#sporks says shit

[sporkberries]

Im definitely not the first to say this but modern day Cissie King-Jones would be one of those kids who went viral a few times on accident so their parents forced them into tiktok stardom.

[blockcurio]

CALLOUTS, especially those with evidence, are not calls for harassment. They're not made to "fix" the people they're calling out. They are made for the sake of victims, and for future potential victims.

DO bad callouts exist? Bad cakes exist. Bad video games exist. Bad books exist. Of fucking course bad callouts made to harass people exist. Callouts with no evidence. Callouts over petty shit that very well could've been kept private.

PROVEN abusive behavior? Though? Stalking, block evading, vague blogging, harboring bad people in communities? If you blanketly call all callouts bad, you are letting people who overstep boundaries continue to do so. You let them get of scot-free. They can walk over to another user and do it again.

AND again. And again. And again. Because those users were not informed of that person's public behavior because maybe they deleted those vague blogging posts. Maybe they deleted their account only to come back under a different URL.

YOU cannot claim to hate drama when you engage with callouts in bad faith. You cannot act morally superior when your mindset enables abusers to get more victims at worst and at best letting some asshole who can't handle being blocked so he vague blogs about it every other day continue to exist in your community.

BUT all callouts bad. You cannot namedrop that person who has a pattern of behavior. No. That's harassment, since people will block them instead of giving them a chance. We'll just turn a blind eye to you making everyone around you uncomfortable, we guess.

[captain-crowfish]

Mah birthday gifts to myself, Bone Apple Tea

Bonus:

[sage-lights]

with you, there's no pretending

word count: 2165 chapter: 1/? Ever since freshman orientation, when Angela first noticed Amanda sitting in the gym bleachers, she’d been head-over-heels in love with her.

Angela was going to kill Arasha.  

Earlier that week, Arasha asked Angela if she could interview her about playing Grace Chasity in their high school’s upcoming production of Nerdy Prudes Must Die. Arasha eagerly volunteered to write this article for her journalism class, hoping that Angela’s insight would help her assignment stand out. Angela knew her friend had been working all year to impress her teacher and secure the position of Editor-in-Chief for the next school year.  

Just for fun, Angela made her best friend beg, playfully acting stubborn and difficult about the request—much to Chanse's amusement, who had a blast recording the whole thing and laughing at the two of them. In the end, Angela agreed, and the girls made plans to meet at their favorite local coffee shop on Saturday.  

That morning, she took Spork to the vet for a routine checkup, which, thankfully, hadn’t taken longer than anticipated. After making a quick stop to drop him off at home, Angela arrived at the coffee shop just in time to find a table near the back before the usual afternoon rush filled the place. She sat facing the door so Arasha could easily spot her when she arrived, then mindlessly scrolled on her phone to pass the time.  

Out of the corner of her eye, Angela noticed a girl with long, wavy brunette hair enter the coffee shop. She looked up, expecting to see her friend rushing over to greet her. But instead, in her place stood Amanda Lehan-Canto.  

Ever since freshman orientation, when Angela first noticed Amanda sitting in the gym bleachers, she’d been head-over-heels in love with her. She remembered leaning over and whispering (a little too loudly judging from the pointed looks the kids in front of them had given her) to ask Chanse who the new girl was.  

“Who are you talking about? There’s like a million people here,” Chanse responded, wildly swiveling his head around trying to figure out who Angela was referring to.  

Angela slapped his arm and pointed discreetly to the girl a couple of rows above them, “Over there, idiot!”  

“Oooooooh, someone’s got a crushhhhhh!”  

“Stop it! Could you be any more obvious?” She sunk further into her seat, “Do you know who she is or not?”  

“Nope, but I could find out.”  

Later, Angela learned her name and that she’d just moved to Los Angeles from Boston. Despite Chanse’s insistence that Angela should introduce herself and befriend her, Angela just hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.  

That was almost four years ago, and even now in their senior year, Angela was no closer to Amanda than when she first laid eyes on her. Even when they’d been in the same AP Psychology class sophomore year, Angela had always been too nervous to say more than a few pleasantries. She didn’t want to come off as overly eager or that she was scaring Amanda away.

Angela admired Amanda from afar, how she greeted a table of friends with hugs and a “How are you?” and how freely she chatted and laughed with the baristas. The coffee shop seemed to brighten with her presence. 

But then Amanda turned and met Angela’s gaze. Shit, she’d been caught staring. Angela tried her best to recover, her face reddening. She turned in the other direction, pretending to search through her tote bag for something. She fumbled with her AirPods and pulled out a book, quickly flipping it open to her bookmarked page.  

“Hey! Angela, right?” Oh no, Angela recognized that voice. She glanced up at the girl speaking to her. Thank goodness for all those acting classes that taught her how to mask her emotions. She hoped her face looked calm and nonchalant, but also friendly and inviting. Oh, and maybe cool and suave as well. Honestly, Angela would take anything over looking overwhelmed at the fact that her long-time crush was now talking to her.  

“That’s me!” Just be cool.  

Amanda sat down in the seat across from her, and that’s when the panic really set in. “I’m Amanda. We had AP Psych with Mr. Hecox together.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right!” She prayed that her voice wouldn’t embarrassingly start cracking, “His class was definitely an interesting one, especially with the random dark jokes he’d thrown into the middle of his presentations.”  

Amanda chuckled lightly at her comment, and Angela felt her smile widen and her shoulders loosen. But when there was no indication of her leaving, Angela got nervous again.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude, but is there a reason you sat down? Not that I mind talking to you. Not at all. It’s just, um, I’m meeting my friend, Arasha, here in a little bit—oh, you might know her from Journalism then. Since you’re the Editor-in-Chief this year, right? Well, so you probably know that she’s writing a piece on the school’s musical, and she asked to interview me. So, I don’t think you can stay here for long. Oh my god, I sound super rude right now, don’t I? Shoot, I swear I—,” 

“Angela, breathe,” Amanda leaned forward and placed a hand over hers, interrupting her rambling. A thousand questions began spinning around in her head. Can she tell I’m freaking out? Is my hand abnormally sweaty? Am I making a fool of myself right now? Is she this touchy with everyone? Why. Is she. Touching. My hand?!

So much for keeping it cool.

“Did Arasha not tell you? I’m actually filling in for her. She messaged our class on Slack this morning asking if someone could take over because she woke up super sick,” Amanda explained.

“Oh shoot, maybe I missed that text from her,” Angela opened her texts with Arasha and briefly scrolled through to check even though she knows for certain that this a certified Arasha prank.

angela: you’re kidding me arash no way you’re sick

Immediately, Angela got a response. She could just picture Arasha’s smug face.

arasha: oh yeahhh i’m totally sneezing up a storm rn

angela: arasha lalani more like arasha lie-lani

arasha: lame but you’ll thank me later now go have fun on your date! but not too much fun ;’)

angela: NOT A DATE i hate you sm

arasha: you’re welcomeee

Amanda raised an eyebrow playfully, “Everything good with Arasha?”

“Yeah, everything’s good,” Angela fumbles with her phone again, shoving into the pocket of her zip up hoodie without even turning it off.

“Okay, good.”

“Good.” Oh no, did I just make it weird?

Amanda pulls her laptop out of her purse, “Ready to get started then?”

“Let’s do this thing.”

Amanda readied her fingers over the keys and looked over at Angela, ready to take notes like a professional journalist. “So, what can audiences expect from your performance as Grace Chasity in Nerdy Prudes Must Die?”

“Soup,” Angela answers cheekily.

“I’m sorry, soup?”

“Yep, soup! I mean who doesn’t like soup? A classic chicken noodle? Or a butternut squash soup?” Angela gasps animatedly, “What about a garlic tomato bisque? With a grilled cheese?! Come on, how could anyone hate soup?”

Amanda chimes in with a grin, “Broccoli cheddar though? Very divisive, I will say!”

“Ugh! I do secretly love a broccoli cheddar!”

“So do I! But have to ask again, Angela, what does this have to do with Grace Chasity?”

“You’ll have to wait and see. I will say though, Grace’s preferred soup is definitely dirty.”

Amanda laughs, “I feel like you’re purposely trying to confuse me now.”

“Gotta sell tickets somehow, Amanda!” She winks, to which Amanda laughs again. That sound, the resonance of it, settles into Angela’s chest and fills her with a blooming warmth. 

As the interview progressed, Angela’s initial jitters fade away. Each question Amanda asked felt less like an interrogation and more like a conversation she’d have with friends. By the time they reached the final question, she realized she’d very much enjoyed Amanda’s company.

“Alright, I think that’s everything,” Amanda closed her laptop and slipped it back into her bag. “Thank you again for doing this interview with me. I know I’m not who you were expecting, but I’m glad I got to chat about the musical with you anyway.”

Angela shook her head bashfully. “Of course, it was no problem.”

They both gathered the rest of their things and stood up, though Amanda suddenly moved in for a hug. Angela returned the embrace, even though she was still a little shell-shocked from the whole afternoon. Note to self: Amanda’s a hugger.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Amanda pulled away. “I always forget not everyone’s down for physical touch, and then I go and make it uncomfortable by hugging you.”

“No, it was alright. Don’t worry about it,” smiled Angela, reassuring Amanda. Neither of the girls said anything after that, leaving them staring at each other in awkward silence for a little too long. At least, it was awkward for Angela, given the whole “I’m in love with you” part. She really hoped she wasn’t smiling too much like an idiot. Maybe she should stop smiling. No, that would be off-putting as hell to randomly stop smiling. Maybe she should say somethi—

Amanda cleared her throat, “It was nice talking to you. I hope to see you around sometime.” Phew.

She waved to the retreating Amanda, “Yeah, I’ll see you around.” But there was still a voice inside her that urged her to say something more. This is your chance, Angela!

“Wait!” Angela called out, causing Amanda to turn back around. “You should, um, get my number. You know, just in case you have any more questions while you write the article.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Amanda handed Angela her phone with an amused expression. Angela carefully entered her information on the new contact page and passed it back to Amanda before saying a last goodbye and letting Amanda walk out.

Angela blinked a couple of times, hoping to snap back into the present. It didn’t help—she was too dazed from the whole interaction. Amanda Lehan-Canto had just talked to her. Holy. Shit.

After collecting herself a little more, she hopped in her car and drove home. Every moment of their conversation replayed in Angela’s mind: the answers she had given, the stupid jokes she had cracked, the way Amanda had sounded when she laughed. She pinched her arm over and over again to prove to herself that this all really happened.

As she pulled into the driveway, her phone lit up with a notification from her group chat with Chanse and Arasha—it was unfortunately named “ANGELAAAAAAA!” after the way her friends often called her name in disappointment.

arasha: your location says you’re home angela spill how did it go

angela: wtf are you stalking me

arasha: that’s beside the point

chanse: explainnnn pleaseee

arasha:  i set ang up on a date with amanda lehan cantooooooooo

chanse: A DATE?!

angela: NOT! A! DATE!!! it was an interview that arasha FLAKED ON

arasha: semantics

chanse: HOW DID IT GO

angela: it was chill she asked me about nerdy prudes and i gave her my number in case she had follow up questions

chanse: you gave her your number???? damn ang is finally make some moves took you long enough

arasha: YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME MAN she would still be sitting on her ass pining away if it weren’t for me

angela: jeez it was just a casual thing calm yourselves

chanse: why don’t you text her and say you forgot to mention something earlier just to get the convo rolling

angela: um bitch i’m tryna play it cool here don’t wanna seem too eager plus i just realized i didn’t get her number…

chanse: angelaaaaaaaaaaaaaa dude you fumbled that big time

arasha: i put in so much work to make that happen and you fucked it wasted effort

chanse: you idiot i cannot believe you

arasha: you got no game fr

angela: Y’ALL I WAS PANICKING CAN YOU BE A LITTLE MORE GENTLE

chanse: no you don’t get a pass for this arash do you have her number

arasha: nah we text on slack also it would be hella strange if ang had her number without asking directly

chanse: ugh true i guess

At this point, she had made it up the stairs and into her bedroom. Frustrated with her friends, Angela tossed her phone onto her bed before promptly flopping down and burying her face into the pillows. And then, she screamed. So loud and so long that she barely heard the “ding” of a new notification.

Angela rolled over and felt around for her phone, already groaning at what she expected to be another annoying message from her annoying friends.

unknown number: hey this is amanda

Her eyes widened.

unknown number: i realized way too late that i never gave you my number so i thought i’d shoot you a text so you could saved it too :)

Angela threw her phone again and went back to screaming.

a lil author's note: i started this amangela high school au a longggg time ago, practically when this blog started because it's one of my favorite tropes to mull around in my mind. funnily enough, this first chapter was written for the smosh girlies week back in feb, but i deleted the whole thing because i hated what i wrote, so the first draft has been lost to time. then, i wrote it again and abandoned it again. it wasn't until my wonderful friend @babychosen asked me about it recently that i decided to revisit it and finally finish it for all y'all to enjoy! this is for @babychosen, @unknownteapot, @poppyfamily, and @shesmore-shoebill. thanks guys for always yelling about amangela with me <3

[anarchopuppy]

wii sports resort sounds like some shit a alien would say. fuckin, nee spork g'zork

[autisticlancemcclain]

“Anyone seen Lance?” Shiro asks, checking his watch. “We have to suit up in an hour, but I haven’t heard anything from him.”

