#when ALL those criticisms were fair and correct.

[neechees]

It's a little ironic (is that the word to use here?) That Barbie specifically takes a jab at Bratz by having a girl named Sasha look like a killjoy feminist for critisizing Barbie & Mattel when Gerwig only ever cares about white feminism & Bratz has always been more inclusive than Barbie/Mattel

[uranometrias]

✮ꜜ : ❛ now i see daylight : spencer reid x fem! reader

pairing: spencer reid x fem! reader

summary: three weeks have gone by since your last encounter with reid. you'd both been doing an exceptional job of pretending that the other didn't exist. you felt like it was only fair. he didn't have the right to talk to you any type of way, and you supposed in his mind, you didn't have the right to behave so jealously. three weeks of no ground being made, that is, of course, until a conversation with rossi helps to screw your head on straight

content warnings: love confessions. reader definitely has anxiety and a fear of romance/relationships, BUT she fights her fear! i also think it's fair to say that she views telling spencer about her feelings as facing her fear, regardless of his response! this is part two to 'guilt is a motherfucker'.... i'm so sorry it's taken forever, but i've actually preparing to enlist in the army && haven't had a lot of down time. i've got 10 drafts to prove it, but i tried my best to make this longer than part one, and i hope that you guys enjoy it.

Grow up.

Those words had haunted you for about three weeks. It'd been that long since the day you and Spencer had sort of... drifted apart. You refused to blame yourself, despite knowing full well this whole ordeal was majorly your fault. Okay, all of the blame very well rested on your shoulders, but you were stubborn. You'd been that way forever.

Maybe you were the childish, scared, and jealous little girl he'd accused you of being. That wasn't your job to figure out, because he had no business speaking to you that way. Who did he think he was? You could hit him right in his stupid little face. That last thought of violence seems to follow you.

Especially as you sat as your desk, leg bouncing furiously underneath as you counted the seconds until he was away from the kitchenette. Your cup of coffee was dwindling, and you still had a few more files to get through, before you'd give yourself room to slack off. You needed more caffeine, but the newfound thorn in your side was taking up space, using up all the sugar as he made his third cup of the day.

A more mature person might have questioned why you didn't just go up there anyway. He didn't own the kitchenette, and it wasn't like you had to say anything at all. It was meant to be cut-and-dry, you were both mature adults, you could interact as such. Except neither of you were quite as mature as you affronted. You could just picture the screwed up expression he'd offer you if you chose to approach.

You were certain your face was already twisted up, showing off your own annoyance, and he wasn't even near you.

You'd been berated by Derek, Emily, and Penelope over your petty streak, all three parties really driving in the point that you were behaving like a toddler throwing a tantrum. They had a point, but you also refused to accept any such criticism about your behavior. Partly, because you hated correction, and you didn't want to think about the possibility that all of your friends were on his side.

But you think most of your refusal to accept your part from any of them had a lot to do with the fact that they weren't the ones who'd been so callously humiliated, and they weren't the ones with feelings for someone who obviously knew, and was perfectly content flaunting such knowledge right in your face.

God, you could punt him like a football.

You needed to work on your insult creativity, these were starting to get repetitive. You shake all thoughts of assault out of your mind as Dave begins to approach your desk. Rossi wasn't stupid, he like everyone else had noticed the significant decline in attention passed between you, and Reid. But unlike the rowdier members of the team, he and JJ had elected to go the route of silent but deadly.

They'd cast the both of you disapproving looks when in rare form you'd allowed your spat to affect your job. Their clear disappointment in you exceptionally loud. Times like those were sparce, you really only ever objected obedience when Hotch insisted on partnering the both of you up. Which had luckily become much more rare in the last few weeks.

"Still pouting, angioletto?" he asks, and his ability to read right through you seems to make your pout deepen. "It's been three weeks, don't you think it's time to talk about it or move on?" he questions, and there's no judgement there. It's what you like the most about Rossi, he seemed to have fallen into the role of paternal figure incredibly well. He gave you the tough love that you often needed.

But he never disrespected your boundaries, he never went too far. He'd always say just enough to nudge you in the right direction.

"Maybe." you agree, and it's true. You know it's time to put this situation behind you in one way or another, but you refused to cave first. You didn't want to give Spencer the satisfaction of it, and once again you're made aware of just how petty you really were. "But I don't want to." you voice this thought to Dave, who offers an unamused expression. You narrow your eyes in his direction.

"He's the one that started it..." you exclaim your side for the umpteenth time. Rossi's expression doesn't morph, but there is a bit of disappointment swimming in his eyes. It makes you avert your gaze quickly, you could feel the first pinpricks of guilt slicing at you. "It's true." you insist. Rossi waves a tired hand at you, ushering you to proceed, and you find yourself grateful for the chance to vent.

Everyone else knew too much about the behind the scenes to let you get a word in edgewise. Rossi was basically a clean slate. "If he knew all along, what he thinks he knows..." you stop long enough to look towards the kitchenette. He's still there, which is a relief, you'd be pissed if somehow he managed to overhear this. "Then why would he come over here and flaunt it. Was he trying to rub it in?" you demand.

Silly you for thinking that Rossi would be any less on your ass than the rest of the team. He was David Rossi after all, one of the founders of the BAU, a smart man that could read you like a picture book. "You finished?" he asks, and your mouth parts. You weren't finished, but you don't tell him that, he looked like he was ready to lecture. You offer a curt nod, and he hums under his breath.

"What exactly were you expecting from him, Y/N?" he asks, and you blanche. You weren't expecting anything, you'd never expected anything from Spencer. "I mean just stick with me here... put yourself in his shoes for one second." he prompts, and you huff. Those were big shoes, probably uncomfortable. Still, you play along as you wait for Rossi to proceed. "Would you wait around for two years for someone to finally realize that they want to be with you?" he asks.

You hope that it's rhetorical, because the answer for you was probably a lot different than the one he was expecting. You also feel the urge to correct him, you didn't take two years to figure out you liked him, you'd known since your first day. Your issue was verbalizing it, because you cared about your bond. Spencer was nice, he was the sweetest person you'd ever met. You liked seeing him get excited about the things no one else seemed to care about. He was different.

He was your friend, and you had always admired him.

"I wasn't making him wait..." you voice the correction. "And I didn't need time to realize anything..." you trail off, and realization seems to set in for Rossi. He sighs deeply, head shaking as you continue on your tangent. "I liked him back when all the girls in the unit still looked at him like he was some freak, and I'm not saying it entitles me to anything... I'm the dummy for being a chicken, but he didn't have to be so mean." and you're certain that's the root of it all.

Your feelings were hurt.

"Ah, well haven't you heard? Boys are quite stupid." Rossi offers, and you think he only said it to get you to laugh. It works, because you do chuckle, and it makes Dave's shoulders relax just slightly. "Talk to him, Y/N." he presses, and you find yourself looking across the bullpen. "It's the right thing to do." and you know he's right. "And who knows, it might even wind up being for the best." he offers, and you blanch. You nod your head, and Rossi beams proudly.

"You're right." you agree audibly, and you're fidgeting in your chair.

"You are coming this Friday aren't you?" Rossi pries, and you've gone nonverbal, head nodding once more as he mimics your action. "See if you guys can't get this squared away before then, won't you?" he asks, and he's leaving you with a gentle pat on the shoulder. You stare after Rossi with a mixture of disdain and appreciation. Leave it to the old man to get you off your ass. Your eyes are drawn to Spencer as he draws closer, you know he's not coming to you.

It was a byproduct of your desk location, but it wouldn't hurt to use it to your advantage. When he's within earshot, you take the first step. "Spence?" you try, and you expect him to ignore you, to keep walking like the sassy bastard that he is, but he shocks you. He seems to mirror your feelings with his own surprised expression. "Can we talk?" you try, and it's the cliche thing... but you don't have it in you to be poetic. He stops abruptly, head nodding stiffly as he does so.

You feel like you need to stand up, having him stand over you feels too much like you're being cornered or something of the sort. He takes a small step back when you do so though, and the tension seems to only grow tenfold. You mask your disappointment in his retreat easily, instead standing up a bit straighter, sticking your chin out as you prepare to bite the bullet and be the bigger woman. It was utterly humiliating having to bring yourself back to Earth like this.

"Sure." he finally verbally answers your question, you take that as a cue to get on with it. Your patience for back and forth seemed almost as thin as his.

"Maybe it's three weeks too late..." you begin, and his eyebrows furrow. "And I know we've got this new rhythm of pretending we don't exist to each other," and his face betrays how wrong he finds that statement. His face pinches up like he's smelled something bad, and he wants to remind you that the only reason you hadn't spoken was because you hadn't had the guts to own up to the fact that you had feelings for him, but he digresses. He wasn't here to pick a fight.

"But, I'm sorry...." you spit the apology out and it feels hollow. You know you have to do better, so you proceed before he can shoot you a disapproving glance. "I really am." you insist, and despite the fact that you had only just begun to feel guilty about the whole thing in the last few minutes, you meant it. "I never should've acted like that, and I never should have let this go on for so long." you express.

Across the bullpen, Rossi, Penelope, Derek, and Emily are huddled up watching the exchange, not so discreetly. You're none the wiser to your growing audience, but Spencer sees them clearly. Not that they were really aiming for subtlety. "It's not my business what you do outside of work or who you do it with." and your nose curls, mostly because you want it to be your business. You want to be valid in your aggravation, more than that you wanted to be his. How annoying.

Your leg starts to shake just barely, and you look like you'll crumble to the ground at any moment. Spencer notices all of these ticks, and stores them into the part of his brain that's full of things specific to you. "So I'm sorry that I was being a jerk." you offer, and Spencer's face doesn't show any signs of whether or not he believed you, so you continue. "I'm happy for you." you clear your throat, and feel embarrassment setting in.

"Thanks, Y/N." his head tips to the right as he appraises you, his eyes narrowing slightly as he takes you in. It's not a menacing sort of glance. He seemed to be waiting for something else, you weren't sure what more could be put into your apology, there was no way you were about to give an outright confession, that'd be humiliating. Instead, you avert your gaze, and it seems to be enough of an answer to whatever internal question he had. "That actually means a lot."

You don't smile, mostly because you're not sure what the actually means, he seems to notice the way your expression changes just slightly, and he's quick to correct himself.

"I just mean that your approval does mean a lot to me." he says, and you relax. You can't quite beam, you're still not up for it, but you offer a small smile, one that could count more as a grimace than anything else, but you weren't in the headspace to monitor your facial expressions. You were growing bothered all over again, and you had to do everything in your power to ensure that this time things didn't end with another three-week break between you and Spencer.

"Really?"

Spencer's nose curls now, he's an expressive guy. His facials said a lot more than his words could at times, and you note that this particular expressions reads somewhere between confused and surprised. Those were almost synonyms in the grand scheme of things, right? "Is that a real question?" Spencer asks, and despite the tension that hung over you at the start of the conversation, with this question you witness the way his guard drops. It was liberating in a way.

"I asked it didn't I?" you quip, but there's no real bite behind your words. Spencer seems to note this, lips pressing together firmly.

"You're important to me." he promises, and you hate that his first reaction is to validate you. Your anxiety-riddled mind would convince you that he secretly thought you were fishing for praise, which was the farthest thing from the truth. Still, you love Spencer, platonically and otherwise, and you're certain that's why you're mimicking his words back to him so quickly.

"You're important to me too."

He takes a second to stare at you, and you stare right back. You're careful not to show any signs of timidity or awkwardness, things were finally starting to look up. "I..." he begins, and you stay silent to allow him the time he needs to get whatever was on his chest off. "I'm sorry." he says, and you're surprised. It was the last thing you'd expected from this conversation, you're certain your surprise is evident plain as day on your face.

"Yeah?" you feel it's only fair to press him onward.

"Jealous little girl." he cringes as he repeats it, and you wince because it still hurts. "That was-" he shakes his head. "It was out of line. Plain and simple, I guess I was just a little frustrated, but that's not your fault. It wasn't fair of me to come at you in that way." he begins to ramble. "I wouldn't want you to feel... mocked or belittled by me." and you blink. Mostly because that was exactly how you had felt, but how did he know. It's then that you finally feel the beady-eyed stares.

You look over your shoulder just in time to witness the group dispersing, Penelope grasping a file in her hand as she scurried in the opposite direction. Derek picking up a file folder, and Emily focusing all her attention on the drink sloshing around her mug. You really hate profilers, this is the loudest thought in your head as you turn back to Spencer. "It doesn't matter if I felt justified then, or even if I feel justified about it now." and it makes you snort.

Classic Spence.

"D-Do you forgive me? Are we okay?" he asks, and his voice has grown a bit fainter. If you listen hard enough you hear the echoes of the Spencer you first met. Even with all his strides, and the confidence he gained, there was still that small part of him that felt like the nerdy boy that everyone overlooked. The one that talked too much, and was constantly silenced with looks or snide remarks whenever he rambled for too long about some niche subject.

You think this train of thought is what gets you to see Rossi's point of view. And who were you to get in the way of someone who clearly was ready for someone as amazing as Spencer. You didn't know much about the woman, aside from the fact that she was constantly making coffee, and staring at Spencer. You didn't know how long she'd worked at the bureau, you didn't even know her name, but you knew that she was brave. She knew what she wanted and got it.

Unlike you.

You suppose 'snooze you lose' is your burden to carry from this ordeal. At least you'd gotten your friend back though. And that was enough, it could be anyway. You nod your head at his question, offering a half smile. "We're okay, Spence." you promise, and he seems relieved. His smile is one of those rare ones, the gorgeous kind that Spencer reserved for special occasions. He then visibly and audibly lets out a quiet sound of relief, and it makes you relax.

"Hey, Spence, can I get your help?" JJ is calling, and your pulled from your bubble. The world is still spinning, there's still work to do, pressing matters that needed your attention. You felt a little lighter, offering another half smile as he offers you a sheepish glance. He's heading towards JJ as you sit back down at your desk. Your leg bounces despite the perceived 'win'. It only takes you a moment to wonder why, reality sets in, and you realize your shortcomings.

You'd failed the test twice.

Twice you'd had the chance to be the most open and honest with Spencer, only to let your nerves or fear of rejection get in the way. The jealousy is gone now though, instead replaced with a brief feeling of self-aggravation. You hear Dave's stern voice in your head. 'Talk to him, Y/N.' and you frown. Hadn't that been what you'd done? You'd talked to him, so why did you still feel so bummed.

Why don't you just talk to the guy? Look him in the eye and tell him straight up how you're feeling? Derek's question from three weeks prior slaps you like a ton of bricks. You supposed that was the end goal, wasn't it? The only way to relieve yourself of all this anxiety and all the big feelings you were having a hard time digesting. You're back to pouting, mostly because you've got no idea where to start.

You pick up one of your files, and flip it open, hoping to bury yourself in work. Every time your mind tried to stray to Spencer or your feelings, you'd switch files, until all twenty-five on your desk had a dent in them. Your hand was cramped, and you know that soon enough you'll need a cup of coffee. Emily approaches your desk, hands centered as she leans forward, eyes right on you.

"So how did it go?" she asks, and you cut your eyes at her. "Tension's all gone, so it must have gone well, right?" she's grinning down at you. "I told you if you told him the truth, you'd have nothing to worry about." Emily proceeds, and you're shaking your head back and forth.

