#did i have a point or was this just a rant

[snakesafraidtodie]

Danny stops mid rant once he realizes that Bruce Wayne is looking at him like he's crazy. "Ehh... never mind. It's just been a rough week. Ignore everything that I said. Obviously I'm alive. I'm just... uh, saying what my parents expect I'd say. Because they think I'm dead."

"You're used to indulging their delusions." Bruce stated, more than asked.

Danny sighed. "Look. I'm really sorry about them. But did you have to publish the name of the dead boy you thought was your son? Even if it's not me, that's gotta be some sort of privacy violation. Did you get permission from the family of the dead Danny?"

"...I'm sorry, I don't know how the body's identity got released to the press." Bruce had a genuine look of guilt on his face. "But you're right. That information should never have hit the news."

"Well, I guess it's not your fault then." Danny shrugged. "Um. This is a long shot, but do you know how to get in contact with Batman?"

"..."

"It's just, now that they're convinced you have my body- my parents... are kinda single-minded? And I wouldn't put B&E to steal what they think is the remains of their son past them. So. I wanna talk to Batman. To discuss how best to handle their brand of... them-ness. They're a lot, but they're good people! And they're grieving me, as misplaced as it is."

--------

The Fentons want a dead body that doesn't exist.

The Waynes want to keep their cover and not blow their identities. (No, Tim. You are not allowed to clone Daniel to make a fake corpse for his parents.)

Danny wants his parents to accept that he's both dead and alive and stop harassing a rich fruitloop for the corpse of a rando kid he mistook for his son. And he'd like to get that without having to out his identity to more people, but at this point it seems unlikely.

So.

When Bruce Wayne agreed to set up a meeting for him with Batman, Danny decided to tell the truth. Because who could he trust with it if not a fellow hero?

------

Ok. Batman was way more intimidating in person. The mass of shadows stared him down. Danny didn't know how to break the silence.

Luckily the Dark Knight took mercy. "Wayne told me you wanted to discuss your parents' potential future actions."

"R-right. Um. Yeah. Ok." Danny took a deep breath to quit his rambling and get to the point. "So. Some background info. Mom and Dad are ecto-biologists and ghost hunters. They spent their career inventing tech that runs on ectoplasm and publishing papers on the evils of post-human-consciousness. Their magnum opus was a portal to a theoretical dimension of ecto and ghosts. They built it in our basement. And."

Danny let the rings of transformation form. He began to float and at Batman's tensing, crossed his arms and legs to appear smaller. He looked away. "It killed me. Kinda. I am dead, but not. I'm a ghost, but I'm alive. I didn't tell them when it happened. They're ghost hunters, y'know? I grew up hearing the evils of my kind. But then the other Danny Fenton was announced dead, and they figured I was a ghost anyway."

Danny set his feet on the ground and turned human. "So I told them the truth, that I'm both, that I've been protecting Amity from the ghosts coming through the portal as the hero Phantom. But. Well, I don't know how much Mr. Wayne told you, but they're convinced I'm fully dead. They want me to move on. That's why they want the body."

Danny clutched at his hair in frustration. "And. I can't convince them otherwise! I don't- this reveal is already going so much better than I could've hoped. They're already rethinking their 'all ghosts are evil' stance. But. I can't keep living with them. They think I'm DEAD, Batman! That I'm haunting them or something. I can't do that to them! I can't make them believe me-!"

Large hands wrapped around Danny's own to gently uncurl the fingers fisted in his hair. "What do you need, Danny?"

Danny sniffed. His hands still held in Batman's own, Danny ducked his head, turning to self consciously wipe his face on his sleeve. "I don't know." He said in a tiny voice. "I want them to get better."

"..."

"Everyone always said they were mad scientists, growing up. I- I don't want them to- to end up at Arkham. But I can't convince them anymore. They need, like, a professional. But it will only work if the professional knows what's actually going on, and that means revealing my secret identity to more people, end even if there is someone trustworthy, I'll still need someplace to stay while we're doing this fucked up supernatural family therapy. So maybe I just gotta... fake my death. Let them move on. Wayne can tell them the other Danny got cremated already or something. And I'll... go... somewhere."

Danny pulled his hands out of Batman's grasp and stood up straight. "Yeah. Ok. Batman, will you help put Danny Fenton to rest once and for all?"

It's a Terrible Cover Story, Really :/

DP x DC AU where, when trying to make a cover story for why Jason is suddenly legally alive again, Bruce (and the rest of the fam) come up with a story that they had found the body of a child that looked just like 15 year old Jason after he had gone missing and went straight into greif stricken panic and assumed to worst! Jason had come back to them later (let's say he's 22/23 here) after recovering from amnesia, and DNA tests confirmed it's him. They claim they exhumed the body and had the DNA tested and it came back (and they make this name up, completely believing that, since enough people have similar names, this won't come back to bite them) as Danny Fenton.

It's plastered all over the news and it makes it's way back to Jack and Maddie fast: who are now completely convinced their son died on a breif trip they took to Gotham 7 years ago and came back as a ghost who just didn't know he was dead. When they try to bring up the topic with Danny, as gently as they could, they wind up learning that he's Phantom and start to think it's a split personality type deal. One is their son trying to greave his own death and failing because he thinks he's still alive, and the other is their son trying to live up to them as ghost hunters and trying to be the hero his kid self must have thought they were. They're torn up and grief stricken and try contacting Bruce about retrieving their sons body.

Bruce is freaking out because he thinks he just convinced people who may have been looking for their son for years that their kid is dead (and maybe he is! Oh god!) And Amity Park nonsense is keeping him from finding anything about the (half) living Danny, now attending community college.

Jack and Maddie are freaking out because they don't want to let go of their son, but also this can't be healthy for any of them or for Danny's soul, he needs to move on and they need time to rethink everything they've ever thought about ghosts to grieve.

And Danny's freaking out because he thinks Brucie Wayne, ditz extraordinaire (unless his kids are involved), clueless to a fault, Brucie, somehow figured out he was a ghost and outed him to his parents???? Not cool man!

[luwritesstuff]

Breaking Point

Spencer Reid x reader

notes: angst/arguing followed by fluff/comfort, gn!reader, no use of y/n

wc: 884

Every relationship had their weakness, the one thing that tested how strong two people really were together. You and Spencer found out months into dating that your relationship's pressure point was exhaustion. It hit you both after two back to back cases across the country in one week, a friend’s wedding on Saturday, and a dinner with your parents on Sunday. By the next week, the two of you were stretched thin.

For you, the exhaustion made you irritable. Things you usually had patience for were getting under your skin and turning you into, quite frankly, an asshole. Spencer somehow had the most patience in the world and this only pissed you off more. Why wasn't he annoyed that your neighbors kept taking up two parking spots? Why was he so calm when you lost power for 12 hours?

As much as you ranted, Spencer listened. He made it a point to be a good boyfriend even on your worst days. This didn't mean that the exhaustion didn't get to him too. Spencer’s lack of sleep brought out his insecurities. The more irritable you got, the more worried Spencer became that he was the one annoying you.

On a normal week, you had more control over your emotions. You were thoughtful about how you spoke to Spencer and you were able to let the small stuff roll off your back. But this week wasn't a normal week and you couldn't stop the anger that kept slipping out of you around every corner. Spencer’s solution was to give you space, but deep down, you didn't want to be alone. Not even on your worst day did you want Spencer not to be curled up on your couch with you.

And how could Spencer say no to you? He wasn't evil, if you asked him to stay, he'd stay. Even if you had a permanent scowl on your face and didn't offer any conversation.

“Spencer!” You groaned, fighting the urge to stomp your foot like a child. “Why do you keep putting your wet towel on top of mine? There's another hook behind the door and every time I go to use my towel, it's wet!” You brought the towel out to Spencer and threw it onto the couch. Before he could finish his apology, you were continuing, “It just drives me crazy, honey. It makes me cold getting out of the shower and-”

“If you hate having me around so much, then why am I even here?” Spencer cut you off, raising his voice in a way you'd never heard directed at you before. Anyone who didn't know Spencer well would see his words as anger, but you knew Spencer well and you could feel the hurt and insecurity seeping out through his voice.

You both froze, staring at each other in silence while you replayed his words in your head. After a beat, your shoulders sagged and you moved to sit on the opposite end of the couch from him. “Shit,” you sighed and grabbed the towel to start folding it, “I'm being mean, I'm sorry. I do want you here,” you promised and looked over to find Spencer staring at his lap.

“It's fine if you don't, just… tell me that. I don't want to keep pissing you off and making things worse,” his voice was calmer now and your heart ached. Spencer, the light of your life, felt unappreciated and unloved, because of you.

You reached out to take both of Spencer’s hands into your own and gave them a squeeze. “Hey, I want you here. I love you,” you emphasized, “having you here helps and I'm sorry I haven't been showing it. This week was just… you know how it was. And my parents just get under my skin, but I shouldn't have taken that out on you. I'm sorry, sweetheart.” Spencer couldn't hold any anger towards you if he tried and the thought made you want to cry. Your Spencer, that you were cold and bitter to, still held your hands tightly and pulled you to his chest after your apology.

“I'm sorry I put my wet towel on top of yours. I know you like having a warm towel after your shower,” he said softly and kissed the top of your head, “and I'm sorry I raised my voice at you.”

You sniffled and shook your head against Spencer’s chest. “No, don't apologize for that. You should've raised your voice at me sooner, I was being a brat,” your voice was muffled by Spencer’s shirt but he took every word in, rubbing your back as you spoke.

After you'd both calmed down, Spencer took you to bed where you both slept a solid three hours. You woke up feeling lighter than you had all week and Spencer felt relieved to have you back to your usual self. “There you are, my beautiful love,” he whispered and brushed your hair from your face.

“You're one of a kind, Spence. Let's not overdo ourselves like that anymore. Next weekend, we’re taking both days off and we’re not seeing anyone but each other,” you promised and rolled over until you were straddling Spencer’s hips. His thumbs traced shapes into your hips and he agreed eagerly by pulling you down into a kiss.

[entitled-fangirl]

Cowboy!Cregan 6

Summary: Cregan teaches her to ride a horse. Or... not.

Masterlist

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

.......................................

"What do ya think?" He whispered in her ear. She could practically feel his smirk against her skin.

She clung to the saddle like a lifeline. She knew he only put her in front of him for his own enjoyment. 

One of his hands rested on her thigh, squeezing occasionally as a comfort. 

"It's… unusual."

"You're doin' well," he praised. "Few could ride a horse like this."

"You're quite literally holding me on the saddle, Cregan," she pointed out.

He shoved the reigns into her hands and held his hands up in a surrender. "Am I?"

"Cregan," she warned lowly.

She heard his chuckle and his heels pushed into the horse's ribs. The horse spurred on, moving into a gallop. 

She gripped the reigns so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Cregan's hearty laugh only grew but he let his hands move down her arms. 

It only lasted a moment because he grabbed her hands and tugged on the reigns, pulling the horse to a stop. 

The horse snorted as he did so, and she felt like she could finally take a breath. "Don't do that ever again."

"City girl," he teased her. "What am I gonna do with you?"

"Care for me. Love me." She teasingly laid back against his chest. "Take me home and have your way with me."

"Oh yeah?" 

A shrug, as if she didn't know what she said was causing a heat to run down his body. "If you wanted."

"If I wanted…" he repeated softly to himself. "And what if I wanted something else?"

She craned her neck to look at him. "Like what?" She asked in a deadpan.

"You're the prettiest girl I've ever met-"

"-Cregan."

His nose tucked into her hair. "And awfully smart-"

"-Cregan," she warned again.

"And I love you a lot, you know? You know that don't you?"

"Whatever you're doing, don't."

"Gotta tell me you know that," he ordered.

"I do, I do, but what-"

"-Then I'll know you'll have it in your heart to forgive me if I just…" He kissed her head and swung a leg over- abandoning her on the horse.

She watched in horror as he landed on the ground, his boots kicking dust up.

"See you at home," he grinned.

"Cregan. Cregan?" She asked worriedly. "I don't know how to-"

"-See you at home!" He called over his shoulder. He had begun to walk back towards the vague direction of the house.

"Cregan!"

"Be gentle with her."

She was growing worried. The horse snorted, cold and ready to go on a run. "I-I will," she eased.

"Wasn't talking to you." The cowboy rolled his shoulders back, stretching as he walked across the long field.

The house was at least a mile off.

So there she was- horse and rider. In the middle of a field. And she had no idea what to do.