No sooner do the words come out of his mouth does the man in question stroll into the kitchen, pausing in front of the table where everyone is gathered and clearing his throat.

“I will not be accompanying you guys on the mission,” he announces.

It takes everyone a moment to process that one. Hunk is the first to react, something clicking in his expression before he groans, resting his forehead on the table.

“Here we go,” he mutters tiredly.

Lance happily ignores him, pouring himself some food goo and taking a seat next to Keith.

“Are you ill?” Allura asks, when Lance fails to provide any further context.

“Nope! I’m just going to hang back from this mission because I Saw what’s going to happen last night and no part of me is interested in crawling through sewage. Y’all have fun, though.”

“Why the hell do you think we’ll be crawling through sewage?” Keith asks. “All the Yuvleans want us to do is find some crystal for them.”

“And I’m telling you it’s going to involve crawling through the sewage system,” Lance insists. “I’m not doing that. I’ll stay on the castle with Coran and do chores, or something.”

Shiro looks pleadingly to Hunk.

“Please translate,” he asks.

This is not unusual. Lance and Hunk frequently have to explain each other’s trains of thought to the team at large.

“Lance thinks he can see the future,” Hunk explains tiredly. “He is not a Seer. He just gets lucky, occasionally, and he’s observant. There is nothing I can do to convince him otherwise.”

“That’s because you’re wrong,” Lance says patiently. “I do so get visions. I told you about the mermaid planet when we were fifteen, remember?”

“Lance, you dreamed once about alien mermaids and the universe is so batshit insane that it ended up being true. That is not predicting the future.”

“Mhm, sure. And the fact that I knew the names of the mermaids we could trust was coincidence.”

“Exactly!”

Hunk and Pidge both look exasperated, but Keith looks intrigued.

“You can really tell the future?”

“Please tell me you don’t believe in that shit too,” Pidge groans.

Both paladins ignore her.

“Not as clearly as you’re thinking,” Lance says, making a so-so motion with his hand. “I don’t usually get full detailed visions, although I do occasionally. Usually I get bits and pieces, right before something happens. Like, if we’re on an infiltration mission and we don’t know which hallway to take to escape, I usually get a flash of images that tell me what’s down each one.”

Shiro, who had been eyeing Lance warily for the most part, tilts his head in consideration. “You do manage to lead us out of ships when everything goes to shit.”

Hunk looks at him incredulously. “You too?! What part of ‘Lance has good instincts and is crazy observant’ am I making unclear? Science, people!”

“I’m not saying I think he can see in the future,” Shiro says hastily. “But I’m not saying he can’t, either.”

“Thank you,” Lance says emphatically. “Finally, someone believes me.”

“Hey,” Keith protests. “I believed you the whole time!”

“‘Course, Mullet,” Lance says with a grin and a wink. Keith goes a little red. “I appreciate it.”

“I also believe you!” Allura says excitedly. “One of my mother’s handmaidens also spoke of an ability to see forward in time, and she often made excellent predictions about future trades!”

“Ha,” Lance says, pointing his spork triumphantly at his best friends. Both of them roll their eyes in tandem. “Coran believes me, too. Said he can feel it in my quintessence, or something. You guys are outnumbered.”

“Whatever,” Pidge mutters, but she doesn’t really look all that annoyed. “I can’t believe you’re skipping the chance to flirt with pretty aliens just because you had a weird dream. I can’t believe you’re staying back to do chores instead of prancing around the planet’s canals and comparing the water to beaches back home.”

Lance shrugs, standing up to dunk his empty bowl in the sink. “Like I said, I’m not crawling through the sewer,” he says, heading for the doors. “But y’all have fun. Let me know if you meet the ninja turtles.”

———

Hours later, five very grumpy, very dirty paladins stomp their way back to the castle. Lance and Coran meet them at the decontamination chamber.

“Have a shitty time?” Lance asks smugly.

“Dollar in the bad pun jar,” Keith says immediately, just as Hunk says: “Can it, Cassandra.”

Hunk sounds cranky as he says it, but instead of being offended, Lance only laughs.

“Fitting,” he taunts, “since no one believed Cassandra and she ended up being right. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Hunky?”

Hunk levels him with a glare, but only lasts about three seconds before a reluctant smile spreads across his face.

“Alright, alright, touché. I still think you just made an educated guess. But I’ll give you that one.”

“Sure thing, bud. I’ve Seen the day you and Pidge believe me, you know. I’m going to be very smug.”

“More smug than right now?” Allura asks.

Lance smirks. “Exponentially.”

———

Shiro doesn’t let Lance skip any more missions because of his Sight. “If a mission is going to suck, then we get to suffer as a group. Team building,” he reasons.

He still doesn’t quite believe that Lance can See the future. But he does start to take Lance’s input in mission planning, so long as Lance can actually rationalize his predictions.

“That’s not going to work,” Lance says firmly, tapping the path Shiro has drawn down a hallway on the blueprints of the Galran cruiser they’re planning to infiltrate. “If we split up, Allura is going to get ambushed and hurt.”

Shiro inclines his head. “Reasoning?”

Lance pauses for a moment to study the blueprints further, trying to figure out why he knows that to be true. He saw the altercation in a vision, of course, but over the weeks of planning with Shiro he’s found that his divinations often follow a largely logical path of reasonings, Sherlock-style.

“This is a Druid-heavy cruiser,” he says finally. “See how the energy systems are rerouted to neutralize more power outbursts than usual? That means a lot of raw quintessence outside of its usual transport containers, which means Druids. And you know how freaky they are about trying to isolate Allura and take her for her quintessence abilities. She shouldn’t spend a second on this ship alone, and especially not down the corridors that are most heavily fortified and monitored. She’s our strongest, but in this case it will only make her a target.”

“Sounds good to me,” Shiro says, placing a proud hand on Lance’s shoulder. “We’ll work out something better, huh?”

———

It’s no secret that Lance spends at least two nights a week at the observation deck; missing his family and falling asleep to the projection of Earth’s steady turn. The team has quietly worked out something like a schedule, making sure he’s never there alone, and everyone makes sure he knows he knows they love him and are there for him.

Lance pretends to be oblivious to the schedule. He saw it in a dream before he’d even met most of the team, but he likes that they try so hard to keep it quiet anyway. It’s sweet.

“Do you know why I’m like this?” he asks one night, when Coran is the one to follow him in.

The advisor takes a moment to consider the question carefully, humming softly.

“I felt something different about you the second I saw you,” he says eventually. He huffs a laugh. “That’s half the reason I was so defensive of you.”

Lance snorts, remembering Coran’s flailing and threats. “I thought it was because I made eyes at Allura.”

Coran grins, checking him gently across the shoulders. “That, too, lad.” His expression turns more serious, pondering. “But I’ve always been very in tune with the energies of the universe, the balance of quintessence in every single thing that takes space. My father taught me to sit quietly with the space between things, to feel how they fit together. You, my dear —” he shifts to look at Lance directly, jewelled eyes meeting deep brown — “your quintessence reaches farther than most. For whatever reason, your soul is stretched wide, across space and time. Everyone’s is, to some degree, but yours more so. For whatever reason, when you came to be, the universe saw fit to grant you the burden of Knowing.”

He takes one of Lance’s hands in his, squeezing gently. “It’s a lot of responsibility, child. But there’s no one I would trust more to shoulder it with grace.”

———

Usually, Lance’s Gift is harmless. It doesn’t matter who on the team does or does not believe — it never has a great enough bearing on their life and mission to make a massive decision.

Until it does.

Until Lance stops mid-attack, freezing in his lion, shout ringing through the comms.

“Lance, come in,” Shiro demands. “What’s wrong?”

Everyone’s screen flickers for a moment before Lance’s comm feed pulls up, brown eyes wide and panicked, terror written all across his face.

“We need to pull back!” he says frantically. “Now, now, now!”

“We can’t pull back now!” Pidge protests. “That ship has the closest guarantee to finding Matt than any other we’ve found so far, and our intel guarantees we outmatch them!”

“I Saw differently, they have —”

Pidge bares her teeth at him. “If you think I’m giving up on my brother because you think you can tell the future —”

“You have to trust me,” Lance begs. “The entire fleet is a setup. All the fighter jets are manned by sentries, there’s not a single soldier on board the commanding ship. It’s a giant bomb. The second we touch it it’s going to blow so big it’ll start a new solar system. Please.”

“Lance, now is not the time —” Shiro interjects.

“I know, but —”

“We have every guarantee from the Blades that my brother may very well be on that ship!” Pidge says shrilly. “I know you think you can see the future Lance, but I just can’t trust that!”

“I’m not asking you to trust it,” Lance says again, more and more desperate by the second. “I’m asking you to trust me. And I promise you, Pidge, if we move forward than every single one of us is going to die.”

Tears drip from Pidge’s eyes. Her face crumples.

“Why are you making me choose between my brother and the team?” she sobs.

“Please trust me,” Lance begs again.

She swipes a hand across her eyes.

“If you’re wrong, I’m never going to forgive you.”

As soon as she says the words, Lance is yelling for everyone to pull back. Shiro echoes him, and the retreat back to the castle. As Allura opens a wormhole, the entire fleet starts to blow, every explosion tripping the ship next to it, until the entirety of the blackness of space is ignited in bright white flame and incinerating debris.

They barely make it through the wormhole in one piece.

———

“I still don’t believe you,” Pidge says stubbornly, once her tears have dried and they’re all safe in their hangars.

Lance smiles softly. “Thank you for trusting me anyway.”

———

Hours after everyone else has fallen asleep, after the last movie for movie night has ended, Keith and Lance sit facing each other on a mound of blankets, knees pulled up their their chins and arms held tightly around their legs.

“Your turn,” Keith whispers.

Lance hums. “How many questions do I have left?”

“We passed twenty forever ago. I think we’re just getting to know each other, now.”

“Oh.”

“Is that okay?”

Lance hides a grin in his pajama-covered knees. “Yeah.”

“Good. Ask your question, doofus. You’re taking forever.”

“‘Kay. How come you pretended not to recognize me when we were rescuing Shiro?”

Keith’s face flames. “I really didn’t recognize you!” he insists.

Lance shakes his head. “We had four group projects together, and you smirked at me after no less than twelve flight sims. I’m not buying it, Samurai.”

Keith holds his gaze for several minutes, glaring stubbornly. But finally he deflates.

“Fine,” he concedes. “I remember you. But if I tell you why I pretended to forget, you have to promise not to get mad, okay?”

“Fine, fine. Just tell me already.”

Keith looks away. He’s quiet for long enough that Lance reaches over to pinch him for not answering.

“Jesus, okay! I’m getting there.” He bites his lip. “Do you remember that dumbass line you used to say? About threading the needle?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Uh. I didn’t get it for a long time. I thought —” he grimaces, accepting Lance’s oncoming diva fit — “I thought your name was Taylor. So.”

To his surprise, Lance bursts out laughing.

“You dumbass! Did you really?”

“It was a valid assumption!” Keith defends. “You said that people called you tailor! What was I supposed to think?”

“Our names are right next to each other on roll call,” Lance chokes out, wiping a tear from his eye. He flashes a teasing grin as he slowly starts to calm down. “Guess there’s I reason I usually did better on the practicals, huh?”

“Oh, shut up,” Keith says, scowling. “You barely did better.”

“Neck and neck,” Lance teases.

“Yeah, yeah, cargo pilot. Whatever you say.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, silence interrupted only by Shiro’s horrible snoring and Lance’s occasional giggle.

“It’s your turn,” he says, once he’s finally gotten himself under control. Keith rolls his eyes, but asks anyway.

“How come you don’t flirt with random aliens anymore?”

To his surprise, the question makes Lance flush darkly. He looks away, picking at his nails.

“I, uh, Saw that I end up with someone soon. Feels disrespectful to flirt knowing I’m gonna be with him any time now.”

Keith’s breath hitches. “Him?”

“Them,” Lance corrects hastily, but the damage is already done.

“Who is he? Do I —”

“Game’s over,” Lance says hastily. “I just had a vision. If we keep playing you’re going to choke to death and die after I make an excellent joke, so. Better safe than sorry.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Keith accuses, but Lance has never been wrong before, so he hesitates.

Lance notices, doubling down. “Yep. I try to give you the Heimlich and everything, but it doesn’t work. You die in minutes. Gotta prevent that.”

“Fine,” Keith says sullenly. “I guess we should go to sleep then.”

“Probably,” Lance agrees, audibly relieved. “Don’t want you to die or anything.”

His face is red until the second he falls asleep.

———

Lance has his impulsive moments, sure. But the real impulsive members of the team are Keith or Pidge, no question about it. They are the king and queen of dumbass, split-second decisions.

When Lance gets a vision, mid-fight, on a planet so overrun with Galran soldiers that ‘outnumbered’ does not begin to cover it, he kicks both of those losers off their thrones by a goddamn mile.

“Lance!” Allura yells, once she realizes he’s breaking formation. “What the quiznack are you doing?”

