#i think you almost have to go through it to understand but getting a lot of interaction on here

[konigslilcumslut]

Ghost didn’t really know what jealousy was originally.

Given his standing as Lieutenant the most you’d get out of the dry ass humour having man was orders barked out and that same cold gaze.

Safe to say he never treated you any differently from his other soldiers so there would be no risk of jealousy right?

However…

The first time jealousy seemed to creep up on him, was when he spotted you with Gaz. At first it was just passing, not really understanding why or even how he felt the way he did.

But then it became a constant.

Any time he saw you too close to another soldier he’d grow stiff and irritable. Any time he’d catch you leaving the mess hall with a group of men he hated it.

Yet eventually you also became fed up with his behaviour…

So without thinking, not realising the consequences of your own actions (same) you burst into his private quarters, yelling “what the hell is your fucking problem?!”…unfortunately for you though…

You seemed to catch the Lieutenant at a bad time.

He’d just gotten out of the shower, in the process of pulling his mask back on but you saw a small glimpse of his face, water dripping down the chiselled lines of hard earned muscle and a towel tightly wrapped around his waist.

And when he locked eyes with you, you could’ve sworn there was something a whole lot more…feral to his cold gaze than just anger.

“The fuck did you just say to me soldier?” His rough tone would ring out, stepping closer as his gaze would remain locked with yours.

“What is your fucking problem?” You’d stand your ground, clearly a little too proud to stand down at the challenge you now faced.

There was a thick silence…heavy as the air around you both seemed to shrink until your chests heaved to get some oxygen to your brains.

“You.”

It came out clear and cold. Yet so undeniably heated.

“You are my fucking problem. You’re driving me insane. I see you with another soldier and the only thing running through my fucking mind is putting them in the ground love. You have no idea what you do to me.” His tone would grow lower, stepping towards you as his chest heaved and his eyes never waver from your locked stare.

“I look at you and I want nothing more than to shove you into the nearest room, rip that damn uniform off your body and fuck your pretty cunt till you beg me to stop.” He almost snarls his own words out, as if hating the fact he was even thinking it.

“I am a soldier. I am a Lieutenant, I have a duty to uphold but god damnit if you keep looking at me like that I am going to lose my fucking mind.” He was barely inches away from you, so close you could almost taste the self restraint coming from him.

“Either walk away or get on the fucking bed love.”

___________________________

To be continued….? If ya’ll want….?

#cod smut #cod ghost #ghost #ghost cod #ghost smut #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost x reader #simon riley smut #simon riley x reader

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

Was having some thoughts about Steve joining Hellfire. They are as follows.

I'm thinking maybe they start him off with smaller weekly oneshots. Unbeknownst to Steve they are also still meeting for their regular other campaign, he figures that out later. That Eddie's been writing one shots for him on top of his other bonkers story he's got going and Steve is like "oh 🥺".

BUTTT! during the one shots, all the kids have their moments of being RUDE to Steve. Mike is the worst (cuz I dislike him and his fucking attitude). But everytime one of them is rude to Steve, and it's like legit mean stuff, like them calling him stupid. Things like that. Steve usually kinda gets quiet. And then, whenever the kids do that, Eddie starts making notes in his notebook. Then whoever said the mean thing, their characters die.

Like, Mike gets the worst of it cuz he's just such an ass. But Eddie's got a SYSTEM in these notes okay!!! There are straight tallys, for actually hurtful mean things, there are wiggly tallys for things he can tell are meant to be teasing but that he can tell definitely still kinda hurt Steve a bit. And then there are stars. People get stars for helping Steve along the way.

Be that helping his characters, or just helping him with his math or helping him understand something about the game when Eddie is busy or "distracted". Cuz he legit always notices when people help Steve. Most of the time it's cuz he hears Steve's genuine thank yous. Lucas, and surprisingly Erica, have the most stars, aside from El. Max gets stars sometimes just for back talking Mike's rudes comments with shit like,

"mike what does it matter? we're all about to die anyway. That sphinx is gonna fucking eat us. Who cares. Leave him alone."

Because her and El have of course been invited too. But they've been playing just a LITTLE bit longer so they know a small amount more. El only has stars because she is legit always helpful. Steve has taken to sitting between El and Erica because they're the nicest to him. Lucas usually sits across from him.

Dustin has lots of wiggly tallys cuz he just can't control his mouth sometimes. But one day Mike gets brutally killed again and starts whining about it and Steve has noticed Eddie making little notes. Has no idea what they are. Cuz he doesn't look through other people's notebooks. Thats rude.

Everyone has noticed the notes. No one has asked. They all have theories. And when Eddie is like,

"I'm trying to teach you a lesson. Not my fault you aren't smart enough to figure out what it is." And his voice has such a BITCHY tone when he says it. Because Mike had JUST been hounding Steve for missing "obvious" clues and not being smart enough to figure it out and walking into a trap.

And steve had gone red from his ears all the way down his neck, he also felt bad cuz he'd gotten El's character hurt. And then Mike had been an ass. Steve was upset. So Eddie killed Mike. And then he's whining and Eddie's about to say something else when El speaks up, looks across the table with a scowl and says,

"just be nicer! It's not hard to be nice. Steve is our friend. Be nice to him." And she rolls her eyes at Mike, puts her hand on Steve's arm and is like,

"I will be fine. Will can heal me." And Will pipes up and is like,

"yeah. I can heal her no problem." But it's El's outburst that makes Steve kind of wonder more about the notes Eddie takes.

He'd never ask, and never look. But he stays behind one day to help Eddie clean up, they have weekly games at the community center.

So Steve's staying after and helping with chairs and tables and getting books and dice and things stored away and Eddie's notebook is RIGHT THERE. Open to the page he's always scribbling on. And Steve just sort of... stops. And looks at it. And it's everyone's names with tallys and marks and stars. Erica has wiggly marks AND stars. But mostly stars. Because she helps him with his math almost every game.

Also she "accidentally" let mike get hit with an attack in the game cuz he was being rude. El's is all stars and scrawled under them in Eddie's chicken scratch is,

"She's a literal angel oh my god."

So Steve's eyes are just wandering over this page and his brow is all creased and he doesn't hear Eddie come back until he says,

"figured out what's missing yet?" In that teasing sweet little voice he uses on Steve that makes him feel a little dizzy sometimes, give him butterflies in his stomach, and his whole body jerks and he looks up and Eddie's leaning casually against the wall near the door. And Steve immediately apologizes and Eddie laughs, shakes his head, walks closer. And is like,

"It's okay Steve. But you didn't answer my question." He licks his lips, steps closer. Steve looks back to the notebook for a second and then back to Eddie.

"My names not on there?" He asks, worrying his finger into the table top next to the notebook. And Eddie is nodding.

"Yup." And Steve's like,

"The tallys are about... me?" And he's frowning. But Eddie steps a bit closer, standing next to the table now. And he smiles, all shy and soft and is like,

"yeah Steve. They're about you. Got kinda tired of all the kids talking shit about you. And to you. So I came up with a system. Anyone says anything about you being stupid, I kill them." He grins, wide like the Cheshire cat and Steve feels kinda pinned down by it. Feels kinda hot all over.

"You didn't- have to do that. It's fine. It doesn't bother me. I mean I know I'm not smart." And he just shakes his head and looks at the ground and Eddie kinda slams his hand down on the table, startling him. He looks up and Eddie looks mad. Not at him. Just, mad.

"You're not though. Is the thing. I mean... you're incredibly good at strategy. I know you don't know enough about dnd yet to know this, but you've been a crucial part in winning like, the last three games." Eddie steps closer, his fingertips brushing the back of Steve's hand.

"You're not stupid. You're just smart in different ways." Eddie shrugs. Gives Steve a little lopsided smile.

"You think I'm smart?" He asks, biting his lip to stop the giddy smile that's threatening to spread. Eddie doesn't stop his smile, just lets it go, lets it dimple his cheeks and make Steve's knees weak. And he's like,

"yeah man. Just cuz some jumped up little tweens can't see it doesn't mean I can't. You're kinda hard to miss." He does bite his lip then, fingers playing with his hair, Steve knows he's trying not to hide behind it.

"I just uh-" Eddie clears his throat,

"I'm really petty. And protective. And it's ridiculous cuz you're not even mine but- I just- felt like I had to protect you. Or stick up for you. Or something? I dunno. Feels stupid now that I'm saying it out- oof!" Eddie huffs when Steve slams into him. Arms wrapped around his neck. He may or may not be crying into Eddie's hellfire shirt. But he gives Eddie a squeeze and then pulls back, looks at him, smiles and says,

"I am though." With a little shrug. And Eddie's like,

"you... are?" Confused. And Steve laughs, light and sweet and says,

"Yours. I am yours. If you'll have me. Or want me. Or- mmfph!" Steve's words end in a high pitched hum as Eddie's lips hit his. Just a firm press. His hand on Steve's cheek. He pulls back fast, pink in the cheeks.

