#and i love that song but i feel like it is very telling that decades-old songs are charting really high.

[doux-amer]

One thing that has deeply annoyed me about the response from Americans/Westerners about this week's events in Korea is that a lot of them, including people I like and respect, are like, "The protesting civilians and lawmakers who barged into the National Assembly would've been shot if this were the U.S./this would've never happened in the U.S. because people are too afraid of being shot." There's some truth to that, at least with regard to state violence, but I'm fed up because it doesn't account for how frightening this could have turned out to be had it not been for how much of an inept flop dunce Yoon Sukyeol is. It minimizes the courage of those who showed up.

Sure, it was likely that the military and riot police wouldn't have done much (again, YSY's self-coup wasn't thought out well, and there's more evidence of that as military officials and soldiers are speaking up about the lack of information they received, but I'll refrain from talking about that to avoid making this even longer than it inevitably will be, knowing myself), but let's not pretend there haven't been issues with them in recent years. They pepper sprayed and used water cannons during an anniversary rally for the Sewol ferry victims (x) (x) (if you don't understand how unbelievably cruel that is, look into the horrific Sewol ferry sinking). They tear gassed crowds (Korea has a gruesome history of this) and sprayed water cannons, and citizens have been injured and killed during the 2015 protests and 2016-17 Park Geunhye impeachment protests, notably Baek Namgi, an elderly activist whose death caused global outrage (x) (x). Park Geunhye was going to enforce martial law during those protests according to a leaked document, with hundreds of tanks, thousands of soldiers and special force troops! (x)

Not to mention, there are decades of extreme state violence that have scarred an entire country and are still super fresh for a huge percentage of the population. Again, check out that tear gas history piece. Look up the April Revolution, Gwangju massacre, and June uprising and see just how bloody they were. Thousands of civilians were tortured and killed. Look at how many protests were going on year after year during the 1980s. That isn't that long ago! All those older people who ran to the National Assembly to stop the coup? You bet a lot of them were college students who protested during that time or knew people who did. All the younger people? They may not have experienced what it was like living under martial law, but as I said, state violence still occurs, however much it's dwindled over the years, and you have to account for generational trauma. I don't think I'll ever forget the way I felt when I saw the breaking news alert about the martial law declaration on December 3. I've never experienced that, at least to that degree.

Instead of viewing the response from civilians and elected officials through the framework of police brutality in the U.S., it should be contextualized using Korea's own history. Thankfully most of the serious discussions are doing this, but like I said, even people who are smart about reading up on things have reflected on how this wouldn't fly in the U.S., not because of the difference in protest history, civil movements, and public engagement with both in the two countries but because of the military/police response. There's an insinuation there that Koreans would be more reluctant to do what they did if they knew what it's like to live in fear of violence instead of living in such a safe country like Korea...and I want to yell.

It was monumentally brave of everyone to do what they did to stop the coup. We're all laughing at how stupid the coup was and there's a reason why people were more furious than scared because of the political history of Korea and the laws set in place to protect the democracy and neutralize coup attempts, but this could have easily become a disaster. It's not alarmist of me to say so because there was no way for anyone to be 100% sure of how the military would react—especially when no one knew what the hell was going on.

[hotvintagepoll]

Danny Kaye (The Court Jester, The Inspector General)—Danny Kaye, idol of my childhood, maker of the weirdest faces! This man SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE and then puts himself out in a bucket in a movie based on a Gogol short story. In the same movie (Inspector General), he flirts by playing a carrot as a musical instrument. In Wonder Man, he's brilliant but struggles with things like riding buses. I have been envious of his fake Italian/French/German/Spanish monologues in The Court Jester for the past three decades. As Walter Mitty, he is SUPREMELY SILLY yet also somehow manages to be a comic foil for none other than Boris Karloff. All this is to say nothing of The William Tell Song (TV, thus not linked, but great.) I adore him.

Burgess Meredith (Of Mice and Men, That Uncertain Feeling, Second Chorus)—I first saw him in Idiot's Delight. He was standing next to Clark Gable on a balcony. I didn't even notice Gable was there, Meredith's scrungle game was too strong. -5'5 1/2 (1.66m) -He is THE weirdest little freak in That Uncertain Feeling, Merle Oberon picks him up in a psychiatrist's lobby. He's a concert pianist but he hates that people pay to hear him play, he can't stand them watching him. Vases offend him. He sees himself in an abstract painting. He's an absolutely chaotic gremlin and I love him SO much -He plays PENGUIN in the old Batman series!! What's scrunglier than that?! -"Was fascinated by the subject of non-human intelligence, particularly dolphins. He once believed that a dolphin somehow called to him for help in the middle of the night while he was staying at a friend's home on the beach. He ran out and found the dolphin, caught in a net under a dock down the beach, although there was no way he should have been able to know it was there. He released it, saving its life. He believed it had made some sort of connection with him, perhaps telepathic, to call for help." [IMDb] -He will forever be my favourite portrayal of George from Of Mice and Men, his speech about "seeds" and dreaming about a farm of his own wrecked me -In Tom, Dick and Harry, he's one of three suitors courting Ginger Rogers. It's zany and ridiculous, an absolute rollercoaster. He teachers to bowl with his sleeves rolled up. He drives a 3-wheeled motorcycle -He's in a MUSICAL with FRED ASTAIRE they're romantic rivals for PAULETTE GODDARD. He also wears a bucket hat. (Second Chorus) -His hair is VERY floofy in his early roles, I think that should be taken into consideration 4:54: [link to whole movie, editor has not watched it + can't vet but confirmed his hair is fluffy for the minute she did watch]

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here. Reminder that this is a movie poll, not a TV poll, in case any of you were flocking to any bird-brained ideas.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Danny Kaye:

He's so stupid. I love him.

Burgess Meredith:

Look at his face! He looks like a little field mouse, and a field mouse is scrungly. Admittedly I know him more from the Twilight Zone, in which he reached levels of peak scrungle, but I believe he deserves a place on this list.

[nobodysdaydreams]

I enjoy looking through these Wicked AU’s where the Wizard stays and raises Elphaba and becomes a (still evil and very morally questionable) but loving father to her and her friends. However, I have a controversial opinion that this works best when the Wizard is written as someone who becomes a dad in his early 20’s/college age.

Like no offense to Jeff Golblum’s casting, he does a fantastic job, but he’s also in his 70s, which would make him in his 40s when he had Elphaba, and I just do not see that for the Wizard. Crying about how “yes, he was hooking up with random women and drinking strange beverages and yeah, he always wanted to be a dad, but no, he never ever considered that one thing might lead to the other because he was too busy enjoying his youth! His 42-year-old youth, far too young to consider fatherhood even on the table even though it was all he ever wanted and he had a whole song about it.”? I just personally feel like the Wizard’s actions make so much more sense for someone who’s in their early 20’s, just arrived in a magic land, is a generally selfish and irresponsible person, and isn’t considering the future or long term impact of their actions. Plus this man is from the late 1800s/early 1900s so whatever level of child development knowledge you picture this version of the Wizard having, lower it even further if you can.

With this in mind, I would appreciate a Wicked AU where if the Wizard is gonna stick around to try to be a dad, his young age and carefree, irresponsible, and somewhat selfish attitude is reflected in his parenting choices. He’s not a teen dad, but he’s certainly not much older. Melena Thropp hands him the baby and is he’s like “why is she green?” And she’s like “I don’t know, but my husband can’t know about this, so that’s your problem now.” And the Wizard’s like “well, I suppose this is what happens when you repeatedly hook up with an older married woman in a magical land and drink weird potions with her. Wasn’t how I envisioned becoming a dad, but at least it’s not the weirdest Friday I’ve ever had.”

Then he takes Elphaba traveling with him and tries using the “loving single dad” image to impress women like he’s in a Hallmark movie, while also trying to casually ask people for advice on kids because he doesn’t have a clue. When do you send them to school? Do they have schools in Oz? Should he try to homeschool her? Elphaba starts reading on her own and instead of concluding she has great mysterious power the Wizard is like “wow, my little girl’s so smart, I guess some kids can just do that aren’t I lucky I don’t have to teach her?” and never questions it. No clue how child development works. No clue what is age appropriate. He’s taking five year old Elphaba along with him when he performs magic tricks in bars at midnight. He’s taking her to evil business meetings as he’s plotting to take over Oz when she’s too young to know what’s happening. His advisors witness Elphaba’s skill, tell him she’s the key to securing their power for all time, and he’s like “right? My daughter is so special, she’s my lucky charm! 🥰” not even realizing she’s obviously the witch that was prophesied because he thought all of Elphaba’s skills were just cute little quirks. The Wizard’s advisors suggest blaming the Animals, and the Wizard’s like “no, we can’t do that. My daughter loves them. We will blame someone else and spread malicious lies about them instead.” Like he’s still evil, he’s still scum, but he’s also like “I’m a dad now. I can’t arrest and torture my child’s friends. I’ve gotten a “father of the year” award in my Father’s Day card for the past nine years, I cannot jeopardize that when I’m so close to a decade winning streak.”

Eventually, Elphaba uncovers every evil thing her father is doing at like 14 and defeats him and his advisors with her super powerful magic because the Wizard’s advisors have been training her this whole time, hoping she’ll become their weapon while the Wizard has been encouraging her as a loving dad telling her she can “be anything she wants to be” and making sure all of Oz adores her. So when Elphaba defeats his armies, takes over Oz, and exposes all his crimes, he’s not even that mad. A little teenage rebellion, that’s all this is, plus her skill is so impressive, the Wizard can’t help but be a little proud, and she’s running things better than he ever could, so why not just let her do her thing and go back to building model replicas of Oz in the garage? His advisors are begging him to stop her and he’s like “why? She’s doing such a good job!” “She defeated us for all time! A pathetic child!” “Super powerful child is more like it. How could I not be proud?” “But you’re her father! Do something! Stop her! We must bring her down!” “Nonsense, teen rebellion is normal. All teenagers say stuff like “I want more independence” and “Dad, I love you, but what you and your friends are doing is morally bankrupt and as much as it hurts me, I have to stand up for what’s right even if it means standing against you”. It’s fine! It’s just a phase. Chill out and let the kid and her friends run things. Enjoy the retirement. I know I am.” “Sir, you’re only 38.” “Exactly. The perfect retirement age. I’m an old man.” “But Elphaba single handily defeated our armies! Her power is out of control and cannot be contained!” “Again, all I’m hearing is how impressive she is. And to think, it’s all thanks to me. Raising her as a single father and she becomes the most powerful witch in all of Oz, can you believe it? Gosh, I’m wonderful.”

[prime-adeptus]

The Hand That Feeds

“If being with me only brings you pain, then just put up with this for three more days.” Or, the stages you go through during those three days.

PAIRING.⠀Xia Yizhou | Caleb x Reader

CONTENT.⠀female reader | spoilers for Caleb's story | angst, brief manipulation, drugging is briefly mentioned, implied toxic behaviour (per canon), medical issues (source: i made it up), mental instability, mentions of blood and violence, mentions of suicide and self-sabotage, splitting (reader has BPD), unreliable narrator. | ~6,8k words

A/N.⠀sooooooooo I've been playing Love and Deepspace..... the brainrot got so bad I've written over five thousand words in two days. this is a bit more of an exploration on the emotional/psychological end, so I'm sorry about the lack of romance!

available on AO3 | reblogs and comments are always appreciated!

1. DENIAL

Caleb never breaks his promises.

It’s been that way since you were little kids. In thunderstorms, he promised to keep you safe, and he did. On gloomy days, he promised to be your light, and he did. In the rain, he promised to shield you, and he did. He never lies. He always picks up the phone. He never misses any important dates. He always catches you and never lets you fall. That was the Caleb you knew years ago.

Now, he’s much more different than the scrappy young boy with missing teeth and plasters on his skin that he used to be. This Caleb is tall, imposing, domineering. His uniform puts emphasis on his coldness. He is the embodiment of power, but just like he promised you when you were ten, he’d use his power to protect you. You’d trust him with your life, because deep down, you know that he won’t make you regret it.

You’re more than capable of protecting yourself. Years of training at the academy and another handful of years as a hunter has shaped you to be your own defence. Calluses and scars litter your skin, painting them with texture and molding you into a unique sculpture. With each year that passes, you grow out of the same scared little girl you used to be, but you can never get rid of fear completely. Loud noises still send you jumping out of your skin. You still fear death no matter how familiar it’s become. You worry about growing old and fading out of existence, leaving behind vulnerable people who’ll lose you for good.

The past years have not been kind. Fate has put you in all sorts of situations to test your might and willpower, forcing you to be the fearless woman you were meant to be. You’ve passed turbulent times, cried alone as your mind tells you you’re going insane. You’ve stayed at home for days, hiding away from the rest of the world as you contemplate your self-worth and utility. It drains you, bleeds you dry, but for you, there is no time to rest. Life goes on. You must always keep moving no matter how wounded you become.

With Caleb, it doesn’t feel like it has to be that way.

He’s always taken care of you very well, making sure you get enough rest and remember to eat no matter how stressed you become, but things aren’t the same. You’ve grown and so has he. And yet, he’s still the very same boy you grew up with—one who cares for you, one who loves you for you, and one who’ll always have your back. You’re not familiar with giving yourself a break, having been living in a routine of discipline for over a decade of your life, but you find that it’s a nice change. It’s the instrumental break of a song, it’s the beach on a sunny day. It’s gentle breezes caressing your skin and it’s layers of padlocks broken, letting you out of the cage you’ve built for yourself.

For once, you can let yourself relax and be taken care of the way you’ve always been. But as the storm rages on, it all comes crashing down, and you find yourself falling apart.

The anxiety that had come with your initial arrival at Skyhaven never left. It simmers at the pit of your stomach, creeps into your veins and wraps its tendrils around you, dragging you into a cold abyss of apprehension and fear. Being away from Linkon City isn’t doing you any favours. You don’t know anyone here aside from Caleb. There isn’t a place to go or people to talk to. The likelihood of you being in danger is low, but it’s not impossible, and the storm outside does nothing to help your current state. The power has gone out, leaving you in a wide, dark and empty complex where the only illumination comes from the lights on the skyline. 

The recent events are still heavy on your mind, too. Of him tending to the gash on your leg, of him restraining you with his Evol. You don’t think you’ve been that scared since that day in the interrogation room. You remember it vividly: the dimness of that room, the collar he’d placed upon your neck, or the tension in the air while you struggled to get yourself back to reality. It felt like you were in a dream. But then the lights came on and he spoke, and he was no longer the Farspace Fleet Colonel—he was your Caleb.

Your nails have become brittle from how much you’ve been biting on them. You’ve been pacing around the place, trying to call him time and time again only to get no response. With a frustrated sob, you toss your phone onto the sofa and collapse to your knees, tears streaming down your face in rivulets. As much as you’d like to believe that you aren’t afraid of thunder anymore, tonight proves it all wrong.

All you can hear is the downpour outside. It muffles the sound of the clock ticking, yet it doesn’t tune out the worried voices in your head. It’s nearing midnight—way past your bedtime—but you can’t sleep, not even with the potential ambience of the rain. Your thoughts are racing a mile a minute. Though Caleb usually comes home while you’re asleep, being wide awake now also means you’re too aware—aware that he isn’t home, aware that he’s in danger, aware that he might not ever come home at all. Your phone is nearly dead and the candles have long since gone out. You’re trembling both from fear and frost, his sweater loosely hanging on your frame.

