#every point you brought up was SO accurate its not even funny

[something-in-your-walls]

this is REALLY HELPFUL actually

im going insane over everyones melvin aus rahhhh i neeeed to make an across the spiderverse type comic with them noowwww but idk who to cast as who (i made SK melvin miles bc i have a plot idea revolving around the whole 'anomaly' thing.) so if any of ya'll who participated in the picrew chain see this, reblog with what across the spiderverse character you think would fit ur melvin bc im being stupid and blanking rn (also if you weren't originally part of the melvin au picrew chain, just reblog abt your melvin au and who they'd be! i'll add anyone, there's a LOT of spiderpeople in that movie lmao)

[tyrantisterror]

You seem to have been enjoying Baldur's Gate III a lot. Would you mind giving your thoughts on the individual companions? I'm just curious to see what your take on them is.

Yeah sure! The game's been rotting my brain for months now in part because of its character writing, so I can stand to gush about the companions a bit.

Before we get to the companions individually, I want to talk about them as a group, because one of the things that makes this game so impressive to me is its commitment to its core themes, and that extends to how the companions were crafted as a group. See, each of the core six companions have the following things in common:

The mindflayer tadpole that threatens to turn them into a monster against their will (i.e. the thing that gets them all together on a quest)

A personal history of being abused and exploited by someone they trusted

A Want that comes as a result of their personal history of abuse that is self destructive but understandable given their circumstances

A Need that comes as a result of their personal history of abuse that they have written off or ignored because their past makes them think fulfilling it is impossible

A point in their character arc where they will come into conflict with the player character if the player character tries to advocate for their Need over their Want. If the player values the Want over the Need, the relationship will initially go smoother, but end badly.

The overall theme of Baldur's Gate 3 can be loosely summed up in one of its major recurring songs, I Want to Live, and that's ultimately what each character's arc is a variation of: the desperate desire to live in a world that has been trying to kill your mind, body, and soul to the best of its ability. Got it? Cool, we can talk about the characters now that we've got this established.

Oh, and, uh, this game covers some... HEAVY themes, given that abuse is one of the common denominators between the companions. I'm going to try to be gentle in talking about it, but this will cover some of that subject matter, so this is your warning if you want to avoid that.

Companion 1: Astarion, My Bisexual Awakening

I'm going to start with the companion I feel is the most talked about/popular/overexposed I suppose, Astarion. I feel like anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of Baldur's Gate 3 probably recognizes Astarion at this point, even if it's just as "that annoying vampire twink I'm sick of seeing." There's already a growing "he's popular so he sucks" movement about Astarion here on tumblr and at the cesspool of hate known as Twitter, because of course there is, he's popular, ergo he must suck.

...

I think Astarion is one of the best written video game characters of all time.

There's this one great tumblr post that summarizes Astarion's role in the narrative really well, with the great punchline of "Astarion is kinda like if they sexualized gollum," which is not only funny but perfectly accurate. I can't really top that, so I'm just going to talk around some of its points a bit, but I highly recommend reading it yourself, it's more concise and well-thought out than whatever this ramble will be.

But, ok, so, "I Want to Live" is our theme, right? Astarion is dead. Dead to begin with, Marley style. He has been killed, at a young age, before his time. Sure, he was brought back to a sort of life, being a vampire and a member of the undead and all, but the life he knew is gone. All the pathos one can mine from being a vampire is played up here, for as Astarion himself notes, he's not even a full fledge vampire, but a vampire spawn - "All of the drawbacks, few of the perks." Worse, as a vampire spawn, he's magically bound to the will of the vampire that turned him - forced to live out his undead life as a slave to a sadistic monster that abused him in every way a person can be abused.

Which is why Astarion is the only companion who's entirely thankful for the mindflayers kidnapping him and implanting a tadpole in his head - because they broke that magic connection to his master, and gave him resistances to many of the stock vampire weaknesses to boot (hungry tadpole doesn't want its meat suit burning in the sun, after all). Astarion's life was so fucked that getting a brain-eating parasite was a unilateral improvement.

But while the magic connection is severed, the psychological affect of the abuse Astarion suffered lingers. His master made him use sex as a lure to bring victims to his lair, and so Astarion still believes that he has to offer people sex to "earn his keep" - that his body is a tool for others to use for their gratification, and if he refuses their desires he puts his life at peril. Astarion hates putting himself out to help other people not only because no one has done that for him during his long undead life, but because doing so puts his life at risk. Astarion is power hungry - his Want is to be as strong, no, stronger than his master, so that way he can never be afraid again. Astarion Wants to be a true vampire.

His need, however, is to find value in the life he has now. He needs people who love him for who he is, not what he can offer, and who will protect him the way he has needed protecting for hundreds of years. His need is to be shown that kindness isn't a weakness, that charity is possible, that power does not have to be gained through selfish and cruel means. You're shown this in the game's approval mechanic - while Astarion will disapprove of you putting yourself out on a limb for others and revealing sensitive information freely, he has a soft spot for whenever you help someone who, like him, is being exploited. Because while he'll protest otherwise, Astarion wants to believe kindness is possible, and that the horrible things he's suffered don't define him. Astarion may believe he's just a tool to serve others' desires, but that doesn't mean he doesn't wish to be more than that.

And I know the cynics among you are like "Oh, ok, so the cute vampire twink has a ludicrously tragic backstory. How is that original or good writing?" Because that's the thing, right? If there's an effeminate, brooding bad boy character that lots of teenage girls like in a piece of media, it HAS to be shallow wangst at its core. Every tumblr sexyman is just Edward Cullen when you cut past the bullshit, right?

Like, I know I'm not going to convince the "Thing popular so thing bad" crowd on Astarion's quality no matter how many words I write, but, like, there is a reason for the hype. Dude's got fucking layers! The different interactions with him you can have, the dimensions you can bring out of him by how you choose to engage with him, all paint this great tapestry of a character who takes the concept of a vampire and explores it to a depth few pieces of media have every plunged to.

And he's fucking funny! Dude's got some of the best lines in the game, and his voice actor didn't just give him a sexy sultry voice, but, like, shades of Tim Curry that make him endearingly weird and goofy and witty as hell while still being very sexy.

And yes, he's a sexy vampire, that's a big point in his favor and what most people are dwelling on. And I'm standing by the sexy part - listen, for the past few years I've been kind of wrestling with whether or not I'm bisexual, and the question was laid to rest the first time this fucker flirted with me in game. My heart raced, my cheeks flushed, I reflexively giggled and went "Whoo!" like a Southern Belle in need of a feinting couch. Every time he's flirted with me since has given me the fucking vapors. Thank you, Astarion, I'm bi for sure now. you solved that fucking riddle pretty decisively.

Let's move on.

Companion 2: Shadowheart, A Fellow Lapsed Catholic

Shadowheart is a bundle of contradictions. She's got some of the best quips and quickest wits in the game, and she's also a huge fucking dork. She is oozing with confidence about the role she's been assigned to play and is incredibly assertive in group social situations, but on her own she's a mess of insecurities and is constantly plagued with doubts about her worth. She's constantly preaching about the need to be pragmatic and self-focused, but loves it whenever you are kind and generous. Depending on your choices during the tutorial level, she can become the first ride-or-die party member you get, and she's also a miserable pile of secrets who is terrified of you discovering what she really is.

See, Shadowheart is a cleric of Shar, the Goddess of Darkness, which is both in a literal and figurative sense - that is, Shar is the goddess of night and the absence of light, but, like, also the goddess of loss, and sorrow, and hopelessness, and secrets, and lies. The Goddess of Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss, basically. Being raised to follow the goddess has plagues Shadowheart with guilt over the secrets she's had to keep, the cruelties she's had to inflict, and the distance she's kept from all people in her life as a result of the church's creed. If you're a nerd who comes into this game knowing who Shar is, you'd probably be immediately suspicious of Shadowheart when you find out her alleigance, because Shar's basically one of the more prominent evil gods whose followers are always fucking things up for everyone.

However, I did not come into this game knowing that, but I did come into it knowing what's it's like to be raised in a religion that teaches you that many of your natural desires for companionship are wrong and to feel guilt and paranoia over how your every action will be judged, for like Shadowheart, I am also a Catholic.

Shadowheart's Want is to become a Dark Justiciar, which is basically the Sharran equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, and to fully prove her devotion to Shar's will. The way she talks about Shar is so thickly coded with the way children of abusive parents talk about said parents that's it's legitimately frightening to witness at times. Shadowheart doesn't blame Shar for hurting her, she knows it's her fault for disappointing Shar in the first place.

Shadowheart's Need is to leave the fucking Catholic church. Depending on your choices, she can accomplish this with the help of two moon-worshipping lesbians, at which point she dyes her hair a color that would piss off her parents Shar and proceeds to indulge in a somewhat hedonistic rebellion of self actualization that only a lapsed Catholic can fully comprehend. I love her.

Companion 3: Lae'Zel, The World's Most Loyal Toad

Ok, so, brief tangent: one of my favorite games of all time is Dragon Age Origins, and it is one of my favorite games of all time in part because it has Morrigan, one of the best characters in all of fantasy fiction, fuck you fight me. Morrigan is a divisive character in the DA fandom because she is notoriously hard to please if you're trying to be a good person - it was so prominent a criticism, in fact, that "Morrigan Disapproves" was put on a fucking t-shirt to play on/monetize the controversy.

But, see, the thing about Morrigan is that she's 1. incredibly complex and 2. designed to challenge your worldview, and to be challenged in turn. Morrigan isn't just an evil bitch, she has a genuine philosophy for why she behaves as coldly as she does, which in part stems from her awful upbringing by her cruel, selfish hermit mother who was trying to shelter her from an even crueller world that would see her in chains just for being a witch. Morrigan has been taught that love is a weakness others will exploit, that kindness is folly, and that everyone is out for themselves. And you need to contradict her on that - getting to know her inevitably involves fighting her on this point, and you proving to her that the cruelty she's been taught is wrong. If you are willing to listen, to argue, to truly understand this character, she grows because of you. It makes her character arc so fucking satisfying, when you get to the end of the game and she realizes that she does love you, she does want to be kind, and that even though she now feels more accutely than ever how love has made her weak, she can't be without it. It's so fucking good.

I bring Morrigan up because almost all the companions in Baldur's Gate 3 are on her level, in part because they are designed like her - to challenge you and be challenged in turn. And none of the core six are more like her than Lae'zel.

Which, sadly, includes the fan backlash part. A lot of fans of the game hate Lae'zel - she's too mean, they say, too hostile, to proud of her strange and callous worldview, too critical of our normal and kind outlook, too difficult to relate to.

These people are cowards.

If Shadowheart is Catholic, then Lae'zel is, like, Christian Reformed. A fundie. She's been training at Githyanki Bible Camp for years to be her lichqueen's perfectly loyal soldier, only to run into this minor snag of being kidnapped by Mindflayers, the ancestral enemies of her people, and infected with a tadpole that will turn her into one of them, the Worst Fate that can become a Githyanki. Luckily, she's read all of her people's Chick Tracts, and knows that if she can get to one of the Githyanki creches, they can use their special machine to pray the tadpole out of her brain and save her.

Lae'zel has drunk the metaphorical kool-aid of her people, but only to a point. See, Githyankis are viciously racist, but Lae'zel is REALLY quick to accept you and most of the other companions (not Shadowheart, though, as like a true Fundie, she cannot stand a Catholic) despite them not being Giths like herself. Yeah, she'll preen and posture about the superiority of her kind a bit, but she sides with you within seconds of meeting you, and from that point on she is ride or die until you give her a good reason to think otherwise. Lae'zel can be mean, stubborn, and arrogant, but she is above all else loyal.

Her Want is to be a perfect Githyanki warrior, earning the respect of her queen and serving her endlessly in the Astral Plane. Of course, when you actually get to that creche she's pointing you towards early in the game, this all falls apart on her, because just like Fundamentalist Christianity, Githyanki culture is little more than a sham designed to uphold an evil and exploitative power structure where the rich drain the life and resources of everyone beneath them and declare it the will of the divine. In this case, that "drain the life" part is explicitly literal, as the Githyanki queen literally devours the life force of any gith that gets even a bit close to rivaling her in power. If Lae'zel tries to follow her dream, it will end with her queen eating her soul.

Lae'zel's Need is to not only break out of her culture's indoctrination, but to find a way to make her life worthwhile on her own terms. It's heartbreaking to witness, honestly, because unlike the other core companions, Lae'zel has no idea what a life outside of her Want looks like. What is she without serving her queen? What the hell does she want? If you've been taught God your queen is all that is good, then how the fuck you you figure out what good is when you realize she's actually evil?

And while she goes through this seriously traumatic existential crisis, she finds the energy to be invested in the struggles of you and your companions. When the other characters are going through The Shit in their respective arcs, Lae'zel is always quick to note that she thinks they are strong and deserve more than they're getting - even Shadowheart, that fucking Catholic!

Because the first word you'd ever use to describe Lae'zel, the one that most succinctly captures who she is, is LOYAL. She fucking rocks, I love her.

Companion 4: Wyll, The Unjustly Underrated

Almost no one talks about Wyll and it fucking sucks, man. I mean, we all know why (it starts with a Ra and ends in a Cism), but still it fucking blows dude. And yes, I include myself in this, anyone who's followed my blog can tell that Wyll's not the companion I fixate on the most.

But listen, I promise you, if the game let me take along four companions instead of three, Wyll... would be competing with Lae'zel for spot #4, and Lae'zel might win out because she's an angry girl, but... fuck I'm losing the plot.

Wyll is great though! He's severely underrated! He's one of the nicest companions you'll get, first of all, but he's not just a nice guy. Everyone's got layers in this, right? Wyll is nice, but he's also a bit arrogant - a glory hound, really. He's the only companion who's given himself a superhero name, and he routinely uses it. Dude wants to be fuckin' Batman so bad, it's wonderful.

He's also the most actively fucked member of the party. Everyone's got abusers in their past, but Wyll's is the only one who's followed him to your camp. Mizora, the devil he sold his soul too, frequently shows up to give him shitty tasks and shittier punishments, and is one of the most hateful fucking characters I have ever encountered in my life. Like, to put this in perspective: if you know me, you know that I have certain... preferences... when it comes to women. So if there was, say, a demon lady character who's also a bit of a dominatrix, and I fucking hated her guts, you'd probably be a bit surprised given, you know, my preferences.

But the way Mizora treats Wyll? The way she talks about him and to him? It's fucking heinous. She's not fun evil, she's evil evil, and she's got to fucking go.

It kind of reframes Wyll's kindness and cockiness as you experience it, because beneath the showy acts of heroism and the bluster, Wyll is a sad little dog in a burning apartment telling himself "this is fine!" over and over again.

Wyll's Want is to be a hero and make the sacrifice of his soul worth something. He has accepted that there is no redemption for himself, that Mizora preying upon his vulnerability in the past is something he can never recover from, that he cannot be free of her chains, and only hopes to use what time he has to do some good, even if it inevitably comes at the cost of his life.

His Need is to break out of Mizora's control, to wrest his fate back into his own hands, and to prove what has always been true: that he IS the hero he's selling himself as. It's a real Rango arc if you think about it.

Companion 5: Gale, The Friend With the Messiest Fucking Love Life You've Ever Heard Of Goddamn

Gale... kind of breaks the companion formula, a little bit? Like, for the other five core companions, there is a clear-cut situation where they were abused and exploited by an asshole - Shar exploited Shadowheart, Cazador the master vampire exploited Astarion, Mizora exploits Wyll, etc. Gale's fucked up traumatic relationship is a bit... messier, and harder to untangle, because by his own admission, he was not blameless in it.

Gale is a wizard, and like all good wizards in fiction, he's a bit of a mad scientist. He was so good at wizarding, in fact, that the goddess of magic itself, Mystra, reached out to him, and eventually the two had a little romance. Now, fans have gone back and forth interpreting this, with some saying that Mystra was grooming Gale from childhood and thus is as bad as Cazador/Shar/Mizora/et cetera. I feel that's kind of a bad faith reading of the character, one that's actively ignoring the concept of what an ageless immortal goddess is to try and fit it into a human context.

For nerds who know about the setting, Mystra is NOT an evil goddess like Shar. In fact, she's kind of a vitally important goddess to have around, as Magic is such an integral part of the reality of this setting that not having a god of some sort for it results in an fucking extinction event - which the characters in the game know for a fact because at one point in the past, a mortal wizard killed Mystra and made that extinction event happen. Mystra reformed, as gods do, and eventually things got back to more or less normal, but that doesn't do much for the shitload of people and creatures that died during the period of time where magic was dead.

And that's what ends up souring Gale and Mystra's relationship. Gale, being mortal, felt he had to prove he was Mystra's equal, and so set out to find a source of magical power not unlike that used by the wizard in the past who killed Mystra. And when Mystra saw Gale doing that, she freaked the fuck out because she thought she was going to get killed again - because the wizard who slew her in the past ALSO felt he needed to prove he was equal to a goddess.

Neither character takes the breakup well. Gale feels like fucking shit because he fumbled a literal goddess, and also got a piece of super destructive magic lodged in his chest in the process that's slowly killing him. And Mystra is worried that the super powerful piece of magic lodged in Gale's chest could kill her, and also about the cult using a very similar piece of magic (it's a big plot point for the game I won't go into it this is already too long), and so, in an act of cruel godly pragmatism, she sends D&D Gandalf to tell Gale to use his the magic murder ball in his chest to kill the cult, even though it'll destroy him in the process. "Hi sweetie, please kill yourself on my behalf, k thanx!" basically.

It's... it's a mess.

Gale's Want is to prove he is Mystra's equal by mastering the ancient magic he's found, and either win her back or, better yet, become a god himself and dethrone her. As I said, he's got a bit of a mad scientist in him.

