#terrible dad bracket

[visenyaism]

ASOIAF terrible fathers bracket FINAL FOUR: Jaehaerys Targaryen vs. Craster

Jaehaerys: I fully recognize this is probably my last chance to deliver unto y’all my anti-jaehaerys sermon, so I am gonna leave it all on the fucking field for you people today. Between passing over daenerys for his son against his wife’s wishes, making his wife carry 13 of his children against her wishes, forcing his terrified likely cognitively disabled 13 year old daughter to get married against her will (resulting in her violent death), exiling his 16 year old daughter to another continent for having premarital sex after holding her down and making her watch as he chopped her boyfriend in half with a sword and then saying it’s fine she had to resort to sex work because she was always a whore anyways, forcing his other 16 year old daughter to get married to an old man thousands of miles away from her home (resulting in her death), locking his final teenage daughter away from public view during her pregnancy and miscarriage (resulting in her suicide), making his 12 year old granddaughter marry his sixteen year old grandson and start trying for kids (resulting in her death) and passing over Rhaenys for Viserys (resulting in the dance of the dragons, which caused the downfall of house targaryen), Jaehaerys was a MENACE to each and every woman in his life, way too personally invested in his teen daughters’ sex lives in a way that does carry sinister implications, and ultimately laid the seeds for the cataclysm that would swallow his whole family forever. Looked at his daughters and all he could see was a wife (whether for himself, his sons, or another old man he needed to gain power from) and a future incubator he would exchange the life of for a grandson. see you in hell

craster: marries his daughters and sacrifices his sons to the white walkers

[yeyinde]

baby blues

John Price + the panic of fatherhood x reader

pregnancy. babies. soft. sappy. angsty. slight allusions to rough sex. John being possessive and smitten. allusions to childhood trauma. the fear of children is somehow more potent than the fear of god. girl dad John. mentions of Price's divorce lmao

Most assume he'd take to fatherhood like he'd been born for the role; handcrafted to cradle a swaddled babe in his arms. The perfect father figure. But as he hovers over your sleeping form, the little bundle nestled in the sleepy bracket of your arms, he's overcome with a sense of dread that punches hard enough to shatter bone.

The reality is this: Price doesn't understand kids. He wants them. Covets them with a viciousness that almost immediately sets alarm bells off in the heads of those who were opposed to the idea of children, parenthood. Giving birth. But when it comes to being a dad, a role model, an effigy to siphon wisdom and knowledge off of, he flounders. Hesitates.

All he has as an idea of fatherhood is bruises laughed off by the neighbours as him being a clumsy boy. A man who drank in the living room, silent in his fury, his belligerence, until something—anything, really—set him off. He always seemed like he was itching for a reason to punish.

And god, was he ever fucking good at it.

If anger issues are hereditary, then Price picked up the generational slack of his seething ancestors. 

It's this, and the plethora of scars and burns that decorate his skin (well hidden, tucked away like a dirty secret because if Old Man Price was anything, it certainly wasn't stupid; he knows how to hide the ugliness of himself away, and how to turn a boy into a punching bag without causing too much damage, too much alarm) that make him ache something fierce when he sees his chubby little child for the first time. 

Price doesn't know how to be gentle. All he has are worn, rough hands and a constant stench of smoke. A voice that makes grown men tremble. An ire unmatched thus far in his life. 

Until you. Little spitfire. His hellion. You stood on the tips of your toes just to tell him off for being a stubborn pig! and then taught him how to hold you. How to be tender. But even now, he can see the wear on your skin from his bites. His propensity for violence that he morphs into desire. Into lust. 

How is he supposed to be a dad when he's this caustic? This mean? 

The answer doesn't come. All he gets is the rhythmic sigh of your breath as you sleep, well and truly exhausted after giving birth to their child. All alone. A constant in your lives, it seems. Aloneness. His work takes him away, throws him into dangerous situations. And you carry the brunt of it. 

It caused the rupture of his first marriage and is a needling fear he carried with him when you started pursuing him some odd years ago. To think that he'd be standing here now, gazing down at you with your heavy eyes and your soft cheeks, rounded with the additional weight you gained during your early trimesters. A plushness he's trying to keep on you for good—all softened edges, flesh that gives when he touches you, marshmallows out between his fingers when he squeezes.

You look good like this. Motherhood, despite your misgivings (it took three years of him hinting and hounding you before you'd relented with a sure, what's the worst that could happen? We're terrible parents and raise a terrible kid? Or we end up the catalyst for a list of psychological issues and get reamed out during their therapy sessions later on in life?), suits you. Fits you like a glove.

A fact you'd been quietly overwhelmed by in the first few months, grieving the loss of something he couldn't ever understand, or experience. A piece of yourself morphing into the mother that raised you. A kaleidoscope of feelings that you choke on when he asks, unable to render them into coherent words. 

But you're good at that, aren't you? Good at culling expectations, at superseding the limits others place on you. Even him. 

Especially him. 

When he'd said, don't know what you're gettin’ yourself into, love, you took it to the chin like he challenged you to a brawl, and set out to show him why you knew what this was, what he was, and why it didn't matter much. 

Even now—

Giving birth all alone. Overcoming the isolation of being shackled to a man who married his post first. Sisterwife to his career. Second in all things. 

Even this. 

He was in Iceland when he got the call. Laswell, of all people, was on the other line telling him his own wife was in the delivery room. Water broke. Baby is on the way. 

And you—

Don't worry, old man. Just do what needs to be done and we'll be waiting. Always. 

—well. You certainly are. Alone in a hospital room with the curtains drawn to blot out the sun as you sleep, cradling this thing he made with his fingers shoved deep into your mouth, uttering foul under his breath as he crushed you to the bed, rutting you like an animal—the most tender he could ever be—and he's suddenly all too aware of his own inadequacies. His shortcomings. Failures. 

He's not a dad. He's not the sort of man people think about when they think healthy father figure. He likes cigars and whiskey, and sometimes aches for a mission that will let him cut his knuckles on teeth—bloodletting; exorcising his demons out on the people he's sanctioned to kill. How is he supposed to guide a child when he threw a man over a railing without a second thought—

The bundle stirs. Wrinkled, red face scrunching up tight. Little thing is just like you, huh? All softness and give. All—

They cry, and it's shrill. Loud. It jars him.

Not the sound, but the anguish he feels piercing through his chest as they bellow out their confusion to the world, this lost little thing. Strapped with a father who was beaten black and blue and told to be a man when he cried. 

But right now—anger is the furthest thing on his mind. He can't fathom that emotion when his child is whimpering in your arms, chubby little fingers grasping at the air. Seeking comfort. 

