#he'd be one of the first people i'd end up being comfortable with stimming in front of. i think laventon would be the first tbh

[solitaireships]

bandaid, dance, sick, and smile for James? :] - @selfrinsert

Band-aid 🩹 - If there was one thing about your f/o that you’d want people to understand, what would it be?

God, where would I even start with how bad people get talking about him

I guess the bare minimum thing would be that he is not a solely good or bad person. The thing with James is that he did do horrible things by the end of his story, but some people will literally make up things that he did not do to try to make him worse than he actually was

James was not perfect. He was paranoid and stubborn and refused to admit he could have been in the wrong, and that doomed him and everything he cared about. But he wasn't out there burning down innocent towns or whatever the hell people incapable of understanding complexity in characters want you to be

bcs we know that James is someone who did good things. There's the stuff on the smaller scale that we see actually first hand in the show, but there are lots of little lines about him doing genuinely good, kind things in there too. Marrow said that he thought James could genuinely change Atlas, something that I think is a sign that James was actually trying to make a difference. Then Glynda mentions something too about how James always does what he thinks will be the best for people

Clearly he wasn't some horrible monster like people want him to be. But thinking he was makes him easier to process. bcs admitting that he was someone who did care-- who wanted to keep people safe and who did what he could to make a better place-- that complicates things. bcs if he was a good person once, that means even people who mean well can fall and do horrible things. And that's something a lot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around. But christ would understand it make my experience trying to talk about him a lot better bcs goddamn am I tired of having 90% of discussion of him be calling him evil or debating his morality

Dance 💃 - Can you or your f/o dance?

James is a good dancer, though mainly in terms of more formal dancing, like waltzing. It's kinda a necessity for being at Atlesian parties, so he got some training for that before becoming general

Sick 🤒 - Your f/o is sick in bed, what do you do?

I'd basically have to fight him to get him to stay in bed, he woud hate to admit that he's sick and just try to fight through it and act like everything's fine. I'd have to try to convince him to stay home and to rest, and the easiest way to do that would be to stay at home with him all day (and try to distract him with movies and cuddles). I also do everything I can to make sure he's comfortable and has medicine or anything if he needs that

Smile ☺️ - What about your f/o makes you smile every single time? Furthermore, what’s something you do that makes your f/o smile every time?

It's so cute when he plays with his tie. It's a way that he stims and I like watching him do that. For me, idk, I think he'd like when I play with his hair

[hotchley]

i saw your reblog of the Spencer giving Aaron a father's day card thing and i can't stop thinking about how Aaron is the father figure to the entire team now.

(yes I'm also especially thinking about that one scene of Spencer and Derek stuck in the malfunctioning lift shrieking for Aaron just because. 🥴 dad!Hotch ftw!!!!!)

i know this concept has probably been done hundreds of times already but imagine: (SORRY THIS IS GOING TO BE A REALLY LONG ASK, I deeply apologise in advance)

[tw food/eating habits, some references to murder cases because you know this is Criminal Minds, some slight spoilers for people who haven't really watched the show and also reference & mention of autism & a character on the autism spectrum -> just a heads up, a disclaimer, I'm in no way diagnosed with autism, so if i have misrepresented autism, or made any mistakes, i apologise, it wasn't my intention, and i welcome all feedback & criticism — i genuinely want to learn]

a year after Spencer joins the BAU, Aaron notices & becomes very concerned over Spencer's (super bad) eating habits aka him only drinking coffee and forgetting to eat actual proper food when he gets absorbed in cases or research or reading etc -> which results in Aaron absolutely being like "hey Spencer let's grab lunch together" almost everyday just so Spencer eats (healthy, full meals)

(also Spencer picking up on this after Aaron "casually" gets him lunch/treats him to dinner/invites him over for meals for almost every day of the week and he was initially almost irritated/offended until he realised he could use Aaron's habit to make Aaron himself eat properly too because this hypocritical bastard doesn't eat properly himself either so every alternate day you can see Spencer purposely not going for lunch breaks while sneaking glances at Aaron's office just waiting for him to notice and drag them both to lunch together 😌)

also I really think Spencer is on the autistic spectrum (high functioning, imo, but I'm not really sure how this works, and I'd have to do more research) so I'd like to imagine Aaron knows that too because he's noticed Spencer's behaviors + Spencer got an official diagnosis and told him about it maybe 6-7 months into joining the BAU so I really think Aaron lets Spencer stim (physically, his hand gestures) on their lunch break because he knows that Spencer can't really do that in front of the others, so even when they're on cases, he would take Spencer out either for a private lunch or dinner or something, just the two of them, and he'd let Spencer stim & talk about any subject of his fancy as much as he wants to (I'm pretty sure someone wrote a fic like this and I absolutely can't remember the name or the author but I really LOVED the idea too)

