#i also wanted to be a baker when i was kindergarten aged!
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Intro to the Extended Fett Clan (WKatMAM)
I’m doing this so I don’t have to take an unnecessarily long amount of time during Part 4 to explain the whole family to everyone. I get my second Covid shot tomorrow, so hopefully Chapter One will be up soon. Enjoy!
Clan Leaders
Nielsen Fett: Better known as 99 in canon, Nielsen goes by NiNi or ba’buir with his grandkids. He’s a farmer, and hosts the Annual Fett Family Reunion every year. Married to Kamino. Father to Lynx, Courey, Wolffe's mom (no, I'm not revealing her name yet), Alfred (Alph), Charisma, Arla, and Jango. Grandpa to all the kids who will be listed.
Kamino Fett: I say screw the Kaminoans by naming the matriarch of this au after their home planet and making her love her family no matter what happens. She was a baker, passed away from old age two years before this au takes place. Used to have those grandma glasses-on-a-chain. Was blonde. Mother to Lynx, Courey, Wolffe's mom, Alph, Charisma, Arla, and Jango. Her grandkids call her KamKam or ba’buir.
Subclan One (aka some of the Commanders)
Lynx Fett: The oldest of the next generation of Fetts. He's a vet. Has a full goatee. Married to Nala Se. Father to Bly, Gree, Ponds, Keeli, Colt, and Zariza. Grandpa to Colette. More lax on his kids than his wife. Good dad, poor choice in women.
Nala Se: Geneticist (obviously lol). Very strict because "Lynx is too lax on their kids" (he's not). Mother to Bly, Gree, Ponds, Keeli, Colt, and Zariza. Grandma to Colette. Few people in the family actually like her.
Bly Secura-Fett: 27, Kindergarten teacher. Married to Aayla, father to Colette. Oldest of the next generation of Fetts/the cousins. You might recognize his username from the previous parts, Old Man Dad Bly. Ponds was the one to set it to that. Bly doesn't care enough about it negatively to switch it.
Aayla Secura-Fett: 26, Ryl Translator. Married to Bly, mother of Colette. Known for wearing her hair in braids. She's not in the cousin chat but Bly's constantly showing her screenshots of it and she enjoys it.
Colette Secura-Fett: Almost 1, a Blyla baby! So far clings to Bly more than Aayla, but that may change. Gets lots of love and snuggles from the extended fam.
Gree Fett: 25, biologist. Second oldest of the subclan and of the cousins. Still has that haircut but mainly out of spite of his brothers instead of in honor of them this time. Chat Name: Green Man.
Pontius “Ponds” Fett: 23. He’s working to be an architect, but is currently stuck with a job he’s over-qualified for in the meantime. Known in the chat as Lakes because he thinks he’s funny sometimes. Most likely to start something in subclan one, least likely to be blamed for it... most of the time.
Keeli Fett: 21, cosmetologist. He took a different route than his brothers and went to trade school instead of a 4-year university and consequently got a job before Ponds did. Best hair in the family. Debating whether or not Gree’s haircut is a good enough reason to disown him lol. Chat Name: Keeling Over.
Colt Fett: 17, just finished his junior year of high school. Working a minimum wage summer job to help save for college. Met his best friends Havoc and Blitz in kindergarten; they all work at the same place now. Chat Name: Neigh.
Zariza Fett: 15, just finished her freshman year of high school. Only daughter in the subclan, which is both a blessing and a curse with Nala for a mom. Wants to be a photographer, has taken pictures throughout the reunions the past few years for NiNi. Has lots of blackmail on everyone as a result. Chat Name: Zzzzzz.
Subclan Two (aka the Coruscant Guard)
Courey Fett: Second oldest of his generation of Fetts. He’s a bartender (and owner), and the loudest and most rambunctious of his siblings. Full beard. Married to Slyvia Fett. Father to Fox, Thorn, Jek, Rys, and Corsica. His name is vaguely based on me misspelling Coruscant many many times in the past.
Slyvia Fett: You thought Nala Se was an interesting choice in mom? This lady is a super successful but shady businesswoman. Nobody knows the specifics and they’re not sure they want to know. Also kinda strict, but she’s also not home often enough for it to make too much impact. Married to Courey, mother to Fox, Thorn, Jek, Rys, and Corsica. She has dirty blonde hair, which two of her kids inherited when it combined with the rare blond Fett gene. Vaguely based on Sly Moore.
Fox Fett: 19, just finished his freshman year of college. Perpetually tired because of homework, actual work, and the projects he choses to do. Two days older than Wolffe and reminds him often. Actually best friends with Wolffe. They go to the same university. Like Wolffe, loves his siblings but is loath to admit it. Causes more trouble than people think. Chat Name: Think Outside the Fox.
Thorn Fett: 16, just finished his sophomore year of high school. Older of the two dirty-blonds in the sub-clan. Second oldest blond of the cousins after Rex. Suspicious in how he’s so optimistic when he grew up with Fox for a brother haha. Occasionally likes to stir up trouble in the chat, especially since he’s the one who made it. Chat Name: Thorn in Your Side.
Jek Fett: 11, just finished fifth grade. His best friend is Thire. Too young for the chat, not too young to cause trouble. Like all little brothers, switches between ignoring Fox and Thorn and always trying to get their attention. Like all middle children, turns it around and also picks on Rys and Corsica for the same things Fox and Thorn use on him.
Rys Fett: 8, just finished second grade. Current goal in life is to catch Fox sneak-attacking him just once. Tags along with Jek most of the time, sometimes to bug him, sometimes because he thinks he’s cool. Also too young for the chat.
Corsica Fett: 7, just finished first grade. Only daughter of subclan two. The second of the dirty blonde haired kids in this subclan. Hangs out with Unique a lot at family reunions. Has the art of bugging her brothers at the most inconvenient times down. Already learning to blackmail people. Name lightly based on the correct spelling of Coruscant. Also too young for chat.
The Koons (aka our MCs! The Wolfpack)
Plo Koon: My favorite space dad haha. I think you get the gist by now. Get ready for some more puns! Definitely the type of dad to wear a fanny pack. His sunglasses are probably just transition glasses that switch too easily and he just never told anyone lol. Actually, I never mentioned it, but he’s also a social worker.
A[redacted] Koon: Our boys’ mom. Married to Plo, though she died giving birth to Comet. Twin to Alfred. Her name is a surprise for later, so here’s her first initial, at least. Used to wear glasses or contacts, depending on the day.
Wolffe Koon: 19, just finished his freshman year of college. The star of the show lol aka our pov character. Loves his brothers but rarely admits it out loud. Best friend is Fox and is going to use that to his advantage for blackmail this reunion. Cousin Chat Name: Werewolf? There Wolffe! Subclan Chat Name: Howl are you? Wolfpack Chat Name: Grr.
Boost Koon: 15, just finished his freshman year of high school. The only person in the family who likes Gree’s haircut. His maroon hair is starting to grow out now. It may or may not be his turn to get lost this time... Chat Name: T-Mobile. Subclan Chat Name: Ghosty Boi. Wolfpack Chat Name: Booster Seat.
Sinker Koon: 13, just finished seventh grade and it shows. His silver hair is also starting to grow out. Gonna cause some chaos, since he’s close in age to many of the Fett cousins. Chat Name: Banana Sink. Subclan Chat Name: Hook, Line, and— Wolfpack Chat Name: Stinker. (No, it hasn’t been changed back yet.)
Comet Koon: 10, just finished fourth grade. Still obsessed with penguins. Also gonna cause some chaos with some of the cousins. Koon most likely to get hurt during the reunion by climbing on and jumping off things he shouldn’t. Also too young for the chat.
Subclan Three (aka Cody + the 501st)
Alfred “Alpha” Fett: Twin to A, younger by 5 minutes and never talks about it. Married to Sevannah. Father to Cody, Rex, Fives, Echo, Tup. Owns a gym named Triple A. Used to be a personal trainer, which is how he met Sevannah. Technically the middle child of his siblings.
Sevannah Fett: Professional and Olympic archer. Married to Alph, mother to Cody, Rex, Fives, Echo, Tup. Yes, her name comes from seventeen as in “Alpha-17.″ (Maybe not) surprisingly, the more in shape out of her and Alph since she’s still competing lol.
Kote “Cody” Fett: 18, just graduated high school. Planning on attending college for sports management. Twin to Rex (he’s older by 7 minutes). Got his scar while playing football or something, I’m not really sure. Any Ghost member you can think of is probably his friend. Chat Name: *hacker voice* I’m In.
Rex Fett: 18, just graduated high school. Planning on being an athletic trainer. Twin to Cody. Naturally blond — and I mean blond and not dirty blond. Only one of subclan three who is. Any member of Torrent that’s not his brother is his friend. Chat Name: Jurassic Park.
Fives Fett: 13, just finished seventh grade. His full name will be revealed during Part 4. Twin to Echo (older by five minutes, yes). Wants to learn how to be a skydiving instructor solely to try to help Rex get over his fear of heights. Best friends are Domino Squad. Chat Name: Sixes.
Echo Fett: 13, just finished seventh grade. His full name will also be revealed during Part 4. Twin to Fives. Seems more chill than Fives but the reunion always proves that wrong. Best friends are Domino. Occasionally babysits the Havocs. Chat Name: ECHO Echo echo.
Tup Fett: 10, just finished fourth grade. Tup is his full name, yes. Starting to get into archery like his mom. Canon tattoo is a mole here. His hair’s down to his shoulders and super curly. Cody’s often pulling sticks out of it. Too young for the chat.
The Havocs (aka the Bad Batch)
Charisma Havoc (neé Fett): Interior designer. Married to Gunner. Mother to Hunter, Cross, Wrecker, Timmy. Also on the louder end of her and her siblings. The Havocs are pretty background characters, since their kids are much younger than Wolffe and also bc the show’s still establishing things.
Gunner Havoc: Carpenter. Married to Charisma. Father to Hunter, Cross, Wrecker, Timmy. Together Charisma and Gunner could probably start an HGTV show lol. But they don’t want to so they aren’t. Last name comes from the Havoc Marauder (tbb's ship).
Hunter Havoc: 14, just finished eighth grade. Part of his canon tattoo is a birthmark, though not all of it. His hair is also long enough to be put into a small ponytail. Keeli’s got some cousins to teach, doesn’t he lol. Chat Name: Hunter-Gatherer.
Cross Havoc: 12, just finished sixth grade. Grumpy almost-teenager. Wolffe doesn’t run into him often because he tries to avoid his older cousins (well, actually, most of his cousins) the entire reunion every year. Lurks in the chat but his username is Mad (courtesy of Thorn). I shortened his name because it is an actual name and Crosshair is only a clone name.
Walter “Wrecker” Havoc: 9, just finished third grade. The older cousins claim he got his nickname in the “Wrecker Incident” and make it out to be this overly dramatic thing that's classified to those 12 and under. In all reality, it was him accidentally crashing into a few things of his brothers when he was first learning to walk. Gree just thought it was hilarious to blow it out of proportion. Too young for the chat.
Timothy “Timmy” Havoc: 7, just finished first grade. Wears glasses. A bit too young to have Tech as a nickname quite yet, but he definitely would in the future. Also mostly in the background, considering he's 12 years younger than Wolffe. Too young for chat.
The Concords (aka let's add some more girls to this family)
Arla Concord neé Fett: She's the only adult beside her husband that I currently don't have a job listed for, but that's because my brain won't supply one. Second youngest of her siblings. Married to Felix. Mother to Clementine, Ansonia, Unique, Majorca, Tessa, Violet. Screw canon/legends, she's still alive.
Felix Concord: Again, haven't thought of a job for him yet, but he has one. Married to Arla. Father to Clementine, Ansonia, Unique, Majorca, Tessa, Violet. Last name comes from Concord Dawn.
Clementine Concord: 12, just finished sixth grade. Wants to be an astronaut or astrophysicist one day. Spends lots of time wrangling her younger sisters. Chat Name: Orange Gal.
Ansonia Concord: 10, just finished fourth grade. Wants to be an actress, really bring those dramatic Fett genes into play lol. Spends lots of time bugging Clementine and bossing around her younger sisters. Too young for the chat.
Unique Concord: 7, just finished first grade. Wants to be a doctor, spends lots of time hanging out with Ansonia. The two of them could probably do a pretty accurate hospital soap opera without prompting or knowing haha. Hangs with Corsica a lot at reunions, though. Yeah, idk where her name came from either. Dirty-blonde hair. Too young for the chat (duh).
Majorca Concord: 6, just finished kindergarten. Still learning basic writing and loves it so much she wants to be an author. Named after the city in Spain on accident — I totally didn’t realize that was why her name seemed familiar until like 2 months after I named her. Also too young for the chat or to appear much in the story.
Quintessa “Tess/Tessa” Concord: 5, preschooler. The other blonde kiddo. Picks on Gree’s hair without prompting from any cousins or sisters. Likes to play pretend with Majorca when they can. Also likes to draw stars and castles and such often. Obviously too young for the chat, appears slightly more because of her natural roasting abilities.
Violet Concord: 3, maybe a preschooler? Again, doesn’t really appear much. Hangs out a bit with Boba and Tessa when the family gets together. Very very obviously too young for the chat.
Subclan Four (the OG Fetts)
Jango Fett: People usually make him one of the dads or the grandpa, but nah, he gets baby of his generation status. I wanted to keep with the “Arla is his older sister” thing but she’s the second youngest so he’s the youngest. Has been super mysterious about his life from the second he moved out but still shows up to family events. Knows who Boba’s mother is but refuses to tell. Father of Boba (obviously).
Boba Fett: 4, preschooler. Like I said above, hangs with Tessa and Violet during family events. More likely to accidentally reveal details about Jango’s life than Jango. Surprise baby but not for Jango. Jango knew. The family didn’t know until Jango showed up with infant Boba to a family event and went “this is Boba, no questions will be answered.” Also very obviously too young for the chat.
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And that’s the extended Fett clan! Feel free to ask questions, I’ve got plenty of information about (most of) them and their roles in this au.
#b talks#b writes#fic wips#wkatmam#commander wolffe#boost#sinker#comet#plo koon#not gonna tag anyone else bc that's a lot lol
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The Disturbing Dark Truth about Cat Noir (Theory).
Hello my name is well it doesn't matter what my name is but what matters is this dark disturbing truth behind our favorite kitten, Cat Noir and what is he really behind all the jokes/puns/flirt but mostly what person inspired Thomas Astruc to create Cat Noir.
Cat Noir is actually inspired by a little boy Thomas Astruc knew since childhood. His name is Anthony Cheung-Fernández, son of Wang Lei-Zhang Wei Huáng-Cheung, a Chinese American biker gang member and Catalina-Juana "CJ" Luciana Fernández-Hernández, an underage Mexican-Latina prostitute/stripper but i'm not gonna get into his childhood even despite he's an inspiration for Cat Noir. Behind his jokes , puns and flirtatious motivations, I think it's possible Cat Noir is an abused mentally unstable boy with special needs and so we only see the imagined world and events through his eyes because he's coping with the harsh and cruel reality of the world he's born into.
Cat Noir is a crack baby because his mom smoked all lot of crack cocaine while she was carrying him in her womb and it causes Cat Noir mental and psychological damage for life but he even has tremors from arms and legs to whole body because he's so severely damaged by crack cocaine and since he's severely uncontrolled shaky, you might mistaken Cat Noir's uncontrollable tremors for being cold and having seizures but often he has high-pitched screaming and high-pitched crying which he's often mistakenly thought to be a girl by others and his instabilities are also the results of being a crack baby.
What Cat Noir's classmates didn't know, is the frequent abuse and neglect Cat Noir has endured and suffered at home. Cat Noir is a special needs child who suffer from abuse , neglect and bullying but this traumatic experiences has left poor Cat Noir traumatized , easily scared , shy , nervous , easily startled , shaking-in-fear and easily fearful or easily frightened of others. A bunch of mean kids and bullies would called Cat Noir "stupid" , "dummy" , "idiot" , "retard" , "dumbass" and "dimwitted" since they knew Cat Noir has Autism , Down Syndrome , Mental Retardation and Hydrocephalus, they believe he's too stupid to be in school and having low-intelligence means he can't learn.
Due to Cat Noir having Autism and Down Syndrome it can be hard for him to keep up with other kids because he learns things slowly than others and it's no wonder he's put into a Special Education classes. Cat Noir was born with Down Syndrome due to his younger mother's age and older father's age but some children with Down syndrome (like Cat Noir) are born to women under age 35 because younger women have far more babies.
But if we only see the imagined world and events through his eyes wouldn't that means it's nothing but Cat Noir's imaginations we only saw on the show but if that's the case then how come we don't see the reality outside of his eyes, could it be that outside of his eyes, it's full of neglect , abuse , torture , lies , bullying and harassment that he turned to his imaginations , puns and jokes as a coping mechanism to escape from it. So we're gonna analyzed his relationship with other people and compared to the canon relationship he supposedly has.
Ladybug.
She is a friend of Cat Noir but also the closes he has but is she really a good friend to Cat Noir? In the show, Ladybug is shown to be verbally abusive and physically abusive towards Cat Noir in almost various episodes from Bubbler , Origins Part 1 , Stormy Weather and Sliencer, she uses her yoyo to hit Cat Noir with but surprisingly she never regretted but kept on doing it. Ladybug knew about Cat Noir's condition but instead of sympathizing with him and supporting/getting him help, she chose to convinced him his imaginations is real and everything he believes is reality but that's reason why Cat Noir depicted Ladybug as a stubborn , easily annoyed and bad-tempered person who's so quickly to get angry but this is the tip of the iceberg because Ladybug is not just verbally abusive and physically abusive, she's also sexually abusive towards Cat Noir. Ladybug would take advantage of Cat Noir by raping him but she usually would forced herself on Cat Noir and grabbed his penis and put it into her vagina even though despite Cat Noir not being ready for a proportional relationship, she's willing to do whatever she wants with him even if it means it the cost of their friendship, it also explains why Ladybug flirts with Cat Noir because Cat Noir knew about Ladybug being sexually abusive and sexually active. Ladybug has been doing this since the age of 12 while Cat Noir was 11 but ever since then she's been doing sexual activities with Cat Noir due to her seeing Cat Noir as a sex toy to play and have "fun" with, due it's no wonder throughout the series Cat Noir is never started dating because of the history of being sexually abused. Ladybug has Black hair with Blue reflections and Baby blue eyes but has a slim body, her middle name is Marietta although is a similar name to Cat Noir's elder half sister, Marietta "Marie" Kyle.
Marinette.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a teenage Eurasian girl who is close friends with Cat Noir, she's 2 months older than Cat Noir (Marinette was born on July 22, 2001 and Cat Noir was born on September 25, 2001) and she's been mistaken for Ladybug and Marietta by Cat Noir because she looks like them.
Marinette has 2 older half sisters, Bridgette Cheng and Charlotte Dupain, who were born from their parents 1st marriage which it makes Marinette born from 2nd marriage. Her parents are Tom Dupain, an Italian-French baker who love his Bakery and his daughters including his stepdaughter and Sabine Cheng, a Chinese immigrant who moved from China to Paris with her daughter to give her a better life and loves her daughters including her stepdaughter.
Marinette has a mixture of Black and Blue hair with Bluebell eyes but she's always mistaken to be Ladybug or Marietta by Cat Noir very often because to Cat Noir, Ladybug and Marinette looked the same but also it's due to how Marinette and Marietta look very similar because of their names and hair colors.
Much like Cat Noir, Marinette has been bullied by Chloé Bourgeois, one of the most popular girls in Françoise Dupont High School but unlike Cat Noir, Marinette had been bullied by Chloé since Kindergarten. Although due to being bullied at school, Marinette became insecure about herself and is scared of Chloé since then.
Marinette has ADHD , Dyslexia , Dyscalculia and Dyspraxia or "Clumsy Child Syndrome" which it explains about her clumsiness and reading difficulties but she's not alone as Cat Noir had learning disabilities himself so he knew how Marinette feels when it comes to being different from other kids. When Marinette said "But all the teachers say I don't sound natural when I read" meaning all teachers are aware of Marinette's reading difficulty and Cat Noir did a good job of depicting Marinette as a "clumsy girl with reading problems" since he knew her so too well. Despite Marinette being clumsy in front of Cat Noir, he's still doesn't understand her condition even tho he has learned about it before.
Marinette does have a close bond with Cat Noir as they're best friends and their friendship is stronger but they can very protective of each other at times because for Marinette, she knew Cat Noir has Autism and is very vulnerable to getting hurt easily and getting attacked by bullies and mean kids but for Cat Noir, it's due to his feline instincts of being protective of their owners, since Marinette is the closest to an "owner" Cat Noir actually has.
Marinette have sleepover with her friends and Cat Noir but mostly it's with Cat Noir because he's the only boy who's interested in girl stuff like makeups , dresses and skirts.
Marinette is aware of Cat Noir's instabilities and knows he's not given any help but she's able to give Cat Noir support. Marinette knew Cat Noir has long-term tremors since he's a crack baby and knows he has a hard time controlling his body movement. Marinette does frequently often visits Cat Noir in Mrs. Caroline's Class, a Special Education Class where Cat Noir goes in because of his learning disabilities and it was thought that because of Marinette's reading and learning disability, she would be in Mrs. Caroline's Special Ed class but instead she's currently in Mrs. Bustier's class.
Chloé Bourgeois.