Waking you feels cruel when you've spent the better part of two days awake. Four, really. You couldn't sleep when the contractions hit, wide-eyed and worried about everything. What if something went wrong? If they hated you? What if you hurt them—

Worries he tried to assuage, but couldn't deny he felt them, too. 

All he knows how to do is hurt. But as he reaches down for this little thing squirming in your arms, he tells himself to be tender. To be the man his dad never was. 

And they're soft. So fuckin’ soft. Tiny, too. His hands dwarf them, engulfing them completely. He tries to blame the way he trembles on the denial of nicotine for so long, but the mist in his eyes, and the burn in his throat, call him a liar. He doesn't know what to do. Even with all the hours spent thumbing through manuals and books and scoffing under his breath at the parenting courses you dragged him to (but paid rigid attention to every word the heavily bangled woman said to him), he feels lost. Unsure. The ground is shaky. Control slips. And that's maybe the crux of it all—

Babies can't be controlled. And it's the loss of this, what makes him whole, keeps him steady, that has him feeling rubber-limbed and fawn-like. 

“Quiet, now,” he murmurs, and then winces at the rough drag of his voice in the silence of the room. Too firm, too forceful. All the gentleness he has in his bones was devoured by your greedy mouth when you cracked him open like the legs of a snow crab, marrow slurped up until he was hollow. Empty. His tenderness rests inside your belly. What else does he have to give—

But the warm bundle in his awkward, clumsy hold stops their shrill cries. A girl, he remembers you saying. Crying. Sobbing into the phone when he called, all ugly and gross. He heard you sniffle, snot undoubtedly dribbling from your nose as you wept to him about how fucking cute their baby was. Their little girl. 

She's soft. Smells of a newborn, too—something powdery. Sweet. Warmed milk, fresh bread. The clinical books that made you squeamish, the ones that outlined every anatomical and chemical change to your body, mentioned that newborns smelled distinct to each parent. A phenomenon meant to encourage protection and bonding. 

It made you shiver, muttering my little parasite under your breath, even as your hand curved possessively over your bulging belly. 

He knows that's what this is. Chemical. His mind is evolving, shifting. Changing. And it's then that he feels something hot thicken in his throat. Something ugly, and bitter. The scars on his knuckles, the cigarette burns on his fingers are a sharp reminder of what his father felt and ignored. 

He scoffs, then, irritated at himself. He's a grown man and still—

Still thinks of him. 

“Won't be like that,” he says, still rough. Still firm. She blinks up at him, eyes rheumy and wide. “Not with you.” 

Never. Never. He pins the word to his pericardium, letting it rot his tissue. He'd rather die, he thinks, than ever hurt this little girl. But despite that, he knows he will. Inevitably. Just like he does everything good—or bad—in his life. Leaching from the goodness of others, sucking them dry and letting them moulder. A disappointment everywhere except the battlefield where he screams himself hollow and rents the air with his ire. Incorrigible. Immovable. An object of cruelty. Unforgiving in all aspects. A curse that follows him home, into his marital bed when he pins you down, and makes you profess your love for the beast inside of him. Never satiated, never quelled, until you're shackled at his side. Tucked away from the world he knows is too cruel to people like you who end up a corpse he has to step over on his way for empty retribution. 

He thinks, too, about all the ways he's going to ruin this chubby little thing in his arms, and wishes, suddenly, he was a better man. 

“Gonna hate my fuckin' guts when you're sixteen, aren't you?” In response, this little thing just opens its red maw and blows bubbles. He huffs. “You're gonna be nothin’ but trouble, mm? Steal my car. Crash it because your mum's gonna teach you how to drive and she backed into the garage six times already. Gonna gang up on me. Both of you. Little nightmares.” 

He's not sure what else to say, and thinks, already, that he said too much. Bared his belly to her too soon. She'll have this memory, buried down in the deep recesses of her psyche of her father falling to pieces while he held her. An impossibility, he knows, but can't shake the feeling that this, in itself, is an epoch. A marker for what's to come. All the ugly, the hate. The screaming matches that make him curl his hand into fists as she levels his failures at him. Not to hit. Never to hit. But to stop the tremble that won't stop. That has already started. The shake in his joints that tell him to run before he hurts. Before he ruins this precious mass of his blood and your tissue in his arms. 

“Gonna—” he isn't crying. Isn't. But there's a thickness in his throat as he thinks about how quickly she'll grow up. Age marked in the crows feet that gather around your eyes. The laugh lines. “Gonna be a fuckin' menace, and I'll—” he chokes, then, when she reaches up with a pudgy, red fist and snags the strap of his vest he didn't even bother taking off before he fled here. Fat, tiny fingers curling into the spot he grabs to ground himself from lashing out. “Fuck.”

He'd burn the world for her, he knows. Sacrifice everyone and everything just to keep her warm. Both of you. It begins and ends with this little thing that has your eyes and his nose. 

But he doesn't know how to translate that into love. Into affection. 

It comes out caustic. Abrasive. Possessive. 

And he is. 

Now that he has her in his hands he knows that nothing else will ever compare. That they'll never be empty because she'll always fit in his palms no matter how big she gets. There's only ever been enough space in his heart for you. Chiselled into with a fuckin’ pickaxe because you wouldn't wait for it to grow on its own. 

But there's give, he realises. This domicile you carved yourself has a room attached. A place for her. And she fits like a glove. Sliding inside. Cocooned against his pulse. 

He loves her. Endlessly. Forever. She deserves better. More. 

But when he tells her this, she makes a noise and it sounds like a giggle. 

“Laughin’ at me already, mm?”

She giggles again, and he likes that her laugh is a little ugly. A little mean. 

“Scarin’ the wits outta me,” he confesses, shifting her weight as she occupies herself with the clasp of his vest, disinterested in the man that breaks into pieces around her now. “I don't know—fuck, I don't—”

You come to in a panic. It starts as a slow roll to the side before your eyes flash open, wide and furious even as sleep congeals in the corners, pawing at the empty spot where the lingering warmth of your child presses into your chest. Anger, fury, darkens over your brow, and the apoplectic rage that simmers in the gaps of your dread, your fostering panic, softens him. Makes him melt. The burn of your ire, your fear, liquifying his bones. 

He falls in love with you a little bit more at that moment. When the snarl rucks your upper lip up, up, teeth bared to the world as you whip your head around in frantic, desperate dismay, searching for the little girl he knows you, too, will burn the world for. 

“I've got her,” he says, whisper-soft and low. Cadence even, clear. Tries to quell the howl he can see hammering its fists against your throat before it rips from your lips and scorches the world around you in a hail of horrifying anguish. “She's safe.”

