#<- kind of? i guess it's implied but just in case bc i know some people like to avoid

[starflungwaddledee]

he does this every single year 🍰🎉

[pencil-n-pen]

ALL I DO IS TRY, TRY, TRY

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post prison! spencer x genius fem! reader

masterlist | ko-fi

summary: all your life, you’ve been second-best. Even now that you’ve been chosen to be an agent of the BAU, you’re just a replacement for Spencer Reid. What could change now that’s he’s out?

cw: there is a bit of an age gap, i imagined reader in her early to mid 20’s, nevermind how it isn’t accurate for working at FBI. this is a criminal minds fic, so there are graphic depictions of violence, as well as implied/referenced child neglect/abuse in readers childhood, reader is somewhat a genius

tropes/tags: slowburn on readers end, Spencer is flirting from the beginning, HURT/COMFORT, angst, bit of a sick fic in one scene, bit of soft dom! spencer as a treat

a/n : this came to me in a prophecy. full disclosure i haven’t actually seen the prison arc yet so if there’s any inaccuracies shhhhhh look at the fluff

also !! this is a LOOOOONG one. strap yourselves in. grab snacks and drinks

slipped in some very slight father figure Hotch bc that’s my crack

title taken from Mirrorball by Taylor Swift

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Spencer Reid is absolutely nothing like you’d thought he’d be.

From how the team talked about him, you’d been expecting a short, slight man. Someone quiet and meek and non-threatening.

And Dr. (Agent?) Reid was quiet. But not in the don’t-notice-me way, but in the I-know-what-I’m-doing-and-don’t-need-to-say-it way. He quietly commanded attention and respect. One look at the man told you he was not somebody to fuck with.

He was also really, really, really hot.

It was unfortunate and difficult, truly, because he’s your senior agent, someone who’s got more than a few years on you in both field experience and general age. He’s a genius- insanely good at what he does and there’s no refuting that.

But most of all, he’s kind and respectful and just genuinely a good person. And also good looking. Did you mention that yet?

He clicks seamlessly into place with the team in a way you’ve never managed to do in the time you’ve been with him. And after all, why would you? You’re just the rookie transfer with a bit higher than average IQ. Nothing to brag about. Nothing like Spencer.

You were a data analyst with the FBI before your boss told you: “The BAU is looking for a temporary genius. I put your name in the ring. Hotchner must’ve been impressed with something, cause he picked you. I know you’ve completed the training courses for their team, so pack your desk. You’ve got a new assignment.”

And just like that, every single one of your dreams came true. And then promptly burst into flames and burned to ashes when you realized what exactly your position on the team was: Temporary and replacing.

It makes sense, you guess. The team grew to rely on Reid’s quick wit and intellect. And beyond that, they’re an agent short. And you fit the bill well enough: swift and intelligent. Nothing more, nothing less. It became clear during the first few weeks that no one on the team had any intention of liking or particularly getting to know you beyond a professional capacity. And you get it, you really do. You don’t name the dog you’re gonna get rid of.

With the exception of Penelope. But you don’t think she has the ability to ignore someone without a clear reason.

So you did your job and you were good at it. Held the team at arm’s length even when they warmed up to you. Kept your head down, stuck to yourself. This way, it’s easier to stop yourself from leaning into JJ and Prentiss’s jokes, or to stamp down the glow in your chest from Hotch’s approval.

All of this hard work goes sailing straight out the window and spattering on the concrete below when Reid comes back. Because all it took was one case together- one. And then you’re hopelessly in love with the guy you replaced.

And it’s all kinds of terrible, because it’s Reid. He’s not only your coworker —soon to be ex, because now that he’s back you’ll be out of a job— but he’s also so incredibly out of your league it’s not even funny. But he keeps smiling at you and including you in conversations and saying hi to you and asking your opinion on things during cases as if you would have more to add than he does.

It’s very hard to keep him at arms length. And because Reid is Reid he drags everybody else over with him and then you’re bonding with a team you have a week left with, maybe two.

Spencer Reid has weaseled his way into your life one stupid smile at a time.

—

The case is going terribly.

What started as a run-of-the-mill serial killer case in some nowhere town turned into huge investigation because Spe— Reid figured out its relation to a cold case from a neighboring town decades prior. And then, to top everything off, just so happens to be near enough to your hometown that your mom saw you on the news when JJ was giving a statement.

And now she won’t stop calling.

Prior to this, you haven’t talked to your mom in about seven months. Now? She’s calling upwards of twelve times a day.

“Mom,” You say, tucked in one of the police stations back rooms, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I’m working, I can’t just come out to see you—“

“But you’ve never visited! And your finally in town, and—“

“I’m not in town, I’m a four hour drive away from town.”

A sigh crackles through the line, her voice tinny. “You know, your brother always made time to visit family, and your younger brothers—“

“Are younger than me and more successful, yes mom, I’ve heard it all before. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to catch a serial killer.”

You snap the phone shut before she can protest, effectively ending the call. You sag against the wall, sighing deep and weary. Exhaustion clings to your bones. It’s not just your mom. This case, being physically close to your hometown, everything— it’s weighing you down. You spend more time in the hotel bed tossing and turning than sleeping.

Even Em— Prentiss had shot you look when you’d came in this morning- though jury’s still out about whether or not it was an are-you-okay look or a you-better-be-good-for-the-case look. You’re hoping it’s the former.

The room you’re in is empty- the precinct that called for the team went under renovation and remodeling last year, so some of the rooms have fallen into disuse, apparently. It’s dusty, and filled with boxes and papers and weirdly, one or two condom wrappers. You wish you were surprised.

Your phone has been put strongly on silent, and you’re not expecting anyone to find you for at least twenty minutes. Of course, you don’t need twenty minutes. You just need five.

You just need to collect yourself for a moment. A few minutes to breathe, to get your mom’s words and the unpleasant memories they bring out of your head; to will the shake out of your hands and the cold creeping in your lungs.

So when the door opens, you nearly jump out of your skin.

Spencer walks in, phone clasped in one hand and a worried expression on his face.

“We’re getting ready to give the profile.”

“Oh,” You peel yourself off the wall, discreetly wiping at your face. You hadn’t noticed the frustrated tears carving lines down your face, “Sorry, I’m coming.”

He frowns as you come closer, and panic begins to beat like a drum in your chest.

“Is Hotch upset? I just had to take a call, I thought it would—“

“Slow down,” He says, raising his hands. “Hotch isn’t upset. Is something wrong?”

“No,” You say quickly, too quickly, because his frown deepens.

“You’ve been taking a lot more calls recently and you’re always upset after they’re over. Is someone bothering you?”

You sigh, rubbing at your face. “My mom. We’re a four hour drive away from my hometown. She saw me on the news when JJ gave her statement.”

Something flashes in his eyes when you say your mother, but it’s gone before you can decipher it.

“You don’t want to see her.”

He says it flat-toned and blank. Like it’s a fact.

It is a fact.

“No,” You confess, “I’ve never been close with my parents. I haven’t spoken to her beyond a text in years, and I haven’t texted her in months. Then she sees me on the news and I’m back on her radar again.”

You chuckle, but there’s no humor in it. “Oh, the folly of the disappointing daughter.”

He tilts his head, questioning. “You’ve made something of yourself. You’re a special agent. That’s not nothing.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not Doctor or Lawyer or C.E.O or anything else my brothers or cousins have made of themselves, so,” You shrug. “Disappointing.”

“Well that’s stupid,” Spencer says, a small curl to his lips, “You keep all of those stupid people safe by catching serial killers.”

“You’re a doctor. Did you just call yourself stupid?”

He shrugs, mimicking your earlier action. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

You look down to hide the smile on your face but he ducks down, catching it anyway.

“Hey,” He says, eyes catching yours, “If you want to talk, you know where to find me.”

You (hesitantly) look up to meet his gaze. “Thanks, Reid.”

His face does something weird. Contorts at the words, just for a second. Like he just bit into something sour.

And then it’s gone.

“Of course.”

—

For the rest of the case, everytime your phone rings, Spencer looks at you. You’re getting close to just throwing the damn thing off a roof, if it’ll convince him to stop looking at you like that. You don’t know what to do with it. The look he gives you tastes like worry, and you don’t know what to do about Spencer Reid worrying about you.

You never meet his gaze. You know he’s looking, but you never look back.

Finally, the case comes to an end. Actually, it goes out in a literal blaze of glory— the unsub lights his kill shed on fire.

All of it would have burned to ash if you hadn’t run into the structure and and snatched the murder weapon and the most damning pieces of evidence: the printed photographs the unsub took with the victims.

It’s a win because you saved the evidence.

It’s a loss because Hotch looks pissed while the paramedics check you over.

Well. You assume he looks pissed. You’re staring resolutely at your shoes.

Finally, the paramedic gives you the all clear —just some minor burns here and there, you got lucky— and you no longer have a human buffer and excuse to avoid talking.

The silence stretches out between you two. Eventually, you cave.

“Hotch, I’m sorry—“

He holds a hand up and you clamp your jaw shut.

“Did you not hear me give the order to stay back?”

“I just thought—“

“We are a team, agent. I need to be able to trust not only that you’re going to follow my orders but be able to work together with the team. Now, you’re not doing either of those things.”

You frown. “I do follow your orders.”

He sighs. “You didn’t today. And more importantly, you’re not acting like a member of this team. You don’t call for backup. You don’t ask for help. You do good profiling work, agent. But if you can’t work with this team then we might need to reconsider your position here.”

That… doesn’t make any sense.

Hotch catches the confusion on your face. “Something wrong, agent?”

“I just— I was under the impression that I would only be working with the team for a few more weeks…?”

Now it’s his turn to look confused. “You may have been hired at an inopportune time, and until the first year is over it is a probationary basis, but pending review, you are and always have been a permanent member of this unit.”

You blink. “Oh.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “You didn’t think you’d be staying for long.”

You shake your head, your world turned on its head.

He hums. “You should buy earplugs. Rossi snores.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“And agent?”

You look up.

“You did good work today. You have a team. Learn to use them.”

He walks away, leaving you to process this crisis-inducing information.

So. You’re not leaving the team. You’re a profiler. Forever. This is your job now.

So does that mean you weren’t replacing Spencer? So why were you hired? Anything you can do multiple people on the team can do better. Why would Hotch pick you?

You stare at the pavement, which gives you a perfect view to watch Spencer’s shoes walk into view and hear him settle next to you.

“You’re a little young to be having a mid-life crisis.”

It takes you an embarrassingly long time to respond, partly because you’re not sure what to say, but also, the length of his thigh is pressed against yours and it’s hard to think when he’s emanating warmth and you can’t stop yourself from thinking about how it would feel to touch, skin to skin.

“Well,” You croak, “I did just get some pretty big news.”

He leans back on his hands, raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Looking up at him was a mistake. Bathed in the glow of the ambulance and the light from the moon, you can see just how long his eyelashes are, and how his lips move when he says your name.

Oh shit.

“Sorry, what?”

His face twitches in a smile. “I asked if you were okay. You were staring.”

You flush from your neck to the tips of your ears. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I’m fine. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

See, he always does this. Most people would end the conversation there and move on. And that’s fine. It’s normal. But Spencer asks. Like he’s interested.

You shrug. “I thought… I thought I was leaving the team in a few weeks. Turns out i’m staying.”

He starts swinging his legs on the edge of the ambulance, though where his almost brush the ground, yours swing several inches above it. “Why did you think you were leaving?”

You laugh softly. “My boss told me the position was temporary. And in my excitement of getting it I may or may not have… not read the paperwork?”

He clicks his tongue. “Oh, honey.”

The tips of your ears burn. “I was excited!”

“To get a job staring at gruesome crime photos?”

“To help people.”

“What? Data analysis not helping people enough?”

“Do I even have to answer that?”

He snorts, his body shaking against yours. “You’re a consulting analyst. That’s the big leagues.”

Now it’s your turn to huff. “Is there a big leagues for data analysis?”

He leans his head down to look at you. “Well, maybe miss smarty-pants over here made a league of her own.”

The shade of red you turn must be visible, dark and bad lighting aside. “You have an IQ of 187. Can you really call me a smarty-pants?”

He tilts his head, giving you an assessing look. You recognize it. He gives case files the same look.

A faint shudder runs down the length of your spine at that precise, clinical gaze.

It should concern you, unnerve you.

It doesn’t.

“No, I’m positive. You’re a smarty-pants.”

You look away, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze.

“Hey, no. Come on, you gotta own up to being a smarty-pants. Otherwise you ruin the effect.”

“Am I supposed to start wearing sweaters and Converse, then?”

“Well, that wouldn’t be owning the smarty-pants look.”

“Do we have to keep the smarty-pants thing going?”

“Took your mind off the burns, didn’t it?”

You blink, realizing that you haven’t noticed the dull sting of the minor burns littering your body for a few minutes now.

But that has less to do with Spencer speaking and more to do with the fact that he’s here. Touching you. If you focus really hard, you can feel the chords of muscle lining his arm.

“Uh,” You stutter, momentarily flabbergasted by the way he’s looking at you. Like it’s important to him— you not being in pain. “Yeah, yeah, I guess. Well. I feel them now.”

“Oh, shame. I guess we’ll just have to keep talking.”

You furrow your brows. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Shouldn’t you be helping finish wrapping up the case?”

He shrugs. “I’m right where I want to be.”

That’s a decidedly very loaded statement that are not going to unpack.

You’re not going to unpack to jolt of pure electricity you feel from it, either.

—

You may or may not have lied about just how sick you were, exactly.

“You know,” Rossi says after you hack a cough into your elbow for what has to be the fiftieth time in as many minutes, “That’s starting to sound less like the plague and more like desperation.”

You sniff harshly, taking a swig of cough syrup and praying this isn’t the king with codeine in it. You didn’t read the label very well. “What do you mean?”

Prentiss raises an eyebrow. “He’s saying that most people on their veritable death/bed opt to sleep comfortably in their own beds in their own homes rather than on a plane to hunt down a violent killer.”

You think if your apartment— it’s cozy, at least, but still a glaring reminder of the reason you told Hotch you were fine to come in- loneliness.

You have heated blankets and warm lighting and books and tea —boxes and boxes of tea— and all manner of things that make you happy. But no amount of things can replace, tangible human connection.

You knew the ache of spending the day in your apartment would sting worse than the cold. Fever, Whatever you have.

“I’m thinking of a word,” JJ says, mock tapping her chin thoughtfully, “Starts with work, ends with holic.”

“I am not a workaholic,” you wheeze. “I am fine.”

“Yes,” Prentiss says, raising her other eyebrow. Oh no. Not the double eyebrow raise. “Because this is exactly what the picture of health looks like.”

To avoid answering, you take another swig of cough medicine.

“Just do you know,” Spencer says, “You’re about one tiny sip of that away from overdosing. I’d cool it on the cough syrup.”

