#so i guess she used the wrong pronouns for that scene when she wrote about hermione and fleur huh?

[adudelolwriting]

Hello me again, would you mind if you wrote about tim and robin again?

(pt one here) a continuation? how absurd!! anyways i hope you enjoy and ty for the request !! :D

~~~~~~~~

It's been around a month since Robin had came out to Tim. It felt weird when Tim used she/her pronouns on her, but it has been fantastic. Her hair, which had been a bit lengthier than she was used to, continued to grow out so it was around her upper back. She had been wearing her skirt that the two had bought a lot. It was a little past her knees, with a vibrant blue color that Robin loved. 

Robin noticed Tim had been acting a lot more… careful, around her though. Well, not careful. Robin wasn't sure the correct word, here. The closest word she could think of was romantic, but… Tim had always been romantic with Robin, during the several months they lived together and shared a bed. 

It's like he's showing his romance differently? She didn't dislike it — far from it, she would always love Tim for himself. Even if he's started to kiss her scarred knuckles, or putting a hand around her (near non-existent) waist when they walked. 

Hell, the man has even started opening her door for her (more often, at least). Like an old fashioned gentleman from a black and white movie from the '40s. Robin had her suspicions when she would catch Tim watching some romance movies and watching with such intensity that it looked like he was studying it. 

It wasn't until Robin got home from work one day, opening the door to find the lights off with rose petals scattered across the floor, leading into the dinning room where there were candles lit on the table. 

Tim stood on the other side, a sheepish smile on his face when Robin walked in. "Welcome home," he said with a small smile. "I made dinner."

"Oh, Tim," a crooked smile fell on Robin's face. "Did you do all this for me?"

He hummed with a nod, "you deserve it. I wanted to make something for you, since you cook most nights."

"Thank you, I…" Her voice trailed off as she took in the scene. It looked straight out of a movie — she could vividly imagine it in black and white with some cheesy romance song playing in the background. Tim walked over to her side, and with a goofy little bow, pulled her chair out for her.

She laughs, smile still on her face as she thanks the kind gentleman, who pushes her chair in for her once she sits down. Joining the joke, Tim replies, "it's not a problem, my lady." 

Blush coats her face. Lady. Robin doesn't know if she'd ever not get used to hearing it.

Tim dishes out a generous portion of the dinner he made — chicken fettuccine alfredo. Tim gives himself some as well, before putting the pot of food back into the kitchen and sitting down at the dinner table. "So, how's your day been, Robin?" 

"It was good! Tiff helped me do some things, and scared of a rude person," Robin smiles, "and guess what?"

"Hm?" 

"My amazing boyfriend cooked an amazing meal for me when I got home!" Robin smiles as Tim bursts into small chuckles. "He even did the petals leading to the dinner table thing with the candles. Isn't he so romantic?"

"Oh, shut up," Tim laughed, rolling his eyes affectionately. "I hate you actually. Gonna pack up my stuff and leave one day while you're working your nine to five job," he joked. 

"What ever will I do?" Robin takes a sip of water. "Oh, Tiff, I don't know what I did wrong!" She giggles. 

Tim deepens his voice, playing into the part of Tiff. "Sounds like we'll just have to make out!"

Robin laughs, shouting out a 'hey!' before lightly kicking his foot. "You've literally met them before, you know how she acts." 

Tim simply laughed, lightly kicking Robin's leg. The two devolved into fits of laughter, and they continued to chat amongst themselves until they finished eating.

[volfoss]

Actually sorry I need to bitch and moan about this. I've been reading the san.dman (do not ever do this to yourself it's a hell unimaginable by anyone) and like... I really think it's interesting how much ga/iman is praised as super progressive on Tumblr for THIS specifically when it has so so much bad in it. About 10 issues in I started a game with how many women were in the issue who survived/were raped/nearly raped and it was insane how little women did not fit into these categories. One black woman lived and the rest were all burned alive. And he then later gave an excuse that it was bc of how Dream imprisoned Nada (16 year old African queen who fell in love with him. Its a very big mess and really sucks) in Hell so of course it influenced the entire world and so every black woman but ONE (who was introduced in the second to last issue) died and died violently. Not even to get into how it plays into the really violent misogyny that he had during the short story he wrote around the end of San.dman (when he was in his mid 30s) that was literally just one graphic rape scene to a minor after another (his snow white retelling is pretty infamous bc of how bad it is just by the summary but let me tell you that it is FAR worse to read). Like there's so so much that I think people do not discuss with his writing and it honestly just is very baffling that people hype him up given well. Everything that happens in San.dman. like the endless alone has a lot of... Well let's say interesting issues. Every single woman dream comes across wants to fuck him (to the point that at his funeral, it's 90% the women he was with/wanted to be with him and then a little from his siblings????), despairs entire character is literally just that she's depressed and coincidentally the most prominent fat character (and also naked all the time. Which they did seem to fix in the show but it's baffling how it's like her, one serial killer who nearly raped a woman before dream stops him, a guy that dies and I guess Abel if you squint for the fat rep) and then desire oh my god. I wish desire was written well instead of here's our nonbinary/gender fluid/genderless rep (cool in theory!!!) and then the fact that it (in the original series, she uses he she and it pronouns) raped a woman is dropped on your head and he is not at all regretful about it and ends up like.. taunting the victims granddaughter??? And delirium my god if there was ever a representation for born sexy yesterday and also being weird as fuck about mental illness it would be her. She's barely clothed most of the time, referred to as very very young most of the time and her mental illness (vague) is just kind of used as a joke a lot of the time? Like it's a funny joke that she doesn't remember stuff or that she's overstimulated or that she's using the wrong words or talking like a child. It's really weird because all of these characters have potential but they aren't really ever treated that way. Me when I get him for every single woman treated horribly!!!!!

[rubylane]

*   𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐁𝐘  𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀  𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐎  .      lyric starters from sour, change pronouns as needed.

𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐥 .

❛   i  want  it  to  be ,  like ,  messy .  ❜ ❛   i’m  so  insecure .  ❜ ❛   i’m  so  caught  up  in  the  news  of  who  likes  me  and  who  hates  you .  ❜ ❛   they’d  all  be  so  disappointed .  ❜ ❛   where’s  my  fucking  teenage  dream ?  ❜ ❛   i  don't  stick  up  for  myself .  ❜ ❛   i'm  anxious  and  nothing  can  help .  ❜ ❛   i  wish  people  liked  me  more .  ❜ ❛   all  i  did  was  try  my  best .  ❜ ❛   this  the  kind  of  thanks  i  get ?  ❜ ❛   i  wish  i  could  disappear .  ❜ ❛   god , ��it's  brutal  out  here .  ❜ ❛   i  feel  like  no  one  wants  me .  ❜ ❛   i  only  have  two  real  friends .  ❜

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫 .

❛   i  played  dumb  but  i  always  knew .  ❜ ❛   i  kept  quiet  so  i  could  keep  you .  ❜ ❛   ain’t  it  funny  how  you  said  you  were  friends ?  ❜ ❛   you  betrayed  me .  ❜ ❛   i  know  that  you'll  never  feel  sorry .  ❜ ❛   loved  you  at  your  worst  but  that  didn't  matter .  ❜ ❛   but  you’re  still  a  traitor .  ❜ ❛   there’s  no  damn  way  that  you  could  fall  in  love  with  somebody  that  quickly .  ❜ ❛   and  you  told  me  i  was  paranoid .  ❜ ❛   i  wish  that  you  had  thought  this  through  before  i  went  and  fell  in  love  with  you .  ❜

𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 .

❛   i  got  my  driver's  license  last  week .  ❜ ❛   she's  everything  i'm  insecure  about .  ❜ ❛   how  could  i  ever  love  someone  else ?  ❜ ❛   i  know  we  weren’t  perfect  but  i’ve  never  felt  this  way  for  no  one .  ❜ ❛   i  just  can’t  imagine  how  you  could  be  so  okay  now  that  i’m  gone .  ❜ ❛   all  my  friends  are  tired  of  hearing  how  much  i  miss  you .  ❜ ❛   i  kinda  feel  sorry  for  them .  ❜ ❛   they'll  never  know  you  the  way  that  i  do .  ❜ ❛   i  guess  you  didn't  mean  what  you  wrote  in  that  song  about  me .  ❜ ❛   i  still  see  your  face  in  the  white  cars .  ❜ ❛   can't  drive  past  the  places  we  used  to  go  to .  ❜ ❛   i  still  fuckin’  love  you .  ❜ ❛   i  still  hear  your  voice  in  the  traffic .  ❜ ❛   you  said  forever .  ❜ ❛   now  i  drive  alone  past  your  street .  ❜

𝟏 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝, 𝟑 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 .

❛   i  called  you  on  the  phone  today .  ❜ ❛   all  i  did  was  speak  normally .  ❜ ❛   somehow  i  still  struck  a  nerve .  ❜ ❛   you  got  me  fucked  up  in  the  head .  ❜ ❛   never  doubted  myself  so  much .  ❜ ❛   like  am  i  pretty ?  ❜ ❛   i  hate  that  i  give  you  power  over  that  kinda  stuff .  ❜ ❛   it's  always  one  step  forward  and  three  steps  back .  ❜ ❛   i’m  the  love  of  your  life  until  i  make  you  mad .  ❜ ❛   do  you  love  me ,  want  me ,  hate  me ?  ❜ ❛   no,  i  don't  understand .  ❜ ❛   maybe  in  some  masochistic  way  i  kind  of  find  it  all  exciting .  ❜ ❛   which  lover  will  i  get  today ?  ❜ ❛   will  you  walk  me  to  the  door  or  send  me  home  crying ?  ❜ ❛   did  i  say  something  wrong ?  ❜ ❛   did  i  do  something  wrong ?  ❜ ❛   maybe  this  is  all  your  fault  instead .  ❜ ❛   i'd  leave  you,  but  the  rollercoaster's  all  i've  ever  had .  ❜

𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮 .

❛   i  bet  she’s  braggin’  to  all  her  friends .  ❜ ❛   so  when  you  gonna  tell  her  that  we  did  that ,  too ?  ❜ ❛   she  thinks  it's  special,  but  it's  all  reused .  ❜ ❛   do  you  call  her ,  almost  say  my  name ?  ❜ ❛   that  was  our  place .  ❜ ❛   i  found  it  first .  ❜ ❛   do  you  get  déjà  vu ?  ❜ ❛   let’s  be  honest ,  we  kinda  do  sound  the  same .  ❜ ❛   i  hate  to  think  that  i  was  just  your  type .  ❜ ❛   that  was  the  show  we  talked  about .  ❜ ❛   don’t  act  like  we  didn’t  do  that  shit ,  too .  ❜ ❛   a  different  girl  now,  but  there's  nothing  new .  ❜

𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝟒 𝐮 .

❛   well ,  good  for  you .  ❜ ❛   i  guess  you  moved  on  really  easily .  ❜ ❛   remember  when  you  said  that  you  wanted  to  give  me  the  world ?  ❜ ❛   you  look  happy  and  healthy .  ❜ ❛   not  me ,  if  you  ever  cared  to  ask .  ❜ ❛   you’re  doin’  great  out  there  without  me .  ❜ ❛   god ,  i  wish  that  i  could  do  that .  ❜ ❛   i’ve  lost  my  mind .  ❜ ❛   i’ve  spent  the  night  cryin’  on  the  floor  of  my  bathroom .  ❜ ❛   you’re  so  unaffected .  ❜ ❛   i  really  don't  get  it .  ❜ ❛   i  guess  you’re  gettin’  everything  you  want .  ❜ ❛   it's  like  we  never  even  happened .  ❜ ❛   what  the  fuck  is  up  with  that ?  ❜ ❛   it's  like  you  never  even  met  me .  ❜ ❛   remember  when  you  swore  to  god  i  was  the  only  person  who  ever  got  you ?  ❜ ❛   you  will  never  have  to  hurt  the  way  you  know  that  i  do .  ❜ ❛   maybe  i'm  too  emotional .  ❜ ❛   your  apathy’s  like  a  wound  in  salt .  ❜ ❛   maybe  you  never  cared  at  all .  ❜

𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 .

❛   ‘cause  i  thought  you'd  like  me  more .  ❜ ❛   tried  so  hard  to  be  everything  that  you liked .  ❜ ❛   stupid ,  emotional ,  obsessive  little  me .  ❜ ❛   i  knew  from  the  start  this  is  exactly  how  you’d  leave .  ❜ ❛   the  nеxt  second,  you  were  gone .  ❜ ❛   you  left  me  there  crying .  ❜ ❛   you  always  say  i'm  never  satisfied .  ❜ ❛   but  i  don't  think  that's  true .  ❜ ❛   all  i  ever  wanted  was  to  be  enough  for  you .  ❜ ❛   maybe  i’m  just  not  as  interesting .  ❜ ❛   you  couldn't  have  cared  less  about  someone  who  loved  you  more .  ❜ ❛   i’d  say  you  broke  my  heart .  ❜ ❛   but  you  broke  much  more  than  that .  ❜ ❛   now  i  don't  want  your  sympathy .  ❜ ❛   i  just  want  myself  back .  ❜ ❛   don’t  you  think  i  loved  you  too  much  to  be  used  and  discarded ?  ❜ ❛   don’t  you  think  i  loved  you  too  much  to  think  i  deserve  nothing ?  ❜ ❛   don't  tell  me  you're  sorry .  ❜ ❛   feel  sorry  for  yourself .  ❜ ❛   someday  i'll  be  everything  to  somebody  else .  ❜ ❛   you'll  be  the  one  who's  crying .  ❜ ❛   i  don't  think  anything  could  ever  be  enough  for  you .  ❜

𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐫 .

❛   i  thought  my  heart  was  detached .  ❜ ❛   does  she  mean  you  forgot  about  me ?  ❜ ❛   i  hope  you're  happy  but  not  like  how  you  were  with  me .  ❜ ❛   i’m  selfish,  i  know  .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  you’re  happy .  ❜ ❛   but  don’t  be  happier .  ❜ ❛   an  eternal  love  bullshit  you  know  you’ll  never  mean .  ❜ ❛   now  i’m  pickin’  her  apart .  ❜ ❛   i  wish  you  all  the  best ,  really .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  you’re  happy,  but  don't  be  happier .  ❜

𝐣𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐲, 𝐣𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐲 .

❛   i  kinda  wanna  throw  my  phone  across  the  room .  ❜ ❛   wish  i  didn't  care .  ❜ ❛   i  know  their  beauty’s  not  my  lack .  ❜ ❛   It  feels  like  that  weight  is  on  my  back .  ❜ ❛   i  can't  let  it  go .  ❜ ❛   comparison  is  killing  me  slowly .  ❜ ❛   i  think  i  think  too  much .  ❜ ❛   i’m  so  sick  of  myself .  ❜ ❛   i’d  rather  be  anyone  else .  ❜ ❛   my  jealousy  started  following  me .  ❜ ❛   i  see  everyone  getting  all  the  things  i  want .  ❜ ❛   i’m  happy  for  them,  but  then  again,  i’m  not .  ❜ ❛   i  can't  stand  it .  ❜ ❛   oh  god ,  i  sound  crazy .  ❜ ❛   their  win  is  not  my  loss .  ❜ ❛   i  can’t  help  getting  caught  up  in  it  all .  ❜ ❛   all  your  friends  are  so  cool .  ❜ ❛   yeah,  you're  living  the  life .  ❜ ❛   i  wanna  be  you  so  bad .  ❜ ❛   i  don't  even  know  you .  ❜ ❛   all  i  see  is  what  i  should  be .  ❜

𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 .

❛   know  that  i  loved  you  so  bad .  ❜ ❛   i  let  you  treat  me  like  that .  ❜ ❛   i  was  your  willing  accomplice .  ❜ ❛   i  watched  as  you  fled  the  scene .  ❜ ❛   the  things  i  did  just  so  i  could  call  you  mine .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  i  was  your  favorite  crime .  ❜ ❛   you  used  me  as  an  alibi .  ❜ ❛   i  crossed  my  heart  as  you  crossed  the  line .  ❜ ❛   i  defended  you  to  all  my  friends .  ❜ ❛   you  know  that  i'd  do  it  all  again .  ❜ ❛   it’s  bittersweet  to  think  about  the  damage  that  we’d  do .  ❜ ❛   i  was  doin’  it  with  you .  ❜ ❛   i  say  that  i  hate  you  with  a  smile  on  my  face .  ❜ ❛   look  what  we  became .  ❜

𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐤 .

❛   somehow  we  fell  out  of  touch .  ❜ ❛   hope  he  took  his  bad  deal  and  made  a  royal  flush .  ❜ ❛   don’t  know  if  i’ll  see  you  again  someday .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  that  you're  okay .  ❜ ❛   we  don't  talk  much .  ❜ ❛   i  just  gotta  say  i  miss  you .  ❜ ❛   address  the  letters  to  the  holes  in  my  butterfly  wings .  ❜ ❛   nothing’s  forever .  ❜ ❛   nothing’s  as  good  as  it  seems .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  you  know  how  proud  i  am  you  were  created .  ❜ ❛   i  hope  that  you're  happier  today .  ❜

[madampince-rph]

Isn’t it weird how J.K. Rowling could care so much about little girls that she deliberately chose an uncommon name for her main female character lest they be teased for being too much like her, and yet is happy to lend the weight of her words and reputation to the cause of destroying the lives of little girls (and grown women) who don’t meet her incredibly, bizarrely narrow, sexual organ-based criteria of who “counts” as “enough” of a woman for her to care about them?

No wait, I meant revolting. It’s not weird, it’s revolting.

[dongofthewolf]

Omg I’m sorry for not realizing u had a list 😅 but I wasn’t wondering if u could do 41 with Abby and could u make it like rlly angsty but with some fluff or smut at the end

Everything Good in Life Seems to Lead Back to You

Abby Anderson X Reader

Prompt: 41. Overhearing they have feelings for you

Warnings: blood and injury, canon typical violence, swearing, fluff, angst (I tried anon I tried), Owen slander once again (sorry not sorry)

Gender neutral pronoun for the reader (if you’d like your request to use specific pronouns please add to the ask)

Link to the prompt list here

A/N: it’s safe to say that I wrote this with the speed of a thousand blazing horses if that even makes any sense. I hope that you all enjoy this lovely word vomit (esp if you requested) it was a blast to write !!

btw the Virginia Woolf reference is from her letters to Vita Sackville and the Jane Austen one is from Pride and Prejudice. What can I say? I guess I’m just a hoe for old love, baby.

Abby spent a lot of time reading; so much so that she had created this false expectation of what love was supposed to feel like. Abby believed that love was supposed to be strong, and passionate, and bright—an everlasting devotion. Of course she shrugged it off at first, they were just books after all—pieces of fiction to fantasize and dream about. Love wasn’t something you could define in a book nor could it ever live up to the likes of Shakespeare or Virginia Woolf.

Abby had never been in love; she sometimes believes she came close to some iteration of it when she was with Owen, but looking back now she realized that what she felt wasn’t love. It was a desperate attempt to be wanted—to be needed, a manifestation of her desire for approval. And after her falling out with him, Abby had come to accept that she simply wasn’t made for love, and that if by some miracle she ever did fall, it definitely wouldn’t be like the books.

That was Abby’s initial perspective on love, but oh how times have changed. The moment you waltzed into her life, every sad, pathetic notion she had about love was thrown out the window in a matter of seconds. Never in her most outrageous dreams did Abby expect to fall this hard, especially since the two of you were practically best friends.

In fact, it had been very platonic at first; Abby was your superior and you often worked together on missions. She didn’t know what compelled her to talk to you but when she did, the two of you hit it off immediately. You started training together, then working out together, and eventually you were spending almost every minute together. The two of you could literally correctly predict every thought that went through each other's head, all except of course (in Abby’s case) for one. It even got to the point where you both somehow knew when the other couldn’t sleep, so much so that Abby had grown accustomed to opening her door to see you holding a glass of milk and a plate of cookies like a little kid on Christmas. She had spent so many sleepless nights alone only to realize that the one thing she was missing, was you and your adorable midnight snacks.

Abby never entertained the thought of professing her slightly less than platonic feelings for you, because she had become content with the idea that you’d simply never feel the same. However, while she had come to accept her unfortunate situation to be a permanent one, it still hurt her when she saw you flirt with other people. And she’d be lying if she said your absentminded touches didn’t still send her soaring. Sometimes she hated how naturally affectionate you were, it made it so hard for her to not love you.

The box that Abby had continually shoved herself into so she wouldn’t fuck up your friendship was almost starting to feel like home, and as uncomfortable as it was, she knew it was for the best. Almost nothing could compel Abby to leave this torturous, self-inflicted prison she was trapped in. Almost nothing.

—

The mission was supposed to be a simple one: get in, get the weapons, get out. A mission so simple, the both of you could’ve done it in your sleep. In fact, on a few occasions after a long night of drinking, you had practically done just that. You met up with the group of traders who you were well acquainted with, and the deal went down smoothly. Everything was going according to plan, which is why you and Abby were completely caught off guard when a group of rogue hunters suddenly began firing shots like it was a fucking carnival.

Turns out there was a new rival group in town, and someone had tipped them off. You and Abby luckily were able to find cover from their relentless fire, but not before you got a bullet straight through your left thigh. You didn’t even realize it at first, the adrenaline coursing through your veins still working to protect you from the devastating pain that was to come. When you did notice it, you had already lost copious amounts of blood. Then the dizziness began to set in, and soon after the pain. Abby hadn’t even realized you were injured till you slumped over on the ground next to her.

Looking down in horror, Abby lifted you into her arms. “Y/N? What’s wrong? Why are y-” Then Abby noticed the blood, and suddenly she was panicking. “Oh shit. Oh fuck, Y/N we have to get you out of here.”

“T-the package, we need the package. Can’t leave without it.” Your response was weak, desperate. You had to finish the mission, the WLF was in dire need of these supplies and you were not going to be the one to tell Isaac you failed.

“Fuck the package, we need to get you back to base.” Abby removed her belt, turnoqueting your leg with such surprising ease that you nearly didn’t notice the agonizing pain in your leg. Nearly.

You groaned when Abby hoisted you into her arms bridal style, careful not to move your leg too much before she booked it to the truck. When she plopped you down into the passenger's seat and began to speed away from the scene, you suddenly felt your eyes becoming heavier. You were so tired. You had lost so much blood already and your body felt like it was shutting down.

Abby was frantically racing towards the base, eyes fixed to the road until she heard you let out a small whine. “Abby, I‘m so tired. Need to sleep.”

Abby noticed you drifting off and she reached her arm out to shake your shoulder violently. “No. No sleeping, you gotta stay awake Y/N.”

Though Abby didn’t mention it, she was terrified. When she looked over at you, you were pale and cold to the touch, drifting off while your leg continued to bleed profusely despite her tourniquet. This could be it; you could die right now, and Abby would have lost the one person in this world she cared about most. She couldn’t let that happen, she wouldn’t.

You were equally as terrified as Abby; every natural instinct in your body was begging for you to sleep and you were becoming tired of trying to ignore it. The last thing you remembered was the look on the face of the girl you had fallen for, her eyes brimming with tears while she wore a desperate, horrified expression.

—

You laid unconscious for what felt like an eternity and Abby never left your side. She had abandoned her duties (with Isaac’s permission) and spent every second next to you, her head resting on the edge of your bed while she waited for you to wake up. The only thing that prompted Abby to step away was Manny, who had heard what happened and went to check on her.

Manny knew full and well that Abby was in love with you; in fact, almost all of Abby’s friends knew. Abby had confided in him during many torturous nights and he was a surprisingly good listener. He understood her circumstances and never pushed her to confess her feelings for you, even if it did annoy him how oblivious Abby was to the fact that you obviously felt the same way. “Abby, I heard what happened. Is everything okay?”

Abby was exhausted, she hadn’t slept at all since you made it back to the base and she couldn’t get the memory of your cold, pale body out of her head. “I almost lost them, Manny. Y/N could’ve died out there without ever knowing how I feel about them.” Tears threatened to fall but Abby did her best to keep her composure.

“It’s going to be okay, Abby. Y/N’s here and they’re alive, and that’s all that matters.” Manny’s hand was on Abby’s shoulder, trying his best to comfort her. “You should tell them how you feel though.”

“Huh?” Abby hadn’t expected that. Manny knew her situation well enough to know that telling you how she felt was a bad idea… It was a bad idea, right?

“It’s like you said, Y/N could’ve died without ever knowing how you feel about them. Wouldn’t it be better to have no regrets at all?” The words stopped Abby in her tracks. She never thought she’d actually agree with Manny.

“It’s just- I love Y/N so much, and I don’t want to lose them this way.” Abby was on the brink of tears, her voice turning into a desperate plea.

“I’m not going anywhere Abs.”

Abby froze, turning around slowly. You were gripping to the doorway for support, limping on one leg and looking extremely weathered.

“Y/N!” Abby immediately ran to put your arm around her shoulder while she carried you back to your bed, setting you down carefully. “You shouldn't be on your leg, you could make it worse.”

There was genuine concern on Abby’s face and in that moment you weren’t sure you could love her any more than you already did. She was so incredibly sweet and caring and no one had ever shown this much concern for your safety and well-being. You had heard her through the door and you couldn’t stop yourself from interrupting her. There was so much about Abby you absolutely adored and she had no idea. How could she not have known you were hopelessly in love with her? Was she truly that oblivious to your obvious flirting? All the subtle touches, the pathetic excuses to sleep in her bed, the fact you literally went out of your way to find rare coins so you could bring them back to her, it all just flew over her head. You couldn’t believe it.

Abby was still rambling about your leg, clearly trying to pretend like she didn’t just profess her love for you while you were standing right behind her. Instead of speaking, you wrapped your hands around her neck before leaning in, silencing her with a kiss so perfect you could’ve passed out right there. You could tell she was stunned at first, but soon enough she was kissing you back. Her fingers were running through your hair and when you pulled away she leaned her forehead against yours, not wanting to part from you.

“Did you mean it?” You pulled away to look Abby in the eyes, your hands still wrapped around her shoulders.

Abby had a dumbstruck look on her face. “Mean what?”

“When you said you loved me, did you mean it?” Your eyes searched her face for an answer while your heart was beating a million miles a minute.

Abby smiled, her eyebrows furrowed as she spoke. “Y/N, I have loved you for as long as I can remember. I’m so hopelessly in love with you that it’s almost pathetic. You have no idea how essential to me you have become—how many nights I’ve stayed awake because you weren’t there to hog all the blankets. Y/N, you have no idea how ardently I love you.”

You smirked “Abigail Anderson did you just quote Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen?” You couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, Abby could be such a nerd sometimes.

“I just confessed my ever-lasting love for you and that’s the first thing you say?” Abby was smiling widely now, relief flowing through her now that she no longer had to conceal her feelings for you.

“I love you too Abs, so fucking much. Also I do not hog the blankets, your comforter is simply too small.” Abby chuckled before she leaned in for another kiss, the worry suddenly disappearing the moment her lips touched yours.

Although Abby had never really known what she expected love to be, this is what she imagines it’d feel like, and you bet your ass it was better than the books. To tell the truth, it was better than any other conceivable thing on this entire planet. Nothing could beat the way Abby felt now that she had finally broken free from her excruciating self-inflicted prison.

Abby pulled away from the kiss, gazing at you lovingly. “Are you hungry?”

God damn Abby, it was like she knew exactly what you were thinking. You didn’t know how long you had been unconscious for, but you were ravenous. “Starving.”

And almost as if you were telepathically communicating, the both of you spoke at the exact same time.

“Cookies?”

“Cookies.”

[kim-always-writes]

Gender of Characters

I’m part of a writing club and during one of our meetings we were discussing something I thought I’d share with you.

The topic was the Gender of Characters, specifically the gender of the main character/s.

My lovely writing teacher had analysed excerpts from stories we’d written outside of our club and WIPs we’d started during the meetings. She said some people were typically drawn to writing male while others wrote female characters. For my writing, she said she felt like I instinctively wrote male protagonists. 

At the time I wasn’t sure how accurate her analysis was, however after looking at my WIPs I’ve noticed most of my stories revolve around a male character and only a handful of ideas and WIPs were centred around a female protagonist. Of course there is nothing wrong with what gender you choose your main character to have. I do understand there are other genders people/characters can identify as but this was the focus of the discussion and it’s what I have first-hand experience writing about. 

You might be wondering what the point of the discussion was. Well, our characters are one of the key building blocks of our stories. Their gender is something we choose during character building, this might not seem like an important step for some. But in our discussion we delved deeper into how our characters gender can influence their development, redemption, backstory, mannerisms, voice, actions and even the story’s plot and side characters. 

Even if you don’t realise it, subconsciously you may try to portray a character in a certain way due to their gender. While some writers might choose to portray them differently to how society typically views/viewed them to act, for example, the male protagonist isn’t always strong and shows his emotions openly without trying to hide it. 

During the meeting we looked at an extract from a story. Any pronouns or indicating words were crossed out. Without trying to find it online I would like you to read it and based on the text, choose whether you think the character is male or female. 