It says something when you immediately go still at the sound of his voice, muscles going lax, slack, as you slowly turn your head toward him, blinking against the fog clotting your vision. Something that cuts him to the core. Rents his chest in halves. One side for you, and the other for her. Nothing left to spare. 

This feeling brimming in his chest sweetens when you startle at the sight of him, them, lashes shuttering like an old camera as if you were trying to sear the image in your head forever. Branded on the back of your eyelids. (A sentiment he knows all too well considering the stream of photos added to his camera roll of you and her nuzzled together.)

“You—” your voice catches, breaks from sleep. Fatigue. You swallow, slowly licking your lips. “When did you get in?”

Your eyes are glued to them. Unblinking. Widened with pure affection, the intensity of which makes him want to touch you, hold you.

“A few hours ago,” he murmurs, glancing down at his—

It cuts a jagged line through his chest. Knicks his bone with how deep it goes. False starts pressed tight to his heart. 

—his daughter. Fuck’s sake. 

He's choked. Strangled. Rendered mute, immobilised. It guts him, this. Daughter. The ring of it echoes in his head, filling the recesses of his mind. Embedding itself within his head. Congealed over. Fixed in place. 

“I have a fuckin’ daughter,” he breathes at length, the air knocked from his lungs. He's not sure why this is what breaks him, but it does. And it's you, then, holding the fracturing pieces together, hands reaching out—in a startling mimicry of his daughter, and fuck, doesn't that just eviscerate him—and curling against the heaving brackets of his ribs, boxing him in. 

“John,” you say, but your voice wobbles. Wavers. When he peels his eyes away from the sleepy yawn she lets out long enough to look at you, there's tears flooding your lashline. Threatening to break. “Fuck,” you say, crass and beautiful, and he's overcome with the urge to tuck you into his other arm, keep you both cradled in his hands. “Don't make me cry or my stitches will tug.” 

“We've got a daughter,” he says again, just to hear it uttered aloud. We. Yours. His. It messes with him. Bludgeons into his core. “We've—”

“She's beautiful, isn't she?” 

Your words shatter him, but the pinch of your hands on his waist keeps him from buckling. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, voice thick. Ugly. It's mangled in his throat. All fractured and raw. “Just like her mother.”

He shows his affection in the burn of his embrace. In the way he holds you tight, refusing to let go. Keeps his words callous and firm. Soft utterances, declarations of love, tucked away in the sure, greedy way he clings to you in his sleep. Yields to you like no one else. Lets you in. 

And he supposes he ought to say it more often if the way your face crinkles up just like his daughter when she cried, tears spilling over your rounded cheeks. 

“Don't,” you heave, ugly and brittle, and he thinks you're the prettiest thing he'd ever seen in his life. “Don't or I'll rip my stitches—”

He huffs. Nods only once, and then steps toward you. “Do you want—?”

“Keep her for a little while,” you mutter, leaning back into the bed, eyes lidded by fond. So in love with him, the picture they paint, it's almost sickening. “She likes you.”

He snorts. “She's only three hours old. Give her time.” 

You're quiet for a beat. Pensive. Mulling something over. It's never a good thing when you're silent, and the unease that grows in his belly is justified when you heave out a long, tired exhale through your nose. 

The way you look at him is raw. “You're not your father, John.” 

And isn't that just the worst lie he'd ever heard.

He scoffs, then. Shifts his weight, still cradling his daughter tight to his chest. “Mm, 'dunno about that.”

“I do.”

“Jus’—” leave it. Keep going. Keep feeding him lies as he stands here and pretends that he wasn't a horrible bastard for wanting this from you. From taking it. Strapping you with a man who's always, always, one foot out the door—

“No.” You say, soft and sure. “You're not him. I know you're not because you're still here.”

“So was he.” 

You don't acknowledge the interruption. Content, it seems, to rattle off lies and half-truths into the stifling air. Your eyes close, the curve of your lashes leonine. Breathtaking.

“Do you want me to take her?” You ask instead of the multitude of things he can see piling behind your eyes. Some of the ugly. Jagged glass. Others powder soft. 

He shakes his head. “You need your rest,” it's a half-truth. Fatigue clings to you still, swathed in the purpling of your skin. The slow, heavy blinks you take to try and fight the tug of an artificial sleep. 

But the real reason is this:

He's just not ready to let her go. 

Thinks, viciously, suddenly, that if he does, this moment built between them in budding, liquid blue will cease forever. Severed too soon. She'll carry the same resentment in her heart he feels for his own father, and he'll die in a shallow pit thinking about how badly he wanted just a second longer. 

Generational, right? Trickle down hatred. Ancestral rage. It's what your grandma talks about sometimes over tea and fried bread, half disbelieving you brought a white man into her home, and making a show, a facade, of wisdom even though he spotted the how to raise a child notebook she hastily shoved into the kitchen drawer when you arrived. Taking over in place of your own mother, stepping up. And yet—

She just doesn't get it, you said, rubbing your hands over your belly when she steps away after another long-winded conversation about traditions, spirits, and dead languages. Raising a child like yours in a world like this. She's just. I don't know. Ignore her. 

(He doesn't. But you don't have to know that.)

So. He clings to her a little tighter. Holds her a little firmer. Brings her close to his chest and hopes she can hear the echo of his heartbeat and know that this tired, old song is just for her. 

(The heart itself for you—)

And maybe—

Maybe he's not quite ready to see you be a mother. Some perverse part of him is already trembling at the promise of watching you nurture and feed her, the tantalising whisper is enough to make the air in his lungs turn humid, sticky. Tar, you remind him sometimes, having seen the ugly spatter of black in the grainy photos the doctor in Hereford likes to shove at him. Never too late to reverse the damage, John. 

Or maybe he wants you for himself just a moment longer. An hour. A day. When you're still you, shackled and bound to a man who reeks of stale tobacco, and started sneaking cigarettes in the dead of night like some pimply, awkward teenager when you first came to him, cheeks wet and eyes wild, and said:

“John, I'm—”

Pregnant. 

He did it, of course. Put that baby in you. Made it with his teeth buried into your throat and your hips canting up to meet him, taking everything he had to offer. Animal aggression. Nothing tender in the way he chewed you up, made you beg him for it. But still—

Wanting and having are worlds apart, aren't they? 

Faced with it, the consequences of his actions, he's at a standstill. 

You hum, and when your eyes slide open, he feels the mallet against his head. Cracked open. You fossick about until you find what you're looking for. Cheeky fuckin’ thing—

“Fine. Just pull up a chair before you keel over, old man.” 

