#he is saving several copies of this

[izzystizzys]

As High Marshall Commander, a title foisted on him by the Galaxy’s fakest bitch aka Chancellor Palpatine, Fox theoretically has privileges and authorities like no other clone. In practice, he has a headache and gets ignored more obviously than before.

What he also has is a fancy new function on his personal comm unit modified to broadcast GAR-wide to all commanding officers, up to and including Jedi. It gathers dust next to his own modified button that sees much better use - a private channel to Stone, the only vod that will let Fox bitch at him to his heart’s content without hanging up (Thire) or bitching right back (Thorn).

It’s been a long shift of 72 hours, the maximum Stabby allows him to do without a well-placed hypo to the neck, when Fox finally collapses on his rickety cot in the Command quarters and hits the private comm connection to Stone without looking. He’s already rolling his eyes so hard it tweaks at the migraine that’s been building since hour 18 and heaving a put-upon sigh.

“Everyone is stupid, Stone, and asking to be thrown face-first from the Dome balustrades”, he begins, settling into a low, dead tone of voice to warm to the building monologue. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. “I swear to haran I’m going to wring Amedda’s stringy neck one of these days. I don’t know what magical Force gods his mother pissed off, but they made sure to punish her and the Galaxy at large a hundred times over. He sucks the joy and competence out of every room like a black hole of stupid. I’d call him a has-been, but I trust in the power of nepotism and also just don’t believe he ever was. I swear he’s doing it on purpose and - oh, kriffing Sith-damned hells, you know who’s definitely doing it on purpose?! The kriffing Chancellor, that wrinkly ass-faced ballsack!”

Taking a deep breath, Fox lets that sit in his chest for a moment, indulging in the feeling of bright weightlessness. “I swear he’s trying to keep the war going - no one man can be that incompetent and still draw breath, not even Amedda or Taa. Goddamn Taa - but anyways, kriffing hell, Stone, either the senility isn’t an act or he’s a bad cartoon villain from Dooby Scoo. Yes Sir, sending Senator Amidala to a Seppie-infested planet for negotiations is a great idea after her fourth bomb threat of the week. No Sir, I can’t hear you cackling evilly with Count Dooku under your lame two-credit robe as you’re definitely not colluding with the Republic’s enemies. What, you have a red lightsaber?! Oh, of course I don’t know what that means, I was dropped on the head as a tubie!”

Barely pulling in a harsh breath, Fox continues, palms pressing into his eyeballs hard enough to cause sparks. “And speaking of lightsabers and senile fucks, haran smite my ass off but who the kriff thought it’d be a good idea to give absolute tactical and military authority to the kriffing eldritch space monks! The Force didn’t bless them with the collective good sense it gave to a kriffing rock, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise! Has anyone kriffing read the Theed Convention of Sentient Rights in Wartimes?! NO?!! Well, color me UNSURPRISED, because war crimes ARE NOT! GOOD! BATTLE! TACTICS!!”

“They run around in crop tops, Stone, in crop tops! Oh, the Force provides - WELL I’M GOING TO PROVIDE MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS, AND IT’S GOING TO HURT BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT WEARING KRIFFING ARMOUR!”

“Sure, let’s send the preteens into active warzones under heavy artillery in kriffing party wear! Surely nothing will ever go wrong! And give them commanding positions equivalent to CC-clones, WHO WERE LITERALLY GENETICALLY CREATED FOR IT! WITH A DECADE OF INTENSE TRAINING! LET’S DO THAT, BECAUSE WE’RE ALL KRIFFING STUPID!”

He’s gesturing wildly at the ceiling now, face heating up as his blood boils beneath the surface. “And you know what really gets my lowers in a twist, apart from the preteen commanding officers and blatant kriffing high treason and war profiteering?! Is it the complete lack of recognition? Gratitude? Basic sentient rights?! No, Stone, no, I would take all that in stride if it meant I never had to see Skywalker and Amidala kriffing canoodle right in front of me again, and pretend like it isn’t the galaxy’s worst conflict of interest case in the making!”

“By all levels of Sith-hell, what the kriff is wrong with that woman? You have it all, you could have anyone, and you choose that twatwaffle?! And then they have the gall to lock themselves in a broom closet for twenty minutes straight and have me guard it! ‘Oh yes, Senator, naturally we all go rattling brooms with our good friends! Nothing dodgy happening at all! I definitely believe you were looking for detergent and have used a washing machine before!’ The absolute nerve on those two! And then last week - you’ll never believe this - High General Windu passed by, and I swear he looked like he wanted to throw himself off the roof! I’ve never been less impressed by anyone in my life, and I’m batch-mates with Bly!”

“Speaking of Bly, that little bitchtit - if I have to edit one more, one more kriffing propaganda piece of him staring at General Secura’s bits, I’m going to stab my eye out! And if I have to edit one more of Secura staring at his bits, I’m going to stab the other one out! The only good thing I have to say about them is they’re more subtle than Skywalker and Amidala, which means nothing really. I will never understand that woman - but then she’s worked with Jar Jar Binks for a decade and not had a nervous breakdown, so she either has nerves of steel or is on some good-ass drugs.”

“Girl, your choices. And you know what else is a choice? Kote kriffing roundhouse-kicking heads off droids when he has a perfectly good blaster right there! I don’t know what the Longnecks put in his tube, but I hope to kriff it’s not contagious. I’d say I’m glad he has Kenobi to keep him in check, but that man wouldn’t know common sense if it punched his nose clean off his face. Flirting with General Grievous, ugh. I’d say he can do better, but honestly, they deserve each other.”

“And Wolffe - “, panting, Fox pauses, considering. “Well, Wolffe is an asshole and stupid, and I hate him because he’s stupid and has a stupid face. Also he keeps drunkenly submitting adoption paperwork on General Koon’s behalf - I wish I could say something mean about that, but honestly, his existence is roast enough. Anyways, bitches are trying me today, and by bitches I mean everyone. Commander Fox signing off to go not commit treason, unfortunately.”

Thoroughly powered out, Fox sinks into his hard mattress with a deep sigh. Several seconds of silence reign, and then his comm unit starts blaring in alarm.

Somewhere in the Jedi Temple, Mace Windu is knocked flat on his ass by a gargantuan shatterpoint exploding.

[poppyseed799]

I have this problem that’s like the opposite of nostalgia or something where some things I remember liking a lot as a child I look back and only remember the bad times.

This is specifically about Animal Crossing, loved that game as a kid, but I have literally no idea why, cuz it was just pure hell for me from what I can remember.

[a-b-riddle]

Part Three

Warning: If you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not gonna like this chapter that much, homie. But So Long, London is so fitting for this drabble series. (I guess a series since it's longer than a drabble at this point)

Can’t stop thinking about reader just trying to move on

You had to remind yourself several times not to check in with the guys. It had almost become second nature doing something big like this. But going to another country…

Not that they would care. You told yourself. It was for the best that way.

The expo went better than you expected. You didn’t believe that there would be a line out the door of eager readers wanting to read your book, but you got a decent amount. More than a few told you they couldn’t wait to read it. Several asking for photos and asking questions on any future books, a spin-off or even continuing the series.

When one a particular large group of girls your age asked for a group photo, you could have cried. They were had found each other in an online book club. You had given them your book several months ago. All copies signed with a note thanking them for taking the time to read what you had poured your heart into.

You had spent a large chunk of your free time talking to them. Bonding more so as women than over your book.

"Have you listened to Taylor's new album?"

It had only been out for two days and you had been able to avoid it like the plague. You didn't need to even listen to 'So Long, London' to know it would fucking gut you. So you would enjoy your time in the states. Save the listening experience for when you were packing up their stuff.

They had posted and tagged you before continuing on with the rest of the expo. You had reposted the photo to your own social media. Or at least one attached to the pen name you had crafted. You only had twelve thousand instagram followers, but it was something.

The first day was much like the second. You had attended several Q & A sessions with a panel of more experienced authors and managed to go to a few meet and greets. Before you knew it, it was time to pack up shop.

The agent the publishing house had assigned to you had stuck with you for most of the day. You were able to pick her brain a bit about new ideas for possible future plot lines and her thoughts. Overall, the trip was great.

Not only were you able to make great connections and take a lot back home with you to reference, but for a few days you forgot what waited for you back home. Or rather what wasn't waiting for you.

By the time your plane landed back in London you could barely hold yourself up. You left the expo, went straight to the hotel to shower, pack and head to the airport.

Your flight was delayed. Your luggage was taking forever to get onto the belt. It was only seven, but fuck if you weren’t ready to just call it a day. Tomorrow you would have to start again. Opening up the shop. Coming back to an empty flat. Maybe start gathering up the items the boys had left behind.

Should you give them in separate boxes or just one giant one and let them sort it out themselves? It was easy to discern whose sweatshirt and t-shirts belonged to who, but when it got to things like socks and chargers...

Yeah.

They could sort it themselves.

You could drop it off at Kyle's when you knew he would be at the gym. He was good at avoiding you anyway.

It wasn't until you stood in your apartment did it hit you.

You were alone.

For the first time in over a year you couldn't call one of them over to soothe that ache of loneliness.

For the first time in over a year, you had to relearn how to handle just being alone.

You usually showered at night. Washing away the grime of the day before settling into bed. But today was a new chapter. You woke up wanting to start it on a good note. Plus you went straight to bed after getting home so you still had a bit of airport funk on you.

It had been a week. One official since you had sent that text nailing the coffin shut. You had touched base with your friends who didn't bat an eye at you dating four men at once. They liked them, even if Simon scared them. You didn't give them the details of the breakup or the cause. You were pretty private in your problems and if you wanted relationship advice, you would seek an unbiased unopinion.

You had a good group of friends, but the moment you told them that you were well and truly heartbroken, they would insist the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Something you were nowhere near ready for.

So you needed to look like you had your shit together. You put on a dress that was feminine and, most importantly, comfy as fuck. An A-line floral frock paired with a light sweater and some white trainers. You knew a few of your friends would be stopping by for tea so you need to look like you were taking the separation well. Even if you were barely holding it together.

With makeup and perfume on, you started the early morning stroll to your shop.

You loved openings. Starting up the register and selecting the playlist for today. Picking out the essential oil to put in the diffuser even though you mostly stuck with a lavender and vanilla blend during the spring months.

For the morning you stuck with a Taylor Swift Instrumental playlist you had found initially for studying, but you liked the peaceful feeling it brought. Even when it covered the most gut wrenching songs.

You had started to collect the online orders that had accumulated over the last week. Sending out the e-mails alerting to your patrons that their orders were ready for pick up. Luckily you weren't set to receive a delivery until tomorrow.

It was eight and everything was set. Although not many people came to a bookstore at eight in the morning, it really didn't bother you opening up that early considering you were the only employee that was on the payroll. It gave you the possibility of making money, but mostly you spent the morning reading or writing.

You flipped the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. Ready to start take on the day.

You had turned the kettle on in the back room when your friends had stopped by around lunch. You always said it was just tea, but you always had an array of snacks on standby for you all to munch on.

Meredith was complaining about what a dick the new client at the law firm was being. An absolute slime who had been married to his wife for almost twenty-five years before he decided to fuck his twenty-two year old assistant.

Tabitha didn't want to talk about work. To her, her career in tech was just a paycheck. She did what she needed to do and left when she was done.

You talked about the expo and how your book. Although neither of them really read, they had promised that they would read your book. You didn't hold your breath. They had reposted your posts as well as making ones of their owns in celebration of you. Words of praise about your dedication and hard work.

You realized that even though they couldn't give you the support you needed as readers, they supported you blindly. You could have written absolute garbage, but they would still support you.

You talked about how many people liked your book and wanted pictures and to sign their copies.

Then came the question you had been rehearsing since you had texted them a week ago. They both shared a look before Meredith finally asked.

"How are you holding up?" You gave a half-smile and a shrug. So perfectly rehearsed in your head you were ready to deliver your lies lines.

"I'm fine," you lied. "It was just fading so there isn't much of a difference, I guess." Not necessarily a lie. "We just wanted different things and were on different paths in life." Not a lie. "It's for the best." You weren't sure if that last one was a lie or not just yet.

They both shared a passing look before returning their gazes back to you. "You know you can come to us about this stuff." Tabitha's hand reached across the table, placing a hand on top of yours.

"It wasn't going to work out." You added. "Situations like that don't and I should have known better."

"A situation?" Meredith asked. "When have you ever called it a situation?"

"It always was one."

"I love you enough to call bullshit." She raised her eyebrow at you, crossing her arms over her chest. "You loved them and you need to stop pretending this is easy."

"You're a divorce lawyer, Mere," You reminded. "You see marriages fall apart every day."

"I do. I get to see from across the table how a woman is still willing to take her cheating arse of a husband back. So the fact that you went from on cloud nine with all of them to not even talking about the break up is concerning to say the least."

"Tabitha," you looked at your only ally left. "A little back up would be nice."

"I'm with her on this one." She confirmed. "You loved them. Not that I cared, but if you weren't talking about books or the shop, you were talking about them. What you did, where you went. How they fucked you."