The words ‘lockdown’ and ‘cleanup’ grow more and more distant as the irrational thoughts strengthen in numbers. They say he’s doing this on purpose, that he’s abandoning you for good because of you, that he’s keeping so many things hidden from you because he wants you out of his life. You want to believe they aren’t true, you really do, but your fragility makes you waver in every decision. The urge for violence grows but you do your best to keep yourself grounded, rocking yourself back and forth as your body is wracked by sobs. It’s easier said than done. You don’t know how you can stay afloat when you feel so alone.

Cruel. He’s cruel for leaving you alone for this long. He’s cruel for not responding to you. If he truly cared for you, he wouldn’t make you feel this way. Fear blends into anger as your hands twitch and quiver while you heavily breathe in and out as an attempt to calm down. He promised you this morning that he’ll come home. You just need to trust him. But you’re so scared of everything, feeling like the world is caving in around you as you fall deeper and deeper into the void. The dark makes you feel isolated, suffocated. Briefly, you think of how no one will hear you if you scream in this weather. Not even he can save you. Maybe that’ll be the first and last time he breaks his promise.

You shake your head. You know better than to trust your emotions when the sky gets dark. This will pass, it always does, and Caleb would want you to be strong. With newfound determination, you harshly wipe away your tears with the back of your hand and get up. Your legs slightly wobble from the ache in your knees, but you keep upright. As if sensing your predicament, the rain outside slows down and becomes quieter with each second. The thunder has stopped roaring and the downpour slows to a light shower, its droplets hitting the clear glass of the window panes.

Then, the front door opens. A scream threatens to escape your throat. The emergency lights in the hallway outside show a male silhouette at the door, and when you realise who it is, the grave weight on your shoulders is lifted. Relieved, you run into him, making him stumble for a moment before supporting you more steadily. You wrap your arms around his neck and cry, quiet whines leaving you. He pulls you close and rubs soothing circles on your back before murmuring a quiet I’m home into your ear.

How could you doubt him like that? Caleb is kind. He’s the best thing to ever happen to you. He never breaks his promises. Whatever anger you harboured for him earlier dissipates into the air just like fog. Still shaken from the blackout and his radio silence, you grab him tightly, the fabric of his coat bunching up in your unrelenting grip. You don’t know what’s wrong with you tonight. You were doing perfectly fine before the storm. You’re mentally berating yourself for letting him see you in such a pathetic state, but you’re too drained and it’s too late to try to hide.

(You’ve never been able to do that with him.)

“I thought you left me,” you whimper, “I—I don’t feel good. I don’t know. I was scared.”

You cling to him like a child. You feel like one, with how weak and emotional and volatile you feel. The sobs slow down into sniffles as he carries you over to your bedroom before taking a seat on the bed and placing you on his lap. His gloved hands comfortingly caress you wherever they can. Guilt sinks into his bones, pulling him deeper than his gravity ever could. The explosion had been out of his control, so had his death, but he can’t ever forgive himself for making you feel like you’d been left behind.

An ugly emotion rears its head, holds him in its jaws. He wraps his arms around you possessively, allowing you to calm down at your pace. You let out a heavy sigh and fall into him, feeling boneless after the meltdown you were in earlier. There are many things you want to say, but none ever slip your tongue. Instead, you let him hold you, let him press soft kisses to your hair, enveloping you in the warmth you had been craving.

“I told you I’d always be by your side,” he finally speaks up after a moment of silence, squeezing your flesh warmly. “I promised you that, remember?”

You don’t make a sound. You shift closer to him, desperate to be closer, close enough to feel like you’ve fused into one. He doesn’t force you to speak. You look up at him, tear-stained cheeks glimmering under the moonlight, helpless and afraid yet so loving and elated. He shushes you softly, lulling you into a relaxed state as he wipes away your tears with his thumbs before cupping the side of your face affectionately. 

I’ll always be by your side.

How silly and humiliating of you to have been vulnerable like that. Caleb would never lie to you. He’s right, he always is, and you need to learn to fully trust him again. He never breaks his promises. He won’t start now.

2. ANGER

It started with an excruciating pain in your heart.

Then, it continued with pins and needles striking your limbs, making them feel boneless. Your view blurred and darkened at the sides as static took over your vision, showing you mirrors and streaks of light. Your throat closed up and you clutched at it helplessly, jaw dropping open as you tried to breathe. The world spun and suddenly you collapsed on the ground, motionless and afraid. Waves of panic crashed into you, drenching you in trepidation while your thoughts ran rampant, stacking on top of each other like voices in a crowd.

You hardly registered the muffled shouts and your body being moved as you fell limp. Your head was spinning and you felt like you were falling into coldness—into death—but when you woke up, you found yourself in the medical bay of the Fleet’s aircraft. 

The pain in your heart had subsided enough. It still ached and burned, but clarity had returned to your eyes and your limbs no longer felt numb. Your eyelids fluttered open, revealing the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and it was only then that you heard muted conversations, presumably from those who were taking care of you. You tried to push yourself up, only to be pulled back by something. When you looked down, you found all sorts of cables attached to you and an EKG monitor on your side. Your heart rate was fast and your blood pressure was high. Caleb had come into the medical bay not long after that.

After dismissing the nurses, he’d taken you to his home and decided he’d take care of you himself. Though you weren’t keen on essentially being on house arrest, there was no point in arguing with him. Even if you doubted him sometimes, you knew in your heart that he would never lead you astray. But the way he’s been treating you like a child irks and suffocates you, making you feel like you’re locked in a cramped room.

He talks to you softly and treats you like you’re fragile. You’re several years into your career as a hunter. You’re well in your twenties and more than capable of taking care of yourself or tending to your wounds. As much as you appreciate his concern, it’s starting to feel suffocating. Maybe years of depending on him have made him think you’re useless. He won’t trust you, but he still holds many secrets of his own.

The only conclusion you come to is that he’s hiding something from you, or he’s hiding you.

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing does. How can someone so familiar feel so distant at the same time? You can’t understand his logic or tell what he’s thinking. He always has an explanation for everything, and yet, they never satisfy you at all. The weariness in your system coupled with days of being under quarantine is taking a toll on you. He’d insisted persistently that you stay put while he takes care of everything. It’s not as if it’s his fault, either. No matter how much you want to get back to work—thinking about the backlog you’re going to have to catch up to puts insurmountable anxiety upon your shoulders—you can’t, because your body isn’t cooperating.

It’s not a fever. It’s not a cold. But somehow, you always feel so out of it. It doesn’t even feel like you’re piloting yourself anymore. Suspicion rises in the back of your mind as you think of the medication you’ve been taking every morning. He never told you what they are. What if he’s—

No. He wouldn’t. Caleb isn’t like that.

But what if? You don’t understand him. You don’t know him anymore. Why is he hellbent on keeping you locked up here when you’re already capable of handling things on your own? Burying your face in your hands, you let out a scream of exasperation, feeling as though you’re losing your mind. Why won’t he listen to you? Do you mean anything to him at all?

The door knob twists. You swiftly relax your furrowed brows and turn to him with a small smile as he enters your room. The sun is barely rising, but he already looks wide awake. You can’t help but narrow your eyes suspiciously at the small cup of pills that he’s holding.

The question slips past your tongue before you realise it. “What have you been giving me?”

Caleb stops in his tracks, brows raised in surprise. Something flickers in his eyes, but the calm expression remains on his features. He moves closer and places what he’s holding on the table, only to pause in his movements again.

“You didn’t finish dinner?”

“Caleb. What have you been giving me?” you ask again, your hands beginning to tremble. Your thoughts are running rapidly, alarms of urgency ringing in your head and adding on to your anxiety. You need answers. You need to know everything.

He takes a seat on the stool next to your bed with a sigh. “I’m hurt you don’t trust me, pipsqueak.”

“Then what’s wrong with me?” You clench your fists, knuckles turning white from the pressure you’re exerting. “Why won’t you let me go?”

“You had a protocore-induced heart attack. Your body is still recovering,” he replies easily. You can’t tell if he’s lying or telling the truth. “And Skyhaven’s still under lockdown. It’s not safe for you to be out.”

“Do you think of me that lowly?” Aggravation drips off of your tone as your voice starts to waver, a familiar sting spreading behind your nose and tears springing up to your eyes. “Do you think I’m still a little kid?”

“It’s not that. I’m just worried about you.”

Your voice rises in volume. It’s getting harder to keep your anger in control. 

“If Skyhaven’s so dangerous, why won’t you let me go back?”

“Because you can’t. No one goes in or goes out during this lockdown. I’m sorry,” he says. It’s quick and meant to shoot you down. You want to scream, to break something, anything, but you can’t. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’m protecting you.”

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek, irritated at his responses. There’s no point in arguing with him, you realise. Caleb’s stubbornness knows no bounds at times. You take your hand back and look away with an indignant huff. You know you’re acting like a child. Grandma would be disappointed if she saw your state now. But you’re frustrated, you’re anxious, you’re alone and you just want to go home—

“Leave. I don’t wanna see you,” you spit, stubbornly staring at the window. Then, an unknown fear seeps into your veins, causing you to soften just the slightest. “I don’t want us to fight, Caleb.”

“We’re not fighting.” He crouches down in front of you and takes your hand into his before giving it a warm squeeze. “But you have to try and understand me.”

You don’t want to. You don’t want to see his face, don’t want to hear his voice, don’t want anything to do with him. Ignoring him, you get up the chair and return to your room, closing the door behind you with a loud slam. The sound makes you flinch. Unwanted memories slowly fade into the reel of your mind. Aggravated, you lock the door and sit down, pulling your knees close to your chest as your jaw clenches.

You don’t know what you want. A part of you wants him to come in and apologise, to let you do what you want. Another part of you wants him to just leave you alone. But when there’s only silence, you find yourself breaking into sobs again, feeling like you’ve been abandoned. He’s mad at you. He’s going to make you leave and say that he’s just giving you what you wanted. Guilt creeps into your heart as the realisation that you’re doubting him dawns on you. He’s been so kind to you since the little stunt you pulled to get yourself here. He’s letting you walk freely. He’s letting you stay in his home. 

But he’s not listening to you, he’s ignoring you, and it makes you feel as though you’re just a speck of dust in his eyes. Your emotions rage as a tempest in your mind that destroys everything in its wake. A scream of exasperation leaves your lips as you hold your head in your hands, trying to catch your breath. 

I’ll always be by your side.

What a liar. 

3. BARGAINING

It feels as though the sands of time are allowing the particles to fall one at a time into the bottom of the hourglass.

Time is moving slowly, almost as if it’s stuck in place, and hearing the sound of the clock ticking every time you’re ‘home’ is starting to drive you mad. It’s hard not to zero in on Caleb when he is all you have here. You’ve contemplated sending Tara and Zayne some messages to let them know that you’re fine, just staying with a friend. For some odd reason, the messages never get delivered. Assuming your phone’s just broken, you haven’t picked it up since. As a result, there’s not much to do in your free time outside of chores or breaking down, and it’s tearing you apart.

Maybe he’ll rethink his choices if you get hurt on purpose, you think with a bitter grimace. It’s hard to believe that his consideration for you, something you used to adore, now felt like chains holding you down. He might as well have left the collar on your neck. Anger, betrayal, guilt, and shame. Your mind has become a tempest of despondence and pessimism destroying every rational thought in its path. You want to scream and punch the wall. You want to hurt something. You need to destroy something. Your self-control is hanging by a thread and the stubbornness is beginning to feel childish, silly. 

Regrettably, Caleb is right. The Farspace Fleet is still working on cleanup amid this lockdown, not allowing anyone to go in or out. Leaving Skyhaven isn’t an option anymore. You don’t know what you feel anymore, either. You’re stuck here with a curfew whether you like it or not, and your unfamiliarity with the place leaves you at a severe disadvantage. Though you’re not exactly a drinker, your mind wanders to how you’d feel if you were too drunk to think of anything. You don’t care. You don’t know what you want anymore.

Some days, you feel angry at him and think he’s the devil. Some days, you appreciate him and think he’s a gift sent by the heavens. The lack of a middle ground constantly leaves you teetering on the verge of falling on either end. But now—now you feel nothing at all. You’re numb, indifferent, and it perplexes you because you still feel so bad. You think you’re a walking contradiction or a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Caleb has dealt with you for years without a single word of complaint. You’re taking him for granted, says the voice in your head. You need to keep him.

You harshly slap yourself on the face to snap out of it, bringing yourself back to the present.

The skyline glimmers in the distance. Red and white lights speed by on the road and the billboards are as lively as ever. Nightlife enjoyers are undoubtedly in good spirits as they travel from bar to bar. Tara must still be awake watching her favourite show, and Zayne is surely still working late at the hospital. You want to hear their voices and be in their presence even if it’s just for a few minutes. There’s a weight pulling at your heart as your mind wanders to Linkon City. To your real home.

The walls of what you thought was a gorgeous home is starting to remind you of the interrogation room you were in. It feels drab, lifeless. There isn’t much evidence within the home itself that there are people living here in the first place. The little OTTO robot he built for you stays in the corner, lifeless as well. You absentmindedly tap your fingers against the surface of the couch as you stare into the glow of the television. Even the commercials that are meant to be fun and exciting feel fake. The programme continues, returning to the scheduled film of the night. 

It’s late at night and you can’t sleep. You’re up later than you’d usually be. Caleb isn’t home yet, rendering you beyond aware of the fact that you’re home alone, and anxiety lurks around you at every corner. Your pistols rest on the spot beside you as a precaution. With what has been transpiring since you stepped foot in Skyhaven, anything is possible. It’s strange how paranoid you’ve become over the past couple of days. You should feel safe here, you should feel safe with him being the Colonel himself, but you don’t.

“—concerned about you. He said he thinks you might try to kill yourself.”

Your gaze drifts over to the pistols. An image of your blood pooling beneath your head as you lie limp on the ground flashes before your eyes. You imagine how he’d react to your death. Will he care? Will it devastate him? Will he regret how he’s been treating you? Strangely enough, the gruesome thought doesn’t bother you as much as it used to when you were younger. Violence comes with your job as a hunter, even if it’s not inflicted upon humans. Death is no stranger. It’s more familiar than you’d like it to be. You’ve been lured by it a couple of times in your childhood, seen mangled bodies and frozen corpses in your lifetime. 

You’ve gone from craving death to being afraid of it, and yet here you are, contemplating it just like you did when you were fifteen.

Tara used to tell you not to believe your thoughts when it’s dark. You desperately want to, but it feels as though your brain won’t allow it. You’re tired and lonely. You miss home. You grieve for a man that is still alive. A long time has passed—people are constantly changing. He’s not the same man you were eating dinner with at Gran’s house. This is a man who has been through death himself, weighed down by his never-ending burdens and responsibilities, and you sink deeper into your guilt as you realise how unreasonable you’ve been.

You try to separate every thought again. Caleb is protective of you because he’s known you for most of his life and you’re the closest person to him. He put you under strict supervision because he’s worried you’ll be in danger without him to protect you. He treated you like a child, making you feel as though he doesn’t trust you. Your outburst halted everything and is slowly destroying your relationship inside and out. It all feels so monumental, so much bigger than you can handle, and you can’t help but feel defeated.

