "I've never had one before," he admitted, figuring that it was obvious in the way he was holding it.

"Too afraid your parents will catch you?" Sirius asked with a grin, like the idea of Harry not wanting to get in trouble with his parents was very amusing to him.

"Not really. More like... who would have offered one to me? I'm barely passing my classes with how busy I am."

"Busy with what?" Sirius asked. He didn't think it was a question that was like walking into a minefield, but it was.

"Can't say," Harry said. "How do I light this?"

Sirius snorted, but not unkindly. He flicked out a finger, a flame dancing above his skin. It reminded Harry of when he'd met Remus on the train to Hogwarts in third year and he'd been holding fire above his palm as easy as anything. He lit the end of Harry's cigarette. "Don't try to take too much at once. Small puffs until you get used to it."

Harry smoked the whole thing, chatting back and forth with Sirius. Mostly it was Sirius laughing at him and Harry asking for advice on how to hold it and asking if it was supposed to taste this bad-- the answer was yes.

"So do we get on?" Sirius asked, after he'd vanished the butts and they were just sitting by the lakeside again with nothing to do. "In your time?"

"I'm not supposed to say," Harry said, clamming up.

"Oh, c'mon. It's not the end of the bloody universe if you tell me that I do alright as a godfather. You must like me at least a little bit, if you're spending time with me now. Or I guess you could be running away from your lovebird parents with the eyes they're making at each other," he added, sounding too bitter about it considering he was talking to their son. A son who, as far as he could tell, loved his parents very dearly, even if he wasn't allowed to give any sort of details or stories.

"Do you not like them together?" Harry asked.

"Hard to dislike something you've never seen," he grumbled. "You know who you remind me of?" he asked suddenly.

"My dad?" Harry replied wryly.

"I was going to say my younger brother, actually. Regulus."

"You have a brother? I mean, I knew that you did, but. Well, you've barely mentioned him before."

"Hm," Sirius said shortly. He'd kind of hoped that Regulus left their parents too. In the future, that is. Evidently, it was a hope that never panned out. "Well. That's who you remind me of," he said, throwing on a grin that he didn't feel but looked fine enough. "The hair might be Potter, but your face screams Black."

Harry laughed. "I've never heard that one before. I'll have to remember it when I get back. Ron will get a kick out of it."

"That your best mate?"

"Yeah. He's been with me through everything. Most everything," Harry amended, because there had been that spat during the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament.

"I take it that's an 'everything' I don't get to know about?"

"Yeah."

"I hope I handle it well while it's happening then. Since I know you come out of it alright," he said, nudging Harry with his elbow.

Harry grinned knowingly.

"Ugh, don't tell me I become a swot in my old age," Sirius groaned.

"Not at all. You're just protective."

"That makes sense. You're James's kid, after all. And you do have this air about you that says you need looking after."

"And so you offered me a smoke?"

"I've always been a rebel, even to my own instincts," Sirius said loftily.

Harry laughed again.

They quieted, and a chill wind stirred their hair.

"I've always wondered-" Harry started to say, then stopped himself.

"What?"

"I'm not supposed to ask questions that give you hints about my time. No matter how much I might want to know the answer," he tacked on with a mutter.

"Couldn't you ask me when you get back?"

"Like you'd tell me if I did. You're so evasive sometimes."

"I'm evasive, but what I'm more of right now is curious. Ask me what you wanted to know, and we'll keep it between us. I won't even tell James, and if you remember us from your time, I'm sure you realise what a unique offer this is."

Harry only gave a small smile. "You sure?"

"I don't know if you noticed that I didn't promise to answer," Sirius said with a smirk.

"Oh come on. I'm asking something I'm not supposed to ask, and you won't promise your favourite godson an answer?"

"I don't remember you being my favourite godson yet."

Harry put his hands together in a pleading fashion.

"Merlin, you look like Regulus. He used to use that face on me back before Hogwarts." And it had always worked. "Fine, what did you want to ask?"

"Do you fancy someone? As far as I know, you've never dated or- been interested in anyone."

Sirius clapped a hand on Harry's back. "Sorry to have to disappoint you, Prongslet." He got to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. Wow. As if it wasn't enough to know that he didn't end up with James, he had to learn that he never moved on. He stood on the sidelines and pined uselessly. Great. "I'm going back inside, and I get the feeling not to leave you alone."

