#and then like two episodes later is like i’m mad at you bc i had it under control and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you listened to me
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do you think there's anything to be implied about the quality of rwby's writing and framing in light of how much of the audience misinterprets salem/oz and the role of the gods? i see so many people reading the lost fable as a straightforward condemnation of salem and ozma as a pretty basic tragic hero that it makes me nervous about the future of the show and that IM reading too much into things when i see more nuance in salem. are that many people really that shallow when engaging with rwby? idk
nah people are—well tbh i think what it comes down to mainly is that fandom is not really centered around critical analysis, it’s centered on transformative engagement, and while these are by no means mutually exclusive endeavors they are in fact. Different. analytical vs transformative approaches to the text are different endeavors with different goals requiring different skillsets and can but do not inherently overlap. frankly in fandom spaces i think real textual analysis is not just ancillary but actively discouraged; nobody is quicker to respond to analytical discussions with “it’s not that deep” than a fan who doesn’t like the discussion and there is a noticeable tendency in fandom spaces for any analysis that isn’t 100% ebullient to be read as negativity or critical—e.g. note the frequency with which my reading of ozma is interpreted as character bashing—which isn’t to say that fandoms do not engage analytically at all, but in broad terms there is something of an unspoken… chilliness toward textual analysis in fandom culture. and i am saying this from the perspective of having written a lot of textual analysis and a lot of fanfiction across different fandoms; there is A Pattern. you write a detailed analytical breakdown of your reading of a character and see people tagging it fandom negativity while gushing about the detailed character study you wrote based on that same reading enough times and you start to pick up on the fact that maybe fandoms are not really built for analytical engagement. there is also the whole thing where fandom has an entire category of headcanon predicated on “this thing happened in the text but i don’t like it so no it didn’t” and a second entire category predicated on “this has no basis and is possibly out of character but i like it so happened actually” lmao [TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT A VALUE JUDGMENT I HAVE NONSENSE HEADCANONS ALSO ITS FINE.]
anyway this is all fine but! because fandoms devote the bulk of their collective energy into pouring out vast endless streams of like, fanfic and fanart and headcanon and “ship dynamics” [i still do not quite understand what these are] and incorrect quote mills and so forth you tend to get a sort of collective flattening of the text. there is a tendency for characters to be stripped down and reduced to small easily-manageable sets of tropes derived more from aesthetics and first impressions and for any moral complexity to be boiled down to simple black and white and for unique worldbuilding to be smudged a bit until it resembles its nearest recognizable trope. there is a sort of creative entropy. a smooth surface is easier to write on. also sometimes fans do not Obsessively Rewatch The Show four times in the space of a year and over time details get memetically blurred and this, obviously, is detrimental to the overall fidelity-to-canon of popular fanon.
and then like the thing to remember about rwby is it’s a very detail-oriented story, and one that respects its audience. the one downside of that storytelling approach is that fandom is uniquely ill-equipped for it (think about how many people Completely Missed that ironwood was on the express train to fascism land in V4-5 even though. the narrative made it like. hilariously obvious)
In Summary i lived through the fandom where the protagonist after two years of increasingly toxic behavior towards her bestie, charbroiled her friend’s arm into a shriveled blackened husk and not only did not apologize but had a whole episode about being mad at the friend for being upset and then 95% of the fandom was shocked when the friend went “fuck you” and stole the magical artifact whose power was involved in the charbroiling incident all of four episodes later; and almost two years later half the remaining is still Discoursing about how the friend “didn’t have a reason” for betraying the protagonist. tts was a show written with small children in mind. i have witnessed Actual Forty Year Olds insisting that this character’s betrayal was petty and childish. rwby is a lot more tightly-written and nuanced and not a disney princess cartoon and while it does benefit from its fandom not being mostly Disney People the fandom is still. A Fandom. doing what fandoms… do.
#i really cannot emphasize enough that the salem nonsense is not ANYWHERE EVEN CLOSE TO the level of the cassandra tts nonsense#like every single episode that is About Cassandra is about rapunzel being an egregiously bad friend#(cause tts went ‘this girl grew up abused in a tower and has negative social skills’ god bless)#and the charbroiling happens because rapunzel uses a Known Dangerous Uncontrollable spell that cass begs her not to use#goes into a trance repeating it and cass grabs her to snap her out of it#and then like two episodes later is like i’m mad at you bc i had it under control and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you listened to me#and people are still like ‘how dare this petty egotistical selfish bitch be angry at rapunzel’ lmfao#like at least with salem she’s The Villain yk#not the deuteragonist who gets two seasons of being relentlessly mistreated by her friends and permanently disabled before finally snapping#anyway yeah as a Collective fandoms don’t engage beyond the level of like grade school analysis you get on TVTropes#i.e recognition of common tropes and genre conventions#the rwby fandom is honestly ahead of the curve for having a widespread grasp of what deconstruction is#but it’s still not. great#ironwood is the measuring stick to use here
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More thoughts on TLG episodes
The Savannah Summit:
First things first, major kudos to Makuu for actually being responsible and caring about what’s best for his float
You really can’t blame Kion and everyone else to be super skeptical about Makuu. I know he changed for the better, but he’s done…a lot since he beat Pua
“but to invite him to the Savannah Summit? With all these other peaceful animals?”—I hate to break it to you, Kion, but just bc an animal is an herbivore doesn’t mean they’re peaceful and friendly. If anything, it means survivor
Crocs at the Summit worked with Pua cuz everybody loves him 😎
“Makuu has more enemies than friends!”—So does Bunga lmao
The song is great. I love how everyone seems annoyed at first but near the end, it’s all 🎶Kumbaya, my lord! 🎶. Except Makuu…dude looks like he’s lowkey regretting his life choices he did NOT ask for a bs song
I’m totally on Makuu’s side. He was genuinely trying to be civil here, especially when it comes to Bupu
At least Beshte was trying to be the mediator cuz he looks at Makuu AND Bupu, Kion was just being kinda speciesist
Shut up, Bupu, you started the whole thing
Vuruga Vuruga saying “buffalo eat whatever we want” is actually pretty accurate. They, like other animals, don’t care. I read that buffalo will occasionally eat insects if it were an option. Even Twiga could sucking on a bone if she wanted to. Seriously, look it up
If Zazu had a nickel for every time a rhino used him as a chair, he’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice (great nod to the OG movie)
Rafiki is such a mood “not the official painting” you old ass gremlin/aff
I remember Athena P criticizing Simba for blaming Kion about ruining the Summit after Makuu understandably leaves and I agree. Wtf Simba he’s 10. Go easy on him, come on 😭
The part that irks me the most is that when Mufasa asks “What has Makuu done to make you think this way?”, Kion says “Nothing, really”. BRO WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘NOTHING REALLY’?! I understand Mufasa meant what Makuu has done today but there are a LOT of things Makuu’s done in the past that Kion should have told his grandpa. In fact, here’s a whole list:
-Taking over Big Springs when he became leader, resulting in all the animals to scatter
-Challenging kids to fight
-Taking over the flood plains
-Trying to eat Basi which would have been just him being a crocodile if not for the fact that the reason is so he wouldn’t have to follow any rules (says so on the wiki)
-TAKING NALA HOSTAGE (seriously did Simba even KNOW about that? Did Nala or Kion bother to tell him?)
-Generally being a dick to animals
Makuu I know you did nothing wrong in this episode, but you can’t blame Kion for acting this way
I’m not placing any blame on Mtoto. He’s a good boy and all he did was tell the guard what he heard and that’s it
Twiga and Vuruga Vuruga coming up with the trap doesn’t surprise me. Cape buffalo are actually really vengeful irl so it makes sense how she wanted to teach Makuu a lesson. They ain’t called “Black Death” or “Widow Maker” for nothing
It’s cool how Makuu took the prank well. Respect.
Wonder how Makuu felt about animals fighting over him lmao?
Let Sleeping Crocs Lie
Once again this episode would be VERY different if my oc Piga was still alive
Kiburi has a right to be mad. I’m not excusing what he does later in the episode but I’d be pissed too if someone woke me up
Okay but Nduli sleeping next to Kiburi is adorable. Adds to my hc how close they are
Serious question: Why exactly can’t the crocs go back to sleep after they’ve been woken up? The obvious answer is bc it drives the plot forward, but is it true in actual crocodiles? I kinda wanna know the scientific reason
Good on Makuu for going the pacifism route. He’d really do anything for his float
Love how Kiburi was like “Yeah yeah, whatever you say” but the second Makuu left, he was like “ANARCHY!”
Idk if any of you caught this, but when Ushari’s like “we reptiles will rule the pridelands under your leadership, right?” Scar actually hesitated before going “sure bud”. That makes me think he was going to betray Ushari the moment he and his army get rid of Simba and the Lion Guard
Crocs really DO need a lot of water, otherwise their lives are on the line. Makuu was really more concerned than upset
“KIBURI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”—Fighting a child, what’s it look like
Side hc: I like to think something similar happened with Pua, Piga, and Kujivunia. Pua saw Piga antagonizing some poor young animal and he was all “Piga! What in the Pridelands do you think you’re doing?” and Kujivunia (who happened to be there), with her typical sarcasm was like “Performing a dance number, Pua 🙄”
There go the skinks again. Njano with his cuteness and Shupavu…doing her best Grinch face
“At least you’ll be close to all your friends!”Awww Beshte trying to be positive 🥺
Kiburi saying “we crocs deserve better!” brings me back to my hc that Kiburi had good intentions (again, until further in the episode), he just went about it the wrong way. He’s almost like an activist in a way. He’s not trying to be selfish, he just wanted a better watering hole. Now going as far as to rule the Pridelands…..yeah too far
The background crocodiles who were like 😦 when Kiburi called for the mashindano are so me. I’m the one going “Ooooooh shit!”
Still not getting over that super gay conversation between Kiburi and Ushari
STILL CAN’T GET OVER HOW KIBURI AND HIS FLOAT LAUGH AAAAA (Neema’s laugh tho)
Nduli looks so derpy I love him
I LOVE HOW SELF-AWARE TAMKA IS WHAT AN ICON
Lmao Nduli just gave up like “Fuck it you win”
Love the parallels of Makuu pinning down Kiburi like he did to Pua
Kiburi, I love you but what the hell did you expect? You literally confessed to like 500 animals about your plan and then you get surprised when Simba and Makuu banish you? What did you think was gonna happen? You got way too cocky, I swear
Saying this again, Tamka and Nduli looked worried/traumatized when they were exiled
“Now you’re calling me a reptile?”—My love, you ARE a reptile. I thought crocodiles were supposed to be smart omg
Kiburi’s actually showing emotion for the first time
OMG JANJA HEY BABY HOW ARE YOU?
