#anon please I need to trade theories with someone

[acediditagain]

SO IT’S NOT AN ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE???

It feels kind of awkward of how many times i have been thinking about of how much lore i have for Trivia murder party 1 & 2. It’s like my mind is full of conspiracy theories and I don’t know why it keeps saying it to me. It also happens in science class where i begin to question if [REDACTED] is the ones who hides the bodies after the “icident…” Besides i know about [REDACTED] but never told anyone about it because it will happen too fast for me and them…

.

[redsrooftopprincess]

Good morning!

I just stumbled across your blog and I absolutely love it 🥰 there aren't enough Bayverse fics or writers out there anymore! Thank you for keeping it alive.

I was just wondering if you still write and if you do, could I please please pretty please request a fic? It's purely self indulging. Something where the reader looks/acts like a human version of the turtle bros? (Totally coming from the fact that like Donnie from 2k12, I have gap teeth, reddy-brown eyes, and I'm a huge biology nerd and I giggle at the idea of the turtles coming face to face humans who look/act/have interests just like them.) Could totally see Donnie going straight to parallel universe theories.

Anyways, thank you so much, you're amazing 🥰❤️❣️

Hello anon! I hope this is akin to what you were looking for. 😅

Here are some of my headcanons for a doppelganger reader.

TWINSIES!!!

Leo

Relationship Level: Healthy Competition

Finally. A worthy opponent. Fighting Leonardo is like fighting a mirror. Both of you use this time to sharpen your skills, work out problems, or just process the frustrations of the day. Equally matched, the victor of the sparring session is usually the one who can make the other "lose focus." 

Balance is the foundation of your relationship. As much fun as sparring is, (you've made shit talking into an art form), boy does this boy know how to relax. Expect marathon meditation sessions, trading full body massages, and, as equally balanced as the two of you are, the most mind-blowing tantric sex, possibly on the planet. 

Raph

Relationship Level: Spotter

Raph, I think, is the only one that wouldn't consider you as a romantic partner. I, personally, feel he's in need of a soft landing, and a bizarro version of him is NOT that. But that's not to say your relationship isn't intimate. As any Gym Rats can tell you, good work out buddies are equal parts coach, therapist, and best friend. They're there to hype you up when you need it, and beat your ass when you need that, too. They're the ones you talk to when you can't go to your partner, because your partner is the one you're complaining about.

ALL. THE. GYM. TIME. You guys should basically move your beds down to the weight room, you live there anyway. On fight nights, the two of you own the big screen TV, and Gods help the poor dumb bastard who tries to cut in, especially during a prize fight. LOUD. You are LOUD. Honestly, you may as well be at the fight in person, the way your roars of triumph and defeat assault the concrete walls, as well as everyone's ears. Splinter likes the two of you hanging out, so he lets it slide, most nights.

Don 

Relationship Level: Lab Partner

Neither of you would be able to let it go. Why? How are you this similar? Statistically, the chances of someone being such an extreme parallel were astronomical, but meeting them??? You'd hit the lab and no one would see you for nearly a week. You'd been doing "research," into exactly how alike your are. 

Autistic hyper nerd mode ENGAGE. Parallel Play All Day Every Day. Sometimes you wouldn't speak for days, despite working within ten feet of each other, other times you'd be info dumping about your latest hyperfixation. Pray these moods link up, because overwhelm will be a problem. Splinter has to implement a rule that the two of you have to leave the lab at least once a day for at least 10 minutes (not counting patrol or the other necessary things), wherein you must eat something and drink an entire glass of water. This rule was put in place after the third time one of the boys found the two of you passed out in the lab from dehydration. 

(A/N: while writing this paragraph I actually remembered that I hadn't eaten anything besides popcorn and some sweetarts in about 16 hours. Oops. 😅)

Mikey

Relationship Level: Besties

You know how, when you bring a six-year-old to the playground, they meet another kid and suddenly they are BEST FRIENDS FOR LIFE WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CAN'T GO BACK TO THEIR HOUSE FOR DINNER AFTER KNOWING THEM A WHOLE 20 MINUTES??? 

That.

Expect to know these pipes like the back of your hand. You will know the best places to skate, the best places to smoke, and the best places to get up to... other things. Pop culture is your jam, and he knows his way in and out of the AMC at Rockefeller Center, so expect to get gussied up and attend any and every movie premier your heart desires. Fun is the foundation of your relationship and you take it very seriously. Play time is sacred, and "play time" is, too.

.....

Tag list

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @daedric-sorceress @sophiacloud28 @iridescentflamingo @milykins @sacred-holy-light

[hockeyboysimagines]

okay we need a sequel to practice makes perfect where matthew is proven right and knocked hallie up first try 😂

Your wish is my commend anon. Please read part 1 before this, as it won’t make sense otherwise. I hope this is everything you’re imagining.

“Sooooooo?”

“So what?”

“Did you take it?”

Hallie rolled her eyes “No I didn’t take it yet. I’m not late, we still have another week.”

Matthew slumped down in his seat and crossed his arms “Ugh. Can’t you hurry it along? Like talk with your uterus and tell it to do us a solid?”

“The fact that you know nothing about the female body is amazing considering how good you are in bed.” She looked down at her abdomen “Excuse me in there. Can you tell us if you’re sending a period this month? My baby daddy wants to know.”

His mouth fell open and he started laughing “Baby daddy.”

“Is that not what you are?” Hallie asked reaching forward to run her fingers through his hair “I mean after all wasn’t it YOU.” She said jabbing him in the chest with her pointer finger “Who was just bragging about being 2 for 2 the other week? The cabin? The bar bathroom? Ring a bell?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember the bar bathroom.”

“Can’t remember my ass!”

“Oh no. I remember your ass.”

He ran a hand up her thigh and gave her hip a tug, pulling her over to straddle his lap, and looked at her smiling cheekily “Kidding. Of course I’m your baby daddy. Thomas looks just like me, now Lilly…..”

Hallie’s mouth fell open and she slapped his chest “Rude.” And then she reached down between them to palm him through his shorts “I guess if that’s how you feel I’ll find someone else to give me this.” She ground her pelvis into his, and he felt himself get hard.

“Never.” He reached forward and let his hands travel up her thighs to her hips and then leaned up to kiss her collarbone. Hallie closed her eyes and felt goosebumps erupt across her skin as his lips moved across her skin, tongue sliding across her neck, and up her jaw to her mouth. He had just started to kiss her, hand coming up to grip the back of her neck when-

“Daddy!!”

He stopped and his head fell forward with a sigh.

“Daddy come play!”

She smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek “We’ll finish this later. Your mini me is calling you.” she climbed off him and helped him stand, turning to head towards the kitchen when she felt his hand on her ass “I like these pants.” He said hand coming to the other side of her hips “They make your-“

“DADDY!”

“OKAY!” He yelled back, scowling and huffing “He’s so impatient.”

Hallie started laughing “You sure you want another one?”

“Ha ha. I want 4 more.”

“4-what I-4?!” Hallie’s sputtered at him until he started laughing.

“Can’t help it. You’re just so easy to get pregnant.” He shrugged and winked at her turning to find Thomas and take him outside to play hockey in the driveway, a daily past time for them.

4 kids. Was he crazy? She thought as she made her way through the house and upstairs to check on baby Lilly, as Thomas called her, who was taking a nap. On her way she passed the bathroom, and stopped.

Biting her lip she reached under the sink and pulled out a test. She didn’t feel pregnant. Last time she’d known right away, after said romp in the bar. Exactly 5 weeks later she was holding a positive test while Brady celebrated before the Battle of Alberta playoff series. When at home, some form of protection was always used unless they were trying. But there wasn’t much thought that went into spontaneous bar bathroom sex, or her last minute availability to be in Ottawa some weeks ago, both of which had been protection free. She held it in her hand, doing a mental count and pulled her jeans down.

Today would be 5 weeks exactly, and taking one couldn’t hurt. It would however prove his theory, and he would now be 3 for 3 on getting her pregnant on the first try.

Thomas was the night in the cabin, the first time they’d had sex.

Lilly was the bar bathroom, the first time they’d been out celebrating the trade with his new teammates.

And now if she was pregnant today, it would be after the game in Ottawa, all three being on the first try.

She would never hear the end of this.

She set the test on the counter, pulling her jeans up and washing her hands while she waited for it. She however was not alone before it finished because Matthew himself threw the door open and stopped, surprised to see her but then his eyes zeroed in on the test.

“What the- your taking it without me?!”

He pushed past her and peered at it, eyes moving between what appeared in the bubble and the difference between positive and negative. A smile spread slowly across his face like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes and he turned to her.

“3 for 3!”

“No WAY!” She said grabbing it and holding it up. There it was. A pink plus sign clear as day in that tiny circle.

He thrust a fist in the air and gave a very loud “YES!” Before he pulled out his phone, fumbling to unlock it with the amount of excitement running through him.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling my parents to tell them that their son has successfully knocked you up 3 times on the first try. Let them tell me again that Brady’s more talented.”

“Matthew do not-“

But Chantal had already answered the phone.

“Hello I was just going to-“

“Hallie’s pregnant!” He yelled gleefully into the phone.

“AH!” Chantal screamed on the other end. She heard a clatter in the background and Keith yelling “What?! What happened?!”

“Hallie’s pregnant!” She yelled voice breaking a little.

“Again? He’s out of control.”

“Yeah remember that next time you tell me Brady is better. I’d like to see him do that.”

Hallie’s face burned with embarrassment as she accepted ‘congratulations’ from Keith and Chantal, who promised to come visit soon and hung up. But Matthew wasn’t done, he texted several teammates, all of whom chirped him, including Sam who said he didn’t think he had it in him, and then made one last phone call, looking at her and cracking a large evil smile.

“Now what are you doing?”

“Calling Brady to tell him that C on his chest is nothing compared to the C in my pants.”

“MATTHEW!”

[blushblushbear]

sorry..... me again...… you can choose to ignore this if you feel like it's too much

(not trying to guilt-trip you, please don't feel pressured

uh maybe... Nimh? Nimh is cute I like Nimh

if you don't feel like doing him, maybe Poe or Anon?

*blows the dust off this ask* oops this one's pretty old

I already did Nimh so Anon and Poe it is

Anon

Okay not to call the scott a drunk

but I'm about to call the scott a drunk

he's not too bad, but he is a little picky about what he will and will not drink

low key judges people for their choice of beers

side eyes people who order basically liquid candy as a drink (for a cocktail at least, he will rot his teeth on mountain dew don't get it twisted)

he mostly does pints but his fav mixed drink is a moscow mule

or a spiked energy beverage

speaking of drinks he always has a crazy amount of them

g-fuel, red bull, monster-- every energy drink type thing you've seen he's probably got

also drinks prime

also mountain dew

a lot of it

I joke about his teeth rotting but in all honesty he takes good care of them

that's the one gamer stereotype he does not fall in town

he's low key germophobic so his apartment and battle station are SPOTLESS

he defo has those touchland hand sanitizers cause he's a boujee bitch

speaking of boujee he's actually p well off

started trading stocks young and did crypto till it tanked

he doesn't like to talk about his crypto days (he was a hard crypto bro at it's peak)

usually his drunk rambles are about crypto

also conspiracy theories

also video games

his parents are decently well off too but he doesn't talk to them much

they don't have a bad relationship but it's definitely one of those 'you see the family only around the holidays' kind of deals

he has a lot of internet buds but I think deep down he's bad at making real connections and actually gets pretty lonely

likes watching animal videos, WOULD NOT get a pet

rarely has people over to his place, took him a while to fully mentally accept having you over

he was determined to get over it though cause he really wanted you around

would never shower with someone cause that just feels unsanitary-- the shower is for CLEANING

would maybe get a snake-- they're pretty clean

once went 3 days without sleeping

actually lost a lot of sleep to stardew valley when it first came out

his farm is AMAZING

loves to troll at video games but not in a run face first into the enemy team and ruin it for everyone kinda way

more a does a 360 no scope on you right when you think you're safe

you mad bro??? lol

sends lots of memes about liking his s/o cause he's really bad at saying how he feels

favorite director is Edgar Wright cause he's a man of taste and culture

regularly cleans and buffs his nails

has at least one to two drinks chilling in every room of the house

really wants to get an ear piercing

really vain about his looks even though he dresses like garbage

just tell him he's handsome, he's legit too proud to beg but he needs that validation

listens to a lot of underground bands and artists

also a lot of djs

owns 15 pairs of headphones

5 have animal ears

showers at least once a day unless he's in a gaming trance

once tried to write you poetry, felt like an idiot, removed all evidence of it's existence and would deny it fully if you ever found out

Poe

Probably not a surprise to anyone but he got bullied a lot in high school

Has been writing poetry since he was 10 and has notebooks full of poems and short stories from over his life

really wants to write some kind of vampire mystery series centered around a brooding poet vampire but also he's bad at writing mysteries

I've sad this before but he's in a book club with Nimh and Cashew

he keeps trying to get them to read romantic novels

Cashew was game until he realized Poe meant like Lord Byron romantic

Mary Shelley Romantic

thinks Mary Shelley losing her virginity on her mother's grave is the coolest thing ever and is high key jealous

Mary Shelley is honestly his hero

secretly got addicted to soap operas

he wants to stop so bad but he can't

he doesn't have a pet but if he did he'd be that dude you can totally tell has a pet cause he's always covered in fur

not that Poe would even care

Poe actually never much cared for birds and is still salty about becoming a magpie

owns so many Victorian/Edwardian style coats

and vests

he's just one color palette/slight aesthetic change away from just being steampunk

owns so many bits of jewelry, it mostly just floats around his living spaces and he chooses what he's wearing that day at random

all the people who headcanon Poe as trans, you're correct

constantly painting his nails and it's always chipping

his nail polish is actually pretty jank but he doesn't care so long as his nails are black

his living spaces are a mess

lots of papers, lots of random odds and ends, lots of clothes and book and forgotten mugs everywhere

does actually partake in the music aspect of the goth culture

most of his fav bands are ones you haven't heard of

he doesn't actually like horror much

at least not this modern jumpscare nonsense

he likes his horror dark, dramatic, and poetically gorey

Saw??? more like pa-shaw he can't stand those movies

the closest thing he gets to liking more mainstream horror franchises is Chucky

Tiffany Valentine is his favorite (*jennifer tilly voice* ~Jennifer Tilly~)

he can always get down with halloween, but only the first one

he can fuck with Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro though

crimson peak is his shit

also Jane Austen bitch?!

he loves him some Jane Austen

Emily Dickinson

Mary Shelley obvs

he low key hates to be basic but fucking

read Emily Dickinson's poetry and tell him you're not simping

he legit does simp for Shelley and Dickinson

legit loves the Kira Knightly Pride and Prejudice will all his heart

Sylvia Plath

He's trying so hard not to be basic but he loves Wednesday Addams

that line about her being allergic to colors--- he felt that

regularly listens to sounds of rain and fireplaces

ye I think I'll end it here lol XD

[forestwater87]

How did you become a university Librarian? Did you do an English degree? Sorry if this is a weird question it just really interests me as I’m not sure what to do when I’m older

Eeee I got really excited about this question! 

Okay, the fun thing about librarianship is that all roads can lead to it: as long as you get an ALA-approved (assuming you’re American; if you aren’t I cannot help you) graduate degree you can do just about anything for undergrad. English majors are extremely common, just by the nature of who’s into the job, but literally it doesn’t matter; in fact, weirder and more specialized degrees can actually help in certain jobs, because they give you a ton of background info and qualifications than most of your contemporaries have.

