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It's a Wonderful Life, Javier Peña!

𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: Javier does not indulge in the holidays, not caring for the lights, the cheer, and togetherness. But then you come along, and bring a little Christmas spirit in your wake.

𝚠/𝚌: 7.1k

𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜/𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚜: Javi POV. Afab!Reader. Fluff. Talks of Christmas. Banter. Javi trying to suppress feelings. Office romance. Swearing. Several Christmas movie references. Really, a lot of pining (my staple at this point?), fluff, and feels. Not really proofread (sorry not sorry!)

𝙰/𝙽: Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Here is a Xmas gift from me to you. Thank you for reading and joining me on this rather fresh and unorganized blog for my writings. Here's to a good, easy, and fun holiday for those who celebrate, and an easy transition into the New Year for us all ❤️

Read on AO3!

Javier Peña did not celebrate Christmas.

He had felt less and less “in the holiday spirit” over the years of adulthood. With his job and how stressful and time consuming it was all around the clock, it was hard to even think about it when that time of year came around. Sure, the office attempted to be festive with a sad excuse for a foot-tall, skinny Christmas tree with ornaments from the 60s. Maybe some garland around the doorways. But, that was if anyone remembered that year, or any year before or after.

And then, there came you.

You were hired on as a secretary, and when he met you, he knew you would just be another notch in his bedpost. And he tried to be as charming and suave as he did with every other woman who worked for the DEA and every woman after that, but it never seemed to work. You were polite, and annoyingly so, and turned him down every time with a smile that annoyed the hell out of him. 

He gave up after a month of trying, moving on to easier prey. And somehow, you still wanted to talk to him. Nothing serious, but asking how things were going, if he needed anything- he’d make a quip like “just you, cariño,” and give you his best smirk. You would only roll your eyes and if he didn’t annoy you entirely you would bring him coffee. Some days, it came with a biscuit.

He didn’t know what kept pulling him into your orbit, but it was around Christmas when he noticed. You put a little more effort into decorating- some lights on the windows, a new, two-foot tall plastic Christmas tree with updated ornaments. The garland was now wrapped in ribbon, and the place just felt… better.

But, Javier Peña did not ever indulge in the season.

He would spend late nights at the office the nearer to Christmas Day, leaving Steve to go home to his family and celebrate with them. It was about 4 days until Christmas, and around 7:30 at night when you approached him, looking like you were ready to leave.

“Agent Peña, you’ve been here since 6am. I think you need a break.” you said, tilting your head to the side. He looked up from the stack of papers on his desk and leaned back, rubbing his face. He sighed,

“No rest for the wicked, as the saying goes.” he said with a frown. You shook your head, and gestured for him to follow.

“Put it to bed for the night, which I know you’re good at,” you said with a glint in your eyes that made him roll his eyes. “And come with me.” 

He cocked an eyebrow up at this, and sighed, knowing his eyes were about to fall out of his head from staring at words all day, his hand cramping from the pens and pencils he gripped. Besides, who was he to turn down going with you anywhere?

He followed you to a bodega a few blocks from the office, and he watched as you conversed easily with the shop owner as they prepared some food for you both behind the counter. Some kind of homemade special that Manuel had cooked up just for you before closing.

“You take good care of her now, amigo. She is a good one, si?” the shop owner said with a grin as he handed the bag to you. You rolled your eyes, but he could see the shy way you didn’t meet his eyes. But, he gave the man a nod of acknowledgement and an awkward smile. 

“Thank you, Manuel. Buenas Noches.” you said and Javier held the door open for you-

Since when the hell did he do that?

He followed you to your apartment, and he swallowed. Was this really what was going to happen tonight? You had turned him down night after night, and now you had lead him to your place with food? What was he doing? 

“Are you… um- are you sure, cariño?” he questioned, the uncertainty in his voice that made you turn your head as you fished out your keys. You cocked an eyebrow at him, and rolled your eyes,

“Unless you wanna eat on the street, come on.” you said, and wrestled the door open. He quickly moved up the steps and held the heavy door open, allowing you to step inside first. He followed you, glancing around as if searching for threats. None were there, of course, except a barking dog in the distance. Other than that, it was quiet. Peaceful.

Your apartment was small, but homey. This didn’t surprise him, as you seemed to leave comfort wherever you roamed. And, your apartment was also sparsely decorated for Christmas- lights hanging on doorways, another small tree (looking suspiciously like the only one-foot one from the office), and it smelled faintly of fresh balsam. Noting the blown out candle on your coffee table, he had deduced the source.

“You stole the tree from the agency?” He questioned with a smirk as he shed his jacket. You set down the food on the small, sad excuse for a kitchen table and looked back at him.

“I replaced it. Upgraded it, even. Thought it would be a fair trade.” you said with a smirk and began to dish out the food.

Javier was a bit surprised, to say the least. You invited him to sit, and you ate, talking over the food which was still hot and absolutely delicious. He scarfed it down, unaware of how hungry he was. 

“Jesus, Javier, don’t choke.” you laughed, and he wiped his mouth hastily,

“Sorry. Wait- did you just call me-?”

“We’re off the clock, figured it would be fine. Or do you get a kick out of being called “Agent Peña” all the time?” you said with a smirk. He shrugged,

“You can call me anything you’d like, cariño.” he chuckled, and you shook your head, still working on your food. The conversation was easy, comfortable, nice. He hadn’t sat down with anyone except some other fellow agents and Steve for meals, but never pleasantly like this. 

“What are your plans for Christmas Eve?” you questioned, and Javier snorted.

“I don’t do Christmas. Probably pulling an all-nighter at the office.” he said, and you actually frowned at this. He shifted uneasily in his seat, and shrugged it off.“It’s fine. I do it every year-”

“That’s kind of depressing.” you said, and he sighed. He knew it was, but he didn’t exactly have friends or a family to spend it with. 

“Well, what about you, Mrs. Claus?” he quipped, steering the conversation away. You shrugged, and picked at your food.

“I plan on getting home and watching some movies. Call some folks back in the states, wish them the best for the holidays.” you said, but he could sense the underlying sadness in your voice. It was his turn to frown. Him having no one to spend the holiday with was usual- but hearing you saying you didn’t have anyone? Now that was unacceptable.

“You don’t have friends?”

You laughed at that, and glanced up at him.

“I do, but they have families, other friends to spend it with. I don’t mind going solo.” you said, picking up your water and taking a sip. Javier shook his head, and sighed,

“Well, I’d like to at least share a drink with you. Maybe get rid of some of that loneliness for the both of us for a second, you know?” he said. He meant it casually, but he meant it real and truly. It would be nice to at least have a Christmas toast with someone for once. And if it meant bringing two lonely hearts together… why not?

A small smirk spread on your lips,

“I’ll bring the spiced eggnog, then.”

He made a face, and you rolled your eyes.

“Fine. Eggnog and bourbon, then. They pair really well, believe it or not.” you said, and he shook his head.

“You won’t find eggnog here,” he said. He hadn’t had that in years, probably since before he left Texas to join the agency. Even then, he must have been a child when he last had it.

“I have my ways.” you said with a wink. He couldn’t help the grin that spread on his face, and he shook his head.

“You are funny, cariño.” he said, and you hid your smile in the rim of your water glass, but cocked an eyebrow.

“Javier Peña giving a compliment? Somebody put that on the record.” you laughed, and he shook his head, but a warmth spread in his chest. 

“Anything for you,” he said quietly, but you didn’t look up. Maybe you didn’t hear. 

But, he meant it.

“What’s with the face?” Steve questioned one afternoon at the office. 2 days until Christmas, and Javier was typing away furiously at his typewriter with a cigarette dangling from his lips. 

“What face?” He questioned without looking up. Steve cocked an eyebrow, leaning back.

“Your “something pissed you off” face. Or it could also be your “trying to hide something” face.” Steve said, and Javier picked the cigarette from between his lips and huffed out smoke.

“Just stressed.”

“You don’t get stressed. Well- you definitely don’t admit it.” Steve said, and Javier sat up from his hunched position. He put the cigarette between his lips momentarily and then exhaled. 

“It’s the holidays. Everyone’s gone, which means I have to pick up the slack.” He said. 

“Way to be in the Christmas spirit, Agent Peña.” Steve chuckled, and Javier heard an elated cry and turned in his chair to see you carrying a plate of something, handing them out to the staff as you passed down the rows. Javier sat up a bit, and quickly stubbed out his cigarette. When he turned to face Steve, he was looking at him with a shit eating grin.

“What? Free food’s free food.” Javier said, and you smiled as you rounded to Steve and Javier’s cluster of desks.

“Afternoon, boys. Interested in a holiday sweet treat?” 

“Oh, absolutely. Haven’t had sugar cookies in a minute.” Steve said, picking one up and Javoer gave you a nod of recognition as he picked his own.

