As a total what if what would plums honest reaction be if she learned peaches history
Plum knows. As does Grey. (more below for those interested)
When Peach got back from Hisui she awoke in her bed, unsure how she made it home, Val in the ICU, alive, both their bodies broken, Peach swore she lost an arm in that fight, got the scar to prove it. While she believed it to be a dream, to once again be taunted with the visions of home, she eventually reliases she's actually back and her loved ones are very much with her again.
A week of her picking up her old life pass. Every day it becomes more and more painful to keep the lies up, she spent two years dying to see Plum and Grey, and now finally back, she just wanted to clear it up. Perhaps that first week back was her bying time, the thought that she'd tell them, and theyd leave was never far from her mind. It's what people do right? They dont like something about someone and they go. It was scary, but peach understood the risks.
They deserved the truth.
She asked them in the morning to get home for dinner at a reasonable time if possible, she offered to cook one of their favorites, and left that morning once they headed off to work with a shovel, Booker, Bob, and Val. Peach walked out to the North, past the fences where no one was permitted to cross, abotu 20 minutes into the depths. It was dangerous, but there under a boulder the size of a house hid a secret. Val lifted the huge rock and shifted it to one side, everyone helping her dig a good 5ft down, a metal box burried. inside it, things peach had hidden away. Boulder returned, box under her arm, she went home, and proceeded to sit and stare at the box for an hour, debating internally just what to say, how to brign this up. Her brain made a very saddening decision, digging out a couple of travel bags, filling them with the things she needed to leave, shoving them under the bed to grab and go. Clothes, money, IDs, even Val's original pokeball, an item locked in a safe normally.
Grey got in first, came home to the smell of comfort food and fresh herbs, a little worried about the evening. Peach never asked for their time like this, nor offered to do dinner, she'd just do it without discussion. The event felt off. She got him a beer, and one for herself, fondly listening to him talk about his day, not a word said, just smiles and nods. Grey said nothing of the muddy shovel out front under the porch awning, assuming it was just Peach out doing some digging in the garden...though she never left her tools there. It was nothing, right?
Plum finally got in, kicking her shoes off, a sigh, complaints of the long day dealing with the mainland HQ and their monthly missions ahead. A lot of travel collecting data. She was also handed a beer, little lime in it, just how she liked them. They sat and talked, Peach unnervingly tentative, making sure nothing burnt, serving up a real special dinner.
It was afterwards that they all got to sit down on the sofa that they realised Peach wasnt sitting, she was by the sink, wringing her hands, staring out the window. It took them calling to her to snap her from her own thoughts, glancing over her shoulder. In her mind, this was the last time she'd be looked at like that, a notion that made her chest tight.
So she sat, not with them, in an armchair to one side, and struggled to find the right words for a while. Grey and Plum both saw her looking for something, rummaging in hr pocket, placing a signet ring on the table, and a photo, tattered but in one piece. The ring had a family crest on it that they recognised, unsure how Peach got one. The photo of a family, one child looking very much like the professor, standing nervously beside figureheads of a notorious Sinnoh family, alwasy shrouded in questionable rumours, somehow dodging the law and avoiding any legal action with either careful planning or ridiculous luck. No one truly knew.
And Peach proceeded to introduce herself, her real self, the name she was given, not the one she chose. While Grey held the weighty fine crafted ring, and plum stared at the photo, she told them everything. Every nasty secret, every horrible detail, how she was trained, how she grew up, who raised her and what for. Plum knew her at her worst, and never realised it. Ranger days made a lot of sense, why Peach was so angry, so irritable. A kid who grew up way too fast, who left behind her flesh and blood for an orphaned pokemon, to try to save it from her heartless family. The name peach used back then was a lie too, falsified like everything else about her.
After expressing her sorrow and regret, for the horrible things she had to do, and chose to do herself, she got up, took the ring and the photo, and took a last look at the pair who failed to say anything. There was no coming back but despite the sinking feeling Peach did the right thing, finally free of carrying around all the lies, they deserved that much. She left for the bedroom after an apology, pulled her to go bags out, and quickly made her way to the door to go, having to pass by the pair on the sofa, saying nothing, didnt even dare look. Booker, Bob and Val on her heels, Boa no doubt in her usual place out in the garden, Peach had planned the route already, probably take a trip over to Unova, try to find a way to start again.
A 'hey!' caught her attention, turning in the open door to face Plum, heard her coming, rushed steps on the wood floors, followed by a searing sting to the cheek, her hand connecting hard. Stunned but not surprised by the slap, Peach didnt say anything, the pain sharp, but understandable. She expected her anger, but not the tears, not the weird mix of feelings going on with the ranger. Grey hadnt gotten up from the sofa, staring off into no where. Plum shouted, said peach should have said sooner, should have been transparent with it all, not for her sake, but for Grey, the poor guy had been with her for 11 years and not once had she mentioned this? Awful! Peach took the berrating, didnt retaliate, without a leg to stand on. The anger turned to sadness, more tears, blame thrown around, but finally, she pointed at the bags and sneered 'and then you run? youre a coward.'
Plum was right. She was a coward, didnt respond. the bag was taken from her hand and dumped on the floor, the ranger took her hand and dragged her back in the house, demanding the other satchel on her shoulder, tossing it to a chair without care. Plum called Grey and he finally looked up, rose from his chair, rushed to them both, mustering the biggest hug he could manage. He cried, plum was already in tears, peach didnt understand what was happening. This wasnt how it was suppose to go.
The house mons realised there was a pile up going on, a couple climbing up legs to get in on the hug.
It was difficult to grasp that despite the anger, despite the sorrow, neither wanted her gone? She didnt understand. Plum kept looking at her with fury that forced peach to glance away, but she was still holding her tight? It was a difficult time of figuring out what to feel and what to do. But the truth was both plum and grey were sad for her, sad that she'd been carrying that around for years alone, sad that she didnt feel like she could come to them sooner. They discussed it, dragged Peach to the sofa and forced her to sit there with them while they figured out just what to do next.
In the end Plum was furious but the anger subsided, and all that was left was grief, as if she was feeling sad for Peach, who seemed indifferent to it, and stayed very quiet for a long while. Grey while painfully sad was just glad she finally told him about who she really was, he held both his girls in bed and refused to let go, stayed up late, none of them able to sleep well at all, tossing and turning.
Things got easier with time. The jokes started to return, their conversations got snarky and dark, a humour that felt comforting to them all. Did plum take a little of her anger out on Peach? yes. yes she did.
but hey, no more secrets.
well.
until Peach decided on a lighter note to share with her that shes been painting for years and those paintings funded the island expansions....and plum and her family paid top dollar for them at auction......and bragged about them. to the creators face. without knowing.
ok now no more secrets!
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the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.
women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.
what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.
i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.
fuck, man. write better material.
a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.
god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.
this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.
we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.
i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -
it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.
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