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juanabaloo · 2 months

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Plot hole that bothers me: where was Faith in "Helpless"?

Oooh this is such a good one, thank you for asking it. Pretty sure others have talked about this before, here's my attempt:

This is post Amends but pre Bad Girls, so the Faith and Buffy friendship is going pretty good at this point. (Literally we've only had 5 Faith episodes by Helpless, and that's how quickly she and Buffy get to a good place.)

In Helpless Faith is purposefully sent away so she would not interfere with Buffy's birthday Test by Giles. (cruciamentum is an annoyingly long word) I don't think the Watcher's Council thinks much about Faith, if they do at all...

[related - this ask answered by coraniaid is great and includes Post taking Faith out of town for the test at Giles' request. also it gets into how hands off/disorganized The Council is.]

Anyways, Giles has heard Buffy talking about Faith and knows they patrol together. He also knows Faith spent Christmas Eve with Buffy and (mostly) Joyce. So he knows Faith would definitely not stand by while Buffy gets tested. So he sends her out on a silly mission, like gathering a weapon from LA or something like that. He does not tell her that the Test is coming up for Buffy.

More under the cut bc this got really long!

Giles wrongly assumes that Faith is aware that on her 18th birthday a Slayer gets this Test. This is because he wrongly assumes Faith has already been through this herself, bc she is already over 18. In my HC Faith IS over 18 she only seems younger sometimes bc she's emotionally immature. In my HC she is over 18 but she has not had the Test and has never even heard about it.

[if you HATE the idea of Faith being older than 18 by Helpless, then Giles thinks she is over 18 bc he snooped one day while she and Buffy were sparring in the library and he found her wallet and saw her fake ID**. This leads him to believe she is in fact 19 or 20 or 21. So in this slightly divergent timeline Faith is only 17 but she still won't ever have the Test bc she doesn't have a proper Watcher / they don't really care enough about Faith to give her the Test.]

[** MORE FAKE ID thoughts: It honestly makes the most sense that her fake ID would say she's 21 so she can buy liquor bc that's what *ahem* most people did back then. BUT also Faith would not have much trouble getting guys to buy her liquor so maybe she only needs her fake ID to prove she's over 18 so she can get a bank account. BUT it seems weird that she's THAT responsible and she's not just shoving her cash under her mattress...

FAKE ID CONTINUED: Other interesting theories for a fake ID to prove she's over 18 that aren't about liquor or opening a bank account: change her birth name (non cis Faith? she already changed her name TO Faith?? maybe she has her Mom's name and she hates her Mom so she changed it on the fake ID? all valid), get piercings/tattoo (although in the 90s it was very common for under 18s to have these), get a job (only believable if she wasn't already a Slayer), buy a car (maybe an aspirational goal), go parachuting (another goal?). ANYWAYS enough thoughts about fake ID Faith this is turning into a fic prompt with like 10 options...)

MORE AGE THOUGHTS: Sorry one more thing. It seems unlikely that Fatih would be sentenced (for murder 2) to 25 years to life in prison - not jail but prison - for murder without legally being 18. Well just researched that and sadly this isn't true. I thought maybe her going to prison was a point in favor of her being at least 18 by ATS 1x19 Sanctuary but perhaps not. It's unclear. There's a 2000 California Prop 21 that seems relevant, which passed in March 2000 and Sanctuary aired in May 2000. And ofc the carceral system sucks and makes mistakes and Faith might have lied about her age.]

Where were we? Giles thinks that Faith already passed her own Test and knows that Buffy will get one when she (Buffy) turns 18. This leads to some trickery by Giles, bc he wants to hide when Buffy's birthday is from Faith. He shares a fake birthday for Buffy with Faith in a very awkward conversation while they wait for the Scoobies to assemble one day in the library. (Repeating the I Robot You Jane continuity error from S1.)

Faith thinks it's weird bc it seems like Giles is telling her to buy Buffy a birthday gift - which is already weird in itself - - and bonus leads her to wondering if Buffy is telling Giles what gifts she wants Faith to buy her, like a girl might with her Dad Watcher about a boyfriend -- and it's even weirder bc Buffy's birthday is months away. Thankfully the Scoobies arrive, and Giles stops talking about it. But the lingering "queer vibes boyfriend gift buying vibes" nugget has now been planted in Faith's already pretty-gay-for-Buffy mind.

And since i HC Faith as over 18 by Helpless, Faith should have gotten her own Test back in Boston but Diana (her Watcher) did not administer it. Diana had plans to, or plans to somehow avoid giving it / giving Faith a cheat, but then Kakistos came and she became pre-occupied with surviving him. (She sadly did not, as we know.) (Bonus points for the very sad HC of Faith turning 18 on the same day that Diana dies. OR she could turn 18 on a bus by herself during her cross country trip to Sunnydale. Give that girl more angst!!)

Diana never told Faith about the Test so Faith doesn't have any idea Buffy is in danger, even when she learns that Buffy has her 18th birthday coming up. And how does she learn this, despite Giles's attempt to hide it?

When Willow mentions something about Buffy's birthday coming up! Faith is confused bc of the prev Giles birthday talk. Once Xander mentions something as well Faith knows that Giles was lying to her. (This adds to her mistrust of Giles / The Council, not that she needs it.)

Faith resigns herself to the idea that Buffy doesn't want her around for her birthday party, and that is why Giles came up with his awkward birthday talk / lie. (This also reinforces the idea that Giles is very close to Buffy, since he's telling birthday lies for Buffy.) Faith then leans headfirst into her Slayer duties leading up to the week of Helpless, bringing it up to Buffy multiple times so Buffy knows Faith isn't totally wounded annoyed about missing Buffy's birthday.

(I'm not sure how Faith gets to LA for the Giles-weapon-mission. If she drives herself it makes her ATS 1x18 Five by Five bus arrival kinda "look how far she has fallen." If she takes the bus it makes her ATS 1x18 Five by Five bus arrival kinda "oh she knew what to expect at the bus depot bc she'd been here before.")

In LA Faith learns some local stuff (what neighborhoods are dicey, where the fun clubs are) and does indeed find the weapon Giles has sent her to get. She returns after Helpless and is surprised when no one talks much about Buffy's birthday party. When she tries to chat with Buffy about it in a fun casual way - it's clear Buffy doesn't want to discuss it.

And what weapon does Faith bring back to Sunnydale? It's the sword she uses in The Zeppo's first scene! It turns out not to be as important as Giles predicted, but that fits with this plot hole filler.

Faith doesn't find out about Giles drugging her for the Test, bc Buffy is repressing it and no one else ever talks about it again. (I don't agree with the writers' decision about this really terrible thing Giles does, but this filler needs to match on both ends.) This also matches bc if Faith ever did find out about it she would be incensed to the point of shouting and at least shoving Giles, if not more. She def would not shut up about it to Buffy, even if Buffy asks her to not bring it up again. ("How can you trust him B? After what he did to you??")

Anyways, i hope you enjoyed this! It was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for the ask!

#btvs #faith lehane #fuffy adjacent #ask game #ask answered #plot hole game #long post #ask #writer thoughts #thank you for the asks!

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atlantis-just-drowned · 5 months

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HI OH MY GOD. i love your writing style for pluto sm, can i get headcanons for a reader like Eulalie ??? i love her sm <3 ty !!

A/N: Omg thank you so much Anon that's adorable!! I made this a gn!reader haha sorry if that wasn't what was intended-

Pluto x reader who's like Eulalie headcanons

Please reblog this post to show support! Reblogs are what keep me going!

Oh gosh you're his literal ray of sunshine

You don't even imagine, like

You're the optimist to his pessimistic side

Every time he sees you or hear you he can't help but feel like this world is suddenly a bit warmer and easier to live in

You make him smile

On a daily basis

He basically can't look at you without smiling

Even is he's in a bad mood his heart will melt a bit at your mere presence

I feel like he would be extremely protective of you too

Because you seem so oblivious he gets scared someone might trick you and hurt you :0

So as far as he's concerned, he's right by your side/behind you shooting death stares to any stranger who talks to you

Some will say he's creepy but to you this is the cutest thing in the world

He's your social support catboy

If you want some privacy tho he'll totally respect that and walk away

(but not without glancing at you with worried eyes for as long as he can see you)

But if he doesn't trust the person you're talking to, he'll stay close enough to be able to hear you if you scream or call for him

You know? Just in case anything happens

When he has a bad day he likes to hug you tight and hide his face in you chest or neck

Hug him back and he'll be in heaven

If you ask him what's going on he'll probably just mumble something unintelligible and hug you a little tighter

He likes your positivity and energy

But what he loves the most is to see you in a peaceful state

I'm talking, cuddling him or him cuddling you and you just

Close your eyes

And lay there

With his arms around you

Oh fuck oh shit oh damn he's so screwed his heart is melting inside

He would rather die on the spot than disturb you

He'll never say it out loud but in these moments he just hold you a little tighter and swear to himself that he'll protect you of harm and do everything to make sure you're happy

Even if your happiness doesn't include him, he wouldn't care as long as you stay as peaceful as you look right now for the rest of your life

He will. Literally. Never. Question. Anything that you say.

If you're in the middle of a dangerous situation and you ask him to bring you something

He won't say a word

He'll just do it

Even if it's absolutely useless

You have your reasons

And you must be granted what you asked for

I'm literally not kidding he would do anything you'd ask for, this little guy has an incredible determination

Even if he doesn't understand why you're asking something, he knows your mind functions a little differently from anyone else and he'll support you on that, no question asked

His only limit is that he won't harm himself or harm you in any way, shape or form. If you ask for something dangerous and one of you might get hurt because of it, he'll refuse

Also if you mess up with anything while getting focused on whatever you're doing, he'll make sure to clean up after you

You might not even notice it

But the next time you walk in the same hallway all of the knots you did with the curtains have been untied

Books are in alphabetical order again, no matter how many times you disorganize them

If you like to craft handmade things like necklaces or accessories he'll stay by your side and keep your materials organised

He likes to watch you while you're creating things, you look so sweet and relaxed

Sometime he'll chat with you while you're at it, but if you prefer to stay quiet he'll comply, silence doesn't bother him anyway

He'll remind you to pay attention to things too

Or if you forget you have something important to do

He'll be here to make sure you remember about it

Tho he'll feel a little sad if you forget about one of your dates but he'll understand really

On the other hand he finds it cute if you keep asking him just how long before your next date or hangout

The thought of you being somewhat impatient to spend time with him melts his heart inside <3

#pluto nevermore #nevermore webtoon #nevermore webcomic #nevermore #webtoon nevermore #pluto x reader #headcanons #nevermore pluto #answered #whispers from atlantis

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servin-up-surveys · 3 months

Text

survey #221

Have you ever hit an animal with your car? No, but in the last year, my mom hit a squirrel for the first time in her life while I was in the passenger's seat. I was fucking devastated, and so was Mom. It was either hit the squirrel or the car in the other lane, and the squirrel was panicking going back and forth so it just stayed in the road longer than if it had just run across.

Favorite ride at the amusement park? I don't go to enough of these to really know. I know I enjoyed the Ferris wheel the last time I went to one.

Do you have many followers on your Tumblr? On my main one I have *checks* 142. It's a rather small community (on Tumblr, anyway, they're one of the biggest international bands in the world) that I post about. On this survey blog, it's 21.

Do you tan easily? Absolutely not, I just burn.

Are you expecting something in the mail? No.

Do you inspire others? I cannot imagine others being inspired by me.

Are you healthy? No, I'm not.

Three things you try to avoid as much as possible: Confrontation, gaining more weight, and situations that give me anxiety.

Number of jeans in your closet: I haven't worn jeans since high school.

Do you follow fashion? Nope.

Do you have a big butt? No, I got that Hank Hill ass & I hate it

Do you count how long you and your gf/bf have been together? I do. I like celebrating anniversaries, so. I don't think time together matters much, but. I keep track anyway.

Rihanna or Lady GaGa? Gagaaaaaa

What's your worst interior design nightmare: Um... probably overcrowding. I've never thought of this. Or just REALLY obnoxious colors.

Are you one of those people that often feel sorry for yourself? Meh, not often. I think it's okay to sometimes, like sometimes you just get a really unfair deck to play and I think it's okay to be upset about it, but I think obsessing over it is a very negative move as far as self-care and acceptance of life goes.

Three persons you would like to thank: My mom, Girt, and the psychiatrist who really helped me get my life back after Jason.

Is your closet disorganized? No.

Do you like to cuddle with your S.O. or do you prefer your space? I am a massive cuddler with him unless I'm hot.

What TV shows do you watch on a regular basis? Literally only Naked and Afraid with my mom. It's our dinner thing if an episode is out, lol. I have no real idea how that became "our show" but it did.

Does it make someone a racist if they’re not attracted to a specific race? "That is not how I understand racism. Attraction can indeed be informed by one's prejudices, but on the flip side, there are plenty of bigots who are also very into the idea of fucking the people they're bigoted towards. Who someone wants to fuck is not at all a reliable litmus test for whether they respect those same people and the cultures they belong to." <<< I fully agree with this.

Are you happy with the size of your bedroom? It does the job for me, sure.

Do you add people you don’t actually know on Facebook? No, you have to be at the bare minimum an acquaintance that actually interests me as an individual.

What’s the longest you’ve liked someone without doing anything about it? Idr.

What’s the relationship status of the last person you talked to? My mom is single.

Think of the person from your past that hurt you the most. Is there anything you would like to say to that person? That I'm sorry for how I acted after we broke up.

Does your mom like the last person you kissed? She loves him.

Are you a forgiving person? I'm too forgiving and I know that for fact.

Who did you last have a heart-to-heart conversation with? Girt, I think.

Do you believe that there’s good in everybody? I don't think so. At least, I think people can become to where there's no longer good in them. I don't think people are born that way or something.

Do you use reusable shopping bags to reduce waste? No, admittedly. Granted, we always get our groceries picked up (employees bring our order to the car), so they're already all in plastic bags.

Where were you going the last time you were a passenger in a car? Girt was bringing me home from his house.

Do your parents have a strong relationship together? Hell fucking no.

When was the last time you attended a religious service of any sort? Many years ago when Colleen was going through an extreme devout Christian phase and I happened to be living with her at the time.

Do you think there are more dimensions than what we’re able to perceive? Meh, I don't think so. I don't completely reject the possibility, though. What do I know, if I can't perceive it?

Do any of your neighbors have loud children? I don't hear them, anyway.

What is the hardest part of your life right now, and what is the easiest? I think the hardest part is not having any sort of employment. I think I make it pretty clear I want to be a self-employed photographer, but that's not easy to achieve, at all. Not having a job plays a massive role in my depression, and for just being insanely fucking bored nearly all the time. Which further feeds my depression, and lately has been causing my anxiety to ramp up, too, because I'm so bored and understimulated that anxiety can just bulldoze its way into focus. Then there's the obvious factor to not having a job: I don't have my own money (I don't receive help from the government), which in our society, feels fuckin' bad. I can't help my mom (who I live with) financially, and she's deep in the fucking hole with money right now. We don't even have a working car right now. If our landlord wasn't who it is, I can assure you we wouldn't have a home right now. I kinda wish for my own sake Mom wouldn't even talk to me about this stuff because I can't fucking help. Uh. For the easiest part of my life... I'm sure SOME people would argue being unemployed, I don't have a lot of responsibility, but it's fucking hell and I promise you there's not a damn thing to envy. I'd rather be DOING shit and supporting myself instead of having to rely on my mommy for everything like a newborn. I guess in MY opinion... it'd be having a house at all? Mom and I hate it here, like a lot, but at least we're not sleeping in the cold or fighting for shelter from the rain. I don't even like talking about this, living on the streets is my biggest fear and it's just more terrifying knowing how easily that could be us. We were already homeless once, but at least we had people to house us. I'm in a bad mood after this question lmfao

If you are struggling with chronic illness right now, what are five of your worst symptoms? Anhedonia, negative self-image and thoughts, general sadness, lack of motivation, and existing in a haze sometimes/feeling like a zombie.

What is your favorite social media platform at the moment? Tumblr. I love the people I associate with there and I feel like it's a much more politically left place (yes I'm full aware not everyone is and dark corners exist) than the shit I see on Facebook and stuff. I USE Facebook more, but it's so easy to get pissed off there at the shit you see. I think Tumblr is definitely better at catering towards your interests and stuff. Like no, Facebook, I had no interest in seeing a proud-as-hell father and his son posing with bloody wolves they'd shot to look as if their corpses were smiling at the camera. (I might be banned from that page <333333)

Do you have trouble forgiving people who hurt you? I've always been too forgiving, but I've definitely gotten better at protecting myself and knowing letting people back in is not always a healthy choice.

What is something that is hard for most people but is easy for you? uh idk

What is something that is easy for most people but is hard for you? The most basic of social interactions. Being open about things I like, if it's not online (like I feel like that's a super exciting topic for most people irl???? meanwhile I wanna throw up).

What is your favorite color, and do you own a lot of things in that color? Pink. Uh... not really, I think.

List three things you have survived. A suicide attempt to be literal, asthma attacks, and homelessness.

When was the last time you had someone pray with you? hell if i know

List five of your favorite female singers. Sharon den Adel, Angela Gossow, Amy Lee, Alissa White-Gluz, and Maria Brink.

When was the last time you got ice cream from an ice cream truck? oh I have zero idea

Do you celebrate the 4th of July, and if so, how did you celebrate it this year? lol no, the U.S.A. can burn for all I care. Mom just made burgers and s'mores so I ate those and that's it.

Who was the last of your friends to have a baby? That I know of, Bethany.

Have you ever been pregnant? No, let's keep it that way.

What color was the last pair of flip-flops you wore? Mine are black.

Are you happy at the moment? Why or why not? No. I just haven't been lately.

What is one thing about your life you hope will never change? I hope I always absolutely adore and aim to educate on and protect animals.

How would you describe your journey so far in your 20s? Shit's sucked. Shit's been a rollercoaster. Shit's been frustrating as hell. Shit's been confusing.

What role does music play in your life, and are there any songs or artists that have had a significant impact on you? I fucking love music. Ozzy Osbourne and Rammstein are the only two I consider having had "significant" impacts on me.

What are some activities or hobbies that bring you joy and help you relax? Creating through writing, photography, or drawing, reading, playing video games, hanging out with my boyfriend, sitting on the porch swing at my sister's house with Mom and watching the kids play, watching a variety of YouTube videos, scrolling the Internet...

What are your thoughts on marriage and starting a family? Is it something you envision for yourself? I want to get married, but I don't want kids. I feel ready to move in together by now, but that's a very unfair thing to want, because then I'd be his financial responsibility instead of only Mom's. We've seriously talked about me and working and Girt really doesn't care if I never do (he's pretty fortunate with his job and he's probably going to keep climbing the ladder there), even though it's anxiety-inducing to him because he worries about what happens to me if he dies or something. But ultimately, he's fine if I'm a stay-at-home wife, which he knows I don't WANT to be and he very much encourages me to keep pursuing photography or art in general, but if that's how it happens, well. My point is though, I should really be patient.

Are there any specific skills or areas of knowledge you would like to develop or improve upon? I would like to become certified to handle venomous snakes, solely for the purpose of relocation if I know someone who needs to get rid of one. I'm very protective of all snakes, but I have a soft spot for venomous species since they're so quickly killed by people, even if they just SUSPECT it's venomous. Or if it's just a snake at all... I've taught myself to be able to identify all my local snakes (although I can't differentiate species of Nerodia, I just know a water snake when I see one), so I can guarantee I'd be able to recognize the venomous species that live in my area, and with certification, I could safely transport them away from where they could be harmed. I wanna point out that I would NEVER handle a venomous species with my bare hands; that ain't my jam. I would never go beyond a snake hook.