You have two options: continue this game of who can make the silent treatment last longer, or apologise to him and gain his forgiveness. It eats away at you either way. With apologising, you don’t even know where to begin; he’s never been mad at you nor has he ever raised his voice at you. He always tells you that everything is going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

It’ll pass, is what he would say to you. And I’ll be here with you.

But when you have already destroyed everything with your bare hands, who will be there to rebuild it with you?

You haven’t prayed to a god in years. Prayers and rituals don’t work on you, you think, and so it’s not worth the time or effort. But as your eyes slowly close, you pray to whatever celestial being listens to you—give him back. You’ll never do it again.

4. DEPRESSION

Another day of silence passes and plunges you further into the pool of fear and helplessness.

Caleb hasn’t spoken a word to you. Not once. He still prepares your meals, leaves you notes, but he doesn’t utter a single word. You grow more restless by the minute. He’s angry with you. He’s just too nice to tell you upfront. Anxiety makes you avoid him, afraid of what he’ll do or how he’ll react. He doesn’t stop you from going out anymore, either. You’ve been spending your time outside his home, distracting yourself with whatever activity you can find on the streets. For the first few hours, the newfound freedom made you feel on top of the world, but it didn’t last.

Him stepping back should make you feel happy and relieved. Instead, the claws of despair pull you in closer and closer to its maw. You return home after a day out to complete silence. The floorboards would creak beneath your feet, waiting for someone to break the stillness, only for there to be nothing. When you wake up in the morning, Caleb leaves behind nothing but the remnants of his cologne in the air, small proof that he was home. The smell used to comfort you. Now, it makes you feel lonelier, because it’s not enough.

It feels like you’re losing him in real time. You’ve retreated so far into the corner that you’re fading into the background as the world continues on without you. You see him walking farther and farther away from you, disappearing into the crowd as he leaves you standing in the midst of it all. The thought of him leaving your life gnaws at you, puts you into a spiral of loneliness. You wanted this, didn’t you? For him to leave you alone?

Then why do you feel like you’ve been abandoned?

The stark reminder of his absence claws at your heart. You barely see him at home and it feels like you’re lost at sea, drifting away from the shore with each wave that the ocean carries. Getting out of bed feels like a monumental task. Your limbs feel heavy as if you’re being held back by a ball and chain. And you’re exhausted, even with the hours upon hours of sleeping and locking yourself away in your room, too tired to live. A part of you tells you you’re overreacting. You don’t even remember what had upset you in the first place, but you know one thing—

You don’t want him to go.

Being an adult comes with doing things you don’t want to do or are too afraid to do. This is just one of them. You’ll apologise to him with low expectations so you don’t break your heart, but you’ll fall into euphoria if he forgives you. He’s looking out for you. It’s not his fault. 

It’s yours.

You remember times in your childhood when he’d come get you after school with your favourite popsicle split in half, one for you and one for him. He’d ask about your day and his eyes twinkled with genuine interest as he listened to you go on and on about every detail that happened. The walk back home was always filled with joy. He feels like a distant memory, an echo of the past, and you wonder if he’s the one who changed or if it’s you.

Whoever it is, what was an unbreakable bond had shattered to pieces, and it was all by your own hand.

Self-hatred burns through you. You wish you were different. You wish you weren’t the way you are, so flawed and broken beyond repair. You wish you were like other women, those who are always on top of their game and strong no matter what life throws at them. Without realising it, you’ve already given up on yourself. You’re no longer loved by him; you’re an enemy, a monster, and the thought plagues your being.

The feeling of unworthiness lingers in your chest, a constant ache that wears down the edges of every thought. You remember the person you used to be with him before the explosion. Optimistic, hard-working, hopeful. She feels like a stranger now, like someone you used to know who left your life without saying anything. The weight of it all—the distance, the guilt, the silence—is becoming unbearable. He is slipping out of your grasp, ready to leave you as a memory of the past, and you’re falling further back. He is swimming to the surface while you are sinking deeper into vast nothingness, surrounded by the unknown. 

You wonder what he feels when he looks back at you. Is it pity, or is it resentment?

Or does he hardly feel anything at all?

The door opens, stopping your train of thought. You stagger up to your feet, quietly making your way to the entrance with your hands folded in front of you. Caleb’s eyes meet yours and you falter for a moment, every word you’ve rehearsed in your head going forgotten as time seems to be at a standstill. You muster up a smile, doing a little wave at him.

“Welcome home,” you say, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

He returns with a smile of his own. “Thanks.”

You want to say something, anything, but no words come out; you don’t know where to begin with them. Instead, you stand there and smile awkwardly, completely lost and insecure. Your smile feels fake. You know he knows it is. It’s a façade you’re using to hide the turbulence within you. Caleb’s smile is polite and you want to run into his arms and tell him everything you’ve been feeling. Your heart drops when he looks away from you, ready to leave to attend to his own affairs.

“I’ll just, um, go,” you chuckle nervously. “Sorry, you must be busy. I’ll see you around.” 

Reluctantly, you withdraw and return to your room, shutting the door with a quiet click. Drained, you fall to the ground and bury your face in your hands, frustration oozing off of you in waves. Was that a good sign? Or was he faking his friendliness just to get you off his back? He doesn’t seem angry, but you’ve also never seen him angry. Anxiety harrows you as you stare at the ground, mind racing with what feels like thousands of possibilities. You wish he was easier to read. How can you know someone for so long but know nothing about them at all?

You ball your hands into fists and tremble, tears streaming down your cheeks before you can stop them. You’re falling behind. He’s already on the path to moving on but you’re still stuck in your spot, hopelessly wishing he’d turn back and ask if you want to try again. This fight—the one with him, the one with yourself—feels daunting. You’re but a frail little thing facing off with something grand and monumental. It towers over you, cloaks you in its shadow, emphasising the fact that you are nothing compared to it.

The world is quiet, and as you sit gazing upon your opponent, you start to wonder if this fight was even yours to win at all.

5. ACCEPTANCE

Before you know it, it’s the night before the promised third day.

You were lucky enough to be able to have breakfast with Caleb this morning. It felt tense and awkward, but he still maintained the conversation so effortlessly as if your outburst never happened at all. He left for work with a simple kind smile and told you to stay safe if you do go out. Even while you’re being unreasonable, he still has your best interests at heart, and the fact that your tantrum is lasting this long humiliates you to no end.

You spent the day out at the shopping district. The city was vibrant with the hustle and bustle in its streets and pedestrians. You heard laughter and chatter, joy that was spreading among people and their friends, and you’d never felt more alone. Even in a place swimming with people, you still felt so isolated like you were just a speck of dust. Eventually, your surroundings became white noise, and time went by like a blur. It felt as if someone else was taking control over your body. You numbly went through each stall searching for souvenirs to bring back to your loved ones back in Linkon City, spending away without hesitation. 

When the sun began its descent, you made your way back with several bags of new items in hand. You’d gone over budget, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. For a moment, you were completely fine, free from the crushing weight of the world on your shoulders. Returning to Caleb’s place took away the momentary lightheartedness and replaced it with something devastatingly hollow. You moved on autopilot, stepping into the shower and taking off your makeup, changing into more comfortable clothes. 

When you were done, you sat in the living room and watched whatever was playing on the television, its audio turning into background noise as you drifted away with your musings. Before you knew it, it was dark outside, and Caleb was back home. You parted your lips to say welcome back, but he had entered his room before you could call for him. Awkwardly, you returned to the television and fidgeted with your hands, nervousness entering your system the longer he was gone.

It seems to be a peaceful time for Skyhaven tonight. The media representative of the Farspace Fleet had come out to answer whatever rapid fire question the journalists had. Reassuring every citizen, he had said that the cleanup they’ve been doing is gradually wrapping up, and that the lockdown would be lifted soon. With nothing else to worry about for the time being, officers were allowed to return home early, including the Colonel himself. 

Caleb reappears in his loungewear and stops to look at you, rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. “I’ll make dinner.”

“Okay,” you reply awkwardly, unsure of what to say. It doesn’t take long before he returns to the living room again, heading for the other end of the couch. Not wanting to disturb him, you leave him to his devices and stare ahead into the television, holding yourself back from looking at him repeatedly. It’s unusual for him to be home early, so you’re equally lost, completely clueless on how to function.

You sneak a glance at him. He’s reading a book, his brows furrowed in concentration as he immerses himself in creativity. He looks peaceful, so undisturbed, and you’re still not sure what to do. Even when you’ve been a brat, he still has your best interests at heart, and the fact that your tantrum has lasted for days humiliates you to no end. His consideration of you nearly brings tears to your eyes but you keep yourself together, not wanting to worry him.

You part your lips to speak only to close them again, frantically trying to come up with a coherent sentence in your head. He looks relaxed, so the chances of him reacting aggressively are low. You know he’d never raise his voice at you, but the paranoia hasn’t left you yet; everything you do needs a safety plan. Biting down on your bottom lip, you stare down at your hands before standing up, nervously wringing your hands behind your back.

Mustering up all the courage you have, you speak up, meekly, “I’m sorry.”

He looks up from his book, brows raised as he watches you in what appears to be confusion. You want to run away and hide, but he deserves this. It’s the least you can do.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry for lashing out. For acting up. It’s just… I’m just…”

He smiles softly, getting up from the couch and walking towards you. Bringing you close for a hug, he presses a soft kiss to your temple and squeezes your frame reassuringly. You melt into his touch, a burning sensation spreading in the centre of your face as your bottom lip quivers. You whine and hide your face in his sweater, desperately holding on to him as if he could disappear at any moment. You’ve already lost him once. You won’t lose him again.

You can’t.

“Please don’t leave me.” Your voice trembles as you speak and sniffle in between words. You grab onto the fabric of his sweater tightly, trying to keep yourself grounded. “I didn’t mean it. I won’t do it again—”

He sighs, content, and pulls you closer to him, letting you cry in his arms. His hand rubs soothing circles on your back as he hums a comforting tune, the same one he used to when you had nightmares as a kid.

“Silly girl,” he says, rocking you side to side. “I’m not gonna leave you.”

No one else will ever do it like him. He’s kind. He cares for you. He stays with you even with your volatility and your flaws. The resentment you’d been harbouring towards him douses you in guilt as you latch on to him, basking in his comfort. He’s only doing this because he cares. The disaster in your mind slowly unwinds and the grating voices that had been plaguing you the past week quiets down. 

He gently pulls away and brings his hands up to your cheeks before brushing away your tears with his thumbs, lulling you into a calmer state.

“It’s okay,” he coos. “I promise.”

Finally, you trust him, because he never makes promises he can’t keep.

[incognit0slut]

Lock your door

Spencer Reid x Fem!reader

All y/n wanted was for her coworker to pay attention to her. Spencer was more than happy to oblige. Based on;

cw: 18+ explicit sexual content, oral (f receiving), face sitting

wc: 3,9k (I'm a very descriptive writer you have been warned)

a/n: (reposted because of some error) I’m currently doing an ongoing series but once in a while, I like to write random plots, thus begins another series in which will all be one-shots based on songs i currently enjoy listening to… so yeah, this will be fun.

requests are open if you have a song in mind!

MASTERLIST

“…you better lock your door, and look at me a little more…”

Y/N WASN'T A SENTIMENTAL PERSON, but there was something about the way he looked tonight.

The fluorescent light coming from the hotel room danced across his face, highlighting the sharpness of his jaw. His eyes were in deep concentration as they scanned the document in his hand, his brows furrowed every time he came across something he couldn't comprehend.

Her eyes slowly raked down toward his Adam's apples, moving further across his chest, before they glided along the length of his arm. She couldn't help but notice the mesmerizing way his long fingers trailed along the words underneath his palm.

She always knew Spencer had nice, well-kept hands, but as she continued to observe them, she noticed how enticing they truly were. The size of them always surprised her, as well as the length of his fingers. But it was the veins running through the backs of his hands that really made her dry at the mouth, especially when the sleeves of his button-down shirt were folded above his wrists, showing off firm arms that didn't leave much to her imagination.

How long had she been staring at him? Gawking at him? It was hard to keep her eyes off of him when it was all she had been doing ever since she was introduced to the awkward twenty-four-year-old nerd that he was twelve years ago.

Twelve fucking years.

There should be some kind of reward for pining over your best friend for more than a decade. Y/n should be growing out of this yearning a long time ago yet somehow the more they worked together, the more it became hard for her to act as if every time his fingers innocently touched her skin there wasn’t this immense desire taking over her body, leaving her in a state of being completely swept away by the intensity of it.

Granted, Y/n knew she wasn't the only one attached to this infatuation. Words were never exchanged, although observing and analyzing people's behavior for a job helped her notice the exact same desire reflected in his eyes. She could tell in the way he looked at her, the way his pupils dilated every time he focused on her mouth.

But things between her and Spencer had always been complicated. Her early interest came unnoticed when the person he preferred to ask on a date was another one of their colleagues, and when he grew out of that brief crush and had the courage to finally ask her out, she was already in a relationship.

When that relationship ended begrudgingly and she needed a shoulder to cry on, Spencer's heart was already taken for a mysterious girl he guarded to himself. But that love affair only became a heartbreaking tragedy as it ended before it even began.

It was ever since then that Y/n made a mental note to never indulge her feelings toward one of the closest people in her life. She deemed it inappropriate after everything he'd been through, especially when he made it clear that getting involved with the opposite sex was the very last thing on his mind.

Until something shifted a few days ago.

She wasn't sure what it was. Perhaps it was the traveling into yet another foreign part of the country that made everything seem different, or maybe it was being in close proximity for more than forty-eight hours that had her watching him so earnestly.

But whatever it was, the sudden shift had her looking at the adorable young man he once was into this attractive, irresistible man she viewed as more than a mere friend. A man whose eyes glazed over her mouth this morning yet managed to be oblivious to how she was the one gawking at him now.

Maybe it was time to end their flirtatious dance. Maybe it was time to stop skirting along the what-ifs flowing in her mind. Y/n glanced at the man in front of her, watching the way his back hunched over the table as he buried himself further into deep concentration.

“Spence."

He hummed a soft response, his eyes still trailing the words printed on the document.

"Spencer."

He slightly tilted his head, an indication he was listening but kept himself busy as he continued his reading.

"Dr. Reid."

There was a certain cadence in her voice that sounded oddly pleasing. Spencer reacted to the low timbre of her voice with a glance, his eyes skimming along her leg which rested on top of the other, a glimpse of soft skin teasing his senses as the material of her dress lay softly against her thighs. His eyes snapped back to her face, noticing the lopsided smirk on her lips.

"What is it?"

"Aren't you going to take a break?" Her eyes shot toward the document in his hand. "You've been reading nonstop ever since I got here."

The latter statement was the one that caught his attention. "What's the reason you're here again?"

Y/n wondered whether explaining how she wanted to run her hands through his disheveled hair while he buried his face along her neck would be deemed appropriate. But she had too much pride to admit that. Instead, she uncrossed her legs with a satisfied glint in her eyes as she caught him staring.

