#why does everyone assume my iq is so low

[deliciouskeys]

Guess I should stop being surprised that Homelander fandom would contain people with massive superiority complexes. Maybe me complaining about this is ironic. But I’d like to humbly point out that I’m not the one saying I’m the only one in fandom who understands X. And I’m also not saying you need to agree with my tastes (or morality) when it comes to things I’d like to see put on screen. I’d rather be condemned for being disgusting than for being ignorant or inconsistent dammit!

unless the satire has gone over your head,

You mean… you’re concerned I didn’t notice that the video is saying Ryan is unaware that his drawing is super disturbing and that he is inadvertently showing Vought’s hand about HL’s true nature? Which part is going over my head? That HL doesn’t make an adequate or safe parent? I don’t think you need a fifth grade education to notice that. I suppose what I’m saying is, I would expect this tone in a “sitcom style diabolical episode”. Am I being that opaque that this is hard to understand? Yes, I want it to be funny. Hence it is for Diabolical, not even a stupid “dream sequence” inserted into actual canon, which you seem to be advocating. It is a crack scenario, jfc, lord help me, why don’t people understand what I’m saying, am I not speaking English, why do people at work understand me and people on tumblr don’t, fuck me, I should start writing meandering walls of text without punctuation then maybe it will be crystal clear since that seems to be the preferred writing style around these parts.

i could definitely see something like this ending up as a parody sitcom style cartoon done in a dark way on diabolical. and while i might find it hilarious, i'm gonna be upfront and say most of fandom who say they want it would HATE it.

Wow I had no idea I was getting the chance to converse with the one person in fandom who could find hilarity in the darkness among people who watch The Boys. Are you like, a celebrity, @sharonisthebettercarter ? Everyone else is just a pretender who thinks they understand but they don’t, and yeah we would cry so badly if this episode ever came out, omg Kripke is making fun of us, omg I’m so sad that I got what I asked for, I regret all my life choices, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS ASKING FOR HELP ME @sharonisthebettercarter I KNEW NOT WHAT I REQUESTED *RIVERS OF TEARS* (but actually Kripke, yes, please do make fun of us, please “punish us”)

But you do have me nailed on one thing, @sharonisthebettercarter , and that is there is probably a defined limit for the amount of art ugliness beyond which I will start losing interest. Guilty and just as shallow as charged! 😁💋

On a less trollish note, check out this post by @kosmochlor for a good discussion about all that’s fucked up about Ryan’s messed up circumstances . Because that reflects my actual feelings on how bad of a situation the show has set up in a realistic sense.

Co-parenting Butchlander is a bad idea for canon even if done in the tamest way possible and I feel like this needs to be said because this shit is getting out of hand to disturbing levels.

Homelander is the rapist.

He doesn't have custody of Ryan. He doesn't and shouldn't have rights to him. After getting Becca (Ryan's actual parent) killed, and against her wishes, he has stolen or in other words kidnapped Ryan.

Ryan is not his to take and shouldn't be viewed as such. Just think rationally for a split second on this.

Do you think a rapist should have rights to custody of a child they force on someone just because that person chose to keep it or god forbid, couldn't manage to get an abortion? Do you think it would be okay for that rapist to then kill the mother or get her killed and steal the child simply because he wants to be a dad?

That's not cute. It doesn't matter what the rapist's backstory is, that's horrifying and wrong and so gross on so many levels.

And look, it's fine if you want to romanticize this idea for fics but that is the one and only place it should be framed this irresponsibly. Because it is a bad idea with horrible implications that shouldn't be rose tinted into something adorable just because there are a few moments Homelander isn't pushing Ryan off a roof.

And you cannot complain about canon treating Becca badly when you advocate for this in canon.

This would be so much worse by make her nothing more than an incubator for the kid of the guy who raped her and then steals her husband. And that is disgusting.

Can we not forget that Ryan and Becca are both victims here, for once?

Romanticize it all you want in fics. It does not belong in canon.

Context link: My dumb crack idea for a Diabolical episode that Anon is referring to

“Co-parenting Butchlander is a bad idea for canon”

Maybe it doesn’t really matter for this discussion, but : I wouldn’t consider Diabolical “canon”. They had an episode about a woman talking to her poop, with a Deep cameo because it involved a sewer. It’s not canon.

“He doesn’t have custody of Ryan”

Well… okay, this is interesting, Ryan is in his custody as of end of season 3, whether HL has legal custody or not. In fact, NYS law is particularly lax and kind of messed up in the sense that you need a rape conviction to be deprived of your parental rights to a child that is genetically yours (and wasn’t made via a sperm bank). So not that it changes things ethically, but legally speaking HL may have legal claim here until someone convicts him of rape or CPS finds his parenting criminally negligent/inappropriate.

“Do you think it would be okay for that rapist to then kill the mother or get her killed and steal the child simply because he wants to be a dad?”

Do I think it’s “okay” ethically, morally, legally? Hmmmmmm, idk, what do you think I think, Anon? I’ll clear it up and say: no, I don’t . But am I watching and enjoying a show that already portrays this fucked up scenario? Yes, I am.

“You cannot complain about canon treating Becca badly when you advocate for this in canon”

Were you up in arms about this Amazon video?

Because it’s along the same ‘teehee this is so fucked up’ humor lines that you are clearly revolted by. If you were, then okay, at least you are consistent. And I’m going to chalk it up to different tolerance/interest levels about fucked up scenarios.

Come off anon if you still think I’m being glib and “romanticizing” dead incubators. I promise I’m not that scary to talk to off-anon. I even promise to hear you out if I’ve misunderstood the problem you have with my hypothetical dumb spin-off plot that wouldn’t be part of canon. You’re allowed to disagree.

[fortheloveofwonderland]

Oh Baby! [Spencer Reid x fem! reader]

Send me a I wish you would write a fic where…

Find my masterlist here. Click here to join my taglist.

From this Anon prompt - “you're drunk, you have sex, the only problem is that you hate each other, and you think you're pregnant so you have to deal with it (you're not, it's just late)”

Not me posting two fics in one day! I like to think of this as a prelude to Odd Socks which I posted earlier. Mild hints at smut, drinking and bad language. Enemies to lovers.

WC: 3.8k

—————————————————————

Spencer Reid was not your favorite person. He wasn’t even in your top twenty. Or fifty. Or even a hundred.

Working with him was a chore. He was constantly correcting you, always had to be right and you found it exhausting. After four years of working with him you’d all but reached the end of your tether.

You just tried to distance yourself from him the best you could which was easy in the field but not so easy when Penelope insisted everyone go out for drinks. Everyone. Including the anti-social Doctor Reid.

Even with copious amounts of wine in your system, he was no less annoying.

“Statistically speaking, one in five American’s-“

You cut him off when you started to make a high pitched squeaking noise. Spencer and the rest of the team turned to look at you with frowns on their faces.

“What was that?” Spencer asked in confusion.

“Oh I’m sorry,” you sipped your wine. “That’s just the sound my brain makes whenever you speak.”

You saw Spencer’s jaw clench the way it always did when you insulted him; it was his way of trying to bite his tongue and not rise to it.

But he’d also had a few glasses of wine and try as he might, he couldn’t hold back this time.

“It surprises me to know you have a brain.” He scoffed.

You growled at him, literally growled like a dog before you threw back your wine and got up from the table.

“I need another drink.” You spat before storming away.

You ordered a drink and were waiting to pay when he sidled up next to you.

“What’s the matter Y/N? You can dish it but can’t take it?” He was smirking at you and you wanted to slap that stupid look off of his face.

“Just leave me alone Reid.” You rolled your eyes. You didn't want to get into a fight with him, not here.

“I find it funny that I’m expected to just take the insults you throw my way but the second I bite back you go running.” He folded his arms, his expression telling you he found it anything but funny.

“I’m ducking smart.” You growled again. “I have a higher than average IQ but you are always belittling me and making me feel like the stupidest person in the goddamn room!”

“That’s what this is about?” He frowned a little, his arms falling back to his sides. “I’m not trying to belittle you Y/N. I’m trying to challenge you.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ve never met anyone who can keep up with me. I’ve never met anyone who can give me a run for money. It’s nice having someone almost as smart as me around.” He smirked a little, accentuating the word almost.

“You were so close to saying something nice.” You scoffed, tossing a note on the bar before grabbing your drink and turning your back on him.

You started back to your table but he was quick to catch up with you and you felt his large hand on your shoulder.

“Does it always have to be like this?” He asked when you turned back to face him.

You contemplated this for a moment before you stepped out of his grasp.

“Yes.” You spat and then you continued back to the table.

***

You groaned loudly as you peeled your eyes open and the sunlight hit your retinas. Clearly in your state last night you’d forgotten to close the curtains.

You’d had more than your fair share of booze last night and your head was pounding. At least today was your day off. God you hoped you didn’t get called in on a case.

You wriggled yourself up against your pillows and ran your fingers through your tangled hair.

At around the same time you realised you were naked was almost the exact moment a small grumbled startled you.

You practically screamed, turning over to see the other body in what you assumed was your otherwise empty bed. He had his back to you, his head buried under the pillow.

You didn’t remember meeting anyone last night, let alone bringing someone home.

“What the fuck?” You raised your voice making your head throb.

The man grumbled again and when he spoke his voice was muffled under the pillow.

“Jeez Y/N keep it down, my head is pounding.”

You froze. You would know that voice anywhere. That voice was like nails on a chalkboard to you.

You grabbed the pillow and lifted it from his head. As expected you were met with messy, brown curls.

“Reid?” you yelled even louder than before. “What the fuck are you doing in my bed?”

“Please, keep your voice down.” his voice was low and croaky. He rolled onto his back and you could see his eyes were bloodshot, probably from all the alcohol. He was also shirtless too and you would be willing to bet he was wearing as many clothes as you were.

“What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. Bed.” you slowed down, pausing between each word.

Spencer sat up a little, ruffling his hair.

“Well I’m naked.” he croaked. “And I can only assume you are too, which would lead one to believe we had sex.” he spoke casually as though it wasn’t the most ludicrous thing in the world.

“No.” you shook your head. “No way. There is no way I would have sex with you.”

“The current situation begs to differ.” he smirked at you.

“Nuh uh. Nope. No way.” you shook your head again. “Absolutely not. There must be another explanation. You are the last person I would ever sleep with.”

“Well trust me, you did.”

“You remember?” you frowned.

“Eidetic memory.” he smirked again, looking proud of himself. “Even when drunk. We most certainly had sex and you most defintely enjoyed the mulitple orgasms I gave you.”

“No.” you shook your head again. “No, that didn’t happen.” you swung your legs out of the bed, making sure to keep the bed sheet wrapped around your naked body.

Your clothes were just out of reach. You would have to get up to reach them.

You looked back at Spencer over your shoulder and he was staring at you.

“I need to get up, don’t look.” you spat at him.

“I’ve seen it all already Y/N, it’s all up here.” he smirked once more, tapping his head with his index finger. “I’ve got it all memorised. The swell of your breasts, the curve of your hips. The small red wine coloured birthmark on your inner thigh. The way you smell. The way you taste. The way you screamed my-”

“Stop it!” you cut him off. “Stop it for christ sake.” you needed to distance yourself from him so despite knowing he was watching you, you stood up and keeping your back to him made a grab for your dress.

You pulled it over your head and covered yourself before turning back to him.

“Why are you just sitting there?”

“I was hoping you’d maybe have the decency to make me some coffee? After all I did for you last night.” he winked at you and you hated that it sent a twinge between your legs.

You had never seen this side of Reid, this confidence. You always assumed he was probably a virgin but you supposed it was always the quiet ones.

“Well you know hope leads to disappointment. Get up and get out of my apartment.” you wrapped your arms around yourself, as though protecting yourself from something.

“Now that’s just rude.”

“Reid, this was clearly a huge mistake. We were both extremely drunk otherwise there is no way we would have ended up in bed together. So let’s just agree to pretend this never happened and never speak of it again.”

Spencer chewed his lip looking as though he was contemplating this. Then he smirked again.

“Or,” he had a mischievous look in his eyes. “You can come back to bed and we can have a repeat of last night. Last night I made you come four times. I think I can beat that.”

You felt your cheeks burning with embarrassment and more worryingly, arousal. You hoped he didn’t notice what his words were doing to you.

You liked this confident side of him. There was something so hot about the way he was looking at you and talking to you. If this was how he had talked to you last night you were surprised you ended up here.

“Get out!” you forced yourself to say. The thought of getting back into bed with him was too tempting. But at least you could blame last night on the wine. If you got back into bed with him now you had no one to blame but yourself. And you knew he would hold it over you forever.

“If you insist.” he shrugged, slipping out from under the covers. He stood up and faced you, stark naked. He was hard and you had to force your eyes away from his erection up to the ceiling. He clearly noticed because he laughed.

“I don’t know why you’re fighting this.” he chuckled.

“Because you are an ass and I can’t stand you.”

“But I’m an ass who can show you a good time.”

“Good god Reid just please...please get out of my apartment.” It was taking every ounce of your strength to keep your eyes away from him. You knew if you looked back at him it would be game over. You would pounce on him and throw him back on the bed and he would win.

You kept your eyes fixed on the ceiling while he reluctantly dressed in last night clothes. Once he was fully clothed you finally allowed yourself to look back at him.

He looked so different from how you were used to seeing him. His shirt was wrinkled and he kept the top couple of buttons undone. His tie was slung open around his neck and he dangled his blazer from his finger. He almost looked normal.

“Are you sure you want me to leave?” he asked with another small smirk and you swore you were actually going to smack that look off his face in a minute.

“Very.” you folded your arms in defiance.

“Fine.” he shrugged. “See you tomorrow Y/N. Thanks for a great night.” he gave you another wink before he headed to the bedroom door.

You forced yourself to stay rooted to the spot and not go after him. You stayed put until you heard the apartment door open and close behind him.

Once you were sure he was gone, you fell back to the bed with a sigh.

What had you done? Why on earth would you sleep with Spencer Reid?

Little did you know, it was about to get a whole lot worse.

***

Three Weeks Later

“Nope. No. No way. Not possible.” you paced your apartment, muttering under your breath. “Nuh uh. Nope. Nada. Not a fucking chance.”

The knock on the door startled you, making you physically jump. You’d been expecting him, you’d invited him, but you’d been so wrapped up in your thoughts you’d momentarily forgotten.

You took a few deep breaths to try and calm your breathing before you made your way to the door.

You flung it open, he was standing on the other side looking a little frustrated that you had dragged him across town on your day off.

“Yes?” he scoffed.

You were regretting this immediately.

“Come in, come in.” you motioned Spencer hurriedly inside.

“If this is some kind of booty call Y/N, I am not interested.”

You closed the door behind him rolling your eyes.

Since your stupid drunken night spent together things had been even worse between the two of you. Spencer barely spoke to you anymore, not that you were really complaining but it was odd. He gave you the cold shoulder after you’d told him to forget all about the night you spent together.

What you didn’t realise was your words had hurt Spencer. He had been waiting four years to make a move on you but had always been too scared of the ultimate rejection. When you had come on to him that night he had been elated. It had been the best night of Spencer’s life and you’d just wanted to act like nothing had happened. It hurt, so he’d had to distance himself from you as much as possible.

“Booty call? You really think that’s what this is?” you frowned at him.

“No of course not, how could I be so stupid.” he rolled his eyes now. “God forbid you would want to sleep with me.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Just forget it.” he grumbled. “What did you drag all the way over here for?”

Oh yes, that.

You sighed loudly, feeling sick just thinking about the words you needed to utter.

“I...I uhm...fuck. We fucked up. We made a big fucking mistake.”

“Excuse me?” He spat. “First you tell me to forget anything happened but now you are telling me it was a complete mistake? Wow, that makes me feel fucking great thanks. You know what Y/N you-”

“Shut up!” you cut him off. “That’s not what I...not like that. We just...fuck this is fucked up.” you started pacing again.

“What the fuck are you talking about Y/N?” he grabbed your wrist to stop you pacing and pulled you to a stop to look at him. He saw tears behind your eyes. “What is this about?”

You had to just say it, blurt it out. Just like ripping off a bandaid.

“I t-think...I m-might be...I’m not sure...but I’m late and I’m n-never late…” a few tears escaped your eyes. “Fuck Spencer!” you sniffed, you had never called him by his first name before. “I think I might be pregnant.”

Spencer felt the air leave his lungs, as though your words had just punched him in the gut.

The words hung in the air between you like stale smoke in a bar. Time stood still. His head was spinning.

“P-pregnant.” he choked out. “With a b-baby.”

“Yes genius.” you dried your eyes on the back of your hand.

“And it’s m-mine?”

“Do you think I would be telling you this if it wasn’t?” you spat. “Fuck Reid, say something useful!”

“I don’t know w-what to say.” he swallowed hard, struggling to grasp at a coherent thought. “Are you s-sure?”

“No.” you shook your head. “I said I think I might be. I haven’t taken a test yet, it’s probably too early. But I was due five days ago and that is not normal for me. I am like clockwork.”

He could tell how much this clearly pained you to admit to him so he knew if you were telling him this you were pretty damn certain.

“Pregnant.” He repeated, still trying to wrap his head around it.

“What the fuck are we going to do Spencer?” You started sobbing then and Spencer couldn’t help but come to you and throw his arms around you.

You tried to resist at first but then you gave in and buried your head into his chest while you cried.

He ran his large hands up and down your back and placed soft kisses to your head. It was a very strange situation for the two of you.

“Y/N I am going to be here for you every step of the way.” He used his finger to guide your chin up so you were looking at him. “You and our baby will not be alone in this ok?”

You chewed your lip trying to sniff back your tears.

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to be involved.”

“I want to be.” He stroked your cheek. “The truth is Y/N, I’m crazy about you and I have been for a really long time. I want this. Us, this baby. I want it all.” He brushed away your tears and placed a soft kiss on your forehead.

“Spencer Reid has feelings, who would have thought.” You teased him.

He laughed a little.

“You can say something nice every once in a while you know?”

“I hope our baby has your eyes.” You smiled softly at him. “And your smile.”

“I hope they have your everything.” He replied.

He bowed his head a little to meet you and he let his lips brush cautiously over yours as though testing the waters. When he went to pull away, you gripped the back of his neck and kept him close, your mouth opening and allowing his tongue access.

It felt right. It felt like you should have always been doing this. It felt like the stars and planets aligning.

But of course, it couldn’t last. You should have known better.

***

Over the next few weeks things changed dramatically between you and Spencer. It was amazing how this had brought the two of you together and seemingly washed away four years of contempt you held towards each other.

Despite the pregnancy the two of you decided to take things slow, you went on dates, held hands and had the occasional make out session but that was as far as it went, despite being desperate for each other.

This was the time to get to know each other, really get to know each other. You were going to be parents after all.

Or so you thought.

The day before you were going to take your first pregnancy test Spencer found you in the bathroom at Quantico, on the floor in tears.

You’d been away from your desk for a little while so he’d gone looking for you. He had never expected to find you like this.

He ran to your side and fell to the floor next to you, instinctively wrapping his arms around you.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?”

You pushed him away.

“Don’t touch me.” You sobbed.

“I-I...what’s happened Y/N? Please talk to me.”

“What’s wrong?” You spat. “What’s wrong is that I just came on my period, that's what’s wrong!” You raised your voice.

“You...you’re not…” he croaked, unable to form a sentence.

“I’m not pregnant Reid.” He finished for him. Hearing you call him Reid again was weird and it didn’t sit right with him.

His own eyes welled with tears. He’d already gotten so used to the idea of having a child with you he felt his heart shatter in his chest.

“Oh.” He croaked. He had no idea what to say.

“Just go Reid.” You wiping your eyes on the sleeve of your blouse.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He sniffed.

“We don’t have to do this anymore. I’m not pregnant, I’m not having your baby. You’re free. You don’t have to pretend this was any more than what it was.”

“And what was it?” He chewed his lip with a frown.

“We were trying to force feelings that weren’t really there. We were just trying to pretend for the sake of the baby. But there is no baby. So we don’t need to bother anymore.”

Spencer’s frown deepened.

“Pretending?” he scoffed. “Y-you thought I was pretending?”

“We both were Reid and it’s ok. We just wanted to make it work because we thought we were having a child. But we aren’t so let’s just go back to normal and pretend nothing happened.”

“You expect me to pretend nothing happened?” he swallowed, his mouth feeling suddenly dry. “You want me to pretend I wasn’t excited at the thought of being a father? You want me to pretend I hadn’t started thinking of baby names and planning our future together? A future for the three of us. You think I can just pretend that baby or not that I’m not head over heels in love with you?” His words came tumbling out of his mouth so fast he barely had time to realise he was saying them before they were out.