Gale's Need is to move on from this relationship, talk things out with his ex, give her her dvds the ancient magic artifacts back, and move on with his life.

I like Gale. He's got funny lines, he loves his cat, he's a goofy nerd, and while his love life is a mess, his heart is mostly in the right place. He needs some nudges to do the right thing, but he's a good guy deep down, and I always love it when fiction shows a relationship that falls apart not because one person in it was "bad," but because the two people were just not compatible. Yeah, Gale fucked up, but you can understand why he fucked up, and he can understand it too if you help him own up to his mistakes and move forward. Also, he loves his cat, he can't be all bad.

Companion 6: Karlach, the Most Beautiful Woman I've Ever Seen

Karlach is my favorite companion in this game, which is why I saved her for (sort of) last. And, yes, sure, part of it is because of my aforementioned preferences with women...

she's so goddamn pretty

But it's also because of how she plays with those core themes I've mentioned. Karlach was sold into slavery as a teenager, where her devil master ripped out her heart and replaced it with an engine to turn her into a super-strong gladiator. She's been living in literal Hell for years, fighting every day to survive, and like Astarion she actually views being kidnapped by Mindflayers as a godsend since it freed her from her enslavement.

Unlike Astarion, Karlach doesn't have a long life to look forward to. That engine in her chest can't work properly outside of Hell, and it will eventually break, overheat, and melt her from the inside out. Karlach is the only companion who knows she's going to die soon whether or not the tadpole is taken out - no matter how this adventure ends, she will die.

At least, that's what she's told herself. Karlach's Want is to never return to Literal Hell, no matter what, because she's afraid if she does she will be taken as a slave again, and that there is no hope for a good life if she touches foot on that ground again. Following this want means she WILL die - either by the engine, by her enemies in the mortal plane, or by turning into a mind flayer (because while mind flayers can retain their hosts' memories, they are NOT the same being as their host).

And Karlach is convinced she's ok with this! No, really, she's fine! This is fine! She's got a few days left to live, and she's going to enjoy them! She is unfailingly kind and compassionate, always willing to help others, always cheery and taking the best view of her friends and people in need, a ray of fucking sunshine.

And beneath it all she's terrified and sad. When you get towards the end of the game, and Karlach feels how close the Inevitable End is, she reaches a breaking point where that happy facade snaps and it's... it's gut wrenching, man. It breaks your fucking heart, because as much as she's determined not to risk setting foot in Literal Hell ever again, she really doesn't want to die.

...

Karlach's Need is to go back to Literal Hell long enough to get that engine replaced. Her Need is to find hope, TRUE hope, not just a facade of optimism - a true belief that she can face the worst and come out of it ok, that she can survive, that she is not alone in facing the darkest shit this world can throw at her. Her Need is to find the strength to believe that she can live, even if it's hard, even if it's Hell to get there.

And Karlach is worth it. She is worth Hell.

Companions 7 - 10 Speedrun

I don't have as much to say about the four other companions you can get in the game, mainly because I already love these six so much that trying to take time to get to know four other weirdos who I don't get to recruit until halfway through the game just... like, there's a party limit of four characters and one is me, I can only take three of you along at a time, I'm prioritizing the one's who've been with me since all the goblin shit in Act 1, feel me? The rest of you seem real neat but I've got my nakama all set, we're good.

Halsin is the one I know the most of these four because he helped me at the tail end of the goblin stuff and he seems fine. He's a big nice hippie who turns into a bear and is into polygamy and carving wooden ducks. A lot of people thirst for him, but he's not my type - like I get the appeal but this is a case of Not My Favorite Pennywise Hentai But OK as far as I'm concerned. I like his subplot about restoring balance to the cursed forest, though. Felt like teaming up with Smokey the Bear.

Minthara is the companion that used to require you to kill a shitload of innocent people to recruit, but people found weird work-arounds that involved turning her into a sheep and so the developers sighed and released a patch where you could recruit her without mass murder using only slightly cheesey means. She is Genuinely Evil, but in a complicated way that's still fun from a character perspective. She's also a great comically serious character - i.e. someone who's so serious all the time that they end up being incredibly funny on accident just by their muted reactions to all the weirdness around them. From the clip compilations I've watched on youtube, her romance is basically a Lady Macbeth situation, and that's pretty hot. If it weren't for Karlach, I'd... romance Astarion, but if it weren't for Astarion, I'd... romance Shadowheart, but if it weren't for Shadowheart, I'd... romance Lae'zel, but if it weren't for Lae'zel, I might romance Minthara. Or Wyll. One of the two.

Jaheira is a character from one of the previous Baldur's Gate games, neither of which I've played, so I had no preconceptions or attachments to her going in this game. She basically becomes your surrogate mom as the game goes along, and I mean that as a compliment. She's pretty great and fills a nice emotional niche - I didn't use her that much because, again, I've already got six close friends to rotate out, I'm not going to ditch them for long periods of time to hang out with my MOM, but it was nice having her along for the ride a few times.

Minsc is the OTHER returning character from the previous games, and from what I can tell he's basicall Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove but with a funny accent. I like him, he's fun comic relief, and he throws a hamster at people while telling it to eat their eyes. I don't have a lot to say on Minsc, I just think he's neat.

At some point I might do a followup to this gushing about NPCs from the game, because goddamn the supporting cast is great too. Omeluum, Us, the Emperor, fucking Dame Aylin. Dame Aylin is so goddamn fucking cool, I want to read novels about her adventures, she rocks so hard. All glory to the Nightsong!

[roobylavender]

someone posted this panel regarding oliver vs bruces parenting taking a jab at bruce that seems funny enough, like we can just like the post and move on but i checked the notes and apparently fans of each family are at war arguing with each other😭mostly shitting on bruce because oliver is the better parent and somebody brought up how when queen and his kids were having issues at some point that it was ooc and while i am not super well read on GA stuff i can definitely buy that, but what i dont understand is why that isnt allowed for bruce. i saw tags concerning the other horrible things bruce has done as like a gotcha to bat fans and its like why are only his comics the ones we take at face value as 100% accurate and in good faith am i wrong for finding this dumb😭

not at all i totally agree it’s dumb lol 😭 the thing that confuses me about the bruce v oliver debate is that i don’t get why there’s a need to compare when their parenting issues are at completely different ends of the spectrum. granted i do think both of them have issues with communicating but those stem from different things. every problem bruce has as a parent has to do with how he neurotic he is about being a parent to begin with. he cares too much, he worries constantly, he carries reams of guilt, etc. he’s constantly arguing within himself whether to keep the people he loves close so he can make sure they’re safe or to let them go so they can pursue their own dreams and aren’t put in harm’s way bc he asked them to stay. he’s like, a conditional-helicopter parent, in the sense that the helicopter gene only activates when people are in his city, which is why he allows them to walk away bc then it means he’s not trying to control them (except we obv know that leads to the problem where they feel like he’s pushed them away bc they think he thinks they’re not good enough)

oliver to me in comparison is someone who initially did not take parenthood seriously enough and almost treated it like he did any other relationship. unlike bruce, he was very intentional with treating roy like an equal—when i use that modifier at the beginning what i mean to say is that bruce was very cognizant of his position as a parent. dick’s safety was a higher priority than was dick’s self esteem (at least beyond the zucco incident which had a very specific goal of closure) even though bruce very much came to believe that dick was his equal, esp as an adult—and to the extent that when roy got into serious trouble with drugs oliver not only expressed this sort of condemnatory disappointment but also only expressed pride at roy having recovered from his addiction later on bc it was something he did on his own. he respected roy’s responsibility and maturity even though realistically as a parent he should have stepped in to help bc roy was still barely an adult and he had fallen prey to drugs bc oliver left him alone in the first place

those are both styles of parenting that i think you can criticize. there’s pros and cons to being too protective of your children vs not protective enough. and i think people tend only to criticize the former style and its example in bruce bc a recovery of his relationships with his children has never been the goal in the way that it is for oliver’s writers. which is a shame bc i really don’t think you or i believe bruce is as intentionally selfish as writers portray him to be. but alas 😭

[kim-poce]

2. Witches Are Meant To Burn: Magic

On Patreon (two weeks earlier release)

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I know! I know how words work, okay? I know that sayings rely on context, and old sayings have old contexts that we might not know about anymore. Their meanings can change, they can be cut in half,  words can get mis-said and change over time.

Did you know, for example, that the original saying of “the horse arrived” had a second part? “and it brought someone along.” This means the opposite of the way we use it today! Funny right? I could go on about how this happened but that's not the point.

Anyway, I also thought about the possibility that “witches” is a misspelling, maybe the unison of some words. That's the reason I studied history and etymology so hard! I looked through every word that resembled witches. ALL OF THEM. Even 'uytch', you know, the dish from a country far away that doesn't speak our language and much less has our saying.

In no moment I found a word (or several of them) that fits the sentence and is old enough to match the age of this saying. I might be wrong though. Am I a complete genius? Yes. Do I know everything? No.

There is another thing about this saying; it is old. I can't track back the exact date but this is so old, old enough that our language has changed a lot since its creation. How do I know that? Well, I wasn't accurate when I said there is nothing about witches registered, because there is. It's inside a cave (which I have visited. Great trip. My students fought each other over who would come along. Great fight).

This cave is important, it was locked up for CENTURIES, and the language used there is so old that some sentences are almost unrecognizable. It was located years back and has been the source of new studies and theories in diverse fields. Point is, the walls are completely scribbled over, it seems to have started in an organized way but I could see how it soon became messy.

The scribbles were not made with some paint or ink, nor carved with stone or sharp tools. It was burnt, well, it was carved using a heated tool. Every letter (and it was a cursive alphabet!) was individually carved like this, as in, a small hot tool was pressed on the wall and twisted once (only once) to make a small hole, the process was repeated over and over to make the words. I don't want to lose track of the point, but I must say each word was at least ten centimeters tall and half a centimeter deep in the walls, and the tool was at most a millimeter in diameter. I need you to understand that centuries ago these people heated this small little needle-like thing and pressed on the wall over and over and over, thousand and thousand of times to write these words down. The spot where the letters were could be messy, but each letter was very carefully made. So you can see why the scholars go crazy about this place.

There are many mysteries about this site, many of them fall into my field but you don't want me rambling about it. Back to the point, the “witches are meant to burn” saying was written several times (I touched them back then, they were hot enough to cause pain), and along with them there were prayers and other sentences meaning mostly two things: fate and sorrow (so the witch saying fits well in there even when they are centuries of context and history apart from each other.) I need to emphasize that the saying was written in the same way we use it today, even with the dates so far apart. Maybe back then they still had the context though.

If I could meet whoever wrote that on these walls and ask them what a witch is, they would most likely look at me as if I’m an idiot, after all, who wouldn’t know such common sense? (or at least I believe it was common sense since the continent being so large didn’t stop the saying from being said all over it). Ah, the riches I would pay to walk around the continent so far back and watch with my own two eyes what I can only speculate about!

Witches, whatever they were, were most likely really well known, maybe not important, maybe not essential. But known. Now, is it just me or this word, these witches, are so old and meaningful and should have been more talked about? I know, there are many sentences at that site (it's a really important site) but out of all of them, this is the least researched one! And it’s the only one used until today!

“Why?” I asked a colleague one day. “I get people not being obsessed about it as I am, but why is no one looking for it at all? All of the other stuff in that cave is being thoughtfully studied by so many academics but why is this one just ignored?”

“I can't speak for others,” she said, pausing to think. “But it just doesn't… draw me, it's as if it's a closed case? It kind of feels like nothing interesting will come from it. I am not talking down your work! You are amazing and dedicated and even if I'm not interested in witches or whatever I always read your papers because you are just great at it, but this word is like… boring, I just… can't explain it another way.”

Other academics (and common people) had the same opinion as if this single subject killed the insatiable curiosity of humanity. Even my own students don’t seem interested in it, only the older ones. It looks like if I force them to hear about it almost every day for years they come to either hate the subject or be curious about it. Anyway, this seemingly instinctive disinterest in this word is odd, in an irrational way.

I don't allow myself to act irrationally in front of others, being obsessed is one thing and being irrational is another. It would compromise my reputation as a scholar, it would make my research look childish and bullshit. I can't have that. So I don't tell them about the hot words, I don't show them my notebooks or the hidden, smaller secret library about magic.

I have mixed feelings about magic. On one hand, I'm an academic and know very well how people wrongly believed in magic centuries back and how everything was proved to be just myths. On the other hand, this word is hot against my skin and my skin only, I'm drawn to it so strongly while everyone seems to want to forget about it. I don't have a rational way to explain it so I allow myself to be irrational. As long as it doesn't interfere with my studies, of course.

Magic isn’t my field. Do you wonder why someone who can feel what I can and feels the need to uncover the origin of this singular word has not tried to specialize in magic? Well, magic does not exist, there is no field just for that. I study history and magic history with it though so let me explain the basics.

Magic has two main divisions: ‘hands of fate’ and ‘hands of god’

Hands of fate weren’t (as people seem to think) just a huge storm over a sinner’s farm or a carriage accident by a runaway bandit. It was everything. It could be the death of an innocent child or the sheer luck of an assassin. It had no regard for justice or fairness, much less cared about humans' morals. It was a leaf falling from the tree, a mother choosing her child’s name, everything, and every choice.

I can make the correlation between the belief in magic that our society used to have and the way our society still so intrinsically believes in fate today, sometimes it’s as if the name just changes. If I say “magic controls our life” I’ll be called crazy but “fate controls our life”? That’s just a common belief. That’s one of the reasons “witches are meant to burn” is used so often, because what happened was meant to happen the same way witches are meant to burn.

Hands of god are what people truly think of when the word magic comes up, the ability to control the present and the future. If hands of fate set everything in stone, hands of god break the rocks and write a new, ever-changing, history. This is where recipes of foods meant to make one live forever, chantings to attract luck, and everything that humans can actively make is. Contrary to the passive point of view of hands of fate.

I’m sure I don’t need to say, since you must know how society works, but such beliefs weren’t quite liked back in the day. It was said that breaking a line of fate created disaster. So you shouldn’t, for example, use the hands of god to save your dying child, because if you do so some village far away may suffer from hunger. Doctors were hunted down, medicine was criminalized, to fight for your future was to fight against other people’s future and every single act of kindness could be read as selfishness, and attacked and punished as such.

Witches are meant to burn, whether they want it or not.

In the current days, the belief in ‘fate’ (similar to hands of fate) is still strong, but no one believes in ‘magic’ (hands of god and the disaster it brings) anymore. It’s like a godless dead religion, a myth, but fate is just… the way people go on about their life. It’s a curious thing, actually, there was never a god widely worshiped in this land. People here believe something is there and this something decides their lives, but there was no need to worship this deaf being, even the hands of god fight against this mysterious “fate” instead of begging for mercy from it. It is an acceptance of god, if anything. Theology is not my field either but it does draw my attention from time to time.

Well, that’s enough crash course on magic, I’ll just finish it with an academic joke brought upon us by the coincidences of life. As I said, the hands of fate carve the destiny in stone and the hands of god break the rocks. That cave — as highly agreed upon— meant to represent the ‘hands of fate’ so isn’t it such a funny thing that it was brought to light by erosion? If magic was real, the ones who practiced it would be proud of themselves.

[kelperings]

where do i even begin oh boy oh boy where do i even START. i have read all of this and I LOVE IT ALLSOMCUCH. all of these hcs have been adopted, i hope u r proud of such a feat. apologies if i don’t touch on everything, im not the best at thatLMAOO

aghhhw potential sdr2 spoilers under the cut!!!

first off, congratulations on being the first person ever to answer my mario party question!! I FIND THE IDEA OF FUYUHIKO BEING BABY BOWSER TO BE SO INCREDIBLY FUNNY (and i know someone says something about it and the world caves as a result). hiyoko and mahiru matching is SO SWEET and ive always seen nagito as one of the drybones characters (ex. the normal drybones koopa of drybones bowser (idk if thats the names oops, not played mario party in a good bit), but more lenient towards drybones koopa bcs the idea of nagito as a type of BOWSER is HORRIFYING. THATS SO SCARY. DRYBONES BOWSER TRAVELLING ACROSS THE BOARD AT LIGHTNING PACES AND GETTING A FUCK TON OF LUCKY BLOCKS..? im okay!!!! id rather not!!!!). KAZUICHI IS *SUCH* A WALUIGI IM ALMOST IMPRESSED THAT THE THOUGHT HAS COME TO LIGHT.

point being, i love those mario party hcs, and i fw them so hard. and i love thinking of how they’d play different games together all the time!!! most likely brought on by chiaki!! wii party, stardew valley, animal crossing, mario kart, smash bros, botw/totk, and even sonic comes to mind for me!! would love to see them all sit down and see who can beat emerald hill from sth2 the quickest HAHAand i have my own hcs for them all but I SHALL HOLD BACK I SHANT RAMBLE TO THEE

NOW WE PROGRESS TO THE MAIN ATTRACTION EVERYBODY LETS GO LETS GO!!!!

of course of COURSE they’ve got the slowest of slowburns and i fully agree that it would be actually infuriating to watch. i mean im rocking back and forth in my bed as we speak marzi, i cant imagine how they’d feel. LOVEE LOVE LOVE the idea of ibuki enacting her elaborate plans to get them to confess or at least be closer to eachother, and i can already imagine her getting told off by mahiru for trapping nagito and hajime in that closet. can also imagine ibuki holding a mini concert for them all where she says before preforming that she’s dedicated a song to the two of them which im sure would have the most embarrassing lyrics on the planet earth if you could make them out. ibuki you would have me rolling in my grave with this, oh how i love u so.

i think theres something so incredibly funny about how almost BLUNT kazuichi is with it. “what he likes is watching you do manual labour with your shirt off” had me SOBBING THATSJWHAHA THAT MADE ME GIGGLE. i like to imagine he’s very blunt in that sort of vein. where hajime will say something which indicates he is so knee deep in this bullshit that he’s completely missing the point and kazuichi’s like “uhhhhhh no man, he just wants you bad.” and im SURE he’s gotten hit on the back of the head countless times. fuyuhiko having advice is also crazy to me, and i actually think he’d have pretty good, direct advice which im sure hajime would question, followed by “the fucks it to you?? bastard.” as if he wasn’t trying to be supportive moments ago.