I fell into it because I worked at a library in high school and fell in love with the environment, and when I realized I’d rather die than work in publishing (my previous life’s goal) I gravitated toward library school. I knew from the beginning that I’d need a Master’s -- and a very specific one at that -- so mostly my undergrad was just “grab a foundational degree and have fun with it.” That was really freeing, honestly. I had a ton of fun in undergrad.

Now, if you, Anon, were interested in getting into librarianship I’d have a handful of recommendations. These are all based on my very American experience, and there are probably smarter people than me with better advice but I’m the only one on this blog so heeeeerrreeeee we goooooooooo!

Undergrad

You need a 4-year degree. Full-stop. It doesn’t matter what kind, but you gotta have one to get into grad school.

Like I said, you can do just about anything for an undergraduate degree. Most of the time English is the BA of choice, because librarians love them some books, but some far less common ones that I think would be hugely helpful to a hopeful librarian would be:

Computer Science: Oh my god you need at least a baseline competency in computers/technology please you don’t have to code but you need to be able to turn a computer on and navigate just about any website/office application on just about any device at the very least you need to know how to Google

Business/Marketing: Particularly if you want to work in public libraries, where a bunch of your funding comes from begging politicians and convincing taxpayers to donate/vote to give you money

Law: If you want to be a law librarian

Medical . . . whatever, I don’t know what fields of medicine there are: If you want to work in a hospital or other medical library

History or Art History: If you’re interested in archives or museum librarianship

Education: School librarians in my state require you to be a certified teacher, and no matter what kind of library you end up in, you’ll end up teaching someone something a decent amount of the time

Communications: You’ll be doing a lot of it. Public speaking, too

Spanish/ASL/any not-the-common language: Hey, you never know what your patrons speak

Literally fucking anything I promise it doesn’t matter what you major in you will use it in a library at some point

Just be aware that you will need more than an undergrad degree. You’ll need probably 2 years of postsecondary schooling (more for certain types of librarianship), so get yourself comfortable with the idea of college.

If you’re like me (please don’t be like me), you might toy with the idea of getting a minor or two/double majoring to round out your skill set. Honestly I’d encourage it if you’re comfortable with the workload and have the time or money; like I said, there are no skills or educational background that won’t come in handy at some point. I promise. We see it all.

Along those lines, a wide expanse of hobbies can be hugely helpful too! You never know when your encyclopedic knowledge of Minecraft will be useful to a patron, but it absolutely will be.

Graduate School

All right, you’ve got your lovely little Bachelor’s Degree, maybe in something weird and esoteric for the fun of it . . . now you’re off to do more school!

It’s a bit complicated, because there are a handful of different titles an appropriate degree could have; my school called it “a Master of Science in Information Science” (MSIS), but other schools might just go with “Master’s of Information Science” (MIS), “Master’s of Library Science” (MLS), “Master’s of Library and Information Science” (MLIS) . . . it’s a mess. 

What you need to do is make sure the degree is approved by the American Library Association, who decides if a program is good enough to make you a librarian in the States. (Again, if you’re not American, good luck.)

Here’s a list of ALA-accredited programs and the schools that offer them.

The nice thing is accreditation has to be renewed at least every few years, so that means your program is always updated to make sure it’s in line with national standards. I’m not promising you’ll learn everything you need to be a librarian in grad school (oh my god you so won’t not even close hahahaha), but at least in theory you’ll be learning the most up-to-date information and methods.

(I’m curious to see how things have changed; when I was in school from 2015-17, the hot topics in library science were makerspaces (especially 3D printing), turning the library into the community’s “third space,” and learning how to incorporate video games into library cataloging and programming. No idea if those are still the main hot-button issues or if we’ve moved on to something else; I imagine information literacy and fake news are a pretty big one for current library students.)

Anyway! You pick a school, you might have to take a test or two to get in -- I had to take the GRE, which is like the SATs but longer -- almost certainly have to do all that annoying stuff like references and cover letters and all that, but assuming you’re in: now what?

There are a couple options depending on the school and the program, but I’m going to base my discussion around the way my school organized their program at the time, because that’s what I know dammit and I will share my outdated information because I want to.

My school broke the degree down into 5 specializations, which you chose upon application to the program:

Archives & Records Administration: For working in archives! I took some classes here when I was flirting with the idea, and it’s a lot of book preservation, organizing and caring for old documents and non-book media, and digitization. Dovetails nicely into museum work. It’s a very specific skillset, which means there will be jobs that absolutely need what you specifically can do but also means there aren’t as many of them. It makes you whatever the opposite of a “jack of all trades” is. You’re likely to be pretty isolated, so if you want to spend all your time with books this might be a good call; it’s actually one of the few library-related options that doesn’t require a significant amount of public-facing work. 

Library & Information Services: For preparation to work in public or academic (college) libraries. Lots of focus on reference services, some cataloging, and general interacting-with-the-public. You have to like people to go into library services in general, heads up.

Information Management & Technology: Essentially meaningless, but you could in theory work as like a business consultant or otherwise do information-related things with corporations or other organizations.

Information Storage & Retrieval: Data analytics, database . . . stuff. I don’t really know. Computers or something. Numbers 3 and 4 really have nothing to do with libraries, but our school was attempting to branch out into more tech-friendly directions. That being said, both this and #3 could definitely be useful in a library! Libraries have a lot of tech, and in some ways business acumen could be helpful. All roads lead to libraries; remember that.

Library & Information Services / School Library Media Specialist: This was the big kahuna. To be a school librarian -- at least in my state -- you need to be both a certified librarian and a certified teacher, which means Master’s degrees in both fields. What our school did was basically smushed them together into a combined degree; you took a slightly expanded, insanely rigorous 2-2.5 years (instead of the traditional 1.5-2) and you came out of it with two degrees and two certifications, ready to throw your butt into an elementary, middle/junior high, or high school library. Lots of focus on education. I started here before realizing I don’t like kids at all, then panicked and left. Back in 2017 this was the best one for job security, because our state had just passed a law requiring all school librarians to be certified with a MSIS/MLS/whatever degree. So lots of people already in school libraries were desperately flinging themselves at this program, and every school was looking for someone that was qualified. No idea if that’s changed in time.

No matter what concentration you went in with, you automatically graduated with a state certification to be a librarian, which was neat. You didn’t automatically get civil service status, though; for some public libraries you need to be put on a civil service list, which means . . . something, I’m not entirely sure. It involves taking exams that are only available at certain times of the year and I gave up on it because it looked hard. 

No one did more than 1 concentration, which is dumb because I wanted to do them all, but it takes a lot of time and money to take all the classes associated with all of them so I personally did #2, which was on the upper end of mid-tier popularity. School library and database services were far and away the most popular, and literally no one did the business one because it was basically useless, so library and archives were the middle children of which the library one was prettier.

THAT BEING SAID! Some forms of librarianship require a lot more education. A few of those are:

Law librarians: At least in my state, you gotta be a certified librarian and have a J.D. This is where the “big bucks” are -- though let’s be real, if you want to be a librarian you have zero interest in big bucks; reconcile yourself to being solidly middle-class and living paycheck-to-paycheck for the rest of your life or marrying rich -- which I guess is why it requires the most work.

School librarians: Like I mentioned, depending on the state you might need two degrees, and not all schools smush them into one. You might need to get a separate Master’s in education.

College librarians: Now, this depends on the college and the job; some colleges just need an all-access librarian, like mine. I didn’t need to specialize in anything, I just showed up with my degree and they took me. (Note: these sorts of entry-level positions tend to pay piss. Like, even more piss than most library gigs. Just a heads-up.) However, if you’re looking to get into a library of a higher-end university, you might be asked to have a second Master’s-level or higher degree just to prove you’re academic enough to party at their school. (Let’s be real, Harvard is almost certainly gonna want someone with a Ph.D. at the very least. That’s just how they roll.) Alternatively, the position might be for a specialty librarian, someone in charge of a field-specific library or field-specific reference services; if you’re being asked to head up the Science & Engineering Library at Masshole University, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll be bringing a degree in engineering or some sort of science to the table. Colleges have so many different needs that predicting what kind of experience/education you should get is a bit of a challenge. Good luck. Some schools will help you out a bit with this; my grad school had dual degree programs where you could share credits between the MSIS and either an English or History Master’s so you could graduate with both in less time. I . . . started this, and then panicked at the thought of more school/writing a thesis and bailed, but it’s great if you’re into that idea!

What’s the point of the Information/Library Science degree?

You have to have the degree. If you don’t have the degree, you don’t get the job and you don’t make-a the money. Resign yourself to getting a Master’s degree or you’re gonna be bummed out and unemployed.

In terms of what you learn? Well, obviously it depends on the program, but I found that a lot of what I learned was only theoretically related to what I do on a daily basis. My instructors were lovely (well, the adjuncts anyway; the full-timers really didn’t want to be there and wanted to be off doing research and shit), but every library is so idiosyncratic and there’s such a massive umbrella of jobs you could get in one -- god, I didn’t even get into things like metadata services, which I learned basically nothing about in grad school but are super important to some positions -- that it’s hard to learn anything practical in a classroom.

However, besides the piece of paper that lets you make-a the money, there are two important things you should get from your grad school education:

Research skills: My god, you’re going to be doing so much research. If you’re a public librarian, you need to know how to Google just about anything. And if you’re a college librarian, being able to navigate a library database and find, evaluate, and cite sources . . . I mean, you’re going to be doing so much of that, showing students how to do that. Like a ridiculous amount of my day is showing students how to find articles in the virtual library. Get good at finding things, because much like Hufflepuffs, librarians need to be great finders.

Internship(s): Just about every library program will require an internship -- usually but not always in replacement of a thesis -- and if the one you’re looking at doesn’t, dump it like James Marsden in a romantic comedy. Internships are hugely important not only because they look good on a resume and give you some of those delicious, delicious references, but they are a snapshot of what your job is going to look like on a day-in, day-out basis; if nothing else, you’ll learn really fast what does and doesn’t appeal to you. As I mentioned, I wanted to be a school librarian for about half a semester. You know what changed my mind? My class required like 40 hours of interning at schools of each level. Being plopped into that environment like a play you’re suddenly acting in? Super helpful in determining whether or not this shit is for you.

What else should I learn, then?

Besides how to research basically anything? Here are some useful skills in just about any library:

Copyright law. Holy shit, do yourself a favor and learn about publishing/distribution laws in your state. Do you wanna show a movie as a fun program? You need to buy a license and follow super specific rules or it’s illegal! Does an instructor want to make copies of their textbook to give to the students? Make sure you know how much they can copy before it’s no longer fair use! Everything in my life would be easier if I’d taken the time to learn anything about copyright. I did not, and now I’m sad. (I lost out on a job opportunity because they wanted the librarian to be particularly knowledgeable in that kinda thing, and I was very not.)

Metadata and cataloging. In theory, you should learn this in grad school, but I was only given the bare basics and it wasn’t enough. Dublin Core, MARC-21, RDF -- there are so many different kinds of metadata schema, and I took a 6-week class in this and still don’t understand any of the words I just used in this sentence. But basically, to add items to a library catalog you often need to know how to input them into your library’s system; to an extent that’ll be idiosyncratic to your library’s software, but some of it will be based on a larger cataloging framework, so familiarity with those is very useful.

Public speaking and education. You’re gonna do a lot of it. Learn how to deal.

General tech savviness. Again, we’re not talking about coding but if you can navigate a WordPress website? If you know how to troubleshoot just about any issue with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc.? If you can unjam printers and install software and use social media you’re going to be a much happier person. At the very least, know how to google tutorials and fake your way through; your IT person can only do so much, and a lot of it is probably going to fall on you.

Social work, diplomacy, general human relations kinda stuff. You’re going to be dealing with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, with every political view, personal problem, and life experience under the sun. You need to get very good at being respectful of diversity -- even diversity you don’t like* -- and besides separating your own personal views and biases from your work, you’ll be much better equipped to roll with the punches if you have, for example, conflict resolution training. Shit’s gonna get weird sometimes, I promise. (Once a student came in swinging around butterfly knives and making ninja noises. You know who knew how to deal with that? Not me!)

Standard English writing and mechanics. It’s not fair, but in general librarians are expected to have a competent grasp on the Standard English dialect, and others are less likely to be appreciated by the general populace. Obviously this differs based on your community and environment, and colloquialisms are sometimes useful or even necessary, but as a rule of thumb it’s a good call to be able to write “properly,” even if that concept is imperialist bullshit.

*I don’t mean Nazis. Obviously I don’t mean Nazis. Though there is a robust debate in the library community about whether Nazis or TERFs or whatever should be allowed to like, use library facilities for their own group meetings or whatever. I tend to fall on the “I don’t think so” side of the conversation, but there’s a valid argument to be made about not impeding people’s access to information -- even wrong or harmful information. 

Any other advice?

Of course! I love to talk. Let’s see . . .

Get really passionate about freedom of information and access: A library’s main reason for existing is to help people get ahold of information (including fiction) that they couldn’t otherwise access. If you’re a public librarian, you have to care a lot about making sure people can access information you probably hate. (If you’re an academic librarian it’s a little more tricky, because the resources should meet a certain scholarly threshold, and if you’re a school librarian there are issues of appropriateness to deal with, but in general more info to more people is always the direction to push.) Get ready to defend your library purchases to angry patrons or even coworkers; get ready to defend your refusal to purchase something, if that’s necessary. Get ready to hold your nose and cringe while you add American Sniper to your library collection, because damn it, your patrons deserve access to the damn stupid book. Get really excited about finding new perspectives and minority representation, because that’s also something your patrons deserve access to. Get really excited about how technology can make access easier for certain patrons, and figure out how to make it happen in your library. Care about this; it’s essential that you’re passionate about information -- helping your patrons find it, making sure they can access it, evaluating it, citing it . . . all of it. Get ranty about it. Just do it.

Be prepared to move if necessary: One of my professors told us that there was one thing that would always guarantee you a job that paid well -- this was in 2016 but still -- that as long as you had it you could do whatever you wanted. And that was a suitcase. Maybe where you live is an oversaturated market (thanks for having 6 library schools in a 4-hour radius, my state). Maybe something something economic factors I don’t really understand; the point is that going into this field, you should probably make peace with the idea that you’ll probably either end up taking a job that doesn’t make enough money or struggle a lot to even find one . . . or you’re going to have to go where the jobs are. It’s a small field. Just know that might be a compromise you have to make, unless you can get a strictly remote job.

Read: This sounds stupidly obvious but it’s true! Read things that aren’t your genre, aren’t your age range; patrons are going to ask you for reading advice all the goddamn time, especially if you’re a public librarian, so the more you can be knowledgeable about whatever your patrons might ask you about, the easier your life will be. If you’re considering librarianship you probably love to read anyway, so just ride that pony as hard as you possibly can.

Learn to be okay with weeding -- even things you don’t think deserve it: You are going to have to recycle books. You’re going to have to throw away books. You’re going to have to take books out of the collection and make them disappear in some fashion or another. There are a lot of reasons -- damage and lack of readership are big ones -- and there’s no bigger red flag to a librarian than someone saying “I could never destroy a book.” That kind of nonsense is said by people who’ve never had to fit 500 books onto a shelf built for 450. Archivists are different, of course, as are historians, and everyone should have a healthy respect for books both as physical objects and as sources of information, but you’re going to have to get rid of them sometimes, and you’re just going to have to learn how to do that dispassionately.