“But I’m still coughing.”

“Have you given it any time to work?”

“It’s been thirty-ish minutes since I took the first dose.”

He levels you with a look at your usage of dose. “Why don’t you wait a little longer before committing suicide via shallow breathing and seizures.”

You wave a hand. “It’s fine. I know how to take care of myself when I’m sick.”

“Is your version of taking care of yourself just continuously taking medicine until the symptoms become bearable?”

“You’re un-bearable.” You snort at your play on words, but grow quiet because when you look up, the entire team is looking at you. “What?”

“You never joke.” JJ says.

“And I think I’ve heard you laugh exactly two times, and I’m pretty sure one of them was a sneeze.” Rossi says, a look of vague disbelief on his face.

You squirm in place. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Uh, yeah it is. You’re definitely too sick to be on a case if you’re laughing.”

“Come on, it was barely a chuckle—“

Spencer looks around. “Yeah, what’s the big deal? I’ve heard her laugh before.”

JJ and Prentiss snap their heads to him in tandem. “What?”

Now he looks vaguely uncomfortable. “I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”

“That’s cause you showed up late to the party,” Em- Prentiss says, “You didn’t meet her when she first came. She was all genius consulting data analyst.”

“I wouldn’t call myself a genius—“

“Yeah,” JJ chimes in, “I only ever saw her smile to be polite.”

“Wait,” Prentiss says, brows pinched, “You heard her laugh and you didn’t tell us? You knew we were trying to see who would make her break first.”

“You guys were trying to make me laugh? Is that what was happening all that time? I almost called Hotch like, thirty times because I was concerned for you guy’s mental wellbeing. I thought you’d had a nervous breakdown.”

JJ snorts. “Nope. Just tried to see if the rumors were true about all data analysts being robots.”

You cough into your elbow. “You guys make it seem like I was some sort of frigid bitch.”

“Frigid, yes. Bitch, no.”

“Hey!” You retort, then wince as the volume of your own voice makes your head pound harder and makes your throat sting worse, “I wasn’t that bad. Also, I was nervous! I’m the youngest person here by like, a long shot. I wanted to be professional.”

“I for one enjoyed it,” Rossi cuts in, “It was all blunt business. Straight to the point. No beating around the bush or gossiping. A few people here could learn a thing or two.”

“See?” You gesture. “Rossi agrees with me.”

Just about everyone on the plane gives you the exact same look. Hotch especially, who’s stayed silent during the entire exchange, looks troubled.

Once you land (an ordeal that normally doesn’t bother you, but today, had you worshipping the porcelain altar) Hotch pulls you aside.

“Agent,” He says before you climb into the car that’ll take you to the police precinct, “I can’t have an agent not at peak performance on this case.”

You frown. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re too sick to work this case—“

“No, no, I can work, I can do it—“

“—In the field. You’re working from the station until we wrap up. Understood?”

You sigh, knowing when you’re beat. “Understood.”

He gazes at you for a second. “You might want to call out of work entirely the next time you’re sick, you know. The less time you spend resting the longer it’ll take to get better. I expect to see you taking care of yourself at the precinct.”

You blink. “Are you… dad-ing me?”

He almost smiles. “Well, I am a father. It’s bound to come out sometimes.”

The joke soothes your concerns of him being upset with you (again.) You suppose it would’ve been warranted —Hotch never gets upset without a reason— but still. He’s the only one you occasionally struggle to read.

The good news is by the time you make it to the station, your medicine has kicked in.

The bad news is when you get to the station your medicine has kicked in.

“Spencer,” You say, spinning in a spinny chair and staring at his blurry face. “Did you know that elephants have prehensile—“

“Do not finish that sentence.” He says, glancing back at the team, all in various stages of concern, disgust, amusement, and annoyance. “Did you take non-drowsy cough medicine?”

“Yes! I didn’t want to be tired.”

He scrubs a tired hand down his face, then nudges a sealed water bottle across the table to you. “Drink that.”

You wrinkle your nose. “But my throat hurts.”

“Drink it anyway.”

You snatch the water bottle, grumbling the whole time as you crack the seal and gulp down the water, not realizing how thirsty you were until this very second.

You lean your forehead on the table head still pounding from the pressure in your sinuses. You feel a prickle in the back of your neck, signifying that the team is still staring at you.

With great effort, you lift your head, tilting your chin up and trying to summon all the self confidence you don’t actually have.

“I am making a fool of myself. Please disregard my actions until I am no longer ill. This won’t happen again.”

Words are hard. Speaking is hard. With a groan, you drop your head back on your arm.

“Ah, there she is.”

“Knew that laugh had to be a fluke.”

“Cold medicine must be working.”

There are other mutterings about stubborn geniuses and workaholics and data analysis and Spencer staying at the station and—

You snap your head up. “I’m fine. I don’t need a baby-sitter. Spencer would be most useful in the field. He’s one of the best shot’s on the team.”

“And when it comes to needing a marksman I won’t hesitate to get him,” Hotch says, “But for now, I need my two geniuses to put their heads together to solve this case.”

Feeling cowed, you avoid Spencer’s gaze as the team files out of the room you’ve all set up in, instead grabbing a file from the center of the table. You really are being stupid. You should’ve stayed home, now you’re a liability, not to mention a walking biohazard. Fuck, why couldn’t you just think before you—

“I can hear you spiraling from over here.”

You lift your gaze, eyeing Spencer who hasn’t even put down the case file he’s reading.

You look back down. “I wasn’t spiraling.”

“You’re really going to lie to a profiler?”

“We’re both profilers.”

“Yeah, well, you have an obvious tell when you’re worrying about something.”

“I do not!”

You hear the quiet shuffling of papers.

A sigh leaves your lips, and you press the heels of your hands to your eyes. “I’m really sorry, Spe— Reid. I didn’t mean to drag you here with me.”

If he notices your slip up, he doesn’t give any indication of it.

“Who said anything about dragging?”

“I know you’re a germaphobe, and I’m a walking biohazard, and now you’re stuck here going over case files and, and I’m a liability right now—“

“Slow down,” He says, interrupting your slew of word vomit. His voice has dropped an octave, gaining a richer note. You should stop thinking about his voice. “I’m fine. You’re fine. The team is more worried than upset. You’re not the first person to come to work sick. And you won’t be the last.”

“They keep staring at me.”

“Because your current state and manner of behavior are disrupting their pre-conceived notions and set opinions of your character.”

You scrunch your nose. “Don’t get all clinical on me,”

You hear a small huff of laughter across the table. “I’ve come to work far worse than hopped up on cold medicine, believe me. Don’t worry about it. Just focus on working the case.”

Slowly, the itching under your skin settles, and you manage to swallow the lump in your throat. Eventually, you peel your hands away from your face and do what he says.

Hours pass by in a blur of text and you and Spencer occasionally either bouncing ideas off each other or making small breakthroughs. Spencer handles the relay of information because you can’t really go more than three full sentences without hacking up a lung. Seriously, what is cough syrup good for?

Sometime past midday, you start flagging. The words start blending and smushing together and your head gets harder and harder to hold up. You’re jolting yourself back awake every five minutes, forcing your body to just bear through the illness for the sake of productivity. You got yourself into this mess, you deal with the consequences.

You’re just… so tired. Maybe you’ll close your eyes, just for a few minutes. To get energy. And then you can get back to the case.

Just for a few minutes.

—

“She out?”

“Like a light. Powered through for a lot longer than I expected. But dextromethorphan gets us all in the end.”

A low whistle. “Poor kid. The ‘proving yourself to the team’ phase is rough.”

A hum. “I think it’s more than that.”

A beat passes.

“You got her?”

“Yeah,” Something soft and good smelling, like pine and coffee and something almost rich settles over your shoulders, “Yeah, I got her.”

—

When you wake, your neck is sore but you’re not cold, which is strange considering you remember falling asleep in a table.

Oh god you fell asleep on the table.

You jackrabbit up in place, knees knocking against the underside of the table. Hissing in pain, you tug the warm thing further around your shoulders which is—

Holy fucking shit it’s Spencer’s sweater.

Said man is nowhere to be found, and the conference/briefing room you’re in is dark. Not only did someone turn the lights off (you’re pretty sure you can guess who) but it’s dark outside. Meaning you didn’t just take a short nap.

You slept the entire day away.

Cold dread seeps into your shoulders. “Oh my god I’m so fired. Oh shit. Fuck, Hotch is going to be so pissed—“

The door opens and you stand, whirling around to face the doorway and then instantly regretting it when spots dance across your vision and your head swims.

You stumble, grabbing the edge of the chair for support and squinting at the figure in the doorway.

“Hotch?”

“Nope,” Spencer’s voice rings out in the room, “Guess again.”

You groan, sinking down into the chair. “Am I fired?”

He snorts. “Seeing as Hotch bet that you’d fall asleep before dark, I’d say no.”

“He bet against me?”

“Actually, everyone else thought you’d only last an hour. He bet for four.”

“How long did you bet for?”

He sets a mug in front of you, steaming tea wafting up and warming your face. “Three hours. You metabolize cough syrup better than I thought.”

You take the mug in your hands, warming your fingers but not actually taking a sip. “Mmm. Told you I’ve done this before.”

“I don’t think that’s the brag you think it is.”

You chuckle, which quickly turns into a cough.

“Drink your tea,” He commands softly from across the table, sleeves pushed up around his elbows and papers spread about him.

You dutifully take a sip, something restless growing calm in the back of your skull.

You eye is forearms, hoping the look-over you’re giving them is subtle. (It probably isn’t, but come on. A button down with the sleeves rolled up while you’re wearing his sweater is practically sinful.)

“Do you… want the lights turned back on? I’m awake now, so.”

He flips over a piece of paper, then scribbles something on a sticky note. “You were sleeping. And you have a headache. I can see just fine.”

“My headache isn’t that bad, really, I’m fi—“

He levels you with a look, and you sink a little lower in your chair. “Do you at least want your sweater back?”

“No. Keep it.”

“Careful, maybe I’ll just keep it forever,” You joke.

“I’d be fine with that.”

What. The. Fuck.

You stand, pushing out the chair with a loud screech. “I’m just gonna— bathroom,” You splutter, your face blazing and stomach doing a gymnastics routine, “I’m gonna use the bathroom. Bye.”

You’re screaming internally the entire way to the bathroom, and once you get there, open-mouthed silent screaming in the privacy of a stall.

Because. He said. He didn’t even look up. He just. And he. Maybe he—

No, no, no. You are not about to entertain that notion. Not again. He was just being nice. That’s all. That’s all.

Collecting yourself takes about five more minutes, and then you’re walking back to the conference/briefing room when you realize you never took the damn sweater off. He watched you scramble out of that room to the bathroom he has to know you weren’t using, with his sweater on.

This is the end for you, then. That’s it. It’s over.

You mentally slap yourself. Get it together. It’s fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

You re-enter the room marginally calmer than you left it. You slide into your seat, sip your tea (that he made you!) and keep working on the case.

You pretend you can’t see him smirking from across the table.

—

The case doesn’t last too long. The team catches the guy in the act of beating his next victim. Thankfully, you manage to save the poor woman before he finishes his plan, and with being caught red-handed, it’s fairly open and shut. Case closed. Which is great, because you really aren’t sure how many more nights you can suffer through trying to sleep in the hotel bed.

You have this thing, when you’re sick. You can’t sleep anywhere but the couch. Your couch. You figured (apparently foolishly) that it wouldn’t be too bad, since the crux of the issue is that you hate sleeping in your bed when you’re sick, but no. You’d spent every night of the case tossing and turning and coughing yourself out. Your lungs were tired. Your body was tired. You were tired.

Spencer raises an eyebrow at you when you board the jet. “You haven’t been near-overdosing on cough syrup again have you?”

“No,” You grouse, rubbing your face with your hand. “I’m like, not even sick anymore. I just didn’t sleep well.” For several nights in a row.

“Mmm,” He hums, non-committal.

You practically collapse into your usual seat on the jet, hunching in yourself and attempting to make yourself comfortable in the seat.

You blink your eyes open when you feel the seat jostle next to you. “Reid?”

He’s already pulling out a book. “What?”

“This isn’t your seat.”

“We don’t have assigned seats.”

“No, but you always sit over there.”

“And now I’m sitting here.”

You narrow your eyes at him, trying to decide if you want to argue him on the point or not. You decide against it, because arguing will draw attention to the fact that you’re sitting next to each other having this conversation at all.

You settle back into your seat. “Whatever. Hope you’re not a loud page-turner.”

“Is that even a thing?”

You shrug, eyes falling shut again.

After a few minutes, you shiver, unconsciously scooting closer to the warmth of the person next to you, your sleep-addled brain barely processing the fact that it’s Spencer you’re pressing your shoulder into.

He repositions next to you, shoulder jostling you. You grumble, dropping your head to his arm. Now much closer, your nose fills with the smooth, all encompassing smell that is Spencer.

The dull chatter that fills the plane, the warm body next to yours, and, despite your earlier complaints, the quiet, gentle page-turning lull you into an easy sleep.

—

“Are you drugging her or something? I’ve seen her sleep more this week than I have in her entire time on the team.”

“The only drugging she’s done was voluntary.”

“Her neck is going to be so sore when she wakes up.”

“Sore? Mine would be broken if I did that.”

“Ah, the joys of youth.”

A beat passes. Then another.

“She’s a bit young, don’t you think?”

“Emily don’t start—“

“Just saying, Spence. HR would get a kick out of this.”

“Not like it never happens. We’ve all walked into supply closet B at the wrong time.”

“This isn’t meaningless sex though.”

“…No.”

Silence.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

A deft hand re-adjusts your head to a more comfortable angle. “I will be.”

—

Landing jolts you into wakefulness and off Spencer’s shoulder. It’s not embarrassing. It’s not. It’s only weird if you make it weird.

When you’re all back at HQ, you pull Hotch aside.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

He nods. “In my office.”

You stalk up the stairs, aware of the eyes following your back. You step into the office, shutting the door behind you and pretending it doesn’t feel like sealing your doom.

He sits, gesturing for you to do so too, but you shake your head.

“I won’t be long. I just wanted to apologize.”

He blinks. “For?”

“I shouldn’t have come in. I was a liability, and it was unprofessional. Next time I’ll act with more discretion.”

Selfish, Your mother’s words echo in your head, your father’s words following suit: Try harder.

He laces his fingers together, resting him on his desk.

“Do you know why I chose you?”

“Because Reid was gone, and you needed a ge— someone smart.”

“Every member of my team is intelligent. That’s not why I chose you.”

He reaches down, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a newspaper clipping.

Your breath hitches when you read the words on it.

“Garcia found it,” He says, scanning the piece of paper. “‘Professor’s Assistant saves college class from school shooter’. You were sixteen.”

