#you know it’s bad when you’re throwing your rambling posts into the tag bc you just want to know someone else out there gets it

[valeriestahl]

the thing about archive 81 is that it gives me brainworms even when it gets better. like s1-2 are goofy and kind of more eldritch horror/sci fi than traditional horror and i think some of the low budget vibes it gives off turns ppl off. but it’s still compelling and horny! thank you marc for giving me weirdly horny noncon body modifications (no really it is horny i’m not making this up im normal im normal im normal) and doing mpreg! king shit.

and season 3 is then like, a sharp incline in terms of character work and relationship weaving AND sound design. like i really feel like the writing and the sound (music, backgrounds, everything) really shines and it becomes like…this genuine piece of passionate art. like they were really hitting their stride narratively and emotionally!

so five years later i’m grinding my teeth about it. like tma was very good but it makes me so sad that a81 couldn’t get enough off the ground to see the same level of longterm success because it just FEELS like a passion project in a way that compels me and makes my brain get eaten by worms.

[its-time-to-write]

in love with an idea

This is a very, very, v e r y minor study in the way that Jamie handles his sexuality, and the fact that sometimes it seems he thinks his only value comes from being sexy and playing football. And the fact that sometimes, one night stands are crap even if they feel good. It happens. Especially if you go home with someone wishing they were someone else. Anyway, I have another fic in the works, should be posted soon. I’ve been absent because I’m writing a long one that will never ever see the light of day because it is way too self indulgent. As if this next one isn’t going to be long and self indulgent as well. Thanks to all y’all who support my writing!! Those of you who leave comments/tags have my whole entire heart, and there is no such thing as too many comments. Special shoutout to @whimsical-roasting and @qquell bc you’re probably my biggest/most vocal supporters and I love you🥺🥺 Ok that’s enough words, enjoy the fic!

in love with an idea

Jamie feels like shit which is weird, because he doesn’t usually feel this way after hookups. He can tell you don’t notice because you just plop down on the locker room bench next to him and ask, “Did ya call your mum yet?” while grinning far too brightly. 

Jamie is going to throw up. You’re smiling at him and he’s going to throw up so he gets up and rushes out of the room without a word. He pretends that he left so fast that he didn’t see your grin fade. 

He’s headed to the pitch because that’s where he’s supposed to be anyway, but all he can think about is the fact that it should have been you in his bed last night. After all, it was your name that had been on the tip of his tongue all night. It was your face he kept thinking of, and your body he was imagining. 

The girl had left satisfied, knowing exactly what she had signed up for, but he still feels like he used her. It’s not her fault that he’s in love with you but took her home, and yet it feels bad anyway. He wonders why no one ever talks about the shitty side of one-night stands. He has a vague recollection of Roy saying something to that effect one time, but other than that, he’s in completely unfamiliar territory.

He throws himself into training with more vigor than usual, purposely running himself ragged. 

Meanwhile, you’re still on the bench looking stupefied. Isaac slides next to you in the spot Jamie vacated. 

He says, “You should probably check on him,” with his usual solemn gravitas so you nod and decide to do just that.

—

You don’t have time check on Jamie until after training. Ted has you running all around Nelson Road so you just barely catch Jamie in the parking lot. 

“Hey!” you call. “You alright?”

Jamie spins around, icon hat atop damp hair. “Yeah, sure, good, yeah!” he says, and now you’re absolutely positive that something’s wrong. You raise an eyebrow. 

“That totally sounds like something a completely alright person would say, but for some reason I don’t believe you. Is something wrong with your mum? Is that why you got all weird when I asked?”

“What?” Jamie says. “Oh. No. She’s good, yeah. She’s good. I did call her. Talked for a while, which was nice. Talked about this girl I like, actually.” 

The words are barely out of his mouth when Jamie wishes he could sink into the ground. Fuck his stupid rambling. 

“Oh?” you say, eyebrow still quirked. “That’s new.”

Jamie shrugs. “Yeah, it is,” he says and then his mouth betrays him once again as he continues, “I’m actually really nervous about talking to her.”

You laugh. That is utterly ridiculous, and you tell him so. “You’re Jamie fucking Tartt, Premier League footballer. People throw themselves at you every day and you eat all that attention up. Why is she so different? Hold on, are you blushing?” 

You laugh. He totally is, but he denies it. 

“Look,” he says. “She ain’t like a lot of people. She’s fucking…smart or some shit. Not that other people aren’t!” he continues, “But she’s just… different, like. She’s one of fucking… four people who are immune to my natural sexy glow.” 

The way Jamie says the word sexy is always interesting because he never used it comedically. It’s always inserted in some serious declaration of himself, as if that and football are the only points of value he believes he has. You wrinkle your nose. “How is that possible? No one is immune. Except maybe Roy. I heard he got his anti-Tartt vaccine boosted last week. Maybe it worked a little too well,” you say worriedly. 

“I dunno,” Jamie says. “She said she’s looking for someone smart and I don’t really think I fall in that category. All brawn on me, innit?”

He quirks a smile to mask this strange discomfort he has. You’re not used to seeing him anything less than confident. 

“Well Jaim,” you say after a beat, “as someone who is also looking for someone ‘smart,’ it really isn’t about IQ. It’s like… it’s like someone who actually talks to you and has interesting things to say. And is interested in learning, not just from me but from whoever and whatever. And someone who doesn’t talk down. Because, god,” you laugh, “I’ve been on so many dates that are just exhausting because all these smart people want to flex their knowledge instead of sharing it. It’s like a fucked-up power struggle. I never feel that way with you, y’know?”

Jamie tilts his head in a cocky go on type of way. 

There he is. 

You roll your eyes. “What I mean is, you actually listen to what I say and ask questions, and aren’t rude when I don’t understand something that comes easy to you. My corner kicks are getting better, by the way,” you interject. “Sunday evening practice is paying off.” Jamie comes over every Sunday evening to kick a ball around with you on the Richmond Green.

“Of course they are,” he grins. “Learning from the best, aren’t you?” You flip his hat off his head and catch it, returning his smile. 

“Just ask her out, Jaim. I’m sure it’ll be fine. And,” you add, “bring her round! Not enough footballer girlfriends around here.”

Jamie looks at you a moment, taking in the picture of you in Nelson Road’s parking lot, his cap on you head and a smile on your face that he made. 

“Right,” he says, then turns to walk to his car. He’s at the door when he turns and walks back. 

“Forgot something,” he says to your bemused expression. You point to his hat still on your head. 

“Nope,” he shakes his head. “That ain’t it. It’s you. You’re the girl. I talked to me mum about you because I think you’re fucking great. If I’m not your type, that’s alright, but fuck it, I just really fucking like you.”

He takes a step closer. “I’m going to kiss you, so now’s your chance to walk away.”

You don’t. 

You let him flip the icon hat backwards and cup your face in his hands, far more gently than you thought him capable of as he tips your head up to his. 

His lips are soft on yours, and you’re vaguely aware of the fact that Trent Crimm is walking by you, shooting furtive looks your way but you don’t care. 

“I think you’re fucking great too,” you reply when you finally come up for air. 

Jamie grins. “Wanna go on a proper date tonight? Been thinking about where I’d take you for ages. I can pick you up in an hour thirty.”

You smile. 

That sounds great. 

[the-travelling-witch]

Okay so I started writing, HOW DO YOU WRITE?!

I am trying to think of things to write but it is literally impossible to think of things to say. I know what I wanna write, but when it comes to typing it I'm completely lost

ah yes, the eternal question which strikes both reverence and absolute terror in creators far and wide

“where do i begin?”

[everything below this cut was written in a sarcastic 2am frenzy, read at your own risk]

i guess it depends on what you already have: is it a character, a setting, a plot or a dialogue prompt; sometimes you might only have ✨a vibe✨ but none of the formerly mentioned, which is, to put it lightly, the absolute worst in that case i pray upon thee good luck my friend

i mostly start off with a line of dialogue because that’s just what usually comes to me first, everyone’s a little different in that regard though and there’s absolutely no right or wrong answer to what motivates you

from what i have i try to fill in the rest of my blanks, mainly “who could say that?” and “in what context could this line be said?”, often enough i can imagine a scenery and a rough story line around that already; if not, it’s though luck and i procrastinate until the missing puzzle piece just comes to me, forcing it wouldn’t help anyway

it can also really help to bounce your ideas off of someone else; even if they don’t contribute anything new or helpful at all, voicing and describing your thoughts to someone else can help visualise what you’re working with and often enough inspiration strikes you in the process; also every now and then, others do have a sensible thought too jsjsh /lh (to everyone who’s ever had to listen to me ramble about me fics, you’re a god-sent, i love you, mwah mwah <3)

that’s when i usually sit down and prepare to meet my arch nemesis: the first sentence

my tip: just rip the band-aid off; you have to start somewhere and contemplating the first five words for hours on end does absolutely nothing but hold you back and you can come back and edit it later anyway (i almost never actually do that bc spoiler alert: the first sentence won’t make or break your fic; a “bad” first sentence won’t make it unreadable but a neat one also can’t save what is unsavable)

then i proceed to word vomit onto the page, have a couple mental breakdowns every now and then, finish about 95% and procrastinate the ending again (same tip as before: just get it over with, not writing it is not finishing your fic either; also, believe it or not, the end is changeable as well)

i continue by promising myself i will go over and rewrite the abomination again, then i throw it at my best friend so she can tell me that a) i’m in fact not delusional and people won’t think i’m completely weird for writing that and b) yes, i have in fact used the language known to most as “english”; although, deep down, i know i mainly do it so i can further procrastinate actually posting my fic and opening myself to potential criticism from people i do not know

if i’m feeling particularly motivated, i might actually start formatting my tumblr post, putting in the tags and writing the head of the fic (summary, pairing, warnings, author’s note etc)

i receive feedback from my friend, reread my fic a bajillion times just to miss a bunch of typos and grammatical errors, proceed to break my promise and not change my fic at all, paste it into tumblr, and hover over the post button for a disgustingly long time

once i’ve actually decided to press the damn thing, i immediately close tumblr and bring a safe distance between me and the app

now all that’s left to do is wait for validation from strangers on the internet in form of tags, comments or asks

those were a lot of very sarcastic words to basically say that you should just get started and not worry about it too much; every fic is different and sometimes the words seemingly don’t stop flowing and other times it feels like you’ve never seen a word before in your life; you can also flip-flop between these two stages within the same fic

at the end of the day, we write because we like torturing ourselves visualising our ideas on a page so we can share them with others; art is hard so this is the next best medium to share the headcanons and the brain worms and the rants and the incoherentscreaming the voice in your head does when you see your favourite character

we’re no professionals, we’re just silly little people on our silly little blogs sharing our silly little stories with other silly little people on their silly little blogs who in turn share their silly little stories with us

this is my guide to how i write 90% of my stories; why only 90% you ask? because every now and then a monster comes by, takes up all your brain space, ends up being 11k+ words and you just know you would’ve gone absolutely mental writing it without some form of planning before hand

if you don’t write anything like that, the dumpster fire above might help (mainly the beginning because it just got weirder and weirder with every added paragraph)

to close this off, i’ll leave you with some wise words

roses are red,

violets are blue,

don’t ask me for advice,

i ain’t got a clue

this is your sign to never let me write a writing guide, ever

[spacedikut]

starstruck ; spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid (criminal minds) x f!reader

summary:  “Can I request some age gap Spencer x reader. Maybe he’s nervous about approaching her for a relationship bc she’s younger, but he’s so goofy for her it’s he’s in love obvious. Pretty pls 🥺💕” 5222 words

a/n: i didn’t specify ages cause i wasn’t sure what people would be comfortable with so i just mentioned an age gap and leave the rest up to you!! i would happily date someone twice my age but i also have daddy issues so :)

masterlist

The day has finally arrived.

Mollie can call you a nerd all she wants, but you know the second she lays eyes on Derek Morgan or Emily Prentiss she’ll change her tune.

This event has been in the university’s calendar since the beginning of the semester. At least two members of the FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit were promised to give a talk about their department, even taking you through a solved case like an interactive documentary, to encourage students to consider joining the academy post-graduation. There was whispers they’d even stick around after to answer some questions.

Your other friend, Jen, the one that understands your excitement, wrote your names down for tickets immediately. You’ve had a countdown on your phone ever since.

“They’ve announced a last-minute guest,” She beams, just as giddy as you. You’re wasting time at the coffee house near the auditorium, waiting for Mollie to arrive.

“Oh, really? Who?”

“Doctor Spencer Reid.”

You almost drop your cookie in shock and stare at her, pupils blown.

“You’re a big fan?” She smirks.

As nonchalantly as you can, you lean back in your chair, “I’m a fan of his work, yes.”

“Oh, his work?”

“Don’t start.”

“I bet you love his work.”

“He’s well-versed and his papers are super interesting-“

“His papers are super interesting-“

“You are a child.”

Just then, Mollie appears, checking her watch. You wish you could kiss her in thanks for saving you from the teasing that would likely never end. “We’re gonna be late for your morbid seminar if you two don’t stop bickering.”

Jen downs the rest of her drink, you shove the last of the cookie in your mouth. Mollie watches your excitement in amusement – your heart starts pumping, whole body buzzing, the same nervousness you felt when you were a preteen right before your first ever One Direction concert. It’s the kind of nervousness that makes your palms sweaty.

Is it evolution or devolution to go from sweating over One Direction to sweating over FBI profilers?

+++

The seminar goes on for an hour, including the questions people ask throughout. It’s everything you could’ve asked for, entertaining and so, so informative and although you weren’t considering joining the FBI before, suddenly it’s all you can think about. Guest speakers have that affect, don’t they? They make you wonder if you should drastically change everything you’ve been planning.

Even Mollie, who you had to threaten to tag along, ended up enjoying herself. “Maybe I learnt a thing or two,” She’d said, rolling her eyes playfully.

You and your friends are some of the last to leave. There’s quite the bustling outside, which you assume is just post-seminar chatter, but you and Jen falter in your steps when you see the exact profilers that had been onstage several minutes ago in front of you, happily interacting and talking to fellow students.

“Oh, man,” Jen whispers, her and Mollie making eye contact across you. “I have to see if I can talk to Emily.”

Mollie encourages her with a frantic, “Go! Go!” while you’re rooted in place. Mollie jabs you with a pointed nail, “You in there, Y/N? I’m sure you have loads of questions for them-“

You stutter and shake your head, “N-no. I’m good. You can try and hit on Derek, if you want.”

You give a half-attempt at a smile, barely lifting the corners of your lips. Mollie recognises that look. She wants to stay with you, check you’re not too overwhelmed, but you shoo her away and send her towards Derek. You breathe a sigh of relief – you’ve been friends with her long enough that she knows when you need space.

There’s something about seeing people you admire so abruptly that totally throws you for a loop. All you had prepared for was seeing them from afar and subsequently talking about it forever, but nothing beyond that. In some circumstances, it’d be a pleasant surprise, but for someone that struggles around strangers and especially around people as admirable as profilers, you are not mentally prepared for this and have therefore shut down.

But then you see him.

He’s shuffling in place in the corner of the room, close to a large potted plant like it’s his only friend. He’s nibbling his lip as his eyes flutter around, never staying somewhere for longer than a second, looking increasingly uncomfortable.