Harry gave a faint smile. He knew that he'd overstepped, but there was no taking it back. Sirius didn't seem to be too upset with him, so he'd be grateful for that much at least. "Probably for the best."

*

"You feeling alright?" Sirius asked quietly. Everybody else was asleep. If they were smart, they would've casted a silencing spell around their curtains, but there was never any guarantee. Besides, Sirius didn't know if that etiquette was the same in Harry's time as it was here.

Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall had agreed to let Harry stay in their dormitory with them (if none of them minded, which, of course, they didn't). The house elves had brought up an extra bed for Harry to sleep in, so they didn't even have to come up with new sleeping arrangements.

"I thought you'd be over the moon that you and Evans end up together," he continued, when James didn't jump at the opportunity to tell him what was wrong.

"Yeah, I thought so too," James whispered back. "And I was at first."

"Then what's wrong?"

He reached up and ruffled his hair. He knew that Evans didn't like it when he did that, so he'd started stopping himself from doing it when they were out in the corridors or in class. "I'd been thinking about what you were saying. About moving on and dating someone else. Or at least looking at someone else. It had started to sound fun, y'know? Besides, she's a prefect and... tightlaced. I don't really know how much fun we'd have together." He breathed in, then out, sounding tired. Tired beyond the fact that it was late and in spite of there being no classes today, it had been a long day. "I guess it works out," he said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"It's just me here," Sirius reminded him, bumping their shoulders together.

"Lily's great, right? She's beautiful and smart, and she's definitely the catch of the school. I'd be totally lucky to date her. I was just really starting to believe that we weren't right for each other. I guess it's not sitting right because I was starting to accept that it was never going to happen. And- okay don't tell Harry this, but I don't think he looks that much like her."

Sirius nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Right?" James said, invigorated by Sirius agreeing with him. "He looks like you!" He wasn't so excited that he didn't remember to keep his voice down, but the route he went made Sirius frown a little.

Yes, he'd thought that Harry looked a bit like Regulus, but he'd figured that was him projecting protective instincts and misplaced family feelings or whatever the fuck. "You think?"

"Are you kidding? You have the same smile."

"Oh well in that case, there's no one I'd rather raise a kid with," Sirius said, too honest but able to make it a joke with a smile and another nudge to James.

"Me either," James said, nudging him back with a grin.

Harry silently watched the exchange. He wanted to feel some sort of sadness or betrayal that James didn't want to be with his mother, but... well, he was starting to suspect that maybe Lily wasn't his mother. Lily hadn't looked very much in the photos like Aunt Petunia, but there had been a familial resemblance. He'd even been able to link it between Lily and Dudley, no matter how much he's sometimes wished he could unsee it.

He'd spent hours trying to find his own similarities to his family, and he'd never managed it. Not with Lily or the Dursley's, at least. Everyone said that he looked like James, and it was an easy connection to make. Mrs. Weasley had taken a picture of him with Sirius once, and every time he looked at it, he'd felt like he finally had someone he could call family. There were a lot of Black family members, weren't there? Maybe someone in his family tree was Harry's mother. It sounded ridiculous to say on its own, but it made more sense to him than Lily did right now.

He'd try to get some sleep tonight. He wasn't sure how well that would work, but in the morning, he'd see if he could learn more. He was supposed to go back to Professor Dumbledore's office in the morning to see if they could learn more about how to get him back to his own time. If anyone would know how to check who his real parents were, it would be the Headmaster.

His father and godfather had gone to bed a while ago, and there was only the sound of breathing to fill the otherwise silent room. He would've preferred if there was someone talking. Not necessarily Sirius, just somebody. He didn't usually have this problem. Ron had a tendency to talk in his sleep. They usually weren't fully formed words, just syllables that never went anywhere. He hadn't realised how much he'd gotten used to it in the Hogwarts dormitory until now, when it was gone.

He'd been pretty confident in his plan until then, feeling alone in the quiet of the room with people that barely knew him. Also that cigarette he'd smoked made him feel icky, and he didn't think it had gotten out of his system yet.

He wasn't sure there was anything to test. Everyone had believed him the second he said he was James Potter's son. When he'd said that his other parent was Lily, they had paused and looked closer at him before deciding to move on with their questions. He'd thought, originally, that it was because they couldn't believe James and Lily got together. Now he wasn't sure. In fact, he was sure that that had nothing to do with it. It's because he didn't look like her.

