#and I thought why not share it with people

[misswynters]

Ekko being protective while you are expecting

– short drabble

featuring. ekko x pregnant! reader

this was a late night thing so if there’s any mistakes let me know

Bright, golden sunlight filtered through the cracked glass of Zaun’s upper levels, casting a warm glow over the patchwork city. Rustic smell lingered throughout the entire city even in the places were you would think it would be. It was a sharp contrast to the pristine towers and polished streets of Piltover, but you’d come to love the chaotic beauty of Zaun. Its grit and resilience mirrored the spirit of its people, and despite everything, it had become home.

You adjusted the basket on your hip as you weaved through the narrow alleys, a small smile on your lips despite the slight strain in your back. The sounds of the city surrounded you: children laughing as they ran between stalls, the hiss of steam escaping from overhead pipes, and the occasional distant hum of machinery. Though Zaun was far from perfect, it had a heart. A fierce and determined spirit that had drawn you to it.

A boy darted out from a corner, his face smudged with dirt and his eyes wide with curiosity. “Miss!” he called out, holding up a small metal trinket he’d likely scavenged. “For good luck!”

Your heart melted at his gesture, and you crouched carefully to meet him at eye level. “Thank you, sweetheart,” you said warmly, taking the trinket and ruffling his hair. “Here, this is for you.” You handed him a piece of fruit from your basket, earning a toothy grin before he bolted off, his laughter echoing through the alley.

“Shouldn’t be out here on your own,” came a low, familiar voice from above.

You straightened, glancing up to find one of Ekko’s scouts perched on a rusted ledge, his sharp eyes scanning the area. He nodded at you before disappearing into the shadows, leaving behind only the faint sound of his boots against metal. You sighed, shaking your head with a mix of amusement and exasperation. Ekko.

Ever since you’d told him you were expecting, his protectiveness had gone into overdrive. If he wasn’t by your side, he made sure someone else was. and it wasn’t just for appearances. You knew how much he cared, how deeply he felt the responsibility to keep you safe. But it didn’t stop you from feeling a bit smothered at times.

You resumed your walk, stopping occasionally to hand out bread or share a kind word with someone in need. It was who you were, helping others brought you joy, even if it meant ignoring the occasional twinge of discomfort in your back. But as you reached out to give an elderly woman a loaf of bread, you felt a familiar presence behind you, the air around you shifting.

“Thought I told you to rest,” Ekko’s voice came, soft but firm.

You turned, your heart skipping at the sight of him. He leaned casually against the corner of a building, his staff slung over his shoulder, his sharp gaze fixed on you. His white hair gleamed in the sunlight, and there was a mixture of exasperation and fondness in his expression as he approached.

“I’m fine, Ekko,” you said, offering him a small smile. “I was just—”

“Helping people,” he interrupted, his lips quirking slightly. He stepped closer, his presence grounding, and his eyes softened as they drifted to the curve of your stomach. “I know, you’re always helping people.”

“It’s important to me,” you replied, your hands resting over his as he reached out to touch your bump. His palm was warm and steady, and for a moment, the world around you faded away.

“I know,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s why I love you. But you’ve got to let me take care of you now. Both of you.”

The sincerity in his tone made your chest tighten with emotion. You leaned into him, letting his strength envelop you. “You already do,” you whispered, tilting your head up to meet his gaze. “I’ve never felt safer.”

Ekko chuckled softly, wrapping his arms around you. “Good. Because I’ve got eyes everywhere, just so you know. You can’t take two steps without someone reporting back to me.”

You rolled your eyes, though you couldn’t suppress a laugh. “I figured as much. You’re like a hawk.”

“Damn right,” he said, his lips brushing against your forehead. “You’re my whole world now. You think I’m just gonna let you wander off into danger?”

“Danger?” you teased, raising an eyebrow. “I was handing out bread, not fighting Chem-Barons.”

He laughed, the sound low and rich, as he pulled you closer. “Doesn’t matter. This place has its risks, and I’m not taking any chances. You’re extremely important to me.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and you reached up to cup his face, your fingers brushing along his jawline. “I’ll be careful,” you promised, your voice soft. “For you, the boy who worries.”

“For me,” he echoed, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your lips. “And for them.” His hand rested protectively over your stomach, his touch radiating warmth and love.

Ekko’s arms lingered around you for a moment longer before he sighed, resigned. “Fine,” he muttered, his tone light but firm. “But I’m coming with you. Not taking my eyes off you.”

You couldn’t help but smile at his protectiveness, even if it sometimes felt overbearing. “I don’t need a bodyguard, you know.”

He raised a skeptical brow. “You’re carrying our kid in Zaun. You need a whole army.”

Despite the exasperation in his words, there was no mistaking the affection in his voice. He took your basket from you, his staff resting casually on his shoulder as he fell into step beside you. “Lead the way, sweetheart,” he said, a playful edge to his tone, though you could see how his eyes darted to every shadow and figure as you moved through the streets.

You stopped occasionally to talk to people—an older man with a limp, a mother trying to soothe her crying baby, a group of kids selling hand-crafted trinkets. Each time, Ekko hung back slightly, letting you do what you did best but staying close enough that he could intervene if needed.

At one point, you crouched to hand a young girl a piece of fruit, smiling as she thanked you with wide, grateful eyes. Ekko’s gaze softened as he watched, a quiet admiration blooming on his face. This was why he fell for you. Not just your kindness but the way you carried it so effortlessly, even in a place as harsh as Zaun.

But as the day wore on, the basket grew lighter, and your steps began to slow. You passed by a rickety stall that had toppled over, its contents—a pile of salvaged wood and fabric—spilling onto the ground. Without thinking, you bent down to help the vendor gather the scattered pieces.

“Careful,” Ekko warned, his voice sharp with concern as he moved closer.

“I’m fine,” you said lightly, reaching for a particularly large plank. But as you tried to lift it, a sharp twinge shot through your back, and you let out a soft gasp, immediately straightening up.

Ekko was at your side in an instant, his hands on your shoulders. “What happened?” he asked, his voice steady, though his eyes betrayed his worry.

“Just… a twinge,” you admitted, wincing slightly. “Nothing serious.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Let me see.” Without waiting for a protest, he gently guided you to lean against a nearby wall, his hands running lightly over your back. “Does it hurt here?” he asked, pressing gently along your spine.

You winced again, and his jaw tightened. “That’s it. You’re done for the day.”

“Ekko—”

“No,” he said firmly, his hands resting on your hips as he looked you in the eye. “You’re done. You’re already doing too much. What if something worse happens? What if—”

He stopped himself, taking a deep breath to steady his voice. The panic was there, just beneath the surface, but he refused to let it show. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead against yours. “I don’t like seeing you get hurt,” he said softly.

Your heart ached at the vulnerability in his words. Reaching up, you cupped his cheek, your thumb brushing against his skin. “I’m okay,” you whispered, meeting his gaze. “I promise.”

But Ekko wasn’t having it. He pulled back, taking the basket and slinging it over his shoulder. “We’re going home,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “And you’re not carrying anything heavier than a pillow until this baby’s here.”

Despite the sternness of his words, his hand was impossibly gentle as it found yours, intertwining your fingers as he led you back through the streets. Along the way, he shot sharp glares at anyone who so much as looked at you the wrong way, his protective instincts kicking into overdrive.

When you finally reached the hideout you shared, he helped you settle onto the bed, fussing over every detail. He would bring you water, adjusting the pillows, even insisting on propping up your feet.

“You’re ridiculous,” you teased, though your smile betrayed how much you appreciated his care.

“Yeah, well, you love it,” he shot back, his grin softening as he sat beside you. His hand found your stomach, his thumb brushing in gentle circles. “I just want to keep you comfortable.”

“You already do,” you said, leaning into him. “More than you know.”

Ekko leaned down to kiss your forehead, his lips lingering there. “Still,” he murmured. “I’ll always do more.”

As the two of you sat there, the weight of the day finally beginning to fade, you realized just how lucky you were. To have someone like ekko be the father of your child.

[fictionfixations]

this is my first time hearing of this so i dont know if theres like some other context related to this im missing (or if this message just happened out of the blue) but i dont really wanna know either way.

^^^ but all points in this are valid (the reblogged post i mean)

i would like to at least hold out hope that nothing bad happened until it is confirmed (do not ask them what happened, im sure its stressful as it is) but that is not to say that i invalidate the people who spoke up because im sure they have their reasons too but we do not know what happened and we cannot know what (again do not ask what, we are not entitled to that information)

i want to believe in both sides. i don't want to end up being the kind of person who doesn't believe in a victim or is against a person who didn't actually do anything wrong, so im going to be patient and if nothing ever gets said about it thats fine too

do not speculate. what comes out of it could be aiming pitchforks at someone who didn't do what you think they did, or bringing out someone's trauma over something all over again because you want to know or you think oh maybe this could be why so and so happened

this is my own opinion, but id say to withhold any judgment and thought you might have on this until we get a confirmation. this is not to say that you can do whatever you want with this information after, because that is not true at all.

feeling uncomfortable regarding it is valid, im not saying you cant have your own opinions over it, id just prefer it if people could treat this sensitively, and with respect for the other members to not try to find out more then what has been shared, nor overly target people over something you do not have confirmation over

im sorry as ive been repeating points a lot, but ive seen people acting really disrespectfully to all the people involved in something similar to this because they want to know, but they do it with zero regard for the person on the other side of the screen

(this is more referring to people asking those who were friends to that person about it but it was a really bad situation overall, and they were attacking them when they didn't get a response out fast enough without considering that they'd just learned that someone they cared about was a terrible person and needed time to process that. now in this case its not fully confirmed but i really dont want to see that happen again.)

^ updating my response above, as there is a doc with information about what happened which i noticed in one of the comments on the original post. i just wasnt sure if something really bad happened considering the vague statement in the twitter post but considering its been spoken out now of what happened i can safely conclude that hes probably not innocent (understatement). (again, please do not hound the victims nor the hermits on information about this)

i just didnt wanna assume anything. this isnt to say that i didnt trust in what evidence they saw that made them conclude that the accusations were credible, it was just worded in a way that sounded very vague, and as a person who would like to see the goodness in everyone i tend to stay in denial about these kinds of things because i want to believe that they are not that kind of person, at the very least until its either admitted by the guilty party, or theres a credible statement from the victim

also it might feel like im understating things with how i describe them, thats my bad. i usually describe things in swear words but considering hermitcraft has a mainly young audience im trying not to and it also feels a little inappropriate over a serious topic. but it means i default to referring to something as 'bad' or 'not so good' which can come off as like im trying to make it seem not as bad as it actually is which isn't true at all. im just trying to be really careful about how i word things or what i say considering this is a serious topic but it means im not sure how to describe it so i end up going with what i default to outside of swears.

um. also please dont go asking for proof from the people affected nor the hermits cause i really dont think its appropriate and could lead to triggering them further. its also very personal.

i emphasize my point as a person who has also gone through bad things, and trying to look back through those old messages were really triggering and it was just not a good time. i imagine it was rough enough to get screenshots of what they did get so please leave it alone. they went through the trouble of sharing it in public, you are not entitled to more

and i get it might be rough to trust CCs after having your trust broken with one being revealed to be a bad person but PLEASE do not accuse other CCs of the same behavior. they are just as shaken as you that someone they thought they knew could be like that. please leave them alone, thank you.

PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND:

we, as fans, do not have a right to private information. anything shared with us on this is a privilege. please do not abuse it. the cc's could shut down and never talk about it if we overwhelm them.

also, please keep in mind that ONE HERMIT and THE ENTIRETY OF HERMITCRAFT are NOT THE SAME THING. the entire fandom is not 'ruined' or 'completely unsafe' because of the actions of one person.

PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME THAT THE OTHER HERMITS KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT WHATEVER'S GOING ON WITH ISKALL. this is not some big conspiracy, it's the consequences of one person's actions. they weren't hiding this from us, that's not how hermitcraft works, they truly didn't know. they probably knew as much as us about this, so making it an 'us against them' situation is immature and shortsighted.

ALSO, I AM BEGGING EVERYONE TO PLEASE NOT SENSATIONALIZE THIS. PLEASE DO NOT TURN HATING ISKALL INTO A MEME OR A JOKE.

mcyt'ers being revealed to be less-than-great people is not a rare thing, sadly, but i've seen it turned into a joke/meme/trend in other fandoms. this both minimalizes the actual people's/victims' struggles, makes the entire situation feel less serious than it is, especially to outsiders looking in, and makes everyone in the fandom look immature, petty, unable to take anything seriously, and genuinely harmful.

this server, fandom, and community are not dying, it is not ruined forever, this is one (major, i'm not trying to minimalize it) issue that we're currently dealing with. it will be okay. we will move on. this is not the beginning of the end. please calm down. i love this fandom, god bless all of you. <3

edit: doc has said on stream that we will likely get more information as time passes. like i said, this is a PRIVILEGE. we are not OWED information. please be grateful for what we're given, and POLITELY ask questions if you must. if a cc doesn't give you the answer you want, or doesn't answer at all, LEAVE THEM ALONE. THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO HARASS PEOPLE. the hermits are likely just as stressed out as us, if not probably more so, so please keep that in mind when contacting them.

don't freak out, we'll be okay, this is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of Hermitcraft. we will be okay.

second edit: please remember that (at least as far as we know) ISKALL AND STRESS WERE NOT KICKED OR BANNED. THEY LEFT OF THEIR OWN VOLITION.

ALSO!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!!

WE. DO. NOT. KNOW. EXACTLY. WHAT. HAPPENED.

PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING SIMPLY BASED OFF OF OTHER MCYT'ERS PAST ACTIONS/SCANDALS. WE DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. WE MIGHT NOT EVER KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. WE NEED TO BE OKAY WITH THAT AND NOT DRAW OUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.

[unboundprompts]

Hello! Can you help me and/or give me examples of how to write a pre-teen? Specifically a slightly mature for their age but still socially-awkward, selfless, empathetic, extroverted 10-year-old

How to Write a Pre-Teen

Voice and Language

Simple but specific vocabulary: Pre-teens might not use very complex words, but they often know and throw in some “big words” they’ve recently learned or mimic words they hear adults use. Don’t overdo it, though—they’ll often misapply or half-understand these terms, which can create natural, humorous moments.

“It’s totally, like, a catastrophe that I forgot my project.”

Expressive dialogue: Pre-teens are enthusiastic and often exaggerate. They can also shift quickly between emotions, from excitement to frustration.

“That was the best movie ever!” might turn into “Actually, I mean, it was kinda boring in some parts, but, you know, overall…”

Thoughtful yet blunt: Kids this age often haven’t fully learned the “filters” adults use. They can be direct and say things that are surprisingly insightful or unexpectedly honest.