"Sorry I just- if you let me have you, Steve. I may never let you go." He chuckles, giddy. Steve snorts, his head falling to Eddie's shoulder for a second before he looks at Eddie, cups his cheek genlty.

"Who says I want you to?" His brows jump, challenging. Eddie goes redder, down to his neck.

"Wanna try that kiss again?" Steve asks.

"God was is bad? I've never- I'm not... good. At that stuff." Eddie cringes. Steve cups both his cheeks until Eddie's wide eyes are staring at him, his cheeks a little squished.

"It wasn't bad. It was kind of perfectly you. But we can get you good at that stuff. You're a fast learner right?" Steve smirks, Eddie's eyes go impossibly wider as he nods aggressively, cheeks squishing even more.

"Yes, sir." Eddie mumbles between his squished lips. Steve nods, once and then moves forward, slowly, determined to show Eddie just how thankful he is for him. How thankful he is that Eddie sees him.

Petty.

And protective.

And Steve's.

#ive never played dnd sorry if stuff sucks #steddie #my writing #mine #my fic #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie fic #steve x eddie #steddie ficlet #fates endless inkwell #fei

[dunmeshistash]

I really enjoy your deep dives and analyses of all the characters, and Milsiril especially. I haven't done as much research and investigation as you have, but I have my own ideas about Milsiril. I think she's rather... delusional might be the word? I agree that Otta was probably exaggerating and she didn't actually consider the children that she adopted as pets, but I think that she didn't have what we might consider a normal perception of the children, specifically Kabru.

First of all, she seems to have a bit of an idealization of him that doesn't allow for his own opinions and personality. It's innocuous and not uncommon for a parent, but it feels to me as if she has an idea of how he is, and it confuses and upsets her when he doesn't follow the picture of her ideal world. Her decision to train him when he asks is far from complete acceptance of his goal. What she says is "until you finally decide that you're ready to give up." That implies that her goal is not entirely training him to be ready, but rather trying to convince him that he doesn't want this.

Secondly, I think that there's a lot of symbolism around the dolls. Bear in mind that these are all my own interpretations. First off, Milsiril's love and friendship for her dolls shows her as almost a child-like figure. Her dolls do what she wants them to, but they're people to her. She's a child in her own little world, and the kids she adopts might be a part of that-playmates, just like her dolls are. Bear in mind that I'm not trying to infantilize her or say that she has one, straightforward motivation. One of the things I love about Dungeon Meshi is how complex every single character is. She probably has many driving forces behind adopting children, but it seems to me like this might be one of them.

That's about all I have for her, at least at the moment. I think she might have some underlying mental illness or trauma that's skewing her perception of things, but I definitely don't agree with the people who think she's completely unstable or immoral. Thanks for looking at this!

Hey! Thank you!

Yeah I think the dolls is what lots of people use to say she likes to "manipulate" people or be in charge of them in a way, and I understand the symbolism of a puppet master since she has full control of these dolls and wont deny that might be something!

I'm not sure if I agree with this part tho.

First of all, she seems to have a bit of an idealization of him that doesn't allow for his own opinions and personality. It's innocuous and not uncommon for a parent, but it feels to me as if she has an idea of how he is, and it confuses and upsets her when he doesn't follow the picture of her ideal world.

I think Milsiril mostly can't keep up with Kabru getting older so fast since he's short lived, to me its almost like she sees him as a toddler when he's already a teen. And that's a common issue between long and short lived races so it's not something unique to her.

To me the reason she's so upset seems to be trauma from Utaya tbh. She was there and saw all those horrible things happen, it affected her so much she retired, and Kabru is the only survivor, a small frail child that lost everything and that now she sees like a son. Wouldn't you want to protect someone you see as a small scared child? Wouldn't you be upset if you learned they want to leave the comfort and safeness you created for them to go back into the horrible world that caused all that suffering he went through? I would.

I think people forget she's basically a war veteran.

She might not know him very well especially now that he left home but I think she knows him about as well as moms usually do, if you mean the cake thing I'm pretty sure she was aware Kabru didn't like elf cake and it's just a silly gag about her being upset he doesn't like her hometown sweet. (And probably also to show he does struggle with having two different backgrounds, Utaya and Milsiril) I think she knows he doesnt like it cause Kabru is never fake in front of her in the interactions we see, I'm pretty sure he tells her when he dislikes something and when he likes something. The other proof is how she took him to the family gathering even tho he didn't explicitly ask, she knew he wanted to go cause she knows that's the type of thin he likes.

About this

That implies that her goal is not entirely training him to be ready, but rather trying to convince him that he doesn't want this.

Yeah that's completely right! But I see that as an act of love on her part, even if its misguided and like, not great. She wants to prove to him he's too weak to go on his own because she seems him as a small child. If a 5 year old asked you to teach them to be a soldier so they can go to war how would you feel?

He isn't 5 tho and he clearly COULD take the training. Nothing indicates he ran away from her to be able to go and he talks about how she trained him and helped him study all that he wanted.

So even tho she said something bad and wanted to convince him the world out there was too cruel, she ultimately let go of him so he could do what he needed.

And Kabru even acknowledges she was right, the world WAS as shitty as she described and even worse. When he says he still doesn't want to go back where he has a soft bed and cake I don't think it's because he hated it there, but because he has the determination to face the cruel world she described cause he doesn't want Utaya to happen again.

Again about the dolls I think they're a source of comfort for her, she was clearly traumatized and going thru something her whole life, you don't get nicknamed "gloomy" for no reason, even her fellow canaries bullied her and thought she was weird.

The children she adopts might be an evolution of her doll thing I'll admit. But more in the sense they're a source of comfort for her, she was someone who was alone for most of her life, being able to love and be loved by children is probably something that makes her really happy. Even if her "motives" might be a little weird and she might not be fully altruistic (who is) what she does seem to be a net positive. Considering the two people we know that she helped (Mithrun and Kabru) she successfully helped them become independent of her. They were both vulnerable people in her care at one point but both are now independent and navigating life. (Mostly independent in Mithruns case but he doesn't need her in specific) That's my arguments to why she doesn't really treat real people as dolls, dolls can never become independent of you.

#ask #fearofgodandtolkien #Milsiril #dunmeshi thoughts #dungeon meshi spoilers

[jq37]

FH Junior Year Post-Season Thoughts

With another season of Fantasy High in the books and my recaps all finished, I wanted to do an overview of my thoughts on the season as a whole. Even though I feel generally positive about my experience with the season, there are a few things I think maybe could have been done differently narratively or mechanically. This isn't to criticize the way the season went down or to backseat DM/Play. More my combined ten years of college for textual analysis and storytelling bleeding through, haha. 

I first want to start with the things I thought worked really well.

Fantasy High has "High" right in its title but, in past seasons (and especially Sophomore Year), not as much time as you'd think was spent actually at school and even if it was spent at school, there wasn't much time spent in class or engaging with the realities of being a student. This season really dug into the academic consequences of skipping your classes all the time and the realities of needing to do a ton of extra stuff to try for a scholarship and I think that was a refreshing thing to highlight for a change. Being more scared at flunking out than the dragon that's trying to eat you feels very emotionally resonant. Real "High School Is Killing Me" vibes for anyone who's a fan of NPMD. 

Even though Fantasy High is a show that has some deep emotional beats and strong character arcs, it's first and foremost a comedy show. From the jump, everyone was generating bit after bit that had me cracking up as usual. "Little girly dog collar" is one of the funniest combinations of words I can think of. I think it was Siobhan who said that this was the goofy season and, having seen it, I'd have to agree with her. It never failed to make me laugh and it was always a highlight of my week.  The cast just has great table chemistry that I love to watch no matter what they're doing. 

Watching some of these high level combat encounters is as close as I'll get to understanding people watching sports. Even though combat is generally my least fave part of D&D, I think the cast really killed it this season with how cleverly they played and Brennan came up with some really great combat encounters. Special shout outs to Baron's Game and The Last Stand for their unique mechanics.  

This is going to be one that's on the other list as well because my feelings are mixed, but I genuinely do like the downtime mechanic and how it forces hard choices. I think it's an interesting way to connect a mechanic to the story and cultivate stressful atmosphere for the season.

I have problems with the execution but I love the Rat Grinders in concept. I think as early as season 1 I was hoping that we'd meet a party that was like the Bizarro Bad Kids and the idea of a party that's farming XP instead of going on crazy adventures is a strong concept. Likewise, I think a character that's jealous because of your "cool" (read: tragic) backstory is also a fun trait for an unhinged antagonist in this kind of setting.