NAGITO KOMAEDA WITH THE GIRLS IS BOTH THE FUNNIEST AND MOST INCREDIBLY ACCURATE THING EVER. im LIVING for the rekindling of nagito and mikans friendship amd everything there. i dont think i have too much to add onto it unfortunately (its late and i have work tmrw i fear 😞⁉️) but im sure something will pop up in my mind.

dear god the mutual pining.

dear fucking god.

i can almost fucking SEE the genuine annoyance from people as their conversations get more and more tense with every waking moment and they just have to sit there and watch it happen. im sure someone, like lets say akane or ibuki for example, got so sick of this to the point where they almost yelled out the fact they liked eachother and had to get their mouth covered. i can ENVISION the irritation and frustration as they witness as they have a really awkward leaving after hanging out. like the sort of “i had a lot of fun today, thank you” “ah well i guess ill see you tomorrow” type of thing but obviously 10x more tense and komahinafied. i can see the face palms and hear the groans as the rest of the cast get together to basically all be like “we’re all seeing the same shit here, right? like theyre so in love its painful.”

and leaving the confession up for interpretation is something i like too!! I ALWAYS LIKE TO MESS AROUND W DIFFERENT IDEAS IN MY HEAD ON HOW THINGS COULDVE GONE, and honestly it could go either way! either could confess, and i dont think its a case of “one is more likely to than the other” because christ on a fucking stick theyre so knee deep in denial of the other having even a glimpse of attraction towards the other. I HAVE SEEN THE ART YOURE TALKING ABOUT AND I COMPLETELY FULLY AGREE. i can already imagine how badly it’d go, and im sure because of nagitos luck cycle and the fact they SUCK ASS AT KISSING/MAKING OUT, someone would end up accidentally biting their own tongue or something along those lines. i pray they get better with time smhHELWOWHAH PRAYING FOR THEM.

jealous!hajime oh how i live for thee. nothing more said, that is PERFECT!!! oh and i LOVE the whole izuru thingy, just dont have a lot to say on them unfortunately <33. same goes for a few things like the Kazuichi Gets Trolled rule which is FULLY agree with. because of course theyre making out by a fridge with the fridge actually open, meaning their weirdly wedged IN THE FRIDGE. like of course.

AUSGWHWH AS MUCHAS I HAVE LOADS MORE TO SAY AND I COULDNT TOUCH ON EVERYTHING, I UNFORTUNATELY HAVE WORK TOMORROW AND I NEED TO BE UP AT 7AM. KELPER IS GETTING SLEEPY, TOO SLEEP TO THINK. PLEASSEEE PLEASEPLEASE CONTINUE TO INFO DUMP AB THEM I BEG, WHETHER IN REBLOGS, ASKS OR EVEN DMS IF U NEED TO RANT AB THEM, I LOVE UR INTERPRETATION SOOOOOSOSOSO MUCH !!!!!

they have been stolen, they are adopted into my own view now. AND AUGH PLSPLSPLSS IM SO GLAD U GAVE PERMISSION FOR PEOPLE TO DRAW IN THE TAGS BECAUSE I MOST CERTAINLY WILL DRAW AFTER COMPLETING THE ART BACKLOG OF THE CENTURY.

THANK U SO MUCH FOR SHARING MARZI, OH HOW ILY SO 🫶‼️

i love sharing my kmhn headcanons with people because then i get to hear them tell me how correct and smart i am and it boosts my ego

[laurents-laces]

Notes on Pacat's livestream for this month! It's not a complete summary but you can watch the video on instagram if you missed it. I'm starting with one quote that I thought was important and the rest will be divided by fandom/topic. The part that's under the cut isn't spoilery, it's just cut to keep the post shorter.

“So I use she/her and he/him pronouns. And I guess just to speak really honestly about where I’m at with gender stuff, I identify as genderqueer- at least that’s the term I use when I’m asked publicly about this- but the truth is that, like a lot of people who are not cisgender, I struggle a lot with gender dysphoria. I’m probably trans masculine and it means that in a lot of ways the pronouns decision can feel very fraught for me. When you’re dysphoric, you know, sometimes even thinking about what your pronouns are can be a little bit traumatic. I absolutely love this new era where we are asking people their pronouns and people are free to have whatever gender expression they want. But for me I guess I choose “he” and “her” both together because it alleviates something of that dysphoric pressure for me. But I’m equally fine with either of those. So I just go with the flow there.”

Fence Comic:

Fence volume five is not supposed to be announced yet at all but it’s in the works. Pacat has already seen some of Johanna’s art for it and he feels like she’s gone to a new level with this volume. Pacat is excited for volume five because the boys’ storylines are really starting to take off

Pacat’s favourite Haikyuu character is Kageyama because he likes that character type that appears in nearly every sports drama. Seiji is that same character type. (There’s a character from Hikaru no Go that he compares to Seiji too but I didn’t catch the name)

Fence is written in a “shounen level up” structure

Pacat wants to read The Foxhole Court because it’s a seminal m/m romance and a lot of people brought it up after Fence got published, but he’ll probably wait until after Fence is done because he doesn’t want to be influenced by any similarities

Captive Prince:

We’ll find out what The News is “soon”

The Laurent’s hair debate is funny because his hair length is described in the books, but nobody cares about Damen’s hair length even though it isn’t described at all

There’s going to be a Japanese box set for capri in December, it looks spectacular

The funny thing about the Japanese version is that when capri was first published, western publishing didn't know what to do with it. It was published as a different genre in every country. But Japan was like “this is a BL light novel.” That's exactly what it is, you've nailed it Japan. Pacat loves the Japanese covers

Capri got a lot of weird western covers because people didn't want to telegraph that the book was gay. The Brazilian covers look like such a male het dude fantasy, and the Australian cover is so enigmatic that you can't tell what it's about. One time at Comic Con there were a lot of US marines there, and they came over to Pacat’s booth and picked up captive prince. Pacat could tell that the cover wasn't telling them everything they needed to know.

About why Laurent didn’t ever get help from Kempt: What Pacat tried to do with the map in capri was make Kempt so inaccessible through the Great Northern Forests that it was hard to get help from them in time, but that's a bit of a questionable part of the plot

Pacat’s pronunciation of Laurent’s name isn’t the most accurate because no one in Akielos and Vere is saying it with an Australian accent, so you really want to get a French person to pronounce it

Pacat might change his mind at some point, but the story of capri is complete for the moment. He likes stories that have an end. Additional material can act as a series killer when the story overstays its welcome

Pacat learned a lot about the structure of the hero's journey while writing capri. He thought it was a really easy, simple structure but it's actually really hard and unforgiving. If you mess up a single step the story feels broken

Captive Prince has elements of a hero's journey but really the A plot is a romance. Pacat did his best with the hero’s journey in Dark Rise but it was a huge learning curve, it was the hardest thing by far about writing the book

Dark Rise:

The Dark Rise trilogy is completely planned out, Pacat knows what will happen down to the last word

Book two will delve more deeply into the past, history and backstories of the characters; we're gonna learn a lot more about the old world. The romance will be explored a little more deeply. It's more “on page gay” than book one. Pacat is two thirds of the way through writing the manuscript. The book doesn’t have a release date yet but the manuscript is due in June

It’s been hard to get Dark Rise in the UK because they have to import the books, but Harpercollins US just agreed to do full distribution to the UK so Dark Rise should be in stores there soon

Dark Rise is in its second printing in the US and Australia but if you pre-ordered you'll get a first edition even if you haven't received the book yet. There have been a lot of COVID-related shipping delays

Pacat chose the names Will and James in two different ways. The first way was that he looked at a lot of censuses from the 1800s because he wanted to choose names people would actually have had, and the two most popular boys' names were Will and James. A lot of people tell him that the two main characters in Clockwork Princess have the same names. He hasn't read that series because it's set in the same time period as Dark Rise and he doesn’t want to be influenced by it but he wonders if Cassandra Clare chose their names the same way he did

The second reason for their names was that Pacat had something to say about pastoral English fantasies. We're so colonized by the idea of Englishness, England is the cultural true North. Australia doesn't have a lot of typical fantasy things like a medieval period, a cold north, a thick forest, castles, sieges, or walls. Those things don’t resonate with Australians but they're still colonized by those ideas. Those books taught what a hero was and Dark Rise is a push back against all of that. Those heroes are always called Will, it's a heroic name. “I wanted to take that Will and *smiles and makes a ripping apart motion with his hands*”

Pacat pronounces Sarcean like Sar-see-en but readers are free to choose the pronunciation they like best because it's not like people in 1800s England had an Australian accent

The scenes he most enjoyed writing in Dark Rise were the ending and both of the unicorn stabbing scenes

Most of the stories about unicorn horns say that they have truth-telling properties when they’re ground into powder, but Pacat thought it would be much more interesting if you had to stab someone with it

He had appointments with historians in Castleton where the inn is in Dark Rise

He often hires a historian to start background research on certain topics because they have an easier time knowing what to look for and where to find primary sources

Personal Things:

When Pacat lived in Tokyo he had an apartment in Jingumae in Harajuku

His family immigrated to Australia from Calabria, Italy after WWII when his mom was eight. He can speak a bit of dialect but he would sound like an old lady because he learned from his grandma

Pacat used to be really into Chinese dramas like the Legend of Fu Yao and Legend of the Condor Heroes. He hasn't watched a lot of the new danmei dramas but he really liked the Untamed

He enjoyed The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, he’s loved her stuff since Valiant and Ironside and the Spiderwick Chronicles

Pacat used to write fanfic for a lot of obscure Japanese fandoms like Hikaru no Go and Utena. He wasn’t a very popular fic author, he wrote gen character vignettes that no one read. The first romance he wrote was capri. He never wrote Harry Potter fic

[xx-thedarklord-xx]

Curiosity Killed Everything

Harry almost didn’t open it.

After the war love letters flooded in, and quite frankly, he was sick of it. Part of him thought it was sweet, but the rest was annoyed. Where were the love letters before? Why wait until after? Obviously it had to do with who he was as a namesake and not personally.

But as he sat at the Gryffindor table, the ripped envelope drew his attention—almost as if the sender hadn’t bothered to care about its appearance. That and it was addressed to ‘idiot’.

Curiosity was the only reason he opened it.

‘I can’t stand you.’

That was it.

Harry frowned as he turned it over, expecting more on the back. Nothing. He re-opened the envelope, trying to see if maybe there was something else included. No, it was empty.

I can’t stand you. Nothing more.

He couldn’t help it, Harry snorted.

Someone took time out of their day to send a hate letter. One so short. It intrigued Harry more than offended him. He was sure a lot of people didn’t like him, but not many were vocal about it.

He should throw it away. What was the point of keeping it? But there was something funny about the whole situation.

Curiosity was the only reason he pocketed the letter.

———————————-

The longer he stayed at Hogwarts the more he realized Ron was right and that he shouldn’t have come back for a final year. Sure, Hermione did, but she liked schoolwork.

Without Ron by his side, Hogwarts was pretty boring.

The sound of hundreds of birds swooping in signaled mail call. A glance up brought in a new ripped envelope and his lips were already twitching.

Well… maybe not as boring as he thought.

With zero patience, Harry ripped open the envelope, barely paying attention to the owl.

‘Do you even own a hairbrush?’

Without realizing it, his hand ran through his hair absentmindedly. He scowled at the note. Of course he did. It was just that it didn’t matter how many times he combed it, his hair had a mind of its own.

He glared at the note, but yet, still didn’t throw it away.

Curiosity was to blame, probably.

—————————

Mail time was beginning to become his favourite part of the day, and Harry wasn’t sure what that said about him. His secret hater amused him.

‘Your glasses are hideous. They were too big for you at eleven and you’ve still yet to grow into them.’

‘Your pension for danger is appalling, but perhaps Karma for making me have to put up with your existence.’

‘Your not as good at magic as people think you are.’

‘Everytime you open your mouth, I lose brain cells.’

For reasons that were definitely not due to curiosity, Harry had kept all of the notes. Weeks of daily insults were kept in a safe space inside his nightstand. He wasn’t sure what he could blame that on, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to blame himself.

—————————-

‘You look like a cross between doxy droppings and a passable excuse for a human.’

Harry had barely stopped laughing when Hermione sat next to him for breakfast for the first time in weeks.

“What’s got you in a good mood today?”

“Nothing.”

He tried to move the letter away but was too slow. Quick hands snatched it off the table.

“Harry,” Hermione began with pursed lips and an angry merging of her brows. “What is this?”

“I reckon I’ve got a secret admirer,” Harry said, not able to keep a straight face at all.

Hermione arched her brows over the top of the letter. “They think you look like doxy shit.”

“Perhaps admirer was too strong of a word.”

“Some people are so pathetic,” said Hermione as she shook her head and glared at the note. “What a waste of time.”

“Wait,” Harry said far too loudly when it looked like she was going to crumple it. “I want to keep that.”

“Keep it?” Her tone wasn’t quite flabbergasted, but it was close. “Why on Earth would you want to keep it?”

Harry shrugged as he pulled the note from her hands. “I find them charming, kind of.”

“Doxy shit,” Hermione reminded him slowly. “What is charming about that?”

It was hard to explain his thoughts, so Harry didn’t try. He wasn’t sure himself why he kept them. The letters weren’t exactly nice—okay not nice at all—but they were becoming a constant in his daily routine. Whoever sent them had strong opinions, and a lot of it came off as teasing in a way. Or at least familiar. Whoever it was, knew him, and knew him well.

They could be nicer, but the chances of that were pretty slim.

For whatever reason, he liked the notes, rudeness and all.

————————-

The only other thing that brought enjoyment to his days was Potions class. Oh, he still sucked at it, but that was part of the fun.

“Are you even trying?” Snarled Malfoy, who unfortunately was assigned as his partner for the year. “I don’t even know what this is supposed to be.”

“Erm,” Harry peered into the cauldron. “I think it’s a cheering charm.”

“You think,” deadpanned Malfoy. “A cheering charm isn’t supposed to be the consistency of clay.”

Clay. Harry raised a finger to feel it for himself but before he could his hand was slapped away.

“What are you doing?” Huffed Malfoy, eyes wide. “Whatever you made could be dangerous.”

“You do care,” Harry said as he placed a hand on his chest and batted his lashes.

Malfoy looked seconds away from hexing him, and Harry kinda wanted to push him to that point.

“Lose a limb for all I care,” Malfoy said haughtily before storming off to the supply closet. “Not as if having them did anything for you in the first place.”

Harry refused snort, not wanting to give Malfoy the satisfaction. Instead, he focussed on poking the potion. Clay was a pretty accurate descriptor. Whatever it had started out as, it was not a potion anymore.

“You think I could craft something out of this?” Asked Harry when Malfoy returned and began the potion all over again. “I reckon I’ve got some creativity somewhere inside me.”

Malfoy took a deep breath, one that made Harry think he was trying to calm down.

“You know, I truly lose brain cells whenever you speak.”

Harry froze, the familiar words causing his brain to work in overdrive before blanking completely.

No. There’s no way...

When Harry didn’t respond Malfoy looked at him curiously. “Finally, you’ve been rendered speechless. Maybe I can accomplish something today. Not that you’d know what that’s like, Merlin knows how incompetent you are.”

Well, on second thought.

The rest of the lesson passed in a blur, Harry’s mind too distracted to focus on anything else.

Was his secret hater really Malfoy?

It would make sense. Who else insulted him on a daily basis? Why not add it in other forms as well?

But why?

Why bother sending anything at all. It wasn’t like Malfoy ever passed up an opportunity to insult him. And daily? That took dedication.

Was Harry really on Malfoy’s mind like that?

———————

‘You would look a lot better in some decent robes. You have the fashion sense of an old Muggle a breath away from keeling over.’ That one was almost kind. When Harry looked toward the Slytherin table, he was surprised to see Malfoy already staring at him. They locked eyes—briefly—before Malfoy glanced away, cheeks rosy. Huh. That was new. Harry traced the note with his fingers, still unsure why he kept the stupid things. They intrigued him, but was that all that did? Another glance toward Malfoy had him unable to lie to himself. Malfoy intrigued him too, always had. Perhaps it was curiosity’s fault after all.

——————

Draco pushed his vegetables across the plate, mind focused on the pile of Charms homework that he still had to do. Flitwick didn’t have to assign that much, the prick.

It wasn’t until the normal chatter of other students talking disappeared that he realized something was wrong.

When he glanced up, Draco jerked a little at the sight of Potter standing on the other side of the table.

“You lost little Gryffindor?”

Potter rolled his eyes before extending a hand.

Draco took a shaky breath when he realized it was a note, the same size that he sent every morning. With equally shaky fingers, Draco took the parchment and flipped it over.

‘I can’t stand you either.’

There was a tiny smile on Potter’s face that didn’t match the sentiment. But Draco believed him.

“How much?” Draco asked, unable to quash the rising curiosity.

“I’m not sure,” Potter shrugged. “But I imagine we can figure out together.”

That wasn’t a good idea, but Draco’s life was a series of bad ideas.

What could one more hurt?

[strawberrymilkgeorge]

Part Ten. Faces

warnings: swearing, hate comments word count: 4.1k (not including pics)

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

A/N: sorry its late!!!! this feels rushed but i was just too excited to get to some parts!!! also i have had some parts written out for SO long that they dont even feel cute to me anymore so im literally praying to every deity rn that you guys think its cute lmao anyway enjoy!!!!

