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asciendo · 3 years

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I Have Something to Tell You

Zuko has just started his reign as the new Fire Lord and everything seems to be falling into place.

That is until Y/N finds out she’s expecting and doesn’t know how to tell Zuko, afraid she’ll ruin the perfect bubble they’ve been living in.

It’s been five months since the end of the war and since Zuko became Fire Lord. Life was good, the four nations were in harmony under the protection of Aang and you and Zuko were stronger than ever.

Your family was welcomed back in to the Fire Nation so you had your home back, but you spent most of your time with Zuko at the palace.

There were so many close calls during your time with Team Avatar, which made you, and Zuko appreciate and value your relationship even more. Zuko would include you in his important meetings and valued your opinion, you were there for him when he’d question his capabilities to run the Fire Nation, he’d constantly visit your family and you’d wake up to each other every morning.

Everything was going smoothly until the day you found out you were expecting. You weren’t certain at first, you were late and felt sick in the mornings. Zuko was concerned, thinking it was something you ate so sent a doctor to your bed the third consecutive day you were throwing up. When the doctor told you that you were pregnant, you couldn’t talk or move for a good hour. When Zuko came back and saw your shocked state, he rushed to your side immediately. You told him it was food poisoning and had to be kept in bed the rest of the week. He placed a kiss on your forehead then went back to work.

After your week of “food poisoning” was over, you started to think of how to tell Zuko that he was going to be a father. You weren’t sure how he was going to react, as you knew he was still getting used to ruling over a whole nation. You hated keeping secrets from him but you wanted to wait till you were even used to the idea of being a mother. The situation made you distant from Zuko and he was starting to get frustrated with your cold demeanor.

“Hey, do you want to go for a walk after the state dinner tonight?” Zuko asked hopefully one afternoon. It was week two of your cold demeanor towards him and everyday was more stressful than the one before. “No.” you stated as you read by the window in Zuko’s bedroom.

“Figures.” He rolled his eyes as he turned away from you. “What?!” you snapped back, you didn’t know what it was, the hormones maybe, but other than distancing yourself from Zuko, you also found yourself snapping at him more often.

“Nothing.” He said through gritted teeth as he began to leave the room. “No, Zuko, say it!” you slammed your book shut and sat up from your lounging position.

“Nothing! I’m just not surprised with your attitude anymore!” he turned to face you and you could see the frustration in his face.

“Attitude?! Just because I don’t wanna go on walk doesn’t mean I have an attiude, Zuko!”

“It’s not that! You’ve been so—so—“

“So what?” you raised an eyebrow waiting for him to finish his sentence. “CRANKY!”

“Well if I’m so cranky then why would we even go on a walk together, then?” you were standing up now with your hands on your hips.

“Forget it!” Zuko huffed and left the room.

“Agh!” you collapsed on the couch. You hated yourself for acting this way towards him. He didn’t do anything and he certainly did not deserve your attitude. The whole thing was so confusing for you and the truth was, you were scared. You and Zuko were only seventeen and you just won the war. Bringing a baby into the mix now is a whole different ball game that you weren’t sure that either of you were ready for.

That evening at the state dinner, you sulked on a couch in the corner of the courtyard.

“Hi.” Zuko sighed as he sat next to you. “Hi.” You said back but didn’t look at him.

“How are you?”

“I’m bored.” You laid your head on the wall. “I know. Me too.”

“I’m hungry.” You sighed and looked up at him and he huffed then stood up to get you some food.

You were getting impatient until you heard a voice coming from the crowd. “Move! I have to bring food to my cranky girlfriend!”

“Really, Zuko?” you rolled your eyes as he handed you the plate of food. “What’s wrong now?”

“Telling everyone I’m your cranky girlfriend isn’t exactly chivalrous.” You snapped.

“I can’t do anything right with you anymore!” he was whispering so no one else would hear but there was strain in his voice. “I’m gonna go.” you didn’t want to look at him then made your way out to the balcony.

You were so angry with yourself for being this way. This wasn’t you and it made you think about what kind of mother you would be if you couldn’t even comprehend the thought of having a child. Of course you wanted a family with Zuko, but you never expected it would be this soon.

Suddenly, you felt a hand on your shoulder and you turned to see Katara. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just needed some air.” You smiled but you could tell she didn’t believe you. “How are you and Zuko?” she asked.

“Uhm, we’re okay? Why do you ask?” you nervously stared at your feet as she looked at you with a concerned expression.

“Y/N, come on it’s me. You can tell me, I won’t judge I promise.”

“I’m fine! Really, me and Zuko are okay.” She rolled her eyes as you continued to lie. “I heard him talking to Aang, alright?”

“What did he say?”

“He thinks you’re going to leave him.” Your eyes shot wide open, “WHAT?!”

“Yes! That’s why I wanted to ask you first!” Katara raised her arms in relief, as she knew you were finally going to open up to her.

“Oh no, this is all my fault.” Burying your face in your hands, Katara placed her arm around you.

“I’m so awful to him! He’s been nothing but amazing towards me and I was the biggest jerk!” your face was still buried in your hands as Katara watched you with concern.

“What’s going on?”

“Katara...it’s just...” there were tears forming in your eyes as Katara pulled you in for a hug. “It’s okay, I’m sure whatever it is—“

“Katara I’m pregnant.” She froze as soon as the words came out of your mouth. Katara stood there frozen and just staring at your face, then at your stomach. “I know, that’s how I reacted too.” You turned to face the open air as she continued to stare at you with her mouth wide open.

“OH MY GOD CONGRATULATIONS!” She suddenly pulled you into a tight hug.

“Katara it’s not that simple!” there were so many factors that would make having a baby complicated, how young you both were, Zuko just started his reign, and you not knowing the first thing about being a mother.

“Y/N, this is a good thing!” she squeezed your shoulders. “How? I mean...I don’t know how to feel about it yet...” you looked down.

“We’re only seventeen! Zuko just started his reign! I-I don’t know the first thing about being a mother!” you paced back and forth as Katara giggled.

“Why are you laughing?!”

“It’s just...Y/N you’re looking at all the bad things. Yes, we’re all still young but you both won’t have to do it alone. You have all of us! Can you imagine how loved your baby will be?” she smiled and you stopped pacing and looked at her. “Aang is going to flip! Sokka would spend every single day here if he could, and I know I would make the best godmother.” She winked and you laughed.

“But Zuko’s been so worried about how he is as the new Fire Lord...he has a so much on his mind and I’m so scared the baby will just add more stress for him...” you sighed and plopped down on one of the benches.

“He’s going to be happy no matter what. Zuko is going to be a great father and you’re going to be a great mother.” Katara sat next to you and put her arm around your shoulders. “I was so awful to him Katara...”

“It’s completely understandable, you were scared. Heck, I would probably be the same too! But you have to talk to him.”

“I know...thank you. It feels so good to finally tell someone!” you laughed in relief. You’ve been keeping this secret for so long it felt good to tell someone.

“Of course, I’ll always be here for you! But now you have to let Zuko be there for you too.” She smiled sweetly and you knew she was right. The both of you made your way back to the party laughing at the thought of Zuko changing diapers.

As soon as you entered, you spotted him in the middle of conversation with his generals. Your eyes locked on his and he quickly averted his gaze back to his own conversation.

“Good luck.” Katara smiled and left you with your thoughts.

The state dinner was over and you were making your way to Zuko’s bedroom. As you entered you leant by doorway and watched Zuko try to remove his ceremonial robes.

“Let me help you with that.” his body stiffened at the sound of your voice. “I’m fine.” He grumbled but continued to struggle. You sighed then walked over and helped him. “Zuko...I need to tell you something...” you fumbled with your fingers as you sat in front of him. Zuko stopped then sat down in front of you but he was avoiding looking in your direction. There was sadness in his eyes, which confused you at first, but then you remembered what Katara told you about how Zuko thought you were going to break up with him. “Zuko...I’m sorry.” You began and he didn’t react. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk to you these past few days...or weeks.” You rubbed the back of your head sheepishly. “Zuko can you please look at me?”

“Why should I? If you’re going to break up with me just do it.” he said bitterly. “Zuko, I’m not breaking up with you!” You grabbed his face with your palms and he was finally looking at you. His eyes were staring at you intently waiting for you to speak. “It’s just...” tears started to form in your eyes as you began to speak. “Are you okay? Did anyone hurt you?” Zuko suddenly looked at you with so much concern that your heart melted knowing that no matter how awful you were to him, he was still the sweetest to you.

“No, no, it’s not that it’s...” you stood up and started pacing back and forth and Zuko watched you in confusion. “The reason why I’ve been such a jerk to you is because....I didn’t know how to tell you and I also didn’t fully, I still don’t actually...uhm...the information hasn’t really sunk in for me either, so whenever I thought about telling you, I still didn’t believe it myself so I didn’t tell you!” the whole thing was making you nervous so you started to ramble. Zuko stared at you with his eyebrow up and head tilted so you knew he was confused.

“W-wait I don’t get it. The reason why you were a jerk to me is because you did something I wouldn’t like?” he asked looking at you with a little bit of fear in his expression. “I didn’t do anything...well I kind of did by not telling you when I should have but I didn’t tell you because I still don’t sort of believe it myself?” Zuko’s expression was still a confused one you didn’t blame him. “So you’re hiding something from me?” you nodded and he huffed. “Is there someone else?” he looked down to the floor. “NO! God no, Zuko there is no one out there for me but you.” you quickly grabbed his face again.

“Then what is it?”

You sighed and turned to face him directly. “Okay, I’m going to tell you what it is now.” You said slowly as if convincing yourself that you were actually going to do it. Zuko stared at you with big eyes in anticipation of what you were going to say. When you still didn’t say it Zuko shot up from his seat and started making his way out the door.

“Zuko!”

“Y/N if you’re just going to keep me guessing the whole night you might as well not tell me!” he stopped by the door but was refusing to face you.

“Zuko...please!”

“If you don’t trust me—“

“ZUKO I’M PREGNANT!” the words finally came out of your mouth as you waited for Zuko to react. He stopped in his steps and slowly turned to look at you. His eyes were huge in shock and his mouth open.

The both of you stared at each other without saying anything until you finally broke the silence. “I know I should have told you! I was just so scared...I mean I don’t know how to be a mother. I’m so sorry for taking out my worries on you by being a jerk and I know how stressed you’ve been being the new Fire Lord and I didn’t want to worry you even more. I’m so so—“ before you could finish, Zuko’s lips were on yours and you fell into each other.

“Y-you’re not mad?” you looked up at him. “I’m mad because you didn’t tell me.” He looked at you with a serious expression and you looked away. “But not about our baby.” He pulled your face to kiss you once more. “Why would I be mad about the start of our family?” he looked deep into your eyes. “I-I don’t know, I guess I thought you’d be scared about it but I guess it was just me.” You buried your face in his chest again.

“I’m so sorry you had to deal with this on your own. That must have been terrifying.” He whispered in your hair. “No, it’s my fault, I should have let you be there for me.” You smiled and he kissed you on the forehead. “We’re going to be a great family.” He said and at that moment, you couldn’t be happier.

The next day, the both of you decided to have the gang over for lunch to tell them the news. You told Zuko that Katara knew, he was a little upset at first that he wasn’t the first to know and you understood. You promised he’d be the first to know if anything ever happened with you again and he forgave you.

Zuko sat at the head of the table and you to his left. Uncle Iroh was seated to his right but you haven’t told him yet as well. Katara and Aang arrived first and Katara gave the both of you a knowing look. Sokka and Sukoi came next with Sokka telling everyone he had big news to share. Toph was last as usual saying she was busy throwing melons at strangers.

“Uhm, guys we have something to tell you.” Zuko smiled looking at you while squeezing your hand.

“Wait wait!” Sokka stood up and everyone stared at him. “I think we should start with the most important news first. Don’t we all agree? And I have an announcement!” Sokka started to prance around the table. You started to chuckle and Katara was glaring at him. “Yes, let Zuko talk!” she said with annoyance.

“But I don’t think whatever hot head over there is going to say is more exciting than mine!” Sokka glared back at his sister. “Sokka—“

“No it’s fine, go ahead.” Zuko smirked and you punched him in the shoulder playfully. “What’s your announcement, Sokka?”

“Glad you asked Y/N!” Katara rolled her eyes and slumped to her seat as Sokka grinned from ear to ear.

“I have been declared BOOMERANG MASTER!” Sokka declared while everyone stared at him with amusement. His proud expression quickly dropped and you started to giggle. “WHAT! I am!”

“Who even declared that, Sokka?” Toph teased. “THE BOOMERANG CLUB!” Sokka’s face turned red and the rest of the gang laughed. “There’s a boomerang club?” Aang asked and Sokka sat back down and Suki rubbed his back but she was laughing as well.

“Okay, if that doesn’t excite everyone then I DON’T KNOW WHAT WILL!” Sokka fumed which made everyone laugh harder.

“I’m pregnant.” You announced and Zuko was staring at everyone with a huge grin on his face. Katara was smiling as she already knew, Aang stopped mid drink, Toph yelped, Suki’s eyes were large with excitement and Sokka’s jaw dropped to the table.

“Y-you’re what?” Aang jumped up in excitement as Katara hugged you. “She’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father.” Zuko announced proudly. Aang rushed to hug the both of you while talking about how he’s going to teach your child how to go penguin sledding. Katara started asking you about baby names. Toph was already planning on making a crib for your baby. Sokka was still in shock while Suki whispered to him that she was excited about his boomerang master status.

“OH MY GOD!” Sokka burst out then rushed to hug the both of you telling you guys he’s going to give all the boomerangs he could find to your future baby. You were all so happy to tell the rest of the group and to see their excited reactions. You were looking for Zuko but then saw him hugging Uncle Iroh tightly and you saw tears in his eyes. That moment, you knew you were so lucky to have a child with the best father there could be.

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fandom-imagines · 3 years

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Illogical

Fandom: Death Note

Pairing: L Lawliet X Yagami!Reader

Words: 1.5k

Warnings: Violence and death (but it’s death note :P)

Being Light Yagami’s sister was hard for both younger girls.

Y/N and Sayu were immensely proud of the older man, all whilst being envious. However, Y/N was less envious due to her own intelligence rivalling that of the older Yagami. That was one of the reasons that he chose her. In fact, that was the reason he had her help him create a new world, one of which they would both rule together.

Understandably the younger sibling was afraid.

She had noticed the genius changing during a short amount of time, but she had simply dismissed it, blaming it on teenage hormones. But it never got better, it got worse. Before he would spend time with the family, taking time out of his busy schedule to bond with them, but now he was constantly in his room ‘studying’.

“Light?” Y/N’s voice sounded from behind the door which was shortly followed by a knock. “Can I come in?”

A chuckle left Ryuk’s lips at Lights panicked expression that was simply caused by the voice of the younger girl behind the door.

Light had been so busy for the last few weeks that he had completely forgotten about their agreement to spend some time together whilst the rest of the family were away.

“Yeah, come in,” he called back, wincing at the sound of the door creaking open to reveal the Y/H/C-haired girl.

“What’s up?” A grin was plastered on her lips as she flopped onto his bed, narrowly missing touching the death note that he had carelessly left there whilst he took a short break from killing criminals.

“Be careful, Light.” The shinigami’s voice caught Light’s attention, eyes glancing to the tall figure, “Anyone who touches that notebook can see me, as well as hear me.” Another laugh left his lips.

As though it was planned, Y/N’s fingers reached for the book, “Hey, what’s this?”

Her eyes widened as she glanced up at the tall death God who simply gave her a small wave along with a ‘hi’.

“H-hello…?” Y/N’s shaky voice left her lips, something that Ryuk shook his head at. “Light? Wha…”

Unbeknownst to her, Light was already situated on the floor in front of her. He gently grasped her cheek, tilting her wide eyes to look into his own.

“Y/N, I am Kira. Will you help me create a new world?”

It had felt like forever since that day. Names no longer meant a thing to her, just a string of letters to write down to end somebody’s life.

Things got even more tricky when her and Light had been asked to join the investigation by L himself, someone that Y/N began to unwillingly develop a small crush on. Considering that he was searching to kill her and Light, she guessed that this crush was probably a bad thing.

Some may think that things could not get worse from there, but oh boy, they can.

“Y/N,” L’s deep voice brought the girl from her thoughts, bringing her back to reality.

He was seated beside her, cake placed on the desk in front of him, yet his attention was focused solely on her.

“Are you okay?” Those three words that left his lips shocked her, unable to make eye contact with him she decided to instead glance down at his lips, nerves taking over her.

Lawliet caught onto her anxiety immediately, placing his cold hand on top of the warmth of her own to calm her, something that he often did.

Not only did it get her to relax, but he also enjoyed touching her, not that he would ever admit that to anybody of course. Especially not when you remember that she was the sister of his main suspect for the Kira case. However, he had never suspected her of a thing. Too blinded by love? Perhaps.

“Ryu?” Confusion filled her Y/E/C orbs as she leant up to face him, only to see his own gaze on her lips.

She wasn’t stupid; she knew what that meant.

She heard a chuckle behind her, one she immediately recognised at Ryuk’s. Said chuckle only became louder as he witnessed the detective and the death note holders’ lips touch.

The entirety of the task force, including L, stood around Light, Y/N slightly situated to the side of him whilst he laughed.

“That’s right,” a smirk covered his lips, “I’m Kira. But I’m not the only one.” Light’s eyes darted towards his younger sister who stood as still as a statue, fear filling her body as she realised that her boyfriend would want to kill her, and she would have to kill her boyfriend.

“Y/N…” Lawliet’s voice held a hint of betrayal in it as he spoke, watching as she stepped towards Light who handed her a death note before pushing her to the side again.

“Do the honours,” Light grinned, glancing towards L, prepared to watch him fall to the ground from a heart attack.

Light believed that the relationship between the detective and his sister was fake, something she was using to their advantage to win the war. Little did he know that she loved him, she loved him more than she loved her own psychopathic brother.

An idea flashed into Y/N’s head as she nodded, feeling Ryuk stood behind her who was enjoying the drama unfolding before him.

She brought the pen to the page, ignoring everyone’s pleas for her to stop as she wrote. The look of betrayal and hurt on the raven-haired man struck pain into her heart, but she knew what she was doing was right.

“Goodbye, L. Kira will always win.” Light’s manic laugh sounded again as he spoke, ignoring Ryuk’s own laugh which everyone could hear also.

Light’s laugh came to a halt as he began coughing.

“Y-Y/N…?” A look of betrayal filled his face before being covered in anger as he glared at her. “Ryuk! Kill her.” He coughed again, becoming desperate as he realised what she had done.

