#very fortuitous if i do say so myself

[senditcolton]

serendipity

summary: when Delaney Peirce gets trapped in an elevator with a handsome stranger, could it be another weight to an already terrible day? or is it the start of something beautiful? (sponsored by @antoineroussel​​‘s surprise prompts)

song word count: 1.8k warnings: none!

Delaney Peirce was lost.

Not literally. In truth, despite moving to Long Island only a little over a week ago, she managed to find her way around the city easily enough.

But she was lost in every other sense of the word. And she hated it.

Every since she was little, she always believed in herself and thought every step she took was the right one. She knew who she wanted to be, where she wanted to live, and how her life was going to look. She moved away from her hometown of Scarborough, Maine as soon as she was done with college, all the way to Los Angeles, the City of Angels. That was where she was going to make it.

The star chef of a high-end restaurant.

Needless to say… it didn’t work out. For multiple reasons, reasons for which she didn’t want to dwell on now. She had already replayed her entire life journey back in her apartment in LA, feeling utterly defeated, as well as giving her new therapist an entire recap only 30 minutes ago.

All she wanted to do now was get back to her apartment, finish unpacking the few remaining boxes and put the finishing touches on her apartment, cook a quick dinner with the groceries she just bought, and then cuddle up with a glass of wine and her golden retriever Nora.

Delaney swept into the foyer of her apartment building, giving a quick nod to the doorman before heading to the already open elevator, the fresh batch of sunflowers sticking out of the top of her grocery bag. As the elevator doors close behind her, Delaney turned to press the button to her level when she realized that it was already lit. It was only then when her attention turned away from the frustrations in her head towards the world around her. And noticed the other person leaning against the wall.

She didn’t recognize him although that wasn’t uncommon. It was a large apartment building and even when she lived in LA for a few years, she never learned who her neighbors were back then. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same way on the opposite coast. There was also no guarantee that this person was a neighbor. He easily could be a friend, just visiting. Although, the large suitcase standing next to him did weaken that reasoning.

The stranger was cute though, from the little she could see of him. He had his eyes locked to his phone; his face partially obscured by the Yankees baseball cap pulled low on his head. But that didn’t hide the cut of his jaw and the rich black hair sticking out from the bottom.

He shot a quick glance up at her, the flash of his hazel eyes connecting to her. Delaney quickly tore her gaze away, focusing instead on the small LED screen near the top of the elevator, watching as the numbers ascended, not nearly fast enough for her liking.

Then, as if the elevator itself heard her complaints, it gave a shudder and suddenly stopped.

“Oh, come on, this can’t be happening,” Delaney mutters underneath her breath, hitting the number 7 button again, trying to force the lift back to life.

“It happens a lot, actually,” a voice calls from the other side of the elevator and Delaney looks over to see the dark-haired stranger already looking at her, a bemused smirk on his face. “You’d think for how much they charge rent they would get a better elevator,” he continues, a whisper of laughter in his voice.

“Yeah,” Delaney replies, letting out a small huff of laughter herself. “Does it… get fixed quickly?”

Instead of a verbal reply, Delaney watches as the stranger pushes himself off the wall and walks over towards her. It takes longer than she would care to admit to realize that he was headed towards the elevator buttons, which she was standing in front of. She took a quick step back, just to allow him space but even then, it wasn’t as much as she hoped because the handsome stranger leaned over, slotting himself in between her and the wall.

Delaney tries not to focus on the scent of his cologne flooding her senses and instead turn her head to the side, her eyes attempting to find another thing to concentrate on. Unfortunately, the place where he eyes land are on the stranger’s hand, the one gripping the side of the elevator door for balance, and Delaney can’t stop herself from tracing his veins with her eyes. Her flustered concentration is finally broken by the sound of a faint alarm ringing and she watches as the stranger rights himself, his steps backtracking to his original position.

“Usually, pressing the ‘open door’ button helps reset it but not this time apparently,” he explains, to which Delaney gives a small nod of confirmation. “Guess we’ll just have to wait.”

“How long?”

“Who knows.”

“Great,” Delaney huffs, her head turning skyward in frustration. “That’s just perfect. Another fucking thing I have to deal with.”

“Bad day?” the stranger asks. Delaney assumes that he is just being cordial, his laissez-faire attitude to the current situation being the only indication of his actual personality. But when she looks over and connects her eyes with his once more, she is shocked to find a glimmer of what seems to be actual concern. It catches her off guard, to say the very least.

“No, it’s just…” Delaney pauses, trying to piece together a sentence that would justify her outburst and satisfy the curiosity of the man next to her. “I just have ice cream in here,” she replies, gesturing to the grocery bag swung over her shoulder, “and now it’s probably going to melt.”

“Sorry. That must suck.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Delaney sighs, collapsing against the elevator wall before slowly sliding down until she was sitting on the elevator floor, her legs splayed out in front of her. She looks up towards the LED screen above the door, willing the number to magically start moving, not paying attention to the shuffling of the stranger. Not until she feels something knock against her shoe. Looking over, she notices the man has also situated himself into a sitting position across from her, his legs slotting next to hers in the cramped space of the elevator.

“I haven’t seen you around the building before,” he says, his eyes locked onto her frame. “Are you a new tenant or just visiting someone or…”

“I moved in about a week ago,” she replies.

“Ah, that explains it. I’ve been out of town so that’s probably why you don’t seem familiar.”

“I mean, it is a pretty big apartment complex. Do you make a habit of knowing everyone in the building?”

“Only the pretty ones,” he replies. Delaney raises her eyebrows and it takes a moment before she sees his face falter as he comprehends his words. And she can’t help but start to laugh as his expression shifts from confident to flustered.

“Wait. Shit. That sounded a little creepy.”

“Yeah, just a little bit,” Delaney teases, a few giggles escaping her.

“Can I just start over?” he asks, those hazel eyes looking at her once more.

“I mean, we are stuck here for however long. So, you have infinite chances to make a better impression than your first one.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckles before reaching a hand out to her. “I’m Mat.”

“Delaney. Delaney Pierce,” she replies, taking his hand and shaking it.

“Delaney. That’s a cool name.”

“Thank you. Or, well I guess you should thank my parents since they’re the ones that came up with it,” she laughs. “Matt on the other hand is unfortunately dreadfully boring.”

Mat raises his hand to his chest in false offense, the playful scoff coming out of his mouth at her words.

“Ugh, I am terribly sorry for not having as cool of a name as yours. However, would my name be more interesting if I tell you it’s spelled with only one T?”

“Only one T? As in M-A-T?”

“Yep.”

“I guess? Only now all I’m thinking of is, like, bath mats.”

“Oh, well, I guess that works.”

“It does make you a little more interesting,” Delaney offers. The combination of the genuine sincerity and the edge of teasing in her voice makes Mat laugh once again.

“I’ll give you that much,” he concedes. “So, what are you doing in New York?” Delaney lets out a small huff of frustration. “Long story?” Mat asks in response.

“You have no idea,” she replies. “One that I feel requires me to either have chocolate or alcohol to tell to a stranger.”

“Well, I mean,” Mat begins causing Delaney to look over at him in question. “We’re probably going to be in here for a while and you did mention that you had ice cream that was probably going to go to waste.”

“True…” Delaney replies. “But I don’t have any utensils to eat it with.”

“Hang on,” Mat says and Delaney watches in confusion as he grabs the duffel bag perched on top of his suitcase. He rummages through the pockets for a while before triumphantly pulling out a plastic wrapped set of disposable utensils. He hands them over towards her and Delaney can’t help but notice the excitement in his eyes as she takes them from his hand.

“Well, the ice cream isn’t chocolate,” she hesitates, looking back towards Mat. She watches as his excitement falters and to her surprise, it makes her heart pang. Mat was the first person she met in the area that showed genuine interest in getting to know her. Who was she to deny… a friend?

“But,” she says, smiling when Mat’s eyes jump back to her, “it’s as good enough as anything. Only one thing,” Delaney continues pulls out the small pint of ice cream from her grocery bag, peeling off the plastic along the edge. “I am not eating this entire pint of ice cream by myself. Would you like to split it?”

Delaney laughs as she watches Mat stoops forward to read the name plastered on the front of the carton, a smile appearing as he reads the words.

“One of my favorite flavors,” he tells her, sitting back up. “I would be honored.”

“Perfect,” she replies, ripping open the plastic utensils and handing him the spoon.

“Wait, you’re eating ice cream with a fork?” Mat asks, noticing the utensil in her hands.

“Would you prefer for me to use the knife?” Delaney teases, peeling the top off the ice cream and confidently stabbing into the frozen treat, scooping up a nice mouthful before looking over at Mat, one eyebrow quirking up in challenge.

Mat simply laughs, slightly raising both of his hands in concession before taking his own spoonful from the carton sitting in between them.

“So, Delaney Pierce,” Mat begins, leaning back against the elevator walls, “tell me about yourself.”

Three Months Later

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[aperrywilliams]

It Was Horrible Until It Wasn't (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

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Author Masterlist

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Part 1: If Anything I Find It Educative

Part 2: It Was Horrible Until It Wasn’t

Part 3: Douchebag Falls Short in This Case

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Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader.

Summary: Reader comes up to her apartment after Spencer walks her home from the diner, where they spend the last couple of hours. She is still processing the night and wonders if they will meet again. Another fortuitous event makes that happen. In which terms they will part ways again?

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Mention of guns (tests to carry a gun). Mention to Reader's ex. Some strong words? IDK what else. If I forgot something, let me know.

A/N: I got very excited after your reactions and comments to "If Anything, I Find it Educative." So this is kind of part two, from Reader's perspective. I'm not convinced about a series yet, even if I have some ideas. What would you like to see if it happens?

-----

Reader's POV

-----

As I open the door, a bunch of cardboard boxes scattered on the floor greets me. That reminds me that I haven't unpacked all my things yet.

I've only been living here for two weeks, and I'm still getting used to the idea that this is my new home. 

It doesn't feel like it yet. 

But the boxes will be a problem for tomorrow. Now, I only want to take off these high heels and this fancy dress and call it a night - a pretty eventful night.

Not only did I have to confront my ex with his new girlfriend, but I also had to pretend I was okay with it. But how did I expect to do that? Did I genuinely think two months would be enough to be outside again to prove I got myself up? 

How naive of me.

I make a beeline to my bedroom, not even bothering to look at the rest of the apartment.

Again, it's tomorrow's problem.

Retreating my phone from my purse, I plug it to charge over my bedside table as I strip from my clothes and go to the bathroom to do my nightly routine.

The entire time, my mind doesn't stop wandering. At some point, it settles on the girl I helped from choking. It was a total coincidence for me to be there. I only approached the bar for another drink when I heard that man rambling. I don't know why my ear perked up, but it did. When I look to find the voice's source, my eyes land on the man and the girl by his side.

He was talking as if the world would end if he didn't, and the girl only eyed him from head to toe, clearly not giving a damn what he was saying. I kept subtly listening to them while sipping my drink. The guy's voice had something enchanting. I would have heard him talk for hours if it were from me. It was a bad thing his interlocutor wasn't so receptive, and when she occasionally said something, it was a flirting remark that only made him uncomfortable. 

What a shame.

When I noticed her fighting to breathe, swatting her hands in desperation, and the poor guy froze on the spot, I knew I needed to do something.

I didn't think much of it and wrapped my arms around her torso to help her. It worked. The oyster she choked with flew into the air, and she could breathe again.

But the next thing I knew, her palm connected to the man's cheek.

The poor guy seemed so confused, and the people talking around didn't help either. What a shitty situation. And as the good citizen I am, I tried to do something about it, only to get lashed out by the same woman I just saved from choking.

Fuck it. 

Seeing the people's attention returned to them, I walked away. That wasn't my fight in the first place.

Returning from the bathroom, I hear my phone ding. It's a text from my friend Andie.

Andie: How did the gala turn out? Did you see him? He was with her, right?

Andie had insisted on me not going to the gala, although I repeated to her several times that it was okay, that nothing would happen, and that I couldn't hide forever.

Me: You were right. I wasn't ready.

It's a defeat I must recognize. I wasn't prepared to see them.

Andie: My girl, I'm so sorry. It must have been awful for you.

It was, but it doesn't mean the night was a disaster.

Me: It was horrible until it wasn't. I can tell you more tomorrow. Now, I only want to go to bed.

Andie: You have me a bit confused here, but okay. I'll call you tomorrow. Sleep tight; I love you.

I return my phone to the charger and slip under the covers.

It was horrible until it wasn't.

