#child harm

(Discussions of child murder so…be warned)

We learn in sophomore year that James Whitclaw has spent his life tracking down and killing any of Bill Seacasters children. Fabian even acknowledges this at one point, offhandedly, even though he never brings it up again. Bill mentions to gorgug that he had been with orcish women before (an “are you my dad?” Response) and its not a stretch to think that Bill got around a LOT prior to his marriage to Halariel. The wiki does include “unknown children” in the family column, even though fabian is listed as his only son.

Then we look at the timeline of Bill seacaster. He meets Halariel, she cuts out his eye and he proposes on the spot. The wiki says that they “decide to settle down and start a family” and Bill retires to Solace where he got amnesty for his past crimes. Fabian is born and grows up in elmville, where both of his parents refer to him at their “Darling Boy”.

Personal headcanon- i think the reason Bill decided to go to Solace and “settle down” was to protect him and halariels future children from James Whitclaw.

Bill is insane and ruthless but he cares a LOT about legacy and family, so I think it tracks that he would give up his life of piracy (which, given his character, was a MAJOR shift) to protect his child.

This adds a new angle to all the pressure that Bill puts on fabian and all his ideas about legacy. Bill had dozens of children before fabian, and all of them were hunted down and murdered. All Bills legacy (which Bill cares about a LOT) rest solely on fabian, as Bill has no other children and has permanently beached his ship to give fabian a safe place to grow up.

Basically, fabian is effectively the only child that survived the premeditated massacre of all his siblings by a very powerful pirate. Did bill ever know his other children? Did he ever attempt to protect them and fail? Did he ever learn of one of his children’s existence through the taunting of James Whitclaw? Did James ever kidnap any of the other children? I dont think we will ever get answers to these questions but the implications are horrifying.

“M-My dad is gonna come get you,” Jake declares, glaring at his captors. He’s being brave. He has to be brave. He has to be ready to run when Eclipse comes.

Afton merely scoffs from the cell door, moving aside for the Mimic to enter. Jake immediately loses his confidence and presses his back closer to the cell wall, trying not to fully hunch in on himself on the cot as the Mimic gets close.

It giggles and pokes his cheek with a sharp finger, leaving a scratch in the synthetic skin. “How adorable!” it coos. “You actually believe that.” Its voice sounds like Margie’s. It shouldn’t. Margie is nice, and kind, and even on days Jake didn’t have the energy to open his eyes, her voice was good and comforting and safe. 

He doesn’t feel anything close to safe right now.

It is not actually fucking respectful to get on a video about being kind to children just to say "yeah no fuck that". You don't have to be a parent, but sometimes you're going to have to deal with children because you share a society with them, and they will be loud and annoying because they are children. You are still morally, ethically and humanly obligated to interact kindly with them and object to caregivers who react punitively. You are obligated to try and empathize with the child because you are a whole adult and they are new to planet earth. Of course they're annoying and irritating, even I have the urge to snap when I first hear those tantrums. I watch these videos to learn to deal with that irritation and look beyond it to empathize with the overwhelmed child. It's a training in compassion and patience for those with less capacity and agency than you. If you don't want to use this controlled example that you can scroll away from to learn that then why are you even commenting?

And they're still better than the people who do already have kids and are planning to have them but can't stop announcing that they prefer to power trip and visit pain and humiliation on humans in their smallest, most vulnerable form who depend on them to survive.

I think about this particular Golden Guard a normal amount

edit: continued in rbs but I might as well add them to the original

part 2.

part 3

Of course, this leads to the resulting attempts to the party to justify to the court back in the past why they cleaved a toddler in half with a flaming greatsword.

There is an eight inch chef's knife embedded in your chest, the blade slicing through your metal plating with supernatural precision. Your heart struggles to beat around the cold steel, each pulse a fresh lesson in agony.

Your attacker sits with one foot on your chest, kneeling as if in prayer, her little hands wrapped tight around the handle of that terrible knife. She’s shaking, her sunken eyes wide and scared; something black and foul leaks from her face in place of snot or tears.

…no… not black.

Purple.

The deep, dark, and awful purple of bruised and broken flesh, of rot, of necrosis, of death. 

The severed head in her backpack laughs and laughs and laughs, as if this were all the greatest joke in the world.

“Now Vanessa, be a good girl and twist it.” Says the severed head, his rotted and rolling eye peering at you from the backpack. He’s leaking that same purple ichor, you don’t know how you didn’t smell it when Vanessa came in. 

You let her in, you let your guard down.

Why wouldn’t you? You’d seen Vanesssa enough, always hanging around Freddy’s Pizza Palace, treating the mascots more like beloved friends than animals like the staff did. You’d heard from Freddy that Vanessa didn’t have the best home life, so she treated the pizzeria like her real home whenever she was there. She was a good kid, a sweet kid, she’d played with your children like they were her own siblings.

So when Vanessa showed up at the edge of your property just behind the ward line, dirty and disheveled, shivering in the cold; you didn’t question how she’d gotten up here, or why she hadn’t come up to the door like any other welcomed guest. 

You just let her in. 

You took her inside, you put more logs on the fire, you made her something hot to drink, and when you turned around to get her a warm blanket the tip of her knife bit into your spine.

Again, and again, and again. 

In your back, your side, your belly and chest as you tried to roll over and get Vanessa off of you. 

Her eyes wide and wild as she tried to pin you down, ichor tears running down her face.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry--” Is all she says as she plunges the knife in and pulls it out, using both hands every time.

You grab the blade, it slides right through your hands as if they aren't even there. 

Her movements are stiff, and stilted like a doll’s.

Something dark swims behind those pleading eyes, and smiles with too many teeth. 

You want her to stop, she wants to stop too, but something won’t let her. You could shake her off if you tried, throw her across the room like a toy, take her life in an instant.

But you won’t.

You would never hurt a child.

Vanessa knows that, the head in her backpack knows that, and so does the terrible dark thing behind her eyes. 

But Egg on the other hand, doesn’t share that particular hangup. Something small and white launches itself off the dining room table at Vanessa with remarkable speed, sinking tiny teeth into the naked flesh of her neck. Vanessa screams and drops her knife, flailing wildly. 

You can’t move, you can only watch.

Venassa rolls around on the floor, smearing herself and Egg in your blood as they wrestle. Omelette dashes in with a knife taped to their shell, only to be punted across the room by a stray thrashing limb.

The egg bounces off of a table leg, and hits the wall with a sickening crunch before going so very still.

You try to roll over again, to drag yourself towards your baby… but everything hurts so much. 

Your vision swims, bright lights dancing around the edges.

Shapes and voices blend together.

And the world 

Goes