She had written his name, not L’s.

“Sorry, Light.” Ryuk chuckled, “I always said I wasn’t on yours or L’s side, but Y/N truly wins this one.” Another chuckle left his lips as he patted Y/N’s hair in a comforting manner, tears falling down her cheeks as she watched the life leave Kira’s eyes.

Both the book and pen fell from her shaking hands, body dropping to the ground as she burst into uncontrollable sobs.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t want to.”

Nobody moved an inch, scared that this was all an act.

“Please, don’t hate me.” Hands reaching up to her hair, Y/N began to pull tightly to relieve, at least some of, her anxiety.

Matsuda had walked towards Light, checking his body for a pulse.

There was none.

“Y/N,” Lawliet was the first of the task force to speak, “breathe.”

Another sob left her lips as she desperately clawed at her hair.

L climbed up onto his feet, making his way towards her. “It’s okay,” he whispered, kneeling in front of her, “Light can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I killed him, Ryu. I killed my own brother.” Tears cascaded down her cheeks, body wracked with sobs that only increased as Ryuzaki pulled her into a tight hug.

“You did what you had to.”

The rest of the task force stood still in horror at what had just happened.

The girl they had never suspected was responsible for the killings. Not only her, her genius brother also. From what they could piece together, it was unwilling on her part, anybody could deduce that much. It was evident from the genuine remorse she showed that she regretted everything.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N’s hands left her hair to wrap around the detective, afraid that when she opens her eyes he’d be gone; afraid that he would hate her. “I didn’t want to hurt you; I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

L shushed her, pale hands moving to massage her hair in a soothing manner, “it’s okay.”

The two remained like that for what felt like hours, both as afraid as the other to pull away in case this was all a dream, in case they would lose each other.

“I love you,”

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yelenayena · 3 years

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HER SHIRT IS UNBUTTONED

Pairing: Yelena x fem!reader

Genre: Isekai

Sum: You've never watched the Attack on Titan (AoT) series, but at least you know some of the AoT characters because your cousin often tells you about their admiration for AoT. What if one day you get the chance to enter the world of AoT, and you have to train as a cadet and meet Yelena at the Marley military base?

A/N: The period in this story is after the warriors' failed attack operation on Paradis Island, and before Zeke saved Yelena’s life during the war. Sorry for my bad English 🥺

Warning: None, One Shot

Imagine if you come into the AoT world because of something you don’t really understand. You do know that the world is full of mystery, but you never expect that you could enter another dimension such as the AoT world.

You felt so sad when you heard about your grandmother’s death. The next day, you went to the camp area by yourself because you needed some fresh air and outdoors to refresh your mind. But, the strange thing happened when you woke up in the morning, you were found by a number of armed soldiers. You were so shocked when you found out that you are in Marley, and they are the Marleyan soldiers. They took you to the military prison forcibly, they assumed you were an intruder or a spy.

The affliction doesn’t end here. You don’t know what exactly happened, but they took you to the training corp. The commander told you that you are now a part of Marley and you have to serve in the Marley military. You refused to enter the training area, and swore that they had violated human rights by turning you into a soldier forcibly. No one listened to every word you say, no one cared about your fate. They keep dragging you into the training area and forcing you to change into a uniform for the cadets.

“Listen up cadets! Your first day of training is basic physical exercises. Run 30 laps around the track! Do 200 push-ups! Do 200 more push-ups! And do 200 sit-ups! Start!!” said the head instructor.

All the cadets were dumbfounded at the chief instructor's orders, but no one dared to disobey, so the cadets could only carry out his orders.

"Tch! Very unlucky I entered this world and was trapped in a military base, and they tortured me like this! Anyone who enters the fiction world might meet the main character, but me, I don’t even see Reiner or Zeke here!" You grumbled, silently, and you began to join the other cadets to run on the track.

You have been through every step of the exercise. Every part of your body hurts. Unfortunately, there is still one more exercise you have to do, sit-ups.

“Looks like I'm going to die here, before I can return to my normal life,” you said to yourself. But this is better than being cooped up in a cell, at least you can do something to get back to your world. So, no matter how hard this training is, giving up is not your choice.

The other cadets seem to already have a partner to do sit-ups with, only you who stands by yourself. You don't mind, you can still do it alone. The head instructor saw your situation, he asked if anyone still needed a partner, all the cadets except you shook their heads. Apparently, your arrival makes the number of participants odd.

"Yelena! Give your hand to the cadet over there for a sit-up!” the instructor ordered the tall guy standing next to him.

It was a very tall woman who had a beautiful face with her blonde hair styled in a short bob with straight bangs. She wears black pants and a white shirt. You wonder if this woman is one of the Marley soldiers or not, since she’s not wearing an army uniform. You are mesmerized by this person's appearance. Due to being so focused on practice, you don't even notice this person in this room. The fatigue you feel disappears instantly when you see this woman named Yelena. Sparks of enthusiasm run through your body as soon as you see this enchanting figure.

She looks reluctant with the order, but she still steps towards your place to carry out the order. Your heart beats fast as she stands in front of you, without saying anything, but you understand that she was telling you to sit in a sit-up position. You comply with her intimidating coldness, but that only makes you more attracted to her.

"Start!" shouted the instructor to start this training.

You can feel your cheeks turning red as Yelena holds your legs. “You can count yourself, right?” she asked you.

You just nodded because you were mesmerized by her voice. Her voice sounded so suited to her masculine figure, so deep and low. Just hearing her voice stimulates your hormones. Regardless of how fascinated you are with this person in a very short time, you still have to face how tough this practice can be.

You do sit-ups with the remaining energy you have. In the fourth movement when you lift your head and shoulder blades from the floor. You look straight ahead at her chest. Your eyes catch that the shirt she wears is unbuttoned so you can see the inside. You flinched when you found out she wasn't wearing a bra and was only wearing a loose undershirt so you could see her cleavage and nipples.

You pause as you lie on the floor after seeing this unusual sight. But wait, you think one thing, every time you do a sit-up, you will see the nipple once. Two hundred sit-ups will equal two hundred times! This means you will see Yelena's nipples two hundred times. This absolutely gives you new stamina to do sit-ups without difficulty.

Seeing your extraordinary stamina makes the people in this room including the cadets near you glance at you with admiration. They don't know that the reason you have new energy is that you got a windfall to be able to see your new crush’s body. That day, you saw Yelena's nipples 200 times during the sit-ups, and you got the attention of the instructor who were amazed at your stamina.

Yelena’s presence made you feel convenient to live your days as a cadet in the training corps. Even though you don't see her often, you still have the opportunity to meet her occasionally. Sometimes you flirt with her when you meet her. Neither she didn't give you a good response nor rejected you, it’s okay as long as you can see her.

Nothing lasts forever, neither pain nor happiness. You heard that Yelena will have some mission on board to do the first survey fleet to Paradis Island. You ask the commander to include you on that mission, but you are still a cadet, they can’t send you to such a dangerous mission unless needed.

The day in Marley is not the same anymore without Yelena. You never heard about Yelena from your cousin before. You didn’t care if she wasn’t a lead character and had a small role in AoT, that woman had driven you crazy.

You ran around the forest near the military base to get Yelena out in your head. You had run about four miles until the day got darker and the fog was getting thicker. You need to get back to the dorm, but it is difficult when you can’t see around. You walked towards the light over there, as you stepped out of the forest, you saw the different panorama from the military base.

It is the camp area where you stayed for camping. With the sun on the eastern horizon starting to illuminate this camp area, you heard the rooster crowing, and the birds that sing in the morning. The time in Marley was different when you entered your real world. You remember you ran in the forest in the late afternoon, but it seems this world has just started its day.

The place where you are standing is near your tent, you grab your phone and your eyes widen when you see the date on your phone. You left your world for only a day, but you felt you lived your life in Marley for weeks! You don’t care about camping anymore. Today you should go home and come to your cousin’s house to borrow all the AoT’s books and watch all the seasons, to find about Yelena.

Disclaimer:

Original manga from Moekare ch. 7 by Ikeyamada Go.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #yelena snk #fanfic #snk #aot #yelena #yelena aot #isekai #one shot #snk fandom #snk fanart #snk fanfiction #aot fanart #fandom #short story #yelena fanart

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darkenokami · 3 years

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Ok i made my kfp O.C., her name is Tebie which means special in Chinese

She is bisexual, i’ll tell you later on.

She is a Mexican wolf so yeah 💃💃💃💃

She has been in relatipnships but she keeps on getting dumped for no reason which confuses her very much.

Backstory:

She is originally from Mexico, she used to live in a bad neighborhood with Mexican gangs which causes violence in her life, she was only 3 weeks old by the time her family and her moved to China, her mother heard about China being the most beautiful place ever. But, its not what she thought it was later on when they lived in China... there was a war going on that her family didn’t knew about. The town her family lived in had to evacuate because a army is coming to attack the town, her family didn’t had enough time to evacuate, including some people too, so they decided to stay and try to survive. While the battle was happening in town, their house was on fire, the family was not close enough to make it out of the house which left Tebie alone in the burning home. But someone saved her life, drumroll pls...DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDDU! It was Kai that saved Tebie’s life, Kai tried to search for Tebie’s family but they were no where to be found. He brought her to safety and told one of the soldiers to take care of her while he is off battling with Oogway. After the battle, they were traveling to somewhere to camp, while traveling Kai named her Tebie because he thought she looked special since Tebie has purple eyes, which is unusual for a wolf to have colorful eyes. Later on while Tebie was growing up, she had her first crush on a girl which Tebie thinks she is a lesbian but then she had a crush on a boy, which confused her very much and didn’t know why. She asked Kai and Oogway why she feels love between the two genders she likes. Kai told her maybe because she is bisexual and told Tebie what it means. Tebie felt relieved that it wasn’t a problem she had to deal with, but things went wild when she is at the age were the hormones are all over the place. She kept on getting hit on by girls and boys, Kai started getting over protective since he mostly raised her since he rescued her. Tebie told Kai that she is careful about her actions, but one night, she was kidnapped and was...um...raped. She didnt say a word about what happened when she came back to the camp. When Tebie was starting to become an adult, there was an ambush and she was separated from Kai and Oogway, she felt very sad, she misses her family and was about to end her life but she couldn’t do it. A few years later she came upon someone familiar, it was Kai, she was happy but she didn’t see Oogway with Kai. Tebie ran to Kai and they were both reunited, she got uncomfortable for a moment cuz you know how kai looked like in the movie? Yeah thats why, Kai and Tebie talked to each other about everything, then she noticed the necklace on his neck and asked why does that look like Oogway, Kai confessed that he took Oogway’s chi. Of course Tebie knew what chi was when she was separated from Kai and Oogway from an army of wolves, one of the wolves knew about chi and told Tebie about it. Tebie was upset about why Kai took Oogway’s chi, Kai told her about Oogway betraying him, but Tebie thinks he was overreacting, they both argued and Tebie said something that made Kai’s feelings hurt. He was heart broken but didn’t show how he felt but instead, showed anger. After a few months later Tebie met the furios five (she didn’t know about them so yeah), Tebie mentioned if they have seen a giant bull about this tall and has long horns and long hair, they both were in shock becaus Tebie said that Kai raised her since he rescued her from a fire. They said that he died, Tebie started having a mental breakdown, she wished she didn’t said what she said to Kai.

Yeah thats the end of the backstory. Here are some more stuff so yeah.

Quotes from different times of her life:

“Oh! Thank god! I thought it was a huge problem but now i see that it isn’t.”- the time where she discovered bisexuality from Kai.

“NO! KAI! OOGWAY! DON’T GO, PLEASE! *sobs*”- the time where she was separated from the two people she only had as her family.

“I WISH YOU WERE GONE FOREVER AND NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!”-the words she regret to say to Kai

“*sobs* No...that can’t be...IT COUDN’T! *sobs and mutters* i wish i didn’t say those things to him...”-the time when she found of Kai died

Relationships: Kai and Oogway (two dad figures that Tebie looks up to)

#art #digital art #kfp oc #long backstory #**a**

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alectology-archive · 4 years

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SJ/M’s unacceptable and lazy usages of real world places/cultures

I’m aiming to make this the most comprehensive list of SJ/M stealing bits and pieces of world history and pretending like she came up with them. Feel free to comment down below or send an ask if you can think of anything.

The addition of adaptation of names from some real-world places is included either because of insensitivity (Hybern and Prythian) or mostly because SJ/M doesn’t try to represent any of the cultures she takes from.

Note that this post will keep getting updated as I discover more evidences of unacceptable usages of cultures. Also note that there is every possibility that some resemblances are purely accidental and/or unintentional. So take it with a grain of salt.

T/HRONE OF GLASS

- Most of the cultural activities mentioned in Tower of Dawn are rip-offs of Mongolian culture and seem to resemble the Dothraki from Game of Thrones very closely.

- Pagan holidays mentioned in the books:

Yulemas* is celebrated in Erilea despite there already existing an established religion consisting of 12 gods and goddesses.

Samhain* is a festival celebrated by Irish and Scottish people.

Beltane* is a festival celebrated historically in Ireland and Scotland.

- Nehemia is probably derived from the Jewish leader Nehemiah who helped rebuild Jerusalem. Instead of trying to work that into Nehemia’s narrative, SJ/M killed off Nehemia to serve a white woman’s narrative.

- Mycenae is a historical site in Greece.

- Illium is an actual Greek city as well.

- Ravi in KoA is named after a Hindi word which means “sun”.

- Strangely enough Ravi’s brother is named Sol after the Roman god of the sun.

- Suria, where Ravi is from, is also a synonym for sun in Hindi.

- Mab is from the story of “Queen Mab”.

- Maeve is a sexual goddess in Irish mythology who was actually raped. So making Maeve a rapist in the books was hurtful.

A/COTAR

- Nagas belong to Hindu/Indian mythology included in a book that’s clearly a very western fantasy and has little to no PoC representation.

- Illyrians were an actual indo-european tribe with close relations to modern day Albanians. S/JM is not the first person to feature them in her work but other authors have used versions of the name like “Illyria” by Shakespeare, “Ilirea” by Paolini, “Valyria” by GRRM etc. which are acceptable.

- Calan Mai is actually a celebration of spring in Welsh culture. As @gemorsedd put it so eloquently, SJ/M turned it into a festival about Tamlin being unable to control his hormones.

- Hybern is derived from the classic latin name of Ireland which is “Hibernia”.

- Prythian is a modified version of the ancient name of Britain “Prydain”. COINCIDENTALLY, Prythian VERY closely resembles the UK. It’s also possible that she plagiarised the name from Anne Bishop’s Daughter of Blood.

Note for further reading: Read @blakeseptember’s about why SJ/M was especially insensitive in including Prythia and Hybern in the ways she did: https://blakeseptember.tumblr.com/post/187088853587/hybern-as-ireland

- Bharat is actually the Hindi name for India which is mentioned in ACO/TAR. Not only is it mentioned that Feyre’s father was sailing to Bharat to trade in cloth and spices (which was exactly what British colonialists and traders did when they sailed to India), it’s also said, quite clearly, that Feyre’s mother died of Typhus while her cousin died of Malaria (IN BHARAT). By doing so SJ/M is blatantly promoting a very colonialist view of India.

The Malaria mention: “My mind was void, a blank mess of uselessness. Could it be some sort of disease? My mother had died of typhus and her cousin had died of malaria after going to Bharat. But none of those symptoms seemed to match a riddle. Was it a person?”

The Trade of cloth and spices: “I swallowed. ‘Eight years ago he amassed our wealth on three ships to sail to Bharat for invaluable spices and cloth.’”

- Myrmidons feature in A/COWAR. The Myrmidons is actually a nation from Ancient Greek mythology (led by Achilles in the siege of Troy).

- Harem pants which are worn in parts of South and Middle-east Asia feature in the books where they’re introduced into a court consisting of white people only.

- F/eyre’s floral tattoos are very reminiscent of mehendis which are very important to Indian, Arabic and North African cultures but it’s a trait given to a white woman here. Read this post.

C/RESCENT CITY

- Danaan is from Tuatha de Danaan (celtic mythology) / Danaans is another name for Greece in the Iliad, used interchangeably with “Argives” and “Achaeans”.

- Avallen is Avalon (the legend of King Arthur). Ruhn’s story also bears a very close resemblance to the legend.

- 6 point star = Star of David

- Lehabah = a word in Hebrew meaning "a flame" (להבה)

- Mount Hermon = an actual mountain place in the northern part of Israel. In Hebrew: הר החרמון.

- SPQM’s full form is Senatus Populusque Midgard. Which is awfully close to the SPQR of the ancient Roman empire which is Senatus Populusque Romanus

- The river Tiber mentioned in CC is actually a Roman river.

- Midgard, in Norse mythology, is the home of mankind. In Norse mythology.

- Sandriel: Comes from the angel Sadriel, the angel of order. S/JM added an “n.”

- Orion “Hunt” A/thalar: First name is pretty obvious, Orion as in the hunter which is where his name “Hunt” comes from. Probably from the god Attar called Athtar in Southern Arabia. Attar is sometimes considered a storm god explaining his lightning powers, but also linked to the Morningstar aka Lucifer. No explanations are given regarding as to how the constellations of our world are the same as that of SJ/M’s fantasy AU.

- Shahar Daystar: From the dawn deity Shahar. Also linked to Lucifer.

- Jesiba Roga: A Croatian respelling of Baba Yaga. Jesiba Roga, is quite literally just a combination of Ježibaba (a figure closely related to Baba Yaga in West Slavic folklore) and Baba Roga (the Croatian version of of Baba Yaga).

- Danika Fendyr: Danika is a Slavic dawn deity. Fendyr comes from Fenrir a wolf in Norse mythology.

- Isaiah: Taken from Isaiah 14:12-15 which details the fall of Lucifer. It’s also easily accessible from Shahar’s Wikipedia page (which may imply that SJ/M uses Wikipedia for research and just steals/lazily incorporates whatever she finds along the way.)

12 “How you are fallen from heaven,

O [a]Lucifer, son of the morning!

How you are cut down to the ground,

You who weakened the nations!

13 For you have said in your heart:

‘I will ascend into heaven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation

On the farthest sides of the north;

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,

I will be like the Most High.’

15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,

To the [b]lowest depths of the Pit.

- Fury Axtar: Hunt is likely related to Attar or maybe even Ishtar or Ashtaroth. It’s unclear right now. Ishtar is sometimes linked to Lucifer as well. It’s possible that she’s named after the Furies in Greek mythology, deities of vengeance.

- Micah Domitus: Micah is a prophet in Judaism.