"Emily... Emily, no!" you exclaim, and her smile drops.

"No? What do you mean, no?" she demands as you exhale.

"I still haven't told him, and I'd really appreciate it, if you'd lower your voice." you hiss as she pouts. "Maybe it's just not supposed to be." you shrug, and Emily looks visibly disgruntled with your thoughts. "I'm just saying... we're okay, because we apologized." you explain. "I don't want to risk making it awkward again, because I think I have feelings." and now you're being purposely dismissive.

"Oh, so now you're not sure?" Emily questions, and then she's clicking her tongue against her teeth. "No. I don't buy that." she denies, and she's stern, but discrete. "Don't do this, Y/N. Don't be that girl." she pleads. "There's nothing worse than regret. It eats at you until there's nothing left, you don't want to look back, and think 'what if!'" and that's twice you're hearing something of the sort. Wasn't there some quote about hearing important things twice? You're not sure.

"If you like him-" she pauses, head still shaking from side to side. "If you love him... like it seems, you owe it to yourself to tell him. What's the worst thing that could happen?" she questions, and you scoff. "No, realistically." she insists. "Realistically tell me what the worst thing could be? And not from that place where your irrational fears sit." she deadpans, and you feel attacked, it makes you look away.

"In the two years of you knowing Reid, do you actually think that he's the kind of guy to break you down to nothing if he doesn't feel the same?" she asks, and the answer when presented to you like this is no. "So tell me what it is that you're really scared of?" she presses, and you don't understand why everyone's so worked up over this. Why the whole unit seemed to be invested in you expressing your feelings.

"I don't want to mess it up..." you shrug your shoulders. "I don't want to make it weird." you offer, and Emily's unmoved by your answer.

"You managed to do that without saying a thing." she retorts, and you feel like you've got no room to speak, no voice to rebuttal with. "Let me be your shrink for a second." Emily is your friend for moments like these, where her clear allegiance to you shines through. "Talk to me." she prompts.

"Why are you so invested in this?" you inquire. "Why does it even matter?" you huff.

"Because it matters to you." she answers. "What? You didn't know that's how this team works?" she asks, and you huff out a puff of air through your nose. "This isn't about us playing matchmaker... it's about you realizing that you've got a few bad beliefs about romance... and friendships.... and relationships that are going to keep you all by yourself if you don't start speaking your mind." she shrugs.

"And despite the way you curl into yourself back here at your desk, we both know you don't really want to be alone." and you think you might cry, it makes you wince. "You owe it to yourself to try, but ultimately the decision is all yours. I just think you'll feel better if you take Reid aside, and tell him the truth about how you feel." she seems done, and you don't know how to respond. Emily pats your shoulder as she rounds your desk, before heading back across the unit.

You really hate profilers.

By the time you're heading home for the night, you and Spencer hadn't spoken again. You'd been so buried in work that you'd skipped lunch to get things done. You'd gotten a comment from Hotch about that, wondering if you were feeling alright. You knew that he knew the truth, even as you told him a fib. Hotch though, was discrete enough not to make you feel scrutinized by exposing just how obvious you were. You couldn't get Emily's words out of your head.

You didn't feel angry with her, and your embarrassment had managed to go away within the first forty minutes after she'd left you alone. You knew she was right, but it still didn't make things easier. It was almost like you forgot how to speak whenever the time came to really express yourself. You supposed that was why your apology had been so flat. Feelings weren't your strong suit, and you'd learned to express them by lashing out. A less than healthy way to live.

You liked that the team didn't speak to you like a child or treat you like you were incapable. Instead, they talked to you like an adult, gave the truth to you in a way that sliced through all your stubbornness and attitude. As you head towards the elevator, you hear footsteps, and look just in time to see Spencer making his way towards you. His satchel hangs off his shoulder, and he looks relieved, an emotion that you knew all too well by the end of a work shift.

You hoped there wouldn't be any cases that drug you back to the unit, all you wanted was a shower and a nap in your own bed.

Stepping into the elevator, Spencer trails you. He takes one side of the elevator, while you huddle up in the other. He offers you a tired smile as the doors slide closed, you offer him a smile right back. It's weary, mostly because you were drained, but partly, because Spencer had been the object of your thoughts the entire day. Especially after Emily's blunt speech. You were drained. The anxiety of keeping the secret far outweighed any fear of rejection now.

"Hey, are you alright?" he addresses you, after noticing the way you seemed lost in your head.

"Hmm?" you hum, and he repeats himself. It snaps you out of your mind spiral, and your head nods. A lie. "I'm all good, Spence." you reply, and he looks disappointed, but not surprised. "Thanks for asking though." you add a second after, and he offers you a dry little nod of his head. The elevator is back silent, and you hope the doors open quick. You might drown if the tension grew any thicker.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable." he says, and you blank. Your confusion is clear as day on your face. "Earlier..." and your still not understanding. "I wasn't telling you that you were important to me, because I was expecting anything in return." he explains, and it clicks. "If it made you feel weird, I'm sorry. It just felt like the right way to express my point then." he proceeds, and you don't know how to collect yourself. "So, I'm sorry." and you want to scream.

Mostly at yourself for being so infuriatingly inadequate at expressing your thoughts and feelings.

"If you want, we could just pretend I never said anything?" he offers, and you don't answer quick enough. The elevator slides open just as the words are settling inside your head, and he's stepping out into the parking deck without another word. You sit there in the elevator for a moment, the door sliding shut after a moment, but you don't move. You feel like you're at a crossroads, almost at a point of no return. If you let Spencer leave now... like this, there would be no coming back.

There would be no room to gain some balls later, and try again. It wouldn't be fair to him. It wouldn't be fair to yourself.

You feel like hyperventilating, thoughts everywhere. Love had never been a subject you really understood. You'd always sort of saw it as this concrete construct. Unchangeable, always either black or white. A gloomy, gray, existence that could cut you up and spit you out. Love could turn you into a hollow version of who you once were. Love could break you down, and make you nothing. But then you think of your team. JJ and Penelope, Hotch, Dave, Emily, Derek. Spencer.

They were the rarest and purest examples of love in your day-to-day life, weren't they? You'd never quite met anyone who had your back more than your team. They fought for you, they fought with you. They believed in you, pushed you to be the best you that you could be. So why was it so hard, what were you scared of? Was it the notion of getting Spencer, and staining him? Blowing out that light inside him the way you'd witnessed for so long?

Was that a life worth living? Was it a chance you could take?

And then you huff, because damnit... you were tired of waiting. You were tired of anxiety, and uncertainty, and insecurity, and pain. You're certain that is why you hit the button to open the elevator. Gracefulness is not on your side as you practically sprint out into the car park, your eyes scanning hopefully for the familiar silhouette of your friend. When you spot him, you release a quiet noise of relief. "S-Spencer!" you hear the echo from your shout, and cringe.

But it doesn't matter, because he turns, he stops, and he's looking at you. His eyebrows are raised, hands gripping his bag, as you start to run. You ignore your fatigue, and your desire to run and hide, and instead run towards something for once. You don't stop running until you're past the point of 'personal space', you want to hover, you want to be in his space, because it was the only way you could possibly get through this. He looks a bit unsure, and still a bit grumpy.

You hope by the end of this that's no longer the case.

"Spencer, I don't want to forget about what you said." you're trying to catch your breath, bouncing up on your heels. "I don't want to pretend you never said it." you add, and Spencer's surprised expression has the hairs on your arm and neck ready to stand on end. "I-I actually want to know what you meant." you admit. "Because, I know what I meant when I said it... and it's not something that I take back." you express, and you can hear blood rushing in your ears.

"What did you mean?" Spencer asks, and you blanche.

"I asked you first." the obvious retort, and Spencer exhales loudly, but there's no annoyance, no exasperation. Only amusement, like always.

"I've done enough talking, haven't I?" he asks. "I want to know what you're thinking." and his voice is so soft, full of tenderness that you feel like you're being serenaded. You feel like you've got a knot in your throat also, almost like you'll suffocate if you don't get your thoughts out. "I promise I won't leave you hanging." and you're not sure what he means by that, but it helps. It makes your heart stutter-step, and you need to catch your breath, because you can't believe this is actually happening, or that you're actually here.

"I-" you play withy your fingers, and you have to inhale deeply to ensure you don't chicken out. "Spence, I didn't tell you that you were important to me, because you said it first." you promise, and he nods, but he doesn't say anything. His eyes are syrupy, alluring, and beautiful, still twinkling under the dingy, flickering lights of the parking deck. "I said it because you're all I really think about." you admit, and his eyebrows furrow, and you're scared.

"And the last three weeks... I've been so mad at you." you blurt out. "I was the one that acted like a child, but I was angry with you, because I thought that you were making fun of me... and all the feelings I have for you." you exhale, and you look down at the ground, because the nerves that come with your words are overwhelming. "I was jealous, I acted like a child, but it was only because I thought you were rubbing it in my face... I thought you were being cruel."

Spencer's long lashes blink rapidly, but he's still stone silent. Probably because he knows that you're still not done. "And that wasn't fair of me, because I know you, Spence. You're not that type of person, but I just I couldn't reign myself in, and I acted immaturely because I was scared... and then just now, in the elevator... I almost did it again. I almost let you think that I don't care about you... but I do. Spencer, I have feelings for you." and you clear your throat, legs shaking.

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not... this isn't some trick or ploy or cry for help. I understand if you're mind is elsewhere... and I'm so sorry if the way I've been acting ruined everything, but I-I love you okay? That's what this has all been about. I'm sorry it took me so long to say something, but there it is." and you gasp, chest heaving now that you were finished. You finally look up at Spencer again, and he's staring you down. It doesn't feel hypersexual or heady with tension.

Instead, it's like the first intake of air into your lungs after being under water for so long. You supposed that's what the truth did, you supposed that's what your feelings for Spencer did when you allowed them to exist. "You mean that?" he asks, and you huff.

"Of course, I mean it. I mean it so much, I think I'm going to be sick." and despite himself he laughs, a bright beam following after it. He takes a small step towards you, and you feel crowded, the body heat from you both warming you up from the inside out. Still, despite how outwardly calm he looked in comparison to you, you managed to spot the shyness, the anxiety that rested in his own eyes. He looked unsure, almost like he was being careful not to ruin the moment.

"Do you know how long I've been wanting to hear you say that?" he asks, and you're shocked, stuck, surprised. You don't know if this is in your mind or if you just got lucky. "Have you ever-" he's got this gleeful look on his face. "There's this quote by Lao Tzu..." he stammers, "Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses." he quotes, and there are no butterflies... you think that might be a good thing.

"I don't know if there's been a time since I met you that you haven't been on my mind." Spencer explains, and there it is. "I think that's why I snapped the way I did, I don't think I ever imagined a scenario where we'd be here." he admits, and it pains you to know that he thought that way. "It was-" he motions between you both. "The thought of us being something was sort of just something I believed would always sort of just be a thought." Spencer's glowing red.

The blush coats his ears, cheeks, nose, and neck. His eyes are brighter, and his hands twitch at his side, almost like he's restraining himself. You think you only notice, because you're doing the same.

"I want to be with you." he says this so faintly you're almost unsure you heard him correctly. Your eyes widen, and your surprise is obvious. He takes a small step forward, and he's crowding you. It's nothing like the movies, in fact, the closer he gets to you, the more you're able to see the shyness in his eyes. He reaches out, and his hand ghosts over your side.

"Spence-" and the you that you were just an hour earlier, the one too scared to tell him the truth almost feels like she never even existed.

"Can I?" he asks, and your eyes drift to his hands that are inching closer to your body. You nod your head quickly, and he doesn't look amused. "I want to hear you." he says quietly. "I want you to tell me that I can." he adds, and you find yourself nodding anyway.

"Y-You can." you promise. "But I don't want you to pretend." his eyebrows furrow again. "Please don't do this if you don't mean it." you say, and Spencer's hands drop to your side, there's no wandering fingers, in fact it feels like he wanted to touch you for the sole purpose of keeping you from shaking any longer.

"Y/N, I want to be with you." he repeats it more firmly this time, and he's looking directly at you. It's intense, the eye contact more than anything else. He sounds sincere, and that makes you nervous.

"But what about..." and you trail off, because you don't know what to label the pretty woman he'd been entertaining. Spencer chuckles quietly, and his head shakes from side to side.

"She was nice." he reiterates the words he'd said three weeks prior. "But, she's not you... I don't think anyone would've been able to fill your shoes." he says, and you squeeze your eyes closed, because God, Spencer was so good with words. His hands are on your face, brushing at your cheeks as you shed a few long overdue tears. "Are these happy tears?" he asks hopefully, and your eyes shoot open. Your head nods, and you're not sure why you're so quiet.

Maybe, because life had thrown a curveball and surprised you in a good way. "Happy tears." you agree, and he presses his lips together, thumbs still working to keep the tears at bay. "I just can't believe-"

"Please do." he cuts you off, before you can get it out. "Believe this, believe me." he almost begs, and you hum. "Can I kiss you?" he asks, and you don't answer him, instead you surge forward and press your lips to his. You're certain security is getting a full view of the action, Spencer kisses like he wants to inhale you, and it's nice.. It's more than nice, his kisses are surged with emotion, every ounce of affection that his words had been drenched in was felt in the kiss.

Had breathing not been a factor, you might have stayed there. When you pull back to inhale, Spencer's got this twinkle in his eye that makes your nose scrunch up. "What?" you press, and he grins at you.

"You love me..." he breathes it out, and you're not sure if he's stating it or asking, but you suppose now that the cat's out of the bag, saying it again is nothing.

"Yeah. I love you, Spence." you promise, and he's quick to lean in and peck you on the lips. "D'you love me too?" you ask, once he's pulled back, and his hands move up, cupping both sides of your face as he drags his thumbs up and down.

"I love you." and it sounds like a promise.

So you believe him.

 "It’s a profoundly strange feeling, to stumble across someone whose desires are shaped so closely to your own, like reaching toward your reflection in a mirror and finding warm flesh under your fingertips. If you should ever be lucky enough to find that magical, fearful symmetry, I hope you’re brave enough to grab it with both hands and not let go.” ― Alix E. Harrow

[flemingsfreckles]

Be a Good Teammate

Jessie Fleming x USWNT!Reader

Words: 3.4k

Preview: After Jessie misses her penalty in the Gold Cup semi final, she’s found practicing kicks by her old friend and college teammate.

Warnings: some cursing, a little angst, but nothing else too crazy.

A/N: I haven’t written anything in maybe 4-5 years. Recently fallen back into reading and then watching the Canada/US game sparked some inspiration and here we are writing again.

You could hear her before you saw her. You had come out of the dressing room well after the rest of your teammates. They hardly showered just throwing on fresh clothes in a rush to begin their celebration for moving on to the finals of the Gold Cup. The stadium had fallen silent with the exception of a faint noise coming from the far end of the tunnel toward the pitch.

It was the repetitive sound of a ball being kicked followed shortly by the swish of the net. One after the next, boot on ball, swish of the net, boot on ball swish of the net. Working like a clock, a perfect machine, that was until the sound of the net was replaced by the ringing of the crossbar and the frustration of the kicker.

“Stupid fucking penalty” a frustrated voice rang out. The sound of the voice halted your steps, you knew that voice. Jessie. You quickly recognize the voice as your former best friend and UCLA teammate. Once you hear her, you quickly realized what was happening.

