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wh0re4women · 11 months

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Gift giving. (Larissa Weems x Reader.) SFW

Summary: With the school year ending and Reader being a teacher at Nevermore, she is swarmed with gifts. Larissa is most definitely not jealous! And Marilyn most definitely is.

Warnings: Teacher x Principal, Marilyn bickering with everybody. Mostly fluff / silly fic.

The school year was finally coming to an end as summer began approaching, warming the halls of Nevermore Academy.

You spent your afternoon scurrying around your classroom, tidying after the day's lessons as you tuned out the sound of children chatting, squealing and laughing outside — the noises creeping in through your open windows. There was absolutely no way to contain your excitement as you threw the last piece of trash in the garbage before hurriedly swooping up your belongings, practically prancing towards the teachers lounge.

The heavy door was unlocked and swung open with ease, bright eyes scanning between Marilyn and your girlfriend.

"Guess what!"

Larissa put her salad spiked fork back into her bowl as she diverted her attention onto you — a warm, welcoming smile pulling at her lips. "Hi, darling. What's gotten you so merry?"

"Is it the handsome Janitor again?" Marilyn dazedly looked up at you from her sandwich and you shot her a warning look, observing as the realisation set into her features. "Just- Just kidding—"

"What handsome Janitor?" Larissa's eyebrows furrowed in annoyance and she quickly began interrogating Marilyn as you felt your face pale at once.

Your hands remained twisted behind your back as you watched the two women bicker suddenly, a dull ache beginning to set into your muscles. You gave them a second, two, three, then cleared your throat sharply.

"There's more important matters at hand, all right? Larissa, honey, pick a hand." You gave the blonde your best puppy eyes, even fluttering your lashes and offering her an award winning smile, yet Larissa remained unimpressed. “Please?”

The Principal rolled her eyes, sighed, then spoke, "Left hand."

Your grin took up half of your face as you brought a yellow gift bag out from behind your back, cradling it like your most prized possession. The two older women were not mimicking your excitement at all — pure confusion woven into their features as you bounced in joy.

"Well, are you going to tell us what it is, or are you going to stand there like a circus clown? I'm on the edge of my seat,” Marilyn joked. (Larissa swore she wouldn't laugh. She didn't give so much as a hint of a smile.)

It was your turn to roll your eyes as you plunged a hand into the paper bag before retrieving the precious item.

"A mug?" The two women spoke in sync.

"It's not just any mug!" Your voice rose in exasperation. "It's from Enid! Look, you guys, it says 'Best Teacher Ever'. Are you kidding me? This is, like, the cutest thing ever."

Larissa couldn't hold up her apathetic facade any longer as she broke into a heartwarming chuckle. It was truly endearing how much you appreciated the little things, especially when it came to your students.

"Hey! That's not fair. I had Enid in my class this morning — where's my mug?" Marilyn argued in faux offence.

"Sorry, but there can only be one ‘best teacher’," you playfully noted and Marilyn made it a point to tell you that she had gotten a similar mug a year earlier, which led to you jokingly squabbling over the unfairness of the comment considering you hadn't been working at Nevermore back then.

"Don't worry, Marilyn," Larissa, kind as ever, gently interrupted as she rested a soft hand on the red-heads shoulder. "I'm sure Enid just forgot to bring your gift to class. You'll have a mug by tomorrow afternoon, I'm sure."

And it seems Larissa was right.

The next time you stepped into the teachers lounge, Marilyn was sipping chamomile tea out of her 'No.1 Teacher' mug (a new one, at that). You didn't mean to be a show-off, but pulling out three cards, two boxes of chocolates and a pair of 'Coolest Teacher' slippers felt really, really good (though seeing the shock on Marilyn's face felt even better).

Once again, the two of you bickered endlessly as Marilyn fought to get the names of the students who had ‘betrayed’ her from your lips. This swiftly became routine — you would burst into the teachers lounge at lunch daily and compare the gifts you’d received that day with Marilyn. Eventually a few other teachers joined in too. All the while Larissa would remain mute, focusing on her lunch with no gifts to show.

When Friday came along, you once again found yourself rushing to find Marilyn, four gift bags swinging beside you as you gripped them proudly. This time, when you entered the familiar room, something was off. You had your usual spat with Marilyn — this one being more intense than the ones before. And as you left the room with a roll to your eyes, you wondered whether something felt off because she happened to have six whole gifts to her name, or because Larissa hadn’t been there to stop your fighting. You wandered to the Principals office full of curiosity and slight frustration, yet when you found Larissa simply eating her lunch at her desk as she scrolled on her computer, you brushed your curiosity away, reckoning that the blonde just probably had plenty of work to do, hence why she decided to refrain from going to the teachers lounge for lunch.

“I cant believe it!” You forcefully huffed, strolling towards Larissa’s desk. “She beat me today — two extra gifts. Can you imagine? When I find the little culprits, it’s over for them.”

With a sigh, you rested against Larissa’s comfy seat across from the blonde. Though her fireplace was warm and comforting, there seemed to be a cloud of tension in the air. You gazed at Larissa who seemed to be just staring off at the pixels on her computer screen. Only then did you notice the thread that had her eyebrows knit together in annoyance and you immediately sat upright.

“What’s wrong, ‘Rissa?” You flew out of your seat and behind her, resting both of your hands on her strong shoulders before gently beginning to massage the muscles. “Is it work? Is there anything I can help with? I can finish up with emails while you lay—“

“Why don’t I get gifts? I run the school! No one likes the Principal…” Larissa suddenly sulked, shoving her fork into her lunch container and pushing it away before crossing her arms at once.

It’s not to say that the blonde was jealous (no, of course not, why would she be?), it’s just that Larissa wanted to feel appreciated too. Seeing you receive all these gifts and cards and chocolates was heartwarming and more than Larissa could ever wish for, but she felt left out. Everything suddenly clicked into place for you and you were hit with realisation of how inconsiderate you had been of her feelings, just because you wanted to prove you were more beloved in the school than Marilyn. How silly your problems seemed now.

You carefully spun Larissa around in her office chair so that she was facing you before crouching down, taking her soft hands into yours.

“‘Rissa, I’m so, so sorry. I’ve been so… selfish and thoughtless—“

“No, darling. I’m sorry,” the red-lipped woman cut you off, tightening her hold on your hands, “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about this at all. You’re allowed to show-off and have fun. I’m— I’ve just been overthinking, that’s all.”

You felt genuine pity for Larissa in that moment. She, of all people, worked hardest to keep Nevermore Academy in place, therefore she deserved to be celebrated the most. So as soon as lunchtime ended and you were once again teaching Literature to your students, you began multitasking as you wrapped up a box of chocolates in spare Christmas wrapping paper (it wasn’t ideal, but it was all you had and it worked).

You were explaining the clever use of onomatopoeia in the novel you were currently studying with the class, when Enid’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Enid?”

“What does the box of chocolates have to do with the book, Ms [y/l/n]?”

“Nothing at all,” you smiled, picking up a pen before scribbling ‘Principal Weems’ between the scatter of silver stars on the gift wrap. “You see, you’ve all been so kind in giving the teachers cards and gifts — I thought it was only fair that the Principal gets a show of appreciation too.”

The class remained silent after that and you simply continued on with the lesson, forgetting all about Enid’s question and the box of chocolates you’d packaged up.

The weekend flew by, and as Monday came along, you were mentally prepared for the last week of school. Though the school day seemed to be going smoothly, you were surprised to have only received a single gift, yet you reminded yourself to remain humble and not take Marilyn’s comments to heart today. After all, you had a much more important task ahead — sneaking Larissa her gift and hoping she doesn’t assume that it was from you but rather a student.

You took a deep breath as you gripped the door handle, shoving the wood away from the door frame. When Larissa came into view, you were taken aback by the sight of gift bags littered around the room, completely surrounding the blonde. On the table in front of her, there were multiple mugs containing slogans with a variation of ‘Best Principal Ever’. Marilyn stood over her with wide eyes while the two held a hushed conversation between them. As the shock wore off, your heart began feeling whole and you slowly entered the room, guiding Larissa’s attention onto you.

“[y/n], I know I seemed upset on Friday but- but this? This is a little much, darling.”

“What are you talking about?” You asked, eyebrows furrowed as you placed your items down on an empty chair.

“I mean, you didn’t have to do all of this,” Larissa almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, taking in the gift-ridden room.

It was then that everything clicked for you — Larissa assumed that you had faked all of the gifts in order to make her feel better.

“I-I didn’t do this, I swear,” you promised, blank faced. You thought for a moment before an idea popped into your head and you drove a hand into your handbag before resurfacing with the gift-wrapped box of chocolates. “I was going to give this to you and- and pretend it was from a student, which I know isn’t right but you were so— I promise I didn’t do all of this. I told—” you paused, realising. “…Enid.”

“What?”

“Enid asked about the chocolates in front of the class,” you rounded the table, kneeling down to look at the gift tags, reading all of the different names — all of them being students in your literature class. “They heard me say I was wrapping a gift for you, but that’s all I said. They must’ve planned this on their own.” A fond smile bloomed on your face. You were incredibly proud of your students in that moment for being so observant, so generous and compassionate and kind.

You looked up at Larissa from your spot on the floor and her expression reflected yours. There was an air of relief that left her lungs and a warm well of tears that built up in the pockets of her eyes.

“They really think… that I’m a good Principal,” the blonde softly spoke, running her finger over the mug in her hands.

“Not just a good Principal,” you stood back up, lifting a teddy bear that was placed on the edge of the table and flipping it over so that Larissa could see the writing on its stomach, “the BEST Principal.”

You both broke out into soft laughter, Marilyn beginning to complain that Larissa had received more gifts in one afternoon than you both had combined over the last week, yet you didn’t pay mind, rushing into the blondes open arms as she held back tears.

#larissa weems x reader #larissa weems x you #principal weems x reader #wednesday fic #larissa x reader #mine

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lilsunflower95 · 4 months

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Cruel Summer: Chapter 1 ~ Keep Running

Pairing: Taehyung x original female character

Genre: Fluff, angst

Rating: T-SFW

Word Count: 1,856

Warnings: n/a

Disclaimers: ©lilsunflower95 - As this is my original work, I do not allow reposts or translations of my work on any platforms, this includes YouTube, Tik Tok, Pinterest, and/or Wattpad.

Summary: Yoo Hyori is a successful actress and model who has a crush on Kim Taehyung. She learns she will soon team up with for a new television series being filmed in Mexico.

m.list (coming soon)

“She’s worth more than he is.”

Yoo Hyori’s manager was pacing in her living room, his slippers squeaking against the highly polished wood flooring, while she stood at the marble island of her gleaming kitchen scooping soy sauce braised chicken mixed with onions, mushrooms, peppers, and glass noodles into a large cream colored serving bowl.

“Mr. Kang…, please?” She looked up at him with a hint of a smile playing on her ruby red lips to remind him to be kind as he ran a hand over his thinning black hair.

“She does deserve to get paid more than him. He’s just a singer. She does it all!” He held a hand out, palm up as he turned away from her and put a hand on his hip under his tightly tailored blue suit jacket.

She looked over to the awards that glittered under the spotlight as they sat on her floating shelves with a sense of pride.

They really were quite resplendent in all their different shapes and sizes as they sat beside the various potted plants she had arranged carefully, afraid that leaving gaps would eat at her whenever she didn’t win an award and drive her to self destructive competitive levels.

“She has awards from television, from movies… you name it, she’s got it.” He paused for a moment before shaking his head and walking towards the hallway slipping slightly on an over polished spot. He glowered down at his feet then continued on, his voice becoming softer as he left. “You’re just saying that because women are more likely to buy merchandise than men. She’s got plenty of fans and you know it. Besides, she can actually cook! He can’t do that. He’s said on more than one occasion how he despises the task.”

Hyori’s assistant, Mei Jiang, looked at her with a wry smile as she picked up her glass of red wine and swirled it in her glass. “Do you know what role that’s for?”

“No. This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Hyori shook her head as she carefully placed the dish on the center of her long oak table with criss-cross legs. She shifted the plate to center it and tipped her head to admire the pure white bone china that was adorned with Swarovski crystals and accented in 24K gold details.

It was a far cry from the banana leaves she’d grown up eating off of.

“I can give you a hint, but you can't get your hopes up in case it doesn't work out.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.” Hyori breezed back into the kitchen and leaned against the island, wincing against the sting of the peppers and onions that were simmering in a pot of pork dumplings. “What is it?”

Mei looked over her shoulder, using her long, sharp nails to move her waist length black hair. After making sure they were alone for the moment, she leaned in close to Hyori and lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s a television series being filmed in Mexico. The stars will run a fully functioning restaurant for a week to give Korean cuisine exposure. I know the location scout and apparently, the city is….”

She pressed her fingers together before her lips and squeezed her eyes shut.

A week in Mexico? She blinked and inhaled slowly and deeply as she imagined dipping behind a waterfall while the others looked for her. She imagined what it would be like to be alone again as her heart throbbed and tears pricked her eyes. She fought to keep a smile from her face as a laugh bubbled in her chest.

The idea of finally being able to be safe made her mind reel.