“I was planning on making buñelos, but those were a spectacular fail. So, I went with something safe.” You laughed, and Javier found the cookie was sweet, almost sickeningly so. He looked at you and gave you a half smile and a nod, swallowing the piece dryly. 

“Homemade? That’s… good. Nice.” Javier said with a nod, and both you and Steve looked at Javier. You were the first to shrug it off,

“Well, I thought it would be a good Christmas present for everyone to enjoy.” You said with a shrug, glancing at Javier, but not for too long.

“You boys continue the good work. If there’s any left over, I’ll come to you first.” You said with a wink between the two, and walked on to the next set of desks. Steve was watching Javier like a hawk, who set the half-eaten cookie to the side.

“Too sweet for you?” Steve chuckled. Javier didn’t meet his eyes, and continued typing away.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Three days before Christmas, you continued to bring holiday cheer to the office. You had brought a radio in, and a handful of cassette tapes of Christmas music. Old stuff, easily accessible… Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley. You would play one all way way through and then let the usual local Colombian radio play for an hour. And at the turn of a new hour, you’d start another one. 

Javier should find it annoying. Anyone else, he would have said something. But, you just looked so damn happy humming and nodding to the music, that he just couldn’t bring himself to. 

He still avoided you outwardly, though. Cold, closed off. You didn’t seem to mind, and still gave him smiles and variations of “how are you today, Agent?” He felt like an ass, but he still felt the need to create distance, even despite your holiday plans. 

And that? That scared him. He had never had plans for the actual holiday- usually staying home or working a long night. If home, maybe invite a prostitute over to fill the void for an hour or two.

But to spend time with you? Someone who was quickly taking up space in his mind and thoughts? He wondered what caused your change of heart- was it the holiday and you didn’t want to be alone, either? Or was it… God forbid, was it something deeper?

He remembered all the times you had turned him down. Certainly that wouldn’t be the case, actually having liked him. No one liked Javier beyond a one-night stand. He had never convinced you to come home with him, much less have a drink with him. But, you had given in so easily this time around, that it left him puzzled.

His sleuthing skills were not serving him well, apparently.

“What should I play next? Bing Crosby or Dean Martin?” you questioned, and Javier looked up as you set more files on his desk. He rolled his eyes,

“If I have to hear “Let it Snow” one more time, I might throw that damn radio out the window,” he said, which was true. You only laughed, and it rang in the office like sleigh bells. He noticed you wore a Christmas tree broach, and at least complimented your restraint of personal Christmas accessories. 

“I’ll skip over that one for you, then. It does get a little old, doesn’t it?” you questioned, and Javier snorted. 

“You’re killing me slowly, cariño.” 

“Well, i’m trying to bring some Christmas cheer. Don’t turn into a Scrooge on me, okay? Or a George Bailey. I’d hate for a ghost of Christmas past to visit and foil our plans.” you said, and Javier’s eyes snapped back up to you, files forgotten.

“Oh,” he said, like he had just remembered. He leaned his elbow on the desk, “Right. Your place or mine?” he questioned, and you rolled your eyes.

“Agent, this is not a ploy to get you in my bed. I don’t have that kind of agenda. Figured we could share a drink here before heading home. I don’t care for the busy bars, it makes the loneliness feel even more pronounced.” you said, and Javier nodded, but it clicked in his head right then. Loneliness. The only reason why you wanted to bother him during this holiday- and it was no secret that Javier was alone on any and all holidays. He just didn’t think anyone noticed. But you,... You did.

He wished he could say he was grumpy, angry at the thought of someone taking advantage of him and trying to quell their own loneliness. But, that would make him a hypocrite. Sure, he was at work all the time, but it was mostly for the sake of the job. With you, he couldn’t- wouldn’t, you deserved better than that.

“Here?” he reiterated, and you nodded. 

“Right.” you said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He felt his chest deflate, but he nodded with a smile. “Still working on that eggnog, by the way.” you said, patting the files and began to walk away. He chuckled, shaking his head,

“I am expecting the best of the best. Do not disappoint me.” he said, and you threw him a look over your shoulder and winked. He shifted in his chair, pulling up closer to hide his growing hard-on. 

Fuck. This was bad.

“You got a date?” Steve questioned from behind Javier as he rounded to his desk. Javier opened one of the files you had set down on his desk, and shook his head.

“Nope. Just coworkers having a drink.”

“Right. I have never heard that one before,” Steve said sarcastically, knowing full well Javier would say that and have the stink eye from the woman he had bedded the night before. Steve wasn’t an idiot, and some girls made it obvious for their distaste for Javier in the workspace. All of them except you, it seemed. Javier’s one failed attempt at getting a female coworker to sleep with him.

Steve wondered if you had finally given in. Or if Javier was changing his tune in time for the holidays.

Either way, he couldn’t wait to see the results.

Two days before Christmas, it was quiet. You still played the music, but not as frequently. Probably to give the office a break from the same 10 songs sung by different artists. But, Javier was watching you smile, converse, and walk around the office. When you left for lunch, he found himself looking out the window in hopes of your return. 

He was in the breakroom, smoking a cigarette by the window and holding a new cup of coffee. He huffed, and looked down at the street below, suddenly leaning in close to the glass that his nose nearly touched it. 

You were walking up the street back to the building, with a man at your side. You were smiling, nodding, and laughing. That laugh where your face scrunched up and tilted your head back a bit, one he had never had the pleasure of inciting himself. 

And you were next to Miguel Garcia, from the internal operations department. He had never interacted with him, except maybe once or twice. He didn’t even work on the same floor as you and Javier. How did he manage to snag a conversation with you?

Unless…

His jaw ticked, and he rubbed it to ease the tension. When you disappeared back inside, he could see Miguel duck first and open the door for you. When you both walked inside, out of view, he took a very heavy drag of the cigarette. He set down his coffee mug and crossed his arms, the other hand still holding the cigarette to his lips. Feeling a tightness in his chest that was typically only reserved for stress on the job, he tried his best to smoke it off.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but he had stubbed out that cigarette and another, lighting up a third. He really shouldn’t care about this. It was none of his business, and you didn’t belong to him. But, to know you two had plans, and you walked up with someone else, made him feel… some kind of way.

You didn’t belong to him, he reminded himself. And he doesn’t belong to you.

He wouldn’t realize it then, but later (much later) he would come to the fact that he finally understood what those poor women felt when he went from one to the other in the office. Karma kind of stings.

He heard footsteps and didn’t look up, but he heard your voice ring out in greeting. He looked back, and that tightness in his chest coiled up again.

“Cigarettes and coffee for lunch?” you questioned, and walked to the coffee maker. He shrugged,

“Hasn’t killed me yet.” 

You laughed, and shook your head, making a fresh pot of coffee, “Yeah. “Yet,” being the word.”

“How was lunch?” he said stiffly, unable to help himself. His eyes were trained on your back as you faced away from him to the coffee pot, but you didn’t flinch or tense up.

“It was good! Ran into Miguel from Ops, he was at the same diner as me. He’s a lot nicer than I expected- always thought he was so serious.” you said, and pressed the button, the coffee began to brew. “Kind of like you. Well- I still think you’re serious. But, you have your moments of… not-seriousness, I guess.”

You turned back to him, and he didn’t realize he was staring holes into your back until you looked at him pointedly.

“If you take a picture, Peña, it’ll last longer.” you laughed, and his eyes moved back to the window. He lowered the cigarette to his waist, his thumb ticking against it lightly.

“Everything alright?” you questioned, and if he wasn’t a seasoned agent, he would have flinched. The fact you noticed… that was dangerous, too. 

Too close. Too, too close.

“Yeah. Fine.” he said, and picked up his coffee mug, stamping out his cigarette. The leftover smoke that had accumulated in the room suddenly felt oppressive, and he needed an escape.

“We still on for tomorrow?” you questioned, your body turning as he began to stalk out.

“Maybe. Had something come up- i’ll let you know.” he said, trying his best not to look at you. Because if he did, he knew he would see a look on your face that would make him fold.

“Oh. Okay,” you said, trying and failing to hide your disappointment in your voice. “Yeah, just… let me know.”

Javier sat at his desk, and sighed, rubbing his eyes. 

Yeah.

Too close.

Christmas Eve. Javier was tired. He had stayed late the night before, drowning himself in work to combat the growing feeling of loneliness and melancholy over the holiday. He had tried to push you out of mind, and tried to decide how he was going to tell you he wouldn’t be available for that drink. 

You weren’t avoiding him that day, but you certainly didn’t go out of your way to talk to him. You wore some dangly, Christmas-themed earrings that made little tinkling noises when you moved your head. He was achingly aware of your every move, every word that was within earshot, and every smile that graced your face.

God. Focus, Peña. 