The only one that had accepted it straight away was James, and he'd changed his mind later, thinking that Harry didn't look that much like Lily. And with the way he'd been talking to Sirius, Harry wouldn't be surprised if Sirius was his other parent. Well, that's a lie. He'd be very surprised. Mostly because there wouldn't have been any reason for Sirius to keep it from him. Even if they'd had a good reason to tell the lie to begin with, there wouldn't have been any point by the time Sirius and Harry finally met.

None of this made any sense, and the people in this time couldn't even answer his questions; none of them knew why they would've lied, or the circumstances surrounding the things they could've possibly lied about.

He rolled onto his other side and sighed. Why couldn't his life ever be simple? He'd always thought that he knew his parents were, and he was pretty sure he'd been wrong about that. Did he have any proof? No, not yet, but he didn't really have proof that he was Lily's son, either. Everyone said it, but what did that mean in a world where he'd somehow been entered into the Triwizard Tournament under a fourth school that didn't exist, had magic that he hadn't known about for the first ten years of his life, and had time traveled decades, something he'd been told in no uncertain terms was impossible.

He woke up the next day, half expecting to find that he'd gone back to his own time without doing anything.

He sat up and looked around. Nope. Peter was doing his tie in the mirror, and Remus was walking around like a zombie. He glanced towards the other two beds and saw that their curtains were still drawn.

*

Harry went back to the future. He said gave goodbyes to everyone, but with Sirius, he hugged him tight like he never wanted to go. "I know it doesn't mean anything to you right now," he said quietly, as he was holding on, "but I love you. And I'm not mad." He'd given Sirius a squeeze before letting go, followed by a sad smile, and then he turned to go into the Headmaster's office.

Sirius didn't know how to feel about that as a goodbye. Sure, he didn't know Harry that well, so the preface of 'doesn't mean anything to you right now' made sense, but why had he been so sad about it? And for that matter, Sirius already knew that Harry was his godson. The love was pretty heavily implied. What did he mean about not being mad? What would he have been mad about? Maybe that's what he'd meant about Sirius not understanding right now. Of course, if that was true, then it didn't make sense why he'd said 'I love you' first. Maybe he'd done it because he felt it was more important than him not being mad. None of it made any sense to him.

He was sure he'd understand. It would only take ten years or so.

*

Well, it didn't take ten years, but Sirius finally figured it out. When he got pregnant. Pregnant and vulnerable, and in the middle of a war.

He was pregnant, and Lily looked him straight in the eye and said, "We'll tell everyone it's me."

"What?" he asked, numb and not wanting to jump to the wrong conclusion.

"You and James have been hiding your relationship because it's not safe. This won't be any better, and you'll need help. We can tell everyone that I'm the one who's pregnant, that way you're safe. When the war ends, we can be honest, but for now..."

This is why Harry had thought his other parent was Lily. They'd told everyone that she was. Something must have happened to make it where they couldn't tell the truth. Some part of the spell gone wrong or summat, and that was enough to make Sirius hesitate, but not enough to make him say anything other than, "If you're sure," because Harry did live long enough to be a teenager this way, and that wasn't guaranteed if he said no.

When he told James what Lily offered, all he did was hold Sirius and kiss his head. "If you're sure," he said, and Sirius laughed a little. He wasn't sure about this, but what other choice did they have? “Whatever you need to do to feel safe, we’ll do it. Anything for you, love, you know that.”

[kindness-ricochets]

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Petty Pair (Raymond/F!Reader)

Summary: Reader wants to fuck Raymond to spite his father. Raymond thinks that’s really hot, actually.

A/N: This idea came into my head and literally never left. It lives rent free in my head, and I hope you feel it now, too. Couple: Raymond/Fem!Reader Category: Smut (NSFW) Content Warning: Fingering, penetrative sex, protected sex, mild exhibitionism, getting caught Word Count: 5k

MASTERLIST

——————

There was a grand total of one functioning bar in this town at this hour of night. This drastic and unforgivable shortage of places for me to buy alcohol was also the only reason I found myself frequenting said bar.

After about an hour of swatting off a group of men that were objectively disgusting, I resigned myself to fate and the realization that the night would turn out no better than it would have if I hadn’t tried to get drunk on cheap liquor. I was ready to pack up, close out, and fuck off back home when it happened.

A familiar face walked through the door. Familiar, I suppose, was a stretch. I’d only seen his face in one picture ­– a picture I’m pretty sure was meant to be thrown away. It stuck out to me because it was the first indication that I got that Donald Wadsworth had a son. And a cute son, much less.