I keep thinking about that. And a smile tugs the corner of my lips. Since Spencer - the guy who got slapped by the oyster-choked girl - approached me at the terrace, the night wasn't that awful anymore.

Who would have thought I would end my night in a diner, dressed to the nines and spouting details of my messy life to a stranger?

-

Monday morning comes faster than I wanted. 

I spent my Sunday mostly unpacking boxes and tidying my apartment, and now, with a coffee in hand, I cross the hall to my office on the third floor of the FBI building in Quantico.

Some colleagues greet me as I pass by. I return them with a polite smile. I saw a couple of them at the gala on Saturday. I only hope they didn't notice the wreck I was that night.

On my desk, a pile of hundreds of manila folders are waiting for me.

This Monday will be a blast.

Dutifully, I reach for the first folder to start my work, as my ear perks up to two colleagues' conversation about the gala.

"Did you see them? Those hot chicks from Counterterrorism?" a male colleague says to another.

"Yeah. I heard one of them was hitting on Reid from the BAU. What a waste!" The other adds.

"And the lucky bastard wasn't able to take her home. His nerdy charm didn't even help him with that."

The mention of the BAU brings Spencer to my mind again. And I realize I don't even know his last name. 

I don't think I need to know, but I can't stop my fingers from typing 'Spencer FBI BAU' on my computer.

My findings make the conversation between my colleagues intriguing. They were precisely talking about Spencer, Spencer Reid, and the girl with him at the gala. Clearly, the incident did not go unnoticed.

I don't like the tone they refer to him, either. I do not know the guy well, but I'm sure he's way better than any of the men at the venue that night.

Are you hearing yourself (Y/N)? That kind of blind trust put you in this situation with your ex in the first place.

I shouldn't grant credibility so fast, but honestly? Spencer seems to be everything but a threat. The things he said, the way he spoke. Anyway, I should stop thinking about that if I want to finish some work. Yeah, that's what I need to do.

Drowning out the noise, I return to the opened folder and continue working.

Some would ask how a task as monotonous as the one I'm doing now could be appealing to someone. The appeal for me comes from how everything fits in the right places and serves a purpose. That's enough for me, even if some people don't understand it.

My ex didn't. And as him, many others.

I'm still fighting to ease the effects their judgments had on me.

Around lunchtime, stopping the papers review, I pick up my phone to check my messages. Yesterday, I promised Andie I would have lunch with her today, so I'm checking for her confirmation and a place to meet.

Just in time, a text comes. She is free right now and suggests a restaurant just outside the building.

"Hey, girl! I'm glad you made it," she greets me as I spot her on one of the tables.

"Of course. I promised I would."

Lunchtime is only one hour, so we order quickly and go straight to the matter.

"I can't believe the son of the bitch decided to go and show off his new conquest," Andie huffs.

"Not that new, considering she has been sleeping with him in what used to be my bed at least a month before I discovered it," I correct with an annoyed look.

It's good to say these things without crying my eyes out anymore.

I tell Andie more details about how it went to share a space packed with mutuals around us and try to stay composed.

"But at some point, I just couldn't. So I retracted to the bar. I only wanted to grab a drink and be alone."

Andie nods in understanding.

"I don't blame you. So you were at the bar when you crossed to the girl to whom you did Heimlich?"

Yesterday, by phone, I told Andie the main facts regarding that, and after laughing for a solid five minutes about the whole ordeal, she made me promise to reveal more details in our lunch meeting.

That's why I'm describing what happened piece by piece.

"She slapped the guy? And she yelled at you? What a bitch! But I don't understand why he apologized on her behalf."

"Honestly? I didn't understand it, but it made sense after talking with him. The guy felt responsible, even if it wasn't related to him. It was the fact that someone had to do the right thing," I explain, with my eyes fixed on my water glass, recalling Spencer's words from that night. 

I can't help but feel some fondness for his genuine worry. Andie raises an eyebrow and hums.

"The guy made a good impression on you, I see."

Andie's tone is teasing, and I know exactly where she is heading.

"Come on, don't start with that," I warn her. I'm not thoroughly annoyed, but I'm not in the mood for teasing. Andie scoffs.

"I'm just saying it's good to know there are men out there that give hopes up. That's all!"

"Sure," I mumble, not very convinced by her explanation.

The rest of our lunch follows a similar tone. When I finish telling Andie about Spencer walking me home, I know she is biting her tongue to say something to taunt me, but she holds back and opts for a question.

"Do you think you'll see him again?"

I ponder my answer. I don't know, although I remember Spencer asking, 'See you around?'

That doesn't mean we agreed to see each other again, even if I said, 'Sure, why not?' 

Did Spencer mean that? Did he want to see me again?

"I don't know. Maybe. We both work in this building, so there are chances, I guess," I shrug. Andie narrows her eyes.

"But do you want to?"

That's a question I don't know how to answer, so I take some seconds to think about it.

"Let's say I'm not opposed to the idea."

A reply that could be an understatement. But not I'm telling Andie that.

She doesn't press on the matter, though. And I'm grateful she doesn't.

Now it's time to go back to work. We walk out of the restaurant to our building and separate ways at the elevator. Andie continues to the eighth floor when I hop off on the third.

Returning to my desk, I continue checking the folders piled on my desk, and my mind only focuses on that, knowing if I don't, there is no chance of getting this stack finished.

----

A good thing about the week progressing is nobody talking anymore about the damn gala. It's been a nightmare since Monday when everyone had to mention something about it. That included comments about me facing my ex there. 

Of course, it was public knowledge I was dating an agent of the Criminal Investigative Division. Also, it became public knowledge he cheated on me with his current girlfriend from Counterterrorism.

But finally, it is Thursday, and everything seems to have returned to normal, so much so that the amount of work has increased exponentially. That's why I'm still at the office at seven pm.

I only assume it's time to go home when my boss pokes out of his office and calls for Andrew, one of our coworkers who distributes files and memos to the other departments.

I turn around, and it's only me at this hour. My boss notices the vacant office and is now talking to me.

"I guess I have to ask you to do this. Can you go to the sixth and drop this to Aaron Hotchner's office? I would have waited until tomorrow for Andrew, but this must be at his desk today."

I don't think I have a choice, so I pick the folder, promising to drop it before going home.

With my coat and purse, I grab the folder and stroll to the elevator.

I have been working here for four years and know every financial detail of each Quantico department, but I still need to recognize all department locations in this facility. So, floors are just floors, except the eight where Andie works.

Arriving at my destination, I walk into a bullpen, where I can see a lot of desks and offices. And just like my floor, it is almost empty. Anyway, I see one of the offices with lights on. My instinct tells me that's the place I'm looking for, and the plaque at the door confirms my suspicions: SSA Aaron Hotchner.

"Come in," a voice comes from the office when I knock.

Peeking inside, a stern-looking man is glancing in my direction. "Can I help you?" he asks with a slight frown.

"Yes, sir. I'm with the Finance Division, and my boss asked me to bring this to you," I explain as I reach out to hand him the folder. When he grabs it, realization washes over the man.

"Of course. Thank you very much-" Agent Hotchner trails off.

"(Y/L/N)," I supply, knowing he wants my last name.

"Thank you very much, Agent (Y/L/N)."

Weird. 

Everyone in the finance and administrative department refers to each other only by last name. We use the 'agent' thing mainly with those who do the fieldwork, and we are used to that.

"You're welcome, Agent Hotchner," I smile politely, ready to leave the man's office. He nods approvingly.

"Hotch, sorry for interrupting you, but I'm ready with my report. I thought you wanted it-"

A man talks, entering abruptly at the office. He stops in his tracks when he sees Agent Hotchner isn't alone.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were with someone. I can come back later," he apologizes.

Wait. I know that voice. 

I turn, and I see Spencer standing there. His eyes meet mine, and I feel my cheeks burn. He doesn't say anything but doesn't tear his eyes from mine.

I don't know how many seconds pass, but it's enough for Agent Hotchner to intervene.

"Reid?" he calls Spencer's attention.

"Uh?"

"The report. It's okay; you can give it to me," he tells Spencer, not without subtly bouncing his gaze between us.

"Oh. Okay." Spencer approaches Hotchner's desk, but he still directs glances at me. I want to say hi to him properly, but it doesn't feel okay knowing the man in front of us is undoubtedly his boss. I don't want him to feel uncomfortable. So, I take that as my cue to leave.

"If you excuse me," I tell Agent Hotchner, signaling my departure. Spencer looks at me, and I give him a subtle smile.

"Of course. Thank you again, Agent (Y/L/N)."

"To you, sir. Have a good evening."

I walk down the stairs to the open bullpen and toward the elevator.

Before I can push the go-down button, a voice calls my name. It's Spencer's.

"(Y/N), wait!"

I turn and see him trotting towards me.

"Hi!" he says once we are face to face.

Now I feel bad. Spencer comes here to say hi, and I didn't greet him properly just two minutes ago. 

"Spencer, hi. I'm sorry, I should have said something there, but I didn't know if you wanted him to know- I mean, I supposed he was your boss, and I-"

What's wrong with me? 

Why can't I explain myself without stumbling with my words?

"No. No. Don't apologize. It's okay. I should have told you something, too. But I didn't expect to see you here."

"Me neither. My boss sent me here instead of one of my coworkers, who left early. I didn't know this was the BAU floor. What a coincidence, uh?" I play cool, shifting my weight from one foot to another. Spencer nods in agreement.

"Totally. It's good to see you, though. I hoped we could cross paths again."

Isn't it weird that his words have produced a funny tingle in my stomach right now?

"Is that so?" I half-breath, noticing his cheeks turn a shade of pink.

"Yes. I mean, I truly enjoyed talking to you that night," he sheepishly admits.

I more than enjoyed it, Spencer.

"Yeah, me too."

Silence sets between us. And it's time to make a decision. I could say I go home and leave him with a lukewarm 'See you around,' or say I'm leaving, but before doing so, give Spencer my number so we can talk soon. Or...

"Are you busy right now? I'm heading home now, but if you can and want, we can go for a coffee."

Wow (Y/N). Very smooth. I like you smooth.

Spencer's eyes widened, and I wondered for a second if my offer was too straightforward.

"If you have plans, it's okay. We don't have to," I relent.

"Oh, no. I don't. And I would love to go for a coffee with you," Spencer hastens to say. I release a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Yeah?"

"Sure! If you wait for me just a second, I'll pick my things from my desk, and we can go."

----

This time, it's my turn to pick the place.

It's a small coffee shop in the middle of Virginia, just mid-way between Quantico and my apartment.

As we get on the train, I ask Spencer about Agent Hotchner.

"Hotch? Well, he has been at the unit for twelve years now. Gideon, a former agent, told me once he didn't expect Hotch to last long in the BAU. But he proved him wrong. Indeed, Gideon left, and Hotch stayed. Honestly, I can't picture the BAU with another unit chief."

There is a fondness when Spencer talks about Hotchner. I can tell he sees him more than as a superior.

"What about yours?"

Now is my turn to talk about my boss.

"Agent Williams? He is a bureaucrat from head to toe. He had just transferred from another administrative department when I joined the financial division four years ago. At that time, he had ten years working with the FBI. The guy is a genius but lacks social skills. I'm not judging him; I'm a bit like him. But in his position, he needs to make politics, which involves talking and convincing people."

The conversation with Spencer flows so well and easily that I'm as impressed as I was the night of the gala. 

When we reach the coffee shop, we sit facing each other. After ordering our coffee, we start talking about our coworkers.

"So Garcia is our technical analyst. I have to say she is like the team's heart. Besides her outstanding skills, her compassion and care are something out of this world," Spencer admits, and again, I feel the fondness in his voice.

"She seems very special," I add. Spencer nods.

"Very. I don't know what it's like to have a sister, but if I had one, I would have liked someone like her.

So he doesn't have a sister. Does he have brothers, though? We have yet to talk about our families, so this is the first piece of information I get about it.

"What about the guy who came to check what was happening with your girl at the gala?" I ask, and Spencer scoff.

"First of all, Ashley isn't my girl. I think she made it pretty clear that night. And secondly, the guy in question is Morgan, the culprit of why I was with Ashley in the first place."

That's interesting. I want to know more about that.

"How is that?" I ask, sipping my coffee.

Spencer tells me how Morgan insisted they talk to the girls - Ashley and her friends - and how he reluctantly followed him.

I'm about to make a not-so-kind remark when Spencer gets ahead of me.