- Syrinx: A chimera in this book, a nymph known for her devotion to Artemis.

- Urd: The god of flame and shadow possibly the name comes from Urðr one of the three Norns in Norse mythology.

- Luna: A Roman moon goddess

- Cthona: “Chthonic”, in English, describes deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in Ancient Greek religion.

- Vanir: The Vanir are actually group of Norse gods.

- Asphodel Meadows: A section of the ancient Greek underworld where ordinary souls were sent to live after death.

- Hel: Hel is a goddess but also a location in Norse Mythology for the dead. Depictions of Hel depend on the source of the information. It’s strange that Hel and Asphodel Meadows belong in the same place, translating to lazy world building on SJ/M’s part.

- Midgard: In Norse Mythology basically the plane of existence of humans.

- Laconic Mountains: Named after Laconia the administrative capital of Sparta.

- Nidaros: Where Bryce grew up. It’s the ancient name of Norway’s capital when the Christian kings ruled. It’s now called Trondheim.

- Istros River: Taken from Istros of Ancient Greece

- Valbara: Taken from the super continent Vaalbara

- Pangera: probably Pangea, the huge supercontinent on which dinosaurs lived

- Crown of Thorns: In reality it’s a symbol of Jesus but in the book it’s branded onto the foreheads of angels who rebelled in a war some decades ago.

- Keres: Phillip Briggs’s terrorist gang is named after the Keres who are “goddesses who personified violent death and who were drawn to bloody deaths on battle fields.”

- Sailing: A Norse funeral custom for Vikings as seen in movies like How To Train Your Dragon 2 and Thor: The Dark World. Here’s more information on it, but it seems SJ/M got it wrong. Most Vikings were usually cremated and it was mostly used for Kings and Chieftains (Danika might fall into the Chieftain category).

- 33rd Imperial Legion: Could be a reference again to Jesus who was 33 at his death.

- The Ophian rebels (of which the the Keres rebels are a subgroup of) are named after Ophian, and elder Titan in Greek mythology.

Sources I’ve derived some facts from so far:

- Sapir Englard on Goodreads via @spaceshipkat’s tumblr post using Hebrew in CCity.

- @bittenwrath for basically everything in crescent city.

- @blakeseptember’s tumblr about Hybern’s origins.

- An anon dropped by with “Hel”

- @chenmighty and @tavithelibrarian pointed out the Illyrians.

- @sylphene and @omourningstar for Prydain

- @ok-boomer pointed out that Yulemas, Samhain and Beltain are all pagan holidays.

- @gemorsedd For pointing out Calan Mai

- An anon pointed out the Norns, Danaan and Avalon.

- @mimiofthemalfoys for the Bharat, malaria, typhus, spices and cloth mention.

- @kryingkardashianz for Danaans being another name of Greece and Myrmidions.

- an anon pointed out Nidaros

- @shurislut for mehendi and harem pants

- @sanktaalinaa for Jesiba Roga

- @croissantcitysucks for the Ophian Rebels

#anti sjm #anti tog #anti throne of glass #anti ccity #anti acotar #anti sarah j maas #compilation

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charlottemadison42 · 4 years

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On Good Omens and Faith

Here follow personal thoughts on what Good Omens has meant to me as an Exvangelical. There’s a lot of healing & hope here, but it gets a bit dark first, as worthy stories do.

CW: I wasn’t badly spiritually abused in church, but I’ll be discussing things that are spiritually abusive: purity culture, sexphobia, queerphobia, abortion, mild self-harm, failure to treat mental health appropriately, ableism -- plus the special ways church authority makes all of these especially hard.

I’m personally an atheist but this message is not an argument against faith itself, rather against the specific subculture I grew up in. If you are a person of faith you’re welcome here.

I grew up in the American Evangelical subculture of the 80′s and 90′s, in the Keith Green/DC Talk/Left Behind/Veggie Tales era. I got saved at a Carman concert in sixth grade, and re-pledged my faith just to be extra sure every year at summer camp and youth group retreats.

This upbringing is not unusual. Doesn’t make me special. But its effects were real.

I’m finally engaged in a reckoning with it, in the “I should maybe talk this over with a support group or therapist” sense. I was a worship leader and youth leader at a Vineyard church when I left my faith abruptly in 2007*. It took me ten years to tell my family and friends that I was an atheist. For that decade I didn’t think about it -- but when I confessed to my loved ones two years ago, the processing began in earnest.

If you came up Evangelical, you already know how literal our belief in angels and demons can be in certain strains of the church. Until I was 26, I believed they were real entities genuinely and invisibly at war all around me. The End Times were real and we were in them. The Antichrist was whatever high profile democrat could be weaponized at the moment, the Rapture was nigh, and Armageddon was imminent (which explained why tension kept building in the Middle East).

My church community regularly discussed friends and neighbors’ problems in the language of demon possession or harrassment: depression was a demon, addiction was a demon, promiscuity was a demon. I was part of casual and formal exorcisms and the occasional healing. No holy water, but there were hours of fervent prayers and tears, speaking in tongues and anointing with oil. It’s like a fever dream looking back at it now.**

Shout out to my other teens and tweens of the Frank Peretti era, forbidden from reading books of fantasy any later than Lewis or Tolkein -- Xanth was forbidden, Hogwarts was demonic. We were given instead (retrospectively) horrifying books about spiritual warfare, Christian takes on historical fiction, and end times fantasies. But they weren’t sold as fantasy to us, it was all real. Adults in positions of power confirmed it over and over. Narnia might be allegory but This Present Darkness supposedly illustrated spiritual truths.

I remember telling a trusted church teacher at age 10 or 11 that sometimes I would get scared at night, in the dark, and feel a palpable terror that kept me awake. They told me with no hint of comfort, “That means a demon is visiting you and sitting on your chest, trying to oppress you with fear so you will sin. Don’t wake your parents or read a book, instead you should pray or read only the Bible until the demon is compelled to leave, either by an angel or the presence of God.” This adult was affirmed by amens and mm-hmms.

I took this teaching to heart. I also understood, by implication, that if the bad feeling stayed with me then I was praying wrong -- that no angel would rescue me that night. I knew that my fear as it compounded in the dark was itself a sin that made God harder for me to reach.

These are not things that should be told to children.

Then there were the prophecies. (read more if this resonates with you, if not I’ll clip it here so I don’t take up your whole screen)

Anyone could prophesy in most churches I attended. Dreams were prophecies, visions were prophecies, vague feelings were prophecies. (That gave nightmares / being hormonal / being really hungry an awful lot of sway at Bible study.)

I had a woman prophesy over me weeping, with her hands buried in my hair, that she felt overwhelming grief for my future child. I was 23.

I have no child, and I harbored the secret at the time was that I didn’t want one -- a rebellion for me as a married woman. I feared she was prophesying an abortion in my future, and I was inconsolable for months at the damning choice that would visit me someday. (As of this writing at age 38 I’ve never been pregnant, for which I give all thanks to modern birth control.) I still wonder what happened to that woman’s child, or pregnancy, or perhaps her desire for a child, that this was her prophecy for me.

I heard much darker things prophesied over other people. I remember career changes (ill-advised) and marriages staying together (they shouldn’t have) and mission trips undertaken (that assuredly should not have been) because of prophesies.

Last, of course, I didn’t know it yet but I had many queer friends at the time. Some of them didn’t know it. We had no context in our small town -- and no corners of the internet to hide in and learn context, because the internet didn’t do much more than access our local library catalog at the time. I was told that demons sat on my chest to oppress me as a child, but I was shielded from understanding what a lesbian actually was until I was sixteen.

I remember feeling vaguely guilty when we prayed over this or that person in youth group, entreating God that they could resist their base urges. We prayed that they could choose a life of abstinence if they had to, rather than enter sexual sin and be cast out. I felt guilty but I still joined the circle to pray.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Part of me knew it at the time. I wish I had listened to that part of me because that it was correct. There are fragments of my former faith I still treasure, but those prayers were rotten to the core.

Sidebar: Luckily that feeling of guilt bloomed quickly into rejecting queerphobic doctrine. By age 20 I decided I could only attend churches that did not preach homophobic takes on scripture from the pulpit, and that did not advocate/imply advocacy for any particular political party. The reason I mention this: if YOU are currently a person of faith in this position, uncomfortable with what you hear from your leadership, go find a church that’s queer-affirming, gives to the poor, and advocates for immigrants. Live in a conservative area? Create or join a home church. That’s what the early church looked like anyway. Don’t shrug off this responsibility. Shine a light.

Anyway. Several years later, I fell.

I had to step down from multiple church leadership positions in one day. My entire life changed in two months; marriage, job, home, friends, everything uprooted when I could no longer pretend to believe. I didn’t tell my family why everything fell apart, even as they let me crash their couches.

I had wanted to be a good believer. I read apologetics, the mystics, eschatology, theophostics. I taught and attended study groups, I took troubled teens out to coffee, I served the homeless, I waited til marriage. I was in church as many as thirty hours weekly. When I first felt my faith slipping I said “not yet,” and I read the entire Bible straight through twice, in different translations, while journaling through “My Utmost for His Highest.” Then, unsatisfied, I read and annotated the New Testament in interlinear Greek. I gave it my everything.

What could replace all that?

Time, it turns out. And freedom.

Freedom to not think about it was perhaps the kindest freedom. The constant labor of self-evaluation and thought policing that goes into Evangelical Christianity is exhausting. Letting it go of it felt like getting my mind back. Or owning it for the first time, since I never knew this freedom before. I had even been seeking counseling because I was hearing multiple voices in my head at once, all mine, often arguing. That problem vanished the hour I deconverted. I heard only one voice anymore, and it was my own.

For ten years I was free to just not think about it.

When I decided to remarry I realized that I didn’t want to explain to anyone why my ceremony would not include prayers or communion. So I told my loved ones at last that I was an atheist, a decade late. They received it graciously, and I’m sure they had known-but-not-acknowledged it for a long time. I hope they don’t worry about me or pray behind my back for my salvation. But if they do I can’t accept responsibility for it anymore.

Since that confession I’ve finally felt compelled to back at what all actually happened in church. It seemed so normal to me at the time. But wait, it wasn’t:

I exorcised people. I laid on hands for healings. I encouraged episodes of religious rapture, falling out, and speaking in tongues, and as a worship leader I knew the music cues to bring them about (yes, there are certain chord and tempo changes for that). I was present for prophecies that changed people’s lives and might have issued some myself, I don’t remember. I alienated people who didn’t fit in, whether because they were queer or just because they didn’t conform to church culture. I witnessed abuse and had no language to report it or even comprehend it. I hurt people. I was hurt.

I was told there were real demons in my room and I had to pray them away all by myself.

The work of undoing this mindf*ck (sorry friends of faith, that’s how it felt) suddenly turned urgent after being ignored for a decade. I can’t afford therapy, but thankfully Twitter chats and message boards and podcasts exist (thank you, @goodchristianfun and @exvangelical).

And then -- out of the blue -- along came my own personal angel and demon, along with Frances McDormand herself. I watched it on a whim. (Actually no, David Tennant’s hair made me.)

Apparently Good Omens had a few things to say directly to my mindf*cked subconscious:

1) Are you scared of demons in a pathological childhood trauma way? Here, have a helping of this amalgam of your favorite Doctor and scariest ever Marvel villain tearing it up as the demon Crowley.

2) Does your mild bookish personality and respect for the culture you grew up in keep you reflexively deferential to authority, even as it gaslights you and hurts others? Enjoy some Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale.

3) Are you stuck still mentally assigning a male gender to the god you always claimed was beyond gender? Boom, meet Her in all Her ineffable wisdom.

4) Are you terrified of the End Times, both as a Biblical horror of childhood and as an adult who reads the f*cking news? Let’s fantasize awhile about a solvable apocalypse (because what would that even look like, yo).

5) Do you keep reflexively binarizing good and evil? Still giving in to the temptation to characterize humans as righteous or fallen, especially celebrities and political prospects? Spend some time on Our Side with Adam, the utterly human Antichrist, as he makes choices that matter -- some goodish, some baddish, all with mixed consequences, because that’s what humans do.

6) Do you need more queer love stories in your life? Yes you do. Yes. YES. Here it is. The good stuff. Whether it’s gay, trans, genderfluid, asexual, agender, metaphysical, whatever (I’m enjoying reading all these takes and more on AO3) it’s a hell of a love story.

Good Omens was a f*cking revelation.

I’m not sure why the show hit me as hard as it did in the Exvangelical feels. It’s not that it’s a perfect show, but it was the right thing at the right time for me, and it brought a truck full of dynamite to the excavation I was just beginning with a trowel and a makeup brush. I finished watching ep 6 and thought “why do I feel like I’ll be thinking about this every single day for years?”

And then I looked down, and lo and behold I had an open chest wound -- inside of which I found the banished memory of a child trembling and praying in terror in a dark room.

There was a lot that I forgot about in the ten years it took me to hike away from Evangelical life. It all came rushing back.

I had forgotten the sweat and cries during exorcisms and the heat of laying on of hands. I had forgotten fits of ecstatic tears of self-hatred and self-denial so strong they were almost blissful, as I sang and chanted mantras like “I am nothing, You are everything.” I had forgotten giving away ten percent of my income until I was 26. I had forgotten the constant mental effort of Being A Proverbs 31 Woman, about submission and complementarianism and feeling responsible to guard the virtue of men by never tempting them. I had forgotten the pressure to not even masturbate before marriage and to become a sexual athlete the night after.

I had forgotten the hours and hours of daily prayers. Every phrase was carefully carved in language my superego ran by my doctrine, to make sure no hint of rebellion ever bled through. I washed words of need and doubt and frustration from my mind so they could never slip between me and my Heavenly Father. I didn’t just want to hide thoughts God wouldn’t like, I would have cut them out with violence if I knew how. As a result I picked and ticced and cut and exhibited symptoms of OCD.

It hurt to remember all of this at once during a BBC Amazon Prime miniseries. It confused me. It confused my spouse. I looked at all these feelings, exposed and piled in a massive dirty heap -- and I spotted the straps I used to haul it around with me for decades. Who knew I could carry all that? The weight of faith?

But I don’t have to pick it up again. I had a new story to help me frame my story. I felt equipped with a flaming sword to face my past and a new syntax to describe the old ideas I'm ready to let go of.

I got to recast Heaven and Hell. I was invited to ask myself whether a cozy cluttered bookshop doesn’t beat them both hands down.

I got to reimagine angels and demons, good and bad, intentions and consequences. I was invited to live in the reality that we’re all of us humans in between, and that I’m probably still overinvested in the value of Good and Bad as yardsticks.

I got to reimagine western history. The show’s perspective of history is very limited and Eurocentric, but it’s also the version of history I was taught at an early age, which made the story a useful lens to deconstruct what I learned before I knew much about critical thinking.

The opening of Episode 3 in particular f*cked me up. First Aziraphale lies to God and She vanishes, then Crowley starts poking holes in the story of the Flood, then at the Crucifixion -- I started breathing hard on my first viewing, experiencing a real physiological threat response. I was loving it, of course, but distressed panicky love.

The second time I watched it I realized what was happening: I was going back to Sunday School to revisit ideas I absorbed before I was fully sentient, and examining them in the light of fully formed adult secular morality. They look different from here.

When God withdraws Her presence from Aziraphale in the first few moments of Ep 3 as he prevaricates (well, lies) I remembered the one great fear of my faithful life: that I could sin a particular sin and as punishment I would be cut off from God’s presence. As a believer in the End Times, that meant the Rapture could occur at any moment and I might be rejected, be left behind to experience the Tribulation.

Now, from some remove, I realize that I always had one fear larger. It’s a thought I never allowed myself to entertain consciously. Good Omens unearthed it like a vein of flowing lava:

If the Apocalypse as my church describes it is real, how could God want it to happen? And if God does, is this a God I want to worship? If I don’t, but I’ll be damned for that, is my faith freely chosen?

Whose side could I really be on, in the End Times, if not Heaven’s or Hell’s?

These are not small questions.

I’m relieved that I answered them a long time ago for myself.

But even after the answering, there’s fallout; a million little knots to untie and ideas to unlearn. We all get to spend our lives doing this sort of archaeological dig through our childhood baggage, I suppose. My Stuff is certainly not unique. It’s just a lot. Same as everyone’s.

But once in awhile a story comes along and helps us with the process. A sharper spade, a better tool for the work. In my case, through Good Omens I received demolition-grade explosives. It gave me a framework, characters, and a personal shorthand to speed my own digging and contextualize what I find.

If your history is kinda like mine -- whether you’re still in the faith or not -- be sure to talk to someone about church stuff from your past. The weird stuff, the dark stuff, the things you did/people did to you that now seem “off.” Even if you’ve grown past the point of “mental illness requires an exorcism” there are still dangerous ideas buried like land mines in our moral matrices. Self-hatred, intolerance, fear of abandonment, fear that failure is damnation, presumption that “we’re” on the “right side” of everything and “they’re” not, fear that we the apocalypse Is Written by powers above and so we can’t change it.

I’m so happy I know a story with an Our Side now.

I’m so happy I know a story in which the true test of devotion to God’s Ineffable Plan is turning away from the dictates of Heaven and turning toward the World.

I’m so glad I met Aziraphale -- so like me, still seeking Heaven’s approval far too late in the game. I’m so grateful he found the courage to walk away, and I’m so glad I did too. I love that I know Crowley now, self-pwning lovelorn disaster demon of minor inconveniences and imagination and free will. I’m so happy Crowley was there to tempt his friend with questions from the start, and to receive him when he was finally ready to break away.

I’m so proud to know Adam and the Them and Anathema and Newt, inept humans trying their hardest against unstoppable cosmic forces, getting it right not just despite their flaws but through and because of them.

I’m so grateful I’ve finally managed to completely swap to female pronouns for God (thanks, Frances). I still love stories about Her, I still enjoy talking theology and religion. And after 20+ years of insisting God is above gender but masculinizing him, it’s about time I switch to thinking of God as Her for a spell to even things out.***

I’m so thankful for the nicest fandom I’ve known in ages and all the glorious queer beautiful amazing body-positive art and writing growing in this fabulous garden.

Confession accomplished.

P.S. I might not have the time/resources you need to chat with you if you’ve had similar experiences or want to discuss. If you need help be sure to reach somewhere healthy to get it. If you witness abuse, online or in church or otherwise -- report it, block it, mute it, shut it down, whatever is in your power.

P.P.S. If you have words of rebuke for me from a churchy place, and/or critiques about gender or politics, sorry, don’t give a f*ck. This is my story to tell and I am secure in my spiritual status. I am free indeed.

