#but I also refuse to stop drawing to look up references so it’s my own fault

[fagkermit]

[fluffysucker]

4. In my defense, I have none

Bucky Barnes x Reader (AU)

TW: Talk about miscarriage. illusion to smut.

A/N: Written in Third POV. No use of Y/N. However, the reader is referred to as a female.

If you can't tell already, this chapter is heavily influenced by Folklore by Taylor Swift. I used so many song lyrics throughout the chapter. Lmk if you found them all.

PS: it's folklore. Get ready. Also, I'm NOT defending Bucky

Likes, comments, reblogs are VERY VERY highly appreciated. Opinions really matter to me

Series Masterlist  

Masterlist

You should have never let it reach here. It should have been just a one-time thing. A mistake. A slip.

However, you found yourself stuck in this dilemma more times than you wanted.

After that day in the house, it happened more frequently. Whenever the kids were asleep. If the kids were having a sleepover at either of their aunts or uncles. Even as far as when the kids were at school.

Both of you were missing each other too much. It was making up for lost time. All the time, you should have been holding each other, but you weren't even talking.

The fire between you was burning flames. Not caring, it might burn you instead.

You were happy to have a part of him back. Every time, you would tell yourself, This is the last. Yet you would fall in bed with him.

And he wasn't helping at all. Saying all the things you want to hear. Fulfilling all your needs Knowing exactly how to get you so pouty in his hands.

"You're doing so good for me, doll."

"Look at you. So beautiful and pretty."

"The best mama, my woman."

"Mine. All mine."

All the stuff you so desperately missed from him

And it wasn't just this. Every time you were done, he wouldn't leave right away. From the first time, he would stay for a bit longer. Holding you. Cuddling you to his chest Drawing circles on your skin Praising you.

He satisfied every need you had. The need to be touched. The need to be loved. The need. to be taken care of. The need to be with him.

Despite not having any real conversation about your current situation, you fooled yourself into thinking that it was Bucky's way of telling you to start over. That he always belonged to you.

It was just so pretty to think that all along there were some invisible strings tying you to him.

However, whenever your mind took control again, you would see how messed up the situation was. You were divorced for a reason. He didn't want you anymore. So why were you keeping his bed warm?

That is why every time you said you would stop, you would reserve some of your dignity. You would end it, but he would show up and look at you like you had hung the moon and the stars. You would fall again.

Bucky didn't know any better either. Letting his feelings take over. His primal need to have you be his

He was aware of how selfish he was. But the reason he left was never you. He never stopped loving you. He could never stop loving you. He would die for you in secret.

Would it be enough if he could never give you peace?

This predicament was what led you right where you are. lying on his chest after he tore your body apart at his new apartment. Rebecca, Bucky's sister, planned a trip for her kids and yours. You suggested tagging along, but she refused, telling you that you needed the break. She didn't think you would spend your break with her brother.

If you closed your eyes right now, you could imagine what would happen if nothing had changed. Bucky was still your husband. Your man. The intimacy was so familiar. The feeling of his arms around you and his breath over your face, the soft kisses on your hair Your own little heaven

The buzzing of the phone scattered your peaceful bubble. Bucky reached for his phone, and a little laugh erupted from him. You shouldn't have asked him about it. Nothing could have prepared him for his next words.

"Clint is making sure I won't stand this girl he has been so bent over setting up together."

The blood ran cold in your vessels. Dreed filled your body. You could hear the sound of your heart breaking into a million pieces.

Have you really meant so little to him?

Bucky was the love of your life, and he was planning dates while you laid with him. How did it get here?

Bucky had the audacity to pull you closer to him after putting his phone down. With what little is left of your dignity. You pushed him and got up to dress up and leave. Every fiber in your being was begging you to crawl on the bed and cry, but now wasn't the time.

"Where are you going?" Bucky asked, confused about the change in mood. He wanted to hold you a bit more.

"I'm leaving. So you could get ready for your date." You were proud of yourself for disguising the bitterness in your voice. You had shown him enough.

"It's not until 7 in the evening." The audacity was infuriating. Is he acting stupid, or is he really clueless?

You couldn't be in the same room with him anymore. You took your bag and rushed to the front door.

"Doll, what's wrong?" He followed you and reached for your arm, but you moved away quickly.

"Nothing. Have fun on your date." This time you couldn’t help it. 

"C'mon, doll. I'm just going for Clint. I already plan to tell her it won't work." This was your last straw.

"And why won't it work?" You turned to him, hurt in your eyes and venom lacing your voice.

"Because you're sleeping with your ex-wife and your kids' mother." The pain was too much for you to stay quiet for longer.

"Well, in that case, you should try to make it work because it's not happening again." You finally said it.

"Wait. Why?." Bucky never wanted this to stop. He didn't want to lose you. Again.

"Can't you really see what's wrong here? Do you really think what we are doing is normal?" You couldn't believe him. Is he that delusional?

"But I want you." It was the truth. But it was a harmful one.

"You want me, or do you want to keep sleeping with me?" The question, which you tried so hard to keep at the back of your brain, rushed into your words.

"Of course not. I only ever wanted you." Bucky never meant for you to doubt yourself. His actions weren't helping, but his intentions were to never hurt you.

"You left me."

"Not because I stopped loving you."

"And that's way worse."

You were finally having this conversation. The one you delayed for so long

"You left because you got bored. The role of the husband got too much for you."

"And how do you expect me to believe you loved me when everything tells me you were going to leave anyway?."

"I wasn't. I just couldn't do it anymore. I thought I was able to get over my old issues and keep going, but I couldn't."

"You couldn't talk to me. Couldn't reach out. Couldn't try to figure out a way to solve it. No, you chose to walk out on me because you couldn't commit anymore. Yet here we are. Look at us."

"Because I can't let go."

"But you can divorce me."

Bucky had no answer to this. His commitment issues got the better of him. He shouldn't have married you in the first place if he was going to leave anyway. He shouldn't have promised to stay forever and then walked away. And he was aware of it all. He could hear it all. But nothing could have prepared him for your next words.

"I was pregnant."

It fell from your tongue. It's so hard to say. So hard to listen. But he had to know. He had to know the sacrifices you made for him.

"I was so happy. I thought this was our chance to mend what was broken. And I didn't even know what was broken. When I went to tell you, you said you were busy and left. When you came back. You didn't even bother to ask me what I wanted."

"I thought you learned to read my mind. You noticed nothing. Not the morning sickness. Not the fatigue. Not the mood swings. Not my first trimester meal. Nothing. I gave so many signs. You didn't even see the signs."

"So when you brought out the divorce, I agreed. I was so hurt."

Bucky didn't want to believe you. He knew he was distant in the last months of your marriage. But was he really that bad? To the point he couldn't hear his wife's distress calls? He was so focused on his own problems that he almost neglected your presence. The only person who truly loved him

"If you had told me, I..."

"You would have stayed. Because you got tired of being a husband and not a father. You would have stayed for the kids, but you would have hated me. We would have been miserable. I had to make the choice. I had to choose for my kids to have a good father over anything."

It was no surprise how selfless you were. Choosing him and the kids over yourself was second nature to you.

"I was going to tell you after the divorce. I was going to tell you that I just found out. So even if you asked, I would turn down getting back together."

"But the pain was too much. The stress of losing my husband The self-doubt. There were too many questions I didn't have answers to. Along with the act that I was fine with the divorce. It was so hard. I lost it."

Maybe if you had told him, it wouldn't have happened. You will never know. And it will always haunt you.

All you knew was that either way, you weren't going to win.

"I had to go drop the kids off at Nat's first before going to the hospital all by myself. I couldn't call anyone because no one knew, and the last thing I wanted was fake sympathy."

"You know what I needed, my husband. I got back to an empty house. I had to get through this all by myself. Alone. "

"I wanted you to hold me. Let me cry. Let me grieve. I needed you. And you weren't there. I had to pick up the pieces because the kids needed their mother. And I did."

Bucky's heart was shattered by how much you suffered because of him. Because he let his fears control him. Hurting the person he cherished the most. Damaging the only real thing he ever had. Your marriage.

"I tried so hard to hate you. Only remember the agonizing pain. You left me broken and bitten. You, the love of my life. The man I have ever loved. You, who drew stars around my scars, and now, I'm bleeding. "

"But the moment you touched me, it was all down the drain. You are all I ever wanted. I forgot about it all."

"Every time I say this is the last time, then I still come back to you. I love you too much to have common sense."

"I convinced myself we were changing for the better. Wanting was enough. For me, it was enough. To live for the hope of it all. Maybe there is a chance for us."

"I was wrong."

"You had me wishing you were a bad father, so you would've abandoned all of us. You had me wishing you stopped caring for the kids so I could hate you. So I can stop seeing you. You had me wishing pain on my own kids. Because I can never understand how you can be such a good dad but so afraid of being a husband."

"Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me. Look at this idotic fool that you made me."

At this point, you were in a hysterical state. Tears running down your face. Sobs shake your body. Your fists collide with his bare chest. letting your anger out with the crushing pain. The last four months are finally showing. The hurt you have kept inside is out in the open.

You couldn't fight anymore. You rested your head on his chest as you sobbed. Mourning your broken heart

He hesitated to wrap his hands around you. Letting both of your tears mix together. The fact that he was the reason for your breakdown killed him.

His hold felt like a cage. Keeping you trapped because you can't let go either. You would never be free.

You stood there for a while until your sobs became sniffles. You broke from his grasp, looking at him with your puffy red eyes.

"The kids deserve better than this. They deserve the best parents. And that's where we are now. Parents. Nothing more."

You walked to the front door. You turned to look at him. Silently begging him to say something. Do something. But you got nothing. And that was it.

If your feelings for each other were too strong to handle, too complicated to solve, too damaging to save, then you never stood a chance to exist again.

Now, both of you dream of some epiphany. Just one single glimpse of relief. To make some sense of what you've seen

"See you next weekend." You said this as you closed the door behind you.

You left Bucky to face the consequences of his actions. He wanted to leave. So you left. Here, he pushed the only person who ever mattered to him. The person who loved him to the moon and to Saturn

How could he let his stupid mind get him here? He let his insecurities take over. How self-centered did he have to be for this to happen? Ruining his family and his world just for the sake of himself And he wasn't even miserable. He got into his own head. Dark thoughts that pushed him here. Thinking he couldn’t commit anymore, when all he ever needed was always going to be you.

With tears streaming down his face, all he could think about was how he got here. Why did he become the villain? His mind was running thousands of miles a second. 

I didn't have it in myself to go with grace

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves

You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed

You turned into your worst fears

And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain

Crossing out the good years

And you're cursing my name, wishing I stayed

Look at how my tears ricochet

Taglist: @lethallyprotected @almosttoopizza @ragingrainbowshipl @dexter99 @xdarkcreaturex @nash-dara @paarthurnax59 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @unaxv @missmielyhoran @wintermischief @kandis-mom

[moonstruckdraws]

The Red Queen

An alternate version of Vera! @hellishgayliath daughter I've been drawing nonstop (this being no exception)

like always, this is a spiel so- yeah

Ever since looking back at my first sketch of her in this red dress a few days ago, my brain started to trail off to "what ifs" & one of these is what if Vera was bitter & frustrated to the extreme in contrast to her current self is improving from the event.

But the premise is that Vera would become a mob boss herself! While not as reknown as Big Mama, is still a bigger threat (compared to the smaller mobs like in that one episode in Hueso's restaurant)

I don't know how she'd be pushed over this edge to where she'd stop caring about others (being a therapist & all) & I won't even try lol. But in this version, it starts off with the break up (with my assumption of how she would handle it in my other post; compared to her actual reaction would be) & I'd imagine she'd just tear up the room before going to her own living quarters.

Being one of Big Mama's lovers, & a temporary model for the Grand Nexus's advertising, I'd imagine that their breakup would be talked about & Vera would probably start being bombarded at work; unable to take off from work. Maybe she'd start spiraling then? She'd fall off the face of the earth for a while before rumors of a borzoi mob boss rising up starts to become the talk of the city. Of course, I'm sure this would intrigue Big Mama or something, but Vera wouldn't announce her identity. & Idk, that's all I got lol

Aight lil details & facts this Vera would have

Vera's favorite color is ruby/scarlet, so I think her keeping this dress & making iconic look fits. It'd also tie into it being a constant reminder of when things took a turn for the worse & her trust in someone important to her was shattered. Also a funfact about her, by Helli, is that apparently she doesn't wear purple anymore; only wore the color when with Big Mama, aside for makeup. This version of her despises the color & refuses to have any hues of it near her as it reminders her of that Spider. It's why her make up is now red as well. It's also red because blood blends into it well :] (was gonna name her the Blood Queen, but that sounded a too much for Vera; also Red Queen to reference Helli calling Vera that in the first post I made of her)

I don't know how Vera feels about Big Mama fully (aside for wondering if Big Mama was pretending the whole time or not) in the sense of if she's over her. This version is probably less over her than the original, hating her guts but forever thinking of the past. Unlike the original, this version would probably carry any memories of those days with her (on good days) like the cloaking broach. She also has eye creases because tears & probably being more addicted to coffee.

Her being a therapist means she a smart cookie in psychology (i believe so), so she'd definitely use that to her advantage. Being able to see signs of lying, finding spies in her minions, etc.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, she burns things; burning things like her burning rage

I image this would be her first major appearance, setting a fire. Idk, I just wanted to draw it lol (lil fact that I drew most of this earlier today in my notebook because there was nothing to dooooo)

And yeah, that's it. Very out of character, but hey that's what alternate versions are right? :D Don't mind me, just my brain running on nothing but thoughts.

[desultory-novice]

...What time is it...? It's time to slowly clear out Dess's massively over-stuffed inbox with another LIGHTNING ROUND!

> both does and doesn't survive

Oooh, that choice of words!! /pos

> a refusal to stop just because the story says its finished

And ahhhh, this too!! /pos

...Okay, wow, I need to draw more Beast Pack now... (Sorry, I wish I had a more intelligent response than that but I daresay you already laid claim to the most brilliant words!)

--

Hello hello! As a fan of the show Firefly back in the day, I APPROVE OF GALACTIC WILD WESTS!

But no, this is really smart! Most of the people who come to Popstar could be easily categorized as shipwrecked or refugees of some kind. People from the "greater" more modernized galaxy winding up on a backwoods-y planet. (And I think it's been described that way in certain works. Or implied?)

Depending upon how you take the Floralia situation, Popstar could be a bit like Australia or some other small island callously "claimed" by the British Empire. Outside of a few places like Butter Building (and even that is a maybe) most of its locales seem to be places that are still standing from ancient history. Not a lot has been done with it from this generation of Popstarians. It's frontier-land.

Also, Max as a robber-baron is a A+++ idea! This all reminds me of how in my expanded Dreamy Gear concept, I made the HWC one of those shady AF age of expansion railway companies! It just feels very in tune with the way the HWC was doing things! (Under the table and independent of any galactic authority, to be certain!)

--

As far as that particular puffed up depiction of Dedede goes, I can see it too, tbh! ...Nyeh. XD

Pardon my YGO Abridged reference.

--

I have to admit, I haven't read every novel in-depth, but Takase-sensei is getting a lot closer to my own views of Kirby + Kirby-verse here. I feel like the Planet Robobot novel might be the last one of hers where I really appreciated the specific take she took with things!

(Btw, I wonder if we'll get a third novel this year? I still don't think a Mago Epilogue novel is coming just because no Meta Knight XD but I'm curious what other story she might cook up now...!)

--

I think it's a great thing to think about! Just like HAL and Kumazaki love to dump lore in the most obscure places, I think we're meant to think about these things! Enjoy going in depth on them!

Now, I think I lean towards a more emotionally balanced Taranza, even while seeing him as someone in mourning. I've of course laughed at the various crying/distraught reactions people have given him (which are all really funny!) but I also think that maybe he'd be someone to take it more as what it is - a tribute?

(At least, I don't think Magolor means it negatively. I'm not 100% on that, because he DOES like to play tricks on people. But I also have a personal HC that he learned about Halcandra and the Lor/Master Crown during time he spent with the spiders so I don't think he'd do that to Taranza to be mean. Maybe Magolor never reached the stage of being "friends" with Taranza and Sectonia, friendless wizard that he is, but I think he liked them, potentially?)

So, I think Taranza would be touched by the mask (he MIGHT cry though) and the way it is labeled. It's subtle. It doesn't flaunt the fact that Taranza never got his feelings across to his beloved. Nor does it disrespectfully rewrite history as if he had.

I think Susie is also able to have a fairly calm (?) or at least highly restrained reaction to seeing her father's visage. But again, I like the concept that she might mock-threaten to sue Magolor too!

If Magolor DIDN'T get contracted by Susie to make that Weekend Outfit Susie mask and instead made it himself based on observations of her in his trip through the timelines, now THAT would get him in some serious hot water for sure! (But she probably would compliment him on how she looks appropriately cute in it.)

...Daroach would have something quippy to say, I would feel. Probably something a li~ttle prickly about how it's funny he doesn't see a mask depicting MAGOLOR's time under the possession of an evil artifact!

Magolor: "......"

I suppose Marx's reactions to a mask of his soul form depend entirely on where you place Marx on the "more intelligent than he looks" slider. If he's just a silly little guy, then Magolor just made a palette swap mask of him and that's funny!

If he's actually very, very SMART then he would say the same thing as before - on the surface. And then he and Magolor would have a very serious talk about things. In private.

(I, of course, love a Marx who is exceptionally magically inclined. Possibly more attuned to magic than a non-Master Crown empowered Magolor. And he might be able to recognize just from a glance what exactly is "going on" in the Marx Soul mask - certainly from the invocation of "Soul" in the name. Namely, that Magolor saw something HE SHOULDN'T.)

Coo: "...Why am I gray??"

And I agree that Kirby would love the different colored Kirbys and probably made all the Dream Team try them on!

PS: I would love to write/draw/read/see more depictions of the others enjoying Merry Magoland! It's such untapped ground!

--

I did, in fact, post my treatment for my best attempt at coming up with an entry-evel Kirby movie with plenty of easter eggs back in this post! I'm not... 100% satisfied with it, as it's so heavily and clearly an ADAPTATION smooshing several plots into one.

But I did what I could with the idea of trying to cram as many games and major characters into three movies as possible while sticking with Kirby = Friendship as a major theme.