Steve wasn’t there that day, having taken off to spend time with Connie and his kid. Javier was fine with that, meant less snide comments that would be pointed his way. He kept his head down, and didn’t bother interacting with the few people who were there at the office.

Quickly enough, the sun had set and the workday was over, but Javier made no move to leave. Everyone had vacated by now, save for himself, the janitor, and you. He looked up when you approached his desk, and he could see something in your hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it.

“Try not to stay up all night,” you said and set a tall mason jar on his desk filled with something off-white. He frowned, and looked back at you, “Homemade eggnog.” You offered an explanation.

His heart dropped.

Fuuuuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Merry Christmas, Javier.” You said with a smile when he just sat there, staring like an idiot. You turned and walked to your desk, picking up your bag. You stole another look his way and nodded, and headed to the door. When it shut, his head swiveled to the jar on his desk.

He pondered for a second. Then another second. Then a minute.

God, he couldn’t be this much of an ass. Not on Christmas Eve, of all nights.

Javier quickly gathered everything up, shutting the lights off since the janitor had left minutes ago. Pulling on his jacket hastily, he grabbed the jar. As he hurried out the door, almost forgetting to lock it before turning back and fumbling with the keys. He pulled it once to make sure it was locked and then flew down the hallway.

He struggled to find a taxi, and took it to your place that he struggled to remember. It got him to the right neighborhood, and he found your building moments later. He jogged up the steps when he got inside and approached your door. He hesitated, and wondered if this was a good idea. He pushed the thought from mind and knocked hastily. He didn’t care what the outcome was, he had to say something. Whatever he was going to say, he didn’t know. Good thing he was quick on his feet-

Javier frowned, and looked down to see an elderly gentleman in a white shirt answer the door, looking tired and sleepy.

“Quién eres?” The man questioned, and Javier gulped. He quickly gave his apologies, and the man grunted and waved his hand, cursing under his breath about drunk men knocking on his door. Javier shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck, and looked at the next door. He could have sworn it was this one, but he must have been mistaken. 

He walked to the next one, and knocked. He would have to knock on every door on the right hand side of the hallway if he had to-

You opened the door with a frown on your face, phone pressed to your cheek and dressed in sleep pants and a t-shirt.

“H-hi.” He greeted, and cleared his throat. He said your name, and you cocked an eyebrow, obviously surprised.

“I just- I-“ Javier began, but you turned to the side,

“Mom, let me call you back. No, it’s- It’s carolers! How cool is that-? Yes, I know- Okay, love you, bye!” You said quickly and pressed the button hard to hang up. You looked at him, eyes narrowing.

“Did you come to give me back the eggnog?” You questioned, gesturing to the jar in his hand. He looked down at it, then back at you.

“Well, I- I was hoping we could-“

“Christ, Javier. Get in here, you’re gonna let all the cold air out.” You said, and gestured for him to come in hastily. He stepped inside and you closed the door, you both turned to face each other. You crossed your arms.

“Hoping we could- what? Just because I gave you that does not mean-“ 

“No! No… I just- I’m sorry. I feel bad.” 

“Javier Peña feels bad?” You scoffed, and shook your head, reaching for the doorknob. He stepped forward, hand outstretched,

“Yes, I do! I do. I… Wanted to say thanks...”

“For the eggnog.” You stated, finishing for him. He sighed, and knew this would be a shit show. He had to recover it somehow.

“Not just that. For offering to hang out, for bringing cookies… for making Christmas a little more… Like Christmas, I guess.” 

You stared at him. And then you laughed. It started out as a nervous, breathy laugh, and then you crescendoed into a cackle. You wiped your eyes, and shook your head,

“Peña, you are something else.” You said, and reached for the doorknob again. “Now, get ou-“

“At least have that drink with me first.” Javier said quickly, and you looked at him. You seemed to ponder it for a moment, and your eyebrows furrowed with frustration and he thought for sure that you would throw him out by his ear. But, your shoulders relaxed, and you shook your head.

“Fine. Not like I have anything else going on.” You said, resigned to it and locked the door, walking to the kitchen. He followed along quickly, and you reached into a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, looking half-drunk already. He wondered how much you indulged in it, and the thought made him smirk slightly.

“I’m just doing this to be nice,” you said pointedly when he set down the jar, and you found two mismatched glasses, dividing up the eggnog and alcohol ratio. “And to keep from being on the phone with my mother.”

Javier nodded, and hesitated to take off his jacket or make any other move to make himself comfortable. He stood there rather awkwardly before you gestured to the living room.

“Go ahead, sit. I’ll meet you there.” you said, and he nodded, feeling some kind of relief to do something other than stand there like an idiot. He walked to the living room and shed his jacket, draping it over the back corner of the couch and looked at the TV, which was playing some black and white movie, the accents dramatic and distinctively old-timey. He heard the name “George Bailey” cross the lips of one of the actresses, but still had no clue what you were watching. He sat on the edge of the couch, and looked up when you came in, carrying two glasses.

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” you said, and handed him the glass, which he took carefully. He looked at you with a cocked up eyebrow, and you rolled your eyes. “The movie, Javier.” you chided, and sat on the other side of the couch, a respectable distance.

He took a sip of the drink, and found it to be sweet, like the cookies. The bourbon gave it a bit of a stronger flavor, and he swallowed.

“It’s good,” he said, and he could see your unconvinced glare and he leaned back slightly, trying to recover some of his confidence. “I’m not lying. It’s good. Reminds me of back home.”

You seemed to relax at this, and nodded, satisfied. You shifted your eyes to the movie, and he could see the fondness in them as you watched the movie. 

 "What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word, and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down."

“He reminds me of you, you know.” you said quietly, and he kept his eyes trained on you as yours never left the screen.

“A little misguided, unaware of the bigger picture around you. Maybe a bit cynical, too wrapped up in work to remember the finer, more important things in life.” you said, and he chuckled.

“Yeah? That’s your assessment?” he said, and you shrugged, taking a sip of your drink.

“Yeah. I’m just wondering what’s going to kick you in the ass to realize what you’ve been missing. I don’t think it’s going to be an angel, exactly, but… It is Christmas, after all.” you said with a shrug, and he glanced over your face. The slope of your nose, the curve of your lips as they sipped the drink, the way your eyes sparkled in the TV’s light.

What was he doing? Sitting here, on Christmas Eve, drinking eggnog and watching a movie with a woman who had no intention of sleeping with him? Why was he allowing himself to be in a situation like this? Javier didn’t do… whatever this is. 

“Yeah, who knows what could happen.” he said into his glass, his eyes finally moving away from you to the screen. He inhaled gently, the smell of balsam and something distinctly you filled his senses. He had experienced it in passing, like when you walk past his desk or he visits you at your desk. Something just has him pulled towards you, and he has no idea why. It scares him, though.

The movie played on quietly between the two of you, and you had pulled your knees up to your chest at one point. The silence should have been weird, awkward. But, it wasn’t. Javier felt comfortable just sitting in your presence, a sense of calm coming over him. Without the stress of having to converse to fuck things up further, he allowed himself to sink back into the couch a bit. 

The movie wasn’t what he would exactly pick for casual viewing, but you seemed enamored with it. Every time he glanced at you, your eyes were glued to the screen. Soon, your respective glasses were empty and set on the coffee table.

“Hey, Javier?” you questioned after a silence settled in the movie, nearly startling him. He did his best to recover, and cleared his throat, making a hum of acknowledgement.

“If you could have anything for Christmas, what would it be?” you questioned, and he looked over at you to see your eyes were finally torn from the screen, and were on him. He thought for a moment, leaning his head back and slung an arm across the back of the couch, lips parted in thought.

“I guess… maybe a true day of rest. No stress. No paperwork. No having to deal with Steve, or anyone else at the office-” he said, almost on autopilot, but then wanted to kick himself. He fucked up- shit, shit, shit-

But, you laughed.

“I don’t blame you one bit. Place can be insufferable, sometimes. Especially coworkers.” you said, and he could sense the jab right back at him. He shook his head, a small smirk on his lips as he tilted his head back straight to look at you.

“What about you? What’s on The Best Secretary Ever’s Christmas list?” he questioned, and you rolled your eyes, but smiled, looking down at your nails to busy yourself instead of looking at him.

“Ha, ha. Well… Maybe-” you said, but stopped quickly, and shook your head. “A car. So I can go anywhere I want… explore everywhere, and escape, and-”

“Now, why do I feel like you’re lying?” Javier questioned, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t have to use much sleuthing skills to figure that one out. You looked at him darkly, but then back to your nails.

“Fine, in the spirit of the holiday, I’ll be honest.” you said, and Javier shifted on the couch to angle his body towards yours a little more. 

“I just… want someone to- God, this is so stupid. I should not be saying this, especially not you-” you said, the regret already coming out in your voice. But, when you looked at Javier, there seemed to be something on his face that told you to go on. You seemed to relax a bit, and he wondered what exactly you saw on his face. He was just being patient, quiet, listening- something Javier Peña rarely did. 