Have fun! No one gets into this because they want money; if you want to be a librarian, or work in any library-adjacent field, it’s because you really care about the values of librarianship, or the people in your community, or preserving and sharing as great a wealth of information as possible. Your job will often be thankless and it’ll sometimes be exhausting. There will be times where it’s actually scary. And unless you’re rich as balls, it will make you stare at your student loans and sigh with despair. (You may be living in your parents’ basement while you sigh at your loans because you can’t afford to live on your own, for an example that has zero relevance to any authors of this blog, living or dead.)  I can’t tell you if it’s worth it -- though you’ll probably find out pretty quickly during your internship, because that’s what internships are for. All I can say is that I love it, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

Can you get into costume without a costume qualification?

Okay so heres the thing, I can only speak for the uk. Theoretically yes you can but its really not easy and you need so much experience to get around not having a qualification (which is hard to get if you have no qualifications to back it up). Now please don't take this the wrong way, but costume is a lot harder of an industry than most people seem to think. On the making side you're expected to be able to look at an image and know exactly how to construct the pattern to make it a reality. For example:

This is one of the designs I did for a show a few years ago. The wardrobe team was expected to take this and make it happen without buying any commercial patterns, including how to distress pieces as required. And even if you think that sounds simple (after all cosplayers do that all the time right?) They also have to understand any allergies the actor may have, they have to know how to make the costume able to withstands two shows a day 6 days a week with a wash between every show. They have to know what materials were accurate to the period, where to source them, how to treat them. They need to know all equity guidelines regarding what an actor can be expected to do and what is needed to make it happen. For example if you can't tell me if the barefoot element of this design would be allowed in a mid-range commercial theatre then you dont have enough experience to leap into the costume field. Thats not even mentioning that most theatres want you to already be trained in using industrial machineary including a pressure iron, industrial flatbed and industrial overlocker. They dont want to cover the insurance of teaching you themselves when an accident could cause them to be liable. As for designers, you need to have a vast knowledge of clothing history ranging from ancient civilisations to modern day. You need to know social and economic history, what wars happened when, who was trading with who and what countries different gemstones, fabrics, dyes and metals come from. Knowledge of class systems, political movements, and also colour theory, fashion theory, and literary analysis are just Parts of a designers job. Designers also need to know the legal requirements on what an actor can be allowed to wear, copyright law surronding adaptations, what to do if a book states a character has brown eyes but the actor hired has green and is allergic to contact lens solution. Theres a lot more to it than just putting clothes together at all levels. Please dont take this as an attack anon, but I do face my work being undervalued online a lot because people simply dont understand the depth of the field. TLDR: - Yes you can, but a qualification makes it a lot easier and you dont even know how much you need to learn until someone starts to teach you

[voiceless-terror]

Hey!! For your prompts, would you mind doing one from a while ago (the questions one) where it says "do you ever stop talking?" with Jon?? Thanks!!!

Hello there anon! Here is your fic- I let this one sit for a bit, but I’m certainly liking the finished product. Hope you enjoy!

“Do you ever stop talking?”

Jon has been asked this multiple times, though the phrasing and methods always differ. His grandmother used to tell him to keep his thoughts to himself, which wasn’t necessarily meant to be rude but was privately devastating coming from his sole caregiver. He stopped talking at dinner shortly after that. They got on better.

The second was from his teachers, at basically any age. If he knew the answer to a question he had to share it, especially when someone else was getting it wrong. This earned him the title of “know it all” from his classmates, and his teachers often wrote the same sentiment in his progress reports, though in kinder words. He began to write all of his answers on paper instead. This brought on another host of issues- he wasn’t paying enough attention in class, his papers were overly-long and wordy. 

So Jon often hovered between silence and overwhelming chatter. It swung more towards silence as the years went on.

But then he met Georgie, and his second year they got an apartment off campus. He’d been in therapy, finally gotten on medication that helped him. Though taking it was another matter. His mind was often scattered, as was his schoolwork, and he knew how grating he was when he didn’t have his shit together.

One night he was surrounded by notes and books, deep in his latest research project for history. He was petting the Admiral and chattering excitedly to Georgie- finally something he was interested in, even had a professor who wanted to hear his opinions. This paper had to be excellent, top-notch, and then maybe he could ask him for a letter of recommendation for graduate work and have someone in his corner-

“Christ, Jon! Can you please shut up?”

Georgie apologized of course, though it wasn’t necessary. Jon’s prattling could get intense and rather annoying, he knew that. It’s just that Georgie never seemed to mind. Or maybe she did, and never said anything. 

Jon never did get that paper done. Couldn’t summon up the motivation after all. Just another failed attempt at excellence to add to the pile. 

He’d been in an odd place when he accepted the job at the Magnus Institute. Fresh off a break up, recently moved, completely and utterly broke, not going to any sort of therapy. And yet his application was pushed through speedily, quick enough that he found himself at an interview with Elias Bouchard just a week after applying. The man was intimidating, that’s for sure. But he looked at Jon like he was something, like he was excited to hire him. He nodded in all the right places, listened when he went off on a tangent and shook his hand at the end. He was to start the following Monday.

Sasha James trained him. He’d felt comfortable with her from the start- she had organized binders of easily-laid out instructions that were simple to follow. Jon liked having a to-do list. She made a special copy for him when he asked and didn’t mind his inane questions. She smiled at him in the morning. Traded theories with him well into the night. And helped him with the more difficult researchers, ones that admired his thoroughness and dedication but did not like the rest of the package. That had earned her the nickname of ‘Jon-Whisperer’ which both embarrassed and pleased him. Embarrassing that he needed the help in the first place, but pleasing that someone cared enough to help him succeed. There aren’t a lot of Sashas in the world. 

Tim arrived two years after him, fresh from the publishing industry with an easy smile and a boundless charm, but Jon could sense an intensity and purpose thrumming under his skin. Jon has that same drive as well. Tim recognized him as a kindred spirit, and the two struck up an unlikely friendship. They work well together, despite their friction over Tim’s more...creative methods. They work even better with Sasha, and the three of them are soon the busiest researchers in the institute. Jon felt more at ease than ever and he let his guard down, contributing more to conversations and getting lost in the easy camaraderie.

One day he makes a breakthrough on a particularly difficult case. He doesn’t realize he’s flapping his hands until he accidentally flicks a pen off his desk. Shit. He hopes no one is around to witness his behavior, but no such luck. Tim ducks down to fetch it and Jon grabs it out of his hand with a mumbled thanks. But Tim doesn’t tease or laugh. He just smiles.

“I’m more of a tapper myself,” he drums his fingers on the table in a quick example. “Just tell me if it bothers you.”

It does irritate Jon on more than one occasion.

He never says anything though.

When he gets promoted he is instantly overwhelmed. He’s that child in the classroom again, writing down his thoughts and filtering them as best he can. He agonizes over what should go on the tapes and what shouldn’t. He finds himself re-recording the bits he doesn’t like, where he stutters or his voice goes too high or he pauses for too long. The parts where he needs to catch his breath after talking too quickly. It can’t get back to Elias how panicked he is.

It’s Martin's birthday. Jon is reluctantly dragged out for ice cream he neither has the patience nor the appetite for. He picks some random flavor and instantly regrets it, choosing instead to nervously inform the rest of the table about emulsifiers. It takes him five minutes to realize he’s been speaking for far too long and his speech begins to trail off, his gaze turning down at the melted ice cream in his cup. Yes, this is exactly how Martin wants to spend his birthday. Listening to your inane drivel. Stupid, he chides himself.

“And?”

Jon looks up to see Martin gazing at him quizzically. “Sorry?”

“Why did you stop?” he asks. Jon blinks. “It’s just- well, you weren’t done. I’m not a big fan of cliffhangers, to be honest.” He inexplicably blushes and looks down at his lap, fingers fidgeting.

Jon scoffs but feels a warmth bloom in his chest. “Ah- okay, alright-” and off he goes, Martin nodding and smiling in encouragement. It turns out to be a nice outing after all, Tim and Sasha exiting the shop a bit sooner, giving some excuse about a deadline. Jon doesn’t recall giving them any pressing deadlines, but that probably speaks more to his forgetfulness. 

Martin is up at the counter again, looking down at the ice cream. He gestures for Jon to come over.

“Do you want some more?” Jon asks. He’s not going to fault the man for another round. It is his birthday after all.

“No,” Martin shakes his head. “But I think you should. You didn’t really want rum raisin, did you?”

“H-How could you tell?” Jon stammers, embarrassed at being caught. He’d choked down at least a few bites.

“Nobody likes rum raisin, Jon,” he says with a chuckle. It takes a few more nudges, but Jon ends up picking a scoop of cotton candy. It is childish and overly sweet and delicious. He gets a cone and Martin uses that excuse for a walk in the park.

They arrive at work over a half-hour later than planned. Tim and Sasha begin to tease and Jon immediately barricades himself in his office. He’s got so much work to do, after all. But he thinks he’ll leave on time tonight.

He deserves one good day, right?

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584141

Next in Series:

What Makes a Home

My Dearest

The Weight of Love

[raendown]

Another follower milestone gift fic, this one for someone who asked to be identified as anon. ^_^ The prompt word for this is woolage!

Pairing: KakashiSakura Word count: 2273 Rated: T+ Summary: Sakura could really use a taste of her own medicine. No, really, she needed some healing before this concussion made her do something that stopped Kakashi's heart entirely.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

A Rock and a Hard Place

Swaying gently on the rock that served as her stool, Sakura blinked up at him owlishly as though her dazed expression could in any way be half as terrifying as the full force of her usual ire. When he failed to look properly cowed she narrowed her eyes but doing so only seemed to rob her of what little balance was left. Kakashi didn’t bother trying not to laugh when she careened sideways off her perch. 

“Not supposed to laugh at me,” she grumbled. “So rude.” 

“Maa, and you weren’t supposed to leap straight in to the radius of my paper bomb. I think that makes us about even.”

Sakura gave an indelicate snort only to break out in a coughing fit when it sent up a small cloud of dust around her face, mashed in to the dirt as she was now. For a good handful of seconds Kakashi seriously considered being a good person and helping her sit upright. Then he discarded the idea. Watching her deal with the early effects of a concussion while her depleted chakra recovered enough for a bit of healing was so much more entertaining. It wasn’t like she had any other injuries from getting tossed back in to a tree, just a routine bump on the noggin, nothing that any shinobi who’d been on the field for longer than two missions hadn’t suffered through before. 

“It tastes really bad down here,” Sakura told him. 

“Probably because you’re practically eating dirt,” he pointed out helpfully. 

“Oh. Yeah. Hey what happened to my rock?” 

“You must have misplaced it.” Kakashi flopped down on to the rock himself and leaned over his mission partner with one eye turned up in a friendly smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you look for it.” 

The gratitude in her eyes when she thanked him for being so nice set him to laughing again. Amazingly, Sakura didn’t even seem to mind. Infamous for her temper as she was, it was a rare opportunity indeed that she let someone laugh at her misfortune without answering their mockery with a swift punch. Kakashi was pretty sure if she tried to throw a punch right now she would be just as likely to find her own face with it.

Shading his eye with a hand, Kakashi made a show of scouring the landscape around them in search of the rock he was currently sitting on. When his search yielded no results he relayed as much to his companion and chuckled as Sakura rolled over to stretch out on her back. 

“It’s not fair,” she grumbled. “Rocks don’t just get up and walk away!” 

“Well, not most of them.”

“Oh! Maybe it was a doton!” 

“Maybe,” Kakashi agreed. 

Did it make him a bad person to wish he got to see her in this kind of state more often? It probably did. He would never wish more harm on her, of course, it was just that seeing her with absolutely no walls around her heart and all inhibitions gone was a very rare treat. Even on the rare occasion she joined her friends for a night of indulging she wasn’t quite this open. Where most people seemed to loosen up with alcohol, Sakura only seemed to make a trade of good balance for more energy without falling victim to the loss of self that led Naruto to confess his love for several different trees in the park near his apartment. 

Really it was good that there was no one else around for Kakashi to justify his actions to. He was fairly sure any of their mutual friends would call him all sorts of unflattering things for enjoying this. 

But really, he would challenge anyone in the world not to be amused at the way Sakura, so famous for her competence and independence, struggled valiantly with the simple task of getting her body upright again. When they made it back to the village he was going to enjoy taking every opportunity possible to laugh about this - where she couldn’t hear him, of course. Kakashi enjoyed a good joke as much as the next man but he also enjoyed keeping his spine inside his body where it belonged and Sakura was more than capable of removing that for him if she was angry enough. 

“Hey, hey, come here.” Waving one hand, Sakura beckoned him with her eyes set somewhere vaguely over his left shoulder. It seemed not only her good sense had been affected by the concussion but her good vision as well. Not an unusual symptom. Kakashi moved to crouch down in front of her as bidden. 

“You called, my lady?”

She laughed a little before nodding. “I think the ground is trying to keep me.”

“Well I certainly can’t blame it for that.”

“Huh?”

“I would try to keep you too if I had you.” 

The way her eyes widened made him chuckle but it was a nervous sound, hopeful that she wouldn’t remember any of this once she was able to heal herself. Sakura hummed thoughtfully. 

“Help me up,” she demanded. 

“Someone’s feeling bossy.” Despite his words he was already holding out one hand even as he spoke. 

It very quickly became clear that more than one hand would be needed to keep her steady as Kakashi hauled her up on to her feet, quite happy but just as ashamed to stand there holding all of her fingers entwined with his own while she swayed dangerously back and forth. He could see the trajectory of her fall when it finally came but watching her face plant against the buckles on his vest was so much funnier than doing anything to catch her. With the careful distance that had always existed between them before he expected her to push away immediately. Maybe to giggle a little considering her almost inebriated state. He certainly didn’t expect her to just stay there and wriggle about until she had freed her face to look up at him with a smile. 

He should have known right there that something was about to happen but even if he’d tried to brace he never would have been able to prepare himself for two hands suddenly winding themselves about his neck as Sakura pulled her face right up close to his own. Kakashi was abruptly extra grateful to his mask for covering any traces of what was surely a very deep blush on his cheeks. 

“I am the boss,” Sakura declared. 

“Maa, if you want to be,” was all he could think to say. His agreement seemed to please her, which she showed by pulling even closer until she was up on her tippy toes. 

“What I say goes!”

Kakashi swallowed, imagining all the things she could say and how eagerly he would do them. “Right. And what are your orders, Sakura-sama?”

The tinkling giggle she made at being addressed so formally was like the ringing of little silver bells. 

“I order you”-her fingers were already moving even as she spoke, giving no quarter and no time for protest-“to let me play with your hair! I’ve always wanted to know!”

“A-ah. Kn- oh my. Know what, exactly?” 

Breathing, he discovered, was incredibly difficult with such a pretty face so close to his own. Add to that the warmth of Sakura’s body seeping through his clothing plus the heavy weight of guilt knowing that she was not in her right mind and Kakashi found that he simply didn’t know what to do. Obviously the right thing to do would be to push her away but it was possible he was over-interpreting this. In this state Sakura might not even realize the implications of their position.

Her actions certainly supported that theory. Despite the intimacy she had pressed herself in to she seemed interested only in the spiky rough hair she’d gotten her hands on. Another tinkling giggle escaped and while it was indeed a very pretty giggle Kakashi absently noted that he preferred her usual brash laugh. It suited her so much more. 

“I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like! And if you might like it when I pull on it.” With a beguilingly empty smile Sakura tugged ever so gently on the small fistful she was holding, her eyes very carefully watching the spot just next to his own. 

