#THANK YOU FOR BEING ONE OF THE KINDEST PEOPLE I'VE EVER MET

[lizslibrary]

Mirror

Summary: Reader is Bucky's next-door neighbor when they hear him having a nightmare. Reader helps him see his reflection in the mirror and reminds him that his scars are beautiful because they are proof that he survived.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for the support on my last story, It gave me the courage to write a second one. The last fic I wrote was done in the first person so I thought I would try my hand in second person to see how it goes. Please let me know of any compliments or criticism that you have, it would really help a lot! 🤍

Warnings: Nightmare, PTSD, Bucky being insecure, self-deprivation (Bucky,) Crying, hurt/comfort.

Word count: 1339.

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You awoke to the sound of screaming from across the hall, it didn't take long to figure out Bucky was having another nightmare. You prop yourself up on one elbow, rubbing your eyes as you adjust to being awake. Forcing yourself out of your bed, you open your door and step into the dimly lit hallway of your apartment building. You gently raise your fist and knock on Bucky's apartment door, hoping he'll answer.

Not long after, the door creaks open and Bucky stands in the doorway looking disheveled and tired. He was wearing loose sweatpants, and his skin was gleaming with sweat. his eyes reddened and brimmed with tears yet to be spilled. You stare at him for a moment noticing how his long hair is sticking to the sides of his face, and how there were dark smudges under each eye.

"Bucky?" You say softly, almost as if he was a bomb waiting to detonate. "Can I come in?"

Bucky nods quietly, holding the door open a little wider. I look around noticing how messy his apartment is. Pillows and blankets were on the ground, and his boots were on two separate sides of the room, one leaning against the TV stand, while the other was in the corner. The only furniture in the room was a small, grey couch and a little coffee table that sat between the TV and the sofa.

Bucky stared at you silently, his eyes were dark. "I'm sorry I woke you." He said, his voice low and shaky.

You shook your head "Don't worry about it Bucky, it wasn't your fault." You say gently, sitting down on his couch and gesturing for him to sit next to you. "Are you okay?"

Bucky shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair "No" He says quietly, closing his eyes. "They won't stop, every time I try to sleep these nightmares keep coming back."

Your heart began to ache at the thought of Bucky suffering through these awful nightmares, night after night. You recall all the times when he would wake you up screaming, telling you how he had just dreamt about Hyrda, about how these visions of death and violence constantly haunt him.

"You don't deserve this Bucky." You say, observing the way he covered himself up with a blanket.

Bucky turned to face you "I'm a monster..." he said lowly. He opened his mouth but no words came out. Bucky closed his eyes tightly, and tears fell freely from his cheeks.

"No Bucky, you're not." You say, gently placing your hand over his shaking one. "Bucky, you've done nothing wrong, none of this is your fault."

He looked away from you, eyes falling to the floor "I know, but I still did it."

You sigh "Buck, listen to me." You say, keeping your voice gentle. "You were being brainwashed and manipulated. They made you do horrible things that you had no control over."

Bucky remained silent, letting out a deep breath before looking at you. "They ruined me Y/n, my body is filled with ugly scars." He said pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "When I go out in public little people, children even, are scared of my arm...It just reminds me of my past and what I've done." He says softly "Hydra ruined me."

You place your hand on his blanket-covered back slowly making circles with my fingernails. "Bucky, you are the kindest most handsome man I've ever met, your past does not define your present." You say, "You have gone out of your way to protect and take care of me even before we became close."

His cheeks tinted pink "Y/n...thank you." He whispered, taking a deep breath "But-"

You stop him "No buts Bucky." You say firmly "Can I show you the Bucky that I see?" You take his hand, pulling the blanket off his back, and leading him gently into the bathroom turning him so that he can see his reflection in the mirror.

"What do you see when you look at yourself?" You ask, keeping your voice soft.

Turning his head away from the mirror, Bucky swallowed hard. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he took a deep breath. "Scars..." He mumbled, unable to meet your gaze.

You nod, rubbing his back "Anything else?"

Bucky peers back to the mirror, his eyes landing on the scar tissue that connects his shoulder to his vibranium arm, he clenches his jaw and grips the sink tightly.

Your gaze is soft as you watch Bucky look at himself, with sorrow and pain. He doesn't reply as he turns away from the mirror, dropping his head in shame.

"Listen to me bucky..." You say, standing next to him in the mirror "Your scars are beautiful."

He glances up at you "How could they possibly be?" He asks, fighting back the tears that welled in his eyes.

You smile warmly "Because you fought your way out of hell, you persevered through torture and you lived; they are a reminder that you survived." You tell him, your eyes never leaving his. "You are the strongest, most beautiful man I have ever met." You say, turning to face him.

Bucky wipes his eyes quickly, inhaling sharply. He stares at you a moment before letting out a deep breath "Thank you..." He whispers, averting his eyes once more.

You squeeze his hand lightly "You don't have to thank me." You say softly. "You deserved to hear it."

Bucky stares down at you, his glossy eyes filled with gratitude, before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into a tight hug. You wrap your arms around him in return, feeling the tension seep from his body. He sniffles "I don't deserve you doll." He whispers, bringing his forehead to rest against your shoulder.