XXX heart pounded away when XXX was back in the hall and XXX hands trembled so obviously that XXX hastily hid them behind XXX back. At first XXX was tormented by shame and XXX feared everyone knew XXX had just been embraced and kissed... But when XXX had convinced XXX that everyone was dancing and gossiping just as before, XXX gave XXX up to a totally different kind of sensation, one that XXX had never experienced before in XXX life. Something strange was happening to XXX. On XXX left cheek there was a faint, pleasant, cold, tingling sensation; the more XXX rubbed the spot the stronger the tingling became.

When I first read this, I was stuck at a crossroads, on one hand I believed the character was female due to the way they acted, on the other hand I felt the author may have tried to portray a male character differently. In the end we had to choose one and I went with what I’d instinctively thought was being portrayed, a female character. 

I’m sure you’ve made your guess by now. This extract is from a short story called The Kiss by Anton Chekhov and the character is a man called Ryabovitch. This portrayal was interesting for us because when we discussed it, we had to make an assumption of the characters age, personality and appearance before the gender was revealed.

When you first begin to write you might not think every part of the story is important, this idea changes as you read, write and analyse stories, you’ll soon find that the words, phrases and sentence structure can change the image readers have in their head of the character, scene or overall story. From this short extract the reader can create their own idea of Ryabovitch’s personality, character and even appearance. It was an interesting portrayal because Chekhov had shown the character to have a different reaction to the situation than what’s usually seen by male characters in media.

I thought it was a female character because of how flustered they seemed after a kiss and how they felt “shame” and only took the time to think about the way they felt when they were sure no one else was watching. This is often how I’ve seen female characters shown in movies, series and books. They’re usually the one that’s shown to be flustered, blushing and even embarrassed after an encounter like this. Historically women were told to “save themselves” for their husbands and not talk about intimate encounters. Whereas men aren’t shown to blush and “freak out” often over something like a kiss, in fact they’re shown to boast to their friends, not hide what happened.

The stereotypes attached to gender because of society and different media changes the way we may show our characters. I would like to emphasis that there is nothing wrong with being/having a character that acts the way they are socially expected to. 

This was a topic I’d never really given much thought to. But after looking through my work I realised I drifted towards writing male characters. At first I didn’t know why this was, I felt as a female writer I should’ve found writing female protagonists easier and wrote about them more. When asked why I might stick towards writing male characters more, I realised it was influenced by the media I consumed. Many of the shows or books I’ve seen/read growing up and still to this day, were centred around a male character/s, their development and story. 

The choices you make during the character building stage are all very important, especially things that are considered the base of creating a character like gender, race, appearance etc. They will all impact how you write or describe your character throughout the story. 

I think going through all your stories every once in a while and analysing your own writing can be very beneficial, especially for those who still don’t know their writing style that well. Also, comparing your work to the work of other authors can be hard, but you might actually learn a lot more than you think if you see the differences and similarities in how different writers show their characters. This discussion helped me notice a process I had when choosing a character’s gender. Sometimes I get ideas for stories or poems by listening to music or daydreaming/dreaming.

These ideas sometimes come with the character’s gender already decided. For the ideas were the gender isn’t something I’ve already thought of when coming up with the idea, I look at the genre and the direction I want the story to go in. For example when writing crime, detective, thriller or horror stories I tend to have a female protagonist and for dystopian or action stories I usually have a male protagonist. Sometimes I think from a gender neutral perspective without a clear image of what the character looks like or who they are. I decide on the gender when I work through the climax point of the story or the emotional, tense and fight scenes (if there are any). I might even look at the antagonist, how I would want to portray them, would I want them to have the same or different gender to the protagonist, things like that. 

To summarise, the gender of your character might not seem as important at first glance, it might even be something you haven’t thought of in depth before, but it’s one of the bases to creating a character and a building block of your story, as well as something that draws readers to your book. It influences how you show your character in different scenes, the way they develop throughout the duration of your story and the direction you want their arcs to go in. Gender of a character can influence their appearance, actions, mannerisms, goals, voice, tone, personality and so much more. 

Take some time to go through your own works, and ask if you tend to stick to writing male or female characters. Do you know why this is? And does your choice influence the way you write about your character’s personality, their emotions, actions and appearance? Does this choice effect the plot of the story and the direction it goes in? If you were to write your story but with a protagonist of the opposite gender, would anything change? And does it influence the choices you make when creating the antagonist or side characters?

Happy Writing!

Instagram: kim.always.writes

[rjalker]

People I love Murderbot and I am literally aroace and nonbinary and not human and I use it/its pronouns and I'm telling you Martha Wells is only writing it that way because she conflates gender with sex and since Murderbot is a construct without any genitals she goes "well clearly its genderless and wouldn't feel any kind of attraction".

This does not mean you get a free pass to misgender the character. Murderbot uses it/its pronouns. Do not use other pronouns for it. This does not mean you get to ship Murderbot with other characters and erase the fact that it's aroace.

It does mean that you should criticize the way Martha Wells conflates sex with gender (and thus, with orientation). It does mean that you should be aware of this problem in her writing.

It does mean that, if you are interested in writing, especially if you are cis, you make sure you are not falling into the same transphobic idea.

There's nothing wrong with having nonbinary characters who are robots or aliens or anything. It's great, actually, because robots and aliens would not subscribe to the white idea of only two binary sexes/genders.

It becomes a problem when those are your only nonbinary characters, or in the case of The Murderbot Diaries, your only nonbinary characters who actually get to be main characters and appear more than once.

Rami would be great...if te had been allowed to be the main "sidekick" in the book te appeared in, if te hadn't been immediately shoved offscreen so Tapan could run around with Murderbot, if Rami was a reocurring character who appeared in multiple books with more "screentime" and character development.

But that's not what happened. Rami appeared for a few scenes, in one book, and wasn't even the main new character in that book. And aside from ter marriage group being mentioned once so far, te has never been brought up again or impacted the story at all.

Martha Wells could have had Rami being the one to stay behind and get into Life Threatening Shenanigans with Murderbot, but no, she decided it would be Tapan instead. For no reason. The second book could have been made completely and absolutely epic if Rami had been the one to be the sidekick for lack of a better term, but no!!! That didn't happen! Because I guess Martha Wells just couldn't be bothered? There's no good reason for her to have picked Tapan to stay behind instead of Rami. There's no excuse if she was actually trying to provide trans representation. There is no reason she couldn't have had Rami as the main new human character in that book, but she didn't.

And we have not met a single other character in the rest of the series that uses neopronouns besides it/its. Rami appeared in the second book, for a few scenes, and we don't even get to know anything else about ter besides the fact that te identifies as tercera and uses te/ter/terself pronouns and has been appointed the leader of the negotiation. That's it. That's all we know about ter.

That's not good trans representation, that's barely representation at all.

There really needs to be a conversation about how Martha Wells views gender, because it has only improved very slightly since she wrote The Books of the Raksura, and that's not saying much at all if you've seen any of my complaints about The Books of the Raksura.

[spencersstrawberryjello]

Scum of the Earth (Spencer Reid x fem!MC)

Summary: After a prison interview gone wrong, MC is left to recover from the disgusting things the prisoner said (with Spencer’s help, of course)

Content: Hurt/Comfort

Warnings: Mentions of violence related to crime, including rape and torture, as well as swearing

MC’s name and pronouns: no name mentioned, she/her

Word Count: 2420

A/N: Can you tell I watched Mindhunter right before I wrote this one? lmao

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Pretty girl,” the man in front of me clicked his tongue, observing me from his position across the interview table, “The things I’d do to you…”

My hands trembled, but I forced myself to appear calm as I leaned in, a challenge in my eyes. “Would you do to me what you did to those girls?”

He let out a harsh laugh, one that sent a shock of fear straight through my body. He leaned back in his chair, giving me a shameless once over before he spoke again. 

“Oh sweetheart, you’re better than any of those whores.”

“Whores? So you mean to tell me you weren’t attracted to them?”

“Of course I was attracted to them,” He scoffs, as if it was obvious, “How could I not be? No, I was attracted to them; I just didn’t respect them.”

“And you respect me?”

“Well you are an FBI agent, are you not?”

“People like you have a tendency to resent us more than respect us, if I’m honest with you.”

“People like me? You mean monsters. Is that how you see me, Agent? A monster?”

“Not monsters. I merely mean people in prison. We are the reason you’re in this hellhole, after all.”

“Dirty mouth,” He laughed, “Wonder what else you could do with that.”

“I -”

“You asked me if I’d do to you what I did to the other girls,” He leaned in now, his face inches from mine, his voice barely above a whisper, “The girls I raped. The ones that I tortured, that I murdered. Would you like to hear what’s running through my mind right now, honey?”

I couldn’t breathe, my throat tightening as cold fear coursed through my body. But my entire job was to figure out how this man thought. For research.

Nothing in my research could’ve prepared me for what he was about to say, though. 

“That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? To hear what’s running through your mind?” I replied. His mouth curled into a haunting grin, and he lowered his voice even more, as if he was trying to keep the people he knew were monitoring this interview from outside the room from hearing him.

“I’d take my time on you,” He started, his voice making every inch of my skin crawl, “Too good to waste…”

I had to force myself not to pull away as he began to detail exactly what he was thinking, his voice still too low for Hotch to hear him through the weak security camera microphones. 

Never in my entire career did I imagine I’d be sitting across from vermin like him, listening as he described, in painstakingly visual imagery, how he’d force himself on me, how he’d torture me until I craved the sweet relief of death. How he’d finally murder me. My entire body was shaking, and I couldn’t do anything but bite back the nausea at the scenes he detailed for me. 

I had half a mind to thank god that I remembered to turn on the recorder in my front pocket. There was no way that the mics on the security cameras were picking this up - there was a reason no one had pulled me out of the room yet - and the things he was saying were incredibly revealing, from a behavioral standpoint. But I couldn’t be excited about the new information when he was describing my own death in front of me.

It wasn’t until he reached up and ran his finger along the curve of my jaw that Hotch stormed back in. I hadn’t realized I was close enough to him for him to touch me, but I flinched away from his touch, making him laugh as guards returned to the room, pulling his arms behind his back and escorting him from the room as he laughed.

“Hope you got the information that you needed, sweetheart!” He called as he was removed from the area. I heard his laughter echo up and down the hall, and I immediately rose from the table, my hands still shaking. 

“Can it, Lewis!” One of the guards demanded, but it was quiet as the sounds faded down the hall.

Hotch’s expression of anger turned to one of concern when he saw my expression, my face paled, my eyes far away. 

“What was he saying to you?” He asked. I just pulled my recorder out of my pocket with trembling hands, holding it out to him and fumbling with the button to turn it off so I didn’t waste space. 

“You can listen for yourself. I can’t -” I shook my head, trying to clear it. 

“Ok,” He took it from me, slipping it into the pocket of his suit as he regarded me carefully, “Ok. Are you good to walk back out of here?” 

I attempted to steady my breathing before nodding and grabbing my blazer off the back of the chair, slipping it on and following Hotch out of the prison. I felt a bit better with every step away from the prison we took, but his voice bounced around my mind, the scenes that my imagination created so vivid that I couldn’t seem to push them away. 

Somehow, he knew exactly how to play on my history to get under my skin. He knew exactly what to say to make my skin crawl, and it made another wave of nausea wash over me just thinking about it. Because as bad as the horrors I’d just heard were, they brought about an even more terrifying question.

How did he know?

I had half a mind to ask, but there was a chance it was just a coincidence. I knew that if Hotch had any concerns after listening to the recording I’d made, he’d come to me about it. For the moment, I merely stared out the window, watching the scenery rush by on our way back to the jet. When we finally arrived at the airstrip, I wanted nothing more than to be alone. 

Or at least, alone with one other person. 

Spencer greeted us when we got back on the jet, and immediately he could tell that something was wrong. I was pretty sure my hands were still shaking, and he pulled me into a tight hug.

“How’d the interview go?” He asked. I wasn’t sure if the question was directed at me or Hotch, but I replied before he could.

“It was incredibly informative,” I broke the hug, pulling back to talk to the both of them, “His conversation directly with me revealed a lot about his thought process when doing what he did.”

“Directly with - you were in there by yourself?” Spencer immediately snapped his gaze to Hotch. 

“Calm down, Spence, I volunteered to talk to him alone. You really think our resident Unit Dad here would just ditch me?” I joked, to which Hotch rolled his eyes as I continued explaining, “I thought that I might be able to elicit a more honest response from him if I was talking to him one on one.”

“Because you’re a pretty young woman,” Spencer stated, showing he understood my thought process. I just faked a scandalized gasp, one shaky hand on my chest.

“Dr. Reid, are you calling me pretty? You know, that’s very unprofessional behavior for the workplace.”

“I can think of some behavior that’s a bit more unprofessional,” He teased before pulling me in for a quick kiss. I heard Emily’s voice from behind us. 

“Ugh, sit down!” She called. I offered her a choice gesture before moving away from Spencer, moving to sit in the corner near the back of the plane. Hotch held up my recorder as he walked by, signaling that he was going to listen to it and bringing the nausea back in full force. 

I felt the color drain from my face again, though he didn’t notice. He’d already taken his seat, pulling out a laptop and headphones from his bag. 

Spencer noticed though, from his seat across from me.

“Hey,” He grabbed my hands. I hadn’t even noticed they’d started trembling again. “What happened in there?”

“I - he’s a disgusting person, Spence. Like, scum of the earth disgusting.”

“Lewis?”

I nodded, and he moved from sitting across from me to sitting next to me, pulling me into a hug. I just buried my head against his chest, trying to distract my mind from the sound of George Lewis’s voice, and the images that came flooding back to me. 

“What did he do to you?” Spencer asked. I shook my head.

“He didn’t do anything. It’s just what he said that shook me up.”

He was quiet, clearly waiting for me to continue. I drew in a shaky breath, not moving from his arms as I spoke.

“I… I was trying to get inside his head. I wanted to hear his thought process during the crimes the way that he viewed it, and I knew that using my femininity against him was the best way to do it. I was trying to get him to open up to me because he thought I was attractive…” I trailed off for a moment, the feeling of his hand on my face so real that I almost reached up to smack it away. I fought back the bubble of nausea rising in my stomach as I continued, going into as little detail as possible. “It worked, I guess. What he said was very telling.”

“Babe?” Spencer said after I fell into another lapse of silence. I pulled back to meet his eyes, and the concern in them stopped my heart, “What did he say?”

“...He described exactly what he would do to me if I were one of his victims. In painstaking detail, how he would rape me, torture me, kill me -” My whole body was shaking at this point, and I ducked my head back into his chest, feeling his arms tighten around me. “- I just can’t get his voice out of my head. Can’t get those images out of my head.”