Why is no one talking to him? He’s Spencer Reid.

There’s a couple of people surrounding Emily, fully entranced by whatever story she’s relaying, another few people around Derek, chortling at a joke he just made. Spencer glances between them and their audiences, and you can’t help but wonder why he isn’t right next to them, chatting away, too.

Does he not want to talk to anyone?

You should talk to him.

No. He probably wants to be alone.

Or what if he doesn’t and no one else is talking to him which means you can have a one-on-one conversation? What about that?

Are you insane?

…

You have to talk to him.

Before you can change your mind, you’re approaching him with a tight grip on the handle of your bag, pushing it higher up your shoulder. He spots you and makes eye contact just as you stop in front of him, and you notice he momentarily tightens his grip on his satchel.

Was this a bad idea?

“Hi,” You breathe, “I’m Y/N. A big fan.”

His eyes widen a fraction, which you don’t understand because why else would you be here, but he smiles nonetheless, “Hi, I’m, uh, Spencer Reid.”

“I know.”

“Yes, you know. That makes sense, because you were in the seminar. I saw you.”

Now you’re shocked. For as long as you can remember you never sit in the centre of a room, where most attention seems to go, so how did he-

“I-I always scan the room I’m in its.. it’s not a creepy thing, I swear. I’m not creepy.”

A laugh escapes you at that, making him visibly relax. “I don’t think you’re creepy. There was just.. a lot of people in there, so I’m surprised you remember my face.” You shrug.

I couldn’t forget such a beautiful face.

You don’t know what happens, but Spencer suddenly tenses up. His back straightens and he looks alarm, stiff.

Did he just think that? What.. why did he think that?

You wonder if you’ve said something wrong, so you try to change the topic.

“I-I have a question, if you don’t mind answering.”

Spencer nods with an of course, and when the question rolls off your tongue, his mind is still reeling from subconsciously calling you beautiful in his head. It’s not untrue, but it feels.. inappropriate. He doesn’t know why. But you are beautiful.

As he scans your face, now much closer than in the auditorium, he realises yeah, you are incredibly beautiful.

You wave a hand in front of his face, “Doctor Reid?”

“Sorry, yes, sorry. What are you studying?”

There’s a light in your eyes that Spencer recognises when you say, “Psychology.”

“Thought so.”

“You probably talk to a lot of psychology students. I-um. I almost went to Caltech,” Spencer raises an eyebrow, "After I read your dissertation, it really inspired me to look into it – your dissertation is incredible, by the way.”

Spencer smiles bashfully, a futile attempt to not allow the grin to overtake his face, and thanks you, “I appreciate it. Actually, I was sixteen when I wrote it.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Your eyes widen, “You’re insane! You’re amazing!”

The praise bursts from you, and his blushing face makes you oddly proud. On the other hand, Spencer feels like you’ve set him alight, his blood pumping loudly in his ears, as he’s unable to tear his eyes away from your smile.

He desperately needs to change the topic.

“To answer your question…”

Derek notices you two interacting across the room. Mollie sees him looking and hums, “Oh, that’s Y/N, my best friend. She really likes Spencer.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, “Looks like he really likes her.”

“Don’t tell her that. She’ll collapse.”

They both watch you for a second, Spencer flailing his arms as he explains, you eagerly adding to his rambling, asking a question here and exclaiming some kind of encouragement there. It’s sweet, Derek thinks.

“Hey..” Mollie begins, a scheming look in her eye, “We’re planning to hang out in the campus bar later. It’s open to all and the drinks are cheap. If you and Emily happen to find yourselves looking for something to do and you drag Spencer along.. I’m sure Y/N would like it.”

“I like the way you think,” Derek says, “I’ll see what I can do.”

+++

“She’s getting hit on. Again.” You giggle, gesturing for Jen to turn around and witness Mollie get your drinks paid for by a random guy.

She’s always been a people person – it’s saved you hundreds on nights out.

All Jen does is glance over her shoulder, scoff, then turn her sceptical eyes to you.

“I saw you and Spencer Reid.” She says, twinkling eyes. She’s trying not to look smug.

“I almost proposed to him.” You joke, taking your drink from Mollie with a mumbled thanks.

“Oh, I bet you did,” She laughs, “You two looked sooo good together.”

“Alright,” You slide a shot to each girl, “I know you’re making fun of me, but I’m taking that compliment and cherishing it. Spencer Reid is cute, what of it?!”

You clink the shot glasses with your friends and down them, all wincing at the taste and giggling at Jen when she takes a gulp of her cocktail to wash away the taste of straight vodka.

“How did talking to Derek and Emily go?”

And then Jen starts chattering away.

You miss the bar door opening behind you, But Mollie notices. She’s been watching the door since they got here, conveniently choosing the table with the best view, just in case some profilers decided to stop by.

Derek catches Mollie’s eye and winks.

“Well I never,” Mollie fakes shock, “Look who just walked through the doors.”

You turn and choke on your drink. Emily and Derek look relax, like they’re home, but Spencer?

He looks just like he did earlier: like there’s a million places he’d rather be.

He’s lost the blazer he was wearing earlier, leaving him in a fitted purple shirt with a matching tie. With the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, you can see his firm hands and the silver watch that rests on his wrist – is it possible for a watch to be sexy? Or maybe it’s just cause he’s sexy?

That shot must be getting to you.

“What the hell are they doing here?” You hiss, a sharp whisper piercing the air as you turn and (terribly) try to hide your face.

But Spencer’s seen you. He spotted you the moment they came in – he recognised your clothes and your hair – and the second he did he turned right back around to exit the bar. Derek’s arm stopped him at his chest, like he does to unsubs, forcefully turning him around and laughing when Spencer tensed up.

“What, Reid? Scared of a pretty girl?” Derek teases, much like he’d been doing since he spoke to you earlier.

“I am scared of college girls, yes. Last time I was in a college bar I was twelve and downed shots of apple juice.”

“What?!” Both Emily and Derek stop short, looks of disbelief at the revelation. “You’ve never mentioned that.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“We,” Derek places his hands on Spencer’s shoulders, directing him to your table, “Are just gonna have a few drinks and talk to a few people, and then you’re gonna explain that apple juice story in explicit detail- hey ladies!”

Jen and Mollie look overjoyed at the new company, while you stare rigidly with distinctive what the fuck eyes.

“Would you mind if we joined you?” Emily asks, with a sparkling grin that no one could say no to.

“Of course not,” Jen grins, like it’s the most obvious answer.

The empty seat next to you is taken by Spencer (Derek discreetly shoves him) but right before he’s firmly placed on the stool, Emily calls out, “Spence, why don’t you get us some drinks? You still owe us after you lost that game of gin..”

“I didn’t lose.” Spencer huffs indignantly, “You cheated.”

Despite his grunts, he stands to make his way to the bar, but not before-

“Y/N!” Mollie beams, “It’s your turn to get the round, if you’d be so kind.”

You know that look on her face. You hate her, you realise, but you also love her because being alone with Spencer sends a thrill through you.

Alone with Spencer. What the hell are you supposed to say to him?

You follow him to the bar. He leans against it with an awkward smile.

“Hey, Y/N.”

“Hey.”

“It’s uh.. it’s been a long time since we’ve seen eachother.” It’s a half attempt at a joke, followed by instant regret. But then you giggle and everything feels right in the world, even Spencer’s sucky joke.

“It has been a while, Doctor Reid.” You say. The bartender approaches, takes your orders, then you turn to Spencer, “What brings you to a college bar, of all places?”

“Well,” Spencer glances over your shoulder to your table. He makes eye contact with every single person there, all watching you two interact, and they all sharply turn and try to play it off like they’ve been talking casually. Spencer’s brows furrow a little. “Derek said the drinks are cheap and our hotel is only a couple blocks away. I don’t know, maybe Derek likes college girls.”

You laugh again, and Spencer has to take a second to realise you’re not laughing at him but at what he said about Derek. “Yeah, Derek seems like a real ladies man.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Spencer grins, “We once timed him to see how long it would take to get a girls number and he did it in five minutes. And he said he was having a bad day.”

The drinks are placed in front of you. Neither of you notice.

You unconsciously lean closer, saying, “Have you timed it to see how long it takes for a girl to approach him? That’s gotta be, like, maybe ten minutes?”

“Eight minutes and twenty-three seconds.”

“Well damn. Has he always been so…” A hand gestures in the air, looking for the word.

“Promiscuous?”

“I was gonna say free.”

“Free?” Spencer giggles, “That’s very nice of you.”

You shrug, “I don’t judge.” Spencer agrees, and it slips out, “What about you?”

You wish you could shove the words back in your mouth. Even more so when his expression changes. You can’t entirely make out what it is, but even in the dimly lit bar you can see the flush of heat that spreads through his cheeks to his ears.

“Are you asking me if I’m free with the ladies?” He murmurs, suppressing a grin.

You give an awkward laugh, wondering if you’ve overstepped a boundary, “Yeah. But that’s kinda weird to ask, so-“

“I’m so popular with the ladies it puts Derek to shame.”

You can’t hide your surprise. “What? Really?”

Spencer caves. “No. Is it that hard to believe I’m a ladies man?”

“Compared to Derek? Yes.”

Spencer scoffs.

+++

“As adorable as they are, it’s been thirty minutes.” Emily sighs. “I want my drink.”

“They’re bonding,” Jen sends a wistful look, “I’m so proud.”

“I’m guessing Y/N isn’t the most social either?” Derek asks, proudly watching you interact.

“She’s the best, just a little shy sometimes.” She smiles at you, even though you can’t see, “She’s an idiot, but our idiot, you know?”

Both Emily and Derek laugh airily, nodding with a, “Yeah, we know.”

At once, three phones vibrate throughout the bar – Emily, Derek and Spencer. They’re instantly filled with disappointment; Derek can’t watch Spencer attempt to flirt with a girl he’s obviously interested in, Emily still hasn’t got a drink, and Spencer has to leave you and he can’t think of anything worse.

He’s clearly hesitant when he looks at his phone. How does he say goodbye? Does he ask for your number? Would that be weird? That would be weird.

“Uhh…”

You channel every ounce of liquid courage you have in your body and offer, “Would it be weird if I gave you my number? Just.. for anything. Anything at all.”

Spencer nods, a gentle look in his eyes and a smile on his face, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

You mumble an alright, accepting Spencer’s phone and creating a new contact for yourself.

Please text me. You think. Please text me.

+++

He doesn’t text.

It’s been a week. A week. You know how cases are, some take longer than others and some are solved in literal hours, but it’s been a week, Spencer goddamn Reid, so why haven’t you texted me.

That’s when the doubt creeps in. Your friends keep telling you he’ll text, that he’s just busy (“He’s an FBI agent, Y/N. If you start dating you’re gonna have to get used to lapses in contact.” To which you’re too distracted choking at the mention of you two dating), but you can’t help but wonder if he took your number simply so he could leave quicker. He had a case to get to, after all. He had people to save.

Now you feel guilty. You forced your number on him, didn’t you? Oh God, he hates you. He hates you and you forced your number on him and he hasn’t texted you because he’s filing a restraining order against you because he hates you.

Mollie tells you you need a nap.

+++

Spencer spends the time on the jet back from the case staring at your number. He has it memorised, of course, and has had it memorised from the first time he read it, of course, but he can’t bring himself to do anything with it.

All he’s done is change your contact picture from the standard first letter of your name to a cute picture of a frog Garcia sent him. It reminds him of you.

Derek lowers his headphones, “You texted her yet, Pretty Boy?”

“Huh? Uh, no. I don’t think I will.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer shrugs, locking his phone and placing it face down. “I don’t think anything would come from it.”

“Kid,” Derek leans forward, eyebrows furrowed, “You two talked for well over thirty minutes in the middle of a college bar about God knows what. Maybe I’m easy to impress, but that seemed pretty special to me.”

“How is talking in a college bar worth anything?”

“Because you’re Reid, who, most of the time, has to be physically dragged into a bar. You hate talking to strangers about anything other than work. Y/N? A stranger. What did you two talk about?”

“We talked about you a little.”

“Uhuh. About how good I am at my job?”

“God, no,” Spencer scrunches his nose, “We talked about your charm with the ladies.”

Derek falls back in his chair and scoffs, “I’m flattered, but that doesn’t sound like work-talk to me. So you’re comfortable with her. I saw you laughing, so she makes you laugh, too. Sounds pretty great to me.”

Spencer stares. Derek’s right, but..

“So what is it, Reid?”

Spencer licks his lips. “Do you think she’s too young for me?”

Derek rarely looks taken aback, but he does now, “Too young?”

“She’s in college. I’m-I’m-“

“A legal adult. As is she.”

Spencer slumps. “A 2014 Current Population Survey found the average difference for a heterosexual couple is two-point-three years, with the man older than the woman. Even if you double that, that’s still less than me and Y/N-“

“Four years isn’t a lot, Spence,”

“You just.. you don’t think it’s weird?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

Derek’s conviction gives Spencer some reassurance, but he can’t help himself when he thinks that.. maybe.. you’ll find him boring. Most people seem to, with all his statistics and figures and facts, but with the added element of you living it up at college.. how could he compete?

“I think you’re worrying over nothing, Reid. You haven’t even texted her, and you’re already worrying about stuff like age gaps?” Derek crosses his hands and looks at Spencer with determination, “She gave you her number. She initiated it. She knows who you are, so she knows how old you are and it doesn’t seem to make her uncomfortable. So, why should it make you?”

Spencer just grunts.

“Are you worried people will say things?”

“I guess.”

“People always say things. You know that better than anyone. So screw ‘em.”

Spencer feels a smile creep onto his face.

And Derek relaxes. He’s planted the seeds, that Spencer is fretting over nothing, now all he’s got to do is wait for Spencer to let it sink in and allow the flowers to bloom and, next thing you know, Spencer’s gonna have himself the perfect girlfriend.

And Derek will take too much credit for it.

+++

“Heeeeeeeeey my precious Doctor…”

Garcia looks like her hand was caught in the cookie jar.

Spencer’s back straightens. “What did you do?”

She looks embarrassed, fiddling with the fluffy pen in her hand. She smiles awkwardly. “Derek may have told me about a pretty little college student that captured your heart, and then he told me you also haven’t texted her yet, so I did a little digging and…”

“You cyber-stalked Y/N?” Emily asks, casually. JJ seems unphased at the discussion. Does everyone in the office know about you?

“I did. I’m guilty. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.” She’s speaking a mile a minute.

Emily spares Spencer a glance, “Did you find anything?”

“Well…”

Concern fills Spencer. “Did something happen?”

“I just found some stuff she’d probably only tell a close friend and I feel really bad about it.” Her shoulders are by her ears as she tries to fold in on herself out of guilt, “But other than that she’s a genuinely sweet girl who volunteers at pet shelters and the college library in her free time and we have really similar music tastes so I think we’d make great friends.”

They all look to Spencer, waiting for his reaction. What? Is he supposed to be surprised that you’re the epitome of perfect? He’s not. He studied you the entire time you spoke.

“She’s also written several incredible papers on child development that I think are revolutionary and I totally emailed them to you because I think you should read them. She’s also a genius.”