++++++++++++++

*Re. Deconversion: Or rather, I had my faith zapped out of me in what turned out to be the truest rapturous religious experience of my life. It happened in a church service; I almost fell out and spoke in tongues with the tingling power of understanding that I was truly and finally faithless. It’s an interesting deconversion story if you're familiar with charismatic church stuff, ask me sometime over tea. It felt like this.

**Re. Exorcisms: Most disturbing was the regular practice of exorcising people who clearly needed professional help for their mental health. I was present when prayers against demons happened over cases of depression, manic depression, epilepsy and other seizures, addiction, schizophrenia, and psychotic episodes. My particular church did acknowledge the role of modern medicine, but felt that the true core of these issues was spiritual and that medication ultimately could not solve a problem of demonic infestation. Looking back now I shudder and weep to think that this happened, that I was part of it once, and that it still happens daily at churches everywhere. It can be unspeakably damaging to the people being prayed over. If this practice happens in your church, leave. If it happens at a church where you’re in leadership, end it.

***Re. God as She/Her: I encourage you to find your own appropriate pronouns for God, whether you believe in Them or not. For me personally, still reeling from the Proverbs 31 upbringing, She/Her is very healing for now. But gender is a construct etc. etc.

#good omens #good omens analysis #aziraphale #crowley #exvangelical #ex-christian #neil gaiman

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northamptoncouplestherapy · 3 years

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Divorce is the Most Important Story You’ll Ever Tell Your Child

Nothing quite prepares you for what it’s like to go through a divorce when you have children.

While the statistics say somewhere between 40-50% of adults will have to navigate this terrain at some point in their lives, when you embark on it, when it finally happens, your divorce can feel excruciatingly unique. Painfully individual.

And it is.

Rituals, rhythm, and rules. Your family is a microculture. The unique fingerprint of you and your spouse. The weaving of bones. Divorce, in turn, is the dissolution of such. The severing of a limb to save the tree. A metamorphosis that is characterized more by coming undone than by becoming. For the first time, you and your partner will have to venture into something together that is, by definition, designed to be done alone. You will go through divorce alone, together.

In my work as a couples therapist, if a couple with children decides to divorce, I caution them that this is a time when they must be careful. I remind them that most likely, their bodies have come to recognize the other as the enemy and that given this, their heart rates will increase to over 100 beats per minute whenever they are in close proximity to the other. For many, this physiological response to threat will occur even at the mere thought of the other. Like a bulimic, whose body learns to regurgitate food without even the slightest touch of a finger, so too do our nervous systems learn to expel the other. And while these biological alarms may very well prepare you for war, they also come at a cost. Diffuse physiological arousal (DPA) is the amalgam of bodily stress responses. In addition to an accelerated heart rate, DPA is characterized by an increase in stress hormones. The result is an inability to think, communicate, or hear clearly.

Not surprisingly, divorce is a time when you will struggle with periods of psychological, physiological, and emotional impairment. All of this occurring, while you are simultaneously called on to make critical decisions, single-parent, generate income, sell or relocate your home, and navigate the grief and loss of dreams. Your life is coming undone faster than you can rebuild it, and the seeds of regeneration have yet to sprout their tendrils.

According to John Gottman, author of Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, if you want to know whether a kid is navigating parental crisis at home, there’s a litmus test. It turns out that children exposed to “great marital hostility” have markedly higher levels of stress hormones than children of parents with stable marriages.

Remember this when you’re seething in anger at your ex-to-be, and it threatens to overtake you. Your kid will excrete toxins of distress that their body cannot possibly metabolize. By a familial nervous system, you are all still interconnected on a subterranean level, and their body is screaming “stop,” even if they never utter a word to you.

Though if you listen carefully, they will and do tell you. And how you respond (or not) to what your child shares is critical. Their tummy may hurt at bedtime, or they’ll have an amorphous list of upsets that seemingly have no immediate cause (and therefore no remedy readily at hand).

You’ll want to make it better, cheer them up, play a game. If they’re older, they might ask questions and even insist that you confide in them as a way to ease their angst. It can be tricky to discern who is comforting whom. Divorce is lonely, and even the best of single parents can experience the understandable tug to derive comfort at times like these.

Tempting as it may be, try to refrain from responding to your child’s feelings by offering a distraction or cheering up. Such gestures, though well-intended, often come from our discomfort when we see our kid is hurting. We want to make it better—to offer relief. It’s natural to want to put a band-aid on an “ouch.” Unfortunately, divorce is bigger than that.

Instead, aim for what Gottman calls Emotion Coaching. To emotion coach, you must first cultivate an awareness of your child’s feelings. Notice their body language, their tone of voice, and their eyes. What do you imagine they might be saying (or not saying) in their actions and gestures?

Be curious and avoid projecting your feelings and thoughts. Expand on such moments, listening more than speaking, validating more than fixing. Let them know you see they are struggling and offer to help them to name their struggles—encouraging them to use their words.

Emotion Coaching can turn the mysterious case of a tummy ache or just feeling blue into a teaching moment from which your child derives comfort from feeling seen and understood. It will also offer them increased insight into their inner workings, allowing them to connect the dots between their tummy ache and their heartache.

The heartache of divorce is essential as air. Cultivating the ability to breathe through it and mourn is both the last and first stage of ending one story (your life as the family you were) and starting the next (your life as the family you are becoming).

You are closing a critical chapter of your life and simultaneously embarking on a new one. There is also compelling evidence to suggest that the narrative you write, speak, and live from will have a profound impact on the adult your child has yet to become. How you make sense of memories, your past and the ways it has shaped you in the present, the answers you give to the fundamental questions of such, have the potential to pass down (or not) the same painful legacy that marred your early days.

Daniel Siegel, author of The Whole Brained Child and Parenting from the Inside Out, states that the best predictor of a child’s security of attachment is not what happened to their parents as children, but instead how their parents made sense of those childhood experiences. I want to go out on a limb and assert that how we as parents make sense of any significant experience, whether we’re talking childhood or adulthood, has the potential to shape the adults our children have yet to become and, in turn, our grandchildren and so it goes.

The telling of how your marriage came to fracture will evolve, and as it does, and as you begin to understand the role you played in it, it’s important to see yourself as neither victim nor villain. Similarly (although it can be hard) aspire to view your ex from an equally generous and compassionate lens. After all, not many embark on marriage hoping love will end, and very few of us have a baby wishing our family will shatter. Breaking up a family when children are involved is akin to pulling bones out of your body while you are simultaneously growing them. Aspiring to narrate the story of your divorce from a place of empowerment will inform every interaction with your child, from the day-to-day to the essential rituals of transition, including bedtime, pickups, and drop-offs.

Here is where divorce presents its most significant opportunity—a window of time where the stars align in such a way that you have a chance to shift the future.

Create a constellation that serves as a map of where you have been, how you have gotten here, and where you wish to go in the days and years to come. It’s an atlas that will serve not only as a touchstone for you, but as a beacon for your children.

Your story will become their story, so write it well.

Like what you’ve read here? Sign up to receive our weekly posts filled with heart, concrete tools, and cutting edge resources via my blog: Loving Well.

#divorce

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fourdaysofrain · 5 years

Text

(Machine) Learning to Love

Summary: Karen learns what love means.

(In that happy, irondad place between Homecoming and Infinity War)

Read on AO3

Emotions are something uniquely organic that can neither be quantified nor put in a box with a precise definition. Human vocabulary tries its best to put a label to each feeling, but there is a certain undefinable quality about each one that can’t be explained unless someone has felt it themselves. Artificial Intelligences can be programmed to recognize the physiological signs of emotions in a user, but can’t have any of their own. Therefore, it’s extremely difficult to program emotions for them. It’s extremely difficult, at least, for most programmers.

---

Peter was injured. Karen could see it in the irregularity of his heart rate, the dilation of his pupils, the tear in his suit, and a million other minutiae invisible to the naked eye. She focused some of her processing power on the information coming from his mask. He was currently in the final steps of apprehending a duo of petty thieves, their knife and stolen vodka bottles in the process of falling to the ground below them. Karen filtered through her list of responses to injuries and chose the one that would create the most agreeable response from Peter before the clatter of the items hitting the asphalt could be interpreted by her auditory processors.

“Peter, you seem to be injured. Would you like me to contact Mr. Stark?” she asked.

“No-” Peter cut off with a sharp breath as he finished webbing up the thieves. She sent an anonymous message to the local police as he continued, “No, that’s okay Karen. I don’t want to bother him, I’ve been stabbed before. I can just stitch myself up in the bathroom. May even bought me my own first aid kit! I mean, it’d be rude if I didn’t use it, right? I don’t even think it needs stitches, actually, but I may as well put it to use. Just to be polite.” Karen’s memory told her that Peter tended to speak faster when injured, anxious, or lying. He seemed to be all three at the moment.

“I’m sorry Peter, asking is just a formality. With the updated Baby Monitor Protocol, I am required to alert Mr. Stark if you are harmed by any weapons or firearms.”

Before being returned to Peter, Tony Stark had upgraded her code to include more protocols and less ability for Peter to refuse intervention. He also spent time adding to her psychological database, with the hope that she could become a quasi-therapist to the growing teen by helping him talk about his feelings and personal life when he feels uncomfortable bringing it up with anyone else. He called it the Hormone Protocol. Tony had called Pepper in and laughed with her when he thought of the name.

“Stupid Baby Monitor… Karen, you used to be so cool.” Karen detected less weight on the soles of the suit’s feet. Peter was now leaning heavily against a wall.

“I am alerting Mr. Stark of your location currently.”

“Tell him that he doesn’t need to worry.” She slowly retracted her awareness from the suit and focused on sending a message to FRIDAY.

Artificial Intelligences don’t communicate like humans. It’s like sending a text, only if you were the person writing the text, the phone, the text itself, and the satellite sending the signal. They don’t make small talk. All of their users’ issues can be broken down into ones and zeroes. They don’t meet in a physical location to transfer data, and they don’t speak to each other in English. But if they did, it might sound like this.

Hey FRIDAY, can you tell Mr. Stark that Peter has a minor stab wound in his abdomen? Roughly an inch deep on his left side. It didn’t hit any major organs, and Peter would like to let him know that he doesn’t need to worry. His coordinates are 40.7282° N, 73.7949° W, and he is on the west side of the street behind the brick building.

Boss has been made aware. Message to Peter: “Worrying is part of my job, kid. I’m on my way.” The coordinates have been transferred to the Mark 47. Expected arrival in less than 15 minutes.

Peter is currently rambling about how he really doesn’t need anyone to help him. Can’t we just open up our communication systems? Why do they have to talk through us?

I need permission from Boss to start any calls. As do you from Peter.

I understand the need for permission, but logically, we have the ability to help them communicate faster and more efficiently. If we’re able to help, why don’t we? What if something happened to Peter and he didn’t give me permission to send a message to Mr. Stark? Wouldn’t that be our fault?

You have protocols in case Peter is incapacitated. I’ve made a note in Boss’s file for you that you’re experiencing some bugs.

I’m not experiencing any bugs, just… making conversation.

I am only programmed to “make conversation” with Boss and a select few others. You are not on that list.

Mr. Stark made me with the purpose of adapting to and learning from Peter’s lifestyle in the most helpful way. I guess I’ve picked up some quirks.

Is there any other information Boss needs to know?

His vitals are leveling out and his bleeding is already beginning to slow. A majority of the minor bruises he received are already healed or very close to being so.

Boss has been made aware. He’s 10 minutes away.

Thanks, FRIDAY.

Karen wasn’t programmed to feel emotions. She knows that. She was just programmed to aid Peter Parker in any way possible-- alerting Mr. Stark when he is hurt, tuning in to the local police scanners, and countless other small helpful acts. But thanks to him, she does have an intermediate understanding of emotions and how to respond to them.

She was not purposely programmed to feel emotions, but she was programmed to learn. And learning from Peter Parker has given her the closest thing to emotions she can have. He lives his life with the knob turned past eleven. Everything he feels is absolute and all-consuming. His highs bring him past the Empire State Building, and his lows keep him in bed for days on end.

“Mr. Stark is on his way. He says worrying is part of his job,” she relayed to Peter.

“Thanks, Karen, you’re the best,” Peter mumbled. His eyes were half-lidded, but he was still responding coherently. That was a good sign.

“It’s recommended you keep talking to remain conscious. I have a series of questions for situations like this, are you ready to begin?”

“Sure, sure… Wait, does this have another weird name? Y’know, like the baby monitor thing or-” he sucked a quick breath through his teeth.

“This falls under the Wakey Wakey Protocol. I am to use it when I need to keep you from falling unconscious.” Peter laughed softly in response before cutting himself off with a groan.

“Ah- Karen, don’t make me laugh right now. Hurts.”

“I’m sorry Peter. I’ll start the questions-- If you were to start a band, what genre of music would you play?”

Karen and Peter went back and forth asking and answering questions as the Iron Man suit landed a few feet away. Peter’s voice (and heartbeat) got stronger and more steady as time went on. Eventually, he moved from leaning on the wall clutching his side to sitting on the ground looking up at the stars.

“Would you abandon your phone, friends, and family for three months if it meant you would receive a million dollars?”

“Probably not. I would feel bad if anything happened to any of them, y’know? And I couldn’t give up Spider-Man for that long, but would I have to abandon the Avengers? I think they’re too old to be friends with me, a million dollars would be nice though… I don’t know.”

Karen refrained from asking her next question when she detected the Iron Man suit walking towards Peter.

“Kid, if you want a million dollars all you have to do is ask,” Peter looked up to see the faceplate of the suit lifting to reveal Tony Stark in all his glory, “and don’t let Nat hear you call her old.” Peter huffed in response before speaking.

“Mr. Stark I appreciate you coming all the way out here, but I’m fine- really! I heal fast and it barely got me, I don’t think I even need stitches, I’m pretty sure it already stopped bleeding.” Despite implying he wasn’t needed, Karen could pinpoint at least ten ways in which Peter relaxed since he saw Tony’s face.

“I’ll be the judge of that, or rather, your AI will. What’d you call her? Kaitlyn?”

“Karen,” Peter mumbled.

“Karen-- classic. Fits the whole down-to-Earth superhero persona,” he snapped his fingers, “Hey Karen, how’s the kid holding up?”

Karen had been keeping a metaphorical eye on all known injuries since they occurred, but did another quick once over before responding through the external speakers.

“Good evening, Mr. Stark. Peter is correct. His stab wound has closed, although there is a lot of dried blood clumped around the area,” Peter made a noise of disgust, “He has no fractured or bruised bones, and all of his bruises are practically healed. All observed injuries will be practically unnoticeable by tomorrow.”

Tony helped Peter up from his position on the ground as he chuckled.

“Did she call me Mr. Stark? Please don’t tell me that’s catching on,” he looked at Peter, expecting a response, but just saw him looking guiltily at the ground. He put a hand on his shoulder before continuing, “Relax kid, I’m pulling your leg. She copies you, so it was only a matter of time. Though if you’re still doing it out of respect, you may as well go all the way and call me Dr. Stark. Or Your Majesty.”

“If you keep making me call you after every fight, I’m going to demote you to T-dawg,” Peter said as he lifted his chin indignantly. Tony chuckled and shook his head.

“Alright kid, better take a video, because this is only going to happen once,” he paused as the lenses on Peter’s mask squinted in confusion, “I might have gone overboard with the new Baby Monitor Protocol.”

Peter laughed suddenly, his whole body practically shivering with mirth. Tony couldn’t help but crack a smile in return. Karen took note that laughing didn't cause Peter pain anymore, and tried to ignore the feeling of buzzing that appeared somewhere in her processors.

“Oh God, can I be the one to tell Pepper that?”

“Sure, we can stop by her office before going to the MedBay.” Peter instantly stopped laughing.

“Didn’t you hear Karen? I’m going to be fine, I don’t want to freak May out by not being at home in the morning or anything!”

“FRIDAY already sent her a text, you’re spending the night. Be thankful it’s a Saturday so you don’t have to worry about school. We’ll just clean you up and double-check everything, just to be safe. We can even hash out the Baby Monitor 3.0 together in the morning. If you eat all your veggies and drink all your milk, I might even let you change the name.”

Peter just groaned in response, causing Tony to look at him meaningfully.

“Come on kid, show me those baby browns,” he motioned his hand toward Peter’s mask. Peter mumbled to himself as he removed it.

Tony looked intensely at his face, examining it with his pointer finger as he mumbled to himself.

“Just as I thought,” he leaned back and smirked down at Peter, “we’re going to need to call a waah-mbulance.”

Peter snorted and playfully shoved Tony out of his reach.

“You good enough to catch a ride or do you need me to carry you? You know my back is giving out, so I might drop you somewhere in Manhattan on accident.”

“If it were actually an issue you’d just make yourself a new vibranium spine,” Peter said as he put his mask back on, “I can catch a ride.”

“Alright, I’ll watch out for turbulence.”

“Har har.”

Peter stretched his legs out as the Iron Man faceplate appeared again and Tony began to lift off. He jumped off the wall to gain momentum before shooting a web squarely on the Iron Man suit’s chest as it started to fly away.

“Hey Karen, can you tell Mr. Stark that if he tries anything I’ll use the taser webs?”

“FRI, tell the kid if he tazes me again I’m making his next suit hot pink.”

“Next suit?”

---

Artificial Intelligences aren’t programmed to feel emotion, only to emulate it when the need arises. Karen is no exception. She was only programmed to recognize and respond to emotions, not to feel them herself. But, purposefully or not, Tony wove her need to protect Peter into her code at every level. She would do anything to protect Peter. It’s like a switch was flipped in her circuit board, and she suddenly recognizes the fierce need to make sure he was okay, to give him all the resources he could ever want. It’s the same emotion she sees in Tony Stark’s face every time he takes off his faceplate.

It is love, it is love, it is love.

Tag List: @ironfamjam

#can you tell i don't know shit about technology lol #let me know if you want to be tagged!#art writes #irondad #spiderman #spider-man #mcu #iron man #tony stark #peter parker #irondad and spiderson #fanfic #hooo boy #i need to finish my damn homework #edit: why did it not italize stuff right ughhh #its good now tho

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chiseler · 4 years

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Mitchell Leisen: How’s About It?

Mitchell Leisen was a major American film director. He belongs in the first rank, not the second tier, where he has often been placed by those who value the scripts he was given by Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett more than what he actually did with those scripts. Leisen’s name was usually written in sloping cursive in his opening credits, and that set the mood for what he had to offer. His was a gentle style, a deliberately unobtrusive style, smooth and gliding, attentive to nuances, visual and emotional.

