#I'm putting this on a timer so I hope to God it actually posts when it should

[keysimash]

Hello!!

I do not want to be bothering or rude, I am just curious if you’ve had time or energy to continue Leave, I still love the story so much and am looking forward to find out how it goes!!

But if not it’s ok, I just hope you have a nice day no matter what!! <3

Short answer , it's not discontinued but idk when I will work on it again. Sorry to be a disappointment

Long answer you probably dont want to read

I hate it. I can't even read it. I like my story, I like the plans I HAVE for the story, I just.... cant read my own writing. And this isn't some kind of compliment fishing either, it's gotten to the point I dont even like getting nice comments about it on my ao3 inbox anymore.

I sit down to work on it and I just... can't. All I can think about is how cringy it sounds ... and how bad it is, etc etc

Logically I know I'm actually a pretty good writer. But all I see when I look at this shit is mistakes.

And I come across in my writing as... way too emotional and earnest? If that makes any sense. I've mentioned I never made a plot outline, that shit is sooo obvious when i read it. And how I changed the plot three or four times. And how I changed the plot every time I got upset.

I used to not give a fuck about appealing to other people when I wrote because I didnt have anyone whose opinion I cared about reading it but now I feel like I have to write it not shittily or I'll disappoint everyone and myself. And I'm not capable of writing it not shittily right now because I would

a) have to build off the disjointed skeleton I've already made that's got plot holes and mischaracterizations

b) start over from scratch

And I can't do it right now! I cant!

I keep thinking about how my best friend told me I shouldn't put vent art on the internet at all. I feel disgusting now almost. Like people that take pics of their cuts and post em. I know shes full of shit but I cant shake the feeling. That it's my fault if I trigger somebody. That by writing anything that isnt a joke or fluff I'm doing something gross and self-masturbatory and harmful. "If you interpret the characters in a way the author didnt want you're just wrong..." that's what she said.. Its kirby and Meta knight and magolor for gods sake. What am I doing trying to make a gritty realistic darkfic... from a kids game.... cringe.... (only me tho. Nobody else counts)

Even my other works for other fandoms, it almost feels like they're on a timer as soon as I post them. I go "I like that, that's good" and post, and then a few days later I'm like "oh . That's shit now" and it has nothing to do with engagement or anything, its just like an arbitrary switch flipped in my brain

The only time I was writing well and writing consistently... was when I was being abused... I feel like I've lost my spark ... because maybe the only time I can make anything good is when I'm under so much emotional pressure I feel like I'm about to snap.... but if that were true I should be writing right now haha.

And I can sit here and know all these things, that when I'm stressed my thought process goes all stupid, that I'm actually a good writer, that I'm not hurting anybody by the fic I post, that writing something shit is better than not writing anything at all, but it doesn't do anything to change how I feel.

But. I did say it's not discontinued, didnt I?

If its stressing me out so much well why dont I delete it, well the answer to that is I HATE HATE HATE when authors delete their good shit.... deep down I know a lot of people love my stories and that they have some worth... that's why I haven't deleted them all...

I love writing, still.... writing for cotl feels less bad than kirby cos.. it feels like its expected to be edgy and dark, so I dont feel bad about what I write until later at least... but I still love to write and create....

I just need some time... I miss writing kirby stuff but I just can't face my own writing. I cant face myself. And it order to start writing again -- I think that's my problem. I would have to forgive myself for not being perfect. I would have to admit that , like my writing , its okay to love myself/my writing even with the manymanymany .flaws.

I can't. Not right now. Maybe later tho

I didnt have that last revelation before. Not until I wrote everything out. When I was trying to explain all my feelings to someone else , I ended up explaining it to myself. This post was long overdue anyway

Sorry

[filet-o-feelings]

December prompts - day 2 (baking)

I know I just linked to AO3 for day 1, but I think I'm going to post the rest here, since they're short. Although this one got a bit longer than intended, so I'll throw it under a cut.

“Hey, Twy?” Alexis looked like she had something on her mind as she sat at the counter sipping her tea.

“What’s up, Alexis?”

“Do you know a good banana bread recipe?” That’s not at all what Twyla had been expecting, but she’s happy she can help.

“I do, actually! My aunt used to make the best banana bread before her second husband ran off with the produce manager at Brebners and she swore off fresh produce for the rest of her life. We had to sneak vegetables into her food like she was a toddler so she wouldn’t drop dead from malnutrition.”

“Oh! Oh wow. Um. Anyway, we somehow ended up with way too many bananas so I need to use them up. And David’s been kind of down lately so I figured maybe I could cheer him up with carbs.”

“That sounds really lovely!”

“Um. There is one small problem though.”

“What’s that?” Twyla asks as she wipes down the counter.

“I live in a motel and don’t have a proper kitchen,” she says, and Twyla smiles.

“Well, I’m done with work in about 2 hours and happen to have a fully stocked kitchen, if you want to stop by later,” Twyla suggests.

“Oh my god, yes, Twy that would be perfect!” Alexis exclaims, grinning.

🍌🍞

Twyla prepares all of the ingredients, sans bananas, before Alexis arrives. She’s grateful that she had time to shower and put on one of her favorite dresses before Alexis arrives.

Not that this is, like, a date or anything. She just felt gross after working all day.

She’s just finishing tidying up the living room when she hears a knock at the door.

“Alexis, hi, come in!” she says when she opens the door to the adorable sight of her friend all dressed up in a gorgeous pink dress, heels and all, holding a bunch of bananas up and in front of her.

“I remembered the bananas!” She said, proudly. As if remembering the one thing, and the literal reason she was coming over tonight was a huge accomplishment.

Twyla really kind of wants to kiss her right now.

Instead, she takes the bananas and leads her to the kitchen.

“Twy! Your place is so cute! How have I never been here?” Alexis says, looking around in wonder.

“Well, you’re welcome here anytime,” she says, and she’s really hoping Alexis takes her up on the offer.

“Okay, so the recipe is actually really simple. We’ll just need three bananas, and you want to make sure they’re ripe so these are perfect. I already took out all the other ingredients, so if you want to peel and mash them in that bowl, I’ll start the oven and butter the loaf pan.”

Alexis mashes the bananas and Twyla checks the next step. “Okay the next thing to add is melted butter so I’m just going to throw that in the microwave for a few seconds.”

Once the butter is melted, she adds it to the bowl with the bananas and instructs Alexis to add the remaining ingredients, one at a time.

“Great, just the flour left,” she says, dumping the flour in the bowl while Alexis continues to mix.

Somehow, way too much flour ends up on the outside of the bowl and ends up on both of the girls.

“I’m so sorry, I should have given you an apron to wear! It’s all over your dress!”

Alexis is laughing, though, and Twyla is relieved that she doesn’t seem to be upset. “It’s okay Twy! This is surprisingly a lot of fun.”

“Oh, good! I love baking, I’m glad you’re enjoying it too,” she says, pausing before deciding to say the next part. “Maybe we can do this again. Make a thing of it? Cupcakes, cookies, maybe even fudge!”

Alexis grins and nods, "Mmhmm!"

Twyla takes a look at the bowl, “Okay I think it’s mixed enough. You can pour the batter into the loaf pan now.”

Alexis does as instructed, then Twyla places the pan in the oven, setting the timer.

“Is that it?” Alexis asks.

“That’s it. Now we wait.”

“What do you want to do while we wait?” Alexis asks, and Twyla blushes, thinking of all the things she would love to do while the bread bakes.

In the end, they decide on a movie, and creep closer and closer to each other on the couch. Twyla thinks if things continue this way, she might actually end up kissing Alexis tonight.

And then the oven timer interrupts her thoughts.

Twyla jumps up and goes to check on the banana bread, Alexis following closely behind.

“It looks like it turned out perfect,” she says, placing it on a trivet before removing her oven mitt and turning the oven off.

“Thank you, Twyla. It smells amazing! David’s going to love this.”

“You’ll have to let me know what he thinks,” Twyla says.

They finish their movie while the bread cools, but start again at opposite ends of the couch, the moment gone for now. Once cooled enough, Twyla wraps the bread up and sends Alexis on her way. 

An hour later, she receives a text with a picture of David eating a slice of banana bread with a look of pure bliss on his face.

She smiles, knowing she made at least two people happy today. 

Three, if she includes herself.

#twylexis #sort of? #either way my first twylexis fic somehow #I kinda want to continue it #december writing prompts #schitt's creek fanfic

[thatwaywardwolf]

Well, it's been quite a while, hasn't it? 2022 is trickling to an end soon, thankfully, and a lot has happened.

First, I'm still here. I haven't gone anywhere and I'm surprised that I'm still getting foot traffic here. It's sparse, but it's there. So, for all the new comers, welcome. For all the old timers, thank you for still sticking around. I haven't posted much at all this year and I'm not sure when I'll make it a thing to post regularly again in spite of my earlier comments that I'd put in a bigger effort.

This year has been monumentally rough and because of that, I've taken a big gap with my practice and I can't really remember the last time I've engaged much with it. I actually made my first offering in what I think has been a few months just half an hour ago. It feels nice, especially with the rain. It's something I would like to do more often, but having a new cat has made it hard since she's taken a serious liking to the altar and we have to keep her from climbing on it - which has been stressful on my end.

I'm doing my best to get by, which I guess is all that matters and I know this is something that we as a community talk about a fair amount when it comes to spiritual burnout and the importance of making your needs a priority. The Gods aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so take time to focus on your own healing - they understand.

I feel like with where I'm at, I feel my relationship with the Gods has matured enough to a point where we can exchange glances from across the room and it be enough. The whole "Hey, I see you and we're good" thing, which feels more natural with Thor to me than anything else. I'm listening to a general devotional playlist I made again for the first time in months and it feels nostalgic in a way, like the warmth of a nice cup of coffee and a knit sweater. It's also a bit strange because songs that remind me of them (especially Thor) has been spread out more.

I mentioned it months ago with how sometimes, I'll look at a certain friend and somehow, I think about the gods; like how her mischievousness is the delight of Loki, her passion for art and music would make Odin and Bragi proud, her protective and loyal golden retriever energy is so much like what I've found in Thor, how fiercely badass she is and loves others (including her own healing) feels like Freyja, her love of life and compassion with death feels like the presence of Hel, and so on. That whole thing.

So now, if I hear a certain song that I connected to Thor over, I'm also reminded of her and how important she is to me. It's indescribable to be able to have that level of a connection to someone or something, and how it feels like overtime it's just aged like a great wine - and it's going to continue doing that. I hope that, if I'm able to, I can bridge those old connections again with the gift giving cycle and do more to get out in nature. I haven't gone on a long walk in a while and getting lost in the woods by our creek sounds nice now.

All that aside, this year has been full of change and stress: some of it good, some of it bad. It's been a tedious and intense process with doing all kinds of processing and recovery, and I don't think I'd be where I am now without her and my good friends to help me keep my head above the water. I'm still struggling, but they've been so patient, kind, and affirming with me - even if things like paranoia tell me they aren't, and they've said they notice an improvement in me that I'm learning more and getting better. It's basically been a lot with trauma recovery, getting diagnosed with PTSD, (likely) fibro, and I should be getting a call back this week regarding getting tested for ADHD.