Thoughts and Perspective

Developing identity and opinions: They’re beginning to form their own beliefs but still echo the views of family, teachers, or friends.

“Mom says people should never lie, but I wonder if little lies are okay if they help people feel better…”

Questioning and introspective moments: Pre-teens are curious about life, relationships, and “big ideas.” They may ask questions, but sometimes keep their deep thoughts to themselves, exploring them internally.

“If friends are supposed to be there for each other, why do I feel alone even when they’re around?”

Struggle with abstract concepts: At this age, they’re just beginning to understand abstract ideas like justice or friendship but often approach them in straightforward, literal ways.

Behavior and Actions

Impulsivity and energy: They might shift quickly between activities and emotions, getting distracted or excited without much control over it. They may also blurt out ideas or act before thinking, especially if they’re extroverted.

For instance, a character might immediately jump up to help someone even if they aren’t sure what to do, or they might “borrow” something without fully considering the consequences.

Physical awkwardness: Pre-teens can be a bit clumsy as they’re still growing into their bodies. This can lead to endearing, awkward moments.

They might knock something over, trip over their own feet, or feel self-conscious in ways that show they’re still figuring themselves out physically as well as socially.

Friendships and Social Dynamics

Navigating social rules: Pre-teens are very aware of social “rules” but may not fully understand them. This is an age when they care a lot about what their friends think, but they’re also just beginning to question these dynamics.

A pre-teen might want to befriend the “cool” kids but feel conflicted when they realize their values don’t align. Or they may try too hard to impress friends and feel self-conscious afterward.

Conflicted loyalties: Friendships are often intense at this age, and they might struggle with conflicting feelings if friends argue or if they feel left out.

“I really like hanging out with Sarah, but I know Emma doesn’t. Maybe if I can make them both laugh, we could all just… get along?”

Small gestures: Pre-teens often show they care in understated ways, like sharing snacks, giving a small gift, or cheering someone up when they’re down. For a socially-awkward pre-teen, these gestures may come out clumsy but sweet.

Insecurity and Self-Awareness

Self-consciousness mixed with bravery: Pre-teens often fluctuate between trying to fit in and wanting to stand out. They might do something brave but then doubt themselves or quickly retreat if things don’t go as planned.

For instance, a character might volunteer to speak in front of the class only to feel panicked once they’re in the spotlight.

Hyper-awareness of themselves and others: They’re beginning to notice how others perceive them and may get flustered easily or worry about little things, like if their clothes look okay or if they sounded silly.

“I shouldn’t have laughed like that… I bet everyone thought I sounded so weird.”

Joking as a defense: Pre-teens often use humor to cope, covering up their awkwardness or discomfort by making jokes.

Reactions to Conflict and Emotion

Quick emotional shifts: They might go from laughing to frustrated to embarrassed in just a few minutes. They feel emotions intensely and may have outbursts or react strongly to things adults might dismiss as minor.

Heroic ideals vs. real-world disappointments: Many pre-teens have an idealized view of right and wrong, fairness, and heroism, and they may be disappointed when things don’t align with these ideals. They’re just starting to understand that people aren’t all good or all bad.

“I don’t get it… why would she lie about something like that? Friends are supposed to be honest!”

[dcxdpdabbles]

ok but office supplier is even funnier if jason hasn't been declared legally alive again and danny starts dating him thus allowing him to both be and not be part of the wayne family

"I have a date," Danny says one random morning as he refills the office snack bar. Danny, in his own words, is one of the highest-paid employees. He has chosen to create a snack center for all Wayne employees. He has one on every three floors, filling it with fruits, chips, chocolate, pudding, and drinks.

And a cabinet with free samples of stationery supplies he thought more people should know about. Next to the supplies, he wrote the name of the product, where to buy, and even recommendations of

Everyone felt really touched by this and started bringing snacks and drinks to help him. Half the time, Danny only refilled the stationary since everyone was happy to have a community snack bar.

"A what!?" Jack from accounting gasped. Danny didn't pay him any mind; he was too busy picking between the flower and moon mini-planners.

Both were pocket-sized, but one had a workout addition, while the other had a section to track books for readers. He felt like there were more readers than gym goers, but he didn't want either to miss out if he picked one over the other.

"A date," he responded after placing both options inside the basket. He'll have to wait to introduce the amazing erasable pens he found, but he could make it up next month.

"With who?" Demanded Sara. She worked in PR and had been attempting to have him attend at least three parties with the Waynes in the past month alone.

"Peter. I met him a week ago at a street fair. One of the personal pen makers I follow would have a booth, and I was dying to see them." Danny pulls a box from his pocket, showcasing the fancy navy blue pen. "This is the George Washington Battle of Princeton edition. It has the painting of the battle wrapped around it, with careful silver-golden details on the cap to resemble the colonial era and a golden-edged nib; this is one fine fountain pen. It cost me five thousand and nine hundred dollars."

"Danny, please focus- five thousand? You spent five thousand on a pen!?"

Danny puffs out his chest, smiling broadly. "It was worth every penny!"

"That's-never mind. Are you sure Peter is a good person?" Jack pressed, "Because I know a great man. Mr. Drake-Wayne! Wouldn't you rather go on a date with him?"

"But Peter bought me easrsers that were shaped like fried chicken. They came in bucket. See." He ramages through his bag until he pulsl out a palm-szed bucket with chicken shaped earses inside. "Isn't it cool?"

"I'll admit that's pretty cool," Sara conceded but shared a quick glance with her coworkers. Danny wonders why they all look so worried. This wasn't that expensive. Peter only used ten dollars for it. "Do you like Peter?"

"I don't know. It's just a first date." He shrugs. "I don't usually have those. Not many people are willing to listen to me ramble about stationary."

"You know who would love to listen to you?" Jack throws an arm around Danny's shoulder. "Mr. Drake-Wayne!"

"Mr. Grasyon-Wayne!"

"Mis Wayne!"

"Mr. Wayne!" Everyone turns to stare at Gary, who flushes, "Bruce Wayne, not Damian!"

That caused some head nods and a few scattered comments about how the age gap was still alarmingly large, but if both were consenting adults, who were they to oppose it? Danny stared back as everyone debated whether Danny and Mr.Wayne should date.

He glances down at his heart-shaped notepads and figures they are right. It's not like he has any feelings about this date. He just agreed to get the passers.

Taking out his phone, he sends Peter a message to cancel their date. He should go out with someone because he likes them, not because they may allow him to discuss his interests.

Jason despairs somewhere on the other side of town as he reads the text for his second persona- a living citizen Peter Todd- from the guy who he saw at the street market going gaga over pens. The guy was so cute, too.

[vir-bellanaris]

Hey, okay @s0lavellan I took a screenshot because I didn't want to share the thoughts your post brought up as a reblog.

I think this is why I bristle so much at people shipping Solas with Rook or Mythal for example.

Because it cheapens how special and unique Lavellan is to him. And that in turn makes their romance, his feelings for her, seem ordinary when that couldnt be farther from the truth.

I didn't think about that Cole dialogue in such a light until now. And it goes along perfectly with Solas' romance description in Veilguard CC

Solas is thousands of years old...and he wants when he has never wanted before. He didn't even want a body. But he wants Lavellan.

[centrally-unplanned]

There are two big "AI Art Discourse" events of note recently, which I thought were interesting: ACX's "AI Art Turing Test" and the new paper on "AI Poetry Beating Human Poetry". Both of these I think reveal the shape of "what is AI art for", and also say a lot about how these results were utilized in discourse.

To take the latter first, some academics quizzed people on some poetry and had these results:

We found that AI-generated poems were rated more favorably in qualities such as rhythm and beauty, and that this contributed to their mistaken identification as human-authored. Our findings suggest that participants employed shared yet flawed heuristics to differentiate AI from human poetry: the simplicity of AI-generated poems may be easier for non-experts to understand, leading them to prefer AI-generated poetry and misinterpret the complexity of human poems as incoherence generated by AI.

More human than human poems! This certainly seems impressive - and it is. You couldn't have gotten these results ~5 years ago. But that maybe doesn't mean as much as you might think? Because here is the opening half of the winning "Walt Whitman AI" Poem:

I hear the call of nature, the rustling of the trees, The whisper of the river, the buzzing of the bees, The chirping of the songbirds, and the howling of the wind, All woven into a symphony, that never seems to end. I feel the pulse of life, the beating of my heart, The rhythm of my breathing, the soul's eternal art, The passion of my being, that burns with fervent fire, The urge to live, to love, to strive, to reach up higher. I see the beauty all around, the glory of the earth, The majesty of mountains, the miracles of birth, The wonder of the cosmos, the mysteries of the stars, The poetry of existence, that echoes near and far

This fucking sucks. Straight up 2/10 poem. Did this bitch seriously establish the world's most predictable rhyme scheme only to try to rhyme wind with end? You had one job that you chose for yourself, and you screwed it up! This poem has been written a million times before, and says nothing - the Miley Cyrus lyrics of verse.

The reason this won is, yes, because AI tools have advanced heavily in the past few years. But it is also because it is being tested on a dead art. No one cares about poetry - certainly not the survey respondents:

We asked participants several questions to gauge their experience with poetry, including how much they like poetry, how frequently they read poetry, and their level of familiarity with their assigned poet. Overall, our participants reported a low level of experience with poetry: 90.4% of participants reported that they read poetry a few times per year or less, 55.8% described themselves as “not very familiar with poetry”, and 66.8% describe themselves as “not familiar at all” with their assigned poet. 

"Or less" is doing a LOT of work there; "yeah I read a few nonfiction books a year" oh sure, totally. 90% of these respondents haven't read a poem that wasn't displayed in the end credits of Minecraft since high school. No one does, poetry as a medium is essentially a relic. That isn't an insult to poets, by the way! There is no shame in being a niche. Not everyone can have the reach of hentai doujin artists; the community is small but they get a ton out of it. But you can't take the art of the community and expect that art to hit outside of it.

This survey didn't ask people to evaluate art; it asked people to evaluate their stereotypical impression of an art they don't care about. It was ~600 people hired off a website, they banged it out ASAP and moved on. This is not to invalidate the results; I am not actually claiming that "real" poets would have scored much better? Maybe, I don't know - that just isn't very relevant.

Let's swing to the AI Art Turing Test results to get more into why. Again, AI art is absolutely "art" in the sense that it is able to pass the test handily. You have to be head-in-the-sand at this point to think that AI can't make an impressionist painting a la the "most liked" art in this contest:

I have seen the "well real paintings have physicality this is a jpeg" discourse points and the cope couldn't be more real - 99% of art consumption in the modern world is digital or at least prints, let's get you back to bed grandma. But I did find it pretty funny that Scott noted this AI piece as one he particularly liked:

Because it is nonsensical, right? All that "faded paint", how was it originally painted - just bucket splashes of red and blue? What are those random doors, the random stairs going nowhere on the sides, the vague-nothings engravings? Scott just didn't care about that - he liked the vibe, right? Ancient ruins, epic scale. It isn't a coincidence that the Impressionist art did the best - current AI tools are always impressionist, they have an idea of the vibe and invent the details in between. In Impressionism that is the whole point.

Now the trap is to go "REAL artists can tell because of this or that" because idk, the tools might get better, they might fill in more and more details. The real revelation here is that you don't need the tools to get better - visual art isn't so different from poetry. Most people don't pay attention to it all that much. You see thousands, thousands of pieces of art a week; you probably don't even realize how many. Do you really care if the fading paint makes coherent sense on a billboard ad or a doctor's office wall painting? So much art that is made is "industrial" in this sense - it has no need to be good. Only good enough to fulfill its utilitarian role. In these fields AI absolutely is going to Take Your Jobs in some form, and already is (though imo not a ton of them). And it won't really bother most people. This can go pretty deep - I promise you people are "utilizing" AI porn right now. They are ~appreciating the details~ way more than is typical, the product is working.

All this works until it doesn't, though. When it is an art book by a favourite artist whose vision you want to pour over, learning that all the individual details were just made by AI completely defeats the purpose, right? Imagine reading a book of these poems. Outside of the novelty, "AI is the point" factor you would rather watch infomercials on repeat, I can't imagine a more pointless use of my time. "Reading arbitrary poems" is never fun, regardless of the quality of the poems. Most people don't care about poetry! The reason you care is that you care about the poet, and what they want to say. You read poetry with context, it being inserted with intent into the pages of a manga, at the end of a video game, because you like the artist and follow them on twitter. The quality of the prose isn't more important than that.

Which is a harsh limit for all of these kinds of tests. They essentially aren't testing art, right? You do not ever get paid twenty bucks to sit down and read a dozen poems and score them. That has no bearing on how you would actually ever learn to care about a poem. Which doesn't make AI art useless or anything, more that these tests will very quickly run into their limits of what they can meaningfully tell you. The actual bar is "creating something someone cares about". From that lens, I fully believe hybrid methods that privilege artistic intent are currently working and will improve. But I think for "solo" AI art getting that to work is going to be complicated.

[paperstarwriters]

to Hear, to Feel, to Know

Inspired by @muletia’s Obsessed Optimus fanfics—they just so so so so good!! The yearning, the ill-buried desire, Optimus chaining himself in place like some dog with a biting problem when all he wants to do is love you???? OUAGH so so good!!

Asdfghjkl I wanna try my own hand at a fic looking at Optimus’s tendency towards obsession in love, but for now, I’ve been thinking about Optimus as a bot who tends to listen….

Pairing: Optimus Prime x Reader

Warnings: n/a

Summary: Optimus is a bot who's exceptionally good at listening. What he likes listening to most of all though, is you.

Masterlist | Transformers Masterlist

Word count: 1,106

───♡-♥-♡-♥-♡-♥-♡───

There was no denying that Optimus had a keen eye, and an even keener attention. His ability to promptly decipher texts based on key words or phrases allowing him to understand the greater picture from his days as an archivist served to train him well in noticing patterns of behaviour if he focused his attention on it. The ongoing war certainly helped as well, forcing him to zero in on what would allow them to survive. Forcefully training his eye to fall to keep points in any battle field.

And yet as trained as his eyes were, Optimus was always keen to listen.

Or perhaps absorbing was a better comparison. How despite being a leader, despite giving commands, Optimus was almost always better suited to listening to the people around him. The information that they shared, the feelings they expressed. Ratchet always used to say he would make for a much kinder medic than he if he took a role in that field. Perhaps it could have served him even better as a leader, but there was little he could change through the tides of time.

It’s why he clings to these things, saving them in the event that one day they may save him. From another attack or another encounter with Megatron, to even a stretch of boredom or loneliness.

It is why he clings to your every word.

Why he loves it when you sit atop his shoulder. So close to his helm, it is as if you’re speaking directly into his processor, filling his thoughts with your words—your delights, your frustrations, your sorrows, your needs. A direct feed like some constant supply of energon into his lines.