“I want someone to buy groceries with. Get coffee with, even if it’s too hot outside. Someone to talk to on the phone or come home to after a long day.” you said, your voice getting more and more quiet, and your eyes shifted down to your nails again, and he noticed you were picking the cuticles slightly. Nervous habit, he noted. Why were you nervous?

“It’s dumb, I know. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my independence, my work, or anything, just… Someone to share life with, I guess.” you said, and Javier felt his throat close up gently. When it was apparent you were done, he nodded slowly.

“I see.” he said, and he could see you visibly flinch.

“Like I said, dumb stuff. I guess the holiday puts me in a lonely, longing mood. 5th one in a row without someone.” you said, and Javier frowned at this. How was that possible, no one being worthy enough to spend time with you? He couldn’t understand it. You were smart, kind, incredibly and achingly good looking, and knew exactly what you wanted in life. Better than him in any and all aspects, really.

“It’s not dumb.” he said, and you raised your eyes to his, momentarily stopping your picking. You raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, and he shrugged.

“We’re human, right? We want connection like that. It’s in our nature.”

We, we, our. What was he doing? Roping himself into this whole thing?

“Right.” you said, and nodded, but that skeptical look was still in your eyes. But, you smiled small.

“Never thought Javier Peña would admit any of that.” you said, and he shrugged it off, his eyes moving back to the movie.

“I’m full of surprises.”

You updated him on the movie that you missed while you conversed, and as he watched, he could tell more and more this was a pretty depressing movie. This George guy was on the brink of losing everything, and if he didn’t straighten up, he would be sad, lonely, and probably better off dead.

Javier wanted to scoff. Were you trying to teach him a lesson or something?

He couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for this George guy, though. And maybe that sympathy was extended to himself for a second.

As the movie went on, you stretched your legs out slightly, but not enough to touch Javier’s thigh, though it was dangerously close. If he wanted, he could move his hand from his lap and touch your ankle, your smooth and delicate skin. 

But no. Don’t push it. Not on Christmas Eve.

He heard you sniffling at the particularly sad part of the movie, and looked over at you to see you wipe your eyes hastily. You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, and shrugged.

“What? Old Hollywood makes me emotional, okay?” you laughed lightly, though he could understand where your emotions came from. He let you have this moment, though, and looked away. 

But, the movie had a hopeful turn. And a happy ending that only Hollywood could deliver.

“No man is a failure who has friends.”

Javier pursed his lips, and wanted to shake his head. Maybe he couldn’t relate, after all.

“We’re friends, right?” you questioned, and Javier swiveled his head to see you still wiping tears from your eyes, sniffing before you looked at him. His eyes moved over your face, and he nodded without much thought.

“Yeah. I think so.” he said. Whether it was for your benefit or his, he wasn’t sure. But, it felt right to say it. And your light smile you gave him knew it was the right thing to say. Probably the only right thing he had said all night.

You picked up the glasses as the movie ended, and rinsed them out in the kitchen. He stood up, stretching and followed you without much thought. He leaned against the doorway, watching you and then assessing the room, his eyes roaming. Looking above him, he saw a green and red plant and swallowed. He looked back at you just as you turned back to him, and walked towards him. When you stopped in front of him, and you opened your mouth to speak, he gulped.

“Merry Christmas, Javier.” you said with a smile, and he could feel the subtle shift to get him to leave. But, you were under mistletoe, and he couldn’t help himself.

He kissed your cheek gently, pulling away just as quickly and smiled.

“Merry Christmas, cariño.” he said quietly, and you frowned, then glanced up above the two of you and your cheeks reddened.

“Javier, that’s, uh- that’s just holly.” you said, and he froze. Oops.

“Oh, uh- I just-”

“Well, I give you a point for trying to keep the holiday spirit.” you laughed, and he relaxed a bit. He nodded, and gave you a smile as he moved back to collect his jacket. 

“You should take a break from the office tomorrow,” you said. He shrugged and pulled his jacket over his arms, then adjusting it on his shoulders.

“Why? May miss the chance to see you.” he said, and you rolled your eyes so hard he thought they were going to fall out of your head. But, a smile quickly followed it, and he smirked. 

“I’m taking the day off, like many others.” you said, and he began to back up to the front door as you rounded closer to him to usher him out. He bumped up against the door,

“Well, that’s a shame. I’ll miss my favorite secretary and her holiday cheer.” he said, and you stopped at a healthy distance. He could see you trying to suppress an amused expression, and grinned. “Come on, cariño, it’s true. You are my favorite. No one else would bring Christmas cookies to me unless they were trying to poison me.” 

“Who says I wasn’t trying to?” you teased with a smirk, and he shook his head,

“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already. Several times over.” You nodded, but shrugged slightly. 

“I guess you’re more tolerable than I thought.” 

Silence hung in the air as you two gazed at each other. He looked up for just a moment and spotted the clock hanging on the wall. Midnight had just passed, and when he looked back at you, you were stepping closer and closer to him. He looked down at you, having nowhere else to go with his back pressed against the door. You were so close now that he could feel your body heat hovering just above his chest. He inhaled, but as you reached down, the lock clicked to unlock.

“I’ll see you later.” you said, and the tension in his chest melted away almost instantaneously, and he nodded as you moved to open the door. He pushed off of it, and watched as you opened it, but a little slower than he would have thought.

“Merry Christmas.” he said with a smile, and you looked up at him with a nod. He stepped out, and jerked back when he felt you tug on his jacket before he could move away. He turned on his heel, thinking you wanted one more quip, but was shocked (to say the least) when you pulled him down by his collar to kiss him. He stiffened for just a blink but immediately resigned into it and kissed you back gently, eyes falling closed and his hand moving to your waist. When you pulled away he attempted to chase your lips, but his eyes opened for a moment to see you looking up at him. You searched his eyes, like you were trying to weigh the options presented before you. 

He felt that familiar tightness in his chest, and when your hands dropped from his jacket, his hand regretfully dropped from your waist.

“Merry Christmas, Javi,” you whispered, and smiled lightly. He smiled small, the proximity between you two still minimal. He wanted to pull you in, kiss your sweet lips again. 

But as you backed up into your apartment, his hand twitched at his side from the thought. But, your hand rested on the door, and as your eyes fell, you began to close it. He quickly pushed up a hand to stop the door, and said a bit breathlessly,

“New Year’s Eve. What are you- where will you be?” You looked up at him in surprise, blinked, and then responded,

“The office is having a party at the bar down the street. Figured I’d go, at least for a little…” you said, and he nodded, having forgotten all about it until this point. Now that he thought of it, he had heard Steve and some of the other agents talking about it. 

“Perfect.” he said, and nodded. You waited for a moment, and he could see the confused look in your eyes, but you gave him a light smile.

“‘Night, Javi.” you said, and he lowered his hand as the door shut quietly in his face. He stared at the dark wood before him, and gave himself a confident nod.

New Year’s Eve, he thought. Do not fuck this one up, Peña.

divider by @/saradika-graphics!

Comment, like, reblog, anything is appreciated! ❤️

[eclipsecrowned]

BLOG MOVE!

Long overdue, blog has become a complete mess, Hoping to enter 2025 with some more positive energy by being able to pre-empt blocking some real freaks out there who like to lurk on my page and a better focus on ic!

What this is going to look like:

Fresh transfer to a new blog, though I will slow drip in what people would prefer be transferred over*. Mild rework of muse page to remove muses that no longer or never generated interest. A tighter focus on what sparks joy for me as much as for my partners bc tbh i got kind of exhausted being 'the x person' or not feeling that all muses were regarded as equal in different fandoms.

Timetable:

I'm going to spend the next few days I have off doing the heavy lifting of actual coding/aesthetics/test posting, and so on. Over time, I will be finalizing my carrd to have more in depth information for all muses, as well as the easy-access mobile muse page for people who just want it short or sweet. I also intend to ensure each muse has a fully functional tag system before moving bc these same named bitches w a tbt appended are killing me. Is this Charlotte from B*rserk or Charlotte from Debede? Shut up past Kadi I'm going to kill you. This hopefully means I will be fully ready to go in early-mid January if not a little sooner. For now, I will still be semi-active/lurking here just grabbing everything I need, and will let you all know when that changes.

What's coming with me:

Dynamics/Ships

Headcanons

Most of you hopefully!

Probably most muses

Most fandoms, with a few greatly expanded character-wise

Any threads people want me to transfer*

Any IC or meta asks people want me to transfer*

*The focus at the start is on just setting a new daily writing habit, which means I will likely focus on new threads and asks to start. However, I don't intend to totally abandoned some threads that have been plotted or even just interest me. The main point is that I will put those on the back burner until I can give them the focus and energy they deserve. If there is a thread or ask you want on rotation moving forward, please fill out this form so I can hold on to it :D

If you 100% want to remain mutuals the new blog like this post and I will follow you once it's identifiable as mine/not a bot.