“M’fine,” he grouses in that voice that serves as a dice roll between making you feel hot or homicidal depending on the mood he catches you in. Muttering something under your breath that sounds like a whispered plea for guidance (“tss, gimme strength.”)

But even with the waspish denial, he's inching closer to the spare chair left in the corner, looping his ankle around the leg to slide it closer. The squeal of rubber on aluminium makes him grimace, eyes darting down to his sleeping girl, nestled in his arms. Her brow pinches in the same way your grandma’s do when she's annoyed by the news. Her bingomates. The way he refuses her offering of burning tobacco and lemongrass whenever he goes away for a while, unable to really commit to this little, broken family that feels more like home than his own ever did. 

(“aint my place,” he says, and she scoffs. 

“fuck, s'matter wit’cha?” is her counter, the harsh line between her brows now perfectly superimposed on his daughter’s face. “tss. ain't yer place, eh. are you tryna piss me off? fuck, you make me mad—”)

He sees that spitting anger in you. Generational, he knows. The same inherited attitude his daughter will inevitably have. The one that singles him out as an outlier. Outnumbered. Three, now, to one—

There's got to be a reason why his chest bubbles, innervated by the thought of a Sunday dinner when she's old enough to watch her grandma make intricate bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and pins with thread and glass beads as you, her mother, cuss at the stove that doesn't burn as hot as it used to, flipping over golden dough in a sizzling pan. 

Orange juice in old cups your grandma kept since the nineties. Something soft playing on the radio. The peeling, waterlogged wallpaper flakes off the wall when you slam the pan down too hard. The way the spill of the sun through the rusting window rents the room in half. Pale yellow and oak. Little orange blossoms in soft pink above the speckled granite countertops. Everything awash in a gossamer of sleepy-eyed affection. 

Just like it is now. But—

He looks down at her, head full of lead. Cotton. 

Complete, maybe. 

“Don't know how to be a dad,” he confesses to you, and thinks of how much easier it is to slam a sledgehammer into a metal door than it is to peel back the veneer sometimes. “Don't want to mess up.” 

“You'll be fine.” 

The crinkle of the plastic mattress, the scratch of the sheets sliding across the bed is louder now than it was before. He cuts the gentle sounds with an abrading hum that clicks off his teeth. 

“Get some sleep,” he says again instead of the awful truth that buoys in his throat. Things like you don't know and I tricked you this whole time into thinking I'm a good man and look what you’ve let me do to you. “You need it.” 

Another noise. In his periphery, he watches you lean back against the upright pillows, lips parted on a soft sigh. He feels—

Small, then. An oxymoron considering he has to duck his head to get in and out of the room, towering over most he meets daily. But the inadequacies gut him. Vivisect him. He should be more comforting to you, he knows. This whole thing has been difficult. Tiresome. Cut into and having the life you grew inside of you cut out—

“Did good,” he rasps, still staring down at her even as he pulls the chair as close to your bed as he can get. “With her.” 

You snort. It's inelegant. Ugly. Brittle, like you're holding back tears. 

When he glances up, he finds that you are. “You're strong,” he adds, and knows he should have started with this first. “Doin’ this all on your own.” 

“I had help.”

It's awkward trying to adjust himself in the seat with his daughter perched in his arms, but he finds a way. Settled, then, with her still sleeping away, he lifts his hand from her back, keeping her cradled in his arm with the other, and reaches for you. 

The starchy sheets catch on the bramble of hair on his knuckles, the back of his hand, and the static jolts tickle against the rough scar tissue thickened over his knuckles, some still fresh, scabbed from the latest mission he'd been deployed to. You watch him, misty-eyed and tremulous, as he draws nearer, eyes flickering like a pendulum between the bundle nestled on the thick of his arm, to him, watching you back. Greedily taking in every spasm, every blink. 

Something inside of him cracks. Softens. He thinks, breathless, that you've never been as beautiful to him as you are right now. Bubbles of snot in your nose. Eyes reddened, dropping from exhaustion. A dizzying mess. The sort that speaks of tireless work, of physicality. Muted pain brimming in the backs of your eyes when you pull on your stitches. 

“Got a pretty wife,” he says, and it's not enough. He knows it isn't. Looks away before the fracture lilt to his tone breaks him in two. “And—” it's hard to say. He forces himself to. “And a beautiful daughter.” 

The tears stream down your face at this quiet, clumsy admission. 

“Don't—” you sniffle, hoarse. “Or I'll tear my stitches.”

“M’not doin' anythin’, love.” 

“Fuck you, John—”

He leans back in his chair with a hum, eyes slipping shut. A brief respite amid the panic still clinging tight to his ribcage. “Love you too.” 

It's quiet. Nothing but the soft drag of each breath his daughter takes, the tremulous sniffle you give as you try to dam the tears sliding down your cheeks. His heart hammering in his ears. He commits it all to memory. Glueing it to the fibrils of mind where it'll stay, embedded in tissue, for as long as he is of sound mind. 

Much like the grainy, black-and-white ultrasounds stuffed in his breast pocket. Tucked inside the drawer of his desk where he keeps the pictures of you. Keepsakes he's unnecessarily possessive over, elbowing the rowdier men who try to needle him for sparse information on the little wife he hides at home and the baby they'll never meet. Something just for him. Unshareable to the rest of the world because they don't deserve you. 

The feathered snores tell him you're finally asleep, and he thinks about resting for a moment as well—the bone-deep exhaustion he feels jetting from Iceland to home, to the hospital catches up to him with a vicious kick to temples—but the weight in his arm keeps him awake. Hyperviligent. 

There's this urge clawing at him, making ruins of his chest, and he answers its worried insistence by opening his eyes just a sliver to stare down at the little bundle in his arms only to find she's staring back at him. Eyes wide. Comically too big for her chubby face. 

She has your complexion, but his dark curls. Her eyes, though, are the perfect equilibrium between pools of sapphire, burnt blue, marbled with the dark gleam, that vibrant shade of yours that he's so fond of, the one that's often accompanied by a smart-ass remark. Seeing it gaze up at him with such incipient adoration knocks the air from his lungs. Has his heart shuddering in the brackets of his chest. 

It's love, he thinks first. Instantaneous. Apodictic. And then, cold, callous—

Chemical. 

Just to hurt himself, maybe. Just to let it cut deep. Scar. Because as he stares down at her, he knows it doesn't matter. No amount of hatred, of anger, will ever rip her away from him. His daughter. His family. His.

Like her mother. The root of it all. The catalyst. The start. 

Shackled to this gaping chasm that devours endlessly, never satiated. Always starving. 