This is me absolutely showing my bias but I adored the Abernant Sisters content this season. I dunno if Siobhan specifically asked Brennan to not put her on a bus with the other beloved NPCs or what but I'm so glad she stuck around and we got the development we did. It was almost entirely ancillary to the plot but there was this clear pattern of Aelwyn getting softer and sweeter towards Adaine over the course of the season, from the guarded, "Enjoy the nemesis ward," to, full I love you's and, "I'd take them to get you." It was way more focus than I expected considering that Aelwyn completed the bulk of her arc last season and a lot of the time, a redemption arc basically ends after the big gesture (in this case, Aelwyn taking a magic blast for Adaine in Sophomore Year). So the fact that we got to see all of these sweet moments of them reestablishing their relationship outside of do or die moments was such a pleasant surprise. Again, I fully admit I am extremely biased, but this was my top wishlist item and the season overdelivered so there's a baseline happy I'm always gonna be with Junior Year. 

OK, so moving on to things I things I think could have been tweaked.

Even though I liked the downtime system and the pressures it created, it also squeezed out the chance for more casual PC to NPC interactions that would usually be more common because they were semi-locked behind the relationship track and there wasn't an obvious benefit to roll for Relationships (as opposed to something like Academics which was crucial for not flunking out). Making the mechanical benefit more clear would have helped that (even if it meant Brennan didn't get his reveal--which he ended up just telling them anyway so might as well do it early). The other thing is that the consequence of a rage token was so bad that of course they spent all season avoiding getting one. Things might have gone differently if the consequences had been a bit more obscured, like in Neverafter. And it could have been a nice parallel to the Rat Grinders to take this unknown resource that makes things easier for you but is also having this negative effect. Then it could be like dang we did the same thing they did unknowingly. 

I mentioned this in my recap but I'll talk about it again. It is a little confusing to me that we did the Ankarna subplot right after we did the very similar Cassandra subplot. It took up so much time this season which I don't think is an issue in and of itself, it's just that we literally just went through some extremely similar beats last season. Why double up on this same storyline when there's so much new ground to cover? Or if we're going to raise a god, why not make it a different kind of god? One theory I had early on was that the Rat Grinders were trying to raise their own god to one-up the Bad Kids but instead of raising a chill, misunderstood Cass type, they accidentally raised a god who was erased for a good reason and got in over their heads. 

It's fun for there to be connections between seasons but sometimes it's like, OK that's a *lot* of coincidences. Like the god who your rivals is trying to raise *happens* to be the wife of your cleric's god and also *happens* to be the god of the fiend trapped in your friend's mom's chest and that fiend *happens* to be the relative on your bard's dad's side which is *also* the reason she is randomly cursed? That's a LOT of red string connecting plot points. As unhinged as Kipperlilly is about coveting Riz's backstory if I saw that go down I'd be like you have *got* to be kidding me.  

The mystery elements didn't feel like they clicked as well as they did in other seasons. I think that's partially because Porter's plan was so convoluted (seriously, I made another post about how haphazard his plan was) and had all these moving parts and we didn't get clear answers for a lot of mechanical things like how the rage crystals actually work and when they were implanted and stuff. You had stuff like Devil's Honey which I think is super cool as a thing that exists in the world but ended up being an element that just led the players down the wrong path and had a relatively small payoff (that Porter was using it to lie to Ankarna). I think it's plausible that a forgotten god would be willing to listen to anyone saying the right things without introducing this element. (As opposed to, for instance, Ambrosia which has a very clear connection to what's going on and is a solid clue that someone is flirting with aspirations of godhood.) 

The Porter reveal came so late in the season that even though it was a fun/challenging fight, there wasn't a lot of emotional weight behind killing him. It was basically just dunking on a teacher Fig has always hated who was also mean to Gorgug so screw him. Which, valid of course. But the Bad Kids were never going to react as strongly to Porter as they were to the Rat Grinders so putting Porter in the prime villain spot isn't necessarily what I would have done if I wanted the fight to be more than just a brawl--especially since we've done "School admin with student minions" already in S1. I don't mind the full circle callback but it would have been nice to pick something else for the sake of variety. We haven't had a child mastermind yet and I think Kipperlilly could have been a great candidate for that. My friend suggested that it would have been fun if Kipperlilly was trying to become a god instead of just being Porter's underling and I agree. "I'm not anyone's chosen one so I'll choose myself," is still within her established jealousy and Type A tendencies. If we want to keep Porter involved since that was Brennan's gift to Emily, maybe have it be that instead of Kipperlilly working for him, he's working for her. Like Artemis Fowl vibes! And the Rat Grinders can be varying levels of on board--from true believe to redeemable. I don't think Brennan planned for the Bad Kids to ever redeem her so might as well go full megalomaniacal mastermind with her and make her The Villain if she's not gonna be nuanced anyway. If My Little Pony can do it and send a literal child to Tartarus for pony treason (or whatever Cozy Glow did), Fantasy High can too. 

Continuing from the above, if we have the Porter fight in place of the Grix fight (a la Daybreak) and don't use Ankarna, that gives way more time for the Bad Kids to investigate the Rat Grinders throughout the season and it would mean that they would have their personalities developed a lot more. With the limited downtime, they Bad Kids didn't have a lot of time to spend on these kids who were just hating on them for no good reason (valid). But if you cleared their plate of the god hunt stuff, they'd have more time for this. And if they weren't all rage zombies to varying degrees, it would be easier to see them as characters. Besides Kipperlilly (and, funnily enough, Mary Ann) we don't really have a good read on what these kids are actually like. The little time we spent with them all season was kind of a wash if them breaking out of rage means their personalities got laundered too. Anyway, regardless of how their loyalties ended up shaking out, it would have been fun for them to be more than the minions that they were in canon. As funny as it is for them to just kinda be XP farming losers, they did have the potential to be more interesting in their own right if they weren't just Porter's minions. And again, we've done adults forcing or coercing children into being minions in Freshman and Sophomore Year already. Lemme see some self-created child maniacs! (Or, peer pressured child maniacs. That's cool too. The Lucy/Kipperlilly dynamic is way more interesting to me if it's like girl, I would take a bullet for you but I CANNOT walk this path with you any further in response to *I* will be a god and you can be *MY* champion.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, I have my points that I think could have been tightened, but overall an enjoyable season and I will be glued to my screen if they decide to close out with Senior Year! 

#dimension 20 #d20 #fantasy high #spoilers #I had so much fun with this season but the overall plot makes my brain throw up question marks if I map it out or think about it too hard #but then I think about adaine and aelwyn at basrar's and it's like wow 10/10 flawless execution #I don't know if I've been clear enough about this over the season but I LIKE kipperlilly as a character #I think she sucks and that's great #I think she should be worse actually #like own it #don't be a pawn in some loser's plan be your own girlboss #grind those rats chug that ambrosia #be the teenage demi-god you think you deserve to be and drag your friends into your plan with the sheer force of your personality #make it 100% sure that there's a spot in hell waiting for you when you get sent there #imagine the level of vitriol they had towards kipperlilly as is and then imagine she has legendary actions #I think her going down to riz like a chump is such a huge W for riz and fitting for how the narrative played out #but to use wrestling terms for a second #it was a waste of a LOT of heat #Porter didn't have NEARLY as much heat as she did

[bitethedevil]

Living with The Devil You Know (Raphael x Tav): Chapter 7

Chapter: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven

Read this fic on AO3 (Link)

Fic Summary: Tav broke their agreement by handing the Crown of Karsus to Mystra instead of Raphael. Not only that, but she also robbed his house and killed his incubus. Raphael is patient and he is determined to get his revenge.

…Tav isn't too bothered. She will figure something out eventually. Until then she just has to find a way to live peacefully with a devil.

Chapter Summary: Tav learns some surprising things about Raphael's past and drunkenly confesses her thoughts and feelings to him. Meanwhile, her friends pay her house a visit to find the Orphic Hammer.

AN: Raphael's little lovestory is taken directly from my one chapter fic called "Portrait of a Cambion" which goes into depth with my slightly depressing headcanon about his past lovelife. It's not necessary to read to understand anything going on it this fic, but you might find some interesting similarities between his former love interest in that fic and our dear Tav (In my head that fic is like a prelude to his obsession in this one)

Tav had been trapped in her own mind since Raphael had left and it was not a nice place to be. She had spent the majority of her life in her own company before the whole tadpole business, and still, she had never felt quite so alone as she did now.

She spent the day sitting in bed, thinking. Thinking about her situation, the last couple of days, Raphael’s reaction earlier in the day, the things Korrilla had said, the crushing thought of the possibility that she might not be able to escape, and the even more crushing thought that a small part of her did not really want to escape…

There were a lot of thoughts and a lot of anxiety to catch up on now that she finally had a moment of solitude to take all of it in. It was suffocating her. It came as a blessing when Raphael returned home and granted her a distraction from it.