He saw the moment you registered what he’d said. He saw your mouth fall open and your eyes widen. Understandable really, he’d just confessed his love to you in the bathroom of the BAU.

“I-I…” nope, there were no words, at least none that you could find anyway.

“It wasn’t supposed to come out like that.” He swallowed a lump in throat. “But uhm...now it’s out there I can’t very well take it back. I’m in love with you, I probably have been since the moment you walked through the door. I remember it like it was yesterday. Hotch introduced us and I knew when our eyes met you were the person I’d been searching for.” A few tears escaped his eyes.

“Y-you...me?”

“Yes you.” He laughed a little cupping your face and you let him wipe away your tears. “I’m sorry you aren’t pregnant, I’m really, really sorry, because it would be a privilege and an honour to father your child.”

“I-I had no idea you felt that way.”

“You’re a worse profiler than I thought you were in that case.” He teased.

“Oh if you're so good, tell me Doctor Reid, what am I thinking right now?” You gave him an unimpressed face.

“You’re thinking,” he moved one hand around to the base of your neck. “That I’m an ass and you’d be right. But you’re also thinking that you want me to kiss you.”

“Oh am I now?” You raised an eyebrow at him but you couldn’t help but glance down at his lips.

“Let’s see if I’m right.” He smirked and then he captured your lips with his own in a deep kiss. When you opened your mouth to allow his tongue access, he knew he was right.

When you pulled back both of your tears were all but gone.

“I guess I should say, I love you too by the way.” You told him with a shrug.

“Oh I know.” He shot you a smirk as he pushed himself up to his feet.

He held his hands out and you took them and he hoisted you to your feet.

“I don’t like cocky Spencer.” You grumbled.

“No, you love him.”

You nudged him playfully in the ribs. To your surprise he suddenly enveloped you in a tight embrace.

“I really am sorry you aren’t pregnant Y/N.” He kissed your head. “One day we’ll make one, I promise. But in the meantime,” he smirked to himself. “We sure can have a lot of fun practicing.”

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[spencer-reid-in-a-pool]

Room For Dessert

anon requested- Can you do a smut where rossi has a dinner party but also has his Niece staying with him because her apartment is being fumigated. Her and Spencer hit it off and go at it.

anon requested- smut 54: you better be quiet or everyone is going to know what a naughty little slut you are. and 59: such a needy little thing, aren't you? with Spencer

Contains: fingering (female receiving), hand job (male receiving), mention of pregnancy/breeding kink, name calling, slight degradation, unprotected sex, swearing, sexual acts in a public setting

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had never met my uncle David's co-workers before. He had always talked about introducing us, but it just never seemed to be the right time. It seems that today though, the world decided it was the right time.

He was having a dinner party tonight and my apartment needed to be fumigated. What luck!

I figured I would be staying with him for a couple days, so I packed my things after work yesterday. Now it was Saturday, the day of the party, and time to head over.

I had to admit I was nervous. A dinner party with people I didn't know? Talk about awkward. But I decided to make the most of it.

Once I was at his house, he took me to a spare room that would be mine for the next few days and showed me where everything was. Not that I would remember since we're in a mansion.

A few hours passed and it was time for people to start arriving. As I was getting my party clothes on, I could hear voices downstairs. Guess I should hurry.

Once I was done with my hair, makeup, and clothes, I made my way slowly down the stairs. The voices got progressively louder as I got closer.

A few people were scattered around the immediate area. A dark-haired woman stood talking to a blonde woman over near the far side of the room. Uncle David was talking with an Asian man and a dark-skinned woman by the entrance to the kitchen. And lastly, a well-built Hispanic man sat talking to a blonde woman in colorful clothing and a tall, slightly unkempt man.

I wasn't sure where to go first so I just kind of stood on the bottom step without saying anything. Then Uncle David noticed me.

"Ah there she is! We've been waiting for you. Come on and mingle while the food is finishing up."

At his words, the room full of people all turned their heads toward me.

Slightly taken aback by all the eyes on me, I gave a small wave and a smile before making my way down to them.

"It's nice to meet you guys! I'm (Y/N). Uncle David has told me about all of you."

The woman wearing bright colors made her way over to me first, a glass of champagne in hand.

"It's so nice to meet you! Your dress is to die for!"

She then enveloped me in a one arm hug. I hugged her back and accidentally made eye contact with the tall guy in the back. He quickly looked away. What was he staring at me for?

"I'm Penelope by the way!"

She pulled away and smiled at me once more before making room for the next person.

Emily, JJ, Luke, Tara, and Matt all introduced themselves. The last guy must be...

"Dr. Spencer Reid," he said as he stuck his hand out to shake.

Oh. Oh wow.

Now that I got a closer look at him, I could see why his nickname was "Pretty Boy." If we hadn't been in front of so many people, I would've had to jump his bones right then.

I shook his hand shyly.

"It's nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you. Aren't you a little too attractive to be in the FBI? How does anyone get their work done?"

Spencer cleared his throat and glanced around the room to see people start walking to the kitchen. The food must be almost done.

"Well, why don’t you sit next to me at the dinner table? I’ll make sure to tell you all about my...work,” he murmured as he made no attempts to hide his eyes roaming my body.

Did-did he just...?

Before I could think anything coherent, he began walking away. He was probably just messing with me. I’m just being stupid.

Still, my legs felt a bit weak as I made my way into the kitchen. They were all sitting down and the only empty seat was next to Spencer. As I approached, he jumped up and pulled out the chair.

“Here let me.”

He gave me a bashful look, not at all like the look he gave my body moments ago in the living room. What is this guy’s deal?

I gave him a small smile and took a seat. He pushed me towards the table and sat down next to me.

Uncle David did his toast thing to be thankful for everyone being here, and then we started dishing up our food. There was so much to choose from that my plate became full almost immediately.

“So tell me,” I said to the man next to me, “What’s it like to be the BAU’s resident genius?”

Spencer glanced at me as he gathered food onto his plate.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that an IQ score or any amount of knowledge makes someone a genius. Not that both of those aren’t high for me, but I don’t like to quantify the term genius.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“But between you and me, it feels pretty good.”

I giggled and he smiled at me. He has a nice smile.

“Hey I made you laugh and it wasn’t at me. Maybe I’m getting somewhere with women.”

I traced the rim of my champagne glass before looking at him. I know I’d like to go somewhere with him...

“I don’t see how women aren’t all over you, Doctor. I mean. Have you looked in a mirror?”

Spencer chuckled and smiled, almost nervously.

“I’d rather look at you.”

My cheeks got hot and I blinked rapidly. Oh no. This is it. It’s happening.

But I hadn’t forgotten that look he gave me before we sat down. I hadn’t forgotten the way he undressed me with his eyes. If he wanted to mess with me then I would mess with him too.

I leaned over slowly so no one would notice and began talking in a low voice in his ear.

“What parts of me would you like to look at, Doctor?”

Spencer choked on his drink when I finished speaking. I leaned away feeling accomplished and with a painful twitch in my chest from trying not to lose my shit at him sputtering like an idiot.

But it would seem that karma is, in fact, a bitch.

“How about I start with those pretty tits of yours?”

It was my turn to choke on my drink this time. This earned me a few glances from the people across from me at the table.

“You two okay over there?” Emily asked us, having no clue what was really happening on our side of the table.

Spencer gave me a fake confused glance and then met Emily’s eyes.

“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?”

She shrugged and seemed to leave it at that, turning back to her conversation with JJ.

“How about...,” Spencer began next to me in a low voice so that no one would hear, “We have a little fun?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, not really sure what he meant by that.

He widened his eyes and looked me up and down in response as if to say, “You know exactly what I mean.”

I tried not to smile as big as I wanted to, so I settled on a sly grin in his direction to let him know I was game.

His body seemed to relax in relief almost, something I wasn’t expecting. Was he genuinely interested in me or was he just messing with me because I happened to be here?

I tried distracting myself from these thoughts and started actually eating, since we were at a dinner party after all.

A few minutes went by of idle conversation, although I wasn’t really listening. I responded in short sentences and nods in between bites of food, but my mind was elsewhere.

It wasn’t too long though, until my mind went straight to my thigh, where a hand could be felt slowly making its way up.

Trying not to make it obvious, I turned towards Spencer with a shocked look on my face. He wasn’t even looking at me, he was looking ahead and having a full conversation with Matt and Luke. How is he multitasking this well?

His hand- his very large and warm hand- made its way even farther up, snaking towards my center with a painfully slow pace.

I knew what he was planning, and I was ready for it. At least, I think I am.

His finger brushed against the edge of my panties and he paused. When I looked over at him, he had his chin casually resting on his other hand and was looking at me sideways. He raised an eyebrow to ask me if it was okay.

In response, I took his hand that was so close to where I wanted it to be, and brought it down so that he could feel the wet spot forming just from thinking about what he was getting ready to do.

I think this shocked him a little, so he cleared his throat and looked ahead, picking up another conversation with Tara.

He made his way back to where he was and began slipping fingers past the hem of my panties. They were warm and soft, but still, I shivered.

I tried my best to continue on as normal while people talked to me, but as soon as I felt the pad of his pointer finger stroking my folds, I choked on my words.

No one seemed to notice, so I continued on like nothing happened.

He was teasing me now, touching around my entrance but never going in it. How irritating.

I’m sure he sensed my frustration, since he chuckled under his breath and immediately shoved a finger inside me.

I inhaled sharply, not expecting the force or suddenness. This seemed to please him; at least I’m assuming he was pleased based on the grin that graced his features.

He continued working while he talked, never stopping the motions of going in and out of me. He even began rubbing my clit with another finger while he fingered me. He must be really good at piano. And guitar, for that matter.

It was starting to get a little warm, and my body began reacting to the way he was relentlessly rubbing my clit in hurried circles.

“Spencer,” I hissed so that no one else could hear.

“Hmmm?”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I believe I’m trying to make you cum on my fingers.”

My breath hitched in my throat as I felt my core tighten. I looked around to make sure no one had heard us. The coast seemed to be clear.

“You’re gonna pay for this, asshole,” I choked out.

This seemed to only fuel him. His fingers began relentlessly attacking my swollen bundle of nerves and they did not stop. Not even close. He only got faster and faster, and I have no idea how that was even possible to begin with.

I wanted to smack the smirk that appeared when I tightened around his fingers right off his stupid face.

His eyes roamed my sweaty, slightly red face and he slowly pulled his hand from my panties.

Spencer then turned back to his plate and picked up the last bit of his dinner roll that was left. He placed it in his mouth, along with the tips of his fingers that were just in my panties. He pushed the roll farther in his mouth so that his fingers were halfway in. Then he slowly withdrew them, his lips never leaving those damn fingers.

“Mmm Rossi,” Spencer began, turning away from me and to the man he called, “These rolls are really good. Did you make them yourself? I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like it.”

This time I choked on my own saliva. So of course, I had a coughing fit that drew everyone’s attention to me.

“Oh my gosh, (Y/N) are you okay? Take a sip of water!” Penelope told me in honest concern for my well being.

I finished coughing and took a long gulp from my glass. I only wished it was whiskey instead of water right now.

“I’m okay, really,” I said, holding my hands up in front of me, “Just... swallowed my food too fast.”

This seemed to satisfy everyone so they all turned back to each other, Spencer’s comment about the rolls forgotten.

“That’s what you get for calling me those mean names, princess,” Spencer murmured next to me.

I stayed silent in response. Two could play at this game.

Without hesitation, I placed my hand against his crotch. And it was... something. I’m not sure if he was that hard or just- that big. Either way, my heart skipped a beat. But I didn’t let that stop me.

I slipped my hand beneath the waistband of his pants and made contact with what I was looking for. I felt him twitch under my touch, but his face gave nothing away to the others at the table.

So I started working. Tracing the length of what I could reach, and rubbing along his shaft with precision.

He took in a sharp breath as I made my way closer to the tip, and he quickly cut a glance my way.

I paid him no mind as I continued, making sure to eat off my plate like normal so as not to draw suspicion. Looking around, I could see that most people were finishing up their food, so I didn’t really have a lot of time left. I started going faster, putting more pressure onto his dick as I went. 

When I looked up to check the scene, I saw Spencer gripping his fork with white knuckles. He was holding on for dear life. Good. 

It was then that a few people began to excuse themselves from the table to go mingle some more before dessert. Shit. I had to hurry. 

I kept picking up speed, probably too much to be honest. But it worked. Spencer stiffened under my touch and a warm, wet spot was now forming in his pants, coating my fingers. He cleared his throat to try and drown out the noise he wanted so badly to make instead. 

I took a deep breath, satisfied with my work, and slowly removed my hand from his pants. It was just us, Penelope, and my uncle left at the table. They were in the middle of a conversation anyway. Luck was on my side tonight.

Spencer excused himself in a hurry, and I waited a few minutes before doing the same. I had no idea where he went, so I just had to walk around and find him somehow. We had unfinished business. 

A few minutes went by of me searching the halls, hopefully not drawing attention to myself. And then I found him, leaning against a wall and looking out the window in front of him. 

When I approached him, I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get any words out, he grabbed my wrist roughly and pulled me into a closet. Spencer shut the door quietly behind us, though I could tell that he wanted to slam it. Uh oh.

“What the hell was that?” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“I was just playing along! Isn’t that what we wanted to do from the beginning?”

Spencer ran a hand through his hair. Oh, how I wanted to do the same thing.

“Obviously. I’ve been wanting to fuck you senseless since I laid eyes on you.”

My heart skipped a beat and the pulse suddenly went down into my core instead.

“Well do it then,” I murmured while gripping onto his forearms. There was enough space in this closet for many different positions. I just wanted to be as close to him as possible.

“I don’t know if you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Spencer groaned while palming my ass roughly.

“Mmm, I don’t care. I’m on the pill, by the way. So I wanna feel you. All of you. Although I have a pretty strong feeling you’d get off on putting a baby in me, Doctor,” I whispered into his ear before pressing my chest against his. I felt his breathing stop for a split second.

“Shut up,” he growled. It seems I pushed a button.

“Make me.”

Without a word and without hesitation, Spencer shoved me against the wall behind me and locked his mouth onto mine.

It was better than I could’ve imagined. And I had imagined it a lot over the course of tonight.

His tongue immediately shoved past the barrier of my lips and teeth, finding shelter in my mouth. The groans that came from him could have undone me right there, so I held onto his shoulders for dear life. His hands found his way to my ass, and he pushed me against his erection. His very large, very intimidating erection. And then all too soon, he pulled away, a string of saliva and swollen lips the only evidence of what had just happened.

“Who said you were allowed to tease me, huh? You've been pushing my buttons all night, and now look at you. A writhing mess underneath me. Such a needy little thing, aren't you?"

I shivered as his words reached my ears. So he had noticed I was already falling apart once again.

“God,” he moaned into my neck as he pushed me against his dick.

I couldn’t help myself- I moaned with him. The friction of him against my pulsing core was almost too much to handle.

“You sound so good,” he growled in my ear.

We stopped suddenly when footsteps could be heard nearby. I glanced at Spencer in a panic and started to move away from him. But before I could, he hastily shoved his hand over my mouth.

"Oh no, we're not stopping. Not when it’s getting this good. So you better be quiet or else everyone will know what a naughty little slut you are. Understand?"

I whimpered against his fingers and nodded at him. He gave me a wicked smile in return.

"Good girl. Now take off your panties and wrap your legs around me so I can feel just how tight your cunt really is. I have a feeling my dick will feel a lot better inside you rather than my fingers.”

With shaking hands, I slid my panties off and kicked them away.

Spencer must have enjoyed what I did because he licked his lips eagerly, never breaking his gaze towards me. Before I made my way back over to him, I couldn’t help but notice how hard he already was. This wouldn’t take long. Less of a chance we would get caught, thankfully. 

He pulled down his pants and boxers roughly, quickly stepping out of them like I had done moments ago. He made no motion to remove the clothes on his top half, solidifying the thought that this would be over quickly. How bittersweet. 

Without another word, I practically jumped into his arms, our mouths meeting immediately and moving against the other ferociously. But all of a sudden, he pulled away, and it pissed me off more than it should have. 

When I saw why he did though, I wasn’t angry anymore. 

He had picked up the belt he had been wearing from the floor, and was holding it in front of me with a dangerous look in his eye. 

“I don’t trust you to be quiet. Open,” Spencer said in a gravelly huff. 

I did as he asked without hesitation, and he roughly shoved the leather belt into my mouth, commanding me to bite down on it. 

Oh shit.

Without missing a beat, he picked me up and laid me down on the floor, extremely gently compared to how he had previously put the belt in my mouth. 

“Good thing you’re already so wet,” Spencer purred, looking down at my exposed core. “Otherwise, this might hurt a little. We don’t have a lot of time.”

Unfortunately, it did still hurt. But God, did it hurt so good. 

[samsa19]

Ranpo, Fyodor, Dazai: three intelligences

When I think about these characters, I really find interesting how different their intelligences are. 

I don’t claim to know anything more than everyone else, but organizing it makes it easier for personal reference. So I’m just going to cover my observations, here. 

(brain: wow. you really worked hard on that intro, didn't you.) 

(me: shut the fuck up)

So I’m going to start with Ranpo.

I’ve heard people say that they’re on par in intelligence. Now, that might be when comparing the totality. but if we’re talking about the quotient itself, I would say that Ranpo’s is incomparably higher. 

Take, for example, this scene. 

As Dazai bounces his ideas off of Ranpo, the difference in how fast they process information is very apparent. This is also shown in the murder case episode. (Nothing to say or mention there.)

Whereas Ranpo can, in a split second, scan, process, and analyze a huge amount of information, Dazai takes a bit longer. So in terms of the height of raw deductive/ analytical intelligence, Ranpo has the highest of the three. 

Ranpo sees through everything in a technical standpoint. All information is transparent- it would be impossible to hide anything factual from him. 

Like, this man’s intellect is massive. It can be likened to an actual computer database, but even quicker and higher in functionality. 

So, how can Dazai and Fyodor actually hold up against this quotient? 

I’ll start that by covering Fyodor. 

Fyodor is a little bit more similar to Dazai. He sees through people, and uses this it to manipulate them (as we have seen repeatedly). He’s done this with Gogol, Sigma, even Ace to a large extent (though not so interfering with his psychological aspects). 

He predicts people’s actions, and crafts flawless plans to target their human vulnerability. Then, he takes people’s strengths and turns them into weaknesses. In context of this specific skill, I think Fyodor tops everyone else in BSD. Combined with his natural base intellect, it’s very very difficult to beat him. 

For example. 

He sees through Ace’s character extensively, in both his precaution (he had speakers in the walls), stronger-than-average cunning (theoretically correct assumptions) and his pride (Fyodor provokes Ace on purpose). All of this is combined in a single plan, to lead Ace to his death. 

Similarly. Fyodor uses Ranpo’s incredible intelligence, to chip away both his and the rest of the Agency’s mental stability, driving down their morale. Kunikida’s affirmation is debilitated, and Ranpo (though he doesn’t show it) takes a hit as well. 

The Agency was driven down to such a low point (mentally) because Fyodor specifically was the overseer. Being able to see through, and top of that, poison the core of someone’s mentality- Fyodor seems almost invincible.

But here’s where Dazai comes in. 

Him being my favorite character in BSD, I’m reluctant to say he probably has the least deductive intelligence out of the three. Note that “least” does not mean at all “low”. (We’re talking exceptional geniuses here.) But in comparison to the three, I’m of the opinion he has the lowest raw IQ.

However. 

Dazai has a single unmatched skill- which is enhancing people’s strengths to their fullest. Although he’s seen as a similar scheming type (like Fyodor), this is the key difference. 

Even in the mafia.

(Putting aside for a moment his extremely questionable practices,) he recognizes the multiple strengths in Akutagawa’s ability, as opposed to a single offensive type. Hence Akutagawa (again, through extremely questionable and unforgivable practices) now uses his ability for single offense, defense, and supportive attacks. 

Same with Chuuya. 

He devises multiple plans taking in the full parameters of Chuuya’s ability. In “shame and toad”, I assume Dazai goes with this plan because Lovecraft is an “irrational” enemy, with compulsion to attack everything in proximity. Hence why it provides the perfect decoy for Chuuya to smack kick Lovecraft. Chuuya's physical strength comes into optimal timing here, and gives the best chance for success.

Now, I don't actually see the same thing happening a lot with Atsushi. Perhaps that has different reasons, or that Dazai knows Atsushi's already aware of the strength of that ability. 