Spencer’s hand twitches. He ignores the sudden need to check his email.

It’s silent as they just stare at him. He doesn’t say anything and tries not to react, but he does. They notice how his eyes flicker to his phone, how his leg fidgets, the longing in his eyes.

Emily brushes her hair back calmly and asks, “Hey, Pen, when does Y/N work at the college library?”

Penelope doesn’t catch on at first, casually replying, “Oh, basically every day from five pm onwards. They’re a twenty-four hour library and she combines working and studying.” When she sees Emily pointedly look at Spencer, she goes ohhh.

“Good to know,” Emily nods, “Good to know.”

+++

Spencer finds himself at the college library that night.

He wants to say it was an accident, or that he just happens to know there’s a special edition of a specific book here, but he’d be lying. He read your papers between reports, and found himself having a deep appreciation for the way you write – he wants to ready everything you’ve ever written. Every essay, every note, every formal and informal piece of work you’ve ever done.

He’s already fallen in love with the way you write. He doesn’t think he’s far from falling in love with you.

He wanders around the lower floor of the library. It’s impressive, he must admit, and he’s disappointed in himself for not visiting earlier. There’s students everywhere, but he notices some other people mixed in too – professors, businesspeople, as well as parents with their children.

He feels a little less weird for creeping around now.

Not that’s he’s creeping. He’s just.. there. To see a certain someone under the guise of looking for a book.

He moseys for a while, from the fiction section to the non-fiction to comics to autobiographies. You’re nowhere to be found – not between the rows of books, not working on any of the desks, not at the centre reception desk.

Until you’re suddenly behind him.

“Spencer?”

He jumps, looking up from the book he’s reading. Your voice is as calming and smooth as always.

“Y/N. Hi.”

“Hi,” Your brows are furrowed, but you’re not disappointed by the unexpected visitor. “What are you doing here?”

He lifts the book he’s holding, an Arthur Conan Doyle, giving a light lipped smile. “I’m just looking. I didn’t realise the college library was so plentiful – did you know the oldest library in the world dates from the seventh century BC?”

“I do, actually.” You point to a poster behind him, which displays that exact fact, “I thought dotting facts around the library would be interesting for the kids. They seem to like them.”

“Learning in young children is socially mediated, so good quality learning environments outside of their schools is crucial for children’s development. So, in a way, you’re enriching their lives beyond understanding.”

You’re flattered at his somewhat far-fetched attempt at complimenting you. It makes your heart flutter.

Why didn’t you contact me, you dimwit?

You open your mouth to ask another question, ask if there’s something he needs help finding, when he beats you to it.

With a firm grip, he slams the book he’s reading shut and says, “I’m lying.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t come here to.. look around. I came here to see you.”

“Oh.”

Spencer doesn’t know what to make of that. You haven’t awkwardly looked away, or stepped back to increase the distance between you. That means something good, right?

“You didn’t text me, so I assumed you weren’t interested.” Your brows twitch, and you back-pedal, “Unless you purposely didn’t text me because you actually weren’t interested and you might be here to see me but for something book-related rather than me-related and I’ve totally humiliated myself.”

“No, no. You’re right. You’re right.” He fiddles with the book in shame, “I should’ve texted you. I just didn’t know what to say and.. Well, it’s stupid.”

Your head jerks a little to the side, something he’s noticed you do a lot, looking patient and too pretty for him to handle. “I’m sure it’s not stupid.”

Spencer thinks back to his conversation with Derek, specifically the reminder that you gave him your number which means you initiated this so yes, you are interested in him.

It’s just.. when he looks at you, he struggles to believe it a little. You’re breath-taking.  

“I’m worried I’ll bore you.” He starts light, easing you into what’s been troubling him. He’s emboldened by the fact you’re clearly frustrated he didn’t text you.

You give him a look of horror, “The first time we met I told you I loved your dissertation on geographic regression. I definitely do not think you’re anything anywhere near boring.”

“Okay,” He nods, “What about our ages?”

You’re confused. “What about it?”

Spencer mirrors your expression. “It doesn’t.. bother you?”

“Does it.. bother you?”

Usually, answering a question with a question is a sign of deflection, a sign of hiding something. However he doesn’t know why, but Spencer trusts you with his life. Maybe not his life. Maybe his heart.

“Does that silence mean yes?”

He shakes his head, “No. It doesn’t bother me. I just worry that, you know, college years are the so-called best years of your life and I don’t want you to regret being with me, someone older than you, and resent me for it, or something-“

“I think you’re getting way in your head, Spence.” You laugh a little, “We haven’t gone on a single date and you’ve convinced yourself of so much already. For the record, no, your age doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It never has and I doubt it ever will. I think you’re the most fascinating and interesting person on this planet, and if anyone is getting bored with anyone I’m pretty confident it’ll be you getting sick of me. And,” You take a breath, “I think I’m old enough to know what I want, who I want, and what I want is you. If you want me, too.”

Spencer shoves the book back into the bookshelf with a satisfying sound, then turns and quickly places a kiss onto your cheek. It’s completely unexpected and, quite frankly, not something you’d expect from Doctor Reid, but you blush and there’s a definite red colour to Spencer’s cheeks, too.

“I will never, ever, get sick of you.” He says, voice small but firm. “But I don’t want you to regret being with me. Promise me you won’t.”

You give him a look that tells him you think he’s ridiculous. “I promise that I won’t regret being with you. I’d like us to last as long as possible, if I can be picky.”

“I’d like that, too.” He murmurs. The thought of you wanting him for as long as possible almost sends him into a frenzy. He wants to kiss you all over.

You stand close and talk quietly for a while, a little more discussion on a possible date that weekend and a constant stream of compliments from you to Spencer and vice versa, before you realise the time.

“I should probably go. I have a paper to finish.” You smile sadly, a tiny pout forming.

“I understand. Do you think I could read it? When you’re done?”

Your eyebrows shoot up, “Do you know how terrifying the idea of the Spencer Reid reading my work is? But yes, anything for you.”

Anything for you. Are you trying to kill him?

You turn to leave, refusing to admit how sad leaving Spencer makes you feel, when you stop, “One more thing.”

Spencer hums. He’s not fully paying attention, praying to whatever Gods exist that killers take a break on the weekend so he can take you out on the sweetest date.

“If age is a sore area for you,” There’s mirth in your eyes and Spencer prepares himself, “Does that mean the nickname old man is off the table?”

His lips purse and move towards his nose as he narrows his eyes, giving you a look of faux annoyance, “I am not an old man.”

“Sounds like you’re sensitive, old man.”

As you walk away, you jokingly blow him a kiss to add insult to injury. His pretend glare lasts until your back is turned and he feels his gaze softening to something akin to love.

Spencer thins if the rest of his life is this, you teasing him with that twinkle in your eye and smile on your face, then life is truly the most beautiful thing.

[chaoticpanenergy]

Hi!! I've been following you for a while, and I saw the post you reblogged about how getting obsessed with your ocs sucks bc you're the only one who makes content for them(mood tbh), but I read your tags and instantly decided that I love Brian and Xeno- this might be completely off and really bad bc I know pretty much nothing about them, but!

*ahem*

Brian fiddled with his hands. “Really, it’s fine-” “No! No it is not!” Xeno cut him off. “No more bad-talking yourself, got it?” They looked up at Brian expectantly. “Okay, okay.” He sighed. “I get it.”

“Good.” Xeno nodded. “So just… No more. Be nice to yourself.” They stood still for a moment, not really sure what to do next.

“I’m sorry.” Brian mumbled after a moment. “What?!” Xeno looked up in mild horror. “Sorry for what?!”

“For… For making you upset? I dunno…” He murmured, rubbing his shoulder. Xeno stood frozen for a moment.

“I’m not upset at you.” They sighed, lowering their voice. “I just… I don’t want you beating yourself up all the time, okay? You’re so nice to other people, and you should be nice to yourself, too.” The two of them both stared quietly at the ground.

Brian flinched for a second as he felt something wrap around his midsection. He looked down to see Xeno wrapping their arms around him in a tight embrace. They hadn’t used words, but they didn’t have to. Brian smiled softly and returned the gesture.

[ID: The "It's beautiful. I've looked at this for five hours now" meme. /End ID]

this????? is so sweet of you??????? alkjhsdkjshflfjhgkk i. i genuinely have no words. this was the most delightful thing to discover in my inbox i seriously do not have good enough words to explain how cool this is aaaaaaajfhfgjkdhgdskflg like sure, it’s not 100% exactly how i would write them, but you do have the general gist of their characters very recognizably there, which is super impressive given that you had like. 4 and a half sentences of me rambling in the tags of a reblog to go off of 😂 which side note holy cow how did you do that it is seriously SO cool and impressive !!!!!

anyway I Love Them So Much AAAAAAAAA have a lil thingy this inspired me to do with them!!! currently they live in my head rent free 24/7 and sometimes get little short stories that are mostly slice-of-life plus one big dramatic piece that will theoretically be the climax of their book. i would like them to have a whole book instead of this current situation. but i do not yet know what the plot of the book will be, is the problem. i know what i want it to be about, i just don’t have the specific way it plays out nailed down yet. but as soon as i figure it out, they will finally get to move from short slice of life scenes to their actual novel. and from there who knows where i’ll go with it. maybe it’ll be the wip i feel is good enough to start trying to find an agent and get published. i kind of hope so lol. i love them sm i want to share them with the world and give autistic and aro teens or twentysomethings a fun fantasy book with no romo and multiple different aro identities, and with multiple autistic characters with very different sensory needs who have learned to coexist and support each other so they both get their needs met. i think that would be neat.

aNYWAY on to The Them (content warning for stims that are mildly harmful to the person doing them, also a couple of swear words):

-

Xeno let themself into the apartment, hanging their keys on the empty hook by the door and kicking their shoes under the bench.

“Hi Xee!” Brian greeted from the couch, looking up in delight at their appearance. He was curled up in the corner, throw blanket wrapped around his legs, with a book in his lap.

“Where are your reading glasses?” Xeno greeted in response, frowning at him. Internally, they felt a wave of relief that they were home and with Brian and did not have to worry about monitoring their tone anymore today, because Brian didn’t mind if they weren’t expressive or if they sounded angry when they weren’t. They slid their backpack off their shoulders and set it down on one of the chairs by the tiny kitchen table.

“What?” Brian reached up and touched his empty face. “Oh. Shit. Thank you.” He got up, leaving the book open and facedown on the couch, and hastened down the hall towards his room.

“Mmhm,” Xeno responded, opening the snack drawer and staring into it before selecting a squeezy applesauch pouch, this one flavored with mango. As they cracked it open and put the end in their mouth, they went over to where Brian had left his book, selected a bookmark from one of the tiny drawers set in the side of the coffee table, and placed it in his spot, closing the book to save the spine.

Brian reappeared, rectangular glasses with thick tortoiseshell frames—reminiscent of an old man’s—perched on his face, lightly chewing on the knuckle of his forefinger. He resettled himself on the couch, fussing with the throw blanket until it was to his liking, and resumed reading while Xeno finished their applesauce.

They discarded the empty packaging, picked up their backpack off the chair, and went to put it away in their room and go over their homework for the evening. Perhaps ten minutes into this activity they paused and looked up, frowning at the wall of their room.

Brian had been chewing on his knuckle. He’d stopped when he sat down because his hands were busy with the throw blanket. Had he stayed stopped? They snapped their laptop shut, tucked it under their arm, and marched back out to the living room.

Brian had not stayed stopped, and by now was gnawing absently on the whole side of his hand. Xeno huffed out a breath of dissatisfaction and tossed their laptop onto the empty part of the sofa.

“Huh?” Brian looked up, not having seemed to notice them until now.

“Give me your hands,” Xeno demanded, holding out both their hands.

“Oh,” Brian said guiltily, obediently placing both his hands resting palm-up in their smaller ones. “Sorry.” His shoulders curled inwards.

Xeno frowned. “Take that back right now,” they ordered, taking a seat beside him and examining the tooth marks imprinted on his hand.

“…Un-sorry?” Brian tried.

“Better.” Xeno smoothed at a particularly reddened dent in his skin with their thumb. “Where’s your necklace?”

“It broke. Yesterday.” Brian frowned. “I chewed through it. I’m going to order a replacement, I just—haven’t yet, I’ve gotta, gotta get over the old one first, you know?”

“Mm,” Xeno hummed in understanding, still soothing at his hand with their thumbs. “Gum?”

Brian made a face. “I don’t like gum,” he mumbled, but he nodded. “I guess. It’s too soft, though.”

“Better than hands,” Xeno pointed out, heading back across to the kitchen half of the living space to fish out a pack of gumballs. They selected three—two pale green limes and a yellow lemon, the flavors Brian tended towards when chewing gum—and returned, pouring them into Brian’s hand and sitting down beside him once again.

“Thank you,” Brian said, dragging out the end of the “you,” and popped the gumballs into his mouth.

“Thank me by not chewing your hands anymore, dumbass,” Xeno said, but there was no real annoyance behind it. They picked up their laptop and opened their homework once again.

There was silence for a few moments as they did their separate activities, quiet, side-by-side. The only noises in the room were the faintest sound of Brian chewing, the occasional flip of a page, and the soft clicking of Xeno’s keyboard.

“Xee?” Brian said after a moment, quiet and a little hesitant.

Xeno did not look up, but they stopped typing. “What?”

“Can I stim with your hair?—It’s fine if you don’t want me to,” he added quickly, “I can get something else to fidget with, I just—”

“Did I say no?” Xeno interrupted.

Brian blinked at them. “You didn’t say anything.” He sounded mildly confused by the question.

Xeno turned the question over in their mind, now that Brian had stopped talking and they had room to think about it. “Yes,” they decided.

“Oh, you meant I was acting like you said no,” Brian belatedly realized.

“Yes,” Xeno repeated, turning to half-lay along the couch and rest their head on his chest. They balanced their laptop on their stomach so they could continue working.

“Yay,” Brian commented under his breath, sliding his free hand into their vivid purple hair and scratching at their scalp.

Xeno leaned into his touch, relaxing against him, a nice bubble of warmth floating in their chest. This was good. A very acceptable way to spend the evening. 

Ah. Content. That was the word for the feeling in their chest, they were almost certain of it. Brian’s heart was beating against their ear, and his fingers were carding though their hair, and Xeno was content.

[kiranatrix]

I feel like the nature of Light’s ideology and his methods get caricatured a great deal in the fandom (especially by those who only viewed the anime). I keep seeing popular memes about Light killing petty shoplifters who are only attempting to feed their family and I always get the sense that they’re largely inaccurate (for the most part). Light notices in the Yotsuba arc that Kira’s sentencing spares those: who’ve served their sentences and improved their ways, who committed justifiable crimes, and who have shown remorse. So it feels off to seeing portrayed that way, especially when Light’s elimination of innocents (such as the FBI agents, Naomi, etc...) are usually for strategic purposes, intended to help him progress ahead. Not to mention this pervasive belief that Light apparently didn’t know that he would be bound to sentence some innocents to death (with his large kill count per day). Wouldn’t it be more likely that Light knew that it was inevitable and was willing to sacrifice those lives for “the greater good,” in his view?