She found him in his human form, sitting on a sofa with a stack of papers in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. As soon as he saw her enter, he snapped the papers out of existence and looked up at her with a smile.

“There you are,” he purred and gestured to the spot beside him. “Please, sit with me.”

She sat down. He poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her.

“Did you enjoy your little moment of peace?” he asked.

She sipped the wine with an empty stare, still caught up in her thoughts until she realized he had asked her a question.

“Yes, sure,” she answered quietly. “It was nice...”

Raphael gave her a smile that told her he knew she was lying, but he decided not to push it.

“It was not my intention to scare you so much earlier,” he said instead.

Tav blinked and then glared at him.

“I thought you once said that you never lie,” Tav challenged.

Raphael chuckled at that.

“There is that brave woman I know again,” he said and sipped his wine. “I am not lying. Yes, I did, of course, intend to remind you that there are rules in this house. I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy seeing you rattled and that I did not use your fear to my advantage. However, I did not expect it to have the effect that it had. Korrilla told me you were almost inconsolable…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tav answered coldly.

“Hm,” Raphael hummed. “Suit yourself.”

His arm was resting over the backrest of the sofa, and he brushed his fingers gently through the ends of her hair. She swept her hair over her shoulder and away from him. His eyes narrowed slightly at the gesture.

“How was your day?” Tav asked to distract him from it.

“Uneventful,” he said and took a sip of his wine. “Aside from the obvious, that is.”

They small-talked for a while. Each time Tav had finished her glass of wine, Raphael would pour her a new one. Tav knew that he was trying to get her guard down, but she found that she did not care.

It was nice to just drink and forget about all the things that had haunted her throughout the day, and she found that it also made it easier for her to talk more freely with him. She noticed by the time she was well tipsy that Raphael barely seemed changed at all.

“Can you even get drunk?” Tav asked with curiosity.

“I can,” Raphael answered. “Though it would take quite a lot of wine to achieve the level you are currently at.”

He gave her a teasing smile.

“How much?” Tav asked, squinting at him with a smile.

“I could go through a quarter of my wine cellar before you would see me starting to slur and stumble about,” he answered.

“That sounds like a challenge,” Tav said.

“Planning to get me drunk, are you?” Raphael said with a laugh. “I’m afraid that I have outgrown that sort of thing. One does such foolish things when under the influence. You of all people should know that. It’s how you ended up here.”

“To be fair, I can’t imagine it’s that common of a thing to wake up in chains and half-naked in a devil’s house after a night out,” Tav said and took another sip of her wine.

“I think you’d be surprised…” Raphael purred with a suggestive smile, before turning the conversation towards another topic. “I am curious about something, if you would indulge me…What was it that drew you to going home with Cassius back then?”

Tav sighed quietly. She might have been tipsy, but she still noticed how odd he seemed to still be about her trying to protect Cassius from his punishment. She also knew that if she pointed out her suspicions about him being jealous, it would only achieve pissing him off.

“Honestly?” Tav said. “I was drunk and missed having some company, I suppose. It really wasn’t much deeper than that.”

“Hm,” he hummed and looked at her. “Is that something you have done a lot of? Blindly following strangers home to sleep with them?”

“Occasionally,” Tav answered with a shrug. “Just to…you know, sate urges and all that.”

Raphael’s smile widened.

“There has been no regular partners or sweethearts, that could help you sate those urges?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “I never really dabbled in all of that…”

“Oh?” Raphael said. He seemed surprised by her answer. “Do you expect me to believe that someone whose favorite book is one of the most popular love stories of this age, has never been in love?”

“Not really. Perhaps when I was younger,” she answered with a shrug and swirled the wine around in her glass. “I’ve preferred my own company for the most of my life.”

Until now, she almost said, but stopped herself. Raphael did not need to know that his attempt of isolating her was working wonders. She wanted to change the topic away from her.

“What about you?” she asked. It almost sounded like a joke rather than a serious question because she felt like she already knew the answer. “Have you ever loved someone?”

Raphael raised an eyebrow at the question.

“Once. Many years ago,” Raphael answered coldly, though there was an edge of bitterness hidden in his words. “A mistake I certainly learned from…”

Tav could not hide the look of surprise on her face. He looked like he was serious.

“I thought devils didn’t—"

“They don’t,” Raphael interrupted and smiled. “Not in any way you would understand at least. Our definition of love is quite different from what you mortals would find ideal or even healthy.”

Tav was still a bit dumbfounded. She was just looking at him with a puzzled expression, holding her empty wine glass.

“Does that surprise you?” Raphael asked and gently took the empty glass from her to pour her more wine.

Tav blinked slightly and returned to reality.

“It does…” she mumbled. “Can I…ask you about it or is it a sore subject?”

“Oh please, don’t take me for some soft-hearted mortal, dear,” Raphael said with slight offense, though he was still smiling. “Ask your questions.”

He handed her back the now full wineglass. She looked down at its contents while she was thinking.

“Was he or she a devil too?”

“No,” Raphael answered, surprising her even more. “She was a mortal woman. A human…like yourself.”

The tone of the ‘like yourself’ comment gave her butterflies in her stomach, and she was quick to snuff out the feeling as soon as she felt it.

“Who was she?” Tav asked.

“She was a potential client in the beginning. A painter that had managed to anger the mercenary government of the city she resided in. She achieved this by plastering posters around the city that critiqued the leadership. Needless to say, they wanted her dead and like the savior I am, I of course offered to lend her a hand with getting safely out of the city.”

“So, she gave you her soul, right?” Tav asked.

Raphael made a short laughing sound.

“She all but spat in my face, the stubborn wench. She told me that she would take her chances. To my great annoyance, she did survive and fled to her father’s home far away from the city. However, that did not deter me from still trying to present a deal to her. She might have fled, but the city’s mercenaries would not forget her so easily.”

“Did you succeed?” Tav asked. “Did she give in eventually?”

“She did not, though she grew to like me. She taught me how to paint, as a compensation for the time I wasted on her. I suppose, I grew to admire her during those sessions…She fascinated me and my time with her became a welcome refugee from my endless duties to my father at the time…She really was a remarkable painter as well. She made some of the paintings you see on my walls.”

He just kept surprising her.

“You kept some of her paintings?” Tav asked.

“I did,” Raphael answered.

“I don’t mean to be rude but…I would never have thought of you as sentimental like that,” Tav said quietly.

“I don’t keep them out of sentimentality,” he was quick to say. “I keep them as a reminder of what happens when one gets distracted with pointless pursuits such as matters of the heart.”

“Well…” Tav said. “What happened?”

“As I said, I got distracted and my dear father noticed. I still lived in Cania, you see. The privilege of having lovers or consorts is only reserved for Archdevils. My father saw it as me getting distracted from my purpose of gaining more souls for him, and as me overreaching my station. He put an end to it.”

Tav looked at him. He seemed so cold and nonchalant while telling her this, but she felt that she could see a glimmer of something behind those brown eyes of his.

“He killed her?” Tav asked quietly.

Raphael was quiet for a moment too long. He was staring emptily at the floor as if he was reliving it.

“Not quite,” he said. “He made a warlock of his reveal her whereabouts to the mercenaries hunting her. I found the corpses of her and her father the next time I visited…I burned the house down with them in it…”

“I’m sorry,” Tav said quietly before even thinking.

He looked up at her and narrowed his eyes.

“Feeling sorry for people who have knowingly made the mistakes that landed them in their despair is a useless pursuit, little mouse,” he said darkly. “I never should have let myself feel what I did or at the very least I should have known the consequences and taken the necessary precautions to keep her safe…I was too young and too naïve…”

Raphael sighed and they were both quiet for a moment. Tav was not sure what to say. She was oddly touched by his story.  

Raphael looked at her, seemingly taking in her features with an expression that was hard to read. He reached over and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and this time she did not move away from his touch.

She opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind and closed it. The alcohol made her want to talk about subjects that she knew sober-her would regret. Raphael noticed her little gesture and smiled at her.

“What is it, dear?”

“Nothing,” she said and shook her head. “I’m drunk.”

“You are,” Raphael purred. “The things you and I have done, and you are still too shy to speak freely with me.”

Tav opened her mouth again and then closed it again before she decided on saying what she wanted to.

“It’s just…” Tav said and sighed. “You are so infuriatingly confusing.”

Raphael chuckled.

“Am I?” he asked. “How so?”

Then the floodgates opened and Tav started rambling.

“You tell me that the whole reason for all of this is to eventually kill all of my friends and then me. Then, you have very angry revenge sex with me. Then you almost kill me, but you save me, and you are really weirdly nice about my scars. Then, we have sex again, but this time it’s not angry, it’s oddly tender and sweet…”

Raphael’s smile was widening the more she started rambling.