Full disclosure: “I have a plan” is mediocre at best. It has nothing on Be Prepared. That being said, I love Kiburi’s “Aiight I’m in” smile
That’s pretty much it. Maybe I’ll do more in the future
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i feel like most of the ppl that have been in the fandom since day one or like since s2 (for years at this point) are the ones hurting the most rn bc, we got into the series with the promise of so much, like Chat and LB being a duo not hero and sidekick, and so much stuff like that and we invested so many years just to see it all change and go south so many times while newer fans get to binge watch the series in like a week a month tops? and they don't feel as dissapointed cause
a) they kinda knew what they were getting into
b) they just invested less time into it, and are willing to invest some more
i've been in this fandom for almost 7 years now and it's kinda exhausting watching it change direction so often and feel like not even the ml team knows where they are going or what they want with the series. I don't think it's salty, bc at heart I love miraculous, I love how it started and the ideas and promises it had but i can't help but feel mad/dissapointed with how things have been turning out lately idk if you relate to this, sorry for ranting in your inbox all i'm trying to say is, is valid for you to be mad at the s5 finale
Felt!!!! I have not been in the fandom nearly that long cause I started watching in the middle of s3 so it’s only been 4ish years for me. But still. I’ve actually been rewatching ml from the beginning lately and the difference between the early seasons and the later seasons is sort of painful lol. of course it’s only natural (and good!) that ml would move from a very basic monster-of-the-week episodic structure to a more developed plot, and the writers incorporated a lot of interesting conflicts over the course of the 5 seasons, but still the implication was that ladybug and chat noir’s partnership would always be central. the ladynoir breakdown in s4 was so hard for me to watch lol but it was certainly interesting and at the end I was hopeful again with how it came back to the two of them retrieving all the miraculous. And s5 did have a lot of great ladynoir. But then in the end their partnership felt extremely undermined—pretty much tossed aside—by how the finale unfolded. it left me feeling as confused as I was hurt, because it just doesn’t make sense to me. what was the point of 5 seasons of ladynoir partnership if they weren’t gonna be there together in the end?
anyway I don’t want to get in too deep here bc I have spoken At Length about this lol. just wanted to say thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I’m sorry you feel disappointed too, especially after so many years of fandom! 😭 hopefully s6 will be a fun ride for all of us no matter what is coming down the pipeline
#sorry it took me a couple days to reply to this lol I forgot I started a draft#shanniakharina#ml#ml s5#ask#ml re-creation
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in honour of april fool’s day (even though its over in my timezone) and also the amount of insane shit that goes on in my life im gonna list a bunch of things that have happened to me and i want you to guess which one is a lie. i would make this a poll but i dont have those yet
when i was like 7-ish i went to the zoo with my neighbor and went to this bird show they put on and i got to race with like 20 other kids against 15 i think turkey vultures. in a footrace. the vultures outran every single one of us. also the zookeeper lady said “don’t trip and fall or they’ll start eating you!” and it scared the shit out of me
when i was in grade 3 i went on a field trip for school and on the bus home my bus driver literally got arrested for drunk driving. with like 30 8 year olds on the bus. it was like 2:45 and we (all age 8) had to stand outside for almost an hour in november. also it was like three blocks away from the school and my house was literally across the street. the distance back to school was very walkable but for some reason they made us wait for another bus to come pick us up and take us back. but the bus was one of those ones that went to each house individually and the neighborhood it operated in was literally across the main street from my school and for some reason instead of taking 5 minutes to drop us off first they made us wait an additional half hour dropping all the other kids off at home before taking us home. then i had to walk almost a km home anyways
also when i was in grade 3 we all had to take a diagnostic test to see if we could get into the gifted program. i got one (1) below the threshold for getting into it and i was so pissed. like two weeks later they changed the score you had to get to get in so they invited everyone who got close to do it again and i got a higher score than i did before but then i STILL got one below because they raised it. in hindsight i’m glad i didn’t get in because i know it would have been bad for me but i’m still so pissed about it bc of the principle of it
literally my first day working at the aviary there was a snake in one of the birds’ feeders just chilling there. we spent like half an hour trying to catch it and it scared the absolute shit out of like 7 birds
i was a niche internet microcelebrity on reddit when i was literally 12
when i was in grade 8 we had a water hydraulics project and my class was a split class with mostly 7th graders so my teacher just sort of left us alone with a bucket of little tube syringes while she did something else with the grade 7s. then i found 3 actual needles in the bucket for some reason. one of them was in that little wrapper but the other two were just loose in the bucket that we were rummaging around in. i went out to tell my teacher bc she was in a different room and she literally told me she didn’t care and to leave her alone bc she was working with the 7s (they were reading a textbook). i was like ??? but i didnt know what else to do so i just went back into the room to keep working. then this one guy grabbed one of the open needles and stabbed two different girls with the same one like uhhh what the fuck. i went out to go tell my teacher that two people had been stabbed by the same needle and she told me she didn’t care AGAIN like GIRL. honestly i wasn’t too worried about the girls because they both bullied me honestly but yk. then later the teacher came in and berated us for not telling her like I LITERALLY DID TWICE im still so mad about that honestly
when my mom and i were watching the last two episodes of ofmd together (this was before i came out) when ed and stede kissed she turned around and looked directly at me
i was in scouts when i was younger and there was exactly 5 people in my troop and it was me, 2 of my friends (one of them ended up being one of the girls that bullied me and got stabbed with a needle in grade 8), and two boys that i absolutely fucking hated. one time one of the boys said i was dumb and i threw a rock at him
when i was in kindergarten during recess i had to shit really bad and i asked the teacher on duty to let me go inside and she refused so i asked the other teacher to let me in and she didnt have keys. i tried to hold it but i could not go inside and i was 4 so i shit my pants and i was absolutely never a kid who had accidents so i didn’t know what to do and i was so embarrassed i just tried to ignore it. i just walked around for the rest of recess with a massive shit in my pants. when recess ended the teacher told us to come sit down on the carpet in a circle. you can guess what happened next
last year i had a substitute teacher for math and i ticced fuck while she was handing something out and for some reason she refused to believe me when i said i had tics. she sent me to the vice principal’s office and he didn’t believe me at first that i didn’t know what i was there for because she had sent me down for lying to him. when he did realize that i actually didn’t know what was going on he told me that she sent me down for disciplinary action so yk. he walked me back up to my class and took the teacher out in the hall to talk to her and i was losing my fucking mind with my friends for like 15 minutes while she was getting an absolute dressing down for not believing me. then when she came back in i was expecting an apology at the very least and she literally didnt. we waited for like 10 minutes and she said nothing. then my friend actually raised her hand and said she owed me an apology and this old lady started fighting for her LIFE. also she was only a little bit polite to my white friend who was standing up for me but didnt have an OUNCE of respect for either of my other friends who were standing up for me who were black and mohawk. like literally what the hell. my friend did record it though and i have that video now so
when i finally came out to my mom i was literally in a costco parking lot. my brother was in the car and he already knew bc he just guessed it ages ago and i said “did you know one in three people are gay” and my mom said “yeah i know”. also i made a cake for my dad bc he wasn’t there and he said “when do we make the ‘we know’ muffins”
i made my 13th birthday cake and right after i finished frosting it i dropped the entire thing on the ground
when i was like 4 i made a mess of paper in the kitchen and my mom told me to clean it up so i went in there and ate all of the paper
in grade 5 my teacher found out i was self harming and for some reason she decided to talk to me about it while we were doing kindergarten buddies. my kindergartener was literally just left alone in the room. i dont know why she decided to use that time
when we were selling my old house it was during covid so we had to leave during all the open houses and one time we came back from driving around the city during one and i went to the bathroom and there was a puddle of piss on the floor. some lady brought her toddler in and she pissed on the floor and she tried to clean it up with toilet paper but for some reason put it in the garbage instead of the toilet so the whole room smelled like piss
in grade 7 i was walking home from school with my partner and i guess i ate something bad and i ended up shitting my pants halfway home
someone here called me a terrorist for lying about gay sex in bathrooms
#some of you already know these for sure#theres more i just cant think of any right now#rambles#long post#best
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I told myself I had to stay off tumblr until after my move and I still kinda am but I ran out of Tunnel Talk episodes and am honestly losing the will to live...I'm down to the "idk what this is and i'm throwing it in a box to deal with later" stage, which is the worst stage imho, bc you're dealing with current problems by creating worse future problems. I'm in so much trouble though bc I forgot I'm going to an SFG game before I move and I packed all my sweatshirts and jackets. Cracking open a cold one at the ballpark with the boys (I'm the cold one and I'm cracking open when those dummies play silly.)
anyway my point was wip wednesday but baseball for once lmao
Casey’s getting up in Blake’s face in the clubhouse.
“You think you’re a big man,” he says, puffing up his chest and shoving himself into Blake’s space. “You think you’re so much bigger than me, huh? Big guy? Big tough guy?”
They’re nose to nose. Blake has two inches and like, maybe, fifteen pounds on Casey. At best. At best. They’re basically the same size.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m so much bigger.” He makes a face, pushes his chest against Casey’s. “Bigger than you in every way–”
Yaz whips a towel at their hips as he passes. “Steady,” he says, mildly, when they both yelp and bump foreheads. “Someone might think you two don’t like each other.”
Casey wraps an arm around Blake’s neck while Blake’s distracted by Yaz and pulls him down to his chest. “Me and some of the guys were going out after,” he hisses in his ear. “Come out with me.”
Yaz throws his towel over Blake’s head and wanders off, singing to himself. Some rock song Blake can’t place while he’s distracted by Casey choking him. Yaz has a very gentle singing voice, Blake thinks.
“Bla-ake,” sings Casey. He throws the towel on the floor and presses his mouth a little too close to Blake’s head. “Bla-ake, come on, buddy, say yes. Please?”
Blake wraps an arm around Casey’s waist. Casey makes a soft noise. Blake pinches his hip as hard as he can and Casey drops him with an indignant yell. Blake stumbles forward and nearly falls over the Rogers twins’ chess game. Casey grabs his arm and yanks him back in time. The Rogers twins and their two-man audience of the Pitcher Alexs do not notice at all.
Casey wraps his arms around Blake’s chest and pins Blake against him. “Bro,” Blake says. He flops backwards against Casey, tired of the roughhousing. “If I say yes, will you knock it off?”
“If you say yes, will you actually come out with us?”
Blake will, this time, actually. Casey might still be mad about a couple weeks ago, when Blake said he would come out, and then he got too tired and bailed after the game. Or the time after that, where Sean was sad, so Blake left Casey alone with Pat and Tristan and Logan, which is like, not even a bad group of people to go out and get beers with. Casey was pretty steamed for some reason, but in that way where he looked uncharacteristically forlorn and subdued the next day, to the point that Kap asked if he was okay.
“Yes,” says Blake. “Promise.”
Casey hums a pleased sound. He squeezes Blake’s chest and lets go, pushing him away gently. “Yo Craw,” he yells across the club house. “Brandon! Craw! Brandon!” He bounds off.