To be honest, I'm more in love with the plot concept I teased for the "second movie," that combines Squeak Squad and Triple Deluxe and RtDL together and pits Kirby and the gang against the Squeaks against Magolor and Taranza against Sectonia against Traitor Magolor in a wacky mystery of mistaken motives!

I think the "thief vs thief" and "royalty vs wannabe royalty" aspects make the characters from that game mesh together a little better than trying to speedrun the Dark Matter Saga + Marx in one movie.

But lets answer some of the rest of this, shall we? ...If you go back enough years, I would have liked to see a Kirby movie done entirely in 2D, but even the old anime series recognized it was easier to keep Kirby on model if he were 3D. So nowadays, it would have to be 3D.

I don't expect it would go for a particular visual style, ala Spiderverse or Puss in Boots. I really think it would look like your average Disney/Pixar/Illumination "clean" CG movie....

But it would be fun if they tried for a more impactful style! Something heavily cell-shaded, perhaps? I love the aesthetics of Epic Yarn and Rainbow Curse, so while a movie might not be the place to get super experimental, I wouldn't mind them trying!

Mario has proven that you don't need to massively twist the characters into the Hollywood "cartoon" model to be successful so I think Kirby could lean more toward a "faithful" depiction.

That said, while -I- personally would do everything possible to work in as many references as possible if I were put in charge, the sad truth is, I never would be, and so I expect a Kirby movie would be a little vanilla in its plot. A "Kirby vs King Dedede only oops, Dark Matter/Nightmare is really behind things!" story?

I wouldn't necessarily expect to see the Animal Friends or Adeleine or Gooey in it. Maybe Marx, given he's popular. (But I don't expect a massively nuanced take on him. ^^; )

...I'd go see it though, either way!

--

Oho!

This is a pretty interesting concept because Elfilin is not really anything resembling a combatant. Then again, Adeleine isn't much of one either...

Because Adeleine takes a lot from the Artist copy ability (and the same can be said for other Dream Friends who call back to certain movesets) I think I would continue along that path and base Elfilin at least partly on the ESP copy ability.

Elfilin would have a few unique attack moves, based on the use of their tail, probably. Little excited, flicky movements! As well as moves based around their ability to make portals/rifts!

They might be able to use weaker versions of Fecto Elfilis's moves including a softer version of Elfilis' Antares spear? (Probably made of light or a phantasmal version, rather than just a miniaturized version of it XD ) And of course, every X number of times you use the move that summons objects from a dimensional rift, a miniature Big Rig falls out and rams into something! XD

--

...Anon...

How you tempt me... 

.

Our setting is a dimly-lit smoky bar. A woman with thick hair covering one of her ruby eyes and with warm, earthy skin leans in, her gold jewelry flashing, her dress sinking past her feet.

“The others call me...'clingy.' Said I don’t know how to let go.”

Her partner, an older gentleman with plenty of blond left in his slicked back hair and a surprisingly attractive squint shuts his pocket watch and smiles a cat-like smile at her.

“Misty, you know my only purpose in life is to grant your wish.”

.

May you all be damned with that visual as I have been!

--

If I don't say this enough, I have received so much support from this fandom and I'm just so very grateful to all of you.

I hope all of you are receiving the love and care you deserve as well for being such creative, kind, patient, understanding people...!

[jojo-lane]

Dolce. B

My Ride or Die OC might just be a Reader-insert but I have others who are more fleshed out, here's one:

TW: Mentions of child prostitution.

Dolce Brando is the illegitimite daughter of Dio Brando and a prositute he frequented during the year 1888 who eventually gave birth to her and her twin brother, Dante Brando, some time in 1889. Unable to care for her babies, their mother gives them up to a Church orphanage and for a time, they grow up relatively happy. Until Dante falls sick with typhoid and the Church kicks them out to the streets in order to prevent him from infecting other children.

Desperate to save her brother, Dolce manages to find their mother barely conscious in an opium den who tells her about their rich father, Dio, a Hugh Hudson Law graduate who was adopted by the noble Joestar family. So Dolce sets out to track him down, determined to demand money and shelter from him only to find out that he mysteriously disappeared after graduating from university. Looking into the Joestars, she crosses paths with one Erina Pendelton, now known as Erina Joestar who is working as an English teacher at the school her son attends. Erina tells Dolce that Dio died on a ship while attempting to murder her husband and his brother, Jonathan Joestar. She never tells her about the Stone Mask that turned Dio into a vampire but makes sure to let Dolce know what a tyrranical and cruel man her father was and that he didn't leave any money or assets for her to inherit. Erina doesn't offer any help to Dolce and Dolce doesn't ask for any out of pride.

Frustrated from running into dead ends and with Dante growing weaker and weaker with each passing day, Dolce joins a brothel on Ogre Street at aged 14. The money she recieves from selling her virginity to the highest bidder, covered the costs of Dantes treatment and he miraculously survives.

Young, beautiful and intelligent, Dolce quickly climbs the ranks of the brothel and becomes a high end escort only afforded by the rich but she only grows to resent the world around her. At age 16, Dolce kills her souteneur and takes over the brothel to start an all-female crime syndicate who specialises in theft and shoplifting. When Dante finds out how Dolce has been paying for their expenses, he tries to stop her and when she refuses, he leaves. Angry at her for always keeping him sheltered and in the dark and feeling guilty for the sacrifices she had to make to ensure their survival, Dante sets out on his own journey to prove his worth as a man.

Dante's departure devastates Dolce and she goes into a spiral of sex, drugs and alcohol. She becomes more ruthless in her dealings with her own syndicate too, executing a member and her lover for wanting to quit the gang to get married and settle down. When her cruelty becomes too much to bear, a few members rally together to usurp her position as boss.

Dolce Brando died at age 18, killed in a shoot out with her own gang members. She never saw or heard from her brother again.

Design Notes & More

I messed up her face a little in this drawing but I had Cara Delevingne in mind when I was drawing her. She just has that deviousness to her face that I imagine Dio's daughter would have. Dolce's hair was also difficult to draw, she kept looking like a cross between Diego and Lucy Steel so her hair may change in future drawings, idk. Her namesake is obviously from the very famous brand, Dolce & Gabbana.

I also didn't specify this but the bit about prostitution is in reference to how young girls were exploited through dance and ballet in the 19th Century. Dolce is also exploited through a similar means that I might go into detail in a fic or something.

Unknowingly, Dolce takes after Dio a lot. The only person she ever loved was her brother and when he leaves her, she goes berserk and brings about her own downfall. Like Dio's canon children, save for Giorno, she is a very tragic character. If Dolce were to ever meet Dio, she would play nice at first before attempting to murder him. Even without knowing him, Dolce hated Dio because of how he failed to steal the Joestar fortune and ended up "dying". She is headstrong and ambitious so she would also try to achieve Heaven for herself but ultimately fail because of her fate.

But I wonder what would Dio think of Dolce? I think he would not like her but at the same time, have a soft spot for her. They definately share the same or similar opinions about fate and humanity.

Let me know what you guys think! 🙂

[rappaccini]

.... okay. the phillips run hasn't started yet, so i'm not breaking my own rules if i give my thoughts on the spiderverse tie-in and what to expect going in.

looking at it and...

so this is a setup issue: come see all the players in the next event. here's a taste of their art style, the writing, and their role in the story.

so as a first look at the phillips run.... sigh.

first of all, the art style is pretty, but pinup-y. it feels more gwen stacy than spider-gwen.

also... hm. at gwen being referred to as Totally A Teenager and being put in cheesecakey poses. you can't have it both ways! if you want to sexualize her you have to let her be an adult! if you want her to be a teen you have to draw her like a kid!

at least gwen doesn't have her spiderverse haircut. i like that look but at this point we need to do whatever we can to differentiate gwen from her sv counterpart. weird experience, being happy that gwen still has that headband.

she's got the sv suit though. uh oh.

i don't really like the sneakers but at least they're not ballet flats. still hate that the alt vibe seems to have been traded out for athleisure.

looks like the tva are going to plant gwen on 616, and the next Big Spiderverse Event is going to involve a gwen goblin. i AM interested to see how gwen responds to this alternate self, especially since she's already interacted with a gwen goblin before, but my excitement is totally drowned out by knowing her involvement in this event is going to be all about forcing her into 616 for good, and therefore it's probably going to imply something about 616-gwen that makes it "acceptable" for spider-gwen to essentially take her place. hate it!

like. i'm fine with gwen spending some time in 616, or being called in for events there. i don't like it but i get that's just how shit is with gwen being brought in for spiderverse events. but i hate that she's gonna stay there.

VERY curious about the hitchcocky birds attacking gwen. love the cosmic horror vibe. but not at all excited about the likely destination: 616 For Good.

so far it looks like gwen's being taken from 65 against her will. GOOD. she doesn't want to leave earth 65! it's never a good thing when she does!...... but we know the end goal is for her to stay away forever. hate it.

... we're gonna see how gwen ditches 65 For Good. if she just up and vanishes without a world, my god that's shitty. even if she says "i like 616 better, bye" to her friends and family-- especially after smash just had gwen recommit to her world.... ugh. there's no way to frame this as anything other than gwen being such an inept superhuman that she can't make it home on her own even when she has a fucking hall pass that allows her to do it at will, or such a coward that she'd rather ditch her home and everyone she loves forever for an easier life somewhere else than stay and face her problems. it's irredeemable.

really wondering if phillips knows gwen has a portal necklace that lets her bounce through different dimensions at will. like, there's nothing stopping her from going home unless something happens to it.

or if she knows gwen has a symbiote. philips wrote the annual, and she didn't use it there either.

clinging to the tiny detail that every time that gwen is referred to as a "teenager" it's in quotes, she's being called one by someone else and she never says it herself so technically she's still in her twenties and being infantilized by miguel. which could be an interesting wrinkle in her story: the idea that all the spider-men are refusing to let gwen grow up, because their gwens didn't get to. but we know that's not what it is! we know she's being deaged! hate it!

so at this point i think sgtgs is going to be a repeat of the mcguire run: editorial wants a spider-gwen ongoing that synergizes with the movies, and selects an author who they think can execute the vision they've already decided they want.

itsv featured spider-gwen getting thrown into the multiverse, part of a trio with peter and miles, being a teenager, and being the object of miles' one-sided crush. oh, and she wears ballet slippers instead of chucks.

not a coincidence that the mcguire run*** involves gwen getting tossed into the multiverse, being marketed as a trio with peter and miles, not having her true age acknowledged and being subject to a 616 law that only applies to people under 21, being hit on by miles in spidergeddon, or that her costume suddenly has ballet flats instead of chuck soles.

with that in mind: atsv features spider-gwen

getting thrown back in the multiverse, running from her problems and being unable to come home

working with miguel's spider-society in some capacity

in a costume redesign with arm warmers

being a teenager

being called "spider-woman"

whose last Canon Event was a fight with kraven the hunter

being haunted by the implications of gwen stacy's role in canon

being close with hobie, and possibly romantically involved

... being Miles's Love Interest

and right away we know that

comics-gwen is being forced away from earth-65 and cut off from her homeworld For Good, and is therefore... running from her problems again

she's definitely going to be involved in the spider-society storyline somehow

she's wearing movie-gwen's exact costume

miguel's narration refers to her as a teenager multiple times

he also calls her "spider-woman'' even though she's exclusively been ghost-spider since 2018 -- so it's REAL clear that this event is intended to appeal to spiderverse fans who've never read a gwen comic before.

even the name of her new ongoing reminds me of the mcguire run beginning as ‘spider gwen: ghost spider’ because they had to introduce that new codename to people. sgtgs is for spiderverse fans who don’t know that’s what her name has been for five years.

one of her earliest villains we know she'll be fighting is... 616's kraven the hunter

we know in some way she'll grapple with the legacy of gwen's death. for the fifth or sixth time.

hobie is a contender for the spider-society book, so they might team up again and might even get a ship tease (the ONE good thing that could come of sv synergy tbh)

gwen's being thrown into miles's world, being referred to as a teenager, being redesigned to appeal to spiderverse fans, and miles is suddenly being written as the kind of guy who'd pursue other girls despite being with starling (staring hard at spectacular trying to push him and kamala). we know what that means. we know what's gonna happen if gwen's on 616 long enough. haaaaate it.

so. this is going to be a repeat of mcguire. right down to the structure of the book: the run in question begins in the middle of a Big Spiderverse Event gwen has to involve herself in, which means she has to be away from her home to take part and is being denied the setup a new run needs to get the reader acclimated to the character/world/status quo, and it'll end with her deciding to hang out in 616 For Some Reason.

no matter what this is gonna suck, because the status quo they're using the book to establish is irredeemable and the end goal is synergizing gwen with her movie counterpart. i want to hope that 616-for-good is just bait and she'll be back in 65 after one arc, but that's almost certainly not what's happening here. they want gwen-in-616 and phillips was selected because editorial thinks she can pull that off.

to be fair that was the case with mcguire. and the thing about mcguire's run is it's so unbalanced because it seems frustrated with its own status quo and is fighting back where it can.***

every time gwen pops over to 616 she says "wow i'm sure not needed here" or "oh look, constant reminders of the gwen stacy who's from here who died, who i am definitely not," or "can't wait to go home!" and whenever she does go home, all the effort in gwen's villains and interpersonal relationships is placed there. the imbalance isn't accidental. the reason gwen-in-616 is so disliked is because mcguire didn't make it compelling on purpose. she's working within the status quo she's allowed to make the case that the status quo itself is bad and that gwen should go home. and she did a damn good job because everyone hates gwen-in-616.

gwen might be marketed with peter and miles but she avoids miles the entire time she's in 616, never participates in a team up with them as a trio or hangs out with them in a group out of costume, only speaks with peter occasionally, and always tells him "it would be gross if we got together"

gwen's not allowed to drink alcohol and somehow is regarded by 616 as under 21, but this run firmly establishes that gwen is in college, not high school. and she lives at home with her dad... but she also got out of prison less than two months ago and it's not exactly easy for ex-cons to find somewhere to rent, especially if they have no job and a public superhuman identity that means villains are going to keep coming for her like gwen does. she's definitely over 18, and the high school/college divide matters a lot.

when miles goes goo-goo eyed at gwen, she ignores him for hobie. she dates harry and the gwenjay vibe gets a shitload of buildup.

so part of me does wonder if phillips might do the same. all the pieces are there: gwen isn't going to 616 of her own free will, she's being forced to deal with Gwen Stacy Trauma again, she's being infantilized by other spider-people, and after smash, she has more reason than ever to go home-- including a female love interest she actively wants to be with.

if the phillips run features gwen constantly saying "i want to go home" or "i didn't choose to be here", keeps gwen in college, keeps the miles interactions to a minimum, gives her a different love interest, or even features gwen coming out as bi, then you know phillips is doing what mcguire did: she's working within her limitations as best as she can to mitigate the synergy damage and try to move the character forward where it's possible.

and from what i know of phillips, she’s a rising star in comics with experience in writing ip superheroes, who favors action, thrillers, and horror-adjacent stories; a good fit for spider-gwen tonally. she’s even worked with renzi, who was gwen’s colorist for a while. and she features a lot of queer women in her work. very good for gwen. if this were set in 65 i’d be SO excited.

(she even wrote for harley quinn, and given the similarities between her and gwen— blonde superhero char who spent a long time pulling away from her male love interest, clearly bi, has lots of toxic tension with her redhead friend— i find that interesting. she characterized harley as a hero… which she really isn’t. but since gwen is... maybe that makes her an even better fit.)

but. mcguire was the same: awardwinning female scifi writer everyone’s jazzed about who has an interest in queer characters and is a match for the tone of the book. and that fizzled fast bc the status quo of gwen in 616 Does Not Work.

we just don't know what to expect from phillips, is the thing. when she wrote the annual, nothing was detrimental to gwen but nothing added to her either. we know by now that melissa flores knows and cares about gwen's continuity, her characterization, and the point of her story. we have no idea what phillips thinks. especially since it seems like flores and her didn’t communicate at all when giant-size set up a gwen ongoing on 65 that we now know isn’t happening.

so how much of spider-gwen's canon is philips familiar with? is she up-to-date on all the minis? if she didn't know about smash as she was prepping her run, did she read it by now? did she only read the latour run? does she even care about the continuity? or, since this is the second round of sv synergy, is spiderverse spider-gwen the character philips signed up to write?

we're just gonna have to see.

best case scenario, we'll just tread water for however long this lasts. worst case scenario, gwen gets fully thrown out for her spiderverse counterpart, gwiles'd to hell, and it's fucking over for her. i don't like not knowing.

regardless... as long as gwen's in 616, this run has to go. her presence there is too much of a threat to her character to be worth any story told in that world: maybe phillips gets it, but any other writer that uses gwen might not. and you know where that could lead.

maybe i'm being pessimistic but the best case scenario at this point is probably what happened with the mcguire run. so here's the forseeable future i'm letting myself hope for:

sgtgs flops, is cancelled early on.

gwen's ongoing gets another relaunch a year later, possibly as early as next year. three options:

-> a) the same status quo, 616-for-good, but a different writer. hopefully that flops too.

-> b) a shift in status quo to gwen returning to the 65-to-616 commute pattern, maybe with phillips staying on, maybe not. so an inverse of the mcguire run. progress, but still not enough. probably doomed to fail.

(-> ... c) the best option that almost definitely won't happen: the ongoing is relaunched with gwen fully back in 65. with or without phillips. and if we somehow get it, i hope it lasts.)

assuming the relaunch happens and flops, then we're in a post-mcguire redux: gwen gets shuffled back to multiverse-themed miniseries that gradually shift her back to earth-65 until she's there for the entire story.

rinse and repeat with btsv: another multiverse ongoing that shoves her back into 616, probably with an even bigger gwiles emphasis, then minis if/when that flops too.

i could keep going but that's beyond the topic of this post.

nothing against stephanie phillips as a person or as a creative-- at least not yet. this status quo would've happened no matter who was tapped to write spider-gwen, and the only way this is going to stop and gwen will be allowed to go home and stay there is if editorial decides to stop forcing her out of it.

no way are they gonna do that until they know gwen-in-616 doesn't make them money, the spiderverse well dries up and a different property comes along for them to leech off of. so bare minimum, shit's gonna suck for gwen until btsv is behind us, possibly even beyond that depending on how the 616 move does and if gwiles happens and sticks. insomniac's our best hope in that regard. cindy moon might be the way out but that’s another post.

until then we're probably going to be in multiverse limbo for the next 6ish years. possibly even longer depending on if spider-women sees the light of day, if gwen appears in the insomniac games or live-action and whether or not she’s miles’ love interest there too.

so i'm doing my part and not supporting the phillips run. not gonna buy or read it, not gonna acknowledge it until it's cancelled or gwen's back in 65.

