#I think this is actually the first end of year reflections post I've made on here

[reiderwriter]

More Than Words

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female BAU!Reader

Requested: yes

Summary: After telling a white lie to your family about your relationship status, your forced to beg your coworker Spencer to pretend to be your boyfriend for a weekend wedding.

Warnings: Light smut at the end, penetrative sex, creampie, mentions of Spencer's childhood.

A/N: Thank you for the request on this one! Ever since I rewatched Season 7 and saw Spencer dancing with everyone at JJ's wedding I've been thinking non-stop about him just holding you close like that and I'm going to shut up now because 8k words of that is more than enough lmao.

You can find my masterlist here, and I just started posting all my stuff on AO3 as well, so if you prefer to read there, check it out!

Despite knowing about your brother’s impending nuptials for the last 18 months, it was in the final two-week stretch that you actually started panicking about getting the date that you’d promised them. It was one sweet little white lie that you had made that had just spiraled out of control, but you’d yet to actually manifest the secretive boyfriend who was “very real actually, mom, he’s coming to the wedding actually.”

It was that statement that had sealed your fate, and always one to wear your emotions on your face when you weren’t on a case, it wasn’t long before someone noticed your building anxiety and guilt.

“Okay, spill Y/N. You look like you just witnessed your favorite author kick a puppy or a kitten or something,” Penelope said when you dropped some files off in her room that morning, spinning around on her chair to face you as soon as she caught your reflection in her monitor.

“It’s this wedding I have to go to,” you sighed dramatically, falling into one of the other chairs in the room kept for visitors.

“Want me to help you get out of it?” Penelope offered, patting your hand comfortingly.

“I’m not sure my brother would be too pleased about that, since it’s his wedding and all. My mother would drag me down all the way from here herself if she had to.”

“Okay, so a no-show is a no-go. Then what gives, my sweet avenging angel? There has to be something serious to get you looking all glum.”

You sighed and ran a hand through your hair before straightening up and leaning into Penelope more, creating an air of secrecy.

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Oh sweetie, if only you knew the secrets these four walls held,” she replied dramatically, pulling a laugh from you.

“Last year, I was so, I don’t know, jealous I guess, of all the attention my brother and his fiancee were getting because of the wedding, and it just felt like every time my mom called me, she would only want to talk about them because of the wedding. I felt left out, and I already live so far away anyway, so it’s hard to have that connection with people back home, so I might have told a small, tiny, inconsequential lie that now actually has consequences?” Your face flushes at the confession, and you can see Penelope trying her best not to blurt out her thoughts, intent on letting you continue.

“I told her I was seeing this guy. He’s amazing, he works in the FBI just like me, and he’s smart, and he takes me on dates to these amazing places, like museums and interesting restaurants and to book fairs. I told her he was handsome and that he looked at me like I put the stars in the night sky, and he just doesn't exist, Penelope. And now I have to disappoint my mother again by turning up to my brother's wedding without a date.”

“Oh sweetheart,” was all she said for a minute, and the sympathetic look on her face made you want to run out of there immediately.

“I know, I know, I need to tell her the truth, but I don’t want to do it at the wedding and spoil her happiness. She loves weddings.”

“And this fake boyfriend is supposed to be your plus-one?” she asked.

“My invitation read ‘To our darling sister and her mystery man,’” you groaned, wondering how you could have been so childish in the first place. You’d acted like any child on a playground would, inventing lies to make yourself seem more important and cooler.

“I think I have the perfect solution for you, angel, but you might not like it,” Penelope grinned from her chair, leaning back and playing with the pen in her hands nefariously as if she’d been waiting for this chance her whole life. You didn’t trust that look, but you had no other option, so you took a deep breath and listened to her plan.

–X–

Three days later, and you were suddenly pacing the hallways with a coffee and a croissant, poised and ready to kidnap an FBI Agent the second he passed you.

At first, you’d laughed at the suggestion she’d made, outlandish as it was. But 72 hours of reflection, and a timely phone call from your mother, and suddenly you were on board and ready to lock on to your target. You stopped pacing when you heard the elevator ding, signaling the arrival of Spencer Reid. You were thankful that his schedule was so regular and timed down to the minute that you had just enough time to ambush him in the hallway before any other member of your team noticed.

“Spencer! Here I bought you coffee and a croissant from that cafe I mentioned a while back,” you panicked, unloading the gifts into his arms quickly, taking him off guard, before checking left and right before pushing him into the nearest empty room and shutting it behind you.

“Good morning to you, too, Y/N. Is there a reason we’re in a closet right now?” he asked, looking down at you with knitted eyebrows.

“Yes,” you gumped, afraid to say anymore.

“Are you going to tell me what the reason is?”

“I need you to be my boyfriend for a weekend,” you finally blurted out.

“You need me to… Just for a weekend?” He looked confused, and you felt your cheeks flame up, as you tried your best to explain the situation for him.

“My brother is getting married in LA this weekend, and I need a date. I told my mom last year that I was in a relationship with a really great guy who also works for the FBI.”

“Oh. So, you broke up with him and don’t want to tell your mom?”

“No, he never existed. Long story, I can explain on the plane, but I really need you to come with me! I’ll pay for everything, and I’ll even get you this coffee and any pastry of your choice every day for a month, please, please, please!” You begged him, so desperate that you were moments away from dropping to your knees and grabbing his leg, refusing to move until he acquiesced. You didn’t have to in the end.

“Oh, sure, I’ll go. When did you say it was?” Your jaw fell open in shock, and it took a few seconds to pull yourself back together as you reacted to his words.

“This weekend? The flight is tomorrow at 6 a.m.” You smiled sheepishly as his eyes bugged out of his head.

“This weekend? What were you going to do if I said no?” He laughed at you a little, taking a sip of the coffee you bought him.

“Honestly? Plan B was to cry, and plan C was to kill off my mystery man in a freak accident.”

“Wow, we just started fake dating and you’re already trying to bump me off.” His smile made you burn hotter than before, as you playfully hit his arm in response.

“Stop saying we’re dating. I pulled you in here to ask you privately because I didn’t want weird rumors circulating in the office,” you pouted.

“Then you better let me out of the closet, Y/N, before people think we’re doing something we shouldn’t be. At least three people saw you drag me in here, you know.”

With that, you rush to open the door and run out, shouting a reminder back at him.

“Just be ready, okay. I’ll see you at the airport at 6 a.m.”

–X–

The flight, despite being ridiculously long, was altogether quite pleasant, and you made it back to California in one piece, Spencer trailing behind you like a lost puppy for a while, letting you take up the role of “airport dad” as you guided him through the airport and to the hotel where the wedding was being held.

“So what’s our cover story?” He asked in the taxi on the way there, breaking the comfortable silence.

“What cover story?” you asked, looking up at him from your phone, still focused on just getting to the destination.

“Where did we meet, how long have we been dating, how much do they know about me?” He listed off the possible questions that his parents were absolutely going to interrogate him with soon. “I need to prepare so we don’t get caught out, right?”

“Oh, right. Based on what I told them, we met at work and we’ve been seeing each other casually for about a year now. I didn’t give them a name yet, which annoys my mom to no end, but I was always pretty private as a child so she didn’t find it all that suspicious. Other than that, they don’t know that much about my mystery boyfriend apart from the things we’ve done together.” He listened attentively as you spoke, taking each of your words in and committing them to memory.

“What was our first date?” He asked.

“Coffee shop. That place I got you the coffee from earlier, it’s called Flondon. I’m a regular there, so it made sense to use it in my story.”

“What else have we done together?”

“There was a book fair in New York a few months back that we, uh, spent the weekend at. You surprised me for my birthday with the tickets.”

“Wow, so I’m a really great boyfriend then.” He joked a little, and you let out another groan of annoyance at his teasing. You didn’t get the chance to finish your conversation though, as the taxi finally pulled up to the hotel.

You climbed out of the taxi after paying the driver, Spencer having already left to grab your bags, before walking into the foyer of the hotel.

“Y/N, just one last thing before we go in,” he stopped you at the door, grabbing you by the arm gently. “Are we… the, um. Hotels tend to get booked up pretty early for weddings, and I’m sure your family will be suspicious if we don’t share a room so…”

He didn’t have to finish voicing his thoughts before you were cursing, not having made the connection before.

“Shit, you’re right. My brother made the booking for me months ago. We just have to go in and get the room key but I totally forgot… It’s fine, right? We’ve roomed together on cases, haven’t we?” You asked, looking up at him.

“No, we haven’t. 67% of our motel bookings allow for single occupation rooms for Agents, I end up sharing a room with Morgan for 15% of overnight stays where double occupation is necessary, Hotch for another 17%, and the remaining 1% is made up of outliers where I had to share with Rossi or Prentiss, but we…we haven’t shared before.” He gestured between the two of you for a moment there, letting the facts sit with you.

“Spencer, it’s okay with me, is it okay with you? I understand if you’re not comfortable with it. We can just turn around now if you want.”

“No, no it’s totally fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re comfortable with it. Morgan says I snore, so I guess I’m not the best roommate in the world.” He smiled at you then, reassuringly, and moved his hand down your arm until it reached your hand.

You looked down at where his hand had entwined with yours and your heart gave a little jolt. Spencer didn’t like physical touch, and you knew that. You tried not to initiate any contact with him, despite being a touchy person, but there had been times after particularly tough cases and with close calls where you’d thrown yourself into the nearest person's arms, and he always happened to be near.

But those hugs had been thoughtless, natural reactions to stressful situations and this was intentional, and more importantly, he’d started it.

“Sorry, I just assumed we should get used to, uh, touching each other, I guess? We’re going to be doing it all weekend, you know, might as well start now.” He gave you an awkward closed-lip smile, and you giggled at his awkward explanatory tone. Squeezing his hand a bit, you grabbed your suitcase again in your free hand, and pushed open the door with your shoulder, pulling Spencer in behind you.

The lobby was filled with people arriving for the wedding, and you instantly spotted three cousins and two aunts from across the room, giving them a little smile as you made your way to the reception desk, Spencer right at your side.

“Hi, reservation for Y/N L/N, please.”

“Sister of the groom, right? Your mother asked me to give her a call when you arrived. Please wait one minute.” She handed you your key, and you felt yourself go pale, turning around to Spencer for reassurance.

“Oh god, she’s coming now, what do we do?”

“Y/N, calm down, it’s okay, we knew we were going to have to see your mom tonight at the reception anyways.”

“You’re right. Okay, right. Okay.” You breathed out, as Spencer wrapped his other arm around you, holding you in a closer embrace while keeping your hands locked together.

“One of my aunts is looking at us. She looks like she wants to say something. Oh god, she’s coming over, Spencer act natural,”

“Saying act naturally is actually counter-active-” but he didn’t have time to finish before you had turned to greet the older woman, disentangling yourself from Spencer’s arms as you hugged the woman warmly.

“It’s so good to see you, Y/N, you know how we all worry about you doing that job of yours. The other week we saw you on the news about that tragedy with the young girl…” she trailed off, giving you a worrying look before quickly shifting her gaze to her actual target, Spencer.

“I think I saw you too, young man. You must be Y/N’s boyfriend,” she smiled at him, waiting to hear a response so she could return to the other matrons with the gossip.

“Yeah, nice to meet you, I’m Spencer.” You could tell he was thankful that the woman hadn’t stuck her hand out to shake his, as he positioned himself mostly behind you, keeping his hands occupied by letting one settle on your hip and the other keeping a hold of your suitcase.

“Spencer? Spencer Reid?” You heard your mother before you saw her, turning around in your place to finally see her, as Spencer whipped his head around as well. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s so wonderful to finally meet you.”

Your mother had none of the restraint of your aunt, and unfortunately, you’d inherited your clingy side from her, which is why she immediately swooped in to give Spencer a hug. To his credit, he greeted her warmly as well and didn’t avoid the touch, but he kept it short and polite nonetheless.

“Mom, how did you know…”

“You tell me about your coworkers all the time, I’m just surprised I didn’t work it out sooner. I always said that you talked about that Spencer with a fond tone, you should ask your father, he’ll tell you that I did.” You rolled your eyes at your mother’s words, doing your best to avoid Spencer’s gaze. He’d fallen back into place by your side as you greeted your mother.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, You know, Y/N has been keeping you as this big secret for the last year, and it’s so nice to see that you’re actually real. You’re here!” She sounded so excited for you that your heart almost broke under the weight of your guilt, knowing that you’d have to come clean at some point after the wedding. As it was, you were already going to have to try really hard to avoid the photographer and videographer throughout the night so you didn’t have to be constantly reminded of your idiocy whenever your mother got the photo albums out,

“Sorry, the two of you are probably exhausted after that flight, right? Go and get yourself unpacked. The rehearsal dinner is at 8 p.m. so we’ll catch up then, sweetheart.” She left in a whirlwind, having deposited you next to the elevators, and left you with no other option but to do exactly as she said, making your way to your space for the weekend.

–X–

The following few hours had been a little awkward, to say the least. You’d awkwardly pulled away from one another in the elevator up to the room, apologizing for invading each other's personal space. The room was a decent size, but still small enough that you’d be constantly tripping up over one another the entire weekend if you weren’t careful.

Reid carefully unpacked his tuxedo when you got into the room, and then quietly informed you that he’d need a shower. You’d unpacked your own things while he did, trying not to listen to the water flowing over his body in the next room. His earlier touch had ignited something in you, and your heart was beating at his every gesture now, something that you were sure it hadn’t done before.

What was it about weddings that made you so open to even the possibility of romance that even someone so off-limits could become the object of your affection?

So you tried not to listen, not to wonder why it was taking the man so long to just take a shower, not to let your mind wander to a place where it was perfectly acceptable to wonder what he looked like in that shower, and you unpacked and organized your things.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m really sorry but I forgot to bring my clothes with me,” he called awkwardly through the door a few minutes after you heard the water turn off, and you turned to the bathroom, not expecting the sight before you.

You’d assumed from the quiet volume of his voice that he was calling from within the bathroom itself, but instead, he stood awkwardly in front of you, a towel wrapped around his waist and torso, held together desperately in one hand.

“Oh shit, sorry, I’ll just turn around, I guess,” you stumbled over the words, dragging your eyes back up to his face as you did so, whipping yourself around to stare ahead of you.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I was so hasty I forgot my outfit for tonight. It’s okay.” You heard him fumble for his clothes and return to the bathroom quickly with another mumbled apology, finally allowing you to let out a deep, almost dreamy sigh, startling yourself. Mentally chastising yourself once again, you finished your organizing and let yourself fall onto the bed in the middle of the room sleepily while you waited for him to come out again.

You must have dozed off a little because you woke with a jolt when you felt a soft touch on your arm. There he was above you, a soft and concerned look on his face as he woke you up as kindly as he could.

“Y/N, it’s 7 p.m. We need to get ready for the rehearsal.” He whispered as if he weren’t too bothered if you didn’t want to go down at all, content to let you sleep. But you forced yourself upright anyways, and nodded at his words, swiftly moving yourself towards the bathroom he had since departed.

“Thanks for waking me, Spence,” You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes, gathering your towels and change of clothes before turning back to him. In the four hours you’d apparently been dead to the world, he’d managed to dry his hair, change his clothes, and, from the looks of the book on the bedside table, read through an entire book twice.

He noticed you looking and cleared his throat. “Sorry, you looked so tired I didn’t want to wake you, so I just sat here and read while you got some sleep.”

“It’s okay, Spence. I guess I was pretty tired. I’m gonna go…” you gestured towards the shower and stepped towards it with an awkward smile, not letting him answer before you had closed the door between you and taken a deep breath, setting thoughts of him aside for the night before you focused on getting yourself ready to face your lies.

An hour later, you were making your way back down to the lobby, having received a text from your brother that that was where everyone was gathering before making their way to the dining room. Spencer offered you his arm in the elevator on the way down.

“Here, grab my arm.” He said softly down to you, a sweet smile playing on his lips.

“Oh yeah that makes sense,” you said distractedly, looping your own through his and leaning into him.

“It’ll also stop you from picking your nails,” he joked.

“I don’t pick my nails!”

“You so do. You do it when you’re nervous and when you lie about something. Last month on that case in Chicago when that officer asked for your number, you told him you had a boyfriend and started picking your nails,” he laughed down at you, enjoying your pouting face a bit too much as he profiled you.

“You’re one to talk. The last time a woman asked you out, you started rambling about the linguistic history of the phrase “go out,” in the romantic sense. She stood there for five minutes before she gave up.”

“Wait, when did that happen? I don’t remember any woman trying to ask me out.”

“Then you’re even denser than I realized, Doctor Reid, because they do it constantly.” Your back and forth ended there, though, as the elevator doors finally opened into the lobby. You smoothed out your dress and tried your best to act natural as the two of you made your entrance.

“Y/N! Over here,” you heard your brother and saw him wave at you from the other side of the room, his fiancee next to him receiving guests.

“It’s been so long since I saw my kid sister. Get over here,” he smiled at you, beckoning you over, and you released your hold on Reid to give your brother a warm hug.

“Now who is this kid sister you’re talking about because last I checked you’re only 18 months older than me.”

“18 months, 18 years, all that matters is that I am, in fact, the older one,” he released you from the bear hug and glanced up to Reid, standing awkwardly watching the scene waiting for an invitation to the conversation. “Holy shit, you’re real.”

“Hey! Be nice. This is Spencer, he’s my… he’s my boyfriend, we work together.” You felt your cheeks flame as you introduced the two of them, your brother looking at Spencer through knitted eyebrows, taking on a faux protective stance.

“Spencer, hey. Mom mentioned you were here earlier, but I didn’t think you’d be so gangly… It’s my wedding, and I’ve been told I have to keep all threats to a minimum, but if I see you getting all handsy with my sister, just know that I have a blackbelt in jiu-jitsu.”