"I know it may seem like he is a thoughtless person, but he truly means well. I can't entirely agree with his tactics most of the time, but he's right when he tells me I should enjoy more and work less."

"It's safe to say you weren't 'enjoying' that much there," I quip, air-quoting the word 'enjoying.' Spencer chuckles.

"Yeah. Honestly? I have more fun when Morgan kicks doors down in our field chases than when he tries to play wingman for me."

What? Kick doors down?

"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that the FBI had to spend thousands of dollars in repairs for third parties last year because of him?"

I know I'm being dramatic. It's impossible that just one agent destroyed that amount of dollars by kicking doors. But still.

Spencer's eyes widen.

"What? No! I mean, yes. He does that, but thousands of dollars? Last time I checked, doors are not that expensive."

I roll my eyes. That's not the point.

"Okay. I know it's not only Agent Morgan's doing, but did you know the buro's budget had increased by 4% last year due to refunds for field operations? And did you know 70% of that increase refers to agents shattering private property?"

Now, I sound like my boss. Great. I became what I swore to destroy.

Spencer looks at me with amusement. I narrow my eyes to him. "What?"

He clears his throat. "Oh. No, nothing. It's just - well, it's fascinating to hear you talking about - uh - numbers."

I can't help but snort. "Come on, how fascinating that can be?"

Spencer grins. "If anything, I find it educative," he parrots my words from that night, and we fall into a fit of laughs.

"Yeah?" I muse after the laughter subsides. Spencer nods, still a smile gracing his face.

Gosh, that smile.

"Well, I can talk about numbers all day. But I'm sure you don't want me to 'fascinate' you that much."

Spencer hums, faking be pondering his options.

"Don't tempt me. I like to know and talk about everything. But before returning to numbers, I want to ask about your coworkers. I already talked much about mine."

Even if there is not much to say, indulging him with an answer is only fair.

"What can I say? In my area, there are three: Anthony, Leah, and me. We were four then, but Andie was promoted to the eighth floor a year ago. Anthony is a good guy, a little inexperienced, but very eager to learn. We don't have a very close relationship, but he's my protegee at work. Leah is very clever and has enough experience, but sometimes she is not present, making things a little tense between us. Andie is rightfully my friend. We got to the bureau simultaneously, and although she doesn't work with us anymore, we are very close."

Spencer is looking at me with full attention. It's odd to talk about this kind of thing with someone. I don't like to talk about my bonds in general. It makes me feel vulnerable. But for a reason that I still don't get, with Spencer, it feels right.

It's night already, and we are in our third coffee.

"Do you usually drink this amount of coffee daily at this hour? I try to cut off my dosis after lunch, but sometimes I just can't," I point as I stir the spoon on my coffee. Spencer hums.

"I drink a lot of it at any time of the day, every day. It's worse when we are on cases because that shitty coffee at the precincts should not even be called coffee," he scoffs, pouring half of the sugar pot into his cup.

I have already noticed the amount of sugar Spencer has used in his two previous coffees; this third is not the exception.

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask," I say as my eyes dart to his sweet liquid. He follows my line of sight and chuckles.

"I love coffee, but I don't like its bitterness. I know it doesn't make sense, but for me it does."

"Fair enough."

After that, our conversation stumbles to lousy sleep habits.

"Ray hated it. Even once, he told me I purposely got up in the middle of the night to annoy him."

Spencer's brow furrows.

"Ray is your ex?"

Shit. I don't realize I'm talking about him.

Why do I have to mention him? I hate how ingrained he is still in my life.

"Yeah, Raymond. No wonder why things didn't work out between us," I try to joke because I don't want to cry about it anymore.

"An example of a man," Spencer follows my lead, and I'm grateful he doesn't look at me like people usually do when I talk about it. There is no pity. There is no that look saying, 'Oh, poor girl who got cheated on.' It's like a whole understanding. It doesn't make me feel like a failure. And that's a change—a good one.

I chuckle. "Hell, he is."

It's getting late, and it's time to part ways, even if I don't want it. Hours pass quickly with such good company.

"We should get going. It's late," I point as I glance at my phone. Spencer nods in acknowledgment, signaling the waitress to get the check. He is about to fish his wallet when I stop him.

"No. Don't do that. I invited you."

Spencer scoffs, opening his wallet nonetheless. 

"No way. You invited me the other night. You can do it next time."

Next time, uh? I want to say something teasing, but the waitress returns with our check.

We are outside the coffee shop now. I adjust my coat as Spencer does the same with his suit jacket. The night is chilly, and the contrast with the warmth of the coffee shop is evident.

"Can I walk you home?" He offers. I have my doubts about that. It's not that I don't like the idea; I just don't want to use more of his time.

"You don't have to. Really," I shake my head.

"Please? You already said it. It's pretty late," he insists, looking at me with dog puppy eyes. 

Why is he doing that? He is testing my resolve.

"You know I can take care of myself, right? I'm a certificated FBI agent. I can't carry a gun, but sure I could manage," I argue in a teasing tone. Spencer chuckles.

"I know you are. And I'm sure you could. Even though, why no to prolong our evening for fifteen minutes long?" I raise an eyebrow.

"So you really like my company, uh?" 

I'm sure I see a blush creeping his cheeks, and it's endearing.

"I like your company. I thought I made it pretty clear the other night?" he probes. And I don't know how to respond to that.

The truth is quite curious. Teasing Spencer seems so natural sometimes, but now I don't know what to say.

I decide not to say anything and nod, motioning for us to start walking.

Spencer follows me, and we walk in silence for the first block. Then, I feel the need to continue our conversation. I want these fifteen minutes to be as good as the previous two hours.

"Did you know that I used to carry a gun? Although it took me three failed tests to do so."

Spencer looks at me, surprised. I take that as my cue to tell that story.

Once I tell him how I finally managed to pass my shooting test, he starts telling me how he also failed his test a couple of times.

"So you saved your boss life shooting an unsub?" Spencer nods.

"But I really aimed to his leg, not his head," he adds, and we burst into a fit of laughter.

Without realizing it, we are already in front of my building. The laughter subsides when we notice where we are.

I clear my throat. "Well. Uh-thank you. Again," I say, referring to him walking me home.

"No need," Spencer says. "I had a good time today," he adds, smiling. 

I can't help but feel my cheeks burn. Spencer casts his eyes to the ground.

"Me too," I admit, biting my bottom lip. "I - uh."

Why am I so nervous right now? Just say what you want to say!

"I - uh. I'd really like to do this again. I mean, you know, maybe next time could be something planned?"

Spencer's eyes flick to mine. I would say he didn't expect me to say that.

"I would love that," he says, keeping eye contact. And for a moment, I think the breath leaves my lungs. Those eyes are something I didn't see in my life before. I can't describe it, but it's enough to make me speechless.

"I guess it's here when I ask for your number?" Spencer's voice is the one that brings me out of the trance.

I chuckle, mid-embarrassed by my absorption moment. I gesture for him to give me the phone. Spencer does it, and I advert his piercing gaze to focus on typing my number. Once done, I return the device with a playful smile. Jeez, I feel like a damn teenager.

A snort leaves Spencer's lips when he sees the name I used for my contact.

"Really?" He asks. I nod, chuckling.

"It's safe to say you won't forget who I am," I confirm.

"Bet I won't."

"Good. Now I'm going to come up," I gesture to the building. "Good night, Spencer."

"Good night, (Y/N)."

I turn to enter the building, and although I can't see him, I feel him standing there in the cold night until I disappear into the elevator.

Once I cross the threshold of my apartment, a ding comes from my phone. Frowning, I pick it up.

Unknown number: Are you free on Saturday at midday? We could go to lunch. Let me know. Good night. SR.

I bit my lower lip. And after typing a reply, I start my night routine before bed.

Oh, boy. What are you getting into (Y/N)? 

Whatever it is, it feels so good.

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

Next -> Part 3: Douchebag Falls Short in This Case

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

A/N 2: As always, I'm excited to know your thoughts about this one!

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Spencer Reid's Taglist: @dreatine @nomajdetective @jayyeahthatsme @rosalinasam2 @averyhotchner @lovelyxtom @princessmiaelicia @pastelbabygirl19 @reidsbookclub @alexxavicry @gspenc @spencerreidisbae123 @calmspencer @pauline5525mgg @anamiad00msday @milivanili99 @laylasbunbunny @leahblackk @miaxx03 @missabsey @taintedstranger @khxna @hiireadstuff @pleasantwitchgarden @dysphoricsanity @levi-of-starz @themoonchildwhofell @silver138 @lovelybaka @shinytinywhispers

[thewertsearch]

TT: Are you saying that I will succeed in the mission to destroy the sun? […] You seem rather keen on acquiring a fortune from me considering you are the one with the crystal ball. […] I myself do not care to be an oracle. But I can graciously supply you with one. […] An eager consort has brought you one of my seeds. It appears you have amassed followers who wish to please you. How fortuitous.

If each cueball is a 'seed', then each cueball can probably be developed into an instance of Scratch.

I have a horrible feeling that our Scratched session is going to feature a cueball-headed doggy - which, admittedly, is still a step up from the cueball-headed Cal.

It will accurately answer any question a curious girl can pose. Provided she can see through the surface to read its reply. […] TT: Is that possible? […] Given your title and all the tools of prognostication at your disposal, it seems to me I should be the one asking you the questions. TT: How can I see through it? It seems you weren't listening, so I will state this again in the form of a question. Don't you think I should be asking the questions from now on? […] Don't you think a clever person should be able to acquire information from someone who only asks questions? […] TT: Ok, so what you mean is I should continue humoring your leading questions until you happen to ask certain rhetorical questions that contain information I need.

Really, there's not much else you can do. He's going to steamroll the conversation either way, so you may as well just fuck around.

How does a Seer see? […] TT: With a crystal ball? TT: I already considered that. I don't think I can get the focus of the ball to "zoom in" tight enough on the cue ball's enclosure to read the answers.

Damn, and it was a good idea, too.

Jade has an affinity for Space, and could probably do better, but you're choosing not to involve your friends in any of your machinations. After all, they might try and stop you.

Vriska, famously, can see into these cueballs - or, at least, she could when she had her eyepatch. Convincing her to help would be a challenge, but Rose has been talking up her powers of persuasion lately. Time to put your money where your mouth is, Lalonde!

TT: Should I use magic? Do you believe in magic? TT: Magic is real. TT: I've been using it. Are you sure? TT: Use whatever word you want to describe it. I have magic wands, they are very powerful, and they allow me to be magic. Your questions are silly.

Silly, and a little strange, too. Rose's wands clearly have supernatural abilities, but they're not any more supernatural than the rest of her alchemy gear. They certainly appear more magical, because their supernatural effects have a magical aesthetic - but everything else is magic, too!

Like, come on. Everyone’s been flying around the Medium with rocket-powered devices that never malfunction, burn their passengers, or run out of fuel. What’s that, if not magic? Dave literally made a Frostblade, and it doesn’t stop being magical just because there’s a jpeg of Snoop Dogg on it. You could argue that some of these objects are channeling the kids' own Aspect abilities, but most of them have powers completely unrelated to the element their Player wields.

Hell, we don't even need to point to Sburb to prove magic exists. Aradia was a freakin' necromancer!

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 8: Not mine

After a couple of hours of talking, and mostly listening, to Rhoda and Chapman about dragon habits and needs, I promise to help look for a better place for me to live. Though my hope is that there aren’t any.

Dammit, even after my transformation I’m still fawning.

I think I need to talk to my counselor about having human grade C-PTSD as a dragon. I don’t think she’s qualified to assess that, but she can at least listen. Especially if I get another tablet, which, by the way, Kimberly says she might have for me.

She won’t be able to bring it to me until later tonight, or tomorrow morning, but that’s fine.

It’s her old one, though, and it has a shitty battery, which we’ll need to replace to make it actually useful for me. But Rhoda is the kind of person who knows who to go to for that, apparently.

It seems that Rhoda’s favorite thing to do is networking, and she networks with everyone.

It turns out that Chapman took the day off just to get that color booklet to me as soon as possible, and was able to because work was fortuitously so slow today. Hir boss almost suggested it before sie walked up and asked.

And now that we’ve had our meeting early, sie’s eager to go with Rhoda to the library. Any opportunity to research dragons further clearly excites the shit out of hir.

The two of them make quite the pair. Tall Rhoda with her purples and maroons, with long sleeves and stockings even in the summer heat, and a cane that’s basically too thick dowels nailed together with a miter joint, and short round Chapman’s ingenious mishmash of neon queer greaser roller derby 90’s ska punk perfection, walking side by side down the street. I feel like there’s some kind of power there. And if they were baubles, instead of people, they’d be the perfect start to a good hoard.