“And you mess with my head by gifting me my favorite book and you don’t even mention it, even though it was a really sweet gesture. Then today you don’t brutally torture me for doing something I’m not supposed to, but you were however, once again, being weird about the fact that I did not want another person to get brutally tortured. And now you tell me this incredibly devastating story about how you lost someone you loved…”

Tav sighed in frustration as she was finishing her drunken rant.

“I mean what the fuck?” she mumbled to herself.

Raphael opened his mouth to say something, but Tav decided that she was indeed not finished rambling.

“No and you know what? It makes me feel so stupid and confused because I cannot figure out what is going on. I should be hating you but instead I found myself missing you today and you-…you are fucking doing it on purpose!” Tav said with a bit of anger and pointed at his smug face accusingly. “I know you are! You are trying to manipulate me, and I’m aware that you are, but I still find myself liking you! I know you are playing me like fiddle, but I still find myself wanting to be near you. Wanting your attention. Wanting you to kiss me on the mouth instead of just on my neck and all those little stupid little things that you tease me with to make me like you! I—”

“Do you want me to?” Raphael asked calmly with an amused smile, looking at her lips.

“To what?” Tav asked, annoyed at getting interrupted in her drunken rant.

“Kiss you,” he said and leaned in slightly closer.

“Oh, and now you’re just trying to shut me up and not even address—”

He interrupted her by pulling her into a kiss and she felt her heart beating ten times faster. She melted into him, despite herself. Her fingers tangled in his hair, like his were in hers. It was a hungry and passionate kiss. It felt as if they had both been waiting a long time for it.

All her worries seemed to melt away for a moment as she got lost in him.

Astarion sighed tiredly and leaned up against a wall while he watched Gale work at trying to remove the magical protection on Tav’s house. Gale had a look of pure concentration on his face while he tried to figure out what kind of warding magic was guarding her house.

“Gods, you look silly waving your arms about like that,” Astarion commented. “I could never be a wizard.”

Gale ignored him. Astarion sighed dramatically at the lack of reaction from him.

“What is taking you so long?” Astarion asked impatiently. “And what is she even trying to protect in there? Her dusty old books?”

“Some of those ‘dusty old books’ are very rare and very precious tomes, and many wizards would love to get their hands on some of them, which is why this is taking so long,” Gale said, frustrated with Astarion’s impatience. “She has taken all precautions to keep them safe.”

Astarion looked at him with a tired expression.

“Why is it even necessary that I am here if it’s all guarded by magic?” Astarion asked.

“Because I suspect the lock will be protected somehow. A simple Knock spell probably won’t work on it. It has to be lockpicked, which most likely will not be an easy task for you either,” Gale said. “As I said, she has taken all precautions.”

Astarion started pacing around in circles behind Gale.

“This seems like an awful lot of work to put into retrieving a hammer that we cannot even bring to her,” Astarion said.

“It’s not about bringing it to her,” Gale explained while squinting at the glowing magic on the door. “It’s about making sure we have it and that it is safe. If she is wearing the same constructs as Prince Orpheus, then that hammer is her only way out of Raphael’s claws. We should keep it close, just in case.”

“It seems perfectly safe where it is, given that we cannot even get to it!” Astarion said with a hand gesture that accidentally knocked over a potted plant that was placed on a pillar beside the door.

Gale winced at the sound of it crashing to the ground but did not move his eyes away from what he was doing.

Astarion looked down at the broken flowerpot and dirt that was now sprawled on the ground. He saw something in the dirt and leaned down to pick it up.

“Move,” Astarion said and moved in front of Gale.

“What are you—?”

Astarion placed the key he had found into the keyhole of the door. It made the lock glow and the door unlocked.

“She didn’t take all precautions it seems,” Astarion said with a smile and walked inside.

Gale huffed and followed. He used a spell to light up the candles she had around her house.

Once light fell over the living room, the both of them stared at the shelf where they had seen the Orphic Hammer on the other few times they had visited her.

Astarion pointed to the empty shelf and then looked at Gale with a furrowed brow.

“That seems…not good…” Astarion said.

Gale made a sharp inhale and tried to calm himself.

“Perhaps she has simply redecorated,” Gale said, sounding like he did not even believe in that himself. “We need to search through every corner of her house. It has to be here.”

Their kissing session had unsurprisingly made them end up in Raphael’s bed. They had sex and it had once again felt oddly loving and sweet.

Tav was resting against Raphael’s chest with his arms around her. He placed a kiss on the top of her head. She felt so comfortable. Her drunkenness made her overthink the situation less for once and she felt so content.

She had butterflies in her stomach from it all. She could worry about the reality of it all tomorrow. Tonight, she wanted to pretend that everything was fine and just enjoy his sweet attentions.

She tightened the grip of the arm she had around his waist, pulling him closer and nuzzling her head against his chest. It earned her a satisfied groan that almost sounded like a purr from him. She felt him burying his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply, and taking in her scent before leaving another kiss.

“You should sleep, dearest,” he purred against the top of her head.

That was a new one, Tav thought. He had never called her anything other than ‘dear’ or ‘mouse’. ‘Dearest’ made her heart beat slightly faster again.

“Mm,” she mumbled and traced her fingers over his stomach. “In a little while. I’m not in any rush to feel the headache I’m going to have tomorrow.”

He began massaging her scalp with his hand. It felt like heaven.

She kept lazily tracing patterns on his stomach until she suddenly heard Gale’s frantic voice in her mind.

“The hammer is gone. We searched your entire house, and it’s gone, Tav. We won’t stop looking, but we cannot find it.”

She froze.

“Something wrong?” Raphael asked softly. She could have sworn she felt him smile against the side of her head.

Cassius was the first suspect to spring to mind. He had motive to steal the hammer from her house, but he would never have succeeded entering with his very limited knowledge of magic. No. That was not it.

The uncomfortable truth clicked in her mind. Raphael had not made a fuss about her contacting her friends and he had very suddenly had a change of heart about her being guarded day and night. When he was teaching her to play the organ, he had seemed so happy for some reason and something he said echoed in her mind:

‘I closed a deal that has been quite the headache for me and successfully retrieved something of mine.’

Her heart started beating faster again, but now out of anxiety instead of infatuation. She was suddenly very sober. He had made a deal with someone with enough magical knowledge to break into her house and remove her only chance at escape.

She tried to slow her breathing and act calm.

“No no…” she mumbled. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You know,” Raphael said and placed another soft kiss on the top of her head. “It is quite easy to know when someone is receiving a sending spell…”

Her blood ran cold.

“People have a tendency to stop breathing, when they are listening intently, you see,” he said. “And given the way your heart is pounding, I take it your dear friends visited your house and came out empty-handed…am I wrong?”

She did not answer, which made Raphael chuckle and whisper in her ear:

“Are the puzzle pieces starting to come together, love?”

#raphael bg3 #raphael the cambion #bg3 raphael #raphael x tav #raphael bg3 fic #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction

[madelynhimegami]

To my knowledge, you like Puyo Puyo! But what do you enjoy most about it?

Honestly, it might be easier to explain my intoduction to the series. Ideally we'll get there in the end either way. You ever seen one of those "What I Played/What I Expected/What I Got" memes? My story is pretty much like one of those.

I don't remember when I started learning bits and pieces about it, or when Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine went from being itself to a Puyo game in a trenchcoat in my mind. But by mid 2017 I knew the aforementioned (I called the CPZ boss in Sonic Mania a Puyo boss on twitter when I played it), recognized Carbuncle, recognized Draco Centauros (thanks to a friend who is still a big fan of her), and had heard that there was some sort of story to it, but didn't know a lot of details.

Then in September of 2017, a friend of mine mentioned that he had been playing Puyo Puyo Tetris lately as his go-to "pick up and play" sort of game. I looked it up in the eshop, saw it was cheap, and thought a pick-up-and-play game was what I needed and bought it. Not that I knew shit about playing Puyo well, but I at least had some basic competency at Tetris to balance things out.

And hey, at least the story mode would be a good way to learn! So I dove in to the story and started playing.

I was expecting the story to be inconseqential to my enjoyment of the game. Something either generic or corny, with characters that ranged from "tolerable" to "painful anime cliche."

The thing that knocked me on my ass almost immediately was that the writing was actually funny, made better with the English cast's fantastic delivery.

Those are all from just the story's first chapter! The first one is from the prologue! The other two are from the third scene (couting dialogue before and after a round of gameplay together as one scene)! And it kept going!

For the record, even though I was picky with what to include, and stitching lines from the same scenes together, I still had almost fifty (50) funny moments I wanted to drop out of context, in a game with a rough total of two hours of story material collected to write this post. And then I had to narrow it down further just so I wouldn't hit the image limit too quickly.