**********

It had been about a week since Karl's slip up but everything was already more normal than Y/n had expected it to be. Of course, George, Sapnap and Quackity were all very understanding and gave her space while simultaneously reassuring her that she was safe with them. She fully believed it too, she knew she was safe with them and they weren't going to tell anyone her name.

The one unusual thing was now she had a heavy guilt, like someone dropped another sandbag in her stomach, every time Dream texted her. If the others knew, it was only fair that she tell him her name too, right? I mean, it's Dream. Dream! The boy who had quickly slipped his way into her life and, though she wouldn't admit it to Karl or Naomi, her heart.

But how? Does she just come right out and say it or wait until it gets brought up? She hadn't practiced telling anyone her name because she wasn't planning on doing it any time soon. Though, maybe she should have been seeing as she was going to see them all in person in a little over a month.

Regardless of the guilt, Y/n had other things to worry about today; Quackity was coming to visit. Karl had picked him up from the airport and the two of them spent all day catching up and doing who knows what but Y/n still hadn't met him. She was scared. She wasn't scared of Quackity, but scared because it was the first time one of her online friends would be able to put a face to her name and voice.

Y/n shuffled across her living room rug and reached for her phone on the coffee table, looking for some sort of distraction while she waited for them to arrive.

-

Y/n rolled her eyes but smiled, shaking her head as she threw her phone on the couch. Okay, he's right. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be great. It's just Quackity. If he said anything rude or annoying or anything she could literally just step on him like a bug.

A sharp knock on the front door of her apartment snapped her back into reality. She shook her limbs of nervousness as she made her way to the door, two familiar voices begging to be acknowledged from the other side.

"Let us iiinnn!! Y/nnn!!!!" Karl whined.

After countless times asking the same question, she finally convinced Karl that she was okay with him using her real name in front of Quackity. He clearly still felt guilty about telling the boys her name, asking her multiple times in different ways whether he should call her Y/n or Bugsy in front of the guest. She finally got it through his head that she didn't mind either way.

"Hold on!" she yelled back. She unlocked the door and swung it open to see Karl and Quackity. "So impatient."

"Holy shit, you are tall! Goddammit, I thought that was a joke!"

Y/n laughed shyly at the greeting, looking at Quackity like he was crazy. "Hello to you too. Tried to warn you, dude."

"Yeah but, damn! You're tall and attractive, what the hell?"

"Dude," she said with a warning in her voice. She thought the flirting on Twitter was funny, but in real life she got embarrassed easier and wasn't a fan. "I'm about to kick you out of my house before I even let you in."

This was weird, meeting Quackity before meeting some of her other friends. She loved Quackity, but she had known George much longer and Sapnap even before that. There was no problem with meeting Quackity, she just had no idea how to act since she felt like she hardly knew him.

"Am I allowed to tell people that you're hot?" he asked as he fell on her couch, Karl following right after.

"Quackity!" Y/n yelled, her face heating up at a compliment. "Seriously?"

Karl cackled and shoved Quackity. "Shut up, Alex! No, you're not allowed!"

"Sorry, is that compliment reserved for Dream?" He cackled at his own joke and Y/n's face heated up even more.

"I seriously will kick you out of my house."

"You wanna be flirty on main but not in real life?" Quackity scoffed.

"I'm not flirty on main, you are!" she laughed. "Seriously, don't."

"Okay, sorry, I'll stop," Quackity promised with a laugh in his words.

The three of them fell into easy conversation, mostly because Karl and Quackity were already comfortable around each other at this point. They eventually decided to go to the mall, just to mess around and do something.

*reminder: covid doesn't exist in this fic bc we only want happy things so ignore their masks :P*

Y/n frowned as she unlocked her front door, staring at her phone. She had been so happy with all the fans freaking out about the meetup so she looked at the trending list, expecting to see a flood of keyboard smashes and happiness, but that's not all she ended up seeing. BUGKARLITY was trending, so she scrolled through the tweets and was upset to see not all of them were positive. In fact, when she typed her name in the search bar, lots of the tweets using her name were rather mean.

A few that stuck in her head called her an attention whore and said that her friends only flirted with her because she paid them too. Who on earth would even do that? Some hurt way more than others but she tried to push them aside. It wasn't like this was the first time she had seen comments like this, but they had only gotten worse since her Minecraft date with Dream. She was worried it was cause more hate for her friends and the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of their own hate.

She typed several different messages to Dream, deleting them all after she reread them. She felt like she had to request the same thing from him in a different way. Maybe because she felt like his words meant more, even if he really was just joking like the rest of them. She decided to call him instead of texting.

"Hi!" he chirped happily from the other end.

"Hi, Dream," she said as her chest filled with something warm at the sound of his voice. "How are you doing?"

"Good," he dragged out the word. "How are you?"

"Okay."

"Just okay? What's up?"

"Um," she started, immediately forgetting the words she decided she'd use. "I just... would you mind, uh, not flirting with me so much on, like, Twitter and streams and stuff like that?"

There was a silence before Dream's frantically apologetic words came through. "Yes, of course, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. If I had known I was making you uncomfortable, I wouldn't have—"

"Wait, no," she interrupted but he must not have heard.

"—said things like... oh gosh. Bug, I'm really sorry—"

"Dream!" she raised her voice, getting him to stop ranting. "You don't make me uncomfortable."

"Oh. Really?"

"Of course not. I actually think it's really..." Cute? Adorable? Endearing? "funny," she decided.

"Oh. Then why...?"

She sighed heavily and explained what she told the others. "So, yeah. I just don't want you guys getting hate because of me so I figure if you stop then... you know."

"Bug..." he said gently. "I'm really sorry. I promise you that I don't—none of us think those things about you."

"I know."

"No, seriously," he said, clearly not believing her. "You need to understand that I..." he paused. "I mean what I say. Always."

Always? she thought. There's a few things he's said that certainly he didn't really mean... like calling her cute?

"I don't joke around like that unless I want to. I wouldn't say things like I say to you unless I really, really, genuinely considered you a close friend and felt comfortable around you. And I do."

Her heart swelled. "Thanks, Dream. I just... maybe don't do it so much for right now? Online, at least," she clarified, not wanting to deprive herself completely of Dream's flirting.

"Yeah, if that's what you want, of course."

"Well, I don't want you to stop flirting with me but, yeah."

He chuckled. "Oh, you do like when I flirt with you?"

She hummed and changed the subject. "Did I interrupt you doing anything?"

"No," his teasing voice dropped and was back to his regular self. "I'm just editing the video we filmed the other day."

"Oh, the 'Minecraft, but you can't touch the floor'?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she said, not meaning to sound disappointed. "I'll let you get back to it—"

"No. I mean, you can stay on the phone. Unless you're busy."

She smiled and put her phone on speaker and set it next to her foot on the floor. "I was just gonna paint. So I can stay."

Before she knew it, almost two hours had passed of them sitting in comfortable silence, occasionally speaking to share something with the other before going back to their tasks. It was comforting knowing she didn’t need to speak constantly and could just hang out with Dream.

Y/n's phone rested on the floor next to her, Dream on speakerphone on the other end, only the sounds of his keyboard clicking letting her know he hadn't fallen asleep or hung up. She wasn't sure when they started doing this, staying on the phone even when they had nothing to talk about, but they had done it a few times before. They had talked on the phone and Discord many times but it was usually always with purpose, not usually this silently-enjoying-each-others-presence nonsense. Who was she kidding calling it nonsense, she enjoyed it an embarrassingly insane amount.

She repositioned so she was laying on her stomach as she finished sketching an image that was in her mind.

"Hey, you still there?" Dream asked softly.

"Yeah. Sorry, am I taking away from your sitting in silence time with George?" she joked.

Dream chuckled lightly. "Nah, you're more fun. I was just seeing if you ditched me for Karl yet."

"Nah, you're more fun," she mimed truthfully. "But I'm very focused on this drawing."

"Can I see it when you're done?"

"Don't expect too much. It looks bad."

"If you don't tell me what it is, I can't know how accurate or inaccurate it is."

"Very true..." she trailed off, holding the canvas further away to examine it all at once. She wanted the sketch to be perfect before she made permanent choices with paint. She enjoyed the serenity they maintained even when talking, voices low and delicate like they were keeping secrets but not quite whispering. "Are you almost done editing your video from the other day?"

"Sorta. I'm at the part where you and Sapnap almost died laughing because a ghast knocked George into lava and then Sapnap laughed so hard he fell into lava."

She chuckled, remembering the situation vividly. "That was so funny. The way George screams is so funny."

"Let Naomi know that," he mumbled, causing Y/n to gasp.

"Dream!" she laughed loudly and he joined.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's true though."

"Disgusting!"

A distant voice sounded on the other end and she assumed it was Sapnap. "What do you want for dinner?"

Dream responded with a soft, "Nothing, I'm good."

"Are you talking to Bugsy?"

He must have responded physically because the next sound was Sapnap's very clear, much more lively voice speaking directly into the phone. "Hi, Bugsy!"

"Hi, Sapnap!"

"Can you tell Dream to eat some damn food? This man literally hasn't eaten a single thing all goddamn day."

"Dream," Y/n scolded slowly. "Please eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm not showing you my painting until you eat."

A door closed on the other end and she took that as a sign that Sapnap had left.

"I don't wanna see it anyway. It's probably trash."

"Take that back!" she gasped lightly. She looked at the canvas as she grabbed the first paint color and laughed. It was only a sketch and it was already trash. "Fine, then I won't go on the trip if you don't eat in the next ten minutes."

"That's punishing yourself too though."

"Who says I want to see you?" she asked.

"I never said anything about not seeing me being the punishment."

She had been caught. "It was implied."

"Sure it was."

"It's true though. Who says I wanna see your stupid face?"

He didn't say anything, but an incoming FaceTime call lit up Y/n's phone. A FaceTime call from him.

Her smile dropped. "Clay?"

"Answer it," his voice was lower and her heart started beating faster. Was he really about to show her his face to prove a point? Reveal his biggest secret that only a few close friends knew? To her of all people? She made sure she couldn't be seen in the small window and pressed accept, the voice call ending and the FaceTime call starting.

To her surprise, what came into view wasn't his face, but the logo of the hoodie he was wearing, the simple smile of his merch taunting her. She laughed, the anxiety slowly fading away as it was replaced with a heavy feeling in her stomach. Was she disappointed? Maybe a little, but he teased her into believing she would see him.

"Oh, wow! Dream face reveal! He looks just like his icon, no way!!!"

His chest moved up and down as he laughed, not moving the camera away. "You heard it here first, guys! You've known my face all along, the logo is actually my face!"

She laughed and returned to painting, not paying any more attention to her phone since he was now also showing his ceiling, a small corner of his monitor in frame but nothing else. "I mean it though, if you don't eat, I'm going to be so mad I won't even want to be friends anymore. Or you'll die from malnourishment before we get the chance to meet."

"I doubt it. I'm just not hungry."

"Whatever."

"Oh, hey, so you met Quackity today. How was it?"

"Very scary."

"Yeah?" he asked sympathetically, urging her to explain if she wanted.

"Yeah. But it turned out okay! He didn't act any different so it was fine. It was mostly just awkward. He's also so freaking loud. You would not believe how much louder he and Karl get when they're together."

"I can imagine. Aren't they doing a stream right now or something?"

"Yeah, I think so. I don't wanna watch though, I've had enough of them for the month."

Dream laughed. "How will you deal with them together for New Years'? It'll be for like two weeks."

"Who knows if I'll actually go?"

"Wait, what?" he asked abruptly, not even bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. His keyboard stopped clicking and she could picture him staring at his phone as if looking at her. "Of course you're going."

"Not if you don't eat food! You have, like, 3 minutes to eat something until I officially am busy doing other things whenever the trip is."

Dream groaned and clicked a few things on his computer before the image on the screen became blurry as he walked through the house, still pointing it at the ceiling. She looked away again and kept painting.

"Quackity's really funny though," she continued. "It was super awkward at first but it was fun to have someone else to help me make fun of Karl."

"Wait, Bug," Dream called out over the sound of wrappers crinkling.

"Hm?" She hummed, continuing to paint.

"Bug," his voice was much softer and he sounded nervous.

She looked at her screen and dropped the paintbrush as she focused on what she saw, grabbing her phone and holding it closer to her face so she could see, still making sure she wasn't in view. All the anxiety from the beginning of the FaceTime suddenly came back and hit her like a truck. Sitting on her screen, waiting to be seen, was Dream. His hood was up, tufts of blonde hair sticking out, and he was standing with his back towards a dark room, the dim light from his pantry making his face just visible.

He held up a cookie in front of his actual, real face. "Are you watching?"

"Y-yea... I... Yeah. I'm watching. Is that really you?"

He nodded once before shoving the cookie in his mouth. "There, I consumed food," he announced, his voice muffled by the cookie. "Now you're legally obligated to come."

"I—What? CLAY! WHAT?"

"What?" he asked innocently as he chewed, walking back to his room and still holding the phone up to show his face. His room light was on, making his face much more visible. If Y/n thought he was attractive in the harsh pantry light, he must have looked like a god in his room lighting, even as pixelated as he was due to the quality of FaceTime. He fell on his bed and Y/n could only gape at his features. He slumped against his headboard, surrounded by roughly a thousand pillows, sporting a small, shy smile as he stared at the screen. "Bug, what?"

She opened her mouth but no words came out. Needless to say, he was unbelievably handsome. Part of the speechlessness was from the shock that he showed his face out of the blue, but obviously, the majority of it was that he was pretty much the most attractive person she'd ever seen. It should be illegal for someone to look that good in a hoodie, especially when pixelated.

"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Wanna take back what you said earlier?" He bit into another cookie.

"W-what did I say earlier?" Why was she stuttering???

"You said you don't wanna see me and that I'm ugly," he teased.

She paused for too many seconds too long before finally muttering, "you arrogant son of a bitch." He laughed loudly at that.

His eyes crinkled and he threw his head back. So that's what he looks like when he wheezes, she thought to herself, pretty.

Dream shuffled his position on his bed and rested his head on one of his hands. He looked so comfy. "Why are you so quiet, weirdo?" he mumbled.

She set her phone back down and touched her cheeks with her hands and looked away for a moment, grounding herself to the real world for a second. She couldn't process her thoughts when she was staring at a man as gorgeous as Clay. "I don't know, maybe because you gave me no warning before showing me your face? Or because you failed to mention that you're incredibly hot?"

She was so glad she had looked back at her phone or else she would have missed the glorious sight of his cheeks turning bright red before he turned the camera back to his ceiling. "Oh my gosh."

"Aw cute, I made you blush."

"Shut up," he mumbled. "You threatened to not come if I didn't eat something!"

"You didn't have to—you showed me your freaking face just to prove you ate a cookie!! DREAM! I would have believed you if you just said you ate something!" she laughed breathlessly, staring at the phone now for a chance to see him again. "I was joking anyway!"

"Sure you were."

"I was."

"Well, oh well. You deserved to see me anyway."

"Oh, I deserve to see you?" She laughed. "How big is your ego?"

"You know what I meant," he groaned. "You got doxxed by Karl and you met Quackity in person. And you've clearly had a bad day because of all the hate and stuff. You've done a lot of stressful things recently and you deserved to be let in on a secret too."

He was so sweet. Like, tooth-rotting, Halloween candy stash hidden under a kid's bed, upset tummy sweet. She also couldn't get over the fact that he was a million times cuter when he was shy like he was being now, his voice soft and unsure. It contrasted vastly with the confident, loud-mouthed Dream everyone usually saw, though she liked that Dream too. She wished he could show his face for just one more second to see what he looked like shy. Probably sickeningly adorable.

This was it, wasn't it? The chance she had been waiting for to tell him her name? He just let her in on his biggest secret, now he was the one deserving to be let in.

"Y/n," she said with a confident, but soft voice.

There was a long pause. "W-what?"

"Y/n."

He understood the second time immediately. "Y/n..." he tested, the smile in his voice clear as day. "I like it."

"Yeah, well, I guess you deserved to know the secret too."

"I would have been content never knowing."

"Really?" She didn't believe him. He seemed like the type to never be satisfied, always looking for something better. Not in a greedy way, but in a motivational, goal-oriented big achiever way.

"Really," he hummed. "I already feel like you're too good to be true so I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't a real person."

It was silent as she tried to collect her thoughts.

"Bug? You okay?"

"Yeah, I... it's just a lot."

"Sorry."

"No, it's not you. Well... I don't know. I just don't know what I'm supposed to say when you say things like that," she admitted.

He paused. "I think you always have the perfect responses when I say things like that."

"What do I usually say?" She smiled shyly, pulling her hoodie up to her lips.

"You usually call me a nerd or say you can't stand me. 'Oh my gosh I cannot stand you'," he mimicked before laughing.

"What? How is that the perfect response to you saying you can't believe I'm real?"

He hummed and she could practically hear him shrugging. "Because it's a classic Bug response. It's a hundred perfect you. So yeah, it's perfect."

She was silent, trying to compose herself before she exploded.

"By the way, check Twitter."

"Why, are you bragging about me calling you hot?" she teased, hoping to make him blush like she had earlier. It worked.

"Oh my gosh, no. Just look."

She clicked her home button and navigated to the app, her feed instantly flooding with the same similar messages.

"Oh, my gosh," she muttered, her fingers flying away as she typed out her own tweet in response to the love.

Dream chuckled from the other end and when she asked him why, he vaguely said that George texted him but didn't explain further.

"Um, I have to go," she said mournfully. "Karl and Quackity are coming over again."

"Booooo," he pouted.