How do you navigate and make decisions about your career path and professional growth? lol I am not the person to ask this. I barely know what I'm doing. YouTube channels by self-made artists sharing their experiences save me

#survey #surveys

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rkn001 · 2 years

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I've got to know, whats the process to your artwork, like how did you learn to draw poses and features as you do? Sorry if that's an odd question, just genuinely curious!

oh, that’s not an odd question; i appreciate asks like these haha! unfortunately my answer to this is going to be a bit long, so apologies in advance for that.

for poses, i devote an hour or two per week to practice a lot of figure drawing. it basically entails me collecting some references for poses, like the pose tool from posespace or pinterest (especially if i’m looking for some dynamic poses, though that entails being creative in how i search), and just... draw these poses from sight to the best of my ability. how i learn and how i practice is really just that. it's a great way for me to build a mental library of poses i can fall back to if i'm feeling like drawing freely without references.

but figure drawing can be hard and exhausting, and it takes time to work up to a point of drawing one figure for 10-20 minutes straight. and if that practice were my actual drawing process every time, i'd easily get frustrated every time i draw. so instead, (especially if you're starting out!) i recommend looking into gesture drawing, a method of capturing the dynamism of a pose in under a minute or a couple of minutes, or even a couple of seconds, without worrying so much about proportions and whatnot. imo this stuff is actually the backbone of figure drawing, because if you're not considering the overall movement of a character and just drawing the parts of the body individually, your character is going to look stiff and inanimate. think of gesture drawing as if it were like writing an outline to a school essay, before writing the essay! (in fact, i actually find that there are many components of gesture drawing which have wormed its way into my style.)

i guess face features are a different thing, because i tend to take bits and pieces of what i like from different artists' styles, and meld them into some alloy that is my style. sometimes i also do some face studies, but…not that much.

as for a general overall process to my artwork, i actually can’t give you a cookie-cutter recipe to do so; if you squint at my posts, you might notice that each does a different approach. it’s because i’m constantly experimenting with how i draw, and i’m constantly being inspired (re: borrowing some ideas) by many, many artists who do fantastic work all around. but...maybe i can give a simplified idea of my process, if that helps?

say that i'm drawing a character doing a thing. i would imagine the pose that the character is doing, maybe collect some references on said pose, and do a quick gesture draw using those references before drawing the character over that sketch while fixing proportions or whatever else. i guess an example of this would look something like:

(i used this reference, which unfortunately isn't really a great example since it's a photo of a toy and not a human figure, but whatever.)

but as i said, this is pretty simplified for a process; the actual process depends! it can be hella messy, hella disorganized, and hella experimental. hell, most of the time i don't even follow the above two steps; for the sake of economizing my time (re: laziness), i tend to fall back on my mental library of poses (for the better or for the worse i guess). as for my coloring process...i'm still trying to figure that one out lmao

anyway, this is getting too long, my bad. well, i hope this answers some part or parts of your question. if not, feel free to ask more questions if you'd like!

#ask #thanks for the ask!

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twotales · 1 year

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I've been considering starting up writing SGA/SG-1 Fanfics recently and I was wondering if you had any advice for a (relatively) new author?

Hello, sweet anon! (Sorry for the late response, things have been a bit hectic over here.)

First, I want to say, whaaa, someone is asking me for advice!? 😳

Secondly, Dude! We would be so happy to have a new Stargate writer in our midst. I'd say our fandom is one of the more inclusive ones out there and we are all incredibly grateful for more content.

🤔 Hmm, advice for writing/posting, or interacting with our fandom? (I assume just writing/posting.) (If you are wondering about becoming a part of our fandom and the feel of it, just ask me that question as well.)

The best and most simple advice I think is: Read. Read. Read! Write. Write. Write! Watch. Watch. Watch! But you probably want more xD

Writing:

Writing is the easiest part for me. I write every day. I'm kind of a freak like that.

If you're having trouble with writing, there are some things I do. (not in any order.)

I use a habit tracker, I love stats and this tracker has a lovely design and a sweet little overview. Plus you can have separate widgets on your home screen for each habit, you don't have to go into the app every time you do one, simple press. I love it. But I don't sweat it if I miss a day or a few or more. I just want to have the widgets as a reminder, it keeps me from forgetting, I do have a small goal of doing at least one of my habits by the end of each day. Writing happens to be my easiest habit to accomplish. (Hence the writing everyday xD)

You don't have to write a lot. Even if it's just a bit of editing, a paragraph, or a single word, that's enough. You opened up the document, you thought things, you tried.

Don't share all of your ideas with others. Some people can thrive on this, (if you do, just ignore this advice.) but I am not one of those people. I lose steam for an idea if I give too much away. I also cannot for the life of me write a long fic and post it as I write. SCHEDULED WRITING!? NOPE. I write the entirety of a long fic before I publish them. Sometimes I publish chapters and edit them as I publish, but the meat of everything is there.

So, take as much time as you need.

When you feel satisfied with a fic, sit on it, wait a couple of days, weeks, months, and reread it. New eyes, even if they are your own eyes can really help. (I don't always do this, but it can help with certain fics, esp long ones.)

Lay somewhere, chill and just daydream about your idea/story. This is working on your story too and I find that this makes me just type down thoughts as they come.

Make the time. It doesn't have to be a ton. My partner only writes for five, maybe ten minutes a day. He laments how little he writes but I always ALWAYS say.

“You do write though and that is the most important thing.

I also have a very specific writing system to keep myself from getting stuck, and disorganized, but that's a whole thing and this is already getting long. (If you do want to hear about it though, feel free to ask.)

Posting:

This is the hard part for me. No matter how many fics I have written, posts I have made, gifs, what have yous. I always get a bit overheated and my guts feel like bees are trying to escape them.

If you're having trouble posting there are a few things that I think can work depending on why you're worried about posting.

Mistakes: Misspelled words, flow, that sort of thing. Get a beta. They're several individuals in our community who are amazing betas. (I could contact them for you if you need a connection.) There are different kinds of betas as well so you can tailor your experience in that regard. But, sometimes you don't want a second opinion and that's okay too. You can always edit it whenever you read it again anyways (assuming you are going to reread your fanfics. Which I do.😊) and remember, many of us don't care about that sort of thing, we will just enjoy the story despite mistakes. General anxiety? Well, I can't do much about that. (I suffer from it myself, see bees in my guts above). Just remember that this is supposed to be about something you love. Yes, writing is work, but writing fanfic should be fun. Should be for you! These are stories you want to tell, stories you want to read, and things you want to fix and expand on. Everyone else is just along for the ride, getting off at the next stop, or maybe they don't even want to come in the first place and that's okay. The destination is yours.

The main point is to just do it. If you need help, ask, (already ahead of some people just for asking me for advice, which I am still shocked about) if you're nervous about them saying no just ask anon and connect after you get a yes. If you're worried about your writing that's okay, It's a very personal thing, it's normal. Accepting this can lessen the worry. (I was terrified of posting fic for about idk eight years or something.) And remember you never have to keep up with or write the same as someone else, we are all different and have different processes, I think the best thing you can do is figure out what works for you.

If you're nervous about content though, again understandable, but honestly people rarely care, and in our fandom people are chill af. Ship and let ship. AUs, crack, ooc, obscure kinks, OCs. We accept them all.

Just make sure to tag correctly. People have guides to help with that.

Wow, this got long, whoops. Sorry, I can't help myself. I have Rodney word-vomit vibes.

#writing #fanfic #stargate #advice #twotales talks #did I do this right? no clue #love you guys #anon #asks #this got LONG I AM SORRY

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baltears · 2 years

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hello spookyshai!! its cool if u dont want to, but i was wonderin if you'd elaborate on what you like about william? i just like thinking about/mentally rewriting westworld and its characters in my free time, and your fascination with william's got me fascinated, mostly bc i see him as a stinky bastard. so obvs you'd definitely have a more nuanced take on him, which i'd also like to develop for the imaginary westworld rewrite fic that i'm never going to write ;)) regardless if u answer or not, just wanted to say i'm a fan of your blog and i hope you're havin a good day!!

omg so first of all thank you so so much for sending this, especially asking unprompted about a character you don't even like and giving me a chance to explain my feelings about him which is just incredibly cool of you. i love and am obsessed with william so giving me any excuse to talk about him at length is like gifting me $1000. if you want to know more about my meta thoughts about him after reading this, (I'm gonna talk A Lot – sorry – but i can't possibly get through everything because he's just a very complicated guy and it's a very dense show), you can always look in my william tag. I have a lot of text posts about him, but I also often talk a lot in the tags of my own posts as well as reblogs. This is gonna be a lot of totally disorganized and unedited infodumping of a lot of different meta, but i've talked about all of it at length elsewhere too and I can also totally elaborate more if you have any specific questions (you could send another ask if you wanted, but also feel free to just message me about it anytime). I'll do my best not to get too emotional (lol) but it'll be tough because this character is so close to my heart. but I'll try!

this is a huge wall of text lol so i'll also be adding more bold and italics than i normally would just to make it a little easier to read.

so first of all let's be clear, he completely is a stinky bastard. he is a horrible, awful, faithless, pathetic specimen of a man. not liking him is totally justified. just wanted to get that out of the way. personally I think not liking anything for any reason is totally valid and justified, but there are certainly good reasons why a lot of people don't like william. he is not a good dude, at least not after a certain point. No one is obligated to relate to him, empathize with him, feel bad for him, whatever... like, no one's obligated to like anything, but especially this guy. sometimes people can get a little shirty about the fact that i do, like me liking him means i think they have to. I don't think that. I do love finding other william stans, and i am very unapologetic and open about my love for him, but him being widely hated makes complete sense to me.

sigh like why i love him so much though… it's kind of hard to even put into words. on one level it's just extremely personal, like, there are a lot of things about him that i really resonate with and identify with, although I know that sounds weird (it's definitely gotten some very shocked reactions before, lol). i'm a villain liker in general, i tend to be able to relate to those types of characters easily and it kind of takes a lot for me to really dislike one on a personal level (though that's true of any sort of character, i just tend to like the majority of the characters in any work that i genuinely enjoy regardless of how shitty they are – to me the only truly bad thing a character can be is annoying, like, the kind of annoying where you just want them off your screen). Characters being any degree of evil or shitty or problematic doesn't bug me at all, personally, I tend to feel no deep internal urge to have them 'held accountable' for the things they do, unless they exist in a narrative that genuinely doesn't seem to understand that they are in the wrong, which does irritate me when it happens. But anyway, I don't want to get too oversharey but there's definitely a very high level of just personal resonance to the character for me in terms of the kinds of conflicts he has, the things he struggles with, the dominant emotions of his life, etc. so that's part of it. also though he's just… a very complex and beautifully constructed piece of character work, so I also love him just on a technical level as a writer.

He has such incredible significance in the story too, being the thematic representative of humanity, both to dolores and to the wider narrative – his capabilities for good and evil are humanity's capabilities for good and evil, right. Dolores' opinion of humanity and feelings towards humanity are very colored by her opinion of him and her feelings towards him, and thematically their relationship is sort of a microcosm of the broader relationship between hosts and humanity and very much a central piece of the narrative. Even when it's out of direct focus it's being constantly referenced and pointed back to, such as with the caleb storyline in season 3 – caleb himself is basically one big callback to william in s3, parallels out the wazoo, and his function of turning around dolores' opinion on humans is very much related to him reminding her of william – hence why her storyline in season 3 ends with her remarking on how her memories of william as a young man indicate to her that humanity is capable of goodness, because caleb's capacity to choose echoes william's capacity to choose, caleb's goodness echoes william's goodness, it all goes back to that, etc.

So… I guess I'll just jump in lol. William's Thing, the fulcrum of his character, the main feeling or sentiment that underlies all of his evil actions and kind of his general turn away from the kind and gentle person he used to be, is alienation, right. He lives his whole life (as he tells dolores in 1x07) not fitting in anywhere, not making connections anywhere, not having any sort of community or any experience with love or companionship of any kind… he's just been totally alone and alienated his entire life. like, the closest thing he had to a friend was logan, and he hates logan. I think this is the major thing people miss about him – there's this perception that his turning evil was out of some form of entitlement, that he was just angry that this woman he liked didn't like him back and it's just an issue of wounded masculinity, but to me that completely misses the mark. Like yes wounded masculinity is a piece of his character (the way he performs and weaponizes masculinity in general is… really fascinating, I'll go into a bit more detail about it, but the kind of showy machismo that he displays is definitely a tool that he intentionally developed for his own use rather than a really integral part of who he is) but it's not at all the core emotion happening there.

To William, Dolores was not only a person he was in love with or a person he was attracted to. She was also his first and only genuine human connection ever. She was his first true friend, she was his first love, she was the first suggestion anywhere in his life that it was even possible at all for him to experience a sort of deep mutual understanding and care, that somebody could actually genuinely see him and let him see them. He literally just had not ever experienced any level of real emotional intimacy before, which is a feeling i actually think a lot of people relate to if they grew up feeling very lonely. And then ultimately not only was that relationship taken away, but it was kind of retroactively deleted. When he saw her again back in sweetwater, his thought was not, "i don't have this relationship anymore," but "i never had this relationship," and further, "the single person i've ever thought i could have this kind of relationship with is actually not capable of having any kind of relationship with anyone, including me, and i literally just made all of this up in my head." After losing Dolores he is not just sad and lonely – he literally comes to the conclusion that he can never have any kind of intimate human connection or be genuinely loved, ever, because the one person in his entire life he thought he connected with is not even a person at all, but just a thing. It's very much a rug pull moment on a level that's hard to describe, it kind of takes some thought-experimenting to get to that emotional place because it's a level of shock and hurt and betrayal and like, paradigm-shifting that most of us don't regularly experience (which I think might be part of the reason why a lot of people don't seem to really understand his character or be able to parse what's going on with him emotionally). Suffice it to say it's a wound deep enough that he was pretty much never going to recover from it.

After that happens he is completely destabilized, he loses all sense of meaning and self, and he never gets a grip on it again. He had totally reconstructed his idea of his life to include the genuine possibility of meaning, and meaningful relationships, when he met Dolores. And with the loss of her, all of that suddenly went away and he basically was just left with nothing. So that alienation that he grew up with is now not just a part of his life, not just a thing that he suffers from, but he starts to feel that it's inherent to him and that it comes from him, which is partly why we start getting all the anti-social behavior he displays later in life. He develops and kind of fosters that lack of empathy in himself not because he's truly incapable of empathy (as we see when he's a young man and at a couple of later points here and there, he is in fact very capable of it) but because he feels fundamentally cut off from other people – he can't reach them and they can't reach him.

So that fundamental sense of alienation is really what informs 90% of the things he does after that point. He starts building this persona, inside and outside the park. The real world feels meaningless to him at this point because the only hint of meaning he's ever had in his life was in the park, so he buys the park, and simultaneously starts trying to "win" at life in the real world like he would in the park. The real world honestly doesn't feel any more real to him than the park does, he just knows rationally that it's different and so he behaves differently outside the park… he builds all this wealth and power for himself, he becomes a famous philanthropist. Inside the park he starts creating this character for himself, this sort of hyper-masculine, hyper-competent, totally emotionally composed, merciless, badass villain. And he makes a very concerted effort to stay in this persona as often as he can.

It's all a performance, though, right. As early as 1x05 we have Ford pointing out (to his face! legend) that his barely-hidden desperation to find meaning in the park is giving the game away. In that flashback near the end of 2x02 we get a glimpse of what's underneath, because he's performing this cold, heartless persona in front of Dolores literally while his voice is shaking because he's having to try hard not to start crying as he's talking to her. Deep down he is still very wounded, he still loves her, he still desperately wishes deep down (as jimmi simpson explained) for her to just tell him that all of it was real, for her to be real and truly be a person the way he thought she was. When he's an older man that wish is still in there, it's just been buried very deep, covered up with a lot of other things, twisted. But it's always there, it's his most closely held desire, the only thing he truly wants, and it comes out all the time in the things he does. All his tormenting of dolores, and especially his desire to make the park "real" in order to find meaning – that's that. That sense of deep confusion that's always there in his character too, the constant inner monologue of "who am I, what does this mean, does anything mean anything, what is real or not real, what is going on," that's that too, that's his destabilized sense of self and reality and meaning that came out of losing Dolores. And by this point he has also come to feel, as he says in 2x09 to his wife, that there is something very fundamentally wrong with him, in a way that's kind of at odds with how we as the audience have historically understood him.

The thing is, we saw him be a kind, loving, gentle, thoughtful person. He certainly was not perfect, for instance his later narcissism started out as a sort of basic self-centeredness, but he was a fundamentally good-hearted person who put most of his energy into trying to do the right thing. But he starts saying that he feels like that wasn't the real him, that he thinks deep down he was evil and poisonous all along, that his turn to darkness was inevitable, and that there's a sort of helplessness to his evil. There's this deep sense of shame that permeates his character along with his loneliness and alienation and resentment. He hates everything, he hates the world, but above all he hates himself – kind of amusing considering the god complex he's developed over time. But that really does seem to be the underlying emotion, that he truly thinks that deep down he was always bad. It's very heavily implied that his philanthropy outside the park and his attention to his family, his kind of good-guy persona, is something that he constructed to try and make up for his true nature, and all but stated that he doesn't feel like he's succeeded. To him, no amount of good he does will ever balance his level of evil, evil that as he says doesn't come from anything he's done but something deeper than that, something immutable, something he is. So that's why we eventually have him getting to the point of going "I might as well not bother with this anymore. I might as well just be evil, because I can't change what I am."

I've also said in other posts that the things Juliet says to him come off as obviously abusive. Like, she's technically correct that there's some sinister things going on with his private life, but listen to how she says it. You're a virus, not a person, a thing that mindlessly infects and destroys and has no other purpose. And he agrees with her! He doesn't question it at all, he just says, yes, you're exactly right, I'm not a human being with good and bad attributes, or potential to do both right and wrong. I'm a virus. Like, again, I know people get weird about having empathy for villain characters, there's the whole "cool motive, still murder," thing, because we don't want to be excusing anyone's bad actions with a sad backstory (personally I don't really care, but I understand where the concern comes from). But when he said that to Juliet it just… like I don't know how else to put it, it broke my heart. He really believes that about himself. And later he starts to question it because he's not sure anymore if he actually chose to do any of the things he did… but the way his hallucination of Emily puts it, these are his two options: you are evil, or you had no choice. One or the other. He never puts aside the idea that he is a monster that does not deserve to live, and his suicidality persists from season one (when he encourages Dolores to shoot him in the head and reacts with honest disappointment when she can't) to the end of season four when he actually does manage to engineer his own death. He is deeply, agonizingly, pathetically miserable existing the way that he is, he seems to see his even being allowed to live at all as some sort of cosmic injustice. But he doesn't know how to change back to the way he was.

All that having happened, though, we also keep getting these repeated suggestions in the story that he actually is still capable of goodness somewhere in there. The narrative keeps asking what William is exactly, what his fundamental nature is, and keeps refusing to land on one answer, instead choosing to keep things ambiguous in a way that would be sort of odd for your garden variety villain. In 2x04 we see him experiencing regret, feeling empathy and pain on behalf of others, and acting genuinely heroic, only to later backtrack and say it didn't mean anything. In 2x09 Emily tells him he is in his essence "a lie" but makes no attempt to locate what the "truth" of him would then be. In 3x06 he tries to figure out the answer to what's going on with him again only to decide he still doesn't really know, in 3x08 we get this reminder that he still stands for Dolores as a representation of both humanity's evil and its goodness, in 4x05 when his host duplicate asks him what he is, he says "Jury's still out." He is too far down his current path to turn back, but he still does not and cannot definitively and finally choose evil, because despite his self-loathing it seems like he senses deep down that his other side is still in there. All that to say I think he's getting a redemption arc in season 5, if we get a season 5 – season 5 is supposed to be the do-over season, and the character who most desperately needs and could most benefit from a do-over is William.

Um, closing thoughts… I think he's really funny. Sometimes intentionally, like, I do laugh at his little quippy comments, but I also just think it's really funny how pathetic he is and what a mess he is and how he basically imploded his entire life on accident. I do feel a lot of very genuine care and empathy for him (obviously), but he's also such a garbage fire of a human being that you sometimes just have to laugh. He's just my funny little guy, also he sucks, also I love him and he's my lil angel, also he's the worst man ever in history and deserves to be drawn and quartered (said with love). You get it. :) There's dimensions.

Trying to think of other characterization notes for your imaginary fic… oh, did you notice he puts on an accent in the park? He does this fake Southern drawl when he's playing his park character, but it's not his real accent and he drops it at other times, kind of like how Dolores sometimes does or doesn't use her "rancher's daughter" accent when she's being Wyatt in season 2. Uh… Total nerd, at heart, seeing as "all he had as a kid were books." (I kind of suspect that childhood memory might not have been totally real, by the way… made a post about that recently that's a little ways down in my tag if you're interested.)