Yeah, 2022 has been a lot. It's had so good though, quite a bit, actually. I've worked on more art this year alone than I have any other, I've made so many friends and built up a found family, I, of course have a new cat, and I'm hoping to have my top surgery consultation next year after struggling with coverage and paperwork problems for two years.

But, I'll leave things at that for now. I hope that everyone stays safe the rest of the year and if things haven't been going well, that the next two months treat you well. For those that celebrate it, have a great and safe Halloween, Día de los Muertos, and Samhain with those you love - even if they've departed. Just in case I don't get to say it in December, have a meaningful winter / summer solstice wherever you are. May 2023 treat you kinder than this year has.

Until next time,

Adam.

#adam rambles

[annieintheaair]

Baby, you ain't sweet, look at what you did to me.

I don't think people talk about depression enough. It's one of those topics that people are afraid to touch. Some people, if they've never dealt with it themselves, think it's just being sad but it's a lot more than that.

I got home from work on Friday and went to yoga at noon. I didn't feel like doing much else and spent the rest of my afternoon at home. By the time 6pm hit, my mood had really shifted. I wasn't hungry to eat anything and there was nothing I wanted to watch on TV. The sun was still shining and I kept thinking that it was such a beautiful day -- warm and sunny, although a little windy. Everything in me told me I should be outside enjoying it. I sat on my patio for about ten minutes before deciding to go inside.

I took a shower, put on my pajamas, and by 7pm, I was in bed. I put on a movie knowing that I wouldn't actually watch it so I set the sleep timer. I didn't wake up again until around 7:30am on Saturday. Part of it all was because I was tired after barely sleeping all week because of work, but then another huge part of it was the fact that depression took over me. Even though the sun had been shining outside, the sun inside me was gone, and a storm was raging.

I've spent the greater part of the last nearly 14 years being somewhat ok. I've worked with therapists and I take anti-depressants to help me when therapy alone doesn't work. Both of those things are great and help me get through the day-to-day, but then, there are times, when the pain of the world feels overwhelming. I'm stuck in a storm that feels like it has no end. I don't see any rainbows in the distance, just this dark, grey cloud over my head.

I've written here before about the things I do when I'm sad but sometimes it feels like nothing works and all I can do for myself is take a temporary break from everything. Friday night, I knew I needed to sleep it off. I temporarily deactivated all of my social media and turned off my phone. I felt like that was the best thing for me at that moment.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I still wasn't feeling super motivated but I was no longer in the really dark place that I had been in on Friday night. I can't say I accomplished much during the day but by the afternoon, I was finally hungry to eat something. I went to get poké and then came home and ate it.

I had posted in a Facebook group to see if anyone wanted to join me to see the movie Someone Like You but no one replied so by 6pm, I bought the ticket and went by myself. The movie started off saying, "If you love deeply, you’re going to get hurt badly. But it’s worth it.” I knew in that moment that there was a reason why I needed to see that movie.

The theme of the movie was hope, which was just what I needed. I enjoyed a couple of cocktails and had a nice night alone. I really liked the movie and I was glad that I went even though it took everything I had in me to get myself out of the house to go alone. I used to have no problem going to the movies alone but after months of having someone to share a blanket with and hold hands at the movies, it felt a little weird and empty going alone.

This morning, I drove forty minutes to a church for a singles Bible study and then attended the service. I met some really nice people and Dr. Phil was talking at the service so I was able to listen to him, too.

During the Bible study, they talked about clarity, and leaving places and situations when it's necessary to let go. They also talked about staying in places even when it's hard and you think the grass is greener on the other side. Even when there's a famine in the place we're in, it's better to stay there than to leave. God puts us where he wants us and even though it's hard sometimes, he has a purpose and a plan for all of us.

All of it made me reflect on the last year. I left a place where I was comfortable because I thought that I needed to leave. Maybe I was never supposed to leave. Sometimes, following Jesus is doing uncomfortable things though, so maybe I did need to leave. This year of being away from the people and places I loved offered me clarity that I probably wouldn't have found if I had stayed. Leaving made me thankful for all that I left behind, and hope to return to soon.

In the service, they also talked about how the strongest people are usually the people who have been through the most. I think, even though sometimes I struggle, I am really strong. In all of the things I've been through, I've become closer to God. When all the things and people in the world fail you, God will never fail you.

After church, I braved Costco and picked up a few things. I even treated myself to a slice of pizza. Costco pizza always brings me back to my childhood when my dad used to take us and if we weren't full from the samples, we'd get pizza.

Coming full circle, the thing about depression is that you'll have good days and bad days, and some days that are just ok. This weekend was a lot of down and up and leveling out. It offered me a lot of time to reflect on things. While endings are always sad, God knows what's best for us and he would never take anything away from us that was meant for us. God has a plan, and even though I get impatient at times, I know he's looking out for me and will never, ever fail me. Afterall, he hasn't failed me yet.

xoxo

Annie

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Correspondence, Chapter 06

Pairing: HotchReid

Summary: An AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email referred from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together – until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. They know nothing about each other, but they don’t really mind.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (eventually)

Chapter CW/notes: Slight offscreen peril, a bunch of POV changes, and we’re going to start introducing the team one by one so a whole lot of Rossi this chapter. Everyone will get their turn, and a few people (Garcia and Morgan for sure) get more than one. This chapter got very very long, once again. Set in season 6-7, self beta’d.

Word Count: 10716

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link

–

Chapter 06

–

March 2011

–

Although the BAU sends teams out frequently to different corners of the continental US -- whenever they’ve been requested or invited in, or when they are interviewing captured criminals for research studies and papers -- for the most part they can do all of their work right there at home. In Quantico, Virginia.

Hotch’s team is one of four domestic Behavioral Analysis teams in the Unit, who work alongside three Behavioral Research and Instruction teams, as well as liaisons from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (NCAVC) and two international BAU teams. Hotch doesn’t directly oversee the international sectors, or the liaisons, but he is Unit Chief as well as the leader of his team and he seems to constantly be buried in a sea of paperwork. Especially when he is back in his office at Quantico, and can’t use the excuse of being called out on a case to defer some of the workload.

But one thing about being home that Hotch appreciates more than anything is the routine it creates; with his work, with his home, with Jack, and now -- with Spencer. Being three time zones apart is difficult, but it’s all they’ve ever known, and it becomes second nature for Hotch to always be aware what the time is in California. What time of day it is for the other man, what his routine might be and the little stolen minutes that are best to send texts, sneak in phone calls, and they become quite skilled at it. Spencer knows Hotch’s schedule better than he does himself, some days, and he always returns the favor in kind. Quite literally living in each other’s pockets, via a cell phone, and Hotch finds that thought amusing to no end.

It also means that the younger man is… always on his mind. Just a glance at a clock and he already knows what time it is across the country, and he often finds himself thinking about what Spencer is doing. What class he is teaching. If he’s grabbing coffee or actual lunch like he should. They’ve hit this point in their relationship where the constant communication is all but seamless and interwoven into their everyday lives. It becomes a common occurrence to always think about Spencer, to always check his phone as often as he might check his watch, and Hotch starts to realize that this long distance relationship has taken some deep roots within him. That he just very might be falling head over heels for a man he’s never met, and although it takes him a moment to grasp that concept fully -- he finds that he doesn’t really mind it, either. Because this is the happiest he’s been in a long, long time.

And after the past few years, he’s learned that that is not something he can afford to be cautious with.

So he lets it all progress unchecked, as nerve-wracking as that can be, instead of keeping it in the consistency they’ve grown so used to. The relationship akin to many of the experiments and projects Spencer regales him with; a constant that needs variables in order for it to change and ignite. It should have been jarring, this free fall that Hotch had begun to allow, but somehow it never was.

And just like that, they continued to grow closer, a little less wary than before.

After that week in December, their phone conversations become as frequent as their text messaging. Every night, sometimes over lunch and on the weekends, Jack has even jumped in once or twice during the daytime hours when their time together overlaps. Hotch was surprised at the younger boy’s enthusiasm to talk to whoever he has been messaging off and on for the better part of a year, and even more at how the two get on even over the phone. But Spencer points out one night that Jack probably is more used to speaking and connecting with people over long distance because of his father’s constant travel through the year. As often as Hotch calls and messages Spencer, he also talks to Jack every night that he’s not home, so it would be a very minute shift for him to be introduced to Spencer and find it as normal an occurrence as if Hotch was on one of his trips. This creates various juxtaposing emotions for Hotch, glad that Spencer and Jack can meet each other without it being stilted or awkward with the distance, and morose that he’s created this precedent in his son that could last his whole life. Thankfully, it only takes a few nights of Spencer’s stream-of-conscious lectures indicating statistics and case studies and small anecdotes speckled throughout, all connecting like constellations in the sky, to soothe his apprehensions.

Spencer always seems to have that effect on Hotch, when they talk.

They have come to find that just the sound of the other’s voice is enough to ease even the most stressful of days, and for Spencer as well. Through physical application they discover just how well, as the months pass them by. Through the Christmas holidays, a hard time for the Hotchners because it was always Haley’s favorite time of year, resulting in many a late night phone call that goes far beyond when even Spencer should have fallen asleep. On past New Years, and Spencer’s mom’s birthday in late January -- another hard time -- where the younger man confided in Hotch that his mother is permanently institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia. Something he never shares with anyone, if he can help it, but a large part of his life he knows he wants Hotch to be aware of now. After all this time. They help each other through each and every instance, are there through the thick and thin of it, solidifying a trust that appeared as naturally as everything else about them.

And with it… the feelings grow. So much stronger than before.

And although their phone calls stay more tame than not, they do revisit the hushed tones and quiet gasps that they had lapsed into that night in Wyoming -- and they were getting very good at it.

But with the new development of spoken conversations as well as through text is so much more than just the sexual progression, that’s not how this all started. There’s a companionship there that transcends all the multimedia facets they explore.

Spencer becomes one of the most important people in Hotch’s life. And Hotch is Spencer’s… whole world, outside of Caltech. They mean so much to each other, have blended together through time and distance and millions of words and messages. It’s really a wonder that more people don’t know about their relationship. Private as they are, each in their own right, they hold a place in each other’s days and nights and thoughts at all times.

Once winter gives way to spring, and March bleeds into the calendar, Spencer mentions one night that it’s been exactly one year since Hotch had emailed him on that first case. An anniversary of sorts.

How had it been a whole year, already, and still felt so brand new?

And yet, neither man can even remember what their life was like before they’d met. How could they possibly have gotten through the day, and not have it speckled with those little moments of conversation? Filling the spaces where they hadn’t even realized they’d been lonely. Had no idea what they were missing, until they had it in their hands.

-

It’s a day in mid-March that finds the BAU oddly quiet. Everyone is home, for the most part: no urgent cases, no pending interviews, just mountains of paperwork and yearly evals paired with recertifications to keep them occupied. Rossi even takes the week off to go attend a convention in L.A. where one of his books is being featured, again. Hotch doesn’t bother to try and fight him on it, there’s really no need with everything seeming in a lull for the time being.

But, since one person got the week off, naturally everyone else starts to take it easier as well. Procrastinating by taking frequent snack and coffee breaks, sitting at each other’s desks in the bull pen and generally goofing around -- not getting much work done at all. Hotch can see his team, or most of them, from his office where he has been finishing up some reports that really should have been completed by the group horsing around all morning.

