#I came back to add more tags because I thought of something funny

[jtl-fics]

I just saw the “Farmer Pain Scale” video again and have now imagined a sign that sits in Abby’s office.

I think Andrew asks for a copy of it for their professional team’s medical staff.

[reidmania]

IN BETWEEN | spencer reid

good riddance x spencer reid one shot series masterlist

part one, part two, part three

summary; after meeting in person for the first time, you and spencer only fall deeper when you visit him.

warnings; pure fluff again, they’re love sick fools ur honour. fem reader, briefly mentions of anxiety and overthinking, they make each other flustered and nervous.

an; there could most definitely be a part three if u guys want one bc theres still the bridge of the song?? this fic literally sent me to the grave never again am i writing this much in one sitting i might lose all my sanity.

tags: @reidmarieprentiss @spencerreidsreads

‘he laughs at her eyes, at her smile, at the glasses on her face, he loves how he talks late at night, when there's no one else to say, how she's beautiful and funny and smart like nothin' he's ever seen, he's good to her and she wants it more than everything in between’

<>

You didn’t think your hands had ever pulled your phone from your pocket quicker than the minute it started ringing, excitement and something more lingering in your mind when Spencer’s name lit up on your screen. A smile found place on your face as you leant against the shopping cart you had been pushing around.

The minute you answered you heard him breathe out a sigh of relief, “I am so glad you answered” Was the first thing he said, it made your smile widen as you held the phone to your ear, your other hand pushing the cart forward.

“When have I not answered- I always answer” You mutter out. It was true, not so much because you were always on your phone but because Spencer had your schedule memorised. He knew exactly when you would be free and when you wouldn’t, unless something came up but you always made sure to let him know before hand. After finding out how much he panicked when you internet went out and you didn’t email him for three days, you didn’t want him to have to worry like that again.

You heard a warm chuckle through the phone, it sent the warmth straight to your chest. “The 5th, I called you at 2:43 and you didn’t answer” He memorised. It made your heart fill with fondness and butterflies alight your stomach. Despite the roll of your eyes as you thought back to the date.

“I was at work! I called you back literally two seconds later, that doesn’t count” You mumbled out as your free hand reached for the shelves, placing the products in your cart gently before moving on.

You could picture his grin, on the other side of the phone. You knew he was at work, like he was more often than not. It didn’t stop him from going out of his way to check in on you throughout the day, and deep down you knew how important it was to him that he did so.

“I miss you” He said quietly, not bothering to add anything to the previous topic. His words made you grin as your lip became tucked under your teeth. You were sure to anyone else around you, you looked like a lovesick teenager. You felt like one too.

It had been two weeks since you saw Spencer for the first time, the kiss played repeatedly in your head as if your brain was rewinding a clip a million times, it made your cheeks burn all the same every time. You two hadn’t necessarily talked about it, but it wasn’t like either of you were avidly avoiding it.

It was enough to ensure Spencer felt some way about you, some way more than friends or internet buddies. The two of you saw each other again the next day, where you went to the a bookstore and a little cafe. He remembered you rambling in an email about the small bookstore you adored on the corner of the street near your work and then when you nervously muttered about it over the phone in the morning, he asked you to show him it.

“I know, I miss you too.” You said softly as you decided you had enough of grocery shopping, you had gotten most of the things you needed and everything else you could live without. You pushed your cart towards the checkout line.

He smiled, you couldn’t see it but it was clear enough in his voice to make your heart swell at the image in your head. “Do you have any time off work?” He asked, almost nervously.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you tucked the phone into your shoulder, holding it in place with your head by your ear while you scanned your items at the self checkout. “Um, not anytime soon but I have accumulated enough sick days if necessary. Is everything okay?” You asked, slightly concerned at his sudden inquiry about your days off.

He hummed through the phone before you heard some shuffling, voices in the background but nothing clear enough that you could pick up on. “Everything is fine but, I miss you” He repeated, as his explanation for his previous question.

You didn’t know if there were any words that could explain the feeling that bubbled in your stomach. The butterflies that seemed to live there now taking over your ribcage.

You paid for your groceries before taking the bags in your hand and returning the cart, hard to do with the phone pressed tightly between your ear and shoulder, but you managed, carrying the bags in one hand towards your car as you took the phone back in your hand.

“Is this you asking me to come see you?”

It came out more teasing than you intended originally, but the soft laugh and idea of his cheeks slightly tinted was enough for you to mean it all the same. There was a moment of silence before he sighed.

“Yes.” He said, before he turned into a rambling mess trying to over justify what didn’t need any justification.

“I can pay for your flight - and If you’re worried about work I’ll pay you your rate. I’ll take time off work as well. You can stay at mine- If you want to of course, you don’t have to. Theres some good hotels close by as well.. not the one i was telling you about the other day, the crime rates there are substantially higher than any others. I think we have had six different cases there alone, Its honestly shocking it hasn’t been shut down yet. Between the crime rates and the horrible reviews I don’t truely understand how they still get business, two people every week thats not a lot of money so they must be getting it else where, especially because there prices are so low, maybe thats why people still go there, ignore the bad reviews and go anyways”

You smiled fondly, letting the boy ramble as you got into your car after placing the groceries in the back seat. You connected your phone to the blue tooth of your car, his ramble ringing out through the radio.

“What reviews does your place have?” You cut him off, a hint of teasing in your voice. His rambling stopped and he went silent for a minute, making your smile only widen when you realised you had flustered the man.

He almost squeaked when he talked, “None so far.. I can give you one though.” He muttered out trying to play along. Spencer got a lot less flustered now than he would’ve a few years ago, you knew that because he told you how much of a nervous awkward mess he was then. You found it cute.

Still, you had a way of bringing that back out of him.

“Go on” You encouraged softly, playfulness lacing your tone.

“Well it’s extraordinarily clean.. Warm too, but not too warm to the point it’s.. too warm.” He cleared his throat awkwardly when realising he had repeated himself. “It’s adjustable— The temperature, if it’s too warm or not warm enough it can be um- adjusted. This is more difficult than I thought”

You bite your lip, shaking your head, deciding to put the boy out of his misery. “And you call me a nervous rambler. Of course I’ll come see you, and stay with you.. If you want that. You’re also not going to pay for my flight, spence. You don’t need to pay me to hang out with you” You breathed out.

“I don’t want to make you pay for a plane ticket when I’m the one asking you to come see me.” He said, his voice quiet and sincere. You knew he meant every word and it made your smile dampen slightly.

You sighed, “Don’t act like I don’t want to see you just as much.” You said as you turned your keys in the ignition of your car, looking behind you for a moment as you reversed out of the parking space.

“Are you driving?” He asked.

You nodded, a common occurrence of you forgetting he was unable to see you. Sometimes you forgot he wasn’t right there. “Uh- Yeah I’m leaving the store. You’re connected to my bluetooth. Im being safe” You said, reassuring him of your safety before he even had the chance to ask.

You wondered if his worry for your safety would decreased if you lived closer to him. If he was able to see you and talk to you more. You weren’t sure what specifically spiked his worry but his constant need to know you were okay, it made your chest tighten in the grip of warm hands.

After muttering a quiet, “okay, good” He jumped back to the previous topic before he heard the beeping of you reversing. “I want you to stay here as long as you’re comfortable with it.” He said.

“Of course I am. When do you want me to come? Theres nothing important going on at the office — Like always. so I can basically come whenever..”

Spencer breathed out a laugh before he was called back to the conference room. You heard Hotch’s voice which you had gotten more familiar with the more you talked to Spencer. “I have to go, I’ll talk to Hotch tonight and find out when its best for me to have off and I’ll call you tonight okay?”

You agree and bid your goodbye, theres a moment of comfortable silence mixed with longing before he mutters a similar sort of reply mixed with an apology for having to go, before the call ended.

A week later, the sound of chaos filled your ears the minute you got off the plane while waiting for your bag, young kids running around trying to catch one another, a man missing his flight, families reuniting. The chaos was a bittersweet feeling that provided a weird calming sensation to your nerves.

You knew the minute you saw Spencer everything would be fine, but it didn’t stop the anxiety that dwindled, with the thoughts of every possible wrong outcome that may occur. It was thoughts you tried to ignore, and avoid but sometimes they made their way and consumed all your thoughts.

Once getting your bag you were able to wander towards the airport entrance way where Spencer had told you he would be. Your eyes searched the other people waiting for their own people, along with other biding goodbye.

When your eyes landed on his own you were pretty sure you could feel your heart bruising your ribcage. You wondered if you looked silly standing there looking around but those thoughts were quickly forgotten when he started walking towards you, meeting you half way as you too walked towards him.

The minute you were in reach his arms were around your waist, your body pulled flush against his. A smile filled the space on your face as your arms reached to wrap around his neck, standing on your tiptoes to better reach before he was lifting you off the ground.

A laugh left your lips before you could stop it, it was only for a moment before he was placing you back on the ground, burying his head in between your neck and shoulder as if it belonged there. The scent of his cologne mixed with his body wash took over your senses, consuming your mind.

“Hi” You whispered as you pulled back to look at his face, you felt your face flush slightly as his eyes lowered over your face, a goofy sort of smile on his face, his own cheeks flushed.

“Hi.” He whispered back.

You weren’t sure what to say but it didn’t matter, he was already taking your hand and leading you to his car, asking about your flight until you were pulling your seatbelt on, his gaze was focused on you completely, his body turned in the drivers seat to look at you.

“I came straight from work, I was worried traffic would be horrible and I wouldn’t get here in time.” He said softly as his hand brushed up to curl in on your jaw.

You leant into his touch, “I could’ve waited.” You said, the warmth of his hand sending your skin into a frenzy.

He tilted his head to the side to mirror how you leant into his touch, a wonky smile as he squinted his eye slightly. “I didn’t want you to have to wait.” He said, his voice did that thing you had grown all too familiar with, where it went slightly higher in sincerity.

You smiled, “Well you made it, is there some scientific facts behind that.” You asked, looking up at him with slight soft eyes. You knew Spencer would take any opportunity possible to ramble about statistics and scientific things you didn’t quite understand a lot of the time, you’d listen and love it regardless.

He paused slightly, his eyebrows furrowed. “Uh- Im sure there is.. I- Um.” You mirrored his expression, eyebrows furrowed slightly at his words.

“Sorry- I- I can’t think straight. You look so pretty” His words went straight to your chest and you could’ve swore you would’ve married him on the spot, you knew deep down that was dramatic when all he did was compliment you, but it was more than that. It was the way he said it with such honesty, so gently. The way he was looking at you like you were the only person in the world.

You felt the need to change the topic. Your face slightly pulled away from his hands as you replaced them with your own hands, trying to cool the burning of your cheeks at his words. He smiled and started the car.

You let your hands cool your cheeks. “Was work okay?” You mumbled out as you turned your head back to face him, you admired the way his jawline looked and the way his hands looked holding the steering wheel, which did not help your face cool down. Your hands pulled away from your face, to rest together gently in your lap.

He looked away from the road for a moment to glance at you. His own expression slightly flustered making your heart skip a beat before his eyes returned to the road.

“No- Well yeah- It was fine. Boring, nothing real interesting just paperwork all day.. I was just, hanging out for it to be over so I could see you. How was the flight?” He asked through a breathy chuckle, his eyes glancing back towards yours for a second, noticing the way your fingers fidgeted with themselves.

He decided to leave out how all day Derek had teased him about you, saying anything he could to make Spencer’s cheeks heat. He didn’t mention the way when Emily asked why he was so moody all day he went on nearly an hour long ramble about how he just wanted the day to be over because you would be there, and then went into detail about how he had cleaned his house, bleaching it entirely just so there was absolutely no chance of any germs you couldn’t contract.

“I was stressing, honestly. The airport was so busy when I got there— Like there was a million people, I’m not even kidding. I’ve never been so.. overwhelmed by people and normally I don’t mind but there was a lot of people Spence. Oh and then the man tried to tell me my flight was wrong, and I wanted to cry — like break down into tears in the middle of the airport, then he got his boss and everything was fine, he just read the ticket wrong. I also fell asleep and woke up to the kid next to me asking if id play uno with him — So I did of course”

The simple answer turned into one of your nervous blabbering sentiments he had come to adore. His hand reached over from the steering wheel while the other remained on it, it hovered slightly over yours for a second. Your breath hitched slightly cutting off your ramble, you swore at this rate you would be dead from your heart rate being too high before you even got the chance to see Spencer’s house.

When his hand peeled yours away from your lap to interlace your fingers with his your head turned towards his, a soft smile on your face as your eyes met his for a moment when he stopped at a redlight.

“Is this okay?” He asked quietly, as if he was nervous you might push him away. Your hand softened in his gentle grasp, squeezing his hand gently you smiled and nodded.

“This is perfect” You breathed out.

"I don't have a guest room- I should've mentioned that" Spencer said, he was leaning against the back of the couch watching you as you stood in front of his book shelf, eyes scanning over the large amount of books, your mind dancing with the memory of when he had emailed you telling you he needed one, because his books were just in piles across his living room.

You smiled fondly at the memory before you turned your head to look over your shoulder at him, eyebrows pinched together. You weren't sure what to say, was he telling you that you'd be sharing a room with him? was he saying you'd be sleeping on the sofa? was he kicking you out and telling you to find a hotel?

You pursed your lips slightly, "Right.." You hummed as you turned your body to face him. You weren't sure what you were expecting honestly, sure you spent the last week leading up to this wondering but it never went much further until you got distraction making up different scenarios and interactions in your head that you'd fall asleep thinking about.

Spencer looked awkward for the briefest moment, before he let out a breathy laugh. "You um- We can- You can sleep in my room" He said, he spoke like the words were trying to be held back in his throat. It made you smile.

"And then where will you sleep?" You asked, raising your eyebrow curiously at him.

His eyebrows dipped, "Well- In my room as well- if you are comfortable with that, or I could sleep on the sofa." He said, the crimson heat making its way over his cheeks. You couldn't help the way your smile widened.

Your head tilted, "You know, I think that would be okay." You said, your smile almost giddy as you walked towards him. He let out a heavy exhale he didn't know he was holding it at your words as the smile made its way to his face -- looking the same sort of giddy.

"Yeah you think so?" He asked, the teasing tone as if he wasn't the one flustered and nervous almost seconds ago. You nodded your head in agreement as you moved to stand in front of him. A odd overwhelming need to be closer, one you couldn't explain.

He didn't seem to mind, nor did he question it as his hands hesitantly moved to wrap around your waist. You only smiled as you found your place against his chest, letting out a gentle breath as his scent overwhelmed your senses.