Both, he supposed would make his spark stutter a bit.

Ah, just thinking about it brings to mind the many times you’ve pressed yourself against his audial, leaning against his helm or purposely cupping his audials as you whispered sweet words his way, words for him and him alone, a gift sweeter than any energon could ever be.

You didn’t even have to be saying something sweet. Scathing secrets and vicious critiques against some other’s back from the mistreatment you received in the hands of a cruel stranger or an even crueler co-worker, or even some coy remark against a teammate, the fact that you chose to whisper your words to him—to confide your secrets and burning emotions to his audials.

Even being chosen as a Prime was a lesser honour than this.

But perhaps the thing he enjoys listening to most, though your every word delights him and your laughter makes his spark feel so light it might burst from his chest, the sound Optimus likes best it’s the soft thud of your heartbeat and the whisper of your breath.

He recalls when he first heard the sound, mass displaced at your request as you showed to him your beating heart after he showed you his whirring spark.

There is meaning to the action, to show one’s spark to the other, but Optimus felt he need not explain it to you, knowing full well you wouldn’t be able to return the gesture.

And yet somehow you did.

Even if you could not pull back the viscera from your chest the way he did the plates of his chassis, you brought his helm to your chest, pressed his audial against you, and implored him to listen.

And he did.

In the caverns of your chest, Optimus heard as air filled your lungs, swelling with every breath you took, and for a moment he mistook that steady beat for an abnormal twitch, until you began to explain.

“That’s my heart.” You had told him. “The ‘thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud’.”

And pressing just a bit harder, Optimus stilled his fans to listen to the faint beat.

And he heard it.

Loud against his audial the drum of your heart pounded against your chest like an insistent knock, or the demands of a captive begging to be freed.

Though perhaps that’s just wistful thinking.

He hears it in his full form sometimes, when you lean your back against his helm or when you cling to his audial in a moment of fear or excitement. A gentle faint rhythm, that sings that you’re alive.

He wishes some days that it would accompany him in his berth, as he lies under the midnight silence hounded by the whispers and wails of the dead of the living he must fight, of the humans he’d never know. They all rattle and sob frying his processor as he starves himself of a proper recharge, but then, some days he hears something this in the base. Perhaps it’s his own movement, perhaps something falls—once even it was the rumble and stroke of thunder and lightning overhead. All the same, it brings to his mind the thump of your heartbeat, and like a spring being unwound, he replays your words in his head. Every praise, every sweet word, every secret you’d give him. Your smile your laughter, your delight and glee he’d play them all over and over in his processor, lingering on the compliments you’d direct his way, every smile you’d make when your eyes met his.

All with the background theme of your heart singing its little song of life, your every breath an instrument to the symphony.

You were here, you were alive, you were with him.

Ah, but sometimes those moments stung worse than the wailing dead.

You were not here with him now, and all he had was the echo of your heartbeat. If he could hum its melody he would, but the sound doesn't comply with his voice box. Still he taps it out with a digit sometimes or a pede even, a little reminder of a precious tune.

He hasn’t had the chance to listen to your heart again. To mass displace and press his head against your chest, to listen to that sound, and maybe listen to you speak as he follows the gentle beat. He hopes one day he might get the chance. He hopes one day to tell you what it means when one shows the other their spark.

One day, he dreams, he’d tell you what it meant, and you’d smile, perhaps in rapt delight, perhaps shyly, but you’d open your arms to him and allow him to listen once more, let him listen as he lets you watch his glowing spark.

Until then, he basks in what he can get, faint as it is against his full form, listening to the soft beat of your heart, feeling you warm and pressed against him, resting assured in the knowledge that you were here, you were alive.

[eph3merall]

can you write something abt loser!reader x fratboy!chris, where reader starts seeing someone else and chris gets jealous. I love your writing sooo much !!!

it's been radio silence from you to chris for about a week now. he's confused, because what the hell? last time he noticed, he was the only guy who ever gave a shit about you. so to see you posting a picture on your instagram with you and another guy made his face twist into some disgusted expression while staring at his phone.

you looked happy. like, happier than you usually were with him. which he found fucking ridiculous, considering for a good chunk of time chris was the only one who put up with your rambling and annoying habits. the post didn't get many likes, barely up to 150. it was mostly just some of your friends who probably thought your new boyfriend was hot and some random people who thought you were pretty, based on the comments.

he doesn't notice the swirl of jealousy unfurling in his chest, a second later and chris is banging on your dorm room door only to be met with silence. his knuckles bang against the wooden door unsteady on it's hinges, jaw ticking and teeth grinding together subconsciously. only again, you don't peek your head out in the crack of your door like normal, you don't come to answer and smile almost immediately as you spot chris.

he's standing awkwardly in front of the door to your dorm, either no one's home and he looks like a fool right now or you're ignoring him. he knows that 'friend' of yours who shares a room with you is out at a frat party tonight, and you don't even go anywhere—so why the fuck aren't you answering?

he's about to blurt out your name but thought against it as the hallway was deathly silent right now, especially so late at night. he'd probably get complaints from whoever roomed here. his knuckles rap against the door again, shifting around awkwardly. a swirl of frustration and annoyance bloomed in his chest, because you couldn't possibly be busy.

he tries the knob—obviously nothing. until the sounds of shuffling are heard inside, and a second later you're standing in the doorway with messy hair and weary eyes. a yawn mixes in with your words, too tired to even realize this is chris. you've been ignoring him for a little now, afraid if your new boyfriend found out he'd call it cheating or something.

chris doesn't say or do anything before shoving you inside and closing your door, met with dim darkness and the only lighting provided from the warm lamp on your desk. your dorm room is a cluttered mess of trinkets and work and textbooks, tabletop a pile of studies and some clothing items littering the floor.

"what's your fuckin' problem, kid?" you stare at him. it's like this for a little, the two of you staring as chris impatiently waits for his words to register in your thick ass skull. you don't really know how to respond, truthfully. lips tugging into a frown and shoulders lifting up and down a little, you take a seat on your bed. the sheets are everywhere, having just woken up.

chris is standing there looking so out of place. he keeps on thinking about that stupid post of you and that guy, forcing himself to try and calm the fuck down. "what, gonna sit there in silence? fuckin' heard me, know y'did. what the hell is goin' on? you've been ignoring me like i have the flu."

the little space is silent, and you kind of hate it. normally, silence comes as a comfort to you. it relaxes your head and makes you much less anxious, but this time it felt uncomfortable. it felt deafening, as you gnaw on your bottom lip until it's started stinging from the constant abuse. "i dunno. i, uh, i got a boyfriend," you shrug, like it wasn't a big deal. because it technically wasn't, you and chris weren't even together.

"oh, alright. whatever, then, so you go n'give me the silent treatment? that's some childish shit n'you know it," he scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest lazily, obviously upset. but why? he was more so upset at you not telling him and forcing him to jerk off into his hand for the past week, than the boyfriend part. he couldn't give a shit if you started dating your best friend.

chris isnt good with feelings. he'll play everything off, ignoring the way his chest burns as you justify what you did. he's barely listening to a word you say, the particular label 'boyfriend' stuck in his head. he couldn't believe someone like you pulled.

"so.. y'know," you've crossed your legs together on the plush mattress of your bed, eyes darting around your littered floor and practically refusing to look chris in the eyes. "sorry. didn't mean to ignore you.." and that's the truth. because chris has stuck with you, while your life turned to practically shit and everyone started becoming someone you couldn't trust. chris just rolls his eyes, scoffing under his breath and starting towards you. he stands in front of you, lip curled in annoyance as he looks you up and down for a second.

"whatever. y'should pay me back for all that lost time though.. so uh," chris' hands are gravitating towards his belt without another second, unsure of how to deal with what he's feeling in his chest every time he hears you mumble the word 'boyfriend' in his mind. it makes him feel sick. he wont ever admit it though.

—

@conspiracy-ash @sturniolosfavkayleigh @lvrsturniolo @st7rnioioss @meatballlover10 @ashlishes @ferdzom @55sturn @chriseatingmeoutin4k @unknvhx @mattslolita @chaossturns @slut4brunettes

©eph3merall 2024

[rubynautilus]

Behold, because I had a certified Ruby Brain Blast™ and let the vervose demon take over. Click at your own risk.

Love is this visceral thing that's inside all of us and it manifests in as many ways as there are human beings. Our most brilliant minds can't even define what's inside our noggings. Does anyone here think that they can define love? 'Cuz the best I got is "The relationship that one has with what makes them happy." and I know that's not right, because I know that we also love the things that hurt us. There is much, much more to it and we are not gonna answer this riddle. Regardless of how certain anybody sounds about it and how hard they try to push it on others.

Whatever Jayce and Viktor have is 100% pure unadultered love. But the only way I know this is because of how much it has moved us all. How deeply it has shaken our cores. And yet we can't agree and NOT squabble about what it is that it means and we're letting this obsession with the specifics to create a hundred different divides. And at this point I think that we have to ask us if this is worth it. Maybe the time of thinking this is over. Now we've got to allow ourselves and others just FEEL this. Our feelings dont have to be their feelings, but I sure would like to share a blanket and some cookies with more people. Don't we all appreciate the comfort of emotional support?

Now, get ready folks because I'm about to pull out one of my corniest moves: parroting a quote and try to capture a fraction of it's original rawness.

"I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit."

What I mean with this is that, like good 'ole Viktor, we're letting the pain inflicted on us by the evils of the world take over the wheel. Thankfully none of us has access to experimental eldritch technology, so let us enjoy the diversity of the human experience. Why not coexist when we do have the privilege to choose?

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[arisewanekosuki]

travelers helper AU where is the reason why S/O is oblivious to all the men liking her is because every single time she showed an interested in a hot guy. They turned out to be gay, so she’s convinced herself that all of the men are gay and possibly even dating each other. (Couples she thinks are real are Alhaitham x Kaveh Cyno x Tinari Zongli x Childe Kaeya x Venti Nuvilet x woirthslie ) and I watched their reactions to finding out that she thinks they’re all gay

Ok this idea is funny xD But to anyone who like those ships, pls don't take it as some kind of hate towards those ships or something. --------- The guys are devastated after learning you think that they are into... each other. All of them wondering where did they make a mistake? Kaveh found it ridiculous, him and Alhaitham?! He wondered if you think so because they live in the same house? But there are many people who are friends and share homes… You even invite all your friends to live in your Teapot!! He really couldn't understand from where this idea came from… Is it because they bicker so much? But it didn't make sense to him!! Kaveh was anxious… do you not see him as a man or something? He is overthinking this whole thing. At this point he is debating whenever to show you his plans of the house he wants to make for you both in future.

Alhaitham was more clam about it, analyzing from where this idea may come. It's not like he and Kaveh were affectionate to each other and he couldn't recal any moment that could make you think like that about them. He will state that, no, he is not interested in Kaveh in such way (or anyone else, both guys and girls, that are not you) And yet you still say "That's okay! I won't judge! I will support whoever you love!" At this point Alhaitham may confess his feeling to you but the problem is that there is always someone by your side…if not Aether then other guys. And the worst thing is Kaveh always appears too, making the misunderstanding even worse.

Cyno at first thought this is some kind of joke. But after seeing that you're not joking he was bewildered. Why would you think so? "You two sometimes look like parents of Collei" Parents? But when they were in Mondstadt he was sure you heard how he and Tighnari bickered who would be the 'older brother'… right? Cyno was silent. Trying to come up with something that will make you believe him that he is interested in you. Because whenever he would say that, you would be "ah Cyno! Please don't joke like that!" he would never joke about things like this... The General Mahamatra for now tries to avoid talking to Tighnari when you are close…

Tighnari only furrowed his brows. Him and Cyno? Big nope!! Just imagining that he would hear more jokes from Cyno if they were together already gives him a headache. The Forest Ranger was getting more and more irritated that you for some reason don't want to accept when he says that there is nothing between him and Cyno. So he started to approach this in different way. Thankfully Cyno already was avoiding him when you are close. So he can now start to be even bolder with his affections towards you. If you still refuse to believe that he is attracted to you, then you may expect to hear a confession soon.

Zhongli asked you if you can repeat yourself. Oh? Him and Childe together? In romantic relationship? Zhongli was thinking where this came from…Is it because he often uses Childe's mora to buy things?But that was only that… and that Childe often bothers him so they could spar. Ah. Maybe this was the reason, maybe you think that 'sparings' are something different. Humans are truly interesting. He will ask you why you think so, patiently listening to your explanation. He is amused by this.

Childe laughed, but after seeing you are not laughing he stopped and said "Wait...are you serious?" He will say that there is nothing between them, even says that he prefers girls (to hint that he likes you) but you responded with "It's okay! You don't have to hide it! I accept you and I'm sure your family will accept this as well!" You're cute…. but why don't you want to believe him?! Should he shower you with more gifts? It would be better to invite you for a date but with Aether being around it's not that easy….

Kaeya was amused, but he didn't expect that you will think that Venti is his boyfriend. One part of him wanted to joke about it but other part was worried that you will take it too seriously and he will lose his chances with you. The cavalry captain doesn't worry about it too much. He will simply tell you that you're wrong and he will continue showering you with affections.

Venti was a bit hurt by this. Were his love songs and poems dedicated to you not enough? Or maybe this is your way to tell him that you're not interested in him? He can't really understand this… he never was affectionate to anyone else like he is towards you. But after learning he is not the only one that you think is into guys, he felt relieved. At least you didn't think that he and that block head are into each other.

Neuvillette was confused by this. There are already many things that he can't understand about humans. But he was sure that you will realize that he is trying to court you… not the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide… After that for some days it was raining in Fontaine. He decided to tell Furina about it, hoping for some advice in this situation. But she only started to laugh. After she calmed down she promised to help him to clear this misunderstanding.

Wriothesley already knew how oblivious you are but he never expected that you might be this oblivious. He will say that there is nothing like this between him and the Iudex and if you still insist about that then well…if there will be a chance for you two to be alone you can expect him to kabedon you, making you look into his eyes and he won't let you go till you stop thinking that he is interested in anyone that is not you.

[adimouze]

post-las vegas WDC max/daniel, rated M. ~1300 words. @girlsdads mentioned something about a lil bit of LL hating in a fic so. I did a lil bit of LL hating too.

-

A face floats into Max’s field of vision probably three hours into the fifth different party Max had been shepherded to since the race ended. He’s about ninety-percent sure he’s still in Las Vegas. He blinks blearily at it, hoping at least it’s pretty enough to look at. It has been a while since. Since.

Liam Lawson blinks back. Not who he was expecting. Gross. 

“Max,” he says, sounding too sober for whatever time it is. The club is loud but Max can still unfortunately hear him. “Are you okay?”