“Why...would you want to pull my hair?” Kakashi asked. 

“Duh, to see if you like it.”

Frowning, he was almost distracted as he asked, “Why would I like it?”

“Oh I dunno. Some people like it when you pull their hair in bed, y’know? I like it.” Sakura’s face morphed in to a heated expression as if she hadn’t just floored him with a couple of boldly spoken sentences. “Do you wanna pull my hair, Kakashi?”

“I found your rock! Let’s get you back on the rock, okay!?” 

“Mou, but I wasn’t done!”

Kakashi ignored her protests, slipping away from the grip on his hair and trying not to be too obvious about the panic attack he was currently having. As he settled his mission partner back on to the rock she’d fallen off before he made the mistake of looking away for a crucial few seconds. It was all the time she needed. Before he could even get his eyes back on her Sakura was lunging forward to bury her fingers in his hair again, trapping him in place, leaving him utterly helpless to do anything but listen as she murmured excitedly to herself.

Obviously it wasn’t the first time he’d been this close to a woman. It wasn’t even the first time he’d been this close to Sakura herself. The problem was that it was the first time that didn’t involve fighting for their lives together or sparring or even medical attention. Kakashi knew he should find an excuse to move away before his poor depraved mind could start feeding him images from the last time he’d dreamt of something disturbingly close to this. And he really would have, honest, if not for the fact that even concussed Sakura had a very strong grip and Kakashi wasn’t the most vain man in the world but he didn’t really want to walk around with several chunks of his hair missing.

“It’s always so messy,” Sakura breathed. “How...how does it stand up on it’s own!?”

“Natural talent,” was all Kakashi managed to wheeze in return.

“Does it smell nice?” 

With an oddly gentle pull she dragged him in close enough to bury her face in the very top of his head, breathing deeply while Kakashi did his best not to take advantage of the angle he suddenly found himself in. He might appreciate her chest in the privacy of his own fantasies but he liked to think he had more tact than to do so now. Despite his many other flaws he wasn’t a total creep. Just a little bit of a creep. A little wasn’t too bad.

“Maa…” he managed to choke out eventually after the silence began to stretch on. “Does it?” 

“Smells like dirt. And sweat. And just a little bit of citrus. Why do you have lemons in your hair?”

“That would be my shampoo,” Kakashi told her in a strained voice. 

“No, I’m pretty sure there’s lemons in here. Don’t worry, I’ll find them!” Sakura’s face lifted off the top of his head but there wasn’t much relief to be had when her fingers continued to poke and prod, shift and dig, all but massaging his scalp in a fuzzy-minded search for fruit that wasn’t there. Kakashi prayed for strength when she added in a mumble under her breath, “So much hair, so messy, gonna take a while to find those lemons…”

Feeling rather like his presence had somehow been forgotten, Kakashi very slowly shuffled around until he’d curled his body in to a position that wouldn’t start to ache before he was finally released. Who knew how long this wonderful torture would last? A part of him hoped that Sakura’s chakra levels would recover quickly so he could be free but another very shameful part was more than happy to remain exactly where he was and just let her do as she pleased. It was very possible he should have been thinking of some way to help that first part along. Instead he only settled both hands in his lap and closed his eyes when Sakura’s fingers dragged against the natural grain like she could somehow know how much he liked it. 

Maybe, he thought to himself with a hint of wry humor, he should finally man up and just ask her out. One dinner together wouldn’t hurt anyone, probably wouldn’t wouldn’t ruin their friendship if it didn’t go well. He would have to gather his courage - later. 

A quick peek up even at this angle told him that Sakura was still just as out of it as ever, no closer to returning her own good sense, which meant he would probably need to deal with this odd behavior for a while yet. When she did come back to herself Sakura was no doubt going to be mortified at her own actions and Kakashi very much wanted to be able to tell her with perfect honesty that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation beyond getting in a few laughs. With any luck his honesty would earn her favor. 

Then with even greater luck he would take his shot and maybe, just maybe, he might have the honor of feeling those deceptively small fingers in his hair again for an entirely different reason. 

[smittenroses]

This person has requested to be anon: Hello! Can i get a match up please? My fandoms are Nintendo, pokemon, idv. And cookie run. I'm 25 (look 18 though, chick , and pan. I'm usually pretty chill and get along well with most people. I've been told all the time that I'm funny and easy to talk to. I'm not good with physical contact (i stiffen up) due to past issues but i sadly crave love and affection. very cautious and protective. I also enjoy horror/ crime related stuff, i think it's interesting :> sorry if it's alot, i just really love your writing! Been keeping up to date with your fanfic too, it slaps hard!

Ahhh it gives me so much serotonin to know that you've been keeping up with my fanfic haha- knowing people love my stuff/think it slaps always makes me happy

I pair you with...

Vampire Cookie!

Vampire cookie is known to be a sleepy cookie who prefers to hang around and do the minimum if he isn't causing mischief for his younger sister, Alchemist, however, I can also see him being drawn to your personality given that most of the people he hangs around with [Herb, Sparkling and Mint as examples] are very kind people and, like you, are funny and easy to talk to.

Vampire has the habit of just appearing out of thin air since he doesn't make much noise, given his primary form of transport is to float so don't be alarmed if he suddenly pops up in front of your face.

Given that he's a vampire, Vampire probably understands what it's like to not want physical contact with others as he, in his earlier days, probably feared hurting others by merely touching them, though over time he has learnt to control his inhumane strength. This means though he shall also show his affection in different ways, such as taking things and returning them for something small such as a 'I love you' or even a gentle kiss [if you're comfortable]. He would never push your limits and will always, always ask your permission before doing anything such as holding you.

Given that he and his sister have lived longer lives due to being non-human, I could imagine that he is also very interested in how people go about trying to solve crimes and their theories on cold cases; he finds them fascinating as not only does it help him gain knowledge of current times, it also allows for him to put his knowledge to the test as over the time he has been alive, he has witnessed many deaths and has helped solved crimes — yes, my idea of Vampire used to be a detective that would trade help for small amounts of blood.

Vampire would call you pet names such as 'little bat', 'darling', and even 'love' as terms of endearment, though sometimes he may call you his 'personal blood bug' — don't worry though, the last one is to mostly scare his sister the first time as he enjoys making her think he's feeding off of you. If you're into that though, be his guest because he will gladly take the opportunity to sometimes prick you with his teeth if you allow him to. To him, feeding directly off of someone is a form of endearment.

I can also imagine him being very open about whatever you'd want to do, drag him around, have him witness new things, just make sure he's able to actually participate as he does need to carry an umbrella around on particularly sunny days and he cannot go swimming unless the water has been treated with special herbs or else he ends up with a rash.

Give him scratches under the chin in his bat form, he loves it.

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

The Senator and The Chiss

Until We Meet Again: Part 1/?

Thrawn x Senator!Reader, Female Pronouns

Summary: You are a newly appointed Senator of you home planet, trying your best to make it through Ascension week in one piece. Things take a turn for the interesting when you meet a Lieutenant of the Imperial Navy unlike any you have seen before.

Loosely based on an anon request.

A/N: I’m not exactly sure where this is going. I plan this to be a series of one shots revolving around this Senator!Reader. If your interested in reading more about her and Thrawn, feel free to send any request my way! And remember REBLOG AND COMMENT IF YOU LIKE THIS!!!

Word Count: 2.6K

Ascension week was proving to be more exhausting than you had anticipated.

You understood what was expected of you and had mentally prepared to be on your feet for every day of the celebrations. But after only three days, the names and faces were starting to blur together until nothing mattered except going home and finally getting some sleep.

You clung to the sides of the ballroom, enjoying the moment’s peace while you could. You had long forgotten where exactly you were or even the host’s name. A twist of guilt resided in your stomach because of it. With any luck you could remain anonymous for another hour or so, as to not appear rude when you left early. The dress and hairpiece you were wearing, however, were making things difficult.

The wardrobe was ceremonial in nature, meant to mark you as a leader of your people. The dress was perfectly tailored to your figure with vibrant greens interwoven with golden and silver thread sewn together in a striking pattern. An elaborate crown was braided into your hair making it appear as if golden vines resided there blooming with silver flowers. It was a striking sight, meant to represented the life of your homeworld and the pride of your people.

Governor Lir had declared you a vision when you had arrived, assuring you were a testimate to Danu and would be the talk of Courscant.

You had thanked him, but knew his words rung partially false. Even when your aids had finished the final touches, you could feel yourself being buried under the weight of the dress. The metal vines poked and pulled at your scalp. You had almost tripped upon first entering the ballroom. If it weren’t for having Governor Lir’s arm, you would have fallen. It was obvious to any with a pair of eyes, and especially yourself; the dress was wearing you rather than you wearing it.

Perhaps you just needed practice. You had only been Senator of Danu for a handful of months and had just settled into your office on Courscant a few weeks ago. It would take time to adjust. But as you looked over the sea of people in the ballroom, all veteran politicians, military men, and various other powerful figures, it was becoming clear time wasn’t on your side.

You took a sip of your wine. Maybe you could convince Governor Lir you needed to rest. Surely he had introduced you to enough people for the evening.

You spotted him across the room, engaged with a handful of other Outer Rim governors.

It would have to wait. You didn’t want to be accidently sucked into another trade routes discussion, if you could help it.

You continued to walk until you came across a set of heavy curtains. They appeared hastily put up. Peaking out of one of the corners you could just make out the bright colors of some kind of mural. Most likely the host didn’t have time to finish it before the start of Ascension week. Regardless, it was exactly the reprieve you needed. Taking a quick glance to make sure you wouldn’t be seen, you ducked under and out of sight.

You turned to face the wall, not wanting to risk backing into wet paint. But, as your eyes adjusted to the dim light, it was clear such precaution was not necessary.

The mural was old, much older than any of the other paintings and portraits placed around the ballroom. The color was starting to fade, but their vibrancy would not die an easy death.

The entire wall was covered in what could only be an ancient star map. Circles and lines weaved along, connecting worlds and stars and planets together in a delicate dance. Each planet stood bodly on their own while still emphasising the importance of the lines connecting them to the rest.

You took a small step back, craning your neck to try and catch every brush stroke. It was then you noticed fresh paint along the corners. At first you assumed it was restoration, but as you examined closer, the darker, subtler color scheme told you otherwise.

A small sting of pain came to your heart. They were painting over it.

The rustle of fabric interrupted your thoughts. You turned toward the sound, an apology ready on your lips when they froze there in wonder.

A new party had entered your sanctuary, but he was unlike anyone you had ever seen.

He was alien, a rarity you had found at events such as these during your short time on Coruscant, but he didn't belong to any species you could name. His humanoid appearance and blue skin should have pointed clearly toward a Pantoran. But his face lacked the usual golden facial tattoos. More importantly his eyes weren’t the usual black or gold; they were a glowing red.

He stood tall exuding an air of confidence which left you transfixed. At first you thought he might be a general or even a prince. But, his uniform and plaque marked him as a Lieutenant of the Imperial Navy.

It felt wrong, somehow.

You blinked, suddenly realizing how long you had been staring. The only comfort you could find was that he had been staring back.

“I’m sorry,” you said, automatically. “Was this your hiding place?”

You held back a wince at your own words. Why would someone like him need to hide?

To your relief, he did not seem to take offence as his lip curled into a mildly amused expression. “No,” he said, in accented Basic. “I was merely hoping for a chance to admire the artwork. Though, it appears I have stumbled upon your hiding place.”

Your eyes darted down in embarrassment. “It was not my intention for it to be so. I just needed a moment to breathe and well…” You looked back toward the painting, and the same regretful pain tugged at your heart once more.

“I will leave you to it, then,” the alien said. He turned to leave, and a sudden panic took you.

“There’s no need,” you said, quickly. “Please, there is more than enough room for two and you may not have another opportunity.”

He paused a moment. His expression was unreadable as his red eyes gazed directly into yours.

You found yourself holding your breath, not even daring to blink.

Then, slowly, he nodded and took a place by your side.

You stood in silence, each allowing the other to observe the mural in peace.

It was actually rather pleasant. You hadn’t realized how long it had been since you had a comfortable silence with someone.

“What do you know of this painting,” he asked.

His tone was surprisingly soft. If he hadn’t addressed you directly, you would have assumed he was asking himself.

“Not much I’m afraid,” you answered. “Judging by how faded it is and the subject matter, I would guess it was commissioned well before The Clone War.”

“That was my conclusion as well. You have a fondness for that era, I take it.”

You gave a small frown. “What makes you say that?”

“You were facing the mural instead of the entrance,” he said, not bothering to take his gaze from the wall. “For one reason or another, this piece overshadowed your desire to remain hidden.”

Your stomach twisted uncomfortably at the truth of his statement as your cheeks grew warm. “I suppose you’re right. In truth, I have a fondness for any era of peace in our galaxy’s history. The Republic was so for nearly a millennium…” You stopped then, a familiar lump forming in your throat. “Until it wasn’t.”

“And what of the Empire?”

You shrugged, swallowing the lump as best you could. “Too soon to tell.”

He said nothing for a moment. His eyes still remained on the mural, but you knew he had taken your words into serious consideration. To what end, you could only guess.

“What other thoughts do you have on the painting?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“What do you see? What do you believe drew you to it in the first place?”

He settled his eyes on your now, with just the same focused attention as he had the wall.

“You me aside from its use as an ideal hiding place,” you asked.

His lip twisted upward slightly. “Yes, aside from that.”

You nodded, and allowed yourself a moment to ponder the question. Your eyes wandered again to the mural, to the shapes and colors and the looming ridged strokes along the edges.

“I think it has more to do with the contrast of what is to come,” you said, thoughtfully. “A riot of color rebelling against the darkness.”

You turned your eye to his. They seemed to burn in the dim light. For a moment, you thought you might burn yourself. You looked away, suddenly feeling very small and childish in your explanation.

“But, I am no expert.”

“Perhaps not,” he conceded. “But your answer is telling, nonetheless.”

Your back stiffened, and you raised your chin a little higher. “Do you presume to know me Lieutenant?”

“No,” he said, calmly. “I would not presume to know anything without more data.”

“But you have come to some conclusions.”

“Theories.”

“Which are?”

You were standing even straighter now. You would not allow yourself to be intimidated, especially by a man you barely knew.

He paused then. Something in his expression faltered, as if taken by surprise.

A small swell of pride came to your chest. You had a suspicion surprise was a foreign emotion to the alien.

It only lasted a moment and the impenetrable mask reclaimed its place on his features.

“As I said, I cannot make any certain claims,” he said, carefully. “I can only speculate. But I believe I am correct in saying, you are much bolder than you allow yourself to be.”

You blinked in wonder, not knowing entirely what to say. Slowly, you regained control of your vocabulary. “I will take it under consideration.”

He gave small nod in acknowledgement.

Another silence fell between you. It was not as comfortable as the last one. A new tension was in the air. What it was, you couldn’t name. All you knew was your ears were growing deadly hot.

“For such an intimate evaluation of my character, it feels odd I don’t know your name,” you said, in a light tone.

“Then, allow me to provide a remedy.” He straightened to attention. “I am Lieutenant Thrawn, first weapon’s officer of the Blood Crow, Imperial Navy. And, you?”

You matched him, straightening your posture and holding your head high as if to present yourself to a King. “I am Senator Y/N of Danu,” you said, with a curtsey. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance Lieutenant Thrawn.”

“The pleasure is mine, Senator.”

The amused line had made its way back onto his lips.

It was a small change, but you instantly fell at ease making your next question easier to bear.