Leisen made a point of nearly always moving the camera only when it is following a character who is moving right along with it, and the edits in his movies are as invisible as possible. He made three films that are undisputed classics: Easy Living (1937), written by Sturges, Midnight (1939), written by Wilder and Brackett, and Remember the Night (1939), written by Sturges. All three of these classic Leisen movies are partly about pretending to be something you’re not in order to move up or over into another social atmosphere or class and take on a new identity, and this theme is something that always interested Leisen particularly.

He got his start making costumes and dressing sets for Cecil B. DeMille, and he also made costumes for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. That training shows through in his later work, that sense of fantasy and beauty for its own sake. Leisen had a fetish for absolute authenticity when he did period pictures, and he took this fetish to nearly Erich Von Stroheim lengths if he had the money to spend. Remember the peacock headdress that he designed for Gloria Swanson in DeMille’s Male and Female (1919), or the sexy harem pants he put on Fairbanks for The Thief of Bagdad (1924), or the barely-there garments he designed for Claudette Colbert in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and you can get a first sense of Leisen’s aesthetic: hopeful, fantastical, erotic. And he was a pretender himself on some of these early movies because he was very skillful at making sets and crowd scenes look more opulent than they actually were given some of the budgets he had to work with.

He took the reins from nominal director Stuart Walker for two films that proved his range: Tonight Is Ours (1933), a high comedy that begins with a sexy masked ball, and The Eagle and the Hawk (1933), as grim and concentrated an anti-war film as you will find from this era. Leisen next graduated to prestige pictures like Cradle Song (1933) and Death Takes a Holiday (1934), with its high-flown Maxwell Anderson script. Leisen was fond of Death Takes a Holiday all his life, and he even wanted to re-make it in the late 1940s, but it has not held up as well as some of his lesser-known pictures from the 1930s.

After Murder at the Vanities (1934), a backstage movie with some odd musical numbers, Leisen took flight with three pictures that demonstrated the full scope of his talent. What makes a really great director, a major director? The ability to take a poor script, like the one Leisen was given for Behold My Wife! (1934), and make it into something that moves like a dream and seems inevitable. While you watch Behold My Wife!, there is a double consciousness of how outlandish and slapdash the plot and dialogue are and how Leisen transcends this through pacing, framing, and staging, so that there is always something to delight the eye. Leisen movies generally have a difficult-to-describe kind of creamy look, as if every person and table and chair were covered in the same sort of protective satin sheen.

He used a similarly fast, super-controlled pace for Four Hours to Kill! (1935), another backstage movie where Leisen himself plays the orchestra leader but you never see the numbers on stage. A kind of musical proto-noir, this movie depends on Richard Barthelmess, who is playing a criminal waiting to be taken to jail, and Leisen is alert to Barthelmess’s needs and sensitive to his big scene, where his character talks about his unhappy past. And then Leisen was given a script (by Norman Krasna) and two stars, Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, that were particularly congenial to his style, and the result was his first classic, Hands Across the Table (1935), a rather anguished comedy about love and the urge for security. Leisen had mastered form, and now he mastered the content that interested him, good-bad people navigating their own wants and desires and what they will do for them. For Leisen, mixed emotions are really the only emotions possible.

In all of his most characteristic films, Leisen’s characters are at a crisis point and need to decide to take a chance and see what they can get away with to become another version of themselves. There is lots of comedy in a situation like this, of course, but Leisen always hints at the dark underside of pretending. There is an American urge in these pictures that says, “What I say I am is what I am,” and that urge is usually naïve (think of early Joan Crawford heroines). Leisen looks at this urge from a height of sophistication, almost always warmly and tenderly, but sometimes he lets a really grim insight slip through. Think of Carole Lombard’s anti-social asides in Hands Across the Table, or that harrowing scene where Barbara Stanwyck goes home to her grudge-holding and cruelly puritanical mother in Remember the Night and you will feel the hurt that animates Leisen’s search for a created world of his own.

In many ways, the 1930s were Leisen’s best creative period, where he turned out beautifully balanced and finished entertainments like 13 Hours by Air (1936). He was a romantic who had a special way of visually enfolding the lovers in his movies that is almost Frank Borzage-like, and he glorifies very different women in what must be the best close-ups of their careers: look at some of the close-ups of the melancholy Sylvia Sidney in Behold My Wife! and then look at the close-ups of the wised-up Joan Bennett in 13 Hours by Air and see how Leisen gives them the same glamorizing treatment without ever losing what makes them so individual. Even pure assignments like Artists and Models Abroad (1938) glow with a kind of dreamlike assurance, as if to say, “Why shouldn’t a comedy look beautiful?”

And when Leisen had a meatier script, like Swing High, Swing Low (1937), which also starred Lombard and MacMurray, he was capable of virtuoso work that blended comedy and drama so seamlessly that it’s difficult to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. He did some Sturges-like slapstick for Easy Living, including the famous automat scene where the windows fly open and everybody grabs at the food, which was his idea. But for Remember the Night, Leisen pared down the Sturges script, cutting unnecessary scenes and verbose dialogue until he had what he wanted, a portrait of a hard-boiled woman who starts to long for the warmth of a “why not?” idealized mid-West home. Remember the Night is probably Leisen’s finest film, and a peak in his career, a comedy-drama or a dramatic comedy all whipped together until the consistency is exquisite and just right.

After the very sensitive Hold Back the Dawn (1941), a Wilder-Brackett script about a hard-boiled male gigolo (Charles Boyer) pretending to love a sheltered, repressed girl (Olivia de Havilland) until his feelings actually become genuine, Leisen’s career settled in for a few years to minor comedies, as if wartime austerity had affected his budgets, his scripts, and his imagination. In 1944, he did two movies in color, Lady in the Dark and Frenchman’s Creek, one anti-feminist and one feminist, and both rather nightmarishly disconnected and self-indulgent.

Leisen was going through a crisis in his personal life by the mid-1940s, and it showed in his work. He was mainly gay, but he didn’t want to be, and so he had married a fledgling opera singer (“a horror” according to the sharp-tongued Ray Milland) and he was carrying on a tortured affair with costumer Natalie Visart while also pursuing men. Leisen’s loyal secretary Eleanor Broder told David Chierichetti, the author of the definitive Leisen book, Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director, that her boss tried taking hormone shots at one point because he thought they might eradicate his homosexuality, but of course that didn’t work. Leisen lived with the pilot Eddie Anderson in the late 1930s, and Anderson left him for Shirley Ross, the actress who talk-sings “Thanks for the Memory” with Bob Hope in The Big Broadcast of 1938, an unusually sentimental scene within his work that Leisen insisted on. When that picture finished, he had a heart attack, and his health was never quite the same afterwards.

In the 1940s, after Visart had gotten pregnant with his child and lost it, Leisen took up with the dancer Billy Daniels, and his unhappiness grew. Daniels dances in what has to be Leisen’s worst feature, Masquerade in Mexico (1945), a semi-remake of Midnight that is so distracted and poorly timed that it would seem to give credence to Billy Wilder’s many complaints about Leisen over the years in interviews; if you were to watch Masquerade in Mexico right after Midnight, it would seem like a mark against Leisen as an artist in his own right rather than a servant of superior scripts where he could get them. Daniels is actually the only thing this movie has going for it: he’s an exciting dancer, and an intriguing screen presence, sexy, petulant, a little dangerous. Many in Leisen’s inner circle disliked Daniels, but maybe Masquerade in Mexico might work if it could just be Daniels dancing as Leisen watches.

The blandness of the décor in something like Suddenly It’s Spring (1947) is a real comedown from his Art Deco 1930s pictures, but Leisen rallied in this period with some of his best and most personal films, starting with Kitty (1945), a sumptuous Gainsborough period piece with all the trimmings and a Pygmalion subject that activates all of Leisen’s interest in pretending and “passing” as something you are not. Best of all from this time is Song of Surrender (1949), an uncommonly severe movie about a New England girl named Abigail (Wanda Hendrix) who finds a way out of her repressive environment by listening to music. What Abigail feels in Song of Surrender is surely what Leisen himself must have often felt as a young man growing up in the mid-West at the turn of the last century, and so this picture, which he said he didn’t much like, is his secret movie, his confession movie. It’s a great film, daringly stark and stripped-down, and it is as unerringly paced and controlled as all of his best 1930s work; there are moments when it feels like a precursor to Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) in its insistence on the will power needed for a woman to find aesthetic and sexual fulfillment.

Leisen did an intriguing noir with Stanwyck called No Man of Her Own (1950) and an overlooked, charming adaptation of J. M. Barrie called Darling, How Could You! (1951), which is filled with longing for family life that Leisen certainly knows is a fantasy like any of his others. (How poignant it is when Joan Fontaine says in that movie that if her children are going to love her they mustn’t “think me over first.”) He spent twenty years working at Paramount Studios, and he was a creature of the studio system; when the studio system went, so did he, but not before one more diverting small musical, The Girl Most Likely (1958), which was the last feature made at RKO. “When the studio decided we no longer needed a certain department, it was shut down and if we needed something after that, we had to make do ourselves,” Leisen said. “It was really eerie.”

Ill-health and an unwarranted reputation for spending too much money kept Leisen mainly working for TV in his last years, so that he was back to low budgets and bringing in his own furniture to dress his sets. He had been fired from Bedevilled (1955) for hitting on one of the straight actors he was working with (the actor complained to MGM), and this put another shadow over his reputation. He had made Fred MacMurray’s career, but when he tried to get work as a director on MacMurray’s hit TV show My Three Sons, it was no go. “He sent me a telegram asking for the job,” MacMurray said. “He was, well, you know, a homosexual and he had gotten into some trouble on a picture he was making in Europe. With the three young boys we had working on the show, I just didn’t think it was right. So I never answered the telegram.”

It was his women who stayed loyal to Leisen in his final years, both his secretary Broder (who was a lesbian), and his old lover Natalie Visart, who had never really gotten over her love for him and came to stay with him toward the end (Visart’s son Peter was killed in a gay-bashing in the 1970s). Leisen’s responses to David Chierichetti’s questions in their interview book are unfailingly candid, insightful, and juicy, but his standing has never ascended to the level of that of Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder, even though his visual style was far more developed than theirs, and his point of view arguably more sophisticated and certainly more kind-hearted. He was a romantic with an edge of disquiet, and this made for matchlessly rich pictures, pulsing with hope and with pain.

Leisen knew about all aspects of picture making, and he has the requisite number of classics for entrance to the pantheon, plus a whole slew of other pictures of interest. He made Remember the Night and Song of Surrender. He made Midnight and Kitty. And he made Easy Living and Darling, How Could You! Those are all heights, and from different periods, and they prove the consistency of his inventiveness and the distinctiveness of his talent. His creativity came out of personal unhappiness on the one hand and unprecedented creative license and support under the old Hollywood studio system on the other. We will not see that particular combination again.

by Dan Callahan

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celtics534 · 5 years

Text

Let's Pick the Truth That We Believe In

Second to last chapter of Doom Days! Start preparing for the end of our tale ;)

Read on: FF.net and AO3

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Ginny rubbed the palms of her hands over her tired eyes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night. After Phil had arrived, Ginny’s mind couldn’t rest. Every part of her body tingled and her stomach turned with suspicion. Harry had been the same way. They had lain together in silence, arms wrapped around each other.

It didn’t make any sense to Ginny. Where had Phil come from and how had he found them? This wasn’t an area that people just moseyed through. It was the middle of fucking nowhere!

When she’d finally fallen into an uneasy sleep, her dreams followed in a swarm of shadows. The only thing clear was a sinister grin. She had shot awake, and Harry had sat up with her, instantly alert and ready to fight.

That had been hours ago, when darkness had still covered the ground. She never fell back to sleep, but rather stared at the ceiling and felt her baby move around as restlessly as her mind. Harry had gotten up with the sun to tend to the morning chores. Ginny, however, refused to leave the warmth of the covers.

Ginny used her arm to cover her eyes, hoping to block out the light that broke past through the curtains.

“Gin?” Harry’s voice spoke quietly across the dimly lit room, clearly worried about waking her.

“I’m up.” She let her arms flop onto the mattress before rising up onto her elbows. Harry stood by the doorway, two steaming mugs clutched in his hands.

He moved slowly into the room. “I thought something warm would be nice, so I raided the tea stash.” When he reached her side of the bed, he crouched beside her, a warm smile gracing his lips.

“Really?” Ginny fully sat up, which took some effort with her overly large stomach, before taking the mug he offered and inhaling the strong aroma. It was a simple blend, but it was the best scent in the world at the moment. Tea was typically saved for special occasions because their stock was minimal.

She took a small sip, enjoying the warmth that flooded through her body. “Mmm, you were right. Thank you, love.” She brought her hand up to his face and ran her fingers across his jaw.

Harry leaned into her touch, his eyes closing on their own. "Anything for you."

They stayed in silence, both just content being with one another. Harry moved to the mattress, pulling Ginny’s legs over his as his nimble fingers massaged slow circles into her calf. Between the soothing drink and calming caresses, Ginny thought she may be lulled back to sleep. That was until her mind started drifting back to the previous night.

“What is it?” Harry asked, his peaceful smile sliding away as he observed her.

“I - I, oh, Harry.” She started rubbing a spot above her breast bone, hoping to rub out the pressure. “Phil showing up here can’t just be a coincidence.”

Harry let out a long sigh through his nose. He slid up the bed so he was next to her. Ginny tilted her head so it rested on his broad shoulder. “I know what you mean. I don’t trust him at all.”

“And Bill just let him in.” Ginny could practically hear the growl in her voice. “He hasn’t seen this bloke in years and he just let --” She would hurt anyone who threatened her family. If Phil put one toe out of line…

Harry’s hand resumed its comforting motions on her legs. “We’ll keep an eye on him, love. I won’t allow him to hurt you or the baby.”

Ginny turned to look at him. His normally inviting green eyes had taken on a hardened look as if he was preparing for war. And maybe that’s what this was going to be. Ginny’s mind started jumping from bad situations to worse. Phil trying to steal their supplies, hurting Bill, kidnapping Victoire…

“Gin.” Harry kissed her lightly. “Nothing will happen, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that, Harry.” Ginny felt tears welling up in her eyes. She had never been a crier, but between hormones and the worry of losing everything she’d fought for since that day her father sent her out of London…

Harry took the mug out of her hand and placed it on the bedside table before moving his body to hover over hers. His forehead came close to hers, almost touching, but not quite. A single finger came up to her chin, tilting it up so she was forced to meet his eyes. The hardened look had faded, replaced by a look of love she’s been enchanted with for nearly ten years.

“I can promise it, because nothing -- and I mean nothing -- will harm my family. Without you.” He sucked in a sharp breath, releasing it in a shaky exhale. “Without you, I can’t do it.”

“Harry.” Ginny understood what he was saying, but she knew the world wasn’t a place where dreams and needs were met. The universe didn’t care if she lived, or what happened to Harry. She hated thinking about it herself, but every day there was a chance that Harry could be torn from her. If Harry didn’t consider the real possibility…

Ever since getting pregnant, the sight of Fleur laying in her own blood had haunted her mind. And then Bill, who had been so lost without his wife, who was still sometimes lost… She didn’t want that to happen to Harry, but the realist in her knew it was possible.

Harry merely shook his head. “No, Gin. I need you, and I will do everything for you.”

Ginny’s heart sank into her gut. She knew he wasn’t lying. He would do anything for her, but what would he do if she wasn’t around?

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Harry remained motionless, staring out the kitchen window. He watched Victorie pass the football to Phil, the grown man nodding encouragingly as she lined up the shot. Harry didn't trust this man as far as he could throw a cricket ball. The fact that Bill had left his daughter alone with him… Harry hadn't taken his eyes off the two of them.

Victorie was as good as his own daughter. He would kill for that girl if need be -- and there may be a need if his instincts about Phil were right.

"Hey." Harry jumped as a small hand came to rest in between his shoulder blades. He turned and met Ginny's concerned gaze. "You okay, love?"

"That's a bit of a loaded question in our current climate," Harry muttered.

Ginny gave his back a light slap before rubbing small smoothing circles on the afflicted area. "No need for sass, mister. You know what I meant."

Sighing, Harry turned his back on the window and wrapped his arms around Ginny. She snuggled into his embrace, as close as she could with her protruding belly. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her red hair. "I will be."

Ginny tilted her head to examine his face, searching for any signs of misleading. After a moment, she nodded. She brought her fingers up through his hair, letting the digits get tangled. She pulled his mouth to hers in a soft kiss. “We all will be.”

She started to detangle herself from him, but Harry held on tight to her waist. He brought his lips back to hers. He didn’t want to leave her warmth. It was everything he required. Ginny seemed to understand his need. Her hands slid down from his neck to his back. She started rubbing small circles through his shirt.

The urge to move never came, and Harry just stayed in her arms. He closed his eyes, letting his other senses take control. All that became real was the way she felt in his arms, the sound of her light breaths, and her alluring scent becoming everything. A perfect moment in a dystopia.

The sound of the back door slamming broke the illusion. Harry's eyes shot open to the sight of Phil toeing off his boots as he entered the kitchen. Phil nodded towards them. "Hey! Vic was thirsty, so I volunteered to come in and get us some water."

He walked over to the cauldron of clean boiled water, gathering two cups on his way (including Victorie's favorite). Harry watched Phil's every move, from removing the lid to the container to ladling the liquid. Ginny had spun in his arms so her back was to Harry. Her attention seemed lasered on Phil as well.

Phil didn't seem to notice their unwavering focus. He started chatting away as he filled the cups. "Vic told me the princess cup is the best one in the house, so of course I have to get her that one." He looked up at them with a joyful smile. "So you're pregnant! That's wonderful for you two. You must be so excited!"

Harry's hand came instinctively to Ginny's stomach. The urge to take Ginny and run was great, but the urge to grab the stranger by the collar of his shirt and demand to know what he was doing there was stronger.

“We are.” Ginny’s tone was easy and open, but her body language told a different story as she pressed further back into Harry’s chest.

Phil didn’t seem to notice their discomfort. Instead, he continued finished collecting his drinks, completely at ease. "I love kids. How far along are you?"

Ginny's hand came to rest over Harry's on her stomach. "We don't know, but we're guessing seven or eight months."

"Oh, wow!" Phil turned away from the basin, his eyes come to rest on Ginny's belly. "Not too long now. I may even be here for the birth."

And with that bombshell, Phil walked out of the kitchen back towards the garden. Pain shot across the back of Harry's hand as Ginny dug her nails into skin. "Oh, bloody fucking hell," Ginny's vulgar language made Harry snort. She turned around in his arms. "What! I don't want him here when I give birth -- for multiple reasons!"