You look down at your shoes. “It was the scariest moment of my life. I didn’t— he came in, and I was behind the door getting paper, and he didn’t see me. He… I knew people would die if I didn’t do something. I tackled him. He shot me twice before I managed to kick the gun away. I almost bled out.”

He nods, putting the clipping down. “That’s who I chose. Not the genius. Not the consulting data analyst. Someone who wants to help people.”

He puts the clipping back in his drawer. “I’m not going to write you up for not having a healthy work-life balance. No one in this bureau does, and if they say they do, they’re lying.”

You sigh, rubbing at your face. “Now I look stupid for asking to talk.”

“It’s not an imposition. You’re a member of my team. That makes your wellbeing when you’re on the job my responsibility.”

Unable to form a response to that, you manage to stutter out a thank you, and then flee from his office, collapsing into your chair at your desk with a sigh.

A mug is set in front of you. Different mug, same tea, same hand.

“I think you need to reevaluate your opinion of Hotch and what kind of person you think he is.”

You take the mug with a glare. “I was reasonably concerned.”

“You thought you were going to get written up for coming to work sick?”

“It was a logical conclusion to draw,” You pause, taking a sip of the tea, which is just as good as it was last time. Actually, it’s slightly sweeter, and it soothes your throat more. “And stop profiling me. What’d you put in this?”

“Stop being so easy to profile,” Spencer says, crossing his arms. “Honey. They didn’t have any at the station.”

It’s quiet for a few moments: him staring at you, you pretending he’s not staring and sipping your tea.

“You should go home.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re still sick. Don’t tell me you just can’t wait to write all this paperwork.”

“Maybe I am.”

“No you’re not,” He picks up your jacket from where it’s hanging off the side of your cubicle and plops it in your lap. “Go home. I’ll sick Hotch on you.”

You stand, shrugging your jacket on and pointing an accusing finger at him. “You’re a cruel man.”

“Mhm. Sure. Go home.”

You grumble all the way to the door, but quiet when you look back to see him watching you fondly. He gives you a little two finger wave, and with the sheer amount of heat that rushes to your cheeks, you have no choice but leave immediately.

Stupid genius co-workers.

—

The next week brings wellness and a lull in cases.

Unfortunately, that also means you don’t have an excuse to put off your paperwork any longer.

Spencer taps the top of it with a slender finger. “Did it get bigger since the last time I saw it?”

He’s hanging around your desk for… some reason. He came to drop off paperwork from your last case, and then stuck around for some unknown purpose.

“No,” You groan, setting your mug of coffee aside and grabbing the first paper off the stack. “Still the same pile I’m procrastinating on.”

“Good luck,” He huffs, finally turning and walking back to his own desk. It’s still in your eyeline, if you crane your neck a little.

You sigh, grabbing your earbuds from your desk, knowing you can’t put the paperwork off any longer. You’re pretty sure Records is going to start sending you death threats soon.

Making your way through the pile is slow going. It’s terrible. The only part of working with the BAU you hate is the paperwork. It’s tedious and never-ending and it always gives you a headache.

The only times you get up are to use the bathroom and get more coffee. JJ kindly tells you that you should probably leave your mug in the break room after your sixth or so trip. Spencer, somehow, appears in the room, and rattles off the symptoms of caffeine overdose.

You leave the mug there.

You continue working well after everyone else leaves. It gets dark, people go home, office lights go off, and while the pile has largely decreased in size, it’s still not finished.

You have to finish. Hotch had made an offhand comment about turning in your paperwork on time and now you have to finish it. To show him you’re not lazy.

You’ve only got a little bit of paperwork left when a hand taps you on your shoulder.

You yank your earbuds out, blinking blearily. “Wha?”

Spencer’s face swims into view. “Come on, time to go home.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you didn’t fall asleep and forget to go home. They do lock the doors at a certain point. Ask me how I know.”

Your brain is moving like sludge, and it takes you several minutes to process what he says. He continues standing in front of you, patiently waiting for you to respond.

“But… the paperwork.”

“Will be here tomorrow. Come on, up we go.”

You whine as he takes your hands, hauling you to your feet. You attempt to scrub the sleep out of your eyes while messily moving papers about so your desk doesn’t look like a copy machine threw up all over it.

He pushes your jacket into your hands and you shrug it on, grumbling all the way through the doors and out to the parking lot, Spencer in tow. He follows dutifully behind you, and everytime you look back at him to voice your complaints all he does is smile.

“It’s cold.”

“That does tend to happen in winter.”

When you get to your car, he reaches out, tugging on your wrist.

“Hey,” He says, looking down at you, eyes deep pools of some emotion you can’t identify, “Drive safe, okay? It’s icy.”

“My commute isn’t that bad. And I’m,” You break off with a huge yawn. “Not even that tired.”

“That doesn’t inspire much confidence, smarty-pants.”

“Oh, so we’re locked into the smarty-pants thing, huh?”

“Yep.” He says, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and popping the P.

“Well then what am I supposed to call you? Robot-Reid?”

“How about Spencer?”

His words hang in the night air, mingling in the puffs of air from both of your mouths.

“…What rhymes with Spencer?”

“Sensor, denser, dispenser—“

“Dis-Spencer,” You say, smiling to yourself. “I like the sound of that one.”

“You know dis comes from—“

“The latin word dis, and the prefix is used to denote a reversal of absence of an action, expressing negation, or expressing completeness or intensification of an unpleasant or unattractive action.”

He chuckles, smiling down at his shoes. “That’s why you’re the smarty-pants.”

“Oh please. You know all of that and then some.”

He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not.”

You both stand in the cold of the parking lot, neither willing to leave yet.

Before you can think better of it, you dart forward, throwing your arms around Spencer’s neck and mumbling “Goodnight, Dis-Spencer.”

You step away quickly, awkwardly giving him a small wave before hurrying into your car and driving away.

Smooth.

—

The next case is… really rough.

Two spree killers, working as a team. A father and a son; the son was groomed into the lower position.

Not anything you haven’t seen before. Trained for. Studied.

No amount of studying could have prepared you for the cold grip of dread that gripped your throat like a vice when you finally confronted the unsubs, and heard eerily familiar words uttered from the father:

“You’re a good for nothing son! I wouldn’t have had to do this if you weren’t such a disappointment of a child! Why couldn’t you have just been more like your siblings?”

The son was killed before anyone could intervene.

Wrapping up the case left you shaken— you’d watched with hollow eyes as the boy’s body was zipped in a body bag.

A hand landing roughly on your shoulder shoves awareness back into your body and you flinch, hard, whirling around with your shoulders raised to meet the oncoming threat.

Only it’s not a threat. It’s Hotch. And he looks concerned.

You force your body to relax. “I’m sorry, I’ll go help question the rest of the family—“

“Are you okay?”

You blink. “What?”

“Are you alright?” He asks again.

“Yeah, I’m, I’m okay. It just… reminded me of something.”

Hotch purses his lips but doesn’t say anything. He looks he’s going to say something, but then decides against it.

“Help Reid get the last of the evidence. Once you two are finished head back to the station. We’ll meet you there.”

You nod, inwardly relieved about not having to deal with the family members. You might start actually crying.

You sidle up to Spencer who’s tagging blood splatters on the carpet. He wordlessly hands you a pair of gloves. He doesn’t ask. You don’t tell.

You work side by side for the better part of two hours, occasionally conversing with the local police or helping the crime scene investigators tag evidence.

If he knows what’s bothering you, he doesn’t say. You wouldn’t have an answer anyway. You’re far too gone in your own head.

You follow Spencer to the break room back at the station, watching him quietly make two mugs of tea. He presses one into your hands with a gentle command to let it cool for a few minutes. The mug is warm in your hands. Spencer is standing next to you, a mug of his own in his hands. Your parents aren’t here. You’re fine.

You chant this mantra in your head while you wait for the rest of the team to come back.

Your parents aren’t here. You’re fine.

Spencer doesn’t ask before sitting next to you on the jet. He just does. He hands you a book, then opens his own.

You don’t read a single page. He must know. Still, he says nothing, just presses a little closer to you when he sees your hands shaking.

The team gives the two of you space when you finally land. You stumble off the jet, trip backpack slung over your shoulder, legs wobbly and breath uneven.

You’re not sure why the case upset you this much. Your parents don’t upset you this much. They just— they make the same kind of comments, and so did that father, except now his son is dead because he killed him—

“Hey,” Hotch approaches you slowly, makes sure you can see him. You hate that he feels the need to do so. “Take tomorrow off. Stay home. Recuperate.”

“I’m fi—“

“We all have tough missions and I would do the same for any agent,” He says, clasping you gently on the shoulder. “Besides. We both know you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Your lips twitch. “Isn’t there a rule against profiling each other?”

“That rule is for all of you. Not me.”

He gives your shoulder one last squeeze before departing.

You manage to haul yourself into HQ and out to the parking lot, cursing as your cold fingers fumble with your keys. Frustrated tears begin to well in your eyes and you press the heels of your hands to your face, sucking in a shuddering breath and begging it all to just stop.

Someone gently pries your hands open, pulling your keys out of your clenched grip. Your shoulders shake as you heave, gasping for cold night air that burns on the way down.

A hand finds its way to the back of your head, pressing it forward into something warm and solid. Another arm wraps around your waist, keeping you close, while the hand on your head drifts down to your neck, squeezing and rubbing intermittently.

“I’m sorry,” You cry, rubbing your face and smearing your tears across your hands, “I don’t know why, it just—“

“You don’t need a reason,” Spencer says, spreading his hand out wide so it covers the entire nape of your neck, “Sometimes it all just gets to you.”

You nod into his chest, lowering your hands from his face to wrap around his torso, clutching it like a lifeline.

“I don’t want to go home tonight,” You whisper, ashamed. “I’ll dream of it. And them. And it’ll be cold and alone—“

“Come home with me,” He says, voice a little breathless while he holds you closer, “Come home with me.”

He says the last part a little desperate.

You sniff. “Okay.”

You hesitantly pull away from the hug, but not before Spencer’s hand moves from your neck to your face, his thumb brushing away the tear tracks on your face. He drops his head down, and you feel the gentlest brush of lips against the skin in between your eyebrows.

“Let’s go home.”

He tugs you along by the hand, helping you into his little old car, tucking your bags into the backseat. He lets the radio play softly while he drives, loud enough to quiet your thoughts a bit but not so loud as to overwhelm you.

He helps you out of the car when you arrive to the apartment building, carrying one of your bags up the stairs- you’d insisted on carrying the rest of your stuff.

He unlocks the apartment door, ushering you into the warmth and comfort that is Spencer’s home.

It’s exactly like you pictured, if not tidier. A bit more modern than you’d imagined. Books are everywhere of course, but so are knick-knacks and trinkets and other little bits of things that are so decidedly Spencer. There’s even a quilt on the couch.

He sets your bag down by the door. “The shower is down that hall to the left. Use whatever products you need to. Do you have any clothes to change into?”

You chew on the inside of your lip. “In my luggage, yeah, but they need to be washed.”

“I can put them in the wash while you shower. In the meantime, you can borrow something of mine.”

You shuffle in place. “I don’t wanna impose—“

“Please let me do this for you.”

The raw, rough edge to his tone makes you pause. You nod in acquiescence.

He takes your hand in his again, tugging you into his bedroom. With one hand, he opens drawers, handing you his smallest pair of sweatpants, and a large, worn, and incredibly soft Caltech sweatshirt.

“I’ll have to cuff these,” You mumble when he hands you the sweatpants, “My legs are half the length of yours.”

“You’ll make it work, I’m sure. Now shoo. I’ll have laundry and food finished when you get out of the shower.”

The bathroom, like the rest of the house, is clean and neat, and to your relief, houses more than just a five-in-one in the shower. Spencer actually owns multiple products for you to choose from and it hits you while you’re lathering the body wash you chose because of how good it smelled that you’re in Spencer’s shower, showering with his body wash, about to put on his clothes.

You’re going to smell like him. His clothes will smell like him. Everywhere in the apartment smells like him.

You decide to blame the near permanent flush on your cheeks on the heat from the shower.

When you exit the shower, fresh and drowning in Spencer’s clothes, he’s standing at his kitchen island, putting the final touches on two bowls of soup.

You almost tear up again. “You made me soup?”

“It’s widely regarded as a comfort food for people who are ill or otherwise sad, and is most commonly made in the wintertime.”

He gives you a little jazz hand, gesturing to the soup as if saying ta-da!

You really do tear up then.

He’s in front of you in an instant, hands poised to help. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Do you not like soup? I can make something else, or we can order in, or—“

You scrub at your face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “You’re just, you’re just really sweet.”

His face softens. “Oh, honey.”

He envelops you in the second hug of the night, except this time you’re crying in earnest now. Your crying about your parents, about the nights you went to bed hungry because your Dad told that you were smart, and to figure something out, but you were too young to work any of the kitchen appliances. You’re crying about your first best friend, who ditched you the second your brother asked her out. You’re crying about all the classes and friendships you missed out on while you were in the hospital with gunshot wounds. You’re crying about how your parents didn’t visit you once. Not even when you were in the ICU.

Spencer holds you through it all, a steady rock against the battering waves crashing in your head.

After a few minutes, you wear yourself out, quieting down to sniffling, your shoulders hitching.

He pulls back, studying your face. “Are you ready to eat some soup now?”

You nod, blinking the final tears out of your eyes. “I got snot on your shirt.”

“That’s why we invented washing machines.”

He keeps up a stream of idle chatter while you eat, explaining all the different major soups in the world and where they came from. It’s a balm against your weary mind, lulls you into peace and safety.

Or maybe that’s just the effect Spencer has on you.

When you finish your food, he takes your bowl, deposits it in the sink, and then takes your hand and leads you to his bedroom.

“I don’t have a guest room, so you can take the bed,” He says, voice soft. “There’s extra blankets in the closet next to the bathroom if you get cold.”

He turns to leave, but a stab of panic slices down your chest, and your hand is reaching out and grabbing his wrist before you can stop yourself.

He pauses, turning back around. “You want me to stay?”

You take your lip between your teeth. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He studies you in the dark of the room— clad in his clothes, face puffy from crying.

The muscles in his jaw work.

“I can’t do this platonically. If we do this—“

You surge up on your toes, grabbing his face and smashing your lips together so quickly your teeth clack.

He goes rigid, then kisses your right back, hands coming up to cup your face, squeeze your neck, smooth over your shoulders.

You pull away first, looking at him through your lashes with hazy eyes. “I can’t do this platonically either.”

He traces the planes of your face with his thumb. “You have no idea how long and how much I’ve wanted to have you right here, just like this.”

“Crying and sad?”

“Dressed in my clothes, in my apartment, in my bed.”

You pause. “You know, tonight, I can’t, I’m not going to have—“

“I’m not interested in sex with you tonight,” He says, reading your mind, “I just want to get that empty look in your eyes gone.”