There was something so comforting about his scent, there was a fresh hint from his aftershave and then something that resembled the smell of old paperbacks and espresso, it was so delicate while being intoxicating all at once. There was something familiar about it even though it wasn't a combination you had ever smelt before meeting Spencer in person.

Yet it was the sort of scent the resembled a warm hug on a cold evening at sunset, or the warmth of a smile from an old lady in a cafe on an early sunday morning.

"When did you get a book shelf?" You asked, your voice slighly muffled by the cotton of his sweater, he hadn't told you about getting it. He hummed softly and you felt the vibrations from his chest against your ear.

"Yesterday, figured you deserved better than a house full of books all over the floor." He said, his voice was quiet and just loud enough for you to hear slightly raspy as his hand gently pressed against your back, brushing over the fabric of your own sweater.

You felt your heartbeat genuinely stutter at his words, the way his voice sounded. You were standing in his arms with not a clue in the world of what any of this meant between you, but you knew you didn't want it to end, not now, not ever.

"I wouldn't of minded" You said in the same quiet tone, as if there were other people around that the two of you were trying to hide your conversation from. There wasn't, it was just the two of you yet the conversation felt intimate and sweet and it ingraved its place in your memory.

His head shifting slightly from where it rested ontop of yours. You could've swore you felt his lips brush against the top of your head, you wondered if you imagined it, made it up in your head.

"I know" He whispered softly.

The rest of the evening consisted of you and Spencer attempting to make nacho's (which was more of you making them and him leaning against the counter staring at you), making him watch the notebook after finding out he had never seen it and then regretting it when you both spent the next thirty minutes bawling like babies into each others arms.

You also spent a while trying to convince him to let you paint his nails, before giving up. He probably would've gave in if you persisted for more than two minutes before getting distracted.

Now, you had just walked out of the bathroom after changing into your pyjamas while Spencer was already sitting against the headboard, a book perched up in his hands. You stood silently watching in awe as he went through 4 pages in the time it would've take you to read one, also part focused on his hands and the way they wrapped held the book

He looked up from the book noticing you standing there, your eyes lifted to meet his. He offered you a soft smile and sat up a bit more, shuffling a bit more to the side to allow you extra room on the bed. You realised that you were still standing which made the back of your neck heat in embarrasment.

You walked over to the bed, his eyes followed you as you moved, you sat down next to him as if it was normal, like muscle memory even though you had never done it before, the idea of everything feeling so unrulely natual with Spencer made your mind a mess as you wondered what is what about him that made everything seem so.. Safe.

"Is this okay?" You were pulled from your thoughts at the sound of his voice, your eyes met his as you nodded briefly before your eyes moved back to the book in his hands, you shuffled slightly closer to him without thinking, but he had no complaints when one of his hands left the book to wrap his arm around your shoulder.

Goosebums followed where his arm laid, "Can you read aloud as fast as you can read in your head?" You asked, almost absent mindedly as you thought about what it would be like to read 20,000 words aloud in a minute, you knew his brain could process that much information but that was just because he was brilliant -- He didn't need to explain the facts to you about it, you had already decided, it was just because he was brilliant.

He laughed softly, "No, your brain can work a lot faster than your mouth can" He said softly as his finger tips brushed over your arm, a smile on his face as he looked down at you, his eyes as warm as his hand felt against your skin.

"Okay good" You mumbled out, you looked back at him for a moment feeling slightly nervous under his gaze, "What are you reading?" You asked as you shifted slightly to see the title of the book, he helped by flipping the book to its side, his fingers in between the pages to keep his place.

You 'oohed' softly, making a soft chuckle leave his lips as you leant back against his arm. He kept his eyes on you, a fond smile filling the space of his cheeks. "Its about the pyscology of love" He muttered softly, eyes trailing over your face.

You wondered if he could feel your heart beat increase in your back as it pressed against his arm. You didn't mean to pay it any thought, but the way his voice got quieter and his eyes were looking into yours. You couldn't help it.

"Read it to me?" You asked, chewing at the inside of your bottom lip nervously. You weren't sure if you would understand it completely but you didn't really mind, more focused on just listening to Spencer read.

His eyes widened slightly as if he wasn't expecting it. There was something in his eyes, and emotion you couldn't quite place. "Y-yeah, Yeah, Of course" He fumbled over his words

You pulled your eyes away from his to shuffle down more to have your head resting against his chest, his arm followed your body still wrapping around you tightly. There was a moment of silence before you heard him clear his throat and began reading the words on the page, his voice sweet and gentle with every word.

You didn't mean to, really but within minutes your breathing had slowed and your muscles relaxed in his touch as you fell asleep. He didn't have to look at you to know that, he could tell by the soft breaths that left your lips as his words paused for a moment, before he leant down to brush his lips against the top of your head gently.

He continued reading aloud despite you already being asleep, his voice was quieter and softer, but he continued just in case you woke up.

"Should I be concerned about your sugar intake?" You asked, a warm smile on your face as you watched the man pour his tenth sugar into his large coffee, after the two of you made the decision to go for a walk around. You had borrowed one of his scarfs that was wrapped gently around your neck over the knitted sweater you were wearing. Your hands were intertwined for the most part until now, when he was tearing open sugar packets.

He grinned as he added one more before stiring the otherwise plain black coffee with the wooden stick, disposing of it then placing the lid back on his cup. "They never add enough sugar, I hate it how people at have to add their own" Spencer smiled as he tilted his head at you.

You scoffed playfully as you held up your own coffee cup as he other hand came to hold yours as the two of you made your way out of the small coffee shop. "I didn't" You reminded, waiting for his reply before you finished your idea for a joke as you tilted your head to look up at him.

He hummed, amused as he glanced down at you, "Yeah 'cause your sweet enough" He finished the joke for you.

You gasped, as if he just completely read your mind, playing into your running joke "Exactly!! See if we were both thinking it, it must be true" You sigh out dramatically, the smile on your lips never fading.

"Must be" He agreed, biting back as wide grin as his eyes pulled away from yours for a moment, looking around the street he was looking down, his eyes stopping on a little flower shop.

"Thats where I was when I got your email.. Your first one" He muttered out softly, your turn to follow his gaze. Your chest going fuzzy at how this all started at such a sweet place, a flower shop.

"I was with Derek, we were suppose to be picking up coffee for the rest of the team but then he got distracted wanting to ask out a girl who was in here.. I was forced to stay here for about an hour as they talked and then eventually he brought her flowers, but I was a sitting--" He pauses to point at a chair outside the flower shop, next to a little table, the rest of his hand still wrapped around the coffee cup.

"There. I was reading through my emails and I remember reading the one from you and I was so embarrased, I wasn't going to reply at first, but there was just something- I don't know but I'm really glad i did" He rambled.

You listened silently and fondly as you could almost remember the day like the back of your hand, unfotunately your experience wasn't as sweet as his or in any pretty place like a flower shop, instead you were in your office when you had gotten his email. He turned his head to look at you with a soft smile.

"I'm really glad you did too" You said honestly.

His eyes lingered on yours for a second before he smiled, "Come with me" He said gently as he started walking. You laughed, as if you were going to go anywhere else. You followed him, hand in hand as he walked towards the flower shop he had been talking about.

Your eyebrows furrowed slightly as he pulled you inside. It was a sweet smelling store, you looked around the pretty flowers in different bouquets, before turning back to look at Spencer, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

His eyes were scanning the store for the flowers he remembered you telling him were your favourites, he remembered everything you told him, even if he didn't want to he couldn't help it. The minute Spencer saw them in the back corner of the store he was dragging you towards them gently, not missing the sound of your laugh ringing through his ears -- another thing about you he would never forget.

He had been grateful for his eidetic memory many times in his life but never more than the moment he saw your face light up at the sight of the flowers, and moreso at the fact that he did remember -- you knew deep down he remembered everything but it didn't make it any less special to you.

"Spence" You cooed sweetly as your head turned to face him, his eyes were already on you.

"I wanted to get you flowers to give you when you got to the airport, but I couldn't stop because I didn't want to not be there when you got there and the first time we met, but the shops around didn't have any of these" He mumbled out, nerves lingering in his tone.

You huffed out a laugh as your chest tightened in wake of his sweet words. You wondered how on earth this man was real. You wondered if maybe this was all a dream and he was just a figment of your imagination, a creation that could only exist in your head and outside of reality. But there he was, standing in front of you looking so pretty, and sweet, and talking about wanting to get you flowers.

"Spencer" You repeat his name, its becoming a real challenge to not cup his face in your hands and kiss him. "You don't have to" You say softly.

He shakes his head, "I do, because thats the least of what you deserve, I think of you everytime I walk past this place, I think of you everytime I see those flowers -- I- I think about you all the time." He breaths out.

You stomach swams, you wondered if this was the begining of a romance confession, or if you had just watched too many love films. You didn't think love like that existed, and yet you were standing here with Spencer, feeling the exact way you imagined it to.

You were almost at a loss for words, thankfully, like always he was saving you from your mind blank by talking again, almost as if he needed to say it just as much as you needed to hear it.

"I'm not good at.. This.. thing. Feelings and situations, they make me anxious and uncertain and I don't like it, I like labels, and satistics, and science, I like certainity." He mumbled out his hand squeezing gently around yours.

You squeezed his back.

"In saying that, I am going to ask you a question and if it doesn't work out like I am really hoping it does, that is okay. I really really enjoy having you in my life. I have ever since you became apart of it. I hated email and now I don't because everytime I use it, I think of you. I am not a nervous rambler, a rambler, yes, but not because im nervous -- most of the time, until I met you. I really, really like you and I would really like for you to be my girlfriend" He breathed out.

You couldn't break the grin on your face. You didn't think anything could, your heart was beating outside your chest and you were almost scared it was going to break your ribs with the intensity. You had to pause and take a deep breath as you tried to regain your ability to talk.

This was something out of the sweetest romance novel, he was something out of the sweetest romance novel.

"I would really like that too" You huff out a heavy breath through your words, as your hand frees from his to wrap around his neck gently, careful of the coffee that was still in your hand.

He let out a sigh he had been holding in as his eyes smiled at you, his arms wrapped around your waist, pressing you flush against him as his head bent down to sink in place in your neck.

You felt so full. Everything felt so right. Here, with him, in his arms, like this. There wasn't quite a feeling that compared to this moment that you had felt before, there wasn't anything you wanted more than him in, this moment.

The minute his head pulled away from your neck to look at your face, he had that sort of look in his eye, the same one that you had where there was just a different sort of glow, a different happiness behind them.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked, it gave you deja vu to the first time the two of you had met, you smiled widely. Nodding your head.

"You're my boyfriend now, you don't have to ask"

[dixons-sunshine]

Half Awake (Xavier Thorpe x fem!reader)

Summary: Admittedly, being in detention was never on your to-do list, neither was your half awake rant about Xavier's hair. But everything always happens for a reason, right?

Warnings: Some swearing but that's about all I can think of. Let me know if I should add anything.

You're telepathic and telekinetic in this. (Very original, I know 😌😂)

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"'Don't worry,' you said. 'We won't get caught,' you said. Well, looks to me like we got caught, Xavier!" You said, throwing your hands up and gesturing around.

Xavier leant back in the uncomfortable chair he found himself forced to sit on, letting a sigh escape him. "I, clearly, didn't think that through."

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock Holmes." You let out a huff of frustration, leaning forward to lay your head on the table.

The two of you- more Xavier than you- didn't think you'd get caught. The two of you had snuck out of the school on more occasions than one, sneaking through an abandoned gate at the far end of the school where no one went anymore, and never once did you two get caught.

Not until today.

Xavier supposed that he should've listened when principal Weems said that there would be no going of campus until further notice. He just didn't think that she would go to the extremes of having guards covering every inch of the school.

"You seriously didn't expect Weems to go to that extremes? Are we thinking about the same principal here?" You asked unexpectedly, startling Xavier.

"Jeez, don't do that!" Xavier said, placing a hand over his chest dramatically.

"Consider it a small amount of payback for getting us in detention."

"How many times do I have to apologize? And besides, it's not like we're in jail!"

"We might as well be!"

"Stop being so dramatic," Xavier said, getting his notebook out of his bag to work on a sketch.

"Oh, I'm being dramatic?" You said, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Wait, how were you reading my mind in the first place?"

"The bracelet fell off when we were being escorted back into the school. I couldn't exactly say anything because Weems wouldn't let us speak, remember?"

The bracelet.

It's something that you gave to him a few months into your friendship. It gave him the ability to block you from reading his mind. He never really used it at first, but he's been using it a whole lot more recently.

However, you didn't dwell on it too much.

You could see how Xavier's face lost a bit of colour. He quickly shut his notebook and opted for doing something on his phone instead.

Deciding against reading Xavier's mind again, you leaned back in your chair, closing your eyes and thinking about how you got into this situation.

Flashback

"Are you sure about this, Xavier? Weems seemed serious when she said that the school would be on lockdown," you said, nervously following him towards the 'forgotten gate' that the two of you used to sneak out of the school on multiple occasions.

"Of course I'm sure. Stop worrying so much. This is a once in a lifetime experience. Ajax and Enid are gonna meet us there," he said.

The two of you successfully reached the gate, stopping only so that Xavier could pick up the backpack he hid there earlier.

He got his phone out of his pocket to let Ajax know that the two of you were on your way, until an amused smile graced his features.

"What's so funny?" You asked, confused.

He looked up at you. "Enid somehow convinced Wednesday to tag along."

"Oh," you said, suddenly feeling out of place. Jealousy seeped through you, replacing the happiness you felt earlier. It was no secret, to you at least, that Xavier had a crush on the Addams girl, even though she made it clear that she didn't reciprocate his feelings.

Although you never really said anything, you had feelings for Xavier. He was unlike any other guy you have ever met or been with and he always treated you like you were a princess. You thought that meant he might reciprocate your feelings, but since Wednesday came to Nevermore, you haven't been so sure.

"What's wrong?" Xavier asked upon seeing an unreadable look rest on your face. He reached to place a hand on your shoulder.

"Nothing. I just want to get this over with," you said, moving away from his touch.

This confused Xavier. During the entirety of your friendship with him you have always loved physical contact, no matter how mad you were at him. You never once denied his touch, yet there you were, moving away from him.

"Are you sure?" He asked awkwardly, not knowing what he did wrong.

Before you could respond, someone cleared their throat. "I thought that Principal Weems made it very clear that no one was to go of campus."

The two of you looked at the werewolf that Principal Weems probably hired to guard the school. The werewolf crossed their arms. "Come on. I'm pretty sure that Principal Weems would love to have a talk with you."