“Forgive me if I sound ignorant,” you said. “And please know I mean no disrespect. But, I do not believe I’ve seen a member of your species before. May I ask where you come from?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Thrawn assured. “I’m afraid you would not have heard of my home planet as it is not on any of your star maps. I can, however, tell you that I am Chiss.”

You felt your eyes widen. “Chiss?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve heard of the Chiss?”

“Only stories, folk tales really.” You were gawking now, you knew you were, but it couldn’t be helped. “I wasn’t entirely convinced you were real.”

“Indeed,” he said. “And how did a senator come to hear such stories?”

“Danu is part of the Outer Rim, boarding Wild Space,” you explained, mentally shaking yourself out of your shock. “My family has employed a number of traders who have explored the Unknown Region looking for hyperspace lanes or even just new trading partners. They all come back with stories.”

“Which you were inclined to listen too.”

You shrugged. “A good story is a good story, it doesn’t matter where it came from or how true it is. Although, it appears some of them may be.”

“Perhaps,” he said, thoughtfully. “I would be interested to hear these stories. A small handful have been relayed to be by my translator, Ensign Vanto. I am curious what similarities and differences may arise after comparing them to another source.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “And I would be fascinated to hear the stories straight from the Gualaar’s mouth,” you said. “But before we begin, I have one more question to ask of you.”

“Which is?”

“What do you think of the mural?”

Thrawn paused, his brow furrowing slightly.

“You were able to deduce some of my character from the exercise,” you said. “It’s only fair I be given the same opportunity.”

Thrawn again, said nothing. Finally he nodded. “You’re quite right.”

He was quite a long moment.

You could see the wheels of his mind turning behind his eyes. You would have given anything to know exactly what he was thinking. But as was becoming a habit, you could only guess.

Another moment passed before he blinked smoothly back to reality.

“I believe you and I see much the same thing,” he said. “But our conclusions differ as to their ultimate meaning.”

You felt your lips purse at his rather cryptic answer. You were about to ask him what exactly he meant when the curtains behind you parted.

“Lieutenant Thrawn,” an older man snapped. “I’ve been looking… Oh, my apologies.”

He faltered slightly upon seeing you, but soon gained his footing as he stood to attention.

“No need to apologize, Colonel,” Thrawn said. “Allow me to introduce Senator Y/N of Danu. Senator, this is Colonel Yularen of the ISB.”

The Colonel gave a small bow in greeting. “An honor, Senator.”

“The honor is mine,” you replied. “In truth, I should be apologizing to you. It seems I’ve distracted the Lieutenant from his duties.”

“Only for a moment,” the Colonel said, in a good natured, but firm tone which oddly reminded you of your grandfather. “But, I’m afraid I will have to steal him away from you.”

“Of course,” you said, even if you felt a small prick of pain at the loss.

He looked to Thrawn. “Lieutenant.”

“One moment, Colonel,” Thrawn said, as he turned his attention to you. “I would like to continue our discussion at a later date. Is there a time and place convenient for you?”

“I will be attending gatherings every evening this week,” you said, trying to repress the sudden surge of excitement bubbling beneath the surface. “However, I will be in my office tomorrow afternoon, if you can spare the time.”

“I am certain I can. Until tomorrow Senator.”

“Until tomorrow.”

He gave a small bow and turned to follow Colonel Yularen back into the light of the ballroom.

You stood there a moment reeling from the experience. So many questions buzzed in your mind each fighting for your attention until they became a jumbled mess. He thought you were bold?

You shook the thought away, but it didn’t stop your cheeks from growing warm once again.

Perhaps it was too soon to tell, but you had a strange feeling you would be seeing much more of Lieutenant Thrawn than just your upcoming meeting. You weren’t sure what to make of the sensation that now beat fast in your heart. All you could do was wait and see what the galaxy had in store.

Taking a small breath, you step forward towards the light. Your dress felt lighter now. The crown upon your head did not pull and prod. Your steps were smooth and easy.

However this played out, it was certain to be interesting.

[sometimesrosy]

Do you think Lxa was just listening to Clarke in s3 to the point of alienating her own people just because she wanted to screw her or because she really wanted peace? Because it got to the point where Lxa’s actions where very obviously favoring the sky people over her own. This is not the Lxa we saw in s2. How did you interpret it?

 I disagree with your essential theory here. I think it was the Lxa we saw in season 2. Most of my disdain for Lxa actually stems from my belief that she was a terrible leader who cared more about her reputation and power than she did about doing what was best for her people. Understand that my whole interpretation of Lxa stems from her poor leadership, so the widely accepted interpretation that Lxa was some sort of brilliant, peacemaking leader... a visionary... doesn’t wash with me.

Oh hey, this is a long one so I’m going to write it all after the jump, which keeps some of the controversy at bay because at heart, we’re all too lazy to click keep reading. And the last time I said the behavior of a beloved character was not out of character but was their character the entire time, and gave evidence for it, I got some stans MAD. Like I was making up the canon or something IDK. I think it was more like they were erasing canon or brushing it under the rug because it wasn’t nice. Whatever didn’t fit their interpretation they decided was unimportant. 

So this is going to happen in regards to Lxa. Do not read if you’re not willing to read that. And if you do read it, don’t get mad at me for not thinking Lxa is the bees knees. You’ve been warned, now be a responsible consumer of media and either accept that people are allowed different opinions or don’t read it because you’re not interested in interpretations that read Lxa as an antagonist. (this is directed at stans, not you anon.)

ok moving on the meta

Yes. Indra called her a visionary, and we know that she united the clans against a common enemy, the mountain men, which kept them from infighting, but I don’t actually consider that peace. Unity, yes. Peace, no. They united in order to fight someone else. There’s no definition of peace that centers on waging war. And when we SAW her leading, once the story starts? Lxa lost every battle that she entered into. Not the one on one fights, she was a good warrior, I’ll give her that. However, the only people she managed to kill or dominate were her own people. And whenever she or her people were up against the skypeople, she actually lost. Even when things were so weighted in her favor that there was no question that the grounders would win. She still lost. 

I can’t speak for her motivation before the show starts. It does seem as if her “peacemaking,” which makes it better for the tribes, but also ended up giving her more power over everyone, including her most bitter enemies, the Azgeda, serves the double duty of allying the tribes AND glorifying Lxa herself.

TBH, I don’t see ANY action she takes in the entire series that doesn’t glorify Lxa. Well, until she meets Clarke and falls in love, and then she starts trying to make decisions that AREN’T about her reputation or power base or political machinations... although i think in public, she keep maneuvering it all back to being for her glorification.

She wants Clarke and loves her and desires her, so she takes her. BUT she manipulates it to be a political move where she has power over the sky people and over death itself. Clarke LITERALLY becomes a trophy, who needs to kneel at her feet. And yes, she does kneel back, but only in private, so it doesn’t damage her reputation or show weakness. Clarke becomes a vulnerability to her because of this, I think. 

I do think Lxa’s weakness is love... but we have to expand the definition to mean love, desire, yearning... and not just for Clarke or Costia or any people. Lxa LOVES power, and her desire is to keep, maintain and grow her power... and if letting TonDC blow will give her more power, she’ll let her coalition leaders die. If betraying Clarke and skycrew will give her more power, she’s leave them to die. If kidnapping Clarke and using her to prove she’s powerful (and also giving her what she’s wanted since s2 which is Clarke near enough to date,) then she’ll do it. Oh look, her unstated desires are starting to bleed into political and leadership decisions. Weakness. It’s not the love, I don’t think. it’s the lack of integrity. But her emotions make her unstable and unpredictable. She wants what she wants and will break her own rules to get it, whether it is a reputation as a badass or clarke in polis or control over her coalition or a legacy that makes her a legend.

And there was only one point when she favored the sky people and that’s when she let them slide on the hakeldama massacre. And to be honest, that wasn’t about preferring the skypeople. It wasn’t even about loving Clarke. Clarke manipulated her into that decision by accurately understanding what motivated Lxa... power, reputation, and her LEGACY. Clarke fed her ego by convincing her that showing the skypeople mercy would make her famous as a visionary. This is not my interpretation. This is canon. It wasn’t “if you love me you’ll let my people live.” It wasn’t “don’t kill innocent people, please have mercy.” It was, “if you spare them, people will remember you as merciful, as the visionary who brought peace to the people.” Not “this is the right thing to do.” But “this is how people will see you forever.” But remember also, that mercy came with a double edged sword. An army sitting outside Arkadia, that could either protect or destroy if they stepped out of line. They weren’t diplomats. They were warriors, and they were armed and dangerous. When Pike’s army killed them, they weren’t innocents. Pike killed their watch FIRST. Which is TACTICS. He removed their first defense. And then killed their archers, so they couldn’t get close enough to the sky people to overwhelm them with their superior numbers. This was not more powerful warriors killing defenseless people (like it was at the drop ship. what was SPECIFICALLY these warriors, trikru,) it was 10 people with better weapons, assessing the weaknesses of an army 30 times their strength, and beating them with strategy. They didn’t cheat. They beat them fair and square. Their decision was WRONG, and a bad idea, but not cheating. Until they went through and killed the wounded. I think that’s a war crime. And Pike did deserve punishment for that (not Bellamy he tried to stop it.) 

Even though she spared them and seemed to favor them over her army, in that one instance, the rest of the time she had the skypeople twisting on a string, pent up behind a fence, not allowed to use the mountain although they conquered it, not allowed to trade or farm or hunt. She was keeping them powerless. And when she punished Nia for blowing up MW, she didn’t do it for the skypeople, she did it for herself, because Nia challenged her. Nia attacked the skypeople as a move against Lxa.

I don’t think Lxa cared much about peace. She showed little mercy. To anyone unless it served her needs. And we saw that in season 2. And she wasn’t being kind to skaikru in season 3. Never. Sparing them from slaughter is not kindness, it is an abuse of power that continually reminds them she could slaughter them all, man woman and child, whenever she wanted to. And Clarke had to stay to make sure she didn’t. Regardless of her other reasons for wanting to stay (hiding from her people, trauma, wanting to be with Lxa.)

I’m always nervous to answer asks about Lxa because I do NOT think Lxa is a hero. Just because a character serves as representation for an under represented minority does not mean that that character is heroic, good, or perfect. Depicting a minority as a complex, three dimensional character (which I think Lxa IS) is actually good representation. It is not good representation to assume that all minorities are flawless, heroic, perfect characters. White guys get Superman, that perfect hero, but they also get Batman (dark and tortured,) and Rorsharch (maybe good maybe not so good,) and The Joker (really not good but compelling.) Lesbians don’t get any of that, so looking at Lxa, FINALLY representation of their own, they see Superman, that perfect example. But Lxa in the story is really more like Magneto. A leader with good intentions whose motives and methods are SEVERELY questionable and from many perspectives, down right evil. 

At best, if you look at the story from her perspective (which is not the perspective of the narrative) she is a TRAGIC hero, like Hamlet or Macbeth, a character who starts out high, with power and respect, and through their own fatal flaws, falls and loses everything. That is EXACTLY what happened to Lxa. This was not an attack on her character, this was how her character was built from the beginning and is a VERY classic tragic story. No one did it to her. She did it to herself. She was warned along the way. And she did what she wanted anyway, and she lost EVERYTHING, her life, her people, her power, her traditions, her religion, even, eventually, her immortality. Everything that happened to the grounders was essentially set into place by Lxa, when she attacked 100 pretty helpless adolescents, and strung Jasper up, unprovoked. 

She didn’t cause the Ark to fail, or the rebellion on the ark. She didn’t cause the second apocalypse. She didn’t cause the Eligius or Sanctum. But the story of the grounders and how their society collapsed was TOTALLY on Lxa’s head. But she WAS more interested in her own self interest, desires, and power than she was the benefit of her people. 

I think her behavior in s3 is consistent with her behavior in s2, with some added character development of how BAD she is at dealing with love. No, dear, you cannot kidnap someone and make them love you. You literally did EVERYTHING wrong in wooing Clarke. You’re just lucky she’s so forgiving and was so vulnerable when you had her in your clutches. Anyway. It was good for neither of them. 

I simply do not agree with the interpretation that Lxa is a good leader, kind, or visionary. Not in s2 or s3. I think she’s a good character as an antagonist, but the fandom interpretations erase her antagonist qualities and flatten her out into a cupcake that doesn’t belong in this story. She’s not the hero. Clarke, Bellamy and the 100 are. Lxa is the person who caused a good portion of the trauma for our heroes, even in the romance. That makes her the antagonist. Lxa stood in the way of our heroes getting what they wanted in season 1, season 2 and season 3. That’s an antagonist, even when the complexity of love, and a golden cage, is added to the story. I do not ever say that their love isn’t real, I’m saying that just because there’s love doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, or helpful for our hero. Love does not equal perfect, or we wouldn’t have heartbreak, domestic abuse, failed marriages, love triangles, bad girfriends/boyfriends, or Donna Summer’s classic disco hit, “I Will Survive” (hey hey)

[ajokeformur-ray]

From oldest to newest ~ Erika answers asks ~

hailmary-yramliah said: Wait I’m really tripping out. I realized you were following me on Tumblr and I didn’t even know?!?!?!? I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOUR FICS LIKE WTF IM SO SLOW BUT THANK YOU YOURE LIKE ACTUALLY AMAZING AND ME STANNING YOU RN MAKES ME EMBARRASSED BUT I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT YOU ARE SO TALENTED!!! Ahhhhh I love your Arthur/Joker fics XD 

Thank you so so much!!! <33333 This means so much to me! <3333 I hope you continue to enjoy the works that I work so hard on x

Anonymous said:Ngl I feel like it’s wrong to like Arthur & read fics about him only bc my sis thinks it’s weird af. Our interests are complete opposite & finds mine very weird and it kinda makes me sad. I wish she loved the movie as much as me & understood my “obsessions” as she calls them. Anyways, love your fics sm! You’ve gotten me into this fandom so quickly and I love it! 💕

Your sister sounds just like my, and others’, family. They don’t understand because the film wasn’t for them. It was for people like us who see Arthur and who understand him. If you find enjoyment in something, darling, most especially if it’s fictional (though very realistic), then there’s no shame in indulging in it. Thank you very much, that means a lot! <3

insfirebunny said: Ok As you might see rn I make myself comfortable in your blog. Hope you don't mind. I enjoy every single one story of yours. You write so beautifully that it's magical. Take care of yourself, sunshine ☀

I don’t mind at all, I’m flattered, thank you so, so much! <33333 take care of yourself too!!!!

Anonymous said: Would you rather date Arthur or Joker??

To me, Arthur never went insane and ‘became’ Joker. He’s not the insane one; the world is mad. So I would date Arthur and I would love him and protect him and help him (everything I write about is everything I would do for him; the things I write for others are very self-indulgent lmao I have no shame) and if, in his own time, he grew into himself (Joker), then I would still love and support him just the same. I don’t think he went mad - I think he just dropped everything holding him down, holding him back, and said “fuck the world”. And honestly? That’s a big fucking mood.

Anonymous said: Okay speaking of the multiverse theory, what is your view on it regarding fictional characters. I personally believe that not only do they exist, but with the right skills you could connect with them in some way.