“Just?”

“Well,” He says, tugging you down onto the bed with him, crawling under the covers and covering you both, “There are other things. A lot of other things, Like this,”

He presses a kiss to your forehead.

“And this,”

He pulls you flush against him under the covers, tucking your head under his chin.

“But mostly this.”

He presses one last kiss to the crown of your head.

“Really?”

“Really.”

It’s quiet for a moment before his voice breaks the silence.

“After I got out, all I wanted was something soft and gentle. Having something, someone soft and lovely to hold was all I looked forward to. And then I came back and I met you, with your polite introductions and the way you care so deeply about so much and I knew. I knew who I wanted to hold.”

“Wow,” You breathe, “Yours sounds so poetic. Mine is much less so.”

“Mmm,” He hums, “And what might that be?”

You press your face against his chest and mumble so quietly you’re wondering if he can ever hear you:

“I just wanted you to choose me. I wanted to be someone’s first choice.”

He’s so quiet after that you think he must not have heard you.

You’re on the verge of sleep when you hear his whisper:

“There couldn’t be anyone else for me.”

જ⁀➴

EDIT: if you want to be tagged in the sequel when it’s posted, please comment “tag me please!” or some variation of THE POST LINKED HERE !! if you comment asking for a tag on this post, you will not be added to the tag list. tag lists are hard to keep track of, so please keep them all in one place !! :)

[cripplecharacters]

Can people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or joint hypermobility do martial arts?

Hey!

As for the EDS part, it will depend on the specific type. There's 13 of them, and a lot of them will have hypermobility as a symptom, but many will also have unrelated symptoms that will make someone unable (or less able) to do that kind of activity. EDS=/=hEDS.

To literally go type by type;

aEDS can come with both low muscle tone and motor delay.

BCS actually only has hypermobility as a potential factor since people who are blind and/or deaf can very much do martial arts.

cvEDS comes with cardiac problems; I won't pretend like a know a whole lot about this one (because I don't), but this generally means fatigue, shortness of breath, etc., which will disqualify a lot of people from martial arts.

cEDS doesn't have any of the issues mentioned above, instead even minor traumas can result in atrophic scarring here. If they did martial arts they would have a lot of that I assume.

clEDS, hEDS, pEDS just have the joint hypermobility and/or instability (as far as the relevant symptoms go) to my understanding.

dEDS mostly has the extreme skin fragility, but also heavily increased risk of hemorrhages, shorter limbs (which you can do martial arts with, but you're definitely at a disadvantage), potential motor delay, etc.

kEDS is similar to aEDS in that it comes with both motor delay and low muscle tone, but it also has increased risk of arterial tears and aneurysyms which is almost definitely a "no" for contact sports.

mcEDS comes with contractures (as the c in the name implies), muscle weakness (as the m in the name implies), motor delay (not all people with mcEDS will be able to walk independently for example), etc.

mEDS has the m for myopathy, but it can also cause contractures, muscle atrophy, motor delay, joint instability, etc.

spEDS can come with so many things - low muscle tone, contractures, limited arm rotation, motor delay, bones that fracture more easily, etc.

vEDS is probably the one least likely to allow a person to do martial arts since the aneurysm/rupture/dissection risk would be through the roof. That can kill someone very, very fast. There are more symptoms of course, but this alone probably makes the answer a "no".

There are also other conditions that come with hypermobility that aren't anywhere on the EDS spectrum and there it will be on a case-by-case basis as well. People with Marfan syndrome will have cardiovascular problems and might be unable to do that kind of stuff, while someone with a different disorder might have no issues at all.

Obviously there is also the topic of chronic pain that a lot of people with hypermobility-associated conditions have (not so much hypermobility alone). For some people the amount of pain they're in will make them unable to do martial arts, for some it won't be an issue. It's very personal. The same goes for fatigue; it can present very widely between people with the same disorder.

It does also depend on where the person's hypermobility is. I can't really imagine that someone with craniocervical instability would do wrestling (I could be wrong, of course) while someone who's "only" dislocating their digits could probably do every martial art that's out there since despite being painful it probably won't kill them. Not everyone has hypermobility that affects literally every joint in their body.

Not every person with hypermobility will also be dislocating their joints (or only specific ones, for example), but the effects of dislocations also depends on the person. Some people just fix it themselves on the go and move on like it's no big deal, others need professional medical help. Here it also kinda matters what kind of martial art you mean - in regulated fights, if someone does dislocate something, the fight stops until the problem is fixed. In street fights, it obviously doesn't.

So I guess the answer is: maybe? IDK? It depends on what your character actually has. If they only have hypermobility (that's not in the neck), they probably can do whatever - and if they have vEDS they probably shouldn't.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[luffyvace]

Hello, could I request Feitan with a reader who looks innocent and angelic usually but is actually just as sick and sadistic as he is? (Aka it's like a secondary persona kind of)

And she's also part of an organization(that kills people) without him knowing (she was part of it even before meeting him)

Ouuuu an interesting reader we have here~

Seeing as though all the feitan gifs are generic fighting ones I’ve put my own picture :) I think it’s hilarious 😂

enjoy your headcanons lovely anon! 💗

(fem! reader implied bc you used ‘she’ in your request but I won’t imply female body just in case)

Feitan getting with an angelic and innocent s/o is certainly an oxymoron

Your such a sweetheart, so thoughtful and kind

you always try to help and encourage others as much as you can

:)

But in reality no?? really your such a sick and twisted sadist who loves watching every moment of others suffering???

welp that went down the drain quickly

feitan might have picked up on the fact that it was all an act or your slightly sadistic tendencies

especially since he’s highly observant

Though I’m not sure how you revealed your in a organization or if you knew he was in the troupe but it probably went like

”your in a criminal organization? Oh…me too” 🧍‍♀️

“Wait what?” 🧍‍♀️

“so we’re both in criminal organizations of the sort?”

🧍‍♀️ 🧍‍♀️

well I guess its all out in the open now

as soon as he figures out your a sadist tho

its on

torture sessions become even more frequent seeing as though he now has someone to enjoy it with

he finds it rather fun to have someone laugh manically with him and not call him a loony 🤓

he’s grateful even

the victims really range from anyone off the street

to enemies from either of your organizations

maybe even someone who gave you a hard time

(they simply bumped into you, you apologized like the “sweet” person you are, but they had no idea what was coming for em that night)

(for fei, they probably mocked him)

you and feitan either have a dedicated torture room or have turned you basement/attic into one

and it definitely has a lock on it

feitan will recommend you some books and you likely do the same for him

(by some i mean you have a whole library shelf—who are you fooling 🤨)

you two make as much time for each other as you can

which yes torturing together counts as quality time

and y’all see it as a sense of normalcy too

wherever y’all stay you just be like

”hey wanna have a quick torture session then find something to eat for dinner?”

like it’s like going about normal daily activities for you two

it also feels good to have someone that gets you from the outside

like your both dangerous criminals,

that likely grew up in harsh conditions

(bc i mean come on mass murders have triggers/motivs they don’t just do things for no reason)

and now you have someone from outside your organization that gets you!

like, they even like torturing just like you!!

best s/o feitan could wish for

as time goes on you two would find out why you joined the organizations you did and if you genuinely enjoy it, just doing it for the money, etc

no matter the reasons or time, you accept each other :)

this also appeals more trustworthy to feitan!! Since your in one yourself, you can’t sell out feitan without selling out yourself!

😋

but…that could go downhill..

for example, your organization could be trying to target feitan/the troupe and is making you use him to get to them

As time goes on he shakes away the thought, it’s probably been years (when feitan’s down, he’s down for the count, he doesn’t do flings, in my hcs) since you’ve been together so he wants to trust you

basically the further things go in with you two, the more he trusts you

of course you have to make sure to give him reasons to trust you and don’t give him any reason not to

he’ll start getting suspicious of you even on the first slip up

(if it happens)

he has to protect the spider, there’s no way he can let it fall because of him

orrrr!!!

your organizations could meet! And form a alliance that may or may not be temporary/strictly business!!

it would be fun seeing all members together drinking and wrecking havoc!!

right?!

😊

LOL just imagine your all casually talking about such violent and socially unacceptable crimes 🤪

especially you and feitan

you guys are so silly

just a silly little group of friends :)

planning to commits fiendish acts together<3

honestly I like the last scenario the best

its so silly :P

I’m glad to see more feitan stans on my page!! thank you for requesting, hopefully you enjoyed!

💖

[jishyucks]

Happy Holidays! The Universe Hates Me. — hrj

‣ pairing: huang renjun x reader

‣ genre: fluff, academic-rivals-to-(implied)lovers, forced proximity, kinda slice-of-life

‣ wc: 3.7k

‣ summary: You don’t hate many things, but you could proudly say that you hate snow and Huang Renjun. And now that the universe has decided that it was a great idea to have you snowed in with the smartass himself, you’ll gladly add the universe to that list.

‣ warnings: slightly one-sided rivalry (more so Renjun’s developed feelings before reader so he’s acting on it before reader even gets what they’re feeling), the pair eat some cup ramen, set in that weird period where they dk how they feel

‣ an: I rly thought this was going to be easy to write but sike (⊙_⊙) ig its bc its basically e2l and these r difficult to write,, I was excited to write Renjun's but idk if I did my own idea justice,, anyways I hope it's still a fun read!

Series Masterlist

You’ve never been so nervous for a final in your life.

Sure, you didn’t find the content difficult, nor did you feel lost. Hell, if you were asked to explain the content with no aids, you can confidently do it. 

The only reason why you were so nervous for a damn final was because you knew that Huang Renjun was going to do better than you. Why? You’re not sure. But you had this gut feeling that his name was going to be listed right above yours on that stupid list and you were not going to let that happen. 

“You need to go home soon, okay?” Karina frowns. She’s all bundled up, a scarf tightly wrapped over her face to shield her from Jack Frost. She knows how much of a workaholic you were, especially when it came to Renjun, “It’s getting late. It’s already dark out and there’s no one else here. Text me when you get home.”

You nod, “I will, I promise. I’ll just finish this last lesson and then I’ll leave. I’m hungry, anyway.” 

Her stern expression softens underneath her scarf and she teasingly ruffles your hair, “Talk to you later, honeybun.” 

You wave and watch her leave before turning back to the scattered papers in front of you, your laptop burning holes in your eyes because you’ve been staring at it for way longer than a physician’s recommendation. The final was on physics, something that wasn’t your strongest suit. It was probably because the way your teachers decided to word the questions on exams screwed you over—but then again, you couldn’t blame your struggles on that. 

Maybe you did just suck at physics. 

Your eyes scanned the lesson you were currently studying, quietly reading it under your breath so that you could process the information—critical threshold… velocity… laminar to turbulent… fluid and momentum… the dissipation of energy…

“Ughhhh!” 

Your heart drops to your stomach, eyes almost slipping out of their sockets at the sound of another person groaning. You clearly remember Karina just saying that there wasn’t anyone else here. 

Then who in the actual fuck…

Your mind jumps to conclusions and thinks up the worst-case scenario. It could be a ghost… were you Scrooge and the ghosts here to visit you? No fucking way… you loved Christmas… Or it could be a murderer. But what kind of murderer groans before he reaches his target?

Using this as an excuse to procrastinate, you quietly push your chair away from the table and stand up. You can recall that the groaning echoed from the back of the library, so you begin making your way down to the back of the room. Your attempt to keep your footsteps quiet, barely lifting them off from the ground.

You guess you were making your way in the correct direction because now you can hear the sound of muffled music. You suppose it was coming out of the other person’s headphones. 

As you approach the end of one of the aisles of books, you bend over and peek through the cracks between the books. Your eyes betray you, not focusing on the figure sitting at one of the tables because the books are in the way. Leaning closer, you squint to get a better look at the figure studying, head bopping to the music blaring through their headphones. 

Who is that?

When your eyes finally adjust, you curse under your breath.

Personally, you would rather it be a murderer on the other side of the shelf. 

Because Huang Renjun of all people? Here? With you? Did the universe hate you or something?

You let out a faint groan, squeezing your eyes before you go to turn back to your table. 

Of course, Huang Renjun would be here and studying late. There’s a small tiny part of you that wasn’t even surprised that Renjun was the only other person at school at this hour. There was a reason why you felt like he was seriously going to do better than you on this physics final. He worked for it despite being naturally intelligent. 

“Fucking Huang Renjun,” you gently let your forehead fall forward, making a gentle thud against the table. Fucking Huang Renjun because, suddenly, you no longer feel hungry and you now desperately wanted to finish a week’s worth of content before leaving. Sure the idea was immature—doing all this for some guy who thought he was smarter than everyone else—but you couldn’t help it. This was how it’s been since junior high. 

And old habits die hard, right?

For the next 2 hours, you push yourself to study for the stupid final, eyes straining as you continuously shift them between your laptop screen and your papers. And you say push yourself because now that you had the knowledge that Renjun was sitting metres away from you, you somehow could not focus for the life of you. It was like he had cast some spell on you to do anything but focus on physics. 

You groan. You have been reading the same paragraph on boundary layers for the past ten minutes, now hyper-aware of Renjun, and words blurring together. Despite your efforts, your mind wanders, and occasional stolen glances in his direction betray your attempts at concentration.

With an irritated sigh, you shake your head, attempting to bring yourself back to the task at hand. Why the fuck is Renjun occupying so much of your headspace?

Feeling defeated, you reach forward, roughly shutting your laptop closed before you begin bunching your papers up together. Not a single fibre in your body even cared if it was organized or not—that was for you to worry about later—because you just wanted out of here and away from Renjun before he completely plagues your mind. 

Finally, you throw your bag over your shoulder and begin making your way out of the library. 

Meanwhile, Renjun, who was managing well with his work catches sight of your figure leaving, winter coat zipped up to your nose. 

“Wait, Y/N!” 

You turn back to find Renjun pushing his seat back, getting up to make his way towards you. 

“Ugh,” you roll your eyes. You continue making your way out of the room, ignoring Renjun’s calls for you to stop. 

The mature response would be to, well, stop and listen, but after Renjun just indirectly wasted 2 hours of your life trying to absorb some information on physics, you didn’t want anything to do with him. You just wanted to go home and eat, before you pull another all-nighter to make up for the lost time. 

“Y/N!” 

You were jogging now, treating the situation like Renjun was some kind of monster coming after you. It was odd that Renjun was keeping up with you, tailing you like he was one of those salesmen trying to get you to try a sample of their product. 

You’re relieved when you see the front doors of the school ahead of you, streetlights illuminating through the small half-windows. You feel your feet pick up its pace, eager to finally get out of the building and get fresh air. 

“Y/N!” Renjun’s out of breath, “You can’t leave!” He reaches out and quickly grabs your wrist. The contact causes shivers to run up your arm and you’re quick to pull your limb back. 

Brows furrowed, you sent him daggers through your glare, “And why not?” 