"I think I'll miss that part the most." Mere sighed. "I lived vicariously through you."

"You know you could actually date people." Tabitha suggested.

"I'd rather live with chronic carpal tunnel than a man." You almost choked on your tea. If you were wearing pearls you would have used the comedic relief of clutching them to break the awkwardness of the current topic of conversation.

"That should be put on a t-shirt." You suggested

"I wouldn't mind it on a welcome mat to be honest." Tabitha added.

"But in all seriousness, cut this bullshit." Meredith gave you an sympathetic smile. "We're here. Good, bad and ugly."

You returned her smile. "I know."

You had closed up shop for the evening. Your lunch had gone longer than expected so now you were left doing the dishes and clean up during closing. You were setting the last cup on the drying rack when you heard the front door chime.

Shit.

You must have forgotten to lock the door when you turned the sign.

“I’m sorry!” You apologized, making your way out of the back break area and to the front of the store. “We’re-”

“Closed.” He said, locking the door behind him. “I saw the sign.”

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[nereidprinc3ss]

strange perfections

in which spencer reid and fem!reader meet by accident at a coffee shop. and then they keep meeting there. they've really got to stop meeting like this. (no, seriously. hotch is pissed.) / do you believe me now? bonus chapter!

series masterlist

fluff! warnings/tags: meet cute:) some dark humor, romantically inexperienced reader, spencer reid graduated from caltech, mit, and the derek morgan school of rizz a/n: this can absolutely be read as a standalone BUT it was written as a prologue for my series do you believe me now? to explain how spencer and r met! completely optional, if you're only here for the smut no worries! reading this bonus chapter might make the next chapter better though as it contains discussions of how they met:) anyway, I LOVE YOU!! let me know if you like this silly little random thing! kisses

The café door opens again. A blustery wind raises goosebumps on your arms and makes your bones ache again. You look up at the latest intruder—a hobbling elderly man in a newsboy cap and a knit red scarf. 

Stupid scarf, you think. 

Stupid door. 

Stupid wind. 

Your mug is empty, and the table you’re sitting at is sort of sticky and rickety, and there are so many papers in front of you that you wonder why the hell you thought it’d be a good idea to print the PDF out and annotate it that way instead of just doing it on your laptop like a normal person in the 21st century. Nothing is going right today. It’s the third café you’ve tried in the past few weeks as you attempt to find some place that feels homey, lucky, but this one just feels… inconvenient. 

You look at the stack of papers and sigh. 

Stupid Lord Byron. 

Stupid cafe. 

Usually, cafés are relatively quiet and peaceful—a refuge for the overworked to bask in the luxury of quiet jazz and the smell of dark roast as they continue to overwork themselves. This particular establishment, however, today hosts a group of teenagers—presumably playing hooky—who have commandeered a big booth in the back and keep walking right past your table because apparently they couldn’t have just ordered their drinks at once and they all have to do it separately and loudly. 

One of them has an incredibly irritating, gratingly pubescent laugh, and they think everything is hilarious. This whole situation is unbearable. 

Just as you’re gearing up to go, of course the fucking door opens again. This time, it’s accompanied by a particularly strong gust. 

Strong enough that Lord Byron doesn’t stand a chance. 

Your printed copy of his works blows off the table, at first page by painstakingly annotated page and then before you can even process it, all at once. 

Yeah. This is definitely not your lucky café. 

As you curse and go to stand up, you run into one of those dumb kids. His huge ceramic mug goes flying, careening against the edge of your table and completely splattering you and all your stuff in 16 liquid ounces of scalding espresso and milk. 

It’s silent for a second, save for a few drips from the puddle on your table to the floor, before the kid is apologizing profusely and turning red as a tomato. You can’t even respond—you look down at your ruined favorite sweater, and then around at the pages of Byron littered with color-coded sticky notes, overflowing with angry and purposeful red ink that you spent so much time on, scattered all over the floor. 

Eventually the boy catches on that you’re not going to forgive him and he skitters away, back to his friends, who whisper and giggle profusely. Only a few of them get up to start gathering the fallen pages with you. Several other patrons end up helping as well, so the sheets of paper are gathered and returned into your sticky hands fairly quickly. You thank each person without looking up as they hand you their respective stack. All you want is to get out of here. 

“Here—I’m really sorry about this,” someone says—a tenor-ish male voice, distinctly sympathetic as he holds out a rather larger stack of papers than anyone else had bothered to pick up. 

“I’ll live,” you sigh, straightening up. “But thank… you.”

The man standing in front of you is the kind of man who makes you want to untuck your hair from its usual spot behind your ears, and to stand up straighter, and to try and not stare even though you want his attention. He’s gloriously beautiful in a way that repels and attracts you. He’s the type of man who wouldn’t have given you the time of day in high school and probably wouldn’t now. Instantly you feel both insecure and reduced to a former version of you who would simper and fawn over boys who wanted nothing to do with her. You feel like going to the other side of the café and sitting in the best light and staring out the window poetically and hoping he’s looking at you. 

“On the one hand, I feel bad for being the person who opened the door and let the wind in. On the other… I feel compelled to say at least they’re not covered in coffee like the rest of your table is?”

You laugh vacantly, a second too late, positively coveting the awkward smile on his angular face. Then you make eye contact, and his eyes are so the opposite of angular—they’re huge and inviting and the warmest golden-brown you’ve ever seen, and they’re looking right back at you—and you have to look down. Fuck. You hate when you do that. 

Think of something normal to say!

“Yeah, true. Now I just have to reorder 264 pages. That… that don’t have page numbers.”

You shuffle through the papers. They are hopelessly scrambled. Your heart sinks just a bit.

“Um… I might actually be able to help with that, if you want?”

You frown, glancing up. What kind of sex trafficking ploy is this?

“That’s okay. Might be easier with just one person.”

He laughs—it’s similarly awkward, similarly endearing. 

“Do you mind letting me just… try? It’ll only take a minute.”

Only take a minute? Is this beautiful man deranged? Why are the hot ones always crazy?

But, perhaps because you’re a pushover who can’t stand up to people, much less beautiful people, much less beautiful men who are paying you undue attention, you find yourself giving in. You hold the stack out. 

“Sure. Give it your best shot. I’ll be impressed if you can even figure out what page one is.”

He’s already flipping through the papers with a drawn brow, walking away with them, and barely looking over his shoulder as he mutters, “I have Byron memorized. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

You follow him, because hello, he has all your annotations. He’s definitely insane, you think, as he sits down at a table and starts rapidly sorting the sheets into separate piles. 

All you can do is stand awkwardly behind him as he stacks papers seemingly at random, barely glancing at them before deciding where they go. 

Maybe a minute, maybe a few go by, each of which have you progressively more flabbergasted, before he’s tapping the edges of a stack of paper on the table and standing, handing them to you with his lips pressed into a thin pleasant line. There’s almost a glow about him—like he couldn’t be more in his comfort zone. 

“There you go. Should be in order now.” You sport a frown bordering on a grimace as you take the stack and flip through it a bit. Sure enough, it seems that everything is in order. You keep looking between the man in front of you and the papers, incredulous as you wait for something to be in the wrong spot. 

“How did you do that?” 

His cheeks turn slightly pink. 

“I know Byron really well. I know how each passage ends and begins so I put them together like puzzle pieces.”

“How did you read that fast?”

“Uh. I’m a speed-reader?”

You scoff, taking another look through the stack. 

“I think that may be underselling it.” A thought occurs to you as you’re grazing over one of your longer annotations—full of expletives and strong opinions. “Oh, god. You didn’t… you didn’t read my notes?”

The man’s eyebrows raise as if he was waiting for you to mention that and he smiles like he doesn’t quite know how to break it to you gently. 

“Maybe a few,” he eventually decides, laughing under his breath. “I appreciated the commentary on his relationship with Augusta. It was… colorful.”

Heat rises in your cheeks as you mumble. 

“Yeah, I had a hard time appreciating the romantic poems. They’re less cute when there’s like a fifty percent chance he’s writing about his sister.”

“Half sister,” he corrects. You give him a look. 

“Does that make it better?”

“… no,” he realizes. “Not even a little bit.”

You laugh, relieved that his face looks as warm as yours feels. 

“Well… thank you, for the help,” you say after a silent second. 

“Of course. Sorry, again. I, um—I hope your day gets better?”

“Yeah, well. I feel like statistically it has to, right? It’s kind of a low bar.”

He smiles, a perfect, perfect smile, and gives you a little wave as he leaves. Without coffee. Checking the clock on the wall, you realize it’s approaching one in the afternoon. If he’d been here on his lunch break, he sacrificed it to organize your stupid Byron texts. You smile to yourself. 

He was totally in love with me. 

And he can’t prove me wrong because I’ll probably never see him again. 

All things considered—this coffee shop does seem pretty lucky. Maybe you’ll stick with it for a while. 

The next time you see the mysterious sexy speed reader is four days later—though you’ve been here every day since. He catches your eye right as he walks in, and his brows jump in pleasant recognition. You smile. He smiles back, before going up to the counter and ordering a coffee with a ludicrous amount of sugar in it. 

I should take note for when I make him his coffee in the mornings, you think to yourself, and then you snort at your own delusions, shaking your head at your book. Obviously you’re not that divorced from reality, but you’ll entertain the fantasy forever until one of you stops showing up to this café. 

What you’re absolutely not expecting is for him to walk up to your table with his to-go cup. 

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hi!”

Jesus. Tone it down, girl scout. 

He gestures to your stack of papers: now secured in a three ring binder. The cup says Spencer. 

Spencer. Spencer. 

It feels important. 

“I see you’ve upgraded.”

“Yes! Yes, I did,” you laugh self-consciously, still struggling to meet his eyes. “Thank you for the help the other day. I would still be sorting through all of this if it weren’t for that, so… yeah. Thanks.”

“Of course! I’m glad I could be of use.”

“Spence!” Someone calls from the cafe door. You both look up to see a stunning blonde beckoning him away. 

Ah. Naturally. The girlfriend who is one trillion times prettier than you. 

Spence. 

Reality sets in. 

“Coming!” He replies, with all the eager compliance of a child, before turning back to you. “Um… well… I’ll see you?”

It’s an awkward way to say goodbye to a stranger, but you suddenly don’t care enough to dwell. Instead you nod once, less enthusiastic now that you know he has a 10 waiting for him on the sidewalk. 

“I am a creature of habit.”

Another wave as he walks away. 

The two disappear from the doorway, but the perpetual breeze seems to carry a snatched bit of conversation your way. 

“Who was that?” 

“Uh… I don’t actually know.”

Yeah. Reality definitely sets in. 

Over the next few days, you break your café streak. Life is busy. There’s not always time to artfully ponder Romantic poetry and drink a six dollar coffee while waiting around for certain people to show up. 

Okay, so… maybe it has more to do with him than you’re letting on. But you’re not going to do that thing you do again, where you become limerently obsessed with a man you don’t know and who is way out of your league just because you can’t form an actual attachment to anyone to save your life. Besides, you remind yourself; we probably wouldn’t be compatible anyway. He’s probably a huge loser. Or secretly a douche. Or chews with his mouth open. Obviously nobody that attractive can also have a good personality. 

Not to mention he has a girlfriend. That should put you off, too.

But you hadn’t been lying when you’d proclaimed to be a creature of habit—you return to the café once you feel sufficiently detached from this Spencer character. 

He’s there. Of course he’s there. Why had you been expecting for him to not be there? It’s not like he was a figment of your imagination. 

This time he’s accompanied by a different blonde woman—a bespectacled blonde with a big floral headband and a patterned dress and a red cardigan and tights and heels that look self-injurious. She’s quite eye-catching; you want to keep looking at her, but you seem to draw her attention, too. Her big eyes widen minutely and briefly you wonder if you’re supposed to know her, but certainly you’d remember meeting a person like that. She doesn’t seem easily forgettable. Both of you look to Spencer at the same time, who’s looking between you with an almost panicked expression. 

“Oh! Th—” the woman whispers, cutting herself off when she realizes how loud she’s being in the otherwise silent establishment. “Ah! Okay, right. Never mind.”

 Spencer sighs. You want to laugh, but you’re baffled by the whole thing. So you go back to reading. 

Ten minutes later, they draw your attention once more. 

“Go, go ahead! It’s more problematic for you to be late than me. I’ll be like, thirty seconds tops.”

You don’t look up as Spencer leaves the café—but are you supposed to gather that these two eccentric individuals are coworkers? And what of the first blonde woman, who you’d presumed to be his girlfriend? Where is she?

While you’re wondering all of this, the new blonde teeters her way over to your table. 

“Hi!” She says pleasantly, waving a purple-tipped hand and wearing the biggest grin. 

“Uh… hi?”

“I’m Penelope. You’ve met my friend Spencer. He just left.”

“Oh—sort of,” you smile weakly, closing your book. “Not formally. I didn’t know his name.”

That’s a lie, but maybe feigning non-chalance will make it real. 

“Well, I just wanted to come over and say I love your bag. And your jewelry and your coat. I love your whole look. I bet you’re a really cool person.”