#read a tim kawakami article abt sf giants rookies. felt emotions that don't exist. ended up here. so it goes. so it goes.#fresno oilers.txt
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update on how my family’s managing after DotD
“tell them we’re devastated” HAHA
no joke christmas was ruined- felt the evil energy of the bbc merlin writers ten years ago, running through my veins, as I clicked on part 2 on prime video ;)
they soldiered through the first part like champs, only small comments on Arthur’s round table speech they wondered how Elyan’s seat had been replaced and immediately clocked Eira as a traitor bc ‘that’s something the show always does 🙄’
sisters were crying when Merlin was stuck in the crystal cave, and I was crying when he walked up the landslide of rocks after Balinor and disappeared into a halo of white light..
then the second episode started and I was
s h a k i n g
(still hearing the words ‘just really sad’ and ‘I can’t believe it’ and ‘she tricked us 😦’ in the living room as I type this up, and it’s been way more than 24 hours later…)
Gwen was so badass! 🥰 and Merlin was out there winning! And I remembered why this was so terrible the first time, the show works hard to give us this false sense of security.
I clicked on the episode knowing that within 5 minutes Arthur would be stabbed and I’d be able to retire from my long career as a loving older sister.
It was literally a ‘gasps hears around the world’ kinda moment, they all sat up and then, my second youngest sister the Mordred stan (she dressed up as him for our s2 finale costume contest) burst into tears! and I actually felt really bad.
But then the magic reveal!
It was deadly quiet when Merlin revealed his magic and there were a few long sighs when Arthur turned away to say ‘leave me’. I was pretty much inconsolable and this is my third rewatch personally. They did! make the connection between Merlin’s ‘fire dragon’ from ‘Moment of Truth’ and the one from this ep however :)
Then we had the long haul of waiting for the beginning of the real end really, and I was relieved to hear them giggle when Arthur and Merlin reminiscenced about their first market place fight, and Merlin’s ‘charm’.
then… The Real End
Of course my little brother (if you remember him from his story ‘Morgana’s Weak Quickening) had to gloat about how Merlin had ended her, just as he’d predicted, and everyone was shushing and glaring at him because it wasn’t the time lmao
I was already crying for real by the time Merlin had Arthur in his arms and they were exchanging their last words, and I was surprised to find later that they did! hear Arthur say ‘just hold me… please’ because I hadn’t heard it on my first watch.
There were no gasps or shouts when Arthur died, just silence…
No one jumped when the truck came on scene as a jumpscare (I was kind of mad at myself for getting startled even though I knew!), and then Merlin crossed our tv screen for the last time and I let the end credits play in full.
They shushed me after I attempted to speak in the two minutes after the credits ended, and it was so quiet for the next ten minutes I thought I broke them…
Their reactions:
Sister 1: ‘Wh-hat..?’
Sister 2: ‘HE DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE’ (Mordred😵💫)
Sister 3: ‘But Gaius didn’t die?? I didn’t put ‘Arthur dies’ on my theory list…’
Brother: ‘I TOLD YOU SO. But… now I’m a little sad :(‘
Afterwards, I promised I’d let them all loose to look up any ‘spoilers’ for the show they wanted. (We have an unofficial rule that whenever we’re watching anything for the time, we can’t look up anything related for fear of spoilers. And I’m a very strict drill sergeant about this 🫡)
But they weren’t very interested…
Our Christmas morning was noticeably sadder. And I wondered again how families in 2012 had coped when their kids had struggled through the unfairness of the finale and still had to open presents the next morning… a mystery really…
They spent the whole. day. watching edits and playing sad music in the living room (to which my parents were very confused) and coming up to me to either rant or fight about the finale haha
Now my sister (the piano playing one) is learning how to play ‘Solas’ by Jamie Duffy on the piano bc she says it reminds her of Diamond of the day and she’s been very determined! All break, she’s been getting up to play ‘Solas’ and ‘Bond of Sacrifice’ and ‘The Love Theme’ and I’m proud of her, for getting this far and only a little concerned
- I think the kids are gonna be alright? lmao
They’ve made plans for fanart and fanfics and alternative endings and I think I’ve fully recruited them into the immoral fandom (if not happily) although I’m sure they’ll recover soon enough to join us in bittersweet reminiscence next year :)
oh! forgot to add one last thing
after rewatching ‘A Dragon’s Call’ last night my brother had one thing to say. “Arthur says ‘there’s something about you Merlin’ …but that something was that he would die in Merlin’s arms…” LMAO I almost died on the spot but I’m glad to see they’ve inherited the fandom’s morbid (or Mordred ;) sense of humor
#anyways that was the update that was longer than anyone asked for lol#but I’ve had so! much fun with them this year#from costume contests (where they all looked very accurate to the characters) sword replicas#photo shoots!#contests where we memorize lines#a ‘Camelot baking contest’ with a fake rat stew complimentary of me ;)#weird phrases we’ve made our own like ‘Ygrained in your brain’#and watching every comic con interview video diary and behind the scenes bloopers#we’ve had a VERY fun year#I’m glad I was able to make this an overall enjoyable experience for them and bond with them along the way#do I get an award for my recruitment efforts or what? lmao#:)#bbc merlin#diamond of the day#happy tenth anniversary
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Hello! The brother anon here again, now the reason why I was late with these reports is because i had to take my brother to the er (he’s okay! He’s just dumb) because this moron ruptured his stitches when he jumped off the couch while watching the last episode. We didn’t realize it at that point until much later when he came into my room and said ‘hey, don’t get mad and promise you wont tell mom but something totally not cool happened’ and that’s when he showed his bandages. So he is now being forced to stay overnight at the hospital just in case since (i wish this was a joke) ‘he is not to be trusted.’ Again: he is completely fine and was making jokes and and the nurses find him funny, so he has that going for him, i guess. And while he laying down, the doctor said to me ‘okay so you can go home’ and my brother tried to get up and the doctor pushed him down with his arm and went ‘not you. We talked about this a minute ago’ and this morons reply was ‘i was hoping you forgot’ so more will come in like a day or so. He did make me pinky promise him that I will not watch it without him and that I will not tell mom about this (he said nothing about bunch of random people tho). Oh and before that he did ask if he can watch it on his phone but i had to break the news that the music is different and he was stressed! And before i left he did ask about the nurse from earlier today that told him he watched qaf when it aired ‘bc he needs someone to talk to since he’s being held hostage’ (the nurse is off until monday thank god) to which the doctor went ‘(brothers name) you arent being held hostage but you are my only patient that is above 10 that I have to keep extra eye on bc you cant be still for 5 minutes.’ So all in all today was a success and he is fine but since he’s a child in a grown man, he has to stay there until hopefully just tomorrow. And I’m gonna be honest as his sister, i find this all hilarious and give you all permission to laugh at his stupidity. Now at least your inbox will be normal for a day or two :)
Dear sweet anon and anon's brother. I have literal tears streaming down my face. HE TORE HIS STITCHES FROM WATCHING QUEER AS FOLK?!!? I am dying and also it is highly relatable.
Thank you for gatekeeping and making sure he is only watching with original soundtrack because otherwise it is a travesty and we refuse to discuss it.
I love the idea of him making you promise to not watch it without him... he knows you've seen it before, right? And will watch again and again?
Well, later when you tell him how random strangers on the internet got a live blogging experience of his reactions to watching QAF, you can tell him we were all sending him lots of well wishes when he... ripped his stitches out in emotional displays about our favorite ship.
#ask winderlylandchime#dear sweet anon#queer as folk#a straight man watches qaf us 2000 in the year of our lord 2023
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“And so I physically grappled with Lestat […]” “I went to pull Lestat off, and that right hand swung at me with such lightning speed I did not see it, did not know it had struck me until I found myself in the water also” People saying they fight in the books but I’m pretty sure this is the closest to a physical fight they get right? And it reads more like a bitchfest; Louis wrangling a feral cat vibes. Definitely not the trauma porn the show put out.
Yeah I 100% agree. Some fans have always seen Louis and Lestat's relationship as physically abusive. There are tons of fic in the VC tag for loustat that I just consider abusive fic, full stop. A lot of the time it's not tagged, or tagged with like bdsm. But I personal never have believed they are abusive or especially want to see or read that stuff. Like with those two exceptions their fights are usually equal. And with the later worse books, where Lestat is off raping ppl, I chose not to read them for a purpose bc it would be upsetting. So yeah I have very firm beliefs on the character's morality and relationships.
ESPECIALLY compare the last episode to this fight Louis and Lestat have in the book, right after Lestat finds Louis draining (a human) Claudia laughs at him for it
I was utterly out of my mind. I went round and round the room looking for some way to kill him. I pictured his body burned to a crisp on the roof below. Reason had altogether left me, so that I was consummate rage, and when he came through the broken glass, we fought as we’d never fought before. It was hell that stopped me, the thought of hell, of us being two souls in hell that grappled in hatred. I lost my confidence, my purpose, my grip. I was down on the floor then, and he was standing over me, his eyes cold, though his chest heaved. ‘You’re a fool, Louis,’ he said. His voice was calm. It was so calm it brought me around. ‘The sun’s coming up,’ he said, his chest heaving slightly from the struggle, his eyes narrow as he looked at the window. I’d never seen him quite like this. The fight had got the better of him in some way; or something had. ‘Get in your coffin,’ he said to me, without even the slightest anger. ‘But tomorrow night…we talk.’
Lestat is standing over Louis who is down on the ground, implying he got the upper hand, and he stops. He doesn't want to hurt Louis and specifically says he wants to try to talk. Like yeah yeah the sun is coming up but they are also in their fucking hotel room then, it's a pretext, and if Lestat really wanted to he could have left Louis to face the sun. But that's the thing, he doesn't want to hurt Louis.
And yeah there are like 0 depictions of violence or gore there, which is not something Anne Rice herself ever feels the need to shy away from, so I'm not picturing massive amount of blood being lost here. I think you put it correctly in saying it was traumaporn anon. I actually haven't been this mad at a piece of media since I read A Little Life by Hana Yanagihara which was also just straight up traumaporn for shock value and emotional voyagerism.
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CW emotional abuse, physical abuse, brief CSA mention, ED mention, parent death, hoarding, animal neglect, violent intrusive thoughts
I’m living back home for a while and I can’t stand being here. My relationship with my mom is difficult for a multitude of reasons. She wasn’t constantly abusive (though I know abusers generally aren’t), but she would have episodes where she was erratic, unpredictable, and emotionally abusive.
My mom suffers from occasional paranoid delusions and even though she’s been to therapy before she’s never actually addressed her delusional episodes with a professional to my knowledge. There were times when I was growing up where she was convinced various people or government agencies or corporations were actively trying to harm us or separate me from her, and frankly, it was very stressful and confusing for a kid to be around. My mom has also been through a lot of trauma. She had a very abusive upbringing, and she went through a really difficult divorce before she had me in which she lost custody of her first two kids. Since she didn’t get to raise her first two kids she was very possessive of me. And I think because of her own childhood trauma, she was obsessively scared of the idea of me being molested or exposed to drugs if she left me alone with any other adults, so generally it was very difficult to be allowed to go anywhere when I was growing up.
She wasn’t really physically abusive, at least, not when I was old enough to remember it. My sister told me about a time when she was at mom’s for visitation and I was about 2 or 3 years old and mom slapped me in the face. And the only time I remember being spanked, my mom spanked me with a belt just because I spilled a drink. I also remember once when I was 4 my mom slashed the roof of a play tent I had with a kitchen knife because I forgot to put it away. While that’s not a directly physically abusive action I’ve been told it’s abusive since the threat of violence is pretty blatant with that action.
