Once Upon a Time | 1x02

her ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

romeo’s mother, father + uncle ^_^

this idea is plaguing me, I’d love to know your thoughts! so renesmee develops, but bella doesn’t, therefore the best case scenario is mommy issues from hell, in which bella eternally views her daughter as the unborn child whose life depends on her… please feel free to ignore this if you need to stay in the eclipse headspace!

hi bestie! thanks for the q, very intriguing :)

this is another one of those questions that really boils down to the fandom debate: "what does it mean to be 'mentally frozen?'"

the Illustrated Guide says:

One facet of the absence of aging is that vampires do not develop emotionally or mentally past the age at which they are transformed. A transformed child would remain childlike forever, unable to mature in any aspect.

it also says:

Once they fall in love, that feeling never fades.

to me, this implies that external forces/bonds can change a vampire but internal processes cannot. i subscribe to the idea that even if a vampire can't mature in the biological sense, their experiences still provide them with a way to mature

for example, though he retains the emotional immaturity of a 17-year-old, we see Edward learn he has a soul through his connection with Bella. if you subscribe to the theory that vampires through their bonds & experiences can change, you might think Edward will, from this point on, believe he has a soul. in that way, vampires can grow & develop, even if they can't really develop.

how does this apply to Bella?

first off, girl has a lot of fuckin baggage. not only did she spend the last few weeks of her human life (& the first few months of her vamp life) fighting for her daughter's life, but she never overcame her childhood trauma of having to care for everyone in her life. the hill Bella needs to climb to overcome all this is steeper than Sisyphus'. baseline, she will always consider Ravioli as a child who must constantly be protected from a world that wants to kill her. (though she may have good reason considering Rotolo's existence may have kicked off a cold war with the Volturi lol whoops.) to me, that is less a result of the conditions of her change & more a result of how Bella emotionally developed as a person.

if you subscribe to the theory that a vampire's relationships can change them, her bond with Rigatoni may evolve as her daughter does. that relationship might be the only way Bella can experience permanent internal growth. in the theory stated above, we might see Bella getting past her "my unborn child needs me" mentality, though i could see her having a more difficult time ever getting over her parentification.

her ability to get over this trauma will also depend on what the future holds for the Cullens. i.e., if the Volturi return to whoop some vegetarian ass, Bella doesn't really have the mental/emotional space to give up her protective caretaker trait.

moving on. some in the fandom believe that mentally frozen means mentally frozen. sure, they can fall in love, but all that means is they're in love, not that they learn anything from being in love. going back to the Edward example, we may have seen Edward "learn" he has a soul, but post-BD we would see him return to his depressive, "soulless" state.

applied to Bella: she will never overcome her parentification regardless of how Ragù develops. lil baby will always need protection from others, will always be a lil baby, will always be in mortal danger. Bella is a fucking eternal helicopter parent. yikes, girl

BONUS: ultimate lol would be Bella being CONVINCED Ravioli is trans because in the weeks leading up to the birth she was sure Ravioli was a boy. trans!Resume fanfic WHEN

Hi Maven!! Same q to everyone this week: what are your top 3 wincest episodes, and why?

ok im gonna cheat and do this in 2 ways hehe

a) top 3 sam/dean episodes

3. A Very Supernatural Christmas: has the samulet (their engagement ring, obviously!), you can palpably feel the isolation, the neglect, it's very two-children-in-a-motel-esque. and of course, the final scene, where i think, if there was any point in the series aside from the barn scene in which they would have said "i love you," it would have been there. the deep long stare, the watery eyes, the fact that they both know dean will be gone within the year, and then... "do you feel like watching the game?" ahhhhhhh drives me nuts

2. Swan Song: their love literally!!!!! saves the world, i mean come on. it has the whole wincest montage that you could literally set a richard siken poem to, or a taylor swift song to (look i know those are vastly different things but. bear with me), and it would just feel right. dean finally lets sam do things on his own. he lives because sam tells him to. sam manages to revoke his possession consent because of how much he's in love with dean, even as his fist is smashing dean's face into a pulp. ok i have to stop or i'm going to start crying in this goddamn airport.

Playthings: obviously. gothic horror episode of all time. picture-perfect family in the outside, secret sibling hidden upstairs. the way sam and dean's codependency is paired with that of the grandmother and her ghostly sister. the face-stroking. the almost kiss. god i swear it always looks like they're gonna kiss. sam writhing on the bed. dean staring at him like that. the subtext was about to bust through the screen, what with the acting and the way the plot and the meta-plot fit together perfectly. catherine tosenberger said it much better than i can, go read her article in TWC about wincest if you haven't!

b) top 3 family-horror-what-the-incestuous-freudian-fuck-is-going-on-here episodes

2. Devil's Trap: azazel uses john's body in a sexual manner against both sam and dean--primarily the latter but sam gets it, too. it's a chilling scene and really cements that this is what spn is about: never being able to escape the family. sam learns partly of azazel's plot, dean gets his daddy issues flayed onto him, and all through the eyes of the father. it's so well done.