She caught herself from going too far into her imagination and raised a brow while watching Mei light a pair of red candles on the table, shielding the flame with her cupped hand.

“It’s that nice, hmm?” Hyori looked from Mei’s nod to the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the ancient river and the glittering city beyond and sighed at the snow that was collecting in the corners. “It would be nice to be somewhere warm right now.”

“You want to know who he’s so mad about?” Mei leaned back in her seat to check the coast was clear again when the sound of shuffling footsteps filled the hallway. Hyori nodded and allowed Mei to pull her close by her arm so she could whisper in her ear. “Kim Taehyung.”

Hyori pulled away with wide eyes as her heart thumped in her chest painfully fast. “You’re kidding!”

Hyori’s mind immediately conjured the last time she’d seen Kim Taehyung.

It had been on a photoshoot in Paris for… Vogue or Elle?… she couldn't quite remember which one. He had been dressed in a three piece black silk suit and was sitting at a small round table while fog was pumped on to the set to give the illusion of a smokey Parisian cafe. He had sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes seductively at her as she walked behind the cameras to go to her own set.

She knew from her own training that it was normal for sitters to find someone behind the scenes to flirt with to make the photos more realistic, but still… it made her shiver.

Why had he chosen me… of all people… to look at? There were plenty of beautiful women there! They were so elegant and fashionable. I look like an amateur compared to them! Could it be that he was intimidated by them?

Mei shook her head and took a long pull on her wine when Kang came back into the room with a sigh.

He threw his arms out to the side as Hyori hurried back into the kitchen and began to sprinkle sesame seeds over stir fried octopus. “Well, I did my best. I got higher than what they initially wanted to pay, but it’s still not where it should be, which is a shame.”

Hyori glanced at Mei who nodded as she brought the next dish to the table. “Mr. Kang, I am most appreciative of everything you do for me. I would have nothing if it weren’t for you always looking out for me. I am very proud of and grateful for your continued efforts on my behalf.”

He bowed his head with a small appreciative smile as he clasped his hands behind his back, his shoulder popping as he did. He watched her portion out the rice until the bowls were neatly rounded and shook his head. “You do deserve better.”

“Maybe one day the industry will agree with you.” Hyori offered a small smile and motioned to the table. “But nevermind, dinner is ready. Please come and eat.”

She went into the kitchen and took up the bottle of wine, cradling it like a kitten as she went back to the table where she filled Kang’s glass then refilled Mei’s before serving herself.

She finally sat and watched her guests begin to eat and smiled in gratitude at their small hums of delight, pleased they were eating well.

“Mmm!” Kang sat straight suddenly, dabbing the corners of his mouth with the silk napkin, staining it with the remnants of a red pepper sauce, drawing the wide-eyed looks from Mei and Hyori as he hurriedly finished chewing. “I must apologize! I focused more of my energy on the negative instead of the positive!”

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Kang. But, please, share your good news so that we can all celebrate.” Hyori laid her hands on her lap demurely.

“You were selected to be one of the stars for a new series called ‘Donghae’s Seoul Bistro’.” He stopped when he saw Hyori and Mei exchange looks before pointing at Mei, his bushy black brows rising high on his narrow brow. “Did you already tell her?”

Mei held her slender hands up and averted her eyes to the meal before her. “No! Of course not!”

She kicked Hyori’s shin under the table and widened her eyes with a smile. Hyori looked from her to Kang, her mouth falling open as her mind reeled. “I… she…. Uh….”

“Miss Jiang.” Kang settled his narrowed eyes on Mei and heaved a sigh.

“You’re supposed to be an actress!” Mei leaned over her plate, careful to avoid getting her tight maroon turtleneck on her food.

“Acting and lying are very different!” Kang glowered then plucked up several peppers and laid them on a steamed dumpling before popping it into his mouth.

Hyori rubbed her arm and looked down at the floor to avoid Mei though she could still feel the heat of her weighty stare.

“Well, since there was no way Mei could have known you would be selected, there is still some good news I can share.” Kang dabbed his lips again. “You were selected. Filming starts next week, but they’d like for you to go out as soon as possible to drum up anticipation on social media. There will be a photoshoot or two as well.”

Hyori’s face brightened as she beamed at Kang, who couldn’t help but to return her smile. She gripped his arm in her long fingers and leaned towards him. “When am I leaving?”

“Tomorrow, provided there are no conflicts with your schedule.”

“It’s a little short notice.” Mei sat her chopsticks down and pulled her phone from her pocket, scrolling quickly through her calendar. “But, this will take priority. I don’t see anything I can’t reschedule. Some feathers may get ruffled, but I know I can make it happen without prejudice.”

“You make magic happen, Mei.” Hyori smiled at her as her shoulders relaxed when she sighed and slouched a bit as though she were watching a dream unfold. “I can’t believe this is happening. Two weeks in Mexico!”

Mei chuckled and shook her head as she sat her phone in her lap. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I endeavor to do my best. What will actually be magic is getting your wardrobe arranged in time. De la Renta just released a new line and, naturally, it’s all gorgeous. I’d love to see you in a few pieces. I think it would help drive you towards another magazine shoot or even get you an invitation to fashion week this year.”

“Really?” Hyori’s eyes went wide at the prospects. “That would be amazing.”

Mei reached across the table and squeezed her hand before her smile faltered. “It would be. I don’t know why, but I feel like this is going to be a life changing experience. What a strange feeling. Don’t you think? Anyway, you should eat this delightful food you’ve made before it gets cold.”

Hyori shifted in her seat with a giggle as she took up her chopsticks and pinched a chicken wing, chewing on it as her mind reeled.

This is all happening so fast. Please ancestors, spirits, God, Buddha, whoever is out there watching over me… please let me be strong and courageous. Please help me to keep running.

It's a bit short, but I hope you still enjoyed it! Thank you for reading.

If you're interested in being added to the taglist, please let me know and I'll add you! 🌻💜

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jackiequick · 9 months

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Meet The Wells - Harry Wells Fic

Tv Show: The Flash

Setting: Season 4

Pairing: Harrison ‘Harry’ Wells x Leanna ‘Lea’ O’Conner

Featuring: One of the best characters on the show, Cisco Ramon!

—-

The morning everything pretty well. Team Flash was doing their usual work at S.T.A.R LABS. Discussing lunch breaks, new metas they possibly discovered, new experiments to create and plans for the weekend. That was until Harry mentioned friends.

Cisco sat up, “No he’s delusional. That’s because the lack of sleep he’s has been having. Uh, Harry friends are in here!”

Caitlin looked at Barry, who stood there confused, guessing that he’s being sarcastic.

“I got friends other than you guys! You will meet them.” Harry respond, siping his morning coffee.

Cisco gave his second girl a look and asked, “Lea help.”

“I-i know nothing about this.” Lea admitted with her hands up in defense.

“Ramon, believes i don’t got any friends. When i clearly do.” Harry yelled and sighed, typing away on his keyboard, “You told me to go make some friends, right?”

Cisco yelled back, “Yeah but last time i checked, you don’t have any friends besides us!”

Leanna who was tinkering with her tools looked up and nodded, “Yup! I did tell you that. Actually I’m curious to meet your friends, but I gotta hand some paperwork over to Joe first.”

She stood up, giving her boyfriend of 3 years now, a quick kiss on the cheek, in which Harry wraps his hand around her waist pulling her in for one more starling kiss. Clearly he was excited for today.

——

Cisco and Harry were in the speed lab being introduced to their scientific ragtag team of friends. But it wasn’t what Cisco suspected Harry’s friends to be. One of them even practically threw Cisco Ramon out of the speed lab for being annoyed and offended. Lea walked in, confused onto why her best friend ran out of there but her confusion came to a pause after what she see saw.

There stood right in front of her brown eyes the doppelgängers of Harrison Wells. Not 1, not 2, but 3 Harrison Wells in the speed lab. And if add Harry, that makes 4! In total stood 4 very different variants of Harrison Wells, going from one with gray hair and a turtleneck to one with war general uniform like he just lost an eyeball for God’s sakes.

She didn’t know to laugh at how insane this is or internally whine about this little endeavor being oddly weird for her. But at the same time she was very much integrated into this new situation. She met versions of Wells beforehand but this was completely different. Before she can even say a word or pull together another set of thoughts, when a voice called out to her. More or less a catcall followed by a cheeky whistle.

“Who is this little beauty queen? She’s finer than a flower on a summer morning!” Yelled out a rusty almost burnt blonde Wells in a red rode and slippers.

Lea didn’t realize they were staring at her that moment, quickly fixing her dark gray shirt with tiny daisies scattered all over and dark jacket she borrowed from her friend, Caitlin Snow, earlier that week. She firstly mouth a small “What the fuck?” to Harry as he jogged over swiftly taking her hand with ease. The man was clearly excited about this.

“Honey, come meet my new friend!” He exclaimed holding a grin, returning back to earlier spot but this time with her next to him, “This is Harrison Wolfgang Wells, H. Lothario Wells and Wells 2.0. Men, this is Leanna O’Conner.”

All 3 of them smiled at the lady. Wolfgang Wells stayed wondering his eyes at the brunette, as if he trying to pin point something in particular.

Lea had to just smile politically for the 3 idiots to go sight seeing on her, if allowed. Without a second later the women dragging Harry out into the hallway for a quick chat.

“Harry, honey, what the hell?!” She whispered yelled.

“What the hell? What do you mean ‘what the hell?’?” He whispered yell back.

“Are you out of your mind? Have you officially lost your marbles?!”

“You asked me to make some friends and that’s exactly what I did!”

“When I told you to make friends, I didn’t mean with yourself!”

“They’re technically NOT me! They’re my double hitting doppelgängers from other earths and one of the biggest baddest brightest mind out there.”

“Again! There’s literally 3 of you in that room, all three of them ready to make goo goo eyes at me and oh yeah, one of you is enough but a friend group of Wells that’s just—”

“Sweetie I can handle this. There is nothing to worry about, they’re just charming and intelligent people with different kinds of backgrounds. It’s gonna go great. I promise.”

“You promise? Cause—”

“Lea it’s fine! I got this.”

————

Once the couple walked back in, Lea announced the plan with Harry, but the second they all heard her voice they looked at her like 3 somewhat trained dogs. Harry had to scuff down a laugh, snorting a smidge.

Sandy hair blonde Wells aka H. Lothario Wells, grinned at her. He found her pretty and said, “Say, gorgeous you got any sisters? Or are you free this Sunday night?”

She blushed chuckling as she shook her head ‘No’ as Harry face them with a glare saying that Lea was HIS girlfriend. So hands off fellas!

Wells 2.0 spoke up, “I had a Lana on my earth…”

“Really? How was I like?” Lea asked, her eyes perked up curious about the answer.

“I wouldn’t know, she died or was it that she left the country? Oh well, i don’t remember! Ladies on my earth aren’t as nice looking as you.”

——————

The four of them kept talking, mainly Harry and his doubles, Lea just stayed sitting back writing on her iPad a few notes on an old equipment and equations. She listened every once in a awhile to their conversation, walking in and out of the lab to other part of the building or heading down to Jitters for some java.

Blowing a kiss to all 3 copies of Wells as she left. All of them stayed with a loopy and cheeky smiles after that. Harry Wells was the lucky one, he actually got a kiss of the cheek.

Returning with a coffee for her boyfriend, after handing one to Caitlin and Cisco she heard it. “Annie..” said the voice. It belongs to Wolfgang Wells, who staying eyeing her for the moment due stepped into the room in the first place. She rarely heard that nickname tossed around but it been said plenty of times beforehand. Only Cisco or Barry will throw that nickname out.

“That’s Leanna, not Annie, can you believe this guy fellas?” Replied Sandy Wells with a chuckling, figuring his doppelgänger was nuts in the head or something.

“No, Annie O’Conner..” Wolfgang Wells said once again with curiosity and confidence in his tone.

“Yeah he’s right.” Lea confirmed his wording, “Did you know a version of me, on your Earth?”

“My wife.”

“We’re married?”

Harry’s eyes darted towards them, mumbling, “You married a verison of her? When?”

“Yeah but I left her. Too much of a handful.” Wolfgang said with a shrug.

Lea gasped, “HANDFUL? I will have you know that I’m not a handful, you guys are. No offense, Harry..”

Wolfgang snickered, “You sound like her too! I left her cause we fell out of love, she was too uptight and I was too busy to care.”

“OUCH!”

“But I think still love her very much. Still, love is love. I think we all got a verison of this lady on our earths, right?”

Sandy Wells chuckled, “Mhmmmm! I do. She’s my 2 A.M bootycall. Speaking of which…”

Just like that, blondie wells was gone saying he got business to take care of. Leanna jaw dropped, meanwhile Harry held back a little smile, grabbing everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand.

All 3 men went back to work. But the looks Wolfgang and 2.0 didn’t go unnoticed, glancing at the half Asian brunette every once in a while. Both men saw something in her, and they liked it. Harry had to snap their towards himself instead and looping a hand on his girlfriend’s waist to signify that once again she’s taken!

The men were talking over one another and bickering more often than not about the topic. Honestly it was kinda hilarious.

Cisco walked in soon enough with a smile, “Soo Council Of Wells, how are we doing? Any progress or we just chitchatting about who’s smarter?”