This is a doozy of an ask, anon. But it is GLORY bc these are all excellent things for me to ramble about Light (thank you!). I’ll take them point by point, strap in cause this is a bit long. *cracks knuckles*

You’re absolutely right that fandom often boils Light’s character and ideology down to a few basic elements that are distorted, mostly to drag him. Let’s be honest-- it’s fun to drag characters, even our favs-- and pretty much everyone in Death Note deserves it. But it does become annoying when its inaccurate, like with your example about who Kira focused on killing and some others I see. To be clear, this isn’t any kind of apology for the bastardly things Light DID do, but clarifying what he was and wasn’t about.

Did Light kill petty criminals?

The only time it is mentioned that Light kills criminals for non-serious crimes is when he was under surveillance by L (the infamous potato chip scene) and had to kill someone on the news right then, as well as the immediate coverup. In that circumstance, he couldn’t afford to be picky-- he needed L to see a signature Kira death (heart attack) when Light supposedly couldn’t be doing it. The crimes that appeared on the news that night (in his chip bag TV lol) ended up being non-serious criminals, and Light wasn’t so thrilled about this. 

Mainly because it meant he had to cover his tracks and kill a few more minor criminals so it really did look like Kira’s work. 

But his focus was putting himself in the clear with L; those minor criminals were incidental, and when he had choice/freedom again, he did not focus on them. The ruse didn’t completely work because L thought minor criminals dying was suspicious since it deviated from Kira’s usual MO. So, L knew the real focus.

This was a strategic move in service of, versus reflecting, Light’s ideology. This is something we see pop up again and again for Light. He is willing to do ‘wrong’ for the greater ‘good.’ We also see his distaste for killing petty criminals later when Light rebukes Mikami’s off-script killings in his thoughts. If Kira had been acting this way all along, then the Task Force wouldn’t have been surprised and Light wouldn’t have been pissed off that Mikami was doing it. 

Kira was looking for violent criminals who had escaped justice, that’s his main goal. He’s also disagreeing with Mikami’s methods of punishing wrong-doers who paid their debt to society (as opposed to the Death Row criminals I discuss below who haven’t ‘paid their debt’ yet). He doesn’t want people to fear Kira and thinks shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak, would do that. His ideology is not punitive; to him, its about prevention. Petty crime wasn’t on his radar until he had to make that a temporary focus for his safety.

Did Light focus on criminals already in prison? 

I’ve seen plenty of posts in the Death Note tag grousing about how Light was ‘dumb’ because he only focused on criminals in prison, but that’s not wholly accurate. The first two names he wrote were criminals he witnessed in the process of a crime with actual victims that needed help (a hostage scenario where the perp had already murdered people, and a man about to rape). Then he went for the Big Bads in the news- the most vicious criminals world-wide.

Other than criminals at large, he DID kill some criminals in prison. The times he did so were:

1) Killing criminals on Death Row who, in the eyes of law enforcement, “deserved the death penalty several times over.” These are criminals who had already been sentenced to die and Kira enacted the ‘justice.’

2) During Light’s ‘testing phase’ of the Death Note when he was trying to understand the rules in a population he could control 

3) When he was trying to be conspicuous about deaths for L’s benefit, like throwing off the assumption that Kira was a student. Light knew that those deaths would be found immediately and attributed to Kira. 

For 2 and 3, these criminals were likely to be on Death Row given what was said by INTERPOL about who Kira was killing behind bars. Ironically, even L thought Death Row criminals needed to die-- he chose Lind L Tailor from Death Row for his stunt, and said on TV he’d seek the death penalty for Kira. Hmm.

Why did Light kill innocent people?

The innocent people that Light killed include Raye Penber, the rest of the FBI agents in Japan investigating Kira, and Naomi Misora. L and Watari might be considered innocent per Kira’s ideology (Watari had probably murdered people but L had probably not, directly). Rem technically killed L and Watari, but Light certainly wanted them to die and orchestrated it that way. The innocent people that Light WOULD have killed include the Task Force (Mogi, Aizawa, Matsuda, Ide) and the SPK (Halle, Gevanni, Rester, Near,) if he’d won in the warehouse.

The main thread tying all these people together? They were all imminent threats to Light and were actively trying to stop and/or kill him. Killing them would never have crossed his mind if that hadn’t been the case. THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE DIDN’T ENJOY IT. Taking out his enemies was something Light did savor, he really loved that win. But it wasn’t like he wiped out the entire FBI or Japanese police force. Those were not his targets; these were individuals who threatened his goal and life, and he saw their killing as self-defense. 

Did Light kill any criminals who were innocent or wrongly convicted?

It’s certainly possible that he did but the manga never touches on it. Given that his MO for killing incarcerated criminals was limited to Death Row, he probably felt like those were safe bets (we know that’s not always the case in the real world, of course). But let’s say that Light, in canon, found out he’d killed someone wrongfully convicted. In the beginning of his journey as Kira (at 17-18), I honestly don’t think he’d given this a lot of thought. What’s funny is that Light was naively, and paradoxically, putting a lot of faith in the human justice system while simultaneously enacting his own justice that relied on having zero faith in the traditional channels. Makes my head spin, but Light is a fascinating character because of that kind of thinking. He championed sweeping ideals of right and wrong, but couldn’t be bothered with getting in the murky details. 

But by the time he’d grown up and matured some, especially after becoming part of the police force himself, he would have know it was a possibility. At that point, I agree that he’d view it as an inevitable sacrifice in service of, but not directly reflecting, his ‘greater good,’ like the previous choices he’d made. 

So why is Kira’s ideology so often distorted? For one thing, his thinking is kind of convoluted. The anime has less nuance about what Light’s about, and many people just watch that. Another common reason I see for this is that someone really, really hates Light for defeating L, and once we dislike someone it becomes easier to roll in more and more unlikeable qualities into a nasty villain pie. Any trait that is ‘bad’ can be overlaid onto Light because he is ‘bad,’ so it fits right?? Ha....no. He has plenty of bad traits and actions of his own to drag him for without inventing new ones. At the same time, I see L’s flaws and negative traits/actions being hand-waved away or justified because he is their fav. It happened with Minoru, too. 

[tuesdayintheservantshall]

Jimmy has no right to *that* hostile (ie downright homophobic). He already almost threw Thomas out onto the street without a reference; if anyone has a right to be scared it’s Thomas; he’s now aware everyone knows he’s gay and he knows at least one or two of those people(one of them being jimmy) would happily throw him under the bus given the chance. He’s literally never been so vulnerable and there’s no need for jimmy to rub it in

Hey Nonny you’re my first official fandom argument! Or you were when I first drafted this over a week ago lol. Since then I've waded into some drama bc I have poor impulse control. Well you're my first argumentative anon still! Do I get a prize, or do you? Have an, um apple of discord: 🍏And I will have one too: 🍏 (Intended tone: genuinely friendly, although if you are not already aware you should know that in fandom spaces messages like these are generally considered hostile acts. Most people don’t want to argue with strangers about why their faves suck, and especially not in response to tags they made about their overwhelmed shippy feelings. (Although I guess if hypothetically you’re the OP of the post I put the tags on and weren’t comfortable with them being on your post that’s admittedly a tough place to be in. Coming to me with your face on and asking me to remove my reblog or the tags because you’re not comfortable with them runs the risk of me being an asshole or taking something in your phrasing badly and starting a big fight. Uh, the chances of that seem rather remote so I’m gonna leave the tags where they are unless OP comes to me and says “I hadn’t wanted to say anything but actually -”.) Anyway I’m not gonna derail this into a long(er than it is) ramble on preferred ways to discuss disagreements in fandom but I might post something like that at a later date.)

God I use way too many parentheses. Apologies to any with a blacklist for Jimmy (do I still have any of those? not sure), obviously I don’t want to put this in the tags. I shall tag this and any further discourse on the subject with “the storyline that shall not be named”. Let’s get (finally) to it!

So, the first thing I wanna say is: yes, Jimmy makes homophobic comments and that’s bad, both because Thomas being gay is not the reason he assaulted Jimmy and because there’s hypothetically a chance someone who doesn’t already know might figure out Thomas’s sexuality based on Jimmy’s comment(s? There's the one before the rope tug and then I could have sworn there was one other one but I'm blanking on what it actually was.)However a) the moment I was commenting on wasn’t one of the homophobic comments and b) I find it important to distinguish between the specific manner of hostility (sometimes homophobic) and the level of hostility (nasty remarks and making a constant point of distancing himself) and the level is in fact 100% warranted. If you think nasty remarks and pointed distancing are more hostile than a person has a right to be towards the guy who sexually assaulted them, then we have a pretty profound disagreement.

As for your other point, regarding fear: Thomas and Jimmy both have very compelling reasons to be afraid of each other but I have to ask exactly what you think Jimmy is “rubbing in?” He initially tried to retaliate excessively against Thomas, backed down from that, and then discovered that instead of facing a reasonable consequence for assaulting him, such as being fired but with a reference that reflected the fact that this was one very bad mistake rather than a pattern*, Thomas was promoted to a position of direct authority over Jimmy. Although Jimmy was bribed into not making a fuss about this rather than, say, threatened, I think he has nonetheless been given a fairly clear message from his employers that they will back the senior coworker who assaulted him against any potential consequence he might try to bring. From Jimmy’s point of view, which is admittedly blinkered by fear and self interest, Thomas is the one in the secure, powerful position and Jimmy is the one extremely vulnerable.

I don't even just mean from his point of view like, ~emotionally. Genuine question: what would happen if Thomas started being overly touchy-feely again, or did worse than that, and Jimmy went to Mr. Carson or Mrs. Hughes or Lord Grantham to report it? I really don't know, and neither does Jimmy. Personally, I'm guessing that whether they believed him would probably depend significantly on things like Jimmy’s demeanor, and exactly what words he used, and basically whether he came across as a victim or as a brat trying to get someone in trouble. And which of those things a person seems like has no particular correlation to the facts of what they’re reporting - as we can see from what happened the first time! Like, Jimmy came off as spiteful and nasty and instead of being fired Thomas was promoted. That is actually what happened! The fact that Jimmy's motives were mixed doesn't change the fact of what Thomas did: Jimmy, when evaluating his safety, has access to one really strong datapoint and that’s that last time the majority of his superiors came down on Thomas’s side, either from the beginning or by the end.

Now, it’s true that he’s had a year to observe Thomas’s behavior and make an educated guess that Thomas really is sorry and won’t do it again. We can only speculate as to what extent he may have reached that conclusion and why he has or hasn’t. Some possible reasons why he might not have: trauma blinkers, homophobic and sexist beliefs, sufficiently bad at reading people to not know what clues to even look for, too self-centered to bother thinking about it in those terms... we don’t know. And perhaps he does know perfectly well that Thomas won't do anything like that again and any lingering fear is of cooties or of people mistaking him for gay and him being in the line of fire along with Thomas next time! You can read him that way if you want. You can say “wtf I see no fear of any kind”. It’s a flexible canon and none of these interpretations are actually contradicted by the text. Indeed I happily read other interpretations and when I babbled in those tags it was more "this is the interpretation I am thinking about right now" than intended to assert it as my One True Headcanon that I will not deviate from. But Jimmy definitely has reasons to be afraid, and of more than cooties.

Of course Thomas also has logical and emotional reasons to be afraid of what Jimmy might do, I'm certainly not denying that. (In fact, one of the things I find so compelling about these two is that they both have such strong reasons not to trust each other and they both reach out anyway.) It seems that Thomas’s belief in who Jimmy is as a person supersedes those reasons (“He wouldn’t be so unkind. Not on his own.”) but if Jimmy has a similar belief about who Thomas he keeps it hidden at least until the fair.

P.S. please reconsider the phrase “has the right to be scared” in every context but especially when discussing someone’s reaction to a situation that involved them being sexually assaulted. I offer you the alternative “logical reason to be scared” or "compelling reason" as perhaps capturing what I hope you meant. I think that’s a language choice that really does matter a fair bit.

[secndlife]

omg i'm so sorry it has taken me so long to respond, i got lost in the sauce D:

ahhh brazil to poland sounds very drastic but also very cool (no pun intended)!!!

you deserve any and all love you receive for mmf!!! it's rly so good, i can't shut up abt it lol !

mingyu IS a malewife, i agree!! and omg plz, hoshi recording the spider mv drove me crazy lajdfalfja like SIR WATER U DOING but also, carry on :) or like in that christmas in august gose where he just sat there and watched...he's the moodmaker which is very important and necessary!

yesss after i read one last time, i read one and two small petals and that one hurt almost as bad :") i'll have to check out passion (flower), i have been slacking on reading fics lately :/

jeonghan rly is so versatile!! i love enemies to lovers fics, and he truly is one of my favorite members to have that dynamic w. you definitely made sense re: characterization! i have dabbled in writing fics and so i totally understand that. i think part of why i enjoy writing fics based off of real ppl/established characters is that it gives me a template of a character, but like you said, bc we only know part of who they rly are, it gives me a basis of where i could go/explore their personalities deeper. i feel like i just rambled so lmk if that doesn't make sense hahaha

ahhhh mmf2 i cannot WAIT i saw your post re: fights and tbh i love fights (HELP) so i'm vvvvv excited for it !!! also related to that. writing rly is hard lkadjfkldaf but that's why i commend you so much, it's not easy and on top of that, you do a pretty damn good job!

ugh gyucheol sometimes -_- they fight so much and also i want to fight them too, just put me in a ring w them and let's BRAWL (but now that you mention that they're both fire signs, this totally makes sense as i am also a fire sign LMAO)

okay so you mentioned gose, which episode or episodes are your favorites? are there any you'd want to be a part of as like a member/watch as like a live audience type thing?

i feel like we can't move on without asking what your fav title tracks are! top 5 fave tracks (can include b-sides)?

- 🍳

IT'S OKAAAAY i hope you're having some rest and taking care of yourself!!!!

ok lemme add a cut and we can continue

it was indeed very drastic tbh but i have no regrets !!! it's literally going to be two years tomorrow so WOW IT'S BEEN A RIDE.

plsssss 🥺🥺🥺🥺 it's almost at 1k notes that's absolutely insane for me like literally. bonkers luv ! it makes me super happy tho that people really like it 🥺

SOONYOUNG IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE I CAN'T WITH THAT did u see vernon saying something like that on his latest vlive THIS ONE and he's totally right soonyoung's role as mood maker is so important :/ my boy :/

one and two small petals was such a big deal to me i was so obsessed !!! passion (flower) you need to dm the author tho :/ they took it out but they were still sending links through dm hehe IT'S WORTH IT I PROMISE !!!!!!

pls e2l with jeonghan HITS DIFFERENT!! it's literally a dynamic i feel suits him sosososo much! and yes same like i have some perspective and something to roughly shape it but i can also "play" with it as i go and according to what suits me. AND YES ALL OF IT MADE SENSE AND I TOTALLY AGREE 🤝

THE FIGHT SCENEALKSDJAKLAD me the other day: no mmf couple doesn't fight. also me: writes a LONG LONG scene on them fighting. i'm excited tho bc i think it's a necessary scene that adds a lot to soonyoung's character and his vulnerability bc mc's shows more in mmf and now it will be a moment for Him you know.

