#*crisis

[what-do-i-do-with-all-my-ocs]

Watching a Ghibli movie really makes you a Ghibli protagonist for a good two hours huh. it's like..I just finished Spirited Away.. I am Washing the Dishes... I'm standing outside now...the air is cool but not cold and I have a warm mug in my hands and I am Satisfied

[elivanto]

[callous-and-misunderstood]

Marlos 44 or 117 for the ask game?!

Thank you so much!

Marlos, and 117: “Can I do your hair?”

This got a little sappy, but I love to write a vulnerable Mal...so here’s an angst/fluff one-shot!

It was Saturday. Saturday was Mal’s favorite day of the week because it was the start of the weekend, and breakfast on Saturday was always pancakes, which she always topped with strawberries and whipped cream. She even woke up early to get a full plate, though she often went back to bed after she’d eaten.

But it was now noon, so breakfast was over. And Mal was still in bed with no pancakes or strawberries.

Mal was in a very, very bad mood.

It had been brewing all week, a slowly growing storm her friends had been eyeing nervously. Mal’s bad moods were notoriously destructive, though when her friends worked together they were able to keep her somewhat docile.

But this weekend, only Carlos was on campus. Evie had left the night before to spend the weekend with Snow White and ‘bond’, whatever that meant. The tourney team had a game in Sherwood Forest, and the cheer team had gone with, meaning Jay, Ben, Lonnie, and Jane were also gone. So, just Carlos and Mal were wandering the mostly empty halls of Auradon Prep.

Normally, Mal would relish the quiet on campus, especially since Audrey and Chad were in Sherwood Forest with the tourney and cheer teams. But after her last class on Friday, she’d crawled into her bed, pulled the covers over her head, and hadn’t moved since.

Carlos rapped on her door firmly, unsurprised by the lack of response. He pulled out the spare key Evie had given him and Jay, and let himself into the room.

“Ugh,” Carlos wrinkled his nose as he took in the state of Mal’s side of the room. She hadn’t picked up anything all week, so dirty socks, crumpled papers, and half-eaten granola bars littered the floor.

“Go AWAY!” Mal grumbled from her cocoon of blankets.

“I have strawberries,” Carlos countered, pulling a full carton out from his bag.

Mal paused, then stuck a hand out from her nest.

“Give them.”

“Nope, you gotta get out of bed if you want them,” Carlos said.

Mal groaned loudly.

“M, come on,” Carlos coaxed, waving the strawberries near her, trying to use the scent to lure her out of bed.

It sort of worked. Mal pulled herself up into a sitting position, keeping herself wrapped in the blankets so only her face was visible.

Mal did not look like Mal. Her skin was washed out in grey, her eyes dull and unfocused. This was not just a bad mood. Something big was bugging her.

“Hey, dragon,” Carlos said softly with a smile, keeping his worry out of his voice.

“Hi,” Mal muttered, itching her nose. “Can I have those strawberries now?”

Carlos relented and handed her the carton, which she tucked into eagerly. A bit of warmth came back to her face as she ate her favorite food. Carlos made himself comfortable at her desk, gingerly throwing out a rotting orange and moving aside a stack of assignments that hadn’t been done.

“So,” Carlos said once the strawberries were mostly gone. “What’s up?”

“What’d you mean?” Mal asked nonchalantly, well aware why he was asking.

Carlos gave her a look, which Mal turned away from.

“Come on, dragon. You’ve been grumpier than the actual Grumpy this week, and you didn’t even get out of bed for pancakes this morning. What’s up?”

Mal grumbled, sinking further into her blanket pile. Even after nearly a year in Auradon, she still hated actually talking about her feelings. With Jay and Evie, she could play it off, but Carlos…he always knew. No matter how much she hid it, he would find her with a raised eyebrow and something that soothed her into talking through the issue.

But strawberries weren’t enough to bring her out of her slump this time. This was more than just a bad grade on a test or an art critique that was too harsh or being bullied by a fellow student.

Carlos watched Mal for a moment, taking in her withdrawn energy and the scattered mess in the room. Then he stood, and wandered towards Evie’s side of the room, finding the hairbrush with purple hair wrapped in it on Evie’s vanity rather than Mal’s.

“Can I do your hair?”

Mal looked at Carlos directly for the first time, her eyes watering a bit. That…sounded nice.

Mal wasn’t a fan of physical affection, but her earliest memory was Maleficent brushing her hair to soothe her tears about…something. She didn’t remember why she was upset, but she did remember how loved she felt while Maleficent ran the broken hairbrush through her short hair, humming a song that sounded like something she’d heard in a dream. Of course, as she’d gotten older that feeling of love had died, but. Yeah. Carlos brushing her hair sounded really nice.

“Sure,” she agreed, and let her blanket-hood fall.