One last thing I wanted to mention before I close, is that all three of these is incorporated with their personalities. 

Ranpo is successful with putting people on his side using his impressive intellect, because he has such an extroverted and earnest personality. He could’ve ended up like BBC Sherlock, but instead he earns the respect of his coworkers, and eventually, a whole partition of the police department. 

Fyodor is only able to twist his opponent’s mentalities so malignantly because it’s the nature of his character. I think, regardless of what his past is, this is just a natural characteristic in itself: Fyodor is arrogant. He acts above the humans around him. And it’s not wrong. By any means. He is, in fact, above most people- but eventually, it’s going to become his weakness. 

And Dazai, I would like to argue, is in nature, borderline good. Even in his most evil time period he’s attracted to and stuck to people with respect for living (Odasaku and Ango). His current strength is enhanced partially because Odasaku reinforced how he sees the goodness in people; but I have a hunch that he’s always seen it, just that nobody had ever guided him properly. 

What’s for certain, though, is that he isn’t, in essence, arrogant. When looking back through what he says or does, he doesn't actually look down on anyone (save Chuuya, but I’d like to argue that it’s confined to teasing). He puts his trust in people, unlike Fyodor. And that’s what I think puts the current arc to his side. 

...I think I covered everything?

Let me know if there’s anything I got factually incorrect, or if you have any counter theories. Thanks for reading! :)  

[spencers-renaissance]

The Noiseless Crash of Crumbling Walls

Summary: After Derek and Spencer are paired up on a science project in their senior year of high school, they become the closest, most unlikely friends possible. But what happens when Derek finally finds out what Spencer's dealing with at home? Inspired by the prompt “where did you get those bruises?”

Tags: high school au, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, hurt spencer, protective derek, abuse, friendship, pre-slash, spencer just turned 16, derek is almost 18

Word Count: 4.6k

Pairing: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Part Two

This is a platonic Derek & Spencer friendship fic because they are minors, but there are seeds being fairly obviously sown for part two of this series which will be set when they are both over the age of 18.

Spencer unfolds the creased piece of paper he’s holding for the eleventh time as he stares up at the house in front of him. He remembers the address scrawled on the sheet Derek Morgan had ripped from the back of his notebook earlier that day perfectly, the spiky peaks of his handwriting and the surprisingly loopy ‘y’s and ‘g’s are burned into his brain, but nerves have overtaken his helpless body. He’s not exactly in control of his actions. 

It’s not much but it’s definitely a cheerful house, that much is clear from the brightly lit windows and colourful curtains, the many gnomes decorating the front garden and the carefully planted flowers neighbouring the vegetable patch. One of the windows upstairs is cracked slightly and he can hear 90s R&B floating through the airwaves, accompanied by a female singing voice. The welcome he knows he’ll receive, though, is exactly what’s giving him pause.

A happy home is so foreign to him he has no idea how to behave. He’s used to being the adult, but tonight he has to play the 16 year old he is, and his mask is so dusty and disused he’s worried he won’t be anywhere close to convincing. 

Eventually, though, he summons up the courage to make his way up the stony path leading to the bright red front door. A brass knocker stares him in the face, but there’s a doorbell to his right as well, and the choice debilitates him for a moment, leaving him standing uselessly on the front step. He decides on the doorbell, since it’s a little more subtle, and he only has to wait a couple of seconds before the door is being yanked open and a smiling Derek Morgan is right in front of him. 

“I thought you’d never come.” His voice is bright and cheery but Spencer wonders for a moment if he’s mad at him. He’d been early when he first turned onto Derek’s road, but his over-thinking and ritualistic obsession over the address written on a scrap piece of paper had made him late. 

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, and his desperation to be understood, his clear discomfort in such a foreign environment must be obvious, because Derek’s face softens even further. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, pretty boy,” he grins, slinging an arm around his shoulders and leading him deeper into the hallway as he kicks the door shut behind them. 

Pretty boy. He’d used the nickname once earlier that day when they were planning when to meet up for their science project, and Spencer had flushed immediately. No-one’s ever called him pretty. He’s an awkward, lanky 16 year old senior who’s far too short for his age; his appearance isn’t exactly conducive to flattery. 

The last time anyone had called him by a fond nickname was when he was eleven years old and his mother was still somewhat rational. She’d pulled him close and called him her baby boy, and while some pre-teens might have recoiled from such a name, he simply snuggled closer and tried to remember every second he was wrapped up in such warmth. Five years later, he’s so thankful he did. He replays it most nights before he drops off to sleep.

He blushes again at Derek’s easy affection, trying to relax into the warmth of his house. 

“Is that your friend, honey?” A woman emerges from what Spencer assumes is the kitchen, drying her hands on a teatowel. She looks every bit the stereotypical American mother, dressed in casual, comfortable clothes with a warm smile plastered across her face. “It’s so nice to meet you, sweetheart. I’m Fran, Derek’s mom.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” he says shyly, trying to meet her eyes but failing miserably. He can’t help that this whole experience is so out of his comfort zone it’s ridiculous. 

“Do you boys want any snacks to take up with you?”

“Are you hungry, Spencer?” Derek asks, and he internally panics for a moment. Yes, is the answer. Yes, I’m so hungry. The only thing I’ve eaten today is an apple this morning. But is he allowed to say that? He examines the both of them and it does look like a genuine offer, but will they guess that something is wrong if he says yes? It’s only six o’clock, though, so maybe he can swing it.

“Yes please,” he dares, “I haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Fran says, putting her hands on her hips. “You both head on up. I’ll bring up a tray.” 

Derek’s room is big, filled with football trophies and posters. It’s so achingly normal that Spencer’s stomach clenches as he gingerly takes a seat on his bed at Derek’s instruction. 

“I did some research that will help us with our presentation,” Spencer offers as Derek sits on his desk chair, spinning around to face him. 

It had been a shock when they’d been paired up. Derek’s friends had hollered and laughed when their chemistry teacher had paired them together, and Spencer had gone bright red at the humiliation, not that he could exactly blame them. Pairing up the skinny nerd who’d been moved up two grades with the jock who was almost guaranteed a football scholarship to an excellent university later this year had been a rather bizarre choice on their teacher’s part.

It’s not that Spencer minded: along with being the quarterback with a 4.0 GPA, he was also painfully nice. But everyone else certainly did. Every girl in their science class had sent him death glares as Derek had sauntered over to his desk at the end of class, wearing a lazy grin.

“Chill, pretty boy,” Derek chuckles as he pushes himself side to side in his spinning chair. “We got time.”

“I have to be back home by 9,” Spencer says sheepishly. He’s sure most people in their senior year are allowed to stay out later than that, and he hopes against hope Derek thinks it’s only because he’s sixteen and not that he has to get his mother into bed and try and force her meds down her throat so she won’t wake him up in the middle of the night convinced the shadows in her room are government spies. 

“Still three hours. Anyway, I’m sure my mom can drop you home,” Derek shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. Besides, we have weeks until we have to present. Why don’t we spend tonight getting to know each other? I feel like I should know a little bit about my project partner, especially if we’re going to be working together for the rest of the year.”

“The rest of the year?” His voice squeaks anxiously but he can’t help it, Derek’s completely catching him off guard. 

“Yeah. Ms Farron keeps partners from the first project together for every assignment that year.”

This is news to Spencer, but he tries to keep calm. It’s a good thing, right? Derek has always been friendly to him, and he’s intelligent, too. It’s unlikely he’ll fob all the work off onto him. But being taken advantage of and subsequently left alone is what he’s used to: ‘getting to know each other’ is decidedly new territory. Spencer’s head is spinning. 

“Oh.”

“So, pretty boy,” Derek grins, giving himself another 360 spin, “tell me what a 16 year old is doing in senior year.”

“I got moved up two grades back in elementary school,” he explains, grateful that this is at least a rather impersonal topic. “My teachers wanted me even higher but two grades is the maximum our school district allows.”

“I guessed that much,” Derek points out. “Why were you moved up two grades?”

They’re briefly interrupted by Fran’s delivery of a delectable spread for them to feast on. Spencer reaches for a cracker and dips it in some cream cheese, but as soon as he’s swallowed his first bite, Derek gives him a look that tells him he hasn’t exactly gotten away with it. 

He sighs. “The last time I was tested, I had an IQ of 187,” he admits, looking down at his worn sneakers. He’d expected to be told to remove them, but he’s glad he wasn’t. His socks almost certainly have holes in them, and laundry isn’t something he can afford to do often. “And I have an eidetic memory.”

Derek lets out a low whistle. “Damn, I knew you were a genius but that’s some next level shit,” he says, before popping a grape in his mouth. “You’re going places, Spencer Reid.” He’s saved from having to fight his blush too hard by Derek moving swiftly on. “Your turn to ask me a question.” 

Spencer takes a second to think before deciding to push the boat out, to ask something he actually wants to know instead of playing it safe. “You’re popular, star of the football team, get straight As,” he starts slowly, not meeting Derek’s eyes. “What makes you so nice? You could easily join in with your friends and be another asshole jock pushing me into lockers.”

When he looks up, Derek’s face is an array of emotions. “Kindness costs nothing,” he says seriously, and the intensity of his gaze surprises Spencer. “I saw my pops shot to death in front of me when I was ten and I got my ass kicked every day in freshman year, believe it or not. I know what kindness can mean to a person just as much as I know what cruelty does to someone.”

Spencer doesn’t really know what to say to that, but he knows that he’s finally relaxed a little. Derek’s stark honesty and vulnerability, as much as he doesn’t know quite the right way to react, is refreshing to him, and it’s made the icon of their school seem much more human. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Spencer says quietly. 

“Thanks, man,” Derek says, a half smile crossing his face. “What about your family life?” 

Spencer swallows another bite of his cream cheese and crackers, his empty stomach thanking him for finally filling it. “My dad walked out when I was ten,” he admits, treading as carefully as possibly. “It’s just me and my mom now.”

“I’m sorry. Are you and your mom close?”

How does he answer a question like that? They’re close in the respect that Spencer cares for her and spends every free moment he has with her. But he also holds his breath every time he turns down his street, half expecting to see his house up in flames, and they’re going hungry this week because she threw most of their groceries in a nearby river after convincing herself it was all poisoned. They don’t exactly have a typical mother-son relationship. 

“Something like that,” he mumbles, stuffing another cracker into his mouth. Derek clearly takes the hint that he doesn’t want to elaborate and moves on. 

They spend the rest of the evening taking it in turns asking one another questions, ranging from simple ones like their favourite colours to deeper conversations around their future plans and biggest fears. By the time 9 rolls around, they’re lying next to one another on Derek’s bed both facing the ceiling as they trade questions back and forth. Fran’s dinner tray is now covered in crumbs, her carefully prepared spread having been demolished by two hungry teenagers. 

Their assigned topic, Enthalpy, Entropy, and Free Energy, hasn’t even been touched, and Spencer can’t find it in him to care. He could throw together a perfect presentation the night before if he needed to. Right now, getting to know Derek Morgan seems far more important. Ironically, the boy he’s only really started to get to know three hours ago is probably the person who knows him best in this whole world, and the thought makes his chest hurt. 

The jittery nerves that had consumed him at the start of the evening have dissipated into a calm companionship, and he can’t believe how comfortable he now feels. He doesn’t want to leave, but he has to take care of his mom; she’s already been on her own for so long today. 

As if on cue, Fran knocks on the door, poking her head round. “Would you like me to drop you home, Spencer?”

He feels guilty accepting, but the last thing he wants is a twenty minute walk home through the streets of Chicago in the pitch black December night. “Yes, please.”

Derek comes with them for the short drive, and Spencer feels a little embarrassed as he points out the apartment block he lives in. It’s a shitty neighbourhood and his building is crumbling, but it’s home and it’s the cheapest they can afford on welfare. He ducks out of the car and shoots them both a grateful smile. 

“Thank you for driving me home, Fran,” he says. “And thank you for a nice evening, Derek.”

“No problem, pretty boy,” Derek winks. “I’ll find you at school tomorrow and we’ll sort out another night to meet up, yeah?”

The smile the Morgans put on his face doesn’t fade until he opens the door to his apartment and reality brings him crashing back down to earth. 

⭐️

Over the next few weeks, Spencer Reid gains his first friend. They finally end up actually writing their presentation and naturally, they get an A+ but Spencer’s anxiety that Derek would want to stop hanging out with him once the project that had brought them together was behind them ended up being for nothing. Derek had fist-bumped him as they’d walked out of their classroom. “Come over tonight?” he’d asked, and once Spencer had recovered from his shock, he’d beamed and nodded excitedly. 

As Christmas comes and goes, they continue their bizarre friendship. Spencer runs up to Derek’s room as soon as the door is opened, and dives under the covers on his bed, always freezing cold. The first time Derek had cuddled Spencer, he hadn’t been able to stop smiling. He’s seriously touch-starved, and it’s only more apparent from the way he craves contact with Derek. He’s ridiculously thankful that the older boy is so free with his affection, not consumed by the same toxic masculinity that seems to plague the rest of the football team. 

It’s nearing February when Derek asks the fatal question.

Spencer had whizzed home after school and made sure his mom was okay before running over to Derek’s, breezing past Sarah on the staircase and diving onto the soft, clean bed sheets. He’s sometimes jealous of all the home comforts his friend has access to, but he does his best to tamp it down. It’s not like it’s Derek’s fault that he’s well-loved and cared for. 

“Whoa, pretty boy,” Derek chuckles as he spins around from where he’s doing homework at his desk. “Where’s that shy boy who sat right on the edge of my bed only two months ago, hm?”

“You prefer confident Spencer and you know it.” He moves up the bed a little to sit with his back against the headboard. He’s never become so comfortable around a person this quickly before but there’s something different about Derek. 

“Can’t argue with that.” He gets off the chair and moves to sit next to Spencer on the bed, lifting his arm to let the smaller boy cuddle close. Spencer sometimes has nightmares that the boys at school find out how affectionate they are with one another and call them gay after which Derek doesn’t want to hang out with him anymore. (Secretly, he thinks he might actually be gay, but he won’t tell Derek that. Just in case.)

“Can I stay for dinner?” he asks. It’s a moot point: Spencer always asks if he can stay and the Morgans always say yes, but he doesn’t like assuming, especially since he knows how expensive food is. Not that Fran has ever complained about an extra mouth to feed, though. The dinners at Derek’s house are always a family affair, full of laughter and hearty, homemade meals and Spencer likes pretending he’s one of them, just for a little while. 

The guilt that he’s leaving his mom for so long eats him up, only eased by the knowledge that she usually sleeps the afternoon away, worn out by a manic morning. He has no idea how to navigate this anymore. It was easier when the only person he had in the world was his mom, but now he has Derek and his family. And as much as he loves his mom and doesn’t mind taking care of her at all, spending time with Derek doesn’t automatically trigger gut-eating anxiety and heart-wrenching misery.

“Of course you can stay, don’t be ridiculous.” Derek elbows him playfully. “You don’t need to ask every night.”

“What if one night you don’t want me to stay, though?”

“I thought I told you to stop being ridiculous?”

Spencer can’t help but smile at Derek’s relaxed, easy grin. For some reason this popular football player with the world as his oyster and a million friends chooses to spend every evening with the nerd who’s two years younger than everyone in their year. For some reason, Derek chooses Spencer. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Derek asks the question. “Why don’t I come over to your place instead one evening?” It’s a casual suggestion, there’s nothing really behind it. “I’d like to meet your mom and see your bedroom. If you’re gonna make fun of my football trophies, I need some revenge material.”

Spencer freezes. He has no idea how to respond to such an innocent proposition. Derek takes his stunned silence as reluctance simply cured with a little more persuasion. “Besides,” he continues, “I feel bad that you always have to run home first before coming over here. It’s like a twenty minute walk.”

“I don’t know,” Spencer hedges, trying to buy time as he comes up with a cover story. “My mom is really particular about our space and she doesn’t really like visitors. I’m not sure your mom could spare you a family dinner anyway.” He pushes Derek playfully, hoping to God he’s even half-way convincing. 

One glance at Derek’s face tells him he isn’t buying it, but he can clearly read Spencer’s troubled anxiety expression so he doesn’t push it. “Okay, pretty boy,” he says, relaxing back into the bed, ��we’ll stick with the Fran Morgan dinner delight for now.”

Something tells him he won’t get so lucky next time. 

⭐️

Spring is just starting to show her face the next time it comes up, and this time it’s completely Spencer’s fault. He shouldn’t have gone over to Derek’s. He should have made up an excuse and stayed in his shitty apartment with his mom, but he couldn’t help it. He was sore and desperately sad, and all he wanted was Fran’s comforting shepherd’s pie and a cuddle with Derek. So he’d made his way home, checked his mom was still sleeping before limping over to the Morgan’s.

He’d concealed it pretty well all day, but energy is seeping out of him and the pain is only getting worse, not helped by the decent trek across town. 

He has a key now, so he lets himself in, hoping to avoid Fran until dinner time. Luckily, he’s quiet enough to not disturb her baking in the kitchen, so he makes his way slowly up the stairs, hoping Derek is not as perceptive tonight as he usually is. He’d briefly considered using bullies as a cover story if it came up, but Derek has spent almost every moment he could at school with him the last few days, he wasn’t out of his sight long enough to really encounter anyone cruel enough for it to be a viable story. 

“Pretty boy,” Derek greets him, not turning away from the maths homework he’s finishing up. It gives Spencer a little extra time to make it to the bed like he usually does. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Spencer sighs. “A bit tired. You?”

“Training was rough today so I’m sore as shit, but otherwise I’m fine. Better now you’re here.” He turns to smile fondly at Spencer, finally locking eyes on his pale, sallow skin and defeated expression. He scrambles to try and make himself look slightly less terrible, but he’s not quick enough. “You sure you’re good? You don’t look it.”

“No, seriously, I’m fine,” Spencer tries to persuade him. “Just tired as I said. Can we watch a movie while we wait for dinner?”

Derek doesn’t look even close to convinced, but he gives in and brings up netflix on his computer. Spencer collapses against Derek and lets his eyes close as the film they choose plays across the laptop screen, but he must fall asleep because the next thing he knows, he’s being shaken awake by his friend and he’s in a completely different position. 

“Spencer, wake up,” he says insistently, and the urgent worry in his tone makes him sit up, wincing when the movement aches his core. 

“What? What’s wrong?” he mumbles sleepily, obediently sitting up at Derek’s instruction. 

“Pretty boy,” Derek says, sounding teary and a little desperate, “where did you get those bruises?” 

He freezes for a second before glancing down at himself and realising that as he’d slept his shirt had shifted, revealing his black and blue stomach. How the fuck was he going to explain this? Not seeming himself wasn’t such a challenge, everyone has their off-days after all, but bruises like these aren’t the sort of thing your best friend just drops when you don’t want to explain them. 

“I—” He has no idea what to say. Tears spring to his eyes in a terribly unhelpful fashion, and Derek moves closer, wrapping Spencer up in a hug. 

“It’s okay, you can tell me, Spencer,” he promises as he holds him so tenderly it breaks his heart. “Take your time.” 

He cries for a good few minutes — it just feels so good to let it out — but as his painful sobs draw to a close, he knows it’s time to face the music. There’s no other option. He has to tell Derek. And maybe a teeny tiny part of him actually wants to tell his best friend.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” he confesses, keeping his head buried in his friend’s chest so he doesn’t have to look him in the eyes. Derek’s hand combing through his hair doesn’t falter. “The reason I didn’t want you to come to my place is because of my mom… She’s a paranoid schizophrenic. When my dad left I became her primary carer, and I’m— I’m not doing a good job.”

Derek holds him a little tighter and presses his cheek to the top of Spencer’s head, shushing him quietly. “Don’t say that, I’m sure you’re doing an amazing job.”

“The other night she got confused because she’d refused her meds again. She became convinced that I was a spy there to hurt her. I can usually talk her down from these moments, or at least guide her to bed to let her sleep it off, but this time there was no reasoning. Eventually, she got so worked up that she shoved me backwards, hard. It sent me sprawling face first across the coffee table, and she kicked me twice before considering herself safe and barricading herself in her room.” He tells the whole story through thick tears, shoulders still shaking with pent up emotion. He wishes it didn’t feel so good to finally get off my chest. 

“Spencer, oh my God,” Derek whispers, sounding thoroughly shocked. He’s suddenly fearful that he’s going to report Diana, and he sits up, finally meeting Derek’s teary eyes with his own. 

“You can’t… you can’t tell anyone,” he begs. “If anyone finds out, she’ll be locked away and I’ll be put into foster care. I can’t do that to her and I can’t lose you.” 