[de1-os]

i'll bite, whats the story about why you turned down those coms?

okay I wroite a whole response and everything but then my pc refused to connect to my router so I ahve to rewrite. all of it so I'm gonna try a keep it as thorough but short as possible

The 2nd one was requested a couple years ago (sweating nervously I wonder if it's been too recent to talk about it) but yeah this is when i did paypal only commissions on my old acc. The request was for me to draw a. Ok I don't know the semantics of the character's race but he's White and From Japan (like, the setting of the story, he was born and raised in Japan iirc).

^ this guy. he also has a wolf form with the same color scheme

and the requester asked me to draw his wolf form as a "Djinn" (shirtless, magic lamp, turban and all). Which. I was not comfortable with! And I was like "idk dude I don't think I draw something like that esp. because I don't. Know anything about Djinn." and they insisted and explained to me what a Djinn was and gave me examples of what they wanted, and tbh I don't remember if I was like "Seriously. No." or if I stopped responding entirely but they never contacted me again.

I looked up the person's url during this whole interaction and apparently they've publicly requested (and I assume commissioned) other artists to draw various other anime characters as "djinn" (which. the most distinct one I remember was Mt. Lady from BnHA.) and Only That. And it's just. it's feels at best cultural appropriation and at worst race fetishization (maybe not the precise phrases that describes what I mean, but if it gets the point across....) to me.

-----------

The 1st commission I've ever rejected (and mind you the 1st one I got ever), I got back in late 2016. Despite having a tumblr at the time I only really posted my art on DeviantArt (and Google+ but I digress). I decided to open commissions after an internet friend of mine explained to me how it works (and the prices were horrendously low, like maximum $10 low, but I was like 12-13 years old) and I mostly did requests anyways.

Anyways this guy (and I still have the screenshots I sent my friends at the time, referring to them for accuracy) sends me a really polite message (like. waaay overly formal) asking me to draw Kumatetsu from The Boy and The Beast but "shrunk" and him going about his daily life in his shrunken form in oversized clothes. But like. this guy was really insistent about the specifics of how this character looked when "dwarfed". and was like "I Will Negotiate to get this art" (paraphrasing) and also asked for a comic about How this character was shrunk "if I wanted to" (paraphrasing). Which. 13 year old me had no idea how to take this??

I checked out his account and found a lot of art (reuploads of art he requested/commissioned I believe). And like, at the time I had no idea what it was but it was fetish art. A whole bunch of it. Baby/diaper stuff, shrunken characters, inflation??, uhm. Large. Feet? etc. of. children's show characters.

Which, t. to each their own abt their fetishes/paraphilias/fixations and what they post in their personal online spaces (the block button is free) but the actual issue in this situation was that this was an Adult Man (30s at the time, I believe) asking a 13 year old to draw fetish art for him, and even insisted that he would do Anything to negotiate getting that art. While it wasn't sexually explicit, that's like. really fucked up!!! I even actually drew out part of the commission before deciding to just not accept any money for it because it felt too weird and gross to me.

While this was like 7 years ago I still wouldn't accept the commission if I got it now. If you're going to commission fetish art from someone commission an artist who also has that fetish and isn't a minor.

Anyways that's the only 2 times I've every rejected someone's commission before.

[brokentoys]

i remembered arguing a few years back with other dc blogs (on my personal and they were personals - not rp blogs) that eddie does indeed have ocd in the comics. and they accused me of "looking too deep into it". ok. y'all running fan blogs and drawing fan art constantly, but when i start stating a character depicting obvious traits - then suddenly i'm "too obsessed" lmao. and they tried to tell me that arkham city is the only thing where ed has ocd. i couldn't make a good argument back then because unfortunately i was still new into eddie and i didn't have all the evidence i have now. (comics i've read that CLEARLY depicts him with ocd like traits)

and what's funny is that these blogs started trailing off the argument (because i just stopped 'cos i stopped caring) and then they all started talking with each other about how ed only has NPD in the comics, and then start saying it's a bad depiction because it's just a textbook version of NPD. WHY THIS IS SO FUNNY IS BECAUSE 1) although eddie's been called a narcissist in the comics iirc (he's also been said to have compulsions and obsessions lol) - they've never straight up said eddie has narcissistic personality disorder (therefore THERE'S AS LITTLE EVIDENCE OF HIM HAVING NPD AS OCD) and 2) when i mentioned he has OCD, they argued with me that "eddie doesn't have panic attacks/anxiety like those with OCD has :/" WHICH IS FALSE ITSELF. there are many comics where eddie starts displaying anxiety - especially there's a REALLY GOOD comic from the bman chronicles where eddie slowly grows more and more anxious because he's refusing to do his compulsion. but like. they complain that eddie obviously has NPD because he's a textbook definition of it. but then they expected him to be a textbook definition of an OCD patient to have OCD LMAO.

also i even own a booklet from an official animated series merch that references ed having OCD, too. like even if the comics never straight up say it - it doesn't mean he doesn't depict traits of OCD and has it. not everything has to be spelled out. just like if a character has a dog, and you constantly see the dog in their house, and they care for the dog - you can't just say "well, the comics never SAID they had a dog, so therefore they don't have a dog. :/"

[crimmycram]

for the emojis ocs!! And all of the ocs please <3

💐🕷️🙈🙊🙉🍀🌏🌌🪤✂️

SKJDDHDDHHEHEHE IS THIS TOO MUCH SORRY IM STOPONG THERE

Looking at all the asks you've sent me like What The Fuck Is Wrong With You /pos

I'm doing this for my four main babies only because those are the only ones I have coherent thoughts about so <3

Ask Game

💐 BOUQUET - create a bouqet for them! what do those flowers mean? are any of the flowers their particular favourite?

Ira - hollyhocks

Melika - tulips and violets, dandelions when they're still little white balls

Crevan - pink camellias and a single daffodil

Luke - carnations they mean love and boy does he need some of that and a hug and chrysanthemums which I can't for the life of me pronounce

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

Ira - heights, also every single time he enters a room he has to check behind the door to make sure no one's hiding there

Melika - american suburbs, actually anything/place that looks like someone went overboard with the copy paste too on them, can you blame her

Crevan - somniphobia, this bitch's sleep schedule is FUCKED

Luke - intimacy and attachment to family members having to talk to his mom face to face

🙈 SEE-NO-EVIL - whats a side of your oc that they don't want to show other people?

Ira - actually like she'd rather kneel over and die instead of talk about any of her feelings and problems about anything ever

Melika - oh she can be SUCH a gossipy bitch if you piss her off just enough she can dig up dirt she can ruin your life

Crevan - FAIRYTALE NERD FAIRYTALE NERD FAIRYTALE NERD FAIRYTALE NERD

Luke - don't make him angy

🙊 SPEAK-NO-EVIL - what is something your oc will refuse to stay quiet about?

Ira - the dangers of following random cryptic beings into a dark forest HE'S LOOKING AT YOU MELIKA PLEASE STOP DOING THAT

Melika - hello there would you like to hear about my little pony--

Crevan - same as Ira except while Ira's is coming from a place of concern and common sense, Crevan's is coming from a place of Personal Experience

Luke - he probably has a whole powerpoint presentation on how to set your boundaries with friends and family and how to express your discomfort about something to them without making them angry (he has personal experience on this one)

🙉 HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

Ira - anything referring to them as the replacement child

Melika - respect your elders

Crevan - grandma's coming over

Luke - your ass is flatter than yesterday btw you're too hopeful

🍀 CLOVER - do they believe in luck? are they lucky?

Ira - nope, and I'd say she has an average amount of luck

Melika - yes, average to slightly bad luck

Crevan - yes, horrible fucking luck

Luke - yes, pretty lucky at least in his own opinion

🌏 EARTH - will they give up the world for someone they love? is this decision easy for them?

Ira - yes, he'd agonize over it for a long time but eventually he'd rather not let go of people

Melika - no, she's not good at letting go at all but if it comes down to that she absolutely would

Crevan - no, he doesn't have that much attachment to people anymore

Luke - yes, he wouldn't think twice

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

Ira & Luke - appearance wise (in my head at least, they look pretty different when I draw them) they're admittedly based a lot off lee and serpent from detentionaire because originally when I was thinking about them I was also watching that show so

Melika - needed more muslim persian weirdgirl characters and decided to take matters into my own hands

Crevan - ........so like c!fundy yeah. At least at the very start he was.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

Ira - promise of a stable family life please

Melika - glittery pens and unicorn plushiesband her little cousin

Crevan - pretty flames, mysterious creatures staring back at him from the dark

Luke - Ira, actually literally just put her in danger, that's not exactly because he's super attached to her, it's just that he's now responsible for this kid and he'd rather die than fail at his responsibilities 👍

✂️ SCISSORS - what is the "last straw" for them to cut someone out of their life? how easily do they let go of people?

Ira - it depends from person to person, if it's someone they've known for a long time they'd have a really really hard time letting go but if it's someone they've only been friends with for a little bit they'd just dump the person if they're being a dick

Melika - she is so so so so so so so patient with people you can't really get her to let go of people they poured super glue all over her attachment tendencies

Crevan - he let goes of people so extra easily, he'd still cry about it and go on his self loathing arc when he's by himself every time tho

Luke - 18-19 year old Luke took the first chance he had to pick a fight with his parents and run away take from that what you will

[skiller0dani]

Broken Paradise | Spencer Reid

M A S T E R L I S T Criminal Minds Masterlist

smut requests info wc | 9.1k summary | you run into an ex boyfriend during an interrogation. except it's you being interrogated, and it's your ex boyfriend doing the interrogating.

song

another draft just waiting to be published. really obsessing over Spencer Reid.

also there's mentions of abortion, nothing graphic it's literally just a short direct reference and nothing else.

You always hear people say your past will come back to haunt you, you just didn't know they meant literally. You leaned back against the metal chair in the interrogation room, you've been in here for what felt like hours. You couldn't complain too much seeing as it's your fault that you're in here at all. You wished they'd come in and tell you something, give you an update, say hi, say anything. You seriously underestimated how maddening silence can be. You knew little about the murders the police were investigating, something about druggie women being found mutilated. The pictures they showed you were downright horrifying, you'd need at least one solid bottle of tequila to forget the bodies of those poor women.

The Las Vegas Police Department were a bunch of judgmental pigs, the only reason they'd brought you here at all was because you were from the wrong side of the tracks. Both of your parents were users, and if you were lucky, also dead. They probably assumed you used as well, and seeing as you seemed to fit the killers physical preference the police brought you in for questioning and also for your own "safety". But really you knew they didn't give a damn about your safety, they just wanted to know where you got your shit from. No matter how many times you insisted you didn't use, they kept pushing. When one male officer started throwing your parents in your face, you stood up and promptly broke his nose. That's how you landed yourself cuffed to the table, tightly.

"Oh thank you so much for gracing me with your presence once more." You smiled sarcastically as another officer walked in, wait he's definitely not an officer. The man who entered the room had cleanly cut dark hair, and wore an expensive looking black suit. Not the run of the mill beat cop that you were expecting. You bit back any other fiery remarks, if you wanted to get the hell out of here you needed to cooperate. Diana would be expecting you, not that you were itching to see her but after letter number 75 of her begging you to swing by- well lets just say that Spencer's mother was never the problem. You doubt Spencer even knew Diana was contacting you, which was good. You wanted nothing at all to do with him.

"I'm Agent Hotchner here with the FBI I need to ask you a few questions." This man was all business, you seriously had to fight the urge to fuck with him a little bit.

"I'd shake your hand but..." Your eyes flickered towards the table, where the police officer who's nose you broke had very tightly handcuffed you. In fact he cuffed you so tightly that your wrists were already raw and bleeding a bit.

"They wouldn't have handcuffed you if you didn't punch an officer. Did he hit a nerve?" The Agent's face was level, and gave nothing away as to what he was thinking. You tongued the inside of your cheek, your foot tapping quickly on the concrete floor. These assholes were really starting to piss you off.

"He was being a dick, how many times do I have to tell you guys that I don't use? Are your heads filled with sawdust?" You snapped roughly, yanking away from him to lean back in your chair despite the biting pain in your wrists.

"That's not why I'm here Miss Y/L/N." Agent Hotchner said, his voice even and his eyes on you. The way he was looking at you made you feel exposed, like he could read all of your secrets because of the way your eye twitches when you're nervous. You hate these damn FBI profilers- wait.

"How's Spencer?" It's a shot in the dark, a very long shot in a very dark tunnel. Before the scumbag left you without warning, Spencer mentioned that someone was trying to recruit him for the BAU department of the FBI. The profilers. Spencer left and never came back, two guesses as to where he went. Your eyes locked onto the Agent's in front of you, and from the slight upturn at the corner of his brow you knew you got him. Spencer is here.

"You know Dr. Reid?"

"So he's a Doctor now, doesn't surprise me. Let me guess, he has PHD's and Doctorates in Math, Chemistry and something to do with Geography right?" You say as casually as you can and you can only hope this man is wondering how you happen to know so much about one of his Agents.

"Unless I'm speaking to Spencer Reid, I want my lawyer." You snap, leaning back. You know Spencer won't talk to you, and unless they have physical proof you're guilty of something they'll have to let you go.

Check mate.

//

Spencer couldn't ignore the questioning glances from his fellow teammates even if he'd wanted to. He watched you lean back in your chair from the other side of the one way glass, what are the chances that you are wrapped up in this case? You of all young petite blonde women in the metro area. The world was fucking with him, it had to be.

"She a friend of yours?" Derek's voice was the first to cut through the silence.

"No." One word answers were the safest route, the shortest diction would give little time for them to draw information out of the way Spencer was speaking. There was a tremble in his tone, he knew there was. Spencer prided himself for having little to no baggage behind him, but of all unopened suitcases- his previous relationship with you was the largest one.

"Really? Cause she seems to know a lot about you." Derek said, his eyes fixed on Spencer. The tension in the room was palpable, and suddenly it felt hard for Spencer to breathe let alone compose himself. After shoving free from the small viewing room, Spencer found it a lot easier to exist without the scrutinizing gazes of his coworkers.

"You hear her?" It was Hotch, with a patiently guarded expression on his face. Spencer and drugs wasn't an uncommon problem, although in the past his poison of choice was dilaudid. Now there's a string of drug related murders and a possible junky who seems to know a lot about him.

"Yeah, from before the Bureau." Spencer clarified quickly, and Hotch honestly looked the tiniest bit relieved.

"Think you could talk to her, she's made it obvious she won't talk to any of us." Hotch said, and from the tension building in Spencer's shoulders he can tell there's some bad blood between the two of you. Spencer took a deep breath before taking all of those unresolved emotions and forcefully shoving them down. Deep, deep down. It's time to do a job, there's a missing woman who needs to be saved.

//

When that door opened again, you thought you'd won. You thought they were coming to begrudgingly release you. Instead you were met by the big doey eyes of Spencer Reid, your first and last love. All the air was stolen from your lungs in an instant, the memories flood back and you can't stop them. The anger rises then, this is the first time you've seen him since he left you. The one person you trusted not to leave you did, he left like everyone leaves you. Like your parents left you. He's very clearly all business, his face hardly giving anything away as he swiftly reached down to unlock the handcuffs around your wrists. If you wanted to walk away from this without your heart getting broken you needed the upper hand.

"Heya baby." You smiled, you hoped that maybe it would disarm him. At least a little, but when you looked at him all you saw was a stoic and focused expression. Nothing? Really?

"I need to ask you a few questions Miss Y/L/N." Spencer's voice was controlled, even in tone. His voice... God his voice could bring you right to tears. You could still hear him saying how much he loved you with that stupidly angelic voice of his. Spencer was very quickly taking control of the situation and you did not like that at all.

"You know you can ask me anything, there's no secrets between us right Spence?" You leaned forward on your elbows, trying desperately to ignore the throbbing in your wrists. One of Spencer's biggest giveaways is eye contact, when he's upset or feels guilty he'll avoid looking into your eyes. You turn your gaze up to meet his, but once again you're completely disarmed to see him unabashedly looking into your eyes like it isn't a problem at all. Either Spencer has amnesia and forgot who you were, or what happened between you two doesn't hurt him like it hurts you. You refuse to believe it's the latter, he just forgot. Definitely forgot. Somehow he must have forgot.

"Nina Fredricks, have you ever seen her?" He slid a photo in front of you, you recognize her as the woman who was most recently kidnapped. Most recently being 12 hours ago so chances of her still being alive are unfortunately slim. You nibble on your lower lip, come to think of it you actually might have seen her.

"Yeah, saw her at Winchell's, little coffee shop on the corner of 5th? You remember right Spence? You used take me there all the time, I loved giving you head under the table." You smirk, but it quickly falters. Whatever training he went through must have stripped him of all emotion and turned him into a machine. Built only to solve cases and do nothing else. That wasn't the case however, you just didn't know how good Spencer is at compartmentalizing his emotions. He could only imagine the looks on his coworkers faces upon hearing you say that, at least he can just say you were lying to try and illicit some sort of reaction from him. They don't have to know that you totally used to slip under the table and swallow his cock in a diner full of people. They don't know about that side of him, and Spencer doesn't plan on changing that.

"When?" He presses on with the interview, and surprisingly you're forthcoming with information when you're speaking to Spencer. Even after all this time, he has this annoying power over you. This innate ability to get you to do whatever he wants you to, although you would prefer him to use this special ability in the bedroom. No! No you have to eradicate thoughts like that, Spencer hurt you worse then anyone else ever has. He hurt you worse because he made you think he was going to stay, and then he didn't.

"Few nights ago, she looked really messed up though. Winchell threw her out, definitely doped up on something. Before you ask, no I didn't see where she went." You sigh, finally giving up flashing Spencer the all too familiar 'you win' look. Usually a victorious grin stretches across his face, but not this time. Those times are over.

