#it’s four years old and I made a bunch of edits before posting it here
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Redraw of an AU I started writing and drew a panel of four years ago. Featuring Obi-Wan and co accidentally flying through a wormhole and crashing in First Age Beleriand. What could possibly go wrong?
Version without writing, original from 2021 + excerpt from the fic under cut.
Featuring my design for Maedhros and Maglor, and an Ahsoka redesign.
Art only allowed for personal use ie. phone/laptop wallpapers.
Do not repost or upload. Reblogs are always appreciated.
Except from the scene:
Maedhros was making his way to lunch when the young soldier came running through the gates, pausing by the redhead to bow before running to Maglor’s office. At the end of the hallway, he paused. Maedhros quirked an eyebrow.
“My Lord! I have an urgent message for Lord Maglor... But perhaps it would be easier if I told both of you.”
Maedhros inwardly frowned but nodded and strode to his brother’s room, the soldier jogging to keep up with his long strides.
Maglor was carrying on with the reports he’d almost fallen asleep on the night before when the sharp knock caught his ears. The door opened.
“My Lord. Commander Lintiel has found the foreigners.”
“Tell me what happened.” Maglor commanded, waving in the two elves.
The soldier proceeded to tell them of a transport that fell out the sky and the strange occupants within it. How their weapons shone with light and their skill in combat and survival.
“I would not have believed had I not seen with my own eyes. They do not seem hostile, but remain under guard. There are two Generals, a Captain and a Commander. The younger General is a former student of the other; he now teaches the Commander.”
“How long until they arrive?”
“Sundown.”
“And the orcs?”
“All dead. But their numbers have been increasing.”
Maglor shared a look with his brother.
“Thank you. Brief my Captain on the situation then get something to eat. You have done well.” Maedhros dismissed the guard, who left with a bow.
The door closed and the redhead pulled up a chair with a sigh and a wry smile.
“Since when did you get foresight Kano?”
Maglor looked at him flatly.
“Not foresight. A feeling.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
“Alright alright.” Maedhros conceded, raising an arm in surrender.
Maglor rolled his eyes, but capped the ink pot and leaned back in his chair, a single hand rubbing his eyes.
“So, oh great Lord of Himring. How do we handle this one?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you? You said they weren’t a danger.”
“I said they’re not necessarily a danger. Clearly, whoever or whatever they are, they have skill and could most definitely be a problem if they wanted to. We must be cautious.”
Maedhros smiled sharply.
“That will be no trouble.”
Maglor gave him a reprimanding glance and stood, walking to the main entrance of the fortress.
“Do try not to frighten them away, dear brother,” he said dryly, “they are not hostiles.”
Maedhros rolled his eyes.
“Another... feeling?”
Maglor scowled.
“If I say yes, will you listen?”
“I trust you, brother.” Maedhros replied, now serious. The two elves paused by the gate. He looked the younger in the eye. “I know you will not lead me astray.”
Maglor smiled and nodded, the weight of the words not lost on him, and the redhead returned the smile. An hour passed in which guards were surreptitiously placed around the premises, but the two lords knew the security would most likely be seen. One did not simply become a general, and by the sounds of things, these foreigners were young even for mortals.
There was a signal at the gate, and Maedhros nodded. A few shouts later, the gate was opened and Lintiel rode in ahead, leaped off her horse and bowed to the Feanorions.
“My Lords.”
Lintiel as an elf of the Gap faced Maglor, who stepped forward.
“Lintiel. Report.”
The news was as expected, almost the same message the young soldier had given.
“As of yet they have shown no signs of hostility towards us.” She paused for a moment, weighing up her next words and Maglor gently pushed her on.
“Speak, my friend. You would not do so unless you were sure of something.”
Lintiel frowned slightly and replied.
“I know I have met them for barely a day, but I feel drawn to these strangers, they radiate a strange inner light. Nevertheless I am wary.”
The brothers exchanged a surprised glance, and now Maedhros replied.
“You have done well, Lintiel, we will take your words into consideration.” Maedhros now called with a loud voice that all the soldiers could hear. “Eat then rest, all of you. It has been a long hunt.”
As the soldiers bowed then made their way through, Lintiel muttered to the two:
“They speak only the tongue of Men.”
She called the soldiers surrounded the four travellers forward, gave a short bow, then left, gesturing for the cavalry to follow and the four to stay where they were.
Once alone in the main hall, Maedhros and Maglor analysed the beings before them, taking note of them doing the same. Some time passed before Maedhros finally spoke, projecting his most kingly aura.
“So. You’re the ones I was told to expect.” He paused, ignoring Maglor rolling his eyes at the drama. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Obi-Wan stepped forward with a bow, not at all intimidated.
“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. My companions are Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex of the 501st Legion. We seek shelter and a place to rest. Unfortunately our transport has been damaged beyond repair and communication to our men will take some time to figure out and re-establish.” Obi-Wan paused. “I should also mention that Ahsoka here is of a species common to where we come from. She is no creature like the orcs.”
Maedhros nodded once, but still stared disconcertingly at the four, watching as the Captain’s hand tightened around the strange black weapon, and the two youngest beings grasped the silver hilts on their waists.
Only the Master did nothing, meeting his eyes with firm resolve.
#this is all you’re getting from that fic#it’s four years old and I made a bunch of edits before posting it here#maybe one day it’ll be reworked to something shareable#but it is not this day#also hi Star Wars side of tumblr I should be seeing more of you soon#silmarillion#tolkien#silm#maglor#maedhros#Star Wars#star wars the clone wars#obi wan kenobi#anakin skywalker#ahsoka tano#captain rex#silm fanart#star wars tcw#not gonna bulk the tags because idek what this is ok#enjoy the art#Clone Wars x Silm#ITHOF Draws
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childhood sweetheart material
oh my god!!! it's finally here, i made sure to change the posting settings this time!! i know it's not a bakery request but i've been writing them and i have a bunch in my drafts, i've got my sister editing them for me and hopefully one will be out soon... but for now enjoy my lovely's <3
pairing; carlos sainz jr x childhood best friend viviana martinez [original character]
blurb; this is a list of cute things childhood friend turned husband carlos sainz jr and his childhood friend turned wife viviana martinez do in my smau series that i'm working on called since we were eighteen, this story features a original character but for your reading pleasure, i've used 'you' and 'y/n' in this little snippet <3
currently playing; everything has changed by taylor swift ft ed sheeran "cause all i know is we said, "hello" and your eyes look like comin' home, all i know is a simple name and everything has changed, all i know is you held the door, you'll be mine and i'll be yours, all i know since yesterday is everything has changed"
from day one, you were the one;
your families have been friends for the longest time and while carlos was born a few years before you, you've been friends since you could babble at eachother
carlos can in fact still remember meeting you for the very first time, how tiny you were and his mother still has the photo of three year old carlos kissing your forehead but her personal favorite was one of you two falling asleep on eachother in the backseat of a car when she was dropping you off after a play-date

and so the years kept passing;
as years go by, you and carlos slowly begin to drift apart pursuing different careers and life goals, you knew from a young a age that you loved carlos but didn't realize it was in the romantic way until far later in life
during your teenage years, your parents thought you two were dating and no matter how much your denied it, they never believed you but that was probably due to the platonic to you both kisses you would place on eachothers cheeks or foreheads
when you were nineteen and about to move away and not see carlos for the next four to five years, not that you knew that at the time, you'd begged him to be your first time, it was one of those cliche moments of not wanting to go to college a virgin but he turned you down, saying he didn't want to ruin what you had, what a joke that seemed like now
when you two were young, around the ages of fourteen and eleven, you joked about marrying eachother one day, you even made a contract about how if you were still single after you'd turned twenty two that you'd tie the knot with eachother but as you grew apart, that contract was long forgotten about
coming back to eachother;
you found eachother again at a family reunion, you'd arrived early and got talking with his mother, catching up about life when she brought out old photo albums and low and behold at the back of the album was a paper or contract that you'd long forgotten had existed
you'd been sipping a drink in the garden when you heard the familiar voice, you'd gotten to talking when the topic of relationships came up and you discovered the both of you were single
you joked about tying the knot but he joked back about taking him to dinner first, which you did for giggles but you just fell in love with talking to eachother and began to meet up more often which eventually led to confessed feelings that had been hidden for too long, this left the rest as history
telling your families;
you were both nervous to say the least, your parents had been friends since they themselves were children, little did either of you know both of your sisters had already started to notice the change between you, the little stares and stolen glances but they had noticed it too late.. about three years too late in fact
the two of you had been planning to tell them sooner but you didn't want to give them false hope in case you broke up but you began to like the privacy and how it was just the two of you and before you knew, the two of you were approaching your three year anniversary
it was actually at your anniversary dinner that carlos proposed, you had both just stepped off a twelve hour flight and decided that instead of going out you'd get pizza
carlos thought there would be no better time than when you both sat on the couch eating pizza in comfy clothes to propose, you however almost lost it, you knew your answer was yes but instead of saying the first words out of your mouth were "you let me do this sweatpants" [if you've seen this video, i love you]
it was a week later at the traditional joint family dinner when everyone found out, your younger sister basically screaming her head off when she saw the ring on your finger as you reached for your wine glass
"what is that!" she squealed to which you winced in return and carlos chuckled, your mother looked betrayed as she too just now noticed the ring adorning your finger "when did that happen, i didn't even know you were seeing someone" she asked flabbergasted.
"does this mean you and carlos aren't together" your youngest sister had asked, she was only ten but loved carlos so much, you and carlos shared a knowing look before he shrugged his shoulders and leaned over to kiss you... that set off a frenzy among your family members
when it comes to work;
you work as an actress in horror / thriller films but you absolutely hate being scared, your the biggest wuss carlos knows but his favorite thing about your job is that he has a video on his phone of when one of your cast-mates scared the shit out of you and you screamed like the scream queen that you are
you often come home from set covered in fake blood to which carlos can't help but panic every time thinking your injured before he catches his breath and then helps you wipe it all off but not without you covering him in fake blood first
carlos quite often comes to your photo-shoots and one time the photographer wasn't happy with how the photos were working out, said that their was no real chemistry between you and the male model you had been working with and so he called a break during which you hung out with carlos, sitting in his lap and just enjoying eachothers company when the photographer caught sight of you both and it was like a light bulb went off in his head, that was the birth of the photo you had forever pinned to your instagram account

carlos always insisted on watching your movies, no matter how often you told him he didn't need to you would still come home to find him curled up on the couch with pinon as he pointed and mumbled "there's our girl" in his rough tired voice
your not afraid to show your support to carlos at his races either, attending as a long lost but now returned childhood friend at first but then eventually as his girlfriend and then wife but nobody knew that
while lando was basically carlos's best friend, to you he was your paddock child and you never let him forget it either
one of carlos's favorite things about your job was getting to see you in the gorgeous red carpet dresses, you would always show him and if he happened to be off racing, you'd facetime him instead, he loved being able to zip them up and feel your warm skin as he did it, his favorite dress was this one:

you were honestly carlos's biggest fan and without both his and his fans knowledge, you'd started an account on instagram where you posted the most outrageous things about him like this: which is one of your more tame posts btw

whenever carlos wins a race, gets on the podium or just no matter what place he gets, your wrapping your arms around him as soon as you can and whispering in his ear "i'm so proud of you mi sol"
kisses + cuddles;
there's different kinds of cuddles when it comes to yours and carlos's relationship, these include;
straddled cuddles were your sitting in his lap and wrapped around him, there is nothing sexual about it, just the two of you enjoying eachothers company
hugs from behind no matter where you are, in the motor-home or even the supermarket, carlos just likes to be holding you
and your personal favorite is when he's so exhausted and turns into the little spoon
and finally there's just this;

and then there's all the different kinds of kisses you two share
there's shoulder kisses most of which occur when carlos is hugging you from behind but they also happen in the early morning when carlos is awake and your still asleep but he just feels the need to kiss you in some way
thigh kisses, he loves to kiss your thighs and not just in the sexual way which he does indeed enjoy giving you but it also happens when he's laying in your hold with his head half in your lap and half resting on your legs
then there's the tippy toe kisses, the height difference between you and carlos was adorable but you often have to either stand on your tip toes or wear heels in order just to kiss him
then there's the kisses that you place all over his face after race cause no matter what place he comes, your always so happy for him and just need him to know how much you love him
then there's the kisses you have to tug at his shirt in order to give to him
there's the one where your kissing in bed, not in a sexual way but the 'i've missed you' loving way that has you rolling around and giggling, never wanting the kisses to end
and finally there's the kisses that both of you moaning in-between, it's these ones that normally led to your sexual encounters with eachother
touches and intimate moments;
you two have a habit of one of you two laying in bed, watching the other change in the morning or after a shower, you once said you trusted no one like how you trusted carlos and that's why you let him watch you change
then there's the times when either of you come home either from work or a race, so you sit behind eachother and gently massage the others shoulders
if your ever in the way which carlos says that you never are, he'll hook his fingers into your belt loops and gently scoot you out the way
carlos is the kind of boyfriend where if your too tired to move at the end of the day or after an event, he'll sit and gently wash your makeup from your face while your falling asleep
during the races that happen in colder countries, your often caught on camera pulling carlos close to hug him in order to warm up
your also often caught on camera walking through the paddock together with carlos's hand tucked into the back pocket of your jeans if you happen to be wearing them
and then one of your favorite things about your relationship was taking baths with carlos after a long day, feeling his body pressing against your own just brought you a sense of comfort and peace
dates [of sorts];
one of your favorite dates or even just times that you spend together is having pancake wars; where you two always try to one up eachother with your pancake recipes

whenever you guys go out for dinner, carlos always makes sure to give you the first bite of his food just in case you want to switch meals like you sometimes did
you would also often bring him lunch and end half the time end up staying so that you could eat together
he'll also sit and read you poetry late at night from your favorite poetry books
whenever you guys stay home and have date night in, carlos will often hover over your shoulder and wait to taste test the meal your cooking
then there are the museum dates you guys go on, art museums in particular have always been a part of your love for italian and spanish culture, a fan once took a photo of you and carlos in a museum where he was holding you up so that you could take photos of some of your favorite works of art

and finally and personally carlos's favorite was whenever you two went out for gelato, carlos loved the stuff and you loved taking photos of him

the little things;
just a list of all the little things that you and carlos do slash remember about eachother
your carlos's lock screen and he's yours
he wears your hair ties on his wrist and carries period products in his travel bag just in case you need them in an emergency
he always messages you when your filming to make sure that you've been eating and drinking
the two of you know eachothers routines off by heart, like when he comes home from a morning run, you'll have the shower running and waiting for him
you have a love of classic literature and you often come home to find that he's deep cleaned your bookshelves
you take care of him when he's sick
he'd been whimpering and complaining of a sore throat all day, after a while you'd had enough so you decided to call his mother and ask what she once did when he was sick as a child, when you brought carlos a mug of manzanilla or homemade chamomile tea explaining you'd gotten the recipe from his mother, carlos knew right then and there that he was going to marry you
he once gifted you a stuffed bear and a bottle of his cologne for your birthday so that you had something to cuddle when he was gone and the cologne was for when you missed his smell.. he had to comfort you when you started crying
he loves knowing that you wear his shirts to bed, reminds him that your his
and finally with all the button ups that carlos wears, you often find yourself sewing buttons back onto them, carlos once found you on the couch furiously sewing buttons back onto around ten or so shirts that you'd discovered while doing the washing
no one touches the hair except for you;
when your bored, you often end up begging carlos to let you braid his hair... it's always a yes because ever since childhood, he could never say no to you
you also love to laugh at how messy and fluffed up his hair gets in the morning, the first time you'd seen it you burst out laughing which caused him to blush
down and dirty;
while not going to into detail, here's a list of some of the things you and carlos do in bed
carlos loves eating you out, as mentioned beforehand when discussing his love for giving you thigh kisses
another obvious one was the fact that carlos loved having his pulled during sex
then there's the guided grinding, where his hands gripped at your hips while grinding you down against him
carlos's favorite position to take you in is doggy and no, i personally think there's no explanation needed
carlos has a thing for choking too, you in fact introduced him to it
and finally while it not's something you explore very regularly, you also share a spitting kink
the wedding;
it's been described by friends and family as the most beautiful wedding they'd ever attended, there are photos in the wedding album of you and carlos shoving cake in eachothers faces and instead of a three course meal, you both served pizza at your wedding instead
nicknames;
your nicknames for carlos include; mi sol [my sun] mi vida [my life] papi and mi amor [my love]
carlos called you his wife all the time, including long before you two were married
his nicknames for you include; my wife, mi vida, mi amor and corazón [heart]
aesthetic playlist;
a list of songs that describe you, carlos and your relationship
young and beautiful by lana del ray
boyfriend by ariana grande ft social house
just friends by why don't we
we can't be friends [wait for your love] by ariana grande
never be the same by camila cabello
lay all your love on me by abba
senorita by shawn mendes ft camila cabello
older by isabel larosa
money money money by abba
too sweet by hozier
everything has changed by taylor swift ft ed sheeran [taylor's version]
teenager in love by madison beer
me gustas tu by manu chao
more songs like this can be found on their official playlist
and finally;
this is just how i picture you'd reveal your relationship to the public
movies.with.y/n
movies.with.y/n; my heart always knew it'd be you @ carlossainz55
#formula one#formula 1#formula one fanfiction#carlos sainz smut#carlos sainz x reader#carlos sainz smau#carlos sainz jr x reader#f1 x reader#f1 social media au#f1 fanfiction#f1 x you
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Asked and Answered (Chasing chapters 2-3!)
These asks have been making my day since I posted chapter two, and life was unexpectedly a lot last month but we're back and ready to rumble, baby. Chapter four is getting a bunch of final edits, but in the meantime I've been getting a KICK out of your questions...
Spoilers, sneak peeks, and theories below!

I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this one, anon! But rest assured I have not forgotten about Kreacher, and we haven't heard the last about selling Grimmauld Place (more on that in chapter 5). From Harry's letters, though, we're learning that George and Ron think they could use a slave someone to do the washing up, which would be a level of such bougie dichotomy in a shitty London flat that I, for one, would love to see.
Dean In Paris is a little arc that I've been so excited to reveal, and starting with chapter 4 we'll definitely be hearing more about it. We still have a lot to learn about his year on the run, too, and what it was like to come out of the woods and reintegrate with both Muggles and wizards... our poor boy's really been through it.
As far as Luna goes, we'll be getting more of their interactions next chapter too (wouldn't be a party without a little inter-house mingling)! We know she's fresh out of a relationship with his old roommate, so we'll see if Dean will go two for two with DA girls 👀
Cheers, anon!
Thank you so much for this question, anon! I promise we'll get some Charlie moments that have to do with Quidditch, but at this point it would be giving away too much to reveal the role (if any) he might have at her first match. Instead here's something a little out of context:
"What the hell," she snorted, turning a stone over in her left hand before pitching it low over the waves. "You sound like Mum, asking me shit like that. Or Bill." Charlie shrugged, sending his throw so far he must've charmed the rock. "I dunno. Bloke seems moody is all. Not that I blame him... I just wanted to be sure everything was good, I guess." "It's sort of cute, you checking up on me." "Shut up. You think this is the first time?"
Anon I could kiss you for this question because I don't really write A/Ns for these chapters, but now I get to point out one of my favorite self-indulgent little details from chapter three:
“We’re just going to keep him still until someone gets here.” And she took Kirke’s head between both hands, sliding her fingers underneath to gingerly probe through the back of his hair. “Help’s coming, Andrew. You’re okay. We’re going to get you inside.”
I took that last line directly from the text with the intention of thrusting Ginny back into a moment at the end of DH that doesn't really get resolved or explained. More on that to come, but in this moment Ginny is really triggered by this burden of someone else's safety— of caring for the injured— and the helplessness that accompanies it. I'm really looking forward to tying this in with her ambition to be a Healer, which we learn she discussed with Professor McGonagall months after witnessing her father's hospitalization, her brother and friends' injuries, and Sirius's death. As the youngest Weasley she's been barred from so much of the action, so those moments of powerlessness were made more bitter by the fact that she was trying to do the only thing she felt she could. The panic comes from knowing the only thing she could do wasn't always enough...
Gushing over this question! A theory! About my fic!
I've gotten a few different versions of "where's Binns?", and I really don't want to give too much away because it'll come into play in later chapters, but I will say that the situation is a little more complicated than education reform. The only hint I can offer is that it's been really hard to convey everything that hasn't been around at Hogwarts without drawing too much attention to it, especially through Ginny's limited narration...
Priscus, though! Shame that Ginny would (imo) never canonically take a History of Magic N.E.W.T., so we'll have to settle for hearing more about him from Hermione.
🫡
thanks for this prompt, anon! without further ado, here's a peek at two character debuts for this fic:
Demelza grinned over the rim of her mug, eyes narrowed. "Could've told me sooner." "I know." "You know Romilda still doesn't believe you either, right?" "Doesn't matter," Ginny mumbled before tipping her head back to empty her cup, blood thudding sluggishly in her ears as she thought of his jumper and his letters— solace and evidence, tucked away in the same place. "She can't prove anything. Didn't believe me last year either, did they?" Demelza shrugged. "Just thought you'd want to know. She brought it up first thing on the train 'cause she knows we're friends. Can't imagine she's wasting too much brainpower on it right now, though..." At the table by Dean's bed, Dennis was refilling two cups with wine, cracking a grin as Romilda bumped a playful shoulder against his.
(Neither of today's sneak peeks passes the Harry Bechdel test, and for that I apologize.)

I also received a few more questions about Ginny's shoulder, especially after her conversation with Dean this chapter... I answered something similar in this post (if you scroll down a bit) and linked to postwar fics that occur before this story. Cheers! 🌱
#y'all are CRUSHING IT with these and i'm so so grateful#posting chapter 4 asap will be my birthday gift to myself so i don't have to keep looking at dorm party scenes#some curveballs coming with this one#get ready for another character theme song too!#chasing#asked and answered#hinny#ginny weasley#dean thomas#charlie weasley#luna lovegood
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Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D
Iceberg explanation
( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)
EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!
The Sky
Naomi
Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.
On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.
It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.
It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.
What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.
Missing Tidelord
In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.
In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.
Emperors
Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.
Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.
An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.
The Surface
Old color wheel
Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.
When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.
Imperial breed scrolls
Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.
At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.
There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.
Baldwin breed change
When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.
In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.
Trans Fiona
When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.
Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.
Boolean
Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.
Plaguebringer coli team
On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.
As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.
Boston & Hope
This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.
So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.
In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.
The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.
If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.
I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.
Shallow Waters
Eyepocalypse
On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.
Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.
A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.
Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.
EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.
Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.
Courier Breed
The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.
Multiaccounting
According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.
Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.
The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.
Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.
Purble
“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.
In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.
I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.
Tert Picking
This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.
Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.
Swiftwings
Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.
The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.
“Real” Lore dragons
Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.
All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.
The Middle ground
True deity names
When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.
The names are the following:
Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver
As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.
No leg coatls
On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.
The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.
Dress slot unlocking
A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.
This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.
Clanbound scatterscrolls
I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:
“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”
Beta Mirrors
Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?
According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.
This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.
Dragons are evil
If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.
Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.
The Depths
Scroll of Divorce
In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.
If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.
First Festival
The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.
Offsite drama
Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).
Egg rot
Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.
It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.
Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.
Pablo
From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.
I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.
Latest News
On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.
This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.
Lameforger
On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.
Festival of one (1)
On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.
It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).
The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.
The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.