She might not want to convey her attraction through words, but carrying out the art of seduction was a very different matter. Temptation had this alluring appeal that drew people in, a certain type of feeling that could often lead a person to do things they usually wouldn't do. And it was what she had in mind as she leaned over the table, the collar of her dress gracefully dropping with her movement, publicly displaying her cleavage.

"I thought you might need company," she simply said. "But I've been sitting here for almost an hour and you haven't engaged me in a conversation."

His eyes flared on the sensual way her breasts were pressed against her clothes before he quickly looked away. "Well, these documents aren't going to read for themselves."

She almost rolled her eyes at his response. "But aren't your eyes tired? Don't you want to take a break?"

He glanced at the stack of papers sitting on his side of the table. "I don't think that would be the wisest thing to do."

"Not even a five-minute break?"

"Especially a five-minute break."

She slumped in her chair as he diverted his attention back to his task, already engrossing himself in another document while ignoring the baffled look on her face. Was she looking at this differently? Was she wrong to think that some untold infatuation lingered between them all these years?

Y/n couldn't help but feel disappointed. Disheartened by the lack of attention, she abruptly stood up and moved along the carpet floor of his room. Her sudden movement caught him by surprise. "Where are you going?"

"Somewhere that might actually appreciate my presence."

She heard him heave out a sigh as he got up from his seat. "You know you're welcome here."

"Am I though?" She taunted, her hand already on the doorknob as she threw him a look over her shoulder. "You barely glanced at me, Spence."

"I was working. You know I need to find any potential evidence from all these files."

A sense of guilt washed over her as she watched him take a tentative step forward. "I know. I just... all I wanted was for you to look at me." Her guilt-ridden concern was replaced by embarrassment when he didn't respond. She quickly shook her head. "You know what? Never mind."

An immense feeling of shame and embarrassment traveled through her body as she turned around. What else was there to do than to flee from his scrutinizing gaze? Her hand gripped the doorknob before she pulled it, ready to fly out the room when a hand suddenly hovered over the edge of the door, softly pushing it back into place.

The sudden silence unnerved her, picking the pace of her heart when she realized she was very much flushed against his body. She could feel herself trembling as her grip slipped off the doorknob. She watched the way his long fingers glided down the hard surface of the door in intense interest.

His rough hand engulfed the lock on the door and she felt his other hand grasp her hair, slightly moving it away for better access to whatever he had in mind. His tone was quiet but undeniably gruff when he mumbled, “It's not that I don't want to look at you, Y/n.”

This was not how she had expected the night would go. Well, maybe it was what she had hoped for, but now that it was actually happening, she completely froze on the spot. She didn't know what to do, the gears in her head were moving to initiate a proper reaction but immediately came to a halt when his other hand banded around her waist as he pressed himself to her back, murmuring into the slope of her shoulders.

"But a five-minute break is not enough for me…”

His breath was hot on her neck.

“…to do..."

Her head lulled back as he pressed a kiss.

"…the things..."

Her skin shivered as he flicked his tongue.

"…I want to do to you."

She watched as he turned the lock back to its place, the sound a distinct echo in the room.

Everything went completely still. The air charged with an electric sense of excitement and nervousness, the type of charge that lead to anticipation. Spencer could feel the erratic pace of his heart as a surge of arousal rippled through his blood. It was definitely not a feeling he was used to, but it was very powerful and overwhelming in its intensity as he swiftly grabbed her arm.

Y/n let out an inaudible gasp when he turned her around, not because of the way her legs were stumbling by the impulsive contact, but by the sudden grip of his hand on her waist, steadying her momentarily in the midst of her trying to register what was happening.

"Spencer," his name a sigh from her lip. A hot spike raced through her body as if she had been struck by some force. Y/n took a shuddering breath, already knowing she would be helpless against the tingling wave he was building within her.

"What happened to your confidence?" He whispered with a coy smile.

She was growing dizzy, overwhelmed with the feeling of him everywhere, with how clear his intentions had become and how much she welcomed them. "I guess you've rendered me speechless."

And then his large hand cupped her whole face, tilting her up. His fingertips felt electric, for wherever they touched her skin tingled in a frenzy of static. She was mesmerized, captured by the spell he had on her.

There was a warm gust of air over her nose as he breathed out, "Are you sure?" His nose gently brushed against hers. "I'll stop if you tell me to."

Her fluttering eyes shot up at him. "Don't you fucking dare."

A satisfied smile curled on his lips as she waited for the moment to come, to explore every inch of his mouth. He finally pressed his parted lips on hers—and true to her imagination, his kiss was divine.

His lips felt soft and her mind went hazy when he started to move them. The push and pull of lips were exhilarating, the lazy mapping of their mouths molding together ascended the desire inside her. She exhaled a moan the moment he nibbled her bottom lip with a gentle brush of his tongue, her body burning with a new sense of need.

He gripped the base of her neck, keeping her locked to his mouth in their exchange of breaths, their tongues grazing, dancing, colliding with one another. And between her breathless moan of pleasure, he was making his own delightful noises, the various groans and growls coming from deep within his chest only made her beg for more.

Spencer slowly pulled away, eyes slamming shut as his forehead met hers, gasping for the much-needed air. "You," he growled under his ragged breath. "Taste better than I imagined."

Her head was spinning. How could he consume her so much? They were practically pressed against each other like hot glue yet she wondered whether there was any possible way to crawl under his skin. It wasn't enough, she craved more. More than his kiss. More than his tongue—she wanted more of him.

Y/n slightly pulled away, her hands skimming along his arms before they grasped onto the bottom hem of her dress, and without warning, she managed to pull the piece of clothing over her head with one swift motion.

Spencer stood there, utterly impressed and furthermore aroused. His eyes raked over her half-naked body with absolute adoration. "I see you've gained your confidence back."

She threw her dress to the floor. "Most of it anyway."

There was nothing more bewitching than her half-naked form, yet he wanted more of her, he needed to have her fully undressed in his arms. Spencer carefully grabbed her hand and guided her further into the room. He slowly dropped himself on the edge of his bed and parted his legs, gently slipping her between them.

"You're beautiful," he murmured, his hands gliding along her skin. "Gorgeous, just absolutely gorgeous."

Her hands skimmed along his shoulders before she ran them through his tousled hair as she stood between the firmness of his legs, enjoying the pure admiration in his eyes. There was something mesmerizing in those hazel orbs, tantalizing her self-confidence as her fingers moved over to the front of her bra, unhooking the clasp before it slipped over her shoulders so effortlessly.

When she was finally free from the confinement of her undergarment, Spencer let out a satisfied sigh, because right in front of him were the most perfect breasts he could ever possibly imagine. His hand danced across her skin, feeling her body tremble underneath his palm as he let a thumb graze over her already hard nipple. The moan she let out was unbelievably exotic and there was nothing else he wanted to do than to hear more of it.

So he let his finger trail down her stomach before he grabbed the edges of her underwear and finally, but oh so slowly, pulled them down her smooth legs. Once they were off, he leisurely observed her nudity, his eyes sweeping over her wet flesh, flushed and swollen, the warmth radiating from her core made every part of him swell. He slowly guided a hand up her leg.

"Spencer," she breathed, clutching onto him even tighter. "Please."

His fingers brushed her inner thigh, so close to where she burned but not close enough for her to feel the satisfaction she desired. "Please what?"

She whimpered desperately. "Touch me."

"And where do you want me to touch you?"

"Everywhere."

What was a man to do when he was asked with such urgency? Such fervor? Spencer looked up at her and smiled, placing a gentle kiss between her breast before motioning her toward the bed. "Lay on your back."

She did as she was told and when she was finally on her back with him pressed to her side, Y/n shuddered at the touch of fabric from his clothes. There was something vulnerable about being the only one naked, yet somehow the roughness grazing her skin merely intensified her arousal.

She inhaled a sharp breath as she was met with a pair of hooded eyes looking down at her with undeniable lust. She felt electricity in her body, hormones shutting down her higher brain, and from there on in it was all passion, intense, intoxicating. He leaned forward, a hand unhesitatingly pushing her locks out of the way to expose her slender neck. His rapid breathing sent shivers down her spine, his lips almost brushing her ear as she closed her eyes.

Spencer trailed small kisses along her jawline, down to her throat, and pressed another kiss on the spot below her ear. She let out a satisfied moan as he sucked the spot leisurely, feeling herself shudder at his touch, sending her into another trance of delight.

She writhed at the electrifying touch of his fingertips and the thread of control that seemed to remain in him snapped as he lunged at her, pressing into her mouth. She gasped at the force and like the man he grew to be, he took that opportunity to slip his tongue, tasting every corner of her mouth. Her taste overwhelmed his senses as he devoured her, hands sliding in her hair, tugging at her, twisting and moving her to his liking.

Her scent was filling his nostrils, her delicate fragrance intoxicating his brain, pulling him even deeper into the spell she was casting on him. His smile was wicked against her lips as his hand engulfed her breast, feeling her shiver underneath him, her breath becoming rapid as she felt his thumb stroking her nipple.

Her aroused nub tightened at his touch, screaming, begging for his utmost attention. He gladly obliged her desire, his mouth trailing down her collarbone, letting his tongue brush along the curve of her breast before his lips hovered above her swollen peak, ravishing it into his mouth.

She arched her back, a moan escaping her lips as the sensation shot through her body, a thrill of arousal pooling in the heat of her core. He pulled away for a moment before ravishing her other peak, gently tugging it with his teeth before sinking in her flesh with the heat of his mouth.

"Beautiful," he murmured to no one but himself as his eyes took in the sight of her naked chest. His tongue flickered out teasingly on her hardening nub before he looked straight into her eyes. "You're so beautiful."

Then his finger continued its teasing brush, gliding along her skin as she writhed uncontrollably, waiting for him to touch the place she desired the most. It was torture. Evil, wicked torture as he leisurely took his time into taunting her that she let out a frustrated sigh.

"Spencer..."

He smiled amusedly, feigning innocence. "What?"

Y/n was never one to beg. Her job taught her to stand her ground and to be resilient whenever she had to face any type of obstacle. But right now, as his touch burned her skin in ways she never thought possible, she really didn't care.

"Baby, please..."

The unexpected term of endearment sent a sensational thrill along his body before a satisfied grin stretched across his lips. "Now how can I say no to that?"

This time when his hand slipped lower, she slowly suck in an anticipatory breath through her teeth that she held until his fingers swiped achingly light over her slit. She let out an audible gasp when she felt the pressure of his fingers over her, teasing her ever so slightly as her eyes rolled at the back of her head. He ran his fingers between her folds, making her flinch at the sensitivity and without warning, without mercy, they plunge into her.

A heavy tide of delight hit her, tension snapping inside. Strong waves emanate from her core, ecstasy racing through every inch of her body as his fingers swelled inside her wetness, moving at a rapid yet lazy pace. Her hips bucked against his fingers, following every movement they made as they stretched inside her, building the most sensational feeling throughout her body.

She closed her eyes, ready to simply enjoy the thrilling pleasure he was bringing to her when he suddenly pulled his fingers out and she whimpered at the loss. He dragged his tongue along his lips before lying on his back, pulling her along with me. "Come here."

She followed him, her legs on either of his side when he motioned her to move forward. "No," he hissed. There was a sudden shyness in his demeanor but his eyes reflected an immense amount of determination. "Sit on my face."

She gaped at him.

Never in a million years did she ever imagine those words to come out from his lips. If anyone told her that Spencer Reid, a certified genius with an IQ of 187, would ask her to sit on his face, she would've laughed. Yet here she was, crawling over him as he proved to her how lewd he could actually be.

Y/n felt the heat creeping along her cheeks as she settled on top of him, but his reassuring smile threw away any doubt she had in mind. He softly kissed her inner thigh before she lowered herself. She gripped the bed frame in front of her while his tongue flickered between her slit, and hooked his arms around her thighs, holding her in place as he devoured her hot flesh like a man starved.

Oh, fuck.

She must have said that out loud as she felt the vibration of his laughter on her skin. She faintly looked down at him and found his eyes boring into hers, watching her intently as he wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked hungrily. The view was making her dizzy. The way his eyes bore into her own as his tongue wrapped around her wetness made her grind her hips, seeking more of the fraction.

He gave a long, languorous stroke with the flat of his tongue and sucked her into his mouth, tugging ever so slightly she could feel the pull in her throbbing clit. Then he spread his mouth wide over that sensitive nub and sucked even harder, a sudden stabbing sensation making her cry in pleasure. Her whimpers and moans grew louder as the coil in her stomach tightened, his tongue moving faster while he felt her clenching around his mouth. 

Y/n could hear how wet she was as he worked her sex relentlessly. The cadence of his tongue was making her delirious. The warm, delicious tingle radiating from his touch was flooding over her that she knew she was approaching the end. His growl rumbled against her wetness as she spasmed, her face a mess of sweat and tears as he lapped up her folds, his tongue sliding into her and pressing on the walls.

And then she shattered—breathlessly, tiredly, heavenly. Her toes curled as she screamed out his name, releasing her grip on the bed frame before burying them in his tousled hair; pulling, grabbing, then throwing herself back as the intensity of the feeling rushed in her blood. She let out a sob as he eased her through her orgasm, rubbing her thighs while they shook around his head.

Her mind went completely blank a few minutes later. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t speak. She merely notice her body shaking with satisfaction as he carefully helped her down, settling her naked body on top of his. The gentle sound of his breathing filled her ears as she felt soothing hands running over her.

They stayed like that, drenched in her sweat with her head on his chest and her legs draped over him. Then after a moment of relishing each other's presence, his deep voice cut through the silence. "You're amazing."

She finally had the will to lift her head up and laughed. "Shouldn't I be the one saying that?"

The indicated compliment made him smile. Silence engulfed them and at that moment it seemed as if there were a lot of things to be said, but somehow neither wanted to initiate the conversation. He pulled her closer and she leaned in his embrace—then his phone rang suddenly before she could even relax.

She groaned. "How much do you want to bet that that's Garcia?"

"Or Hotch." Spencer's hand glided down her back. "We should probably see what they want."

"We should."

But they didn't move and his phone suddenly stopped its chime. Their peace was once again interrupted by another call that came from her phone this time. Y/n let out a sigh. "We should really go."

He nodded, but before she peeled herself off, her eyes cautiously narrowed on him. She could practically feel the blood and adrenaline pumping and coursing through her vein as a rush of hesitation enveloped her. "Can we... finish this later?"

But then her heart brimmed with affection at how his smile lit up, a wide, radiant grin that pierced her skin and traveled straight to her soul. And there he was, underneath the mature lines swept across his handsome face was the adorable man her heart had always ached for.

"Oh, absolutely," he spoke, his fingers trailing over her naked flesh. "We'll definitely finish this later."

[dev-solovey]

Reading up on the history of American Idiot (album) and realizing exactly how revolutionary it was and I just have to yell about it for a hot second

So, before they started working on American Idiot, the band was having problems and they were thinking they were going to break up. But for a couple of reasons, they switched directions, most notably because they all felt strongly about the Iraq War and how it was manufactured by greed and warmongering from the Bush administration, which was amplified by the news media. I read a quote from Billie Joe Armstrong where he talked about how the news media was becoming "more of a reality show" than it was news, and he couldn't have been more right. In fact, that problem got worse, and now we're living in an era of rampant misinformation where everything is politicized to a point where just supporting human rights for marginalized people is considered controversial. The song American Idiot came out in 2004, and when Donald Trump first visited the UK at the beginning of his presidency, it was the top played song on every UK radio station, 12 years after it was released. Most things would be culturally irrelevant at that point.