There are more things I could say, but I think I've probably gone on long enough for the one ask lol so I'll cut it off here. Thank you again, so much, for sending this. I hope you enjoyed and got something out of this response, but if not I still do very much appreciate you asking and being curious. I hope you had a great day too!

#westworld #his brain is a conference call #william westworld

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afro-elf · 4 years

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fine, i’ll elaborate on my thoughts about tylor sift but they will be disorganized

disclaimer: i know a few people will read this and be like “op is a hozier fan can she really talk about the cultural obsession with mediocre white art?” and the answer is yes because a) i’m black and i have an english degree so can do whatever i fucking want, b) hozier is a better artist than taylor objectively, like his mediocre tracks would be considered her great ones, and c) the comparison of taylor to hozier is part of the problem Genuinely because i don’t even think white people like half the music they listen to, they just don’t wanna be left behind, we’ll get into this later. i’m sorry to everyone who is tired of hearing about him but hozier will be returning later in this post jsfglsjlgldsjlfd

second note: read this

i don’t just dislike taylor because she’s white. i don’t dislike taylor because she’s a woman. i don’t dislike her because she writes mean and petty lyrics about past relationships and people who wronged her. i don’t dislike taylor because her public circle of friends is almost exclusively blonde white celebrities with their own laundry lists of issues that includes ryan reynolds and blake lively who are poster children for white privilege and pseudo-excellence if i’ve ever seen them. i dislike taylor because the amalgamation of all of those things is so exemplary of a huge problem i have with the music industry in general but also like american society

fuck it, numbered list!

1. taylor swift consistently releases the same mediocre album but in different colors. every album is the same lyrically and tonally. her body of work rarely goes very far above “good for taylor swift”. folklore as both title and musical aesthetic is irrelevant to the actual content of the album, which is just every taylor swift album except set to folk pop and with a bit more cussing, congrats for baby’s first swear. i’ve seen folklore compared to much better bodies of work and even propped up by stans as album of the year, a distinction that rina sawayama and chloe x halle will be battling it out for if there is any justice in the world at all. the fact that she is allowed to do this and still be considered great when this is something that even white male artists are butchered critically for... astounds me. like we all know how well received all of coldplay’s similar sounding albums are.... Come on.

2. i don’t think taylor or her work is particularly feminist and yet for some reason every time she frowns an army of white women brings her kleenex. i’m not saying taylor’s anger has always been unjustified, but her feminism to me has always felt like “i can do whatever a man can do” feminism, which is utterly fucking useless to me as a black woman. it’s only useful to her because as a wealthy, white, straight, cis white woman her ONLY obstacle in life is her gender. and if she just didn’t have that tricky little bitch then maybe people would take her seriously. like, just think about her music video for the man... what was the thesis of that? what was the point of that? with all of her privileges she’d just be gaining a single extra privilege. she’s a blonde blue eyed thin white girl, the world kisses her feet. i have no interest in proving myself any better or any worse than white men, they are not the standard for how a person should be treated, they’re cautionary tales, and white women are too. i think taylor capitalizes off of white woman victimhood, and it’s all over her writing style. even when she’s trying to be empowered, like in mad woman for example, there is this tone to it of victimization, poking the bear, unleashing the beast if you will. she invokes the imagery of salem witches and even more boldly chooses a noose to write about in the song which is..... surely going to be a white tumblr staple for many gifsets to come but holy shit is it hollow. she also tends to come back to teenage memories in her music and she’s thirty. i don’t think about being seventeen unless i’m being held at gunpoint but she seems to think about it All The Time. and part of this is to keep herself young, at least in her music, which only further ingrains this image of fragile teeny bopper taylor into the mind of the listener, fueling her victim image. this imagery and language means nothing because the world always rallies around taylor. even when she was the butt of jokes for not being beyonce (which she is not and never can be) and writing about her exes (which she does), she was largely supported by the industry and by critics. look at how many fucking awards she has!

3. folk and indie and alternative music is in a moment of transition, where musicians of color are getting the chance to really speak about how they’ve been treated in these overwhelmingly white circles and create their own standards and their own voices. and for taylor swift to swoop in with aaron dessner and jack antonoff fantano and almost reassert that mid-2010s indie sound as The Sound of folk pop in the popular consciousness.... it makes me violent! it! makes! me! violent!

4. back to hozier! finally, i wanna talk about white standom, fandom, bandom, and womandom. i often see these very superficial comparisons between hozier and taylor (and hozier and florence and hozier and stevie nicks and hozier and whatever other white woman in fashion) and they frustrate me for more than one reason. i know that hozier has met taylor and said she’s cool, which is nice of him and he’s a nice man, but i’m not a nice man so i’m going to just say it: none of the people who have made those posts have listened to more than four hozier songs and it shows. the reason why this matters is because these posts catch on and create an image and preconception of hozier’s music that is divorced from reality and divorced from his influences and most importantly divorced from the deliberate and reverent blackness of his musical style. hozier has his white male privilege in the industry for sure but he’s not as towering of a giant as taylor and taylor’s music is an unsalted chicken, plain oatmeal, white paint drying on a white wall, a stick of unflavored gum. her music is so white it told me that its dad is a cop. i am, as a black hozier fan, exhausted with having to share space with white women who don’t know why hozier’s music kicks me in my lungs sometimes and think that taylor mentioning a tree ONCE in her 3 minute acoustic guitar slog about whatever suburb is the same when it simply is not. i swear some of you are pretending to love taylor because your friends love her and you don’t wanna be left out of the hot new musical discourse but she’s only the hot new musical discourse CONSTANTLY because she’s a white woman, she’s almost the Perfect white woman. like if someone asked me to describe a white woman, it would be taylor swift. her position at the top of the musical pyramid among people who eclipse her musically, vocally, and lyrically is only allowed because she’s The Perfect White Woman. she’s an ideal. white girls relate to her immediately because of it and now we have this unshakable mob of unbearable white women who think that the world has wronged someone who literally wrote fanfiction about the rich oil heiress white woman who owned her rhode island mansion before her aklghlghdhlgs it drives me fucking NUTS

anyway that’s all. if you made it this far, listen to adia victoria, kaia kater, samantha crain, valerie june, kelsey lu, corinne bailey rae, brittany howard, kimya dawson, japanese breakfast, cold specks, left at london, rhiannon giddens, aisha badru, shea diamond, nadine shah, xenia rubinos, karen o, mirel wagner.... Anyone

#me #taylor swift meanie hour #long post

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hilarychuff · 2 years

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idk if any of this says anything but i word dumped some jon thoughts

i wrote this yesterday and said i’d read it today to see if it said anything but i’ve decided i don’t care to reread it lmao but i also spent too much time enjoying myself trying to link and collect my thoughts yesterday to just delete it so posting for posterity at least

anyway below this point is what i had previously enjoy as is unmoderated should it please you

---

ok sorry to go on another rant again immediately and also one that is again not super on topic but like!!!! i was reading this post from @reginarubie about jon thinking he should’ve stayed in that cave with ygritte and it sent my brain off and it’s sort of similar to what i was just saying in here!!!

@reginarubie talked about it in terms of identity and romancing ygritte’s memory but i also think it’s about like. the weight of the world that jon carries and trying to live up to expectations of what is good/right while also doing what is actually good/right

jon and sansa are very similar people in a lot of ways and one of those ways is in wanting to be like objectively good within the confines of the society they live in but also torn bc they want to do the right thing

this took a super winding path and also i accidentally wrote a whole disorganized essay but more under the cut again

ok so like i was saying, i feel like jon and sansa both want to be like seen as good within the societal standards/norms — which is a conflict for them because they also want to actually be good and they see when those moments are at odds sometimes

start by taking for example arya, who also wants to be objectively good but the difference with her is that she isn’t trying to conform to society’s standards, she is frustrated that society won’t meet her where she’s at. she wants to be seen as good for the things she is naturally good at herself rather than trying to fit into the rigid mold of what society sees as good

sansa and jon are much more willing to contort themselves into being good based on what other people think is good/what they think is available to them

sansa for example — we see how hard sansa is trying to do her best and be polite and courteous and never offend anyone even when she’s scared, like with the hound and ilyn payne on the king’s road in book 1

and we see her at the crossroads unable to figure out whether she’s supposed to align with her betrothed/the crown prince/the queen/her future family (and in doing so lie about what happened/side against her sister) or whether she’s supposed to align with her sister/the truth (and in doing so actively oppose the crown prince/her future betrothed who she has now seen has a mean/vindictive/violent streak). she can’t figure out what the right answer is societally or within herself and so she tries to waffle and come down in the middle/avoid choosing by saying “i don’t remember” and instead she alienates arya and joffrey and cersei and also loses lady

similarly jon has that thought of being like “once jon had meant to prove them wrong, to show his lord father that he could be as good and true a son as robb” but he eventually realizes that won’t work because he doesn’t occupy the same space in society as robb. he can’t be good/true in the same ways, so he has to figure out a different way to be good within his position as a bastard — which is why he decides to go to the wall where he can be good/true/noble/a hero in a different capacity where he’s not held back by his family status

when he longs for the cave i think he is also longing for a moment where he got to just like. take a deep breath and drop the burden of trying to be good and just try to be. instead of grappling with his desire to keep his vows/be a good brother of the night’s watch/sacrifice being seen as good in order to actually be good, he gets to just, for a little bit, live in the moment and think about what he wants or what makes him feel good

and what he has in that moment is a private place where he can just be jon not jon snow not eddard stark’s son not a brother of the night’s watch, just jon

and what jon wants is to eat a girl out!!!!!!!!!!!!! and not think of the ramifications of that just enjoy himself!!!!!! important!!!!! lmfao

but also, right after sex seems to be the only moments where ygritte was like. soft and tender with him, which he seems to like

His vows, her maidenhood, none of it mattered, only the heat of her, the mouth on his, the finger that pinched at his nipple. “Isn’t that sweet?” she said again. “Not so fast, oh, slow, yes, like that. There now, there now, yes, sweet, sweet. You know nothing, Jon Snow, but I can show you. Harder now. Yessss.”

A part, he tried to remind himself afterward. I am playing a part. I had to do it once, to prove I’d abandoned my vows. I had to make her trust me. It need never happen again. He was still a man of the Night’s Watch, and a son of Eddard Stark. He had done what needed to be done, proved what needed to be proven.

The proving had been so sweet, though, and Ygritte had gone to sleep beside him with her head against his chest, and that was sweet as well, dangerously sweet.

it’s the her sleeping with her head on his chest that is “dangerously sweet” to him

and then in the cave

Afterward, she was almost shy, or as shy as Ygritte ever got. “That thing you did,” she said, when they lay together on their piled clothes. “With your … mouth.” She hesitated. “Is that … is it what lords do to their ladies, down in the south?”

and then later in the cave after they have a fairly typical jon-ygritte back and forth teasing conversation (that makes jon uncomfortable when ygritte insists that he stole her first)

She pushed him back down on the clothes and straddled him. “Would you … ” She hesitated.

“What?” he prompted, as the torch began to gutter.

“Do it again?” Ygritte blurted. “With your mouth? The lord’s kiss? And I … I could see if you liked it any.”

By the time the torch burned out, Jon Snow no longer cared.

i don’t think it is irrelevant that the fond memory jon associates with ygritte is one of the few times where she was like sweet with him and not just forward, because it gave him a chance to assert his own agency instead of just following her lead/doing what she wanted or insisted

being with ygritte on ygritte’s terms and in front of all the other wildlings he definitely sexually enjoys but it’s also like necessary for his survival bc her lying that they were together was what got mance to (tentatively) trust jon and some of the other wildlings still very much do not trust jon (and they shouldn’t! he’s still planning to betray them at some point and stay loyal to the watch!). being with ygritte on his own terms and without any outside influence or witnesses allowed that moment to exist just for him as something he wanted, not something he enjoyed despite himself/his guilt

but that aside it’s also a moment where he got to just relax

in the cave he gets to exist without thinking about how he’s a) betraying his vows by being with ygritte b) betraying ygritte by staying loyal to the watch

in the cave, both the watch and the rest of the wildlings don’t exist to them. for jon, their reality outside of the cave still exists, but it can briefly disappear for every moment he decides to stay in the cave longer

when the torch starts to go out, reality sets in for jon, and he suggests that it’s time to go — but ygritte is like “what if we didn’t?” and he’s like…. ok excellent point.

but then the guilt sets in AGAIN and they start to leave AGAIN and then AGAIN they’re like “what if we didn’t?”

“We had best go up. The torch is almost done.”

“Is the crow afeared o’ Gendel’s children?” she said, with a grin. “It’s only a little way up, and I’m not done with you, Jon Snow.” She pushed him back down on the clothes and straddled him. “Would you … ” She hesitated.

“What?” he prompted, as the torch began to gutter.

“Do it again?” Ygritte blurted. “With your mouth? The lord’s kiss? And I … I could see if you liked it any.”

By the time the torch burned out, Jon Snow no longer cared.

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good?

The grotto was pitch-dark by the time they finished. The only light was the dim glow of the passage back up to the larger cavern, where a score of fires burned. They were soon fumbling and bumping into each other as they tried to dress in the dark. Ygritte stumbled into the pool and screeched at the cold of the water. When Jon laughed, she pulled him in too. They wrestled and splashed in the dark, and then she was in his arms again, and it turned out they were not finished after all.

“Jon Snow,” she told him, when he’d spent his seed inside her, “don’t move now, sweet. I like the feel of you in there, I do. Let’s not go back t’ Styr and Jarl. Let’s go down inside, and join up with Gendel’s children. I don’t ever want t’ leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever.”

as long as they stay in the cave, they keep a tough reality and the responsibilities that come with it at bay and they just get to have the part that feels good guilt-free, and ygritte is like “what if we could always live down here guilt free”

jon knows it’s not realistic (and so does ygritte and they do eventually leave obviously) but it’s the fantasy that he’s thinking of

and i think it’s similar to sansa thinking back to winterfell like “i thought my song was just starting when i left home but it turns out it was ending.” in king’s landing she had to always be careful what she did/said/who she trusted to try and survive joffrey, and even when she is in the vale she knows she can’t let her guard down. that’s where we get the “i never asked to play the game of thrones, one slip and i am dead” quote

she’s reflecting back on a time when she didn��t have to live that way. it’s not that she thought everything was so perfect at the time when she was there, because back when she was there she thought her life was boring and that the adventure would start when she one day went south to find love, it’s that hindsight allows her to look back on it and be like “remember when i was operating at a time when the stakes were actually way fucking lower and i didn’t have to weigh every possible outcome and think one million thoughts before making each decision”

basically just “remember when it was easy to feel good and i didn’t have to try so hard”

i mean because also remember the context for when jon is thinking about the cave/ygritte

Bastard children were born from lust and lies, men said; their nature was wanton and treacherous. Once Jon had meant to prove them wrong, to show his lord father that he could be as good and true a son as Robb. I made a botch of that. Robb had become a hero king; if Jon was remembered at all, it would be as a turncloak, an oathbreaker, and a murderer. He was glad that Lord Eddard was not alive to see his shame. I should have stayed in that cave with Ygritte. If there was a life beyond this one, he hoped to tell her that. She will claw my face the way the eagle did, and curse me for a coward, but I'll tell her all the same. He flexed his sword hand, as Maester Aemon had taught him. The habit had become part of him, and he would need his fingers to be limber to have even half a chance of murdering Mance Rayder.

he’s preparing to go talk to mance rayder after alliser thorne and janos slynt sent him there basically imagining it to be his execution

here is them sending him

“That old maester says I cannot hang you,” Slynt declared.

… “Still,” Slynt said, “I will not have it said that Janos Slynt hanged a man unjustly. I will not. I have decided to give you one last chance to prove you are as loyal as you claim, Lord Snow. One last chance to do your duty, yes!” He stood. “Mance Rayder wants to parley with us. He knows he has no chance now that Janos Slynt has come, so he wants to talk, this King-beyond-the-Wall. But the man is craven, and will not come to us. No doubt he knows I’d hang him. Hang him by his feet from the top of the Wall, on a rope two hundred feet long! But he will not come. He asks that we send an envoy to him.” “We’re sending you, Lord Snow.” Ser Alliser smiled.

basically “i want to hang you but i’m not allowed and i thought about doing it anyway but then i came up with a mission that will kill you without smearing my own name or honor" and jon knows it and thinks of it as a suicide mission

The trap had teeth. … Whether he slew Mance or only tried and failed, the free folk would kill him.

of course, he could not accept the mission and just accept the consequences, but it seems like those consequences are possibly also just die

“He asked for an envoy, we are sending one,” said Slynt. “If you are too craven to face this turncloak king, we can return you to your ice cell. This time without the furs, I think. Yes.”

reads to me as good chances he might freeze to death or they at least mean for him to

but regardless even if it was survivable they also know that he would not choose that bc targeting his honor is the real way to hit him where it hurts. here’s the larger quote

“He asked for an envoy, we are sending one,” said Slynt. “If you are too craven to face this turncloak king, we can return you to your ice cell. This time without the furs, I think. Yes.”

“No need for that, my lord,” said Ser Alliser. “Lord Snow will do as we ask. He wants to show us that he is no turncloak. He wants to prove himself a loyal man of the Night’s Watch.”

Thorne was much the more clever of the two, Jon realized; this had his stink all over it. He was trapped.

he even basically admits it to them that they got him but also gets in his own “absolutely fuck you guys” with it. that moment is right before he maybe fully appreciates that it’s fully a suicide mission (perhaps there is a world in which he is sent to treat with mance, mance tells him to fuck off, and he is allowed to safely return to the wall but with the wildlings and the night’s watch still at a stand off) but once he knows the full stakes he still makes the choice to go, so what he says stands

"I’ll go,“ he said in a clipped, curt voice.

"M'lord,” Janos Slynt reminded him. “You’ll address me-”

“I’ll go, my lord. But you are making a mistake, my lord. You are sending the wrong man, my lord. Just the sight of me is going to anger Mance. My lord would have a better chance of reaching terms if he sent-”

“Terms?” Ser Alliser chuckled.

“Janos Slynt does not make terms with lawless savages, Lord Snow. No, he does not.”

“We’re not sending you to talk with Mance Rayder,” Ser Alliser said. “We’re sending you to kill him.”

so again, jon knows there are really no options BUT to die

The trap had teeth. … Whether he slew Mance or only tried and failed, the free folk would kill him. Even desertion was impossible, if he’d been so inclined; to Mance he was a proven liar and betrayer.

essentially, the sum total of his options are

accept the mission, actually attempt to kill mance or succeed at doing it, then get killed himself (dead)

accept the mission as a ruse, betray the night’s watch by trying to defect to save himself, and then either get killed by the wildlings or rejected by them and killed by the night’s watch as a traitor (dead)

reject the mission and freeze to death in an ice cell (dead)

reject the mission and be seen as a turncloak to the night’s watch and executed by janos slynt and alliser thorne (dead)

so it’s interesting because he’s also reflecting on his honor/trying to be good/trying to be seen by others as good — and therefore just trying to pick the most honorable death and face it bravely. and he picks the one that says he was never a turncloak in the first place and that he was always loyal to the night’s watch even while with the wildlings, sort of undoing his original “sin” if you will (the option that best frames him as societally good)

but it’s also interesting because he’s not dumb. and he’s not that proud or self-centered. and he realizes it’s not just his honor on the line, it’s also everybody’s lives, because mance reveals/claims he has the horn and is therefore an actual threat to the wall and also he really is trying to come to terms in order to save the wildlings from the others

but the options for how that might shake out are

mance tries to come to terms, jon doesn’t bother to bring them back and just does his duty to try to/actually kill mance, leaving all the wildlings to die either fighting the watch or being killed by the others (everybody north of the wall dies, including jon)

mance tries to come to terms, the night’s watch says no, then mance uses the horn to take the wall down to put as much distance as he can between the wildlings and the others but ultimately nobody gets to have the wall between them and the danger (everybody north and south of the wall dies, including jon)

mance and the night’s watch come to terms and the watch lets them pass through to put the wall in between them and the others (yay, everybody lives)

except jon knows that last one isn’t really an option because alliser thorne and janos slynt would never go for it

He could carry the message back to Castle Black and tell them of the horn, but if he left Mance still alive Lord Janos and Ser Alliser would seize on that as proof that he was a turncloak.

he does consider it though!!!! which is super interesting because of what he thinks about in that same “the trap has teeth” quote when qhorin halfhand talked to him about honor.