“No, you don’t. You have a yellow belt in karate at most, and you got that at age 10.” You laughed at the man.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Oh my god, it’s been almost 20 years, I already apologized!”

“Apologised for what?” Spencer finally managed to butt in, watching your sibling bickering as if it were a tennis match.

“This little rodent,” your brother said, scruffing up your hair as he spoke, “broke my wrist when she was 8 and I was 10.”

“It was self-defense! You were trying to use your karate moves on me and I panicked!”

“And now, you’re a hot-shot FBI Agent and you get to break bad guys wrists all the time.” He finished for you and you laughed, suddenly glad to be back around family.

“So, Spencer, you’re an FBI Agent, too? I thought my mom mentioned something about you being a Doctor earlier.”

“I am. A Doctor. And an FBI Agent, uh, they’re PhD’s not medical degrees, though. Three of them, Math, Chemistry and Engineering. I also have Bachelor's Degrees in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology.” He answered, and you looked up at him proudly, taking his hand as you noticed him growing slightly uncomfortable with the attention from your brother.

“Wow,” was all your brother said, until he finished the statement with “All those degrees and my sister was the best you could do, huh?” You punched him in the arm after that, and you felt Spencer physically relax a bit, twinning your fingers with his as you chastised your brother.

“Anyway, thanks for taking the time to come to our, hopefully, lovely wedding, the reception will be starting soon. The dining hall is just through there.” You hugged your brother again, and, with a breath of relief, led Spencer down the hall to the dining hall.

“That went well, I think?” you whispered to him, conspiratorially.

“Your family is nice,” he replied. “Does he always act like that, or is it the wedding spirit possessing him somehow?”

“If you’re referring to my brother, I think he’s probably partaken in a few flutes of champagne already this evening. But yes, he’s always like that. They all like to treat me like a baby when they see me.”

“I think it’s nice. They care about you a lot,” his words were warm, but his eyes were sad, and you remembered what you’d been told of Spencer’s own childhood and felt your heart ache for him. His mom loved him a lot, but Spencer had needed to grow up much too fast. You squeezed his hand, still clasped in yours and before you knew it you were pushing onto your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you, Spencer. For being here,” you said as his now flushed face met yours. You didn’t let him respond though, simply pushing forward into the dining hall, ready to live in the fantasy of your own making for the evening.

–X–

“Spencer, you were amazing!” You giggled, walking down the hall to your room, stumbling slightly in your excitement and haste.

“Those magic tricks? The little babies couldn’t get enough of you,” you spun around, wrapping your arms around the man’s neck and pulling him in close to you, letting him hold you against the door to your room. He laughed a little at your antics as he pulled out the key card.

“Y/N, are you drunk?” he asked, one hand firmly planted on your waist to steady you now.

“No! I’m just happy. And if that happiness was caused by an array of cocktails forced into my hands by distant aunts and cousins who all wanted to know about my absolute catch of a boyfriend, then that is simply secondary to the feeling itself. And furthermore-” He pushed the door behind you in on itself, and your words were cut off by your legs giving out beneath you.

You were so sure you were about to take a tumble to the floor that you shut your eyes tight and braced for an impact that didn’t come. Opening them again slowly, you saw Spencer closer than before, his face mere inches from your own as he held you in an improvised dip, having caught you just before you’d hit the ground.

“Sorry. I… Shit, maybe I am drunk,” you breathed out, not letting your eyes drift from his own, knowing that if you ever considered a glance down at his lips at that moment, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from closing the measly distance separating you.

“You should use the bathroom first,” he told you, but without making any move of his own, stuck in that pose with you as if he was content to stay there for as long as he could hold you. “You should take your make-up off. We have a long day tomorrow, right?”

You were the first one to move, letting your feet find a more solid footing beneath you and twisting up from his grip. His hands didn’t leave your body as you became more upright though, still keeping you in that close embrace.

“Yeah, I should… I should go wash up.” You said, and he nodded, still looking at you with the same intensity as before.

“Spencer, that means you need to move,” you whispered quietly, and he jumped back as soon as the words were out of your mouth.

“Sorry. I’ll just… I’ll just be over there,” he held his hands up in surrender before moving further into the room, leaving you next to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, you emerged from the bathroom and were ready to sleep once again. Thankfully, you of earlier that day had managed to store your pajamas in the bathroom ready for their use. Upon exiting the bathroom, you saw that Spencer was getting ready to sleep too, slacks and a shirt having been replaced by a pair of flannel pants and a very old and beaten-up CalTech sweater, looking perplexedly down at the bed.

“Spence, what’s wrong?”

“We didn’t speak any further about the sleeping arrangements…” he mumbled and you looked at the bed in front of you, still confused at his meaning. “Y/N, we have to share the bed.”

“Oh.” You knew you probably sounded dumb, but after the amount of alcohol thrust upon you that night, that was all you could muster at this point.

“I can sleep on the floor if that makes you feel more comfortable. It’s probably no worse than some of the motel beds we’ve stayed on before,” he offered, but you instantly shook your head.

“No, I dragged you out here, I’m not making you sleep on the floor as well,” you sighed and made your way to the side of the bed you’d slept on earlier, beginning to pull the covers down so you could get in.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, perplexed by your somehow contrasting words and actions.

“I’m getting ready for bed. It’s late.” You replied, not looking up at him again, for fear that he’d spot the blush on your face. “You should too,” you continued, patting the other side of the bed, gesturing for him to get in, too.

“Oh.” It was his turn to stand there shell-shocked in the moment, and you almost let out a giggle but held back thinking that would be too much for him to take in at that moment.

“Come on, Spence, I’m tired, I’m sure you’re tired. We’re just sharing a bed, it’s not like you have to marry me after this.” You climbed fully into the bed, making sure that your nightgown covered you decently before pulling the covers up around you. Spencer mumbled something that you didn’t catch, but he acquiesced and climbed in after you. You turned your head over on the pillow to face him, turning onto your side as you watched him turn his head to you as well.

“What?” he smiled, noticing your stare.

“Nothing. Good night, Spence,” you smiled, finally letting your eyes drop closed.

“Good night, Y/N.” He whispered, and the sound of his voice carried you off to sleep.

–X–

You weren’t sure if it was the light streaming in through the window or the rise and fall of a chest that wasn’t your own was the first thing to wake you in the morning, but nonetheless, you woke from the comfortable warmth of sleep and found yourself wrapped around your fake boyfriend.

To be fair to yourself, he was also wrapped around you. Your head had gravitated from your pillow to his chest, his left arm wrapped up and around your back. Your leg had also risen in the night, pulled up over his waist, held in place by his other arm, which was, almost embarrassingly, cradling your ass, pulling you in closer to his core. Unsure about how to go about disentangling yourself, you resigned yourself to just waking the man up.

“Spencer… Spencer,” you whispered, letting the hand that had fallen onto his chest tap him slightly. He stirred a little and then cracked an eye open, looking confused with the situation.

“Y/N, is it time for the wedding?” He asked through half-lidded eyes, evidently wanting nothing more than to fall back into whatever dreams he was having. You shifted uncomfortably in his arms then, suddenly growing stiff in the position you’d probably held for hours, and found your nightgown had risen dangerously high on your body, his hand on your near bare ass.

“No, no, it’s just…” You rolled your hips against his in discomfort, and the movement had his eyes breaking open as he finally took in your positions.

“Shit, I’m….Sorry, I don’t know what happened, I must’ve grabbed you when we were sleeping,” he said, reluctantly slipping his hands away from your body, trailing his hand around your leg, and letting it fall onto his stomach. The movement sent a shiver up your spine, as you finally had enough room to lift your torso up, not quite ready to relinquish the proximity of your entire body yet.

“It’s okay, I think it was probably me who started it in the first place. Those pillows weren’t that comfortable…” you tried to explain, the hand on his chest rubbing slow circles into his skin before you could realize what you were doing.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position then as well, clumsily. With your legs still wrapped around his waist, you had no choice but to move with him, suddenly finding yourself straddling him, the bedsheets suddenly pressed away from your body. If he looked down, he’d see a lot more than you planned for him to see, your panties on clear display as your nightgown twisted itself up into the sheets.

“Shit sorry,” he moaned out again, as you steadied yourself with hands on his shoulders.

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t move quick enough.” You quickly pulled your dress down again, and extracted yourself from the bed, lifting your leg up and off of him and finally pushing off the bed, leaving him sat there.

His hands fell into his lap and you started gathering things around the room, readying yourself for the busy day ahead.

“I have to be in the bridal suite at 11, so we have about… two hours to kill before then. Do you want to grab a shower first, or should I?”

“You first,” he mumbled quickly, before clearing his throat and trying again. “You should go first. You probably have more to do today, right?” You nodded at his words and made your way to the bathroom again. Out of the corner of your eye though, as you let the door close behind you, you watched his hands come up to cradle his flushed face, as he let his head fall back again into the pillow.

–X–

The morning was so busy after that, you barely had any chance to talk to Spencer again. You spent the early afternoon in the bridal suite with the wedding party, welcoming your new sister to the family, then made your way to the aisle space set up outside, checking up on last-minute details and helping to flower girls into position. You weren’t walking down the aisle yourself, but you could see that the extra help was letting the very stressed-out Maid of Honour get some well-needed respite. And more importantly, it stopped your wandering thoughts from letting you fantasize about Spencer.

You’d woken up in bed next to people before, of course, but it had never felt so comfortable. In fact, other people you’d slept with said you were pretty distant in your sleep, choosing to move as far away from physical touch as you could get, but you knew with no doubt that you had been the one to move in first, to touch him first. That he’d pulled you even closer had your heart singing, and you wanted to be wrapped up in him all over again, suddenly desperate to seek him out. So you distracted yourself, not wanting to make any mistakes you would regret when you were no longer wrapped up in your own fantasy.

So you kept your distance as the ceremony started. Then the wedding march was playing, and you were holding back tears as his hand slipped into yours, your head falling onto his shoulder as you watched your brother marry the love of his life.

You kept your distance as you reached the reception hall, watching all the old ladies on both sides fawn over him, asking him questions, and watching from his side as he blushed at the attention. You swept the hair out of his eyes as the couple was announced, and you took your seat for the wedding meal and the speeches, his hand falling to your back to guide you to your chair, pulling it out for you like a true gentleman.

You kept your distance as your new sister tossed the bouquet, and despite your low effort and the ravenous looks of the bridesmaids, it fell neatly into your hands as if it belonged there. You ran excitedly over to him to show him and he lifted you into a hug, caught up in your own excitement.

You kept your distance until you realized you’d not kept your distance at all, physically unable to keep yourself away from the man who had somehow stolen your heart in the middle of the night.

“I know that look,” your brother said, somehow sneaking up on you later into the night as you watched Spencer perform even more of his magic tricks for the smaller guests.

“What look?” you asked, not for one second letting your eyes drift from Spencer.

“You’re in love with him,” he said, taking a swig of the drink in his hand.

“He’s my boyfriend,” you said reflexively, turning to the drinks table behind you and picking up one for yourself.

“No, he isn’t. Or at least he wasn’t before this weekend,” your brother said, as your eyes finally snapped up to him.

“Oh, don’t act all surprised, Miss FBI Profiler. You may be good, but I’ll always be your older brother, and contrary to popular opinion, I do in fact pay attention to things.” You sighed and leaned back against the table.

“How’d you figure it out?”

“You were picking your nails the entire way through the reception dinner when the aunties were asking you about your relationship. You did that when we were younger too, when you tried lying to Mom and Dad about how I broke my wrist. Doesn’t take two PhD’s to figure that out.”

“Three.”

“Three what?”

“Three PhDs. He has three of them.” You sighed dreamily and ran a stressed hand through your head.

“He’s just my coworker. I didn’t want to disappoint Mom by coming alone after telling her all those stories, but now…” You tried to explain yourself but words were escaping you in that moment.

“You should tell him, trust me. He definitely feels the same.”

“How are you so confident about that? How did you manage to end up with all of the confidence between the two of us, when I can barely work up the courage to tell my own mother I’m still single?”

“Y/N, look at me. You got the brains, I had to have something. And no man flies to the opposite side of the country on a few day's notice for a girl who is just a friend, okay? That’s more logic than confidence, and that’s supposed to be your strong suit.”

You considered his words for a second, turning back to look at Spencer. Evidently, he’d finished his magic show and was beginning to say goodbye to the children, but he felt your eyes on him somehow and met your gaze. He brought his hand up into a shy wave before a little girl grabbed his attention again, and he looked at her seriously, nodding along to each word she was saying.

“Fuck, what do I do, I’m not good with… any of this.” You turned back to your brother, but he’d left you there, stranded in your own thoughts as you let yourself hope, let your brain dream that one day this would be your wedding and the man by your side would be Spencer Reid.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom request the presence of all the couples on the dancefloor for this next song.” You saw your brother again, next to his wife, whispering his explanations in his ear as she turned to look at you and winked as well. God, they were going to be a force to be reckoned with together now, you thought, as people started pushing past you to make their way to the dancefloor.

You recognized the song of course, and it was almost so on the nose you almost rolled your eyes. More Than Words by Extreme. Perfect.

“Y/N, may I have this dance?” He had somehow snuck up on you from behind as you watched your brother, and held his hand out to you. You put your drink down and took it, letting him lead you to the dance floor.

“I didn’t think you danced, Dr. Reid,” you teased him as he pulled you in, letting his hands rest on your waist, as yours came up around his neck, gently letting him sway you side to side in time with the music.

“I don’t really, but it seemed wrong not to,” he smiled. “I’m at a wedding, with the most beautiful girl on my arm, and the couple made it very clear that we should be dancing, so here I am.” You blushed at his words as he spoke. He removed his hands from your waist, instead grasping one of yours in his own as he pulled you closer.

You stared up at him with a soft smile for a few more seconds before letting your head fall back to his chest.

“I know I’ve said it a lot this weekend, but thank you, Spencer.” You said into his shirt, letting him hold you close as the song went on.

“You don’t have to thank me, Y/N.” He insisted, and you looked up at him again. “Actually… I didn’t exactly agree to this with the best of intentions.”

Your heart lept to your throat as you stared up at him, hoping that he would take your silence as a means to continue.

“I’ve been… I thought that maybe…” he struggled to get the words out, his face aflame with the effort.

“You promised me those coffees right?” He finally stuttered out, and you were left confused and a little disappointed.

“Yeah, Spence, it’s okay, I’ll get you those coffees for the month, just like we promised.” You couldn’t help the sad smile that played on your lips as you answered him, so sure that he was about to say something else.

“No, I mean… Y/N I don’t want the coffee. I want this. I want us to go home, and make everything that you made up come true. I want to take you on a date to that coffee shop. I want to be a boyfriend you can call and tell your mom about because it’s serious and it’s going to work out between us. I even… God, I even spent the morning looking up book fairs in New York City so I could make that come true as well,” he rambled the words out and you could feel the tears forming in your eyes.

“Spencer,” you said softly, trying to get him to focus on you, but he’d started speaking and he wasn’t going to be stopped so easily.

“And if any of that creeps you out, just say the word and I’ll never mention it again. Because I know I’m not good with this, and when I feel something, I tend to feel it overwhelmingly, and Derek tells me I can be really oblivious sometimes, which I don’t really get, but-”

“Spencer,” you put a bit more force into your words this time, punctuating them with a hand on his face.

“Spencer, kiss me.” And he does. He takes your head in both of his hands, and he draws you up to him perfectly, letting your hands fall to the lapels of his suit jacket as he steals your breath away one more time. The kiss is lingering, but short, and he hesitantly backs away, looking around to spot witnesses. But you don’t care and you pull him back down for another, and another, until you’re just two lovers on the dance floor that cannot get enough of each other, gasping for breath between chaste kisses as you let him hold you there, gently swaying.

“Spencer,” you whisper finally, forehead resting on his, as the song finally draws to a close.

“Yes?”

“Spencer, take me to bed.” You tell him, and he nods. He leads you over to the bride and groom where you offer each of them a hug and a happy future before making your excuses and running away with Spencer back into the hotel like two love-drunk teenagers, a mess of giggles and stolen kisses as you stumble up to your room for the second time that weekend.

But this time, you don’t hesitate, don’t pull away. He backs you into the door and you let him hold you there, his mouth on yours, your tongues entwined as he fumbles for his key card. You fall together into the room, laughing and smiling the entire way, not letting him escape your touch.

“May I?” He asks, playing with the zipper of your dress as you kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck, anywhere you can reach, nodding and moaning your consent. The moment the zip is pulled down, he lets you go for a second, and the dress falls straight to the floor. You're practically bare in front of him, chest exposed, neck littered with the beginning of love bites that he’s about to absolutely build upon.

“You’re beautiful.” He says, softly, wrapping his arms around you again, lifting you up so your legs can wrap around him as he delivers one more soul-crushing kiss to your lips. Your brain is a mess of emotions, your only solid thought is that you will never let him go again. You both eagerly worked on unbuttoning his shirt together, a desperate mess of breaths as he finally laid you on the bed. His hand fell to your core, tracing a finger over your sensitive nub as you begged him for more, needing to feel all of him, to devour his very existence.

He pulled himself out of his remaining clothes, lips still attached to yours, climbing over you and holding you tenderly, his arms wrapping around your body as his legs came to settle between your own. Dropping his forehead to yours, he finally spoke again, his hand dropping between the two of you to line himself up.

“Is this… are you sure?” You heard the restraint in his voice, the desperation, the love, the overwhelming lust as he held himself back, needing to hear your consent.

“Spencer, I love you,” you whispered, and he finally pushed himself into you, joining the two of you together in a moment of bliss. You shared another sweet kiss, letting him swallow each and every one of your moans as he began thrusting into you, your hips rising to meet him in your delirious pleasure.

He whispered sweet nothings in your ears, brushing the hair off your face every now and again to tell you how beautiful you looked, and how well you were doing.