"Did you see anybody with her?" You're not entirely surprised that Spencer isn't writing any of this down, that stupid eidetic memory. You're fooling yourself if you think he forgot what happened, Spencer never forgets anything. Ever.

"Every detail matters."

You genuinely try to remember if anybody was with Nina, and while you didn't see anyone you remember shortly after she left the diner there was this horrible screeching sound. "After Nina left I heard what sounded like tires screeching on the street. Never saw a car though."

"Thank you Miss Y/L/N, is there anything else you can remember about that night? Anything that sticks out?" After a few moments of quiet contemplation, you shake your head.

"Am I free to go?" You ask quietly and Spencer shakes his head.

"Unfortunately we're going to have to keep you in protective custody. We'll move you to a more comfortable room, but you'll need to stay in the precinct."

"But why? I'm not a drug addict-"

"You are exactly this killers type, and we don't know if looking a certain way is more important or if being a drug addict is when it comes to him choosing his victims." Spencer explains simply, his mouth moving a mile a minute as he stands. When he turns his eyes back on you, you realize he's waiting for you to follow him. You stand and follow him out of the cold interrogation room to a comfier waiting room. It has a table and chairs, vending machine and a big plush couch.

"You can stay in here, we'll let you know when it's safe to go home." Spencer says, and this is when you finally catch the crack in his façade. His eyes flicker away from yours, trying to disguise the waver in his voice, the desperation to vacate the room as quickly as he can. But now that you've seen him break, even a little, you're going to crack him wide open. You won't let it go that easily.

"Spencer?" Your voice is soft, with an innocent drawl that Spencer can't resist. He turns his head to look at you, swallowing thickly when his eyes meet yours.

"You do remember me don't you? Once upon a time we were in love." You see the rest of his coworkers trying and failing to look like they're not listening. But it's not like you care if they do, Spencer will though but luckily his back is to the door. After a few moments of tense silence, he finally speaks.

"Of course." It's not the answer you were hoping for but it's an admission, which is more then you were getting earlier.

"Do you miss me Spencer? Miss me in bed next to you?"

"W-Well I-"

"Do you miss when I used to cook your favorite dinner every night when you came over? Do you miss how I loved you unconditionally?" Your voice was steadily growing more hostile, and you knew there were tears building in your eyes. This has all been building up for so long you know you can't stop it now.

"Y/N-"

"Do you miss being able to fuck me whenever the hell you want? Is that what you miss the most Spencer? You must not miss me that much because when you left I didn't even get a fucking call! You didn't even say goodbye, you just left!" You were yelling now, with tears streaming down your face. Spencer had slyly shut the door by now, he knew this was going to happen the second he saw you. He wished he could help you understand why he had to leave the way he did. He was trying to protect you, and he still firmly believes he's protecting you. Look what happened to Haley, what happened to Maeve. Spencer loved Maeve and he lost her like Hotch lost Haley, and Spencer can't lose you. Not you. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if something happened to you.

"Please try to understand-" You never even let him get close to finishing his thought.

"Understand what? Leaving me? You said you loved me! How could you love me and then leave me alone? While I was pregnant!" Your hands flew to your mouth, you honestly never planned on telling him that. Spencer's eyebrows rose high in the air, and you can tell you just knocked the wind out of him. Spencer's hand reached back for the door handle, "pregnant?"

"Spencer I'm sorry I didn't mean to tell you that way." You tried to explain, and despite the fact that he'd abandoned you, you were dead terrified of him leaving again now that he was stood in front of you.

"Do I have a child you never told me about?" His voice is shaky, afraid. Now you can see all his coworkers heavily invested in your conversation.

"N-No, I...I got rid of it." You said softly, watching the mix of emotions swirl across his face. When his trembling palm curls around the door handle you launch forward to grab at his arm.

"I'm sorry, please don't leave. Not again-" But he's pulling his arm free from yours and turning out of the room, nearly slamming the door behind him.

//

Spencer ignored the questions, he ignored the looks. His legs gave out somewhere near one of the couches. He stared ahead numbly, trying to make sense of what you'd just told him. Trying to somehow wrap his head around the terror of you being pregnant and then the grief of the lost possibility all at the same time. By now, JJ and Rossi had shooed everyone away from Spencer. Which he was immensely grateful for, the only thing he wanted now was to be alone. Completely and entirely alone.

Pregnant.

The word kept replaying like a scratched record, screeching in his ears every time he closed his eyes. Spencer pressed the balls of his palms into his eyes when he heard the distinct sound of footsteps approaching him. Whoever it was, he already wished they would go away.

"Damn Kid, I didn't expect you to date such a spitfire." Derek joked as he sat down, doing what he can to ease the tension. Spencer didn't even bother looking up at him, his head stubbornly lowered and his gaze locked on the ground. Derek racked his brain for something adequate to say, but what was there to say? How could Derek find a way to make this right? Spencer just found out you were pregnant with his child and that you'd got an abortion all in the same 10 seconds. It was a lot to process.

"You gotta talk to her Spence." Derek's voice was less humorous this time. Spencer wrung his hands nervously, his eyes finally lifting to meet Derek's. A sharp shake of his head and a flash of the tears in his eyes and Spencer stands, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. Time to get back to work. Someone has to talk to you, Derek can't stand of someone crying by themselves like that.

"It's not really my place-" JJ tried to argue as Derek stood in front of her.

"Someone needs to talk to her, and Spencer isn't going to." Derek said, rubbing a hand down his face as his eyes flickered back to Spencer. Who was currently throwing himself headfirst into the geographic profile of the killer they're looking for, because maybe if he works hard enough the rest of the entire world will just disappear. Maybe if Spencer keeps working and does nothing else you'll just vanish from that room and he won't have to deal with this. It's not that Spencer wants you to go away, the opposite actually but there isn't room in his life for you anymore. It's not safe. Spencer would rather be alone for the rest of his life then put you in danger because he's lonely and misses you.

"Alright, fine. But only for Spence." JJ says, jabbing a finger in Derek's direction before reluctantly heading towards the room you're in. She glances back at Spencer, who has become consumed by the map in front of him. JJ can always tell when something is bothering him, he has physical giveaways. The way his shoulders are rigid as he scribbles something on the whiteboard, the furrow in his brow that lets her know that while he's working on something, his mind is elsewhere. The tremble in his palm from trying so hard to hold everything back, everything he doesn't want anyone else to see. To someone that doesn't know Spencer, he looks perfectly composed, his attention and focus completely on his work. JJ knows him well enough to know that his mind, and heart are sitting tattered in this waiting room on the couch next to you.

JJ creaks the door open, flashing you a smile that makes you absolutely hate her guts. Spencer probably has some puppy love crush on her, she's beautiful. Long blonde hair, slender body, stunning smile. Everything you're not.

"Hi I'm Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ." The way she's looking at you lets you know that she came in here to try and understand. You're not in the mood to talk to her or anybody else in this stupid building except for Spencer. You want to hate him so bad but you can't. You can't because of how much you fucking love him. The bastard.

"Look I know you're probably not all that excited to talk to me-"

"I want Spencer." You snap, and by the look on her face you can tell she isn't surprised that you said that. JJ chewed on the inside of her cheek, how does she say that Spencer doesn't actually want to talk to you?

"Dr. Reid is needed elsewhere right now, but I'm willing to talk if you need to."

"You don't have to lie Agent Jareau. I know he doesn't want to see me, he's doing that thing where he pretends to work on something while secretly obsessing over something else." You say casually, and the fact that you can pick Spencer apart so easily is somewhat off-putting to JJ. But that could be her unrequited crush on him shining through, deep down JJ doesn't like that some other woman knows Spencer better then she does. While you'd love to sit here and wallow in your misery, a much worse idea strikes you then. If you can't talk to Spencer why not fuck with the woman who's clearly in love with him.

"And the little twitch in his fingers, the slight clench in his jaw. See that? He keeps rolling his shoulders back," while everything you were saying isn't a lie- it's guaranteed to annoy her. JJ stayed quiet, she hated that she didn't know what the goddamn twitch in his fingers meant.

"He's tense, but there's more. He can't stand still, keeps shifting from foot to foot. It's driving you crazy that you don't know why he's doing that." You laugh as her annoyed eyes flash to yours for a second before settling on Spencer again.

"You're a profiler, you can't figure it out? That doesn't surprise me, you've probably never considered the fact that Spencer has an unusually high sex drive." Your words completely stun her, and JJ's cheeks flush profusely.

"It means he's horny." You say casually, leaning back against the couch. You love the blush on her cheeks, and the fact that she's clearly biting her tongue to avoid saying something rude. You love that you got under her skin, and yes you're aware that you're a bad person. Now that you've said it, JJ can't get it out of her damn head. Spencer is horny. Spencer isn't a virgin. The thought of Spencer having sex makes JJ feel a sick turning in her gut. She was happy believing Spencer was a virgin, believing that nobody has gotten to experience that side of him yet. Happy to believe that he was untouched, but apparently that was not the case. Now that the illusion has been shattered, JJ feels as though the jagged pieces of it are cutting into her, and she knows you enjoy watching her bleed.

"Trust me, I know just what to do to relieve the tension, I know how to get him off quick. Do you?" You smile as you let your eyes shamelessly drag down his slender frame.

"You're only saying this because you want to control the conversation, and you hate that I see him everyday. That I can talk to him whenever I want, about whatever I want. You wouldn't lash out if you didn't feel intimidated." JJ says calmly, rendering you just as speechless as she was moments ago. The pain that was sent stabbing into your heart caused you to recoil back from JJ, trying to hide your misty eyes from hers. You can't let her know that she's winning.

"Look, we can both get nasty all we want but that's not why I'm here. I just want to help." JJ says sincerely, but you still don't budge. JJ taps her fingers against the wood of the table, thinking about leverage she can use to get you to talk to her.

"Spencer fell in love again." JJ says finally, and this time you turn your gaze up to look at her. You push your emotions down, no matter how much it hurts to hear her say that. Who is she? Are they still together?

"If you want to know more about her, then I suggest you talk to me. An answer for an answer, fair?" You can see her trying to bait you, and damn her because it's working.

"Fine." You grumble, leaning back fully against the couch. Your eyes catch Spencer's for a second when he turns to face the table, presumably looking for a map you remember being on the right side. You point to the right side of the table and Spencer looks nothing but annoyed when he follows your direction and finds what he's looking for. He hates that he functions better as a person when you're around.

"What's the deal with you and Spence?" JJ asks, and there is a lot to unpack with that question.

"Gonna have to be more specific." You say with a shrug, your eyes hesitantly meeting hers.

"How long were you two together?"

"2 years 8 months." You answer without pausing, causing her eyebrows to raise. JJ didn't expect you to remember down to the month, it's been years since you and Spencer were together. That's not a short fling like JJ originally thought, that's a substantial amount of time.

"What's her name?" You ask, desperate to get information on this mystery woman who has stolen Spencer from you.

"Her name was Maeve." Was. You don't miss how she says was instead of is.

"Why do you hate Spencer?" JJ looked like she cared, but you know it's not you she cares about. She's in here to try and protect Spencer in some way, she's acting like you're the villain.

"I don't hate him. He abandoned me. Just packed up and left, no note, no goodbye. Haven't heard from him since." You snap, hating the amount of emotion that was in your voice. JJ's eyebrows furrow, that's just so unlike Spencer. He's not cruel, he's never been cruel but that...is cruel. You see a look flash across her face.

"Sweet boy isn't as sweet as he seems." You say softly, folding your arms over your chest.

"He must have had a good reason." JJ insists, her eyes landing on Spencer's back as he continues to map out the hunting grounds of the killer. You know he's just wasting time to avoid coming back in here. Spencer is a certifiable super genius, he finished mapping it out a while ago. He's just pretending he hasn't finished yet.

"Spence still with her? Maeve." Her name felt like poison on your tongue, and JJ slowly shook her head.

"She died in front of him, really tore him up." Your heart cracks a little bit at her words, you can't imagine how hard that must have been for him. You see JJ open her mouth to ask something else when the door opens, and a man with darker skin pokes his head in.

"JJ? Reid found him, we gotta go." As soon as he arrived, he's gone with JJ hot on his heels. She sends you a smile before she rushes out of the room, and you see Spencer following her path out. They're going to arrest a murderer who has an arsenal of weapons at his disposal.

"Spencer! Y-You can't go, it's not safe!" You blurt from the doorway, and he pauses. His eyes find yours as he holsters his pistol, an unreadable expression on his face.

"It's my job." And that's all he says before he disappears out of the precinct, leaving you once again.

//

You couldn't quell the anxiety turning in your gut, you're not sure how to exist while Spencer is out there hunting a murderer. You wished that you could turn off the part of your brain that's still so damn attached to him, but no matter how hard you try you can't silence your heart as it calls for him. You're not sure you could survive the constant fear of losing him if you ever ended up with him again, this life is too much for you to take. Maybe he knew that all those years ago when he left you the first time, Spencer always could see right through you. Maybe he left because he knew staying would only lead you to live a life of constant fear, maybe he was trying to protect you. Either way the reasons don't matter anymore because he left, and nothing can change how badly that hurt you.

"Does it normally take this long?" You ask a passing officer, who in turn shrugs before continuing on his path. You feel like you're going to explode or vomit, or both. It's been over 2 hours, should it be taking this long? What if he got shot? What if he's dead right now and you're sitting here with your damn thumb up your ass worrying about him like a useless housewife? Feeling useless, that's what you hate the absolute most. Knowing there's nothing you can do to stop a bullet on it's trajectory to his heart.

"Spence, are you sure you're okay?" You hear a flurry of voices and when his name graces JJ's lips you're pushing out of the room. Your eyes find him instantly, and then travel to his palm which is pressed tightly to his neck. His bleeding neck. You feel your heart rate spike, hammering like the hooves of wild horses as you move without thinking about it. Before you even understand that you've moved, you're stood in front of him. Your eyes try to scan his neck for wounds but his palm covers the location the blood is coming from.

"C'mere." You grab his wrist and yank him back towards where you saw a first aid kit earlier. Luckily your 2 and a half years of nursing school taught you how to stitch a wound and perform basic first aid. Spencer offers no resistance as you yank him to a back corner of the precinct, pushing him to sit down. You grab the first aid kit, slowly prying his hand from his neck. Your eyes mist at the wound, it's a bullet wound. Looks old though, there's scarred tissue. This had to have happened a few weeks ago at least. You see the thin line of the scar, the middle section seems to have opened up again.

"You didn't wait long enough for this to heal." You scold gently, not missing how his eyes watch you with an intensity smoldering in them. You miss the way he used to look at you, the way he's looking at you right now. You miss being the center of his whole world, you scoff. Look how easy it was for him to walk away from you. You threat a needle to stitch the center of his wound shut again, and when you look for numbing cream you discover that there isn't any.

"Spence, there isn't any- I can't find the numbing..." Your voice trails off as you begin to yank things out of the first aid kit to search for the numbing cream. Spencer's hand catches your wrist and it's only just now that you realize you're trembling.

"It's okay. I'll be fine." He settles back against the chair he's sitting in, turning his head to reveal his neck to you. You hesitate, the Spencer you remember had a very low pain threshold. All of a sudden he's expecting you to stitch him up with no numbing agent?

"Y/N, I can handle it." Spencer says again, his voice firmer than before. You swallow a lump in your throat before reaching forward to begin stitching. You press the needle against his neck, eyeing him to gauge his reaction as you puncture his skin to make the first thread. To your surprise he hardly flinches, a small quirk in his lip is the only giveaway that he's in pain. Is this the same man that got squirmy getting a shot? That would shy away from the needle? Now he's sitting here letting you stitch him up without moving a muscle, without even flinching? The more time you spend with him the more proof you get that this isn't the same Spencer that left you all those years ago.

"How did it happen?" You ask, wondering how he could have survived a gunshot to the neck. He shifts uncomfortably.

"Got shot, two inches away from hitting my jugular." Spencer says it so casually, but you're so stunned that you halt your movements for a moment.

"How many times have you been shot?" You ask, your voice hoarse. Is him getting shot a common occurrence?

"Twice. Also got shot in the leg." The casual way Spencer talks about it almost convinces you it isn't a big deal. But it is. It's a bullet ripping through his body, and it's happened to him on two separate occasions. You finish stitching and bandaging him up, your hands moving away from him as soon as you can.

"Thank God you went to nursing school or I'd be six feet under." He jokes. You know he's kidding but still, the thought of it makes you feel lightheaded.

"Don't say stuff like that." You snap softly, and you know Spencer can see the fear and vulnerability in your eyes. You hesitantly steal a glance up at him once he's stood up only to find he's already looking at you. You shy away from his intrusive gaze, and you could practically feel him probing at your mind. Reading your thoughts as if they were written down for him. You hate that he can always tell what you're thinking, you hate that it was so easy for him to read you. Like a damn book. You have to fight the urge to reach out and grab his hand, it's what you always did when you felt lost or unsure. Spencer was always there to ground you and bring your mind back out of your thoughts.

"Miss Y/L/N?" You hear JJ's voice gently interrupt you two. You shoot away from Spencer as though you were doing something scandalous. He doesn't move an inch.

"Yes!" You blurt a little too loudly, suddenly flustered being so close to him. Why does your sharp tongue always leave you when you need it?

"You're clear to go home."

"I can take her." Spencer speaks up before JJ has a chance to offer, and she knew he would. You swallow a nervous lump in your throat, your palms shaking.

//

The SUV has dark tint, you weren't expecting that. The second you sat back in the plush leather seat your mind flew to lewd thoughts of you leaning over the center console, Spencer's hand in your hair as he helps you take his cock in your mouth. You steal one glance at Spencer, his right hand holding the steering wheel loosely. Your cheeks heat up as you glance down between his legs, get ahold of yourself.

"The address is-"

"I remember." You knew he would. That damn eidetic memory ensured that he never forgot anything. It broke your heart a little, because some naïve part of you was hoping he remembered because it meant something to him. You hoped he remembered the way to your house because he didn't want to forget, because forgetting it meant forgetting you. But you know the reality, you know that he remembers because he has no choice but to remember. His memory is too good to allow him to forget anything, even if it was something he wanted to forget. You're grasping at straws and you know you are, holding onto that foolish notion that Spencer still held onto the memories. That he still held onto the gifts you gave him, crying softly in the night like you did sometimes.

