fabulousanima:

THIS HIT ME LAST NIGHT AND I HAVE TO WRITE IT DOWN

so headcanon that Liz discovered her weapon powers very, very young, as in she’s still a child and she’s sitting on the floor of their dingy apartment watching TV way too late at night for a child her age and there is a gunfight on and she points a finger gun at the screen and goes “bang!” and suddenly there’s a hole in the glass and sparks are flying from the ruined TV and she ducks under the coffee table

and her mother slowly rouses from her drugged up fugue state to crack open an eye and Liz thinks she’s about to get in trouble but her mom only goes “how’d you do that baby?” and Liz answers “I was just playing a game”

and her mother, who has latent meister talents without really knowing it, sits up a little straighter and says “do it again for mommy”

and it takes a few weeks but her mom keeps asking, keeps reminding her, and finally she succeeds and holds her weapon form and it’s a gun

and her mom smiles so big and says “we’re gonna play a game tonight”

and they go to the corner store and Liz is being wielded for the first time and her desire to please her mother makes their wavelengths match enough to work with her mother’s mild meister ability and they walk into the store and her mother holds her up and uses her to shoot out the glass cabinet behind the counter

and Liz is crying but she’s in weapon form and the man is screaming and clutching his ear and her mother is scooping stuff into her bag and crooning “it’s okay sweetheart, don’t cry baby, it’s just a game”

and they play the game a lot after that

and Patty comes along and she gets older and one day they figure out her weapon form too

and her first game is at the dealer’s house because their mother thinks his prices are a bit too high and Patty’s screaming and Liz is pretty sure kneecaps aren’t supposed to bend that way but she still hears their mother saying “it’s all right, we’re just playing”

and they keep playing the game, which keeps their mother happy, because she always smiles more after the game than before

until the day that their mom has been gone almost a week and Patty’s pajamas smell terrible and they’ve been eating stale crackers and Liz doesn’t know what to do because her mom has never been gone this long before and she’s starving and Patty’s crying off and on for hours and they’re not tall enough to reach some of the higher shelves in the cabinet where there is some more food and Liz finally closes her eyes and takes Patty’s hands in hers and takes a deep breath

“okay Patty we’re going to play a game tonight”