Since I was a child, for as long as I could remember, I’ve had this super vivid made up, carefully crafted world inside my head with all my most loved characters. I have spent my life inside my head daydreaming. I’ve never needed real life friends because I have my imagination and though I tried to make friends. I tried so hard but I never got anywhere because I was a freak, I was this and that etc. etc. (I was bullied for like 15 years lmao fuck ‘em) and so I stayed inside my head and didn’t bother trying to cross that invisible glass wall between me and everyone else. I’m 22 and I still haven’t bothered to try; it’s cosy here so I’ll stay inside my head where I can make others happy with my daydreams. But I digress - I like to think that our loves know that we love them. Every thought, every tear, every daydream, every squeal, every pillow we’ve squeezed wanting to be them, every imagine, everything we have done or do because of them, for them, they know. They see it; they feel it. I like to believe that Arthur Fleck knows how deeply he is loved and cherished he is by all of us and more than that - he loves us all just as fiercely, and he’s so, so proud of all of us. (Also lowkey I know it’s your skin shifting due to temperature changes etc. but you know when you think you feel a hand on your shoulder or fingers in your hair when you’re like half asleep and just dozing??? Or when you have a dream of him? That’s Arthur reaching out to us in the only way he can to say he knows, he sees and he loves us too.)

Anonymous said: I LOVE YOUR WRITING SO MUCH! Like it’s crazy how good you write

Thank you so, so much!!! <3333333 I work .v. hard (one piece can take up to three hours, though the longest I’ve ever spent on a piece (Coming Home To You) was six hours. I still say that is the best thing I’ve ever written, so that means a lot! <3

Anonymous said: I love Joker from our dearly beloved 2019 Joker movie as well as Joker from The Dark Night. I can't choose which I love more so why not both! At the same time! ifyouknowwhatimsaying 👀👀👀

Sksksksksksk I believe @gothamslittlejester can help you out here lmao she’s written for poly!readerxJokerxJoker so go check out her works; they’re phenomenal! <3

Anonymous said: There's a tornado warning in my area. We NEVER get tornado warnings, like ever, so I'm kind of scared.

Ohmygoodness please stay safe, darling!!! I’ve never experienced any kind of natural phenomena like that so I can’t imagine how scary that must be! I hope everything turned out well x

Anonymous said: I read what happened to you at work and deeply sorry. I’m sure you are more than aware of this but their reaction is a reflection of themselves than of you. You have the full power to enjoy and like what you please. Also, it is okay to bite back when it is needed. It may be hard to, but sometimes it’s healthy to stand up for yourself at times. Of course it is easier said than done. Remember you’re a goddess! Take back your power ✨

Thank you so, so much!!!! I’m not really all that affected by what happened anymore; it was only a week ago but already I’ve reached that nice part of apathy where you still care but you’re like, aa fuck it, I don’t wanna be hurt by it anymore. Standing up for myself is very hard; I’m a lot like Arthur in that respect: I put my head down, bite my tongue and take it because I hate confrontation. I hate it so much so I’d rather stay quiet. My parents told me I need to be a bit less Arthur and a bit more Joker; maybe in time that bite will come to me xp thank you honey! Your words mean a lot; I’m always here if you ever wanna talk about anything!!!

Anonymous said: I just read what you said about your coworkers. Honestly that's so horrible and I hope you're feeling better soon. ♡ I feel you so much, things like that happened to me all the time while I was still in school. But please, don't hate yourself. You have such a beautiful mind, you have talent & creativity most of them couldn't even dream of. It's not your fault that they can't see how beautiful being an introvert & a daydreamer can be. You're wonderful the way you are. ♡ ( @buried-in-windy-meadows )

I’m so sorry that you had to experience that, too, it’s an awful feeling when you try to be yourself and people are mean. I hope you know that they are no reflection on you, as the previous anon says - it’s all on them! Thank you so much; your words mean a lot <3 I’ve always been this way, for as long as I can remember I’ve lived inside my head, so I see no reason to change; I’m happy in, not necessarily myself, but my imagination and my creativity is my favourite part of myself (even when I’m at war with the rest of me, I can find solace in my imagination and I’m very lucky to have that) and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Anonymous said: I’m pretty sure you’re on the opposite side of the world from me so I just wanted to let you know your words and your attitude are making someone on the other side of the planet smile. We are all so lucky to have you and to have this movie to connect us. It makes me feel really human 🧡

This film is without a doubt the best thing that’s ever happened to me - we’ve all found a home, a place to go to vent and to write and to support each other and it’s so beautiful how such a tragic, grisly and dark film has brought light to so many of us. Arthur would adore it, I know he would. Thank you, darling, this means a lot to me! Please know I’m always here for you should you ever need anything or just wanna drop a line! <3

rafaelina-casillas said:Aw, I'm so so sorry that happened to you! People can be so nasty - especially to those who never deserved it! I hope you're feeling a lot better now! I can only say that in my country (where Halloween is not a tradition but more and more people are celebrating it) I saw at least 5 or 6 people in less than an hour who were doing the same makeup as you - and no one tried to mock them. I guess you had the worst luck with your colleagues but try to not mind them. They don't deserve your nerves! 💖

Exactly! I didn’t go out with my makeup, I just stayed home and enjoyed my private and personal display of love for Joker - I’m sure he’d have been flattered! And I dared to open up to my colleagues; it’s a mistake I won’t make twice, that’s for sure. Thank you, you’re always so kind to me and it means a lot - will have to DM you soon!

insfirebunny said: You look so cute and your writing is a pure gold. Stay strong

Thank you so, so much, you’re too kind!!! Take care of yourself, love! <3

Anonymous said: binge watching Batman: The Animated Series this weekend. Mark Hamil’s joker is amazing tbh

I’ll have to check that out; see if it’s on Netflix or Youtube. I hope you had a wonderful weekend! <3

theclownsqueen said: Hi! Im a new page, i love your page so much and your work is amazing! Sorry just thought I'd drop by. :)

Yeeeees ohmygoodness I gotta reply to your DM; I’ve got so many lmao <3333 thank you so much, you’re far too kind, I hope you continue to enjoy my works; I’m always here if you need anything x

Anonymous said: I relate to Arthur so bad. I’ve always been a loner and really shy, plus I’ve been helping out my mother a lot with financial problems. Once I saw the movie in theaters I just fell in love with it and it really brings me joy to read your fics. I just wish I wouldn’t get labeled a weirdo or freak for openly expressing that I like Arthur. Just makes me feel ashamed for liking something which sucks.

Thank you, darling - I’m glad my works can bring you joy; that’s really all I want to do with my writing is to help people in the moments they most need it. Even if all I manage to do is make your lips quirk upwards, that means I’ve done what I set out to do! I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time of it and I hope things start to look up for you soon! <3 The people who should feel ashamed are the ones labelling you for expressing yourself; truly, they’re the punchline of the joke Arthur was laughing at during the end of the film. Don’t let them take your sun from you, love - that means they’re winning. Please know I’m always here for you; don’t be afraid to drop me a line! <3

Anonymous said: I love your writing!

Thanks, honey! That means a lot <3

Anonymous said: Any tips for fic writers out there? Love your work btw!

There’s so much I could tell you but honestly, rules and guidelines don’t matter. Just have fun with it. Write what you wanna write in the way you wanna write it, when you wanna write it, and if anyone doesn’t like it, then who cares? Do it for you, even if you’re fulfilling requests for other people. Step back when you gotta, don’t be afraid to turn down writing requests if you don’t gel with them or you just don’t wanna or you’re not comfy with it, and really just have fun. If you have fun with the work you put in, then it’ll shine through and people’ll love it!

writings-of-a-gen-z said: hey love hope everythings going okay for you and the world isnt being too mean x

You’re too good to me, you always are. Thanks, love, and the same for you <3 sending hugs and love!

jibanyyan submitted:

I love your writing so so so so much you don’t even know it! I get excited each time I get notified that you posted again and I even take my time to read them in uni!!!

Just know that I love your blog and you can always reach out to me if you need someone to talk to even though we don’t know each other!

Much love goes out to you love xx

Thank you so, so much omgggggg you’re always so kind and supportive and it’s???? amazing ???? Please know the same for you; I’m almost always online when I’m not at work (even when I’m studying I have tumblr open in case people need me lmao) so I’ll reply .p. quickly! <3333 thank you so much omgggg sending you loads of love and hugs, I hope you’re well!

harlyquln said: when do you plan on opening requests again? 🥵

I’m not sure yet, love, but because I love to put myself under pressure lmao because nothing will make you work like an impending deadline, shall we say the beginning of December? That gives me just under 3 weeks to write almost 40 requests and honestly, that seems reasonable (ish). <3

Anonymous said: your comfort fics are always so beautiful 💕 i’ve never felt like i was actually IN an imagine before i read one of yours. you’re honestly one of my fav authors

Omggggg thank youuuuuu~ comfort fics are my favourite thing to write so that means so much! <3

kat-o-combs said: Good morning sunshine ☺️ I hope your day is going well. You deserve happiness, comfort, and contentment 💕 love ya!

Omgggg you’re always so good to me wtfffff <3333 thank youuu I hope the same for you too; you deserve all the best things in life! Love you too x

Anonymous said: Hope you're gonna feel better! I've discovered your blog... a week ago, I think, and your stories have helped me more than you'll ever know. I find a lot of comfort and support to keep me going when I read your stories and I'm so thankful for your blog. :)

Anonymous said: Hope you're gonna feel better! I've discovered your blog... a week ago, I think, and your stories have helped me more than you'll ever know. I find a lot of comfort and support to keep me going when I read your stories and I'm so thankful for your blog. :)

Helping people with my writing is a literal dream so thank you for telling me this! When I write the softer comfort imagines, they’re very emotionally draining and I have to dig deep to write them so usually I come away feeling old wounds and pretty tired in myself; I take care of myself in the ways I know helps (funnily enough, writing is both the issue and the solution) and I come back out on top. Thank you very much for telling me this, I’m glad I’m able to help you! <3

Anonymous said: Awww I hope you feel better soon!!

I do, darling, thank you so much x

Anonymous said: Sneaking up to nuzzle Arthur, then blowing a raspberry on his neck and watching him grin and shy away with a giggle.

Yeeeees~ lmaooooo it’s what he deserves!!!!!! <33333

Anonymous said: I saw joker for the second time and I think I've finally accepted in myself what you had a while ago. Arthur feels like home, he feels like comfort. When he would be dancing or just even smile I felt like I was there and I felt like everything was okay. I've fallen in love with a fictional character, but I can accept that. Because escaping with him brings me so much joy and love, I cant imagine being without it

Neither can I, nonnie. I’ve felt love for characters before but never like this. Never. I never wanna be without him or without this community again. We found a home in Arthur Fleck and fuck he’d love that so much. I’m glad he’s able to to bring you joy and love, it’s all he’d want for you and he’d be so proud of you!!! <3

Anonymous said: I had a dream about arthur last night???? Like I got into a car crash and he came and got me and brought me home and cuddled me and gave me kisses and honestly the dream was super scattered but so nice wow

That sounds like such a lovely dream omg loving Arthur and being loved right back??? Where do we sign up?? <3

Anonymous said: wish i could make Arthur a flower crown right now god damn

A) he’d look so fucking cute and B) he’d wear it around the apartment all the time omgggggg ~ he’d never wear it outside bc he’s scared it’ll get lost or stolen or broken but at home he’d cherish it so much and he’d look adorable ohhhh~ ;33333

Anonymous said: Hey, Ily and all though I'm not the biggest fan of Joker fics I just want you to know I still support and care for you

Thank you honey, this means a lot!!!! If this isn’t your scene, you’re welcome to unfollow, I won’t be mad or anything at all. Thank you for your continued support if you decide to stay, though, it means so much x

rebs-doom said:reminder that u r my fave person bye

Come here and let me love you, you precious, beautiful soul. I love you so much.

Anonymous said: What do you get when you cross a sad, touch-starved man with a blog that cherishes him and treats him well? I'll tell you what you get, you get what you fucking deserve. *smooch*

Can you imagine:

“Hey, Arthur?”

Arthur made a soft noise of acknowledgement from where he was sleepily cuddled into your side.

“Wanna hear a joke?”

“Mm,” He chuckled, “What?” He blearily opened his eyes to gaze at you fondly.

*You tell him this joke but swap ‘blog’ for ‘person’ and kiss him before he can react*

And see how fast he gives you what you deserve ;) ;)

(high key it’d become a way for you to say ‘i love you’ without saying it. Like, “you’re always so good to me” // “it’s what you deserve”) <333 sweet boi deserves the world.

Anonymous said: Can I just say how much of a blessing you are to the Arthur Fleck/Joker fandom!

Istg I’m drowning in all this love omggggg you’re far too kind to me I’m just a simple girl pouring out her love for Arthur/Joker into her blog because it’s got nowhere else to go <333333333 thank you so much!!! <3333

Anonymous said: I feel so sad for Arthur; he pretty much had the world against him from day one. I could only imagine some of the stuff he'd gone through when he was small. I just see baby Arthur lying in a filthy crib, crying for his mother's comfort or from hunger, and Penny just not even noticing it or caring.

I know :( it’s so tragic and dark and there are thousands of Arthur Flecks in real life who are unseen and defeated and broken down but they can’t get help but they’re trying and they work so hard and they just. Keep. Going. I left the cinema each time crying really hard and got home and cried some more for Arthur and for all the people, including myself, who watched the film and saw pieces of themselves in Arthur. When I think of Penny, I find it oddly funny that she always called him ‘Happy’ when he was anything but and it was only until she died that he became what she always thought he was. It’s beautifully ironic, in a strange way.

Okay, so uh... I gotta not let asks build up like that again lmao this took me two hours wowowowow <3333 I’m aiming to get some writing done today, there’s three or four pieces I’ve started and not finished so I’ll work on those. Thanks, loves, you have no idea how much you all mean to me! <3

[thepartyresponsible]

after a somewhat prolonged absence (moving is a goddamn nightmare), here’s the second soundtrack fill! this one is for an anon who asked for jason todd + "why you gotta kick me when i'm down" by bring me the horizon.

so here’s what happens when superheroes/vigilantes are (vaguely) legitimized and organized into authorized teams, but jason still manages to ruin his life.

no real warnings for this one, except it’s not overly kind to bruce wayne.

Jason gets traded to SHIELD after he shoots the Penguin in the face. He’s probably supposed to be grateful that he gets traded at all. Unnecessary kills are frowned upon all over, and Bruce especially takes a pretty grim stance on them.

Hell, Bruce is so pissed about this kill that two of Jason’s molars are still sitting a little loose in his jaw when his plane touches down in D.C.

The media’s been brutal about it, especially in Gotham. It’s nothing new. They’ve hated Jason since he crawled out of Crime Alley. They hate Jason, and they hate the Outlaws, and they’ve been gleefully running grainy videos of Bruce backhanding Jason’s mask to pieces all Goddamn week.

There were reporters camped outside Titans Tower from the moment Roy Harper brought him in, and Dick, because he’s Dick, never sent them away.  

“It’s public property. They’ve got a right to be there,” he’d said, while he packed Jason’s mouth with gauze and cleaned up cuts and clucked over bruises. “They can’t get inside.”

And Roy would’ve chased them off, probably, except Roy got dragged into trade negotiations immediately and left before Jason even woke up the morning after Bruce kicked his ass.

Jason wasn’t part of any negotiations. Dick ran what interference he could, but half the country, including Bruce, wanted Jason in prison. In the end, SHIELD is better than he could have hoped for. It’s better than he deserves. He’s got no right to be angry about it, even if D.C. is not his city. Even if he worked damn hard, for years, to stay out of SHIELD and its reach.

But the collateral damage is pissing him off. Roy, pulled from the Titans, stepping in to run the Outlaws. Kate Bishop, loaned to the Titans to fill their archer slot. And Peter Parker, graduated early from SHIELD, sent to round out the West Coast Avengers.