“You’re so perfect, Y/N, you’re doing so good for me,” he pressed kisses against your neck with each word, keeping his pace steady as you chased your inevitable high, already clenching around his thick cock.

“Spencer, I love you,” you let the words drop from your tongue like a prayer, repeating them over and over with each thrust as small tears welled up out of your eyes. He kissed them away from your cheeks, listening to each confession as your stomach tightened and your climax spilled over you. He grabbed your waist then, leaving one hand cupping and stroking your cheek as his own thrusts grew sloppy, finally spending himself fully inside you.

“I love you, too,” he whispered into you then, unwilling to let you go for even one second. You spent the rest of the night whispering the words back and forth to one another, waiting with bated breath for the fantasy to break, for the magic of the wedding to wear off.

It never did.

[larsthefishoil]

As I'm actively reflecting on the new hbomberguy video, but more specifically James Somerton, certain things are clicking into place with resounding clarity.

I've watched Somerton's videos for years. At first I thought he was kinda overly dramatic, and had outdated stances on how little lgbtq+ was seen in modern day. He always seemed to talk like we are still living in the danger of the 80s with staight/cis people's apathy and hatred. In truth the phobias have just shifted in how they present and things have genuinely improved in a sense.

But the thing that is actually getting to me rn is the misogyny thing. I think he actually injected really shitty thoughts into my brain that I absorbed like a fucking kitchen sponge. He's protectiveness over queer people but specifically gay men from "prevented white women" actually got to me. For over a year, I was walking around occasionally thinking about how "women are sneaking BL manga into their bedrooms and grotesquely drooling."- im not citing someone theres quoteation marks cause its a dumb thought. But i thought this because that's how bad Somerton made it seem.

But the thing that got me out of that head space was this video by talistheintrovert.

https://youtube.com/@talistheintrovert?si=vmpEa_TPP2UE9eQk - here's the link to her homepage on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/08pCrSBw5EY?si=bECaT_xC16IfN5TI - vid about Good Omens

https://youtu.be/zzSlRZhS_qY?si=unQzSbCQUaTqhSbv - Heartstopper vs. Only Friends

sorry for the ugly link I'm on mobile.

I forget their pronouns so I'm using they/them but I might be wrong. I watched a lot of their videos all at once, so a lot of their ideas interlinked between videos to connect points. But they frequently talked about how straight and queer people interact with queer media and the complexities that unfold. Their underlying message was always that an individual's sexuality doesn't matter when interacting with media when it comes to gatekeeping who gets to appreciate queer content. Still most people consuming are queer people, but straight cis people also benefit and that's okay, it's great even.

Talistheintrovert shooed away icky feelings of straight women fetishizing queer men, which was a fear I got from James Somerton!

Idk this is a long post, but hbomberguy's ending soliloquy about trying to find happiness kinda reminds me of the many countless queer YouTube channels- big and small. Most of us aren't clawing for the position of top dog and like Somerton and seem a lot happier dispit of everything going on nowadays.

Anyways, stay safe, be accepting, and cite your sources or else hbomberguy will have to crawl out of whatever hole he hides in for the better part of each year and make a five hour long video about you :/

[wangmiao]

From being stuck in the snow together in 2016 to filming Tibetan Sea Flower - Nan Pai San Shu's "Obsession" over Zhang Luyi.

Thank you for noticing my tag in the other post about the friendship between ZLY and CMH, and showing some interest. So here we go! I guess besides why Zhang Luyi (ZLY) was picked, there's also the story about how everything started. I find it rather fascinating. DMBJ's author Nan Pai San Shu, aka Xu Lei (XL) told the story a few years ago, but he mentioned it again during a livestream when Tibetan Sea flower (TSF) just started airing. The next three paragraphs are based on XL's livestream and ZLY's interviews.

Back in 2016, on a very snowy day, XL was on his way to The Mystic Nine's filming location, and was stuck on a mountain road. After waiting for a while, he thought he should go and help direct the traffic. When he got out to do it, he surprisingly found another Good Samaritan already doing what he intended to do, and yes, that Good Samaritan was ZLY.

ZLY was on his way to The Mystic Nine's filming location too. It was actually not XL who picked him for the role of Wu Laogou then. He went to guest star in that show because his university classmate Bai Yicong, the producer of the show, asked ZLY to do him a favor and just stop by to have a meeting with everyone.

So that's how XL and ZLY first met in person. Because they got stuck in the snow for a LONG time, they talked a lot about DMBJ, from Wu Laogou to Wu Xie, and even TSF (ZLY already read some of the DMBJ novels at the time, and he finished all of them before shooting TSF). At some point, XL told ZLY that ZLY's vibe reminded him of a very important character of his, which was Wu Xie. ZLY was very moved and thankful. Since they had such a good long talk, they kind of made a promise to each other that they'd work together on a DMBJ project at some point. They also each made a weibo post about meeting each other as the traffic director in the snow.

In 2017, there was actually quite some rumors about ZLY being approached to play Wu Xie in Sha Hai/Tomb of the Sea (this is not to discredit other Wu Xie actors, because it's normal for a production team to approach multiple actors for a role in the casting stage), but since ZLY had several health issues due to being injured during the filming of another show, he really couldn't be a candidate for the role.

But XL never forgot about ZLY. In 2021, rumors came around again about ZLY being approached to play Wu Xie in TSF, and this time, he agreed.

During the airing of TSF, XL did a lot of livestreams and Q&A sections on weibo. There's one post where he said: "From the state in the beginning, the state of being lost, to the Sha Hai!Xie state in the end, the entire progress is shown in TSF. I needed an actor with extremely good acting skills. From TSF!Xie to Sha Hai!Xie, there're many occasions where Wu Xie's soul is in a dark place and he might fall for his obsession. Besides Pangzi being there to pull him back, it also needs Wu Xie's strong faith and goodness, and I think it needed acting skills to show it."

In another comment to a fan's question about the choice of Wu Xie's actor, XL answered: "Maybe it represents a kind of inner demons", which I think the inner demons part can be translated to obsession.

So you can tell, it does seem that XL had this obsession to have ZLY play Wu Xie no matter what. And he never gave up the idea ever since they first met, even though by the time they could finally work together in 2022, ZLY was no longer in the best age range to play TSF!Xie (hence, sometimes you'd notice those annoying filters used to mask wrinkles on his face).

I really haven't watched all of XL's livestreams and interviews, and from the very few ones I've watched, he mentioned where ZLY impressed him. Before the shooting started, ZLY double checked with XL to see if XL wanted him to play Wu Xie as a more straightforward northerner or gentler southerner (this is not to stereotype, but to reflect the cultural and language difference), and XL reassured him to be a southerner since Wu Xie is a from the south of China. ZLY was no stranger to playing a southerner even though he's a northerner himself, as some of his best characters were from south China. This was why he dropped all his natural Beijing accent, and showed a gentler demeanor (eg. Pangzi is a typical northerner, and CMH kept his Beijing accent).

Another thing is when they were shooting the real and fake Wu Xie scene, it was filmed without any special effects or even an extra actor. ZLY played both characters each time with thin air. It impressed XL a lot because it required so much more finesse and precision on the memory, timing, and movement.

Lastly I want to show you ZLY's goodbye message to TSF that was posted on Sep 24th. He's a very dedicated, sincere, and cultured actor that often uses handwritten stuff to say goodbye to shows nowadays. And he wrote what Wu Xie and Pangzi always say to each other, the good luck and good fortune thing: "Da Ji Da Li, Gong Xi Fa Cai"

Another fun fact is that ZLY is very good at calligraphy. He used to assign different fonts to the characters he played based on their characteristics. Because Wu Xie writes in 瘦金体/Shoujin font, ZLY wrote the message also in Shoujin font. I guess you can say that's another similarity between him and Wu Xie, that they can both write in this font (I'm no expert in calligraphy, so I found an article teaching people how to write in Shoujin font. It was definitely not an easy thing to do because it advised people to learn and practice certain fonts in traditional calligraphy for a few years before even going for the Shoujin font).

Thanks for reading! If you like ZLY's Wu Xie, that's awesome. If not, that's OK. It's totally understandable. Please also know that I have zero intention to compare his version of Wu Xie to other Wu Xies. I'm sure each Wu Xie is awesome, unique, and lovable in his own way.

[twelvedaysinaugust]

When I was 18/19, I was also in a relationship that I didn't know how to get out of. He constantly said that he would kill himself if I broke up with him and he did try when I finally left him after a year and a half.

I really related to that part of Maya's story and felt very seen when I heard her talking about it. The tension between it being a genuine threat by a person who needs help and an emotionally abusive manipulation tactic is a nuance that I don't think is talked about enough.

And strangely, Liam's death has made me reflect on that period of my life more than anything else.

My honest to God first thought when I heard that he died (and how he died) was: "That's what these men do. That's what they always do." And I felt really guilty for thinking that way when someone's child, brother, father, friend, and significant other had passed away.

But. Sitting with that discomfort and reflecting on a part of my life that I've tried to avoid thinking about for so long has actually made me feel less confused and more compassionate.

Thinking of that ex-boyfriend now, I know he was in a lot of pain. But I was, too. And I can acknowledge the fact that he was really hurting (because yes, it is a fact) without excusing everything else.

People are more than one thing and now I'm able to look back with compassion and gratitude for the role he played in my life.

And to a lesser degree, I feel like I'm able to do that with Liam now, too.

I've really been struggling to decide where my opinion fits in all of this because most of the posts on my dash the last few days haven't resonated with me.

I'd been distancing myself from Liam in the past few weeks because it was all too familiar and I felt kind of resentful and disillusioned.

I didn't want to deny the pain he caused or normalize the type of behavior that was very hurtful and scary to my teenage self. But I also felt compassion for him as a person and thought the way his life ended was really, extremely sad.

It can be both/and instead of either/or.

One Direction brought me a lot of joy, and Liam was a part of that. I'm thankful for the memories, the music and I’m sorry that he was in pain.

[beegalactica]

How I journaled every day in 2023, and you can too in 2024

I heard someone wants to become "that girl" in 2024...

Well, let me tell you, "that girl" is the type of babe who embodies consistency; consistency in her thoughts, feelings, words and actions. Now one of the ways I have personified this aura of consistency is through frequent inward reflection through journaling.

I know, we've heard it a million times now. And with the new year approaching, it's so easy to set the intention to journal every day and do it well. News flash, my love, you must do much more than just set the intention. Let me tell you how I did it so you can do the same ~

Equipment

Believe me, I've tried it all: countless notebooks, diaries, bullet journals, apps, all of it, but this past year, only one app *stuck* for me, and that is Notion. Whether you prefer to journal with a good old pen and paper, or even if you prefer to make a big Google document, go for it!

The reason I settled on Notion was its table view/ calendar view database features. I liked being able to add properties like what rating out of 5 I would give my day or being able to label whether I was on my period, or any major milestones. I found that these labels made it really fun to look back and laugh at all the crazy things that I came up with, and reminisce over those 5/5 star days when I really felt like that girl. (see example below)

What the hell do you write about?

"You can write about whatever you feel like!" is the usual response, and while that's great if you're anything like me, you'll need more detail than that. I opted for some classic prompts that I would simply respond to at the end of every day, but if you want to freestyle it, try some shadow work prompts, or even just sum up your day in one sentence, you are more than welcome to.

My prompts were:

1. Three wins of the day: 2. One thing I learned today: 3. One thing I will do tomorrow: 4. Am I worried about anything? 5. Favourite thing of my day: 6. Song of the day: 7. A story from today: 8. An affirmation for my mind to sleep on:

You don't have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs if you don't want to, and some days, it might be hard to even think of three wins, but an it girl can be present and celebrate the endless blessings in life, even when it seems like there are none.

How to be consistent?

Going back to the central theme of this post, consistency, it is important to acknowledge that no matter how pretty you make your journal, or how thought-provoking your prompts are, the most important thing is to actually do it.

Life is fluid, it's never going to be linear. Some days you'll feel amazing, gorgeous and ready to take on anything, but other days you'll just wish you were a flower instead that doesn't have to deal with anything. That's just life. Some days, the last thing on my mind was my silly little journal, but I knew it was something I needed to do for myself, so I took 2 minutes to write a few sentences down, even when I'd rather be doing other things.

How to maintain your consistency:

Set reminders - at the start of the year, I had 2 reminders every day to journal; after the first few months, I cut it down to just one at 9pm, and by the end of the year, I was just doing it because it had become a routine for me.

Reward yourself - at first, you'll just be able to say you journaled for 1 day, then it will be 2 days, then slowly up to 1 week, 1 month, and soon you'll be like me, bragging about how you did it for a whole year! It's an accomplishment! Never lose sight of that.

Be kind to yourself - ultimately, this should be something you do for you and you only, so if you miss a day, it's not the end of the world. Every now and then, I didn't journal for a day - maybe I was too busy, or just exhausted by the time my day was over - so I accepted it and caught up first thing the next day. You make your own rules.

JUST START!!!!!!! - do it! Even if you mess up, start again and again and again! Nothing changes if nothing changes.

What's the point?

You've read this far, and you may be wondering, what's the point of journaling?

Well, I can confidently say that journaling changed my outlook on life immensely. 2023 was the best year I've had so far. Yes, there were setbacks: I lost friends that I thought would have forever, I struggled with my mental and physical health, and I reached points where I thought I was too low to get back up. But recording little bits about my day every day showed me, with actual tangible proof, that I will always get back up. I also had some amazing moments this year: I started a whole new school and era of my life, I made amazing friends, I fell in love with myself again and I found my voice.

Journaling has helped me to see the little positives in everyday life. Even when a situation seemed absolutely awful and I thought that I could never recover from it, I developed the mindset that not only could I recover, but I would absolutely recover. This new mindset helped me to laugh at myself in moments when a previous version of me would've shrivelled up into a ball and disappeared from the outside world.

Looking back over my life these past 365 days has helped me cultivate a new outlook on life, where I don't see setbacks as obstacles or barriers to my success, but as little stories to journal and laugh about when I inevitably overcome them. If that isn't the most it girl attitude to have, then I don't know what else is!

Journaling changed my life, and I hope that it can change yours too! Happy 2024! 🎀

[herecirmsims]

Questions For Storytellers

I have (I think) finally caught up on my list of poses to make, so I wanted to do something a little fun (for me, not for anyone else LMAO) and entirely self-indulgent. I read stories and tell my own over on Instagram, but of course it's harder to post long-form text like this over there.

Special thanks to @freezerbnuuy as I'm copying their post. ❤️

What’s the last screenshot you’ve taken for your story?

This is from the middle of my last post, but it's the last screenshot I took because I went back and added this scene in after finally caving and making my own stupid poses for it hahah.

2. Describe your story in three words or less: Needlessly long tbh

3. Describe (insert character here) in three words or less: Uhhh I'll pick Saxen since he's my MC... wet cat energy (which I think is something @nefaricussims said actually??). Or "90s cocaine chic" as @southernsimmin so beautifully described him. 🤣

4. How did you choose the name of your story? It's called The Cottage because it's... based in and around a cottage. 🥲 I have a very imaginative mind!! 🤣 But also, the cottage plays an important role throughout the whole story and especially in the upcoming finale.

5. How do you choose your characters’ names? My Sim story is based on a novel I never had the confidence to finish - in that version, Sax is an ælf based on Anglo-Saxon belief. I made him a vampire in Sims because that was the only pack I owned at the time, besides base game, and for gameplay purposes I thought vamp put him close to how I imagined him. I now realise I could have easily used CC and my own damn imagination to make him an ælf but I didn't know much about CC at the time, either. 🤣 Because of this, the original story leant into fae lore and the stuff about never revealing your true name. Saxen isn't his real name anyway, but for an added layer it also isn't spelt how you might imagine if you heard it spoken. The same for Thom and Jac who are also characters who came over from the 'original'.

6. How long have you been working on your story for? A little over three years! I have learned soooo much in that time.

7. Whats the biggest risk you’ve taken with your story? Did it pay off? I dunno that I've taken any risks, other than putting it out there in the first place.

8. What about your story are you proud of? I think the fact it exists at all. I've been writing stories since I was a kid, but at some point I lost confidence in myself and have never finished anything/wanted to share it with people because I end up overthinking and deleting it. So I am proud of myself for having maintained a continuous story for three years, and for having other people read it. I think because there was no pressure with a Sims story - with a novel I kept thinking, this has to be perfect and polished so that I can publish it someday. With a Sims story, I'm free to just write the silly tropes I enjoy and allow myself to suck and learn and get better at it.

9. What about your story are you looking to improve on? I read a fantastic article about ma - including pauses in your visual storytelling, space for the characters to sit and breath and reflect. It's ma that makes Ghibli movies so wonderfully distinctive. Being able to make my own poses means that I can show a character's expression or body language in response to a situation, without the need for overlaying text. I'm trying really hard to move away from the "talking heads" style that reads more like a script, and letting the visuals tell the story for me instead. I'm not very good at it because I enjoy my blah blah, but it's fun to try!!

10. Is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? Is there a definitive end? I'm approaching the end of it now, which has been planned for the last three years, so yes - I know pretty much everything that's going to happen. Sometimes the characters still throw a little surprise for me though.

11. Why have you decided to tell this story? Are there any messages or meanings within it? When I got the Sims almost 4 years ago, I had absolutely no idea that there was a) a whole community around it or b) that people used it for storytelling. I'd already made Sax, Thom, and Jac in the game, because I'd wanted to see them come to life during gameplay. Then I discovered poses and started sharing random staged screenshots on Instagram, and became friends with the exceptionally talented TheSimmerKay (now making machinimas!) who showed interest in my silly little characters and suggested that I try telling a story too. I owe her a lot!! As for messages and meaning... I'm very interested in what makes people do the things they do, and how the hero of a story often depends on whose POV we're hearing the story from. There's a fine line between hero and villain sometimes, and a hero acting out of love can cross from protectiveness into control.