Renjun fishes his phone out from his hoodie pocket and he holds it up despite you not being close enough to see anything on it, “The news. All the roads are closed. No cars on the roads. We’re stuck in here until they say everything’s clear.” 

“You’re lying.” Your stubborn ass refuses to believe Renjun. 

Renjun huffs, “Just check it for your fucking self if you don’t want to believe me.” His arms crossed and he pushes all his weight onto one leg. 

Reluctant to look stupid, you slowly pull your own phone out. You realize that you actually haven’t looked at any notifications lately, all your focus directed toward studying. When you finally look at your phone, you’re met with tens of notifications, both from the news app and a handful from your family members and friends, mainly Karina, who are asking if you’re going home soon or if you’ve gone home because of the news the city sent out about the roads. 

“And why didn’t you leave?” you say awkwardly, “When they sent the warnings out?” 

Renjun swallows his spit, “I didn’t see any of them either. I was too caught up with studying.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you mutter. The realization of the situation starts to sink in—you're trapped at school, possibly overnight, and your only company is Huang Renjun, the boy who’s decided to make himself the bane of your existence. Then, you find yourself teetering between relief that you're not alone and frustration that you're stuck with Huang Renjun of all people.

Your eyes flicker at Renjun, who’s waiting for you to say something to him. And you do, “This is all your fault!”

Renjun’s mouth falls open slightly, the space in between his eyebrows wrinkling at your accusation, “How the hell is this my fault? I didn’t tell the damn city to close the roads!” Renjun holds himself back from raising his voice, but the emptiness of the halls causes it to bounce off the walls. 

“If I hadn’t seen you studying and being the overachiever you are, I would have gone home earlier,” you argue back. The second it slips from your lips, you realize how stupid you actually sound—but you don’t say anything. Without saying another word, you push past Renjun intending to return your spot in the library. 

Renjun, however, isn't one to let things slide. He follows you back into the library, his frustration evident in the tight set of his jaw. "So, it's my fault you chose to stay? That you didn’t see the notifications?” 

You shoot him a glare over your shoulder, not slowing your pace. "I chose to stay because of you! Trying too hard being a model student." 

Despite it being pretty clear that the argument was childish and that it was going nowhere, you and Renjun were far too stubborn to back down. 

Renjun scoffs, catching up to you. "Trying too hard!? I study because I take my education seriously. Maybe if you put in half the effort I do, you wouldn't be lagging behind."

"Oh, spare me, Renjun.” Your blood boils at his condescending tone, whirling around to face him and eyes ablaze with frustration. "You're insufferable, you know that?"

This is where you can see Renjun physically falter. The stress in his brows goes slack and there’s a shift in his expression, “Insufferable? Y/N I—”

"Whatever, Renjun. I really don’t want to speak to you right now.” You roll your eyes and turn your back on him, “Now, If you’ll excuse me, I have a fucking final to study for.”

Ignoring his attempts to keep the conversation alive, you make your way back to your table, your anger simmering in your chest. Renjun watches you go, a mixture of annoyance and something else in his eyes.

The library becomes a battleground of silent tension, each of you (mostly you) seething in your own space.

You set your table back up the way it previously was. Then, you quickly send your friends and family texts explaining what had happened and why you weren’t home by now. 

You attempt to start where you left off, the words Boundary Layers practically taunting you at this point. The phrase is pissing you off and you’ve read it enough times for you to be able to recite the sentence from the textbook perfectly. 

Wave interference, you read, eyes blinking at the screen—something about paths intersecting and creating new patterns of unity… discord… 

You let your eyes do the rest of the scanning, not exactly absorbing any of the material before you move on. At this point, you feel like not studying entirely. Besides, you weren’t exactly in the right state of mind to be absorbing material. 

The clock at the front of the library reads 8:28 and you feel like taking a nap is the best idea right now. It’ll help you cool off, pull you back in the right headspace and perhaps help you with the all-nighter you’ll probably pull tonight. 

Twisting your body, you pull your jacket off of your chair, folding it to create a makeshift pillow. Sliding your things aside, you place the pillow in front of you and shimmy your butt back against the chair before leaning forward to rest your head against it. In all honesty, it wasn’t the most comfortable place to rest your head, but it will have to do for now. 

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The shuffling of feet and the clattering of objects woke you from your nap.

You don’t move, nor do you open your eyes, all you do is listen to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Through the fabric of your jacket, you can hear that Renjun is moving things around on your table and you can’t help but feel your anger shoot up. 

You keep your cool on the outside, pretending to stir in your sleep before you peek through half-opened eyelids. 

You’d honestly find this part funny if you were watching a drama. But the thing was, you weren’t watching a drama. And it was anything but funny. 

Slowly, you raise your head to get a better look at what Renjun was up to, fully expecting him to be messing with your belongings. You guess you were doing your job correctly because Renjun seems to not have noticed you looking at him. 

The scene (you embarrassingly admit) warms a piece of your heart just by a little bit—and you hate that it does.

Renjun’s trying to keep your papers organized, stacking them horizontally and then vertically to keep them grouped in the stacks you already had them in. He had even moved your laptop to a safer spot, off to the side. 

The reason why he was doing all this was sitting just across the table from you and to Renjun’s left. 

Two cups of instant ramen.

“What are you doing?'' Your voice comes out more hoarse than you’d like, but it was probably because you’ve been napping for what felt like an hour or two. 

Renjun freezes, lips parting slightly and eyes growing two times its size when he realizes that you’re awake. Sure, he would have had to wake you up sooner or later, but you waking up on your own wasn’t part of his plan. He should’ve done all this a bit quieter. 

“I…” He starts. Renjun gulps and pulls back, wringing his hands through sweater paws. 

You wait for him to give you a coherent reply, looking at him in hopes of forcing one out of him. 

Renjun’s at a loss for words, afraid that you wouldn’t quite get him if he explained his reasoning. He leans over and wraps his hand around one of the noodle cups, gently sliding it toward you. 

You blink at the steaming cup in front of you, caught between annoyance and a peculiar sense of gratitude. "Are you trying to make this situation bearable or something?" 

“Well it wouldn’t be fair competition if only I was able to eat, would it?” Renjun shrugs. From his hoodie pocket, Renjun pulls out a plastic fork wrapped in tissue, one he had probably taken from the cafeteria, and places it next to your cup of noodles, “Eat.” 

You blink at the noodles and eye the boy suspiciously, “You didn’t do anything to it, did you?” You mistrustfully pull the fork toward you, unwrapping it before you dip it into the soup. 

“Of course not… I’m not evil.” A scoff shoots out through Renjun’s nose. 

Renjun pulls out a chair from your table, taking a seat before pulling his own cup of noodles toward him. 

Your eyes linger on Renjun for a moment longer, contemplating whether or not you should believe him. Eventually, hunger wins over skepticism, and you take a cautious bite of the noodles. They taste surprisingly good, given the circumstances. 

For a while, there's a strange quiet as both of you focus on your meal. The only sounds are the occasional slurps and the storm outside rattling the windows. It's a bizarre scene, you and Renjun sharing instant ramen in the middle of the night, trapped at school. Who would have thought? 

As you dig into your food, you start feeling a shift in your mood. The annoyance from being woken up slowly turns into a grudging acknowledgement that Renjun tried to make things a bit less crappy. It's kind of funny when you think about it. You two had a small argument earlier, and now here you are, quietly sharing a meal. It's like an unspoken agreement, maybe a truce, even if neither of you is ready to admit it out loud.

Meanwhile, Renjun seems engrossed in his noodles, occasionally glancing in your direction as if gauging your reaction to the impromptu meal. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s not choosing to do so despite the tension that is usually present in your interactions being strangely minimal. 

Finally, you break the silence. "Where did you get the noodles?"

He looks at you, brows raising at your willingness to start a conversation. "It’s not my first time staying past dinner. I have a stash in my locker."

“Not surprised,” you mumble. You pick the cup up and bring the rim up to your lips. Tipping your head back, you take sips of the soup, feeling the warmth of the fluids fall into your stomach like a hug. 

“Oh, shut up,” Renjun groans, “Or else I’ll take the noodles back.”

“Lucky for me,” you look at him and laugh, “I’m finished.” When you plop the fork back into the cup, it makes that noise you hear when you scratch the cardboard. 

Renjun hums. "Well then, I guess you owe me one. After all, you're enjoying the hospitality of my secret noodle stash." 

You roll your eyes, trying to maintain a facade of annoyance, but there's a glint of amusement in your eyes. Of course, Renjun would take this opportunity to gain something for himself. It was such a Renjun move. It’s always been like this. "I could've survived just fine without your instant noodles."

He chuckles, taking the last slurp of his own noodles before he deems himself finished, too. "And yet, you still ate it all up like a starved puppy.” 

There’s a beat of silence before you lean forward, resting your head on your propped arm, “I guess I should say thank you, huh?” 

Renjun grins and you only notice it because it’s more evident in his eyes than it was on his lips. He was seemingly pleased with your acknowledgment, but he quickly covered it up with a nonchalant shrug, "Don't mention it.” His voice comes out soft, mirroring the setting, “If you passed out from hunger under my watch, wouldn’t want that tainting my ‘model student’ image.”

You give him a side-eye, feeling the sudden need to tease him, “Don’t lie, Huang Renjun, you secretly care about me.” The statement was mostly a joke, so you think nothing of it. You stack your empty cup onto Renjun’s and stand up to throw it out. You don’t notice the way Renjun freezes in his seat for half a second.

“And what if I did?” Renjun shrugs. He gulps and feels the sudden need to flee the situation—Why did he say that? 

You turn to face him, surprised by his response. Renjun's casual demeanour, though slightly defensive, holds a hint of genuineness. It's a side of him you're not used to seeing, and it catches you off guard. 

"What if you did what?" you ask, feigning ignorance to see if Renjun would elaborate. A part of you is afraid of what he’s going to say. 

“What if I did care about you?” Renjun’s playing with the corner of one of your papers, creating a sound that fills the silence between the two of you, “I don’t hate you as a person, you know… I get that we always compete in grades and extracurriculars but… I don’t hate you as a person.” 

The confession makes your heart skip a beat and you catch yourself beginning to chew on your bottom lip, something you do when you’re nervous. The unexpected sincerity in his words causes you to halt your own, a momentary pause in your banter. You've grown used to the constant back-and-forth, the verbal sparring that characterizes your interactions with Renjun. This, however, feels different. 

"You're messing with me, right?" you reply, half expecting him to smirk and dismiss the entire conversation as a joke.

“What do you think?” Renjun retorts. 

You take a moment to think everything through. You have a good feeling Renjun’s not joking, that he really doesn’t hate you as a person, and you can’t help but think about the other possibilities of what this meant. Then you think about how you feel towards Renjun because you guess you at least owed him that. 

“You don’t need to say anything now,” Renjun assures, “It’s… confusing. Even I'm still figuring things out… I just know that I don’t hate you.” 

"You're not as insufferable as I claim you are,” you begin cautiously, “But it pisses me off that you both distract and motivate me when it comes to school.” And this was true. Today was a good example of that, though you weren’t entirely sure where these stem from. 

Renjun raises an eyebrow, his lips curling into a half-smile. "I'll take that as a compliment.” 

You roll your eyes. "Don't get too ahead of yourself, Renjun. I’m just saying—” “—Saying that you like me more than you think you do?” Renjun interrupts, “I know, I know.”

Your eyes narrow at Renjun, “You wish.” 

A moment of understanding passes between you, and for the first time, the competitiveness in your dynamic softens. It's not yet a friendship, but it's a recognition that there's more to each other than the constant rivalry. 

Renjun laughs, which transitions into a yawn. He acknowledges your comment with a hum, “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up in a bit so I can study?”

You playfully roll your eyes, a small smile lingering on your lips. 

“Well it wouldn’t be fair competition if I didn’t, would it?”

tags: @tytrackfebreze @lovesuhng @hoonieji @niinjo @dinonuguaegi

an: the next few parts of the series might be posted a day late (until Felix,, but we'll see!). Next up is Jisung which I feel like will be ADORABLE. ty for taking the time to read! I would love to hear your thoughts even if its something short! hope you enjoyed it!

[literallyjusttoa]

My top 7 Apollo exes from Ancient Greece

DISCLAIMER: Though I have done a lot of research of mythology for this, it is based off of the riordanverse version of Apollo. I won't be acknowledging any awful implications in versions of these myths, not because I don't think they're important, but because it simply isn't a part of riordanverse Apollo's characterization in the books. Also I'm not going to mention Copollo. I love Copollo like the rest of you, but sadly that is a Rick Riordan exclusive, and also technically Commodus is an ex from Ancient Rome, not Ancient Greece :3

Ok with that out of the way lets talk obscure and non-obscure Apollo relationships

7. Apollo & Thyia

This one clocks in at number 7 because I love the idea behind it, but it is the most bare bones relationship myth wise. All we really know is Thyia is a priestess of Dionysus and she and Apollo maybe had a kid once. But like, the idea of Apollo dating his brother's priest? Hilarious, A+ stuff. Also, Thyia isn't just one of Dionysus' priests, she is THE priest of Dionysus. She runs his temple in central greece, is thought to have offered the first sacrifice to him, and might have been the first Maenad? Either way this relationship must have been insane. Also she's a nymph so she's definitely still kicking out there, would love for these two to meet again.

6. Apollo & Hyacinthus

Ok ok I know what y'all are thinking. Number 6?? This is like Apollo's number 1 most tragic relationship of all time!!! And yes as an angst lover I do enjoy the pain this relationship brings our boy, but I just feel like there's not many places to go with this relationship besides what we already have. Like Apollo and Hyacinthus were kind of the perfect couple. Which, like, great for them, but it doesn't give me much space to add anything? I guess, great ship, no notes.

5. Apollo & Hypermnestra (& Oikles)

Ok, half the reason this is here is because her name is Hypermnestra. Slay. But also this is a great place to bring up my favorite little headcanon. In a lot of Apollo's relationships, there will be a child, and myths will have different versions with different fathers. Some say it's Apollo, while other's say it's whoever he dated's husband. In this case, myths disagree on whether Amphiaraus was Apollo's son or the son of Hypermnestra's husband, king Oikles (Oikles??? I love these names). The implication here is infidelity, but I disagree. No, I think every time there's confusion over who parentage it's because Apollo was dating both the woman he's said to be with and her husband, and therefore no one knows who ended up, y'know, fathering the child. Anyways Apollo dated both Hypermnestra and Oikles and you can't convince me otherwise.

4. Apollo & Branchus

I like this relationship because in my mind, I always thought it was Apollo's first. In one version of their myth, it is said that Apollo met Branchus after leaving Delos as a dolphin, which I always thought implied this was soon after he established Delphi, which was really early on. Idk something about a young Apollo accidentally revealing his godliness to this boy he really likes is just so sweet to me. And he makes Branchus into a prophet, which is so cool! These two are cutie-patooties is what I'm saying.