Parker, who’d been angling for a spot on the Avengers. Who earned that spot. Who’s everybody’s Goddamn darling.

Jesus Christ, people barely tolerate Jason in Gotham. He’s not going to be able to set foot in New York for years.

When he steps off the plane, he expects to be met by agents. He’s not technically in anybody’s custody; he’s been traded, not incarcerated. But Dick and Wally escorted him to his gate, possibly to keep any riled-up civilians from spitting in his face, and he feels rootless and exposed, navigating the airport alone.

It’s fine. He’s not armed, but, in a place like this, he doesn’t need to be. There’s no threat here.

He nudges his teeth with his tongue, feels them give more than they should. The stitches dissolved two days ago, and the swelling’s mostly gone, but the bruises on his face have settled in to linger.

He gets a few wide-eyed stares, but it’s hard to tell if anyone actually recognizes him or if it’s just the bruising turning heads. Most people only associate Red Hood with the mask. He’s lucky that way. He’s been careful to keep his face out of the press.

SHIELD, of course, does all its work with its Aux agents bare-faced and uniformed, all their stats and headshots available for public perusal. So that’s probably the end of whatever anonymity Jason had managed to preserve.

Which is fine. He wouldn’t’ve had any anonymity in prison, either. So it’s not like he’s losing something he ever had a chance to keep.

He’s standing in baggage claim, waiting for the duffle bag of clothes Artemis brought over, when a man wearing a decent suit and a blandly pleasant expression approaches from his left. “Phil Coulson,” he says, hand extended. “From SHIELD.”

Phil Coulson is a name that sounds vaguely familiar, like something Dick said to him a couple dozen times while Jason was busy trying to pretend none of this was going to happen. Jason sizes him up and then reaches out, shakes his hand. “Hey. Jason Todd, from--” He cuts himself off, flounders.

Jason Todd, from the Outlaws.

But he isn’t. He built that team. He was the cornerstone of that team. The Outlaws have never existed without him. And now, for nothing, for a father that maybe at some point cared about him, he’s ruined the whole Goddamn thing.

“From SHIELD,” Phil supplies, patiently.

“Yeah,” Jason says. He turns away, grabs his bag. “From SHIELD.”

Phil gives him a long, evaluating look. His eyes linger on the bruising around Jason’s jawline, and Jason doesn’t fidget, doesn’t drop his eyes. After a tense, drawn-out moment, Phil nods. “Alright, Jason,” he says, “let’s go.”

  He doesn’t expect a warm welcome. He escaped SHIELD training by virtue of Bruce’s dogged resistance to oversight and the fact that, technically, Jason put on his first costume before the Auxiliary Justice Department was established. He was grandfathered in, had to register but never needed to be licensed, and, for the past seven years, he’s just been one of the many now-authorized vigilantes who refused any kind of PR-pleasing government training.

Now here he is, showing up at SHIELD’s doorstep like a puppy no one wanted. And he’s taking Parker’s place, which sure as hell isn’t going to endear him to anybody.

He’s heard about trades like this. People being traded into teams that don’t want them. It was never like that on the Outlaws, because the Outlaws were, technically, under Bruce’s watch, and Bruce’s theory on teamwork has always been less is more.  And it’s not like that on the Titans or the Teen Titans or any of the teams directly below the Justice League, either, because they’ve got enough draw to only get the best.

But some of the government teams. Some of the military teams. Not so often with the higher-ranking SHIELD teams, but everybody heard about the mess on Rumlow’s team a few years ago. Everyone knows what they were doing to Barnes before Rogers found out.

Hell, Xaiver’s school is full of former government recruits who dropped out and need to be reconditioned – whatever the hell that means – to civilian life.

“Regulations require that you stay on base through the weekend,” Coulson tells him.

“Sure,” Jason says. He’d been under the impression that he’d be staying on base through the rest of his natural life, so weekend, in comparison, sounds mercifully reasonable.

“Pending clearance from Medical, you’ll be moved into the team’s building on Monday.”

Jason stares out the window, watches the cars. “Medical?” he asks, because it seems like the least treacherous part of that sentence.

“I was told,” Coulson says, with a sudden sharp edge to all that quiet patience, “that you were cleared for fieldwork.”

Jason’s tongue goes to his teeth, works at the swollen line of his gums. “Jesus,” he says, “it’s just cosmetic. And I probably shouldn’t blow anyone for a week, so maybe swap someone else in for the time-sensitive dick-sucking jobs.”

The look Coulson gives him is dangerously, infinitely bland, and Jason’s heart double-skips in his chest as it occurs to him that maybe that kind of shit is supposed to be on the table now. What the hell would he know? He’s worked with Bruce his whole career.

Jason, for the record, would happily take a mask-shattering, teeth-loosening backhand over being sent out to suck some scummy government dick. Jesus, he’d take the hit every day of his life.

“Is that a common work requirement in Gotham?” Coulson’s tone is light and even, professionally curious.

“It absolutely is not,” Jason says.

“That’s good,” Phil says, as he expertly navigates a u-turn through four separate lanes of traffic with all the nonchalance of someone turning right on red. “So you’ll have Medical, and then sexual harassment training, and then you can move into the team building on Monday.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jason says, forehead thunking into glass hard enough to make his bruised temple ache. “You fucking Feds.”

  They don’t go to the SHIELD base. They go to a small Italian restaurant in a strip mall. “We’re a little behind schedule,” Coulson says, as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “They already have a table. Let’s go.”

Jason follows because he’s got no right to stay behind. He keeps his mouth shut because he’s got no reason to need more information. He’s not running anything; he’s nobody’s captain. He traded all of that for a bullet in the Penguin’s head, and maybe it was worth it, maybe it wasn’t, but it’s already done.

Coulson gives him another look as Jason falls in step beside and a little behind him. It’s a thoughtful, calculating look, eyes unreadable, mouth a flat line. It’s the kind of look Bruce used to give him, before he gave up and kicked Jason out of the cave. It’s the way someone looks at an investment they’re starting to reconsider.

Well, it’s not Jason’s fucking fault if SHIELD made a bad trade. The whole world was running headlines saying the best thing to do with him was lock him up in isolation, keep him confined for the next ten, fifteen years. It’s not like SHIELD wasn’t warned what a shitshow Jason is.

As they step into the restaurant, make their way toward the back, Jason wonders if SHIELD did this as a favor to the Titans and Outlaws or as a way to get some kind of leverage on Bruce. He hopes they had the sense to angle for a favorable relationship with the Titans. If they think Bruce Wayne is going to give a damn what SHIELD does to him now, Jason has two loose teeth, three bruised ribs, and an impressive array of week-old bruises that would argue to the contrary.

“Here,” Coulson says and nods towards a table with two occupants.

Jason knows, in a glance, that it’s Hawkeye and the Widow.

They’re both watching him. Barton’s subtler about it. He’s got a sort of hapless, heedless air about him that makes his awareness seem accidental. It’s hard to take him seriously with that line of butterfly bandages above his eyebrow, the half-healed scab over his badly split lip. He reminds Jason of Roy, a little, and Jason almost smiles at him, because it’s good to see anything that looks like home.

And Romanoff could be Artemis, with the catlike stare she levels his way. Not aggressive, necessarily, but patient, intent. Assessing. Her body language lacks the casual, lived-in ease of Barton’s mannerisms. But that could be because she’s sipping elegantly from a glass of red wine while Barton is wrestling a plate of spaghetti into submission with a fork held awkwardly between bandage-wrapped fingers.

“Clint, Natasha,” Coulson says, as he slides into one of the open seats across from them. “This is Jason Todd.”

“Hey,” Clint says, around a mouthful of spaghetti. “I ate your breadsticks.”

“And he’s very sorry,” Natasha adds. “And he’s buying you more.”

Jason stares at them. And then he stares at Coulson. And then, because he’s got fuck-all else to do, he settles into the seat across from Clint and narrows his eyes. “You’d fucking better,” he says.

Sometimes, when he can’t find the fight he knows he’s losing, he starts a new one. It saves time.

But Clint just grimaces, looking good-natured and abashed. “Sorry. Got hungry.”

Jason furrows his brow, keeps staring. Clint blinks and shrugs, ducks his head so he can funnel more spaghetti into his mouth, and Jason wonders if he’s actually supposed to think that Clint Barton – Hawkeye, World’s Greatest Marksman, Avenger – is as friendly and harmless as your average Golden Retriever.

“Let’s see you,” Natasha says, leaning forward, and Jason goes completely still as the Black Widow’s fingers curl around his chin.

Jesus Christ, he thinks. Jesus Christ.

The Avengers are the reason their work was ever legitimized. The Avengers are the reason the Accords were reworked toward mercy. Without the Avengers, there would’ve been a war, and Jason knows exactly how that would’ve ended up for groups like the Outlaws, who were always a special target, even back when all vigilantes were criminals.

The Widow’s fingers are cold against his skin. She lifts his face toward the light, runs her thumb so lightly over the bruising along his jaw that he barely feels it.

“Get fussy with the flight attendants?” Clint asks. “I got locked in the lavatory once.”

And he is like Roy, because, when Jason glances over, he’s got a big dopey smile on his face and a look in his eyes like someone, somewhere, is going to lose blood over this.

“You guys don’t watch TV?” Jason should pull away from the Widow. Her fingers are still on his face, and he has to speak soft and careful to keep from dislodging her. It’s making him sound young and unsure, almost shy. “Batman doesn’t keep killers on his teams.”

“If you’d been a shade less study,” Natasha says, tone strangely controlled, nearly singsong, “Bruce Wayne would be a killer.”

Jason blinks. He remembers the hit that shattered his mask, the starlight sickness of heat-pressure-pain that broke his brain to pieces, left him too Goddamn dizzy to remember to get his hands up to block the next punch.

He remembers, also, the hot splatter of his own blood when Bruce opened his fucking throat with a batarang years ago.

“Bruce, you know.” He tips his head out of the Widow’s grasp and steals her wine, just to give his hands something to do. “Sometimes, when people don’t listen, he gets loud about things.”

“Sometimes,” Clint says, lifting the wine right out of Jason’s hand, “when I don’t listen, Coulson pulls me from the field, makes me go to therapy.”

“Wow,” Jason says, “I think I’ll take the punch to the face.”

Clint grins at him. His grin is sharp enough to cut someone. Beside him, Natasha mirrors it. “Yeah,” he says. “Devil you know, huh?”

“Okay,” Jason says, because this whole week has been a stretch of nightmare after nightmare, waking up to realize it’s getting worse every time he opens his eyes. He was ready for a bleak SHIELD room that locked from the outside. He was ready for revenge. He was ready to be made into a point, a cautionary tale for all the other Auxers who refused licensing. “What the fuck is this? Why am I at dinner with two Avengers? The fuck is going on?”

Natasha swipes her wine out of Clint’s unresisting fingers, brings the nearly-empty glass up to her mouth. “Coulson believes in team bonding rituals,” she says.

“I’m not on your team,” Jason says. He’s not. He’s here because nobody wanted him. He’s here because SHIELD was better than prison. He’s here because he fucks up every single thing he touches.

“Well,” Clint says, “not until I get you those breadsticks.”

Jason gives up on the pair of them and turns to stare at Agent Coulson, who’s been casually perusing the menu throughout the entire conversation. “What,” Jason says, as clearly as he can, “the fuck.”

Phil Coulson smiles at him, calm and unconcerned and vaguely benign. He looks like someone who’s used to dealing with people like Jason, which is a hell of a change from the way Bruce always looks at him. For years now, Bruce has been staring at Jason like he’s got no idea what species he is.

“Jason,” he says, “what do you know about Strike Team Delta?”

[annashipper]

JT Anon

I admit Im a bit meaner than anna and other skeptics. I genuinely enjoy laughing at ben and have no cares whatsoever about his career or his feelings (tho please, no more Sherlock. Let it die. The last season was crap and its all just good fancy filming now.)

I find it endlessly amusing when Ben says he is feeding apple slices to a child that is developmentally and physically incapable if ingesting solid food

I am endlessly amused that ben felt the need to respond to us pointing out that he has left his kids from almost the min of their birth for weeks on end by suggesting he is not w/o them for more than 48 hrs, only to be seen at every airport w out them.

I will never stop laughing at the suggestion that Sophie is heroically working when she hasn’t done a solid months worth of  work in 4 years, and all that work was given to her by her husband. (Remember when the write up about this last thing literally said that someone else was the first choice, but they couldn’t do it, so they plopped sophie in as an unwanted stand in?)

I absolutely LOVE it when ben tries to make it look like he and his family are hounded by the paps, all the while using for hire agencies only, catching shots of the family that in no way are physically possible for them to have been spotted unless they were told the exact date and time to be there.

to the last point, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Ben tries to act like he and Sophie are protective parents, all the while literally having pictures of their children sold for financial profit, and arranging said paps, and using their children’s lives to sell his products from before the poor tiny souls even have a chance to be born

I also really like that he sells the story that he is simultaneously hounded by paps, and also never seen.

I am really amused by the ever changing time line of them dating. Can’t have too many people figuring out she wasn’t in his life until award season

The sponsored wedding was amazing

None of this matters. as far as the general public goes, as far as anyone actually thinks about him, he is married, has these kids, and no one thinks about it. I like that its just a quiet little joke. Im amused that ben has so little going on in his professional life that he has to point to skeptics just to keep his interviews from dying on the vine unread.

no one is particularly interested in you ben, and thats the problem, ‘aint it? so keep having fake babies. every time we point out how branded each one is, pull her back and make less “announcements” about it.

Make sure you keep this “heh heh heh look at my family and all the kids did i tell you some people think its fake please please read my fucking articles and interviews theres a conspiracy theory don’t keep scrolling”

You know intern, you could tell Ben just to be more interesting. You could tell him just to work to get offered better, edgy, more interesting roles. You could have him have something interesting and engaging to talk about

I  know most skeptics will disagree with me on this one. While I think ben is talented, I don’t think he is the worlds best actor. There are lots of up and coming actors who could be just as good as him. His looks are a novelty that has kind of worn off. This is a problem, isn’t it?

Under all that “internets boyfriend” nonsense, I think he is panicking when he realises..there ain’t much there. He had an opportunity to grab at a few rings w his talent, and trade off his weird looks, and he kinda blew it imo. Actors that are just as good are nipping at his heels.

He doesn’t have the internets boyfriend title anymore. If he took away the family anecdotes and the wink and the nod to conspiracy theories…what exactly does he have?? Maybe he can build up marvel more, but really? Just take a step back and look at his career. If he didn’t have a conspiracy theory to talk about in interviews, if you were to interview him today, how long of an interview could you do? Some marvel stuff….a bit of “its nice to do voices” for the grinch…how many pages????

He isn’t all that interesting….so he needs a good conspiracy theory + a few family things and preg to sell.

i think thats what it comes down to. He just simply doesn’t have anything else to sell about HIMSELF.

J the second most boring person on the planet next to Benedict T anon

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

JT, as ever, you present us with the outlook of someone who isn’t a fan, and I’m sorry to say that your submission is going to ring true to most non-fans who are reading this blog.  Unfortunately, Ben himself made sure to point a lot of them our way with his Vanity Fair interview a couple of years ago.

And the biggest problem of all is that when you take a step back and look at his situation clinically with (somewhat) fresh eyes, it’s difficult to argue against any of the points you’re making...

I haz a sad now  :o/

Meanwhile, I disagree on your point about Sherlock in general and the last season in particular, but you already know that, so I’m gonna shut up now.