Was it a little corny and awkward at points? Sure. Several voice actors had to grow into their roles. Plus, the impression I always had from the script-- an impression that's only gotten stronger the more I learn about this series and then come back to this game-- is that someone on the development team was not expecting this to be all that successful overseas. And not for no reason, since Puyo Puyo's tried to get its foot in the door in the west several times by this point. But the end result of this lack of faith was a localization team that tried very hard to make this game stand on its own merits with as little understanding of the games that had come before as possible. Which, honestly I think they did a pretty dang good job of! Especially since it didn't shy away from the hard-hitting stuff when it came. Which I'm going to intentionally leave even further out of context so as to not give away all of it.

There was also this line here, which was what first clued me in that the writing's quality wasn't an accident, that the writer is actually thinking all this stuff through:

Fun fact, the only people you will see in your dreams are people you have seen while you're awake. The parts of the brain responsible for dreams can't make up new faces, or throw together composites of preeviously-known ones. Hence, this question, which does in fact get answered in the next scene, in a way that made me go, "Ohhh, that's really smart, actually!"

But yeah. That was just this one game. It took me a few more years before I tried other games that had been translated, fan or otherwise, but the more I've played and the more I learn about these characters and their worlds, the more engrossed I get. It's a hyperfixation now. It seems like there's always something new I'm learning about it, but it's not overwhelming, it just feels like I'm knowing a good friend better and better. The modern artstyle is deceptively simple and very endearing, and so many of the characters are interesting and fun. And the current writer is just so galaxy-brained, I'm not even kidding.

The characters in the Puyo Puyo series are all morons. They're all crazy. But at the end of the day, they care about each other, no matter how little they want to admit it. And they all have their own theming to the magic they use. It's a lot of fun. From your standard-fair RPG spells, to cosmic forces, to math terms,

I can't recommend this series enough, no matter what your skill level with puzzle games is! There's something in it for everyone.

Unless you're looking for genuinely evil characters, I guess. Like, there are characters that are intimidating or sinister or threatening, but almost none of them are actually evil. Fraid the closest to that this series has is a(n as-of-now) gender-ambiguous Elon Musk with better hair in the Japan-excusive gacha game.

Further reading from the author (that isn't already on their tumblr):

[1]

[2]

[3]

#puyo puyo #puyopuyo #puyo #puyo posting #ask the princess

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

#greenteacup asks #sidebar: I know Minister “of” Magic is an Americanism but mea culpa #Someday I might actually bite it and pay someone to britpick Lionheart but I can't do it now #because I have a ban on editing published fic unless it's finished. Otherwise I'll never get around to writing the actual ending #I have a Process #is it the best process? likely not! but it makes the words go. so here we are. #I also think the fact that JKR is Gen X makes a difference here. careers worked differently in the 80s and 90s than they do now #i.e. we have the gig economy and a lot more mobility and EXPECTATION of mobility in your early life #that means career changes & professional pivots through your 20s and 30s are increasingly normal #and in fact have always been normal — but the image of the 'true' or 'ideal' career has changed #so we look at those careers and go hm. really? none of them changed? #none of them even went to uni? do wizards... just not? #but again. I believe the epilogue was written almost completely without consideration as to what happened between the BOH and then #I really believe that JKR did not know what happened to Harry except a wedding and 3 kids. because that was the whole point #I don't think she even knew what his career was when she wrote that scene #It existed to marry everyone off and do a quick munchkin headcount #because of the understandable temptation as an author to keep your hand on the wheel. but it didn't even matter! #the epilogue changed NOTHING! it was the most useless chapter in the series! I just — GOD #you can absolutely accuse me of being sour grapes about my ships getting nixed. I AM sour grapes. I AM a hater. #AND I have plot/theme/craft reasons for disliking it. #I'm not objective. I just want credit for being a sophisticated hater. my grapes may be sour but they're still artisinal.

[adamanteine]

many thoughts about shams being able to sympathize with her mother but still being angry at her father (and having this one part of her that isn't able to forgive him) despite the fact that she is much closer to her father

#ethnic oldest daughter things! #her relationship with her mother is strained #yes! #but even tho shams feels a very good connection to her father due to the fact that he actually acted like a father #she feels angry at almost everything #at the fact that she lost her wings bc of the feud her father has #which deep down shams can understand is not entirely his fault #but its not something she can control #so even though her and her father spend a lot of time together and she trust him greatly there is still this part of her that cannot do it #100%...... she loves him YES but she is angry with him #i wouldnt say her relationship with him is bad in any way tho just a bit more complicated #and then you have her mother #who never actually acted like a mother #who just did her responsibilities without the actual motherly aspect of caring #who had her life ruined due to the misogyny of their society #and decided to reflect that same misogyny unto shams #(which took shams some time to genuinely be able to get rid off and make a choice for herself) #but she???? understands where her mother is coming from #she's helped so many women in her lifetime that she understands enough of what they go through in a society like theirs #and she knows her father may have been a good father but he was not a good husband #so any time she thinks of her mother its more sadness than anger #bc she wants so bad for them to have a better relationship #but at some points she also had to step back bc of how draining dealing with her is #but she understands in the end!!! where her mother is coming from #sorry i'm listening to ethel cain i'm just insane rn #&̲. ¹ out of character.

[blueskittlesart]

Hi! As someone who now kinda wants to check out Trigun because of the hype, do you recommend that I can start with Stampede? Or do I really need to watch the OG anime first to better understand/enjoy it? Thank you! 🙋🏻‍♀️

you can start with stampede! i'd say knowing the context of the original enhances the experience but isn't necessary to enjoy the show. I would consider stampede more viewer-friendly, especially for those of us who are used to modern storytelling conventions (the original suffers the consequences of general writing trends in anime at the time it was produced and of the fact that it was produced long before the manga was finished, so the story is somewhat disjointed and has a lot of filler which makes it REALLY hard to get into.) if you do end up liking stampede, however, I'd suggest trying out watching at least SOME of the original because it adds a lot of cool nuance and context to the story that stampede tells!

#your only REAL handicap is that you're missing out on references that clue you into the context of the story early on #and quite a few references in the finale. but none of those references are hugely necessary to understand the plot so you should be fine! #i didn't DISLIKE the origial and like i said im glad i watched it first but it was. REALLY hard to get into. #even as someone who understands writing trends & enjoys a lot of older anime trigun is. a product of its time. #there's almost no context given for the story you're witnessing until a good 20 episodes in. #the main villain isn't named at all until halfway through the runtime #and even TWO EPISODES BEFORE THE FINALE i still did not have enough information to fully understand what the hell was going on #vash was going into the final fucking battle and i still didn't know what knives WAS let alone what the fuck he WANTED #not to mention nick was FULLY DEAD and i still didnt know what his deal was. like ok go off king have ur moment bleeding out in the church #but can you EXPLAIN WHATS GOING ON BEFORE YOU SUCCUMB TO THE BLOOD LOSS PLEASEEEEEEEE GOD #stampede does that whole thing WAY better imo. it sprinkles the backstory more naturally throughout the show #again. part of this is 90s writing conventions. but there's only so much i can take fr #it was like comparable to evangelion in terms of LACK OF CONTEXT #anyways. this isnt supposed to be me complaining about the original. it had its moments. i watched 24 episodes of it like it was not BAD #but like. i think the story really benefits from the way that stampede chooses to lay everything out. is what im saying. #tldr watch them in whatever order but if you like stampede try the original #you might not like it more than stampede but you WILL feel cool when you realize how it all relates to stampede #asks #vash is also WAAAAAY sexier in stampede. HOWEVER. the women of the show are like 10 times sexier in the original. so. pick your poison ig

[adore-gregor]

study smart not hard (altough both is best actually) this saying is so true

#my advice #but this saying is sooo true #i know some people at uni who study for exam so long and hard but then fail or just barely make it :( #like what are you doing? i don't mean this in a mean way but it doesn't have to be this difficult #i don't understand how some people can study for an exam for 2 weeks or even a month and still fail and i don't think they're stupid #or i don't see myself as particulary smart #but i guess they just waste their time a lot and i realized studying effective is so important #now everyone is a bit different and has to find what works best for them but there are certain techniques which are proven to work well #there is so much information on the internet on this look it up seriously #it made my life sm easier i never struggled in uni like i did in school and i get good grades #and if i ever struggled a bit it was because i started so late it was almost impossible to pass 😂 #which is why to do both is still best 😂 #but i actually always made it and i never failed an exam at uni (which i studied for) #(two i was fooled into to just try without studying bc it's easy lol) #i mean i shouldn't speak too soon but i already made it through some of the most difficult of my studies #ofc it depends on what you study how well this works but i'm speaking for myself #i once passed an exam with a B studying only 2 days as one of the best students while others studied 2 weeks #and got worse grades or failed #still studying only 2 days is stupidity don't do it 😅 #so the techniques i find very helpful are ofc exam questions probably the best one #if there are none make your own #then blurting for which there are different ways but i like to just go over a topic and then write down everything i remember #then fill the gaps #quizlet is also great it's an app which allows you to create cards and then tests you in creative ways #videos can be helpful as well for summaries and using summaries in general is normally enough it saves you sm time #normally you don't actually need to know everything but you should be careful it's not a bad summary leaving out too much 😅 #and i also like mindmaps bc i'm a very visual person #but all those tipps are mostly for remembering information so it doesn't work so well for other fields of study #well i hope this is somewhat helpful idk 🙈 #oh and reading texts over and over again is the most useless in my opinion i don't remember much at all and it takes sm time