“The witch controls it all,” he gasps out, to quiet for anyone to hear. He ignores the shouts of his team, ignores their questions, ignores his own guilt for leaving them so abruptly, and books it, as fast as he can, straight towards the cluster of Druids. They stand in a perfect circle, all perfectly still, tendrils of lightning quintessence pouring out of them faster than Lance can track, all tunnelling towards where Zarkon stands suspended above them all, sending deadly bolts of attack at Voltron and their scrambling allies down below. Every time a Druid drops, their very life force drained from them, a new one fills their place, as quickly as possible.

But Lance doesn’t need to see what’s in the centre of their circle with his eyes. He’s Seen it. He knows who lies in the middle of the cluster, who is pulling the strings between the entire empire, who has been this entire time.

As he runs, he feels his bayard warm in his hand, feels the form change from the barrel of his beloved gun to something sturdy, smooth, curved. When he glances down, he sees the familiar contour of a bow.

It’s too simple.

Far too simple.

But Lance trusts himself. He trusts the universe, and the responsibility Coran says it has granted him. He knows it would not lie to him.

He stops hundreds of feet before the cluster of Druids, standing firm as they all turn to face him in unison. He does not flinch when they raise their arms towards him, does not move when Zarkon turns to face him, raw quintessence lighting up his arms as he takes aim directly where Lance stands.

Lance breathes in. He aims the bow high in the sky, not at the Druids, not at Zarkon, but where he knows the arrow will arch gracefully, and make it’s deadly decent: landing dead in the centre of the Druids, where Haggar stands, unfocused on the sky above her.

Lance exhales.

He fires.

He hears a wicked shriek echo louder than any person every could, just as Zarkon’s final blast hits him square in the chest.

His own agonized screams drown out the terrified yells of his team.

———

You’d think it would be quiet, death. It’s the absence of life, after all. The cease of all movement. The end of one’s time.

It’s not.

Lance feels every one of his cells as they sizzle and fry, his very molecules tearing themselves apart as the blast of quintessence breaks easily through his armour. He feels every part of his body and soul incinerate out of existence.

It sounds like one long, shrill screech of brakes stopping abruptly.

It hurts.

———

“There’s no way he’s going to survive that! It’s a waste of time to hope!”

“How can you say that? How dare you say that?

“You think I want to? You think I want this? His very soul was fried, Keith! He is my best friend, he is my brother, but I am not going to put myself or anyone else through the pain of hoping!”

“The pain of hoping is the only thing that can make the pain of giving up feel better!”

———

Coming back to life is shockingly silent, in contrast. Still, too. He knows he’s not dead — he can’t be, if he’s thinking — but he can’t feel any further than that.

Everything is quiet.

———

It’s barely noticeable, when he can finally feel again. The faintest brush of a hand through his hair, a whisper, the press of lips to his forehead.

Then nothing, again.

———

“You’re going to make it, Lance. I’ll kill you if you don’t, you dumbass, selfless bastard.”

———

By the time he can finally move again, he feels like he’s lived four thousand lives. It’s the barest twitch of his finger, but it makes someone gasp, and then there’s a hand grasping his.

“C’mon, Lance,” it says quietly. “Prove me wrong, okay? About Seeing and living and everything. Please. Show me how wrong I was. I’ll even let you gloat forever, okay? I’ll never complain again. I’m sorry.”

Lance tries his hardest to move further, to squeeze Hunk’s hand; hell, even to twitch his finger again.

Nothing.

“That’s okay,” Hunk assures quietly. There’s a slight pressure on his head, briefly, and the scent of Hunk’s face cream and motor oil, and then it’s gone.

“Take your time, okay? I’ll be here. We all will.”

———

The first person Lance sees when he finally opens his eyes again is Allura. He can’t make his mouth move, can’t call out, but he doesn’t have to — she smiles softly at him, never moving her hand from his hair.

“It’s good to see those eyes again,” she whispers. “We’ve missed you, Lance. You think you can try moving your hand? I’ll help you, if you like.”

Lance screws his eyes shut — not because he wants to, he doesn’t, he’s only just opened them, he never wants to close them again — but he can’t seem to stop himself. It takes so much effort just to lift his hand a millimeter up from the mattress it rests on.

“Good!” Allura says, and when Lance forces his eyes open again he sees that she’s smiling much brighter, now, although tears drip down her cheeks.

“You’re so much closer every day, asteraki. In a couple weeks you’ll be all healed up, I’m sure. Okay?”

Lance still can’t make his mouth move, but he manages a hum. That makes her smile wider.

———

Allura is not entirely correct. He is not entirely healed in a couple weeks. But he gets closer and closer every day. After one week, he can move his hands, even though they shake. After two, he can speak, although his voice is raspier than the desert.

The first thing he asks for is an update — did he do it? Did it work?

“Zarkon and Haggar crumbled to dust,” Shiro assures him. “The second your arrow struck. Ten thousand years caught up to them, I guess. The Druids died, too. The Empire hasn’t really gone anywhere, but it’s in chaos. No one knows what to do. Planets are revolting left and right.”

He squeezes Lance’s hands, lifting one up to press a kiss to his knuckles.

“You did it, kiddo. You and that goddamned gift of yours.”

———

It takes months. Months of physical therapy, if speech therapy, of disgusting nutrient-rich diets and fine-motor training that frustrates Lance to tears.

It works, though. Over time, he starts to come back to himself. Not everything is fixed — he needs hearing aids, now, because he was so close to Haggar’s final scream that it shattered his ear drums. His hair is bleached white, too, and lightning-shaped scars run up and down his skin — Shiro jokes that they should start a club. He’s unbelievably lucky that he regains all the mobility in his hands. He still speaks in a stutter, and he likely will for the rest of his life.

But he’s fuckin’ alive, goddamnit, so he’s sure as shit not complaining.

His visions stop coming, too.

He doesn’t mind.

“You were right, though,” Hunk says.

As promised.

“You really could see the fuckin’ future. I’ll be damned.”

“This moment was slightly less depressing in my vision,” Lance says, grinning wryly. “All I got were those two sentences. Who know I almost had to die to get ‘em.”

Hunk glares, flicking him lightly in the forehead. “Too soon, buddy.”

“It’s been half a goddamn year since I got nuked!”

“It will be too soon for the rest of our lives. Your lucky I didn’t build you the safety bubble I wanted to build you, you menace.”

“He really was going to,” Pidge pipes up. “I had to pry the blueprints from his hands.”

Lance tips an imaginary hat. “And I thank you for your service.”

“Whatever, goober,” she says, rolling her eyes, but she’s smiling.

———

There’s nothing strange about the knock on his door. Keith knocks as he always does: just one singular knock, to make people on edge, because he thinks it’s funny.

But Lance freezes.

Because he recognises this feeling, the intense feeling of déjà vù mixed with clear memory — one of his old visions is playing out.

And there’s only one outstanding vision of his that takes place in his bedroom, with Keith, as he’s folding laundry.

“Come in,” he squeaks, desperately trying to compose himself and fight the blush off his face and failing horribly.

Keith steps in and immediately starts helping Lance with the laundry, even though he’s horrible at it and always insists that closets have more space if you roll up clothes instead of folding them.

Menace boy.

He’s quiet for a long moment, rolling laundry until Lance smacks him, and then begrudgingly folding it.

“Did you See this?” he asks eventually.

“Yes,” Lance admits, because he sees no reason to lie.

“Then you know what I’m going to say.”

“I do.”

Keith’s hands finally still, and he sighs, finally looking over at Lance with a smile that shows the barest peek of his crooked incisors. “That doesn’t make it easier, somehow.”

Lance’s belly curls, like he always does when Keith smiles at him like that. He tries to remind himself that he is a grown ass man and he does not need to swoon like a preteen when his crush looks at him, thanks. He forces himself to set the laundry down and take a step towards Keith.

“You should say it anyway.”

Keith hums, closing the distance between them and placing on hand on Lance’s hip.

“Is that how we’re gonna play it, Sharpshooter? You’re not gonna have mercy on me?”

Lance’s breath hitches. “Not for a second.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Keith mumbles, and then his other hand cups Lance’s cheek and he doesn’t waste a second before pressing their lips together, firmly, like he knows Lance can take it.

“I’m in love with you, Lance. I want to be yours. Sound alright?”

“I suppose I could live with it,” Lance rasps, completely unable to dodge the flick that Keith aims for his head when they stand so close.

He decides he doesn’t mind, though, not when Keith shuts up any further teasing with another press of their lips together.

And another.

And another.

It’s just as good as Lance knew it would be.

[butwhatifidothis]

You don't want a certain fic to be influential in the fandom because of what you perceive as racist and sexist undertones and that's all well and good, so does that mean you'll start sporking The Savior King, The Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation soon? That fic has been criticized for pushing a white savior complex, a careless use of languages for cultures that don't fit them (Almyrans speak Japanese), consistently portraying Byleth as a hysterical woman who can't handle things without her boyfriends saving her from herself, and colonialist vibes of the Nabateans (a pair of Nabatean siblings are implied to be the background of the Almyran religion, which is just the white supremacist Ancient Aliens conspiracy theory but with dragons instead of aliens).

The Savior King isn't influential at all. No one is declaring it as good as or better than canon, the author never says she's trying to keep to canon or that her work is *~meta~*, and I haven't heard of any of the shit you listed ever existing despite me being in dimiclaude circles and once being in claudeleth circles.

People right now this second are saying Byleth isn't part Nabatean despite the game literally actually factually directly saying they have a straight up blood connection to Sothis comparable to Rhea's and despite Sitri literally being made through Sothis' actual literal physical heart. Take a guess as to who else said that and has been saying it for years in his fic (and thus his meta since he treats his fic as meta). Teacher Theory, Faerghus Toxic Masculinity and Faerghus as a whole needing to be uprooted and destroyed completely, the entire Edelgrid ship as a concept, CF being about fighting fate, all that shit and more is in a shit ton of places in 3H fandom and they either start from Cap'n or were popularized by him.

Popular =/= influential.

Hope that helps <3

[chunkysoda]

hey guys you want a little snippet of a fic I've been writing... here have it anyway 🤭

Even though she had a great time filming the burrito video, she was also relieved when it was over. She needed to take a cold shower or something; she had to get rid of whatever feelings she thought she was having for Amanda. 

After they were done filming, she quickly changed from her costume to her regular clothes and rushed to say her goodbyes. To hopefully not raise suspicion, she told everyone she needed to go take care of Spork because he wasn’t feeling well the past few days. Thankfully, everyone was very understanding of her little dog’s made-up illness. 

She hastily made her way to her car, trying to fish out her keys from her pockets when she heard a familiar voice call out her name. She turned to see Amanda rushing towards her, with what seemed like a concerned look on her face. 

“Hey, is Spork okay? I heard you saying he wasn’t feeling well lately.” She said, her brown eyes full of concern. Angela felt her stomach get that weird feeling again as she looked up to meet the taller woman’s eyes. She cleared her throat to bring herself back down to reality. 

“Oh yeah, he’s just been throwing up and stuff. Wanna make sure there isn’t anything crazy waiting for me on my bed.” Angela chuckled, shrugging off Amanda’s concern. Amanda’s face didn’t change, but she did let out a small laugh. 

“Yeah, I totally get that. Hey, I wanted to ask you, I didn’t cross a line with the whole spanking thing, did I? I know we flirt all the time, but I never want to make you uncomfortable or anything like that.”

Angela was quick to reassure her. 

“Oh that’s fine you can do whatever you want to me.” 

She saw Amanda’s eyes widen, and hers followed as she realized the implications of what she had accidently said. “Shit I didn’t mean it like that- god I am so sorry jesus” Amanda cut her off with a laugh. 

“Wow okay, I’ll remember that Angela, thanks.” The taller woman looked down with a sly grin on her face. Angela could feel her face getting red, and quickly made a joke out of the situation. 

“Oh shut up, you wish.” Angela scoffed and rolled her eyes, praying that Amanda wouldn’t catch on to her bad attempt at keeping her feelings far away. 

Amanda laughed, thankfully.

[oogalaboogalabich]

Okay but what if Soap survived and it made him even more ornery than Ghost? Straight up almost mean?

Like his brain got fucked by that bullet, and it did somethin to his emotional processing capeabilitys. good and bad, anything too emotionally charged triggers a sort of fight or flight response and defaults to anger and agression.

But hes not lowered in intelligence in any way, so hes 100% aware of the change and 100% upset about it. He wants to be able to smile and joke around with the guys but instead he has to clench his fist around his plastic spork in the base recroom so he doesnt snap and say something nasty when he would have laughed before. And that just amplifies the rage.

It makes him INSANE in combat though. He can still act and think critically but now hes got all this pent up shit inside him and after some time hes able to channel that very effectively. The moment things lean into melee and close combat he goes complete beast mode. Could clear out a room in a minute or less on his own.

thats where he finds his joy now, for the most part. Its the only time anyone other than ghost sees him smile.

Im not sure how ghost would respond to something like this, as hes a little harder for me to understand as a character.

But i like to think he would be both VERY concerned for his mental state, but also very INTO that mental state. Hed see it as something of a dormant liability, but also something that could be honed in and tamed. Both for militant and personal purposes. He likes the new, almost feral quality of the guys mood swings, but even more, he likes exhausting soap to the point where he cant do anything about that focusless rage and breaks him down into tears and gnashing teeth. Which in turn can ease down further into something almost resembling the sweet and tender moments from before soap was shot.

[leviackermanscleaningbuddy]

SKZ DRABBLE-OT8

The one where bridges start to mend. And Felix (like usual) holds the glue.