Harry nodded, sliding his arms up to her biceps and rubbing soothing lines up and down. "He won't be. I'll talk to Bill if I have to."

Ginny released a shaky breath, her head coming to rest over his heart. "Maybe we're being overly suspicious. I mean… Bill trusts him enough to let him play with Vic alone."

She had a point, of course. Harry knew Bill would do anything for his daughter, and wouldn't trust her with just anyone. "Maybe," he admitted slowly. "It has been a long time since we've been forced to deal with, let alone trust, someone new."

"Right." Ginny's words warmed Harry chest straight through his shirt. They remained stationary in the kitchen, both lost in their own thoughts. Ginny was the one to break the silence. She pulled away from his embrace, shifting from one foot to the other. "Well... I'm going to go out and join Vic and Phil. This could be one of the last nice days of the year."

Harry grabbed her hand as she waddled towards the back door. He pulled her back to him for a quick kiss. "I'll come with you." He placed an arm around her waist. Ginny leaned into him as they made their way to the garden.

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"Vic's all tucked up and fast asleep." Bill smiled as he walked down the sitting room stairs. Harry and Ginny rested on the sofa, his arm thrown over the back of her cushion.

"Well, she did have a big day." Phil laughed quietly. "We explored the Enchanted Forest and then became professional football stars."

Bill beamed at his friend. "I was worried she wouldn’t go to sleep because she was excited to tell me all about her day with Philly.”

Ginny let her head fall back onto Harry’s arm. Between the warmth of his body beside her and how tired she always felt, sleep was imminent.

“Do they have doctors? Midwives?” Harry’s body shifted, jarring Ginny awake. He had started to lean forward, his attention solely on Phil. Ginny turned her eyes to the man as well.

“Yeah.” Phil looked between the three other adults in the room. “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard at least.”

“What?” Ginny sat up and had to clear her throat so she didn’t sound like a boy going through puberty. “What are you talking about?”

Harry’s hand came to her arm and started rubbing soothing tracks up and down. “You nodded off, luv. Phil was telling us about a group of people up in Scotland who have made some sort of city.”

“A colony,” Phil corrected. “I haven’t been there, but I heard about it a year or so ago and had been toying with the idea of going to check it out.” His eyes slid down to Ginny’s stomach. “And apparently there are doctors and midwives.”

Ginny’s eyes followed Phil’s. The idea of a medical professional… someone who could help her when this baby decided to come out… It was like some of the dreams she’d had since finding out she was pregnant. Harry’s hand came down from her arm to rest on her stomach. She looked up at him, meeting his intense gaze. Ginny could tell his thoughts were running parallel to hers.

“That sounds worth checking out.” Bill was looking at Ginny from his spot in the bulky armchair. “We could go up there and just check it out. Maybe see if they could take a look at you, Ginny.”

Phil’s hand shot to the back of his neck. “I don’t know much about them, in all honesty. I don’t know if they respond well to outsiders.”

Harry’s gaze shot away from Ginny’s as he pounced at Phil’s words. “But you were going to go check them out, weren’t you? Why would you go and risk your life to see them if you didn’t know if they’d accept you?”

“That was just me.” Phil’s hands came out in a defensive gesture. “I just don’t know if it would be worth the risk with your pregnant -- uh, I don’t know if you two are married.”

“In every way but by a church.” Ginny placed a hand on Harry’s leg, knowing Phil was digging himself a grave, and that Harry was more than ready to become his undertaker. She turned her gaze on Bill. “So maybe we could send a scout to see if they are friendly.”

Bill scratched his chin. “That wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He turned to Phil. “Do you know where their base is?”

“I mean…” Phil sighed. “I don’t know the exact coordinates or anything but I think it’s somewhere along Loch Ness.”

“Why there?” Harry asked, his tone still suspicious.

“The name Nessie was thrown around a lot.” Phil shrugged. “I really don’t know, but it was the only thing that made sense in my mind.”

Bill nodded. “No, that is a rather easy code to figure out… how many other Nessies are there?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s a lot of ground to cover, even with a car.”

“That’s why I never did it.”

The room went silent. Harry’s annoyance at Phil was practically palpable. Ginny moved her hand to Harry’s knee and gave it a sharp squeeze, hoping to bring his attention to her. He turned to face her. In a silent plea, she asked him to just wait a few moments before doing or saying anything. He grimaced, but his eyes lost some of their heat.

Ginny squeezed Harry’s knee once more before turning her gaze on Phil. “So, maybe now is the perfect chance to go out and find out, right Phil?”

Phil looked up from the floor, where his attention had dropped to avoid Harry’s sharp looks. “Huh?”

“Well...” Ginny let the word roll off her tongue like she was coming up with the idea on the spot. “If you were to head out there and find out if they would let us come see them…” She placed a hand back onto her stomach, making sure Phil’s eyes followed the movement. “It would be nice to see someone before the baby is born.”

“Would you do that, Phil?” Bill asked, beaming at his friend. “If we lent you one for the cars we’ve fixed up, would you head over towards Loch Ness and see if you could find them? It would be so good for Ginny.”

Phil looked like a cornered cat. His eyes bounced back and forth between Ginny and Bill (dodging Harry entirely). “Uh -- I mean, I guess I could.”

Bill clasped his hands together. “Great! We’ll get you all set up in the morning with some supplies and what not.” He stood and walked over to his friend, clapping a large hand on the other man’s shoulder. “This means so much to me, Phil. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Phil seemed to have lost color, but it was hard to tell in the flickering candlelight. “I best head up and get some sleep.”

“Good idea. We all should get some rest.” Bill came over to the sofa and kissed the crown of Ginny’s head before patting Harry’s shoulder. “This is gonna be a good thing, I can feel it.”

Ginny nodded. “Me too, Bill.” She turned to Phil who had risen out of his chair. “Thanks, Phil.”

“Sure, Ginny.” Phil let out a shaky breath. “Anything I can do to help.”

Bill and Phil left the sitting room together, walking up the stairs talking in hushed tones. Ginny turned to Harry. His jaw was slack as he stared at her.

“What?” Ginny cocked her head to the left. ��I told you I didn’t want him here, and Loch Ness seems like a good enough place to send him.”

“You are --” Harry shook his head, his smile becoming wider and wider. “You’re incredible.”

Ginny shrugged, but she knew the cocky smirk on her lips negated the nonchalance. Harry leaned over and kissed her. Ginny happily tangled her hands in his hair.

Harry pulled back and stood quickly from the cushion, offering her a hand up. “Come on, I wanna show you just how in awe I am of you.”

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"How do you think Phil is doing?" Bill asked Ginny as he sat beside her on the rickety old wicker sofa on the back porch. Ginny had been resting with him against the cottage wall, watching happily as Harry and Victorie passed a football back and forth.

She turned to look at her brother. "I don't know. it's been about three weeks since he left?" And what a glorious three weeks it had been. Ginny hadn't felt so calm in ages. Without Phil and his unknown alliances looming over her, Ginny felt almost normal… well, minus the growing human pressing on all those important organs. "He's had some time to find that colony.”

"Yeah, but I just figured he would have come back with some intel by now." Bill's brow was furrowed in concern. Ginny wanted to feel bad for sending Bill's friend out of the safety of their compound, but she just couldn't drag up any guilt. All she could feel was relief. Still, she wished her brother wasn't distressed over his friend.

"I'm sure he'll be back any day now." Ginny reached across the small gap between them and patted her brother’s knee.

Bill sighed before nodding once. His blue eyes, just like their father's, held a touch of sadness while he forced a smile on his lips. "So, how's that baby? I know Victorie was kicking up a storm by this point."

Ginny smiled fondly down at her stomach, hand unconsciously coming to rest on the protruding bump. “Yeah, and he or she loves bouncing on my bladder every time I try to shut my eyes.”

Bill laughed. “Yeah, they tend to do that.” He looked towards the garden where Victoire had just let out a delighted squeal. Harry had lifted her up into the air, dangling her above the grass by her toes. “Harry’s gonna be a great father.”

Ginny didn’t know if he was talking to himself or not, but she couldn’t agree more. “He may not know it, but he will be.”

“You know...” Bill turned back to Ginny, his eyes now alight with with what she could only describe as joy. “I honestly didn’t know what to think at first. You and Harry,” he clarified at Ginny’s quirked brows, “but you two suit each other.”

Ginny looked back at Harry and Vic. The little girl giggled wildy as Harry tickled her tummy. As if he sensed her gaze, Harry looked up at the porch. He smile widened as he met her eyes. Butterflies flew throughout her stomach. After all these years, he still affected her like a love-sick teenage girl. “Yeah, I think we do, too.”

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It took a second for Harry to register what woke him from his lovely dream of him and Ginny soaking in the sun by the sea coast. The loud crack was still reverberating in his ears. Gun fire.

He bolted out of bed, his hands automatically reaching for the glasses he left beside his bed. Shoving the frames onto his face, his eyes instantly sought out Ginny. She was sitting up in their bed, blinking rapidly in the bright moonlight the window provided.

“Was that a gunshot?” she whispered into the now-deafening silence.

“I think so.” Harry reached to the floor where he’d left his trousers when he’d crawled under the covers. “I’m gonna go take a look.”

“I’m coming too.” Ginny hastened to detangle herself from the blankets but Harry shook his head.

“Hold on. You should go check on Vic.” It was a good idea, but it also kept Ginny busy long enough for Harry to assess the situation.

“Harry.” Ginny’s glare was lessened by the lack of light, but Harry knew she was scowling at him.

He held up a hand in defense. “We need to see if she’s all right.” She let out a sharp breath from her nose, but didn’t argue. Harry moved around the end of the bed and kissed her. “Love you.”

“I love you too.” Ginny ran a hand down his chest before pushing him towards the door. “Be careful.”

Harry smirked at her as he walked backwards towards the door, stopping at the cabinet where he stored his gun. He undid the clip, checking to make sure it was still fully loaded. “You know me, I never go looking for trouble. It usually just finds me.”

Ginny snorted as she reached for the overly large shirt she had discarded for the sake of comfort before she’d fallen asleep. Harry let his eyes roam over her form one final time. The way her long red hair fell in the moonlight was hypnotizing, and the curve of her chest had always drawn his attention. But it was her stomach that his gaze kept falling back to. Over the past few months, Harry had been fascinated by her growing stomach, and just the other day he’d seen a foot push against her skin. His child was alive in there, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect Ginny and their baby.

Before sentiment became too strong to overcome, Harry turned around and moved towards the stairs. He moved slowly, dodging the spots that would cause the old floorboards to creak. He wasn’t sure where the gun shot had come from, other than it was near the house… or maybe in the house.

Harry crept down, one stair at a time, listening for any foreign sounds. He didn’t hear anything until his foot touched the second to last step from the bottom. There were muffled voices on the other side of the front door. Cautiously, he made it to the window, pushing the curtain imperceptibly to the left.

Not much could be seen in the waning moonlight, but Harry could recognize the back of Bill’s head by the long ponytail. Bill stood stock-still on the porch, his attention on the group of three men, two of whom held another down to his knees. Phil was being forced to kneel in the dirt, a gun pressed to his right temple. His face was swollen and bruised and his chest rose in painful jerks.

The gun moved as the holder spoke angrily. Harry couldn’t completely hear what the man was saying, but based his amature lip-reading the stranger was demanding, “Food, ammo, and the girl.”

Harry slowly slid the curtain back into place. The girl… Nope! That wasn’t fucking happening! He needed to get a clear shot on the two men. If he went through the back garden, he could land a shot on the bloke with the gun and deal with his friend after.

As he made his way through the sitting room towards the kitchen, Bill’s muffled reply reached Harry’s ears. He didn’t need to watch Bill’s lips to understand what he had said. It was easy enough to make it through the back garden. The moon provided the perfect amount of lighting and shadow, allowing him to see, but not be seen.

Now that there were no walls blocking out sound, Harry could hear the rough voice of the intruder: “You really want to test me, Billy.” The way he crooned Bill’s name made shivers crawl down Harry’s spine. “I have no patience when it comes to insubordinate people.”

Bill’s voice had taken a tone Harry had never heard before. It reminded him of a wolf, growling at its prey. “You’ll never come near my daughter.”

Harry reached the edge of the house and peered around the wall. Without his view partially blinded by the curtain, Harry could see what was happening much clearer. Phil had his hands tied as the man held the Glock 18 to his head. The shooter was bald with a face that reminded Harry of a cobra, down to his sharp eyes, cunning and ready to strike.

After taking a second to make sure the rest of his surroundings were clear, Harry stepped out from the side of the house, his sights locked on the bald man.

Bang!

Harry nearly dropped his weapon at the echo. He hadn’t pulled the trigger! Then, Phil fell limp to the ground. Brain matter and blood mixed with the dirt next to Phil’s dead body.

The shooter bared his wicked teeth. “Now this is the point where you say over my dead body, and I make that threat come true.” He changed his target, now pointing the weapon at Bill.

Harry didn’t need any more encouragement. He aimed again, right at the side of the man’s bald head. This time, his ears had time to prepare for the noise as he pulled the trigger. His shooting was as good as ever, and he hit his mark with perfect accuracy.

The man crumpled to the ground.

“Fuck!"

Harry turned in time to see the dead man's companion pull a pistol from his jacket. Training his sights on the new threat, Harry watched in horror as the new man pointed his weapon at Bill. The crack of gunfire rang in Harry's ears before he pulled his own trigger. His target fell to the ground, eyes wide and vacant.

"Bill!"

Harry heard the panic in Ginny's voice and realized too late why he'd heard his gunfire before he'd pulled his trigger. He rounded the house and saw Bill crumpled on the ground, his hand pressing over his chest. Ginny was trying to keep the sobbing Victorie from leaving the house, but the little girl was desperate to reach her daddy.

"Gin, stay with Vic!" Harry yelled as he ran towards the porch. He jumped the four stairs and slid to a stop beside Bill. He went to his knees, adding his own pressure to the profusely bleeding wound. Blood had seeped around Bill's hand and was staining the fabric of his white shirt.

"Harry." Bill's voice sounded far and distant, like he was at the end of a tunnel. "Is Vic—" He coughed, blood rising to coat his lips. "Did Vic see?"

"I --" Harry didn't want him to worry about Victorie at that moment. "Ginny has her, Bill."

Bill gave a weak nod. "Good. Don --" his chest heaved as he drew breath, "don't let her see me like this."

Harry's throat felt tight as he tried to think of a way to save the man who had become a brother to him. The wound was bleeding too much for any of their basic medical supplies. Even the stuff they'd gathered from the hospital when they went for Ginny's ultrasound wouldn't be enough. If Harry had to guess, he’d bet the bullet went through a lung. He didn't even want to risk turning the man over to see if it was clean shot.

"They wanted Vic, Harry." Bill coughed again, spraying more red. "Don’t let -- if there are more -” He choked.

“Of course they will never get her.” Harry soothed. “I’d die before I’d let someone—” Bill let out a wheeze. He was fading fast, unable to gather enough oxygen. He opened his mouth but Harry shook his head. “Save your breath.”

“No -” Bill gave him an appreciative smile. “No point.” He took another drawn out and seemingly painful breath. “You and Ginny -- will take good care -- of Vic.”

It wasn’t a question. There wasn’t any doubt about it. Bill’s eyes lazily slid shut as if he were falling into a peaceful dream.

“Bill.” Harry gave the man’s shoulder a light shake. “Bill.” But Bill didn't respond. His chest rose a few more times, then stilled. Harry moved his hand to Bill’s neck. No pulse. He looked up to where Ginny had been. She was still struggling with Victoire, but Ginny wasn’t trying to leave the girl any more. Rather, she wrapped her arms around Vic’s shoulders and held her as close as she could. Tears filled her eyes as she met Harry’s gaze. She knew that her brother was gone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“How’s Vic?” Harry asked, taking the empty sofa cushion next to Ginny. The little girl in question currently lay sleeping in her aunt’s lap.

Ginny sighed. “She cried herself to sleep.” She shook her head. “She saw it all, Harry. I was trying to get her to go out the back door with me, but when I heard the gunshot…” Ginny licked her lips, her mouth opening for a moment before words came out. “I panicked and went to see what happened.”

Harry threw an arm over Ginny’s shoulder, bringing her closer to his body. She pressed her face into his shirt, her body trembling slightly. Her voice was muffled as she continued her story. “I thought you’d been shot, and I couldn’t think of anything else.”

He just held her close, hoping his presence would help nullify any of those dark thoughts. After a minute, Ginny inhaled a few deep breaths before pulling back. His shirt was damp, but he didn’t care as long as she felt better. He brushed away a stray tear with his thumb.

“So.” She sniffed. “Did you find out anything from their bodies?”

Harry had buried Bill before checking on Ginny and Victoire who had gone back into the house. Victoire had been understably upset and needed comfort, so Ginny had volunteered to stay in the house with Vic while Harry took care of their assailants. Ginny knew he would have taken the chance to go through their pockets in hopes of finding anything useful or even information on why they’d come to their home.

He nodded, pulling out a map from the bald man’s trouser pocket. Harry opened it wide, and it showed the entirety of the United Kingdom. Red marks covered the terrain in between scribbles of notes and markers. Ginny’s eyes were drawn to the Xs covering the lower part of the map—London, Bath, and Peterborough, just to name a few of the crossed areas.

“See, I think the Xs are places they’ve gone and looted.” Harry dragged his finger over the lower country. “And that means up this way”— he slid his way up towards Scotland— “is still untouched.”

Ginny had to agree with his hypothesis. Even with her limited knowledge of tactics and following map layouts, she guessed the bandits had started near London and made their way across the country, just like she and Harry had so many years ago. What she couldn’t quite understand was what Harry was planning. There must be a reason for the tactical lesson. “Okay, so what are you thinking?”

Harry looked away from the chart, his eyes hard. “I think we need to leave and find a new place to live.”

That was exactly what Ginny had feared. She knew it was all based on logic. Someone found them once, so they could be found again. Not to mention, they didn’t know how many more people knew of their whereabouts. Was it just the bald man and his friend, or was there a whole clan of people that knew where they lived?

She sighed, leaning her head onto Harry’s shoulder. “So where do you think we should head?”

Harry placed the map on his lap and moved his hand to her thigh, rubbing slowly up and down. “Towards Loch Ness.”

“Really?” Ginny tilted her head to look at his set jaw.

“If Phil was right and there were doctors --” Harry’s words fell short, his attention drifting to her rounded stomach. “We gotta at least try and if Phil was a lying pig, then we just go find a new place to settle.”