The trap had teeth. With Maester Aemon insisting on Jon’s innocence, Lord Janos had not dared to leave him in the ice to die. This was better. “Our honor means no more than our lives, so long as the realm is safe,” Qhorin Halfhand had said in the Frostfangs. He must remember that.

qhorin commanded him to yield to the wildlings and do whatever the wildlings tell him to do so that he can survive to figure out what they’re after and eventually bring word home to the watch. he basically says that in order to best serve the watch jon has to be willing to sacrifice his honor and betray the watch.

he says “being a man of the night’s watch means you would give up your life for the safety of the realm” but just as importantly “being a man of the night’s watch means you would give up your honor for the safety of the realm too”

if you ask me the only reason jon doesn’t do that is because it wouldn’t work

like he says, janos slynt and alliser thorne would use that excuse to call him a traitor, and if he dies branded as a traitor for not following through on the order he was given, are they really going to consider or even hear out any proposal he brings them with any weight???? no!!!

so he goes into the whole thing thinking “i am going to die, i just have to pick the best way to die, god it is tiring figuring out what that is.” here’s more of the quote

A grim day. Jon Snow wrapped gloved hands around the bars and held tight as the wind hammered at the cage once more. When he looked straight down past his feet, the ground was lost in shadow, as if he were being lowered into some bottomless pit. Well, death is a bottomless pit of sorts, he reflected, and when this day’s work is done my name will be shadowed forever.

I should have stayed in that cave with Ygritte.

i.e. “remember when there was one moment in which i was able to step out from underneath the constant weight of trying to do the right thing and trying to figure out what the right thing is and i was able to just exist in that moment”

and then when he gets met with the revelation about the horn it is revealed that he actually doesn’t even get to just die on his own terms. if he dies, mance uses the horn to bring down the wall and everybody is screwed. if he wants to try and help the wildlings survive the others he has to keep living and that’s just as hard. he thinks maybe he can try to break the horn and buy himself some time but then the battle interrupts everything

A thousand thoughts flickered through Jon’s head. If I can destroy the horn, smash it here and now… but before he could begin to think that through, he heard the low moan of some other horn, made faint by the tent’s hide walls.

thankfully the battle actually does buy him some time!!!

but then he uses that time to try and save someone vulnerable still

mance has to ride off, but he tells varamyr to stay and protect dalla and keep an eye on jon. varamyr then is incapacitated by his eagle being set on fire, which both means that jon has the opportunity to flee but also that nobody is protecting dalla other than val, who needs to be the midwife.

“Gods,” Val whispered, “gods, why are they doing this?”

“Go inside the tent and stay with Dalla. It’s not safe out here.” It wouldn’t be a great deal safer inside, but she didn’t need to hear that.

“I need to find the midwife,” Val said.

“You’re the midwife. I’ll stay here until Mance comes back.”

he says that no one is fucking with him because the battle is distracting everyone and even the people that look at him don’t dare to bother him with longclaw, but even though that presumably also means nobody would fuck with him if he used that moment to escape, he doesn’t. even when he sees that the battle is done and the wildlings are over powered, he stays with dalla

Wildlings streamed past, women and children running from the battle, some with men hurrying them along. A few of them gave Jon dark looks but Longclaw was in his hand, and no one troubled him.

…

It’s done, Jon thought, they’re breaking.

…

When the trumpets blew again and the knights charged, the name they cried was “Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!”

Jon turned away, and went inside the tent.

interestingly enough, though, the choice that he makes in the heat of that moment (to protect dalla while she’s in labor and then her baby) is what ends up protecting him and saving his life later on

we don’t see it from jon’s perspective, though, we see it from sam’s

Jon had done more than well himself, to hear Grenn tell it. Yet even capturing the Horn of Winter and a wildling prince had not been enough for Ser Alliser Thorne and his friends, who still named him turncloak. Though Maester Aemon said his wound was healing well, Jon bore other scars, deeper than the ones around his eye. He grieves for his wildling girl, and for his brothers.

even so jon denies that he did it strategically and basically says he only did it because it was the right thing to do even if it was maybe the stupid thing to do

“Marsh has removed me from duty, for fear that I’m still a turncloak.”

“It’s only a few who believe that,” Sam assured [Jon]. “Ser Alliser and his friends. Most of the brothers know better. King Stannis knows as well, I’ll wager. You brought him the Horn of Winter and captured Mance Rayder’s son.”

“All I did was protect Val and the babe against looters when the wildlings fled, and keep them there until the rangers found us. I never captured anyone. King Stannis keeps his men well in hand, that’s plain. He lets them plunder some, but I’ve only heard of three wildling women being raped, and the men who did it have all been gelded. I suppose I should have been killing the free folk as they ran. Ser Alliser has been putting it about that the only time I bared my sword was to defend our foes. I failed to kill Mance Rayder because I was in league with him, he says.”

idk this got very long and out of hand but i just think jon is a very good boy

and at every opportunity he is pretty much mostly trying to do what he thinks is the right thing to do even if it comes at his own expense, whether that’s sacrificing his life or his honor

to me the “i wish i stayed in the cave with ygritte” is just him wishing for a moment that things could be easy and good, but we know that he’ll choose the right path even when it’s hard pretty much every time because he continues to do just that at every opportunity in the grand scheme but also he is only human

sometimes a guy just needs to decompress and have a fuckathon in a cave, you know????????????

i think in that moment that specific “god i wish i could relax” thought is about the cave because the cave with ygritte specifically focused on opting out of choosing between the wildlings and the watch and being sent to talk to mance means he’s once again in a position to choose between the wildlings and the watch, so those moments are thematically super linked

but like op says, jon never mentions the cave again, and when he thinks of ygritte he mainly just thinks “you know nothing jon snow,” again showing how he is really struggling to always make the right choice and figure out what that is but feeling like it is hard and he doesn’t know what to do and he’s questioning himself but doing his best

i think in the future there’s a good chance we’ll get more “god i wish i could relax” style thoughts that will be focused on other memories because the central conflicts he’s torn between in the moment will be different. if he reunites with sansa and it’s at all similar to how it was in the show, maybe his “i’m tired of fighting” in response to sansa’s “let’s retake winterfell” will be that moment

“can’t we just sit here and enjoy being reunited and avoid all of our responsibilities (to the north, to the watch, to the free folk, to the fight for survival against the others) instead of immediately having to go to war again”

it will be interesting bc like i said, jon and sansa are super similar, so she very well may also have that feeling of “god it is so tiring trying to calculate what i am meant to do all the time”

#jonsa meta

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tuanyiems · 4 years

Text

Champagne Truffles

Yugyeom x Reader (f) It’s a little angsty at the start oops but still this is a fluffy one, it’s me after all words: 4k plot: it’s your anniversary date night and he’s determined to make this a night you’ll never forget, established relationship!au a/n – Forgive this unedited piece, it’s 3am rn lulz I spent too much time gushing over got7 I had to take out the smut content to make the deadline lol but anyways, make sure to stream Last Piece as you’re reading!!! And this concludes my November of posting exclusively for Yugyeom! (It still counts as November if I haven’t slept yet!) And what a beautiful month it was! Thank you for following me on this Chocolatier journey, I’m sure these two will show up again in a drabble or two in the future. But until, please enjoy and give got7’s new album a listen if you haven’t already. It truly is another masterpiece album c’: // part of Le Chocolatier drabble series, which you can find the masterlist for in my blog. feel free to read this as a one-shot or part of the series, in any order you want <3

“So, how was work today?” you start, climbing into bed where Yugyeom is already tucked in and scrolling on his phone. The bright light illuminates his face, and you pause, admiring his profile as you wait for him to answer.

But Yugyeom only shrugs, not even bothering to look at you. You grab your own phone from your nightstand, twisting it awkwardly around in your hands as you think of something else to say.

“It’s getting colder these days, isn’t it?” you ask softly, staring down at your phone as you flip it once more and watch it light up to a picture of you and Yugyeom at a carnival. It was one of those summertime, pop-up fairs. Yugyeom had convinced you to call in sick and the two of you made a trip an hour out from the city to play like two teenagers in love.

Your lips twist as you press your thumb into the screen where Yugyeom is holding your hand in his. Even when your hands were getting clammy from the summer heat and the nerves of waiting in line for the pirate ship, he had refused to let go.

“Nice try,” he had scoffed, before lifting his hand to kiss the back of yours. “If I let you go for even a second, you’ll definitely find a way to hurt yourself.”

You rolled your eyes, “You’re so protective for the weirdest things.”

“Weird? Who was the one who fractured their wrist while bowling?”

You looked away, pretending not to hear.

“And who’s the girl who got a concussion while walking in a department store, hmm?”

“Hey! That time wasn’t my fault!” you pouted, allowing yourself to be tugged along as the line moved up. “Who puts such heavy items on the top shelf anyways?”

“But what normal person climbs the shelves?!”

“An! Independent! Woman!” You defended, slapping his chest with your free hand with each word.

He only laughed, eyes shining down on you. “You could’ve called for help, or oh I don’t know, asked your boyfriend to get it for you? I mean, what else is my height good for?”

“Eye candy, of course!”

“I’m just a piece of meat to you, aren’t I?” he joked, bumping you by the hip before quickly pulling you back into his chest.

You giggled, “Oh course not, babe. I’m obviously using you for our future offspring too. It’s my gracious consideration for future generations.”

“Future offspring?” Yugyeom’s cheeks blushed a rosy hue and as soon as you noticed, you followed suit.

“I mean! Uh-well…if…” you sucked in a breath, forcing your heart to calm. “Anyways, if they end up inheriting your height and my butterfingers, it’ll end up being a disservice to society actually.”

He chuckled, hand squeezing yours. “Probably,” he mused softly, cheeks still warm with daydreams.

When you turn your phone again, the screen flickers awake and there is his blushing face again, eyes twinkling with thoughts of the future…or, that’s what you always thought he was imagining when you look at this photo, but maybe you were just being delusional. It could’ve just been the summer heat making him flush.

The Yugyeom from that memory and the one sitting next to you feel like completely different people. You don’t understand what happened, only a few months had passed since that day. At first, you had summed up his quiet behavior to the changing season. It’s not like Yugyeom had never been quiet or moody before, but never has he iced you out like this for so long.

It makes you nervous actually. In two days, it’ll be your three-year anniversary. This is supposed to be a good thing of course, but in the back of your mind sits the nervous belief that something bad will happen on that day.

None of your previous relationships have ever lasted longer than a year. You and Yugyeom were always so stable that you never thought this would be a problem, but his sudden changes have made you more superstitious.

“Baby?” you utter softly, touching his wrist to put his phone down. He looks over but doesn’t say a word. “Um, I was wondering how you wanted to spend this Saturday? We haven’t really talked about it, so…”

Your voice trails. He looks at you almost fiercely, a slight frown on his lips.

You swallow. “Not that we have to do anything. Maybe we could just have a quiet day inside. We can marathon that anime you really like! What was the name again? With the cute pig?”

“Seven Deadly Sins,” he answers, looking back at his phone.

“Yeah, that one!” you say, voice much brighter than how you feel. “But…I was just suggesting. We can do what you want to do. Did you have something in mind? Food you’re craving?”

Yugyeom sighs, turning on his side to turn the lamp off. “It’s late, babe, let’s decide later.”

“Oh, okay.”

In the darkness, your worries fester though.

“Baby?” you whisper cautiously. Quietly, you curl against his back, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Goodnight, Gyeom.”

A moment passes before he twists in your arms and pulls you to his chest. You smile, looking up even though you can barely make out his features in the darkness.

“Night baby, I love you,” he presses a kiss to your forehead, and you find yourself relaxing in his arms.

That night you fall into a sleep so good, you end up missing your alarm.

Rushing around the apartment in only a forest green blouse and your nude hip huggers, you unpack your purse for the fifth time that morning.

“Babe, have you seen my charger?” You yell from the bedroom.

“It’s not in your purse?” Yugyeom calls from inside the bathroom.

You huff, throwing the items haphazardly back into your bag. “No!”

“Just take mines!”

“Thank you!”

Rounding the bed, you make your way to Yugyeom’s nightstand. Unlike your own though, his drawer is a disorganized mess. You furrow your brows, shifting through the old mail and random trinkets.

“How does he find anything in here?” you mutter, stuffing your hand to the back and hoping the wire was buried somewhere there.

“Y/N!” Yugyeoms voice booms from behind you. You jump in surprise. “Why are you going through my drawer?”

He snatches your hand out and slams his drawer shut.

“I-” You try to blink back your surprise. “I was just looking for the charger.”

He let out an exasperated sigh, bending behind the nightstand, and pulls the wire out.

“Here,” he tosses it into your hand before walking to your shared closet. “And don’t go through my things.”

Gaze on his back, you place the charger into your purse meekly. Grabbing your cream trousers from the bed, you quietly step into them as Yugyeom gets dressed too.

“Sorry,” you mumble when he finally turns to you.

He lets out a sigh, threading his fingers between yours. His thumb rubs over your hand gently. “I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to yell.”

“Jackson,” you slide on your rolling chair towards your cubicle buddy, cup of hot chocolate between both palms.

“Uh oh,” Jackson looks at you once before twisting dramatically in his chair. “You’ve got the frowny face!”

“Frowny face?” Jinyoung pokes his head into your cubicle. Seeing your expression, he immediately walks into your cubicle, leaning onto Jackson’s desk. “Who do we need to hurt?”

“No one,” you sulk, stirring your drink. “I just had a question.”

“It was Susan, wasn’t it? I hate her,” Jinyoung scoffs, crossing his arms. Jackson chuckles, nudging him to stop.

“No, I was just wondering,” you pause, looking at your cream flats. “What are some signs when a guy no longer loves you?”

“I’m going to kill Yugyeom.”

“Why is murder always your go-to?” Jackson jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “It can’t be that bad, the last time I saw Yugyeom he was madly in love with you!”

“I just…I don’t know…it’s a feeling,” you frown, gut twisting as you’re speaking the words aloud. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Well, what signs have you been getting from Yugyeom?” Jinyoung asks.

“He’s just gotten quieter in the last couple of months. Sometimes it feels like he’s hiding something from me. Like last night, he was mostly on his phone even though I was trying to talk to him.”

“On his phone doing what?”

You tilt your head, shrugging. “I don’t know, Instagram? Twitter? But that’s not the point.”

“Wait, Instagram or Twitter, Y/N? Was he scrolling through news or was he sliding into DMs? These are important details,” Jinyoung interrupts. Both you and Jackson look at him with wide eyes.

You feel your heart jump to your throat. “Y-you think…maybe, he’s c-cheating on me?”

That thought had never even occurred to you as a possibility but now that you hear it…Your vision starts to blur.

“Oh my gosh, Y/N!” Jackson slaps Jinyoung’s thigh, pushing him away as he hurries to put an arm over your shoulder. “Jinyoung was just asking stupid questions. Yugyeom’s not that kind of guy.”

“But what if he’s right?” you mumble. “This morning I was looking in his drawer to borrow his charger and he yelled at me for going through his things. He’s never done that before! And every time I ask about his day, he won’t really tell me anything.”

You sniffle, rushing to wipe your falling tears.

“Don’t cry, Y/N,” Jinyoung pats your hand softly. “You’re probably just spiraling right now. I don’t know Yugyeom the way you do. He was probably just scrolling through pictures of tattoo art or something.”

“But he’s so handsome and amazing, he could have any girl he wants. What if he’s found someone better? Someone who doesn’t burn toast or, or-”

“Hey,” Jackson squeezes your arm with a frown. “We don’t tolerate that kind of talk in this house.”

“House?” Jinyoung chuckles.

“Our cubicle home!” Jackson clarifies, making you smile.

“Ah, I see a smile,” Jinyoung announces, making your lips stretch wider.

“My makeup is running, isn’t it?” you laugh weakly.

“Yeah, you’re a mess,” Jinyoung teases.

“Good time to ask Susan for an early weekend,” Jackson nudges you playfully.

“Yeah, leave early and go have a real conversation with Yugyeom about how you’re feeling. No use in holding things in if it’s just going to make you cry anyways.”

“Someone’s crying?” Susan, your project manager, pokes her head into your cubicle. When she sees your state, she gasps. “Y/N, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

“I’m okay,” you flush with embarrassment.

“Nonsense, you should let her start the weekend early, Susan,” Jinyoung states before smiling at her sweetly. “And as her favorite co-workers, you should let us join her!”

“Nice try, Jinyoung,” she laughs goodheartedly, before turning to you. “You two have to stay, but Y/N, you’re free to go. Come back Monday, feeling better, okay?”

She sends you a wink before striding off.

“I hate her so much,” Jinyoung grumbles.

“You gotta stop lying to yourself, man,” Jackson laughs. He turns to you and pulls you into a hug. “Go and talk to him, Y/N. The longer you wait it out, the longer you’ll just be running circles in your head.”

You nod, convinced. “Alright, I’ll do that. Thanks guys.”

“Call me if you need a hitman!” Jinyoung calls as you rush out of the cubicle.

“Hey, why are you calling at this hour?”

“I just missed you,” you hum into the phone, as you walk down the familiar sidewalk towards your favorite chocolate store. “How’s work?”

“Um, actually,” there’s a pause on the other line before he continues, “It’s kind of busy. Probably be home late today.”

“Oh, okay,” you put on a tone of disappointment as you round the corner to the store. You snicker to yourself. Maybe surprising him at work and helping him with the shop will pick his mood up.

“Yeah, sorry, but you know this time of year. People like to eat chocolates.”

You smile to yourself, slowing your step as you reach the storefront. “Yeah, I know. It’s how I met you.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” you chuckle.

“Anyways, I really have to go now.”

“O-” You freeze, staring into the window of the chocolate store. “Okay.”

“Bye,” Yugyeom doesn’t wait for you to reply before he cuts off the line. You barely register the dead phone line though. You gulp, watching as your best friend, Jenny, pulls Yugyeom into a tight hug between the counter. In her arms, he smiles with full cheeks.

Stepping back, you cross the street in a rush, collapsing into a seat outside the French café across from Yugyeom’s store before your legs give out entirely.

This doesn’t make sense. While Jenny was one of your closest friends, she and Yugyeom weren’t especially close. This was partially due to the fact that Jenny lives in another city two hours away from yours. Yugyeom has never expressed any interest in spending time with your friends unless you were with him, and so things just don’t add up.

Jenny never sent you a text that she’d be in town, especially on a Friday. Just as you’re about to go through the text messages in your phone just in case, you see the door of the chocolate store open and out walks Yugyeom and Jenny. They’re so deep in their own conversation, they don’t even glance at you, right across the street from them.

You take in a breath, shaking your head. This just doesn’t make sense. Getting up again, you make your way down the street, watching them from across. Maybe Jenny needed a special order of chocolates. Was there a birthday you were forgetting?

You stop in your tracks, watching as Jenny practically jumping with excitement alongside Yugyeom. She must’ve said something funny, because he tilts his head back, mouth open wide, the same way he always laughs at you when you make a stupid joke.

Shaking your head again, you continue your steps. No, Jenny is a trusted friend. You’ve known her since high school. But the longer you follow, the more your stomach starts to hurt. It’s exactly because you’ve known Jenny for so long that you know she would never be this animated with your boyfriend.

Your chest hurt at just the thought, but you can’t help it from echoing in your brain. That the two of them look too comfortable—like they’ve been meeting for a while.

Biting your lip hard, you stop in your tracks again and force yourself to turn around. No, this just didn’t add up. And you didn’t want to trail after them like some kind of stalker.

You trust Yugyeom and you trust Jenny.

Hailing the nearest cab, you enter with a huff. It was like Jinyoung said, you were probably just spiraling.

“I’m home,” Yugyeom calls softly as he enters the house. You freeze in your seat at the kitchen table, despite having sat there for three hours for this very moment.

“Hey,” Yugyeom peeks his head into the kitchen, looking at you with furrowed eyes. “What are you doing just sitting here by yourself?”

You chuckle dryly, trying to shake off your nerves. “Oh, I guess I was just spacing out.”

He smiles at you before sitting down in the chair across from you. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay,” you lie. “How was work?”

“It was fine. Busy as usual,” Yugyeom shrugs. “What did you have for dinner?”

“I made pasta. There’s leftovers in the fridge for you.”

“It’s okay, I’m stuffed already.”