You’d seen her do this when you played together, anything from missed headers, missed passes, missed shots, and now with missed penalties. Jessie was known for being a hard worker, her focus and determination was admirable by her teammates and led her to earning the right to wear the captain's armband. She pushed herself to be better and while it was that mentality that turned her into one of Canada’s best, it also came with a whole other side.

She was hard on herself, more so than anyone else, and she took it to extremes. You had watched in college as she would spend hours watching film of her mistakes, tearing her performances apart, nitpicking every step she took. Criticizing every mistake to the point of obsession. One bad touch or one missed scoring opportunity would cloud her brain, unable to focus on anything else until she could fix that mistake, that mistake was all that would matter to Jessie.

“Be a good teammate to yourself Jessie.” Those were the words you told her constantly in college when you’d find her overworking herself. Running extra laps after an already grueling practice. Taking extra shots after a game, refusing to stop the repetitions until they were in her eyes, perfect. “Treat yourself how you treat all your other teammates, you support us, you provide positive corrections, you're kind. Talk to yourself the same way you talk with me or anyone else on this team, be a good teammate to yourself.”

And that’s how you knew exactly what Jessie was doing out on that field. She was retaking her penalty from earlier in the game, the one she had kicked into the arms of your team’s goalkeeper, letting you and your teammates erupt in celebration behind her as she walked with her head down to her team’s bench.

Now you are stuck with your brain telling you to let her be, she’s not going to want to see you, especially on a night like tonight. Just go celebrate with your teammates, you thought.

You and Jessie had been close in college, so close most of your teammates were convinced you two were secretly dating. And to be fair to them, you wish you’d made a move on Jessie but you didn’t. Too worried about losing your friend and still trying to figure out yourself in the process. Now your college days were years behind you and you both moved away after graduation to play professionally, her with Chelsea and now in Portland and you with Bayren Munich and more recently with Seattle.

Your communication with your former best friend had rapidly declined over the years, you both got caught up in your new lives, new clubs, and Jessie had gotten a girlfriend. It wasn’t public information at the time but you were close enough that she shared the news, gushing about the girl over one of your nightly phone call. You knew deep down that girl is what pushed you away. Even though you knew it was never going to work out between you and Jessie, it didn’t make hearing about her new girl any less painful.

So you pulled back, with going from long facetime calls, to short catch ups, to texts. It seemed mutual as Jessie followed suit reaching out less frequently. She figured you were busy and had forgotten about her, seeing you make new friends in your new teams. These days you were lucky if you saw a “nice game” “congrats on the win” or even “happy birthday” come across your phone from the Canadian.

No bad blood stood between you two that she was aware of, except for maybe right now as you stood wearing the crest of the team that had just ended her tournament hopes.

While your brain was telling you to head for the parking lot and leave, forgetting you heard her taking the shots, your heart refused to let your feet move in any direction but toward the pitch. As you turned the corner she came into view. The bright white 17 with FLEMING printed neatly across the back of her red jersey became visible as you watched her set up her next round of shots.

Now you were frozen again, standing just inside the edge of the pitch, only your eyes moving, watching as she placed a ball, moved backward, took a deep breath and took the shot. It sailed into the upper left of the net. You watched as Jessie once again stepped back to ready herself, having already placed the next ball while you were watching her first one go in the net. Again she took a breath and fired into the net. She continued just as you had heard her before, booting the ball into the net. Over and over and over.

The stadium that had previously been filled with fans shouting, coaches calling out, music, liveliness was now eerily silent, just the sound of Jessie methodical work taking place. You weren’t even sure how long you had been standing there watching her, you’d maybe seen her take 10 or 12 shots, all screaming into the back of the net. The systematic movement and sound had lulled you into zoning out, only snapped back into reality when you realized the noise had stopped.

Jessie was moving toward the goal, collecting all the balls she had kicked, only now you could hear her mumbling to herself. Unable to make out what she was saying, you watched as she continued moving all the balls back to start her drill once again. She had turned around, her face more visible to you, eyes still down looking at the balls she was kicking. You could see her cheeks were still bright red and her skin was shiny with sweat, or maybe it was rain. Her mumbling had turned into her regular voice, allowing you to make out every couple of words.

“idiot…if I just made it… don’t deserve this…” You watched her rip the captain's armband from her bicep, throwing it aside.

You felt your chest grow tight, seeing and hearing Jessie so angry at herself was painful. She was the kindest soul, she had been your first friend at school and one of the only ones who stuck around through all 4 years. the only thing she didn’t deserve is to feel this way about her performance.

Maybe i should leave, you thought, let her work through this, she’ll be okay with some time, how much can you really help at this point, it’s over, there’s no point in making her more upset and,

“FUCK” Jessie’s voice intrudes into your thoughts as she punts the last ball with such anger that instead of landing just outside the box like the rest, she sends it sailing, landing only a couple of feet from you. You look at the ball rolling toward your feet, being slowed greatly by the wet grass.

“Sorry,” Jessie hollers with a wave and a different, more polite tone in her voice. She begins jogging over to you, “I didn’t realize they were coming to do pitch maintenance already, I’ll pack up and go-“ she starts to ramble as you realize she hasn’t noticed that it’s you who is standing in front of her.

You move your eyes down at the grass, kicking some up unsure of what to do now while you wait for her to reach you and realize you’re in fact not the maintenance crew.

“What are you doing here?” Her accusatory tone returns and you look up to meet her eyes. Just as you’d seen from across the field her cheeks remained bright red, a layer of sweat making her whole face shine. Her lips are slightly parted and her breathing is quick. Her brown eyes that you used to stare at everyday are now puffy, as though she shed some tears following the game and you can’t help but stare for a second at her black eye. She cocks her head at you and you realize she’s waiting for an answer.

“Um, I just… I heard you. And I just wanted to check on you,” you realize you should’ve spent some of the time you were watching her kick thinking of what to say to her.

“I don’t need your pity party,” Jessie scoffs at you “don’t you have some celebrating to do?”

“I’m not here to pity you,” her change in tone makes you get defensive.

“Then what? You’re here to tell me it’s okay? That it’s fine it’s just a penalty, and maybe it feels that way to you,” she stabs her index finger into your chest, her touch surprises you. Both being midfielders you had contact during the game but that was different.

Before you were just the opponent in the same way she was yours, you were aware of her but in that moment she was just Jessie Fleming, a Canada’s midfielder who you needed to get the ball from. Now she was Jess, the girl you were roommates with, the girl whose shoulder you fell asleep on during a long travel day, the girl who you tutored in calculus while she in return tutored you in physics. Her whole face now just inches from yours. You share a similar height with the midfielder, leaving you eye to eye. You can feel her breath as she continues.

“You made your penalty, and you don’t have to wear the armband, you don’t have to sit with the expectation of never missing a penalty, but I do. And you didn’t let your whole team down, I did. So maybe it seems like not a big deal to you because you’re not the one going home!”

You feel like sinking into one of the puddles on the grass, this was a bad idea, you shouldn’t have bothered her. Before you can think of something to say Jessie starts again.

“Nothing? You have nothing to say to me? Then again, why did you come out here? To gloat? Because last time I checked, we’re not even friends anymore and that’s no fault of mine, that was all you, you ignored me, so why even bother? Just leave me alone, go away.”

Her words telling you that she doesn’t even consider you a friend anymore, sting. Sure it was nowhere near like it was before but you still would classify Jessie as a friend. You have every urge to tell her the truth, that you couldn’t stand seeing her with someone else and to protect yourself you took a step back. You wanted to tell her you never meant for it to silence your relationship, you just wanted to respect hers and that meant distancing yourself. Instead, you opted with the easy way out, “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” her brown eyes roll as she turns away from you.

“Jess, wait,” the short form of her name falling out of your mouth on accident. Hoping she’ll stay, you reach out grabbing her wrist preventing her from turning all the way away from you.

“I promise I didn’t come here to give you pity, honestly I’m not sure what I’m doing here.” You feel her shake your grasp from her wrist but instead of leaving she turns back facing you. “I just, I heard you and, I,” You try looking into her eyes but she’s staring at her hands that are fidgeting with the hem of her jersey.

“You already said that.” Jessie cuts you off

“I know, I know, I just,” you bring your hands up to cover your eyes rubbing your fingers along your forehead, hoping you’ll be able to squeeze the right words out of your brain. “I think I wanted to see you.” You admit finally, hoping it’s not too much at the moment.

“We just played 120 minutes against each other, you had plenty of chances to see me.” She throws back at you, her brown eyes still avoiding yours.

You begin to feel a tightness in your throat, a feeling all too familiar to you, making it harder to breathe, you start blinking away the tears that are trying to surface. You’re grateful she isn’t looking at your face. you recognize the same emotions that you felt when she had told you she was in a relationship.

Jessie had been so excited to tell you, and you tried your best to act excited for her, you really did. You had forced yourself to ask questions you really didn’t want to know the answers to. Asking about their first date, first kiss, other firsts, what Jessie liked about her, providing the typical best friend interrogation. What Jessie didn’t know was when she had hung up the phone, telling you she had to go as she was going to spend the night at her girlfriend’s, the tightness had taken over and you burst into tears.

In the moment it didn’t make sense to you, you summed it up to missing her and missing spending time with her. It took a couple months to realize your feelings were ones of jealousy. You wanted to be the girl she spent her nights with. You wanted Jessie to call up Janine and gush about you, not some other girl. And that’s when you started to pull away.

“That’s not the same, I, I just wanted to see you,” you let out a shaky breath, trying to relax before tears spill over, “I miss you.” The words come out as a whisper, almost quiet enough that you hope Jessie didn’t hear and you can move on.

A silence falls between the two of you, Jessie’s fingers are still playing with the hem of her shirt, her eyes glued to them. You look up, staring at what would be a starry night had it not been for the rain clouds covering the sky. It feels like time stops, neither of you moving, no one says anything. You stand there, looking up, while Jessie stands, looking down.

“Why now?” Jessie’s voice cracks, you can’t tell for a second if she’s looking for an answer but she continues on, “You could’ve called, or at least texted.”

“It takes you 3 to 5 business days to respond to a text.” A small laugh comes out as you say the sentence, hoping it’ll lighten the mood.

“I know, but for you,” she pauses slightly, “I would’ve answered in a heartbeat.”

Her words catch you off guard and you swing your head down. You unexpectedly meet Jessie's eyes. She’s got one hand running through her damp hair, the other resting by her side. Her stare feels intense, being under her watch gives you a feeling that sits somewhere between comfort and cowardice.

You’re lost for words, racking your brain for the right thing to say. Part of you says fuck it, tell her you love her, that you want her in every way, tell her you were jealous, you couldn’t stand seeing her with another girl, you want her to be yours and only yours.

The other and far more logical part of you says push it down, you don’t want to scare her off, you want your friend back, even if it means hearing about her girlfriend.

You’re saved from having to make a choice between the angel and devil that split your brain as your phone buzzed and a slew of texts from Lynn and Midge came in. You quickly grab your phone from your sweatpant pocket, turning the ringer off to silence the tone from going off again. You quickly skim the texts which consist of variations of ‘where are you’. You catch the time at the top of your screen realizing the game had ended nearly 2 hours ago. Sure, you had done some media, showered, and changed, but you hadn’t realized how late it was and just how long you had been standing around either watching or talking with Jessie.

“You should probably join them.” Jessie says, almost as if she could see your texts from your teammates asking when you were going to be at the bar.

“Yeah I probably should, I didn’t realize the time. The last thing I need is them sending a search party and finding me with the enemy.” You nudge her with your elbow. She gives you a quick tight lipped smile.

“I’ll uh, I’ll see you around?” You add in a raise in your voice in hopes she takes that as an invitation.

“I don’t know,” Jessie pauses, eyebrows creasing as she thinks of what to say next. “It’s just, I’m dealing with a lot right now, moving, captain responsibilities, some personal things. I just don’t know if I can add another thing on my plate right now. Maybe give me some time?” Her response isn’t the one you wanted, but you realize it’s better than a complete shutdown on her end. At least some small part of her was open to letting you back in.

“Of course, I understand the moving countries part, I mean. The rest of your stuff I don’t know about, I mean the personal stuff, and then the captain part.” You find yourself rambling at her. “But yeah that’s fine. I’ll be going.” You point your thumb in the direction of the tunnel.

She turns away, this time you let her walk away. You watch her for a moment before turning yourself and heading back to the tunnel toward your car. Just when you reach the start of the tunnel you hear it again. The sound of Jessie’s boot kicking the ball and the sound of the ball hitting the net. You turn around watching as she grabs another ball between her hands, rolls it around and then bends down to place it.

“Hey Fleming,” you call to her as she releases the ball on the ground and starts to map out her steps. You watch as she turns back over her shoulder locking eyes with you, raising her eyebrows nonverbally acknowledging your call, “Be a good teammate to yourself.”

You carry on to the parking lot, picking up your phone and calling Lynn to let her know you were leaving the stadium now. While you were too distracted on the phone, what you didn’t realize was the absence of the sound of Jessie kicking the ball.

Your words had caught her off guard, she hadn’t heard it in a few years, you last said it to her after she had a rough game at Chelsea. The simple phrase brought back feelings surrounding you that she had pushed down for a while now. She stood, staring at the ball she had just placed, taking a deep breath like she did before every penalty. Only this time, instead of stepping toward the ball with force, she simple walked toward it, picked it up and headed to grab the bag and clean up. She realized she had punished herself enough, the loss still hurt, but with your words and the smile on your face as you said it fresh in her mind, it hurt a little less.

[37sommz-archive]

✼. COME TO ITALY | 2015.

CH. 01. NOW PLAYING: dreams by the cranberries [fluff, angst]. ✼.⠀summary: prema saves michaela's career, 2.1k.

MICHAELA WAS NEVER GOOD AT SITTING STILL. Her mother used to scold her for the fidgety nature that seemed to plague the young girl when she would bounce around the doctor’s office or disrupt the teacher during storytime. Her father thought it was a good trait to have as a racer. He found it helpful that his daughter’s endless supply of energy allowed her the chance to spend many hours in their garage fixing up a broken kart or reviewing racing footage from that day. She would bounce around, spurting out corrections for her form, or her pace.

I’m breaking too late… 

too early… 

I’m much too wide…

that was a chance to overtake.

As hyperactive as she was, she was also incredibly self-critical. Her uncle always lamented she was much too focused on being perfect—in action, in talent, and in response—that she often missed her chances to celebrate. Her response was always the same, “For every single mistake I make, they give the same amount of grace to the boys on their 10th.” She reasoned that her perfection would eliminate any opportunity for the males in the sport to discredit her. 

Not that they needed much opportunity.

✼.⠀OCTOBER 20, 2015 — surrey, england

“WE CANNOT GUARANTEE YOU A SEAT FOR NEXT SEASON.” That was what the team principal told her after she fell short of the rookie cup. Second to il Predestinato and his shiny Dutch car. Though Michaela was rarely still, she stood still in that moment. Staring up at the older Englishman’s eyes as he continued on with some excuse she had no interest in hearing. 

It wasn’t until he delivered a short, “The team wishes you the best. We’re sure you’ll have your fair pick of teams to choose from next season.” 

Bullshit. 

She muttered to herself as she turned on her heels to leave without her famously permanent smile to comfort the older man. 