Derek takes Spencer’s hands. “Okay, okay,” he soothes, making him calm down a little. “I promise I won’t tell anyone, okay? Not without your permission. But I also can’t let you be beat up by your mom.”

“It’s not her fault,” Spencer says desperately, “it’s not her fault. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she thinks she’s in danger.”

“I know,” Derek promises him, “I know it’s not her fault, but she still hurt you. Has this happened before?” Spencer’s hung head and refusal to respond speaks for itself. “Okay, listen. I know you need to go home tonight, but come over tomorrow morning okay? It’s a Saturday and we can spend the morning figuring out a game plan and the afternoon taking your mind off it. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Is this… is this why you like being here?” Derek sounds nervous asking the question, clearly not wanting to offend him.

“Before I became friends with you,” he whispers, moving back to hide against Derek’s chest where it’s safe, “I went hungry a lot. We don’t have much money between rent and bills and mom’s medical expenses. I had to hide the groceries because she would become convinced they were poisoned and destroy them, but she got really good at finding them. I had to stop keeping them in my room because she would insist that I was corroborating with the government in trying to poison her.” 

“Spencer,” Derek breathes, holding onto him for dear life. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t know about any of this, I would’ve done something, I could’ve helped.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“I’ll keep you safe now. I promise.” 

When Fran comes and asks them down for dinner a few minutes later, Derek points to Spencer’s exhausted form slumped against him and asks if they can have it up in his room. She relents, and Derek manages to get him to eat a few bites of the risotto Fran had made, not leaving his safe cocoon against Derek’s chest.

He insists on driving Spencer home himself tonight, surprising Fran who had her coat and boots on already, but he escorts his friend right up to his door. “If you come in, mom will get confused,” he explains so Derek gives him a long hug in front of his apartment door instead, holding him as close as possible. 

“Spencer… you know I love you right?” he asks, expression intense and serious as his gentle hands rest on his shoulders. “You’re my best friend. I’m always gonna be here for you.”

“I love you, too, Derek,” he whispers, giving him another hug. It scares him just how much he means those five little words, all the meanings that dance behind them taking him aback. For now, though, he settles on one more tight squeeze before deciding to not procrastinate the inevitable anymore. “I should go in and see mom.”

“Yeah. I’ll pick you up at 9 tomorrow?”

“Perfect.” His heart does an excited little leap at the thought of seeing Derek again in the morning. As he walks away back towards the elevators, Spencer takes a deep breath before inserting his key into the lock on his door and pushing it open. He only has to go 12 hours without seeing his best friend. He can do this. 

His life suddenly seems like it holds infinitely more promise than it ever has. He supposes that’s the power of Derek Morgan.

Part Two 

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @hotchgans @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith  (taglist form)

[thefanficmonster]

Quarantine On Crack...yet again

PART ONE 

Until Dawn Gang + Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing, Underage Drinking, Shameless Flirting

Genre: Crack, Humor

Summary: Time to check on our favorite gang who are still quarantined together and have still surprisingly not murdered one another. The lodge is still intact, which is promising. And everyone still has all seven of their limbs. How long will this simulation of peace last for is the real question.

Requested by my dear Until Dawn Anon who I haven’t heard from in so long 🥺 Hii dear! I have missed you tremendously! Here we are again to witness the craziness of our babies and I hope you’ll join me on the rollercoaster once again! Sorry it has taken me so long to write the long-ago-promised part 2 to the crack fic but here it finally is! Hope you enjoy it! Love and miss you, Vy ❤

“Alright folks, the delivery has arrived!“ I announce as Josh, Sam and I stumble through the front door of the lodge, each one of us carrying large boxes of food and toiletries. Bless the Washingtons for still sending us food, if I were them, Lord knows I’d either forget to do so or simply not do it because I didn’t feel like it. Hey, I’m not saying I hate these people, I’m just insinuating that they would not among my priorities had I been the one responsible to send them food. They should be in that case - but I’m being very honest when I say they wouldn’t be.

“Finally!“ Jess and Emily are so in sync for two people who supposedly can’t stand each other, it’s scary. Not that I wasn’t already scared of them to begin with. I just have a hard time dealing with them. But they are good in bed so I keep them around...

“What do you mean ‘finally’? We still have food from last week.“ Matt points out, a slight frown on his face when he lifts his head from the book he’s reading.

“We ran out of coffee capsules, duh!“ Jess says as though she’s addressing the most obvious thing to a person with very low IQ.

Matt does the smart thing of rolling his eyes and returning to his book. Speaking of which, I’m sending another blessing to the Washingtons for having the GRAND library here. I know I would’ve gone nuts and murdered half of these bitches if I didn’t have a book or two to keep me busy. That’s how things are with me, I either have a book to read or I’m committing a murder rampage. No in-between, at least not with these people.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs attracts our attention. Mike, Mr. Golden Boy comes down the stairs and plops down next to Jess, wrapping his arm around here, “There better be some beer in there.” He winks at me. Yeah, that’s Mike alright - has his arm around one girl, winks at another.

“I swear to God, if you two try to have a sword fight with empty beer bottles again, one of you is getting sent to the cabin.“ Josh warns us, taking on the parent role for once.

“Whoa there, Dr. Phil! Send us to the ranch next, why don’t ya!“ I roll my eyes at him, seeing his expression beg to change into a smile at my joke while he’s trying to maintain his no-funny-business look.

“Can we go unbox these things already? My arms are dead by now.“ Sam complains and doesn’t wait for an answer from us as she takes off with a rather fast pace towards the kitchen.

Josh and I are quick to follow. Much to my dismay, in order to reach the kitchen, we have to pass by where Emily is sitting. Since I haven’t already put in a request for a restraining order against her, passing within grabbing distance of her is risky as all hell. But you know me, I love risks. Passing in front of her I get ballsy and even give her the finger as I go. 

“You’ll regret that, Y/N! You’ll fucking regret it!“ She calls after me in teasingly threatening manner that almost makes me chuckle, however I keep my features as still as the ones of a statue and I don’t turn back around.

Sam and Josh have already cut the boxes open and have started moving the products from the box onto the kitchen counter and island. I grab the box cutter from its spot near the sink and cut the box open as well. To Josh’s dismay but my incredible luck, there are indeed a few beer bottles in my box. I cheer silently as I take them to the cooler.

“You know, Sam...“ Josh’s voice interrupts the silence just as I’m about to close the cooler. I’m honestly intrigued by what he has to say to Sam, and eavesdropping might be wrong, but it’s not like the fuckers can’t see me standing five fucking feet away! - so I pretend I’m organizing the cooler so I don’t have to return to the center of the kitchen where the two of them are crouched by their packages. A quick look over my shoulder confirms that they are indeed having a *MOMENT*, one I wouldn’t want to interrupt.

“Yes, Josh?“ Sam responds, giving me an urge to go grab some popcorn before any more progression happens. I know these two have eyes for one another, but they are both massive hypocrites! The are doing the very thing they hold against Chris and Ashley: hiding their feelings. Since I’m Josh’s unlicensed and unpaid therapist, I have a bit more intel on what’s going on in his head. It’s basically: 30% what am I doing with my life; 30% I need a drink; 40% Sam. You’d be surprised if you knew how often he mentions her when he’s venting. I’ve encouraged him to make a move countless times but it’s like trying to talk me into not killing Mike - impossible.

“You could melt the snow outside.” It takes me all my might to hold back from facepalming. Oh God, if this is what he thinks I meant when I said ‘tell her how you feel‘ he couldn’t be more wrong.

“Ok, lovebirds!“ I have never been happier to hear Chris’ voice. He saved me the trouble of having to step in and end the awkwardness myself. I turn around with a what I hope is a casual and friendly and totally not distressed smile. Behind Chris stand Ashley and Mike. “Need any help?“

“Yeah, you guys could come in handy.“ I tell them, waving them over almost desperately, “Ok, one of you help me with the rest of the things in the box. The other two can organize the shit that’s on the counter.“

I duck back down to continue unboxing. There’s bags of dried fruit, tea, the coffee capsules Jess was talking about, some spices which I’m not sure why they’re there but I’m not complaining.

“Heard you needed help.“ Oh for fuck’s sake, Mike again. Why couldn’t it be Chris or Ashley, or Satan for that matter. I’m really not in the mood to be cleaning blood off the kitchen floor tiles.

I tilt my head to the side and it’s only then that I realize how close he is to me. My eyes immediately travel to where I left the box cutter. “Back it up, Michael, or....“ FUCK IT’S NOT THERE. I swear I left it there! Where the fuck is it?!

“Or what?“ He reads my confusion and holds up his hand that is holding the box cutter I’m searching for. I’m afraid the more time we spend under the same roof the more experience he’ll have in defending himself and disarming me.

“Motherfucker...“ I growl and grab the tea and coffee capsules and stand up, “It’s a pandemic, damn it. Six feet apart at all times, buddy. I wish you’d put a mask over that mug of yours too.“ I narrow my eyes as I look down at him, resisting the desire to kick him.

“Only if you were the mask.“ Oh this fucker...he even has the audacity to stand up and step closer. Why are the four other people not noticing this? Ok yeah, cause they don’t wanna be witnesses to the murder of their old class prez. I got it.

“Six feet apart or six feet under, Munroe. Your call.“ He cockily waves the box cutter, not as a threat but as a remainder that I don’t have a weapon. “Bold of you to assume I need that to kill you.“

“She could always snap your neck.“ Chris pipes in.

“Or poke your eyes out.“ Ash does too.

“Or strangle you.“ Sam adds.

“The latter doesn’t sound so bad...“ He smirks at me, earning himself mortified looks from the peanut gallery.

“I. Hear. FLIRTING.“ Jess’ voice cuts through the tension that has built up in the kitchen. Mike and I turn to the doorway simultaneously as well as every other head in the room.

There is Jess looking like a pissed off cartoon toddler - aka: my escape.

“And I hear the void calling me.“ I catch her off-guard and put the items I was carrying in her arms, “I better go see what it wants from me. Byeeee.“

I all but hightail it out of there. I mean, say what you want about Mike’s shitty personality, or lack of personality all-together, but the fucker’s got sexappeal. Not that I’d ever admit it or fall under its effects.

In the living room I find Hannah and Beth with no traces of Emily or Matt. I feel slightly relieved, to be perfectly honest. Seeing the perfect stress relieving opportunity, I sit down next to Beth on the couch and lie down, placing my head in her lap. “Hi!” I give her a cheeky smile.

“You’re the Devil.“ Beth mutters without giving me as much as a glance. I turn to wave at Hannah and that’s when I see the chess board set up on the coffee table. So that’s what she’s so focused on.

“Oh please, you’ll make me blush.“ I fake a giggle and blow her a kiss while she remains completely unbothered.

“Whatever’s going on over there - I DON’T LIKE IT!“ Josh says menacingly as him, Sam, Chris and Ashley enter the living room.

“ME NEITHER“ Oh no, that’s Emily’s voice. Her and Matt have just walked into the lodge after another stroll - they have those when they wanna make out in private. Speaking of making out, I don’t see Jess and Mike anywhere, much to my relief - one of them wants to kill me at the moment but they both wanna sleep with me too so you get why it’s a situation I’d like to avoid.

“No jealousy, guys, please. I love you all the same!“ I prep myself up in a half-sitting position to give them an apologetic but seductive look when a pillow whacks me in the face, “What the hell?!“

“I thought you loved me more!“ Beth barks back angrily.

Well, I’m in some serious trouble now. Not only is Beth DEADLY when angry, but she also has two siblings who are more than capable of kicking my ass.

“I do! I really do, Beth, I swear!“ My apologies are put to an end by another hit with a pillow. “You know I do!“ I sit up completely and turn to look at Beth who has turned the opposite direction. “Pwease?” I give her the best puppy-dog eyes I can pull of despite feeling utterly ridiculous.

“So you do have a favorite member after all? And it’s not me? Wow, Y/N.“ Ash glares at me as well, crossing her arms and also turning away from me.

“I SECOND THAT.“ Emily stomps her foot down and storms out of the room

Oh fuck.

“I do too, honestly. I’m really hurt, Y/N.“ Matt the person I can always trust to be on my side has turned his back to me in this time of need.

Oh fuck squared.

“You’re in some deep shit now.“ Hannah laughs almost evilly as she leans back in the armchair she’s sitting in.

“Josh, could you set something on fire again? Preferably me this time.“ I mutter with a monotone voice. I’d like to picture there’s a rain cloud above my head just pouring down on me. And zaps me with lightning every now and then for good measure.

“Nah, that’d be too easy on you.“ This motherfucker....

“Oh so you WANT me to tell a specific someone what you think and say about them when they aren’t around?“ I change the meaning of ‘death glare‘ with this look I give him. I’m sure that if I keep staring at him like this long enough I’ll burn holes into his skull.

After a few moments of still silence and intense glaring he finally breaks, “Alright fine, I’ll get the deodorant and lighter.“

I sigh in relief. I suppose there are worse ways to leave this world...

“No!“

“Don’t you dare!“

“No way!“

Beth, Ashley and Matt all jump up as soon as Josh gives any effort to stand up.

“Washington, I swear to God!“ There go Emily and Jess in sync again as they both enter the room armed. Jess is only in her underwear but we don’t talk about that. What’s important is that she’s carrying the box cutter from before while Emily is armed with a dull butter knife. Knowing how determined she can be, I wouldn’t underestimate her power due to the lack of sharpness to her weapon.

Josh is rightfully stunned by the sudden turn of events and sits his ass back down with hands raised in the air. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.

“Y’all love me!“ I smile at them, putting a hand over my heart.

Jess turns to me in a split-second, angry as fuck, and points the box cutter at me. “Y/N, I swear to God-”

“Alright, alright, alright...“ I too raise my hands in surrender.

This is how shit goes down over here. Just pure fucking CHAOS, a lot of drinking, flirting and sex jokes. And so much wondering how we’re all friends.

[bittervitter]

ang0mang0′s “copycat” claims

I didn’t want to have to make another post about this, but since people on sonicfan799 / thatAnge / @ang0mang0′s Tumblr profile are getting riled up about this ridiculous drama that should have died ages ago, I figured I’d defend myself. Some people who are trying to support me have been saying incorrect things too, so I also wanted to clear that up. This crap has been going on for months, everyone is sick of it by now. Instead of being brief like I did for other social medias, I’ll be as detailed as possible this time.

[1] “she’s copying/imitating/heavily referencing from my art style!!!”

Like people have said a million times, no I’m not. And nor is anyone else. Just because someone draws the Sonic characters in a similar style to you does not automatically mean they took, copied or “stole” those ideas from you. You don’t own the concept of buff, fluffy bodies or chubby muzzles. COINCIDENCE, as much as you hopelessly deny it, is very much a possible thing- even in crazy situations such as this. There are several other artists who have similar art styles by mere coincidence. IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE. As examples, these Instagram artists have similar styles: @ azulytoons and @ indigonite0 / @ magenta_mel and @ zer0finix / @ himemikal and @ natirix. NONE of these artists are “stealing” or referencing from each other- they just have similar art styles, and that is perfectly okay! They draw completely different things with completely different mindsets. The world does not revolve around you, ang0. Not everyone knows who you are, so some people who use the same traits that we do don’t even know we exist.

Also, to anyone unaware, an art STYLE is not merely how one chooses to portray a character. An art STYLE is also what brushes you use, how you sketch, how you line, how you colour, how you shade, how you choose to portray certain objects or ideas- basically your entire fucking understanding of how something’s supposed to look and how you LIKE it to look. It’s not just “chubby faces, poofy curly hair, buff bodies”. It’s everything in a piece AND that.

[2] “she’s tracing my art/ redrawing my ideas!”

Literally no. People have constantly asked you to provide evidence and you refused to. All you did was scream “but it’s so obvious, just look at it!” or “are you dumb? use your eyes!” and several other insults. If you want to prove a point or make someone see something, GIVE. EVIDENCE. The only person who actually provided “proof” was pin_kpeach, your ever so loyal whiteknight, but her “proof” only backfired and proved that the both of you are extremely delusional. In the drawings of ours that she layered over each other, next to NONE of the lines lined up. It looked like a clustered mess of scrap, and the reason for that is because IT WASN’T TRACED. In the one or two drawings where ONE. SINGLE. PIECE. actually lined up was entirely zoomed in to make it seem as though the whole thing was traced. No, honey, that’s not how you provide proof. That’s how you pull a muscle by reaching so desperately to lie about me. The rest of the drawings in those pictures didn’t line up at all, and one- or I believe both- needed to be titled to line them up in the first place. You could say that some people trace things and resize or rotate them, but if I were as dumb as you persist to say, then I wouldn’t have done something like that. Either way, one aspect of a drawing lining up is a common thing for people who have similar styles because- well, I just said it. THEY HAVE SIMILAR STYLES. If they draw something the same way, well fucking duh, it’ll match someone else’s drawing almost exactly sometimes.

[3] “she’s too petty and too much of a liar to credit me! saying the art isn’t hers will hurt her oversized ego!”

Ahaha no. The only one here with an inflated ego is you, ang0. You call me the egotistical one yet you act as though your life is falling apart just because someone else draws like you on the internet. Stop acting like a special snowflake, you are not the only one on this planet with an art style of that nature. I don’t credit you because crediting you makes no damn sense. Why should I credit someone who’s had absolutely no impact on my work whatsoever? What in the hell did you do for my drawings that makes you deserve so much credit? Did you sketch it? No. Did you line it? Nope. Did you colour or shade it? Not a chance. Just because I came up with a design for the characters that happens to look like yours does not mean I owe you jack shit. You cannot. own. a style. Get over it.

[4] “she worsened my depression and is the reason I can’t draw anymore! I have no motivation when there’s some idiot copycat stealing all my art!”

I don’t want to sound like that kind of person, but you worsened your own depression. You painted this false picture in your head and continue to hang onto that belief like your life depends on it. I haven’t done ANYthing to you. You came to ME with these stupid claims back when my art looked LESS like yours, before I even knew who you were. You’re making yourself feel horrible because you, for some paranormal reason, refuse to believe that you’re not the only one with that kind of style. This is why people call you childish, you’re like a whiny baby that can’t accept another child having a toy similar to yours. I can’t even decide whether I should say “grow up” because you’re older than me- not to mention you’re an ADULT.

[5]”she constantly sends her whiteknights to attack me, harass me and send me threatening messages!”

I’ve said several times to my followers NOT to harass you or your followers or anyone against me in this mess at all. I do not send anyone after you. People say things to you out of their own free will and with their own words. I can’t magically know when this happens, why they decide to and I especially can’t control anyone. I’m sorry that my friend Koro sent you all those DMs and horrible messages wishing a lot of very bad things onto you and your family- I asked her several times before and after not to do that, but I didn’t have a clue she did it until after the fact. Either way, don’t go around assuming that I put people up to this or I intentionally ask people to do these things to you. Why in the hell would I do that? What good does that do? All I wanted to do was talk things out but at this point, you don’t even take me seriously, so I can’t even try anymore. The few times we did talk you refuse to see my point of view and just see me as a liar. What the hell am I supposed to do then?

[6]”all vio does is lie, she’s so fake all the time, lying for her petty ego”

I’m not even sure how to respond to this but I thought I might as well bring it up. No matter what I do or say, ang0 sees me as nothing but some retarded liar that can’t help but lie their way around everything, even though I’ve been nothing but genuine all this time. It’s why I can’t even communicate with her anymore, because “shut up, stop lying you copycat” is all I get in response basically.

[7] her insane hypocrisy

Ange and pin_kpeach have said numerous times that I’m rude or insult her, and there have been times where I’ve been mean out of anger, but I know for a fact I apologized for it in DMs. Ange apologized too. I don’t remember ever insulting her after that, but ang0 doesn’t ever stop ridiculing and insulting me with almost every comment she makes on the drama. If she really was sorry, she wouldn’t have done it again, but I guess she said “fuck it” and just continued anyway. Pin_kpeach likes to say I’M the hypocrite for saying Ange is harassing me yet being rude to her a couple times, yet they do they exact same thing, but even worse?? I try my best to be as civil as possible, but ang0 and pink don’t waste a second calling me and my supporters all sorts of colourful names just because they don’t agree with her claims. In fact, here’s a list of every single thing ang0’s ever called me:

retarded, retard, stupid, idiot, dumb, low IQ, mentally ill, crazy, talentless, skill-less, copycat, art thief, (dumb) cow, fuckhole, asshole, bitch, wanna-be artist, unreasonable, clown, fake, liar, hypocrite, delusional, dick, stalker, bittershitter, dumbass, immature

There’s probably more than that, but that’s as much as I can remember. Not hard to forget when she repeats them almost all the time.

