#i have references

[cumulo-stratus]

Embrace[s.r]

spencer doesnt feel like hes anything more than his intelligence, but ethan proves him wrong.

WARNINGS- angst, internalized homophobia, self esteem issues, crying, mentions of mommy issues

college au!Ethan x college au!spencer reid ][ hurt/comfort ][ masterlist!!

a/n- ok this is actually my first ship fic and im so excited!! i've been obsessed with Ethan x spencer ever since i started writing this! hope y'all enjoy reading as much as i enjoyed writing <3

1.25k

there was a soft breeze drifting through the window ruffling the non-existent curtains that no college student was going to spend their little money on. Instead there were some cheap shades provided by the university.

Ethan never minded his small means, his small dorm with a small bed despite being in his junior year. The bed was big enough to fit him and Spencer and that's all he cared about.

but tonight, in the dark room they weren't sitting on top together- no Spencer was hunched over himself his body wracking sob after sob, and ethan’s arms wrapped around him. they left comforting circles on his back, and squeezed spencer tightly against his chest.

the darkened room left both boys faces wailed by shadows, hiding spencers tear track stained cheeks from his best friend.

ethan’s hushed voice was deafening over the silence of the tiny dorm room. He whispered quiet small nothings into spencers ear.

spencers cheek was smushed into his best friends shoulder, and his face was in ethan’s neck, breathing in the familiar scent of his worn university sweatshirt.

spencers knees were pulled to his chest in a self soothing motion, and ethan’s arm wrapped around the ball of spencer in his lap. Spencer also had his arms wrapped tightly around ethan’s waist, white knuckle gripping the back of his sweatshirt.

spencer had never felt worth more than when he was with Ethan. Ethan saw him for more than a 187 IQ or a multiple degree nerd. To Ethan, spencer was a man who had humor, deep empathy, and so so much love to give.

And it was nights like these were sometimes spencer needed a little help remembering that.

after all, thats what best friends are for right?

by two am, spencers body didn’t have any more tears to cry. He was a tired cookie sinking into his best friend’s arms.

“i, im sorry,”

spencer sounded hesitant, voice still shaky and throat still frogged. Ethan only chuckled lightly to himself, causing spencers eyebrows to knit together slightly and his head to perk up from its place on the other boys shoulder at the sound.

“spencer you've nothin to be sorry for” ethan’s soothing drawl lulled spencers worries along with the bashful smile he held for the idiotic genius in front of him.

this caused a small smile to crawl its way onto spencers lips and a blush on his cheeks.

“everyone needs a lil’ reassurance sometimes- even geniuses like you spence,”

spence. only Ethan called him spence. spencer liked when ethan called him that. the only other person who had a nickname for him was his mother, and thats a whole other can of worms filled with mommy issues we dont have time for.

these reassuring words caused the aforementioned smile to grow on his lips a centimeter or two. Spencer had now raised his head to look directly at Ethan. Their faces were so close, they could feel each others breath warming the others’ lips.

Ethan couldn't help but let his eyes drift downwards to spencer’s pink lips, the moment getting the better of him. the young genius was too busy staring into ethan’s beautiful deep brown eyes.

the bearded man tentatively lifted a hand to spencers cheek. he cupped it gently, his thumb rubbing away the tear tracks littering spencers soft cheeks. Ethan could feel the heat rising to his already warm cheeks.

this caused spencer to smile a bit, his eyes crinkling slightly from joy and bashfulness. they reminded themselves of school girls, blushing and grinning for eachother.

Ethan leaned in closer without actually touching spencers face with his, if that was possible. though it was spencer who took the final leap to close the gap.

Spencers lips felt exactly how Ethan had imagined them for months, the kiss feeling electric as they danced. Ethan had been pining for his best friend for months, but this whole experience was new for spencer. He had never really kissed anyone, and he had never really imagined it being with a man. but it felt right. like so many things had just clicked into place and spencer felt at peace in ethan’s arms

finally pulling away air, they both grinned big bashful smiles at each other. “that was nice, i like doing that. i like kissing you.” Spencer the ever logical man of science stated them as facts, though the hearts in his eyes were far from logical.

“can i kiss you again?” Ethan phrased it more like a statement than a question, but the offer still stood. instead of a response, Ethan got a kiss, which i guess one could say is a response. this time neither was caught off guard, and they could enjoy it more.

spencer felt fireworks behind his eyes to say the least.

when the pair reluctantly pulled away for air again, Ethan couldn't help but stare into spencer blown, honey brown pupils. Thais caused spencer to blush, a warmth creeping up his cheeks, blending with the buzzing lingering on his lips left by ethan’s own lips.