…

She opened the door in anger. In her attempt to dismount in the stable, she'd stepped right in shit. 

But there was a warmth in the house that she couldn't ignore. And a smell.

Cregan emerged from the kitchen in a 'kiss the cook' apron the ranch hands had bought him as a joke. He didn't joke about it. He loved that thing. He eyed her up and down. "Came back better than I thought you would."

"That's all you have to say, Stark?"

He shrugged, disappearing back into the kitchen. "Go change and wash up. Dinner's in 15."

She sighed, pulling her boots off and leaving at the door. 

Once in their room, she noticed the outfit laid across the bed: Her favorite pjs, and Cregan's favorite bra and underwear she wore She rolled her eyes playfully. He was impossible, trying to charm her with dinner and still asking her to wear what he wanted.

She'd always do it.

A quick brush through her hair, followed by washing her face and running a cloth over the dirt on her arms, she dressed in time for dinner.

…

"Look at you, pretty girl," he mused when she walked in. "C'mere." Once in his arms, he laid a heavy kiss to her lips, just waiting for her rant. "Go sit down and I'll serve ya."

"I hate you."

She didn't mean it. They both knew that. He kissed her head. "I know. Go sit down."

After a few minutes, Cregan appeared- completely shirtless. He had a nice pair of Wranglers on and his favorite boots, hair tied up in her favorite way. He looked good.

A little too good.

"This isn't gonna win me over." She was determined to be strong.

"Really?" He questioned. He laid her plate in front of her.

"Really."

He bent down, leaning completely over and towering over her. His hand held the back of the chair, encasing her in. His face was inches from hers. "Really?" He asked again, this time in a huskier tone.

"R-really," she swallowed.

He took his time as his eyes flickered down to her lips and back to her eyes. "Shame," he grinned. God, his smile was stunning.

"You left me on a horse in the middle of bumfuck nowhere-"

He shot back up, completely amusement in his eyes as he defended himself. "A mile from the house, baby. A mile."

"And," she continued. "You laughed at it."

He began to giggle again, placing a hand over his chest when she glared. "Sorry, baby. It's just," the sentence was broken with another giggle. "You were so cute on that ole boy. I knew you'd figure it out." He turned the conversation around. "You said you wanted to learn to ride, right?"

"And leaving me to get bucked off is the way to teach? Some fucking teacher."

He brushed her jaw with his fingers. "He hasn't bucked a day in his life. He's the calmest horse I've ever owned."

She faked a deep sigh, like maybe she was holding in her anger. But in reality, she was a bit touched that he'd really cared that much. She shouldn't be. He's a thoughtful man in general. But she'd spent an hour out in the field, thinking he'd just left her without a care.

He retreated back to the kitchen, re-emerging with his own plate and a shirt on. 

As he sat down, she grinned. "What happened to dinner and a show?"

Cregan shrugged. "You didn't want a show."

"Oh, I assure you I do."

"Eat."

She scoffed, pointing her fork in his direction. "You're just rude, Farmer Stark."

She knew he hated when she called him that. The first time, it'd caused a thirty minute rant on how "there's a difference between a farmer and a rancher, baby."

He threw her a playful glare. "Well, that's no way to get the show rescheduled."

She deadpanned. "Stark, you know what I'm wearing underneath this. You'll put back on that show after dinner or there'll be riots in the streets."

"What streets?"

"The ones leading up to the bedroom. Now, take off your shirt and eat this wonderful dinner."

He pretended to be annoyed. He wasn't. In the slightest. He was quite turned on. 

He sighed, pulling his shirt off and beginning to eat. He muttered a soft, "Hope I get dessert for this."

"Could always take a different approach to this horse riding thing," she wondered aloud. "Save a horse and all..."

He choked on his food.

..................................................

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Does anyone else ever just wish you could draw/paint?

Like, draw/paint something specific.

Obviously the most obvious one will be characters for alot of people. Who doesn't want to draw the characters in their heads??

But I mean...

Specific stuff

Like, I'd love to draw animals.

And fashion.

Also landscapes and environments.

I'd love to be able to draw something like this, with blurbs of information for the animals and monsters of KaE:

And fashion!

I just love seeing how fashion evolves throughout history and how the rich are dumb as fuck in trying to out do each other in how clumsy/annoying it is to put on cause "you can afford to spend so much time on such dumb shit"

But it's cool.

I have Infinity Nikki to help cure me of that craving of seeing/experimenting with outfits (it's like, a really chill game)

But normal day to day environment stuff

That's something I can't really fulfill as a craving, beside finding artwork of what i mean.

Found an awesome artist who scratched that itch of mine recently, and its helped me describe some scenes in KaE

Jean-Claude Golvin, French archaeologist and architect!

Look at all the cool stuff he's drawn!

Because of the above, I've taken to drawing myself.

Im no good at it, but it helps me. To anyone else, it'd look horrendous, but I can see beyond what's in the paper. Cause its in my head, i just have to place it on the paper so i can like... lock it in my head, compartmentalize writing/drawing/imagination into separate boxes, and keep the flow state going as an author.

Mehhh, i'm just in one of those moods.

Introspective of myself. Which then got me thinking about something I usually think about.

Sometimes, I think about how many great writers and artists there are with no opportunity to vent that creative urge. To flex their imagination muscles. They must be like horses or birds, born to run in the plains and fly in the sky; yet caged by their economic or living situation.

And by the time they're in a position to actually do what calls to them, they're older. With more responsibilities. A career. A family. A whole set of skills and lessons already gained and experienced.

How difficult is it to overcome that initial "but im so bad right now, it'll take me too long to develop into something good" thought?

Is it not daunting to have to "start over" in a skill?

Then there's younger people than you who are by far more skilled at the "thing" than you. Isn't that crushing?

I think it's alot like exercise. It sucks at first. Sometimes you can't even do more than 30 min a day. You think, "What's the point??"

But even if you do 30 min a day for a week, that's a total of 210 minutes for that week. Three hours and a half. That's far more than the absolute zero you would have if you did nothing.

I think you can write, draw, paint, do whatever calls to you for 30 min a day in the least. Because if you keep that up for a whole year; you'll end up with 10,920 minutes, or 182 hours, worth of experience under your belt.

Oh.

Oh shit.

I went on a rant lmao

Any hopeful creatives out there, I hope you guys take some measure of solace in my words. You're not alone. It's never too late to start. The only person you're racing with is yourself, not that other person you compare yourself to. Take your time. Just don't deny yourself!

[practicalgauntlet]

Novalunosis

(n.) The state of relaxation and wonderment experienced whilst gazing upon the stars

Synopsis- It's yours and Spencer's first date, and it isn't what you expect in the slightest.

Category- Fluff

Notes-gender neutral reader, first date, poetic romance, Spencer's very suave but in an adorkable way, nervous Spencer, smitten reader, loads of fucking fluff like come on, stargazing date, wine and dine;), no smut just fluff, bau!reader, established relationship,

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Spencer Reid was an enigma. When you first met him, he was an awkward ball of random, seemingly unnecessary facts and statistics. He would angle his body away from everyone and keep himself neatly tucked into the corner. But as the years went by and the closer you got with the team, you saw exactly who Spencer was. A man passionate about knowledge, free from the shackles of ego with a heart so golden you wondered if his soul had been touched by Mitas.

Over the years you've worked at the BAU, you had made friends with everyone. But Spencer was different. The two of you formed a closer bond than you had with anyone else, despite their best efforts. Yes, the team was your family. But you weren't in love with them.

Every day, you find something else that would make your heart beat against your ribcage. One day, it was his hair cut, the next, it was the way he used his hands to talk. At one point, you had an accumulated list of what you adored about him. Two things constantly fought for first place: His brain and his smile.

Sometimes, during briefings or casual hangouts - really anytime you're in the same room with him - you find yourself unable to focus on anything other than that bright, perfect smile.

You didn't know when you had fallen for him. Maybe it was that time he went on a thirty minute rant about the principles of common courtesy and spacial awareness when someone had pushed past you on the sidewalk. Maybe it was when he excitedly shared his favorite book with you so the two of you could have something to talk about other than work. Maybe it was the first day you met him.

What you did know was when it struck you, that three word phrase echoing throughout your mind every time he looked at you.

You were hanging out with him at a coffee shop, a book open and resting in front of both of you when it was first registered. It had been accidental, the creation of your two person book club, but you looked forward to your meeting every Saturday.

You fell fast and hard, tumbling down at speeds you weren't accustomed to, only to be cushioned by his soft hands. But every time you tried to make a move, a nasty little gremlin in your head told you that you weren't good enough.

You weren't smart enough. He'd only be held down.

You weren't extraordinary enough. He'd only be embarrassed when compared to you.

You simply weren't good enough. Not for someone like him.

You let that train of thought scare you. You let it beat away any confidence you had when you were around him. And he noticed. Of course, he noticed. It was Spencer.

It wasn't until you had accidentally started avoiding him that he confronted you. He could see it in your face, the hopelessness. At first, he thought it was the case, but then you stopped coming to him altogether. Stopped relying on him to make you laugh. To make you feel better.

So he cornered you, waiting until the break room was empty before pouncing.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

He asked angrily. Which surprised you, Spencer had never been angry at you. Although, when you look back, it was something more akin to hurt.

"Please, I can't stand it when you don't talk to me."

When he brushed a strand of hair from your face, you couldn't hold it in any longer. Years of pining unleashed in one single breath. He was stunned for a second, and you almost took everything back.

But then he smiled. It was warm and inviting, almost too wide for his face.

"You like me?"

It was like watching a child open a Christmas present, eyes glistening with a joy only getting something he'd always wanted could bring.

He asked you out not a second later. Beaming like a star as his beautiful brain ran a mile minute to plan the perfect date.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

"Tell me where we're going already. The suspense is killing me!" You groaned halfheartedly, looking at Spencer all cleaned up in his wrinkle free suit. You felt too plain standing next to him, too...ordinary.

Spencer tentatively took your hand, pulling you down the sidewalk. He chuckled, the sound making your heart pound ten times faster.

"When surprised, our brains release dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward, making surprise a positive experience that can lift our mood."

You couldn't help the smile that bloomed at his brilliance. "Are you saying I'm in a mood?"

"No," Spencer stops but doesn't let go of your hand. "I want to make you happy."

You didn't say anything else, couldn’t say anything else. Not as he continued to look at you the way he was; with big brown eyes accusing you of hanging the stars in the sky.

It was like the two of you were in a trance, hypnotized by the mere presence of the other. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk like two love struck idiots, staring into eachothers eyes in some cliche rom-com love scene.

It wasn't until someone rudely brushed past you that Spencer realized the two of you were still in public and very much in the way of everyone. He tugged on your hand, pulling you away from the middle of the sidewalk and between him and the buildings you were walking by.

It was a small gesture, one that most people would look over complelty. But you knew Spencer, knew his habits and fears. Knew he positioned you like that on purpose. 'Just in case.'

Your heart continued to swell throughout the walk, Spencer leading the way all the while spewing verbal vomit non-stop. You found it cute, the way he rambled all the way to the adorable bistro a block and a half away from headquarters.

It was a quaint little place, kind of out of the way, but you were in awe. Candle lit tables, smooth, quiet jazz softly playing over the speakers. An excellent wine selection.

You and Spencer were sat at a booth in the far back, away from the dozen or so customers littered around.

It felt intimate, an occasion just for the two of you and no one else. Like the world didn't exist and it was just you and him.

Spencer sat opposite of you, his long legs brushing against yours under the table. The first few times it happened, he jolted away, face flushing and sentance stumbling to a pause.

But once you got your food- Spencer with his chicken Alfredo and you with your pasta carbonara - the nerves in the air had settled down to a dull buzz.

After a while, the two of you enjoying your food and presence of the other, Spencer spoke up.

"I still can't believe this is happening."

"Can't believe what is happening."

He was looking at you now, fork full of his next bite forgotten. Those never-ending pools of brown swirling with untapped emotion.

"That I'm on a date with you."

You laugh, the sound more startled than anything.

"I basically confess my undying love for you, and you're surprised I said yes to a date?"

You feel your entire body freeze. You weren't meant to say that, weren't meant to let on to how deep you really were. Spencer had also frozen, eyes wide as he stared at you.

Thankfully, before you could stumble through a frantic attempt to cover up your mistake, the waiter appeared and asked if either of you wanted a refill. You nodded, desperate for a distraction.

When you looked back at your date, he was wearing the goofiest smiles. One that stretched ear to ear, showing off all his teeth and crinkling his eyes.