[8] gatekeeping ideas

Ange and pink act as if two people drawing a character in the same outfit automatically equals “du bist kopying mein style!!”. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental gymnastics you need to do in order to believe a thought process like that is logical. She thinks that anyone who draws Amy in a dress with a white under-skirt or white ruffles underneath is nothing but a copied idea from her. She thinks that me drawing Amy in a green tank top, blue backwards cap and blue sports shorts is copying her drawing of Amy in a green unidentifiable top (you could only see her back, she didn’t seem to have straps) and blue sports shorts with a slightly different design is automatically copied from her. The poses, shading, angle and idea behind the drawing were COMPLETELY different- but nonono, “this is stolen because the outfit is the same!” They also use the excuse of the whole chubby faces, curly hair, blah blah blah- see point [1] as to why that’s BS.

[9] her perception of my followers/supporters

Aside from Koro, I don’t know if anyone has seriously threatened or harassed her. Her followers comment on my posts, my followers only comment when she brings up the drama or whines about it. She insults my supporters when they don’t agree with her and act like they’re a bunch of immature brats who are wrong while she’s the high and mighty mature one seeing through non-existent lies. I’m used to her making fun of me, but I’m sick and tired of her insulting people who have nothing to do with the drama just because they don’t agree with her. Like, seriously? You call everyone immature and stupid yet you’re the one insulting people non-stop just because they realize how ridiculous and childish you’re acting. That’s why “childish” has become a popular adjective for you, ang0. BECAUSE YOU’RE BEING CHILDISH. CONSTANTLY. You get pissy, insult others and put people down but whine and cry the next minute because you constantly like to play the victim. Speaking of which...

[10] the victim card

I have absolutely no idea what ang0 goes through in real life, but there is no excuse for how she’s behaved during this drama AT ALL. Ange constantly defames her own artwork, calling it shit, calling it every bad name in the book, but doesn’t hesitate for a minute to gatekeep her style as if it was the best thing in the world. She says it’s because she “worked her ass off” and doesn’t want people just stealing her hard work. Okay, but you do realize that other people put just as much work into their own art, no matter if it looks like yours or not, right? She demands that people change their style to stop looking like hers, acting as if that can be done in a matter of minutes, because people having similar styles makes her uncomfortable. Well, surprise motherfucker- welcome to the internet. No one is original and everyone is original at the same time. People are bound to come up with similar ideas and you’re just going to have to deal with it. But despite the similarities, people are still original in their own right. If you believe that people can change a style so easily, why not just change your OWN style? Because you worked your ass off? Well, THEY WORKED THEIR ASS OFF TOO. So don’t act like you’re the only one who’s put effort into their craft. Art is hard, and that applies to EVERYONE- even professionals.

You blame me and other “copycats” for all your problems, blaming us for worsening your depression, ruining your passion for art- when you’re the only one who does this to yourself. Yes, there have been genuine art thieves in your life, and people who have stolen your art- but what I’m talking about are the people like me who DON’T steal your art or are merely inspired by you. People who say “you should be happy they’re inspired!” aren’t saying “you should be happy they’re copying!”. They’re saying that you should be glad that your work is so inspiring that people create their own unique ideas based off your own. Inspiration doesn’t require credit unless they’re purposefully taking a massive part of the original. But being inspired by a hair style or even a pose isn’t stealing. It’s inspiration, that’s it. I’m not inspired by you at all, but I can at least appreciate your art- even if you think I’m just being fake.

[11] ang0mang0′s history and why this shit doesn’t even make sense

Ange has said publicly and to me in detail about how she’s been accused of the same “art style theft” in the past. From what I’ve gathered or heard, people used to accuse her of copying a popular artist called myly14 who’s Sonic art is pretty much everywhere. Whether it be in edits, MVs or whatever else.  Looking at her old art when she went under the name sonicfan799, her art does look similar to myly’s, but ang0 insisted that she didn’t copy myly and didn’t even know who she was. She legit said “it’s not my fault my art looks like someone else’s”, so basically- it was coincidence. She said she changed her art style because she “isn’t an asshole and didn’t want to make the other artist uncomfortable”, even though art style theft isn’t a thing and no one needs to be forced out of a style just because someone else already draws that way. I have no idea what myly’s stance on that situation was, but the fact that it happened just proves how stupid her current claims are.

Ange says that her style is “too complex” to be coincidentally similar to someone else’s, even though the fact that it’s happened 30 times (according to her) just proves that no, ang0, no it fucking isn’t. Your style isn’t complicated at all. Detailed sure, but no style is too complicated to be similar to another’s. Being complex doesn’t make something any less likely to be identical to another complex style.If you didn’t copy myly14 in the past, what right do you have to accuse me of the same damn thing? If I really am copying you, then you have to admit to copying myly, because you can’t just lie about your past and then shit on me for doing the same thing. So it’s either you stop this nonsense or you drag this drama down with you to your grave and admit you copied myly14.

Another thing, myly14 didn’t even have a “simple” style. The fact that her art was almost instantly recognizable and popular meant that she had a signature style that stood out. Yes, she used a lot of the original Sonic style’s anatomy, but her stylization of said anatomy, her shading and the way she composed her pieces gave her a signature style. The most stylized thing I could see was how she drew muzzles, and guess who drew muzzles in a similar way as well? You did. People saw how your way of drawing faces and some parts of the body and thought it looked liked myly’s. The similarities in your anatomy, and not your shading or colouring, was what made people think you copied her. That exact same thing is happening between me and you. My shading, colouring and composition is entirely different from yours, but some parts of the anatomy are similar.

If you really didn’t copy myly14, you have absolutely no. fucking. excuse. to accuse me of the EXACT. SAME. SHIT. that happened to you.

You never needed or deserved to be pressured out of your old style just because people thought it looked similar to someone else’s, and that’s why I refuse to change my style now. Because it isn’t. fucking. fair. To ANYONE.

[12] how I feel (this is copied over from my DeviantART)

At this point I've grown used to what she has to say, but it still hurts. She thinks that I'm some kind of cartoon villain maniacally laughing behind a computer screen every time I post something because she's so deep into her belief that I really copy everything she draws and that nothing I've never posted has any true effort put into it. She genuinely believes she owns all my art and that I devote my entire gallery into recreating her image or some crazy shit like that. It sounds really dumb, but from what I've read from her poorly constructed comments and rants, that's basically what she believes.

She thinks I don't care at all about how all this affects her or anyone at all, but I do. It doesn't just hurt me in the sense that she makes me feel awful with all her insults, but I just feel so bad for her. I feel guilty in the sense that I couldn't do anything at all to help her, not that "shes prolly feeling guilty and made that april fools joke to let out some guilt!!". (If you don’t know, on April Fools Day, I changed my Instagram bio to say “clown” and call myself “the ultimate copycat” as a joke.) That was a really stupid reaction from her by the way... who the hell comes up with that? Now that she's going away for a month, I feel even worse because all I wanted to do was try to make her come to her senses and end this mess. I thought I could talk some sense into her- that didn't work. Her delusions are so strong, she's like a brick wall. I thought I could ignore the drama- that didn't work. She "clowns" and talks about it so annoyingly often. Not to mention people do things on their own to stir shit up. I thought I could support her regardless and maybe try making her feel better about her art- that didn't work. She thinks I'm fake and that everything I say is a lie. Because of me, she probably doesn't believe other people too- and that makes me feel even more terrible.

No matter what I do, I'm automatically the villain and she's the tortured, helpless artist that everyone is against because "everyone is dumb, supporting a copycat" and she's just "used to it, because she's dealt with so much shit already!". It's so ridiculous. If she would just try to actually better herself or the situation, she wouldn't feel so horrible all the time. Like... for god's sake, she relied on a video game to make her happy- that's not healthy, and just like I suspected, it didn't fucking work.

more of how I feel

Because of ang0, I just feel like garbage. My self esteem and confidence in my art was already low. Thanks to her, I don’t feel original (or as original) anymore- and I’m afraid to show many of my new or old ideas because she or her whiteknight pin_kpeach may spring out and say “copycat! stolen! you’re not original!” and a plethora of other insults. I can barely sketch or draw Sonic content without panicking and feeling worthless because all I have is her words and her opinions stuck in my head. She blames me for her demotivation and shit like that when she’s done the same thing to me. She thinks I don’t care about her or her art, when I do, but when I say that, she calls me fake. In reality, ang0 couldn’t give a damn about me and I’m pretty sure she’d be happy if I were dead. She has said before that she doesn’t care if I killed myself soo... there’s that. Anyway lemme not drag my feelings out too long, I just thought I’d say it to anyone willing to listen since her immediate response would’ve been “fake, liar” etc, etc. I really don’t want anyone to feel bad for me or anything like that, I just want people to listen and understand. That’s all.

a final note

I’m really thankful- like, REALLY thankful- for everyone who’s been on my side throughout this. I don’t like picking sides, and I’d hate to make people do so, but there doesn’t seem to be any in between to this at all. It’s either you believe I’m copying her or you don’t.  Most people don’t- thank goodness for that- but some do. And there’s nothing I can do about it. At this point, whatever man.

Please please PLEASE do not harass ang0. Don’t threaten her, don’t insult her, don’t do anything rash or fucking illegal. It’s all fair game if you want to POLITELY SPEAK to her, or try to start a discussion, but please don’t do anything stupid. And especially don’t do things in my name. If you want to debate with me or her, do research first- don’t just jump to conclusions or make assumptions.If you want nothing to do with this drama, then simply don’t say anything- just be aware of what’s going on, that’s all I ask. So nobody gets the wrong idea on either side.

Sorry for this being so long, I think I’m done for now.

Thank you if you read the whole thing.

[9.4.2020]

[catflowerqueen]

Still not quite finished with Gates, but I’m nearing the finish line for the main game? I think? So I have some more structured thoughts below. 

(Apologies for the length, but... well, that’s part of why I’m putting it under the cut)

Most of the mechanics I think are an improvement on Explorers—and definitely on Rescue Team, since Explorers introduced a lot of improvements (like the way healing items are handled—in Rescue team you had to throw them at your allies, and only the hero could eat them directly from the bag). I like how Gates handles experience for allies left at home, and the way that you can level up individual moves and share them among everyone rather than using a ginseng on a single move for a single pokemon (that I don’t think retains that level up if you forget it but then go and remember it again? I can’t recall that part), and some of the team skills are useful… but the problem is that they are really luck-based in terms of actually acquiring them. I’ve only gotten two so far. Comparatively, IQ skills were very much based on the individual, but also a lot easier to get, allowing for a sort of customization aspect? It allowed more care and a better sense of victory, at least.

The V-wave thing is pretty cool, though, especially when paired with how exp works, even as annoying as I find Victini.

Getting rid of the hunger mechanic is I think positive overall? It does free up some inventory space, which is nice, but it also removes a bit of the puzzle and challenge for some of the longer dungeons—and I can’t help but wonder if the reason they did so is just because of how many dungeon layouts in Gates were comprised of many, many sprawling hallways with tons of intersections and small, unnecessary turns and corners, but only, like, three rooms—meaning that everyone would starve to death if the hunger system was involved. I know Explorers had some of those, too, but those were mainly for later stage dungeons, where bigger challenges were expected. It also makes a lot of the dungeons… really boring and repetitive? Like, the graphics are great, but there isn’t really too much variety of the non-plot dungeons beyond differences in color schemes? And while the puzzles involved are excellent, there aren’t really a lot of them, and so far Inflora Forest is the only one where the puzzle is still relevant after making it through the first time—the other ones seem to keep the bridges and stairs you make the first time around, leaving those sections rather superfluous.

And while I like how Companion mode lets me have more of a casual sort of playstyle, and I can build up Paradise and do mini-games without interference from the plot… It kind of makes Post Town really unnecessary beyond specified plot scenes? Like… I don’t have to wait to open any Treasure boxes. Once a dungeon ends I get instant gratification of finding out what’s in them (assuming I have enough money). Same thing with the gold bars. And since Quagsire operates as a shop as well, there is really no need for Kecleon (in Post Town—the ones in the dungeon are still extremely useful) beyond maybe him having some rarer items on occasion—but even then, getting certain shops in Paradise also makes him even more redundant.

 (Though, speaking of Paradise shops: Elite boutique—not worth it. Maybe if all shops operated that way—were only around for a specific period of time before inevitably closing—it would be less grating… but there was no warning that that shop would only be run for a few days before closing forever, in addition to the fact that I have to watch Gurdurr’s sad face and laments about destroying the place [after a big part of his backstory involved someone deliberately destroying his work, mind you!] when they could have easily solved it as running more like the travelling salesmon in post town—you never know who or when someone will show up, or how long they’ll stay, but the possibility is at least there that someone will show up again.)

I also don’t like how you can’t stack missions—it really takes the emphasis off of the actual “exploring dungeons” part of the game, and puts it more on trying to build up Paradise. Which is fine, but it just doesn’t feel like traditional gameplay for a PMD game, you know?

As far as characterizations goes… It’s honestly kind of a mixed bag for me in comparison with some of the other games? Like… I do think that, overall, your immediate team and allies had better characterization visible in story, following the plot. As in, they came right out and showed you in the cutscenes, and didn’t depend on you going and talking to them individually in town, reading their diaries, and playing special episodes. I don’t think that the partner is the absolute best-characterized one writing-wise, but they were very, very well-done and do show good growth throughout (Rescue Team is the worst, mostly because of how bland they actually are—especially in the Post Game, where they are completely optional, and no longer follow you around or really talk to you at all like an individual character, rather than just another pokemon you recruit from dungeons [and on that note—I’m kind of sad that Gates got rid of the feature that actually let you talk to your team in the dungeons themselves. Sure, most of what got said was the same ten or so bland lines for everyone, but… I still liked having that option to just turn around and discuss things, especially since at some points it was unique based on where in the plot you were!)

But at the same time… that does take a little mystery out of it? Like… it makes your own (the actual, physical player’s) relationship with them a bit… less rewarding? You aren’t actually working at forming them, this way, the way you would be if you were exploring the town, happened across someone from the guild, and then decided to talk with them. That way, learning all these cool little hints and quirks was almost like a puzzle itself, something you had to work for, something that really embraced the idea of exploring and immersion.

Which is also kind of why I’m of two minds about the fact that the hero does actually have scripted lines, beyond just their thoughts and the little “running motion” indicative of things being said, but not actually described. There aren’t as many dialogue trees, you don’t really get to make that many choices, and the lack of space left up to the imagination… well, it doesn’t make me resonate with the hero as much as in other cases? I don’t really feel like they’re “me,” or could be “me,” so while they do feel in-character for the “character” of the hero… it just doesn’t feel like I’m actually the hero. It doesn’t leave space for that option the way that the other games do.

As for other characters… honestly, it’s kind of hit and miss for them as far as characterization goes, and I think a lot of that has to do with my earlier remarks about how unnecessary Post Town feels most of the time. I feel like they were really over-ambitious with their ensemble cast? Because, sure, some of them like Leaveanny, Swadloon, Lillipup, and Herdier I thought were well done… most of the others were rather forgettable? There were some travelers like Trubbish, Mienfoo and Dwebble that I really like, but I think that most of the others just don’t get enough characterization. Sure, it’s nice that a lot of them care about the player and greet them as their own individual, clearly trying to convey that relationships are being formed… but I just don’t care that much for the town as a whole? The others don’t really grab me, or add that much to the plot at all? Especially since half the time bigger plot discussions only really happen with the group in Paradise?

Like… Explorers had a lot of people, but the fact that they did travel in and out of town, and would sometimes go missing for days, but clearly had their own little stories and plots they were following was really interesting! Same with Rescue Team—the Pokémon Square was small, but it actually felt like a lived-in town? And I’m pretty sure the main towns of PSMD that you were actually using as a hub had that too—Serene Village definitely did. But Gates… I just don’t really see it. They were too ambitious, and they fell flat. I feel like maybe they could have fixed this if you were allowed to visit it in Companion Mode, too—or if they just didn’t let you visit any non-Paradise shops and only allowed Quagsire to edit your party—or if they shrunk it down so that the only thing there was Swanna’s place and the hill, and had the individual characters visit on a basis similar to Explorers, but… yeah.

As far as plot/story goes… well, some of that is hard to determine, just because of how much is involved in a good story. Characterization, like I said, is fine overall, but the story does seem really… low stakes? For the most part? Especially when compared to Rescue Team or Explorers. I think it has good progression over all—especially when compared to the mess that was PSMD!—but there isn’t quite as much of an overall… driving force? I think?

Like… okay, I know I’ve said before that it is a little weird that the hero in Explorers—and I guess also in Rescue Team—spends so much time focusing on other stuff rather than figuring out exactly what happened to them, why they turned into a pokemon, why they have amnesia, etc. (especially since that is part of their stated reason for joining the Guild in Explorers), but in all fairness… what else are they really supposed to do? They have amnesia, they have no clues as to a starting place to even look, it makes sense that they would want and need a safe place and routine figured out so that they can even start looking. And there are some hints pretty early on about their backstory/the state of the world (in dreams and dimensional screams). But the Gates hero… well they actually do have something of a starting place, and they have far more reason to really care about figuring all that out. For one thing, they do not have amnesia. The game makes that pretty clear, and the partner even makes comments on that—asking about friends and family, etc.

So why aren’t they making more of an effort to figure out how to get back home so they can actually reunite with those loved ones?? Or at least commenting on why they might not be concerned about that?? And since the hero doesn’t have amnesia, they also clearly remember the fact that they were called to the pokemon world specifically because someone was asking them for help—and they had a visual description of who they assumed that someone to be. They have a starting point. Why are they not asking around about that?? Why did they wait for more dreams to happen first? And, while it did get brough up in game a little bit, with them commenting on how maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea for them to be taking one of the spots on that initial Great Glacier Expedition because they do, actually, have some responsibility they’re supposed to fulfill, and they don’t know if they’ll have more dreams on the way… they still go on that expedition! Without bringing any of that up verbally, or to the partner who has by that point already agreed that they will go with the hero to save that pokemon as soon as their dreams clear up more.

But… like… they shouldn’t just be being so passive about this??? There are things they could all be doing to prepare! And maybe that is getting into some different facets of the partner’s personality, and showing how really dependent they are on the player—like, having their reluctance to do more be because of how much they really don’t want them to leave after (which does get brought up a little bit)… but I don’t think that’s quite what the game was going for—and if it was, then that needed to be made clearer.

So I guess over all… I think that Explorers is a better game to play if you do want something more story/plot driven, and want to, well, explore things a bit, while Gates is better for a more casual sort of play. Like… the actual plot almost seems like the side story or Special Episode in the face of building up Paradise.

Though, that probably does say more about an individual’s playstyle over the game itself, huh?

I guess… if you’re more into direct characterization via cutscenes, Gates is better (though there are times I wish it showed more of the visuals—like for some of the party scenes, or the housebuilding scene). But if you want a more integrated plot, Explorers is better—or Rescue Team, but it doesn’t have as good of a post-game).

And PSMD… well, I still stand by my earlier statements that I think the first part of the game was great, and the partner was the best-explored/characterized of them all… but it quickly lost plot cohesion and most of the adult characters are terrible people who should not be allowed around children—and the player character really got screwed over by basically everyone and never got closure for any it.

(Also, I can’t actually say anything about DX, since I don’t have a Switch, but from what I’ve seen it’s basically just Rescue Team with some improvements to gameplay mechanics? The story seemed to be pretty much the same from what little I saw.

Oh, and also Ekans’ sprite looks very, very weird.)

...I think that’s everything I had to say for now.

[afroggyfrog]

SuperStraight

A brand new sexuality that is trending on twitter and being super popular.

Definition:

A superstraight person is someone attracted to members of the opposite gender who are not transexual.

This was created as a response to people who sometimes say things like this:

(source:BBC)

Let’s give a name to the people who insist that not being attracted to trans people makes you transphobic, since I’m not about to describe them every time i wanna bring them up, I’ll call them trans-incels because just like incels they resent people for not wanting to have sex with them.

It’s worth it to remember that trans-incels aren’t representative of all trans people. or even of a majority of them, if i were to bet, they are about as popular as actual incels.

In all the comment sections I checked the anti trans-incel side was a clear majority, and having searched for “superstraight” on youtube to see what people have to say, the first video on the list, from a trans man, is definetely anti trans-incel .

> If you don’t want to date a trans person that’s fine, and if somebody is trying to force you they’re just an asshole

-probably most trans people

From the perspective of a trans-incel (and how we’re all assuming too much)

Imagine a person.