End of flashback

"Damn, how long do we have to endure this torture?" Xavier jokingly asked. Confusion dawned on him as he didn't get a response. You couldn't still be mad at him, could you?

He looked over at you, seeing you leaned back in your chair with your eyes closed, breathing evened out as you had fallen asleep. He took this moment to admire the peaceful look on your face.

He never could understand how someone as perfect as you would ever want to be associated with the likes of him. All he knew is that he thanked his lucky stars for your unlikely friendship, even though he wished you two could be more than that.

Everyone always asked him if the two of you were together, which he always had to deny. He hoped that one day he'd be able to say yes to that question, but in reality he knew that having your friendship was more important to him and he wouldn't risk it for the off chance that you would say yes to dating him.

A guy could always dream, however.

He sighed, deciding to work on his sketch again. Admittedly, it was a sketch of you. You once told him that you would love to be drawn by him, to see him capture all your imperfections although, to him, you didn't have any.

"I want you to draw me like one of your french girls," you had jokingly told him a few months ago. He had laughed it off, but that did put a blush on his face.

He looked up at the clock, sighing as he saw that the two of you still had two hours of detention left. Weems had told you that it was either five hours of detention or one hour every day for five days. You had decided on the five hour one, saying you'd rather get this over and done with in one day.

So, while everyone was out in the sun and Ajax, Enid and Wednesday were at the Imagine Dragons concert, the two of you were stuck in detention. Luckily without any supervision, because Weems said she trusted that you wouldn't try to escape, basically implying that there would be serious consequences if the two of you did.

For now, he'd let you sleep. It gave him time to finish his sketch for you.

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

"Hey, wake up. It's almost time to go." A soft voice broke you from your slumber.

You looked up, confused at your surroundings, until the haze from your sleep cleared up a bit and you were reminded of where you were.

You don't even recall falling asleep, or when Xavier moved his seat right next to yours. The last thing you recall is Xavier saying something, and then the rest went black.

"What?" You asked, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. Next to you was Xavier, who gave you a small, loving smile.

"There's only ten minutes of detention left. I doubt Weems will notice if we leave a few minutes earlier," he said, laughing lightly as you groaned. "Come on, you can go right back to sleep once we get to your dorm."

You looked at him with one eye open, motioning something to him. He playfully raised his eyebrows.

"You want a piggyback ride?"

"Yes, please," you replied, voice more timid than usual.

Xavier's smile didn't falter. He gave you a silent nod, motioning for you to get on his back.

You hopped on his back and picked up your bags with your telekinesis, letting it float behind you as you two made your way to your dorm.

On your way there, Xavier noticed you softly playing with his hair, making tiny braids and then taking them out, restarting the process.

"You have amazing hair, you know that?" You said quietly, opting to lay your chin on his head.

Xavier chuckled lightly, a blush covering his cheeks. This wasn't the first time you've absentmindedly complimented him while in this stage. Being a telepath took it's toll on you, considering how your mind worked overtime. Because of this, it takes you longer than most to properly wake up, resulting in these compliments from you.

"You really think so?" He asked. You nodded.

"Yeah. I especially love when you have your hair down. Don't get me wrong, I love it when it's in a ponytail, I just think that..."

Xavier smiled the whole way to your dorm room, listening to you rant about his hair. He could listen to you all day if he could. You were the most adorable person to him, and these half awake rants of yours always made him smile.

"Here we are," he said, opening the door to your dorm. He closed the door behind him, moving over to your bed to put you down.

As he basically tucked you into bed, you said something he didn't expect. "Did you mean what you thought? Back in the detention room, I mean."

"What do you mean?" He inquired, sitting down on the bed. His heart raced as he thought of all the possible things you could've seen in his mind back there, but he tried to remain calm.

"That you liked me. That you wanted to date me but you didn't wanna risk our friendship?"

Xavier gulped. It was now or never. "Would it be a good thing if I did?"

You smiled, sitting up. "It would be the best thing ever, because I like you too."

Xavier smiled, slightly leaning in. "Enough to go on a date with me?"

"Even more than that."

You closed the remaining distance between the two of you, lips melding together perfectly. Xavier put his hands on the sides of your face, while yours went to the back of his neck.

It was the best thing you have ever experienced. All those times you imagined kissing him didn't come close to the actual feeling. His lips were incredibly soft and he kissed you in a slow, passionate way that made you feel as if you were on cloud nine.

Unfortunately, air was still an important thing. The two of you pulled away from each other, hands still where they were during the kiss. Blushes covered both of your faces.

"That was- wow."

You laughed. "It really was. I never knew you were such a good kisser, Xavier."

"I have a couple of secret talents that you don't know about," he joked.

You laughed at that. Just as you were about to pull him back in for another kiss, your roommate, Yoko, entered the room.

"So, Xavier, you still gonna tell me that the two of you aren't a thing?"

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

This was my first time writing Xavier, so I'm so sorry if this sucked. I hope that some of you thought it was okay, though. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you beautiful people next time. Bye!

[azures-bazar]

Accommodating 

Re-uploading this one shot because I wanted to add some changes. I'm experiencing a massive writers block tho, my inspiration is gone (my new job is taking most of my mental energy away but I love it lmao)

Here is some SOFT!Arthur one-shot, again, because boy oh boy it makes me want to write a full story about him going through our current era lol

Don't mind his absolute child-like fascination for modernity, I mean... it's cool to see our tough cowboy happy, isn't it ?

Arthur Morgan x GenderNeutralReader 

Word count : 2.9k

Short summary : You make Arthur try some new technologies, and it’s quite funny to watch his large blue eyes gaze at them ! 

A/Note : I bought myself a galaxy projector not so long ago and wondered how Arthur would react lol. Don’t mind it ! 

Tags : cute, Arthur discovers modern things, mentions of Avatar, movie-watching, snacks, cute nicknames, cuddles, soft boah is in the modern world, men can also cry

A cowboy in the modern world… what a weird story to tell ! Arthur had been in your life for a few months already, slowly accommodating to your era. Sometimes, it was fun, sometimes it was almost scary, and, occasionally, it could be sad. You knew Arthur was an outlaw, a thirty-six, probably thirty-seven year-old man who had been abandoned on the top of a mountain, but he never really brought the subject to the table. In fact, on a few occasions, he would mourn the rest of his gang, he would mourn his friends he would never see again. You had done your best to cheer him up during his rather sad moments, but nothing could really fill that void. 

Arthur missed these folks, a few names were frequently mentioned : Hosea, John, Tilly, Charles, Sean and Lenny. Six people he would describe at times, probably the six people he missed the most from his former life. A father-figure, his siblings, his closest friends… he often wondered what happened to them, to these people becoming distant memories he could only mourn. As of 2023, even little Jack was gone. You wished you could do something, probably beg for Francis Sinclair to come back and drag all these people he mentioned to your time… but Francis was long gone, not even bothering about stepping by your place anymore.

You knew Arthur loved drawing stuff, so you bought him a set of sketchbooks for him to practice. He would hole himself in your now-shared room, sitting on the edge of your window or on your bed, spending about one or two hours sketching figures, animals or even sceneries which appeared to be from a very distant era, mixed with modern buildings and figures he came across while wandering in the streets with you. You often left him alone for him to enjoy his solitude, listening to some blues while sketching his discoveries before he would head to you and proudly show you some of his works. One of your walls had a full set of Arthur’s drawings framed and displayed to the eyes of any guest coming in. After all… it was art ! And nothing could make Arthur more happy than receiving compliments about his sketches he often disliked. 

Arthur still had some hard time getting used to a smartphone you had bought him as you thought it would be a good thing to keep in touch whenever you would be away from him. He nearly broke his phone’s screen twice, unable to understand why it would not switch on, struggling to send you correctly written texts. His large fingers did not help much, he would get easily frustrated by not selecting the right letter for his text. You absolutely adored each one of them, finding them incredibly cute by knowing how much Arthur wanted to do things like you. Sending a text usually took you a few seconds, whereas Arthur would roughly spend one minute writing a five-word sentence filled with typing mistakes, some of them being due to his autocorrector. 

"Im misqing yoi, Y/N !" was an almost daily message he would send you

At some point, you saw an add of a galaxy projector while scrolling on some social media, right after telling Arthur he would probably get a lot of followers if he decided, by miracle, probably, to create an account for himself. He was handsome, had some sweet-looking traits and could easily model for some alternative brands. He often said he would never do such thing, finding his face too ugly to be shown to anyone. How wrong he was, he was probably the most gorgeous-looking man you had ever met ! But, somehow, you did not want to encourage him to post pictures of himself. Social medias were a rather dangerous place for healing minds, and Arthur still needed time. Besides, he would probably not even be able to post anything due to his lack of ease using his digital keyboard ! 

You bought that lamp later that night, it got delivered quite fast. You carefully unpacked your new tool and quickly headed to your bedroom, followed by Arthur who had stopped reading a book about extinct species as he saw you wander around your place with this curious thing you held. You calmly placed the lamp on your bed, reading the instruction manual while Arthur touched it several times, not understand what the hell this little thing was and what was its purpose. 

"What’s that ?" Arthur asked 

"It’s a galaxy projector." you answered. 

"Why d’you need that ? Can’t you just look at ‘em stars from your window ?"

"Light pollution prevents it. These are often used to create a cute ambiance at home or to distract kids. Wanna give it a try ?" 

"Sure." 

Arthur sat on the bed as you switched all lights off, plugging your galaxy projector on, making a large blue and purple light come out of it, filled with laser dots representing stars. The background was moving a little, creating a wave effect which froze Arthur on place. He kept his head up, looking at your now star-covered ceiling. His surprised and mesmerised face was absolutely priceless ! His eyes were shining, his mouth remained half-open as he could not help but stare at these fake stars covering your ceiling. All his troubles were forgotten, making him return to a child-like state. It was such a beautiful thing to see ! 

"And it can also distract grown-ups." you smiled 

Your cowboy-roommate did not even react. His attention was completely focused on the ocean of fake stars he had above his head ! Of course, Arthur knew what a projector was. It would have been awesome to see his reaction if he had never seen such thing before, he would probably have been trying to catch these laser stars like a cat and look confused. But, at the moment, his reaction was pretty cute. 

You left Arthur alone in the room to buy a ready-made lunch at the local market. He had a phone and would call you whenever he would need your help, if he would get lucky enough to make his fingers touch the right icon on his screen. It only took you a few minutes to buy some finger food for the two of you to eat while watching a movie, you came back to find Arthur exactly where you had left him thirty minutes earlier, in the same position, with this same amazed facial expression blooming on his face. He was hypnotised by these lights enough to feel suddenly so lost as you opened the curtains of your bedroom. 

"Wh… what’s going on ?" he said, placing his large hand over his eyes. "Damn sunlight…"

"I brought us some food. You wanna watch a movie ?" 

"Yeah, why not ! Just… just let have my eyes back first, hun." 

Arthur rubbed his eyes and shook his head while you smiled. You absolutely loved listening to him giving you cute nicknames, such as hun, sweetheart, lovebug… even calling you boo, sometimes, after he heard about that nickname while watching TV. It took him a few more seconds to leave your bedroom, keeping his eyes partly closed until reaching your living room, helping you placing all the food on the table, still looking surprised you did not have any forks or knives to eat these carrots, chips, mozzarella sticks and cucumbers. He glanced at the chips and took one between his fingers. Since his arrival in your era, he had never seen or had the opportunity to taste chips !

"What’s that thing ?" he asked. "Is that really food ?"

"Oh, that’s a potato chip." 

"Really ? Just like fried potatoes ?" 

"Yeah, just like fried potatoes, but smaller and thinner. We can eat them for snacks or very random occasions. Try it !"

Arthur nodded, taking a bite of the chip before smiling and taking more of them into his large hand. You could not help but chuckle at his sudden addiction to salty treats, wiping away a few crumbs stuck in his three-day beard with the tip of your fingers. He turned shades darker and smiled, gently taking your hand and rubbing it with his thumb as you launched the movie. Avatar, by James Cameron. Back in a day, that movie had been vastly acclaimed for its large technological progress, and was still pleasant to be watched to this day. You would take Arthur to watch the second Avatar movie someday soon in case he liked the first one. 

"Are ‘em blue folks real ?" Arthur asked while pointing a Na’vi on screen

"No, they’re modelled with computers." you smiled, trying to explain Arthur about motion capture in the most easiest way. "Our technologies allow us to record actors and then modify their bodies thanks to computers to morph them into these blue folks, like you call them."

"Is there a planet called Pandora too ?" 

"I don’t know. Probably ? The universe in infinite, and we didn’t explore much yet." 

The gaze Arthur gave you was adorable. You could see his eyes shine with admiration, it was such a privilege to be able to witness an era which was more than one hundred years ahead of his time, despite its good and bad moments. You had tried your best to keep Arthur away from newspapers in order to help him remain in his rather innocent state of discovery, knowing that a simple glance at the news on TV would probably make him terribly sad and somewhat nostalgic of his own time. 

It was quite unexpected, but Arthur cried during the movie. He cried because of its overall beauty, the story appeared amazing to his eyes, the soft melodies and choirs chanting in background soundtracks moved him a lot. He loved the bioluminescent effect of some scenes, the overall atmosphere of the movie, not taking his eyes away from your TV while wrapping his arm around your shoulders, gently kissing your temple at times. He adored that, he adored this moment. Having you close to him while being fully taken into this movie made him forget about all his past troubles.

"D’you also have ‘em guns ?" he softly asked 

"Maybe… why ? You want one in case you’d come across blue people ?" 

"Mmmm… yeah. Jus’ in case. I miss my good ol' revolver, sometimes." 

You rested your head on his shoulder, somewhat amused by his sweet attitude. You would listen to his gasps, his soft squeals, his almost inaudible wows… you could not deny how adorable Arthur was. You could even hear him sniff, his chest trembling a little whenever a scene would be emotional enough to bring him to tears. Who would have thought Arthur could be so sensitive ? Those who knew him much more than you did. Hosea and Charles, for instance, and most probably John at some point, even Dutch. Just by looking at his drawings, you could have guessed he had a soft heart and high intelligence hidden underneath his rather menacing appearance. 

The movie lasted for so long… you had time to check your phone about a dozen times while resting against Arthur whose eyes were glued to the screen. You did not even want to bother him, he was absolutely hypnotised by the movie and did not want to be bothered. You smiled at him as the credits rolled, noticing tears streaming on his cheeks as you teasingly poked them. 

"Getting a little sensitive, huh ?" you smiled 

"That was a beautiful show !" Arthur answered. "I loved every second of it ! Can we watch it again ?" 

"Someday, we will. But... let's just take a break, okay ?" 