12. Do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium? Yep - I have a designated story save, which is the one I take all my screenshots in and which never has gameplay. Then I have a Happy Ever After save for Sax and Fen and another save for for my Globetrotter Challenge Sim, both of which are gameplay only. I think it's important to have that outlet; I can work on my story, make poses, or just play the game, depending on what I fancy.

13. From basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you? 2-3 evenings. I tend to get everything laid out and text added, then let it sit for a day because I inevitably think of a way to do something better if I give it chance to breath. 🤣

14. Do you have any regrets about your story so far? If you could go back in time, how would you fix these? Not regrets, really, but there are some threads that I put in - fully intending to complete them later in the story - but never did, due to them just not fitting with the story or wanting to try and bring things to an end sooner. But similarly, there are times when I was going to put in a little hint or foreshadowing in and didn't, and then later in my story have wished I had! The tricky part of serialised storytelling is you have to just live with what you have (or don't have), you can't go back and remove or add scenes like you would with a drafted novel.

15. What have been the highlights of creating your story? I've met so many incredible people due to it, oh my goodness. Truly extraordinary Simmers who've shared their time and knowledge with me. We have a little mutual reading group on Insta where we all read and geek out over each other's stories and it's just wonderful. I was honestly shocked when i went to other platforms and realised how much drama there can be in the Sims community. 🤣

16. What about the process do you enjoy? Not that I don't enjoy the process... but I mostly love it when it's finished and I can share it, hahaha.

17. What about the process do you hate? I don't hate any of it... it's a hobby and I do it because I enjoy it. That being said, it does fuck me off when I have multiple Sims in a scene, everyone is in place and has poses queued, and then MCCC Dresser FREEZES MY GAME NOOOOOOOO WHY

18. Choose a song that reminds you of your story:

This is the unofficial theme... specifically this version in Old English, which is Saxen's first language. "It's our destiny then to find love again / Where we failed once before now we'll win"

19. Choose a song that reminds you of (insert character here):

Another one for Sax I guess because he's special. 😌🤣 "But you, a cinder of the fire that's yet to come / Will you just sit and mourn this fragile thing that you've become / Or instead will you consume the very things you can't outrun / Until you finally see all of the strength that you draw from?"

20. Choose your favourite shot from your story so far: Hmmm I think this one, which was me being lazy and reusing a screenshot from an older scene during a flashback-style narration. 🤣 I was trying to achieve something else with the editing but did this by accident and liked it.

21. Choose your least favourite shot so far: Too many to pick from LMAO

22. Choose a favourite character from your story so far: Sax, obviously, he's my lil chew toy/punching bag. But then there's also Idris, for whom I only wish the best. She's going through some trouble right now and I don't enjoy it. It's much more fun to bully Sax.

23. Choose your least favourite character so far: I don't have one! Although Vlad makes me deeply uncomfortable tbh. I find him to be a really creepy villain, and unlike any of my other villains, he's not in any way misrepresented or redeemable. I'm using a makeover version of him by WistfulCastle (I would link, but I don't think he's available anymore?)!

24. Are there any characters who remind you of yourself? No... well. Whenever baby El randomly info-dumps on a niche subject, that's mostly me taking advantage of a captive audience to tell them about karkadanns or medieval torture items or dead bodies on Everest. 🥲

25. What inspirations have you drawn on for your story? I honestly don't know - I can't name anything that I've consciously drawn on, though I know for sure I must have. Funnily enough people have told me things like "oh that's like in Vampire Diaries" or "that's like that part in the Harry Potter films" and I haven't watched either of those, so I think what's happening is we're all drawing from the same well of folklore and mythology and trope. There is occasional story drama about being copied and the thing is... unpopular opinion alert... many of us aren't as unique as we think we are. 😅 What we are unique at is taking a trope and telling it in our own distinctive way. No one else can tell your story quite like you can.

26. Have other sim stories inspired you? I have soooo many talented friends who inspire me to do better when it comes to visuals and storytelling!! @callmedomino is the queen of silent storytelling and a huge inspiration on my journey to discover ma. I really love how well she can tell a story with no words.

27. What genres would you describe your story as? I call it rural fantasy lmao

28. If you could reproduce your story in another medium (movie, novel, comic, etc.) what would you choose and why? I mean obviously I'd say movie because HOW COOL would that be?! Especially an animated one!

29. What would your story’s rating be? (G, PG, M etc.) Ummm probably M because there is the occasional spicy scene. Sometimes three a year LMAO.

30. If you were leaving simblr Simsta and had to choose another creator to continue the story for you, who would you ask? Well tbh I've given Sax and Fen to several good friends already; some of them have them in ongoing cameos in their own stories. I wouldn't ask anyone to continue mine, but I like to think that Sax and Fen could live on in my friend's stories and games if anything were to ever happen to me.

31. Drop some random trivia about your story: When I started I only meant to do short, random vignettes about daily life at the cottage. Somehow it snowballed into a three year epic. 🤣

32. Give a light spoiler: "This is who I am. If I was any other way, I would not be myself."

[sparklecarehospital]

been reflecting on my year a bit, and i was thinking about something. i think i know what the best thing i did for myself this year was.

making cometcare public. making the ask blog.

ive had this AU stirring in my brain since 2019, ever since i got really attached to doomi during the haunted arc. one reason i went so long without revealing pollarrydoomi as a ship to readers was because doom's crush wasn't public information until late 2021.

i had kept his crush a mystery for 3 years, but revealed it after a fun experience where people figured out who it was through guessing. i'm pretty sure i did a poll about it? asking people to guess who they thought it was, and uni won the vote, meaning everyone had already figured it out.

after pollarrydoomi was revealed and i started drawing art for it and people made fanart for it, i still couldn't post any of my AU art because ally wasn't public and she and howie were in the AU. in july 2022, for the comic's birthday, i revealed ally as a character to the readers. others around the time had started to notice characters i had in pfps and i ended up telling everyone i did have pollarrydoomi ship kids, but i didn't make them public.

in november 2022, i revealed eve on toyhouse. after her reveal, i would soon reveal sly as well in december 2022 on my birthday (revealing sly as a birthday present to myself is such a funny gesture now that you guys know how important he is to me). over the next few weeks i revealed cream, frosty, and marco as well. all of the main cometkids except chem.

then one day someone out there suggested that i make an ask blog for the cometcare AU. it was such a spontaneous decision, and i didn't even really know what i was gonna do with it at first. i was just kinda messing around. but when i made the blog i realized that if i wanted this AU to be experienced in complete authenticity, i couldn't make uni cis.

so i revealed uni being trans through the blog, despite the fact i'd gone so many years without ever revealing her identity. why did i do it? there's a lot of reasons. not wanting to make her a "dad" in the AU contributed, but also i felt like it wouldn't be detrimental to the story to confirm a character being trans. it also made me (and the crew in general) a lot more comfortable being able to properly refer to uni with her actual pronouns.

making the ask blog really changed me, because finally i could share this little family and comfort story i'd built in my brain with the world and make it real and make content for it and let people consume it.

but what stopped me most of all?

i've said it many times before... but i felt like it was cringey.

i felt like making an AU with 93985893844 fankids in a ridiculous complicated polycule wasn't something a Serious content creator should do, and i was really worried the reception would be negative or people would think it was stupid or something. i did NOT expect it to become as popular as it is. the blog actually has more followers than the MAIN ASK BLOG for the canon comic. it was received SO POSITIVELY and the fact it was just kind of blows me away.

it means so much to me. being able to share the most special thing in my life with people and for people to actually like it and have fun with me and want to see it, and for me to be able to not have to follow strict professionalism about spoilers and chronological storytelling, and being able to change and add in things whenever i felt like it. it's such a freeing experience.

when i was a kid, i used to make stories and OCs and i didn't take them as seriously as i do the sparklecare reboot. this kind of turned into my entire life and career kinda, so i had to take it more seriously. but making this AU honestly just makes me feel like i'm a kid again, it makes me feel like i can have fun and literally do whatever the fuck i want without worrying what people think or if it's realistic or if it makes any sense.

i know though, that some people don't like pollarrydoomi. and i know why. whether it's because of being attached to barruni (of course, they're the canon ship and main characters, i get it) or just having discomfort with the idea of shipping doom with anyone when canonically he hasn't experienced a redemption arc... i get it. i know not everyone likes it.

and that's okay! people are entitled to having their own feelings about content. i understand it. and i've come to accept that's always going to be the case with anything i do with these characters.

but i'm still going to do this for myself. i do this because it makes me happy to just have fun and not worry about being serious all the time. it feels good, especially when it's with characters that are really really important to me.

cometcare is genuinely the most special and important thing i've ever made for myself, it's such a huge piece of my identity and it makes me who i am. and being able to make this story public and share it with people and share these things that have been in my brain for so long with others means so much to me.

that's why i think it was the best thing i've done this year. it's kind of literally changed my life to be able to talk about them. it's made me happier than i've ever been making content. i'm not just making it to entertain myself alone anymore, i'm making it to entertain others like i do with other stuff. and the fact people actually like it still is unbelievable to me.

so, i guess my outlook for next year as it comes is to continue to stop taking everything so seriously. i can tell my stories however i want to. i hope others can realize they can do this too.

please make whatever you want, whenever you what, as much as you want, even if it doesn't make sense or if it's "cringe". you will be so much happier when you realize as a creator you DON'T have to take all of this so seriously. the comic still exists and people read it even if i'm doing this. You Can Do Whatever You Want And Nobody Can Ever Stop You. the only person who can stop you is yourself when you let your inhibitions get in the way of your ability to create things for yourself.

have fun! life is too short to take everything you do seriously

[ronkeyroo]

A positive Update

Friends, kind folk - Hello Again 🤍

Ever since my last update post, I've been thinking about it , a lot ;; I knew I needed time to cook and reflect, and im so glad I gave myself that...

2024 started rough for me; I fell severely ill again - I was too busy cursing my life and dwelling over how betrayed I felt by things still not getting better despite my efforts that I didn't realize I was walking into a self fulfilling prophecy. Its true that the struggles I'm going through are yet to be solved, that its gotten so much to the point giving up seemed easier, and that a couple individuals haven't been making it easier on me either; I swayed and i rattled and I steered within feelings ranging from confusion to anger to dismay and all of this back and forth did nothing but remind me of yet another self-destructive loop I just don't want to allow in my life anymore. Its exactly the kinda stuff that made me ill to begin with, and I've been so lost dealing with everything in between that i forgot to tend to the actual core centering all of this...

It grew unbearable how much emotional and physical turmoil I was pushing myself into, and knowing how intertwined these two elements have been; I had to draw a line before i majorly screwed myself over, gathering any bit of inner will to discipline myself back into some sort of clarity, enough to at least look through a lens OUTSIDE my pain for once, towards the kind of life I want to lead, and the kind of life I don't; and I came to an understanding.

From my physical state to my mental, to the people and memories I've experienced, both the good and the bad - I want to prioritize the good.

Not in a shitty ass, toxic optimism kinda way but in a "I want to prioritize knowing and living the possibility that even when it hurts, even when i want to be gone, even when life doesn't align - There's still every good reason in the world to keep moving forward, to face things from a perspective of growth & compassion, and to grow to love the promise of a better tomorrow even when today was unbearable." To know that I don't end or begin in my suffering, that the infinite potential I speak so fondly of applies to me, as well...

I want to be able to wield and create and share that goodness, too, Especially when it is already in decline...And for all gods sake, to internalize that all of this STILL exists and STILL matters even when it doesn't work the first couple or dozens of times.

As for my place here in Tumblr...I know the sentiment might feel silly to some but the experiences, memories, and connections I've made here have truly been such a significant force in my life, and i don't want to give up on that ;; Not because of my own insecurities, or an inner state of hopelessness, and especially not over a bunch of emotionally immature Anons that dont know how to handle themselves; I want to forgive all of that.

I'm stubborn, and there's an unyielding force within me that no matter how many times it is struck down, it proved itself ridiculously resilient. I'm perking up with with a fiery confidence realizing just how many times it rose back up, enough to realize it is an unchangeable part of me ;_; I shouldn't underestimate that force, and I want to keep living by its side. Whatever positive change I can sprinkle onto my life and the lives of those I care for, I will! And the reason why this space in particular is so important to me, is because so much of that already exists here, alongside you folks;

THAT'S the kind of energy i want to nourish and walk into the new year with! I want to continue growing as a person, challenging my inner turmoils, undoing the self punishing dogmas that still haunt me, stop flexing my teeth over things that don't deserve my time and god DAMN, just - indulge in the stuff that makes me happy, even when I'm going through unhappy times.

So yeah...I guess that means, I'm back & I'm staying ;_;)🧡

I know i may seem like a broken record when it comes to expressing gratitude but - Thank you, thank you thank you everyone who have reached out for me, who so fondly kept me in their thoughts and kept encouraging me whenever i was hurting, both then and now...You folks mean more than whatever ailment or struggle I can go through, and while I'm unsure of how the future will look like as I'm still going through various challenges- I couldn't have asked for a cooler, sweeter audience to have by my side whenever Its time to take a rest or hype over our sexy delicious blorbos!

Speaking of which....................I have been cooking quite a lot of things in the time i was away 👀✨ I most definitely intend to serve them, eheheh

[resowrites]

Special Brew - oneshot.

Summary: Henry’s interview gets gatecrashed…

Pairings: AU!Henry Cavill x Reader/Wife!OC, Interviewer

Warnings: fluff, banter/British humour, fake interview, language, dialogue heavy, nondescript reader/OC body type/appearance, hastily written/lightly proofread.

WC: 2221

A/N: Hi folks I know it’s been a while, work’s nuts these days. This is very rushed and was meant to be longer (I wanted to base it on something I’d written previously) but for the sake of just getting something uploaded I decided to post as is. Sorry I can’t post regularly anymore but I hope you enjoy all the same - R x

Remember, this is pure fiction (as in completely made up), and not in any way meant to reflect reality. My work must not be copied, reposted, or translated elsewhere. Gifs/pics not my own. Thanks for visiting!

Special Brew - oneshot.

The following is an excerpt from an article that can be read in full here.

— It's at about the halfway mark in my interview with the 41-year-old Hollywood actor, Henry Cavill, when I notice his attention is caught by something offscreen. 

"Where did you get that?" I think I hear 'the fridge, you dickhead,' in reply. He grins. But instead of resuming our discussion about his upcoming role in the rebooted 80's classic, Highlander, he starts gesturing for someone to join him. It fails. So seconds later his partner is pulled onto his lap despite some very loud protestations. He tells her it's her fault for taking his last tin of lager. She tells him she needs it more. What then follows is an almost a four-and-a-half minute squabble - yes I actually timed it - which ends with Henry relinquishing the can on the proviso that if he has to be interviewed, she does as well. I don't take offense but soon wondered if that was premature: 

"Who's interviewing you? The Telegraph?"

"No, The Guardian--"

"Wouldn't the Telegraph be more interested?" He gestures in my direction.

"Well, I assume Mark is all the same!"

"And how long have you been keeping this poor bastard?"

"We've not even been chatting half an hour!" 

"Oh… have you got a second question for him?" I smile. The 35-year-old financier first met the actor in 2015 and they were rumoured to have married in 2022. Not that either of them, his publicist, or even various social media accounts provide much in the way of confirmation. This seems to stem more from a desire for privacy where possible than anything else. Though it must be said, at first glance they make for an incongruous pair. She catches me peering at her still towel-wrapped hair, Celtic jersey, and joggers combo and wastes no time striking first:

"That's a nice shirt--"

"Don't be cheeky, just 'cos you could have made more of an effort--"

"It's my day off! At least I don't look like an undercover policeman." Is she referring to Henry or myself?

"I don't know, stand up," I laugh but he just rolls his eyes. "Has he apologised for Aryglle yet? To be fair that was actually my fault, I wanted a new kitchen." This lays the ground for what is arguably one of the most chaotic interviews I've experienced in a while.

"Do you see what I mean, Mark? It's not that she wouldn't be media trained, it's that she couldn't." Now she rolls her eyes.

"See, he thinks he's being slick by making me look bad--"

"I'm the one who does that?!"

"So he looks better by comparison--"

"Is that right? And what was wrong with Aryglle?!"

"Nothing! It's the best thing you've ever done. Even if you didn't mean for it to be." She coughs to try and cover a laugh. I ask for her thoughts on his most recent box office offering (Guy Ritchie's spy action comedy, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) but for a split second, the title escapes me.

"You mean The Manly Ministry of Something?" Henry tuts and grabs back the can. I dare to question if she has a low opinion of the profession in general. "No, it's more to do with the actors themselves." How so? "Well, considering they're usually the biggest gobshites you'd think it'd be great craic hanging out with them--" he quickly interjects.

"Who are you calling a gobshite?!"

'What do you mean?"

"You know fine well what I mean!" Henry turns back towards me and continues. "Even her own mother took me aside a couple of weeks after we started dating to try and warn me--"

"She never! What did she say?"

"Do you really want to discuss that right now?!" It can't be that bad then, I respond. He shakes his head, despairingly. "Oh no, just that she once walked on stage at a school assembly and instead of graciously accepting an award, pretended to trip so she could drag every single trophy off the display table!"

"… Can you tell he went to a private school?" I almost spit my drink out.   

"What do you mean?"

"Do you not realise how tame that sounds?!"

"But that was just the first month you were there!"

"Then I deserved an award--"

"Hang on, she also told me that when you had an after-school detention on your birthday, you climbed out the window of the room you were being supervised in--"

"Normally I'd just get on the bus and go home so that time they gave me a personal escort--"

"And then refused to come down from the roof unless they gave her a birthday cake!" Laughter rings out between our two screens. "In the end, they had to call the fire brigade and she became the reason why their school couldn't properly open their windows any more--"

"I also got a ride home in a fire engine so, hands down one of my best birthdays." Henry sighs. I wonder aloud how this contrasts with his own experiences of school. 