[movingblogsreadpinnedpost]

#BLEDTITANIUM, This is a Indie, Sel, & Drama Free rp blog for Alexis Brighton. A Mafia Born Fandomless Muse, [[ She was taken from the crime family, and put into foster care. Where she was adopted by the Brighton's. And grew up to own her own Ranch, where she takes in Ex Convicts who normally can't find work when released. Also, she meets Chris, a Family Friend with a shitty childhood and mafia binds as well. Who was turned Serial Killer by all the trauma he endues, and he was arrested. And after being out of her life for so long, is release from prison on parole and sent to her ranch. Where she and he end up dating and the world is focused on her. Good and Bad, and not to mention her own father, HER BIRTH FATHER coming to bring her back into her birth family, where he wants her to take the reigns as the Mafia Boss. ]] <------- Just little bio / snippet of what she is and all.

[coollyinterferes]

The unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching begins to fill the air. Whoever is coming seems to have brought some company along…

They are getting closer… and closer… and closer…

…and closer…

……until..................

"Goooooood evenin'!!" Comes the loud greeting from a certain blond man. A big smile on his face and all.

"We beg your pardon for our prolonged absence. It was completely beyond our control..." Then adds the gentleman standing by his side, apologizing on behalf of both, offering a genuine smile along with the apology.

"...BUT! We're back!" And hopefully for good this time…

[rinhaler]

If you’re a blank blog you’re getting blocked

If you don’t have an age indicator you’re getting blocked

If you say ‘part two?’ You’re getting BLOCKT

[therealbeachfox]

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

[jasontoddiefor]

Yeah sure we’ve all binged a long fic, but have you ever read a WIP and followed someone’s life?

Tidbits of information - (“I graduated today!”) - and small joys (“It’s my birthday!”) and you get to be there to say “This chapter made me cry, happy birthday, thank you for gifting us this”.

I remember reading this fic of someone at the end of high school, older than me then. They seemed infinitely wise, spoke of their future career and getting into the college they wanted. I remember them posting on days they felt like nothing could bring them down - and on days the whole world did and it’s the aftermath of a hospital visit. Cancer, I think it was, their father. I got to the end of the story, I know their father was fine, but also they got to finish their WIP. I graduated three years later than them, still dutifully wrote thank you notes in every comment. I wonder if they remember me, or just the collective of people reading the story as it updates.

Four years ago I was into my first year of university, my first year of figuring out being out in public spaces. I made excuses as to why my name didn’t match my paperwork and read a fic on the train, the same five chapters over and over again for the next years as I thought the story abandoned. It updated this week after such a long hiatus, I left another thank you comment.

There’s an author I love, they update their stories like a clockwork. When they don’t, I check their blog, just to see if their doing alright, not because I feel like they owe me, just to ensure whether I better get out my laptop to write that really detailed university level essay chapter analysis to get them smiling when their day sucked.

And then, once, when I was 17, I read a fic that hadn’t updated in over a decade. I wasn’t even in primary school when it started posting. On the last chapter, I left a comment that, in retrospect, was horribly rambly and most likely full of grammar mistakes. The author replied and though I couldn’t see their face, I thought of them crying. They were married now, had children, and hadn’t thought about this fic in years. They went through their files again, found another half written chapter and an outline. I got two new chapters to read that year.

And then, recently, someone told me they got back into writing original fiction because of my comments. I get to read nearly weekly chapters.

I love binge reading a finished fic, but nothing is ever going to top the feeling of anticipation of waiting for a chapter, the pure joy when someone tells you I was done with this, but you made me think of it again, so this is for you.

Anyway, I think we should romanticize reading WIPs more, growing up alongside the authors writing the stories we love.

[heywriters]

Rescued Writing Links!

When cleaning out the HEY, Writers! Pinterest I moved some links here. The internet has changed a LOT since I started collecting these, so some links may include outdated info. All were still active when I made this, but it's been in my drafts for a hot minute.

Protip! In Firefox, check to toggle reader view when reading these (mobile: the page icon in the url bar; desktop: same icon or hit F9). This removes popups, ads, screen clutter, and often has an audio option.

Survivors of Internet Decay Award!

These active sites featured most often in my collections so they get the top of the list.

Helping Writers Become Authors

Mythcreants

Bryn Donovan

Getting Started (Ideas & Intros)

How to Start Writing a Book: Learn One Writer’s Process | Marian Schembari

How to Start a Story: 30 Opening Scene Examples | Bryn Donovan

Don’t Panic! What to Do When You Have Too Many Story Ideas | Faye Kirwin

How to Write a Killer First Chapter | Rae Elliot

How To Write A Captivating Opening Sentence

Outlining

How to Create a Flexible Outline for Your Novel | Faye Kirwin

Protagonists

How to Write Believable Characters | Bridget McNulty

4 Ways to Write a Likable Protag at the Start of the Character Arc | KM Weiland

5 Tips for Writing a Likable "Righteous" Character | KM Weiland

I Hate Your Protagonist! Want to Know Why? | KM Weiland

The Secret to Writing Dynamic Characters: It's Always Their Fault | KM Weiland

A Protagonist’s Moment of Realisation

Antagonists

Blurring the Lines: What Are Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains?

Antagonists: Inner & Outer Demons | Kristen Lamb

How to Write Multiple Antagonists | KM Weiland

Character Building

The Epic Guide to Character Creation, Part 1 | Kylie Day

Pick Up A Bad Habit | Maggie Maxwell

How To Write Characters from the Opposite Gender | Rachel Poli

Top 4 Tips for Using Backstory in Your Novel | Diana Anderson-Tyler

Depicting Background Characters | Chris Winkle

Scene Building

The 5 Elements Of A Good Scene | Amanda Patterson

A New Way to Think About Scene Structure | KM Weiland

2 Ways to Make the Most of Your Story’s Climactic Setting | KM Weiland

8 Things Writers Forget When Writing Fight Scenes | Lisa Voisin

Descriptions

Master List of Facial Expressions | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Words to Describe Voices | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Physical Description for Writers | Bryn Donovan

Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities | Bryn Donovan

How to Ground Your Reader (in the setting) | Rachel Craft

The Forgotten Fifth Sense | Writer's Relief

Never Name an Emotion in Your Story | KM Weiland

Show, Don't Tell: How to Write the Stages of Grief | Ruthanne Reid

100 Words for Facial Expressions

Dialogue

How To Write Good Dialogue: Ten Tips | Irving Weinman

Seven Dialogue Don’ts | Jason Bougger

10 Keys to Writing Dialogue in Fiction | Katherine Cowley

Points-Of-View (POV)

What Every Writer Ought to Know About the Omniscient POV | KM Weiland

Motivation & Support

What New Writers Need To Know About Fear | Bryan Collins

How to Discover Your Writing Process with Gabriela Pereira | Kirsten Oliphant

Editing & Revising

18 Overused Words to Replace When Writing | Oxford Tutoring

An Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats | KM Weiland

Want More Depth to Your Writing? | Sacha Black

How Much is Too Much Backstory? | Ellen Brock

Why Your Writing Sounds Weird (And What You Can Do About It) | Joe Brock

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers | Jenny Bravo

Favorite Revision and Editing Tricks

Short Stories & Flashfic

How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide | Emily Wenstrom

How Flash Fiction / Microfiction Can Help With Your Writing | Rhianne Williams

Worksheets & Downloads

Writing Worksheet Archive

If anyone out there loves making lists and wants to transport this to another site, you have every right to do so! Just let me know in a reblog so I can share it here again :)

---

HEY! Writers' Links

Tip Jar! If you enjoy my blog and advice, support me on Ko-fi!🤗

Follow me on AO3 for fanfiction

Visit my Pinterest & Unsplash for visual inspiration

[buttercuparry]

HELP ALAA ACHIEVE €6,000 IN THE NEXT 2 DAYS!

THIS IS URGENT! Please have a look at this fundraiser. It belongs to Alaa Amsee ( @alaakh99 ) who is a loving mother to two beautiful children named Maria and Hamza. 

Alaa has had her tumblr account terminated for the SECOND TIME, resulting in her being unable to continue her efforts to campaign for herself and her children at a VERY  crucial time. It should infuriate you to see this happen, especially in light of the recent smear campaign against palestinian gfms. We can assume now that many of the Palestinian blogs have been deactivated, because of baseless reports of being scams.   

THE LAST DONATION CAME IN 23 HOURS AGO. PRIOR TO THAT, SOME DONATIONS CAME IN 2 DAYS AGO!!

We CANNOT  let this fundraiser be stagnant.  Alaa and her two children are suffering from hepatitis, and malnutrition. Their lives are on the line and they need medical care ASAP! 