"What?"

You ask, wondering why he looked so dopey. Maybe you had something on your face. You swiftly patt around your mouth, searching for a crumb or splotch of sauce.

Spencer looked down at his plate, picking up his fork and shoving the fettuccine into his mouth.

"Nothing."

He said uncharacteristically around a mouth full of food. He still looked goofy, eyes shining, cheeks red.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Your stomach was full, heavy with pasta and wine. You were glad Spencer had talked you out of dessert, though it was unusual for him to pass up such a sweet treat.

The heater was softly blowing in your face as Spencer merged onto the highway. You watch as the bright lights of the city flash past the windows, painting the inside of the car in red, yellow, and blue. Spencer had put on some soft classical music - Mariage d'Amor by Jacob Ladegaard- the whimsical tune of the piano lulling you into relaxation.

As Spencer passes the streat that would take you back to your apartment, you sit up.

"Spence, you missed the turn."

"No, I didn't,"

He said cheekily, turning his head for a split second to send you one of his knee weakening smiles.

"My apartment is that way. What are you doing?"

Spencer takes a left and turns down the road that would lead you out of the city. When he turns to you again, after he safely steers the car back into traffic, you have to look away for fear of falling prey to his whims.

"The night's not over yet."

He didn't answer any of your constant questions about where he was taking you or your sarcastic comments about acting like he was taking you to a second location to kill you.

All he did was sit in the driver's seat, control the car, and grin. Forty-five minutes outside of the city, he finally gives you something.

He turns onto a backroad, the smooth asphalt turning to rough dirt and gravel.

"Close your eyes, were almost here. "

"Spence-"

"Close your eyes,"

He says pointedly, halfheartedly glaring at you. You oblige simply because you were curious, crossing your arms over your chest and huffing out a petulant sigh.

Spencer laughs at you, and you feel the road turn rocky, the car jolting from side to side. You had to brace yourself with the grab handle above you, instinctively reaching across the console to grab Spencer.

Your hand ends up grasping his coat sleeve as his hands are preoccupied at ten and two. Soon enough, the car slows to a stop.

"Keep your eyes closed, okay?"

You nod, keeping your eyes firmly shut as you hear Spencer unbuckle and exit the vehicle. You wait, wondering if you were supposed to blindly follow or await instruction. At this point, you were thruming with curiosity, your skin tingling with excitement.

After a couple of seconds, Spencer opens your door and reaches across you to unbuckle you.

"Alright, keep them closed."

He pulls you out of the car, placing one of your hands on his shoulder to keep your balance steady.

"Watch your step."

When you walk forward, you can feel something whispy and dry hit your shins. Your foot sinks gently into the ground, and all you can smell is earth. The kind of smell that's only around after it rains, fresh and earthy.

"Are you done, I'm dying here?"

You chuckle after you trip, Spencer's hands coming to your waist to keep you upright. Even after you reclaim your balance, Spencer doesn't let go.

"Yeah, we're almost done."

He leads you just a bit further before stopping, telling you to -once again - keep your eyes closed and stand where you are.

"Okay, open your eyes."

When you do, blinking away the brightness of the moon, you were left breathless at the sight before you. Spencer had set up a picnic.

There was a comfy blanket sprawled on the ground in the middle of a pasture, no building or city light to be seen. On the blanket lay a basket over flowing with sweet treats. Champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, various pastries, and cupcakes.

"Oh, Spencer..."

You were at a loss for words, emotion clogging your throat as you try to breathe around it. Spencer was standing off to the side, hands in his pockets and his shoulders up to his ears. That goofy, adorable, precious smile was on his face again, like he couldn't even go a second without beaming with joy.

You felt the same, a familiar ache making itself know in your cheeks.

"There is supposed to be a meteor shower tonight."

He said as an explanation, as if he needed one to get you alone in the middle of nowhere to stargaze.

The two of you end up on your backs, close enough that you were touching but not on top of each other. Spencer was pointing out his favorite constellations, rambling on about who discovered them and how they came to be named.

It was perfect, absolutely perfect, and just so Spencer.

"Look, it's starting!"

Spencer excitedly exclaimed as he scooted closer to you.

The sky was suddenly lit up with sparkling meteors, the sight only rivaling the man beside you. The whole time, you were expecting Spencer to blurt out a fun fact about the night sky, but he remained silent.

When you turned to him, he was already looking at you. The reflection of the sparkling sky in his eyes made them look like pools of starlight, golden and glistening with emotion.

"You're so beautiful..."

He whispers quietly, so quiet you didn't think it was meant for your ears. Instead of replying, you brush the curls from his eyes and kiss him.

It was something out of a movie, the shining night sky glowing above you, the soft grass tickling your legs, the softness of Spencer's lips.

When you pull back, all Spencer could say was:

"Wow.."

"Yeah," You chuckle, planting a kiss to every one of his features you admired. His nose, his forehead, his cheeks, both of his eyelids. "Wow."

[percivaljacksons]

those little town blues (pt 1)

the modern percabeth ghost whisperer au. girl, at this point you have to trust me. first 5k or so as i edit the big mama doc for ao3. sorry not sorry to tease! i'd give this section a t rating

“For someone who just moved here, you really know your way around,” Piper says. “I absolutely thought you were taking us to the wrong platform.” 

Two descending notes play through the speaker above their heads. The Q train’s doors slide closed. The breaks release in a puffy exhale and the car lurches as they begin to move out of the Canal St station. 

Annabeth shrugs. “I like research,” she says. “Figured if I was going to do the whole ‘move to New York as a broke twenty-something,’ I might as well be prepared for it.”

“What a load of baloney,” Percy says from somewhere behind her. “You were walking right for the Downtown platform, too. You could say ‘thank you,’ by the way.”

Piper doesn’t react—of course she doesn’t. She just tells Annabeth with a sheepish smile, “more than I did. God, this is so embarrassing, but I really did Uber everywhere for my first few weeks.”

“Asshole,” Percy cuts in again. “I can’t stand people who do that.”

Annabeth kicks one foot back as subtly as possible. She doesn’t feel it connect with his shin, but he does quiet down.

“You’re getting the hang of it,” Annabeth reassures her. “Silena said you moved here—what, two months before me?”

“Something like that.”

“Plus, I did a lot of exploring in the past few weeks and got turned around a lot of times. You’re seeing a well made facade.”

“Is that how you found that Wo Hop?” Piper asks. “God, I can’t get over that tofu. And it was in some random basement!”

While Piper waxes poetic about their lunch, Annabeth’s eyes slide to the left. It’s not an overly crowded subway car. There’s a couple pouring over the map on the wall, a short man reading a book in the seat parallel to the window, and around a dozen solo commuters buried in phones or listening to music. 

But to Annabeth’s left, leaning against the door, is a man with short cropped hair and an angular jaw. His button up shirt is untucked, wrinkled, and saturated with blood. She has to breathe through her mouth because she can smell it wafting off of him. From the corner of her eye, she can spot the elderly woman trying to read over the shoulder of the man by the window, ranting a rant he can’t hear. And, of course, right behind her is Percy, dripping wet. 

“I really hope you’re not about to take credit for finding Wo Hop on your own,” he says. 

“...in an article, right?” Piper asks, forcing Annabeth to tune back in again.

“Yeah, about the James Beard Foundation Awards,” Annabeth says. “It’s officially an American Classic.”

“Fucking typical,” Percy says. “I’m not telling you where that halal cart is now.”

“So cool,” Piper enthuses. “I didn’t even realize how much food there was out there that I’ve never even tried, you know? This city is crazy.”

“Best city in the world,” Percy and Annabeth say in perfect unison. 

Of course, only Annabeth and Percy know that. 

//

It started on her third day in New York, because Annabeth has, in general, always had completely shit luck. With a week until her new job began and her boxes (almost) unpacked, she woke up to a sliver of perfect blue sky visible between the brick walls outside her window and decided to spend the day exploring. 

While she waited for the shower to heat up, she drank a glass of water—straight from the tap—and looked around her joke of a studio apartment. Despite the near negative space she now called her own for the next twelve months, her singular closet was pitifully half empty. 

Annabeth frowned into her water. Half full? She’d never had many clothes, was the point. The t-shirts and jeans she’d favored in high school had stopped fitting once she started doing track and field more seriously, and her college dorm room hadn’t offered an abundance of space, either. 

She wandered back to the bathroom and stuck a hand under the tap. Only lukewarm. The previous two days' experience told her she had another minute before it would get hot, so she took out her phone and googled thrift stores nyc. 

The results were almost too many to believe. She shook her head. 

“Best city in the world,” she said to herself, and finally stripped down to step into the shower. 

In the end, she chose a thrift store in lower Manhattan, a little to the east so it was on the yellow line and she wouldn’t have to transfer trains. It was close to Washington Square Park, too, so she could check that off her architecture bucket list. Just like that, she had a plan for the day—and Annabeth loved having a plan.

She flew down the four flights of stairs, keeping her eyes on her feet so she wouldn’t get drawn into whatever was going on with the man who always lingered on the second floor landing. He left something in his jacket pocket, but Annabeth had never stuck around long enough to hear what it was or who he needed to tell. She’d get around to it eventually. Probably.

After riding the N train two stops in the wrong direction, she managed to get on a Manhattan and Brooklyn bound W. It was all part of the learning curve. The car was near empty, so close to the origin in Astoria, so she found a seat by the window and watched as the lower buildings of northwest Queens morphed into the skyscrapers of Long Island City before the train finally went underground. She pulled a book out of her tote bag before long and focused her gaze on the paper, even though the letters were swirling around the page so aggressively that she couldn’t read a word. 

Her dyslexia always got worse when she was stressed. She turned a page in her book, a perfect pantomime of reading, so that the three ghosts standing within fifteen feet of her don’t realize that she can both see and hear them. 

Spirits, earthbound souls, whatever. They were all ghosts, really, haunting people or places or things. She thought maybe they were haunting this specific subway car, except a man in a navy suit got off at 59th street and one of them—the woman in bright red lipstick and a mink coat—followed him off. 

Annabeth kept looking at her book, flipping forward a page every minute or so. She had long ago perfected the half-glazed over expression that tricked most ghosts into thinking she was just like everyone else—unable to see them. It was a small part of the reason she’d decided to move to New York: everyone here had that expression on. Everyone here avoided eye contact on the sidewalk and went about their business, so maybe—just maybe—Annabeth wouldn’t acquire her usual ‘rude and standoffish’ reputation. 

One of the ghosts sat down next to her. He was mumbling in a language she didn't recognize. Hungarian, maybe—a relief. She wouldn’t have to try so hard to not react if he said something appalling. 

Annabeth turned to the next page in her book. She didn’t even remember what it was about. The stops got more frequent in Manhattan, crawling at times only five blocks between stations after Times Square, before the W finally pulled into 8th Street-NYU. 

Annabeth put her book back into her tote and stood, edging around the ghost’s legs with a mumbled, “excuse me.”

She realized her mistake two steps later, when the voice got panicked and excited, rapid-fire consonant heavy speech trying to get her attention again. Annabeth kept her head down and walked towards the closest exit like she knew it would take her where she wanted. It worked, either because he thought it was a fluke or he was tied enough to that train car to stay put, and when she walked up into the autumn sunlight she was once again alone. 

Not unhaunted. She was never really unhaunted, but she could be—however briefly—alone. 

Maps told her that the Buffalo Exchange was close, only a few blocks south. She made her way there, realized she was on the wrong side of the street, and blatantly jaywalked to get to her destination. One thing she certainly would not miss about California was driving and cars and mechanics. She hoped Clarisse would love the hunk of bolts Annabeth couldn’t have more joyously parted with.

The thrift store wasn’t too crowded inside, because it was around 11 on a Tuesday, so Annabeth took her time. She started in the back, sifting through women’s cut jeans and giving up quickly, moving to the men’s section in the front where the inseams were longer. She found a few potential successes, all dark wash enough that she could probably dress them up for work, and made her way towards one of the circular clothing racks in the middle of the shop. 

Annabeth hadn’t lived on the east coast since she was twelve, but she remembered the cold bite of the winters. She didn’t have nearly enough sweaters to get her through January and February, only a few short months away. A few hoodies with stains and holes got flipped past, but eventually she came across a maroon crewneck with a faded lettering that said MONTAUK. She threw it on over her shirt and managed to catch her reflection in a nearby mirror—exactly the kind of baggy she’s always preferred. Perfect. 

“That’s mine,” someone said.