“I outperformed those jerkoffs in every single race,” The words stormed into the silent room as Travis, her uncle and manager, stood across from her.

Approaching her with caution, he gently reached to grab her shoulders, pulling her in for a gentle hug. Meant to calm her, but it did anything but. After a beat, Michaela tore herself away from her uncle, a sigh emitting from his chest signaling to her he was just as frustrated as she was. 

“Travis—” 

He cut her off before she could say what they were both thinking. His eyes slowly tracked her movements as she paced from one end of the room to the other. 

“Mickey, we both know that you outperformed Ryan and Gus. But let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s going on here.” 

She scoffed at that, eyes rolling with angry disbelief as her arms found their way back into their pretzel over her chest. Travis, in his stubborn wisdom, continued speaking, “This is a test—”

“A test?” 

She exclaimed, arms thrown from their place on her chest. Her head shook from one side to the other as Travis watched on with a subtle sympathy for his ambitious niece. 

“They tested me all season.” 

The words peaked in tone, hitting Travis’ ear with a sense of pain he hadn’t seen in the 15-year-old since she was back in Australia breaking the news over the phone that her father had been laid off.

“They gave me the least reliable car, they refused to protect me from the pricks who terrorized me off the track. Then, when I get a win in Germany—” 

Her lips pursed together at the memory, stopping in the middle of her words to keep herself from crying. 

“The only win between the three of us—” 

Failure finds her, tears puddled in the corners of her eyes spill over. 

“The engineers abandon me on the podium to talk strategy with the other two.”

“How many times do I need to prove that I’m just as,” Stopped to correct her words her head shook again, “...better than the boys?”

It’s Travis’ turn to fold his arms over each other. His head fell back against the door that stood behind his frame, too pained to watch Michaela fight to hold back the tears that kept flowing down the sides of her face. Their lips equally pursed as the silence filled the room once again.

This was what most of their conversations ventured into. That question of being enough tortured both of them, for admittedly different reasons, but the toll of it weighed upon their shoulders the same. It had been a question Michaela frequently asked her uncle, usually in jest, though revealing the depth of her insecurities just the same. 

They both knew Travis would eventually have to offer her an answer. 

One definitive so she would stop asking. 

But Michaela would be lying if she tried to act as if she was naively unaware of the answer Travis fought back every time the question was posed. 

She knew the answer was never. 

She knew the answer would destroy her if confirmed by the one person who believed she was better than the boys. She knew the answer would tear down every step forward she took in the name of chasing the success she so desperately craved to taste. 

So Travis didn’t answer. Neither of them was sure he ever would.

Instead, with his head pressed against the hardwood behind him, he offered up a solution. As he always did.

“We’ll call around in the morning like we always do. We’ll use every trick, every piece of leverage we have. I’m going to get you that seat. Doesn’t matter where, doesn’t matter how.”

When Michaela didn’t respond, his head broke away from its hold tipped back. His eyes met hers searching endlessly for a sliver of hope in her clouded brown eyes. The same eyes she shared with his older brother. 

“C’mon Mickey—” He coaxed in an attempt to draw an emotion out of the teenager who stood before him. Any emotion would do in that moment. “I’ll make it happen. You believe me? Right?”

It must have been nearly a minute before she broke the staring contest she held over him. She shrugged her shoulders, arms folded over to offer a sense of comfort to her pained self. 

“Yes?” Travis pushed once more, eyebrows raised in a way that reminded her of her father’s own instinctive heroism.

“Yeah.”

A nod was all he needed to cross the space over to her. With a shake of her shoulders, Michaela released the smallest of giggles. His paler hand ruffled at her curly hair, a move to diffuse the tension that hung between the two family members. 

“Right,” He exhaled as his hand retreated to its place. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”

✼.⠀NOVEMBER 05, 2015 — london, england

“In a post to her blog, Susie Wolff has announced her formal retirement from Formula One.”

-

“The prospect of a female driver on the grid.”

-

“The events at the start of this year and the current environment in F1 the way it is, it isn't going to happen."

-

IN THE FEW WEEKS SINCE HER DROP FROM JAGONYA, MICHAELA HAD NOT LEFT HER RACING SIMULATOR IF NOT TO EAT OR SLEEP. The TV directly to her left was left on Sky Sports, news within the racing world kept her both alert and melancholy.

Paradoxically, it worried Travis, and his wife, just as much as it reassured them. The duality of the feeling pulled at their emotions as they witnessed the extent of Michaela’s worries that she wasn’t—and couldn’t be—as good as the boys. That’s what most of her hyperactivity came down to. At least in their eyes.

“Michaela, love.” 

Bea’s words were as gentle as ever given the depths of her concern for the teenager. Her eyes caught the end of Michaela’s racing journal as it perched on the edge of her desk. Battered from her obsessive writings, Bea picked it up carefully to place it down carefully. 

As she turned back to her niece, Michaela’s tired eyes stared up at her, hands still gripped at the wheel of her simulator with the screen paused in wait. 

“It’s been ages since you got up.”

With a softness, her eyes conveyed the true weight behind her words. Michaela was more than aware her obsession with perfection worried her aunt, though she was unwilling to give it up. A relaxed sigh left her mouth as she rose from her chair, the simulator shutting down as Bea observed from her stance just across the room.

“Come eat, Travis has news.”

The casual words stunned Michaela more than she would be willing to relate. A knowing smile pulled at the corners of Bea’s mouth before she shrugged calmly. 

“I’m not sure what it’s about, but he was quite insistent you come down.”

Those words were all it took before Michaela rushed down the stairs, her hair flying behind her in a messy haze of brown and blonde curls, bouncing against the gravity of her run.

“Mickey?”

Travis’ voice beamed with excitement as he caught the attention of his excited niece. 

“We have a guest,” His head shook with a laugh. “Best behavior?” His pinky finger reached for Michaela’s own, an ill-fated attempt to calm her down before the unnamed guest presumably seated in their living room. 

A clear of her throat and a twist of their pinkies and Travis led her to the living room.

A full head of dark hair turned to face the overzealous 15-year-old clothed in a raggedy Lightning McQueen t-shirt. With a laugh, he stood to attention, and a hand reached out to shake hers. 

“René Rosin,” She exhaled with a breathiness that conveyed her amazement. A smile graced his features at her recognition, sure his decision had been reassured in that moment.

“I heard the Brits left you without a seat for next year.”

“Can you imagine?” She muttered, her smile never faltered despite her uncle’s clearance of his throat as a reminder of her ‘best behavior’ promise from just moments before.

“Sorry, I’m really—” 

She cut herself off as René raised a hand to signal he graced the comment. 

“When I found out, I can admit I was shocked beyond belief.” 

The team principal’s Italian accent bled beautifully into his words. Michaela almost found herself distracted by the flourishes he added to the end of his sentences as she hung on to every word he expressed to her. 

“How has your break been?”

Caught off guard by the question, Michaela shrugged her shoulders. With a nervous bite of her lip—terrified and in awe of the principal’s appearance in her living room—she chose her words wisely. 

“Unfulfilling. I miss the track.”

With a nod of his head, René exchanged a knowing glance with Travis who gently chuckled at his niece’s criticalness. 

Michaela’s mind spun at a mile a minute, an infinite number of scenarios of René’s next words ran through her consciousness. Hope was tussled with paranoia at the back of her mind. Hoping that this would be her moment of redemption but paranoid she would be put in her place once more. 

They got someone to convince me to give up.

The thought displaced her for a moment before she snapped back into reality. Her teeth chewed at the inside of her mouth and her fingers pressed into her palms. Both were nervous habits that didn’t escape Travis and Bea’s attention though they exchanged subtle smiles that completely escaped Michaela. With a gentle tap on her shoulder, Travis coaxed Michaela to stop her movement. The action reminded her to exist in the moment before her.

“How soon would you like to be back? Racing?” 

Michaela didn’t need the clarification he offered before she burst with attention.

“Tomorrow—today—I… I don’t care when. Just as soon as possible.” 

René chuckled again at her eagerness. With a clap of his hands that startled Michaela as much as it excited her, René cleared his throat.

“Then tomorrow, I’ll see you in Veneto.”

Michaela tilted her head in confusion, feeling as if she had missed a few words before the statement. 

“Sorry,” She stammered, paranoia crept back into her. “What—what do you mean? V-Veneto?”

His smile did little to calm her until his response accomplished the mission instead.

“How would you like to race for Prema in GP2?”

✼. view:⠀masterlist⠀⸻⠀join the taglist⠀⸻⠀request. ✼. taglist:⠀@cha-hot @certifiedlesbianbaddie @nichmeddar @d3kstar @thewannabewriter

[sugarcoatednightshade]

I haven’t thought of Lily Orchard in years, but she just made a video on dungeon meshi and I wanted to hear what she had to say. I couldn’t even finish it.

It’s clear she hates anime as a genre and is pissed about having to review something she didn’t want to watch, and that anger permeates the whole* review. On top of that, it’s so fucking disingenuous to review a show that’s not even halfway over and then claim it’s thematically disjointed - like 1. Of course it’ll seem that way if you’ve only seen the first quarter of a piece of work, we’re still in the setting up stage, these themes haven’t had time to fully commingle and resolve and 2. Even considering that, dungeon meshi does actually know what it is/where it’s going, and at this point it’s fairly obvious how all the themes/mixed genera’s are gonna fit together.**

*to be fair, I haven’t seen the entire review, so maybe she calms down partway through. I don’t make a habit of watching things I know will upset me, and watching someone make bad faith criticism of something I like would literally ruin my week

Post chapter 65 spoilers below:

**Granted, cookings prominence in the show, while cute*** on its own, didn’t really seem plot relevant to me until around chapter 65 when it was revealed that in order to save falin they would have to eat her dragon half. Y’all, I went fucking feral over that reveal.

***cute meaning: it’s used mostly for worldbuilding at first. That’s really cool if you’re into it, and an integral part of the story ryoko kui is telling, but not technically necessary in every story. There are plenty of storys who spend needless time expositing about the world instead of focusing on the interesting bits, and if you’re only a quarter of the way into DM, I can see how you might think that this is one of those cases.

But obviously, as time passes, the worldbuilding aspects become more important, because the entire show is about worldbuilding. Or more accurately, it’s a deconstruction of the fantasy genera. It spends time setting up familiar tropes and then examines how those tropes would actually play out in a realistic world, setting up and then questioning our expectations for the world in a really nuanced way.

My favorite example of this is how dungeon meshi treats dark/ancient magic.

1. The words ‘dark magic’ and ‘dark elf’ have negative but vague connotations in traditional fantasy. “The thing is bad because it is bad.” It’s a fact we’re primed to believe, but shallow and easy to question

2. We learn that marcille uses dark magic, but that she’s using it for good. “Actually dark magic is forbidden because the people in power were afraid of The Plebs and want to restrict the populaces access to knowledge” is also a common fantasy trope.

3. As we learn more about dungeons and how they intertwine with dark magic, we learn that it does truly have the power to end the world. Not by itself, but because the dimension it pulls power from is populated by beings who would use that bridge of power to enter our world and cause havoc. Holy shit, we think, black magic is actually dangerous and was banned for a reason. Naming it ‘black’ was part of a smear campaign intended to save the public by dissuading them from using it

4. And then we learn that the so called catastrophe scenario has never happened, no demon has ever escaped a dungeon and successfully ended the world. Is this because of the work of the Canaries and ppl like them, or are demons perhaps not as much of a threat as they are made out to be?

And it’s great because there is no one correct answer. We learn things through the characters, whose perspectives are limited and realistic and based on their own life experience. Nobody knows the whole story, and neither do we.

[headphones-ct-09978]

Sopapillas. 

Miguel O’Hara X Reader one-shot

Summary: You and Miguel share a small moment.

A/N: I haven’t seen the movie yet, so this is based on what I could scavenge from various Marvel websites and some spoilers. This in and of itself holds no spoilers, but I’ll tag it under “Spoilers”. 

Warnings: None. Maybe some really bad spanglish (I’m Mexican but my spanish is fucking AWFUL)

(If any of my spanish is cringe or bad, please please please, correct me and suggest phrases to me. I'm totally open to criticism here!)

. “Miguel? Eyo, ¿dónde está, man? I got you some sopapillas! I think some sugar could do you some good.” 

You wandered around the large room where most of the tech was located. Various holographic screens were up, displaying what appeared to be some kind of surveillance system. Miguel was the one working tirelessly to find a way to…well you honestly had no idea. All you knew was that you were here, in this corner of the multiverse, with others like you. Apparently you were supposed to be a spider person, but something in your timeline went wrong, and you ended up there. You had no powers, but also no motivation to return to your former life. To be fair, going back to that absolute shit show of a life was the last thing on your to-do list. Instead, you settled for being a sort of assistant for Miguel. He usually had you run small errands, maybe keep tabs on certain things, or help with technical issues. You often wondered why, since Miguel seemed more than capable of doing everything himself. But, he did seem very overworked and just downright stressed out 24/7, so perhaps he did need the extra help.

You looked around, holding the styrofoam box in your hands. You were about to call out to him again, when a screen to your left suddenly flickered off, revealing the towering man behind it, causing you to jump. “GAH!!” you exclaimed, startled by his sudden appearance. 

There were slight bags under his dark eyes and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days (which was actually the case).

“Geez dude, you keep giving me heart attacks.” you said as you handed him the small box. “Got you a little something to help with the night shift.”

His brown eyes flicked down to what you were handing him and he blinked, his nose twitching in what could only be confusion or exhaustion. After a moment he sighed and took the box. “Thanks.” he mumbled before opening the box, grabbing a sopapilla and biting it. You caught a glimpse of his fangs, which made you shiver. ‘Dioses, those things look freaky.’ you thought. 

“Did you double check that timeline I told you to investigate?” Miguel cocked an eyebrow at you, his eyes regarding inquisitively. You nodded. “Sí,todo bien. I triple checked too.” 

You waited for a snarky remark about something or other, or for him to suddenly get annoyed by something, but nothing happened. Instead, he just stared at the screen to your right. You turned and saw…another version of yourself. You, the you in the video, were at a party it seemed. You were dancing and laughing, looking happier than you’ve ever felt. 

“When is that?” you asked, pointing to the holographic display, the orange glow of the screen reflecting off the gold wrist cuff you wore. 

“It’s apparently you in earth-3499, pre-serum you.” he said before taking another bite of his snack.

“Pre-serum? I don’t get bitten?” 

“Nope,” he wiped some sugar granules off his bottom lip with his thumb, and licked the rest off. He put the box down on the consol beside him and brushed his hands off. “You, in this canon universe, were injected with this serum that combined the original super-soldier serum paired with an experimental serum that had both spider DNA and some other experimental tech.”

I cringed. “Oh no, not the nano robot thingies from earth-7569.” 

“Nah, it’s something else.” He turned the screen off and leaned against the consol. He nodded to you, beckoning for you to join him up on the consol platform. You hurried up the steps and joined him. Beside him, you could clearly notice the size difference, realizing how tall he was. You glanced at him and leaned against the black console as well. 

“¿Qué pasa, hombre? No eres tú mismo. Dime, ¿qué te molesta?” 

Unlike most of the spider people around, he seemed more relaxed around you. He shared things with you, usually about his family. You couldn’t fathom why, but you consider yourself lucky to at least be in this man’s good graces. 

He looked at you, curiously, brows furrowed as if he was trying to solve a puzzle. 