Max attempts a sweeping gesture, he’s carrying a glass of something and it hits someone’s back, making Max drop it with a smash. Liam cringes, looking like he’s about to complain. “This is my party, mate,” Max says, cutting off whatever Liam was going to say. “I’m fucking great.”

“Christian just left,” Liam says, and Max kind of hates how he talks but what can you do. Maybe he just doesn’t like Liam. “I think there’s another party happening a few blocks from now, do you want to join me?”

If Christian left that means Max can leave without theoretically offending anybody, even though it is his party. Half of the people around him don’t seem like people he knows anyway. “Nah man, you go on ahead, I’ll head back to the hotel –”

“Oh then I’ll head back with you,” Liam’s probably the most cheerful he’s been since Max met him. “Yuki scored and left me here.” 

Pity isn’t something Max feels often, but he does feel a bit of pity now. In his first year he was never left alone in clubs, either Carlos or Daniel were always there making sure they were around to get him back to wherever before they took someone home or to their hotel rooms. More often it was Daniel, and more often Daniel didn’t take anyone home, because they were sharing a room and more often it was just fun to watch onboards together, side by side. 

No one else but them. 

Then again, Max was a teenager in his first year and Liam’s twenty-two. He wouldn’t need babysitting. 

“Alright,” Max isn’t sure where he is. He doesn’t know how to ask Liam without sounding like an absolute idiot. 

“I have a car waiting,” Liam adds, after Max stared off into the distance for a few seconds, willing someone to appear with a car. Maybe Max isn’t being as subtle as he thought he was. 

_____

Red Bull and VCARB drivers are often put up in the same hotel, usually the standard room but Helmut had finangled him a penthouse upgrade on Thursday, telling Max that he deserved a proper room to party in, like Max was going to bring home an orgy. 

He’s pretty sure Liam couldn’t possibly have gotten a penthouse upgrade too. He’s sure hotels only have one penthouse? He’s sure. If he was less drunk he would be surer. But Liam makes no move to push any buttons. 

“Mind if I come up for a nightcap?” Liam asks, smiling. This is the most Max has seen him smile ever since he got Daniel…ever since Daniel left and he jumped in the car. Max does not want him to come up for a nightcap but Max is feeling generous tonight. 

“Sure, why not.” Someone had spilled what seems like a bottle of champagne on him at some point in the night and his shirt is sticking to him. He’s too tired to shower. Meh. It’ll be a problem for hungover Max tomorrow. 

The lift goes up insanely fast but still feels too slow for Max tonight. He’s WDC, four times WDC, he’s used to faster things, sue him. Liam is still staring at him. 

“Good driving tonight,” Max says, for want of anything better to do or say. He has no idea where Liam finished to be honest. 

“I finished 16,” Liam says flatly. Yikes. Well. 

The door dings open onto Max’s floor. And. 

Daniel’s sitting on the giant sectional of the penthouse living room. 

He looks gorgeous. Max wants to stare forever. He looks broad and good and tanned, his beard has filled in a lot more than when Max last saw him in Monaco, his hair thicker. The sweatshirt he’s wearing looks less oversized than usual, fitting his shoulders instead of drooping over them, and his trousers make his thighs look great. 

He’s smirking. He looks like a frat guy. He looks like one of those men from Victoria’s magazines that Max definitely didn’t jerk off over. 

Max is probably drooling, and Liam runs into him as he’s stepping out of the lift. 

“Oh sorry mate I – Daniel, hello.” Liam’s voice is a bit high. Confused. Probably scared. “Didn’t realize you were in Vegas. Red Bull didn’t…”

Daniel stands up and comes over. Max is still staring. Daniel moves like an apex predator and Liam’s just the runt of litter in this.  “Hey Liam. Well. Red Bull doesn’t own me anymore mate, do they? I can be wherever I want.”

He claps Liam on the shoulder in greeting then grabs Max’s limp hand. “Came to see my boy be the World Champion again.”

Liam’s probably saying something but Max doesn’t care, because Daniel’s pulling him in, arms going around Max, sticky shirt and all, and Max is going to swoon because Daniel smells good, good, good, their lips meeting after ages, Daniel’s lips and tongue the best, most refreshing thing Max has tasted all night. Someone’s moaning. 

It’s him. 

“Um…”

Liam’s still there. 

Max tries to pull back but Daniel’s got his hands on his ass, lifting, lifting, and Max’s legs going around him in response, and Daniel’s got them on the sofa in a second, Max perched on Daniel’s wide wide thighs without even separating their lips once. It’s the hottest thing Max has ever felt. He’s going to come just from the thought alone. 

“Liam,” Daniel’s saying, pulling back a few centimeters to give Max some breathing space. “I’m going to fuck my husband on this sofa right now, and he’s going to be screaming loud enough to be heard from the moon. So like,” he pops the k, and Max’s dick twitches, precome dripping into his underwear, “unless you want a front row seat to that for some reason, shouldn’t you be heading to bed?” 

“Husband?” Liam’s stuttering. “Excuse me? You can’t – Does Christian know? He’s going to be so mad at you, Max what the fuck –?”

“Get out,” Daniel says. Max has never heard him sound like that. “Now.” 

“I’m calling Christian,” Liam says as a parting shot. “He won’t – he’s not going to allow this.”

“Yeah you do that, mate,” Daniel rolls his eyes then squeezes Max’s ass harder. God, he’s so hot. Max feels insane. Husband husband husband. “What’s he going to do, fire me again?” 

The lift dings shut again. They’re blessedly alone. 

“Husband?” Max snorts, shivering as Daniel’s fingers undo his pant buttons. “Bit presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

“The ring’s in the suitcase, baby,” Daniel says, smiling like a wolf, fingers curling around Max’s dick. Max grinds into the feeling, needing Daniel inside him right now. This is the best day of his life. “Was hoping you’d say yes.”

“Let me think about it,” Max laughs, and Daniel bites his nipple through his shirt. “Liam’s probably told the Herald by now.”

“I’ll personally send him the wedding photos,” Daniel cackles, licking up Max’s neck, leaving wet trails in the cold air con of the room, “if he promises to send me photos of Christian when he tells him I was about to fuck him in front of you.”

“Stop talking about Christian and fuck the World Champion already, husband,” Max says, his laughter turning into moans when Daniel all too willingly complies.

[ratindividual]

As someone with a mild disability to the knee and can't walk very long without feeling pain all through the leg and hip, people saying Viktor's own is a flaw and need to be cured asap because it's painful kinda misses the point of it all.

When Jayce said this:

He's not saying Viktor shouldn't have tried to find a cure to the pain or any ailment, he is saying Viktor was not flawed because he is disabled, which is what Viktor think.

"[...] what you thought were weaknesses." this is important to note, Jayce here doesn't share the same sentiment, he does not think it as a weakness, but part of a whole package that comes with someone (in that case, Viktor) Jayce took him like he was, and adored him.

A weakness is something you need to destroy before it gets to you, and sometimes, you will do unspeakable things to achieve it.

Viktor was never broken, imperfections make who he is, and by definition, makes every human.

Perfection does not exist, it is our emotions, our contradictions, our differences that make it incredible, human being are messy by design, we are a collectivity of incredibly diverse people and deserve respect!

It is not a flaw, it's a condition he lives with, which makes him singular, and that same disability constructed who he is, too: his drive, his mind, his resilience, his care and utter empathy for others, which are traits that Jayce admire most of it all!!! He says it himself:

It is his heart, his humanity, everything that Viktor think as a nuisance, that Jayce wants to preserve. He loves him for it, instead of despite it, and he finds him beautiful, both physically and mentally, it was never a question for him!

His unwavering compassion to push further, his ambitions, because he loves him. Jayce is an emotional, empathetic man, he values connection above all, and he understands.

He's saying Viktor has always been perfect to him because of it all. We humans are flawed, this is the inevitability of being conscious and alive.

Which is why this, this is very important:

Jayce knows Viktor, at this point, had lost his way. Empathy cannot work under the false prism of selflessness if it makes you believe that choice is an illusion, thus making it for others.

Jayce believes in choices, and knows that the people Viktor saves are, by proxy, unable to have any agency over their own fate, which is exactly the most important theme going on with Viktor throughout all two seasons. Viktor wants to take back control over his own self, while simultaneously pushing this on others who need help too.

I am convinced Jayce would have been more than fine with Viktor tweaking himself because he wants it, he was on board in season 1, he actually made the change himself in a misguided attempt to save the man he loves at the start of season 2. (which is very interesting, considering his feelings made him do something he himself sanctions such as resurrecting his soulmate, I love his contradictions so much)

He understands the desperation, the want to have a better life. But he doesn't want it to strip other's people individuality and Viktor's own sense of self, ripping his heart out for the sake of flawlessness.

He knows, too, the price of the perfect world Viktor wants to create. An endless loop of loneliness, mourning a man that is but a shell of himself, conscious through the hive but not him. His essence gone. A cross too heavy to bear.

And yet, Jayce never stopped loved him, never stopped fighting for him to understand how much he values him and respects him, worshiping the literal ground under his feet!!

Even in his godly form, he is head over heels for him!!! Look at how Viktor looks!! While talking face to face with this Eldritch incarnation, he remembers how Viktor used to look down memory lane, and it was still as majestic and grandiose, even!

It's why he confesses in the first place. He is in love with him through it all. His body changed, but it is still Viktor. He loves him wholly, every part of him! No matter where it takes them, no matter what he looks like.

Jayce loves Viktor with everything he has and no matter what comes their way. An unwavering, tangible loyalty.

[fushiguruuzzzz]

xvi  ⊹ ࣪ ˖  L is for Weezer 

Series mlist 

Tags — possibly offensive humour, mentions of self hatred, lwk angst I fear 

Words — 1k 

Megumi had tossed his phone haphazardly to the other side of his bed, falling back onto the pillow and staring at the ceiling. He felt so utterly stupid. Nobara was right, honestly. He couldn’t just give up, just back away every single time he felt exposed, every time he felt as if a deeper layer of him was being shown. It scared him more than anything, to allow you to see those parts of him knowing you might not react the way he hoped. With the reveal of the vulnerable parts also came the risk of being harmed, hence why he was so guarded. He found himself converting every emotion into anger, bubbling and bursting like a geyser when the time came. Worst of all, he’d let that time be with you. He wasn’t angry at you, not in the least. He could never be angry at you. 

He was angry at Kamo for swooping in just when things felt right, he was angry at Nobara for bringing that on in the first place, and most of all, he was angry at himself. He’d pushed you away out of fear that his emotions were too much to bare, and now it had been two weeks since the two of you had shared a good conversation. He hated it. It was all his fault. 

You couldn’t ever love him. He couldn’t even love him, he hated him. It was only natural that you’d do the same, after all, you seemed to be rather parallel. Always in the same direction, never meeting. He just wished it wasn’t that way, he wished loving you wasn’t so scary and that at the very least, he could man up and admit it. He’d never been a forward man. Instead he pushed you away and treated you like an asshole. When you called him out he couldn’t even argue because everything you said was true. Every word, every bit of it, except for the implication that you’d done something wrong. 

Fuck, he felt like a middle schooler again. Living through university with you was just as heart wrenching, just as terrible. Yet again he found himself doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, every aspect of his life scrambled simply because you liked another boy. He’d never cared much for life, never found much purpose in his own, except for you. You… you were everything. 

“Fushiguro, get up, man!” came a voice from the doorway, along with a jacket being tossed at him, which he swatted away without a second thought. Yuji had been at it all week, trying to make Megumi get outside for reasons other than classes. 

“Screw off.” 

Yuji suppressed a groan, tossing his head back in exasperation. “Todo’s frat is having a party tomorrow. You’re going.” 

Megumi’s face pulled up into a scowl, disgust painting his features. A party, seriously? Did Yuji even know him? “No, I’m not.” 

“You are,” Yuji pushed. He let out a soft sigh, voice coming out a little softer when he continued. “Please. Just once. Everyone’s getting worried.” 

Megumi felt a pang of something in his chest. Guilt? Maybe. Compassion? Possibly. He let out an annoyed huff, similar to what your parents do when you beg for something before asking you to grab their wallet. “…fine. Just once.” 

Yuji grinned proudly, internally fist pumping. “Yes! Okay, we’ll go tomorrow night at ten.” 

“Hmph. ‘Kay.” 

Meanwhile, you were having a similar conversation, though with far more pestering and far more people. 

Toge was sprawled out on the carpet beside your bed, right next to Panda, whose circumference took up nearly half of the floors area. Maki was perched on her bed, Yuta standing idly at the bottom of it. Nobara, who had basically moved into your dorm by now, was sat at the bottom of yours. 

“You’re coming.”

“No.” 

“Please?”

“No.” 

“Please?” they simultaneously whined, except for Maki, who instead stared at you as if to tell you the choice wasn’t yours to make. 

You slumped against the wall your bed was pushed against, grumbling under your breath. “Oh my gosh, why? I don’t want to.” 

“You should get out, [name]. I’m concerned for you—we all are,” Yuta said, his gentle voice chipping away at your resolve. Screw nice boys and their soft spoken voices, and screw him for being your friend. 

“Think about it,” Nobara said, propping herself up on one arm. “If you look really hot, it’s revenge.” 

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t have much that’s ‘hot’ in my closet, anyway,” you whined. 

“You’re saying that to a shopping addict. That’s music to her ears,” Maki called from across the room. Well, she wasn’t wrong. Nobara seemed to be jittering with excitement simply from hearing it, already picturing the next trip to the mall in her mind. 

You mulled over it for a moment. There were both pros and cons included if you decided to agree. Pros: confidence boost, fun, quality time, happy friends. Cons: Megumi and Kamo were both likely to be there, considering (though Kamo more directly) they were both linked to Todo. It came down to the choice not of whether to go or not, but of whether you’d let a silly fight force you to be cooped up in your room wallowing in self pity, or if you’d push through. That realization alone was enough to force a nod from your head, a breath of air leaving your lips. 

“Okay, okay. I’ll be there.” 

Nobara, as well as the others, all lit up. Toge grinned at you from the floor, proud as if he’d done anything anyway. 

“We have to go shopping!” Nobara said. You agreed with a soft laugh and a hesitant nod, blissfully unaware of the events that awaited you. 

Taglist !¡ —

@1l-ynn @meowymeowbreow @missunrise @kiss-my-asscheeks @starrysho @good-mourning0 @gumims @beaniesayshi @mrowwww @luvvmae @megumislovedoll @azharyy @starsryi @tibibibi123 @idkidk32 @dazaisfavgf @tlissablr @vi0let-writes @walllflowerrrsss @sh0ot1ngst4r @blubearxy @tvnamayo @san-it-is-i-guess @harryzcherry @withlovesai

(Crossed out name means I can’t tag u!)