My brain scanned through buried memories to try and find the one where his recently divorced mother had told me his name. I knew the memory existed somewhere, surrounded under a mountain of bullshit, but it was so hard to focus when I was watching the poor kid shuffle over to the bar and plop himself down against the counter.

It had taken me that long to realize that he was wearing pajamas. Cute.

His fashion choices and bedhead paired nicely with the pout he wore when he shyly scanned the room. Altogether, everything about him assured me that he literally couldn’t have been less intimidating if he tried. That theory was further solidified by the way he shrunk against the counter when he saw me approach. By the time I sat down next to him, he’d all but disappeared under his jacket.

“Hey, you’re... Raymond, right?” The name came to me at the same time his eyes locked with mine. The dark hazel color shone almost gold in the orange hue of the bar.

“You’re Donald’s son?” I asked as warmly as possible while using his father’s name. Which is to say, not warm at all.  

“Unfortunately,” Raymond droned with a similar disdain.

“I’ll say,” I chuckled as I leaned forward to match his slouch over the bar. “I work with your dad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

That alone seemed to cause a shift in his entire demeanor. It didn’t surprise me. Most of the women in this town were brainwashed into thinking that if a guy didn’t outright assault you at first glance, he was probably a solid dude.

And Donald Wadsworth was not a solid dude.

“He’s like, a giant fucking asshole,” I said.

Raymond’s eyes lit up.

“Right?!” he shouted back, practically falling from his seat in his enthusiasm as he continued to yell, “I know!”

There was no keeping it together with this caricature of a man, but I didn’t really want to, either. In the few seconds I’d interacted with him, everything about him changed from defensive to relaxed. Like all he needed was someone to tell him that it wasn’t all in his head.

Unfortunately, I was going to need to ask something of him. But I figured he wouldn’t mind what I was going to request.

“But hey, that’s actually why I wanted to talk to you. I have a favor to ask you.” I kept my tone even and nonchalant, trying to avoid coming off as parental.

He eyed me as warily as I expected, tugging his drink a little bit closer as he started to shrink in on himself again.

“I’m gonna be honest,” he mumbled, “there’s not really anything I can do to hurt him that I haven’t already tried.”

There was no need for self-degradation. Raymond might have thought he tried everything, but from his body language around a woman, it was safe to assume he’d never tried my plan.

“Wanna bet?”

Raymond sighed in surrender before he shrugged, “Sure. What’s the favor?”

“I want you to fuck me.”

It wasn’t my intention to wait until the drink was in his mouth before I spoke, but it was how it ended up happening. And almost instantaneously, he spat the drink out over the bar before calmly squeaking, “I’m sorry, what?”

“I want to have sex with you,” I repeated like it was the most normal thing in the world. Then I sought confirmation that was only a little important in the grand scheme of things. “You’re staying at his place, right?”

“Just for tonight, yeah—" he started, but all I heard was the ding of a checkmark on my mental list that meant we were cleared for the next step.

“Great. We should do it there, then. Tonight.”

Raymond’s tongue stuck out from between his teeth, the visual of restraint matching his narrowed, shifty eyes and fidgety legs.

“I feel like I’m missing something...” he muttered.

I heard him, but I didn’t really care. The clock was running, and I was ready to get something good out of this night. Possibly even two good things, if he ended up being as helpful as his cute, submissive demeanor implied.

“I’ll drive. You want to go now?”

“I— I mean, sure, yeah,” he stumbled over the words and his own feet as he left the bar. “We can… go have sex.”

I laughed at how cool he tried to sound because he definitely failed. I reached past him to drop cash on the bar and grabbed his hand on the way back. The amount of warmth stormed it in was shocking, considering all the blood seemed to be in his face, ears, and the tent in his pants. But the comfort of his fingers interlocking with mine on instinct did more for me than he knew.

“Great. Let’s go.”

Raymond was silent on the way out and into the car, which was about what I expected from him. Every glance his way would show the gears slowly turning in his head, like he was still trying to grasp whether my proposition was serious. Like I was trying to murder him or something.

When the car started, so did some sliver of confidence in him, although he still cleared his throat before he asked, “Do you need directions, or…?”

“No, I’ve been to his place before.”

That caution and suspicion returned and multiplied, and before I even pulled out of the parking lot he had shrugged down in the seat and buried his face in his hands.