“Reid?” I expected to hear Spencer respond, but instead I heard Hotch. I looked up to see him standing in the aisle, a dark look in his eyes, “Could I talk to you for a moment?”

“I -” He looked between me and Hotch, and I gave him a small smile. 

“Go,” I assured him. I had a feeling that this little meeting was because Hotch had listened to the recording, anyway. 

Spencer reluctantly got up, following Hotch over near the back of the cabin, where he’d set his computer on the counter. I watched as Spencer put the headphones in his ears, pressing play on the recording and listening. I couldn’t see his face, I could only see Hotch’s reaction as the clip went on, but Hotch looked pissed.

I mean, more than his resting pissed face, of course. 

Spencer took the headphones out of his ears after a moment, slowly placing them back on the computer, his body language illustrating a state of shock. He glanced back at me, and I saw a dozen emotions raging across his expression. Of course, there were three that were the strongest.

Anger.

Shock.

And worry.

He immediately crossed the plane back to me, pulling me into a tight hug before moving to sit back down, still keeping me in his arms. He placed a kiss on the top of my head without speaking, one hand splayed on my back to keep me close to him. 

“You listened to the interview?” I phrased it as a question, even though it was more of a statement.

“He never should’ve been allowed to say that stuff to you,” He said. I just shook my head.

“I provoked it. I wanted him to reveal what he was really thinking.”

“It still should never have gotten that far.”

“It worked though.”

“It worked at your expense,” He argued, “You shouldn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t have to do anything. I chose to.”

“Are you ok?” He asked, the question catching me off guard. He pulled a bit back from the hug, prompting me to look up at him. “I heard the shit he said, baby. Are you ok?”

“I… I’ll be fine. It just really shook me up.”

“You're trembling - you have been since we got on the plane. You’ve been trying to hide it, but I noticed. And I can tell you’re trying not to be sick -"

“... Maybe a better way to phrase it is ‘scared the living shit out of me.’”

He laughed softly, leaning back against the arm of the chair before pulling me close again so I could rest my head against his chest. “That’s closer to what I’ve observed.”

We laid there silently for a moment, his arms wrapped tightly around me, one hand softly tracing indistinct patterns up and down my back as I felt his chest rise and fall against me. George Lewis’s voice echoed inside my mind, and I buried my head deeper into his chest, prompting him to hold me closer. 

I was still shaking, and I wrapped my arms around him, gripping the back of his shirt to try to steady my hands. He placed a soft kiss on my forehead, and continued to run his hands along my back. The gentle motion was comforting as I forced the memories of the interview to the side, allowing myself to drift off into what I prayed would be a dreamless sleep.

-----------------------------------

“How is she doing?” Hotch asked. Spencer sighed, looking down at me now asleep in his arms. 

“She was trembling, Hotch - I don’t know if I’ve seen something as simple as an interview affect her this badly before.”

“I know… is there any other reason you can think of that what Lewis said would have such an effect on her?”

He reflected for a moment, biting his lip and looking back down at me with indecision in his eyes. Finally, he looked back up at Hotch. “There could be. But it’s something you might want to talk to her about directly… it’s not really my business to share.”

“Is she in any danger?”

Spencer shook his head. “Just something that happened when she was younger. With her sister.”

Hotch nodded, giving Spencer’s shoulder a squeeze in a gesture of comfort before returning to his seat. Spencer returned to his soft touches around my body, his hands smoothing down my hair as I slept in a cold slumber.

[rostovs-lover]

dual purpose

din djarin x reader | cursing, some derogatory things said to reader, xi’an is Not Nice - mando is Not Nice back, very dialouge heavy  | she/her pronouns | fluffy? a little angsty?? | wc.1144

so i kind of wrote xi’an as more verbally rude to reader as opposed to physically, i am also not good at arguing so that scene is iffy, very sorry. i hope you enjoy!

anon : Hey I love your writing 💕im in love with the Mandolorn (sorry if I spelt it wrong). I thought of a great idea, where Mado has a girl on the ship she’s traveling with him and they have grown to become good firends, and he becomes quite protective of her because she is weaker than him. In chapter 6 the prisoner, Xi’an is Mandos ex, she sees the girl he is traveling with and gets jealous and starts to become threatening towards her and violent, ans Mado becomes protective of her 💕

Xi’an, whos still not over Din, takes her passive aggressive aggression out on you, Mando is not having it.

      Din Djarin was terrifying, all heavy metal and loud boots. He was the sun, blazing hot and blinding, all tucked behind thick beskar. Something about you, your cool demeanour and the way you seemed to float on your feet, a stark contrast to how heavily he clunked around. He was terrifying but you had seen through it. He was terrifying but his friends were worse. Not friends, per se, he’d made that evident. Ran and Mayfield and Xi’an were not his friends, hardly even acquaintances, ex-colleagues.

      When he’d landed the Razor Crest in the doc, clearly put off, Din took a moment to collect himself, “You don’t have to talk to them.” He turned his head to look at you, “They’re not… your crowd really,”

      You snorted, “That's beautiful coming from you, my dear. You know, you’re not particularly ‘my crowd’ either?”

      “I’m serious-” The cool leather of his glove pressed to your cheek, “Look at me [Name]. They’re intense, they’re bounty hunters, mercenaries. They kill, ruthlessly, for money, and I don’t want you getting in their way.”

      You stared, eyebrows furrowing, “Get in their way?”

      “Not-” He sighed, “Not like that. You’re not in the way. I just don’t want them to do anything… to say anything. They’re not nice people, not at all. And you should know about Xi’an.” He had an edge to his voice, something bitter biting into her name. Xi’an. You could taste the bad memories through his tone.

      “Whos Xi’an?”

      “Xi’an is someone who I used to know. We had a relationship? If you could even call it that. It wasn’t really anything important, we were both young and stupid and always running on adrenalin. Things happened, things that probably shouldn’t have, and when I left things were very… open. There wasn’t closure for her, for either of us, and from what I know of Xi’an she probably isn’t really over it.” He moved his hand to brush a tendril of hair behind your ear, “I don’t know how she’d feel about someone else, I really don’t even know how she’ll feel about the kid. I just don’t want her to ruin anything, or to hurt you.”

      You reached back, to clutch at his hand, “Din.”

      He seemed vulnerable, more so than any other time you’d seen him in broad daylight. The dam was leaking and sweet weakness was dribbling from the cracks, pouring into your hands like ambrosia from the Heavens. He dipped forwards, pressing the crown of his helmet to your brow bone, “I know, I worry.”

      “Yes you do, too much. I’m alright Din, we’ll be alright.”

      “I know, I know you will but I still just can’t imagine losing you. I don’t know what I’d do. I think-” He let out a soft noise, somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle, “I think I’ve actually had nightmares about that. About something happening to you and the Thing. I know you can hold your own and take care of yourself but I just feel this compulsion to keep you and the kid safe.”

      “It's a paternal instinct Din, to protect your family.”

      “Paternal.” Din jeered, “What have you turned me into?”

      You tapped a finger to the side of his helmet, “I’ve made you soft,”

      Xi’an shared the same sentiment, that Din had gone soft. And she blamed you entirely, she had voiced that. When she’d first met you she circled like a vulture, walking around you as she fiddled with her utility belt.

      “You’re cute, so is that-” She reached out to pinch at his little green cheek, “Is he yours?” Her tone was condescending, filled with mock pity.

      The Child leaned away from her, ears twitching downwards as he pressed closer to your chest, “No, he's not. I just help Mando take care of him,”

      “He's Mando’s?”

      “No, no- not really. Kind of, but it's a long story.”

      Xi’an cocked an eyebrow, “Kind of? What even is it, I’ve never seen anything like it. Mando didn’t… you know, with its mom I hope. I mean, now I guess it couldn’t really be put past him.”

      You shook your head, clutching tighter to the Child, “No, the baby was found, Mando took him in after-”

      “Are you two..?” a grin crawled up Xi’an’s, “I bet you are. Oh I don’t blame him, you are pretty and all that time in the middle of nowhere would make anyone desperate, even prudey Mando and his creed. You know, I never took him for the companion type but I mean, you are something to look at, and good with kids. How nice it would be to have you on the ship, dual purpose.”

      “Xi’an-” Din’s tone was curt, “I see you two have met.”

      “We have! She’s a cutie, I think I’m starting to see a pattern with your picker. Plus with that kid, she seems to be good for a lot,”

      The Mandalorian’s shoulders tense and his fingers clenched, “You know, you never were good at reading people. Good for a lot, what is that even supposed to mean?”

      She snorted and crossed her arms, “Just you must be desperate is all, but you could have come back instead of picking up a space hooker. But you’ve domesticated her well!”

      “Really Xi’an?” Din leaned closer to her, “Are you jealous that I wanted more or have you always been this much of a bitch?”

      “Can you still fight or have you gone soft Mando? Did a girl make you soft, or was it your kid?”

      “I’m sorry you weren’t the one who got to have this life Xi’an, but I really don’t think you’re adept for it,”

      That was what caught her, making her flustered. Din had nipped the weak spot she had, desperation for family. Xi’an regained herself and straightened, “At least I still have the balls to do my job.” She turned on her heels and stormed towards Burg.

      Din sighed and reached out to pull the Child from your arms, “I’m so sorry about her,”

      You shook your head, “Its fine, you warned me, I didn’t take any of it to heart,”

      Despite the dark visor covering his eyes, you could feel the sympathy, “It still wasn’t okay, any of what she said. You’re not dual purpose. You're wonderful and perfect and the fact that you’re so good with the kid is just an up.”

      Your face flushed, “Thank you Mando, that means a lot.

      “I’m not just saying it [Name]. When you asked to come aboard full time it was such a relief, with how much the Thing likes you.”

      You smiled, reaching out to fix the collar of the baby’s robe, “Well I like him too, he happens to be my favourite little monster in the whole galaxy.” You looked up to your companion, “Don’t worry, you’re my second favourite.”

[andguesswhat]

The Fool on the Hill - Chapter 4

The secret behind the Two Gentlemen of Verona and the beginning of Lokius...

Their story on the Archive

Between the shelves

*

Tom’s fingers slid over the spines of the books along the shelves.

MayaAngelou...

William Blake...

Robert Frost...

Ah there we are Shakespeare's poems...

He took an edition of Shakespeare’s poems before 1640 out of the shelf and sat cross legged on the floor.

Camera and lights had to be relocated for the shoot in the library and Tom thought he might spend the break doing something useful.

“Sir?” he heard Owen’s voice imitating a stern security guard, “I’m afraid reading on the floor is prohibited. I have to ask you to get up immediately.”

Tom looked up to a smiling Owen and smiled back. “Why don’t you come down?”

And he did. Owen sat down, leaning at the book shelf opposite, his legs drawn up, smiling at Tom.

“So Shakespeare again?” his head pointed to the book Tom held in his hand.

Tom laughed softly. “Yes, the conversation yesterday got me thinking again.”

Owen nodded and smiled in amusement. “Maybe I get myself a copy of Hamlet to read before bed. What do you think?”

“Good choice, good choice,” Tom reassured him.

And he couldn’t help smiling either. They had been doing this a lot lately. Talking and constantly smiling at each other.

Owen leaned forward to search for the right book, his fingers now also sliding over the spines.

“Ah look at that!” He pulled out a copy of Two gentlemen of Verona and waved it in his hand.

“I read this in college. I always thought: this is about two bisexual guys, right? And the teacher was like,” he mimicked an older Brit, “oh no, this is Shakespearian English, it’s a bit different than you are used to, I guess. He was from England and wanted to show me that I as a stupid kid from Texas could not understand Shakespeare...”

“And oh how wrong they were about you...” Tom remarked and hoped, it didn’t sound like he was blushing.

He imagined Owen in high school and how he got underestimated just because of the way he was. Tom certainly would have loved being Owen’s friend back then.

Owen opened the book. “Aaah, I remember it now. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.” He looked at Tom. “That already sounded somewhat gay to me. All these sweet words they have for each other…”

Tom’s heart began to pound. He had been looking for the right moment to tell Owen.

He had talked with Owen about Loki before they began shooting and of course he had mentioned that Loki was bisexual. Owen had been surprised but not in a bad way. He had said something like “Okay, good for him.”

So Tom could assume that Owen wasn’t homophobic. But still, what would he say when he knew Tom was bisexual himself? And Tom even wondered about Owen himself?

Tom had the feeling that Owen was flirting with him. But Tom had flirted with his straight friends, too, so that could mean absolutely nothing. And he would hate it for the flirting to stop just because Owen was suddenly insecure about knowing Tom was bi.

So Tom just said, “Look, this is interesting as well,” and showed Owen the book with the poems. “These are the poems by Shakespeare. And this is an edition with the original text, where a lot of poems are directed to… men. And later they were published again by a publicist called John Benson. But he changed most of the pronouns from he and him to she and her.”

“Wow…that’s… outrageous! I didn’t even know that... You really know a lot of that stuff. Not just Hamlet.” Owen smiled at him. “Maybe we should start a new lecture, the Shakespeare lecture.”

Tom laughed in embarrassment. He knew he was a nerd and got on people’s nerves with this whole stuff.

“You know, I always could kinda relate to Shakespeare somehow.” Owen said, looking at him, intently. “I always felt we shared some similar… feelings. It felt somehow familiar.”

Tom felt a little dizzy hearing this.

He still could be misinterpreting this.

But he had heard Owen say that and he thought he just had to act on it.

So he looked a bit left and right to see if there was anyone near them and said, “I know what you mean, I always felt the same. Because he wrote for both, you know. For women and for men.”

He cried out inside. Why was this still so hard to just say it? He was 39 for Christ’s sake.

But he probably got it right after all, because Owen nodded slowly, his face all soft, his smile reassuring, knowing.

“It was nice, by the way, there at the table. I loved that," Owen said after a little pause. "That Loki would sleep in front of Mobius.”

Tom became a little embarrassed. “I just felt that it would fit. Because he trusts Mobius. That’s new for him. And there’s a scene later on with Sylvie where he says that he can’t sleep around people he can’t trust. So… I wanted this to match. I’m glad Kate went along with it.”

The look that Owen gave him was kind of mischievous…

“I think we should talk about the relationship between Loki and Mobius a bit more… dig a bit deeper. Because I think there is a lot to show that’s not necessarily in the script. You know I was lying in my bed yesterday, imagining Mobius lying in his bed, thinking about Loki. Yes, he’s obsessed with him but I think there’s so much more. He really cares for him, you know.”