“Um—thank you!” You perk up, smiling genuinely now. The compliment warms you—you didn’t think your look was all that interesting today. “You too. I love your outfit.”

“Great! You’re—you’re great. This is good information. Um… just out of, like, sheer curiosity, could I get your name, age, and occupation? Oh—and your zodiac sign?”

What kind of convoluted sex trafficking ploy—

“Garcia!”

Spencer is at the doorway again, looking adorably miffed. 

Adorable? Get a grip. 

“Wh—I’m just making a new friend! Is friendship illegal, now?”

“This is the kind of friend-making that gets you a restraining order,” he urges. 

You look up at Penelope Garcia, enamored by their whole dynamic. They clearly care for each other, despite the squabbling. What kind of job do they have where they talk to each other like this?

“It’s fine,” you smile, introducing yourself to her.

“That is such a good name!” She says, and you’re getting the sense she’s kind of always this enthusiastic. “So now we know each other’s names—we should probably definitely be friends, right?”

“Yeah! Um, definitely!”

“Yes? Oh my god! I love this! Okay, um—we work at Quantico, so, we’re like, 10 minutes away—but this is better than the coffee shop that’s closest to the building, so we come here all the time. Usually it’s just us and five grouchy old men, which makes this is really exciting.”

“Quantico… that’s the FBI academy, right?”

“Other stuff, too,” she nods, still smiley. 

Oh! Cool. So they’re FBI agents. 

So that’s cool. 

You’re cool with that. 

Her phone starts ringing—she locks eyes with Spencer. 

“Hotch?”

“Ooh, we are in trouble,” Penelope sing-songs, leaning down to write her number on your notebook without asking. Not that you mind, of course. She adds a little heart and a smiley face next to her name before capping your pen and toddling away. “Bye, new friend!” She calls over her shoulder, waving goodbye with just her fingers. 

“Bye,” you manage, though it’s probably too quiet. 

Spencer flattens his mouth into an approximation of a smile and waves again. 

You accidentally find yourself mirroring his goodbye, facial expression and all. Fuck. You hope he doesn’t notice. You hope he doesn’t read into it. 

Nah. Boys are dumb. 

You text Penelope later that afternoon—a simple greeting so that she can save your number—and then you forget about it. 

It’s not until five days go by without sign of any of them—the two blondes, Spencer, this mysterious and foreboding Hotch figure—that you start to seriously question your sanity. Did they drop off the face of the planet, or what?

But of course, just as you’re sitting at your usual table, Spencer walks in. Alone. 

He sees you immediately, but instead of the wave you’d come to expect, he immediately flushes, looks down at his shoes and hurries into the small lunch-rush line. 

Weird.

You corner him at the coffee bar, where he’s adding more sugar to his coffee. How are his teeth so nice if he does this to himself every single day?

“Hey,” you say, affecting casual confidence as you bus your empty mug. “… Spencer, right?”

It’s comical how you’re pretending you haven’t turned that name over and looked at it from every angle hundreds of times since the first time you heard it. 

He nods, only glancing up at you as he stirs. To your surprise, he knows your name, too. When you give him an odd look, he smiles almost apologetically, finally looking at your face for longer than half a second. 

“I heard you introducing yourself to Penelope. Sorry if that’s…”

“No, no! Is she around, today? I texted her last week, but she never responded...”

“Today is operating system update day, so I don’t even really have a way of knowing if she’s alive in her office.” It’s funny to him, but you just smile, baffled. He notices your silence and catches on, scrambling to explain himself. “She’s our tech analyst. There are 243 computers in our building and she has to update them all remotely, which requires getting every agent to agree to not touch their computer at the same time for an hour or so.”

“Oh… does the FBI not have, like… an IT guy, or something?”

He laughs again—the way his eyes crinkle when he does it makes you a little breathless. 

“You should say that to her. I think you would become her favorite person.”

It’s hard not to smile when he’s smiling because of you—however indirectly that may be. Quickly you realize you’ve both been standing in front of the coffee bar for too long. 

“Alright, well… tell her good luck, for me?”

“I would, but I’ve been kicked out for an hour while she does the updates.”

Your brow furrows and you laugh. 

“From the whole building? You just can’t keep your hands off your computer for an hour?”

“Not if I want to do my job, no. And I am kind of obsessive about my job. I’ve been the reason she had to start the whole process over again before and I’d rather not be that person again.”

You say it before you can think too hard. 

“Well, if you have an hour to kill… there’s an open seat at my table? No pressure, obviously.”

And that was the first of thousands of hours you would come to spend with Spencer Reid. 

After that, it sort of becomes a regular thing. He comes almost every day—except for occasional week or so long stretches, which you have discovered are a part of his absolutely fucking insane job—and sits with you, sometimes with Penelope, once with the other blonde, JJ, who you’ve since deduced is not his girlfriend, most often alone. Usually he can’t spare more than ten minutes, but he begins pushing it, little by little, until thirty minutes go by and you think surely his boss (the great and all-powerful Hotchner) must be beginning to notice. 

One day, during your usual lunchtime rendezvous, his phone rings. He talks right on through it, like it’s not happening.

It ceases. And then it starts again. 

Your head drops to your shoulder, something like pity or regret softening your features. He catches your eye and melts slightly, mid-sentence—like he knows you’re about to tell him to be responsible. 

“Do you think you should…”

His hands drop from where they’d been enthusiastically positioned mid-air. 

“They’ll be fine if I’m late from lunch one time. I’m usually more punctual than any of them.”

You roll your lip between your teeth—it’s not that you want to tell him to go; in fact, those delusions you’ve been harboring about your future life together are only getting worse with each inexplicable minute he entertains your company. 

But his job is important. 

“What if you have a case?”

“Then I would have gotten more calls from more people by now.”

Your head tips back as you laugh lightly at his unwavering insistence.   

“I’m flattered that you so enjoy my company that much. But I can’t with good conscience keep taking up your work hours like this.”

As the laughter fades, he just… watches you, lips slightly parted, eyes intense but not entirely present. 

“You’re probably right,” he finally breathes. “Maybe… you should start taking up my other hours, instead?”

Spencer Reid, you unexpected charmer. 

You balk.

“Like… we would hang out? At a different time of day? Not here?”

“Those are the basic premises, yes,” he chuckles, nodding affably. “I’ve never actually seen you anywhere else. For all I know you could be a ghost eternally tethered to this building.”

“Where would this hanging out take place?”

Fuck, you’re totally being weird. His brow knits. 

“I don’t know. Where else do people hang out?”

He’s not genuinely asking you, he’s gently turning you in the right direction. You charge forward blindly. 

“Restaurants.”

There’s that pretty smile of his again, the one that makes all the thoughts drain from your head like cold bathwater. Though, there’s a sort of mischievous edge to it now that you haven't seen before.

“That’s certainly an option. If I asked you to hang out with me at a restaurant... would you say yes?”

You look down. God, your face feels warm. 

“Would you be asking me out on a date? In this hypothetical scenario that we’ve constructed, I mean.”

Spencer seems to think about it for a moment, which fills you with unexpected panic. When you look back up anxiously, he has the same smile on his face, but his eyes are a little softer now. 

“I would.” 

More panic sets in—just a bit. But you don’t let what is undoubtedly a tidal wave of anxiety break through the emotional guard-dam. Keep it together. This is a good thing. This is what you wanted. 

Unfortunately, you are perhaps more transparent than you’d realized. Spencer begins to look slightly worried, leaning forward in his chair. 

“You don’t have to say yes. I know we don’t know each other very well, I just—”

“No!” You find yourself assuring him, though you curse yourself because you kind of want to know what he was going to say. “I would say yes. I’ve just, um—god,” you laugh gustily, self-consciously. “Sorry I’m being so weird. I’m out of my depth. Nobody’s asked me on a date before. I don’t really know the etiquette.”

Spencer chuckles. 

“You’re doing great. Don’t worry about it.”

Not, what?

Not, you’ve never been on a date before?

Not, that’s crazy, or that’s weird, or how have you gone your whole life without being asked out?

With the implication being, you’re odd. Different. Maybe not in a good way. 

He says none of that. 

“But I should probably actually ask you, huh?” His cheeks turn pink as his laughter is redirected inwards. 

“Sounds like a good first step.”

Spencer is still smiling as he says your name and it sounds so good from his mouth. It makes you sound so real. 

“Will you go on a date with me?”

Butterflies in your stomach doesn't begin to brush what you're experiencing—your entire abdominal cavity is like a Monarch sanctuary.

“I’d love to.”

He seems genuinely relieved as he beams, slumping back in his chair. 

“Oh, thank god. I was so nervous you’d say no. I never do that. Thank you for not saying no. Not that you couldn’t have said no—it would have been completely fine and obviously within your rights to—”

His phone rings again. Both of you are relieved that he was interrupted—but admittedly you thought his rambling was super cute. 

“I should—”

“You definitely need to go.”

“Yeah,” he agrees with a still-breathless smile. “Um—what’s your number?”

You look around fruitlessly for pen and paper. 

“I don’t—”

“Just tell me. I’ll remember.”

He’s so weird. 

A breeze hits your skin as he opens the door. You’re already writing your wedding vows in the back of your mind as you watch him go. 

-

part four

[tagasaing]

i have to get this out of the way, re: dungeon meshi discussions

major spoilers ahead, obviously.

you know for a series that focuses so much on platonic and familial relationships it’s weird that dungeon meshi has attracted so much useless ship wars though. the most important driving force in the story is two sibling relationships (laios’s search for falin, thistle’s search for delgal) and one of the central themes is how loving others way too much can lead to your downfall (thistle’s desperate attempt to keep his loved ones leads to his mental state deteriorating so much he starts torturing people he claims to protect, marcille’s fear of losing her friends leads to her being easily manipulated by the main antagonist)

even with regards to falin. thistle wants to bring the ‘brother’ he raised back at all costs, he saw a young human woman as nothing more than a dragon, his tool. marcille wants to bring falin back at all costs, she didn’t care about the repercussions of using monster meat instead of animal meat even though she was an expert at ancient magic and should know why it’s such a dangerous practice.

each and every single one of the major characters has some form of tragedy with their family one way or another: the toudens, marcille and her dad. chilchuck and his wife. senshi’s entire backstory. izutsumi’s hidden desire for a mother. namari’s father. shuro and his family. kabru and his mother(both tallman and elf). mithrun and his brother. thistle and the melinis.

even some of the minor characters: flamela and her dead twin sister. the twins and the floke couple. kuro being the closest mickbell has to a family. etc etc

as someone who has reread this manga several times by now, i wonder if people just… read it once as fast as they could and act like they’re some sort of authority on fan discussion. i’ve seen people brag about reading the entire thing in one sitting as if it’s something to be proud of. this manga isn’t meant to be read that fast, that’s how you get people claiming that laios doesn’t reaaally love falin as much as marcille does.

to these people, laios just gets in the way, as if it wasn’t his idea to go down the dungeon in the first place, it wasn’t him who said his pain doesn’t matter because falin suffered more than him, it wasn’t him who felt immense guilt for leaving falin behind, it wasn’t him who found her skull, it wasn’t him who killed her to save her from her chimera form. i feel like people forget about the ‘too’ part when marcille said “i miss falin too”

marcille knows how much falin and laios love each other. that’s why she asked him if she’s allowed to resurrect her and didn’t act on her own. that’s why when both times a shapeshifting monster copied marcille to trick laios, it was what she looked like at the time she was reviving falin.

as someone who DOES ship farcille, none of the romance is canon. this isn’t meant to be anti-farcille. one of the post-canon comics is about falin gently turning down shuro because she wants to travel the world, “you can’t tie a dragon down” after all. she wants to travel the world and find herself because she doesn’t know who she is outside of marcille and laios. even marcille, who was hoping she’d reject him, tears up because of how beautiful and tragic it was.

there are a lot of ship teases because what author doesn’t like a good ship tease. but to say that dungeon meshi is a romantic love more than it is a story about family(both real and found) is a great misinterpretation of the text.

[sp0o0kylights]

Give meee: an Eddie who went into a small little bookshop on an Indie trip and stumbled across an in person fandom meeting. 

It's mostly Star Trek, and also mostly women, but the stories they have are nothing like Eddie's ever read. 

He's barely a teenager, and already protective of himself and his real identity--but everything he's ever wanted is written down, right here, on a little zine with Kirk and Spock doodled on the cover. 

They’re not--it’s not obvious, that they’re what he is, but the story itself is blatant and Eddie ends up being so obviously close to tears, he accidentally outs himself without ever saying a word. 

(He also ends up on the mailing list, then being sent home with several hand printed copies of all kinds of zines.) 

Eddie would remain on this list well past his third senior year in high school. 

Past bats, and Vecna and Steve fucking Harrington. 

Flash forward to his first apartment.The tiny one he shares with Steve when they followed Nancy and Robin to college. 

Steve knows Eddie’s gay. 

Or rather, Steve has been told, but Eddie's still pretty clammed up about it. He's not yet where Robin is, ready to bemoan her loveless existence while draped over their crappy, thrifted couch.