But it’s such a comforting sight, smiles and laughs in the place where they confront violence and depravity at all hours of the day. His team deserves a break, he decides, so Hotch finishes his report as if he can’t see the team out of the corner of his eye, and checks his phone again while waiting for a reply from Spencer. The professor has also been dealing with procrastination among his own students, the majority resorting to messing around in the labs instead of actually getting their work done like they should. The situational parallel alone enough to make Hotch bite back a smile that would be too much in plain view; not wanting to reveal that he is taking his work at his leisure, as well, that day.

“Garcia!” Prentiss calls as she walks past Hotch’s office door, always left open for easy access by his agents, and so he can hear the goings on of the BAU floor. “There’s some kind of alarm going off in your office? I’ve never heard it before.”

“What does it sound like? Is it the Doctor Who theme, or kind of ‘Mission Impossible’-y,” she asks as she relinquishes Morgan’s chair (which she had commandeered over an hour ago) and makes her way through the maze of desks. “Oh! Or is it the 007 music? I’ve been waiting for a message from our BAU friends abroad--”

“No, no this kind of sounds like an air raid siren.”

Garcia’s face drops, and never has Hotch seen that look on her face before. She spins on her leopard print heels and is hurrying back across the bull pen as fast as those four inch stilettos will allow.

“Pen?”

“Baby girl, what is it?”

“No one panic! Not until I get there!” she calls back, with an edge of franticness in her voice that creates the exact opposite reaction she is calling for. Morgan looks up to Hotch, who is already out his door and following after the tech analyst, and they share a look of affirmative action. Whatever it is that has her worked up, it can’t be good.

It’s always on the quiet days. He should have known.

“Morgan, get the jet prepped if it’s available. Prentiss--” Hotch spins and points at her still on the high rise as he makes his way towards the elevators. “Be on standby for communication. JJ’s not due back until next week.” He had finally gotten her negotiated back from the State Department (and the Pentagon, too, he had cashed in quite a few big favors for that one), and Garcia has done a good job covering for her the past year and a half. But it would be so nice to have Agent Jearau back and running the place once more like the well oiled machine it is.

Especially when he needs her, like right now.

“Talk to me, Garcia,” Hotch demands, slipping into the elevator beside her before the doors can close. “What does that alert mean?”

She looks only mildly nervous, but the panic bleeds through now that they’re closed off from the rest of the team. “It’s a friends and family alert I customized, for if a 911 call or emergency is issued around someone important to us.” She looks at him through her red rimmed glasses and Hotch can plainly see in her expression that it has been a while since this particular alert has gone off. “I have it linked to everyone’s homes, homes of family, old team members, schools for the kids, places of work. And the parameters are narrowed down pretty specifically, after I was getting alerts every other day in Chicago around Morgan’s mom’s house. That neighborhood is going downhill fast.” The elevator dings and they make their way to Garcia’s office, Hotch already pulling his phone out and texting Jessica to see if she’s alright and if Jack got to school okay.

“So could this be another false alarm?” he asks, keeping his voice steady and calm to counter her franticness. His deep tone seems to remind her to breathe evenly until they find out what caused the alert. Which is, indeed, going off like an old fashioned air raid siren, circa the London Blitz.

Garcia spins into her swivel chair, custom-ordered and much more comfortable looking than even his in his home office. With a few seconds of rapid-paced typing the alarm goes quiet and she is pulling up the details of the alert.

“Where is it?”

“California,” she says, still waiting for zeroed in coordinates and police reports.

“Rossi?” Hotch asks, remembering the man is in L.A. at a conference, and the chance a bomb has gone off there is slim to none, but the chance of criminal activity in the vicinity is statistically high.

“Not quite, a little further Northeast --” she trails off, and Hotch feels his stomach drop just as Garcia’s eyes go wide at the report appearing on the screen. “Pasadena. CalTech.”

His phone is in his hand and calling Spencer’s number before she finishes speaking.

The tone rings once, twice, “C’mon, Spencer, pick up,” he mutters, his tone no longer even or calm.

“The number you have called is out of service. Please contact your local provider for maintenance requests or inquiry--”

“All phone lines are down around the campus,” Garcia tells him over the automated voice in his ear. “They were knocked out by an explosion at one of the science labs.” A few more seconds of typing, creating a tension filled backdrop that can’t be good for his heart. “In the… Physics and Engineering Complex, building 254--”

“That’s Spencer’s building. Garcia patch me through, I don’t care to who or where. I’m calling Dave.”

“Roger, Roger,” Garcia complies as Hotch turns and paces the room, a dial tone once again ringing in his ear. Los Angeles is only a 20 or 30 minutes drive from Pasadena, depending what side of the city one was on. No matter which way he looked at it, Rossi was the person most likely to get there first.

He has to call twice to get the man to pick up.

“Please tell me we don’t have a case.” Rossi sounds as self-suffering as ever, and Hotch barrels right over his premature complaints.

“No. I need you to get to CalTech as soon as possible,” Hotch tells him, straightforward as he can be. “As in right now.”

If there’s one thing he’s learned from phone conversations with Spencer, it’s how to tell that someone is making a gesture or facial expression from just the slightest nuances of sound. That’s how he can hear Rossi smirk on the opposite end of the call, and years of friendship cast a pretty clear picture of it.

“Something to do with Dr. Reid, I’m guessing?” he deduces, and sounds so smug about it Hotch has to resist rolling his eyes. “Y’know, until that case in Wyoming I’d thought you had stumbled upon some hidden virtual dating line within the FBI consultant network, but I have to say I’m still stuck between the ‘friend of a friend’ scenario or--”

“Dave.” Hotch snaps, short and concise. “There’s been an explosion at the CalTech physics lab, and all communication has been knocked down. I need you to get over there and find Dr. Ried and --”

He stalls, realizing he hadn’t gotten that far yet. Hotch just needed to know Spencer hadn’t been in that explosion, that he wasn’t being rushed to a hospital, he needed to know what was going on and Rossi was his only chance at finding it out. Nosey, means well, but always in his business friend that he is.

“And?”

“Just, make sure he’s okay?” Hotch says, and his voice changes a little on the last syllable. Opens up a window to something more vulnerable, because damn it all he’s worried and Hotch schools that cadence in his voice as quickly as it reveals itself. “I’m sure there’s a swarm of police presence there but all cell service is offline and I can’t get a hold of him.”  

Rossi doesn’t answer, just waits patiently as if there’s more to say.

Because of course there’s more to say. Hotch just hadn’t planned on saying it in such a plain context.

“Yes, it’s Dr. Reid I’m… seeing. Dating. I just need to know he’s alright.” The carefully controlled tone of his voice threatens to break apart, but Rossi nor Garcia would know that listening to him. Aaron Hotchner has had a lot of practice dealing with grace under pressure, and even his loved ones in danger under pressure -- last time had been devastating. This time, not just yet, but going through it twice is not something he is looking to experience.

“Okay, alright,” Rossi tells him, as if he’d somehow been hysterical about it and Hotch frowns at his phone. “I’m walking to my car now.” Those questions Rossi wants to ask hang unanswered between them, and Hotch doesn’t know if he has the patience for them at that moment. “Anything I should know before I meet him?”

Rossi is not slick, like he thinks he is. Hotch has known him far too long to not know what he’s doing, baiting the question without asking it. Hotch pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs long and drawn out before answering.

“He’s young.”

“I gathered,” Rossi deadpans. “And--?”

“He’s very young.”

“As in scandalous young? You’re turning into me.”

Hotch snorts. “He has 5 Ph.D.’s and runs three departments. I think our side-by-side comparison weighs in my favor.”

“So… how young is young?”

“Dave, don’t make this a thing,” Hotch all but begs the older man, now sounding as self-suffering as Rossi had when he’d answered the phone.

“Oh -- that bad?”

He’s not going to drop it. Hotch can hear cars and the sounds of a parking garage echoing through the background, and the last thing he wants is for Rossi to stall -- holding his assistance hostage while Hotch stands there and worries about if Spencer is okay or hurt or dead because Rossi can also be an asshole at the worst of times.

“... He’s 30.”

“ 30? As in three-zero, 30?”

Hotch frowns further. “ You’re judging me?” They both remember the 20-something barely in grad school from Greg Peterson’s wedding four years ago, Hotch doesn’t even have to bring it up or remember her name to make Rossi scoff in answer.

“Yes, but that’s me. This is you.” Rossi pauses, and if he’s stopped outside his car without getting inside of it Hotch will reach through the phone and strangle him like an old-school looney tunes cartoon.

“ Don’t bring it up to him, Dave. I swear -- just, make sure he’s alive. Please.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll check on your scandalously young boyfriend and call when I can,” Rossi tells him. Almost too easy, despite the struggle it took to get there that’s making a headache build behind Hotch’s eyes.

“Thank you.”

“-- But we’re talking about this later.”

“No, we aren’t.”

“Oh, yes we are.”

“I’m hanging up.” Which is exactly what he does, Rossi’s low, smug laughter echoing down the line before he can disconnect the call. Hotch turns back to Garcia, who gives him a grimace of a smile and a shrug. “That went about how I expected.”

“I actually thought it would be worse,” she tells him with a laugh, and Hotch can’t help but agree. “No communication yet, but there hasn’t been an ambulance sent out from the site, as of two minutes ago. So that’s good news, right?”

“Yes,” Hotch answers, even though his mind whirls at all the reasons it could be bad news and still fit that scenario.

He’ll just have to wait until Rossi makes it to Pasadena, finds Spencer, and can re-enter the land of cell service once more.

However long that might take.

--

Spencer sighs through his nose as he helps the paramedic hold one of his doctoral students still, applying burn treatments to their scalded arm as the young man babbles a stream of nonsense that might have been some kind of explanation. At least it was a form of apology, but Spencer isn’t the one he needs to apologize to.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Reid,” the 22-year-old sobs, wincing at the paramedic’s medical application once more. “We didn’t think it would combust, we didn’t account for--”

“The parameters of extra weight and testing it outside experimental procedures, I know Jesse,” Spencer sighs, wiping at his own face and smudging more soot there as he does. His clothes are covered in it, and damp as well from the building sprinklers. He does everything in his power to not think about his books in his office, or his half written papers and experiments he’s been conducting personally -- or any of his students’ work. Years of experiments and dissertations and data, gone up in flames if the fire spreads beyond the lab.

He had sealed in the fire as best he could, they have safety protocols in place for this very thing after all, but not everyone had their data backed up. And then with the cell tower knocked out with the explosion, and the landlines a mess from the electromagnetic currents running rampant through the campus, there’s no saying what protocols were still online to keep the whole building from going up in smoke.

“I’m still so sorry, I didn’t mean for it to happen,” the poor kid feels terrible, that much is obvious, and the pain stimuli doesn’t help his emotional state. Hence why Spencer is consoling him before he has to go convince his other doctoral students that life is still worth living if they have to start from scratch on their dissertations.

“He doesn’t seem to be exhibiting any smoke inhalation symptoms that aren’t severe. But I’m still going to take him to get checked at the E.R,” the paramedic relays as she finishes up with his burn wounds.

“We have to wait until we’re clear to leave the scene, it’s a science lab there’s too many unknown chemicals and variants,” Spencer tells her with no room for argument. His student, Jesse Simmons, was still having a very severe freak out -- and Spencer was doing his best to console him so he has more information on the explosion, but it’s been a while since he had to use any kind of bedside manner training outside a classroom. “Jesse, I need you to try and breathe evenly, and tell me if anything doesn’t seem right.”