And the way Owen said “he cares for him”, God, Tom’s heart immediately began racing again. And he thought he would burst. He felt so much joy and so much love and so much excitement that he was probably grinning like a clown.

Yes, they already talked about the relationship between Loki and Mobius a lot, how much these character could give to each other… but they hadn’t taken it to another level… yet. Honestly, when he first read the script, he didn’t see it either. But with Owen now here on set… it was getting better every day.

“I’d love that,” he said softly.

And Owen just smiled at him. And then something happened that Tom hadn’t expected. Owen leaned his head back on the shelf and began to talk quietly.

“You know, there was this boy. Charly. We were best friends, from a young age, you know sandbox friends. And we were doing everything together. And one day when we were like 9 or 10 or something he asked me ‘Should we kiss?´ like he would ask me `Wanna go for a ride?´, as if this was just something you just do with a best friend. So we kissed.” Owen smiled in memory of this. “And it was nice… It felt good… So now and then we would make out… And… a few years later he would ask me `Should be jerk off?´ and I again was like ´Why not´… so we jerked off together” He shook his head as if he himself couldn’t believe that really had happened. “So until we were 18 we pretty much did everything one could do in this… area. We had girlfriends from time to time. We were crazy about them. But with Charly… it felt always different, more like coming home, something you could always go back to. It was comforting. And all the time it felt like it was the most natural thing in the world.” He sighed and looked at the floor, lost in thoughts. “If there hadn’t been the people to tell you otherwise…”

Tom didn’t know how to breathe, didn’t know what to say. He was so overwhelmed about Owen’s endearing story, and the sadness behind it. And that he had shared it with him….

“TOOOM? OWEN??” Lea, the production assistant, was searching for them and calling their names until she finally found them between the shelves. “How should I find you here?” she reprimanded them. “It’s all set up!”

“Sorry…” Tom and Owen answered simultaneously and helped each other get up.

Owen straightened himself and turned to Tom.

“Meet me at section F for Fitzgerald at the next break?”

Tom laughed softly. “Sure!”

And while he said this, his heart fluttered in his chest excited about what would happen in section F.

*

[yelenasdog]

it was a pleasure to burn (spencer reid x fem bau!reader)

genre: fluff i think even though the name is v angsty LOL it’s a literal screenplay with the amout of dialogue i wrote LMAO so idk

summary: a particularly rough and disturbing case gets to reader, and spencer and reader are brought together by this.

words: just about 6k (my longest fic ahhHH)

warnings: typical criminal minds gore and violence just up a notch, they get on a plane at the end, somebody gets ~shot~, somebody gets ~bonked~, cursing, mentions of reid’s addiction, and i think that’s it. also the reader wears reading glasses but that’s the only predetermined factor of appearance. btw i don’t think i used any pronouns in this but i apologize if i’m wrong. 

a/n: LMFAO i was outside awhile ago celebrating litha with a nice lil hike and i saw a butterfly and i had just started watching cm and was like hMMm... killer who’s obsessed with symmetry??!1??!? y Es. enjoy 😼 EDIT: THERE IS SO MANY PLOT HOLES OMG FBREHJBFHEJFRE IM RBFBRE

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

Present Day, Central Park, New York

“Aren’t they just stunning?” The unsub spoke, keeping her eyes trained on the butterfly sitting happily on her finger. The brightly colored creature fluttered off her hand that was dripping scarlet, flying around her curly head of brown hair. Her, formerly white, blood-stained dress flowed around her as she followed it, watching in awe as it soared about. She giggled, plopping down on the grass in the middle of a circle of her victim’s pale, lifeless bodies, all of them with ironically morbid butterflies resting upon the frail skin of the corpses.

“Aren’t they, agents?”

She slanted her green eyes, gripping the grass a little harder. I flicked my tongue over my lips nervously, looking over to the lanky man on my left. He simply shrugged, just about as sure of how to handle the situation just as much as I was.

“If I knew you all were coming, I would have cleaned up, I really would have, I promise.”

We slowly walked towards her, twigs and leaves crunching under our feet. It could have been comparable to a hunter stalking its prey, but it unfortunately was quite the opposite.

6 days earlier, Quantico, Virginia

“3 bodies, all found within the last 48 hours in rural New York. So far, the first body has revealed that although it was dumped upstate, the victim was murdered in the city, and the same most likely goes for the other bodies as well. Nails well manicured, no drugs in the system. They aren't junkies, we’re dealing with upper class citizens.”

My face contorted as I took the photos from Reid’s hands, his large and tanned one surprising me by how soft it felt as it accidentally brushed against mine. I blushed like a madman, looking to see him doing the same thing. I cleared my throat getting Rossi’s attention.

“Why are we only now hearing of this?” I questioned, flipping through the images as I did so, my confusion only growing. I didn’t recieve an answer, leaving my curiosity to bloom.

“Wait, how did you say they were killed again?”

Morgan looked up, taking the photos from me. “He didn’t.”

I sighed, pushing my glasses up on my nose.

“Is there at least any correlation between the bodies and the butterflies?”

Our attention was shifted to JJ, the resident expert on the insects.

“Actually, the ones being found with the bodies are from the Amarynthis family, all native to Latin America. They weren’t there by accident so yes, they’re somehow related.”

Rossi stood up, grabbing his coat.

“Well, none of this is nearly enough for a profile, so pack your bags and tell the others, wheels up in an hour. We’re headed to New York.”

4 days earlier, F.B.I. Field Office, New York, New York

“The final report from the latest victim is in, all the autopsies are clean. They show no signs of struggles, no marks, no blood, no anything. The eyes weren’t bloodshot, so suffocation is ruled out, and that was our best bet.”

I sighed, sliding the case file across the glass table to Spence as I took my seat, sinking into it and allowing myself to be consumed by its warmth.

“So what your saying is that we’re back at square one.”

I looked up at Hotch from where I sat, running my hand through my ponytail.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

Just then, the young Doctor spoke up as he flipped through the pages.

“The eyes weren’t just not bloodshot, there was barely any blood left in any of the victims bodies, only about 3% of the volume left. The killer drained them.”

Morgan gave me a shocked expression, silently asking for an explanation.

“Which you failed to mention, Y/n.” Aaron spoke, agitation once again present in his voice.

I looked at the ceiling, crossing my arms in front of me before turning to face Hotch once more.

“Yeah, well, I thought it was obvious when I said no blood.” I stuttered out cautiously.

“On the bodies! Not in the bodies!” Morgan exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in what was in my opinion, very childish. Everyone else in the room aside from Spencer was either shaking their heads or pinching the bridge of their noses, and reasonably so.

“Look, I’m sorry I just didn’t see it in the report, plus, In the scheme of things, it just doesn’t seem to matter.”

I soon regretted my words, realizing how ill-fit they were for the current conversation I was having. Spencer looked up, tilting his head.

“Doesn’t seem to matter? How? There’s an endless amount of possibilities now that we know this. If we had known it sooner we probably could have figured out the pattern and caught the one doing this!” He harshly spewed, his voice acting like a crescendo of sorts, quiet and calm and moving towards a loud and violent tone. Tears began to prick at the corners of my eyes and I was starting to feel guilty, not to mention absolutely stupid as could be.

“I’m- I really am sorry guys, truly.”

Hotch locked eyes with me, taking a stern tone that one would usually take with a disobedient child, perhaps even Jack.

“I hope that’s a comfort to you when another body shows up. That’s their blood on your hands.”

I was frozen, the gravity of the situation taking its toll.

In the background I heard him say something to Morgan about a new profile having to be made as there were many new things to be known from this revelation. But it all went in one ear and out the other, just unpleasant white noise.

As I clumsily stumbled out of the room, I felt Reid’s eyes burning holes into the back of my brain. I was quick to turn my head to meet his glance, causing him to look down. I felt bad, the weight on my chest growing heavier from the interaction.

I sat down at my desk, turning on my computer and immediately going to google. I typed in “hypnosis” and let the info trickle in.

About 30 minutes later, I still felt absolutely horrible, but I had also put together a valuable profile in the time that had passed. I shut the newly finished file, blowing an abandoned strand of hair out from my eyes. I had to do a double take when I saw Spencer staring once more, his deep hazel eyes meeting my own. I gave him a small smile before standing up and walking to Hotch’s makeshift New York office. I pushed open the heavy door, placing the folder on his too-clean desk.

“What’s this?” He asked, taking it in his hands.

“My theory about the unsub. I think I know what she’s been doing. You can tell the team if you want, I’m not sure if they would wanna hear it from me. ”

He gave a small smile, pushing the file back over to me.

“You get the team together and I’ll get the local PD caught up. You tell them yourself.”

A few minutes later, everyone except for Reid had gathered in the meeting room. I peeked through the half closed blinds that allowed a line of vision to his desk in an attempt to locate him. He was positioned there, staring blankly at his laptop that appeared to have nothing on the screen. I knocked on the window lightly to catch his attention, his glazed over eyes looking in my direction. I tilted my head at him, silently beckoning him to join me. He only shook his in response, shaggy brown locks swaying back and forth. I sighed, frowning at his action. I turned to the group, clasping my hands in front of me.

“Everyone, this will just be a second if you’ll excuse me.”

With a raised eyebrow from Hotchner and a jab in the direction of Spencer’s workspace, I swiftly walked out of the crowded room.

“Spence, care to join us?” I asked, resting one of my hands against my hip, the other on his orderly desk.

“No, I don’t think I will. I need to try to figure this out before she finds her next victim.”

“What makes you think the unsub is a she?” I searched his eyes that had seemingly become brighter at my piqued interest in his hypothesis.

“Well, the unsub seems to be obsessed with symmetry, all the bodies being found in obscure yet symmetrical positions. This could suggest she had some sort of deep rooted insecurity, possibly from some sort of bullying from growing up in a small town where she was looked at as a superior for subpar looks. She moved to the big city, expecting a big break. Instead she was shunned for being less than average. She grew frustrated and as a result, she began her killing spree. The stresser could have been one too many insults that made her snap. Plus, that would account for the butterflies left on the scenes that are used in modern examples of both femininity and symmetry.”

I smiled widely at his words.

“What- why are you smiling, what are you smiling at?”

I tapped his desk, rolling my bottom lip between my teeth. I headed back towards the conference room, looking over my shoulder.

“Because, I’m glad we’re on the same page, Dr.”

——————

“So, our girl, as Dr. Reid has explained to us, is obsessed with her appearance. She’s an organized killer, no mistakes and no signs of blood or anything of the sort on scene. She has practice, she does this sort of thing every day. She is most likely in the age group of 23-30, and has a job in the cosmetic industry, our guess is in plastic surgery. She probably volunteers weekends at local butterfly sanctuaries or zoos, finding comfort in their perfection that those in her life, or formerly in her life, cannot and could not provide.”

“Which would explain to her easy access to non-native species of the insects. She has an absolute infatuation with symmetry, which yet again, links the butterflies on the crime scene to her MO.”

Spencer and I were vividly explaining our shared theory to the team, as well as local law enforcement. He was excited by his discovery and the lead on the killer, and his energy was contagious.

“She kills without remorse and out of jealousy, picking victims who all have one thing in common.”

Spence pointed to all of the images pasted on the board in the center of the room, all of them split in half and reflected, creating a perfect mirrored portrait.

“They all have perfectly symmetrical faces, as well as strong jawlines and high cheekbones. As most of these victims are models or those searching to start a modeling career, we believe she is luring them in with a photographer trope, promising to make their dreams come true.”

I nodded, taking a moment to study Reid’s own sharp yet somehow soft features. I allowed my eyes to wander over his sunken in, kind, and curious eyes; his pillowy pink lips that are in dire need of some chapstick.

“Agent?”

I turned my head, snapped back to reality by Rossi calling my name.

I gave a tight and quick smile, returning to the topic at hand and tactics to catch the unsub. But of course not before Emily gave me a crooked smile, resulting in me rolling my eyes.

“Physically, she’s nothing special, most likely a mundane appearance or one with quite obvious surgical changes. No in between. Check all of the plastic surgeon offices in the area for both employees who fit our description, as well as a patient who has gotten any serious facial mod operations. Do the same for any weekend volunteers at local zoos and animal sanctuaries, specifically working with any insects.”

It was an NYPD officer then that spoke up this time, raising her hand briefly.

“But, you still haven’t mentioned how she’s killing them?”

“Hypnosis.” Reid and I both spoke at the same time. He looked to his black Converse, sliding his hands into his pockets. I observed the room and all of the skeptical faces filling it.

“Even if it may sound far fetched, we saw no signs of anything that indicated a struggle or even any marks or wounds. This led us to believe that some form of hypnosis was used to allow her an easy kill. This means extra caution will have to be taken when actually handling the unsub. Even though we’re positive she’s using hypnosis, which method she is using to actually kill them after the fact is what we’re unsure of.”

I turned to Spencer, handing off the explanation to him.

“We think that because of her whole thing with symmetry, she wouldn’t want to disturb the natural state of the victims and their faces, even if she would do the same to her own.”

“Which means?” JJ asked, her blue eyes slanted and glossed lips left ajar.

“It means that the unsub wouldn’t want to leave any large marks like stab or gunshot wounds.” I nodded at Prentiss, who had made the assumption, confirming she was correct.

“With her presumed background in plastic surgery, we believe she was able to make small incisions that made no visible scars. We’re having the coroner look back over the bodies as we speak.”

“She drains the body’s blood 97% of the way before closing the holes up. What she does with the blood, we don’t know. Another Eddie Mays, perhaps.”

I looked over to Spencer, raising my brows at his comparison. He was quick to defend himself, shaking his hands left to right and mouthing “No” while simultaneously shaking his head the same way, something he seemed to be doing often as of late.

After we had finished consulting with any officers who had remaining questions, we branched off to conduct our own routine investigations. We found that the only thing they all had in common apart from the symmetrical faces, is that they all had visited the Central Park Zoo in the 24 hours before they were killed. We received a phone call from Garcia not long after we put together those pieces, being alerted that there was one girl who had, in her words, “Hit every mark there was to hit, sunshine.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

“Her name is Alessia Copelas, she works weekdays as a surgeon's assistant at Premier Cosmetic, and weekends at Central Park Zoo from 4-8 p.m.”

I smiled at the new info from the blonde bombshell known as Penelope, turning to Reid who was still looking at me quizzically.

“Alright, thanks babes, you’re the best.” I spoke into the phone, a comical “Mwah!” made from either side as we hung up.

He shook his head, keeping the odd look on his face.

“I swear, you guys have a weirder relationship than her and Morgan.”

I laughed, sliding my phone into my back pocket.