[inkykeiji]

i keep reading that lil story u shared and that’s just so heartbreakingly cute(?) idk,, i’m sending him good vibes

aw anon!!! 🥺🥺🥺 this is really sweet :(( i understand what you mean! it’s stuck with me for years, especially the way he said it like the ‘i can’t—i can’t take you out just yet’ was so,,, honestly i don’t even have a word to describe it. really earnest, maybe? not desperate or begging but a genuine hey, i’m getting out of here soon and i’d really love to take you on a date the moment i can. i dunno, it was really endearing! i really do wanna write something inspired by it 🥺 i sincerely hope he’s doing wonderful <3

#i literally said ‘i have a boyfriend; i’m really sorry’ because he was so aaah i dunno yeah it really is that like risking it to just catch #up to me for a moment and talk to me #i think it was also just that hopeful note in his voice #like almost proud that he’d be leaving soon—which he should be!!! #that’s awesome #it takes a lot of bravery to be there and go through their programs etc #my dad could never make himself go through rehab so i have a lot of respect and admiration for the people who were brave enough to do it #people don’t understand how terrifying it is to do that and the strength you need to stick with it #so really hope this guy is absolutely flourishing now #sending him tons of love #probably would’ve said yes to him had i been single tbh #anyway anon!!! i’m glad this story touched you! i don’t know why it was on my mind today but i wanted to share it #because it has touya vibes #dabi was out presumably homeless on the streets from ages 16-24 so #i’m rambling i shall stop now #i hope thursday has been treating u well!! <3 #stay safe n drink water bb <3 #inky.bb #clari gets mail

[mayspicer]

Ok, the boss is no more! There were some super stressful moments but surprisingly we all survived o:

My animal companion got hit with disintegrate, but we had hero points to make him avoid it. I would cry actually, because disintegrate means no resurrection x_x

The war is prevented! At least this one, because Cayden's party is right at the center of a much bigger one just starting. Today we saved the country. Cayden is trying to not even save the whole world, just maybe slow the whole thing down and save as much people as possible...

#majek says shit #I have the diamond for a raise animal companion spell but it can only be used if you have a body and even then there are restrictions #and Kela wouldn't even know about it until after the fight because she got trapped between a wall of force and a stone golem? #or a stone Big Humanoid Fucker idk what that technically was but it would've killed me pretty fast #and it all was in an area of supernatural darkness emanating from the powergamer's character... #which interfered with so much of everyone else's actions and we even addressed it before the session that it's a bad idea to cast this #but its ok because HE will be able to see through it and HE won't be targeted easily:)))) #he also almost ended the encounter in the first round of proper combat... #by using mechanics so outrageous but technically ambiguous enough that our GM can't deny them by using only RAW... #and he prefers to settle arguments by going as RAW as possible... #and it wasn't a problem until now when we have a player who exploits to an actually unbelievable extent #we shared our character sheets online yesterday and I finally saw his... still have no idea how the character works #because like half the stuff is custom and missing from the app #he has 9 AC in the app and allegedly 32 AC before buffs... #and the GM says the math checks out but 1. nobody saw that math besides him and 2. so far he trusted that player without too much questions #and only recently he actually realised he's been manipulated multiple times when me and some others started dismantling that players actions #I so hope this was the last session with that person #the worst thing is I think he's an ok guy when I'm not playing any kind of game with him #and I understand different people find enjoyment in different aspects of games - his being figuring out how far he can go with the rules #and there are whole groups of people who like to play like that and enjoy the challenge of making the most broken “build” possible #but the rest of the group are not that kind of people. maybe some like to have fun with researching what's possible #but it's never the purpose of the game and these things dont find their way into the actual game #I'm actually considering the possibility of just leaving the campaign if he stays there... I know I whine a lot in the tags #about different players that get on my nerves for various reasons. it sounds like I'm never happy about anything #but our group is big and we play together as a friend group in 4 different campaigns now (I'm in 3 of them) #and every one of these smaller groups has it's issues. sometimes it's the characters not matching and sometimes different expectations #or interpersonal stuff that can be worked out. this here is not a group composition issue because the powergaming attitude is everywhere #it's impossible to talk casually between sessions and confronting the guy leads to like actual temper tantrums #literally said “the fuck do I care if the party dies I'm not gonna be useful anymore” after the GM gave him feedback to maybe ease it up #he never says things like that when the gm or me are present but we still get info. he just can't be confronted by the gm like that

[secondbeatsongs]

as a bi person, the bisexual flag brings me infinite joy and always puts a smile on my face, however as a person who has a Passion for Graphic Design, that undersaturated shade of purple infuriates me when it's used digitally

like, on an actual flag - which was its original purpose - it looks great!

those look fine! lovely, even! with the semi-transparent fabric, the way it catches the sunlight, it looks beautiful!

but now look at how it looks digitally

the pink and blue are so vibrant compared to the sad, lonely lavender!

and let's look at this statement from Michael Page, the creator of the bi flag:

(sidenote: he created this flag in 1998, so if his takes on bisexuality is different from yours, it's okay to notice that! a lot has changed since the 90s when it comes to lived experiences and the way we describe them. but, it's also important to respect his thoughts about this and the way he presented them, even if today, we'd probably not say that bi people "blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities.")

so in pantone colors, the pink is 226 C, the blue is 286 C, and the purple of the flag is 258 C.

but...here's the deal

Michael talks here about how the key to understanding the symbolism is to know that the purple blends into both the pink and blue. and on a physical flag, I think you can see that!

but digitally, it absolutely does not blend. it clashes badly, and looks oddly separate from the other two colors.

which got me wondering...what purple do you get if you actually blend 226 C and 286 C?

oh! oh, my god.

look at that! look at how nicely it fits between those colors!

look at it next to the original color scheme! look at how much more vibrant the purple is!

and friends. this is just blending through rgb! you get even more purple variations when you use other color spaces!

let's compare all of them:

(top: original, lab. middle: lrgb, lch. bottom: rgb, hsl)

look at all of the different purple options you can get just by combining these two colors!

if you want almost too-vibrant saturation, you can go hsl, if you want something more relaxed that's closer to the original, you can go lab or lrgb. and if you want to split the difference, lch is bright and violet, while rgb is there with its saturated but darker purple.

anyway, I guess I don't really have a point here? this isn't so much an informational post as it is Me Getting Weird About Colors, but I think it is a useful lesson about how colors look very different on screens compared to how they look on objects in real life.

and sometimes, I think it's okay to compensate for that.

out of all of these, this is my favorite bi flag:

it's the one where the colors were blended in lab color space. for me, the lighter, softer purple is close enough to the original bi flag purple, while also feeling like a smoother blend of the blue and pink

but that's just me! and it might not even look the same to you, since every screen is different, because technology is a nightmare!

anyway, thank you for coming with me on this colorful journey! I will now retreat back to inkscape and make pained sounds about inkstitch gradients until something tangible pulls me back into reality

#bi #bisexual #bisexuality #bi flag #bisexual flag #sbs rambles #graphic design is my passion #id in alt text #but #the ids are probably deeply unhelpful for the different variations of flags #in the alt text of the six flags all grouped together #I just put what method the purples were blended with #and then tried to describe them more in the paragraph below #but this is an inherently visual post #so if you're reading it with a screen reader I am sorry :(

[convoloutedinjoke]

This is maybe a bit of projection that is telling in all the least flattering ways but fuck it w/e, I think a breakthrough moment in postcanon Kim/Harry relationship functionality would be Harry having an epiphany like "ohhhhh. I don't HAVE to strategically manipulate him into accommodating my needs I can just TALK to him." after spending a couple months jumping through hoops and lying up a storm in order to like. not mention that some kinds of sex are scary and his joints start to hurt if they cuddle in the wrong position for too long. lol lmao etc.