initially Spencer was really taken aback too, because you know, this isn't something you do with your boss, of all people, but Hotch had always meant what he says and his facial expression and body language suggested that he was being absolutely sincere and serious about this, so Spencer tentatively started talking, and as their meal progressed, he eventually got comfortable enough to just go on, and not once did Aaron cut him off rudely, until the end of their meal, when Aaron couldn't continue to pretend to drink his soup because he'd finished it somehow with those incredibly small spoonfuls, and he'd had to gently tell Spencer that they had to go back, but Spencer wasn't upset, because he'd just got over an hour to talk about this recent seminar about the connection of ancient Greek mythology to the developments of the society in ancient Greece which no one had ever done for him before and he's full, satisfied and beyond elated because Hotch really didn't have to do this, but he did anyways

at first it was just something between them but eventually Derek noticed & like in the end I think it's a kind of open secret between Aaron, Spencer & Derek and now when Derek notices Aaron doing it he gives Aaron a small nod and he wards off & deals with the questions that the others have when they inevitably notices the private meals Aaron & Spencer has

speaking of Derek, Aaron definitely has 1 on 1 time with Derek too, but doing different things. Derek's thing is sports & home renovations, and he repairs/maintains cars & bikes when he can, and I like to imagine Aaron knowing about his hobbies and casually asking Derek about the home renovation he's working on one time (before or early S1) Derek came into his office to submit a case file, and Derek being kind of shocked/caught by surprised initially (because he knows Hotch has a soft spot for the kid because he's much younger and much, much more inexperienced but Derek's older and should know better, so Hotch won't do the whole private lunch thing with him, right?) but then he grins and starts telling Aaron about how "I got that place absolutely shining right now, man" and then he invites Aaron over to take a look at the place out of courtesy/habit (his mama raised him as a good, polite young man, and no way Hotch would even say yes right?) and to his surprise once again, Aaron does accept his invitation

after that one time, Aaron begins casually asking him about his projects and even starts offering to help him do some of the painting and decorating (to be fair, it calms Aaron too, to have a getaway from Haley and initially from the crying baby, because while he absolutely loved Haley and Jack with all his heart, some days, some days he just couldn't take it, all the stress from Strauss and from trying to be a good father unlike his own, and he had to take some time off to himself, and painting walls is calming and therapeutic to him in some sense) & Derek and Aaron start bonding over hotdogs while sitting out on the front porch of some halfway remodelled house, talking about the latest sports news (they support different baseball teams but that's okay, because Derek gets to grin at Hotch and ask him to pay up when Hotch's team loses to his, and Aaron gets to raise his eyebrows with that small knowing smirk of his and ask Derek to "complete this by the next weekend, will you" when Derek's team loses to his)

when Aaron recruits Penelope, he's read her file, or what little the FBI's cyberteam got on her anyways. he knows the Black Queen's reputation, and he knows that the cyberteam really don't trust her and recommended high levels of surveillance, but the moment he saw her through the glass of the interrogation room and her resume & application on pink paper, he knew that she's not just what the file said she is. initially, she sticks to the "bureau regulated office attire" because you know, Penelope knows she's lucky, she should've been jailed for what she did, she was jailed, until this Aaron Hotchner guy decided, somehow, that she was deserving to be on his team, even after looking at her resume, which she had written on pink paper out of pure spite (because nothing in the FBI rulebooks said anything about submitting your application on specialized coloured paper anyways) but she was moody and unhappy because she's stuck in this tiny office having to answer the phone whenever agents called to ask for details on icky, gruesome murders and disgusting, vile murderers so she decides that hey, since no one ever comes in here anyways, she might as well do some re-decorating right? so she starts bringing in her own soft toys and figurines and starts amassing a whole collection of soft, plushy, and colourful toys in because it's her office and if she has to deal with all these yucky stuff on a daily basis she's going to make it at least bearable to be in here

one day, some tall, stern looking guy just comes into her office with this Tupperware in his hands saying "hey, Garcia right? my wife made some extra cupcakes for the team, you want some?" and she asks "do i know you?" and he blinks, stands there for one, two seconds before- "sorry, i forgot we haven't actually met. Special Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner, assistant unit chief of BAU Team 1, nice to meet you," [i like to headcannon that before Boston & all, Hotch was Gideon's assistant, some kind of assistant unit chief probably, but while he wasn't yet the unit chief he was definitely taking care of most, if not all of the administration matters i.e. hiring new agents etc already because let's be real Gideon is caring & capable but really hands off sometimes (also in S1E1 Derek referred to Gideon as their Unit Chief so I assumed Hotch took over the position full time, officially somewhere between S1E1 and S1E2 or 3)]

and then Garcia's brain kind of short-circuits because holy shit this is her BOSS, aka the guy who somehow, crazily looked at her resume and decided to HIRE her and she just asked him if she knew him OH GOD ALL THOSE FIGURINES- and she tries to explain because she really didn't mean to break any rules with them and they aren't, are they? and she can remove them but just, please, she can't go back to prison.