Imagine the probability that they are racist.

Imagine that same person saying “i wouldn’t date a black person”

Has the probability increased at all? be honest, it hasn’t gone up to 100% (which would be the race-incel response) but it must have gone up by at least a little.

But why did it go up by a little? Because now the chance they’ll say something like “because blacks disgust me” has also gone up.

Now imagine being into internet drama (ew) and as a trans person, you’re especially interested in people being transphobic and you probably see transphobia every day because people like talking about it as much as anti-sjw(tm) people like to talk about the trans-incels.

If discussions about trans people only gets to you when it causes drama you’ll probably never see “i wouldn’t date trans men/women...” without having it be followed by “...because they’re not real men/women”.

And even though the whole point of being superstraight is to explain why people wouldn’t date trans men/women without calling them ‘not real men/women’ lets see what the original guy who started the whole superstraight meme has to say at second 15.

https://youtu.be/z8vQhkPnEE4

It’s like instead of throwing bait, they’re just throwing food.

The more you see “...because they’re not real men/women” the more likely you are to expect it, and as someone who subscribes to people posting drama 24/7 you’ll see that hundreds of times until you end up answering ...

the probability that the person who says ‘i wouldn’t date trans men/women’ to be transphobic is 100%

...and even if they don’t follow up with something transphobic it’s always easier to imagine they’re just hiding it rather than to change your whole worldview on the spot.

And if you think “why do they even predict transphobia before its spoken”, well, this might sound crazy to you, but everyone is assuming things all the time, our whole perception of reality is nothing but a hallucination that our brain comes up with using not only stimulus from the world but also assumptions.

There’s a blind spot on each 1 of your eyes, your brain simply fills it in without you knowing, it also adds color to the edge of your vision and makes the whole thing less blurry.

When someone says “i won’t date trans people” some people will simply fill in the blanks, they’ll assume every bit of info about who you are what you believe in what your personality is from just a sentence, because the brain is literally designed for it.

IQ tests are just patterns where a spot is blanked out and you’re supposed to fill it in, your intelligence is measured by your ability to fill in the blanks, and low intelligence people will just make mistakes more often, but everyone smart or dumb will constantly make assumptions about everything, and dumb people will be proven wrong about their assumptions more often.

And this happens all the time even when you’re not talking about politics or having a fight.

Someone talking about the earth being curved? well, every time I saw someone do that they called it a sphere so let me just fill in the blanks.

Someone saying they wouldn’t date trans women? well, every time I see screenshots of people saying that in my drama facebook group i see them being transphobic, so let me just fill in the blanks

That’s just how incels operate.

Building legitimacy

Have you ever noticed that every sexual preference eventually gets assigned a flag, on that note, why does every country have a flag?

If you ask a regular person to guess why their country has a flag you’ll get something related to aesthetics, our flags represent our country.

For example Romania and Hungary:

In school we are taught that each colour on our flag has a different meaning, I searched on google and everyone disagrees on what they mean but as an example.

Liberty (sky-blue), Justice (field yellow), Fraternity (blood red) 

Outside of school I was taught by my grandma that the Hungarian flag, much like the Romanian flag, also has a meaning.

The green represents a wide field of green grass, the white represents a white dog playing on the field of grass, rolling around on his back, and the red represents his red dog cock.

Both of these meanings are pretty much just something that a Romanian randomly came up with so i don’t think most people know why countries have flags.

Flags originate from war, that way the armies know not to attack their own allies when they see they carry the same flag, having an army grants you true legitimacy because you can just beat people up into believing you’re legitimate, so countries with no armies probably still had flags because it would be really hard to pretend you have an army otherwise.

Nowadays every country has a flag even if war is illegal, simply because every country has been using one for so long that it became convention. If you don’t follow convention you will be seen as illegitimate. It’s an unwritten rule, but a rule nonetheless, that you need a flag, and much like not following written rules makes you illegitimate (and illegal) so does not following unwritten rules.

And sexualities having their own flags and names probably feels like an even stronger convention than countries having flags for some people.

It’s very often brought up that you have to feel “valid” (which more or less means “legitimate”) 

I still don’t know why, but it’s apparent that people need to be reassured that their sexuality is “valid” and then there’s also this:

Why does a sexual preference have to be distinct from a sexuality? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the only difference between the two is legitimacy, to confirm to the conventions of flags and labels.

Q: So why do superstraights get a label and a flag and copy everything that LGBT people do, like tweets talking about how valid their followers are or using the word bigot etc

A: Because to get true legitimacy you need to copy the conventions.

The cargo cult

(wikipedia) Some primitive tribes of people would look at colonists from the civilised world and notice that after they’d built some plane lanes, the planes would come bringing cargo full of valuable stuff.

The tribesmen have made the observation that planes land if you build lanes for them to land on, they made the hypothesis that building the lanes causes the planes to come, and like scientists, they set out to test it.

They made lanes, they made fake planes, they tried to copy everything that the colonists did hoping it would be enough.

Superstraight is a lot like a cargo cult of sexualities, they have a flag, they have a label, they call everyone bigots all the time.

This is the first pic I sent before cropping it.

Because, like a cargo cultist who does not see the plane factories from the colonists homelands, the superstraight person does not see the LGBT community from outside his filter bubble, the filter bubble where only the most obnoxious people like the trans-incels can get through.

So when the superstraight person who thinks every LGBT person is just an obnoxious incel tries to “fit in” with the LGBT, they will act like an obnoxious incel, and when everyone is angry at him, he thinks to himself “they've all proven themselves hypocrites! i baited them so hard! i won!!!”

Even tho there’s a bunch of LGBT people from the comment sections I read who don’t even know the trans-incels even exist, because their filters simply don’t show them the same things you superstraight people are shown.

It gets worse

There’s some people who are so cocky and think they’re so much smarter than the LGBT community that they can just sneak in the nazi SS symbol into their flag and not just fuck up the bait completely.

hehe Schutzstaffel fla- wait! you cant call me a nazi! this is just another sexuality you hypocriteeeee

But this is also just a minority of the people who get superstraight trending, its so popular that I’m pretty sure most of the people getting it to trend are actual normies who wouldn’t even recognise the SS symbol and who have never been to 4chan.

Speaking of 4chan

Of course people don’t think superstraight is legitimate when you have 4chan taking credit for it.

They pick up on all the superficial customs like the flag the label the speech patterns and think “this is their, logic, im using it against them, and they’re all mad because of this alone and not just because a we’re comparing ourselves to the Schutzstaffel”

In a turing test a computer attempts to pass as a human.

In the ideological turing test a human tries to pass as someone of a different ideology.

Are people afraid of passing the ideological turing test? do they think if they can think like the enemy, then they’ll become the enemy? there was no need for people on 4chan to talk so openly about superstraight being a ruse, there was no need to make nazi memes with it, there is no need to post “we used their logic against them”, to constantly tell “yes this is all a lie”.

And yet people have to constantly break character and expose superstraight for being a fake sexuality, why? what’s even the point of it then?

What it could have been

Imagine a world in which instead of making a cargo cult sexuality and just delegitimizing it yourself with all the actual nazi symbolism, you were able to cancel trans-incels.

Imagine if they were able to say things like “the trans-incels are trying to create a new rape culture in which superstraight people are coerced into having sex with transexual people” with a straight face

Imagine if they even tried to coin the term “trans-incels”, since incels are hated by progressives for misogyny and are often associated with 4chan.

Imagine if they could get people banned for hate-speech against the superstraight

Imagine if they had the balls to denounce the people amongst them trying to delegitimise superstraight with their nazi SS and obvious parodying of the  points that aren’t taken seriously by anyone who doesn’t call themselves anti-sjw.

Maybe then there’d be some divide between “pro-superstraight” and “anti-superstraight” instead of everyone who’s not anti-trans agreeing that superstraights aren’t legit.

Maybe they’d be able to get some people canceled, there’s been at least one actual celebrity (India Willoughby) who is a trans-incel, they  could have canceled her! but nobody is even trying.

And oh how much “applying their own logic against them” would have been true if as a response to “but not all trans people are calling you transphobic for having a sexual preference!” you dusted off the “not all men are like that” memes that was popular with feminists.

If they would go on the offensive, cancelling people, spreading trans-incel screenshots to everyone who says they’ve never seen one, mocking people who stand up against them the way feminists used to and say “nOt aLl TrANs pEopLe aRE liKE THat” to anyone who says “not all trans people are like that”, to tell them that “silence is violence” and to make them cancel eachother.

Imagine how much more effective that would have been.

In the end this isn’t gonna make a difference, it will be forgotten, maybe in a couple months, or a year, or a week, some people are  angry today because a counterculture hashtag is trending, but they’ll forget about it too, maybe a couple dozen people will permanently have superstraight on their twitter bios, but really, nothing interesting is gonna come out of it, and if someone tries to make something like whitesexual/blacksexual/asiansexual etc a thing the well will have already been poisoned by superstraight.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Slut shaming a cosplayer...

Let me make one thing clear here: Just because I criticize Dobson does not mean I don’t at least partly agree with some of his opinions or ideas. For example, I do agree that it is a pretty shitty thing for people at conventions to harass other cosplayers because they are dressed sexy and others think this excuses shitty attempts to hit on them. Cause a) the majority of cosplayers just want to have a good time at the convention too instead of showing their costumes or goods off and  b) it is an invasion of personal space. Consent is important.

I do however hate how Dobson will obviously take always a rather extreme stand, like in his famous Powergirl comic or when he snapped in another SYAC comic at his readers because of some article about harassment at conventions, essentially accusing everyone who read the strip to be part of the sexist problem. No Dobson, not everyone is part of the sexist problem, cause at least a majority of people will agree on when shitty behavior is shitty behavior. In fact, if this comic is something to go by, you were at least part of the problem yourself back in 2009.

For the most part, this thing is okay because it is just Dobson talking about his experience at a convention. It is just silly doodled and frankly, this is likely one of the few things drawn by Dobson where there is no ill will or bitterness oozing off.

But then there is this “panel”

Which I find rather infuriating. My personal, non sex appeal influenced opinion about the cosplay quality aside, what the heck Dobson. First off, it is very unlikely Dobson took the picture without the consent of the woman on it. Second, how dare you belittle this woman on her choice of costume? I mean, I make fun of pics for shitty and cheap costumes too if I see some, but that is then mostly on the lack of quality, not because I think the costume makes the person wearing it “slutty”. The costume in that case gets mocked, not the person wearing it. Which Dobson does with his choice of words here, calling it weird (you think this is weird? Have you ever seen Kill la Kill?) and then belittling the woman that she should “put some clothes on!”. And the cherry on top, he uses the pic against the wishes of the woman on it (after all, eh already took it likely without consent, so why not also post it without making anything clear) and mocks her publically online, hiding it behind his “Quirkiness” and online anonimity in order to make it come off as funny.

Knowing that Dobson has likely a rather low IQ, I assume he did not know what he was doing here when he posted the pic, but damn. This is a pretty damn good example of how much of an insensitive idiot Dobson can be, as well as a hypocrite for his “causes”

EDIT: Stumbled also upon this from another comic/rant he did about cosplay and consent. How fitting for him

[stimsensory]

Getting Diagnosed: 2

After I had been referred for assessment, I was apparently seen in school by a Community Paediatrician. I don’t actually remember any of this, but apparently the meeting was fairly short and, according to my parents, I asked some rather blunt, inappropriate questions, such as asking whether the doctor (who I assume had an accent) was speaking English. Now, I can get how embarrassing and rude that must’ve been, but at the time I probably only asked because I was struggling to understand them (I still struggle with strong accents sometimes, or even no accents when overwhelmed, but I wouldn’t ask that now!).

The paediatrician basically summarised that whilst I showed quite a lot of traits of Asperger’s Syndrome, they wanted to wait and get more information before coming to a conclusion, which is fair enough. The appointment was fairly short, and it can be very difficult to get a full view of someone’s development after only a single, short, meeting.

At this point, my parents started looking into private options. For readers outside of the UK: most British people don’t use private healthcare, as we rely upon the NHS for many, if not all, of our medical needs. It is not common for people to buy private healthcare. It tends to allow you to essentially jump from a long queue to a shorter queue, and can mean longer appointments. Nowadays, the NHS still provides amazing physical healthcare. However, it’s mental healthcare has long waiting lines. Once you finish waiting, the care can be great. But many are forced to wait for months, if not years, for assessments for disorders like ASD.

Luckily for us, my dad had private healthcare from his employers (again, not a very common occurrence as far as I know) so we were able to seek private help. I saw a Child Neuropsychologist for around an hour a week for 6 weeks (as far as I remember). This allowed her to get to know me better and see me for longer. Rather than just seeing me once, she saw me across a longer timeline and therefore had a better understanding of my problems.

From what I remember, essentially I went to a lady’s house every week, and sat with her in the kitchen whilst my parents waited in a little room with a sofa. I remember we would do a variety of tests, that I actually enjoyed because they seemed like puzzles. For example, I remember I had to read a paragraph and recall some of it (not really interesting), and decode some symbols (way more fun). So I thought that was pretty cool, even if I didn’t actually really know what was going on or why. To be honest, I don’t remember caring that much. Maybe I thought it was tutoring, or some kind of test for school.

I did not realise my social skills were also being assessed, which is actually very good as it meant I would not have been tempted to camouflage any ‘odd’ things I did. At that point, I wasn’t really aware of which of my behaviours were considered ‘weird’, or which of my social skills were lacking. All I really knew was that I did not understand people and most of them did not understand me. I would much rather read than socialise, because other people were confusing and stressful. I had no clue why every other child could easily make friends, but rejected me almost instantly. Even according to my diagnosis, most of my classmates apparently found me annoying, whilst a few ‘tolerated’ me. So overall, I understood that I was not behaving ‘normally’, but I had no clue how to figure out what I was doing ‘wrong’ or how to change it.

Anyway, one specific aspect of the social evaluation always stood out to me. I remember at one point the Neuropsychologist told me I could bring in toys if I wanted. I took this to mean that I ought to bring some toys in, and therefore took some Sylvanian families toys in to the next meeting. From my own perspective, she never brought the toys up during the session, which confused me. I assumed I was meant to play with them, because why else would she have told me I could bring them? So I just stopped a task and played with them, because I wanted to and because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Now, according to my assessment, “[I] would suddenly break away from a task we were in the midst of to take out a toy to play with”. Which, whilst technically true from the view of an observer, does not really fully explain my behaviour. As a side note, that is one of the main problems I find in many aspects of autism research. Many researchers make assumptions from their own, non-autistic perspective, and often assume that is the only possible reason for engaging in a certain behaviour. They often also use autism theories to explain them, which again may rely upon inferences. If the Neuropsychologist had asked why I brought the toy out I could have told her (which is not possible for many non-verbal autistic people).

Other than the above though, the Neuropsychologist noted a lot of my autistic traits. She reported after around 20 minutes I started to get fidgety in my chair (something still true today!) and was very observant of visual details. I did not engage in conversation without prompting, and made variable, occasionally inappropriate eye contact. I apparently lacked a ‘Theory of Mind’. I agree that at that point, I did not really have a well developed ToM, but now I do believe I have a fairly good ability to understand and empathise with other people, if I can figure out what they are feeling and why. I think this ToM developed in secondary school, when I essentially realised and reluctantly accepted that others did things for reasons I did not know, and would not tell me. I did not understand why others did seemingly inexplicable things, and kind of took too long to realise they don’t automatically know what I mean or experience.

When she did IQ tests, she found I had an uneven skill-set. I won’t say what my exact IQ scores were, because many people (myself included, some of the time, unless it is specifically asked) find it pretentious. But basically I did very well on the ‘Perceptual Reasoning Index’ which had stuff like visualising 3D objects I think, and a lot lower on my ‘Working Memory’, ‘Verbal Comprehension’, and ‘Processing Speed Index’. I also had a very low executive skill score, along with a low visual-motor skill score. That is the reason I was allotted extra time in exams; my processing speed is far slower than would be expected from the other scores.

At the end of all of this, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. In more recent documents, this is usually referred to as ‘High Functioning Autism’ of ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’, as Asperger’s is no longer diagnosed in the DSM-5. My parents told me about the diagnosis a few months after I got it. I remember reading a few notes that suggested they were told to wait until I was around 15-16 to tell me. I am very glad they told me earlier, as it meant I no longer felt like I was just failing at socialising whilst everyone else was passing without even trying. I do not exactly remember how they told me, but I think my reaction was a little anti-climactic, as I had never really heard of autism or Asperger’s before that, which is probably good as I did not have to deal with all of the fear mongering in the media. I had no previous assumptions about autism, other than ‘huh, that’s a thing that I have that explains why I struggle with social stuff’. Once I started researching autism, it was amazing to read other people’s accounts and just think ‘hey! I do that!’ and feel like you weren’t the odd one out any more.

My actual diagnostic assessment had a lot more in it (it’s a fairly long document), but I’ve kept it brief because it’s quite personal, and because this post is already pretty long.

From what I’ve read and seen, diagnostic assessments have changed a lot over the past few years. It can apparently take months, even years, for that fairly short initial appointment. I was also lucky to have a Neuropsychologist who was aware of the differences in how autism often presents in females vs males. Nowadays, there is more attention being paid to autistic females who may have gone undiagnosed, which is hopefully a step in the right direction.

[janamelie]

LGBT+ Characters

What This Isn’t

A claim of “proof” of the sexuality and / or gender identity of any of these characters.  We don’t need that or anything else to “justify” shipping.

What This Is

A reference post to collate instances in canon which could indicate LGBT+ characters.  In the case of regulars, I won’t include every instance as it would simply take too long.

Rimmer

As I was saying… :p

Honestly, Rimmer is so obviously LGBT+ to me that I don’t know where to start.  How about his reaction to Ace in “Dimension Jump”?

RIMMER: "Commander Rimmer!" I ask you.  "Ace!" Barf city.  I bet you anything he wears women's underwear.  They're all the same, this type, you know, Hurly-burly, rough-n-tumble macho marines in public, and behind closed doors he'll be parading up and down in taffeta ballgowns, drinking mint juleps, whipping the houseboy.

KRYTEN: Sir, he's you!  It's just that your lives diverged at a certain point in time.

RIMMER: Yes, I went into the gents and he went the other way.

KRYTEN: I assume, sir, you are making fatuous references to his sexuality.  If I may point out, if --

Or how about Low Rimmer?  Surely Rob and Doug could have got their point across a little less graphically?

Or if you prefer something less rapey, this passage from “IWCD”.  Unlike the show, Rob and Doug had more time and leeway to explore the characters and this is what they chose to include for Rimmer:

“Rimmer began to regret his outburst. He didn’t like to see his other self upset, and he even contemplated briefly going up to him and giving him a manly embrace. But in a brief moment of homosexual panic, he thought his double might get the wrong idea. Not that he would, of course, because he was him and he knew for a fact he wasn’t that way sexually tilted; so obviously his double wasn’t and obviously his double would know that he wasn’t either, and it was simply a manly embrace meant in a sort of mano a mano kind of way…Perhaps he was tired…Two or three days in bed and he’d be his old self again…Who cared if his copy saw it as a sign of weakness? He’d suggest it anyway.” Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Grant/Naylor, pg 233.

And this from the end of the “Better Than Life” novel, when Holly - whose IQ has been restored - comes up with a way to bring Lister back from the dead (no, not as a hologram):

“Rimmer stood in the hatchway and his face yielded to a grin, which in turn gave way to laughter.  Not his normal hollow braying empty laughter, this was an altogether different noise.  This was a noise his vocal cords had never been called on to make before.

It was the laughter of joy.”

Better Than Life, Grant/Naylor, pg 218.

I know some fans read Rimmer as asexual and you can certainly make an argument for that, most obviously in “Marooned” where he describes his younger self as not “particularly highly sexed”.  Of course, that wouldn’t preclude him also being homoromantic or biromantic.

Lister

No-one’s denying Lister’s obvious attraction to and affection for women, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t be bisexual or pansexual.  In fact, his “I’m not gay!” protestations in “Duct Soup” is a fairly common way for people attracted to more than one gender to describe themselves if they don’t feel comfortable using labels.  Given that he was talking to Chloe!Kochanski to whom he’s attracted, it makes sense that he’d prevaricate like this.

And then of course, in the very next episode “Blue”, he dreams about kissing Rimmer.  It’s not only the fact of this, it’s the subsequent scene drawing a direct comparison between him missing Rimmer and Kochanski missing her Dave - her boyfriend.  And despite the ending of this episode, when Lister actually meets Rimmer again, he’s delighted.  Until he realises it’s not HIS Rimmer and even so, he gets used to nano-Rimmer and they eventually become quite chummy.