Chloé is the most popular girl in Françoise Dupont High School and is the head cheer captain of a cheerleading squad.
She is the daughter of the Mayor of Paris and Queen of Fashion magazines and owner of a fashion company. Chloé is spoiled rotten by her father and verbally and emotionally abused by her mother.
Chloé knew Cat Noir before preschool and it was when his mother worked as a maid for The Bourgeois family but unfortunately she saw Cat Noir's mom sleeping with her father and Audrey was so angry at Cat Noir's mother that she wanted her fired but however André kept her on. Due to this it causes Chloé to take her anger and frustration out on Cat Noir by bullying him for being the "son of a hooker" but most importantly it explains why in fanfiction stories, Chloé mistreated Cat Noir. Chloé has always bullied and making fun of Cat Noir for coming from a very poor family , living in a shack to living in a 1960s motorhome , wearing baggy outfits , not being as rich as her , not being as popular as her , not being as smart as her , being dirty , being weak , being a mama's boy , not being muscular like other boys and not having masculinity like other boys. But however Chloé can go too far whenever she bullies Cat Noir, like she's been beaten him up causing Cat Noir's injuries to be more visible and bleeding.
His mother.
Cat Noir's mother is Selina Kyle, an alcoholic , drug addict and smoker young mother who gave birth to 8 children from 7 different fathers. She became a mother at a young age and she's an mentally unstable person who barely could take care of her children. She went from having multiple boyfriends to having multiple girlfriends. All of her children look more like their fathers than their mother. She bears a passion hatred towards man because she was physically abused by her father when she was a child. Her mother committed suicide when she was little and since she's the only one who looks like her mother, it's no wonder her father abuses her physically.
She had Cat Noir at 17 from a father she hardly knew and the baby daddy was 38 when Cat Noir was born. Since the baby daddy was arrested for supposedly "gang raping a minor", not only he'll never meet his baby but she'll have to raised Cat Noir on her own. She was so unstable both mentally and physically, she abused and neglected Cat Noir often 24/7 but she did leave him in a neglected state. She left her children in the care of her boyfriend but her boyfriend wanted nothing to do with Cat Noir and so as a result, he locked Cat Noir in the room for an hour or days or even a month/years whenever he has to deal with Cat Noir.
Selina abuse drugs and alcohol when she was a kid but due to this, the drugs completely fried her brain and gave her permanent brain damage but the alcohol cause her brain damage to worsen, she had memory loss. Thanks to the drugs it caused her to be unstable both mentally and physically, she went to a rehabilitation facilities for drug addicts and alcoholics like herself but she went from going to rehab often to now staying there until she's drug-free and alcohol-free because of her history of drug usage and overdosing on them but surprisingly surviving it, due to this she became absent in not only her kids but Cat Noir's life as well and she also became very sickly , extremely tired , supposedly weight gaining and severely skinny.
Rose Lavillant.
Rose Lavillant is one of Marinette's closest friends and the most nicest person Cat Noir has ever met. Rose is lead singer of a rock band, Kitty Section and Kitty Section band is a hybrid of a cat and unicorn but Cat Noir likes to call Kitty Section "Unikitty" since it is a combination after all. Rose loves unicorns which it's why Cat Noir sees her as a playmate and is depicted as sweet , kind and playful according to Cat Noir at least. Princess Twinkle Peach is Rose's favorite plush unicorn although Cat Noir finds Princess Twinkle Peach interesting because of her designs but again with his schizophrenic condition, he thought Princess Twinkle Peach can talk to him and move on her own.
She likes to sit on a soft pink cushion seat so it smoothed Cat Noir.
Lila Rossi.
Lila is the most popular girl in Françoise Dupont High School, she's from Italy and back in Italy, she used to bully a girl for no reasons. Lila is the biggest slut in school.
When Lila was at school in Italy, she used to sleep with popular guys for popularity. Lila most likely slept with Cat Noir because she knew he's the most vulnerable child and would get easily taken advantage of but Lila always raped Cat Noir which it causes her exposure in the first place and she barely took advantage of Cat Noir.
Much like Cat Noir, Lila grew up without a father in her life and is only raised by her mother but unlike Cat Noir, Lila lies about her home life , parents , why she's not in school , why she had bad grades , where she's at , why she's late , why she's failing and why she's tired.
Last but not least Cat Noir (even though he doesn't count as a relationship).
Cat Noir was born premature and as an accident on September 25, 2001 to an underage prostitute and a grown biker gang member. When he was born, he was in a incubator in the NICU room. He was an unexpected , unplanned and unwanted child because he has his dad's looks such as blonde hair , green eyes and orange-tinted skin.
Cat Noir has Autism , Mental Retardation , Severe Schizophrenia , Down Syndrome , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome , Alcohol-Related Birth Defect and Hydrocephalus but he has 3 types of Autism, Low-functioning Autism , Asperger's Syndrome and Severe Autism or Level 3 Autism. Due to his condition, he even has a learning disability as a result from his Autism , Down Syndrome , Mental Retardation and Hydrocephalus. Cat Noir even has a stunted growth as a result of his mom's alcoholism and it's no wonder he's short and looks younger for his age.
Cat Noir comes from a very poor family and lives from a shack to a 1960s motorhome. He's the 7th child of 8 children and each of Cat Noir's siblings have different fathers but they all have the same mother, Cat Noir is the oldest male in the household full of girls but his mom only wanted daughters so by the time Cat Noir was born, she's disappointed her baby is male and blamed the father for giving her a son instead of a daughter.
Cat Noir's mother was only 17 years old when she gave birth to Cat Noir although he was brought into the world irresponsibly by his mother because of her drug addictions and results due to 5 times of broken condoms. Cat Noir was raised by his absent on-and-off again mother and his mom often neglected Cat Noir 24/7 but she left him in a care of someone else except they neglected and abused Cat Noir too because he resembled his mother.
Cat Noir was often abused and neglected by his babysitters and other caretakers. What's even more messed up is the fact that he's a special needs child since he's autistic and have down syndrome but one of his babysitters would leave him in filth and one of his caretakers would beat him if he make noises.
Cat Noir transfer to Françoise Dupont High School at age 11+1/2 years old when he was in the 7th grade due to frequent bullying , abuse and neglect at a previous school, he's in a special ed class. The first person he met was Marinette Dupain-Cheng who was 12 years old at the time and since then he became inseparable towards Marinette due to her kindness , good nature , sweet tendencies and being nice to him.
Cat Noir sees Marinette as a mother figure and often calls her "mommy" but he likes to cuddle with Marinette and rub his face on Marinette to his affection towards her. Marinette knows Cat Noir has Autism and Down Syndrome thus she's patient and gentle with Cat Noir. Marinette taught Cat Noir how to walk and talk at 13 years old despite what everyone told her she can't teach Cat Noir speech.
Cat Noir has a developmental delay and due to this, he can't meet his milestones like dressing up on his own , feeding himself , cleaning himself , tying his own shoelaces , brushing his hair , brushing his teeth , taking a bath on his own and toilet training.
The before and after Aftermath of abuse and neglect.
Cat Noir was placed in the care of his mother's boyfriend but sadly he was further abused by his mom's boyfriend and neglected by him, he was even locked in his room 24/7, due to this isolation and neglect, Cat Noir's only companion was his stuff animals and his schizophrenic state is worsen but he believes his stuff animals could talk to him and move by themselves but it however freaks out other people because "what kind of kid believes his stuffed animals would talk and moving on its own" but he supposedly is always talking gibberish to "someone" else when actually he's talking to himself.
Cat Noir was born premature and as an accident due to a broken condom. He has Autism , Mental Retardation , Severe Schizophrenia , Down Syndrome , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome , Alcohol-Related Birth Defect and Hydrocephalus but his Severe Schizophrenia , Bilateral Complete Cleft Lip and Palate , Congenital Heart Defect , Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Alcohol-Related Birth Defect. His Autism , Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome were due to his mom's age being 17 and his dad's age being 38 but most importantly he has Hydrocephalus because of unknown reasons but what if it's actually due to his older father and young mother then it makes sense.
Does Lila really hate Ladybug for embarrassing her in front of the boy she liked or Is it actually in the mind of Cat Noir thinking that's what it is?
Ever wondered why Lila hated Ladybug with a passion, you may think it's because of Ladybug embarrassing Lila in front of Adrien but it's actually not true in fact it's nothing but in Cat Noir's mind, Cat Noir thinks this is why Lila hated Ladybug but in reality it's because Ladybug exposing Lila on how much of a skank oh she is because that bitch sleeps with every guy at school for popularity but however Cat Noir was unaware of Lila being a slut. In Volpina, Lila lies to Adrien about being a descendant of a fox-themed heroine, Volpina but after Ladybug humiliates her in front of Adrien Agreste by exposing her lies about the both of them being close friends and her owning the Fox Miraculous, she hated Ladybug ever since then, however this is not what happened, what actually happen in Volpina is Lila slept with Cat Noir for fame and popularity even despite Cat Noir being the school's outcast and misfit but it didn't matter to her she can sleep with any guy at school. Not only did Lila slept with Cat Noir but she also raped him, Lila knew Cat Noir has a history of being sexually assaulted and is the most vulnerable child but sadly she kept on touching him inappropriately. Ladybug later saw Lila taking advantage of Cat Noir and exposes her as "a bitch who sleeps with every special needs guy at school for personal game , stardom and being well-liked or well-known" since then everyone at school knew Lila is a hoe and loves to sleep with guys with special needs at school for stardom and popularity so that day she hated Ladybug since then.
Is Marinette a normal girl or did Cat Noir sees her as one?
In the theme song it said "In the daytime, I'm Marinette, Just a normal girl with a normal life. But there's something about me that no one knows yet, Cause I have a secret." You heard it "just a normal girl" now the question Is Marinette really normal? Cat Noir depicted Marinette as a shy and clumsy girl who's nice to everyone but Cat Noir knew Marinette doesn't sound natural when she reads so in reality it's due to her Dyslexia and Dyscalculia.
Why does Cat Noir wear a mask?
Cat Noir is known to wear a mask but ever wondered why he wore a mask?, you would think it's because he's hiding his secret identity from others but I think it's because he's hiding a large burn scar on the left side of his face because his mom accidentally spills hot boiling water onto the left side of Cat Noir's face causing the scar to be badly burned and permanent when Cat Noir was younger, as a result of this incident, Cat Noir wore his famous iconic mask to covered the burn scar.
From aftermath of abuse and neglect to foster care.
Since before the age of 13, Cat Noir was frequently abused and neglected by his mother's on-and-off again ex-boyfriend who beats Cat Noir 24/7 whenever he has to deal with Cat Noir and never likes to care of/babysat Cat Noir whenever Cat Noir's mom goes out for work , with one of her multiple boyfriends , to a bar , to the movies with her friends , shopping and going to jail for crimes but most importantly she's currently in a rehabilitation center so this means her ex-boyfriend has to take care of Cat Noir fulltime but he doesn't want to so he locked Cat Noir in his room 24/7 so didn't want to deal with Cat Noir. Everyone started noticing different about Cat Noir, he was severely malnourished , has bruised fingers , bruised toes , black-eye , broken nose , bruised lips , badly bitten arms , badly bitten legs , swollen arms , swollen legs , swollen gums , badly bitten ears , badly bitten fingers , badly bitten toes , knocked-out teeth , scraped knees , scraped elbows , slapped cheeks , bruised bottom and bruised-up back but worse of all, Cat Noir even had a bruised forehead and the fact Cat Noir is a special needs child, is still shocking.
Not long after Cat Noir turns 13 years old, the abuse and neglect became far more worst until one of the school's Child Psychologists took notice of Cat Noir's wounds and find out he's been frequently terribly abused and neglected by his mom's on-and-off again ex-boyfriend since the age of 8. The Child Psychologists decide to contacted the polices and social services to come and take Cat Noir away from the home. Cat Noir was taken to hospital and one of doctors found out Cat Noir is actually 13 with the body of an 11-year-old child but they even find out Cat Noir has a small severely damaged brain.
Cat Noir's Severe Schizophrenia is already worsen up due to again being a crack baby. He believes his imaginations are a reality because of how much he's been convinced too often. Cat Noir hear voices in his head and see things that aren't there but he often talks to himself despite thinking he's talking someone else.
First foster home.
After Cat Noir's mom's ex-boyfriend was arrested for child abuse and child neglect, Cat Noir was placed in Child's Care Services (CCS) because his mother is too unstable to care for him but however Cat Noir is badly affected by the abuse and neglect he suffers for so long that he didn't want to be touched and he has a shock look on his face whenever he break things he didn't mean to which it explains why in the episode, Simon Says, Cat Noir gave a shock look after scolding at Gabriel because in reality he thought he's going to get beaten. Originally Cat Noir was gonna be placed in one of his relative's house but his social worker didn't know how to get in contact with them and he was originally going to be placed in the care of his dad but no one knows where he's currently lives and he has permanent record so he can't be around kids not even his own child.
Cat Noir's social worker decide to put Cat Noir into foster care since there's no one who can take him in. Cat Noir's 1st foster home was bad because his foster parents frequently abused and neglected him but bad enough, the only reason why they take Cat Noir in because they're only doing this for money so they can spend it on and rottenly spoiled their biological kids. His foster mom did the worst things to Cat Noir, such as locking him in his room , refusing Cat Noir to have any contact with anyone and her biological children , refusing to feed Cat Noir , refusing to clothed Cat Noir , leaving Cat Noir in a filthy state , strapping Cat Noir to a potty chair in the daytime , putting Cat Noir into a straitjacket and locking him in a cage-like crib in the daytime and letting her kids bullied Cat Noir 24/7. One day his social worker notice Cat Noir in a terrible state and deciding removed Cat Noir from this terrible house.
From Second foster home to 11th foster home.
Cat Noir had to be moved from foster home to another foster home due frequent abuse and neglect happening but it's like to Cat Noir, no matter where he goes he'll always get abused and neglected. His second and 11th foster home was so bad that he had to be removed again and be placed in a new home but he's always getting bruises all over him as if his previous foster parents don't care about him and only seems to be interested in financials than caring for their foster child. But however it did take 2 weeks for the social workers to placed Cat Noir in a new home and it's always gonna turned bad, no matter what home Cat Noir was placed in and good thing the social workers decide to removed Cat Noir from a terrible home.
12th and Final foster home.
Not long after Cat Noir was removed from his 11th foster home, his social worker almost decide to give up trying to find a good place for Cat Noir to call home and a family to belong to but one of the employees told Cat Noir's social worker that there's one more chance of finding a good home for Cat Noir. Cat Noir's social worker found a home to placed Cat Noir in, The Jackson Family, they have a stable home , love , affection , enough food and care but most importantly at least it's safe place for Cat Noir to call home. He was so malnourished that he became hungry often despite he just ate.
Adoption
Not long after months of Cat Noir being placed in the care of The Jackson family, Christine Jackson, Cat Noir's foster mom decide to adopted Cat Noir and her husband, Harold Jackson, Cat Noir's foster dad agreed to this since they are parental figures to Cat Noir but at first when Cat Noir was placed in their care it was difficult for them to care for a child with special needs but they didn't give up on him and kept providing love and affection towards Cat Noir. Cat Noir was 13 when he was placed in the care of Christine Jackson and Harold Jackson but at first Christine thought Cat Noir was 11, only to find out he's actually 13 and this causes her to take Cat Noir to the hospital but that's when she find out everything about Cat Noir. 3 months later, Christine and Harold officially adopted 13-year-old Cat Noir but they continue to take care of him.
I hope you love this theory.
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knock me the fuck out (i dare ya, babe), part one
TEACHER STEVE AND SOFT BILLY
Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.
(this got long so i decided to divide it into three parts) If you prefer the Ao3 format, click here
Billy’s first thought as he rolls back into Hawkins for the first time in ten years is: I cannot believe Max stayed in this deathtrap.
He didn’t. Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. As soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital, he spent most of his savings on a shitty Ford Bronco (he did NOT miss that car), packed up his records, and hit the fuckin’ road. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.
Billy wonders, a bit guiltily, if Max’s life woulda turned out like this if he hadn’t left her in this Midwestern madhouse all by herself. Only twenty-four and she was already getting a divorce.
He’s never like Justin van Haut but at first, Billy attributed that to the fact that the dude was dating Max - he had a right to hate any dude trying to fuck his sister, he figured. Facts was just facts. But then they got married and it didn’t get better. If anything, Billy might’ve hated him more.
Justin reminded Billy way too fucking much of himself, of the strutting arrogant little dirtbag that he used to be - only, van Haut had the money and the influence to get away with his bad deeds. He was the kind of guy who wanted something only until he got it, and then he didn’t want it anymore.
Billy wasn’t that person anymore. He couldn’t be. It took too much energy that he didn’t have - like the Shadow Monster had sucked all the rage out of him. And without it, there was so little left of Billy Hargrove.
Old Billy would’ve gotten drunk and drove to South Bend. Old Billy would’ve beat the shit outta the bitch-ass pussy who’d spent six and half years cheating on his sister. Old Billy would’ve spent the night in the county lock-up.
New Billy didn’t do that, because New Billy promised Max he’d be there by dinner time. New Billy knew that Max would just have to bail his sorry ass out of prison with money she didn’t really have.
But either way, Billy knew even if he had the chance to, he’d never change the way it worked out, because in the end-
“UNCLE BILLY!”
-in the end, he got his girl.
As soon as he opens the door, she launches herself at him. “Who is this?” he demands seriously, stabilizing her on his lap, letting her grip the stirring wheel in two tiny hands. “Who are you? Where’s my Lulu?”
She giggles at his theatrics, tugging at his leather jacket, wisps of red hair escaping her little braid. “I’m Lulu, Uncle Billy!”
He gasps, feigning shock. “You can’t be my Lulu! You’re such a big girl!”
“I’m going to Kindie-gar-den now!” she says proudly, with a cocky little toss of her head that reminded Billy of her mother so much that he couldn’t hold in a grin.
“Yeah? Do you like school, Lulu?” They get out so that Billy can grab some of his things from the trunk.
“Uh-huh. My teacher is really nice!”
“Yeah? What’s your teacher’s name?” he asks absently, resting Lulu on his hip as he pulls his bag from the trunk.
“He’s Mister H!” she says, and his brows bounce up. Male kindergarten teacher? That was pretty unusual. Maybe Hawkins was finally getting outta the Stone Age. He doubts it, but hope springs eternal.
From inside the house, Max yells “Lauren!”
“Mommy, Uncle Billy is here!” she shouts, and squirms back down to the ground, running for the front porch. “Mommy says you can have my room!”
Billy thinks with no small horror of the pink room with Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s faces staring out from the wallpaper. Jesus Christ. Lulu beams at him, utterly delighted at the prospect of her uncle moving in, and he barely has to lie when he says “Fantastic, princess.”
Max gives him a wry smile as she appears in the doorway, practically reading his mind as she wipes her wet hands on a dishtowel. “Welcome home, big brother.”
Old Billy would’ve told her that this town might be home, but it wasn’t his. Home was a place he lost when his mother left him with Neil. New Billy knows Max isn’t talking about Hawkins. “You’re gonna get so sick of me,” he promises, dropping the paper bag he’d taken from the trunk. “Here.”
“What the hell is this?” she asks, laughing. “You better not’ve brought me a bag of p- oh my god, Billy.”
He chuckles at her open-mouth as Max stares down into the stacks of cash inside the crumbled paper bag. Rubbing the short hair at the back of his neck, he awkwardly answers, “Rent.”
“This is way too much!” she protests, trying to hand it back, like she didn’t miss a mortgage payment last month.
Billy dances out of the way, picking Lulu up and twirling her around. Grinning like a madman at her delighted shrieks, he throws her across one shoulder. “Wanna help me set up the stereo, Lulu?”
“Yeah!”
“Billy, get back here!”
“Can’t hear you, Max! All that loud metal music, y’know!”
---
“I’m home!” he calls, pushing the door shut with his hip. The apartment is completely silent and then Steve hears a familiar ‘thump’ and grins.
With her bushy tail held high, a black cat races down the hall, wailing “Waah!”
“Hello, Angie,” he coos, crouching to scratch her under the chin. “How are the birds today, huh?”
“Waah,” she repeats loudly, pleading at him with her huge yellow eyes.
“Missed me?” he asks, stroking the fluffy black fur along her back. “Let’s have some dinner.”
He must’ve told Dustin a thousand, maybe two thousand, times that he did not want a cat, but the very morning that Dustin left for MIT, he dropped the fluffy soot-black kitten on Steve’s doorstep and raced away anyway. “His name is ‘the Witch-King of Angmar’, good luck, Steve!”
Ha. The joke was on him, though. His ‘Witch-King’ was actually a queen and Steve called her Angie and she was a fucking delight – he suspected that Dustin was just overly dramatic. Steve supposed that the cat was a nice compromise, considering that Dustin had tried not to leave for college at all.
That had probably been the worst six months of Steve’s life.
He’d never fought with one of the kids before, let alone Dustin, but they spent nearly all of his senior year fighting – because Dustin managed to get a scholarship, a two-year free ride to Princeton, and he didn’t want to leave Hawkins. Or more specifically, he didn’t want to leave Steve.
Lucas was bound for Howard in DC, Will and Mike were reuniting at MIT, and Dustin got into fucking Princeton, but he didn’t want to go.
(“What the fuck are you talking about, you don’t wanna go? I don’t give two dicks what you want, shithead. I’m an adult, Dustin, and I can take care of myself! You’re not going to throw your whole life into the toilet because you think I’m LONELY!”)