He makes jokes and he flirts and he absolutely says things he shouldn't, but none of it is real. 

It's flash. Showmanship. 

It's the persona that yes, is him, but Eddie consciously built it. There’s nothing soft or gooey there, nothing anyone can use to hurt him. 

So when he comes home and sees that plain, padded envelope with the neatly printed label on the counter, torn wide open and flat without its contents?

 Eddie panics. 

His heart thunders in his chest, vision tunneling as adrenaline kicks through him. 

He wants to bolt-- should bolt--except ever since he almost died his brain no longer obeys him. 

Not when it comes to running, anyway. 

Instead it fights him to a standstill, freezing his feet right to the living room floor. 

The urge is still there. 

To run, and save face the cowards way. 

Vanish before Steve could get at a part of him that had once kept Eddie out of Wayne’s trailer for two days, until the old man had hunted him down and made him come home, huffing about how he’d love Eddie no matter what but he better never disappear like that again. 

(Which Eddie did anyway, and of everything that happened with Vecna, it’s that he regrets the most. The stories he heard of Wayne putting up posters. Squaring off with angry, too-righteous townies, and--)

A sniffle jerks him out of his thoughts. 

Eddie gasps, entirely unsure of when he stopped breathing. Stumbles back and turns, right in time for Steve to come out of his room and amble down their hallway. 

One hand rubs at his eyes, and the other is--the other has…

Eddie identifies the cheaply printed, stapled zine immediately. It's one he's wanted to read for a while now, solely because it features a story about Kirk and Spock being stuck in a cave together on a planet that has  bat-like, vicious animals on it. 

Kirk gets bitten after something goes wrong with the transporter and, look, it’s carthiatic okay!? Sue a guy for wanting to read a romance about a situation he identifies with! 

Steve looks up from the zine and startles. 

For a second his eyes go dark and flat, the same way Eddies and Robins and Nancy's and everyone's does when caught off guard. 

It's gone in a flash though, Steve visibly relaxing when he clocks that it's just Eddie. 

He keeps the zine pressed to his sweater clad chest,  and huffs out a laugh that's half forced and half pure relief.

“Fuck Eds, you scared me! I didn’t know you could be quiet.” 

“Uh huh.” Eddie manages, voice sounding totally and absolutely normal and not at all ten octaves higher than it usually is. 

They stare at each other for a second. Long enough that Steve's eyebrows crinkle in the middle, which is the first hint that he’s beginning to worry, and Eddie really cannot handle Steve being worried right now.  

“What's--” Eddie’s voice cracks and he coughs to recover. “what's that?” 

Steve frowns at him for a moment, until Eddie gestures at the zine in his hands. 

“Oh!”

Steve holds it up, as if to show it off. 

“It's a little book Robin got in the mail. It has a bunch of stories in it. They're normally boring as fuck but this one's from Star Trek.” 

Hearing the words ‘Star Trek’ out of Steve’s mouth shouldn’t be weird, not anymore, when Eddie and Dustin have been on a two man mission to nerdify Harrington as much as possible, but it still kicks like a mule to hear him say such things without any prompting. 

“You know what Star Trek is?”

“Eddie,” Steve tuts, tongue clicking in his mouth. “everyone knows what Star Trek is. It’s nerd shit, but like, old nerd shit. My grandparents used to watch it when I stayed over. This?” 

 He shakes the zine, so hard Eddie wants to snatch it away from him.

 “This isn't nerd shit. This is excellent.”

Steve gives the zine an appreciative glance and hell, maybe Eddie accidentally walked into another dimension. 

He’s been trying to get Steve to read more, rediscover the joys of books the public school system does its best to destroy, but until now Steve hasn’t really taken to it. 

Enjoys when Eddie reads aloud sometimes, and has started to bug Robin to do it for him too, but otherwise?

Eddie’s nerve seen him with anything that had the written word on it that wasn’t a cooking or car related magazine. 

“Honestly,” Steve’s saying, “I think Robs fucked up, this isn't her style at all. She’s gonna be pissed.” 

He eyes the thing appreciatively, like the gift it is. 

“I'm stealing it the second she figures that out.” He adds decisively. 

“You like it?” Eddie asks. 

“Mmm.” 

“Even though it's--it's got…Kirk…” 

Steve's frowning at him again. “What?” 

“It's queer man. It's really queer.” 

Steve peers at him, the crinkle back in his eyebrows. 

“I know. Wait, how do you--” 

And well. It’s now or never. 

“It's mine.” Eddie says in a rush.

“No it's not.” Steve scoffs, and okay, maybe this is a dream. Eddie pinched himself twice already, but perhaps a third time would wake him up?

(It does not.)

“it was even addressed to Robin. Well,” Steve has one hand on a hip now, his default position when arguing, “Robbie, but she goes by that sometimes.” 

Which Robin does, but not in the fucking mail.

Without a word, Eddie turns and goes for the envelope the zine came in. 

Steve follows, invading Eddie’s space to peer over his shoulder (and that’s Eddie’s fault too, that closeness, but he didn’t think it would be turned on him in a moment like this--) 

There's a sticker on the envelope’s label.

 It’s barely hanging on, half of it curled into the air.  Round and yellow, with little black lines, it becomes immediately obvious that one of Robin's smiley face stickers has migrated again. 

They're all over the apartment. Remnants of a phase she went through after she stole a roll of them from her and Steve’s job at a local toy store.

This one had clearly jumped ship from its original spot (likely on the ceiling somewhere), and was now firmly over the E in Eddie's name. 

‘Ddie’ still isn't exactly ‘Obbie’  but--

Steve leans around, snatching the envelope up and bringing it close to his face. 

Far too close, like he can't read it, eyes squinting as he examines the label--and suddenly Eddie knows exactly what happened. 

He laughs, an explosion of noise that's half hysterical and half disbelief. 

Steve looks at him. 

“What?” 

“Oh my God,” Eddie says, one finger jabbing in the air in the vague direction of Steve’s nose. “I told you you needed glasses!” 

“I do not!” Steve protests immediately, but his eyes are darting around the envelope. 

He’s scrambling to figure out what Eddie’s seeing, trying desperately to find a hole that can prove himself right. 

Eddie decides to help him, by plucking the smiley sticker off the envelope. 

“See?” He jeers, and shit okay, maybe his life isn’t over just yet. “It says Eddie, not Robbie!” 

“You guys have got to start using your government names for this shit.” Steve bitches, but it’s weak.

Eddie feels a grin coming on, and lets it overtake his face. 

“So...Kirk and Spock huh?” 

“They’re cute.” Steve defends instantly, before sighing his defeat and tossing the envelope on the table. 

The zine he keeps in his hands. 

Eddie crosses his arms and leans against their rickety table. “Even though they’re both guys?” 

“I thought we were past this!” Steve whines. “I went to a gay bar with Robin last weekend!” 

Which is news to Eddie. 

“You didn’t invite me?” He gasps, feigning hurt by putting a hand over his heart. 

Truthfully he still hasn’t fully recovered--is play acting himself, almost, but is rapidly coming around to the idea of Steve appreciating queer fanfiction. 

“We did!” Steve rolls his eyes so dramatically his whole head moves. “We absolutely did, You said,” 

Here Steve’s voice pitches into a mockery of Eddie’s  that he will not give him points for, even if it is a little hilarious, “Me? At some loser bar? Fuck no, I’ve got a campaign to write. Starbuck, don’t you have homework?” 

“I didn’t know that was a gay bar!” 

“You did! Robin told you!” 

“Okay well, I wasn’t listening!”  

“Clearly. I keep telling you we need a fucking--system or, I don’t know, a code word or something!”  

“Yeah well, when you wanna make us a safe word for conversations, big boy, you let me know.” 

They’re both laughing a little now, this argument veering into familiar territory, with Eddie not really listening and Steve mocking him for it later. (As well as vice versa, with startling regularity.) 

“You really like it though?”  Eddie says after the laughter winds down, gesturing to the zine still clutched in Steve’s hand. 

“Yeah.” Steve confirms, easy as he’s said anything else. Like this isn’t embarrassing, or almost worse than the time Wayne found Eddie’s porno mags and alphabetized them as a joke. 

“It's part of a mail tree. I’m supposed to send it on to the next person when I’m done with it. I make copies though,” Eddie rushes to add, because Steve is now clutching the little booklet to his chest in horror, as if Eddie was about to rip it out of his hands. “If you like I’ll show you my other ones?” 

Steve eases his grip, giving Eddie the little smile he makes that makes his stomach flip. 

“That’d be cool.” 

(Later, Steve pokes at Eddie’s thigh from where they’re both sprawled on Eddie’s bed, Steve having switched the new zine out for one of Eddie’s copies. “Are you going to laugh at me if I ask you to read some of these aloud?” 

“Only if you don’t laugh when I ask you to take me to that gay bar.” 

“Deal, but on the grounds you’re barred from making fun of my flirting attempts. Robin doing it was bad enough.” 

“Well you deserve it if you’re hitting on women at a gay bar, Stevie.” 

“I wasn't hitting on women you asshole.” Steve says and oh.

Oh.

Eddie feels the floor drop out from under him for the second time that day. 

At least this time it’s not fear that thunders through him, but possibility.) 

[toxicanonymity]

Joel Miller Masterlist - NSFW

And other Pedro characters

Version 7/9/24 (new: the green) see series/collection masterlists for their updates.

Blog FAQ (updated 4/30/24)

⚠️ I do not give permission for any of my work to be copied, reposted*, translated, made into bots, put into AI, etc. *reblogging is encouraged, using the 🔁 in the bottom right corner.

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⚠️ 18+ joel x f!reader unless otherwise noted. Darkness ratings (D - Darkish to Dark, DD - Extra Dark, DDD - ultra dark) are subjective and relative. dark doesn't automatically mean it has dubcon (DC) or noncon (NC), but many do (check warnings). The noncon I write is physically enjoyed by reader. Dubcon is often situations that diminish the ability to truly consent. Like drugs, captivity, or power imbalance, but in many dubcon fics, reader is willing or even enthusiastic.

🍒 innocent reader | 💤 somnophilia | 👴/🧔‍♂️ explicit age gap

MASTERLISTS - AUs, Collections, and Series

Night walks (AU) 👴 D, DC (drugs). hot, older pothead neighbor who talks dirty.

Raider Joel DD. NC (at first, via implicit threat), DC (stockholm syndrome). This is a big AU with lots of lore and interaction.

Silence can never be bought (dbf, AU)👴⭐ You catch him in a compromising position.

Left in Lincoln (dbf x virgin) 👴🍒 DD Your dads trust him to look in on you while they're gone.

Stepdad 🧔‍♂️D You catch him perving on your insta and start toying with him. You seduce him.

Slasher Joel DD DC - You're DTF but end up fcking for your life when you offend him.

Vampire Joel DC - he's been waiting for you for centuries and can't let you go once he finds you.

The Raid D, DC - Javi & Steve find you on a drug raid and take you under their wing, in a way.

Speakeasy (Collection, no plot) - Exhibitionist one shots and drabbles.

Thighs out (bf's dad) - Your bf strays and his hot, slutty dad makes you feel better, much better.

Brotherly Sharing - Several pairs of miller bros. including uncle tommy & leopard print.

✨Free Use - D, DC, 💤 👫

for survival (2003)

For Survival (1.4k) - Joel, a stranger, saves your life, you fuck during evacuation.

For Survival 2 (1.4k) - fucking in your sleeping bag trying to be silent.

dark mode!Joel ULTRA dark - DDD, 👫

Dark mode (knife)You activate Joel's dark mode for your own enjoyment.

Clicking (horny! joel -> dark mode) He won't stop when a clicker appears. You try to punish him.

just the tip D, DC (power imbalance) 🧔‍♂️🍒

Just the tip 🍒 he coaxes you into full piv.

surveillance (imagine) he watches you.

Just the tip (really) you've been trying not to fuck him and this time it's really just the tip.

VIRGINS

Aches, thoughts, and needs 👴🍒 outbreak

Night Talks 🧔‍♂️🍒 D, DC best friend's dad

Patrol - pt. 1; virgin patrol 👴🍒 DD, DC

Virgin sex worker (v loss) D 🍒

Ready for her ( part of Miller Bros)

See also, Lincoln series and Just the Tip above.

⬇️ ONE SHOTS, miniseries, misc⬇️

Post-outbreak

you almost die then get used D, NC, 👫

Possessive cum play D, 👫

Secret breeder!Joel Refuses to pull out D, 👫

Jealous of you/Tess (degradation) D, DC mean

Bone broth (consensual noncon) 👫

non-con while you sleep D, NC 💤

movie night (in public) 👫 Under a blanket

Caught DDD very mean Joel, ✨At the table

Lazaretto (NC. sex pollen)👴, PART 2, DC

caught masturbating (300) D

the old fashioned way (1k) D He breeds you

Pre/Non-oubreak/AUs

pawn shop (GILF Joel) ��D

canopy, pt 2 (caught) ��🧔‍♂️ dbf in your old bed

Fucking Joel at your dad's house dbf

Breeding couple ; Pregnant , 👫

in the ass like a good girl anal drabble

Window (peeping tom) pt.2 date next door D

caught Drinking ( DDDNE) 🧔‍♂️DDD, NC sarah's friend is punished

sleeping Beauty 👴💤, 👫 CNC.

that's the spot (masseur!Joel)

gas station skeeze (300) 👴

packing: butcher!Joel DD, DC

personal trainer , part 2 D, DC

daddy Joel ��🧔‍♂️, a day in the filth

miniseries: jalbird - cellmate's nephew

dark nurse!Joel (sex pollen imagines)

locket - DC best friends dad x dark! reader

HCs, imagines, other

Free Use / Objectification HCs - you can put Joel in different modes for your enjoyment.