Night came pretty fast, Arthur made you a lavender infusion, you found enough energy to work a little while Arthur sat on the couch and started sketching. Very random figures, some fantasy-like sceneries… and you. You could easily tell he was drawing you by looking towards your direction a few times, then proceeding to sketch something, and looking back again. Another artwork to frame, that was for sure ! 

"What are you drawing, cowboy ?" you smiled 

"Well… I’m trying to sketch you, but I can’t get it right… you’re too gorgeous and my hand shakes too much." 

"That’s… that’s really sweet !" 

"I mean it." 

What Arthur told you made your heart stop beating, you turned shades darker and hid your face behind your hands. Your smile widened enough to cause your roommate to move closer to you, carefully closing your laptop with a large smirk blooming on his face. He made you stand up, slowly uncovering your beautiful face before dropping a sweet kiss on your forehead. 

"You’re making me melt, you know that ?" you smiled 

"Let’s get you to bed so you’ll stop workin’ on your… weird machine here." 

"It’s a computer, Arthur." 

"Well, computer or not, you’re going to bed with me ‘cause it’s kinda late."

You shrugged, you didn’t notice how fast time had passed since you decided to get back to work ! Remote-working had its ups and downs, and Arthur had complained a few times about you staying up too late instead of going to bed and hide into his embrace. He could hardly sleep without having you next to him, and there were no ways to escape him that night. How could you resist these puppy eyes and insisting behaviour ? Your arms spread wide for him to lift you up while you dragged your legs around his hips. Arthur loved carrying you around your place, he could easily remain in shape by doing this almost on a daily basis ! You did not mind it. In fact, you loved having him carry you from a room to another. Bridal and koala style, as you called it, were your favourite. 

Arthur calmly put you on the bed and proceeded switching all lights off while you changed into some more comfortable wear, slipping under your blanket as Arthur moved next to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. He took advantage of you turning yourself towards him to passionately kiss you before making you rest your head on his shoulder. You remained like this for a few seconds, in your pitch-black bedroom, up until Arthur cleared his throat. 

"Erm… Y/N ?" he sheepishly asked 

"Yeah ? What’s wrong ?" 

"Would you mind… switching the galaxy lamp on for a bit ? I… I liked it and…-"

"Sure, sweetheart."

You gasped at your own sudden reaction. "Sweetheart ? Really ?" you scolded yourself, covering your forehead with your palm. You never dared giving Arthur nicknames, not finding anyone of them suitable enough for your time-traveling cowboy, his sole name sounded just fine, you would sometimes call him by his surname. Sweetheart came out of nowhere, and was well deserved ! 

"S-sorry." you stuttered 

"Nah, it’s fine." Morgan responded. "I like ‘em sweet nicknames. "

Arthur smiled, deeply flattered by the nickname you just gave him. His heart pounded faster than expected as you calmly reached out to get the lamp and switched it on. A beautiful fake galaxy suddenly covered your ceiling, filled with laser stars which slowly moved along with the rest of the digital ocean of blue and purple clouds behind them. You analysed Arthur’s reaction and smiled at his sight. 

"Why do you like this lamp so much ?" you smiled

"Oh… it just reminds of home." Arthur answered as he moved closer to you, allowing you to place your head back on his chest 

"You never slept with a roof over your head before you came here ?" 

"I did, at some point… but I got used to fall asleep while gazing at the stars from a corner of my tent, or sometimes from my bedroll when I was away. Gazing at ‘em moving above me was always calming."

"If you want, we could go camping this summer. Would you like that ?"

You heard Arthur moan a little, feeling his heart pound faster. Your head rose a little, allowing you to get a better view of Arthur’s beautiful face. Your hand caressed his chest, drawing circles on them while you kept gazing at him. His eyes kept staring at the ceiling until he felt your gaze, slowly turning his head to you. 

"That’d be awesome." he smiled 

There were many things left to discover, many things you wanted to show Arthur. The world was full of treasures, modern or ancient, cultures you wanted him to get familiar with, places to visit… Arthur’s health was back to normal, you could now guide him through your own era without bothering about any health issues he would encounter. Indeed, that man was not twenty anymore, but you were ready to do so much for him ! You were ready to guide him, to be with him. Beyond what Francis had first asked you. Your help turned into a beautiful blossoming relationship filled with embraces, kisses and… very noisy nights. 

Switching this galaxy lamp became some sort of ritual every single night. Along with waking up to Arthur’s face and his hugs after you would come back from work, your daily embrace in bed facing a fake galaxy was your most favourite part of the day. At times, you would run your fingers into Arthur’s dirty-blonde locks, massaging his scalp with singing some song. Sometimes, he would do the same with you. You adored it, you adored him. No, you loved him… and did not have the courage to tell him just yet, but you knew this day would come soon enough. The world was filled with treasures, mysteries and beauty. 

And Arthur was going to find out about them. 

[onlyancunin]

Baldur's Gate 3 for dummies

I just read the reaction to my post about ascended/non-ascended Astarion, which goes as follows:

this makes me 1. want the game even more 2. want to write about this… manipulative vile man canonically being manipulative and vile and slowly transforming into this monster (i don’t know any lore of his, his back story, nor anything about the game. only what this tag shows me. but one thing for sure is that people are arguing about his ‘ascended form’) (i lost my train of thought el oh el) — @tiyoin

And I thought of maybe compiling something of a BG3 for dummies sort of post. Because believe me, it is not an easy game to just jump in and hope for the best.

Starting from my own perspective, as a person who currently has 600+ h of gameplay - this is my story:

I bought the game for Astarion after spoiling to myself most of his storyline. I was pretty hesitant as I don't really consider myself to be smart enough to play these kinds of game, but decided to give it a shot nonetheless. By "these games" I mean turn-based strategic combat set in DnD rules - it's just not my forte, as people with 8 out of 20 Intelligence points tend to say.

So it was a struggle in the beginning. My friend advised me to look into general DnD combat rules and this is what I learned:

High ground is always good, unless you're a melee (barbarian/fighter/melee-focused paladin), then just throw whatever you can or get down to their level and hit them repeatedly with your best weapon

Good classes for starting are fighter, barbarian, rogue (I came to BG from Dragon Age, where I usually played as rogue). Monk is the most karate-ish bananas one.

My personal fav class to play as as a Certified Dumbassᵀᴹ is warlock (Eldritch Blast can get you through the game all the way, don't ask me how I know ).

Race matters only sometimes, so pick the one you like (as a nocturnal creature myself, I usually go for drow). Tiefling and drows get the more racist treatment, with drow getting some perks here and there.

You can always respec later, so don't panic.

You can play the way you want, bu the game is built to give you unique and/or funny experience even when your dice rolls are low. Do what you're comfortable with, but don't strive for "winning". I'd argue that while there are some morally good or bad choices, there's no winning or losing the game.

And all in all remember who you're doing this for:

If anyone has any insight, tips, tricks, advice, feel free to add!

P.S. The game has no right to be this funny in the most unexpected of ways, just FYI.

[kestrel-wish]

REPOST YOUR ART OF CARP!!! The famous carpet deity, omg-

I remember the wildest things at such late hours

AYE AYE CAPTAIN! 👍 I'm not sure where a good chunk of the physical drawings of them are, and to be honest i never drew it as much as Kess ( or windhover, i tend to call them windhover sometimes to avoid confusion with my fursona ) mainly because Carp's ears are surprisingly hard to draw well. But here are the ones that I can find

This is the main drawing of them, and i think the first actual one?

Also this one that was drawn mainly for expression practice and boredom You can tell i gave up when it came to drawing the background and also that's supposed to be a couch they're sitting on it's just hard to tell because it looks like a brick lmao.

That's all the good ones i can find my art files are terrible to try and look through I also have some goofy super low effort doodles of Carp and Kess ( And others! ) too if you'd like those

Left lower is a random 'garden'/plant creature similar to carp i made up but never really used, ( their name is Dandy , i show them later ) along with an idea for what the ceiling ( 'Ceil' ) would look like. More cat-like since i think we joked that the carpet would be rivals/kind of jealous of the ceiling so cat/dog because funny. Middle bottom is Ampere. I don't remember actually showing you Ampere? So if i either didn't show you or it's been a while this is ampere ( below ) Similar to the others but like a kitchen electronic kind of guy and the upper right of the doodle page is Carp and lower right is Kess, ofc

I like where i went with this look but he's also way overdesigned compared to the others it's ridiculous looking. Very cool nonetheless but just a bit jarring. Very polite looking guy, though. Yeah not much actual carp art, that i can find at least there very well might be more. Can't find it for the life of me. Properly name your art files , people! But i have this other one of Ampere if that's something

It's all old ass art so kinda wonky looking now in hindsight. I want to come back to them eventually as characters they're all silly. but especially Carp and Kess because they're the coolest. Blatant favoritism. The amount of lore and ideas I've come up with for those funny Quotev group chat ocs is terrifying and frankly quite disturbing. I do have more doodles of Kess than carp if you want to see those later, just ask. And i think a small animation but don't quote me on that. Sadly just not much of Carp itself. Or the others that i've thought of for that matter. Like you can see I tried to make ones much later to add to the personified house things, but I kind of ended overdesigning them a lot like you can kind of see with Amp. And Dandy, the plant one. I don't think you've seen it ever either, i made them a while after Amp on a whim, i think. The vague idea just came to me and i felt the need to doodle them too.

I like Dandy's design ngl very soft and warm looking. I feel like their fur would feel kind of crunchy. It's very obviously a first time doodle but it's a fun idea. Man, i love drawing funnily themed cartoon dogs. I know this is less Carp art considering you asked for Carp specifically but there isn't much i can find so woe other old art be upon ye.

People who did not know me in my early Quotev days are going to be so confused lmao i'm not tagging any of this i don't even know what tags I would use.

[cecilysass]

Gingersnap

Read on AO3 | Rated M | Tagging @today-in-fic

“So I was thinking, Scully,” Mulder says without prelude as he lets himself into her apartment. He unfastens his coat and tosses it on to a chair as he walks into her kitchen. “What if the problem is that we’re thinking about this wrong? What if we’ve been thinking about this as a crime of motive, when really it’s more of a crime of opportunity? What if each of these killings have been about where he happens to be at the right moment?”

He spots the triangular remains of her turkey sandwich still on a plate on the table, and he’s starving. “Mind if I finish this?”

He starts pulling images out of his manila folder with one hand, stuffing the sandwich in his mouth with the other. “I’ve spent the past two hours looking at the crime scene photos again—” he pauses to swallow his bite, “—and I think I see evidence that the choice of victim was more impulsive than we thought. I want to see what you say, though. Can you take a look at the September 3rd photos and then the …”

He breaks off, because he is finally looking up, fully taking in Scully for the first time. She is leaning over her kitchen counter, staring down at something, her shoulders oddly slumped.

“Uh, what are you doing, Scully?”

In a hoarse, almost unrecognizable voice: “I’m baking cookies.”

“At eleven-thirty at night?”

Scully raises her head to look at him. There is a punk rock streak of flour in her hair. Her eyes are glassy and pink. There is some flour clinging to her eyelashes, giving her an unearthly look.

“Scully …” Mulder is flabbergasted. “Are you crying?”

“There’s a holiday cookie exchange at my mom’s house tomorrow,” Scully says dully, wiping her face with the backs of her hands, which only adds another smudge of flour to her cheeks. “I’m supposed to make 96 cookies, and my mom wanted me to make my grandmother’s gingersnaps, and when was I supposed to make them, Mulder?”

“It’s … are you … having trouble?” Looking around, he now observes that her countertops are chaotic. There are two large bowls, a dusting of flour everywhere, a stack of dishes, measuring cups, and empty containers precariously balanced. He doesn’t think he has ever seen her kitchen so messy.

Scully is wearing an apron, a white apron with some kind of frilled details on the edge, which would normally strike Mulder as funny. Especially because there is flour in splotches all over her black clothing, all over her, and not visibly on the apron at all. But he isn’t going to laugh, because Scully seems to be having some kind of breakdown.

“I’m supposed to mix six cups of flour in gradually,” Scully says. “But I was thinking about the case, and I was tired, and I lost count. I couldn’t remember how many fucking cups of flour I put in already. So I had to start the whole batch over. All those wasted ingredients. All that wasted time. And then, just now … I did it again, Mulder. I did the exact same thing when you came in. I lost count. I don’t know how many fucking cups of flour I put in.”

“Oh,” Mulder says, peering around her at the bowl heaped high with flour on the countertop.

“I took calculus,” Scully says. “I once won the award for Outstanding Math Scholar in eleventh grade. Why can’t I count, Mulder?”

“Is calculus about … counting?” Mulder asks cautiously.

“Bill and Tara are in town, and Tara will be there with some … gorgeous cookies that should be on the cover of a magazine. She’ll have sugar cookies individually cut out and intricately iced—they will be a whole Nativity scene, or the entire cast of A Christmas Carol or It’s A Wonderful Life or something…” Her voice is starting to crack.

“Scully,” Mulder says, trying to speak as calmly as possible. “Can’t you just tell your mom that you couldn’t—”

“No,” she says. “No. I can’t do that, Mulder, because then no one would bring Grandma’s cookies to the exchange, and Mom would be upset. I - I can handle this. I’ll just … start again. In a second, after I pull myself together.”

Mulder doesn’t even know what a cookie exchange is. He is, however, starting to understand that his thoughts about the case are going to need to wait until tomorrow.

She looks down at the recipe on the counter again, and he can’t help but notice how especially small and defeated she looks.

“I could call Byers,” he suggests impulsively. She gives him a doubtful look, running her hand through her hair, which he doesn’t dare tell her is only spreading the flour further, turning her hair phantom white. “I know he sometimes makes the guys’ birthday cakes from scratch,” he adds, “so he bakes. He might be able to help.”

“I don’t need advice,” Scully says sullenly. “It’s my own grandmother’s recipe. I’ve made it dozens of times. What I need is a good night’s sleep and just a few fucking hours of uninterrupted time to concentrate.”

“Mmm,” he says, with a significant little nod.

“What’s that look supposed to mean, Mulder?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says. “You’re just using the word ‘fuck’ an awful lot for you. And for the holidays. That’s all.”

She seems to deflate further, her gaze falling to the floor, her shoulders slumping.

“I could help you,” he says.

At that she raises her eyes. There is a look of unmistakable hope there. It surprises him, even dazes him a little. He’d expected her to reject his suggestion out of hand.

“Is that something you’re capable of doing?” she says tentatively. “Baking cookies?”

“No,” he admits. “At least there’s no precedent for it.”

“Sounds useful.” Her eyes are still cautiously on him.

“But I can definitely count,” Mulder says. “I took calculus, too.”