Leanna chuckled at the last part, because half of it was true.

Harry on the other hand groaned in annoyance, “It’s not going anywhere! We can’t even agree on what method to use.”

“What? You had an entire day.”

“I know! I know!”

“Is it cause Lana is distracting them?”

This time Lea spoke up, “HEY! Right here you know?! First we’re complimenting me, then you’re treating me like a diamond in the rough and now you’re insulting me?! What is it? Leanna Day and I didn’t get the memo?!”

“Well welcome to my life, girlfriend! Theses guys love to do the same thing to me! Ain’t so easy, isn’t it?” Cisco repiled back, tossing her a glare.

“Ohhh, so this is the way your framing this, huh?”

“I guess so, Annie!”

“Cisco I swear—!”

“Wait?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“Isn’t there a 3rd one? Isn’t there 3 of—”

He pointed out there was only 2 Wells standing there, not the original 3 from the beginning of the day. Harry was about to say something about it but as if on cue, Sandy haired Wells reappeared with a cheeky grin blabbing on about something.

Sandy turned toward the trio with a smile, “Oh sorry! Had to take care of some off camera business—”

“OHH MY GOD!” Cisco shouted holding a hand, covering whatever it was he didn’t want to see.

This Wells had his pants down, showing everything his mother gave him. Harry tried to looked away, his face accidentally saw it. Leanna just blinked, gasping as she turned around burying his face in her boyfriend’s black shirt.

“What?” Asked Sandy Wells softly , confused.

“I can see your Frank and beans.” Said Wolfgang, looking rather uncomfortable.

“Come on, now. Do my best thinkin' commando,” Sandy defends himself with a shrug, “Plus, it ain't like we all haven't seen it before. Especially, you little missy.”

“I haven’t seen it!” Cisco yelled, sounding funny and offended by the fact.

He shoots a wink Leanna’s way and she feel like she can’t help but peek her face towards all the men in the room. She saw so much more than clearly expected today! Like Jesus Christ! She rested her head, still sorta hiding her face in her boyfriends shirt.

She didn’t look confident or heroic in that moment.

Harry placed a comforting hand on her head, holding his lady while smiling at her embraced blushing and embarrassment.

Cisco held back a couple of laughs, “Aww! You’re traumatizing the poor girl! But seriously, dude put that away..please.”

Wolfgang agreed with Cisco for once.

“Ah, you Earth Folks. You are so uptight.” Sandy replied pulling up his pants.

“Ah, alright! Can we get back to the take at hand? We need answers.”

Suddenly all men started throwing out suggestions left and right, speaking over one another not allowing Cisco nor Harry to keep a full sentence in.

Lea’s ears were ringing loudly and she groaned in annoyance, “Okay! That’s enough!”

“Enough? We’re just getting started!” Add 2.0 Wells, in which causing another explosion of words being thrown around.

Clearly Harry was losing it having enough of this shit and yelled, “Guys! Guys! Ga—gentlemen!” Grabbing all their attention he continued, “Clearly this isn’t working. And just for the record, it’s not me, it’s you.”

With a simple push of a button, all three holograms disappeared, leaving the trio to themselves.

“This, was a bad idea.” Harry said walking back, placing his hands on his girlfriend’s shoulders whispering, “You okay?”

“It’s like your junk was burnt into my brain.” Cisco answered instead.

“Your welcome.”

Leanna did not answer or add into the previous statement, just walking out with a hand covering her ears silently. Harry and Cisco shared a tired look, figuring something bothered her..

——

Him and Cisco were talking for a bit, the genius still grumbling about what happened. That he needed to accept the facts and himself, since they are technically his doppelgängers but still. He didn’t truly like it too much.

Until he found her.

Harry found his girlfriend in his lab, scribbling in a notebook wearing her noise canceling headphones, that both him and Cisco carefully crafted her due to her meta human abilities, and playing with her bangs.

He sighed, knowing she was flashed today and practically felt just as insulted as he was. But because Leanna was more of a sensitive soul in the relationship, rather busy lately with Iris’s wedding planning, and helping the team with their issues. Along with the overheating bickering wasn’t probably too pleasant to her ears.

He winced, taking a marker to the whiteboard and tapping it against the clear sided screen. Harry walked over to her, tapping her shoulder and simply asked, “Hey, are you alright?”

“Hm?” She asked, removing her headphone registering what he said and chuckled, “Oh! Yeah honey I’m fine.”

“Isn’t that my line? Lea, honey, what happened? You kinda snapped at them.”

“Yeah well, so did you!…I, uh, umm wasn’t expecting today. Part of me knew something was gonna happen! I felt like I was being pulled left and right. I mean 4 Wells in one room, that’s overwhelmingly surprising and kinda chaotic..no offense.”

“None taken! They are just huge self minded, idiots. Uptight, roughly insulting, snooty and just jerks. I—I didn’t think it would go like that! Hell they flashed you and choose to make eyes at you the whole time. Treated you like you were an prize to be won and be thrown away…no one was paying attention to anything and just talking over one another! Jesus…”

Leanna stayed quiet hearing him rant about how he felt about the situation and the protection his mind created, recognizing things she didn’t notice until now. It made her feel better, knowing that she got the best Wells in the multiverse. All he wanted was to make some more friends and figure out a way to help with his teammates issues.

But instead, he realized that rather became a host and solid choice for a complete conversation than the other guys. He also felt sorta good about himself being one to unlock the door to an O’Conner’s heart unlike his counterpart.

“I uh, don’t take you for granted, you know?” Harry said, with a soft grin.

“I figured as much. You stayed.” She replied with a tired smile.

“Wolfgang had a version of you then lost you, 2.0 Wells was just gah not—the best thing with women and uh, Lothario was something else where uh, you know!”

Lea chuckled and nodded, “Oh I know! I..I know!”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh, “But in all seriousness, Leanna I love you and I’m so sorry you had to deal with that—us, today.”

“I’ve been part of Team Flash for so long, where something like that shouldn’t surprise me but it did. It was chaotic chapter for the books, but I really hope that doesn’t happen again!”

“It better not! I can’t take another moment with those guys. They’re one of the most annoying minds of the multiverse!”

“Harry, honey..”

“What?

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

She stood up from her chair, wrapped her arms around his middle and looked up at the man gently grinning. He looked down at her, placing a hand on the small of her back, smiled softly confused since she left her second line incomplete.

“For being you! You came to this Earth and took it as it is, trying to help it. And those idiots, didn’t have to FaceTime us but they did. Because you would’ve done the same thing.” She added.

“Of course I’ve would’ve, I kinda like you guys. Especially you and Dr. Snow.” Harry admitted.

“Most importantly, you fell for me. All those other versions of Lea and Wells don’t know what they’re missing.”

“Well, technically, this wasn’t planned. I came to another earth for one goal. But we sorta happened.”

“Do you regret it?”

He leaned down, cupping her cheek a bit, “No.”

“Why’s that?” She asked, leaning in.

“Because it proves my multiverse theory. Every version of you or me, ends up being with an such interesting partner.”

“I love that theory.”

“I know you do.”

Harry closed the space between them, tossing in a few solid pecks of Lea’s waiting lips. A couple of sweet nothings and laughs were thrown into the mix, chatting about getting Big Belly Burger later.

When suddenly..

“Oh come on!”

Came Cisco’s voice, standing at the door with his hands on his hips.

“Seriously? Y’all didn’t need my help making her feel better.” Cisco said.

Lea snorted and smiled, as Harry tossed his friend a playful grin, only ever reserved for Cisco Ramon.

“We’re heading to Big Belly Burger later, you coming?” asked Lea.

“Oh hell yes!” He replied, replacing the frown with a smile, snatched up his friend from Harry into his arms for a hug and yelling, “She was mine first.”

——

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story ⚡️

Please don’t forget to like, share reblog

Tags: @yetanotherwells @gaminggirlsstuff @gcthvile @mandylove1000 @msrochelleromanofffelton @hanlueluver @topgun-imagines @sherloquestea @superspookyjanelle @rooster-84 @bisexual-watermelons @withakindheartx @blackheart-beauty @blueboirick and etc.

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dpkronmiller · 10 months

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COME ON BARBIE LET GO PATRIARCHY

Something was different.

Yes, here is a huge hit, female directed, female written and female starring - breaking just amazing records. The first live action comedy to break the top 20 biggest opening weekends. First female directed, written and focused film in that top 20. 162 Million dollar opening weekend. Indiana Jones by comparison only did $60 million domestically and that was cherished cinematic IP with a male protagonist. Mission Impossible didn't crack 100 million and it too had a male protagonist. And it wasn't a holiday weekend. Just another weekend dead in the middle of summer with a huge iMax sized competitor in the Nolan film Oppenheimer - which probably did benefit more from Barbie than Barbie did from it in large part thanks to the genius double feature marketing of Barbieheimer. And some people apparently only saw Oppenheimer because Barbie was sold out.

But wait - so the male starring films all under performed? And Barbie DOUBLED Oppenheimer's take??

And worldwide - it's made over $400 million dollars! Surpassing Jones and Impossibley beating Mission Impossible. Already. In it's first week of release.

Every male driven movie this summer, aside from the testosterone filled mustache of Mario, had weak turnout. Yet the narrative from the industry has been that female centered films don't have enough demand. That people won't turn out for a movie about women and girls and for women and girls.

Yet...here we are...Barbie.

But that's not what I mean by different.

The film is unique. It wasn't what I expected. I thought it might be a fish out of water story in the real world like Enchanted. Or have some quest component whereby Barbie would need to find the hidden McGuffin golden slipper or devise some magic potion to stop some great evil from shooting a laser in the sky, again.

Instead I was met with fantasy.

A film structured and written as if kids were playing with their Barbies but not just kids - as if kids were playing Barbie with their Moms and their Moms were using the toys to educate their kids on the suffocating yoke of the male patriarchy.

But entire film felt like one long playdate with the truth.

From how Barbie magically moves to the ground or travels in between worlds - there's an active surreal quality where one action doesn't necessarily need explanation - she just is now on Venice Beach. She's just now in a white void. She's just now in Ben Shapiro's crawl keeping him from his precious beauty sleep.

But that's not what was different.

And though the film was almost a movie about Barbie AND Ken equally, with both having large arcs and equal screen time, where Ken wasn't just a supporting player but seemingly as much of a center of the movie as Barbie - with performances from Robbie and Gosling that were anything but plastic - but that's not what struck me as different...

Something happened in the theatre.

As the credits started to roll...

...normally everyone sits and maybe waits for an end credit scene quietly or simply slips out in silence...

...this time...

...as soon as the credits rolled...

...the whole theatre started talking, chatting, excitedly with each other, there was such a roar that you couldn't hear Billie Elish's whisper singing during the final song in the credits.

I've never really heard that before. That was different. Not Billie Elish’s whisper singing - will somebody please get that poor lady a throat losenge.

The chatter. The audience was awake.

There was an excitement. An eagerness to digest what they just saw. A glee.

And it was mostly a female audience.

Well I did hear one man explaining what he thought and say the word existential just a lot - there's always one Ken.

But it was different. This film managed to do something new. And it's honesty and straight forwardness and clarity was refreshing. It didn't just speak in metaphor - it at times just out right said the thing that needed to be said - that men needed to hear. And said them several times. Why? Because, speaking as someone who walks between both worlds, sometimes you have to tell a man something more than once for him to get off his ass and take the damn trash out.

And yet it didn't end on women taking control. The goal wasn't vengeance or domination - the goal was acceptance and ultimately...equality. We just aren’t there yet. Huh...a realistic ending to a plastic world.

#barbie

#barbie #barbiemovie #barbieheimer #barbenheimer #mattel #lgbtq #standup #comedy #blog #fyp #plastic

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britishchick09 · 14 days

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facts about josefina, kirsten, addy, kit and julie! :D

(from their new pages!)

✿ To learn more about what Josefina’s life would have been like, author Valerie Tripp spent two summers in New Mexico. She visited living history museums and interviewed elderly New Mexican women about the daily lives of Hispanic families and children in rural New Mexico.

The models for Josefina’s home were la El Rancho de las Golondrinas near Santa Fe and Hacienda de los Martinez near Taos, NM. Both are former ranchos from Josefina’s time and now living history museums that you can visit today.

Josefina’s first and last names are drawn from the New Mexican censuses of 1790 and 1823.

American Girl worked closely with the advisory board to decide what Josefina would look like. Board member Felipe Mirabal even cut off a lock of his own hair and sent it to AG to ensure that the Josefina doll’s hair color was just right!

Although Josefina is actually a Mexican citizen, the advisory board felt comfortable calling her an “American girl” because her story presents a history and heritage that’s an integral part of America today.

By the end of her series, Josefina has a new mother. This plot element symbolizes the change for the Spanish settlers of New Mexico and the Southwest, who lost their mother country of Mexico when they became citizens of the United States, their new mother country. ✿

✿ Kirsten was one of the first three characters in The American Girls Collection, along with Samantha and Molly, when Pleasant Company debuted.

The Kirsten doll and accessories were “archived” in 2010 and have only been rereleased once in 2021 and once in 2024 since then.