“¿Por qué no quieres volver? Tenías una vida, una familia, cosas que la mayoría de nosotros luchamos por recuperar…”

You started to fidget with the sleeve of your jacket. “No sé... Supongo que mi vida canónica no fue tan... genial como la mayoría supondría.” 

Miguel placed a hand on your shoulder, in a consoling manner. You continued, “No significa que no los ayudaré a todos, simplemente no me siento obligado a volver a mi antigua vida.”

He nodded. He was about to say something else when another screen popped up with a new developing timeline. He swiveled his head, and watched as the events unfolded. He groaned in annoyance. “Oh great, what now, another canon fuck up?” 

As you both watched the timeline thingy, you unflinchingly watched as the spider-person on the screen got hit by a train. 

“Canon?”

“Yep.”

“Anything I can do?”

He pointed to the box you had given. “You get yourself something to eat. I don’t want you hangry tonight.”

You scoffed playfully. “You’re one to talk.”

 He shot you a miffed glare and threw the box at you, which you caught with ease. You chuckled, both out of unease and nervousness. “¡Que era una broma! ¡Solo una broma!”

“Uh huh, yeah, sure.” he said, sounding unimpressed.

You chuckled to yourself as you left the room. Had you turned around, you would’ve seen him shake his head and allow a small smile to grace his lips. “You’re a pain in the ass.” he mumbled. 

-end-

[gffa]

I saw your post defending the way Jedi adopt the children/accept them into their culture, and I absolutely loved it! It was so well-informed, and you are right: It is all there in the original content!

I find it very ironic that many people spew these lies about the Jedi when that’s exactly what the Empire did. Iirc, this argument of Jedi being “kidnappers” was actually fueled by Emperor Palpatine and the Empire in their campaign against the Jedi. They wanted to discredit them and make the people turn against them so that they could erase them all more easily. So I find it very ironic that these lies are now being upheld by some people as the truth. (Really, have people forgotten the Empire was created bases on the Nazi’s and their own racist strategies?)

You are not inmune to the Empire’s propaganda.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not as good at pulling examples and proof from all the SW content as you are.

Hi! Thank you for the very sweet ask! Navigating stuff in fandom like this can be difficult at times, because there has to be room for compassion and tolerance for disagreement, like it's fine if people disagree with my views, I'm not your mom, I'm not telling you want to do or say, especially since this is fiction, these are made up space stories. But there also has to be room to understand that sometimes our commentary on fictional stories are echoes of reflection of real world attitudes--we can't just go around spewing racist, sexist, homophobic commentary and be like, "It's just fiction, you can't get upset!" There's no easy line for any of this, no single hard set in stone rule for when it's truly just fiction and when it's an echo of a real world attitude, especially in Star Wars, which often draws influence from a lot of non-Western sources and traditional Western sources. (My general rule of thumb is: I think it's fair to criticize those things through the influences they have, but if your criticism is then ended with, "So that's why we shouldn't have or acknowledge any Buddhism/Black people/queer people/women in Star Wars!" then fuck right on off with that.) And I also understand a lot of the anti-Jedi attitudes (or at least what I've personally experienced of them) because I've talked a bunch of times about how I started out as pretty Jedi-critical myself! I did the whole, "They had grown stagnant and refused to evolve with the galaxy, so they needed to be wiped out." thing because nobody had framed it explicitly as what it was: a genocide. It wasn't until a friend and I were talking and they mentioned that lens of it that it just sort of crashed down on me, oh, that's literally what it was and genocide is never justifiable. I did the whole, "The Jedi failed Anakin and taught him to repress his emotions." thing as well, because I saw it all over the place in fandom and just automatically folded it into my view, until I went back and actually watched Lucas' movies and Lucas' animation (first six movies + first six seasons of TCW) and read his interviews, which blew me onto my ass when I saw Obi-Wan being supportive of Anakin, when I saw Anakin not listening to the advice he was given, when I saw that Jedi were expressing emotion all over the place, when I saw they were respecting other Force traditions in the galaxy. I can't speak to why so many people think badly of the Jedi, there's probably a thousand reasons and I'm only vaguely aware of like half of them, but I do think that it's often unpopular to promote the idea of emotional regulation already being achieved, instead of something to be struggled with. I think we're all primed by a lot of mainstream media saying that an explosion of anger is what will save the day. I think there's so much anger in the world today that we're all angry and being told to let go of it feels really insulting at times. (But, as someone who has lost years of my life when I was younger to anger, I gotta say, I am so much better off having let go of as much of that shit as I can. It was poison in my veins, carrying that anger around. I lost so many friendships and opportunities and just time to being miserably mad about stuff.)

I'm getting off topic of the kidnapping aspect about the Jedi, but a lot of it starts to swirl together in what I've experienced (especially people who try to put this stuff on my posts--thankfully, that's died down/I block the people who won't respect boundaries) and so I kind of bounce from one aspect of it to another.

I do think it's good to talk about these things--both from "it's fun to analyze the content of the story on a meta level" perspective and "here's how this echoes into and from the real world" perspective, like I enjoy saying, okay, here's what's actually said in the movies/TCW, but also I think talking about how the Jedi are Buddhist influenced is important because that means they're going to have values that are meant to be reflected in that and Western fandom has a really big problem of being derisive about non-Western influences or automatically saying they're wrong. (I come from anime/manga fandoms, let me tell you, it's a big problem.)

And, yeah, in a way where it's really awful, but I think one of the most well-done things Disney's Star Wars has done is that it's really focused on showing that the Empire was a fascist one and the propaganda they used about the Jedi are ones that are super relevant to the conversation.

[lollytea]

Unfortunately due to TOH being cut short by Disney a lot of character arcs and more storyline could not be fully fleshed out and finished as Dana had to wrap up everybody’s story in just a few episodes

I'm fully aware that Disney's intervention is responsible for a lot of the plotlines getting suffocated. Which is why I don't think it's fair to go harassing crew members with "why didn't THIS happen??" and all that, because nobody really knows what they endured working on those final episodes and how much they had to cut and rewrite. But from things Dana has said, it was likely a very stressful and exhausting experience. So I don't like to make assumptions about the crew being incompetent. Nobody knows how the season WOULD have turned out if they had been granted full creative freedom and breathing room to develop it to their hearts content.

However, me not directing personal ire towards the crew doesn't mean that I think that the show is immune to criticism. Its flawed. It might not be entirely the crew's fault but that doesn't mean we can't talk about how it's flawed. If anything, I think acknowledging and dissecting its weaknesses is a good learning opportunity for what we should consider when creating our own stories.

Season 3 is a bit of a mess. There's good stuff. There's some less than good stuff. I think ultimately, as a story about Luz, King and Eda, it knocks it out of the park. When they were left with no other option, they decided to prioritize the writing of their three protagonists and I think that was the correct choice.

But I've been thinking about the three specials and how they stand on their own, quality wise, and honestly, there's valid criticism to be said that is completely unrelated to the shortening.

Bear in mind that the crew has known since Follies that the show was getting cut short and they needed to start wrapping up loose ends. So it's not like they started writing Thanks to Them believing it was the first of 20+ more episodes. They knew that they were going to be writing a 40 minute special. So the execution had to be tight, concise and satisfying, right?

Well...it was....weird. Definitely fun. Good for fan service. The main hook was the witch kids navigating the human world in their dorky witchy way. And initially, that was enough. But once the novelty of that wears off and we focus on the plot of the special, what do we have left?

Thanks to Them is very guilty of lore baiting. Dropping in stuff that they know damn well that they're never going to elaborate on, leaving the audience with a feeling of intrigue that is never going to be satiated.

I personally think that is just bad writing. They knew they didn't have a full season 3 and rather than rewrite the means of which the hexsquads finds answers, they still made the choice to drop in what are most likely vague ideas from the initial draft.

I think, if they had no intention of developing it in future specials, there was no point to that scene of Masha telling the Wittebane story. It was just...filler. To stretch out the running time. Which is....kind of precious. Only 40 minutes. If you're obsessive enough about lore, you already knew the story from the Hollow Mind paintings. That scene was for casual viewers. Which is useless, because there's no point in casual viewers learning about Evelyn and Caleb because it never went anywhere.

Also. I personally think that if there was any value to learning the Wittebane lore without making it plot relevant, it would be for the sake of character development. We wanted to know how the kids would react to this knowledge.

Well how did they react?

*Shrug* They seemed a little unnerved but they kinda forgot about it the second they got off the hayride.

So what was the point of all that? What was the point?

Is it because we wanted "Goodbye, Evelyn," to be more of gut punch?

Was it worth it? Was "Goodbye, Evelyn" worth it? We know fucking nothing about Evelyn.

I think the rebus was a stupid and lazy means for the kids to discover Titan's blood. You introduce this mysterious object that was hidden under the floorboards and then you just use it as a plot device.

When the kids uncover the rebus and find the secret code inside, the viewer is not thinking about how it can be used as a means to an end (finding blood) The viewer is thinking "what the fuck is that thing and how did it get there and how did Flapjack know it was there?"

Questions that will not be answered <333

ALL IM SAYING is that I'm sure the crew could have come up with another way for the kids to have a Titan's blood treasure hunt. Maybe they could have dug a little more into the history of Gravesfield and follow leads on weird things happening on this one spot in the graveyard (which turns out to be because there's magical energy there, revealed when Luz realizes she can use glyphs)

I just think that if you're gonna leave the mystery box a mystery, you shouldn't have included it.

And I know. Its subtle storytelling. There's elements of what could have been a far more complex story and they're leaving hints of it here and there.

Well the thing about that is I think the hints are very unsatisfying and weaken the episode's plot significantly.

Also I don't think they should get to just pick and choose what parts of the lore are subtle and what parts are ham-fisted.

YES we are going to be reminded like three times that Flapjack is being secretive and hiding things from Hunter.

NO we are never going to get a payoff for that because he gets shanked and dies first.

BUT!! BUT!! If you squint, its IMPLIED that Flapjack belonged to Evelyn and blah blah blah

You don't get to rub things in the audience face and then choose to be all subtle about it at the last minute. Pick one or the other.

Anyway....I think they could have written Thanks to Them as more of an intriguing and suspenseful horror mystery where they spend forty minutes gathering clues and everything finally clicks together at the very end. That's not what we got.

We got a very weak attempt on the Hexsquad's part to be little detectives, but like a minute of screen time was devoted to them dicking around in a library, a costume shop, and a zoo.

I don't think we can blame the shortening for this.

[azaharinflames]

I really thought I would be doing my post on Buck and Eddie's friendship before making this one (and I am still doing it eventually, because oh do I have opinions), but I've been seeing a lot of discourse on Eddie lately, so it motivated me to write this first.

Now, small disclaimer, I guess. Eddie is nowhere near my favorite character from the show, and from our 118 main crew, he ranks fifth on my podium (sorry for not counting Ravi here, only counting mains this time). I don't necessarily dislike him, I just feel mostly neutral about him. I do dislike his actions, and, admittedly, I do dislike how he was portrayed in some episodes in Season 7, but that's mostly regarding the buddie platonic friendship. So. No hate for Eddie. Don't love him, but don't hate him either.

And, look. One of my passions when watching a show is to analyse the fuck out of the characters, and I think Eddie is painted very clearly for us to admire. As much as the writers were at a loss on what to do with him for a long time, we can all backtrack his actions and see an explanation for them (not an excuse. But to explain them).

So. Eddie's actions.

I've seen a lot of discourse on these lately, including criticisms and opinions, and all are valid. Eddie is an incredibly flawed character, and one thing we have going on with him is that he rarely seeks change for himself. He doesn't necessarily want to grow out of those behaviors, and only does it when they reach a limit, or someone else calls him out on it. He's pushed to change, to correct his behaviors, and eventually, he does. Sometimes.

And I think Eddie's selfish actions and attitude directly result from his childhood. And I know we have somewhat little information on what it was, but we do know he had to act as the man in the house from a really young age because Ramón was always traveling. We know he's had a heavy weight on his shoulders since he was very small, and we know that weight only grew heavier once he had Christopher. He had to be a husband, a father, and a provider. We can debate if he did a good job or not, sure, but he did make an effort and a lot of sacrifices to do what he was supposed to do.

And then he gets home, and he struggles. And Shannon leaves. And his parents are pushy and a bit overbearing, and Eddie is kind of drowning. And then he moves to LA.

And it is at this point, and not before, that Eddie lets himself be selfish, in my opinion. He lets himself take from the people around him because, and this is important to note, the people around him are okay with him doing so. He's still a father, and now he's a widower. But things are different because he has a web of people who would do anything for him and Christopher, and he can sort of breathe. And perhaps it reaches a point where he's overdoing it a bit, where he does not realize he's taking too much, or not being fair. But he has not had this before, so how could he realize his actions are not necessarily right? Even more so when no one has ever told him of his wrongdoings?

I am the first to think the Buddie friendship is not 50-50. On a good day it may be 60-40, but not always. Yet, I also think Eddie is not a bad person, and that just like everyone else in the show, his actions are a result of his trauma and his childhood.

I do want the writers to have him finally find solid ground, to have an idea of who he is in the way that every single character other than him does. I do hope Season 8 can bring that to him.

Also, I am not even going to get into how he treats women, because I think that's been heavily debated, but to be clear: I think he's a terrible romantic partner and that every single one of his romantic partners deserved better. Even Shannon, and I am no fan of her.

Anyway. I hope this made sense. I'll still do a post on the Buddie friendship - too many thoughts on it not to.

[sgiandubh]

Come ho già detto non ho copiato o memorizzato quelle foto viste le mie scarse attitudini tecniche. la foto estiva ricordo che era in un gruppo di foto insieme ad altre degli interpreti di Outlander, come se ne trovano anche adesso quando si cerca sotto S e C o C e T. In quei momenti non eravamo alla divisione del fandom come ora e il signor T non era ancora diventato famoso .La foto della festa durante la quale C era seduta sulle ginocchia del signore di cui ho parlato sono state messe in rete dai blogger molte volte , anche se non tutte, e credo che quelli di quel periodo possano ancora ritrovarle. Ho solo messo mano ai miei ricordi e ho voluto condividerli.Spero che ciò non provochi altri rumori . So che quando si dice qualcosa la prima parola è “provalo!” ed è giusto. Se ci saranno critiche lo capirò ma non mi faranno male perché la mia coscienza è tranquilla.Grazie, grazie davvero .

Dear @findanserwers,

Grazie per la tua risposta e grazie per il tuo coraggio!

Traduzione e dopo, reazione:

'Like I already said, I did not copy or save those pictures, on account of my very limited technical abilities. I remember the summer picture was included in a bigger batch, together with other photos of the OL cast, like the ones you can still find when you look for S and C or C and T. At that time, we didn't have these fandom wars, like nowadays, and Mr. T was not famous yet. The picture of the party when C was sitting on that gentleman's lap has been shared many times by bloggers and I think the more senior bloggers could still have it or find it. I was just revisiting my memories and I wanted to share. I hope I did not start even more rumors. I know that every time someone says something the first reaction is 'prove it!' and it's only fair. If this post will be criticized, I will understand, but I will not be hurt, because my conscience is clear. Thank you, truly thank you.'