“Please tell me you didn’t fuck my dad,” he whined in the most dramatic manner possible.

I couldn’t blame him for the theatrics, although the implication was not at all appreciated.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” I spat, my face curling into a pure expression of disgust. At least we both felt similarly on that note.

“Thank god.” The relief flowed through him, allowing him to sit back up to his previously half-straight position. I decided that it was probably best to cut him some slack for assuming I would ever fuck that devil of a man, because I got the sinking suspicion that he might have known a couple girls his age that had done exactly that.

That thought led me back to the very reason I was there at all, and a chill ran down my spine as I muttered without thinking, “Wasn’t for a lack of his trying, though.”

The whole tone in the car shifted in seconds. One glance over at Raymond confirmed the repressed rage and sadness rolling off of him in waves that were more accurately described as a tsunami.

It was just unsettling enough that I snapped my eyes back to the road, giving a nervous chuckle to tell him that it wasn’t that serious. I didn’t need him to defend my honor, or anything. It did enough to quell most of the rage, but that self-pitying sadness was still there when he let out a shy, quiet plea.

“I don’t want to pry but… Will you tell me what this is about?”

“You really want to know?”

It was one thing to know the vague generalities of how much his father sucked, but another thing entirely to paint him a vivid depiction of what he was willing to do.

“Yeah,” he said with fiddling hands, “I think.”

I think he was trying to do me a favor. I think listening to my story was meant to be a sign to me that there were people who would care — people who would believe me. He clearly didn’t actually want to hear the story, but I appreciated his willingness to experience some discomfort to make up just a small part of his father’s misdeeds.

“So, I’m new at the school, right? It’s awkward. It’s a small town and everyone knows everyone,” I started, trying to look over at Raymond whenever I could to show him that I was doing alright. The poor thing looked like he needed the reassurance more than I did.

“Your dad very quickly tried to take me under his wing, despite my very obvious discomfort.”

“Sounds like him,” he interrupted with a pissed-off murmur.

“Yeah. I just kind of accepted his help because I was too scared to say no, but then one day he…” My voice trailed off, the words getting clogged in my throat and muddled on my tongue. It wasn’t that bad of a story; it should have been easier to explain. But something about Raymond being there, him listening to me so intently and with such a strong desire to make it better, that made it hard to speak. Eventually, I managed to start again. “He cornered me in the damn teacher’s lounge and—“

“Please don’t give me a reason to kill him. I’ve been toeing that line my whole life, and I will definitely do it.”

That time when Raymond cut me off, it was very clear to me that he was not kidding. He enunciated the words so clearly, venom dripping from his tongue and his chest heaving with a determination coming through clear, despite his best efforts to hide it.

He was a sweet kid.

“He didn’t try to touch me or anything. It wasn’t like that,” I said with an awkward smile, reaching over to pat his thigh. The action alone seemed to calm him, almost like a dog that was being told to stand down.

He was a really cute kid.

But I had to finish this stupid story. I had to give him all the information so that he would know exactly why I’d invited myself into his bed. Sex is sort of a big deal, you know? I mean, not always, but the other party in spite sex should probably know who exactly the target is.

“He just made it very clear that he felt I owed him something, and I kindly told him to fuck off,” I concluded just as we pulled up the dirt drive. The bumps in the road seemed to shake some other memories in Raymond, and he just shook his head to rid himself of those, along with the story he’d just heard.

He looked over at me with a new understanding and something else.

“So that’s what this is about?”

“Yep,” I said with a pop of my lips to match the sound of my car door opening. He clambered out of the car much less gracefully, which was funny considering he’d had significantly less to drink.

But I figured I would have the decency not to laugh, instead just joining him on the passenger side of the car to finish our conversation before we went inside. I wanted to give him the chance to change his mind. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Although I was the one who would have to deal with the brunt of the downfall, Donald wasn’t my family. Like, I wouldn’t be at his holiday dinners. Then again, I’m not sure Raymond would be, either.

When I looked up from the thought, Raymond was staring at me. It wasn’t like before, though. There was nothing suspicious or any sign of concern in his eyes. No, they were filled with a very different feeling.

“You want to fuck me just to spite my dad?” he asked with a deadly seriousness.

I thought about it for exactly one second before I shrugged at the extremely accurate summary.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“God,” Raymond practically groaned, throwing himself on me and pinning me against the car with his hips before he growled, “that’s so fucking hot.”