Annabeth looked over and gasped. Standing next to her, soaked from head to foot, was a guy about her age. He was a bit taller, with dark hair plastered to his head and green eyes so bright they forced the air out of Annabeth’s lungs. Every inch of him was dripping water in the middle of the perfectly dry Buffalo Exchange.

“You can see me,” he realized, eyes getting wider. “You can actually—holy fuck.” 

She bought the sweater, in the end, because she stopped letting ghosts decide what she was and wasn’t going to do a long time ago. Percy—I’m Percy, by the way, can you still see me?— didn’t seem to mind, even as she ignored him and checked out with her new pants and sweater. 

“I know you can hear me,” Percy said, following her out the door. “You’re not a very good actor, you know.”

Annabeth pulled out her headphones and slipped them on. She fiddled with her phone, miming a call, and finally turned to face the very wet ghost beside her. 

“Percy, you said?” She asked. 

He grinned. “Yes! Yeah, I’m Percy. I can’t believe you can hear me. It’s, like, so great to talk to someone.”

“I’m Annabeth.” She didn’t reach out to shake his hand, because they wouldn’t be able to anyway. “I’m going to the park. Want to come?”

They walked the two blocks to the north side of the park, until Annabeth stood directly under Stanford White’s famous arch. She knew it already, of course—the Tuckahoe marble used to construct it, the fact that it commemorated the centennial of George Washington’s presidential address in 1789—but Annabeth’s favorite thing about architecture isn’t facts or materials. It’s the way she feels looking at it; it’s something about the innate nature of human beings and the way they just can’t help their desire to create.

She could see Percy out of the corner of her eye, watching her. As she stood there, her gaze still fixed upward, someone in a purple t-shirt walked right through him.

“Okay,” she finally said. “What’s your deal? Normally I’ve gotten a whole life story by now.”

“Normally,” he repeated. “This happen to you a lot?”

“Look, do you see a white light?” Annabeth asked, already losing her patience. 

“A what?”

“God, I can really pick ‘em,” Annabeth muttered to herself. “A white light. Bright, blinding even. Maybe a loved one standing there waiting for you? Walk into it.”

“I—what?” 

“Unless there’s something you’ve left unfinished?” Annabeth prompted. It usually went smoother if the ghost came to terms on their own, but this whole conversation was messing with Annabeth’s plan for the day. She wanted it over and done with.

“What are you talking about?” Percy asked, his accent hitting harder than it had before. His ah vowel was like an A and U and W smushed together. “Why are you the only one who can see me?”

Annabeth closed her eyes. “Fuck,” she said. “Seriously? This is just my luck.” She turned back to Percy, kind of vaguely relishing how no one around them seemed to care that she was talking to thin air. “You’re dead.”

Percy blinked at her. A drop of water made its way down the arch of his nose. “What?”

“I can see ghosts. Spirits. People who haven’t yet moved on.” She let that sink in for a moment, then added, “like you.”

“Moved on to what?” He asked, his voice getting louder with pure panic. 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “I’m not dead. I just have the pleasure of seeing all of you on your journey in between.”

“Fuck. What the fuck?” Percy started to pace, his hands on his head. “I can’t be dead! That’s such bullshit. I’ve never even left the tri-state area! And I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, lady—”

“Annabeth.”

“—Annabeth, because there ain’t no fuckin’ light, alright? There’s just this stupid park and a bunch of asshole NYU students walking right through me, and apparently, the only person who can see me is a goddamn Yankees fan, which is fucking rich. And!” He turned back to her, an almost triumphant expression on his face. “And I bet you you’re not from here, am I right? No shot.”

“I’m from…” Annabeth trailed off. She could’ve said Virginia, or the Bay Area, or something else. In the end, she just confirmed his suspicion. “I’m not from here, you’re right. This is my third day in New York.”

That made him laugh uproariously, too dramatic to be earnest, his hands flung out to the sides. “Of course! A fucking transplant in a Yankees hat. I can hardly believe my luck.”

With him standing facing her once more, Annabeth finally saw the logo made dark by his wet t-shirt. A baseball with dark blue skyline and orange piping, Mets written out across the front. 

“Are you done?” Annabeth asked. “I want to go see the narrowest house in the city next.”

“I’m not a tour guide,” he seethed.

“Which way is Bedford Street?”

He pointed behind him. “Like, six blocks that way.”

And so Annabeth’s first friend in the big city was a chronically damp, kind of asshole ghost named Percy.

//

“Silena said Piper liked you,” Clarisse says. They’re playing Battleship online as they FaceTime, both unwilling to admit that they want to talk for the sake of talking, and certainly unwilling to admit they might miss each other. 

It’s one thing to move across the country to an apartment you’ve never actually seen for the sake of a life you think you might like, and another to do it knowing you’ll leave behind the two best friends you’ve made in your entire twenty-two years on Earth. 

That are still alive, at least.

“She was cool,” Annabeth says. “So different from Silena, though. We got greasy Chinese food.”

Clarisse snorts. “Uh, yeah. Duh. Get sunk, by the way.” Her missile lands in open water. “Seriously? What the hell.”

“Be better,” Annabeth replies, confidently clicking on G3. Sure enough, a tiny explosion graphic goes off on G3. 

“What the—is there someone behind me giving you clues? I know that’s how you kept winning poker night in junior year—”

“I can’t see ghosts through FaceTime, that would be ridiculous,” Annabeth scoffs. 

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Clarisse scowls. “Sure.” One of her shots finally connects, but Annabeth’s still smiling, two ships in the lead. 

“Did I tell you I’ve got a new one?” Annabeth asks, pulling her fidget cube out from its drawer and flicking one side of it. 

“A Casper? No.”

“His name’s Percy. He’s wet.”

“Is that some kind of horrible New York slang?”

“What?” Annabeth laughs. “No, he’s actually wet. Like, dripping water.”

“That’s new.”

“Plus, he had no idea he was dead. Bizarre.”

Clarisse frowns. Clarisse always looks like she’s frowning, so it’s really hard to tell when she actually is, but at this point Annabeth’s had years of practice. “That’s happened before,” she says.

Annabeth gets a flash of sun-bleached blond hair and that awful scar in her mind’s eye before she manages to shove it back into the box in the corner of her mind. “S’not common, though,” she says. “Usually means the death was traumatic.” 

“Not to play Silena,” Clarisse says slowly, finally managing to figure out which way Annabeth’s submarine is pointing, “but should you be doing this?”

“Talking to you?” Annabeth snarks. Her next shot misses. 

“Getting wrapped up in helping a ghost your first few weeks in New York. Isn’t that why you left California? Oh, get fucked, I knew that was your battleship.” 

Annabeth shuts that right down. “I left because I got a job. I knew New York would have a lot of earthbound spirits; that was kind of a given, it’s huge. And yeah, I did say I was going to try and focus on me a little more, but…I don’t know, there’s something about him.”

Clarisse looks like she doesn’t know what to do with that. “He’s…nice?” She asks.

Annabeth laughs. “Uh, no. I’m not sure I would be if I just found out I was dead, so.” She shrugs. “I won’t be able to help him cross over until he starts to remember more, anyway. Googling ‘Percy NYC’ got me a dollar pizza place in the West Village and some place called Percy’s Tavern that isn’t even open anymore.”

“Silena’s going to be so pissed that all we talked about on our call is your new familiar.”

Annabeth sinks Clarisse’s final ship. “No, she’s not.”

Clarisse raises her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm.” Annabeth smirks. “Because you get to tell her that the new ghost is, like, seriously hot.”

Clarisse just shakes her head, grinning. “She is going to love that. Damn. Well, good luck. I’ll call whenever my ego can handle a rematch.”

“Okay,” Annabeth says softly. “Bye.”

“Love you. No homo.” 

Before Annabeth can reply, she gets hung up on.

“Typical,” she says to her empty studio apartment. No one, alive or dead, replies.

//

“Alright,” Annabeth says as she steps out of her office building, her headphones on. “Where am I getting lunch?”

“I’m not telling you,” Percy sulks. “You just abuse my knowledge. I spent a lifetime accumulating this stuff, only to give it away to some yuppie. Barf.”

Annabeth picks a direction and starts walking. “I read that Ess-a-Bagel is good,” she says, already knowing what will happen next with only a week and a half of experience.

“Overrated,” Percy says. He can’t seem to help himself. “Like, it’s good, but they only put the seeds n’ shit on one side. Shmear options are okay,” he adds a little begrudgingly.

“Like, cream cheese?”

“Like, cream cheese?” Percy mocks, his voice high-pitched and whiny. “If you ask for them to scoop out your bagel, I’m actually going to start haunting you.”

“As opposed to what this is,” Annabeth murmurs to herself, well aware that he can hear her. 

“Hey! I’m, like, super chill. I haven’t even tried to get your lights to flicker.”

“You’ve never even appeared in my apartment,” Annabeth acquiesces. “Or at work.”

He shrugs, falling into step beside her. “Seems rude.” 

Annabeth almost stops in the middle of the sidewalk, she’s so surprised. “Okay, that’s a first.”

“Are the people you see always rude?”

She wrinkles her nose. “It’s more like…it’s all on their terms. No one’s ever been that concerned about appearing in the middle of my calc final, for example.”

“Yikes.”

“Exactly.” Despite having the light, she looks both ways before joining the crowd in crossing 6th. One of the idling cars honks at her.

Percy flips the car off. It doesn’t make a difference to anyone but her, but she appreciates it. “If you want to spend too much money on a bagel, I’m not going to stop you,” he tells her. 

Annabeth walks into Herald Square; she’d rather go through a tiny park than down the crowded sidewalk. “Where would you go for a bagel?”

“Absolute Bagels. 108 and Broadway.”

She snorts out a laugh. “You knew that answer way too quickly.”

“I’m tired of these bougie, overpriced bagels! Absolute is good enough I drag my ass to the west side—that’s how you know it’s legit.”

“So you’re from the east side,” Annabeth follows, nodding. “Okay, that’s something. Remember anything more specific?”

“Yeah.” Percy grins proudly, pushing his wet bangs out of his face. “El Barrio, baby! Proud of it. Just off 2nd and…” His grin fades. “Shit. Goddamn it.”

“It’s okay,” Annabeth soothes. “That’s something. I’m assuming that’s…a Hispanic neighborhood?”

“Spanish Harlem,” he says. “East side, north of, like, 96.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “These days, north of 110.”

They’re already on the other side of Herald Square; Percy picks up into a jog. Annabeth follows suit, only realizing that he’s trying to catch the light before it changes a few seconds later. They make it to the other side and slow back to a walk. 

“If you want,” Annabeth offers, “I could go there. With you, I mean. We could walk around, maybe spark a memory.”

“You’d do that?” Percy asks, his voice almost severe in its sudden quiet volume. 

Annabeth shrugs. She pauses on the corner, barely a moment of hesitation, but Percy points diagonally to the side of the street she wants to be on. With a wince of thanks, she says, “I want to see more of the city. Might as well check off a good deed while I’m at it.” 

“Well, I can make it worth your while,” he says with a confident nod. “D’you like Italian food?” 

“Am I human?”

“Okay, so we’ll swing by Patsy’s, then. Oh, or Sam’s! And that bakery with the killer conchas—”

“I have no idea what that is, but I’m sold,” Annabeth says. “Why does Spanish Harlem have Italian food?”

He shrugs, sending tiny flicks of water flying. “Dunno. Better Italian food than Little Italy, though.”

“Haven’t seen it yet,” Annabeth says, pushing her way into the surprisingly large bagel shop and immediately struggling to focus. 

“It’s mostly gone, honestly. Hey, you good?”

“Hm?” Annabeth blinks away from the menu behind the counter. “Oh, yeah, it’s just loud in here. You weren’t kidding about the cream cheese.”

Percy doesn’t say much as they wait in line, or as she orders—toasted sesame bagel with olive cream cheese—but he sort of squints his eyes, like he’s sizing her up. 

“What?” She hisses out of the corner of her mouth as the cashier rings up her order. 

Percy shrugs, the movement of his shoulders just barely visible out of the corner of her eye. “Nothing.”

She raises as much of an eyebrow as she dares, smiling quickly at the cashier, tapping her credit card, and hoping to get back outside as quickly as possible.

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Annabeth says once they’re on their way again. The bagel is hot even through the paper bag it’d been stuffed in. 

Percy moves like he wants to grab the door for her, then awkwardly follows her as she jerks it open herself. “I just think you’re a sociopath for getting olive cream cheese.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Ever heard of not yucking someone else’s yum?”