“Calculus turns out to not be as helpful in baking as you would think.”

“And I’ll do whatever else you tell me to.”

“Is that right?” Scully says, tilting her head, lifting her eyebrows. The pitch of her voice almost sounds flirtatious, which gives Mulder a little twitch in the groin that’s hugely out of place in the situation.

She turns around to search through a drawer for a pad of paper. He bites his lip, wondering what kind of breakdown this is, exactly, that Scully is having.

She leans over the counter, her back to him, to write something hastily down on the paper, and Mulder’s eyes land on the perfect, upside-down flour handprints pressed on each curved cheek of her rear end.

“Your first job,” she says decisively, turning back around and putting the list in his hands, “is going to the grocery store. The one three blocks away is open 24 hours a day. I need more flour. And butter. While you’re gone, I’m going to order us some food, because all I ate for dinner was half of a turkey sandwich.”

“Yeah. Okay. Food sounds good,” he says, guiltily eyeing the empty plate on the table. “Anything else?”

“Get us something to drink.”

“Alcoholic or caffeinated?”

“Use your own discernment,” she says.

***

“All-purpose flour, unsalted butter, granulated sugar — just in case,” Mulder lists, pulling items from the grocery bag one at a time, presenting them triumphantly to Scully. “Root beer. And also — beer beer.”

She has spent the time he was at the store tidying up the kitchen, which does not look nearly as chaotic as it did before.

He is secretly delighted to see that she has not tidied herself up. Her hair and face still have that ethereal flour sheen. The ass handprints aren’t visible at this angle, but he’ll definitely check the moment she turns around.

“Good work,” she says, biting her lip in approval. “Food is on its way. Oven is preheated.”

“What’s my next job, boss?”

“We need eight sticks of butter and three cups of sugar in this mixing bowl,” Scully orders. “You put them in, and I’ll operate the mixer.”

“Eight sticks of butter? Holy shit,” Mulder says. “Your grandmother didn’t play around.”

“Ninety-six cookies, Mulder,” Scully says firmly, turning around and leaning down to a lower cabinet to get out her mixer. “We’re not playing around either.”

Handprints still present, he notes discreetly.

“No, no,” he says. “No playing here.” He sidles up next to her at the counter to start unwrapping sticks of butter and plopping them into the bowl.

“Am I doing it right?” he says. He may accidentally speak a little closer to her ear than he normally does.

Her eyes flash up at him through a flour-dusted lock of hair. “Don’t lose count.”

“So this is a treasured family recipe you’ve reportedly made dozens of times,” Mulder says, “and yet I don’t recall you making them for me even once.”

“I haven't had as much time for baking in recent years. Can’t think why.”

“Are you a good baker, Scully?”

“Ha.” She shoots him a quick sheepish smile. “Clearly not.”

Mulder unwraps the last stick of butter. “Well,” he says, keeping his eyes on the measuring cup and the sugar bowl, “we can probably deduce all kinds of meaningful things about you from that.”

Scully brushes her hands off on her apron, glancing at him again, something warm in her expression. “Probably.”

Mulder scoops the measuring cup deep into the sugar, bringing it out heaping. Scully watches him closely. “Do you know you’re supposed to level the sugar off with something flat?” she says.

“No,” Mulder lies. He frowns, pretending to be confused. “What do you mean?”

“Take the edge of a butter knife — here, like this,” Scully says, stepping next to him to show him. Her tone is businesslike but quiet, as she gently places the butter knife in his hand, and then guides his larger hand with hers, moving the knife over the surface of the sugar. “Use the flat side to make the sugar smooth, perfectly level to the rim of the cup. It makes the measurement more precise.”

Mulder nods foolishly. He wonders if he can feign such total ignorance of junior high home economics that she’ll be convinced to keep demonstrating baking tips in that soft and mesmerizing voice. He thinks she might catch on eventually.

“There you go,” she says, watching his knife glide over sugar crystals. “You’re a natural.” He feels the soft slope of her hip pressing into his thigh. She lingers there a moment. “Hey, did you want a drink, Mulder?”

“I’ll have a beer beer, please,” he says, trying to keep his sigh from being audible as she moves away.

***

“Look,” Mulder marvels, as he leans over the hot tray, inhaling ginger and cinnamon. “Just look at them. They’re beautiful, Scully. We should do this more often. Or maybe we should quit our jobs and open a bakery.”

Scully, sitting at the table with her legs tucked up under her, nursing a half-full to-go carton of chicken and broccoli, regards him with weary amusement. “We still have 72 cookies left to come out of the oven, so we’re not really done with this batch, Mulder.”

“What an underappreciated miracle baking is,” Mulder says rhapsodically, gesturing to the cookies. “From the most lowly and humble ingredients—from baking soda, of all things! and molasses!—you get this divine amalgamation, this totality that is greater than its parts.”

“Ah,” Scully says, drinking her beer. “I see you’re reacting to this like a totally normal person.”

“I’m just a proud father, Scully,” Mulder says, leaning over to pinch a cookie off the tray with his fingers. The cookie is hot, so he flips it quickly from palm to palm to cool it off, hopping around from foot to foot as he does.

“73 left to go,” Scully amends, as Mulder decides it’s cool enough to risk a bite.

“Oh Scully,” he hums, chewing. “Hmmmmm. It’s perfect.” His eyes roll back dramatically.

“That’s a relief,” she says, watching him closely. “Because I don’t know how I was going to react if we had to start over.”

“Here, try it,” he says, holding the cookie out to her.

“I’m still eating dinner.”

“Come on, just a bite, while it’s still warm.” She has the chicken carton in her hands, so he holds the cookie up to her lips for her.

Limpid blue eyes focus down on the cookie. Then up at him. She leans forward, hesitantly, and takes a little nibble.

The edge of her lip brushes slightly against the tip of his finger. A delightful shiver runs through him.

“It’s delicious,” she says softly, chewing, her eyes wide and no longer meeting his. “Like I remember.”

He can’t think of anything to say in response right away, distracted by watching her swallow the bite.

“You’re really going to trade them all away, huh?” he says, after a pause. “Once you get to your mom’s?”

“At the exchange you try everyone’s cookies,” Scully says. “It’s like a tasting party. Then you end up taking a bunch home in a box.”

“Oh,” Mulder says, his eyes lighting up. “I didn’t realize—that’s serious business. You should write down notes as you taste. So you leave with the best of the best.”

“Honestly, I’ll probably do well just to stay awake, considering it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning now,” she says.

“Scully.” Mulder says. “What kind of a scientist are you? You’re just going to come home with a random assortment? You need to have some kind of system. Investigate all the cookies. There could be another recipe there we need to try next time.”

“You should come with me to the exchange, Mulder,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It sounds like you’d like it more than I will.”

Mulder is about to ask what time, but he decides she is probably kidding. He smiles and polishes off the gingersnap in a large mouthful.

“You could, you know,” she adds, suddenly looking intently at her food. “I don’t see why not. Mom wouldn’t mind. And everyone else brings their spouse.” She shakes her head quickly. “I mean—you know what I mean.”

“Don’t you need a break from me, g-woman?” He speaks with a mouthful of cookie.

Her smile is slow-moving. Watching it spread over her face, aimed squarely at him, sends a sloshy, giddy feeling through Mulder. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

The timer on Scully’s oven buzzes, and she sets her beer and the carton on the table as she stands up.

“That’s 48 more done,” she says, reaching for the oven mitt.

Mulder clears a heatproof spot for the new cookie sheets to cool on the counter. She leans over to pull them out of the oven, and he can’t resist tipping his head a little to check out the status of the flour handprints on her ass. Important question: were they smudged when she sat down?

When he looks up again, she has set the cookie sheets down, and she has noticed the direction of his stare. There is a cocked eyebrow, a question there.

“It’s not what you think,” he says hastily. “It’s just you’ve had these flour handprints on your ass all night. I was just checking to see if they’re still there.”

Her expression suggests some skepticism, and he’s not sure he blames her. It sounds made up as hell.

“They are still there,” Mulder adds, scratching the back of his neck. “Not really smudged at all. Intact.”

“Okay,” she says at last, looking over her shoulder to try to see her own butt. “How do you think they got there?”

“I think you probably had some flour on your hands and you grabbed your own ass,” Mulder says mildly. “Unless someone else did. A ghost, maybe.”

“Mulder,” Scully says, laughing.

“I would never judge you, Scully. I’m a lonely guy, and I’m not above grabbing my own ass in the privacy of my own kitchen.”

“Sounds unhygienic.”

“I’m not the one with handprint evidence.”

“You know,” she says, her eyebrow moving upward again, “it’s very conscientious of you to keep checking on the status of those handprints for me.”

“Yeah.” It’s Mulder’s turn to flush. He knows when he’s being called out.

There is a little pause. Scully leans back against the counter and seems to be mulling something over, something swiftly calculating behind her eyes.

“But if they are the work of a ghost,” she says, taking on her determined work expression, “have you considered the possibility that you might have been targeted yourself?”

Mulder looks down at his own hands, which besides a stray gingersnap crumb or two, are pretty damn clean. He scowls at her. “No,” he says.

Scully steps towards the open tub of flour on the counter, and she lifts the sifter casually, shaking flour over her palms.

Her hands now dusted, she turns around with both hands lifted, the same intense and focused expression she has when she is about to begin a Y-incision.

“Well, we better check,” she says, starting to walk behind him.

He whirls around to keep his front facing her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?”

“Mulder,” she says with stone-faced seriousness. “There is possibly an apparition in this kitchen with a proclivity for grabbing asses. We need to rule out that you haven’t been a victim.”

“The flour on your hands,” Mulder says. “What’s your plan for that, exactly?”

Scully shakes her head, trying to walk around him again. “I’m surprised at you, Mulder. Afraid of flour?”

Mulder chokes a nervous laugh, backing protectively against the counter. “Is that — is that what I’m afraid of?”

“You tell me,” she says, tipping her head and smirking.

It’s almost painfully attractive, this flour-coated aggression. Mulder realizes there is no reason on earth not to call her bluff.

“Well, okay,” he says softly, “I guess you’re right.” He steps away from the counter, shifting his hip to give her full access to his ass. “Go ahead.”

Her eyes dip to his rear end and back up to his eyes. She doesn’t move. The smirk has faltered.

“No?” he says. “Don’t see handprints, Scully?”

“No handprints,” she says, her voice suddenly pitched lower.

Her flour-y hands are still extended in the air, like she is surrendering. He reaches out and, without stopping to think about it, pins one of her small hands in between his palms.

She stares at their hands, her expression unreadable, as he slides his wide palms slowly over the surface area of her tiny trapped hand, coating his hands entirely with the flour. Her fingers, slick with flour, feel unbelievably soft in his. He abruptly lets go. Repeats the action with the other tiny hand.

Then he takes both of her hands in his, and he drags them around his waist, looping them all the way around his back.

Which means, of course, that he is pulling her towards him, tugging her flour-covered body nearly flush against his.

He doesn’t stop until he has planted her hands on his ass.

She’s staring up at him, shocked, her eyes running quickly all over his face as if searching for clues for what to do next. Her hands stay placed where they are, lightly pressed on each cheek. She makes no move to pull away.

Emboldened, he reaches around and places his own newly-floured hands tentatively on the curves of her ass, watching her expression closely as he does.

Her eyes remain locked on his, as though waiting. He tightens his hold on her backside and moves his thumbs back and forth against the curve there.

She inhales quickly in response, her mouth falling slightly open. He leans down and kisses her through the flour dusting their lips.

Ever-so-slightly, he feels her hands squeeze the back of his pants, and that’s enough to set Mulder on fire.

He clutches her ass and kisses her harder, covering her mouth with his and tilting his head hungrily to improve the angle. His cheeks brush repeatedly over hers, her clothes rub against his, and he knows there’s fucking flour everywhere. He would normally put his hands on her cheeks or head to kiss her in some more precise, controlled way, but the feel of her round little ass in his hands is too amazing to abandon.

A tiny whimper from her. And fuck, fingernails clutching at his ass cheeks. Her tongue in his mouth, darting with movements as greedy as his. For several heart-stopping minutes they stand there and make out like frantic kids in the storage room of a bakery. Her hot breath is ginger and cinnamon, and her body is warm and squirmy against his. Mulder begins to feel like he’s fallen into some alternate dimension.

Then, abruptly, her hands drop and she stares at him, bewildered, her eyes blinking rapidly. Something seems to have occurred to her.

“We have to…” His mouth, dipping in for a quick spiced kiss again, interrupts her sentence. “…put more cookies in the oven.”

“Do…we?” He kisses very softly down the side of her neck, headed for where the strap of that apron sits on her shoulder at the opening of her shirt. He can feel flour tickling his lips and the tip of his nose and on the stubble of his chin, and he‘s thinking he’s definitely 100% into flour now. Flour is a whole new kink.

“Yes,” she breathes. “The rest of the cookies.”

He stops and peers at her face, which is now stained pink under the flour dusting.

“For the cookie exchange,” he says, trying to hold the thread of what she’s saying. There seems to be some flour trapped in his eyelashes. He blinks it away.

“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding solemnly, her gaze shifting away.

He reluctantly releases his grip on her. “All right,” he says. “Yeah. Cookies.”

She slips away, and as she turns around, he sees the prints on her pants now are chaotic echoes.

“You get the trays,” she says, swallowing, pushing her hair back nervously behind her ears. “The dough is in the fridge.”

“Yep. Yep,” he says, trying to pull himself together. It feels like he just woke up too fast from a very intense erotic dream. He absentmindedly grabs the cookie trays without oven mitts, but luckily they are only a little hot.

Side by side they begin the process of filling the trays. Scully scoops the dough into little balls, then hands them to Mulder, who rolls them in white sugar and arranges them on the sheets.

The kitchen is suddenly too quiet; the scrape of her spoon against the bowl suddenly jarring. He wishes she’d make a joke. Or that he would. There should be some light conversation to normalize what just happened, and they should make it right now, before it is too late.

When the trays are full of brown dough balls glittering with sugar, he tries to meet her eyes, but she darts them past him towards the oven without sparing him a glance. It has to be on purpose. He’s certain it is.

After she closes the oven door, she stares at it a moment, her back to him, and he sees her shoulders rise and fall just slightly. Then her small hands reach out and set the oven timer.

“Okay,” she says flatly. “Ten minutes.” She doesn’t turn around.

“It’s late,” he says in a low voice, testing the waters. “You could probably handle getting this last batch out on your own, huh?”

She turns around, her eyes level, revealing nothing. “That’s true.”

“Maybe I should go?”

A half-second pause. “Probably.”