Brothel Reality Show

✨Trucker Joel

Multi-Joel Art & Misc

Lmk if yours is missing, ✨section in progress✨

Joelkémon cards by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

JOELS AS CATS by @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Joel's as cats pt. 2 not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Dick HCs - size, appearance, and more

random hot things from HBO canon

Joelkémon astrology by @wannab-urs

Mood board of joels by @milla-frenchy

joels as texts by @iamasaddie

Buzzfeed Quizzes

by @missannfairy & @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Which Joel are you most compatible with?

Which Joel are you?

Which Joel to spend the holidays with?

Compatability: Valentine's Edition

Other pedro characters

Javi G. - Watch you watch him fuck his wife. Nick watches. You're Javi's wife.

Ezra - Sleep time: pt. one (250), two 💤(850) D You bait Ezra pt.3 Ezra strikes back. DC ; ✨ The Green

Javi P.

hunt and peck (2.7k) 6/30

THE RAID ongoing series

[seafoamsol]

The best years of my life...

... what I wouldn't give to have them back.

I had the great pleasure of working with @spiderscribe on a DeadCeptor work for the @tf-bigbang, which you can (and should!) read [ HERE ]!

Details and artist commentary under the cut!

Okay, first off, I just wanna say, thank you so much to @spiderscribe for picking up my very loose scribble and taking the jump. She's an absolute champ, and I IMPLORE you to read her writing. She did a knockout job on the fic, and guaranteed, these two pieces wouldn't have been so elaborate without her. If you're a fan of deadceptor, parallels, lovers to enemies to apocalyptic teammates to ???s, I'm sure you'll find that and more in there.

[ HERE ] is the link to that, if you missed it the first time around.

The background for the supermarket was a MASSIVE undertaking. I ended up blurring it in the final to keep the dream-like quality, but there is a lot happening there! Most of the time I spent on the background was (jokingly) complaining though.

Anyone who works retail will know the agony of customer-misplaced stock. The little canisters of energon additives seem like prime candidates to be placed willy-nilly.

The little warning sign... My favorite soda, apple sidra, has a carcinogen warning, so I'm familiar with it. It was slightly surprising to me that those warnings are not countrywide, despite the fact that they very clearly say "California Proposition 65", and well. Not something else, like "Federal" or whatever.

The bags of nuts and bolts below, I asked several people what flavor they would be, and I suppose I failed in my job, because I wanted the purple to be the "regular" flavor, and the green to be the "sour". But grape and lemon-lime work as well!

The tub is full of rust-sticks. I have no idea if that came across. My friends kept calling the individually wrapped ones slim jims, which I mean, I guess!

The car batteries... My idea was that they were similar to shots, in a way? So that's how I ended up with a battery with enough terminals to rival an international airport. It's also sunset-coloured, because, I don't know, that's what Party Flavor is to me.

Okay. The second illustration. This one was a headache, mostly due to my own lack of planning, and the fact that I lost the file for... basically everything I did, including the above illustration. So it was a bit of a rush job.

The background bots started off as these very vague silhouettes, which I'm a little proud of. Look at how nice and somewhat readable they are! Okay, now what if I ruined it? What? You don't like that? That's rather unfortunate, because that's what I proceeded to do. In fact, if I take off all.. 10 or something adjustment layers, they look like this:

My process went: Shadow block> Fill rest of form> Color randomiser> Copy and skew (to populate background)> Hue adjustment> Gradient map> Fill Light> Chromatic aberration> Vignette> Levels> Curves.

The.... Magenta cube is there because due to the nature of the color randomiser, the foot had a high value, and stuck out like nobody's business in the end.

Here's what it would look like without the cube. Begone, distracting white blob! (I didn't have to worry about the lava arm because Percy happened to cover it up. What a save! But if he didn't then... there would have been a second cube.)

Basically, it was a mess. But... at least it came out fine in the end! I hope!

I'd love to have speedpaints on hand, but I was switching between CSP and PS for a good majority of the work.

I'd say that's it for these two pieces! I actually have more, but those demand more time. I'm much slower at doing inks than I am at painting, but I hope you'll get to see them soon.

[lazarusphenomenon]

.

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

[55sturn]

✮ SUB!CHRIS WHO.../ HEADCANONS

disclaimer: below cut is content that is rather NSFW, however i am not your mother and i don’t police what you read, so read at your own discretion.

SUB!CHRIS who doesn’t know what to do with his hands because he’s so overstimulated and twitchy that you have to guide them to your hips, holding them in place as you guide him through yet another orgasm.

SUB!CHRIS who bites his bottom lip so hard that it’s red and raw for days following, making you smirk every time you kiss him because he winces from the touch against the hypersensitive skin.

SUB!CHRIS who loves being marked up because it fuels his naturally cocky nature when fans catch a glimpse of the marks in the next video.

SUB!CHRIS who is as bratty as humanly possible, spitting out venomous comments just to fuel that spark that’s darkening your eyes, his words are so cruel and harsh because he wants to see how far you can push him beyond his limits.

SUB!CHRIS who refuses to voice how much he thoroughly enjoys when you tightly grab his jaw, forcing him to look at you as you get yourself off on him.

SUB!CHRIS who has a severe oral fixation, constantly smacking gum and candy, or going through a bag of suckers, testing the waters as you watch him with your head cocked to the side, figure out what he’s subliminally conveying.

SUB!CHRIS who loves to take your fingers in his mouth and down his throat, coating them in his spit before he watches you finger yourself with those very fingers, whining that he needs you to touch him.

SUB!CHRIS who has a thing for spit swapping, and whimpers as the kiss grows wet and sloppy, nearly begging you to spit in his mouth, to which you oblige.

SUB!CHRIS who desperately needs to be praised, to know that he’s being good for you and making you feel good.

SUB!CHRIS who will touch and finger you in public, begging you to let him make you cum because he just wants to make you feel good.

SUB!CHRIS who whispers teasing words in your ears as you’re at dinner with his friends, pulling your hand to palm him through his jeans, subtly bucking into your hand as you watch him try to behave.

SUB!CHRIS who tries to take control from beneath, watching you smirk as you slow the roll of your hips, taking slow and deep strokes, listening to him bitching and whining for you to hurry up.

SUB!CHRIS who cannot handle being edged or denied of an orgasm, who will beg until he’s sobbing beneath your or your touch, his breaths stuttering as he chokes out another broken moan.

SUB!CHRIS who needs to be held after a long and rough submissive session because he was pushed well beyond his limits and needs to come down from that perpetual state of being taken control of and his body is spent and just needs a moment of physical comfort and soft praise.

taglist: @33sturniolo @worldlxvlys @luv4kozume @gamermattsgf @vanteguccir @sturnioloshacker @greatooglymooglyyy @sugrhigh @thugpugs4lrh @teapartyprincess4two @lustfulslxt @patscorner @guccifrog @muwapsturniolo @soursturniolo @solarsturniolo @sturnioloshacker @sturniolosmind @meanttomeet @breeloveschris @ghostofbrock @l9vesick @mylifeisevenstranger @themattgirl @freshloveee @fawnchives @cindylcuwho @freshloveforthefit @freshsturns @forevergirlposts @sturniolo-fav-matt @cupidsword @sturnifyed @querenciasturniolo @pinklittleflower @ellie-luvsfics @strniolo @junnniiieee07 @hearts4chriss @hearts4chriss @evie-sturns @nicksmainbitch @inlovewithmattstur @hysteria-things @sturniolossss @iliketotalk @verosivy

[TAGLIST IS FULL!] © 55STURN 2024 ! REBLOGS NOT EXPECTED BUT GREATLY APPRECIATED ! [ you do not have permission to copy or save or share my work to other platforms and devices! ]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andrew Prokop at Vox:

Former President Donald Trump has lately been trying to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming it was cooked up by the “severe right” and that he doesn’t know anything about it. But it turns out the severe right is coming from inside the house. Kevin Roberts, the self-proclaimed “head” of Project 2025, has a book coming out in September — and the book’s foreword is written by Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, who lavishly praises its ideas. “Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” Vance writes, according to the book’s Amazon page. “We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

What ideas? Like Vance, Roberts is obsessed with the idea that the left controls major American institutions — he lists Ivy League colleges, the FBI, the New York Times, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Department of Education and even the Boy Scouts of America. The book argues that “conservatives need to burn down” these institutions if “we’re to preserve the American way of life.” (Vox has requested a copy of the book, but has not yet received one at the time of this writing.) Obviously, this poses a problem for Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the virally unpopular Project 2025 and its lengthy agenda for what he should do if he wins, which includes proposals to restrict abortion access and centralize executive power in the presidency.

And it’s one more indication that Trump’s pick of Vance might be politically problematic for him. Vance has a fascination with provocative and extreme far-right thinkers, and a history of praising their ideas. He is not a running mate tailored to win over swing voters who are concerned Trump might be too extreme — quite the opposite. The book was written and announced before Vance was chosen as Trump’s running mate. But there’s some indication that people involved had some late second thoughts about it. It was originally announced as “Dawn’s Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America,” with a cover image showing a match over the word “Washington.”

More recently, though, the subtitle has been changed to “Taking Back Washington to Save America,” and the match has vanished from the cover.

[...]

Vance agrees quite a bit with Project 2025’s most extreme ideas

Project 2025 contains a multitude of proposals in its 922-page plan, not all of which J.D. Vance necessarily supports. But he’s on record backing ideas similar to those put forth in two of Project 2025’s most controversial issue areas. The first is abortion. Project 2025 lays out a sweeping agenda by which the next president could use federal power to prevent abortions, including using an old law called the Comstock Act to prosecute people who mail abortion pills, and working to prevent women from abortion-banning states from traveling out of state to get abortions.

Vance is on record supporting these ideas. Last year, he signed a letter demanding that the Justice Department prosecute physicians and pharmacists “who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws.” In 2022, he said he was “sympathetic” to the idea that the federal government should stop efforts to help women traveling out of their states to get abortions. That year, he also said: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” At other points, Vance has struck a different tone. ““We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans,” he said last December. And this month he said he supported a Supreme Court decision that allowed the abortion bill mifepristone to remain available. Here, Vance is trying to align with Trump, who — fearing political blowback — argues he merely wants abortion to be a state issue, despite his long alliance with the religious right. But Vance’s record implies his true agenda might be otherwise.

The second controversial area where Vance is sympatico with Project 2025 is centralizing presidential power over the executive branch. The project lays out various proposals to rein in what conservatives view as an out-of-control “deep state” bureaucracy — mainly, by firing far more career civil servants and installing far more political appointees throughout the government. Vance, as I wrote last week, has backed a maximalist version of this agenda. In 2021, Vance said that in Trump’s second term, Trump should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” The courts would try to stop this, Vance continued, and Trump should then “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

While Donald Trump is doing his darndest to supposedly run away from the highly unpopular Project 2025, his ticketmate J.D. Vance is making that proposition difficult to impossible.

See Also:

HuffPost: There’s Another Link Between Trump’s Campaign And Project 2025

[kirkenovak]

Oh, ok. Listen.

Logan dies at the end of Logan (the movie) and since he is the Anchor Being of this universe, his death unravels the reality. But then The Worst Wolverine takes his place. So what if months after the end of Deadpool and Wolverine and some time after Logan and Wade get together, Worst Wolverine is swapped with Logan Wolverine. LW’s essence, soul, spirit, consciousness… however you wish to define it, enters WW body, basically erasing him from existence, just like Logan erased the other Logan from existence at the end of Days Of The Future Past, because he is the True Anchor and there can only be one True Anchor.

So yes, Logan Wolverine dies in that forest— and then he opens his eyes and is in a crappy one bedroom apartment, sleeping next to some guy who looks like he took several baths in battery acid. A really ugly dog is barking at him. An old lady is snorting coke off a kitchen table. And where is Laura??? He’s confused, defensive, ready to run, he’s no idea what is going on but he spends 3 minutes with Wade and already knows he’s gonna hate that dude forever because JFC, does he never shut up??