"Er, I mean I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes, so I felt a bit intimidated by that sort of thing." 

"He still is." He now chokes on his drink. Does this mean they wouldn't have crossed paths as kids?

"Nah, she'd have bullied me then as well." They both laugh. So she hasn't mellowed at all in the intervening years?

"I would say I have, yeah… you do as you get older." Henry's eyebrows hit the ceiling.

"Oh right, so I just hallucinated that night at the Bafta’s then?" She clears her throat and takes a large swig from the can. Is this why she doesn't typically attend red carpets with him?

"Ugh, I'd rather shit in my hands and clap--"

"That and the fact you're a fucking liability!" She shrugs as he explains. "A few years ago, I made the mistake of dragging her along to the after-party--"

"Well, that explains why I didn't fucking remember. Why did I have to come? You didn't win anything you were just presenting--"

"Oh fuck off! I even promised to take her on holiday for a couple of weeks if she at least tried to behave herself--"

"'Cos that's a good incentive--"

"And Jesus Christ, never again. If I wasn't blackballed in this industry before, I was that fucking night--"

"No, it's 'cos you won't take acting lessons." Henry smirks and tries to cover her mouth this time.

"At least I didn't go up to a circle containing Judi Dench, Helen Mirren--"

"Look at him dropping names! And it's Dame Judi…"

"And last but not least, the Meryl Streep--"

"You know, of Mama Mia…" A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. 

“Only to ask them where their cauldron was!" 

"But that's the great thing about being a nobody, you can say whatever want--"

"You're not a nobody--"

"No, I'm your plus one…" They howl with laughter. "The best thing is to underdress slightly as well so they think you're staff, the reactions are even better." And what was the response? "None of them heard me." He snorts.

"Judi just burst out laughing--"

"Judi! Like they're friends! Yeah, well she saw us arrive together so I think she was onto me."

"Luckily she's got a robust sense of humour…"

"Not like that other one. Oh, what's his name? You know… the one that says he'd rather be making shoes?" Sir Daniel Day-Lewis?

"Yeah, she asked him if he wanted her to go look for his top hat." I can feel my own jaw drop.

"That's how he reacted! Oh God, I'd give my left tit to relive it…" I ask where Henry is when these interactions go down. "Usually trying to find the nearest exit--"

"Is it any wonder!" 

"But we were only there twenty minutes--" 

"And he wasn't even the first Daniel you managed to piss off!" And who was that?

"Dan Snow." The broadcaster? Henry glances heavenward, exasperated.

"No, Jon Snow - and she means Kit Harrington. She got talking to him and somehow things managed to go south even quicker than usual." I can see how referring to him instead as the 50-year-old historian might have that effect. "No, it wasn't that, it was when he asked whether she was enjoying Game of Thrones--"

"Which is presumptuous isn't it?" For once even I'm at a loss for words. 

"And so she asked him if that's the show with dragons and when he said 'yes,'" he starts cracking up, "she went 'then, no.'" I don't think I've ever seen a man look so crestfallen - not even when you accosted Sam." Mr. Rockwell? I'm assuming that took place while Henry was still on the Argylle press tour?

"Oh yeah that was a gas, I waited until we were a bit better acquainted--"

"So the poor sod had his guard down--"

"And on the last day, I asked if he'd sign a picture for me. I think he assumed it was for a friend or something so he wasn't expecting me to thank him for gifting Henry his picture to put above the toilet--"

"What's worse is that it was that still from The Green Mile, you know? Literally, the first one that pops up on Google!" This anecdote puts me in mind of a similar story I heard on the grapevine during the first season of Netflix's The Witcher. Against my better judgment, I ask him if knows what I'm talking about and immediately his eyes flash in recognition.  

"Yeah, and it pains me to say that's also true."

"What is?"

"Your stunt at the Witcher premiere…" For a moment she looks genuinely confused. "Don't pretend you can't remember!"

"Remember what? I wasn't even there!"

"And even that didn't spare me!" 

"Oh I can't fucking win Mark, all I did was try and bring a smile to his face 'cos I knew he was sad about me having to work that night--"

"So naturally you had an 8x10 still printed of me with Orlando Bloom's head (as Legolas), photoshopped on top? Which, by the way, you could have just messaged me. But what did you do instead? You made dozens of copies and had my bodyguard hand them out to fans for me to sign." She waits for a beat.

"But how long did it take for you to notice?" Gentle reader, when I tell you this is one of only a handful of occasions I've ever laughed so hard in an interview, it's because I want you to know how rare that's actually been over a 35-year career in entertainment journalism. Still, I imagine that if she was brazen enough to taunt some of Hollywood's most influential stars, far worse shots have since been fired.

"Oh yeah, why don't you tell Mark how you recently mouthed off to Aaron Taylor Johnson?" Even she begins to look sheepish. 

"Yeah, but I was only trying to make conversation." Henry's head falls into his hand. She snickers. What on earth happened? "Honestly, nothing. I just said I hoped he really was being considered for Bond ‘cos he looks great in a suit." I hardly know how to respond. "Now that I think about it, he probably just thought I got you two mixed up--"

"Stop it right now!"

"What? You bought me in on this interview!" This of course is true and seems to serve a more serious purpose the longer our conversation continues. That he adores her is plain - his eyes never leave her. But it's the fact she can keep making him laugh, even under the scrutiny of being interviewed, that seems to make all the difference. Is that the key to the success of their relationship? "Well, that and the fact he's gone for six months out of any twelve--"

"So all the messages saying you miss me is just lip service?"

"Oh alright, it's cos he's got a huge… heart. Almost as big as his bank balance." Henry's legs are suddenly thrown in the air. At first, it seems he lost his balance, but judging from how quickly he then chases her from the room, I assume it was she who pulled the lever on his office chair that sent him hurtling to the floor. 

A couple of days later, I received a brief email from her which apologised for them both having 'christened more than a couple of ships' that day and explained how she was grateful that even though she 'had a lot of baggage' before they met, Henry refused to give up on her. She signed off with the following; 'His biggest problem is his limited self-belief. But seriously, he's admired because, in a professional and personal life full of arseholes, he's still, as Virginia Woolf said of her husband right before she died by suicide, 'entirely patient and incredibly good'. I'll never be drunk enough to say that to his face so I've cc'd him in.' I double-checked and saw that she had indeed emailed him as well. It's an oddly moving, albeit characteristically funny postscript and one that underlines her devotion to him no matter what. We should all be so lucky.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is on Amazon Prime Video.

To be updated on when I post please follow @resowrites and turn on post notifications.

@fanfictionaddiction99 @luclittlepond @caffeinatedfestivalsheep @summersong69 @ushijimbo @livesinfantasyland @jackjanira @thearcana-moonlight

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

a brief retrospective on Louis and Violet as love interests, Clementine's bisexuality, and the fandom's continued insistence on fighting over this

In December of 2019, I made a series of posts called "An Explanation of Why Louis and Violet are Both Excellent Love Interests" that explored my feelings on the topic after seeing a lot of fighting in the fandom over who's better; who is the "right" choice for Clementine?

The answer is simple: there isn't an objectively correct choice.

I compared Louis and Violet to the romantic options in other games, including Life is Strange, Persona 4, King's Quest 2015, and Catherine, as well as TWDG: A New Frontier. I wanted to show how much better TFS handled the romance versus those games, why we should be grateful for what we got since it could've been a lot worse, and how the fighting over who's "right" was a waste of time.

I suppose it's only fitting that I'd be driven to revisit this topic after seeing fans continue to argue amongst themselves over this years later in the trenches of a weakening fandom.

Just when I think I'm done writing pieces for TWDG, some random redditor writes an essay about how violentine only exists for "woke points" that grabs me by the throat and throws me down. Then another will insist that clouis is abusive since Louis voted against them in ep2 in their own essay and I'm dragged back here, kicking and screaming.

While I think my previous Excellent Love Interests posts about this are on the juvenile side, I do still agree with my main point: Louis and Violet are excellent characters who make for compelling love interests. The fact that we got them both, that we were given the choice, and that they're as well done as they are, is something I don't think we appreciate enough. Hell, I don't think we even appreciate that Clementine's a canonically bisexual protagonist as much as we should.

We're too busy trying to one up each other with, "Well, actually, clouis is superior because of this and this," and "no, you're wrong, violentine is actually better because of this and this," and sometimes a wild non-shipper will appear out of nowhere to slap down an, "actually, you both suck, singletine is better."

It's sad that this is what fandom inevitably defaults to, always. It stops being about the game we love, the thing that brought us here, and it becomes a pissing match.

Doesn't matter what fandom it is; we end up projecting too much of ourselves onto fictional characters, investing too much of our time into ship culture, hyper-fixating until it becomes part of us... and let's be real, sometimes it's in unhealthy ways.

So, when someone else attacks the things we're attached to, it becomes a personal attack... and when we feel threatened, we become defensive and retaliate... and sometimes, we take it too far and target others out of insecurity, to feel validated, even if it means going after someone who is just minding their own business.

Also, I think some people are just assholes who want to piss on everyone.

Because of this, I would like to discuss Louis and Violet as romanceable characters, why they're both important to TFS no matter who you choose, why Clementine being a bisexual protagonist matters, and the fandom's continued insistence on fighting over this.

For many personal reasons, I've always been trepid about being open with my sexuality as a bi woman. I've done a lot of reflection this year on why that is; internalized misogyny, the biphobia that lingers in the queer community, insecurities, regrets, how I tend to be harsher on female characters over male characters, why it took me so long to not feel afraid of engaging with queer media, admitting I was wrong about so many things I've said in the past, how it's all affected my writing, etc.

When TFS released and I made this blog, I had already accepted my bisexuality but was in no way public about it, not online or in my personal life. But playing the first two episode of TFS, being presented with both Louis and Violet as potential romantic partners struck something inside of me.

Yes, I picked Louis; we all know I'm a major clouis shipper at this point, and if you're new here, then now you know, too.

But it's the fact that Violet's also an option, that with just a few different button presses, Clementine could've fallen for her just as she did with Louis; that there's evidence in game that she shows interested in both of them no matter your choices; that no one in-game judges Clementine for who she chooses to be with... that meant something to me in a way that it hadn't before.

TFS wasn't the first game I played with a bi protagonist; in Excellent Love Interests, I compared Louis and Violet to Life is Strange's Chloe and Warren. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the first LiS game overall, but I've been quite open about my dislike of Chloe and indifference to Warren.

Chloe, to me, is everything I dislike in a love interest, predominately in wlw. 2023 was the year of "CJ dives into sapphic literature and it's a 50/50 chance of striking gold or gettin' hella eaten by disappointment, shaka brah." Meaning I've read a lot of wlw novels, and all the ones I hated featured a Chloe clone, sometimes done even worse.

And Warren? I'll be real honest with you- I couldn't even remember what his name was when I started writing this. I had to go back and check. That tells you what I think of him, no?

So, LiS didn't strike me the same way. Sure, I knew Max was a bi protagonist and that's great, but the choices weren't appealing to me. This was when I was a teenager still somewhat in denial of my sexuality, which most definitely contributed to me being uncomfortable when faced with a wlw relationship portrayed in-game, especially when I found myself wishing Kate was an option for Max... but y'know, "shhhhhhh if I don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist."

When the first episode of TFS released, I was older, I was no longer in a not-so-great relationship, and had better accepted who I am. The first episode does a great job of introducing you to Louis and Violet, and giving you the opportunity to spend more time with the one you're interested in.

I actually really liked them both when ep1 dropped, but I've always had a preference for a character who is kind, deflects with humor, and tends to be picked on by the rest of the cast... so it was inevitable that I'd stick with Louis. Though I won't discredit Violet in ep1, or the rest of the game, just because I didn't choose her in the end.

That's one of the best things about Louis and Violet as options; they're opposites, yet alike in many ways. They have their appeals and charms. They're flawed. It never feels like a "love triangle" situation where they're fighting over Clementine. Louis and Violet are friends who have known each other from before the walkers came. It's refreshing to have two characters who are interested in the same person but don't go for each other's throats over it. When they do argue over her, it's more to do with AJ shooting Marlon and whether it's safe for the group to let them stay.

I can't fault anyone who struggled to pick between them. When someone talks about who they picked and why, it's all about the player's preferences.

It's your choice to make, and no matter what, you're not wrong for it.

This season concludes Clementine's story, regardless of what some comics will say. It's the last fight. It's her happy ending. She and AJ finally found a home, a family.

I've played these games since S1 came out in 2012, over ten years ago. Clementine holds a special place in my heart. Not only did this important character have a great final season [despite Telltale shutting down and TFS nearly being left incomplete, remember] but she's also revealed to be canonically bisexual.

They didn't release the whole season and then as an afterthought be like, "oh yeah btw she's bi, she has oneline of flirty dialogue with this character so see? we did good rep."

Yeah, I'm side eyeing you, ANF.

They didn't try to hide it. They presented it to the player unapologetically and made a conscious decision to exclude anything biphobic from other characters... which meant a lot to me.

Biphobia is real and it's not that I don't want it explored well in media, but there's something appealing and safe about a game with a bisexual main character who isn't questioned about it negatively; "You're bi? Doesn't that mean you cheat on all your partners?"

To give a compliment to Life is Strange: True Colors, I had a similar feeling in that game, too. Alex is openly bi, she can date either Steph or Ryan and no one questions the "legitimacy" of her bisexuality.

Because that's always a thing on top of everything else, y'know? "You're a bad bi unless you're with the 'gayer option.'" "Bisexuality isn't real, you're just confused." "I don't date girls who've been tainted by a man." "Oh, you're into girls? How about a threesome?"

Violet never turns her nose up at Clementine for admitting she had a crush on Gabe. Louis isn't ever gross about Clementine and Violet getting close. It speaks volumes for their characters and how accepting they, and everyone else at Ericson, are of Clementine no matter who she chooses, if anyone.

That acceptance, even if it's just in a game, means more than words can express to queer players who don't feel that acceptance in their daily lives.

Which means it hurts all the more when it comes to the fandom's own display of biphobia; "You're bi but ship clouis? Why ship something hetero when violentine is right there?" "Well, MY Clementine's straight because she picked Louis! Stop forcing the gay onto MY Clementine!"

Clementine's important to all of us. Why do you think so many people are pissed about the comics to the point of spewing disgusting bile toward Tillie Walden? I've said my piece on that plenty times before, so allow me to say it on this; the representation of bisexuality in Clementine is beautifully woven through TFS in ways that are subtle yet impactful, and I thank TFS for giving that to us.

One argument I've come across recently against Clementine's bisexuality, and violentine in general: "blegh they only included violentine/made Clem bi for lgbt points." y'know... as if that's a bad thing.

It bothers me because A. saying "I'm not homophobic *but*-" and then making a homophobic argument against violentine while insisting that Clementine's bisexuality came out of nowhere and was forced is icky, and B. I know I've said similar things about violentine in the past. I know I used to argue that violentine's underdeveloped, yet the devs pushed it to the forefront over clouis to pat themselves on the back for doing representation, etc.

I don't believe that anymore; remember when I brought up people making arguments out of insecurity? Yeah, that and being lowkey bitter that violentine got more dev attention than clouis sometimes even though like... that doesn't matter? It literally doesn't matter. That's what I meant when I said you get so invested that certain things feel like a personal attack when they're not.

Some of the developers of TFS are queer people. They probably wanted a bi protagonist with a wlw option because that representation is important to them and they had the opportunity to express it, not because they were trying to get "points" with anyone. Go listen to the commentaries for TFS; they talk about violentine with nothing but positivity, and they didn't do that to shade Louis or clouis shippers. And if you do think they did it shade fans, then maybe stop and consider why; do you actually believe that or are you annoyed that your fave wasn't the center of attention?

On the flip side, I also want to say that gloating and insisting that violentine is the better/right choice because of these things is also unpleasant and untrue. It sucks when it feels like things are biased against you and it sucks even more when that bias is weaponized by other fans to beat you down.

But honestly? If you need this much validation on your opinions about fictional characters, maybe you should stop to think about why that is and what it says about you, yeah?

Truly, this whole clouis versus violentine thing is irritating at best, vile at worse. Thankfully it doesn't happen as much on tumblr given the state of the fandom, and everyone's at least agreed that no matter their feelings toward each other, clemricca is worse. So, that's something, I guess.

I think the best way I can put this is you don't get to dictate what other people think and feel. Being passionate is great until it becomes an excuse to be an asshole. Not everyone is going to agree with you and you need to put your big kid pants on and accept that.

I'm under no impression that the fighting will ever stop, even when this fandom is dried up with only bones and memories haunting its desert... but at the very least, I can point some of it out and ask that we do better than this.

The focus gets lost in the fighting, and that focus is Louis and Violet themselves. Y'know, the two this retrospective's about.

Remember when I talked about Persona 4 in Excellent Love Interests and how much it sucks when the person you want to romance isn't actually an option--?

Hmm? What's that? Ah, yes, right- @pi-creates insists I add that TFS and Persona 4 actually are the same because Aasim wasn't an option and they're still bitter about that... but this isn't about Aasim, that's a topic for another day. Sorry Pi, but thanks for the screenshots used in this retrospective👍

Anyway, TFS gave us two excellent choices, and it would've been worse off had it only given us one of them, or none at all.

Louis wears charisma as a mask and uses humor as a shield to deflect. Violet, for as quiet and standoffish as she first appears, has a heart she's both eager and reluctant to share.

Louis is warm curtains of sunlight seeping through the murmuring woods of green leaves and little song birds. A heart carved into the rustic wood of an out-of-tune piano. Music echoing in the early morning hallways.

Violet is the glow of a full moon that illuminates still waters so the stars can dance in its reflection. Paint smeared over finger tips to offer a piece of herself meant to be worn. Constellations of stars named in secret.