"Sorry, you aren't the only man in my life," she teased before instantly regretting her choice of words. Too flirty, Y/n, she thought to herself.

"Hm, shame. Am I at least at the top of the list?"

She bit her lips, wanting desperately to repeat what she had told him on their Minecraft date. In the end, she gave in. "I always mean what I say too," she started. "You're my main bitch, baby."

Dream made some sort of sound, a mix of a scoff and a whine but Y/n didn't comment on it, just glowing with heat in her cheeks.

"Leave before I don't let you," he said softly and the heat only grew.

"Goodnight, Dream," she pressed, the tone in her voice letting him know he was being a tease. "Thanks for... thanks for your tweet. And for everything you said earlier."

"Of course. Sorry that you have to see those kinds of things a lot."

"It's okay when I have people like you."

"People like me? What does that mean?"

"Just.... people like you." Cute, sweet, kind, genuine people who make her heart flutter.

She could hear his smile in his words and she figured he knew the unspoken words in her thoughts, the ones she was saying without saying. "Okay. Goodnight, Y/n."

"Goodnight."

**********

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[the-navistar-carol]

here from zee's blog. don't worry about answering if its too personal, but how did you know you were ace? did the whole romance vs. sexual thing confuse you too? going through my own thing rn and idk how to articulate it but i feel like advice coming from a person that i know, in however limited of a scope, would help, as opposed to an informational post (they have been helpful too! its just not what im looking for rn).

Hey, anon! I have a funny story about how I realized I was ace, actually — and it’s funny because it’s completely ass backwards from anyone else. To TL;DR it, yes, romance vs sex confuses the shit out of me still. Like, how can someone look at someone else (even someone they don’t know) and be like “smash” ?????? How does it go further than aesthetic??? Than “oo pretty person! moving on” ?????

Content warning, I talk about boobs below the cut.

But the story of how I realized I was ace goes something like this.

I didn’t know that being LGBTQ+ was a thing until seventh grade. Like at all. Age twelve. Had never heard about people being gay. My parents are not homophobic, they are accepting of who I am, but for some reason -- LGBTQ+ things were never brought up in the house. But age twelve. That was the year I got a wider group of friends and also had wider internet access. What did I do with it, you may ask? Print memes off of Pinterest and carried them in a binder to show my friends. I am not joking.

But in this Pinterest rabbit hole, I discovered the glory of crossposted Tumblr textpost memes. Like old Tumblr memes. Having-the-old-format old. And alongside these memes like the dancing Spiderman and none pizza with left beef was some pretty profound shit. Like the ol’ “biggest gaudiest patronuses,” the “the day after i killed myself” poem, all that jazz. And in that category of profound was a bootlegged post about asexuality.

“Huh,” twelve-year-old me said, taking all of fifteen minutes to think about it. “That sounds pretty accurate!”

While I have not looked back since, it gets funnier every year that that is how I figured it out. Because for the first three years or so, I was carrying around the label with just the knowledge of what it was, not really thinking about it whatsoever despite it being as true as the color of the grass in California. (Brown.) It was only when I hit sophomore year or so that I actually began to realize hang on, I was actually on to something here and that there was actually — shocker — a lot more about me that fit with the ace label. I got bored when making out with an ex. I got BORED. MAKING OUT. That was the funniest one.

To TL;DR that — I never had the feeling of “oh no I’m broken, I don’t feel this emotion” because I slapped the label on myself and then discovered I actually fit into it after the fact. I’m probably not the best person to ask “hey how did you know you were ace” because I discovered more about being ace after already labeling myself as such. But I did write a research paper on asexuality, if someone ever wants to read that for some reason.

…..i did not answer your question.

About the romance versus sex thing: it absolutely still confuses me. Tinder is a huge confuser. Why. Why the hell. Hookups. Why. Why the hell. Is it not enough to listen to someone ramble about something they're passionate about? Love is stored in the infodumps.

My last ex was not ace, I have not dated someone ace because finding ace men is actually quite hard. But there was a point near the end of our relationship when he wanted to see my boobs (like with a bra on, not nude from the waist up). I got nothing out of it, but shrugged and went “sure” because,,,, ehh???? It’s just,,,,,, boobs? They sure as hell don’t make me horny, so I had no problem temporarily showing off things that didn’t affect me lmfao

People, to me, are like paintings and dogs. They’re like paintings in the sense that I can stop and admire someone, even for a while, but I’ll eventually walk away. They’re like dogs in the sense that I want to cuddle and hold hands and do soft things with them, but I wouldn’t fuck a dog, to put it crudely. Also, I get tired of hanging out with people after a while, but that’s also because I’m autistic and a whole other can of worms.

Hope this helped?

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Finale | S.R.)

Series Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Finale |

Summary: It’s Halloween, and there are a lot of things on Spencer’s mind.

A/N: Here it is, everyone: the end of the story. Thank you so much to everyone who’s read this far. I greatly appreciate all of you, and I hope you enjoy it!   Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Fluff/Smut (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Penetrative sex, light D/s, mostly fluff! Word Count: 7.5k

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Autumn has widely been considered the season of change. It is an understandable characterization; from the shifting hues of the leaves to the wildly fluctuating temperatures, few things stayed consistent in the fall. Perhaps that’s why someone who loathes change, someone like me, finds the season so thrilling.

It’s like the Earth and the Sun made a pact to make changes more predictable in their own unique, chaotic way. The breeze becomes biting and the days become shorter, but for these downfalls, we are granted a beauty and calmness that can’t be rivaled by any other season.

But she wasn’t a season, and when it came to my attention and appreciation, there were few choices that were easier to make.

“Spencer. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

(Y/n)’s face was half covered by the cup she held tightly with both hands, but I could picture the hidden expression perfectly, regardless.

“What? We don’t have to agree on everything.”

The truce was received poorly, her response a heavy scoff and a shake of her head. I tried to follow along with her suddenly heated words but couldn’t contain the stars in my eyes that often accompanied my daydreams. If she did notice, she stubbornly ignored the adoration to continue, “I understand you’re a genius or whatever, but I think your opinions on cider and cocoa are... wrong. They are wrong.���

It was my turn to feign displeasure (I hoped hers wasn’t real, anyway), clutching tighter to my own drink that I found myself defending on a park bench with dozens of strangers as an audience.

“An opinion can’t be wrong!” I chirped, only hating the way my voice jumped a little bit. After all, it was hard to hate it when it made her giggle. But despite how much sweeter the liquid seemed when I drank it in the presence of her smile, I also knew that she wouldn’t appreciate my immediate agreement. So, I pushed back just a little, “It can be misguided or ignorant but not outright wrong.”

“Unless it’s yours, on this topic,” she shot back without hesitation.

I tried to flash her a pout, hoping that maybe it would work for me like it did for her. It did not. Her eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped open with another laugh, and I decided that I preferred that outcome, anyway. The longer my bottom lip stuck out, the wider her smile got. I waited to stop until her eyes closed and turned away, just long enough for me to let the full force of my affection show before she noticed.

She saw it, anyway, in the form of a similar smile spread over my face when I softly admitted, “Fine. You’re right.”

“Oh, I know.”

Her tongue peeked between her lips, and I found myself thinking less of cider and cocoa and more about how unbelievably lucky I was to find someone that I never felt the need to prove anything to. A person that didn’t care if I held all the answers.

I might’ve continued down that sappy train of thought, but it was hard to do while she had hoisted herself halfway over the table to try and grab hold of my cup right as I went to drink from it. Of course, she had failed to take into account just how big the table was, and just how close I was willing to come to falling before I let her drink from my cup right after she’d criticized my preference of fall flavors.

For a second, I really thought she might climb onto the table to win, but the judgmental looks from the parents in the park must have beaten her desire to win. As forlorn as humanly possible, she fell back into her seat with a loud “Hmph!” which really only managed to elicit an equally immature giggle from me.

“Shut up,” she laughed before shoving my paper plate further into my chest, “And eat your stupid pie.”

All I could think as she grabbed my fork and stabbed the middle of the piece to try to lift the entire thing at once, was that I was right about one thing: Autumn, in all its vitality and beauty, could still never compare to her.

That thought persisted through the pumpkin patch, growing in intensity as she skipped through the vine-laden path like a regular fall fairy. It was much easier to get lost in her there, crouched and inspecting foliage. Her arguments regarding gourds were much less spirited, with her watching me wide-eyed and curious as I explained the stages of pumpkin growth and all the different uses for the fruit.

I still let her make the final choices, opting to analyze her selections and tease her for them later, instead. That was the plan, anyway, to continue the competitiveness lest she gets bored with me before the day was over. When she walked past me holding open the passenger side door, I thought it might’ve already happened.

But then she just placed the pumpkin into my hands so she could open the back door. Before I could even move, she carefully removed it from my arms again and placed it in the seat.

“What are you doing?” I said through a very amused chuckle.

She was decidedly not entertained by my confusion, stopping to turn to me with a bored, frustrated expression. “I’m buckling him in,” she explained slowly, like I might need the help. Then, to add insult to silly injury, she added, “Duh.”

I was too distracted by the details to tackle the absurdity of it all.

“Him? It’s a boy pumpkin?”

“Obviously. Look at him,” she snorted, finally clicking the seatbelt in before tenderly petting the top of the lucky little gourd. Once she was convinced it would be as safe as she could make it, she allowed me to begin to escort her into her proper seat.

“You know it’s safer on the floor, right?” I asked before she’d slipped past me. I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her away from the car so I could enjoy the warmth of her before it was replaced with the dry air of the engine.

“How dare you,” she balked with an open mouth that was just begging to be kissed. By the time I got close enough to try, though, her hand fervently shoved my cheek away. I tried to laugh, but she used the same hand to cover the noise, trying and failing to convince me she was being serious.

“Why don’t you just hold him?” I mumbled against her palm.

That was enough for her to abandon my embrace altogether. With a scoff and a roll of her eyes, she pried my arms off of her and finally made her way to my passenger seat. I didn’t fight her too hard, even taking the time to shut her door like my mother always insisted.

The mercy was not returned, with her eyes narrowed into a playful disbelieving glare that I hadn’t seen in some time. My mind was brought back to the first time she ever let me know she was jealous, bickering over blondes and preferences while she sat in the very same place. And, just as before, she was still wearing the same raggedy old sweatshirt of mine.

“If this is any indication of how you’ll be with a human baby, I have dramatically overestimated your competence,” she droned, obviously unaffected by the stars that appeared in my eyes every time I looked at her.

“The one and only time you’ll ever be able to say those words. I hope you enjoyed it,” I joked. A funny enough joke that she couldn’t help but smile through her facade.

“Don’t worry,” she chuckled, “I did.”

The day could have ended there, and it would have been enough. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a single thing that wouldn’t be better with her there. In a way, I think we were trying to prolong the high of ‘hooky,’ finding even the faintest interest in an activity as enough of an excuse for a detour.

… Which was probably how we found ourselves in our third park of the day. After all, I loved any autumnal vision, so how could I decline an opportunity to let them serve as a backdrop for watching her? And that was an accurate description of how I spent the day. It might sound boring, and if it were anyone else, it probably would have been. But no matter how often I saw her, I found myself learning new things about her every single time. Each freckle and scar became a part of the high-definition collection of memories that I would never let myself forget. The most beautiful images that kept me sane in the face of evil and filth.

“Do you see that?”

For a moment, I thought she might have read my mind. But then I realized that her eyes were still fixed forward, stuck on the horizon ahead of us.

“See what?”

“That,” she pointed, “Right there.”

My eyes followed the line, finding nothing but an area of carefully manicured, yellow grass and trees already set to rest for the season. It must have been clear to her that I was lost, because her pointing became more animated and her voice rose as she shouted, “Right there!”

“The giant pile of leaves?”

“Uh-huh.”

Then, in all of my obliviousness, I just sort of stared. Even when her hand grew tighter around mine and her feet started to move faster, I didn’t put two and two together until it was too late.

“What about— No! (Y/n)!” I shouted, cutting off my own train of thought and only barely letting go of her in time to watch her jump straight into the collection of fallen foliage that some poor landscaper had obviously worked hard to gather.

I have to believe that even if that unlucky, underappreciated individual saw what she’d done to their hours of work, that they would forgive her. It was hard to feel anything but joy at the sounds that came from the pile. Yet I approached her cautiously, with both hands in my pockets to avoid the urge to throw myself into danger with her.

“You’re a terror,” I said, settling for a crouched position in front of her. Still able to see her but far enough from her grasp that she had to crawl through a wall of leaves to come nose to nose with me. “This is literally the scariest thing you’ve done all season.”

“Come on in, the water’s fine,” she purred.

As enticing as the offer was, my mind was too preoccupied with statistics of spider and snake bites, not to mention the possibility of ticks still scouring the landscape for any last second hosts. The answer was easy.

“Absolutely not.”

With another exhale of pure displeasure, she threw her body back into the leaves, burying herself into a mess of yellows and reds that somehow only made her look even more beautiful. The chaotic scene matched her energy well, and the harm she was doing was minimal considering I was absolutely going to search every inch of skin for any marks later.

The only thing that was more appealing to me than watching her make an absolute fool out of herself in a pile of leaves was the intense urge to tease her about it. So, taking a regrettable seat on the grass, I sighed, “I think I’m going to have to arrest you for trespassing.”

There was a loud gasp from the center of the pile, followed by a scuffle of flailing limbs among the foliage.

“You don’t own this leaf pile! I do! I am queen of the leaf pile!” she screeched.

“Alright Princess,” I subtly corrected, “whatever you say.”

As promised, I didn’t put up a fight. Even when she finally got a hold of my hands and dragged me into the madness with her. I followed her no matter what nonsense she demanded, just as she had with me so many times. Granted, my desires weren’t nearly as dangerous or strange. They were pretty much just a collection of foreign films and reading that always lulled her to sleep.

But that day there was no sign of her energy waning. The early sun faded and we kept going. I’m not sure how, but she managed to enjoy herself in the D.C. landscape of bars and blaring car horns despite not being able to indulge in anything herself. Although she did half-heartedly attempt to trick me into buying her drinks in several different establishments, I think she was honestly proud that I avoided the drinks altogether. It was a nice reminder that sobriety could be something enjoyed between the two of us, regardless of the environment. However, we didn’t let that stop us from jumping into a crowd of very drunk women who had insisted we join their haunted tour of the city.

“Are you scared?” she whispered into my ear. The feeling of her warm breath against my skin caused a shiver to run down my spine, ruining any credibility I had in my response.

“No. Why would I be scared? It’s just history.”

“Are you sure?” she asked again.

“Yes!” I insisted with the worst possible timing. Because just as soon as the word had left my lips, I felt the distinct sensation of fingers running down my neck and arm opposite to her. I was so convinced that’s what it was that I even spun around with a yelp, crashing into at least three different people just to find a very startled woman with the worst hung scarf I’d ever seen.

(Y/n) had already put two and two together and was lost in an absolute fit of laughter. There were already tears forming in the corners of her eyes as she doubled over, barely able to stand through it all. Because there I was, her 31-year-old FBI agent boyfriend, screaming over a scarf.

“Laugh it up,” I droned. And she did. She kept laughing through any attempts at a response, and after the initial embarrassment wore off, I couldn’t help but join her.

“I hope you know you chose me. You chose this man!” I shouted, gesturing to the people around us who had already forgotten about our shenanigans, “And everyone knows it!”

“I’m sorry I can’t—” she wheezed, pausing to take a necessary breath that was all lost with another bunch of giggles “—You’re a fucking FBI Agent!”

“Well I can’t shoot a ghost, can I?” I mumbled through the hit to my ego. But any suffering was quickly dealt with as she threw dramatic arms around my waist, pulling me close and protecting me from any other errant scarves that might show up.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” I returned with a quick kiss on her forehead. And even if I implied otherwise, I think she knew that I was having just as good of a time as she was. In fact, it was one of the most relaxing days of my life, which was saying something, considering how much walking was involved.

But no matter how tired we both were, I still had one last place to take her. It took her a while to figure out why the route felt so familiar, but I wasn’t ready to ruin the surprise. I wanted to watch the realization dawn on her. She didn’t disappoint.

“The Mayflower?” she asked with a bit of a bashful laugh before looking up at me through narrowed eyes, “Feeling nostalgic, Dr. Reid?”

“Yeah, a little bit. Thought it was more romantic than the club,” I offered, trying to shrug off the nervous butterflies that burst through my stomach. “Not by much, mind you.”

Although I got the feeling that she didn’t know, or perhaps just didn’t remember, that wonderful night from almost a year ago was one of the most important days of my life. I knew it then, too. From the second I set my eyes on her from my pitiful place against the bar, I knew that she would ruin me.

“Nothing screams high end romance like an alley and a little light law breaking,” she sighed. I almost missed it, too preoccupied with the way her arm tugged me tighter so she could rest her head against my shoulder.

“I can take you home if you’d rather.”

“Hmmm. Depends,” she hummed. Then, turning her head up to me with that playful look that always turned me to putty in her hands, she purred, “How much longer do you think you can wait before you just have to have me?”

I sucked in a sharp, sarcastic breath, eyeing her just long enough for her to start to fume, I let out all the air with a defeated sigh, “I guess we’re staying.”

That serene sort of teasing continued past the reception desk and all the way up the elevator. If there were other people there, we didn’t bother noticing. We were too busy watching one another to even look away long enough to find our room. Doubling back through the dizzying hallways until we found the elusive number, we finally settled into the only vaguely familiar layout of beige and tan.

She was much quicker at it than I was. Before I’d even finished washing my hands and checking exposed skin for bugs that I was convinced had hitched a ride from the leaf pile, she was already stretched out on the bed in nothing but a tiny piece of lacy cotton and her favorite sweatshirt. The sight made me stop, lost for breath and logic of how I was lucky enough to be there with her again.