Needy. Full of greed. 

Because even now he covets. Craves. Muses to himself about how he can convince you to have another the moment the opportunity arises and you're healed. Whole. Aching for it. 

He wasn't joking when he said he wanted a football team. 

But for now—

The soft sighs you make in your sleep, ones that almost sound like his name, and the comforting weight of his daughter in his arms are enough to make the beast inside purr. Preening under its own conquest, its own victory of successfully turning your body into a home he can rest his weary head on. Sacrosanct. 

He looks at her, then, and feels the dread ease into pride. Into elation. An emotion he knows should have come first, but it's here now, and that's all that really matters.

“Gonna be trouble,” he grouses, watching her pink mouth gape wide, blood-red maw grinning up at him in delirious glee only babies can imbue. Unhindered by the ruination of the world around them. Unfettered. 

Something he couldn't protect you from, but knows you're both on the same wavelength when it comes to her. At all costs, you'd said, hand against the burgeoning swell. And he kissed you until he couldn't feel his lips anymore. Until all he tasted, all he knew, was the taste of you.

“Of the best kind, though, mm?” 

In response, she coos. And he hews the sound into his chest where it sits beside the brand of when you first said, i love you, too, John. 

So, he relaxes. Whispers soft, conspiratorily. "Think you might need'a brother, mm? What'd you say about that?"

And she giggles.

[janmisali]

Super Mario Bracket: VIVIAN vs COUNT BLECK

"You're about to have a really terrible experience!"

Vivian

SEED: 1 (215 nominations)

PREVIOUS OPPONENT: Kamek

SPECIES: Shadow

DEBUT: The Thousand-Year Door

NOMINATION EXAMPLE: TRANS RIGHTS 🏳️‍⚧️ as a nonbinary- and transgender-identifying person (thank you, jan Misali for helping me feel comfortable about myself, even indirectly), vivan is a character i love to see and hear about. i never played a paper mario game, but her presence in the thousand year door is very important to me, and i’m glad the remake of the game remedied the trans-erasure of the original release across versions. who doesn’t love representation in media?

[Super Mario Wiki article]

"Our duel will be worthy of the last clash the world will ever see!"

Count Bleck

SEED: 17 (34 nominations)

PREVIOUS OPPONENT: Iggy

SPECIES: Super Paper Mario character

DEBUT: Super Paper Mario

NOMINATION EXAMPLE: where do i even START. genuinely one of the saddest characters i can think of. trapped in romeo and juliet if juliet had actually died and come back to life and romeo thought the only way to kill himself was by nuke. his dad is racist. its his fate to destroy the universe and he doesn’t seem to think he can stop that even when he finds out timpani’s not dead. he and his story make me cry, genuinely, every time i replay SPM. and he does it all with a goofy speech pattern and a cartoon villain outfit. say what you want my man can multitask.

[Super Mario Wiki article]

[link to all polls]

[web-novel-polls]

MXTX Side Characters Upper Bracket

Shang Qinghua / Airplane from SVSSS

Submission: He's a sidekick and he's so sidelined that despite creating the universe he's treated as an afterthought - doubly a side character! But also? So relateable. He would absolutely have been on tumblr in his first life, he gets so excited about his blorbo who treats him terribly (until they finally get a happy ending in the extras - also! he has to wait for the extras to get his happy ending! very side-character of him). He holds the fascinating position of being mostly irrelevant to the story and yet without him the themes would totally fail. He deserves a win on something for once, okay?

Jiang Cheng from MDZS

Submission 1: Extremely traumatized yet also somehow the most normal and functional by the end. Huge bitch but I (and at least one of the other characters) think he deserves to be even worse after everything he's been through

Submission 2: Simultaneously badass and the most cringefail man. Extremely funny and stylish but still manages to be very uncool. Cries a lot. Also he's lost a lot of tumblr polls—let's give him another shot! We definitely love him more than his dad did!

Submission 3: He's got mommy issues AND daddy issues. He loves his sister and his shige so much. He's traumatised and incredibly competent. He rebuilt his whole sect! He's an asshole (affectionate). He's purple! He's got the coolest weapon ever conceived. I'm so worried about his blood pressure basically all the time.

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, semifinals of the minor bracket

Propaganda:

For Lord Hater and Commander Peepers :

Lord Hater is the self-proclaimed "universe's awesomest evil-doer", an immature, attention-seeking manchild with electric powers and a short temper. He rules the Hater Empire with Commander Peepers as his second-in-command (technically third, after his beloved pet spider-xenomorph, but who's counting), however it soon becomes *very* clear that the cunning, remorseless, hardworking Peepers is the *real* brains behind the empire. Peepers might be frustrated at Hater's incompetence at times and isn't above manipulating him to reach an end goal, but he'd never dream of usurping him because, well, he's really gay and in love with him (as much as he can be in an early-10s Disney cartoon, anyways). Hater might take Peepers for granted a lot of times, but as his oldest friend and closest confidante he's the one who Hater is closest to. Whether it's invading other planets or kicking puppies for fun, these two are *delightfully* terrible jerks and the epitome of gay wrongs. 

Commander Peepers is both Lord Hater's right hand man in villainy AND his jilted stay-at-home-wife-guy (Also in villainy. Hater is really good at getting distracted from productive and efficient villaining.) Lord Hater was the greatest villain in the galaxy thanks to how well he and Commander Peepers worked as an evil team to run the Hater Empire!

Lord Hater conquers planets and is such an edgy bastard. Peepers is the actual brains behind the operation. Peepers is often pushed aside by Hater, they are besties and yet Peepers is always pining for this guy who will never notice. Peepers is so horribly gay for him if you watch the show he wants his stupid boss so bad. Peepers is so scared of him season 1 but then starts yelling BACK in season 2 and has to deal with him like a babysitter or something and yet STILL idolizes him and that’s just such a fun dynamic. His password is H8RNP33PRS43VR (Hater and Peepers forever). They are so evil and everyone fears them and they are villains and they are gay and the side of the fandom that draws them as a married couple that needs counseling is absolutely correct. The fanart of Hater openly liking him back is wonderful but I swear you don’t even need that. They are so gay and villain you have to love them they are

Villains that conquer planets and do evil stuff, my favourite characters, not really canon but they are the best :)

For Wu Zetian x Gao Yizhi x Li Shimin: (propaganda from previous poll here)

They are in a poly and are so morally gray and I love em. The triangle really is the strongest shape

They're gay because they're all bi (literally in Shimin and Yizhi's cases, kinda more implied for Zetian). Zetian and Shimin tortured a man for information (and also because he tortured them first) while Yizhi cooked back in their apartment. They made a plan to destroy their government and take over instead. Yizhi killed his dad because he was talking shit about Zetian and trying to sway his trust in her (it didn't work lmao). Instead of a love triangle (it REALLY seemed like that was what it was heading towards) they all love each other and would (and have) committed atrocities for each other. There's a whole thing about how they're stronger together (like, metaphorically and on the battlefield (Shimin and Zetian pilot a giant mecha together and Yizhi balances them))

They're a canon polyship who are all a bit deranged and down to kill for their goals and/or to protect bae. Two have tortured a man to death together and came home to the third making celebratory cookies for them. 