So, yeah. Steve and Dustin spent Dustin’s senior year of high school fighting, and now Steve has a cat and Dustin is in graduate school, because college was where he fucking belonged, just like Steve had told him.
Filling Angie’s bowl, Steve idly dances around the kitchen to no music, pulling open the fridge and peering inside. “What should we have for dinner, Angie? What do ya think Aunt Robin wants to eat?”
Angie doesn’t bother turning her head away from her cat kibble, but her tail swishes at the sound of his voice. Humming ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, Steve throws together a stir-fry.
Cooking has become one of those parts of being an adult that Steve finds unexpectedly pleasurable. Cutting up the ingredients, mixing spices and seasonings, tending to the food – Steve enjoys that.
He hears jingling in the hallway as Robin comes through the door, purse swinging from her arm. He can also hear her swearing under her breath and she kicks her shoes off onto the mat beside the door. “Angie, Angie baby,” she coos as the cat runs to greet her. “Please feed me, Steve-o. I’m gonna fucking kill Bobby Monroe.”
“Parent-teacher conference didn’t go well?” he asks lightly, fluffing the rice with a fork before he pulled his stir-fry off the fire.
“NO,” she says shortly, before calling “How was the dentist? Is this a bad time to say that I picked up a banana cream pie at Baker’s Square?”
In a rather bloodthirsty tone, Steve replies “Cavity or no cavity, we are eating dessert, Rob.”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to get out a torch and a pitchfork.”
“What happened with Bobby Monroe?”
Oof, speaking of bloodthirsty. Robin’s teeth grind together and Steve pokes her pointedly in the side as he takes their plates down from the cabinet. “His kid is on the verge of going to juvie and this guy just…Does Not get it, Steve.”
Steve’s glasses were on the verge of slipping down the bridge of his nose as he cracked open the tops on two beers. “That’s ‘cause Monroe is golfing buddies with Mayor Walsh and my old pal Tommy Hall, Rob.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh,” she mutters, then brightens a bit. “I got to read another one of Holly’s essays.”
Smiling at his plate, Steve says “Yeah?”
He was a little sad he got into teaching too late to have Holly or any of the other kids as a student, but Robin got the joy of having both Erica Sinclair and Holly Wheeler pass through her classroom. “Her analysis of the creation of the Constitution was…I wanna send it to Harvard, Steve. She’s only fifteen, but she can already understand how to translate nuance in the document. Half of my graduating class couldn’t write something that impressive on early US history.”
“That’s fantastic,” he says, grinning.
“How was Munchkin Land?” she asks, through a mouthful of vegetables and rice.
Laughing slightly, Steve says “The Lollipop Guild always keeps me on my toes. Thank god for naptime!”
They eat banana cream pie on the couch in front of ‘Frasier’, Robin’s toes shoved under his thigh as Steve tries not to fall asleep on the damn sofa. She laughs at him, throwing one of the cushions at his face.
“It’s seven-thirty, you old man,” she teases, coaxing Angie onto her lap.
“Leave me alone,” he whines, melting into his secondhand couch. “I’m an educator of young minds!”
Rob stuck her tongue out at time. “It’s called ‘narcolepsy’, Steven.”
“Please leave me to die in peace.”
She does leave, an hour later, and Steve locks the door behind her like a Responsible Adult.
He is surrounded by almost total silence again. He’s a helluva lot more comfortable with it here in his apartment than he was in his parent’s house. Maybe it was because there wasn’t quite so much space to echo the silence back to him. Maybe it was because there was no steaming blue pool waiting in the backyard. Maybe it was the lack of judgmental silence, which persisted whether his parents were home or away.
He turns off the television and the lights in the living room, babbling baby-talk at Angie as he brushes his teeth and gets into bed, putting his glasses on the nightstand and sliding between the cool sheets.
Angie curls up behind his knees and Steve closes his eyes and listens to the empty space all around him.
Briefly, he spares a thought of apology for the Dustin of years past, because he’d been right. Steve was lonely. But at least now that he was a real grown-up, he was comfortable with it.
Mostly.
---
“You don’t have to do that,” Max mutters, head resting against the back of the sofa. Lauren was put to bed an hour ago and the only sound down in the house in the constant quiet tick of the grandfather clock in the hall.
“Hm?” Billy asks sleepily, sipping his beer. It was a thirty hour drive between San Diego and Hawkins and Billy had only slept once, and not recently. Honestly, that was probably the best state to experience the Horror of the Mouse that awaited him in Lulu’s old room.
Max gestures restlessly to the stacks of hundred dollar bills hastily stuffed into the paper bag. “Don’t pretend that isn’t your entire savings, Billy.”
“Don’t have to anything but die, Max,” he murmurs, his free hand subconsciously drifting to the tight silvery mass of scarring beneath his shirt, even as his eyes remain closed. With a damp shaky sigh, she leans against his side and Billy shifts that hand to drape around her shoulders. “Don’t fuckin’ argue with me, you know I ain’t gonna let you win.”
His t-shirt gets a little wet. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she admits, sniffling. “I missed you.”
His throat clicks as he swallows. “Missed you, Mad Max.”
Though Billy’s exhausted and goes to bed early, he spends an hour in Lulu’s full-sized bed, flat on his back and staring at the ceiling.
Despite his best-laid plans, here he is. Back in Hawkins, Indiana.
Funny that he still kinda feels like a mess, even though he’s a better mess than he used to be.
When his alarm goes off, Billy has the taste of antifreeze in his mouth and though it’s nearly March and Max keeps the heat low, he’s sweating.
Getting Lulu ready for school is a breeze. Firstly, because she’s smart and independent and she knows the routine she’s supposed to be following by now. Second, because once you fight an interdimensional alien monster and temporarily die, not much phases you anymore.
“This one, Uncle Billy!” Lulu says eagerly, pulling him along through the halls, towing her uncle with single-minded determination. "You can meet Sam and Freddy!"
Samantha Cross and Fred Ferris were Lulu's little friends. "Alright, slow down, you're gonna run someone over," he says, amused. She reminds him so much of Max, it's insane. "This one, Lulu?"
"Yeah!" A dark-haired man wearing a navy cardigan over a collared shirt is helping a pair of identical twins with their coats, crouching near a row of cubbies with sixteen name tags on them – from here, Billy can see Lulu’s near the end: Lauren V. "Hi, Mister H!"
Mister H-who-wears-the-dorky-cardigan turns his head and the bottom of Billy’s stomach drops out.
Steve Harrington gives Lulu a dorky little smile, all cute and happy, squinting from behind the lens of his big nerd glasses, and warmly says “Hello, Lauren.”
As a teenage boy, rolling fresh into Hawkins, Billy had fallen into a wild spiral of lust for Steve Harrington the moment he saw him standing next to Nancy Wheeler at a Halloween party. Closeted and angry and unable to escape his father’s rage and his father’s expectations, all Billy wanted was some of Steve’s attention – he hadn’t dared to let himself seriously consider getting more than that. Steve, being a straight teenage boy with a girlfriend, with popularity and money, had froze him out at every turn, and it drove Old Billy fucking crazy. No matter what he did, he never got a reaction more interested than bland annoyance.
As hot as his passions for him burned, Billy couldn’t make the Hawkins ice princess melt even a little.
But at a certain point, when you grow up, you can look on certain things you got attached to or certain things you enjoyed as a teenager and find your attachment sort of silly, maybe even comical. New Billy had sort of looked forward to reaching that conclusion here.
This isn’t like that at all.
Actually, Billy thinks it might even be worse than before. Billy feels a dull flush beginning to form over his face and swallows the urge to say something stupid to get Steve’s attention – that was the ghost of Old Billy talking.
God, he looks so good.
All grown up, the knitwear clinging to the tantalizing hint of strong biceps, Steve’s eyes are huge and dark behind the lenses of the geek glasses, bangs hanging down into his eyes. Beneath the cardigan, his collared shirt shows an enticing view of his clavicles and the moles high on his neck. Billy used to jerk off to a fantasy of sucking on them and seeing what kind of noise he would get.
He looks soft and sleepy, like Billy could just curl himself around him and press his mouth to that bare skin and Steve would just-
“This is my Uncle Billy!”
Billy is abruptly pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Lulu’s voice and realizes that he’s well on his way to pitching a tent in his pants in front of Steve Harrington and his five year old niece. What the fuck is his life, seriously?
“Harrington.”
---
“Harrington,” the man next to Lauren drawls, and suddenly, Steve’s attention is focused and sharp.
This is my Uncle Billy.
He’s…wow, he’s really…grown up.
The sneering boy with a headful of dirty blond curls and a baby-fine mustache has aged into a grown man with a full beard – the old mullet has almost reversed, with the hair at the back and sides nearly shaved off and the hair at the top slicked back away from his face.
Oh my god.
So. So so so so so.
The thing about Billy- “Hargrove,” he greets, hoping that he sounds friendly and surprised and not breathless. “Max didn’t tell me you were coming back to town.”
Billy Hargrove was the very first boy Steve was ever attracted to, and after he left town, the realization that 1) he had a big gay crush on him and 2) he wasn’t ever going to see him again, were sorta the things that began his big bisexual breakdown – what Robin affectionately calls Steve’s ‘all dicks tour of ‘86’, even though she still doesn’t know what started it.
And now Billy’s standing here, in Steve’s classroom, the muscles he used to flash now hidden beneath leather and denim and flannel but possessing every inch of them as much as he had ten years ago. He looks like he could toss Steve over his shoulder and carry him off somewhere, like a caveman.
But hotter, Steve thinks, helplessly staring at the long sweep of his lashes. His lips, the same deep, full red of ripened berries. The dusting of freckles over Billy’s cheeks from hours standing in the sun.
For a moment, Steve feels a stab of uncertain fear – has Max ever told Billy anything about what happened in ’86?
No. His relationship with Max may have gotten slightly distant, especially after she officially married Justin, but he was pretty confident that she wouldn’t have told him such embarrassing and personal information about Steve, not when she that knew Billy had hated him.
At least she seems to be right, though – Billy had calmed down a lot.
Billy shrugs, in that effortless, careless way of his. Steve experiences a visceral urge to have that short beard rub his mouth raw and it makes his stomach twist with desire, uncomfortable in its intensity. “Got tired of San Diego – thought I’d see my best girl. Right, Lulu?”
Lulu. God, that’s cute.
Lauren grins up at Billy, proud as a peacock, and Billy smiles back at her for a moment, so nakedly adoring that Steve’s stomach gives another twist, his insides melting into goo. “Billy lives with me and Mommy now, ‘cause he missed me so much,” she declares, lifting her chin. “I’m his best girl.”
“That’s right,” he vows, cuffing her lightly over the head.
“That’s…really nice of you, Hargrove,” Steve says lightly. He knows that Max is getting a divorce – the entire town knows. Honestly if he didn’t think Max would kick him in the nuts, he’d have a nail bat with Justin’s name on it.
Lucas, chewing on his jealousy like a wad of bubblegum, had told them that Justin had basically spent their entire relationship cheating on her. He’d gotten the most willful girl in school to be his girlfriend and got bored with her almost immediately afterward.
He has a feeling that was the real reason for Billy’s sudden appearance in town after ten years of absence.
Billy shrugs again and peers at Steve through those long lashes. “Max didn’t tell me you were Lulu’s teacher.” He grins, tongue held between rows of sharp white teeth. Steve’s heart kicks up in his chest. “Kindergarteners, Harrington?”
He smiles awkwardly, dodging the question. “Lauren is one of my best readers,” he says instead. No matter which child it is, Steve can always find a reason to brag about one of his kids. “And her penmanship is terrific.”
Lauren gasps, bouncing with excitement, one of Billy’s rough hands clutched in both of hers. “I read a chapter book with Mommy and she only had to help me with two words, Mister H!”
“That’s awesome!” he says, unable to keep himself from beaming down at her. “Did Mrs. Diaz help you get a library card?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Maybe your uncle can help you, then,” he says brightly, neatly side-stepping anymore conversation with the boy – the man, god, Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone more of a man – who can apparently still make his heart race, even ten years since he’d last saw him.
In the doorway, he spots Marcy Roberts holding her little brother’s hand. “Morning Marcy. And good morning, Martin.”
“Morning, Mr. Harrington!”
---
“Alright, Lulu, it’s almost time for your class to start,” Billy says, tucking her too-long bangs behind her ears. “Mom will be back to pick you up, okay?”
For the first time, some of Lulu’s uncertainty shows through. “You’re still gonna be here, right? You aren’t going home?”
Billy pauses. Fuck, this kid’s dad has done a number on her.
Justin was hardly ever around anyway, but he’d just packed up and left in the middle of the night – Billy doesn’t even know the last time he bothered to talk to her on the phone. Lulu’s gotten upset when she and Max had to say goodbye to Billy in the past, but she’s never acted this insecure with him. “I’m home now, Lulu,” he says, crouching down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be there to say goodnight, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees in a tiny voice that steals his whole fuckin’ heart away.
“Who’s my girl?” he asks in a whisper, tugging gently on the end of her ponytail.
Her face brightens. “I am.”
“The best, Lulu.” He winks and she giggles. “Be good, okay?”
“Kay!”
He stands to his full height and Harrington’s eyes accidentally meet his. There’s still a small smile lingering around the soft shape of his mouth and as soon as he looks into those big brown eyes, Steve looks away. Billy bites the inside of his cheek, resists his automatic urge to say something spiteful, something that will get those eyes back on him.
He would like to be able say that it’s because New Billy knows better. But it’s really because he already knows from experience that it won’t do anything but make Steve that much colder. He wants fire, and all that’s there for him is ice.
He leans against the wall right outside the classroom door and…just listens.
Listens to Steve speaking, his sweet patient drawl used for the children in his classroom. “Alright let’s take attendance and then I want to hear all about what you did this weekend, class. Evan Adams?” He stays there, listening with eyes closed, until he hears, “Lauren van Haut?”
“Here!”
Billy shakes himself, pushing away from the wall. No sense mooning over a straight boy who thinks he’s lower than dirt.
TBC
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The Signs as things I wanted to be when I grow up
[This has literally been in my drafts since December because I wasn't sure if each option matched with the sign I chose but whatever (it's also a long post again, oof)
Also I didn't really post anything related to 2020 so... Happy New Year, let's hope something good will happen this decade!! 💖]
♈ Aries: Be part of the army. I was quite fascinated by the idea of guns and protecting the nation and actually getting my life together. I was actually thinking about it for quite a while until I realized that in order to get accepted (at least according to the Greek system) you need to have excellent grades (especially maths/physics), to be taller that 165cm and to be excellent in sports. Guess what, I don't understand physics/science/chemistry, I've been about 158cm for the past 3 years and the only two sports I'm good at are badminton and tennis (while you need to be good at running, swimming and things like that I guess 😕)
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♉ Taurus: A chef/baker. Cooking and baking always seemed pretty fun. I would always sit by my grandma whenever she cooked/baked goodies and observe the whole process. I also got inspired by the movies "The Princess and the Frog" and "Ratatouille" and thought that one day I could possibly come up with my own recipes and open my own restaurant. But while growing up I realized that I can't cook properly when I'm stressed/multi-tasking (I'm capable of burning the food AND the kitchen if I get slightly distracted, ooof)
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♊ Gemini: A TV presenter or a weather woman. My mom told me that from the age of three I would always pretend to talk to an audience and answer questions from the callers or announce news/talk about the weather. Maybe that explains why I talk to thin air (as if I was a YouTuber) about anything and everything when I'm alone. Though it sounds cool, I don't really think I could do it now because I have social anxiety.
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♋ Cancer: A writer. I really like writing, I don't know why. Authors have been inspiring me since my childhood, I remember I used to read so many books and try to write something of my own based on it. 😅 I like taking notes and then re-writing them more neatly. I like re-doing old homework in a different style and see if I have improved. I really like writing in a diary/a bullet journal too, I feel like it's much better than bothering others with my problems anyway. I also love coming up with random scenarios/stories/characters and writing about it but I don't know if I should share it. Idk, sometimes I feel like my writing is a bit boring or that it's nothing that impressive. So, honestly, if more people took writers seriously instead of thinking it's a hobby as it doesn't always pay well (when did the world even start revolving around money that much, oml) and if I was more confident about my work I'd definitely chose to become a writer/author (I'm still keeping it as a hobby no matter what I end up doing, lol).
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♌ Leo: A model. Omg, I honestly don't know why I even thought of it. Probably because I really liked watching ANTM when I was younger (and I specifically chose the American version because the one we have in my country makes me cringe a lot, just hearing girls from my school talking about it is painful). My friends also liked the outfits that I put together or how I would always pose for pictures (a few years ago, I'm too awkward now asdfghjkl). Looking at it now it's just so funny. There's literally so much competition in the name of beauty, the community can get kinda toxic sometimes and the standards are pretty high. Also I'm way too short and I still can't walk like a normal person when wearing high heels lol.
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♍ Virgo: A teacher. Specifically, a teacher for elementary or even kindergarten. Back then, the concept of teaching seemed pretty fun to me and I had lots of ideas about how to make class more interesting. The thing is that I have good chemistry with most kids and I actually kinda dislike teenagers because of how rebellious we can get when it comes to school (idk but like teens in my country are like pretty rude to everyone 😐). I'm not so sure about it now, though it's still an option.
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♎ Libra: A psychologist. I always liked helping others out and offering advice when they're having a tough time and I was also curious to see what makes each person feel angry, sad or stressed and the way they respond. It's also interesting because you can learn a lot about someone's personality, preferences and way of thinking or understand what caused someone to commit a crime. I still really like psychology and it's one of my main options for uni. The only problem is that psychology is pretty much overrated in my country so people say it's best to choose something else. 😒
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♏ Scorpio: A criminologist. And, surprisingly, I still want it. I was always intrigued by things that required research, was interesting in learning what caused a murder/crime to be committed and I would always watch crime thrillers with my dad. I also like it because it's a field of Sociology which is one of my favorite subjects. I'm just hoping finals aren't super difficult so I can get accepted in the college that I want on the first try lol.
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♐ Sagittarius: A flight attendant. Back then I found it kinda fun, as I was always curious about what going on a plane is like. It could also be because of their outfits (like the ones you see in movies or in Britney's MV for Toxic, idk why 😅). Plus I would get to travel around the world without paying as much as the passengers. But then, at the age of 14-15 I got on an airplane 4 times and I saw that it wasn't really like the movies and that literally everyone ignored the flight attendant so yeah, it's not an option anymore. ✈️
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♑ Capricorn: A fashion designer. So because I would always draw and constantly ask for new crayons/markers and other art supplies, my mom bought me a few coloring books that focused on fashion. It came along with stickers, stencils, ideas for Victorian dressses, advice for how to design lace or mermaid tail dresses and I was so impressed. A few years later, my grandma showed me a few dresses that she had made for my mom when she was younger (which were so gorgeous like I'm definitely going to wear one of them on my graduation day) and taught me sewing. I also got to see these small floral designs that you usually see on lingerie and it was so pretty, I wish I could do it as perfectly as her. I decided to follow my grandma's advice and keep it as a hobby instead (because she ended up doing nothing but designing clothes and repairing them which she regrets 🧵🧶).
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♒ Aquarius: An astronaut. This was pretty random, I have to admit. I guess I really liked space and looking at at the stars in the night sky. I read a few books about space and learned a few things about NASA back in elementary too, though I realized that it's something I could never really do, as you have to sacrifice a lot. I'm still fascinated by this profession but there's no way I could ever do it, since I can't even understand basic physics or mathematics. 🤷♀️
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♓ Pisces: An artist. Honestly I didn't really care if most artists didn't get recognition/fame or if they didn't earn enough money, I just wanted to make art because I liked it. It's also fun because while you are expressing your thoughts through an art piece, another person might interpret it differently, based on their likings and thoughts. Art also plays an active role in my life: I've been drawing and painting since I was 5 and I would always watch the show with Bob Ross on TV with my grandma. Instead of completely giving up on this idea, I thought that I could choose another profession (also my family didn't really like the thought of me doing art for a living 😐) and keep art as a hobby.
#astrology#zodiac#aries#taurus#gemini#cancer#leo#virgo#libra#scorpio#sagittarius#capricorn#aquarius#pisces#me and my thoughts#yeah idk#for fun ig#at least for me#random
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…or how tracking my life told me I was abusing coffee and social media
So there I was, my nails digging into my palms, my right molars pressed into each other. The air hissed in through my nose as my vision narrowed to a point. It was like hurtling down a roller-coaster. It was was terrifying, and I had no idea why it was happening.
I’d be doing nothing especially ominous – sitting down on the couch, carrying my younger daughter, thinking about bread – and suddenly I’d be gripped by this intense sensation of danger. BREAD! The image of a whole-grain loaf gained the mass of a church bell. DOOM! It rang. Toll the yeasty knell, oh brazen fate, for all men shall one day die. Die, oh, mortal flesh. Die and meet thy baker.
(whoo! I am so sorry about that pun. Deep breaths now…)
Tiny drops of steam
Ebb and flow before the light
With each of my breaths.
It was ridiculous, but of course knowing that it was ridiculous didn’t help. I was like a cat, freaking out for no reason. Or was there no reason? Aren’t I supposed to listen to my body, now that I’m meditating and whatnot? But what exactly was my body supposed to be telling me? Avoid carbs? Run from the couch? Something about my daughter…? Yeah, If I searched hard enough for a reason to be terrified, I’d surely find one. Now there’s a reason for fear.