Also, while this wasn’t an abusive thing she did to me directly, one of my brothers on dad’s side was looking through my dad’s old documents after he died (he died when I was 15, and while he was a significant part of my life growing up he and my mom were friends with benefits and never lived together, and when my mom was mad at him she would get mad at me for answering the phone when he called or wanting to see him (and I started avoiding him when I entered adolescent and realized I was queer bc I had no clue how he would react if he found out) so I wasn’t as close with him as I wish I could have been) and my brother found some lawyers notes detailing an instance where dad tried to visit me when I was 2 and my mom brandished a weapon and was screaming and swearing at him in front of me. I tried to ask mom about it once and she claimed to have no recollection of it.
Other than when I was very little though, she didn’t physically abuse me. She was emotionally abusive. She was erratic at times and I often had no real way of knowing what would set her off. She said some incredibly hurtful things to me sometimes. For example, I have had disordered eating patterns since I was a young kid and when I was 16 I started purging after binge eating or overeating at times. When I told my mom about the purging she screamed at me for a while about it. Told me I was wasting food. Asked how I could do that to her. Called me a “burden she wouldn’t wish on anyone else.” Asked if I was doing it because I had a sexual fetish for throwing up. She also made jokes at my expense about it. Like we were eating soup and she said “this is pretty bland, but I guess that’s god for you since you’re gonna puke it up later.”
She called me a burden a lot actually. Especially when I wanted to see my brother or friends. She made a big deal about how I was wasting her gas money or other people’s gas money and eating people’s food. I think it was another tactic to keep me away from other people as much as possible.
I also felt like I was the only thing holding her together a lot of the time. I felt like I had to parent my mother. Like I had to be the emotionally strong one for her.
Oh and I also think she weaponized my dad’s death against me. When my dad died I blamed myself for a while. He was very depressed in the months leading to his death and he stopped taking his meds or making any effort to take care of his health, and that negligence is probably what led to him having a fatal heart attack when he did. I blamed myself because I thought if I’d been a better daughter and made more of an effort to talk to him that maybe he would have taken better care of himself. I remember at one point, a few months or a year after he died, I casually mentioned to my mom how I was thinking about getting an apartment with a friend when we were out of high school, and she cried and asked why I hated her and why she wasn’t good enough. She said “if you get a call saying your mom died from loneliness and poverty while you’re away how will you react?” I remember calling my brother crying and asking him if Dad’s death was my fault.
The house is hoarded too. Not to the extreme degree you see on say, that one TLC show, but it is hoarded. Some rooms are really hard to navigate. And I have chronic allergies and I sincerely suspect it’s at least partially due to growing up in this house, because it’s so dusty, and my childhood bedroom had black mold for many years until mom got home owners insurance to pay for a new roof and my brother on mom’s side and his wife cut the moldy spot out and replaced that chunk of ceiling. Getting allergy tested once I was an adult let me know that my biggest allergies are to dust mites and various types of mold. I had a chronic cough from the time I was ten, and mom never thought it seemed serious enough to take me to a doctor about.
She also hoards pet rabbits. At one point we had twenty of them. I think we have about ten now. They’re not kept in good conditions. She can’t afford to get them fixed anymore so the male rabbits are just kept in cages so they can’t breed anymore. The rest of them are “free range” on the porches (she got the porches screened in specifically to have extra space for the rabbits), and they are not kept clean. The downstairs has a huge insect problem in the summer and it always smells of rabbit poop. Rabbits are generally very clean animals who groom themselves about as much as cats do, but mom’s rabbits are neglected and kept in filthy conditions. Most of their nails are so long too. And there have been a few occasions where a rabbit has gotten severely sick and mom hasn’t taken them to the vet or opted to euthanize them or anything and just tried to “nurse them back to help” (it almost never worked and just prolonged their suffering). I think it was genuinely traumatizing for me to see animals that sick growing up. I’ll spare details but when rabbits got seriously ill she let it get to the point where it was downright gruesome to look at or to smell, especially when they were so sick they’d stop eating or they’d lose the range of movement needed to clean themselves properly.
And I’m back living here. At least for the next few months. When I was 16-17 I had really violent thoughts about my mom sometimes. I used to think about going up to her room and stabbing her at night. Lately, I’ve been having really dark thoughts about her again. I keep thinking “I wish you were dead” “fucking die already” “kill yourself” “I hate you” when I’m around her. I feel genuine resentment toward her but the thoughts are also kinda distressing. And I’ve been told by my aunt that I should forgive her but I really don’t know if I can. And even though I’m medicated my depression is getting worse being here again. It’s hard to get out of bed. The only things holding me together are my friends and a stray cat I took in. I’m keeping him in my room (the room no longer has mold, thank god, and it’s pretty spacious, but I still haven’t finished unpacking so the room is a mess right now and I feel awful about the cat living in a messy environment) because mom doesn’t want him getting on counters or harassing the rabbits. I really want to be a better pet owner than she is with the rabbits. I also might try to socialize the cat with at least one of the rabbits and take a rabbit with me when I move out. I’m just scared. I’m scared of turning out like her. And I’m really struggling to do anything lately. It is so hard just to get out of bed right now
Hi anon,
I'm so sorry about everything you went though.
I can see how your mom's paranoid delusions made you feel confused and stressful as a kid. While I can understand how her trauma may have influenced the level of control she exerted over you in terms of where you went and who you were allowed to hang out with, it doesn't necessarily justify how difficult it was to go anywhere.
It sounds like your mom was unusually strict and cruel by whipping you with a belt just for spilling a drink. Accidents happen, plus you were a child. It sounds hypocritical to me that she would seemingly be overprotective over you in terms of other adults potentially harming you, and yet she herself would harm you. I also agree that it sounds extreme to cut your play tent just because you didn't put it away. There are more mature ways to communicate that besides wielding a knife.
It's also strange that she seemingly conveniently forgot what was mentioned in the legal documents. The comments she made towards your eating disorder are also unacceptable, and I can see how that may have exacerbated your symptoms. There is no excuse for calling your own child a burden. If anything, it was her responsibility to extend you sympathy and support after knowing that you were struggling.
What you described about having to parent your mother reminds me of parentification. Specifically, emotional parentification is when "a child [is] forced to take on the emotional role that a parent normally holds in a family. They may be treated a lot like being a therapist for their parent."
I'm so sorry for your loss. Please know that your dad's death is not your fault at all. His decision to stop taking his meds or looking after his mental health is independent of you. Your mom reacted disproportionately to your plan to move out. It's understandable for her to miss you, but the way in which she conveyed that was manipulative and guilt-tripping.
It also sounds like there was a level of neglect going on, including medical neglect as she didn't take your symptoms seriously. Black mold should be taken care of, and for your mom to know about the mold and ignore it is neglect and endangerment. This is called reason to know, which is when "a person acts in deliberate ignorance of the truth [...] or with reckless disregard of [...] information". Long-term exposure to mold can cause respiratory problems, allergies, a weakened immune system, bronchitis, and more.
I'm also disturbed to hear about the conditions the rabbits have been kept in. This is definitely not okay and likely constitutes as animal abuse. Learn more about what that means and what you can do about this here.
Please know that you do not owe anyone forgiveness ever. It's okay if you don't forgive your mom, it's understandable if you don't. She's done a lot to hurt you and others. You can still process your experiences and heal without forgiveness.
I think the fact that you're able to recognize that what your mom has been doing is wrong is indicative that you likely won't turn out like her.
Depression is challenging to deal with. If you can access and afford it, I recommend looking into getting a therapist, as they can help you process your experiences, work on your depression, as well as heal with the guidance of a professional. Especially after everything you've been through, you deserve the best care available.
I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.
-Bun
#mod bun#trauma talks#tw abuse#tw emotional abuse#tw child abuse#tw self harm#tw sh#tw animal abuse#tw csa#tw death#tw substance abuse#tw sui
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okayyyy let me make my post about legends of tomorrow 6.05 “the satanist’s apprentice.” right away i knew this episode was gonna be something special with the care they were taking showing us astra’s perspective. and it just kept getting better and better until the real show-stealer which was of course the ANIMATED SEQUENCE!!!!!!!! i am so glad i wasn’t spoiled for that. truly amazing to see. i can’t imagine how much work that must have been to arrange but it was totally worth it, such an incredible sequence. but even apart from that very fun and flashy trick it was a really great episode!!!!
i’m really really glad the writers decided to allocate almost an entire episode to humanizing astra and showing us life from her perspective. astra won me over in the college sorority episode but i definitely think more work needed to be done with the character to make her really feel like one of the team members, and they did that really well here. one issue i had with astra early on is that she felt very much like a two dimensional sexy femme fatale when she was first introduced, and i feel like that characterization stuck around for quite a few episodes. i really dont care for the decision to introduce her that way, even if it makes it more shocking for constantine to see that shes alive and all grown up. i think she shouldve been presented as a more nuanced character from the get go. but hey they finally start doing that in later episodes and this episode explores who she is very thoroughly.
i loved seeing astra’s morning routine and just all the stuff she does (or doesn’t do) every day. lots of fun. again i think it’s so important to humanize her not just because she was initially presented as this evil sexy femme fatale but also because she is a Black woman and too often white or nonblack audiences refuse to relate to these characters. so it’s great that the way the episode is written and directed essentially forces us to relate to astra. i felt so bad for her when she got drenched by that puddle omg i hope constantine’s house at least has hot water in the showers. i thought it was interesting when her old white guy neighbor is racist to her because legends has been really steering away from depicting racism onscreen in recent seasons when the early seasons showed much more of that. i think it’s done effectively, it makes us feel for astra and want to see the old guy dead which of course plays into the later scene where astra lures him over to kill him. also i was so mad at constantine for being super dismissive of astra and not helping her even though this is her first time living on earth as an adult and also she’s basically his time-displaced niece. constantine you misogynist!!!!!!!!!!
somehow i had previously been under the impression that astra was already a sorcerer but i guess not? it was fun seeing her make this devil’s bargain although she seemed just a tad naive. but if you think about it she had everything under control up until the bad guy (i forget his name) stole the soul thingy. so she didn’t do anything wrong except lower her guard down a little when she realizes she can’t kill this horrible old racist guy. and i think that makes sense because such a revelation is going to be shocking for her. she used to be fine with causing lots of death and cruelty, and this guy certainly had it coming. but she’s not that person anymore. she has changed and become more compassionate and doesn’t want to hurt people needlessly anymore. i still wish that old guy could be punished in some way though like she could infest his house with bats or something bc he deserves it.
it was so fun when she turned the legends into various household objects. why was nate a CHEESE. i loved zari and ava’s little faces. and it’s so funny that zari was a flip phone. would she even know what that is, since shes from the future? and then everything about the animation i loved. it was so funny how astra began talking all disney princess-y and using dramatic gestures and all that. and she saves the day by singing her mother’s song! how lovely is that. also awesome to see the animated versions of the transformed legends fight and then tuck the bad guy into bed. so silly. i like how at the end astra says the legends are her friends!!!!!!! love that for her.
the side plot with sara was also really good even though it was very short. bishop is a fantastic villain. he’s just so AWFUL. i love how charismatic he is and how that just enhances his awfulness. and also how he is always singing and dancing like a weirdo. i dont have much experience with techbros but he seems like a techbro. also so interesting to see the nurse ava clone. i like how disturbed sara was by her and by how brainwashed she was. and i loved how sara tried to convince the clone to help her escape and really thought she got through to her. sara made the mistake not only of thinking this clone was more like her ava than she truly was, but also of thinking that all it would take to get this clone on her side was an inspiring speech about her personhood. it’s honestly so arrogant of her, but also so in character. sara has a hero complex when it comes to saving women from their own internalized misogyny and that’s essentially what she’s trying to do here. but the clone’s brainwashing is more thorough than sara had counted on.
umm anyway really good episode i thought caity lotz’s directing was good and i like that astra is becoming a bigger part of the team now :)
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Ok where was I before episode 13 happened (I will come back to it later) ... ah yes, at the question “What could possibly go wrong if you put Porsche in charge of the bar?” Btw I’m not sure if Porsche wouldn’t have been drugged anyway ... if he had been in charge of a different part someone could’ve just offered him water there bc I believe he was the intended target no matter where would’ve been.