“Oh? You ate?”

Yugyeom’s eyes grow wide before he is blinking away, running his fingers through his hair. “Uh, yeah, um…Bambam, he bought me dinner.”

“That was nice of him,” you mumble. You breathe loudly, trying to keep yourself collected despite feeling like you were going to vomit with each second that passes.

He chuckles before raising his voice abruptly. “Anyways! Let’s talk about tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow? Did you have something in mind?” your chest jolts with hope.

“Actually, I was thinking you could have a girl’s day with Jenny! And then we could do something in the evening.”

“Jenny’s in town?” you watch him closely, noticing the way he licks at his lips and swallows.

“Oh! Yeah! I uh, I heard it from Bam. He must’ve seen a story update from her or something.”

You dig your nail into the cuticle bed of your thumbs as you listen to him lie straight to your face.

“Jenny didn’t text me though. She probably has something else going on this weekend.”

“Nope!” Yugyeom whips, smiling far too big for this conversation. “I messaged her about tomorrow already.”

“So, you want me to hang out with Jenny…on our anniversary?” You question slowly.

Yugyeom looks away, his ears flushed. He brushes at your hand. “Yeah, you two should catch up, get your nails done or something. You should really stop doing this to your nails.”

You look to your hands, your nail beds raw.

“I’m tired,” you mutter, getting up from your seat first. “I’m gonna go to bed first.”

“Oh, okay…well, just remember, you and Jenny at noon!”

You don’t answer.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Jenny turns to you with concern as the nail technician keeps her right hand hostage. “Is something bothering you?”

“Why are you in town again?” you ask, eyes concentrated on the deep red shade that your nail tech paints onto your fingernails.

“Oh!” In your peripheral, you can see her noticeably jolt. “I came for a conference on Friday and when Yugyeom reached out to me I decided to stay for the weekend.”

“A conference, huh?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, turning back to her technician. “You know how much the beauty industry loves their conventions.”

“Must’ve been draining.”

“Yeah, totally. That’s why I didn’t text you I was in town. I was completely exhausted by the end of it that I completely forgot.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Mhm,” she turns back to you. “You should add a gold accent. Gold accent, please!”

Your nail tech nods, bringing out another tray of gold embellishment from underneath her desk. You turn your head, hearing the click of Jenny’s nails on the screen of her phone. There’s a bright smile on her face and it makes you want to burst into tears on the spot.

At first you thought maybe the two of them planned for Jenny to reveal the truth to you. You didn’t think Yugyeom was a coward but lately, none of the things you thought before make sense anymore. However, after hours spent with Jenny, all you’ve managed was getting prettier nails and lots of lies from who you thought was your best friend.

“Gorgeous,” Jenny coos, leaning in to admire your fingers.

“Yeah,” you murmur half-heartedly, feeling your spirit fully deplete.

No confession comes. No explanation. When evening comes, Jenny sends you right back home. Your walk up to the apartment is slow. This is it, isn’t it? Gyeom needed time to prepare himself to break up with you. It’s why he didn’t want to be with you for your anniversary.

Your stomach sinks when you get to your door. Was this your last time ever entering? Where were you going to move to?

As the familiar tone of the keypad rings in your ear, hot tears prick at your eyes. Stepping into the house, your vision blurs as you step through the hallway and into the kitchen. Yugyeom is standing at the stove when he turns to you with a smile.

“You’re back!” he greets you. When you hear his laughter, tears spill down your cheeks. “Crying already, babe? You haven’t even tasted it.”

Hiccupping, you try to calm yourself but the more you try to contain the tears, the more your chest fills with fear and floods you. You cry even harder, a terrible wail leaving your throat.

The sound of tin crashes onto the floor and quickly, you are enveloped in Yugyeom’s warmth. The feeling only makes you more sick and you bury your face into his chest, crying harder. Your last embrace. Your last time being comforted by him. The thoughts send sharp pains straight to your chest.

Yugyeom holds you tight against him, taking the impact of your shaking body to his chest. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

It’s a long time before you feel calm enough to stand on your own. When you finally do, stepping back from his arms, you feel yourself tearing up again from seeing the concern on his face.

“What happened?” he whispers, fingers reaching out for yours.

You pull away though, taking another step back.

“Yugyeom,” your voice comes out shaky but determined. “Are we breaking up?”

Tears spill again.

Yugyeom looks at you with a shocked expression. “What? Where is this coming from?”

“You don’t love me anymore,” you cry.

“Of course I do! What are you talking about?”

“Then why did you lie to me?” You look at him sharply, gaze severe despite the shine of tears. He doesn’t say anything, and the silence breaks your heart.

Lips quivering, you sit down at the kitchen table. “You lied to me. Jenny lied to me…H-how long? How long have you been doing this?”

“Baby,” Yugyeom whispers, bending to the floor. He rests his hands on your thighs, looking up at you and there are tears in his eyes two. “Baby…baby, you’ve got this all wrong.”

“Even if it’s not Jenny, it’s still not me, is it?” you whimper, tears spilling down your chin. They splatter on the back of his hands. “You don’t talk to me anymore. You don’t want to share anything with me. Not even stories about your day.”

Tears run down Yugyeom’s cheeks as he presses a kiss to your knee.

“No, no, baby, you’re wrong.”

You sniff, cupping your palm to his wet cheek. “I want to be wrong. Please prove me wrong, Gyeom.”

“I was trying to keep it a secret,” he scoffs to himself, shaking his head. “I was planning this for months.”

“Planning?”

“I was so afraid I’d accidentally let it slip, or that you’d find it.”

You frown, brows furrowing in confusion now. “Find what, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom takes in a deep breath, breaking into a gentle smile as he glances down at the kitchen floor. Following his gaze, you realize he had dropped a tray of chocolates earlier.

“Chocolates?”

“Champagne Truffles,” he tells you, reaching down to grab one.

“You…you made a new recipe?”

Yugyeom lets out a loud sigh. “Good thing I marked it.”

You look at him, bewildered. He chuckles softly, turning to you again.

“I’m not going to break up with you, baby,” he laughs, digging his thumb into the spine of the chocolate until it bursts with a pop. “I’m trying to spend my whole life with you.”

Your hands to fly to your mouth in surprise as a fresh wave of tears spring to your eyes. He drops the chocolate shell to the floor, holding onto the shining gold band with shaking hands.

“Every day since meeting you,” his voice breaks and you cry, hands coming to cup his face as tears run down his cheeks too. “I thought I had a good life, and then I met you…And then I realized, I was missing everything before you came into my life.”

“Gyeom,”

He sniffs, breaking into a smile as more tears fall from his eyes. “Baby, you’re my everything. You’re the first person I want to tell anything to. You don’t know how hard it’s been trying to keep this from you.”

You laugh with him, “And Jenny.”

He nods. “She was helping me pick out the ring, plan the event, pick the flowers.”

You grin, pressing your forehead to his. “You bought me flowers!”

He laughs, nose brushing softly against yours. “Yeah, and a ring too…if you want it.”

“I do, I do, I do,” you giggle against him as your tears wet his cheek.

He chuckles, breath ghosting your lips.

“Not yet, baby, that one’s for the wedding,” he chuckles and you laugh with him.

“Either way, it’s I do.”

#got7 scenarios #got7 imagines #got7 reactions #kim yugyeom #got7 series #fluff #angst #writing #fanfiction #le chocolatier series

80 notes · View notes

writing-fool · 4 years

Text

mlqc | let’s hit rewind

What kind of videos would the MLQC guys make if they were YouTubers? I think this is a youtube!au, but to be fair, Kiro probably has a YouTube channel in canon. See it as you will? I won’t really talk about their life outside of YT/internet so you can decide for yourself whether this is an AU or not, and whether they’re a full-time YouTuber or not.

As always, enjoy, and requests are open!

Love,

Warning(s): none

Victor

Victor probably has a cooking channel

scratch that. he absolutely starts as one of those Aesthetic™ cooking channels like Cooking tree, HANSE, Sweet The MI or Nino’s Home.

his channel is called Souvenir because he’s not THAT original you can’t expect everything from a man, people.

he starts off doing these voiceless cooking videos, but after a voice and face reveal at 2 million followers where he cooks something for his followers as a thanks...well, who wouldn’t want more of that sultry voice and glorious face

currently has about 4 million subscribers

Victor’s channel is kind of comparable to Junskitchen, a rather relaxed, casual atmosphere combined with exquisite, refined cuisine

if he feels like it, he does a voice-over, otherwise he just puts calm jazz, blues or r&b over his cooking

HAS done an ASMR special. low-key dislikes the video because he has to whisper voice-overs but people LOVE it

likes making all kinds of foods, but his channel features quite a lot of sweet foods and desserts because a certain dummy has a sweet tooth

a pretty popular feature during quarantine is Cooking w/ Sou, essentially a live stream where Sou (aka Victor) cooks a whole three-course meal while talking to and instructing his followers

his subscribers notice that he doesn’t really need editing to look clean during cooking because his technique is IMMACULATE

by the end, he’s made a themed dinner for two...which always raises a question mark

is Sou single? does he have a roommate? a girlfriend? a kid? WHAT?

after getting your explicit permission, Victor addresses the situation in one of his recent Q&As

“Why do I always make dinner for two? I have a fiancée, she edits my videos in her spare time. She works as a producer. *you wave your hand over the lens* Dummy.” he breezes over it like it’s no big deal even though he’s a tad nervous about exposing something personal like this

his fans blow up the internet, baffled but not entirely surprised that someone like Sou isn’t a bachelor

of course, some leave hate under the video honestly, people who do this to celebs who start dating are HORRIBLE

most subscribers are super supportive of your relationship and thank you for the editing that makes Souvenir such a well put-together channel...also did he seriously call his fiancée a dummy? such a tsundere!

sometimes, you’ll (well, your hands...we’re keeping a bit of privacy here) even be in the end shot of videos, munching away at the carefully plated food

one day, Sou will be making a video titled Wedding Cake.

Lucien

Lucien’s channel LucidLight is a tad bit all over the place

he’s a man of many talents, and his channel reflects just that

i’m not saying it’s a disorganized channel, because the theme is very much there - the uniform theme in Luci’s content is a cozy background, a cup of tea and a soothing thumbnail

i mean that content-wise, his subscribers don’t really know what they’re going to get next...he has a slightly similar style to the YouTuber simon plant

his content varies from interesting science theories to poetry reading sessions to ASMR to painting/sketching to cooking and much, much more

he has an heavenly soothing, smooth voice. it’s his trademark since Lucien doesn’t show his face on camera. ever.

doesn’t have a TON of subs, because his channel is a bit of a niche thing, but I’d say he has 1,2 million subscribers and 400k followers on his added ‘business’ Instagram

he holds a lot of live streams on Instagram/YouTube (i know Moments exists in the game, but that’s more like a Facebook or Twitter kind of app...) and is always shown with just his torso and neck in frame. the lives usually include some poetry reading and generally just having a nice, relaxing chat with his followers. they can last up to 5 hours at once, and YOU know it’s because he doesn’t need sleep like a normal human being, but his fans are still asking questions about his timezone

his subscribers are strangely fascinated by his mysterious, gentle nature and also incredibly obsessed with his large, elegant hands

his ASMR videos are often roleplays of Librarian Lucien or Professor Lucien explaining to people why their rest is important

other times, they include soft affirmations, positive whispers, finger fluttering, hair touching and maybe kissing sounds...

Lucien paints a lot too, although he works primarily with ink and pencil sketches. you’ll find a watercolour or oil painting somewhere, but they’re not his most prominent media

his art videos are usually silent, although he might say something once in a while. there’s always some type of solo instrumental music playing in the background.

he does educational videos about biology and universe theories, but will also have reading sessions about scientific books

not intentionally secretive about your relationship, but he’s not one to mention it either

the first time you appeared on screen was when he was doing another live stream. he’s in his office talking about a play, when you come padding in to bid him goodnight.

“Yes, indeed. Laura’s glass menagerie, as the play suggests, is a symbol of fragility. Laura herself is very frail, but her favourite—”

“Good night, darling.” your soft voice rings through the room. viewers see Lucien’s torso turning a little bit, a hand on his shoulder and a curtain hair appearing from the top of the screen. his hand moves, presumably to cup the person’s cheek, before a soft kiss is heard through the mic. “Sleep tight, my love,” he murmurs.

“Ah. Laura’s favourite glass figurine is the unicorn, which...”

people are in uproar, but Lucien is a strong-willed man who refuses to explicitly announce the nature of his relationship.

his subscribers stop asking after a while, because it really isn’t any of their business, and they now know Lucien’s a taken man

you kind of appear on live streams accidentally a couple more times, but nothing’s really changed about Lucien’s content

the only thing he WILL say, and this is purely to give you credit, is “Ah. The background instrumentals in my art videos are played live. Yes, my lover’s very talented.”

you guys are the mysterious, talented, soft-voiced power couple of YouTube

Gavin

Gavin’s channel probably starts as a joint channel with you, something like Rachel and Jun

it’s relatively obvious from the start that Gavin from Birds&Cops is in a relationship, since you guys have a vlogging-style channel

your channel is filled with gym vlogs, travel vlogs to other countries and a lot of self-defence and sport at home videos.

you guys also post a lot of funny vlogs talking about your day, going on fun dates, of course food vlogs in restaurants, all that stuff...

you often sit down and talk about your life, and maybe you’ll even do a mukbang during it for someone so fit, Gavin does eat a lot of food.

Gavin’s channel didn’t blow up right away, because vlogging channels aren’t exactly unique, and he looks like the typical ‘straight boy with a girlfriend’

but he started gaining followers after people noticed how cute and blushy he acts, and how incredibly respectful and caring he is towards you

one of the most popular videos is Boyfriend Does My Makeup and it’s adorable. Gavin’s handling your face with so much care, and comments like “I know what this is, I’ve watched you do it many times.” or “Babe, does it hurt? Should I be more gentle? I’m sorry...my hands are rough.” make everyone SWOON

toxic masculinity left the chat. Gavin loves taking care of you in any way, whether it’s getting pads, chocolate and hot packs during your period or braiding your hair

in those yoga/celebrity fitness routine challenges, subs get to see Gavin in a tight singlet and sweatpants/shorts, and it’s HOLY

you’re very much aware of the attention Gavin receives from female fans, and how lucky you are to have found such a sweet partner

Gavin will usually see this type of comment while scrolling and will turn to you and go “Babe, you know I’m the lucky one here, right?”

anyways, a feature that you do to show fans the extent of Gavin’s sweet personality is Pranking My Boyfriend, where you set up the camera for a harmless prank like pretending to have a nightmare (similar to channels like Farina Jo)

that particular video was so fun to shoot, because it ended up with Gavin softly singing a lullaby to calm you down in his arms

“Baby, wake up. I’m here, you’re safe.” Gavin knows how to deal with panicking people, but he hates this prank afterwards because ‘he didn’t like seeing you in pain’

fans squealed. Birds&Cops gained like 50k subs through that video. the channel’s currently at 999k subscribers

overall, it’s just a really lovely, family-friendly channel

Kiro

Kiro knows his way around the web, alright?

not even just as Key, but he’s had a YouTube channel since the age of 15

his channel, CtrlAltChips is a hit with many people of many, many ages

he streams gaming sessions on Twitch and posts them on his YouTube channel afterwards

other content includes (primarily) covers & original songs, simple talking videos, thrifting & fashion videos, mukbangs and candid dance videos in a studio

think of chloe moriondo, doddleoddle, Victor the Drum Destroyer and Cat Strat

alternatively, for the ARMYs here, think of Jeon Jungkook as a YouTuber

Kiro has about 18 million subscribers, which is A LOT, but he’s been on YouTube for 7 years and he’s made a name for himself as a super likeable and bubbly guy with an angelic voice and killer moves

you’d think he’s just a cute boy when he sings acoustic covers, but his dance moves suggest that he’s not THAT cute

also how does he stay so fit with all those snack mukbangs?

he has a segment named In Our Kloset where he talks about social issues (because our boy uses his platform for good) around the world while customizing (not just pins. we’re talking patches, sewing, painting, embroidery) thrifted clothing to his liking. at the end he holds a little fashion show with his new outfits

after a while, you’ll see many of his outfits in giveaways or on sale for charity. Kiro tries to give back to his fans as much as he can, and how better than by sharing a piece of his unique clothing with them?

a great singer and performer. has held actual concerts before and has an actual music career (author-nim leaves it up to you readers to decide whether this is his idol career or some other musical project)

keeps his private life PRIVATE. he knows how the internet works, and he knows there’s no way he can keep your relationship a secret forever, but he’s not about to expose it to the world because of that reason

keeps tabs on information or rumours regarding you and makes them vanish

he’s simultaneously the most open and the most secretive out of the four boys. his fans know his favourite colour, what type of underwear he wears (trunks. Kiro wears trunks.), his birthday,...

but they know nothing about his past, his location, his close social circle or his family (teeechnically he’s an orphan but ig we’re talking about his mentor here. the blood of the covenant blah blah blah...y’know?). Kiro protects his loved ones fiercely

for someone who’s kept so secret, you’re actually really involved in Kiro’s virtual persona. you’re usually behind the camera during his In Our Kloset videos and are in charge of extra research regarding topics so he doesn’t spread any misinformation

you also give pointers during filming (of course, these bits are edited out) because Kiro tends to trail off and get distracted when sewing

another way you’re involved is setting up the food during mukbangs. you have a great sense of aesthetics, so all of his videos in general will go through you.

while you like being low-key in Kiro’s life, you don’t want him to feel like he has to protect you from all the hate.

he doesn’t particularly love keeping you a secret either, and it makes him feel guilty because he doesn’t want you to think he’s ashamed of you. he could never be.

you guys give it a good chat over how you’re going to announce it, and he just ends up making a video titled Miss Chips where the two of you sit down and talk to the camera

“Hello my little chips! Uhm, as you can see, there’s someone sitting next to me today. Maybe you already guessed from the title, but this is...my girlfriend, Miss Chips,” cue the cute jazz hands in your direction, “We’ve been dating for a long, loooong time, right, Miss Chips?”

“I just wanted to share this with you guys, since it felt wrong to keep such an important person in my life private. I hope you’re all kind to her, because I love her dearly, even to the point of giving up my snacks...so it’s serious.”

it really is that serious, hm?

Hope you enjoyed reading!

222 notes · View notes

something-fanfiction-ie · 5 years

Text

Rough Drafts

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: Explicit descriptions of a murder scene, argument, angst, and cursing.

A/N: Okay, so I know I said I was gonna publish this yesterday but I got Cassandra Clare’s newest book and I couldn’t put it down. I seriously love that lady. Omg. Anyways, it’s here now! And it’s angsty! And there’s gonna be a fourth part soon I promise! For real. Don’t forget to reblog, comment, send me an ask or a message and overall just adore me so that I may continue to feel good about myself. As always thank you for supporting me and I hope you enjoy!!!

[ Part One | Part Two ]

___

An incredulous laugh bursts from your lips, your nails cutting crescent moons into the palms of your hands as you try and convince yourself that this isn’t actually happening.

“Do you have alibis for your whereabouts on Monday, June eighth, Saturday, June thirteenth, and Thursday, June eighteenth?” Spencer can see your leg bouncing rapidly under the table, your eyes flying over the pictures and the expression of Emily Prentiss. You seem genuine, but he can’t trust himself to get an accurate read of you anymore.

“I, uhm, I- I wouldn’t know off the top of my head. I keep a planner, I’ll forget things otherwise.” The burst of iron in your mouth is not something you’re unused to, having chewed your cheek so badly that the skin there has broken under your teeth.

“We’ll need to see that.” Emily isn’t sure whether or not she believes that you’re guilty, watching the way you seem to unravel before her. When you look at the crime scene photos, it isn't with any pleasure, but with disgust. Your nose wrinkles a little at the bridge and you keep looking away as the blood from your face starts to drain.

Either you’re a really good actress or you aren’t the unsub.

Emily says as much as she flips through the small teal planner that you’d willingly given them. Due dates for chapters, publishing events, book signings and days for book tours fill most of the pages in your most neat handwriting. Dates you plan to go visit your mother, grocery shop, doctor’s appointments, even plans to go somewhere and write.

Everything is explicitly stated, that way you’re never unsure of what you meant to tell yourself. That is, until around three weeks ago when a handful of days are notated with an ‘S,’ followed by a random doodle. Sometimes it’s a tiny heart drawn absentmindedly while you discuss the plans over the phone, other times it’s a cartoon bunny or a top hat.