So I meditated more. I stopped using social media. I took my daughters to the park and watched the sky as it changed from brass to rose and the street lights blinked on. I talked to Pavlina. And I realized that over the course of the past month, I’d gone from drinking two cups of coffee a day to four.
The trees turn black and
The sky, indescribable.
Look up and it’s changed.
Scheduling is hard. My older daughter’s in first grade now, and school starts at 8:10 in the Center. The younger one’s in kindergarten, which starts at 8:30 in Levski G. At some point, it would be nice if Pavlina and I could go to work, which is back in the Center. If we want to have breakfast and drink our coffee in peace, we need to wake up at 6:15. Three hours later, I’m finally in the office and I’m tired. That scares me because I associate being tired with being sick. Fatigue=death.
I’m supposed to listen to my body, but my body is a stupid animal. It’s not going to say, “you’re drinking too much coffee.” It says “coffee reminds me of being happy!” and “not being productive scares me!” It says “I’m tired! I must have cancer again!” It’s up to me to keep track of what I’m doing, cut out the distractions, and give myself enough mental room to notice the patterns.
Right. So that’s why I’m not doing social media any more. Because part of the reason I was too distracted to notice I was drinking too much coffee was the last newsletter I wrote. I posted it on facebook, which made me want to check facebook for likes and comments. And once I was on facebook, why not see what other people are posting? Oh. Oh. That’s what they’re posting. Oh no.
I debated writing this explanation. Why not just stop using social media? Why talk about it on social media? But my litmus test for whether I should write something is “will this help people?” Maybe this is helpful: social media is distracting and depressing. It fills my head with noise. Maybe you have the same problem and this is the solution.
The sky at seven
The color of hope that hurts
And the crying swifts
I’ll continue to post my work on my website (including these newsletters) and mirror or link to those posts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Readers are welcome to like and comment, but I’ll only read those comments once a week (Friday seems like a good day). Comments on my website, PMs, and emails to me will get my attention earlier. I won’t read any content that isn’t sent personally to me or that I didn’t sign up for. Hopefully that means I’ll still get news from people I care about, but not about tragedies that I have no power to solve. That way, I can continue to function from hour to hour.
What do you think? Is this going to work? Can I stay connected without sacrificing my mental health? Let me know in the comments. Or even better, email me.
In other news, I had some good writing stuff happen this month. Interchange has hit its 2/3 mark and, more importantly, its rhythm. I’ve managed to block off a fairly reliable 90-minute chunk of time in the mornings, which I use to meditate and then “speedwrite,” which means writing without thinking about what I’m doing. I generally end up with a single element of a scene, such as the conversation the characters are having, how they feel, what’s going on in the environment, or what actions the characters are taking.
Then I usually have some time after lunch (and my second and final coffee), and I can layer those scene-pieces onto each other and smooth the edges. If I have more time, I do research, which usually involves shooting messages to generous experts. In this way, the inestimable and inspiring Thomas Duffy helped me tie a ribbon around the center of my book, in which a biologist’s subconscious belief that she owns the environment she’s studying leads her to destroy it. As the forest crumbles around her, she blames herself…then makes exactly the wrong decision about what to do next. Yeah! Fiction! Thomas, I’m going to send you roses or cacti or something.
Another new tradition I’ve instituted is spending my Friday mornings not working on Interchange. It’s a little release of pressure, a chance to play and remind myself that writing isn’t just another chore I have to do. The first week, it was a short story. That one turned out so well, I’m going to try to publish it. It’s called “The Sales Event” and it’s about smart phones and general relativity. Do you want to beta-reader it?
I got another couple of “no”s from publishers about The Sultan’s Enchanter, but one of them was that very gratifying “no” that comes at the head of a long list of things I could do to fix the story. Making those fixes will be educational, even if that particular publisher still passes. Wealthgiver is rather like The Sultan’s Enchanter, after all, and the lessons I learn from one will be important for the other. The world needs more books about amoral Balkan people!
Yeah, I’m still working on Wealthgiver’s neo-Thracian language. I even posted a little of it on Tumblr. But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my little goats!
Kapt kapēnon ainē kesa / byźai darsai ypo dēsâ.
Ēbron, aiźi, byźâs kâ / skalmon, bleptē, bystâs kâ,
As tae yper iatśikan / kapâ pe ta ve abbrinkan.
There were at one time / brave goats under heaven.
A kid, a nanny, and a billy goat / clever, loyal, and tough,
Who would dance up / a hill for to make themselves fat.
Dâ ispilsen opē rinkon strymē / parân ân, śân târâ dymâ.
Iśē iserpa źēryntē / źymlē mērē urdēnē.
Byźulâs ada pyrân źilmân / dâ bolvarâs pia rhobton saimân.
But a quick-flowing river blocked / the path with an evil guard.
There coiled a beast / a great water-dragon.
A goat will eat green grains / but a serpent will slurp blood
Peskēnon ērga ēbron do. / Pliskon ērga śân negō.
Źymlē zē semân iglytsa. / “Kis ēs tu?” Neston iglâtsa.
“Semâs manon ēm ēźo.” / “San ar ēsti? Abadam so!”
First comes the kid. / It splashes with its hooves.
The dragon heard this. / “Who are you?” she roared.
“This only am I.” / “Is it so? I will eat you up!”
Things are heating up! I’m still not entirely comfortable with the articles and deitics, but I do like that last line. And the orthography is shaping up nicely. I love googly things over letters.
Another potential conlanging project for that other hundred years I plan to live: Western Hellenism. What if the Greeks had conquered Iberia?
And finally, PROTECTOR! This is the comic project I’ve been working on for literally six years. Words by me and Simon Roy, inks by Atryom Trakhanov, colors by Jason Wordie, and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhadu. What a crazy, fun, glorious process this collaboration was!
Protector is a post-apocalyptic scifi story about a slave who stumbles across “a demon of the Profligate Age,” a military cyborg who’s been in hibernation for the past thousand years. The post-human robots who are terraforming the Earth are not amused, and send in some sweaty future-vikings to put a stop to these shenanigans.
There will be five issues, and issue one comes out in January. If you’re interested, please order a copy, or better yet, tell your local comic or book store to order lots of copies! Give us some numbers that will convince Image to ask for a sequel
And finally, some books and stuff
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown – this book wasn’t as transformative for me as it could have been because I’ve read Brown before and I already agree with her. Shame is bad. Vulnerability is the cure. Bam. What I like about Brown is that she collects good data, lets it prove her wrong, and suggests how the lessons from the data can be usefully applied. It’s not just science, it’s engineering.
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold – I think this was the third read. What happens when GM humans become obsolete? What happens when an engineer has a spiritual epiphany? It wasn’t quite as much fun as some of Bujold’s other science fiction, but it has a lot of heart.
Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser – an excellent physics book, examining the concept of space, which lies at the center of the contradictions of relativity and quantum physics. If space didn’t exist, the universe would be chaos, but a lot of experiments only make sense if space _doesn’t_ exist. Great stuff, and it inspired that short story I’m so proud of.
Death by Water by Kerry Greenwood – a refreshing splash of chilly New Zealand sea spray. Phryne pursues a jewel thief and has a little bit of sex, but a lot of good food, drink, and dancing. There’s also a hakka.
Wicked Prey by John Sandford – it was actually a little boring. The police’s side of the story didn’t hold up as well as the criminals’. But this is a relatively early book in the series, which means Sandford is improving.
The Upright Go Pro – it’s a little device that you glue to your upper back so it will buzz at you when you slouch. Immediately after I put it on, I realized I have little tiny tyrannosaurus arms that don’t reach any table or counter-top. It ran out of batteries one day and man did my back hurt that night. So I guess it’s working.
Gravity by Against the Current and Brighter by Patent Pending – Good Interchange music.
Be Kind to Yourself by Andrew Peterson – It makes me feel better.
Song of Durin by Clamavi De Profundis – I haven’t gotten goosebumps from a song in a long time. It’s about dwarves.
The Twits by Roald Dahl – I read it to my older daughter and boy howdy did Roald Dahl know how to write for children. Everything seems utterly ridiculous but it all somehow satisfies. Like eating dirt cake.
Steven Universe – My younger daughter found me rewatching it on my phone and made me cast it on the big TV. Now it’s all “I wanna watch Steeben dabout a Giant Woman. I’m Pearl.” No, younger daughter, you are not Pearl. Pearl is my older daughter. My younger daughter is Amethyst. Nobody is more Amethyst than my younger daughter. (I’m Peridot)
#mystuff#newsletter#simon roy#thomas duffy#Artyom Trakhanov#writing#mental health#science fiction#thracian
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Blog Post #4: Interview with Samantha
Interviewer: “Hello and welcome to the interview Samatha Baker, how are you doing?”
Samantha: “I'm doing well thank you for having me”
Interviewer: “So let's begin with how this era of #MeToo has affected you?”
Samantha: “To be honest this #MeToo era today is incredibly brave for women to come out against the people who have hurt them. It is incredibly moving to see these women come together like that. Even though I cannot directly relate with these women regarding these matters, I have heard from many people in my life that have gone through something like that. I was in shock when I heard that people I surround myself with have gone through something like this because you just hear all of this stuff in the news and think well nothing like this can happen to someone I love. But hearing these stories from some of my friends and family was very gut-wrenching. But knowing that I have such strong women in my life that have gone through so much in their life is very inspirational. So this era of #MeToo has not affected me directly but it has made me more aware of people's actions not only towards myself but also to my children, family, and friends.”
Interviewer: “During this movement social media has played a huge role, how have you been using social media to help the people who have directly been affected?”
Samantha: “In today's society social media is a big part of life. I remember earlier in life when there wasn’t any social media and just regular phones. God those were the days, it just made things so much easier not having to post and check social media to know what's happening. But social media is also a helpful tool especially right now. I have been posting a lot of articles about the MeToo movement and reposting some women's stories. I think this helps spread more awareness about this problem that women face. Also sharing all these stories that women across the country have experienced just shows that women like me who haven’t experienced something like that realize just how widespread this problem is in society. Social media is an amazing tool that can be used to help so many people around the world and being able to use this tool to help spread awareness about sexual harassment and violence is cool. Social media just makes it easier to spread awareness all around the world and having it allowed for this movement to be as big as it is.”
Interviewer: “What has been the most difficult thing you have faced in your life? It doesn’t have to be related to the #MeToo movement at all.”
Samantha: “I think the most challenging thing I have had to deal with in my life is being a single mother to two children. I was married to Jake Ryan for a long time, ten years in fact. We were very happy, I wanted to be with him since I was sixteen years old and I think after all this time, it just wasn’t the same anymore. We were more like friends than a couple. Me and Jake had an amazing relationship and life, we traveled the world together in our early twenties. We went to Rome, Paris, South Africa, and so many other places. I didn’t think I would be able to travel the world at such a young age, I thought I would be too busy in college and trying to find a job immediately after. But together we were well off and had the freedom to travel. Then later I became a kindergarten teacher and he went into finance. We had two girls together. But when we got divorced it was a very hard time because I just lost the person who I have been with since I was sixteen so I was just a little lost, especially with two little girls. So now being a single mother is very hard because now it is just myself with the girls for the most part and just going to work. Even though Jack still helps out, which I am very grateful for but working all day then to go and pick up the girls and do everything for them, and do it all over again. It is very tiring but I do enjoy every second of it because they are the best thing in my life.”
Interviewer: “You said you had two little girls with your ex-husband Jack. As you watch them grow up, what is the biggest worry you have for them, especially during what is happening right now with this movement we are living through?”
Samantha: “I have many worries for my children like every mother does but right now I hope that they can live in a world where they don’t have to worry about experiencing sexual harassment or violence towards them by anyone. Especially with all that everyone is doing right now so that future generations do not have to deal with this but we won’t ever know if this will help stop harassment or violence towards women for good. But I can be hopeful for my children's future that I did something to help bring more awareness and helped my children's future no matter how little it was. But these stories that were shared by so many women during this whole movement are very inspirational because it shows women today and future generations that they can get through the trauma and be happy again. That is what I want for my children, to be happy and not go through anything like what those women have been through, but I do worry that even though this movement has brought a lot of awareness to this problem it won't be enough it will continue to happen, I fear that one day it may happen to one of my daughters because I just want to protect them, especially from something like that.”
Interviewer: ”During this movement, people in social media have called out many films that have come out in the ’80s. How do you feel about these films now, then you did when you were growing up?”
Samantha: “I have seen many people tweet about 80’s movies that have some not acceptable scenes in these movies. But when I was younger I saw nothing wrong with the movies because it was all I knew and that was how people were, especially boys. Like when I was younger a kid named Ted or Farmer Ted as I would call him asked if he could have my underwear as proof to his friends that he would have sex with me. All it was back then was stuff like that. At the time I knew it was inappropriate but I didn’t say anything because that's just how it was. But now looking back at movies I watched as a kid and seeing stuff like that makes me rethink why that was okay to show especially to young teens. I agree with people that the 80’s films that I watched had unacceptable parts.”
Interviewer: “These movies have a lot of things that people believe to be wrong, especially in today's society. With cancel culture, today, do you believe that movies that show or talk positively about sexual harassment or violence towards women be “canceled”?”
Samantha: “I think cancel culture is an interesting thing because younger people are now saying that things I have grown up with are now bad and you shouldn’t watch, buy, listen or do things that people deem is not okay and “cancel” it. Sometimes it gets annoying because then if you do something or buy or whatever it is that has been canceled then people just think bad things about you like you support the message that people get from it. Cancel culture is a very confusing thing, I’ll say. Even though cancel culture is a confusing and annoying thing I do think that movies that show or talk positively about sexual harassment or violence towards women be “canceled” because even though that was how it was like then things have changed in today's society. We live in a different world now than when I was younger. So being able to now say that movies that we have watched when we were younger are giving audiences bad examples of how women should be treated. Films like that deserve to be canceled because times have changed and it allows for people to know that these films have scenes that are wrong and shouldn’t be okay for people to think that those kinds of actions and types of things are being said are okay. So canceling films that show sexual harassment or violence are okay should be canceled because it allows for people in today's society to know that things like that shouldn’t happen.”
Interviewer: “Thank you for answering my questions today and for your thoughtful answers. I appreciate your viewpoints on these matters.”
Samantha: “You’re welcome, you had great questions. So thank you for allowing me to answer these questions and allowing me to share my ideas.”
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Sterek fics with dad!Derek?
Snow Flirting by thepsychicclam
As Beacon Hills get pounded with foot after foot of snow, single dad Stiles can’t quite keep up with his four year old, his job, and shoveling his driveway. Derek makes his teenage son shovel Stiles’ walk, and that just leads to Derek helping Stiles out with a whole bunch of other tasks. That’s okay with Derek, though, cause any chance to be with Stiles is okay with him.
Goodnight Moon by swarls
His pack pushed him away, never spoke to him. For six years Stiles has been away at college and the only person he really kept in touch with was Scott. So when he goes back to Beacon Hills after his father has a heart attack and sees Derek with a toddler his entire world is turned upside down.
Prince Among Wolves by tylerfucklin (Zimothy)
Looking for full day/evening sitter. 2 twin boys age 4. Must have exp. w/werewolves. Must be human. No pedophiles. No teenage girls. Pay negotiable.
Swimming with Anna by sssssssim
Stiles is a swimming coach at a pool in San Francisco. Anna Hale, a six year old adorable girl, is in one of his classes.Stiles falls in love with her instantly. It takes a bit longer to fall in love with her father.
The One With the Prince and the Dragon by mikkimouse
“You could have just told her you were more interested in meeting another prince,” Laura said when they were both in the kitchen, putting the candles into Libby’s birthday cupcakes.
Derek snorted. “What, and have the six-year-old boys ask me to marry them? I’m not up for that much rejection in one day.”
“Hm.” Laura raised her eyebrows. “I was thinking less about Libby’s friends and more about their dads. Specifically, the one with the loud laugh and the moles. What was his name?”
(Or: Derek dresses as a prince for his daughter’s birthday party and pines after her friend’s godfather.)
Is That A Wand In Your Pocket Or? by reptilianraven
“So a little bird told me you’ve got the hots for the kiddie magician at Jamie’s birthday party.” Laura says. “And when I say little bird, I mean Erica and Allison. They’re telling me you were all over this guy.”
Derek breathes in, then out, as he tries to suppress the urge to lob these loaves of rye bread at her head.
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The one where Stiles is a magician who performs at kid’s birthday parties and Derek is a shy single dad baker who can’t stop seeing Stiles everywhere. There are also dead bodies popping up every other day, but Stiles really doesn’t need to know about that, so naturally, Stiles pops up at the crime scenes too. Fantastic.
Snacks From Up Above by Morgana, Winchesterek
Stiles works as an IT guy at Hale Enterprises and for the last six months, he’s been called upstairs to fix some kind of computer problem for Derek Hale at least four times a week. And two of those four times, Mr Hale has either hit on him or asked him out. But Stiles knows better than to date his boss and Mr Hale is the absolute worst at flirting.
So learning that Mr Hale is a single father to an adorable four-year-old girl who wants Stiles to attend her dance recital shouldn’t change things at all, right?
And on top of that, a mysterious cup has been lowered down through a hole in the ceiling right above Stiles’ desk, delivering treats directly to him. Stiles declares them to be his Cup Person and they seem to know just what he likes.
What could possibly go wrong?
our lives are changing lanes by grimm
There’s a lot of screaming going on inside the first house Stiles visits. He isn’t really worried, because it sounds like kids, but then the door opens and hi, says his dick, because the dude in front of him is gorgeous, built like a god with a face like thunder. Stiles wants to lick that solid jaw line. Hold the fuck on, says his cop brain, because the dude’s got kids hanging all over him; one’s on his back, skinny legs looped around his waist, and another two hanging off one arm, toes barely brushing the ground. There’s a tubby toddler clinging to his leg like a koala, and he’s got a baby tucked into the crook of the one arm that doesn’t have kids hanging off it. Stiles’ mouth drops open.
“How many of those kids did you kidnap?” he asks before he can wrangle his brain into submission.
The man gives him a look that says what the fuck is wrong with you and snaps, “You think I’d subject myself to this on purpose?”
“Oooh,” says one of the kids hanging off his arm. “I’m telling Mom.”
Air Mail. by Handsofred
‘’Oh my god’’ Stiles breathed out as heavy booted footsteps faded away down the hall. ‘’oh my god’’
‘’Stiles?’’ Allison asked as he scrambled around the desk searching for the last letter before he was thrusting it at their faces.
‘’It’s him…my soldier…it’s him, it’s Mattie’s dad’’ He told them, his eyes wide as Allison took the letter from him, ‘’oh my god, oh my god and I fainted in front of him…oh Jesus Christ’’
DILF by twentysomething
“Today is Scott’s first day of kindergarten and Derek is terrified.”
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It’s Odaiba Day, so naturally I’ve been crying all day but ALSO its been about a year since I did my last Takari headcanon post. So bc it’s August 1st and all, I’m gonna answer some questions on the otp questions tag about these two and boost my spirits enough to write this next angsty chapter of my Digimon fanfiction :)
Full disclosure: most of these will bounce off from my other headcanon post about these two, but will also changed with age, so I’ll be sure to note if there is an change as they get older
Adult headcanon: Kari is a kindergarten teacher and perfect example of a human being, while TK is a struggling author who forgets to feed himself half the time and sleeps like two hours a day. This is drastically different from the party animals they were in high school and college.
These questions were taken from otp-imagines-cult <3
1: Who spends almost all their money on the other?
TK, because he always feels bad about Kari having to baby him even though he’s a grown adult. Their apology presents
2: Who sleeps in the other’s lap?
Kari, because she’s small and can fit
3: Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes?
TK walking around half-naked because when he gets in a writer’s-block phase, he doesn’t leave the apartment for days, and Kari’s always yelling at him to put some clothes on because she wants to keep him on some kind of daily routine to help his mental state
4: Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway?
Kari tells TK not to stay up all night, but TK stays up all night because he has a deadline with his publisher that he’s stressed about, but Kari always find him slumped over his desk when she wakes up in the morning.
5: Which one tries to make food for the other but burns it all by accident and which one tells them that it’s okay and makes them both cookies?
TK tries to make Kari a meal when she gets home from work, but he can only bake things, so when his meal turns out shitty, Kari orders them takeout and lets TK bake her cookies instead because he’s actually a really good baker and she’s not
6: Which one reads OTP prompts and says “Oh that’s us!” and which one goes “Eh, not really”?
Kari reads the prompts and says that they’re her and TK because shes a romantic mess, but TK over-analyses each prompt and says they’d only work in a book
7: Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes?
Kari’s constantly wearing TK’s shirts to bed because TK forgets to do the laundry while Kari’s at work. She also likes to put on one of his shitty hats and wear it around the house to tease him.
8: Which one spends all day running errands and which one says “You remembered [thing], right?”
TK spends all day running errands while Kari’s at work, and when Kari calls him during lunch and asks if he got everything for himself, that’s when he realized he forgot like soap or something. He always remembers everything of hers, but will forget the smallest thing of his.
9: Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions?
TK drives and Kari gives directions from her phone.
10: Which one does the posing while the other one draws?
In college, TK did the posing while Kari took the photographs (instead of drawing because Kari canonically loves pictures). They actually had a short phase where TK was instagram famous for his style.
11: If they were about to rob a museum, which one does backflips through lasers and which one is strolling behind with a bag of chips?