“Nope. Where we headed?”

“I thought we’d sit in the park?” 

“The squirrels are going to maul you.”

“Well, you’ve never seen me fight before.” 

Privately, even as Percy laughs, she casts a few suspicious glances at lingering squirrels as they make their way into the park. Most are high in the trees or lingering around the trash cans. She picks a free table that’s far away from both, sits down, and kicks out the empty chair so that Percy can sit down, too.

“I feel like a food critic,” she says, unwrapping her lunch. She opens the bagel using two hands to get the visual, her stomach rumbling at the sight of cream cheese going a little runny from being sandwiched between two warm halves of bagel. “Except kind of like I’m cheating, you know? I haven’t had to look up any new things to try in two weeks.”

“You’re welcome,” Percy says. He rubs at one eye and flicks the water off his hand after. “But I feel like you should know that I’m not telling you everything.”

Annabeth gasps in mock offence. “But you’re so endeared by me.”

“Lie. I’m living vicariously through you.”

“By not telling me everything?” Annabeth asks cheekily, taking her first, relatively heavenly bite.

“You know what?” Percy says, clearly trying to sound pissed off but failing by laughing halfway through his sentence. He flicks some water at her, and Annabeth swears she can feel it land on her arm. 

“What’re these big secrets you’ve been keeping?” She asks. “It’s not like I’ve gotten food poisoning or anything.”

Percy sighs, still kind of smiling. “Well, then they wouldn’t be secrets, would they? Gotta keep some stuff for the locals.”

Annabeth pouts. Percy rolls his eyes.

“Fine, whatever.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing back across the street. “You didn’t have to wait on line in there.”

Annabeth chews slowly, trying to figure out what’s been lost in translation. “I…ordered in person?” She says. “I didn’t use, like, an app or something.” 

Percy looks just as confused. “Yeah, I was there. I’m saying you could’ve skipped the line.”

“No, you said I didn’t need to be online.”

“Yeah,” he repeats a little slower. “You didn’t have to wait on the line. Have you, like, stopped being able to hear me?”

“Who says wait on the line?” Annabeth asks incredulously. “You wait in a line, Percy.”

“Everybody says that! There’s an invisible line on the ground, and we all stand on it.”

Annabeth takes a bite without looking away from him, wondering how she ended up here. “I’ve literally never heard that before in my life,” she says through her mouthful. “Online is the internet. You wait in a line. I live in a city. I ride in a car.”

“You get on a bus. I ride on the subway. And I wait,” Percy says, leaning in, “on line.” 

“Maybe you’re not dead,” Annabeth theorizes. “Maybe you’re a demon raised from hell, come to torment me. Maybe you’re from an alternate universe!”

“This is what I get for revealing the schmear only express line at Ess-a-Bagel.” Percy shakes his head. “I should’a known.”

“What?” Annabeth asks. “I didn’t have to wait in that stupid fucking line?”

Percy throws his hands up. “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“Tell me that before next time. You had to wait in the line, too.”

He shrugs. “Not so bad. I’ve got nowhere to be.”

It sends her into a little bit of a tailspin. Sure, he’s actively dripping water on an otherwise dry and sunny day, but he’s around her age and died relatively recently, if the in-style cut of his jeans is anything to go by. He’s easy to talk to. It’s easy to forget he’s dead.

Annabeth takes another bite of her bagel. It’s a little strange that the sesame seeds are only on one side, but it’s just the right amount of chewy and pretty big for what she paid. The olive cream cheese is more of a disappointment, but she’s not going to tell Percy that.

“This is really good,” she says. “Your place is better? Or are you going to gatekeep that now?”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like Absolute is a big secret, they’ve got a crazy line all weekend.”

“Good to know.”

“I don’t fuck around when it comes to bagels, Annabeth. Honestly, have any of my food recommendations let you down?”

“No,” she agrees. “Why do you think you remember all of that so well?”

He shrugs, his eyes sliding to the side. Annabeth doesn’t think he’s particularly interested in the squirrel eating a cigarette butt, so he probably just wants to avoid looking at her. It strikes her somewhere beneath her ribs, how sad it is, to wander around your home with only the innocuous pieces left.

Not for the first time, she wonders what will happen when she dies. Will someone see her? Will she even know that she’s dead? Will she be here, or in San Francisco, or on Berkeley’s campus, or back in Richmond? Has she ever known a place her soul would cling to?

“What’s your favorite thing about New York?” Annabeth asks, deciding suddenly to change tactics. “Since you keep insisting us transplants don’t know—”

“—know shit about shit,” Percy finishes. He looks back at her. “Uh, it’s the best city in the world.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “I know that. That’s why I moved here. You could argue that means I love it more than you.”

“Shut up,” Percy says, his face screwed up with indignation. “No, it doesn’t!”

“Great comeback,” she drawls. 

“Okay, I love the people,” Percy answers. “I love New Yorkers, and the way we treat each other.”

“Like?” Annabeth prompts him.

“We leave each other alone, but if I’m short a dollar on groceries there’s almost always someone who’ll cover me. And I just…I love walking places, and the subway, and I love it when I hop the turnstyle so smooth you can’t even tell I jumped it. I love the old guys who play chess in the park. The graffiti. I love riding the bus at night and Biggie, and shitting on Jersey and the goddamn Mets. I love not giving a fuck, I guess.” 

“Well, that’s things you love, but what’s your favorite?” Annabeth pushes. “Mine is easy, it’s the—”

“—the architecture, I know,” Percy finishes again. “I like that, too. I…well, maybe it’s the food. The food here is the best.”

Percy has admitted to never going anywhere else, so Annabeth doesn’t really know how he knows it’s the best, but she doesn’t call him on it. 

“But my favorite…” Percy goes a little still, like he’s remembered something. “My favorite thing when I was a kid is gone now,” he says. 

“Yeah?” Annabeth prompts

“Yeah. It was on the west side, if you can believe it. When you got off an uptown 1 at 79th, if you went up the staircase that took you to the northwest corner—there used to be a Circuit City there, next to the DSW.”

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” Annabeth mutters.

“Yeah, it closed ages ago, but it was in this little, two story building. And it meant, when you were going up the stairs, if you looked up all you could see was the sky. Like the sky was the ocean and you got to go down the ladder and jump into it.” He goes quiet for a moment. Then, “now there’s an ugly fucking apartment building.”

Annabeth resists the urge to scoff. “You think any new building is ugly.”

“That’s not true! I like the Jenga building downtown.”

“The Jenga…” Annabeth thinks. “You mean 56 Leonard?”

“Is 56 Leonard the building that looks like a wonky Jenga tower?”

“I—” She sighs. “Yes. But it’s a Herzog & de Meuron.”

“You’re a hotdog and demure one.”

“You’re not that funny.”

He shrugs. “I dunno, you’re smiling.”

You’re flirting, Annabeth realizes. You’re flirting with a ghost, and he’s flirting back. 

“I can show you the ugly building some time,” he offers, blinking some water out of his eyelashes. “It’s right by the Natural History Museum. You like museums, right?”

“My second favorite thing about New York,” Annabeth confirms, and just manages to stop herself from saying it’s a date. 

//

Her dad texts her on a Saturday morning, the first time he’s reached out since she moved to the east coast, and his message reads [ Hi, Annabeth. I hope you’re settling in well at your new job. How is New York? Let me know when you might be free to talk.]

She doesn’t respond for three days. What’s there to say? She wishes she could explain to him that you can walk south on the east side of Broadway, from Grand to Howard, and you can look up and see the top of One World Trade peak through the buildings. You can look down so you won’t trip over the subway grate, and when you look back up again 56 Leonard has taken its place. 

She could tell him that if you walk past the entrance to the NQWR to the corner of Canal, you can see all of Herzog & de Meuron’s creativity, bottom to top, and you can decide that from then on out you’ll be calling it the Jenga Tower. She could type it out, or even try and call and inevitably tell him in a voicemail, but he wouldn’t get it. He’d probably say something ridiculous, like ask what Jenga was, or tell her about an exhibit that has something to do with planes that’s soon to arrive in the tri-state area, and Annabeth would remember why she hadn’t reached out either.

Instead, she tells him about work, and doesn’t talk about buildings or bagel shops or the bitter and charming conundrum of a ghost that’s taken to appearing at her shoulder as she makes a city her father hates her home. 

[mask131]

This is about Neil Gaiman's work - this is NOT about the rape accusations, but it is about the aftermath of them. I wanted to make a post for some times now about works you could read that were similar to Gaiman's works if you wanted to go see something akin to his fictional world without directly supporting him. Which would have been a VERY easy post since Gaiman kept listing everywhere the works that influenced directly or indirectly his own novels and creations. But I realized other people were already doing this, so I just thought "Heh, let's not bother with this".

And then I randomly stumbled upon this post which is trending on Tumblr. And this post got me a little mad. Because while I do agree that several of the facts in there should be more well-known and more talked about... I also think this post is quite unfair in its depiction of how Gaiman acted towards his inspirations.

People are currently screaming that Neil Gaiman plagiarized stuff by "taking huge inspiration from things and not crediting people". Except... he did credit people. It's just that his fans never bothered to go look for what inspired him. I was there back in the old days - so I saw exactly how it went. Don't start telling me Neil Gaiman purposefully stayed "silent" about the works that inspired him - I clearly saw how people were just apathetic. Myself when I compiled lists and made posts about all the works that preceeded Neil Gaiman or that he explained were his inspirations for things, people didn't bother and had no interest... but when I made a list of Gaiman's work suddenly everybody reblogged. Whether Gaiman plagiarized or not is not the thing I want to talk about today - but I want to HEAVILY criticize the way people are saying "Neil Gaiman never said he took X from X" when in fact, he did, and people were just too lazy to do their research. (Or, if you take the "Gaiman is a villain " angle, Gaiman counted on the fact people would not bother to read the original books and he won his bet!)

I am deeply sorry for this rant but it is a little trigger for me, since I have been studying and exploring the "chain" of inspirations and rewritings throughout literature and the fantasy genre (half for university work, half for personal hobby), and I have seen people literaly ignore all the bibliographies given to them under titles like "If you want to read more of the sort". [For example the original post talks about how Martin was very honest about how he took inspiration from Druon's book series. Fair. But nobody is talking about how he indeed kind of "plagiarized" Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. A lot of people don't know about this series, despite said series having literaly almost all of ASoIaF's supernatural - in fact, the reason Martin seems to be under-using his own supernatural creations, like the White Walkers, is precisely because they don't come from his mind and they are just a copy of Williams' Norns and he seems to not really know what to do with them. But that's a talk for another day.]

EDIT: I realized the post got very long, so all my personal objections and my argumentative points against the post I linked above will be under a cut. And if you want a conclusion to my long rant below the cut, it is this one: You can shit all you want about Gaiman, but at least get your facts right. It is not because someone turns out to be a bad person that you must feel the need to blast cultural misinformation. Heck, I will directly compare it to how the entire Internet wished and wanted Rowling to have "plagiarized" Gaiman's Books of Magic, because of their similarities, only for Gaiman himself to point out, no, it was not plagiarism, it was just a set of similarities and coincidences due to both works coming from a same British culture with a specific background in children literature and fantasy works. It just happened that people didn't know anything outside of Harry Potter and Gaiman's works and so assumed it was the only two pieces of a much vaster puzzle...

Yes, Neil Gaiman is very derivative. Yes he is very imitative. But he never hid it? He always said he was, he always pointed out the works that influenced him, he always listed the stuff that he based his own works upon - down to sometimes helping these works come out of obscurity when they were too forgotten (like the Lud-in-mist novel?). People are doing a "surprised Pikachu face" today but... he never hid his derivatiness. In fact it was a certain part of the "charm" people found in his work back in the days. He never hid anything, it's just that a lot of people didn't want to see it or didn't care about it...

Gaiman posted an entire page on his blog for American Gods (back in the early days of Internet, he had a blog to follow his writing process for American Gods, weeks after week, you can still find it somewhere) listing the three dozen of books that inspired him/that he took elements from/that he learned stuff from. People can accuse him of having plagiarized Zelazny's work in American Gods because of one scene - Wednesday having Shadow drive into the "Backstage", which is a rewrite of the "driving to Amber" scene from The Nine Princes of Amber. But the accusation of "plagiarism" becomes a bit muddled when you know that A) Gaiman has been screaming for years about how the main source of inspiration for American Gods were all of Zelazny's mythological works and B) He literaly dedicated American Gods to Zelazny, first page you open.