One of the outfits that was sold for Kirsten was a housecoat and sockor, or wool slippers. The sockor for the Kirsten doll were handmade by a woman in Sweden beginning in 1987 for twenty years.

The original family portrait in Kirsten’s books is made to look like a daguerreotype, which is a type of photograph from the time. Later, the portraits of Kirsten’s family and friends were done individually to match the other American Girl books.

In Pleasant Rowland’s original business plan, Kirsten was named Rebecca, and was a Norwegian immigrant in 1865.

The team who created Kirsten did a lot of research with the Minnesota and Wisconsin Historical Societies, who had a lot of information about the Swedish settlers who came to these states in the 1800s.

Kirsten’s Swedish dirndl and kerchief outfit were first released in 1989. ✿

✿ Addy was the first American Girl doll that came with pierced ears.

The cowrie shell necklace that Addy wears is special, as the cowrie has ritual significance for some West African cultures.

The Addy doll and books debuted in September 1993. She was the fifth historical character and the first Black character.

Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl, reached out to author Connie Porter to write the Addy book series after reading her adult novel All-Bright Court.

To promote the Addy book series, American Girl took author Connie Porter on a 10-city author tour to bookstores, libraries, and schools, reaching an audience of more than 15,000 people.

Researchers on Addy confirmed when the full moon would have been during Addy and her mother’s escape from enslavement in 1864 to ensure historical accuracy in the timing.

The museum program, Addy at Ohio Village, debuted in 1998.

The dialect used in the Addy books was created by author Connie Porter to be a balance between what speech of the time would’ve sounded like and what is accessible for young readers and was reviewed by two dialect experts at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.

Addy was the first American Girl character to have an advisory board. Addy’s advisory board was made up of Black historians, educators, and museum curators who ensured the depiction of Addy’s life and times was historically accurate.

The advisory board for Addy included: Lonnie Bunch, Cheryl Chisholm, Spencer Crew, Violet Harris, Wilma King, June Powell, and Janet Sims-Wood.

Addy’s first three books sold more than a million copies in the year they were released.

Some of the original time periods discussed for American Girl’s first Black character included the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights era, which were used later for Claudie Wells and Melody Ellison, respectively. ✿

✿ Kit Kittredge is the seventh historical character that American Girl created.

When she wrote the Kit books, author Valerie Tripp was inspired by her mother, who was Kit’s age in 1932.

The movie Kit Kittredge: An American Girl was released in 2008 and starred Abigail Breslin as Kit—plus actors Chris O’Donnell, Julia Ormond, Joan Cusack, and Stanley Tucci.

Illustrator Walter Rane used himself as a model for the grumpy grocery store owner in Kit’s stories.

When Kit launched, American Girl held events called Kit’s Share and Care Party where girls were invited to donate canned goods for a food drive.

Like Kit’s dad, author Valerie Tripp’s grandfather paid his staff out of his own pocket as long as he could, but eventually had to close his hotel during the Great Depression.

Kit was the first American Girl character doll with freckles and the first with short hair.

Development on Kit was started before Mattel purchased Pleasant Company (American Girl’s original company name) but she was launched after the purchase.

After the launch of the Kit doll and books, Valerie Tripp received a letter from a woman named Kit Kittredge who had grown up in Cincinnati during the Depression and was very excited about the coincidence!

American Girl’s Claudie Wells, whose stories are set in the 1920s, could have faced the challenges of the Great Depression in her teens and twenties. ✿

✿ When Julie launched, in 2007, American Girl historical characters’ years had always ended in 4, so Julie’s year was set as 1974—even though her stories begin in 1975.

Julie’s stories are set in San Francisco to express the open-minded, progressive spirit of her time. At the forefront of the hippie counterculture, San Francisco’s colorful, creative, free-wheeling vibe strongly influenced the music, fashion, and art of the 1970s.

When Julie debuted, some customers felt American Girl should not depict a girl with divorced parents. But since about 50% of kids today live with divorced parents, the creators of Julie felt it was important to have a character and doll who represented their experience.

Author Megan McDonald has four sisters who inspire many of her stories. Quite a few of the scenes between Julie and her teenage sister Tracy were inspired by Megan’s experience growing up with her sisters.

When she’s running for election to student body president, Julie debates her opponent, a popular sixth-grade boy. The 1976 Ford-Carter election debates inspired author Megan McDonald to come up with this plotline.

When author Megan McDonald was ten, her first published story appeared in her school newspaper. Her story was about a pencil sharpener! ✿

#american girl #josefina montoya #kirsten larson #addy walker #kit kittredge #julie albright #the addy moon fact is just like what i did for the rewrite's rooftop scene! :D #historical accuracy to the extreme! ;)#the last kit fact is more kit adjacent but it makes you think! :o #and that second kirsten fact makes me wonder if this is a special temporary thing... :o #it's best to enjoy it while it lasts! :D

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rappaccini · 9 months

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arachnophobia ch 7 notes

chapter title

from 'vortex' by nova twins

initial quote

from catherynne m valente's refrigerator monologues, a series of short stories inspired by famous fridged women in comics. valente was inspired to write them after watching gwen die in the amazing spider-man 2, and the story this quote's from is the gwen stacy expy.

used here because gwen's finally making moves to establish herself and find her purpose.

summer

ghost-spider is gwen's current comics codename. they changed it to distinguish her from the dozens of other spider-women. it's lovely, i love that it isn't gendered (suits gwen's feminist ideology), and that it calls attention to gwen's status as a resurrected version of a famous dead girlfriend. (granted the movies started before she was called this, and kept calling her sw, so... confusion.)

gwen a doesn't use that name yet because she only thinks of it because of excursions in the multiverse. she will, though.

this fic always begins a chapter with a different name gwen goes by. spider-woman, spider-woman-in-name-only, spider-something, spider-gwen, gwen, gwen stacy, now ghost spider; each chapter involves gwen examining that aspect of her identity in some way, building towards a gradual detachment from the spider-woman identity and embrace of something wholly her own.

lost girl: peter pan ref. wendy's back from neverland, ready to grow up. she's not a lost girl anymore.

george quitting: still happens in this fic, but it's more a solution he comes to himself gradually rather than one he decides during their argument. gwen doesn't ask him to quit as one of her caveats bc asking your single dad to give up his career would feel like a stiff ask. the most gwen probably hoped for was him not hunting her anymore.

since gwen in the movies didn't kill her peter, there's technically a way for the manhunt to be called off and dismissed as captain stacy using taxpayer money to fuel his grief, and for gwen to be exonerated. i'm going with that, to do something a little different.

gwen's transformation into ghost-spider is tied in with puberty/coming of age and transition. she's finally ready to let go of all those traditional trappings of being a girl, and take her first steps as an adult woman, being fully honest to her family about who she is, without caring about fitting into any societal standards.

in terms of the seven stages of grief, we're at acceptance.

'you should be angry/you should do something' -- a little echo of 138

carnage is red. however mjarnage is a gorgeous mixture of reds, blacks, purples, oranges and yellows. i think gwarnage (bleh at that name) is a mix of the two: mjarnage's color palate, but with gwenom's silhouette and maybe a few small differences, like more armoring along the calves and forearms to nod to her ballet slipper ribbons and gloves.

symbiotes reflect the personalities of their most prominent hosts. 616-carnage's was a schizophrenic serial killer, so of course it's Like That. carnage-65b, in this fic, would be bonding with only gwen, so it'll be more of an embodiment of gwen's anger, vengeful streak and drive to survive, like comics-gwenom's.

comics-gwen mostly keeps her suit shifted to the classic spider-woman costume. gwenom only pops up when she's mad or stressed. to keep her distinct, gwen b mostly wears carnage on her sleeve.

social media reactions: meta. people think gwenom is less sexy than the spider-gwen costume, and they would absolutely pitch a fit about their daughters' precious role model being too problematic.

hobie-65 is a preteen who tags buildings and hates gentrifiers. he is so much more like young miles than hobie-138.

ock-65b is wildly different than comics-65 ock. i think this is kind of endearing, that movie gwen gets her own unique bad guy. especially since most of her rogues seem to be missing.

gwen's identity is preserved because there's no hand to pressure her into revealing it. and, with the new look, people assume gs is an alien. works for her!

if you wanna be technical, gwen b got her hand arc: after exposing herself to her dad, she was conscripted into a sinister society led by a creepy man (whose name starts with m) who wants to possess her, and holds a power she needs to survive at arm's length unless she obeys him; which she does out of fear for her dad's life. and then she found a way to get away from him, through embracing a symbiote, and makes up with her dad.

so in a sense, gwen's wrapped up her latour arc. she's made peace with her dad, secured her symbiote, and is no longer actively hunted by law enforcement. she's enjoying that quiet lull before the mcguire run begins, where man-wolf, the storms and jackal turn up. (if they ever do.)

"gwen watches her father doze..." callback to ch 2. all the things gwen missed about her world, back and current.

fall

the nyc kindergarten cutoff is 5yo by sept 1. gwen's got a mid-to-late aug b-day here, so she's one of the youngest kids in her class. ergo, she was in eighth grade when she got bit, peter either died at the end of ninth grade or the start of tenth, she was a sophomore when she met miles, a junior when she ran away from home (which would've had to have happened around january since she's in the ss for about five months by the time atsv picks up around may). so she's a senior now.

gwen doesn't have to repeat a year of high school despite having basically skipped half her junior year, because she and her dad lied about her staying with family due to peter trauma and his manhunt causing him to neglect her.

plus she rocketed through a placement test. she's a spider-person, she's smart under pressure.

(in the comics, gwen has family in london. that's who she's visiting when she goes there to get away from her dad's death.) thought it'd be funny if gwen gets to half-lie about going to london.

in the comics, 616 gwen went to standard high. 65 gwen goes to midtown, peter parker's high school. in the movie it looks like she's going to a version of visions, probably another, sigh, ~parallel to miles~. gonna twist canon here and say: fine, she went to visions for a while, but it was a case of her school busing half the student body there for classes while it repaired the building after the lizard battle.

again my issue is not with the movie canon diverging from gwen's comics backstory/world in and of itself. it's that all these changes seem to exist to water her world down and remove the people gwen loves to make it impossible for her to find belonging with anyone but miles.

and given all gwen's paranoia about her world spitting her out to force her to live in miles's, she WOULD assume that's what determined her assignment to visions.

em jay's slightly older here bc her character design just looks like it. in the comics, all the girls are the same age. here, i think of gwen and glory as 17, betty as 16, and em as 18.

gwen and her dad's caveats were: gwen will live at home again, but he can't stop her from visiting other dimensions. she will make an effort to meet people in her dimension, but she'll keep the friends she has in other ones too (... at this time, just hobie and gwen a). she will finish high school, but she will still be a spider-hero. she'll tell him what she's up to and who she's fighting, and let him give her advice and support, but he will not fight her battles for her.

basically, gwen's not an adult, but her experience away from home matured her a lot. she was homeless for months, she's been in danger constantly, she contemplated death, she lived with an intimate partner. she can never go back to being george's teenage daughter again. her emotional maturity's more that of a college sophomore than a high school senior: still a teen, but able to function independently and ready for more mature relationships. they're in that state aged parents and their near-adult children reach where there's far more negotiation of agency.

in the comics, the mjs are gwen's closest friends. in the movie, they're just bandmates, and given that gwen 'starts her own band' at the end of the movie, it seems like the vibe is that she doesn't feel like she belongs with the mjs at all.

fuck that! in this fic, the girls start out that way, but they work it out after gwen runs away. they just had trouble warming up to each other because of gwen's peter grief. they're not 65a-levels of friendship, but they're getting closer.

(+setup for gwen and miles in the end: both parties are in the wrong, with trauma keeping them from bonding, that they both have to deal with if the friendship's ever going to work. and both are finally ready to do that.)

the mary janes put up posters for gwen in the comics. i like to think they do here, and they can eventually be friends with gwen a. they're taking their first steps here.

gwen a doesn't have a watch, so b has to pick her up every time she visits. comics-gwen has a big sister vibe with all her variants, so i'm translating that here. and since gwen a in the fic's dad is dead, i figure she'd really want to be close to george b.

they're talking job apps because both of them are out of work. and playing chess because in the comics, gwen plays a few rounds with her reed when they need to talk; i figure a picked the game up from him.

hobie's watch: progress on it's slower in the fic than in movie canon; he had to rush to get gwen's done before she glitched out, and since he's out of the ss, it took even longer to get his operational.

the symbiote amplifies all emotions. yes, including the horny ones. your honor, they got nasty on that billboard. and in many other places too.

in the comics, the symbiote feeds off her calories, so she loses a lot of weight and starts getting migraines before she changes her diet. i figure the same applies here

the falling joke's just because i thought it'd be funny. another side effect of malnutrition is lightheadedness after all.

flash thompson is the midtown high gym teacher in the comics.

since gwenom needs cellulose, i figure carnage does too. cue the most miserable after-dinner snack imaginable: a raw head of cabbage.

the symbiote is sensitive to sound. given that gwen's a drummer in a rock band, it's gonna need time to get used to that. which should lead to some funny mishaps.

and all those teeth sticking out of gwenom's design have gotta be cumbersome sometimes.

great, okay, fine callback.

winter

howard the duck's president in comics-65.

jameson's the mayor of nyc in the comics. he isn't in the movies, but i think it's funny and sadly plausible, so we'll assume gwen's world is in an election year and jameson won. and gwen's dad is a christian cop so she is very worried that he voted for him.

gwen's new go-to foods: tea, because of all her time on 138; samosas, because of mumbattan; corn dogs because of gwen a.

idk if harry and reed exist in 65b. i hope they do. chalking this up to gwen deciding to let her people find her.

polaroids: continuity error between itsv and atsv: gwen's pic with miles shifts from a phone selfie to a polaroid selfie with no explanation. my guess is a polaroid just looks more aesthetically pleasing. gonna just go with it, and say that gwen likes analog cameras.

the b in english is gwen's worst grade in atsv. here, it's her best one, because girl's got other priorities than school.

i get the sense that gwen b won't go to college.

re college: comics-gwen takes a gap year after high school to figure out what major, then goes to prison. she tries enrolling at community college (i love that it's not ivy league), but bc of marvel editorial wanting her in 616 with the big spider-heroes, she has to commute to empire state in 616, before eventually going there for good after her solo's cancelled.