"JJ told me about Maeve." You say softly into the silence, and you saw Spencer swallow thickly out of the corner of your eye. "I'm so sorry you lost her Spence."

"Thank you." He honestly wasn't expecting you to say that, to acknowledge the pain. Because acknowledging the pain meant that you knew he loved her. He did love her. But it was a different love then the love he feels for you. It was special, but so are you. You're special too.

"Have you...dated anyone else?" Spencer can't help but ask as he subconsciously continues the drive to your house. A drive he's committed to his memory, a drive he never wants to forget. You shift to look at him, there were a few you dated. You know when you tell Spencer about them that it'll drive him crazy.

"Tony Anderson." You say and just like you thought, Spencer groans deeply. Spencer detests Tony, they were practically mortal enemies when he still lived in Las Vegas.

"Tony? Seriously?" His tone is incredulous as his grasp on the steering wheel tightens ever so slightly.

"He was a good fuck at least." You know you shouldn't wind him up, but he hurt you for Christ's sakes. He deserves a little bit of pain too. Spencer flinches, a look of anger and something else simmering in his eyes.

"Please tell me you didn't have sex with Tony."

"Why does it matter?" You shouldn't enjoy upsetting people as much as you do. But there's still a small part of you that's convinced that Spencer deserves this.

"Because I can't live with the fact that somebody else has gotten to feel that perfect cunt of yours, let alone Tony." His crude words take you by surprise, and you can't fight the gasp that escapes your mouth.

"Well before you start digging your grave, relax. I never had sex with Tony." You decide to put him out of his misery, and you see the relief physically flood his body. You lean against the window, the next admission from you will leave the air heavier in it's wake.

"I've never slept with anyone but you Spence." You realize it's been a long time since you've seen Spencer let alone had sex with him but you could never bring yourself to sleep with someone else. It's not as though the opportunity never presented itself, you had plenty of chances to have sex with someone else. But you couldn't because there's still a stubborn part of you that doesn't want to betray Spencer.

"Really? Why?" Apparently this revelation surprised him.

"Because no matter where you go I will always belong to you." You snap without thinking, blinking tears from your eyes as you avoid his gaze. Spencer fell silent then, and you know he feels guilty. Probably because he's slept with someone else in the time since he's been with you.

"I know you have and it's fine I'm not trying to-"

"I haven't." Spencer corrects instantly, his eyes meeting yours through the darkness of the SUV. If he could see you he would see the look of utter surprise on your face. It's not as though Spencer was an overly sexually ambitious person when you dated, but you figured he probably slept with at least one person. "I haven't slept with anybody else either."

"I know someone that wants to though." You grumble without thinking, your mind drifting to JJ and the obvious crush she thinks isn't obvious. Spencer tilts his head in a way that resembles a confused puppy, you resist the urge to ruffle his hair.

"Who?"

"Agent Jareau." As soon as the name slips past the threshold of your lips, Spencer's jerks the wheel in surprise. You see a dark blush color his cheeks as his other hand reaches up to steady the wheel.

"J-Jennifer? No way! She's my best friend." You nearly laugh at his flustered state, and normally you would push it a little further but you decide to let it go. You don't want to completely destroy the way he sees her, you know you already destroyed the way she sees him.

"You have no idea what a catch you are Spencer." You tell him as you unbuckle your seatbelt, getting ready to exit the SUV. Spencer reaches over and places a warm hand on your wrist to stop you from leaving, his eyes searching yours for an answer he isn't sure you have.

"Come in?" You ask hopefully, you're not ready for him to leave again. Damnit why did he have to turn up again after so long? You were just starting to think that maybe you could move on and find someone new. You were finally starting to feel okay, and then Spencer reappears and turns your entire world upsidown all over again. Deep down you know that nobody will ever compare to Spencer Reid, and you don't want them to. You don't want anyone to be like Spencer, you want him to be his entirely own person. It's what you love the most about him, is his ability to be himself no matter where he is or who he's with. All of his little quirks, the things about himself that he doesn't notice but you do.

"Yeah." His answer comes across as an exhalation of breath, and you try to hide how excited you are. You want to hold on to any moment you can, stolen moments that you take as you please with no regret whatsoever.

"Nothing has changed." Spencer muses once you unlock the front door and push inside the darkened living room. You blush, admittedly nothing about your small townhouse has changed. It's all basically the exact same as when Spencer saw it last. You rub a hand down your arm as Spencer's eyes go wandering. Trailing over the curtains he remembers hastily pulling closed to protect your decency on more than a few occasions. His gaze then travels to the couch, all those movie nights you two spent curled up together. Or when he got you into Star Trek and you couldn't stop watching it. Pain stabs his chest for a moment, it's hard to remember everything he had to let go of to get the job he has now.

"I miss you too, you know." Spencer says off-handedly. It takes you by surprise, the sureness in his tone is jarring. He sounds so comfortable admitting when he's vulnerable, it's never been easy for you to be vulnerable with him. Maybe that's part of the reason he left, maybe you drove him away by shutting him out. His eyes meet yours, a look so soft in his eyes it feels as though his gaze is caressing your skin. You bite your bottom lip to keep the emotions at bay, what is it about this man that makes you so emotional?

"I never said I missed you." You try to snap, to add an edge to your tone. But instead it came out watery and broken, and in turn Spencer reached up to swipe away a falling tear.

"But you do." You can't even deny it, it's obvious.

"Damn you Spencer Reid, I was finally starting to feel okay again." You cry softly, curling your arms towards your chest in an attempt to shrink away from him. He cups your cheeks in his palms, turning your face up towards him.

"I wasn't." He admits before his lips are on yours, and it's not frenzied and desperate like you've been picturing all these years. It's slow and calculated, soft and passionate. Firm but with a tenderness that makes your knees buckle from the gravity of it. Spencer's fingers card into your hair, pulling your head closer to his. He nips at your lower lip, his arms crushing you against his chest. You throw yourself into him, your arms holding him as tightly as you possibly can. Afraid that if your vise grip loosens, even for a second, that he'll slip through your fingers like trying to hold onto water. You almost don't want to let your eyes close, you don't want him to disappear again.

"I missed you, I miss you-" You gasp against his lips, grabbing fistfuls of his dress shirt. Spencer continues to move his lips languidly against yours, backing you against the wall. His hand ghosts down your side to the hem of your shirt, his fingers toying with it.

"O-Off." You beg, and in an instant Spencer is pulling your shirt over your head. His eyes land on your bare chest, shocked that he almost forgot that you never really wear a bra. His hands curl around your back, drawing your chest up into his awaiting lips. His mouth curls around your hardened nipple, your hand flying into his hair from the contact.

"Is this a dream? Please tell me you're really here Spencer." You beg, almost becoming lost in the emotions again. His eyes flutter up to meet yours, his mouth reluctantly leaving your nipple. He brushes his lips over yours, his hand trailing down your stomach towards the waistband of your leggings.

"This is real, I'm here baby. I'm home." Hearing those words was too much, and you launch yourself into his chest as the first tear trickles down your cheek. Your lips press sloppily to his, the kiss messy and wet as his hand slides into your leggings. His fingers find your wet slit in an instant, desperately parting your lips to slide a lithe finger into you. Your body reacts to him instantly, in a way that surprises you. Almost as though it too was crying out for him, keening into him and begging for his touch as much as your mind is. Spencer hauls one of your thighs up to hook around his waist as he presses another finger into you. You cry out softly into the quiet air, accompanied only by the labored breathing fanning across your face.

"I need to feel you, I- I need-" You can barely get the words out as he steadily pumps his fingers into you. His mouth on yours silences your desperate pleading, his chest firmly pressing your back into the wall. You missed being able to feel him and you hate that you forgot what it feels like to have his body on yours. It's been so long you forgot what the sting of his cock feels like. What it feels like when you stretch wide open around him, to feel like you're being ripped in two. Spencer continues his pace, his thumb rolling your clit to provide the extra stimulation you're missing. It's not enough to satisfy you, but its enough for you two cum. Which you do. You gush around his fingers as you gently come undone, your back arching into him.

"Please," You beg wantonly, curling your other leg around his waist as his hands hook underneath your thighs. Spencer's lips press against yours, moving slowly against your own. You know now that you will never stop loving Spencer, and that he's completely ruined you for life. You'll never be able to love anybody else without your heart wandering back to him. But then again, you don't really mind because you don't want to be with anybody else. You don't want to love anybody else. You just want him, only him. He pushes into your room, walking the entirety of the way with his eyes closed and his mouth pressed against yours. He has the layout of your house mapped out in his head? He never even bumped into anything until he was dropping you unceremoniously on the bed.

"Tell me what you need, I'll give you whatever you want." Spencer husks against you, hovering above you. Your fingers are already unbuttoning his shirt before you even have the chance to respond to him. You know instantly what you want, what you need from him.

"I want all of you, give me everything." You plead, your lips practically chasing his as he kneels up over you. He's being soft tonight, and that's something you appreciate greatly. You need to feel his love, you need to feel everything you know he can't quite put into words. His hands are shaking as he undoes the button and zipper of his dress slacks before kicking them off the edge of the bed. You stare up at his naked body, looking as though it's been sculpted by the Gods specifically for you. Spencer smiles softly at you as he pulls your leggings down your legs, leaving little nips and kisses on your inner thighs as he goes.

"Hurry." You groan, nearly clawing at his bare shoulders to pull him back up to you. Spencer chuckles at how eager you are, watching with interested eyes as the head of his cock breaches your folds. You reluctantly stretch open as he continues his intrusion, his fists curling tightly around the sheets. Christ you weren't lying about not sleeping with anyone else, you're so tight it's making him feel a little lightheaded. Inch by inch Spencer presses into you, his forehead resting against yours once his pelvis is sitting flush against yours. Sure, you've had sex with hi before but never have you felt this connected to him. Spencer sits like a gentleman and lets you adjust to his size, trying to take a few deep breaths himself. It's hard to breathe with your heat sucking him in with a vice grip.

"Can I move?" You're surprised by how collected his voice is, but the furrow of his brow is a giveaway that he's losing the battle to stay stock still inside you.

"Yes, please." You moan, unashamed. Spencer gently draws his hips back, pulling himself nearly all the way out before swiftly sliding back into your inviting cunt. He sets the pace slow and deep, his hands reaching up to lace through yours. Every time the head of his cock nudges that spot deep inside you, you can feel your toes curl. Your head slams back against the pillows, unable to keep your gaze on him any longer. You feel yourself becoming one with him, and you wish you could capture this moment somewhere other then just in your minds eye. Your memory is nowhere near as good as Spencer's, he'll be able to recall every detail of this moment up until the day he dies. But over time, this memory will fade for you. It'll wear out, all the details becoming fuzzy and blurred. If he's not here in front of you, you'll forget and you don't want to forget.

When the night draws to a close, and the moon has reached its peak, Spencer slips carefully out of bed. It chisels away pieces of his heart as he carefully gets dressed, reaching for his go bag which he'd brought inside upon realizing that he'd be staying a while. He pulls out a t-shirt he'd worn recently and leaves it folded neatly at the end of your bed, something for you to hold onto when he's gone. Spencer's cheeks are wet with tears as he leans over and presses a kiss to your head.

"I love you." Is the last thing he whispers in the space between you two before he's gone again.

//

On the jet, Derek can't keep his eyes off Spencer and that helplessly broken look on his face. A book is laid nestled in Spencer's lap, but Derek can tell he isn't really reading it. Trying to bother Spencer into opening up probably won't work, but it's worth a try. Derek has to do something and this is all he can think of.

"You okay kid?"

"Yeah fine, why?" Spencer draws his eyes up from the book, his gaze meeting Derek's from across the table. While Spencer might be a talented actor, he can't lie to Derek.

"Look I know how hard it must have been leaving her again-"

"Did you know that on average the FDA allows a minimum of 1 rodent hair per 100 grams of peanut butter? They have to allow themselves room for error just in case of-"

"Alright you win, forget it." Derek sighs, turning his gaze out the window. In an instant Spencer drops his peanut butter spiel, turning back to his book. A guaranteed way to get people off his back is to start rambling about something boring or gross, they usually leave him alone pretty quickly. It's not that Spencer doesn't appreciate Derek's concern, he just doesn't want to talk about it. He can't talk about it, because every time he imagines how you're going to feel when you wake up, tears come to the surface of his eyes. He hates this case more than all the rest even though they saved the victim. Spencer hates this case for ripping open an old wound, one he thought healed.

He was wrong.

//

When you wake the next morning you knew he'd be gone. That didn't stop the tears from coming when you reached over and felt cold sheets. That didn't stop the tears from coming when you cried how much you loved him over and over again even though he couldn't hear you. It doesn't change how badly this hurts, how much worse it feels compared to the first time he left. Your eyes catch the shirt folded at the end of the bed and you grab it instantly. You pull it over your body and you lay down in your bed, inhaling his cologne that you know will fade over time. Eventually his scent will disappear, removing all traces that this fabric belonged to him at all. Every trace of him will disappear over time, every mark from your body will slowly vanish. When it's all gone, you'll be left with nothing more than a t-shirt that's too big for you, and a cold reminder that the man you love will never truly be yours. A reminder that every time he comes home, he leaves again.

A cold reminder that this world is cruel for bringing you Spencer Reid, only to rip him from you again and again.

[c-is-for-circinate]

As promised: let's talk Hades, and how acts of abuse can create toxic environments for everyone around them, and also how people react to those environments--and to them being disrupted.

(For reference, I have just kicked Theseus's ass for the first time, it was exactly as satisfying as it was intended to be, and then I got predictably slaughtered a couple of chambers into Styx. Spoilers for everything through that point, but please no spoilers in reblogs/comments for anything after that!) Also, TW for a whole lot of discussion of abuse, particularly verbal and emotional abuse, and abusive familyworkplace dynamics.

Okay, so. To start out with, Hades is an abusive parent. He engages in innumerable acts of verbal and emotional abuse towards his son, because yep, that's what you call it when a parent constantly berates and belittles their kid for every perceived failure, including the ones the parent themselves could have prevented. Sometimes especially the ones the parent could have prevented. Zagreus failed at his office clerk job because Hades refused to teach him how to do it and then blamed him for not already knowing how. Cerberus tore up the lounge because Hades, who was actually there, chose not to stop him. Hades created, possibly deliberately, and then took full advantage of every opportunity he saw to insult and demean his kid, and the clerk job flashback shows us that he was doing so even before the escape attempts started. I'm pretty sure we're all on the same page here, but: yep, that all constitutes abuse, even if they're gods. Even if Hades has reasons for Being Like That. Even if you think Zagreus seems okay and unharmed by it (which: repeatedly throwing yourself into a gauntlet of violence that inevitably ends in your own pain and death because you're so desperate to escape home, not actually an indicator of someone who's okay). We all good on that?

Cool. Because I'm not really here to talk about how Hades' abuse directly impacts Zagreus right now (although there's for sure an essay in that too). I'm thinking about how it impacts everybody else.

Hades isn't as obviously unreasonable with anybody else in his kingdom the way he is with his kid. When we see him lecture somebody else, it's usually for an actual failure to do their job: Hypnos for literally falling asleep on the job and not doing anything that was assigned to him, Megaera for letting us past her so many time, Orpheus for being a court bard who refuses to sing. His attitude is super confrontational and unpleasant, but on the surface it doesn't necessarily look as fucked-up. Thing is, though, whether any individual act of aggression towards an employee/family member is justified or not (I would generally argue 'not', because aggression towards employees/family members is, y'know, not justifiable)--it's not about the individual acts. It's about the entire cultivated atmosphere of toxicity and abuse.

One of the very first things Meg ever says to us is, "I'd rather be on your bad side than his." Up until that point, we've got no reason to believe Meg has any history whatsoever of fucking up at her job. In fact, we've got plenty of reason to believe she's good at it. She's fiercely proud of it, she's frequently Employee Of The [Time Period], and we've apparently never even met her sisters because she handles her shit herself. But she's still scared of Hades. Dusa, who is an anxious wreck at all times because oh god what if she gets fired what if she gets fired what if she gets fired, in spite of apparently being absolutely exemplary at her job, is scared of Hades. Every single shade in the Hall is clearly terrified of Hades, and it's not because of what he's done to each of them. It's what they've seen him do to other people.

Which is how toxic environments work, whether they're work environments or families. The Court of Hades is of course both, always, with the bonus hell layer of you can't quit even if you DIE. An abuser in authority doesn't have to target you in order to make you feel scared, cowed, and desperate to please them. Humans (and gods who are basically extra-powerful humans) are good at learning by example. The residents of the Court get the picture.

So this Court is a minefield--and everyone except Zagreus is very good at tiptoeing around mines. We see it in Meg, so desperate to do her job well. We see that Hypnos very clearly does not give a shit about anything, but he still makes sure to have a list of excuses ready if/when Hades ever confronts him about failure to do his job, just in case. We see it when Achilles tells us that my ability to help you is constrained by the authority your father gives me, or whatever the line was sixty runs ago when he couldn't let me into locked chambers. The system, such as it is, works, and if Nyx talks to Hades as little as possible, if Thanatos avoids the Court entirely, if Achilles treads very carefully and knows how to keep his head down--well that's just the system, right? That's just how things are.

Even Zagreus seems to have had a role in that system as the court fuckup. He's the kid who didn't have a real job or purpose. He could take the focus of Hades' generalized, day-to-day ire off of everyone else, without triggering some of the more direct and violent ire because the work he was doing didn't really matter (a LOT of Hades' rage-triggers seem to be related to job performance, which means that the people with real jobs are of course the most at risk). And he could do so "safely" (big emphasis on the quotation marks there) because he alone of the court is Hades' actual kid, who's Prince of the Underworld no matter how much he fucks up. If one of Nyx's other kids gets something really really wrong, she might be able to protect them from some consequences, but Hades doesn't have any layer of supposed parental affection holding him back from getting violently furious about it. Zagreus gets a nice bedroom and the abuse is limited to words rather than divine power, and Hades is a dick to everyone but he only occasionally condemns people to eternities of torture, and only for good reasons like refusing to sing when your job is to be court bard, so it's fine, everybody's fine, everything's totally fine, right?

Except it's not fine when everybody is so clearly worried about anything going wrong. And it's especially not fine for Zagreus, who's the person to finally say no. He's leaving, for his own sake, because he deserves better and he's finally convinced he can have it. And that turns the whole system into disarray.