Megumi will forever be referred to as Firkle Smith Last name oooo… can’t listen to music so im miserable. You must be as well giggles this was kinda lazy but wtvvvv its okayyyy idk when to release the Yuji fic erm ill probably just wait for bttoh to be over and then post it we shall see…

[black--sun]

Considering how many of Shiro’s people might be in on this plot to kill him, that’s probably a fair assessment. “Would they care even if they knew? People are selfish assholes.” Mostly.

He presses his lips but then snorts. “I was fighting for my life and you were thinking about getting your dick wet.” Or he thought he was fighting for his life. Or for not getting caught at least. But he sobers slightly, looking over, brow furrowing slightly as he tries to determine if Shiro means it or if he’s just trying to keep Ichigo from lecturing him any further. “I hope you are. I don’t want to see you that messed up.” It’s not even that he minds the drugs. He’s taken his fair share. He just doesn’t want Shiro being stupid about it and fucking himself up or becoming someone else.

His brows go up. “Watch probably. Why would I do anything about it? You just said you can fight just fine.” Of course he’ll do something. But he’d rather watch. The idea of it sidetracks his brain for a moment, but he shakes himself. “If I survived, I’m sure you will. What would you do if you were me?” He’s betting Shiro would watch, too.

He looks toward the back until he sees what might lead to a place to change. Ichigo scoops up the stack of clothes and starts toward the bored kid at the counter. He doesn’t even get anything out before the kid reaches over to pick up a key attached to a flat piece of plastic and slides it across the counter. All without ever looking up from a phone.

Ichigo raises a brow, but shrugs and starts toward the back. It’s starting to make sense why there aren’t more people here, but it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t particularly like dodging people while he shops. He unlocks the door and sets the clothes down.

His brows go up slightly in a dry, unimpressed expression. What a helpful answer. But Ichigo does go on to explain better. He doesn't quite know what to think or how to respond. "You think too highly of me. What would I even do to the city?" He hadn't realized he wasn't ambitious, but he supposes he's not. He never really thought much about it, but just assumed it was normal. "I assumed you liked me because I was formidable." He can't picture Ichigo even noticing someone who isn't formidable in some way. He scoffs, "No."

That's fair. "Yeah, I get it." He's a little short while he says it because he doesn't want to get into it. He's had an emotional rollercoaster already today and he's pretty sick of it. He doesn't want to sit here and hear about how Ichigo and Grimmjow think he's a horrible person. He really should just drop by, but he always kind of wonders if he's going to get shanked and if he'd try very hard to avoid it. It would all depend on Grimmjow's mood and his own mood. He shrugs. "Whatever. I can figure something out. You don't have to."

He pushes a few hangers aside to look at something in a color that caught his eye but doesn't pull it off the rack. Mostly he trails behind Ichigo, enjoying the chance to do something so mundane with him. He pulls out the most revealing thing he comes upon -more price tag and bow tie than cloth- and casually adds it to Ichigo's pile, mostly because he thinks it's funny but he definitely wouldn't mind seeing Ichigo wear next to nothing.

[darkmatilda]

𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐟 | 𝐬. 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: spencer takes care of you after a serious accident.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: hospital, rehabilitation, neck and brain injury, nud1ty

𝐚/𝐧: this is one of the potential endings of my fanfiction "with the light off" which officialy remains open up to your own interpretation. this version written to comfort all the hearts i've broken <3

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 11k

Spencer felt embarrassed by how, just an hour after leaving the apartment, he already wanted to call her.

She had already occupied a near-constant presence in the back of his mind, slipping in like a shadow—elusive and playful—darting between his thoughts, flitting from one corner to another whenever he tried, even briefly, to forget about her. But now? After that night they had spent together?

Spencer knew a lot about obsession. He understood the weight of the word and was acutely aware of its gravity. Yet he couldn’t deny it—he was obsessed with her. Physical contact had always been a sensitive yet profoundly significant subject for him. He didn’t allow many people that close. 

For him, touch was the ultimate proof of closeness and trust. Intimacy bred attachment. This wasn’t about desire in its rawest form—it was something else… though he wasn’t entirely sure what. He couldn’t define the bond they shared.

He felt bored, detached from the world when she wasn’t in it, and the only thing keeping him tethered to some semblance of normality was the thought—the imagining—that at this very moment, they were breathing the same air.

He was starting to think he might be losing his mind.

He held off on calling her precisely to avoid coming across as a lunatic in her eyes. He managed to restrain himself only once he was at work, where the seriousness of his profession demanded it. In a way, though, he felt lighter. Throughout the day, he was buoyed by the thought of their upcoming meeting, the excitement it brought—and the nerves. That mixture of emotions was enough to make the entire team glance at him with curiosity.

Garcia was handing out case files, her hair recently dyed a vibrant shade of red. Rossi, instead of opening his folder like everyone else, was watching Spencer from across the table, leaning on his elbow.

“Did you win the lottery or something?” he asked, so unexpectedly that Spencer glanced around at the others, unsure who the question was meant for.

When he realized the question was directed at him, he swallowed hard. Morgan’s raised eyebrow seemed to challenge him to a duel.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Because you’re practically glowing, sweetheart,” Penelope chimed in with a sly smile. “Don’t think you’re getting away without telling me everything later. I’ll get it out of you, don’t you worry. But for now, let’s get started…”

They immersed themselves in the case, but a few hours later, during a brief moment of downtime, he realized he was looking for an excuse to call her. Was a simple desire to ask what she was up to reason enough?

He wondered if she was still at his apartment. He hoped she was. He knew she’d eventually have to leave to prepare for the shift she was starting later that afternoon, but he couldn’t shake the unease gnawing at him about the whole situation with her roommate’s ex-boyfriend.

Realizing he’d been staring at his phone for far too long and that he’d soon need to get back to work, he made a snap decision and called.

But no one answered.

Logically, he reasoned that mornings were probably her time to sleep. Afterward, he tried sending a text message. But by late evening, when he finally returned to his apartment, he was starting to feel genuinely worried.

The question nagged at him: could it have been about the previous night? Maybe he’d done or said something wrong, something that had put her off completely?

Slowly, he walked into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway as his eyes landed on the perfectly made bed. It definitely hadn’t looked like that when he left it.

Then his gaze fell on the slightly ajar safe, and he froze. The combination was incredibly complicated, so he must have left it open when he took out his gun and badge. Besides those items, there was one more thing inside.

He had once again fallen into the trap of keeping Dilaudid close, even though he wasn’t using it. Was it possible she found it, and that’s why she hadn’t reached out?

It wasn’t that he had lied to her about being clean. She had seen how much effort it took for him to talk about it, so she approached the subject with incredible subtlety, never asking directly, but watching him closely, carefully, yet without pressing.

If she had really found it in his safe, she might have felt betrayed. Or maybe she decided she didn’t want to get involved with someone who had such a problem. Perhaps she had seen the whole previous night as one big mistake and then decided to throw him out of her life. Spencer, though it pained him, couldn’t help but feel that he deserved it.

He sat on the bed, crushed by his own thoughts. Something didn’t sit right with the version of events he had imagined. First and foremost, she wasn’t the type of person who would turn him away because of this. Her heart ached to help others; she couldn’t ignore someone else’s troubles. Even if he had hurt her, her immense capacity for understanding would have remained intact. Empathy was imprinted on her, like a deep, unshakable mark.

Driven by a hunch, he reached for his phone to call her again. That’s when he noticed two missed calls from an unknown number, just fifteen minutes ago.

He pressed the phone to his ear, his brow furrowing in confusion as he heard the first sound on the other end… a sob?

The sound went on and on, and Spencer was too confused to utter a single word.

“Who am I talking to?” he finally asked. Unable to stop himself, he stood up. He didn’t even know what was going on or who he was talking to, but he sprang to his feet anyway. His body compelled him, his insides twisting with unpleasant spasms.

It could just as well have been some stupid prank. The problem was, it wasn’t.

“H-hey, it’s J-Jude,” a voice came from the other end. Female, shaky, and choked with sobs so severe that if he didn’t already know her name, he would never have guessed he was speaking to her roommate. He stopped pacing the room. “I-it was me…I called earlier. S-she doesn’t have any…any family, and I didn’t know…I didn’t know who to inform…I can’t handle this on my own…they just took her away again…”

It wasn’t as if the world suddenly came to a halt. It simply became both sharper and blurrier at the same time. Spencer could see that single, bright strand of hair on the pillow with perfect clarity, yet his own legs seemed out of reach. When he looked down, all he saw was darkness stretching below him. Somehow, he was still breathing.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. Later, he couldn’t explain how his voice—those first words—had sounded so composed. “W-who took her… where… and why…?

“I have no fucking idea!” she shouted, followed by a long silence during which Jude took a desperate gasp of air. “I mean, I do, I do know! They just brought her in, but... but suddenly they took her back because there was some kind of…bleeding…”

“...ding?” he blurted out, the first syllable swallowed entirely by his panic.

“No, I don’t want anything to calm me down, I am calm, can’t you tell?” Her voice grew distant, as if she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth. Then it came back, clear and pleading. “Please, come here…”

She hung up. The phone slipped from his hand as if it burned him. In a frenzy, he bent down to grab it, only to drop it again. Finally, he fell to his knees, managing at last to pick it up. As he stood, he felt as though some substance was spreading through his brain—black, toxic, and utterly destructive. Its effects left him barely tethered to reality. He could hear and see, but everything was overlaid with Jude’s words, looping in his mind like printed text on a screen.

The next thirty minutes were a blur.

How could it be logically explained that, in a state of complete detachment from the outside world, he somehow managed to figure out, based on the map of the area imprinted in his memory, which specific hospital she was in? How did his panicked, trembling hands manage to cover that distance by car without causing an accident?

The only thing he knew was that he ended up at the nearest hospital, wearing just a shirt with no outer layer. It was shocking that he even had shoes on. 

He should have been looking for the woman who had called him, demanding every bit of information she had. But somehow, instinctively, his eyes searched for someone else—a familiar face. He prayed it was all some sort of misunderstanding. Maybe he was fooling himself, hoping to spot her among the people passing by. A part of him simply refused to accept the possibility that anything could have happened to her.

Nothing had happened.

She was fine.

Her blue eyes were soaking in the surroundings, their gaze carrying that faint sparkle that always appeared at night. Maybe there was even a smile on her lips. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow himself to imagine what might have happened to her. It felt as though the universe itself should be ashamed for ever entertaining the thought of harming her.

"Are you family?" the man at reception asked. Spencer nodded. "I'm sorry, but I can't provide you with any information,"

"Just tell me, is she alive?"

"I can't…"

"Just fucking tell me…"

"They’re operating on her right now," a voice spoke from behind him. Spencer turned and blinked. Only then did he realize he was in a hospital. Before, he’d only had a goal—an urgent need to get there. The surroundings were just beginning to take shape in his mind. He had never seen this woman before, but he guessed it had to be Jude. Her face was swollen from crying, but she seemed less shaken than during their call. She had probably accepted the sedatives. "Again. First, they spent almost four hours working on her neck… they said she was stable, asleep, but then suddenly there was that bleeding… I watched them take her out of the room right in front of me…"

“Did you see her?”

Unexpectedly, she hid her face in her hands.

“I didn’t know who to call. She mentioned you a few times, and I had your number, and I didn’t know what to do…” she began explaining chaotically, as if it mattered at all. “It’s my fault, you know, all of this is my fucking fault…”

They were standing right in front of the receptionist, blocking his access to others who needed help. Spencer snapped back to the moment, pulling her a few steps aside.

“W-what did you say? That they operated on her for four hours?”

“Yes, the first time…”

So, she had been there for at least four hours. Longer, considering the time needed after surgery before visiting a patient. Pain spread across his chest. While he was wondering why she hadn’t answered his calls, coming to various conclusions, she had been fighting for her life?

He... had been at work, moving around, talking to others, living, while all of this was happening? He felt as if... as if he had betrayed her. It was absurd, even he knew that. Despite the state he was in—tragic, to be precise—he understood just how absurd that thought was. But he couldn’t stop the guilt and shame that washed over him every time he tried to imagine her on the operating table while he had been completely unaware of her condition.

“I need to sit down," Jude muttered, and after a moment, they found themselves on narrow chairs lined along the hospital walls. Spencer barely managed to force his knees to bend, his body to settle into the seat.

He was only beginning to adjust to the foreign gravity that was pressing down on him.

In his head, there was only one thought, one resolution, one desire. The only thing that could save him from losing his mind in this waiting room.

"I need to see her."

"We have to wait," Jude replied, pressing her hand to her forehead. More tears appeared in her eyes. She wasn’t just terrified, she was completely falling apart. "We... we once gave each other permission to access information about our health. You know, in case of an accident. The doctors told me everything. A neck sprain. A concussion. Two broken ribs and a broken forearm." Although her speech had been unclear earlier, when she listed the injuries, she sounded like a movie announcer.

Spencer quickly realized that these words must have been echoing in her head since they were first told to her. The same thing had been happening to him. Each word was like a blow delivered with full force, and his extensive medical knowledge wasn’t helping him avoid panic. He was too aware of the danger and too aware of the suffering her poor body must have endured.

They both squeezed their eyes shut tightly. Spencer felt as though his temples might explode. Waiting. Was there anything worse in the world than waiting? Being stuck in ignorance, teetering between uncertainty, relief, and utter despair? Feeling all of it at once?

"How did this even happen?" he asked the woman sitting next to him.

He was sure he already knew the answer to that question. She didn’t even need to say it. It was enough to see how she dropped her gaze, heavy with pain, and how tightly her jaw clenched.

“She... fell down the stairs.”

Spencer wanted to scoff at the understatement. The real version of events couldn’t pass Jude’s lips, but in some way, he considered that a blessing. If Jude had openly admitted that she had been pushed, he might have crumbled under the weight of the fury flooding him. But for now, his anger didn’t matter. Only the passing time did.

He felt as if he hadn’t taken a single breath since leaving his apartment. Leaning his head back in his seat, he endured what felt like two whole days, then glanced at his watch only to realize that exactly forty-seven seconds had passed.

Time—a relative concept. In physics and in human perception. Einstein had proven it, and so had that particular moment.

He started to fear that he might never leave the waiting room. Memories and emotions began to blur together. He formed a theory: that he had been trapped there for quite some time—weeks, perhaps. Back when another loved one had been on the operating table, and he’d been losing his mind in much the same way.

Could it be that, under the strain of this torturous waiting, he’d lost his sanity? That his brain, desperate for relief, had simply imagined everything that followed? The trip to the library that night, finding himself at her door, the string lights on the Christmas tree, the Venus flytrap, the bar, opening the door that night and seeing her on the stairwell—at once flushed from a night spent at the club and chilled from the December air?

And now that illusion had simply shattered, like a fragment of broken glass. He was back in the waiting room again, waiting, hurting too much—and yet feeling as though he had no right to. His pain was nothing compared to what she was going through. He should be doing something, anything, to make himself useful, to not succumb to the weight of his own helplessness.