“Oh, please, Spence.” I gingerly placed a hand on his cheek, patting it twice.

“You’re just jealous.” I made a pouty face, letting my hand linger before walking off. “Come on, we’re going on a field trip.”

“Where to?” He asked, gripping the door frame, using it as leverage to swing himself closer to me. He took long and quick strides, catching up to me in no time.

“You like animals, right?”

———————

4 Days Earlier, Central Park Zoo, New York

As soon as we entered the zoo, our ears were filled with the sounds of the loud screeches of birds and monkeys alike. Reid covered his ears, cringing and making his displeasure known with an “Ahh!”

I smiled at his geeky behavior, admiring the animals in the enclosures. I paid special attention to a particularly impressive species of tarantula, leaning down to admire them. A few moments later I looked to my left and saw Spencer doing the same thing.

“Did you know that arachnids have asthma which is why they don’t run for extended periods of time, similarly to cheetahs?”

“Yes I did.”

His face scrunched up in an adorable manner, causing an involuntary giggle to fall past my lips.

“Well did you know that-“

“Ma’am?”

I turned to see a young woman with flaming red hair and a freckled face smiling at me, her green collared uniform top complimenting her eyes of a different shade wonderfully.

“Oh, hi, I’m Agent Y/l/n and this is Dr. Reid, we’re with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI.”

Her expression shifted to a more confused one, her smile not leaving her face.

“What can I do for you two?”

“Is there an Alessia Copelas that works here, maybe volunteers on the weekends?” Spencer asked, his puppy dog eyes immediately warranting a response.

“Yeah, she volunteers here, she seems nice. Is she helping with an investigation?”

“Well we think that she may have some part in a series of murders.”

Her smile disappeared this time, turning into a cement frown as panic flooded her body.

“Oh God, was she- Is she a killer? Have I been working with a killer for all this time? I mean, I never had any shifts with her but from what I heard I thought she was so sweet-“

“Look,”

Reid glanced down to her name tag that read “Lillian” before meeting her eyes. His tongue darted out, licking his lips, a nervous habit of his I’d picked up on.

“Lillian, we aren’t sure if she’s the killer we just needed to get a feel on her and get some information regarding her personal life.”

She started frantically nodding her head, more trying to convince herself she was okay rather than ourselves. I looked over her shoulder at some exhibits, thinking to myself how this would end up being a waste of our time if this poor girl couldn’t get a grip on herself.

I was soon proven wrong when I looked over to see a young girl wearing an identical uniform to Lillian, probably somewhere between 23 and 24. She had untamed chocolate locks with bangs that stopped just above the shoulder, blemishes covering her T-Zone, and a rounded face to go with it.

The cherry on top? Under her arm she carried a small enclosure with what appeared to be amarynthis meneria, the same butterflies found on the victims.

I tapped Reid on the shoulder once as discreetly as possible, catching his attention. I heard him mutter a small “Oh God” before he told Lillian to walk away calmly and quickly. She ignored his request, turning to look at Alessia, letting out a blood curdling scream and sprinting the other direction.

“Shit.” I cursed, beginning to walk towards Alessia, Spencer by my side. I smiled at her, trying to appear friendly. Reid spoke up as we got closer.

“Hello, do you by any chance-“

wham!

“Spence!” I exclaimed, reaching down to help him up from where he had fallen from being whacked by the 4’2 pyscho that was Alessia Copelas.

“Did she get away?”

I turned to see her gone, the only sign she was even here being the forming bruise on the Dr’s face.

“Yeah. She did. I’m sorry, Reid, that was really stupid of me.” He shook his head, running his own hand over the raw skin.

“It’s fine, I would have done the same for you.” He looked up, and I wasn’t sure if it was my school-girl esque crush on him or the fact I just had another experience with a serial killer, but my heart was racing nonetheless.

————————

F.B.I. Field Office, New York, New York, 1 Day Earlier

The stress levels in the room were high.

Despite our best efforts, several more bodies had been found, New York’s narcissists were in a state of panic, and the spirits of the BAU were down to say the least.

“What? Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed, looking at Hotch in disbelief.

He rolled his chocolate eyes, fanning the folder containing the new information we had gathered on Alessia.

“I wish I was, Y/n. She’s off the grid completely, her apartment is empty, phone and credit cards have been deactivated, and the surgeon’s office hasn’t heard from her for 5 days. And the media has decided to give her the name ‘Butterfly Baron’, so she’s probably been fueled even further. We need a new lead before she strikes again.”

I scoffed, standing up and pushing my chair away.

“This is unbelievable. How many times do we have to reinforce the idea to local PD! Especially when the unsub is a self absorbed psycho, do not give them a name! God, I really cannot fathom this.”

I reached up, letting my hair down from where I had messily thrown it up upon my arrival to work that morning.

I stormed out of the room, my heels clicking behind me. I ignored Hotch’s calling of my name, making my way to the closest restroom.

I went in, locking the door behind him. I ran my hands through my roots, tugging just enough to where it hurt.

Turning the water to the left all the way, I splashed it from the stream leaving the faucet on to my face. I scratched my fingernails against the skin, wiping away the tears that had escaped.

“This is all your fault, y/n.” I whispered at myself in the mirror, doing my absolute best to engrain the message in my brain. I had my head hung in shame when a knock rang out.

“Y/n?”

It was Spencer. My mind started going a million miles a minute, thinking about why he could be there. With my voice raised a few octaves, I tried to scrape up a response.

“I’ll be out in a few, Spence.”

It was quiet for a split second, leaving me to foolishly dance around the idea that he had left me to wallow in my sorrowful thoughts.

“Y/n, Hotch wanted me to check on you. Are you ok?”

My heart slightly sank at the idea that he might’ve just come to check on me because he himself was worried. I discarded the thought, bringing myself back.

“Y/n can you please answer me? If you don’t open the door I’m gonna send in JJ or Emily.”

I sighed, wiping under my eyes where my mascara had smudged, begrudgingly walking over to the door. Just as my hand landed on the silver handle, his voice that was constantly playing in my head echoed out once more.

“Y/n, please? I need to know you’re okay. I’ll come in there myself.”

A soft smirk graced my face as I turned the handle to reveal a worried looking Spencer.

“Y/n, oh God, you had me worried.”

He was quiet when he spoke and his hair looked messy, like he had been running his slender fingers through it in a stress filled state.

I sniffled, attempting to still keep back tears that were still threatening to spill.

“I’m alright, Spencer. Really, I’m fine.”

He gave me a small smile, his eyes meeting my own.

“I know, it’s just that when I had my Diludad problem,” he hesitated.

“I would lock myself in bathrooms to shoot up, and I know you aren’t having a problem like that but I just was worried about you- what are you doing?”

I cut off his rambling by throwing my arms around his middle. He tensed, but quickly melted. He wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders and my waist, laying his head on mine.

“Y/n, I promise you, you’re doing your absolute best to stop Alessia. We wouldn’t even be where we are right now if you hadn’t made the connections. Those deaths are not your fault.”

My tears finally began to cascade like a waterfall, staining his shirt.

“I know, but it’s just like it is all my fault! I could have paid closer attention, or-or, I could have went after her at the zoo, it’s all my fucking fault, Reid.”

I sobbed into his shirt, my hand gripping his shirt like my life depended on it. Like if I let go I would fall into a deep, deep, endless hole.

His hand on my waist moved up to cradle my head.

“It’s not, I promise you-“

He was cut off mid sentence by the ringing of his phone.

“I am so, so sorry-”

I pulled away, breifly touching under my nose with my wrist, then moving a hair behind my ear.

“Nope, it’s fine, don’t worry.” Our words almost had overlapped each other as we clambered to fight the tension that had risen. I closed my eyes, tilting my head up, thinking about how unprofessional yet intimate our previous position had been. How wrong, yet how right it felt.

I kept running the moment through my head, the feeling of his warm figure encasing mine on replay.

His phone call played as background noise to the film playing in my brain, his voice calming me to an extent.

“Yeah, we’re on our way. Thanks, Morgan.”

He closed the phone with a snap, also snapping me out of my trance, putting the movie on pause.

“They’ve got a hit. Copelas was seen dropping by her old apartment.”

And for the first time since that Goddamn case had started, I smiled genuinely.

“Let’s go get her.”

————————

15 Minutes Prior, Central Park, New York

“Hotch?”

“Yes?” He looked back from where he was driving, following our lead in a rushed manner.

“What will we do if she...” I trailed off.

“Hypnotizes one of us?” He finished for me. I nodded solemnly.

The look on his face was conflicted and it took him a moment to come up with a response.

“We kill her before we have to kill one of our team members.”

He saw a look of uncertainty on my face and spoke up once more.

“And that’s an order.”

I nodded again, making eye contact with him through the rear view mirror. I fell back into my seat, closing my eyes briefly.

After a few more minutes on the road, we had arrived.

The doors all slammed to the SUVs, one after the other as we stepped out.

“The letter said that she would be here, somewhere here.”

The voice of Morgan was channeling through my earpiece, referring to the letter found at her apartment that she had left just for us.

“We ordered evac on citizens, correct?”

The unsure voice of JJ was also heard through the earpiece, her uncertainty quite unusual to hear.

“Yes, it was the first thing we did, Jayj.”

I whispered, a sly smirk from Spencer forming at my behavior.  

“Oh shut up.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”

snap!

Our senses adapted, becoming dialed to 11 at the sound of a twig snapping under someone's feet.

“Was that you?” I mouthed to Spencer. He shook his head no and I silently cursed to whatever force was listening.

I nodded, which he then reciprocated, the pair of us slowly walking towards the source of the sound after he did.

“They’re going to remember me, I’ll go down in history.”

The voice was sing-songy and quiet, floating through the air. I took a shaky breath, continuing my steady pace.

My breathing momentarily halted soon after.

Different variations of “Oh my God”s, and loud gasps from almost everyone on the team flooded my ear canal at the horrifying sight in front of us.

Red. So much of it.

“Guys, I think we know what she’s been doing with the bodies’ blood.”

“No shit.” I muttered under my breath.

She was bathed in the blood, it looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Alright everyone, I want you to approach her as quietly as possible, Morgan, if you get the chance, corner her.”

Hotch’s voice was a stark contrast to her own, Derek’s response all the same.

—————————

Present Day, Central Park, New York

“But Agents, you still haven’t answered my question. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Alessia Copeleas, FBI, come on, get up, lets go.”

Derek’s voice was stern, not asking, but demanding that Alessia come with us.

“I’m afraid I just can’t do that, Agents.”

She stood up abruptly, causing all of our weapons to rise. The sun reflected off of the silver metal of Reid’s gun, sparkling in a stunning way that caught me off guard.

We all were trying to act as if we were in total control of the situation, but we could tell that us nor Copelas really believed that. Her words were her weapon, and this was the one time where words could hurt, but sticks and stones had virtually no power.

“Take another step and we will have no hesitation to fire.”

She smirked, rolling her eyes.

“If you do, will I be famous you think? You think they’ll hear about me back home?”

Her curls softly blew in the wind, making her appear almost harmless, maybe even endearing, if it wasn’t for the hardening coat of human blood soaking her clothes and seeping from her skin.

“Is that what you want? The kids back home and everyone here to hear about you? You want ‘Butterfly Baron’ written on every billboard in Times Square, your picture painted in museums, films to be made in your honor?” Reid was the one who spoke up this time, his voice remaining strong. Her eyes shone with a sickening excitement at what he said.

“You want to be famous?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Too bad.”

My eyes widened, surprised at the detour the conversation had taken.

“What-what do you mean?”

“Please, the only thing people will hear about is a sad, boring little girl from a small town who killed to feel better about herself. They’ll forget about you in a week, who knows, maybe they’ll even grow an infatuation with your town, someone you went to school with may get as lucky as to catch their big break!” He laughed, while Alessia looked absolutely devastated.

“You? You’ll be a nobody.”

“That’s not true! I’ll go down in history, and they won’t! I’m the fucking butterfly baron for hells sake! All these people?” She gestured towards her field of bodies.

“You won’t remember their names, maybe not even their pretty faces, but me? I’ll live forever.”

Her nostrils flared and she strode over to Reid with purpose. The safety on my glock clicked off, but Spencer motioned for me to wait. So I did.

“You know, Agent-“

“It’s Doctor.”

This visibly agitated her even more as she started her sentence over again.

“Doctor, you have a beautiful bone structure. Absolutely perfect. Symmetrical, not to mention just flat out stunning.”

A glaze formed over Spencer’s honey eyes at her words. He lowered his gun momentarily before turning towards me, Copelas doing the same.

“And you, Agent. Wow. I feel like I’m in an art exhibit, you’re gorgeous. I think the Doctor man here would agree.”

As he lifted his revolver at me, the situation became all too real as I understood what was happening.

I either had to shoot the man that I was struggling to admit I was beginning to love, or died at the hands of the very same man.

Tears flooded my eyes, all safeties were turned down, and all guns were pointed at Reid.

“Spence, please.”

My voice was weak, something that seemed to bring Alessia lots of joy.

She laughed before talking again, commanding Spencer.

“Pathetic, really! Spence”, she mocked,“shoot her.”

“No!”

bang!

whack!

--------------------- 

Present Day, Somewhere In The Sky, The Jet

I opened my eyes from where I had been tackled to the ground by Hotch, surveying my surroundings to see Alessia laying on the grass, the source of her gunshot wound non-distinguishable from the previous blood on her body.

I looked to the right to see where Spencer had crumpled to, his frame bent in a discombobulated position.

“Spencer!” I cried out, crawling over to him like some sort of dog,

“What happened to him?”

“Y/n, he was going to shoot you-“

“I don’t care you should have let him!”

I cradled his head in my lap, allowing my pent up tears to fall.

“Y/n?”

My eyes snapped open for real this time, my mind calmed at the sight of Spencer sitting next to me on the couch, gently shaking my shoulder in an attempt to wake me from my nightmare.

“Spencer! Sorry, was I too loud?”

He chuckled, gesturing to the rest of the sleeping plane around us.

“You’re fine, I wasn’t sleeping, I decided to reread ‘Fahrenheit 451’ for nostalgia purposes. And you weren’t that loud, you just looked like you were having a bad dream.”

I chuckled at the not-so outlandish idea in an attempt to diminish it from his mind and move on.

“I’m fine. But fun fact, I did have nightmares after reading ‘The Veldt’. Seriously, I don’t get how you can just reread Bradbury’s stuff all the time.”