Garcia is the first to take notice of it, her fingers faltering in their constant thrum against the keyboard in front of her. She glances out of the side of her glasses, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“Looks like lonely girl found herself a boo.”

“That makes sense,” JJ says from the chair she’s pulled into Penelope’s office from the bullpen. A pen is stretched between her hands, her posture relaxed into the curve of the stiff, government-issued rolly chair.

All the girls have gathered into the tech analyst’s room while the men take turns interrogating you. Well, all except Spencer. He just stands behind that window watching your every move with eyes like a hawk. “What doesn’t make sense is why she keeps it secret even in her personal planner.”

“Maybe she has a stalker? That could be who is doing all this?”

“Then she wouldn’t keep careful notation of everything else going on in her life. A stalker would follow her every move, not just her romantic interests. Even if he is in love with her.”

“A partner, maybe? Like the days they planned the murders or days they were acted out?”

“None of the days line up with the crimes, save for this one,” Emily leans the book toward the two women with her finger just underneath June fifth, the day Alison Crane was abducted from outside her campus dorm room. It’s the third ‘S’ scribbled into the corner of a day in the entire book.

“And there is nothing else written in relation to this ‘S’ character?” JJ shakes her head, looking for any clues that could be nestled among the loops and curls of your writing. Reid would be better at this, he was the graphology expert among them. So why wasn’t he back here helping?

“Then I guess we better try and get her to talk about it. Meanwhile Garcia, we’ll get Rossi and Reid to head over to her apartment and you can hack into her computer?” Penelope spins the chair, a flash of bright colors and blond hair. She clicks her tongue in response, throwing up a fingers gun and winking.

“Whatever you need me to do, I’m on it like sexy on Derek Morgan stepping out of the shower in a towel.”

After some arguing, and maybe just a little bit of pleading, they manage to convince Reid to join Rossi on a trip to your apartment. He can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable, standing in your living room. Not because he’d been here before, but because he’d never been here before.

The empty mugs that litter every surface, smelling of old coffee and your favorite coffee creamer (he only knows it’s your favorite because you explicitly ask for that creamer at every coffee shop the two of you have ever gone to), is unfamiliar to him. He’s invited you to his apartment at least three times. How come he had never been to yours?

Small pages and notebooks of scribbled ideas and dialogues cover just as many areas as the coffee cups do, your handwriting messy and cramped in every note. It’s almost like you couldn’t get the idea out of your head fast enough.

The bed in your room is meticulously made without a wrinkle in sight, but that could be because of the obvious bed you’ve made yourself along the salmon pink couch that stretches out in front of your TV. A multicolored crochet blanket is thrown haphazardly over the back, a pillow still slightly squished against the arm.

On the coffee table is a half opened laptop, a notebook with red and black ink scribbled in the lines, and a still full cup of coffee. Rossi makes quick work of calling Garcia and helping her get patched into your computer. It’s strange, watching her move the mouse on your screen from miles away.

Reid never stops moving, walking the length of your studio apartment with his eyes peeled for any kind of information he could find. It’s obvious that you spend most of your time in the main room, which houses the kitchen, a small dining area, and the living room. A door leading into your room branches off to a small bathroom which is just as disorganized as everything else in your house.

Hair products, skin washes, and all kinds of makeup are scattered across the sink and back of your toilet. It’s funny because every time he’s ever met up with you, you’re bare faced and your hair is still drying from the shower you took before leaving your house. The tube of lipstick he picks up makes him think he doesn’t really know you at all.

On the nightstand in your room is a bottle of water with the label ripped off and the two Rossi books you’d bought that fateful day in the bookstore. The label from the water bottle is stuck between the middle pages of one of the books. The passages in question don’t lend anything to connecting you as a homicidal maniac, let alone a serial killer.

Back in the living room, Garcia is snooping through every aspect of your computer.

“I don’t know whether or not the be freaked out by her web history. There’s a lot of murder-y questions here. ‘Signs of a post mortem amputation,’ ‘How much blood can you lose and still live?,’ ‘Most brutal ways to be killed.’ It’s creepy.” Rossi is flicking through the notebook from the table, his eyes squinted as he tried to make sense of the abbreviations and scribblings of another writer.

“She writes crime novels so it isn’t entirely strange for her to be looking at those types of things.” Thankfully, the defense of your web search history comes from the older man who looks up as Garcia delves deeper and deeper. Spencer had thought it first, but hadn’t said anything to avoid suspicion. He’s smart enough to know that the truth has to come out eventually, but he wants to be sure of your innocence (or guilt, he reminds himself a bit glumly) before he reveals your link to him.

“I’m not seeing anything she could be using to contact a partner unless her partner is one of the publishing people she’s constantly messaging via email.” At this Spencer stops, leaning against the back of the couch with his weight resting on the heels of his hands. The stance appears relaxed. He is anything but.

“Why do we assume she has a partner?” Reid asks, impatiently pushing a stray curl away from his face. Rossi glances at him curiously, otherwise undistracted from the shake the movement gives the couch.

“Oh, Prentiss, JJ, and I were looking through her little teal book earlier and the only thing not explicitly stated was just the letter ‘S.’ It’s why they came back to interrogate and they sent you guys to her house. I thought they told you.”

Spencer wants to beat his head against the wall.

“That isn’t a lead, Garcia. You have to tell them that ‘S’ isn’t her partner.” The mouse on the computer screen falters, several saved documents for different rough drafts of books or drabbles are pulled up the way you might have papers scattered about in front of you.

“What is it? Do you know who ‘S’ is?” Rossi is turned sideways on the couch, looking over the back and up at the distressed man in front of him. It doesn’t take him long to connect the dots when they make eye contact. Penelope impatiently whines over the phone.

“I’m ‘S,’ I’ve been seeing her for the last three weeks. I’m sure if you tell me the dates then every single one of them will be days that we’ve had plans together.”

“I’m sorry, what?!” Before anyone has the chance to say anything else, the door to Garcia’s office opens and a second voice filters through Rossi’s phone speaker. It’s JJ.

“Let Reid and Rossi know there’s just been another murder.”

This time it’s a fifteen year old girl. Her hair is black and wet, her lips are as blue as the sky, and she’s naked. Water droplets from her skin have soaked into the sheet of paper that was layed over her chest. The bathtub she’s in is completely empty, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that she was drowned there. The bruises on her shoulders from the force the unsub used to pin her down are dark against the contrast of her already pale skin.

...The man leaned over the tub, his eyes squinted in thought and his lips skewed a little to the side. Ryder stayed focused on the crime scene, for the most part. But even detectives of her caliber, and higher, could easily get lost in the eyes that look up at her from beneath long golden-brown lashes.

“Detective?” She blinks the distraction away, looking back at the girl, her black hair wet and spiraling like the snakes on Medusa’s head against the ivory siding of the drained tub. Ryder can’t help but wish the girl had been lucky enough to turn her killer to stone. Maybe it would have saved her.

“Agent.” She crosses her arms, looking anywhere but at the man across from her, pretending to look for any useful clues. Ryder had gotten to the crime scene fourty-five minutes before the pair of FBI Agents had walked in. The man, who had introduced himself as Supervisory Special Agent Matthew Gray, had decided to join her in the second floor bathroom. His partner, a woman named Katherine Swift, had taken to looking for clues through the rest of the house.

Agent Gray is beautiful. It’s the only adjective that seems to stick to him with certainty, every other aspect of his personality just as elusive as the exact color of those eyes. Even as short as his hair is, the golden brown tendrils are unkempt and curl every which way. Ryder has to force her hand to stay at her side and not reach up to smooth an alfalfa that does nothing for the serious expression on his face.

She keeps imagining what it would feel like if he reached out to kiss her, curling his fingers into her hair and bringing her unworthy lips up to meet his. He’s tall so she would probably have to stretch a little, but she wouldn’t mind. Not when his hands are tangled in her hair and he’s giving her the kiss she’s been silently begging for since the moment he flashed that crooked grin at her.

The imagination is so vivid that she jumps when her own partner, Detective Russo, comes around the corner of the hallway and straight into the bathroom...

The paper crinkles in the evidence bag as Morgan places it on the table, trying to ignore the daggers being glared into him on the other side of the mirror.

Nobody on the team had been very happy with Spencer when they heard the news about your relationship, Hotch had nearly snatched him by the scruff of his neck when he made to go into the interrogation room. But after several minutes of thoroughly explaining himself, Hotch had sent Morgan in. To say Spencer was infuriated was an understatement.

“Do you know what this is, (Y/N)?” You look down at it, twisting the evidence bag so that you could read the Times New Roman font you always wrote in when writing in Microsoft Word. The words cover the front and back of the copy paper, but you don’t have to read it through all the way before you know what it is.

“It’s a page from my newest book.” The bag scratches against the tabletop as you push it away from you, crossing your arms over your chest. Your face is stoplight red with embarrassment at the thought of Spencer reading this page, mostly because you had pulled so heavily from your own thoughts when first meeting Spencer to write Ryder and Gray’s first meeting. You created Matthew Gray to write about Spencer Reid in a way that felt less ‘high school diary entry.’

“More specifically, it’s from the book you just started working on about a month ago. The one that only you and your agent have access to.” Finally, Morgan sits. Before, he’d just been pacing around you the way a lioness might stalk around her prey before she launches an attack. It made you uneasy, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

“Do you know where we found it, (Y/N)?” His muscles bulge against his shirtsleeves when he leans them up on the table. Derek Morgan is a very attractive man, you’ll give him that, but if making you uneasy and putting you in the room with a attractive man to fluster you was their strategy then they should have sent in Spencer.

“My computer.”

“We found it on the body of a dead girl.” Another picture joins the ones already shuffled around the table. You can barely look at it, nausea and tears building in your throat at the sight of another person dying the same way you’d written in a story. When you don’t respond, Morgan continues.

“‘She was found at the bottom of an empty bathtub, a pale leg hooked over the edge of the porcelain siding, and her arms pinned to her sides in death. Bruises discolored the skin at her shoulders, and Ryder knew at first glance that her cause of death would be asphyxiation by drowning.’” He drops the paper back to the table, having picked it up to read the passage from the end of the page.

“That’s wrong,” You say, leaning back over the table to look at the paper again. Derek looks down, like the words might have changed in the moment he looked away, but the text stays exactly the same as before.

“That’s exactly what is written here.” You shake your head, pulling the bag back to you and wrinkling your forehead in thought.

“I don’t doubt that is what you read, Agent Morgan,” Your eyes fly over the page, reading the end of the excerpt with overwhelming relief. The bag sticks a little to the pad of your index finger as you tap over the paragraph in question. “But I rewrote this scene only two nights ago. It’s on my computer, I’m sure your tech analyst can confirm my claim. This girl, Bella, she doesn’t die from drowning anymore. Her hands are tied above her head to the faucet and she’s strangled. I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be by her sister or her girlfriend.”

JJ rushes back to Penelope’s office, on a mission to confirm your statement just as you had suggested. Meanwhile, Morgan’s mind is rushing to figure out the mess he is currently sat in. You lean back in your chair now, unsure if the dizziness you feel is from lack of food or the sudden realization that they couldn’t pin this to you anymore.

“I’m not your bad guy. If I was doing this to prove to my mother that my writing is good, that I chose the right career, as your profile says, I wouldn’t change the scene in my book and not change the murder.” In Morgan’s earpiece, Hotch tells him that you were telling the truth about editing the scene two nights ago.

“Unless you planned it to throw us off track. We know about your relationship with Spencer, you’ve probably found out all kinds of things to do to keep us from catching you.”

You clench your teeth, straightening into your chair and pinning Derek down with a look you’d learned from your mother. It makes him think of his mom, your eyes narrowed and your gaze so cold that it could cause frostbite. He watches curiosily as you tilt your chin up a little, trying to hide the pricks behind your eyes and the wobble of your lip. Derek notices them, the entire team notices. They’re trained to notice.

“I want a lawyer.” You say simply, you voice is sharp and quiet but it does the job of slicing through the tension already building in the room.

“Come on, you don’t need a lawyer.”

“That’s where you’re wrong again, Agent Morgan. I do need a lawyer. Because even though I have full-heartedly trusted the justice system since I was in diapers, and even though I came to these offices willing to help your team in any way that I could, you are still trying to use me as a scapegoat instead of actually doing your fucking job and finding the bastard who is killing people in my name.

“A study from criminal law bulletin says that 10,000 people are wrongfully convicted of serious crimes every year. One in every twenty-five people sentenced to death are innocent, Agent Morgan. Just since 1973, more than 160 people were exonerated from the death penalty. That’s not even counting the people who were killed. But you sure as hell aren’t about to make me apart of that statistic because you want to waste your time trying to piece an investigation around me. That’s not how you’re supposed to do your job. So until you can remember how to do it correctly, I do need a lawyer. Thank you.”

By the time you finish you’ve leaned over the table, your index finger jammed into the wood to make your point. It feels like your chest is on fire as you slam back into your seat and cross your arms, determined to keep your silence for the rest of the time you were forced to sit here.

Everyone on the opposite side of the mirror is stunned into silence, their eyes focused on you even as Derek gathers all the things from the desk and walks out looking a little flustered himself. If Spencer was totally honest, your outburst was actually kind of hot. He has to remind himself that you may have killed eight people in cold blood.

Your lawyer makes it to the BAU in record time, his red hair expertly gelled back from his face. His icy blue eyes only cracking when he sees you sitting by yourself in the interrogation room. Spencer can tell by the way that he lowers himself on the balls of his feet to talk to you, reaching out to touch the hand that sits on your thigh, that he knows you personally. He likes you, actually. Spencer tried to tell himself that it doesn’t make him glad when you pull your hand out of his and awkwardly pat his arm.

He’s been lying to himself a lot today.

Hotch is the one to go back in the room, he was the best at dealing with lawyers. Unfortunately his best wasn’t enough to keep you in custody and soon your lawyer, who Spencer learned was named Jeremy, was walking you out of the room for the first time in six hours.

Your back cracks when you stand, your shoulders rolling back to try and ease some of the stress you’d been holding there since this morning. The sound of the door swinging open for you is almost heavenly, the feel of the air outside of the room is damn near enough to make you cry.

When you look to the side, ready to leave out the second door that leads into the hallway and away from this mess, you meet eyes with the only profiler of the BAU that you hadn’t seen that day. Spencer looks back at you with an expression that you find hard to put into words.

He almost looks sorry, the regret evident in the slight widening of his eyes, but at the same time his chin is tilted up like he is facing an enemy he has vowed to take down no matter the cost. His shoulders are squared, but his arms are uncrossed and his palms are open.

And even though you knew you wouldn’t be there without him knowing, the reassurance that Spencer knew and even suspected you is like a blow to the chest and stomach. It robs you of air, causing you to stumble.

Jeremy reaches to steady you. You shake him off, pulling your eyes from the young doctor and focusing all of your attention on the door knob.

“I’m fine, Jeremy.” Your tone of voice is more harsh than you intended but you’re still struggling to collect oxygen, even when you slide into your car by yourself, it feels like you can’t get enough air. The walk from the BAU offices to the parking lot had passed in a blur. Jeremy’s talk about staying at home and keeping your head low had gone by even faster, and now that you have time to truly be by yourself, everything hits like a ton of bricks thrown at you from a speeding train.

In the midst of your panic attack, gasping for air into the palms of your shaking hands, questioning everything about yourself and your career, you don’t register the shuffle of movement in your backseat. You’re so deep in your mind that you almost don’t notice the cool press of a gun barrel against the back of your neck until a familiar voice lifts your head from your hands.

“Drive.”

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid imagines #dr spence reid #spence reid #criminal mind imagine #criminal minds

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rum-and-shattered-dreams · 3 years

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WIP tag game

Tagged by the lovely @novantinuum Thank you! <3

The game is simple: post a snippet (or visual progress on art) of one of your WIPs, if you feel comfortable doing so.

Tagging (if you’d like to) @darylstorey @geekyartemis @ramblesanddragons @iconicanemone @mother-ofthe-universedraws @eregyrn-falls @stanford-pines-618 @athgalla and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

I only have two snippets that are anywhere near coherent enough to share right now and even at that they’re mostly in note/initial idea form, not even first draft form.

This one is from a bonus chapter of The Man Downstairs that goes into more detail about Stan and Ford’s first few days together in ‘82. They’re mostly still fighting a lot but trying to figure things out because they’ve realized they want to reconcile need each other (this is just a few disorganized lines to weave into the events of Stan actually leaving for a while because he didn’t understand that Bill was possessing Ford and everything that led up to them demolishing the portal. They’d also include Stan calling Ford out on his mistakes and Ford defending that he did try to take responsibility for them when he realized he’d made them but screwed that up too and a bunch of stuff about their failures in communicating with each other over the years):

Stan tells Ford how much he hates being himself & Ford looks at him wide-eyed & tries to just focus on him (instead of knee-jerk arguing back or changing the subject to everything else going on like they both have been), saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Stanley. It must be difficult. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re a screw up. But, if I’m being honest, when you make a mistake or an accident happens, it might help if you took responsibility and said you were sorry instead of-”

“Oh great. Another way I’m a screw up.”

Ford sighs, “Instead of doing that…”

“You asshole. I just told you that I hate being me. I hate that I screw up so much. Maybe I wouldn’t feel that way if you didn’t always have to have all the answers and think you’re so goddamn special! Why do you always have to be mr. perfect?”

Ford opens his mouth to apologize again then snaps it shut. He thinks for a moment & says, “Because I’m not ordinary.”

“Oooh look at me. I’m Ford. I’m so smart I’m such a big deal and everyone else is dumb.”

“T-that’s not what I said!”

“I’m destined for greatness because-”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Ford mutters under Stan’s mockery, “I say something and I know what I mean but it doesn’t mean the same thing to anyone else.”

“I’m so far above those common people”

Ford stands and shouts, “I mean that I hate being me, too!”

“No one else could possibly- wait… what?”

“I mean that… Ordinary is good. It’s socially acceptable. Yes, a certain level of weird is acceptable in some circles. But I’m not even that!” he sighs - waits for Stan to argue back.

Stan stops. Pulls out a chair and sits on it with the back between his legs. Exasperated/annoyed but willing to hear him out, “Go ahead… I’m listening.”

Bonus snippet under the cut because this is getting long:

This one will probably show up in the next chapter:

Stan tells Ford what he learned in the bunker. Ford tells Stan he remembered a few things about F and was going to tell the truth about why he’s hesitant to meet the kids but Stan speaks first, completely interrupting his train of thought.

“Ford, are you gay?”

*mirrors Stan’s choking reaction when Mabel suggested to him that The Author was in a relationship with F

Stan continues “I mean, you know it’s okay if you are, right? You know I’d be happy for you no matter what you are, right?”

“I do know. And thank you for that. But I don’t think I am?”

“Why did that sound like a question?”

“Because… It is one. Stanley, I don’t actually know. I don’t think I’ve ever felt any differently about people based on their gender? It seems as though I simply… Have not yet felt whatever attraction others experience.”

“Well, that’s okay too.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Heh, mostly ‘cause of something Mabel said. She saw how you wrote about your assistant in your journal and wondered if you were in a relationship with him and, I know she always loves the idea of love but uh as far as I can tell, you were kinda living with the guy in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and apparently built a bunker together that had only one bed. It just made me wonder if she might be onto something that could help you remember him is all.”

“If we were in a relationship, I don’t remember it. But I suspect not since I did remember that he traveled here but had a family at home.”

“Well, I mean, sometimes that doesn’t stop people and especially back then sometimes a family knew the truth and acted as a cover-” Stan coughed and corrected, “Anyway, it did get me thinking… I just wanted you to know that… I’m not dad. Whatever’s in your past or whatever you decide about your future wouldn’t change anything between us.”

“You already know I feel the same about you, right, Stanley?”

“Heh, yeah. I do. Thanks. And just so you know, the kids… The whole family feels the same.”

#wip tag game #wips #wip snippets #the man downstairs #the man downstairs fic #the man downstairs au #the man downstairs spoilers #mo's writing and such #thanks for the tag!