When the doctor finally approached them, Spencer almost knocked over his chair in his haste to stand. The doctor, however, focused solely on Jude as he delivered the update, leaving Spencer questioning whether he even existed.

“We managed to stop the bleeding. That’s the good news,” he began, his dark eyes unreadable—at once cool and concerned, with the practiced composure characteristic of people in his profession.

“Thank God,” Jude whispered, rubbing her chest as if trying to calm the frantic beating of her heart.

Spencer, on the other hand, felt no relief. Not even a sliver.

"‘That’s good news,’" he repeated the doctor’s words, drawing the man’s gaze to him. ‘But… but is there something bad?’

That brief moment before the doctor answered felt longer than nearly the past two hours of waiting.

“Due to suspected brain swelling, we had to induce a coma.’

“What?’ Jude mouthed silently. “How… how could she be in a coma? Why? Was that necessary?’

“They needed to reduce the intracranial pressure,’ Spencer replied, the words spilling from his mouth without him even realizing he was speaking. ‘The coma prevents further damage and minimizes the brain’s oxygen consumption. But will she… how long will she…?’

“Only for a few days,’ the doctor assured him, understanding the question he couldn’t quite form. “As long as there are no further complications or additional bleeding. But I can reassure you for now: there’s no indication of that. Her condition seems stable. She was… incredibly lucky. It was a serious accident—a miracle, a sheer miracle—that she didn’t break her spine.’"

For a moment, he couldn’t utter a single word, his throat still tight, and the relief never came. He knew he wouldn’t feel it until he saw her, fully conscious and awake. Until that happened, he would grimace every time he heard the word miracle. 

"When will I be able to see her?" he asked, surprisingly calm and composed. The question was so important to him that his voice didn’t tremble even once. In fact, it was the only thing that mattered right now.

"You’ll need to wait a few hours before visiting. We have to make sure there’s no risk of a sudden deterioration in her condition. Also, only authorized individuals can visit her."

The last part of the doctor’s statement felt almost like a slap in the face.

"How many hours?" he pressed, impatience creeping into his voice. "Two? Four? Six?"

"Please, calm down," the doctor asked, making a gesture with his hand.

“Eight?”

His voice grew increasingly sharp, desperately demanding an answer. The doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Jude interrupted with a question.

"As an authorized person, can I, on behalf of the patient, allow him to visit?" she asked, catching Spencer’s gaze for a brief moment before quickly turning away. "She would want this, I know it."

The doctor shook his head in refusal, providing them with a few more details about the surgery before turning to leave. Spencer watched him leave, something in him wavering between a sigh and a snort. So they wouldn’t even let him visit her? He understood the hospital procedures and rules perfectly well, but when it came to his own case, he hated them with all his heart. They wouldn’t allow him to see someone who meant so much to him, simply because they weren’t bound by blood or a ring on his finger. A ring on his finger… maybe he should lie and say they were engaged?  Although, would it really make any difference in the eyes of the hospital staff?

Before the loose fragments in his mind began to form a plan, he noticed that Jude was staring at him. She had sat down again, pressing her back tightly against the chair's backrest. She hadn’t cried for a while now; a certain relief had settled on her face when she heard the surgery had been successful, but then the old devastation returned, stronger than ever before.

"I won’t be able to visit her," she said, her voice hollow. "Not even while she’s unconscious. And when she wakes up, look her in the eyes. Tell me, how could I do that after everything? After all of this was my fault?"

Spencer turned away and walked off.

He knew that if he didn’t, something inside him would break. He couldn’t stop the anger he felt toward Jude. From what he knew, she had repeatedly refused to report her ex-boyfriend to the police, perhaps more or less aware of the danger he posed. She had the right to do so, theoretically. But that didn’t change the fact that someone else had suffered because of her foolish decision.

In his eyes she deserved the guilt she felt.

Not knowing what to do with himself, he found a place far from her, far from anyone, where he spent the next few hours, hardly moving. Sometimes he observed the relatives of other patients in the hospital, also broken, but he had some selfish feeling that even they wouldn’t understand what he felt. He placed himself on some distant, elite orbit of suffering and felt almost embarrassed by it. 

Pain always makes sure that a person feels as lonely and misunderstood as possible in it. That is when it has the most power over them.

He kept away from the windows, the darkness outside, slowly losing its intensity, putting him into a state of shock and contemplation. Maybe time was a relative concept, but that didn’t change the fact that it existed. Somewhere far away, there was light beyond this waiting room.

For some time now, he had been occupied with a certain task. He was aware of the hours passing and how, with them, his desperation grew. He felt he would go mad if he didn’t see her. The designated time during which the patient should be ensured complete rest after surgery had ended, yet he knew they wouldn’t let him in to see her. But he had a brain for a reason, right?"

He found the room where everything that mattered to him at that moment was. A young doctor was just leaving.

"Excuse me, ma'am,” he approached her politely, trying to appear calm, though his appearance and trembling hands clearly suggested otherwise. “I need to visit this patient.”

“Are you a relative?”

“No, actually…” He knew this was a desperate move and resorting to a lie, but he didn’t care. What was morality in his situation? Just a word. He reached for the badge he had with him and cleared his throat. “I’m with the FBI. I’ve been assigned to see this particular patient; it’s a matter that cannot be delayed."

Believe it or not, but people often lost their minds at the mere mention of the FBI. Spencer suspected that such a young doctor might have some gaps in experience and not know what procedures were in place in such a situation.

The surprised woman took a half step back.

“But she’s in a coma…” she said uncertainly, turning toward the room. “Are you sure it’s this patient?”

“Absolutely. And as I said, there’s no time to waste.”

He didn’t put his badge away, still holding it raised, with a serious expression on his face, as if he were interrogating someone. It was clear she was torn with doubt, but fortunately for him, she decided to give in without consulting the decision.

Spencer almost ran into the room, unable to hold back his impatience any longer. At first, he felt as if in a dream, one where you achieve your greatest goal. However, it quickly turned into a nightmare, all because of what he saw.

Whatever he had imagined, he was not prepared for this sight. 

Especially because before he even noticed her face, the face he was so desperate to see, he first noticed everything else surrounding it. The hospital equipment, the machines and devices monitoring her vital signs. The wide orthopedic collar tight around her neck. The sterile whiteness of it all, obscuring her and making her almost disappear against its backdrop. It wasn’t until he approached the bed, his legs weak and unsteady, that he started to look at her, but again, not specifically at her, but at the injuries. The sight of swollen temples, the sunken eyes, pale and dry lips, skin like a sheet of paper. Every injury on her body caused him unimaginable pain, so intense it almost stopped him from breathing. He felt so much anger and injustice that she had to go through this that he almost wanted to fall to his knees and apologize to her, beg for forgiveness. For what? He couldn’t decide. It wasn’t a need driven by logic, it was something deep inside him.

And that’s what he did, even though there was a place beside the bed where he could sit. He slowly knelt down, his hands touching the edge of the bed, but not her body. After all, he wasn’t about to risk causing her any pain due to his lack of control. But he had such an overwhelming desire to take her hand, the one whose fingers shyly peeked out from under the cast.

"I should have gone with you," he said, after about five minutes spent in complete silence, undisturbed even by his breath, which he was holding back. "I should have. Walked you to the door and made sure you got inside safely. I’m sorry…"

He felt that with his pitiful apologies, he was disturbing her peace. She needed it to fully rest. So, he fell silent again, alternating between looking at her with furrowed brows in tender concern and resting his forehead against the edge of the bed whenever the sight became too painful. While before, time seemed to crawl at the slowest possible pace, now it was racing forward wildly.

In his perception, barely a minute had passed when someone’s presence appeared behind him. He turned over his shoulder, noticing the young nurse who had let him in, and it took him a long time before he even realized it. After all, he had lied to her, saying it was some professional matter, yet she had found him kneeling by the hospital bed.

He quickly got to his feet, nervously rubbing his face.

“For the patient’s well-being, no visits should last longer than twenty minutes,” the woman said surprisingly gently, leaning slightly against the door with her shoulder. An unidentified expression lingered in her eyes, making them seem...warm.

He didn’t answer, just nodded. He no longer felt the need to play that little charade that had helped him get inside. He allowed himself one last long moment, looking at her face, peaceful in sleep. He passed the doctor in the doorway, feeling her eyes turn to him, and he did the same, out of curiosity. She smiled, sadly and with compassion.

"This had nothing to do with any FBI assignment, right?”

Her understanding seemed almost touching. However, Spencer, caught in the moment, quickly withdrew, once again making his way down the hospital corridors, now completely unsure of what to do with himself. He leaned against one of the walls, slowly feeling the fatigue from the entire night spent waiting to see her. He found his phone in his pocket, realized it was already morning, and that… Hotch had called him.

It was a quick collision with the outside world. He called back, as nothing else came to mind that he could focus on.

"Reid," the serious voice of his boss came through on the other end. "Why aren’t you at work, and why aren’t you answering?"

He needed to take a breath before he could respond.

"Sorry, Hotch," he said, trying not to sound weak, but that’s exactly how he sounded. Weak, a little pitiful, and on the verge of exhaustion. "Something... something really important happened, and... I... I won’t be able to come in today..."

Spencer realized he had no idea how to explain himself in this situation.

"I can’t remember the last day you were even late. What happened?" He didn’t answer. "Where are you?" Silence. "Spencer."

"It’s... a personal matter."

There was a brief silence from his boss, and Spencer could almost imagine how he furrowed his dark brows in confusion.

"I understand." His voice was tense, but not with disapproval, which surprised Spencer. More with... concern. Had he managed to read the seriousness of the situation just from his voice? Probably, after all, he was the best profiler Spencer knew. "You’ll need to explain later, but for now... take care of yourself. Do you need any help?”

He assured him insincerely that everything was fine and found an empty chair to sit in, hunched over. A strong pressure formed in his head, amplified by the helplessness and uncertainty about what he should do next. She was in a coma, and according to the doctor, she would be in it for the next few days. And what was he supposed to do during that time? He felt that physically, he could spend another hundred hours on that specific chair. Occasionally stretching his legs. It was his plan, one that seemed more real with every passing minute. At least, until a figure cast its shadow over him.

"Reid," a familiar voice spoke.

He looked up, surprised, at Morgan. His mouth was slightly open in confusion, his forehead deeply furrowed.

"What are you doing here?"

"How... how did you know where I was?" That was the first thing that came to his mind.

"Penelope. How she knew, I have no idea, but I’m starting to suspect that her joke about having us all chipped wasn’t really a joke. But anyway, what’s going on? Hotch told me you called, and you sounded... unsettling."

His friend was watching him closely. His wrinkled clothes, his tired face.

"So... Hotch sent you to find me?"

"Reid, you’re our friend. Did you really think we wouldn’t be worried about you?"

Spencer lowered his head, listening to his words. Derek was silent for a moment, his hands resting on his hips, his tense face scanning the surroundings. After a while, he focused his gaze back on him.

"Who is the person you’re visiting?"

He hesitated before answering, not because he didn’t want to share the information, but because he wasn’t sure how to refer to her. What should he call her? After all, it wasn’t like they were in an official relationship, and the word friend seemed to leave something unsaid.

“Someone... someone very important to me. She had an accident. She has... a cervical spine injury, and the doctors, suspecting brain swelling, decided to put her into a coma for a while.”

Morgan's eyes widened.

“Damn, Reid. I’m so... I’m so sorry.”

He sat down on the empty chair beside him, his face still showing shock. Exhausted, Spencer simply rested his head on his knees, no longer able to keep his posture straight. He felt drained, yet at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to leave—couldn’t leave her…

Morgan’s hand fell onto his back, and finally, then sighed.

“Come here, man.”

With a firm pull, he drew him into an embrace.

Spencer found it hard to admit, even to himself, how much he needed this. No words left their mouths for a long while; only that brotherly, supportive embrace remained between them.

“Have you seen her?” Morgan asked after a while.

He confirmed, but didn’t reveal the circumstances. His friend paused for a moment, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

“Okay, listen to me. You need to get back to yourself.”

Spencer scoffed and shook his head, ready to argue.

“Let me finish. I know you don’t want to leave her right now, but with all due respect, you look like death. You need to eat and get some sleep.”

“I can’t,” Spencer replied firmly.

“You’re going to collapse soon. You said she’ll be in a coma for a few days. You won’t make it sitting here, think realistically. No one’s asking you to go back to work, you just need to rest.” He looked at him seriously, knowing how hard it would be to convince him. Finally, he sighed once more. “Do it for her, alright? Do you really think she’d want you to wear yourself out like this?”

He had no ready answer for that. Well, he did, but it sounded like no, she wouldn’t want that.

“I’ll take you home. For God’s sake, you came here without even a coat?”

It's a strange feeling to let someone take care of you. Completely. Derek not only drove him to his apartment but also came inside with him. There was no emotional discussion between them, which he found to be a relief. Silent support, he thought.

His relationship with the other team members had been tested after Emily's death—or at least, that's what he had thought up until now. He had begun isolating himself, not wanting to intrude on their grief or burden them with his own problems. But in reality—something he hadn’t seen until now—it had been the opposite. It strengthened their bond.

The next few days revolved mainly around hospital visits. Somehow, he had managed to gain visiting rights, and the time spent by her side filled him with a certain sense of calm. He could see how stable her vital signs were, and he clung to the doctors’ reassurances that she would regain consciousness in just a few days.

He once read a series of articles and interviews with people who had been in comas. Their accounts sometimes contradicted medical facts and often included embellishments, but a significant number of them mentioned remembering the voices of loved ones and certain sounds.

He didn’t want her to remember only the sounds of medical equipment from this period. But he also wasn’t sure what he could talk to her about. Would she want to hear about the overly salted carbonara that Garcia had forced an entire pot of on him? Or about the abstract mural being painted across from his apartment—something he was sure she would have liked?

In the end, he decided to read to her, though choosing what to read proved challenging. Sleeping Beauty seemed too ironic, even though she would probably laugh about it later. She had once told him Girl, Interrupted was her favorite book, but its hospital setting made him suspect she might prefer something that let her escape this place, even if only in her imagination. The Silence of the Lambs referenced one of their past conversations, but if a doctor overheard him reading it to her, he would surely be banned from visiting altogether.

“All right,” he began one day, sitting down in the chair by her bed. “I know you’re not a big fan of fantasy. And yes, you’ll have every right to call me out on this when you wake up. But still, I hope you’ll like it.”

Arabian Nights was a collection of tales and stories originating from the Middle East, India, and Persia. Somehow, he assumed that the mysterious, often nocturnal atmosphere might resonate with her, even soothe her. After all, night had always been her favorite time of day—the backdrop to so much of her life.