Or PART II of the fourteenth installment of the SKZ!pack Prequel Series.

Tags: SKZ, SKZ Drabble, Stay, Stray Kids, OT8, SKz!pack, skz!abo, Poly!skz, omegaverse, skz x you, skz x reader, bang chan, lee minho, seo changbin, lee felix, hwang hyunjin, han jisung, yang jeongin, kim seungmin, y/n, skz fluff, skz imagines, skz reactions, skz scenarios, skz angst

Genre: Light Angst, Fluff

Title: Sleepless in Seattle (Seoul Style) Part II

Getting Hyunjin down to Felix’s dorm is a struggle, to say the least.

Luckily, you don’t even need to try to get the barely conscious omega to walk on his own, because Changbin sweeps him up and carries him easily, leaving your only job to open doors and summon the elevator. 

Changbin makes short haste of the trip, short legs moving at a surprisingly quick pace, which leaves you and Chan to trail behind. 

You do your best to ignore the other alpha, but it’s not easy, considering all you can smell is that damned scent of rain. 

It makes you want to choke. 

Changbin waits for approximately two seconds for the elevator before he’s turning to the two of you impatiently and saying gruffly, “This is taking too long. I’m taking the stairs,” and promptly disappears from view down the adjacent stairwell. 

You sigh, rubbing at your forehead, deciding whether to follow after him, when the elevator beeps, signaling its imminent arrival, and Chan is already holding open the door for you, watching you expectantly. 

Fuck, there are so many other things you’d rather do than spend a 45 second elevator ride alone with Christopher Bang-namely gouging out your eyes with a rusty spork, or braving Minho’s unending wrath by guessing his cats’ names wrong-but you’re still here, standing, and he’s still here, waiting with that expectant look on his face, and there’s nothing else to do but step into the elevator. 

You regret it as soon as the doors close. 

The smell of impending thunderstorm is overwhelming. 

You swallow and try to focus on anything but the other alpha. 

Elevator buttons just became a whole lot more interesting. 

Chan clears his throat, and you clench your hands into fists at your side. 

“Look, I feel like I need to apologize-” He starts, and you immediately feel panic well into your throat, bitter and vile. 

“You really don’t-” You plow him over, desperate for him to just stop talking. 

God, does it really take this long to get to the next floor? 

“No, I really do.” Chan says with finality, and you stare at the ceiling with abject despair, because honestly, it’d be just your luck for the elevator to give up the ghost right now, leaving the two of you stranded for hours with nothing to talk about but feelings and apologies, waiting for the fire department to come and rescue you.

You might just die if that were to happen.

Luckily, the elevator signals the arrival to the lower floor at that moment, and the doors swoosh open before Chan has a chance to say anything else. 

“Oh look, Felix’s floor. Let’s go!” 

You’ve never exited an elevator so rapidly in your entire life. 

Felix’s dorm door is already ajar, and you pause for a moment on the threshold, readying yourself for the absolute wave of scent that’s going to hit you the moment you step inside. 

One omega in heat is rough, two is going to be absolute hell. 

You feel more than see Chan appear at your shoulder, and hear him take in a deep breath through his teeth. 

Taking in a breath of your own, you step through the doorway. 

A cacophony of lemon and orange assaults you instantly, and your wolf howls-long and low and desperate-and shit, before you can lose all control entirely, you reach up to cover your nose with your palm. 

It smells so much like Felix in here that you’re sure you’re drooling. 

And Hyunjin’s suddenly strengthened scent isn’t helping much. 

Chan swallows thickly. 

“Where’s Changbin?” 

You glance over your shoulder at him, and once again, as if he’s been summoned by the mere mention of his name, the other alpha appears, exiting Felix’s bedroom, Hyunjin’s arm slung around his waist for support. 

Your boyfriend looks better now-probably Felix’s doing, omegas need each other when they’re simultaneously in heat-more alert and a little more like himself, though he’s still drawn and entirely too pale and weak for your liking. 

Your wolf growls protectively as he stumbles slightly and Changbin holds him up. 

And then the fragrance of sweet honey hits your senses in a cloud-tinged with the milder, less noticeable smell of leaking slick-and your throat tightens, teeth suddenly aching as saliva pools beneath your tongue. 

“Bin-” You cough out, still covering your nose slightly. 

The other alpha glances at you, and you’re not quite sure how he’s remaining so stoic in the face of two omegas in heat. He’s a stronger man than you are. 

“Felix is bad. He’s on day two and he needs an alpha. Now.” 

Hyunjin whimpers at the sound of Felix’s name and sags in Changbin’s grip a bit more. 

“Binnie. It hurts.” 

Changbin glances at him, reaching up to carefully card dampened blonde bangs out of his eyes with a soft look. 

“I know, baby. Hang on just one more minute for alpha and then I’ll make it all better okay?” 

Hyunjin nods reluctantly and curls into his side, hands covering his stomach as the cramping grows stronger.

Changbin fixes his gaze back on the two of you once more, eyes dark and expression grim. 

“He wants you.” 

Your wolf preens under the attention and the idea that Felix had asked for you specifically. 

Changbin settles his gaze onto Chan. 

“He wants both of you.” 

Your mind grinds to a screeching halt, your wolf snarling and clawing at your insides, immediately at the defensive, even as Chan clears his throat anxiously beside you.

“I don’t know if that’s a good-” 

“Why the fuck would he ask for him?” You blurt out before you can stop yourself, your voice rising with anger and emotion, and Hyunjin whines and buries his face in Changbin’s chest as if your voice is physically hurting him. 

Changbin stares you down pointedly, arms going tighter around the cowering omega at his side. 

“I don’t know. But that’s what he said.” He holds your gaze sternly, lips curling back to reveal his teeth, and when he speaks again, his commanding tone has dropped into alpha territory, little more than a growl. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re both going to need to be knotted soon. So whatever asinine little competition you have going on between the two of you, Figure. It. Out.” 

Everything inside of you goes ice cold, freezes to a stop entirely.

Changbin straightens, pulling Hyunjin gently up with him. 

“I’ll take care of Jinnie. Handle Felix. When everything’s said and done, we’ll run them a bath in the common bathroom and then get them settled back in their nest together. Understood?” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer, turning to head down the hall to Felix’s small bathroom, carefully directing Hyunjin with a gentle palm in the middle of his back. 

They disappear from view and the sound of a door closing seals your fate. 

The smell of lemons slowly fades, as does the pulsing ache in your jaw. 

Beside you, Chan sighs. 

“Okay, so how do we do this?” 

You clench your hands into fists at your sides and grind your teeth for a moment of silence, trying to calm your irritated, furious alpha before you speak. 

It’s not much use. 

“Felix wants us both. You heard that part, right?” Your reply is short, biting, as if you’re goading him slightly, because you know for certain he did indeed hear that part.  “And I don’t understand, and I don’t want to, but I do know that one of my mates is in their suffering, and it’s going on the longer I stand out here, doing nothing, so I’m just gonna suck it up, and we’re gonna go in there, and do what we have to do.” 

Chan swallows again, and you want to reach a hand around his throat. 

“But what if we-” He hesitates, toeing the carpet in front of Felix’s once again closed door, and you try not to notice the way his worn pair of converse match his current nail polish. 

“What if we what?” You whirl on him, voice full of exasperation, motions reeking of irritation. 

He holds your gaze, which respect, it’s more than you would have done in the face of a pissed off, annoyed alpha. 

“What if we can’t control our instincts? What if we get too possessive? Go after each other?” 

You stare at him in open disbelief for several long moments, and then deadpan bluntly, “Then I’ll simply rip your throat out. Two of my problems solved with one stone if you will.” 

Chan stares at you for a brief moment, lips parted, as if not sure what to say, and you sigh, heavily this time, reaching up to run a hand through your hair as you ask with vexation, “C’mon, man. Don’t tell me this is your first time helping an omega through heat.” 

When the other alpha still doesn’t respond, you push forward, bating him a little, indulging in the anger, just for a moment, because it feels good to let your wolf bare its teeth, feels good to let the bubbling rage in the pit of your stomach well into something more like a threatening volcano. 

“Please. Bullshit. You seem like the typical knight in shining armor come to life-upperclassman, experienced alpha, ‘let me show you my studio, it’s entirely innocent’ type-swooping in to save little virgin omegas from their first heats, all intentions obviously completely selfless.” 

Something in Chan’s expression tweaks at your biting words, and his lips pull into a thin line. 

The scent of rain sours a bit, into something decaying, dead. 

“I don’t do things like that.” 

You can’t bring yourself to stop. 

You take a step toward the other alpha, hackles raised, dominance on display.

You let your voice drop into a stage whisper, cocking your brow at the alpha, a smirk crossing your lips.  

“C’mon, Channie. Don’t be modest. Tell me. Don’t you wanna brag about how many good little omegas have taken your knot?” 

“I don’t-” Chan takes a step to match your own, and now you’re nose to nose, his warmth breath washing across your cheekbones, the scent of rain making you dizzy. “-do that.” 

“Bullshit.” You repeat again, a hiss through your teeth now, as you drop all pretenses. “Every typical alpha I’ve ever known has been the same. Why would you be any different?” 

“Because-” Chan stops his words, popping his jaw in obvious agitation, and your wolf crows in triumph. 

Got him. 

“Why?” You press again, thoroughly enjoying watching him squirm now. 

The muscle in Chan’s jaw flickers, and you try to keep your focus on his gaze, try not to let your eyes flit down to the movement, dangerously too close to his lips. 

The thunderclouds are gathering now, dark and dangerous. 

“Because I fell in love with you, okay?”

Everything grinds to a standstill, for the second time since you entered Felix’s apartment. 

He stares at you, chest heaving, as if he’s just run a marathon, eyes large and dark, expression completely serious. 

You gape at him like a fish out of water. 

He goes on. 

“Is that what you wanted me to say?” He asks in clear exasperation, throwing his hands out, as if asking the gods above why he’s been cursed with someone like you. 

He laughs-a short, staccato, breathless sort of sound that lacks any humor-and you continue to stare at him. 

“I wasn’t that type of guy before-I was never that type of guy-but I sure as hell wouldn’t be that guy now.” He holds your gaze, his own fiery, and in this moment, you can see it, can see the alpha hidden deep within the dark depths of Chan’s eyes. Your wolf bares its throat. “I fell in love with you the moment Changbin showed me your picture, the moment I met you the first time, and Changbin? God, I’ve loved that stupid idiot ever since he first walked into my studio, ever since he showed me his first real composition.” 

Chan is breathing hard, and the storm is swirling. 

You can’t seem to tear your gaze away. 

He’s beautiful. 

He paces in the short space of Felix’s hallway, walking back and forth in front of you, tousling his hair with his fingers in an agitated movement as he talks, the curls spilling over his forehead and into his eyes. 

“And then Hyunjin-” He heaves a sigh and stops for a moment, letting his head fall back so he can stare at the ceiling. He glances at you once more, and there’s something softer in his expression now. “-did you know, the day after Changbin introduced me to all of you, Hyunjin tagged along to the studio and brought me a bottle of nail polish? Said the shade reminded him of my stupid accent or something. And then he painted my nails, right there, at the desk, while Changbin pretended not to watch from the corner of his eye, smiling the whole time.” 

You feel your breath catch in your throat, because no, you hadn’t known that. 

Hadn’t known any of it. 

Chan keeps going, resuming his pacing, and you wonder how long he’s wanted to get this off his chest. 

“I fell in love with you, and Changbin, and Hyunjin, and your whole goddamn pack, and I knew you hadn’t accepted me, not even close, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what I’d done wrong, what else I could apologize for, because you seemed-seem-to hate my guts, no matter what I try-” 

You find the courage to interrupt. 

“I don’t hate you.” 

Chan’s movements come to an abrupt halt, and he laughs again-that short, humorless chuckle that’s more like a scoff-and when he looks at you, his eyes are hard, sad. 

“Could’ve fooled me.” 

You feel guilt pool in the bottom of your stomach, replacing the anger. 

You glance toward Felix’s door, and then back to the alpha standing, waiting, in front of you. 

You take a step toward him, and go on. 

“I don’t hate you.” You reiterate, quieter this time, firmly, and a wave of frost starts to permeate the chill of rain. “I hate the way that Changbin introduced us, hate how he made me feel like meat on a platter.” You take in a deep, steadying breath, and slowly release your fingers from their fist, one by one. “I hate that everyone immediately loved you, hate that you disrupted the pack, hate that I feel this weird pull that I haven’t let myself explore because I don’t do that, I don’t believe in anything-fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it-that takes away someone’s free will.” 

Chan is watching you, still wary, but his expression is softening now. 

You take another step, staring at the carpet beneath your feet, the way your converse touch, just barely, the toes of his own. 

When you finally bring yourself to look up at him, you can’t help the sardonic hint of a smile that tugs at the corner of your mouth.

It’s all so stupid. So dumb. And yet, you can’t seem to bring yourself to stop now that you’ve started.

“I hate your stupid accent and the way your stupid curls always look so soft. I hate that you have the exact same hoodie as Changbin that makes me just want to steal it and curl up in it and never give it back. I hate your stupid producer name-C’mon, CB97?-and the stupid raging crush Changbin has had on you for forever, even though he’ll never admit it.”