'not empire' is a dig at that. let gwen live in her damn world please. it's a good thing if she's not going to the exact same school as her 616 counterpart. and not every hero needs to go to a fancy college on a full ride. it was really refreshing that gwen wasn't a star student and was settling for community and she lost a lot of charm when she got handed that stark scholarship.

regrettable hookup: the gwenom vs carnage comic is so queercoded it's insane. they have an angsty guitar-drum battle over their feelings and it felt very much like one of the plans for mcguire's ghost-spider run was to make gwenjay happen. in this fic mj never becomes carnage, but in my heart that battle still happens because they had a fling and it didn't end well.

gwen's over ballet and finally ready to quit it formally.

she's over her replacement complex too. she doesn't mind if she's replaced at the barre, at the drums, if she's interacting with em or mindy. her confidence is hard to shake now.

movie betty joined the band to vent her feelings, so i figure she's a good person for gwen to do that with.

i like to think that gwen's trying to get more involved in the band creatively as her friendship with the girls improves, so she starts showing em and glory old punk and new wave records she'd have listened to on 138. in the comics, the mj's sound starts off as 'pixies x blondie' during latour and takes on a pop punk/p!atd sound during the mcguire run. in the movies, i assume they were more pop-rock during itsv (the elliphant song playing over gwen's intro), and will be headed into punk for their second round of songs.

spider-mutt is real! hobie's carnage is a little goopdog. i love it, and i wanted to include it. i figure fic-hobie probably took note of gwen's symbiote and thought, fuck it, i'll give it a spin. so now he has a goopdog.

a's uncomfortable with mattea bc of her history with matt murdock. b never met her murdock so never had that issue.

a's reactions are from the comics: comics-gwen thinks hobie's a bad singer, but still likes his music. she thinks 138 gwen's death is cool.

in the film, hobie's why gwen and her father reconcile. he's the one who told george she was coming home, left the watch with him to give her, and yelled at him until he saw sense. here, he's not so involved in the reconciliation, but they still meet and he still yells at him.

so their dynamic is: hobie has bad history with his world's captain stacy, and george doesn't like that this guy's sleeping with his daughter. they mutually hate each other's politics and life choices, but recognize that they both love and care about gwen. so they will try to get along... mostly by ignoring each other. the vibe's basically 'if hobie never leaves through her bedroom door george will ignore him climbing in through her window'

(... though 100% i think hobie pointed to his bootlaces and was like 'that's you. if you fuck up i'll do it again.' and george begrudgingly respects that)

gwen's dad's giving her The Look because he's put it together that gwen and hobie are sleeping together and that he can do nothing about it.

now that gwen has her independence, powers, support system, and world under control, she's ready for a relationship. that's the thing: gwen has to get those things FIRST.

in the comics, pav is a scholarship student who's bullied for his village background.

if pav's a variant of peter, and peter's biggest hobbies are photography and science, i figured pav would be the same. to switch it up, he's a photo nerd. (plus, it gives him and gayatri, a model, more to bond over)

the crazy thing miles did will be discussed soon.

hobie and miles are not friends at this point in this fic. they were for that first month of miles's membership, but when the unbreakup hit and miles assumed the ghostpunk vibe was to blame he stopped wanting to associate with him. and hobie had no desire to wade into teen breakup drama, so he didn't set him straight (... plus, his sympathies are more with gwen in the situation. miles, he gets that the situation's fucked up, but you're more in the wrong here and she has more to lose. plus he and gwen are much closer). so after the initial anger cooled off, they simply didn't reconnect because they spent more time being frosty to each other than being friendly.

gwen's Miles Thoughts are to set up their confrontation later in this chapter.

hobie gets away with his watch because the society thinks he isn't capable of that level of subterfuge, and that gwen came back to 65b after she quit.

more refs to gwen breaking hearts.

gwen's now classified as an anomaly, as a symbiote from another dimension bonded with a gwen who was never meant to have one, in the wrong way. i assume miguel slapped some caution tape over her and a's dimensions, like he did with miles and 42 in canon. i guess the logic goes that anomalies can be allowed to remain in the wild, as long as they stay put. and as far as he can tell because hobie's watches are undetectable, she isn't crossing over.

gwen still expects a confrontation. she wants one. setup for later.

the river-smell sweater’s hobie’s. small implication that he sleeps over at hers sometimes.

timeline update: it's been a few months since gwen returned. needed some time for her changes to set in and to get some practice with her symbiote. it's about january, so roughly the time of the guggenheim fight (... even if the animation makes it look like it took place in spring or fall, if you do the math, it would've taken place in winter).

comic gwen-8 just wears the generic spider-gwen costume. i'm dealing with so many gwens at this point that i literally have a cheat sheet with all their costumes drawn out to distinguish them and needed them to look different. so this woman's wearing something like the madame web gwen costume. it looks suitably dramatic for a seemingly perfect celebrity hero. white and pristine, with a big flowy cape to remind of miguel.

that rip spider-woman mural was still thrown up by hobie65 because after eight months of absence he assumed she was dead.

earth-8 notes

earth-8, for all it's built up as ~one of the best possible futures~ for gwen and miles, sure does have a lot of bad implications.

1) gwen and miles willingly abandoned their respective families, friends, communities and worlds forever, presumably leaving them to their rogues, so they could run off and be famous. which is insanely ooc for both. and deeply selfish besides.

2) the marriage age: according to the watcher's earth 8 timeline, gwen leaves her world after murdock's defeat (~age 20) and the wedding comes halfway between then and the birth of charlotte, when gwen's 26. so she was most likely 23 and he was 20. which is Insanely Fucking Young to get married for anyone and does not feel in character for them. (my best guess is that the dudewriters didn't want their ideal gwen over 40, so they made her 38 and didn't think through the butterfly effect implications for the ages they were at marriage/childbirth.)

3) this wedding of this supposedly perfect couple was televised to 300 billion people, and they did it unmasked. that's multiple royal weddings in one. that wasn't about love, that was about attention.

4) they have public identities on earth-8, and were already known to the public when they married. they literally monetized being superheroes, being a supercouple.... and being super-parents.

5) their kids are only 10 and 12 and are already super-celebrities with codenames, costumes and seats in an otherwise all-adult hero team. what parents let their kids go into battle with grown adults? not good ones.

6) every time we go to earth-8, the kids are just... unparented. sitting around the house, miles and gwen nowhere in sight and it's treated as standard. the kids are always with a babysitter/nanny who they have no trouble getting away from. gwiles sure are hands-off with those perfect powerful photogenic kids they supposedly love so much.

i'm pretty sure that out of universe, marvel editorial or at the minimum the spider-man writers wanted gwen out of her world after her initial solo ended so she could become miles's love interest/the vessel for his spider-babies, and earth8 was their vision of what they wanted for her future. gross!

anyway for this fic i'm gonna say Fuck That to the surface level earth 8 interpretation and try to write a version of this relationship that acknowledges all the bad implications, without villainizing them or turning gwen into a victim/passive bystander/superbaby vessel in her relationship with miles. while also trying to preserve gwen8 as the most palatable dude-friendly vision of spider-gwen. because that's what she was created to be.

so 1a) gwen-65 leaving her world after murdock's defeat can make sense easily: this is a gwen who was facing exposure, incarceration and abuse from her rogues behind bars. borrowing from 65b, her rel with her dad was on the rocks... and since gwen only seeks miles romantically when she's trying to avoid her problems, she did the same here. gwen-8 broke up the hand, then fled worlds before she could be arrested while she was presumably powerless. she met miles and they left for 8 together.

(how'd she get her powers back and leave the symbiote? idk. but she's a male writer's perfect gwen, and a male writer's perfect gwen would only have graceful spider-powers, not a scary messy alien blob monster clinging to her. my best guess is gwen 8 left venom with her dad and got her powers back on earth 8.)

(... ergo, she and miles probably tracked down earth-8's spider and made sure it'd bite her instead of whoever it was meant for. so they pulled an earth-42 switcheroo, but with gwen instead of miles and on purpose. i imagine that's why they chose earth-8 to settle in: take someone's power, take their responsibility.)

1b) miles i had more trouble with. atsv had the perfect answer: here's a miles1610 who doesn't encounter a spider from the wrong dimension, who starts out as the prowler, gets a bite from a dimensional-native spider after being the prowler for a while (not vigilante prowler; henchman prowler), tries to make his own way as spider-man (i assume ripeter's dead at this point), but no one will let him redefine himself as a hero. so he goes somewhere where he can.

i imagine his father still dies (earlier, bc a city without spider-man is even more dangerous), which leads him to burn out of visions and embrace his uncle and get sucked into prowlering (he wants to protect aaron); aaron's killed by kingpin (aaron wants to protect miles), who sees miles as a replacement. miles is stuck as the sole prowler until he gets his powers, his mom finds out and their relationship gets bad/distant enough that he feels the need to leave forever.

i figure he meets gwen because she's got no resources except her hand training and is pragmatic enough to return to crime to get by. she figures out he has spider-powers and gives him tips, they start learning about each other, develop trust, and decide to leave together.

2) they're 17ish and 20 when they meet under desperate circumstances and flee to earth-8. so they're young, impulsive, isolated, and under a lot of pressure. i figure they end up in that kind of ambiguous intimate partnership that gwen and hobie have-- not overtly romantic, but definitely not platonic. but everyone on earth-8 thinks they're a couple. and responds accordingly.

4) when gwen and miles arrived on 8, a futuristic world, they had no identification or support system. they had trouble assimilating, and decided revealing their identities on their own terms was the best way to be accepted and get enough power/money/respect to live safely. but that's a slippery slope: once you monetize your relationship, people demand a wedding.

3) the wedding was america's favorite supercouple inviting the public to invest in that parasocial relationship, so they'd be more willing to defend and support them. they were 20 and 23, of course they thought being influencers would be a good idea. (and, meta: the general audience and fandom like gwen better when she's on miles's arm, and they think miles is more impressive when gwen's his love interest.) 'america's favorite superlove story' was more a political marriage between partners in crime who did shady shit to start over, but nonetheless have an intimate bond, than a love story.

5) they probably got pregnant with charlotte by mistake but decided to go through with it to secure their image. once you're married, people expect kids. the 8 are formed after charlotte's birth, so presumably that's when they're established and powerful enough to have their own team. they gave the kids codenames because their identities are already public, so fuck it.

6) because of all their trauma, becoming parents too young and public pressure, miles and gwen just aren't emotionally available as parents. gwen especially, since gwen stacy (especially spider-gwen) just isn't maternal. of the two, miles is the more affectionate one, and gwen's the disciplinarian. they're like a miguel and jess who do care about their kids and just don't know how to express it, so they treat them like apprentices. (gwen's the miguel, miles is the jess.)

=gwen and miles 8 are image-conscious, calculating pragmatists. they're heroes, sure, but they're doing it to secure their positions. they'll get their hands dirty (including killing) to get what they want, gwen especially. they'll cut and run, and are out for their survival above all else. they're a couple, but they're more partners-in-crime than they are romantic or heartwarming.

the simplest analog i can come up with is if gwen and hobie's dynamic gave way to miguel and jess's: two unhoused kids in a bad situation who find support in each other as they do what it takes to escape that situation becoming a power couple who are a dangerously effective but emotionally stunted unit, who aren't sure if what they've become was worth it.

perfect gwen

gwen-8 going to brunch is a thing she does in the comics, with gwen-617. already had her doing it with jess, now it's the 65gwens' turn.

the light on pg settles over her like she's born to it, because she was. she's a 65variant, as we learn in this section. also, the light in gwen's world behaves like it's underwater.

miguel wants a new gwendaughter.

unfortunately all the ones currently in existence are either too old, too willful, or don't have a dad-shaped void he can fill. so far.

gotta drop 17628 and 8311/guin, plus 457 early. they'll be here soon.

specifically, the info that 457's exploring the multiverse is gonna come back.

anytime the text is in bold, that's the symbiote speaking.

we need to burst the bubble on perfect gwen. she is not perfect, she is a person.

the most definitive way to ruin gwen's reputation, as we know, is by having her do something shitty to her spider-man. or something 'shitty' like rejecting his advances, getting with another guy, prioritizing herself over him... you know. gwen b was 'shitty' to her spider-man. gwen-8's gonna be shitty to him.

ergo, gwen-8 intentionally killed her peter parker.