What's more gay wrongs than trying to take over your country and torturing a man together

[dc-worse-dad-poll]

Round One, Part Three!

Who’s the worse dad?

View the brackets here. Reasons for submission under the cut.

Dick Grayson:

He swore at me once

He's got a daughter in the comics now I think? I'm not actually up to date with modern Nightwing

Roy Harper:

He let his toddler hold a gun

He's not actually a terrible dad I think he's great. But technically he didn't know his daughter was alive for like a decade

[love-strikes-thrice]

So I was touring my local county fairgrounds with my mother yesterday, as one does when one lives in rural Minnesota.

We were admiring all of the entries into the various competitions (vegetables, herbs, fiber arts, baking, jams, etc cetera).

I was bemoaning my terrible showing in the fine arts category (yes I know I went up a bracket, and now I'm up against people four decades older than me, and the bundle of red ribbons I won did contain some blues, and I did get two Reserve Champion ribbons, so I can't feel too bad, but oof I really could have used the prize money this year), and my mom was taking her time in the garden section.

Now, my mom is an amazing "amateur" gardener. She's been gardening and gardening well for almost her entire life, she has flower and vegetable beds all around our house, she was the President of our local garden club for years and only stepped down because she was too busy to run it, and last year she led our entire family in turning our front lawn into a native garden.

Normally, she enters a TON of flowers into the fair, not to mention vegetables, preserves, herbs, and sewing. But this year, for the first time in my memory, she didn't enter anything. In fact, I was the only one in our family that did.

It was an odd experience, but not as odd as the experience that prompted me to tell this story.

So my mom is someone who takes her time while looking at things. She stops, admires, contemplates, critiques, all that good stuff. So I'm used to her taking a Really Long Time looking at flowers.

But after a while, it seems like she's taking longer than usual. I wander over to where she is perusing the snapdragon entries and notice she is taking pictures of some of the plants.

So I sidle up and say "Perusing the competition?"

And she says, "Oh, no, A [one of her friends from the garden club] asked me to send her pictures of her ribbons."

I, who have already skimmed this whole section, and know that A has turned in dozens of entries, realize this is going to take a lot longer than I thought.

So I buckle in for some mild boredom and prepare myself to appreciate flowers for the next hour.

But then, my mom looks to the next entry of A's, and notices the blue ribbon attached, and says,

"Oh, good girl, A!"

My brain scratches to a halt. I can't believe what has just come out of my middle-aged white suburban mother's mouth. But I shake it off. I don't say anything. I think to myself, "surely, it was a fluke. A one-off, not-thought-out comment. My mother has no idea the connotations of that word that the Internet has given me. I'm just going to forget this and move on."

But then she looks at the next of A's entries.

It's a blue ribbon.

And she says it again.

I'm sweating now. "There's no way," I think, "I've literally never heard her say that phrase to a human being before. I have to be imagining this. A isn't even here to hear this! It has to be a coincidence, it won't happen again."

But then my mother turns to the next flower.

It's one of A's.

It has a blue ribbon.

"Good girl."

I'm losing my mind now. It's a battle to keep a straight face. What am I supposed to do? I can't explain praise kinks to my prudish white middle-class mother in the middle of this public building. It wouldn't be so bad if she just said it normally, but she wasn't saying it normally. She was crooning it.

And I was the only witness. My brother and dad, who were supposed to be there with us, had gotten bored ages ago and left to go listen to the country/classic rock cover band that was serenading fairgoers outside the building. There was no one to commiserate with, and certainly no one to save me from this frankly bizarre situation.

So I buckled in.

And listened to my mother.

Say "Good Girl"

To her absentee garden club friend

(who is very nearly a senior citizen)

Twenty

Four

Times.

[episodeoftv]

Prelims, Vote 8 of 8

The top 5 finales will move on to be included in the main bracket

Propaganda is under the cut, may include spoilers

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - 8.09 / 8.10 The Last Day

It just... season 8 had been so bad as a whole, it attempted to touch on the blm movement and did it in an okay at best way and in the wake of it all, i think a lot of people just weren't here for cop shows. The finale tried to bring the magic back with one last heist and it did pull out all the stops but I don't know, it just left me feeling really cold. And the ending being that even though the main character wasn't a cop anymore, that he would return to the station every year for the heist... it just never escapes the cop narrative even after he's left.

Chén Qíng Lìng/The Untamed - Episode 50

I nominate this final on grounds of CCP information control, censorship and homophobia. They were so scared of the power of wangxian that they ended up banning ao3 in china and in the show they have to inexplicably have them part ways just to hammer home the no-homo. Plus the show is just kind of objectively bad.... but it rewires your brain all the same

Community - 6.13 Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television

ok i haven’t watched it in a while but it wasn’t the episode’s fault this show had been going downhill for a while. The finale put it out of its misery mostly.

Kyle XY - 3.10 Bringing Down the House

The writers knew they were getting canceled and chose to raise more questions than answers and set up cliffhangers, rather than have a satisfying end. I'm sure it was a last ditch effort to save the show, but it didn't work and now it's just a bad finale.

Northern Exposure - 6.22 Let's Dance / 6.23 Tranquility Base

No propaganda submitted

Ozark - 4.14 A Hard Way to Go

No propaganda submitted

Soul Eater - 1.51 The Word Is Bravery!

ugh god it just gave up on any attempt at character development or the ending of the story in any meaningful way. instead of a complex universe journey exploring her bond with soul, and death the kid becoming the new god of death, maka just...wins the day by 'being brave', extremely underwhelming and borderline nonsensical

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - 7.25 / 7.26 What You Leave Behind

Man so okay like it’s not the worst worst one out there but man they really just fuckikg did that. Found family all went and spread themselves across the quadrant with the head of the show the leader, Captain Benjamin Sisko who really just wanted to live on Bajor, got turned into an incorporeal being who could no longer live a linear life while his wife and unborn child had to go on without him. They didn’t even have him saying goodbye to his actual son. His literal son did not get a goodbye, they only gave that to Kasidy, and no hate to Kasidy, she’s my girl, but she’s only been there for three year while his actual son Jake sisko was still basically a kid. He was like 19, 20 and no goodbye fork his dad he’s lost time and time again. Some characters got a satisfying ending but then Julian Bashir is left to stay on deep space nine supposedly still in love with Ezri Dax and together (but let’s be honest, it was a terrible forced decision. They made no sense, and had no chemistry) and still stuck without moving forward or changing. Like what a cop out. Not to mention the terrible cgi fire caves where literally gods got thrown into a fire pit and that was the big climax

[blackcharactertournament]

WELCOME TO THE BLACK CHARACTER TOURNAMENT BRACKET

(please click on each image to zoom in. sorry. there was a lot of submissions so this is a weird bracket)

Here’s a poll tournament where YOU vote for YOUR BLACK FAV. This poll is randomly ordered with very few modifications, and includes 197 participants! speaking of, click to see each side in detail!