Vape Juice
As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.
The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.
I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.
I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.
The Abyss
Humans
There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.
The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.
Plague healers
Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:
“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."
Akitla
As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.
After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T
here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.
As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.
Arcane sprite book
“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.
On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.
I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.
Sunshine
Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.
They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.
They’re dedicated and I respect that.
EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.
The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.
Simple Farmer
Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.
Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.
Dragon Deaths
Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.
Yep.
Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.
Zalvador
User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.
Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.
These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.
The Pit
Black linen neck wraps
For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.
Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.
Icewarden ears
Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.
In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.
As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.
Forbidden Snapper lore
Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.
This is what the original section read:
"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."
Bee movie script
I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.
From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.
EDIT 28/06: Zeus
Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".
Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.
Wegg shaming
On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.
Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!
The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.
The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.
Plague nest skull
The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.
It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.
EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.
Rock bottom
CAPTAINPLANET
…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.
I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.
EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.
This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.
Lair 46264
A cursed lair.
Dreams
I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.
A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.
I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.
The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.
I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.
Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.
Dragon Slime
Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.
It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.
EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here
Cucumber
Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.
EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!
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SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos
Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.
What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.
This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.
NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.
Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.
I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)
We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.
Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.
1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.
False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.
We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.
2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak
False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.
3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.
False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.
Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.
4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.
*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.
The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.
Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.
This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.
So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:
Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.
I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.
There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:
The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.
The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.
The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.
Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.
Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.
Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.
The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.
But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.
I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.
Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of?
We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.
Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.
I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.
I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.
*Deep breath*
The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.
So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).
If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.
I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.
Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.
I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.
Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.
Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.
The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.
El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.
The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.
If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.
I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.
I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.
So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?
The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.
So What Do I Believe?
That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.
I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).
I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).
I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.
I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.
Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.
Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.
The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.
Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.
I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)
So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.
At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.
When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.
All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.
#destiel#deancas#supernatural#spn finale conspiracies#fandom conspiracies#anti spn finale#castiel#dean winchester#destiel is canon#and also not canon i guess#forever stuck in a state of almost#schrodingers destiel#the rancid nutwork#anti CW#my opinions#plus a whole bunch of logic#and a refusal to believe blatant lies#meta essay#I wrote this all out in one afternoon#because it got too much for my brain#and i was fed up of all the info going around#and the mockery#reducing destiel shippers once again to deluded teenagers#which we are not#nor have we ever been#anyway i now feel a sense of calm#and peace#and i am going to make some tea
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The Voyager Bunch
Or, Rascals: Voyager Edition
-----
Based on this post
This is dedicated to @jellybeansarecool @bizships @emilie786 @joyful-voyager and @subtle-spock for providing ideas, encouragement, and for generally being really awesome people. Also they are the nicest folks ever. Go follow them.
This ain’t my first fanfiction rodeo, but it is my first Star Trek fanfiction rodeo so I beg for your patience. Also, I am perfectly aware that there are some plot holes in here. This is because I am an animal scientist, not a Starfleet physicist/biologist/whateverist. Swiss cheese also has holes and swiss cheese is good so please consider that.
Click here to read on AO3, if you prefer. Thanks for reading!
-----
Despite having only been a captain for a few years, Kathryn Janeway had seen more unusual occurrences, courtesy of the Delta Quadrant, than most Starfleet captains combined. Some days, she felt a little overwhelmed by the summary of the last three years of experiences. Other days, she was grateful for the callouses such challenges had built over her nerves, preparing her to face even the strangest incidents without panicking.
Today was a day to be grateful, because without having seen everything she had seen, the prospect of her Chief Engineer, Chief of Security, Head Helmsman, and most brilliant Ensign being reverted into child-like versions of themselves would have launched her straight into a spiral of panic.
“How-” Janeway paused for a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, “how exactly did this happen?”
“Well, ya see, ‘Lanna and Harry and I were in that shuttle and then this big black thing showed up and we flew into it and there was a big flash and-”
Janeway held a hand up, cutting off the shockingly fast string of prattle. “I think I understand that part, Tom, thank you.” She spoke as gently and patiently as possible. “What I don’t understand is how Tuvok got into this.... predicament.”
She turned toward the tallest of the four children, who stood with his hands behind his back in a way that would have been exactly like Tuvok, if the pre-teen boy weren’t fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and looking around the bridge, open mouthed and starry-eyed. “Tuvok?”
The Vulcan turned toward her. “The shuttle was stuck in the anomaly and the tractor beam wasn’t working, so I rammed my ship into theirs to dislodge it.” Tuvok nearly smiled, which was jarring to see on his features, no matter how much younger he looked. “It worked, but I got sucked into the anomaly too. When we came out the other side, we looked like this.”
He motioned to Tom and B’Elanna, who were standing next to him, both of which appeared to be around the age of 5 or 6. Harry, who looked to be about a year old, was currently tucked into Chakotay’s arms, playing contentedly with the rank bar at the large man’s throat.
Janeway looked the group over, ignoring the humored smiled playing at her first officer’s lips. With a sigh, she turned to the members of her senior officer team that were not currently under the age of 13. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“I would like to run some experiments first, but I am wondering if I can age their DNA back to the correct age in a process similar to the one I used to turn you and Mr. Paris back into humans after the, ah, Warp 10 incident,” The Doctor said.
“That might put their bodies back at the right age,” Kes said, brow furrowing, “but their minds appear to have reverted to their new biological age as well. Will the DNA reversal process fix that?”
The Doctor tilted his head. “I’m unsure. I need more time to research and run simulations.”
Janeway nodded. “Get started on that right away. In the meantime,” she turned back to the children and her commander, “let’s get you four something to eat.”
Neelix jumped to his feet, practically lighting up the room with his enthusiasm. “I’ll fix you kiddos up something real nice!” He dashed over to the door with a wild grin. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll have the best grilled cheese sandwich you’ve ever smelt!” He saluted the whole room and practically bounced out the door.
Janeway glanced over at Chakotay who, for the first time since he had picked up baby Harry, looked nervous. His worried glance met her own and he tilted his head.
“Well,” Chakotay sighed, “hopefully these guys aren’t as picky of eaters as I was.”
-----
As unappealing as Janeway found Neelix’s cooking to be, it was, apparently, perfect for kids, as evidenced by the unrestrained glee with which Tom, B’Elanna, and Tuvok devoured their sandwiches.
The captain couldn’t help but smile as Tom downed the second half of his sandwich in a few bites and think how the older version of Tom would have been appalled to see himself eating Neelix’s cooking with such enjoyment.
As the older children ate, Janeway found herself spooning some kind of mashed vegetable mix into Harry’s waiting mouth. At first, she was a little uncomfortable with the idea of feeding one of her best officers, but, once she was able to get past the strangeness of the entire situation, she found herself enjoying the funny expressions and eager attitude of the baby in front of her.
“Gosh, he’s such a cute baby.” She said with a grin for the fourth time.
Chakotay leaned over, his shoulder brushing hers as he smiled at Harry. “I’d like to agree with you, Captain, but you keep hogging him so I can’t get a good look.” He turned to look her in the eye, raising his eyebrow teasingly.
She shoved him playfully with her elbow. “You got to hold him earlier in the conference room. It’s my turn.”
“I think your turn ended about ten minutes ago,” he grinned.
“I think I can find something else for you to do if you’re going to take Harry away from me, Commander.” She returned his grin.
“Fine,” Chakotay shook his head with a chuckle, “but I get him later.”
-----
Several hours had passed since lunch and, much to Chakotay’s disappointment, baby Harry was still firmly in Janeway’s possession, perched on her hip and looking for all the world like he belonged there.
Chakotay tried not to think too much about how naturally Kathryn had taken to caring for Harry as he watched her pace the bridge, checking on various scanner readings and flight paths, from his position on the floor by their command chairs. Beside him, Tom and B’Elanna rolled a ball back and forth between them, excitedly chattering about... well... everything.
“Do you think the whales were really THAT big?” Tom spread his arms out to the side.
“Yeah they were!” B’Elanna exclaimed loudly enough that the entire ship could probably hear it. Despite Chakotay’s best efforts to get her to lower her voice, the young girl seemed to only have one volume. “I saw a big fake one in a museum once and it was HUGE!”
“Whoa!” Tom’s eyes widened. “Bigger than this ship?”
B’Elanna tilted her head. “I don’t know, but it was definitely bigger than me!”
The two kids laughed, rolling the ball back and forth faster.
“Hey Tom?”
“What?”
“You’re my best friend!” B’Elanna suddenly reached forward and gave Tom a hug.
Chakotay glanced up at Kathryn to exchange a look of awe before he turned back to the kids on the floor. “But B’E, I thought you just said a few minutes ago that I’m your best friend.” He raised an eyebrow, hiding his smile.
The young girl gave him a look that he had seen far too many times on her older counterpart’s face whenever he said something particularly dumb. “I can have two best friends, duh.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
Suddenly, he saw Kathryn’s purposeful walk stop out of the corner of his eye.
“Chakotay,” her voice was even and tense, “where’s Tuvok?”
Eyes widening, Chakotay glanced around the bridge. Tuvok was no where to be seen.
“Chakotay to Tuvok.” He stood as he tapped his commbadge. “Tuvok, please acknowledge.” They waited a moment and, upon receiving no response, moved simultaneously toward the turbolift.
“It’s possible he hasn’t figured out how to use his comm.” Janeway tucked Harry closer to her side as they stepped into the lift. “Computer: locate Tuvok.”
“Unable to comply.”
Janeway gave the ceiling a glare. “Why?”
The computer did not respond.
“Maybe the de-aging effect has made it difficult for the computer to locate him.” Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s alright; he’s probably just exploring the ship; you saw how amazed he was by everything in the conference room earlier.”
She nodded tightly. “Let’s hope so. Where do you think he’s gone?”
“Maybe to the holodeck?”
“Or his quarters.”
“What about the mess hall?”
“He just ate.”
They both paused, mulling it over.
“Alright.” Kathryn straightened. “I’ll check holodeck one and his quarters, you check holodeck two and the mess hall.” She turned back to the lift door. “Holodeck one.”
Chakotay swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying not to think of all the ways a small child could get hurt on a spaceship like Voyager. As the turbolift began to move, Janeway’s badge chirped.
“Kes to the captain.”
Her brow raised as she tapped the emblem. “Go ahead.”
“I think I’ve found something you’re missing.” Kes’s usually lighthearted tone was even lighter, clear amusement seeping through.
Kathryn turned to look Chakotay in the eye, a hopeful smile brightening her face. “I’m on my way.”
-----
Honestly, Janeway was a little ashamed of the fact that she didn’t think to go looking for her best friend among the orchids and other plants in the aeroponics bay, considering his horticulturally-related hobbies. As she and Chakotay stepped into the room, smiles crept onto both of their faces as they watched Tuvok carefully transfer one of Kes’s sprouts to a bigger pot. After patting the soil around the plant firmly, he wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing dirt on his face to match the dirt on his uniform.
Kes smiled up at the command team. “He came down and asked about a hundred questions about our system and then offered to help me with my work while we talked because its ‘more efficient to talk and work than simply talk.’”
Janeway chuckled at Kes’s approximation of Tuvok’s speech pattern. “Thanks for letting us know, Kes.” She reluctantly handed Harry to Chakotay, who flashed his dimples, and crouched next to Tuvok. “Hello there.”
Tuvok glanced up quickly before resuming his work. “Hello, Captain. Did you know that these Talaxian green beans take only a week and a half to reach maturity?”
“I did not.” Janeway raised a brow and tilted her head. “That’s very impressive.”
“I thought so too when Kes told me.” He patted the soil around another plant and set it aside, retrieving another sprout.
“Tuvok,” the captain reached forward and rested a hand on his shoulder, “I’m glad you’ve found something to do, but you have to tell someone where you’re going before you wander off. We didn’t know what happened to you and Chakotay and I were really worried.”
Behind her, Chakotay’s heart flipped. There was something rather... intimate about the way she had referred to both of them being worried about a child.
“I’m sorry, Captain.” Tuvok nodded his head. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good.” Janeway smiled and stood. “Why don’t you help Kes down here for a while and then come back up to the bridge when you are ready?” She looked at Kes. “That is, if Kes is alright with that.”
The young woman smiled. “Of course, I’d love some help.”
Janeway nodded and turned back to Tuvok. “Be sure to let us know when you’re on your way back up.”
“Of course, Captain.”
She patted him one last time on the shoulder and turned back to Chakotay. They fell into step beside one another and entered the elevator.
As the doors whooshed closed, Janeway turned to Chakotay with the intention of reclaiming Harry, but stopped. A smile grew across her lips as she watched Chakotay bounce Harry gently, allowing the little boy to palm his tattoo in curiosity. Even as one of Harry’s chubby fingers poked him in the eye, Chakotay simply chuckled and took the tiny hand in his own.
He finally turned to look at her. “What?”
Kathryn just shook her head, grinning wider. “I was going to take Harry from you, but I can’t bear to break up this cute little arrangement.” She motioned to the two of them with a long finger.
The corner of Chakotay’s mouth kicked up a little higher. “Captain, did you just imply that I’m cute?”
Her brow arched, but her smile didn’t diminish. “It would be hard for anyone to look unappealing with a cute baby in their arms.”
Her heart stopped suddenly as she realized what she had just said. From the look of Chakotay’s face, he had caught it too. Implying that he and the baby were cute was one thing; calling him “appealing” was another. Before she could say anything else she might regret, Kathryn turned back to the lift door, schooling her features back into the face of the Captain.
If she had turned but a half-second later, she would have seen a wide smile break across Chakotay’s face.
-----
“I’m sorry, Captain, but I need more time. I won’t deactivate myself until I have a solution, but this situation is very delicate and I can’t risk rushing my tests. You’ll need to find somewhere for the children to sleep. Hopefully I’ll have a solution tomorrow.”
Kathryn nodded. “Of course. Thank you, Doctor.”
With a grim smile, the feed from sickbay switched off, leaving her to look at her dark reflection in the black screen. Something like relief swept over help alongside a touch of regret. On one hand, she could really use her senior officers back in functioning shape. On the other hand....
Her eyes drifted back down to Harry, who had pulled a bit of her hair out of it’s ponytail and was curling it around his tiny fist in unbreakable fascination. A smile tugged at her lips as she cuddled him a bit closer.
She could get used to this.
The thought struck her before she even knew what she was feeling and, as soon as she admitted it to herself, she took that feeling and shoved it as deep into the recesses of her mind as she could. She was the captain of a ship that was constantly in danger and she shouldn’t dwell on things she couldn’t have.
Kathryn sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well, Harry, looks like we need to find you a place to sleep.”
Turning back to the computer, she moved to set him down so she could use both hands to search the crew quarters layouts for a suitable place to keep the children overnight. As soon as Harry’s feet touched the ground, a wail rose from the back of his throat and his face scrunched.
Kathryn quickly scooped him back up. “Harry? What’s wrong?”
The boy’s cry of protest faded into whimpers and he buried his head in her shoulder, clinging to her tightly.
A warm feeling washed over her. “Ah,” she smiled, “I see.”
She pulled him closer and turned back to the computer, tapping buttons with one hand. “You can stay up here with me, then.”
The door to her quarters chimed.
“Come in.”
Before she could turn to greet her guest, mischievous giggles rose from the door. Eyebrow raised, she whirled around to find Chakotay standing in the doorway, a stack of PADDs in his hand, a tiny engineer on his left leg, and a tiny helmsman on his right.
He stepped forward with far less difficultly than she would have expected, given the extra weight on his legs. He crossed the room quickly and passed the PADDs to her. “The crew reports you requested.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, glancing down at the still giggling forms. “Not to alarm you, Commander, but it would seem that you have a couple of lifeforms attached to you.”
Chakotay’s eyes grew wide in mock surprise. “Really?” He turned his head and shuffled around, as if to look at his back. “Where?”
Tom and B’Elanna’s laughter grew. Suddenly, Chakotay leaned over and scooped the two of them off his legs, lifting them both up over his shoulders as their shrieked in delight.
He turned back to Kathryn with a wide smile. “Not to worry, Captain, I’ve apprehended the life forms.”
She smiled back with a soft chuckle. “We need to find a place for the life forms to stay tonight.”
Chakotay’s smile faded into a more serious, but not displeased look. “The Doctor doesn’t have a solution yet, then?” He lowered Tom and B’Elanna to the ground. They scampered off to the viewport, excitedly chattering about the stars.
“No, he needs a bit more time.”
Chakotay nodded. “Maybe I could take them for the night, that way someone is there to keep an eye on them.”
Kathryn shook her head. “I have no doubt in your babysitting abilities, Commander, but four children is a lot for one person to watch alone and your quarters are not big enough for Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 to run around in.” She gestured to the kids at the window.
“Fair point. Maybe I should take Harry and Tuvok then, and you could take Tom and B’Elanna?”
She turned Harry away from Chakotay. “Trying to take my boy again, are you Chakotay?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Do you have another idea, then, Mom?”
Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to smirk at him and continue speaking without any indication that his previous sentence had impacted her. “My quarters are the largest on the ship. If we set up cots here in my living room we could easily both keep an eye on the children overnight.”
“Sounds good to me.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “How about I go collect Tuvok from aeroponics and some food from the mess hall while you get the cots set up?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He gave her one last lingering smile, which she returned, before heading out the door and down the hall.
-----
Apparently the lunch they had shared earlier that day had been misleadingly easy. Supper was, to put it lightly, a challenge.
“B’Elanna, eat your own food and stop taking from Tom’s plate,” Kathryn said firmly.
“But Tom isn’t eating it!”
“I was going to eat it! I’m just a slower eater than you are!”
“Well eat faster then!”
“B’Elanna!” Chakotay set down the spoon he had been using to feed Harry and fixed her with a stern look. “That food isn’t yours, and Kathryn already asked you to stop taking Tom’s food. You won’t be asked again.”
B’Elanna mumbled out an apology and stuffed another bite of her own meal into her mouth.
Kathryn shot Chakotay a grateful smile and turned to Tuvok, who was holding up one of his vegetables to the light. “Tuvok? What are you doing?”
“I’m looking at the xylem and phloem of this plant.”
She bit back a smile. “I appreciate your curiosity, Tuvok, but I need you to stop studying your food and start eating it.”
The young Vulcan turned to her and nodded. “Of course.” He politely chewed and swallowed his food and turned back to the captain. “Did you know that this particular plant is a distant cousin of Terran broccoli? You can tell by the-”
Chakotay smiled as he watched Kathryn listen to Tuvok’s fourth lecture of the evening on plant biology. Neither of them were certain of what he was talking about most of the time, but his enthusiasm for the subject was nearly infectious and neither of them minded listening.
“Chakotay?”
He turned away from the scene across the table and looked at Tom next to him. “Yes?”
“After dinner, will you read to us?”
“Of course.” Chakotay smiled and ruffled Tom’s hair. “Anything particular you want to hear?”
“I want to hear about your missions with the Maquis!” B’Elanna bounced in her seat, all of that barely-contained Klingon energy starting to spill over.
“Or perhaps you could read to us from a classic story,” Tuvok raised a brow. “I’m fond of the works of Tolkien, maybe Tom and B’Elanna would like ‘The Hobbit’ too?”
“What’s a hobbit?” Tom’s face scrunched in confusion.
“Maybe,” Kathryn interjected before Tuvok could give a detailed recounting of the beloved childhood book, “Chakotay could tell us a story from his tribe.” Her eyes met his across the table. “He is pretty good at recounting ancient legends.”
Heat crept up the sides of Chakotay’s face as he held her stare. “Maybe.”
“Nah,” Tom’s voice broke through the pleasant tension between them. “I wanna know what a hobbit is!”
Chakotay chuckled. “Alright, ‘The Hobbit’ it is.”
-----
It took some time to get the older three to settle into bed, but finally, they began to yawn and snuggle deeper under their blankets. As their heads grew heavier, Chakotay wrapped up his story telling and the command team began to tuck their young companions in for the night.
As Chakotay wished Tom and Tuvok a good night’s rest, Kathryn carefully extracted B’Elanna from where she was snuggled into her side and took her over to her cot. As she got the small girl settled, she suddenly reached up and captured Kathryn in a tight hug. Surprised, Kathryn’s eyes widened, but she returned the gesture in earnest.
“Kathryn?”
“Yes, B’Elanna?”
“You’re my best friend.”
Kathryn blinked and pulled back to look B’Elanna in the eyes with a small smile. “I thought Chakotay and Tom were your best friends.”
“I can have more than one best friend.” B’Elanna’s voice was filled with deep confidence, despite how sleep-laced it was.
“Fair enough,” Kathryn chuckled, pulling the blankets tightly around the girl. “Goodnight.”
She met Chakotay in her bedroom, Harry still in his arms.
“Any time I try to set him down he starts crying.” Chakotay grinned sheepishly.
She grinned back. “I had a similar experience earlier today.” She reached up and brushed hand over the boy’s soft, black hair. “Its a good thing he weighs next to nothing.”
At Kathryn’s gentle touch, Harry stirred. His dark eyes found Kathryn’s and he reached out for her. With a look of mock hurt, Chakotay transferred the boy to his desired location.
“I’m trying not to be offended right now, Harry.”
Kathryn simply grinned and bounced the baby in her arms gently. “It’s alright, Chakotay. He has excellent taste.”
Chakotay shook his head, dimples flashing. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”
She turned toward the bed and settled herself on one side, her back resting against the pillows and Harry resting against her chest. “Let’s see if we can get this one sleepy enough to not notice if we set him down.” She looked back at Chakotay, who was still standing, rather awkwardly. She patted the bed next to her with a smirk. “Come on, Commander. Get some rest. We’ve has a big day, wrangling the kiddos.”
He smiled and crossed the room to the other side of the bed, gently sitting next to her, his legs stretched out. “It has been a long day,” he said with a sigh. “But, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it.” He tilted his head to look at Kathryn, who was already looking up at him.
“Nor I.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Suddenly, Chakotay was very aware of how close their faces were. He watched as Kathryn’s eyes slid down to his lips. Before he could do something he couldn’t take back, he took a deep breath and turned away.
“Well,” Kathryn cleared her throat, sounding more like the Captain now, “it’s been fun but we should get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on Harry here and take him to his cot in a few minutes. You should go ahead and rest, Commander.”
“Of course.” He tilted his head and gave her a small smile. “Goodnight, Kathryn.”
She grinned back. “Goodnight, Chakotay.”
-----
Apparently, Kathryn didn’t stay awake long enough to take Harry back to his cot, as evidenced by the weight on her chest as she stirred awake the next morning. She slowly became aware of her surroundings and the previous day’s events came flooding back to her.
She also became distinctly aware of the warm, comfortable presence beside her. As she opened her eyes, she realized that her first officer’s arm was settled around her shoulders and that his shoulder was currently her pillow. His head rested atop hers and the hand that was not draped around her shoulders was resting on top of Harry’s back next to her own.
The situation was all rather snuggly and, were it not a violation of every professional barrier Kathryn had erected between her and the commander, she would have had no issue in savoring the moment.
Then again.... maybe she could allow herself just a few moments to pretend that the baby in her arms wasn’t her star technical officer and that the man holding her close wasn’t her XO and that this was a perfectly normal situation.
Before she could get too far into her fantasy, however, Chakotay stirred next to her, his dark eyes fluttering open to find her own.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice huskier than her own as sleep clung to it.
“Good morning.”