(+i wanted gwen b, gwen a, and gwen 8 to exist on a spectrum: peter's death is an accident and she liked him back / she wasn't into peter but didn't realize he was the lizard until after she manslaughtered him / she wasn't into him, knew he was the lizard and murdered him specifically to stop him from hurting her later)

further underlines gwen 8 as an extreme pragmatist who'll do whatever she has to to ensure her own survival, who WOULD leave her world behind. if she was willing to kill her own best friend to protect herself from a perceived future threat, she'd be willing to abandon her world to do the same.

there's no canon age for gwen8's power onset, though it's implied it's the same as gwen65 (age 17). i went with gwen b bc i thought (1) being sw for 25 years is a sexier number than 21, (2) it's a good way to contextualize her more regrettable actions and her stronger desire to leave home: she was thirteen when she got started, of course she fucked up. and her dad was hunting her for far longer and at a far younger age. (3) since gwen8 was sw for seven years before abandoning earth-8, all those canon events lasted longer. the manhunt lasted years instead of months, and so was her time with her abusive overlords.

more gwen b pulls: gwen8's dad tried to arrest her and she ran away from home for months, instead of gwen a's dad covering for her= more stress + a weaker bond to her dad that'd be easier to leave behind.

i imagine gwen8, instead of being scooped up by the society, was taken up by the hand after she ran away (on the spectrum, the event falls between gwen a's reluctant temporary hand membership to protect her dad, and gwen b's full-time induction into the society). so she both received their training, and put up with murdock's abuse full time (which means he had time to start extorting her sexually— a thing he’s implied to intend to do in the comics, but she ditched him before he could)— and all at a younger age than in canon. more context to her hypercompetency, and to her desire to ditch her world.

... but still. gwen8 abandoned her world. she didn't want to face the consequences.

also i imagine gwen8's subletter of 65 (65c?) is a world where george stacy got to live his dadcop dreams by being that world's venom. and that given how she's 38 and he's in his 50s when she's a teen, he's probably dead by now.

she's a science-inclined gwen instead of a music-inclined gwen (the two Big Types, so far), to further her palatability, and make it possible for her to devise that portal to miles's dimension.

age gap: gwen and miles were 16ish and 20ish when they had that terrible date in the comics. presumably gwiles8 have that same gap. ergo, they'd have met at that age too! yikes!

gwen8's defensive because she and miles8 were definitely doing shit when he was 17 and she was 20. yikes!

another reason for murdock's abuse progressing to a sexual extent: to make 20yo gwen's decision to hook up with a 17yo miles less gross and ooc. don't get me wrong, its still bad, but more understandable if she's trying to get some amount of power back and thinks someone younger than her wouldn't be able to manipulate her like murdock did. yikes!, but the best thing her traumatized ass could think of.

do things different: an atsv motif.

meta: gwiles are a massively popular fancouple. they move merch.

gwendolyn

charlotte probably was named after charlotte's web in the comics.

ficgwen's deadname is max. the alternate son people keep trying to convince her to have being named that felt... appropriate.

once pg's done recounting her backstory, gwen stops seeing her as perfect. thus, she's now gwendolyn.

it's batshit to me that gwiles8 got married at 20 and 23 and literally never had any other relationships than with each other.

happy vs content: another fic motif.

gwen8 is a gwen. she can only be happy, alive and empowered in a relationship removed from heteropatriarchy. once they brought people in, she and miles's relationship was poisoned. but those early years, where they were on the run together, where they first developed that bond, were real.

gwiles8's early dynamic, as stated before, is much more like gwen and hobie's. gwen's making that connection here (intentional parallel to hobie presenting her with the watch, and that i'll-save-you-look motif reappears here). and catching on that she and hobie fit into that labelless zone that gwenships need.

gwendolyn's sensitive about her kids, so she lapses into pr friendly humor to deflect. but i also think she does not know spanish.

gwen-8 is a ballerina because i want to maintain that spectrum of 65gwen palatability: a's a drummer, b's a ballerina only to get the girlhood cred and ditches it for the drums when she gets it, 8's unironically a dancer and liked it and had no musicianship interests). and a perfect palatable gwen would absolutely be a dancer instead of a drummer in a rock band. (and if she never has the mary janes to begin with, she can't give those drummer ambitions up. better alternative to surrendering her dreams to be a superwife)

'i bet you're straight too' -- you KNOW the most palatable dudefriendly gwen wouldn't be queer.

giselle is a tragic ballet about a woman who's betrayed by her lover, dies, and enters a coven of ghosts, all women who died young and tragically due to love, but spares her lover by forgiving him. gwen stacy fits right into that kind of story.

the royal ballet's in london. another gwen stacy nearly makes it there, but something stops her.

truly movie-65 looks like a dead wife flashback.

gwen8 in the comics is heavily implied to be a version of gwen65. playing with that here. fic gwen8 is from another 65 offshoot.

in the comics, a version of ham is part of the amazing 8, and often babysits the kids. here, gwen-8 is talking to the peter porker of itsv. great way to ref canon while also building into the realization that she's going behind the society's back by hanging out with undesirables.

gwiles-8 joined the society because they were sincerely seeking a connection with other spider-people, and did think it would be helpful for their kids. and also because they're so much like miguel and jess that i think they got along right away.

'calling us partners without treating us like it' -- all salt at the writers and fandom. if gwen and miles are equals, that means miles needs to care about advancing gwen's plot as much as she does his. and that gwen's individual world and story should receive as much emphasis. that doesn't happen though. so they're not partners, now are they? he's the hero, and she's the hero's girlfriend.

gwen a is totally uninterested in miles bc he's just some dude she's heard things about. gwen b still needs closure with hers.

gwendolyn plays along with the societal categories... and also pays the price: no one actually fits into these boxes ('perfect' gwen is technically an anomaly, and did some extremely questionable things). and while playing along might get you what you want materially and keep you personally safe, it furthers the idea that those boxes are necessary, and makes it impossible for people who seek a way out of it to realize you could or need help as well.

and you pass it on to your kids, who don't know you're playing the game against itself and internalize those behaviors unironically.

supposedly, comics-charlotte morales-stacy has a mystical connection to the web. the fandom keeps insisting that gwen hurry up and get with miles already so they can produce her, and i hate that more than life itself. you're not done when you marry that boy, now you are obligated to produce offspring and fuck what you want, gwen, your daughter in one dimension is special enough to totally overshadow your wants and needs. vomits.

that's going in the fic as stakes for any gwen who joins the spider-society. bc the next step in the patriarchy machine after marriage is babies ever after. and if the babies have powers that can be of use to the society, they're gonna want them.

gwiles8 aren't natives to earth8, so they should probably be wearing some kind of transdimensional stabilizer tech to not glitch out. ergo, they had a variation on the portal watch decades before miguel invented his.

i imagine their kids are earth 8 natives bc they were born there.

the kids: get into transdimensional mischief in the comics. something tells me they'd cause chaos in the society.

another reason for gwendolyn to get her powers at 13: so she can have a crisis thinking about charlotte being that age and going into battle.

re the kids: i like to think that the society mess made gwiles8 rethink how they're raising them, and they're going to try to let them be children more than junior spider-heroes now.

lego gwen is real, also from some unknown variant of lego peter's world. i know nothing about her, so she's just a cameo in the fic for that reason.

spider-witch is also real. from some marvel fighting game. also has zero characterization other than a vague reference to her having scarlet witch powers. so she's gonna be another cameo.

spider-woman-617 is an amalgamation of gwen 617, and what if...? dark's spider-woman, who has no numbered universe so i lumped her in to use the 617 title. essentially: taking 617's middle aged detective and giving her the backstory of gwen outliving peter, taking his mask and her dad's gun and going looking for vengeance.

and 617 gwen's universe collapses in the comics too. taking that and using the spot now to justify it, and solidifying the society as an enemy by having them pick and choose which universes are worth protecting. they'll never protect the ones where gwen gets to be the hero on her own terms.

we'll meet all these gwens next time.

the spot: a small way to imply that whatever showdown he and miles will have is still going to happen, even if out of this fic. again, i didn't want to rob miles of his atsv arc, just stretch it over months instead of hours and let gwen have one of her own beside it. the movies did miles right, so i'm doing gwen's side.

gwen 8 is a pragmatist and an opportunist. she would stay as long as possible to extract information.

and she'd get her hands dirty, but not in public... which is why she's talking to the irreputible gwens and asking them to do it for her.

earth 73

earth-73 isn't actually canon. made up for the purpose of this fic. she's the only spider-gwen variant who was entirely made up.

the gist is this is a world where gwen dies the night peter's bitten by the spider, but instead of dying, she's bitten too. so now there are two spider-people where there 'should' be one, and no dead gwen.

she's a gwendolyne-with-an-e to distinguish her from gwendolyn, spider-woman-8. and also to bookend gwen's story on being finally able to encounter a living gwen-with-an-e in a snowy alternate world.

it's 1973 and she's a woman in stem. gwendolyne's dealing with some insane sexism.

another cindy moon ref! sorry cindy, gwen snatched your destiny again!

gwendolyne's never gonna make it to london. again.

being out of reach: a motif for this section

this peter's only just gotten his spider-powers, so all his insecurities are still amped up to 11.

gwendy. the nickname only ever given to gwen by peter, occasionally mj, and hobie in the movies.

here, gwen's the uncle ben, so her death is the one that makes peter take responsibility and stop being reckless and attention seeking. meaning, he's gotta be reckless and attention-seeking when she dies. bad decisions ensue.

he's different, he's special, he's spider-man: bringing this back.

having to try: another motif brought in.

the rooftop flirtation/websling grabbing: got the idea from gwen and peter's first kiss in the amazing spider-man.

so. in this world, gwendolyne gets bitten by the spider when she crushes it. that's the moment of divergence from Canon.

so when she falls, she catches herself.

and so the world is changed: section motif.

issue 121 is gwen 616's death.

gummy spiders being used as tracking/surveillance devices are a thing!

in this world, gwendolyne's dad still dies. it just happens before spider-anyone is around to fight ock. that's her moment of inspiration.

and instead of being inspired by gwen's death, peter73 decides to accompany her.

this is a story where gwen and peter both get bitten, and both get to be heroes together. (it's the strongest way for a and b to witness how possible it is for things to turn out differently, if an og gwen and peter can fall in love, subvert the death, and gwen's powerlessness-- in agency and superpower. because why not?)

the Outfit gwen dies in: purple skirt, green coat. it's repeated in the amazing spider-man movies. you can see gayatri in a purple flannel. and gwen's wearing a green shirt in the film. (... they're so gonna do gwen's death in btsv)

it's a trigger point for gwen: from 'don't you dare interrupt the creation of this new story' to 'oh shit, someone's gonna do that.' it's what makes her want to give gwendolyne some options.

gwendolyne's a nerd. she's gonna think alternate dimensions are cool as hell.

she also doesn't want to leave her peter. she's bluffing to get the gwens to follow her back to him so they can talk this out together.

and the society's just shown up too. they've been talking to peter73, trying to gaslight the fuck out of him into thinking of the gwens as the enemy.

the society's gonna snip gwen73 out of the narrative.

the original plan was that they were going to kill her to force a gwen death canon event. i've since revised it to 'gwen doesn't know, but it's either that or miguel's found his gwen replacement goldfish and wants to retrieve her for that purpose' -- regardless, gwen's here to save herself and miguel's here to shut down a possibility of a new path for a spider-gwen.

jess isn't here because she's taken some of gwen's words in ch4 to heart. she doesn't want to be involved in gwen issues anymore, but she's still in the society.

lady spider's here because i wanted gwen to punch the victorian.

and ben because he's an edgelord.

and miguel, because he's miguel, and he wants a new gwendaughter.

peter73's looking for miles, who came in with the rest of the crew and turned invisible right before gwen73 hits the panic button.

the second miguel sees gwen he goes into rage mode.

look that symbiote tongue's gotta be so fun to use in combat. and the tooth hood. somebody's gotta get bitten by it.

tiger: tiny ref to em (of 'face it tiger' fame) being the original carnage host.

the lab needed to be mirrored so miles could see miguel coming behind him. the reflection motif was a happy accident discovered during drafting.

gwen and her symbiote are generally in agreement-- but it still feeds off her anger and fear. she needs to struggle with it sometimes-- and so an invisible miles can see her doing that, and assume the worst.

also i needed to explain how the society turned up early. makes sense that they'd be surveilling 73, and see the gwens, and decide to move up their mission.

and that gwen would instantly be paranoid of gwen8 selling them out.

funnel webs are the super messy ones. befitting of a portal watch made by a punk. as opposed to the structured orb weaver build of the one designed by a control freak.

miles:

miles and gwen's final confrontation was one of the first things i wanted to write in this fic.

the shoulder touch/"hey" is a ref to itsv.

comic and movie gwen fight different. comic gwen's a clumsy brawler. movie gwen uses her feet and moves like a dancer. miles, who's a smart guy who fought alongside gwen (... and paid a lot attention to her looks as an artist and a guy crushing on her), would clock those kicks and be able to tell the symbiotes apart.

the body running past them isn't maybelle or ben.

miles's temporary suspension was made permanent after earth-42.

miguel gave him this assignment as an opportunity to prove his loyalty and get back in. he wanted someone to handle gwen for him... but then went on a miguel rage, and forgot all about the plan.

miles is here for two reasons: 1) he can't help wanting to ~save gwen from herself~. you know that's how it'd go if gwen got a symbiote and started tapping into her rougher emotions.

and 2) he genuinely wants to talk to her again, but can't until this moment. taking miguel's offer was also tactical, and an indication that miles isn't as naive or as desperate to belong as he was the last time we saw him.

re: saving her: the last time miles saw gwen, she was having an emotional breakdown in front of him. since then he's only ever heard of her, mostly from pav and now peter b. pav last saw her when she attacked him and tried to die in his girlfriend's place, and pete saw her right before something violent went down with miguel and she left the society. and now here she is, months later, possessed by a symbiote in the wrong world, attacking the society. it is totally plausible to think that she needs help.