Chan smiles at that, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s there. 

You stare at the appearance of his dimple, take a deep breath, and force yourself to finish it out. 

No going back now. 

“But most of all, I hate the rain. I hate it. I’ve always hated it. The rain and thunderstorms and anything remotely related to bad weather. I’ve hated it all since childhood, and then you came into the picture, and all I could smell was the damned rain, the thing that’s made me uncomfortable, uneasy, scared, terrified, for god knows how long and your scent just-” 

Chan is staring at you still, but now his lips have pulled once more into a thin line, and he looks upset again, frustrated and guilty and angry all at once. 

“-makes you feel unsafe.” He finishes with slight defeat in his tone, hands clenched now at his sides. 

It’s your turn to laugh-humorless and higher pitched than normal and a little hysterical-and Chan looks entirely caught off guard. 

“No, that’s the thing! The thing I hate more than anything.” 

He cocks his head, and you try not to think about how much he looks like an adorable, curious puppy at this moment. 

“You make me feel safe. You! The alpha who smells like rain and thunder and everything I’ve ever been scared of, everything bad that has ever plagued me. I’ve never felt safer than I do when I’m with you, when you’re near, hell, even when you’re in the same room, I feel safe and watched out for and completely at ease. And I don’t understand it, not in the slightest, and that may just be the very thing I hate most.” Uncomfortable silence stretches for an unbearable amount of time after your confession, and you’re beginning to think that Chan might just turn on his heel and leave completely, when you feel his fingers slide underneath your chin and raise your gaze to his. 

“(Y/N).” 

“Oh god, don’t.” You groan, immediately trying to pull from his grasp at his tone, soft and tender and sweet. “I’m like Minho. I’m allergic to affection.” 

Chan chuckles, for real this time. 

“No you’re not.” 

“Ask him! It’s a real medical condition-!” You begin to protest, but before you can finish, Chan leans in and slots his lips with yours. 

It’s a short kiss-chaste and simple and very much Chan-but everything inside of you melts into warm goo at the feel of his mouth enveloping your own, and though you’d never admit it, you almost want to whine for more when he pulls away. 

He regards you for a moment, small smile pulling at his lips, and then he slides his fingers off of your jaw and steps back. 

“You’re not breaking out in hives.” 

“That you can see.” You retort back in a grumble beneath your breath, and Chan laughs at your pouting. 

“Okay, drama queen, we have an omega to take care of. But later-?” 

He leaves his question open ended, and he doesn’t need to finish, because you know exactly what he means, even if the words are unspoken. 

Your heart does a weird little triptych in your chest. 

You nod. 

“Later.” 

*********

The moment you enter Felix’s room, it steamrolls you like a train barreling down the track. 

The smell. 

God, it’s like if you were standing in an orange grove, surrounded by bakers making dozens of cookies, the vanilla and citrus marrying in the air and becoming an intoxicating cocktail that instantly has your insides clenching as soon as it hits your nose, your throat, your core. 

Behind you, Chan swallows thickly once more. 

You take a deep, steadying breath, and approach the bed on as steady legs as you can muster. 

You try your best to ignore the calls of your wolf, at least for now, the incessant cries of that’s ours, our omega, he needs alpha, give him what he wants, breed him, see how well he takes you-

Instead, when you reach the edge of Felix’s carefully placed nest, you reach out a hand and let your fingers hover over him, waiting for him to come to you. 

“Lixie.” You murmur carefully, so as not to startle him, and a shaggy, disheveled head of blonde hair crests the mound of blankets. 

“Noona?” 

“Yeah, baby.” You confirm, giving him the hint of a smile, as he fully emerges now, bundled in one of Minho’s overly large sweatshirts, hair tousled and sticking up in odd directions, fingers gripping the blankets so hard his tiny knuckles turn white. “I told you I’d come, right?” 

“You did.” Felix breathes out in awe, as if he didn’t really think you would. 

You take in a deep breath through your nose, and try to ignore the saliva building beneath your tongue, the ache starting once more in your teeth. 

Felix’s pupils go wide and dark, and you know he’s just gotten a whiff of your alpha pheromones. 

The scent gland at the base of his throat is actively weeping, filling the air with heady, sugared citrus, and it’s making your thoughts hazy, making it harder and harder to ignore the cries of your desperate wolf. 

Do it. Take him. Make him feel good-

Felix shifts on the bed, slightly baring his throat to you, and the movement tugs the blankets down low around his hips, and the sight of the tan skin of his bare thighs, the sudden smell of new slick in the air, has you biting down on your tongue so hard you taste copper. 

“Lixie.” You say his name carefully, choking slightly on the delivery, as you try desperately not to focus on the delicious smells coming from the omega in front of you. “Binnie said you wanted both of us. Are you sure?” 

You’d almost forgotten Chan was in the room, but he moves to stand beside you now, and you note the way he’s digging his nails into one of his palms, leaving crescent shaped indents, red and raw, in a desperate attempt to control himself. 

You get it. You do. 

“Yeah-” Felix pants out, affirming his answer with a brief, curt nod of his head, his fingers gripping the blankets once more. 

He lets his eyes flick between you and Chan, the pink tip of his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

 “-Yes, alpha.” He corrects himself, staring up at you with large, dark eyes. 

“Good boy.” You praise in a low tone, your words dipping down into alpha timbre, and Felix’s pupils blow, the smell of oranges spiking as you lean over the bed to take his chin in your hand. 

He swallows hard, and you can feel the way his pulse flutters like a caged bird beneath the skin of his throat. 

The scent of slick is maddening. 

Chan tenses beside you, and you glance over your shoulder at him, watching him take in Felix with a sharp, predatory gaze, but his expression remains soft, like the omega is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. 

You can’t blame him. Felix is pretty and delicate and pink and everything a perfect omega should be. 

All of that only makes it all the more fun to ruin him. 

“Lixie.” You purr out, tightening your fingers on his chin, and the omega looks at you obediently. “I’m gonna walk Channie through this, okay? Are you okay with that?” 

Felix wets his lips once more, and glances at Chan, who has taken in a breath and held it at your words, as if he doesn’t dare to breathe. 

You smirk and tap a finger beneath the omega’s chin. 

“Eyes over here, Lixie. I need to hear you say it.” 

Felix slides his gaze back to you, and his eyes are slightly glassy now, a dreamy expression on his face, and you know it’s your combined alpha pheromones doing their job, taking the edge off, making him feel at ease. 

Good, your wolf purrs, our only job is to make sure the omega-our omega-feels good. 

After a brief moment, Felix nods. 

“Yes, alpha.” You release your hold on his chin and step back from him, and Felix whines at the loss of contact, almost breaking your resolve, but you settle down on the edge of the bed with a placating smile in his direction, and then turn to Chan. 

Chan, who is still staring at Felix, and has not moved from his current frozen position at the foot of the bed. 

“Channie.” 

The use of the nickname has him snapping to attention, gaze flying to your own, and you tilt your head, offering him a knowing smirk now, as you gesture with your chin to the omega lying on the bed. 

“You’re gonna have to touch him eventually, you know.” 

Chan swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, and anxiety washes across the caramel irises of his eyes, his nails once again biting into his palm. 

“I know, but I don’t want to do anything wrong.” 

“Which is why I’m going to walk you through it.” You hold his gaze until he reluctantly nods, and Felix whimpers from his place on the bed. You glance at him and reach out to run a finger down his cheek soothingly. “I know, baby, be a good boy for alpha and hold on just a little bit longer, okay?” 

Felix groans and shudders with discomfort. “It hurts, alpha. Want you.” 

“I know, baby.” You repeat, leaning over to brush some stray hair from the omega’s eyes, letting your palm linger over his scent gland, pressed against the warm skin there. 

When you pull back, Felix chases after your touch like a flower chasing the sun. 

“Channie’s gonna make it better. Don’t worry.” 

You lock gazes once more with Chan, and you see his chest rise and fall with a determined breath, before he crawls onto the bed, careful not to disturb any of the pieces of Felix’s nest. 

Felix whines again and makes grabby hands at Chan, who looks to you in an almost pleading ask of silent support. 

You bite back a smirk. 

“Lixie’s delicate. You have to give him lots of reassurance and tell him how pretty and good he is and how well he’s doing. Slow and soft and careful.” 

You see Chan swallow, his pupils blowing as he catches a whiff of Felix’s heat heightened scent, and then he leans in, Felix’s hands tangling desperately in the front of the alpha’s shirt, even as he hungrily collides their lips together with a little moan from the back of his throat. 

Pretty, you think, watching the way Chan’s mouth gently works over Felix’s, until the omega’s lips are kiss bitten pink and slick with saliva. 

They pull apart, and you have to tell yourself to ignore the wetness gathering between your own legs just from watching them together. 

Chan looks to you then, and you shrug. 

“You’re a natural.” 

He’s breathing hard, and when he speaks, his voice is raspy with want. 

“Thanks, I think.” 

You turn to Felix, who is pinned beneath Chan’s body weight, fingers still tugging at the fabric of the alpha’s shirt. 

“And Lixie-” 

He turns his head to meet your gaze, pupils blown and expression dazed, cheeks heightened with color, lips flushed and full, still shiny with spit. 

God, he’s pretty. 

“-you’re doing so good, baby, being so good for alphas, hm? What does my pretty baby want? Tell alpha, be a good boy.” 

Felix melts under the praise, and you can practically see his omega-front and center with his heat-preening under the alpha attention. 

“I want-” Felix starts, his voice hoarse, his fingers curling tighter into the front of Chan’s shirt. 

He hesitates, as if afraid to say it out loud, and Chan takes the opportunity to lean forward and kiss him again, gentle and tender and slow this time, unhurried. When they break apart for the second time, he smiles down at the omega, open fondness on his features. 

“Go on, baby. You can tell us.” 

Felix shivers at the reassurance falling from Chan’s lips, and glances back to you once more. 

“I want both of you, alphas.” 

“You have us.” You repeat firmly, voice soft, as you lean forward and card your fingers through Felix’s hair. “We’re right here.” 

“No, like-” Felix licks his lips, stumbling over his words once again, and sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. The freckles on his cheekbones wink like the stars of a far away constellation. “-I want both of you. To help me. Together.” 

“Oh.” Chan says dumbly, like he doesn’t quite get it, and then it clicks, and his eyebrows disappear into the hairline of his curls and his cheeks go a deep red. “Oh.” 

“There it is.” You laugh, already climbing onto the bed, and Chan looks at you like a deer caught in headlights. You smirk and reach out to pinch his chin between your fingers. “C’mon, pretty boy, I thought you were good at sharing.” 

Chan’s expression darkens with the challenge, his cheeks still a little pink, and your smirk widens, as you lean forward and nip his bottom lip playfully, pulling back as Felix whines from beneath the two of you. 

The smell of slick is back ten fold, and Chan visibly shudders from his spot astride Felix, his eyes swirling golden now, hot and copper and full of want. 

“Fuck, Felix.” The alpha swears low beneath his breath, the words almost a growl, and rolls his hips experimentally against the omega’s. 

Felix’s hands fly up to splay palm down with a solid thwack against Chan’s chest as he gasps, his lips parting and his eyes fluttering closed. 

 You reach out to grip his chin, and Felix opens his eyes once more, gaze filmed over with desire, and you smirk, letting your hand trace down the column of his throat, tracing his weeping scent gland slowly and deliberately with the tip of your finger. 

Felix gasps again, and this time, it’s a coherent word. 

“Please.” 

From atop him, Chan groans, low and primal in the back of his throat, and you meet the squirming omega’s gaze with dark, hooded eyes, your fingers tangling into his hair as you lean in. 

“My pretty omega. Pretty Lixie. You’ve been such a good boy. Such an angel for alphas. I think it’s high time we gave you a reward.” 

[sporkberries]

Janet Drake appearing in a comic for the first time in like 20+ years was not on my bingo card

[zillaphoneswag]

Amanda x Angela Headcanons (3)

Who spends almost all their money on the other?

Amanda

Who sleeps in the other’s lap?

Angela

Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway?

You would think that Amanda would be the former and Angela the latter, but for once it isn’t. They go to bed at the same time and the minute they do Angela’s out like a light. Amanda might read a bit but not for more than thirty minutes. They’ve never been able to sleep as well as they do with each other. If they stay up late, they stay up late together.

Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes?

Angela

Which one does the posing while the other draws?

Angela poses fantastically for photos and portraits. One of Amanda’s hobbies is drawing or painting and her favorite muse is Angela. Especially in the bedroom.

Which one likes to surprise the other with a lot of small, random gifts?

Angela

Who comes home from work to see that the other rescued a puppy?

Amanda

Who takes selfies when the other falls asleep on their shoulder?

Amanda

Who laughs too much?

They both do, honestly.

When they go to the beach, who relaxes and who just digs a giant hole?

Amanda will be happy just reading a book. Angela is determined to dig a hole so deep she can stand in it.

Who buys ice cream and who’s the one that always steals licks from it?

Amanda buys the ice cream but she gets Angela’s favorite flavor because she knows that Angela will end up eating all of it.

Who massages the other’s shoulder when they’ve had a hard day?

Angela

Who loves reading with the other and always has book recommendations?

Amanda

Who ties the other’s shoe because they see the laces flying around?

Amanda

Who plays with the other’s fingers as a form of self-comfort and affection?