Anyway ... speaking of going wrong. You could be kidnapped (again, just by someone else this time)
The boss? Who is he? Who could be gunning for Porsche?
I should have guessed and sorry your voice is giving you away, right Vegas?
Oh, great ... just a hickey or two it is then? And you think that’s a good idea? Why would you do that?
Sorry I asked ... so you think Kinn would get mad at Porsche and believe that he wanted to be drugged and tied up by someone else for fun? I don’t think so. Yes, Kinn would probably a bit mad at Porsche for falling into a trap, but never would he blame him for what happened afterwards. He would blame whoever did this to Porsche and would be incredibly mad at this person.
Try all you want ...
Porsche still seems to have enough strength to show you what he thinks of it.
But making Vegas mad isn’t a good idea either ... can someone please take him away?
Phew, that was close ...
I would really have liked if Kinn and the others would have stormed in at that moment, but maybe it’s for the best that it didn’t happen that way. I guess I’ll make another post on “what happened on the other side”.
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She’s Always There (Paul Lahote x Reader)
Key:
Y/n: Your Name
Y/l/n: Your Last Name
Y/n/n: Your Nickname
Y/e/c: Your Eye Color
Y/h/c: Your Hair Color
Prompt Given To Me By @ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghhhh.tumblr.com: hey!! so the reason I'm messaging is because I wanted to request something but can't fit it all into an ask lmao. anyways could i please request a Paul Lahote x reader where the reader has been super close to the whole pack for years and has been Paul's imprint but doesn't know it (bc Sam thought it would be best to keep u away from it all) and they decide to finally tell you about being shapeshifters and being Paul's imprint and you're so mad about them not telling u earlier and there's a huge argument and they and Paul tries to calm you down but you say stuff like 'leave me alone' and things like that and it sounds like you're rejecting him/the bond in ur angry breakdown. anyways Paul is heartbroken and can't get out of bed or eat or anything so the guys finally convince you to come back bc they and Paul need you and it's just the reader cuddling with him and getting him out of bed to take a shower and eat and he realizes that you're not going anywhere and it's just like healing the imprint bond? sorry for this WALL of text, I've just had this idea stuck in my head for a while lol. if you don't want to do it, that's completely fine!! thank you for your time ♡
ok so my guy,, bc this fic has been stuck in my head for a bit, some scenes have developed? so idk i hope this isn't too much, but if u do write it, would u be willing to add like some angst to it, obvi, and maybe a scene/part lol where when the reader tries to get him to shower (bc the misinterpreted rejection made him like super depressed and he just felt low about himself) he won't shower, because he doesn't want to come out and the reader is gone. so either they shower together (not smutty just angst&fluff) or she sits like in the bathroom while he showers LOL. and when he feels a bit better, they go down to eat and he's touching some part of her at all times. if this is too much to like,, include then that's a-okay. i just need to get this OUT of my MIND ugh lmao!/!
Reader Gender: Female
Summary: The Reader has been friends with most of the pack members for her whole life. Which is why, after months of silence and strange changes, she was willing to let them back into her life— until she finds out she’s been told lies that leave her in danger, of course. After a big freak out and two weeks of avoiding them, the boys come begging for her help; it turns out that Paul has some wolf-y claim on her, and whatever she said to him has left him worse for wear...
Warnings: Mentions of Depression, Nudity, Angst, and Cursing.
A/n: this is literally like a whole novel I’m so sorry I got carried away. this is kinda based on a lot of fics I read where the imprint has the potential to really hurt people and I named Paul’s dad.
Word Count: 2.9k+
“The legends are real!?”
Y/n Y/l/n hasn’t ever been so disturbed in her entire life.
After weeks of radio silence, Sam Uley’s little ‘gang’, mostly consisting of people she’d known since childhood, had slowly trickled back into her life. What started as a grocery run with Paul or a movie with Jared had turned into big bonfire parties including Jacob Black and his gaggle.
But that was months ago. Months. And now, as she sits by a fire, surrounded on either side by them, they decide to tell her their little secret?
“Y/n.” Sam says as she abruptly stands, eyes stern and hand raised placatingly.
His actions only served to upset her more and her skin bristles with irritation. Sam was acting as if she, a human surrounded by shape shifters, was the unstable one. As if she could do any damage to things built to kill vampires.
“Don’t you dare, Sam.” She clenches her fists, glaring right back at him. “It’s been months- months- and you’re telling me now?”
“It’s not exactly an easy thing to bring up.” He reasons, voice a little less demanding. “We all wanted to be sure that you were ready to know.”
“Ready?!” Y/n laughs mirthlessly, y/e/c eyes wide with disbelief, “When was I supposed to be ready Sam? W-when one of you gored me? When a cold one ripped me apart?”
Her hands shake as she puts them on her forehead, blinking back tears. Growing up all she’d ever heard were stories of humans getting dragged into fights between wolf and vampire, and she couldn’t bring herself to look Emily in the eye because it was suddenly apparent that wolves alone could hurt people too.
It was so bad, whatever happened to Emily, that they said a bear mauled her— Y/n didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“It’s not like that, Y/n/n.” Embry chimes in, reaching out to grab his friend's arm.
She yanks her body out of the way and gathers her belongings quickly.
“What is it like then, Call?” She holds her bag to her heaving chest, “because it seems to me that you all have the ability to turn into giant, slobbery freaks that are built for killing vampires and, after completely dropping me for weeks, you decided to keep it secret from me for months. Did it even occur to you that I would’ve been better off knowing right off the bat?!”
No one says anything. Eight shifters and two of their girlfriends sit there, just staring at her like she was speaking a different language.
“You know,” Y/n has to clear her throat to steady her wavering voice, “had you guys really been souped-up on drugs like everyone says, maybe I could’ve handled the lying. But my life was clearly potentially in danger, and you let me hang around without saying anything. I- God I don’t want to see you people right now.”
She leaves with that, stepping over logs and storming back down the beach with determination. Faintly over the roar of her heartbeat, she can hear someone scrambling to stand behind her.
“Wait!— shit, sorry-” Paul grunts, jogging to catch up with her- “Y/n-“
With an unusual gentleness, his warm hand wrapped around her forearm. For a moment, deep in the back of her mind, a foreign feeling tells her to stop, to listen; but that small voice is quickly smothered by the rational part of her brain, and she wrenches her arm from his grip.
“Don’t touch me!” She snaps, lowering her voice, “Leave me alone- I need to be alone.”
Paul stands there, dumbstruck, an unreadable look in his eyes as she walks away. And he’d continue to stand there, looking like a kicked puppy long after her retreating form became a blur amongst the darkness of the beach.
“Paul?” Sam is hesitant, hand hovering over the younger boy’s shoulder a minute before he touches him, “You okay?”
Shrugging his leader’s arm off his shoulder, Paul sighs. “No...I...I’m just gonna head home.”
Instead of going in the directions of the cars, the wolf stalks off toward the woods; Emily stands from her seat, wrapping her sweater more around herself as she watches Paul leave. Concern is written all over her features.
“He’ll be fine, Em,” He pulls her in for a hug, “it’ll all work out eventually.”
ஓ๑♡๑ஓ
Y/n does a good job of avoiding them for a while.
She turns her phone off a few days in and avoids going to First Beach, even when Washington gets a rare, warm summer feel. Books that have sat long forgotten on her shelves get read and TV shows she’s always meant to catch up on get watched; it’s boring and she runs out of options, at one point thinking of dying her hair y/f/c just to spice things up, but it allows her to think. (Or at least it allows this strange little voice in the back of her head to tell her that she needs to go back to them.)
The next time she sees any of the boys is exactly two weeks after the bonfire incident.
She’s curled up on her couch, picking at some of the Clearwaters’ fish fry and barely watching an episode of ANTM, when a fist comes banging down on her door. Turning off the TV, she tiptoes to the window, peeking under the curtain as carefully as she can.
As she expected, Jared Cameron and Embry Call are on her porch, the former standing in front of her door with his hip cocked, the other rooting around in her mother’s plants for something. Cringing, she hopes if she’s quiet enough that they’ll just go away.
Her front door opens within minutes, however, and she realizes her hoping is fruitless.
Should’ve known you can’t hide from wolves, she can’t help but think bitterly.
“Y/n?” Jared calls out through the house, “we know you’re here.”
“Yeah, and you guys should probably move your spare key,” Embry tacks on, flicking the light switch to the living room up, “I've known you forever and it’s still in the same place.”
From her spot by the window, the y/h/c haired girl glares at the two boys, arms crossed over her chest. Embry gives her a lopsided grin and holds the key out to her, his bud plopping down on the couch and pulling her abandoned plate into his lap.
Y/n extends a hand to take the key.
“Has it really been in the same place?” She sounds a little more defeated than she’d like.
“Yeah, it’s always been in your mother’s cornflower pot.”
“That’s...kinda sad.” She wrinkles her nose, pocketing the key with the intention to hide it better later, “but uh, I’ve been ignoring you for two weeks for a reason. Peacefully breaking into my house kinda furthers my need for space.”
Embry scratches the back of his neck.
“Well,” He says, “we need you to come back, man. Paul won’t talk to anyone- Sam doesn’t know if he’s eating, and he won’t even get out of bed for patrol! He needs his imprint-”
“His what?” She cocks her head to the side and Jared snorts from the couch.
“She left before we got there, nimrod,” Jared mocks through a mouthful of food, “she doesn’t know what an imprint is.”
He lets out an indignant “Hey!” as Y/n walks by, snatching her plate back from him on her way to the kitchen. Embry chases after her, a grumpy Jared jumping up from the couch to follow.