(and since he's definitely spoken to pete b about her, he does have more perspective about why she rejected him)

saving her 2: it is also very much that he's still stuck in that hero-saves-the-girl mindset. his first impulse is still 'the girl needs me to save her' and not 'maybe the girl is doing this on purpose'

~saving her~: one of the most predictable things you can do with gwenom is make her a victim who needs to be saved by the power of love or a monster who needs to be put down. by the male main character. all the more extraordinary that the actual gwenom arc totally blows those ideas out of the water.

it's an old story, and gwen hates it, so that makes her antagonize him.

miles at this point is getting over his feelings for gwen. he spent 6-8 months not interacting with her at all, after all (and getting closer to margo). he's genuinely not thrilled about the idea of kissing her better, but he still cares about her, and if that does it, he'll do it. (hence the 'i'll-save-you' facial language. you can see it in pav and hobie in 3 and 5 too.)

gwen clocks that hesitation, and it makes her settle down and want to engage with him.

miles is older too. puberty acts fast. he's not gonna look like how she remembers him.

miles's secret weapon is the venom blast (+invisibility). gwen's is the venom symbiote, which can turn her invisible.

his plan was: show up for the mission, get the symbiote off gwen, get gwen back to her homeworld safely. he had no interest in going back to hq or rejoining the society.

(which tips the favor in this being a kidnap-gwendolyne mission instead of a kill-her one. miles wouldn't help out if it were the latter, and the former could be construed by him as For The Best.)

gwen's finally capable of understanding that miles changes over time too. in ch2, she was convinced he couldn't understand her but totally neglected that she's the same.

miles is still a 16yo boy who doesn't totally get what relationship anarchy is.

gwen wants to patch up the miles-hobie friendship. it broke over her, so she has to be the one to fix it. i think he'll actually take her up on it this time.

one of my goals for this fic was making sure miles still gets his canon arc. i think it's exactly what his character needs, and i don't want to flatten him or assassinate his character and throw him away after shooting gwiles dead. so he's still getting all his atsv development, just at a much slower rate and offpage. and without gwen at his side.

ergo: after his big society blowup, here recontextualized as a suspension, he heads to 42. differences being: he goes there intentionally, knowing what he'll find, and he brings his friends (here, peni and margo). it goes less to shit than in canon.

miles peni and margo are a trio because if gwen's had her female friend group removed and is now a guys' girl, at least make miles a girls' guy.

yes, background margo/miles. flowerbyte is cute, margo's a great match for him and i love this ship! i like to think they have a sweet friends to lovers slowburn in the background while gwen's running around punching walls for six months.

so at this point miles is into margo, but still hung up on gwen. he's getting ready to transition from teenage infatuation into a more mature kind of love, but needs closure with gwen before he can move on.

one of my btsv theories is that we'll meet one of the alternate gwens the creators teased in earth-42, and she'll be the gwenom.

which, at least we'd get to see gwenom. but the whole point of gwenom is that she isn't an evil or sad worst-case-scenario version of gwen. she's just gwen. the main gwen.

hence gwen's symbiote calling that out. excuse me bitch, we are not a side character or a sad ending, we're the main event.

symbiote body horror is fun! and carnage 65 is covered in tooth barbs.

(... miles facing off against carnage is a recent comics arc of his. got to pay homage to it here, in a way)

miles was talking to miles8 about prowler stuff all along.

gwen and miles in this fic each have a perfect earth-8 variant who was much more shady behind the scenes, and a villified variant they're supposedly destined to be, who's actually a great influence on them. they are indeed the same in the ways that count.

gwiles8 set up the gwen-and-miles reconciliation. gwen8 was going to send gwen to get gwendolyne anyway, but miles8 sent miles along to make this happen.

dream girl gwen's been a motif throughout this fic. the thing about dreams is you have to wake up from them if you want to get on with your life. miles is about to do that.

miles ii

chapter 2 parallels: gwen contemplating becoming the palatable miles-gf. "they're not us." the gripping of the shoulder. the invisibility. this is an inversion of that scene; they've grown enough to be able to fix what went wrong there.

it's batshit that miles8 got married when he was 20. what the fuck.

the thing about gwen65 is that she can't end up with miles or peter, ever. she has too much history with peter (and he has too much with her), and if they get together all their development since that trauma goes out the window. and that future with miles poisons a present relationship, because that's what it's leading to. one destroy's gwen's physical life, the other destroys her ability to be a protagonist.

movie gwen, at least, could've had something with movie miles. if they'd stayed in touch after itsv, i buy that gwen's feelings for him would've developed and they'd have gotten together and been sweet. but not after a year and a half of no contact; with that much distance and stronger connections to other options (hobie, even pav to an extent), she's moved on.

(even if they joined the ss at the same time, their dynamic would be poisoned by canon and societal expectations. same result as in-fic, but even messier because then they actually WOULD be a couple imploding, instead of an almost-couple averting getting together by having the implosion first.)

and even if they'd gotten together, i still don't think they'd have lasted. they'd be a high school relationship, and those tend not to work out for a reason: adolescent love and adult love are SO different, and adolescence is a phase to grow out of. we desperately need more stories about teen love that take that approach.

and since spider-man can't let gwen stacy go, he wouldn't have let them grow apart. he'd have held on and "time would've made it worse" -- reversal of miles in ch 2. he's going step by step here, confronting all his misconceptions and letting go of them. and it would've made it worse. they have a dynamic that can only work temporarily, and the longer they're together the more that would show.

gwen's a step ahead of miles developmentally. either she has to regress or stay put in order to stay on his level, or he has to grow up too quickly. neither is good.

miles can't grow up and seek a more mature, deep relationship if he gets his dream girl. and gwen can't go home if she's trailing after this boy, fighting his battles for him.

more miles growth: he's not the exception. he's another spider-man who'd cannibalize gwen's story. meta: because that's what'll happen if they get together. the fandom, the audience, and the writers will all make their relationship about him and the longer they're together, the more gwen will be written to vanish into it, and the more miles will be written to enforce that. he'll be turned into that boyfriend who doesn't encourage his girlfriend to have her own life. being with her will make him a worse person.

gwen and miles don't need to form a romantic relationship. what they're seeking in each other they can only find in themselves.

now that gwen's met gwen a, and miles has met miles g, they've outgrown that fixation on each other.

miles woke up. now he sees his dream girl for who she really is: a person, who wants control over her own life.

and gwen finally sees past that shining light of inspiration for the person miles is: a boy who cares and doesn't always know how to help. (+half in love motif paying off)

miles is no longer a lost boy. he decided to grow up, just like she did.

(... to the people excited about the peter-pan-and-wendy nicknames hobie gives miles and gwen, please remember how that story ends. wendy gets over peter and goes home because if she stays with peter, she can never grow up. if she stayed with him, then the story would've been a tragedy, because refusing to grow up is not a good thing. the same is true for miles and gwen.)

and the only way they could ever have grown up is if they did it apart. together, they stagnate each other. fine for a temporary high school flirtation, but bad for a relationship intended to last.

not all not-good relationships are toxic or abusive. sometimes it's simply that you and your partner don't let each other grow or change for the better, or that your wants and needs are incompatible in the long-term. and just because you and someone are into each other doesn't mean you'd be a good couple.

another added bonus of the portal in this scene is: miles gets to face the light, and gwen's face is in shadow. it all ties in!

part of gwen's anger at miles has been that subconsciously, she wanted him to fix things for her because she believed she couldn't do it herself (and at the time he joined the ss, she couldn't; she had no support system, no confidence, was purely in survival mode and was totally dependent on them for her portal watch). now she knows she can.

they fixed their shit. now, can the other spider-men and gwens do the same, and even stay together?

miles and gwendolyn had it... before they sold out.

peter and gwendolyne have it. if the ss never showed up at all, they'd have debuted as a hero partnership. maybe they wouldn't have lasted as a couple, but they'd both be alive, powerful and equals in the narrative.

pav and gayatri seem like they could. she may not have powers, but she already knows who he is. and now that he's aware of the narrative, he could attempt to subvert it.

(gwen and hobie have it.)

gwen can't end up with just anybody, in just any scenario. but it IS possible for her and a spider-man to work out. the key's agency and equality... which can only exist, in a world dictated by canon, (or, meta: by writers and fans caught up in heteropatriarchal storytelling,) in the dark, in the margins, out of sight, to keep it safe from the people who'd demand the traditional arrangement. and it can only be with someone who'd never be tempted by said arrangement (in universe) and (out of universe:) can't overshadow her.

[cough hobie brown is that someone cough]

so, any canon version of gwen65 can't end up with miles. or peter, for that matter. (in fanfic, the sky's the limit. but in canon? nope. miles and peter are too big in comparison to her, and the baggage is too much)

miles iii

gwen and miles individually have what it takes to break canon.

they are both marginalized by it and constricted by the limitations of their narratives, though to very different extents-- especially since they're set up to view the other as an obstacle (to gwen, miles is yet another spider-man who's here to swallow up her story) or an object (to miles, gwen is the reward for being the hero and completing the character arc), instead of an ally.

both are denied complexity and given strict rules to play by in order to be tolerated.

both are punished for breaking, failing or not wanting to live up to those expectations.

both are ideally positioned to recognize the limitations of canon and have all the motivation to want to break it.

and both are needed to break canon all the way...

but they cannot do it if they're a couple. all that would do is break miles's canon, while gwen's stays intact. miles would be settling for a designated love interest instead of discovering his own, and gwen wouldn't get her own story. the hero getting the girl can never challenge canon because it's one of the oldest most fundamental parts of the canon. changing up which hero gets the girl doesn't change anything because he's still getting the girl. and if you're gonna break it, break it all the way.

the ultimate culmination of miles's arc (fuck canon, i'll do it my way) isn't actually him doing it his way-- it's encouraging others to do the same even at the cost of him getting what he wants from them. the best way to do that is for him to give gwen that opportunity, because it shows he's grown enough to recognize that her ability to lead her own story matters more than his desire to make her a supporting role in his. fic-miles has reached this conclusion. i hope (and doubt) movie miles will too.

the ultimate act of love is acknowledging that your feelings are less important than their freedom safety and happiness. hobie gets that right away. it took miles a while, but he's here now. albeit, after gwen's feelings already evolved away from him. still important that he got there. now he's ready to be that person for someone else (in this fic, margo).

gwen and miles kick miguel in the face because it was fun to write. also, they're a functional team again.

miles can't come with gwen because she needs to get on with her story, and her story isn't about him.

(intentional parallel to hobie: yeah, she could stay with miles, but doing that defeats the purpose of her emancipation. she has to follow through with it before they can have the relationship they've just admitted to wanting; with hobie, something romantic; with miles, something platonic)

gwen and miles' parting words/gesture are intended to mimic the ones they had at the end of itsv. they are friends, and actually get to stay friends this time.

miles isn't dying here fyi. he's quitting the society and heading back to his world. he's fine. he’s just waiting for gwen to back out of the metaphorical parking lot first.

end quote

from seanan mcguire's gwen stacy: ghost-spider. this is when gwen returns to her universe after a spiderverse event, finally free from prison and ready to redefine herself.

#arachnophobia fic

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genremarketing · 1 year

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New York City Fashion Diary: A Sneak Peek Into Local Style Icons' Wardrobes

Grasie is a multi-hyphenated creator of a writer and director as well as an actor as well as a photographer and visual artist. Her blog, aptly called Egg Canvas, features style and lifestyle posts that span from street to dapper. She is able to keep summer fashions current with a short boxy polka dot on brown linen dresses as well as well-fitted with shell and wood embossed jackets.