but then Agent Hotchner just goes "hey, hey, Penelope. it's fine. I understand. this is your office, and you have the right to decorate it. I'm not going to fire you over.... My Little Ponies? and uh, some unicorns?" and Penelope can't help but laugh because he genuinely looks baffled by her collection on her desk, and did he just call her Penelope?

and after that, once, after a bad case that Aaron knew affected Penelope (it involved murdered parents & their only child left orphaned and it just hit too close to home for Penelope), he stopped by a local toy shop and bought the brightest, most sparkly, most colourful thing he could find in there (it ended up being a small figurine of a princess on a small, detachable throne that could light up and play some really funky pop music. Aaron cringed internally as he brought it over to the counter, and awkwardly nodded as the cashier asked, "buying this for your daughter, sir? she's going to love it, it's the latest in a collectable series" and he pretended to not see the questioning eyebrow that Derek gave him after seeing the package) and when he presented it to Penelope when they got back, he got the biggest and most bone crushing hug ever from Penelope because "aw that's so sweet, thank you! and you got me the latest in the collection! it's limited edition!" and it just ended up becoming a tradition — Penelope always looks forward to the end of a case now, not only because that means her people are coming home, safe, in one piece (sometimes debatable but still, they're coming home, to her) but it also means that Hotch has brought her yet another tiny figurine or souvenir to add to her collection and she can't wait to see what it is, and Hotch always, always, finds the time after they've wrapped up the case, before the jet leaves, to pop by a local toy shop to get both Penelope and later, when he's older, Jack some toys or souvenir from wherever state he's in, because he wants both of them to know, that despite all the bad out there, there is still good in the world, and they should never forget that

OKAY this ask is SUPER LONG already i apologise skfjsk i have ideas for JJ & Emily but idk if you'd even wanna continue reading them... (maybe.... give me a sign and I'll send another ask and write it? 🥴)

anyways this was just something that came up and i had to write it out 🥺 sorry for spamming you, i hope you're having a great day/night ahead.

- 🌙

Hi so I'm putting everything below the cut for scrolling purposes x

He is!!

Oh my god, I love that scene. It came up in a TikTok about ships, because Person A and Person B are both very smart when they're alone, but put them together and it cancels out, and it made me laugh.

I also love Dad Hotch. Like I love him as much as I love "fighting to keep his emotions in check because he needs to be a leader, but you can tell from the slight change in tone, or the slight glaze of his eyes that he's seconds away from crying" Hotch. Which is saying something.

DON'T APOLOGISE FOR LONG ASKS!! That's what the keep reading on posts is for :))

Oh I love how much Hotch cares about Reid, and of course Reid uses it to his advantage to get Hotch to do the same, because they're similar in that way. Also, he would definitely start grinning when Hotch looks down at his empty plate like: oh. Platonic Hotchreid is everything to me, because it's these two people that have been caretakers their entire life trying to look after another person that wouldn't let anyone do that and it's just... the HOTCH ANGST POTENTIAL THAT IS SO UNTAPPED!!!

Also, not a criticism of you, but from what I've heard from people is that functioning labels are harmful and shouldn't be used because it misrepresents the situation!

I love that idea though!! And Derek being protective over them so he's just like: no, you won't interrupt them, and I will take control of the situation for a few hours AAH!!

OH I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MORGAN AND HOTCH BONDING!! It's so perfect!! I love the idea of Morgan teaching Hotch to do things, and Hotch realising how relaxing he finds it to do these things.

And because we can't have nice things: he refuses to go after Foyet breaks into his apartment because he doesn't deserve peace, but then Morgan just uses his key, drags him out, takes him to a house and presses a brush into his hand because he's not going to let his friend self destruct like this.

EVERYTHING ABOUT GARCIA!! OH MY GOD!! I need to get some work done, so I'm going to finish up there, but seriously!! Amazing!! I love the idea of Hotch getting her little figurines and stuff <33

(shameless self promo, she does the same for him in "and he will come back home" hehe)

I would love to hear the Emily and JJ ones!! I hope that's the sign you need :)

Don't apologise for spamming I was having a dull day, and I hope you have a good day too!