When creating the album American Idiot, a lot of thought went into it - they had a very specific message in mind, and their goal was to send that message to youth. This is because they realized at some point that their fanbase was a bunch of teenagers, and even though they hadn't necessarily intended it that way, they suddenly had a platform with the youth of America and they decided they ought to do something good with it. The drummer, Tré Cool, said something along the lines of "I've never really liked the idea of preaching to kids, but I realized we don't really have a choice at this point." And I love that so much because like, so many people who get rich and famous just become completely out of touch, and when they get a platform, it's very easy to exploit that platform, influence them with terrible ideas, or encourage them to act in terrible ways for self-serving reasons (ex: JK Rowling, Andrew Tate, Dream, Logan Paul, Onision, etc etc). Green Day refused to allow themselves to get to that point. They know the platform they had gave them power and they made an active choice early on to be responsible with it. And a lot of that moral code comes from the fact that they came up in the DIY punk scene in Oakland, which held its members to a very high standard of ethics, a code that they still follow even after they were disowned by that scene when they signed on with a major record label in 1994.

The song American Idiot has a message of "this mass media hysteria is manufactured bullshit, don't fall for it," and it is not subtle about that message. It punches you right in the face. I remember being 12 years old and listening to it and thinking, "yeah, I don't want to be an American idiot." And now, at the age of 28, I am a staunch leftist who is firmly against the atrocities the US government commits, and I feel strongly about stopping misinformation. So I can say with absolute certainty that they succeeded.

I also get like, really upset when people say that American Idiot is the album where they sold out, because that's objectively not true, both for the reasons I've provided above, and also because of the song Wake Me Up When September Ends. Not a lot of people know the story behind this song, but it's actually a song that Billie Joe wrote about the experience of his dad dying of cancer when he was 10 years old. The story, as he tells it, is that when he came home from school, his mom gave him the news, and being (understandably!) upset, started crying, ran to his room and slammed the door. When she knocked on the door to try and talk to him, he shouted "wake me up when September ends!!" in response. It took him decades to be able to write this song, and it shows because it's the perfect grief song, having been played at benefits for 9/11, hurricane Katrina, and so on. The first time I heard that song it reduced me to tears, because you can hear the intense sadness in it. A "sellout" would never write a song like that!! (Side note: maybe stop tweeting at Green Day to wake up every October 1st, it's super tone deaf given the subject matter,,,)

Anyway, I think I'm done being autistic about Green Day (that's a lie, they'll forever be my special interest), so TL;DR:

Thank you, Green Day, for creating a generation of leftists who aren't about the bullshit

[wordslikesilver]

I’m not sure it’s a well known YA series but I think about this one character relationship in the Fablehaven series a lot. I’m gonna skim as much context as possible for brevity here. Caretaker of a mythical creature sanctuary named Patton Burgess falls in love with a Naiad named Lena and he rows his boat out to the middle of the lake every day for months, years to take time to play his violin for her. Talk to her. Ask her to step out of the water for him. If he leans over the edge, she’ll capsize his boat and drown him. If she steps on land, she’ll turn human. And he’s simply polite and persistent and kind and loving while she mocks him, but eventually becomes warm to him. After a long, long time, she finally steps onto the land for him. It’s a really massive deal, like it’s basically utter taboo for her and she can never go back to her sisters in the water. But she does so willingly, and with love in her heart for him because she decides he’s worth it. They marry, they live well and happily together for decades, he passes away and she becomes a maid to future caretakers (and is generally a huge badass in a ton of other ways, led a very exotic life before the events of the books). Literally the sweetest old woman you’ve ever met in your life. Full of love and tenderness and warmth and everything you would associate with a kindly old maid who’s secretly a badass.

Events happen in the books and the misguided benevolence of the fairy queen has her reward the heroes by “setting everything back the way it was” before all the death and destruction, but it goes too far and changes Lena back into a Naiad too, back to the lake where she dwelled, back to her old ways of caring so very little for humans and their company. Our protagonists plead with her to come back. They beg her to remember their time together and the love she felt and expressed towards them. She laughs them off. She even laughs them off when they ask her to think what her husband would’ve wanted. To think about his violin. They try to play it for her. It could never be the same but they try because they love her. She says she doesn’t care anymore and doesn’t seem the slightest like she doesn’t mean it. She’s happy with her sisters again. Happy once more to drown our protagonists if they lean just a little too far forwards, something utterly unthinkable for her character before this. More plot happens and the situation in the sanctuary becomes so dire that a failsafe triggers and a memory of her husband Patton appears as a clone of himself from when he set the failsafe, ready to fix the dire circumstances as best he can. He learns what happened to his wife, what she’s been forcibly changed back into, how her feelings have seemingly irreversibly been changed back the way they were, and doesn’t even think twice before he calmly and confidently strides forth to the lake. He takes up his violin and rows out on the boat to the middle and politely asks her sisters if he can talk to her. When they decline and tell him she doesn’t care about him, he smiles and begins to play.

The air fills with music. The sisters panic and squabble, telling each other to stop her, that he’s not really there. Seconds after he begins playing, despite all the efforts of her sisters, she leaps from the depths and lands in his arms, changing back to the way she was. No hesitation, not the slightest fleeting doubt before tossing away immortality a second time just to be with him again. It took nothing more than the sound of his playing that she never forgot no matter what to bring her back to land. The memory of the love and happiness between them was simply that powerful that it could move her that way. And reader, that destroys me. Oh it tears me asunder I tell you. Can you imagine her in that moment? Peacefully ignoring all the worries and cries of humans she no longer gives a shit about. She’ll outlive all of them. And then music. Her heart begins to hurt and sing with a song it never forgot and she looks up, up at the sunlit shadow of a boat far above her. A heartbeat passes while she listens, it can’t be him. Even as she’s asking herself is it him, is that the music of the man I loved, she’s swimming. All doubts fade away just moments after she draws the slightest bit closer, she knows the timbre of her husband’s bow against the strings. Her sisters are trying to hold her down, to stop her, to drown her in her promised and now returned immortality and she doesn’t want it. She wants to see him again. All of this happening in less than a minute, mind you. That’s how deeply she missed him, long outliving him after he passed away forever ago. They can’t hold her. Nothing could stop her from reaching him in that moment. It DESTROYS me okay, can you imagine love like that? This memory clone of him was only around for 3 days and she gave up immortality just to have him back for even that long.

My favourite relationship trope will always be “no matter what’s happened to me, no matter what I’ve become, I will always return to you. Your scent on the wind, your voice beneath the din, your eyes in the light will call me back to you forever and always. There is nothing that is mine that I wouldn’t give up for you. There is no spell or drug or threat or lie or promise or heaven in all the world that could ever make me turn from you. I could resist you no more than the apple on the branch could resist your hand. Reach for me and I will tumble into your arms again and again.”

Sometimes I imagine my lover being turned into a dryad and what song I might sing to her to bring her back to me. Gods I’m too sappy for things like this, truly.

[lemon-russ]

True Son of Horus

-holds up frying pan as shield- look, I'm just as much a victim to these sad things as you guys, I wake up with terrible ideas and they just appear on my phone. If I don't share I think I will face 100 years of curses. I don't make the rules (I do make the rules)

It's super short

Taglist: @sleepyfan-blog @undeaddream @scriberye, and thanks for dividers @squishyowl

Horus x F!Reader (Sort of)

CW: Death, Sad, very sad, mentions of blood and wounds, Loss of an adult child

Song: Youth- Glass Animals

Fly Feel your mother at your side Don't you know you got my eyes? I'll make you fly You'll be happy all the time I know you can make it right

Legion mother.

Thats what they'd taken to calling you, once upon a time. Their gene father's wife, their Legion Mother.

Then you'd became a real mother. You'd raised your boy and he became the pride of the Luna Wolves. The apple of his Father's eye. 

You wish you knew then. You would have run. Fought. Cried, screamed, escaped. Oh, you had loved Horus. But if you only knew what he would do.

He stands over the body of his brother, The Great Angel, as his own Father confronts him about his treachery.

You didn't know of course. He didn't tell you anything important. It was always don't fret over it my love. Always placating you, pampering you, hushing you. And you let him, because things were so easy.

You can't hear what Horus is rambling about through the ringing in your ears. Your vision tunnels as you scoot forward on your knees over the hard, textured metal floor of The Vengeful Spirit.

Your shaking hands brush the cold, pale cheek of the boy you made with your own body, so many years ago. Forgotten by his father now, left aside in a pile of other corpses of forgotten sons. But those were Sons of Horus in name only. Gene Sons.

This is The son of Horus. The son of the Legion Mother. Your son. Forgotten, eyes wide and staring at nothing.

With trembling hands you lift his head into your lap. You hear the conflict nearby escalate, but again cannot hear the words. You close your son's eyes. There, he's sleeping now. You can't kill an Astartes afterall. They are strong and fast and heal so quickly. That's how Horus convinced you to let your baby boy be modified at the tender age of 10. He will be strong, invincible, immortal, he'd told you.

Yes, he will heal. He just needed his eyes closed so he can rest and heal. He's sleeping. He's sleeping. He's slee-

You don't realize your lips are moving, repeating the phrase aloud until someone touches your shoulder. You yank away. They want you to abandon your baby boy at a time like this? When he needs to rest on his mothers lap and heal? Just like when he was small and got a flu- something he hadn't had to worry about in decades thanks to his geneseed implant- he use to come to your side and lay in your lap, seeking the healing warmth of his mother's embrace. You'd pet his hair like you did now, murmur lullabies to help him sleep, just like you do now. He's so peaceful. You'll need to get him a bandage for the head wound, it looked like a nasty one, but that is alright, you will mend him just like when he had a scraped knee-

The hand on your shoulder starts pulling harder, tearing you from your sleeping boy. 

Through the echoing ringing of your ears you hear a new sound over the shouting of Horus and his father. A wet, screeching sound like a metal sheet being torn in half, or almost what your old planets tales might call a banshee's wail. It was not good to hear the cry of the banshee, it means someone you know or yourself will die soon. You worry for your sleeping baby boy in the back of your shattering mind.

A hand clasps over your mouth and the wailing muffles. 

"Please, Legion Mother, we have to go now-" and insistent voice urges you. Was that Levi? He's your son's best friend, and a good boy, you've known him nigh most his life. He was a neophyte with your son.

"Levi, he's so tired, we have to take him to his bed-" you say, trying to crawl back to the motionless form.

Levi picks you up, and the banshee starts wailing again in the echos of your ringing ears.

"Legion Mother, enough! We have to leave now-" he damands, clamping a hand back over your mouth as he throws you over his shoulder.

You reach out as your sleeping boy grows farther and farther from you. Distantly you hear shouting, and metal on metal. Levi turns a corner and your son is torn from your eyeline. 

You'd go back.

You'd warn yourself.

You would find the day you sobbed and held the tiny, distinctly human baby in your arms and you'd tell yourself to run. Horus hides things. Horus wanted to make your baby into a wepon. Horus would fight his own father over the corpse of his brother, yards from where his own flesh and blood son lay lifeless sleeping on the cold metal ground of a warship.

Your baby boy. You'd have gone back and told yourself they would take your baby boy, and you'd have to watch. 

[mothiir]

i am foaming at the mouth waiting for more of the aeldari/diplomat fic. the way you write the alien perspective is So! Good!!! please tell me you have more writing/headcanons for the xenos factions, i love those silly space elves and space robots!!

i will be working on my next taleath/diplomat fic soon, but here are some headcanons to tide you over because GW neglects Eldar and half the fandom just boils them down to pointy-eared waifus rather than truly alien creatures, which bugs me. these are all 100% my own invention and based on nothing but my own perception of what would be cool.

Random thoughts on Aeldari culture:

since the vast majority of Craftworld Eldar live lives of carefully curated experience in order to avoid succumbing to their degeneracy of their past, it stands to reason that sex is a Big Deal for them. Romantic relationships between Aeldari can take decades to form — sometimes centuries can pass before a couple so much as hold hands. Even when things are moving relatively swiftly by Aeldari standards, there will be months of meditating beside each other, ensuring that they can stand to be in each other’s presence without losing their grip on their feelings. It’s very common for older Aeldari to serve as chaperones for young would-be lovers; they are tasked with ensuring things do not get too intense. When the pair do have sex, it is often intensely ritualistic. Since Aeldari are so psychically gifted, they need layers of protection and care to ensure they don’t give half their Craftworld a really awkward dream. No one wants to have a vision of their brother getting backshots for the first time.

Exodite Eldar - the ones that ride dinosaurs and haven’t had a lore update since about 2005 - view sex very differently. It is a gift from their mother planet, and meant to be enjoyed. They do not casually procreate, but this is because they believe it is their duty to raise strong children to benefit the collective. Arranged marriages are common, but always done with the consent of the children involved (the children in question are generally about two hundred years old — the Craftworld Aeldari think this is appallingly young). The fertile Aeldari are encouraged to procreate as much as possible, and families of ten or more children are common. Since the Fall, infertility is very common among both males and females, so those that cannot bear their own young will work to raise the young of those who can, freeing them up for more frequent pregnancies (since Aeldari children taken at least three decades to reach what we would consider prepubescence, the help is much needed).

Since Yvraine’s big song and dance about Ynnead, more and more Drukhari are defecting — some directly to Yvraine, some to the Craftworlds. Obviously, there are all sorts of problems with integration — including detoxing from literal soul addiction — but one of the more mundane ones is sexual frustration. Imagine going from shagging every time you feel like it to being told that even looking lustfully at another Eldar is considered a grave breach of protocol. Taleath has spent more time than he will ever admit meditating away a boner.

And the more NSFW stuff:

Yes, they have dicks. They look very human in that respect. Never mention this to them, because they will not appreciate it.

Most Aeldari will tell you that they could never look lustfully upon a human, as this would be equivalent to you looking lustfully upon an ape. You are utterly beneath them — you barely qualify as sentient to them — and sex with you would qualify as bestiality to them.

Most Drukhari will tell you that Craftworld Aeldari are filthy liars with a stick so far up their arse it’s a wonder they manage to get anything done. Yes, humans are totally beneath Aeldari — they’re mewling, miserable creatures with short pathetic lives and nothing to redeem them apart from how delicious they are when they die screaming. Or, even better, fail to die, and just scream and wail for mercy and — wait, what were you asking again?

Basically, Drukhari will fuck humans — not all Drukhari, not all humans, and we are going to have to play fast and loose with the definition of ‘fuck’ because a lot of the stuff that happens in Commoragh defies even my attempts at description.

Aeldari will not, in general, fuck humans. This does not mean that some do not want to. They just cannot acknowledge it without going against the deeply held taboos of their culture. The fact is that they will say it is because humans are disgusting and completely beneath them — which is, from their point of view, largely true — but that is an effective shield against the actual answer, which is deeper and more complicated than anything they really want to admit to outsiders: that the Fall warped every aspect of Aeldari society, including sex. The rituals they have prior to building a relationship, let alone prior to sex, are so intricate and long that a human could well age and die before the Aeldari even feels ready to admit their feelings. It just isn’t worth it.