If her clothing didn’t look a little extra disheveled, if her lips didn’t look a little wet, he would almost believe it didn’t happen, that it was his momentary late night flight of delusional fantasy.

“Well,” he says, keeping his voice as everyday and casual as he can, heading past her to the table to pick up his folder of photos and his coat. “I need to talk to you about the case at some point tomorrow. Maybe after your cookie thing. Give me a call.”

“Okay. Thank you for your help,” she says in a distant, too-formal voice.

He pauses to look at her again. Is it his imagination, or did her lip just tremble? It’s hard to say, because her expression seems so stoic.

“I didn’t mind helping,” he replies carefully. “It was no problem. It was fun.”

This is where he should leave. He reaches for his coat. But instead of picking it up, his hand rests on it a moment—no doubt getting some fucking flour on it —and he looks back up to meet Scully’s gaze again. Her eyes are wide and wet.

“A quick question though.”

“Okay.” Caution falls like a curtain over her face.

“I guess I was just wondering if that—“ He gestures to the kitchen counter, to the location of their makeout session. “If that was something you think we might ever do again,” he says. “Or if that was it. Late night mistake, holiday stress, et cetera.”

“Mulder—”

“You don’t have to decide now,” he says. “No pressure. I was just wondering. I’m going to want to know at some point.”

She runs a hand through her hair, which again just sends more stormy swirls of flour through it. Her tongue darts out lightning fast over her bottom lip, her nervous tell.

“All right,” she says finally.

“Good,” he says. “Well, then I’ll be—”

“Mulder,” she continues, interrupting.

“Yeah?” he says, frowning.

“Stay and help.”

He steps around the table, over his bag sitting on the floor. “Stay and help. With … taking the cookies out?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Okay.” He doesn’t move, uncertain. “If you want me to.”

There’s a pause. She looks at her feet, and then lifts her eyes, slowly, to lock on his. The determined look there, one he’s not sure he’s seen before, startles him.

“It just seems to me that if you’re going to start a project in the kitchen,” she says precisely, “you should be prepared to finish it.”

Mulder stares at her, processing her statement.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

He has her pressed against her kitchen counter in seconds, this time his hands cupping her jawbones, some part of him wanting to eat her whole. Her hands are dragging at him, pulling him closer and closer, although he is really as close as he can be at this moment. He kisses her fiercely; she doesn’t yield an inch.

***

Twenty minutes later, they realize the timer has been going off for quite some time. Mulder has his hand slipped down her pants, which are unfastened, frilly apron hitched up.

“That’s–that’s the cookies,” she hisses into his ear. Nodding tightly, he fishes his hand out from between her legs. They stare at one another forehead to forehead for a moment before the need for haste sinks in, and then they kick into action.

They rush to the oven, Scully’s pants undone and Mulder’s awkwardly tenting. Scully scrambles to find the oven mitts and takes the trays out, setting each down on the stovetop with a clatter.

It’s immediately clear that the cookies are far too brown at the edges. A few have what look to be blackened underbellies. Not exchange worthy.

“Shit,” Mulder says, eyeing Scully nervously.

She’s looking down at them with a shell-shocked expression, her hair a snowy mess and her pants drooping around her hips.

“You’re short 24 cookies, Scully,” he adds. Probably unnecessarily, he realizes. She can count.

Almost imperceptibly she nods, continuing to stare at the trays.

Then, slowly, she looks up. Her eyes lock on his. To his astonishment, her face transforms. It’s like she is remembering some incredible, delicious secret.

Taking a step towards him, she runs her fingers up the length of him through his jeans, where he is still very noticeably hard. With bright eyes, she pushes up on her toes and catches his bottom lip between hers, taking a teasing nibble.

“It’s okay,” she says, her words barely more than a whisper. “We can make more cookies.”

He likes this attitude, he really does, but he can’t help but look at her quizzically. “More cookies? Tonight? Are you sure?”

“In the morning,” she says, her lips now grazing his jawline. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“Oh … yeah?” He likes the sound of being there in the morning. He also likes the feel of her plush lips moving along the lines of his face and her hand running up and down the fly of his jeans.

“Before we go to the exchange.” She leans in and kisses him, then draws back to study his reaction. His face erupts into a ridiculous, giddy smile.

“We sure fucking will,” he says. “We’re an unstoppable baking team, Scully.”

He places a hand on each cheek of her rear end and hoists her against him, her legs curling around his waist. She smiles and wraps her arms around his neck as he carries her towards the bedroom. They leave a trail of flour behind them.

[trilobi-te]

Chipspeech Twitter Archive Update

Hi I should have done this months ago.. I do not know when (or if) I am going to finish that website lmao. So I am just going to share my notes from Google Docs. Should be easier to read than the original posts and helpful as a starting point if anyone else decides to make a website :3

The documents are all on commenting mode so feel free to make comments to bookmark things for yourself or write your thoughts or whatever. Under the cut I have put some formatting notes.

It's a folder, each year of Twitter posts is its own document (I tried to compile them into one but it lagged too much). There is also a document with all of the original Tumblr posts (from the accounts I could find, no tags yet but I will go back and get them eventually, also no dates but they're all from 2015), and one with the bios from the official website for ease of access.

The formatting is a little (a lot) weird and there are probably pictures that need resizing/transcription but I figured it's better to give people access now. The text is small (to keep the page count as low as possible) so you will have to zoom in.

It goes by day, organized with a bulleted list. The top level bullets are each character that tweeted that day. The second level bullets are original tweets/retweets by that character. The third+ level bullets are comment threads under that tweet, the organization here is inconsistent but imo still readable (if you think something needs an edit for clarity let me know and I'll fix it).

For each character's section of the list, normal text is that character's tweets/comments. Italicized text is anyone who is not that character. If it is labeled with unitalicized text, it is that character/important account (e.g. the official Chipspeech account), otherwise it is a fan. I also included some labels and/or clarifying comments for Vocaloid producers I like, they're not central to the story though

I got rid of the line breaks within the tweets when copying them down because it was easier to format. Sorry about that. Idk how to fix it other than going through everything again but it doesn't take away from the story so I'm leaving it for now.

If something came from a website other than Twitter, I tried to provide the link (unless its content was deleted). I did my best to transcribe the Clyp posts that were not deleted.

If something is a text-only retweet, it is marked with [retweet]. If it includes an image, it's probably a screenshot of the whole thing. I only included retweets that felt story-relevant (so no miscellaneous cat pictures, Apple-related aesthetic images, etc.), but if people really want it I can go back and add the rest.

Deleted tweets are noted with [deleted tweet], with the characters they came from if applicable. Idk how Twitter works but it the person in the thread is replying to the username of a certain character, I assumed it was that character's tweet that had been deleted. If something says [deleted Dandy thread], assume there is a deleted Dandy tweet in between each of the listed tweets (or another character, but it's usually Dandy). That was meant to be a temporary time-saver and I've gone back and fixed the ones I've found, but there's probably more I accidentally skipped.

Anything not in English is translated in a comment. Except the X-Sampa (I will fix that sometime but there's not much of it). Also it was done with the built-in Google Translate feature so it may be a little incorrect. Unclear pictures and whatnot also have clarifying comments. I can add more clarifying comments (or image IDs) if anyone needs them.

I tried not to include any unattributed fanart but there are some that I forgot to copy the handle for (I am also fixing these when I find them).

As for any future updates to this folder as a whole, I kind of want to go back through each account's liked tweets to see if there's anything funny in there but idk when that will be. That would probably be its own document.

Honestly I should have given everyone access back in June.. oops. If you have any questions you can put them in a comment on this post (or reach out to me another way, idk). As I mentioned before, feel free to use all of this as a starting point if you're making your own website.

I'll pin this post so it's findable in the future. Also sorry for disappearing for several months (it will happen again).

[m00nj3w3l]

Well here I am (ONS chapter 128)

Ok I'm finally writing out my thoughts about ONS' 128. Idk how long it'll come out (extremely long as I'm writing it it seems...) and also as always I want to hear others' opinions on this, but as a warning it will be mostly negative. I actually did a similar post back at the start of the year with BSD, but BSD at least managed to bounce back full force and do what it needed to do while ONS shows no signs of that.

I'll break it down into the following points:

>I'm also getting tired of the flashbacks (as many already did)

>I miss the Shinoa squad (will touch upon Mitsuba specifically and y'all probably know why)

>The belief that MikaYuu fans are getting much better content and why I think that's bs (will probably mention my theorem of "Mika, along with literally all the women of the franchise, got hit with the mysoginy stick")

So let's go I guess, under the cut so I don't clutter my non-ONS followers' dash.

>The flashbacks: I... Did not mind them up unti now, if I've got to be honest. Let's be serious here everyone probably expected a batshit crazy backstory for the characters, ESPECIALLY Yuu and Mika, and that's what made me not really complain. Now it has been like? 8 chapters of ONLY flashbacks??? Only things of the past with NO break and NO POV switches to at least let us know wtf is going on in the outside world. Christ. The fact that irritates me the most is that all of this adds nothing to the plot either!!! What are the MCs supposed to do now that they've seen one of them (WHO HAS BEEN 4 DIFFERENT SPECIES TOO SINCE THE START OF THE SERIES???) sacrifice for the 3rd time!!!! AND IN THE PAST AT THAT!!!! HOW IS THIS USEFUL FOR THEM OR ANY OF US AGHHFHGHHG. We got other gays going at it tho and that's just funny to me. This is just a BL masked as a battle shonen lmaoooo.

>The Shinoa squad: I feel like this is obvious. Where tf are they? They obviously are looking out for where Mika and Yuu are, how did we not see them again yet??? Some progress in their hunt (let's call it that) for those two??? Shinoa literally threatened to kill Mika (and, for a number of reasons, let me say this: ew.) I'd at least like to see her and how she's doing. And didn't Kagami promise us Mitsuba would get more screentime soon? THIS IS LITERALLY A PERFECT SETTING. SHOW ME HER AND SHINOA BEING IN CONFLICT CUS SHE WORRIES ABOUT HER FRIEND AND WANTS HER TO COME TO HER SENSES!!! SHOW ME HOW THEE LITERAL KIDS ARE DOING AFTER BEING ASKED BY A FULL ON 24 Y.O TO CHOOSE THEIR FAMILIES OR THE WORLD LIKE BE SO SERIOUS THE SETTING WAS *DECENT* (wouldn't say perfect cus I'm not the biggest fan of the "bring everyone back" plot but ok) FOR IT ALL I'M *explodes*

>MikaYuu: Oh boy ok here we go. So since I came back after my rewatch and catch up to this manga which resulted in hyperfixation again I noticed that the narrative of MikaYuu shippers getting better content cus a lot of the chapters now focus on them is... common. And for a while I just thought "ok" and moved on but now I'm fully on convinced it's just. Not true. Not because the content isn't there, I would be lying if I said that, but because it's... Not good. Good content, for me (as someone who clearly loves these two if you scroll for even 2 minutes down my fucking tag), would be seeing actual growth between them, some actual substance in what they are doing as of rn, and we are not getting any of that. Since when did we see them actually DO something? Last time we saw Yuu in his actual body and actually saying something was last chapter and he was EATING. Then we went back to them just passively staring at everything that went on. And to add onto this, I dislike demon Mika as a plot IN GENERAL because it recessed any development both for HIM and for Yuu himself. Yuu acts stupid (wtf happened to him after Nagoya I'm being so serious Nagoya Yuu I miss you so much) as shit cus anyway Mika IS strong enough to let him get away with it but not enough to oppose Yuu at some point and this was addressed as a problem for like 2 seconds and then nothing. Oh my God. And not only that but this fucking thing also shows that Mika did, indeed, also get hit with a mysoginy beam, but that's another topic I want to talk about in another post if anyone even really cares about it.

So... Yeah. I'm not tired (I only started catching up in March after my rewatch, so I'm still curios about how this will go), but I AM sad. I really miss the earlier arcs and the potential they all had that now seems like a long lost memory. Can we all collectevely just go back to the Nagoya one like if the series stuck to that path I would be able to excuse its flaws up until a point because GOD. The eyeball with its Seraph shit or whatever the hell it was doing was cool tho.

As always y'all can tell me what y'all think, but I'm mostly expecting this to get lost in the void given how dead the fandom is. So yeah, see ya.

[theprismaticvoid]

(thoughts about my previous reblog bc it ended up being too long for tags and I was too shy to make this tangentially-related ramble a reply)

A big part of the issue with criticism of the Modern Backrooms, at least that I've seen, is that there's not often really direct criticism of what's wrong with the newer content beyond just saying "Trying to add more to the concept of the Backrooms makes it less scary" a million different times and ways (I've seen one post talking about a specific article about a sentient rubber duck that really sucked, but that was really it in terms of criticizing specific things about it). It gets to a point where it just feels very "NEW THING BAD" circlejerk-y forever and ever and ever.

I say this as someone who's not even a huge fan of the Backrooms, I've seen some of the found-footage videos and I have some vague ideas about levels and monsters and stuff through seeing people retweet fanart, and millions of posts about how the concept has been ruined.

The friend I reblogged it from made a good point in their tags about how the people complaining about how modern Backrooms sucks could 100% just make their own content that's more to their liking, but they'd rather complain that it's "not good anymore" in vague ways that both don't act as constructive criticism and don't produce better content directly.

The thing is like, if you hate EVERYTHING that's not the original “yellow room with the vague implication of a monster” concept, you can just go back and experience that? Nothing's stopping you from seeing the original 4chan post and the first few found-footage videos that kept strictly to the premise of the original - and if you want more, it quickly runs into the problem of "there's only so much you can do with a giant yellow room and only the vaguest insinuation that there might be a monster in there".

The whole concept of what made the original Backrooms scary, both never getting to see what (if anything) is actually there with you, and being stuck in an endlessly-repeating environment with nothing beyond moldy carpet and fluorescent lights for always and always and always, also makes it extremely difficult to put any interesting spin on without having to add something new.

There's only so many ways you can have a random person glitch into the backrooms, walk around for a while, run away from something, and then either die or glitch back into reality, before it becomes completely dull and uninteresting.

Another thing about the comparison to SCP is that, since a lot of people only came into the fandom after Containment Breach or another fangame, they aren't familiar with the very early history of SCP - while a lot of the early SCPs have some damn good horror, it wasn't ALWAYS like that. Tons and tons of very early SCP content was culled from the wiki for being terrible - self-insert OCs, things meant to pander to the artist's fetish, there was an honest to god "toilet that eats your butt if you sit on it" for a while (and not the Butt Ghost joke SCP, but an actual main-list one that was genuinely meant to be creepy/interesting, not funny).