Everyone rejoices. The X-MEN are ecstatic! They have the real Logan back! Their actual friend and not some discount bargain bucket/made by Asylum version. Even Laura is happy. Yea she liked WW but this is her actual father, not the copy. Even if she feels bad for being happy about having him back, she’d rather have this guilt than not have her father. Everyone is happy… except for Wade. The guy he loves, the man who helped to save the multiverse has just been bodynapped and erased from existence? And nobody truly cares? Well over his dead body! And since this is not actually possible, God help those fools who are going to try to stand in his way when he’s going to try to get His Wolverine back. Even if that means having to fight all X-Men, kidnap his not actually boyfriend except this is his boyfriend but just his body because his spirit is someone else’s spirit we have to find the actual spirit of the boyfriend and swap them back it’s complicated don’t worry about it, and punch Realty Itself in the face.

Maximum Effort!

[fujoshimenacecw]

A conversation between Moto Hagio, Hideaki Anno, and Shimako Sato

In our first ever translation work we share a riveting conversation between Moto Hagio, Hideaki Anno, and Shimako Sato! Read on our wordpress or keep reading on tumblr under the readmore

For the 189th issue of the Magazine House publication Hato yo! published January 1st 2000, movie director and screenwriter Shimako Sato leads a three way conversation between herself and her acquaintances, the anime and live action movie director Hideaki Anno, and manga artist Moto Hagio. Together they discuss their respective admiration for each other’s work, Anno’s past statements on otaku, their takes on parent-child relations, how to escape puberty, and why Anno finds it scary to be around children. 

To Me, There is 5 Ways To End a Story

Hagio: I got really into Neon Genesis Evangelion after it finished airing (laughter). I had been told by an acquaintance that Eva was a work that had “fans who were looking forward to watching the series so enraged by the developments in the final episode that they broke their TVs” (laughter). I wondered what could a work that evokes such strong emotions be like? I was really interested, so I borrowed the VHS tapes from a friend of Shimako-san’s, then I started watching.

Anno: I’m a big fan of Hagio-san’s manga, so when Shimako-san first said she could introduce us and arrange this meeting I was truly happy. The fact that you took an interest in Eva is an honor but… When I first heard “to me, there are five ways to end a story” I thought “as expected; amazing!” So after several twists and turns I finally reached a conclusion

Sato: Anno-san, when did you first encounter Hagio-san’s work?

Anno: The first one I read was They Were 11! during its serialization. In elementary school I read it at the Ear-Nose-Throat Doctor. I generally read manga at the waiting room there or at the barbers, since I didn’t really get any manga to read at home. When I read They Were 11! back then I was blown away. After that I read Hyaku Oku no Hiru to Senoku no Yoru [trans: Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights, original story by Ryu Mitsuse]. My favorite work is Half-god [Hanshin]. The fact that such a meaningful story could be told in only 16 pages is amazing. I think Hagio-san is a genius storyteller, but her art is amazing as well. In middle school I thought that if I copied Hagio-san’s art I’d become better at drawing.

Sato: If you had also imitated her storytelling would that perhaps have changed Eva’s final episode? (laughter)

Saving the world, love and hatred

Anno: You know, I don’t have much interest in concluding a story.

Sato: Do you hate wrapping a furoshiki? [trans note: a traditional wrapping cloth]

Anno: No, it’s that I think you can do more with a furoshiki than tie it up pretty. Like break it or tear it to shreds, all kinds of things.

Sato: If we include all that, isn’t that still doing the act of wrapping?

Hagio: In your case Anno-san, I find your way of grasping the world unique.

Sato: For both Anno-san and Hagio-san, even with the differences between manga and anime you’re making a serialized work, right. When you make a long-form work, is the ending something that is already decided? Or is it something that changes?

Anno: For me it’s something like a live performance, and ends up gradually changing as I create the work.

Hagio: I’m a bit too careful, so I can’t draw if I haven’t thought of the ending. An exception is when I made Star Red. Otherworld Barbara which I made later also ended up becoming an exception 

Anno: Star Red’s ending was magnificent. I was also influenced by Star Red. Actually, I’ve written some dialogue similar to the one in Star Red’s ending 

Sato: Which of the characters do you like?

Anno: Well, the protagonist.

Sato: I like Elg. At first I thought he was a rather unreliable person, but he gradually came to play an active role. By the end he revived a dead planet through love.

Hagio: I also like characters like that!

Sato: When I watch Anno’s works like Eva I feel like you are more the kind of person who saves the world through hatred, what do you think?

Anno: I don’t know 

Hagio: That feeling of uncertainty becomes the foundation of your storytelling doesn’t it? I come to think that that feeling is something so overflowing you can’t tie it all together. 

Sato: It seems you have some differences when it comes to making a story, but I think one thing your stories have in common is perhaps parent-child relations?

Anno: That is true, Hagio-san. Your relationship with your mother appears in your work…

Hagio: When I was a child, my older sister was my mother’s favorite, I was always compared to her. It seemed my mother thought that compared to my sister I was unreliable so she always worried about me, even when I was into my thirties she’d tell me to quit making manga.

Sato: And that was during The Poe Clan’s heyday wasn’t it?

Hagio: (laughter) When I was watching Eva, something that really caught my attention was Shinji-kun worrying about whether or not he was useful to his father. Yet there was a distance between them. During that time I was very interested in, to put it into words, “broken relations.” 

Otaku Are Generally Uncool

Sato: Anno-san, in your work I think father-son relations is something that makes an appearance. Are there any real experiences behind that?

Anno: My family was normal. If I have a complex it would be that we were a poor family rather than a just normal one, and my father has only one leg. Regardless, I think stories about parents are the simplest to make, it’s easy. 

Sato: So since Eva is a parent-child story it ended up like that?

Anno: What makes it easy is that we have some preconceived assumptions about [parent-child relations], “have you argued with your parents?” and such.

Sato: What appears in your work isn’t those things, but your own internalized problems don’t you think.

Anno: That appears to be it. As for my family we truly were the archetypical lower middle class household. My father was a good person. A sensible man. When you’re under circumstances like my father was you have to live sensibly or else you’re excluded.

Sato: So in opposition to that, you became an otaku.

Anno: That might be it. Your most important model for what normalcy is is your family. But I have a younger sister and she is exceedingly normal. She doesn’t read manga, there is nothing twisted about her at all.

Sato: And by twisted you mean?

Anno: That she’s not an otaku.

Sato: Anno-san, you’ve said that you hate otaku, haven’t you.

Anno: It’s not hate. It’s just that I think otaku are uncool. To otherwise not notice that you’re uncool or purposefully suppressing that fact makes me feel disgusted.

Sato: What about The Matrix? Isn’t that a cool otaku movie?

Anno: That one is also uncool.

Hagio: Even though Keanu Reeves is cool.

Anno: Keanu is cool. Because he is not an otaku. The otaku are the Wachowskis. They can’t get out of the confinements of their otaku-ism. So for example, even if they make something cool, part of it will for certain be otaku-like Even though I say this I don’t hate it. If I truly did I’d quit being an otaku.

Sato: Hagio-san, would you say your family was normal or was it perhaps affluent?

Joh (Hagio’s manager): Hagio-san and her mother actually have a similar biorhythm. It was perhaps due to that fact that Hagio rebelled by pursuing the path of becoming a manga artist. 

Hagio: I might have been running away by drawing. But, if I had rebelled by becoming a delinquent I think it perhaps might’ve been more enriching to me as a person.

Anno: To become a creator is not something I think is a happy path to go down. In order to not be unhappy you have to work for dear life. At the very least create works as if you’re going back to zero [from the negatives].

Hagio: Is it a negative? Because you are an otaku?

Anno: Being an otaku is a huge negative. You make up for it either by relying on others or by producing creative works. With that said, I think my generation has it easier than yours, Hagio-san. This is an era where even old men read manga. My parents even now have no issues with my line of work. I appear in Asahi Shimbun, I appear on NHK, they have nothing to worry about. That is also why I will try not to ever refuse any coverage from my hometown newspapers.

Hagio: But don’t you think parents don���t truly understand? Even if I become famous, my parents will say; can’t you quit drawing manga? And just appear in the newspaper? (laughter)

Sato: But if you quit drawing manga you won’t appear in the newspaper. (laughter)

Hagio: In that context, a part of me still expects too much affirmation from my parents. Not externally but internally. Even if I appear in Asahi Shimbun I still end up thinking it’s not good enough.

Sato: The fact that you still worry so much about what your parents think at your age Hagio-san, it’s so strange.

Hagio: Yes, I think so too

Anno: Could it be that you have to become a parent to change that part of you that worries so much about what your parents think?

Sato: I don’t worry at all about what my parents think.

Anno: I also don’t care even a little bit. As far as I’m concerned, I’m bored if I get my parents’ approval. When I did Nadia: The Secret Of Blue Water for NHK I felt that feeling.

Sato: Do you have a replacement parent figure?

Anno: Well, a man without imaginary enemies is no good. For me right now, I think I want to make works that have Hayao Miyazaki beat.

Sato: Hagio-san, your worries might also be what gives birth to your works.

Hagio: That might be the case.

Sato: Anno-san, earlier, you said “you have to become a parent to change.” I personally don’t think if you don’t have children you can’t become an adult. I think that being an adult is being independent in everything you do. That’s why I think marriage or having children doesn’t change anything.

Anno: You can become a parent without being an adult. At 17 or 18 you could become a parent. To become a parent without even being an adult, that is the problem I think. 

Sato: Do you consider yourself to be an adult, Anno-san?

Anno: I guess I’m a child. 

Sato: I don’t consider my parents to be adults.

Hagio: I’m very discontent with the fact that my parents aren’t adults.

Anno: I’m not discontent.

Sato: For me realizing that my parents aren’t absolute adults was a relief during my middle school years. Until then I had played the role of an exemplary student, but when I realized that fact I stopped playing that role. 

Hagio: So you’re a child who didn’t fit into your parents’ expectations. I was also a child who didn’t fit into my parents’ expectations, but the fact that they didn’t shrug their shoulders and say “that’s fine,” filled me with anxiety. I thought that if I become an adult I’d lose that anxiety. But I want recognition from people. I continue to request affirmation. 

Sato: Anno-san, in Eva you portrayed children like this, but are you like this yourself?

Anno: The affirmation? Hmmm. That kind of thing changes with the project.

Hagio & Sato: ?

Anno: I don’t believe in the supremacy of the director of a work, but rather the work itself. What would be best for the work, I only base my judgment on the total. Although I won’t hand over the executive decisions.

Hagio: Manga is a one-man job, but with a movie there’s the director, the scriptwriter, the actors, etc. Each of them sees themselves as a leading part. Furthermore as living beings the things we do will sometimes diverge from the plan we made in our heads. The fun of living is discovering what those differences will be.

Is Eva The Rite of Passage That Will Get Us Through Puberty?

Sato: The movie Love & Pop that you directed Anno-san, the original creator Ryuu Murakami-san and yourself are both men, yet the story is about high school girls. I found that interesting.

Hagio: I thought that both of you wanted to be very similar to an archetypical girl. You said you wanted to see a part of puberty, and girlhood that you couldn’t control. After all, men aren’t just made up of boys. I believe that femininity and masculinity is something we have combined within us. Sort of androgynous.

Sato: The boys you create not having that vivid true-to-life quality to them I think is a representation of that. Anno-san, as a man, what do you think of the boys in Hagio-san’s manga? 

Anno: I think they have empathy. I think what I like the most is that all the characters are smart. Because they have such a high intelligence it feels good to read.

Hagio: Like a washing machine right at the peak of its cycle, I want to leave my characters on the verge of that kind of critical point [of merger]. To be honest, the idea that once you’re past 30 you’ve become an old lady, that sense is something we’ve left behind.

Sato: I’ve found that when men become old they lose their ability to be nihilistic in their work, is it the same as that?

Anno: In the case of men, as you age, the world view [of your fiction] rather than your characters come to reflect your nihilism. You don’t aspire to be nihilistic, you yourself are becoming nihilistic. Your world view is what gradually utilizes nihilism. Isao Takahata, for example, is a nihilistic person. Nothing is born from being nihilistic. As nihilism is Plus-Minus-Zero, eventually your heart can’t be moved.

Hagio: A world that doesn’t change, isn’t that comfortable? 

Sato: Even though in order to grow you have to fight. By asking like this, Anno-san, did you not experience puberty?

Anno: That might be it.

Hagio: I thought you were right in the middle of puberty.

Anno: I thought I’m losing it, but it might be puberty. Generally speaking, otaku don’t go through puberty.

Hagio: I thought otaku went through a prolonged chronic puberty.

Anno: It’s not what society ordinarily calls puberty.

Hagio: A never ending puberty, in this age, could it perhaps be because there are no more rites of passage? 

Anno: Sure enough, you have to bungee jump. (laughter)

Hagio: A ritual to let your childhood die and then replay it, such a thing doesn’t exist now. Taking entrance exams may be the closest to [a rite of passage].

Sato: Don’t you feel like lately that around age 30 is when the coming of age ceremony actually happens?

Hagio: For that part, that’s when the stories takes on that role I think.

Sato: As a ritual?

Hagio: It’s not a ritual, but perhaps more intuitive? A trial run on a mock life. By that definition, I noticed Eva is just like that. I had an acquaintance who is a teacher from the Kyoto Steiner school. They saw the Eva movie in theaters. At that time they found the reactions of the people watching to be more interesting than the story. They had thought, isn’t it like we’ve all come to see the rite of passage which we all failed? I thought so as well “that’s right, that is interesting.” The rite of passage to become an adult after entering puberty, be it Gundam or Eva those stories put people in a position where they are observing the world, observing themselves, experiencing war and such.