The genius scoffed, starting a rant on how Ray Bradbury’s storytelling was just classic literature and deserved to be reread, thus successfully changing the topic as I hoped my statement would. Although soon after, he caught on much quicker than I would have liked him to.

“And not to mention, The Veldt alone could be seen as a forewarning to the 21st century and beyond, even Bradbury himself supported that interpretation-‘

I gave him a tired smile, enjoying his rambling like I always did.

“-and you totally just got me to change the subject.”

“I was wondering when you were gonna catch up.”

“Hey!”

He laughed as I rested my head on my hand, trying to fall back asleep.

“Really, I can tell those nightmares are bad. What’s going on?” He questioned, his tone empathetic and compassionate.

“It’s nothing, Reid. I just keep seeing in the park, when Alessia got shot and you-you got hurt but instead of getting up like you did in real life, you just…”

I trailed off, not wanting to relive the negative dream any longer for fear of the tears that were pricking my eyes escaping.

“It’s okay, that didn’t happen, I’m right here.”

He pulled me into a hug, allowing me to bury my head in the crook of his neck, his warmth consuming me once more, a sequel to the film from earlier.

“I know, but what if it hadn’t?” I asked as I pulled away.

He shook his head, reaching for his wallet.

“In this job, this course of work, we can’t focus on ‘what if’s’. In this job, we also get nightmares, all of us. It happens.”

He slid a picture over to me, it was of a happy family. The edges were worn from years of being carried, but the picture seemed loved.

“Gideon gave me that when my nightmares started. He told me about how those families we save everyday, and how that’s what makes what we do worth it. And I know you didn’t know Gideon personally, or the work on the specific case with that family, but I want you to have it anyway-“

I cut him off by throwing my arms around his neck, attempting to speak despite being muffled by his fluffy sweater.

“Thank you, Spence. Truly.”

I smiled, and I imagined he was doing the same.

“No problem y/n. Anytime.”

I moved my legs over to be tucked underneath my arms, leaning into Reid. He wrapped his arm around me, also leaning in. We both managed to fall asleep for the remainder of the ride in our state of content, but not before he managed to sleepily call out my name.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“When we land do you wanna go on a date or somethin’?”

I smiled at him, separating from his form just long enough to see that beautiful face of his.

“Without a doubt.”

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

AHAHAHHAHAHAHA I’M WAY TOO HAPPY WITH THAT LMAOOO but anyway chile- 

i don’t have some long ass paragraph to write this time omg wig, i’m just proud asf of my work for once (except for the zoo part ngl kinda didn’t like it😳) 

😛✨vibes✨ love u, xx hj

[fanmoose12]

I am not over it. I am SO not over IT. I read the SNK manga YEARS ago when it was only chapter 100 and one day I had the dumb idea to continue that shit. I am not PLEASED and Hanji's death UTTERLY WRECKED ME, someone who wasn't even a Hanji Stan!! reading the manga made me fall in love with her quiet determination, leadership skills, and sense of duty when before I was more of an Armin type of girl? She just. won me over. and her death was NOT OKAY. I CRIED while saying no no nO NOOO OH MY GOD -

and it TORE ME APART and she was the only person in my mind ever since and I couldn't read the manga in the same nonchalant way ever again. i'm sorry i promise im getting somewhere! it legit ruined my moods and made me so sad all the time IT WAS THAT BAD and i started hating eren with absolute passion. Idek where to start? How her death was pointless & nobody gave a fuck?? and Levi thought of FRICKING ERWIN instead of Hans & I wasnt even a Levihan shipper it doesnt make SENSE! He just LOST HANS

-- and all he can think about is FUCKING ERWIN. come on MAN, and she parented the 104th even REINER had more emotions than these mfers. Everyone is alive EXCEPT HER, like onyakapon and even yelena, minor characters, it just feels so UNFAIR, i'm not mad abt death, i breathe angst like it was chocolate it was just so pointless and meaningless and no one even grieves, especially Levi who was closest to her. there was just no room for her in the plot anymore and thats what makes me pissed -

- not bc it was her time, but bc she ran out of uses to the plot and like in GOT where the character is smarter than the author. not only that, she was made so powerless and pathetic and she felt so useless and she died like that. where's the justice? the character arc? right she was there Just to Save Levi :// it's like that quote from gone girl - "the world will know that [man] threw his beloved wife like garbage, and she floated past down all the other abused, unwanted, INCONVENIENT, women"

(sorry for the fem pronouns, i'm all abt anime hange here). and its not like she wasnt a fan favorite, she's top 3 of the last character poll. just bc shes not levi and eren and armin. and cmon. yams had to nerf and minus 100 out of her iq for the INSANE plan of fucking zeke and the yeagerists, can you BELIEVE she trusted and was OUTSMARTED by ZEKE, who legit massacred the survey corps, even though SHE HAD THE SAME LEVEL OF IQ?? but noooo, plot reasons!! shes not eRwIn, what you expect 🙃

im upset, not bc my fav character died but bc it was meaningless (if falco can fly, why tf didnt he do that in the first place) and hollow in logic and in emotion. maybe snk's lesson to us is life is unfair and we should suck it up. it wasn't well earned & yams wrote hanji in a corner, like (again) in GOT where no matter what daenerys chose she was wrong. sorry i dumped all this to you!! if you're still here, thank you for listening to my month long pent up emotions, im still really sad about it

- and idk how to let go? but your writings have definitely made me feel better, it just comforts me like Levi to a bottle of bleach. thank you for still writing!!! about an anime girl in a fictional world and still delivering more emotion than the original author. my heart definitely feels better these days, though it still aches bc she deserves so much better & didnt deserve whatever the fuck she was given, thank you for championing hanji zoe rights! im 99% sure she wont be revived -

but she lives on in your writings and other fanfiction authors and artworks and i'm just so grateful we have a community like this, honestly im just glad you're here :) keep doing what you do and i hope you're safe and warm & healthy!! also to every hanji stans out there one fucking day when we love a character the author wont rip our hearts and throw it to the garbage, im so so sorry for my long long ask but if i could request maybe eren apologizing to hanji inpaths or when she got captured or

or when she died or you choose!! i saw this art by @siroyuki 2015 in twitter where he's hugging her and shit, you should check it out it gave me feels!! i just want her to be loved and appreciated :((( again thank you so much if you made it this far! im sorry if you're annoyed or smthn HHAHAHA i promise this is the last! thank you for your service to humanity we stan 💪😩👌💕💞 

ah don’t you let canon frustrate you, it doesn’t matter anyway :D like you saud, we still have fics and fanarts

however, yeah, i do kinda feel you :/ like the way yams keeps glossing over hange's death is actually a bit weird? like i know they're at war and i know that they have no time for grieving etc but the kids were literally bawling their eyes when hange died but no mention of her sacrifice at all after that? like in 136, gabi said that they should stop the rumbling to repay azumabito's kindness and that's ummmmmmm.... a little bit weird. sure, gabi is a little girl with no connection to hange but reiner, jean and connie were there, when gabi said that and they saw hange’s sacrifice, so why not say something like “yeah, we can’t let commander hange’s sacrifice go to waste?” like come on. what did azumabito do? let falco transform on the board of her ship, so now she travels on a boat? i don't think that can compare to hange's acts though. she literally brought these mfs who were ready to jump at each other's throat together and then she sacrificed her own life to give them yet another chance at success. a sacrifice that was proved to be utterly meaningless in the very next chapter? why did falco learn about his ability to fly only after hange died? why didn't he discover it upon first transformation? :/

oh, and speaking of hange's character arc? like i get it, she was depressed, she struggled with her role as a commander (even though she did everything she could and she did a damn good job at it). and i guess that this plotline was kinda resolved when she heard that erwin approved of her actions? and that's cool, if what we've seen was actually an afterlife and not hange's hallucination. because if it was indeed a product of her mind then that's, um, kinda depressing bro. hange was so desperate for someone's approval that she dreamed about it while literally dying. i just don't understand why yams didn't include a scene where kids tell her how much they respect her and what an honor it was to serve under her command or SOMETHING. but as it is, hange died, thinking she was weak and useless and, um, yeah, certainly not the end you want for your favorite character :)

so yeah, hange's death was kinda meaningless and pointless - it didn't serve the plot whatsoever + it could have been very easily avoided 

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

@theeyethatbinds​ Girl SING IT. SING IT LOUDER FOR THE GIRLS IN THE BACK, SWEAR TO GOD.

Like I’m gonna be real wit y’all I was looking forward to le Comte for a while, but I was always side-eyeing Jeanne. He’s a blunt hermit and grump and 100% mood, so I hoped his route would give me more insight into how I feel about him.

Ladies. When I tell you. It was EXCELLENT. I mean there are so many gr9 routes in the game, I don’t want to take away from them, but there was just something about his that hit me so hard???? (MY KOKORO BROKORO)

More under the cut since his route won’t be out for a little while (we still got Isaac, then Theo, then Jeanne), as a little treat. As usual, pls don’t read if you don’t want spoilers, thanks!

Okay so going into this route I was fully expecting the big sads. I mean, if history has taught us anything it was that Joan D’Arc was a badass but good lord, that doesn’t mean the people of her time were kind to her. (I need to do more thorough research on her, so if I’m getting any of her pronouns wrong or neglect something, I do apologize.)

That being sad, I was like aight DECK MY SHIT WITH TRAGEDY, JEANNE. And at the beginning it’s p fascinating. He’s very ornery and resistant to any kind of consideration or attempts at friendship MC extends. But eventually, after a good deal of persistence, he relents little by little.

I’d also like to level with y’all for a sec. Being someone who knows a great deal in regards to the kinds of mental and emotional shit Jeanne struggles through, I think they handled that part of the route so, so well. Granted, I’m not the kind of person to launch a crusade over different writing styles--but for me it just feels all the more poignant when it makes sense; when certain dispositions or trauma are conveyed with that depth. To me, it made 100% sense that Jeanne would be so against accepting other people into his life immediately.

He and Mozart vibe because they’re so similar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s comfortable letting just anyone in--much less a complete stranger. I think it’s more that Mozart and Jeanne share a kind of indelible bond/mutual recognition through their talent, actually. They were both prodigies, absolute geniuses in their fields (military vs. music) but their social skills were shot to hell for the very same reason. To be brilliant--beyond one’s potential posthumous legacy--tends to mean being hated. Plus, they’re both principled to absolute extremes. When they’ve decided on something, they will not waver. They’re stubborn and austere, but behind those walls lies a molten core of sensitivity.

This is important to understanding him, I think, before I move forward.

While one could argue that their reaction is a result of that deficiency of emotional and social support (which I entirely concede does contribute to the matter at hand, it shouldn’t be overlooked) I think the real crux of the matter here is control. Think about it. Among the oldest residents in the mansion (let’s say that were born more than 100 years within the range of the present period of the game) are Mozart, Jeanne, Isaac, and Shakespeare. What do they all have in common?

Extremity. For Mozart, it comes in the form of a kind of OCD, as perfectionism. For Jeanne, it is generalized anxiety and PTSD. For Isaac, it is primarily social anxiety--but it’s still noticeably severe. And Shakespeare runs around with a knife, insecurity through the roof, literally unable to trust anything or anyone (psychosis? schizoaffective? I’m really not sure, these are all ballpark assessments based on the evidence I have). In order to adjust to their new surroundings, there was a cost--and in some ways their coping mechanisms become noticeably maladaptive. They were born into eras that were mercilessly unpredictable, and the only way they knew how to cope was to was to either take the blame--make it a personal failing that tragedy struck--or try to immerse themselves into their craft. They all seek to regain some kind of control (this is even visible in Vincent, to a degree--painting was an escape from his emotionally turbulent world).

Granted that’s not to say that the others don’t struggle with such issues at all, I just feel like the characters from more unstable time periods tend (as a general trend) to mirror that instability within their personalities.

All that being said, (I apologize I am a tangent-monger and love meta), Jeanne’s self-imposed isolation is only partially caused by the above dynamic. Yes, he is unwilling to let people into his heart for fear of betrayal. (It’s almost like an entire nation clamoring to watch you burn for something you didn’t do after spending your entire life and talents trying to protect them would do that to you, but I digress >:| ). But there’s another devastating and potentially less obvious reason for keeping people out.

He thinks he deserves it.

Loneliness, melancholy, aimlessness. These are all the punishments that he incurred on himself after a life of what he conceives to be considerable sin (hahaha battlefield enemies go ripppp). Whether or not he was operating purely out of a sense of duty, even if he felt sympathy for his enemy combatants, it’s not enough. And the condemnation of his king, of his entire nation, only served to magnify that self-loathing to a dangerous degree. (Don’t get me started on his parents I’m still so angry >:| they more or less disowned him since he was constitutionally weak as a young boy, and thus could not serve as an adequate farmhand. Don’t work? Don’t eat/live).

It’s hard enough living in a reserved way because you’re afraid of getting hurt, but to think that you deserve it when hurt finds you, no less? And my favorite part, that he’s so profoundly sure that it is an extension of a personal, fundamental failing? That for a person to survive, they must be strong, that there can be no other way--that there is no time or space for ruminations on fairness or unfairness, there are only those who manage to survive and those who die.

Now my friends, esteemed comrades, legendary sluts. Is that enough for us, Cybird asks, are we feeling enough pain quite yet? Fuck no.

Most of his route after we get over the hurdle of his hesitation is just him. Being. Bashful and gentle as all FUCK. Like he is the definition of “I'll kill you, but also I’m babie.” For instance, she insists on teaching him how to read and write at night when she finds him trying (and not succeeding) to read “The Ugly Duckling”. Yes I mean the children’s book. I CRIED THE FIRST TIME AND I’M CRYING NOW. So, naturally, MC buys him a notebook to practice with and he puts his name in big letters on the front. When MC sees this, she asks him about it--wondering why he would given he’s so self-conscious of his own writing (boy writes all squiggly like a little kid because he’s never done it before ;-;).

The scene goes a little something like this:

MC: Wh....whatcha go there Jeanne? Jeanne: ? My notebook? MC: I...mean that you wrote your name on it? Jeanne: Yeah? MC: Why? Jeanne: ._. It was a gift from you, and I figured it'd be hard to practice if I lost it...so I put my name on it... (HE WAS SECRETLY TOUCHED I BET AND IM--) MC: Why such big letters? Jeanne: So people can spot it quickly, obviously MC, inches from crying and laughing: Jeanne: Mademoiselle??? Why are you laughing? MC: Because you’re cute, Jeanne!