They're both lonely people, often misunderstood by the others at Ericson, and sometimes by each other. They want to be known. They want to be seen.

But fear is a powerful wall to overcome.

And that's the beauty of choice. You get the impression of knowing them in the beginning, but it rarely breaks surface tension; Louis is nice and funny but undependable, Violet's rude and reserved and a little awkward. Neither are outspoken about any issues around Ericson, content to keep their heads down.

Clementine has to make the effort to know them, and the game establishes this by asking you an unassuming question: do you want to go hunting with Louis or fishing with Violet?

Clementine either makes an effort to understand Violet's feelings toward Brody and why she's so mean to her, and try to help her through it... or she doesn't listen to what Violet's saying, is dismissive, and ends up making things worse.

When Clementine goes hunting with Louis, she has to make the decision to spend time with him or ignore him in favor of hunting, and should she choose him, he opens up to her just a bit.

Then comes the confrontation with Marlon at the end of the episode where Clementine has to make the choice of who to appeal to. The gravity of this choice is often glossed over, I think.

Marlon has a gun pointed at her head, and she pleas for Louis or Violet to step in and save her. Both are hesitant because of course they are! They've known Marlon longer, he has a gun, and he's using manipulation to scare them into submission; he uses his friendship against Louis, and Minerva against Violet.

But when Clementine gets through to them? They stand between her and Marlon in rather in-character ways; Louis eases in with his hands up, attempting to deescalate the situation while Violet pulls out a weapon and demands he back off.

They risked getting shot. They risked death. They knew what was happening was wrong. They didn't want Clementine to die, they didn't fully believe Marlon's bullshit but were too scared to step forward until Clementine asked them, too. In that moment she basically told them, "I trust you. Instinct tells me you are the one who can stop this. My life is in your hands."

This choice changes them, and this moment ripples through the rest of the season. It makes perfect sense that Louis would be upset over Marlon's death and feel unsafe with Clementine and AJ there whereas Violet sees the death as justified and Clementine and AJ shouldn't be kicked out over it. It's an overwhelming situation for everyone.

I've talked about ep2 and the vote until my lungs nearly collapsed and I saw the gates of Hell over the horizon... but that's fine, I can talk a little more about it and maybe this time the flames with cleanse me of my sins or something.

This is where the fighting really began, and I shouldn't have to say it again, but I will anyway: There isn't an objectively correct answer here, there's only personal preference.

Louis and Violet take very clear, opposite stances on this situation. I think they're both a little wrong and a little right; they shouldn't ignore that AJ killed Marlon, but kicking them out isn't the best solution either.

As a clouis shipper, I happen to like the way these events play out with Louis' vote. But not everyone feels that way. For some, Louis' vote is a deal breaker, making Violet the more appealing option given she voted for Clementine and AJ to stay.

Do you want a girl that's been by Clementine's side from the beginning and was vocal about keeping her and AJ here?

Great, Violet's the choice for you. Enjoy the lovely moonlight and constellation mini-game.

Do you want the extra angst of a boy who made a vote he comes to regret and then does everything he can to apologize and make it up to Clementine?

Wonderful, here's Louis. He'll play you a song he wrote and then name it after Clementine, it's very cute.

While on the topic of ep2, I also want to discuss the episode's final choice of saving either Louis or Violet and the consequences.

You know how in other games, say like massive RPG's with "good" and "evil" choices you can make that end up defining your character? You know how sometimes people question why developers even bothered putting those evil routes in since a majority of people will choose to be good? This isn't a new topic of discussion, but it's relevant to my point- they do it because the option to be evil makes the choice to be good more impactful. If you do choose to be evil, you did it knowing you could've been good and yet you decided chaos was the way to go, and now everyone and everything around your character suffers.

I don't think it only applies to binary "good" versus "evil" choices, either.

TWDG is great with its "You can only save one of them" choices, even if they usually fumble with the consequences in later episodes.

When I'm faced with this choice to save either Louis or Violet, I don't save Louis just because I like him more. Sure, initially that's why I saved him on my first run... but then the rest of the season came out and I learned the consequences of the choices I did and didn't make.

Knowing that he'll get his tongue cut out if I don't save him makes me all the more anxious to choose him. And I know violentine shippers are gutted knowing that if they don't save her, she'll feel so betrayed that she turns on Clementine and in the end is blinded in the boat explosion, so they're just as eager to save her.

But all of us have to live with the consequences of what happens to the one we didn't save, too. We made the decision to save the one we love at the cost of hurting the other we didn't love enough. You can't save them both. You're forced to hurt one of them in order to protect the other.

And it doesn't even stop there. TFS isn't done twisting the knife.

Mere moments before you have to make the choice to save one of them, Lilly's standing over Clementine with her finger on the trigger... only to then be tackled by the person you didn't choose to spend time with.

They just saved Clementine's life only to be dragged away by their neck, and the game asks you what that's worth: They got captured saving you, so do you save them in return or do you remain loyal to the one you chose before?

And when you know the consequences of both routes, when you know Louis will have his tongue cut out and Violet will have her eyes burned?

Louis and Violet are good people at their cores who only wanted to be understood and loved, and no matter what, you have to abandon one of them for the other... and they are left physically and mentally traumatized because of it.

But wait, there's more. The one you didn't save will always survive to the end and act as a constant reminder of what you chose... but the one you saved? If you don't trust AJ, then you'll be forced to watch them get torn apart and eaten alive by a herd of walkers. The only way to save them is to trust AJ so that he shoots Tenn.

A child has to die in order for you to save the one you love again, a choice you indirectly made.

The ending shows you the one you didn't save, and it shows you Tenn's grave... and it presents a quiet question: was it worth it?

Would you make those choices again?

That's the power Louis and Violet bring to TFS.

That's why the choice matters.

We justify trusting AJ because we'd rather see Louis and Violet live over Tenn, knowing we're taking away the best friend AJ's ever had and allowing Minerva to get her way. We save Louis knowing that it breaks something inside of Violet and results in her permanently losing most of her eyesight. We save Violet knowing that we'll find Louis bloody and sobbing in the cell after having his tongue cut out of his mouth.

And we argue about it amongst ourselves even though it's all fucked. There isn't a true happy ending here, not for everyone.

Louis and Violet stand on their own as great characters, but you only get the true depth depending on how you play. They're excellent love interests because they care for Clementine. Through their relationship with her, they grow as people and find the acceptance and love they're starved for.

It's not perfect, but it honestly doesn't need to be. There was care woven into these characters. Both routes have a wide appeal. That means something to so many people.

I know we as fans often will say we wanted more, we wanted this and that, we wish this was different. It's not a dating sim where the main objective is to woo them. It's not a massive RPG with hundreds of hours to explore every nook and cranny of their characters. This is a Telltale game. It's a narrative with Clementine and AJ at the forefront, and it's up to you whether you want Louis or Violet to share that spotlight.

It's a story about Clementine finding a home, about molding what kind of survivor AJ comes. It's about Clementine meeting two broken people with glass shards at their feet, about her glass mixing with theirs. It's a game about choice; which glass pieces do you pick up, and which do you step on?

We should take more time to appreciate Louis and Violet. We should share our appreciation for the development team for giving us a bisexual lead with two great love interests, especially since we almost didn't get TFS in its entirety; we can hate Skybound as much as we want for the Clementine comics, but without them, this team wouldn't have been able to finish the game they were clearly passionate about.

We should have more self-awareness and try to understand why we like and dislike things without targeting others.

In conclusion?

I think they're both neat 👍

[skyfallscotland]

A year ago today, I posted the first chapter on AO3 of a story called Fury.

A few months before that, I'd picked up A Court of Thorns & Roses. It was the first original work I'd read in years and when I finished Silver Flames a week later, I turned back to AO3, desperate to read more about these characters I'd fallen in love with. I couldn't find what I wanted. Feysand fic was all well and good, but there wasn't much of that, and Azriel didn't appeal to me, which ruled out...well, most of the archive.

Original character fic gets a bad rap and that's mostly because OC fic can often be an author's first foray into fandom and writing in general, making the quality hit and miss, but that's what I really wanted in the end—I wanted to read about other characters in this world and I wanted to flesh out the world itself. I had questions about Windhaven, about siphons and magic and all the things that had been mentioned and glossed over. I couldn't find fic that answered those questions. So I wrote one.

I'd written before, basically my whole life, but never finished anything. This time though, it was like something clicked in my brain. I wasn't back on Tumblr yet and I had no one to talk to about it, but I wrote and wrote and wrote. I'd been writing for months, in secret, not telling a single soul. I'd completely written both Fury and Siren, the second in the series, before ever posting a word of it.

I almost didn't write it, really. Almost didn't post it. I figured no one was going to read it with the way people look down on original character fic. But I felt compelled to write their stories, so I did—night after night. I actually think they might be the best stories I've ever written. The statistics don't reflect that, but I didn't have a storyline to follow, a framework to back me up, like I did later with Remi's Version, just a world and some characters and I'm very proud of them.

Remi's Version came after. I'd started writing it by September, but didn't start posting it until late October (that anniversary is next week) and I almost didn't write that either, because I thought maybe it was too much, too self-indulgent, too unbalanced. It's funny to think now, that I almost never wrote her at all.

I don't know why I'm writing this essay. Maybe just because it feels...some kind of way, you know? It's been a year, but that year felt like a decade, and it's been hard. Picking up ACOTAR was an act of self-preservation when I was at my lowest and Fury and Siren and everything that came after pulled me from somewhere I never want to be again.

It's been a year. My word count on AO3 is now 1,088,097. (That's like, twelve novels!). I've published 11 works. I've written a lot, I've laughed and cried and made friends with so many of you. I'm alive.

I guess I just wanted to say thanks, and to mark the milestone somehow because it feels like I've lived ten lives since October 17th, and in all of them, this was the high point. Happy Birthday, Tessa 🖤

[ingravinoveritas]

Hello, lovely followers. I was traveling for work again in the second half of this past week, but I'm now home and looking forward to answering all of your Asks that I've been seeing in my inbox. I first wanted to reflect a little bit, however, because this trip was also a personal one for me.

This week's travels took me to Anaheim, California, which is where Disneyland is (I think I actually must've not been far from where David and Georgia just were, funnily enough, as my hotel was right by the park). It wasn't my first trip to Anaheim, though. The last time I was there was when I was 11 years old, on summer vacation with my dad in California while my mom was on a tour in Italy at the same time. As you'd expect, my dad wanted to take me to Disneyland...but I was too scared and overwhelmed, and we only ever got as far as the parking lot. The gates were visible, and I remember how they loomed, that feeling of something foreboding washing over me...but rather than excitement, my tiny body was filled with dread. I mentioned this while in conversation with one of the hotel employees during my stay, and he said, "What kind of kid doesn't want to go to Disney?"

What kind of a kid. Well, an autistic kid. A kid who was constantly anxious, emotional, and terrified of sensory overload. A kid who hated crowds and noise and rides. A kid who didn't travel well to begin with, because she was afraid of new places, anything unfamiliar, anything that wasn't safe and home.

A kid who was me.

Even before this, there were so many ways that the world had said "This is not for you." But still, there was something different about it happening there, in the bright California sunshine. My favorite Disney princess as a kid was always Belle, because she also loved to read and didn't fit in with the people around her. Belle connected more with books and animals than people, and that made me connect with her. But Belle was also beautiful (as Disney princesses tend to be), and thanks to the bullying from my peers, I was very aware that was something I was not. So no matter how much I wanted to be Belle, there was no way I could ever be a Disney princess.

This is not for you.

Thinking about all of this during my trip made me feel so many things, but I was most surprised to find myself feeling a sense of nostalgia in particular, a longing for the child I was, who I wish I could comfort. It also made me feel such sadness for that child and anyone else who finds themselves in a situation or a place where the world thinks they should be happy, but they're not. And there are few things more difficult than feeling that way in (of all places) "the happiest place on Earth."

I didn't end up going to Disney on this trip, even though I had a little bit of time to do so. It's still not for me, but the difference now is that I am okay with that. That need to be the kid who wants to visit Disney--the "good" child, the child who isn't "broken"--has gone away, and I'm more than happy being adult me, and finding a place that fits me, instead of the other way around.

And that was my nostalgia trip, in quite the literal sense of the phrase. I have a picture or two to share in another post, so stay tuned for that as well...

[fruity-pontmercy]

Les Mis adaptations and apolitical appropriation

I think it's no secret on this blog that I love the original Les Mis 1980 concept album in French, and that I also love comparing different versions of the stage musical. I've noticed that Les Mis seems to get progressively more vaguely apolitical as time goes on, not only in the way it's viewed in our culture, but in the actual text as well.

It's natural for specifics to be lost in adaptation. It's easier to get people to care about 'the people vs. the king' in a relatively short musical rather than actually facing the audience with the absolute mess that were 19th century french politics (monarchist orleanists vs monarchist legitimists vs imperialist vs bonapartist democrats vs every flavour of republican imaginable). Still, I feel that as time goes on, as more revivals and adaptations of the stage musical come out, the more watered down its politics become. Like, Les Mis at it's core is just meant to be a fancily written, drawn out political essay, right?

In a way I feel that the 1980 concept album almost tried to modernise it with its symbols of progress. Yes, through Enjolras' infamous disco segment (and other similar allusions to the ideals of social change), but perhaps most interestingly to me, through one short line that threw me off when I first heard it, because it seems so insignificant, but might actually be the most explicitly leftist line of all of Les Mis.

"Son coeur vibrait à gauche et il le proclama" (roughly "His heart beat to the left and he proclaimed it" i.e: he was a leftist) Feuilly says, while speaking of the now dead général Lamarque in Les Amis de L'ABC.

What's that? An actual mention of leftism??? in MY vaguely progressive yet apolitical musical??? More seriously, this mention of leftism, clashing with the rest of the musical due to it's seeming anachronism, is interesting not because it's actually more political than anything else in Les Mis, rather, because it's not scared to explicitly name what it's trying to do.

But we've come a long way from the Concept Album days, it's been 43 years, and Les Misérables is now one of the most famous and beloved musicals in the entire world. It's been revived and reimagined and adapted in a million ways, in different mediums, in different languages and countries, and it's clear that it's changed along with it's audience.

On top of pointing out a cool line in my favourite version of the musical, I wanted to write this post to reflect on the perception of the political message of this work. We as a Les Mis fandom on Tumblr are very political, I don't need to tell you that, however, I feel that because this very left leaning space has sprung out of a work we all love so much, we oftentimes forget to revisit it from a more objective point of view.

Les Misérables has a history of being misrepresented, this has been true since it's publication, since american confederate soldiers became entranced with their censored translation Lee's Miserables. However, with it's musical adaptation, this misinterpretation has been made not only more accessible but also easier. As much as I love musical theatre and I think it is at it's best an incredible art form able to communicate complex themes visulally by the masses for the masses, I think it'd be idealistic to ignore the fact that the people who can afford to go see musicals regularly are, usually, not the common folk. Broadway and the West End are industries which, like most, need money to keep them afloat, and are loved people of all political backgrounds (and unfortunately, often older conservatives) not just communists on tumblr. We've seen the way Les Miz UK's social media team constantly misses the mark regarding different social issues, and the way Cameron Makintosh has used the musical to propagate his transphobia, and most of us can agree that these actions are in complete antithesis with the message of Les Misérables as a novel.

But I must ask, how does Les Mis ,as a West End musical in it's current form, actually drive a leftist message, and how are we as a community helping if every time someone relating to the musical messes up if we just claim they "don't get it"?

I'm thinking in particular of incidents like last october, where Just Stop Oil crashed Les Mis at the West End. Whether you think it's good activism or not is not the question I think, this instance is interesting particularly because it shows that, outside of Les Misérables analysis circles and fandom spaces, it is not recognised as an inherently leftist, political or activist work, and instead of just saying they completely missed the point of the musical, I think it'd be interesting to take a step back and look at what the musical as it stands actually represents in our culture today.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, so I won't try to give one, but I do hope we can reflect on this a bit.

[sunnysam-my]

Stolas' Lament VS Just Look My Way

I wasn't really a fan of this song when I first heard the beginning, so I only watched both the original and the official version now, and, oh boy, do I have some thoughts.

The song was first released as a fan single by PARANOiD DJ. Two years later (2023) an officia music video was released, on Vivzie's account, with an updated instrumental and lyrics.

I've highlighted the differentces in lyrics. On left is the original version on right is the official.

This song is actually really great when it comes to it's meaning and development of Stolas. But, OMG, what is with those changes???

But dearest, I know better now I must give you this choice.

Come now, my little impish plaything We both made our choice

What's left for me and my broken heart If I cannot have you?

What's left for me in this broken house If I cannot have you?

I'll give you everything you need What more is there? What more to plead? Just look my way, just look my way What can there be that I don't know? Will you never tell or be so bold? Just say, "please stay" Look my way

Is this what you feel? Scorned by a realm that cannot comprehend What you are, so I'll grant you this mercy this bind on our souls needs to end

Is this how she'd feel? Abandoned, all alone and left to fend for herself for some semblance of happiness that doesn't have to end

The official version just makes Stolas into a selfish asshole! While also try to make him look better at the same time. In both versions he is lamenting the fact that Blitzø doesn't care about him, for some reason Blitz doesn't want to say he doesn't accept that Stolas actually loves him despite their status and agreement. The difference is that in the OG version Stolas actually reflects on what he'd done and how he hurt others. He knows it's his fault, but he doesn't knows how to fix it. It's not about him being sad because he is hurt, like in the official ver, but because he hurt and destroyed everything and everyone around him. In the changed version he makes everything about him.