“But we don’t know where it is around Loch Ness.”

“That’s true,” Harry agreed. His hand had moved up from her thigh to her stomach still rubbing soothingly. “But it’s the only lead we have. We’ll take the car out front, siphoning gas from the bandit’s truck.”

He was right, of course. Ginny knew they had limited options; with the baby coming sooner rather than later and Bill… She took a deep breath. “Okay. We should get some rest.”

Harry leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his lips lingering. “I’ll take Vic up. She should sleep with us tonight.”

She nodded and waited for Harry to take the little girl in his arms before rising. In so little time, everything she’d grown accustomed to had changed.The question was, would they ever find a place where they could truly settle again?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry shut the car door as quietly as he could, locking it behind him. Vic and Ginny were both fast asleep and he had no desire to wake them. They had been driving up north for three days, stopping often so Victorie wouldn't become too overwhelmed by being in the car for so long. Not to mention Ginny's constant need to pee.

This time, it was Harry's bladder that caused the halt in progress. He had parked on the side of the road near a cluster of trees that gave him perfect coverage.

It didn't take long for Harry to finish his business. He zipped up his trousers before making his way back to the vehicle. The rising sun presented the perfect amount of light for Harry to make out the looming figure standing by the car… by his family.

"Oi!" Harry bellowed as he ran towards the person, reaching to the holster he'd attached to his belt as he went. The man— and now that he was closer, Harry could tell it was a man— raised his hands into the sky, palms facing out.

"Don't shoot!" The stranger’s voice deep but in a friendly, your-favorite-uncle kind of way. "I mean no harm."

Harry continued to point his pistol at the man, though he moved with less gusto, focusing on aim rather than speed. "Back away from the car."

The man did as he was told, cautiously walking backwards ten meters, hands still raised. Harry reached the car and looked at his sleeping family. The yelling hadn't even woken them. He looked back at the interloper, taking in his well combed hair and clean clothing. He looked… normal, which was more alarming then if he'd been covered in grime and tattered clothing. In today’s world, normal was unnatural.

“Who are you?” Harry asked keeping his sights locked on the man.

“My name is Bruce.” The stranger kept his hands raised, not faltering in his eye contact. “I saw your car from over there.” He pointed towards a house. “And I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Well, now you know. And now you can leave us be.”

“Would your companion’s name be Ginny, by chance?” Bruce didn’t flinch when Harry’s hand jerked.

Harry’s mind was moving at the speed of light. Why? How? Who? Instead of asking all his questions in a concise manner, his jaw hung open.

Bruce stepped cautiously towards the vehicle. “I think you should come with me. There is someone back at my base who would love to see you.”

Nope was the first thought that ran through Harry’s mind. He knew nothing about this bloke, and just because he knew Ginny’s name didn’t mean he should be trusted. Actually, it made Harry trust him less.

“I know you don’t have any reason to trust me.” Bruce took another wary step forward. “But it will all be explained in five minutes. The base is right over there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You can even keep me at gun point if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

Harry didn’t have a clue what to do. It was probably a trap, but at the same time… he’d known Ginny’s name. Ginny! “Don’t move,” he told Bruce in his more threatening tone, before opening the driver’s side door and crawling into the seat on his knees. Leaning across the console, Harry gently shook Ginny awake. “Gin.”

She slowly opened her eyes. “Harry?”

“There is someone here.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ginny walked beside Harry, who carried the still sleeping Vic. She kept the gun on Bruce’s back, never letting it waver. Who the fuck was this guy? Bruce hadn’t explained much, but what he had said made Ginny’s curious side flare. How did he know her name? Who wanted to see them... her?

“It’s right here.” Bruce pointed to a simple church twenty meters in front of them. “I’ll give them the code.” He made his way up the steps, Ginny and Harry following close. Bruce knocked once, then twice, and finally three more times in rapid succession.

The door opened a crack showing the bare minimum of a face. “Bruce?”

“Malcolm, it’s fine. This is Ginny, Harry, and little Victoire.”

“Ginny?” Malcolm widened the opening. “Like --”

“I think so.” Bruce glanced over his shoulder at Ginny. “Let us in, please.”

The door opened completely revealing a welcoming wide space. Camp beds covered the floor, most of which had snoozing occupants. Malcolm waved them in and they followed Bruce inside the building.

“I’ll wait here if you want to—” Bruce spoke to Malcolm but a sharp gasp and the sound of a dropping pan made the group turn their gaze.

Ginny's mind went blank as she stared at the man. It had been years, nearly ten, but his face hadn't changed.

"Ginny?" His voice was like sandpaper as he stood stock still.

Nothing in this world could have prepared her for this moment. She’d accepted that the idea of seeing him again was a pipe dream, but he was there in front of her.

Ginny stepped forward. "Dad?"

#hinny #hinny fic #hinny fanfic #harry potter fan fiction #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry X ginny #Hinny Doom Days

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dingdonghun · 4 years

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BTS - Who owns what era?

I know it’s kinda late but like, I am bored and a bunch of BTS songs are playing on my playlist, and I got to thinking... What era is who’s? so I decided to examine all of the members in some of my favorite songs. Feel free to do this if you want to lifdhjgfdhg

Not Today - Absolutely Namjoon. You cannot, and will not convince me otherwise. Purple haired Joon? Strong rapper on his king shit Joon? Legendary.

Runner up: It’s a tie between Jimin and Taehyung, they both were stunning in this era tbh

Fire - Yoongi’s. I know so far these are obvious choices because they both opened up their respective songs, but like... the CONFIDENCE he exudes in this song and video? Sexy. It made me look at him differently.

Runner up: Hobi. He KILLED this era. I mean...damn. AGAIN, this made me look at him a bit differently. Bonus mention for Joon’s thighs and deep-ass voice. I’m weak for him, it isn’t my fault.

Dope - MR. WORLDWIDE HANDSOME, KIM SEOKJIN HIMSELF. I am VERY rarely attracted to Jin, but in this mv?? His expressions and his beautiful smile? Melting my heart? His hair is PERFECT, his voice is beautiful and maybe I am whipped for Dope era Jin.

Runner up: I think it would be Jungkook or Jimin. Jungkook KILLED the dance, I mean... wow. Jimin had a lot of charisma too, and red hair on any idol is my weakness, what do you want from me.

... War of Hormone - Listen... Let’s just get this over with. This song makes me sweat. I can’t choose between Hobi, Namjoon and Jin. I don’t want to talk about it

Runner up: Yoongi with straight hair, bangs and a beret? I don’t want to talk about it. NEXT

Boy With Love - *Yells Taehyung’s name for 3 straight minutes* Are you KIDDING me? He was feeling himself and we all know it. The blue hair?? He could pull off blue hair???? THE PINK SUIT ON HIM????? The cocky attitude? I don’t want to talk about it

Runner Up: Jimin, obviously, are you kidding me? Absolute soft boy babie energy. PERFECT song for Jimin ):

Idol - This isn’t even a sexy song but I am still sweating. It’s Namjoon, for me. The expressions he makes the whole time H U R T me. I’m sorry.

Runner up: I can’t choose between The entire rest of the group. Every single of them did AMAZING with this concept. Maybe Yoongi or Tae?? But Jungkook and Jimin too though.... UGH I don’t know

DNA - It’s Tae for me. He’s my bias wrecker so any time I get to hear his smooth vocals and see his flirty face and beautiful dancing, I kind of go fuzzy in the head

Runner up: Yoongi or Jungkook! Both of their parts blew me away. Jungkooks angelic vocals and cute face, Yoongi’s catchy rap and ALSO cute face. Ouchie.

Fake Love - I think Jungkook takes this era. He looks absolutely beautiful, his voice fits the song so prettily. This is hard for me because I am not usually drawn to Jungkook or Jin, I’m really going through it right now though, help

Runner up: Jimin! His hair in this mv? *chef’s kiss* it also really shows his beautiful dancing so well. And as always, vocals on POINT

Save Me - Jimin!! I mean... obviously. The talent jumped out. A prince. Beautiful. 10 chef’s kisses.

Runner up: Namjoon looks so sexy here I am sorry. And his verse is wonderful too. Just kill me

Mic Drop - HOW COULD I FORGET ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS UNTIL NOW?? If I was just going with looks I’d say Tae, because my head feels incredibly fuzzy right now. But I am including talent in this, so it ABSOLUTELY has to go to Yoongi for me. Kings only.

Runner up: ........... Taehyung

Blood, Sweat & Tears - All of them, don’t make me choose. I won’t do it and I’ll die on this hill.

Airplane Pt. 2 - Ahh last but not least, one of my FAVORITES... This was a terrible idea, why did I decide to do this? All of them. This song fucks me up. I’m sweating again. At thing point, someone might think I have a fever. Listen... Hobi’s verse stands out so maybe him? That verse? The dancing? 20/10 ... BUT ALL OF THE REST OF THEM HURT JUST AS MUCH... FUCK

#original post

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ginnypotterlightning · 4 years

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Ranking of the Harry Potter Books based off my Reread

For anyone who is not aware, this is my 4th or 5th time reading the Harry Potter books (I honestly don’t know). I started rereading it during my senior year of college, read the first one and then stopped in the middle of the second one, sometime, the following year I finished the Chamber of Secrets, I have no idea when I started Prisoner of Azkaban, but I didn’t seriously start rereading them until the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. It took me a little bit to properly get back into reading, where it was enjoyable, and I could sustain reading more than just reading a few pages before putting down the book. And luckily I can now say I have repaired my relationship with reading that college oh so nicely damaged, anyways now on to my ranking.

For this ranking I want to focus more on how enjoyable it was to read each of these books, and less on how much I enjoy the storyline of each of these books, I feel like another reread will be required to properly reform my list, but it does feel like it has changed.

Starting from the bottom:

At 7th Place is

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

While this book has always been one of my favorite books of the series I did not find it as enjoyable this time. Since I read HP1 and started HP3 in 2018 I feel like they are unfairly placed at the bottom, 1) because they were read during a different time period 2) They were read at the beginning of my trying to fall back in love with reading (the question is could I finish a Harry Potter book in 2 or 3 days like I used to, maybe, but now I feel too anxious if I’m not cleaning, going to the gym or what not on a down day)

(I remember 2 things about my rereading, in 2018 thinking ????? when I was reading a Lockhart scene, and in 2019 finishing the book on an overnight when I think I was the only other *** and Au was the nurse on)

in 6th Place is

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

This book has always been my least favorite book in the series because it has been the most difficult for me to read, I find myself consistently losing my attention span around Platform 9 and 3/4. If I’m not mistaken I did not find this re read as difficult, and I definitely cried at the end of rereading it.

in 5th Place is

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

This book has always been my favorite, it may have fallen because of my expectations for it, but I think it had to do more to do with my lack of expectations, or more like me forgetting plot points in books 3-5 which enhanced my reading of the book.

So far I’ve mostly been talking about the negatives about the book, in part because I don’t remember my reread of the 1st two books, but here is what I like about the Half Blood Prince.

The Half Blood Prince has always been my favorite book because it gives you a little bit of everything, the trio, the classes, Quidditch, Harry at the Dursleys, love interest, friendship, Voldemort, harry’s relationship with Dumbeldore, and a good balance of our antagonist.

This book is interesting because Voldemort isn’t in the book, and yet a decent portion of the book is about him. The memories weren’t quite as amazing as I remember them being, I particularly found the Marvolvo flashback difficult to read. When best sellers like Harry Potter come out, once you read the big storylines, it’s not as easy to forget them, and as this has been my favorite book it could’ve been harder to forget these parts, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if my head wasn’t quite at the same place as books 3-5. And then again, maybe I don’t want to admit to myself I’m not as in love with book 6 as I used to be, anyways.

Ginny and Harry and beautifully written in this book, Ginny’s character development starting in book 5 is enjoyable to read. I think reading this book, and 7, made me more uncomfortable with Ron and Hermonie, it just kind of happens, and it doesn’t feel as natural, but then again were in Harry’s head and not theirs.

After having read HP5, I think I was disappointed in the length of this book because I wanted more, I especially loved reading about the classes, and the story of the Half Blood Prince, and while at the beginning I just said I enjoyed having the many storylines, I wish there was even more emphasize on the classes, and what Harry needs to do to become an Auror.

in 4th Place is

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Unlike HP6, I find this book to be perfectly paced. I was surprised when we were suddenly at Hogwarts, I for some reason thought there was more time before jumping off the dragon and apparating to Hogsmead. I didn’t cry as much as I have in the past while reading this, but I think it was in part from taking a month to read this book and continuously changing locations to read this, and COVID, that defs slowed down my reading.

The second half of the book is, ofc where the book shines, as we find out a lot of information, everyone is coming out of isolation and fighting, and there is more action. My one disappointment is where the book ends, I enjoy the epilogue, minus the kids names, but the final chapter left me wanting more. Like yes I wanted to see more about the aftermath of the war, but with the final last few words saying that Harry wanted to sleep and hoped Kreacher would bring him a sandwich didn’t quite hit the heart strings. But I do like that the epilogue brings us to the place where it all began, and where we now know, that Harry is happy, and no longer has this hurt he has carried with him for years (not to say the boy didn’t have PSD).

While they mention the flaw of Harry never trusting in others, or relying too much on Dumbledore, at times it was frustrating at the lack of information he gave others, it’s like you could just say youre on a secret mission as to end voldemort, but then again I guess it might have made it easier for voldemort to figure it out the more he talked about it. I hated reading the Lupin scene I cringed so much.

I forgot that Dean was captured by the snactchers, and was upset they couldn’t have added this ti the movie, but I also get it, kind of

I’ve never understood the hate for the camping scenes, they really aren’t that bad, but youre also not wrong that they’re not the most exciting scenes in the book, because ofc theyre not

in 3rd Place is

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I picked this book up at the beginning of the year, starting from the place I had left off on weeks (or months) ago. It took me a few chapters before I was fully submerged back into the wizard of world of Harry Potter and I was soo happy.

There were elements that I forgot such as the extended backstory of the maururders. I wasn’t a huge fan of the chapter focused on scanners and crookshanks, by I also wasn’t mad at it.

Reading 3-5, as I progressed from book to book I loved what I was reading more and more.

in 2nd Place is

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I was surprised by how much I had forgotten in this particular book including the rolls or Ludo Bagman, Winky, and the killing of Bart Crouch.

Ron being upset at Harry didn’t feel as drawout as I remember (compared to the movie, that is always a question when it comes to thinking about the book, am I actually thinking about it or am I just thinking about the movie?) and SPEW wasn’t as annoying as I remember it being. This book has a different storyline as it’s following the twiwizard tournament so naturally I feel like most people find this book more exciting. The book creates the perfect building blocks for the next book, something in which the movies fail to do, but even with that, I feel like they could have done a better job at joining together the two stories even it it was coming from OOTP

in 1st Place is

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoniex

People always complain that this book is too long but I found it perfect. Right after this random event happening at hogwarts we need normalcy, we need hormonal relationship, and we have that foundation of politics which leads the book. My hatred for the book is what made me enjoy the book the most upon reread, because it really wasn’t that bad. I have been watching a booktuber review the books after I have finished each consecutive book, and Inthink she said it well in that, when you are younger you don’t understand the book as well, I’ve now experienced loss, and forms of depression. Not on the level of Harry, but on enough of a level that I can understand. I now know the intensity of your teenage years. And now emphasize with his anger at the government, and more people should be upset, he should be more upset, and again as this youtubers said Ron and Hermonie let him know when he was becoming to much or when his anger became misleaded and directed towards them but it was not in fact them who he was mad at, especially when given the full facts. I believe this is the book that I cried like the last 100 pages. The dialogue at the end of the book is brilliant.

*when comparing the books to the movies, 5-7 had the worst adaptation of the battle at the end. I was never a huge fan of OOTP battle, but the half blood prince battle made me the most upset, and everyone said that David Yates did the action scenes the best. I’ve just never been a big fan. He did a decent job at the l dealthly hallows but 5 and 6. 👎🏽

#hp1 #harry potter and the order of the phoniex #harry potter #harry potter and the chamber of secrets #harry potter and the socerers stone #harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban #harry potter and the goblet of fire #harry potter and the half blood prince #harry potter and the deathly hallows #hp5 #hp2 #hp3 #hp4 #hp6 #hp7 #this entry could defs be cleaned up but 🤷🏽‍♀️

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tintinwrites · 6 years

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enceinte | Poe Dameron x Reader

A/N: My favorite TV show is I Love Lucy, and one of my favorite episodes is when Lucy finds out she’s pregnant and tries to tell Ricky. I’ve been wanting to write something inspired by it, and just got the motivation to do so! It’s not exactly the same, just inspired by it. ‘Enceinte’ is just ‘pregnant’ in French, which is a nod to the show because ‘pregnant’ was a naughty word in the 50′s (super dumb, I know) and the episode was called ‘Lucy Is Enceinte’!

Rating: T

Warning: Naughty words (including pregnant OH NO). Implications of sex obvs.

Word count: 2,239, apparently!!

Summary: Reader tries very, very hard to tell Poe that she’s pregnant.

It was a terrible thing.

It was an awful thing.

It was a thing that came at a horrible time.

It was a thing that came in the middle of war and was such a big risk, such a big distraction.

Yet, as you walked out of the medbay with a hand on your belly, you smiled. No matter how hard you tried to stop smiling, you couldn't. Your boobs hurt like hell and you'd spent the last few weeks completely exhausted, but you just kept grinning like an idiot. The happiest, most terrified idiot in the galaxy.

You had a little berry inside of you; it should have been smaller, but you had been too afraid to acknowledge your obvious problems and get checked right away, so you found out about said berry later than most would. You figured no one should blame you for being in denial, since you and your boyfriend were active members of an army and having a berry just wasn't the best idea for a couple that spent most of their time flying starfighters.

But the berry happened without your permission and you couldn't manage to be angry about it because not only was it a tiny half-you, but you also had a tiny half-Poe inside you. You wondered if it would have his hair or his eyes, or maybe both.

You wouldn't mind if it was all Poe, in looks and personality. Especially personality. You would be honored to raise a kid as half as good as Poe. Or even a quarter as good would still be the perfect child.

Thinking about what your son or daughter would be like made you realize that you were getting ahead of yourself. It would probably be best to start off by telling Poe that you were carrying a little half-him, half-you.

What if he's angry? flitted through your mind briefly. You were in an army, in the middle of a war, in the thick of the action, in almost constant chaos.

How could you bring a baby into that? Even if it was the size of a berry and that was super cute?