“See something you like, Dr. Reid?” she teased through giggles, no doubt recalling the same memory as me.

My answer didn’t need to be said, but I said it, anyway. She deserved to hear it.

“Yes.”

With arms outstretched, she sleepily begged, “Come here.”

But I couldn’t.

“Not yet… I just… I want to look at you like this a little bit longer.”

How could I move on from this moment, when it was the best I’d ever felt? So overwhelmingly safe and at home despite being in a strange, sterile room. I had no desire to move any inch of me if it meant that this image would persist for the rest of my days.

“You getting all romantic on me?”

“Always,” I chuckled. Her usual disgust for my sappy behavior didn’t show itself, overpowered by the gentle curve of her lips and hands that were becoming more and more insistent to be held. Eventually, I had to move, knowing that it was the only way to hold her.

My body reacted the way it always did when it found her. All of the tension dropped from tired shoulders, desperate to touch her more. To feel the imprint of her body pressed against mine, a mess of heat and need and love.

She was the one to kiss me first, and for a moment I let her do it without reciprocation. I wanted to feel how her touch became softer and shier as she realized what I was doing. That I was spending all of my energy memorizing the way her lips parted as she tried to hold back a giggle against my almost-still lips.

“What’s happening in that big genius brain of yours?” she murmured with eyes half open but still containing universes.

“I’m just thinking of all the things you’ve done to make me fall in love with you.”

I thanked all of the gods in every pantheon that made her too tired to tease. Instead, she just laughed, playing her part in bringing us back to that night we met.

“Like quote Picard?”

“We still haven’t watched Star Trek together,” I whined.

The sound must have stirred something new in her, because she rolled us over to take her seat on my lap. She hung over me, looking down at me, hopeless and breathless at the feel of her thighs under my hands. My heart started to race, but I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t until she spoke the words that were already running through my mind, “We’ve got time. Picard can wait.”

Everything about it was effortless. Our bodies had fallen together and mouths found each other exactly like every romance novel has ever tried to tackle the metaphor of gravity.

But if we were an orbit, it was not a binary like the traditional notion of two equal souls. Despite the nickname I’d chosen for her, nothing about her soul was small. And even though she burned bright, she wasn’t anything like the fiery combustion of a star.

She was a home. A thing so full of vitality and life that I would love to watch for whatever time I had left. I was just a moon, loyally following her and trying my best to shield her from whatever might try to harm her. To protect her when she needed rest and to lead the tides to kiss her when she wished. I would be her shadow, shining a light onto her even in the darkest time. All that I asked for in return was a spot beside her.

‘One day,’ she had said before, ‘if you will have me.’

But it was never a question. Not for me. And if she really needed me to answer it for her, I was happy to give her that. I hadn’t been waiting for even a year, but it felt like a lifetime.

“Yeah, he can,” I repeated, quiet and with such a heavy waver that I’m surprised she could understand the shifting inflections. Even if she didn’t, she knew that something had changed in those few seconds of silence.

“What’s up, Spencer?”

I didn’t know how to answer. How to explain what I was feeling. But I grabbed hold of one hand, clinging desperately to her and guiding her to the heart that felt dangerously light. The rapid pace of its beating still not enough to alert her of the true cacophony of my thoughts.

“Are you okay?”

The answer was yes. Because no matter how loud and chaotic the sounds inside my head were, they all lead me to the same conclusion.

“Picard can wait, and we have a lot of time,” I tried to explain through a dry throat that was only growing tighter with the unwieldy weight of the feeling.

“Yes…” she mumbled back, just as trepidatious and nervous as I was.  

Just like I was. Because we were. We were connected by some force, whatever you want to call it. Whether it was a chemical or psychological or heavenly connection, I didn’t care. I wanted her to know how I felt. To know that there was nothing that would ever tear me away from her.

“But I don’t… I don’t think I want to wait.”

After a couple more seconds of silence, she answered with a knowing stare, “… What?”

From my position underneath her, I was able to reach over just enough to grab my jacket. Of course, it helped that she moved with me, clearly curious and terrified of the possibilities. But a good kind of terror… I hoped.

My confidence grew as her legs gripped tighter around my hips and her hands shot up to cover her chest with balled fists pressed against one another. I heard the friction of her skin as her body started to shake in a different way, with an adrenaline that I hadn’t seen from her in even the most dangerous situations.

But when I pulled a small velvet box from the internal pocket, everything stopped. She became completely still. Her eyes were wide and frozen on the object in my hands, only to look away when she heard my voice.

“(Y/n).”

“Where did you get that?” she asked like she hadn’t just seen me pull it from my jacket. The same jacket that I wore every time that I was with her. The wool fabric that she’d swaddled herself in on a number of occasions, none the wiser of how much heavier it was for me when I wore it.

“I know this is really random, a-and to be fair, I wasn’t expecting it, either,” I said through the most awkward laughs I’d ever produced (which was saying something), “I mean, I knew I wanted to marry you, I’ve known that for quite some time, hence the ring.”

I paused, but got nothing in response. Nothing except her lips quivering from their parted position, and her nose twitching as she tried to settle on just one expression. But it didn’t matter how she contorted her face; they were all exactly as they should be. Because they were all her.

“But today, with you… I-I’ve never been that happy in my life. Jumping in leaves and fighting over fall flavors and I—“

Her eyes stopped bouncing, settling with my gaze and robbing my lungs of all air. She made up her mind, deciding to leave everything exactly as it was. The honest truth of the overwhelming storm of every emotion that had been experienced in the little time we had shared together.

The knowing that everything had happened exactly as it should have to bring us here.

“I love you so much,” I whispered, careful to make every word as genuine as they were, “And I know that we have all the time in the world left with one another… but I don’t want to wait any longer for you to be my wife.”

“Ask me,” she answered immediately and abruptly.  


“Okay,” I laughed, endlessly entertained by how she could sound so aggressive even when we were both at our most vulnerable, caught in the nexus of our love.

“Um… Will you… marry me?”

There was no hesitation. No worry, no fear, and no doubt.

“Yes, you stupid old man!” she outright screamed, throwing arms around me even when it meant we both slammed against pillows and the headboard. She didn’t stop squealing even when she kissed me, struggling to find more of me to hold onto.

After she decided that tugging on my hair was the best way to express her affection, I managed to break away just long enough to shout, “Wait! I have to put the ring on you!”

“Then put it on!” she yelled, thrusting her hand in front of my face and practically slapping me in the process. But none of the pain mattered. Nothing was even recognizable outside of the feeling of her sweaty, shaking palm resting against my fingers.

I noticed for the first time that I was also trembling. I took the time to focus, slipping the ring over her finger. But once it started to safely slide into place, my eyes returned to watch what I knew to be happy tears fall over her cheeks. I wiped them away, but they were replaced with the wetness from my face when she brought us together again with a long, gentle kiss.

A calmness came over the room like the feeling following a storm. A clean slate with soil enriched for growth. A hope for a future forever changed.

“What do we do now?” she asked, biting her bottom lip and holding tight to my hands.

The answer seemed clear enough.

“Whatever we want.”

 —————————————————

 Is this really happening?

I stared at the diamond shining back at me with a clarity that had to be a metaphor for my heart. In the vague reflection of yellow light and us, I felt a warmth that doesn’t normally accompany metal. My finger’s new companion felt so comfortable in its new resting place. A constant reminder of the man I called home.

Then I turned back to him, unsure how I was supposed to move on from this moment. I never wanted to leave, but I also needed to move. I compromised and settled with my face against his chest, listening to the heartbeat he’d just dedicated to me. In that peaceful quiet, I heard him speak so softly I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it.

But I did.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said with fingers dancing through the ends of my hair, “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And for once, the thought didn’t feel like a burden. In fact, it felt like freedom. I was finally free to be who I was without worry that I would be alone. Without worrying that I would be too much or too little to please him.

I was enough.

Enough.

“I love you,” I said, tasting salt from tears I hadn’t even noticed were falling.

Curiously, and in a rare role switch, Spencer was the one who took a blatantly affectionate display and turned it into something else. Pulling me away from his chest, he dragged me up until he could drag his lips over my jaw.

“Don’t cry, little girl,” he cooed with what I could only imagine was a wicked grin, “I haven’t given you a reason to yet.”

Something about that gruff rumble in his throat caused my skin to ripple with goosebumps. Every inch of me burned with flames that could only be put out by his touch. I chased after his lips with my own, but he was insistent on trailing down my throat. He knew I would be powerless to him. I wouldn’t be able to argue when my hands were knotted in his hair and my hips were already rocking helplessly against his erection.

“I want you to fuck me,” I seethed. My blood was boiling from the heat I felt within, and before he could even answer I was already working at the buttons on his shirt.

“Oh? You don’t want me to make love to you?” Spencer laughed. As if that had ever been our style.

“No, I want you to take what’s yours.”

He responded to the demand by pushing me from my seat, forcing me onto my back on the other end of the bed. I wasn’t going to complain, either. The new position allowed me access to his belt, which I unbuckled before he even had time to laugh.  

“Are you really challenging me right now, little girl?”

But despite the taunt, he did nothing to stop me. His hands were also busy removing my clothes. And just like before, our nakedness was reciprocated. With each lost layer, I should have felt lighter, but I didn’t. I felt so powerful, so aware of how our bare bodies twined together.

“Here, of all places? Do you remember what I did to you that night?”

How could I ever forget?

“I’m not the same girl you had in your bed then,” I purred. We both knew it was true, although not in the way I was implying.

Because Spencer had changed me. Irrevocably. He taught me so much — not just about physics, literature, or criminology, either. He taught me about kindness, softness, and vulnerability. He taught me how to trust that someone could hold me without the intention of letting me go. More than anything, he taught me that I didn’t have to learn these things alone. Even the smartest man I’d ever met needed help with them sometimes.

Then again, something told me that Spencer wasn’t in a very humble mood. Perhaps it was the fact he’d pinned me down again, with his hands clumsily gripping hard enough to leave crescent moons in my forearms.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he growled with a small, chaste kiss, “You’re still just a fucking brat.”

I wasn’t feeling bratty then, though. Especially not as I felt the head of his cock pressed against me, just hard enough to feel the resistance of my body. He waited there, no doubt taking pleasure in the way my whole body squirmed underneath him. My hips bucked, but he managed to keep a cruelly steady distance.

“You’re so precious when you’re needy,” he mumbled. And although I stubbornly avoided looking him in the eyes out of protest, he forced my face towards him again, anyway. “Go on. Say please.”

“Fuck off,” I whined through a prominent pout that did me no favors.

“Say it.”

“Please!”

I managed to make eye contact, but it was fleeting. As soon as he thrust forward into me, my back arched and I lost myself in the pillows. My hands found him, though, leaving angry red welts over heated skin. If Spencer was at all affected by the pain, he made no showing of it. His pace continued, steadily forcing our bodies together until I trembled in his hands.

He would hold me there, at my limit but not pleading for him to do anything different. With tender hands, he would fuck me until I swore bruises would follow. But I never felt unsafe; I felt cared for and cherished in a way I’d never known. I trusted him to know my limits better than myself.

I trusted him with all of me because I had already seen that when given the chance, he would do whatever he could to protect me.

The love I felt must have shone through my eyes because his hips got slower, drawing out each movement. My hips rose in tandem with his, allowing me to feel every inch of him inside of me.

“This body belongs to me now and forever,” he whispered.

It always has.

“You belong to me.”

And I felt it. The undeniable string of fate that tied us to each other. I could feel his every emotion as his fingers brushed over my throat. I melted under his touch, completely consumed by the love he felt for me. The kind of love that people spent their whole lives searching for only to come up empty. That powerful thing that drove gods to war and men to madness.

The only feeling that could tear down every wall that had been carefully crafted to protect myself. Because I didn’t need them anymore. Spencer’s arms would take their place, holding me through the storms that might follow the same way he had carried me through the ones that led us here.

“Yes,” I breathed, “I’m yours.”

For forever and whatever comes after.

The words were truer than they’d ever been before, and Spencer took it as permission to let go of any remaining hesitation. The slow, gentle thrusts became faster and our moans echoed in the small room without a second thought to the poor patrons in the rooms surrounding us. Because if they felt what we did, they would understand. Spencer still tried to hush the sounds, crashing his lips over mine in a sloppy, frenzied kiss.

I was suddenly reminded of every romantic story I’d ever heard. They all spoke of feeling so close to someone that they felt like an extension of yourself. I wasn’t sure if it was completely true, but there was no denying how at home our bodies were. The way our tongues wrapped around one another and how our noses bumped so gently in the chaos was unmatched by any meeting driven by lust or need.

His hips met mine over and over again, no matter how hard I tried to keep him closer. Even when my hips chased his to be held longer, Spencer was persistent in the ruthless pace. Because like me, he was lost in the euphoria. I knew it from the sound of his whimpers and the way he bit my lip just a little bit harder.

“Tell me what you want, little girl,” he begged. Not ordered. Begged.

“You,” I answered without any doubt, “I just want you.”

His response came even faster, even more desperate and scratchy as it came through his lips into mine.

“You have me. For the rest of my life and whatever comes after, I will take care of you.”

There was nothing left to say. I could feel the truth and force behind the words as he fucked me harder, eliciting one more quiet cry from me in the sound of his name.

“Spencer...”

When he returned the call, though, it wasn’t with any name I’d heard from him before.

“So you better get used to this feeling,” he said through a smile that I felt on my lips before he drew back. He looked me in the eye as he buried himself in me, tensing to hold himself back just a few seconds longer. To see the look on my face and let that be the feeling of us giving in to each other for the first time in our new story.

“Because I’m never going to grow tired of this, Mrs. Reid.”

Mrs. Reid.

That was going to be my name.

Mrs. Reid.

That was the only thought running through my mind as I felt the coil in my gut snap and all of my muscles tense around him. There were no whorish sounds left in my lungs, only little whimpers and whines as I tried to claw him closer. Spencer gave up his visual in exchange for kissing me while he finished. My walls held him so tightly that I felt each pulse and every place where his release filled me. But nothing was more compelling than feeling the way his lip quivered between mine as his body fell onto mine with no grace required.

Spencer could act hard all he wanted, but I felt the way he craved softness. Safety. Love. All things I was happy to give… for a price.

“Say it again.”

“Say what again?” he replied sleepily but animated enough to have a healthy dose of snark. Snark that earned him a rough nudge of my elbow into his ribs.

“You know!”

But naturally, the genius had to play dumb. With a happy little hum, he snuggled closer to me, burying his face into my neck so he could mumble against the skin, “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Please,” I sighed, “for me?”

He seemed to contemplate the plea for a little while longer, with wiggling toes I felt against my shins and a happy sigh that breezed over my neck. I tried to take in those small things while I waited, knowing that while I had a lifetime to learn them, this moment would never come again.

“Fine,” he finally settled, propping himself up to give another soft kiss followed by the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Only for you, Mrs. Reid.”

 ——  The Next Morning ——

 Waking up next to Spencer with a ring on my finger was literally waking up to find my dream come to life. And sure, his light snoring and constant wriggling under the sheets he continued to pull off of me weren’t perfect or picturesque, but they were real. The same way that he chirped when he felt my legs wrap around him in his sleep and only woke when he heard me giggling.

His eyes fluttered open, taken aback by something that he saw. Although I would blame it on the sunlight filtering through the curtains, I was sure that he would give me all the credit.

“Good morning,” he slurred.  

“Hi,” I answered with a smile and an attempt to pull him closer. But my hand was stopped by his, squeezing my palm between his fingers before dragging my knuckles to his lips. From there, he laid a gentle kiss over the diamond he’d placed there the night before. Although it was strange to be outshone by a rock, I let it go for now.

“I know you shouldn’t sleep with it on, but it’s so nice to see it’s still there,” he said with a heavy breath before lowering our still joined hands to rest against his heart. I could feel the way it beat a little bit quicker as I came closer, and I wondered if this was really what it would be like forever.

“I couldn’t resist wearing it.”

“You know you can still change your mind, right? We haven’t told anyone.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I replied unlike every time before. There was no teasing, no joke or anger or sadness. Just a pure, unadulterated joy.

… Of course, the question did bring up an entirely new anxiety. It did feel a bit silly, but it needs to be expressed.

“Have you?”

“God, no,” he laughed. Like he’d only asked the question to see the way I might panic. But as soon as I heard his assurance, I knew it was the truth.

My mind started to drift back to that first morning we spent together. It felt like a lifetime ago, but everything still felt so very much the same. I wondered if there were things I would change if given the chance. It wasn’t until after I ran through the laundry list of things that we would have been better off without that I realized I’d asked the wrong question.

It wasn’t a matter of what I would have changed, but what I would have kept the same. And the answer was simple. No matter what I would face in my life, I just wanted it to be with him. Everything would be okay as long as I had him.

However, when I tried to kiss him, Spencer still seemed hung up on the things he would have changed. Our lips didn’t connect for even ten seconds before he broke apart, happily laughing through the words, “This is so much better when I’m not hungover.”

“Old man.”

He didn’t argue back, wiggling under the sheets until our chests were pressed together. I took it as a very poor attempt at a power play, because instead of craning my neck to look up at him from my spot, I simply climbed his lanky figure until our noses were pressed together.

“Your old man now,” he corrected, followed by my own clarification of, “You were always mine, Dr. Reid.”

“But now you get to show everyone.” He grinned, letting go of my hand to roam over the curves of my body. His daily attempts to memorize each version of me he held. After a few more moments of silent reverence, I asked the question we’d have to face eventually, lest we face even more awkward, embarrassing moments with the team.

“Who’s gonna tell everyone?”

He barely even considered the options before he shrugged.

“Let’s just… wing it.”

I paused, certain that I’d heard it wrong. “You, Spencer Reid, would like to ‘wing it?’” I repeated, barely able to get the words out without laughing from the absurdity of it all.