Sato: Anno-san, were you considering all this…

Anno: I didn’t make it like that. But when I was making the movie I was thinking of this a little. 

Hagio: When I watched Eva it ended up overlapping with the book Childhood [by Jan Myrdal]. It’s a book about a mother who can’t love her child. She thinks “I have to take care of this child”, but even so she can’t love him. I wonder what happens to children raised like this. Children learn from their parents. In truth there will be consequences for the parent, but the question on my mind was children who can’t find their place with the parent, where can they find their place instead? Although I thought you were such a person when you were making Eva, Anno-san. (laughter) 

Sato: Speaking of, the other day you were on a TV show teaching grade schoolers about anime, Anno-san. What do you think of children?

Anno: I was scared of being in contact with children. I don’t understand the appropriate distance to take. I believe even the most casual thing an adult says mustn’t traumatize them, I end up becoming oversensitive. In grade school during still drawing class, I’d draw roof tiles and other detailed things, but humans moved around and I found it annoying, so I never drew people. Because of that my teacher said “this isn’t a child’s drawing,” which deeply hurt me. In the end, from that experience I think it was a part of the reason why I decided on working with drawing. Even though I opposed standardized education, I really felt the difficulty of dealing with not having a basic manual.

By the way, how much longer until Zankoku na Kami ga Shihai Suru [trans: A Cruel God Reigns] ends? I made a mistake. I wanted to read it all at once, right, so I refrained from buying it but… when volume 6 came out I ended up buying all of them. 

Hagio: Oh yes, right. July next year I think. 

Anno: Understood. Then the final collected volume will be out in the fall of next year. Hmm well that means I can enjoy it for another year. Understood. 

Sato: Isn’t that great.

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

Translated by mod Juli, with assistance from two financially compensated native speakers.

A scan of the full interview raws has now been added to the wordpress version!

[roosterforme]

The Younger Kind Part 37 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley realized on the way to the lake house that he hadn't taken a vacation in years, but he already knew he was going to want to go on so many more with you and Noah. And you weren't going to let Bradley get away with an omission of precious information. In fact, you had several things to surprise him with as a result.

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, smut, pregnancy talk, and age gap (18+)

Length: 5300 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! The Younger Kind masterlist.

The next morning while you made breakfast for yourself and your boys, you could hear Bradley on the phone in the living room. You stopped mixing up the bowl of pancake batter just in time to hear him say, "Hey Tracy, can you go ahead and finalize that updated copy of my will?" There was a short pause, and then he said, "Right, but if any assets need to be combined later, we can discuss it then. We can both come in and meet with you."

You wondered if he was talking about you, but then his voice got a little quieter at the same time Noah bounded into the kitchen. "Mommy, I don't want to go to the lake," he said, face practically crumbling into tears. 

"Why not?" you asked, setting everything aside to kneel and pull him in for a hug. "What's wrong? I thought you were so excited."

Then he started crying as he asked, "Are there big bears at Big Bear Lake? I don't want to see any big bears."

"Oh, sweet Noah," you whispered as you hugged him and tried not to laugh. Then it dawned on you that you actually weren't sure if there were any bears there or not. You knew it was a good three hour drive from San Diego up into the mountains, but you hadn't even considered that.

When Bradley walked into the kitchen to see you and Noah on the floor and his son in tears, he asked, "What's going on?"

You covered Noah's ears and whispered, "Are there big bears at Big Bear Lake?"

Bradley laughed for a few seconds, and then his expression turned contemplative. "I... actually have no idea. I'm going to go ahead and call Maverick." Then he was gone again, and you were left to try to coax Noah over to the kitchen table with the promise of some pancakes covered in melted butter. 

You were wiping his tears while the batter sizzled on the griddle. "It's okay. Daddy won't let anything bad happen to us."

"I know," he muttered, sniffling.

Bradley poked his head back into the kitchen. "It's very unlikely, especially this time of year," he said with a shrug.

"What does that mean?" Noah asked, and you were afraid the tears would be back as you flipped the pancakes.

If they wanted you to be the mom, then you were going to go ahead and be the mom here. "It means you have absolutely nothing to worry about, okay? Now do you want to eat your breakfast on the red plate or the orange plate?" you asked, holding up both options. Noah pointed at the red plate, and Bradley walked in and kissed your forehead.

"Good save," he whispered. "You're a natural." He ran his hand along your tummy with a wink, and you felt yourself flush with heat. 

"You get the orange plate that nobody else wants," you told him with a breathy giggle. "Now go sit."

He did as he was told, and when you handed him his plate and a larger one with a stack of pancakes on it, he started to get one ready for Noah. "After this, I'll pack up the car and we can head out."

"Sounds good," you replied, adding a pancake to your own plate. You had discreetly packed some snacks for Noah on top of the box of items you didn't want Bradley to see, so you thought it was fine for him to pack the car. Once you were done eating, you took Noah into the living room and watched Bradley cart bag after bag and box after box out to the driveway. 

He was looking a little sweaty when he came back inside one last time. He took you by the hand and scooped Noah up as he said, "Can't forget to pack these two." He led you outside and kissed Noah all over his face while he laughed hysterically. After Noah was buckled in and reassured that you had packed him ants on logs to eat during the drive, Bradley was pulling away from the house. 

Once he was on the highway and you had started up the kid friendly playlist, he sighed. "I'm so happy you made a playlist for Noah so I don't have to listen to the Sesame Street soundtrack or something equally egregious." 

"Isn't Sesame Street from the '70s? Just like you?" It was so hard not to laugh as you asked him that. 

"Funny," he deadpanned. "I was born in 1984. You know how old I am." 

"Do I?" you asked, your voice taking on an accusatory edge as Noah asked you to hand him more snacks. 

"Mmm," Bradley hummed as he drove. You and he held hands, and you offered to drive if he got tired. "I'll be fine," he promised softly. "Why don't you just relax? It looks like Noah is about to doze off."

"Okay, Daddy." You squirmed down in your seat until your cheek was resting on his hand, and then you fell asleep, too.

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

Bradley tried his best to drive one handed up the rough trail toward the house, but he really needed two hands at this point. His right hand also happened to be asleep from the way you'd cuddled up with your head on him. "Princess," said, wiggling his fingers beneath you. "I need my hand back."

You moaned as you sat up, but when you looked out the window, you gasped. "It's beautiful here!" The early afternoon sunlight was reflecting off the lake and the mountains beyond. It was stunning, and Bradley realized it had been years since he'd taken any proper time off from work that didn't involve a day at home with Noah while he was too sick for daycare. 

"If you enjoy this weekend together, you're going to have to make sure I take some vacation time. Because I actually never do."

"Is this some sort of joke? Of course, I'm going to love this weekend! I get to spend it with my boys! And wait... are you telling me you've never taken Noah to Disneyland?"

"Never."

"Daddy!" you complained loudly. "I thought you were a good parent!"

Bradley laughed as he looked for the correct driveway. "Clearly we needed you, Baby. You make us better."

He could practically feel you preening next to him as he put on his turn signal and pulled up the long driveway. "You need to take that sweet child to Disneyland. And you need to get him a dog," you said, kissing his cheek as Bradley pulled up next to Penny's car. 

"So this has nothing to do with you wanting to go to Disneyland and you wanting to get a dog?"

"Not at all," you said, but you were smiling. "This is about what's best for the child."

"Right," he said once the engine was turned off. Then he kissed you, wrapping his hand around your neck before letting his fingers dip down into your shirt to toy with your bra strap. "Hey," he murmured against your lips. 

"Hmm," you hummed, pulling his lip between yours and nibbling softly. God he just wanted to take you inside for some uninterrupted sex, but he knew he'd have to get through the afternoon and evening first. 

"I love you," he whispered, running his fingers down to cup you through your bra. 

"Daddy?" Noah called from the backseat, and you broke the kiss immediately. 

"Yeah, Bub?" Bradley asked, his eyes still on you as you smiled at him. He couldn't seem to help himself; thoughts of diamond rings and the perfect proposal were always near the surface now. He kissed your nose and then turned to look at Noah.

"Don't let the bears come out, okay?" he asked softly, a smudge of peanut butter on his cheek. 

"I won't," he promised, and you were already climbing out of the Bronco and walking around to get Noah. Bradley was just so impressed with the way you pulled a wet wipe out of your purse to wipe Noah's hands and face before you got him out of the car. You always had everything under control in a way that he just never seemed to be able to do alone. 

"We'll be inside saying hi to everyone," you called over your shoulder, and Bradley was left to unload everything. Every time he carried bags inside the house, he could hear everyone talking and laughing. When he finally made his way into the sprawling kitchen where everyone else had congregated, Penny rushed over to give him a hug.

"Pete and I are so happy the three of you could come!" she said, giving him a tight squeeze. Amelia was chasing Noah around the room while you talked to Maverick. The house was beautiful, and he finally felt relaxed. 

"Thanks for inviting us," he replied as Maverick kissed your cheek and headed toward Bradley. 

"Grab your sunglasses. It's time to test out the boat."

"Boat?" Bradley asked. And about five minutes later, he was holding on tight to the side of a speedboat as Maverick drove it around the lake. 

"This thing is fast!" Bradley shouted over the engine. The man was addicted to pushing things to the limit, and Bradley would have to make sure he was driving the boat if Noah came with them next time. 

Maverick finally eased off the throttle once they were out in the middle of the lake, and Bradley was able to let go of his death grip on the boat. "Grab a beer," Maverick said, gesturing to the small cooler he brought along. "So, tell me, Bradley, you going to make that girl a permanent fixture?"

Bradley laughed as he opened a can and took a sip. "The thing is, she's pretty much been a permanent fixture since the beginning, at least as far as Noah is concerned."

Maverick nodded and opened his own beer. "I heard him calling her his mom."

"Yeah," Bradley replied, pushing his sunglasses up his nose as his brow creased. "I encouraged that. Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Like ever. But that felt right."

"Well, if you're keeping her around, and you plan on marrying her, then she really is his mom."

Bradley thought better than to mention his updated will, but he nodded. "Been thinking about it a lot, actually. I'm going to propose soon. In a few more weeks, we will have known each other for six months. Noah and I are sure about her, and that seems like a good amount of time to wait before buying a ring."

"That sounds like a very solid plan."

Bradley smiled at his dad's best friend. "Don't you dare tell Penny. She talks too much," Bradley warned.

"I won't."

"I want to surprise her and make everything perfect." He already had some ideas, but in his mind, you deserved perfection. You'd put up with just being his babysitter for way too long while he tried to convince himself you weren't the one for him. And you'd dealt with Meredith like you would have protected Noah with your life. You'd be the best mom, and Bradley wanted you to be his wife. He was thirty seven now. He knew you were the one. It was time. 

Luckily, he was able to convince Maverick to let him drive the boat back to the dock, and he took things at a much slower pace. He passed a few other people out boating on the way back and decided he'd bring you and Noah out with him tomorrow or on Sunday when it was supposed to be even warmer. 

On the walk back up to the house, Bradley's steps slowed as he asked, "Were those lights hanging up like that before?"

Maverick looked at the strings of sloppily hung twinkle lights all over the porch and scratched his chin. "I don't think so?"

"This was definitely not here earlier," Bradley remarked when he opened the front door to reveal an eight foot tall Christmas tree in the middle of the living room. It looked like someone had thrown strands of lights at it from across the room, and there was Christmas music playing. "What the hell?"

"Happy birthday!" 

Bradley and Maverick both turned toward the kitchen where Noah was sitting on the island and the three women were standing. You looked absolutely delighted with everything that was going on as you waved them in. 

"What's going on, Baby?" he asked as you walked over and took him by the hand. 

"It's your birthday party! Mav's too!"

"Why is everything decorated for Christmas?" he asked with a laugh, because you, Penny and Amelia clearly thought this was normal. And Noah was giggling as he colored in a Christmas coloring book.

"It's Christmas in July!" you explained, still leaving so many unanswered questions. 

"Apparently the house is a popular holiday rental," Penny added as Mav hugged her. "And all of the Christmas decorations were already here, so we just rolled with it."

Bradley pulled you tight to him, careful to keep his hands on only the most appropriate of body parts. "My birthday was a month ago. When I was deployed."

"Yeah, thanks for letting me know," you said sarcastically, lightly smacking his cheek before kissing it and pushing your fingers into his hair. "I had no idea until I saw your driver's license out last week. You deprived yourself of a proper party, so now you get Christmas in July."

"And Maverick's birthday is in August," Bradley added with a huge smile.

"We don't play by the rules," Amelia said. "We have Christmas cookies to decorate and a movie to watch."