When does an homage becomes too much? When is plagiarism allowed? Is taking after public domain a bad thing? What are the moral consequences of your work overshadowing your source of inspiration? These are questions I am not wanting to answer today and this post isn't about them - plus things are even more complex when you remember Gaiman was one of the most fervent defensers and advocates of fanfiction, reacting positively to it and encouraging people to do it a lot ; as well as one of the main celebrities on Tumblr to warn people to NOT send him fanfics so that it wouldn't cause legal troubles of potential plagiarism.

Anyway, my actual angry rant is below.

I/ Tanith Lee and Sandman

The post that got me angry starts with Tanith Lee. I do agree that it is a shame Tanith Lee is not more talked about and didn't receive as much fame as she deserved. I do agree that Neil Gaiman's work was heavily inspired by Tanith Lee's writing. I do agree Gaiman's work overshadowed Lee's own (for a long time I didn't know she was the first one to do a vampiric Snow-White twist, before Gaiman's own). However I have to recuse the idea that Sandman is a rip-off of Tales from Flat-Earth.

It doesn't help that the person who made this original claim clearly doesn't know very much about either Lee's Flat-Earth or Gaiman's Sandman (with easy to debunk claims like how "Delusion" is one of Gaiman's Endless - no, the character does not exist). For example the poster rightfully compares how the top-dogs of the supernatural pantheon of Lee's Flat-Earth are the Masters of Night, Death and Delirium, wth the Master of Night's physical appearance echoing Dream of the Endless' appearance... However the comparison stops there, unlike what the poster tries to claim, because the Master of Night is a demon who rules over hatred, fear, curses and malevolence first and foremost - and is this world's equivalent of Satan/Iblis - and is not a personification of dreams, imaginations and sleep like Morpheus. Also, unlike what the OP claims, the Demon Princes are not like the Endless, "eternal entities beyond gods" - on the contrary, it is shown by book one the Demon Princes CAN be killed, and that there are gods who are a distinct species far above the Demons.

It is also incomplete to try to claim that having Dream and Death be siblings is a "proof" of Tanith Lee plagiarism... Because Gaiman is very explicit in his narrative of how Dream and Death are transpositions of the Thanatos & Hypnos/Thanatos & Morpheus twinship present in Greco-Roman mythology (Ovid's "Gates of Horn and Ivory" are literaly there in the first issues). Plus, since we do have the original manuscripts and the proposition draft Gaiman sent to DC (it is in the bonus of collected editions and in companion books), we know Gaiman originally had just three Endless in mind, Death, Dream (who was a reshape of DC's Sandman super-hero), and Destiny (who pre-existed in DC's universe), Delirium only coming far later.

That being said, I am feeling very sad for Tanith Lee through the testimony of her friend - how, again, she had trouble becoming a recognized author despite her work being very influential and frequently talked about for the fantasy genre (all the fantasy manuals and guides and encyclopedias of France list her among the authors to be read), and I do feel her distate for Neil Gaiman's work vampirizing hers is very justified. But to jump into saying Sandman is a copy-paste or a full on rip-off of Flat-Earth is unfair and very limiting. Flat-Earth was one of the inspirations of Sandman, but it doesn't own "everything" to it.

Plus, the OP also gets very angry at how Gaiman "never" talked about Tanith Lee and ... you know how I got to learn about Tanith Lee, and how I got encouraged to read her? Through Gaiman's Tumblr blog, where he regularly listed her as part of the authors that inspired him/the fantasy authors he enjoyed/the authors he encouraged others to read. I saw her appear like five different times on his Tumblr, and without him I probably wouldn't have started getting curous about her. So he did talk about her and he did present her as one of his inspirations and favorite authors... At least on Tumblr, and for several years.

II/ Coraline and Thief of Always

The comments mention Coraline and the Thief of Always as possibly being another "plagiarism" of Gaiman... I remember when Neil Gaiman was asked on his Tumblr about how similar Thief of Always and Coraline were, and he simply answered with the fact he and Barker had a similar thought process and came up with akin works though very different in the results.

You could say it is a form of copy or plagiarism (though Gaiman at least did an effort to make Coraline the almost opposite of Thief of Always in several ways). But I will have to point out that that Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker know each other, and that it has been reported, talked about and evoked a lot of times how they hanged in the same circles, with the same people, and exchanged thoughts, and talked about their mutual creations. We know Gaiman talked of the early Sandman issues when they were created with Alan Moore and Clive Barker, while Moore talked of his creation of From Hell. We also know that a part of the Sandman's universe was indirectly created by Barker - as Gaiman explained the idea for naming Desire's domain "The Threshold" came from a story Clive Barker had planned but never wrote, exploring the puns "threshold" could offer.

To my knowledge Clive Barker never claimed that Gaiman plagiarized him or stole from him with Coraline? But I might be wrong.

III/Other details

The comment about the "Lovecraft and Doyle" comparison is clearly taken out of context, because it was literaly about a story which WAS a literal Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu fanfiction, "A Study in Emerald". The commenter seems to think this comment applied to Gaiman's entire work? No it does not.

I don't know anything about the Lenny Henry situation, I will have to look for this.

[bwat5-blog]

A Rant: Dear Stupid People

*Arcane Spoilers*

I haven’t commented on criticism of the sex scene between Vi and Caitlyn too much because there has been a significant amount of well written, detailed, very insightful defense and insight put out already. But there is one common thing I keep seeing that connects with my overall issue lately:

“Caitlyn did nothing to show Vi she felt bad about what happened before they had sex in Jinx’s cell”

You guys…… you guys……

COME ON. You can do better than this. Did you not notice Jinx wasn’t in there?!? Caitlyn literally freed her mother’s murderer and laid down the hate that almost destroyed them all for good. And she gave Vi the choice in doing do and accepted her and loved her for it.

Again. This all goes back to the same problem. It is just SO. MUCH. EASIER to demonize a character when you ignore details that don’t support it. I understand. really I do. But here is the problem. It makes you sound like an idiot.

One! Just give me one well-written, detail oriented, content driven analysis on why Caitlyn is a bad person and I will leave you people be. But that means no more of this shit:

1. Caitlyn loses her shit just because her mom died!

2. Caitlyn killed kids!

3. Caitlyn gassed the entire undercity!

4. Caitlyn seized power from the council!

5. Caitlyn murdered innocents with the grey!

6. Caitlyn never showed remorse!

7. Caitlyn never faced any consequences!

Because GUESS WHAT. You don’t have a leg to stand on to back any of that up. So go on out there and do the work! Prove your point! But do so in a way that makes it sound like you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

I swear to god I’m about to write a guide for you people. As usual enjoy a complimentary dancing Jinx for reading my rant.

[fairyspheres]

i saw that dragon age veilguard hasn't sold well (in the official statement, they specifically said that 1.5 million copies had 'reached players' so it must have sold even worse than that which. yikes) and while i'm quite gutted about that, ea and bioware also only have themselves to blame for it.

they let ten entire years pass between inquisition - a game that, for the most part, dragon age fans generally really like, at least for the lore - and veilguard. in those years, we saw them make andromeda, anthem, and heard reports of them trying to make the-then new dragon age game live service. thankfully we didn't get a live service dragon age game in the end, but a lot of the original writers were dropped, and i think that shows with the quality of the writing in veilguard.

i've never played dragon age for the gameplay, in any of the games. i despise the gameplay in origins - it's clunky and horrible and the deep roads makes me want to let the darkspawn win. but i love the story, which is why i endure the deep roads and the fade. the same in da2, which is probably my favourite of the entire series, even with the repeating dungeons (actually i love the repeating dungeons. i like knowing where things are), and the same in inquisition with the companions who feel like real people (cassandra pentaghast my beloved).

veilguard... the cuts show in the writing quality. the best character was emmrich (and assan and manfred) and from what i've heard he also had the best romance. which is another thing that suffered greatly - the romances (other than emmrich's). in a game series known for its romances, to the point where bioware was marketing the game as the most romantic as the series, how have they managed to mess it up that badly? cullen and solas' romances were late game additions in inquisition, and they're some of the best in the entire series, so it can't be an issue of time constraints.

rook's dialogue choices were essentially just different flavours of pleasant. do you want to be cheerful, lesser purple-hawke, or stoic? there's no real choice to be had throughout most of the game. even the choice between minrathous and treviso has little impact beyond what merchants might be available and a couple of later game choices. compared to earlier games, where you could let an entire village be overrun by corpses, or let fenris be taken back by danarius, the lack of choice is rather stark in comparison. the only real choices come at the very end of the game.

AND speaking of choices - the entire series has been about how all our previous choices have always mattered, about how we can always carry them over and use them to influence the world. so it was very much a slap in the face when not only could we not use the dragon age keep or import any choice beyond who we romanced in inquisition and what we wanted to do with solas, but the fact that by the end of veilguard, everything we did from origins to inquisition was all for nothing. bioware's choice to do that to varric was a kick in the teeth to long-term fans. oh, we got a little reference to the hero of ferelden in weisshaupt, how nice. pity they didn't tell us whether they're still alive or not. a shame we don't know hawke's fate.

so no, i'm not surprised that the game did so poorly in sales. i'm disappointed, but i'm not surprised because as i said, it's their own fault. i said back in november that they might not have another chance to make things right, and i hate that i might've been right about that.

this turned into an unintentional rant about all my grievances with the game.

[toxicanonymity]

get to know people

ty for the tags @milla-frenchy, @sunshineispunk, @iamasaddie, @tateypots 💛. I'm tagging you 🫵 and no pressure tagging 10 of you: @dark-scape @quaritchscupquake @whateverloomis @megangovier @xdaddysprincessxx @covetyou @romanarose @aurorawritestoescape @bitchesuntitled @noxturnalnymph sorry if you already did it.

I feel kinda vulnerable (and yet boring at the same time) talking about myself, but one of my goals is to let people know me as more of a person. 🩷

what's the origin of your blog title?: I have a taste for toxic characters, and i was hastily picking a url that would give me more anonymity. this old buzzword floated into my head from 15 yrs ago--I get a kick out of buzzwords that fizzle out so fast they become associated with a very specific point in time. I got the URL on an impulse and figured I could change it once I thought of the perfect url.... Meanwhile I've had plenty of asks and stalkers who themselves embody the old buzzword's meaning: the way a veil of anonymity emboldens hate and toxicity. I just wanted my veil to write porn, man.

favorite fandoms: impossible to say. too many factors.

OTP(s) + shipname: Michael Myers & Corey Cunningham (cunningmyers). it's a deep and fucked up bond, very dark and sexually charged. (Cue father figure 🎶) In my HCs I don't imagine anything soft, affectionate, or monogamous. it's pining and worship from Corey, dominance and dark energy from Michael and his monster cock. And when they kill together, god I love that.

favorite color: depends. My electronics & cases are blue, and I like to wear soft blues. also brown and olive green to wear. Black & salmon/peach: god tier combo.

favorite game: scrabble, trivia, jigsaw puzzles, nyt spelling bee, W.E.L.D.E.R., crosswords, guessing games. I've been trying to learn how to play poker which is great entertainment for @dark-scape.

song stuck in your head: none but I make up songs for my cat and I was singing one earlier about how sweet and nice she is. update: take me to church by hozier

weirdest habit/trait?: idk, really.

hobbies: lounging, research and learning, going to movies, watching miniseries, walking, writing but mostly in my head, taking elaborate baths, reading. getting organized this yr, minimalizing, donating things I don't need. would like to get back into candle-making and painting or clay sculpting.

if you work, what's your profession? Pass. I do work, though.

if you could have any job you wish what would it be? It would be cool to make a living off writing. But, ideally get rich with minimal effort and then financially support an animal sanctuary so I could go chill with the animals whenever I want. also, publicize & investigate missing persons cases that don't get enough attention.

something you're good at: finding four leaf clovers. Cobbling together cosplay from thrift store finds. having ideas. character development & world building.

something you're bad at: socializing, but I want to do better. I'm shy to begin with and some of my experiences here haven't helped. But I promise I don't bite. I'm also bad at staying focused, keeping an uncluttered mind, second-guessing my story plans and not ending them.

something you love: having a pet. I feel so lucky to have a (not so) little furball who enjoys my company and has a personality and lets me take care of her.