SCP has some extremely good content - but only because it's had years upon years of bad articles either being entirely scrapped, or rewritten by a completely different author or the original author once they've had time to better hone their skills. And even then there are still some duds that are boring/uninteresting/terrible (Homestuck-obsessed Tumblr user alien satellite cannon that crytypes about how it's a horrible person, anyone? Or pretty much anything I've read that involves Gamers Against Weed/Are We Cool Yet)

The point I'm trying to make is, of course there's some bad content in the modern Backrooms fandom. It's still extremely new, it's popular with mostly kids and teens who are probably still learning how to write, and the concept as a whole is still trying to find out what it wants to be.

I'm just trying to say - if you love the concept of the Backrooms, try to be a positive influence over it instead of instantly going "THIS IS ALL GARBAGE AND CHILDREN RUINED THE CONCEPT THE MOMENT THEY TRIED TO MAKE IT ANYTHING BUT MOLDY CARPET AND YELLOW WALLPAPER, SO STOP HAVING FUN!!!".

Give polite constructive criticism, find things that work (or could work with a little tweaking) and point to them as examples of what you think the Backrooms should be, even write your own content if you think you can do better.

It's not like there's some sort of monolithic Backrooms Foundation that hands down the articles from on high and you never get to question them, suggest improvements, or add to them ever. It's just a loosely-connected web of fans trying to flex their creative muscles and have fun.

I don't know, I don't want to be all "modern internet culture bad", but with the state of things, I wonder if popular older creepypastas like Slenderman could've ever taken off in this kind of climate. I can't help but think that if something like that had started today we'd get millions of angry people on Reddit saying that Slenderman was only good when he was a completely-unexplained creepy guy who showed up in the background of photographs.

I can very easily see an alternate timeline where Marble Hornets was immediately written off as kiddy garbage that doesn't respect the lore and ruined Slenderman because he doesn't act right - "Why isn't he leaving organs in plastic bags? He's only supposed to show up as faceless on cameras and he looks like a normal person to anyone who sees him with their own eyes! WHY AREN'T YOU ADDRESSING HOW HE'S A GERMAN FAIRY???"

I don't really have a concrete resolution to this post or a point at the end of it, idk. Just my two cents on the issue.

[pith1a]

Hi, I noticed one of your bookmarks when I looked through the ones of a fic. I noticed that you have a very interesting way of doing those 🥰 mind sharing how you did this?? Or where I can DIY for dummies for me? Would be quite thankful 🙇‍♀️

Hi! Yeah I can explain the logic behind the tags, no problem :D Before I get into that though, some unasked for advice: Please add a profile pic and bio, there's too many bots in everyone's inbox these days so this ask was almost lost in a "report bot first, ask questions later" type rush, before I realized this was an actual question and not spam😂 So, the tags are a new thing for my ao3 account; I've been on ao3 since 2015 and the amount of fics I've read is ungodly- but I didn't have a decent way to go back and look through the fics I had saved (either in private bookmarks, marked for later fics, or spreadsheets even), so there's a small amount of fics publicly tagged compared to how many are actually saved, since I only really came up with this system like this past week. (There's a lot of information so I'm gonna cut the post here bc I probably went into too much detail)

The short Summary and Last Accessed section is from a browser script, it generates those automatically when I press "bookmark". You can find the script here (works with a simple browser add on like Tampermonkey, I use the script with Tampermonkey on both PC and Mobile on Firefox, not sure what other alternatives exist for other browsers).

The tags are all based around being able to look for fics to re-read later; so every tag serves the purpose of letting me know few key things about the fic and also to let me filter works based on niche things.

There's a few "Utility tags" for lack of better word, that I use for things like marking the pov character ("X-Character centric"), and if they're AUs the character or event that the AU is centred around: so "Jon Snow Variant" for Game of Thrones fics where his character is different and "Red Wedding Variant" for fics where the Red Wedding goes differently and the divergence from canon starts there. Some fandoms also get custom tags for the Event Variant tag (because I think I'm funny).

Similarly I might tag the type of AU or content: "Time Travel", crack and crack-ish fics, crack treated seriously, angst, different types of AUs as I come across them.

I'm personally a big Crossover reader, so you'll see a lot of "X Fandom Crossover" in the tags or "Into X Fandom Crossover" (the second version used to signify what canon/world the fic is in). I also use "Get Isekai-ed" for fics where a character gets... Iseakai-ed or transmigrates or gets reborn into another fandom basically. And lastly there's tags I'd categorize as "The impression the fic left me" so if a fic made me cry irl (see: "I'm not crying there's just something in eye I swear"), if I really like the world-building and original characters, if i thought the fic was all around really well developed ("Excellence 🤌" or "5⭐️" the difference here is vibe based, I can't explain it any better), if I was going feral while reading, if I thought a relationship was really well written, so on and so forth.

Really, if you want to start tagging your bookmarks the thing I'd recommend is just not putting too much thought into it. You want your tags to be simple in a way you'd understand while looking through them (or alternatively just use them as comments for the fic, that's how my tag system started).

tl;dr -Use tags you don't need to think about for more than 2 seconds to know what they are -Tag based on what feels right for you and customize your use of bookmarks as you see fit -Have fun with it

I hope this helped :D

[liltaz-asatreat]

Characters Out of Context

➥ Include one character quote — of your choosing ⁠— from each chapter of your WIP (or as many chapters as you'd like).

➥ Give absolutely no context, save for what's between two parts of an interrupted sentence, should that occur. You may mention who said it.

Tagged by

@spuddlespud

Thank you for the tag!! :D

So I now have. Two multi-chapter fics going lskghsdlkgha I don’t have much written for the second one which is called Double Troubles, and I can talk more about that for anyone interested, but it’s basically an eighth bird AU except the eighth bird is an OC named Meadow, and they have a body in the Material Plane and a body in the Plane of Logic, and the two bodies share one consciousness that switches between the two when one body goes to sleep and the other wakes up.

Just thought I’d give that little bit of context because I’ve literally never talked about it even existing with anyone except Sunny lol

Also, most of the stuff I have written in the Julia AU is still random pieces of different points in the campaign, so I’m just going to pick a quote from each individual file I have saved lol

And this is all going under a read more because it’s gonna get long

Julia Burnsides vs Canon Lore

Prologue Memory: Steven Waxmen: “I want you to know that no matter what you decide, whether you're ready to do this or not, I'm always going to be here waiting for you.”

Chapter 1: Yeemick: “We got attacked by these four idiots who came to take back our captive. We managed to chase them off, but they said something about wanting to kill you, sir.”

Klaarg: “Oh, that's so weird because four of the loveliest people I have ever met came here, also looking for Barry Bluejeans, and they told me that you sent them to kill me!”

(I know I know, but I had to add Klaarg’s line too because that exchange is really funny slkghsdlgkh)

Chapter 2: Julia: “One, what is electronic dance music? And two, Kenny Chesney isn't that bad. My dad used to be a big fan too, but as far as I know, he wasn't a big enough fan to actually get him tattooed on his ass!”

Taking the Gauntlet and Going to the Moon: Taako: “I did a traveling cooking show called Sizzle it Up with Taako,” Taako says proudly. “And a TV, Julia, is...” His gaze gets a little unfocused as he scrunches his face up in confusion. “It's like... um... I remember there's moving pictures. It lets people see what people are doing from far away I think. That's why I say I'm from TV.”

Killian: “Are you talking about a telescope?”

Julia: “It kind of sounds like those video james Magnus talks about sometimes from his dreams. Doesn't it, babe?”

Meeting the Director: (this isn’t really dialogue, but it is a thought Julia has, so I’m counting it lol) Julia: Oh to be able to be slightly irritated at his ego again instead of full on wanting to murder him, it truly is a blessing.

Lunch Conversation with the Director: Julia: “It's a long time ago now. I just...” She sighs. “I just wish I knew sooner, you know? I understand why everything had to be erased, but it makes it harder knowing in retrospect. Now I'm mourning them again, but it hits a little harder this time around.”

Briefing Before Rockport: Julia: “If she thinks I'm gettin' dress for this, she's sorely mistaken.”

Petals to the Metal Elevator Incident: Julia: “Don't worry, it is plenty impressive for me, babe.” She smirks at the way Magnus' face goes even redder and ignores the other boys cackling behind her. “Should we go up to the vault now?”

Julia’s First Conversation with Leon: Leon: “I don't think it's supposed to make sense to people like us. If it did, we probably wouldn't be here trying to do our part to save the world.”

Lucretia Confronts Them about RR Crystal Kingdom: Julia: “We have the Stones, Merle. And Director, I– I'm sorry, but even if we did try to run away, there weren't many options of places for us to go. He stopped time, or at least, he stopped Lucas and Killian and Carey and Noelle from moving and perceiving time while he was there, so there wasn't anyone we could turn to for help, and our other option was to run out of the room to a crystallized central hallway with almost all of the airlocks shut down. We couldn't go anywhere, and even if we did have a place to hide, it would have been a waste of time to wait for him to leave, and we might not have been able to stop the crystal from spreading.”

Julia Catches Taako Crying After Refuge: Taako: “When I was with the Chalice, some parts of the memories of my childhood looked like static, and I can't help but wonder if the dreams really aren't just another aspect of myself that I've projected as being another person and they actually are something or someone missing. So I started writing a letter to them. Or me. Or whoever or whatever this dream person is.”

Magnus and Julia Talk to Fisher: Julia: “We're going to find out what happened to it. I promise.”

Julia Talks to the Red Robe: Barry: “There's a thing coming. The thing I've been warning you guys about. The hunger of all living things. It'll be here soon, and our only hope of stopping it lies with, well...” The Red Robe looks uncomfortable for a moment. “You were never supposed to get caught up in the equation, Julia, and I am truly sorry for that. None of this was even supposed to happen. But we're here now, and this is happening, so I guess we have to make do with the cards we're dealt with.”

Julia Talks to Magnus About [redacted]: Merle: “You just admitted that you put ketchup on spaghetti when you don't have immediate access to any form of tomato sauce or don't feel like making it.”

Magnus: “I've seen you eat dirt, Merle, so you're one to talk!”

Wonderland Catwalk Scene: Julia: “Leave Taako alone,” Julia says with a shake of her head. She glares at the stupid mannequins and the stupid catwalk with its stupid spotlight shining down on it. “I'll get up there and strut.”

Julia Hears the Story and Song: Julia: “You literally know way more than I do, Merle. You know who the lich that came out of Taako's umbrella is who is apparently his sister I'm assuming?” Magnus nods, so she continues. “I'm assuming you know what's in the sky and currently destroying the world–”

Magnus: “Yup, it's called the Hunger.”

Julia: “According to the Director, you... you're... all of you are from a different reality?” Julia exclaims, and Magnus hums in agreement. “And, what is hap–”

Julia Talks With Leon After S&S: Leon: “You know, your husband is like a roach, you know that right?”

Julia’s Conversation with Taako After S&S: Taako: “I grew up with Lup. Yes. But where the fuck was she for the past twelve years, Julia? Because it certainly wasn't with me!” Taako tries to stand angrily, but as he puts weight on his legs, he curses before sitting back down. “And everyone else! Where were they? Spread all across Faerûn because someone couldn't fucking handle being wrong! Because that person couldn't fucking handle holding a conversation!”

Double Troubles

Chapter 1: Taako: "Fine, if you don't want them, then Merle and I will eat them, and you can just have the stale ass bread."

Chapter 2: Meadow: "Um, yeah actually. I uh– I got back into contact with some old friends in the past couple of days, and just yesterday, I actually got back into contact with a friend I have been trying to reach for a really long time.”

Chapter 3: Merle: “Gundren could be dead by the time we get there, but that's just my opinion.”

Chalice Scene: June/Chalice: “This lead to your fateful argument where you failed to convince her to take off the Amulet, and she used it against you to completely take over your will.”

Tagging

@institute-of-planar-shitposts @holdmecloser-gandydancer @barry-j-blupjeans @noodyl-blasstal  @yaboyspodcastpalace @lexarga @phantasmagoric-acquaintance @taakosleftshoe @idkanameatall and anyone else who wants to do it!! :D

and if you don’t want to do it, no pressure :)

[mayspicer]

Hell yeah you're answering some of those (if you want to), it's fun! 2, 11, 28, 44, 51 for the pink bean

Aww yiss. If anyone is interested, this is about Cayden, who can be found in my posts tagged as his name or more generally pathfinder.

This is gonna be long because I'm unable to write short answers. Also I have no idea how to add a read more on mobile, so uhhh, have fun xD

2. What was your original concept for this character? How did playing them change that concept?

The whole creation story is full of randomness tbh. I wanted to try playing a face and had a rogue half prepared for that, but the GM told me to maybe not play a rogue again, so I changed my mind to a sorcerer. A friend was creating his first character ever then, and he wanted to be a typical wizard, so I looked for less combat focused options for my sorcerer and we lacked a healer, so I found that there is a unicorn sorcerer bloodline that knows healing spells and has some nice healing powers. This was my first sorcerer, so I looked for guides and turns out that gnomes are super recommended. I decided on looks and even gender when having fun in heroforge. Thought it will be super funny if a gnome that's gonna be unicorn themed will also be pink and a man. It's a little freaky how he became a serious character that took over my entire brain for more than a year now, considering how he came to existence. Gnomes, man, it must be something to them, this shouldn't've worked. I'm so glad it did tho. Even his name was super randomly chosen, as back then the party was supposed to be 3 people with others joining later, and we thought it would be hilarious if we make some kind of acronym from character names. The word "CYC" (tit would be the same in English ig) appeared, so I looked for male names beginning with C. Found Caden, thought it sounded nice, so I told the GM it's gonna be it. And he went ooooh if you spell that differently, he could be named after a god of beer in Pathfinder. I liked the spelling better, I liked the connotations, boom xD

As for his character, I remember that he was supposed to be more crazy (whatever that means, my first sketches are more mischievous looking), but after writing his backstory and actually starting playing, I think he just stayed pretty much the same. Also the rest of the party put the bar pretty high for the craziness/unchainedness level, so I automatically assumed a more mature approach to compensate lol

I wish I was better at roleplay tho, because it's really hard to try to come across as someone who is by design comfortable in most situations, talks smoothly and is confident and flirty when I'm not and I don't even know how people like this are supposed to act, so I can't even try to pretend hhhh

I just hope that the rest of my group knows how I want him to be, cos we don't really talk much about character stuff outside the game (I wish we did, but it appears that I'm the only one who's been raised in the whole OC culture and I don't even feel very comfortable around some of the people outside of the game hhhh)

11. if they have a pet or animal companion, how do they spend time with them? if they don’t have one, what sort of animal would they be interested in raising, if any?