OMGGGG A FIRE SIGNNNNN!!!! I LOVE FIRE SIGNS !!!!!!!!! WE'RE THE BEST PLS!!!!!!! i really really love gyucheol they're so fun i love them. my friend were writing me a poly gyucheol au where i'm their gf it would be a crazy dynamic aksdjaksjkf bc i'm literally like cheol so i think it'd be so fun

OMG GOSE i fucking LOVE the playground gose that one makes me so happy it's literally a serotonin boost. i also love the ttt ones i would love to be on the hiperrealism one bc i'm 100% sure soonyoung throws up from drinking when he goes upstairs so i would like to be there for confirmation !!! i also love bungee jump even tho i would never do it. and don't lie 1 and the tag !!!!!!! HBU???

ok this is HARD. but. uh! second life (WHO WOULD'VE KNOWN), home (i have a tattoo written "i'm your home" hehe), ah! love (they did it all for me there really), together (PLS THIS SONG MAKES ME SO HAPPY AND NOSTALGIC IT HITS DIFFERENT) and odihtd (this was one of the first svt songs i really really liked it). but this is so hard tho their discography is so good !!!! hbu share yours !

[ghost-town-story]

Alright, who wants to hear about the story I made up on the fly during work that gave me a shit ton of plot revelations? 

Jk you don’t get a choice on whether or not I talk about it. I will, however, include a read more so you at least get a choice on whether or not to read it bc this gon be long and rambly lmao

(This is for Astral btw. I actually never said that in either post yet except for the tags)

Anywho! Onto the story/worldbuilding!

So today’s brainworm was basically about Jared and Will, freshly escaped from the mountains and new to the resistance. Will’s been slowly picking up the pieces of himself, finding his feet after the absolute shitshow of their escape. Jared.... Well, I’ve said before that he’s the king of avoidance lmao. So instead of confronting everything they just went through, he instead throws himself into training with Finn to distract himself from it. 

Now, at this point, Jared and Will don’t speak a word of Common (which.... I should give that an actual language name........ but I’m lazy lmao). They’re lucky in that, Jared’s a mage and their uncle taught him a translation spell as they were running, so at least they have that. But if anything, anything happens to Jared, they’re essentially stranded, surrounded by people they can’t understand, who can’t understand them. 

And then. One evening. Jared and Will are chilling around one of the fires, being pulled into the tiny circle that has so far just consisted of Finn and Rose and Ashe. And the translation spell sputters and dies. 

Cue mounting panic from Jared as his attempts to recast the spell fail, and Will’s confusion as Jared panics. Eventually they just duck away, muttering apologies in a language Finn and Rose don’t understand, to try and figure out what just happened. 

Now, it’d be a bit too extreme if the only people who a. thought to run from the mountains and b. successfully escaped are two 8-9-year-olds, so scattered throughout Astral are a handful of others from the mountains. Some of them have even joined the resistance, like Jared and Will have. 

Introducing take-no-shit-uncle character, who has absolutely no name yet bc this idea is literally at most 3 hours old as of when I started writing this lol. He’s from mmmm, the mid-to-southern Dragon Ridge, and knows vaguely of the two northern kids who stumbled into the resistance a while ago. But hey, apparently they know Common well enough, and they seem to be settling in just fine, so definitely don’t need to be his problem. 

Until Finn comes up to him saying “Hey, you’re from the Dragon Ridge, right? Can you help? Something’s wrong with Jared and Will.” 

Reluctant-uncle-mode activated. 

Meanwhile, Jared’s panicking, Will’s hella concerned, and reluctant-uncle-who-really-needs-a-name walks in, takes one look at them and goes *heavy sigh* “I should have known you kids weren’t that fluent in Common.�� 

Five minutes later, reluctant-uncle comes to the conclusion that everything’s fine, Jared just has a lottle bit of magical exhaustion because he’s smol and gone from lowkey learning magic to highkey learning it and maintaining two translation spells at the same time. Reluctant-uncle says “Chill kid, you’ll be fine, I can do a translation spell for you for a while, but also seriously learn Common it’ll make your life hella easier.”  

Now, like I said before, Jared is bad at coping mechanisms. In addition to bottling things up and avoidance, since their parents’ deaths he’s adopted an attitude of “Fuck the authorities/adults, I’m gonna do everything on my own to protect Will”. Which. Child no. But anywho. Absolute stubborn bastard child tells reluctant-uncle “Fuck you, we don’t need your help.”  Will in the corner: “Yes we do stfu Jared.”  (cursing is me paraphrasing, they’re like 9 at most lmao)

And reluctant-uncle goes “Ok, be that way I guess” bc he takes no shit, not even from obviously traumatized, coping-badly children, and he leaves. 

Next day, Will tracks him down and goes “I’m so sorry, pls help can you teach me Common I promise I’m not as stubborn as Jared.” Reluctant-uncle is like “oh goddammit puppy eyes okay fine since you’re nice about it but your brother’s gonna have to apologize first before I agree to help him out.” 

Meanwhile, Jared’s been banned from training period until he’s recovered from his magical exhaustion. Which means no avoidance tactics for our avoidance king. Will’s off with reluctant-uncle, Finn’s training without Jared, Rose is.... I dunno doing whatever it is she did before the princess search group formed, and Jared doesn’t understand anything happening around him. Moral of the story: Jared’s suddenly hella isolated, and handles it badly. 

So, reckless impulsive child he is (who’s totally not bitter his brother is ditching him not at all), he notes that they’re not that far from the Dragon Ridge, and more importantly, not far from a specific mountain that needs to be named. So he packs a bag and slips away in the middle of the night, heading back for the mountains. 

~

Now, we’re gonna pause right there and do a little hop skip and a jump over to a worldbuilding/history/geography lesson. 

Geography first: Astral is split into two, the Eastern and Western Kingdoms. They’re split by the Dragon Ridge, a mountain range that runs the course of the country until they hit the southern desert. There’s three specific mountains of note here: Stormking (name subject to change now that I’m thinking about it) in the north, and two yet unnamed ones which shall be referred to as MM and SM for now (stands for Middle Mountain and Southern Mountain). 

Onto history and worldbuilding! (and time to go check my notes on the Celestials lmao)

So a longass time ago, there were just two races in Astral: the Celestials, and the dragons. They mostly ignored each other, because the Celestials are immortals while the dragons have a more human-like lifespan, so the Celestials didn’t want to bother with a race they saw as children, and the dragons decided to return the non-bothering favor. 

And then the humans arrived in Astral, so now there’s three races: the Celestials in the Western Kingdom (not its name then but semantics), the humans in the East, and the dragons sorta all over, but mostly concentrated in the Dragon Ridge, where they have their main roosts (more on that later). 

Due to similar lifespans, the humans and dragons ended up bonding a bunch. Until something (that is undecided bc again, this was all spitballed at work lmao) happens, causing a rift between the dragons and humans. Now they’re at each others throats (excluding those individuals who are like “..... but friends”), and the dragons are eventually driven back into the Dragon Ridge. 

At some point after the dragons retreat to the mountains, after long enough that the fighting has sorta been forgotten a bit, the Celestials leave Astral. Pandora, the queen at the time, is like “Yo so can we move into the Western Kingdom then?” The Celestials give no fucks, don’t realize the war between the humans and dragons, and go “sure whateves ain’t our problem” and yeet out. 

Humans expand into the Western Kingdom. Some decide to stay in the mountains instead while crossing. And so we get little villages popping up all over the mountains, including nearby Stormking, MM, and SM. 

Why are those three mountains so important? Bc they’re the dragons’ roosts. But hey, as long as the humans don’t realize that fact, they should be fine, right? Right??? 

Fast forward some time, and a villager stumbles up one of the three mountains. Or three villagers independently kinda do the same thing: They go partway up one of the dragons’ roosts, wishing for better weather, an easier winter, I dunno the type of kinda important kinda maybe petty can’t exactly be changed easily on your own sorta deal. And some of the dragons still remember stories about how they once got along, so being masters of elemental/weather magic, they help out the humans. 

Now, pattern recognition is one hell of a thing. So people go up to the roosts, ask for something that can be covered by the dragons’ skillsets, a sympathetic dragon helps out, rinse and repeat. Human asks for something beyond, dragon’s like “oh shit sorry no can do” Do you get where I’m going here? Yes? No? dw I’ll say it straight up lol Rinse and repeat for a few generations, mountain people start thinking “oh hey there’s gods in the mountains and they live on Stormking/MM/SM. They like to help out with weather stuff if you ask politely, not so much with other things tho” 

Cue certified dumbass from the lowlands going “Hey, that sounds like a Dragon” “No it’s not wtf you on about” “No that’s a dragon I’ll go prove it.”  And Certified Dumbass™ goes up one of the roosts (either SM or MM, not sure which but one of those two), and kills a dragon and brings back its scales to the village. 

Now, a detail that has actually been a thing for a while: dragon scales when taken from an unwilling dragon are hella cursed. Basically as a defense mechanism to stop them from being collected like our Certified Dumbass™ has just done. (How exactly are they cursed? Good question. Don’t have an answer other than people will avoid the fuck outta them if at all possible)

Now Certified Dumbass™ leaves the scales in the village and fucks off back to wherever he’s actually from, leaving the village to be cursed as fuck. So word spreads, not that their gods are actually dragons, but that some lowlander came in and apparently murdered a god or at least stole its trinkets and brought the gods’ wrath down on an innocent village, fuck that dude. 

Another repercussion: now the dragons are a lot more wary of people climbing their roosts. Yes, some of them are innocent and some are asking for help, but there was that one dude who murdered one of them, and can you blame them for protecting themselves? 

Rinse and repeat that scenario, and suddenly you have mountain communities who absolutely do not trust the lowlands further than they can be thrown (or less than that, even) because they keep angering their gods. And as more and more time goes on, the dragons trust less and less until even setting foot above a certain point on the roosts will result in almost immediate death, unless you happen to catch the attention of a particularly sympathetic dragon. 

Eventually, the dragons retreat to Stormking, which has been the least affected by all this bullshit so far because it’s in the far north. It’s bitterly cold on Stormking, and inexperienced lowlanders quickly realize they’re in over their heads trying to climb the mountain (like Everest, in regards to the fact you will get fucked by the weather if you’re unprepared). But the villagers still avoid MM and SM, because by now they know they’re risking death by climbing those mountains. (Same with Stormking, even if they were barely affected. Word travels, and the remains of the MM and SM roosts are bitter). 

Which pulls together my vague-ass mountains culture and gives it backstory and reasoning that I can get behind lol. Also explains the dragons’ history, and where Ragnor is coming from, even if he’s still a supreme asshole about it. 

~

Back to my dumbass tiny mountain boy, who decides to climb MM all by himself, because he is smol, stupidly reckless, and clinging to the scraps of his faith. Everything’s been ripped from him, even Will it feels like, but if the stories their mother told were true... Jared doesn’t even know what he’d do. But he feels like he can’t stay in the resistance, not while he’s unable to communicate and too prideful to ask for help. 

The second he realizes Jared is gone, Will enlists reluctant-uncle’s help in tracking him down. Because at least Will realizes that he’s not well-equipped to go trekking across the countryside on his own, much less after his reckless brother. 

But Jared has a head start and is a speedy lil boy and it’s a lot easier for one person to slip past the soldiers still in the Dragon Ridge, so he’s climbing MM before Will and reluctant-uncle have a chance to catch up with him. He makes it all the way up to the abandoned roost, though he doesn’t know that’s what it is, and calls out for something. Something, anything for him to cling to, that won’t be ripped away by fate. 

But the dragons are long gone, and wouldn’t have an answer for him even if they remained. 

Will and reluctant-uncle finally catch up to Jared, and reluctant-uncle just takes one look at Jared and scoops him up to carry him back down MM. 

Later as they’re huddled around a fire, Jared nursing frostbitten fingertips, he chatters out one question. “How long?”  Reluctant-uncle sighs, tosses some more wood on the fire, and nudges Jared closer to the flames. “Doesn’t matter. You’re alive, that’s what counts. You and Will.”  “But--” “You’re alive. The old gods may be dead, or might not give a damn, but somebody cares about you kid.”  Will nods in agreement.  “Worry about the living more than the dead, mkay?”  “... Okay.” 

*nudge nudge* *hiss* *nudge nudge nudge* *grumble grumble grumble* “Sorry for being a tiny dumbass. Can... can you teach me Common?”  “Sure thing kid.”

*years later*

“The old gods are dead or don’t care Mishal. They won’t help us. We have to save ourselves.”  “You’ve been in the lowlands for too long.”  “No. That’s a lesson I learned from the mountains themselves.” 

~

Fixing the mountains, the dragons, and Jared (and Will too a lil, but that’s like, minor compared to Jared’s issues). Holy shit that was a productive intended-for-fun storyline lol

If you’ve read this whole thing, have a cookie and my eternal love, gratitude, and devotion <3

[pallases]

10, 11, 15 and 22!!

10. an old creation that will always have a special place in your heart

answered! but there’s this one too, not for any particular reason really i just like the pink and love igyts (although the top left corner of the first panel does bother me 👁👄👁)

11. a new creation that you’re very proud of!

also sort of answered in the last link since i rambled abt my most recent edit there but my new header is looking v nice as well if i do say so myself 😌

15. talk about some of your favourite creators: what do you love most about their creations?

you: i love the boldness of your colors and the fonts you use! some personal favorites are this adam one, this ronan one, and that inej “a KNIFE!” one that you don’t have tagged on your current blog but the second panel of which i was so in awe of that i have to mention it. all your vine edits are the best by the way,, you’d expect them to be bad but they’re all gorgeous and paired w ridiculous quotes dndhsjfj iconic

@dreamtheif: i’ve said this before and i still don’t know how to phrase it better but trix’s edits look so smooth and pretty ahsjf i love their fonts too. personal favorites are this tshoeh one, this dream pack one, and this ronan lynch one

@daji: iniya’s colors and overlays chef’s kiss chef’s kiss. actually in love w this renegades edit. it has so much going on without looking cluttered in the slightest and is honestly so so cool. other favorites are this tatbilb edit and this annabeth edit

@hollerans: obsessed w maira’s red, blue, and green themes and the caps are absolutely a Look. personal favorites include this wymack speech one, this other wymack speech one, and this sokka one. also hate how good this looks

@wilhelminakecarstairs: yana’s colors always slap and i adore her gifsets. it’s v hard to choose between them all but some personal favorites i’ll throw out are this merry thieves edit, this mina carstairs edit, and this blackstairs edit

@parrishes: michelle’s fonts are gorgeous on their own but she gives some of them 3d and/or shadow effects that make them all the better. also a few of her creations have these crisscrossing lines in the background and those are fantastic too. generally speaking excellent textures. personal favorites are this annabeth one, this six of crows one, and this kanej one

(note: these are not by any means my only favorite creators so if anyone wants to know some more feel free to send this question again)

22. a creation that was difficult to make (but worthwhile!)

this blue one! i’m not a huge fan of how high contrast it is now but otherwise i like it a lot and i loved it when i first made it, to the point that i was talking on here abt how excited i was to post it lmao the erasing was v time consuming for it in particular and i remember talking abt that too bc phonto doesn’t have an undo button and i kept messing it up in tiny spots ahsjfk and it was a v new style for me with like. everything actually. the dots, the circles, the textured text, the text placement, the black lines behind the text, etc etc. i had fun w it though!