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: not usually super talkative. hmm. predictions about the year ahead - love to hear peoples' thoughts on this (sports, pop culture, archaeology, food & makeup trends, etc.). unsolved mysteries.

something you hate: I don't wanna get anyone worked up with a rant so I'm just gonna say canned spinach. Haven't had it since childhood but I can still taste it

something you collect: I'm not sure I collect anything. I keep a lot of greeting cards received with photos.

something you forget: what I came in the room for, why I opened the app, just about anything.

what's your love language?: little gestures (gifts/acts of service), praise

favorite movie/show: here's my letterboxd

favorite food: fresh pasta w/ olive oil and fresh parmesan

favorite animal: too many to list

what were you like as a child? pensive, curious, loved the circus and Halloween. my mom likes to tell the story of when I was 18 months old and an old friend of hers came to meet me and I explained what a parallelagram was and it freaked her out.

favorite subject(s) at school? English and Spanish

least favorite subject? anything that was straight memorization. But I wish I tried harder.

what's your best character trait? I care about people

what's your worst character trait? easily distracted and forgetful, can be slow to respond, recovering perfectionist

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? That I had to do any work at all

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet? a big, hot guy who captures me but won't kill me if I escape to come back to this timeline.

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

hounds of hell by @aurorawritestoescape and @milla-frenchy 🐨🙏

some more favorites

--------

[rookieoneil]

Controversial rant 🧍🏽‍♀️

Spoilers (7x03) (not John Nolan friendly)

JOHN NOLAN

Nolan is fucking reckless. He’s doing exactly what Tim did last season. Going after someone for a personal agenda. He’s supposed to be a teacher, how is Celina expected to make it as a cop when her teacher A isn’t teaching, and B is constantly making the job personal (something Celina, Angela, and Lucy got in trouble for) I wish for ONCE they treat him like they treat everyone else.

This episode alone let’s look at this. Seth and Miles got in trouble for saving a civilian successfully (as they should) and Nolan- instead of saving a civilian (that’s protocol) he went after a suspect and made a deal with said suspect (who got away) because it was in HIS best interest.

The man ended up losing over two pints of blood! Which could have been a lot less than it could have been. Idk if he died (probably not) but still this is crazy.

Not the point. My point is he didn’t get in trouble at all.

I know the difference being they are rookies and John’s not but still. John is constantly getting away with shit that anyone else would have been prosecuted for.

Not to mention him talking to a suspect and jeopardizing the case of two teenagers who lost their lives because it benefited him. Like how is any of what he did allowed?!? How is able to continue a personal investigation with consequences??? Tim got “demoted” (fired?) from metro because of his personal investigation. How is this different? Because John let a dangerous guy get away, and almost let someone else die.

“He was doing it for his wife” idc. Let other people deal with this. Not him. He’s too close to this,

As a husband, he’s protective and good for him, as a cop he’s reckless and will get someone killed

Ughhh I just hate John Nolan with everything I am. Never make me like him.

CHENFORD

Despite popular belief, I think that Rachel is here to get Chenford back together. I don’t think she’s here for alternative reasons.

Also I think that this friendship/ team work that they are creating will make their relationship in the future be 10x better. They need this time to reconnect let’s not get them back together for a good minute because they BOTH need to grow.

Lucy

Baby girl is finally getting a friend again. I feel like Celina and she still have a strained relationship and having gotten to a close friendship YET. But Rachel being back is good for her. Look at that trauma dump she needed to let out.

I hope my sunshine girl starts gaining her sunshine back

Jalya

James stf. I 100% agree with his stance cause those teens deserve justice. But that is not the time or place. I think he needs to learn how to leave his work at work. Wesley too.

I think Nyla needs to be more open to conversation and not just stopping James. They both need a lot of growth in communication as a COUPLE. Not communication just about work.

They need to create boundaries. Like please boundaries will save yallll

Wopez

Wesley needs to fucking let it go. Angela is not gonna cheat, and now he’s letting it affect his home life. Like bro I hate to break it to you but in the world she works in, so many of those men think about Angela like that. Like it sucks and those men suck, BUT Angela went into that career knowing that. It sucks that women have to even acknowledging this part of a job. But it’s reality and if Welsey thinks this is the only man who has those thoughts then hes really showing his privilege as man.

He’s acting like this one man has flipped his world over. Like dude. 😐 the detective -idk his name- is an asshole. And he’s not the only one in that police station who has that thought about fellow female officers. If Wesley truly believed that the first one then he’s naive. You can say oh it’s probably because the detective works so close with Angela but like Angela was in patrol, she worked with plenty of men like that. Welsey has to know this.

I don’t like that they’re leaning into this idea that if Angela knows about how this detective feels about her then she’ll cheat. Like I know that they’re not actually saying that but they’re insinuating it and I don’t like that at all. Because she loves Wesley. She wouldn’t cheat on him so I’m like why are we even playing with this plot line. It felt like they picked this plot out of a hat and was like yeah this works because they didn’t know what to do with Wopez this season.

Being a woman in a man’s field is horrible and it sucks, and as a rich white man married to a Columbia & Mexican Woman you shouldn’t be delusional enough to believe she’s respected in the same way you are. You should know about what she’s most likely facing everyday. You should not get jealous over slimes men, and instead educate yourself 👏🏼 it should take you 7+ years to figure that out buddy (btw I love Wesley I just don’t like his plot this season).

[diaryofageekgirl]

Cross-posting my meta/ranting from the Helluva Boss subreddit. Originally posted June 22, 2024 (here):

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I love both Stolas and Blitzø. I'm super invested in this relationship. Both of them made mistakes, but both of them are also coming from places of trauma and previous fucked up interpersonal relationships. That being said, I don't really feel the need to point out how Blitzø fucked up, because so much of the fandom is so biased towards Stolas that everyone is already well aware of that part of the problem. I'm also very aware of the fact that Stolas has grown significantly as a character, but sometimes people in the audience forget the difference between what WE know, and what the CHARACTERS know. Now that that's out of the way...

Oh my god, THANK YOU. There was one particular line in Apology Tour that stuck out to me, especially because Blitzø's reaction wasn't what I hoped it would be.

Stolas: "I don't look down on you! How many times do I ha- when have I ever?!"

Oh, I don't know dude, maybe the entire first season?!

Episode 1: refers to Blitzø as "my little imp" during the phone call (using his bottom-of-the-hierarchy species as a cute pet name is..... bad. It's bad). Also just fully ignores the fact that Blitzø tells him that it's not a good time, that he doesn't understand what he's saying (more than once!) and clearly just agrees to the deal in order to deal with the more pressing issue of being shot at.

Episode 2: CONSTANTLY flirts with Blitzø using incredibly sexual language throughout the episode, even when Blitzø repeatedly tells him that he doesn't want to be flirted with while he's working. (That's not even going into how he completely ignores Octavia's emotions/reactions to what's going on around her and just focuses on himself and what he thinks is a good idea in the moment. That's two for two on episodes where his stunning lack of self-awareness shines through).

Isn't in episode 3 or 4. Though I will take a second to acknowledge one line in episode 3 - when Blitzø charges into the room and challenges Verosika and her crew, one of the succubi says "Is this little imp boy starting a demon duel?" Yet another example of imps being treated as lesser by other demons.

Episode 5: The constant heavy-handed flirting in public, again, even though Blitzø repeatedly tells him not to, again. On top of that, there's the "itty bitty imps like yourself" comment that he makes to Blitzø while in bed, and not even a minute later, tells him in cutesy UWU baby talk that he's "sowwy his cwients wiw have to wait" - not taking Blitzø or his work seriously. And, of course, we get Striker telling Blitzø that Stolas treats him like a plaything.....

Episode 6: ......aaaaaand the very next episode has Stolas literally calling Blitzø his "impish little plaything". Side note, but I feel like most discussions about Stolitz's dynamic and the imbalance present in it focuses on this line in particular, but not the rest of his behaviour throughout the whole first season. He is constantly making aggressively sexual comments, oftentimes right after being asked or told not to by Blitzø, sometimes after being told more than once.

Episode 7, he's actually fine. Hiding his face when Ozzie singles him out isn't great, but he had just been publicly embarrassed, and if you watch in the background, he does get up from the table (likely about to try to help Blitzø) right at the end of Verosika's bit, before he's interrupted by Asmodeus. And while I'm certain he really did just want to "talk, or watch a movie, or cuddle", I can also see how easy it would be for Blitzø to interpret that as him asking to Netflix and Chill, as it were.

(Also, not a major thing, but having a little plush imp doll as a kid (as seen in S2E1) feels.....really weird, to me? Like I know most posts on SocMed and reactions on YT just see it as cute, and I'm probably reading too much into it, and I know that IRL toy dolls and stuffed dolls of people are a common thing, but just the idea of a prince having a plush doll of a low-class citizen feels really bad. A literal plaything, if you will.)

Season 2, Episode 2: Not much, but even though they had a tiny bit of a fight (if you can even call it that) after Ozzie's, and even though they haven't been communicating super well, and even though he's concerned about finding Octavia, Stolas still finds an opportunity to make a sexual comment towards Blitzø.

Season 2, Episode 4: Ohhhhhhhhhh my god, I never even used to be mad about this, but the way that it got brought up in Apology Tour made me pissed. Stolas now getting upset about Blitzø not coming to rescue him when Striker kidnapped him? Telling him that he "couldn't even be bothered to come help me"? Fuck. Off. With. That. As a father of a daughter himself, you'd think that Stolas would be sympathetic to the fact that Blitzø was trying to help out his own daughter in that scene, especially considering that he had to wait 5 fucking years for a mandatory medical procedure. Of fucking course he's not going to skip out on that! And just the way he responds to that:

Stolas: Oh, ha, ha. Well, I do agree that is very important...But, I-

(and then he's cut off by Striker). I urge anyone and everyone to go rewatch that bit of the episode, because his tone of voice is just so dismissive. Like, "yes, yes, that's nice, now drop everything and come rescue me, which is more important". And that's before he even realizes that he's in serious danger!!!

Like, I'm sorry, but where the fuck does he get off getting mad at Blitzø for "always making it about sex"? Blitzø has only ever reacted to the sexual advances that Stolas was putting out - even from the very first hook-up, Stolas just assumed that Blitzø was there to seduce him, and Blitzø just went along with it as a way to distract him while he stole the book. He agreed to the transactional fucking in episode 1 while he was being shot at and was trying to get Stolas off his back. He's expressed annoyance towards Stolas' sexual advances in episodes 2 and 5 of season 1. And now suddenly it's Blitzø that makes it all about sex?!

And what do you mean, "How many times do I ha-" Have to what, buddy? Tell him that you see him as an equal? You haven't done that yet. Tell him that you love him? You did that whole conversation in pretty much the exact wrong order and shut down when he didn't react like you imagined in your head. Tell him that you think highly of him? You haven't done that. Not directly to him, not where he could hear, not before the end of that argument, right before forcibly teleporting him away from you, which, y'know, just reinforces Blitzø's earlier comment about treating him like one of his butlers, and how he "can't just dismiss [him]."

He may not have ever actively viewed Blitzø as inferior to him, but there's a LOT of internalized classism going on that I'm not sure he's even aware of.

(continued in a later comment):

One thing I'd like to add to all of 👆 that: I mentioned a bit about other people in Hell talking down to imps, but one thing I forgot to talk about is how Stolas himself views imps that aren't Blitzø. Quick list (entirely from memory):

Refers to Millie and Moxxie as "you littler ones" in Loo-Loo Land

Refers to I.M.P. collectively as "you little creatures" in Truth Seekers

The generally condescending and dismissive way he talks to the imps of the Wrath Ring in Harvest Moon Festival - if I'm remembering correctly, he also refers to them as little! Like I get it, he's crazy tall, but we all know that's not the only way to interpret that comment.

3.5 Since Stolas (and a big chunk of the fandom) went ahead and compared Blitzø's comments to Striker's, I'm gonna do the same to him! Those comments are so reminiscent of Striker saying "you little things ain't worth the clean-up" to Moxxie and Millie, also from Harvest Moon Festival.

4. Picking up, forcefully squeezing, and swinging around his imp butler while he was mad during his phone call with Stella in Seeing Stars. I'm not saying that he's abusive towards his staff, or anything like that - just that the very fact that he did it at all seemed to be totally subconscious, which in turn suggests that he doesn't realize how demeaning that is.

5. Actually, now that I think about it - the fact that he's so upset that specifically Blitzø didn't rescue him in Western Energy. The main reason he's alive and not bleeding out in the bottom of a mine shaft is because Millie and Moxxie showed up, and they only knew to go there and help him because Blitzø told them/they were there during the phone call. Like, does he even know their names? Is he even grateful that they helped? We don't know!