“You’re his imprint— you’re basically his soulmate!”
“Really?” She says warily, sealing the fish and putting it back in the fridge.
Both boys nod clumsily.
“You remember a few weeks ago when you saw each other for the first time again and he kinda just stood there like an idiot while you talked?”
“Yeah? Oh!-” She brings her hands up to her mouth, brows furrowed as she recalls.
It was exactly Jared had said. She and Paul had seen one another for the first time in a long time and the minute her y/e/c eyes looked into his, it was like he’d been struck dumb.
Embry gives her an encouraging look, “An imprint is...It's not like love at first sight, really. It's more like… gravity moves… suddenly. It's not the earth holding you here anymore, she does… You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that's a protector, or a lover, or a friend. When you snapped at him last week he thought you were rejecting him….”
A part of her thought about how absurd it was that he knew that whole speech. But the bigger part of her came to a realization that made her stomach churn.
“So he's all depressed… because… of me?” She whispers, leaning back on the counter.
Embry, always a rather sympathetic person, opens his mouth to comfort her, but Jared cuts him off.
“Basically. So are you going to come with us so we can help Paul or are you going to continue being petty?”
In any other circumstance, Y/n probably would’ve thrown something at her for calling her petty. She felt she was completely justified in her actions. A part of her wonders if she can really believe them— they’d spent months lying to her after all. But a larger part thinks about Paul, curled up in his bed, slowly desecrating because he thinks she rejected him.
If it were really all some ploy to get her to listen to them, then she’d at least be the person who chose the well-being of her friend over a petty disagreement.
“I’m coming.” She affirms, pushing herself off the counter, and letting the boys lead her to the car.
ஓ๑♡๑ஓ
Jared and Embry drop her off in front of the Lahote household. They tell her something but she can’t really hear them over her heartbeat, she doesn’t even know they’re gone until it’s too late to turn back.
Getting into the house wasn’t the hard part. Paul’s father, Cyrus, had been leaving as she arrived, and, after he watched her stare at the house with a fearful expression for a few minutes, he happily let her in. The hard part was willing her legs to take her up the stairs to Paul’s room, and then it was opening his bedroom door.
Y/n has known Paul since they were eight, but she was afraid of him until they were eleven. He wasn’t mean, per se, but his anger made him do mean things; she wasn’t entirely happy with puberty and it’s monthly gifts, but whatever it did to make her suddenly un-afraid of him she was grateful for. But now, standing in front of his bedroom door, she had a nagging fear that Paul would revert to that eight year old boy who threw lunch boxes and twisted arms behind backs until people cried.
The door creaks slightly as she struggles to push it open.
His room is almost completely dark except for the light coming from the hallway behind her. Trash and dirty clothes have formed a compact layer on his bedroom floor, foot sized holes leading up to the twin sized bed in the corner. On the bed, amongst the blankets she’s sure he doesn’t need, is Paul— or at least, a Paul sized lump.
As gross as it is, she’s kind of relieved he’s been eating.
“Paul?” She whispers tentatively, stepping toward the bed.
The lump flinches and turns toward her.
“Y/n?”
If the room and the description of his state weren’t heartbreaking enough, his voice definitely was. Hollow, rough, and small, everything it never was, everything Paul wasn’t.
“Is that you?”
“Yeah...it’s me..”
She carefully steps over to the bed, and Paul slowly sits up, pushing his blankets to the side. There’s a beat of silence as she stands between his legs, his reluctant hands coming to rest on her waist after a minute. Y/n let’s him have another to gather his thoughts.
“You really came…” Tears well up in his eyes and loops his arms around her back.
She runs a hand through his hair. “I did, and I’m so sorry, if I had known—”
Paul nuzzles her stomach, “S’fine, you didn’t know, and you’re here now.”
There’s a sort of cute, euphoria lacing his voice and he’s visibly much more relaxed.
“Just don’t ever say that again…”
“I won’t, I promise.”
She’s surprised when he manhandles her into his lap, but she doesn’t really mind. He’s warm and strangely familiar and something about it just— clicks.
“When was the last time you spent, I dunno, a minute or two out of your room?” Y/n asks softly, y/e/c eyes glancing about the room.
The shifter’s only response is a shrug, too busy nosing around her neck with vigor. When he finds a certain spot, it makes her squeak, and this seems to excite him like a puppy finding out its favorite toy makes noise.
“You need to bathe, eat something substantial,” She intertwines their fingers, “and the...pack...they’re really worried about you— are you even listening to me?”
He looks up at her then and flashes her a sheepish smile, answering her question. Pursing her lips, she pulls his arms from around her.
“C’mon, Paul.” She stands up and takes his hand. “We’re gonna get you cleaned up.”
She moves toward the door, urging him forward, only to be jerked to a stop as he stays put. He looks a little distressed when she turns back to him, brows furrowed, almost like he’s in pain.
“Paul?”
He grunts, jaw clenched as the cogs turn in his head. Y/n cocks her head and reaches out for his other hand. It felt like some sort of supernatural intuition, one she’ll blame on the imprint and ask Emily about later.
“Paul, hon, why won’t you come shower?”
“I’m afraid you'll leave,” He says bashfully, “it’s stupid, I know, but part of me is afraid you’ll leave while I’m in the shower.”
Y/n couldn’t help but feel a little heartbroken at his confession. Paul was part wolf, and part of being part wolf was imprinting— she almost wishes she’d have stayed long enough to listen, or been able to focus as the boys debriefed her on the ride over because only being able to speculate how much she’d actually hurt him was eating her alive. He wouldn’t even shower, something he desperately needed to do, because of what she’d said.
Taking a deep breath, she barely registers the words she’s about to say.
“I’ll wait with you, I’ll sit on the toilet, you’ll see me there.”
And true to her word, Y/n does sit on the toilet while Paul showers, reading the information on soap bottles to distract herself from the fact that he was there next to her, very naked. Occasionally he asks her what she’s doing, and she reads the ingredients out loud to the best of her ability, and he laughs a little— she tries to hide her smile, but she was too happy he was laughing.
She closes her eyes when he gets out, letting him dry himself off and pull on some clean shorts. He throws the wet towel at her when he’s done, eliciting a “Hey!” that makes him laugh again.
Now that he’s clean, the two of them descend into his quiet house. Y/n navigates the kitchen, her wolf attached to her hip and being less than helpful, and makes them both something to eat— he doesn’t do much more than stand behind her, wrapped around her, making her life more difficult.
“I’m so happy you came back.” He says, watching her work.
“I was always going to.” Y/n responds, her voice sure and steady.
They talk as they eat, sitting across from one another at the too big table in the Lahote household. Talk about how this was going to work, admitting feelings that always lingered, and everything in between; she hooks her leg around his, watching him scarf down his meal with a wrinkled nose and fondness glittering in her y/e/c eyes.
He’s...gross...but he’s hers, she’s kind of stuck with him.
A date is planned. An actual date.
Paul promises to take her to the local diner (and to wear a shirt, for once.)
“I’ve been saving up for something like this.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and you can get that dessert you like.”
Y/n laughs softly, but heat spreads up her neck and settles in her ears and cheeks. It’d been a long time since that had been her favorite food, but it was the thought that counted...
When Cyrus Lahote returns from work later that night his son and the Y/l/n girl are awkwardly situated on his couch— him on his back, snoring, her lying on top of him, face tucked into his neck, also fast asleep. The older man turns off the TV and tosses a blanket over the pair, ascending up the stairs with a smile on his face.
Y/n Y/l/n was trustworthy. She’s always there when Paul is in a rut too big for him to handle...
#paul lahote#paul lahote imagine#paul lahote x reader#twilight wolf pack imagine#twilight wolf pack#twilight fanfiction#eclipse#twilight wolf imagines#embry call#jared cameron#sam uley
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do you have any lukanette ideas with chat/adrien salt? the newest episode reignited my annoyance towards him and his stans acting like he didn’t do anything wrong is not helping. i mean, flirting with ladybug while he’s dating kagami? getting excited over a possible akumatization?? and since i know that behavior won’t be addressed bc adrien is “perfect” and “the love square is endgame” therefore he gets a pass for any bad behavior, i was hoping for some fanmade salt (and lukanette is always a great addition to any story)
I can appreciate how starved you guys are to hear me salt on this blog.
But yeah, I came up with something considering that quite a bit of Chat’s behavior happens before Truth appears in “Lies.”
So hear me out--
Truth is a threat, considering that Luka is the only hero outside of Ladybug intended to be a planner. All others take orders directly from Ladybug herself, but Viperion could plan on his own.
This means that Truth realizes quickly that his strategy of asking for the heroes’ identities isn’t going to work because they’ll shout over him every time. He has to get creative and comes up with the idea to divide the heroes.
He comments on their teamwork, perhaps saying vaguely about how their teamwork can’t outmatch his and Pharo’s. Chat obviously takes the bait, talking on and on about how he and Ladybug are the best team and that they’re made for each other.
“Really?” Truth asks casually. “You’ve never done anything against her?”
Chat Noir responds, his white lips moving to say, “Of course I have!”
Ladybug gapes, and Chat looks calm for a second before his eyes immediately widen in panic.
He tries to say that it’s not what he means, but Truth’s power is active, so he just blurts out, “That’s exactly what I mean!”
He tries to cover his mouth with his non-Cataclysm hand, but gets shot by Pharo.
“I told Theo Barbot that we were dating and it got him akumatized!”
“You did what?!” Ladybug asks, having never heard this before.
Chat doesn’t stop - he can’t - and his mouth keeps moving. He admits that he sacrifices himself because he knows it won’t matter since Ladybug will fix it, and it means he’ll always leave an impression on her. He admits that he didn’t care when Nadja or Alya were egging on the LadyNoir ship because he feels like Ladybug will come around eventually. He admits that he doesn’t take her seriously when she goes off on him because “she’s cute when she’s angry.” He admits that he wanted an akuma to happen even though he knew Ladybug was busy, just because he wanted to spend time with her. He admits to telling his kwami he’d quit while Paris was underwater if he didn’t spill what Ladybug was hiding.
Honestly, even Truth at this point is like, “man I wanted to divide your teamwork, not your entire relationship.”
Ladybug eventually manages to snap out of her trance and deal with the whole situation (mostly by herself), but the damage is done. Even after the akuma has been purified and Truth turns back into Luka, Chat’s words linger and Ladybug ignores him.
“Are you okay, Luka?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah, thanks...”
Chat is awkwardly standing nearby, his tail in both hands as he fiddles with it. “So--ah... Bugaboo--”
“Don’t,” Ladybug cuts in, not even looking at him. “Is that why you use that nickname when I’m mad? To butter me up? Try to earn points? Do you think it’s funny?”
“No, no!” He waves his hands frantically. “It’s not--”
“See, the thing is that now I won’t know whether you’re lying or not,” she points out, the situation feeling all to familiar to when Tikki lied to her, only this was worse. She honestly wanted to trust Chat Noir; he was her partner, irreplaceable in the sense that he was there from the start.
But maybe not irreplaceable elsewhere.
“I wouldn’t lie to you!” he swears.