[mostly-mundane-atla]

@ordinaryfruitpunch before I dive into this I want you to know i did that happy hand-flapping stim so aggressively I thought I would start flying.

@naiadbookworm , @dragomer , and @basilgarden also asked, so I'll mention them too.

So let's lay out some things we know about Jet.

He's driven. If he believes in his mission, such as getting himself and his friends safely out of a war zone, he will do what it takes to accomplish it.

Some time after his eponymous episode he and at least two (might have started out with more, but ended up with just two) of his followers left for Ba Sing Se, which according to the wiki seems quite a ways away on foot. They wanted to start over, and Jet specifically wanted to make ammends for a past of hurting and manipulating innocent people.

He's probably used to stealing food, or forging for it in a dense forest he's familiar with.

He mentions to Zuko that as outcasts they have to watch each other's backs "because no one else will," which suggests he wasn't able to rely on the generosity of strangers as Zuko had with Song and her mother or Lee's family.

Now we consider the fact that he has little in the way of funds or marketable skills. Stealth and combat might have gotten him a smuggling job, but it won't help in a refugee camp, where there's safety in numbers. Stealing from people who barely have anything themselves is a good way to get run out of the group or worse, not to mention it very much goes against his wish to turn over a new leaf. Theoritically he, Longshot, and Smellerbee could sell their armor and weapons, but they're still armed when we see them in "The Serpent's Pass," so that couldn't have been the case. We don't even know if Jet can read. (The missing Appa flyers didn't have a whole lot of writing so someone else could have read it to him, assuming it wasn't in the directive the Dai Li gave him and he wasn't just going by the formatting and picture.) All he really has is charm and acting skills, and I doubt he knows any monologues or ballads he can recite for spare change.

"But mostly-mundane," you might be thinking, "he can only supply if there is demand! Why would any other refugee barely better off than him pay for somthing as blatantly unnecessary as sex?" Well, there are a few reasons but it mainly boils down to this: sexual intimacy makes for an effective distraction. When times are dark and uncertain, it might give someone a sense of control over their life or make them feel less alone. It's a very human need to hold and be held, to touch and be touched; it's the first form of comfort we are ever given and when one is running for their life with a bunch of people they don't know, that can be hard to come by. And before this gets taken out of context, this isn't me saying sex workers are here to solve all your problems, nor am I advocating for sex as a psycological cure-all. People will take warmth and comfort and fleeting enjoyment where they can find it, even if they have to pay for it and risk getting diseases or infections.

So we've answered why he would and how he'd even be able to find custom, but who would they be? I don't think he'd target anyone in particular, aside from maybe the richest he could find. He'd probably steer clear of drunks for his own safety, but I don't think he'd put more thought into it than he absolutely had to. It's a job, and not a particularly pleasant one under his circumstances. Most of the time, he probably wouldn't be working for money, but for food and supplies, though he would have needed both eventually to buy three ferry tickets and forged documentation. Then again, that might be a private arrangement he had with the captain. We've seen soldiers leeching off of the civilians they were supposed to protect and conscript a child as punishment for resistance, so this doesn't seem at all unlikely to me.

I think he'd also be insistent, to the point of violence, that he was the only one of the group taking on those kinds of jobs. He's shown to have a very strict idea of what it means to be a leader, and while that does involve calling the shots and expecting near absolute loyalty, I'd bet it also means he'd take it upon himself to be the main provider and protector. He bears the brunt of the responsibilities because he led them into the situation. Smellerbee might have seen the toll it was taking on Jet and suggest that she go sell favors with him, since they might pay more for a girl, which he would turn down and say that he would never ask that of her. She might have tried to say it's alright, that she really wouldn't mind but he'd cut her off, asserting that he wouldn't be the reason for either her or Longshot getting passed from bed to bed and pretending to like it for table scraps and small coins. He got them into that mess, he'd tell them, so he'd be the one to worry about getting them out.

I don't know what Jet was planning to do once they got to Ba Sing Se. He said something about a new group of Freedom Fighters, suggesting he'd be involved in vigilante justice or at least being an informant to the authorities, but that doesn't always pay the bills. After being brainwashed by the Dai Li, he says he has a job over by a warehouse Appa was being kept in and that he's been living peacefully in the city, but that doesn't give us much (a factory worker, maybe? A minder in a textile mill?). I'd like to think Smellerbee and Longshot decided they'd help him find something reliable and decently paying. They'd seen him tired from being up all night and they probably saw bruises when he washed or noticed him trying to walk normal to hide how sore he was and they definitely noticed how much more agitated he was by touch. They wouldn't have wanted him to have to do it all again.