3. Apollo & Kyparissos

C'mon, the man died of grief because his deer died. Throughout ToA we learn that deep down Apollo is a mushy ball of emotions and compassion, and that convinced me that these two spent 75% of their relationship crying over baby animals and pretty people. I love the idea of Apollo dating someone who's honestly just as much of a loser as he is. And while it is sad that Kyparissos is another lover Apollo had to turn into a plant, I have to emphasize again that he died of heartbreak, because his pet deer died.

2. Apollo & Cyrene

Listen, these two are boss bitches and you cannot convince me otherwise. In the same way I like Kyparissos bc I feel like he and Apollo are so similar, I like Cyrene bc I feel like, in a lot of ways, these two are very different. Like, don't get me wrong, Apollo can be strong and wild when he wants to be, but Cyrene wrestles lions. I like to think the time these two spent together really helped each of them grow in their own way, which makes for a really fun and interesting relationship. Also, just like Thyia, Cyrene is sometimes referred to as a nymph, so she could still be out there!

1. Apollo & Admetus

The more I think about these two, the more I love them. Admetus meeting Apollo at his lowest and helping him through it. Apollo falling head over heels as a result and doing everything in his power to repay the man. The two of them still holding such strong affection for each other even decades after the time they had together, to the point that Apollo would mess with fate to extend Admetus' life. Apollo's life is full of turmoil, and this period of it was probably the worst, but despite that, his relationship with Admetus seems so steady. The other gods are said to be embarrassed of Apollo's love of Admetus, and I think it's because Apollo loved him in a way that went directly against the values of the gods. Apollo and Admetus' relationship was defined by service and care, filled with selfless intent and genuine love. While many gods give their lovers gifts and special favors, the idea of actually going into servitude for someone you love is as ungodly as you can get. Apollo spent time with Admetus, and he wasn't possessive of him, helping him to find a wife after their time together was through. I think this relationship is a great example of how Apollo, even in his lowest moments, is a genuine and caring person, and how that often separates him from the rest of his family. Also these two are just cute and they both love cows and they're cows in love.

[seawitchkaraoke]

I hope you realize you're literally telling women they're hysterical for having issues with not being represented fairly by a large corporation. Like? That's unironically a thing you're doing. Be better friend come on.

i know i'm not always perfect at expressing myself but I'm pretty sure I'd remember calling anyone 'hysterical'. I'm not saying you're not allowed to be upset. I'm not saying you shouldn't wish for and ask for more representation. my main issue with a lot (not all!) of the posts I've seen about the topic are

a) that they're saying trans women are uniquely not getting represented on dropout unlike all the other minorities (or even saying they're getting zero rep at all) - not true, there's plenty of other minorities not getting a whole lot of rep. I don't recall any trans men on D20 for example though hey i might be forgetting someone. Really not many binary trans ppl in general.

and b) saying that the little transfemme rep must mean dropout ''hates'' trans women. I get in a lot of cases this is semantics and not smth the op actually believes but I've seen it expressed sincerely too and that one just has me puzzled. Why would they be cool with enby ppl but hate trans women? But I guess still hire Persephone multiple times to what, look better?

This kind of post might just be vent rants which hey, i get it, I do that too sometimes. But it's not particularly helpful or productive towards actually getting dropout to do better. (This ask is actually a good example of what bothers me bc you accused me of ''unironically'' and ''literally'' calling ppl hysterical which I did not do. Say it reads like that to you, say at most I (unintentionally) implied that or whatever, but don't put words in my mouth, y'know?)

The thing is, any company or organisation or whatever that tries for diversity is gonna be missing a whole lot of demographics, bc there's simply too many ways to be a human. We could also argue about dropout's lack of representation for visibly disabled people and maybe we should! I'm not saying shut up and never complain, I'm saying maybe they don't hate uniquely you, maybe they've just not thought to hire specifically more trans women, maybe it's actually just random chance or maybe they haven't optimised their casting process perfectly to make sure there's no hidden biases there. That's an issue sure, but considering how college humor looked 10 years ago (very white men dominated), I trust them to a degree to continue working on including more and more kinds of people - this isn't blind faith. They've started a progress and I expect them to continue it.

Also I meant it when I said suggest some trans women comedians. To the general fandom on tumblr, sure, bc I'd love to know more, but also a fan got Thomas Sanders on um actually by tweeting at Ify so.... bringing specific trans women you like to the show runners attention might actually work as well (though obviously isn't guaranteed to)

[hidingoutbackstage]

Okay so Tucker and Kaikaina in Shisno Paradox. Idk how long this is gonn be but it’s gonna go below a cut jic (and so I don’t spoil anything for June lol)

I think the easiest thing they could’ve done to make this dynamic better is just have them reciprocate each others lust from the beginning. Is it funny that Tucker gets rejected by Kai when she proposes time travel sex bc he thinks she’s talking about him? Is it funny that he fucks up her attempts to have sex with people from the past? Is it funny that he has been bragging about having done her back in Blood Gulch and that’s not actually the case (despite the fact that Kai literally says that they did during the s13 climax)? I guess? But you know what else is funny? Tucker and Kai actually going back in time and having sex with people from history. Like I feel like that has just as much, if not more comedic potential than the two of them just being annoyed with each other. I know this is the “everyone is arguing with each other because fuck friendships for some reason” arc but like it didn’t have to be.

Personally I was laughing when Kai and Tucker were talking about using the time travel gun for sex, like that was funny! The episode was literally TITLED “Sis and Tuck’s Sexcellent Adventure” and then they just drop that in favor of these two arguing. Like come on that’s not as funny at all.

They didn’t have to have reciprocated feelings (as much as I personally like them as a ship), there’s nothing wrong with characters having physical attraction to each other and acting on it. Hell up until now it was implied that they did actually have sex. I suppose the idea that they didn’t is kind of a funny subversion of expectation but the direction they go with it isn’t rlly entertaining, at least for me.

And if the intent was to get to the angsty Kai backstory, you could’ve still gotten there! Maybe she and Tucker try to do the time travel sex, but she gets tired/worn out before Tucker does and he doesn’t listen to her when she suggests they take a break from time traveling for a bit, dragging her along to the time periods HE wants to go to without considering her feelings. Still kinda sucks as Tucker characterization bc he should realistically be better than that, but it’s better than what the hell we got that’s for sure.

Anyway she could still blow up at him for being selfish and then they might argue and then later on they can have the heart to heart where she talks about her childhood and being promiscuous due to her insecurity about her own self image, and instead of saying “Tucker what you said reminded me of my trauma” it’s more of a reflection, kind of “Hey as my friend I want to let you know why I’m like this in the first place and why I was so insecure/nervous about saying no to going along with your adventure” and Tucker could still apologize and all that.

Then maybe a confession of feelings from Tucker so he gets a moment of vulnerability too, and like I said as much as I ship them I do kinda like Kai’s “I used to have feelings for you too” cuz ik this season didn’t actually care about these two as a ship, and Tucker demonstrates maturity by showing he’s okay with her rejection.

Although if they DID wanna make them a ship, there’s not a ton that actually has to change in the script for that to happen. (in my version not the version of SP we canonically got) They already get along like friends, they had sex before, and when they had an argument from Tucker being a bad friend, they worked through it. All you’d rlly need is for Kai to eventually come to the conclusion that she rlly likes Tucker, and that at some point, it stops being just as friends and she really wants him, and seeing as Tucker already has feelings for her but cares about her enough to not act on them, there might be some hesitation there but I think they’d make a rlly good pairing after that. Their sense of humor is already similar, they already get along, and they’re just so cute together ugh I’m getting distracted anyway it would make the moment everyone gets thanos snapped to repeat their timelines till infinity where he says “K I need to tell you-” all the more emotional, at least to me, bc that moment lives rent free in my brain anyway I just wanted better writing for these two is that too much to ask

[kuijoon]

LEAK WARNING/SPOILER FOR HANABI STORY QUEST

Ok so after getting to read the english tranlation of the story on reddit, here are my assumptions/thoughts of sampos role (note: i didnt read everything through properly since its a pain on phone maybe I’ll come back later):

Ok so basically Sampo helped blackswan with the whole murder case bc he made a deal with Hanabi. if he plays the assistant for blackswan, he gets his mask back. we do not know why he wants it back- maybe it gives him some sort of powers?? is it just a metaphorical kinda thing for him stepping on stage??? idk.

“But, Sampo... why did you suddenly remember to get the mask back after such a long time? This doesn't look like the you I know...”

“Let me guess - the Jarilo-VI catastrophe is coming, right?”

“Occasionally, I, old Sampo, also want to go on stage and make a fool of myself.”

This is sooo weird. First of all Jarilo catastrophe??!!! sigh let them rest for once. Second of all, we always see sampo putting up a show and shit, so for him to go get his special mask in order to prepare for the ‘catastrophe’… it really makes me feel like we’re going back to Belobog later and Sampo will play a major part in the story. It also gives me the vibes of him adopting a sort of more prominent role because he mentions going on stage. Like this is all you do. You’re always on stage. For him to consider this its own special thing HAS to mean something right.

Oh and it makes me feel like he’s kind of returning to his ‘old ways’ (whatever they may be). Not only because the getting his mask back after so long, but also because of the colorful past thing, maybe implying that he took on a background role over time and used to play larger roles in his ‘plays’.

Also this isn’t important but he tells Hanabi to stay away from Belobog and say hi to Giovanni??? I love him 😭

TLDR;

Sampo went to Jarilo-VI in order to prepare the people there for an incoming catastrophe and is now getting himself ready for it. This likely means we’re going back to Belobog and help sampo with stopping the disaster. also his mask probably has some special power

Edit: since this is a memory bubble it could’ve happened before we arrived on Belobog, meaning sampo isn’t retuning to Belobog. makes sense tbh but I low-key fear this means we’ll get his whole reveal in penacony. that would be messed up tbh

Edit 2: however it also says it’s a fresh memory AND mentions an ‘incoming’ catastrophe when the eternal freeze happened like 800 years ago. It could’ve hinted to our arrival, but I doubt that would be referred to as a catastrophe. Also why do sampo and Hanabi know about some catastrophe that hasn’t even happened yet? Is that just like common knowledge???

[youremyheaven]

I'm the OP that brought Freud into the chat- that other anon is so real, very true about Jupiter women + I definitely see how the daddy issues are pronounced in Bharani but yeah I've seen it with all of them. For example, I know a Purvaphalguni man who's parents were heroin addicts and he never got to know either of them and he really has this energy of like, wanting to 'be the man' but going terribly wrong with it because he has no idea of what 'the man' is supposed to look like. He was a bit creepy though- he used to always tell me that I look like I'd make a good mother and I seem ideal to 'breed with', he was like 'you radiate fertility' ☠️ it's giving Elon Musk lol

That's another thing oml, Venus men are so calculated about judging women's fertility/maternal qualities. They're the kinda dudes that really look at women and go, mhmm wide hips, long thick hair, sparkling eyes, scientifically this is a fertile woman fit to bare my offspring 🧐 like they're more concerned with attuned to those scientific metrics than they are to like, what constitutes beauty as far as modern trends go.

I saw you writing about how Venus men are drawn to traditional femininity and that's true, I know too much about Venus men because I seem to attract them a lot, I think because I'm lunar so they view me as the traditional feminine archetype/very submissive. They seem to hate when they find out I have thoughts and I'm not just a cartoon princess though hahaha 👹

Then yeah in some cases Venusian men see their dad's incompetence and feel the urge to be the mannn but then simultaneously get an inferiority complex since they realise they're just a kid & can't do that

GIRLLLL omg you're brilliant

OMG IM SCREAMING, i thought it was just a me thing but I attract a lot of Venusian men and many of them have told me I give fertility goddess vibes or implied that "you'd be a good mom" and have mentioned me being "nurturing" lmfaooo,, I've always felt like they wanted me because I seem submissive and breedable and I guess this confirms it lol

Not the Elon Musk comparison 😭😭bc its sooo true 💀💀

Idk if its being "scientific minded" but they're very "raw masculine" like a caveman who will hunt and provide for you, while you stay home with the babies and they want a "raw feminine" type woman?? i dont think they're the type to care about society's beauty trends or being an ig baddie or something, they do like voluptuous women as you've pointed out and that goes back to their traditional views of gender bc women are "supposed" to have child bearing hips and a large bosom and that's what a "woman" is in their mind. i lowkey also think its because they grew up loving their moms so much and kind of seek that maternal-ish "mature woman" energy in their partners. So they're attracted to fertility goddess type women who have that nurturing spirit to them bc they lowkey want to be mothered and an IG baddie does not have that vibe 😬😬

every Venus man ik absolutely loved his mom and was reallyyy doted on by their mom as well.

BROOO AKKSJSJHDH i swear to god, its the same for me. they're attracted to me because i seem like a tradfem/submissive gyal and theyre so shook when I display my personality. ive never felt like they hated me for having thoughts or anything but they act so surprised for sure lmao,,, theyre like "i had no idea youd be so funny/smart etc etc" and im sure thats just something to say but like....did you just think i had no personality??? lmao??

the Venusian urge to be the mannn is 😭😭😂😩it comes from a place of trauma and i wish they'd heal but its also mildly amusing to me ngl 😶‍🌫️

[yinyuedijun]

As an a/b/o writer, I am so proud of you for diving deep into these waters 😈

All it took for me once you said you were writing this was seeing Adventurine's picture and a few lines of really sad backstory and I immediately went "I get it, I need to put a baby in this man immediately" (perhaps metaphorically lol children are complicated)

I am also crying with you 😭, because if I write something omegaverse it's because I need to have that background gender confundery or other world building aspects going on, otherwise it would just be normal people.

Regardless, cannot wait to see us knot the lost prince (? that seems to be what I'm seeing of his backstory implies.) I know it's probably going to make me weepy whatever you come up with.

Much love from a person who struggles with the "why does this have to have themes and motifs" std too muah

thank u my fellow a/b/o connoisseur 🫶 I'm so glad u understand me and my desire to knot that beautiful, soggy man 😌 also GRLFKSKWJW your comment made me laugh so hard bc I think omegaverse aventurine would be so terrified abt pregnancy but canon universe aventurine? very happy to roleplay as submissive and breedable GRRGLSMSLSJ

speaking seriously though I feel u so so much and I'm glad I'm not alone in my inconvenient writing tendencies. there's nothing wrong with horny smut but I feel like a lot of a/b/o is basically heavy D/s dynamics with some extra spice, and the stories could almost be divorced from omegaverse if someone really wanted. (I read a lot of this kind of a/b/o and IM VERY INTO IT IM NOT THROWING SHADE TO BE CLEAR LOL) however some of my favourite takes on the trope use it to explore gender dynamics and systemic power differentials !! I find the trope can be very useful in revealing the way that social hierarchies affect a character, which I guess is why this aventurine fic is on literary steroids (his backstory already revolves around social hierarchies and injustices). I was doomed from the start rip set out to write angsty smut and now I'm balls deep in a systemic violence narrative 💔

in any case I'm so glad u are excited to knot the lost prince ....... hope u don't mind getting railed by the lost prince too. truly this couple is vers4vers kings

[hellsvestibule]

Seee if nobody else got me I know @zeravmeta got me. Please please pleaseee….I…insane clown p-ussy...