Round one: Left side! Right side!

here's where i tag a bunch of other polls! check these out too

@latine-showdown @best-fictional-detective @best-ficitonal-husband-bracket @emoboybattle @terrible-teenagers-bracket @autistic-coded-bracket @jojopolls @best-fanfic-trope @best-dad-battle @john-battle @tf2shipswag @horror-lady-tournament @super-shapeshifter-showdown @evilmilftournament @pinkhairswagtourney @ultimate-destroyer-duel @ultimate-poll-tournament @italian-tournament @goat-esc-winner-showdown @let-me-date-them-bracket @fire-starter-tournament @firefighterbracket @gentle-giant-swag

[animateddadbracket]

Worst Animated Dad Bracket Round 2

Propaganda:

Vinsmoke Judge: Thinks of his kids as soldiers, biologically modified them while they were still in the womb to be emotionless and perfectly obedient. when one of his sons was 'malfunctional' and showed emotions he had his son locked in a dungeon with an metal mask so no one would know who the child was. he has five children. the oldest is a girl who feels so in adaquate alot of the time because she was not good enough and he made four more kids and when Sanji was not living up to the other three boys he locked him up and made everyone think he died. then didn't seem to care when the sister helped Sanji escape. only cared about sanji when it turns out he could be sold off in a marriage alliance to strenghten his own position in the world. he also doesn't treat any of the four who hes forced into his evil army like people, they are just the most efficient weapons he has.

Donavan Desmond: He himself is reported to be a terrible person in the story as the antagonist. And he has never been reported to show any affection towards either of his sons. Damien just wants something and Dovovan can't or wont give it to him. Plus Donovan is probably who mentally messed up his wife and she can't properly show her sons affection either.

[visenyaism]

ASOIAF terrible fathers bracket FINAL ROUND: Tywin Lannister vs. Craster

after six long weeks, it is time to end this. thank you to all who have participated even if you went against my wishes and elected Craster to this final spot instead of Jaehaerys. I love democracy. 

Tywin Lannister: Inflicts extreme sexual violence onto all of his children even if it is through proxy, and sacrifices all of them to the feudal system while ensuring they will be unprepared to hold their own in it and dependent on him forever even after he dies. In terms of impact, his terrible fatherhood was so extreme that it needed to be deconstructed in an entire book, like it took 1/5 of the series to fully examine the ways in which Tywin Lannister’s toxic fascist parenting not only irreparably damaged his children, but also locked the entire realm in a perpetual cycle of violence that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Tywin’s abusive fatherhood, and the failure of his entire legacy of abuse is a core theme of the series, especially the series is themes on gender violence, and familial patriarchal abuse, and its impact cannot be overstated. I have never claimed to be impartial. I think this is the right choice.

Craster: Marries his daughters and sacrifices his sons to the white walkers.

[kingsmoot]

man i hope jaime dominates the terrible dads bracket bc when i scrolled past him my first thought was "??? but jaime doesn't have any kids"

[web-novel-polls]

MXTX Side Characters Upper Bracket

Jin Ling from MDZS

Submission 1: He may be a brat, but he has a good heart and a friendly dog. He thinks he's the main character of a much less intense story which keeps almost getting him killed

Submission 2: Bestest boy in the whole world. He's got a dog! A helicopter uncle! His dad's sword! Yeah he can be a little brat but he's SIXTEEN okay (or thirteen, or whatever, MXTX HELP) and he's got an incredible capacity for forgiveness. He's so good!

Shang Qinghua / Airplane from SVSSS

Submission: He's a sidekick and he's so sidelined that despite creating the universe he's treated as an afterthought - doubly a side character! But also? So relateable. He would absolutely have been on tumblr in his first life, he gets so excited about his blorbo who treats him terribly (until they finally get a happy ending in the extras - also! he has to wait for the extras to get his happy ending! very side-character of him). He holds the fascinating position of being mostly irrelevant to the story and yet without him the themes would totally fail. He deserves a win on something for once, okay?

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round 2 of the major bracket

Propaganda:

For Kazuki and Rei:

they're essentially contract killers. rei comes from a long line of assassins and kazuki fell into the profession by circumstance. they're 'best friends' who live together and work on their hitman cases together. they're on one of these cases when they find themselves in an accidental baby acquisition situation and suddenly unasaka miri, aged 4, is their daughter. now all that's left is for them to forge a bunch of documents to get miri into daycare! they desperately juggle being fathers and assassins until eventually they realise they'd rather run a diner, and they live happily ever after with their daughter.

They're hitmen. They share an apartment. They end up raising a kid together (after killing her dad). They try to give that kid a normal life, but are terrible at it in complimentary ways.

Assassin partners who end up adopting a child.

For House and Wilson:

Literally the most insane couple of all time from medical malpractice the show. They’re best friends, they live together, they’ve drugged eachother, they make stupid bets together, they manipulate each other, they ride off into the sunset together. They’re Sherlock and Watson, they’re the best doctors in their fields and you’d never want them anywhere near your medical care.

Medical malpractice <3

[ichigopanhpff]

TRANSLATION: TR Character Book "Remember You!" Post ending developments

Wakui-sensei only did this for some of the characters in the book.

Note: Translation isn’t 100% and I may take some liberties in translating certain things for a more colloquial approach. Anything in brackets are my personal notes.

Sano “Mikey” Manjiro:

I’m a racer at 27 years old and my partner is Ken-chin! My dream has always been riding bikes, but my number one dream is for Emma find a good husband. Her and Ken-chin’s child will be born soon; I told them to use “Man” [“万” from his own name “Manjiro” (万次郎). The "Man" in his name came from his grandfather's, Sano Mansaku, while the "Shin" in Shinichiro's name came from their dad, Sano Shin.] in their name, but was met with strong opposition from both of them and called it lame. Those guys… I started to wonder whether or not my own name was lame.