So Bradley spent the evening of what actually wasn't his thirty seventh birthday licking frosting off your cheek while you laughed and then holding Noah during the movie Elf. It seemed absolutely ridiculous as the oversize French doors were open to let in the summer air and the sounds of crickets chirping. It was also somehow exactly perfect, and it reminded him that he was allowed to have all these things in his life now that you were there. You'd probably want to do things like celebrate his birthday every year and decorate the house. And Noah would get to benefit from all of it. 

"I want another birthday movie," Noah said as he yawned uncontrollably. 

"Not tonight," Bradley told him as he carried him to the small bedroom where you'd already unpacked his things for the weekend. He changed Noah into pajamas and read the dinosaur book you'd left out on the dresser, and pretty soon his son was sound asleep. 

It wasn't too late yet; Bradley could still hear the others out in the main living space, but he decided to see if you'd gone to the bedroom already. "Princess?" he called as he walked into the pretty wood paneled room that had a view of the lake and the last bits of purple sky as it got darker. Then you came strolling out of the en suite bathroom in nothing but a tiny lace bra and matching panties. 

"Are you ready for your birthday present?" you asked sweetly, draping your arms around his neck and kissing his lips. 

"Oh, I like my birthday present," he murmured as he ran his hands down your back to cup your ass. 

You kissed along his neck and whispered, "You could have had some special treatment sooner if you told me when your birthday was, Daddy."

He grunted, both from the feel of your lips on his skin and because he knew you'd find out when it was eventually. "I just feel a little self-conscious sometimes about my age."

Your mouth paused, and then you were looking up at him like you were embarrassed. "But I tease you all the time."

"I know," he replied right away. "I know, and I love it when you do. It's not that." You combed your fingers through his hair and gave him a moment to collect his thoughts. "I'm just more than twelve years older than you. Sometimes it seems like a lot."

"That doesn't matter at all," you replied, holding eye contact with him. "In fact, I think I like it more this way. It's so much better being with someone who is serious about me and has his life together." One hand trailed down to his chest as you added, "It's almost flattering, the fact that you love me."

"I do," he said, watching your hand slip lower down his body. "I love you."

You smiled softly as your hand rested on the fly of his pants. "Happy birthday." You undid the front of his jeans and pulled them down to his thighs along with his underwear. He was semi hard and getting harder by the second as you bit your lip and sank down to your knees. And then you opened your mouth so Bradley could set his cock right there on your glossy bottom lip.

"That looks pretty," he muttered, already breathing harder as you ran your tongue along his tip. You wrapped your lips around him and sucked gently, eyes bright and cheeks hollow. His cock was throbbing for you now, but he was enjoying the way you weren't taking him deep yet.

He kept his hands soft on your face, stroking his thumb along your chin and jaw. And then you reached up with both hands and wrapped them around his base as you withdrew him and kissed along his shaft. "I love you, Daddy." Then you took him deep in one go until you were gagging and he was seeing stars. His hands were rougher now at the back of your head, holding you in place while he grunted and groaned. 

When you moaned around him, he released his grip on your head, and you popped him out of your mouth with a little gasp, and some strings of saliva dripped down to your chest. "More?" you asked, and he just nodded as you took him deep over and over again. Every time you gagged, you let him push a little harder, and you had tears in your eyes as you pulled him free and abruptly stood to kiss him.

Your tongue was in his mouth, and Bradley's hands gripped your ass as you ground against him. "Mmm, Bradley," you whined. "Ready for your present?"

He tucked his fingers inside your lace underwear and teased at your holes as your eyes went a little wider. "Is this not my present right here?" he grunted, trying to decide how he wanted to get off.

You shook your head in a jerky motion and whispered, "Not exactly..." Your voice was breathless and broken as you said, "If you think we can financially support a baby, and it's what you really want, then I'll let you flush my birth control down the toilet."

Bradley was gaping at you. A baby. With you. No more birth control. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yes," you replied. "I'm ovulating and I skipped my pill yesterday, and I want you to fuck a baby into me."

Bradley tipped his head back and moaned at how perfect that sounded coming from you. "Where are the pills?" he asked. 

"Bathroom counter," you replied, and he kissed you so hard you were clinging to him.

Bradley hauled you into the bathroom with him where he popped each remaining pill out of the packaging with unsteady fingers and his erection hanging out of his jeans. You were squeezing your thighs together and whining softly as he swept them into the toilet and flushed it before he rounded on you. 

"You want me to fuck a baby into you?" he asked, voice dark and rough. 

"Yes."

"Then I'll fuck a baby into you." He picked you up, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, and Bradley carried you to the bed. He set you down gently on your back and marveled at how perfect you looked for him. You were playing with your tits and already getting a little loud as you watched him get undressed. 

And then he was on top of you, his cock aching to be inside you. He just kept thinking about you all pregnant and swollen as he pushed the lace covering your perfect pussy to the side and thrust into you hard and sure.

"Bradley!" you nearly screamed, scrambling beneath him and clawing at his shoulders. But he didn't stop the steady powerful thrusts that pushed you down into the mattress. He had to bring one big hand up to cover your mouth as he grunted.

"Keep quiet, Baby. Unless you want everyone to know how good it feels when I try to knock you up."

You nodded and moaned against his palm, but he just fucked you harder. Your legs were shaking as you spread them wider for him, and your fingers were tangled in the bedding. When your tits bounced free from that tiny bra, Bradley put his mouth on you, pulling your nipples gently one at a time. 

Soft squeaking noises and moans escaped you as he pressed his lips to your ear. "I'm gonna cum. You always make me cum. You always give me everything, don't you? Don't you, Princess? I'm gonna give you a ring, and you'll give us a baby. I'll give you anything."

You were shaking all over as he rammed deep and spilled himself inside you. He was panting hard when he slipped his hand away from your mouth, and then your lips were on his in the sweetest kisses. 

"I'm sorry I was rough," he whispered, running his fingers along your skin. "You okay?"

"I'm so good, Daddy. That was hot. I hope you liked your birthday present."

Bradley eased his body away from yours a few inches and gazed down to where you and he were still so perfectly connected. "Not sure if you or the unprotected sex was the actual gift, but either way, I liked my birthday present a lot."

You giggled as he pulled out of you and rolled onto his back, keeping you close. "You said something about a ring."

"Did I?" he mumbled. He knew he was rambling while he fucked you, but he wasn't sure exactly what he'd been saying. Apparently it was a lot. 

"Mmhmm," you hummed as he ran his fingers along your lace bra, but you didn't push for more. "So what's on the agenda for the rest of the weekend? And when are you going to get us a dog? And when are we taking Noah to Disneyland?"

Bradley narrowed his eyes at you playfully. "Boating and barbecues for the rest of the weekend. And as for the dog and Disneyland? Just let me enjoy my fake Christmas-birthday in peace. Because I'm sure it will be my last one without a dog who is constantly bugging me to let it outside or to play with it."

You settled down on top of him, placing a kiss to his pecs with a smirk. "That's absolutely correct. You just enjoy yourself while you still can."

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

When Bradley kissed you the next morning and whispered, "I'll be back. Going out to buy fishing bait with Noah and Mav," you just grunted in response. The sun was barely up, and as you rolled over, you could feel the delicious aftermath of the way Bradley had fucked you so hard. You were tired and a little sore in all the right places. Very carefully, you extracted yourself from the bed and padded along the floor to the bathroom. 

He had flushed your birth control instantly, and you giggled just thinking about it. There was no turning back now, and you were so excited. You already had a family, and like Bradley, the idea of adding to it was enough to make you melt inside. 

Since you didn't have to rush to get Noah ready, you took your time with your hair and makeup even though you were just going out on the lake for the day. You changed into your purple bikini and slipped your purple sundress over it, both of which you had purchased using your credit card. 

When you made your way out to the kitchen, Penny was assembling sandwiches, and you could tell she was wearing her bathing suit, too. "Where's Amelia?" you asked, washing your hands so you could help her.  

"She's a teenager," Penny replied with a laugh. "She sleeps until noon. You'll see one day when Noah is older."

You pressed your lips together, because you weren't so far removed from those years yourself. But you also felt butterflies in your tummy as you thought about the fact that Penny stated so confidently that you'd be there when Noah was older. And now you were hoping you'd be there with Bradley for more than one teenage kid.

"He's so sweet," you said as you cut the crust off one of the sandwiches for Noah. "Don't remind me that he'll be a surly teenager one day."

Penny eyed you carefully. "You'll handle it well. You already do. I still can't believe you started out as the babysitter, while Bradley was delusionally going on dates with other women. And I can't believe I didn't notice the way he looked at you at first."

You ducked your head. "I didn't notice for a few weeks myself. I just knew I was already attached to the two of them."

"We're back!" Bradley called out, carrying Noah into the kitchen. And he was immediately looking at you just like he always did, and you couldn't help but smile. 

"And we have worms!" Noah said, holding onto a little styrofoam container. 

"And more beer," Maverick added as he set two six packs down on the counter.

"Well we have sandwiches and ants on logs and lemonade and kisses," you said, taking the worm container from Noah and kissing his cheek and then Bradley's. 

Amelia finally emerged from her bedroom as Noah started whining that he wanted to go on the boat and go fishing. "I'll take him down to the marina now so he can look at the water," Bradley said, but you shook your head.

"I'll take him. You help carry the coolers," you said, taking Noah by the hand and leading him past the Christmas tree. "We'll meet you all down there."

You grabbed your tote bag which was filled with coloring books and other activities for Noah, and then you and he walked down toward the boats while you sang his favorite dinosaur song together. And then you realized you didn't actually know which boat was yours for the weekend, so you led Noah out onto the long dock to wait for the others. 

"Make sure you hold my hand. The water is really deep here," you reminded him as he peeked over the side to look into the water.

"Where are the fish?" he asked as he looked up at you. At least he was no longer asking about the bears. 

"I think the fish are out in the middle of the lake," you told him. 

"Well, how do we catch them? With our hands?"

"Oh, sweet Noah, I love you so much. The boat has fishing rods."

"What does that mean?" he asked, still looking down into the water. 

You looked around at the boats docked in the slips and pointed to one behind you. "Fishing rods are those long things sticking up into the air on that boat. Come look." You led Noah down the narrower wooden dock between two large boats so he could see what you were talking about, and that's when you saw a man about Bradley's age looking down at you and Noah.

"Hi there," he said with a wink as he looked you up and down. And now you felt like your cute little dress was nonexistent as you awkwardly stood there looking up at him.

"We were just checking out your fishing rod," you told him, but he wasn't looking at Noah at all as he grinned. And you realized that it sounded like you were talking about his penis, and you wished you could just disappear. 

He jumped down onto the dock with a laugh. "Oh yeah? I'll let you touch it if you want."

"No thanks," you replied with a grimace. You turned to leave, your hand still gripping Noah's, but the man headed you off. And now you were looking around for the others, because he was blocking the narrow path with his body.

"Now just hang on a minute," he said, pulling his sunglasses off, presumably so he could see you better. "You look beautiful. What do they call you?"

Noah looked up at him and said, "She's my Daddy's Princess."

The man was finally looking down at Noah, and you didn't like that either. So you mumbled something as your heart pounded, and you shoved past him, making sure Noah didn't walk too close to the edge of the dock. He kept calling out to you as you walked along a different part of the pier, but a moment later you could see Bradley walking down in the distance holding one end of a long cooler and sipping a beer.

"There's Daddy and Mav," Noah said, and you picked him up to rush in that direction. 

"Let's go get him." They were setting the cooler down next to a boat that was smaller than the other one with the huge fishing rods, and thankfully it was in the other direction as well. 

"Hey, Bub!" Bradley called out, and when you got closer, he took his son from your arms as you were slightly out of breath. 

"We didn't know which boat to go to," you told him.

"It's this little white one," he said, kissing your cheek. "You look beautiful."

"That's what the other man said," Noah told him.

Bradley's brow creased instantly. "What other man?" he asked, looking around everywhere. 

"It was nothing," you said, but Noah pointed toward the other boat immediately. 

"In the big, blue boat. Mommy was looking at his fishing rod, and he told her she was beautiful, and I said she's my Daddy's Princess."

Bradley kissed his cheek, and said, "Good job, Noah. She's your Mommy and my Princess." He set Noah down inside the boat where Maverick immediately started getting his life jacket buckled before he helped Penny and Amelia onboard as well.

But Bradley had one of his big hands on your hip as he slid his aviators down on his nose and smirked. "You were looking at a man's fishing rod?" he asked softly, an edge of annoyed humor in his tone.

"Oh, come on," you said, rolling your eyes and laughing. "I wanted Noah to see what a fishing rod looks like, and there were a bunch lined up on that boat."

Bradley nodded and kissed your forehead. "We've got some fishing rods on this boat, and I have a special one just for you."

You bit your lip and tried not to laugh. When Bradley said it, you absolutely wanted to learn more. When that other guy said it, you wanted to jump in the water and try to swim back to San Diego. "Really, Daddy?" you asked in your most eager voice. "When can I try it out?" 

He groaned softly and cupped your face, kissing you softly as he said, "Try to behave for a couple of hours, and it's all yours."

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Welcome! We are in our baby making era now! Even more lake house goodness coming soon! Also, if Noah sees a bear, he will never forgive Bradley and Princess. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 38

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