“But you’ll keep things from me,” she counters. She sighs, gently taking Luka’s hand and helping him stand, then addressing him as she says, “I’ll take you home, alright?”
Luka’s gaze briefly flickers between the two of them, but he asks no questions and nods. “Thank you.”
She guides him up the staircase to take him up to the balcony, Chat Noir rushing over to stand at the bottom of the steps.
“M’lady--!”
Ladybug turns to him with a silencing glare. “I really don’t want to be around you right now. We’ll talk later when I’m ready.”
(He’s going to be in for a long talk when they finally meet back up again, and suddenly, he isn’t so eager for an akuma to come rushing by to force them to come back together as a team.)
And with that, Ladybug goes up to the balcony, takes Luka in her arms, and leaves. Things are quiet at first, her taking in a few breaths of the night air as she tries to relax.
The past few days had been a mess, and that was putting it lightly. The kwami, dating, the akuma (that Chat Noir had apparently been soooo excited about), and now this big revelation. The stress must show on her face too, as she can occasionally feel Luka’s concerned gaze on her.
In a way, it’s nice, just having her boyfriend care like this, even when she’s in a mask. He’d put up with way more for her than she felt like he should’ve, and she knew that he’d disagree if she even dared to voice that thought.
Without really thinking, she starts talking to him. She talks about Ladybug, about everything; being thrown into this life that she didn’t ask for, and being happy to save Paris but sad at the emotional toll it takes. She tells him about all the friends who tease her for her lateness, and while it might’ve been funny at first - she was genuinely absent-minded at times - it doesn’t become as funny when knowing that it was something that couldn’t be helped.
“...I’m sorry you’re going through that,” Luka says in an offer of comfort. He sighs, not recoiling from her but it feels like he’s distant anyway. “I know it didn’t help that I was akumatized. I hope I didn’t do anything to Marinette.”
Her gaze softens; of course he’s thinking of her again. It’s Luka, she has no right to be surprised.
Chat Noir, meanwhile, was just thinking of himself.
“Actually,” she corrects, something occurring to her, “I think you might’ve helped in your own way.”
Luka tilts his head at her, puzzled.
She changes course just slightly, specifically to a spot not too far from the Liberty; one that is very familiar to both of them, and she can tell by the way his brows raise that he’s surprised by where she’s about to land.
Underneath the bridge, in the spot where he’d initially asked her - when she was Marinette - where she’d always been going, just before he got akumatized.
She sets him down, then paces around to try and clear her head.
“...Like I said, I didn’t get a lot of choice in this,” she begins. “I tried to give my miraculous up once in the beginning, but there was so much pressure and everything was going wrong. Then, things would just--happen around me, things that I couldn’t really think of--and this is coming from me!” She turns to him dramatically, gesturing to herself. “I imagine things going wrong all the time and I still can’t predict when they actually do!”
Luka chuckles lightly at that, but otherwise stays quiet, unsure of where she’s going with this but giving her his full attention.
“Me becoming the new guardian of the miraculouses so out of nowhere... it was a lot, and suddenly I had a bunch of kwami around my room who all wanted to get into my stuff or mess around. I didn’t choose to let them out; it just happened when I was trying to see how the box with all the miraculouses worked.” She groans a bit, rubbing her forehead as she paces around again. “Then in came Shadow Moth and all the akuma showing up, and now I’m even busier. I can’t even make time for my boyfriend.”
There’s a flicker of emotion in Luka’s eyes at that, but he doesn’t say anything, though his fingers twitch slightly at his sides.
“Then--” She looks down. “--there’s Chat Noir. I didn’t choose him either; the old guardian chose him for me, and he wasn’t even fully trained. I was Chat’s partner and that was it; I didn’t get a choice to give up, it just... was, and I have to deal with whatever the relationship--” She makes a face at the word. “--we have is, because if something goes wrong then everything can go wrong, and then Paris is in danger.”
She shakes her head, realizing that she’s rambling. She continues staring quietly at the ground, then releases the tenseness in her shoulders.
“But...” She looks up to meet Luka’s gaze. “I did choose you, Luka. I finally got to choose something for me, and the only thing I regret about it is everything that I can’t choose. You chose me and I chose you and...” She almost laughs. “It’s weird that it’s that simple for once.”
He’s clearly pieced the puzzle together by now but hasn’t quite processed the result. She can see the whisper of her name on his lips and she smiles at him, taking a step back and spreading her arms wide.
“You’re my real partner, Luka. You get me, you care about me, and we’re similar but different and it’s great.” She swallows, feeling her nerves building a little but pushing forward enthusiastically nonetheless. “So I want to make a choice for us, because we trust each other and I want to give you something no one else has.”
Then, she closes her eyes, taking a breath and briefly tightening her hands into fists.
“Tikki, spots off.”
#((Is there such a thing as *too* many ''Truth'' fix-its?))#type: ideas#type: salt#other: ml spoilers#((I considered sending this ask to my other account but I didn't know if this anon followed me there.))#Flower Arrangement Shipping#episode: Truth#episode: Lies#Pro LukaMari#Lukanette
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jjpope season 1 breakdown time!! woohoo
Since the beginning of season 1, JJ and Pope have an established as best friends- this is very obvious by the way the talk to each other and move around each other.
In one of the first episodes when the pogues are discussing the gold, JJ understand that Kiara and Pope have very different reasons for not wanting to help. To Kiara he says something like “you’re already rich” but to Pope he says “you’re the golden boy” which I think is a very interesting diction choice as he could have just said ‘you can’t lose your scholarship opportunity’ or something along those lines
I think that’s an important mention bc it really establishes what exactly he thinks about Kiara vs Pope (side note: I’m not trying to say JJ likes one more than the other, just that he thinks of them differently relationship- wise)
In my character analysis posts I talked about how both Pope and JJ are about physical touch and affection- JJ craves and seeks it out while for Pope it’s more of a gesture. Pope doesn’t seek out physical affection the way that JJ does, but in big moments he will dish it out:
I genuinely believe that this is one of the most romantic scenes in the entire show. Based on the shot choice with the blurred lights in the background, the close head shots, the word choices and the hug was filled with immense tension.
This is also the cheek kiss scene and the “for once in your life, trust someone else” implying that JJ wants Pope to know he’ll always have his back and Pope doesn’t always have to be so on-guard all the time. This scene kind of foreshadows the scene in a later episode when Kiara and Sarah are fighting and Pope mentions how comfortable he was riding on the back of JJ’s bike, to which JJ agrees and John B says “that’s cute, guys”
And JJ’s reaction almost like he didn’t know how to react to Pope’s sudden tackle-hug proves that Pope doesn’t often do large physical gestures. He could also have just realized a few feeing for Pope that he might not have noticed before. It’s also shown in the hot tub scene when JJ and Kiara are already hugging but once Pope joins, he leans his head on Pope and holds Pope’s arm instead: (a.n. I do NOT think this is a romantic scene, this is to show that JJ seeks a lot of comfort from Pope)
JJ also seems to be the only person to actually care about Pope’s scholarship. He understands that Pope may not want to help them bc of it and thinks it’s a valid reason. JJ even asks about it when Pope runs to them and tells them about Ward’s airstrip (I can’t find the screen cap but it’s closer to the end of the season).
Let’s not forget one of the most important plots of their relationship- JJ taking the fall for Pope sinking Topper’s boat. While JJ is in the cell, he smiles probably thinking about how he had just saved Pope. Later when JJ is stealing money from the drug dealers and the pogues have a small intervention, Pope tries to go after JJ so he doesn’t have to be alone but John B stops him. JJ also didn’t really care about being told off until Pope said something about it, and he looked very hurt that he did. This moment truly solidifies that JJ’s love is not unrequited, but that Pope cares about him just as much. Even after being yelled at by JJ, Pope still always tries to go after him and is upset when JJ isn’t there.
Here are a few more moments that are very important to their relationship and I think are often overlooked moments:
(Pope protecting Jj when they’re being shot at by the old lady while they’re trying to get the gold & then canonically hanging out just the two of them)
+ then doing grocery runs together, JJ being mad that Pope was beat up, Pope telling JJ not to do anything stupid, JJ always stepping in front of Pope when there’s danger, them being able to calm each other down, Pope checking on JJ while they’re trying to pawn the gold, etc.
hope you guys enjoyed!! season 2 jjpope analysis will be up tomorrow! :)
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TRIGGERWARNING!
Without triggering anyone I wanna ask two things:
1) Was Cora ever physically abbussive towards Regina?
2) I know many ppl's head canon is that Leopold raped Regina again and again as his bride, but is that your headcanon too?
ok again TRIGGER WARNING for abuse & SA (and brief mention of suicide) for anyone reading/scrolling!
i'm going to just explain my personal interpretation of the show and these subjects, bc i find regina so interesting and heartbreaking. and i actually do think part of what makes regina so fascinating as a character is her relationship within the cycle of abuse and how yes, she was incredibly hurt and manipulated all her life, but she eventually managed to break free of it all and work to be better for her own child.
buckle up because i have a lot of feelings and this is probably going to be LONG
so, my thoughts on exactly what happened and why regina is as fucked up as she is:
so yeah, cora was a horrific parent. it's canon that she abused regina both emotionally and physically for practically all her life.
in practically her very first scene, we see cora using magic to hurt her eighteen year old daughter - to violently restrain her/drop her to the ground when she 'misbehaves' which pretty clearly says this is a woman who uses power and fear as a control tactic, and is not afraid of physically hurting regina.
and if this is what she was doing when regina is almost an adult, i think it's safe to assume she's been doing it since she was very young - regina's response 'please don't, i'll be good' is the conditioned response of a much younger child. everything about the way regina was written, her relationship with cora, and the way lana and the directors chose to play it screams abuse victim. she is hypervigilant - she jumps when people come close or make sudden noises. when she's choked with magic she immediately knows not to struggle or fight back. as a young girl, she is terrified of doing things wrong.