— creations ask game

[tonydadisbestdad]

Happy Birthday, Dad! Part 2

Peter ParkerxReader

Dad!Tony

Word count: 1,170

Request by @katiemcrae: Part 2 of Happy Birthday, Dad! But it is the reader's birthday instead.

A/N: This probably isn’t exactly what you were asking for but I felt so bad having put this off since you asked for it back in May. My most sincere apologies, I hope you can forgive me. Format is weird bc I'm posting from mobile. I will fix it if I ever get the chance to turn my laptop on again since I'm so busy...

You were half way through your day and frankly, it was the worst day ever. You couldn’t believe this, not a single person remembered that it was your birthday.

And you weren’t the kind of person to say something about it either. So, you waited and waited.

Not even your dad wished you a happy birthday while he was rushing out that morning, saying he was late for a meeting.

Then worst of all Peter wasn’t answering any of your texts. You hoped he was alright. You knew you would know if it wasn’t but it probably just meant he was busy.

It was just peaking 8 o’clock by the time Peter showed up at the tower and you were beyond upset by now.

“Hey baby,” he greeted entering your room.

You barely cast him a glance.

“You okay?” He asked, sitting down on your bed beside you.

“Fine,” you stated.

Now, Peter knew exactly what was wrong. He didn’t really like your dad's idea of pretending to forget what today was, but that was Tony's plan, so he had to go with it. “You’re lying,” Peter stated. “We’ve been together long enough that I know. So what’s up?”

You rolled your eyes, refusing to tell him the truth.

“Okay well then let me take you out on a nice date, so maybe I can cheer you up?” He suggested.

“Nope, I’m fine staying right here tonight. Like I’ve been all day since no one seemed to care.”

“Baby I’m sorry I wasn’t around today but you know how I get caught up in stuff… and I know your dad was in meetings all day so let me make it up to you.”

You knew he would continue to pester you, so you decided to give into him. You changed into something more acceptable and the two of you were off.

Peter brought you to your favorite restaurant. Only as you approached it looked closed.

“Guess they aren’t open tonight,” you offered. “Guess we’ll have to go home.”

“Maybe they’re just trying something new with the lights,” Peter suggested quickly as you started to turn around. He went and opened the door for you. “See? Open, come on.”

With such a quick response you eyed him skeptically. However, you went into the place anyway. The lights were all out but suddenly they all came on there were loud shouts of “happy birthday”.

You jumped some, only slightly surprised. You had a feeling this is what was going to happen. But frankly, you were more pissed off than anything.

Your dad was front and center. The huge smile on his face quickly dispersed seeing you scowl.

With a shake of your head you turned and walked right out of the restaurant.

Peter quickly followed you. “Baby-?”

“Don’t Peter,” you snapped.

Tony stepped out the door next. “What’s going on?”

“You guys!” You said, a bit too loud, people passing on the streets were staring, making you completely uncomfortable. You pinched the bridge of your nose. “I would have loved this, if it wasn’t for the fact that the majority of my birthday was spent alone with everyone pretending to forget it was my birthday! I couldn’t even get a text of acknowledgement! How is that fair at all?! This doesn’t make up for that!"

Peter rubbed the back of his neck and Tony sighed.

“We knew you’d suspect we were up to something if we said anything about it.” Your father stated.

“You know how bad I am at lying, you can read me like a book,” Peter offered. “I’m sorry for making you think I didn’t remember your birthday.” He reached out to take your hand but you snapped it away from him.

“Apologies don’t make up for it either, Peter.” You told him.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you…”

“You better. And Dad?”

“Well of course I’ll make it up to you sunshine. Sorry I wasn’t thinking about how it might make you feel… that wasn’t right. Let's get back in there though I’m sure you’re hungry.”

You nodded and went back into the restaurant. Your two guys following behind you.

At least your dad knew how to throw a party. And Peter definitely made it up to you that night.

You were cuddled up in your bed beside Peter. Your head tucked under his chin.

It was well past midnight, your party was so much fun. You spent a lot of it with your dad by your side. Dancing and laughing. It's been a while since you could all let go like that. And as tired as you were you just wanted to relish in the quiet time with your boyfriend. It was rare that the two of you could have a night together like this.

Peters hand stroked slowly through your hair, his fingers toying with strands. He seemed so calm, but something was off.

With your head on his chest you could hear his rapid heartbeat.

You shifted and looked up at him in the dark. “You okay, baby?”

His eyes widened like he hadn’t realized you were awake. “Y-yeah, yeah I’m good why?”

You tapped his chest. “I feel like your hearts gonna burst under my head.”

He was glad the room was only lit softly by the lights from the city below, or you’d see the blush take over his face. He stared at you for a moment. “Um well uh you just, you make my heart go crazy.”

You snorted at him and pat his chest. “Good one, Parker. Seriously though, everything okay?”

Peter sighed he knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to you for long. You would just keep pestering him. He was silent for a moment before sitting up and taking you with him. He scooted out of the bed and went over to his pants.

You watched him quietly as he went, curious about what he was doing.

He came back, fumbling with something behind his back. “I-... I wasn’t planning to do this tonight. May says it’s bad luck on holidays and stuff so I figured your birthday would be a bad time too. And you were having such a good time anyway. And then I started thinking about when I could. And we were getting some time alone together and I started working myself up and how badly I don’t want to mess it up by rambling which is exactly what I’m doing and-”

He dropped down on his knee beside your bed. “Will you marry me?”

Your eyes widened as he brought a beautiful ring up and the world tumbled out of his mouth. Tears sprung from your eyes as you sat up. You nodded and pulled him back up into your bed. You placed a very smiley kiss on his lips. “Yes, Peter yes.”

He smiled and let out a very small happy chuckle. You could tell he was holding back his excitement as his shaky fingers slid the ring on your finger.

Tags: will be added in the future probably.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Urgent- so I think I problem w my relationship with God is that because I’m anxious I make all these deals with God in my head to show how grateful I am but they end up with being filled with intrusive thoughts (for example I’ll say that if I ever do x bad thing again then God can take away something that makes me really happy in my life). This makes me feel angry towards God bc I know some people are bad all the time and nothing bad happens to them and I’m afraid God will cause bad things on me

Hey there, dear. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. intrusive thoughts are the worst – i personally rarely get them regarding religious stuff, but if you look at the replies on some of the posts in my #ocd tag you’ll find bloggers who invite folks to come talk to them about things like religious-focused compulsions and intrusive thoughts. 

My main advice to you is probably obvious advice: If you can, stop making these deals with God. It is not healthy to make deals telling God to take away something that brings you happiness if you’re bad. We all mess up, sometimes over and over again – and while that’s not “okay,” God does understand it. Keep on striving to do better, of course,but show yourself some compassion, too. 

Now, you might be saying that the intrusive thought itself is what’s making these deals with God (I sometimes misinterpret things, so I’m not sure if that’s what you meant in your ask). If that’s the case – those deals don’t count! Seriously. God knows the difference between what you really want and between what your intrusive thoughts are making you think (I talk about this more in this post). God knows that those “deals” your brain is shooting out aren’t really from you; God’s not going to hold you to them. 

Whether you’re saying that you are making these deals or your intrusive thoughts are coming up with them out of your control, I recommend finding new foundations for your relationship with God. Your deal-making foundation reduces your relationship with God to a transactional one, an “Okay, God. I do something good and you do good for me; if I do something bad, you can do something bad to me.” That’s not a relationship based on mutual vulnerability, on understanding and compassion. 

You might try coming to God with gratitude and joy when you succeed in doing something good, for instance. And when you do fail, as we all do sometimes, and you do something wrong – seek God’s love and mercy; ask Them to help you keep trying. 

It takes time to rework your frame of mind, so be patient with yourself! Especially if intrusive thoughts keep throwing these “deals” at you – keep on reminding yourself that God knows those aren’t from you, and does not hold you to them. With patience and care, gradually, you can move from your present framework of transaction and punishment to one of gratitude and love. 

Check out the “ON GOD” and “PRAYER AND FAITH” sections of my FAQ for more posts that may be of use to you as you work to reframe your relationship to God. Such posts include:

How can I feel closer to God? Answer

I feel worthless, I don’t deserve God’s love. Answer

Is [X bad thing happening] God’s will? Answer

Why should we pray? How do I pray? / Am I praying “right”? Answer

Now I’m gonna go on a bit of a ramble, in case some more thoughts on God’s connection to bad things that happen could be helpful to you, based on the last bit of your message. 

The question of God’s relationship to suffering is called theodicy, and I have a whole tag full of posts exploring this topic. In my own belief, God doesn’t cause bad things to happen to anyone; God is not the source of any evil. 

This can be really frustrating – why doesn’t God punish the people who are causing great harm?? That’s a valid question to bring to God, one that many writers in the Bible ask too – see the Book of Habakuk and Psalm 73 for examples. 

But the fact that God doesn’t rain punishments on our heads, that bad things just….happen, to good and bad alike, can be a comfort too. Because it means that when we mess up, we have the chance to make things right. And when bad things happen to us, we don’t have to rack our brains to think of what “we did” to “make” the bad thing happen.

As theologian Shirley Guthrie discusses in this quote, God is neither a cruel and punishing God nor a God who coddles us, hiding us away from all pain. So where is God when bad things are happening, then? 

When bad things happen, God is by our side through it all. We see God with us in our suffering most clearly in the in the incarnation, when God became a human being (Jesus) and knew the pain of hunger and homelessness, of rejection and anger, and even of torture and execution. We also see it in how God says in the Book of Exodus that she knows the sorrows of the enslaved Hebrews – that not only does She hear and respond to their cries but that She understands their pain intimately, feeling it with them. 

God is with you during the fear and frustration you feel about your intrusive thoughts, anon. You don’t need to worry about God using these thoughts against you – rather, She has infinite compassion for you and what you are going through. 

Hang in there, and please seek support where you can – from professional help, or from trusted friends. You should never have to go through this stuff alone.

[jlf23tumble]

Hey Jen! Happy Birthday first of all!! As my favourite TXF-era Louis hate-watcher/enthusiast/scholar (and one of my all-round absolute fave bloggers) I 1) would love to hear your thoughts on his post-TXF comments and 2) Remember when there was this nice nerdy boy auditioning on XF? Simon said he lacked personality, but Louis defended him passionately saying that just bc he wasn't the bad boy Simon was looking for didn't mean he didn't have any personality. And then fast forward to... 1/2

Louis’ interview with Satan Cowell’s #1 provider of anal unguent… his answer about having been a “party boy” was so interesting to me. He seemed uncomfortable and said “yeah there’s a responsibility at both ends, to be good and also to be a little bit bad, a little bit mischievous sometimes”. Super interesting choice of words… “a responsibility”. And DW, transparent as always “that’s what we want from our rock stars”. Mmh. What Simon wants for sure. 2/2

——–

Hey, thanks for the birthday wishes!! I’ve had a few (got drunk on you, etc.), so I’m gonna try and answer this, but if it comes off as incoherent, let’s all just blame sweet lady vino. As you (correctly!) suggest, I’m so here for all XFUK talk, and I’m curious to hear more about Louis’s experiences on the show as we get deeper into promo that neatly swerves Louis’s personal life. Olivia got some GREAT INTEL from him, but he’s hinted in previous interviews about being nervous or having to be a certain “character,” and a LOT of it is tied in to this Sun-perspective, which is more or less run by the people running Simon (I don’t like to give him coded language because that gives him more attention and power, like we’re watching a shitty soap villain, when in reality, he’s a sad, vain little man whose “empire” is imploding faster than his cheap tit job). Make no mistake, XFUK was a calculated risk to salvage Louis’s rep in the UK (the demo that engages with it is the demo that reads the Sun, and he’s been trashed there for years), but it WORKED, and part of that is Louis’s natural charm, but it’s also down to the edit, both on screen and in print. And Louis knows it, calls it out with Wootton, the whole thing about the responsibility, as you say, but also that most of those shit articles are Dan’s work (just like Niall hinted at, with pretty much the same smirk). They all know it’s part of the game, but it does do some damage, and he’s in damage control mode…seemingly, everyone’s on board with it, but the shrapnel (at least in print) is Zayn, and that’s because Louis didn’t throw Harry under the bus like he was supposed to (Dan needed a headline about someone Louis hates in the band, so he took Louis’s sad resignation about Z and puffed it up because there’s literally nothing there about H…and don’t even get me started on the whole “party boy” image and who it was originally intended for). I have so many thoughts on all of it, but you have to watch everything to talk about it, and I’m not here to engage with anyone who hasn’t. I’m drunk enough to share some of my random unpopular onions, so here you go, in one go:

El’s definitely “vital” for selling an album about long-term love for an artist who’s closeted, and she’s the best fit for it (they get along, they’re coworkers, “she’s” been there through all the ups and downs, so get ready for those long-term love songs because they ain’t about her)

bg won’t end anytime soon, so if you’re one of those who’s constantly screaming ‘end it’ in tags, you’re only upsetting yourself (I think it WILL end eventually, but with a whimper, and trying to push for a scream is not worth your own personal angst)

That said, look at the negative space here, there’s less and less and less talk about him having a son, seeing him with a son, but he can still talk about his “boy” and do all kinds of other things that play with that narrative subversively (is it his bf, his son, his brother? an emotion? we’ll never know)

Simon has an outdated idea of what “sells” for rockstars, but so does Irving Azoff (Louis’s media rollout with his team is on POINT, and it hits all platforms, but he still has to deal with shit related to the Sun, Metro, etc.; the Azoffs are notoriously not plugged into SM, they use print like Billboard and a fairly outmoded form of non-print pub PR, but Harry has a lot of charm that bleeds out into OTHER PEOPLE’S SM…oh, and p.s., he STILL has to deal with the Sun, Metro, etc. from time to time)

But this is why Louis’s current media push is so GOOD, you don’t even know…all platforms, all of the biggest ones, there’s a strategic plan here, please stop pretending like you have this more figured out than they do, my god, he has GOT THIS

XFUK was an intentional move to repair tab damage in the UK, and it worked (it was fucking SMART, and he smashed it, so much damage was repaired, and on an actual schedule)

I don’t know any BTS arrangements (before you @ me, let me stop you right there, neither do you), but clearly, more than one party/contract is at play here, and you really should do yourself the favor of listening to ALL OF IT, because he drops hints all over the place (that Olivia interview alone had so much happening that wasn’t excerpted or giffed)

There’s a very real possibility that Louis and Harry don’t WANT to come out because of the invasive interest in their lives, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! But it might also explain when things appear that aren’t aimed at the gp

Argh, I’m rambling, and this is getting too long/too boring, but yeah, I’m probably drunkenly blanking on even more fantastic thoughtsTM, but XFUK was a game changer in a lot of ways, for everyone involved.

[annabcth]

tbh your blog sums up everything that is wrong in the sw fandom. if you didn't like tlj and if you don't get ben solo's character, just shut tf up.