BONUS: How to Tell If An Aeldari Is Crushing On You

Aeldari are creatures of bizarre mannerisms and a culture so alien that it makes the orcs look familiar. However, here are some signs to watch out for if you think that your Aeldari is harbouring some heretical feelings:

They occasionally refer to you by name instead of ‘Mon-Keigh’. (Note: if they start fondly referring to you as ‘little pet’ or ‘little prey thing’ I would advise reading up on your life insurance policy as this is not an Aeldari, this is a Drukhari, and only the Emperor’s Mercy can help you now)

You keep bumping into them. Normally you will walk into what you thought was a perfectly empty room, only to find them meditating. They will normally sigh, and declare something about not being able to be free of your pestilential species, and make to swan off. If you apologise profusely, they may graciously permit you to join them. This is the Aeldari equivalent of a blow job in church, so be try and be good.

They loudly state how annoying and loud all these humans are. Aeldari do not normally need to say this out loud; it’s a given. If they are saying it, they are trying to remind themselves of the fact they are meant to dislike you.

They mastermind a plot to save you from a minor inconvenience that leaves thousands of your kin dead or dying. They do not understand why you are upset at this. The others are just humans, yes? You are their human. That is the difference. (Contrary to what you might think, this is not a purely Drukhari trait. This is something all types of Aeldari will do. The only difference is that a Drukhari will try and fuck you after doing it, possibly as you cry out of guilt, and an Aeldari will try to hold you hand, which is their version of fucking)

[marveladdictjones]

spencer reid - meddle about

thats all <3

Meddle About

pairing: Spencer Reid x Hotchner!fem!reader warnings/tags: canon divergent ages (just pretend spencer is old enough to be about a decade younger than hotch, alright? We aren't doing any age gaps here), explicit? like smut-ish, alluding to smth steamy (idfk I'm not good at shit like this, alright?), cursing, pov change after the special divider summary: Hotch's younger cousin comes to visit, only not just for him a/n: first of all, absolutely love that song. Second of all, I have to admit that my motivation was very lacking while writing this and it feels like a total flop, but here you go, hope you like it wc: 0.6k

You were seated in the lobby of the BAU, reading a book as you waited on Aaron to pick you up.

Despite the age gap of nearly a decade between the two of you, you had managed to maintain one of those rare bonds ever since you were young. Now that you had moved to DC for work, having this connection had come in useful.

The door opens, but when you look up from your book, Derek and Spencer walk out instead.

"Oh hi, guys," You say as you stand up and walk over to them, your gaze staying on Spencer for a little longer than needed.

"Hey Y/n, it's been a while since you were here," Derek remarks as he pulls you into a hug.

"Yeah, I know," You respond, stepping out of his embrace after a few moments. "How have you guys been, aside from all the catching bad guys?"

"Oh, you know, been doing just fine," Spencer answers, his eyes not leaving yours for a second. "So, what brings you back in town?"

"Got a job not that far from here," You say, "And until I can find a place of my own, Aaron kindly offered to let me stay with him."

At that moment, Aaron walked through the door. "Ah, you're already here. Ready to go?"

As you nod, Derek quips, "You know, if you ever need to get away from your cousin, you know who can call."

"Yeah, Penelope," You quip back, flashing him a smirk before walking off with Aaron. You look back once more, shooting Spencer a glance just for him to understand, then turn back again.

As you look back once more, Spencer can read the message in your gaze.

Meet me at midnight.

You were rarely in DC, and when you were, you were his. Spencer rarely got possessive, but ever since one faithful night a few years ago, it was safe to say he had become besotted with you.

Every time you were in town, the two of you had met up late at night, spending your time with solely each other for as long as you could. There were times where either one of you had wanted to come forward and just tell the others, but you came to the same conclusion every time:

It would only make things more difficult.

Yet when midnight rolls around, Spencer sits in his car with the headlights off, softly smiling when he sees you sneak out of the house.

"Hey-" is all you manage to get out before your words get muffled by the feeling of his lips against yours. As if by instinct, your hands move up into his hair as they softly thread through the strands.

Breaking away for air, Spencer looks at you as if you're the only thing on his mind. "Don't you ever stay away that long again," He whispers breathlessly against your lips.

"I take it you missed me then?" You respond teasingly, unable to repress a light smirk from forming on your lips.

Spencer lightly groans, pulling you in for another kiss, this time a little deeper. "You've already got me down on my knees," He says, his breath still heavy, "No need to be such a fucking tease."

As if to give you a taste of your own medicine, he pulls away and starts driving. Although he keeps his eyes on the road and doesn't exchange a word, his fingers draw slow circles on your thigh.

When he can feel you looking at him, he simply smirks. "Save it for when we get back to my house."

© This work belongs to @marveladdictjones, please do not copy this work to any other site or claim it as your own. Reblogs are allowed and appreciated!

Taglist: @unofficialxmarvelfreak (to join the taglist, simply leave a comment or message me!)

[skyburger]

forgot people really truly genuinely dont like the music on the radio in the early 2010s Wait. Ohmy god hang on i was looking up the top 100 so i could look at them across the years and the default is obviously the current top 100 and i need to stress out of the top ONE HUNDRED songs. about a THIRD are taylor swift songs (32/100). only two of these are below the top 50 (51 & 55, so. barely.) Thirty Fucking Taylor Swift Songs are in the billboard top 50. all of the top 10 are taylor fucking swift. doesnt even matter what i was gonna say because literally any other variety of stuff being in the top 100 is better than literally a third of it being taylor swift

^^^ do you understand why i put this in a reblog. diehard swifties are scary

holdon i have to put a ramble in the reblogs of this so peopledont find me in the tags (will make sense when i reblog)

[onmyo-jin]

ZYZ + ZYC (49. …out of necessity)

(asexual-ZYC attempts to make an advance on ZYC, out of what he feels is necessity, hurt/comfort ensues ♥️)

I cannot tell you how much joy this prompt gave me, thank you so much! It took a while to get this story down the way I wanted to, I hope you enjoy 🖤🩶🤍💜

Zhuo Yichen isn't blind. He has long since seen the eyes Zhao Yuanzhou makes at him when he thinks Yichen isn't watching, or even when he is. He has heard the flirtations (the same as directed an Wen Xiao), has heard Yinglong say zhiji, he has noticed the others giving them space to be alone, creating chances for him to confess. 

It's not that he doesn't like Zhao Yuanzhou. Most of the time the demon is sharper, funnier, more interesting, more true to his own nature than anyone Zhuo Yichen has ever seen. He wants to spend time with the demon, he wants to be the one sitting next to him, wants to feel as comfortable around the other as his friends seem to be– as Wen Xiao seems to be, despite the demon's endless stream of flirty comments.

Except…

Love is a confusing thing, to Zhuo Yichen. He loves (present tense, always present tense) his brother, his father, loves his friends. Only that doesn't seem to be the kind of love that makes people do ridiculous things. The kind of love that makes young people foolish and old people feel young, the kind of love that inspires so much art and poetry and song– This kind of love is not something Zhuo Yichen feels. Well, that or he is the most sensible person the world has ever seen.

Regardless, he likes Zhao Yuanzhou. In a way that feels different to the way he cares about his family and friends, he really likes that annoying demon. And the demon seems interested in him. So according to all the great stories, the songs, the poems (he has done his research, thank you very much), if two people like each other then they kiss. And that's how you're sure that it is love, and not just like.

And that's how he ended up here, waiting for everyone else to retire after their dinner on the veranda, hoping Zhao Yuanzhou doesn't go to bed before the others do. It is late, and they've already collectively bullied Bai Jiu into going to bed, with placations and lies that they too are about to sleep. Pei-daren may even have been telling the truth, for she retired soon after. Ying Lei is still talking, going on about this divine feast he was invited to some decades ago and about how he wants to recreate a specific dish. Wen Xiao knows him better than anyone, and winked at him when she left, claiming she had some more studying to do.

Zhao Yuanzhou has been eyeing him all evening, and Zhuo Yichen has never before had cause to wonder if this is what a piece of fruit on a market stall might feel like. He's not sure he likes the feeling of waiting to be picked, of being judged, or perhaps of being assumed to be something delicious– anyway. 

Ying Lei yawns halfway through his meandering description of herbs he'd need to grow, and stands from the table. "I'm heading to bed as well, you two night owls behave yourself!"

"What do you-"

"We always do," Zhao Yuanzhou answers over Zhuo Yichen. The mountain god snorts and shakes his head as if they were children and not an ancient demon and a human more responsible than their little runaway god himself.

With Ying Lei gone this would be the perfect time to make his move. The only thing he needs to do is to turn to Da Yao and… kiss. Just kiss him. Somehow the songs and the stories failed to mention how hard that next step would be. Zhuo Yichen stares at his tea cup, and finds himself wishing for something stronger. The tea stares back at him, growing cold in accusation of his inaction. The silence loudly proclaims his failure to act, the night sky moving inexorably on to morning.

"Zhuo-daren?" Zhao Yuanzhou's questions startles him, and he turns to the demon. "You've been preoccupied all evening, am I really so very distracting?" He knows the smirk the demon will be wearing before he even turns to look at him. When he does it is hard to look away from those lips.

"No," the lie is painfully obvious to Zhuo Yichen, and of course the demon notices too. For the first time Zhuo Yichen can say he is grateful for the fact that Zhao Yuanzhou is such a flirt.

"Did you know demons can sense lies, Xiao Zhuo-daren? Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind-"

"-Can I kiss you?" The words are out of his mouth before he knows it, and he cringes at how silly, how earnest, how innocent he sounds. His cheeks are burning, and he'd give anything to be elsewhere right now. Perhaps the earth can open up to swallow him, perhaps enemies can beset the capital, hordes of demons attack the Bureau, absolutely anything… Anything would be better than sitting under the stars by the light of a few candles as Zhao Yuanzhou stares at him.

Surprise is the first emotion that flashes across Da Yao's face, but amusement follows it swiftly enough. Close behind it is a hunger Zhuo Yichen doesn't have a name for. Is that what love is, or even lust? A hunger? It seems strange, but Yichen doesn't have the time to think about that now. The silence stretches too long, and Zhuo Yichen is about to start making excuses, blame the food, the time of night, even an imaginary fever or poison.

Then the demon is moving, swift as a blade, and Zhuo Yichen almost tries to block and evade until he realizes: he asked for this. Zhao Yuanzhou lunges for him like he is attacking, but grabs him as soft as one would hold a flower, one hand snaking around his waist and the other around his neck. His lips meet Yichen's in a soft greeting, asking without words to touch him and yet being so much more eloquent about it. It's… strange. People do this for fun?

The lips against his own are warm, and while not unpleasant it's a little weird. People use their mouths for eating, and talking, and breathing– and then they also want to touch their mouths together? For extended periods of time? It isn't bad, per se, and Yichen is no poet or artist, but this does not seem like something that inspires such great art.

"Xiao Zhuo?" Oh gods. He's been thinking too much, and Zhao Yuanzhou has noticed while kissing him that he… doesn't care for kissing, apparently. "What's wrong?"

How does one explain to the person you just asked to kiss you that no, thank you for the scientific experiment, I'm not actually interested in doing that. In hindsight Zhuo Yichen realizes how awful his question was. He got the demon's hopes up over nothing, only to disappoint him. Li Lun's words about humanity's cruelty echo in his mind. Zhao Yuanzhou's eyes are searching his face, increasingly concerned with his lack of answer. He is still holding Zhuo Yichen ever so gently, their faces still close enough to feel the demon's breath ghost across his skin.

Zhuo Yichen shrinks back, breaking that gentle hold, trying to hide himself from those kind, concerned eyes. "I'm sorry."

Da Yao reaches for him, this time slowly instead of knife-fast, and lays a careful hand on his arm. The weight of it settles with the weight of a thousand expectations and Zhuo Yichen stares at it like it is something fearful. Whatever Zhao Yuanzhou reads in his gaze makes him retract his hand quick as lightning.

"I'm sorry," Zhuo Yichen repeats. He might be apologizing for either of his actions, or both, or for even waking up and thinking this was a good idea. He's honestly not sure which one it is. Perhaps running away like Ying Lei did is not such a ridiculous action after all. Especially because the ground isn't obligingly opening up and swallowing him whole. He focuses his attention on his abandoned tea cup, because he can feel Zhao Yuanzhou's eyes searching his face.

"I'm not sorry," the demon announces, and it's such a weird thing to say that it makes Zhuo Yichen look back into those dark eyes. "I got to kiss my favourite human, so whatever it is that you've done: I don't mind." His smile is entirely cheerful mischief and is such a 180 from moments before that Zhuo Yichen knows he is acting, and reacts accordingly to roll his eyes.

"There, that's the infamous Zhuo-daren I know," Zhao Yuanzhou drops part of the mischief-mask, but keeps his smile. He returns to his own seat instead of being so terribly close, and waits patiently for Yichen to sit upright and collect his thoughts. "Now, if Zhuo-daren would tell this lowly demon what he has done wrong, perhaps this one can forgive him, hm?" He makes it sound so easy, Zhuo Yichen thinks. He makes it sound so tempting, as well: forgiveness. 

Zhuo Yichen stares at the demon for a long moment before deciding to put away his pride. It's the least he can do for leading the demon on like that. "I… have never kissed anyone," he begins, and resolutely looks away from the smirk Zhao Yuanzhou lips curl into at those words. "All the stories say people kiss, but I've never understood why? It just… has never seemed interesting." 

"And it was interesting enough to ask now?"

"I wasn't sure– so I thought I should check, because kissing seems to be how people tell if they…"

"If they like one another?" Zhao Yuanzhou completes the words that Zhuo Yichen cannot make himself say.

"Yes," he admits, looking firmly at the table.

Laughter is probably the last reaction Zhuo Yichen expected, but Zhao Yuanzhou is laughing. "Ah, Xiao Zhuo, I have good news: there are many more ways to tell a person you like them besides kissing."

When the demon says it it sounds so simple, so obvious. Zhuo Yichen wonders why he hadn't thought of that, why the stories are so full of kissing if there are other ways to show love. Still, he feels the need to check: "You don't mind?"

"Mind? That I was given your first and last kiss? Why, Zhuo-daren I am honoured-oof," Zhuo Yichen punches him in the shoulder for that, but stays to wait while Zhao Yuanzhou gets them the wine he offered earlier. They've got much more to talk about.

[matrixbearer2024]

Suffering

Are you really even living? Or simply surviving doctor? When had immortality turned from a blessing into a curse? More importantly, did you really even care? Or did you only care because you're now all alone?

AKA; Ford internalizing now that he's alone and invulnerable to the sands of time. The same can't be totally said for his mental state though. After all, he's only human.

Songfic based on "Suffering" by Amelie Farren written for my Time Lord Twins AU!

I'm very delulu for my AU- so have a sneak peek into Doc's future with this song fic I wrote. I have three distinct moments for Stanford as the Doctor in my timelord twins AU:

the Doctor that neglects — when he was young and was only a Doctor thanks to his PhDs

the Doctor that regrets — present, where I normally create content for him and where his blog and RP are currently situated

the Doctor that forgets — the far flung future where he outlives everybody and completely embraces being a time lord

I'll be tagging these posts accordingly, but I'd love to talk about his lore much more if you guys are interested!