“i like you, ethan, like a lot”

ethan chuckled a bit, not at spencers admittance, but at the fact he fel the need to say it. “oh really spence, we practically just made out. but for the record i like you to, like a lot” Ethan had a warm smile fas as he spoke, looking down at spencer, who was still resting the side of his head against ethan’s shoulder.

spencer blushed a little when Ethan called him out, but knew he only meant it lovingly. though lovingly was the only way ethan ever spoke to spencer.

Even before spencer collapsed into his arms crying when he came over to vent about classwork, even before Ethan comforted him with no hesitation, and even before they practically made out. which was why Ethan felt the need to support

“hey spence?”

“ya?”

“you know it’s okay that you kissed a guy, ive known i was into guys since freshman year, its okay.”

spencer looked down, fiddling with his fingers like he always did. Ethan took the opportunity to take spencers hands in his. “hey, honey, look at me, it’s okay.” spencer darted his eyes up to Ethan’s and he said with an obvious frog in his throat “its okay that I kissed you, its okay that im in love with you.”

ethan’s smile was warm at spencer’s words, and he placed a peck on his cheek. “thank you handsome, thats all i wanted to hear.” spencer was even more blushy at the pet name, leaning farther into ethan’s shoulder in the hopes of obscuring his face in the other boys sweater.

“you know if your in love with me, then i think that means we should be boyfriends, right?” Ethan had a playful tone, but the questions till stood.

“i think so too, boyfriend.” spencer spoke joyfully, a smile on his face as he placed one last kiss on his now boyfriends lips.

without any other words said the new couple laid down together. spencer laid with his back resting against his boyfriends chest as he curled in on himself.

Ethan took the opportunity as the big spoon to rest in face in spencers hair, the smell of his hair gel bringing comfort.

Spencer fell asleep to the sound of ethan’s breathing and the feeling of his boyfriend’s warmth against their skin. He felt like more than enough in ethan’s arms, in ethan’s embrace.

The End

taglist- @spencers1wifey | @mvndfvelds | @mindfullycriminal | @luce-reid I @ferrjulie | @khxna | @ilovebeingdelulu | @lover-of-books-and-tea I@jaden-reid | @eli-chris | @multifandomsimp69 | @multiversejumper | @shadoesx | @luvkatryna

join my taglist here

[theprissythumbelina]

Hello hello! Arch here, with yet more Horse-Queries:

One thing I've always been a tad confused by is the "pace" at which a horse would be moving at in any given situation. When I imagine, say, a large troop of horses moving from one point to another, I usually envision them all moving at a 'gallop' (I realise that's probably the wrong vocabulary to describe that sort of fast pace, so I'd welcome a correction!). But I recall some sources pretty much refuting that. So, I guess my question is: if you're expecting to move large distances without too much impetus for speed, how much faster than a walking person would a horse with rider and some equipment be able to move?

I'm going to answer your question, but I'm also going to teach you about paces because this confuses a lot of people in my experience. If you want to skip to the direct answer, I'll mark it with ***.

What is a horse's 'pace'. So horses have something called a stride, which is the distance it takes for all four feet to hit the ground once. A pace is the speed of a stride. So a faster pace means the feet are moving further and hitting the ground more often in a certain amount of time. That's the simple part.

Horses also have gaits, which are the patterns in which their feet move. The normal horse has four, the walk, the trot, the canter, and the gallop. For some reason, some American cowboys call a canter a gallop? No clue, but the fact is that canter and gallop are different because the pattern of footfalls is different. A canter is also referred to as a lope in Western riding. A visual is below. (please ignore the misspelling, is it not canker, its canter, this was the best image i found of all four gaits together)

As can be seen, a walk is a four beat gait, with each foot hitting the ground not in concert with any other foot. The trot(also called a jog in British English) is a two beat gait, with diagonal pairs moving at the same time. A canter is a three beat gait, with one hind leg and one front leg moving in concert, and the other front and hind moving separately. The gallop is a four beat gait, with a moment of suspension.