“Pretty sure I’m hallucinating,” Jesse tells him, dazed and manic and in shock all at once.

“Yeah, that would do it,” the paramedic murmurs under her breath, sharing a look with Dr. Reid.

“What are you seeing?” Spencer asks.

“David Rossi.”

“The true crime author?” The paramedic asks in confusion. Spencer can’t help but be in agreement at it’s randomness.

“Yes, you should take him in. I’ll see if the hazmat teams have decontaminated the lab yet and take a look around for what he might have inhaled--”

“Is one you Dr. Reid?”

They all look up and there, in broad daylight, is a famously familiar face watching them expectantly in a black and grey suit.

The paramedic is the first to speak.

“Holy shit, it’s David Rossi.”

Spencer blinks, running mental cognizant tests to make sure he’s not out of sorts. But mass hallucinations wouldn’t apply as a side effect, here, so he clears his throat and tucks hair behind his ear -- no doubt smudging more soot on his face but he needs to look at least a little bit put together like the department head he is.

“Um -- yes, hi, I’m Dr. Reid,” he tells the older man, fully turning towards him only to be met by mild surprise. Mild only in that Mr. Rossi appears to be a very subdued man. But his eyebrows raise, looking him over openly, and Spencer has to fight the urge not to scowl. He hates being judged for his age more and more with each passing day -- Hotch has brought that out in him, and the ever looming day that they get the chance to meet. “How can I help you Mr. Rossi? I don’t usually shake hands, but I’m also covered in--” he gestures to the soot and ash covering his suit. Or what’s left of it. There’s singe marks on his pants and his jacket is removed, never to return. The item a lost cause after he’d used it to shield Jesse’s face as he dragged him from the lab.

Mr. Rossi holds up a hand, indicating it’s no trouble -- not too fond of formal gestures and greeting, either, it seems -- and puts his hands in his pockets instead.

“Aaron sent me,” is his answer, paired with a patient stare that observes every minute twitch of Spencer’s face and body language. He knows this easily, can see the profiler in him turned all the way up to 11, and suddenly -- Spencer can’t control his face or appearance in the slightest. Not after --

Aaron? As in--

“Hotch?”

-

The kid looks stricken, surprised with tinges of worry bleeding through.

“Hotch sent--” his eyebrows knit together in confusion, looking in the direction of the fire crews still trying to put out the building behind them. The lab explosion is still a fresh occurrence, smoke streaming into the sky and no one even allowed to leave the scene, yet. Garcia must have gotten the alert the moment it happened.

“Penelope has you on a friends and family list,” Rossi explains. “She is alerted as soon as there’s any trouble with anyone -- and the cell towers are down. Aaron called me as soon as he couldn’t get ahold of you. Probably pacing a hole in the floor of his office as we speak.”

There’s a fondness in the way one side of Dr. Reid’s lips tilt into a small, surprised smile, gaze far away as if trying to see 3,000 miles across the country. A complicated mix of touched that Hotch was worried about him, and sorry for worrying him in the first place -- although the moment he recognizes Rossi profiling him where he stands, he schools his expression into one hell of a poker face. Even Dave is impressed, the kid has some gumptcha about him after all.

“He moves fast,” Dr. Reid murmurs, again fond and maybe a little embarrassed, heightened when Dave snorts and raises an eyebrow at him.

“You would know better than me.”

Okay, so he might be trying to rile the man up, but Aaron is obviously head over heels for this kid and Rossi is nothing if not thorough in his scrutiny of his prospects.

The kid gapes at him, eyes narrowed again and about to say something when the paramedic interrupts them with, “Dr. Reid, I just got the okay to take him to the hospital. Are you riding along?” He turns and addresses her, as Rossi continues to profile him beneath the soot and damp. A slight thing, tall as Aaron is and dressed like a movie extra in a prohibition flick. Taking the academia style to a new extent, probably to counter his age if he’s had his doctorates as long as it looks like he has. What had Aaron said? Five Ph.D.’s and runs three departments, and he’s 30? That’s not just a genius, that’s unprecedented. Dave is surprised no one from the bureau snatched him up while he was still young and impressionable.

“Jesse, just call or text if you need anything, I’ll talk with the dean and try to get things at least marginally smoothed over,” he assures the younger student, and they see off the ambulance as it pulls out of the over-crowded parking lot, sirens blaring. “I apologize, this isn’t a common occurrence around here.” He’s giving Dave his own appraising looks, now, and he can’t help but be amused as well as curious in his speculation. “You know Hotch -- Aaron, from the BAU, then?” he phrases it like a question, but they both know the answer and Rossi lets the formality slide. The kid is used to speaking with people not on his level of perception, just intellect.

“We’ve worked together off and on a long time,” Dave tells him, face as open yet stoic as Dr. Reid’s. “I’ve known him since he was your age, fresh and green from the prosecutor’s office. He was running out of the Seattle field office, back then. Bright and eager thing that he was.”

That draws another smile to Dr. Reid’s face. The same soft, sentimental one that definitely looks smitten if Dave’s ever seen it. “I’d love to hear some of those stories,” he admits, and Rossi nods slowly in agreement.

“I’m sure you would.” It comes off a little condescending, even he will admit, and that tugs a frown back onto the young doctor’s face. “I’m a good storyteller. Made a living off of it.”

“I’ve read all your books, I’m aware,” Dr. Reid says, and there’s a tone in his voice that says Rossi need not be impressed that he’s done so. The kid must read a lot, if it causes such a small blip on his radar. “And from the eleventh chapter of your third book, as well as the seventh chapter and acknowledgements of your second one if I can be so bold to assume, you seem to have some underground ties with the Italian mafia as well. Unofficially.”

Okay, the kid is sharp.

“Unofficially,” Dave parrots, a tease of a smile on his face. Impressed. “Did you work that out on your own? Or would some of my… old friends know of you if I mentioned your name?”

“Not unless they have ties in Vegas,” he says cryptically, hands in his pockets and continuing to peak Rossi’s curiosity by the minute.

“Vegas? Got into trouble there one weekend?”

“I’m from Vegas, born and raised,” the kid reveals. “And I’ve been banned from every casino floor for my card counting abilities and algorithms in poker and slot machine statistics.”

Vegas, huh. “Well, that explains the poker face,” Dave tells him, making a circular motion to his own which still mirrors Dr. Reid’s in not giving anything away.

Aaron picked a winner, it seems.

“So, is this is your version of… what do they call it… a ‘shovel talk’?”

Dave decides to play the part. “You could say that.”

He pauses, then, the two having progressed through the equivalent of a verbal chess match and Rossi already has a highly different opinion of him than he had walking in. First impressions are a bitch, and apparently he is going to continue to be surprised. Dr. Reid licks his lips in a unique nervous tick and chooses his next words very carefully, if the prolonged quiet was anything to go by. “I’m glad Hotch has a friend like you, that treats him like family.”

“He is family.” Dave would do anything for Hotch, and he is vehemently reminded of that in this moment. “I love that man as if he were my own son, so you understand why I’m protective of him. After everything he’s been through, he doesn’t deserve another second of trouble, and he has been through enough for a lifetime. More than you could ever know.”

Dr. Reid crosses his arms then, his first tell, but it’s a purposeful one. His way of leveling with Dave about something they probably shouldn’t be speaking about in public like this, but Dave wanted to get the kid on his toes. Make him uncomfortable. He’s smart as a tack but does he have the heart to go with it? The kind that Aaron deserves?

“... I do know. We’ve… discussed it, a couple of times.”

“Really?” The kids nods. “All of it? Foyet? Haley? Jack?” He still nods. “So you do know about Jack. You’re aware that Aaron isn’t just a one man show, he’s a package deal.”

“Of course I know about Jack,” Dr. Reid says with a more intense frown. “We talk about him all the time. I’ve even talked with him on the weekends here and there; he’s a sweet, smart kid. Hotch loves him more than anything, how could I not know about him?”

“You’ve spoken with Jack?” Rossi is genuinely surprised by this. Aaron wouldn’t have introduced them if this was still an experimental thing. He’s only asking all the uncomfortable questions because they need to be asked, Dave worries about Aaron all the time and how lonely he’s been -- but the past months or even longer he’s been better. Happier. All because of this kid. Every sign and notion here is pointing towards this being a very serious thing -- and they haven’t even met.

The kid seems to read his mind, because he looks at least a little sheepish when he nods. “We’ve been talking for a year, now,” as if that was somehow an explanation. And in a way, it is. A year is a very long time. Hotch trusts him enough to introduce him to his son, even over the phone, and that’s no small step. Rossi needs to at least appreciate that much.

“So -- genius, accomplished, good with kids. Seems like Aaron has struck gold, finding you.”

Dr. Reid is watching him again through squinted eyes, guard all the way up and frown ever so slight -- but more intense for it. Interesting. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”

“I was, but not in a bad way,” Dave explains, and that deepens the frown on the kid’s face. Although it loses a lot of the seriousness when he does. “I’ll keep grilling you in the car.”

“--the car?”

“Yes. You’ve been cleared to leave the scene, and I’m assuming you would like to chance clothes,” he indicates to Reid’s ruined suit, the kid looking down at himself and trying to dust off some of the soot that has soaked into the fabric. “Also, we should probably call Aaron before he has an aneurysm. Hmm?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” It’s clear he knows Dave’s game, but is going to play along with it anyway. He really looks uncomfortable in those dirty clothes. Dave has an inkling the kid might be a bit of a germaphobe, which will be interesting in a house with a six-year-old boy, but that’s counting the chickens before they hatch and Dave has quite a bit more profiling to do before he’s made a decision about this Dr. Spencer Reid.

Although, his gut is telling him that Aaron might have indeed struck gold, somehow.

--

It’s in Mr. Rossi’s rental car that Spencer finally enters a area with cell service, his phone buzzing in his hands from missed calls and voicemails and messages alike. Apparently, word had spread fast about the explosion in his building -- it was nice to know that so many people were worried about him.

But he ignores them all, and dials Aaron’s single missed call back. It barely rings more than once before the man picks up.

“Spencer?”

“You are such a show off,” Spencer scolds gently, with no heat but more than a little amusement. “You had David Rossi come and check up on me?”

“--Dave is actually an old friend of mine and we work together, he owes me more favors than I can count. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Spencer assures him, quiet and enamored all over again. “One of my students miscalculated a calibration in their experimental combustion engine and it set the lab on fire. Everyone is out safe and the student suffered minor burns, although I’m pretty sure he’s getting suspended for this.”

“But you are okay?”

“When I saw him he looked a little like a chimney sweep, but he seems no worse for wear,” Rossi says next to him, out of the blue and loud inside the car cab. Spencer winces as Hotch sighs heavily through the phone.

“I don’t have you on speaker, I swear,” Spencer says quietly.

“No, Dave just has ears like a fox.” The other man groans. “No conversation is private, especially with him sitting right next to you. Hi Dave.”

“Hi Aaron, anyone else with you.”

“I am! Hi Dr. Reid,” Garcia chirps cheerfully in the background, bringing another smile to Spencer’s face. “I’m glad you’re alright, sugar bean. You had us worried sick.”