Shiba Hakkai:

Taka-chan and my older brother seem to hang out a lot and they didn’t even think to invite me along. I like both my brothers, but it annoys me neither one of them take an interest in me. When I went home for my birthday, something smelled like it was rotting and my big brother, Yuzuha and Taka-chan were all there. It looked like they were trying to make a birthday cake for me, with Taka-chan teaching them. It tasted horrible and I cried from happiness from them trying to express their love.

Baji Keisuke:

Mansaku-san [Mikey’s grandfather] asked me to train and teach at Sano Dojo once in a while. Even though Mikey is a prodigy, he’s terrible at teaching and seems like I’m better at this than him. Immersing myself in teaching kids karate on top of my daily studies became a good change of pace for me. I want to be a veterinarian but I’m not very smart, so it’s a long and distant dream. Whenever I feel frustrated, sweating it out [in the dojo] mentally prepares me to keep doing my best. It’s my second home.

Hanagaki Takemichi:

At 26 years old, I’m currently an assistant director with a dream of becoming a film director. Everyday is an odd job, but Hina makes me a bento everyday. Before I head out every morning, she tells me “Do your best!”. When I come home completely disheartened, she’ll drink with me over dinner while listening to me complain. I’m a very lucky guy.

Matsuno Chifuyu:

Baji-san and Kazutora-kun always comes over to my house to eat since they have no money; it’s almost like extortion. But I can’t raise their wages without a reason and I can’t exactly refuse either. When the 3 of us cooked for the first time, the food was a mess, burnt and tasted thin. After suffering through that, I went out and bought tons of recipe books. Now, I’m cooking for 3 at a pro-level. They’ve recently been coming over, happily waiting for me.

Mitsuya Takashi:

While establishing my fashion brand TAKASHI MITSUYA as a designer, I hired Yasuda-san as my assistant, my assistant manager from the Handicraft Club back in middle school. She somehow married Peh-yan last year, even though their relationship were on bad terms. I hear Yasuda-san grumbling about him often while we’re working. From what I heard, Peh stuck with Pa-chin even after being married.

Ryuguji “Draken” Ken:

Emma and I live on the lower floor in the same apartment complex as Takemitchy and his wife. He came crying to me saying, “Even though we’re newlyweds, Emma-chan’s at my place every day and I can’t be alone with Hina.” The 4 of us are eating nabe [hot pot] together again.

[sopiao]

Imagine price with a reader thats a metalhead and one day price js saw readers old photos wayback when reader was a kid and the reader had braces and glasses. Price's reaction is in shock and he wont stop teasing the reader about it

EHEHEHHEE THIS IS SO CUTE TO IMAGINE.

a hundo percent something he’d do. (i assume their a couple in this, i’m terribly sorry if i misinterpreted it :,( )

It’d be when you first officially move in together. You would live pretty far from your family so you two visited for the weekend! There were no guest rooms so there was no choice but to sleep in your room. So, naturally, he was curious about your childhood and your teenage room.

“We might have to leave early tomorrow to be there on time—” You begin to unwind for bed, brushing your hair, and doing your overall routine for bed.

“Bascom High Yearbook?” Price reads out the title of your freshmen yearbook. Making your stomach drop, along with your brush. You immediately whip your head to see Price with a leather yearbook on his hands, a smug smile targeted towards you. Judging by your reaction he already knows he’s gonna get a good time out of this.

“Oh! That must be my sister’s!” You lie, although it was quick and sorta convincing, he already knew by your tone and reaction that you were lying. You quickly walk over to him and reach for the book in his hands. Chuckling at how desperate you were to hide this part of your life from him, snatching it from your reach before you can get too close.

“No, no. I saw that look in your face” He caught you. You took no attempt to lie or even hide that you didn’t want him to see it. Climbing over him and reaching to get it away. Laughing at your nervousness as he had you pinned on the bed, him laying on his side on top of you.

“Oh. My. God” You went limp in defeat, already knowing he saw your embarrassing photo. Your Freshman year wasn’t your best, maybe your Junior or Senior, but not Freshmen. It doesn’t help that the photographer never got your flattering side. No one ever looks good in yearbook photos, and if you are, you’re either lying or God’s favorite.

You had big oversized glasses that barely fit your face, braces on full display from your excited smile to be a high schooler, and a hairstyle that you were sure made you look cool. Price started laughing even harder, his head resting on his cheek as his other hand held his side.

“Shut up” You grumble, slipping away from him to snatch the horrid book away from him.

“No- no. Wait” He took the yearbook away from you once again and laid on his stomach with the open book in front of him. He flipped through the other pages, you sitting on his back, giving up and letting him search. Every so often you’d point out someone you’re still friends with or someone you didn’t like.

“Aww, weren’t you adorable?” He laughs out of pure adoration when he sees a photo of you in a cow inside for halloween. Another photo of you in an oversized jersey, probably your dad’s. With each photo he spotted you out, he fell in love more with how similar yet different you are now, and the more you wanted to die out of embarrassment.

“Christ. You look like you were being tortured” He chuckled again at a photo of you at your worst phase of your braces, having to wear 10 rubber bands on the brackets. “Brace face” He whispered, a teasing smile on his face, making it easier for you to smack him on the bicep.

“I guess that’s when it all started, hm?” He chuckled, turning the book to show you yet another photo, in this one you had your hair down and partially covering your face with a dark blue streak, pulling out a rock hand sign with a Rammstein shirt on, horrible black eyeliner, the studded cuff, and worst of all, the undercut, standing with a group that looked similar to how you looked.

“UGH—” You turned away, jump-scared by your own self. Cringing to yourself. Making him laugh even more. Immediately shooting up with an excuse to try and save yourself.

“To be fair, that was my friend’s idea. She wanted to do that” Price nodded, over exaggerating like he was convinced.

“Ahh, yes. I get it now. It was this friends idea” He teased and taunted even more. Causing you to roll your eyes at him and playfully land a punch on his shoulder. After a while of more silence and an occasional hum chuckle you heard the book clap shut and felt the bed shift to turn to you.

“Got any more?” He asks so casually. What else do you have to lose? After a minute you sigh and go under the bed to pull up a box of old polaroids and flip phones. Filled with photos of things you find cool and selfies of you and your friends together.

“At first I was kinda intimidated to approach you. Seeing this just makes you softer” He commented under his breath, not really intending you to hear him. Even though you were beyond embarrassed, this little comment made you melt with how he really saw you.