I am now wondering if this mysterious summer pic is not one of the series taken for RDM's birthday party and if memory serves (and I can, of course, be awfully wrong and sure - always correct me, please), it was a whole flurry at the time about S being cut off some pictures. That would mean you have somehow seen a picture that was not very widely circulated. As for the lap pic, still no clue - but many pics of C with many other men (dr. Colbert comes to mind, too) are very affectionate, whereas with McIdiot - flat cardiogram and blink twice if you want us to rescue you.

Maybe one of the veterans could help? At the moment, I feel like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack and there is nothing more irritating for someone like me (granted, chronically curious - a detail that, remember, got me here, LOL).

I will never blame you for not finding those photos, by the way. I think it was incredibly brave to step out with your handle and own your thoughts and words: it is rare and for this, my dear, I do admire you! And I can only look back, with my historian glasses, this time, and think of all the tiny details that were forever lost with each and every deactivated or erased blog, all those comments and all those tidbits that once kept this community on tenterhooks every single day. Back when this place was lively, and fun and smiling and young and naïve.

A time I never knew. But a story I can relate to and understand maybe as well as our veterans, who lived through the sorrow and puzzlement and are still here, with us. And I feel incredibly honored to see you found this page to be a safe haven. It will always remain so, for all the shippers who will engage with me. You have my word.

Please don't be a stranger. Grazie, grazie mille e un abbraccio per te. Pace e Bene! 😘

[matchibee]

A Web of Their Own Design (pt. 5)

the plot is thickening, I promise everything has a purpose. semi-proof read, i’m lazy but with standards.

"Hobie, I..." Words refused to string together, simple tasks burdensome, impossible. You didn’t know where your words would begin nor where they’d end, the possibility of bringing unseen experiences to the front of your mind troubling.

Hobie seemed acutely attentive, looking to you with remorse, dropping himself onto one knee, hands shoved into the pockets upon his multi-patched jacket. He look to you critically, scanning your features, not missing a single detail. Once he condemned them to memory, to past experiences — heart rate, pupil dilation, breathing habits — he only had one thing to tell you. The one thing he had to tell you to make everything feel a semblance of what it was. Even if it never would be, never could be.

"You don't need to say it, I know."

What did he know? You thought to the context, the way you must appear to the external. It would be obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes, let alone spider senses, you were going through some type of turmoil. Whether it be of your own design or from the outside was unclear, at least to the untrained eye. And then a thought seemed to plague you, encapsulating you in only blackness — a shadow — as you pondered upon what he’d said. Why he’d said it.

He knew as in he knew the situation, the network that connected the various Spiders keeping him informed? Or had Hobie been exposed to enough losses he'd become desensitized; developing a meter for grief? You know? "You do?" You were skeptical.

"It's a fucked up world — universe — multiverse that we live in, man. It ain't fair, not right that we have to live like this and simply accept it."

You replied through tears, "The canon event shit?"

"The entire thing! Why should we be expected to devote our lives, ourselves, to fighting crime? We lose our reason, loved ones; all what for what?What have they — those institutions that created us, forced us into this life — ever done for us besides condemn us, wanting us gone?”

He’d gone onto an entire tangent and you’d simply allowed him to, sitting wordlessly as he was as expressive as ever — without or without the mask — Hobie was as theatrical as they came. Even if his words were correct, even if they struck a chord.

“We’re a pawn to their game, to the people. Working with those blokes that want us dead, yeah? Damn those cops... Damn them all." Hobie slumped beside you, maintaining his distance, moral support in his own mouth fully wordless way — the only way he knew how.

You didn’t know what to say, could only discern his words from a surface level of understanding. How badly you knew he was correct, how diligently you worked to keep thoughts of grief below the surface.

"About this uh... Anomaly? When did you detect it?" You choked out your words, throat dry, lips cracked. A fish out of water. Tears so far gone your body had deprived you of the nectar of life.

"Don't trouble yourself with that," Hobie stood to his feet, back slouched, boots pattering against hardwood flooring, "I'll contact Bossman, let him know the deal. He can handle it. Big man, that one."

This was your job. Your place in the multiverse. If you weren’t there to be the Spider to your people, to those that relied on your protection; what were you?

You’d lost your sense of self, sense of reason. Everyday you seemed to stray further from yourself and closer to this persona you’d created. Were you a person with their own life? A Spider whose life revolved around others?

Besides, you didn't want Miguel to have to handle it, extending himself too far, just like you’d done these past — fuck, how long had you been a hero, again? He tended to an infinite number of multiverses, doing his best to control outbreaks as they presented themselves, the best interest of the people in mind.

He didn't want to see innocent people overrun with malice, neither did you.

Even if Hobie wouldn't admit it, he didn't want that, either.

"Grief can put itself on hold," Could it really? You'd hardly begun the grieving process when Hobie showed up rearing for a fight. The loss of a life, friendship, multiple. Anyone would be rendered bedridden for the next few weeks, months. To know that such transgressions could’ve been prevented if only they’d been there? An eternity.

Spiders didn't have that luxury, not in this life, nor the next. Even if you pushed the thoughts and responsibilities away, they'd forever persist. It was your responsibility divined by the multiverse, a vessel chosen to bare the responsibility, a web that required your attention.

You couldn't break away without running the risk of severing its fickle connections. All it took was a single moment, a stroke of bad luck, and your universe would cease to exist.

You couldn't allow such transgressions to occur. If not for yourself, for the people who would lose their lives to a premature death.

"If there's an anomaly I should be there to deliver it from evil."

"Nobility doesn't suit you, not now."

Hobie was slowly but surely breaking down your walls in an attempt to rebuild you, mold you into someone capable of living for themselves rather than the people — it was your fatal flaw, the reason you lost so much in such little time — incapable of keeping up with the personas of daily life.

Spider. Sibling. Lover. Child.

You couldn't have it all, couldn't remember special occasions, finding them pushed further into the back of your mind as crime picked up during the holidays. Presents gone unwrapped, piling up in the corner of your apartment, holiday cards unopened. They only wanted to see you, make sure their darling child was alright.

Spider. Sibling. Lover.

Love didn't work for a Spider, time too inconsistent, intimate moments disrupted by the cruel reality of crime. Scrapes and bruises impossible to hide as wandering hands traversed the most delicate parts of sensitive skin, lies only deepening the rift between love and like.

Spider. Sibling.

Eventually they grew tired of lies, tired of an identity you work diligently to hide. The person who once ate sand alongside you now spat words of malice, siding with a parent stricken with grief, fearing they might lose someone of their own fruition. Siblings are fickle, fights breaking out for the smallest of instances. Usually they're simple to remedy, an ice cream cone and a shove, but not this time.

Spider.

The only thing that remained consistent.

The reason everything was unable to coexist.

The only thing you had left.

Hobie had tracked the anomaly to central Newer York, the two of you discovering nothing out of the ordinary upon your arrival, the typical hustle and bustle of the working class's evening, returning home to adoring families, perhaps none at all.

Multiverse knows you had nothing to return to.

From damn-near thin air Hobie produced the small spider surveillance mechanism Lyla had taught you to use, the AI a whisper away in the dead of the night — a cheeky conversationalist if you entertained her, but your experience was far from first-hand.

Things change.

"Miguel wants to know if you two were successful in apprehending the anomaly." She fluttered at your shoulder, craning her to look you in the eyes — spider-eyes, but eyes nonetheless.

"Not particularly...?"

"I'll let him now."

"No!" You and Hobie were quick to shout in a succinct unison, terrifying you, a shiver running down your spine. You continued before the Spider-Punk, "I'd rather do this of our own voilition, y'know? Learn the ropes without a teacher breathing down my neck?"

"I completely understand," Your breath stilled, Hobie extending his fist, your own colliding with boney knuckles. "Unfortunately, I've already contacted him."

"Lyla!" Hobie shouted, running his palms down his mask. "Why would you do that to us, man! Way to kill the vibe!"

"Matar la vibra?"

Your backs grew rigid, Hobie swatting at you, wordlessly telling you to turn around, greet the man. You did the same, if not with more force, Miguel the one to inevitably deliver you from your silent argument.

Claws gripped where your suit pooled around your neck, raising you to the air like a cat to its infant, looking between the both of you with a scrutinous gaze. "Some maturity, children. I'm not a babysitter."

You crossed your arms over your chest, mumbling something under your breath, Miguel humming in prompt to continue.

"I'd appreciate if you'd stop calling me that."

"I'll call you whatever I want until I believe you deserve a different title, niño."

"I'm not a child."

Hobie furrowed his brows, "You speak Spanish?"

You tossed your hand back and forth, so-so, "Highschool Spanish, you can fill in the blanks."

"Teach me."

"Enough!" Miguel dropped you on your asses, your hand flying to rub at your tailbone, wincing. "Did you two spot the anomaly, or not."

“Or.”

You snickered at Hobie’s response, elbowing him at his side, Hobie responding with the same. Miguel from his spot above you, shoulders tensed and stare running like a chill down your spine, was far from amused.

"Doesn't appear to be showing up on my scanner." Hobie replied in a mumble, displaying his watch for Miguel to view, looking anywhere except the man above him.

The man groaned, turning to you. "Nothing?"

You nodded your head, smacking the watch with your palm for good measure, hoping to get some sort of reaction out of it. "Hey!" Miguel snatched your wrist, holding it his chest. "Sensitive technology, cabrón. Don't handle it like your toys."

You huffed, attempting to pull yourself free, Miguel smirking from above you. "You don't know how I play with my toys," Raising your mask to stick out your tongue, Miguel was thoroughly stunned, releasing you from his grasp.

He clicked his tongue, "toñto."

The three of you decided it was in your best interest to part ways for the time being, scouring the streets for the supposed anomaly, not a trace of where they could've gone in sight. As far as files had gone, Lyla nagging you with information as you wandered the streets, you were dealing with someone who had the ability to camouflage in some form, rendering it impossible for them to be picked up on the scanners. Perhaps an ability of invisibility, but you couldn’t be sure.

It was as though they'd vanished entirely, flat off the face of your universe, but according to your cumulative watches, a disturbance still persisted.

What could it be?

"Spider!" A voice you hadn't heard in a few days called out to you, blonde ribbons filling your vision, "Been a minute, hasn't it? How are you holding up?"

You smiled beneath the mask, grateful for simple conversation that didn't entail work. "I find I'm doing well, Officer. I hope I'm not under arrest?"

Hunter waved his hand, smiling at you with a roll of his eyes, "No way! Captain Perez is mental if he thinks I'm arresting the city's protector."

"I wouldn't call myself a protector, per say."

"Oh I would," Hunter approached you, taking your hands in his own, finger circling your palm. "I've been a diligent observer of your work for quite some time, Spider. You started this business when I was only a freshman, and so were you!"

"How do you know how..."

"I keep a close eye on the things I like. And you? I like you the most!"

The interaction had gone from wholesome to horrifying in a mere matter of seconds, a nervous laugh preceding your attempt at escape, finding his grip around your wrist tightened. "What I wouldn't give to see the face beneath the mask..." A hand detached from your wrist, snaking up the back of your head, "I promise Captain Perez would be none the wiser... Just a peek?"

You tensed, hands against the man’s wrists, squeezing in an effort to get away. Why was it that when you believed someone to have your best interests at heart, they always seemed to prove you wrong?

You couldn’t meet anyone as a Spider without them yearning for who lied beyond the mask, admiration be damned. You couldn’t get close to anyone as yourself, breaking bonds to protect what remained of your connection, losing everything in the end.

And isolation persisted once more.

You mustered all your strength to push against him, the officer stumbling a good few paces backwards before looking to you in astonishment, rejection. "Spider, I didn't mean..."

"Do yourself a favor and keep your hands off 'em." Hobie stood beside you, arm latching around your neck as he rested his weight against you, free hand pointing to the officer. "They ain't interested, man. Take a hint."

"Oh, you misunderstand!” He shook his hands in front of his face, “I'm merely an admirer, a bystand—“

Miguel seemed to manifest from nothing, towering over Hunter, hands to his hips, deviously smirking beneath the mask "Admiration can be done from afar."

Hunter took the hint, hobbling away, leaving you without so much as a wave of his hand. You breath stilled, hand pressed to your chest as you registered what had just occurred. "Thanks for the assist, Hobie. Really saved my a—"

Miguel interrupted you, "Language."

"Ass."

Miguel clicked his tongue, departing from the both of you, continuing his surveillance of the nearby area. There had to be something you were missing, something Layla had failed to debrief, and he would sooner keel over in a heap of webs than admit defeat — admit the anomaly had breached the confines of your universe.

"I wasn't the one to suggest assistance. Quite frankly, I wanted to see how it'd play out." Hobie had his hands in his pockets, walking at your side as the both of you scanned for something, anything.

You were perplexed, looking up at him as though he were speaking a foreign language, grown a second head. "Then who—"

"Who’d ya think?

taglist: @coralineyouareinterribledanger (never done a taglist before so lmk if u wanna be added) :)

[greenflamedwriter]

Roleplay to a whole new level

Pairings: Airplane/Cucumber

Cumplane AU: What happens if...Shang Qinghua transmigrated as Luo Binghe and became the protagonist, and then ends up going through PIDW but changing it up and ends up sticking a middle finger because "Fuck you I'm the protagonist!" to the system. Although it's not that great, Luo Binghe goes through so much pain and harship and gets beaten up all the time especially by Elder hammer! This sucks!

And Shen Qingqiu is such a Sadist! And yet, Luo Binghe [Qinghua] Can't even get mad, he wrote the scum villain and may have accidently made it worse, he tends to speak outloud when he goes in his daze.

So Shen Qingqiu just see's this usualy smiley annoying disciple look at him with a strange expression on his face, as if he's possesed it freaked Shen Qingqiu out for a moment.

"I feel sorry for you. Nothing has been fair and you fought so hard and it feels as if you havn't progressed at all..."

Shen Qingqiu stiffened, that hit a bit too close to home so of course, he ended up punishing Luo Binghe for 'speaking out of term' But by ignoring Ning Yingying, and forced to follow the rules of the system couldn't do anything. But learned he CAN remove OC protocal so thats great! And by stealing a better manual and hid it in his crappy one, he ended up stealing Ming Fans and swapping it with another disciples and stole theirs.

So now Ming Fan was yelling at them wondering why they had his manual and they denied it but with theirs missing ended up getting in trouble. Luo Binghe snickered flipping through the better manual and ended up improving in his cultivation!

Of course he was doxed points for course correction god dammit!

So when he fell into the abyss, he figured it can't get any worse. But he had one thing to keep him going.

Mobei-Jun, after this protocal maybe he can go by his draft! Mobei-Jun and Luo Binghe had a slow burn romance while Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu were supposed to be their parralell of two broken men along with the quiet men who encourage their crappy behaviour.

Mobei-Jun was supposed to call Binghe out on his bullshit eventually and be his most harshest critic but he only did it because he cared he loved Luo Binghe and wanted what was best for him and disaproved of his actions. And Luo Binghe hated it at first not seeing it for the what it was. Just assuming he was like Shen Qingqiu just another one to tell him what to do.

But after all the times Mobei-Jun saves him and vice versa, Luo Binghe see's the love this cold beauty has and sometimes its hard to understand him especially as the Northern demons look down on love and theres some denial in there. God so much stuff- but his happy ending was coming all those plots for the 'wives' were actually adventures of Binghe and Mobei-Jun! He was so excited, to finally have this happy ending after all the suffering he's been through the pain and torment he was going to be gifted his own himbo male wife and it was going to be amazing!