They looked at each other for a moment before Chakotay carefully extracted himself from her side, helping her up so she could carefully place Harry in his cot in the living room without waking the boy or the other children who were still sleeping. Without a word, they quietly prepared breakfast and coffee, steeling themselves for another day of handling the kids.
-----
“I’m afraid I’m a bit.... stuck,” The Doctor ground out with obvious difficulty.
The captain raised an eyebrow. The EMH admitting that he was struggling to solve a problem was a rare instance indeed. “How so?”
With a huff, The Doctor turned back to his desk, flipping through experimental results from a stack of PADDs. “Kes was right; the DNA reversal process I initially thought might work will not account for the de-aging of the officers’ brains, so I decided to look at the type of radiation that might have caused this and, to be completely honest, Captain,” he turned back to look her in the eye, “I have absolutely no idea how this even happened. There’s no evidence of radiation, the temporal energy around them is unidentifiable, and I can’t figure out how their cells and their minds were reversed.” He lowered his head. “I’m unsure of how to even proceed from here.”
Kathryn nodded, taking the emotions that were beginning to tumble in her chest and stuffing them as far down as she could. “Very well, Doctor. Take a rest and we can all come back to the issue later once we’ve had time to think.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. “Don’t despair yet; there’s a lot of other brilliant minds on this ship besides your own. We’ll figure it out together.” She smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading into the turbolift.
As the doors slid open, she found Tuvok waiting in the lift for her. She smiled down at him and stepped inside, calling for the bridge.
“Chakotay to the captain.”
She tapped her badge. “Go ahead.”
“We need you on the bridge, there’s a bit of a situation.”
She raised a brow, glancing down at Tuvok, who was gazing at her intently. “On my way.”
-----
“So they want to.... interview us?”
“They want to interview you specifically.”
“To see if we are worthy of going through their space.”
“Something like that.”
“And going around their space isn’t an option?”
“It would add another 7 months to our journey, so this interview is our ideal option.”
“No pressure, eh, Commander?” Janeway shifted Harry from one hip to the other with a long sigh. “Alright. Hail them.”
After a moment, a blue and red humanoid alien appeared on the screen.
“Greetings, Ambassador.” The Captain flashed a polite smile. “I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager.”
The alien woman inclined her head. “Hello, Captain Janeway, I’m Ambassador Tel Parah of the Doonian Delegation.” Her eyes swept the bridge. “You’re ship is heavily armed, which, according to the laws of our people, requires that we do a personal interview of the commanding officer to ensure that violence or other manners of chaos will not be instigated as you pass through our space.”
“Of course, I understand.” Janeway smiled again. “What questions may I answer for you?”
Over the course of the next 30 minutes, Janeway was grilled on their purpose in passing through Doonian space, the types and numbers of weapons they carried, and the journey they had made so far. Just as Janeway thought there wasn’t possibly anything more she could tell them, Ambassador Parah paused and looked up from the computer device in her hand to study Janeway. After a moment, she spoke again.
“Just one more thing, Captain Janeway,” a slow smile slipped onto her face, “What’s your son’s name? He’s absolutely precious.”
Janeway raised her eyebrows in surprise and glanced down at Harry, who she had nearly forgotten was still in her arms. At some point, he had removed her combadge and was currently turning it over and over again in his tiny hands, taking a moment here and there to bite parts of the object he must have found particularly interesting. Kathryn exchanged an amused glace with Chakotay, who shrugged off screen, before turning back to the ambassador.
“This is Harry.” Janeway smiled, turning the boy so the ambassador could see him better.
The other woman smiled widely. “How adorable. He has the brightest eyes.”
“He does.” Kathryn smiled back down at him.
“You know,” Parah leaned back in her chair, “I usually don’t allow anyone through our space that isn’t from a system or planet we are already know and trust and so I wasn’t planning on letting Voyager pass. However, when I saw your baby and how well-cared for and happy he seems, I felt that I could trust you somehow.” She smiled again. “We value children highly in the Doonien Delegation. Children are often a reflection of a parent’s character. I can tell by Harry’s disposition and curiosity that you are of a fine character, Captain.”
Janeway cuddled Harry a little closer, heart warming. “Thank you, Ambassador, I take that as a high compliment.”
“As you should.” Parah leaned forward again. “You may pass through our space. We will have you stop at three checkpoints on your way though which I will send you the coordinated for in a moment. Have a safe journey.”
The screen went blank and Kathryn turned to Chakotay.
“Should I feel bad that I let her believe Harry is my son?”
Chakotay chuckled, stepping close enough and lowering his voice enough that the rest of the bridge could pretend not to hear him. “Are you saying he’s not?”
Her gaze grew softer. “I guess he’s sort of been like a son to me since we got on board.” She looked back down at him. “I feel very protective of him.”
Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”
They smiled at each other again. Chakotay opened his mouth to say something more but, suddenly, there was a tug at Kathryn’s elbow.
“Captain? Now that the negotiations are over, I think I have an idea about how to fix Tom, B’Elanna, Harry, and me.” Tuvok’s eyes were bright and eager.
“Alright,” Captain Janeway smiled down at him. “Let’s get The Doctor up here and we’ll hear your idea together.”
-----
Chakotay exchanged glances with The Doctor and the Captain over the table as he bounced both Tom and B’Elanna on his knees. “Could that really work? It seems almost too easy.”
“Well, if this is a phenomena that’s inexplicable and is tied only to the anomaly the shuttles passed through, I feel like sending the children back through isn’t our worst idea.” The captain rubbed the back of her neck. “Doctor?”
The holographic man continued typing into his PADD for a moment before stopping and reading. “I- I honestly think this could work.” He slid the PADD over to Janeway. “It’s hard to predict, since we have no idea what exactly caused this, but if we send the shuttles through the anomaly opposite of the way they first went through, I think it just might turn them back to their usual ages.”
“How do we know it won’t just make them even younger?” Chakotay watched as B’Elanna slipped off of his knee, pulling Tom along with her to go play in the corner.
“We’d have to run some tests to be sure that they don’t. Perhaps we could send a plant through first, or some other organic life form.” The Doctor took the PADD back and made a note.
“We would also have to make sure that, if the tests show some promise, Tuvok can take the shuttle back through the anomaly.” Janeway turned to the boy sitting at her right. “Well, Tuvok? Do you think you could pilot the shuttle?”
He shook his head. “Since I don’t have my older self’s memories I don’t think I could.”
“We could use the tractor beam to send the shuttle through,” Chakotay said. “If we give them enough of a push to go through the anomaly, they should be able to pilot themselves back to Voyager once they get out the other side and have returned to their normal ages.”
Janeway raised her eyebrows. “Well, it’s worth a shot and I don’t have any better ideas. Commander, set a course for the anomaly. Doctor, prepare the experiments.”
-----
Tom and B’Elanna seemed to sense that something was up as they suddenly became even more clingy. The whole trip back to the anomaly, B’Elanna shared the captain’s chair with Kathryn, insisting with all of her Klingon passion that the older woman tell her more stories from earlier in their journey through the Delta Quadrant. At the helm, Tom hung on to Chakotay’s arm, watching the stars go by and asking Chakotay a hundred questions about piloting starships. Tuvok sat in Chakotay’s usual seat, interjecting with questions of his own here and there, and Harry sat on Kathryn’s knee, chewing on her jacket sleeve, her combadge still clutched tightly in his left hand.
After they reached the anomaly, it took a couple of hours for The Doctor to complete his experiments and, once he had declared that plants that had gone through the anomaly twice were returned to the same age the started as, they began preparing the children to enter the anomaly themselves.
“Will it hurt?” B’Elanna asked in the smallest voice she had ever used in her life as Kathryn tucked the small Starfleet uniform that she had come through the anomaly with around her shoulders.
“It won’t,” Tuvok said. “It didn’t hurt when we came through the first time, did it?”
She shook her head, but didn’t look very reassured.
“It’s okay, ‘Lanna!” Tom grabbed her hand. “I’ll be right beside you.”
Kathryn stood and took a step back, feeling almost as if someone had filled her chest with some of Neelix’s heavy stew. She had to let them go, of course, this wasn’t the way they were supposed to be, but she was certainly going to miss seeing the level of innocence her officers had now. B’Elanna was unburdened by trust issues, Tuvok was passionate and bright, and Tom - well, she supposed he hadn’t changed all that much, but at least he seemed to be genuinely happy, not just putting up a front of humor to protect himself.
It would be hard to see them go back, but maybe, now that she understood how the world and time had changed her friends, she could help them.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a tug at her collar. She looked down to see Harry pulling at her pips, completely enamored by the gold metal.
“Oh, Harry.” She nearly choked on his name. Since he was so young now, she didn’t have any insight into his personality after having seen him as a baby, but she was going to miss his innocent curiosity and familiar weight on her hip.
Before she could think too much about it, she handed Harry over to Tuvok. The younger boy scrunched his face up and whimpered at the change of hands, but Tuvok bounced him gently and he settled down, reaching for the pointed tip of Tuvok’s ear.
Kathryn took a step back, feeling Chakotay step up behind her so that they were nearly touching. “Best of luck, you four.” She gave them her most reassuring smile. “See you on the other side.”
She and Chakotay hurried up the bridge and gave the go ahead for the ensign who had taken over Harry’s post to begin using the tractor beam to move the shuttle out into the anomaly. They stood side-by-side on the bridge and watched the shuttle go through. At come point, they grabbed each other’s hands and squeezed each other tightly.
There was a flash as the shuttle passed through the anomaly. After a few terrifyingly quiet moments, the shuttle came bursting out of the other side and a voice crackled over the comm.
“Cochran to Voyager,” confusion leaked through Tom’s voice. “What the hell just happened?”
Kathryn and Chakotay smiled at each other in relief. “What’s the last thing you remember, Tom?” Chakotay asked.
“B’Elanna, Harry, and I were coming back to Voyager when we- wait a second, how did you get here, Tuvok?”
Janeway laughed. “Why don’t we get you four back on board and then we’ll explain everything.”
“Copy that. See you in a few.” Tom’s voice grew quieter, like he was leaning away from the comm. “I have a feeling this is going to be one heck of a story.”
-----
After everyone had been debriefed and left to process the last two days of strangeness, Chakotay found Kathryn in her favorite spot; on her couch and staring wistfully out at the stars as they drifted past. She had shucked her jacket and taken her hair out of it’s clip, leaving her in her grey turtleneck with her hair falling around her shoulders and face.
“Got a lot on your mind?”
She turned to smile at him, a note of sadness in her eyes. “It’s been an interesting couple of days.”
He settled on the couch a ways down, turning to face her. “It sure has.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m going to miss our kids.”
“Me too. It was fun having little ones around, playing at being a parent.” She fidgeted with the seam on the couch. “It was different and they sure did give us some challenges,” she chuckled, “but I loved it.”
“Have you ever thought about having kids of ou-” he coughed, “your own?”
Her crystal blue gaze caught his. “Yes.” She smiled and looked out the window again. “I always thought someday I would be a mother.” With a snort and a smirk, she continued; “Of course, I never thought I’d be mothering my helmsman, security officer, engineer, and technical officer.”
Chakotay laughed softly. “I think you were mothering them before they were turned into actual children.”
“Perhaps.” A pause. “What about you? Did you ever think about being a father? Outside of the whole instance with Seska, of course.”
He nodded. “When I was in the Maquis, no. My life was too fast-paced to be a proper father. If I was going to be a dad, I wanted to do it right and I couldn’t have done that from a Maquis ship.” He took a deep breath. “After joining this crew, though.... I’m in a better place now, and I think I’d be thrilled to be a father.” He looked over at Kathryn to find that she was already looking at him with something like wonder in her eyes. He held her gaze for a moment and, finally finding a bit of courage, he said: “I’m more at peace.”
A smiled played at the corners of her lips, and her eyes looked a little like they were silver-lined, though Chakotay couldn’t quite tell for sure in the low light of her quarters.
“You were really good with the kids. You would make an excellent father, I have no doubt.”
He smiled. “You would make an excellent mother. You’re a natural.”
“Thank you, but I barely felt like I knew what I was doing.” She chuckled.
“You could have fooled me.” He grinned for a moment, before his countenance grew more serious. “I hope you get your wish someday, Kathryn. I hope you get to be a mother.”
She was quiet for a moment, and Chakotay suddenly felt his chest tighten. Had he said too much.
Before he could fall too far into his panic, her hand slid over to his, giving it a squeeze. He looked up into her eyes, which definitely had tears in them now.
“I hope you get to be a father too Chakotay. Someday.”
He squeezed her hand back and they both fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the view of the stars outside Kathryn’s window.
#whew okay that got emotional there at the end#lets all take a breather and remember cute little Harry#Okay that's better#anyway#thanks for reading!#hopefully this wasn't too plot-hole-ridden#star trek voyager#kathryn janeway#captain janeway#janeway#chakotay#harry kim#b'elanna torres#tom paris#tuvok#neelix#kes#the EMH#the doctor
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DEAR FISH FUCKERS, YOU’RE WELCOME
I’ve done what no other has done before (to my knowledge) and found the aging system for the Zora!
Ok so this started as simple research for this ask
See, I misread the phrasing of “best educated guess” to “research for 2 hours and come to a conclusive answer” so anyhow before I indulge you into the answers of the universe allow me to explain the research I’ve come across
[TL;DR at the bottom]
So firstly, we have to look at our conclusive evidence, from which we’ll base our theory/headcanon on, which can mainly be found in the Creating a Champion book, and some dialogue in game. I’ve compiled them all in these bullets here
Zora children are around 20ish years old [as said by dialogue with Finley in her love letter sidequest, I don’t have a screenshot but please just take my word for it]
150ish is considered middle-aged for Zora
Muzu is around 4 centuries old
Curved claws, weathered fins, and worn noses are signs of an older Zora that is more than 3 centuries(ish) old
Zora that were friends with Link must be around 150ish (not just 100), since you need to also account for the 20+ years of growing from a child stage, to the more normal sized form that you see them in the game, ergo, it’s that age plus the 100 years stasis that we determine the “middle age” of around 150
150 is the middle age, double that for the average old age of 300 years, but I say it could go to 400 too for additional reasons I’ll explain later with examples with my final age system. Anyhow, Muzu is around 400 if you take the 100 years for actually growing up from childhood, additional 100+ years of holding a different job as I doubt you just straight out hire a councilman without experience, and then another century for where he first started working in in the council, training Mipha, which would overlap with the period of the pre and post Great Calamity and Link’s return, meaning that’s 3 centuries plus 50ish years if we’re being generous with the overlap. This would help line up with the “for over a century” line as that doesn’t quite mean 2 centuries of working in the council, but Muzu is definitely getting up there to 4 centuries for his age alone
Now, I thought, this was gonna be my breakthrough, this screenshot here, depicting the traits of the older Zora. The elderly Zora are probably around 3 centuries old (since King Dorephan said they were young men around Mipha’s time, 150ish+100 gives us the range of 250-300), so I was like “Oh l can look at the size of their fins and noses and head/tail things and find a more efficient way to find their age” but nOPE. There is very little variation in that ballpark, the Zora either have exaggerated weathered noses or nice and shiny fins and no in between. The size of their head fins are roughly the same, with again, the only exaggerated differences being with the King and Sidon which doesn’t help at all because the Royal Zora already have a bunch of other difference such as their SIZE to name one.
I even went to the part about their curved toes, which initially would line up with some other Zora like Muzu
And let me tell you
I’ve looked at their toes
This is them from a child, a middle-aged, and an elderly. Color doesn’t matter and the curve? Well there’s
BARELY A DIFFERENCE
At least not nearly enough to find an efficient way to find age. Even Muzu’s final model didn’t have the exaggerated curvature as seen in the book.
I looked at their tail tail fins, (not the tail on their head, but their actual small rounded tail fin by their butts) because the book also mentioned how the grown Zora have more pronounced tail fins compared to the kids, but it was the same for the 150s and the 300s sooo not that helpful
So I kept digging. In the book I found that King Dorephan was crowned around 100 years before the game started. In addition I reread the 10 Zora stone monuments and found that he had killed a Guardian with his bare hands and thrown it off a cliff, which he still had a scar from.
[and yes I attempted to find his definitive age by seeing how long it takes for a scar to fade but I gave up cause Zora anatomy is too different to find a conclusive answer]
So I was like, “ok Dorephan had to have been around 150 when he came to the throne, then 50 years later the guardians are excavated giving way to the story about the guardian...” blah blah blahbla I even went to the supposed site where that guardian was, but it all didn’t really give me that much more info than what I already knew. I was researching ways to age the rock monuments from visuals alone which needless to say is pretty impossible, so I gave up on finding Dorephan’s age and I kept digging.
All I wanted was something physical that could properly give way to identifying a Zora’s age was that too much to ask???
Now this is where I had all but given up, it seems that my only answer was this vague note about how their fins move up when they grow
Which, to be fair, held true when I looked at the in-game character models myself, but I can’t exactly pixel measure these things for each Zora.
But THAT’S where the revelation came. I was so focused on finding inconsistencies within the elderly Zora, when I should have been looking at the young baby ones. See, this pictures, literally right next to the page about elderly Zora that I was analyzing for ages, is the key to it all
Now, I was thinking about the rings on a tree, and certain species of banded fish that grow and discard different markings as they grow older, I even counted the neck rings on certain Zora to see if they did that thing where they add a ring for each birthday like some African and Asian cultures do (look it up, that stuff’s pretty interesting!) and that is where it struck me.
Count how many luminescent markings are on their head
The males have 11, the females have 8 (on the one side, the other side has the same number of dots but for simplicity purposes I’m doing one side)
Now let’s count for these Zoras, who are middle aged-ish
The male has 10, the female has 7.
Now let’s look at the oldest Zora that we know of
3 dots above the eye, four on the tail. Muzu that motherfucker has 7 damn dots and I couldn’t be happier.
MY DUDES, GALS, AND PALS THIS IS IT, I’VE CHECKED AND DOUBLE CHECKED WITH NEARLY EVERY ZORA I COULD AND THE NUMBER OF LUMINESCENT MARKINGS ON THEIR HEAD CORRESPONDS WITH THE AMOUNT OF CENTURIES THEY’VE LIVED, LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY DOWN TO THE DOT
First we have Muzu, who as I’ve preciously stated is around 4 centuries old. 11-4? Oh, it’s seven, and that’s the amount of markings he has? OOoo??
How about this Zora Lady who recognized Link from 100 years ago?
Seven dots? 8-7 is 1 so shes just over one century which lines up timeline wise. You can even see how the third dot is slowing shrinking on her head so she’s coming up on 2 centuries
Ok how about the elders?
NINE. 11-9 is 2 centuries, with again, the dot by their head shrinking significantly showing how they’re getting up on 3 centuries.
The part I circled in green there is jewelry, not a marking, however this only goes further to prove my point. What better way to appear youthful than to have jewelry that makes it look like you have more markings than you have, made with luminous stone, no less.
This guy? Seggin? Super close to 4 centuries, those dots are fading away fast. Count your days old timer
Random dude that doesn’t recognize Link but is an new apprentice for sculpture making? 10 dots, a fresh 1 century pal, lookin young
I was a feral child running across the Domain screaming people’s ages in their face like a rude, naive, brat, I was elated to say the least. Especially since this system even works on the King himself
[plus one dot slightly behind the fin here...]
King Dorephan has 7 dots, he’s 400 years old. Which still lines up timeline wise, especially since he’s similar age with Muzu who he has stated is one of his most trusted advisors, beecaaaaaaaause of the years they’ve spent working together the timelines match uppppppp
This system works for almost all Zora, with 2 exceptions. Guards have helmets that cover their markings, so it’s impossible to tell. In addition, Prince Sidon, has sixteen lights on this hammerhead because he’s fancy like that (we already know he’s canonically 2ish centuries old anyhow from the DLC)
EDIT: I WAS WRONG THIS WORKS FOR SIDON TOO. The sixteen markings I was referring to was actually the amount of marking on each side of the head total, however if we look at the markings for only one side, like intended
Ten dots, Sidon’s over 100 years old. I’d say he’s closer to 150 given the timeline
Essentially, the most surefire way to find almost any Zora’s age is to identify a male or female Zora, count the number of lights on the side of their head/tail thing, then subtract from 11 if they’re a male, and from 8 for a female. The number left is how many centuries they’ve lived. You can check to see if their markings are shrinking and fading to get a sense if they’re coming up on the next century anytime soon. Comparing this with the oldest Zora we see in game, we can conclusively say that the Zora lifespan is around 3 to 4 centuries since no Zora has been seen with less than seven markings
Now go and make your Zora ocs with your appropriate number of lights. I’m gonna have a cookie
#botw#breath of the wild#legend of zelda botw#loz botw#zora#zora botw#botw theory#botw headcanon#no fuck that this IS canon
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Astrarium: The Adventures Between Realms: An In-Depth Look
What is Astrarium: The Adventures Between Realms?
Astrarium is a massive, written work of online fiction created by myself and my boyfriend Jonathan, with the art department fully manned by our best friend Tai (@cowboytai) and edited/possibly narrated by our other best friend Watta (found here at his YouTube channel).
The story follows the adventures of Artemis, or Ari as she's better known, a human girl raised by Dragons. The Dragons of are the deities of the universe, with a select group delegated to the task of Watchers, whom take the role of nurturing, shaping and recording the histories of the Seven Realms found in their universe. Ari, at age 16, is able to begin her training to become a Watcher (and the first ever human Watcher), and takes the four years of her training to explore each and every Realm, making friends and enemies along the way, and discovering more of who she is and who she wants to become.
We're currently looking at publishing it on its own website sometime in 2022. What we're looking at having done before then is the prologue, first five chapters, and the first trips to every Realm. Currently, we have the prologue and chapters 1-3 finished, with chapter 4 in progress along with the first round of trips. The prologue and chapters 1-5 will be posted together on the launch of the website. We will also have a Patreon set up for it, with some varying reward tiers!
What are the Realms?
There are Seven Realms featured in Astrarium, all named after constellations. They are Hydra (The Water Serpent), Auriga (The Charioteer), Ursa (Greater Bear), Cygnus (The Swan), Orion (The Hunter), Lepus (The Hare) and Lyra (The Lyre). Each one also features its own aesthetics, cultures, and even specialized races/species of civilized life.
Hydra takes place in a very water and island based world, with an aesthetic setting of the Age of Exploration/Golden Age of Piracy. There are seven major oceans on this world, and hundreds of islands, both inhabited and uninhabited and many filled to the brims with treasures. There are also large underwater cities that are elegantly built and homes to all sorts of academic pursuits.
Auriga is a world inspired by both the Old West and the Steampunk fashion and aesthetic. They have new inventions coming out every day, fueled not just by steam power but also by magical crystals. And they thrive off of having big communities that all rely on each other.
Ursa is a very natural world filled with gorgeous forests and lovely springs. It's world is heavily inspired by high fantasy, dungeons and dragons, and a certain other old tale that'll be evident in its cast of characters. It is filled with magics of all kinds and magical creatures left and right.
The citizens of Cygnus live on floating islands, all connected to each other by tethers, and the inhabitants fly anywhere they please. The aesthetic is based in 1920s/1930s fashion and glitz and glam, with a little bit of a seedy underbelly lurking in the city...as well as interesting horrors down in the jungles below them.
The Giantesses of Orion have kept to the simpler life, with a definite cottage core aesthetic throughout. They are an agricultural society with many settlements and even still wandering nomadic tribes that all unite for the big Games every year.
Lepus' people have been facing an endless winter for over a thousand years. The people have long forsaken and forgotten about their magic, and have relied heavily on science and technology to help rebuild their lives and try to find a way to combat the winter. It's a very sci-fi setting with some style influence from all over.
Lyra is the land of the dead and the home of an eternal party. With plenty of Halloween based influences, there is never a dull moment for those who find themselves in the built towns, and those who are stuck in the fog wander and sing their songs until they find their way to a new home.
Outside of the Realms, there is Dragons Keep, a large mountain in space that acts as the home to all Dragons. It's caves are vast and plentiful, winding all the way through from the head of the mountain, where the High Council meets, to the very bottom. And even with many areas claimed and made use of in this large mountain, there are always mysteries to be found.
Who are the characters?
Astrarium has one of the largest casts of characters we've worked with, with tons of new friends, rivals, and enemies for Ari to meet. Along with Ari, there is a main character for each Realm, with a cast of supporting characters.
Ari (she/her) acts as the main protagonist, helping guide some of the plot and seeing everything through her eyes. On Hydra, our protagonist is Gibbson "Gibbs" Cayde (he/him); on Auriga, Huxley "Huck" Holiday (he/him); on Ursa, Ronan Löx (he/him); on Cygnus, Clyde (he/him); on Orion, Fauna (she/her); on Lepus, Henrietta "Henri" Franklin (possibly she/they, still figuring it out!) ; and on Lyra, Alexei (he/him). Also on Dragons Keep, we have Aris' family, with her adopted mother/Mama, Arabella, her Uncle Killick, and her cousin, Libelle, who is a main character for Dragons Keep.
I hope to get to share more about our supporting cast with you all soon, as they all have some very interesting stories to get to share!
We also are working on art for the main characters as we speak, but we do have Ari's done and that can be found here!
More About The Team?
We're a group of friends who have all known each other since, for the most part, high school! While I'm someone that kind of wants to keep private lives private, I can say that these are the best group of friends to have and we're honestly like our own little family. We've workshopped other projects with each other since, God, like, my senior year of high school? Just about? It's been an insane ride together. We're also just a big bunch of nerds who are all really chill and fun to be around.
How Long is The Story Going To Be?
Astrarium is looking to be the longest project we'll ever do in terms of story timeline, and page count. As the Dragons are masters of time, Ari has the ability to actually mess with it slightly and create what is essentially a "Save point" for herself to go back to after she leaves a Realm. So say she leaves Hydra on a certain day. She can make that save point, go hang out in the other Realms, and come back and it'll be either that exact save point she left at or a few hours later, give or take (though, there are chances of "hiccups" in this, usually occurring when she leaves from Dragons Keep specifically, as it is considered to be outside of the normal flow of time!).
My goal is kind of a fun one of I want it to be one of the longest word count stories out there. I don't really know why I want it to be, other than I think it'd be really cool if I could beat out that Loud House fanfiction in terms of longest works in literature. That's just a nice little goal.
How Can Readers Support the Series?
Honestly, the best thing I can ask for is just getting this around! If anyone takes an interest in this series, reblogs and likes go a long way and are greatly appreciated. We also love, love, love questions!! It's a great feeling to see people want to know more and some questions can really get our thinking caps on to develop more and more! When the site launches, we will again launch the Patreon right alongside it, so if you want to financially support, there'll be reward tiers ranging from $1 a month and upwards! We may look at a Ko-Fi as well and if it looks like people are really interested in it, we may open a merch store and I do want to start releasing some of it as actual books you can have for your shelves!
Financial support is 100000% optional, though, for when that does happen, and like, everyone's situation is different, we just want to make it an option for our audience. But the best feeling in the world to us is seeing people's interest and them sharing it with their friends!
And if anyone has anymore questions, please please please feel free to ask! We're gonna be working on getting to share more updates here soon!! And thank you all for your time!!
#astrarium#astrarium: the adventures between realms#ocs#my characters#my ocs#original story#original works#original writing#writerblr#writing community#writing#fiction#original fiction
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the Talk | g.w.
part one // baby fever | part two // the Talk
synopsis: You and George did everything young. It was only fitting that you two talk about having kids when you did.
pairing: George Weasley x reader
warnings: brief mentions of the war, a touch of angst but mostly fluff
a/n: wow this is ended up being so much longer than originally planned. I really wanted to get in more backstory though so here we are. Let me know what you guys think about the format cause...I kinda like this little hybrid thing?
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You and George did everything young.
You had just turned 13 years old when the two of you went on your first date.
It was the summer before your third year and the two of you snuck out one night to go to a festival happening in a neighboring muggle town. You still have the moon shaped necklace George had bought you that day. He still has the sun shaped one you bought him. The gifts weren’t planned but it was the first time you saw how truly perfect the two of you were together.
You had your first kiss a few weeks later the day you returned to Hogwarts. It was in one of the courtyards and there was nobody else around. Now the details of it were a little fuzzy but you could still remember the awkwardness of it all.
The first time you talked about getting married was at 16.
It was more playful than anything else. You’d both drunk just a bit too much firewhiskey during the post-Yule Ball party thrown in one of the abandoned rooms. You’d toppled over together on one of the couches in the common room and you found yourself giggling when you saw how George was staring at you. “What are you thinking about?”
He had pulled you on top of him, resting his hands on your hips as he peppered kisses all over your face. Finally he pressed a soft kiss on your lips and gave you a dopey sort of grin.
“About how pretty you look. And about how one day we’re going to be dancing just like we did today but you’ll be wearing this huge, puffy white dress that you can’t stand but that you wore because my mum said you looked like a princess in it. And I’ll be wearing my fanciest dress robes or maybe a normal suit. Either way it won’t matter because I won’t look anywhere near as good as you will.”
You had smiled and kissed him again, a little longer this time. When you pulled away your forehead rested on his and you both had to resist the urge to just forget the conversation and continue the kiss. “That’s a wedding you’re talking about, Georgie.”
“I know,” He had said it with complete ease. “We’re going to have one of those for us one day.”
It was only a few months later, now at the age of 17, when George decided he was going to ask you to marry him for real.
Ever since the end of the Triwizard tournament he’d been filled with this nauseating feeling that nothing, absolutely nothing at all, was guaranteed.
The events of that day were stuck in his mind. He could remember the feeling of you shaking in his arms as you cried upon finding out Cedric had died. He could remember being confused at your reaction until you told him the two of you had been friends once but you couldn’t remember the last time you had a real conversation with him
It was with a completely clear mind that he got out of bed at precisely 6:21 AM and wandered through the house until he found his mother sitting at the kitchen table reading the newest edition of the Daily Prophet.
“Can I talk to you?” George had asked before she got the chance to say anything.
Molly had immediately grown concerned by the much too serious look on his face. Not to mention the fact that he’d never once asked a question like that. Nonetheless she still put down the paper, smiled softly, and put her full attention on him. “Absolutely, dear.”
“What if I,” George had avoided all eye contact, instead focusing on fiddling with the hem of his shirt, one he’d only just stolen back from you. The thought made him smile, giving him the courage he needed to finish asking his question. “What if I asked Y/N to marry me?”
That definitely hadn’t been what Molly was expecting him to say. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t see it coming though. For six years now she’d seen the way he was around you. For four years you’d been tied at the hip, bringing out the best in each other. This felt like just the right step. “Well you’re both of age now if that’s what you want to do.”
“But what do you think about it?” That was the part he was really nervous for. “I don’t want to wait any longer. After everything that happened this year I just want something I know is good and real. Something that,” His voice is softer then, more vulnerable. It surprises even himself. “Something that nobody else can take away from me.”
And Molly understands completely. She’s been there before, seen all of this happen once already. There’s not a single part of her that wants to argue because she trusts and believes in both him and you wholeheartedly.
So she gently rests a hand on top of George’s, which are still pulling at his shirt, and he looks up to see her smiling at him. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
He asked you that same night.
He actually didn’t even make it halfway through breakfast before telling Fred, Ron, and Ginny, all of whom were completely ecstatic. They loved you after all.
The four of them had been bouncing ideas off each other all day long while Molly had disappeared into the attic to dig through a bunch of boxes, not telling any of them what she was looking for.
They’ve got no less than five different speeches and approaches planned by the time Arthur gets home from work. Nobody can get the news out fast enough and though he’s a little surprised, he expresses his own joy at the news. He helps them brainstorm and soon they have a sixth plan thought out.
“When are you gonna do it then?” Ginny is the one who asked excitedly. “Don’t know. Soon I guess,” George glances at the time and stands up. “Actually supposed to meet her at some place in London in a few.”
He disappeared up the stairs to find where he left the address you’d given him and just as he’s found it Molly walks into the room.
She hands him the object she’d been searching for. A ring with a diamond in the middle and golden flowers laced all around the band. One she says has been passed down through the Prewett family for as long as anyone can remember.
He takes it with a soft thank you and a smile telling her it’s perfect as he pockets it, too afraid to leave it lying around.
When he gets to the address you gave him he’s a little surprised when he finds you sitting on the sidewalk with a book in your hands. It’s with an amused grin that you pull out your wand and before he knows it a building is appearing out of nowhere. You tell him it’s 12 Grimmauld Place, the House of Black, and that’s where you’ve been for a few days now helping Sirius, Remus, and Tonks fix it up
The entire time he’s there, exploring the rooms and wandering the halls beside you, the ring lies in his pocket and it feels heavy, as if reminding him it’s there.
He actually didn’t mean to ask you when he did.
You were right there though and the ring was in his pocket and he couldn’t think of anything else.
You were both curled up on the couch in the living room. There was that familiar light, a glint in your eyes that he absolutely adored seeing and you were telling him a story about what had happened the day before while at Tonks place with a huge smile on your face and he just couldn’t help himself.
“What are you thinking about?” You asked him again when you found him staring at you, much like that night just a few months ago. This time, though, you were both completely clear headed.
“About how I want to ask you to marry me.”
That caught your attention. Almost immediately you felt butterflies grow in your stomach and slowly you sat up, turning to face him. George was completely serious. You were at a strange loss for words. “You - I - what?”
He gave a soft laugh at the confused look on your face and sat up himself, pulling the ring out of his pocket as he did so.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know what to feel because after the tournament it's like every moment is fleeting. Everything suddenly feels temporary and that scares me. There’s only one thing I do know and that’s that I don’t want this, us, to be temporary. Every single thing that I feel for you, that’s all real. It always has been. I want to be with you for as long as you’ll have me, I’ve never been more certain of anything else in my life. Will you marry me, Y/N?”
“I-” You’re at a loss for words and also painfully aware of three very shocked people standing in the doorway of the room. Despite the surprise you know your answer right away. You’re absolutely positive this is what you want too. “Yes.”
George hadn’t been planning to ask then and he hadn’t really thought of how he would react. So he can’t help but be happily surprised when you agree. “What?”
“Yes, you tosser,” You laugh and happily kiss him, effectively bringing him back down to earth, though he swears he’s still dreaming. It seems too good to be true. “I’ll marry you.”
The memory of you two getting engaged isn’t just of you two in the living room of 12 Grimmauld Place. It’s also of Sirius and Tonks shouting and jumping around in excitement before either of you can get another word out and of Remus scolding them both about ruining your moment.
It’s your favorite memory of them.
Especially because less than a year later, still at only 17, just a couple days before your birthday and a month before you’re to be married, Sirius died.
He was perhaps one of the only people you had never once doubted. All it took was you giving him wide, puppy dog eyes and he was immediately rendered incapable of lying to you, a fact even he found amusing.
He and Remus were both named your godfathers for a reason and you knew that very well. Even as a child you would brave the halls of Azkaban just to go see him no matter how much Remus didn’t want you to. He couldn’t argue with you, though, because he always ended up giving in much too easily.
You trusted Sirius with your life and he’d wasted too many years inside that prison and maybe that was why you had asked him to walk you down the aisle. To remind him of what was good and pure and happy.
He never got that reminder. Instead you were burying him the weekend after your birthday.
George had been at a loss about how to comfort you over Cedric’s death and he was at an even bigger loss now. He himself had grown rather close to Sirius over the last few months while spending late nights awake with the two of you and struggled to deal with the news of his death alongside you.
You guys have a strong support system though. There’s never a moment either of you is alone and you know that. It hurts to have to move on but you do.
If anything you’re more certain than ever before that this, your wedding, marrying George is exactly what you want.
So you do it. At 18, a month after the date you had originally planned, you and George get married.
It happens in the large backyard of the cottage you’d grown up in with Remus. It’s late summer and the tree in the backyard is covered in blossoms and you could not have imagined a more perfect place to have your wedding.
The ceremony and reception were meant to be small and intimate and they are but they also end up more extravagant than you could’ve imagined. You find out as all the decor and outfits and food is arriving that Sirius had taken the liberty of getting you and George only the absolute best.
You’re sure you’re handling the last surprise you have from him well until the day before the wedding. You’re in the backyard alongside Molly, Tonks, Ginny, Hermione, Fleur, and Andromeda when you get an unexpected visit from a goblin from Gringotts. He hands you an envelope and a small brown package and tells you that they were given instructions in Sirius’ will to deliver it to you.
You break down the moment you open the letter to see loopy handwriting that you recognize immediately
Y/N, I understand that you wanted your wedding to be more about the two of you and less about the decorations. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that there’s no time like the present. I like to think you’ve picked that up from me and of that I’m proud. Therefore I hope you don’t mind me spicing things up a little. Oh and these are my gift to you because my favorite goddaughter will have the best if I have anything to say about it. And her soon to be husband too I guess and I like him, I really do, but these are mostly for you. Hope you like them as much as I liked picking everything out. -Love, Sirius
Your hands shake as you open the package to find a pair of elaborately engraved wedding bands, the ones you’re to use tomorrow
And you have to laugh because even when he’s not there anymore Sirius really does just know you that well. They’re perfect and you’re positive he knew that when he picked them out. A little card falls out of the envelope and you smile through your tears at his final note to you.
You’re ready.
Everything you and George did you did young so it was tragically fitting when the war came around and you two were only 19 years old
Even now, only a year after everything ended, you remember the plots and the fights and the flashes of light coming at you from every direction.
You remember running for your life and hiding in whatever corner you could. You remember not being sure if your friends were dead or alive.
But most of all you remember everything you lost.
Remus. Tonks. Fred. Sirius. Cedric.
In just a year it seemed like everything had been torn from your hands, your world turned upside down. It took you a while to properly grieve what you lost.
You had George, though.
And yes, there were nights where neither of you could sleep, still clearly hearing the echoing of loud bangs all around you, flinching at even the smallest movements with your wand gripped tightly in your hand, but never once were you alone.
“What are you thinking about?” You ask George one night after a particularly bad nightmare. Your face was stained with dry tears, your eyes bloodshot, and when you spoke your voice was hoarse. He had wrapped you in his arms tightly and held you until you stopped crying. You felt safe with him. It made the nightmare of losing him alongside everybody else that much worse. You wanted to hear his voice. Needed to hear it. Needed to know he was still there.
“About how much I love you,” George had answered honestly, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. “And about how we’re going to be okay.”
You knew how to handle loss now, that was simply a side effect of the war.
Just a few months after the fight at Hogwarts you were taking a position at St. Mungo’s to help those also struggling with everything after the war
Now, a little over a year later, you were spearheading major changes in St. Mungo’s, helping to make all sorts of care more readily available. Everything from providing wolfsbane to those who couldn’t afford the ingredients on their own to support programs for everyone, adults and children alike.
You’d been busy and maybe that’s why you put off having The Talk with George at first. But eventually two weeks passed by and nothing had changed. There was still an ache that filled your body every time you dropped Teddy back off with Andromeda. That weekend when you were all at the Burrow you didn’t even realize you were practically glued to Fleur’s side.
You also don’t notice the way George is watching you every time you hold Vic in your arms. This image of a little toddler running around your apartment with his hair and your eyes keeps playing in his mind and he smiles every time.
It’s not until you two get home late that night that you try to work up the nerve to bring up the topic. You’re sitting on the couch, comfortably leaning against George while some music plays in the background
“What are you thinking about?” George asks when he sees the look on your face. He can read you inside and out and knows you’re conflicted about something. He’s just not too sure what it’s about though he has a vague idea.
You turn to look at him and figure now is as good a time as any to tell him what you’ve been thinking. “About how I want us to have a baby.”
For a second he doesn’t say anything, simply taking a moment to mull over your words. Finally he shifts a little bit so it’s easier to bring you closer. “Y/N, love -”
“I think it’s the right time,” You start talking again before George can continue. “I know you’re trying to expand the shop and I have a ton of things going on at work but I really do think we can do this. I thought it was just cause we’ve been around Teddy and Vic so much lately but it’s more than that. I think it at least warrants a conversation. I can’t imagine making a family with anybody else.”
A silence hangs in the room but its not uncomfortable. Slowly a small, partially amused smile grows on George’s face and he only stares at you as if waiting for you to say something else. “Are you done?”
He watches you nod and bite your lip, a nervous habit you’ve had for as long as he can remember. He reaches forward and gently removes your bottom lip from between your teeth, still holding your face in his hands so you’re looking right at him. Then he kisses you softly and when he pulls away he smiles at the sight of your eyes still closed, a relaxed look on your face.
“I was actually going to agree with you since I’ve been thinking the same thing.” George admits, laughing as you beam up at him excitedly. “As long as you’re ready to do this I think it’s worth trying.”
Honestly you weren’t sure what you were expecting. Maybe a talk about how you’re both still young, some mention of the fact that you were both doing a lot at the moment. But you and George are on the same page. A baby of your own is something you both want and you suppose that’s the way it should be.
“Alright,” Your smile widens and you’re the one who kisses him again. He’s as excited about this as you are, you can tell. “Looks like we’re gonna try to have a baby.”
#oof that awkward moment when you forget to add tags#okay here we go now#hp fanfic#harry potter imagine#harry potter headcanon#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter fanfic#harry potter fic#george weasley x reader#george weasley x y/n#george weasley imagine#george weasley fanfiction#george weasley#my fics#fic: baby fever#fic: the talk
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4. Fambily
In this episode, we skim the surface of the fambily dynamics in Supernatural, which are--ah. Dicey at best.
Apple | Spotify | Google
Transcript under the cut!
Content warnings: domestic violence and family abuse
[Growl]
Ah, the Winchesters. Where do we even start. Unhinged, deranged, and continually traumatised in every way, Sam and Dean complete each other. At least, that’s what the show wants us to think. Despite the ways they betray each other, lie to each other, and piss each other off, they are fambily. And fambily is the most important thing. The concept of Fambily in the show Supernatural (2005-2020) takes many twists and turns throughout its run. In the first five minutes of episode one, the heteronormative, nuclear family of John, Mary, Sam and Dean is ripped apart by an unknown, antagonistic force that represents all the evil in the world. It creeps into a nursery and eviscerates a white, blonde mother while preying upon a 👶, I mean, how much more evil can you get? It’s fantastic that, in the later seasons especially, Supernatural embraces this idea that fambily doesn’t end in blood, but blood doesn’t always mean fambily. By the end of the series, the fambily concept has expanded to include two dads, an aunt and uncle, and a thirty-year old infant. I’m going to talk about the finale in its own episode, so that my ire will have its proper outlet.
When the show starts, Sam, Dean and John have each other, and only each other. By the time season 2 really kicks off, Sam and Dean don’t have John anymore, but they do have Bobby Singer. The concept of the triumvirate follows them throughout the series as though they’re in a less sexy Italo Calvino novel—first Sam, Dean and John, then Sam, Dean and Bobby, then Sam, Dean and Ruby, then Sam, Dean and Cas, then Sam, Dean and Mary, then Sam, Dean and Jack. It’s broken in seasons 13-15 when Cas comes back and they have a family of four, and then five when Mary can stand to see her boys.
But the Winchesters are not the only fambily in Supernatural who matter. In season two, we’re introduced to the Harvelles, mother Ellen and daughter Jo, who are a hunting fambily who run a hunter pub in the middle of whoop whoop. A pub that Eric Kripke famously hated, and rejoiced when he burnt it down at the end of season 2, because the Winchesters and by extension everyone they know aren’t allowed to have anything good ever. It’s revealed in season two episode “No Exit” that John got Jo’s father killed on a hunt, which obviously affects Jo more than it does Sam and Dean.
[Editing note:] Okay I’m editing this episode, and I’m not happy with it. I’m not going to scrap it completely because I think I do have good points to say, but the general analysis of this episode is so surface level. It is basically contributing nothing to the conversation. And I started this podcast in order to actually contribute something to the culture. I could make a bunch of text posts on tumblr or I could spend hours and hours and hours and hours of my life to something that — I don’t know. Is it bringing me joy? Not at the moment. But, yeah. So I’m not going to scrap this episode completely but this is my way of saying from now on the episodes are going to take as much as they will take and I will commit myself to having deeper and more thoughtful analysis. And if I have to spend an entire episode on one aspect of one thing, I will. I could be at university right now studying a masters or a PhD in fucking literary analysis but instead I’m sitting on my bed making a Supernatural podcast because it brings me joy. It does. It really makes me happy and I don’t want to abandon this project, because people are listening to it. I don’t know why, I don’t know what you like it about it, but you’re listening. And I just think I owe it to myself to make things that I support 100%. So I’ll continue this episode and hopefully this rambling hasn’t put you off it completely. But from now on, I’m going to really, really talk about things that matter in regards to Supernatural… Kind of an oxymoron. Kind of a contradiction. But things that contribute to the cultural consciousness instead of just rehashing the road so far. That’s all I want to do. I want to contribute. I want to say good…ful things. Okay this is making me happy. It’s already working, it’s already making me happy. I’m just going to keep rambling and laughing. Okay so, more thoughtful analysis, deeper analysis. Things that make you think. Things that make me think. Instead of just a bunch of words that mean nothing. Okay, continuing on.
Okay to figure out which episode this was I had to watch a little bit of season two, and I’m still on my season 13 rewatch. The difference between the two seasons. I don’t know if I can even put into words the growth this show has gone through, and the characters have gone through, over the last 15 years. It would be like summarising my own growth by combing through my extensive diary collection and the years of societally- and governmentally-enforced heterosexuality that has plagued my entire life. Those boys are babies in season two. The bootcut jeans alone. Sam is literally 23 years old. I don’t even talk to 23 year olds. I block them on social media.
The Harvelles are a blip in the Winchester map. While the actors Samantha Ferris and Chad Lindberg did attempt to resuscitate their cultural currency months after the show ended by participating in an event — okay I can’t. I can’t even go into it. Like, clearly Samantha Ferris heard back from her representation as soon as she started posting those tweets and realised she wouldn’t continue to get money if she endorsed, well, the gays. And Chad Lindberg was just using the clout to push his Etsy wares like a 14th century merchant, so I gotta respect the hustle. But Jo and Ellen die in season 5 episode “Abandon All Hope” and are barely mentioned again except the episode Ash appears in, season 5 “Dark side of the moon,” Jo in season 7, “Defending Your Life,” and Ellen in the season 6 episode “My heart will go on.” They didn’t exactly leave what you would call a lasting impact for the next, you know, ten seasons.
To be honest, I’m not sure when it’s revealed that Bobby’s wife died after being possessed by a demon. It’s made clear in season 5 “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” and I did not have to look that up, because season four and five are burned into my retinas like a particularly nasty sun flare. Bobby outlines the horrific way he killed his wife, because why not throw some spousal violence into the mix, and later in season 7 “Death’s Door,” it elaborates on their life together. I saw this sentiment expressed on TikTok, which we all know as the foundation of cultural knowledge, which was that fambilies don’t need to be two parents and children. Fambilies can be spouses or partners. You don’t need to have children in order to be a fambily. I think that’s a very nice sentiment and I’ve chosen to adopt it for these purposes. Bobby and his wife Karen are a fambily. While Karen wants kids, Bobby chooses not to have them for fear of becoming like his father and repeating the trauma he inflicted on Bobby. Bobby and Karen’s fambily dynamic is ruptured in the same way that John and Mary’s is—by an intrusive, demonic force that brings Bobby into the hunting world and ends Karen’s life. But by the time we see him at the end of season 1, Bobby is already ingratiated into Sam and Dean’s lives as their surrogate father, and this bond only deepens as the show progresses. Bobby expresses the sentiment to Dean to not be like John, that Dean is already a better man that his father ever was. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That we have superseded our parents and outgrown them in ways they could never comprehend? Don’t we just want to be better than the generations that came before us, in order to mould a better world for the generations that come after us? Don’t we want to make things easier for our children, and our friends’ children, and our siblings’ children? Dean is a better man than John, and Bobby is better man than his father ever was. It’s about breaking the cycles of intergenerational trauma. I have to believe that Sam, Dean and Bobby did this, because then it’s possible for me to do the same thing. Include here that speech about representation in media that I didn’t bother writing for the last episode. Bobby is the surrogate father to Sam and Dean, a better father than John was, a better hunter even. He crafts an entire network of hunters who report to him, as seen in the season 6 episode “Weekend at Bobby’s,” and he continues to act as Sam and Dean’s mentor until his death in season 7 “How to win friends and influence monsters”. An alternate universe version of Bobby is introduced in season 13, which I have my reservations about, and he and Mary get together, which again, why. Season 13 is so hard to sit through.
A fambily that is introduced late into the series and is simply NOT given enough screen time is the Banes fambily. In season 12, “Celebrating the life of Asa Fox,” we are introduced to the Banes twins, Max and Alicia, who are by far the most gorgeous hunters we’ve seen in the series. They are hunters raised by a witch, Tasha Banes, who doesn’t appear yet, and they manage to survive the trial by fire that is overcoming the demon Jael. Later in this season, in the episode “Twigs and Twane and Tasha Banes,” both of which are written by the late great Steve Yockey, we are introduced to Tasha in a way that seems awfully familiar: Alicia calls Sam to say their mother has gone missing on a hunt, and hasn’t checked in in a few days. By the end of the episode, Alicia and Tasha are dead, and Max has ostensibly sold his soul for the power to bring Alicia back. The Banes twins’ storyline directly parallels Sam and Dean’s from the pilot, but it’s a tragedy from the outset. We already know Tasha is dead and they can’t save her, however, like Dean does for Sam at the end of season 2, Max chooses to save Alicia at the expense of his own soul. Spin off when. Banes twins series when. I’m waiting. They were in two episodes and I’m still thinking about them. The Harvelles are dust.
In season 7, “Reading is Fundamental,” a waifish 17 year old honour’s student Kevin Tran breaks into a rehabilitation facility to steal a tablet. This starts a chain of events that ingratiates Kevin Tran in the apocalyptic, death-succumbing world of the Winchesters, starting with Dick Roman, head leviathan, and continuing, but not culminating, with his death at the hands of Gadreel, who was possessing Sam, it’s a whole thing. Any time you attempt to summarise anything on Supernatural, you sound like a lunatic. And I say that as someone who has a supernatural podcast, with an audience of only supernatural fans. We are lunatics, but we’re lunatics together. Kevin’s arc was cut way too short, but we at least got to see him with his momma Linda in the beginnings of season 8 with the unfortunately named episode “What’s up, Tiger Mommy?” It introduces Linda Tran as a capable and worldly woman, hell bent on protecting her son. She offers up her soul among other things in exchange for Kevin and the tablet with him. During the episode, she is possessed by Crowley, and Dean attempts to kill him, which would mean killing Linda as well. Kevin considers this the ultimate betrayal and leaves with his mum. Later in season 9 episode “Captives,” Linda is reintroduced as a captive of Crowley, who escapes with Sam’s help. Back at the bunker, she reunites with Kevin, who is now, thanks to the Winchesters’ incompetence, a ghost 👻. My macbook keeps suggesting little emojis in the smart bar so I just gotta put ‘em in. That’s the last we see of Linda, so I’m drawing my own conclusions about whether she gets to live a long and happy life. Kevin is a fan favourite and despite my reservations about Osric Chau which I will not get into like ever I really like Kevin too. He outsmarts Crowley many times and shows remarkable tenacity to get an impossible job done. His desire to see his mum again, the driving force behind his actions, mirrors Dean’s desperation to have his fambily together again like they used to be. I would call this a parallel but I don’t believe they purposefully did this, I just think they accidentally rehashed the same tired storyline they’ve been peddling since 2005. But yeah, if I was Kevin and all I had was my mum, seeing her again would be the driving force for my actions as well. Kevin’s father is never mentioned, and it honestly isn’t a big deal, which is great. Sometimes fathers are just absent, and you don’t need throw a hissy fit about it or make it your entire personality, Dean.
Missouri Moseley, played by the inimitable Loretta Devine, is introduced in the first season, episode “Home,” in which she helps out on a case involving Sam and Dean’s childhood house. We find out that Missouri is a long-time friend of John’s and helped him to understand that supernatural forces were behind Mary’s death. She is Sam and Dean’s first point of entry into the world of the Supernatural, and they didn’t know it until they meet her in “Home”. In season 13 episode “Patience,” another layer to Missouri’s character is added with the advent of her family: estranged son James and granddaughter Patience Turner, who is also a psychic. We get a lot of backstory for Missouri in this episode, even if it is sloppily written and contradictory to the way they initially set her up. If Missouri and James had been travelling when he was a child, why was she stationed in Lawrence in both 1983 and 2005? What did he mean that Missouri was hunting? I can’t be bothered unpacking the confusing bits of information presented in this episode. It’s not a good episode and I really don’t see why everyone goes apeshit for Bobo Berens. He kills Missouri in this episode, in a really horrible way. Like the history of Supernatural’s racism and misogyny should not be dumped on one man, but nor should it be perpetuated and it is continually throughout the entire show. Confusing, contradictory and badly written backstory aside, she is an interesting character, and her willingness to sacrifice herself to save her family echoes that of Mary in “Home”. I’m actually really mad that Patience never gets to have a relationship with Missouri, and later in season 13 episode “The Bad Place,” Patience’s father tells her that if she leaves to help The Winchesters and uses her psychic abilities, she’s not welcome back in his house. To me that’s just unnecessary. We have a family that has already been ruptured by the death of Patience’s mother, further ruptured by Patience’s father cutting off contact with Missouri, and then to go a step further he disintegrates their family unit by kicking Patience out. Like how much loss do the Moseley-Turners have to endure? It’s really just cruel at this point. But Patience does find family with Jodie, Donna, Claire, Alex and eventually Kaia, and while I love the concept of found family and this found family in particular, it comes at the expense of biological family, which is something that the show has pushed from the very first episode. So that’s evolution in itself. Going from “fambily is the most important thing to these characters” to “found fambily is where we find love” is great, but ripping apart a biological fambily like the Moseley-Turners, and indeed starting the episode by saying Missouri has been shunted out of her son and granddaughter’s lives for trying to bring her son comfort, is just fucked. Like, I couldn’t name a single Bobo episode that I actually like without having to comb through them. I’m trying really hard not to shit all over him because as a writer I know how much that sucks and I know how hard is it for any marginalised writers to get a start, but I’m allowed to have my vendettas.
If you’ve watched the “Runs In The Family” angels MV from 2010, and only if you’ve watched the “Runs In The Family” angels MV from 2010, you will understand just how jacked up the angel family really is. The angelic counterpoint to Sam and Dean are the archangels Lucifer and Michael. We are introduced to two different versions of Michael—one in season 5, who possesses their dad in 1979 and their brother Adam in 2010—my god that was literally over a decade ago—and Apocalypse World Michael, played by four different actors: Felisha Terrell, Christian Keyes, Jensen Ackles, and Ruth Connell, who plays Rowena. I don’t know what in the hell Jensen Ackles was doing performance-wise when playing Michael, but I consider it a federal crime akin to drug trafficking or money laundering. As for Christian Keyes playing Michael, Andrew Dabb, you know what you did and you’re going to have to live with that.
In season 5, during the apocalypse, Michael and Lucifer only interact in the last episode, “Swan Song,” but the entire season is built around their conflict. Lucifer disobeyed their father, and Michael as God’s most powerful weapon must defeat him. It’s meant to mirror Sam’s descent into, uhhhh, badness or something, disobeying John to run away to Stanford, or, like, drinking demon blood? It’s unclear. Lucifer and Apocalypse World Michael interact in season 13, and Michael kills Lucifer only to take over Dean’s body and start a season-long arc of, like, bad acting and barely thought-out plots. I would say to Jensen Ackles “don’t quit your day job,” but this is literally his day job.
The angels as they’re introduced in season 4 are warriors of god, and all they know is obedience and killing. Even Cas can’t break out of the cycle of killing his angel siblings, and often justifies it by saying that it’s for the greater good, that he needs to do it to take down a stronger force like Raphael or Metatron. Anna manages to break free of her family by falling and becoming human, but when Cas betrays her and the angels capture her, she is lobotomised, tortured and sent back out to kill Sam. Then she’s burned to a crisp by Michael possessing John, not the last time a woman would burn to death on this show. The angels are dysfunctional at best, and actively hostile to each other, especially Castiel, the infamous spanner in the works. I could write an entire academic paper about how the angels think of Castiel as this rebel slut who murdered his way to the top and is going to be the downfall of angel kind, but Dean thinks of him as this little nerdy guy with a harp he carries around in his back pocket. Which honestly Cas would love because he’s obsessed with Dean and wants to touch his butt. I don’t know what else I can say about the angels without turning this into a dissertation, so I’ll continue on.
While all seasons of the show are about family, season six is especially about matrilineal family. It introduces the concept of the mother of monsters—Eve—and focuses on Mary as a solution to the loneliness the characters feel after her death. Samuel Campbell, Mary’s father, is brought back to life and manipulated by the promise of seeing his daughter again. He asks Sam and Dean what they wouldn’t do to see Mary again, which is kind of the general thesis of the show. What wouldn’t John, Dean and Sam do for each other? Dean sells his soul. John makes a deal with the demon who killed Mary. Sam teams up with Ruby to kill Lilith in revenge, which begins as a suicide mission because he doesn’t know how to handle his grief for Dean. The difference is that Samuel betrays Sam and Dean, his own grandchildren, for the promise of seeing Mary again. This cardinal sin alienates him from being a good guy, because good guys never betray Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean are our protagonists! Our heroes! The bringers of the light! The knights in shining armour! The white on rice. The cherry in cherry pie. They are the ones we’re meant to align ourselves with, because it’s their story the narrative is telling. And anyone who doesn’t align themselves with the Winchesters is an enemy who needs to be defeated.
We’re introduced to the character of Gwen in the first episode of season 6, “Exile on Main Street”, and she says in the episode “Family Matters” that Samuel, the patriarch, doesn’t like her very much because she reminds him of Mary. While Samuel, Christian, Gwen and co are technically family, Dean has no connection to them past bloodlines. And as I said before, while family doesn’t end in blood, we learn throughout this season that blood doesn’t always mean family. Gwen dies in the episode “And Then There Were None,” because of course she does, and Mary doesn’t come back, at least not in this season.
In “Family Matters,” the alpha vampire, played by the irreplaceable Rick Worthy, mentions that “we all have our mothers,” referring to Eve, the mother of monsters, the one who spawned every other monster and who has been trapped in purgatory ever since. Eve is pulled from Purgatory to wage war against the hunters and Crowley because they have been preying on her first borns, the alphas. I love Eve. I love her. She’s my favourite villain after Metatron. Mainly because I think she is like… sexy as hell. Like wow I am just so attracted to Julia Maxwell and this, like, bored smokey affect thing she does where she barely moves her mouth when she speaks and her strong brow makes her seem so intimidating. I don’t know anything about her personally, but I feel like she would’ve bullied me in high school, and I’m into it. It’s really hard to judge just from this one role whether she’s a good actor because Eve has such limited range and few things to do, but I really wish she’d gotten more screen time. Yeah, she’s doing the bare minimum and I’m completely obsessed. But Eve isn’t just a monster, she’s literally THEE milf. The original milf. And I really think she should’ve stayed around, but since they kept Lisa alive they had to kill at least one high profile woman.
Continuing with the family storylines in season 6, Dean tries to establish a family with Lisa and Ben, and for the most part succeeds. He gets a job, plays the role of the doting boyfriend and stepfather, and protects them as best he can. I’m going to spare you the rant perched at the tip of my tongue about how this is at best a lavender marriage or staying together for the kid, and that Lisa only exists to be an ideal for Dean, not an actual partner he can grow with throughout the rest of the show. It’s his first attempt at a fambily outside of Sam, Bobby and John, and it fails miserably because Lisa isn’t a good match. The fact is, she will never be able to fit into the hunting world because of the way the writers wrote her—as mother and girlfriend archetype, and we’ve seen how well they do with those—in fact they actively paralleled it in “Exile on Main Street” where they had Dean hallucinate Azazel coming back and pinning Lisa to the ceiling. It couldn’t be more obvious that they don’t respect her. At least they didn’t fridge her for Dean’s man pain. It’s honestly horrible because Dean put so much effort into believing this was his one chance at happiness, and when it crumbles like a tim tam in hot tea he beats himself up for it and uses it as an excuse to never be happy.
He does seem to be happy for the most part with Lisa, but because Sera Gamble doesn’t know how to write interesting or complex female characters, when Sam reenters the picture it once again becomes about the original premise: two brothers on the road, fighting the forces of evil. There’s no room for any women in that sphere. Up until this point I think—correct me if I’m wrong—there has been one female hunter who survived, and she was in one episode. The hunter Tamara in season 3 “The Magnificent Seven,” whose husband died in maybe the most sadistic way anyone has died on this show. Don’t rewatch it, just google it. All women die, including Mary, their mother, who is brought back in season 12 and killed in season 14. AND FOR WHAT? For WHAT Andrew Dabb.
Often, the loss of a parent, child or significant other is used to excuse bad behaviour and terrible choices. The hunting life causes Mary’s whole family to die before she can escape it, and because she makes a deal with Azazel for John’s life, the same demon John makes a deal with, Azazel kills her anyway. John abused his kids and brought them into the hunting life, because he was obsessed with getting revenge for Mary’s death. Sam does the same thing when Jess dies in the first season, and it starts a 15-season long arc of pain and misery. He sets Lucifer free in the season four because he is obsessed with getting revenge for Dean’s death and obsessed with the power drinking demon blood gives him. Then again, Sam is actually right for saving people by exorcising demons, which is literally the first part of the family business motto, instead of just gutting them with the demon knife, but because Dean doesn’t agree with it, it’s bad. Sam always wants to do the right thing, he just gets a little caught up in the details. But you know what? Bloodfreak rights.
When Cas dies in season 13, Dean is so overcome with grief, a grief that echoes John and Sam’s, that he mistreats Jack and threatens to kill him. In season 14, Nick, Lucifer’s vessel, boo snore hiss, kills everyone involved with the murder of his wife and child before he finds out that it’s actually Lucifer’s doing, and then he tries to raise Lucifer from the empty because he’s addicted to killing? Whatever, stop employing Mark Pellegrino. Stop writing men as obsessed with getting revenge
The biological fambilies in Supernatural suck shit. Honestly every time I watch an episode about fambily I’m even more glad I don’t talk to mine. Dean and Sam need to spend some time away from each other, while they’re both still alive. Their fambily dynamic gets better as the show progresses, and I was pleased to see in season 12 that they do away with the codependency, constantly sacrificing themselves for each other, isolating themselves, betraying everyone they know for each other—they started to act like, you know, normal people. And that’s good. Sure, the show would not be anywhere without John sacrificing himself for Dean, and Dean sacrificing himself for Sam, and honestly that’s what made those first few seasons amazing. But after a while it becomes lazy writing, not parallels. A parallel that Supernatural pulled off is Sam comforting Magda in season 12 episode “The Survivor” in the way he needed to be comforted in season 1 and 2 as a psychic child. A parallel is Dean preparing Cas’s body for cremation in season 13 in counterpoint to the way Cas remade Dean’s body in season 4. This show can absolutely do parallels, some of the most beautiful parallels ever put on screen, but the last season was such lazy writing that I cannot forgive it.
This has been an overall negative episode of Holy Hell, and that sucks. I don’t want to be so negative. I want to talk about the good things that Supernatural did, and share in joy with you all, so now I’m going to talk about the only positive I see with fambily in the entire show.
For Dean, everyone older than him is a parent to disappoint, and everyone younger than him is a little sibling to protect. Cas is the exception, as there’s no way to define Dean and Cas’s relationship without acknowledging the reciprocal romantic ways they care about each other. Dean says on multiple occasions that Cas is like a brother to him, and that he’s Sam and Dean’s best friend. He actually drops the line, “After Sam and Bobby, you are the closest thing I have to family,” on Cas in season 6, and he acts like it’s nothing, but you can see in the expression on Cas’s face that Dean just recontextualised the entirety of Cas’s being in one sentence. Cas falls for Dean, gives up his family for Dean, and decides to follow him in the first act of free will we see on screen. And Dean, who has never known love without pain, says to Cas, you are fambily to me, I actively choose you, you belong in my life. But to belong in Dean’s life is to follow his plan, and when Cas doesn’t, he is punished for his hubris. Dean loves him, and he never even admits it.
Charlie becomes like a little sister to Dean, as does Jo. Jack is unequivocally Cas’s son, but becomes something of Dean’s son as well and some would argue Sam’s son. Claire becomes Cas’s daughter, but imprints so much on Dean that many, myself included, have come to consider Dean her father as well. If you subscribe to the idea that Dean and Cas are old marrieds, Dean would be Claire and Jack’s stepfather, and they would be a nuclear fambily all on their own. In season 14 “Lebanon,” when John says to Dean that he thought Dean would have settled down with a fambily, Dean says, “I have a fambily.” Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
Cas chooses to be a part of Claire’s life in season 10 “The Things We Left Behind” because he feels guilty about what happened to her after he possessed Jimmy, but after getting to know Claire he cares for her. The crime that is Claire and Cas not interacting after season 10, my god. That’s his daughter, you ghouls. But Claire and Dean do get more moments together. Dean, Sam and some British guy save Claire from turning into a werewolf, and Claire and the rest of the Wayward Sisters save Sam and Dean from the Bad Place. The Wayward Sisters are a found fambily all on their own, and since I could devote an entire episode to Jody’s little brood, I have chosen not to talk about them much, because this episode is at least half an hour, 34 minutes, and it would take up too much of my time. Claire is one of my favourite characters and I’ll be talking about her in the next ep, so stay tuned for that.
Even before Jack is born, Cas becomes his protector. He goes from trying to convince Kelly to end her and Jack’s life, to being her pseudo-husband and the surrogate father to her child. To me personally, it’s the best thing this show has ever done. Cas, Kelly and Jack love each other in a way that is so wholly uncomplicated, that is so pure and so good. Once Cas becomes Jack’s protector, there’s never any question of whether they would hurt or betray each other. He is Cas’s son, his baby boy, and he loves Cas so much that he resurrects Cas from the empty. When they meet for the first time in season 13 “Tombstone” after Cas comes back, they fit into each other’s lives so easily. This is the part in writing this where I was absolutely sobbing my dick off. There are so many moments between them that show the kind of love that each of these characters deserved. Sam and Dean deserve to have that love from their father, and so does Cas. And together they build a family unit around caring for Jack that does indeed end the intergenerational trauma that plagues the Winchester fambily.
And that’s why season 16 is so important to me. I can make things better. Dean sorts his shit out, all of his shit: his alcoholism, depression, ADHD, borderline personality disorder, suicidal ideation, sexuality, gender, the fact that Cas is literally the love of his life and he gets to save him from the Empty the way Cas saved him from Hell. They plant flowers in the field where Dean spread Cas’s ashes in season 13, and they get married at Jody’s cabin with all their loved ones left alive. Claire walks Cas down the aisle and Jack is the flower girl, because he’s literally a three year old baby. Sam and Eileen raise a bunch of rugrats and the Wayward fambily continue the hunting legacy and have a Sunday afternoon roast every week. Dean and Cas raise Jack right, they cut up oranges for soccer practice and watch all his school plays. He and his cousins grow up knowing what it’s like not only to be loved, but to be looked after, to have all their needs met. They grow up normal, and the trauma that plagued their family is a thing of the past. It’s good, you know? It’s just fucking good.
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Alright! Let’s get this done!
It’s less than 40 days until the one-year anniversary of my “Hi! I made something cool!” pinned post!
I’ve wanted do something like that again. I want to make another isometric render of something in Minecraft, all in a 2D image editing software, by hand.
But there’s a problem. I don’t know what to make.
I have a bunch of ideas on things I could make! But I don’t know which one to choose! And I don’t want to choose randomly, because the original isometric “render” actually took me one whole week to make. That’s seven consecutive days.
So that’s where you come in.
It’s hard and high-stakes to make one of these, so I don’t wanna mess up! I wanna know for sure what I should make.
If you could please, look through the list and see me which one(s) you’d like me to make. Then, tell me what your thoughts are in a reply or reblog. I’ll read through them, and in about 36 hours after I post this I’ll make my final decision on what I’ll render!
(You don’t need to interact with this post if you don’t want to. You can scroll past it if that’s the case.)
Remember, in the end, the result should be something of this caliber. This is what I made back then. And this is the level of quality I’m striving for again.
(I won’t post my render on the one-year anniversary, mind you. I’ll post it the day that I finish it, whenever that may be. I just mentioned the one-year anniversary so we’re all on the same page here.)


1) The other Skyblock islands
This is pretty self-explanatory. I rendered the main Skyblock island, right? Well why don’t I just render the other two and call it a day? I’m finishing the job. This is like the obligatory sequel for a hit movie.
One’s a sand island you reach once you bridge over from the main island in normal Skyblock. The other’s made of glowstone and you reach it when you build a nether portal and travel through the nether to link up with the portal on the other side.
Now, from a “making the render” standpoint, the problem with this is that it probably won’t be fun to make as the first one. Like, the other original Skyblock island at least had interesting shapes to work with, it had depth, and it posed a fun challenge. These other islands are just 3x3x3 cubes made of the same block.
Plus, people might not care to see the new render. People always like the sequel less than the original movie. And I’m thinking that might be true for something as esoteric as a post about a Minecraft render made with 2D image editing software.
2) My Survival House
You might be confused seeing this on the list. Like, everyone’s seen or played Skyblock so that makes sense, but this? This is my singleplayer survival house. Very few have seen it; nobody but me has ever been to it. Let me explain.
I played on this world from September to October 2020. In that time, I built a starter base, a mine, and a cow barn/wheat farm. This is the starter base. It doesn’t look like much, but that’s only because we’re on the surface. Let’s go into spectator made and bring the camera under.
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Yes, the majority of my “starter base” is underground! (The image is slightly edited to highlight where it is.) If I were to render it, I would show the bit that’s at the top, connected to everything underground.
There’s a lot in this base! Immediately down the ladder from the house at the surface, there’s a room full of chests and that contains a jukebox where I can play music discs.
Then on the floor below that there’s my furnace room, my portal room, my map room, and my spruce tree farm. Down another floor you can find a room where I intended to grow cactus for a brief period of time.
I’ve spent a lot of time in this base. However, I’ve never seen it in full, in isometric view. And I sure would like to. Because perspective in 3D constantly hides different parts of my base when I view it from different angles. Isometry is an idealized reality.
If I were to render this, you’re agreeing that I’m doing this for myself. I love this world, and I’ve spent many days in the past excited to come back to it. This is a bit of sentimentality, a tribute to myself.
3) My 1.0.0 Survival Base
Now, you might be starting to recognize a pattern here. (Image slightly edited to highlight where the survival base is.) And no, it’s not that I really want to isometrically render my survival worlds for some reason.
Yes, I apparently like building my survival bases underground, I know, shut up >:P
I played on this world from March to September 2019: the longest I played on a survival world so far. Virtually only one other person knows about this world.
The entire time I played on it, it was in Java Edition 1.0.0: the earliest and first full release of Minecraft. I accessed the version by using the dropdown menu on the Minecraft launcher.
As a result of being in 1.0.0, the entire survival experience was changed, and that posed a lot of unique challenges. For example, how do you mine out large regions of land if beacons haven’t been created yet? How do you enchant tools if anvils aren’t in the game yet?
Playing on this 1.0.0 world has acted as my greatest insight into “old Minecraft” so far.
If I were to render this base, I would only render the underground portion (which I hollowed out of a naturally-generated cave, by the way). Why would I do that, if there’s probably also a house on the surface that I could render?
Because this is what that house looks like.
Yeah, this house does look incredible! I would know, I’m the one who made it all in 1.0.0. But no chance am I rendering all that.
Anyways, I want to render this world because despite all the time I’ve played on this world, I’ve never actually even seen my base as a spectator much like I’ve shown above. (Minecraft added cheats in 1.3.1. Spectator mode didn’t exist until 1.8.)
Plus, this faces the same perspective problems I mentioned for #2. So mainly, if I were to render this isometrically, I would be helping myself by letting me view my world in a lens I was never able to before.
4) A House in the Sky
This is a bit of an inside joke on my blog.
Basically, ever since August, I’ve been playing games of UHC on Minecraft minigame servers like Hypixel and Mineplex with the sole purpose of defying the point of the game and just building a house in the sky. Like a whole-ass village house. Plop. Right there.
This is the house I would build in those games. And this is what I would like to render now.
If you know me personally, then you already know what the front of the house looks like. (I’ve shown it on my blog countless times.) So that’s why in this preview, I’ve made the front of the house see-through so you can see the interior.
This is an effect I want to emulate in my render (if I ever make one). I make multiple image edits, and in one of them, both the exterior and the interior of the house are visible.
If I render this, it’s just a pointless joke. Not much else besides that 🙂

5) Something Else?
This is where I leave an open-ended answer.
Did you think of something that’s not on this list? Do you have something in mind that you’re passionate about personally, and that you’d like me to render? Do you think a couple or all of the ideas here are good, and you want me to render those couple or all of them?
Then remember to tell me in a reply or reblog!
Keep in mind when leaving your opinion that making a single render takes a lot of time and effort. Think of it this way: the original Skyblock render took one week to make.
Rendering something with half as many blocks would take four days. Rendering something with twice as many would take two weeks. Making multiple renders would take multiple weeks. So don’t forget the human aspect in all this.
Well, that’s the end of this post!
Tagging @ice-block, @gay-slime, @mojang-official, @birch-forest, and @light-blue-glazed-terracotta because they saw my original post and I’d like to hear their opinions, given that they’re big blogs in mineblr.
@emarezi and @unyanizedcatboys, I’d like to hear you weigh in on this as well.
See you in 36 hours, I guess!
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First Lines Tagging Meme
I'M SO HAPPY TO BE TAGGED IN THIS TWICE! Thank you @ink-flavored and @clyde-side !! (I almost just did this on my own too because I love babbling about my own fics...)
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.
Now pinned and under a cut because it became a really long, really good introduction to me and my stories!
Hello!
Unnecessary and overly wordy introduction/personal musings: I love opening lines so much. When I worked at a bookstore, I used to open books and hardcore judge them on their first lines. I had barely any free time to read at that point so if it didn’t grab me in the first line or two, I put it back. The first Harry Potter book is actually in my pile of really good openers. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” (Subtle alliteration, HELLO??) So I'm super excited to see if my own first lines come even close to the standards that I apply to other people lol. MY OWN MONEY IS ON NO. I have the feeling that I'm so frantic trying to get the story down on paper before the good words disappear from my head that I'm not actually paying attention to the first line. BUT LET'S SEE, SHALL WE.
So just straight up going backwards, I've written and posted TWO BRAND NEW THINGS after being away from fandom almost entirely for 10+ years! They're drabble length but they're shiny and new! <3 (All available fics are linked!)
1. Tango:
She teaches them to dance so that they can dance with her but when Atem gets that mischievous smirk on his face and pulls Yugi into his arms, their bodies spark and the dance floor smolders at their heels.
(The fic is so short that this is a full 1/5 of it but actually, I think I crammed all the good stuff right into that first line. This already might be my favorite. Like it says there in the line itself, Puzzleshipping.)
2. No Betting:
Anzu sat at the kitchen table writing carefully calculated answers onto sticky notes before attaching them to a fourth-grade math worksheet.
(Peachshipping! This one doesn't pop off until about line five so here's the rest of that bit:)
She had the same arrangement with her spouse as most parents had. When the kids were good they were hers. When they were bad, they were his. And when they were winning at games because they picked up rules with uncanny speed and read their opponents with more insight than ought to be available to a child, they were definitely, definitely his.
3. If you wanted honesty that's all you had to say (working title):
When he realized that the figure sitting under the game shop display window and smoking wasn’t Ryou, the physical body response was as though it had discovered a coiled snake not two feet away.
(This one! It's a NEW half finished(?) WIP. I actually started this one before the drabbles but wanted to finish before posting it. Then it got out of hand, then work got out of hand, then I started a couple more projects and well. I keep putting words on it though and eventually there will be a Kleptoshipper that turns into Puzzle and Tender for your reading enjoyment. Also, fair warning - don't use song lyrics as a working title. Every time I look at the document I get the song stuck in my head.)
Now we have polished up reposts of old stories for their move to AO3, where I'll basically keep my master archive. Not full re-writes but I fixed a bunch of typos and awkward sentences and they're much stronger for it. Most of these are from a pairings contest way back when so LOTS of different pairings and lots of AUs!
4. Human:
It was like a bad noir, the thought crossed both of their minds.
(Scifi AU, Rivalshipping. That one's not bad for a first line. Actually no link at the time of writing cause the re-edit is going up in like, a half hour? an hour? a half day? It's my next project after finishing this, finishing up the edit and posting it on AO3. Now with link!)
5. Blood:
Fingers through midnight black hair, whispers in his ear, touches that sizzled along the skin, awakening nerves and senses.
(Dungeonshipping, Pegasus x Otogi, vampires AU. Oh that’s a nice first line! <3)
6. Crazy for You:
The keys are too large and too heavy for the doctor more used to more modern facilities but she doesn't say anything, just follows the orderly as he pulls the large door open.
(Manipulashipping, Anzu x Marik, Psychward AU. Still one of my favorites from that era. Big bold warning though, THIS ONE CONTAINS NON-CON)
7. Finality:
“What are you doing here?”
“Saying goodbye.” Bakura’s translucent arms swept across the graveyard. “Is this not an appropriate place for it?”
(First two or so bits of dialogue as the first first is a generic question. You can tell this is one of the really old ones just by that but it's a sweet, sad little Tendershipper that still has a special place in my heart.)
8. Pieces of You:
Glitter caught the light, leaving shimmering trails in the air as it got everywhere.
(Glittershipping, Anzu x Kisara. Another one that's special to me. Kisara is my girl and my first writing muse. <3)
9. Cambodia:
“It was summer of fifty three...”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, it can't have been fifty three. You might be that ancient but I'm not. It must have been sixty three.”
(Jiishipping. Yes. Sugoroku x Arthur. HEY, IT CAME UP IN THE RANDOM DRAW FOR THE SHIPPING CONTEST OK. And my writer's brain hasn't backed down from a challenge yet... Another one that takes 4 lines to pop off but it's a good start. Actually, here's the rest of the bit just because I cannot get enough of these two bickering:)
“What do you mean it must have been sixty three? You don't even know what story I'm trying to tell.”
“Am I in it?”
“What?”
“So you're deaf now as well as daft? AM I IN IT?”
“Of course you're in it, y'old coot. Don't know why I'd tell a story without you in it when both grandkids are sitting here.”
10. Coffee and Cigarettes:
"Cigarettes and coffee? That's not a very healthy lunch."
Mana crossed her legs and took a refined sip of her own coffee even as her company was not.
(Mischiefshipping, Mana x Thief King Bakura. Oh this one I'm actually sad that it doesn't immediately sparkle in the first line cause it's one of my absolute favorites of everything I've written. And I think it's the only time I've ever written Mana but I LOVED IT AND HER. Oh no! I lied, I've written her at least one other time though I don't think that one quite captures her sheer chaos energy like this one does.)
11. A Million Missed Chances:
Somewhere along the line, someone made a choice.
(This one. THIS ONE. I think this is by far the most epic idea I've tackled. I still don't know if the sheer scale of the thing came across in the actual fic but in my head it was massive and I remember pounding away at my teeny tiny laptop late at night because the whole thing hit me maybe a day or so before the story was due for the pairings contest. We only had a week to write each fic and my really good ideas never came to me before the very last minute. T.T Conquestshipping, Mai x Valon.)
12. A Fear of Falling:
She drove.
Like she always did when something bothered her.
(Oh the first chapter on this is also one of the really ancient ones. Like one of the very first things I wrote. That first chapter really shows its age and is a little shaky but the others are better and the last one is what fits into the chorological order here. Polarshipping, Jou x Mai. One of my very first ships. Probably THE first actually <3)
13. What Our Creators Make Us:
"Well, well." The match flared, scattering dark shadows until it was blown out and the only light that remained was the red glow from the cigarette end. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
(Psychoshipping, Marik x Spirit of the Ring Bakura. With a bit of Bronze, Angst and Tender in the follow up. Old but I'm ridiculously proud of it, hence it's place in the master archive. Ahaha you can tell how old it is though by how clever I think I am. I thought it was funny to make my audience figure out who was talking and not reveal the characters for a good fourth to third of the fic. Ahhhhhhh. Sorry about past me.)
14. A Revolution of the Spirit:
It wasn't fair. It just wasn't.
That they were close was understandable (you don't get much closer than sharing headspace) but that even now, after deals were made with gods, endless arguments, compromises and the ultimate guilt trip that he had only been a teenager when he willingly sacrificed himself for all of humanity, things she had only half seen and only partly understood even though they had all been there to witness, that even now Atem continued to invade Yugi's personal space as though he belonged there got on her nerves.
(Woah Nelly! That third sentence should probably be three, four and five. Even if I just split it in half we'd continue the pattern of things popping off in the fourth line. I think that's one pattern that's emerging! A really good bit takes me about four lines to set up and deliver! Oh, the challenge was Revolutionshipping, Anzu x Atem, but the fic is actually Spiritshipping, Anzu x Yugi x Atem.)
So confession time, I haven't been out of fandom completely, I just hadn't written my own standalone stories in a very long time. There are a few (ok ok more than a few) long-running rps that @miss-moberg and I have been adding to on and off over the years. I can't resist throwing in a couple of these.
15. Cafe!
The door shut behind them with the soft click of the latch and the exhale of a breath long held.
(This opening line was from December of 2020 when we rebooted a very old Prideshipper and that is a damn good opening line if I do say so myself. I can definitely see the difference now between the newer works and the older ones. I've gotten better, she's matched me pace for pace and eventually something will be finished, I'll work up the courage to ask permission to post it and the whole internet will get to see how brilliant the two of us are together.)
16. Treasure Hunt!
"Ryou, I think you're going to regret letting me tag along on your adventuring this time." Yugi didn't bother turning away from the airplane's tiny window to see if his seatmate was paying attention. He was more thinking out loud with his friend playing the role of a convenient sounding board. "Because I think this trip is the only thing I'm going to talk about ever again."
(One more from RP because it's got that fun, four line punch that we've discovered is a pattern for me! Opening entry is from 2017.)
Also, in truth, my count is a little off when I say I'd been out of fandom 10+ years. I've been away from YGO for that long but I did spend a brief stint in Homestuck where I read a ton of fanfic, flirted with a couple group RPs and even wrote a tiny bit. 9 years without writing a new fic isn't as impressive as saying ‘over a decade’ but it is a little more accurate.
17. What You Will:
In the land of fair Illyria, along a small, sandy stretch of its rocky shore, a ship has come to ruin and one lone woman lies still as death among broken wood.
(The beginning of a Homestuck/Twelfth Night crossover that I'm still determined to work more on someday. It's only got a single chapter but it's magic though now I'm concerned about not being able to recapture that. Not a bad first line though. The style is so different it took me reading it a couple times before going, oh yeeeeeah, that's pretty good!)
18. Relentless:
You pull him to the deck and then across it by the remains of his shirt. Let him say one last goodbye. His ship pillaged, his crew murdered, his hands bound behind his back and at your mercy.
Funny word, that. Mercy.
(The first line is pretty decent but there's that four line combo again! Five but I could basically fix that with a comma. Featuring the troll ancestors Mindfang and Dualscar because every time Hussey introduced new characters they were instantly my favorite.)
19. Black:
There is dark and there is dark and there is dark and then there is black. She is black. Licorice and coal. She is hate and resentment and everything that tastes bitter, the kind of black that coats the tongue like oil, drips down the back of the throat and keeps going.
(Oh wow. Am I allowed to say that about my own work? A Terezi/Vriska drabble that I'm putting as much here as I think I can get away with because it's so good that it fucks me up a little going back and reading it.)
And here it gets tricky because I think the more recent of the old, old fics are in the Drabbles and Shorts collection on ff.net and I can't see a post date. So I'll just pick a good one to end on.
20. Two Princes:
It was inevitable as the rising of Ra's chariot after a long night, as the flooding of the river banks every spring, and Atem always knew that Yugi's kiss would be as warm and gentle as the evening breeze in the summer that brought relief from the scorching day. It was.
(How about the final honor going to more Puzzle/Blind? This probably has the strongest first line of its era. Actually I'm not sure when it was written. It was just hanging out in my writing folder and, thinking about it, I probably wrote it when I was fading from fandom the first time around but still trying to hang in there. No wait! That’s too sad, we can’t end on that! Lets add one more to the list for the sake of personal narrative!)
21. Linger:
The world doesn't need him anymore. It doesn't need his sword and it doesn't need his pen.
(A tiny Princess Tutu afterward that I wrote for myself. Nice one-two punch in the opener. Also it rounds out the personal story that accidentally developed here with a line later in the fic, "Words, however, never stray far from a good writer..." Like, wait, stop. Past me, how did you know T.T)
Did that take a sudden emotional turn for anyone else or was that just me. Can I offset that a little with an honorable mention? Let’s do that while I collect myself. Here’s one more.
Honorable mention: Ryou and the Thief
There was a storm gathering and too much magic in the air. Much more than occurred naturally and magic at this level was never a good thing.
(I can’t have a list of things I’ve written without having Ryou and the Thief on it. If you click on this one though, BEWARE, it’s old, it’s silly and it has a ton of explicit gay sex that… would be written very differently if we were handling it today I’m sure! This is the first RP @miss-moberg and I ever did together and our excuse to Gemship and Puzzleship turned into us running the boys through a whole adventure based on the Osiris myth. It’s the longest thing I’ve ever completed and I’d still consider it kind of my legacy.)
And that’s the last 21(+1!) stories that I’ve written!
The clear winner of best first line for me is 15. Cafe! It’s short, elegant and manages to contain a whole mood even without the context of what’s going on and who’s involved. (Spoilers: It’s Seto and Mokuba making an AU escape from Gozoboro.) Close second is Tango, the most recent story. It’s neat to see just how much better I’ve gotten and also really cool to see that even if the first line itself doesn’t contain a punch, it’s usually because there’s a nice, strong idea being set up and delivered in the first four lines (or so). What a pleasant surprise!
AND WOW, this whole tag thing didn't need to be so long! Or personal! Seriously, if you get this tag from me the challenge is only to list the first lines to 20 stories and maybe try to draw one or two conclusions from them. You all thought I was joking when I said I loved talking about my own writing! But actually, I guess it’s fine like this as I ended up using it as a way to re-introduce myself. Like, "Hey, I used to live here a long time ago and oh my god I love what you've done with the place!" Rather than being someone who's just popped up out of nowhere a few weeks ago to creepily bother all your best of the best creators so....
^///^ Hello!
Thanks for letting me ramble!
Tags! I think I've seen most of the authors I follow do this already but on the off chance you haven't been tagged yet: @elexica (checked your blog to see if you'd already done the tag and saw that you're another person returning to writing fanfiction after 10+ years. Same! Hello!!), @danieco, @draconicmaw, @nedjemetsenen (has someone tagged you already?) and two shots in the dark, @miss-moberg and @edmondia (I'm so sorry you two. T.T Please feel free to block me forever.) And please, anyone else who wants to babble about their own writing! Do this, it was so much fun. <3
#ygo#yu-gi-oh#yugioh#yugioh fanfiction#fanfic#fanfiction#jenific#so many ships#so many characters like woah#not half bad for a retrospective if i do say so myself#thank you for coming to my ted talk#tag game#first lines tag
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Crazy Theory of the Day: Year Frozen Happens

(this edit was done by me in paint, I had nothing to do on the day and as I don't know how to use photoshop I created it in paint)
First of all I must say that I haven't read “Frozen 2: Dangerous Secret” so if you have any information in that book related to the post that contradicts something here, sorry.
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The first information on the subject comes from the art book of "Frozen 1" where it says that the original idea was for the film to take place in the 1700s, but it was changed to the 1840s.
The second relevant piece of information without falling into the scope of crazy speculation is the map. In "Frozen Fever" there is a map with the roman numerals MDCCCXL that means 1840, so that means that the short film that happens a year after F1 happens exactly in 1840 since the maps are used as calendars two hundred years ago and not only has year/decade that were created, right? But in "Frozen 2" there is also a map and that map also has MDCCCXL, but that map Iduna and Agnarr used 3 years before F1 and four years before FF.
"Frozen Fever" map vs "Frozen 2" map. Which two two would you trust? Does the map that appears in an animated short or in the film sequence 100% official? What looks more like an animated graphic just made to illustrate something that was happening or what a map really is? I have my choice.
Another point that still does not reach the pure theories to analyze is the speech said by Agnarr, he comments that he was reading “The Little Mermaid” for Iduna, that book was released in 1837, but when Agnarr reads it he is just over 14 years old then including this account "Frozen 1" would take place in approximately 1871. But this is a reference to the real world and the author of the book so I don't know how relevant it is to take it into account.
Another reference is literally the book “The Snow Queen”. The book was published on December 21, 1844 (in the "Frozen 1" art book erroneously says 1845). December 21st is Elsa's birthday which was inspired by the winter solstice.
Taking into account the date of publication of these two books, there are two theories:
1 - Agnarr read the book of “The Little Mermaid” in 1837 when he was 17 and not 14 years old, because 7 years later he would have been 24 years old, which is the official age that Agnarr was when Elsa was born, placing her exactly on December 21, 1844 which is the launch day for “The Snow Queen”.
2 - The book of "The Little Mermaid" is just an ordinary easter egg that makes reference to something, but it does not make any difference the plot of the film. But Elsa was still born on December 21 as a reference to "The Snow Queen", but in 1823 and the reference to 1844 is F1.
I believe in number 2 more since it would link with the map dates.
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A - In what year and month does fog cover the Enchanted Forest: if we take into account that they were trapped there exactly “34 years, 5 months and 23 days” and put it like the month 10 / October in which F2 happens because it is autumn we arrived in the month 4 / April or 5 / May (I believe more in 4). Then the enchanted mist took place in April / May in the spring of 1830 (number 1) or 1813 (number 2).
B - In what year Iduna and Agnarr die: in 1862 or 1841.
C - In what year, month and day does F1 start: in theory 1 the year is 1865, in theory 2 the year is 1844. The film takes place in the summer, I am a fan of the theory that takes place on July 29 making reference to the day of Santo Olaf / Olavo.
D - In which year and month F2 takes place: October 1868 or 1847.
E - In what year and month "Frozen 3" will happen: the franchise according to my theories has already attended spring, summer and autumn, the winter that takes place between the 12th and 3rd months in the northern hemisphere is missing, choose the month. The year ... the franchise likes the number 3 and Anna I believe she will be pregnant with 24 making reference to Agnarr, but I don't know if an F3 can happen in the same year or not, as I don't believe that Disney will show Anna pregnant (at most a post-credit scene of a short) so I think in 1872 or 1851.
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Although these theories make some sense and again follow some patterns, it is much more likely that Jennifer Lee never thought about the exact year that the films happen and these little clues that I have gathered here are just a bunch of things played just for the purpose of fun and not speculate something. But until we have official information, let's go to the speculations and these are mine.
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Peace and Joy
@spot-king-of-brooklyn I’m your secret Santa! @newsies-secretsanta
You said your favorite ships are sprace and/or javid and you’re good with pretty much anything so I’m gonna write two separate vaguely holiday-related oneshots in the reincarnation AU. Don’t worry though nothing heavy, just fluff. No COVID because I’ve had enough of that dude and I say so. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!
Tw: referenced past period-typical homophobia.
...
Spot couldn’t remember being this happy... ever. Not in the early 1900s or in the early 2000s.
Well, the closest he could think of was 1902, when he and Race moved on from being newsies and from being leaders of their respective boroughs and rented that old apartment in Brooklyn together. But that had been muted by the need to be careful. They couldn’t be normal young people in love because they always had to hide.
And that was fine at the time because it was expected. It was them doing whatever it took to be together not knowing they’d ever get the chance to do it another way.
Now, in the bright, beautiful, forward-thinking 21st century, they could be safe. They could be in love without fear of the consequences. They could go out Christmas shopping together, and Spot didn’t know if that counted as a date, but it kind of felt like one as he watched his boyfriend bop a little to Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You as he looked around.
He ended up having to look away before he started blushing too hard. Even if he wasn’t the King of Brooklyn this time, he still had a bit of a reputation as a stone cold badass. For all he knew, one or more of their more mischievous friends could be spying on them right now. And besides, this thrift store probably had stuff he could get the few Brooklyn kids who’d come back, too.
He was still deciding if Hotshot would think it was funny if he got him a tank top that said ‘hot stuff’ on it. The others would find it funny, but Spot honestly wasn’t sure if it would make his former second uncomfortable.
“Hey, Spottie, ya think my little brother would like this?”
Spot turned back to see Race holding up a bright purple worm on a string, but a giant version of one. One that was big enough to be a scarf.
“Knowin’ your family,” he admitted, “I think any of ‘em would be happy to get one of those.”
It was true. Honestly, the most sensible Larkin brother was the second-oldest, Crutchie, but Spot could still see him proudly wearing a worm-on-a-string-scarf to school after winter break ended.
Besides him, Medda, Race’s mom, tended to embrace whatever unique fashion choice she could find. And Jack, of course, didn’t let being the oldest of four stop him from being a theatrical little shit who liked drawing attention to himself.
And Romeo was somehow even more eccentric than Race, so he would definitely like that thing.
Race grinned, “I’m gonna get Ro a worm scarf for Christmas.”
“Your family is ridiculous.”
“Thank you. So, what’re ya gettin’ for Denton?”
Oh, shit. Spot had completely forgotten about getting anything for Denton.
He really should get something for him. After all, the teacher hadn’t even known Spot when Jack asked if he could stay with him. All he’d needed to know was that Spot needed a place to hide from his terrible parents and couldn’t stay with the Larkins, mostly because Medda had a strict rule about her boys’ partners sleeping over unless it was absolutely necessary. (it was also because Spot couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to live with less than Jack Kelly, but Denton didn’t really need to know that, did he?)
So far, Spot’s parents hadn’t shown any signs of missing him, and Spot couldn’t decide if that hurt or not, but it barely mattered anymore.
Because Denton didn’t really have any rules beyond ‘do your homework’, ‘take a shower occassionally’, and ‘if you leave the house, let me know where you’re going.’ He helped Spot pick out a Halloween costume, let him spend Thanksgiving with Race, and gave him money for Christmas shopping. He was fine with Spot being gay and having a boyfriend, even if there was an added rule with that of ‘you can’t have the door closed if you’re alone in your room with Race.’
He gave Spot space, but also made it clear that he could come to him for anything he needed help with. He never hit him, never pushed when Spot wanted to be alone, never even raised his voice unless they were in an already-loud room and he needed to get his attention.
In short, in only a few months, he’d become the best adult Spot had ever had in his life. He wasn’t his father, but he was closest thing Spot had ever gotten to a dad.
The Denton they’d known in their last life had been kind of like that, too. He’d helped as best he could whenever one of the newsies got into trouble, always being there for anyone who needed him since Kath first introduced her new reporter friend to her newsie friends. Of course, Spot hadn’t been living with Denton then, so he’d never really thought about it.
“What do you even get a middle-aged man for Christmas?”
Race shrugged, “Power tools?”
The idea of getting Denton power tools was so ridiculous that they both laughed.
“Uh... he’s a writer,” Race pointed out, “So... fancy pens?”
“Fancy pens? We’re at a thrift store, Racer.”
“Well we don’t gotta stay here forever. There’s a Barnes and Noble across the street.”
He wasn’t wrong about that, but Spot wasn’t sure about the whole ‘fancy pen’ thing. It seemed a little generic.
“Yooooo! Spot, check this out for Jack!”
He was holding up a bright blue sketchbook that said ‘Sketchy Bitch’ on the cover.
“Oh yeah, ya definitely have to get that for Cowboy.”
Spotting (no pun intended) something else on the shelf behind him, Spot grinned.
He had the perfect thing to get for the man who’d taken him in.
...
“This is gonna be so fuckin’ awesome.”
Davey snorted, “You’re way too excited ‘bout this, Jackie.”
He loved his boyfriend, but he had a tendency to get overenthusiastic about things.
Well, he loved that about Jack, too. And he loved being able to call him his boyfriend, now. That they didn’t need to hide this time.
He and Sarah had both been a little worried about their parents’ reaction, but it had turned out to be for nothing. They’d each gotten a t-shirt with their respective pride flag for the first night of Hanukkah, and Jack and Kath were always welcome to come over as long as at least one parent was home.
Davey loved Jack just as much in this lifetime as he had in his first, but it was different, not having to hide it. It was good different, but definitely different. Being able to be who they were and be in love and knowing that it was generally frowned upon to be homophobic now, at least where they lived.
And being able to do random shit that was romantic and fun as hell, but not something would even occur to most people to do.
After a sleepy conversation once Crutchie, Race, and Romeo had fallen asleep watching White Christmas (which Davey appreciated for the choreography in the dance numbers) one time about how there weren’t really any Hanukkah movies, Jack had collaborated with Kath to write a lesbian Hanukkah musical romcom to post to YouTube.
Objectively, it wasn’t that great. It was good for a movie made by a bunch of high school juniors, but they couldn’t afford good cameras or microphones or anything. Plus, it was appealing to a very niche audience, so Davey doubted this movie would get more than twenty views.
Still, it meant a lot that Jack was so excited about it, that he was working so hard on props and editing in the lighting and music for it so Kath and Saz could play Jewish lesbians fake-dating at a holiday party who fall in love. It was cute.
“It ain’t gonna win any awards,” Jack admitted, “But I think we’s got somethin’ good here!”
“We do,” Davey agreed.
Was he actually talking about the romcom starring his sister and her girlfriend? Partially. It was a pretty good movie for something produced by teenagers.
But they had something good there that wasn’t on the screen of Jack’s laptop, too.
Jack seemed to share those thoughts, with the way he was smiling.
“What’s with the look, mi amor?”
Davey rolled his eyes as the other boy put his arm around his waist.
“Like you don’t know, love,” he chuckled, “Remember the last time we did somethin’ like this? And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’”
“Shh,” Jack shook his head, “Nope. We don’t talk about the latkes incident.”
“You mean when you almost burned down our tiny little kitchen trying to—“
“We don’t talk about it!”
Davey laughed. It was funny, how Jack couldn’t, in any lifetime, cook anything more complicated than like... chili or stew. While he could make something edible, he couldn’t make anything that was really considered good.
“Davey, love, luz de mi vida, it was literally over a hundred years ago, so stop. Bringin’. Up. The. Latkes. Incident!”
He punctuated the sentence by hitting Davey with one of his mom’s throw pillows.
“Okay, Jackie, I get it! Stop hitting me!”
“Fine,” Jack grinned, “I ain’t almost burned down a kitchen in over a century, babe. I thinks that’s a good record to have.”
“Most people never almost burn down a kitchen,” Davey pointed out, “I know I—wait, did you just call me ‘babe’?”
Jack was definitely not meeting his eyes to try to hide how he was blushing, “Uh... is that okay?”
Davey smirked. Jack didn’t get flustered that often, but it was adorable when he did.
And even if he had almost burned down their apartment, it had been cute back then, how he’d tried so hard to try to do something nice for Davey for the holiday season. It was cute now, too.
That was one thing that hadn’t changed through the decades, he guessed.
“It’s definitely okay, babe.”
...
“Spot, is this a... ‘Best Dad In The World’ mug?”
“...if you cry, I’m outta here.”
#newsies#newsies secret santa#btw i’m sorry i wrote in a nod to wormsies#i couldn’t help it#sprace#javid#javey#spot conlon#racetrack higgins#jack kelly#davey jacobs#reincarnation au#fluff#violet’s writing
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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.
Interview with Marasmus
Marasmus only has a handful of fics left at Gossamer, but you can find more X-Files fics at AO3 (as finisterre). Some of my favorites of her stories I've recced here before, including one of the most clever fics you could read, Cellphone (here at AO3), and the lovely, London-set A Candle for Katherine (here at AO3, bonus commentary at LJ). Big thanks to Marasmus for doing this interview.
Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?
Mine, yes, older XF in general, no — some of that stuff is amazing. Though I wonder how well fandom operates now there is not a plethora of rec sites. I know of yours and one more Tumblr blog and that’s it. I find it really difficult to find good stories in any fandom unless someone whose taste maps to mine recommends something.
What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?
I look back on it fondly, but it was one of the first things that really hammered it home to me that every grouping throughout life follows the pattern of school.
A lot of people are really talented and funny and kind. Then there are absolute ego-rampaging nightmares who act like lady bountiful in public but do cruel things in private, or chuck their toys out of the pram at the least provocation.
And like school, fandom brings together a disparate group of people who you’re friendly with, but once you leave, the ones you stay in touch with are your friends.
Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
Thank God.
I watched the show pre-widespread internet and mostly when I had almost no money. I didn’t have regular internet access until the third season, and that was only at my incredibly conservative workplace. I didn’t get home internet access until midway through season six. You couldn’t download episodes easily, you couldn’t stream, you just had to wait until it aired overseas. I decided I didn’t care if I was spoiled and that worked for me. In fact for some particularly annoying episodes, I was glad.
I was a newsgroup and mailing list sort of person. Never really did message boards unless a newsgroup counts, though I had a Haven account.
What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
Mostly, how talented people are. I know some are now professional writers, but so many people who didn’t do it as anything but a hobby were also amazing.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
I always liked science fiction, oddness and urban legends, so it was kind of made for me. But it was the relationship between Mulder and Scully that kept me around, and after season six, it was the fandom that kept me around. I loved Scully in particular, cos let’s be honest, Mulder can be kind of a twerp at times.
What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?
I hung out on alt.tv.xfiles.analysis (a newsgroup), which was one of the smartest boards I’ve ever been on. The threads were full of well-read, erudite people. That led to a site which collated reviews of XF episodes. They mentioned alt.tv.xfiles.creative, and I got there the summer after Gethsemane, which was pretty optimal timing.
I’d take floppy disks into conservative workplace and quietly download the most gloriously filthy fanfic onto them for reading at home on my ancient second-hand Mac.
After that I joined Scullyfic, a mailing list, which was a lovely place to hang out for a while, and got stories through a couple of other mailing lists.
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
Like my relationship to ice hockey: glad that activity exists and that some people enjoy it, but not watching and not involved myself.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
Reading, yes, and writing the odd bit of feedback, but any other fandom involvement didn’t really take. I’ve never found a bunch of people I liked as well as I liked some of the people in XF.
Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?
I am usually more interested in female characters than male ones (the Doctor, Mulder and Jack O’Neill notwithstanding), which is why I only read a bit of m/m slash. I usually develop a perverse dislike for any woobie the fandom loves.
Some favourites are: Samantha Carter and Jack O’Neill, Granny Weatherwax, Furiosa, everyone from The Good Place, Donna Noble, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones and Yasmin Khan, Maia from The Goblin Emperor, Cordelia Naismith and Miles Vorkosigan, General Leia Organa, Rey and Finn, and lately all of The Old Guard, even Booker...
I like nerds, pining, best friends discovering feelings for each other, second chances, redemption narratives, people being sneaky for good ends and stoics who stay stoic through all kinds of misery, only to crack and start crying when they get a happy ending.
Basically, you know Eleanor at the end of the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility? That.
Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?
No. I had about four years there where I made up stories about Mulder and Scully on any commute where I’d forgotten a book, but that’s gone now. I watched two episodes of the revival, but it wasn’t for me.
Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?
I occasionally wander in and read a bit on AO3, but nothing that deals with anything past season seven. Not interested in William, not interested in domestic fiction, not even interested in post-col any more, which was 100% my crack during XF fandom days. I did read By the Dim and Flaring Lamps [Lilydale note: by @sunflowerseedsandscience] earlier this year. Love a bit of AU historical.
I read lots of different fandoms, though I am between intense enthusiasms at the moment, which always feels a bit odd.
Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?
Yes, but they’re all about 20 years old. Is there such a thing as fandom classics any more? There used to be a litany of stories that ‘everyone should read’. I wonder how well they hold up now.
I think there are waves of writers who come into a fandom and then leave again: I think I was part of a second wave, with the first wave being Mustang Sally, RivkaT, Karen Rasch, Lydia Bower, Nascent etc.
Then there must’ve been a third wave for the revival (and mini-waves in between). I don’t know that group of writers, so I am probably leaving out people who are really good.
One of my favourite Scully voices is Five Years and One Night [Lilydale note: by Shalimar], because of the contrast between her inner monologue as written and how little she actually says.
I really like quieter, thoughtful authors like Michelle Kiefer, Cecily Sasserbaum, Scullysfan, Cofax, Anjou, Maria Nicole, Kipler. Love everything Kel ever wrote.
At one point there were also about three authors called Rachel who were knockout. I like to think Rachel Howard is writing professionally because it’s a waste of talent if she’s not. Rachel Anton had a crazy gift for pacing and wrote a good Krycek.
I really liked Branwell’s strange AU novels, which riff off The Field Where I Died (a wretched episode but so much good writing came from it.) [Lilydale note: Condemned to Repeat It by Branwell is a really long story involving The Field Where I Died.]
Everyone who is reccing other people’s stuff here is also a good writer. (and their taste in recs is — mostly — excellent): http://www.thebasementoffice.com/museaxfnet/museans/TitlesAF.html
What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?
I like The Flexible Concept of Tomorrow. I loved trying to work out the timelines. I like the one about airships and cross-dressing which only exists on my iPhone and in my imagination right now.
Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?
Only an AU, if ever. I am completely at sea with canon.
Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?
In my head. Mostly AUs. Everyone has daemons! It’s an airship! They’re exploring space! It’s mediaeval Slovenia!
Most of my creativity is sucked away by work. Which is good I suppose, as writing fanfic never paid my Netflix subscription.
Where do you get ideas for stories?
Reading long-form journalism and non-fiction books.
What's the story behind your pen name?
Well, I changed mine. The first one was picked out of a magazine article about Branwell Bronte, and I liked the shape of the word. Then I got to feel uncomfortable with it because it was a real illness that made people suffer. The current one comes from the shipping forecast when I was a kid.
Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?
No, and also absolutely not. Over my dead body. Over YOUR dead body.
Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?
I took my stories off Gossamer but I don’t remember why. They’re on AO3 now and there are probably stray copies on some archives out there.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?
I have made all of these mistakes. All of ‘em.
— On no account offer unsolicited concrit. In fact, do not provide concrit EVEN IF THE PERSON ASKS FOR IT, unless you know them reasonably well and it’s in private.
— Avoid the wank. If you have the perfect riposte to something awful, write it and file it to drafts for two days. If you still want to send it after that, godspeed.
— Write anything you want, and when you start keep going. You can edit later.
— Never put any story into the public sphere unless you’ve had a second pair of eyes on it, preferably the eyes of someone who is willing to say “are you SURE about that?”
Finally, just have fun. Being in the grip of love of story is a wonderful thing, and you never know how long it will last.
(Posted by Lilydale on September 29, 2020)
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Between The Pages || Spencer Reid
Masterlist
{not my gif, originally posted by @toyboxboy}
A/N: Honestly there are so many cafe AU’s and it’s crazy how I’ve read so many of them. But per usual I wanted to write my own version with my own twisty twist. This fic has literally taken me so long to write! I just sometimes couldn’t find the motivation to write it and then I’ll just abandon it for a period of time and I HATE writing two fics at a time because I personally can’t do it because, I’m a control freak and everything needs to be in order so if you’re a writer and you can write two fics at a time, please teach me, you’re so gifted. IMPORTANT! Spencer had to go to prison and got out around February and May but this fic is set around the Christmas season so just roll with it. Fake dates. They aren’t real!! If you are not happy with this AU, the door is that way. ——> Also I write in Canadian English so some of the words might look weird.
Summary: Y/n works at a very unique cafe, it’s a cafe plus a library, where there are shelves of the most classic books to the new poorly written rom-coms. A perfect, warm, and cozy place, to read, study, or even to hang out. Spencer Reid was one of the usual there and he may or may not have swept Y/n off her feet over the years. A poorly written rom-com following the lives of Y/n and Spencer Reid. Anti prison to post-prison Spencer.
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader
Category: Fluff
Warning: Fluff. Angst if you squint.
Word Count: 7.3k
_
November 30th:
‘Between The Pages’ was quite the most unusual name for a cafe, I had thought when I first started working here. The cafe was a cozy little building sandwiched between two bigger buildings, bringing all the attention it deserved away from it, but that’s how I had liked it. Only the usual elite that know about this place and a few drop by’s once in a while ever enters the small building, everyone who comes into the shop falls in love with it immediately, giving them a sense of home. The insides of the shop gave you old fashion tiny cute library vibes. The walls were covered in bookshelves full of books ranging from the classics to the very new ones that I would bring in every time I made my way to the book shop eight streets down. Through the door to your left was the display case for all the delicious baked goods and the counter where you place your order and pay. Where the door was, there were two windows and on one side there was a small comfy couch with a small wooden coffee table in front of it and the other had two couches facing each other with a coffee table in the center (the couples hot spot). Smack in the center of the room was a big round table where the college girls like to camp out for their study sessions, and around the room were numerous armchairs and giant fuzzy bean bags. The area was filled with warm colours, dark greens, dark reds, beiges, and browns. Small plants and succulents hung out around the windowsills and tables giving the area a nice nature vibe.
Memorizing each and everyone’s orders was my very special skill. The usuals were a group college girls (a new set every four years) that come for their study sessions every Friday and Saturday, a group of teen boys that storm the bakery section of the cafe once a week during their lunch break, a nice middle-aged lawyer that stops by every morning for coffee, which might I add had given me his business card, says if we ever needed help we should call him, two young couples that regularly have double dates, a few other individuals, and a very nice looking man around my age. He was my favourite customer, he came to the shop almost everyday ordering a single large cup of coffee with milk and loads of sugar, but when it became fall his coffee would be switched to a pumpkin spice latte.
Between The Pages have become my home the second I graduated college. The little old lady who owned this shop had taken me in as a daughter of her own, and I had my own room above the shop. I was a writer at heart, I loved writing stories that I would usually share with the bunch of college girls and my colleague Chloe who might also be my best friend. The life I’m living in was humble yet the best, I couldn’t think of another way to live. This shop gave me time to pursue my love of writing and interact with some of the best people I have ever met. I earn enough money that I am comfortable with, and live a life nicely, considering if I wasn’t here I would be nowhere. Let’s just say all my living known relatives are all gone after an explosive fire at a family reunion I had not attended in my Junior year of College. Call it lucky but unlucky.
Today was a quiet day, Thursday. The group of teen boys had already passed by causing Chloe and me to rebake today’s special treats again. Chloe was a wedding photographer (she’s here usually 60% of the time) but she also loved hanging out with me so much so that she got a job here with me after the year we graduated from college. We were literally joint to the hip together, ever since grade three when I first threw up on her because she showed me a disturbing picture of a giant spider with wings. We were in each other’s same classes, had millions of sleepovers, and we even went to the same college together. She lived in the room right beside mine, so yeah we are literally joint to the hip. I baked the sweets and made the drinks while Chloe usually took care of the sandwiches, wraps, and organizing everyday menu items.
“I noticed that your boyfriend didn’t come today,” Chloe said as she grabbed out a freshly baked tray of cookies.
“For the last time Chloe, Spencer isn’t my boyfriend,” I said rolling my eyes as I snatched a cookie off of her tray.
“Ugh yeah, you guys literally look in love every time you see each other.” Chloe shot back.
“Not true” I snapped.
“Not to mention your crippling crush on the guy.” Chloe sang with a smug lip on her lips.
My eyes flew open and scanned the empty cafe. “You’re lucky no one’s here,” I said flipping her off.
“Just watch Y/n. I better be your wedding photographer.” Chloe laughed stacking the freshly baked cookies in a perfect tower in the display case.
“Not happening as much as I want it to happen.” I laughed back biting into the cookie in my hand.
For the past few years, Spencer was the only person I had a crush on, he was always here and it just felt as if we had known each other for years, which isn’t a lie considering I have worked in this cafe since senior year of college and he started coming not long after. We got along very well and we always talked in the morning when he waited for his coffee. We knew so much about each other yet so little.
“Is it okay if you run this place a few more hours on your own? I have some unfinished wedding photos to edit, one being editing the mother in laws white dress to another colour,” Chloe said as she removed her apron.
“How does one not know to never wear white to a wedding that’s not theirs, but yeah sure,” I responded pulling out a stool from under the counter.
I watched as Chloe made her way to the back room where the staircase was and turned back around pulling out my laptop to the horror story I was currently writing.
As I typed chapter twelve of my story the little bell on our shop door rang and my head turned to the grandfather clock in the corner and saw it was two hours before closing and then to the door.
There stood Spencer, unusual to say the least he usually comes in the mornings. He was in dress pants with a dress shirt and a purple tie, unusual again, but as always his hair was tousled around wore a huge smile on his pink lips, travel bag hanging from his shoulders, and book in hand.
“Hey!” I called brightly hopping off the stool I sat on.
“Hey Y/n,” Spencer said back as he made his way to his favourite seat at the back of the room.
“The usual?” I asked.
“You know it,” Spencer answered sitting down and opening his big book.
I smiled as I got out Spencer’s favourite mug, a simple black mug with a single purple stripe running through the middle of the cup. It always amazed me how fast he was able to read, spending basically seven seconds on each page.
I poured Spencer’s coffee into the mug and added milk and loads of sugar into it. I picked the mug up and grabbed a slice of strawberry cheesecake and a fork and slowly made my way to where Spencer was seated.
“Here I said, setting the mug and cheesecake onto the small coffee table in front of him. I then made my way to sit in the armchair right across from him.
Spencer looked at the cheesecake and then at me quizzically.
“It’s on me,” I said, realizing.
“Oh no I can’t do that,” Spencer said, pulling out a few extra bills and holding them across the table for me.
“No, really it’s on me.” I laughed pushing his hand back to him.
Spencer closed his book and set it on the table and picked up the slice of cheesecake the fork and took a bite. “This is some good cheesecake.” He pointed out.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile. “Hey, you usually come here bright and early in the mornings. What's with the sudden change?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Oh, I just got off from a long day of work and wanted to come here and relax,” Spencer answered, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Wow, we’ve known each other for literally years now and I still don’t know what you do for a living, mind as I ask,” I questioned watching him.
He set his coffee down and answered, “Oh I work for the FBI, I’m a profiler. What about you? Any other jobs other than here?” He asked out of curiosity.
“Wow, very impressive..” I laughed. Spencer joined in. “This is actually my only job, aside from another thing,” I responded.
“Well, since I told you that I’m an FBI agent, will you tell me YOUR very secret job?” Spencer spoke.
“If I tell you, you have to keep it a secret,” I responded arching an eyebrow.
Spencer exaggerated his thinking face, looking up to the ceiling then back to me with a grin, “I will,” he said.
“Well, I’m an author. But you won’t find my books by searching my name, I have a pen name.” I said as I stood up. I ran to a nearby shelf and took out one of the hard copy books and ran back. I hid it behind my back and spoke again. “Remember, secret,” I said sternly.
“Secret,” Spencer repeated, bringing his fingers to his lips to ‘seal’ his lips.
I laughed as I pulled the book from behind my back and handed it to Spencer.
Spencer scanned the book and looked back up at me with a shocked look on his face. “This is one of my favourite modern-day books,” Spencer exclaimed.
My face immediately lit up and I asked, “Really?”
Spencer nodded his head eagerly.
I leaned back into my chair and whispered. “Wow, for a guy who reads like 100 books a month, he actually thinks mine is really good.”
Spencer broke out in a laugh and said, “I actually have the first edition copy of this,” placing the book onto the table.
I sat back up straighter this time and exclaimed, “I’m actually writing a new horror book right now and my writing has improved a significant amount after I was done reading one of Shakespeare’s books.”
“Mind if I take a peak?” Spencer asked, finishing his cheesecake.
I mocked him and looked to the ceiling with a finger on my cheek “thinking really hard’. “No.” I laughed.
“Why not, I won’t tell.” Spencer jokingly pleaded.
“Still no,” I laughed, “but once it’s finished I’ll let you have the first copy before I officially launch it.”
“I better be first to read it, I’m like your biggest fan.” He laughed.
“False,” I answered, “my biggest fan is actually a lady named Penelope Garcia that sent me a huge gift basket, with a letter that proclaimed her love for my books.”
“Wait did you say, Penelope Garcia?” Spencer asked looking shocked.
“Yeah. Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No, no, nothing wrong,” Spencer laughed, “She’s actually my colleague.”
“What a small world,” I responded amazed.
“Yeah, now I have to fight her for number one fan,” Spencer said with amusement in his voice.
“Oh we’ll have to see Agent Reid,” I joked.
“Actually it’s Doctor,” Spencer corrected.
“Wait but you’re an agent,” I stated.
“Yes, but I’m titled doctor,” Spencer said matter of factly.
“Alright Doctor Reid,” I laughed.
We sat together discussing multiple things with each other and we just clicked. Lucky for him, he got me to spill a little on the new book I was writing and even gave me a few ideas from some of the cases he has dealt with. I asked him about his job and he immediately started talking joyfully, he really loved his job. He also talked about his team a lot.
“Hey lovebirds,” I heard someone call. My head whipped around towards the counter and glared at Chloe so hard.
“We’re just talking,” I called back with annoyance dripping from my voice. I turned back around towards Spencer and saw that he was very flustered, his cheeks were all rosy and red. This made me blush seeing him blush. “I’m sorry for my friend, she’s a little crazy in the head,” I whispered the last part.
“No, no that’s fine,” Spencer laughed. He had found it amusing.
Ring, Ring.
Spencer pulled out his phone and held up a finger to his lips. His face was blank throughout the whole conversation, at times his demeanor would stiffen. After his phone call, he started chugging the rest of his coffee, and putting his satchel on, “I’m really sorry, duty calls,” He said.
“Hey wait, here I’ll pack some sweets for your team.” I got up quickly scurrying towards the desert display.
“Oh no you don’t have to do that,” Spencer said, a small smile on his lips.
“No, no I insist, we’re closing in like 5 minutes anyways, we can’t let these go to waste,” I answered, grabbing out a light purple desert box and placing multiple chocolate chip cookies, slices of pie and cake into the box. I closed it up and ran back over to Spencer and handed the box to him. His hands brushed against mine when he took the box from my hands and butterflies erupted in my stomach.
I bit my lip and smiled, “See you, hopefully, tomorrow,” I said.
“Maybe. Unless the case is going to be overnight, thanks for the sweet, it was really sweet of you.” Spencer responded with a wink pushing the door to the shop open.
“Bye!” I yelled back as he left through the door.
I turned away from the door with a big smile forming on my pink lips. I walked over to the table where we sat and picked up the mug, fork, and plate and carried them over to where Chloe was washing the dishes.
“Dude you’re whipped.” Chloe laughed, drying the wet dishes.
“I know,” I responded with a big smile still on my face.
-
December 1st:
It was early in the morning and I was down extra early to bake pastries and cakes, the sign was switched to open and Chloe was sitting criss-cross applesauce by the special menus board drawing cute little cartoons. After I put in the last tray of danishes into the oven I started up the coffee pot for the early birds. Mornings at Between The Pages were always calm and peaceful, Chloe and I would both wake up, do our parts and not talk till 11:00 am enjoying each other's silence, then the morning guests were always calm and nice too, we would exchange some friendly words, I would give them their coffee and they’ll wave goodbye and leave. Here at the cafe, there's no such thing as a lunch rush so that's a big weight lifted off Chloe and I’s shoulders.
As I was frosting the danishes the bell that hung on our door rang. I looked up from my frosting to see Spencer in a black suit walk in, my face immediately lit up but then dropped when a blonde female walked in right after him. The female had pretty blonde hair that was in loose curls with small butterfly clips on either side of her head and perfectly cut bangs, she wore a pretty light pink dress with black lace on it, over top of her dress she had a cute white cropped cardigan. Never would I have expected her to be his type, but no one’s judging, I personally loved her style, although I was jealous of her. Maybe they're just friends. Hopefully.
I put on the best smile that I can manage and walked to the cash register and quietly waited for them to walk to me. Before I could register what was happening the blonde lady rushed up to me with a squeal and excitedly said, “Hi, I’m Penelope Garcia, Spencer’s coworker, you must be Y/n, Spencer was talking about. Oh and thank you so much for the sweets yesterday! The whole team loved them.”
Spencer was talking about me?? That was what hit first, then reality. “Nice to meet you and yeah I am Y/n, and I’m glad you liked the treats!” I happily said back. I already liked her completely leaving my jealousy behind me. I turned to Spencer next and smiled even bigger, “Hey Spencer. You want usual?”
“Hey Y/n, yeah the usual,” Spencer responded smiling back at me.
“And you Penelope?” I turned back to her.
“Oh I’ll take a french vanilla with whipped cream and mini marshmallows please,” Penelope responded.
“Hey! I’m Chloe!” Chloe cheerfully explained coming up from behind me and wrapping her left arm around my shoulder. “I’m Y/n’s best friend!”
“Hey, Chloe.” Spencer and Garcia said at the same time, causing everyone to laugh.
“Chloe, could you get their drinks for me?” I asked walking to the back table to pick up a dessert box.
“Yeah sure,” She said to me then turned back to Spencer and Penelope. “Just a moment.”
I picked up the desert box and started placing two dozen danishes in it. They were strawberry, blueberry, and chocolate cream danishes. I closed off the box and walked over to Penelope and Spencer. “On the house, for the team,” I said handing the box to Spencer with a wink.
“Y/n! This is too nice of you, here let me pay.” Spencer rumbled reaching for a few more bills from his wallet.
“Spencer no, it's on the house,” I laughed, pushing his hands away.
“Are you sure Y/n?” He asked.
“YES,” I exclaimed.
“Oh you're the sweetest Y/n,” Penelope squealed joyfully, as Chloe handed them their drinks.
“Be safe!” I called to Spencer and Penelope as they walked out the door of the cafe.
“We’ll try.” They responded together before disappearing around the corner.
My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at the closed door, my mind never leaving the picture of Spencer smiling in my mind. How was I supposed to do anything if all I could think about is Spencer Reid? That stupid adorable smile of his whips me up every time. I snapped myself out of my trance and picked up my piping bag filled with creamy cream cheese icing and resumed icing the uniced danishes.
The morning came and went in a blur, regular customers and newcomers here and there, the danishes were a hit and sold out fast with the coffee ordered. I was currently mixing some brownie batter when my favourite group of college girls walked in, they took their usual afternoon seats at the center round table and started pulling out their laptops, textbooks, and homework.
“Usuals?” I asked as I already started their lattes and mochas.
“As always!” Cherry White, one of the blonde girls replied, rapidly typing on her laptop.
After I poured their drinks into mugs for the girls I brought the mugs to their table. Their heads were all buried inside their textbooks and laptops studying feverishly. I placed all their orders by each girl and watched as they intently worked. Papers and pens were already scattered everywhere in a short time, laptops open and bright as the clicking of the keyboards filled the warm homey air.
“Studying for midterms, girls?” I asked as I placed the last girl's coffee by her hand.
A few of them responded with a quick ‘yup’ and went straight back to their studies.
I went back to baking my brownies while daydreaming about Spencer. The thing’s I would let that man do to me, I thought as I placed the brownies into the oven.
I pulled out my own laptop and continued from where I left off from yesterday night, the chapter I was currently working on was almost done and I had used some of Spencer’s great ideas. Trying my best to focus on the task at hand my mind just kept slipping away to Spencer and the conversations he and I had had yesterday night.
“Look!” I heard Darcy Shawma, a cute Asian girl with braces say. She was pointing to the windows by the front of the shop. Following her fingers' direction, I find soft snow falling from the afternoon sky. I sighed in awe as it was the first snowfall of the season indicating it was the perfect time to start baking Christmas sweets.
Ditching chapter 13 of my book, I pulled up a new search tab and began scavenging google for the best Christmas baking recipes. As I searched I could already just taste the delicious gingerbread in my mouth and the sweet smell of sugar cookies. This had reminded me that I needed to get the annual Christmas tree out soon. This year I had already decided that I would get Spencer Reid a Christmas present. We’d known each other for so long now I just thought it would be a good idea.
For the rest of that night, I surfed the net for yummy Christmas treats to bake and possible presents for Spencer.
-
December 2nd:
The next day Spencer was a no show. Not thinking much of it I assumed he was away on a case as usual. Chloe and I started putting up the Christmas decorations.
-
December 6th:
He hadn’t showed up again for the fifth day in a row now. It could just be a long case, nothing to be too worried about. The book was going great. I was now halfway done.
-
December 13th:
Now I was getting worried. He never in his life has done this. He never not came back after a week. I didn’t have any contact with him so I had no way to know whether he was out on a very long case or he got hurt or if he got tired of the place or oven ME.
-
December 14th:
I had gone full panic mode. When he hadn’t shown up in the morning I had a whole meltdown on Chloe’s shoulder. She tried telling me maybe he was just away on his own holiday but I didn’t believe her because every year he would tell me.
-
December 16th:
To cope with Spencer being gone for so long I decided to start decorating gingerbread houses. They turned into piles of gingerbread frosting and candy, they looked as if they were going to be a part of Halloween rather than Christmas. They failed big time. That afternoon the group of College girls came by and they had gotten me a present! I was shocked and very flattered that they thought of me. They explained that it was their senior year of College and that next year they would be leaving, they noticed that I was constantly typing on my laptop that they had gotten me a brand new and updated laptop. The rest of the afternoon we hung out and decorated the leftover gingerbread houses together before they left for their holiday vacation with their families and friends.
-
December 20th:
Once again I had another meltdown but this time there were no witnesses, we had closed down for the holidays and Chloe was off in New York with her family. She invited me to come with her but I politely declined and stayed behind in case Spencer came. The book was finally done and the first rough copy was printed. After the holiday’s I would bring my book to my publishing company and they could take care of it from there. As for the first copy as promised, I tied the stack of paper that formed a story with a single red ribbon running horizontally and vertically across the book with a pretty bow in the center for Spencer. It was the best gift from my heart. Along with the first copy of my book, I wrote Spencer a letter of confession where I poured my heart out about my feelings for him.
Dear Dr. Spencer Reid,
Merry Christmas! You’ve been gone for a really long time. I hope you’re doing alright! It’s so unusual not to make your daily coffee loaded with sugar. Chloe started asking about you too. We miss you, you know?
I miss you.
We’ve known each other for so long now. Ever since I graduated from University you started coming here too. You fell in love with the place just like I did, I could tell by the expressions on your face. Ever since that day you started coming every possible day possible. I baked a strawberry cheesecake today in hopes the smell will attract you back. Sadly it didn't.
When you walk in through that door everyday my day immediately gets 100x better. Your smile literally radiates serotonin to me. (Please don’t correct me on that, I know that’s impossible.) I really miss your smile, your voice, and your everything really. I wish you would walk through that door right now.
By now you have probably picked up that I like you, I make it very obvious. I LIKE YOU SPENCER REID. There I said it. Chloe has been egging me on for forever to tell you. The day you walked through that door I fell for you hard, I was young and naive but even now that I have grown into an intelligent woman I still like you, you’re something else, Spencer.
I hope this doesn’t affect our friendship, Spencer. I really like what we have right now but if it could grow into something more I would love that.
Bottom line I think I love you, Spencer. God, I don’t think. I do! I love you so much! My heart hurts when I don’t see you, it hurts me when I think about you getting hurt or even seeing you with other girls. I love you, Spencer. I hope you’re safe and you’re having a good Christmas.
With unhealthy amounts of love, Y/n Y/l/n.
-
December 25th:
He didn’t come again. I left his gift leaning on the glass of the cafe with Spencer’s name written in loopy holiday cursive indicating it was for him and that he’d know it was for him and pick it up if he decided to walk past. He didn’t. For Christmas that year, I sat at the armchairs by the fireplace drinking hot cocoa and eating gingerbread cookies while watching SpongeBob cartoons on my new laptop. To be honest it was a sad way to spend Christmas.
-
December 31st:
The cafe was re-opened up again. Spencer’s gift was tucked inside a cabinet where I kept my personal things downstairs. He still didn’t come. The worry was now burning inside me. I thought about just showing up at the FBI and asking for Spencer, but he and I weren’t anything. I had no reason to be there.
-
January 5th:
My book was now officially launched. I tried holding it back for as long as I could but the due date was fast approaching and I had no choice but to publish it. The copies sold out fast and I already got new fan mail. I may have promised Spencer he would be the first person to read it but he was late and never showed up but he would still have the first-ever copy if he ever came back I suppose. Chloe also got back!
-
January 17th:
The teenage boy’s stormed the bakery. The college girls finally return. The old lady, Granny Lizzie I would call her that owned the shop passed away sadly.
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January 20th:
It was a sad day, it was Granny Lizzie’s funeral. I inherited the cafe in her will.
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January 29th:
Snowstorm.
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February 7th:
Chloe’s birthday! We shut down the cafe for three days and she and I flew out to LA together to celebrate her birthday. Lots of drinking. Maybe even a hookup.
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February 14th:
Chloe got asked out. No Spencer. Valentine day dates overflow the cafe. Red velvet cheesecake cookies, big hit.
-
February 26th:
Started on a new book. More mental breakdowns. I really missed Spencer. Snow is gone now.
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March 4th:
Discovered one of the couples got divorced and no longer came to the cafe. Bummer they were really nice.
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March 20th:
Rain. Closed off early to lay in the rain on the top of the roof. Relaxing. Cried for Spencer.
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March 26th:
Spencer!
-
10 minutes until closing.
The bell to the cafe rang and I boringly glanced at the door, not a single interest in me. I hadn’t seen Spencer in so long I gave up in hope. A tall man appeared in the doorway, he had longish curly hair and wore a tight black suit with a purple tie. It took me a moment to realize who it was.
“SPENCER!” I yelled as he approached the counter; the way he walked and carried himself changed, he no longer had a doubt in his steps, his strides were now confident and long. He carried himself with confidence and security and looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, he was more relaxed now and not uptight and stiff.
My whole mood changed completely, I was no longer sad or bored and was now full of energy and excitement. Ditching the register I ran around back to get to the other side of the counter. As soon as I was close enough to Spencer I jumped into his arms and squeezed him tight. Immediately he responded and hugged me tight and held my weight.
“Where were you?” I whispered, not letting Spencer go.
“I was in prison,” He whispered back, his voice cracking.
“Wait what?” I asked in disbelief but that wasn’t enough for me to let go of him. It didn’t matter.
“I was framed for murder,” He responded no hesitation.
I immediately relaxed again and melted away in the hug.
“I missed you!” I grumbled, finally pulling away from the hug.
“I know, I missed you too,” Spencer whispered.
“Can I just kiss you!” I blurted out suddenly.
Not needing to be told twice Spencer immediately captured my lips in his. His lips were what I had imagined soft against mine, and moulded perfectly into mine. The kiss was sweet but also hungry yet still gentle, his hands held my waist as mine tangled into his soft curls. It was probably the best kiss I have ever had. Scratch that it was the best kiss I’ve ever had.
“I have something for you,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against his, our nose tickling each other.
“Mhm, and what’s that?” He asked, smiling.
“Go grab a seat,” I responded, already running around the corner to get Spencer’s very late Christmas present.
Swinging open the cabinet door excitedly, I grabbed my wrapped gift for Spencer.
Gripping the three-month-old gift tightly, I made my way quickly back to where Spencer was sitting. Our spot, I would like to say.
“This is for you,” I said, handing him the gift with a wide smile. “You were supposed to receive it on Christmas,” I finished with a shrug.
“You didn’t have to Y/n,” Spencer said, unwrapping the gift.
“I definitely had too,” I reassured with a warm smile.
“Y/n is this what I think it is?” Spencer asked, picking up the first-ever copy of my semi-new book.
“Mhm, as promised Spencer you get the first copy, even though you weren’t able to be the first one to read it.” I shrugged.
“This is great! I don’t mind, it was something both of us couldn’t control,” Spencer responded, picking up the letter I had written for him.
“Read it!” I exclaimed.
Spencer nodded and unfolded the perfectly folded letter. It barely took him a minute to read the letter, it looked as if he just scanned the letter with his eyes but in reality he definitely memorized it. After his eyes landed at the bottom of the page he slowly looked back up to meet my eyes.
“I love you too,” He breathed.
“I’m s-sorry can you say that again, I heard you the first time, I just need to re-hear you again to make sure,” I stuttered happy tears escaping my eyes.
Whipping the tears away Spencer leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Y/n Y/l/n I love you.”
“This is probably the best thing that has happened to me ever since my Junior year of University.” I happily cried.
“Me too,” Spencer said.
“Does this mean we’re together?” I asked suddenly.
“Yes, this does,” He responded.
“Good. I’ve waited for this for so long,” I breathed.
“All throughout prison you were the only thing I thought about, other than getting out and trying to stay alive,” Spencer said.
“That’s flattering yet scary,” I responded with a light chuckle.
“I guess it is,” Spencer responded.
-
April 5th:
“SPENCER, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING! THE DRY INGREDIENTS AND THE WET INGREDIENTS NEED TO BE SEPARATE,” I yelled as I dumped burnt to crisp cinnamon buns down the garbage shoot. They were like pieces of black coal that were steaming a very unpleasant smell.
“I forgot!” Spencer yelled back, unsuccessfully cracking an egg.
There were three more hours until opening happened and baking was not being done. Well, it was being done, just very poorly. Spencer asked to come over very early in the morning to help me bake, he had reassured me that he would be helpful but right now he’s not really living up to his promise.
Two batches. That’s it, two good batches was all we got out of a dozen.
“I thought baking was easier,” Spencer puffed, ditching the eggs and plopping down onto a stool.
“It’s just math and science Spencer,” I laughed.
“Well it’s complicated,” He pouted.
“Oh, boo-hoo,” I mocked, rubbing my eyes, fake crying.
-
May 21st:
Chloe got engaged! So her date went well I would assume. I’m so excited, the weddings going to be so amazing!
-
May 30th:
CHLOE ASKED ME TO BE HER MAID OF HONOUR!!!!!!! It’s party time bitchessssss.
-
June 3rd:
“SURPRISE!” Was the first thing I heard walking in through the doors of the cafe. Looking around the whole cafe was decorated in streamers and balloons for my birthday.
“You guys! You didn’t have to do this!” I exclaimed.
“But we did!” Spencer said kissing my cheek. Taking my hand in his he spoke again, “Come meet the team.”
I immediately stiffened at the thought of meeting Spencer’s team. He most likely noticed this and gave my hand a small squeeze. “Don’t worry they’ll love you,” He reassured.
“I’m counting you on that,” I whispered.
-
July 25th:
Chloe’s wedding is today! The day was perfect and sunny for a beach wedding, everyone who was invited to their wedding flew out to California for their beach wedding. The groom’s name was Ricky Polern and he was actually a pretty nice guy, funny, and respectful.
I brought Spencer with me as a plus one to the wedding and Spencer gladly came with me. Although I had to push some buttons with his team to drag him with me.
The wedding was spectacular and everyone had lots of fun, the food was great, and fortunately, there was no case to steal Spencer away from me. Spencer and I even had our first slow dance together. He looked so handsome in the dim light and he had told me I was the one he wanted to grow old with. I cried tears of joy.
I caught the bouquet!
-
August 7th:
David Rossi invited me over to dinner to get to know me better, it was VERY scary at first but he ended up loving me. Chloe was also finally moved out, it was very sad but we promised to call everyday.
-
August 22nd:
Spencer proposed! I think I might die of happiness. I will die of happiness.
-
“Spencer, what are we doing out here on the roof so late at night?” I asked as Spencer dragged me onto the roof.
“I have something to show you!” Spencer excitedly responded.
Spencer had set up a table with red table cloth and vanilla-scented candles with perfectly placed table utensils. All of it seemed so cliche but it was adorable coming from Spencer.
Spencer pulled out a seat for me to sit at and I chuckled and gave a little curtsy before sitting. Pushing me in gently making sure he didn’t push me in too much he ran over to his side of the table and sat down too. “So do you like it?” He asked.
“Spencer this is great,” I answered.
Spencer’s smile widened and he looked as if he was a child again and he had just discovered he was going to DisneyLand.
Pulling out a very delicious looking strawberry cheesecake out of a picnic basket, Spencer set it down between us and said, “I have successfully backed a strawberry cheesecake for you Y/n just like how you baked one for me.”
“Spencer you didn’t have too! This is so amazing.” I exclaimed, examining the perfectly baked sweet.
“It took me a few tries but I did it,” He admitted.
“What matters is that you did this for me,” I said reassuringly with a warm smile tugging at my lips.
“Hey could you cut the cake, I need to do something,” Spencer said, handing me a small cake knife before he disappeared out of my sight.
“Spencer, this has great texture,” I explained cutting into the fluffy cheesecake.
“Y/n turn around,” I heard Spencer say from behind.
Not giving it much thought I did. What I saw surprised me completely. Spencer was on one knee and in his hands was a beautiful dark purple velvet box and in it sat a beautiful diamond ring. The ring had a thin silver band and a beautiful perfectly round diamond.
“I know this is really early in our relationship Y/n, but it feels like I’ve known you for my whole life. You’re the one person that makes me happier than the books I read and you make me feel so special. Your kind, beautiful, smart and you love everyone you meet. That day you met my team they loved you so much Rossi told me to marry you and when you caught the bouquet I knew I had too. Y/n Y/ln will you marry me?” He proposed smiling up at me.
At that moment I fell in love with Spencer all over again, to have him say those things warmed my heart to the fullest. I felt tears in my eyes when I answered, “Yes! Yes! Yes! I would love to marry you!” I cried.
Spencer gently slipped the ring onto my finger and jumped up and brought me into a big hug. Without much thought I crushed my lips onto Spencer and wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. This kiss we shared was beyond special as our bodies pressed together and our lips moved in sync.
“I love you so much,” I whispered, pulling away.
“I love you more,” Spencer said, reconnecting our lips.
-
September 1st:
I asked Chloe to be my maid of honour! She said yes!
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September 16th:
I met Spencer’s mother and she was the sweetest person alive, she and I started the planning for the wedding.
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September 30th:
Wedding dress shopping!!
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October 1st:
Spencer and I had the best time together decorating the cafe with Halloween decorations. It was his favourite holiday and he was definitely living up to the Halloween spirit.
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October 28th:
It’s Spencer's birthday! The team called me up in secret and we planned a secret birthday party for Spencer. He admitted he figured out we had planned a party for him because he knew we were sneaking around, but he still loved it. Everyone had fun and very very drunk.
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October 31st:
Spencer unfortunately couldn’t spend Halloween with me this year, he was away on a case. But he promised he would make up for it when he got back.
-
November 15th:
Spencer and I were finally getting married. The wedding was beautiful, nothing grand but it was spectacular. The dress I wore was beautiful but simple, it was sleek and fit me well hugging all my curves and was floor length. Spencer looked very handsome standing at the altar as I was walked by Rossi to him.
The wedding vows were said and both Spencer and I had no hesitation. When we kissed the whole crowd cheered for us. The night was magical the best I’ve ever had, we danced the night away and in the end we took a jet to Sydney Australia for our honeymoon. But not before Chloe took mass amounts of photos of Spencer and me and rubbed the fact that Spencer and I did get married in my face.
It was great.
-
December 25th:
Spencer and I had our first Christmas together, it was also the day I told him I was pregnant. He was very excited. We were ready for children.
-
Somewhere in the future:
We had twins, Amelia and Claira Reid! Spencer is the best father ever, he loves his girls so much and would do anything for them.
We ended up moving in together in a small beautiful house in the same neighborhood as Rossi, who treated them like they were his own grandchildren. I retired from the cafe and became a full-time author writing horror novels. Cherry White and her best friend Rossa Lenney ended up caring on the legacy and I passed on the cafe to her and her best friend.
As cliche as it sounds, Spencer and I had a happily ever after.
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