If Rey had been a Skywalker or a Solo and either Luke’s daughter or Han and Leia’s daughter, that would’ve ruined these characters. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, then again, is a Skywalker, not Poe or Finn. And btw Solo is a good movie, not the best one but good. It’d be amazing if people like you would just delete their blogs bc you make the Star Wars fandom toxic and not fun to be part of.

Kylo has been emotionally and physically abused for his whole life and you’re telling us he’s evil and the bad guy and abuses rey and doesn’t deserve a thing and doesn’t deserve to be in a poster that portrays the skywalkers? Lol your precious Luke Skywalker wouldn’t approve.

i’m replying to those messages for two main reasons. one, i’ve been getting hate about my stance on tlj/rey*o since december, both in my askbox and under my edits, and while i don’t really care about it, i’m torn about not publishing those messages/replies/tags because the rey*o fandom is a riot and i feel guilty about deleting evidence of their harassment. two, this new discourse is actually extremely relevant, so here we are.

since you’re writing this on anon, i assume you know i’m not the problem here, you are. i keep my opinions to my blog, i don’t look for a fight, i always tag properly. i’m not even an active anti. tlj really hurt my star wars obsession, and i needed to vent for a while, which i did, but then i moved on, and my blog is discourse-free once again. i’m assuming those messages were prompted by my tags under a post criticizing the comic-con poster fiasco.

we obviously have different interpretations of tlj, and you’re bothered by mine. i find it very reasonable though, given that ky*o did recreate anakin’s decision from rotj, and then proceeded to almost destroy everything his grandpa’s great redemption accomplished (saving luke and the rebellion). thankfully, he didn’t succeed (yes, luke died, but it was framed as a defeat for ky*o), and the legacy lives on. through whom? well, luke tells us: “the rebellion is reborn today, the war is just beginning, and i will not be the last jedi”. the editing shows us who will carry out this fight for the light side. the movie ends ky*o’s arc with his promise to destroy the new heroes. so yeah, for that reason i think finn and poe belong in that poster right next to rey, since all three were branded as the new rightful heirs. i get that you’re reading the film differently, probably hoping for ky*o’s eventual redemption and a happily ever after with rey, and honestly, there is nothing i can do about your opinion, so i’m not gonna try to. neither of us decides which interpretation is canonically correct. in the end, it’s jj’s choice, which was probably made back when he was creating those characters.

taking all of this into account, i’m hoping you could suppot two men of color who are an important part of the sequel trilogy’s narrative, whether you agree with my opinions about tlj or not. they were given their own storylines and character development, and they’re tied to the main conflict as leaders of the anti-facist movement. they deserve to be recognized as crucial to this story, and they deserve a spot in the comic-con poster.

my ramblings in the tags mean nothing. you sending anon hate means nothing. neither of those things matters in shaping the narrative for episode ix. quarrels over a ship becoming canon don’t influence the final outcome of this trilogy. however, people defending and supporting two characters of color in a predominantly white franchise means a lot, and can change a lot, at least in the long run.

we have our own opinions, and that’s alright. i voiced mine on my blog, in the tags of a random post. you were lurking on my blog, and sent me hate. i’m not the one who’s toxic here. we’re in the same boat, really- you will absolutely hate it if ky*o dies/doesn’t get redeemed, i will hate it if your ship becomes canon. the answer to that anxiety you’re feeling is to find a different thing to fixate on, and let go for the time being. or just keep your opinions to your blog, and don’t harass people by telling them to delete their tumblrs.

to address other things you mentioned in your messages (they’re standard rey*o talking points, so it should be quick):-  there is no canonical proof that ky*o has been abused his whole life. a dark presence watching him as a fetus/baby doesn’t equal grooming or emotional/physical abuse. it’s defenitely what his relationship with snoke is when we meet up with them in tlj, but we have no idea how and when this partnership was formed. that being said, i admit it’s possible that some additional information about kylo’s fall will be revealed, and it could change my opinion about this character. however…- even if kylo was abused, it wouldn’t justify his actions. he kills his alleged abuser in tlj, and continues to be a major ass, so yeah, he’s the bad guy. (to be revealed) cool motive, still murder*. - yes, kylo’s relationship with rey is abusive, both physically (throwing her into a tree, restraining her) and emotionally (invading her mind, telling her she’s nothing, lying to and gaslighting her). they’ve known each other for a couple of days, had five/six conversations in total, and the amount of time she didn’t want him dead could be counted in hours, i think. she asked him to stop killing her friends, he refused. conceptually it’s such an awful groundwork for romance it’s almost funny. she literally closed the door on him, flying away with his mother on his father’s ship, gripping his uncle’s and grandpa’s lightsaber, the literally destroyed heirloom of the skywalker family. leia said to her “we have everything we need”, completing rey’s tlj!arc of realizing that she’s destined to become the new legend despite her humble beginnings, disillusionment, self-doubt and abandonment issues. this is probably the point where you jump in to say the symbolism of the final scene between leia and rey foreshadows rey mending the lightsaber/redeeming ky*o, but i have three problems with that. one, rey already tried that, it didn’t end well. two, i don’t think jj gives two shits about vague symbolism of tlj, given that rian didn’t bother to uphold basic continuity between his movie and tfa. three, it would be incredibly sexist if rey, instead of being the true heir to the chosen one legacy, was used as a tool for redemption of the failed heir that almost destroyed it. this legacy, along with the one of leadership and rebellion, no longer belong to the skywalkers**. luke’s aforementioned quote makes this clear.- i never said kylo doesn’t belong in the comic-con poster. i only said finn and poe should be there as well. if you feel like their presence in the story threatens your predictions for kylo’s arc, then maybe those hopes you have are not well-founded in canon and you need to distort it in order to make your ship seem more plausible. just maybe. also, luke wouldn’t be able to approve or disapprove this opinion of mine that i never had.

and you’re right, luke skywalker is very precious to me.

* there is a great post going around arguing that ky*o’s apparent lack of relateable reasons for turning to the dark side is a great metaphor for neo-facism and current alt-right movements, and it makes him an excellent and very relevant villain. i agree.

** of course, this plotpoint would change if rey/finn turned out to be a solo/skywalker. i have complicated feelings about this concept, and voicing them would make this already long reply even longer, so i’m not gonna do that.

[angelic-guardienne]

I just realized that I, a lifetime resident of Ignis Hell, never made a post on my thoughts on Episode Ignis!! So I’ll do that now I guess while everyone is asleep and not tag anyone because... yeah.

Spoilers galore bc I don’t know if I can write a coherent review w/o spoiling some things. Just a head’s up, this isn’t really the most comprehensive review, it’s more just me rambling a bit, maybe I’ll do a deeper one later but for now it’s just a bit of a ramble. (this got progressively less comprehensive as the post goes on so just... process with caution)

Cut!!

Um where to start... okay, the gameplay. 

I’d actually played with Ignis a bit in the main game before heading to his DLC, meaning I had a brief familiarity with his controls (so I wasn’t panicking like “hoLY SHIT bells and wHISTLes”), I just hadn’t known what the specializations were for, so that was nice. I like the way he controls. He’s very smooth, sometimes he moves a bit too fast for my eyes (looking at that lightning magic) but other than that loved it. Loved him. Wonderful controls. Heard the blizzard power was OP and I concur. I used it a lot, mostly switched between blizzard and fire, was rarely seen hitting that lightning unless it was for a Total Clarity attack, and even then... the fire. the blizzard.

Ignis’ battle cries! Lovely. I don’t understand the “you’re mine!” trend that seems to appear in every game I play, but it sounded great coming from his lips, so yeah, seal of approval. 

I thank the lord every day for Adam Croasdell.

Ignis taking down those huge MT armors with the lance in two blows! (i’m talking before that segment with Ravus... which I’ll address later i’m sure) I’m a big fan of that. If I saw him do that irl i’d literally collapse. I almost collapsed just watching him do it in the game, but i was already sitting so i didn’t. 

(There were many moments during the dlc where i literally collapsed, but let’s get into that later)

But going back to the voice acting. I heard that some people thought it was rather poor but I found it really great? Ignis sounded a little bit whiny at times and completely done with everyone and everything at others and I loved it. He always conveyed the right emotions. 

There were those moments of course (you guys know the one. where he pushes off the MTs in the “resist” timeline. and just. keeps screaming. you know the one) but they just made me laugh a bit instead of driving me away. I look fondly on them.

There were actually a lot of moments that made me laugh in this dlc, serious as it was, i just. must have a very lowkey sadistic part of me. I always laughed at the sad parts of movies as a child. anyways. before i talk about those let’s get into these

these being ravus

ravus ravus ravus. my boy. i loved him before and i love him even more now. i’ve had a ravus/oc in the works for a while now and... and now i have a soulmate au in the works as well. help. this just came to mind. i’m sinking further and further into ravus hell on a daily

won’t even get into ardyn hell

back to ravus

love my boy. wanna hug my boy. i knew he was gonna take luna’s death very poorly but i thought we were gonna get a grief scene and be done with it but we got a grief boss battle (which... was hard. he’s so op like... help. the whole time he was on my team i was so happy i didn’t have to fight him and then...) and not one, but TWO grief heavy scenes so i was beyond satisfied. it was great. 

uhhhh ravy’s beard. 3/10 lol. it’s starting to grow on me though (in a metaphorical sense. i can’t grow a beard.) someone give him a candy cane and put him in red and call him kris

uhhh

(this is getting less and less coherent as we go and i’m sorry)

i’m sorry ravus’ beard is so hilarious. did he grow it because there wasn’t anyone around anymore to tell him not to? whoops made myself sad haha 

Oh! let’s talk about ardyn!

loved all the ardyn content. ardyn made me laugh and curse a lot, mostly laugh because... so theatric. the hat (you know the lil pat pat he gives that MT soldier he puts his hat on) and his little scandalized noises (the gasp he makes when ignis presents the ring in the alt ending) and that fucking scene where he’s revealed to be a grave robber and summons the armiger like it’s snowing outside

which it probably was

beside the point

Ardyn was good in this dlc. thank you Darin de Paul. lovely. his evil laughs... chills down my spine. but he evil laughs in a way that makes me both want to punch him and laugh with him. ardyn ignites emotions in me that i cannot name. not good ones, but ones all the same.

seriously though even if i wasn’t a fan of ardyn, ardyn was great in this. he’s slimy as hell and honestly... wow. he seemed like he was losing him mind a bit in this dlc and i love it. i’m 99% sure it was because of the ring. ardyn’s always a little bit crazier when it comes to the ring and this was allllll about the ring. so kudos for making it a trend

i... have a lot of thoughts about ardyn here. i just can’t express them correctly right now. ask me about them later and maybe i’ll be able to articulate. i’m sick and barely awake and all my brain is giving me is an “ardyn? cool bro” help.

there was more i said i’d come back around and talk about. um.

that mini stealth segment with ravus! wild. literally collapsed and almost missed the quicktime event in the second one. now i wanna replay the episode just to see what happens when i miss the quicktime events. i wanna do that with all of them actually. catch me doing that after i pick up my controller again. missing literally every. quicktime. event.

WAIT CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT PART WHERE IGNIS FUCKING FLINGS HIS DAGGER INTO THE FACE OF AN MT

BECAUSE THAT WAS HOT AS ALL HELL

HE JUST CASUALLY THREW IT

ALSO IGNIS HOLDING HIS DAGGERS BACKHAND IS MY WEAKNESS

WILL NEVER GET OVER EITHER OF THOSE THINGS

ohhh let’s talk about the parts where i literally collapsed.

1) when the eastern bridge collapsed just as ignis was about to cross it and he looked so done

2) when ravus and ignis did their stealth takedowns

3) when ignis was all “i presume you weren’t born with a prosthetic” like igNIS

4) when ardyn summoned his entire armiger to fire at ignis in the alt end

5) every time ignis screamed in general

6) when ardyn’s sword hit igs in the face and knocked him out

7) “This world means nothing to me. Do with it as you wish.”

8) AND THE LAUGH THAT IGNIS LETS OUT AFTER THAT LINE

9) when i got the bad fucking end because time limits

10) when ravus found lunafreya’s dead body and immediately went into rage mode

11) when ragey ravus attacked ignis

12) when ardyn showed up as gladio

13) obvi. ignis taking down the huge mts

14) while screeching in frustration, whenever ignis fell off of the fucking rooftops

15) oh, when ignis ripped off his earpiece

now let’s talk about the moments that made me laugh bc there were... admittedly quite a few

1) “Don’t be asinine.”

2) the way ardyn fuckin gasped when he saw that ignis had the ring in the alt ending

3) ignis pushing those MTs off of him in the “resist” timeline

4) ignis sprinting?

5) caligo immediately (and... ineffectively) trying to drag Ravy’s edges as soon as the man was out of earshot

6) ignis talking in his little earpiece 

7) “Have you lost your marbles?”

8) “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” Ardyn says a solid number of seconds after Ignis puts on the ring

9) actually all of ardyn’s quote regarding ignis wearing the ring? the man was just like... “wow who is this kid”

10) ravus calling ignis “boy”

11) ardyn just fucking tossing noctis

12) and then tossing ravus as well

13) ignis going full halt next to pryna even though noct is right there, seems even he can’t escape the power of dogs

14) “Let your hair down!”

15) ardyn summoning his entire armiger to attack Ignis with

16) gladiolus “if you’re alive then pick up the damn phone” amicitia

17) the fact that the empire just carries around coeurls for no other reason than to drop down on ignis as cannon fodder

18) ignis sounding (cordially) ticked off with literally every altissian aside from weskham

19) fuckin. watching caligo control his mech in the boat chase

and moments that produced emotions i cannot explain

1) ignis always getting close to the altar/noctis and then getting knocked away by a freak accident

2) iggy getting healed by the crystal’s light (you know the scene. his hair is all down and that’s... the most beautiful i’ve seen him)

3) ardyn going to stab noctis and the dramatic irony bc we know he wouldn’t actually kill him and is just getting a reaction from ignis

4) ravus throwing the dagger at ardyn!!

5) quick recipeh

6) getting fucking. knocked off the edges of buildings. and taking fall damage

7) “I don’t want to die without him”

8) ignis seeing the claw of the fallen mt and immediately thinking “hookshot”

9) one-man army ignis

10) ignis being so very realistically tired after every single battle

11) ignis with his hair all the way down

12) fire eyes

13) fire body

14) generally ignis living up to his name

15) fuckin. father christmas over there

16) ignis asking noctis not to complete the journey and noctis turning it around so quickly jk that actually really really hurt

17) having to watch ignis feel around for everything

18) also i don’t know if anyone else caught this, maybe it’s just my game but i noticed in the ardyn v ignis fight in the alt ending, a lot of the recorded sounds of noct warping/fighting are mixed in the jumble of ardyn and ignis’ fighting sounds. i can’t tell who is making said sounds but i hear them all the time

so yeah

my general view of episode ignis? heartwrenching, 10/10, would recommend, would play again, will play again, all the best things, love it very much, will hold it near and dear to my hear. lovely lovely dlc.