#once again not tagging this because I am in the twee characterisation zone #but if uuuuh if I may be crunge for one moment #if you can but spare me another moment of your time #harriers be masking #for a variety of reasons #(note: the expression the copotypes the skills themselves especially drama and suggestion and savour fare) #(sidebar within a sidebar: not to autism all over this guy but others have noted the style of pretty much all prose happening in his head #is very self-critical and unforgiving. and in light of that I would like to direct attention to two of those being referred to and being #“good for” psychopaths and sociopaths #in light of everything else this really feels like just another facet of his feeling divorced from/unworthy of “normal” people! #like. thinking of yourself as a sociopath for having to manually interpret and react to social signals is!!! anyway) #the mask is on good and hard and its there for a reason but its also pretty indiscriminate about who it gets deployed on #(thinks about Harrys brain dora saying he cant “talk like a normal person” #did they ever fight about that? or is this more internalised self-hatred filtered through an attempt to understand what made her leave?) #anyway hes in the habit of Manipulating his way into getting what he needs from people #because being honest hasn't worked out so hot for him #like its been talked about a lot already but he calls the people who are supposed to be his backup and they take the piss out of him for #almost dying. how do you think they'd react to him asking for disability accommodations? #(not well. that was rhetorical.) #but hes alive and not as unwell as you might expect given literally everything he has going on #so he's finding a way to be accomedated somehow #and he is canonically prone to manipulation #im not saying that as a dunk! he just is and it doesnt have to be read as an unforgivable flaw #most of what he does with it is like. Fine. #but its there #ok idk where im going with this anymore im. very dehydrated #post over ogoodninght

[itsukicoded]

so i may have just came to the conclusion that i might be the angry friend of my friend group not the ‘mean’ friend bc that one’s a capricorn but if im not infodumping i will be ranting about something else

#read: me complaining the whole way through the hunger games bc they hired a 20 year old to play a 16 year old girl and the visual changes a #lot of the plot lines like the constant rebelling against the adults that kick started a civil war but her not understanding how charged her #actions seemed also a child being taken advantage of by nearly every adult she can into contact with insanity #but also how i was ranting when my friend’s mom called talking abt the books parents wanted to ban from the libraries #and how kids can just watch whatever the fuck on tv kids are watching euphoria and u won’t let them read bad ya novels from 2013 #sigh #but i do happen to be crazy talking abt changing the world at any given point in time 😪 ‘if everyone just did what i said’ hahahhaha #that’s a symptom you know? i almost do want that diagnosis #be i a mad scientist; a composer; or a deity in my past life i have a feeling not much has changed at all #is this my final archetype? black girl who yells all the time? veryyyyy original #but i did quit being the ‘nice’ one at least ironically that person is also a libra #and the one everyone likes is a leo go figure but she’s the one i have issues with i go back n forth on whether or not to call her my #‘friend’ mainly bc i can’t forget the way she reacted to me setting a major boundary so im not close w her anymore but #since im not aesthetically pleasing so conventionally/social media attractive i don’t matter much anyway 🥱 i say im ‘over it’ but i get #annoyed whenever i think abt it and her so that why i think it may be wrong to call her ‘friend’ #once i truly decide i don’t like someone well not one person has made it back into the green zone afterwards so im hesitant to say that no #matter how i feel abt it #either way it’s funny to look at a nice one a mean one a delusional one an angry one #hahah #or am i hungry? #personal

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 4

in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!) a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses

(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!

“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”

You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him. 

“That one is complicated.”

You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye. 

“You don’t know.”

“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”

“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”

“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”

“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”

Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign. 

You look at it. 

And then you set your phone down. 

“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness. 

Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder. 

“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”

Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside. 

“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”

“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”

“Yes, I have.”

It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes. 

“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”

You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work—he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment. 

He looks good. Almost too good. 

“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek. 

“Something… naked?”

His grin widens and he shakes his head. 

“Me naked or you naked?”

Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth. 

“Mm… why not both?”

“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”

The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him. 

“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”

He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.

“You sound sure of yourself.”

“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”

He grabs your wrist carefully. 

“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”

“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.” 

He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”

Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek. 

“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”

“So business as usual?”

He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best. 

“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”

A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.

Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body. 

You cover his hand with your own. 

“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”

Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion. 

“What? No!”

“Are you going to cheat on me?”

“Absolutely not, I—”

“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”

“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”

It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies. 

“Every time?”

“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks. 

“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”

You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense. 

“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”

“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”

You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this. 

“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”

Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy. 

“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”

You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel. 

“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”

He kisses your palm. 

“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”

“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”

Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.  

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”

He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him. 

“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you. 

“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”

“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”

Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly. 

“You want to know what I’d do to you?”

“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds. 

“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”

As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no. 

“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”

You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful. 

“What are you gonna do after that?”

“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”

Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly. 

“Yes, please.” 

He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting. 

“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”

“Why careful? I don’t want that.”

He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine. 

“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”

The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it. 

“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”

It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for. 

Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—

And then his phone rings. 

You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present. 

He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing. 

“I’m sorry.”

Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.

“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster. 

If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem. 

“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest. 

“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place. 

You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand. 

“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”

He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair. 

“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”

You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him. 

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful. 

Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs again. 

“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”

“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”

You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you. 

But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame. 

Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you. 

In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul. 

“Spencer?”

“Hm?” 

It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin. 

“I…”

Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential. 

He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands. 

“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind. 

“I forget.”

FUUUUUUCK. 

Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake. 

He knows. 

He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity. 

Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like. 

“Well, let me know if you remember.”

It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.

Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before. 

You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.

But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it? 

Maybe you have it all wrong. 

Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you. 

You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick. 

24 hours go by. 

24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up. 

Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure. 

Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)

Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off. 

You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking. 

“Hello?”

Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep. 

“Shit, did I wake you?”

“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed. 

“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”

“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone. 

“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”

A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said. 

“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room. 

“Oh. Is everything okay?”

“As much as it can be.”

“Right.”

More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while. 

“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”

“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”

“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs. 

“What? Why?”

“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”

Laughter tapers off into gentler tones. 

“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”

Blood rushes to your cheeks. 

“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”

Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”

“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble. 

“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”

When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no. 

“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”

“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”

You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly. 

“Guess whose bed.”

Silence. 

“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”

“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”

“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”

“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”

Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.

“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”

“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.

“No, not you. You are always the exception.”

“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”

Spencer groans. 

“You’re killing me.”

“What? What did I do!”

“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”

“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”

But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure.  After a pause, he sighs in defeat. 

“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”

“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” you frown. 

“Tell me what this is.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Lying to a profiler is usually pointless. 

“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”

Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up. 

“I don’t know. I miss you.”

He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones.  It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic. 

“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”

“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”

“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”

Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…

“I’m not taking anything out on you.”

“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”

Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand. 

“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket. 

“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”

“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter. 

“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”

“I—”

“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”

The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges. 

“What… what thoughts?”

“None that you need to concern yourself with.”

“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it. 

“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it. 

“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”

“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”

“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”

“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer. 

Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—

“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”

You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing. 

“What are you doing with a box of condoms?” 

He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you. 

“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”

“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”

“You wanted them to be for you, huh?” 

You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that. 

“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”

It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before. 

“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft. 

“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”

You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest. 

“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”

The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows. 

“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”

“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”

“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”

“Do we have to?”

The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts. 

“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”

“But you’re… you’re good, right?”

Thankfully he picks up on your meaning. 

“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”

“And I’m good. So...”

“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”

You groan in frustration. 

“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”

“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”

“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”

The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous. 

“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”

“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”

“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”

You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them. 

“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.

“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”

“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And  how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”

He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit. 

“You want me to come inside you?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice. 

—

On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making. 

“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”

“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now. 

“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”

You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—

“’M not.”

Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that. 

“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”

You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers. 

“Where are you touching?”

“Um—over my clothes.”

Cute. 

“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”

It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”

He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base. 

“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”

Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut. 

“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you’re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock. 

“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”

“I am ready—” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”

“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.” 

He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk. 

“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”

The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump. 

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”

“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”

“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”

He gets the general sentiment. 

“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Mhm!”

“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”

“Yes,” you cry. 

“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”

“Spencer!” 

He knows. 

“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”

The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist. 

“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”

“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”

“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”

He’s barely kidding. 

“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease. 

“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”

You laugh. He blushes even more. 

“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”

“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”

“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”

The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone. 

“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”

“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide. 

Or if it was something else. It could also be something else. 

For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you. 

—

A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here. 

You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?

“Spencer?” you murmur. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength. 

“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?” 

Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink. 

“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”

“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”

Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous. 

“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”

Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue. 

“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”

“But…?”

Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared. 

“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”

The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out. 

“You regret your first time?” 

Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does. 

“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”

Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash. 

Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins. 

What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same. 

You want to scream bloody murder. 

But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”

Maybe that’s worse. 

Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence. 

“I didn’t realize you…”

I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back. 

I didn’t realize I like you more than you like me. 

I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later. 

If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was. 

“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help. 

More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does. 

“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”

Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?

What does one even wear to a breakup date?

“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound. 

Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more. 

“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”

“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right. 

“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.

So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here. 

“Goodnight.”

-

part five

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