“I know, I’m so sorry Ms. Garcia--”

“Sweetie, you better just start calling me Penelope because -- if Rossi didn’t tell you -- you’re on the BAU family radar now. I’ve always got my eyes on you.”

Spencer laughs as her voice gets a little farther away, Hotch back to pacing the room and probably shooting her a look that doesn’t quite meet reprimand but is on the spectrum of scolding. He recognizes the tone from evenings when Jack is being over zealous in wanting his turn with Spencer on the phone.

“Where are you now?”

“Mr. Rossi is just driving me home so I can change clothes, but I need to go right back afterwards and assess the damage,” Spencer relays to him. “Talk some of my students off the ledge if they have to start their research dissertations over.”

“Okay. Just, be careful.” There’s such a heavy sense of worry and the frown so evident on his face that Spencer can’t help but want to smooth it out in any way he can.

“Of course. I’ll message you when we have cell service again, or when I get back home if we don’t.” It’s a needless assurance, but he hopes it helps ease Hotch’s still very obvious apprehension.

“Alright, I’ll call you later tonight.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

There’s a heavier pause, then. An unspoken word or several that hang very prominently in the air, and Spencer almost thinks he hears Hotch’s mouth part around them -- about to speak before he stops himself. Spencer knows his brow furrows in confusion, his own mouth open about to ask if he’s alright when--

“-- Bye, Spencer.”

“... Goodbye.” He adds, still confused, a little stunned and feeling like he’s missing something, which is not a place Spencer finds himself in often. Very suddenly lost in contemplation after Hotch hangs up, still looking at his phone.

Beside him, Rossi doesn’t look confused at all. In fact, he looks like something was just confirmed to him, and he makes a sound in his throat of affirmation.

“-- I think I hear church bells ringing.”

It takes Spencer more than a moment to understand what he’s indicating, and he has to tamper back any embarrassment or admonishment because… it’s not like he hasn’t thought about it.

“I’d settle for just hearing his voice across the room,” he admits quietly, still cradling his phone in his hands and glancing out the window to keep any open-ness in his expression from the seasoned profiler.

“Hmm… time will tell.”

Spencer stays deep in thought the rest of the drive, and Rossi blessedly leaves him be as they make their way through the streets of Pasadena.

--

They arrive at Spencer’s apartment complex not ten minutes later. A small series of two story white stone buildings with terracotta roofing, making it appear more like an Italian villa than temporary housing. Spencer explained, after Mr. Rossi inquired, that this was the faculty transitional housing, and he spent a lot of his doctorate years here since he had been too young to sign a lease on his own apartment or house. When he came of age, he just bought out his condo on the end to keep, as it had become more his home than Vegas had ever been. Then, when he returned after his doctorates at MIT he became somewhat of the permanent resident for everyone to turn to about anything on the campus.

“How did you afford a condo at 18?” Mr. Rossi inquires, and Spencer rolls his lips to keep any kind of smirk or smile off his face.

“Like I said, I was kicked out of every casino in Vegas. I also don’t have any student loan debt,” he adds flippantly, unbuckling his seat belt once Rossi has parked outside. Turning to the older man, he decides to cut to the chase -- because he does really want to change his clothes. “I assume you’re about to invite yourself in for coffee--”

“Oh? I thought you’d never ask.”

“So you can profile my living room while I change clothes? Sure, why not.” How dangerous could that be?

It’s more than apparent that Mr. Rossi knows Hotch well, holds him in high regard, and if Hotch has him on speed dial at a moment’s notice he must be someone that’s important in Hotch’s life… and he is also the first person that Spencer has met to fit that entitlement. As loathe as he is to admit it, Spencer finds craves the approval of the older man that he and Hotch are as good for each other as he hopes they are.

Maybe letting him poke around his apartment would help in that endeavor. After all, Spencer really doesn’t have anything to hide.

--

Dr. Reid’s apartment very much looks like the inside of a professor’s office, but extended to multiple rooms. There’s custom built bookshelves lining the walls of the living space, turning it into a library that is overflowing with books, and yet there are still more stacked in every room. In the kitchen against the backwash, in his actual office organized on low-rise shelves that hold collector’s editions even Dave raises an eyebrow at, and he doesn’t dare venture into the kid’s bedroom but he bets there’s even more books there as well. Art work from no known artists Rossi has ever heard of are framed on the walls, abstract things that are interesting and interpretive and probably belong to students (though not necessarily the doctor’s own), and there’s an absurd amount of coffee in his kitchen but at least the kid has taste.

His interests are varied, extensive, sophisticated, and yet -- in the corners he’ll find vintage Doctor Who figurines, Halloween decorations, a well-worn chess set sun-bleached under the window seat, and Go set up in the library that looks like he’s playing himself. But the most lived in room is his office, and Dave has a very good inkling why. Besides the kid’s work literally being his life, as is shown by the doctorate degrees lining the walls there, his laptop is open and the keys near faded from typing, and Dave knows it’s from countless late nights talking with Aaron. Because Aaron’s work laptop that he takes home with him looks the exact same.

“Did you learn anything?” Dr. Reid asks, appearing in the doorway in corduroys and a sweater vest over a new button down and tie ensemble. The layering helps fill him out, make him look less willowy than he is, and he seems to have tried to tame his hair but it’s still a curled, disheveled mess from the sprinkler systems at the lab. The kind of disheveled people pay hundreds of dollars to get through product alone.

“That you really, really like books.”

It’s such an absurd thing to say, and it takes the kid a beat but he laughs and there’s a set of dimples there on his face framing his wide smile and -- oh, Aaron is in trouble when he meets this kid.

“Um, yes, astute observation.”

“Have you actually read all of them?” Dave asks, peering into a glass china cabinet that’s been converted to hold very delicate first editions of Shakespeare and Proust and a few things that aren’t in English.

“Those I have, but the rest I haven’t,” Dr. Reid tells him, coming up on the other side of the desk and keeping a few feet between them. Allowing Rossi to continue to pick apart his life, indicating either some kind of power play or… this kid really has nothing to hide that he thinks Dave won’t find. Or that Aaron doesn’t already know about. “When I was visiting Prague for a conference once I was invited to the French ambassador's house for dinner. He has a library even larger than mine, and I asked him the same thing. He told me, ‘No, of course not, and I also haven’t sampled all the bottles in my wine cellar.’ ”

Dave ticks his head to the side in thought, and can’t help but agree. “Smart man. A real library isn’t for showing off a collection, it’s for giving yourself options.”

“All books are just waiting for the right time to be read, and I’ll get to them all eventually,” Dr. Reid shrugs, glancing around his office at titles that probably have been calling to him recently. “I read very fast, and once I’ve read them I either give them to people I think would enjoy them or I donate them.”

“Why not keep them? Won’t you want to read them again?”

“No need, I have an eidetic memory. I can recall everything I’ve read verbatim,” he says with a shrug, like it’s a common occurrence and Dave can’t help but stare at the kid. Who exactly was this guy?

“Why on Earth are you working at a university and not for a multi-million dollar think tank? Or for us? The bureau had to have contacted you at some point.”

“Oh, they did,” Dr. Reid says with a half smile, glancing to the chess board under the window. Avoiding eye contact that lasts longer than a few moments. “Jason Gideon tried for months when I was at MIT, but I backed out at the last minute. Don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for it.”

“That sounds like Jason,” Dave mutters, recalling his old partner and what he would have thought of a boy genius that soaks up everything he reads like a sponge. Doctorates already under his belt and just waiting to be molded into the perfect successor. He would have been chomping at the bit. Dave had been much the same about Aaron, when he first met him.

There’s much to consider about this Dr. Spencer Reid, but there’s also a handful of things to be wary of.

The kid is impressive, that’s for sure -- but he’s buried into this villa like a tick, under a pile of books and very much is used to a bachelor’s life. Everything is impeccably neat, the amount of soap and hand sanitizer he’s found does indeed confirm his theories of him being a bit of a germaphobe, and although there is a lot of stuff around his apartment everything also has its place. Cluttered, but lived in and cared for. If he and Aaron were really going to try and be a thing, would he be surprised by Aaron’s more minimal approach to décor? To his tendency to hold on to nostalgia items? Or the messiness of a young boy’s toys and children's amenities taking up all space and corners left unattended?

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Dave asks, before he really thinks about it, and the beat of silence as Dr. Reid takes his question seriously is more comforting than he realized it would be.

“No. But, I don’t think either of us really do,” Dr. Reid admits, leaning against his desk, thoughtful and honest. “What we have has... very much grown all on it’s own.” And Dave believes him, he’s seen it happen first hand. How it’s affected Aaron so slowly and over such a span of time he almost didn’t notice it.

Almost.

“And the long distance thing works?” Dave pries further, skepticism barely kept out of his voice but there enough he knows the kid can hear it. “You really have feelings for a man you’ve never even met? Who you don’t even know?”

That gets the younger man’s attention, and not in the way Rossi thought it would. His gaze snaps up, shocked, and… offended.

“Of course I know him,” he states, quiet and matter-of-fact. Light brown eyes as alight as they are defiant. “I know him better than I know anyone. I just don’t know what he looks like, and that doesn’t matter. Not to me.”

Again, Rossi almost believes him. He sounds like he means it, in a near naïve sort of way, but Dave has been around the block a time or two and experience tells him differently.

“Looks always matter.”

The kid shrugs in response, not at all fazed by his stubbornness. “I have a pretty accurate spoken description, if that eases your mind.” And oh, does Dave want to unpack that one, but this isn’t the time to delve into it when he’s giving the kid the intellectual third-degree.

“Does he have one of you?” he asks, accusing without specifications. Everyone always keeps a bit of themselves at bay, when speaking to another person, but if they were sharing physical descriptions then it sounds like those barriers are falling away bit by bit and there’s no knowing what Aaron has actually shared of himself to this kid.

His question creates a moment of unexpected pause.

“Yes? I mean, I cut my hair recently but I’m sure I mentioned it,” he murmurs, suddenly a little concerned, and Dave almost finds himself laughing.

All the skeletons he could have in his closet, and the first time this kid’s face has cracked is at the thought he forgot to mention he cut his hair.

Okay, Dave is sort of laughing. In utter disbelief, because the genuine-ness of this kid is near overpowering. He’s factual, he’s private, but he’s not sinister or plotting anything and he’s definitely got the quiet, book worm thing going for him. Maybe Aaron did strike gold, after all.

“Relax, kid, if a haircut is what you're most troubled about keeping from him I don’t think I have much to worry about.” The array of emotions that crosses the younger man’s face is almost comical. The frown at Dave calling him kid, the embarrassment that he’s worried he kept anything at all from his better half, to relief -- relief that Dave has given him a stamp of approval. It hits him then that the kid views him almost literally as the father-figure he had claimed himself to be to the other agent, and this was his version of meeting the parents.

Well, then, better make it worth the stereotype.

“Just… be careful with him,” Rossi levels with him, and Dr. Reid gives him his utmost attention. Direct eye-contact and all. “Don’t break his heart, because I don’t know if he will have much left over if you do. After the past couple years, I never thought he’d be the same, but he’s come back into himself and I’m grateful to you for that.” The softness in his face is palpable, and Dave knows the other man feels the weight of what he’s telling him. “But if you hurt him, I’ll make what happens after look like an accident. Capisci? ”

Dr. Reid nods seriously, and answers him back in kind, “Capisco.” The verb connotation actually catches Dave off guard, enough that his own expression finally softens into half a smile.