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flamediel · 3 years

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About me

ok, so I figure it was finally time for me to make one of these since i’ve been here for a bit and I hate how disorganized tumblr is. Hi, I’m Nadia, I’m 19, and this is my CNCO blog. I’m a mixed black muslim bisexual who uses they/them pronouns and I’m studying law. Other random facts about me are I box, make my own clothes, paddleboard, and love dogs. My aesthetic is all over the place and so is my brain so while typing this out i decided to make a moodboard that’s ✨my aesthetic✨ so here lol:

Was that necessary? no. did I do it anyway? yes. Moving on..

so what will you find on this blog?

Primarily, CNCO. This is a side blog so I tend to stay pretty on brand with the content I post. I tend to answer asks here, be it about fandom tea or random stuff relating to the boys, but when inspiration strikes I’ll write fics, make moodboards, or even pull together random uquizzes and zodiac interpretations no one asked for. I host a lot of events on here too like to celebrate their albums or band anniversaries, so stay tuned for that as well. As you can see we do a little bit of everything here, so feel free to stop by for a chat whenever.

Where can I find your writing?

All my fics can be found under the ‘#my writing’ tag on my blog, so check them out there! anything tagged minors dni (or cnco smut for older posts) is 18+

What writing do you have coming up?

Chris sex tape smut

Boxdiel smut

Sub!Richard Smut

Zabdiel + Power Play

The boys while you’re pregnant (Minus Chris since it’s already up)

Richard pampering you

a ton of songfics I have half finished

And if you want anything else, I am taking requests! Keep in mind they may take a while though, I tend to write when inspired and I haven’t had the time at all lately with work. Also, if you remember requesting something that isn’t here, it’s because I likely haven’t gotten to starting it. once I do, I’ll add it here.

Where can I find your moodboards?

These will be under the ‘#cnco moodboard’ tag on my blog! Requests for moodboards are open (and will probably be fulfilled MUCH more quickly).

UQuizzes?

Which CNCO member are you?

Which CNCO hookup are you?

Where are your CNCO Zodiac interpretations?

I’m only doing full chart readings for the boys once we get their birth times, since I don’t like how inaccurate readings can be without houses and such (ie, Chris’s Sagittarius energy doesn’t make sense until you realize it’s all in the fourth house). That means I’ll be analyzing Joel and then Chris’s birth charts in detail for now, and when we get the rest of the info I may do the others’. This is gonna take a while since these are long and take a ton of research, sorry about that

Joel: Part 1 (part 2 coming soon)

Chris: (TBD)

Management vs record label analysis

You've done some analyses of cncos team from a legal perspective, where are they?

Joel leaving the band timeline/contract renegotiation explanation

Who owns cncos trademark

Why are some of your posts tagged minors dni?

Why didn’t you answer my ask?

personally, I don’t feel comfortable with minors interacting with any explicit content on my blog. I tag it that way for people to be able to blacklist these posts (including adults who don’t want to see them). I know minors look at this content anyway, I’m not dumb, but this gives them the opportunity to be responsible without me having to make this whole blog nsfw, andit also provides a clear warning. Minors I find repeatedly interacting with my NSFW posts are getting blocked. You’re violating my consent and disrespecting the rules I put in place on my blog, and I don’t want you around if you cant understand that.

my inbox is almost always full and it takes me a while to get to stuff! I will though, i promise, and if it takes a while maybe resend it since tumblr doesn’t like to work sometimes.

Why do certain anons have symbols/emojis?

It’s like a signature so I can tell which anon it is. if you want one just ask!

can you tell me about X cnco thing?

usually, yes. but also, keep in mind I don’t know everything, and most of what I say is my opinion, as with everyone else here. don’t take it too seriously please. I will also sometimes answer asks sarcastically or jokingly and entertain dumb stuff, if you have a problem w that just send smth in about that instead of fighting, no need to get disrespectful over tumblr shit I swear it’s unnecessary.

Why wont you answer dms?

I am. so so bad at checking dms. so bad. it gives me anxiety and i WILL leave people on read. honestly if you’re not my mom you should not be expecting quick replies from me. if you want to talk more and we’re mutuals, message and ask for my snap. I tend to be more active on there

Why aren’t you following me/liking my posts/in my notes?

I probably am, this is a side blog, I interact from my main @imbrium-mare

Any other important notes?

A couple. First, something light. info about me is in my ‘#about me’ tag, and if you care what i look like check the ‘#my face’ tag, I tend to delete those every now and then so you might not find anything.

Secondly, more heavy. Like most active cnco blogs, I’ve dealt with my fair share of “anon” hate. Most of the time, I can figure out who you are pretty easily. Yall aint slick at allll, and I am more than happy to expose anyone who thinks online bullying is okay. casual reminder, using racial and homophobic slurs is not cute. I will not tolerate it, you’ll be blocked. the fact people think this is ok to do over a BOYBAND of all things? tragic.

And finally, since this will now be my permanent pinned post, any events I host or new things I write will be linked in a reblog of this post and pinned, rather than pinning the actual post with it. That way this information is all still accessible. That’s it! have fun, and I hope you enjoy your time here xx

#about me #pinned post

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carcinized · 3 years

Note

Hey hey hey I don’t have Tumblr BUT I saw your post about C!Tubbo dissociation headcanons and here I am, asking for them. And possibly more C!Tubbo headcanons. Preferably angsty. Just. Any of them. Please. Thank you.

oh, a fellow starved c!tubbo enthusiast. hello there, i do have some headcannons to spare luckily, hope you enjoy!! mostly this is the dissociation ones but i have some miscellaneous ones & songs at the end for you :]

so obviously uhhh tw for dissociation/depersonalisation/derealisation in this post!!! also going to put them under the cut bc this is long lmao

oh and disclaimer: this is very much based off my own experiences with (near constant) chronic dissociation so it might be different from other experiences!! yeah.

oh ALSO this is disorganized and probably missing stuff because i am going through a bad bout of spaciness as of right now, so apologies if anything is confusing, feel free to ask for clarification!

idk background timeline stuff so it fits into the story

at first he didn’t even realize he felt disconnected from things. it started off as a coping mechanism during combat and felt so similar to the feeling of being “in the zone” he’d known before that he didn’t question it

after a bit, it spread from only being there during battle to during conflict in general. still, he didn’t mind it—it actually made arguments more bearable because they felt almost secondhand.

eventually he came to use it as a crutch so much that it became constant.

that was when he started wanting it to go away.

and then because i can’t bear to give my precious c!tubbo constant dissociation he probably gets breaks from it sometimes idk lmao

his experiences:

gaps in memory

auditory processing issues

lots of depersonalisation and not recognizing himself in the mirror (which is even more fun/terrifying if you add in shapeshifter headcannons)

a lot of the time he feels like his actions aren’t his, which helped him to feel less bad doing morally ambiguous things (spying, exiling tommy, hunting technoblade, etc)

after it all he was left with near constant dissociation almost all the time.

it nearly always feels like the world is secondhand to him and he has no control/impact (ironic considering the power he has, and he knows that, but)

often wonders if he is dreaming and just waiting to wake up from a coma he’d gotten from one of his many battles.

when things get really bad he wishes he could just wake up from it.

often doesn’t recognize his hands looking down at them, especially with the burns he has now. they’re not his hands, right? but they are. they’re his hands. huh.

uhhh examples of where it could have been shown in plot if you squint lol

for example, that famous clip of him dancing while wilbur and tommy argue in the background would be a physical representation of him zoning out (dissociating) to get out of/away from an argument.

the whole yes man thing could have either been an auditory processing issue where he replied yes to wilbur without hearing what wilbur had asked OR a gap in memory where he didn’t remember telling tommy the opposite

he pulled away for like 5 months into snowchester and talked to hardly anyone but his husband and son. dissociation is hard to interact with people during because you feel so isolated for so many reasons—sometimes you feel you’re the only real thing there, sometimes it feels there’s a glass wall between you and everything else that IS real. and even ignoring that, most people can’t relate to feeling that way, leaving you even more alone. he could have pulled away because it was too much too keep going through that (i did that don’t recommend it tubbo JSJD)

miscellaneous headcannons that i don’t see very often:

after winning a battle, his instinct is to play a disc and look out at the sunset because that’s what he and tommy always did (see his lore yesterday (june 18th)—he did it with ranboo despite tommy not being there)

i’m rather fond of my original-l’manberg-citizens-consider-haircuts-and-fixing-up-appearances-affectionate-because-wilbur-did-it headcannon so i’ll add that here—basically wilbur gave everyone military cuts and new suits and everything. and while that was just for war, it was also because he cared about all of them. ever since, they all considered fixing up someone’s appearance an act of love.

tubbo refused to let anyone cut his hair after the red festival, not trusting anyone. he would probably let ranboo do it now, only he’s rather attached to the way it hides his burns and some of his horns and keeps him warm in the freezing snow.

he builds walls like how tommy builds cobblestone towers—a reflex, a coping mechanism, a habit. he built the l’manberg walls and ever since the defense has been second nature, whether for the best or the worst.

ive been waiting forever to share these i have way too many. i pass the hours staring out the window listening to misterwives and imagining c!tubbo animatics to it and now i have a chance to share them oh my god

so without further ado,

c!tubbo animatics i have in my head:

whywhywhy by misterwives: ok this one isn’t chalked out but it has him vibes

alone by misterwives: just him and ranboo. figuring things out. helping each other heal. i legitimately have an entire animatic in my head to this lyric by lyric and could make a fucking storyboard for it if only i could draw. if anyone wants me to write out lyric by lyric what it WOULD be though feel free to send an ask aHAHHAHAHA

over the rainbow by misterwives: a montage of c!tubbo just. finally going apeshit. that would be so cathartic alright and it’s such a badass song he deserves it

it’s my turn by misterwives: pretty much any times that tubbo finally got to do something back at someone who wronged him—the butcher army going after technoblade, him yelling at quackity about borders saying “well don’t i get to put my foot down too?” the lyrics “i know you’ve got your version of the story, i’m sick of saying sorry, i’m sick of always having to explain” during his spy arc PLEASE he had to justify everything he did and the “are you happier?” comment and schlatt breathing down his neck aAAAA give my boy a break (also the instrumental uses a lemon demon-type sound which makes me think of ranboo so i love imagining a cool bee dup building the outpost montage there snhshagahffn)

find my way home by misterwives: idk the vibes just fit man

oxygen by misterwives: hhhrnggg clingy duo angst oW

i did say i spend a lot of my time listening to misterwives and daydreaming c!tubbo animatics didn’t i?

anyways yeah. here’s some c!tubbo content to help us poor starved c!tubbo enthusiasts :’D also misterwives propaganda go listen to them female led band with a fucking badass lead singer with banger songs and incredible vocals and lyrics ANYWAY

#dsmp #tubbo #dream smp #mcyt #dissasociation tw #feel free to add your headcanons btw or ask for clarification on these!!! i would love to talk abt c!tubbo with you SHJDJDJDJD #dissociation tw #depersonalisation tw #derealization tw #allyster rambles #ask #anon

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aswallowssong · 4 years

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Second Child, Restless Child

Chapter 9 - The Devil Whispered Lies

@valkyrie-5583

Read on AO3

If I told y'all I got engaged and that's why this chapter is literally a billion years late, would that make it better??

Jokes aside (not really a joke, I did get engaged, I just hid it in the notes a few weeks ago) spring break is one week away for this teacher, and my goal is to write a whole bunch so I can not have to post chapters like... 2 months apart.

Let me know what you think of this one!! Have a lovely day!!

Continuation of chapter 8 - Heaven Knows How Hard I Tried. The Keystone Killer has given Kit a lot to think about; including some things she wasn't quite counting on.

Kit wasn’t quite listening when they walked back into the precinct. Her conversation with JJ earlier in the day had helped. If JJ had met pushback, but now she was allowed to be a full part of the BAU team, she should stand up for herself. The director himself saw all of her reports, she could tell Ramos she disagreed with him. Especially if, for the time being, her work was good enough for the literal director of the whole FBI.

But her talk with Hotch outside of Harbin’s house hadn’t done her a lot of good. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the last hour, she still hadn’t slept since Friday night, and it was actively Sunday.

What brought her back to reality was Morgan’s voice, deep and steady at the front of their group. It caught her up to the present so quickly she almost stopped short, which would have sent Hotch right into her.

“Well, that's got to be a first. A killer actually leading us to another killer.”

“Come on,” Gideon said from further back, “we all know they make the best profilers. They admire each other's work.”

“Ya, but usually from afar,” Elle said as they spilled into the conference room.

Kit didn’t even let herself imagine sitting down. There was no way she would be able to stay awake when she had nothing of value to add. At this point, she was waiting to get back on the jet and back to her apartment. The image of Claudia was twisting in her mind, and she couldn’t help the desperate need she had to see Monty face to face.

Hotch didn’t let her stay in her head for very long. “At least we got Harbin off the street. All right, let's review. What do we know about the Keystone Killer?”

He’s killing women at an alarming rate.

“Well, we know that he's not dead or in jail,” Elle offered.

Gideon continued. “Enjoys taunting the game.”

“Ya,” Morgan agreed easily. “He's in complete control.”

Reid was quick to add on, statistics rattling from him easier than Kit was even keeping her eyes open. “He strangled seven women in the 1980's, stopped for eighteen years, and then began again suffocating them. Ten percent of all violent crimes are caused by strangulation, it only takes eleven pounds of pressure to fully incapacitate your victim and if you hang on for at least fifty seconds, they will never recover.”

“Yeah,” Kit said, stopping short once she’d realized the words had come from her mouth, not someone else’s. Everyone’s eyes were on her, and she took a moment before she voiced the fact her brain had produced for her, however reluctantly. “It’s one of the most lethal forms of violence. Victims can be unconscious in a matter of ten seconds.”

Hotch shook his head, confusion pushing from his before he said, “When you suffocate someone you actually have less control over their death. It's actually more passive because the killer doesn't feel the life leaving the body.”

“He's changed almost everything that he does,” Elle said. She was lost, mild annoyance and confusions coming off her in waves. Elle had joined the team just as JJ did, and Kit wondered if she ever felt as completely baffled as she herself felt.

In that moment, it felt like the answer could be yes, and that was comforting.

Gideon took over then, speaking to them as a whole in a series of questions. “Why why why why? What? I mean, what's he getting out of this new M. O.? Where's his payoff? You got Carla Bromwell, she sustains a significant head injury. Blitz attacks suggest disorganization, no self-confidence. This is a guy who walks into seven victims' homes prior to this. There was no forced entry at any of the scenes. Where's the loss of confidence?”

There was a beat of silence, and she really hoped anyone had any idea. It was moments like these that made Kit feel the most out of her element. She had no idea why the Keystone Killer would want to kill anyone anyway, how could she know why he would change his methods?

“He would never change the way he kills by choice,” Ryan said, breaking the silence.

“What?”

Ryan spoke again, confident in a way the rest of the team lacked. “We've been operating under the assumption that he purposely changed his M. O.”

It was like something physically snapped into place. Kit looked around as everyone was suddenly much more engaged.

“You're saying he changed because he had to change?” Gideon asked.

“He knocked her unconscious. And it wasn't to scare.”

Elle seemed to be catching on, and Kit wished selfishly she wasn’t. “Because he couldn't control her physically while she was awake.”

Ryan nodded. “He could be incapacitated.”

Gideon latched back on. “At least partially.”

“Maybe an injury.”

“Or a stroke,” Hotch added, and Gideon started nodding. “Either way you're gonna have to have medical records. Agreed?”

It took her more than a few seconds to notice that no one had said anything else, and she looked over at Gideon, who was looking directly at her.

Why is he looking at me? He never looks at me? We have a spoken rule to not look at one another during cases so why is he looking right at me?

“Colghain?” he said, and she shook her head. He most certainly was looking at her for an answer, and everyone else had gone quiet so she could answer.

“Yeah.” She said, and she saw Ryan raise an eyebrow in annoyance before she stumbled over herself to continue her answer. “Yeah, yes, sorry. Yes. There would be injury reports, charts, notes, scripts. It’s a lot of records, depending on who your doctor is and what hospital you’re at.”

There was another pause before they were all nodding, taking in what she’d said and running with it.

Morgan was first to speak. “Okay, so what are we talking about? This had to have happened after the middle of 1988 in Philadelphia?”

Gideon nodded, first at Kit, and then to Morgan. “Somebody who fits the rest of the profile.”

“It's a lot of hospital records,” Reid said, also looking towards Kit, who nodded her affirmation. “There’s hoards of people going into ERs every day for exactly those sorts of things. It’ll be a huge pool.”

He smiled at her, and she found herself taken a bit aback, but returned his grin with a shy one of her own.

“Call our girl Friday,” Gideon said, directed to Morgan, and as the flurry of movement and new hope danced through the room, she found herself feeling much less tired than she did before.

She’d been helpful. Gideon had known she was an expert about something and asked for her agreement and input before simply inserting a thought.

Her feelings were incredibly jumbled as she stood there, waiting for directions. Gideon’s affirmation made her feel better than she thought it would, considering they didn’t usually talk if not to argue. JJ’s conversation still lingered in the back of her mind, and she wanted to talk to Ramos. If JJ could stand up to the coms department and get what she wanted, why couldn’t she stand up to Ramos?

But Claudia filled the leftover space in her consciousness, and she didn’t know if she could fight for more time with the BAU, or to try to be more fully integrated, or whatever it was that she actually wanted if the cases were going to stay with her.

To scare her. To make her feel like she needed to know that her sisters were alright, even though there was no way to do that while knees deep in a case.

What do you even want, Kody? What do you want?

She didn’t have an answer for herself.

-----

Kit stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of the precinct and splashed another cupful of water onto her face, holding her cheeks in her hands a moment before looking up at her reflection.

You look exhausted.

Monty’s voice, as always, chided her. Sometimes she wished the voice of her overinvolved consciousness was her brother Al instead. Alaska couldn’t be bothered over things like that. His biggest qualm in life was the fact that his name was Alaska, and it had been quickly remedied by Ari telling him he could just go by Alex at school.

You’ve got bigger problems than that. You’re having a moment in a police precinct in Philly while the rest of your team waits on a comprehensive file to be faxed.

A feeling of dread shot through her chest at the realization that Monty didn’t even know she was gone. She’d been so tired and so incredibly thrown by Garcia’s text, and then Hotch’s insistence that she was on the jet that she hadn’t thought to walk down and tell Ari she was leaving. He’d been on the clinic floor; out of sight, out of mind. Then she was on the jet, and then at the crime scene.

She hadn’t even sent a text.

Hell, she hadn’t even really slept since then. Her time in the jet and her few minutes in the car were nowhere near what she needed, and with all the feelings and thoughts she had flying around her head, she was surprised she hadn’t crashed. She was definitely feeling “Big Feelings,” and she didn’t have time for it.

Ari and Monty always helped the big feelings. They had to be wondering where she was. Why hadn’t they called her? Or texted? They had to be worried. Girls didn’t just go missing in the middle of the day.

But they do. And worse, they’re murdered too. Right out of nowhere for no reason at all. People are sick, Kody. They kill for pleasure. They kidnap for pleasure. They’ll take anyone at any time.

She had her phone out and dialed in record time.

“Penelope’s hotline for all things truth. Speak and know.”

“Garcia.” She swiped at her eyes. When had she started crying? “I need a favor.”

“Oh, Kit, hey.” Her voice was as sunny as always. “I’ve got that file almost through, the medical was-”

“It’s not about the case.”

There was silence on the other line for a moment. “Oh?”

“If I gave you the first and last name, could you trace a cell phone?”

“A cell phone? As long as it’s registered to the same name, yeah, I can. Why?”

“Virginia.” She said. “Virginia Colghain.”

She didn’t know why she picked Ginny. Something inside her said that Seese, George, and Lina would be at home with their mam. Ginny lived in the city, and Kit couldn’t call her.

Ginny didn’t know she was in the field. Ginny didn’t even know she’d been paired with the BAU.

“Where should it be? Just so I know what I’m looking for.”

“Probably the US Attorney's office.”

“Which branch?”

“The one in the district. On fourth street.”

Garcia hummed as she typed, the clicking of her keystrokes halting as she said, “Wait. Wait, Colghain?”

Kit bit her lip. She was sort of hoping Garcia wouldn’t notice.

Which is stupid, because of course she’d notice.

“Yes.”

“Virginia Colghain?”

“Yes, Garcia, can you track it or not?” Kit glanced at herself in the mirror, letting her reflection ground her. She tugged at one braid, and then the other with her free hand before wiping at her eyes again.