The change that convinced me to make this post is change of "What's left for me in this broken house, If I cannot have you?" to "What's left for me and my broken heart, If I cannot have you?". I'm sorry, but this is one of those moments that make me go "Ah yes, fandom knows the characters better than the author". It's completely downplays just how much this relationship means to Stolas. I've seen a lot of criticism saying how the agreement between Blitzø and Stolas didn't really posed any threat to Stolas, because of how privileged he is, and I'm sorry, but that's such bullshit. Stolas risk everything for this relationship, despite that he gets the worst part of the stick. And he did loose it all, if Blitzø leaves him, it was all for nothing. He is a royalty! You have to be incredibly naive to think he can just do anything he wants and pay no consequences. Stolas is a tragic character of his own demise. He brought his own downfall on himself. Him choosing to cheat with Blitzø was bound to destroy his marriage, his status, his relationship with his daughter and interfere with his duty.

It just really shows where the show is heading with Stolas. Instead of actually make him a redeemable, tragic character by making him relatable in his struggles to escape his inescapable duty and, well, not being allowed to be a person (remember, he wasn't even allowed to not only show, but also feel strong emotions, even as a child on his birthday), they make him tragic, because "poor owl boy didn't get what he wants and is heartbroken :("

(If you see this as overreaction to a simple change to song's lyrics, that's because I'm not mad about this song in particular, but how the characters turned to more shallow versions of themselves in this show.)

Lyrics without highlights, separately:

[sapphoswh0re]

recap post: star lords

(warning: lots of spoilers, old and new theories, personal rants ->this is going to be really long, maybe I should split it?) While we wait for the end of the hiatus, I decided to share a thing I've been working on for a long time, on par with the new releases.   It's not exactly a #theorypost because even if there are some theories, this is more of a personal guide to have a summary of events/characters and my thoughts about it all together (it also makes it easier to find them in the manga).

⭐ Who are the star lords? ⭐

They’re mentioned for the first time in chapter 110 with the beginning of the Blue Cult arc and the introduction of the ‘stars’, but only in chapter 115-116 the existence of "special" individuals inside the Sphere Music Hall is made explicit.

In the same chapter, we understand that the 4 stars are connected to 4 figures (Sirius, Vega, Polaris, Canopus)

->why do I only say 4 and not more? In fact, in later chapters, when the star lords' rooms were shown, some fans had doubts that some stars (like Sirius or Canopus) could be represented by more individuals/twins. In my opinion, however, it's already clear from 116 that they could only necessarily be 4 people. Nina is the one who takes care of their clothes, it's true that she didn't take the measurements in person (so she didn’t see them), but she’d have noticed if she had to create pairs of the same article for a single "person". I think it would have been suspicious, something easy to notice, instead she only talks about 4 people.

Even if the topic of blood and transfusions is there from the beginning, it's in chapter 117-119 that we're given the confirmation that each star corresponds to a blood type and they have different degrees of rarity:

Polaris = A

Vega = 0

Canopus = A

Sirius = AB

So, who are “those with the names of the stars”? Four people who need the collected blood, aka bizarre dolls (at this point it may seem trivial, but at that time it was still debated hahah).

Thanks to Sebastian in chapter 117 we can see the rooms of the star lords (from which they speak in 123).

Door with a star-> Sirius

Two stars-> Canopus

Three stars-> Vega

(the "infamous" double room that with the dialogue convinced some that Vega were two people) 

Four stars-> Polaris

SIRIUS ✨

Sirius is the first one to be revealed, and as the real Ciel who returns in 129-130 with the beginning of the Blue Memory arc. 

Despite being perhaps the most incisive figure among the 4, he's also the one on which there have been fewer conjectures since the “twin reveal” had been awaited by fans for years, so yes crazy but not THAT crazy.

The cover of 129 itself confirms this by showing the door of the “blue star” open.

However, why did Sirius, according to fans, have to be RCiel? 

Well, if you're desperate enough (like me), the clues can be found in the choice of the stars. From the article : “Sirius is a binary star consisting of a main-sequence star… termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion… termed Sirius B”, “A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other” -> twin theory (Ciel A/Ciel B) later also confirmed by the attempt to make OCiel another Lord Sirius for the police (two Lord Sirius?) “Sirius is colloquially known as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog)” -> reference to the role of the Queen's Watchdog

Questions I still have about RCiel (some have been answered by now so I removed them)

is he a bizarre doll? Yes, but is he special in some way?

what is his purpose? Obviously it concerns his relationship with OCiel, but could it be just that? Actually, given the unstable personality he has shown so far it could really be just that -> clarification, RCiel's goals ≠ Undertaker's goals

how did his body "grow" to keep up with OCiel? Can BD grow or was he the exception thanks to some intervention from Undertaker?

what was it that Undertaker made him drink in chapter 108? An attempt to bring him back to life? (like a soul or something??? was the eye actually twinkling, or was it a scenic effect?)

what happened to RCiel's soul? We know it was used as a tribute to summon Sebastian, but did Sebastian absorb/eat it, or was it just lost as payment? The explanation was a bit too vague for my liking (they repeat a lot “price”, “payment”, ”paid” without really telling us where is it or if it still exist)

is his distorted personality an effect of being a BD, or is it something preexisting? (or something in between)

could his obsession with his brother really be a clue for theories about his role in the Phantomhive family tragedy??? This is one of the things that interests me the most, along with how BDs work (reminder: maybe add a post to remember pros & cons about the theory)

extra: was it RCiel who left the message on the wall or did Polaris carve it? (doesn't really matter, but I'm curious because the scene of Ciel who has to climb on the furniture to get up there made me laugh a lot)

CANOPUS ✨

Canopus is a character who, after many chapters of silence, was revealed as Doll in chapter 204.

First, what did we know about them?  The only information we had was the room, which was shown kinda bare, poorly furnished, with bloody bandages and what could be IV accessories -> we therefore knew that either they were patients (wounded, probably seriously?) or it was a blood drip for BD, or both options -> reanimated body of a person who died from a serious wound

The dialogue of chapter 123 for Canopus was almost useless, so at this point I tried to find clues by searching the actual star (like with Sirius) but in the article I didn't seem to find anything except this passage(?):

“In Greek mythology, Canopus… was the pilot of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta during the Trojan War. According to legend, while visiting the Egyptian coast, Canopus was bitten by a serpent and died.” -> some kind of foreshadowing about her future relationship with Snake? update post chapter: sorry Snake, I’ll pray for your return 😭

Questions about Doll (old and new)

is Canopus dead or alive (BD)? A reanimated corpse but injured 

was she chosen for this role because of her feeling of revenge against OCiel? ->do the other star lords have similar motivations, or do they collaborate for personal purposes? What is her goal now?

does each star lord take care of a main blood source? Why are only Vega and Polaris out to get “nourishment”? ->now we know Doll was just too injured to go, but then she went to the orphanage (orphanage reminder: create a separate post, too suspicious, too many questions, I don’t think the arc is really over)

others I thought of: Madame Red (died from very serious injuries, body prepared by Undertaker, forehead covered by bangs ->she could still come back though), Doll (and I got it right hahaha), a new character

VEGA ✨

On Vega we kinda had some clues (when my ramblings got confirmed I screamed with my friend for like 20 minutes) and in 187-188 is revealed as Layla/Al.

But before the sanatorium arc, what did we know about Vega? We're told that they're out to get blood and their room looked like the bedroom of a (or two) noble girl with childish tastes. The presence of pairs of pillows, stuffed animals and vanity led to the belief that there were two people (but in my opinion, the single bed and the clothes thing mentioned above only indicated one). Another passage that tried to be misleading but was actually a clue is the dialogue in 123 where we have two text bubbles that join together while saying the same thing -> this passage!!!

Layla is introduced in chapter 172 and to me (and Lau hahah) she immediately seemed suspicious, with characteristics that matched the few things we knew about the star lord:

-> too young to be a nurse, good manners like a noble and it could make you laugh but the thing that most caught my eye was her pair of bows because it reminded me of the pairs of objects in Vega's room. 

With Bard’s attack we got the proof she participates in the blood collection and that she is a BD but in 191 she pronounces a sentence that sounded too familiar to me -> it didn't seem to match at first but I found it so suspicious that (even if it's something I never do since I do not understand the language) I searched the Japanese scans of the two scenes and... it is the same!!! insert screams

Even in this case we maybe had a clue thanks to the star Vega:

“Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr.” ->Lyra/Lyrae=Layla and Alpha=Al?

Questions about Layla (they’re a lot but it’s because it’s a new character)

how did she get a death scythe?

why does she drink blood from other blood types? On the Campania the first BDs attacked people in search of the soul, Layla instead attacks for the blood?? -> why do transfusions to BDs follow the blood types? (connection to the orphanage?)

is Layla really a girl? Not so important but in the FOL Orphanage arc the categories that represent the stars made me doubt. The Collie Class is made up of children (almost all boys) dressed as nuns/nurses who do housework (and Oliver handles a knife) ->same dress as Layla even though they are boys -> could Layla be a boy?

how was she chosen as star lord? And why even though her blood is less rare than Canopus is she of higher rank? (room decorated as a noble) ->does she have more funds? Or did someone finance the project for her/to give her that role and therefore wanted to bring her back to life?

following the question above, who was she before she died?

Is it possible that she is the daughter of Baron Heathfield?

theory (not my only one, but this has more connections): in chapter 155 it's said that the baron lost his wife and daughter in an accident. (Obscured faces but the little girl has a bow on her head, light hair, short bangs, young woman from a good family) ->for this reason he looks for replacements for his wife (theme of the shape of the soul, could it be important in the future? reminder), but why not for his daughter? ->maybe the daughter was brought back to life by the Aurora association, for this reason he finances them and it’s an important blood collection site not directly managed by a star lord (he has a personal interest in the blood being sent to the Aurora’s labs and the research continuing). Disgusting detail ->can the baron's practices be reflected in Layla's sadistic attitudes (or is it a consequence of being a BD)?

Could she have witnessed or suffered something when still alive? ->Al is a second personality: (I tried to follow this article) said to be a disorder often caused by strong childhood traumas, the personality is born to protect the person from those painful memories and it allows to detach from them, just like Al does in 191.

POLARIS ✨

Polaris is currently the only star lord still unidentified, and he's perhaps the most mysterious. Having no confirmations yet but only clues I'll create a dedicated post about him with a link from here (definitely not because I've reached the images + links' limit and this became so long??? like when did it happen? opsie)

if you've read this far you deserve a prize 🎁

this was almost like a diary for me, so if you don't agree with some theories/comments/observations let me know, because I'm always interested in other opinions to expand this file, but please consider my heart of glass (jk just not too passive aggressive)

[henrysglock]

Local Man Uses The Cyclical 27-Year Torment Nexus To Try And Change His Fate [EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

You probably guessed that this is the time-travel post I've been slaving over. You'd be right. This is the newest and most formal iteration of my long-standing time loop theory (I have drafted flowcharts back from February that actually predicted a dimension/time fuckery event in 1943 in relation to Brenner, which was made canon by TFS). So...Let's just dive right in. Note: I'm planning to keep calling TFS Henry "Henry" here just for simplicity's sake.

Now, fair warning: There are a few big "bear with me"s in this post. I promise they make sense, I just need you to hear me out.

It all started with Henry's self-proclaimed superhero name: The Stardust Spider.

Some of you may have seen my original post about The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (here).

Before anyone says "Oh, but that album didn't exist yet", a reference in 1959 about a Bowie album that wouldn't be recorded until November of 1971 is in keeping with TFS's habit of directly referencing things from the '70s that "don't exist yet".

However, all that aside, there's a specific piece I want to return to, because it bugs the living daylights out of me.

There was a cut song that was meant to go on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars titled "Shadow Man":

For obvious reasons in relation to Henry in The First Shadow, this song already stuck out.

Specifically, though, these few stanzas hit me weirdly:

You should call and see who answers For he promises to come running Guided by the truth For the Shadow Man is really You Look in his eyes and see your reflection Look to the stars and see his eyes He'll show you tomorrow, he'll show you the sorrows Of what you did today You can call him foe, you can call him friend You should call and see who answers (see who answers) For he knows your eyes are drawn to the road ahead And the Shadow man is waiting 'round the bend ('round the bend) Shadow man is waiting up ahead

The Shadow Man is you from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show you the the truth/the consequences of your actions.

Considering that the TFS version of Young "Henry" has a direct connection to both the Shadow and Dimension X from a young age, and he also experiences what seem to be Vecna-type visions, this becomes particularly interesting to me...Especially seeing as said fates are not only possible for future "Henry", but also canon for future "Henry". (See: Vecna guy vs Mindflayer guy)

So, when I see an almost comical number of lines in TFS relating to rewriting known, undesirable endings (here are a few of my favorites):

And when we revisit some of the on-film classics:

I start to think it's time we revisit the concept of time-travel and trying to change your own fate.

It's always hard to know where to start with posts like these, so I'm going to kick things off with the technical aspect: The Cycle.

Something I've talked about in the past year, mostly on Discord, is this concept of a time loop. Not just any old time loop, though. A 27 year cycle, specifically.

Not 20, not 30...

Now, we all know the TFS timeline is messy as hell and doesn't actually align with anything that's possible in filmed canon...or within its own time span, even.

For example, the attack on Mr. Newby happens both some point after October 1st, 1959 and before November 20th, 1959...but the papers for the incident report it on March 20th, 1958:

The timeline we're given also largely fabricated, as I pointed out in relation to the newspapers with dates that don't actually exist.

However, much like NINA, the sequence itself being fake doesn't mean the events didn't happen. It's just not happening in the time frame we're told it's happening in:

It's a set of real events, just portrayed on a different time scale.

So, with all that in mind, I want to lay out a timeline, starting from Season 4 and moving backwards in time:

— Vecna opens the rifts, and El opens a gate to Dimension X in NINA, both in 1986. The March 1959 Creel Murders occur exactly 27 years before the Rifts and NINA's Dimension X gate open in 1986...at which point the Mindflayer is shown to be active.

— Mothergate opens through to Dimension X at some point between November 1983 and October 1984, this being somewhere between 16-28 months prior the Rifts opening. The paper about the attack on Mr. Newby, dated March 20th, 1958, is released exactly 610 days, or 20 months, prior to the Creel murders on November 20th, 1959. It's not necessarily the exact dates that are important here (again, these dates are relatively unreliable), but the gap between the dates.

When put in accordance with filmed dates (i.e. setting the release of this paper exactly 610 days prior to March 22nd of 1959), the paper for the attack on Mr. Newby would have been released on July 20th, 1957. This would be in line with Edward Creel's move to Hawkins in the spring of 1957...while also occurring 27 years before July of 1984, at which point Mothergate is open, and the Mindflayer is active.

This July date is especially funny to me considering we get "throwaway" lines like this...with shots in filmed canon from summertime:

Top: Joyce and Jim beginning their investigation into the attic attack. Hopper Sr. is questioning why Joyce and Jim are investigating, rather than attending school. Bottom: Alice and Henry with the rabbit death scenes in filmed canon, the setting showing full foliage and both children in summer clothing. "Is it summer break?" I don't know. You tell me, Chief.

Per TFS, Henry went missing in a cave system near his home town of Rachel, Nevada (hold that thought) at some point in the year prior to the attack on Mr. Newby. We've been told that Dimension X was involved in this event in Nevada, something happened there that left "Henry" altered physically. He was also flayed at some point around this time.

This all coincides with Henry's dramatic mood shift from a "normal and good" boy to one suffering from Mindflayer-induced psychosis. This change happened in tandem with the Nevada incident, dating back 10 months prior to the attack on Mr. Newby:

If we set Henry's initial disappearance in line with filmed canon like before, it becomes September of 1956, which is just over 27 years before Will's disappearance in November of 1983, at which point we know at least one gate is open.

We also have 1952, at which point TFS Henry would be 7 per his age as a 14 year old/freshman in play canon. This exists in a 27 year interval against 1979, when El opens the original gate that sends One to Dimension X, where he subsequently shapes the Shadow into the Mindflayer.

Here comes the first "hear me out".

My questions are:

Since Henry/Vecna/The Mindflayer/etc. in general don't show any capability for opening gates before 1986, then how the hell is the Mindflayer possessing anyone in 1959?

How did "Henry" get involved with Dimension X in Nevada in the 1950s?

Unless, by some chance:

Dimension X exists all the time simultaneously (i.e. it's a space outside time)

The gates exist simultaneously across time and space in the Right Side Up in 27 year intervals. By which I mean: A gate that opens in, say, 1983 would exist simultaneously in 1956, so on an so forth.

There's the disappearance of Captain Brenner and the USS Eldridge in 1943, which would, interestingly enough, align with 1970, the supposed year of El's conception.

Then, 1952. Now, I'm not sure what's special about 1952, when TFS "Henry" was 7, because they don't actually say what happened to make that year important! They make a point to show it to us, though, meaning something happened...we just don't know what. All I can say is that 1952 does exist in a 27 year interval against El's 1979 gate. Hold that thought.

Those addressed, let's fast-forward 4 years: 1956/1983.

Now, to be fair, there is some uncertainty in my mind about whether this specific gate incident stems from Brenner's involvement with Project Rainbow in Nevada pre-1957*, or if it stems from Mothergate in 1983, or if they created some kind of wormhole between the two locations 27 years apart...but that's a concept I need to explore more thoroughly in a another post.

In short, though: Did a singular El open a singular Mothergate? Did El open mothergate? Did Mothergate actually open on November 6th, 1983...or are we just supposed to assume it opened the same night Will went missing/the demogorgon came through? We're never given a concrete date for when Mothergate actually opened.