“Molto buona.”

--

“So… I talked with your boy toy.”

“God,” Hotch groans, head tipping back and already regretting answering his phone in the middle of the afternoon. “Do not call him that.”

“I just dropped him off back at the lab, it’s still a mad house but he went in looking to set a lot of people straight so I think he’ll be just fine.”

That’s a relief to hear, and Hotch feels his shoulders and spine begin to relax where they’d been tense and creating knots in his muscles for hours on end, ever since he’d been in Garcia’s office.

“Thank you, Dave,” he says, and means it more than he can really relay accurately. Rossi makes a sound of admonishment, passing it off as if he hadn’t made Hotch metaphorically bend over backwards to get him to go there. He can’t even imagine what the man had asked Spencer during their time alone together, but if anyone would get a good character assessment out of the interaction then it would be David Rossi.

The beat of silence is as heavy as it is long, and before Hotch can come up with something that doesn’t sound leading, Dave sighs and barrels over him.

“Go ahead, ask what you want to ask.”

“...What did you think?” Hotch’s words are low and careful, not entirely sure he wants Dave’s opinion but… he’s actually met Spencer, now. The only person Hotch knows who has. “What’s he like?”

“You know him better than I do, Hotch, and it’s obvious that you are head over heels for that kid. But if you really want to know what I think -- you are going to have your hands full, and you are going to fall hard and fast if you haven’t already.”

“Yeah, a little late for that,” Hotch tells him, hints of a smile in his voice and on his face, and the response surprises even himself. There’s a lot of revelations that have hit him one after the other today, and they all seem to be pointing towards the same direction.

Rossi can’t seem to help but smirk at him down the line, an upbeat sound in reaction to Aaron’s own subdued happiness -- because his friend really is, finally happy -- and of course it’s in an impossible situation. Now Hotch has to scoff a laugh. That sounds just like him.

“He’s quite a looker, too,” Rossi teases, baiting, and Hotch can’t help but scoff for a whole different reason, then.

“And how would you know?”

“I can appreciate a handsome fella without being attracted to them.”

“Sure, Dave,” Aaron deadpans, not even wanting to humor the man.

“Little too ‘pretty’ for my aesthetic, though--”

“O-kay, thanks again Dave. Happy to have your stamp of approval.” But he can’t help but wonder what ‘pretty’ is supposed to mean. “Have fun at your conference, I’m sure you’re going to be late to the cigar room.”

“Worth every missed minute to meet your mystery man.”

Hotch hangs up with a roll of his eyes, not sure how or why he picked up David Rossi as one of his close friends and not really finding much reason to keep him other than he has a whole lot of heart. But that’s always been reason enough. He turns with a half smile still on his face, and freezes when he sees Garcia in his doorway of his office, a secretive smile all her own on her neon bright pink lips. He doesn’t even reprimand her for sneaking up on him, just levels a look at her and mutters, “What?”

“For what it’s worth, he is very pretty,” she out right smirks, coy and loving Hotch’s reaction as he narrows his eyes at her, brow furrowed and searching. “What? I ran his background check months ago, I know exactly what he looks like. And Rossi is right, you’re going to be so smitten, sir.”

Oh no, now the whole team is going to know.

“I think I’m going to take your word for it over his,” Hotch admits, and relinquishes the smallest traces of a smile. Just for the tech analyst, and no one else. “Thanks, Garcia. For today, and for… keeping an eye on him.”

“Always, sir,” she tells him, biting back a too wide grin all her own. “It’s good to see you happy again, I’ve missed those dimples.”

“Garcia.”

“Right, on my way,” she giggles, and leaves in a colorful flurry of clicking heels and retro skirts.  

--

Cell service doesn’t return that day to the CalTech campus, and although Hotch is acutely aware that Spencer is probably busy cleaning up the mess and wading through mountains of reactionary protocol and hazmat jurisdiction (he’s been there himself before, on cases with bioweaponry and science tech labs) he can’t help but feel like he’s holding his breath until later that evening. When Spencer finally messages him once he has the cell range to do so, letting him know he’s on his way home. Meaning Hotch had been left to his thoughts all afternoon and evening, awaiting the younger man’s presence once more.

And Hotch has had… much to think about.

They never really talked about Hotch’s near death experience months ago, when Spencer had quite literally saved his life with just a phone call. Day in and day out Hotch is faced with dangerous situations, knows all the proper procedures and training to navigate them safely and effortlessly. But when it comes to the unexpected accidents? The ones that occur outside his sphere of influence and control, he doesn’t always quite handle them the way he should. Either shutting down entirely in order to regain that control, or drowning in the emotional turmoil it can cause.

It isn’t until he hears Spencer’s voice on the phone later that night, just past dusk for the other man in California, that he’s able to put all of this in order. Unpack it in a way that he can articulate and convey, because Spencer knows just from the way he greets him that something is wrong. Weighing heavily on his mind, and has been for hours on end.

“Is it selfish of me to say I don’t like the idea of you in harm’s way?” Hotch starts with a jesting, rhetorical thing that doesn’t quite hit any kind of punchline.

“Well, luckily for you, I’m not in the profession of dangerous scenarios,” Spencer tells him, pointed and yet with an aim for comfort. Hotch supposes he had that one coming.

“Like me.”

“Like you. I always worry about you, although I know you’re more than capable.”

Hotch sighs, because he knows that Spencer puts up with this very situation constantly. Just as Haley had, when they’d been married, until she hadn’t been able to stand it any longer. “I just… don’t know what I would have done if you’d been hurt. Fly out there? Show up at the hospital, maybe -- that wouldn’t have been the greatest first impression, I’m sure.”

“I’d be mortified if we met and I was in a hospital bed.”

“You know I wouldn’t care.”

“I know.” It’s Spencer’s turn to sigh. He’s exhausted from the events of the day, Rossi’s visit and interrogation, but having the older man still so attentive and caring on the other line has him warm with too many emotions and chemicals to name. Even though he can, composition and all: a warm bath of monoamines, dopamine, neopinephrine and serotonins flooding through him. All seeped in phenethylamine, which is well known for creating the chemical reactionary symptoms of… well...

“Hotch, I’m okay,” Spencer insists, soft and gentle, tenderness there he doesn’t give to just anyone. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

There’s a long silence following that. It’s heavy and prominent, and Hotch keeps opening his mouth, the words wanting to come out but… he doesn’t know if he should let them. A year’s worth of time and words piling up behind it until he isn’t sure he can really hold it back much longer.

“Hotch?” Spencer asks, worried again. “What is it?”

Another long pause, a sigh that’s… weighed down with even more emotion than before, and Spencer feels his own breath catch as he waits.

“I love you.”

It’s said so profoundly, softly, it resonates through the phone and Spencer finds he can’t even breathe.

A series of heartbeats progresses, and despite every attempt he can’t find his voice again.

“You don’t have to say it back, I just wanted you to know.”  

Spencer’s brain kickstarts into a mild panic, and words suddenly spill forth like a broken damn.

“No! No, it’s not that -- you have no idea how long I -- I just…”

He’d had a plan, daydreams on daydreams, compounding and building and this wasn’t the moment he thought it would happen if it happened at all and Spencer finds himself near speechless with how it has appeared before him. Completely unprepared.

“I always thought… hoped, that when I told you I would… be saying it in person.”

Not through a phone. He wants one milestone that isn’t through the damn phone, his lifeline and his bane and what connects him to the man he can’t even imagine living without anymore.

Hotch makes a sound that’s more winded than vocal.

The thought of seeing Spencer in person sends a flurry of fluttering sensations through his chest and stomach, and Hotch can’t help the warm, soft smile on his face. Because between the lines, Spencer had already said it back, and that alone is enough to floor him. Spencer loves him, too, and he wants to say it to his face. He wants to meet. He’s thought about it, he was planning on it.

He wants --

“Then wait,” Hotch tells him, reassuring and adoring and unbelievably smitten -- just like Garcia had said. “Save it for then. I don’t mind the waiting.”

“But I --”

“I know.” Hotch all but sighs out the words, heavy and wonderful and full of promise. “I do know, Spencer, and the knowing is enough. You can tell me when we… when we meet.”

Some day. One day.

“Soon?”

“Soon. I promise.”

Spencer is… not crying, he doesn’t cry. Hasn’t cried in years and years, the only time close had been those months ago when this wonderful man almost slipped through his fingers and out of his grasp, but his vision goes blurry and it has nothing to do with his glasses steaming up. He takes them off and rubs at them, clearing his throat so he doesn’t choke out his response. “Okay.”

The strain in those two syllables makes Hotch’s heart ache, and Spencer’s feels so tightly wound in his chest the heart-strings are more than binding. They hurt they ache so badly.

“How can I miss you this much without ever having met you?”

“I miss you too,” Hotch smiles, sadly.

“Maybe that’s not the right word. We’re as close as we’ve ever been, how can we miss a proximity we’ve never experienced?”

“It feels like the right term, I don’t have another way to describe it. That’s your area of expertise, I believe.”

Spencer huffs a humorless laugh, curled up on his couch and realizes he wants to hear Hotch say it again. Wants those low tones in his ear reminding him why they are doing this. Knowing he has no right to ask that of Hotch when he won’t even return the favor.

Then Hotch breathes out happily, slowly, and says it anyway. “I love you.”

Spencer smiles and exhales in relief, a mix of a laugh and a strangled sob. “You always know.”

“I can hear you fretting through the phone--”

“Oh yeah? Any ideas to get me to stop?” he jokes, half kidding, because he feels like he’s shaking out of his skin and he can’t pinpoint the source.

“...One,” Hotch says with an amused lilt.

“Hm?”

A slow pause. “--What are you wearing?”

Spencer burst into laughter, high and hysterical, and relief floods through him. He bites his lip as he hears Hotch chuckle quietly in turn, and then answers the older man in the same teasing lilt -- bordering on coy. “Still in my work clothes. Actually… I was just about to get undressed.”

“Hmm, lucky me.”

“I was going to change, Hotch,” he laughs in reprimand.

“Oh, there’s no need for that…”

And they dissolve into quiet laughter once more, perfectly timed and blended and the most wonderful sound in the world.