TK would be doing the backflips through lasers because Kari would be too nervous of getting caught. Kari would send Gatomon in with TK while her and Patamon kept the getaway car running.
12: Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking?
LITERALLY MY FANFICTION Before they get married, TK overdoses because he’s trying to drown out memories about Devimon killing Angemon taking shots in beer pong instead of beer and everyone wants to keep playing him because he’s the greatest. Kari is just as drunk as he is, but gets him to stop drinking so they can go home and fuck.
13: Which one likes to surprise the other with a lot of small random gifts?
Before they’re married, it’s Kari, giving TK candid photos she took of him or cute little projects she was learning to do for her elementary ed degree. After they’re married, it’s TK, giving her cute little trinkets he saw while he was out running errands or just to thank for her putting up with his dumb ass.
14: Which one keeps accidentally using the other’s last name instead of their own?
This is never a problem with them but when they get engaged, the other DigiDestined start calling Kari “Mrs. Takaishi” and she accidentally writes “Kari Takaishi” on her last final of college and has to jump through hoops to get it fixed in order to graduate, so there’s that.
15: Which one screams about the spider and which one brings the spider outside?
Neither one of them scream about spiders because they’ve seen worse Digimon, but if there is a bug, TK normally handles it.
16: Which one gives the other their jacket?
TK gives Kari his jacket and hoodies because they fit her like a dress and his style is impeccable and makes it look like Kari chose to wear that instead of her just being cold.
17: Who keeps getting threatened by the other’s overprotective older sibling?
NEITHER ONE OF THEM BECAUSE MATT AND TAI BOTH APPROVE OF THE OTHER’S RELATIONSHIP AS LONG AS THEIR SIBLINGS ARE HAPPY but Tai does try to give TK a stern talking to when TK asks Tai’s opinion on marrying Kari, but it doesn’t work out well because after everything they’ve been through, TK isn’t scared of Tai.
18: Who’s the first one to admit they have feelings for the other?
Kari admits her feelings first when they’re drunk, and when they talk about it the next day, TK admits that he’s feelings before Kari can. So Kari admits drunk, TK admits sober.
19: How good would your OTP be at parenting?
Kari would be okay once the kids can walk and talk because she’s a kindergarten teacher and she’s pretty decent with kids, but TK would be so afraid because his dad was never around much after the divorce and the closest thing he knew to a dad was Matt. TK would be the softy parent because he doesn’t want his kids to hate him, and Kari would have to do the disciplining because she grew up in a stable home environment and can handle her kids being mad at her for a little bit. They both have no clue what to do with an infant, but TK is better with them as teenagers though.
20: Which one types with perfect grammar and which one types using numbers as letters?
They both type with perfect grammar because one’s an author and the other is a school teacher, but Kari uses more emojis than TK so I guess that’s it.
21: Who gets attacked by a bully and who protects them?
Neither one of them gets attacked by a bully because they’re friendly little kids, but sometimes in high school, TK had to be held back whenever someone made a derogatory comment about Kari while she was dancing for the dance team.
22: Who makes the bad puns and who makes a pained smile every time the other makes a pun?
Kari makes the bad puns because she hears them from her students daily and TK painfully smiles because he doesn’t want to hurt he feelings.
23: Who comes home from work to see that the other one bought a puppy?
TK buys the puppy because he’s always wanted a puppy and Kari’s pissed because she’s a cat person and specifically told TK she would never own a dog.
24: Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired?
TK gives Kari the piggyback ride, but that’s mostly when they’re in the Digital World
25: Which one competes in some sort of activity and which one does the overzealous cheering?
Kinda canonically, TK competes and Kari cheers (just going off that one episode in 02 but I can live). TK plays basketball and Kari is on the cheer-dance team that goes to every game, and Kari always cheers the loudest for TK. When the cheer-dance team makes the players signs, Kari always makes and holds up TK’s sign. He’s kept them all.
26: Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder?
Kari always takes their selfies no matter what TK is doing, but she has so many of TK sleeping with his head on her shoulder after a long night of partying.
27: Which one would give the other a makeover if they asked?
TK would give Kari a makeover because he is a Style Icon and Kari constantly wears sun dresses and TK wants to see her branch out from that.
28: Which one owns a pet that the other is absolutely terrified of?
Not a pet because they don’t have a pet, but for the sake of answering the question, TK is more afraid of Gatomon than Kari is afraid of Patamon, because he knows that if he messes up, Gatomon will be the one to kill him, not Tai.
29: Which one holds the umbrella over both of them when it rains?
TK because he’s taller, but Kari is the one who always checks the weather to see if they need an umbrella or not.
30: If your OTP went on vacation, where would they go and what would they do? Who would take the pictures?
TK and Kari would go to France and stay with TK’s grandfather and tour the French countryside and drink glass after glass of French wine. Kari would take all of the picture, but TK would steal her camera and take a few candid ones of her.
#ana and i have been doing these religiously so i guess its time for me to finally get them down somewhere#otp: I care for you too
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If you're taking requests, can I please get a fic of Ginny where she's Mike's daughter's kindergarten teacher?
oh, geez, Joudie. Do you see what you’ve made me do? I am tied up in all these feelings about Mike as a single dad now. Like 8000 words later and I’m still not over it.
anyway, i hope this makes you smile!
easy as 1, 2, 3 | ao3
“Daddy, look!”
Obediently, Mike stopped, one of Maddie’s little hands still curled in his. The other pointed up, towards a wall of artwork. (Well, calling it “art” was maybe generous, but the kids were five and six. He could cut them a little slack.) He tried to follow the line of her tiny finger, but wasn’t sure what she wanted him to see.
“What am I looking at, Mads?” he asked with a frown.
Impatiently, she raised her arms, the imperious “Up!” left unsaid.
With a groan—his girl was getting too big or his knees were aging too fast for this—Mike hauled her up onto his hip so she could point with more accuracy. Apparently, now that she had a better vantage, pointing wasn’t enough. Instead, she curled her fingers into his beard and tugged, like it was a set of reins and he was her noble steed.
He really needed to stop letting the guys give her “horsey rides” if this was what he got out of it.
“Ow! Mads, gentle,” he reminded her, still moving to the right. The way she’d wanted. Geez, that was effective.
Satisfied he was doing as she wanted, and—unfortunately—probably not because it was the right thing to do, she released her grip on him. She reached out and smacked her hand against one of the pictures. Immediately, his eyes zeroed in on the familiar, slightly shaky, handwriting of his daughter in the bottom corner. In painstaking letters, she’d spelled out “Madeline Lawson,” each letter a different color.
Honestly, how he’d missed it before was beyond him.
“It’s our family!” she announced brightly, not that Mike really needed the update.
Right in the middle, shorter than everyone else, was Maddie. He could tell it was Maddie because she’d painstakingly drawn herself in her favorite outfit, bright yellow overalls. There were four contingency pairs hidden in his closet. When it became clear how much she loved them, Mike went right out and bought an emergency stash. And a good thing, too. There had been five contingency pairs, but after he accidentally bleached the originals, they’d moved onto pair number two.
Beside her, much taller, that had to be him. At five, Maddie hadn’t yet learned artistic subtlety, so he was marked by both his beard, far bushier than he ever let it grow, and a baseball hat.
Some of the other figures, though, required a bit more thought. It didn’t help that Maddie’s understanding of family wasn’t quite... traditional.
Off to the side, with a gut and mop of gray hair, that had to be Skip, or Grandpa Al as his daughter had learned to call his longtime manager. Blip and Evelyn, along with Gabe and Marcus, were also included in Maddie’s vision of their family. Even Jedi, standing next to Maddie, though Mike doubted the little girl remembered the dog who’d died when she was three, was represented.
As conspicuous as the odd additions to their family tree was the glaring absence. There was no Rachel, which made Mike’s heart pang, just a little. But looking down at how proud his daughter was of her drawing, and how happy she’d made everyone in it look, he told himself again that Maddie couldn’t miss what she didn’t remember.
That only left one thing unexplained.
“Who’s this?” Mike asked, tapping the remaining woman in the picture. Well, he thought it was a woman. She was wearing a dress and had long hair. Then again, Maddie’d seen what the team made rookies wear during September hazing, so it was best to check.
“That’s Miss Baker,” Maddie replied, as if it required no further explanation.
Mike stared at the curly-haired figure. He had yet to meet Maddie’s new teacher. It was why they were here, in fact. When her original kindergarten teacher went on maternity leave early in the school year, Miss Baker had been hired to replace her. He knew that Maddie loved the woman, had come home with stars in her eyes the first day with her and breathed, “Daddy, she’s the best.” But between post season press obligations and trying to make sure there would be more than enough money to send his daughter to college, he hadn’t gotten a chance to meet the new teacher.
Which was really the only reason he’d signed up for a parent-teacher conference. It was kindergarten for Christ’s sake. What could there be to conference about? And barely six weeks into the year?
“Sweetheart, you know that Miss Baker’s not part of our family, right?”
Maddie shrugged in his arms, clearly uninterested in the conversation, looking down the hall towards her classroom.
Mike chuckled and dropped the subject. Miss Baker was surely waiting.
The closer they got, the more Maddie began to wriggle, nearly bouncing in his arms. She really was excited to be see her teacher. When he’d told her she didn’t have school today, she’d pouted for nearly an hour until Mike finally caved and told her about the conference. He wasn’t actually sure if he was supposed to bring Maddie along, though he was positive he’d never gone to a conference with his mom. Not unless the principal called her in and he was already waiting in the office.
But who was he to tell his baby girl that she couldn’t go to school if she wanted?
God, where did she get it from? Certainly not Mike, who’d only graduated because he couldn’t play ball if he didn’t.
He set Maddie down and watched as she dashed ahead into her classroom. He rounded the corner just in time to see her run to her teacher, who crouched down to greet the girl with a high five. She listened as Maddie prattled on and on, her focus not once wavering from her student. It wasn’t until his daughter pointed back towards him that she stood, looking towards the door.
For a moment, everything slowed. Her curly hair, tossed casually over her shoulder, seemed to float, unaffected by gravity. Sparkling brown eyes met his own and Mike would swear that his heart flipped in his chest.
Miss Baker blinked, shaking herself a little, before smiling warmly—had he ever been so affected by dimples before?—and extending her hand.
Mike blinked back, reaching out to shake automatically.
“Mr. Lawson? Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Ginny Baker.”
(Preposterously, the first thing to cross his mind was Maddie’s picture out in the hallway. Not even two minutes ago, he’d thought it was weird for his kid to include a woman she’d only known a matter of weeks in her family portrait.
Now, he was beginning to think Maddie’d been onto something.)
If, after finally meeting the illustrious Miss Baker, Mike made a point of being a more visibly hands on parent, especially around school, he told himself he was just taking advantage of the off season to hang out more with his kid, which hadn’t been much of an issue when she was in pre-K. She was growing up so fast, he could hardly stand it.
And it wasn’t even a lie. He hadn’t actually realized there were so many volunteer jobs in Maddie’s classroom. Things had definitely changed since he was in school.
Which didn’t make him feel old. At all.
What did get to him was being surrounded by a bunch of kindergartners and their energetic 24-year-old leader. How she managed to keep up with the twenty-odd hell-raisers was a mystery, especially when his one morning a week left him nearly as drained as catching nine innings.
It helped that it was the most fun he’d had in a long time, though.
Maybe he would’ve liked school more if his teachers had looked like Miss Baker, or Ginny as she’d insisted when he showed up for the second time this week. He’d immediately reciprocated, because while he usually got a kick out of people calling him Mr. Lawson, from Ginny it just made him feel even more like a dad.
The way she’d grinned and nodded, testing out his name, well, that had definitely been a different kind of kick.
A kick that he had to ignore for the benefit of the small children around him.
Children that had just headed off to lunch.
“Bye, daddy!” his little girl called down the hallway, waving madly. “Bye, Miss Baker!”
Ginny and Mike stood at the door to her classroom, waving until the line of kindergartners disappeared around the hall. Once they were out of sight, Ginny sighed, slumping against the doorframe.
So she wasn’t a boundless well of energy.
The thought was oddly comforting.
“Long day at the office?” he joked weakly, a little too distracted by the dark sweep of her eyelashes against her cheekbones.
She snorted anyway, tossing him a grin as she turned back into the room, heading towards her desk.
Mike followed along, feeling more flustered around a pretty girl than he’d been in a long time. A pretty girl who happened to be his young daughter’s teacher.
Pulling himself out of that train of thought, he cast his attention elsewhere. Specifically, the little Padres pennant poking out of her pencil cup.
He flicked it with a finger, watching it flutter. “You a fan?”
“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly, looking up at him through her lashes as she straightened her desk. “I actually didn’t realize that you were Maddie’s dad until you walked in for her conference.”
He grinned at that. “What, you don’t memorize all your students’ family trees?”
“Ah, I knew I’d forgotten something when I took over!”
Mike laughed, not because it was a particularly good joke, but because he liked the way it sounded when their chuckles blended together.
“I mean,” she continued, “she told me you played baseball, but I kind of figured she meant in a summer league or something? It’s funny what kids fixate on about their parents. Like Jack M? He told me his mom’s job was playing with water guns.”
“And what does she actually do?”
“She’s a firefighter.”
Mike chuckled appreciatively. “That’s not surprising. It took a long time to explain to Maddie that my job was just playing a game.”
Ginny smiled and nodded, a little rueful. “I get that. My dad actually used to play. In the minors. He retired before I was ever born, but I always told people that he was a baseball player.”
“Oh, what was his name? Maybe I’ve heard of him.”
She shot him a look that said she knew he was just being polite, and her lips quirked. “I doubt it. I’m sure he was before even your time.”
Mike’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, a disbelieving laugh bursting from his chest. Miss Baker’s eyes widened as she realized what she’d said and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t—”
He just chuckled, waving her off. “It’s all right. I am the oldest guy on the team now that Hunter retired.” He waited until she gave him a tentative smile back to look away. His gaze landed on the clock. With a start, he rapped his knuckles on her desk. “I should get outta your hair. Let you enjoy your peace and quiet while you have it.”
“I don’t mind,” she replied, still looking a little shy, though Mike was sure that was just left over embarrassment. Just like he was sure she was just being polite when she said she didn’t mind him hanging out.
It probably was safest to believe that. No, it definitely was safest to believe that.
“You say that now, but I can’t have you getting too sick of me. I’m signed up to be the Classroom Helper every Tuesday for the rest of the semester. Imagine how awkward it’ll be in December if you get sick of me now.”
The amusement on Ginny’s face was well worth losing a few of his cool points. They grinned at each other for a long moment, only breaking eye contact when she blinked and looked down.
When she peeked up again, though, she said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to look forward to next Tuesday, then.”
When he finally left the school, he had a grin on his face and a bounce in his step.
Mike, of course, because he didn’t do well with taking it easy or playing it cool, didn’t limit himself to his Tuesday morning duties as Classroom Helper. When Miss Baker’s class went on a field trip to a children’s music concert, he signed up as a chaperone. When the call went out for extra volunteers to help out with the kindergarten Halloween Party, Mike responded almost immediately. When the weekly story time volunteer had to cancel, Mike stepped in, and even consulted Ginny on kindergarten-appropriate reading material. (She laughed when he brought up “Casey at the Bat,” but suggested something with a happier ending.
Her laugh, as always, stayed with him for days.)
Which was why he finally admitted that, okay, he had a thing for Maddie’s teacher.
Not that he was going to do anything about it. Because aside from the age difference—she’d graduated from NC State two years ago and Mike could barely remember what high school had been like outside of the baseball team—and the fact that she was really and truly out of his league, Ginny Baker was his daughter’s teacher. There had to be some kind of rule or code against teachers dating parents.
He knew it. He accepted it, even.
But it didn’t keep him from sticking his nose where it probably didn’t belong.
Case in point: he invited her to Thanksgiving.
When he swung by the school to drop off Maddie’s forgotten lunchbox, he definitely hadn’t intended to invite the woman that he was harboring a monster crush on to Thanksgiving dinner, but it wasn’t as if he’d intended to develop that crush in the first place, either. Some things just happened.
The class was out at morning recess, so he didn’t bother going to the classroom. Instead, he made his way to the fenced in playground, sure that Ginny would be supervising her group of hellions there. When he arrived, though, the place was a ghost town.
Frowning, he circled, searching for the missing class, when the shrill shriek of little voices reached his ears.
He followed the sound to the flat expanse of grass around the back corner of the school, and was confronted by a tiny, makeshift baseball diamond swarming with small children. At the epicenter, a lightning rod compared to the munchkins surrounding her, was Ginny holding a big, red ball.
So, not baseball, then. Kickball.
When she caught sight of him, she smiled and waved, handing the ball off to the shy little boy next to her. She pointed and mimed rolling the ball to the next kicker in line before jogging up to Mike.
“Your daughter is kicking butts and taking names today,” she said in lieu of a real greeting.
“That’s my girl,” he grinned, finding Maddie out on second base, a determined glint in her eye.
For a moment, they stood watching the game, which seemed to go fairly smoothly even without a teacher’s guiding hand. Satisfied that all wouldn’t descend into chaos, Ginny returned her attention to Mike. Her head tilted slightly to the side, eyeing him. “Did I miss that you were volunteering today?”
Mike held up Maddie’s sparkly purple lunchbox. “Nope. Just making sure my kid won’t starve.”
“You know they’ll give her lunch if they find out she forgot it.”
“I do,” he replied easily, “but I also know she probably won’t eat it. How I ended up with the pickiest eater on the planet is beyond me.”
Ginny laughed. “I’m sure there are worse. The other kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Wallis, told me she once had a boy who only ate dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets. And when she got his sister the next year…” she trailed off, biting her lip and clearly trying to hold in laughter.
“Don’t leave me in suspense, Baker. What was it?”
“Spongebob mac and cheese.”
Mike chuckled at the absurdity of those poor parents stocking up on Kraft mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. “Maddie would love if I only made her chicken nuggets and mac and cheese,” he admitted. “But she is pretty excited for Thanksgiving. It’s the one meal she doesn’t ask questions.”
Ginny hummed in response and refocused her attention on the kids. One of them had taken a spill and she was waiting to see if she needed help or would get up on their own. When the girl pushed to her feet again, she turned back to Mike.
“So you don’t try and slip weird stuff by her then? My mom used to do that. Tell my brother and I that tuna fish casserole was traditional to get us to eat it.”
“No, but I might have to try it if her hatred of green beans goes any further.”
She shook her head ruefully before turning back to watch the game.
Mike did his best not to fidget at her side.
God, had he ever felt this awkward with a woman he’d been interested in? Probably not, if only because he could count on hand the number of women he’d been as interested in as Ginny and none of them were off limits.
“So,” he began, unsure of where to go. “Are you excited to go home for Thanksgiving?”
That was safe enough, right? It was this week, after all, with a shortened school week to celebrate; just Monday and Tuesday for both Ginny and the kids, and the rest off for an extra long weekend.
“Oh, I’m not.”
“Excited or going home?”
She frowned a little. “Both I guess? I couldn’t quite justify the ticket home when I also need to pay rent, so there’s not much to be excited for. It’ll probably be me, a pizza, and the Macy’s Parade.” Ginny’s drawl was good-humored, but it still unsettled something in Mike.
He remembered always being jealous of classmates who got to go to big Thanksgiving celebrations with all their cousins and grandparents, not to mention their moms and dads. While he’d never gotten that, and couldn’t really give it to Maddie, either, he sure as hell would share what he did have.
“Seriously? That sounds terrible.” he snorted, earning an indignant scoff from Ginny. “If that’s all you plan on doing, you should come to our Thanksgiving.”
“Yours and Maddie’s?” she replied, her tone hard to read.
Which gave Mike pause. What had he just done? “Well, yeah, but a few other people, too. It’s honestly a pretty motley crew that shows up, but I don’t have a lot of family and I’d hate if Maddie grew up without—”
“I understand,” she said, cutting him off with a hand to his arm. When had he started gesturing so wildly? He let her guide his arm back to his side, trying not to start babbling again. Luckily Ginny continued, “I’d love to come. Let me know what I can bring.”
Come Thursday afternoon, Mike wouldn’t say he was frazzled, per se, but between trying to keep Maddie, Gabe, and Marcus—not to mention Robles, Duarte, and Voorhies—entertained, shooing Al away from the already seasoned turkey (”Not everything needs more garlic, Skip!”), and squabbling with Evelyn over the finer points of entertaining, he probably wasn’t quite at his best when he opened the door to Ginny.
But the way her eyes trailed up from his bare feet to the novelty apron he suddenly wished he’d burned to the bit of flour stuck to his cheek was probably worth whatever craziness he’d been put through. Especially when she reached up, unthinking, to brush the powder away. When she realized what she’d done, her eyes went wide and a little embarrassed.
What did she have to be embarrassed about? was all he could think, trying to rein in the goofy grin that wanted to break over his face.
“Hi,” he greeted, a little breathier than was appropriate, even with the face touching. He cleared his throat, frowning. “Come on in.”
She stepped inside, smiling shyly. Dressed more casually than he was used to, Ginny still managed to make athletic leggings look like the height of fashion, though maybe that was just the way they put her long, lean legs on display. He was glad she’d taken him at his word about how casual this affair was. Livan was wearing some Ed Hardy knock off, for God’s sake.