So...imagining his horror when he beats up Mobei-Jun as the syste wants to complete the story, of Mobei-Jun swearing his allegiance to Luo Binghe and be his right hand man.

And after beating up Mobei-Jun and having his loyalty Luo Binghe realised something was off...then it was revealed that Mobei-Jun was a transmigrator!

He...he didn't get his cold beauty who was devoted to Luo Binghe insead a sneering man- Cucumber bro, the anti-fan who despises Airplane but adores Luo Binghe? He's getting whiplash from this fellow transmigrator who has his own system.

He beats Binghe up, abuses him because of his garbage story but then he grabs his tear streaked face and bruised cheeks and scowls, how dare the man be beautiful even when he was angry!?

"Luo Binghe is too handsome and pitiful and has suffered so much but knowing your the author makes me want to bully you more!"

Why!?!?! This was too pitiful for someone like airplane! He didn't want to make a trash story! he just wanted his happy ending!

And to think it couldn't get any worse.

It was strange that Cucumber loved Luo Binghe and was obessed with him, but he was in such denial! Their happy ever after was just a pipe dream...

Or was it?

When Luo Binghe forget during a mission that Xin Mo needed dual cultivation receives a backlash and almost dies, when he woke up, memory foggy he sat up naked and grimaced feeling a sharp pain up his backside. "What?"

He froze as he felt someone shift beside him and saw Mobei-Jun lying on the bed next to him...naked. Did they- did they just-!?

"Shut up, this King wouldn't just let you die."

Luo Binghe was oddly touched his mouth repressing a smile as tears streamed down his face "My king!" He leapt onto the larger men peppering his face with kisses, and Mobei-Juns face flushed blue "Get off!" He slapped his arm but instead moved his body to hold Luo Binghe more secure against him.

It wasn't what he expected but he got that happy ending after all!

[strykingback]

Okay so now p/apitimefire177 has responded... well unsurprisingly on a vague post (Well I wouldnt say vague) about Doom and I. So I have to pull up again since they have made the choice to mention me. So, let's go band for band and see what you had to say.

First things first, you stated how Jaune is not Aryan, including providing the definition of it and how "those guys" bastardized it. Good, you know what it is. But nowadays the meaning of Aryan has sadly since been affiliated with White Supremacy and "Those Guys" Fair enough. Let's also not forget this isnt the ONLY thing they bastardized as well.

Once again, Doom was using this as either a joke to piss you off, since you know White Supremacists like to describe the perfect race as Blonde hair, Blue Eyes, white skin....?

Which once again they could have done a Joan of Arc allusion with Jaune, but decided to go with the Paladin/Knight allusion. Showing that they only used her as the inspiration for Jaune, in no means did they explore anything with the allusion at all.

Nothing from Joan of Arc's life being used to develop Jaune even further. Just making him into a DND Paladin, with his semblance being literally. "Lay On Hands" from surprise-surprise. Dungeons and Dragons. Nothing exciting about that...

No Semblance that could make Jaune see into the future and see Cinder amongst the flames alluding to Joan of Arc's death....

Or anything about him making an effort to learn how important a sacrifice is to bring about the swan song of victory. Y'know.... just like Joan of Arc?!

Or maybe making Jaune be a good strategist despite protests from his teammates... LIKE JOAN OF ARC!

Then papi goes off again on a ad hominem tangent, calling Doom illiterate and stating that they needed to do research and state how they throw tantrums.

No Papi, you are the one throwing tantrums. You are proving me and Doom right because what did you do right after Doom and I called you out. You went back to your regularly scheduled Jaune Simping and Cardin-Hate Posting. Plus as I said before, Doom may have used this as a means of making it an INSULT to the character as a whole.

You are being a belligerent fool, and you are proving Doom right. I'm even still surprised that you havent been banned off tumblr yet for harassment, using ableist slurs (despite your half-hearted apology), and so on forth.

Now you are indeed correct.. kind of about one thing. R/RWBYCritics isnt a valuable source. But I digress because I used it for ONE thing and that was to see how much screen time did Jaune get in RWBY as part of my research cause good lord I am not going to sit around and watch Volumes 1-9 having to time how much screentime he had. . Which from Volumes 1-6 He got and I repeat from that one post.

5,489 Hours of Screentime

Which when converted into an actual time it comes up to.

One hour thirty-one minutes and twenty-nine seconds

This is NOT counting Volumes 7-9 and I did NOT say that R/RWBYCritics was a Valuable source. If you actually paid attention to my other posts of me being critical about Jaune especially in the Twin-Revisions of why I think Jaune is a horrible Knight

One of the sources came from the Infographics Show. Where they gave a summarized talk about how Real Life Knights were not like the actual knights you would see in the Romanticized stories.

Even providing sources when one such historian talked with Spiegel Online about Sir John Arundel and his band of knights taking refuge in a convent violating the Nuns and stealing from them and throwing them overboard once they were all but used up.

Or how in that same video, quoted by Nigel Saul in his book Chivalry in Medieval England: "Knights only fought for three things. Land, Gold, and War Booty."

Since RWBY is a show that takes the romanticized takes of knights or stories from those romanticized stories. Such as Robin Hood, the Grimm Tales, etc. And apply them to RWBY.

Which once again, I only used R/RWBYCritics once for a source on Jaune's screentime and you falsely proclaim that I use it for all of my RWDE posts. Which I dont...

Now, let's also talk about this little thing I found where you made the statement about someone calling Jaune Fans Jaune-Turds. Which I do not know what the context was about, maybe an episode back then... but I am more surprised that you tunnel visioned to the insult instead of CHECKING THE FUCKING TAGS AND DATE.

Right off the bat. I see no mention of the RWDE tag there... and no mention of "Does this count as RWDE?" on there. This was a personal rant... and the date?

Here lemme put it in caps for you Papi.

"NOVEMBER 17th, 2018"

You are using a post from SIX YEARS ago as a means to "prove" that "Oh RWDE are all just meanies and what not." Gee its also not like you have been doing more wrong than us. Once again in my reply to your Stop The Hate 2.0 I simply put down at the START to not witchhunt you but to Block and Move On. Guess that didnt click in your head didnt it?! That was the only form of respect I was going to give you. Because I atleast have some form of morality to give you!

Lets not forget you got pissy from a post after this which was A JOKE. a fucking JOKE. Dude are you the DJ Akademiks of Jaune stans like getting all pissy over a JOKE?

I think we're done here. Pack it up. Cause listen Papi you called me out for not having valuable sources, well I provided while also once again cooking your ass in the Malevolent Kitchen. I dunno maybe at this point you are just way too easy to beat... plus the fact that it took you two months to say something about the call out, but either way. Have a good one, drink water, do some self-reflection and yeah Jaune still sucks.

Good Day.

[balkanradfem]

If you’re a woman, and you find yourself assuming, planning, or putting effort into something with certain expectations, and then when you get to the point where your expectations should be fulfilled, suddenly you realize none of it is how you imagined, and you start feeling small, foolish, over-optimistic, presumptive, stupid or embarrassed, I want you to know that there’s a huge chance that it’s not your fault, and the situation was, in fact, orchestrated this way.

M*n will orchestrate situations where they give women certain assumptions and expectations, then turn the situation nowhere in that direction. They do it so they would get exactly what they want out of the situation, while giving away nothing but false hope, false expectations, and encouraging false assumptions. You did not have a false assumption because there’s something wrong with you! You were not stupid or over-indulged! It’s been set up for you to feel exactly that way, otherwise you would never indulge, you’d never put effort, hope, energy, expectations or positive assumptions there.

Not only m*n orchestrate simple situations like this (like putting women on the spot where they’re expected to deliver subservience, obedience, forgiveness, their time and company, physical intimacy), but they orchestrate entire institutions and way of life this way. They develop marketing schemes out of that manipulation. They start and keep up relationships by keeping women’s assumptions always positive. They even go as far as to criticize, slander and demonize women whose expectations are anything but the most positive, optimistic and humanizing for them.

Women are supposed to assume every guy is the nice guy, even when walking into the hands of a rapist or a predator. Women are supposed to believe marriage with m*n is a place where they’ll be loved and taken care of, even when there’s a way higher chance of ending up in domestic servitude, or worse, domestic violence and life danger. We’re set up to find ourselves in situations where we either deliver whatever is expected of us, or we’re considered selfish, cruel, evil, leading someone on, and ‘making all other women look bad’. It’s not fair! It’s not fair to keep managing our expectations to remain optimistic, while already planning what to extract from us, all the while holding the card of calling us a slur or becoming violent the second we break the illusion.

When you’re safe to, you should get to call it out. It’s okay to say: “This is not what I was led to believe. This is not why I did all of those things. This is not what you’ve been saying to me all this time. This is not what I was told to expect. This is not what I agreed upon. This is not the expectation you’ve given me and you know it. This is not what I said yes to. You should have told me the truth earlier. You shouldn’t have led me on to believe this is what was about to happen. You shouldn’t have assumed I would keep being polite while you lie to me about what we’re doing here. I’m not partaking in this. You’ve wasted my time.”

If you do this, instead of assuming you’re just silly or naive, in most scenarios you will be completely correct. It’s not naive, foolish, or presumptive to have optimistic expectations, or to believe that people are telling you the truth, that you’re not being led on every time someone gives you positive expectations out of them. But people who would exploit that in you? They deserve to lose everything they hoped to gain by taking advantage of you.

[sluttyten]

감이 오지? (Can You Feel It)

Yesterday <- || -> Kinktober Masterlist

Day Six: Daddy Kink w/ Shotaro

Word Count: 3,957

** a touch of choking, dominant!Shotaro, and mirror sex. Enjoy!

When you first met Shotaro, you thought he was pure and innocent. A few quick interactions with him over the span of a week, and your mind was changed. In front of the cameras and the fans he was the picture of adorableness, like a baby animal inspiring affection from everyone who looks at it. But behind the cameras, when that act fell, when the sweetly cherubic grin and giggles became a smirk and a challenging glint in his eye, you learned the reality of Osaki Shotaro.

He was a force to be reckoned with.

In your dancing career you’d worked with many teammates, coaches, choreographers, challengers. Shotaro seemed to take on all of those roles.

You had a couple years of experience on him, but there was no denying that he had the talent. He was an idol, you were a backup dancer. And he used his advantage to take charge of the practice room, and it amazed you when the choreographers stepped back and let Shotaro coach you and choreograph you and the other dancers. They sat back and let Shotaro analyze the way all of you moved, spitting out his corrections, singling out dancers who messed up. He was part of this team, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

At the end of the first week, you wondered if any of you were going to make it to the stage that you were all prepping for. Shotaro, as well as the choreographers themselves, had many comments and criticisms about all of you. Shotaro more so than the rest because he monitored all of you like a hawk, even where you stood in the back of the choreo all the time, he’d called you out on little mistakes a few times.

The other dancers would grumble, bitching about Shotaro under their breath when he left the room.

“Does he think this is the fucking military?” One of the girls groaned, collapsing to the floor when Shotaro and his manager left the room for a quick phone meeting. “Fuck, like, we don’t have to all be in totally perfect unison.”

On the one hand, you could see that side of things. Shotaro drilled all of you toward perfection, and that could be extremely exhausting. On the other hand, you agreed with Shotaro’s vision. Perfection, nailing each angle and move identically to achieve perfect unison was an impressive sight in choreography.

So you kept your mouth shut about him. You respected him, liked him even more because there was passion in him, a drive you admired, and there was something more that spoke to a deeply-rooted desire in you that you didn’t quite have a name for.

After a week and a half of practicing choreo, it all reached a breaking point. A storm had been building all day—a literal storm brewed outside, as well as the figurative one inside the room. When one of the girls finally snapped at Shotaro, she stormed out of the room, tired of him berating her about getting one move right. To be fair, it was the same move he’d tried telling her how to do properly several times, she was just refusing to listen to his instruction, and as she was taking a notable role in the choreo at that part, her messing up was obvious.

Practice was called to an end then as everyone’s tempers were running a little high. The other girls, the choreographers, and one of Shotaro’s team who’d been there to film the practice for behind the scenes content filed out of the room, leaving only you and Shotaro and his manager behind.

“I’m staying to practice some more, hyung,” Shotaro tells his manager. “I’ll just catch a ride to the dorm some other way.”

You linger at the back of the practice room, inconspicuously moving things around in your bag like you’re actually doing something more than biding time until his manager leaves. You don’t have to wait long. Shotaro’s manager flees as quickly as he can, as if he can escape the sour mood of the room.

When you straighten up from your bag, you see Shotaro watching you in the mirror.

“You didn’t want to run away like the rest of them?” He asks, a tone of annoyance in his voice. “I know they think I’m a dick. That I’m scary.”

You smile a little bit at that. He’s intimidating and a little bit of a control freak, but he’s not a dick and he’s certainly not scary.

“I’m not gonna run away, Shotaro.” You walk closer towards him, and when you’re close enough to touch him, you do. You reach out, pressing a finger to his shoulder, you give a light push. Shotaro’s eyes gleam, his lips tilting in a smirk, his body turning as you follow through with your push, starting to circle him. “I’m not scared of you, sir.”

You turn your back to him so you’re facing the mirror. You watch in the reflection the way his eyes sweep up and down your back, a long look that gives you the confidence to ask for what you want.

“Can you teach me her part in the choreography? I bet I can do it better.” You’re feeling cocky, but it’s not an ungrounded confidence. You know you can do her part in the choreography, you just want to show Shotaro that you know. Maybe then you’ll get a better role.

“Will you actually listen?” Shotaro asks, stepping up behind you, so close you can feel the heat of him. “She can’t seem to handle that.”

You nod, catching his eye in the mirror. “I can handle you. I’ll let you take control, do whatever you say.”

There’s a double meaning behind your words, and you pray Shotaro understands. You’re here for the choreography, but you’re here for him too. The respect and admiration you have for Shotaro isn’t limited just to his abilities as a dancer. He’s hot, and there’s something about the way he commands the room that you find so attractive, so sexy.

Shotaro clicks his tongue, and he tilts his head alongside yours. His breath fans over your cheek, sending your heart into a frenzy you try to hide. He tells you, “Follow my lead.”

He slides away from you, leaving you feeling cold. But you watch him move over to the speakers in the corner as he queues up the music. You move into position.

When the music starts, it’s easy. This part you know by heart, memorized over the last week and a half.

You watch the mirror, the seams in the wall-length mirror frame the room with only you and Shotaro in it. You follow your moves and his, noting the complimentary smooth movements, each angle perfect, each shift in weight timed precisely at the same moment.

It’s different doing this here without the others. Having to locate the proper position without the others there to help coordinate yourself, but you’re also playing a slightly different role now, and as the part comes up of the girl who stormed out earlier, you watch Shotaro even closer, measuring the distance between you and him so you do this perfectly as you move into his space from behind.

You’ve watched them perform this bit a dozen times to unsatisfactory results. She doesn’t ace it the way Shotaro wants, and she doesn’t have the level of chemistry with him that would sell the performance.

As you circle around to stand in front of Shotaro, you try your best to let out all the caged in feelings you have for him. Let it show in your performance, on your face and in the way you move with him.

“Loosen up just a little here,” Shotaro instructs, his arms moving around you, touching you to guide your body into the proper angle, his hands on your arms to move them into the exact position. “Other than that, you’re doing perfect.”