Her life wasn't always like this! Before October 7, Alaa led a peaceful life  with her family which consisted of her children, husband, in-laws and immediate family, but soon the nightmare began and came to a head on October 28, when her neighborhood got bombed in its entirety. 

Alaa escaped certain death that night as her house collapsed and trapped her family in. Debris choked them all, and they had to be rescued from under the rubble and shattered glass. Alaa describes what she witnessed that night as "unimaginable"- death, corpses and blood, surrounded the family. 

Even after this tragedy, the pain did not let up and chased them to the Rimal neighborhood. The bombing continued and Alaa had to put wet masks on Maria and Hamza, so that the children could endure the terrible smoke and burning smell. Things got so bad throughout the next few months that Hamza who is only 3 years old, now talks only of bombings, rockets and tanks. 

I want to remind you that Maria, Alaa's little daughter, has contracted hepatitis after being displaced for the third time, where they had to flee to Rafah. Being overcrowded, one can only access shared bathrooms which are primary causes of such viral infections. The children have suffered from epidemics and skin diseases, and the little tent Alaa has managed to acquire can barely sustain life in summer heat 

On top of that, there is hardly any nutritious food and clean drinking water- which means that at one point, the family had to survive on weeds and bread made from animal feed. I cannot tell you how horrible this is! How Alaa and her children still suffer even now. In fact, at the moment of writing this post, Alaa  messaged me about her tent shaking due to bombings nearby. 

So I urge you not to ignore her, please, and help her reach her short term goal of 6K within the next 2 days !!

Her fundraiser  has been up since May and has only reached €4543 which is a little above 4% of her end goal! Please donate and share! I also request you to follow Alaa ( @alaakh99 ) and help her save her children from this genocide!

( verified by 90-ghost )

[kat-mobile]

Hey love ❤️ hope you’re doing good

Can I request Tommy with a gentle, empathetic and sensitive reader please. It was an arranged marriage and he found out his new wife would cry herself to sleep over a book she read or just a cat. His reaction to someone who is completely opposite of him

Thank you in advance ✨

Tommy with a wife who's his complete opposite

A/N: Hey baby, thanks for the request!! I'm doing good and I hope you are too ❤️ I forgot to put on the requests post to specify if you want it as a fic or headcanons so I've made it sort of a mix of the two, hope that's okay anon. I made this blog to try and improve my writing skills and as this is my first attempt it isn't the best, so sorry about that lol. Hope you like it!! (this is set sometime around series 1-2 cause those are my fave)

It was an arranged marriage and to be honest... you weren't particularly thrilled by the notion of being married to Birmingham's most known and feared gangster. But you would do anything for your family and if your father decided that this is what would be best for securing the future of the family then you'd follow through on your part of the deal, even if it seemed like you and Tommy had absolutely nothing in common.

This was a couple months ago now and you had somewhat settled into your new life in Small Heath and with Tommy by your side, the two of you living in comfortable tandem. You had settled into a routine and life was good, or as good as it could be with the risk of being married to a Shelby.

He would buy you any book that you so much as happened to glance at and in turn you would patch up and sew back together any unfortunate pieces of clothing that got in the way of Tommy and his dangerous life style and work, fighting back tears and worrying at your lower lip as you did so. You may not quite understand why he was constantly putting himself in danger but he was your husband all the same and you had grown to love him as your marriage progressed

you would also force him to go and see an actual trained medical professional whenever he came home with said ruined clothing, as a dead husband is less than ideal and you have grown attached these last couple months

Your empathy and tendancy to cry over him when he got hurt was a shock at first but he quickly got used to it, he even tried to avoid getting hurt just so as to not have to see you cry over him

He may not say it outright but he appreciates everything you do and how much you care for him

He doesn't like to keep secrets from you but he doesn't share all aspects of work life with you as he doesn't want you to worry too much, but if being kept in the dark would worry you even more he'd make an effort to keep you in the loop

Your gentleness and compassion is a welcome contrast to his life from before you were apart of it, Tommy didn't know that he needed it before you

If there's one thing about Tommy Shelby, it's that he protects what's his and as his wife he treats you with the utmost care (especially if you have a tendancy to seek out the good in all people)

One night when Tommy (finally) came to bed he found you curled up in a ball on your side with your back to the door, tears gently running down your smooth cheeks

Unsure of what to do when confronted by your distress but still wanting to help, he'd rush to your side and scoop you up onto his lap, holding you close with your tear-stained cheek pressed against his chest and an arm thrown protectively around your shoulders. He'd cautiously rock back and forwards whilst his hand moves slowly up and down your back in what he hopes is a soothing motion. He's a little awkward and stiff but damn if he isn't fucking trying

He'd use his forefinger and thumb to tilt your chin up and force your eyes to meet his own before softly questioning you on why you were crying

"What you crying for, hmm love? Ruining your pretty face"

He'd say, wiping away your tears with his thumb

Upon hearing that the reason for your tears was a sad ending to one of the books he bought you he'd be a little taken aback and he would honestly have to suppress the urge to laugh

It all seemed rather silly to him that you'd cry over some words on paper

"Tommy it isn't funny, it was really upsetting" you'd hiccup out through your tears

he'd just shake his head and sigh, apologising, before pulling you closer, finally laying down on the bed with your legs intertwined

Tommy had hoped it would be a one of chance but when he caught you crying in bed again over the ending of Of Mice and Men, he very quickly figured that he'd have to adapt

Tommy developed a system for when you had your... shall we say moments, he'd sit down on his side of the bed with his back pressed against the headboard before he lifted you up and placed you in-between his legs

Sitting you so that your back was resting against his chest and you could feel his heartbeat

You would then explain to him the sad moments in your books as he softly hummed and nodded his head along to your words

And when he got tired from your quiet voice lulling him to sleep he'd pull you down with him as he laid on his side, caging you in against his chest with an arm around your waist

Those were the nights that he slept the best

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

LOST IN THE SAUCE

___ !! ramble below !!

the new episode has given me too many ideas for ragatha pieces that you all have to deal with for the next upcoming weeks . this is one of them . you followed The Ragatha Blog you will have to expect Ragatha

i find it so funny how i would see a pair that's Very Clearly written to be narrative foils ( jax and ragatha ) and then i would go " okay . hold on as i compare and contrast Zooble and ragatha instead "

it's not even that i hate jax . in fact i Like him . i guess i just like to think about the least obvious stuff . and because i have an unhealthy obsession with this pair

zooble is the second newest in the circus . ragatha is the second oldest . zooble is outwardly blunt and rude . ragatha is outwardly nice and sweet . zooble is honest about what they're feeling and makes it clear who and what they dislike . ragatha's dishonest because she doesn't want people to hate her and keeps her grievances in the inside . zooble vehemently rejects the circus . ragatha Threw herself into the circus and wrapped herself in it . zooble's closer to the cast than you think . ragatha's Farther from the cast than you think .

they're like Opposites but not in a ' two sides of the same coin ' way like Jax and ragatha they like Clash . it's why i like to think they had the Slowest platonic slow burn ever before pomni came into the picture and even then i'm literally in the middle of writing the car conversation with ragatha and zooble where zooble realizes that despite having the ability to tell through ragatha's bullshit they still don't really know her Personally

i just have a thing for characters that's so deep into their dishonesty that even the others in-universe are unsure of who they really are .

Also i don't see ragatha and zooble as mother-child ( i'm not against it btw ! i just read them more as awkward best friends ) but i have people in my audience that does see them as such so like ... seeing it all in that lens makes zooble carrying a high ragatha funnier .

[hareofhrair]

I wanted to put this one the previous post but it was long and this is a tangent but- In regards to the hypothetical "If House was my doctor I'd just tell him everything. Rip to all his other patients but I'm different."

The whole point of the show is that you wouldn't. Like a major theme of the show is about how the various shames and stigmas and habitual dishonesties that plague our societies both metaphorically and literally kill us. "Everybody lies" isn't just a cynical catchphrase, it's the shows thesis. Because of how we operate as a society, everyone feels compelled to suppress and hide things and that inevitably leads to suffering.

And there are plenty of episodes where this is obvious, ie "I cheated on my partner and gave them an STD." But there's also much more of "This little girl went through early puberty and because of the way our society stigmatizes women's bodies her single father never discussed puberty with her and she was so afraid and ashamed of her new pubic hair that she tried to shave it without telling anyone and mutilated herself, leading everyone to think she'd been abused and throwing off the whole case until House figured out her hormones were going crazy because she'd been exposed to her father's low T medicine, which he hid because of how our society regards masculinity, which he started taking because he began dating a younger woman (because of shame stemming from our society's unrealistic expectations wrt sex in relationships) which he was hiding from his kids, because of shame regarding our societies toxic views on monogamy."