[deveharrington]

Please would you answer this, b/c your posts have no explanations? 1.How do we know that D is keeping M out of college? She looks like she's fine w/o. 2.How do we know his kids were on the other side of the world wondering where he was? They have lives of their own. They aren't babies. Why do you say that D (or any dad) needs to be with their adult daughter and almost adult son all the time? 3. How do we know Gillian didn't want to keep her and David's relationship secret for her own reasons?

Hello anon sorry for my really late reply. I feel guilty because I really appreciate that you asked this so politely, lmao but… I must stand my ground…

1. Uhm. Well. For someone who speaks so highly of his own education, obviously ties his identity to it, imposes it etc. and sends his own daughter to college he sure is… not doing the same for someone else who is at the age and place in life to do so and then we have to ask hmm why and then try not to vomit?? 

2. ^^Actually this question is a massive mystery and contradiction to me, its ?? unfathomable??? unfathomably disgusting. 

3. “She looks like she’s fine w/o” rEaLLy?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?! REALLY?!?!?!?!? LMAO 

Ok, lets not look at the surface. This is an important time in the “partner’s” life where they should be making their own decisions and forming their own identity!!!!!!!!!! They should be around people their age and should be free to look for a potential partner THEIR AGE. Yah I guess we only have evidence that this person basically embodies the valley girl stereotype to a T but their life is their life to live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! shame on David for hijacking their youth because he can’t face himself. He is imposing his issues on the “partner”, its so unfair and just plain WRONG but I fear that someone is being fooled by sweet-talking Dave to think that there is some age transcending “relationship”, “love”, “exchange” occurring here when there is only exploitation, gas lighting, lies, and delusions. 

4. Ok, what I mean by constantly bringing up the kids is this very disturbing question of why will he be flippant of his own kids’ opinions, trends/culture (as in, he will say he cannot understand youth culture but then assimilate into L.A. valley girl culture like??? whet Dave?) and literally leave them physically (I personally consider Miller to still be young enough to need his guidance. HIS SON is the one who needs his guidance!!!) while entertaining someone else who is close to them in age, and actually at the age where they should be in college yet instead they are taking care of David’s dog and still can’t spell “potatoes” correctly??? 

5. To take it to an extreme (Disclaimer: theory here): The age of the “partner” is the red flag here. I don’t want to question David’s parenting because that is his territory and his right. If I don’t agree that he believes his kids are old enough to be left alone then thats that but then look at the situation - I’ve said this before but I cannot escape the insinuation that its like he traded in his kids. Its like he cannot face that his kids might not always agree with dad, want what he wants, idolize him, and thats a fact of life but instead of dealing with that issue (I’ll repeat: David cannot handle legitimate life challenges in a mature way) he ran away and got some young person who would admire everything he says and does and why?? When anyone else can see he is bullshit? he does not do what he says he will do. He is not who he says he is. Sound disturbing? I’m only describing the evidence. 

6. You said it yourself, “almost adult son”. Almost. And also…. they are his son. Family should come before bullshit. And someone else is an adult but they have a lot of growing to do, clearly. And to grow they need to not be surrounded by bullshit. Whoops am I talking about the “partner” when I say that or David?

7. Well, it makes sense that D and G would want to keep their relationship a secret. But its their choice? Idk, I guess its not really relevant anymore unless you believe that this is all a coverup to which I can only say ??????!?!?!?!?!?

It makes sense anyways that G would be ashamed to be seen nowadays with Deadweight Ducookie :-) just kidding…………………………………………………. :-)

[urfavmurtad]

p 1: hello! much appreciation for your work on here. i just have one question: does the term polytheists in the quran refer only to the arab polytheists of the time, i.e. nomadic people, zoroastrians, etc . . . ? and is polytheists a regional term in the quran as in it only refers to arab polytheists? or does it extend to other religions, such as hinduism buddhism etc? i’m very curious bc i know in the indian subcontinent there are some issues regarding hindu/muslim marriages / loves etc.

p 2: sorry i’m not too well versed on the details but it is something that has been bothering me for some time …..  thank you so much for your work and tireless details <3      

Hey anon, no problem. There’s an easy answer to this and then a more complicated answer. The easy answer is that the term used to mean “polytheists” in the Quran is not specific to Mohammed’s contemporary Arab polytheists and refers to any form of polytheism, which is considered the worst possible sin. The word is also used in the rants of past prophets like Abraham (all of the prophets of Islam have the exact same style of speech as Mohammed), so it is not constrained to one time or place. Marriage with polytheists is categorically prohibited in Islam for both men and women.

Okay, now the long answer.

The general term for non-Muslims in the Quran is kuffar, which refers to general disbelievers. This category is split into essentially garbage tier and shit tier (both end up in hell), with the garbage tier being “acceptable” disbelievers. These are the Abrahamic faiths, namely Judaism, Christianity**, and “Sabianism” (no one knows what this is, it may be Mandaeaism, a John the Baptist-centric Gnostic faith, but there’s no way to prove it). In Mohammed’s era, these people were differentiated from polytheists and treated much better than they were. While Mohammed cleansed the entire Arabian peninsula of polytheism and issued a convert-or-die ultimatum, this was not the case with the “People of the Book”, meaning Jews and Christians (and “Sabians”). Mohammed commanded the conquest of Jews and Christians until they were made to pay tribute (the jizya tax) to the growing Islamic empire, but once they did that, they were entitled to safety. They did not have to convert, though they were given legally inferior status to Muslims and subjected to many petty legislations designed to coax them into converting (Christians more so than Jews, because of their large numbers). Giving someone “dhimmi” (protected) status means protected from death/attack in exchange for jizya, not protected from oppression.

The shit-tier faiths are the non-Abrahamic religions. To Mohammed, this meant mostly polytheists, who as I said were essentially 100% eradicated within 50 years of Islam’s creation. There really weren’t any other non-Abrahamic faiths where he lived, in what is now western Saudi Arabia. People in the Arabian peninsula seem to have worshiped all sorts of different gods, with South Arabians having a different pantheon than the ones further north, but all were considered the same (and equally bad). So here’s where the complicated part comes in. First of all, you brought up Zoroastrians… and it’s actually unclear whether they fall under the garbage or shit-tier categories! This lack of clarity is directly related to Hinduism too!

Mohammed seemed to know very little about Zoroastrians, as his trading career mostly involved him traveling in Arab and Byzantine areas, not Persian ones. He met some people raised in the faith, but didn’t seem to ask them much about their religion. Zoroastrians are mentioned only one time in the Quran, and they are only mentioned in the ahadith in passing. Nothing is said of their beliefs or customs except for one that comments on their, uh, facial hair. While clearly disbelievers, it’s unclear if they’re meant to be grouped with the Abrahamic faiths or the (Arab) polytheists:

those who believe (this revelation), and those who are Jews, and the Sabaeans and the Christians and the Magians (Zoroastrians) and the idolaters - Lo! Allah will decide between them on the Day of Resurrection.

Arguably, this differentiates “Magians” from “idolators”, because they’re mentioned separately. Zoroastrians consider themselves a largely monotheistic faith (early Muslims considered them at least vaguely polytheistic though), and while their religion is not Abrahamic, it did exert an influence on the development of Judaism. And a Zoroastrian king, Cyrus, is even called an “anointed one” the Bible. So do they really deserve to be grouped with the dogshit people?

Early Muslims were also very confused on this point–should they take the jizya from Zoroastrians in territory that they conquered, thereby grouping them with Jews and Christians? This became a serious issue during the conquest of Persia, which naturally resulted in many Zoroastrians being brought under Muslim control. The caliph Umar originally refused to accept jizya from them in return for their safety, reasoning that they were objectively not “People of the Book”. He believed they should be classified the same as Arab polytheists. But then one of Mohammed’s old soldiers, Abdul-Rahman ibn Awf, came through and informed everyone that the Zoroastrians of “Hajar” (on the Gulf coast) gave jizya during Mohammed’s lifetime when their territory was conquered. Now I have no idea if this is true or not, as all accounts of this seem to go back to Abdul-Rahman, and it sure the fuck is convenient that this one guy recalled such a detail that not even the caliph knew. But it was taken as the truth.

So after the Islamic conquest of Persia, that ambiguous status remained–Zoroastrians were not given a convert-or-die ultimatum and were made to pay jizya instead, but they were treated noticeably worse and degraded noticeably more than the Christians (and Jews) in conquered Byzantine and Arab Christian territories. The Islamization of Persia was noticeably faster and more ruthless through the Umayyad caliphate (up to 750 AD) compared to the slower Islamization of other newly-Muslim-ruled provinces. By the time of the Abbasid caliphate (into the mid 800s AD), persecution grew worse and worse and the Zoroastrians’ status as beneath both Muslims and Jews and Christians was codified. So while people never really agreed on whether they were “polytheists” or “People of the Book”, it’s long been established that Zoroastrians are sort of a middle ground between garbage and shit, shall we say. Dhimmis, but dhimmi-minus, not dhimmi-plus.

Hinduism is, in theory, easier to deal with. The term used to denote the practice of polytheism in the Quran is shirk, and polytheists (people who are guilty of shirk) are called mushrikun. The literal definition of shirk is “to associate (other gods with Allah)”. Obviously, the people around Mohammed practiced Arab polytheism. But nothing about the term limits it to any specific religion, and as I said, the Quran describes various past non-Arab polytheistic peoples as mushirkun–any system that has gods other than or in addition to Allah/The One True God is considered shirk. Mohammed neither commented on Hinduism specifically nor knew anything about it, but I am sure he would have hated it, as he hated idol worship etc. And non-Abrahamic mushrikun = unmarriageable.

Muslim women are prohibited from marrying any non-Muslim men, regardless of their religion. Sunni Muslim men can marry Jews or Christians (I believe there are some Shia scholars who believe that men cannot permanently marry any non-Muslims) but cannot marry polytheists due to verses like 2:221: “do not marry polytheistic women until they believe”. The term used there is, again, “women who commit shirk”. So this seems pretty cut-and-dry. Hindus are mushrikun, the Quran says you can’t marry mushrikun, therefore Hindu-Muslim marriage is not Islamically permissible unless the Hindu converts to Islam.

(Of course, not everyone born into a Muslim family follows all the rules of Islam, so there are plenty of Muslim-raised people who pursue romances with people they’re not religiously “allowed” to marry regardless. And I’m sure there are plenty of moderately-religious people who wouldn’t care if their son married a Hindu as long as his wife promised to raise the kids as Muslims. And in past times, there were plenty of Muslim rulers who married whatever woman they damn well pleased, including Hindu women. But that’s kind of irrelevant rn, bc who’s gonna tell a ruler “no”, especially when the marriages are carried out for practical reasons of alliance-building?)

While Hindus=non-Abrahamic mushrikun is really the only logical Islamic conclusion, once Muslims actually began to rule parts of India (this was in the early 700s under the Umayyads), they were faced with the same problem that the Arabs encountered when they conquered Persia: if we consider all these people mushrikun, are we supposed to just kill them all? When they greatly outnumber us, are spread over a huge area, and would probably desperately fight back and drag us into a long and expensive war? Wouldn’t it be easier to just say “y’all can stay if u give us jizya $$$”? I mean… this culture was completely foreign to the invading Arabs. They already had an enormous empire that needed to be looked after (for reference) and could not spent all their time fucking around in India. They needed native allies and people to run the place, and also needed, like… a population that was not all dead?? Many Muslim empires, the Umayyads included, were often very pragmatic in spite of Islam. (Some Umayyad rulers don’t even seem to have been particularly religious, but that is a separate topic!)

But unlike the earlier Arabs with the Zoroastrians, they couldn’t really say (or make up a story about how) Mohammed considered them dhimmis. And so the matter was harder to religiously justify. Now I’m gonna be real with you and tell you that I know way more about the early Arab inroads into India than I do about later Turkic and Mughal stuff, but I believe this is generally accurate: for reasons of necessity, Hindus were usually granted either dhimmi (paying the jizya/not being killed) status or something like it (like Zoroastrians) for the majority of the time they were ruled by Muslims. Many Islamic scholars thought that this was improper, but as the amount of territory ruled by Muslims increased, the practicality of treating Hindus the same as Arab polytheists drastically decreased. This does not mean that Hindus were not persecuted or anything–they were, and it got very bad at various points, like the Zoroastrians. I am aware of that, and the destruction of Hindu temples as well as the centuries-long legal and religious discrimination against Hindus is well-known. But they were still not subjected to the Quranically-mandated treatment for mushrikun (forced conversion of the entire population).

This was 100% a practical move that had no real basis in the religion itself. Some scholars did try to justify it by making half-hearted attempts to argue that Hindus legitimately were equivalent to the People of the Book, or rather a people of a book (largely based on mistaken beliefs about who the Sabians were), but this is nonsense. Others went with a different argument that at least has some grounding in history. The Islamic school of jurisprudence that grew to dominate Southeast Asia (Hanafi) takes the stance that any minority living in Muslim-ruled lands can theoretically be given dhimmi status even if they are not People of the Book and are mushrikun, so long as they pay the state whatever it demands (but the rate of the jizya tax sometimes got quite high, so this became problematic) and do not cause any trouble. This is based on the Zoroastrian thing I already mentioned. Since nothing in Islam explicitly calls Zoroastrians “People of the Book”, yet Mohammed supposedly granted them protected status anyway, they reasoned, there is no reason why other religions outside that category cannot be given protected status.

This is obviously a huge stretch, as Zoroastrianism’s “dual forces” (created by the one creator god) may have been seen as polytheism by Arabs but were not really comparable to the 274285372 gods of Hinduism, to say nothing of the clear idolatry present in the religion. Hinduism is objectively more similar to Arab polytheism than it is to Judaism or Christianity. (In fact, Arab polytheists themselves believed in more aspects of “the Book”, like Abraham/Ishmael and a father-god called “Allah”, than Hindus do.) But this essentially gave the Muslim rulers of India a way to rule the region without literally destroying it, while bypassing questions about how Hindus should be classified. At the same time, many Hanafi scholars believed that Hindus had to effectively be degraded and shown that their way of life was wrong, just… not to the point of killing them.

OKAY SO… THIS IS GETTING RLY LONG… why do I always do this… but I want to tie it back into what you uhh actually asked about lmao. Despite the Hanafi school’s allowance of Hinduism’s existence, this does not mean that they, or any other school of Islamic jurisprudence, accept Hindu-Muslim marriage. Hindus are unavoidably mushrikun, even if one does not believe that they all have to be murdered into embracing Islam. To my knowledge there is not a single school of jurisprudence, either Sunni or Shia, that allows such a thing. How can they, when the Quran outright says “don’t marry polytheists”? Like I said–if someone is born into a Muslim family (and lives in a country with civil marriage) but isn’t really religious, of course he or she can marry any person. But the religion itself prohibits it. The Quran says that polytheistic wives or slaves serve as invitations to The Fire. So… thousands of words later there’s your answer l-lol… also Buddhists are given the same status as Hindus, as far as I know.

**Christians in Islam have a weird position because they’re technically both mushrikun and People of the Book, owing to the Trinity (and Islam’s… odd… conception of it) being equated with polytheism. (Arguably, Islam’s version of Jews are too, but that’s only because Mohammed pulled this Ezra thing out of his ass when the Jews started pissing him off, and Muslim scholars tend to ignore it because it is clear nonsense.) But you can still marry them if you are a guy. Don’t ask me why Allah is okay with you sticking your dick in one sort of hellbound mushrik but not another. Lo! He is Unknowable.