I am endlessly fascinated by the ways this game portrays different characters reacting to this upheaval in their carefully-mapped minefield. It's different for authority figures and peers and servants, different based on how people are positioned in the house under Hades' rule, and it's so spot-on and I love it.

Nyx, for instance, is absolutely calm about the whole thing, because Nyx has power. Hades can't hurt her. Hades can't even really do much against her children, not when Hypnos and Thanatos are gods in their own right. Yes, Hades rules the kingdom, but Nyx owns the land, and she gives no shits about his rages. And it's interesting, too, to see the lines she doesn't draw. The deal seems to be that Hades doesn't fuck with her, and doesn't outright threaten her kids (because Hypnos is bad at his job, demonstrably so, and Hades hasn't ruined him yet), and she doesn't interfere with the way he treats the people around him. She gives Zagreus advice and support and the mirror, but she also doesn't take a direct stand against Hades. He can't hurt her, but he could make life...difficult. She's protected, her position in the minefield is more of a safe viewing platform than slogging through the middle of it, but the mines are still there.

And then we have Achilles, who is one of my favorite characters in the whole game because of how he reacts to this whole situation. Achilles, like Nyx, is so supportive. Every single time you see him he has something encouraging to say. He gives us his Codex, secretly finds us weapons, trained us for years, clearly wants us to succeed. And still he's limited, not necessarily out of fear for himself (though he has to be scared for himself, he knows what Hades does to people who anger him), but out of concern that if he gives Zagreus too much help in one way, he won't be able to provide help at all later. He's still so careful.

Achilles and Nyx are so fucking important to this story because they're the only authority figures Zagreus really has in his life except for his father, and they are so supportive. They're what keep this story from being a nightmare of psychological horror and depression. They can't stop the pressure from Hades and this life in his house being miserable for Zag, but they can give us hope, remind us that Zagreus is still loved. And they have such an incredibly important role when it comes to guilt, which is one of the biggest ways toxic systems maintain themselves.

If Zagreus leaves, what happens to everybody else? Who takes Hades' wrath then? Who becomes court scapegoat if he's not there, and also, who gets punished for his escape? These questions matter, and we see him worry about it! He asks Nyx and Achilles both, is it going to be okay that you're helping me, are you going to be alright, will my father hurt you for this? And they are both so firm about telling him no. No, I will be fine. See, here's the list of reasons about why I'm going to be fine, why my position in this minefield is secure. They make a point of telling us that it's fine, that we do not need to hold ourself back from getting out of this abusive situation for their sake. That is instrumental in Zagreus's ability to keep making these escape attempts without feeling too guilty and worried and selfish to go on. (Another thing that's actually really important in setting up that dynamic--we see that Hades cares about Cerberus, even if he's using him as a pawn against us, and Cerberus seems to be the one figure in court who Hades doesn't get mad at. The dog isn't at risk, and that is really essential in keeping the story from getting too grim.) These people who we care about refuse to let themselves be held hostage to secure our good behavior.

It's also really useful for raising the stakes later in the story--we see Hades arguing with Nyx once or twice, and we see Zagreus feeling guilty about it, but it's also a sign that we're making enough progress to piss him off. After I finally made it out of Elysium on my last run, I came home to find him furious with Achilles in a way that actually makes me nervous, because Achilles does not have nearly as much security in his position as he says he does. (Achilles is such a good teacher/authority figure, because he knows goddamn well what Hades could do to him, and still refuses to let fear for his own situation stop him from helping the abused kid under his care escape his. And no, not everybody has the capacity to do that, but it matters so much coming from the guy who helped raise us. It matters so much. I do not even have the words for how much.)

It's also no mistake that many of the people we find supporting us along our journey are either the people with the most power in their immediate environment, or the least. Sisyphus helps us because what more could they do to me than this? Orpheus is a little wild around the eyes and somewhat disconnected from reality, and he wishes us the best because someone should get what they want and also he no longer gives a single fuck what happens to him. Eurydice has her own cozy little corner of Asphodel, as safe from Hades' rage as anybody anywhere in his realm because she's tucked in such an out-of-the-way middle place she's outside his notice. Dusa is so scared of everything anyway that, crush aside, she isn't any more threatened by us escaping than she is just by her everyday life here. Charon is unfathomable and unstoppable; Skelly literally exists to be a punching bag, and yet he also seems basically immune to pain, no matter what we do to him. There's no threat from Hades there.

So the people most at risk when I flip the world on its ear are the ones who have so much standing that they have something to lose, but not enough to protect them from losing it. Which of course brings us to Than and Meg--who are, of course, the two people who also seem by far the most upset by my attempts to leave.

As authority figures, Nyx and Achilles are constantly reinforcing the message that it's Hades' fault, not ours, if they or anybody else get caught in the crossfire of his wrath. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's not my guilt to bear. From Megaera and Thanatos, we get the opposite message--I am fucking with things, I am hurting people, and I need to stop. Zagreus isn't just abandoning them, as a friend or brother or lover or all of the above they're Greek gods who even knows. He's betraying them. They were in this together, as friends or lovers or whatever, but now Zagreus is sending earthquakes through the minefield they both still have to stand in. He is about to capsize this boat in the middle of a thunderstorm, he is fucking with the system, and they're the ones who are going to get most hurt.

I'm so curious how this is going to work for Than, who out of everyone we meet holds the closest role to Nyx's in terms of being sheltered from Hades' wrath. He's the guy who gets to leave, after all, even though he always has to come back. I've seen the least of him out of anybody so far because it took forever for me to get to Elysium, but two things really stand out and I'm so interested to see where they go. One, he really genuinely does care about Zagreus. He wants us safe, he wants us unhurt, the accessory he gives us only grants its bonus if we clear a room without taking injury, he keeps showing up to help. And two, he wants us to give up and go back and recognize how good we had it. Which is SO fucking interesting, considering how miserable Zagreus so clearly was, and how legitimate his reasons for being miserable were.

It makes me wonder so much about Than's standards for comparison. Does he know something we don't about what's waiting for us on the surface, something that might theoretically hurt Zagreus even more than staying down below? Has his life, which apparently allows him more freedom than anybody else in the Court, sucked horribly in ways we haven't seen, and that's why he spends so little time there in the first place? Either of those things is plausible, both of those things are plausible, and yet either one leads to this sense of patronizing, because he refuses to simply tell us. If something terrible is awaiting us, don't give us vague warnings, tell us what it is and let us decide for ourself! If you're fucking jealous because we might get out entirely and you're still stuck coming back here, say so. If you're worried about your mom--and he does bring her up, how could Zagreus turn his back on her like that, does seem to worry for her--then let's have an actual conversation about how many times she has insisted I do this and also how much I love her.

And, right, it's clear that a lot of Thanatos being upset is simply, you were going to leave me without even saying goodbye, you want to leave ME, which is understandable! But, like, he is demonstrably the one god who gets to visit the surface. He's the one person we actually COULD expect to see again. And he is absolutely also upset because there's an Order To Things, and we're fucking it up. We used to be his careless callow reckless friend who could talk back to Hades and get away with it, and now we're not, and everything is changing and we might leave him altogether, and we might leave him alone in that court without us, and he hates it.

Is it a short-sighted, selfish fear on his part? Yes, absolutely. Even if he's not scared of Hades on his own behalf, he is still frightened by what happens if we upset this system--and maybe it's the sanctity of a much bigger system than the Underworld that he's worried about! Maybe it's the whole divine and cosmic order. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect is enabling the abuse Zagreus has been dealing with for however-long he's been alive. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect OUGHT to be overturned, or at least shaken up. But this is what toxic systems DO. They convince the people within them that they have to be maintained, that a broken system that hurts the people within it is far better than no system at all, that changing the world is too scary and too dangerous. And Thanatos wants his whatever-Zagreus-is-to-him to be there, because he loves him and also because that's how the world works, and those things are all tangled up in one another, and that is how relationships are in a messed-up family like this so therefore I love it.

And Meg. Meg, the best for last, my dear, beautiful, furious, bitter, scared angry tired girl. I adore her. I am absolutely never going to date her, because the thing Zagreus needs most in his life hurts her, more directly than anybody else in the story, and that sucks, and it's not Zag's fault but they still shouldn't be together. Meg has taken more injury from this situation than anyone, quite literally as well as metaphorically, and it's not her fault any more than it's ours, but oh boy it has made her lash out and it's awful and it's perfect.

Meg's place in the Court of Hades is unique because she's not dead, not a mortal, not anything other than a god--but she's also not family. Nyx is not her mother. She's very much part of this system, she and her two sisters belong to Hades-the-realm and therefore also Hades-the-king, she can't leave, but she also doesn't have that protection of Nyx watching out for her in the same way. She's not royalty. She and her sisters (if you ask Hesiod instead of Virgil, which seems to be the interpretation the game's going with here) sprang from the blood of maimed Uranus at the same time as Aphrodite, but fuck knows Aphrodite isn't claiming them as siblings. And she can't be fired, exactly, but she sure can be demoted, and she sure can be made miserable in her job. Meg is vulnerable in a way very few people in Hades' employ are. She's a lot harder to do away with than any one random shade, but she's also a lot harder to miss blending in with a crowd.

What's more, she's the one person in this whole mess who is specifically tasked with stopping us from leaving. Hypnos isn't ordered to put us to sleep and keep us in our room. Thanatos can't be compelled or punished if he doesn't hunt us down. Achilles isn't told to lock us up and keep the keys. Meg is the one stationed at the doorway to Tartarus to keep us in. Meg is the one who gets in trouble when we leave. Meg (who Hades knows goddamn well Zagreus cares for, or cared for, who he absolutely knows we used to date) is the one who has to fight us again and again and again. And she's the one who keeps dying.

Again, it's this incredibly fucked-up guilt/hostage situation deliberately designed to keep people from fleeing abusive situations. Meg's insistence on fighting us now puts Zagreus in the position of having to hurt her himself again and again. Now suddenly we're the ones sticking a sword in our ex-girlfriend. Now suddenly someone can point to our desire to leave, to flee, to escape, and say, how selfish. How cruel. How terrible of us to want to go, when we're even willing to hurt the people we love to do it.

Except, right: Hades is the one who demands Meg stand there and stop us. Hades is the one who puts both of us in that position. Meg is also in an abusive situation, and she's willing to hurt us to protect herself. "I'd rather be on your bad side than your father's." It's easy to blame her at the start for being complicit, for being a tool of our father's abuse, for being on his side. It gets harder as the game goes on. I've killed her so many times. There's no way for her to beat me. She knows at this point that she can't beat me. She still fights, every single time, still throws herself upon that spike, not because she thinks she has any chance of stopping me but because she is so damn scared of what will happen if she doesn't try.

In fact, Meg's the one person we have actually seen face consequences for our actions so far, instead of just facing the threat of them. Her sisters are here. Her sisters, who she clearly does not want here, who are wild and violent and who she does not want in her life or anywhere near her, let alone near the job she takes so much pride in. She gets to deal with them now. (Hades doesn't have to deal with them. They're still not allowed in his court. But Meg does.) She gets stabbed, and bludgeoned, and shot, and lightning-struck, and poisoned, and every other thing we do to her. Thanatos doesn't. Nyx and Achilles and Hypnos don't. Bug Meg? Oh yes. Meg pays.

And yes, ok, she is complicit in this system. Everybody is complicit in this system. Zagreus who's trying to escape on his own behalf instead of overthrowing his father for the sake of everyone he'd otherwise be leaving behind is complicit in this system. Pointing fingers and pulling strings of who's more at fault? and who do we blame for this? is exactly how this sort of system perpetuates itself. Your sister always talked back at the dinner table and put everyone in an even worse and more violent mood. Your coworker refuses to work more than forty hours a week so now you have to take overtime to pick up their slack. You're enabling your dad by asking your sister to shut up, you're enabling your employer by working as hard as you do so you don't get fired, everyone's at fault, everyone's to blame, everyone is--

It's not everyone. It's Hades. It's Hades at the root of everything, and probably something big and institutional and fucked-up even beyond him. But even if everyone down in this Underworld does have to be trapped here forever, even if he's trapped here forever, Hades is neither challenging the system that put them here nor trying to make that fate better for anyone else stuck with him. He's just created an entire kingdom of backbiting and misery and people who can either go along with his whims or suffer the consequences.

At this point in the game, Meg is so fucking tired. Every time we run into her in the lounge, hunched over a table, the venom in her voice when she tells us "Do I look like I have anything to say to you?" is so bitter and so exhausted. There was a system, and she knew her place in the system, and it was a system divinely ordered by the gods themselves, and sure it was cruel but that's the literal will of the universe as far as she knows it. She had a role, and her role was vengeance and punishment and violence against those who'd committed the most egregious of sins in life, and there was a point to it, she was the divine deterrent to convince people not to do those things, and that was just, and that was right. The GODS THEMSELVES said so. How do you argue with that? You can't possibly argue with that!

And Zagreus is arguing with that. In trying to leave, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that nothing in the Underworld ever gets to leave it. In disobeying his father to do so, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that what the gods say is LAW. He's breaking everything.

And of course he's not trying to do any of that. He's not trying to destabilize the system at all. He's just trying to get himself out of it, to a place where he feels like he belongs and maybe a parent who's slightly nicer to him than this one. But toxic systems like this one break when the people within them have access to another option. When the kids find a way to actually leave, and not answer the phone, and not come home for holidays, and not deal with it any more. When the employees have the economic freedom to quit. When opportunities granted by education, money, social support, etc etc etc, show up and give people a choice. Even if the option is only ever for Zagreus--he's demonstrating that an option exists. Which is, of course, the one thing the system cannot ever allow.

I really like this game.

[excavatinglizard]

I wasn't sure if I'd work up the nerve to post this (blame my brain) but honestly, Day 6: Fake Relationship is just the best excuse out there. How could I not?

A cover design for @fireinmywoods​' fic Palimpsest. Please please go read it.

Some of my thoughts under the cut, with spoilers for the fic itself. Don't open if you haven't read it!

Oh my god I’m so sorry but this is such a long rant about a pretty simple picture. I’m just bored and I love getting to explain my thought process over the hours it takes to draw and I usually try to stop myself. Anyway, yeah, I promise it’s not as deep as i make it all sound here.

Recently I went: You know what? If I'm going to have Palimpsest on my kindle it damn well needs a cover. I went through a couple concept doodles before settling on this one.

Format: Ok, i haven’t read Palimpsest in a while but I tried to put as much in as I could. The concept of Jim and Bones facing opposite directions is meant to be a bit of a reference to 'read one way and then another'. The original concept doodle actually had them on either side of a spiral maze, but damn it I refuse to draw that much grain. As it is this is definitely a bit of a 'fuck it, squares' moment.

The choice to have Bones facing the camera (viewer? audience? what do I say in this case???) again is literally just because he's the narrator. We’re seeing what he wants to show us from his own point of view. Jim’s face is obscured; we don’t know what he’s really thinking or feeling, only what Bones sees of it.

I’ve already said I refuse to draw too much grain (even though I seem to keep doing it. ITS JUST SO PRETTY), but I KNEW I needed them out in a field. Someone in the discord once mentioned the paragraph:

He tips his head back against the wall and looks out at the corn bordering the schoolyard, vividly green against the backdrop of blue sky, golden tassels swaying lazily in the breeze. Terraforming is a hell of a thing. This place was probably an uninhabitable rock a couple centuries ago, and now it could easily pass for Illinois or Iowa. He wonders how Jim feels about that. All the work the man’s put into leaving his childhood behind, years of striking out deeper and deeper still into the great unknown, only to end up in another damn cornfield.

 Now, I don’t trust a single one of you to not open this before reading, so I’m not going to expound on why this line stuck so firmly in my mind, but just trust that it did and I wanted to include it in the cover. I also pulled some of the imagery I used in the SIEL cover and had them both being a little bit consumed by the grass, sinking in around the ankles.

Color scheme: I don’t know why, but Palimpsest has always given me very warm-colored energy, in the same way that SIEL was always greys and greens. Gold corn, red sunsets, blond hair and endless skies. I also like drawing in warm colors, and it contrasted the SIEL cover nicely. I admit I think of the stories as two parts of a set, and I do so like when series have covers that work together.

Extra details: Take a look at Bones. What have we got?

A med kit. A tricorder. A wedding ring. His colors stand out against the corn and set him apart. I may have tried hard not to spoil anything, but I’m very much not above putting plot points in the fine details. Fight me.

You could probably argue that the black swirl means something, but really I just love the contrast and I think it looks cool. And it makes the text stand out, which i was having trouble with. And fills space. Yep.

Anyway, that’s it, thanks for reading this far if you did! I had a lot of fun with this piece :)

(And I’m so sorry Em if this is coming off as obsessive, I have no excuse other than your writing makes me lose my shit (in a good way). It does not leave my brain)

[weelittleweasley]

Rosy Cheeks | Fred x Reader

Prompt as anon requested: Fred has always been very forward with his feelings, especially when it comes girls. You on the other hand were always taken aback by how forward he was. 

Warnings: fluffy, blushy, cute, warm, and fuzzy :)

Word Count: 2.4k

Small chatter in the library filled Fred’s ears as he sat at a small table pushed against the wall. He leaned back, twirling his quill in his fingers, not paying a lick of attention to the study group at the table. He tuned out Alicia’s voice going on about Flitwick’s class, arguing with Angelina about an answer to the study guide they made together for their upcoming exam. This was all nonsense to Fred in comparison to what he was staring at; rather who he was staring at.

Fred maintained a soft gaze on you from across the library. He watched as you sat alone at a small table, hair pulled up sloppily into a pony tail, the loose strands falling around your face, framing it. You propped your head up with your hand as you read through a book, flipping its pages, struggling to find the information you needed for the same exam he was preparing for. Fred’s heart fluttered in his ribcage as he watched you bite your lip, squinting your eyes as you read the words on the page. How was it possible for someone to be this adorable without even trying?

George leaned back in his chair, laughing at Alicia and Angelina fighting over the right answer. He turned to his right to see his twin, staring off into the distance. He followed his brother’s line of sight and saw exactly who he was gawking at. He let out a light chuckle, “Fred, mate, stop gawking at her and go talk to her.”