I saw someone in another thread say that he was essentially at the equivalent of the "I'm not racist, I don't even see colour!" stage of racism, and I completely agree. He doesn't realize all of these internalized prejudices he has, but they are ABSOLUTELY there.

(comment on another thread, building off of the comments I made about s2e4, originally posted July 7, 2024):

Also, a few other points to build off of this & respond to other comments on this thread:

"But he didn't tell Stolas about the first time, and the Carmine-crafted gun that Striker had that can kill royal demons" - You mean the one that Moxxie took from him and still has in his possession at the end of Harvest Moon Festival? The one that Moxxie was shocked that Striker even managed to get his hands on? Remember, I.M.P. didn't know that Striker was working for anyone; logically, that means they would have assumed that he got the weapon entirely on his own, and something like that is both rare and expensive - imps don't typically "make it big" in Hell, and I can't imagine a powerful Overlord would be thrilled to give a weapon that could kill them to someone so far below them in status. With them taking it from him and keeping it at the end of the episode, it means that they would assume that he's no longer a serious threat. They had no way of knowing he was being bankrolled by a royal, with access to three more angelic weapons (two pistols and a knife) (four if you count the rope as well).

"Stolas: You knew someone was trying to assassinate me?" Uhhhhh, yeah? You were there for Loo-Loo Land, dude, you know that people are trying to assassinate you, like all the time. This isn't news in any way - and yes, Striker is generally more dangerous than any of the assassins that we saw in that episode, it still doesn't change the fact that you're already well aware that being rich and royal puts a target on your back. This is really unfair to get upset with Blitzø for. (I'm aware that this is an argument and sometimes you bring up unfair accusations in arguments and both of them were very heated and I shouldn't have to plaster every comment about this episode and this relationship with disclaimers that I'm not hating anyone, just expressing frustration.)

[octosan]

Working on one of the videos for my drinking game series and I got mad and wrote a whole rant that I realized was a little too much for a drinking game post.

I just hate this script so much you guys. I hate SO MUCH how much they simplified the dialogue, the worldbuilding, the puzzle solving in this game.

I've seen a lot of complaints about fans being illiterate towards the story and to that I say of course they are! The game doesn't ask them to think! Rather than throwing up your hands saying "maybe they had a good reason to dumb down the dialogue and spoonfeed you this stuff"

consider that critical thinking is a muscle

and players do not exercise it when the game is afraid you will forget the core premises of the game, or individual missions, and so repeat them constantly.

When your companions all get along and share the same basic principles beyond bland culture differences, and their principles are all ones deemed acceptable to "modern" audiences, so you never have to think about what life experiences might have led them to feel that way.

When you have your companions constantly patting you and the other companions on the back and saying "nice job!!" in combat as if we wouldn't understand that they are friends otherwise.

When you constantly have characters make juvenile comments like "this is evil, even for the venatori!" or "they did that just for power?/greed?" or "man this makes me hate the venatori even more!" (even more?? these are fantasy nazis!!! you didn't hate them already??) and then don't give the evil factions any nuance because they're afraid you won't get that these factions are eeeeeevil. (The Venatori were never very nuanced outside Calpernia but at least there was lip service that they were a symptom of broader issues, not the convenient cause.)

When you're constantly explaining to the player how many blight pustules they still need to pop, how many crystals you have left, and oh!! the gate's open now! go through the gate! or look! there are darkspawn there where your camera is already pointed! Even late in the game they were doing this! Even at the end of Bellara's questline she was explaining that laser mechanic to me!

When they present you with lore reveals that have been highly anticipated for decades, as well as multiple memories which are meant to add to our interpretation of a core character, and they literally just tell you what to think about them and how to interpret them, at length, in that godawful regret questline. (And tbh even Solas' memories in the Crossroads did not tell me anything I did not already know)

And then Mythal saying "hey those murals are not 100% reliable memories" in a single missable dialogue option that we don't address any further, rendering even that agonizing bit of handholding pointless. Like okay what does it MATTER that they are not 100% reliable? because the redemption ending relies on your interpretations of it being 100% correct!! what purpose does that line serve except to give the writers deniability?

When you don't even bother to GIVE new worldbuilding details when they could absolutely be relevant at the time, except when it makes the writers' job easier like "turlum" or Bellara's clan's funeral practices being indistinguishable from ancient elven ones even though that's literally not what we were told about Dalish practices in the past, guess the Emerald Graves don't exist anymore-. Like just as one example that has stuck in my head, Elgy and Ghilly use terms like The Blight, Archdemons, Darkspawn, the Crossroads, etc. despite being from time periods that predate those terms and presumably having their own words for those same concepts. You can't tell me that Ghilly honestly thinks of her beloved hell children as "darkspawn", or that she would tolerate other people calling them that. You can't tell me that Elgy would agree to call his instrument of reshaping the world, which he is trying to convince people is a good thing, the Blight.

When the game actively punishes people who are familiar with the prior materials with their worldbuilding, punishes people who are reading the codex entries and looking for minor throwaway lines that acknowledge previous shit like the fact that Crows are literally tortured as part of their training and killed if they fail contracts, by having it not be remotely relevant to the story and make it much harder to have the appropriate reaction to what's happening in it (like Rook has no choice but to be happy Jacobus is taking in more orphan crows??) This is low-hanging fruit but it's so illustrative of what I mean.

What other outcome is this all going to have but players who do not look further than the surface? Who miss and ignore little details they have been trained to think do not matter and largely do not inform the broader story and characters? Players who are easily stumped on puzzles because they were not allowed to figure anything else out by themselves?

Are you going to claim that the Orzammar questline in Origins didn't teach anybody a lesson about paying close attention to the social structures and culture of a society when you pick the person who's going to rule it, as opposed to picking the guy who the narrative frames as wise and kind and the other guy framed as a power hungry third child? Are you going to claim that the Archon choice teaches anything remotely as useful?

Like!!!!

GOD

Inquisition had plenty of this stupid handholding too btw. You can argue all of the games had it by degrees. but it wasn't even remotely this bad.

[bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky]

What pisses me the fuck off is that my parents claim to vote Republican simply because of the economy and their distaste for “big government control”.

My whole life, my mom and dad have told me that no one is ever allowed to touch me without my consent. And they have always been pro choice.

But they voted for a rapist who wants to take away the right to abortion completely.

My parents have always been socially progressive and have always told my sister and I that they don’t care about the gender of who we date / marry, as long as we’re happy. They have always been so open and loving toward my gay / trans friends.

But they voted for someone who signed an executive order against NB / trans people on day one of his presidency.

They’re fucking hypocrites.

And if I ask them about it or point out that Donald Trump making rules about gender is literally the definition of “big government control” they’ll make up some excuse. They’re constantly moving the goal post for what makes someone (Trump, mostly) awful. And it makes me so mad.

My mom always gets so grossed out when she hears about people committing sexual assault. Any time there’s breaking news about someone sexually assaulting another person, she’s visibly angry and disgusted. But she voted for a literal rapist??

And when I told her about what Matt Gaetz did, she went quiet. She had nothing to say. Her usual rant about “men and their penises” (yea, that’s a direct quote) was nowhere to be found.

I said, “yeah, so Matt gaetz can pay underage girls for sex but he called gay and trans people pedophiles and groomers. It’s crazy.”

And instead of agreeing, she was like “well name calling is wrong. Like when these people call others Nazis and racists, it’s just not right.”

HUH? People referring to Nazis and racists as Nazis and racists is not the same as calling all gay / trans people pedophiles. And if it walks like a Nazi and talks like a Nazi and salutes like a Nazi, it’s probably a Nazi.

[aspentreeonahill]

I don’t think people understand how much i LOVE Merleon

(Below this cut is a whole bunch of stupid ranting that doesn’t make sense written instead of me sleeping…)

LIKE THEYRE SOJSBWEJHWWKBWS

THEYRE SO UNDERATED IT HURTS ME BECAUSE WHY DO I HAVE TO SCAVENGE LIKE A RAT LOOKING FOR FOOD TO FIND CONTENT FOR THEM.

LIKE TWO IMMORTALS WHO LOST EVERYONE AND LITERALLY ONLY HAVE EACHOTHER???

(Yes i know Leon being immortal isn’t necessarily canon but there’s so much reasonings for it IN THE SHOW and such a popular headcanon that’s it’s basically canon at this point)

ALSO THERE TWO OF ARTHURS MOST TRUSTED FRIENDS AND I LOVE WHEN ARTHUR GETS ANNOYED THAT MERLIN IS DATING ONE OF HIS OTHER FRIENDS IN FICS

(KINGS HEAD KNIGHT X KINGS SERVANT/ADVISOR FRIEND IS SUCH A CUTE TROPE)

(OR JUST KNIGHT X SERVANT IN GENERAL)

ITS ALSO ANGSTY IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT

MERLIN WAS THE ONE WHO FREED THE DRAGON AND LEON HAD TO GO OUT AND FIGHT THE DRAGON AND WOULD HAVE INJURIES AND TRAUMA FROM IT

LIKE IMAGINE LEONS REACTION TO FINDING OUT MERLINS THE ONE WHO FREED IT (even better if it’s after they start dating)

(Which may or may not be a future plot line in my Merleon fic…)

THEY MAKE ME SICK.

YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MOTIVATION IT TAKES ME TO NOT ONLY DRAW A SHIP BUT ALSO WRITE ABOUT IT???

A LOT.

AND I DID BOTH.

(Also please go check out my Merleon fic I’m current writing…)

THE UPDATES ARE REALLY SLOW BUT IM CURRENTLY WRITING CHAPTER TWO

I ALSO HAVE SOME MERLEON FANART IVE POSTED ON HERE

[whatremained]

aghhh. i was gonna respond earlier but i got tired. i’m still tired now but!!

you’re exactly right with the point that with the way connor’s autistic traits are written throughout the musical and book, they often get over looked. especially because it’s not the really common stereotype. not for men, nor for women. and a lot of connor’s traits are negative. top of my head, as im thinking of the scene i described previously… that IS a melt down. or! how connor is shown to be very impulsive. impulsivity is not commonly known as a symptom, and yet it still is.

both allistic and a handful of autistic people tend to ignore ugly and borderline harmful traits because it doesn’t make us look good… but the fact of the matter is that…? it’s a DISORDER (autism spectrum DISORDER). it’s not supposed to be all ‘i act a little shy and fixate on things’; we have a disorder, it’s not fun and games. and it sucks to see this ignored in characters who are very much autistic but don’t have the “nice looking” traits.

there is so… SO much i could write on about connor and the fact the fandom doesn’t seem to even take a glance at the fact that he could be autistic. because they believe autistic people are shy, nervous, and fixated on things. and while they can be that, autistic people can also be incredibly emotional, prone to anger for that reason, impulsive, etc.

i’m sick of the stereotype that… we as autistic people, are… shy and pure for some reason? and that we can’t be anything besides that??

and that’s a reason so many characters get shoved to the side because of the want for people to see autism not as what it is.

autism isn’t good. autism isn’t bad either. it’s just there, it’s a disorder.

i’m probably making the same points over but… who cares.

i feel like people find it harder to like. i don’t want to use the word infantilize, but that’s literally the correct word so… infantilize connor because he is shown as very pugnacious and somewhat truculent, and with that comes people viewing him as aggressive and assertive which aren’t traits many people take pity on.

this is also why i argue peopld attach onto the fake connor fandom wise, and in the show, because he’s shown to be willing, cooperative, and amiable… which is not who he was at the slightest.

people are able to infantilize connor, just not the actual character which… i am glad for but also? not because they miss the whole point of the show but that’s besides it.

and people baby evan like crazy and it pisses me off too. people act like evan… either did nothing wrong? or like…? idk it pisses me off when people try and characterize him as just a shy guy who’s would never do anything wrong in his life. random kind of too, but the characterization of evan being really short pisses me off because it adds to the infantilization. it’s?? like evan is canonically taller than connor (by book standard). why are we acting like he’s 4 foot tall? so we can infantilize him more? no thank you!

good lord. sorry about the rant!

it’s just that i’m talk about it because connor has always been a character that has stuck with me because i feel myself so represented by him. maybe it’s because of the autism, or maybe it’s because of the situation i’ve been in for awhile, but it might be the pattern of thinking he has which parallels mine (neurodivergent thinking huh). the way the book is written is immaculate in the way it writes from connor’s perspective, and it really highlights some (or at least mine lol) neurodivergent brains and how they process and view things.

aghhh again sorry. i like chatting about stuff i like