3. Skin: imo the most damning thing the shifter says is, "i will be sorry to lose this skin. your brother's got a lot of great qualities. you should appreciate him more than you do." uh...what? the way he ties up sam and plans on torturing him also aligns with the shifter's pattern of turning into the husband and beating up the wife. another HMM moment actually comes from dean himself, when he tells sam that none of his friends will ever understand him and that dean's the only one who can...it's very isolating, kind of abuser tactics, and just. whew. this was episode SIX!!

In the Beginning: come on you knew i was gonna say this. aside from the obvious moments of "mom is a babe" (and remember, dean invokes sam into this moment as well..."sammy, wherever you are..."), samuel!azazel leaning over dean and smelling him, and samuel!azazel kissing mary--passionately returned(?), may i add, the plot itself sets up the winchester family as this enclosed, inbred unit. mary's kiss with her possessed father seal's sam's fate as part of azazel's army. the sexuality she shares with her father makes her son's blood diseased and cursed. the family line is tainted by incest. her kiss is what allows sam and dean to grow up that way, to become so codependent, what allows the moments of avsc, swan song, and playthings to happen! in the beginning. this begins the cycle of selling and saving souls--mary for john, john for dean, dean for sam. it's literally THEE spn episode, perhaps even more than playthings. even though sam's barely in it, his fate hangs over the whole episode, and this is full house of wincest at its finest.

can we actually take a moment and remember swan upon leda? can we actually shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down and think about our lord and savior swan upon leda because i'm tired of doing it alone every single day guys

love u sweetheart

love you even more <3 <3 my wife forever and ever

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404642

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47176348 https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542708

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894979

THANK U FOR THE RECS <3<3 this is so funny we have the same taste bc i've already read all of these but the 2nd one and loved them 😭 (esp the last one)

in turn here r a few recs of my own that i think about often. these r all well known too u might know about them already rip

harbor in the tempest i reread this the most i think. obsessed

lost stars <-- this whole collection is tied to an orphan account,, i feel lucky i found it. i've yet to read it all, but i like the author's style!

a fairytale beginning enchanted au = im a sucker for it and i love this author hiiii

but once a year i just love everything this author does ever

winter i think everyone and their mom has read this but for good reason

back to the start also insane author

a place only you can go I THINK EVERYONE SHOLD. READ THIS

the mountains call me home (and i must go) i like this :D

openheart i actually read this a couple years back and i remember very little but i am a huge twau liker so by default its a fav

halcyon (e) me thing but i tend to skip smut for the plot this is my One. exception. insane

i was tagged by @ademigodgirl to do this adorable picrew !! 🥹🩷💅🏻 (its barbie/polly pocket themed ofc)

it looks just like me oml…admin reveal???

anyone can do it but i tag @arishemmo @lovelikealandslide @honeyedlashton @hideitaway @vasattope @brave-tomlinson (no pressure at all !!)

u may not know this abt me but like half my ocs are bootleg furrybait. sorry

tee hee,,, my superiority complex working the full-time shift today

I drew my friend's call of duty oc Rosie as part of an art trade with @/theswandrowned on twitter 🥺 in return she made this STUNNING alex keller edit to TOXIC???? so please check it out!

this isn’t on the list but maybe 5 books you recommend reading?

"A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara

"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

"Play It As It Lays" By Joan Didion

"We The Animals" by Justin Torres

"Antigonick" by Sophocles, translated by Anne Carson

i think i already posted an earlier version of this a long time ago but here it is all trimmed and finished. trumpeter swan woooooo. this is oil pastel and the background is acrylic ink. Girl i coated this thing in so much hairspray (i use hairspray as a cheap shitty fixative on stuff that gets smeary) that i had to leave it to air out for a day before taking this pic cause the smell felt like it was burning my nose hairs off

Big sappy gay post ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

So, I don't usually reply to comments anymore on AO3, just because I don't think a lot of the comments necessarily invite a response? Not in a bad way of course, I just mean that if I'm not being asked a question specifically I often don't have the time to respond to all comments - and I don't want to respond to certain comments and not others!

I LOVE and read ALL of the comments and tumblr questions I get even if I don't respond to all of them. It really brightens my day to get the email notifications about comments.

That being said, there were two comments on the last couple of chapters that I just wanted to say thank you to (hoping that these people follow me on tumblr). I didn't want to respond on AO3 just because I don't want people to think I don't appreciate and have time for all of the comments I get.

These two comments really stood out to me! I love that these stories help you guys through bad days, provide a form of escapism, help you deal with stuff going on in your personal lives. I enjoy writing just because it's fun, but knowing that it helps the people that read my stuff in ways that I wouldn't even recognise - is so affirming and lovely to know.

In this fucking gross, selfish, misogynistic, neo-liberal, dog-eat-dog global system, I am so happy that I can provide a tiny distraction for all of you who find that through the stories.

I really love and appreciate all of you - forehead kisses xxx.