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Cher Horowitz of "Clueless" Cher Horwitz is an Beverly Hills teenager who lives in a mansion along with her housekeepers. She's always informed about the happenings at her school, Bronson Alcott. She uses her social status to assist others in her vicinity. She even arranges a romantic relationship with two teachers to change her grade. Her outfit is a reflection of her personality, with the mix of incredibly juvenile outfits (strap tops over tees and dresses with bows that are under the bust) in addition to more mature pieces for older women (like jackets, suits and twinsets). Costume designers from the film mix this up by mixing very young and trendy styles together, like in the yellow plaid Dolce & Gabbana style that's been updated for this year's '90s style resurgence. Alicia Silverstone recently reprised her role as Cher for a Rakuten commercial that ran in the Super Bowl. The commercial is a remake of her iconic yellow plaid Dolce and Gabbana outfit, plus the other outfits she wore in the film. Holly Golightly, from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Holly is a lively young girl who shares the same place as the story's narrator. Holly is able to sustain herself by dating rich men and getting cash from them. However, she doesn't give this information out to the Narrator. Audrey Hepburn's character is famous for her black dress that is adorned with an strand of pearls. When Paul visits her apartment, Holly tries to establish her own identity in the room by performing actions that are traditionally that are associated with men: she drinks alcohol, smokes a cigarette and wants to stay on his bed. The model also sports a casual jean outfit with the white kerchief tucked around her head and ballet slippers in black. She completes her look with a pair long black gloves, as well as kitten heels. Her most essential accessory but, it's her lavender earplugs, which she comically removes and then replaces in order to hear what her visitor is saying. Emily Cooper from "Sex and the City" Emily (Lily Collins) makes the move to Paris for work and the chance to make a new start. While her American confidence and determination led to her landing a job as a marketing manager dealing with French cultural norms proves to be a difficult task. She makes numerous mistakes due to her lack of French skills, for instance a embarrassing error in communication during a dinner, where she accidentally caught Camille loving Gabriel. Emily Like Carrie Bradshaw, is a woman who is balancing work, relationships, and emotions on a high-speed rollercoaster in this Golden Globe nominated series by Darren Star. The show may not be located in New York but it pays tribute to the city's first location by filming scenes at famous landmarks. Patricia Field, who designed the costumes for SATC is also responsible for Emily's glitzy Parisian look. Emily is similar to Carrie. She makes friends with older sophisticated women like Sylvie Grateau, Mathieu and Sylvie, and she has a relationship with a wealthy, sexy man. There is only one difference: Emily is a young woman and utilizes social media to document her experiences. Carrie is from "Sex and the City". Carrie Bradshaw is not one to hold back her opinions which is evident in her outfits. She wears what she wants without hesitation and mixes vintage kitschy with contemporary fashion. She mixes expensive designers like Oscar de la Renta and smaller brands. She also loves to pair floral dresses with pink trenchcoats, and striped sweatshirts. It's been four years since the last season of "Sex and the City" however, when the show will return with a new 10-episode series in the summer of 2012, viewers will find that Carrie and her co-stars are getting older (and possibly wiser) but still funny, sexy and smart. The new series will feature familiar faces like Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. Kristina Davis, Willie Garson, and Kristina Davis, who was the first cast member, are also returning. Candice Bergen will also return in her role as Enid Frick Carrie's Vogue editor. Watch the YouTube video

#Clothes #Dresses #NewYork Fashion

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teon-clothing · 1 year

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New Luxury High Heel Shoes Brand Slippers, Summer Lounges Designer PU Leather Women's Sandals❤️#sandals #shoes #shopping #womenclothing #womenfashion #onlineshopping #womenclothing #instagood #love #trending #moda #beautiful https://www.instagram.com/p/CoqDDjIoEUB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#sandals #shoes #shopping #womenclothing #womenfashion #onlineshopping #instagood #love #trending #moda #beautiful

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flexxo · 5 hours

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Flip Flops for Men and Women, Buy Online Slippers for Men, Best Slippers for Men at best Price (New Delhi)

Step up your summer style with our trendy flip flops for men and women . Crafted for comfort Buy Online slippers For Men and durability, our collection offers Best Slippers For Men Price. Find your perfect pair and stride with confidence.

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000nazmul · 23 hours

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rejiggerbirds · 3 days

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Birkenstock Sandals Slip On Size 39 L8M6 Women's Made In Germany Brown.

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marginalizedmormon · 10 days

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Thinking back

I have used this blog for quite some time to process difficult situations and to try to correct less than helpful thinking patterns. After communicating with one of my (former) step-brothers - does one ever un-adopt family members? I started thinking about my teenage experience with my former stepmother (I guess one can un-adopt toxic relationships.)

I was 14 when I left my mother's house to live with my father and his new family consisting of a wife (widow of a navy doctor and former fashion model,) her 4 children and the toddler that dad and she had given birth too.

It was a big change coming from a 2 bedroom apartment I shared with my mom, sister and brother. And a very tight budget that didn't allow for much extra- but these were the people I loved. I was starting to make some poor decisions, I wanted to be included with the in crowd and I missed my Dad. I thought maybe having him as a more-regular part of my life - I might do better. He was active in church, Mom wasn't and for some reason that also felt important. And there is some magnetic draw of an intact family for kids. The summer after my freshman year, I moved up the hill. Dad and his wife had bought a house in one of the fancy neighborhoods of the town I grew up in.

With a built-in pool and live-in help, they seemed very comfortable. They had Cadillacs and a van to take their blended family of 10 on local adventures. They would go to Arizona to visit my beloved grandparents (a trip my Mom wouldn't let me participate in because she didn't want me to be the designated babysitter.) I was the oldest. I was used to helping and that hadn't bothered me. My stepsister was a sad little thing, after the loss of her father - I believe she had been her Daddy's girl, she had a hard time when he died and was emotionally needy. Looking back now, I see that I too became emotionally needy in that environment.

The three little boys were just little boys - no threat or anything else but added humor because of their speech patterns. The toddler half-sister was just a cute bonus. I had taken swimming lessons with her to make her pool-safe, had gotten her off her binky (pacifier) and was amused by her antics like stuffing her slippers full of cut-up hot dogs at dinner. I dressed her up and took her trick-or-treating when I was too old to go. She was my pet baby.

After I moved out, my mom decided to move to Los Angeles to be closer to her parents and brother. I thought I would have the best of both worlds - live in comfort with my father and be able to go home to see Mom, sister and brother at will. But that disappeared. Without my Mom nearby, I was lost. If I had known she was moving I might have stayed with her, I don't know. But she was gone and I was stuck.

Soon after I joined the household, my Dad had back surgery for deteriorating discs in his spine. In the hospital, an infection set in and almost killed him. He was in the ICU for weeks, in and out of consciousness. I didn't know how dire the situation was. I was at a church youth activity when a phone call came, "your father is dying and your stepmother needs you to come home immediately." I must have gotten a ride. When I arrived at the house, she chastised me for being gone at such a critical time. I am pretty sure I did not know what was going on, but now, after getting my father back after 4 years, I was about to loose him forever. I was in shock.

God gave him back to us, but he was injured and needed extra care. my stepmother, a nurse, could attend to his needs but she also made me change the surgical pads on his unhealed draining back wound. I am not a nurse, nor do I have any desire to be one. It was gross. His recovery was difficult, they had let the live-in help go so I needed to do more around the house. My stepmother cornered me one evening and tried to shame me saying the women at church wonder why you are not able to step in and run the house. I was 4, my Mom had been working full-time for 4 years. We cleaned house on the weekend, how was I supposed to know how to run a household of 8? Besides, she had live-in help fir years, she obviously wasn't able to run the house on her own. I was neither shamed nor inspired by her attack.

But I was given more to do. I was given a list and began doing the grocery shopping. I came home from school and was in charge of dinner, clean-up and getting school lunches packed, this effectively eliminated my ability to have a social life, go out for school activities or do normal teen stuff. That and the laundry, I had responsibility for the laundry for the family of 8. I wasn't given an allowance, but sometimes, my Dad would take pity on me and slip me a $20. I didn't feel I could ask for money or much help and the only attention I felt I got was when I was in trouble, which was fairly constantly because they lived by different household rules than I was used to. I was doing all of this unpaid work for people I didn't love. And I was always in trouble for breaking rules I didn't know about until I had done it and was being punished. They decided they didn't like my best friend and banned me from seeing or even talking with her. I lost my Mom, sister, brother and best friend all at once, it was very hard. One of their close friends at church was a doctor who had a daughter my age. We started hanging out, but to be honest, whenever I got in trouble or did something stupid, it was with her. My boho friend that they didn't like would remind me - you can't do that - you're a Mormon, but my Mormon friend kept doing things that were getting progressively worse.

To be fair, life there wasn't all bad. Sometimes my stepmother gave me little pieces of jewelry or special things. She had the room I would be sharing with my stepsister redecorated, albeit in a color and style that meant nothing to me, but they were trying. When I moved in with them, my wardrobe was rather sparse, as my Mom had stopped sewing my clothes (which I never cared for) and didn't have much money to buy what I wanted or needed. So my stepmom took me shopping to the popular boutique stores and with careful spending and summer sales, I started my sophomore year with a fresh new wardrobe - that was really fun.

My stepmother was the nurse at the high school. She felt that it would be important for teens to know where to get treated for STDs and pregnancy so she started a peer program, pulling in the popular and high-profile kids to teach students - down to junior high level, where to get free healthcare without their parents' knowledge. She had gotten into humanism with its lack of morality and was, I believe a feminist at heart. Showing herself publicly to be this caring, I'm there for you type, while neglecting her family seemed to me, hypocritical. There were no Christmas stockings or Easter baskets, few goodnight kisses, she came home and ate her dinner in her room instead of with her family. She told me that she had never wanted children, her doctor husband did, then he died and left her alone with 4 kids. Her parents had moved out from the mid-west to help her and her sister, but they were a different story.

Dad tried to pick up the slack as he could, making sure we attended church, paid tithing, kept up the yard, house and cars and made everyone breakfast on Saturday mornings. But the hands-on work of a mom rearing a family fell to others, and I had more than my share of it. At a time I should have started working; was offered a job at a local bookstore- but was told I couldn't accept it because I had too much (UNPAID) work at home. And I was always in trouble, so it seemed. No affirmation, no gratitude, no wage, just unappreciated work for people I didn't really care for.

And I was in trouble for telling people how things were at home. I was told not to talk. She would get me to confide in her, then I would be called in to be in trouble with her and my Dad. I couldn't tell if she was my friend or enemy. And I actually didn't hate being yelled at by both parents because at lest I was getting some attention. I got blamed for things I had no control over, like when my stepbrother wouldn't do his chores. I had responsibility but no authority. I could rarely have friends over. When my male biology partner came to the door one Saturday and gave me a rose (I had no idea that meant he liked me,) I got in trouble even though I didn't invite him in. When a new neighbor moved in and I invited him swimming I got in trouble for that, even though I already had a boyfriend and nothing bad happened.

On my fifteenth birthday, my new best friend and I planned to go to a movie to celebrate but I was not allowed to go. My stepmother was entertaining colleagues that night and I had to stay home to help serve. Could it have been any other night or did it have to be on my birthday? She made me call and invite people to a fashion show she was hosting. I hate calling people.

My happy place was taking the bus to Los Angeles to visit my Mom and siblings. When stepmother was angry and trying to control me she would threaten to cut off the visits. She said I was always angry and sad when I came home. That was probably true. My rides to LA were not without incidents. I was young and cute and Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton would try to hit on me on these trips, it was unwanted attention. Later, when I had a boyfriend he bought me a fake wedding ring so guys would leave me alone. Sometimes he would drive up to LA on Sunday evening to pick me up so I wouldn't have to take the bus. My parents never did.

One of the stepbrothers was starting to say suggestive things to me, in this day it would be considered harassment. Later my Dad would accuse her of having an affair with a humanist guru she was involved with. She divorced my Dad. He walked away with nothing but a broken heart. We always thought it was because it was her house. I found out years later they both had bought it but he didn't seem to have much say in how things ran and she ended up with the assets. When I returned to the house to pick up my bike which my stepbrother had appropriated, her mother followed me outside. Yelling at me and accusing me of breaking up their marriage. She hit me, I hit her back and told her to never touch me again. At least I was learning to stand up for myself. In true liberal form, stepmother had one day accused me of breaking up my parents' marriage, which I thought was ridiculous that the worst thing that had happened in my world would be blamed on me. I fought back. I accused her of killing her first husband and trying to kill my Dad. We were in the car, she pulled over and made me get out to walk the couple of miles back to my house. My Dad didn't know what to do, so he got out to walk back with me. She turned the car around, went back to the house, removed the phones and took the hidden keys so we couldn't get in and took off for her parents' house. My Dad was able to force a window open so we could get into the house, but with no phones, there wasn't much we could do that Sunday afternoon. He had a car key and we drove to his school, he made a reservation to stay at a hotel that night so fortunately we didn't have to face the raving lunatic again that day. She seemed hostile and hateful and was definitely abusive. The house I had gone to hoping for strength and unity was falling apart.

I, to this day, hate to be wrongly blamed for things. I don't like feminism. I try to unite family where I can and have a hard time trusting.

Anyway, struggling to fill the void of my Mom and siblings moving, best friend banished and extra housework, and being pulled from the young women's program at church to teach immorality was too much for my developing brain. A handsome, accomplished guy at school had started paying attention to me. I wasn't ready for a relationship but did not know how to dissuade his attention. Home life was toxic and I didn't have the ability to fix it. It was confusing, I didn't take it well and I reacted badly. A rebellion was in the works.

#marginalized mormon

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