(also, when we get the flashback to actual 10 year old regina, cora says she can't help her because 'it needs to be someone who's magic has never hurt her')
while i think most of the time cora relied on magic to physically punish regina - knowing how much regina particularly hated it/was afraid of it - i think she was definitely not above slapping her for more minor infractions
beyond just physical abuse, cora was clearly emotionally distant and got regina to a place of being pretty touch-starved and desperate for affection. (lana and barbara play this so masterfully as well) we see her being constantly, nastily critical of everything her daughter does.
i think it's also implied in the regina rising book that cora was controlling/restrictive of regina's food to ensure she stayed thin/attractive which is just a whole other can of worms
as for leopold. please bear with me while i RANT:
nothing will ever make me more mad than the fact this man was never held accountable in the narrative for his role in regina's story and how absolutely fucking awful he was.
first of all, even before he meets regina, he is dodgy af. he supposedly genuinely loves cora, but throws her out immediately when he discovers her pregnancy without even asking her if it's true/discussing it. also, even in that flashback the man is visibly much older than cora and even more so than eva, who he actually does marry (although i do believe they came to truly love each other). so yeah he has a habit of Not Listening to women and not looking at women his own age
and then we get to regina. the eighteen year old daughter of his ex fiancee (younger even than the unborn child who cora carried when she was engaged to him)
yes i think he raped her. because powerful old men do not marry pretty eighteen year olds for the company. (also, if it was just so snow would have a mother figure, well, she already had her maid joanna. and if snow really wanted regina around that badly, leopold could have just brought her to court as a lady in waiting, a fitting role for a noblewoman, and more appropriate seeing as regina was only about eight years older than snow)
regina is visibly distressed by the proposal. she is panicked. she looks to her father to help. cora accepts the proposal for her. and leopold does not care. i think this tells u all u need to know about his views on consent
(also it all gets ickier when you remember leopold was attracted to cora, and regina is considered to look like cora did when she was younger)
leopold clearly had zero interest in regina as a person. he used her for arm candy for events, to make snow happy, and to keep his bed warm. (later, he invades her privacy so much regina counts on him reading her diary as a thoughtless and integral part of a plan, and locks her up for receiving a present from another man) and yet he is never treated as a villain or ever held accountable (besides regina killing him - good for her - but even then it's framed more as a way to villainise her for tricking sidney) and it makes me FURIOUS
i sometimes see the take that leopold might have stopped raping her towards the latter years of their marriage, but i disagree - i think maybe it did get fewer and farther between, but regina was still his wife who he only saw as serving a few purposes, and the way he is so possessive of her in 1x011 makes no sense otherwise, seeing as he was so uninterested in her in every other way
i do think a lot of regina's rage and vendetta against snow is because of this abuse too.
hear me out: in s1 especially, both snow and regina refer to snow as 'ruining her life'. because regina blamed her for everything that happened to her. not only did snow cause daniel's murder, it was her desire for regina as a mother that prompted leopold to marry her.
and this marriage was hell. and i think people don't realise how long it lasted either - snow went from a child to at least her late teens before regina killed leopold. regina was a traumatised young girl, grieving the love of her life, with no friends, no allies, nobody except the literal dark one who was grooming her for his own gain. (no wonder she clung to the brief sense of freedom and control his lessons offered. no wonder she nearly killed herself.)
and while regina suffered, she was forced to play with snow white every day, who was so spoiled, so loved, so happy, and had no idea of the life she had unwittingly trapped regina in.
so yeah, it's all pretty dark.
and it's for all these reasons i think ouat ended up shying away from many more regina backstory episodes centring on the time she was married/pre-evil queen years, because they were on abc after all, and i don't think they were really equipped to deal with the horrendousness of the story they'd created
but lana most certainly did her work becaue i think all of this nuance does show in her portrayal
and it all just makes regina's ending - the good queen, in her own name, safe and strong and loved, part of a true family, her bond with snow healed - so much more of a relief.
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Festering feelings
Pairing: Bokuto Kōtarō x gn!reader
Wordcount: 1.7k
Warnings: angst, mentions of depression, anxiety and panic attacks. Also kind of mentioning eating disorder?
A/n: I know I said I don't like angst and stuff, but since I'm a walking angst piece right now... here ya go! I did it! Someone help me out bc idk how to do tw! If I missed something please tell me! Also please bare in mind that this is my first real fic after not having written anything for 7 years.
This is not proof read, I made this around 1.30am bc I had an idea.......
It was slow, very slow, yet very fast. The first thing that happened was just build up tension. You were mad, frustrated. You needed to vent but didn't want to bother anyone. You would usually confide in Bokuto but he was so busy. The Olympics were coming up and he was training so hard. Each time he came home he was even more tired than the day before and the day before that. So you just did what you always do, suck it up and keep your mouth shut.
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You were slipping. You felt it gradually happening. Not like the times before, when for the most part you didn't know what was happening. No this time you knew.
A week. That's all you could handle. Slipping up here and there, mentioning tiny details to your best friends. Until eventually you just wanted to scream on top of your lungs on the highest building you could find at that moment. Luckily one of your friends caught on and asked you out for a walk around the park.
The two of you talked for hours. Finally getting it off your chest. It felt like such a relief. You felt like the situation was under control again. Nothing wrong. A false alarm? Or maybe just in time before the damage was out of anyone control.
Another week passed. You absorbed yourself in work, house duties and watched some episodes of your favourite anime. You cherished the little time you could spend with Bokuto and loved the stories he would tell you about the team. Your best friend also checked in on you, because they were still worried about you even though you brushed them off saying all was well.
But that nasty tiny feeling inside you was still there. A little unconscious, but festering each day, oh so slowly.
It started with getting tired more often. You blamed it on work. But even on your days off, you would wake up feeling exhausted. You would be so drained even when you did nothing but watch TV or play games to pass the time.
The next thing that happened made you more aware of your situation. Your friend asked you to go out for a walk again. You guys talked, gave an update on what was bothering you but switched the topic to an update about your friend's life. While they were telling you about their life you noticed you weren't exactly paying attention. Your mind wandering off to nowhere, zoning out of the conversation. You felt bad. Your friend had been there for you, listening to all your problems and yet here you were not really paying attention to them.
The same goes for Bokuto. He would come home, ask you how your day was and continue with telling you about his. As much as you loved his stories about the antics of Hinata and Kageyama or the other players, you actually couldn't be bothered in the least. Responding with a 'really?', 'Oh yeah...', 'that's nice'.
Next came closing yourself off. You just wanted everything to get over with. Counting the minutes down for when you could finally go home from work and curl yourself in a blanket on the couch. When Bokuto came home you would usually be "too absorbed" in whatever was playing on the TV or you would already be in bed, blaming it on work or just being tired.
You started losing interest in all the things you liked. You couldn't occupy yourself anymore. The days became longer and longer. You started losing your appetite. Only eating when your body basically screamed for nutrition and even then you would sometimes ignore your own body's scream for food.
At some point, you were just so done. Not caring to force a smile on your face anymore. Plain up ignoring your friends when they texted you. And when Bokuto would come home. The lights would already be out and you would lay in bed with the covers over your head and your back facing him.
Usually, Bokuto picks up very fast on your moods and emotions. Having gone through his well famous emo modes when he was younger. The two of you were always open and honest with your feelings and emotion towards each other. It was something you guys as a couple prided yourselves on.
It was also something you especially needed. Having gone through horrible panic attacks, anxiety and depression. Talking yourself down was/is also something your very good at. And Bokuto picked up on that very quickly when you just started dating.
To some Bokuto seems very carefree and not aware of his surroundings. But in actuality, he's very emotionally intelligent. So he struck up a conversation you would've never guessed you'd have on one of your many dates. Bokuto eased you into it, told you about his emo modes and made you comfortable enough to let you open up about your experiences. This actually helped you go past the blockade that was stopping you from making this relationship official.
But with Bokuto training for the upcoming Olympics and him being away from home more often than not, it was easier to go unnoticed for him and easier for you to slip and fall into a deeper depression.
After weeks of walking around like a zombie, you finally broke down. You had a day off. When you woke up Bokuto was already gone. He texted you later that day saying he would sleep at the training centre because training would go on longer than normal.
It had been a beautiful day, the weather was nice, the sun had been shining, the warmth of summer started to peek through. It would have made you giddy had it not been for the nasty pest growing bigger and bigger inside you. When dusk came you felt it bubbling up. You tried really hard to ignore it. Tried to soothe it with some episodes of your comfort anime. Tried to pick yourself up and pamper yourself with some extra steps in your skincare routine but it was all in vain. Once you stepped inside your shared bedroom you felt the tears trickling down your face. Through your tears you searched for your earbuds, plugging them in and searching for the best sad songs playlist you could find. Shutting off the lights as you lay down in the middle of the bed.
At first, you just lay there, looking up at the ceiling, silent tears streaming down your temple, past your ears into your hair. You felt the tears slowly make their way past your scalp until they finally touched the soft pillow behind your head. You turned your head getting uncomfortable from the feeling of your tears. The pillow your head lay on smelled like him, it's smelled like everything you loved, comforted, his favourite shower gel, a hint of sweat, it smelled like warm sunbeams on an early summer morning, it smelled nice. This made you break down in sobs, which became louder the longer you went on. You stuffed your face in his pillow, threw the covers around you, trying to silence your sobs and screams. They were too loud for you, agonising pain shot through you. You felt alone. Spiralling deeper into a dark hole that was your mind.
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When Bokuto stepped inside your shared apartment he tried to be as silent as he could. The lights were out, a sign that you would probably be asleep already. While trying to get his shoes off Bokuto debated whether or not he should wake you up. He noticed you being unusually tired and sleeping earlier than you normally would. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall, 9.04 pm. A soft smile crossed his features. Maybe he was a bit selfish but he decided to wake you and tell you about his surprise day off coach gave the team. Shuffling around in the dark apartment trying not to bump into any furniture he neared the bedroom door.
The smile Bokuto had on his face disappeared in an instance. His heart dropped when he heard your muffled sobs. You sounded tired. As if you had been crying for a while now. Bokuto rested his head against the door, gripping the handle until his knuckles turned white. How could he not have noticed it before? Sure he was busy, but he always noticed when you started feeling down. Was he not paying attention to you? Had he been too absorbed in his own world? Why didn't you tell him anything? You guys told each other everything. What got you down like this so bad you wouldn't open up to anyone, not even him. But most of all, he was angry, angry at himself for letting it get this far.
But right now that wasn't important. What's most important is you. Without further hesitation Bokuto softly opened the door and stepped towards the bundled up form on the bed.
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You felt a cold rush of the air when your blankets lifted up from you. Goosebumps made their way onto your skin. But it wasn't long before you felt a comfortable warmth surround you. Nothing like the suffocating warmth from your blankets. Two strong arms held your body. You didn't have to look up to see who the arms belonged to.
No words were spoken between the two of you. You started sobbing a little louder again until you felt the soft vibrations of Bokuto humming. Taking your earbuds out you looked up at the man 'Kou..' you sniffle softly, but before you could continue Bokuto laid your head back on his chest and started petting your head 'It's okay now. I'm here. Let's just stay like this okay? We'll talk tomorrow' he gave your head a soft kiss before continuing humming again.
Tired from all the crying combined with the soft vibrations coming from Bokuto humming you closed your eyes. Your worries drifted away, tomorrow was another day. You would tell Bokuto everything. But for now, you felt content, safe in his arms. The bad feelings slowly subsiding for at this moment, he was your light, he was the warmth you were desperately searching for, he is your home.
#idk if this makes any sense for anyone#but this is how i feel#everything is all over the place#and i just need to find home again?#just that comfortable feeling#even if it's not related to that#so yeah#it was supposed to be a drabble/blurb#i made a whole ass fic#damn#bokuto kotaro#bokuto koutaro#haikyuu#hq#haikyuu angst#bokuto x gn!reader#bokuto x reader#tw: anxiety#tw: depressive thoughts#tw: depression#tw: depressive episode#tw: panic attack#tw: eating habits#tw: eating problems#haikyuu bokuto#haikyuu x reader#bokuto angst#bokuto fanfiction#hq angst#angst
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