Watching them head toward the bus depot, I realize that what I’m about to do is very risky, all for the sake of something I don’t believe in.

I’d better do it right.

It’s about half past noon now, and the traffic has gotten heavier as people are on their lunch breaks. Which means I can’t really use any of the roads as a runway.

I step out from under the awning and look up at my building.

Time to climb it.

Oh, the police are going to love this if they see me doing it.

Whatever.

Using a stroke of my wings for assistance, I leap up to grab the edge of the awning, and then flapping them rapidly I work to pull myself up onto it. And I do much better than Whitman did in a similar situation. They must have been really stunned and scared.

There’s a fire escape around the corner of the building, and I could have just gone to that in the first place, actually. I do that now, to save myself a lot of effort. No need to scale a brick face where there are stairs. And those go up to the top floor!

At the top of those, I do a repeat of my hop and scrabble to get onto the roof.

It’s not the tallest building downtown, but it’s one of the few.

I’m going to head south, so jumping from the roof down over the street I usually use as a runway makes the most sense. But I’ve got something else I have to do first.

Determined to make it known that this place is mine, I pace around the full edge of the building, repeatedly making my signature challenge call.

Let it be known that if you can hear my voice, you are in my air! And you’d better turn away and find somewhere else to be.

After about halfway around the circumference of the building, I start hearing other cries echoing back, each one very different from the others. And I can actually visualize where I think they’re coming from.

I get sort of a map in my head of where some of the other dragons are in the city. I don’t think I could draw it, but I can see the only hole I can fly through without offending anyone. Jesus, we’re densely packed. And it’s not even all fifty that are supposed to be here. Maybe twelve others have answered.

This isn’t going to be good if we can’t make peace with each other somehow.

Even though I know it’s unreasonable, my feeling is that if they all recognize my superiority, we’ll be fine.

With this thought firmly in mind, just for the determination of it, I complete my circuit, and then position myself for take-off.

I’ve gotta give one more revving Harley squawk and air-ratchet chatter before I take off, so I do. And then I fall, spread my wings, and pull up to shoot out down the street just above tree level. Then, flapping laconically and heading for the strongest of the thermals in my path, I rebuild my altitude before heading out over the bay.

And the more distance I put between myself and my lair, the more I feel like I’m personally at risk and in danger. If someone takes my home, they take my hoard, such as it is, and they take my people. And I really can’t have that. I’d have to start all over again, of course. But also, it’d be like if someone kidnapped my parents and burned down their house, but worse.

I tell myself that my declaration has given me at least a couple hours of reprieve from challengers. Everyone has to know I’m in a mood, and maybe word of what I did to Whitman has started to get around. Though, Whitman’s yawp was not among the responses. I wonder where they live, or where they went after our fight.

They had headed south, on foot.

Hmm.

—

The cave I’m looking for is at the northern end of a trail that follows along the ridge of the foothill closest to the bay, south of the city. It’s technically inside city limits, but there’s no real development there. It’s officially a park on the east side of the ridge, with a smattering of housing developments on the west, facing the water and the sunsets. I’ve delivered pizza to a few of those houses before, during the three months I worked for a pizza place.

I didn’t hear any dragons here, which is either amazing or they just didn’t give a shit. Maybe my voice didn’t make it this far.

I go as far south as I dare and look for the parking lot at the trailhead there, and then follow the trail up and along the ridge. It’s not always visible from the air, but I know where it goes. I hiked it with my parents a couple times before my chronic fatigue set in.

The rocky outcrop that’s used as a viewpoint by hikers is easy to see, and I know it’s right near the end of the trail, so I land on that.

I take a moment to stand there and look out over the southern neighborhoods of the city, toward the arboretum where I humiliated Whitman.

I suspect I’m already in another dragon’s territory, so I’m quiet and alert.

I don’t even huff, though I want to.

Then I start following the trail toward the old mine, the one I’ve been thinking about for the past day. As quietly as I can move. Which is really amazingly quiet. I think. I’m not sure my ears work as well as they used to. They’re kind of hidden behind my head armor.

Whitman had parabolic bat-like ears. If this is Whitman’s territory, I’m going to have to assume they know I’m coming.

This is so stupid.

It’s also more of a hike down than I remember. Almost halfway back down the side of the mountain. And it is just tall enough to be registered as a mountain. Though, I think part of the onerous nature of my skulking exploration is that I’m walking on all fours and being as cautious as possible every inch of the way. 

And with each step, I’m afraid I’m going to be ambushed with napalm. Or teeth the size of my own horns and jaws designed to crush small boulders. Well, maybe two watermelons at the same time.

The thing is, though, I do think that this isn’t really Whitman’s kind of terrain. I’m probably more at home here than they are. If I see them coming, I should be able to dodge around trees so much more easily than they can follow.

But that doesn’t assuage my fear at all. Because if I don’t see them coming, I’m probably dead.

But, eventually I see the big mound of dirt jutting out from the side of the mountain that marks the opening of the mine.

I stop and listen. Then I taste the air.

I taste it repeatedly and a lot, moving my head back and forth.

I could actually sort of do this before my transformation. My tongue was always way more sensitive than my nose, and plugging my nose never made it so I couldn’t taste anything. But it’s nicer and more effective to have a longer tongue that’s split and more flexible, with a sort of hole in the center of my lips for it to slip out. And it is way more sensitive than it was before.

I don’t taste anything that I’d identify as another dragon.

And, also, the mouth of that man made cave isn’t any warmer than its surroundings.

I think that means that if there’s a dragon there it’s not Whitman. But I can’t bring myself to be sure that it’s vacant.

Maybe I should make a strategic noise. A call of challenge for this one only. Quiet, but not too quiet.

I’d rather call them out, bristling and ready to fight, than to stick my head into a gout of napalm.

Or maybe I should just leave, because this was a bad idea.

Experimentally, I rumble. And I stand there and rumble for quite a while, and nothing happens.

Realizing that it’s not working, I then make a squawk about the volume I’d use to call to someone across a crowded pub.

It sounds a lot louder than I’m comfortable with.

But there’s no response.

I stay still a while longer, still tasting the air and using my ears. My hearing might not be as good as it was, but I’m not not using it! I’m also keeping an eye out for any movement.

When I’m certain that there’s no dragon here that’s going to make themself known, I approach the cave.

But at the mouth of it, I taste the air again. Or, rather, I don’t stop tasting it the whole way, but I pause there to wave my head back and forth some more.

If anything, the air tastes like forest duff and vaguely of human urine.

Gross.

There is no heat in the cave. Even an endothermic dragon would likely be warmer than their surroundings. I think that once they got as cold as their surroundings, they’d need to warm them up somehow to not go into torpor, with how cool it is in there.

I’m just guessing. But it’s what I’m telling myself to get myself to go deeper in.

I move so slowly, one footstep at a time. Nothing.

Nobody.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can tell clearly that the cave is completely empty. It doesn’t even go that far back. Maybe thirty feet, just as I remember.

I also remember my parents telling me not to go all the way back, because in an abandoned mine that’s maybe a hundred years old, that’s really dangerous. Even though the walls and ceiling are solid rock. And, of course, it’s a square shaft.

Still, now I’m curious if I could even make it a comfortable home. It’s pretty small, with no room for even what I call a hoard. But I could put something in here and if I can turn around alright, maybe it’ll do while I work to assert my dominance over a larger region.

I want to know how it feels, and I just… I just…

It might be nice to sleep in here. Like, right now.

A Tumblr post I reblogged just last week comes to mind, and I’m sufficiently alarmed. No, no, no. I’ve got to get out of here quickly.

I’ll die.

I start backing up, scrunching up as I go, getting my head out of the back of this mine as fast as I can, when I hear, or rather feel, a powerful thump behind me.

In a horrific panic, without even really thinking, I scramble up the wall and across the ceiling like I’m trying to leave the bathroom in my apartment after using the toilet. And, wings held tightly against my ribs, tail scraping along the lower corner of the wall until it whips out behind me, I land facing the entrance without having advanced any further that way.

A quick breath gives me more oxygen than before, which is good.

Because there, right in front of me, are all the teeth of Whitman, coming right at me.

Two steps back, and another quick intake of air, this time not into my lungs, and I just barely avoid having my head snapped off.

We’re nose to nose, and I don’t even know if they can see me around their snout.

Their mouth opens quickly again to make another attack.

And I exhale.

The result is not good for either of us.

There is fire everywhere.

And even though my nictitating membranes have successfully protected my eyes from burning and from being hurt by the glare of heat, and my scaly hide seems to shrug off my own napalm just fine, the fire is eating up the oxygen in the mine extremely fast.

I have to get out as fast as I can. But to do that I have to go through an enormous flaming Whitman.

And they’re thrashing about in terror and pain, slamming their head against the sides, ceiling, and floor of the mine shaft, and I know better than to get any closer to that.

I can’t stop myself from taking another step back, despite that way being certain death. But I also can’t stop myself from making a noise.

At first it’s my ultra bass rumble, low enough that pebbles on the floor of the mine dance. Whitman’s got to feel it.

But they’re too distracted by napalm in their gullet to care.

I can’t even really see what’s going on. My eyes are cloudy with natural protection, and fire and chaotic movement is creating an unintelligibly blur of light and shadow. And I think I’m asphyxiating.

Needing as much oxygen and breath as I can get, I take a big breath of dangerous air, which might be a huge mistake, and start making the most humiliating sound I can think of. Humiliating for Whitman.

I fill the cave with a fire engine’s siren. No honks, no braps, just a constant, long warbling wail. And I start advancing, to make it get louder.

I want those ears to bleed.

Visually, I can’t tell if it’s working. My own snout is probably still aflame. But I do hear thumbs, scrapes, and yawps as Whitman continues to struggle and thrash.

They didn’t come very far into the cave, because I wasn’t all that far in there. They should be running out of walls to hit if they’re backing up. But I keep going, because I have no other choice. And I’ll know if I’ve misjudged when I get hit in the face with a hippo-dragon snout.

I lower my head, present my horns, and brace my neck to make a plunge, and then, convinced I’m committing suicide, I charge.

There’s a thump, a “Grawp”, and a big sliding sound as I move, but I don’t make impact.

Instead I come flying out of the mine through smoke and flames, and scrabble right over Whitman as they’re sliding down the far slope of the mine’s discarded rubble.

And I keep running. I’m not going to face that monster any longer than I have to.

I’m not on my own territory.

At some point I find a good place to take to the air, and I start heading home, out of breath and wobbling in the sky.

I notice when the fire on my snout goes out from the wind and exhaustion of fuel, because I can see again.

And I need to rest somewhere soon, but I’m headed straight for home over the territories of other dragons, and there’s nowhere safe between here and there.

—

The next morning falls with dew upon my head, and grows with a ravenous hunger in my belly. And I can hear seagulls crying out, begging me to eat them.

I’m on the roof of my building, where I collapsed after my flight home. And it seems I’ve slept unchallenged there for fifteen hours or so, if I’m reckoning time right.

Tentatively and gingerly licking my snout with my tongue, I find that I have not been burned by my own flame, but I can taste the traces of chaired fluids on my scales. My nictitating membranes flick into place as I lick my eyes, successfully cleaning them. And then I raise my head and look around.

I didn’t do any damage landing on the roof, so it seems I had a reasonable amount of control even then. Though I don’t fully remember that part.

I remember the flight as being longer than heading out to the cave, and filled with challenges from below. And I remember being quiet, because I needed my breath.

I remember gliding as much as I could to conserve energy and let oxygen build up in my blood.

And I remember deciding, no longer in lucid thought, that my building is my domain and determining to keep it, regardless of what any human says. It’s so fragile, and another dragon could knock it down or set it aflame. But it’s mine, and I’ve just got to do whatever I can to keep it safe.

And now I think about Whitman.

They’re in such a bad spot, with no shelter but a forest that doesn’t suit them, and hardly any people to call their own, unless they do have claim to the west side of the ridge.

I know it’s a bad spot, because they fell back to it after making the effort to drive into the heart of the city and try to take mine.

They must have been watching and tracking me, too. And used their infravision to pick out my apartment. Which speaks to a calculated scheme.

Do I, by chance, have a coveted spot? Or was I just the most vulnerable looking candidate in the downtown area. I am nearly in the center of it, and the nearest other dragons are in other neighborhoods. Which seems unlikely, by population densities. Statistically there should be another dragon or two nearer than that. I think.