When it comes to riding horses over distance, these patterns are very important. The gallop is the fastest gait, but it requires a huge amount of energy due to only one leg hitting the ground at a time. This puts enormous stress on the body. Racehorses have shattered legs while racing due to having the entire body weight and stress on one single foot. No horse can maintain a gallop for more than a few minutes, even top racers.

The canter is less strenuous, but it is still difficult and potentially dangerous to maintain for long periods of time, due to the shifting of balance from foot to foot. The walk, of course, is the easiest gait to maintain over long distances, and most horses can regain stamina at the walk. But the best gait for long distances (for normal horses, I'll get to that) is the trot. Due to the diagonal pairs, a trot is the most stable and efficient gait, requiring the least amount of balance control, and also benefiting from the hind legs usually stepping in the exact foot print of the front legs. The trot averages 8 mph, or about 12.9 km/h. In comparison, a human walk is about 3 mph or 5.1 km/h.

***A horse and rider in good condition, over relatively flat ground at a trot, would be over twice as fast as a human walking.

But, here's the kicker, not every horse has only four gaits. Many breeds of horse, and many more that have gone extinct since industrialization, had five or six gaits. These are referred to in modern times as gaited horses. These special gaits were genetically inherited, and cannot be trained. A horse is either born with extra gaits or not.

Some additional gaits are: the amble, the pace, the sobreandando, the Tölt, the running walk, the foxtrot, the rack, and many more.

These are pertinent to the question because some of these gaits, in particular the Tölt, can be performed at speeds reaching those of a canter. Now, I am not an expert in gaited horses, but the Tölt, the foxtrot, and the running walk were all breed specifically for covering large distances quickly and comfortably. However, I cannot find a source I trust for how long these paces can be maintained at top speed. Due to the smoothness of the gaits, I would hazard a guess that it would be as far, if not further, than a trot, but that is my own guesstimate.

A historical anecdote, during medieval warfare, ambling horses were often used as riding horses to reach a battle site, where the courser or destrier would then be mounted and put into use. Centuries later, the ambling Tennessee Walking Horse and Missouri Foxtrotter were both used in the American South and West for long distance travel over rocky and mountainous terrain, and are known for being incredibly comfortable, as well as beautiful horses.

This became possibly my longest ever post, but I believe I answered your question and then some. Thank you for letting me go full horse-obsessed nerd once again!

[phyneire]

Doing gods work

[sri-rachaa]

me, in fear: im gonna try to draw Asher I’m gonna try to draw Asher I’m gonna try to draw Asher-

[vaticinatrix]

screaming crying throwing up at the difficulty of this task (sending three copy-pasted emails to ask people to act as references)

[cherry-blossomtea]

Why can Azem see the future tho. Like. Azem can canonically see the future and this bleeds over into the WoL being able to see the future.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[cloud-ya]

outcast of the village

[beaft]

i went to get my t-shot yesterday and it took me an hour and a half to get to the clinic and as soon as i got on the bed the nurse dropped my t-shot and it broke and now they're trying to make me pay for the replacement. i think the fuck not lmao

[starbuck]

i say i like tragedies and everyone’s all like ‘why do you like sad stories? are you depressed?’ and never ‘how was the catharsis? was the catharsis fun?’

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

meditations on first philosophy (1641) - rene descartes

"who give a shit"

[eskildit]

In a better kinder world. Gideon nav would have been at the club.

[mrghostrat]

who am i to refuse a warmup crowley meme

[1alchemistart]

dont got much to offer for The Holiday but have these sillies!

happy valentines day :D

[thunderboltfire]

I have unwittingly witnessed a new level of the absurd. Behold, the AI-generated equine anatomy models.

Ah yes, my favourite parts of the equine body. Paster and... *looks at the smudged writing on hand* boob. At least this one looks purely decorative and the being actually looks like a horse. But don't worry, it gets worse.

If we completely ignore the hipopotamus musculature of this one, there's still a lot of things that don't make sense in this one, like a tail that ends in a series of bone spikes and a complete lack of molars. You could make a cool pokemon on the basis of this, but it's not even in the realm of being an actual anatomy help.

I'm firmly convinced this is not a horse, this is something that really, really wants you to think it is a horse. The more you look, the more things look... wrong. The more details turn out to be shifted, bones crammed in to fill in the familiar form, its shape merely implied so that the human mind fills the gap. Of course the text seems like gibberish, because its anatomy is incomprehensible. it's either a parasite or a monster and in each case, it's an eldtrich body horror. I'm kind of angry at how well this joke writes itself.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.