The sun had long dipped below the edge of the cosmos, surrendering to the sea of stars that now spilled across the boundless sky. Within the TARDIS, Stanford stood against the vast backdrop of that eternal night, the hum of the ship's machinery a constant, soothing drone beneath the cacophony of his thoughts. The silver pill case in his hand reflected the light of a nearby console, gleaming with a sterile brightness that made his skin crawl. He turned it over between his fingers, contemplating the small white tablets that represented his fragile tether to equilibrium.

  I've thrown aside my worries, but the cares they bite me back. I'm taking twenty vitamins a day, for the iron I lack.

  Stanford grimaced, the corners of his lips pulling downward as the familiar bitterness welled up in his throat. He tilted his head back and swallowed the pills dry, feeling them scrape down his throat as if rebelling against their purpose. Sustenance without substance, that was his life now. He no longer needed food to keep going, no longer needed the simple pleasures of living— he only indulged when he could remember to, when the aching loneliness hadn’t numbed his senses entirely.

  I don't need food I don't need sleep, don't tell me that I'm wrong! I don't know what I'm doing— But can you please just play along?

  The first decade had clawed at him with relentless, gnawing grief. Each year afterward seemed to find a new way to hollow him out, chiseling deeper into the marrow of his being until there was nothing left but the echo of old anguish. He would lie awake in the captain’s chair or pace the TARDIS halls, every footfall a metronome counting out regrets. Days would bleed into each other, a palette of shadows smearing over any sense of time. He’d stopped counting birthdays after the 200th, the last one he’d shared with Stanley.

  Why count when the numbers stretched toward an infinity he wanted nothing to do with?

  My head is made of flowers, and my body made of steel. Cause I can't think— Can't hear— can't feel!

  Stanford’s fingers flexed, muscles tightening and releasing as if testing the reality of their presence. The memories surged forward like a wave, unstoppable and suffocating— hands covered in grime and ash, eyes stinging from the smoke that rose like specters around him, the taste of iron sharp on his tongue. He had touched the stars, commanded them, until they burned him to cinders. His mind was an overgrown thicket now, vines of regret and bitterness weaving through every synapse, thorned reminders of a past he could neither escape nor amend.

  When he closed his eyes, he could see them— faces etched into the void, voices calling out in anguish as they fell. Each step, each choice, stained his path with crimson guilt. He felt like a monument to grief, immovable and ever-decaying.

  They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but I disagree. I can't imagine anything Cause I can't see!

  The doctor let out a breath that shuddered its way past his chest, eyes straying to the holographic stars projected across the TARDIS library. What he once chased with fervor and ambition had turned into an unyielding prison. The titles of “healer” and “teacher”, which once filled him with pride, now felt like weights dragging him deeper into the abyss. What good was saving worlds when he couldn’t save his own heart from splintering?

  I won't break the ice though what else Is there to do? Cause suffering in silence is better—

  He could scream, tear at the walls and curse the very fabric of the universe, but he didn’t. The tears had dried up centuries ago, leaving him a stoic effigy among the whirring consoles and glowing monitors. The charade was familiar— a smile that never reached his eyes, words measured and wrapped in carefully crafted ease. He was an actor in the greatest tragedy ever told, where the curtains never fell.

  Than suffering with you.

  The doctor’s gaze dropped to the leather-bound journal resting on the armrest of his chair, untouched for days. The pages within held maps of stars, sketches of constellations, and annotations written with a frantic hand, desperate to capture even a fragment of meaning. The room around him felt cavernous, echoing with memories of Dipper’s quick wit and Mabel’s bright laughter. He could almost hear them, almost see their shadows darting between bookshelves.

  But it was only him, just him, marooned in this endless stretch of time.

  So I jumped out with a parachute, but the ground caught me off guard. Karma for the rules I break, the ones I disregard.

  The temptation to go back, to step through rifts that bent reality and visit those moments, was irresistible. He’d done it before, left the TARDIS hidden among the trees and traced the familiar paths of Gravity Falls with trembling steps. His heart would clench as he watched past versions of himself and his twin squabble over nonsense, the cheery voices of his grand niece and nephew not long to join. Their voices carrying over the wind with the kind of ease that only came before everything shattered.

  I can feel the tension rising. What fate is worse than this? Stuck between the ones I love—

  He’d watch them, hidden in the shadows of his own memories, a ghost to a life he once lived. Cosmic rules be damned. He’d listen to the echoes of their laughter until it felt like it would break him, that painful, beautiful sound that underscored just how far he’d fallen. But even then, he would not dare approach, would not dare alter a single second.

  And the ones I miss.

  Stanford’s eyes shifted to the flickering flames of the library’s fireplace, its light casting restless, dancing shadows across the room. The orange glow did little to warm the chill embedded in his bones. How many Fords, across how many dimensions, would have craved this? A sanctuary lined with knowledge and power, the respect of entire galaxies balanced on a single whispered name— ‘Doctor.’ And yet, it was all as hollow as the space between the stars.

  My head is made of shrubbery, and my body made of stone. Cause I can't for the life of me— reap what I have sown!

  He tightened his hold on the armrest, the leather creaking under his grip. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It never should have come to this— sailing across time, trapped in a machine that hummed with its own form of loneliness, while he wore a mask that no one ever questioned. It felt like being both the sculptor and the statue, shaping and trapped by the life he’d carved out.

  They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but I disagree. I can't imagine anything, 'cause I can't see!

  The weight of immortality, once so alluring, now coiled around him like iron shackles. What did it matter if entire legions paused at the utterance of his name? What did it matter if beings far beyond human comprehension flinched at the sight of him? It meant nothing without the echoes of laughter, without the warmth of shared stories and the unspoken understanding of his family’s presence beside him.

  I won't break the ice though what else Is there to do? 'Cause suffering in silence is better—

  He filled the silence with companions, short-lived stars that burned bright and fizzled out too quickly. They were there, and then they weren’t. Time was relentless, wearing them down to memories while he stood unchanged. Each one chipped away at him, left him a little more hollow. His only true constant was Stanley, and even he didn’t know the full story. Ford wouldn’t let him, couldn’t let him see that far into the dark.

  Than suffering with you.

  The TARDIS thrummed, a soft, sympathetic sound that vibrated through his bones as if it, too, mourned the lives they’d shared and lost. Ford exhaled, the heaviness in his chest pressing down like a stone. He could carry this, he would carry this— because if there was one thing he’d learned in all these centuries, it was that some battles are never meant to be shared. Some wars are fought in silence, against an enemy that wore your face in the mirror.

  And if the burden grew too heavy, well— he was the Doctor. He would bear it alone.

  He had to.

  I try to sink and never float.

  Some days, the weight was manageable, a familiar companion that settled over him like a well-worn cloak. But tonight, the burden felt insurmountable, pressing against his chest until each breath tasted sharp, like the metallic tang of blood from battles fought too long ago to matter and yet too vivid to forget.

  Stanford’s eyes turned to the viewport, where the stars blinked back at him with their indifferent light. Once, those points of light had been symbols of promise, of adventure and uncharted paths. Now they were cold eyes watching as he drifted— an eternal voyager, bound by his own choices and the mistakes that clung to him like barnacles on a shipwreck.

  Cause my head is underwater.

  The doctor’s fingers found the edge of his sleeve, gripping it tight as though it could anchor him. The silence roared in his ears, the kind that made old wounds ache with the sharpness of fresh cuts. Memories of splintered wood and that familiar bite of ozone filled his senses. The frantic fight, the blinding light, the hole that had torn through his chest— a wound that should have marked the end. He let out a shuddering breath, feeling phantom pain coil around him like a serpent.

  I’m here by choice by my own hand.

  The most damning part was knowing that every fracture, every scar, was carved by his own hand. He’d walked into the chaos willingly, driven by an insatiable need to prove something— to whom, he couldn’t even remember anymore. A need that had led him to make choices that, at best, haunted him and, at worst, had cost him everything.

  I’m a lamb sent into slaughter.

  He ran a hand through his hair, disheveling the silver strands that had once been a youthful umber. The weight in his chest grew heavier, spreading through his limbs. He remembered the moment he’d sealed his fate with a handshake and a grin, signing away pieces of himself to a demon who promised everything and gave nothing but ruin. Even now, the jeers of that one-eyed triangle haunted the corners of his vision, mocking him with every beat of his undying heart.

  I’m aware of my own body.

  Every nerve ending screamed in protest as memories flared to life. The repair box’s nanobots— an endless legion that buzzed beneath his skin— worked tirelessly, a ceaseless reminder that he wasn’t wholly his own anymore. Some days, he could almost feel them moving, an itch he could never scratch. His hands curled into fists, knuckles turning white as he resisted the impulse to claw at the sensation, to rip it out and make it stop.

  I can feel beneath my skin.

  But he didn’t. He never did. The discipline of centuries held him captive, a slave to his own stoic facade. He swallowed hard, letting the tension dissipate as much as it ever could, settling like sediment at the bottom of his soul. The fire’s light flickered over his features, casting deep shadows that made his face look carved from stone.

  I can wash away my insecurities.

  He stood abruptly, the sudden motion sending a wave of dizziness through him. The doctor steadied himself against the back of the chair, eyes closing as he drew in a breath. The act was as much a ritual as any he performed— a way to wash the fractures of his spirit, to convince himself that he was still whole. But deep down, he knew.

  But can’t wash away my sin!

  No amount of time, no act of heroism, could ever cleanse the burgundy that stained his hands. It was a truth that gnawed at him, a constant shadow that whispered during his moments of quiet. He turned toward the shelves, running a finger over the spine of a book he’d read a hundred times but never truly absorbed. Knowledge without purpose— just like him.

  They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but I disagree! I can’t imagine anything—

  The holographic stars in the library blinked and swirled, shifting constellations that once spoke of wonder and exploration. Now, they were a cruel reminder of all the places he’d been, all the faces he’d left behind. He raised a fist, hesitated, then let it fall to his side. He couldn’t even find the anger to break the illusion.

  Cause I can’t see!

  His vision blurred, not with tears— those had dried up long ago— but with the weight of exhaustion that pressed down on him like a vice. Every accolade, every whispered praise, fell flat, their meaning washed away by the tides of time and repetition. The applause of civilizations felt no different than the hollow sound of silence.

  I won’t break the ice though what else Is there to do?

  The cold chill crept into his veins, a familiar companion that had shared his endless nights. Yet, he dared not crack the veneer he’d cultivated— that smile, that reassuring nod. It was a mask, as impenetrable as the TARDIS walls. To break it would mean shattering the delicate balance that kept him standing.

  Cause suffering in silence is better—

  Stanford’s fingers brushed against the journal again, the touch almost reverent, as if it held the answers he’d long given up searching for. The one story he couldn’t write was his own— each word caught in the tangle of what-ifs and could-have-beens that ensnared his mind.

  Than suffering with you!

  He swallowed back the ache, pushing it down to the depths where it simmered and seethed. To bear it alone was better; it was safer. The doctor would stand, resolute and silent, a guardian of time burdened by its cruelest truths.

  And as the night deepened, the stars outside continued their silent vigil, unmoved by the man who carried the weight of universes in his lonely fractured heart.

Tell me what you think about these two! I've got more drabbles in store for them aside from the content already on both their blogs @gftimelord & @gftimelordstwin! Also posted here on Ao3!

[izzysillyhandsy]

Ed-and-Izzy-related stuff that stood out for me in episodes 6 and 7:

Their quiet familiarity and mutual fondness

The main thing I wanted from S2 regarding Ed and Izzy was at least a hint of a mutual, loving relationship between the two of them in the past. The way Izzy acted around Ed in S1 made no sense to me if there wasn't a strong, very old, tried and tested bond there. Equally, Ed's behaviour around Izzy, the familiar way he called him Iz, the exasperated way he reacted to Izzy's izzyness, showed (for me) a closeness of decades living together.

Izzy's "You know me better than anyone has ever known me, and I daresay the same is true for me about you" is the truth, in my opinion. It's about the little things, all the experiences they've had together, sharing a space, food, drink (how natural did it feel when Ed took Izzy's bottle?). Everyone who's had a close friend for decades knows how that feels.

Yes, there are aspects of Ed that Stede gets and Izzy doesn't. But I always had the feeling that Ed feels like home for Izzy and vice versa. This feeling was just very well hidden in S1 because of Izzy's confusion, jealousy and resentment.

(Of course, Izzy is also in love with Ed and Ed, as of S1, isn't. But the (platonic) love, friendship and fondness underlying everything is tangible.)

2. Together, they've got this "us against the world" vibe

One of my favourite headcanons is young Ed and Iz mutinying together, or deciding to kill someone who made their lives hell (with Iz doing the actual killing, obviously). Both learning to fight and to survive in a cruel world together.

I'm not saying this was in any way confirmed or anything (flashback scene, I'm still waiting), but the scene above with Ed looking out at the sea, Izzy who can't take his eyes off him... they seem so attuned to each other. "Where you go, I'll follow."

I know this isn't the most coherent analysis, I'm struggling to describe the feeling I got when watching this scene.

It was like yes, they've fought their way up together. Even after everything that happened, put them next to each other on a ship and they just fit. If they wanted to, they could do anything.

(In a way, it's such a pity Ed doesn't want to be a pirate anymore, at least not a scary Blackbeardy one. Those two have a look going.)

3. Izzy and Ed both connect Izzy's love declaration to Ed shooting him

"You know what he did when I told him I loved him?" "He shot me." "He shot you, yeah." "I know."

This is not 100% clear cut, but to me Izzy's delivery very strongly infers that Izzy didn't know Stede knew (and didn't tell him).

Which means that ED TOLD STEDE.

If that's the case, then

Izzy, at some point, realized that Ed shooting him wasn't (all) about him reminding Ed of Stede

Izzy has a better grasp on Ed's inner struggles than previously assumed

Izzy and Ed both see this declaration as important enough that Ed would permanently injure and eventually kill Izzy for it and Izzy and Stede are both like "yeah, figures"

Ed himself knows and admits that him shooting Izzy was about Izzy (still) loving him in that moment

I mean, I'm still shocked about that.

There were a lot of great metas about Ed's motivations after Ep2 came out, and some of them suggested exactly this: that Ed wanted to be an unloveable monster, that this was the only way he could deal with what he'd done, and Izzy's love was standing in the way of his grand self-destruction.

I wasn't prepared for Izzy, Stede and probably Ed being concious of that and kinda offhandedly acknowledging it in the show?

And even if it wasn't Ed but Izzy who told Stede (which I don't believe, but it's possible) - it's still crazy.

Izzy matter-of-factly telling Stede "Yeah, Ed shot me because I told him I loved him" and Stede being like "Yeah, of course, that's our Ed <3" is mind-blowing to me.

4. Izzy's love song

The lyrics at this exact moment:

Il me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie. - He told me, he swore to me, for life.

He really means it. They're married. I rest my case.

5. The first kill's always a mindfuck

So, I have this persistent obsession about Izzy being Ed's personal henchman, and Ed "outsourcing the big job" Teach resenting him for it.

In that respect, Ed's reaction to Stede's first kill was very interesting.