A particular episode stands out as a really good example. S06E15 "Private Lives," which aired in 2010 but was fairly prescient about where social media was heading. The patient was a blogger who documented literally every moment of every day for her followers. She made it very clear she left *nothing* out, from her and her boyfriend's sex life to, eventually, asking for feedback from her followers on whether to get her heart valve replaced with one from a pig or a "vegan" plastic one. She handed the whole blog over to House as soon as he took the case and the team poured through the whole thing. Surely this is proof you're wrong about everybody lying, the team says to House. She's give us her whole life and you still can't find out what's wrong! Spoiler, it turned out the crucial symptom that allowed House to put it all together? Was the one thing she *didn't* include in the blog- Her bowel movements. Shame and stigma around talking about *poop* nearly killed this woman. It was also a detail that should have been picked up immediately by a normal doctor, who would have asked about her bowel movements as part of the standard checklist of diagnostic questions. But this woman was so confident that she'd laid out every relevant detail of her life in her blog, she wouldn't answer those questions, obfuscating what she was actually ashamed of underneath a pile of curated, rationalized, narritivized junk she could pretend was proof of a lack of shame and not simply a skill at creative writing.

When I say "I'd just tell House everything" is ridiculous, I don't just mean "well, because of the way the show works, you HAVE to be hiding SOMETHING." I mean literally, you- because you are a human being- are ashamed of *something.* And because you are a human being, the more info you try to give House the more deeply you will bury whatever it is you're actually ashamed of. And, because of the way the show works, that *will* end up being the key to what's making you sick.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

How to Tell If That Post of Advice Is AI Bullshit

Right, I wasn't going to write more on this, but every time I block an obvious AI-driven blog, five more clutter up the tags. So this is my current (April 2024) advice on how to spot AI posts passing themselves off as useful writing advice.

No Personality - Look up a long-running writing blog, you'll notice most people try to make their posts engaging and coming from a personal perspective. We do this because we're writers and, well, we want to convey a sense of ourselves to our readers. A lot of AI posts are straight-forward - no sense of an actual person writing them, no variation in tone or text.

No Examples - No attempts to show how pieces of advice would work in a story, or cite a work where you could see it in action. An AI post might tell you to describe a person by highlighting two or three features, and that's great, but it's hard to figure out how that works without an example.

Short, Unhelpful Definitions - A lot of what I've seen amount to two or three-sentence listicles. 'When you want to write foreshadowing, include a hint of what you want foreshadowed in an earlier chapter.' Cool beans, could've figured that out myself.

SEO/AI Prompt Language Included - I've seen way too many posts start with "this post is about..." or "now we will discuss..." or "in this post we will..." in every single blog. This language is meant to catch a search engine or is ChatGPT reframing the prompt question. It's not a natural way of writing a post for the average tumblr user.

Oddly Clinical Language - Right, I'm calling out that post that tried to give advice on writing gay characters that called us "homosexuals" the entire time. That's a generative machine trying to stay within certain parameters, not an actual person who knows that's not a word you'd use unless you were trying to be insulting or dunking on your own gay ass in the funniest way possible.

Too Perfect - Most generative AI does not make mistakes (this is how many a student gets caught trying to use it to cheat). You can find ways to make it sound more natural and have it make mistakes, but that takes time and effort, and neither of those are really a factor in these posts. They also tend to have really polished graphics and use the same format every time.

Maximized Tags (That Are Pointless) - Anyone who uses more than 10 one-word tags is a cop. Okay, fine, I'm joking, but there's a minimal amount of tags that are actually useful when promoting a post. More tags are not going to get a post noticed by the algorithm, there is no algorithm. Not everyone has to use their tags to make snarky comments, but if your tags look like a spambot, I'm gonna assume you're a spambot.

No Reblogs From The Rest of Writblr - I'm always finding new Writblr folks who have been around for awhile, but every real person I've seen reblogs posts from other people. We've all got other stuff to do, I'm writing this blog to help others and so are they, the whole point of tumblr is to pass along something you think is great.

While you'll probably see some variation in the future - as people get wise to obviously generated text, they'll try to make it look less generated - but overall, there's still going to be tells to when something is fake.

I don't have any real advice for what to do about this (other than block those blogs, which is what I do). Like most AI bullshit, I suspect most of these blogs are just another grift, attempting to build large follower counts to leverage or sell something to in the future. They may progress past these tattletale features, but I'm still going to block them when I see them. I don't see any value in writing advice compiled from the work of better writers who put the effort in when I can just go find those writers myself.

[12daysofchristmas]

Join us in the 2024 12 Days of Christmas Challenge as we hope to spread a little ✨holiday joy and cheer✨ through the magic of writing fanfiction & creating art!

About & Rules

The challenge will run from December 13-24, 2024.

The challenge is open to any and all fandoms.

Submissions must include at least one of the prompts for that day but can combine two, three, or all four.

Prompts for the day always include: a word/words, a scenario, a quote, a "famous" quote (taken from songs and movies)

Tag your submissions with #12daysofchristmas2024 and/or mention this blog so that we will be notified to reblog your submissions here. (Also, it would be super cool if you gave this blog a follow!)

Submissions for the day must be posted before midnight YOUR time. We're not super hard-and-fast about this rule, but posting within time is very much appreciated! 

If you’re posting your submission directly on Tumblr (as opposed to linking to an external site such as AO3), you MUST use a “keep reading” cut!

Edit: We're now also allowing ALL KINDS OF ART: drawings, edits, aesthetics, mood boards, videos, podfics, fiber arts... go wild!

!! Absolutely NO AI creations !!

Please format ALL submissions with the following heading:

Title Day/Prompt(s) Fandom/Character(s)/Ship Warnings (if applicable): Word Count/Medium (in case it's art):  Example: Santa, Baby Day 8 - “Prompt(s) for that day” AEW - Adam Page x OC Warnings: Alcohol, cursing, sexual situations (explicit) Word Count: 7,290 or: Medium: fan video

You can also include a summary, gif, edit, whatever you want! Just don’t forget the “keep reading” if you’re posting directly on Tumblr!

If you're posting on AO3, here's our collection: 12 Days of Christmas Collection

2024 Prompts

Day 1 ❄️ First snow ❄️ Getting soaked ❄️ “Your hands are so cold.” ❄️ “I suppose it all started with the snow.” —Frosty the Snowman

Day 2 ❄️ Little lie ❄️ Trapped together in a snowstorm ❄️ “I thought you knew where you were going?!” ❄️ “I don’t know what to say, but it’s Christmas, and we’re all in misery.” —National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Day 3 ❄️ Accelerated heartbeat ❄️ Kissing in the snow ❄️ “Here, take my coat.” ❄️ “Let's hope the snow will make this Christmas right.” —Queen

Day 4 ❄️ Mulled wine ❄️ Playing board games ❄️ “I have no regrets.” ❄️ “Cheer up, dude. It's Christmas.” —How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 2000

Day 5 ❄️ Cookies ❄️ Holiday-themed contest ❄️ “That definitely looks… interesting?” ❄️ “That is exactly why you want a high-quality fire extinguisher right in the kitchen.” —The Santa Clause

Day 6 ❄️ Present ❄️ Making a new Christmas tradition ❄️ “Not another Christmas movie!” ❄️ “You say you hate Washington’s birthday or Thanksgiving, and nobody cares, but you say you hate Christmas, and people treat you like you’re a leper.” —Gremlins

Day 7 ❄️ Decorations ❄️ A little accident ❄️ “I was just trying to help!” ❄️ “I want my house to be seen from space.” —Deck The Halls

Day 8 ❄️ Touch starved ❄️ Telling secrets around the fire ❄️ “Sometimes the hardest part is forgiving yourself.” ❄️ “Santa, can't you hear me?” —Ariana Grande & Kelly Clarkson

Day 9 ❄️ Christmas fair/market ❄️ Late shopping (together) ❄️ “Hmm, this is actually not bad.” ❄️ “When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, doesn't really feel like Christmas at all.” —Coldplay

Day 10 ❄️ Surprise visit ❄️ Lighting scented candles ❄️ “I didn’t know you were here.” ❄️ “You’re skipping Christmas! Isn’t that against the law?” —Christmas with the Kranks

Day 11 ❄️ Fairy lights ❄️ Christmas party/ball ❄️ “I never want this night to end.” ❄️ “I won’t even wish for snow. And I’m just gonna keep on waiting, underneath the mistletoe.” —Mariah Carey

Day 12 ❄️ Feast ❄️ Indoor picnic by the tree/fireplace ❄️ “I baked your favourite cookie/pie/cake.” ❄️ “You are all I need tonight underneath the Christmas lights.” —Sia

Extra Challenge

Angst or fluff, romance or platonic - you're unsure in what direction your fic should go? Spin our

Wheel

and let it decide for you! You can spin it once and write all fics with what comes up, you can spin it daily and change course accordingly, you can spin it as often as you need or not at all - it's all up to you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions! Also, feel free to share this post and help spread the joy and cheer!