Maybe Whitman was another downtown dragon, and that’s why they attacked so viciously and desperately.

I get up and stretch and raise my head to the sky.

After a long and loud challenging cry, I hear reports from my neighbors.

I almost feel reassured by them.

I do it again, and they repeat themselves.

Another.

It feels like they all enjoy this.

I wait.

Someone else calls out, and everyone else replies, including me.

I wonder what the rest of the city is thinking as we do this, joining the birds in the morning song.

And then when we’re done, I start looking out over my domain, looking for likely breakfasts.

I suspect that eating a seagull or two is going to be a confusing experience for me, but it’s going to happen.

[deitiesofduat]

DEITIES Update – 2023 ➝ 2024 New Year’s Edition

Happy New Year Everyone!

Typically I would write a formal blog post for my end-of-year update, but I'm writing something on the fly for the sake of timeliness ✨

I wish I could say I completed most of what I wanted in the year 2023, as I had several goals I thought were feasible. However, some of those goals had to be placed aside for a very sudden but fortuitous reason, that I feel worth sharing with ya'll -- which is that Iiiiiiii bought my first house! 🥹🥹🥹

(As you can imagine, this took quite a bit of my energy and time this past year, thus explaining part of my absence -- more details regarding my activity under the cut!)

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

From early August thru the end of December, my home-searching and closing process was incredibly long, stressful, exhausting, expensive (lmao), and time-inducing. I'm thankful to have had support from my agent, and well as my friends and family while navigating this ordeal, and I'm in the process of moving my items and services into my new home during the remainder of my apartment lease.

This home search combined with my full-time work, was a major reason why took a partial break from social media, and semi-hiatus from new art. This also affected my frequency of updating the DEITIES website and blog -- at least, on the front end. I did a lot of backend work and completed a major to-do with migrating the website and giving it a new primary domain -- so now, both deitiesofduat.com AND deitiesproject.com will redirect to the website. 👍

For the most part though, I used the 2nd half of 2023 to focus on some major life decisions, and leading into early 2024 I’m aiming to give myself a bit of a lifestyle reset. It's going to take some time to settle into this new normal, so aside from occasional media posts I'll continue to be quiet a bit longer. Once I complete some key home-owning goals and attempt to recharge, I'll aim to resume the goals I had in mind for DEITIES Project and my personal art, as well as engaging with my audience more (I miss interacting with ya'll, aha 😭).

In the meantime, thank you all for you continued patience and support! Despite being offline more-than-not this past year, I really appreciate the continue interest you all have in this project. DEITIES remains so important to me even with my shift in scope, so I'll do what I can to put iterate on it and give it all my effort when I have more bandwidth. Until then, wishing you all the very best in 2024!

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Arc 1, Reflections

Well, Arc 1 down, time to reflect.

First and foremost, I do like it. I mean, I'm not really happy in some ways that I'm committing myself to reading this whole thing, and a significant part of the reason I'm reading worm now is because I have fic ideas I developed after reading all the discussions I read and reading various fanfics, and I at least have enough self-respect as a fanfic writer to believe one needs to read the source material to write fanfic about it.

Also spite, tbh. Because while yes, one cannot have a completely informed opinion about things that happen in a story without consuming that story, one can still have a reasonably informed opinion under some circumstances, and I'm going to find out if my opinion on the thing is the same once I've read the whole thing. (I was going to read it eventually anyway, or so was the plan, but spite plays a role in why now. If my opinion doesn't change, I'll feel vindicated, if it does, I'll never mention the previous thing again and pretend it never happened).

Anyway:

As a first arc, there's not that much that happens apart from the Lung Fight (which is like saying not much happens in the first half of a New Hope that isn't Darth Vader killing Obi-Wan, I suppose), but there's some vital establishing character moments, key worldbuilding, and a ton of tantalizing questions left open - what caused Taylor to be hospitalized? Where did the powers come from? If you judge the timelines around, the two are linked, obviously.

Why do Emma, Sophia and Madison hate her? Why is the school system quite this fucking broken (Which, tbh, I don't really buy. Each part of the bullying feels realistic, but the whole picture *and* the sheer degree by which the system is just... doing nothing, really does strain credulity. There's a reason a lot of fanfics use various fanon explanations to try to make sense of it. As a whole, it all feels a bit gratuitous).

I believe I heard once that Wildbow tried out a lot of main characters for this story before settling on Taylor, and I wonder what it is about Taylor in particular that made him think it was such a good choice. She doesn't seem a bad choice, and obviously without Taylor Worm either doesn't exist or is unrecognizable, so obviously it worked out.

Danny wants to be a good dad, and just... can't. There's too much going on, crossing that distance is hard, and each day it gets harder.

Taylor desperately wants to be a hero, but stumbles right out of the gate.

Armsmaster is a hero, but he's also a bit of a prick, even if his prickishness in this scene has been overstated.

The powers and the way they work, such as we know of them, are fascinating to think about so far. How do they interact, what cancels what, etc? I can certainly see why this story would have hit Spacebattles's buttons so very hard - right at the start you get the seemingly weak power being overoptimized and used to nearly take down a guy like Lung, who is presented as a huge hitter. Sure, it take's Bitch's dogs to really take him down at the end, but even then, the dogs alone probably wouldn't have been enough either.

But when Taylor used her powers cleverly, along with a bit of luck, and then the fortuitous arrival of the Undersiders to help finish the job... well, in the end, it does rather work.

Overall, I can also see why people bitch about TINO so much - though I suspect a lot of that is people not understanding things like different interpretations or not thinking about how different experiences will change a person - but also, I can see why it would come up so much.

Taylor's voice is a little hard to pick out, because... well, it's all Taylor's voice except in the interludes. But the writing in the main chapters (of Arc 1 anyway)... it feels more like... narration that is detached, than by a character who's right there in it all, feeling the emotions.

Honestly, I felt more emotional depth from Danny in his 3rd person interlude than I did from Taylor in her 1st person main story, at least pound for pound.

Not that we don't get any hints of Taylor's emotional state at various places, we do, but it feels much more... tell, rather than show.

Which may be a function of the way Taylor acts and feels, especially after a year and a half of bullying, but I also think it's a limitation of the 1st person narration, tbh.

There's a reason why I don't really care for it. Not enough to make me not read it, but enough to be noticeable.

Anyway, all this aside, I do like it. Fic ideas or spite aside, if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't choke it down. I'm not that kind of masochist, nor do I have that kind of time.

[emiarainewrites]

Since (pretty sure) no one can disprove this, and in quasi-celebration of Pride Month, I’m headcanoning that Onyx The Fortuitous, Slayer Of The Bright Realm is both Autistic & Asexual!

From the way he interacts with people and is extremely passionate about what he likes to a very thorough degree, I instantly related to him (being autistic myself).

Seriously, there were points in the movie where he was talking and making references to people that made sense to him, leaving everyone else kinda confused, and I was just sittin’ there like “oh my god…I do that” or “is this what it’s like when I try to interact with people?”

He’s socially awkward and straight forward, but if you get him going about his special interests or relate to him on some level, he’ll talk your ears off (something else I’m extremely familiar with).

Plus, his little vocal ticks seem very neurodivergent to me.

And I believe he might be asexual but just doesn’t realise it. Yes, he is shown to have private fantasies and gets upset over speculation regarding his virginity, but nowhere in the movie do we see him cozying up to anyone in any way that isn’t purely friendly. Also, for those unaware, some asexuals do experience forms of sexual desire and fantasies. Spectrums, baby.

And I’d say there tends to be a bit more pressure on men and a certain ridicule concerning their virginity, so he more than likely feels embarrassed for those reasons also. It may not necessarily be that he feels like he just can’t seem to quote-un-quote ‘lose it’ yet, but rather that he may not have any interest and doesn’t consciously think about it until someone else brings it up.

Even at the end when Farrah heavily implies a sexual union by him joining with her, he doesn’t immediately spring for the obvious answer. He guesses something more tame before she has to specify that there’d be sex involved. This could just be him getting shy or something, but I see it more as Onyx not feeling strongly about engaging in intimacy (particularly with someone that he probably doesn’t feel strongly towards). He’s kinda the same in the musical sequence, if I’m recalling correctly (where Farrah even goes as far(rah) as taking on the image of his personal fantasy to further coax him to her side - and it still doesn’t work).

Onyx The Fortuitous, Slayer Of The Bright Realm (as played by Andrew Bowser) from the movie Onyx The Fortuitous & The Talisman Of Souls (2023) is Autistic & Asexual. And he probably doesn’t even realise this.

I dunno.

[loopspoop]

More to come very soon.

……….

They had all been watching Lupin in silence for several minutes, but nothing had changed. It was pushing their nerves to the limits. Every second it looked like he would teeter over and fall asleep again. But he didn't.

Fujiko, driven mad by the wait, decided to distract herself by making some dinner. She was hungry anyways, and she was sure the boys were too. And maybe somehow it would help Lupin. As she entered the kitchen, she was unsurprised to see only noodles. But she would make the best of it.

Jigen had begun pacing the entire three rooms, quite annoying Fujiko whenever he passed by her. On his second round, however, he had noticed something on the floor that they had all missed before.

“Hey Goemon,” he lifted the item to show it off.

Goemon observed it for a moment while he walked over, “The car keys?”

“Must've been what he grabbed off the table. I guess he was gonna drive off without us.”

“Then it is a fortuitous thing that we were able to stop him. We should count ourselves lucky,” his arms already felt sore from the endeavor.

Jigen stuffed the keys into his pocket, hoping that it would keep Lupin away from them, “What even happened? Do you think he recognized Ol’ Pops?”

Goemon thought back for a moment, “Perhaps. I do not think so however. It did not quite seem like recognition to me.”

Jigen rose to his feet once more, “Have you ever seen him cry like that before?”

“I cannot say that I have. It was a hard sight to stomach.”

They heard a “hnn” from the other side of the room. A sound which they immediately recognized as Lupin. They ran over to the couch to investigate.

They found Lupin looking around the room, confused, and Zenigata right where they had left him, sitting on the floor next to the couch.

………

At the sound of Lupin coming back, Zenigata perked up. He had been lost in his thoughts so much that he had forgotten where he even was.

He could tell Lupin was still in a somewhat dazed state, but he determined there was enough awareness there in order to figure out what was going on. He slowly stood up from the floor, a difficult task at his age, and yet he always forgot.

He sat down on the coffee table, and felt Lupin focus on him, anxiety radiating.

“It's alright.”

The sentiment seemed to help somewhat. But only somewhat.

He wasn't exactly sure where to start. He had done this sort of thing in training, but that was far from genuine practice, and it had been decades since. And he never would have thought he would be using his knowledge on someone he knew so well. He decided it best to start with the basics.

“Do you know who I am? You can be honest if you don't.”

Lupin looked down at the couch, and Zenigata feared momentarily that he had passed out again, “No.”

“So why did you run away?”

“Something just told me to.”

Zenigata burst out laughing. Lupin returned a confused look, which made him feel a bit bad for it.

“Sorry. Sorry. It just seems like what I should've expected is all.”

Lupin chuckled awkwardly in response.

Now it was time for the hard parts. He motioned towards Lupin's bandage, “Can I take a look at that? I want to see how bad it is.”

“They already fixed it,” Lupin pointed at the others.

“Maybe. But I know a lot more than those knuckleheads. So I still want to take a look for myself.”

Lupin shrugged, “Alright.”

He took a place on the couch and unwrapped the bandage around Lupin's head. But as he did so, he noticed the heat emanating from Lupin. And now that he was closer, he noticed the dead tired look in his eyes, and how very large his pupils were.

As he removed the final pieces, he saw a large dark purple spot forming around the wound. He figured it made sense, but he wasn't sure if it made sense this long after the impact. Unless he had an impact that hard since. He was looking closer at it when, in the corner of his eye, he saw Lupin nodding off.

He gently slapped Lupin's face, “Hey, don't fall asleep on me. Not yet. I've got stuff I need to ask you.”

He placed his other hand on Lupin's shoulder. He was shivering. Zenigata wondered if it was from fear or the fever. This was adding up quite poorly, and he had only just started.

“Do you remember passing out over there?” He pointed in the general direction of the entrance.

Lupin looked hard at the door, as if concentrating with all of his might, “I think so.”

“How many times has that happened that you can remember?”

“Once or twice I think. I'm not sure. It feels all blurry. I've been really sleepy all day.”

“You've been sleeping a lot?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Zenigata thought about that. It wasn't good, almost worse than him just passing out.