It probably wasn't like that in the beginning, but Ed seems to be a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to violence. Izzy is irrevocably tainted, but I think he wants to keep Stede "pure" (he didn't mind when Stede torched the ship, but that's the hypocrisy in action).

This is of course totally my headcanon, but I think Izzy's first kill was significant. I think Iz did it for Ed. And I think it was very difficult for him (either because Izzy-the-artsy-outsider was actually quite sensitive and nowhere near a bloodthirsty killer and/or because he cared about the person he killed). But Ed was so impressed, and so thankful, so he just carried on doing Ed's dirty work and it changed him forever :(

6. Ed's apology

This whole scene.

Scowly face. Mopey twat. Oh, look, you're talking to me again.

The way they're saying it, Izzy's expressions, their body language - it feels so incredibly intimate. From this exchange alone I would bet they were lovers at some point.

Iz bringing the bottle as a cover and excuse and Ed understanding and playing along.

Ed's "Sorryboutyourleg" being the exact opposite of his public "apology".

I almost cried (like Iz) 😢

CONCLUSION: Why is there only one episode left I need more of this!!!

Also: IZZY LIVES <3

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #47 – City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This book was recommended to me by a few different people, and in any case I am generally a pretty big Tchaikovsky fan. So of course I’m only getting around to reading it now, however many months later. Having put it off so long for no good reason at all, I can say that the book is in fact very good. Not Tchaikovsky’s best work (that’s still Children of Time in a walk), but a good read and one that left me curious (if not exactly excited) about checking out the sequel.

The story takes place in Illmar, the eponymous City of Last Chances – scarred and oppressed, tyrannized by cursed dukes and conquering imperialists, built upon a dangerous and unreliable route to other worlds and forever attracting the sort of people with no better options available to them. While the book has any number of characters, it’s really the city itself that is the star of the story – a story of how the theft of an imperial magistrate’s ward before he makes an experimental voyage through the gateway in the woods leads to a whole series of byzantine intrigues and bloody misadventures, culminating in an abortive revolution against the Pallseen who occupy and rule them. Which in one sense is an absolutely massive spoiler and in another just feels like stating an inevitability that was obvious from the first chapter.

The book was apparently quite heavily marketed as harking back to the whole New Weird trend of a decade or two ago – marketing that is lived up to wholly and entirely. The whole book absolutely drips with Mieville and Vandermeer. The oblique worldbuilding, the mundane day-to-day life built around the opportunities and inconveniences of some intrusion of the sublime, the awkward intersection of ancient magic and industrial bureaucracy, and so on, and so forth. The Reproach in particular feels very Area X (or very Roadside Picnic, as you prefer), but in general the city feels like absolutely nothing so much as Bas-Lag with the weirdness dial turned down from an 11 to a 5 or 6.

It’s a real triumph of the book, I think, that the world genuinely feels vast and strange even beyond the points where it matters to the story - that all the little asides and the ways something affects a certain character feel like just small parts of something far grander and more uncanny than anyone can hope to understand. Maybe I’m just painfully tired of rpg-system worldbuilding, but it’s an effect I dearly love.

Much like Bas-Lag, Ilmar is very clearly a magical fantasy city going through a magical fantasy 19th century industrial revolution (instead of steam engines its demonic slave labor contracted and imported from the Kings Below). The meat of the book is playing into the whole tradition of the idealistic, virtuous but tragic liberal revolution – 1848 in Berlin or Vienna, the June Days and Commune in Paris, Warsaw a dozen different times, Les Mis. You know the type. Students singing patriotic old songs, workers rising up against class oppression, ‘revolutionaries’ who are mostly cowardly nobles pining after lost privileges and criminal syndicate putting on airs being caught flat-footed by events. You can probably tell the basic story in your sleep. But for such a venerable genre, this book's honestly probably the best rendition of ‘fantasy 1848’ I can recall. Something which won it my instant affection.

The other thing the book just overwhelming shares with the Mieville’s Bas-Lag books is a very keen sense of the necessity of revolution combined with an extreme cynicism towards anyone who might actually carry it out. The university students are sincere believers, and also naive sheep the narrative views with condescension (at best). The professional revolutionaries are all power-grabbing hypocrites who have wrapped themselves in the flag. The workers syndicates have a real sense of solidarity among themselves, and also none at all to the demon slaves that are used and broken powering the mills and factories. And so on. The overall thrust of the book is a tragedy not in the sense of railing against the inevitable, but in the sense that triumph and revolution were absolutely possible – indeed plausible – but for the flaws and frailities of the revolutionaries who might have accomplished it.

Not to say that it's misanthropic – the book is very humane towards the vast majority of its POVs. Of which there are enough for ‘vast majority’ to be a meaningful term. It was something like 130 pages in before any character got a second chapter through their eyes, a feat I had previously only seen in Malazan – and that’s not including the chorus chapters which just give a half-doze vignettes from across the city. But yes, most characters (even the ones who are really just viscerally repulsive) are shown through their own eyes as someone who is at least understandable, if not particularly sympathetic. The sheer size of the cast in a 500 page book mean that no one character or set gets that many chapters from their perspective (you could easily have written as long a book about roughly the same events with half or less of the cast), but some of the dynamics that are very lightly touched on are just incredibly compelling. Its enough to make you wish this was a series that would ever get any fanfiction written about it, really.

Given the way the book is so deeply concerned with oppression and violence on the basis of culture, class, and nation – imperial occupiers, native population, refugees and immigrants used and scapegoated by both – it is kind of fascinating that this is a world where misogyny and (possibly? Not very explored, the only example of a queer relationship we see is hardly going to be concerned by normative society) homophobia just flatly don’t exist. Which would be less interesting if it was unusual, really – the same could be said about very nearly every recent sci fi or fantasy book on the same lines I can recall. Interesting because it is very much not the case in Melville’s stuff – the cultural impact of Ancillary Justice continues to echo down the years, I guess. So yes the imperial police inspector will extort sex out of a brothel owner in exchange for not stringing up the entire workforce for peripheral involvement with the resistance, but also this is entirely gender-neutral. Something very modern about how oppression is imagined relative to the ‘90s or ‘00s (or just a different genre of self-consciously feminist novel a few book shelves to the left).

But yeah, great book, I am compelled. No idea where the sequel would be going, but will probably hunt it down sooner rather than later.

[larrylimericks]

23Mar23

We’re feeling some internal friction At silver screen Louis’ depiction; All the world is a stage But it’s hard to engage When plot lines combine fact and fiction.

I get really rambly below the fold. Proceed with caution if you’re over the discourse already.

I debated seeing All of Those Voices in theaters. I didn’t see either of Harry’s films in theaters — Harries are too much of a wildcard, and I refused to sit through hours of squeals and gasps and reactions, not to the movie but to “omg! Harry’s going down on someone! omg, Harry’s bum!” So I was already tentative about seeing Louis’ film in a shared space, outside the protective silos of tumblr. But I bought a ticket, because I want to support him and because I was genuinely curious what story would be told. Then we got the trailer and I hesitated again, not wanting to watch a propaganda film. But, I’ve lived through all the other Bullshit moments, so I figured I could live through Bullshit on the big screen.

My theater crowd was great — pretty neutral aside from an amusing row of politely excitable Larries I was in secret solidarity with. And I pretty much loved the film. Well, 92% of it. I look forward to watching it again when it streams. I mean, it was an hour and a half of content featuring this fascinating creature we’re all obsessed with. I didn’t want to blink. I hung on his every word (when I could understand them). How cool to get, essentially, a long-form interview, where he’s not promoting an album and we’re not getting the same sound bytes. Louis is wonderfully open and vulnerable, and the story of his life (heh) is inherently compelling. The cinematography is beautiful. The behind-the-scenes are delightful and delicious. I can’t wait for the AOTV gif sets once we have it in high-def.

But it has some plot holes as wide and deep as the ones in Don’t Worry Darling.

First, there’s the confusing (to the uninformed) absence of a love interest. Louis is asexual, as far as the film goes. There’s not even a ghost of Eleanor, with whom he’s cumulatively spent a decade and who is supposed to have inspired so many great love songs and with whom he is supposed to have survived a pandemic. Props to E for living her best life now: going to see Scream on AOTV opening day, enjoying full custody of the pups, publicly supporting her assumed partner — sorry you got Kiki Layned from the film, but I’m guessing you weren’t even written into the script. (It’s not like the film was conveniently re-edited in the months since their break-up. Her stunt tapering was intentional.)

Then there’s the glaring absence of a baby mama (thank god; that family would have been even more insufferable). We’re cruising along for 45 minutes or so and then, wham, Dad!Louis enters the chat with a fully formed 6-year-old child. The kid just magically appears with no backstory — just like in real life ... twice (the first time with the pregnancy announcement and the second time with the revival of Dad!Louis after several years of dormancy, right in time for documentary filming. Just like Harry stunted with his co-star during filming and production, Louis stunted with his.)

The kid is cute, and faultless in this. The scenes are objectively sweet (as they were designed to be). But Louis, who normally keeps things very close to the vest, is all of a sudden an emotional spigot you can’t turn off when it comes to these scenes. It seems quite out of character. Which brings back to mind that this Louis *is* a character. The Freddie scenes just didn’t seem to have a point in the plot other than: Louis is a dad. And that role isn’t integral to the film’s story.

He’s incredibly emotional with Freddie, but the movie doesn’t tell us why. The storytelling gets lazy here. The lad/dad plot seems wedged in. The movie would be perfectly complete without it. I felt like it could have been integrated a few different ways: Louis experienced tragedy after tragedy after tragedy — loses 1D, loses his mum, loses his sister ... and then impending fatherhood either becomes another trial he must reluctantly face (in the surprise pregnancy narrative) or it helps him navigate the grief of losing his sole parent, his closest confidante. OR, Louis, not wanting to be like the absentee father he had, shows up for his own oopsie baby despite the unexpected circumstances. But there’s no exposition or rising action. No footage or photos from the first few years of the kid’s life that we haven’t already seen. Just an immaculate conception.

I think the most compelling narratives of the film are these:

Louis’ overcoming adversity after adversity after adversity. Holy hell. I lived through 1D ending, through the devastating news about Jay (god, I remember the shock and sadness of that day — it was incomprehensible), through the heartbreaking news about Fizzy, and then when you think Louis is gonna get his moment of victory with his first solo world tour, coronavirus pulls the rug out. (That sequence was well done: where we keep seeing the dates get closer and closer to March 2020, and we all know the villain that’s coming, but it’s still such a blow.) I lived through all that in real time, but seeing it in such a concentrated sequence really highlights the shit he’s been dealt, and hearing him open up about so much of it ... that’s the character development relevant to the film’s denouement. And getting to see Louis get what he deserves, finally, and hearing him acknowledge that he deserves it, was a lovely ending.

Louis’ journey to find his footing and his confidence as a solo artist after unfathomable success as part of a group. But, in a sort of plot twist, he’s not really solo, is he? The film gives a lovely introduction to his band now — and in their own words, reveals that they’re not just a backing band, they’re a *band* band. Louis has let them in. He’s forged a new brotherhood. *That*, for me, was the heartwarming story. I loved those scenes, loved seeing Louis in his element, which is in a collective, where he is both king and jester at the same time. (Or perhaps Oli’s the jester. Thank fuck for him, man. Oli is the standout. The breakthrough performance. The comic relief. I want a spinoff series.) It’s easy to miss 1D and glorify those short years and think nothing will ever top it, but Charlie’s storytelling of the LT Band is remarkable. We’re left looking forward, not back.

I know Louis’ dedication to his fans and his fans’ dedication to him is a huge focus, but I don’t really enjoy watching commentaries on fandoms I’m a part of. I’m living it. I don’t need outsider context. And in a fandom as fractured as Louis’ (and 1D’s) there’s not a universal experience. The film depicts dedication as sleeping on streets for rail, hopping from country to country and draining bank accounts — because that’s the kind of “superfandom” that gets easily turned into a marketable freak show. Show me the documentary on the fans who organize the light projects, who run the fashion accounts, who curate livestream sources on show nights, who have turned giffing into an art and science, who help promote Louis in the absence of a competent marketing team, etc., etc. I also thought the interview with the American(?) girls talking about LATAM shows was shortsighted. And showing the rainbow factions but not addressing them? What a missed opportunity to talk about songs like Only the Brave becoming a queer anthem. Straight artists can have gay fans, you know.

But the film doesn’t make the kid relevant to any of those storylines. He could have been worked into the first, but wasn’t. It was like a standalone narrative, with footage from a narrow set of days. I was at both those L.A. shows. The energy was so different from night 1 to 2. And in retrospect it’s clear Louis was performing the first night so Charlie could get the right shots. More like a choreographed play than a rock concert. It makes sense now why the Clarks weren’t in the VIP box with Freddie — couldn’t have them cluttering the frame or distracting the actors. Just, everything about the Freddie scenes is heavy-handed. Make a sign for your dad! Draw his logo in the sand! Fly a kite at sunset! He’s the spitting image of Louis! (Len does all the heavy lifting.) And all the maneuvering it had to take to get all those shots from the L.A. show?! In the VIP box from behind (and from the front, and when he just happens to be mouthing along to Two Of Us), side stage watching Louis end the show, on-stage watching Louis approach Freddie after the show, on-stage catching the moment Louis gives the lad a shout-out ... Charlie had a shot list. But sure, nothing was set up, it was totally organic.

I’m still unsettled by how heavily Charlie laid it on at the first premiere press conference — *he* was the one to bring up the kid, and was weirdly emphatic that nothing was staged, nothing was forced. It had the same energy of the “It’s. Not. Real” thrown baby doll moment, only it’s Charlie insisting that It. Is. Real. Thou dost protest too much, me thinks.

And of course, the lack of interaction between Louis and Harry remains, as ever, the biggest tell. We get poignant post-1D Nouis and Lilo moments in the film, but no Larry. We’re spoon-fed these Very Emotional Moments between father and son (“love you,” “Darling,” mouth kisses), when the real story, the real emotion, the real connection is in just a few seconds of furtive glances between Harry and Louis in the backstage footage of the last 1D performance. Christ, the way Harry’s eyes bore into Louis — chin tilted down, eyes glancing up from beneath a furrowed brow, lips tight, disguising his attentiveness with a hair flip ... they mastered so many forms of silent communication. The quiet call and response, the depths of love and care and concern and protection contained in micro-expressions. Fuck, give me 90 minutes of that. Just a silent film of Louis and Harry looking at each other.

Anyway. Sorry this sounds so grumpy. I did really love most of the movie. But I haven’t made sense of why this film was made. I don’t know its purpose. Maybe the introspection forced by the pandemic lockdown is to credit for this glut of music docs (“docs”) lately. Maybe nine minutes frees him up for nine more months or nine more years. I dunno. He obviously wanted this story told in this way.

Seeing a movie requires the willing suspension of disbelief. You have to ignore critical thinking in order to enjoy the story you’re being told. You tune out your knowledge that everything is fake for the sake of being entertained. We know that Superman can’t actually fly, but we still buy tickets to the cinema. But, a documentary shouldn’t require us to employ this semi-conscious perceiving mode. Yet here we are. I’m just not sure how much more or how much longer we can suspend our disbelief to enjoy fandom.