Carlos climbed on to the bed, perching on his knees as he assessed the damage. She obviously hadn’t brushed it in a few days, judging by the size of the knot at the back of her head. But it wasn’t anything Carlos couldn’t work through—he’d brushed Cruella’s hair enough to know what was beyond repair.

Gently, he took the brush and began to comb through Mal’s hair.

“It’s so much longer now,” he commented.

“Well, no one’s going to grab it in a fight anymore,” Mal shot back, though there was no malice in her retort, as they both knew that was the actual reason she’d kept her hair so short.

“Hmmm,” Carlos agreed, gently detangling the purple knots.  

Long hair on the Isle wasn’t smart. Jay and Evie had been inconvenienced many a time in a fight by someone grabbing their hair, but they both refused to do anything about it. Mal had her hair length used against her once, and ever since then it had never grown past her chin. But now, it was trailing well below her shoulders.

Mal sighed, letting herself relax into Carlos’ comforting touch. They spent a few more moments in silence, Carlos moving slowly through the rat’s nest in the back to avoid hurting Mal.

“It’s just…” Mal began, then stopped.

Carlos said nothing, knowing that Mal needed space to sort through her thoughts before she spoke.

“I don’t feel like me,” she whispered after a long pause.

“How so?” Carlos asked just as quietly.

“I dunno, it’s just. We spent so long trying to…survive. And I spent so long trying to be my mom, or at least please her. And I know I’m supposed to be all good now, and all Auradon-perfect, but I just. Can’t forget what I spent my whole life being.”

Carlos hummed, setting down the hairbrush once the knots had been detangled. He deftly began to plait her hair into two braids.

“Like. Am I just a pretty pink princess from now on? Not someone from the Isle? I mean, even the other kids have stopped acting like we’re scary. I can’t even get Jane to jump when I say ‘boo’ anymore,” Mal pulled her knees tightly to her chest, letting a few tears fall from her eyes. “I just. Don’t know what is me, and what is someone else telling me who to be.”

Carlos tied off the braids then turned Mal to face him. She looked into his dark brown eyes and saw herself reflected in them.

“Mal, I know I haven’t known you as long as Jay, or even Evie, but I know that we will always be part of two vastly different worlds. We will always be trying to figure out what we actually want, us, not what everyone else wants us to want. We can’t avoid that. I mean, even if we spent our whole lives on the Isle, it wouldn’t be perfect. We would be trying to live up to impossible expectations. It’s the same here, because we can’t just forget where we came from. I can’t forget what Cruella did to me, anymore than you can forget what your mom wanted from you. But now, we have a real chance to figure out who we are, what we want. Yeah, Auradon isn’t the fairy-tale they pretend it is. But we have room to grow, to make our own way. And I’ll be with you the whole time, whoever you end up being.”

Mal was weeping openly now, and Carlos pulled her into his arms, tucking her head under his chin. He rocked her slightly, letting Mal cry herself out.

She should have talked to Carlos sooner, she realized. He had had the hardest time adjusting out of any of them; a year later and he still woke up screaming from nightmares about Cruella. He would never be fully Auradon, no matter how much therapy and medication he did. And neither would Evie and Jay, though they were so good at fitting in. But just because Jay was the school’s star athlete and Evie was running an incredibly successful fashion business did not mean they weren’t from the Isle.

No matter how well they adapted, that was one thing they could never get rid of. The past didn’t just disappear, even though Mal often wished it would.

“What’s that saying, from Mogwli’s human family?” Mal sniffed against Carlos’s chest.

“What?”

“You know, the boy from the jungle, but who’s still a human boy.”

“Ohhh, I see someone was paying attention in history class.”

“Shut up,” Mal headbutted Carlos softly.

“Mm, you can take the boy out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the boy?”

“Yes. But it’s us and the Isle.”

“Exactly,” Carlos pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “You can’t take the Isle out of us, but that doesn’t mean it defines us.”

[ofhouseadama]

can i just say that 1 reason i love lorraine so much is that. she makes things OKAY. like. it's OKAY to be scared out of your wits & crumple into tears in your husband's arms. it's OKAY to swish around in neo-victorian skirts. it's OKAY to be hopelessly in love & happily married. & it doesn't make her less badass. it doesn't make her less of a fighter. it doesn't make her weaker. it makes her STRONGER. she makes vulnerability OKAY. & i LOVE her SO MUCH for it.

much like Lorraine I am also constantly on the verge of losing my shit and it's very relatable

[autistic-stedebonnet]

is it alarming that i share more on here than i do with my therapist?

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

it’s so weird bc gossip girl was always supposed to be a metaphor for the dangers of social media and surveillance culture. it was never supposed to be a literal person lol

agreed!!! the need for a reveal was actually very redundant. me being me, i always want to explore that kind of thing in fic, but i do think that the source material should’ve left it vague. like... it made most sense to never confirm anyone, one way or the other.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

A gay crisis is the best kind of crisis!!

- ✨💙

yes Exactly