But he was quick to assure me, “Yeah, I do.”

“Alright. Whatever you say,” I sighed. I figured that it wouldn’t be worth it to plan right now, anyway. It wasn’t exactly our style. If anything, we would find the perfect time completely by accident.

“You know what we should do first though?” I excitedly announced to the best audience a girl could ever ask for.

“What?”

“Coffee,” I drawled. To which he quickly answered, “I love you an ungodly amount.”

Taking full advantage of that admission, I shoved the poor soul who’d shackled himself to me forever away as I ordered, “Go turn it on. I am craving shitty hotel coffee in bed with my fiancé.”

“Fine,” he resigned with a smile while rolling out of the bed, “Spoiled brat.”

“Your spoiled brat!” I shouted back from safe under the covers that I could finally get back in his absence. They weren’t as good as him, but they would be enough for now. I buried my face into his pillow, snickering as I heard a very tired Spencer call from the bathroom, “Forever mine!”

Just as the sounds of running water filled the room, I lifted my head at the distant sound of familiar chiming beside me.

“Is that my phone?”

I didn’t answer, paralyzed in my place as I felt the most intense sensation of deja vu I’d ever experienced. Right there on the nightstand, I saw the name Hotchner.

Spencer was quicker this time to leave the bathroom, but just as he turned the corner, a thought must have stopped him. Because he paused, staring at me with hotel sheets gathered around me and his phone against my ear.  

He didn’t try to fight me for the device. In fact, he didn’t move at all, watching from a few feet away with a smile I’d never seen before. The kind that I felt so deep inside of me that I realized this was what they meant to share a soul with someone.

 “Hello,” I spoke softly and filled with love, “this is Mrs. Reid.”

 The End.

—————————————————

Epilogue

[c-optimistic]

scar

Kara is not mysterious.

She’s not, though she makes a valiant attempt at it. She’s secretive and brilliant and more than talented at putting on an act, but she’s not mysterious. While there are dozens of things that don’t make sense about her, she has a refreshing habit of wearing her heart on her sleeve, consequences be damned, and even if Lena doesn’t understand what Kara does, she certainly can follow why.

Which is why the eyebrow thing is so…confusing.

(Perhaps the more accurate word is frustrating, frustrating that Lena can’t figure it out unlike some of Kara’s other idiosyncrasies.  

Understanding Kara’s preference for fatty and sugary foods was simple enough. Her Kryptonian physiology meant that fats and sugars took longer to break down, leaving her feeling full longer. Her partiality for movies with happy endings also made perfect sense—after all, who would wantto have more tragedy in their life? Even her habit of listening for Alex’s heartbeat every night before bed made sense; it had been how she’d fallen asleep when she first landed. But the eyebrowthing…)

Lena studies Kara as she settles into bed, watching her take her time to remove her glasses and run her fingers through her hair. The lamp on Lena’s side of the bed (it still leaves her a little breathless whenever she thinks things like that—whenever she notices the second toothbrush in the bathroom or nearly trips over one of Kara’s boots still laying where she kicked them off carelessly the night before) is still on, illuminating the thick file Lena’s been going through steadily for the past hour or so, waiting until Kara got back from dealing with the rogue alien causing a ruckus downtown.

“What?” Kara asks when Lena continues to stare rather than put out the lamp or put her work away. “Is there still gunk in my hair? I washed it out as best I could but—”

“—why do you do that?”

Kara blinks.

“…uh, wash my hair?” she asks, frowning as she settles back onto the pillows, looking over at Lena with playfully narrowed eyes.

“No. Why do you do that?” she asks again, this time raising her hand to press her fingertips right above her left eyebrow, attempting to demonstrate Kara’s inexplicable behavior. “You touch your scar before bed every night.”

“Do I?”

“You don’t realize you’re doing it?” Lena asks incredulously, her eyebrows rising. She puts the thick file away, shifting so that she’s more settled against the pillows and is facing Kara. “Though maybe it makes sense. I suppose someone like you wouldn’t be all that used to scars.”  

“I don’t touch it because I’m not used to scars, Lena,” Kara laughs, leaning over and pressing a kiss to Lena’s temple. She’s being annoyingly calm about it, either not realizing or not caring that this one unexplainable habit has been driving Lena nuts since she first started spending the night. “It’s just…comforting.”

“Comforting?” Lena repeats blankly, not quite sure what Kara could possibly mean. She doesn’t like drawing comparisons between herself and Kara—that’s just begging for a downward spiral, who could possibly want to be compared to Supergirl?—but in this one instance, she can’t help herself. Lena has a great deal of scars (and she allows herself a moment to be poetic as she thinks of all the metaphorical scars Lex and her parents have left on her) and she hates them all. There’s the thin white scar on her left index finger, where she accidentally cut herself while cooking, a careless moment brought on by the first news reports about Lex’s plots against Superman. There’s a darker, misshaped scar on her right knee, where she’d landed on hard concrete after a particularly brutal lesson on ‘how to be a Luthor.’ (Lillian had been horrified by the incident—by her own ability to do such a thing to a child or the very sight of bright red blood rolling down that child’s leg—and had apologized for it later, lavishing Lena with attention and care, very vigilant from that moment on to physically treat her gently, even as the emotional abuse continued.) And of course there’s the scar below her ribcage, which she doesn’t remember the exact details of, just knowing it involved tequila and bad choices. This scar she’s come to love; Kara has not once allowed the opportunity to kiss that scar go by.

Lena doesn’t like any of her scars. They only serve as a harsh reminder of who she was, and she rather likes the person she is now. But Kara’s looking at her softly and her eyes are so blue and Lena has to admit that if someone asked her right in that moment, she’d say her girlfriend was absolutely mysterious.

“Why?” she asks, even though every part of her is screaming that she can figure it out later—just like all the other things—even though a part of her believes she’s showing exactly how invested she is, just how important Kara is to her, and vulnerability is one scar Lena’s still not quite sure how to feel about. (When she’s feeling more poetic, she can admit that it’s not a scar at all, not yet. It’s a deep and still bleeding wound, and she thinks with Kara’s help it might heal into a neat thin line rather than the jagged edges for which she has a propensity.)

“On Krypton…” Kara begins slowly, reaching out to take Lena’s hand, threading their fingers together and gently running her thumb over Lena’s skin. It’s a mindless gesture, but one that has turned into a moment to latch onto—yet another simple thing that can take Lena’s breath away. “I had no powers on Krypton. I was…normal.” Kara pauses long enough to take a deep breath she doesn’t need, shuffling over enough that her entire body is pressed up against Lena’s, hand never ceasing its ministrations. “I could get hurt, bleed, become so exhausted that I wanted nothing more than my bed, any day, any time. I didn’t need kryptonite or a rogue alien to make me feel like everyone else.”

“You got the scar on Krypton,” Lena guesses, unable to help the track of her eyes. Realizing there’s not point to pretending, she reaches up with her free hand and gently runs the pad of her thumb over the scar, watching as Kara’s eyes flutter shut.

“I was young when I got it,” she all but whispers. “I’m not sure exactly how. I remember it involved my father and uncle and one of their experiments.” She laughs a little, lost in another world—a long since lost world. “My father petitioned the Science Guild to allow me to join as soon as possible, but they wanted to wait until I was a little older. So my father and uncle had me work with them in secret—my mother was furious when she found out.” She laughs again, opening her eyes and meeting Lena’s gaze steadily. “I remember her lecturing me as she cleaned me up—didn’t even allow Kelex near me. At the time, I didn’t think it was very fair. It’s funny,” she adds softly, not sounding amused at all, “I’d give anything to hear her yell at me again.”

“Kara…” Lena tries, but she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what she cansay. How does one comfort their girlfriend over the loss of their entire planet, their family, their friends—the only life they’d ever known? She can lay here and recite as many platitudes as she’d like, nothing would take that sadness out of Kara’s eyes.

(Lena knows, she’s had her fair share of scars, understands how much pain they could still cause even though for all intents and purposes the skin had healed over, the tissue repaired itself.)

“I used to hold my mother’s necklace as I prayed to Rao every night,” Kara says suddenly, breaking through Lena’s thoughts, looking inexplicably calm and at peace. “It seemed important to do, especially when I really began coming into my powers and didn’t need sleep.”  She tightens her grip on Lena’s hand just briefly, letting out a soft sigh as she does so. “In some ways, it makes me glad I gave the necklace to Mon-El.”

“Kara, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. It was the last thing you had of your mother’s.”

“And I got it when she was putting me into a pod and saying goodbye. Carrying it around…carrying it around felt heavy. It was a constant reminder of losing my planet, of years in that pod, of nights spent crying with the Danvers…of nearly dying myself.” For the first time she looks away, apparently invested in the patterns of the curtains. “But the scar is from a moment when my uncle’s experiment went wrong and my mother cleaned me up and my father kept apologizing and snuck me a treat later.” Kara sniffs, and Lena doesn’t mention or acknowledge the tears that have rolled down her cheeks. “The scar reminds me of who I am. I like it.”

(Lena was right about one thing: Kara is not mysterious. But her notions about scars? Lena might need to rethink her stance.)

“I like it, too,” Lena says, pressing her lips to the scar above Kara’s left eyebrow in a lengthy kiss. It must be the right response—or something close to it anyway—because Kara practically sags, resting her forehead against Lena’s.

And they fall asleep just like that, heads close and hands intertwined, but not before Lena makes the mental note to never allow the opportunity to kiss Kara’s scar to go by.  

[flame-shadow]

"Hate" is a strong word, but I will admit that it bothers me a little seeing you dump so much on Bug Fables' worldbuilding and aesthetic choices and whatever every chance you get because it feels like you're judging the game for something that it's not: like, Mario games don't focus as much on their lore as Kirby games do, but I won't get mad at Mario for it. It's fine that Bug Fables went for simpler stuff with its story or didn't want to be 100% biologically accurate to real life Bug Stuff.1/3

Side note, these types of discussions have kind of soured my opinion on Hollow Knight (not much, just slightly) because it feels like fans of that game really want Bug Fables to be the same thing when I feel they share no traits, even as "Bug Games": Hollow Knight's "Bugs" seem to be mostly just guys with vaguely bug-like elements. It'd be like expecting Star Fox and Kirby to be more similar because "they both involve animals and space", when the capacity they both do is entirely different. 2/3

---

oooo my first multi-ask anon. hello and thanks for taking the time to send this all in! i’ll try my best to respond to things in a clear and understandable way, though i cannot promise to be concise. :P

I’m actually not dumping on bug fables every chance I get, though I understand why you’d think that. I am much more positive and engaged with the fun and/or positive stuff in a couple servers on discord. I save the more critical stuff for tumblr where I’m just talking to the void of my own blog and people don’t have to engage if they don’t want to. You’ll hopefully have noticed that I don’t maintag most of my more critical/negative ramblings, and that’s intentional, as I’m not trying to garner attention or talk at the bf community at large. I’m just throwing my thoughts on my little blog here that some people have elected to follow.

I cannot say much about the mainstream game series and their depths of lore that you’ve brought up, as I’m not much of a gamer and don’t engage in or keep up with all that. I used to play some of the Mario games at a previous point in my life, but I don’t remember enough to discuss the lore or worldbuilding in much detail. 

I have no idea how deep kirby lore is or even what the star fox games are about. I do, however, know about what breaks my immersion in a game, and I speak more from a storytelling perspective than from a “this game should be like that game” perspective. No, Bug Fables isn’t Hollow Knight, and I don’t want it to be. I like Hollow Knight for being Hollow Knight, and I like Bug Fables for being Bug Fables.

However, Bug Fables gives me the impression, both from the game and from the extra materials/discussion from the devs, that the intention was of a more developed world with cool and sometimes edgy lore, with culture and history and consequence. And the reason I agreed earlier with someone when they said that the world feels kinda empty and why I express the wish that this game had had another draft before being complete is because to me is because it rather clearly was trying to be more than the light-hearted funny bug game. It looks to me like the devs had some cool ideas, but they weren’t effectively implemented/ integrated into the game that we bought and played. I express my dissatisfaction because I can see the potential and I’m disappointed that I came away unfulfilled. 

Again, I like the game. I’ve been engaged in the bf community for over two years. Do you really think I’d still replay the game, discuss it, draw fanart for it, make OCs, etc. if i didn’t still enjoy the game, the concepts, and the community? If I disliked this game so much, I wouldn’t have recommended it to my friends, and I wouldn’t post about when I see the game go on sale for anyone interested to purchase and play. I would’ve shut up and walked away and not constantly checked the maintag to see what people were saying and drawing that related to it and sharing the art I like and liking the takes I enjoy.

Hmm. I think there’s been a misunderstanding on the OC bit, though I can’t tell if it’s on your end or mine, though it could also be both. I’ll try to clarify, and if that’s not what you were trying to address, you’re welcome to send another ask.

I think you misinterpreted my statement about not being fond of characters who feel like NPCs as meaning I don’t like characters that fit in. I was using NPC as a negative, however, as OCs Who Feel Like NPCs to me feel less developed, less like they’re characters and more that they’re just present to make the world look lived in and maybe provide a service. I have OCs like this! I’m speaking first and foremost about my own NPC-OCs! I don’t like that they’re like this, but I find it challenging to develop them further when, well, -gestures at the worldbuilding dissatisfaction expressed in the above paragraphs- 

I greatly enjoy characters that fit into the world they’re made for! I love when people take a small aspect of established society or some job mentioned once and make a character out of it, and flesh out and explore that vague aspect of the world. I love it when they get accidental development because their creator learns something new about their species or the relevant lore, and now suddenly there’s more to do with the character.

There’s also the opposite of NPC-energy characters. If a character is too different, very overpowered, or otherwise stands out too much, then it’s hard for me to engage with them and feel like they’re part of the world they were purportedly made for. This is all very subjective, as the criteria for “fitting in” are going to be different for everyone. I’m not saying don’t make your super mega powerful god that can smite all of the kingdom by pointing at it, but I personally don’t want to engage with that character, either OOC or within a character interaction. If you enjoy making crazy wacky powerful characters and horror-beasts and divine children that are the result of five gods banging in a cloud, then you’re welcome to do so. I don’t understand the appeal, and it won’t feel like those characters “fit” to me, but I’m not your mother or your boss. I just won’t interact.

This is my personal blog where I share personal feelings. I often write my posts without elaborating or thinking too carefully about what I’m saying or how it’ll be interpreted. That’s part of why I tag those posts with #rambling. They’re just rambles. I’m not going to write an essay about everything that I think about. I just jot down thoughts and drop them in the hole that is tumblr, and if somebody picks them up and wants to say something or share them around, then that’s on them.

--

Oh, nice timing! I’m glad I checked my askbox again before posting this. One more message from anon:

One last thing (this is the anon that sent you four asks today about your worldbuilding issues, btw): I'd like to apologize if I came off as rude or accusatory. I meant most of what I said, but I also can't help but feel like how I said it may have come off as me being angry or mean, and I'd rather not send angry or mean asks to people. I do very much disagree with your opinions on the matter (and don't like hearing them so often, tbh), but if how I expressed myself upset you then I'm sorry.

You didn’t come across as mean to me, don’t worry. You clearly care about this stuff, and it can be upsetting to see opinions you disagree with. I don’t mind that we disagree, and I’m not trying to change your mind or make you agree with me on anything I’ve said. It doesn’t feel to me like I post critical stuff with any frequency - it feels like an average of less than one day a month - but if that’s too much for you, you’re welcome to unfollow me. You have the power, at least to the extent that the website/ Internet allows you, to control your online experience, and I support you in that endeavor.

One final thought- if it’s just the critical discussions that bother you, but you’d still like to follow my blog for its other content, I could tag those posts as “#bug game discussion” or something. I think I need to workshop that tag, as that looks clunky. But! If that’s something you’d like, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to do that going forward. :)

[spnshameblog]

if you ask me every LGBT character they introduce is not genuine representation, it's just a distraction to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. oh every character in supernatural is bi now. not dean though

I just answered an ask that brought up the topic of "acceptable representation" and i wanted to reference back to that.

I want to clarify that i really really try not to be too critical of every bit of queer rep we get, especially when the show isnt even out yet. I think we as a community tend to, in an effort to do right by marginalised and underrepresented people, analyse every canonical queer character we get "to death". We're usually way more critical of queer characters than cishet ones and are often throwing the people under the bus who identify with these "problematic" queer characters. We know very little about this character as of rn.

However that doesnt mean we need to be grateful for every bit of queer rep we get, especially when the cw has done so poorly in the past and then expected us to kiss their feet for scraps.

The other anon has mentioned that Carlos will probably be a "gay liberation" type character, which would fit the timeline and explain the Hippie vibe we're getting from the description. That would be 'historically accurate' and on its own im not mad about it. Making him bi and giving him a stoner, free love type personality can come off as very stereotypical "bi people are horny sexfiends" and making him Latino on top of that..... i see a potential of this misfiring tbh, im staying cautious.

The anon also brought up the point of this being safe representation, because its not John or mary, but just a friend of theirs, which is precisely the reason why cas was allowed to be gay, but dean wasnt. I would have thought that we've made more progress over the last few years, but apparently studios still value their conservative viewership more than the progressive younger people in fandoms. The multiple comments misha made about being surprised that they were allowed to make cas gay confirm this for me. This 'safe' form of queer rep is apparently still required to get your show picked up by some Studios, which is kind of upsetting.

Im gonna say that i think its good that theyre looking for a bi Latino man to portray a bi Latino man. Thats a low bar, i know, but still.

Also i do trust danneel a lot and maybe thats naive, but i have a feeling that shes going to take matters of representation very seriously. I could be very wrong though. And all that still doesnt mean that its gonna be a good show or a show im going to watch. Despite what some producers or Studio execs think, we're not so desperate for queer rep that we're gonna watch everything just to see one queer character.