–

(tbc…)

–

Tagged List: @spencehotchner @ssa-sarahsunshine @gothamapologist @reidology @marsjareau @dragon-snaps-fandom​ @emmyraebird @just-an-emo-rat​​​ @aaron-hotchner187 @dk18077 @more-heid-pls @fakin-it-til-i-make-it @merpancake @anxious-enby​

#another super long one #I'm putting this on a timer so I hope to God it actually posts when it should #and that it isn't out of order #everyone form a prayer circle that this super duper long snippet isn't all out of order #thank you so much for reading I hope you all enjoy it #if you want in on the tags list I can always add to it just hit me up #Correspondence #HotchReid #heid #katyswriting

[belovedstill]

hi!! i have a question... i saw your reblog about freewriting and i wanted to try it myself cause i have a hard time with writing because of my anxiety but i'm not sure i understood 100%. what do you actually write while you freewrite? is it related to what you're working on at the moment, like do you freewrite a scene (kind of like sprinting in a way) or just random words/thoughts in your head?

hi <3 i understand you 100% because sometimes (most of the time) when i sit down with the intention to write, my brain subconsciously goes "okay, the pressure's ON, everything i write must be useful for the fic" (and then i go "wait, @ brain, what fic? i don't even know what fic i would write, i just want to write" and brain says "it must be useful for the fic" (which btw doesn't help, thanks @ brain but no thanks))

i will start by honestly saying that while I've been doing this for many years, I've never had a word for it. If my memory's right, then I've never heard the term "freewriting" before. I'd either call it stream of consciousness or messaging a friend or word vomit or scribbling

(i'm going to share some photos & screenshots as examples because i personally appreciate examples for things i don't know how to even start doing; i'll include content warnings above the photos wherever applicable. These things were not meant to be seen by other people, obviously, so not all of them are neat, not all of them are in English or spelled correctly, and not all of them make sense, some might not even be Socially Acceptable (i'm very anxious as well, you see, so I ask people to be kind if you do take a look at the examples and decipher what's written), but that's the whole point of these: you let your mind go without worrying about where it's going)

I'm sure every person who does freewriting does it differently but here are several ways i do it (under the cut because it got very long as i pretty much (ayyyy) freewrote it):

test a pen/pencil! you know when you get a new pen and write down the most random thing on a piece of paper to see what the ink looks like and how it feels to write using that pen? for me it's usually a single word or a phrase from a song (my go-tos are hello, wait, Beloved (my MC's name, shhh) and other fictional characters' names or Why you gotta be so mean? from Taylor Swift's song "Mean", don't ask me why because i have no answer)

writing down the lyrics to a song that's currently stuck in your mind and living there rent-free, and if you forget the next line or if something else pops into your head - let it take you over

write on random pieces of paper! the less it reminds you of a notebook/blank page, the better! sometimes that means what's left of printer paper or post-it notes. actually, most of the photos of paper pages in this post are from my poor quality notebooks - the paper is too thin or not smooth or the pages are yellowish, so i don't feel bad """wasting""" the notebook for doodles, random scribbles, etc.

a diary entry? a diary entry, except there doesn't have to be depth to it, no journaling type of reflection on your feelings, on your experiences, on the Daily Journaling Prompt necessary--unless you want to. in my case it's mostly complaining about the pen i decided to use or the quality of the paper but!!! because i let myself write anything and everything on one page, at one point it feels natural to write some random story sentences on the other page

CW: implied past physical abuse

brainstorming! here's where, for me, the "messaging a friend" name came from. i have a very vague idea for what i want to write or a very small detail i want to write about, but nothing else. i set up a timer and write everything down (the screenshot is taken from my very own personal discord server, it's just me and a writing bot. at one point i realised that whenever i was brainstorming or writing cheer up ficlets in my friends' discord DMs, writing went super easy because my brain didn't register it as writing, but as chatting. At first, I formatted a new google doc so it looked exactly like discord's dark theme, but ultimately decided that just creating a new server just for my writing process/practice/etc and stuff is easier)

CW: harmful & discouraging stuff asexual people face

"I don't know what to write, I don't even think I want to write an actual story, it's not going to stop me" kind of writing. Anything goes and I mean anything. The sentences aren't connected. There's no actual idea or story behind the sentences. You're just writing a word after a word after a word. Sometimes a question appears in your mind, so you write it down. The question leads to more questions, or maybe an answer, or maybe you realise you like the feel/sound of one word so you write it again and again. After you wrote the word three times, tiny ideas form in your mind, things you relate to that word. Then you lose track of the thought so you write "I lost track", then a piece of dialogue floats in your mind that's probably inspired or part of a song lyric you wrote earlier

CW: unconventional/controversial lovers

if your writing anxiety is caused by fandom wank regarding some topics, tropes, themes, or even genres, know that if you freestyle about the thing you're worried somebody would judge you for, nobody else will read it. you can delete the doc afterwards. you can password protect it. you can tear the page out of your notebook and shred it to pieces. i won't include a photo example of this one (anxious, remember? also, it's nsfw) but i did this with smut-specific words and phrases. i got a blank piece of paper and wrote--first, just words (nouns for genitalia, verbs for action, etc. let me tell you - i was alone in the room and even trying to write the first word was difficult, in my head i kept thinking back to people's conversations on how "problematic these words are" etc etc etc and that fed my anxiety even further because "oh god what if they knew i was about to write this, what would they think of me"), then the words combined into phrases, then common smexy phrases that characters in smut say, and so on and so on. no punctuation because it's not a story. you know what happened after i put that first word on the page? nothing. i felt silly, sure, but i repeated the word several more times and still no People From the Internet barged into my room to ridicule & judge me. during that session, freestyling for that genre got easier and easier with every word.

Two posts that helped me realise that warming up for writing (and anything creative) is a good idea:

Writers need warm up sketches too (my way of warm up is usually either freewriting or using a typing speed website)

The anatomy of a pen/pencil etc

...and I think that's all from me 💕 apologies for how long this is but I hope it helps you in some way *hugs*

#shhh B #B replies #Anonymous #...aaa i don't want this to show up in the general tags but i want to find it later #you feel me? #writing #anyway i really hope it helps and if anything's too confusing please let me know and I'll try to explain better alter #*later

[wollfling]

Hello! I have an art question, if you don't mind talking about art stuff! I'm trying to get better at drawing, but having a really hard time with figuring out how to draw people. I feel like I've made progress with things like animals, objects, etc but I just can't get my drawings of people to improve! You draw people (and everything else tbh!!) so beautifully, do you mind if I ask how you learned to draw them? Or if you have any advice? Thank you for posting your art here, you're such a big inspiration and I love seeing your posts when they come across my feed! 💗

I love talking about art stuff!!! ♡ firstly, thank you aww ;×;) !! I'm so flattered, its really so sweet of you to say that!!

(( oh my god once again I've written so much I am so sorry! I put a tldr at the end, I couldn't quite go into much detail about specifics because im not quite sure what specifically you would like to improve, but I did try to cover some bases but please don't be afraid to message me with any more info or questions!!! ))

I'm a bit of the opposite where I can only draw people and struggle making progress with everything else lol, I admire you a little bit!! 🤭

People can be hard to capture, because we naturally (subconsciously?) examine them trying to determine things like emotion and im not quite sure how to put it but... health? For most people, its easy to see if someone is tired or sick at a glance. This comes into play when drawing people because we are wired to immediately analyze everything about them and pick up things that are wrong (think of uncanny valley type stuff!)

I often think about something bob Ross said, I dont have the time to hunt it down but what he said was basically along the lines of; he prefers painting scenery, because when we see a scenic painting its easier to think "this looks like somewhere ive been!" And its more believable. Meanwhile, its hard to capture the exact likeness of someone. If its a little off, we feel it looks "bad". I may have changed or added some points in there, but I think that was the general idea? 🤔 thats not to say scenic paint is easy in any way, its just about how we view it.

My point in this is, the key to drawing people is to create a believable figure. And how to achieve this depends on the style you draw them in ! I can only offer advice for stylized drawings (i struggle to draw hyper realistic people, and I also just don't enjoy it? Lol) but im assuming that since you like my art you're okay with that? ^^

In regards to how I learned to draw, well.. ive been doing it since I can remember ^^; I grew up watching anime which definitely altered my style and interests, and when i was in high-school I transitioned from an "anime adjacent " style, to a generalized "stylized" look, and now I strictly use photo reference which has helped make my style less cartoony but it still shares cartoon elements I feel? For a long time I drew without using references at all which im sure also contributed to how I draw things now. I havent had a chance to take art classes, so I've learned mostly by self study. Practicing drawing from reference, looking up tips and tricks youtube videos, watching other artists work and looking closely at their pieces to try and see how they achieve certain looks. Eventually it all adds up! How i draw people is a reflection of like 20 years of this!!

My biggest regret is not taking art "seriously" and going nearly all of those 20 not properly studying. This is my biggest piece of advice :^( unfortunately, im still learning how to do this myself, I think "studying" is a learned skill and hard to do without instruction. But if you can draw animals and objects I think you probably know a little bit on how to. So then looking a bit deeper into "improving", what about your drawings do you feel are lacking?

Circling back to my earlier paragraphs, how you want to improve depends on what sort of style you are going for and the way you want to portray or capture people. Portraits rely on technical skill i think. I'm not sure i could offer valuable advice here..

Comics, manga, and graphic novels sole intention is to tell a story through drawings. They don't give metaphors (usually!! Sometimes they do but not in the context im trying to explain) and/or tell us how characters are feeling, they show us! This is why the art styles of them often have exaggerated features, and simplified features. The eyes tend to have more detail because we read eyes for emotion, mouths are exaggerated because they are key to reading emotion (most importantly so I think! Watch: 🙂☹ the only difference is the mouth, but we can tell they feel totally different emotions.) Noses in comparison are usually more simplified as they, out of all features of the human face, are the least expressive.

If you want to improve your drawings of people so that they are more expressive and relatable, I would try to analyze how your face changes with emotion and perhaps practice with one of those emotion chart meme templates!

Illustration work is similar, but I feel the face doesn't actually matter as much. If you look at full bodied illustrations of people and zoom in on the face, you'll find that they are sometimes quite simplified! When viewing a full bodied person we generally take in the body's language first. It would take me a long time for me to explain in detail on this post (though I would love to talk about body language in illustration please let me know of you would like me to... also the body language of two figures.. but ill spare you for now ♡) I would recommend gesture drawing and timed studies. I improved drawing so much when I started doing this (I use the site quickposes a lot, set a high timer and draw!!) If drawing the face is hard for you and you can't seem to get anywhere, try focusing on the body for a little bit! Especially how bodies look when bending and twisting.. which might sound random, but I think it helps get a better understanding on how proportions can change with pose.

I wrote so much and I really didn't mean to. Its always hard to answer questions like this without much information like what your goal is and what look you want to achieve. I hope I didnt scare you away with my horrible novel of an answer but if you'd like to give more detail or ask any more questions please I welcome you to!! I love talking about art and I love love love hearing about other peoples art ;^; ♡

Tldr; when trying to improve drawing people it may not be as simple as working on technical skill, its important to keep in mind purpose, emotion, body language, and art style

#i always feel bad when people message me and I reply with an entire novel #which is 90% of the time....dhsjhsj #anon i hope i was even a little bit helpful..