I think in his interactions w Anyone really. he needs to be read as pretentiously playing the “devil you know.” Like, as you mentioned here for Jeanne this takes the form of like, an unhinged desperate man turning to her for forgiveness. But he changes his personality up a bit w everyone he talks to in a way that mirrors their perceived insecurities. All of its genuinely Him because he has a strong personality, but he also has very strong paralels to every character I can think about him having any sustained interaction w. I can’t even really get into all of them cuz I’d be here forever but I’ll rant a bit about some scenes he has w Jeanne, mash, the one valentines scene w Kama, his general shtick w nursery rhyme. And how murder at the kogetsukan is actually imo important to understanding who he is at heart.

The thing is in each case I can think of where he does this, the reality is he’s more similar to the person he’s trying to disturb than the person whose evil behavior he’s imitating. Or is equally similar to both and kind of bridges the theological gap between them a bit maybe. Like, w jeanne, it’s not just that he’s behaving like Gilles, he is also situationally a lot like Jalter, he himself is some weird horny old man’s botched lab experiment out to avenge himself and others like him, but also, his approach to this feels more abstract and inhuman than Jalter , more adjascent to jeanne herself, and I think that’s meaningful bc she sort of theologically distances herself from Jalter but here is a guy who is batshit in both ways. He enacts good will through force of evil deeds which distance him from being able to hold normal relationships, the type of morality I don’t think Jeanne who holds tight to goodness for goodness sake, or even most normal people, can really begin to comprehend, but it’s also, the same way others can’t comprehend her insistence that she’d hold tight to goodness no matter what is done to her. Both are simultaneously, totally reasonable for latching onto the abstract concepts of good and evil within their own perspective. But totally incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t also. like that. Sure Mephy may have the “selfish” Jalter adjacent motives of a victim lashing out to avenge himself in an undignified attempt to gain dignity. But also, like, fatalistic understanding of the will of god as something he serves at his own expense, means he kind of is a saint and martyr in his own weird way. When I say serving the will of god I don’t mean happily so, he even says to guda he wants to help them kill god, bc. Well, he’s the worst Big Daddy upstairs of them all. But he’s still a big daddy who can smite you like an insect, so you have to play by his rules. Mephy wants to make everyone think he’s evil, bc he wants to become a real devil, bc that’s what he thinks he exists to be, what will give him power to avenge himself, and so he’s purposely denigrating himself to an inhuman construct to achieve it, and a portion of the audience apparently buys it, bc just being an arrogant asshole dressed like a creepy clown is enough to rub a lot of people the wrong way. But imo he holds a similar type of arrogance as Jeanne’s in this regard. He’s holding himself to an impossible standard of both good and evil so he kind of had the right to call it out in her even if he’s a hypocrite, which he is in every interaction w everyone. And also, even the parallel to Gilles has multi tiered meaning, since Faust is often portrayed as a child abuser, and so is mephisto in the Goethe play, and he sort of ends said play lamenting his obsession w innocence and purity and inability to ever possess it being his downfall... and like, our Mephy, i would guess, despite the conflicting framing of him, probably doesn’t want to become that, but might sort of think this is his natural disposition or fate, simply bc the things he’s implied about Faust or at least how he perceives him. So only Jeanne can save him from becoming and committing evil like that right? But like. No. She can’t. Bc he’s not her devil. And she shouldn’t even really be held responsible for Gilles, or any other unhinged guy needing her forgiveness. Mephy is pointing out how many people approach her w this whim that she can make them fucking normal if she just hits them hard in the head w a brick. This is normal to her but it’s pitiful it’s normal and she accepts it as such, which he probably wants her to admit, bc his repeated theme across these interactions is that he just wants people to be happy and reject creeps like him, but tells them in the cruelest way possible. which brings me to. Mash!! Bc it paralels his behavior towards her too.

When he first meets Mash in garden of order, he says a bunch of things that are brought back as specific notes of contention within her dynamic w Beryl during the lostbelts (and also Pepe and Kadoc to some degree) He says he’s like her big brother in an attempt to get her guard down, which Fujimaru chips in instead of letting it fly as ironic or cruel like yeah yeah, you’re like her big brother, encouraging him in a positive way bc Fujimaru believes in everyone’s capacity to be equals, flying in the face of mephistos assumptions Fujimaru only likes mash bc her lack of agency and rebelliousness, so they would consequently hate him for being. Not a nice sweet submissive person. This is true of Mash in this point of the story, she has little agency in the earlier chapters, and if you understand his character you understand he actually relates to this and is genuinely horrified on her behalf, but is phrasing it more like it’s in a pitiful inconvenience than w the kindness it actually needs to be said, the same thing kadoc did which is why I point out it’s not just beryl even if it’s mostly beryl.

Bc he also says he watched his roommate repeatedly sever the arms of his family members every night, and due to his conditioning by Faust sacrificing humans (supposedly to aid in his creation) doesn’t know if this is done as an act of abuse or love, specifically adjascent to what beryl does to her and what she asks after. At this point in the story you haven’t met Beryl, but Mash still clearly dislikes this, she becomes visibly uncomfortable and for a short bit after that is slightly hesitant towards mephisto, but she also like, gets over it really quickly after she sees him attack his “bad” selves, stepping in to be like, oh, ok, I see you are trying to become a better person despite having been mislead and used as a proxy for other peoples violence. She Gets it. She’s the first to sort of commit to the repeated theme w Mephy, that everyone he attempts to harass is actually hesitantly accepting and compassionate towards him and willing to relate to him, he’s the one who most struggles to accept this possibility of having normal loved ones who care and understand him and not just bc they are naive and mislead by him. Bc if everyone trusts him not due to naïveté but due to recognition of everything he embodies. He loses power as a (theoretical) devil. He is obviously, regardless of his status as a know it all, mostly just a petulant traumatized child, with no real power over anyone. That’s both the sad and hopeful thing. Power is bad for him, it’s the corrupting force which will help him actualize into a real devil. But conversely he’s the easiest villain to defeat and in some ways purposefully so, because deep in his heart he doesn’t actually want to win. He just wants to be innocent, if someone does not give him any power over them by reacting with violence or hate, he utterly flounders. Devils only exist if you will them too, but nobody here wants the devil, they want Mephy to be whoever Mephy actually is, some sort of, weird pathetic clown guy who is sort of sweet and sort of an asshole? and that’s incredibly agonizing to him bc he doesn’t know who the fuck that is without Faust. He has very little personhood outside of Faust and yet constantly boasts his independence and freedom, for understandable reasons.

Preoccupation with avenging lost innocence is a good segueway to the valentines scene with Kama I think. Also note, I use Kama and Sakura sort of interchangeably here but I recognize they still separate characters. To me this scene reads as the character Kama wanting to offer something nice to the character child Sakura. But I sort of mush them together when discussing them.

IMO if you don’t understand these characters backstories still haunt them, this scene might fly totally past the radar as anything important, because Kama is trying to downplay her engagement in any of these scenes, so it’s played for silly and awkward in context. But that’s just any scene Mephy is in, and you have to look past it for what it really is. Kama is pretending to be a child at the park w her dad, sort of, mimicking maybe one of the last happy memories of childhood Sakura has, and Mephy is clearly here to play the villain, he doesn’t even really have to Try to be sakuras devil bc he’s already at glance an amalgamation of the worst traits of all the family members who hurt her but. Also. He’s a stranger,,, or more so, they sort of imply they concocted this scenario ahead of time and are just really bad actors motivated by the same wants, who are using each other as pawns for each others evil ends (showing the hypocrisy central to their approach).

However. Your feelings of dread are kind of mitigated by the obvious fact no one here wants to play out a depraved or traumatic scenario bc it clearly hits them too close to home. I think the implication given by their backstories is they are waiting to see if you are a creepy or innept dad towards child kama, because Mephy as we know from how he talks about Vicky Frank in London, is basically itching to smash literally every shitty dads shitty face in. but of course guda isn’t a shitty dad, so they’re left w nothing but a really awkward setup they’re trying to play off as meaningless that kinda screams like, this isnt meaningless and petty at all actually, both really wish their fucking parental figures had taken them to oniland instead of committing human rights violations. They did not get to have normal childhoods and so they implicitly. want this nice little fantasy to play out for child Sakura. without phrasing it as such bc that kind of open admission of vulnerability is forbidden, so mephisto, as usual, will play the villain to his dying breath, bc he won’t ever directly admit he’s traumatized. Neither will Kama of course, but this is -their- valentines scene, which necessitates them revealing more than he does. It goes to show how hard mephisto will self denigrate until the other party confronts their inner demons, and that’s bc the clown in him that exists to be humiliated and despised, which Kama has to give in to bc a god of love can only go so far in that capacity. So it feels like Kama is both. Irritated by the pretentiousness of this . He ends up being less like shinji or his father or zouken and more like Kariya, and that’s still shitty and traumatizing in its own way. Mephisto prefaces this scene as him being creepy but what he’s really doing is going oh poor baby whatever you’re going through is more important than having my own similar problems be understood. And of all things, that’s what fucks this scene up. She’s trying to brush off why this scenario or any of these scenarios exist bc she’s never dealt w this pain and assumed she could preface all of this w ironic detatchment. But still! Going to a park is something kariya and her mom used to do w her and her sister, showing she might not have actually totally forgotten what this type of thing means and holds sentimental attatchemt to the idea of it (a theme park just ups the ante and the fantasy aspect of it) But also do you really think Kama would admit they want this sort of sentimental thing unironically? So Mephy the clown must prove he is a worse more traumatized asshole than Kama , so she can admit by proxy she just wants to act like a normal innocent kid for a day, she doesn’t have to thank him for this role or even care about him, but she still points out hes not evil, that he does this as a pretentious part of being what he is, and she focuses on the one thing that’s Not familiar. Clown. he’s sticking to the act of a horrible despicable clown, even on Valentine’s Day, bc hes a very pathetic man scared of being loved, and would probably sooner die than admit that. kama does the big person thing, accepts the shallow pretense they brought you here w for the paradoxical depth it has, this is a normal scenario of a little girl at the theme park with her dad, who had a brush in with a creepy clown and just wants to feel protected and loved. Both of them are too detatched to tell Why you any of this was necessary, it’s the context of what they’ve said and done before now you need to read into, It actually makes me really sad to think about.

Also this is why I’m convinced Mephy is concious and self aware in murder at the kogetsukan. Even the naming convention and setup follows everything you see from the established patterns of interactions, the names of the violet family have a lot of biblical conventions which feel too convoluted to ignore the symbolism of. (Also, that dancing with Eve and Lilith is something he and Faust do in the play, and gorgon taking Margaret’s face in the same scene, there’s just a lot of weird little meta bits in here) Mephy’s character is named Cain, which imo gives him an excuse to break the fourth wall 4th wall and literally just be a self possessed actor rather than narratively lacking self awareness. Named after Gods grandson, whom God dismisses because his sacrifice of plant instead of meat is deemed less significant, and so he becomes possessed by the devil and enraged, and imo this is paraleling mephistos preoccupation w his doll body, how it implicitly makes him feel inherently objectified and worthless and inhuman. Like. Valentines day he gives you a pet which will explode and simulate artificial death, and tells you he wants you to see it as a mascot more worthy than fou. Or when you give him chocolate he’s like (clown screech) my heart valve is pumping. Constantly reminding you he isn’t human and feels awful about it. He thinks his own life and death is meaningless because he is artificial which is why he’s a self sacrificing individual. While maybe not concious and self aware. Ignore everything Moriarty says abt the faces not being significant? They are, Lancelot is cast as and is subsequently the perfect father to this stand in for mephisto bc he’s also struggling w these same feelings and told it all to kariya back in fate zero, and he’s worried he’s a bad dad who would objectify or traumatize his kid, something you see Moriarty needle him for in grand carnival albeit played for laughs at the fact that usually Lancelot is the one who ends up objectified, but Moriarty is also someone who needles peoples trauma when trying to help them. But Lancelot’s like, not what people assume him to be, he’s a genuinely loving person, and so is his character by proxy, so the second “Cain” realizes this, he has a massive sentimental breakdown where he says he loves his family and wants to save them, and I think this is important not to distance the characters 100% from the npcs in this moment bc it shows major facets of Mephisto and Lancelot that often get ignored or misunderstood, and lets mephisto actually commit to his genuine issue of just wanting a dad who loves him normally and showcases that Lancelot actually is so good he wouldn’t care if he’s in a family unit wher he’s a cuckold or his kid is a crazy loser like him, the things people sort of assume he’s preoccupied w being like the possession of another man’s wife or having the perfect child, but like, no, he genuinely just wants to love the people he’s with in the moment but is hesitant to attempt it. the event isn’t totally uncorrelated to the faces the npcs have at all. For some people at least (Mephy, Lancelot, Moriarty, and Mordred off the top of my head) all had some deep seated desire or other fulfilled by this scenario . (Sherlock npc dies, mordred npc has a dick) I can’t really rationalize the others but these 4 at least are super obvious, and it’s part of why I want to “blame” mephisto bc I think out of everyone his reasons for wanting this and ability to put it into place as a mythological wish granter who concocts dreams, makes the most sense motive wise, and also, the deadly fever guda falls under as well as the fantasy concocted are both things mephistos poison is capable of in faust. But I might be missing something, it’s possible like the drama Cd or something I don’t remember revealed a culprit behind the “it was all a dream” thing, but I just think it’s notable that for mephisto there is no barrier between dreams and reality.

Also I should probably mention the importance of his dynamic w nursery rhyme mirroring the absense of what he and Kama don’t have? She calls him uncle mephy and is clearly like, trying to talk him out of his nihilistic suicidal outlook of reality. Bc well whatever, they are both helpless broken dolls but also, she has reason to form sentimental attatchment to clowns, they -are- familiar to her, Faust was one of the first plays put on by pantomime, clown theatre, as was the goose that laid the golden egg, a story about sacrificing something loyal to you so you can reap the immediate benefits of its labor. and I think the latter was one of the performances where mother goose went from a folklore figure to having a canon physical appearance (and you can see as of fgo she still does not, she’s still using Alice’s appearance) and there’s even more nameplay going on w the paralels to kariya she’s invoking w the uncle Mephy shtick making them like kariya and Sakura, kariyas name means “wild goose” and being sent on a wild goose chase is a euphemism for becoming lost in pursuit of something you desire. Mephy doesn’t seem to accept anything in reality as anything but nonsense and farce, yet he constantly imbues every attempt at nonsense and trivializing peoples problems w a huge load of painful sincerity. mother goose is, itself, a book of mostly nonsense. But its sentimental purpose as a familiar children’s book and folklore brushes against his, saying “you have a home here” something he’s obviously in severe denial of wanting but also manages to make 90% of his personality. Mephisto at the start of faust is literally just a lost dog looking for a home. @zeravmeta mentioned how little of Mephy is even allowed to be himself, and he exists mostly through others and like, yeah! There’s more paralels than there is Mephy at a certain point. every “joke” scene Mephy is in is actually majorly sad and fucked up the moment you take a minute to dissect it. Bc he’s convinced trauma makes him funny, when it only paradoxically makes him funny by sheer force of how unfunny he is.