Happy writing, and good luck 🍀

[boltonbritreads]

🗣️Eddie Munson Fic Recs

This is gonna have a sappy start before I get into the fic rec portion: but I just wanted to say that at the end of May 2022, I was finishing up my first year of law school. It was rough, challenging, lonely, and basically everything you’d expect and I was in a bad place and the fandom I’d been in was slowing down just naturally. I truly wish I could remember how I even became aware of Eddie Munson because stranger things wasn’t really on my radar anymore and whoever I followed at the time that started to veer off into Eddie-mania, thank you. In the two years since then, I’ve graduated and become the worlds babiest lawyer and I genuinely owe a lot to this fandom and community on here for giving me a fun, usually safe, creative place to escape to when it got rough.

I’m just hoping to maybe remind people that there are already an incredible, incredible amount of existing stories to read and talk about that deserve your attention and love if you’re looking to read some Eddie stories. Some of these will be fics I’ve recommended before but I’m going to try my best to pull together writers and fics that I love and think everyone should read in the hopes that someone like me who still scrolls through eddie tags looking for my nightly bedtime story can find something new to them to read! ✨

Previous Fic Rec list here!! some overlap but there’s no such thing as too much hype for these writers

@munson-blurbs I hope it’s ok but I’m linking Bug’s full masterlist here because I have genuinely loved everything she has written. There are blurbs, series, and special events which are all incredible and worth a read! Bug is currently still writing the “Living after Midnight” series which is my current obsession and features rockstar!eddie x motelheiress!reader and it’s angst and lust galore

@corroded-hellfire also sharing the Eddie Masterlist here because there’s so many fics to read!! As You Wish, Big Brown Eyes, Where the Heart Is are all incredible but truly there’s so much here to enjoy

@upsidedownwithsteve SIMMER!! jk I’m actually linking the Eddie Masterlist here too because I love them all but “I Want You To Want Me” and “Simmer” are out of this world

@pinkrelish The Yes Policy I love it, you love it, we all love it and if you haven’t caught up yet oh my god I wish I was you and could read these chapters for the first time again

@ghost-proofbaby I’ve previously told people to go read 24 Hours, and you should, that’s an order; but Maroon is ongoing! and it’s actually infiltrating my every thought so go on over and get caught up bc I think it’s safe to say things are getting amped up

@trashmouth-richie I have also previously recommended Honey, I’m Home because it’s a work of art but Ziggy has a new mini series “Crash + Fall” that I’m completely obsessed with the concept for and I’ve loved every piece so far!

@tiannasfanfic I just reblogged Conviction again but I genuinely am not exaggerating when I say I think about this story and these two monthly and try and find this story all the time to re-read it endlessly. It’s a really lovely story of unplanned pregnancy and two characters not realizing they’ve been smitten for each other the whole time and I love it

@carolmunson I’m sharing another Eddie Masterlist here because I’d be making this post far too long but Carol’s stories are all incredible, complex, and honest. “Let’s go, don’t wait” just got updated and I had to read it like 3 times last night because it was too good to just read one and done

@rebelfell I just discovered Sarah’s blog after reading the most recent “Frenemy” fic and idk what I was doing wrong to not already follow her and not have already read her whole Masterlist but I’m linking the whole thing bc she’s so good!!

@the-au-thor I also only just discovered Elle’s blog and that’s criminal but thank god I found Babysitting Mun because I am a sucker for rockstar!eddie and this series has me on the edge of my seat rn

@storiesbyrhi I’m sharing the Masterlist folks because I have genuinely loved every single story and series and I have read them all now (some several times). So many of Rhi’s stories have a wonderful warm witchy vibe that I crave and I’ve read Siouxsie and the Soulmates, The Cabin in the Woods, Our Patron Saint of the Arts, Vintage Reeboks, and Burning Yarrow (insert screaming fan gif) multiple times now

@heart-eyed-love this fic is the epitome of a soft, cozy, domestic night with Eddie and if you need a hug read this 🥹

@eddieandbird I JUST got caught up on Eddie/Tour Manager series and I’m fully obsessed and desperate to know how they’re gonna navigate this - for folks new to the story, Eddie and his tour manager accidentally drunkenly get married- what could go wrong??

@eiightysixbaby the scream I scrumped when I finished reading Princess Leia, and Other Wishes - look bffs to lovers is already my absolute weakness on this earth but then you had to make it witty and funny and FLUFFY I just can do nothing but re-read and pine

@superblysubpar I’m still obsessed with this addition to The Boy is Mine writing challenge and oh god it’s so good 😩

…and while we’re talking about it - here’s the entire The Boy is Mine masterlist with an INSANE amount of incredible stories to read

@the-unforgivenn !!! tumblr hates me and deleted this bullet (so if you already saw this post, no you didn’t) but And I Need You to Know is a proper novel! I can’t imagine how much time, love, effort, planning, and work went into creating this insane and absolutely incredible world but everyone needs to read this!! and then follow up with She’s So Cold bc I love it and I am so reader

~~ this is not the end nor an exhaustive list! I just wanted to put something out there now that I plan to build on because I know I’m always scrolling and searching for new things to read or old things to revisit ♥️ ~~

[yandere-sins]

Monstober 2024

Monster-Enthusiasts, Monster-Lovers, and Monster-Fucker, I call upon thee! This upcoming October is going to be spooky!

It's time for a whole month of delicious monster content! Whether you want them to stalk, to hunt, or to devour your little protagonists (mind you, the monsters are the real protagonists of the story, hehe), I want to see a month dedicated to the beauty of the Ugly and Horrible! All things monster are welcome—art, writing, any kind of showcasing a monster! No matter how cruel or how obscene you like it—now's the time to show it off! ♥

I have prepared a list of monsters & prompts for your guidance, however, if you'd rather do a different monster or a different prompt, that is totally fine! If you prefer to stay private and not have your post reblogged to this blog, that is totally alright, too! This is merely for fun and giggles, and I welcome everyone who wants to challenge themselves this upcoming October to use this list if they want!

How to participate in my Monstober:

- Starting October 1st create something with the monster or prompt of the day! That is all you have to do.

You don't have to do all days or even in chronological order. Feel free to alter the prompts as needed. Your monsters do not have to match the usual descriptions of their kind! Post whenever and whatever you like as long as it is still connected to monsters!

- If you want your entry to be reblogged: @ me yandere-sins in your post, don't forget to put content warnings if any apply (especially Violence & Sexual Content—however, those are very welcome!), and put long texts (once they reach 3k words) under a read more! I'll reblog the posts as soon as I see and have the time to get to them!

Prompts

Day 1: Chimera | Mixed // Misunderstood // Insanity

Day 2: Werewolf/Werecat | Full Moon // Claws // Beastly

Day 3: Alien | Otherworldly // Uncanny Valley // Space

Day 4: Harpy | Cliff // Flying // Illusion

Day 5: Nymph/Dryad/Leshy | Plants // Playful // Nature's Bounty

Day 6: Naga/Lamia | Scales // Wrapping around // Poisonous

Day 7: Sphinx | Riddles // Sand // Giant

Day 8: Merfolk | Water // Singing // Alluring

Day 9: Folklore Creatures | Cautionary Tales // Truth // Naivity

Day 10: Mimic | Treasures // Hungry // Wrong

Day 11: Yuki-onna/Snow Spirit | Snowstorm // Promise // Guiding

Day 12: Witch/Wizard/Magician | Magic // Spells // Towers

Day 13: Shifter | True Form // Unbelievable // Transformation

Day 14: Minotaur | Labyrinth // Bannished // Following

Day 15: Eldritch Horror | Eldritch // Imprisoned // Tentacles

Day 16: "Church" Grim | Graveyard // Protecting // Spirit

Day 17: Dragon | Fire // Hoarding // Fairytale

Day 18: Kitsune | Tricked // Tails // Mystical

Day 19: Elf | Warrior // Swift // Merciless

Day 20: Goblin/Orc/Troll/Oni | Hordes // Village // Brutish

Day 21: Kelpie | Deception // Following // Stuck

Day 22: Skeleton/Zombie | Undead // Loved // Grave

Day 23: Angel | Feathers // Guardian // Watching

Day 24: Ghost | Shadows // Invisible // Coldness

Day 25: Vampire | Blood // Biting // Night

Day 26: Fae Folk | Lost // Fairy Circles // Names

Day 27: Drider | Silk // Cave // Ensnared

Day 28: Demon | Summoning // Contract // Otherworldly

Day 29: Gods | Reign // Glow // Worshipping

Day 30: Human | Real Monsters // Dangerous // Smile

Day 31: Free Choice of your favorite monster or a completely new one!

I look forward to all the monstrous ideas you'll come up with! ♥