Angela

Who takes pictures of the other when they don’t realize it because they look too cute not to do it?

Amanda

Who pulls the other into the warmest hugs?

Amanda

Who says random “I love yous” just in case they forgot?

Angela

Who fixes the other’s hair for them?

Amanda

Who strokes the other’s face while they’re sleeping?

Amanda

Who writes the other a song for their birthday?

Angela

Who makes sure the whole cast knows it’s the other’s birthday?

Angela

Who watches YouTube compilations for DIY couple's Halloween costumes and immediately runs out to get the materials?

Amanda

Who gets scared at a haunted house and who’s yelling about how cool everything is?

As someone who freaked out about FNAF, Amanda loses it at a haunted house. Meanwhile, Angela can’t shut up about how awesome the effects are.

Who talks in their sleep and who thinks it’s so fucking cute?

Angela says so much cute shit in her sleep about Spork, Amanda, etc. and Amanda’s heart melts.

Who warms up a blanket in the dryer for the other when they’re sick?

Amanda

Who pulls the shoes off the other when they collapse in bed with a fever?

Amanda

Who constantly hogs the blankets?

Angela

Who gives spontaneous piggyback rides?

Amanda

Who gives little moans during a kiss when the other bites their lip?

Angela

Who isn’t able to speak after a long kiss?

Angela

Who puts their hands around the other’s waist spontaneously for a slow dance, even if there’s no music?

Amanda

Who snores just a bit and refuses to admit it?

Amanda

Who bakes a birthday cake for the other on their birthday?

Amanda

Who kisses the other all over their face to wake them up in the morning?

Angela

Who tells the other “happy birthday” all day the day of their birthday?

Angela

Who knew their partner’s favorite everything since before they got together?

Angela

Who traces their partners features while they sleep?

Amanda

[not-poignant]

Out of curiosity, when did the, 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon, everything is valid and good, don't give concrit unless specifically asked for' attitude become the norm? Genuine question.

I was active in fandom back in the LJ days, when sporkings and comms viciously mocking Mary Sues were the norm, but then I sort fell out of fandom spaces for the past (checks notes) fifteen years holy shit. The current attitude seems diametrically opposed to what I remember fandom being like (kinda shitty, it was 'cool' to be an asshole back then), and I'm just curious as to when and how the shift happened. I mean, I assume it was a gradual thing, but is there anything in particular that stick out to you?

(Also, because tone doesn't convey very well through ask, and I don't want to leave you with a poor impression-- this is by no means a defence of the 2000s attitudes, nor an aspersion on the current ones. I'm genuinely only curious about the evolution from one to the other; I hope that comes across.)

Hi anon!

TL;DR because my response got LONG -> Anon this existed before Livejournal as an attitude, in fact modern fandom was literally born out of being not canon compliant (*waves aggressively to Spirk shippers*) and this existed on Livejorunal too and there have always been big pockets of fandom that really frowned on sporking even there, like that was not cool when I was on LJ, unless you were a certain age, or in certain spaces in fandom.

But also AO3 was its kind of final death knell re: making it cool to bully 13-16 yo writers (who were largely the victims of sporking) and killing dreams, which was born out of meta happening on LJ and in other places about like... not trying to make people miserable for writing a free fic out of the love in their heart that someone else didn't like or think was good enough.

Anyway, the longer version of this under the read more!

(For everyone else, welcome to some of the uglier aspects of 00s fandom!)

So there was actually criticism around all the stuff you mention 15-20 years ago as well. I was also on Livejournal during that time and there was a pretty big proportion of people in certain fandoms who recognised even then that like... setting up communities to mock say, Mary Sue writers, was actually a pretty weirdly cruel thing to do to people who were providing free labour and the literal only 'payment' they could get in a kind of energy exchange was people just not being complete dickheads to them.

So things were already changing, especially in many LJ communities and awards communities. There were a lot of big debates over whether concrit should be asked for, and a growing movement of authors who said they welcomed constructive criticism for example, instead of assuming it should automatically apply. There was also a lot of meta around the function of fanfiction and whether it should even be 'good' by published standards if the author was just doing it for themselves, and for fun (esp if they were just going to get punished for it by folks who were elitist, judgemental, grammar purists etc.)

Things really changed around the time of AO3 (2009-2010 - literally around 14~ years ago, you may have just missed the big change anon!), Strikethrough and the Dreamwidth exodus. There was a massive swing away from leaving concrit unless the author specifically asked for it, and fandom became a lot more generally able to recognise that a lot of labour goes into fanart and fanfiction and that paying with public criticism is shitty actually. Also people were just more able to recognise that like most fanfiction writers aren't trying to become professional writers and many don't want to be.

(I would actually say things changed around the time of fanfiction.net too - rude comments there were definitely noticed and could create some pretty forward 'hey why are you doing this on something you literally don't have to read' responses from fellow readers - idk what fic sites you were on. The small indie fic sites where you could often only comment via email for example, definitely drew a lot more critical attention than sites that tended to have public comments).

The 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon' literally exists since the very first Spirk slash fic in modern fanfiction in the last few decades. Literally, as soon as you write Kirk/Spock, you're not adhering to canon. Our fanfiction 'ancestors' literally paved the way for a legacy which is about not adhering to canon in order to see the world/s and thing/s you want to see, be entertained by, by turned on by, or enjoy, from the very beginning. You may not have been in slash circles anon, but the foundation of queer same sex fanfic is in many ways the foundation of fandom. But yeah, this is literally where fanfiction started! As soon as you're shipping characters that aren't canon for fun (or for whatever reason), you're making it pretty clear that you want stories different to canon, and you have to change things to often keep those characters in-character.

So yeah! That's been there for decades. Idk what circles you were in on that front! While it was fairly common for a while to criticise characters for being OOC (Out of Character), imho, a lot of folks started to recognise that they literally weren't paying for what they were criticising, and they could just walk away and potentially not like...blast the fanfic. Some folks started to recognise more that people were writing with ESL, or were teenagers (some 40 yos in fandom realised they were mocking literal 15 year olds in their proto-podcasts and websites and realised actually that's just...mean? Really mean? Not the way to nurture new generations of fanfiction writers. Definitely in no way encouraging), or were writing for themselves, or writing for like one other person, or writing for fun, or writing for free, or writing for personal reasons etc.

'Don't Like Don't Read' wasn't just about political stuff, it was also about just walking away if you feel the urge to slam a fanfic in the comments.

I've been in fandom for around 2.5 decades anon, and there were so many spaces that were not actually as shitty or mean-spirited as the ones you were in? Or ones that at least had a lot of different thoughts etc. Like, sporking (mocking/bullying badfics and sometimes the folks who wrote them) was disapproved of by a lot of people in fandom even while sporking was at the height of its popularity (the Fanlore page goes into more detail about this). It might have just been the fandoms you were in, or the people you were hanging out with (and that might have been dependent on your age or just if you were around people who wanted to be 'cool' back then - in the same way that being an 'anti' is cool among certain crowds today. It's possible to spend years in certain crowds and never get an image of broader fandom for example - we can all end up in spaces like that! I know I have.)

When I started writing fanfiction (which no one will EVER find lmao), generally giving positive comments was normal. Constructive criticism was actually pretty rare and there were already fanfiction aggregate sites that generally disapproved of it in their Rules of Conduct. People were encouraging and polite. And this was around 20 years ago on Livejournal and private indie fanfiction websites.

I would actually say there was never exactly an evolution from 'one to the other' because like thousands of people in fandom already believed this and argued in defense of supporting fanfiction and transformative works via accepting that people are labouring for free and that not everyone wants to become a 'better writer' etc. - the meta was there on Livejournal in the 00s. There were communities where sporking was seen as hip/fun, and communities where it was literally banned or at the very least, super frowned upon.

There were meta fandom communities where sporking was the subject of discussion and you know eventually in a lot of those meta communities, that's where a lot of folks decided actually that calling out the fanfiction of 16 yos as 'cringe' or 'badly done' maybe said more about us as human beings and what we wanted fandom to be, than it did about the actual fanfic itself. By the time AO3 came around, people built it with this in mind.

To this day on AO3 it's mostly considered appropriate to say you want concrit in your author's notes, and to otherwise assume as a reader it's never welcome if it's unsolicited. That started during the LJ era. And it was talked about at great length. There's obviously going to be people who disagree! But for the most part I'm a big believer in compassion and 'not everyone is here for the same reason' and 'they literally gave this to us for free and it's meant to be fun' (like yourself! What we do/think/argue 10 years ago on LJ is sometimes different to what we do 10 years later lol, I used to be against trigger warnings pre-AO3! Times change a lot :D )

So yeah, this was definitely something that was around before you and I came to fandom, and it was something that continued to grow as an attitude during, until finally it kind of won out on AO3. But yeah fandom as we know it was born in people literally not being canon compliant to make some gay dreams come true (Spirk shippers bless them all), at a time when there was no representation.

Even in the earliest days of fandom where comments could only happen via email, one of the earliest phrases authors used were things like 'flames will be used to roast marshmallows.' For those reading who don't know, flames are hate comments, critical 'this fic is bad because' comments etc. Except you emailed them directly to the author, because there was no place for comments on a fic.

And this started because authors in part got death threats for writing gay stuff.

So you know, from the very beginning, authors in fanfic have by and large had a very low tolerance for criticism / hate over something they're doing for free and making no profit out of, when they're changing/altering the canon as they please to create representation (or hotness lmao), that is literally a labour of love in a world of very little representation. From there, things have just grown. The whole 'flames will not be tolerated' existed even before Livejournal did.

Honestly there are still people who love sporking and you could probably find groups and Discords dedicated to that even now (actually you literally can, there's a Dreamwidth group for it), it's kind of wild but it started to get cool again. Just like 90s clothing :D (Which is also wild because I can just take that crap out of my closet and wear it again).

But yeah it also sounds like you may have been in some pretty crappy pockets of fandom! When I was on LJ in the 00s I avoided those places and still got to experience fandom across multiple fandoms (mostly NCIS, Captive Prince, HP, Profiler, The X-Files and some others) and communities.

I was super active in some fandom communities and saw a lot of meta happening, and my view during the early and late 00s was that sporking was largely pretty frowned upon after a very brief (like 3-6 month) era where it was cool for only some folks, and then everyone (including some - but not all - of those folks) was like 'heyyyyyyy hang on a minute.' It was something that the bullies did, and enjoyed, and otherwise folks kind of stayed away from it, especially once they learned people were becoming too scared to write fics, which is the inevitable outcome of mocking/bullying folks and fics that have been made purely out of love for something.

Like, publicly making a spectacle out of what a 13 yo (they were often teens - and it's kind of sad how many 40 yo women were doing the sporking :/ ) wrote out of love, just for fun/clout was not considered cool by everyone even back then, because like, a lot of us saw that as killing new generations of fandom (some folks who sporked considered it a win if a fic or account got deleted, this is not based behaviour), not actually creating good writing, internalised misogyny (Mary Sue hatred and self insert hatred), etc. It's hard to explain because I do really think we were in different corners of fandom at the time, but I don't know anyone personally from my time on Livejournal who actually liked sporking as an idea or enjoyed it or enjoyed listening to it or reading articles mocking fic.

I knew about it from very lively 'is this okay' 'actually no it's not even if it's just for fun this is trying to hurt people and saying 'it's just the fic' is not going to be the bandaid a teenager needs to understand why older folks (generally) in fandom are mocking them for being new at a skill' discussions on LJ in meta fandom communities. So this is how much I could be in fandom and not be a part of it and also have like a wildly different experience to your LJ experience!

I think if I'd been a teenager during that era it would have seemed a lot more appealing (in the same way that many teens are antis now before they grow out of it), and fuck it if I was a more bitter person who was just around people who liked to make fun of what other people created, perhaps I would have enjoyed it too, I can see a lot of reasons why a person would fall into that in LJ -> but I was an adult on LJ trying not to be mean to people or what they were creating, so yeah I was maybe just in very different spaces! (Don't get me wrong, I have my giant fucking character flaws, but I was very scared of people hating me so like I didn't want to do things that would make that happen, lol, and also I was scared to put up fic myself during the era of active sporking. I know for myself that sporkers didn't just scare away writers of 'badfic' - they...intimidated a LOT of people).

Before AO3 I was on FF.net, posting fics on LJ, posting on Schnoogle, gossamer, and a couple of other archives. So I don't think my experience was that 'narrow,' I just think I wasn't around like... anime at that time or other places where it might have been happening. I also avoided like...Draco/Malfoy where CC drama was happening and I know sporking was popular in that specific arena / pairing for a while as well (er, as well as anything to do with Mary Sues).