* In TFS, Brenner claims he's dedicated his life post-1943 to Project Rainbow with the goal of finding Dimension X, and that he's doing so in pursuit of knowledge regarding the circumstances of his father's death in connection with the Philadelphia Experiment. The USS Eldridge, Brenner Sr.'s ship, disappeared into Dimension X briefly on October 28th, 1943. "Brenner Sr." was the sole survivor. "He" returned to the Right Side Up with a completely unique blood type, supposedly altered by his travels into Dimension X. This is what ultimately led to him succumbing to his injuries, due to his body rejecting all forms of blood transfusion. Brenner Jr. tells us that about 10 months prior to Henry's first stay in HNL, a scientist from Project Rainbow escaped Brenner's lab carrying a container of a dangerous material, and ended up near the same Nevada cave system Henry disappeared into. We don't know how or when this material was collected, or what it was, but we know they found Henry's Captain Midnight spyglass next to a body (identity unspecified) with no trace of that dangerous material. We get no further detail about the Nevada Disappearance.

Anyway, someone opens a gate in the fall of 1956 and/or 1983 (my money's on it being directly linked to an El in 1983 either way). No matter who did it, though, someone opened a gate at both time points, showing us this 27 year link between the 2 dates, 2 key locations.

"Henry" goes missing in Nevada in 1956, and ends up involved with Dimension X...Which aligns with the choice of song surrounding this version of the Creel family while they move into their new home:

Coincidentally, 27 years in the future, so does Will, in Indiana. Their experiences are linked across those two spaces via that 27 year period.

We know that regardless of the gate in Nevada...Mothergate, at least, stays open until from fall 1956/1983 to fall 1957/1984. That covers exact time frame that the adjusted dates for both Henry's accident with the boy in Nevada and his accident with Mr. Newby fall in (as well as Will's time between his disappearance and his flaying).

The closer we get to Will's flaying in 1984, and the closer the Mindflayer gets to crossing through Mothergate, the more TFS Henry sounds like One (post-1979) while he's possessed in 1957, the more strangely he behaves in general (almost as though the Mindflayer is more enmeshed in his everyday life/closer to the surface), and the stronger the possession attempts seem to become overall. He begins giving nightmare visions to other people, namely tormenting Virginia with spiders and her past. He has his final and most powerful "Vecna" vision on the night of the attack on Mr. Newby.

Any kind of reciprocal gate irt Mothergate in the '50s would have gone unnoticed, since the papers in TFS indicate that HNL wasn't established until Brenner showed up to take Henry in.

Mothergate closes briefly, only for a gate to open in July 1958/1985 in the underground location of the future Starcourt Mall. This, in 1958, is during our unaccounted-for 20 months between the attack on Mr. Newby and the Creel murders. (Something rattles about this and the scene where Henry nearly makes full contact with the Mindflayer, when he has a handful of duplicate lines re: his 4.07 monologue self, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make that claim with any certainty.)

That gate closes, until Vecna opens gates in Hawkins in March of 1986, and El opens a Dimension X gate briefly and simultaneously in both Hawkins/Nevada in September of 1979 (September of 1952) and Hawkins/Nevada in March of 1986 (March of 1959) during NINA, concurrently...at least one of which may have gone unnoticed, since the Rainbow Room and the surrounding labs seems to have been abandoned entirely after 1979, and HNL as a whole has once again been abandoned after the events of 1984 ("unnoticed" and "abandoned", I say as if the building isn't still being surveilled by Brenner/Owens et. al...I just mean that the building isn't in use by the government at that point in time.)

We're shown the Shadow activating all the way in Russia due to one or multiple of these events. 27 years earlier, in March of 1959, the Mindflayer once again becomes active, per TFS's adjusted dates. Chaos ensues.

At this point, "Henry" starts swapping between sounding like his young self and sounding like his 4.07 Monologuing Adult self again, doing that kind of "I've seen the future" foreshadowing talk with Joyce that his visions did with him:

Here, he also sounds distinctly like ST3 flayed Billy, specifically in the way of the scene with El in the cabin when "Billy" outlines the Mindflayer's plans for her, her friends, and all of Hawkins while crying.

The rest is, well...history. Whatever fuckery went on, it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. After all, TFS is a "canon event", meaning it had to end the way it did.

Remember those thoughts I asked you to hold?

TFS being a "canon event" means it had to end with Henry in the lab alongside baby El...thus completing our loop, which starts again with the events of 1979/1952. A 27 year loop. TFS may be indicative of a time loop.

Hence:

Out of place dates from the 1970s start to bleed into the 1950s: - A town like Rachel, Nevada, which wasn't established until 1978, now exists circa 1952-1959 after El opens a gate to Dimension X circa 1979 in Nevada circa 1986 via NINA, which exists...about 40-50 miles from Rachel.

- An album like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (November, 1971) or a song like "Chuck E's In Love" (April, 1979) gets referenced circa 1957-1959. - An article about a "younger, more handsome" alien clone of Elvis appears in a 1959 Weekly Watcher paper about the Creel murders, despite Elvis having been 24 at the time...making this an article more likely to have appeared in the '70s or later, likely sometime around Elvis' death in 1977.

2. The Shadow is always depicted as the fully formed Mindflayer circa 1956-1959, despite the shaping event happening in the 4 years between 1979-1983:

3. Henry has Vecna-type visions, despite being the only vision-giver we know of circa 1957-1959.

4. 6 different guys later in the HNL massacre: 2 with the original baby El, 2 with teen El via NINA, and 2 in an as-of-yet unseen product of NINA's Loop (see: the final scene of TFS).

All this laid out, some questions remain:

Why do Henry's visions show him the genuine, terrifying reality of his future?

Why are these visions generally lacking in coercion?

Why are Vecna chime sounds heard before the major supernatural events that deal with visions, even though we never actually see the clock? (They're heard before Virginia in the attic, before the attack on Mr. Newby, before the Creel murders, and in the basement when Henry monologues at Joyce while viewing the corpses of his family.)

Why don't these chimes play when the Mindflayer alone is present, e.g. when no visions occur? (See: Henry contacting the Mindflayer in the lab)

And we don't really get an answer to any of these. Not an easily spotted outright answer, anyway.

But what's really fascinating, which I mentioned just a second ago and takes me back to the top of this post, back to the "Stardust Spider" and Shadow Man, is the fact that despite occurring concurrently with the possession attempts...none of these visions contain an ultimatum. There's no "If you don't obey me, I'll hurt someone you love", no "I'm showing you what's going to happen if you don't obey me", nothing of the sort.

The closest we get to coercion is the bathroom vision, when Henry fights off a possession attempt in the school bathroom and ends up in a vision regarding Patty. When "Patty" starts to talk to him about his future, about how Henry's going to kill her and so many others, Henry says "you're not Patty...what are you?" Then he gets into a physical brawl with her, which is surprisingly well matched. Vision Patty encourages him during that fight, saying things like "That's it!", "We want the same thing!", and "We can have her!"

Those seem like pretty straightforward "the Mindflayer's encouraging Henry to kill" encouragements, right?

Yeah, at first glance. However...lets read that back right quick, but with Moral Objectivity Goggles on this time. Henry openly, verbally identifies that Vision Patty is "not her, not Patty", but is, in fact, something else. He does this multiple times before he lunges at "not Patty", and he is subsequently encouraged by not-Patty...who tells him they want the same thing. That's not suspicious at all. The motives here are definitely crystal clear and totally aren't conflicting in any way.

There's the straightforward surface aspect, and then something else piggybacking on it, complicating it. Hold that thought.

Other than that instance, the negative parts of Henry's visions are all just...information. They're showing him what will come to pass...almost like they're motivating him to fight the Mindflayer. Hold onto that thought too, it buddies with the previous one.

Henry's freaking out about Prancer because he's getting close with Patty, and he's worried he'll hurt her?

His vision informs him that he's going to kill more, that he's going to hurt things, that he's going to kill Patty if he stays around her and/or gives into the Mindflayer's desires. And then it happens. All of it. He kills more animals. He hurts things and people, the pets and lab animals, Mr. Newby, and Inmate 58361 being prime examples. He gives in to the Mindflayer's desire to kill and kills Virginia. He does, by the extent of his perception, kill Patty in the accident.

The same goes for his vision in the attic. Henry's up in the attic using his powers to find someone/snoop on them, fearful of opening himself up for a possession attempt?

The vision version of Patty's mother catches Henry and tells him she "wants to tell him a secret" while his body is being puppeted to attack Mr. Newby. The next time the curtain rises to show us the inside of Henry's mind, he's seeing himself as Vecna, strung up on the tentacles and strangling people with them...just like the end of Season 4. Once again, he's seeing the future that will come to pass...should he fail to fight the Mindflayer off.

We can tell it's a vision, not what's physically happening in reality, because: a) Henry's watching himself in the attic from the stage below. b) It's got the messed up red lighting c) They show us reality just moments before, not a tentacle in sight and without Henry on the stage there observing:

d) The ending of the vision doesn't match with reality:

At the end of this vision, Henry passes out both in the void and IRL, while the vision version of Henry remains crouching. That is a different guy, entirely separate from IRL/Void Henry. There is at least one other person in the visions who is not a product of the vision itself.

Remember those thoughts from a bit ago that I asked you to hold?

Well. This also happens to be the sequence where we not only get Vision-Patty repeating Henry's own words from just after Prancer's death ("It's not real. It's not real. It's a nightmare") back to him, a phrase IRL Patty has never heard, but we also get:

Visions Patty telling Henry how to fight and evade the possession, as if she knows what she's doing ("It's your dream, remember? Anything is possible").

Vision Patty telling Henry she loves him as the last-ditch effort when his "good dream" memory of the real Patty fails to save him from the possession.

These are both things IRL Patty wouldn't know or think to say, since IRL Patty fully believed that Henry attacked her of his own volition out of malice, and she needed to be shown a drawing of the Mindflayer by Mr. Newby in order to abandon that belief.

IRL Patty's behavior is not the behavior of someone who a) knows the ins and outs of Henry's situation with the Mindflayer, and b) coached him through overcoming a possession attempt a little while earlier. It's just not.

Just like before, we're seeing contradictions and complications between vision-selves and IRL selves, along with a sense of piggybacking within possession attempts, wherein the vision serves as motivation for Henry to fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer...while the Mindflayer is possessing him.

It's starting to become my favorite thing in the world: A pattern of behavior.

In summary:

Henry's are visions are visions of his future, and they're being shown to him by someone.

They are separate from, but piggybacking on, the Mindflayer's possession attempts.

The purpose of the visions isn't solely to torment Henry or coerce him into doing the Mindflayer's bidding. In fact, the content of the visions seems curated to make Henry fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer.

So if, for example, Vision Patty ≠ IRL Patty, but she's acting against the Mindflayer's best interest/in support of Henry...then...

I think my answer to the questions of "who", "when", and "how" should be at least somewhat clear by this point:

Someone...from the future.

Specifically, someone from 1979-1986 who has access to the gates from the Dimension X side, someone with both vision-giving and time-related abilities who's directly connected to the Mindflayer/the Hive Mind, but who has a vested interest in countering the Mindflayer, saving Henry Creel, and trying to change the course of the future.

A traitor. A spy, if you will.

"A spy...from the future?"

[gestures at the Signs] Yeah, you heard me.

A spy from the future.

So, on that note: The point in this section wherein I ask you to hear me out.

I get the feeling TFS Henry is being told and/or shown what will come to pass in the future by himself...the Mindflayer.

And you're probably going "How do you figure that one, James? Isn't the Mindflayer a villainous force?"

I mean, yeah. Of course it is. However...

There are clearly multiple forces at play within the Mindflayer (hive mind!), and TFS shows us that Henry Creel wouldn't choose to be a villain.

Thus I think the visions in TFS are situations where, as in the 4.07 rabbit scene, things look really damning on first view. They play on our empathy using small, visibly-frightened, helpless victims and shocking, violent circumstances to guide us into making the assumption that everything about the situation is inherently malicious.

We're shown this poor little guy, "Henry". He's 14 years old, he clocks in at 5'5", he's skittish/scared of (ha) his own shadow, and he's geeky to the nth degree about comic books (just LOOK at that Captain Midnight salute? What an cute little nerd). He's immediately lovable. He's also, we find out rather abruptly, plagued by horrific visions and murderous fits of possession.

The immediate response is to go "He's being psionically tortured by some sick, sadistic son of a bitch who hungers for nothing but blood and control", just like Nancy and the ST fandom collectively did with Young Henry's rabbit scene...only to be proven wrong about Henry's intentions via TFS.

I mean, does anyone (anyone who's able to read this post, anyway 🤭) look at TFS Henry, filmed Young Henry, or even Orderly Henry and go "Yeah. He totally wanted what he got, and if he had the chance, he definitely wouldn't try to save himself from that fate"?

No.

TFS Shows us that "Henry" was a terrified, traumatized boy who wanted it all to stop. He's kind, brave, and stronger than he seems. We're also shown that he's capable of overcoming the Mindflayer to issue warnings to people he cared about (i.e. telling people to run, or prophesying dangers he'd seen via the visions). He was trying to survive with next to no help while causing as little harm as possible. He was a good kid, and he certainly wasn't evil.

So, all that said...I think that, via the Shadow's hive-mind capabilities, Henry's "fronting", in a manner of speaking, in order to show this version of himself the future. Probably as a warning, probably as motivation to fight the Mindflayer, and all with a nice side-dish of "here's how you fight this thing off so that my current future doesn't become our future" before someone else tapes over the figurative laptop camera.

[coughs, drops this Brenner-Mindflayer collage on the table in front of you, and then scurries away]

With that said, I'd like to loop all the way back to the top of this post: The "Shadow Man" may be Henry from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show his younger self the true outcome of his choices.

We all know how TFS ends, though. Hence:

[EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

This brings me to my final "bear with me" point: The matter of the strange double-agent vibes from the UD in every season.

I'm not sure if anyone else outside the unholycule has noticed this, but in every season there's at least one instance of the UD just...offering up information.

"It does?"

Yup! Let me explain.

On first glance, we look at things like Nancy's vision and even El's vision with Billy in the cabin, and we go "Oh, it's because [insert "the bad guy's cruel/he wants to scare her/his hubris will be his downfall/all serial killers want to be known for their crimes" etc here]"...but maybe that's not the case.

For example: Vecna told Nancy his backstory, and then he immediately went

"Oh hey, so not only am I revealing my identity (Which may help you find out more about me via lab records later on, things like...maybe a list of my abilities, or my weaknesses, like the fact that I have a nut allegry. Allegedly.), but I'm also gonna give you a sneak peek of my apocalypse plans. For free. As a treat. Don't use these to prepare or anything. I'm totally not giving you a head start".

Terrifying, yes. A taunt and a threat on surface view, yes...but also showing his hand. "I want you to tell Eleven everything you see" Why. Why would he want that. He may be confident in his plans, arrogant, even...but he's not that stupid.

I'm serious, though. Check it out in comparison to Henrys visions of the future. The pattern is patterning:

We can track that back to El's cabin scene with Billy, wherein he tells her she shouldn't have looked for him, warns her that they all can see her, and that they're going to be coming after her...and he cries about it. That's vision Billy. That's someone else who piggybacked into El's mind from Billy's mind. That's not real Billy, just like how Billy in Max's vision wasn't the real Billy. The person giving El that vision warns her. Why on earth would he tell her that they can see her, that they're coming for her? That's sensitive information! It would be smarter to let her think she's safe and use that false sense of security to catch her off guard.

In fact, this pattern patterns so well that I'd like to argue this: Henry's TFS visions, Nancy's vision, and El's vision are all the same type of behavior displayed in NINA's chess scene, just in different contexts.

Henry ("Henry") gives some kind of scary prophetic information ("He and the others are going to attempt to kill you", "I would very much like to show you where I am going", "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"), and then we're left to question if it's a scare tactic, manipulative misinformation, or helpful inside information.

It's not that the Mindflayer or Vecna can't hide things from people (see: "Somewhere he didn't want me to see")...like, say, the fact that the Mindflayer is now able to see El, or that Vecna's planning to open 4 gates with his 4 kills.

It's always this miraculous "Huh! Weird info-dropping behavior from the UD's side. Shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth though. It's probably just a writing oversight or a shoehorned exposé, so really there's no need to question it." situation where it's just...information that's offered up with no real explanation.

Some of my favorite examples:

...and it's all topped off with Max's line:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time".

That is to say...You're telling me:

The first message from the Upside Down isn't any of the messages that are concretely Will's, but instead it's the one that's a repetitive Henry line...and it's conveyed in a distinctly not-Will style? A message that saves Joyce, something that's definitely not in the UD's best interest given her tenacity in finding her boy...but is definitely coming from the UD nonetheless?

Will, who fell total prey to the Mindflayer in less than 3 days, was not only able to figure out how to defeat the Mindflayer, but was also strong enough to convey it in Morse code? The Mindflayer, who is able to keep secrets (see below), just...let that information slip?

El, who acknowledges that the Mindflayer is more than able to hide things from her, is suddenly released into Billy's memories and allowed to find the source unimpeded?

The Mindflayer, as Billy (Remember: not actually Billy, because Billy can't give visions or invade minds), is telling El that because he's able to see her now, she shouldn't have looked for him? The Mindflayer, which was supposedly building the Fleshflayer to track El down and kill her? Suddenly he's telling her she shouldn't have done the thing that allowed him to find her more easily?

Vecna's giving up all the information about himself and his plans before he's even gotten the 4th gate open, despite him being so secretive about it up until that point?

Henry's visions in TFS are going to scare him into resisting the Mindflayer, making it less likely that he's going to upgrade to killing humans, i.e. the very thing the Mindflayer wants him to do?

None of that makes any damn sense...until we hit this last point:

Orderly Henry is known for giving inside information about "Papa" to El with no clear motive other than getting her to leave the lab.

Now, if you know my page then you know Em's been talking about double meanings in phrasing recently (see: this post about "who"s and "what"s).

So, with that in mind, I'd like you to chew on this:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." vs "He's been telling us His plan this whole time."

By which I mean: "He's been telling us some other man's plan this whole time."

[Mike voice] Superspy.

As a parting thought, I made it all into a nice, neat set of collages:

Not to mention this final, parting bit: