#same idea as in the one from a while ago but in different font or something like that lol

[notonlymice]

rumbelle + (one more) school au moodboard

[cherrygarcia-07]

hi gorgeous! idk if this is like a good a idea for you to write of anything, but maybe some Spencer fluff when he sees his ex again after like a long time, and they are still into each other and maybe at some point Penelope founds out or he tells her or something and she's just like "OMG! you have to get back with her!!!!" or something like that, idk. just leave your creativity flow

Thank you so much for the req I loved writing this one so much!! I hope you like it!! And thank you for letting me include Penelope she’s lowkey my favourite to write for lol❤️

The Road Back To You // Spencer Reid☕️

Synopsis: After a painful breakup, Spencer realises he’s still hopelessly in love with you. With some encouragement (and meddling) from Penelope he finds himself on your doorstep, desperate to win you back.

Pairing: s6! spencer reid x ex girlfriend! reader (ft everyones favourite matchmaker, Penelope Garcia)

Genre: fluff… well he’s a sad little yearner for a while but it has a happy ending i promise!!

Word Count: 5.8k

Notes/Tags: Swearing once. Spencer yearns like crazy. He’s a little sad sorry but he’s okay at the end. Spencer is awkward as hell and has zero game but we love him. Talks about Haley’s death. Otters mentioned! Gay people mentioned! I honestly don’t have much to say but I like this one a lot!!!

masterlist // if you enjoy pls reblog!! it helps so much!!

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Otters are often seen as a symbol of love. They’re affectionate and many species mate for life making them synonymous with soulmates in a lot of people’s hearts. In February you can find them plastered all over Valentine’s Day cards, hand in hand as they drift on their backs together and refuse to let the water pull them apart. Of course many animals mate for life, it’s not anything otter specific- in fact it’s not even true for all otter species- but you always had a thing for them.

Your mug still sat on the counter in Spencer’s kitchen, two little cartoon otters fading away on the front with the words ���otterly in love’ printed beneath them in a curly font. Just a few months ago you’d been perched on the counter yourself, tea-filled mug in your hand as you prattled on about the TV show you were currently watching. Spencer was stood opposite you, coffee in his own mug as he listened intently, truthfully not knowing what you were talking about but grinning stupidly all the same. Two opposites so similar. Now it just sat there empty and useless reflecting how Spencer felt every time he looked at it but he didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. There were traces of you everywhere all over his apartment, the ghost of someone who wasn’t dead floating around mockingly with every note still pinned up on his fridge with a silly magnet and every book of yours still tucked between his on his shelves. He was haunted by his own regrets.

It had been an ugly breakup, but not in the traditional sense. There was no screaming or shouting, no throwing or shattering. It was ugly in a quiet way, in the tears that dripped down your cheeks, the soundless begs for him to stay. A silent exit that felt louder than any argument you could’ve had instead- that you wish you’d had instead. A door that closed softly, sympathetically, behind him as he left that somehow felt like a slam that rocked its hinges. It was ugly in the feeling it gave the two of you deep in your hearts; that dull, agonising ache where you just wished the circumstances could be different. It was shortly after Haley’s funeral- after seeing what the job had cost Hotch, Spencer began to put up walls. He thought he was protecting you, you had thought he was protecting himself.

He saw your face everywhere he went. When he walked past your favourite bookstore and gazed into the window like he just couldn’t help himself he saw you scanning the shelves, brows pinched in concentration and your lips moving in silence as you read the titles along the spines with your finger hovering in the air in front of each book. He saw your face light up when you found what you wanted, excitedly but carefully prying the book from the shelf before running over to where he stood, usually by the foreign classics, to show him. He saw how his own face softened as you pressed your shoulder to his, smiling softly as you rambled and flicked through the pages of the book you were now holding between the two of you. The bell above the door rang out, harmonising with your airy laughter as he watched the two of you stroll out onto the street arm in arm, the book he’d bought you tucked tightly under your other arm before the memory faded into nothing, leaving the street empty before him.

It was like that no matter where he went; the café where you had met, the park you two would take evening strolls in after work, hell even in the grocery store he could swear he could see your hair whip through the air as you turned the corner of the aisle, the sleeve of your favourite jacket riding up your arm as you reached for something on a too-high shelf, your perpetually untied shoe laces trailing the floor as you stood on tip toes and-

Oh fuck, it actually is you.

Spencer froze where he stood, or at least he’s pretty sure he did. All he could hear in that moment was the static buzzing in his brain, like a thousand tiny Spencers were running around frantically screaming and shouting up there. His jaw hung open, eyes wide and dumb as he watched you turn towards him almost in slow motion, hair falling around your face like a picture frame. Your mouth was moving but no sound was coming out, at least not that he could hear. All he could focus on was the shape of your lips- so familiar yet now so foreign. Those lips he’d kissed more times than he could count, those lips that had always beamed in his direction except for the last time he’d seen them when they trembled and shook at his words.

“Spencer?” They called out. Your voice was muffled and hazy in his ears like he was only semi-conscious, but God did the sound of his name from your lips feel like heaven. You were staring at him, blinking expectedly like you were waiting for him to do something. “Spencer, you called my name.”

“I did?” He squeaked, voice hoarse as he forced it out. Did he? He cringed at himself for a moment before clearing his throat awkwardly, feigning confidence. “I did. Yes, I did, um-”

What are you doing? Say hello. Ask her how she is. Tell her you miss her. Sweep her off of her feet and tell her you’ll never let her go again.

“Your shoelace is untied.” Idiot.

You hesitated for a moment, visibly confused before glancing down at your shoe, kicking your leg out slightly so that your laces hung in the air between you. You were wearing your converse- the pair you’d bought to match Spencer’s. He noticed.

“Yeah, I know.” You replied, offering him an awkward smile. “You’d think I’d have learned by now, with the way you always panicked every time I tripped on the street.”

Panicked. Past tense.

“I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” He spoke quietly. The weight of his words hung heavy in the air. A thick, mournful silence stretched out between you, saying everything neither of you could voice aloud. Like Haley. Both of your gazes dropped to the floor, to your matching converse, before flickering back to each other at the same time. Perfectly in sync.

“It’s good to see you, Spencer.” You piped up eventually, your voice cutting through the tension slightly. He tried to ignore the stinging feeling in his chest hearing his full name instead of your usual ‘Spence’.

“It’s good to see you too.” He responded, a fond smile pulling at his lips despite everything. He just couldn’t help it when it came to you. “Really good.”

“How have you been? How’s work?” You asked, voice cracking slightly at the last word.

“I’ve been ok.” Not great, not good or fine. Just ok. “Work is… work.” His voice trailed off, not wanting to discuss the very thing that had split you apart. The very thing that had you standing away from each other making small talk instead of walking hand in hand through the aisles as you picked out what you were going to cook together that night.

“Ohmygod!” You chirped suddenly, a hint of excitement in your voice that lifted the tension just a tad. “You cut your hair!” Without thinking, like it was instinct, your hands flew up to his head, twirling a short curl around your finger. Spencer had to fight his eyelids as they threatened to flutter shut but he couldn’t stop the content sigh that left his lips- your hands in his hair felt like home.

“Yeah I did.” He breathed, leaning into your touch ever so slightly. “You always said it was getting too long.”

He remembers the way you used to sit with your legs swung over his lap as you toyed with his hair while some movie or TV show was forgotten in the background. One hand would be resting on your knee, the other wrapped around your back holding you close to him as you teased him, adoration lacing through your sarcasm.

“I’m serious, Spence, you could braid it!” You had laughed, holding his hair up in a ponytail, your hands a makeshift hair tie.

“You’re being dramatic.” He’d argued back, though the grin tugging at his lips betrayed the butterflies in his stomach as your fingertips grazed his neck.

“Oh yeah?” You’d challenged, hopping off of his lap and sprinting to the bathroom as he laughed after you from his spot on the couch. You came back brandishing a handful of colourful hair ties and hair clips, a mischievous smile plastered on your face.

Not long after you were leaning back against the arm of the couch, a camera in your hands as you laughed wildly at him, dolled up and blushing as he tried and failed to hide his face with his hands, giggling just as much as you until your cheeks ached.

Now, with your fingers still in his hair, the memory wrapped itself around Spencer’s heart like a rope, squeezing it as it pulled and pulled, threatening to rip it out of his chest entirely.

“Well I think it suits you.” You said softly. You didn’t pull your hand away. Instead you let it fall reluctantly, fingers brushing against the curve of his cheek, so gently that if he wasn’t so in tune with your movements he would’ve missed it completely, before dropping to his shoulder and eventually back at your side as if it never happened.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“It um-” Spencer began, trying to swallow the inexplicable feeling causing a lump in his throat, “my head gets cold sometimes now.” He mumbled, cringing at himself for the odd response. But you laughed.

You laughed that lovely, radiant laugh. The one so heavenly he was sure it would put the angels to shame. God, he wanted to hear that blissful sound for the rest of his life. His gaze shyly dropped from your face, no longer able to handle looking into those eyes that he used to get lost in for hours- he still would if given the opportunity, if it didn’t hurt so much to do so now. That was when he saw it, glistening between your collarbones, framed by your body and shining bright and beautiful. The necklace he gave you on your first anniversary. You were still wearing it.

Spencer breathed in sharply, brows pinched and nose scrunched as he dropped his gaze fully to the floor, the sound of your laughter still ringing in his ears as he blinked back tears. He let himself wonder for just a second about if you felt the same way. If you saw his face in strangers on the street, or if you heard his voice in your head when you were re reading the books he bought you. He thought about whether you still slept on the left side of the bed, or if you stayed in the middle now there was no him to make space for. Did you go back to hugging that stuffed animal you swore you’d outgrown now you didn’t have his side to curl into? Did you leave for work on time now that he wasn’t there begging you to stay in bed with him for just five more minutes as he peppered you with sleepy kisses?

A voice sharply pulled him out of his trance. Not your voice, no- not that serene melody that lead him anywhere with a gentle touch. This was a harsh, grating voice that yanked him out of his thoughts with so much force he almost face planted the floor. This was a man’s voice. Calling your name. His heart sank at the small smile that bloomed on your face as you turned to face the mystery man, and somehow the glow of your necklace- of Spencer’s necklace- seemed to dim against your skin.

“I’ll be right there, Nathan, I’m sorry.” You called back apologetically, waving at him in reassurance before he disappeared back around the corner of the aisle.

I’m sorry.

Spencer whispered the words to himself while your back was still turned to him, the words burning in the back of his throat. He suddenly felt foolish, like a burden mixing you up in his silly fantasies when you had clearly moved on in your life, yet he couldn’t help the way his body relaxed at the scent of your perfume floating through the air as you spun back to face him.

“I better get going.”

“You better get going.”

The two of you spoke in unison. Under any other circumstances Spencer would’ve found it funny how in sync you always were, how perfectly you slotted together like you were practically just one being. But now, his heart sank further, drowning in memories of you. Suffocating. Now it felt like a mockery. Like the current was too strong no matter how hard he grasped your hand, it was pulling you away from him.

“Yeah.” You breathed, almost remorsefully. You bit your lip, your hand flinching hesitantly before reaching out and resting on Spencer’s arm, your thumb rubbing small circles against his cardigan instinctively. “It was really nice to see you, I mean it.”

“It was nice to see you too.” He croaked, trying not to focus on the weight of your hand against him. Clearing his throat he spoke again, unsure whether he wanted to let you go or not. “It’s been a while.” He added wistfully.

“Yeah, it has. It definitely takes me a lot longer to proofread my work before I send it in now.” You chuckled airily, emptily, as you reminisced about the two of you cramped into one chair at his desk in the low lamp light of his apartment.

Spencer didn’t smile back. “I hope you’re doing okay.” He whispered, just loud enough, as he waved goodbye and turned on his heel, not waiting to hear your response. He just needed to get out of there. He didn’t see the way your hand lingered in the air for a moment after he left, how you stared blankly at the spot where he’d stood before forcing yourself to walk away.

The next day at work, he was somber. He was slumped at his desk, letting his coffee run cold as his hands ran through his hair for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, sighing to himself as he tried to force himself to think about anything but you. Everything around him felt as if it were in greyscale, even the Rubiks cube he kept on his desk seemed unsolvable as the blocks all faded into indistinguishable shades of lifelessness, so to say he was surprised when a bumble of colours came strutting into his peripheral would be an understatement.

“Okay,” Penelope’s voice sighed as her neon pink heels clicked to a halt at Spencer’s desk. “Spill. What’s wrong, boy wonder.” She asked softly, tapping his hand with the fuzzy topper of her pencil.

“Nothing’s wrong.” He lied, although he didn’t even believe it himself.

“You’re dragging your feet about the place and you’re giving me those little puppy dog eyes of yours and it’s hurting me, Reid, it’s hurting me.” She spoke sadly, pausing to perch herself on the edge of his desk and forcing him to look at her with a gentle tap of his nose. “I just want to wrap you up in a hug if I knew you wouldn’t freak out that I’m carrying all the icky public transport germs on my clothes.”

He smiled briefly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Really, I’m fine, Garcia.”

“No, you’re not.” She spoke a little firmer, suddenly jumping to her feet. “In fact, up, come on. Come with me.”

Impatiently, she waved her hands in the air as she gestured for him to stand before beckoning him to follow her as her heels began clacking towards her office, Spencer trailing begrudgingly behind her. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but only a fool would dare try and escape Penelope once she was committed to taking care of them. In her office, she practically forced him into her desk chair, the wheels spinning it side to side as he adjusted himself. His eyes trailed the army of colourful trinkets and toys lining her workspace, though they couldn’t quite distract him from the bold FBI logo bitterly blinking back at him at all angles from the monitors all around.

“Okay, I have my therapist hat on,” she began, comically adjusting her headband on her head, “talk to me.”

“I’m just in one of those moods, I guess.” Spencer murmured, avoiding her gaze and picking up a small plushie kitten from the desk and turning it over in his hands as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

“Uh-uh. No. You’ve got this sad, heartbroken little look in your eyes that pulls on my little heartstrings. I haven’t seen that look since- oh.” She cut herself off quietly, her eyes softening in understanding. “Is it her?”

Swallowing his emotions Spencer nodded, still focusing on the toy in his hands. “I saw her yesterday.”

“Oh!” She repeated, squealing a little as she clasped her hands together excitedly before she remembered the situation and promptly dropped her hands back to her lap. “Oh. Right, right.”

“Right.” Spencer echoed solemnly.

“How’d it go?” Penelope asked tenderly after a brief silence, scooting slightly closer in her own chair.

He shifted in his seat, squeezing his eyes shut as he contemplated whether or not he wanted to tell the truth. Honestly, he wasn’t really sure how it went. He knows how it felt for him, like every last bit of hope for the two of you had been squeezed out of him, but he frustratingly couldn’t get a read on you. Nor had he stopped thinking about you since.

“It was alright, at first. It was a little awkward on my part,” he scrunched up his nose, cringing at himself in retrospect, “and kind of sad but… nice.”

Penelope nodded along empathetically. “But then?”

“But then,” Spencer trailed off, stilling the toy cat in his hands before setting it down in defeat. “She was with somebody else.”

“Oh, honey.” She cooed, taking the plushie out of his lap and holding his hand instead. He usually wasn’t one to accept such gestures but in the moment it was comforting. “Tell me everything. Every word.”

“I mean I don’t regret what happened,” Spencer began after recounting the events to her, “at least I don’t think I do. I could never regret protecting her and keeping her safe but just seeing her there with him made me-“

“Jealous?” She cut in, raising a brow at him.

“What? No, not jealous, just-“ he tried to defend himself but he couldn’t think of anything else to say that could explain the ugly feeling bubbling in his chest, heinous and spitting like poison. Maybe he was jealous.

“Jealous.” She repeated, punctuating herself with another tap of her fuzzy pencil. “It’s okay, Reid. It’s normal. And for what it’s worth I think she’s totally still into you.”

“What?” Spencer squeaked, finally meeting her gaze with an incredulous look. “That’s- that’s ridiculous, Garcia.”

“Sweetheart,” She began, her voice taking on an ever so slightly teasing tone, “she was wearing your matching shoes.”

“They’re practical shoes.”

“She was still wearing your necklace.”

“Maybe she just liked how it looked with her outfit.”

“With her hoodie and converse? Yeah, sure.” Penelope cocked her eyebrow at him again, smirking slightly as she tilted her head at him. “Reid. My dear boy wonder. She played with your hair.”

“She was just commenting on my haircut,” Spencer insisted through stuttering words and burning cheeks, “that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, come on!” She sighed, exasperated as she through her hands up. “That is classic, textbook I’m-still-in-love-with-my-ex-boyfriend. It’s yearning 101!”

He opened his mouth to protest, but there was no stopping the romance-loving adrenaline rushing through the veins of the meddling woman before him.

“You have to go after her.”

Spencer’s jaw dropped, mouth opening and closing rapidly like a fish as he blinked repeatedly in tandem. He was malfunctioning, evidently. “What? No!” He yelped, voice several octaves higher than before. “Garcia that’s crazy! Thats-“

“Genius!” She finished for him, a maniacal glimmer in her wild eyes as she beamed. “Oh it’s the perfect rom-com scenario.” She mused, clasping her hands together.

“I don’t watch romantic comedies.” Spencer replied deadpan. He bit back the word anymore. He used to, with you.

“This is the scene where the guy chases the girl through the rain,” Penelope began, ignoring him entirely, “or the scene where he jumps in a taxi and throws money at the cabbie and runs through the airport screaming her name right before she gets on the plane.”

“Plane? But she isn’t going anywhere.”

“Oh, will you shush? I’m being romantic. Something you should be doing with little miss love of your life right now.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed, sinking down in his chair and swivelling side to side in thought. “She’s moved on, Garcia.”

The defeated croak in his voice weighed heavy on Penelope’s heart. She often felt other people’s emotions in full force as if they were her own, something she saw both as her detriment and as her greatest triumph. But right now as she watched her heartbroken baby brother shrink into himself she wanted nothing more than to fix everything for him.

“You said his name was Nathan?” She asked, although she already knew, as she spun to face her monitor, pulling her keyboard towards her as her eyes locked onto the screen with laser focus.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, concerned at the sudden steel emotion hardening her features. “You can’t just cyber stalk everyone you deem an inconvenience- that’s a gross misuse of FBI resources.”

Penelope said nothing but held up a finger with authority, effectively shushing him though he still glanced over his shoulder nervously like he was expecting the door to be broken down any second. In just a few seconds her expression melted, a satisfied look taking over instead as she smirked, tilting the screen away from him with her perfect pink nails.

“You swear they were together?” She asked, an amused lilt in her voice that had Spencer furrowing his brows in confusion. She was practically vibrating with excitement.

“I think so.” He replied warily, eyes darting between her face and her death grip on the edge of the monitor.

“Well…” She sighed dramatically, though the grin on her face only grew wider. “Nathan’s boyfriend isn’t going to be too happy about that.”

Slowly, she spun the monitor back to face him, revealing a social media post. Sure enough, Nathan was stood looking positively ecstatic, arm around another man and hugging him close. Warm candles lit up the room around them, illuminating the balloons strung up on the wall and the roses on the table. Beneath the photo in the caption read the words ‘happy anniversary, baby” with a string of heart emojis.

Despite his protests to Penelope’s sleuthing Spencer felt a weight lift off of his chest, chuckling to himself slightly and he’d never been so happy to be wrong about something in his life. He was just a friend.

“You already let her go once,” she began, speaking gently again, “you can’t afford to let her go again.” Her hand let go of the monitor, instead coming to rest on Spencer’s shoulder.

“But I can’t afford to lose her forever, either.” He uttered, voice broken with something between heartbreak and regret. “I can’t afford to mix her up in this world. To lose her like-” He stopped speaking abruptly, like the thought of it was too painful to even force the words out.

“Like Haley.” Penelope finished for him again, rubbing his shoulder as he dropped his eyes to the floor. “I get it, sweetie, I do. But are you really going to let her walk away forever over a possibility?”

“If it saves her life, of course.”

“I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, Reid, but you can’t guarantee anybodies life.” He nodded heavily, it was a reality the whole team was unfortunately all too aware of. “It’s not promised to anyone, whether you’re with her or not, so don’t let it get in the way.”

“I love her.” Spencer declared. Crisp and final.

“So go get her.” Penelope bumped his shoulder lightly in encouragement. “If not for you then for me, I miss my girl’s night partner.”

“I never stopped you from seeing her?” He turned to look at her, mentally running through every conversation they’d had about you incase he ever insinuated that without realising.

“I know but it’s basic girl code! Have you never seen a rom-com in your life? I could never do that to you.” She held a hand to her heart dramatically, like she was making an oath.

“Girl code?” Spencer echoed, confused, “but I’m not a-“

“Reid.” Penelope firmly planted both hands on his shoulders as she spun him in his chair until they were perfectly opposite each other, staring into his eyes sternly. “Go. Get. Her.”

“We still have 5 hours of work left.” He mumbled nervously.

“After work, genius. After work.”

“Right.”

Later that evening, after pacing around his apartment for what felt like an agonisingly long time, Spencer found himself outside of your door. Actually, he’d been there for so long he was half worried a neighbour was going to spot him outside of the window and call the police on him for loitering, but he just couldn’t work up the courage to knock on your door. The last time he had been here still haunted him and every time he looked up at the door he saw himself walking out of it, tears rolling down your face as you stood on the other side. Instead, he fumbled with the edges of his sleeves, repeatedly tightening and loosening his tie and occasionally reaching down into his bag and running his fingers along your mug tucked safely within one of his sweaters so that it didn’t shatter on the way over.

Desperately trying to calm his breathing, he finally made his way up the stairs, his legs trembling and threatening to give out beneath him with every step. Taking a deep breath, he reached out a shaking hand and gave three brave knocks on the wood, trying to ignore the nausea clawing at him from the inside.

He almost stopped breathing entirely when the door swung open moments later. There you stood. Perfect, ethereal you. The light of your hallway illuminated you in an angelic glow, a halo-like ring shining in your hair and Spencer swore in that moment that he had died and gone to heaven. You were only in your sweats and an old t shirt, glasses on and hair thrown up in a lazy ponytail, but he thought you were the most bewitching thing he had ever seen or that he ever would see for as long as he lived (which may not be very long given the way he was still holding his breath).

“Spencer?” Your voice was music to his ears. Raspy and sleepy in a way that had him wanting to tuck you into bed with a sweet goodnight kiss.

“Hi.” He barely managed, voice hoarse and jaw hanging open.

“Are you okay?” You asked, shifting your weight where you stood in the doorway.

“Yeah, I um-“ He started, losing momentum very quickly. “I didn’t think this far ahead. I’m sorry.”

You bit your lip, stifling back a chuckle. Even in your situation it was impossible not to fall for his loveable awkwardness, just the sheer Spencer-ness of it all. Before you had a chance to second guess yourself you were stepping to the side, holding your door open just a bit wider and gesturing for him to come in. He followed immediately, a precious look of disbelief on his face as you shut the door behind him. It felt weird yet comfortable to have him back in your space. Before the breakup, these walls had seen all of your movie nights and every meal you began to cook together before getting distracted dancing around the kitchen in the glow of the refrigerator light. It had heard every word, every compliment, every joke, every time you laughed or cried together, every soft snore as you slept tangled up in each other’s arms. Welcoming him in felt like welcoming him home.

“I’m sorry to stop by when it’s so late.” He found his voice eventually as he followed you into the living room. “You can tell me to leave if you need to.”

“Don’t be silly.” You smiled, sitting down on the couch. Carefully, he lowered himself beside you, keeping a respectable distance but you caught the way his fingers twitched at his side like he wanted to reach out for you. “I’d never turn you away, Spence.”

Spence. You didn’t mean to say it. It just slipped out. But you didn’t take it back.

“I wanted to apologise.” He fought his nerves and looked straight in your eyes, holding your gaze with a serious look that you couldn’t quite place.

“For what?” You tilted your head, unable to pull your eyes away.

“For everything.” The sincerity in his voice made your breath catch in your throat, the emotion in his words unearthing every feeling you thought you’d buried. “For leaving. Especially for how I left.”

“Spencer, I-“

“I thought I was protecting you. I thought that by letting you go I was keeping you safe, that I was doing what was right. But when I saw you yesterday… I realised I still love you. I mean, I knew I still loved you- God did I know- but I think I was denying just how much.” Your heart thudded in your chest, as did his, but he forced himself to keep going. “And maybe it’s selfish but I just can’t keep going around seeing your face everywhere I go, hearing your voice in every book I read, feeling your touch when it’s not there.”

He broke eye contact for just a second, glancing around at the room he’d once called his second home, and when he looked back at you there were tears in his eyes.

“You don’t have to accept my apology,” he continued, voice beginning to hollow, “but I just had to tell you. I had to try.”

To your surprise, there were tears forming in your own eyes. You hadn’t even felt them creeping up on you, no sting in your lash line before the drops were rolling down your cheek. Without thinking, like it was instinct to take care of you, Spencer reached forward to wipe them away and you leaned into his touch like it was second nature. His fingertips brushed against your face, the warmth sending a jolt through you that had you wanting to jump into his arms and kiss him until the break up was completely and utterly forgotten- but a small part of you was still hurting. And that part of you recoiled. You tried to speak, but the words came out hoarse.

“I understand.” You whispered. “It’s okay, Spencer.”

“No, no it’s not.” He insisted, voice low but firm.

“No, it’s not.” You admitted faintly, folding your hands in your lap. “But if you want to fix things… I’m willing to let you try.”

Spencer let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding, his chest deflating so fast he thought it might collapse in on itself. His fingers twitched again, the nerves shooting through him as he processed your words.

“Thank you.” He breathed, barely audible at all. “Thank you so much. Thank you.” He repeated it over and over again like a prayer. He wasn’t even sure who he was thanking, you or whatever cosmic forces of the universe had decided to grace him with your existence in the first place.

“I’ve missed you too.” You moved along the couch until your knees were touching, and with bated breath you took his shaking hand in yours and admired how perfectly they fit together, like they were moulded just for one another. “I miss you every time I wake up alone from a bad dream and you’re not there to read me back to sleep. I miss you every time I smell coffee and it’s not coming from your mug, from your hands. I miss you all the damn time, Spence.”

He raised your interlocked hands to his lips, pressing a kiss so soft yet so full of raw emotion to your knuckles and you realised he was crying too.

“I swear, you’ll never have to miss me again. I’m not going anywhere this time, I promise.” And he meant it. He meant it with every fibre of his being.

“Good.” Was all you could muster. You believed him, and that was all that mattered.

A sentimental silence fell over the room as you both sat with your hands still entwined, except now your head was on his shoulder and he was pressing tender kisses into your hair the way he always used to. After a while, he jolted upright suddenly, reaching into his bag and pulling out a small object wrapped in blue tissue paper, which he carefully ripped off.

A smile pulled at you before you could register it as you saw the little cartoon otters on your favourite mug. You’d left it at his apartment the last time you saw him before the break up and hadn’t had the courage to ask for it back, leaving it behind alongside everything you’d left unsaid.

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to say what I planned to,” Spencer started, laughing at himself quietly. “So I thought I’d return your mug. Just incase I needed an excuse as to why I was here.”

You found yourself laughing too, heart blooming with adoration for your silly, awkward genius. “You can keep it.” You mused, resting your head back on his shoulder like it belonged there. “You’ll need it next time I’m at your place.”

Next time. Future tense.

A lovesick grin grew on Spencer’s face as he settled into you, to say he was in love with you would be underselling it. He was completely, inescapably enamoured with you- smitten, besotted, infatuated- there was no word in any language that could describe the depth of the love he felt. With a full heart, he took your hand in his once again and this time he vowed he would never let it go again, no matter how hard the current pulled.

-

[httpsserene]

if you’re still taking requests for your 3k celebration… #9 from the pre relationship prompts with lando pleaseeeee 💗 congrats on 3k and love ur writing sm !!

#3k vday cells

🛞  tread’s uneven: time for a tire rotation! — send me a driver and a prompt from this list of pre-relationship prompts, or these established relationship prompts, or these hurt/comfort prompts, and i’ll write a blurb or drabble for you xxx (prompt lists are made by me!)

༊࿐ ⊹ ˚. missing f1 so much i'm watching the practice session tonight! three minutes and counting !!! happy 3k🤍 babe < 3 thank u for celebrating with me !!!

⌕ 3k v-day celly nav | all 3k requests | main nav | table of contents ↻

#𝟗. leaving a date early because the person didn't do something that you usually do. fem!black!reader x lando norris.

lando’s only known this woman for three weeks and this is the first date they’ve had—he’s infatuated with her already.

he’s not naive enough to think that he’s in love, however he can puzzle out his feelings of infatuation. she makes him feel heard and seen, in a way very few people in his life do, like you or max. he likes her intelligence, her dedication to her interests and hobbies, her sharp humor, her love and loyalty for those she trusts, her ambition, and the way she’s clearly fond of him already. lando likes seeing the spread of her lips when she smiles, the bashful manner she ducks her head when he flirts; he likes the way she begs lando to stop adding to his jokes whenever he keeps making her laugh to the point where her ribs begin to hurt—all of these traits reminiscent of you, he recognizes.

their server places their appetizers on the table and lando thinks that he can’t wait to introduce you to her. he knows your personalities would mesh nicely.

it’s not like he’s interested in her because she’s exactly like you—that would be weird. she’s doesn’t have the same style as you, or the same tenderness that bleeds through your gaze when you look at him. she doesn’t have the same care to deal with his self-deprecation, or the same willingness to consider lando’s ideas for your next hairstyle.  she doesn’t have the same ability to understand what he’s feeling by observing his body language, or the same ability to communicate through a brief second of eye contact.

she’s not one of his closest friends like you are.

but, there’s time for that to develop—lando’s only just met the woman last month. and, it’s not weird that she kind of looks like you, it’s just a coincidence. like how the last two women he went out with looked like you in different fonts. 

maybe, lando has a type. is that a crime? 

max thinks so, like it’s the damning evidence that proves him guilty in the case of him liking you as more than a friend. lando does like you, enough to think that you’ve usurped max’s title as best friend because of how he’s been harassing lando about his inability to recognize that he’s in love with you; which he isn’t.

lando has a lot of love for you, of course—he told you as such a few nights ago, when he made himself comfortable on the piles of throw pillows you keep on your bed, while venting to you about how he snapped at max because he wouldn’t stop trying to pressure him into admitting that he has a crush on you, which once again, he doesn’t have. 

the only reason lando’s not pettily ignoring the other man is because you made him see that it was quite stupid to fall out with his oldest friend over something so unimportant. 

lando attributed the unsteadiness of your voice around the word ‘unimportant’ as a sign of exhaustion since it was well after midnight at this point. he felt worse after learning he kept you up late after you suffered through a lengthy, demanding work day. you brushed him off with a small smile, one lando knew was more polite rather than genuine from years of knowing you. even though he had been inconsiderate, you refused to let him drive home this late in the night, guilt-tripping him to stay in your guest room because you knew he wouldn’t want to upset you further. 

it’s not like he had a good reason to fight you on it either, with him already having multiple changes of clothes in your dresser from how often he stays over.

“lando?” his date calls, a worried tilt to her brows (slightly different from yours), “are you okay? your nachos are getting cold.”

he blinks, dismissing her concerns with a shake of his head and grabs a chip. he attentively listens to the dramaticized and amusing way she retells her experience about needing to spill red wine on her friend’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law after they wore white to the wedding, mindlessly prodding around his dish to carefully pick out the jalapeños to gather them in a little pile on the edge of his plate.

“…not white sundresses, or even white evening gowns! they blatantly wore wedding dresses! like who—,” she stops abruptly, causing lando to look up, and she asks, “you don’t eat jalapeños?”

“oh,” lando chuckles, “no, not really. i’m a bit of a picky eater.”

her expression lightens with understanding, “i know you’re a little finicky about fish, but i didn’t know it went beyond that. why didn’t you just ask to have the nachos without them?” 

“‘suppose I forgot to ask this time around,” lando offers, his smile shrinking at her use of ‘finicky’ to describe his dislike of fish.  

you’re the one who reminds him to ask for changes to his meal when he neglects to do so. oftentimes, lando keeps the jalapeños because he knows that you like to eat them.

“do you want to try the nachos? the cheese is so rich, there’s no chance you won’t like it—,”

“—i’m okay. i don’t like sharing meals, i’d rather eat what i ordered myself, you know?” she says, like it was a given that lando would know.

the thing is, he doesn’t know. when he’s with you, the two of you always share a bite or two. there’s been times where the two of you swapped plates when you enjoyed the other’s more. 

she continues divulging the drama that occurred after she had stained both wedding gowns red, and lando can’t focus on the storyline anymore. 

it’s weird of him to fixate on something as trivial as her not wanting to taste his food—it’s insane for him to feel the attraction he had for her start to dwindle because of it. she’s the perfect for him; he likes her personality, he thinks she’s attractive—lando feels like there’s something missing. 

you’d remind him to forgo the jalapeños, you’d savor the richness of the cheese, and lando knows that because the nachos are your favorite starter at this restaurant. the two of you share the dish whenever you dine here. the only reason lando chose this place for tonight is because you told him that it was the ideal choice for a dinner date—

on the table, his phone rings through his do not disturb. their conversation pauses again, eyes dropping to look at the top of the screen where your name flashes across it. the contact photo he assigned to you illuminating the display: it’s you and him standing side by side in his garage after he won in singapore. he’s holding his trophy in one arm and the other is wrapped around your wait, tightly cradling you in a side hug. he’s staring at the camera with the biggest grin, his eyes crinkled from the strength of it. and instead of directing your pretty smile to the lens, you were looking at him with a wide grin, the picture capturing the immense happiness and pride you had for him.

his eyes flick up to meet his date’s, and he smiles awkwardly at her raised eyebrow, “sorry, i have to take this, it could be important.”

she gestures that it’s okay, and he answers the call, lifting the phone to his ear.

“hiiiii, lan,” the sing-song tone of your greeting is something lando’s heard countless times, but it’s the first it’s made his chest ache with adoration, “max has ordered me takeout tonight as payment for covering his turn of doing the check-in call, so is she a nice girl or do i need to phone the authorities?”

“well, did you order enough for two?” lando asks, his date frowning at him from across the table.

“i think i’ll be having enough leftovers for a week—wait, no, lando. unless you have a valid reason to ditch don’t do it, it’s rude. you can’t keep cutting your dates short to show up at my flat and steal my food, you bastard—,” 

“that’s all i needed to hear. i’m on the way,” lando doesn’t leave you a chance to respond, he hangs up and stands, mustering himself for the way your wrath will be multiplied as a result of him abruptly ending the call on you. 

“so that’s our nice evening over, i figure?” his date questions, her voice lighthearted through her soft frown.

he rambles apologetically, “you’ve just made me realize that i’ve been best friends with the love of my life for years because you don’t like to share food. she’s the one who puts up with my picky habits and i always feed her the first bite of my food to compensate for it. for the past year i’ve been going on dates with women who remind me of her—like you—instead of dating her. i’m so sorry, and i hope you can forgive me for wasting your time tonight.”

tension builds between them as she remains silent at his explanation, her face remaining blank for a minute before she breaks with a startled chuckle.

“if her and i are as similar as you say we are, you need to worry about whether she's going to forgive you for taking this long to notice that she’s been in love with you the entire time too.”

© httpsserene — do not reupload. photos in header from pinterest. divider by @cafekitsune.

[lazyamethystm00n555]

Supernatural Shifters: Helpful Resource?

Hello. ♡

I had a very random thought about a possibly helpful resource for people shifting to Supernatural.

There was an officially licensed book made that was meant to be a published version of John's Journal. You can read it for free and download it for yourselves through the Internet Archive. Here is a link to the PDF of the book here: PDF link for the book.

I will point out the formatting is interesting there are some sections in like Times New Roman font while other parts are in a pseudo-handwritten like font.

Also, it isn't 100% accurate in appearance to the show version, but it is likely due to the fact that the book was created to be more legible and readable. If they published a version 100% show accurate in appearance it would not be the most readable in its format.

Here's an example of the differences:

Here is the show's version of the Wendigo pages:

Here is the published book's versions of the pages:

The formatting is different but the information is the same. Also, I've noticed there are different illustrations (some are the same but some are different), I don't know why that was the choice but this thing was published around 16 years ago so I think the time for answers is gone.

One last note. I know there is likely information left out/ the book is likely not completely accurate to the show in terms of the information provided. However, I would say they've done a well enough job. I did find an image of the journal from the show and decided to search the document with a string of words visible to see how accurate it would be. I would say it was pretty accurate in terms of the text/ information written.

Here is the show version: The phrase I looked up was cases are unsolved

Here is the book version: The phrase I searched is highlighted in green.

I have no idea if this is helpful for anyone, or if anyone would use it. However, I have known about this and had a link to it for a while so I thought why not share it. Maybe it would be helpful to someone.

[buried-in-autumn-leaves]

XOD PAIR ANALYSIS - PART ONE - BAE & PRAN

A while ago I posted XOD pairs as 'Same Character Different Font' and I paired Bae with Pran and I said I was going to post about it and never did (bc I am a lazy piece of shit 🙏) so I'm finally doing that (ty @otomes-and-tears)

Bae and Pran are surrounded by people like them. While everyone in the squad is aware that they lack genuine friendships, Pran and Bae are the ones that seem almost proud of it. This is because for them, having friends or even being liked contradicts the roles they've placed themselves in.

This is really obvious if you look at the way they talk to and about those closest to them. For Pran, being liked implies she is not a purely bad person- She can't process this. Even in her romance route there's this validation of her mindset where it makes sense that it's JB that likes her because she's ALSO awful. She is attached to Jeremy because his version of 'liking' her is tainted by his mask of apathy. He likes her because she is a low maintenance friend who he doesn't have to put any effort towards. Jeremy's parents don't care for her because of any actual goodness, but out of pity. Nothing in that friendship requires her to try to be a good person. Her falling into hookup culture is self destructive- She relies on her looks, which she is already insecure about, to secure meaningless flings, not caring who gets hurt in the process.

Bae keeps himself alone for a similar reason. His superiority complex is a safety net. Due to his upbringing, being above others is the place he feels most comfortable. If people his own age get along with him, it shatters the idea that he is so different from them. This, I feel, is why he 'gets along' with Shiloh, at least as genuinely as those two can manage. Shiloh is SMART. He isn't blunt in his ways the way Bae and Pran are, but I feel that Bae would almost respect the way Shiloh goes about his life. He keeps total control. (I could go on ab how Shiloh and Bae turn to niceness for completely opposite reasons but this ain't ab them.) This is why, as much as I don't actually like Bae, I adore his confession ending. When JB pursues him, he's humouring her. He will continue to insist that's what's happening even at the end. When he talks about his future, he very intentionally uses 'mature' language, specifically the word Wife. Yet, when he asks JB to go out with him, he uses the word 'Girlfriend'- A word that is specifically NOT used by a lot of non-married adult couples because it's seen as juvenile.

I feel the reason Bae likes Pran so much (besides his obsession with anything 'cute') is because of their shared blunt nature. He feels understood by her in a way she clearly does not share, finding it more annoying than anything else. He's also taking advantage of her apathetic nature- She is the only one who isn't going to tell anyone anything he says. Besides Jeremy ofc, who Bae doesn't see as a threat. In a weird way, she's almost like a safe space for him to speak, and if given the time, I can see him being that for her as well.

[paddingtonfan69]

8, 11, 19 and 20!

thanks pal! getting a little verbose here oops

8. What fic meant the most to you to write?

I love all my children equally and they all mean things in different ways! but that is a boring answer so I’ll say anything can happen in the woods as my first foray into writing for agatha all along. I had only written one (1) fic in 2024 before october, and it had been a couple years since I watched an episode of television and then immediately had to write about it, but 1.04 aired and my ass rushed home and immediately spewed the first draft out in one sitting. which then let to me spewing out five more aaa fics in 2024. so that first one holds a special place in my heart because it was the gateway drug to writing these characters, which has been a true joy for the last few months, especially during november when I really needed something fun and all consuming to take over my brain! also that specific fic was so fun because it was that special kind of rushed enthusiasm that only happens in my beloved WEEK TO WEEK TV, where you only have part of the story but you gotta write within those confines. a joy!

11. What fic was the most difficult to write?

definitely now I understand, and it’s time to leave the woods because it started just as a desire to wrap up my little into the woods series but then became this sort of big centuries spanning timeline spanning deal and then I was like wait it works better told backwards (merrily we roll along style, if you will) and so there were a lot of logistics to work out. not to mention that it was def the most emotionally weighty fic I’ve written for agatha and rio, but I still wanted it to be fun and goofy, so there was a good amount of tonal things to balance too. anyway very proud of the final product but def the most I had to THINK while writing instead of just letting it spill out.

19. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

okay so hard bc I am a dialogue bitch through and through, but one of my favorite dynamics to write is agatha and rio and also a third person there who has to deal with their bullshit. idk about favorite, but I’m particularly fond of this bit with billy from the tax evasion fic, because it’s just fun to see them all bounce off of each other. also really love the idea of of rio being forced to know what dear evan hansen is against her will, so much so that it spawned a whole other fic ooo

20. Share your funniest line

same fic, gonna have to go with “you don’t just say cunt in a sweetgreen” really proud of that one. also when I was doing the dangerous activity of looking myself up on twitter a few weeks ago, I did find this and it made me very proud!!

oh to have something i’ve written immortalized in the brat font, the truest honor!!!

end of year fic asks

[finalfrontierpublishing]

The Lightness of You // This Soul Outstreaming - a @rendherring duology

The entire origin for this bind was because I was extremely excited to use my newly purchased legal paper and I had wanted to make a tête-bêche quarto - and I just had so many feelings about Good Omens after watching the second season and I needed very much to bind something that is my love letter to Good Omens and express ALL MY FEELINGS ABOUT THOSE TWO LOVEABLE IDIOTS.

Stats:

36055 words || 153 pages

Body text: EB Garamond 11 point

Accents: Alchemist Serif font

I bound these two little fics written by the same author (in 2019, so they are spoiler-free fics), of which they are opposing points of view but also are slightly different stories. I mainly used the character point of views to guide a lot of my design choices.

did quite a few new things with this bind: a tête-bêche, also a quarto! a legal quarto! plus edge gilding! and a half-bind which i have legitly not done since my first bind 1 year ago.

the tête-bêche is a trial run for an author copy - and thankfully is easier than expected.

i chose decorative papers (renato crepaldi, because i have a Stash) that specifically gave me aziraphale and crowley vibes - and leaned into the elements of light and dark, contrast and harmony, while matching it with forest floor colibri. AGAIN PLANT VIBES, JUST BECAUSE.

I kept my typesetting very classic - a) because i wanted to speed bind this (which i did in 2 days) and b) because i wanted to preserve old book vibes. i also practiced++++ and took the electric sander for a whirl because by god i was going to get some foiled/gilded edges on this bind so it would look like a fancy pancy book Aziraphale would covet for his shelf. this is my third attempt at sanding and gilding and it's still a little patchy - not perfect enough yet for a consistent result but i hope to get there one day and to be able to do foiled edges for author copies, hopefully soon. i would say despite the patchiness, it looks pretty fucking fancy and i really liked how it turned out.

Endpapers are the same papers on the cover but on the contralateral endpaper sides, which is a great contrast and an amazing idea from @pleasantboatpress because i was befuddled by Options.

For the endbands, i took inspiration from @celestial-sphere-press's recent beautiful gradient endbands, but leaned more with the usage of sunlight breaking through the contrast of light and darkness, for Aziraphale's side, while Crowley's side is done with green, black and gold because PLANTS. i stitched the main textblock with lovely variegated galaxy thread (IFYKYK :)) hand-dyed by @pleasantboatpress.

i actually really like how the bind came together and i'm rather proud of its simplicity and how intentional it feels as a bind, design-wise. every design choice was done with love, for the show, the book, the author, the characters and the fic and i am just FILLED WITH FEELINGS, Y'ALL. i'm not ashamed of them.

my only (small) gripe is my legal paper grain snafu because i am one of those grain purists and i only ever like using the correct grain but despite the textblock being in the wrong grain, it is still a lovely book and my fears were unwarranted, the book lies flat and open (it's not a monster book of monsters, which i had always assumed erroneously was a grain issue) and is still very readable other than a little sticky-outyness of the pages. am also very grateful because paper supplier is replacing it for free (they are legit the nicest).

[jamiesnovels]

Writing with ADHD

I was diagnosed with ADHD just over two months ago. It was only then that I realized just how debilitating it was to my creative endeavor.

For context, I have been writing – or perhaps I should say, trying to write – for about twenty years now. The relative brevity of school projects, coupled with the multitasking nature of upper-level courses, made school writing assignments doable. Still, I remember many a day in college spent vomiting words on paper as quickly as I could, skimming and re-skimming and re-re-skimming the same section of the book I was supposed to have read days or even weeks ago to find whatever I could to BS my way to some sort of poignant point. This was not most assignments, to be clear, but it was more than a few.

I will emphasize, I did well in school, from the year my writing spark came to me all the way through college. My psychologist suggested my focus on subjects that interested me, as well as the multitasking aspect of study, was a coping mechanism. At any rate, while focused on school, my free time was rarely spent on my passion.

Not for lack of trying: Every year, I’d have one or two different story ideas in my head, and I’d feverishly scribble through a composition notebook (College Rule, of course) with my No. 2 pencil (Dixon Ticonderoga, always), or since college, my Pilot G-2 black-ink pen (0.38 font, or 0.5 if I absolutely had to). (You may infer from my parentheticals that I had a thing about space optimization, maximizing words-per-page, but I digress.)

Those ideas never got far. Every time, I would slow to a stop after one or two weeks at most. Dismayed by my grammar, overwhelmed by the plot rolling around in my head, or just embarrassed that someone might read what I wrote and judge me harshly for it. The plot in my head stayed in my head. Ideas stayed ideas.

And as I got older, I slowed down. College was part of it: nearly all my free time was spent on homework or the one or two clubs I enjoyed. And then when work came along, the mental effort and sheer stress left me exhausted by the end of the day.

My First Breakthrough

In November 2021, I decided to join NaNoWriMo. (Referencing that organization leaves a foul taste in my mouth today, following its many scandals that leave it disgraced. But I digress.)

I joined because I was tired of being tired all the time. I was tired of having all these ideas in my head and never getting them down on paper. I was tired of always feeling like a failure. I had to prove to myself that I could do it.

And I did. In three weeks and change, I had a vomit draft of a story I had ideated over the past couple years, the first in a five-book series. It was a grand achievement for me. Just writing every day for a whole month was huge, but to turn around and see that I had produced so much in so little time was eye-opening.

I realized, from this experience, that I can do it. I can produce, even with ADHD, even with a day job that sapped all my energy, even with everything else going on in this world.

Then I started revising. At first, the momentum continued. I managed to do a lot to clean up the very concept of the story by early 2022. I changed settings, improved pacing, honed in on my central message, and made my protagonist more relatable. But that was the easy part.

As I began drilling down the scope of my revisions, my drive rapidly faded. The more I had to think about my novel, the less energy I had to expend on it. More and more, I would try to tackle something, get overwhelmed after a couple days, then drop the whole project for months – even over a year at one point!

I simply did not have the mental energy to expend on it. It was demoralizing, especially after such an early success.

My Second Breakthrough

A few months ago, I started seeing a therapist. After some sessions, they recommended I find someone to investigate whether I had ADHD, and with a little luck, I landed a psychologist with the proper credentials. Then I was diagnosed.

I started my ADHD treatment the day after I turned 28. It was like night and day.

That day, I told myself I was going to plunge back into my novel, just to see how I could do. I did more work on that novel in a single day than I think I’ve done in the time between then and February 2022.

And every single day since I began my treatment, I’ve continued working. Comparing my novel today to the one two months ago… they’re pretty much nothing alike. Today, I can only say that I am extraordinarily happy with where my book is.

But I’m going to say something that might surprise you: the secret to my turnaround was not medication. While I did in fact start medication, I still found myself overwhelmed at the prospect of tackling my draft. Until I began working on another tactic recommended for ADHD folks like myself: goal-setting.

Goal-setting

Setting attainable sub-goals for my story progress gave me that extra little bit of motivation I needed to wake up each morning and get right back to work. I personally found success with the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Okay, in my first draft of this blog post, I got a little carried away and started writing in detail each step of S.M.A.R.T. This post is long enough already, and there are tons of guides on the internet going into better detail than I did.

What I really want to give you is an understanding that, to write with ADHD, I needed to set concrete, small, achievable goals – with a deadline. Because what drives me, and what I believe drives many ADHD folks, is that sense of accomplishment when a goal is achieved. That dopamine rush when we can say “I did X” or “I accomplished Y.”

To give ourselves a healthy dose of dopamine, to keep ourselves going, we need to start small. Have an idea in your head? Try to come up with at least a couple small goals to be completed before you even start your vomit draft. Have the theme written down by the end of today, define the characters and their arcs by the end of the week, sketch out the beats by next Tuesday. Those are just examples, but hopefully you get the idea.

If your only goal is “I wanna write a book,” you’re going to be working for weeks or months or years toward that goal. That dopamine rush is so far away, you can’t expect to keep your motivation up for all that time. And if you try to rush it, you will fail: you don’t have time to complete and polish a whole book in a month. No, you need to start small. Small doses of dopamine every few days will give you much more drive to keep going.

The reason my progress sloughed off in early 2022 was because I didn’t have any small, attainable goals on the horizon. I just wanted to “finish the draft.” It was too much for anyone to stick with, let alone someone with ADHD. And even after I got medication, the idea of tackling the massive draft was still overwhelming. Until I gave myself a small goal to start with.

Conclusion

I hope you found this interesting, maybe even a little bit helpful. If you can relate to anything I’ve touched on here, feel free to leave a comment – I’d love to hear your story. While you’re at it, consider following; I’m trying to navigate a world very new to me with this social media presence, so the support would be extremely helpful. Finally, if you know anyone else who may relate to any of these words I’ve written, consider sharing my post with them.

Thank you so very much for reading!

[slimeywooper]

Labmas AU - Retrospective

I uploaded this to AO3 a little over a month ago but forgot to put it here as well.

These are the initial Labmas ideas that I posted before starting the story. I only skimmed over them while writing the first 3 or 4 chapters, so I thought it would be interesting to go over them again and see all the things that changed, got thrown out, or I simply forgot about! The original writing will be in purple font, followed by my thoughts or explanations of certain things from the fic. Some will have long walls of text, and others may have nothing at all.

I suggest reading the story first as this will spoil most everything in it.

The AU is about two hybrid clones of the Subway Bosses Ingo and Emmet. I'm leaning towards it taking place during the Rainbow Rocket shenanigans and being in second/third person, most likely with a reader insert from an alternate dimension where Pokemon don't exist, but the games, for the most part, do exist. I want the reader to know what pokemon are and the general gist of their world, but I don't want them to know the characters. So the reader won't know any of the people they are meeting since they are not in the games that exist in the reader's universe. I guess you can just imagine the reader only has Pokemon Mystery Dungeon type games, nothing with the mainline Teams or protagonists. Now, as thirsty as I am for the Train Men, I really don't plan on having this be a romantic story, maybe some elements but I mostly want to focus on a somewhat existential horror narrative.

In the very first paragraph we have a change. It's not set during Rainbow Rocket, it's set during Black/White. The grunts are described as having their chainmail attire. Colress in this story isn't in charge of Team Plasma like in Black2/White2, only it's science division. However, he's known to be a nasty individual when someone gets on his bad side, so he's given leeway by the grunts, even though he's not technically above all of them, just the lower rungs. As for the romance angle, it actually showed up much more than I thought it would. I was hoping to make a horror story with some romance, but I think it ended up being reversed. More romance, with a teeny bit of horror. The only part that I feel could be considered horror is when Kudari kills Colress' assistant.

The hybrids have Ingo and Emmet's Japanese names Nobori and Kudari. They were created by Colress, who is more of a Biologist/geneticist in this world, his goal being to create the perfect Pokemon. So far he's only had two successful experiments, those being Nobori and Kudari, though they are only considered successful in the sense that they were viable specimens and are currently alive and working alongside him. I view him as very much an opportunist, even in USUM when it appears he might have some remorse for his past actions. To clear up any confusion, the Colress in this story isn't the same one that is met in USUM, I was just stating some parallels between them.

I have more to say about Colress, but I'll save it for a later paragraph. There's a work on AO3 that I think is an amazing character study of Colress in the games. It's long, but goes over different things Colress has done and analyzes them.

An Unkind Person: An (Updated) Analysis of Team Plasma Boss Colress by IcyKali

I really like Colress as a character, and I don't think the canon one is anywhere near as awful as mine is, but he's certainly not a nice person.

Now I'm gonna say something regarding their ages that might bother some people. I'm of the opinion that most of the non playable adult characters in Pokemon are older than they look, barring certain characters like Ghetsis, Cogita, Warden Ingo ,etc. who are clearly drawn do have age lines. My logic being that many of them are in careers or have accomplished goals that would take years to complete. So for my AU, Ingo, Emmet, and Colress are in their early to mid forties, whereas the hybrid twins are in their early to mid twenties. They were created shortly after Colress graduated high school and was recruited by Team Plasma. Ingo and Emmet, graduating from the same high school as Colress, went on to become Subway Bosses and run Gear Station. They are connected to Team Plasma via a mutually beneficial business relationship. Gear Station gets funding from Team Plasma in return for information on the Subway Bosses' most promising challengers.

Everything in here looks the same to what I have in the story! Many fan works have young Submas, which I enjoy, but sometimes when it comes to these characters, I have to wonder how such young people got into positions of respect and power. Unless there is an abundance of young prodigies, which isn't impossible, it's fiction after all, but I like to have some variation in ages. As an extra note about Colress, I will add that he was attending University when he was hired by Team Plasma. It started as an internship, which then became paid employment.

Colress can't stand the Train Bros. I'm still trying to work out exactly what they did to piss him off, but like all good one-sided rivalries, it started in high school. Most likely something having to do with losing a Pokemon battle, and Emmet being extremely blunt, can't help but continually bring it up. Just stupid, petty stuff that has lasted half of Colress' life. Ingo and Emmet's DNA was used by Colress more of as a passive aggressive jab at them, not intending for it to be anything more than a joke. More of a "wouldn't it be funny if I added their genetics to my experiments?"

Colress' reason for his hatred of the Subway Bosses stayed the same, I was just able to flesh it out more.

That's how the hybrid's came about. Not intentionally, but because Colress was feeling like an asshole and wanted to mess around to see what he could do using the Train Bros. DNA, resulting in an "Oh shit" moment when he saw they were viable specimens.

I'm a big fan of Colress as more of an apathetic scientist, but In this story he's pretty much reached the limit of his patience with his line of work/ failed experiments. He never was fatherly towards the twins, only raising them to be tools for Team Plasma. Not out of any love for Team Plasma, but they're the ones funding his research. The hybrid twins are, begrudgingly, his greatest achievement. Colress doesn't hate them, but he greatly resents them, struggling to keep his composure if he deems they are acting immaturely or in a rash manner. They are a constant reminder of how much he hates the Train Bros. (As an aside, I'm going to continue to refer to Ingo and Emmet as the Train Bros. to help differentiate them from Nobori and Kudari since the hybrid twins have nothing to do with trains.) Though he despises the Train Bros., he knows there isn't anything he can really do about them, since their help in recruiting promising Plasma grunts is invaluable to the team. Having to interact with them sporadically and raise the Hybrid Twins has put a huge strain on his mental and emotional well-being, though that's due to his own issues (real or imagined). When Colress is with the Hybrid Twins, he refers to them as Noku, so he can grab both of their attention without using their full names.

Colress… is a terrible person. There's no other way to put it. In whatever way he is capable, he does love the hybrids. Colress doesn't like loving them, he wants to be as critical and logical as possible, but he can't help but care for them, and that upsets him greatly. It's hard for me to put into words exactly how he feels, so this part is going to be all over the place.

Though it's true that Colress regarded Nobori as 'the good one,' Kudari has always been his favorite. Even after he got older, and more unruly, Colress saw him as his lost child. In chapter 14, Nobori proposed a theory to Reader for why Colress is so horrible, that being he's lashing out for his own heartache and disappointment for how Kudari turned out. Colress has always been an asshole, but having to nurture Kudari as a baby really affected him, and he grew to love him. While they were growing up, Colress was strict, but his cruelty towards the hybrids didn't start until Kudari began to withdraw and become rebellious. This was due to him being part Galvantula, which makes him naturally independent, and because he's stuck in the laboratory. When Colress saw the boy that used to follow him around, and even styled his hair in the same way as him, start to decline mentally, it hit him hard. But instead of finding different outlets for Kudari to express his anger and restlessness, he started to punish him for it. What used to be crying fits during his childhood, became enraged tantrums in his preteens and adolescence. Around this time is when Colress first fitted Kudari with his collar, having it readjusted every couple years as he grew.

There's the question of what Colress was hoping to achieve by letting Reader interact with Kudari. He didn't stand to gain anything, unless Kudari really decided to play along and become an active member of his research team. But deep down, he knew that wouldn't happen. It was more of a decision made quickly, to prevent himself from having to hear anymore prodding from Reader, and have someone keep an eye on Kudari, while at least attempting to be productive. Even though he has Reader's help, Colress has been throwing them softballs, knowing they can't live up to what he wants in an assistant. Right after the death of the previous one, he went looking for a replacement, continuing to do so after Reader joined the team. If he had found one, he likely would have just made Reader Kudari's permanent caretaker.

This may be considered cliché by now, but Nobori is a Chandelure Hybrid, and Kudari is a Galvantula Hybrid. They never went through any Pokemon evolution, they were created to be Hybrids of these specific Pokemon. So they weren't born as a Litwick or Joltik Hybrid, they were always a Chandelure or Galvantula Hybrid regardless of age.

I've read different stories and headcanons about various types of hybrid Submas, but these were my favorites. I had pondered what it would be like to have an Elektross Kudari, but the mental image of an eel-man floating around just killed the concept for me, making it too silly for the type of story I wanted.

(As for their physical appearances, I first must admit that I love Warden Ingo. So Nobori's design is modeled after him. So I get to have a story with Ingo and Not Warden Ingo in it, without them being the same person! It's my cake, I should be allowed to eat it too!)

Nothing wrong with this, they are both good!

As far as outward appearance, Nobori doesn't look too different from a regular person until closer inspection. He has the slouched posture, tired eyes, and goatee of Warden Ingo. His skin and eyes are what give him away as a Chandelure Hybrid. Though his skin has the feel and durability of a normal human, it is a light lavender color, while his sclera are a glowing yellow, surrounded by black circles. Unlike a Chandelure, he does have Irises and pupils, but they are the same shade of black, giving the illusion that he just has very large pupils. Over the years, Nobori has been allowed to leave the lab on certain occasions, but he must always wear make up and contacts to keep the façade of normalcy.

For the most part, Nobori's appearance is the same, but I decided to give him the regular gray/silver Submas eye color.

Kudari is much more monstrous in appearance. Ignoring the Galvantula half, he has six eyes, four of which do not blink, and the top two of those four are blind. This creates a small black spot on the very top of his vision. (I don't think this is something that will come up in the potential fic, but it's just some background info on how his body works.) All of his eyes are purple, the main two consisting of light purple sclera and dark purple irises. Similar to Nobori, his irises and pupils are the same color making them look like large pupils. His teeth are sharp (and I'm arguing with myself on whether he should have an extra pair of fangs outside of his mouth for injecting venom.)His torso is the same size as Nobori's, but his arms and stomach are muscular from having to hold himself upright on his Galvantula body, which is much larger than that of a normal Galvantula.

The blindness of his top two eyes was not mentioned. It really didn't add anything to the story, nor does it cause him any issues with his sight. It's something he was born with, so he's learned to ignore it. A large difference here is the color of his eyes. After the initial posting of these notes, I looked at Galvantula again and remembered they didn't have purple eyes, so that had to be changed. Kudari has blue sclera and light blue irises. As for the pupils, I decided that they should be normal. The problem I had with making it appear as if the hybrids had large pupils was that, at least in my mind, it would seem goofy and cartoonish. Which isn't the look I wanted them to have, so that was thrown out. For Kudari's teeth, they are sharp, however, it's not in the way Iono has sharp teeth. They're closer to Anglerfish teeth. He does indeed have fangs, mostly hidden behind his sideburns, but the tips peak out. We don't get to see him use them, though they do start to leak in chapter 15, which embarrasses him.

Nobori and Kudari refer to Colress as "Dr. Colress." They know he created them but are under no illusions to the extent of their relationship with him. Early in their lives, they did yearn for a father and mother figure, but have since accepted their lack of parental affection. Nobori is much more quiet, resigned, and dependable compared to Kudari, who is extremely volatile and angry. This is due in part by his appearance. Whereas Nobori has been allowed to leave the lab, Kudari has never left and is sequestered to specific rooms. This causes some jealousy issues between them.

I would eventually develop the idea of Kudari murdering Colress' assistant shortly after this was written. When he was younger, Kudari was allowed to wander around the lab, for the most part unfettered. Then Colress tried to make him an assistant when he was a teenager, which is when the vents were installed in the laboratory. Once Colress realized Kudari was just screwing around instead of helping, he started to be limited in where he was allowed, culminating with him being sequestered to his room indefinitely(at least without a chaperone present) after he killed the assistant.

Kudari came across as much more pleasant than he was originally conceived. He still retained some of his unstable moodiness, but it wasn't anything as intense or unhinged as I intended. I wanted him to be more of an asshole, but whenever I started writing his dialogue with Reader, it just wouldn't come out that way. It flowed in a way that made him always friendly with them, and excited to hang out. Though writing him as he was originally planned would have been interesting, it would not have made sense to the story. If he were to be an asshole, Reader would have realized their mistake and told Colress that they no longer wanted Kudari around, which would have ended their interactions, Colress giving a smug "I told you so."

I find it very sad that Kudari wanted to surprise Reader with the fact it was his and Nobori's birthday, as opposed to him getting a surprise gift or celebration. He's seen many movies and shows, but doesn't know how to correlate them with his own life. The same thing happened when Reader accidently made a double entendre about touching him in chapter 10. There are plenty of instances in various forms of media where something similar happens, that he understands perfectly, but in the context of his life, he can't envision anything of the sort happening to him.

After spending so much time alone in his room, he begins to live some of his life in his head, twisting the things Reader says. He didn't always have an infatuation for Reader. It only became a romantic interest after he was bitten, and started to think that they loved him, in turn, loving them back. He becomes obsessed with the injury, not wanting it to close because that would erase the reminder of someone loving him. Then later, when Reader mentions wishing they could leave, he interprets this in his fantasies as them wanting to run away with him.

(I should also note, they are only considered brothers because their respective DNA donors are twins, they weren't actually created as one double Hybrid that split into two Hybrids. Ingo's DNA was used to create Nobori, and shortly after, Emmet's DNA was used to create Kudari. They are the same age as each other.)

Noku do share some feelings of comradery due to the circumstances of their birth and upbringing, but they are very different. They are prone to arguments and can even be quite cruel verbally to each other. At times, Kudari has even attempted to physically injure Nobori, but is stopped by either Nobori's flames or the collar Colress has fitted him with, which is capable of administering extreme cold. The collar is around his neck, and when activated, temporarily shoots a needle into his spine that triggers the freezing of his muscles so he cannot move for a short time.

Here we have a divergence from the story. Though the hybrids have had their spats over the years, and Kudari has attacked Nobori multiple times, there was only one instance that could be considered an actual fight. That was when they argued over the space in their shared room, and Nobori had to defend himself. At all other times, Kudari has attacked, but either been stopped by Colress, Nobori teleported away, or it was just a quick warning swipe, followed by Kudari retreating. As for arguments, Nobori is much more likely to try and quell them. While I was writing, he came to be a very caring brother, being the one tasked with looking after Kudari, before and after the incident with the assistant.

If Kudari had been allowed to leave and live on his own, he would have no issues in doing so(other than people trying to hunt him). He cares for Nobori, but he does not need him emotionally, not like Nobori needs Kudari.

I'm not planning on having any Pokemon battles in the story, but I do have an idea on how Noku's moves work. As I previously stated, Colress wants to create the perfect Pokemon. One of the aspects of being "perfect" for him is being able to use all the moves a Pokemon can potentially learn at any time and not having a limit of four. He had theorized that if a Pokemon had higher intelligence, then perhaps that would make them capable of accomplishing. This is what led him to want to experiment making Hybrids. His theory was correct, and Noku can use many different moves, but being half human, they have free will and aren't "trainable" in the same way Pokemon are.

Colress' dream goal is the same, I just forgot to actually explain it in the story, settling for putting it in the notes. As of now, I have no intentions of going back and sneaking it in anywhere. Maybe in a few years time, but, maybe not. I did have him mention a couple things that hint at what he wants. He tells Kudari in chapter 4: "A Pokemon that can't be taught to listen, isn't a Pokemon worth having." And later in chapter 13, he tells the Subways Bosses: "Well, they aren't quite up to snuff with what I was attempting to create, but I believe they are a step in the right direction."

>>This brings me to what exactly Noku are capable of. Nobori can form flames from his hands, and, under extreme emotional duress, he will sometimes spew them from his mouth. Usually only when he's upset and fighting with Kudari. I envisioned him as being able to teleport short distances. Taking a glance at Serebii.net, it doesn't appear Chandelure learns the move Teleport, but they can learn the move Ally Switch which mentions teleporting, so I'm just gonna cheat and say it's close enough. Other moves Nobori uses are Confuse Ray, Night Shade, Substitute, Dark Pulse, Poltergeist, Dream Eater and Ember/Flamethrower/Mystical Fire for fire type moves. Since he was a young boy, he has communicated with spirits that he sees and hears. It looks to other people like he is talking to himself, so he only interacts with them when he is alone, though he is constantly hearing their whispers. Kudari generates electricity from his body and can produce webbing like a normal Galvantula. His fingers are sharp like claws and the moves he usually uses are Spider Web, Screech, Gastro Acid, Bug Buzz, Poison Jab and Thunder Wave/Thunderbolt/Rising Voltage for electric types. In previous generations Galvantula could learn Frustration from a TM, which I also wanted him to know, but I think it would fit more with the story if it's just his state of being, angry and lashing out, as opposed to it being a move he knows.

Noku can use all of the moves that their respective species can learn, however, there are certain moves they use more than others. Most of these aren't displayed in the story, nor did I see any place to put them in. Nobori does teleport, and Colress mentions he's good at hiding in the shadows. Kudari's purple saliva could be taken as Gastro Acid, but most of these listed moves were just meant as examples.

I did think it would be fun for Nobori to be able to use a Chandelure ability detailed in the Pokedex entries: hypnotism. I have this ability work in conjunction with his emotion draining powers. He's able to sense emotions, and if he so chooses, can take them. Normally he doesn't do this, but he first does it to Reader when he senses they are upset. Preceding this happening, Colress introduced Reader to him, and instructed him to "keep an eye out if they need help." So he takes this as an affirmation that it's okay to do so. His hypnotism is different from a Chandelure in that he doesn't use his arms, he uses eye contact. If he takes everything they feel, that person will be left in a catatonic state. At least for a little while. This is what Colress was referencing when he said Nobori could turn Reader into a 'doll.'

As the story progresses, feeling Reader's positive emotions becomes like a drug for Nobori. Especially after he senses the same feeling from them that he's experiencing. When first meeting them, he felt curiosity and an initial physical attraction. Nobori has felt attraction before, but these were only fleeting instances from glances he's made to strangers outside Team Plasma headquarters. He's never interacted with any of these people to develop anything deeper than that.

Part 2 incoming in a separate post.

[ali3nboyfriend]

since art warmups are both a creative exercise to get you in the correct mood for art and a physical preparation of your muscles so you don’t hurt them (think like an athlete stretching before a proper workout):

1) it’s never a bad idea to have a dumb, silly side-project you can “get the bad writing out” with. it primes your brain to be in the right mood for your actual project and lets you spit out whatever comes to mind so that when you start on your main project, you’re already primed and in a good flow.

(you do run into the risk of getting very attached to this project and making it your main one)

there are also speed-writing exercises that accomplish similar things. just googling, i’ve found this post full of writing warmups:

if your problem however is a matter of executive dysfunction, find a routine that works for you, execute it the EXACT SAME WAY every time, and don’t be afraid to pivot away from it if it stops working, because if you try and cling to it it will take longer to rebound from the burnout. a routine works in a similar way, priming your brain for the task so once you start it you’re already in a good flow. the side-project, if you make one, can be part of this routine, as can warmups like the ones i linked.

i can’t rec StimuWrite 2 enough as a good distraction-free writing app that helps keep ADHD and other neurodivergent brains on task. even if you aren’t (or don’t think you are) neurodivergent i’d suggest trying it out. it has different typing sounds, backgrounds, and fonts that help keep your brain stimulated while writing; understimulation is a major reason why neurodivergent brains can struggle so hard with it. i actually have a hard time writing without the typewriter sound it has now.

i usually use this full screen on one window with the fireplace sounds going + a video game music mix on another window, also full screen unless i need to be referencing something. my go-to mix is Calming Destiny 2 Music Up To Lightfall. video game music is specifically made to make you focus on what’s in front you and it’s been a huge crutch for me when it comes to writing for that reason

2) physically, i’d look into ergonomics irt how you should be sitting while at a keyboard, if a standing desk would be good for you, what sort of chair to use, whether or not to get a pad for your wrists in front of your keyboard, etc. writing is a very sedentary task, true, but you’re still using your body and it’s important to take care of it. the same sort of tips and tricks you can find for office workers can be very helpful in general.

look away from your screen and focus on something far away every 20 minutes, and get up to stretch at least once an hour.

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

[daisyachain]

Finished KCD2 movie yesterday. Marinated. Assimilated. Planning to move on to cover all sidequests in Part 1 and Part 2.

I don’t think KCD2 has communicated any one thing particularly strongly or particularly well. That is to say it’s a rock-solid historical adventure story that’s climbed its way to one of my all-time favourites. It’s got a load of moments and motifs that have stayed with me as I watched bits and pieces and eventually went further into it. My instinctive point of comparison for it is Pentiment, another well-researched historical fiction video game set in the Holy Roman Empire.

Pentiment is a short, tight game focused around ideas of memory: who remembers what details according to their life and means, how do they remember it, how do recordings influence and distort past events, how is memory itself an unfaithful recording, how can a true past be uncovered from present fragments of people’s memories? The story traverses a period of 20-odd years and 2 protagonists’ lives without diluting the concept. It works with its design choices to present the different worlds people live in/realities they inhabit by painting their lives in different fonts/visual media. People’s station in life determines how Andreas received their communication, and Andreas’ art tells us how he remembers the events that happen.

KCD2’s main theme is revisited a few times with the line ‘war is a nasty business’, which is a restating of that dril tweet ‘there’s no such thing as good and bad, said the wise man’. Cliche topic, not coherently done. Many of the ‘tough choices’ have a pretty easy answer (Eg Semines), many of the ‘sympathetic’ bad guys aren’t. I think it strays enough from the idea that it’s all up in the air that I can’t condemn it as your standard grey morality failure. I do think it does a good job showing that all hell breaks loose as soon as you hand any man (not woman), however well-intentioned, a weapon. I’ve been posting and I will be posting that I love how it keeps putting the player in situations where someone is getting tortured.

But, the lack of commitment that means I can’t call it a stupid reductive 00s comic book plot also means that I can’t really commend it for doing anything in particular. KCD2’s strength lies in the detail of its world. It doesn’t have any overriding, overarching ideas that come off clearly in the same way that Pentiment (or another reference point, Pathologic) does.

What it does do is create a world so textured and inhabited that it gestures at a whole heap of smaller ideas. ‘War is a nasty business’ may go over like a lead balloon when the player suffers nothing from losing the silver while suffering emotionally from losing the Sam, but Sam is so well-rounded a person that we’re forced to think of why losing the Sam is inexcusable.

KCD2 draws up a number of people whose ideas and relationships feel real enough that the player gets invested in those tiny plot threads, thinks about them, and has to come up with their own conclusions. There are things to be said about everything that goes on in the game. The decisions made by the characters are marinated in greater meaning; each action proceeds for a reason rooted in the story, which asks us to think about what good those reasons are, and what reasons Henry might have to do anything. To steal from another post some person on the internet made like 10 years ago—KCD2 is a closely-studied work. It replicates real places and real people by observing what places look like and what people do. It might only be able to recreate the outer shell—Katherine especially feels like a character without a coherent vision—but if the shell is a detailed enough recreation a person we recognize as familiar, then it doesn’t matter. We the audience can recognize the people the character imitates and read the internality of those people into a character and story that might not have much going on.

At least that’s what I think. Me, I, personally, I don’t think KCD2 sticks the landing on its thematic goals and I don’t think it has to. The story is told with such texture that it doesn’t need to tie itself up with a bow; it puts in enough work to provoke thought, which allows players to extract the most fitting ideas from it without imposing a single idea top-down. If this makes any sense. I am so Tired.

[scyphosunny]

vargastober day 7 ! i'm really proud of this one .

let's see . . . ( checks notes

overall , i was really excited for this one ! as i mentioned in day six's entry , i was SUPER EXCITED FOR THIS PROMPT . i basically just added it for myself , i remember texting brusk about it saying that it would be a sick prompt , but i didn't want to add it because i didn't want to add sidefic related stuff . i wanted to focus on the actual thing ! still , i added it because i still needed prompts to finish the list and because idc IT COULD BE A SICK PROMPT . WHATEVER

when i was randomizing everything and got this one at 7 i also smiled mischievously . >:]]]] i really love diaryverse and everything related to it , as much as it TRAUMATIZED ME not in a joke silly goofy way i still go back and read it from time to time . IT'S JUST SO GOOD , LOVE THE HORROR THE HALLUCINATIONS THE VULNERABILITY BOTH OF THEM HAVE it's just PERFECT

i've always loved stories that make me feel like diaryverse do . back when i was 13 and still reading kpop fanfiction ( ??????? ) finding stories like this was GODDAMN HARD , so vargas really came to save my life . i could talk about diaryverse for ages , man . JUST SO ABSOLUTELY GREAT

ALRIGHT , where was i . . . i was really excited for this prompt ! and days ago , back to that day when i got ideas set for some prompts ( and then lost the canvas on accident ) i got this super sick idea for it ! and i was really looking forward to draw it . even if i lost all of the references i got together , i stiill had this one because when i saw it i got so excited i sent it to my friends . so lololol . day 6 , i get to work on that day's piece . . . finish it . i like it ! post it , think about the one tomorrow . . . . . .

and realize .

without noticing , i made something too similar on day six . they would be almost the same , just with different brushes , colors and art style . and i was like . god . gggooooddd . I BASICALLY RUINED THE WHOLE THING THANKS TO DAY 6 , I WAS SO FRUSTRATED UGH so i had to search for a new reference because i didn't want to make the same thing with a different font .

so , i searched .

and searched ,

and searched . . .

and searched for THE LONGEST TIME EVER

i didn't have a clear image of what i wanted to do in the first place , i just wanted funky colors and that small sense of uneasiness . THIS WOULD BE MY FIRST DIARYVERSE COLORED PIECE , SO MANY POSSIBILITIES .

i went through a lot of different ideas . something colorful , something dream-like , idk maybe just draw edgar on the halls of a hospital looking all creepy and distorted and slap some butterflies on it . SO MANY THINGS TO DO i was like uhhh maybe just search for a thing with actual meaning to it but i suck at that . i really do . most of these will be about looking cool and not to sit down and think about it for half an hour . if you want pieces full of meaning just go to hawker's account . SHE'S THE BEST AT IT even if she has like , a couple of vargas illustrations . I WISH I HAD HER ABILITY TO THINK idk

i remember that while i was searching for references , i found this super cool piece that MOVED , and my brain was like HHHEYY I WANT TO DO THAT . WHAT IF I MAKE THE BUTTERFLIES MOVE IDK

at the end , i just found a reference that was easy enough to work with . my canvas was just a mess of different references because i really didn't have a specific picture and it was ANNOYING . but at the end i just went with that one .

( this is the reference , by the way . . . i couldn't find who made it . I HATE YOU PINTEREST )

sketching . . . this whole thing SHOULD be easy because you're not even seeing his face , you WON'T see his face so YOU DON'T NEED TO DRAW IT , RIGHT ?

( sigh . . . . )

didn't look good in the first place but NOT LIKE IT WOULD BE VISIBLE ANYWAY . i tried to make his hair longer for this piece

i was drawing this in a dark room , then i add this color and my eyes immediatly went NNNOPE

i used to have really saturated colors as backgrounds back when i drew my ocs a lot . my logic for it was " when you're painting , it's hard to see if you left blank spaces !! but with this as a background they're easier to spot !!! " which was fair tbh but as much as i was used to it before I'M NOT RIGHT NOW

lol i would just leave them like this because i didn't have better ideas for backgrounds anyway .

I LOVE THESE COLORS , this was just an excuse to make drawings with my favorite colors on them . sssuper pretty

i struggled to set the eyes at first . eyes . . . god , EYES . I COULDN'T REMEMBER FOR THE LIFE OF ME WHICH EYE EDGAR SCOOPED OUT IN VIOLATION . i was certain it was the left one , then i changed it for the right one because i have SOMETHING to remind myself which one it is , something i DON'T WANT TO MENTION AND I HATE but it's there . i can't even give a correct answer because I'M STILL CONFUSED ABOUT IT AND I'M ALMOST SURE I GAVE RYE THE WRONG ANSWER but it's fine because they still got it right at the end . ah well . if i'm wrong , then my way of knowing is ALSO WRONG which is BAD but i'll refuse to explain . ( shivers

at this point i should just ask zarla directly . i'm going towards left , though . . .

SWIRLY EFFECT IN THE BACKGROUND WAS SO FUN TO DO i just added a blue layer above the background and then started stirring it with the liquify tool . I LOVE YOU LIQUIFY TOOL

this is what it looked like full opacity and as cool as it looks would be kinda distracting so eh

hahahah stirrrr stir aroundddd sssooo fun !!!!!!!

I REALLY LOVED HOW THE BUTTERFLIES CAME OUT ! i took all of these out of pinterest , i don't know if i should add links . . .

at first , i was planning to leave that moth just white ! but once all the rest of the butterflies were done i just painted it idk

moths , butterflies . . . idc , scriabin mentioned moths at some point too .

instead of watching videos while drawing i just listened to a lot of koraii this time . their songs just fit the vibe !!!

TIME TO MAKE THE GIF !!!!! it was actually quite easy . alight motion best app ever . i just exported everything separately and added a small shaking effect . i wanted it to shake just enough so you had to double check if the thing was moving or not LOLZ . hmm , now that i think about it , it would've been cool if every butterfly had their own shake effect . maybe next time . . .

i also added a bit of sharpen to the pic because why not . i exported the gif in the highest quality possible but tumblr didn't like it . so i had to make sure it wasn't too heavy . . .

TUMBLR STILL DIDN'T LIKE IT and got the quality all messed up , so i had to replace it with the pic like five seconds after uploading it . ugh . now i have a bunch of files on my phone , one of them being a 55mb gif that i can't even post anywhere because it'll start to make everything laggy . I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH THIS REALLY

anyway HERE IT IS . SUPER COOL AND FINISHED . this might be one of my best pieces .

i don't know if i'll work on today's prompt , yesterday i made a thing so i could get my ideas together and i don't have anything for this one . well , i do have something , but it can also work for tomorrow . maybe i'll work on it later . rright now i'll watch something with nyne . XPPP

see you later !!!!!!!!!

[hbelcherarts246-01]

Process & Reflection (Week 7)

Text Reflection

This week's chapter of the text discussed several very interesting typographic concepts, specifically concepts that pertain to the evolution of typographic technology.

I found it really interesting to read about the evolution of typographic design, from its very basic origins to its refined and versatile modern form. I especially found phototypesetting to be a really interesting method of designing typefaces. I had never heard of this method before reading this chapter, and I think it is something I would like to try someday.

I also found the brief section about the world of possibilities that modern screen-based typography has opened up for graphic designers interesting. The images reminded me of an article I recently read about the new standard, so to speak, for resumes and cover letters. While we've all been taught for years to develop an eye-catching and professional resume to get the attention of potential employers, with the introduction of AI algorithms, this is no longer the best idea.

If you include graphics or other interesting elements, such as a versatile and interesting display font, the AI algorithms will skip over your resume, costing you a job. This is particularly devastating to creatives looking for professional work because creative resumes and portfolios have always been the unquestioned norm.

I know that this train of thought is a bit tangential, but the side-by-side comparison in the textbook of what web-based typography used to look like at its very beginnings versus what it looks like nowadays was very striking. It’s upsetting and confusing that we have, with the introduction of AI, somehow gone backward.

Process

This is the part of the blog that I have been very anxious to write about. I don't want to overshare with strangers on the internet, but it’s been a difficult month.

I've been struggling with mental health as a result of a “domino effect” of family crises that all happened over the span of the last 2 weeks. I’ve been living in fight or flight the last few weeks because terrifying, unreal-feeling things keep happening and I feel like my family and world are falling apart.

My dad got sick a few months after I started college and he’s been in and out of the hospital ever since then. A few weeks ago, he was admitted to the ICU. My mom didn’t say anything about it to me until a week later, when he caught an infection from the hospital.

My boyfriend took a day off work to drive me to the hospital where my dad was originally admitted. I got to see my brothers, which was a little comforting. I’m so grateful to have them and my boyfriend. They keep me grounded and I really hope I do the same for them.

I tried to fill in as a parent and be there for my brothers as much as I could, but I’m bad at comforting people. I’m still trying to be there for them, even though I’m back in Columbia now. My mom has been in a New Jersey mental health facility since November, so they’re alone.

My dad is in a different hospital now, but it’s a much cleaner one than the first. He’s still fighting off the infection he caught from the other hospital.

I haven’t been sleeping and I'm exhausted. I’ve been spending most of my “down time” struggling to keep up with my classes’ assignments and projects. I feel like I’ve fallen behind. I’ve neglected a lot of other responsibilities like taking care of my physical health.

I'm just trying to do damage control at this point. I spoke to one of my professors about what my next steps should be, but I need to speak to my other professors still. I'm going to email/possibly meet with my advisor as well, because she helped me make it through a similar emergency with my family last year. I have an appointment at the Student Health Center on March 4th for counseling, which I need right now.

There's honestly nothing I want more than to go back to normal, sleep, and try to deal with what's happening and how I'm feeling through my projects.

Past project; original music festival logo on left and revised/final version on left.

Current project; envelope experiments (top) and pattern/typeface mood board (bottom).

[justaz]

i think i can actually do it now lmfao

nico who has never felt like he belonged, who has never settled down in either camp or out in the mortal world and most often resided with the dead. nico who wears himself to the bone to be of use to other people so there can be a reason for him to stick around but he's melting into the shadows, destroying himself in desperation to have a reason to stay, drowning in the shadows he travels within and clawing himself out of the shadow he's melting into - fearing his own powers. fearing the dark creeping in around him, fearing it's coming to take him and keep him. threatening to take away his dream of finding where he belongs, of building a family again, of taking him. will being his reason to stay, will patching him up and forbidding him from melting into the shadows (literally and figuratively) and being his shining light, his beacon home. he glows when he's happy and that seems to always happen with nico. will inadvertently chasing away the looming shadows, pushing them far away from nico and cocooning him in a warm light - making him feel alive again as he had taken to resembling the dead a bit too much with his pale and cold skin. will healing nico and shining a light upon him, dragging him from the shadows and proving that he has a home at chb. nico confessing that he thought at the beginning that he was just another patient for will but will sheepishly admitting that it gave him an excuse to spend time with nico - not because he offered anything to will, not to help in the infirmary (though nico insists upon it) or for him to do his job, but because he wanted nico.

jason who was three and abandoned in the woods to live with wolves, forced to prove himself time and time again to be accepted into the pack even as a toddler. when he couldn't, he was to lay on his own, shivering and crying in the cold. jason who eventually made his way to camp and thought he could find a sense of community, a kind of family he only had once with his sister years ago but has all but essentially forgotten. but, they hold him, son of jupiter, up on a pedestal and watch him warily, equal parts fearing him and respecting him because of a father he's never met. working his way to the top, hoping to show that he's just like them, and eventually becoming praetor but that has done nothing to close the gap between him and his camp. only reyna is different as she's also praetor, but her touches are far and few in between. the life jason has built for himself being ripped away and placed on a bus where he has no idea what his own name is holding hands with a girl he doesn't know - pulling away from the unnatural touch, afraid and confused. piper who continues to strive for this relationship, treating him as a love interest. versus leo who treats him like a friend, who is awkward and ridiculous and touchy and warm. jason hasn't felt touch that warm in...ever. not that he can remember anyways. leo who has been his friend for years and has stood by his side and has grown to love him for him, not because of his father of memories implanted by a goddess - but because he's jason. leo holding him close in his arms and warming him - not because he proved himself or did anything to deserve it, but because leo loves him and that's enough.

oh that's why nico and jason get along so well. they're literally the same person just a different font. nico and jason with their (parentified) older sisters only for it to be stripped away and then treated differently because of their dad - both with fear though jason got respect while nico got disgust. searching desperately for home, for family, and then finding it with each other. they're literally mirrors of one another. oooooooh nico and jason as brothers how i adore you

I’ve said this before in an ask but Nico and Jason have wildly different definitions of “glow in the dark-boyfriend” and it amuses me to no end

Because obviously Will can start glowing like a lamp which is convenient and not in any way inherently dangerous so no warning is needed and Nico doesn’t need to let go of his hand or anything when he does it

But then Leo will go “oh hey I can do that too”, lets go of Jason’s hand and just lights himself on fire without warning

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Having hit a bug in an Idle Champions quest and been told by a fellow fan that it's been a reported bug in the game since like five years ago, I have to say that there's a fundamental issue to watch out for with the Adventure Quest method of "release early, patch often" and it is that the perceived value of improving an earlier piece of content is never going to match the perceived value of adding a new later piece of content.

The long-time fans won't care. They already did that quest when it was a buggy mess and got over it.

The new fans won't know. Kind of like how politicians love to say that repairing infrastructure "isn't sexy" because everyone spends a bunch of money and if everyone does their job correctly, nothing happens (because the "something" that could have happened was a bridge collapse)

And even if you're looking at "player experience" it's possible to justify an "ever-forward" production cycle in terms of raw numbers: The player will spend the duration of 1 quest complaining about the bugs in that one quest. But if the bug's not game-breaking they can complete it (with complaints) and will soon forget it. Bug-hunting that one quest likely won't have knock-on effects that fix bugs in all your other quests. Meanwhile in the time it takes to bug-hunt you might have been able to write two entirely new quests!

The trouble with this is that it produces an inferior product overall. You can't polish the boulder while it's rolling along.

There's an incredibly detailed (and incredibly long) screed from Josh Strife Hayes about the effects this phenomenon had on Adventure Quest.

For a taster sample have a look at about the 20 minute mark and listen for a bit.

The short version: AQ never had time to invent a clear set of style guidelines and stick to them. It had to get new content onto the site every couple days no matter what. So buttons even within the same character class are sometimes different fonts, sizes, styles, and sometimes include or exclude certain features (such as drop shadows or shine on mouseover), and there's likewise no consistency about even such basic things as How You Close a Menu. Some menus have a "back" button, others have an X in a corner, some only exit by clicking text...You get the idea.

Idle Champions isn't that far gone. It does have a QA department and they do go back and fix old features, even revamping old characters as part of their regular cycle. Part of this is that their update cycle actually allows them time to think, and part is that they're better-staffed, but the big thing is that they decided to. They saw that resources would need to be spent that direction and allocated those resources to that task. Well. Some resources. I'm a particular (and not enormously profitable, can't forget that) kind of gamer, and personally would rather a smaller but better-polished product.

[hard-core-super-star]

It's okay, by now you probably know that I don't mind that and that taking your own time is more important, so you don't need to apologize for these things, I hope you're better now tho. I mean, totally, but if you look at the essays we write, we reply quite quickly. it probably was, but yes, at that moment I was already sleeping peacefully lmao. It's funny to see me admitting that you're right? 🤨 wHaTt?? kdhwkkwka is this chance in the room with us???? I don't know how I could expand on this- 😶

OH??? so you first call the characters from legends of tomorrow (I already forgot their names) irrelevant and now you say that my party theme is boring???? I don't know if you should be invited after that words actually 🤨 OKAY KSHSJWAK I woke up being attacked today, I see. well, as I said “less” I will still continue to be at least 0.00001% a brat. stfu asgwjwk it was not convincing! I mean, you can watch movies on this app... with more than one person... and since you were thinking about watching the amazing spider-man and it's been a while since I watched it this idea appeared in my mind so- 😶 oh yeah? Is it a win for me that I'm seeing? (saying caso cerrado and caso encerrado seems to have more emotion, I should have written that). both, lmao. I can't say, it's literally a state secret. we should make a duo 🤔

I thought you said you weren't an analyst??? you're welcome, it took me a few minutes staring at the wall and reflecting on life before and after I wrote this. yeah, but still!! i- heiwkjekq WELL, I guess I have no option but to leave this aside for now- you are (sometimes), but you won't see me complaining 👀 yup, that's not why my mind stops working on these messages, which gives yet another reason for the delay in replying.

sorry but I didn't laugh at that at all, I was completely serious. I won't say I was as confused as you reading this again and I admire that you have understood my sleepy messages so far. well, if this new follower has miles' pfp and a totally not sus name... it's not me. and I'm definitely not interested in you giving me your Instagram. I'm not quite sure of what you didn't double-checked 😶 I'm not excited either and I'm not laughing at the fact that it's been a day or two (I think) since this idea came up and we still haven't managed to make it happen kwhsjak

lmao, yes 😭😭 should I tell you if this happens?

that's why synonyms are sometimes our greatest allies on this journey 🙏 HEY! you made them so dirty but I bet even they couldn't stand grammar. now, if you told me that a person who likes grammar runs over old people on the street, I would completely agree. you just try to avoid grammar at all costs, don't you? lmao. You can trust my word, as I like to say: só confia, tá comigo tá, com deus. I don't know?? but it was literally as clear as day what you meant, I don't know why you thought it didn't make sense ksshjskajwjk also, my teacher used to say the same thing to me about the places she traveled. oh jshsjakakk the hole is deeper then- I recommend 😶 you brought up a good question because it's something I like to think about sometimes. soooo.... yes? in my humble and pure opinion, she has ADHD (Robin having ADHD is also a hc, and as I see them as practically the same person but in different fonts this plays a role in me thinking about it for kate too). you just dropped the greatest act of love in the entire world- it's literally impossible for any human being to hide a +4 to let the other person get revenge, that's cute 😔 not the feigning shock jahskaaksjk kate would notice it?

– 🌟

remember a while ago when you said you were fighting the urge to apologize for apologizing? that's me rn. starting to realize my tendency to overexplain myself comes from the awful friend choices i've made in the past but that's another topic. that's a good point, once again, we've proven that we are in fact incredibly fast when it comes to writing these essays. i don't know what we're going to do with this information but i'm glad we have it now. yes, although i think entertaining is a better word. adflhgadsgkl it's long gone by now but it stuck around as long as it could. ...fine, we can let it go for now unless there's something more you'd like to say 👀

OH MY GOD, when are you going to let that go??? i already apologized like three times, smh. i would say i didn't mean it like that but no, i did mean it. i just couldn't figure out what kind of decorations a party with a theme like that would have, maybe if i was invited i could help you figure it out but fine 😑 does it really count as being attacked if i'm completely right? i would be upset about that if i didn't find your brattiness endearing. damn, that sucks, i tried my best to make it convincing as possible for you. i can't believe you still found a way to leave your sentence unfinished, smh. i'm definitely not saying your idea intrigues me but i'm certainly thinking about it. i think this win is half-and-half but whatever floats your boat, darling. look at you finally answering a question, good job, i'll take it as a compliment. i agree, we'd be very successful 'cause we're hilarious. [we can even ask the audience, i'm sure at least one person will agree with us]

again, i'm an overthinker, not an analyst but if you say so 🤷 well, i'm glad your reflections didn't make you delete it because i loved reading it. but still what??? you just don't want to let me win, huh? look at that, i won again, i'm starting to feel a little bad but then again, you make it very easy. well, as long as you're not complaining, i guess i have no choice but to keep being as obvious as possible. just so that you don't get confused, of course, no other reason. yeah, definitely not. i also won't admit that you've had the same effect on me more than once 😶

i don't know why but i'm having a hard time believing that 🤨 i won't say i'm glad to hear you admit it because i certainly wasn't worried that i was being dumb. well, i certainly didn't forget to follow this person back last night which means i certainly didn't just follow them back right now. well since you're not interested, i won't give you another math problem to find me. take the 11th letter of the alphabet, add a . and then add my nickname. [if anyone else is doing this to stalk me, you're legally obligated to like my two most recent pictures, i don't make the rules 🤷] well, i won't say that i haven't given you all my cards and now it's not up to you how to proceed. you certainly don't have both my tktk and my insta and i'm not waiting for a message from you at all.

definitely lmao

i agree, they also help make things less repetitive. sdghjsjh yeah, yeah, okay, i like your version better. listen, i know grammar exist for a reason but i would prefer it if it stayed away from my long and pretty sentences. i'm very proud to say that i think i understood that and i DIDN'T have to use google translate for it. [but please don't test my understanding because i will probably end up looking stupid] i'm still convinced you have some sort of superpower because you understand basically all of my incoherent sentences. i don't even understand what i mean most of the time lmao. it certainly is and it's never-ending lmao. i'll think about it 🤘 i think so too, tbh. she's like a heavy mix of ADHD and anxiety in my book. which is why a lot of her "quirks" in my fics are really just subtle signs of anxiety or hyperactivity. are they cute? yes. should we be a little worried about her? also yes. and yes, well, yelena isn't just any human. she has to go above and beyond while also being sneaky af because if she's not, kate will not let it go lmao. honestly, i think kate would 100% notice but she'd be far too excited to question yelena about it...which would probably lead to yelena actually becoming interested in the conversation.