Lupin started to get up from the couch. Zenigata took the hand he had on Lupin's shoulder and used it to pull him back down, “Where are you going?”

“I'm hungry. I want to get some of the food she's making over there. It smells delicious,” he sounded defeated, with the slightest hint of offense.

Jigen sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette.

Zenigata ignored him, and turned back to Lupin, “We'll get you some food in a minute, okay? I just need to do a few more things first. I want to make sure you're alright.”

He put on the best friendly smile he could in hopes that Lupin would cooperate, which was unlikely knowing him. But maybe this Lupin would. And luckily after only a bit of resistance for a moment, he relaxed under Zenigata's hold and leaned back into the couch.

Zenigata rose and pushed the coffee table to the side, “Alright. Since you're so keen on getting up right now, go walk over to that,” he pointed over to a large bookshelf that was on the wall opposite the couch.

Lupin glared at him.

Zenigata watched as Lupin got up from the couch and trudged over to the bookshelf. It was slow, very slow. And he was less walking and more shuffling and falling into each next step. Near the end, he began swaying as if he was already dizzy from walking only a few feet. And when he looked past Lupin, he saw Jigen and Goemon looking on in surprise, as if they hadn't seen him walk this whole time.

He had thought Lupin's run had looked somewhat off, but this was far worse. He wasn't even walking in a straight line.

Lupin collapsed back onto the couch.

………

Lupin’s out here being Lupin despite the head injury 😂😭

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for Building Someone a Present?

There’s this girl (20) that I (20M) have been friends with for most of my life. In all honesty, she’s been my only friend for most of my life. Two and a half months ago, we were walking, and she all of a sudden took my hand and tried to kiss me. I confess I enjoyed it, and confess further that I had been dreaming about that sort of thing with her for some time now, but dreams and reality are very different, and I know full well that trying to partner her and me would never work. It’s a miracle she’s even born being my friend this long. In a panic, I shoved her away, and she stammered out an apology and left looking so forlorn that I wanted to call after her and explain, but I couldn’t think of what to say.

Shortly after this, I left home on a…kind of a work retreat, I suppose? I have a lot of projects I’ve been trying to complete, and was hopeful that I could make better progress if I was away from people (especially pretty girls with sad eyes…). However, it appears that the girl has followed after me, under the apparent impression that I’m in danger (I suppose I did leave rather suddenly, and I’m not sure I remembered to leave a note). I asked the lady who offered me this retreat to explain the situation to her (I’m worried that if I see her face-to-face I won’t be able to ask her to leave) but she said no, and wouldn’t really give me much of an explanation as to why. I hated to see her traveling all alone through cold and dangerous territory for my sake, but I held firm to my conviction that going out to her would be worse for her in the long run.

Fortunately, my hostess had to do some unexpected business travel of her own, and wanted me to come along with her and work as well as I can on the road. Normally I would have been annoyed to be thrust back into the human society that I sought out this retreat in order to avoid, but since evidence suggested that my friend had reached the lady’s home and, finding it empty, started to track us, I had hoped to use the trip as a chance to find another man to “fix her up” with, so that she could find true happiness. Unfortunately, all the men I found proved to be eminently unsuitable in one way or another, and she was fast approaching catching up with us. Unwilling to be selfish enough to claim her for myself, but unable to bring myself to send her away unhappy, I finally had my epiphany, and fortuitously was in a place with enough materials to hand to build a clockwork duplicate of myself, carefully programmed to be the perfect lover. When she finally caught up with us, I steeled my heart, sent the duplicate out to greet her, and assumed that I would never see her again.

Instead, the duplicate returned to me less than two days later, with a note from the girl saying that she had known from right off that it wasn’t me, that she didn’t want simmulara, that if I didn’t want her there was no need to placate her with consolation prizes, but demanding that I tell her, myself, whether I wanted her or not.

What on Earth am I to do? I’ll never be able to look her in the eye and tell her that I don’t want her when that is so far from the truth, but I’ll never be able to live with myself if I let her love me. I thought that, by building her something that looked like me but was far better, I could satisfy her, but evidently this is not the case (why not?)

[rheaitis]

Got inspire from avani008, AU headcanon that Durdhara(female Duryodhana) got betrothed with Yudhisthira for political reason. Adults satisfied with this arrangement - eldest son of Pandu and eldest daughter of Dhritarashtra, the reunite of Pandava and Kauravas. None of them ask feelings of children.

Her cousin is fourteen that year, two hands taller and three shades darker than Durdhara at twelve, scowlingly furious at her father’s glib decision, confounded by her mother’s placid acceptance.

“This is unfair,” she snaps at her father and mother and uncle and finally—driven to it—at Yuyutsu, who nods agreeably, infuriatingly, from his perch on the lintel of her doorway. “It should go to my brother! At the very least, to you!”

“Why, princess,” Yuyutsu drawls, “here I thought you hated me.”

Durdhara waves this off. “Of course I do, but at least you have Kuru blood to boast of. What is he? Nothing of ours, got off some wandering sage or wily mendicant by my aunt.”

“Yes, what have things come to, if they’re letting the product of niyoga on the Elephant Throne,” Yuyutsu observes. “We must condemn your great-grandmother for her sins; write to the Balhika rulers at once, I’ll carry the message myself.”

Durdhara scowls and stamps her foot. “If he’s my uncle’s son, that’s worse. How can I marry so close, if he’s as good as my brother?”

Yuyutsu sighs and slides to the floor, catches her flailing wrist in one hand and cradles her into an embrace. Two years ago he wouldn’t have dared for fear of being bitten bloody, but the arrival of the Pandavas has changed much for everyone, if nobody more than Priyadarshini Durdhara, no longer the elder sister of the presumed heir, but an younger cousin good only for some minor alliance. She is angrier now than in her sunlit childhood, but quieter with it, less sure of her hold on people’s hearts. Two years ago, faced with such a proposal, she would have rushed to Great-Uncle Bhishma, to Acharya Kripa, to the war minister and the Head of Exchequer. A year before that she would have tried to pummel Yudhisthira into submission.

Nobody has said, because nobody has had to, that this is the easiest solution. Durdhara’s younger brothers are pallid creatures of ten and younger, Yuyutsu a slave’s son destined for a ministry at best, Durdhara herself a girl. Yudhisthira is fourteen, brilliant, comely with divine light in his dark eyes; his brothers are a promising lot: the eldest just a year younger than him, the other three charming and sweet-natured. How fortunate that the Princess Gandhari dropped a daughter first, how fortuitous that Dhritarashtra’s regency will cease in a decade, how lovely for Durdhara that she will never be far from her father’s home. 

“I wonder,” Yuyutsu says after Durdhara has stopped trembling in his arms with rage and grief, “what he thinks of the matter.”

Durdhara rears back, eyes flashing again. “I just told you! He’s the one who came up with it!”

“Not our father,” Yuyutsu tells her. “Our sweet, studious cousin the crown-prince. Your intended. What do you think he thinks of this betrothal?”

Durdhara opens her mouth to snarl at him, then closes it. “I don’t know,” she tells him. “Shall we ask him?”

[zeus-japonicus]

nemo while youre on the travel grind.. can we have the “why youre called nemo” story

:D

so in the Odyssey, the protag Odysseus has been kept on the sea while returning from war - TL;DR Poseidon doesn't like him. Odysseus and his men sneak onto this island, on which a Cyclops sheepherder called Polyphemus has a house. O&co. jab Poly's eye, steal all his sheep, and run back to the boat.

Blinded, Poly starts shouting "who did this, imma tell my dad on you!" and Odysseus, because he's a fuck says "Οὖτις" (nobody) - in Latin, "Nemo" so when Poly is crying for help, he cries "Nobody hurt me," everyone's like ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠⊙⁠_⁠ʖ⁠⊙⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

thinking he's getting away scot free, Ody's on his ship, laughing, shouting "haha bitch my name's actually Odysseus! suck it!" and Poseidon, ya know, the guy who knows everything on the sea, is like "bro. i already hated your ass and now you fuck with my son?" and yeets his ass into some rocks... it's essentially w whole story about hubris and being an overconfident shit head.

the same name is given to Captain Nemo of 20,000 leagues - he hates humanity because of how racist and capitalist everyone is, so he builds a submarine to house his shells and Hugo novels while traveling the world and telling strangers cool nature facts... relateable content (verne also died on my birthday which seemed fortuitous)

I did classics at uni because I didn't know what i wanted to do or be - i couldn't see myself really living to my twenties. the teachers and classmates i had made me feel stupid because i came in without any pre-knowledge, and it was only in my third year that i realised i could get good grades in tests if i treated everything we learnt like an anime; with passion for a story and its characters.

I didn't name myself after or for Odysseus or the Captain, but their stories both came at a time where i was building confidence in myself as a human, and when i was realising that i might need a name if i was going to live out the rest of my life.

so, thanks to these intelligent but unwise dudes for reminding me that i can be clever but not to get too egotistical about it - to share that knowledge around. also, nemo in Japanese にも, is "and also" which is very non-binary...

thanks for asking and i hope you enjoyed the story

[hedgewitchgarden]

When things go well or turn out to be pleasant, we tend to want to do them again.  Sometimes this works well, as when a first date turns into many dates and many dates turn into a lifetime partnership.  Sometimes it doesn’t work so well.  The second piece of cheesecake never tastes quite as good as the first, and a strong desire for cheesecake tends to have a negative affect on your waistline… and on your wallet.

And some experiences are the proverbial “lightning in a bottle” – a fortuitous and unlikely combination of factors that simply can’t be repeated no matter how hard we try.

In the recap of our Egyptian Summer Solstice circle, I wondered if we should perform the daily temple ritual more than once a year:

The outcome of these rituals has been strong and tangible.  I sometimes wonder what would happen if we devoted ourselves fully to these Gods and performed the daily temple ritual on a daily basis.  There are polytheists who are doing just that, some with the Neteru and some with the deities of other traditions.  Though there are daily elements to my spiritual practice, it does not reach this level of devotion.

Should it?  That’s a very hard question that deserves more prayerful contemplation.

In a Facebook comment, Wytch Fawn asked:

Why do you only honor them once a year? It’s like the annual visit to grandma in the home. Seems more respectful to me, maybe keeping those connections going all the time. Otherwise, it’s just theater, for show… right?

I gave Fawn a short answer (the comparison to an annual visit to grandma is close; calling it theater isn’t) and former Patheos Pagan blogger Aine Llewellyn added another helpful comment, but I think it’s worthwhile to explore this in greater detail.

There are many Gods.  I am formally pledged to two and I honor Them every day.  There are five others I have an on-going relationship with – I honor Them on a frequent but irregular basis.  There are perhaps another two dozen I would say I’m on good terms with – I work with and honor Them on an as-needed basis (my need or Theirs).

That leaves thousands of Gods with whom I have no meaningful relationship.  When I find myself in Their temples or at the performance of Their rites, I do my best to render due honor to Them – to be a polite guest in Their presence.  But such observances create no obligations, for me or for Them.

Most of Them aren’t jealous.  I’m sure Yahweh isn’t the only jealous deity, but I haven’t encountered very many.  Perhaps, like the Trickster deities, jealous deities realize I’d be a difficult follower and They call others instead.  Regardless, my experience has been that so long as the Gods with whom I am close get what They want, They don’t much care what I do with or for other Gods.

To what extent do deities cooperate and coordinate Their efforts?  This is a highly speculative question with no objective proof and only loose subjective evidence.  While I am leery of anything that implies a Universal plan (“God’s Plan” is a monotheist cop-out) it seems likely that deities from the same pantheon or deities in charge of the same things in different places would have common interests and would at least occasionally work together.  Sometimes by serving one deity we further the aims of several deities.

Devotion isn’t an all or nothing thing.  If I spoke to my wife once a week, I wouldn’t be married for long.  Our relationship and my commitment to her requires daily communication.  But I have friends for whom once a week conversation is wonderful, and other friends with whom I remain close despite speaking to them every other month or so.  We understand different human relationships require different levels of maintenance.

Likewise, different relationships with different Gods require different levels of devotion.  Less intense devotion isn’t disrespectful – it’s entirely appropriate for less intense relationships.

They want what They want.  For me, this is the bottom line – am I giving the Gods I work with the service They require?  Am I doing what They asked me to do?  If the Egyptian deities ask our group for a temple ritual once a year on the Summer Solstice, then that’s what we need to do… and it’s all we have to do.