Toeing off her sneakers, she said, “I know you said not to bring anything, but I was informed tha it’s rude to show up without some kind of gift, so here’s wine and sparkling cider for the kids.” Then, sheepishly, she admitted, “I don’t actually know anything about wine, but I do remember liking the cider when I was growing up.”
He took both bottles off her, ushering her towards the living room where most everyone else was gathered. “Thanks, Ginny.” He didn’t know why, but her name felt more significant in his mouth here. In his house. Mike shook off the errant thought and continued, “You’ve already put the guys to shame. They just showed up and asked, ‘When do we eat?’”
“The guys?”
They turned the last corner and Ginny froze at the sight of three San Diego Padres lounging on Mike’s sectional like they owned the thing. It wasn’t just their presence that made her stop in her tracks, though.
No, that was probably down to the fact that Maddie had used each one as her own personal mannequin and none of them had the heart (or brains) to say no.
Voorhies was decked out with a hot pink boa and a pair of Hello Kitty sun glasses, Livan had escaped with just the bright blue wig from Maddie’s Halloween costume fitted on his gigantic head, but it was poor Omar who’d suffered the most. Perched atop his head and shedding more glitter than Mike had believed possible was the tiara he was sure he’d hidden last year. Of course Maddie’d managed to find it and save it for a special occasion. That wasn’t all, though. No, his daughter had managed to immobilize the man by trying to pull her tutu up his legs, and failing that, stripped him of his socks so she could paint his toenails.
If Omar looked pained before, the sudden appearance of his captain and a pretty girl probably made him want to die. Especially when said pretty girl’s shoulders started shaking, her hand over her mouth failing to hide her amusement.
Because Mike wasn’t a perfect person, he fished out his phone and snapped a picture of all three men and their stylist, beaming with pride.
That done, he turned his attention back to his daughter.
“Mads, did you ask Omar if you could do that?”
“Uh huh,” she responded, not bothering to look up from her work.
“You know you didn’t have to let her, right?” he asked, this time focusing on his utility infielder.
“Uhh.”
Whether Omar’s indecision came from not actually knowing he was allowed to tell Maddie “no” or from Ginny’s presence and continued amusement, Mike couldn’t say. But the way his eyes darted between both suggested it was maybe both.
Taking pity on the man—he’d been laughed at by Ginny on more than one occasion and knew it stung the pride—Mike said, “Maddie, why don’t you put that away and come say hi to Miss Baker?”
His daughter’s head shot up at that, her little face lighting up. Somehow, she managed to avoid spilling her nail polish as she rocketed to her teacher’s side, practically bouncing with excitement.
Ginny smiled, getting down on Maddie’s level, but she still threw a few curious glances at the ballplayers in the room. The ballplayers were much less polite, staring openly at her. Like they’d never seen a beautiful woman before.
Their attention made Mike’s hackles rise because he was apparently no better than an animal when it came to hopeless infatuation, but he managed to keep his cool.
Taking a breath, he asked the hostess of the evening (not that he’d ever tell Evelyn that), “Do you want to introduce Miss Baker to everyone or should I?”
“I’ll do it!” Maddie exclaimed, grabbing Ginny’s hand and tugging her along. She went without protest, just throwing a quick grin over her shoulder to Mike.
His daughter took her role very seriously for all her enthusiasm. She pulled Ginny over to Dusty first.
“Miss Baker, this is Dusty. He plays baseball with daddy. Dusty, this is Miss Baker. She’s my teacher.”
“Hi,” Voorhies said with a little wave.
Maddie stomped her foot. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say!” she scolded, making the man rock back. Ginny choked on a laugh, her hand coming up to cover her mouth again.
“It’s not?”
“No! You say, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and shake hands. Right, Miss Baker?”
Ginny nodded, her lips pressed together to keep from laughing. Her eyes sparkled, though, telling Mike everything he needed to know about how much she wanted to let loose.
“We learned all about it in school,” Maddie continued, nodding wisely. “They’re called manners.”
Despite her best efforts, an odd, choked up sound escaped Ginny at that. Mike only barely managed to hold in his, but Livan didn’t even bother. He laughed long and hard, through Dusty’s correction and Omar’s mumbled greetings. He only sobered when Maddie and Ginny stopped in front of them, smirking up at them from his spot on the couch.
He waited long enough for Maddie to make it through his introduction before taking Ginny’s offered hand. Rather than shaking, though, he laid a kiss against her knuckles, murmuring something in Spanish.
When Ginny replied, only slightly hesitant, in the same tongue, that smirk deepened, less shit-eating and more intrigued.
Which was more than enough of that.
“Why don’t you go find Uncle Blip and the boys, kid? Take Miss Baker with you and make sure to introduce her to Aunt Ev and Grandpa Al, okay?”
Once they were gone, he turned back to his teammates, leveling them with an unimpressed stare.
“You holdin’ out on us, Lawson?” Livan goaded, not bothering to remove the stupid wig, though both Omar and Dusty had already ditched their costumes.
Mike didn’t dignify that with a response, just said, “If you offend my kid’s teacher and she flunks Maddie out of school, just know I will hold you personally responsible.” He crossed his arms, frowning as forbiddingly as he knew how. Which was pretty fucking forbidding, for all that he didn’t get to use it that often. He’d learned his lesson the first time he accidentally made Maddie cry trying to get her to confess to spilling her paint set.
As it turned out, though, the guys were not the ones that he should’ve been worried about.
Evelyn Sanders just loved to turn expectations on their heads.
Which was exactly what she did when she sidled up to him at the kitchen sink as he rinsed off dinner plates before getting the pies set up for dessert.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” she demanded, though she sounded more excited than annoyed, which was always a good thing when Evelyn was demanding something. If he knew what she was demanding, though, he’d have been even happier.
“Know about what?”
“Miss Baker!”
“Uh,” Mike hedged, having a terrible feeling he knew too well what Evelyn was talking about now. Had he given himself away at dinner? Laughed too much at her jokes? Been too obvious about keeping Livan from flirting across the table? (He had broken out his awful Spanish to head off any repeat performances of their introduction, which was anything but subtle.) It was only coincidence that they ended up sitting next to each other; every other seat was taken by the time he finally came out to the dining room. Still, he was going to play dumb as long as Evelyn let him. “Yeah, Mrs. Colton had to go on maternity leave early, so Miss Baker took over Maddie’s class.”
“You know very well that’s not what I’m talking about, Michael Lawson,” Evelyn scolded with a huff. So, not long at all. “I’m talking about the fact that you have been seriously dating Miss Baker. So seriously, in fact, that you’re going to propose!”
Mike sputtered. If he’d been drinking, there would have been a spit take of epic proportions. “I’m what?”
“The boys told me that Maddie told them,” here, Evelyn began to frown, considering her sources, “that you and Ginny are going to get married and she’s going to have a new mom.”
There wasn’t a lot he could do in the face of that information aside from let the tap run and wash over his hands.
God, he’d known Maddie liked Ginny, had been overjoyed when he told her her teacher was coming over for Thanksgiving dinner, but he hadn’t realized just how much.
Gingerly, Evelyn reached over to shut off the tap. It took another beat for Mike to set down the plate he’d been rinsing and reach for a hand towel. Unsure of what else to do, he huffed out a disbelieving laugh, scrubbing at his face and hoping he’d wake up from this fever dream.
He knew, without looking, that something was on the tip of Evelyn’s tongue. She was itching to say something, give him advice, though whether it was advice about Maddie or Ginny was a toss up.
Before she could, though, they were interrupted.
“All right, all right!” Ginny laughed over her shoulder before turning to Mike and Evelyn at the sink. Her laugh was still written all over her face, dimples fully on display and eyes dancing. “I’ve been sent to check on the progress of dessert.”
Evelyn was aghast. “Did Gabe and Marcus make you get up just for that? Gabriel! Marcus!”
“Oh, it wasn’t the kids,” Ginny replied dryly.
“I want pie!” Voorhies shouted from the dining room.
“Pie! Pie! Pie!” came an echoing chant, the high treble of his daughter just barely audible over everyone else.
Mike just shook his head, muttering, “Animals. I’m saddled with animals.” Still, he turned to the fridge and pulled out the waiting desserts while Evelyn went to restore order. Four entire pies that Mike was sure would be gone before the evening was over.
“Need a hand?” came a voice from right beside him. It wasn’t a surprise, though. All evening, he’d been almost unnaturally aware of just where Ginny was in relation to him. He did faintly wonder when he’d developed that ability, but also didn’t think that was really a rabbit hole he could afford to go down. Not with the revelation Evelyn had just dumped on him.
He turned towards Ginny and found her with her head tilted ever-so-slightly to the side. She smiled, as bright and open as ever and Mike had to blink to get over just how much she blew him away.
“Uh, yeah,” he finally managed. “Grab the little plates for me?”
They walked back into dining room, only to be greeted with raucous cheers (for the pies, of course). When they took their seats again, Ginny’s arm brushed up against his. She glanced at him for a moment, but aside a little quirk of her lips, didn’t acknowledge the contact. Still, she didn’t move away, not when she fell into conversation with Al on her other side and not while she demolished three slices of pie on her own. She didn’t move away until everyone left the table, and then, she leaned into him, more than just a sway to help heave herself up, before she went.
After she, and the rest of his guests, left, all Mike could think was that he definitely understood why Maddie was reluctant to admit that Miss Baker wouldn’t be in their life forever.
Arguably, it took Mike too long to set Maddie straight on the whole new mom thing. On Thanksgiving, she passed out before everyone had left, not even stirring when Mike picked her up from the couch and transferred her into her bed. Friday, Mike hadn’t quite figured out how to broach the subject, and Saturday, she spent most of the day with the Sanders boys.
It wasn’t until Sunday evening, the day before she was supposed to go back to school, that Mike was able to sit down with his little girl.
They’d just finished dinner and Maddie’d asked to be excused—she really had learned some manners.
“Actually, Mads, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
She shrugged, turning her trusting little face up to him. And why wouldn’t she trust him? He’d vowed to be the best dad possible, and he thought he’d done an okay job of it for not having any real example to follow.
“Okay, daddy,” she replied, folding her little hands on the table, elbows stuck out to the sides.
He smiled, utterly charmed by the picture she painted. Her little feet were probably swinging away under the table, too. Still, he couldn’t put this conversation off again. So, he took a deep breath and began, “Sweetheart, you know Miss Baker?”
Solemnly, she nodded, her attention unwavering. What he wouldn’t do for something to set off her short attention span. Something to distract her and send her careening away from the table. He could shrug and say he’d tried. Hope it all worked out for the best.
No such luck.
“Well,” he paused and had to will himself to barrel forward, “I wanted to know why you think Miss Baker and I are going to get married.”
All of a sudden, it was like Mike didn’t exist. She wouldn’t look him in the eye, no matter how low Mike hunched to get in her line of sight. Maddie was, at least, still single-minded in her intensity. “Can I go play?” she asked, edging off her chair.
“When we’re done talking.”
“There, you finished!”
“Mads,” he groaned, “you know that’s not what I meant.”
His little girl pouted, slumping in her chair.
“Now, please tell me why you think Miss Baker is going to marry me.”
“Because she is.”
“That’s not a reason, kid. You—” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face “—you know we’re not really getting married, right? That’s just pretend?”
Maddie’s chin tipped up stubbornly. Still, Mike could see her lip begin to quiver. “It’s not pretend. You’re getting married and she’s going to be my new mommy.”
“Oh, sweetheart, that’s not true.”
Her shoulders began to shake and Mike felt like his own heart was breaking at the sight of the fat teardrops pooling in her eyes. He’d done that. Well, he and the the truth. Knowing he had about three seconds until a total meltdown, he slid around the table and gathered Maddie into his arms.
He’d just barely got his ass in the seat when the wailing started. Honestly, Mike wasn’t sure where his daughter learned to cry quite so theatrically, but it was impressive. He rubbed up and down her shuddering back, cradling her in his lap and not caring that she was definitely smearing snot and tears all over his shoulder. If she needed to cry this one out, he wasn’t about to stop her.
When the wailing died down, replaced mostly by sad little sniffles, Mike risked a question. “Which part is making you sad?”
He expected any number of replies. That they weren’t getting married. That Ginny wouldn’t be her mom. That she didn’t have a mom at all.
He didn’t think he could possibly have guessed her real answer in a million years.
Maddie peered up at him. Her little face was crumpled and red, tears still streaming down her cheeks. She took two, deep, juttery breaths, practically wheezing with the effort. Mike waited patiently, continuing to rub her back. Finally though, she managed to get out, “I don’t want Miss Baker to marry Jacob C’s uncle!”
“What?” Mike sputtered. He’d gotten pretty good at following the leaps in Maddie’s thought processes, but he was at a loss here.
“I told Jacob C. that his uncle can’t marry Miss Baker because she’s already going to marry you! But you say she’s not, so that means she has to marry him!” she collapsed, sobbing and drained, back against his shoulder.
Mike rubbed her back, soothing, but trying not to laugh at kindergarten logic. If this was all Maddie was worked up about, he felt just a tiny little bit less bad. Until he realized, Christ, he’d raised his kid to be as possessive as he was.
“Maddie, Miss Baker’s not going to marry anyone if she doesn’t want to.”
“But she wants to marry him!”
“Doesn’t that mean she probably doesn’t want to marry me, then?”
“She wants to marry you, too!” she mumbled stubbornly.
“What makes you think that, Mads?” he sighed, knowing it was pointless to just tell her she was wrong. His daughter was stubborn as hell. Mike wondered who she got it from…
She just shook her head, clinging tightly to his neck. Finally, after much coaxing, he got her to mutter something into his shirt.
“She smiles at us?” he checked, sure that couldn’t be right.
Maddie nodded, though, misery clinging to every inch of her tiny frame.
Again, Mike had to struggle to hold in a chuckle. His daughter the drama queen.
“You smile at Marcus and Gabe and all of your classmates. Does that mean you’re going to marry them?” A hesitant, short shake. “Okay. And how about me? I smile at lots of people. Your Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Blip, sometimes even at people I don’t know. Do you think I’m going to marry them?”
“No,” she admitted reluctantly, finally sitting up to frown at him. “But it’s different, daddy. She smiles different at you and Uncle Noah.”
Mike wasn’t sure how he felt about his kid calling some random man her uncle, but he got her point.
Strangely enough, it gave him hope, even if it should maybe have kickstarted that jealous streak. Just Livan saying a few words to her in Spanish had managed to set it off. Odd as it was, this news about a potential other guy in the picture didn’t really bother him in the least because maybe Mike had a shot with her. If Ginny liked him enough that even his kid could see it, maybe he hadn’t been imagining things. Maybe he hadn’t been getting his hopes up for nothing.
He didn’t tell Maddie, though. While he could handle dashed dreams—in fact, did every baseball season—he wasn’t going to risk subjecting his daughter to this heartache again.
Not until he knew for sure how Ginny felt, at least.
It was all well and good to resolve to have a grown up conversation with the woman he was rapidly developing feelings for. But, as anyone could tell you come February, it was one thing to resolve to do something and an entirely different thing to actually do it.
Which was how Mike made it to the middle of December, only a few days to go before winter break, without making any kind of headway. This was his last day volunteering of the semester.
Which was why he was still lingering in Ginny’s room as his daughter and her classmates ate in the cafeteria. He was supposed to go when they filed out for lunch, but Ginny hadn’t kicked him out and Mike wasn’t leaving until she did or he figured out what to do.
Urgency and a general lack of a game plan, unfortunately, hadn’t yet made for a winning combination, and now was no different.
“My daughter tells me I should be congratulating you.”
Ginny looked up from where she was organizing a stack of artwork to send home, a confused frown furrowing her brow. Mike could’ve kicked himself, but he’d already sunk this far, might as well keep digging.
“She’s under the impression that you’re marrying Jacob Casey’s uncle.”
“Ah,” she laughed, a muted flush darkening her cheek. “That’s the news on the kindergarten grapevine these days, huh?”
“So I hear.”
She busied herself straightening the stack, but peeked up at him, uncharacteristically shy. Cute as she was, Mike kind of missed her giving him shit.
“Noah Casey is a perfectly nice guy,” she said, standing from her desk and picking up the pile of drawings.
“I sense a but,” Mike said, not at all hopefully.
“But,” she continued, casting him an exasperated glance. “he’s not really my type. Now help me put these in the cubbies, and stop fishing for gossip.”
Mike could take a hint. He also took half the pile off Ginny’s hands and started divvying artwork into the appropriate cubbies. Some of it was suspect to say the least. He knew these were just kindergartners, but geez, how did Ginny manage to stay so positive with them?
“Oh!” she exclaimed, brandishing a familiar drawing at him. “Here’s Maddie’s family portrait. She showed you, didn’t she?”
“She did,” he assured, his attention caught on the curly haired figure standing next to the bearded one. Was this how long Maddie had been thinking Ginny would join their family? Sweet Jesus.
“It was nice getting to put faces to—well, drawings, I guess. At Thanksgiving. I thanked you for inviting me, didn’t I?”
She had. Mike had walked her to the door and wished her a safe drive home. She’d straightened from pulling on her sneakers and smiled at him, rocking forward on her toes and wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a quick hug, murmuring her thank you in his ear before she pulled away.
It was a miracle he’d managed to see her out without incident. Or without the snickers that broke out as soon as the door swung closed blowing his cover.
Without turning to Blip—because who else would it have been?—he’d muttered, “Shut up,” and gone to haul Maddie upstairs to her bedroom.
“You know that one’s supposed to be you, right?” he blurted rather than respond to her question. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished the ground would open up beneath him and swallow him whole. It was turning into something of a theme today.
“Yeah,” she replied, smiling fondly down at the picture. “Maddie was so excited, she got out of her seat and ran up to my desk to show me. She told me that you were going to marry me and—”
“She what?” Mike sputtered, thrown for a loop.
“Oh,” she said, the picture of innocence. If he hadn’t spent the past three months getting to know her, he would’ve believed it, but the glimmer in her eye told Mike that Ginny knew exactly what she’d done. “Has she not told you this plan?”
“No, she has,” he wheezed. “I didn’t realize that she started with you, though.”
“It’s not so weird,” Ginny assured him, mischief melting into something softer. “Apparently, lots of kids with single dads think that about their teachers. I’ll take it as a compliment. I mean, I thought my kindergarten teacher was a witch all year. I still think that actually.”
Mike couldn’t help but laugh. It was laugh or worry himself sick over the fact that his five-year-old had decided to become his wingman.
“Well, I’m sorry if my daughter sexually harassed you on my account.”
That horsey laugh he’d become so fond of made an appearance. Ginny had to brace herself on her knees from the force of it. When she peeked up at him, her face red and eyes sparkling, Mike had to swallow down a few truly stupid urges.
Finally, she straightened, still giggling a little. “No, no! She actually made some solid arguments in your favor.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. She said that you have a pool and you know how to make the best blanket forts and usually, you take just her to all the baseball games during the summer, but she was sure I could come, too.” Mike laughed a little disbelievingly at that, and Ginny joined in. “To be fair, I hadn’t realized you were an actual player at that point, so I just thought she might not realize how season tickets work.”
“She definitely doesn’t.”
“Well, either way, it was clear how much she loves you. Maddie would be a shark in sales.”
Mike blinked, wondering if he was reading too much into that. Had his kid sold her on him before they even met? And if she’d liked him to begin with, what did she think now that they actually knew each other?
“Would she?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral, but unable to keep his head from tilting to the side, giving away his curiosity.
Ginny’s attention slid over to him. For a long moment, she studied him out of the corner of her eye before going back to distributing the last pieces of art into the correct cubbies.
Just when he’d given up on getting a response, she murmured, “Well, I guess it’s not such a hard sell.”
It took every ounce of Mike’s willpower not to whirl on her at that. Instead, he calmly slid Emily P’s family portrait into her mailbox and turned calmly, sedately even, to face the teacher, his hands finally empty. Ginny was definitely blushing now, the high arches of her cheeks rosier than they had been before. Studiously, she kept her focus off of him, up until she, too, ran out of art to occupy her focus.
When her hands were empty, too, she dared a peek up at him and gulped when she saw Mike’s attention squarely on her. Only then did Mike ask, “Oh really?”
Her flush darkened and she swallowed. To her credit, though, she didn’t allow herself to look away, and even turned to face him head on.
In spite of her blush, her embarrassment, Ginny shrugged, almost managing nonchalance. “I mean, in spite of the fact that you’re constantly rolling your eyes at me and you’re really way too grumpy for someone who plays a kid’s game for a living and you refuse to put that creature on your face out of its misery, yeah, Mike. It’s not that hard to sell someone on you.”
His grin threatened to split his face in half it was so wide.
“You know,” he said, taking a step towards her and not bothering to tamp down on that wild grin, not even a little bit, “I think Maddie was trying to talk you up, too.”
Her head tipped back so she could keep her eyes firmly on his, but she didn’t back up. Not when it was her turn to ask, “Oh really?”
“Yep. She told me that you knew all the best games and read stories with the right voices and have a secret candy stash. And even though now I know you’re only in the teaching game so you can raise your own, mini feminist army—”
“Feminist army?” she laughed.
“And you just love to interrupt me,” he continued, grin still in place, “and are lying through your teeth about my beard, I can see that Maddie was maybe onto something.”
“Something, huh?” Ginny took her own step forward, the toes of her sneakers nearly bumping against Mike’s boots. Her face tilted up to his, dimples fully on display as she practically beamed up at him. The last time they’d been this close, Ginny’d hugged him and Mike hadn’t known what to do with himself. He still didn’t know what to do with himself, but he intended to get more than a hug.