Those same lips that produced the words quickly covered mine with the same force he’d used to pin me against the metal. I didn’t fight him at first because, well, I didn’t want to. It was the first clear sign he’d given that he really wanted to do this, and who was I to argue with how he expressed his consent?

Also, he was like, a really, really good kisser. The desperation he felt came through in his tongue as it tangled with mine, drawing a quiet, muffled moan from me that alerted me to how quickly this would escalate if I didn’t shove the boy off me.

Which, I did.

“Raymond— inside,” I ordered with the little breath I had left.

He was confused for a second, almost like he’d blacked out in the meantime. But then his tongue swept over his lips, his hands digging through his pockets for his keys before he hastily answered, “Right. Let’s go.”

It made sense to be quiet then, as the two of us tip-toed through the much too large house. Our occasional giggles were louder than our feet, and the whole experience was seriously reminiscent of sneaking into your boyfriend’s house as a teenager. And when we walked through his bedroom door, the sight stirred up even older memories. From the UFO poster and alien sheets to the boxes filled with dinosaur toys and action figures, I felt like I’d walked straight through a time machine into Raymond’s childhood.

“Sorry about… all of this,” he said with an overly apologetic tone, like this scene didn’t perfectly suit what I was planning. Like it wouldn’t be salt in the wound for Donald to see me fucking his son in the most juvenile room I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Ugh, it’s perfect. You are literally a man-child.”

I didn’t mean it as an insult, but his nervous shifting told me he took it that way. But when I kicked off my shoes and started to disrobe my outer layers, it was becoming obvious to him again just how serious I was about this whole thing.

“Sorry, but—“

“Stop saying sorry, Raymond.”

“Sorry,” he squeaked back, doing the exact thing I’d just told him not to do. I shot him a warning glance and watched the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in return. Then, still worrying the hem of his pajama shirt between his fingers, he looked away as he asked, “Are you sure you actually want to have sex with me?”

I was a little too busy at first to answer him. I was already rustling through the bedside table to find a condom that I was absolutely positive would be there. When I finally found it, I turned my attention back to the blushing boy.

“Why are you asking? Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Yes!” he answered with a clear excitement, only to lose it immediately. “But I would have wanted to have sex with you even if my dad wasn’t a pervert.”

“Awww, thanks,” I cooed with feigned sincerity. Raymond was still just pouting, though. I was learning more each second just how starved of affirmation this boy had been. But it wasn’t like I could just start praising him; the poor thing would have whiplash if I wasn’t careful. There was no worse mood-killer than crying, either, so I settled for a joke.

“I’d probably have sex with you, too.”

“Probably?” he responded with a smile and a seat next to me.

“It’s pretty likely, depending on how much we talked first,” I explained as I helped him out of his coat. I even managed to start undoing his pajama top buttons before he realized it was happening.

He didn’t stop me when he did.

“I don’t know if that’s an insult or not,” he said, instead.

With a coquettish grin, I leaned in to whisper against his lips, “And you never will.”

There was absolutely no resistance from Raymond when I grabbed hold of his collar, tugging him on top of me as I laid down on the tiny twin bed. Despite all of his insecurity, he didn’t hesitate to kiss me again, either. This time it was somehow even more heated, like he was trying to pour all of his heart into it.

I almost warned him that he had better cool it if he didn’t want to risk getting me hooked, but I was too late. He was already busy undoing the buttons on my own top and gently kneading my chest through the fabric of my bra, and I was quickly losing track of which of us was more into what was happening.

It didn’t really matter, but just in case he was still worried that I might not want to be there, I snuck my hand down and under the waistband of his pajamas.

“Fuck!” he cursed in a hushed whisper, his body buckling forward far enough that he almost dropped all his weight on me. It was so damn cute that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Don’t be too loud or we’ll never get to the fun part,” I warned, my voice barely a whisper in his ear.

His very eloquent response was a breathless, “Shit.” I couldn’t blame him, though. It was honestly more than I expected him to be able to enunciate when I grabbed hold of his dick and began making soft strokes.