That day, as he was about to leave, he leaned slightly over her bed, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Tomorrow, I'll read you a romance, how does that sound? But I’ll have to go to the bookstore because, despite your beliefs, I don’t have any in my collection. I wish I’d had more time to get to know your reading preferences better."

During none of his previous visits had he touched her, afraid it might disturb her peace in some negative way. Besides... in the state she was in, she looked so fragile and delicate that he feared even the slightest touch could hurt her. But that time, he simply couldn’t hold back. After a long internal struggle, he placed a very brief kiss on her forehead.

Spencer couldn’t keep his promise. While he did buy a romance novel recommended to him with enthusiasm by a young bookstore clerk, he never had the chance to read it to her.

The next day, he received a message. 

She had woken up. 

*

You didn’t remember much.

Only fragmented scraps. The memories began with a brief moment of complete physical helplessness, a terrible pain in your neck, and a series of flashing lights mingling with raised voices—even shouting. Then came silence, vile and terrifying.

But that wasn’t the end. Something came after the silence.

Softly spoken stories. For some reason, they were comforting. In your mind, only a few blurred images remained—no clear events or words. What you remembered most was that soothing, calm voice. It felt like an embrace, like warm bedding, the first rays of cosmic light piercing through clouds, or the gentle chill of evening air.

It was… beautiful. But it couldn’t last forever. After an indeterminate amount of time, your body decided to reject that comfort and tried to open its eyes. It was an excruciating effort. You sighed with the strain. The first colors and surreal shapes began to appear before you. Slowly, you started to become aware of your existence, yet at the same time, you felt suspended somewhere outside your body and mind—alone and terrified.

The sensations were both faint and overwhelmingly intense, making you want to hide, to somehow cut yourself off from them. Yet you were equally afraid to close your eyes again. You muttered things that made no sense. You remained in this panicked state until two tiny brown points hovered above you, widening with concern. Only then were you able to calm down—at least enough to stop straining your body with attempts to move. Attempts, because your body seemed entirely unwilling to follow your commands.

The fear buried itself deep within you, drilling into your chest. At first, it suffocated you, but eventually, it began to weaken and fade.

This was how the first hours after waking from the coma unfolded.

Weakness, disorientation, mumbling, pain, discomfort, and light sensitivity.

It took a long time before you regained awareness of being in a hospital. Even more time passed before you remembered why. And then, your own condition and state.

You were so incredibly weak that it filled you with disgust, terrified by how much effort even the smallest movement required—like the twitch of a finger or the blink of an eye. Frustrated by it all, you cried, and he cried too. But his tears were born of relief and joy.

Those two specific emotions reached you the latest—only after they transferred you to a different ward, and your thoughts began to clear. Relief and joy. Hand in hand with fear and anxiety. 

It felt so unreal, yet it was real—real like nothing else, and it held you tightly, exactly the way you needed it to.

*

Spencer was aware that her awakening was just another step in a very long journey.

His medical knowledge, modestly speaking, was fairly extensive, and he understood the gravity of the injuries she had sustained. Their first meeting after she had opened her eyes for the first time was nothing like a scene from a movie. She was confused, still drowsy, and as she slowly started to comprehend everything, she was primarily terrified. Her body, after the time spent in the coma, though brief, was extremely weak, and every little movement exhausted her as though she had just run a marathon.

The fear on her face pierced his chest.

He had the impression that none of the words he spoke, almost whispered in an attempt to calm her, were having any effect.

"I... I can't move," she stammered as one of the first things she said. Her eyes intensely focused on his face, searching for safety in it, and he feared he wouldn't be able to provide it for her.

"It's just temporary," he reassured her gently, leaning over her bed and trying to smile, but it came out uncertain, he was too worried about her condition. "The doctors say so, and that's the truth. Your body is just very weak right now."

"Will... will it be like this forever?"

"No, no, it will pass. I promise, it will pass," he nodded fervently. She hesitated and took a breath, as though discovering an entirely new action. But as soon as she did, out of fear, it became fast and irregular. He was terrified that his touch might cause her pain, but he didn't know what else he could do to help her. Gently, as gently as he could, he placed his hand on her cheek, barely grazing it with his thumb. "You'll feel better soon. Really, it won’t be long now. For now... just don’t overexert yourself, please, breathe."

At first, she flinched. He wanted to withdraw his hand as quickly as possible, but then he felt her press her face against it, almost nuzzling into it. A shy tear danced in one of her eyes, barely noticeable.

"It’s good to see you," she said after a brief silence, a soft sigh escaping her lips—almost like a laugh, though it didn’t quite make it. Her breath was still shallow and uneven, but with each passing moment, it seemed to steady as he held her close.

And in that moment, seeing her like that, feeling her presence so close, a smile spread across his face—a smile so genuine, so long-awaited—and with it came the tears he’d been holding back for what felt like forever.

"I feel the same," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "You have no idea how much."

*

The orthopedic collar pissed you off like nothing else.

It wasn’t even the discomfort that bothered you, it was just... the collar was such a painful reminder of your condition, a testament to what you had been through. And you were supposed to wear it for another six to eight weeks.

Two weeks after waking from the coma, preparations for leaving the hospital were beginning. The risk of brain swelling had subsided, the injuries were healing, and the concussion still made its presence known, but the pain was no longer as intense. You could even have a normal conversation, which you seized almost immediately, striking up a chat with the teenage girl in the bed next to you, her sad expression tugging at your heart.

Few people visited you; you preferred that the two most important ones could spend as much time with you as possible, rather than inviting coworkers or acquaintances you hadn’t spoken to in months. The two most important people.

Spencer had been with you since the moment you woke up, and as the doctor confessed to you with a small smile, he had also stayed by your side while you were in a coma. You were in shock. Not because he had done it—it made perfect sense, given his caring nature. The shock came from the simple fact that one person could care so deeply about another, about you.

It didn’t take long for you to realize that the moments when he visited you became your favorite part of the entire day. And not just because they revolved around checking your condition, tests, and the first, incredibly light rehabilitation exercises. You simply found yourself waiting for the moment he would appear in that doorway again, holding his coat in hand, smiling.

"Hello, handsome stranger," you greeted him one day, the first day you were starting to feel better.

 Spencer stopped at the sound of that term, tilting his head with an even wider smile.

 "How else did I used to call you?" you mused aloud. "Ah, I used to call you Mr. Mysterious. But I suppose that's no longer fitting, you smile too much to seem mysterious."

 "Because I have a reason," he replied, stopping beside your bed and glancing at the flowers placed there, the ones that had greeted you when you woke up that day. "But in that case, 'Handsome stranger' doesn’t fit either, since you know me now."

"But you are handsome. Half of it fits, so I have the right to call you that. Who... who sent me these flowers?"

"Better question would be, who didn’t send you those?" he muttered, referring to their large number. You could only admire them—the beautiful, colorful arrangements—but you hadn’t had the chance to read the notes and messages attached. Spencer glanced at one of them, his smile fading, though not in a bad way... somehow, the expression that appeared on his face was even more pleasing than his smile. "This... this one’s from my team."

You were simply speechless.

 "They... they even know I exist?"

 "Of course they do, how could they not?" Spencer paused for a moment, looking at you thoughtfully. "They... they were with me the whole time you were in a coma. They helped me keep my head together."

 "Don’t exaggerate," you tried to dispel the sudden serious mood. You didn’t want to delude yourself into thinking he had been that worried about you during that time. 

 "It’s not an exaggeration," he replied briefly and seriously, his face almost motionless.

For a moment, you fell silent, your hands resting on the blanket in front of you.

 "Sorry, Spencer. I just realized I’ve never thanked you for this..."

"What?" he asked, surprised, his brows furrowing. "This isn’t something you have to thank me for..."

"But I feel like I have to. This... this isn’t some small, silly favor. You really did so much for me... I still don’t fully understand why..."

 "You don’t understand why?"

"Yeah," you sighed uncertainly, not sure how to put it into words. "Don’t get me wrong... I’m so grateful to you, it’s just... look at it this way. We didn’t know each other that long, we saw each other rarely. We slept together once. It’s not like you were…obligated to help me."

"I didn’t have to be obligated to do it," he said after a moment of hesitation, circling your bed and sitting on the edge, just barely touching it. "And I didn’t have to know you for years. I just wanted to do it because of how much I cared about you. And if that explanation doesn’t convince you... then..." He swallowed hard. "Remember, you were there for me during one of the worst moments of my life."

“It’s not the same...”

 “Oh, but it is. For me, it is. But I don’t want you to think that I was there for you because I felt like I owed you something. Or that I had to... I don’t know... repay you in some way. That’s not it at all.”

You didn’t answer, something tight gripped your throat. You just tilted your head, overwhelmed with emotion, speechless. The only thing you truly wanted to do was stretch out your arms and drape them around his neck, resting your chin on his shoulder. Spencer sighed, surprised and tense. It wasn’t until a brief moment passed that his hands gently touched your back.

“How much longer are you going to act like I’m made of glass?” you asked.

You knew his caution was justified, but Jesus. You just really wanted to hug him properly.

“Probably forever,” he replied, to which you rolled your eyes.

He was the one to break the hug, but in compensation, he quickly kissed the top of your head. You leaned back against the bed, feeling a pleasant sensation in your stomach. Spencer returned to the flowers to tell you who had sent them all.

“So these are from my team,” he picked up the lost thread, pointing to the arrangement of white and pink carnations. He chuckled. “And I’m pretty sure Penelope picked them out, not just because her name is listed first. White represents perseverance and strength. Pink stands for admiration and respect.”

“That’s really thoughtful. And beautiful. I’ll have to thank them. And these tulips?”

Spencer took the note attached to the mentioned flowers between his fingers.

“From... Jerry.”

“What? My husband sent me flowers?”

 “What?” He jerked his head up in surprise.

You laughed so hard at the look on his face that it made you wince in your ribs.

 “I’m fucking kidding, you fool,” you replied, clutching your side with a groan. “Jerry is the librarian. You should know him. He once asked me what flowers he should buy for his wife, and I suggested yellow tulips. By the way, it's so nice of him”.

You said it affectionately, but it sounded incredibly weak. Along with the pain in your ribs, a headache joined in, and suddenly all the energy you'd had earlier evaporated.

“What's happening? Should I call a doctor?”

“No,” you shook your head in refusal. “I just need to lie down for a moment. Come here.”

Spencer followed your request and sat beside your bed, his body a little stiff, as if in guilt.

"I'm sorry I made you laugh."

"That's probably the strangest thing you could apologize for," you muttered, lying down in the position that was best for your neck, one you almost hated as much as the orthopedic collar. "Well, I guess I could come up with something stranger. Sorry I left that million dollars in your nightstand. It won't happen again."

"I'm not sure if this kind of chatter is particularly good for your condition."

"It helps me mentally, and that's what matters most. Besides, stop complaining."

"How could I possibly dare?"

He fell silent, simply watching you with quiet concern. You closed your eyes for a moment, unsure if you might accidentally drift off. After spending a week in a coma, your sleep routine had become completely erratic. You slept through the nights, mostly because there was little else to do, and you didn’t want to disturb the other patients in the ward. During the day, Spencer would visit, and you wanted to be as rested as possible when he was around.

When he wasn’t there, you sometimes napped during the day as well. According to the doctors, it was one of the best things you could do for your recovery—sleep and rest as much as your body needed.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked.

You hesitated for a long moment, because yes, something was weighing heavily on your mind. Had he guessed, or had he read it on your face?

“It’s just…” you began with a sigh. “You know Jude barely visits me? I mean, she shows up every day, but… she’s so tense and distant when she’s here. She doesn’t say much, and she won’t look me in the eyes.”

"She’s blaming herself," Spencer said softly.

“God, that’s so stupid,” you muttered.

You had a strange relationship with the accident. You thought about it as little as possible, keeping it at arm’s length. You knew Richard had been arrested, but you didn’t want to know the details of his sentencing. In no way did you see any of it as Jude’s fault, and it hurt you deeply to think that she did.

You spent a quiet moment together before Spencer leaned over you again, intending to kiss your forehead.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to go now,” he said, to which you nodded in understanding.

But then you shifted your head, pulling back just enough to stop him from brushing his lips against your forehead. He looked at you, puzzled, since you’d never minded it before.

This time, though, you wanted him to kiss you on the lips.

He kissed you slowly. You had almost forgotten how he tasted.

After that, you didn’t bother opening your eyes again. You let yourself imagine that he wasn’t leaving at all, and with that comforting thought, you drifted off to sleep.

*

Spencer had felt strange since the morning.

 Energized and excited. In the absolute best possible way.

That day, he could finally take her home. Well, to his apartment. She needed someone to take care of her, and he felt honored to be that person.

The day before, he had made a very important, yet difficult decision. He invited JJ over and confessed everything to her—about the past few weeks and his struggles with relapsing into addiction. He needed to rid himself of that burden. Besides, he had promised himself that as long as she was living with him, not even the smallest dose of Dilaudid would find its way inside. Never again.

In his worst moments, he imagined that his friend would react with disgust—pure, painful disgust—and push him away. Instead, her eyes filled with something strange the moment he began to speak about how he had felt after Emily's death. Over and over, she whispered apologies, as though she were the one responsible for it.

He still missed Emily, of course, and he knew he would always miss her. That was just the way of things—people left, and it was up to you to decide whether you would remember them with heartbreaking despair or with a wistful sigh. In fact, these were merely two ends of the same spectrum, and it was very easy to get stuck at the beginning, unable to move forward.

She was surprisingly quiet in the car and seemed depressed. Actually, it was hard not to blame her. She had spent a long time in the hospital, gotten used to that routine, and the change made her feel lost. Sitting in the passenger seat, she kept her gaze fixed ahead, but not on the road. She couldn’t see where they were headed, which made it difficult for Spencer to tell her something… at least important.

 When they stopped, she furrowed her brow in surprise.

 “Why are we here?”

They were parked under his apartment, and she had been under the impression they were heading to her place.

 “Sorry, I should’ve told you earlier, I really apologize,” Spencer blurted out in one breath, chaotically. “I absolutely realize that this is like putting you in a situation you didn’t expect, but… but when you were in the hospital, Jude found herself a new roommate. She didn’t really know how to tell you, but she had to do it because she couldn’t afford the rent on her own.”

For a long moment, she stared at him in silence, her face a mixture of shock, followed by understanding. She took a deep breath.

 “Okay,” she muttered. “I understand her, I just… I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me this herself.”

Their relationship still remained deeply complicated, put to the test by guilt. Spencer couldn’t say much about it. It was something between the two of them, and he hardly knew Jude at all.

 “I’m also sorry for asking you this so late,” he continued after a moment. “But… you can’t live alone, you know that. Someone… someone needs to be with you over the next few weeks and… I’m willing to be that person.”