As long as she was okay with it.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he warned, lips mere inches from hers, hands settling on her waist.
“You better,” she breathed, her own hands landing on his chest and sliding appreciatively up to his shoulders.
Agreement secured, Mike leaned in and sealed his mouth over hers.
He was fully aware, even as he pulled Ginny closer and nipped at her full bottom lip, that he really shouldn’t be making out with his daughter’s teacher in his daughter’s classroom during school hours. Anyone, from another teacher to the principal to, oh yeah, his daughter, could walk in on them. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care, though. Not with Ginny’s fingers stroking against his beard as she cradled his face. Especially not when she sighed into him, opening her mouth to his. Their tongues tangled together, neither a contest of wills nor a conquest, just gentle, curious exploration.
When they finally broke apart, Ginny hid her face in his chest, giggling a little helplessly as she caught her breath. He understood the feeling; he was pretty overwhelmed, too. Mike’s thumbs rubbed small circles into her sides, just below her rib cage, both to comfort and because he couldn’t bring himself to let go.
Her giggles died away, but she didn’t emerge from the front of his shirt. He leaned back to try and get some view of her face, but she rocked with him. It was his turn to chuckle. In retaliation, Ginny stepped on his foot.
“Hey!” he protested, not that she’d actually hurt him. “If that’s how it’s gonna be, then maybe I shouldn’t ask you out to dinner over the break.”
That finally got her to look up. It’d hardly been five minutes, but seeing her face again was such a relief. What kind of magic was that?
“After that,” she countered through swollen lips, leaving no doubt to what she meant, “you better.”
It took a few years, but Mike eventually paid her back for that.
In the space between the officiant asking, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” and Ginny’s response he mouthed the words back at her.
You better.
Even with all the time between that day and this, all the memories they’d created together, Mike watched the recollection click and her smile grow even wider.
Eyes sparkling as brightly as the day he met her—as stunned as he’d been that day, it had nothing on the depth of his feelings now—Ginny responded, nearly overflowing with joy, “I do.”
This time, Mike wasn’t going to wait to be told he could kiss her. Instead, he drew his wife—his wife!—forward and was well ahead of the curve by the time he heard, “You may now kiss the bride.”
Judging by the way Ginny laughed into his mouth, she didn’t mind one bit.
#mindykahling#Bawson#Bawson fic#Pitch#Pitch fic#this is the fluffiest#seriously i gave myself a toothache#and i loved every second of it
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Choose Your Own Journey
02.27.19
Destination Journey Prompt 1.
As children we desire and want in the moment, without a second thought or care as to why. We just know what we want; we rely so purely on our instincts and feelings. Looking back on those desires might seem silly or pointless. It might not make sense at first glance on why retrospection is needed to arrive at our purpose in life or understanding our desires as we discover and learn about this life. I would like be a liar to say I did not at first believe the same thing, but I kept an open mind and wrote down my thoughts here; if you care to join me on this journey.
In my youth I wanted to be so many things. Age five, kindergarten, all I wanted was to be a dancer, a teacher, an artist. I was enthralled by these things.
I wanted to be a dancer. They were graceful with slender arms and legs full of strength and beauty. Nobody ever laughed at them for running into things. I never heard anybody call them horrendous names or scream at them harsh words. I imagined they never felt ugly or unwanted as I had. They were angelic and soft, full of light. Yet they possessed a form of strength and assertiveness in their movements. Dance was at the foremost of my mind and later, I did become a dancer of sorts, not the professional kind however. I learned the hard work and memorization required to perform well. The teamwork and trust that I had previously never had. I gained confidence in my abilities to perform for dress recitals or in studio, but never enough to actually follow through and perform on stage and most certainly never in public in front of peers. I wanted so badly to avoid any additional ridicule and harassment in my life. I did gain control of my body in those moments, however brief, and I did feel strong and powerful, seductive even as I got older.
Of course dancing was only a small part of my path. I also wanted to be a teacher, just like my grandmother. She was the light of my world in a very dark childhood. She never had mean or harsh words, she never hit me or accused me of actions I had not done. She introduced me to different activities as well. I would go swimming or shopping. Absolute luxuries to a child growing up on government welfare and in project housing to a single mother working two jobs. But more than that, she was the first of a long list of individuals that took a personal interest in me, in my desires and dreams. She wasn’t the only one either. My privy to teachers outside of the school setting allowed me to find personal talks with my teachers; healthy adult relations, however rare they had been, had been formed in these moments. They were my village. These teachers, including my grandmother, were there behind me to guide me in an otherwise adult-less, guide-less childhood of a latchkey kid raising herself and 2 siblings.
Perhaps along the way, my art teachers were the teachers who took the most interest in my dreams and creativity. Opening a channel of exploration and expression not allowed at home when I had to care for home and siblings. It was just a time to unwind; a time to explore frustrations and concentration on me. A time to not stress and worry about others in that moment. Just a time to be free of the weight being the eldest was found in those short time frames of painting or drawing as a kid.
Of course this was nurtured and continued in my life, whether through television’s “happy little trees” or learning to work clay and taking classes at Baker Hunt’s Art School when I was old enough.
I ran away from a career in these things that had brought me relief from life’s weight for fear it would rob the joy and passion out of them like taking on a more professional role had done with year-round swimming and band. I still struggle to find my own path in the world, but I slowly become more aware each day of my purpose, of my calling in this life.
Obviously as we age, our perspectives and ideals of what we want out of life change. But not as much as we would think.
Deep down I still want to be desirable, I still want to escape life’s troubles, and most importantly--I still want to be like those who helped me along my path.
#piccadillyinc#journal#personal#spilled ink#spilled thoughts#spilled words#spilled prose#excerpts from my life#excerpt from my life#excerpt from a book I'll never write#documentary of my life
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I know you're not taking requests but just imagining Niall celebrating Valentines Day with his wife and little girl makes my heart melt😭
Can you do a Niall imagine where he goes to pick your daughter up from school and he talks to the other parents? It’s a bit weird I know 😂
A/N: I kinda combined these……Also I’m the worst bc this is Valentine’s fluff and technically it’s St. Patrick’s day.
Valentine’s Day
Niall just barely managed to slip inside the door to the elementary school while juggling his guitar case, a giant box of sweets, and three grocery bags of craft supplies. He was eternally grateful you weren’t there to watch him flounder around. The last thing he needed was a reminder that “You can always make more than one trip, Niall.” Getting his bearings, he shuffled into the office to sign in. As soon as he crossed the doorway all three secretaries just about lunged across their desks to greet him. Niall always found it hilarious, if not a little flattering. You had seen the staff react to him early on and decided to use it to you advantage, sending Niall in your stead whenever you needed a favor. So far, your daughter Charlie had gotten the teacher you requested, and the bus stop moved to the bottom of your driveway. You tried to shy away from using Niall’s fame to get special treatment, the only exception being your child.
“Mr. Horan, how may we help you today?” The secretary was leaning across the desk, baring far too much cleavage for a woman her age and in a school setting. Niall grinned and gave her a small wink.
“Cynthia, please, call me Niall.” He flashed a grin at her and she physically swooned at him.
“Niall, what can I do for you today?” Her voice was sickly sweet and he could see the other two secretaries nearly panting behind her.
“M’here for the Valentine’s Day party. Just need to pick up a visitor’s pass.”
The secretary clasped her hands together and rummaged around for the sign in sheet. “Oh yes, Charlotte told me last week that her daddy was coming in to sing to her class. So sweet of you to be involved like that!” She slid the sign-in book across the desk and Niall eased the box and bags onto the bench beside the door. He chuckled a little to himself at the mention of his daughter. She absolutely hated being called by her real name, Charlotte. When she was first learning to talk she had a terrible time with it. You and Niall had tried shortening it to “Lottie” but to no avail. She finally managed to get out her own version of Charlotte, but it sounded a lot like Charlie - and it stuck. It was so ingrained that now if anyone referred to her by her full name they were likely to get a fairly surly glare from the dark haired beauty.
Finally scrawling his name into the visitor’s log, he gathered all the supplies up and wished all the ladies in the office a “Happy Valentine’s Day”. They all preened and cooed as he stumbled from the room, huffing down the hallway to the kindergarten classes.
When Charlie spotted him coming through the door, she leapt off her small chair and careened into his legs. “Daddy Daddy! You’re here!” Niall teetered on his feet from the force of her impact and gave her a wide smile. “Course I’m here darlin’, wouldn’t miss a good party would I?” Charlie’s teacher, Ms. Winters, came over to help take his bags. Grabbing the pink pastry box, she raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“I didn’t see you on the sign up list for treats, Niall?”
He blushed and smiled sheepishly at her. “Yeah, they’re actually from my friend Harry.” Ms. Winters’ eyes went a bit wide, correctly assuming he meant that Harry. “Uh, he heard about the party and wanted to send something. I told him just to order cupcakes but he said I had to be careful about food allergies or something….” with an eyeroll he finished, “so now I’ve been hauling around rice crispy treats that he made with some kind of organic cereal and homemade marshmallows. He told me to tell you that he used to be a baker.”
Ms. Winters chuckled and took the box, flipping over the small card attached. “To all my friends in Ms. Winters’ class. All the love today, Charlie’s favorite Uncle Harry.” Charlie chose that moment to tug on Ms. Winters’ skirt.
“I like Uncle Harry better than Uncle Greg.”
Ms. Winters looked at Niall, who just sighed and chided his daughter lightly.
“Charlie, that’s not very nice. We love Uncle Greg too.”
With her hands balled up on her hips, she tipped her chin up to her father precociously. “Nuh uh Daddy. You told Mommy you like Uncle Harry better too, I heard you!”
“Ok, Charlie I think that’s enough. Why don’t you show your Daddy the card you’ve been making.” Ms. Winters gently pushed the little girl by the shoulders, with Niall mouthing a silent “thank you” for saving him.
The rest of the party went off without a hitch. Niall sang and played his guitar, busting out his famous “you sing!” during the chorus of “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. Craft time was a bit of a mess, as Niall wasn’t exactly prepared for 20 six year olds on a sugar buzz with jars of glitter running amok.
When Niall finally made it home, with Charlie in tow, you were just putting the finishing touches on the roast you were making for dinner. Niall had insisted that all he wanted for Valentine’s Day was a quiet night in with his girls. You’d compromised by agreeing to have a nice, home cooked meal, but you were sending Charlie off to her gran’s house for the evening. A tiny bag from La Perla was set atop your dresser just waiting for the adult celebration to begin.
Charlie came tearing into the kitchen, her baggie of candy and valentines clutched in her small hand. “Mummy! Daddy came to my class and he sang and everyone wanted to see his guitar!” She threw her arms around your knees, and hugged you tight. “Wow sweetheart! That was so nice of him! I’m sure he had a wonderful time visiting!” You peered up at Niall, who was slouched against the counter - a beer already in hand. You sent your daughter to the family room to watch her afternoon show, pressing a plate of cheese and crackers into her hand for a snack. Niall wrapped his lips around the tip of the bottle and nearly drained half the lager in one swoop.
“Easy killer, it’s barely four in the afternoon.”
“I’m exhausted, babe. I was only there for 2 hours, s’like a madhouse!”
Slipping your arms around his waist, you tipped your head back and pressed a small kiss to his stubbled chin. “Such a good daddy. She loved having you there.” He set the bottle behind him and pushed your hair back over your shoulders. He leaned in and kissed you softly.
“Loved bein’ there. I like doing those things for her.”
“So, how many times did you get hit on?”
Niall scoffed at your teasing, but wouldn’t make eye contact right away. You giggled and poked at his side a bit more. “C’mon…..spill.”
“It was a kids party! Everyone was just enjoying the party!”
“How many times, Ni?”
With a huff he rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Well, if ya must know, Abby Morton’s mum got a bit handsy towards the end.”
You let out a rolicking laugh just imagining poor Niall try to escape the clutches of another parent.
“Oi! Shouldn’t you be jealous? I mean, she touched me bum and everything! And I know for a fact there wasn’t that much glitter on my pants.”
You pressed your lips into the warm skin on his neck and nipped lightly. His fingertips dug into your sides and his breath hissed at the sting of your teeth. “Mmm, I’m not jealous because you came home to me. And I’m not jealous that she touched your cute little peach bum, because I’m the one that gets to grab onto it later while you’re inside me.” A tiny whimper left his mouth and you dragged the tip of your tongue across his Adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down. He grabbed your shoulders harshly and moved you out of the way. “Ni-”, you started to protest, but before you could get the words out, Niall was shouting into the family room.
“Charlie! C’mon baby girl, grab your coat. We’re going to Granny’s house early - get in the car!”
You laughed as Niall swept Charlie out the front door, shooting a look over his shoulder as he left. “Ya better be ready for me when I get home!” As the door slammed, you squealed and skipped up the stairs. That new La Perla set was going to get some use sooner than you’d thought!
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How my mind deals with trauma. The things that shaped me.
Spoiler: not good.
I, like millions of other people have gone through trauma, plenty times in fact, sometimes tougher situations than others, which I will talk about in a second,but first I’d like to address something.
Not because someone has gone through “tougher” situations than you or through more situations than you, makes your trauma any less valid. As “mild” as what your experience might’ve been, everything effects everyone differently, no one gets an opinion on how you perceive or deal with things. Your trauma is and always will be as valid as others.
Now, to my story. I’ve experienced tons of situations in my life that have taken a toll on me and definitely shaped me to the way I am now. For example, I’ve been bullied all my life, some years constantly and in a row, and some years here and there, but that has left me scarred and has turned me into even a more introverted person that I was supposed to be.
My mom says I was a very talkative baby! That I used to make friends with everyone and everything and that everyone loved me. And I still am, technically, talkative, just not with everyone, and not everyone loves me. My bullying journey started ever since I was in kindergarten, because of my weight and looks, they’d call me “piggy”. In fact, there’s only three reasons on why I was bullied; cause I was fat, cause I was weird, and because someone pulled a Hannah Baker on me (rumors about me being easy). How did I deal with the first one? Well, I developed an eating disorder when I was 11, it started with just skipping lunch at school, to throwing up my meals, to restricting and binging. I didn’t realize what I went through until I was 17 when someone told me that was not normal. To this day I still fall back to old habits sometimes and I’m almost 20.
How did I deal with the second one? I didn’t, I’m still weird. I have a weird sense of humor,a strange way of talking, and a ‘weird’ music taste according to some, but really I just like a lot of music. I didn’t try to change this because I legit did not know how, it would've meant to change my whole being. So instead of doing that, I just stopped talking to people, stopped trying to make friends. I was always nice to everyone, no matter what, but I stopped trying to get close to anyone, I still am that way to this day, but I’m fine with that, looking at how hypocritical and fake some people turned out to be.
How did I deal with the third one? Once again, I didn’t. I couldn’t, cause the guy who spread the rumors was very loved and popular, I was a nobody next to him, and I was also about to graduate. But it still took a toll on me, thinking how could anyone believe that I was that kind of girl? It didn't make sense at all. I cried nights in a row, and lost some friends. This made me not trust anyone except for the people I already trust and have stuck by me.
Next chapter; dating.
My mom made my dating age 15. And I was okay with that cause up until then I thought boys were stupid, except for the One Direction guys. Sadly my first experience in the love territory was everything but good.
I met this guy and in my eyes he was perfect, he looked like an angel. Long hair, on the chubby side (how I liked them at the time), a drummer, and gorgeous eyes. He was in my english class, and I didn’t know how to get his attention so I sent him letters. Eventually we talked, and he told me he had a girlfriend, so I said ‘oh okay, hopefully we can be friends though’ and he agreed. He became closer to me, a week passed and he asked me to be his girlfriend, telling me he would leave his girlfriend for me. And me being 15, not knowing what was right or wrong, and believing him thinking this was the most romantic thing in the world, I said yes. Spoiler; big mistake.
Eventually our first kiss came around, and it was magical, my first kiss. But 10 minutes later we were walking and he grabbed my butt. I didn’t like that.. but I didn’t say anything cause ‘ hey, this guy is super popular and out of my league, I should be honored he found my butt appealing, right?’ I was so wrong, but I didn’t want him to leave me. So this behavior continued, and I stayed quiet cause I was afraid he would break my heart, even though deep down it was already broken. He didn’t want me posting us on social media, cause he ‘liked privacy’ but when I met him, his profile was full of pictures with his girlfriend then. I decided I wanted to post a picture of us, and he got so mad at me I cried. I should’ve taken that as a sign, one of the MANY signs. He told his dad I was a friend, never introduced me. A lot of people didn’t even know I was his girlfriend.
One day we were at my house, with my door still sort of open cause that was the rule, my brother and parents were in their rooms. We were making out, and he kept wanting to go further, but I didn’t. We hadn’t even been dating for a month. To not go into detail cause 1) Tumblr would ban me, and 2) I really don’t want to; he s*xually ab*sed me. I said no, 3 times. But I eventually stopped saying it cause I didn’t want him to break my heart. So I just went stiff and cried while he did what he did. I will leave it up to you to decide if it was ab*se or not, cause to me it was, but maybe I’m wrong?
Next day he dumped me. Months later I found out he never broke up with his girlfriend, and he was also seeing another girl, oh and that his girlfriend and him laughed at my letters. I was the other girl without ever knowing.
After the one experience I had when I was 15, I did not let anyone touch me for a year. Not even my mom, and I could tell she was sad cause she loved giving me hugs and I loved it too. After that year passed, it was only men who I did not want touching me. Still to this day, I’m a very reserved person when it comes to my personal space. It’s also effected my current relationship sometimes. And I hate myself for that, I hate I’m still not over it. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him.
All the other boyfriends I had after him, cheated on me too. Never wanted to be posted or to post me in social media, cause they had other people to cheat on too. All of them except one, I appreciate that one.
I have so many more stories, but I am not ready yet to talk about them.
So. How do I deal with trauma? I honestly don’t know. And I wish I could say that’s okay, but I sincerely don’t know if it is. It affects me plenty to this day, in daily activities. I think about it when I shower or look at myself in the mirror. It sometimes slips into my mind while walking or before bed. And I don’t know when it will stop or if it even will. I wish it will. It effects my relationships and when I realize that it did, it’s too late.
For example, I sometimes think the worst about my fiancé even when I know him 100%, and I don’t mean to think the worst, my brain automatically does it. But when I realize that I’ve exploded, it’s too late. And I wish he knew how truly sorry I am. I know he's not like him, but at the same time there’s always the ‘what if’ and I try my best to work on it.I’m like a ticking time bomb. Am I too messed up? I don’t know, sometimes i think I am. All I know is I don’t know how to fix myself. But I hope someday I will.
Thank you for reading.
#blog#trauma#storytime#sex assault#assault#abuse#newblog#story#poetry#girl#bullying#bully#life#lifestyle
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Chapter 3 of If only it had been a Murderer. Hetalia fic.
I was just finishing the email to the company that was (potentially still) handling the sale of the ranch in Orchards when I heard Aria's door open and close. I quickly sent it and waited for Aria, oh so slowly, to make her way into the living room. Honda-san had noticed me putting my laptop to the side, so he paused the anime he was watching.
Aria looked annoyed as she started walking to a seat on the couch, “Couldn't sleep Aria? It's only been half an hour.” I teased her. She glared at me as she sat down. I just grinned and looked over at Honda-san.
“Well, since she's up now we can explain why you can't be seen outside right now.”
Aria gave me a dirty look, she knew I was going to leave it to her to explain properly.
“Right, since Allora is being a brat, I guess I have to explain. The lease only allows people on it, who are out of school and working age, to stay at the apartments for more than a week or two. People visiting is fine but, since they didn't see you arrive because of the crate they will ask questions since the office faces us. If we were in an apartment that was facing away or that was behind the office, it would be fine. We can add you to the lease once you get a job, but until then it would be best if you stay inside, if we can find another place and actually buy it or rent it quickly enough you can go there and do whatever you want until we move all the way over. Once we move over to a new place we can talk about ground rules. For now, all you have to know rules wise right now is to knock on the bedroom doors before you come in if you need something. Any questions Honda-san?” She asked.
Honda-san shook his head no.
“Right, do you two want to hear about what the research I did?” I asked.
They both perked up and looked at me. I snorted and teased them both, “You look like puppies looking for a treat.” Aria started glaring at me with murder in her eyes, “Anyway, I found the real estate company that is in charge of selling the ranch in Orchards. I just sent them an email about it, when you got back up Aria. On their website, I also found other places that we could probably look at and I'm sure Craigslist will have a few other places with land for sale or even rent on it.”
Aria nodded, “While you look at other real estate websites I can look at craigslist.”
I grinned and nodded, while I picked up my laptop again. I looked over at Honda-san while opening it. “You can go back to watching the anime if you want Honda-san.”
He nodded and un-paused the anime.
I open my email up again, so I can send emails about any that sound promising, and immediately saw that I had an email about the ranch already. Which is unusual I thought, in high school, I was told that these types of things took a few days. I didn't tell them that I received a reply, I wanted to see what it said before I told them. I read the email and started a smiling a little, making Aria look at me and ask, “Why are you smiling? Did you get distracted by fanfiction?”
I gave her an insulted look for that, making her grin. “No, for your information, I just got a reply from the real estate handling old man Miller's ranch well, the person in charge of selling the ranch said that if we had time next Saturday that we could go to his office and talk to him and old man Miller. I think we should Aria, we should continue looking but I have a good feeling about this Aria.”