Fred snapped out of his daydream and turned to his brother. “I don’t want to disturb her, she looks so peaceful,” he retorts with a small smile on his lips as he returned his gaze to you from across the library. Alicia rolled her eyes at Fred, knowing well enough that Fred wouldn’t care disturbing a girl from her work if it meant he could talk to her. “I’m serious. Anyway, what were you two going on about?”

“Ah, ah, don’t be so quick to change the subject, Weasley,” Angelina shakes her head. “I didn’t know you had a thing for (Y/L/N), when did this start?” she asks, leaning forward, more intrigued in Fred’s little crush than the work in front of them. 

George laughs, “It wasn’t obvious before? Fred drools at the mouth when he sees her.” His comment makes Angelina and Alicia both laugh as Fred punches George in the arm as a warning. “Godric, calm down, I’m just teasing you, mate.” 

You were in the same year as Fred and George, but you had never really been friends with them. Just acquaintances. Fred didn’t start having a crush on you until your fifth year at Hogwarts. You had all come back from summer vacation, and all of a sudden it seemed like you had grown up before everyone’s eyes. You cut your hair, you didn’t have braces anymore, you started wearing light make up to highlight your facial features, and not to mention you suddenly became more aware of your feminine figure. The male gaze was much more present on you and you could feel it. It’s not that you didn’t like the attention, you just weren’t used to it. You were used to blending in the background, minding your own business and keeping a tight circle of close friends. So when random boys came up to you, like Fred, you were always caught off guard by their flirtations. It’s not that you didn’t find Fred cute, because you indeed find him to be incredibly handsome, you were just not used to how forward he was with his emotions.

Fred leans forward and puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it seems like every time I try to talk to her or flirt with her, I just end up screwing things. I compliment her, I try to talk to her as much as I can, I offer to walk her to class, but when I do those things it seems like she just freezes up.”

Closing her book and surrendering to the conversation, Alicia speaks, “For starters, Fred, you aren’t very subtle when it comes to fancying girls.” Fred furrows his brows. “You are always very forward with them and make it known that you like them and some girls prefer a little game. Some back and forth, make the bloke sweat a bit. You on the other hand are...intense for lack of better words.” 

Her comment makes the table burst out in laughter as Fred tries to defend himself. “Intense?! I’m intense?!” he exclaims before noticing his rising volume, earning a few shushes from the people around him. “Alright, fine, I can be a little intense, but it’s just because I don’t like playing games. I like getting right down to it. Why waste time?” 

George retorts to his brother, “But how do you know that she doesn’t like the chase, mate? Maybe she needs to take things slow.”

Fred just rolls his eyes, “Have I ever not succeeded in getting a girl with my method?” Alicia and Angelina scoff before returning back to their books, their argument about the right answer ensuing yet again. Fred continues talking to George, “Look, she’s also studying for Flitwick’s exam. Maybe she needs help. How kind of me to offer her some help!” 

Fred rises from his seat, grabbing his book leaving the table. “How are you gonna help her when you barely know what you’re doing, mate?” George speaks.

Spinning around, Fred quickly responds, “She doesn’t know that. Fake it ‘till you make it.” He sends his brother and their friends a wink before heading over to your table, unbeknownst to you.

You were deep into reading your book for Flitwick’s class, flipping wildly through pages to find the charm and wand movement you were looking for. “It has to be here somewhere,” you mumble to yourself, licking your fingertips before flipping through pages. 

“Need help?” you hear a voice speak. You look up to see Fred Weasley towering over you, a small smirk on his lips. Your heart rate speeds up the moment you see him, heart pounding against your chest. Your mouth goes dry and every thought in your mind vanishes. He literally made you speechless. Don’t freak out, you think to yourself. “May I?” he asks, referring to the empty seat next to you. Nodding your head up and down, you quickly look away from him as to not draw anymore attention to yourself. Fred takes the seat next to you as you feel your cheeks heating up, suddenly becoming more self-aware in the space next to him. “Studying for Flitwick’s exam?” he asks.

Taking a gulp, you muster up the words to speak to the cute boy next to you. “Um, yeah,” you nod your head, eyes still glued to the textbook, refusing to look at him. It felt wrong to look at him for some reason. Fred’s gaze did something to you. It felt so intimate for the strangest reason. “Or attempting to,” you add. “I can’t seem to find the charm I’m looking for in the textbook.”

Fred scoots his chair closer to you and you tense up a little bit. He reaches to your textbook and says, “Maybe I can be of some help? What charm is it?” As he asks you, he places his arm around the back of your chair, resting it around you. You become very aware of his slick placement, an obvious move, and your mouth goes dry. Fred was making his move and he was monitoring your reaction carefully.

You didn't know what to do. Flirt back? Answer his question? Tell him that you’re okay and that’ll you’ll find it? You didn’t want him to think that you didn’t like his flirtation because you did, you just didn’t know how to react. Instead of saying something flirty back, you just look at him and answer the question. “Erecto,” you speak as Fred widens his eyes. Of course. You just widen your eyes back as Fred chuckles. “I-I-I didn’t mean it like that, I meant that’s the charm I’m looking for!” you justify your answer. 

Fred continues to chuckle before replying, “At least take me on a date first, (Y/N).” He sends you a wink as your cheeks go bright red, making Fred chuckle more. “You look adorable when you blush,” Fred confesses which only makes you blusher harder and look away from him, a smile forming on your lips which Fred doesn’t miss. The smile makes Fred smile wider and his heart flutter. “Alright, let me have a look,” he pulls the textbook, flipping through pages with one hand, keeping his other arm around the back of your chair. You just sit quietly and play with the quill in your hand, tucking your hand behind your ear. Godric, this was embarrassing. “And here we have it. Right next to Engorgio,” he winks at you as you bite your lip to hold back your smile. Fred notices and speaks, “Hey, don’t hide that smile from me. You look beautiful when you smile.” He pushes a piece of hair out of your face and brushes it behind your ear as you heart stops, making your mouth go dry. You let a small smile pull at the corners of your mouth. “There we are. Beautiful.”

The two of you look at each other for a moment, staring at the other. Fred’s eyes dart all over your face trying to gage your reaction to his words, nervously scanning you. You just stare at Fred’s eyes and look at how much life are behind them. Aside from being a goof, Fred Weasley had so much charm and charisma. That’s what made him so attractive. He was confident in himself. But you don’t let yourself get carried away. You break your gaze and go back to your work, but Fred keeps looking at you. “Thank you, Fred,” you tell him quietly, scribbling down the charm on your parchment.

You can still feel Fred’s eyes on you as you write, growing uncomfortable in his gaze. It wasn’t that he was making you uncomfortable, it’s just the fact that he loved look at you was something you weren’t used to. “Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?” he asks as your heart stops. Uh oh. 

Your mind is racing with possible questions he could ask you, but you still say, “Sure.”

Fred takes in a breath before speaking, “Do you consider me intense?”

You furrow your brows, “Intense?”

“Yeah, like Alicia told me I’m intense. I understand that if she was referring to me when I’m playing quidditch, but she meant like...when I’m around a girl that I like...I’m intense with them. Would you agree?” he asks, arm still around you as you bite down on your lip, confused.

You open your mouth to speak, trying to formulate a sentence. “Well, I don’t know...I haven’t seen you interact with a girl who you fancy,” you tell him as you play with the quill in your hands.

Your comment makes Fred laugh and shake his head. “Merlin,” he breathes out. “You’re bluffing, right?” You furrow your brows yet again, completely confused. You were being truthful. You knew that Fred flirted with you, but didn’t he flirt with everyone? That was Fred’s thing, wasn’t it? “(Y/N), I fancy you. I have since fifth year,” Fred confesses.

In that moment, your heart stops. Fred Weasley fancied you? So the flirting was because he fancied you? “Oh,” you speak as Fred just chuckles, waiting for you to say something. Your shyness gets the best of you again and you just blush deep crimson for the thousandth time, making Fred smile. “I didn’t know, Fred.”

He shakes his head, “For someone as smart and as gorgeous as you, you’re quite oblivious, (Y/N). I’ve been flirting with you every day, sneaking a glance or touch when I can. You thought I was doing all of that to be friendly?” You just shrug in response. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable during any of it, it’s just the way I’m used to flirting with girls,” he tells you with a soft smile. “But I am serious. I do have a crush on you. And I’d love to take you out on a date if you’d let me, (Y/N).”

Your heart is beating a mile a minute and your palms are sweating. There’s no way that this is happening right now. Five minutes ago you were freaking out over an exam and now you were being asked out on a date by one of the fittest guys in your year. With a shaky breath in and a smile, you reply, “Okay. I’ll go on a date with you.”

Fred gives you a toothy grin. “Brilliant,” he beams. “How does this Friday work? We can go to the Three Broomsticks and get some Butterbeer?” he asks. “7pm?” You give him a small nod, rubbing the back of your neck, trying to hide your excitement. “Cool. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll make it worth your while,” he winks before placing a small kiss on your bright crimson cheek. “I’ll see you then.” He rises from his chair and makes his way back to the table where George, Alicia, and Angelina eagerly wait for him.

As he walks away, you let out a little giggle, excited for what the weekend has in store for you. Now with a beaming smile on your face, you continue to study for the exam, in a much better mood than before. “I’ve got a date with Fred Weasley,” you whisper to yourself, blushing hard as you flip through pages of your book.

“And?” George asks as Fred plops back down in his chair. “You scare her away again? Or did you behave yourself?” he pushes Fred’s shoulder.

Fred looks at his friends and brother and simply speaks, “Intense my arse. Guess who has a date this Friday?” he leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest as his friends’ jaws drop. “Don’t act surprised. I told you my method always works.”

George scoffs, “Yeah right. Hey, (Y/N)!” He bellows from the opposite side of the library, grabbing your attention as your eyes widen at the call. “My idiot brother said he’s got a date with you on Friday. That true? Or did he bribe you to say yes?” Fred slaps his brother upside the head.

You let out a light laugh, very aware of the multiple pairs of eyes on you from various students, anticipating your answer. “I don’t do bribes, George. Besides, your brother has quite the way with words,” you tease with a little more confidence, earning a few oohs from around you.

George stares at you and then Fred in disbelief. Then he speaks, “Nice going, mate!” Fred chuckles before looking over at you, sending you a wink.

[shingia]

✗ HQ BOYS DOING YOUR MAKEUP

-> this random idea popped in my head recently and i thought it was pretty cute so here it is ( ͡❛ ‿ ͡❛)

-> general plot : basically, you broke your arm and need them to do your makeup for you 

-> suna, akaashi, tsukishima, semi, bokuto, kenma

— SUNA

• he’s living his youtuber fantasy, let’s be honest here

• and by that i mean that he records every step of the process. he also does this thing where he shows the products to the camera with his hand behind to make the lens focus

• i’m pretty sure he would sit you up on the counter and make you wrap your legs around him to keep him close (bye i’m evaporating)

• getting your eyeliner right on the first try is a huge flex for him. getting it even on both eyes is an even bigger one

• and he brings this up every time you’re mad at him

• « ok yeah i forgot to make dinner. but that eyeliner from last week tho… »

• most definitely has a playlist playing in the background, and you get to choose the songs because you don’t have anything else to do

• he only realizes how much he enjoyed doing this after many hours, and he probably ends up asking you to do it again at like 1am or something

• and if you accept, watch him go above and beyond to do better than the last time, because this time he is committed

• even if he knows you’re not going anywhere btw, he doesn’t really care he just wants to take a few pictures of you before you take it off and go to bed

• (he made her promise not to say anything but he definitely asked his sister for advice just because he wanted to impress you)

• oh and, he puts too much lip gloss on purpose, because he obviously has a good idea to take half of it off :)

— AKAASHI

• obviously he immediately accepts - with your arm in a cast, you could ask him anything and he’d do it in the blink of an eye

• he insists on watching a youtube tutorial because he’s not confident enough to do it without any guidance, and he follows it diligently from a to z

• he’s probably the slowest of all but that’s just because he’s scared of messing up

• and also because he thinks you look really pretty when your face is so relaxed, he can’t help but give it a few kisses every now and then

• after every stroke of the brush, he takes a step back just to make sure that it still looks good - and it does

• he also starts humming at some point, and he would be very pleasantly surprised if you started humming with him

• he refuses to use the eyelash curler because he thinks it’s absolutely terrifying (i have to agree with him)

• however, he asks a lot of questions about the rest of the products because he’s genuinely interested and wants to learn new things

• but tbh i don’t think he would be completely clueless, for him the basics of makeup is just general knowledge

• he also keeps a few samples of your products in his bag in case you need to do touch-ups during the day

• also he cleans the brushes when he’s done <33 what a king

• and he definitely offers to do your hair afterwards since he knows you’re struggling with it too

— TSUKISHIMA

• « not doing that, no way. ask someone else » is his first reaction. but it’s just because he knows he’s going to be terrible at it

• but he accepts after a few minutes of negotiation (because he wants you to stop whining)

• so you drag him to your bedroom and sit between his legs by the window to have a better light ; honestly, it’s ideal work conditions

• surprisingly enough, he does a very good job with eyeshadow. which means that his confidence is now through the roof

• but it all goes back down in a second when he gets started on the eyeliner

• he tries to avoid this step by telling you that you would look much better without - but you really really want to see him try, so he has no choice but to give it a chance

• it looks awful

• he gets it right after his fifth try tho, but your eyes are very irritated

• because he put so much effort into this eyeliner wing, he spends the rest of the day making sure that you won’t rub your eyes and ruin his work

• although he will never admit it, he thinks it’s actually a pretty fun thing to do and he wouldn’t mind doing it again

• but he would rather do it on a day where you don’t have anything planned, because he could start making out with you without hearing that « we don’t have time for that »

— SEMI

• oh it’s definitely not the first time, he’s already pretty experimented

• which means that you don’t have to check on everything that he does, just let him do his thing and you won’t be disappointed

• he probably asks you to show him your outfit so that he can do a makeup with matching colors <3

• there’s one thing that drives him absolutely crazy, and it’s dark red lipstick. so brace yourself because he will put it on you no matter what

• oh and, remember that tongue thing he does before his serves ? yeah well he does that when he’s applying the lipstick as well

• i think he would eventually want to try bolder makeup looks, and if you’re too shy to wear them outside, he would !hype!you!up! until you change your mind

• if i’m being honest : your makeup has probably never looked this good

• it’s pretty frequent that he ends up putting on some eyeliner on himself, and he wears tf out of it

• since he can get pretty protective, he’s usually not a big fan of other people praising you. but he won’t mind if someone ever compliments your makeup

• but what semi loves more than makeup itself is that he gets to take a very good look at your face from every possible angle

• and he loves to discover new things about you, like a hidden mole next to your ear or a dimple under your lips for example

• honestly he knows your face so well that he could probably draw a realistic portrait of you without looking at any reference picture

— BOKUTO

• really really excited about it, and also honored to know that you trust him enough to do that !

• so get ready to spend the next thirty minutes sat on the bathroom floor surrounded by literally every product you own, because bokuto is very curious about a lot of things

• he is so frustrated to see all the different eyeshadow colors and not getting to use them all

• so he’ll probably ask to do your makeup another time just because he’s really intrigued by ‘this sparkly purple shade’

• he’s also very interested in touching all the different textures of your products, so he tries them all on the back of his hand (which looks like a mess by the end)

• he has a hard time finding the angle he’s most comfortable with so he probably moves a lot

• one second he’s sat in front of you, the next he’s behind your back and tilting your face up

• i think he would definitely squish your cheeks with one hand while putting lipstick on with the other

• he also needs constant approval on his work so he keeps a mirror within reach and waits for you to confirm that it looks good every now and then

• you might have to lie to him on his first tries tho, because he’s definitely not a natural (but that’s ok, he’ll get better)

• however, he is always proud of his work and shows you off 10x more than usual for the rest of the day

• and he gets really sad when you take it off in the evening (cue sad puppy eyes)

— KENMA

• if kenma’s going to do your makeup, he’s going to do it right

• both sat on your bed, he’s holding your head still with one hand on your cheek. and don’t you dare sneeze, smile or breath too loud : he needs to focus

• he is so concentrated that he even sticks the tip of his tongue out, and he has a frown on his face the whole time, like a painter working on a million-dollar canvas

• especially for mascara, he’s so scared to poke you in the eye that he requires absolute immobility

• and yes, he will get mad at you if you start to laugh or move too much, i mean come on he’s trying to do serious work here!

• but he just looks really cute when he’s so focused <3 you can’t help it

• however, he goes back to being his laid-back self as soon as he’s done. and he spends a lot of time staring at you for the rest of the day because he’s lowkey proud of the result

• also, don’t let him do your makeup in his bedroom, because the light coming from his setup is probably terrible - so you’ll have to drag him out i’m sorry

• he might lay you down on the couch and straddle you so that he can rest his elbows when he leans forward to reach your face

• oh and : seeing you wear « his » makeup and his clothes simultaneously drives him absolutely crazy

@toworuu @catwithangerissues

[stickynotestoletters]

may i ask for some poly relationship w larry & sal x male reader hcs?

Ah! Of course! :) Sorry I've been taking so long school is getting to me cause of finals;-;

Warnings: Noncannon compliant (their parents aren't together, no one dies, etc), NSFW (implied teen NSFW otherwise they're out of highschool), no weird cult stuff but they still ghost hunt, more modernish (?) phones and stuff

Sal x Male Reader x Larry hcs

highschool

I think that Sal and Larry would have gotten together before you got there

Like, I say gotten together but the way they started it was literally best friends that were super hornknee and decided to have sex together

They started then developing romantic feelings for each other though

And although the sex dynamic wasn't perfect (refer to my Sal x reader NSFW fic) it was good and they loved each other

It became an on and off thing until they actually worked it out

they talked about it and decided that it was better that they stay friends until they can sort out their own sexual desires and endeavors

Sal didn't even know he could do both as a switch and verse so he wanted to just re-examine his sexual self

And Larry was okay with that

So they decided to date but just without sex for a while

Then you moved to Nockfell their sophomore year

and god were you cool

Sal was the first one to see you in the hallway

It wasn't love at first sight really

He thought you were cool and he wanted to talk to you

Then that same day he told Larry about you during lunch

"I want to talk to him I just don't know how to approach him"

"Oh, well who is it?"

Ngl Larry was kinda jealous about how flustered Sal was getting at the prospect of a new friend but then Sal pointed at you and Larry was like "Oh, okay, I get it."