Like. They start out so rocky and Jeanne is so SIGH. I guess I’ll agree if it’ll get her to stop looking so sad and ask me to join her for stuff. But then he just can’t help but go full softe at how patient and kind she is, starts feeling comfortable just...being who he is deep down. A man that’s always hoped for better in life, a person that only ever takes up his sword to protect--that has an incredibly pure and clear heart, despite so much pain.

And good lord, they are GOD TIER romantic slow burn???? Swear to everything holy, I was BEGGING for them to make out by like chapter 10, I was just suffering for most of the route until the bangarang premium. Here’s probably my favorite moment in the entire route:

Basically Sebastian and Mozart pull out all the stops trying to bring Jeanne and MC together (once they see Jeanne show some interested in her). And so Jeanne asks her to join him in the courtyard the next morning, and they’re playing with Cherie (Jeanne’s pet baby white tiger). Besides being ungodly adorable--because Jeanne invited her for the sole purpose of hoping to see her delightfully surprised--Mozart begins to play a love song nearby. They don’t name the tune, but Jeanne canonically starts singing along (I wholeass cried, I WANT TO HEAR HIM SING????). And so she asks what the song is about, and he explains that Mozart once played it for him, but he couldn’t make out the words at first. Mozart explained that it was a love song that speaks to the difficulties of being in love (the worry, the strife) but also the beauty of the intensity and passion. He goes on to say that even when he learned the words, it never made much sense to him back then--it never resonated.

He’s singing softly with a fond look, and so she asks, does he understand it now? And he looks her dead in the eye, and says “...I think I’m starting to.” Like. AM I SUPPOSED TO NOT LOSE MY MIND AT THE TENDERNESS????? WHAT A SMOOTH MOFO????? MAN RAISED TO BE A SOLDIER, NO KNOWLEDGE OF ROMANCE OR WOMEN, AND KILLS ME IN MILLISECONDS?????? I DEMAND JUSTICE. (Or it’s just me thinking sincerity is the best aphrodisiac, but that’s beside the point.)

This has been your quarantine 2d boy meta and yelling, provided by your local mod Minnie. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get to the things I’ve been procrastinating on while reliving/dissociating about one of my favorite rts in the entire game. Stay safe and well out there y’all, peace out!

[cherry-ber]

“You’re a little much for me”

A.N: So i disappeared for a month again and I honestly don’t know what I’m doing

Pairing: Lee Taeyong x female reader (I’m sorry i literally couldn’t avoid the pronouns) kinda Jaehyun but ???

Genre: ANGST kinda but idk if it should be called that 

Warning: I know I said it was angst but really I just wrote words so it’s actaully very bad. Mentions of a dependant relation, smoking, but i didn’t develop any of it properly. Not readproof but i needed to psot something tbh.

Plot: I honestly don’t even know what the fuck i did here but Taeyong gives too much of himself for the girl he loves even when she won’t see. (None of this makes sense, actually, but pretend it made you sad somehow idk don’t read this rly)

Tears fell from her cheeks as she walked back home. Her feet hurt inside her shoes, she purposely wore them to look better even though she regretted it as soon as she walked a mile. Clouds gattered threatening to rain when she less expected it. Her heart ached in a particular way, and for a moment she really thought she might die from sadness. 

Around her, groups of people walked together, laughing and couples would pass her by holding hands. Her hands were shaking as she looked for a cigarette in her purse, and took the lighter out of her pocket. She promised herself she wouldn’t smoke again, but that wouldn’t be the first promise she had broken today. Her phone rang, a text message from someone that she wouldn’t want to hurt by replying in a bad mood. 

She felt dumb crying in the streets, grateful that she made everyone too uncomfortable to ask if everything was alright. The truth was that she wasn’t, she felt her life was falling apart, piece by piece, knowing perfectly well all that she was doing wrong, yet unable to do something to fix it. She felt like she was spiraling down to hit rock bottom, and she was hoping that as soon as she did, she’d have enough strenght to overcome what was going on. 

Usually, she would call her boyfriend, but he was exactly the problem. Jaehyun was an amazing friend, beloved by her friends and family, a caring human and the best son to his parents, but he didn’t know how to be an okay boyfriend. He wasn’t a bad person, but he didn’t know how to be good to her. 

He’d often excuse himself saying that settling down wasn’t in his plans, but he tried for her, and he expected her to understand and forgive him when he screwd up because she was a lot to deal with, like today, when she found him kissing another lady, she felt her heart breaking when he saw her too and played the “I didn’t mean you to see this and I’m sorry for that” card that he had use too much before followed by “I can’t handle you sometimes so it’s okay for me to do this”. She knew she loved him too much, she knew that he had hurted her too much this time, though. 

“You know what? I literally can’t stand you this days, it’s not my fault you’re dependant, I don’t even love you anymore, I just can’t leave you because maybe you’ll kill yourself and then I’ll be the bad guy”

“You’re already the bad guy, Jaehyun” “I’m not, you’re overwhelming, you’re too much, I don’t know how I’ve been dealing with your shit for so long” Deffinitely not what you’d want to hear from your boyfriend of 3 years, but deep down she felt sorry for him, he was right, she was overwhelming, she was annoying and she was a little too much for anyone, even for herself, sometimes. 

The phone rang again, you noticed it was a call and hesitantly picked it up. 

“Can  I see you tonight?”

“I’m not in the mood tonight”

“Please” he was pouting on the other side of the line “I’m outside already”

She ran as fast as she could, knowing that he never joked about being outside, not wanting him to be alone when it was about to pour, It was funny how much she cared about others too much, even when she wouldn’t care about herself. At least she knew he cared about her too, he was the person he truted the most. 

Taeyong could read her like a book, he knew every breath of hers meant something, he knew something was wrong just by the way she walked, even when she greeted him with a wide smile. And she knew that he could never hide anything from him, she knew he would always be there for her, so pretending that everything was fine was pointless, she broke down when they were infront of eachother, he gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. Her teardrops wetting his clothes enough to mistake them from the raindrops, that couldn’t chose a more dramatic moment to fall. After a moment she was able to take her keys and they came into her cold apartment, the only thing that made that place be cozy, though, was her presence.  “You smell like cigs again” He looked concerned, she quitted smoking some months ago, and they were both proude, it was sad that she went back to it again “Do you want to talk it out?”

“Not really” she boiled some water for tea and brought cookies to him “It was awful, it tastes like shit, I don’t miss it at all” 

“I’m glad you don’t” he hated to ask but he knew he had to “How was your date?”

Her eyes watered immediately at the scene of him with someone else, and she didn’t want to hear what Taeyong had to say about it. 

“It was alright, I  guess”

“Good”

He felt awkward around her, no matter how cool he played it, he was weak for her smile, he could’t help his heart from beating too fast when she spoke, he knew how to hide it from her, but everyone else could notice the way he felt, even her boyfriend, which was the main reason that they hated eachother. 

“Can we go to my room and cuddle?” Sometimes she left him speechless, for a long time he wondered if she knew and that was the reason that she gave him mixed signals, but he came to the realization that she was too nice to ever do that, she was just too friendly “Or whetever, honestly, I could use some sleep”  “I was planning on watching this movie I got recommended, but sure” he followed her to her room, she crawled into the bed and patted next to her, when he layed next to her, he felt joyful and it took her a little to fall asleep. Taeyong felt complete next to her, he wanted to have her like that forever, and he wondered how many times Jaehyun had the chance to sleep with her before, bitter again because he knew he’d never have her. 

It only took him five minutes to fall asleep too, only to be woken up by her phone ringing like crazy. She stood up and picked up too quickly when she read it was Jaehyun calling. 

“I’m sorry, babe, I shouldn’t have say that, you know I loove you”

“I love you too, Jae”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow and make it up to you, how about that?” 

She knew, somehow, he was with someone else, she could feel it, she knew he meant nothing of what he was saying, but she decided to believe it anyway”

“You’re the best, I’ll see you tomorrow”

Those words shouldn’t have hurted Taeyong as much as they did, but it happened every time, she’d be “over him” and he’d think about confessing, and then Jaehyun would call her, because he was just as dependant as she was, he was too selfish to let her go, but not interested on her at all. Jaehyun liked to know he’d have her whenever he wanted to, without doing much to have her, he liked knowing someone needed him as much as she did, somehow. 

Taeyong loved too hard, and he knew he was unable to move on, he knew he’d always love her, no matter how many times she made him feel like he was not enough. It was funny how he got hurted everytime but he came back for more, that’s why he couldn’t blame her for loving Jaehyun too much. He wondered if she’d move on the day he would move on, too. 

**********************************************************

A.N: I DONT KNOW HOW TO USE TUMBLR ON A COMPUTER HELP . I’ll edit whatever needs to be edited, I wasnt able to add the song but of course “Liability” was playing while i was tying to write something-

[discotreque]

Disco 3.3: People of Earth

That's three for three on episodes making me sob-while-smiling through the credits. Like sure, I'll cry at anything, including plenty of times in the past two seasons, but this bittersweet grief-spiked hope is new to the show's emotional repertoire. And maybe it's where I'm at in my personal life these days, maybe it's a little more universal—but for some reason "grief-spiked hope" is really hitting right now.

Spoilers from Stardate 865211.3(!):

This season continues to just luxuriate in character moments that used to feel conspicuously rushed. Saru and Michael have been rivals-turned-friends and colleagues for close to a decade now, through some of the worst shit of both of their lives, and here the script finally lets them show all the love and tenderness and camaraderie that so far have mostly been between the lines of Sonequa and Doug's performances.

And her reunion with Tilly? And the conversation in front of the memorial wall, and Tilly understanding that she might never understand what's happened to Michael, but accepting it anyway, and loving her as fiercely and unconditionally as ever??? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

And then Georgiou tries to give Book the shovel talk re: Michael and he just shuts. her. DOWN. And manages to do it with such smooth charm that I didn't even fear for his life? Grudge is a queen and I think we've found our king, folks.

Not to MENTION how every Bookham(?) interaction just fucking sparkles with chemistry. I'm almost always Team "Let Men and Women Be Platonic" but I mean... I'll make an exception for these two 🥵 And it's not just how desperately I need them to smash—I'm not sure if Michael herself realized it this episode, not in so many words, but it was painfully clear to me that Discovery isn't her home anymore: Book is. And that's beautiful, tbh—everyone should have someone who feels like that, especially Michael Burnham—but it's also a heavy moment of change, and I just really want to see her come out the other side of this happy.

Hey Paul! I know Hugh's not in this episode, but you could at least ask your partner before you go ahead and adopt a whole-ass teenager. I must have rtmisunderstood the pre-season press: I went into this assuming Adira was a Trill, or at least (in the absence of spots) a host, so the big "twist" didn't really land for me. But I already like Blu in "cute chaotic nerd kid" mode, so I'm interested to see what they'll do with "old soul Starfleet admiral" if the plot takes us there.

(I guess I'm just going to avoid using pronouns for the character of Adira until that whole situation is a little clearer? I'm assuming we go to Trill next week, dip Adira in worm juice or something to integrate Admiral Tal's consciousness, and then "Adira Tal" will start using they/them pronouns—but who fucking knows. Mainly I wish Disco would stop issuing self-congratulatory press releases every time they do the bare fucking minimum, but I’m a cranky old queer lady like that.)

Anyway. They're striking a better balance so far this season between episodic plots and an overarching, uh, arc—not so surprising, maybe, given steadier leadership in the writers' room—and I thought the hostile, isolationist United Earth and the Ndoye-vs.-Wen story in this ep were the perfect size and shape to fit between all the longer-term plot points swirling around.

Good news and bad news: I'm back to being more worried about Detmer's fictional well-being than meta-concerned the writers are going to bring back Control via her implant. If you think about it, except for the proximity to her head wound, there's been no in-text suggestion that anything's wrong with her actual cybernetics, and those frightened outbursts this week seemed 100% psychological. So that's promising for the quality of the story, I guess, but I can also tell Emily Coutts and Oyin Oladejo are both winding up to smack me right in the feels with this storyline :(

Okay, so let's talk about what turned out to be the emotional centre of the episode for me: Saru becoming captain of Discovery. And I'm conflicted. I love Saru, and I'd bet he's going to be one of the all-time great Star Trek captains, but... Michael Burnham should have been captain from the very beginning of the series. Or at least by the end of Season 1. And I don't doubt that changed when the concept of the whole show changed during development, from an anthology with standalone seasons to what we actually got. Michael was originally conceived to be a one-season character with a one-season arc, and in the process of writing themselves out of that corner, they wrote themselves into a few new ones.

And I guess it makes sense for both characters at this point in their narratives. And all other factors being equal, a non-ensemble Star Trek with a first officer protagonist is more compelling to me than one focused on a captain. Also, I suspect Michael has even more interesting things to do this season than captain a starship.

But... I don't know. It was a nice moment, and well-executed. There were just too many meta-issues floating around—which have been floating around since 2016, tbh—for me to fully enjoy it. Especially compared to the scene of Michael joining Saru on the bridge at the end, in which Sonequa and Doug outdid themselves yet again <3, and which told us even more about each character and their (beautiful, painful, familial) relationship, and which didn't leave me feeling nearly as :/

I spent most of Picard S1 waiting for the whole season to be released to decide how I felt about it, very much in a "hopefully I'll like it by then" kind of way. Lower Decks started out pretty good, got great, then ended the season halfway through becoming fucking amazing, and I had so much fun I barely even stopped to think about how much fun I was having.

So far Disco S3 has me consciously waiting to form an overall opinion, but not because I'm waiting to like it—because I'm pretty sure I'm going to love it. I've loved each of the three episodes so far, but they're clearly parts of a larger whole, of which I'm really, really excited to see more.

Next week: I don't actually remember, lol. I have a strict only-watch-the-trailer-once policy, and when I watched it yesterday morning, the only part of my brain not still crying about Michael and Saru was distracted by how much I love this season's new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY logotype. I think they go to Trill? Culber is back, and Tilly was definitely there... and that's about all I got. Should be fun!

[fantasiavii]

When subtitles are purposefully inaccurate....why....????

Like I just watched a video of an Indian man speaking in English and he said something about having someone for a coffee or chai and the captions said “tea or coffee” like??? I guess some people might not know what chai is but it is entirely possible to caption it “coffee or chai [tea]” or “coffee or tea [chai].”

Like remember that one scene in Your Name where Mitsuha is using the wrong first person pronouns for herself in Taki’s body but there’s not an English equivalent except “I” so when she’s guessing the correct one, they wrote “I— [watakushi] I? [boku] I! [ore]” or something similar? It didn’t distract at all or take much longer to read and it meant all the English speakers in the audience learned something about Japanese. Gold-standard for subtitling imo.

Anyway, the point is: there’s not excuse for inaccurate or lazy subtitling, whether translating or captioning in the same language.