[enginator2000]

What are your thoughts on Infidget (the ship of Infinite and Gadget the Wolf)?

i think its fine? i dont inherently dislike it or anything, and i dont mind seeing it from time to time. the only thing that i dont like is like, a lot of the shipping community's interpretations of it. and by that i mean the people that twinkify and feminize gadget into being a little wooby baby that cant do anything without his big strong man and infinite is just the stereotypical scary-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside masc/male/im a man/im he him boyfriend. either that or gadget is fine and its just infinite who is extremely out of character. i had a lot of "he would not fucking say that" moments with infinite when infidget was at its most popular bc these kinds of depictions were everywhere and it was really annoying

the only version of infidget ive ever shipped was a lovers to friends to enemies to... somethings type deal where they dont go back to how they used to be by the end but its not vitriolic, they just outgrew each other in their own ways during the events of forces. that or their relationship cant get mended at all and theres no closure bc infinite dies or whatever like he did in canon. and i know this is the best version of infidget bc i made it up, thanks

i actually shipped it before forces even came out bc i thought that that was sort of the route that sonic team was going to take with tying the avatar into the story. it made sense to me for the avatar (or in this case gadget) to have some sort of previous history or connection with infinite bc in my onion, that makes their dynamic a little spicier and more compelling. in my version, gadget and infinite (then zero) used to be very close until zero started getting more involved with a local gang, the jackal squad, which began to drive a wedge between them until they got more and more distant from each other. and then some more time passes and gadget hasnt heard from zero for a long time and then the events of forces start. i think part of the idea was from this dialogue that we got to hear when footage of infinites second battle came out before the game itself:

(image text reads as infinite saying "and those eyes.. i feel like we've met before.")

-which implied that the avatar and infinite had history. which was technically true, but it was within the timeline of the game bc it turned out he was referring to like. the flashback cutscene of the avatar being too scared to fight back the first time they ran into infinite before joining the resistance, so it wasnt what i was hoping for

another reason iirc was uhhhh whatshisface? sega scourge on youtube? they made a theory video about infinite getting his mind wiped by the ruby or something and that added fuel to the fire. its a really cool concept and while i dont think that the avatar wanting to avenge those they lost is necessarily bad, i feel like its just kind of meh for the kind of story forces was trying to tell, what with the friendship-is-cool themes and whatnot. so i thought the avatar/gadgets arc was going to be we get to find out how they and infinite (or at least just the former lol) know each other, and how infinite became infinite in the first place, and gadget wanted to both help put a stop to everything but also get his friend back through, you guessed it, the power of friendship. hooray! i read a really good fic that was like that called til we touch the sun on a03 (that fic still makes me go insane thinking about it) that went with a sidestory for gadget that was quite similar to what i just described

plus the idea of infinite and gadget having shared a past but only one of them remembers it and now has to deal with a monster that looks like who they used to be but is no longer the same in every other regard due to them going dark side (willingly or unwillingly) is super angsty. and i like my ships raw and some degree of brutal for the soul. it keeps me young

but yeah im overall neutral. tl;dr: infidget is a fine ship, i just wish it had more canon-supported flavour and i wish the majority of shippers would stop writing infinite so poorly to make him fit properly into their milquetoast domestic fluff romances, but whatever. we all get enjoyment out of different things, even if theyre wrong :3 (for safety reasons i have to disclose that the previous statement was a joke)

[gojos-eyedrops]

Shiratorizawa Gakuen: analyzing what we know

Something that’s been stuck in my head for a long while (we’re talking about years here) is Shiratorizawa. The school. Not the team.

I’ll break this into several points:

The schools prestige

What this says about the characters we know.

Some things I’ve concluded about Ushiwaka specifically.

The School’s Prestige

From the outside it looks like a fancy and tacky school. Which leads to think it’s expensive and it’s prestigious.

Keeping that in mind, the school must be hard on it’s students compared to other schools. They must provide of well prepared people with high scores and well developed abilities to apply to prestigious universities and/or be more prepared for life.

Rewatching Haikyuu, I noticed Oikawa mentioned he was rejected from Shiratorizawa. I’m able to conclude that, while he has the capacity to belong to their VB team, he was rejected. Meaning, he didn’t have the grades for Shiratorizawa. (Meaning that even when Ushijima told Oikawa, he should’ve gone to Shiratorizawa, Oikawa was never going to be able to get in, in the first place. Arrogantly denying it to Ushijima this fact, despite admitting it to Kageyama)

They have dorms for the students. And the school isn’t exactly far away from the rest of the town. Students most likely have full schedules or are expected to have full schedules, enough for the dorms to be practical and useful.

However, students are free to come and go as they please, judging by Ushijima’s regular runs outside of school. The school trusts its students, which means most of the students there are disciplined enough for it (although to be fair, it’s Japan, it’s also part of their culture to be disciplined).

The Characters:

For starters, they have to be smart. Book smart. They must have the grades to be able to make it to Shiratorizawa and maintain them to stay there.

Whether they’re rich or not, they could remain there through scholarships, returning to my previous point, they have to be able to keep good grades, in case they have a scholarship. Whether they’re smart and have money or they’re just smart. Being smart is a requirement.

They must be able to manage their time well, considering how busy their schedules must be.

Friendships from Shiratorizawa are highly likely very strong, since they basically live together.

From what we can see at the end of the manga (judging by Semi’s music career) they all have at least, another hobby other than volleyball.

As someone who’s been in a private school, there’s two kinds of people in a private fancy school. There’s 1) people who are very gossipy bcs social status is something that matters a lot. 2) people who are too busy with their own schedule to care what other people do. Our beloved Shiratorizawa team members are either one or the other. I’m willing to guess that Satori is the perfect balance between the two, despite being an extremely rare occurrence. He just looks like someone who likes to gossip ok?

Ushiwaka:

I have a number of reasons to believe he’s autistic.

Despite coming across as clueless, he is smart. He’s smart enough to make it into Shiratorizawa, when Oikawa couldn’t. He’s smart enough to keep his place there.

One of his concerns when he’s 24, is learning foreign languages. Which means he knows at least another language other than Japanese. And the fact that it’s a concern, tells me that:

he’s aware enough of his status as a professional VB player, and traveling a lot is a given, so he is willing to speak the local language whenever he goes (which is something admirable and adorable of him)

Learning languages is hard. Being good at languages is a full skill of its own. (This is coming from a language teacher, and someone who’s skilled at learning languages). Ushijima is that smart.

Learning a new language for Japanese implies learning a whole new alphabet. And most languages have gendered substantive’s, something that Japanese doesn’t. This adds a layer of difficulty.

Learning languages is his hobby. He’s not expected nor forced to know other languages asides perhaps English.

The fact that he’s so incredibly dedicated to volleyball tells me vb is his hyper fixation (he dedicates a crazy amount of time to Vb while still being able to keep his place in school).

Adding to the fact that he doesn’t understand sarcasm and takes everything too literally, screams autism. He also doesn’t care that he’s extremely popular.

He’s best friends with Satori. Satori is also neurodivergent af, we all know neurodivergents tend to befriend each other.

So even when he comes across as naive or simple minded, Ushijima is in fact, quite smart. And I will die on this hill.

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Hello again, the 'Ryder's Parents' theory anon back again (need to come back w a better name fr) and that whole thing w 'why do the dogs talk?' got me thinking of my own theory. Now i gotta preface this by saying i'm only just getting into the show like, seriously? I watched some episodes w my baby brother and got hooked, haven't really watched the movie yet but i know abt the 'one of kitties start talking thanks to the comet' thing, so that's what i'm mostly basing this theory off of

So like... the thing giving superpowers and the ability to talk is a meteor, right? Right. My crazy theory here is that its not the first time a meteor like that hit the earth. A similar one hit the planet during the dinosaur extinction thing (to my knowledge it wasn't a single huge one, there were a few more) and ended up affecting the area around it, giving the life forms around it (in this case, the precursors of dogs) the ability to be able to speak. So!! Humans don't care bc from their perspective, dogs have been able to talk since always. Humans and dog probably have an even closer relationship in the paw patrol universe compared to our reality, since they probably evolved really close together and all!! As for how do some cats (like Wild and his crew) talk naturally... idk honestly. Maybe there was another, much smaller meteor they just happened to near of? Idk i'm just building this

Btw, i found it really found you just went like 'cats probably could talk but they just choose not to' bc i'm. P sure that was the same thing the Cat from Coraline says when asked abt why he talks in the Other World. He kind of implies he COULD talk in the normal world, he just doesn't wanna :P peak cattitude fr

I think i'm gonna start signing my asks? I like stars and sparkles so... -💖🌟✨️💫 <- this'll do

YEAH THAT'S INDEED PEAK CATTITUDE LMAOOO I LOVE THAT CAT IN THE CORALINE MOVIE and if you have cats or knows someone who does, you'll notice they don't meow to interact between themselves, save when they're babies or to show aggressiveness. They keep mostly to body/smell language. And meows to humans! Because humans are idiots who are never getting over the need to vocalize for communication XD

IRL cats can literally talk (their own language) but they're beyond that- they dumb their communication down into sounds just because we are not at their level and they still want us to give them their grub. It's free food, why wouldn't they want it??

As for the meteor theory? YOU'RE SO RIGHT IT COULD'VE HAPPENED TOO!!! And makes a lot of sense!!

And ayyyyy, welcome to the world of Paw Patrol!! XD I'm new here myself too! I only started watching it back in January. I had friends from my local furry group recommending this show to me for years now and Idk why I didn't watch it before. I guess my brain is just that stubborn. It knew I'd get hooked and couldn't afford being hooked into both Transformers and Paw Patrol at the same time. Now that I've slowed down on Transformers, it finally decided to let me get into another show and Paw Patrol was the chosen one to be watched XD

Will you remember all the emojis every time? Though that's a very smart idea and I like it!! I think I'm gonna refer to you as my Sparkly Anon in this case!

[profanepurity]

Wait so sister imperator gave birth to copia, but he’s still the son of Lilith and lucifer, but lucifer also implied C is a son of nihil? Is this because luci and nihil did the do? And does that mean Lilith and Seestor did the tango as well? Is that how it works?

KIND OF!

Copia’s existence is wild in Praeteritum guys lol I’m so sorry.

If I could attempt to summarize it, yes, part of it involved all of them sleeping together… in the name of Satan, of course. Just imagine the “How I Met Your Mother” promo with them all in a bed, but it’s Lucifer, Lilith, Nihil, and Sister lol. So Sister finds out that Nihil is cheating on her at the same time that she discovers she’s pregnant. Sister and Nihil were open to polyamory, as you can see in my Ghost Riders fic lol, but the issue was Nihil went outside the circle of consent they had established. Lucifer had consent, random girls at rituals did not. At the time, she was planning some shit with Mr Saltarian behind closed doors, and decided to use her baby as a tool to fuel her ambition. I like to think that all the sisters of sin, which would include imperator technically, really value Lilith in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum- which I know is an actual book, but in this case I’m using it as a general term for the actual monarchy within Hell. So Imperator proposes to the unholy mother that she wants to offer her child as a vessel for hers.

This sounds awesome, right? So the Kings of Hell see this as a perfect opportunity to conceive the antichrist. I should probably mention that Lilith and Lucifer are not technically married in this AU. In fact, the circle of kings that I’ve introduce are all pretty much together, with Lilith being the glue (bc you fall in love with the people that fall from heaven with you, I don’t make the rules) But that’s the reason she chooses Lucifer to be the father, so their son can usher in the end of the world and junk. And also, they’re in love of course. It’s a win win.

So what do they do? They do some ritual shit with blood! Lucifer and Lilith combined their blood into one and infused it into Sister, by extension Copia as well. Lilith, Lucifer, and Sister then“consummated” the ritual afterwards 😏. It probably wasn’t necessarily in the books, but Lucifer was looking at both these hot ass women, and with all his wisdom, our fallen angel says, “I think we should do it the old fashion way too, just to make sure it takes, sweet girl” (ooooh God that’s such a soft pet name. You can only imagine his regret in ever calling her that. You can only imagine how Lucifer was protective as fuck over sister for nine months, went out of his way to keep Nihil in the dark, how HAPPY he was to see Lilith so full of life and excitement after he found her so broken and hurt in that cave, how he genuinely wanted to be a father and create a perfect life as he envisioned, and his ‘sweet girl’ was going to give that to them. All of Hell mourned when Copia was born)

This is why Copia looks a little bit like Lucifer, but also has that Emeritus jaw line and nose (pre surgery). I guess technically, Copia has two moms and two dads lol. It’s a shame Salty found that Solomon pendent and he used Lucifer’s and Lilith’s blood to bind them in such a way that prohibits them for coming into contact with the antichrist as they truly are. Lilith can only offer him kind smiles in passing and gift him food she would bake on occasion as her only way of caring for Copia, knowing how badly her son needed to be told that he was valued.

Lucifer can only watch from a distance as Bishop Stell, seeing his son grow old and bitter that he’s always felt so out of touch with his own religion. Why is he the only Papa that has never heard the voice of Lucifer? Perhaps he was really never meant to be Papa. Perhaps Lucifer hates him, and that’s why he took all his brothers away.

This is derailing horribly but I have to add just one more thing on that note. Lucifer did not take the other Papas away. It was not their time. It was not in his plan for them to pass yet, but he was ready to welcome them with open arms and tell them how proud and pleased he was in their service as prophets. He held their hands and heads as the poison took its course through their bodies, invisible as the unholy master.

“You did great kiddo, I’ll see you in a minute” he smiled at Primo as he watched the light leave his eyes and his heart stop. And he waited…. And he waited…. But they never came to Hell. Bishop Stell spends a lot of nights standing over the other Papas in their caskets. He doesn’t know where their souls are. He thinks they’re stuck inside the glass caskets, but he can’t break them open.

Lucifer looked at all four of the papas as his sons, and his church took all of them from him. But this wouldn’t be the first time Lucifer was betrayed by his own people. No wonder he’s such an evil son of a bitch.