Not forgetting the chemistry between him and Ace, of course.

Kryten

I know he's a mechanoid, but no-one has any problem reading his relationship with Mechanoid - and later Blob - Camille as romantic and Camille literally says herself that both she and her husband Hector are actually androgynous, which makes Kryten - at the very least - panromantic.

And that’s before we get to his very obvious love for Lister which he states himself in “Back In The Red”.

Holly

Holly was actually conceived as a female character and became male due to Norman Lovett’s original casting.  Sources: “Stasis Leaked” by Smegazine writer Jane Killick and “The Unofficial Red Dwarf Programme Guide” by Smegazine writers Chris Howarth and Steve Lyons.

With Hattie’s replacement casting and later Norman’s return, Rob and Doug may not have intended to create a trans or genderfluid character, but that’s what they ended up doing.

Holly is also bisexual - male Holly was attracted to Hilly and female Holly to Ace.

George McIntyre

It was actually Rob and Doug’s audio commentary on the pilot version of “The End” on “The Bodysnatcher Collection” which alerted me to this possibility.  I know it’s a stretch but I’m including it precisely because I’m indifferent to George as a character and it makes no difference to me whether someone believes this one or not.

During George’s speech at his “Welcome back” party, he says “I don’t want you to think of me as someone who’s dead, more as someone who’s no longer a threat to your marriages - I think Joe knows what I’m talking about!”

We see a man and a woman laughing and the woman playfully pokes the man in the arm.  He stops laughing and looks a bit sheepish.

Rob and Doug comment confusedly to the effect of “Shouldn’t it be the other way round?  This is one of the things we had no control over at this stage.”

Come on, Rob and Doug.  Not only does this scene appear intact in the final televised version of “The End”, you also included extra background on George in “Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers”, showing the events leading up to his death.  Unlike the hologram he replaces, Frank Saunders, there is no mention of George having a wife or indeed any partner, so as far I’m concerned, we shippers can read whatever we choose into this scene.  We would regardless, but the way canon leaves it is particularly open-ended.

Deb Lister and Arlene Rimmer (“Parallel Universe”)

See previous entries.  If their male counterparts are LGBT+ then so are they, plus I always got that vibe from the performances anyway.

Camille

Yes, everyone uses female pronouns for her as that’s how she presents to the crew, but she says herself: “We’re androgynous, but I suppose you could call [Hector] my husband.”

Noel Coward Waxdroid (“Meltdown”)

Mr Coward was gay in real life and his fictional incarnation here greets Rimmer with “Delighted to meet you, dear boy!”  I rest my case.

Nirvanah Crane

And arguably the entire crew of the Holoship according to her speech: “It's a ship regulation that we all have sexual congress at least twice a day.  It's a health rule … Here it is considered the height of bad manners to refuse an offer of sexual coupling … We are holograms.  There is no risk of disease or pregnancy.  That is why in our society we only believe in sex -- constant, guilt-free sex.”

Does that sound as though they’re fussy about the genders of their partners?  It certainly doesn’t to me.  So:

Captain Hercule Platini

Commander Randy Navarro

Commander Natalina Pushkin

Commander Binks

Sam Murray

From the Series V DVD booklet:

“Briefly revived in “Holoship”, it came as a surprise that Sam was male.  In the original pilot script - and Series 1′s deleted funeral scene - deceased crew member “Sam Murray” is said to be dating “Rick Thesen”.  Possibly Red Dwarf’s first gay couple?”

Cop (“Back To Reality”)

I’m sure it wasn’t written as such and maybe he didn’t intend to, but the way Lenny Von Dohlen plays his character’s reaction to the Voter Colonel just pings my gaydar.

Frank Todhunter (“The End”)

I know the conversation in “Duct Soup” (which also includes a reference to a gay crew member nicknamed “Bent Bob” *cringe*) where Kochanski tells Lister that the Todhunter in her dimension was gay is played off as something she made up to take Lister’s mind off his claustrophobia, but she never actually says as much.  There’s nothing to say that at least part of what she was saying wasn’t true.

Ackerman (Series VIII)

In the Series VIII DVD documentary, actor Graham McTavish says he was playing Ackerman as someone who enjoys sex with women “or at a pinch, men dressed as women”.  So onto this list he goes.

Big Meat (“Only The Good”)

I don’t blame you if you’ve blocked this one out as I find the scene almost unwatchable, but he’s the big prisoner who takes to the idea of being Cat’s “bitch” unexpectedly quickly.

Katerina Bartikovsky (“Back To Earth”)

Credit to @clueingforbeggs for noticing that in “Pete Part 1” Ackerman claims to have been “having jiggy-jiggy with the Science Officer’s wife” and connecting that with Katerina being a Science Officer.  There’s nothing to say that the Joy Squid didn’t conjure up the image of an actual crew member.

But maybe the ship has more than one Science Officer?  Well, the way it’s said makes it sound as though there is only one but in “Holoship” Kryten gives Rimmer a mind patch from two officers, one of whom is Science Officer Buchan.  There is no mention of Buchan’s gender so who’s to say they aren’t also female?

Begg Chief (“Entangled”)

“We prefer the ship of green.  And the sexy light man with the lady legs so long and luscious!”

Chancellor Wednesday (“The Beginning”)

Actor Alex Hardy says in Series X DVD doc “We’re Smegged” that he was playing the relationship between his character and Dominator Zlurth with a homoerotic undercurrent and you can see it subtly in his performance.

Dolphy (“Cured”)

All I’ll say about this one is that if Messalina had behaved towards Lister as Dolphy does in this episode, nobody would have doubted that she was into him.

Ziggy (“Timewave”)

Proof that LGBT+ characters in this show work a lot better when Doug isn’t intentionally writing them as such.  Sorry.

Feel free to add any examples I may have missed.

@lord-valery-mimes  @aziraphale-lesbian   @notalwaysweak  @feline-ranger  @downonthepharm-red-dwarf  @hologrammette  @rosecathy  @cazflibs​

[wakandascrystal]

Prophecy 3

Prophecy - Part 1 - part 2

Pairing - Erik x Black!!reader  

               Tchalla x Latifa!!Wife

genre - Body switching, jealousy, fluff ect.

words -  2734

summary- Tchalla and Erik visit the ancestral plane at the same time but a complication arises when both men don’t return to their own bodies..

a/n : I apologies for any errors. I hope you enjoy.

This was weird this was the first time Erik even wanted to consider having a conversation about it.

“Okay….just don’t string me along. I want action or else …we should just end things before I get hurt.“ Your voice was small but Tchalla heard it clear as day..

Day before As Tchalla made his way to you. Erik turned down the corridor lined with the Dora to head to Latifa. The entrance of the home require a 5 digit password and unfortunately, Erik didn't know it. It was too late to go back to Tchalla and he knew to try guess was not an option so he dialed up Latifah's contact on Tchalla's kimono beads “ Yes.” Latifa had her braids down as her image looked up at Erik. “Come open the front door for me. I got a headache I'm not feeling so good.“ Erik though the sweet and whiny voice he used to would make Latifa fall over her dress running towards the kings figure to help but damn he was mistaken. “For a man with such a high IQ I must say I am disappointed.” She kissed her teeth and folded her arms. Her reaction surprised Erik but he didn't show it. The sweet queen he knew was not the lady who spoke like this. Erik felt like he was being tested. Whenever you're unnecessarily rude or bitter towards him, he knew what you wanted. A long night fucking. None of the sweet making love nonsense. He knew you probably had a long or bad day. So you need him to work you out. But he couldn't have those thoughts with Latifa he actually did not want to. Definitely not after what happened. Erik swallowed his pride and tried again. “Baby I need to wash up and sleep. Please be a dear and open the door.” “Since when am I, baby. Did you seeing your father make you weak? Tchalla” “Ah, I really don't know what kind of game you and Tcha- I mean You are playing not now.” Latifa just looked up at Erik from the kimono beads and started giggling. “Look open the door. I know its probably the time of the month but I don't have the time.” “Don't assume rubbish. “ Erik wanted to connect her face to a wall. He felt his blood boil. At that moment he didn't care that she was the queen of the most civilized nation. He hated being ridiculed exceptionally by some bitch he doesn't even know like that. He quickly tried to calm himself down using the basic techniques his therapist taught him. After a few seconds, he gave up. Is this what Tchalla has to deal with? “Okay, then I’ma go look for Romonda - chill with her while you fix up your act. Am sure the queen will wonder why her son ain't in his own bed.” Not even a second later the double doors opened up with Latifa standing between them. Holding a cup of tea barely wearing anything. “You gonna put some clothes on or what?“ Erik asked as he walked past her looking for the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. Most of the things Tchalla said to Latifa didn't affect her but that did. Why would he want her to cover herself, In their own home? He had never said anything negative about the queen's appearance ever. Even when she dragged his looks through the dirt which was hard cause even though the king's face annoyed her .. he was cute. She just found the request strange ..and how he was speaking. “Not even a good night kiss my love?” she closed the doors and saw how Erik took off his clothes throwing them on the floor and entering the shower. He pressed the water tab to let the water fall on him, trying to shut out Latifah's voice and it worked. She put on her shorts and laid on the bed with a book in hand. When the King wondered into her Tribe one day long ago and meet her while she was out with a friend. She thought he was going to ask for directions but instead, he asked for a private walk with her. He told the Dora to stay behind as the young handsome prince third wooed her. Erik came out of his long shower and saw Latifa reading on the bed.  He paid no mind to her as he put on Tchalla’s shorts for bed. Erik noticed how the room black and Purple. A lot of grays as well. The purple from the vibranium was lined everywhere. It was if the room glowed with it. The black tiles left a vibranium footprint that slowly disappeared. I need this shit. Erik thought to himself. “You're not going to tell me how it went.” Latifa spook “Are you done being sassy?” Erik didn't put much effort into his voice she rolled her eyes. “I wasn't being sassy.” “Lady I'm too tired to figure you out right now.” “Oh please don't be so dramatic. Do you want me to give you a message? To ease you. “Nah im-” Before Erik could finish his sentence she had pulled on him - to her knowledge- he was her husband -she laid him face down as she climbed on his back. She kneaded his shoulders and arms deep and slowly. Releasing all the tension from him. Erik released a moan. Not meaning to. He didn't expect her to be so good at this. It was as if she knew how strained he was. She focuses on the pressure points of his back. She stopped for a while and Erik wondered what she was doing. “I never said you can look!” She pushed his head down. “Are you this bossy all the time?” Latifa thought the question was phrased weirdly but she answered. “Only when you annoy me.” “I should do- what the hell is that!!” Latifa had spread a small amount of cooling cream on him back. She rolled her eyes and carried on running her hand over Tchalla’s brought back “Such a baby. This will help with the pain after. “ She took a wet wipe from her side stand and wiped all the cream off and put on essential oils. “Does that feel better Baba?” “yeah it feels- wait did you just call me daddy?” “Yeah, do you want me to stop?” “Nah. You do you.” Latifa frowned. There it was again. The way he spoke. “have you been hanging out with Erik’s friends again?” “Again?“ Erik asked “Yeah, your speech is off. You sound like Erik's mistress.” Erik was confused he turned himself to face her. After, he moved and shifted she was now on his lap and him against the headboard. “I got a mistre..I meant Erik got a mistress?“ Oh, Erik really wanted to hear this. “Yeah. That half girl he runs around with.“ “What do you mean half?“ “I mean she is not fully Wakanden. Stop acting like you don't know what I'm saying. I know you hate how people speak about her but everyone in the royal family calls her a mistress cause that is what she will ever be. Erik will never marry her....shame. I'm sure she had to beg him to tell the whole of Wakanda they were courting. That must have been so embarrassing. Erik will find a good Wakanded girl who will take good care of him.“ Erik looked at her dead in the eyes as she went on dragging you. He really wasn't angry at her but himself. He could feel his spine heat up gradually. No one could start to understand how much Erik loved you. Before Wakanda, you were all he had and when he found you were Wakanda as well it was as if his father sent you to him. Erik was trying to be extra careful with you. He wanted everything to be perfect. He really didn't care what people thought about him or his relationship but he knew you did. For the first time, Erik saw everything from your perspective. Guilt washed over him as he thought about you having to be seen this way. The last thing he wanted was for you to be some outcast or feel unwanted. Erik pushed Latifa of his lap and laid on his side, his back facing her. “Challa? What's wrong, Did I say something?“ “Not right now.“ he covered his head with a pillow. Latifa huffed but covered his Erik with a soft black comforter. She kissed his shoulder and left to take a shower. She dimmed the lights and Erik was left in the dark to his thoughts. That was very dangerous. Erik usual partakes in activities he doesn't really think through when he over thinks. He just wanted to talk to you immediately. He started reviewing his whole relationship with you. Maybe getting married now and not later wasn't a bad idea? He needed to let go of his fear of losing you, after his mom and dad he thought anyone who meant something to him would just be taken away from him. But you were different. This time he had power in the situation. He felt so connected to you. He felt a wave of uncertainty wash over him as he considered the marriage thing. Latifa had long put her self to sleep. He had planned that he would tell Tchalla about since he was not himself. So you would be marrying ...Tchalla. He felt weird about that. Shuri better have come up with something by now.... something, anything to help me out of this. He thought. The rest of the night Erik Planned how he would ask you to marry him. To be dramatic or not. He doesn't even dare to plan the wedding he knew you would love to do that. He had made his mind up. You were going to take his late name and his heart rate was flying. Around 2 AM he finally feels asleep. He dreamt about you. Nothing complicated just you and him sitting side by side watching the water from the river pass by. Early Morning Erik was woken by a hand around his arm. It rubbed his tummy gentle. Erik didn't move as Latifa gave His a belly rub. Erik wondered why Tchalla kept his hair on his chest and belly? Was that an African thing? It had to be because it seemed like Latifa didn't mind at all. Erik started to feel uncomfortable as she lowered and lowed her hand down. He turned to face her. Still keeping some space between him and her. Like Erik still Felt weird- the Queen was trying to be all over him or Tchalla but he wasn't Tchalla, Tchalla was Erik and Erik was Tchalla. He looked over her face. Her natural beauty was simple yet elegant. High cheekbones and thick brown lips and eyebrows. Her eyes were half open, she looked sleepy. Her hair was now in a black scarf that had crystal pieces that blinking with every movement she made. Well, she was that Queen. “Can I ask you something?” Erik was not getting used to using Tchalla’s voice. “You may?“ He voice was soft unlike Erics deep voice “Why you act a like bitch?“ After she heard what he had asked she rose and looked down on him. “Excuse me?” She looked very offended. Erik was expecting that. “Nah I didn't mean it like that, come here?” Erik pulled her closer and stroked her arm. “I didn't mean to offend you. Not at all....it's just... Is there something bothering you. I mean when I first came yesterday, you were mean and rude. You were not yourself.“ Erik really didn't know what he was doing. He was speaking to her the same way he would speak to you. He was just trying to understand and talk to her. No harm can come from that. Right? “How do you know that's not me? Being rude and mean. Loving to step on people parades and as Y.N would put it ...trying people. Maybe that's my true nature?“ “No way. Not when you're this beautiful.“ Her face fall and eyebrows rose. She looked surprised in a good way. like Erik had wanted a flower that had been water deprived. Erik tried to hide his confusion. Why did she react like this? Didn't Tchalla tell her she's beautiful? I mean The whole Kingdom praises her beauty all the time. On magazines, ads even on T.V but I mean if your own husband doesn't say shit that wouldn't matter. “You look...Shocked” “No. It's just that ...you don't say that a lot, when we're alone.“ Eric wasn't the type of person to get into people's business like that but he was lying half-naked in bed with the Queen of Wakanda. She was shy now bringing her knees to her chest and biting her lip. “I don't?“ Erik baited her to give him more information.   “Are we really going to talk abou-” She let out a deep sigh”- T'challa! This is how we are. I treat you like trash, you treat me like trash...to be honest I think we fell out of love... And you can't tell me I'm crazy cause you to know I'm right.“ Erik didn't know what he was stepping into. This is what you get for being nosy. “What you got nothing to say now. ” She whispered “Nah. I'm just thinking.” “I don't hate you. I might act as if I do but i…. don't. I just hate that you….” Her face dropped, she tried to hide it away from Erik's sight as the tears formed and fell. Without thinking, Erik pulled her closer to him her face fitted in his chest. He felt guilty knowing that if you saw him like this you would kill him. But he wasn't Erik anymore. He was T'challa. So technical T'challa was holding her. “Tell me what's wrong?” She sniffed and wiped her tears but did not retract herself from his soft neck rather she spoke into it. “I just feel like Ever since you became king. You've neglected me. We didn't even go on a honeymoon...I begged you for so long but - I don't want to seem selfish because I know losing your father was incredibly hard and being king when you weren't exactly ready was stressful. I just felt like I was the last on your list… Even Nakia is higher.” “I-i didn't know this is how you felt?” Erik tried to come up with the most vaguest reply he could give. Ever since he meet you and started going to his therapist he had reached a level of empathy his old self would laugh at. He felt the need to comfort her. Even though her pain didn't come from his own actions. “There is no way Nakia is higher,” Erik whispered She laughed and held his gaze. The lights were off but the moon proved enough light for her to see T'challa's soft face. His lips and eyes were beautiful to her. “I want you back. I want to love you again. I want us to..” Erik knew he shouldn't have started this. He was regretting it now. He felt out of place and on edge. “Do you want me?” She whispered again “I.... Yeah” Erik sounded unenthusiastic and that broke Latifah's heart. She left go him and pulled away. “Hey what's wrong. I agreed. Come back.” Latifa had already left for the bathroom. Erik felt himself move to follow her. “Wait. Let me explain.” “Okay speak then.” “You need to calm down first” “I am calmed” She spat. Erik picked her up and placed her on the marble countertop. “No, you are not-T'challa- I mean I …..want that as well” Erik Cringed as he said it. “Really ?” she slid her hands on his broad frame. He nodded and immediately felt her wet lips on his.

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[star-anise]

lunarcanine reblogged your post and added:

I never had it as terrible as that, however, I can relate to that. I use ‘big words’ that my classmates always tease me about, and I talk about psychology and disorders and syndromes when I can, and drop in facts when the opportunity is given. My main source of positivity was from the praise, and the only reason I have friends is because my extrovert father has an extremely high social expectation so I just….made friends that I have to this day. I still long for someone who can be as weird as me. And literally every adult I have a conversation with says something like ‘woah you sure are genius! How does she know all of these things?’ and I just think that they hold very low expectations for childrens. I just know a lot.

I took an IQ test when I was younger, five or six….and I think I got average. So even being average, I can relate to thse things

Okay, I’m gonna babble at you a little about the brain.

What we’re really talking about, at its base, is neurodivergence. It’s the idea that on whatever measure of brain functioning, the vast swath of humanity fits into one general model, and outliers are very rare. 

To compare brains to physical bodies: Most humans have ten fingers and ten toes. I, for some obscure reason doctors don’t know, was born with eight fingers and nine toes. I’m a little off the standard expected model physically. About 1 in 50 babies is born with some sort of congenital abnormality like that.

So, to brains: A neurodivergent brain is one which, in some measure, is a little different from the expected “neurotypical” brain. This can be in a few small isolated areas, or over a broad number of different areas of the brain. 

Because your brain has a lot of different systems that can function really differently--language is in a different location than mathematics, those are in a different place than music, which is different from physical coordination, which is different from the ability to pay attention, which is different from your ability to understand and empathize with other people, which is different from how emotional you get or how much you can control those emotions. These systems can all work together, but we also have an amazing ability to separate them--so you can read and walk at the same time, or cook dinner and write a story in your head. And they can be affected differently--someone can be neurodivergent primarily in one of these areas, or they can be neurodivergent in a lot of them.

When someone’s brain is different enough from the neurotypical model to cause distress or impairment relative to other people, that difference is usually given a diagnostic label and categorized as a mental illness or learning impairment. When these differences are seen as positive, they’re rarely studied, just kind of generally glossed as “gifts” and “talents” but they don’t get nearly as much attention as what are seen as deficits. 

So here’s the other thing about the brain: It develops A LOT when you’re young. The amount of change you undergo as a child is huge. We’re born not able to control our own bodies, understand other people, or form abstract thought. Those are all things we develop as we mature. Kind of like how we go from the size of a football to five or six feet tall.