[ali3nboyfriend]

I've recently been asked to do a role play by someone who likes the same show as I do. I've never done one before and I'm kind of nervous. Do you have any tips for first time role players?

it’s been a while since I was a first timer myself, I started roleplaying on the Neopets forums when i was about… ten or eleven? and I’m twenty-five now, so it’s been a hot minute and the Neopets forums were a much different beast than Tumblr, DM, or Discord roleplays nowadays.

but i can def give you some basic tips that i know now, and i hope they help!

first off, communicate with your partner. this is like, given in any situation where you’re working with someone else, but it’s an important step a lot of people overlook.

when you first start out, there’s some things you’ll wanna establish: who are you both playing? what’s the mood of the roleplay, is it fluffy, angsty, hurt/comfort, maybe on the saucier side? shippy at all, totally platonic, or you’ll see where things go when they get there? what do you both want out of this? do you have any ideas for plots, do you want to plot at all, or would you both prefer to just wing it? 

when it comes to roleplaying, a lot of people’s writing preferences tend to align with the things they like to read (particularly in fanfic). not always! i, for example, like to read eldritch horror, but i hate the idea of actually writing it. but! i do love to read stuff with a happy ending with my favorite characters, and because i like consuming that sort of content, i won’t write anything with a “bad end”. if you already write as a hobby, figuring out your roleplaying preferences should be fairly easy – you already have a good general idea of what you like to do.

once you’ve figured out what sort of stuff you would like to write, set boundaries. what won’t you write? any particular ships with your characters of choice you refuse to do? any ship dynamics? genres, scenarios, anything triggering or squicky you just hate seeing? are you like me and you won’t write sad endings or character death, or you’d hate for your partner to write character death with you? make sure you both have those understandings set, and it’s okay if you don’t know something will upset you until it happens – just make sure you tell your partner when that DOES happen. and if your partner tells you “this makes me uncomfortable,” then you stop, and you either rework it or you do a different scene. no exceptions.

another good thing to decide is what length are writing at here? do you want full paragraphs? if yes, smaller ones, or bigger? are we doing one-liners or just dialogue replies? none of these are inherently better or worse or “lazier” than the others, and do not EVER let anyone tell you otherwise – it’s STRICTLY about your preferences and what kind of energy you have for that sort of thing.

between me (cayde) and my partner faye (ikora)

short dialogue roleplay and one-liners can be just as fun, character-developing, and rewarding as long paragraphs.

between me (theo) and my partners, faye (julia) and sprite (keylime)

between me (cayde) and my partner faye (ikora)

or it can be just as silly.

there’s a couple pieces of etiquette that all good roleplayers follow:

do not “power play”. if your character couldn’t feasibly know something, then they don’t know it. if they couldn’t feasibly do something, then they can’t do it. and even if your character is super powerful compared to your partner’s character, always give your partner’s character a chance to shine – don’t hog the limelight.it’s less fun to play with a partner that’s not giving you an equal share of the story.

do not “god mod” or “god mode”. god modding is the act of taking control of the other player’s character or otherwise saying that things just happen without consulting the other roleplayer. don’t do this. always leave their character’s actions up to them.this also includes always allowing your partner’s character a chance to react or even feasibly STOP any actions your character might be making. for example:DO NOT: “He grabbed him by the collar and slung him with all his might at the nearest shelf of cereal. He smiled as he watched it topple over, falling onto his enemy below.”that kind of thing is fine in regular writing, when you’re the only one contributing. it’s less okay in roleplay, unless you’ve specifically asked your partner, “hey can my guy throw yours into a shelf?”DO: “He grabbed for his collar, rage in his eyes. The moment he could, he was going to send that man directly into the nearest cereal shelf.”this 1) allows the other character to react and maybe dodge, if that’s what they want to do, and 2) gives the other roleplayer a clear understanding of what you intend for your character to do once that collar is grabbed, so they can decide if dodging is on the agenda.it’s just fairer that way!

finally, i know i’ve written a lot and this post is fairly long, but at the end of the day, roleplaying’s just a For Fun hobby that should always be treated as such. if you’re not having fun, it’s a-okay to either put it down or try coming at it a different way. if your partner judges you for that, they’re not worth your time. period, end of story.

never let anyone make you feel like roleplaying is a job, or a chore. it is not your job. you’re NEVER obligated to continue with it if you’re not having fun.

#free to reblog #Anonymous #answered #long post

[thelittleseawitch22]

🌿Altars/Shrines part 3

Finally it's part three!🌻🌼🍃

🌿You can find part 1 & 2 on my page under the tags 'altar' and 'altar ideas'🌿

So in this post I'll be showing my Aphrodite & Apollo altar, second part of my 'main' altar which is for Hecate/Hekate, Rhea and Cronus/Kronos and my little altar/shrine for Demeter.

So first, my altar for Apollo & Aphrodite.

All of the tall white statues were given to me as a gift, they were sort of given as a 'set' so that's why a Caryatid stands at the back I didn't want to separate her 😂.

I got the two smaller statues weirdly enough before I was given the bigger ones. Which is why I thought it was fitting for Aphrodite and Apollo to share an altar (it was kinda like they were showing me in a way).

At the back I have gathered some shells and also placed a golden snake on Apollos statue for him. At the moment I am offering them a summer rose & oud candle (it smells amazing not gonna lie).

Like my other altars I've got some artwork that I like pinned at the back & at the side on the bookcase I drew some symbols of theirs.

Back at the front for Aphrodite I put a stone I had found at Crete in the shape of a love heart, a white clam shell and a pink stone/rock I had found on my walk abouts.

Lastly I have a column candle holder on each side for again candle offerings (which I do alot will probably make a post on it at some point). And a shell with evil eye cocktail sticks inside which was given to me by my friend when she visited Turkey.

Now for the second part of my 'main' altar.

From left to right, I have dedicated my rocks and crystals to Rhea, especially the snow quartz egg seeing as she is the mother of the gods (Zeus,Poseidon,Haides,Demeter,Hera and Hestia).

And yes that is a tea light holding it up, when your broke you get creative. She also watches over some of my divination things which are crystal such as pendulums and runes.

In the middle I have put my things for Hecate or Hekate, a crystal ball I don't do much scrying as I find it to be a very hard type of divination to get used to but seeing as Hekate is the goddess of witchcraft I thought I would actually give it to her as an offering of sorts.

I put a skull and a amethyst crystal to represent the underworld. A tall candle stick holder which reminded me to much of her not to put on there and my own drawing of her sacred symbol.

On the far right I have a little corner for Cronus or Kronos. As he is the god or titian of time putting a glass timer seemed fitting for him I am also going to add offering bowls when I get the chance. I gave him a old pocket watch with a horse on it which he weirdly seemed to approve of.

And lastly I have my little corner for Demeter, I dedicate all my Cacti to her seeing as it is the only plant I can have in my room. There is another one on the other side but I didn't take a picture of that... oops.

I'm hoping to get another cactus soon (I'm basically the cactus lady 😂😂) so I will also dedicate that one to her aswell.

Well...that's the end of my altars tour, I hope this gives ideas to others that are struggling to think of lay outs or ideas for their own.

If anyone has any questions feel free to pop up in my Ask box or Dms I don't bite 😁

🌊thelittleseawitch22🌊

#aphrodite* #lady aphrodite #apollo* #apollon #hekate* #hacate* #cronus* #kronos* #rhea* #greek deities #altar ideas #altars #window altar #demeter* #hellenic community #hellenism #hellenic polytheism #hellenic witch #hellenic pagan #hellenic polythiest #hellenic deities #dodekatheism #dodekatheist #hellenismos #polytheist #polytheism #witch #witchblr #witches #sea witch

[northbndtrain]

1/3 Hey I'm the recent Revenge anon. Wanted to share that I noticed something. This has three parts bc I'm not concise lol. The "Emily Thorne" persona is charming, speaks with a double meaning and cold behind the eyes. In scenes w/ Jack tho she's more silent. Almost like she doesn't know what to say or she's choosing not to. She can't quite cut him off but she can't let herself get deeper either. Then after Jack's dad dies, there's a kind of shift. She becomes familiar in how she speaks to him.

Hello again!

And that is a really great observation.

I went and got the transcripts of their scenes pre- and post- Jack’s father’s death to illustrate your point. (Transcripts appear courtesy of Forever Dreaming, a great archive for so many TV series transcripts!)

PILOT (1x1)JACK: I’m sorry. He’s not normally this friendly. He’s kind of an old grump, actually. Oh, he got mud on your dress.EMILY: Oh, that’s no big deal.JACK: There’s an Earl and Emma’s dry cleaners right around the corner. I’ll walk you over.EMILY: Oh, that’s okay. Um, I got it. Thanks.JACK: Well, hey. Uh, tell Earl and Emma that you’re a friend of Jack Porter’s. My family owns the tavern down by the docks, the stowaway. What’s… what’s your name? I’ll… put you on the official comp list.EMILY: You don’t have to do that.JACK: Well, I’m not picking up the tab. Sammy is. He feels terrible. Don’t you?EMILY: Thanks anyway.That’s a grand total of 21 words from Emily compared to Jack’s 80+, and she is definitely completely caught off balance, which is different from how she comes across when interacting with everyone else, from Nolan to the Graysons.TRUST (1x2)JACK: Emily Thorne. I swear to God, I’m not stalking you. Though I’m not sure the same could be said for my dog. Congratulations on the house.EMILY: Thank you.JACK: I hope you’re not planning on tearing it down and building yourself something like that.EMILY: Oh, no, no. Not at all. This house stays exactly the same.JACK: Good. It’s nice to know there’s somebody else out there with an appreciation for history. This place sure has a lot of it. Anyway, um, I’ll let you get back to your party. If you see Nolan, just let him know I split.EMILY: Yeah, no problem.Here, again, Jack talks far more than Emily does because, as you said, she’s holding herself back. (It’s actually kind of cute on Jack’s part – it’s as if the only way he can bring himself to deal with the weird feelings he’s having for this woman is by voicing every single thought that comes into his head.)BETRAYAL (1x3)EMILY: (returning Sammy) I found this old-timer at my door last night.JACK: Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize he was gone. I’m a little distracted. My dad just passed away from a heart attack.EMILY: Oh, my God.JACK: Yeah.EMILY: That’s awful. Is this him? I lost my dad suddenly, too. I’m so sorry.As you noted, there’s a shift here: it’s the first time she volunteers information to Jack (about her father).

2/3 It’s weird looking back but Jack and Emily were operating on a different playing field. He’s getting to know and pursuing someone’s whose an enigma. Emily tho already knows him and in cases like episodes 103 and 104 it shows. When he’s about to bury his dad’s ashes, she directly asks where his brother is. Or arguing about him to Nolan right in front of him lol. Or the dinner where she asks about him selling the bar. So far he’s the only one who seems to get her off track. In a genuine way.

Excellent point. Every interaction she has with Jack isn’t part of the plan, and that’s a great point about her reference to Declan, signaling to Jack (whether she realized it or not) her familiarity with his family and her concern that his brother wasn’t with him.

3/3 The only one she seems genuinely soft with. Even down to the more casual clothes she wears in the Amanda reveal scene. There’s no double meaning in scenes with him or cold eyes. But at the same time she always leaves before it can get deeper. Except for the dinner scene which even Nolan notes in that hilarious golf cart scene where he suddenly has to stop the cart and she’s right there glaring at him. I can’t find a gif of it but I love that she feels the need to threaten Nolan about Jack.

A really long time ago, I did a gif set of my favorite “Jack looking at Emily” moments, and I always meant to do a companion set of “Emily looking at Jack” moments. I even drew up a list of the “looks” I plan to use…just never got around to actually making the gifs. But your message is making me want to go back to that idea! Because you’re right – she is so genuinely soft with him. Extremely Amanda Clarke.

And I love your observation about her more casual clothes when she tells him who she is. It made me realize that she is also very casually dressed when they kiss for the first time.

Oh, and re: that Nolan golf cart moment – I’m sure one exists out there, but when I get a chance I can gif it along with the Jemily dinner.

Drop by the ask box any time!!

#revenge #reven8e #anonymous #asked and answered #commentary #northpost #emily thorne #amanda clarke #jack porter #jemily #there are so many THINGS i want to GIF #the struggle