The clicking started again before Garcia said, “Virginia Colghain’s phone is, in fact, inside the US Attorney’s office on fourth street.”

Kit breathed a sigh of relief. While it wasn’t proof that Ginny was okay, it certainly helped Kit’s nerves. “Thanks, Penelope. Sorry about that.”

“Sure, my sweet clover. But, why don’t you just call her and ask where she is? I’m going to assume that’s one of your many many siblings.”

Because I haven’t quite told her I’m working with the BAU now, or going in the field again, and I’m not ready to have that conversation with her just yet, considering no one knows but Ari and Monty.

“I don’t want to interrupt her at work, I just needed to know she was okay.”

Garcia was quiet again before saying, “You know, we’ll get him. My system has faxed almost all the papers now, and then you can go bring him in.”

Kit took a breath, glancing again at the reflection in the mirror. She almost didn’t recognize the face staring back at her. Had she always looked so sad?

“Thanks, Pen,” she said quietly. “I, um. I’ve gotta go.”

“Go fight crime, clover. But, hey,” Penelope’s voice took on a different quality. A serious one. “You and I should talk when you get back.”

She sighed, but nodded. “Okay… bye, Penelope.”

Kit hung up the phone.

Ginny was fine. She knew that it was a given, and she probably just looked like a crazy, paranoid moron, but she also knew deep down that Penelope didn’t care. Maybe she understood.

Before she could convince herself otherwise she hit the first position speed dial, pacing a bit in front of the sinks as it rang.

“Dia dhuit?” Came Monty’s groggy, listless voice over the line, and Kit nearly burst into tears at the combination of her sister’s voice, her real voice, and their mother tongue.

“Monty.”

“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you? Thought you were in the living room, but I only hear you on the phone.”

Kit wiped at a stray tear trailing down her cheek. There was no way she was keeping it together when she finally got home.

Monty’s accented Irish was thicker than it normally was. Her voice was lower too, telling of the fact that she quite possibly woke her twin up. She bit back a bit of guilt, her own voice launching into a language just for them.

“I’m sorry, I woke you, didn't I?”

“It’s alright, I’ll go back when we’re done. Where are you?”

“Are you feeling any better?” She was stalling. “When was the last time you took-”

“Dakota.” Kit stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything is fine.”

“But why are you crying?”

Damn it.

She tried to keep any tremor out of her voice, but she knew Monty would always be able to tell. “I’m not.”

“Why are you calling me, crying-”

Kit sighed, her pacing stopping dead in its tracks as she tried to keep herself together. “Everything is okay. I’m not hurt. I’m fine. Everyone is fine. I needed to hear your voice.”

The coughing across the line was grating, and then, “Kody, where are you? What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“I…” Kit started, steadying herself with a hand on the counter. “We’re in Pennsylvania.”

“You’re what?”

“It’s fine, I had to leave overnight. We’re on a case.”

“You didn’t call,” Monty said, obviously upset. “You didn’t even send a text. Ari was at the bureau last night, too, why-” She cut herself off to cough, the line being muffled as Monty pulled away from the speaker.

Kit ran her hand down her face. This wasn’t the conversation she needed to be having. She should have called Ari. He tended to be a little more level headed when he was upset.

“Why wouldn’t you say anything?” Monty finally asked, voice much rougher than before. “What if something happened?”

“Nothing is going to happen,” Kit said, her voice more steady than she felt it should be. “I’m sorry, Mont. I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you.”

“Why…” Monty trailed for a moment before she said quietly, “Why did you call now?”

Claudia’s face flashed to the front of her mind, and then Monty’s; the reflection of her own staring back at her in the mirror.

“I needed to hear your voice. I had to know you were alright.”

Another moment of silence passed before Monty asked, “Something happened, didn’t it?”

Kit sighed, sniffling quietly before letting out another, deeper sigh. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mont.”

The door to the bathroom swung open, JJ standing on the other side.

“Hey, the whole file finally came through, we’re meeting in the- are you crying?”

Kit’s head whipped around to look at JJ square, and she hastily wiped under her eyes. “No, I, um. I’ll be right there.”

JJ tilted her head, but nodded and shut the door again. The air between the twins crackled quietly before Kit cleared her throat.

“I have to go. I… hopefully I’ll be home tonight. I’m sorry, Montana. I am.”

“Kody, wait-”

“I love you, Mont, I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t just say those things and then go put yourself in danger! You can’t do that to me! I-”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I-” The door to the bathroom was pounded on. “Lep! Let’s go!”

Derek.

“Dakota!”

“I’m sorry. I love you.”

Before Monty could say anything else, Kit snapped her phone shut.

------

Her leg bounced as she sat in the SUV in between Reid and Elle. She was twisting at the hem of her shirt, and some of the threads had ripped and stretched. It was keeping her from pulling on her hair though, so she didn’t care about that. Ginny could sew it for her when they got back to DC.

If Ginny’s still there. Anyone could grab her at any time. Anyone could-

“Are you okay?” Reid asked quietly, his eyes locked on her fingers as they tugged at the material.

She stilled her hands immediately, feeling the concern dripping from his tone.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just… tired.”

“You could probably sit out if you need to,” he said, not noticing the way her face had started to heat up. Everyone in the SUV was actively pretending they couldn’t hear their conversation, but Kit knew better.

“I don’t need to,” she said quickly. “I just want to get home, so the faster we cuff this creep, the better."

"Because of your sister?"

"What?"

How could he have possibly known what you were thinking about Ginny? Did you say something? Did-

"Your sister's sick, right?"

She stared at him for a moment before it clicked. He wasn't talking about Ginny. Of course he wasn't, the only one that knew about her minor meltdown was Garcia. Monty being sick was common knowledge.

"Oh," she said. "Yeah. And because he's, you know." She gestured vaguely. "Murdering women."

Elle laughed quietly next to her, nodding as she said, “Right, there’s that. We’ll get him. Right, Gideon?”

“Oh, we’ll get him,” Gideon said, sending more anticipatory energy into the world than usual. Kit didn’t have to think about the implications of that, though, as the SUV came to a halt outside a two story home.

They got out of the van quickly, all thoughts of Monty and going home gone as they strapped into Kevlar vests and double checked their weapons.

“I believe Walter Kern is in Sylvia Gooden's home now,” Gideon said, addressing the five of them and the SWAT captain. “Hotch confirmed he left the community center hours ago, and Kern's car's parked on the next block.”

“I want Walter Kern alive,” Ryan said quickly, and the SWAT captain nodded at his request. “I'll stand by for the word.”

“Reid, Greenaway, I'll call you when we've secured Kern. Morgan, Colghain, you’re with me and Ryan. Okay, let's move out.”

“Yeah,” Elle said, watching them as they walked away, Kit trailing just behind.

It didn’t feel right to her that she was going and Elle was staying back, but that was one of the reasons she was even on the team.

Or, working with them, at least. There’d been too many conversations surrounding that topic for her to understand her feelings about it.

They crept towards the house, pausing as the SWAT team pried the door open. Gideon led and Kit held the rear, covering and watching to make sure that nothing happened to them. Team or not, they were her responsibility.

They weren’t in the house for very long before they could hear Gooden crying for help on the second floor. Every movement they made was succinct, and within seconds they were in the room.

“Don't move! Don't move!” Gideon yelled, all weapons drawn at Kern as he tried to hold a plastic bag over Gooden’s face.

They scuffled for a moment, Morgan able to knock Kern’s gun out of the way before holding his arms behind his back. “Down on your knees! Down! Don't move!”

Kit held her gun steady, shifting into a position that allowed her to still have a sightline on Kern; at least until he was cuffed. Not that she believed he could get out of Morgan’s hold.

Gideon spoke quickly into the com, letting Reid and Elle know that Gooden was alive, and Kern was secure.

Morgan struggled a bit to keep Kern’s hands together, and Kit didn’t change her aim. “Cuff him, Morgan.”

“Gideon, I need your cuffs, man,” he said over his shoulder.

Gideon didn’t move right away, but Kit didn’t take her eyes off Kern. She couldn’t until she knew he didn’t have any chance of getting away.

“Why don't you do this? I'll take care of her.” Gideon had spoken to Ryan, who had clearly been soothing Gooden until that moment.

"That's enough. Now get up,” Morgan said, passing him off so Ryan could cuff him. “You got him?”

“Ya, I got him,” Ryan said, and Kit lowered her weapon as she heard the click of the cuffs secure around Kern’s wrists.

“Colghain,” Gideon said, “Some help, please.”

Kit turned quickly, realizing that Sylvia Gooden, who had just been nearly suffocated, was still crying and panicking with flex cuffs around her wrists.

She wasn’t done yet.

The two steps to the bed were swift, and Gideon stepped aside as she spoke to the traumatized woman. “Hi, my name is Kit. I’m a nurse, and I’m going to check and make sure you’re okay. Is it alright if I touch you?”

Gooden looked up at her for a moment before she nodded stiffly, taking a deep breath before dissolving into hysterics.

Kit grabbed her hands and squeezed gently, giving the older woman a small smile despite all the crazy going on around them.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “I promise. It’s all going to be okay.”

-----

Kit sat next to Reid on the jet, which was odd, because she normally tried to keep herself as far away from everyone as possible. She’d gotten a very strange read off of Hotch, though, who had secluded himself in the corner she usually would have taken, so she figured the conversation would keep her awake if anything else.

It didn’t stop her from propping a blue notebook open in her lap and tapping at it quietly with her pen. They were laughing at a story Ryan was telling about Gideon that made him seem almost human, and the laughter she shared was genuine. Gideon had stepped aside for her to take the lead with Gooden, which meant he was going to be true to his word when they were in the field. Stay out of each other’s way, and things will be fine.

She just hoped it would last.

“What goes in that notebook?”

She looked up at Reid’s voice, noticing that while she’d allowed herself to be in her own head for fifteen seconds, everyone had splintered into their own conversations. Elle had even walked away from them, and was now engaged in a quiet conversation with Hotch.

“Hm?”

He nodded down at the blue notebook in her lap. “What goes in there? I’ve only ever seen the red one, and that’s where you write all of our medical information, and things that happen to us medically during cases. Like when I was sick in New Jersey. But that didn’t happen this time, nothing did, and that notebook is blue, and it’s much more worn, and -” He stopped short, frowning. “I’m rambling.”

She shook her head quickly. “No, it’s alright. I don’t mind. I was waiting for you to be done before I answered your question.”

Reid’s eyes widened a bit, his jaw dropping for just a moment before he seemed to right himself. “Most people don’t wait until I’m done.”

“It’s a skill I picked up in college. It’s hard to help someone if you won’t listen to their entire story.”

“Huh,” he said. He seemed to think on that for a moment before he said, “So, what’s it for?”

She blinked up at him. “Oh.”

She hadn’t thought she’d actually have to answer. She was sort of hoping that he would talk himself in circles until he was on another topic completely. He’d done it a few times over the short time she’d known him.

“Oh?”

“Well, it’s sort of personal,” she settled on.

“Like a journal? A diary?”

If he noticed she was blushing, he didn’t let on. “A little bit, it’s like-” She stopped short as she saw JJ move from her seat towards the coffee machine, and her brain flipped a completely different switch. “Sorry, I need to talk to JJ,” she said, and before he could protest, she’d dropped the notebook on her seat and was across the short length of the plane.

“Hey, JJ,” she said, causing the blonde to turn around and smile.

“Hey, coffee?”

“No, actually I-” She hadn’t quite thought the rest out. “I um.”

She found her hands grabbing for the ends of her hair, but she stopped herself before she could start tugging. She was far too late on her meds, which were officially out of whack, considering the fact that she hadn’t slept in two days. She wasn’t even sure what day it was.

“Is today Sunday?” She said, which was not at all how she’d intended to start the conversation she wanted to have.

JJ laughed. “I have no idea. Maybe? When we left it was the middle of the night, so I would need to check my phone.”

“Right,” Kit said, easing a bit and giving a quiet laugh of her own. “I um. Well, I wanted to tell you that I thought about what you said.”

JJ tilted her head, eyebrows pulling together. “What I said?”

“What you said about pushing back.”

“Ah,” JJ said, eyes flashing with recognition. “And?”

“I… Claudia really threw me.”

Her head tilted before she said, “The woman they found under the bed?”

Kit shivered. “Yeah.” She didn’t regard the moment with fondness.

JJ didn’t seem to notice. She thought for a moment before shrugging. “I heard Morgan telling Gideon that you were incredible with her. That you didn’t leave when EMS got there because she didn’t want you to.”

Kit shook her head quickly, deflecting the praise. “I didn’t really do anything. She just… I don’t think she wanted all those men around her without another woman around.”

“And you were that woman for her.”

Kit stopped for a moment, watching JJ’s eyes soften. She was going to deflect again - insist that she’d done exactly what anyone else would have done, but something stopped her.

“I want to be here,” she heard herself saying. She hadn’t had time to process it herself, but it seemed she was going to do it outloud, in real time. “I want to be a part of this, but I’m scared. Because there will be more Claudias. And more Sylvias… And more Kerns.” She moved a hand to play with the seam at the hip of her slacks. “And we won’t always get there in time. I won’t always get there in time.”

The two women stood in silence for a moment before JJ reached out and took Kit’s right hand off her braid, squeezing it gently between her own fingers.

“But we’ll always try. And sometimes?” She shrugged. “We win.”

Kit took a deep breath, allowing that thought to fill her senses. Sylvia Gooden was alive. Claudia was alive. Kern lost.

“I think you should talk to Hotch when we get back. Not now. You look exhausted.”

They both laughed, Kit’s a little lackluster. “It’s that obvious?”

“You’ve got two black eyes.”

“Damn.” Kit shook her head, averting her eyes from JJ’s before saying, “Thank you. For listening and telling me what you knew and for making me feel like I deserve to be here.”

JJ nodded, saying simply, “You do.” She gestured to the coffee machine again. “You sure you don’t want some?”

Kit laughed, shaking her head again. “No, really, I shouldn’t. My body doesn’t know what time it is already, I think that would put me in dangerous territory.”

She stood on the Red Line platform, struggling to keep her eyes open. She pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger, trying anything subtle to get her from point A to point B as quickly as possible. It was already dark, and she didn’t need to fall asleep on the train, or worse, while standing and waiting for the train.

That would really cap this weekend. Falling asleep on the train, missing your stop, getting abducted…

“Do you have a headache?”

“Ah!” She jumped, turning over her shoulder and swearing loudly. “Reid, what the hell?”

“Sorry!” He said, ducking just a bit, as if he was worried she was going to strike him. “That pressure point is effective in relieving headaches, grounding panic attacks, and quelling nausea. Are you sick?”

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “No, that’s not- I know exactly what this pressure point is used for Spencer, what the hell are you doing here? At my train stop? Again? I told you that I don’t-”

“I wanted to make sure you got home safely,” he said quickly, cutting her off before she could really get going. The anxious sincerity flooding off of him stopped her long enough for him to continue. “The odds of being accosted on the Red Line are significantly lower than the Blue, but you’re exhausted, and this case made you nervous, so I just wanted to be sure you…” He slowed, a dark flush rising in his cheeks. “Got home safe. Which I’m sure you can on your own, because your field scores dwarf mine. I, um…”

He had stuttered to a halt.

He’s embarrassed. And he wanted to help you.

She didn’t have time or energy to process the fact that he’d most definitely profiled her. The sentiment was sort of touching.

Sort of, as far as Spencer Reid was concerned.

“This… isn’t a Gideon thing?”

Reid chuckled quietly, shoving his hands into his pockets. “No. It’s, ah, a me thing. Gideon offered me a ride home, but I said no.”

She tilted her head at him, frowning as the train squealed into the station. “No shit?”

He laughed again, shaking his head and offering a small smile, his cheeks still flushed, but relief in his eyes. “No shit.”

“...Fine. But only because I’m really tired… You know, you could have said all this, or offered, in the bullpen, right? You didn’t have to follow me to the train like a stalker.”

The blush flooded his cheeks again, and he shrugged, unable to meet her eyes. “I didn’t want you to yell at me or something in front of everyone else.”

Her heart sank.

Look what you’ve done, Kody. You made him anxious to be alone with you because he thinks you’re some crazy person that’s going to fly off the handle.

Well, aren’t you?

“I wouldn’t do that, Spencer,” She said, starting towards the train door. “I appreciate the concern… thanks.”

He looked up, eyes flashing a combination of relief and hesitance. “Oh. Yeah. Ah, yeah, sure.”

They sat down inside the train, Kit immediately leaning her head against the window. She sighed, closing her eyes.

Maybe Reid isn’t so bad. Maybe he’ll stay quiet, or read the whole way and you can actually get a short-

“You know, there’s a staggering amount of germs on the window on a DC train. Approximately 45% of people…”

-----

Spencer stalked away from her door, his long legs making him look somewhat like a baby giraffe as he turned to descend the stairs. He gave a last, incredibly awkward wave.

“See you tomorrow, Dakota,” he said.

She fought back the instinct to groan. “Bye Reid, thanks.”

He grinned as his head slipped below her sight line and she let out a sigh, her entire body seeming to settle into exhaustion. It was late, and dark, and hopefully she would be able to slip into the apartment and deal with her siblings in the morning before she left for work. She’d talk to Monty then, and Ari at the clinic, and everything would be fine.

She’d need to call Ginny, but she could do that in the morning as well. She needed to sleep first. Sleep, and then deal with whatever came.

Her hand fumbled a bit with the key as she tried to fit it correctly into the door, eyes dry and tired and brain scrambled. The residual jittery, anxious feeling of both the case and messing the the time on her medication wasn’t helping her fine motor skills, and she’d nearly resigned to search through her backpack for the flashlight she kept when the doorknob was ripped away from her hand, the door flying open.

Something hard slammed into her body, arms wrapping around her in a vice grip and knocking the wind out of her.

Instead of words, there were hitching sobs from her attacker. Congested sounding, sad, and overly frustrated, matched with hot tears that were falling onto her shoulder. She took a breath, wrapping her arms around Monty and holding her as close as she could.

“Shh, it’s okay, dair, I’m okay,” she mumbled quietly, feeling her twin’s arms tighten around her.

“Don't… ever do that,” Monty managed, voice gravely and tearful. “Never, ever.”

“Oi, Mont, what-” Ari turned the corner, making eye contact with Kit over their sister’s shoulder. She watched physical tension release in his shoulders. “Ah. Okay. Mont, deirfiúr, come in and close the door. She’s okay. We’re fine.”

The mixing of languages wrapped around Kit, filling her like a breath she hadn’t taken in days. Monty let go, rubbing furiously at her streaming eyes as she walked back through the door, settling down on their couch and curling herself into a ball.

Ari pulled Kit through the door, looking at Monty and shaking his head. There was no need for the mix now, they could speak as they did among themselves. “Ah, no, get up. Come on. She’s tired, you’re sick. Bed. Now.”

Kit didn’t know how it happened, but they all ended up in Ari’s bed. Granted, it was the biggest. He didn’t share a room, and he was significantly taller than both she and Monty had ever hoped to be. They’d slept all together as children often, and when they were first living in the district on the floor at Ginny’s, they ended up in some sort of pile of limbs the nights they all worked the same shifts.

Now they rarely did. Six months before when they were back at home after Al needed to get his appendix out. A year before that when their Grandad had died. Before that? She wasn’t sure she remembered.

Monty’s head rested on her chest, quiet congested snoring coming from her in even breaths. Her face was flushed; from fever or crying, Kit wasn’t sure.

She’d been nearly pulled into Ari’s lap, and now her head rested on his stomach, rising and falling just slightly as he slept.

Regardless of how incredibly exhausted she was, she forced herself to stay awake and listen. To feel them breathing. To be sure they were there, and alive.

JJ’s words played in her head.

You do.

She deserved to be with the BAU. She deserved to be there.

Her senses focused back in on her cúpla, and the stress she’d caused them. The fear. The anxiety.

But do you really want to be?

-----

It's me again!

The plan right now is to make each season (year?) a different story, with a different song as the title and lyrics for the chapters. I'm a music person, this is the only way I operate.

If you've heard a song that made you feel feelings, hit me with it!

#Brenna writes things #or at least she tries #Second Child Restless Child #SCRC #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #Gaelic/Irish #OC #female oc #it happened y'all I'm posting again #let's hope it sticks

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