[taakofromtaz]

taako fights a necromancy cult on candlenights

Summary: 

(alternately titled "how the necromancers stealing lup made the best candlenights ever")

“Really, fellas? On Candlenights? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Notes: (transposed from AO3)

big thanks to the taz fic writers discord for giving me the initial idea and cheering me on!!!

this isn't my best work but i just wanted to post it before the year ended,

i did a little TOO much d&d spell research bc i love accuracy, also, hopefully these spells are all ones taako can actually use,

happy candlenights and happy new year's!!!!

[hopefully accurate use of d&d spells, kravitz was supposed to be here but he’s not, there’s blupjeanss but it’s in the background, taako’s a badass okay? i dont make the rules, TAAKO DOES A HIT, this has very little to do with actual candlenights actually,]

End notes:

ending kinda sucks but eh. que sera sera fuckit

Word count: 3065

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Tonight is going to absolutely perfect. Taako has spent the day toiling away in the kitchen—with the occasional help from Lup—to make the family dinner absolutely perfect. Everyone’s favorite dishes are present and even the latest of guests are set to arrive several hours before it’s time to chow down.

Lup and Barry and Kravitz have been in and out of their office in the Astral Plane the last couple days to finish any last night work that would even slightly disrupt their family holiday. There shouldn’t be any bounties coming their way for the next few days at this rate, Istus and the Raven Queen forbid.

Candlenights is going to be beyond perfect this year.

Lup is the first one home and after checking in with Taako in the kitchen, rushes off to her room to gussy up for the evening. Once she’s done, Taako will get ready, and by that point, the boys should be done wrapping up their paperwork and be back in time to help greet the first guests.

Taako is halfway out of the kitchen when a dimensional rift opens up beside Lup and Barry steps through, looking a little exhausted. “Just in time, Barold,” he says, smiling when Lup turns to give him a kiss. “Keep my sister company while I get ready, huh?”

Barry blushes and wraps an arm around Lup’s waist. “Heh. Not a proble—” Before he can finish, Lup disappears from his grasp, and the two of them are left staring at where she was in complete shock.

“What the fuck?” Taako rushes back into the room and waves an arm where Lup was standing just a second ago.

“L-Lup? What happened?” Barry’s eyes are blown wide behind his glasses and he’s frozen in place, shoulders stiff and arm slowly drifting back to this side.

“Barold!” Taako thumps him in the chest and Barry sucks in a deep breath, coming back to himself. “Come with me. I have a silver mirror in my room.”

“R-right. Right. We—we’ll find her. It’s okay, it’s fine.” Barry’s rambling seems to be more for his own comfort than anything, so Taako snatches up his wrist and drags him down to hall and into his disaster of a room. He shoves Barry to down to take a seat on the bed and digs around on top of the dresser for the silver hand mirror he knows he has.

Taako sets the mirror on the bed beside Barry and takes Barry’s face in his hands. “Hey,” he says, ducking his head to took him in the eyes, voice low. “We’ll find her. She didn’t leave.” The this time is implied. “She wouldn’t do that.” Not again.

Barry sighs and closes his eyes. Taako leans in and plants a kiss on his forehead. “What’s the plan, Taako?”

“I’m gonna cast Scrying. See if I can find her,” Taako says, stepping away and scooping the mirror back up. He clears a spot on the floor and sits down, cross legged, and focuses on the mirror. “I need you to go find her brush and bring me a piece of her hair. That’s the easiest way to do it.”

Barry nods and leaves the room. Taako closes his eyes and focuses directly on Lup, thinks about her laugh, her smile, the way she looks, the way she talks, and wills his magic to focus on hers. His ear flicks when Barry comes back, Lup’s brush in his hands. Taako takes it silently and concentrates the spell through it with one hand and the mirror with the other.

It takes a minute for the spell to find her, but it finally catches and he can see her in his mind’s eye quite clearly. There’s no way Lup knew he was going to look for her, but he can feel her voluntarily failing her save regardless. A second later, the room around him fades and he feels as if he’s with Lup, wherever she is.

Taako looks around, seeing and hearing through the scrying spell’s invisible sensor, and says, “Barry, if you can hear me, I found her. I’m gonna tell you what this place looks like.”

Taako can’t hear if Barry makes any sort of reply, but he feels a warm hand settle on his shoulder so he figures that the words came through. (Taako’s only ever used this spell once and he was alone when he used it, holed up in his room and getting drunk by turning water into wine like fantasy Jesus while he tried to find the man that wanted to kill him so bad he almost succeeded. He has no idea what it looks like from the outside or even if anything he said would come through. He’s glad that it does; trying to remember what this place looks like would be hell.)

The cave is dark and musty and full of weird, vaguely creepy artefacts that Taako doesn’t feel like describing. Bones and skulls of all sorts litter the floors and from Taako’s position, he can see Lup standing in the middle of a summoning circle, red cloak draped over her little black dress, arms crossed and looking extremely put out.

“Really, fellas? On Candlenights? Don’t you have anything better to do?” She sounds annoyed and not worried at all and Taako can’t help but feel relieved. “Didn’t we have to come break your shit up literally a week ago?”

That might be useful. Taako doesn’t know if Lup is being helpful on purpose, but he relates the info to Barry regardless. The hand leaves his shoulder and Taako tries to moves to catch it and only ends up moving his field of vision. Attempting to pull out of the spell only leaves him with a headache and ringing ears. “Barry? Where’d you go?”

The necromancers surrounding Lup say nothing, and she just looks progressively more annoyed. “So what now? You bring me all the way here and… nothing? No reaction?”

The necromancers start murmuring amongst themselves in Abyssal and Taako tunes them out, still trying to abort the Scrying spell before its ten minutes are up. The problem is that he doesn’t know how. His first attempt hadn’t been a success.

“Barry! Get back here!” Taako calls out, trying to move again. His vision merely shifts and he huffs out a breath, trying to stay calm. Nothing good comes from panic and his usual grounding methods are useless if he can’t move his physical body. “I’m about to freak the fuck out, Barry! Where’d you go?”

Nothing. Taako closes his mind to the vision of the inside of the cave and counts his heartbeats as he waits for the spell to end.

He hears the sound of fabric tearing and he opens his mind’s eye to see Barry step out of the rift, his Reaper glamor making him look like his lich form. “Asshole!” Taako screams, vision swinging as he makes to throw his arms out.

“Hey, babe!” Lup says, a huge smile lighting up her face. Taako wants to do a hit on Barry’s stupid face. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

Barry looks around, pulls something from his robe, and taps two fingers to the sides of his glasses. He sweeps the room again and locks eyes with what Taako can only assume is the Scrying spell’s sensor. “Huh. Neat.”

Taako huffs as Lup tilts her head. “What is it?” The necromancers are chanting now, something Taako is oblivious to the meaning of, but given the circumstances, it can’t be anything good.

“Taako found you with a spell. He can see us right now actually. Hears us too.” Barry gestures in the direction the sensor. Taako just wishes the spell would end already.

“Shit yeah!” Lup turns and smiles blindly in his direction. “Hey, Koko! These necro-fucks are real close to home! You know that cave that you, me, and Bare-bare checked out a few months ago? I think this is it!” Taako smiles even though she can’t see him. Lup is the best.

Barry sighs. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. We got this covered.”

“Aww, but it’s Candlenights!” Lup says at the same time that Taako yells out, “Suck it, Barry!” to his empty room.

“You two are chaos inca—” Whatever Barry was going to say is cut off the spell ending, throwing Taako back into his own senses and his quiet room.

“Lulu you’re the best sister ever,” Taako says to himself as he scrambles to his feet. He runs into the kitchen first thing and turns off all the heat he can and moves the dishes to safer, less fire-hazardous spots. (That could have been a disaster.) The next thing he does is jot down a note for Kravitz— “We had a situation but we’re handling it!” —and then he rushes back to his room for his cloak and component bag and the Krebstar.

It’s time to fuck up some necromancers.

 It takes Taako about ten minutes on Garyl to find the exact cave Lup and Barry are in. Taako doesn’t bother dispelling the phantom steed and as long as he stays out of the way, he should be fine. “Go in there and kick some ass, my man,” the binicorn drawls, voice low and smooth.

Taako shoots him finger guns and takes off into the cave, trying his best to be quick but quiet. The cave is suspiciously silent and Taako can’t imagine it means anything good for his family. Ahead of him, the cave opens up into an antechamber that’s lit with an assortment of candles an few enchanted lanterns.

There’s about a dozen hooded figures of varying shapes and sizes standing in a semicircle around where Taako can recognize as the last place he saw Lup. She and Barry are pressed back to back, hands clenched together, surrounded by what appears to be spectral cuffs. Lup’s mouth is moving but there’s no sound and Taako, if he’s being completely honest with himself, doesn’t care enough about the why to figure it out.

Conclusion? Lup and Barry are pretty soundly—or not, heh—trapped. No big deal.

The smart thing to do is try to pick these dudes off one by one and find a way to free Barry and Lup from the trap. The smart thing to do is to try and rescue his family and have them help him kick some ass.

What Taako ends up doing is firing off the most potent Sunbeam he can, taking special care to avoid catching Lup and Barry in its line of fire. Over half the necromancers fail their save and scream as the spell blinds them temporarily. The rest fall away from the line as quickly as they can. Not a single one of them is left unharmed.

“Just who the fuck do you think you are?” Taako steps out from his hiding spot, Krebstar raised, face drawn into a snarl. The necromancers left with their vision—about four of them, Taako guesses—look at him in what can only be stunned silence. “Really, fellas?” Taako asks, copying Lup’s line because it was just that good. “On Candlenights?”

“Run along, little wizard,” the nearest necromancer hisses at him, their voice low and grating. “You’re not who we want.”

Taako scoffs and hardens his glare. Little wizard? Sure, he must be a sight to behold with this hair in a messy bun, an apron thrown over and oversized sweaters with the sleeves rolled up, sweatpants and boots that are a size too big—not to mention his cloak of the manta ray and belt with his spell component pouch—but just because he looks like hot garbage right now doesn’t mean he’s not capable.

He’ll show these fuckers what for. They deserve it for underestimating him.

Taako gives a nasty smirk to the necromancer that spoke and aims the tip of the Krebstar at them. “Watch this,” he says, the casts Disintegrate.

The necromancer shrieks, briefly, and falls apart before the remaining hooded figures can make a move to stop him. Taako adjusts his grip. “Anyone else?”

A couple of the blinded necromancers fall over their comrades trying to move closer to him and one of the relatively unharmed figures raises an arm towards him. Taako quickly steps back into his hiding spot and casts Mislead, sending his double to go running deeper into the cave. He keeps his senses with the double until he’s sure of the path it can take then switches back to himself and sneaks, completely invisible over to Barry and Lup.

Barry’s eyes turn to him immediately and he barely stops himself from making an audible reaction. Stupid Barold and his stupid True Seeing.

Actually, this might be useful.

Thank you Istus, Taako thinks, raising his hands and signing out, ‘Trap?’

Barry blinks once or twice before grinning. The crew had all learned this sign language of sorts back in Cycle 27 when they came across a plane that left most the nonhuman members of their crew deafened—the cause being something that emitted a planetwide audio tone that only certain races and species were capable of hearing. It obliterated the auditory nerves of anything that could hear it, but the natives of the plane had already begun adapting, mostly by adopting more visual indicators for those affected by the strong noise.

‘Glyph,’ Barry signs out, doing his best to keep his movements small and subtle. Lup shifts against him and squints in Taako’s direction, so Barry shows her the name symbol they came up with for Taako. (Granted, it’s not the one Taako came up with, but the others convinced him that the gesture he wanted was a little too complex and obscure. He reluctantly agreed.)

‘Trap,’ Lup signs, confirming as well, looking off to the side. ‘Rock?’ She ends her second sign with a shrug, trying not to be too obvious about looking for the source of their magic cage.

Taako holds up a single finger, the universal ‘wait a moment,’ and switches his sense back to his double. Said double is deeper into the cave than Taako’s ever been and is physically wrecking every weird artefact it can while still keeping them mostly intact so the Reaper Squad can confiscate them. The double seems to be doing fine, making a mess of things while avoiding the occasional spell being flung his way.

Taako comes back to his actual self to see Lup pointing to a huge boulder close to the cavern wall.

‘Fake?’ she guesses, nudging Barry. He glances back at it and nods.

‘Check,’ Taako signs, sneaking over to the rock. He needs to be quick. The blindness seems to be wearing off of victims of his Sunbeam.

The rock is indeed somewhat fake. The front is illusory, a cover to hide a small, open spellbook covered in glowing arcane runes sitting on a much smaller rock. Taako grabs the book and snaps it closed. He doesn’t particularly care which type of trapping spell this is, but removing the book from the area should be enough to end the spell.

He tosses the book towards the cave entrance and watches as Lup and Barry grin and step away from the center of the summoning circle on the floor.

Taking advantage of his invisibility, Taako nudges past Barry and Lup. “Take a sip, babes,” he says, winking at Barry, and he casts Cone of Cold. Taako fades back into visibility as a vicious, icy wind whips up at his fingertips and blasts through the cave. The closest necromancers, still recovering from their blindness, fail to save—again—and several are frozen solid as their hit points drop to zero.

Lup is cheering, whooping and laughing as her brother annihilates the den of necromancers. Not all of them die from the attack, but enough of them do—Barry moves to collect the souls of the deceased as Lup heads further into the cave to get any stragglers.

Spell over and job done, he casually pretends to dust his hands off and waits for Lup and Barry to finish their reaping.

“Koko! That was fantastic!” Lup calls out as she runs up to him and grabs him in a big hug, lifting him up and spinning him around.

He laughs and hugs her back, striking a showy pose when she sets him back down. “Thank you, thank you, I know I’m amazing.”

“That was really impressive, Taako. Nice work,” Barry says, looking like himself again.

Taako turns to him and gives him a sharp smile. “You’re on thin ice, pal.” His eyes narrow and his grip on the Krebstar shifts. “You know why.”

Barry visibly gulps and Lup laughs. “Sorry I just. Left. Like that. I won’t do it again, promise.”

Rolling his eyes, Taako turns and starts to exit the cave. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I’m going home. This isn’t my job and I have to finish getting ready.” He looks back at them and points at them. “You better be home before seven or I’ll come back here and drag you back personally.”

Lup gives him a mock salute. “You got it boss! Come on Bare-bare. I’m sure there’s some gross junk in here that you’d just love to get your hands on.”

Barry waves at him as he shuffles off, following Lup to the cavern room that Taako’s double trashed.

Garyl is still waiting outside when Taako finally leaves the cave. “We done here?” the phantom steed asks as Taako climbs up.

“Yeah m’man. Take me home.”

 Somehow Taako makes it home before any of the guests arrive, which is just as well because he still has a lot to do. He makes to resume cooking and or reheat the food and rushes back to his room to change as quickly as he can. He comes back to the kitchen to see Lup standing at the stove.

“Go finish getting ready, bro.” She smiles at him. “I got this. Barry when back to the Astral Plane to drop some stuff off and drag your boy toy back home.”

Taako darts forward to peck her cheek with a kiss before running back to his. “Thanks, you’re the best!”

“No problem! And chill out! Tonight’s gonna be perfect!” Lup laughs after him and he smiles.

Best Candlenights ever.