So yeah! That's about where that is. Generally gatekeeping fandom is just seen as not a great thing to do to people, and that creates other kind of beliefs that are generally upheld as being more inviting/nurturing. After all, if someone truly wants to get better at writing, they can ask, or do courses, but as we all know, everyone has to write some bad stuff to get good at it, but not everyone wants to be good. Folks are in fandom for different reasons. I'm rambling now so I'm going to finish my lunch! :D

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Sunflower, Book 1, Chapter 17

Tom Hiddleston x OFC Series rated: E Chapter warnings: Flashback- is it getting hot in here or is it just me? Let's be real folks, I've been lowkey blueballing you on the smut for months, it's just getting worse this week. The flashback is sexy but hardly crossing to rated M. AN: Ladies, gents, spoons, sporks and forks- Sunflower is here! Let's see how Mia's anxiety can fuck shit up *this week* **shuuuuhhhh I totally didn't get the chapter number wrong for a min***

Masterlist Kofi

~~~~~<3

It felt weird to have Tom in the apartment again. The same bags he had left with were stacked neatly by the wall as he set to work helping her make breakfast. Tom was humming as he peeled potatoes, not many but more than Mia had initially planned to make for her and Sally. 

He said he missed her. She hadn’t had a chance to say it back though, the words stuck in her paralyzed throat. Instead she found herself trapped in his eyes and then he was kissing her like it would give him life. She had kissed him back. 

What did that mean? What did it all mean?

If she asked him, he would tell her it meant they were married and just doing what married people did or some variation of it, she was sure. But it had to have some deeper meaning. Was it true?

She wanted to tell him she had missed him too but the moment was gone. It would be weird now to say it, wouldn’t it? They had moved on from kissing to breakfast. 

The moment was gone. 

~~~~~<3

“Tom!” Sally’s voice came from the hall, sleep replaced by excitement as soon as her eyes hit him. 

“Sally!” Tom matched her enthusiasm, putting down the bowl of potato shreds. 

He took a second to rinse his hands, sending shredded potatoes down the drain and didn’t bother drying them. He rushed around the counter as Sally ran to him. Her small frame was enveloped in his arms as he lifted her up. Giggles filled the apartment as he spun her around, letting the small girl’s momentum drive the dance.

Mia’s heart couldn’t help but open to him just a little bit more. What if she could have this for more than a year? What if this could be her forever? What if this could be Sally’s forever?

Shaking her head, Mia tried to banish the thoughts. Their relationship needed to crawl before it could walk, let alone run. It was too soon to be thinking of forever. 

“I missed you.” Sally said so easily what Mia had been trying to figure out how to say herself for the last hour. 

“I missed you too.” Tom squeezed the little girl in one last hug before setting her back down. “Why don’t you go get dressed while we finish making breakfast?”

Sally ran off to do just that. She was young but a dutiful child. It didn’t take a lot to set her on the right path for the morning, something Mia had always been truely thankful for. 

~~~~~<3

"Did Tom bring us flowers?” Sally asked, sitting at the counter while she ate. 

Tom and Mia sat at the table but Sally couldn’t be convinced to join them. The counter was by far the neatest place to eat her meals, as far as Sally was concerned. It wasn’t a battle Mia thought was worth fighting, so she didn’t. 

“I got them for your Mom.” Tom said and quickly added when Sally’s face began to fall, “I got you something else.” 

“What? What!” Sally was on cloud nine having her funny talking friend back. 

“After breakfast!” Mia interjected. The last thing she needed was whatever Tom brought getting covered in pancake syrup.

“You heard her, after breakfast.” Mia appreciated how easily Tom seemed to fall into the step parent role. 

Was that what he was doing? Would he accept such a title? Would she be alright giving him that title? Did it matter at this point, anyway? 

~~~~~<3

When dishes were safely in the sink and sticky hands and faces washed, Tom finally went to his suitcase. Carefully, he pulled a gift bag out and presented it to Sally.

“Can I open it?” She asked, fingers picking ever so carefully at the tissue paper.

“Of course.” Tom smiled at Sally, kneeling on the ground next to her. 

Mia watched over them from where she leaned against the counter as Sally pulled blobs of tissue paper out. Colorful fluffs of paper fell to the floor around her as she uncovered the bear hidden inside. 

It was dark blue and held a stuffed Lady Liberty in his paws. His white shirt had the classic ‘I <3 NY’ decal on the front. The bear wore soft dark plastic sunglasses and looked terribly soft. 

“I love it.” Sally squished the stuffed animal to her chest and seemed to curl in on it in her enthusiasm. 

As soon as she uncurled from the tight hug, she launched herself at Tom again. Little arms wrapped around his neck as she knocked him off his feet and onto the ground. He caught her and returned her hug as she thanked him repeatedly.

Was this what his future would be? Bringing home trinkets and flowers for his wife and daughter when he returned from his travels? A warm greeting and appreciation waiting at home? 

This was a life he could get used to. 

That was terrifying. 

~~~~~<3

Sally sat happily coloring with her bear. In her game, the bear was telling her what colors to use where and she was being a very good listener. The page she was working on was a coloring sight word page where she was practicing color name recognition in preperation for kindergarten starting shortly. 

Mia reminded herself again that she needed to transfer Sally’s enrollment from the school she had been planing on attending in a few months to the one near their new home. 

Moving was such a hassle, she thought as she started the dish washer. It was worth it though. She couldn’t help but be happy she gave in when she looked around. 

“Can we talk?” Tom asked, leaning against the counter. “Catch up a bit?”

Mia hated it when people said things like that. Her anxiety instantly spiked and she worried. With how common anxiety even was anymore, it amazed her that people still opened conversations with ‘can we talk’.

“Sure?” Mia followed him into her bedroom as Tom carried his bags in. 

Blankets were bunched around on the bed. She hadn’t gotten around to making it yet this morning. 

Tom glanced around but didn’t mention the mess of dirty laundry tossed into the corner. She had thought she had time to clean up before he got there.

“What did you want to talk about?” She swung the door mostly closed behind her. Being alone with him, or at least mostly alone made her heart beat faster. She told herself to stop acting like a schoolgirl. 

“I’m not sure how to say this. I don’t want to intrude but also-” 

“It’s a bit late for not intruding, don’t you think?” Mia smiled and tried to laugh to soften the blow of her poor attempt at a joke. He intruded the moment he decided he was against an annulment. “That ship has sailed.”

“I suppose so.” Tom chuckled, running his fingers through his short hair. The morning sun was strong through the bedroom window, bathing him in the warm light. The bedrooms got direct morning sun and the living space was lit up perfectly with sunlight during the day. Right now, that morning sun was playing on his sharp features and highlighting the golden and auburn hues in his hair. 

He could play one of God’s most beautiful angels. Perhaps, he could play Lucifer himself. Was he a blessing or a devil?

Mia had to get her mind under control. This was getting ridiculous. 

“I want- I think it would be best if I made this my home base.” The words came carefully. “I think it would be better for us if this was my home too.” 

“Better for us?” 

“For getting to know eachother. Building our relationship.” Tom smiled at her. “I don’t think we can really give this a fair shot if we live separate.”

“What are you saying?” Mia didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Are you saying you want to move in?” 

Tom’s smile lit up his face. “Yes! I want to live with you as man and wife. What better way to get to know eachother more?”

“You don’t think this is too fast?” Mia’s head was spinning. 

“Hasn’t that ship sailed as well?” Oh he was good, she had to admit it.

“What does that even mean? Like, really mean?” Mia sat on the bed as Tom unzipped the suitcase. 

“That’s a ‘yes’ then?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, fine.” It was fast, too fast, but what was the point in arguing with him. 

He would argue until she gave up anyway. The man took their marriage seriously and if he thought they needed to live together than he would be as adamant about it as he was about even remaining married in the first place. 

“Is there space in the closet for me?” Tom asked. “I don’t have a lot of clothes but I’ll probably bring more when I come back next time.”

“Just shove stuff aside and pick a side.” She wasn’t really attached to any section of the closet, she hadn’t lived in the apartment long enough to have things like a preferred side of the closet. It wasn’t like she had enough clothes to really fill it anyway. There was more than enough room for both of them. “There’s hangers if you need- I’ve got a lot of extras.”

“Thanks.” Tom waisted no time in slipping shirts onto hangers. His suits were in zipped bags with plastic hangers just waiting to be hung up. 

“I don’t have much dresser space.” 

“We can pick up another dresser.” Tom hung his pants over the hangers and left what couldn’t be hung in his suitcase for now. “That’s not a problem.” 

“How was New York?” Mia asked, not wanting to leave him but also feeling awkward sitting on her bed and watching him put his clothes away in her closet. No, their closet. 

“It was alright. Mostly late night shows.” 

“Is it stressful?” Mia picked at the blankets. 

“It can be. There’s a good bit of pressure with everything going on,” Tom shrugged, “But I’ve got standing relationships with a few of them so it’s not as bad as it could be.”

Tom set his suitcases in the closet, the carry on nestled within the larger. 

“How long will you be here this time?” Mia cringed at how that sounded. ���Not that I’m trying to get you to go, I just-”

“You want me here?” Tom looked back at her with his eyebrow raised. 

On impulse she threw a pillow at him. Her face was hot and she dreaded to know how red it looked. She wanted to back peddle, to tell him how he was assuming things or putting words in her mouth but there was no way she could do that without swinging wildly the other way and sounding like an ass. 

“You don’t have to answer.” Tom’s laugh told her that he already knew the answer anyway. 

“I don’t not want you here.” Was the answer she settled on giving. 

“I’ll take it.” Tom’s smile made her smile, she couldn’t help it.

Oh God, was she falling for him?

~~~~~<3

~~~~~<3

The springs in the bed squeaked as Tom all but threw her onto it. He loomed over her, admiring how her brown hair fanned out around her, contrasting with the cream bedding and the white of her dress. Her face was flushed, it had been all night but now it looked even better now, looking up at him. 

There was something intoxicating about standing over a flushed woman laying on his bed. Her dress was bunched around her thighs. It had long been one of Tom’s favorite sights. This though, her being his bride, made the sight oh so much better. Tom couldn’t help but run his fingertips up the soft flesh of her thighs.

He traced the tan line that marked where shorts hand cut the sun’s harsh power. It had been a while since he had seen something as simple as a unintentional tan line. 

She was so beautifully normal and he loved her already for it.

As she rose up on her elbows, he admired how the change of position pushed her breasts up. 

“Something wrong?” She asked. 

“Not even a little.” Tom planted his hands on either side of her waist and leaned forward and into her. 

Using one arm to support herself, she ran her other hand up his chest. Her fingers wrapped around his neck and pulled him to her. The kiss started sweet, a reminder of romance she had begun to think was only for story books and movies. 

It quickly became fierce however. These were the kisses that she knew existed but damn, it had been so long since she had kissed someone who was so good at it. She wanted more. Craved it. Needed it. 

Tom rolled them, pulling her to straddle him. Just as he had appreciated how she looked sprawled out on the bed, she was caught in a moment of admiration as well. 

Never in her life had she slept with a man as good looking as Tom. Now he was her’s and this was her reality. He belonged to her now and she to him. She won the Vegas jackpot. 

She could feel how much he wanted her as she rested on his hips. Though that was exciting, just having a man as strong and successful as him under her was enough of a rush in itself. He was beautiful. 

Tom rather liked having his wife straddling his lap. This was something he hadn’t thought he could ever have but it was here. She was here. It was his wedding night and she wore a beautiful white dress just for him. He wanted to see on the floor. 

Sitting up, he kissed her neck and chest as his arms wrapped around her. Her skin was so soft under his lips. While he worked along her collar bone, she ran her nails through his hair.

She smelled like sunshine, flowers and summer time. She smelled like sunflowers. What a strange, unique choice. What a beautifully her choice. 

When he found just the right spot, she couldn’t stop the moan that fell from her lips. That was a sound he wanted to hear her make again and again. Tom was hard in his trousers and she was pressed against him, each shift she made in his lap sending a wave of pleasure through him. She felt good against him, held against his chest, wrapped in his arms, neck against his lips.

He wanted to feel more of her against him. Never in his life, had he wanted to delve into a woman more than he did at that moment. Not once in his life. 

Not once. 

~~~~~<3

Tag List: @winterisakiller, @alexakeyloveloki, @jennyggggrrr, @dangertoozmanykids101, @tilltheendwilliwrite @tinchentitri @wizardcherryblossom @buttercupcookies-blog @violethaze @kats72 @soulpiercing @evedia

[japhan2024]

THE ISLAND

Chapter 3: Spork

Note: this is quite a standalone chapter 😁 so you could only read this one. Or read the entire fic on AO3.

Amanda and Trevor are on a mission to be the first to report a story about an eccentric artist.

Chapter word count: 2.137

Rating: general or teen (alcohol)

Amanda was in a hurry.

The only one who could keep up with her was Trevor. He was her bandana wearing photographer and just as tall as her.

“This could be a big scoop,” she said while walking determinately to her car.

“Isn’t that Giarratana lady the artist who made that huge controversial 9/11 memorial in LA and did a whole performance art thing with it, but she got the year wrong somehow?”

“Yes! She’s crazy. But she’s apparently a genius and we need to get there fast before anyone else is tipped off!”

“Where are we going?”

“Silver Lake dog park.”

“Alright, let’s go!” Trevor threw his gear in the trunk and sat down in the passenger’s seat of the 1995 Portaro, one of the last of its kind.

“I wish new cars were this low-tech,” Trevor mused while playing with the manual window crank.

Amanda sped along the 110.

“I know! I wish they were too! I mean, we’d boil alive without AC, I had to let that be built in. But for the rest, I prefer this old timer over any malfunctioning crap they make these days.”

“Yeah, like at least this one works. Mine doesn’t do shit. Oh well. At least I still have my cars in GTA.”

“In what?”

“Never mind.”

Amanda glanced sideways at Trevor with a smirk on her face.