It was obvious that he was trying very hard to stay quiet, but the whimpers and whines were falling from his mouth so quickly that I was forced to kiss him just to muffle the noise. Thankfully, Raymond took the hint that he needed to be quiet and decided to redirect the attention from himself back to me. He accomplished that task by pulling away from me just far enough that he could grab hold of my pants and underwear and roughly pull them down my thighs. The speed and force lit a fire deep in my gut, my whole body breaking out in goosebumps as I allowed myself to enjoy just how badly he wanted me. I’m sure the spite thing had a lot to do with it, too, but it had been a long time since a man was so clearly into me. It was an unavoidable conclusion in every touch from him.

A much-too-loud moan caught in my throat when he returned, slipping his fingers into my heat as he laid another feverish kiss against my lips. But it broke almost immediately with his own choked moan, followed by a low, breathy observation.

“You weren’t kidding about wanting this.”

“Nope,” I replied quickly, trying to control the noises coming out of my mouth by replacing them with words. It only sort of worked when I keened, “Fuck, you’re better at this than I thought.”

Raymond didn’t even stop, continuing to curl his fingers inside of me with each thrust. He did smile, though. A cheeky, borderline annoying smile that told me he knew what a bastard he was being.

“Again, I can’t tell if that is a compliment,” he said with an overwhelming amount of sarcasm as he watched me squirm under him.

I chose to ignore the taunt, opting to grab the condom from the bedside table and throw it directly at his face instead. “Put the fucking condom on, Raymond.”

There was less commentary from the peanut gallery from that point on. I did enjoy the show, though. As I removed my bra, I watched with rapt fascination as he stripped himself of his clothes. My desire grew at an exponential rate at the sight of him slipping the condom on. I’d gotten some idea of the size of him with my hand, but to see something so lewd in such an innocent room and on his shy little figure was something else.

Raymond shrunk a little under my gaze, only regaining his confidence when he saw the way my teeth dragged over my bottom lip. I ran my hands over my body that was still on display for him, thoroughly enjoying the way I could make his eyes go wherever I wanted with such a simple motion.

“Fuck me, Raymond.”

I heard his breath catch and watched the shiver flow through him at the order. Sure enough, he started to follow my instructions and lined himself up at my entrance with adorably shaky hands. But then, right before I got what I came for, he paused.

“Are you su—“

I was tired of waiting. Hooking my leg around his waist, I forced Raymond to thrust forward. My assistance didn’t take any of the pleasure out of it when he was finally, fully inside of me. I couldn’t stop the way my back arched, pressing my chest against his with a wanton cry.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mumbled into my hair, burying his face in the crook of my neck as he adjusted to the new set of sensations.

I only gave him a few seconds to get used to it, fully ready to get the release that already felt so close.

“Fuck me,” I whined, already starting to roll my hips against the boy blubbering curses into my skin.

“O-Okay,” he muttered in the most adorable fashion.

That shyness was contrasted strongly by what followed. For all his whimpers and trembling, Raymond didn’t seem to mind the way the bed would creak under us. In fact, it seemed that he was playing his own game, trying to elicit as many noises from me as he could get from the bed.

On instinct, my hands rose to try to still the headboard. But to my surprise, they never made it. The man above me had grabbed hold of one wrist, pinning it against the pillow to stop me. That simple, thoughtful act was enough to almost send me over the edge right then, but I held on for what I knew would come.

My moans were another story. They seemed so inevitable, with Raymond slamming into me with a progressively rougher force until I rode that line between pain and pleasure. I could see it on his face, too, that we were barreling full speed to the inevitable.

So, it was as good a time as any for me to set the next step in motion. With full volume and a pitch nearly an octave higher than usual, I screamed, “Yes, Raymond!”

That cheeky little bastard laughed. That noise was such music to my ears, that I couldn’t just stop there.

“God, yes! Fuck me harder!” I cried dramatically while drawing out the words. In a way, I was over exaggerating for effect, but I was also actually having a great time. In fact, it was the best sex I’d had in a long time.  

Raymond, catching on to the plan that I’d never explicitly explained, joined in with his own chant of my name, mixed with deep moans rumbling in his chest. I ran my nails down his back, seeking to elicit the higher pitched sounds I knew he was capable of when I realized just how much fun I was having with him.

It was also, of course, super fucking hot. But how often do you get to have this much fun with a random one night stand you found at the bar? Not often enough, I decided.

“Please, Raymond! Harder!” I begged, both in accordance with my previous moans and also because it was what I needed.

I couldn’t decide on a word to describe that wild look on his face, but Raymond had no problem following through with my request. Releasing my wrist, he sat up on his knees, grabbing hold of my hips and lifting them so that he could come down between them at a new angle.