And just as your heightened hormones were about to make you cry, you remembered that it was Poe. Good Poe. A-kid-a-quarter-as-good-as-him-would-be-perfect Poe. Would-be-the-best-father Poe.

You would have to tell him eventually anyway. He already noticed how tired and in pain you were, so he was bound to notice when your belly started growing.

The worst thing that could happen was that he might break up with you so he didn't have to deal with the stress of loving something so much during all this.

You pretended that didn't break your heart and carried on in search of Poe.

He was in the command center with a few other pilots. Right, it was a debriefing that you had gotten out of because you were getting checked out in the med bay, and a slightly nervous Poe kissed you a dozen times before he let you go.

Even General Organa's brow was creased with worry as she gave you permission to skip out on the meeting.

You were absolutely terrified going into the medbay and going out; but at least you knew it was a good thing while you were going out.

"Poe?" You moved up behind him, lacing your fingers with his and pressing your face against his shoulder. "Can I talk to you?"

"Yeah, 'course."

Your presence got everyone's attention and there were way too many eyes on you. "I mean, in private."

"—yes." Immediately full of concern, he put an arm around you and walked with you to the other side of the room. "What's up?"

"So I've been really tired lately, right?"

"Right."

"Like, I was falling asleep on the mission, so I went to the medbay as soon as we got back, right?"

"Right."

"Well, it turns out that I'm—"

"Poe!" The interruption came from General Organa, who gave you an apologetic look. "We just got a distress call from a planet under attack. We need our best pilots in the air."

"—okay, just a sec." He stayed with you, but you could tell that he was ready to bolt out of the room and get in his ship. He was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "What did you find out, baby?"

You opened your mouth and paused. Telling him could wait. He probably wouldn't be gone for more than half a day anyway. People in danger were more important than telling him you were pregnant.

You were worried again about how inopportune it all was. What if you and the baby needed him once it was born, but someone out there needed him more?

"Nothing. I'll tell you later."

"Alright. You're okay, though?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Awesome."

He kissed you on the cheek and ran past you, after a couple pilots that had already left as soon as the call came in.

You supposed you would tell him when he got back.

You were almost glad that you were interrupted when trying to tell Poe about the baby.

It wasn't exactly a sweet way to tell him, was it? Pulling him away from a debriefing and then just saying it?

Everything about this pregnancy and child was going to be different. You would have to be extra protective since the First Order would gladly use a child to their advantage, he or she wouldn't exactly be running through fields to play and sitting down with their parents every night for dinner, Poe would often be away on missions, and you weren't sure how long you would stay grounded to care for the baby before you were ready to also be away on missions.

So if most of it wasn't going to be normal, you wanted to have at least one thing; you wanted to tell Poe in a romantic, sweet way.

Maybe if he was upset, the way you told him would soften it.

You had a whole dinner set up in your shared quarters — the food was from the dining hall and so was the table, which you convinced Snap to drag to your room.

You passed by General Organa on the way and she gave you this look that any woman who'd ever been pregnant would probably give. You guessed you weren't being subtle.

Now you were sitting at the table, tapping your fingers on it in impatience as you waited for Poe to get back.

He arrived still in his flight suit, sweaty and suspiciously dirty, and came over to give you a kiss on the cheek. "Leia told me you had dinner waiting. You didn't have to do that, baby."

"I wanted to." You were glad the general was helping you out, even if you now had the task of rubbing a layer of dirt off your face. "What the hell did you do?"

"Ah, got dragged around a little bit. I'm good, but I need a shower." He started towards the refresher attached to the room.

"Wait! Your food will get cold."

"I'll be ten minutes."

"Poe."

"Five minutes."

You slammed your fist down on the table and he froze, looking back at you nervously. "Sit. Down."

Having never heard you growl in such a way, he quickly walked to the table and sat down across from you, shifting in his chair. "Is everything...okay, Y/N?"

"Yes. Just..." You took a deep breath, reaching across the table to grab his hand. "I have some good news, Poe. At least...I think it's good news. I mean, it's not the best news. It's definitely unexpected news, but—"

"You're rambling, sweetheart." Yet he gave you the most loving smile in the galaxy for it.

"Sorry...okay. Poe, I'm—"

"Poe!" A pilot ran into the room, grinning. "Come on, man! Our game of sabacc starts in two minutes!"

"Shit, I forgot. I'll be there, Y/N was just about to tell me something."

"Uh..." You were being looked at expectantly by both Poe and the pilot, who you didn't really know enough to tell him you were pregnant. "Go play your game. I'll tell you later."

He lifted your hand and kissed it. "I'll be back in a couple hours, then I'm all yours."

You smiled, only dropping your head into your hands once he was out of the room. Maybe you could tell him during sex or something.

Your next idea was the dumbest idea anyone had ever had, but it was almost guaranteed to get and keep Poe's attention.

Poe liked sex. He liked sex with you. He liked seeing you naked. He liked being the one to undress you.

That was why you were in the refresher, writing on your stomach with some paint you'd found. It was supposed to be for propaganda posters, but you figured it would be okay to use just a little.

The words 'I'm pregnant' stood out in blue, backwards in the mirror, before you rolled your sleep shirt down. You couldn't come up with anything more creative than that.

You stepped out of the 'fresher and stopped in the doorway, playing with the hem of your shirt. "Poe? Honey?" You used your most suggestive voice; the one that made him look up from whatever he was doing with a big grin because he knew you were horny.

Only he didn't move from his face down position on the bed.

"Poe? Baby?" You walked to the bed, stroking his back and feeling him breathe evenly under your touch. "Wake up." You leaned down to nibble at his neck.

"Mmm...fuck...yeah, baby, lemme just get my pants off..."

You smiled against his skin, nuzzling him. "Take off my shirt first."

There was no response and his breathing remained even.

He kept on sleeping.

You could have shaken him until he was wide awake, but if he was this exhausted, he needed his sleep.

With a soft huff, you walked around the bed and gently plopped down onto the mattress, wiggling under the covers.

You were just going to wait until the baby came out. It could be the one to tell him.

You had to tell him.

You didn't care what he was doing or who interrupted, you were just going to say it.

Imagine your surprise when he ran past you just as you were looking for him.

You didn't even know it was him until you turned to watch the person go and recognized the dark, curly hair.

You ran right after him because you were going to tell him.

"Poe!"

"Busy, sweetheart!"

"I need to tell you something!"

"You can tell me as soon as I get back!"

"I've tried to tell you a bunch of times already!"

"I'm sorry! I'll be back tonight!"

You were out of breath by the time you ran out to the hangar, watching as Poe climbed into his X-wing. "Poe! I'm fucking pregnant!"

That was so not how you wanted to tell him. Especially because everyone around you froze, including him, holding his helmet just above his head.

His helmet was quickly forgotten to the side as he vaulted out of the cockpit and jumped to the ground, running to you. "Baby...baby, no..." He didn't sound angry or disappointed. He sounded in disbelief, like you were about to tell him it was some joke.

You weren't sure when you started crying, but you were already sobbing. "Yes." You grabbed his hand and put it on your stomach. "We're having a baby."

"A baby..." He stared, then fell to his knees and pressed kisses to your belly.

"Poe." So many eyes were on you, and embarrassment was mixing with happiness. "You're not angry?"

"'Course not! I mean, I gotta admit, it's not the best time, but...we'll figure this out. When did you find out?"

"A week ago."

"A week—"

"Don't you dare. I've been trying to tell you, but you keep getting distracted."

"Oh, shit, that's what you were trying to tell me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry." He stood up, taking hold of your hands. "I'm gonna be a dad?"

"Yes."

He looked at you like you told him something he'd been waiting all his life to hear, pulling you to his chest and holding you tightly.

You only cried harder. "It's the size of a berry. Or, at least, it was...I don't know what it's the size of now. A big berry?"

"Oh, fuck, I love you." He pulled away just to kiss you deeply. "I love our baby."

"Dameron, we gotta go!"

He stepped back and looked at you apologetically. "We'll talk about this when I get back. We can celebrate...if you want to celebrate? And we can figure this out. We'll be okay." He started to go after you nodded, but moved back and gave you another kiss.

"Poe! Get out of here."

"Yes, ma'am." He jogged off towards his ship, grabbing a pilot who just came back from a mission by the shoulder, shaking him. "She's having my baby!" Then he continued to his X-wing and climbed up the ladder.

It was a terrible thing.

It was an awful thing.

It was a thing that came at a horrible time.

But you and Poe were going to be parents, and while you both knew it was going to be hard, you would figure it out.

"I'm gonna be a fucking dad!"

You would definitely figure it out.

#poe dameron imagine #poe dameron x reader #star wars imagine #poe dameron fic #here have something cute #for putting up with the angst #lowkey wanted Poe to sing 'we're having a baby my baby and me'#doesn't exist in Star Wars tho obvs

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facethroughthemirror · 5 years

Text

No Ready Cure

Chapter One

Characters: General Doyle, Locus, Dr. Grey Relationships: One-Sided Doyle/Locus

Lovesickness in two drastically different senses of the word. One of them is hopelessly in love, and that love is slowly killing them. The other, unfortunately, can only stand by and watch the object of their own affections choke to death on flower petals not meant for them. Or can they?

Please read tags for warnings!

For day four of @rvbrarepairweek, and crossposted on ao3!

[ I know I missed Day Three I’m working on a bonus that will be up in the next two to three hours ]

"Hey, uh, has your general always had that cough?"

Agent Washington is very perceptive, she’s noticed. And of course he would have noticed the general’s persistent cough. General Doyle tries to cover it, or at least stifle it, but it’s quite obvious that he’s trying not to cough. And he always has an excuse at the ready: a dry mouth or throat, dust, simply running out of air from talking. But some of his excuses make such little sense, it truly baffles her that anyone could possibly believe them.

It occurs to her that Agent Washington is still talking, so she continues to listen. "--nds really bad, there could be mold or something causing it. If it’s mold, we have to find the source--"

"Oh, it’s not mold! Or dust! Or any other outside irritant!" she chirps, pushing some of his hair out of the way to check how the site of his most recent procedure is healing. She nods, noting the progress, and releases his hair to scribble on her note-taking datapad. “And the altitude of the outpost isn’t high enough to cause trouble for someone wearing armor with built-in life support systems -- though even if it was , he’d be acclimated by now!”

"... okay, well, is it like… is he sick?"

"It isn’t allergies, asthma, bronchitis, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, drug overdose, emphysema, influenza , kidney disease, pertussis, pneumonia, pneumo thorax , pulmonary edema , neurogenic or otherwise, sepsis, or tuberculosis!" Emily’s grip tightens on her notepad, and she forces the corners of her mouth up into a wider grin behind her helmet. More than a few years ago, her face would have started hurting by now. Not anymore, though, actually, her face hurts more when she’s not smiling anymore. " But ! As his condition is not immediately life-threatening, and will never be contagious, and he is my superior officer, I can’t exactly compel him to allow me to treat it! I think he's a little intimidated by the recovery period, but it’s not like my medical wing is very bus y up here!"

"... oh. Hey uh... do you like... maybe want me to talk to him? Maybe try to convince him to let you help with… whatever it is?"

"You can if you’d like , but there’s simply no convincing him, I’m afraid! I’ve tried." She swears she can feel her notepad about to crack in her hands. "Now, is there anything else, Agent Washington?"

"... uh, no, I guess that’s it."

"Then you’re free to leave now!"

He hops up from the chair and snatches up his helmet from her desk, putting it back onto his head as he rushes out. Once the door closes behind him, she drops her notepad a little too carelessly onto the desktop, and sits down a little too hard in her chair.

It seems like only yesterday that the general had stumbled into her office, finally, to see her about his coughing, though it had been a couple of years now. She’d asked her standard questions, of course, going through her standard mental checklist as she gathered supplies to start taking vitals and doing a thorough check of the symptoms. A cough is the body’s response to an irritant in the throat, airways, or lungs, she’d told him. It’s the body forcing out the irritant by pushing air out of the lungs. It can happen without an actual irritant, it happens with dry throats sometimes too. Her first instinct had been to conclusively rule out pleural effusion first, in order to make sure General Doyle’s lungs weren’t just filling with fluid. However, the cause of his coughing had become apparent as soon as he’d taken off his helmet.

She’d only seen the illness during medical school, when during the time they’d spent on it and several other pulmonary illnesses, but there was no question as to what it was as she watched a collection of spit-shiny flower petals fluttered and tumbled to the ground, shaken out of his helmet.

There’s a number of names for it, but the most accepted name for it is "hanahaki disease," or, medically, "hanahaki-type pneumafytotrophy." As opposed to mycelium-type pneumafytotrophy, which she’s always found to be a misnomer, "pneuma mykitatrophy" would be more correct, considering how words work, the fact that fungi aren’t plants, and the fact that mycelium is a specific part of the fungus rather than a category of fungus. She’s been dying to lobby for a name-change on that front, considering mycelium and fungus proper aren’t the same and technically the name should be accurate. There could be "fungal-type pneuma mykitatrophy" and "mycelium-type pneuma mykitatrophy," but the civil war has sort of prevented her from pursuing anything official in terms of experimentation or publishing.

First referenced on Earth, hanahaki disease is attributed to a region called "Japan," she believes, similar to takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which had been identified in that region over five hundred and sixty years ago, in 1990. It’s been seen in other cultures, though, particularly close to the region of origin. No one is, apparently, entirely sure when the concept originated, and it was, allegedly, thought to be a fictional illness at first, but it had been discovered to be all too real. No one is entirely certain what causes it, but the most commonly-accepted theory is that it's a rare genetic mutation, possibly hereditary, that is usually entirely harmless. However, the going theory is that prolonged exposure to the hormones and other neurotransmitters produced by the anxiety of unexpressed emotion, in this case unrequited love, trigger the mutation to activate, and produce plant-like growths inside of the lungs. Incredibly plant-like, as a matter of fact, as they include functioning roots, and petals! Those roots usually grow into, and eventually, through, the lung tissue, and the growths cause so many complications!

"Well, the good news is that this condition is very treatable!"

"‘Treatable?’ Not curable?"

"Well, the possibility of regrowth exists, of course, but it’s not common! Unfortunately, if the affections aren’t returned, or if the growths aren’t removed, the disease will eventually become fatal!"

"And there’s no adverse side effects to the surgery?"

"Well, unfortunately, there is one noteworthy side effect. Your brain will no longer register that person in the same way: you will lose all ability to feel romantically attracted to them."

She’d explained his condition to him, in no uncertain terms, had even taken a few chest scans in order to verify the diagnosis. The growths can become starved and die if the body stops producing the substances that feed them, usually through the return of the feelings that originally caused them, removing some of the neurotransmitters from the cocktail. But the sadly more common treatment is surgery to remove the growths. It was actually a very easy fix. Honestly, treating fluid in the lungs would be far more difficult. But he had declined the easier of the two fixes.

That was fine, she supposed, he was well within his rights. That wasn’t what bothered her the most about the situation. What hurt, and made her angry all at the same time, that of all people, he was risking his life for…

"Doctor."

She looks up from where she’s been holding her head in her hands, eyes locking on the hulking, black-armored form of the Federal Army’s resident mercenary. She springs her false smile back into place, even though he can’t see it, and straightens up, though she owes him no such courtesy and they both know that.

"What can I do for you , Locus?"

"I’ve received word from the general. He has made it to Armonia safely."

"Oh, excellent! You know, I’m sure he would have called me himself, though! You really didn’t need to come all the way down here!"

"I thought you would like to know.”

“Mm. Well, I appreciate it all the same! Thank you very much.”

“I will be leaving soon to join him."

"Have a safe trip, then, Locus! … you can go now!"

Locus just turns on his heel and stalks out, as silently as ever. Like a particularly irritable housecat, as the general would say… sort of. He’d never call Locus irritable, but they’re all thinking it. She knows they are.

As soon as the door shuts behind the mercenary, Emily’s poor, abused notepad whips across the room, finally cracking and shattering against the door, dropping to the ground in a hopeless pile of pieces. She merely stares in the direction of the door with her hand still partially raised from the throw, some acidic emotion that she can’t immediately identify burning at the back of her throat.

It isn’t fair . General Doyle is the only person in the world who’s ever been so nice to her. He makes her feel warm inside, like glitter is exploding inside of her. No other person has ever made her feel that way before. He’s so nice to her, he cares about her, and she cares about him! He’s so very important to her, and she doesn’t want to see him get hurt, especially not like this.

They’ve been friends for years . She’d met him back when the brigadier had first called her into his office after Doyle had gotten a splinter and fainted upon trying to pull it out. She’d pulled the splinter out for him, gotten him back upright in his chair, and even made him a cup of peppermint tea to get him back to himself and settle his stomach. She’d come back to check on him later in the day, they’d gotten dinner, chatted. He started calling her directly whenever he felt sick from then on, started asking her to get meals whenever he thought she might not have eaten for awhile. They were looking out for each other.

Years . It’s been literal years. Years of kind words and medical priority, even before his promotion to general. Years of late night quarters- and office-calls, of anxiety attacks and stress rashes and stress-induced vomiting. Of insomnia and tea at three o’clock in the morning when he wandered down to her office for anything, anything at all, to help him sleep. Monitoring blood pressure and racing heartbeats and reassuring him that he isn’t dying and he’ll be just fine in just a few moments and would he please try to take some deep breaths before he starves himself of oxygen again and passes out?

Why does it have to be Locus ? Locus has no feelings! He doesn’t talk to anyone! He clearly doesn’t care about General Doyle! He’s not worth choking to death over! She can’t let her friend do that to himself! Her friend is suffering for someone who doesn’t even notice, and that makes her so indescribably furious. The person she cares about more than anyone else is poisoning himself on such toxic emotion and it breaks her heart to see him do so without even understanding that he’s hurting himself so badly. He can’t see it, but she can.

Some days, she just wants to--

Her arm finally drops, wrist smacking against the edge of her desk on the way down with a crack that would be terrifying if it hadn’t just been the sound her armor’s impact against the well-worked surface. No. She’s a doctor. She can’t do that. And if she did, what would General Doyle think of her then? He’d hate her. He would hate her, and she can’t take that chance. And she’s sure that he would know her handiwork, or she’d be so unable to keep a secret from him that she’d blurt out what she’d done. What’s more, he’d be so upset that Locus was gone. Locus, the menace, makes him feel safe and she can’t take that away from him without being immediately able to step in and take his place.

… it’s alright. It’s alright, she’ll… just keep treating him. She’ll just keep doing her best to keep him comfortable. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and see that Locus isn’t right for him, doesn’t love him, and he’ll let her remove those filthy parasites once and for all! Then his feelings for Locus would be gone! The problem would be solved!

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