You continue the rest of the song seamlessly, his instruction flowing with the choreography.

When the song finishes, Shotaro moves over to pause the music, before coming back over to where you’ve sat on the floor.

“Let me show it to you exactly. Step by step.” He offers his hand down to you. You slide your hand into his, and Shotaro pulls you to your feet.

He doesn’t start any music as he moves you to stand in front of him. He just hums the counts, slipping easily into the choreography.

This dance is sexy, intimate, in the way that idols perform sexiness and intimacy in a performance through gaze and suggestion. You’ve watched him and the other dancer perform this multiple times over the last week or so. They never touch. It’s always sliding gazes and hands hovering above skin, but there are no points of actual contact when they dance together.

This evening, there is no space.

Shotaro’s hand comes to rest on your waist, his body sliding up behind yours.

It’s not even that there’s no space. There is an utter lack of space, an erasure of the meaning of the word, only clothes exist between your body and his.

You watch Shotaro in the mirror, his body curling around yours, his hand drifting over your belly.

Your entire body thrums with barely-contained desire.

You know this choreography, you know what it’s supposed to look like. You know without a doubt in your mind that you are no longer following choreography.

His hand drifts higher, rising from your belly to your sternum. You pray that he can’t feel your heart making a valiant escape attempt from the cage of your chest. His palm presses right over your desperate pulse.

“Shotaro,” you sigh his name.

“Mm?” He hums, and you swear you can feel it all the way to your core. Your eyes are locked on your reflections in the mirror, the sight of his head bowed over yours, his hand rising yet again to skip over your collarbones, his fingers spreading around your throat. 

He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t apply any pressure as his hand comes up over your throat, but the picture in the mirror is just too pretty for you to contain yourself. 

A whimper breaks free first. You body giving in to its base desires as your hips rock desperately, needing something. And that encourages Shotaro. He brings his other hand to your hip, holding your hips back against him as he strokes a thumb down the span of your throat, leaning down while lifting his gaze to meet yours in the mirror. His lips are just about brushing your cheek when he asks, “Okay?”

You nod.

“No, I need to hear you say it.” Shotaro’s thumb presses in then, sending a sharp thrill through you that dissolves your feeble brain-to-mouth filter.

“Daddy,” is all that comes out.

But it’s enough.

Shotaro smirks.

You reach for his hands, covering each of his with your own. You press your fingers against his around your throat, and your other hand pushes his hand at your waist down beneath your shorts. 

“Touch me,” you beg, rolling your hips forward, curling your hands against both of his.

He pauses there, waiting. His fingers circling your throat, his other hand dipped just beneath the band of your shorts. Shotaro rocks his hips forward slowly, his body fits so perfectly against yours that you can feel all of your senses going a little haywire already. 

“Look at you,” he coos softly, “Already so desperate for me, and I haven’t even touched you yet?”

You moan in response, rolling your hips back in circles against his growing erection. Shotaro’s fingers bump your chin, tipping your chin up so you’re looking yourself in the face in the mirror. You do look desperate for it. His hand looks so nice around your throat, a pretty necklace to compliment the way his hand looks as he buries it deeper inside your shorts.

The bulge of his hand in the material of your shorts is obscene, especially considering that if you flick your gaze just a little to the right, you can see the door to the practice room reflected in the mirror. The door isn’t locked, nor is it solid. There are window panes on either side of the door as well as a panel of glass set into the door. The hour is late, but not late enough that the company building is abandoned. If anyone were to walk by or–god forbid–step inside the room, what the two of you are doing would be incredibly obvious.

Not that Shotaro seems all that bothered at the moment. 

His hand glides lower, skimming fingertips down into the heat, slipping over your clit, fingers spreading through your pussy lips to get to where you’re wettest. 

All you can do is try to keep your head up, eyes fixed on you and him in the mirror. Try to keep quiet because you know how sounds echo from this room. That’s so difficult to do when Shotaro is swirling his fingers over your clit, replacing his hand on your neck with his lips.

“I wanna hear you say it again,” Shotaro murmurs against your throat. 

“Daddy,” you moan without any further prompting.

He smiles at you in the mirror. “Good girl.”

You can’t help thinking of the sweet face Shotaro shows to the fans, starkly in contrast to his expression right now. He looks like he could eat you alive, in the best possible way, watching closely every change of your expression–the way that your mouth goes a little slack when he explores deeper inside your shorts, teasing his fingers there at your entrance. He grinds his hips against your ass in circles that match his movements against your clit. Your head sinks back against his shoulder, but still you watch your reflection.

The pair of you look good together like this. 

It’s explicit, obscene, this dance you both improvise. Your bodies roll together; Shotaro’s erection fits firmly in the cleft of your ass, and soon he’s moaning in your ear as your ass squeezes around his covered bulge. His fingers work quick circles over your clit. You watch as your knees buckle a little. Shotaro’s arm goes tight around your waist.

“Can Daddy fuck you?” He asks, grinding forward slowly, drawing out the sensation. 

All reservations about the unlocked door of the practice room, the possibility of being caught, all of those fly out of your mind, replaced instead by the overwhelming need to be dicked down by Shotaro right here, right now in front of this mirror in the practice room.

“Yes, God, please.” You reach for the waistband of your shorts, already pushing them down before Shotaro can get another word out. “Fuck, Shotaro.”

His hands twist in your shorts, dragging them down the rest of the way, and you look up into the mirror to see him admiring your bare ass in the moment right before he brings his hand down against it. “What did you call me?”

Shotaro, you’re tempted to say again, but you know what he wants to hear. “Daddy, I’m sorry.”

“Good girl,” he says, ducking in to peck you quickly on the cheek. “Now get on your hands and knees.”

The practice room’s flood is hard on your knees immediately. You face the mirror, watching Shotaro reach his hand inside his sweatpants, eagerly awaiting him pulling his cock out. He doesn’t disappoint. His cock is thick and heavy in his hand when he reveals it, and you wish you had more of a chance to admire it, perhaps the chance to suck his cock, but Shotaro drops to his knees behind you, his hands once again landing on your hips and your ass. 

Your entire body is flushed with the heat of your arousal as Shotaro slicks his fingers up against your weeping pussy. “Gonna be so sweet for Daddy, aren’t you? Finally getting what you’ve been wanting, right? Do you think I haven’t seen you during practice, watching me from the back? I’ve been watching you too, sweetheart.”

“Watching me too?” You ask, losing yourself in a gasp as Shotaro sinks two fingers into you. 

“Couldn’t you feel me watching you?” Shotaro asks. “You sure seemed like you were putting on a show sometimes when I watched you in the mirror.”

Of course you were. You were practicing for a performance. Though, admittedly, there had been a few occasions when you had thought you’d seen Shotaro’s attention lingering on you, and perhaps you’d put a touch more into looking sexy. But you weren’t about to admit that aloud to him.

Shotaro fucks you on his fingers, scissoring them inside you. “Gotta make sure you’re ready to take me,” he explains when you drop your head forward between your shoulders with a whine and a desperate push back of your hips.

“No, I’m ready. I can take it.” You lean down on your elbows, rocking yourself back on his fingers. “Just give it to me, Daddy.”

Shotaro hesitates for only a moment, and then he’s moving, pressing forward, nudging his cock up against your entrance, his fingers sliding down to entertain your clit instead, and there he goes, pushing into you. You moan, lowering your face into your arms. Shotaro is big, thick and heavy as he draws deeper inside you. All you can do is breathe through it, adjusting to him.

“Does it feel good?” Shotaro asks, his tone teasing as he pulls back slightly to give a little thrust. A garbled sound is all that escapes you, to his amusement. “Can you feel it, sweetheart? Or should I do it a little harder?”

Another garbled sound from you, though you hope this one sounds like encouragement. He feels so… filling. Stretching you around him in a way that leaves you feeling complete in that moment. And when he starts moving, giving shallow thrusts at first, your eyes roll and you have to keep your head buried in your arms. 

Slowly the steady rolling of Shotaro’s hips grows more intense. Bigger thrusts with bigger reward. Your heartbeat is ever-present in your pussy and in your belly and everywhere, even in your fingertips as your attempt to push up from the floor at last, wanting to look at the image of the two of you reflected in the mirror.

It’s a pretty sight. Shotaro’s head is bowed, watching his cock disappear inside you, watching the way your pussy stretches and hugs his cock. His hair is damp at the temples, curled a little in front of his face. He’s so handsome in that moment, so sexy and cute and crushworthy, all you want is to twist back around and drag him into a kiss.

But before you can go about initiating the change in position, Shotaro gives one particularly sharp- and well-aimed thrust that knocks the strength right out of you. Your arms give out again, and you once more bury your face against them. 

Shotaro picks up a steady stream of fuckfuckfuck, and you feel as if you’re not too far from it either. His fingers work rapidfire on your clit, his other hand reaches for your hair, pushing his fingers through it like he’s about to yank on it (which you really wish he would because damn that would feel so good), but instead he brushes your hair aside in favor of curling his fingers once more around your throat.

Your gasp of surprise catches as Shotaro applies pressure to your throat just right, skilled like he actually knows what he’s doing, his thumb pressing in. Your eyes roll, your heart pounding, a thrill racing through you. 

Shotaro choking you is that perfect strike of flint, the spark that sets you alight. 

Your orgasm rocking through you does nothing to slow Shotaro. He fucks you through it until your thighs are twitching, your eyes roll and stream with tears. His fingers are still fast-moving on your clit. This is much, much more than you could have hoped for–the sweet, innocent Shotaro you’d first met a little over a week ago is long gone, replaced by this dominant Shotaro who keeps pressing into you even as you’re tipping into overstimulation.

His fingers slip from your throat, and you gasp in a clear breath, exhaling his name.

Shotaro’s fingers twist in your hair, pulling you up so your back is against his chest, holding your head up so all you can see is your face, teary-eyed and flushed with arousal, staring back at you from the mirror. 

“Look at yourself, pretty girl, look at how good I make you feel.” Shotaro’s lips are against your ear, his breath hot on your cheek. “I hope you think about me, about Daddy’s cock deep in your belly, every time you’re in this room, looking in this mirror while you try to dance.”

You somewhat doubt that you’ll ever look in a mirror again without thinking of this. 

Shotaro holds you there like this, faced with yourself in the mirror as he continues thrusting into you, your body rocking on hands and knees, your face contorting with the pleasure as Shotaro finally hits his breaking point.

You lift your gaze to his face as Shotaro cums. You watch his face crumple, his mouth fall open as he moans for you, moans in relief while he pulls out of you. You can’t see, but you can feel, as Shotaro jerks off over your ass, his cum splattering over your lower back, painting your ass, dripping down the cleft of your cheeks over your pussy.

Shotaro slumps back onto his heels on the floor, his breath coming hard and heavy for a few moments. You finally let your legs slide out from under you, bury your face in your arms again, and you lie there like that to recover, not even caring that your bare cum-covered ass is out for the world to see.

It’s only when Shotaro regains his senses, tucking his cock away, crawling over your stretched out form, that you’re covered up. You make a half-formed sound when you feel him shimmying your shorts back up your legs, up over the sticky mess he left on you. Shotaro’s hands settle on either side of your hips as he leans over you. His lips touch against your shoulder, his fingers brush against your hair.

“Hello? Are you okay?” His voice is light, teasing. “Did my cock knock you out, pretty girl?”

You twist around beneath him, rolling onto your back. Shotaro grins, cocky and pleased with himself at how dazed and dick-drunk you still look. 

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, and you only have time to nod halfway before Shotaro kisses you, his lips warm and intoxicating, making you forget that you’re still on the floor of the practice room. That all of this has transpired in the practice room, on what is probably a less-than-sanitary floor. But he’s kissing you, and you can’t bring yourself to care about anything other than that.

Your fingers twist in the front of Shotaro’s shirt, holding him there, keeping him kissing you until you’re both breathless. 

Shotaro drops a last peck to your lips, and as he sits up, lifting himself away from you, you try to draw him back in for one more. He only laughs, tapping a finger against your lips. “Ah, ah, pretty girl. It’s getting late.” He sits back on his heels to watch you push up onto your elbows, and then he asks, with a grin that throws you back to the cherubic version of him you first met, “Do you think you could give me a ride home?”

[findafight]

With the whole "Munson doctrine" bs. Eddie wasn't just against the jocks and the bullies (and there's no proof that he was seriously bullied? Just a bit of an outcast?). He was against anyone that was a part of what he called conformity. In that stupid speech on the table he called out people in band and those who like science for forced conformity. Other outcasts, other people that would have been bullied. Because they liked something he didn't.

It wasn't about self defense, it was an I'm right, you're wrong mentality, that his interests were the only valid interests.

Also, this is why I *hate* the idea of Eddie and Robin being friends or having some sort of alliance pre-s4 (or even pre-s3) because she's in band and likes band and he canonically criticized being in band as forced conformity. Why would she be friends with someone who is so vocally against something she enjoyed?

Oh yes I think Eddie has a bee in his bonnet about people who don't......conform.....to his brand of nonconformity. But I do think part of it is self preservation, or at least started out that way but grew into something else? Eddie is an outcast, has a non-nuclear family, and is poor, and all that shapes his view, but it also doesn't stop him from ostracizing people who he thinks aren't outcast enough or in the correct way (Subconsciously, at least.) Eddie thinks the only way to be a weirdo and a freak is to be loud about it, to be purposely obnoxious, to not even consider the normie hobbies or interests as something worth your time.

But as you've said band geeks and science nerds would also be in the crossfire. Heck, the party are all science nerds! I guess that didn't actually interfere with Eddie's interests though. Until inevitably a big county/state science fair or something would be on Hellfire night, and then it might have (except the Duffers would not have done that because they want to continue the nerd v jock thing happening that's just so stupid). He left Lucas out to dry, what's to say he wouldn't do the same to the other boys?

Part of what makes Eddie a fun and interesting character is that we get a glimpse of him starting to realize the strict us vs them, jocks vs nerds, conformity vs nonconformity binaries he's built around himself are not so clear-cut when he talks to Steve in the upside down. But it took him seeing Steve being a chill and kind guy, as opposed to Lucas who was in Hellfire since the beginning of the year to make him see that. Maybe he viewed Lucas as betraying them by joining basketball, but Steve, moving in the """opposite direction""" away from ""jockdom"" was what made it click for him. Eddie has a lot of issues to work through regarding expectations and nonconformity.

Oh. Yes I don't think, in canon, Eddie and Robin would be friends pre S4. Like I think aus that show us how he works through things (or at least tells us he did) can be fun. But when there's just the assumption that they'd be friends pre S4 or even pre S3 without either of them changing from how we were introduced to them? Uhg. Robin thinks Eddie is an annoying weirdo who stepped on her lunch one time :( and said the band uniforms were stupid and she took offense to that because he acted like it was their fault and not the school's. Eddie thinks Robin is some boring band dweeb and never thinks about her unless it's a vauge sort of "oh she's talking to Dustin" way.

It's also frustrating because Steve is often left behind in these AUs, and Eddie replaces him as Robin's best friend [at least at the start] One of the reasons stobin is so powerful is because they were both lonely losers who happened to find their forever friend in scoops ahoy. Robin having a close friend she's out to before that doesn't make sense, especially since it's heavily implied Steve is the first person she's told, which is why that scene means so much!