That angle, it seemed, left him bottoming out inside of me with each brutal thrust. My legs were actually shaking around him, my back barely touching the bed as I threw my head back on that damn alien pillowcase.

The clacking of the headboard against the plaster shook the hung UFO picture, which ended up clattering behind it with about as much grace and subtlety as Raymond and I shared in that moment.

But that crashing also masked the sound of the door slamming open, just as I’d been waiting for. And for a long moment, neither of us even looked over to the light filtering in from the hallway. Instead, we locked eyes with each other as the two of us simultaneously reached our peak.

I was so, so glad that I didn’t look away. I kept my eyes firmly on Raymond as he threw his head back, forcing himself as deep in me as he could and holding me against him as I nursed him through his orgasm with my own. His mouth, though dropped open, was curved in a satisfied smile, one last moan tearing through the two of us before he promptly collapsed on top of me.

Then, it finally came. Donald’s voice bellowing, “What the fuck is going on in here?!”

 —

 As Raymond and I sat in my car that night, there was a much more relaxed atmosphere. Whether the catharsis was from the sex or the big fuck you to his father, the two of us were just basking in the afterglow of the overall experience.  

Of course, he was also laughing at the fact I was currently wrapped up in his alien bedsheet.

“We could’ve gotten your clothes, you know.”

“There was no way in hell I was going to drop this sheet in front of that man,” I said through my laughter, my mind replaying the chaos of the last few minutes over again in my head.

“Probably a good call,” Raymond answered.  

But then another thought occurred to me, which caused my face to contort into a disgusted grimace.

“You’d better go get my underwear and bra later, though. He cannot keep those.”

“Will do. Promise,” he said with a little nod that ended with him staring at me with an absolutely smitten look plastered on his face.

“You can keep them, though,” I offered, reaching over and pretending like I could actually fix the birds nest on his head.

“Thanks. I’m flattered,” he said while chasing after my hand that eventually settled on his cheek. His face was still flushed, his eyes still only half opened as he nearly fell asleep against my palm. I wondered if it was from the orgasm, or if it was just the first time in a while he’d felt safe enough to do it. He must’ve seen the worry in my eyes, because he interrupted the thought with another question.

“Did you accomplish your goal?”

I thought about it for a second, dragging my fingers down his face before I pulled back with a sigh. “I feel satisfied,” I decided. “What about you?”

Raymond also took the chance to think about it before he nodded with more enthusiasm than before.

“I feel pretty good,” he said proudly.

“That’s all? Just pretty good?” I replied with an annoyed click of my tongue. I mean, I was wrapped in his bedsheets after just helping him achieve one of the most satisfying catharses of his life, and all he had to say was ‘pretty good?’

But then I saw it, that little sparkle in his eyes that showed me he just wanted to rile me up before he gave his real answer.  

“It was fucking glorious.”

It wasn’t even the words that filled my heart with pride, but the way his whole expression softened as he said it. He obviously meant it with every fiber of his being, and I couldn’t help but fall in love a little bit at the sight.

“Sorry I got you kicked out,” I said to distract myself from that dangerous line of thought.

“Not the first time. Hopefully the last,” he nonchalantly shrugged as I turned the key in the ignition. We hadn’t actually planned on what to do from this point, but I certainly had some ideas.  

“You can stay at my place,” I slurred through my exhaustion, “I have a guest bedroom if you feel weird staying in mine.”

But Raymond didn’t answer. He just laughed, shaking his head and rubbing a heavy hand over his tired eyes.

“What?” I asked, a little worried I’d made a mistake.

“Nothing,” he reassured with that stupid fucking grin that was soon aimed straight at me, “it’s just… You’re asking me if I want to sleep with you. Again.”

“Yeah, what about it?” I laughed, turning to pull out of the driveway. The bumps didn’t bother Raymond that time.

“I’d love to,” he said as we turned onto the main road, his hand finding mine on the gear shift.

“Great.” Allowing the relief to flow through his hand and into me, I realized that the reason I’d had so much fun with this random one night stand was because a large part of me knew it was never going to be just that.

“You know, my bed’s not a twin, and it doesn’t creak, so…” I trailed off, hoping that he would be clever enough to put it together.

“So what?”

He was not. But that was okay, because I realized that was exactly what I loved about him.

“Never mind,” I sighed, “I’ll show you in the morning.”

——————————————————

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