“Tell them we can meet them then. The most they can do is tell us no.”
We both went back to looking for more places. After several hours I looked at the clock, it was nearing 12:30, none of us have eaten today.
“Aria, we should eat. If we can get to my bank before they close at 1:30 we can cash the check and use some of it to eat.”
Aria looked at the time and nodded to my suggestion.
“Let me go wake Kara, she needs to eat too. Honda-san would you like anything specific to eat?”
He thought for a moment, “Is there a place that serves ramen?” He asked.
In unison, Aria and I said, “Kenji’s,” then I continued, “it's really good, looks like that's what we are having. Aria go get Kara up.” I looked over at Honda-san, “While we are out we can stop at either at a thrift store or Walmart to get you some clothes, for now, why don't you go change into one of the kimonos. When Aria comes back she can go distract the office people with a fake question while we get you into the car. When we come back they will have seen you go into the apartment, so they won't question about when you got here.”
Aria went and woke up Kara, who wasn't happy to be woken up but wanted food so didn't complain too much, and after Aria distracted the office people we were all in the car. We made it to the bank and got in and out quickly, my bank was right next to Kenji’s, so we ate and then headed to Walmart since it was closer. We got him a few shirts and pants, and a jacket until we could do a proper shopping session. When we got home though, we saw something that made me groan.
A FedEx truck was in front of our apartment. I saw the same guy from this morning coming down our stairs looking annoyed. He happened to look over and see me, he looked half relieved and half annoyed.
“I don't know what you did, but the moment I got back to Change for the Better Inc. before heading back to the FedEx report center. I was told by a really angry customer service representative named Andria to go back out to do another delivery to you. What did you do?”
I snorted, “Do you have time to listen upstairs? I would rather talk about it out of the cold.”
He eyed me, I think I looked far too happy to have pissed someone off.
“Sure, I guess.”
We all started up the stairs, after we got in he moved the new units crate into the room. We all sat down, I told him what happened, and he started cracking up from it.
“The reason I was rude earlier is that only a few people in each city that work for FedEx are trained to handle Unit deliveries. After about 6 months delivering them… I have seen a lot of people who mistreat them and call them it and so on. I… I can’t do anything about it other than being as rude as possible to the owners.”
I stared at him, “I completely understand, it’s a coping device for you. Maybe when you see it’s a new person be nice and only be rude once you know how they treat them?”
He thought for a moment and nodded in agreement, then he got a gigantic smirk on his face. “Before I left to deliver the Unit her boss came out and ripped into her. He told her that all calls were recorded and that they hadn’t liked how she did anything, and that he didn’t like the fact that she was acting like she was. I saw him fire her for how she talked about the units and how she was using her position to make other’s lives difficult.” He got up and went to grab the smaller box and an envelope from on top of the crate. “He handed me this to deliver to you as well, he also said to apologize and tell you that they were going to re-train everyone because of it. He said that the unit will have another envelope still in it.” I was in the process of taking the envelope and froze. I got wide-eyed and stared at the envelope apprehensive. I shook it off and put the envelope to the side.
“Hey, can I ask a question, well actually a few?” I asked
He nodded.
“First what’s your name?”
���My names Jin Woo.”
“Nice to meet you, Jin Woo, secondly do you by any chance know how exactly they got my name? All the ad asked for was the address and absolutely nothing else. Since Ms. Andria was how she was I wasn’t able to ask her.”
He frowned, “No, sorry all I get is the name of who to deliver too and the address.”
I nodded in understanding, “The third question, we are looking for a different a place to live since this is, way too small. When we find a place how do I let the company know? Just call them or can I just tell you since we have 5 months to find a place and should see you before we completely move,”
“Since you have such a long time to find a place you can just straight up tell me, and I will let them know.”
“Last question, how often are we going to get another Unit do you know?”
“It's always going to be once every two weeks after today, as long as you don’t piss anyone off at Change for the Better again,” he told me while grinning.
Aria cut in, “As fascinating as this conversation is going, we have someone to let out of a cramped crate.”
I looked a Jin Woo, “Do you want to see the Unit or just leave?”
“I need to get back to Change for the Better to let them know that all Unit deliveries are done before I head back to FedEx to clock out.”
We saw him out then turned to the crate.
“Right let’s look at the manual for him, or her.”
I opened the box with the manual in it, it read,
Congratulations! You have successfully purchased a Lukas Dahl (Norway) Unit! In order to help you unlock your unit's full capabilities and for your safety we have provided you with this manual. (Reading is highly advised for the safety of self and property)
Country Name: Kingdom of Norway
Human name: Lukas Dahl
Names that the unit will respond: Lukas, Mr. Dahl, Norway, Dahl.
Place of Manufacture: USA, California
Age: 20
Height: 5’0
Your Unit comes with:
(1) Sailor suit
(1) Viking Axe
(1) Present Day Military Uniform
(1) Viking outfit
(1) Tackle box
We are in the process of making Mr. Puffin Unit you will receive one after testing.
Here are some jobs that your unit can get, all information to get a job comes with the unit.
Fisherman: If there is a fishing competition or a boat looking for a hand, the job is made for him.
Childcare: Norway is Great with kids under the age of 15. So, daycare or even a Kindergarten teacher will do.
Librarian: He is very good at demanding quite in the library and getting books back. The children who visit will love to talk to him.
Baker: Anything you can think of, Lukas Dahl can and will, make it taste even better than you can imagine.
To remove him safely from the crate, do one of the following:
1. Play 'Ja Vi Elsker Dette Landet', Norway's anthem. He will be curious and try to get out and see who is playing his anthem.
2. Play the 10-minute challenge of Iceland saying 'Onii-chan.' Norway will Immediately burst out and glomp the first figure he sees. When he notices that you're not Iceland, he will apologize, and you can start from there.
3. Tap the box and ask for some butter. He might share it but probably not since he almost ran out of it in late 2011 before Christmas. Keep in mind, he will be a bit selfish when it comes to butter. It depends on how close you are to him.
To reprogram your unit all you have to do is talk to them normally. Here are the modes your Lukas Dahl unit comes with:
1. Emotionless (Default)
2. Brotherly (Default)
3. Viking (Locked)
Lukas Dahl is Emotionless by default mode. Everything is okay as long as he's emotionless. Even if you're panicking or sad, he'll still look emotionless but he understands even if he doesn't show it.
Lukas Dahl, Brotherly Mode will come out if you are younger than him, you will know when this mode is used, when he checks up on you, ordering you to finish your homework or any paperwork, making sure you cleaned up your room, and walking you to school and pick you up. Norway is pretty used to having Iceland around a lot. So, either get used to it or order an Iceland Unit. He's pretty good with kids, but he's not good with them when they turn 15.
Lukas Dahl Viking Mode-locked, Norway was the fiercest Viking during the Viking Era, so he is the most dangerous out of the other Scandinavian Units. You need to watch out for him when he's like this. But it's pretty hard to get this Mode unlocked. Just don't press your luck with his line of patience.
If you have any questions, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX.
“Honestly the third option sounds like the best.” I thought out loud.
“Allora, maybe tell us whom the person is?”
I looked over at Aria startled, “Oh, its Norway. Sorry, I forgot to say that when I first started reading.”
I looked back at the crate looking for the hatch on top. I flipped the hatch and knocked on the crate, “Mr. Dahl, could I borrow some butter, please?”
I heard rustling from inside the crate, “No, I won’t share butter with someone I don’t know.”
I grinned a bit amused, I opened the top of the crate slightly to let the side facing me to come down. I stopped it from hitting the floor and gently lowered it.
“Right, come on out and bring your things with you. We need to get rid of the crate.”
“Honda-san and I can do that Allora, you would just slow us down.” Aria butted in.
I gave her a dirty look but didn’t protest as they started doing it after Norway moved. I hmphed and went to sit on the couch as Kara laughed at me.
“Right, Norway how would you like us to refer to you in terms of your human name?”
“Lukas or just Dahl is fine… may I ask where I am, and who everyone but Japan-san is?”
“Well, you are in America Vancouver, Washington to be exact. I am Allora, the one that is still here and not outside is Kara and the one that is helping Honda-san is Aria. We are looking for another place to live. Until then you and Honda-san will have to sleep in the living room. I'm really sorry about that.” I told him.
“That's fine, is there a place I can put my things?”
We found a place near the electric fireplace for him to put things. “We will have to find another place after we get a tree for this place. Kara, why don't we clean off the coffee table and put it in the outside storage until we can figure out how to do this?” I asked her.
She nodded, and we got to work on it. Dahl didn't hesitate to help without being asked. After Honda-san and Aria got back it was around 4:00 pm we had been out and about for a little while just to go straight to sitting and talking.
I looked over at Aria, “Since Dahl is here we should go back to Walmart to get him clothes, so he has something to wear.”
She made a face but nodded and grabbed the keys. “Kara, since the car is pretty small why don't you stay here? Honda-sans would you like to come with us or stay here as well?” Aria asked.
Honda-san replied, “I can stay here and continue watching anime while you take Dahl-san to get clothing.”
“Alrighty, then Dahl let’s go get this done and over with,” I said with false cheerfulness.
Aria gave me a look for being dramatic when I was the one to say we need to go do this.
After we finished at Walmart, which took two hours because of the looking for clothes and then waiting in the long lines since it was getting ever closer to Christmas, it was six o'clock at night. Since it was in the same parking lot we decided to go to my favorite fast food place Arby’s.
Aria called Kara and asked, “What do you and Honda-san want from Arby’s?”
“I would like just fries, I’m not that hungry, Honda-san doesn’t know what they have so would like to try what Allora is getting.”
“Alright, see you guys when we get back.”
We quickly got the food and headed back home.
Once we got inside we all sat down and started handing the food out to who got what. Instead of watching the anime Honda-san had in I put in a movie about a park involving dinosaurs failing on being safe. Kara and Aria both looked annoyed with my choice in movie since they weren't fans of dinosaurs. They didn’t complain though since Honda-san looked interested in it, Dahl we weren’t sure about, but none of us wanted to annoy him with questions about him being bored. After the movie, it was around 9 o’clock so we all decided to go to bed even though tomorrow was a Sunday.
End of chapter.
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TIPS TO RAISE AN OPTIMIST
Wondering how to raise an optimistic child? After all, kids who see the glass as half full are better at dealing with life’s challenges—and happier too. Here’s six tips to help yours develop a sunny outlook on life.
There are many reasons to encourage optimism in our children, including long-lasting positive affects on their mental and physical well-being. (Did you know optimists are much more likely to live past 100?) But how do you go about raising an optimist? Put these six tips into practice, for starters, and watch the positive benefits extend to the rest of your household.
1. Quit complaining.
Melissa Baldauf often catches herself worrying out loud as she drives her sons, ages 2 and 4, through the Seattle rain to child care. “We’re never going to get there,” she might say, or “We’re always running late.” Focusing on negative thoughts and frustrations, though, is classic pessimism. The more you moan about money problems or a tough day at work, the more likely it is that your kids will learn to do the same thing. Instead, try talking about things that go right (“I killed a big project at work today,” or “I had the nicest encounter at the post office today”). During dinner Jenn McCreary, a Philadelphia mom, plays “roses and thorns” with her 9-year-old twins. Each family member reveals the best and worst thing that happened to them that day. Rather than grumbling about the thorns, the goal is to focus on the positive. The bonus round is McCreary’s favorite part: “We all share one hope for tomorrow,” she says.
2. Have high expectations.
Even before her sons started kindergarten, Priscilla Baker began posting a to-do list above the light switch in their rooms reminding them to make their bed, get dressed, brush their teeth, and tidy up their room. “They weren’t allowed to come down for breakfast until they’d finished all their jobs,” says the Blacksburg, Virginia, mom. While she initially came up with the idea to reduce her own workload, Baker quickly realized that her boys were also benefiting from the routine. “They’d come downstairs all excited and say, ‘Mommy, I made my bed really well. Come check.’ They felt so proud,” she says.
Kids won’t develop an optimistic, “can-do” attitude unless they have the opportunity to prove their worth. “Entrusting children to complete tasks makes them feel capable,” notes Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., a child psychologist and the author of Freeing Your Child From Negative Thinking. Chores need to be age appropriate, since the point is for kids to succeed. A 2-year-old can pick up her toys, a 3-year-old can put dirty clothes in the hamper, a 4-year-old can carry plates to the sink, a 5-year-old can empty wastebaskets, and a 6-year-old can sort laundry.
3. Encourage reasonable risk-taking.
We all struggle with how much to try to protect our kids from getting (or feeling) hurt. It’s embarrassing to fall off the monkey bars in front of your friends or join an ice-hockey league when you don’t know how to skate, so it’s natural to want to shield your child from these types of situations. But discouraging him from doing an activity because he might not be as skilled as other kids undermines his confidence—and encourages pessimism to seep in.
You’ve simply got to start letting go of the reins, emphasizes Parents advisor Michael Thompson, Ph.D., author of Homesick and Happy: How Time Away From Parents Can Help a Child Grow. Allow your kindergartner to play alone in the backyard or go on a school field trip without you as a chaperone. Over time, build up to bigger risks, like climbing the rock wall at a fair or going to sleepaway camp. “You don’t want your child to be afraid to try new things,” says Dr. Thompson. “You want him to come home and say, ‘Mom, I did it!’ ”
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gwentm replied to your post: I wanna talk about my son / world build, but idk...
please please tell me if peter had any childhood friends / good teachers ? basically anyone outside of his family hat would have been distraught after his disappearance ??? and i want to know what his life was like at school !!
WITH PLEASURE !! peter had two very close friends who would have been traumatized when he was abducted ---- a boy named carl who lived down the way at the next farm over ( the one that owned all the horses ), and alison, a girl who oft got made fun of because of the color of her skin ( they became real close when peter stood up for her, because kids are mean to those who are different in the midwest ). they did everything together ----- went to the arcade, baked pies with meredith, pet All The Farm Animals, and went on all sorts of adventures. they were a real trio ( peter was obviously the leader in the group, but he didn’t like --- get cocky about it or throw it in anyone’s face and made alison and carl feel equal jflsjdfkjdf ) and did everything together. peter loved them with all his heart, esp since he didn’t have any siblings so like !!!! he would do anything for them. it’s another reason why the thought of going back to earth is painful bc he is too scared to know their fates ( they’d obvs be alive bc they’re the same age as peter bUT ). the owner of the general store also would have been super distraught after peter disappeared!!! Mr. Baker loved the quill’s and often helped meredith out, esp when she got sick ! there was peter’s kindergarten teacher, Miss Moore -------- she had him her first year teaching, and peter had one of those innocent, five/six year old crushes on her. she was beautiful and had a good heart and reminded him of his mom, which made going to school so easy ( peter had horrible separation anxiety when it came to being separated from his mom ). all of his teachers loved him, but Miss Moore helped him through a lot and defended him a lot when he’d get into fights with the other kids. wHICH BRINGS ME TO HIS LIFE AT SCHOOL?!?!?!?!!? he loved school, and learning, and his peers and teachers but he was a restless boi and therefore had to learn in a special, hands on, creative way or else he got bored and distracted and destructive. he got in a lot of fights because kids can be mean and he took it upon himself to protect the victims, even if it didn’t involve him at all. ESPECIALLY when he’s older, like 9/10 right before he got abducted. he did decent in school because it pleased his mother, but not the best because of his ADHD / constantly being in trouble.
#gwentm#finally gets around to posting this !!#i love talking abt peter's childhood rifp#ooc.#*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ ᵈᵘᵈᵉ ! ᶜʰᵉᶜᵏ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵐʸ ᶰᵉʷ ᵐᶤˣ ᵗᵃᵖᵉ ! / / HEADCANONS.#hc.
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6 Tips to Raise an Optimist
There are many reasons to encourage optimism in our children, including long-lasting positive affects on their mental and physical well-being. (Did you know optimists are much more likely to live past 100?) But how do you go about raising an optimist? Put these six tips into practice, for starters, and watch the positive benefits extend to the rest of your household.
1. Quit complaining.
Melissa Baldauf often catches herself worrying out loud as she drives her sons, ages 2 and 4, through the Seattle rain to child care. “We’re never going to get there,” she might say, or “We’re always running late.” Focusing on negative thoughts and frustrations, though, is classic pessimism. The more you moan about money problems or a tough day at work, the more likely it is that your kids will learn to do the same thing. Instead, try talking about things that go right (“I killed a big project at work today,” or “I had the nicest encounter at the post office today”). During dinner Jenn McCreary, a Philadelphia mom, plays “roses and thorns” with her 9-year-old twins. Each family member reveals the best and worst thing that happened to them that day. Rather than grumbling about the thorns, the goal is to focus on the positive. The bonus round is McCreary’s favorite part: “We all share one hope for tomorrow,” she says.
2. Have high expectations.
Even before her sons started kindergarten, Priscilla Baker began posting a to-do list above the light switch in their rooms reminding them to make their bed, get dressed, brush their teeth, and tidy up their room. “They weren’t allowed to come down for breakfast until they’d finished all their jobs,” says the Blacksburg, Virginia, mom. While she initially came up with the idea to reduce her own workload, Baker quickly realized that her boys were also benefiting from the routine. “They’d come downstairs all excited and say, ‘Mommy, I made my bed really well. Come check.’ They felt so proud,” she says.
Kids won’t develop an optimistic, “can-do” attitude unless they have the opportunity to prove their worth. “Entrusting children to complete tasks makes them feel capable,” notes Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., a child psychologist and the author of Freeing Your Child From Negative Thinking. Chores need to be age appropriate, since the point is for kids to succeed. A 2-year-old can pick up her toys, a 3-year-old can put dirty clothes in the hamper, a 4-year-old can carry plates to the sink, a 5-year-old can empty wastebaskets, and a 6-year-old can sort laundry.
3. Encourage reasonable risk-taking.
We all struggle with how much to try to protect our kids from getting (or feeling) hurt. It’s embarrassing to fall off the monkey bars in front of your friends or join an ice-hockey league when you don’t know how to skate, so it’s natural to want to shield your child from these types of situations. But discouraging him from doing an activity because he might not be as skilled as other kids undermines his confidence—and encourages pessimism to seep in.
You’ve simply got to start letting go of the reins, emphasizes Parents advisor Michael Thompson, Ph.D., author of Homesick and Happy: How Time Away From Parents Can Help a Child Grow. Allow your kindergartner to play alone in the backyard or go on a school field trip without you as a chaperone. Over time, build up to bigger risks, like climbing the rock wall at a fair or going to sleepaway camp. “You don’t want your child to be afraid to try new things,” says Dr. Thompson. “You want him to come home and say, ‘Mom, I did it!’ ”
4. Wait before reacting.
When Dr. Reivich heard that another second-grader had been calling her daughter fat, her first instinct was to phone the girl’s parents—but she stopped herself. “I wanted to teach Shayna to be her own advocate,” she says, so they plotted out what Shayna could say the next time it happened. When it did, Shayna delivered her prepared script: “Number one, I am not fat. Number two, that’s not a nice thing to say to a friend.” The other girl apologized, and Shayna came home feeling empowered. Curbing your “mama bear” instincts can take enormous selfcontrol. When your child is trying to sound out a new word or taking a long time to fit a piece into a puzzle, it’s easy to quickly intervene. “But letting your child try to solve things without your help will boost her sense of accomplishment and also make her more optimistic about what she can do in the future,” says Dr. Reivich.
5. Embrace the struggle.
When my own first-grader, Blair, toils over a worksheet, she often exclaims in exasperation, “I’m bad at math!” Unfortunately, a single setback may be enough for kids to concoct a permanent sense of their shortcomings: “I’m not smart.” “I stink at soccer.” “I can’t draw.”
To prevent those types of conclusions, try to change your child’s perspective, says psychologist Andrew Shatté, Ph.D., who creates training programs to help kids power through challenges. To reframe his thoughts more positively, you might say, “New sports are hard to learn at first,” or “I know you can’t tell time yet, but you will.” And let him know he’s not the only one (“Lots of kids in your class are feeling as frustrated as you are,” or “I had a tough time when I started learning subtraction too”). Help him stay hopeful by mentioning another skill he worked to master: “Remember when you couldn’t read and how much effort that took? You’ll get this too.”
6. Keep it real.
When Tracy Reinert’s family moved to Florida, her 6-year-old son, Matt, had trouble fitting in at first. “I don’t have any friends,” he moaned to his mom. To cheer him up, she was tempted to tell him, “You have lots of friends back in New Jersey, and when the kids here find out what an awesome guy you are, they’re going to beg to be your friend.” But she bit her tongue because she didn’t want to give him false hope. Smart move. “Kids can see right through that kind of self-esteem boost,” says Dr. Shatté. Ironically, reassuring your child that everything’s going to turn out great often has the exact opposite effect. “Optimism actually requires thinking realistically more than positively,” adds Dr. Chansky. “That way your child is prepared for whatever he faces.”
After all, if the Florida kids didn’t start hanging out with Matt, he might conclude that he wasn’t truly such an awesome guy. Instead, Reinert sat him down for a heart-to-heart chat. “It’s challenging to move to a new place and start over,” she explained. “Making friends takes time.” After that, Matt stopped complaining and took active steps to solve the problem. He asked his mom to take him to the closest playground after school and to let him ride his bike around the neighborhood to meet kids who lived nearby. Within a few weeks, he had some new buds. “He suddenly realized that things were going to work out,” Reinert says, “and he ended up teaching me a thing or two about being optimistic.”
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