When I interviewed Morpheus Ravenna, there was only one question she declined to answer:  “are there specific things you do regularly in your role as Priest of the Morrigan?”  Morpheus said “yes… and it’s really too big a question for this interview. [That’s] probably at least a chapter in the book.”  If what the Morrigan requires from Morpheus requires a whole chapter in a book that may not leave much time for her to work with other deities.  On the other hand, Morrigan has asked far less of me, meaning I have more time to work with additional Gods.

There is only so much time.  This was the point Aine brought up in her Facebook comment:  “I would hardly expect to worship every God I’ve ever given devotion to 24/7.”  If I were to begin performing the Egyptian daily temple ritual every day, I would have little time left for Cernunnos and Danu, or for the other deities in my life.  If I felt a strong calling to Kemeticism, perhaps I should do that.  But as someone whose first calling is to Druidry and who has made oaths to Cernunnos and Danu, that doesn’t seem like a proper trade.

Beware shallow polytheism.  While few Pagans are called to henotheism, there is a limit to how thinly we can spread ourselves and still adequately honor and serve any deity.  That limit is different for every polytheist and I can’t begin to tell you the proper balance for you.  My only suggestion is to make sure you’ve fully satisfied the deities that are already in your life before you take on any more.

So the answer to the question I asked last Sunday is “no” – at least for me, at least for now.  We’ve been doing this for 11 years and we haven’t been pushed for more, so I imagine the Neteru are satisfied with their annual Summer Solstice ritual.

Some things are special largely because they are rare – more isn’t always better.

[the-hollyday]

Jazz Bars. Undergrads.

"So New York has to be next on your list, right?"

The most notable evening in Tokyo, for myself personally anyway, was the night I went off on my own to try to find some live music. Jethro was out with our friend Sean on a Boys Night, and after a day of Sean showing us around Shibuya I was very much on the fence about whether or not I was going to get dinner somewhere in Ikebukuro and go to bed early. I was desperately tired still after all. As much as we had talked about wanting to take things as they came during the trip, Jethro and I very much became small experience junkies, and every day ended in us realizing that we had once again run ourselves flat out by accident.

"Here's a really pretty spot, and here's a spot where you can go to make yourself so overstimulated you cry in public."

I got back to the hotel room by myself just as it had started to rain; we very fortuitously planned this trip right at the exact time Typhoon Shanshan was doing his terrible thing across the island from us. So for the first week of the trip at least a small portion of each day was devoted to a rain storm with humidity like I have never experienced before. I tucked myself in to bed for the time being to bask in the air conditioning.

I thought about finding a cool spot where I could do a little more writing about the trip, but I was really unsure of restaurant and café etiquette in Japan where there seemed to be more public and restaurant courtesy rules about how long you stayed, or whether you were ordering food, or just drinks, and I was so desperate not to offend or trouble anyone. When you’re anti-establishment and anti-social at home it’s cool and rebellious, but it feels kind of hollow to be accidentally rebelling against societal expectations that you don’t even really understand. Rebel without a Comprehension. So my thoughts turned to my list of exactly two things I really wanted to do in Japan: I wanted to visit an onsen, and that was already taken care of with a Ryokan reservation in Yamanouchi later in the trip.

I also wanted to have an indoor cigarette at a live jazz bar.

I started my usual process of finding indie music venues: I googled “tokyo live music tonight”, “best live houses tokyo reddit”. Finding your niche indie show via a listicle someone wrote in 2017 is not chic or a hot tip, but it works. I scrolled in vain for around an hour, finding plenty of venues that sounded super cool, but none with shows on that evening. I resigned myself to bookmarking a show on later in the week and bringing Jethro along with me.

But all of a sudden the prospect of having spent so much money to be on the other side of the world and NOT going out somewhere that night was the most disgusting thing in the world to me. I couldn’t live with myself if my memories of this trip included Bed Rotting while Jethro was out experiencing Shibuya nightlife while catching up with his best friend. Like I was someone who was unable to conceive of fun things to do if my partner wasn’t with me. I put my boots on and decided that if there wasn't a show on that night I would at least go to the city where all the “coolest” recommended live houses were. I set off for Shimokitazawa.

I don’t read Japanese, but I assume this sign is advising me to say “fuck it” and go.

I did not know at the time that Shimokitazawa was known as a kind of “played out” tourist hub for American Hipsters who make thrifting their entire personality. And I’m really glad of that fact; I got to experience my time like I was seeing something new. Sometimes I think knowing too much can trick you out of your fun.

Anyway ironic detachment is over, and I’m something of an American hipster tourist myself.

It was raining properly now, fat rain drops running down my arms as I held up my umbrella with two hands. The compactness of Tokyo streets and buildings makes even the most mundane storefronts seem cozy and romantic at night, like you’re being held gently in the palm of the city’s hand as you’re exploring through its creases like a tiny fortune teller. Every window and doorway is a little pocket of warm light, and you don’t go long without smelling something delicious. I walked around for a bit, mostly just doing a lot of touristy marveling at buildings, how close doors were to the street, getting glimpses of everyday life inside. There was one space where you could look through ground level windows into a checkered linoleum basement peeking in on a singular man sat sprawled on a couch. I was fairly sure it was a café, and I badly wanted to go in, but the pressure of being the only other person in the establishment was too much for me. Especially when all I knew how to say was “eigo o hanasemasu ka”, which always felt like a desperate plea for forgiveness that I had not bothered to study any Japanese in the year it took to plan the trip. I moved on down the street.

Eventually I decided to get brave and walk into another bar anyway, even though it was empty. And besides, the neon sign outside proclaimed “sweet vibes”.

It was just me and two Japanese women behind the bar. I tried to suppress the feeling I was a horrible intruder and I ordered a drink (“nama biru onegaishimasu”, I knew that one at least) before getting Incredibly Brave.

“Sumimasen,” both girls looked over at me and I started to sweat even more than I already had been outside in the heat. “Eigo o hanasemasu ka?”

The one woman, wearing blonde braids, a pink t-shirt, and fantastically glittery eyeshadow, grimaced apologetically. “Chotto…”

I decided to bank on how apologetic everyone up until now had been about their perfectly adequate English. “Are there any shows on tonight around here? Live music?” I feebly mimed playing a guitar. In my mind’s eye I was simultaneously a pathetic wretch and The Coolest Girl In The World.

I got no response. The two women turned to speak to each other quietly.

For some time.

Quite long.

I had been frozen out.

I had always suspected I was Not Cool Enough and to be honest there was an amount of peace in finally knowing. I had been judged, and found wanting of that certain je ne sais quoi. I worked on my beer in silence. A bowl of curry in a warm shop sounded quite nice as well. I had just started thinking about pork cutlets when the woman with the glittery eyeshadow turned her phone to me to display my question in google translate for confirmation: “are there any music shows playing at live houses?”

I was elated. “Yes! Tonight?”

“Ahh!” The two women turned to confer with each other once more in hushed tones. Some suggestions back and forth, head shakes, “ehhhh, I don’t know” faces. Resignation. They both turned back to me and shook their heads apologetically.

“That’s okay! Thank you anyway! Arigato gozaimasu!” At that exact moment the sky opened up and it really began to pour. I picked up my drink and spun around on my stool to watch torrents of rainwater stream off the awning. The streets were completely empty.

“Sugoi”, one of the women said softly behind me.

----

I cleared out from the first bar as soon as the rain storm abated. It was time for some food. I can usually tell how drunk I’ve gotten purely by the confidence level I’m feeling, but this night I did not clock that a pint on an empty stomach had elevated me to “barge into a business that has no clear indication what it is” territory. I had walked a bit down the street to come across a black and white checker staircase that felt like it only existed in that moment I was seeing it. There was collage art all over the signage, staircase, and door, and the street sign had old bits of wire and circuit boards attached to it. But no roman characters in sight. I had the vague thought that I should bring Jethro back here to explore with me before realizing I was here, now, somewhere where I likely never would be ever again. And I wanted to go inside.

There was an English speaking European couple inside the bar when I got up to the second floor, on a date where he was explaining how interesting his photography was. I decided not to disturb them. The bartender wordlessly offered me a seat, and a menu which only had had alcohol types in English as page headlines. I flipped to the “GIN” page and pointed to the second least expensive listing

“Onegaishimasu.”

The bartender nodded and busied himself behind the bar. It took me a couple moments of staring at chandeliers made out of playing cards, multicoloured string lights, and photographs of old starlets before I realized I had ordered gin on the rocks, and not a gin cocktail. And not to be dramatic but I would have rather thrown myself down the stairs than refused the hospitality of something I had asked specifically for.

“Arigato gozaimasu.”

It was really good gin.

I paid up and came back down the stairs, truly drunk now, seeking food in earnest, and not wanting to overstay the moment. I stopped to take a last look at the bar staircase, which I was sure was going to pop out of existence the moment I turned the corner, and decided a photo was warranted. I was rewarded by having the European couple follow me down and immediately begin a romantic photoshoot on the stairs. I waited for just long enough for it to start to feel voyeuristic before deciding it wasn’t mean to be.

Food. I needed food. But also I…. heard music? I was definitely hearing music. I was hearing….

Jazz?

I listened closely past the sound of rain hitting my transparent konbini umbrella and walked down the street towards it, getting louder and louder until I was certain it was coming from another stairwell, this time painted bright red and leading down into a basement. I closed my umbrella and followed it down like my life and street cred depended on it.

Inside was a bright red basement bar with a live band. The walls were covered in peg board, and there was stepped bench seating built right up to the bar, so you had to kneel to get to bar height on the patron side. I ordered a corona (the time for trying to get fancy with the drink menu had passed) and settled in to enjoy the show.

It was everything I had hoped and dreamed. The music was hot, the vibes were youthful and laid back, the bartender was friendly. And also, there was a handful of other young English speakers at the other end of the bar. I was drunk and feeling chatty, so I tried to catch an eye to get a hand on the conversational ball.

No bites.

Between sets the bartender came over to have a chat, but we quickly found I didn’t know enough Japanese and he didn’t know enough English to make it work, so he did the next best thing:

“Where are you from?”

“Vancouver, Canada!” I said.

“Ahh, Canada!” He motioned over to the boys at the end of the bar to get their attention “America…… Canada!” And then turned and left.

I will admit, I took a bit of glee in these boys being forced to talk to me. It’s hard to explain why. I think part of it is that I have a nose for when someone thinks they’re hot shit, and I also don’t have much time for it. And there was just something about being at a small establishment like this and choosing to keep to your own so tightly that made me want to jam a proverbial knife in their clique and pry it open. If only to satisfy my own curiosity.

“Hi! I’m Holly!” The closest one to me was trapped.

“Oh hi, I’m John.” John stole a furtive look back over to his boys.

“Bartender said you’re from the states! What part?”

“Connecticut, you?”

“Vancouver, Canada.” I don’t know why it was so important to me that I continually specified Vancouver. Like anybody I talked to knew where that was*.

“Ah, cool. You traveling alone?”

“No, I’m here with my partner, we’re visiting a friend who lives here, they’re just off on a boys night.” Like I would ever answer any differently if that wasn’t the case. Hi, I’m Holly, and I’m here in Japan totally alone. Nobody is expecting me home tonight, and I don’t know how to call the police.

John was taken aback. “A ‘boys night’? Dick move, I’m sorry.”

“Wh…. no? You gotta have some time to explore on your own, right?” It was my turn to be taken aback. What was he talking about? What crime had Jethro committed in his eyes by wanting to spend some private time catching up with a friend he knew way better than I. Was the thought of couples having time to themselves on a trip…. tragic, somehow? Confused, I plowed ahead anyway, gesturing to the rest of his friend group. “You guys all travelling together?”

“Oh yeah!” John looked back at his friends again, as if willing one of them to come join him. “We all just graduated so we thought we’d take a trip together.”

“Nice, what program?”

“Computer science.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah, I suppose. What do you do?”

I love talking about my work. And maybe he felt like I needed it and was putting on a show, since I had been so tragically and unceremoniously left alone by my beloved on this stormy night, but John was suitably impressed by my descriptions of assessing talent riders and hiring stage hands.

At that moment, as if the social convention prophecy of Having a Polite Conversation had finally been completed, John’s friend Quincy arrived at his side to relieve him. John immediately dipped to the bathroom and I did the entire conversation over again with Quincy, though in a slightly different order.

We had just gotten to my motives for being in Japan in the first place when John returned. I ordered a second corona.

“This is actually my first time off continent,” I explained. “I’ve been to the states a bunch, down to Mexico, but never out of North America.”