There’s an expected model for what “healthy development” looks like. Walking and talking occur around age one; the ability for concrete, abstract thought begins at age seven. 3-year-olds can be expected to understand the word “look”, 8-year-olds learn “examine”, 14-year-olds learn “perceive”. It’s the model tests are based on. The general assumption that 98% of children the same age will be in the same general area of brain development is why we group schools into classes by age.

But not everyone’s in that 98%. The 2% are neurodivergent.

I don’t think being neurodivergent means you’re innately worse or better than anyone else, any more than my 8 fingers means I’m not a human being. It’s just how we are. It’s not a choice we make, to have the brains or bodies we’re born with. The choice is what we do with them. But the problem is, being a 2%er in a 98% world, you’re assumed to be a 98%er who’s just choosing to be different. I have ADHD, meaning, difficulties in my brain to do with attention and control over my actions; but that wasn’t known when I was a child, so people just thought I was choosing to be inattentive and lazy. And I’m intellectually gifted, so when I finished a test in half the time it took everyone else, they thought I was choosing to show off. But I wasn’t; I try really hard to focus and pay attention, and I tried really hard to look “normal”. It was just like... constantly trying to slouch or stand on my tiptoes, to be a different height than I was. It didn’t work, and then I was also the weirdo who was contorting herself into funny positions.

Sometimes neurodivergent kids have needs that are poorly understood because of the lack of attention paid to them. For example, it’s known that Gifted kids are prone to emotional problems sometimes because their intellect develops faster than their ability to handle emotions--for example, a 4-year-old who loses the ability to form language when she’s hurt or scared, and who needs a comforting adult to help her deal with a skinned knee or a scary dream, could intellectually make the intellectual leap from “my dog died” to “I and everyone I love are going to die someday” and be totally unprepared to handle a thought that terrifying, and become inconsolable in a way that makes no sense to the adults around her--and she’s unable to explain, because she can’t use language when she’s upset yet. And even if she does, they might not expect a kid that little to have a thought that big, because most other 4-year-olds don’t.

It sounds like you didn’t put much more effort into developing your vocabulary than most other kids; you just happened to have a particularly good ability to absorb and remember new words. The words you’re using a very normal... for a small percentage of children your age. If they assigned classrooms based on vocabulary instead of age, you would be perfectly normal. It’s not like there’s some extra area stuck onto your brain that nobody else has; you’ve just developed differently. Would that neurodivergence show up on an IQ test if you took one now? I don’t know. I do know that IQ test results can vary a lot depending on when you take them, which test you get, and whether you’re having a good day. 

I also know that although IQ tests are designed, for the vast majority of people, to get the same general score on all the different areas, many neurodivergent people have a “differentiated profile” where their scores on the different subtests do not match the average. For example, you can score above average on tests to do with making things with your hand, but below average in using language. (Kids like this are often very frustrated in school, where they’re mistaken for being globally “slow” because they’re not able to make other people understand just how much is going on inside their heads.) Or you can be very good with spoken vocabulary, but very bad with spelling. The difference doesn’t have to be huge to make a difference, although sometimes people don’t think it matters. For example, my IQ scores were all the same, except for two subtests. In Coding and Digit Span, I scored two points below everything else. The psychologist who assessed me said, “Whatever, it’s still very high, no need to worry,” and wrote in his report that I was “very likely to enjoy academic success”.

Digit Span and Coding are two parts of that IQ test that best assess memory, attention, and focus. That difference meant something. If he’d looked closer, he might have seen that while I was a smart kid, I had ADHD. Buuut he didn’t, so I didn’t find out I had it until almost a decade later, when I was having a mental health crisis and had failed several university courses because I just couldn’t get my shit together (an ADHD trait).

The thing that identifying as Gifted gave me (because I read Stephanie Tolan’s Welcome to the Ark when I was 14) was the best understanding of where to find other weird kids like me. I started looking into weird and nerdy activities and groups (historical re-enactment, model parliament, science fiction conventions, advanced high school courses) that were likely to contain other weird and nerdy people. I thought: If it’s 2% of us who are different, then that’s 2 in a grade of 100 people. But it’s 20 in a school of 1000, 200 in a town of 10,000, 2000 in a city of 100,000. My people have got to be out there somewhere.

[writing-wolf]

The Day He Loved Red

Summary: Mac meets someone from his old high school. Turns out that's also his high school crush. Kinda. Yeah.

Words: 1,658.

Warning(s): Nah. It's maybe excessively fluffy, but uh, yeah, you know me.

Angus MacGyver was Blue. No, not in a melodramatic way. Mac was Blue. Just Blue. He was a refreshing cool spring day, the sloshing sound of water in a glass, and the feeling of piercing, icy eyes staring into your soul. 

Angus MacGyver hated red. The colour red symbolised pain, fire, and most of all, it resembled Nikki. It symbolised the thick cloud of lust and emotion he used to feel for her, the dark sheets they used to make love under. It symbolised the burning sensation of his breaking heart when she betrayed him. Red used to be the colour of love, now it only brought Mac pain. 

The first time MacGyver meets you is in high school. You’re red. A small, bright red streak in a world of dark greys and browns. Yet Mac, as naive as a young, scrawny boy can be (yes, apparently even people with an IQ over 140 can be naive, when presented with the appropriate dose of hormones and the lack of understanding of the opposite sex), barely spares you a second glance. He walks away from the beautifully unique, intelligent girl with her large glasses and her remarkably large forest of bright red hair. Mac goes on with his life. So do you. 

In the same year, both you and Mac graduate. Mac is 17, you are 16. You’re not a lot smarter than Mac, and probably not nearly as ‘creative’ when it comes to old metal scraps and machinery, but your intelligence leans more to the 'socially acceptable’ side of the wackiness that is the school system. Because while Mac is a 'homo universalis’, you assume his lack of interest in literature and theory explain why he graduates only a year earlier than the common student (not that you love theory, you’ve just been a little more subtle in your endeavours to obtain knowledge. Incinerating mopeds has never really fit in the school’s curriculum). 

While you’re giving your graduation speech, Mac can’t help but notice the way the wispy strands of your hair sway with the wind, like flames dancing in the dark night sky. With the confidence of a young, scrawny boy on hormones, Angus MacGyver represses this short moment of infatuation. It’s the last time he’ll see you anyway. 

Fate never works as one thinks it will, and in true fashion, you and Mac have the chance to meet again. This time, by the hands of Patricia Thornton (she swears your recruitment has nothing to do with your history with Mac, but fooling a not-so naive, not-so scrawny young man has proven to be a little trickier than necessary). When Jack and his younger partner arrive at the Phoenix Foundation a little more injured than usual, Patricia announces the need for a medical expert (because although Mac is a genius, he also has the annoying urge to protect everyone, but himself). Even though Mac tries to argue that his method of 'first aid’ works fine until they get to the hospital, both Patty and Riley are fed up with trying not to blow their cover after each mission. 

Mac reluctantly agrees. Reluctantly. Maybe less reluctantly after seeing your picture. Maybe, just maybe, his heart skips a beat. 

The following Monday, you seem to already be setting up your little doctor’s office when Mac arrives. He doesn’t say it, but you’ve definitely grown more beautiful, more red. One might even say you’re Red now. The youngest member of the Phoenix Foundation would agree. Yet, upon seeing you so Red, Mac’s afraid. It has barely been six months since Nikki’s betrayal, and hurt enters his barely healed heart again. 

It takes a moment for you to notice him standing in the doorway, and it takes another moment for you to recognise him as the lanky salutatorian. There’s no doubt Mac has grown to be really handsome, but you hope he still has those nerdy qualities that made him stand out in high school. You also hope Bozer’s still around (it was hard not to notice the bubbly persona standing next to your high school crush). 

It feels weird. You've missed years of each other's life, but one shy look in his eyes guarantees you that it's not going to be long before you're falling head over heels in love with him again.

“Hi, I'm Jamie. You're Angus MacGyver, right?” you ask, but it's only out of courtesy. Of course you remember Mac. He's the scrawny kid who incinerated a moped, and that's just something you can't forget. However, you're not sure he remembers you (but oh boy, does he).

“Yeah. Call me Mac though, never liked the name Angus. You're the valedictorian with the bright red hair?”

“I am,” you admit, smiling coyly. You're somehow glad he still remembers you. 

“Graduated at 16, five years at med school, worked in UCLA for four years?” 

“Nope, UCSF for three, UCLA for one. You graduated at 17, MIT for three—no two years, EOD for three, then DXS?” you shoot back.

“Yup. You looked into my file, didn't you?”

“No comment.”

Turns out, your services are very much required, to Mac's spite. During a particularly hectic mission, in which they have to improvise an operation on Ralph, the so-called accountant of an organisation named D-77, you're called in a hurry.

“Mac. Please tell me you're calling because you want to say hello, and not because there's currently an unconscious accountant lying in the trunk after he got shot?”

“I'm so sorry Doc, but we need you. Now.” 

A normal person in a normal situation would probably panic, but, since this isn't a normal situation, and you are, by all means, not just a normal person, you try to quickly compose yourself, before giving Mac the necessary instructions. 

Mac thanks you afterwards, when he gets back home. More specifically, with a hug (both of you will, if asked, deny that the hug lasts a little too long, that Mac's hand is a little too low on your back to be strictly platonic, and that the sexual tension is suffocating in such a small room).

For safety reasons, Bozer decides that, after finally obtaining Riley's entire phone number, Mac should have yours. Obviously, just in case something happens. 

Over the next couple of weeks, the both of you share cute anecdotes, discuss 'sciencey things (as Jack calls it)', and of course you ask him about his physical health after tough missions. Mac spends a lot more time talking to you, and although Jack tends to complain a little about him not living in the present, the older man is secretly a little happy to see Mac having a stable relationship with a woman again, after Nikki. 

Nikki however, in her glorious red glow, re-enters everyone's lives rather quickly. Only this time, she's one of the good guys again. As expected, Mac's inclined to believe Nikki, and give her a second chance. Jack shakes his head in disappointment when she returns; yes, he'd be happy for Mac in any other given situation, but this is Nikki. Even if she's working for the CIA, she's betrayed and confused his teammate more than he really needs to be confused and betrayed. He just hoped she'd be gone for longer than this.

Mac lets Nikki kiss him again, whilst patching up her wound. He really wants to believe her words, love her like he used to. He just can't. Not anymore. So he kisses her back, thinking that maybe, maybe, he can learn to love her shade of red again.

Nikki gets framed and arrested by Patricia, and for a brief moment, she looks back. She wants to scream at Mac, wants to tell him none of this is true. He'll figure it out on his own though, but she shivers at the look of betrayal in his eyes. Again. So when Patricia Thornton's lies are discovered, she smiles, almost laughs. No more lies.

She kisses Mac again, when it's all over. Her lust and the heat of the moment made her forget back then, but she feels it now. Through his kiss, she knows she's lost him. 

Nikki promises Mac that they'll take it one step at a time. They both know they won't. 

She steps out of the room and her eyes meet yours. As Nikki walks down the corridor, she pats your shoulder.

“He's all yours,” she murmurs, ignoring the slight blush on your cheeks. She's a fighter, but a fight against Eros is a fight long lost. 

It takes another two years, 78 missions, 1502 text messages and seven experimental dates (and by experimental, I mean experimenting in the love department, as well as blowing things up in the name of science, because, well, nerds), but you get there eventually. 

On the night of the fourth of January, 2018, you two lie on Mac's DIY self-heating mat, watching the meteor shower. Mac's arm is wrapped around you while you're cuddling, head on his chest. 

“You know, Nikki told me something, back when Thornton was arrested. She said: ‘He's all yours.’ I wonder if she knew that this would happen,” you say.

“I think everyone knew, at least before we did.”

“We're stupid, aren't we? We've known each other since high school, and yet we don't realise we love each other until we're both adults!” you laugh. Mac turns to look at you for a moment, before capturing the moment, and you, in a sweet, breathtaking kiss. His soft lips touch yours gently as he goes in for another one, and then another one. He moves slowly, as if you were the most fragile, precious thing in the entire world. As if you were his world. You are.

“What was that for?” you ask him, still panting slightly. Mac only smiles. Oh, how he loves the Red of your lips, your hair, your cheeks. Oh, how he loves you. 

“Making up for lost time, sweetheart.”

Aight people! 

It took me a while, but I finished it! I think MacGyver isn't the most popular TV show out there, but I like it. So, if you do read it, tell me what you think of it! Send me comments, asks, requests, shtuff...

Have a lovely day!

[captainbrieontoast]

Chaos of Life

Summary:

Yoongi doesn’t do things he doesn’t like to do. He doesn’t talk to people he doesn’t like. He doesn’t go to class if he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even bother to look at those he doesn’t think deserves his attention. So, Jimin can’t help but wonder what on Earth he did to deserve this strange boys attention.

You can read this story here or:

Archiveofourown: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112317/chapters/40244696

Wattpad: https://my.w.tt/nvlove8OfT

Chapter One:

"A smile puts you on the right track. A smile makes the world a beautiful place. When you lose your smile, you lose your way in the chaos of life." ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

When Park Jimin first heard about Min Yoongi he genuinely believed him to be some upperclassman myth created as an odd joke. He was at orientation the first time anyone mentioned him. He had been scanning over his class schedule once again since he had nothing better to do when someone leaned over and sucked in an unnecessarily sharp breath. The boy seemed to be slightly taller than him, with bronzed skin, bright inquisitive eyes, and dark hair that needed to be trimmed because it kept falling in his eyes. Jimin squinted at his name tag, glad to find the boys handwriting was legible enough to make out a name. Jonghyun.

"Dude, you must be super smart," he murmured. "You're in all upper-level classes."

"Upper level," a girl beside him hissed. She was pretty with skin paler compared to that of Jonghyun's. Her hair was curly and a little messy but it framed her face well. Her hair was orange like fire. Kim Goeun. She had beautiful handwritten. Very neat, and small. "You aren't in Economics are you?"

Jimin looked down at his schedule and scrunched his nose.

"Yeah, I am why?" He asked softly confused by the partially horrified look on Goeun's face.

"I've heard Min Yoongi is going to be taking Economics this year. I switched out," she replied earnestly. A good chunk of the freshmen in the class sucked in a breath, turning to look at them in surprise.

"Min Yoongi is in Economics this year?!"

"Oh god, you don't think that he'll be in my class do you?"

"Who's Min Yoongi?" Jimin asked. He suddenly felt like he had missed a very important part of his initial orientation. He had only been a few minutes late, but the fact that he didn't know anything about this Min Yoongi character seemed to be almost social suicide. Not even his friends who went here had mentioned him.

"How have you not heard of him?" The girl asked him. "He's a Junior this year but he's like a super genius."

"Then why is everyone scared of him?" Jimin asked, nervously glancing around the room.

"Because he has the ability to utterly ruin your life," she explained. Her hand landed on his shoulder, a touch that he noted wasn't welcome in any way. "It's been said that with a single word he can make you a social outcast."

"I heard that he killed someone one time, just by looking at them," Jonghyun added. He was leaning so far over the table that Jimin was a little worried he would fall forward onto him.

"That's not even possible," Jimin scoffed.

"Either way," the girl said, shrugging off Jimin's disbelief. "He's scary, even seniors are afraid of him."

Jimin thought that was the last he would hear this half-baked rumor but it wasn't long until he heard about the guy again. This time, it was his friends talking about him.

"Hey, have you guys heard of that Min Yoongi guy?" Jeongguk was asking. He was the youngest of their friend group, so young he hadn't even graduated high school yet. At the moment his hair was tawny brown and messy as it could be. He looked like he had rolled out of bed with that hairstyle and it was likely that he had. Along with being the youngest, he was the most immature of all of them and it was pretty common to find a dumb look on his face. His lips were formed into a sort of dumb looking circle, that made Namjoon chuckle. He even went as far as to pat Jeongguk's head.

"Don't worry about Min Yoongi coming after you," Namjoon assured him softly. Jimin looked up at him, somewhat stunned. Kim Namjoon wasn't the type of person to fall for rumors. In fact, he liked to point out flaws in a story. The fact that he was promoting such a rumor wasn't like him.

Namjoon was tallest of all the boys that Jimin was close to, and the only one that matched his height was their new roommate Seokjin. At the moment, Namjoon's hair was a cotton candy pink and was styled pretty well despite the way that some of the strands fell in his face. Most people didn't find him very handsome. (Then again most people found Jeongguk to be the most attractive of them all and his facial expression right now was not reflecting that.) He had a distinctive long face about him though.

"How do you know for sure?" Jeongguk asked nervously, his eyebrows wrinkling. "What if he likes to mess with guys like me?"

"Don't worry, he doesn't talk to anyone with an IQ lower than his own," Namjoon responded thoughtfully. "And your IQ is so low you probably won't even register on his radar."

Jeongguk frowned and hit Namjoon playfully in retaliation.

The next time that Jimin heard about the mysterious upperclassman was in passing. He had simply been walking through the girls' wing of his floor, on his way back to his dorm room when he overheard some girls talking about him.

"Min Yoongi is absolutely dreamy. His skin is absolutely perfect."

"Honestly, can you imagine just how beautiful he would look if a smile ever crossed his face?"

"But even without the smile, that cold demeanor… It does something to me."

All the girls giggled amongst one another and continued past Jimin down the hall. Once they had passed, Jimin couldn't help but pause and look back at them.

Considering all of the rumors that Jimin heard about this Min Yoongi leading up to the first day of class, one would assume that he would be prepared for the actual sight of the hyung. Honestly, he was a little eager to find out if he really existed. Well, eager and nervous.

He had been warned a hundred times not to be odd if he had to interact with Yoongi. Don't talk unless spoken to, and more advice as such. So he was careful not to sit down next to anyone in that particular classroom, worried that he would accidentally sit beside the man, the myth, the legend himself and even though all he wanted to do was look around and try to spot Min Yoongi, all he could do was sit and stare at his notebook paper.

He thought he was being cool, sitting there all on his own. But in reality, he was uncertainly tearing his notebook paper into small pieces. After only about a minute he had less than half of his paper left, and a small pile of white paper flakes on his desk.

He smiled down at the pile.

"Snow," he murmured. He laughed softly to himself and began to trace his finger through the pieces. He hadn't distracted himself for long when he became aware of someone's presence near him. He didn't acknowledge it, pretty sure that whoever it was would move on soon.

"Is this seat taken?" A voice asked. Jimin glanced up at the guy- round cheeks, a small button nose, a soft expression, thin lips settled in an emotionless look. His skin was smooth, and while tan was paler then most of the people Jimin was used to being around. It reminded him of sugar. Jimin's mouth gaped a little in surprise at the guys' attractiveness. He didn't seem to be wearing any makeup at the moment, but still, his features were highlighted beautifully on his face. The boy seemed to notice Jimin's dumbness and his lips twitched upwards ever-so-slightly as if in a peace greeting.

"Y-yeah," he replied, blinking. "I mean, no! You can take it."

The boy nodded, the small smile disappearing as he took a seat beside Jimin. All around Jimin whispers were sprouting up as the other students looked towards him in astonishment. Jimin thought it was pretty rude, and he didn't want the other boy to notice so he decided to strike up a conversation to distract him. They weren't talking about him, they were talking about Min Yoongi but if this boy had the guts to ask Jimin if he could sit beside him, he probably didn't even know that he existed.

"I'm Park Jimin, freshmen," he introduced, giving the boy beside him a smile. The boy tilted his head in his direction, and for a strange moment, Jimin didn't think he would address him. His eyes were dark, unreadable (at the moment), but seemed to be analyzing Jimin in a number of ways. If he kept quiet like this he might notice the whispers. "I've never taken an Economics class. I hope it'll be okay. I'm not stupid but I struggle with some simple concepts sometimes."

This time, there was no hesitation before the boy responded.

"Maybe I could help you," the boy responded. "I'm in my Junior year, and my dad is an economics major so I know a thing or two about a college course."

Jimin's smile widened at that. He seemed like a nice guy. Sitting levelly like this Jimin realized that he was actually taller than him, which felt great considering that among the people he was around the most he and Hoseok were the shortest.

"That would be great!" He said eagerly. Before he could say more the boy beside him had scribbled something onto a small piece of paper. He folded it and slid it over to Jimin as class began. He lowered his voice and gave Jimin a side glance.

"My information," he explained. "It's nice to meet you Park Jimin."

The rest of the class was spent listening to the professor teach, and it wasn't until class was over that Jimin even remembered to look at the paper the other boy had given him. Jimin was a pretty clumsy kid, he would likely lose it if he didn't save the number to his phone, so he dug the paper out of his pocket and looked at its contents.

What he saw stopped him mid-step.

Min Yoongi.