In one of the first sessions we saved a young black cat, so Cayden had a pet for a few weeks. Named the cat Rybiarz xd (Fisher?) because he said he liked fish (speak with animals hehe). Cayden left the cat in the inn we were staying in, because the inn keeper became our friend and the cat liked it here, so Cayden decided he's not gonna drag the poor cat along with him on the two month journey and who knows what next. If he could have a pet, I see two ways. Either some magical beast, lika a faerie dragon (not really a pet tho, cos they're sentient, but I mean the vibe), something that would be comfortable being on the move, possibly something matching his own energy, or even helping him seem even more attractive to others. The other option is some kind of animal that can swim (and climb?), because the boy Can't Swim. The last session ended in the middle of combat, where Cayden spent 3/4 of it under water, as the fight was with a water elemental which raised the water level and submerged everyone. And this was not the first time something like this happened xD And with him being so smol, he starts having problems when there is like 0.5m of water and if the water covers him, it boils down to waiting for someone to fish him out. A trained animal could solve this problem xD

As for spending time with the pet, it would probably be just playing with it and chilling together. Maybe if it was some special creature, he would be taking it with him to some social situations and play harmless tricks on others, or try to impress others with it, depending on the situation and mood.

28. do they collect anything?

He currently finally got his hands on a Mnemonic Vestment he's been saving gold for, so now he's focused on collecting as many magic scrolls (and possibly spellbooks, generally written magic) as possible, because the Vestment lets him cast one spell per day from such a source using his own spell slot AND not using up the scroll itself. This is super good, because Cayden as a sorcerer has a lot of spell slots, but a very short list of spells known. A new era just begun for him hahah

44. what lies do they tell others?

This is a hard one. I'm not great at creating characters that have many aspects to them. Cayden is pretty honest anyway, and talkative, so every one of his friends probably knows almost everything about his past and about him generally. He had to tell a pretty serious lie in the past and he only confessed to maybe two people (all just in backstory). It was about how the father of his first girlfriend died. He was killed by a unicorn, when he tried to kill it for its horn. The father was hunting magical creatures in secret, so his family didn't know anything, but he wanted Cayden to help him with the "business", as the relationship with his daughter was becoming serious. Why he thought it was a good idea is a mystery, as Cayden's family's past involving a friendship with a unicorn was pretty well known. Cayden helped the unicorn escape, but not before the other gnome shot at it with a crossbow. The unicorn charged and impaled the man with its horn before teleporting away. After spending the night crying his eyes out and trying to make sense of this whole situation, Cayden brought back the father's body back to the family and lied that the man was killed by someone with a spear who tried to mug them, before he managed to scare the attackers away using magic tricks.

I think, more generally, hypothetically, Cayden would lie about his own well being, for example if it meant others wouldn't waste time on him and would be able to save themselves in a critical situation. He would lie to make others feel better if he knew there was no way to help them and if he knew that showing confidence and being optimistic would raise morale of everyone else.

As for non serious lies (I'm not even sure it counts for the question), sometimes his gnome nature comes through, and he's tempted to just mess with someone by telling obvious nonsense information when an opportunity arises, or creating illusions. He doesn't have a heart to leave someone confused for too long though, so most of the time he clears thing up pretty fast.

And of course he tells lies in typical adventurer stuff situations. False names, motivations, all that. "I'm so sorry for shooting color spray in your face I panicked, I just didn't want you to cuff me, I'm on your side I swear, I want to help deal with those people demolishing your holy stairs, I won't be able to do that while magically handcuffed!" *Insane bluff check* *promptly escapes the moment he sees an opportunity*

Currently we're trying to infiltrate some kind of a drug cartel criminal underground, so there is a lot of bluffing involved xD

51. what element of their backstory are you proudest of?

The elements my GM basically wrote for me xD

I'm not the strongest writer, not even moderately acceptable writer, so I needed a little help. We all generated backstory events when creating characters and wrote based on what we got. I couldn't think of a conflict that involved telling a lie motivated by love. This is the one above, about the unicorn. The other backstory element is to rationalize how Cayden got out of his country that was surrounded by enemy nations currently at war I think and travelled through almost half the continent to the Pathfinder lodge in Absalom. I decided he's going to go by water, sailing near appropriately named Isle of Terror. Sure the name is not nice and there are some terrible stories surrounding the place, but near the shore there are real people actively looking for vessels trying to cross the lake. Turns out Isle of Terror is no joke and during a terrible negative energy storm everyone from the crew died, if not by the storm, then finished off by a shadowy creature, and Cayden barely survived this only thanks to hiding in a barrel, and plot armor I guess (it's a backstory after all, and a random event due to my decisions to go this route).

Other than that, I kinda like the part about Cayden even having the bloodline powers he has. One of his ancestors/parents had to have some kind of closer contact with a unicorn and I decided it's gonna be his mother. Before he was born, his country was at war with basically every neighbour and Cayden's mother was helping refugees by hiding them in a dense forest near the border. She impressed a unicorn living there with her determination and pure heart and they formed a strong bond with the unicorn protecting it's forest against unwanted invaders, but allowing shelter for the needing. During those efforts Cayden's mother met his father and after the war, Cayden was born. Later, when he grew up, it turned out that some of that unicorns magic/blessing passed onto his mother and became apparent in him.

I know it's cheesy, but that's about the peak of my writing/storytelling skills xD

For someone that is 52 years old, my boy has a surprisingly uneventful backstory, with 40 years of living peacefully in his village with both parents, having a traumatic experience, and then going out to see the world, hearing about Pathfinder Society on his first big stop and making it his dream to join them. I described his journey basically by coming up with partners he had romantic relationships with along the way and elaborating a little what happened during these stops/stages of the journey. Now I face the joy of meeting this characters as NPC's one day, oof, I didnt think this through. We even met that first girlfriend already. (it was ok, but super stressful, but also super sweet at the end)

[simply-yelly2]

Holy cow, she looks like Tzipporah from the Prince of Egypt. Which is funny because that is my favorite movie and Tzipporah is my favorite character aside from Queen Tuya. However, it is not her at all.

Tagging @opal-tea and @justawfulxmenart as always for Kiesha'ra goodies.

This is Oliza. Not quite how I've always envisioned her, but I do like how she turned out. And there is a story to be told here.

So today was kind of a free day for my class and we got out crayons and paper for them to draw. Both I and my co-teacher decided to join them and just for fun I decided to draw Oliza. You might see traces of the crayon here and there, plus a contribution from one of my students in the form of a purple squiggle. I started out with crayon, but then decided to add marker (we have some special ones that I used for many of the details). I had wanted to use tan for her skin tone, since I do see Oliza with lighter skin, but I could not find a tan crayon and this one marker seemed promising (the swatch test up there).

Not the best, but I think you can make out the brows that are just like the ones I'd given Sisal.

For her outfit I gave her a simple dancer's costume, but I was going to make it purple. But then I thought about it. Plum is the color of mourning for the serpiente and it is a shade of purple, so I feel like purple in general is a color avoided unless mourning. I decided to go with green after a further debate.

Unlike Sive, Oliza is never described wearing jewelry, but I felt like she needed something and the one gold bangle is iconic because her daughter (Hai) has one. I then gave her a cobra bracelet, complete with red eyes to fit the Cobriana.

She also has her hair done up in a braid down her back. I mentioned on Sisal's picture that I imagine the Serpiente wear their hair loose for the most part, get some swishy action when dancing. But they will probably wear it up when serving in the army. The avians I feel put their hair up to keep it from blowing in their faces when flying and it kind of makes them look put together. I made the bands be silver since she is a member of royalty and can avoid precious metals, hence the gold on her arms and the silver in her hair.

I did not add any gold or red to her hair. I feel like that would be more of an effect on her snake/wyvern form. Kind of like an iridescent shimmer. In human form, Oliza has normal black hair like any member of the cobra royal family.

Hmm...I think this was a good try with what materials I had on hand. I will probably do a digital version since I now have my computer and also kind of have an idea on how she is going to look.

As for the character herself...I love Oliza, but she is a very complicated person for me. I will not say any more, except that Oliza in my rewrite is Bi. She is married to a man (Nicias), but has had relationships with men and women. Something that came to mind while at work is that maybe Avian does engage in a few relationships before being formally joined. Obviously, any kind of physical contact is not allowed, but you can offer flowers and poems.

Kind of a means for the young people to decide if they want to go through with the arrangement or not.

[glitchychara]

Amnesia

Tyler One Shot, 3,384 words

I really hate puzzles. It's weird, because I'm more of a problem solving girl, but puzzles just piss me off for some reason. I hate TVs too. I don't know what it is about them, but they just bug me. Mario's always watching some stupid thing on the TV, which kinda makes me wanna smash it to pieces with a hammer. Again, it makes no sense to me since I don't mind playing video games with them, even when I keep losing to everyone because I've never played before. It's just the TV in general, I guess. Although I recently learned my biggest trigger is TV static. I don't know why, but I get weird flashbacks everytime I hear it. Even though it was only once since I've been here. I started seeing images and they filled up my head and I didn't know what was going on and then someone reached out and I couldn't see who it was so I swung but it turned out to be Meggy so she blocked me and she asked me if I was okay and then-

And then I got up. And I left. And I came back a few hours later. And they never brought it up. Nor have I heard any TV static since. 

But anyways, Meggy and Smg4 took me to the doctor yesterday, which I don't know why a centaur would wanna be in the medical field, nor did I trust the guy, but at least he was gonna tell me exactly what was wrong with me….until he gave me my doctors note and it was literally a scribble. Like, excuse me sir, what the HELL is this supposed to be? Chicken scratch?? Anyways I gave it to the axolotl looking guy who was working at the pharmacy and somehow HE KNEW WHAT IT SAID?? I swear I'll NEVER understand doctors. Anyways, he gave me this bottle of pills and sent me on my merry way. Guess who STILL doesn't know what's wrong with her? Me :). So I figured I'd Google what the pills were for and guess what? Apparently I have something called “Amnesia” which, according to Google, means “permanent or temporary memory loss.” 

Huh??

add “doctors” and “pharmacists” to the list of things I hate.

I talked to Three recently, and he asked me if I was going to get my own house. I told him I didn't plan too. “Why not?” he asked, stacking cups next to the coffee machine. I shrugged and continued my task-cleaning out the new pastry display. “Smg4 lets me live in his guest room for free. Why would I wanna pay for a house?” He laughed and asked if I wanted to live with him forever. “Well, not forever, obviously. Just until I go home.” I replied, now adding pastries to the display case. “Tyler. About that…” I turned and looked at him, confused. It was the first time I've ever seen him look sad. “Tyler, you don't even know where you're from. How do you plan on getting home if you can't remember how you got here? Might as well get used to living in the Mushroom Kingdom, you know.” I rolled my eyes and ignored him. What would he know? I'm completely fine living in the castle. It's not like Smg4 does much anyways, other than making videos. Which he should make better, by the way. I mean, he lacks creativity, and a story in general. The whole point of making something is to entertain your audience. How is he going to do that if he's so focused on his “it doesn't have to be perfect” bs? I swear, some people don't deserve their fame, or money, or power or reviews or stars. 

5. stars.

What am I saying? I don't know anything about true art. I've never even made anything myself. Maybe those doctors were right.

Damn Amnesia…

(tagging @its-a-me-mango and @psychologistlemon bc I thought you guys being the doctor/pharmacist was funny)

[cursed-elo-images]

I’ve listened to the song I tagged in my recent post.

If anybody sees this post and hasn’t seen the post I’m referring to, and has NO idea what I’m talking about, I drew something cursed you can find on my blog and the song I’m referring to is “Confusion” by of course ELO.

It’s not one of my most favorites, but it’s a really good one.

Well, I think I just ruined the song for myself. (half jokingly)

While I said the above phrase in jest, there is some truth to it.

But first, I must mention my backstory.

The Backstory of the One and Only, cursed-elo-images Herself

My relationship with ELO started in March 2020. This was right before lockdown, and a parent of mine showed me a copy of ELO’s “greatest hits all over the world” CD, and we decided to play it in the car. I did like them, but I didn’t really listen to them much that month (really just a little bit of Elton John and some David Bowie too who are also good), but I decided to in April that month. I fell in love with them. I did however discover them in 2018 but didn’t feel like trying them out since I wasn’t into classic rock during that time besides Queen, since I listened to a few vocaloid songs. I also had “Don’t Bring Me Down” stuck in my head in late 2019, for some strange reason, but again didn’t feel like trying them out at the time, since I just liked Queen then. (Also a very good band, and I should also mention I stopped liking vocaloid music in early 2019 and Queen was what brought me back to classic rock)

Since then, I’ve listened to this band a lot, usually during the spring-summer because those seasons I find “enhance” the experience, I suppose it’s to invoke the nostalgia I felt when they first touched the neurons in my ear canals. I have went on a hiatus in 2021 though, because I temporarily replaced them with British rock band Sweet, which are arguably MORE underrated than them, but came back to ELO since… not to slander Sweet but, ELO is just more interesting and sensorily pleasing. I wasn’t really interested in the members, just the music. This lasted from 2020 to March this year. I did try to memorize the members of the band last year, but again I wasn’t really into the fandom, I just liked them as background music/shoving their music into my ears whenever I feel like it, which was a lot, but not on the same level as me immersed in David Bowie’s many personas and the fandom side of THAT.

I don’t know what got me interested in drawing ELO members or reading fandom posts about them, but here I am. I love being this way, and it gives me more people to be interested in so I take this as a win. They just have that adorkable charm to them.

Why I’m Obsessing over ELO’s Confusion

Now the context is out of the way, let’s discuss why I’m obsessing over their “Confusion” song. Like I previously mentioned, I liked the song to listen to sometimes, and to use as background music. Yes, even when I was blissfully unaware of the members and the fandom, and the future that was to come of me drawing the most bizarro cursed nonsense shlock (affectionate) regarding the band. It’s a nice song, detailing the (in my interpretation, yours might differ) confusion, shock, and sadness one feels after breaking up with their significant other. However, I, being the equally cursed weirdo that I am, decided to use that song for the dreaded (affectionate) Melvyn bread train doodle. Why? Because that was the theme of the drawing. Did I need to add the song? No, but I thought it would be funny and look cool. Then when I clicked on the Spotify link I heard a snippet of the song and I unfortunately applied the lyrics to the drawing, implying that the band lost… Melvyn’s… human(?) form and became that cursed abomination (affectionate) and have their feelings about it.

Now, instead of being at peace with their music (specifically Confusion) I am now going to think of that drawing every time I listen to it. Just great (lightheartedly sarcastic).