“I’m just playing with you, I know GTA. I used to watch my sister play, she was a nightmare oh my god. She kept jumping out of a helicopter close to the water, just to see if she could do it without dying, only to die again and again. It was SOMETHING I tell ya. So yeah, I know my games, I am down with the youth and everything.”

Trevor lost it.

“Amanda, there isn’t anyone who is less down with the youth that I know of, than you. And I say this lovingly!”

“HEY! That’s just because you don’t tell me anything!”

They joked back and forth.

“And that’s because I know you won’t understand!”

“TRY ME!”

“Alright, alright, sheesh!” Trevor fondly looked at his colleague. Amanda was so full of enthusiasm, giving it her all every day. They might work at a silly outlet, but she always pursued stories that had a social or environmental impact. And her sharp questioning made the articles so much better. It made Trevor want to follow her anywhere. To the end of the world if need be. Of course, the end of the world wasn’t far off anyway.

“I swear Amanda, we HAVE to play GTA together sometime.”

“Okay! We will!”

“It’s pretty much a Millennial game anyway.”

“Oh shit, I have to take a left here…”

Amanda drove them all the way to a parking lot which faced the entrance of the park. A couple of ancient proud pine trees encircled it.

“Okay, grab your stuff! I think I see something going on already.”

As Amanda and Trevor walked into the park, there was a small group of people standing huddled together. They approached in tall strides.

“Hi! We’re from People.com. Wow, you all look so nice, what an iconic shirt you have! But yeah, we are looking for Angela Giarratana. Do you know where she is?” Amanda asked the group.

“Hii, welcome! Awesome that you’ve come! But she’s already on the lake,” said the guy with the iconic shirt. He had curly, bleached hair, ripped jeans and retro Vans.

“Shit! Trevor, come on, we gotta go!”

“Yes ma’am!”

They reached the lake in no time. It was a nice park, a bit provincial and uninspired maybe, but the lake provided the trees, shrubs and plants with enough water to hold on and create an oasis in the middle of the city.

“ANGELA??”

They spotted a flounder in the middle of the lake, apparently with Angela on it. She was busy doing something, Amanda and Trevor couldn’t make out what.

“HI! YOU CAN USE THAT BOAT OVER THERE!”

Angela gestured to a bowrider a couple of yards away. They scuttled towards it.

“You can leave your stuff, Trev, nobody is gonna steal it and you won’t need it on the lake.”

“I guess...”

Trevor looked unsure. But he put his gear down, took his camera and held Amanda’s hand, helping her step onto the boat.

“Thanks. Oooh this is so wobbly…”

Trevor climbed in too and tried to start the motor. It was dead.

Amanda panicked. “Shit shit SHIT! What if the whole thing’s already up and we’re still here!”

“I saw some oars lying around on the shore. Shall I get them?”

Amanda blinked. “Yes. Yes, of course, that’s genius. Trevor, what would I do without you?” She spontaneously kissed him on the cheek.

Smiling abashedly, Trevor rowed them towards Angela’s boat.

“Hi! You guys are right on time!”

A woman with a wild bob-cut, big eyes and an even bigger smile stood up and bowed over to shake their hands above the water.

“I’m Amanda and this is Trevor,” Amanda matched Angela’s smile. “Thank you so much for letting People.com know of this amazing new project you’re revealing today.”

“Oh! Any time! You know, I just want people to hear my message. And you have a lot of readers. So, see this?” Angela gestured to some kind of contraption next to her on the flounder. “This thingy- this motor, will inflate my doggy. I just checked everything. We’re ready to go.”

“Okay alright! Wait! Trevor, do you have a good shot?”

“Maybe we should back up a little?”

“Probably a good idea!” Angela confirmed. “It’s a big girl!”

“I love big girls,” Trevor joked.

Amanda widened her eyes in fake-shock.

Trevor paddled them a bit backwards. When they were in position, Amanda got out her phone.

“I’m also going to live-stream it to our website!”

“Great idea!” Angela shouted from her boat. She started the motor. Trevor had his camera ready.

Angela was shouting even louder now. She had to, because the motor was roaring with an angry fervor. A small crowd had gathered on the shore of the lake.

“OKAY! HERE WE GO! WELCOME EVERYONE! THIS IS ABOUT LIFE! ABOUT FRIENDSHIP! ABOUT LOVE AND LOYALTY! IF WE FIND LOVE, THAT’S GREAT AND RARE! MOST PEOPLE, HOWEVER, NEVER FIND IT! BUT JUST LOOK AROUND AND PET YOUR NEAREST DOG! YOU’LL SEE THEY ARE THE FULL PACKAGE! THEY TEACH US ABOUT HUMANITY EVERY DAY….”

Something stirred in the lake. Slowly, a shape emerged from the water.

“WE ALL KNOW THAT PETS HAVE IT HARD THESE DAYS AND DOGS CAN ONLY GO OUTSIDE IN THE NIGHT AND THE MORNING. SO, TO HONOR MAN’S GREATEST COMPANION, I PRESENT TO YOU: SPORK!”

The shape turned into a giant dog. It wasn’t exactly realistic, but it certainly was an artistic impression of a dog.

“This is incredible,” Amanda said, looking at the hovering canine. She got a bit teary-eyed. She filmed for a couple more moments and then ended the stream.

“Why is it called Spork?” Trevor asked.

“MY DOG IS CALLED SPORK, I NAMED THIS AFTER HIM.”

“Awww,” Amanda wiped her tears, but more were flowing down. “That’s so precious.”

“COULD YOU GIVE ME A LIFT BACK?”

“Yes, sure, hop in!”

Amanda helped Angela into their boat and Trevor got them back to shore safely. The crowd applauded.

“How long will Spork stay here?” Amanda asked Angela when they stood firmly back on land.

“I hope for at least a year. I got a license for that period.” Angela’s voice was a little raspy from all the shouting.

“You kept everything secret for a long time. Why?”

“Well, you know, there’s always people who try and tell our stories for us. I want to do it with my voice, when I think the time is right.”

“I loved your speech. There’s hardly anything more human than to love a pet, isn’t there?”

“Yeah… Angela looked over Amanda’s shoulder. Amanda turned around.

“There he is!”

The guy Amanda talked to earlier came, carrying a small doggy.

“Oh my god, he’s so cute!” Amanda exclaimed. “Can we take a picture of you and Spork, and big Spork?”

“Of course!” Angela posed and Trevor took a couple of shots.

“You can stay here with us if you want, we’re going to have a picnic.”

Amanda and Trevor looked at each other.

“Yeah, sure, why not!” Trevor answered.

They all sat down on the grass, looking at mega-Spork floating in the warm but gentle evening breeze.

“Angela, have you checked that she’s secured, in case of extreme weather?”

“Of course, we’ve taken all appropriate safety measures and gotten the license from the city.”

“I had to ask, I’ll add it to the piece,” Amanda was already typing on her phone.

“You write your articles with your thumbs?” Angela asked, tilting her head and frowning, bemused.

“Honestly, it’s what works fastest for me,” Amanda answered without looking up. “There, I’m finished. Trevor, did you upload the pictures?”

“Of course.”

“Okay… and here we go! Published! Haha, we did it again!”

Amanda and Trevor high-fived.

Angela looked at them excitedly. “That’s amazing!” She said. “You’re so fast, oh my god!”

“The business of getting scoops is cut-throat,” Amanda explained.

“I bet!”

“And I can always add to it, if new stuff comes up. Speaking of…”

A woman in a pink pantsuit and a guy holding her umbrella walked up to the group of people.

“Very good, very impressive,” she said. Her long hair waived in the gentle breeze.

Angela quickly got up and shook the woman’s hand. “Thank you, mayor Catanese!”

Trevor took more pictures.

“I think this piece of art will inspire the people around Silver Lake to treat their pets and each other kindly and help each other out in these trying times.”

“I hope it will.”

The mayor posed for a couple more pictures, shook some hands and then left.

Angela sat down again.

“Politicians always want to be part of other people’s hard work, don’t they,” Trevor joked.

“I mean of course they do, that’s their job basically,” Angela answered. “But it does give me even more publicity.”

“You’re right, I’ve added the mayoral visit to the story just now.” Amanda winked. Angela blushed.

“And according to the statistics, this really bumped up the numbers,” Trevor added.

“You guys. You’re a great duo,” Angela said.

“We do work great together! Did you know we were wannabe actors at first?”

“Isn’t everyone in LA?”

“True. But yeah, I worked with the Groundlings, that was fun. And after I got this job, I randomly met Trevor at a restaurant, and we started talking. He also wanted to be an actor. But he became a chef instead.”

“Yeah, and that was nice for a while, but I just really love cameras and editing… Amanda really came through for me and landed me this photographer spot!”

Amanda smiled and rubbed Trevor’s arm fondly.

“He’s the best!”

Angela was beaming. “Wow, that’s so awesome! Did you know I also perform at our improv theater downtown?”

As it was getting a little cooler, the energy in the park got more and more excited.

“You do? Well, we’d love to come watch your show sometime!”

“You should join me! We could do a little something together maybe?”

“Yeah!”

“Hello again!” The guy with the curls sat down next to them and handed them a bottle of wine. “Let’s celebrate, right?”

“Yes! Today was a good day.” Angela leaned back and took a deep breath.

“This is Chanse by the way, he’s also an artist AND an improv actor.”

“Nice to meet you, Chanse!”

“Nice to meet you too, oh my god! Do you cuties want some cheese or nuts or something?”

“It’s like you read my mind!” Amanda exclaimed.

“I got you,” Chanse winked.

They had a great time at the picnic, and it was getting darker.

More people came into the park, finally daring to get out of their air-conditioned homes. They largely seemed to love the brand-new piece of art gracing their neighborhood.

“Wow, no way!” Amanda noticed that giant Spork had glow in the dark lines on it, spelling the word ‘friendship’.

Trevor took some extra pictures.

“Today was a good day indeed,” Amanda sighed as she laid her head on Trevor’s shoulder. She was drunk.

“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” he said softly. He helped Amanda up. She heavily leaned on him.

“Thank you two again for coming and for writing the article and taking pictures!” Angela also stood up. Amanda launched a big hug on Angela.

“Anytime, love!”

“Alright, alright, time to go.” Trevor ushered Amanda back to the car. It was her turn to sit in the passenger seat.

“I don’t want to go home yet…” Amanda mumbled. A moment later she was fast asleep.

[elminx]

Stop equating animism with anthropomorphism challenge, go!

In my worldview and my understanding of animism, it is more about acknowledging and recognizing that everything on this planet is a part of the planet's whole and that each thing - no matter how big or how small - carries a spark of that whole within its part. That spark does not in any way apply the meaning of "life" as we know it and certainly not human-like intelligence or emotional capacities.

To not appropriate the terms from another culture, the best word for this spark is most likely "spirit" but that is where things get tricky. We often call the remaining presence of a human after death a spirit, but we mean very different things here despite using the same term. When used to describe what resides within all things on this planet, I would say that "spirit" here means something more akin to "life force". But that also gets confusing because by calling it "life force" it can get confused with "living" which is also not really what is meant at all.

If one considers, for a second, that every object inside of your house has one thing in common - to paraphrase Carl Sagan: every bit of it is made of star stuff. More specifically, we exist because of vast volcanic eruptions early in our planet's history so we could say instead (and this is a deeper hint into my personal religious predilections here): it is all made of volcano stuff.

That to me, that space stuff, or that volcano stuff, that is the spark of life - that is the spirit - that is the life force within all things.

That doesn't mean that all things are living (obviously?). That doesn't mean that all things have a big S Spirit or that they have sentience, intelligence, and most certainly it does not mean that they have human-like emotions.

What it does mean is that once upon a time, every object - your plant, your toenail, your cat, your spork - all of them were a part of the primordial fire that created all of this (/crazyhandwaving). That each thing plays its role and has its place. And because it has a role to play and a place - it is deserving of respect.

How does this idea of respect for everything play out in my life? I think about what I consume. I try not to throw things away unnecessarily. I care for the objects in my life by cleaning them, using them as intended, storing them properly, etc. It means that I don't value humans over the other creatures on this planet (we are all made of the same volcano stuff and this is the home to all of it). It means that I don't value the life of animals over the life of plants (sorry vegans - you keep doing you but that doesn't work for me). But that doesn't mean sentience. My knife isn't out to get me and won't get mad if I use another knife because it is an object. It has a simple existence: it is made for cutting. Do I think that you can imbue an object with something more than that? Yes, but I don't believe that it is a simple matter to do so and I don't think that it just happens. I strongly suspect that even knives that have been used to inflict great harm are still most likely just knives. Perhaps it is best to understand that in order for anything to experience the world in the way that we, as humans, experience the world, it would have to be quite close to human. Yes, your cat may experience some level of jealousy if you pet your other animals - or get mad at you when you go away from two weeks; but watch how quickly those emotions leave your animal. Compare that to the way that a human acts and how long emotions remain. Then consider, in the relative scheme of things, how close your cat is to a human.

Your plant doesn't get mad at you if you don't water it. Your house doesn't get resentful if you fall into a depression and can't sweep the floors. In my worldview, even the gods aren't as rageful as we've been led to believe - most of that is just made-up human shit.

And honestly, that makes me feel better about my life, and it makes me feel connected, which is why I keep believing in it.