“Oh wow!” Quincy was a better conversationalist than John. Or at least new how to fake enthusiasm better. "So New York has to be next on your list, right?"

I was confused again. I’m sure New York is cool, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll be honest, it’s not even in my top five. I haven’t been to France, or Thailand, or Germany, or, or, or.

Am I exoticizing Japan to say that it is vastly incomparable to New York? Absolutely. But that’s why we travel, right? To experience new things completely foreign to us, to gain new perspectives. In New York my credit cards work, I speak the language (for the most part), and I know the intricate social differences between a bar, a pub, and a lounge.

I thought about whether I would recommend Vancouver or the rest of BC to a world traveler with the same self-assured enthusiasm. Did I think these boys should expand their horizons with Western Canada specifically? I don’t know. My limited knowledge and swiftly judgmental opinion of them told me that they were already on the other side of the planet and still thought their own back yard was the coolest place in the world.

The band started their third set with “Superstition”. I was done being chatty for the night so instead of answering I just smiled politely at Quincy before turning my attention back to the band. I’d bothered those boys enough. I finished off my last drink of the night before realizing I was missing a key part of the experience I had sought out.

I quickly located a couple at the other end of the bar with an ashtray between them. “Eigo o hanasemasu ka?”

The man leaned in so we could hear each other better. “We’re from Hong Kong!”

“Oh! Sorry!” The embarrassment didn’t last long, as it often doesn’t when you’re drunk. And besides, I had seen the very same thing happen to Sean in a conveyer belt sushi restaurant earlier that day. “Could I buy a smoke off you?”

“Oh no no, here”, he handed me a cigarette out of a pack of Seven Stars.

We chatted about travel while we smoked, they were much more excited to have someone to talk to in the bar than the Connecticut boys were. In fact, the second I lost interest in John and Quincy they had closed ranks completely and moved to the other side of the room, far away from the immense sadness and intensity of a solo feminine traveler. The couple from Hong Kong had come in on a four hour flight and were blown away by the nine hours Jethro and I had endured. They asked me if I spoke any Japanese, I was flattered by them making that assumption after hearing me clumsily ask if they spoke English in a language they didn’t know.

“Oh! No, not at all, haha!”

“Us neither! You know, ‘sumimasen’, ‘arigato’, that’s it!”

I finished the cigarette while we enjoyed the last of the set together; I was getting a bit too close to the train cutoff time.

“Thanks again!” I said, slipping my phone into my bag. “And safe travels!”

“Thank you, you too!” It felt good. Bolstered by finally feeling genuine connection I caught the bartender’s eye before pressing my hands together and giving an awkward shallow bow.

He returned the gesture and I gave a quick sweeping hand around the room before an enthusiastic thumbs up to indicate “this place is great!”

He smiled and placed a hand over his heart. I waved goodbye and climbed up the staircase into the wet night air once more.

I hadn’t thought about it since, but my walk back to the train station brought me past the little eccentric bar I had been to earlier, this time without an amorous couple in the staircase. I got my photo.

I know a guy I think would be a regular here if he were a character in a Tim Burton movie.

When I got back to the hotel room Jethro had walked in seconds before me. He was carrying a fat bag of konbini snacks, so enthusiastic about our synchronized arrivals, and absolutely soaked to the bone.

“How did you stay so dry!?”

“How did you get so wet!?”

We hung up his clothes (and passport) to dry overnight and tucked into bed with the food to trade stories about our evenings.

“I’ve never met a Quincy before”, Jethro mused.

“Nor I. Until now I suppose. Maybe they’re only in Connecticut.”

----

*There was one person who knew exactly where I was from: a bartender at an “Irish” pub who upon hearing “Vancouver” beamed and gestured to my nose ring “ah Vancouver! I could tell!”

[blueeyedgrlwrites]

TELL ME ABOUT 'WHEN YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO' I NEED DETAILS ANYTHING YOU HAVE IMMEDIATELY I HAVE NOT HEARD ABOUT HER I DON'T THINK

HOPE YOU ARE WELL FRIEND! xx

The week is ending better than it started, so for that reason I will say that I'm well. I know you mentioned you were overwhelmed. Always feel free to message me if I can help you with anything. *hugs*

Okay. SINGLE DAD ALEX MY BELOVED.

It has been a hot minute since I've mentioned When You Didn't Have To and I blame my ADHD for coming up with two more WIPs after I told myself that I would only have hockey fic and this fic as WIPs and work between the two (i really should know better by now).

Anyway, it's exes to lovers. Alex and Henry went to college together and one summer Henry went back to England and never came back. Never reached out to Alex to tell him why. So Alex moves on. He goes to law school. During his second year spring break there's a thing with a friend of a friend. And then there's Elena.

Record scratch to the present where Alex is a successful lawyer, who does all the girl dad things, and Henry is back in the States to work on setting up the Okonjo LGBTQ shelters. A very fortuitous coffee run one morning has Alex and Henry reuniting, and what happens after is a story about falling in love again, not just with your ex but also with their kid. If only Alex wasn't holding back for the sake of hearts not getting broken.

I do know I've shared a few snips before, but here's one under the cut (I've probably shared it, but it's been a hot minute):

The September air is cool and humid when he steps back outside and starts a familiar route between his apartment building and the offices where The Okonjo Foundation has taken up a temporary home while the renovations on the property for its newest shelter are completed. Henry stops at a small coffee shop, orders a latte and a scone, and starts to scroll through emails on his phone while he waits, mentally planning out his day. “Alex!” Calls one barista. “Henry!” Calls another. Henry’s focus is on sliding his phone back into the pocket of his jacket as he’s reaching for his beverage, but when he does finally look up he’s met with dark curls, beautiful brown skin, and a pair of brown eyes that are just as familiar to him now as they were the last time he looked into them before boarding a flight back to London. “I seem to recall a saying you Americans like to throw around.” the corners of Henry’s mouth tip up into a grin. “Something about gin joints, am I right?” Alex’s smile takes over his entire face as he breathes out a laugh and shakes his head. He lowers his head for a moment, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, and oh they are still just as devastating as Henry remembers them. “It’s good to see you.” Alex says finally as they move away from the counter to give the other patrons room to grab their orders and go.

Thanks for the ask, my friend!

[saintmeghanmarkle]

When did you become a sinner? by u/etherealsmog

When did you become a sinner? Now that our little subreddit has more than FIFTY THOUSAND subscribers, I just thought it would be fun to take a little stroll down memory lane. I love hearing people’s “conversion stories” haha. So when did you first discover this sub? Were you ever devoted to our saint, or have you always been a naughty sinner? As for myself, I saw through Meghan Markle the very first time I ever heard her name. As soon as I heard “American television actress” from a middling TV series I only recognized because I thought the commercials looked dumb, I knew the BRF was in for a wild ride. And after the engagement photos, which look like Zales advertisements, it was obvious she was trying to market herself as something other than a selfless diplomat and philanthropist, which is really what the BRF does. And it wasn’t until the wedding that I even realized she was mixed race, because she was obviously positioning herself as the “Royal of Color,” which I figured wasn’t going to go well for a woman who’d clearly so studiously whitewashed herself during her abortive attempts at stardom. Then I didn’t pay them any mind until about September 2021, when I just happened to stumble upon this subreddit somewhat fortuitously. I don’t even remember how I found it, but I think it only had about 6,000 (?) members then, and I was like, “Please God tell me there aren’t literally giant assholes out there who consider Meghan Markle some kind of ‘saintly’ figure.” But I realized I had found my people haha. Six thousand glorious people who saw through the bullshit and had the receipts haha. I got hooked sometime around November 2021 when she went on Ellen and there was no possible way Ellen wasn’t deliberately taking the piss out of her. (I’m pretty sure folks around her were saying, “Ellen’s a sinner.”) But I could only bring myself to lurk for a while because I couldn’t get over the mental hurdle of “being mean” on the internet. I finally broke down and subbed when I realized how often I was coming back to visit and spending too much time to keep looking it up in the search bar haha. I joined at around 12,000 members and I remember thinking, “Wow I think this sub has doubled in membership since I found it, I should probably just break down and hop on that bandwagon.” I never would have guessed how big it would get, and I think we’re gonna get a lot bigger. Glad I got to see a somewhat early iteration of the community here, and I’m still impressed by how many people round these parts still have a ton of serious insight into the goings on of Thicko and Thot. I gotta do a lot of penance for all the time I’ve spent failing in devotion to our saint haha. So all that is my story. What’s yours? post link: https://ift.tt/ZVSeuxP author: etherealsmog submitted: June 21, 2023 at 03:20AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[carsonian]

oh my gosh!!! carsonian, hi! my name is earl!! 👋

you’re on tumblr now! this is so great. i was just looking you up on tumblr the other day and came to the conclusion that you didn’t have one. BUT NOW YOU DO!!! 🥳🎉

anyway, i just wanted you know. i was going to leave you a comment on ao3, but since you’re here now, i just figured i’d send this as a tumblr ask instead. i recently read your fic “i can talk to anyone”. i was (and still am 🤒) sick when i read it, so i was feeling awful and i just needed smth cute and lighthearted and ohhhmygosh. you really delivered! i was giggling and laughing to myself, kicking my legs like a teenager in love. that fic is so so so funny and so cute. like that thanos ad-break? had me scream-laughing like a lunatic!! it was so unexpected and so funny and amazing!!

i just thought everyone was so in character and that the stevetony getting together moments were so so so heart-fluttering. the juxtaposition between steve’s first “that’s what he said?” moment and his second was soooo cute and funny and clever!! there were just so so so many bits that made me laugh, like nat checking the dino’s sex, the narrator complaining abt the mic drops, the sambucky personal space bit, and steve’s “you got footage of what?”

i just adore that fic so much. it’s such a feel-good read. thank you so so so much for writing that fic. you’re such a brilliant writer!! you managed to pull off so many things that i personally find challenging when it comes to writing, like being funny but also making sure that everybody is in character (especially when you have so many characters in one fic!) ahhh thank you so much for helping me feel better!! and welcome to tumblr!!! 🥰🫶

(p.s. the timing of you joining tumblr feels a bit serendipitous to me bcs i literally JUST gushed about your fic the other day over on the bird app!)

IT WAS 🫵YOU🫵!!!!!! I received a sudden influx of kudos for I Can Talk to Anyone and was scratching my head over where they could possibly have come from. But it was from 🫵YOUR🫵 tweets! The "bird app" had me confused for a second, haha, but--gee Whiz I made it to Twittah! 😆😆 No but truly, your tweets were so goddamn wonderful. It truly & fully made my day 💗💗 You're a sweetheart just for that, but then to leave such a kind message in my inbox. . .Earl, I'm TOTALLY hugging you right now!

The Tumblr thing is totally fortuitous omg. Typa timing to make me wanna get into tarot reading or something 😮🤨 I'll admit that I followed people on Tumblr who I recognised from fics I've enjoyed and fic rec posts but the timing of you reading the fic and me following you is like. . .eerily spot-on. . . 👀👀

I'm sorry to hear that you're still sick and hope you make a full, seamless recovery very, very soon.❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 Thank you for being so generous even while sick--leaving this message for me when you had absolutely no obligation to do so. It speaks to what a great person you are to have in this fandom that you choose to uplift others even when you're not feeling your best! 🫂🤩 That my fic was able to brighten up your day is such a heartwarming compliment; I'm genuinely not exaggerating when I say this made my day. Hell, I'm sure I'll still be pumping my fist over this tomorrow so you've at least made two days of mine. Go 🤘YOU🤘!!!

And your compliments of the actual fic are so, so kind. I'm sure every person looks back on all they've made with a bit of regret and well-I-coulda-done-this-better and oh-that-didn't-develop-too-neatly etcetera etcetera--you know how it goes. But receiving your message made me feel just that little bit more content with what I wrote; the validation that comes from knowing that even though it's imperfect, the good in it is still resolute enough to make someone laugh. Particularly the parts you pulled out--gawsh! Thank you for giving me the gift of seeing what resonated with you! It is very much a gift and I don't take it lightly. I'm not a brilliant writer by any means but messages like these definitely push me to do even better. You're a true superstar!💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

Just a million, bajillion thank-yous to you for being such a darling. I could not have asked for a better welcome to Tumblr. 🥺😘🥺😘

(P.S. I have had plans to write a sequel to I Can Talk to Anyone since the beginning of this year. I've just got an EG event 👀🤫 and 🥴WIP🥴 to get through before I can sit down and have a proper go at it. Just wanted to let you know because your message has definitely renewed the fire in me to get that done!)