"No, you deserve more."

You weren't sure why, but you felt like you needed to be persistent in reminding him that he was worthy of love and affection, regardless of what happened in his past.

"You're the best thing that has ever happened to me." He breathes, bringing his hand up to your head and running his fingers through your hair.

With a contented sigh, you let your fingers glide over Bucky's skin, tracing his muscles and spine. He shudders under your touch, tightening his grip around your waist. He leans into you, his forehead resting on yours.

"It feels good to hold you." He murmurs, pushing his nose against your cheek.

You smile against his chest "That's sweet Bucky, feels good to hold you too" You murmur.

Bucky lets out a soft chuckle, a light tickle brushing against your ear. You reach up, running your hand through his silky hair, gently combing it out of his eyes. You tilt his head up so that his eyes meet your own.

"Are you ready to go back to bed?" You say, staring into his eyes. You could tell that he was tired, his pale blue eyes looking dull and heavy.

He nods slowly, resting his chin against your shoulder before pulling away and walking into his room "Yeah." He mutters.

You turn around, walking back into the bedroom. As you shut the door behind you, you hear Bucky sigh as he climbs onto his bed. You walk over to the bed and sit down, facing Bucky.

He closes his eyes and lets out a long exhale "Thanks for talking to me sweetheart...You didn't have to stay up this long." He says, his voice cracking slightly.

You run your fingers through his hair "Don't worry about it Bucky, I wanted to." You say, leaning forward and kissing his forehead "Goodnight."

Bucky stares at you, looking at you as if he is trying to memorize every feature.

"Y/n?" He asks barely audible.

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay here tonight?" He says, his voice hoarse.

A small smile appears as you walk to the other side of the bed and gently crawl under the covers. immediately, Warmth envelops you as you settle into the blankets. You take a deep breath, feeling the heat from Bucky's body beneath the blankets. You lean forward, bringing your lips to his temple.

"Goodnight Buck." You murmur.

"Sweet dreams, sweetheart," he whispers softly, drawing you close to his chest as he drifts into the first peaceful sleep he has had in years.

#soft bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fluff #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes comfort fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #bucky fanfic

[maggiedanikka]

Let Me Go (Epilogue)

Pairing: Hangman x f!reader, Rooster x f!reader

Warnings: none, teenagers being teenagers, ANGST (but you knew that), bittersweet ending

Word Count: 5.8k

Summary: Reader is married and shares a child with Hangman, Life and circumstance drives reader into Rooster’s arms, but Hangman isn’t giving up that easily

A/N: Here it is the epilogue of Let Me Go. I can't believe this story that I thought of during my commute to work last summer, a story that I didn't anyone but me would care about is now at its official end. Even if it did take almost a year, and several hiatuses to get here. I will admit this past year has been some of the hardest of my life, with so many changes and obstacles I've gone through. But this story, this community has always been a safe space for me to run to. I'm sure that not everyone will be happy with how I chose to end this story, but this past year has taught me to trust my instincts as a writer and I will not please everyone, but I hope you understand why I went with what I did. I don't know if you all know this but Let Me Go is actually the first full-length multi-part series I've ever created, and I just wanted to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for taking this journey with me. Whether you've been here from the beginning, if you're a casual reader, someone who has waited months for me to update, to the people who have left me kind and supportive comments, and even to those who weren't necessarily the kindest. Thank you. Enough with all of that, without further ado, Let Me Go the final FINAL part.

Declan Belmont had Astrid pressed against the brick wall at the back of their high school. They definitely should not have been skipping 4th period, but the feeling of how soft her lips against his and the sounds of her whimpers as he grabbed the skin of her hips, definitely made him forget about the important test review they were currently missing. 

“Dec, slow down.” She pulled herself away from him, trying to even her breath. 

“We are not hooking up next to the soccer field.” She told him with a raised eyebrow. 

He let out an exaggerated groan before turning them both around until Declan’s back was the one against the wall. 

“Fine, fair enough” He chuckled as he gave his girlfriend a small peck on the lips. 

“I can’t help it, you look so good today.” He sighed pressing his face into her collarbone breathing in her scent. 

“I can’t keep my hands off of you.” He mumbled into her chest. 

Astrid let out a giggle, pulling his face away from her.

“You say that everyday.” 

“And it’s true!” He exclaimed

“Every. Single. Day” He pecked her lips in between every word. 

“You’re such a dork.” 

“YOUR dork.” 

“Ew you sound just like my dad.” She said, feigning a disgusted face. 

“Speaking of your dad, when are you going to introduce me to your family?” Declan asks her, his once joking demeanor fading to nervousness. 

Astrid backed away from his touch, putting distance between them. 

“Dec..” 

“Come on Atty! We’ve been official for almost 6 months! You’ve met my mom, my brother, even my stupid cousin.”

“Your cousin doesn’t count, we have trig together.” You pointed out.

“Okay fine, but besides the point, you’ve met them!” 

“Are you ashamed of me?” He asked solemnly

“No! That’s not it Dec! My family is just…” Astrid stops to piece together her thoughts.