So Larry just approaches you

It was kinda to tease Sal about how shy he was being

Also kinda because you looked rad as fuck

So Larry approaches you sitting at a table alone

You were actually quite chill

You were happy since no one was approaching you

You guys hit it off and ended up becoming really good friends!

So for the duration of your sophomore year and the summer of your junior year, you guys were really good pals and hung out a lot

Then Larry started developing feelings first

And he was super confused since he knew he still liked Sal, no doubt about it

So he was just super confused and conflicted because he didn’t want to break up with Sal

So during, about the first half, of all of your junior year he kept this to himself and tried to keep himself from feeling for you

Sal on the other hand already accepted his feelings, he realized it later than Larry

And he read yp on what being polygamous meant

So although there was a lot of confusion at first he figured it's no different from people in love triangles

He realizes it a couple weeks after Larry and decides to bring this up to Larry during winter break

The conversation pretty much just went like Sal explaining polyamory to Larry for an hour

They end up deciding to just wait a bit and try to flirt with you individually

you know,

because they don't remember that you don't know they're attracted to you at this point

:)

So basically you think that they're both trying to cheat on each other for the week they're flirting with you

At the end of that week, you tell them to meet you together

And they don't know any better than to meet you

And then you come to them, don't let them explain, and cry because you don't want two of your best friends to cheat on each other like this even though you like them

And then they realize why you're saying this

So although this was not the time they expected to confess to you they told you what they were trying to do

So you just sat there

With these two idiots

and told them "No guys, cause I was literally having a breakdown about losing my two best friends."

And they confess to you

and everything is emotional and raw and you accept

Your guys' dynamic doesn't change because you’re dating now

The only difference is you guys make out together and show lots more pda

although you always bring up what they did when they were trying to give you hints

"We just really wanted to flirt with you okay??? Is it such a crime to want your crush to fall for you???"

"When you guys don't explain you're looking to expand your relationship, yes. Yes, it is Larry."

"He's kind of right babe-"

"SAL-"

Y'all spend a lot of time communicating with each other on stuff like that now

Your senior year goes without any bumps between all of you and you then graduate

College Dynamic

so you and the gang (except Ash, she moves to the city of course) goes and makes a college house

once you all move in together there it's a new routine

You all agreed and talked about the move together and what it would entail

And then you all finally realized how different it was from a monogamous relationship it was

But you all had your learning curves within the relationship

You find out more about their dynamic as a couple

For example, Larry and Sal never liked to fall asleep without you anymore

They had trouble sleeping without you beforehand and the first time you all slept in the same bed together it was just... so... peaceful

They'll spoon and cuddle without you individually (Sal is always the big spoon with Larry)

but they just love falling asleep next to you

They also refuse to do homework without you there

Even if it's just the simplest this they're just gonna need to have you in the room to finish it

Sal likes to make songs about you guys

He records them and edits some but he never lets you two listen to them

"It's just embarrassing if you two were to listen to it. It's like confessing my love for you guys all over again except I can't hide behind the mask."

So until he decides to release his songs online or plays those at gigs he's never going to let you listen to them

Larry likes to paint you guys

His paintings of you before the "disaster confession" were okay, it just looked like he was making a painting of a friend, except for the occasional rose

But now he paints you and draws you two whenever he can

He finds it funny how flustered you and Sal get whenever he makes suggestive paintings or sketches of you two

One time he painted a whole sex portrait of you and Sal together (A 12 by 28 specifically) hung it upright in front of the door to your rooms and didn't tell anyone

So after you and Sal got home that day you were welcomed with Larry lounging on your bed with the giant picture of you fucking Sal next to him

It was definitely beautiful though, even if it's hard to call your nudes beautiful

"Larry Johnson, this painting, as always, masterful. Beautiful craftsmanship but please-" "-we mean this in the most loving way possible Larry-" "-STOP PAINTING OUR NUDES BABE"

He put it away to be hung up in your apartment for when you all move out

Non-College Life

Once you all finish college you guys move into an apartment outside of Nockfell

The minute after you and Sal leave to get food Larry puts up all his private paintings of you guys

It's funny to him

I imagine you guys moving to a really populated city

Somewhere where it's a good place for people wanting to have creative jobs but still close to Nockfell

Maybe not back to New Jersey but probably not as far as New York or LA

you guys do all the cute stuff you never got to in Nockfell together

It's not like the majority of Nockfell was homophobic, mostly just the people who went to the church

But a lot more of them didn't think that polyamory was possible

So now it's easier

It's not like you never experience any polyphobia anymore but it's easier because you're in a more open-minded place

Sal's favorite thing is to go to concerts now

And pride

He also likes coffee house dates too

Larry gets hit on a lot though whenever you guys go out anywhere though

He finds it funny how jealous you both get

Sometimes if he wants Sal to get really mad he'll play along

But most of the time he shuts it down before it begins

Sal gets hit on a lot at concerts the most though

He gets kind of awkward about it, he's not going to edge them on but he gets uncomfortable enough to just not know how to shut them down

Usually, you and Larry will just appear behind him and whisk him away

Larry likes to use it as teasing leverage for a good rough one that night but you usually make sure he's okay with it before Larry does anything

You get hit on the most casually

Here and there but there aren't really specific places

It just sort of happens

You mostly shut them down alone

But occasionally you'll have to go to Sal and Larry if they're persistent

And they'll be mean too

One of the first times you saw Sal and Larry ever legitimately get that mean was when you got hit on in a club and they both just pulled you behind them and absolutely ripped the person a new one

You guys really like to stay at home if you guys have dates though that way everyone feels included

But when you all do go around together it's always specifically for three people you never tell anyone it's a date for dinner reservations, you always make sure you go on rides everyone wants to go on at amusement parks, and hey if worse comes to worst smoking is a group activity (if you have asthma or any other breathing condition Larry makes you edibles if you really wanna do edibles with them)

Starting jobs there are tough and all but you make it off your feet

Sal ends up booking a lot of gigs and Larry's commission request skyrocket when he moves to the city and makes a blog about his art

You all get an apartment with affordable rent and one that allows Gizmo

I hc that Gizmo is an esp but I don't know if that's real

So regardless you'll still be able to have room for him

Sal proposes to both of you

You guys talked about marriage and decided that it would be easier legally to just not get married through a court

So you guys have a friends wedding and Gizmo is the ring bearer

You guys don't get a fancy venue or anything

You guys all just have a city wedding

NSFW

So, the first time you all decide to hook up it's mostly just very communicative rules beforehand

Sal is more comfortable with being fucked than fucking someone else at most times but "It's not like I never want to stick my dick in you two" as he puts it

He also likes background music on most of the time

It's kinda weird if there isn't just a little bit of music

It isn't really bothersome, you guys keep it below 20 at most times

Sal's also super submissive

He liked it rough, make him cry out for you two

A bit of a pillow prince

Especially enjoys being tied up by you two

gags and blindfolds are on the table

Although whenever he does feel up to fucking you and Larry he'll usually end up having you two ride him because he gets to be such a mess with you two unless he's jealous or upset

Usually, when he's upset he's gonna lift you two up and fuck you against the headboard or wherever you two are if he's impatient enough

One time you were chilling with Larry in your bedroom and he was painting over his easel

Sal burst through the door where it slammed back on itself and closed itself

He then tracks his eyes on you

immediately asks you "Can I please fuck you right now"

and as soon as your safe word and consent comes out of your mouth he's holding you down on the bed and fucking into you so hard you can barely breath

Larry doesn't mind it and just continues painting with you moaning and being so pathetic in the background of his music

He kinda finds it funny because before you all got together and he and Larry would angry fuck it never worked out

Sal was just being a brat most of the time because Larry still wouldn't let him fuck him submissively

Speaking of which, Larry's more comfortable with being dominant, he'll bottom but only if he can still be dominant otherwise forget it

Larry's just a rough fucker anyway

He really likes pushing and holding you two up against walls when he fucks you guys

He likes showing off the muscles he got helping his mom with handy work and stuff like that

The first time he did this was to Sal when you were studying in your guy's room

You said you didn't really wanna participate today so they fucked like they would without you

And so they're talking back and forth, teasing each other

and Larry corners him

And just

lifts him up

It looked like he was just lifting a bag of sugar up

Sal seemed weightless as Larry just rocks into him

It was one of the hottest things you'd seen at the time so you joined them

You do that a couple more times but then it just becomes normal and you decide you need to start finishing all those assignments

Larry does that to you one on one as well without Sal but it happens to Sal a lot more spontaneously

Larry though is kinkier than Sal in some respects

He'll try anything at least once "Lisa didn't raise no bitch-"

He's really into breeding and long fucking sessions though

Like, lowkey he has omegaverse fantasies

Not because of the weird stuff just because a lot of the time..... they have breeding written in

He'll never admit to reading any of it but you know he has at least once

Super into dirty talk

And he's really good at it

He also had a praise kink and a degradation kin

He likes degrading you and you telling him thank you and how good he's treating a filthy little brat like you

"What're my filthy little brats good for other than sucking my dick so well. Taking me so well like the dirty little whores you are?"

"Yes sir-" "-we're made for your big cock-" "-thank you for fucking us like this-"

He especially likes breeding you and having Sal suck you off while he does it, he finds your crying cute

And an added bonus is rewarding Sal after for it

You guys talk about long-term consent and all that and decide that it's a good idea, you all trust and love each other so there isn't a problem

lol this kinda went to shit at the end but I still like it enough! Thanks for the Sally Face request I really like this game and the dynamic between a poly reader hc :)

-Laika

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 29 - ao3 -

“In the future, you should send your children to the Cloud Recesses for me to teach,” Lan Qiren said. He was sitting with Wen Ruohan on one of the rooftop gardens in the Nightless City, watching the moon and stars from a pavilion placed there for that purpose; their bodies were pressed close together, and it felt as if they were far away from all the things that were familiar. “You and Lao Nie both, and naturally I’ll come visit with you often as well, bringing my nephew. Between the three of us, we might even be able to teach them how to be proper human beings.”

Wen Ruohan laughed in his ear and pressed his lips to his cheek – he had taken to kissing him at random, spontaneous, as if still overwhelmed by the fact that he now had the right to do it.

“I will,” he promised. “I agree, I think they’ll turn out better that way…you would really have me educate your precious little A-Huan?”

“If I’m willing to entrust myself with you, why not him? Anyway, I can teach him music, and with the aid of the other teachers in my sect the sword in the Lan sect style, but you can teach him much more than that. You know how to look at the world and see it for what it is, and then bend it to your will, make it sing to your tune. He’ll be sect leader in the future; he needs to learn that, and you can teach it to him.”

“I can, and I will,” Wen Ruohan said, then thought for a moment and asked, “What does Lao Nie bring to the table?”

“Flexibility, mostly.”

Wen Ruohan barked out a laugh. “He certainly has that.”

He didn’t even sound bitter about it any more.

Lan Qiren smiled.

“In the meantime, I will handle the rest of it,” Wen Ruohan added, and Lan Qiren looked at him in silent question. “Come now, Qiren. Did you really think that I would allow you to remain caged in the Cloud Recesses your whole life?”

Lan Qiren paused. That was the sorest part of his heart, his most painful misery, but he didn’t think Wen Ruohan would bring it up casually. If anything, he was a bit more afraid of what Wen Ruohan might get into his head to do about it – there was very little Wen Ruohan wouldn’t dare.

“Da-ge –” he started warily.

“No, no,” Wen Ruohan said, lightly scolding. “Little Lan, be serious! I already rejected the opportunity to cage you here at the Nightless City, playing only for me, despite how much I longed to do so. I refused to do it – me, refusing myself – because I knew it would only make you sad. Do you really think I would allow other people a privilege that I have denied myself?”

Lan Qiren did not laugh, but he dearly wanted to. It might be the first time he’d ever wanted to laugh about his situation – not even Cangse Sanren had managed that. “Has anyone told you that you are extremely self-absorbed?” he asked instead. “Arrogance is forbidden. Do not be haughty and complacent.”

Wen Ruohan smirked back at him. “All true, little Lan, but don’t forget your favorite: Do not tell lies.”

Self-absorbed, narcissistic and arrogant, Lan Qiren concluded, and there was no helping it. It was clearly a terminal case.

He used his sleeve to hide his laughter.

“What are you planning, exactly?” he asked once he had recovered. “If you harm my sect, whether directly or indirectly by denying them my services, I would be even more upset than if you tried to lock me away in here.”

Wen Ruohan waved a hand dismissively. “Do you think me so incapable? I have already begun making arrangements. Discussion conferences may only be once or twice a year, being as they are tremendously irritating to arrange, but there’s no reason that we of the Great Sects should not recognize our greater duty towards the smaller sects, and not to mention our obligations to protect the mortal world –”

“You know that it exists, then?”

Wen Ruohan ignored him. “The resources of cultivation clans are limited, and the world large. There are many places which would benefit from aid that do not see any simply because they are far away or tucked in inconvenient places, and no sect lives nearby – naturally, it is our duty to fight evil no matter where it is encountered. Lao Nie has already agreed that it is critical that the sect leaders demonstrate our sincerity by fulfilling this duty in person, leading by example.”

Lan Qiren’s heart had already felt as if it were overflowing with warmth, and it felt even more so now, almost squeezed to pain by how much joy was there. More than he had known he could contain.

Bad luck in brothers, he thought to himself - but oh, he had such good luck in friends!

“I see,” he said, thankful that his usual neutral tone concealed how happy he felt. “And naturally, where you and Lao Nie go, Sect Leader Jin cannot be far behind in his eagerness not to lose out, and where three of the five Great Sects lead, naturally the rest cannot be far behind. So I, too, will be obligated to...what? Go out on night-hunts in inconvenient places?”

“The world is too large, and the number of cultivators too few – and at any rate, there’s no point in setting up a full night-hunt which draws in every person from a thousand li for a few paltry fierce corpses or a ghost or two. I propose, instead, that we would send cultivators out alone, in pairs or in small groups, to wander for a few months through the remote places in the world and clean them up. Then, at the next discussion conference, the Great Sects could jointly agree that whoever was most enterprising would receive a reward, and naturally, stories of various exploits could be exchanged – ”

“Ah. Another reason for young men and women to gather and boast of improbable exploits.”

“Think of it as giving them more opportunities to win glory,” Wen Ruohan said. “And stop talking down about ‘young men’; you are a young man. Naturally you are also qualified to go out to do such things. Required, even: if our Great Sects do not set a proper example, who will?”

“Mm. A proper example. Even if I coincidentally happen to spend more time playing music than hunting demons?”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes were bright. “Even so. And naturally, you could always bring along someone more powerful to do the demon-hunting for you…”

“How convenient.”

Wen Ruohan smirked. “Do you doubt that I will be able to make it happen, little Lan?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said, then added, honestly: “I think you could take over the world if you wished.”

“Naturally! But it would be quite irritating, I think, if I had to also ensure that both you and Lao Nie did not disapprove of my methods…” He paused, lips twitching. “By coincidence, while we’re discussing convenience, I was thinking that it would be dangerous to send all those wild and reckless young men out there without proper support. Surely it would be only reasonable to set up a few convenient places here and there, not so far away, to provide them with supplies and a place to rest and recover –”

Convenient places that would fly the Wen sect’s flag and spread its influence, Lan Qiren presumed. Lanling Jin would be furious – using wealth to buy influence was their favorite technique, and they resented other people copying it – and would immediately insist on establishing their own set of “supply stations”, and then the rest of them would have to catch up and make their own. Yet another expense, and the Great Sects would need to do more than most; it would probably wreck havoc with the Lan sect’s annual budget.

On the other hand, well the remote parts of the world really did need the help. One of the Lan sect’s newly recruited guest disciples had been talking about a place not far from his hometown that specialized in making coffin goods; it was, according to him, the most inauspicious place that could possibly be imagined…

Not a place anyone might want to go, unless they truly were intent on traveling.

Lan Qiren smiled once again. He thought he might never stop smiling.

“Indeed,” he said, trying to sound dry and rational. “Very coincidental. No one will doubt that this is nothing but a scheme to expand your reach and power, rather than any personal motive.”

Wen Ruohan did not answer, but instead, matching a smile of his own to Lan Qiren’s, pressed his lips against Lan Qiren’s once more.

After a little while of silence, Lan Qiren cleared his throat and asked, “Do you intend to tell people?”

He was not referring to Wen Ruohan’s plans for the future.

Wen Ruohan understood.

“In time,” he said. “As much as I would love to shout that you are mine and I am yours from the rooftops and perhaps have bulletins be posted to every town -”

Lan Qiren grimaced. It would be one thing if he thought Wen Ruohan was exaggerating for romantic effect, but unfortunately it would be just like him to engage in that level of over-the-top grandstanding.

“– but your position is not yet certain, and my reputation is too questionable. People would make assumptions and spread malicious gossip, and I – I would not harm you to please myself.”

“Sweet-talker.”

“It’s not sweet-talking when it’s true,” Wen Ruohan protested, although he was chuckling. “When you are more renowned as a teacher than a sect leader, when little A-Huan is old enough to have passed the worst stretches of childhood – then we will announce it, and let the rest of the world choke on it if they like. You, me, Lao Nie…hmm. Jin Guangshan will probably think we’re concealing a conspiracy and ask to join in.”

Lan Qiren gagged. “I refuse,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m not physically involved, neither you nor Lao Nie are allowed to even think about it. That man has visited so many prostitutes that one might be forgiven for thinking he believes that the road to immortality is paved with venereal disease.”

“…thank you, that was an image I did not require.” A pause. “Jiang Fengmian –”

“Remember when he punched me in the face in a fight over a girl I didn’t even want?”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion.” Wen Ruohan chuckled once more and pressed another kiss to his cheek. “Some years ago now, I swore to your Cangse Sanren that I would do right by you. I ought to invite her here and show her that I’ve made good on it.”

“You haven’t made good on it.”

“I haven’t?”

“No. Such a promise is fulfilled through the keeping – if you want to do right by me, there is no one singular moment that would qualify, but rather a continuing obligation.” Lan Qiren smiled up at him. “I’m sorry, da-ge. You’ll have to continue to do right by me for the rest of our lives.”

“I will,” Wen Ruohan said, and smiled back. “It would be my pleasure.”

-END-