Anyways, for all we know this might be a really cool character and the fact that one of the first four announced characters is a bi Latino man and the other is an east indian woman is surprising to me, bc its more than i expected, but i had 0 expectations if im being honest...........

And to come back to your actual ask (sorry) yeah lol. I think the bisexual male character is a peace offering if ive ever seen one. And thats funny to me. However im not sure if we're supposed to take it as a "there you have your bi man, now shut up about dean" or "we couldnt make dean bi for whatever reason, so we'll give you this character to make up for it and to signal our support". 🤷🏻‍♀️

[egg-emperor]

It's a shame that X had its really weirdly OOC moments for Eggman (most prominently in season 3, which you might have seen my criticism post of in the past) because aside from that, I personally adore X Eggman for the things they did get right. I feel that they still captured multiple important aspects of his character quite well.

The things I feel they got right were his loud, confident, and rude demeanor, the skill of his manipulation tactics, the way he actually did have his share of pretty damn evil moments despite the humor, the way that, for quite a while across seasons, he evidently didn't give a damn about anyone else and not even what planet he was on as long as he could conquer it. I didn't mind how humorous things could get because I love every time he's evil and a jerk but makes a game of it just as much as I love to see him get serious, and he still did the latter when necessary. And if you've seen that other analysis post of mine, I also really liked the moments where they presented his lack of empathy well. ( Which they really fucked up later but still, it was great while it lasted :') )

That's what makes the OOC moments all the more disappointing and surprising because he had a lot going for him earlier on, when it was accurately capturing his important assets that really make him feel like himself. It's weird that the stuff he does in season 3 legitimately contradicts things he did in previous episodes of the show. Like it wasn't even a case of character development as some might try to argue (which I wouldn't have wanted either way because it doesn't work for him period lol) but it came out of nowhere and made no fuckin sense for his personality and actions we'd seen on earlier eps. It was so jarring

But besides that, I still treasure it for the positives. To this day, X Eggman brings me as much joy as he did back when the show was one of the first pieces of Sonic media I consumed. I still have to give it credit for the way it really helped fall in love with him even more, since the only two games I'd played at the time was Heroes and Shadow 2005, where he hardly got any focus. Despite not seeing much of him prior, I was still lucky to recognize that the OOC moments in X weren't right for a character like him, instead of it letting it lead me to the false belief that he's not so bad of a guy. It was all his best evil asshole moments and fantastic humor that was making me fall for him all the while instead.

Yeah maybe it is thanks to my huge nostalgic fondness that makes the OOC moments easier for me to rewatch it without getting too frustrated to the point I don't enjoy the rest of his portrayal. Especially considering that I watch the English dub the most lol. I get not liking it for how much they fucked up but man, Imo it's still worth watching for Mike Pollock's performance alone, as from the very beginning he already suited Eggman perfectly and brought so much charm and humor in the best way. In the present, I still can't stop smiling at and the jokes never miss with me, he's the only one I genuinely find funny when a lot of the jokes usually don't land with the other characters.

The OOC moments do of course still bother me all the same as I care a lot about how accurately Eggman is portrayed in any media. I'll never hesitate to call out the flaws in the writing and characterization (hell, I literally had that Eggman X supercut I made get interrupted a text rant about why that one bs line in ep 67 really bothered me lol) but I can't deny that as a whole, it will always have a very special place in my heart and it's currently still my favorite Sonic show ever. I hope Prime presents an Eggman with an attitude as great as earlier X Eggman had, without the OOC stuff this time. Not gonna get my hopes up, but it'd be nice.

[kim-poce]

2. Witches Are Meant to Burn: Magic

Before the chapter just a little notice. "Witches Are Meant to Burn" and "No God in Town" will be released weekly both here and on my Patreon (which I'll announce here as soon as the page is reviewed).

Previous | Next

=-=

I know! I know how words work, okay? I know that sayings rely on context, and old sayings have old contexts that we might not know about anymore. Their meanings can change, they can be cut in half,  words can get mis-said and change over time.

Did you know, for example, that the original saying of “the horse arrived” had a second part? “and it brought someone along.” This means the opposite of the way we use it today! Funny right? I could go on about how this happened but that's not the point.

Anyway, I also thought about the possibility that “witches” is a misspelling, maybe the unison of some words. That's the reason I studied history and etymology so hard! I looked through every word that resembled witches. ALL OF THEM. Even 'uytch', you know, the dish from a country far away that doesn't speak our language and much less has our saying.

In no moment I found a word (or several of them) that fits the sentence and is old enough to match the age of this saying. I might be wrong though. Am I a complete genius? Yes. Do I know everything? No.

There is another thing about this saying; it is old. I can't track back the exact date but this is so old, old enough that our language has changed a lot since its creation. How do I know that? Well, I wasn't accurate when I said there is nothing about witches registered, because there is. It's inside a cave (which I have visited. Great trip. My students fought each other over who would come along. Great fight).

This cave is important, it was locked up for CENTURIES, and the language used there is so old that some sentences are almost unrecognizable. It was located years back and has been the source of new studies and theories in diverse fields. Point is, the walls are completely scribbled over, it seems to have started in an organized way but I could see how it soon became messy.

The scribbles were not made with some paint or ink, nor carved with stone or sharp tools. It was burnt, well, it was carved using a heated tool. Every letter (and it was a cursive alphabet!) was individually carved like this, as in, a small hot tool was pressed on the wall and twisted once (only once) to make a small hole, the process was repeated over and over to make the words. I don't want to lose track of the point, but I must say each word was at least ten centimeters tall and half a centimeter deep in the walls, and the tool was at most a millimeter in diameter. I need you to understand that centuries ago these people heated this small little needle-like thing and pressed on the wall over and over and over, thousand and thousand of times to write these words down. The spot where the letters were could be messy, but each letter was very carefully made. So you can see why the scholars go crazy about this place.

There are many mysteries about this site, many of them fall into my field but you don't want me rambling about it. Back to the point, the “witches are meant to burn” saying was written several times (I touched them back then, they were hot enough to cause pain), and along with them there were prayers and other sentences meaning mostly two things: fate and sorrow (so the witch saying fits well in there even when they are centuries of context and history apart from each other.) I need to emphasize that the saying was written in the same way we use it today, even with the dates so far apart, maybe back then they still had the context though.

If I could meet whoever wrote that on these walls and ask what a witch is they most likely would look at me as if I’m an idiot, after all, who wouldn’t know such common sense? (or at least I believe it was common sense since the continent being so large didn’t stop the saying from being said all over it). Ah, the riches I would pay to walk around the continent so far back and watch with my own two eyes what I can only speculate about!

Witches, whatever they were, were most likely really well known, maybe not important, maybe not essential. But known. Now, is it just me or this word, these witches, are so old and meaningful and should have been more talked about? I know, there are many sentences at that site (it's a really important site) but out of all of them, this is the least researched one! And it’s the only one used until today!

“Why?” I asked a colleague one day. “I get people not being obsessed about it as I am, but why is no one looking for it at all? All of the other stuff in that cave is being thoughtfully studied by so many academics but why is this one just ignored?”

“I can't speak for others,” she said, pausing to think. “But it just doesn't… draw me, it's as if it's a closed case? It kind of feels like nothing interesting will come from it. I am not talking down your work! You are amazing and dedicated and even if I'm not interested in witches or whatever I always read your papers because you are just great at it, but this word is like… boring, I just… can't explain it another way.”

Other academics (and common people) had the same opinion as if this single subject killed the insatiable curiosity of humanity. Even my own students don’t seem interested in it, only the older ones, it looks like if I force them to hear about it almost every day for years they come to either hate the subject or be curious about it. Anyway, this seemingly instinctive disinterest in this word is odd, in an irrational way.

I don't allow myself to act irrationally in front of others, being obsessed is one thing and being irrational is another. It would compromise my reputation as a scholar, it would make my research look childish and bullshit. I can't have that. So I don't tell them about the hot words, I don't show them my notebooks or the hidden, smaller secret library about magic.

I have mixed feelings about magic. On one hand, I'm an academic and know very well how people wrongly believed in magic centuries back and how everything was proved to be just myths. On the other hand, this word is hot against my skin and my skin only, I'm drawn to it so strongly while everyone seems to want to forget about it. I don't have a rational way to explain it so I allow myself to be irrational. As long as it doesn't interfere with my studies, of course.

Magic isn’t my field. Do you wonder why someone who can feel what I can and feels the need to uncover the origin of this singular word has not tried to specialize in magic? Well, magic does not exist, there is no field just for that. I study history and magic history with it though so let me explain the basics.

Magic has two main divisions: ‘hands of fate’ and ‘hands of god’

Hands of fate weren’t (as people seem to think) just a huge storm over a sinner’s farm or a carriage accident by a runaway bandit. It was everything. It could be the death of an innocent child or the sheer luck of an assassin. It had no regard for justice or fairness, much less cared about humans' morals. It was a leaf falling from the tree, a mother choosing her child’s name, everything, and every choice.

I can make the correlation between the belief in magic that our society used to have and the way our society still so intrinsically believes in fate today, sometimes it’s as if the name just changes. If I say “magic controls our life” I’ll be called crazy but “fate controls our life”? That’s just a common belief. That’s one of the reasons “witches are meant to burn” is used so often, because what happened was meant to happen the same way witches are meant to burn.

Hands of god are what people truly think of when the word magic comes up, the ability to control the present and the future, if hands of fate set everything in stone, hands of god break the rocks and write a new, ever-changing, history. This is where recipes of foods meant to make one live forever, chantings to attract luck, and everything that humans can actively make is. Contrary to the passive point of view of hands of fate.

I’m sure I don’t need to say, since you must know how society works, but such beliefs weren’t quite liked back in the day. It was said that breaking a line of fate created disaster. So you shouldn’t, for example, use the hands of god to save your dying child, because if you do so some village far away may suffer from hunger. Doctors were hunted down, medicine was criminalized, to fight for your future was to fight against other people’s future and every single act of kindness could be read as selfishness attack and punished as such.

Witches are meant to burn, whether they want it or not.

In the current days, the belief in ‘fate’ (similar to hands of fate) is still strong, but no one believes in ‘magic’ (hands of god and the disaster it brings) anymore. It’s like a godless dead religion, a myth, but fate is just… the way people go on about their life. It’s a curious thing, actually, there was never a god widely worshiped in this land. People here believe something is there and this something decides their lives, but there was no need to worship this deaf being, even the hands of god fight against this mysterious “fate” instead of begging for mercy from it. It is an acceptance of god, if anything. Theology is not my field either but it does draw my attention from time to time.

Well, that’s enough crash course on magic, I’ll just finish it with an academic joke brought upon us by the coincidences of life. As I said, the hands of fate carve the destiny in stone and the hands of god break the rocks. That cave — as highly agreed upon— meant to represent the ‘hands of fates’ so isn’t it such a funny thing that it was brought to light by erosion? If magic was real, the ones who practiced it would be proud of themselves.

=-=

@kathea, @extemporary-username, @wolfeyedwitch

[gayspock]

ok some star trek liveblogs

- its literally.. it feels like so long since i las t watched trek somehow idk how. i mean its been a while since i could watch it continuously and ive had a rlly long couipleof weeks tbh. but yah now i can probs finish ds9 at some poinnt this week if i rlly want to :3

- and also as like a fun little note. it took me SO SO long to get through tng didnt it christ? like its almost been a whole year since i first watched it, and i thought to myself "man idk if i should wait until my birthday again to do a st movie marathon" but i literally think it could so easily line up ... O_Owhich stupididk how its been tht long already my god.

- anyways i into the final stretch of s7

- and like okie dokie. worf. sigh. soft gentle sighs

- bc heres the thing its so weirddd bc i LOVE worf to the core but its SO funny bc like. i hated a lot of his tng eps- sorrryyy. though frankly thats not even ENTIRELT accurate, as usually not bc of him. i didnt hate worf eps, but a lot of the klingon eps bc the politics really did not do it for me at all.

- and more to the point. i DO feel like hes a little out of place, still, in ds9, even if he has offered some good stuff to the show

- but rn with ezri. sigh.

- bc frankly the thing is. whilst theres some moments that make me cringe and they're too stilted... i actually do like worf for his flaws sometimes. i dotn know. not as in im like ohh yeahh go mister sogynistic.... but in terms of a character i do find it. hm. refreshing is absolutely the wrong word, but i do feel there's more depth when you can allow characters to, like, actually be a little bit of a resistance at times. like genuine resistance

- and idk . but sighhhh sigh sigh. the thing with ezri is i like understand absolutely and i would ALSO feel that way with him not wanting to talk to her rn. like is it stupid ass the way he treated her? yah..... and not right BUT i'd be, like, "fine" with it in the sense of like. it would align with his character and i recognise his own shit is getting in the way and people dont handle/react to things perfectly and like- he did lose his wife, and stuff, and its not like... she owes him her time either like.

- bc like. if HE is not comfortable being friends with (or even talking to) his late wifes successor i dont think thats, like, a weird "hes runniong away; he isnt communicating" situation moment bc like. frankly its kind of obvious... why someone might not want to do that at all. its a unique situation. and GRANTED, yes they do have to work togetrher but like... i think its fiar if he just wants to keep it sort of civil and i dont know . sometimes you can just settle for things being awkward with each other, like? you cant make every situation perfect all of the time- and itsliterally fine, just grit ur teeth... granted i guess thats a very Me way of thinking abt it but like- but-

- BUT GOD SOMETIMES . theres some shit hes doing NOW in particular tht is making me claw my hair out just bc it seems.... AGAIN i want him to react badly if it fits him, but nonetheless ahrgh. WHY DID HE FUCK EZRI. SORRY I

- NOW WHY DID THEY ENGAGE IN INTERCOURSE LIKE THAT HM.

- BECAUSE THAT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME ON ANY LEVEL WHATSOEVER IS THE THING <3

- also the thing with ezri is im sobbing bc ezri soooo could easily be my most favourite of teh entire show but im just so sad she was brought in so fuckn late!!!!! like, im not actually wholly against introducing maincast so far along in THIS circumstance. like after 6 seasons? im ok with that. on the contrary i like it here, even if i dont usually like that kind of thing, bc it makes sense tht they have to change things to keep the show flowing (as u kno how s7 of trek can get a little... burnt out.. at least i felt that way with tng too). so im cool with her being new but its moreso bc we only have one season left.... and thts not enough time. does that make sense.

- bc like maybe if she was brought into s6, and then there were 8 seasons of ds9 i feel like tht could work? but only ONE season for development, esp so late when things are coming to a head...

- rn i feel like they have to rush a lot of her, and focus on her a bit too much and its not as organic as it could be which is such a shame bc its GENUINELY A REALLY INTERESTING FACET of trill culture, and i do find her compelling as hell but YEAH. i think them having to, like, so quickly demonstrate her as a person makes a lot of the execution... lose subtley? which is just like. gentle sigh. its not godawful but its, like, very.... season 1 and 2.

- anyways back to theshwo im really obsessed with damar right now. the absolute definition of some fucking bloke. and i meant what i said abt him and weyoun really feeling like a couple in the midst of a years long divor-

- SORRY.

- "if you think i dont know what youre up to, youre a bigger fool than dukat... 😠" "d..dukat?" "he used to entertain lady friends as well 😒" SO AS I LITERALLY WAS JUST SAYING. JEEZ.

- also god i really do not care for ezri and julian. i doubt anyone does but like i think it goes back to what i said above like

- frankly. i do not think even WITH development it could work (it just feels weird, especially with how they wrote julian and jadzia,) but its even more awkward and stilted with how we've seen... barely nothing of them together. like girlies what...

- i will say though. damar epic big dick moments help. im actually really digging him despite it all. help.

- and fucking- THE FACT WHEN EZRI AND WORF CAME BACK . THEY ALL CROWDED EZRI LIKE <333 WE MISSED YOY. AND W9DGJIDIFODJIOG. WORFWAS JUST 🧍‍♂️ LIKE HELPPP WHY ISTHT MAKING ME PISS AND SHIT AND

- also also also also. sighhhh omg. i get its like the final stretch now and we did get a lot of other character stuff earlier this season but i do hope they give the other girlies sth to do a bit more . im not worried abt it bc i figure we've just been focussing on other stuff rn but yah

- thats right sisko. malewife. you wear the apron.

- can i say i love kasidy's voice. like idk if its her accent or sth? but its just got that softness round the edges, my goodness me...

- i will say im squinting at the whole... her leading him down the wrong path. like what does it even mean, bestie. i know im not supposed to know yet. but goodness gracious me. i have a sense of foreboding- and NOT the one im meant to... like as in i feel like theyre going down a bad route narratively

- kai winns . whats his name. her assistant? fucking HATING dukat is fucking hysterical. he just smells it on him.

- WHAT A TIRESOME LITTLE MAN

- I AM BUT A MOON MADE WA- OHHHHH IM GOING TO BARF. DUKAT YOU ARE GROWING SO INSUFFERABLE. SOMEHOW MORE AND MORE SO.

- the fact she REALLY IS SICK AND TWISTED ON THAT NASTY DUKAT DICK. DEMENTED, TORMENTED, NOT EVEN SACRAMENTED

- the ezri and julian mess. even if i dislike it i do like worf just taking the piss out of him. get his ass. hes a child. sure. be a little mean its quite funny

- also damar and weyouns nasty little wretched dynamic.extremely fuckinh funny behaviour on all fronts. oh the girls HATE each other dont they ust. can you imagine being the fucking breen.

- no offence benjamin but shes so right fucking GETR HIS ASS, KASIDY.

-quark why are you taunting odo about his relationship with kira now hm.

- anywaysmy comments are getting inane i'll dump this big one at this point i think and continue whenever i have more to chatter about