Her lips remained slightly parted for a moment.

“You want… no, wait, you want me to move in with you?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, because before he could answer, she started shaking her head. “Spencer, I can’t. I can’t be that burden for you.”

“A burden? You’re not…”

“But I will be. In the next few weeks, I definitely will be.”

He took his hands off the steering wheel, placing them loosely on his knees.

“Can you… can you look at me for a moment?” he asked.

It took a moment before she hesitantly met his gaze. Her eyes were filled with embarrassed tears, tears full of unjust shame. Seeing this, pain spread through his chest.

“If the accident hadn’t happened, would you want to live with me?”

 Her lips remained pressed together, and she sighed.

 “It’s a big decision. Aside from the fact that if it weren’t for the accident, I wouldn’t even have to consider this option…”

“I just want to know if you would want to. Don’t think of it as an option, just as… a completely normal, life decision. Do you think you’d be able to handle having me around every day?”

She couldn’t help it, and her lips curled into a slight smile.

“We could try,” she finally replied.

Spencer straightened his arms.

“In that case, let’s go inside.”

 “No, wait, it’s not that simple! My opinion shouldn’t matter; it’s you who needs to think about whether you want this…”

 “I do.”

She snorted, resigned, not knowing what else to say.

“I can’t even tie my own shoes,” she tried one last time.

“I’ll gladly do it for you. What’s more, I know all kinds of knots. Simple, sailor’s, Chinese…”

“Spencer Reid, you’re impossible.”

For the rest of the day, she tried every possible way to talk him out of his decision. But when she finally accepted it, she struggled to accept his help with tasks she couldn’t do on her own.

 It wasn’t until later that he realized how much she had been pretending in the hospital. He had only seen her for a fraction of her day, and she seemed so positive then. But this temporary disability had really taken a toll on her mentally. He could repeat and assure her, completely sincerely, that she wasn’t a burden to him, but deep down, she still believed otherwise.

So, when two days later, she timidly appeared in the bedroom doorway with the question of whether he could help her wash her hair, Spencer felt like he had won the lottery.

“Sure,” he agreed, probably a bit too enthusiastically, jumping to his feet so quickly that he almost tripped.

She pretended not to notice.

In the bathroom, he slowly helped her pull the shirt over her head, careful not to catch it on the collar still around her neck or accidentally cause her any pain. 

“Be careful not to tilt your head too much, okay?” he asked, wetting her hair with the showerhead. She closed her eyes when a few drops of water splashed onto them. “Sorry!”

“For god's sake, Spencer, you're doing it more carefully than I would have done myself.”

It was true; he was acting as if he were performing some task at work that required absolute precision. He shrugged, massaging the strawberry shampoo into her hair. Foam quickly appeared, smelling sweet.

Suddenly, her hands tightened around the front of his shirt.

“Sorry,” she whispered, loosening her grip. “I got a little dizzy.”

Spencer immediately pressed his hands, still covered in shampoo, to her waist, afraid she might fall. He stared at her face for a long moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

And just then, her body suddenly went limp, falling forward.

Terrified, he let out a strangled cry.

“Hold on, please, don’t fall!” he kept repeating, doing everything he could to keep her upright.

Her hands hung limply on his shoulders, the foam and water soaking into his shirt, but he didn’t care at all.

“I’m right here, hold on to me as much as you can. C-c-can you hear me at all?”

He wondered whether it would be better to stand her up or lay her down while he could get to the phone and call an ambulance, when suddenly her weak touch grew stronger, and she let out a soft groan.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologizing. I’m still holding you, can you hear me?”

His heart was pounding incredibly fast as she gently pulled her head away from his chest. He, of course, didn’t let her stand on her own, constantly supporting her body, protecting her from a fall that could be disastrous.

Together, they left the shower cabin, her hair still covered in foam.

“Are you aware that this is how it’s going to look now?” she asked seriously.

Completely unfazed, he wiped the foam from her forehead, which was dangerously close to her eyes.

“I’d rather have you lose consciousness in my bathroom, right next to me, than risk… I don’t know, cracking your head open.”

For a moment, she was silent, the color beginning to return to her pale face, her gaze becoming more alert. He had a strange feeling that she was about to start crying, and since he really didn’t want that, he pulled her close again, in his usual protective gesture. Everything around them smelled of strawberries.

“Do you really have to be this good?”

Spencer snorted.

“I’m afraid it’s just my curse.”

*

“Are these people really arguing about whether a cucumber is a fruit or a vegetable?”

Sitting on the couch, you jumped when a voice spoke right behind you. At the last second, you caught your laptop before it slipped off your lap. You had been reading some absurd discussion on an online forum you stumbled upon completely by accident. And yes, these users were indeed arguing about whether a cucumber is a fruit or a vegetable.

“Damn it, Spencer!” you shouted, putting your hand over your heart, which was pounding in an agitated rhythm. You looked at your boyfriend with a scowl. “You almost gave me a heart attack. How is it possible I didn’t hear you come in?”

He shrugged. Leaning his elbows on the back of the couch, the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt revealed the skin of his forearms. In that position, he had a perfect view of the screen on your laptop. He had just returned from work, a rainy July evening, his hair slightly damp.

“I wasn’t sneaking around. You must’ve just been lost in thought. Want to tell me what’s occupying that beautiful mind of yours?” He leaned in to place a kiss on your temple.

“Beautiful mind, huh?” you repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Just a few days ago, you told me that if a 19th-century priest heard even one thought from my head, he’d go into anaphylactic shock. Whatever that was supposed to mean.”

"In a big simplification, what I meant is that even though I love you, sometimes your way of thinking scares me."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"By the way, I bought land for Alexander."

Alexander was your new flycatcher, which had grown so much that it completely prevented the other flowers on the windowsill from growing. Due to its conqueror tendencies, you decided to name it after one of them.

"Do you want to repot it into a new pot now...?"

"No. Now you need to come to me."

You set the laptop aside and waited for him to take a seat on the couch. Before fully snuggling into him, you untied and removed the tie from his neck, then unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, just the way you liked.

You sighed almost instantly; his body was more comfortable than a pillow. Warm, with your favorite scent. You rested your head on his chest as his fingers gently combed through your hair.

In the first few weeks after you were discharged from the hospital, you couldn’t even sleep in the same bed. There was a risk that, in his sleep, he might accidentally bump into your neck and cause damage. Spencer enforced that rule strictly, as he did with every precaution related to your health.

Six months had passed since the accident, and for the past four months, you hadn’t worn a neck brace or needed help with daily tasks. But that didn’t change the fact that, sometimes, when you showered together, he would wash your hair just like he used to. Anyway, you were still attending rehabilitation and would need to for a long time, but despite that, you felt like you had fully returned to normal life.

You lifted yourself slightly to look at his face.

"I was walking to the bar today," you began.

You’d been considering going back to work for a while now, and the doctors had assured you there was no reason you couldn’t. You wanted something to occupy your hands and craved the sense of purpose that came with a task. You’d mentioned it to Spencer long ago, so he didn’t seem surprised when you brought it up.

"And? Will they take you back?"

"No. I mean, it’s not that they don’t want to, I just didn’t get there. That’s why I said I was walking and not that I went to a bar. Are you following?"

"I'm trying."

"So, listen to this. I took the subway and got off at that station near the room I used to rent."

The landlord had asked for the keys back shortly after your accident. Your arrangement had been that, in exchange for using the space, you cleaned it daily. Of course, you hadn’t been able to keep up with that anymore.

"...And I don't know, I was overwhelmed by this strange feeling, like I wanted to go back to it. Helping people."

"You help people all the time," Spencer reminded you. "All our neighbors come to you to vent about everything happening in their lives."

"That's true, but I mean, you know, professional help," you said, taking a deeper breath. You couldn't decide whether you were more excited or nervous about the decision. "I've been thinking about going back to uni, Spencer."

He straightened up, almost causing you to slide off his chest. Filled with tension, you watched his reaction closely. You’d spent the entire day wondering what he might say. Would he share your enthusiasm and support your plans, or would he try to talk you out of it, reasoning that you’d dropped out of school once and might not manage it again?

These thoughts were incredibly silly. Spencer—knowledge-obsessed, ever-curious Spencer—would never say something like that.

Instead, he pulled you into a tight embrace, whispering how incredible the idea was. You melted into it completely, feeling more elated than ever and unable to stop thinking about the crazy chain of cause and effect that had led to this specific moment, this particular relationship, and above all, this exact happiness. 

do you accept this overly sweet ending as my apology? :> tagging: @nightfullofparadox @lillaberry @fortheloveofgubler @opheliahotchner @cowboy1ikereid @penelopegarciaismygf

sorry if i forgot about someone!

[thementalshawty]

PAC WHAT TYPE OF LOVE IS ENTERING YOUR LIFE?

Hey my baby babes! Here is the reading I promised you guys!!! This reading been on my mind since I did the last one honestly and I’m guessing some of you are curious but instead of asking spirit of love is coming into your life I’m going to ask what kind of love because love comes in our life everyday in big and small ways so I decided to ask in what way love is entering your lives soon.

🧟🧟‍♂️🧟🧟‍♂️🧟🧟‍♂️🧟🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️

Pile 1

Now I know a lot of you are thinking the worse when you see this card but I’m not getting anything negative or low energetic about this love coming in. Actually quite the opposite, I heard liberating. There’s something here that you and this person share in common that’s coming in, honestly the kind of love I’m hearing is through a trauma bond maybe? I’m seeing two people praising one god or goddess. I’m seeing that it may be a friendship here. It can be a same sex love too if that’s what you’re into, I see carnal pleasure being fulfilled here, friends with benefits for sure!!! I’m not getting romantic vibes honestly from this, I’m seeing this love is a love that helps you break the chain that you are currently in, you can be in a cycle that you’re completely unaware of. This person can be a Capricorn, be Capricornic, they are not a satanist or satanic and even if they’re into that they’re not into bringing you into it I’m hearing sacred so what they believe in is very sacred they very RARELY SHARE THAT! This is why again I don’t feel it’s a romantic love it can even be a new belief that’s coming and not a person if you get my drift or some kind of inspiration, love comes in very many a way so we need to look for something deeper sometimes and this isn’t a romantic love, I’m seeing it can be sexual or passionate though here, exploring each others carnal fantasies! so fuccin funny the bottom of the decc is the 8oS! so even more confirmation! You’re gaining freedom from whatever chain you’ve got going on in your head! Youre binded to a thought about yourself some kind of belief and I see it coming undone and since there’s two people I do believe someone else is involved but again idk if it’s romantic im still not seeing it go anywhere more than some wild nights together frfr but i see you’ll be so beyond happy you met this person it’s like a pent up farmer girl who becomes friends with the free spirited city girl roommate showing her how to let loose vibes. That’s very much the energy im getting from this pile, you may be meeting your bestie here guys!!!

Thanks for Reading.

🍎🍏🍎🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎🍏

Pile 2

So the kind of love I see coming into your life isn’t romantically at all, welp, you or this person may see it that way, I’m seeing some kind of delusionary connection that’s coming into your life, it’s almost like it’s too good to be true, this person and it’s not that they’re not good it’s just like, they aren’t really into love or I’m seeing they’re not into you like that but you want them too be or you feel they might be or it can be that they feel this way about you and you don’t about them. There’s some kind of imbalance here between you and this person it can also be a disconnect from your heart and this love that’s coming in will help you reconnect with the badass mf that is you. I’m seeing that one of you could be hurt by love and emotions, hiding your cup and forcing it away, but this love will help you want to offer your cup but I don’t see it happening early on, I see this is a slow to romance connection if there’s any chance or possibility! If not then it’s a crush frfr that’s going to go south and you’ll realize this person HAS NOOOOOOOO feelings for you at all and that shit may destroy you, I’m sorry but it’s reality I feel like this connection is so delusionary that you can get lost in the wishful thinking, maybe they drop hints of affection or your misreading them. At the bottom of the deck you have the 2oP! so I’m seeing that there may be TWO types of love coming in, or a decision has to be made, maybe you wanted to date two people at the same time and it’s just not happening right for you, also I’m hearing your crush could be denying you but then someone else likes you, that you’re not even noticing it’s giving 5oC energy you’re only looking at what spilled and not even paying attention to what’s new and being offered. You will need to decide who you’re going to give your cup too because one of the choices are definite more romantic, balanced and will work out for you more than the other one. The choice is yours. Also I’m seeing some money coming in so you can chill, I feel like you are someone who never stops to take a break or breathe or nothing and this connection or this love that’s coming in whether it be a person promotion or both is some kind of disappointment, it’s going to help bring balance and control back into your life and it feels like you’ve been falling of your rotational strength as of late don’t worry baby you’ll get it bacc I promise. Don’t lose hope I’m hearing. I’m hearing that if it is a person that’s not for you don’t think less of you someone else is coming or is already there and you’re jus not giving them the time of day or you don’t think they want you either! I want more information about this one I will upload a deeper meaning to the reading on my Patreon.

Thanks for reading.

⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥⛓️‍💥

Pile 3

Now this kind of love is straight up TOXIC! I see that this is not romantic it all it just involves a woman or someone who identifies themselves with more feminine energies. This person is an energy vampire but I see you taking bacc what was stolen. I see that this can be a friend or family member but I’m seeing that this person is a emotional manipulator that love to play cat and mouse game to end up on top this person can be a water sign frfr cancer vibes mostly, this person is very low vibes and and energy they don’t want to do anything but cause chaos and destruction! You don’t need that in your life, like all the readings I’m seeing that this love coming in is bringing in major clarity it can be someone or something that helps you see the toxic person for what they are and take back your energy it’s giving that song by botdf bewitched. (I don’t stand with Dahvie but Jay Vanity (DAHLI) is my heart). I see that this person is used to being put on a pedestal by someone whether it be you or the ones around them, either way they’re very spoiled and they’re no good for you! I’m seeing that you’re going to finally see the truth for what it is. This person brings drama and dark clouds you’re going to want nothing to do with this person and you’re going to reclaim all of your power! its almost like whatever draining you will be poured back into you. You’re rubber, they’re glue what they do bounces off you and sticks back to them! You will also feel so liberated hmm this may be connected to pile 1 so if you felt pulled there then this may be the answer cos I think this is the part 2 or the more information it’s giving freedom too, but this is from an actual person it can be a negative ex you may be going too or friend someone that you let slide always on their shit I’m seeing that it’s going to end and that you’ll realize this person again it can even be you just being in low vibrational space and you’re finally becoming self conscious and doing something about it whether then just waiting for someone to come help. Self care is needed!! So self love is coming into your life fashoooooo SELF SELF SELF! Go and treat yourself to some grade A fun you deserve it.

Thank you for reading.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

And just like that folks we are done I hope that this reading brought clarity and you guys enjoy it!