“They’re absolutely insane!” 

“My aunts and uncles are so loud ALL THE TIME. It’s basically impossible to get ANY work done whenever they’re around.” 

“Don’t get me started on how nosey my Uncle Mickey gets. Like I think that man forgets that he’s nearing 50 and does not need to know why Beca from fourth grade and I aren’t friends anymore.” 

“Or how my Aunt Nat and Uncle Bob, LOVE to torture my dad and the sweet little imbecile he is always takes the bait.”

Astrid didn’t notice how intense her tirade was until she felt her face heating up and Declan staring at her in amusement.

“Sorry..” she told him embarrassed at her outburst. 

“You should really breathe in between monologues, you were turning blue babe.” 

“See what I mean? They make me CRAZY, and I didn’t want you to see that side of me quite yet.” Astrid admitted.

Declan chuckled before approaching Astrid, wrapping his arms around her waist, and using a finger to have her look up at him. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I happen to like your crazy.” Declan kisses the pout off of Astrid’s face. 

“And I really like you, and I don’t see anything short of you committing murder, changing that.” 

“Can I get that in writing?” 

“I’ll even get it notarized.” 

“Lucky for you, my family’s monthly barbeque is happening tomorrow, and I can maybeee get you an invitation.”

“Aw you’d do that for me babe?” 

“I guess, and I do happen to know the host of the party.” 

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Declan felt a knot form in his stomach as he stood outside Astrid's house, trying to muster the courage to knock on the door. He knew he shouldn't be nervous, but he couldn't help the feeling of apprehension that was creeping up on him. What if her family didn't like him? What if he did something embarrassing? What if he accidentally insulted someone?

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. Technically this was his idea, and Astrid had continually warned him about her family’s many quirks but assured him that they did have good hearts. But she didn’t elaborate further. Declan now mentally kicked himself for not asking more questions about them, now he was going into this meeting blind with no preparation or any talking points. 

“Fucking Amateur Hour Declan!” He muttered to himself, there’s no going back and changing the past now. He couldn’t stand on the front porch forever. 

Finally, he raised his hand and knocked on the door. He could hear the sounds of laughter and conversation coming from inside the house, and his nerves intensified. After what felt like an eternity, the door swung open and he was greeted by an older man, a silver fox with a broad chest wearing a leather military flight jacket. He wasn’t very tall but it didn’t make him any less terrifying. 

“So you’re the boy our little Astrid has been seeing.”  He greeted Declan with a grin 

The man had a warm smile and Declan felt himself release the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

Declan held out a hand towards the older man to shake. 

“No need for all of that son, welcome to the party!” 

The older man pulled Declan into a hug, clapping him on the back and dragging him into the house. 

“Don’t scare him off Pete, he just got here!” A beautiful older woman with brown shoulder length hair and kind eyes laughed at the man. 

“Sorry about him Declan, he’s just excited.”

“I’m Penny, and this is Pete.”

“Call me Mav, son.” He smiled at Declan. 

They led him to the back of the house towards the glass doors with a deck where he had a a clear view into the backyard. 

He saw a handful of men and women standing around the large yard. They held themselves in a way that made it obvious that they were military despite being out of uniform. 

Declan felt his previous nervousness return, feeling his throat get dry. He placed his hand on the door to open it, when he realized that he never properly greeted Astrid’s parents. 

“I am so sorry, I was so nervous that I forgot my manners. It’s so nice to finally meet you Mr. and Mrs Seresin.” Declan beamed at the older couple. 

“Astrid is an amazing girl and its an honor to meet the people that raised her.”

Penny and Mav stared at Declan in confusion before bursting into laughter. 

Declan stood confused at the sudden outburst. 

After they settled down, Mav clapped a hand on Declan’s shoulder. 

“You flatter us son. But we’re not Astrid’s parents.”

“I am Atty’s godmother, and Mav here is her grandpa.” 

“Hey! You say that like I’m old!” Mav pouted.

“If I’m her grandpa that makes you her grandma.” He pointed out.

“No way old man, I am perfectly happy being Auntie Penny.” 

“Yeah Yeah.” Mav wrapped an arm around Penny’s waist giving her a kiss on the temple. 

Declan felt slightly awkward watching this interaction, he wasn’t exactly used to PDA from adult couples, mostly due to his own family history of divorce. But most of it stemmed from the embarassment of wrongly assuming his girfriend’s parentage. 

“You can relax son, we definitely helped her parents with babysitting and carpool, but we can’t take credit for the woman she’s become.” Mav explained. 

“And don’t worry about us, if Atty likes you, then we like you.” 

“And that goes for all those other meatheads out in the backyard.” Penny reassured him. 

Declan nodded as the couple led him to the outside. 

“Look whos here!” Mav announced to the other attendants of the barbeque. 

The group waved and roared with excitement, greeting Declan from his vantage point on the deck. 

“Hey Dec!” His girlfriend greeted him. 

Declan momentarily forgot his troubles as he took in his girlfriend’s appearance. She looked like sunshine in her frilly yellow sundress, her head adorned with a puffy white headband, her smile beaming as she walked towards Declan’s position on the deck. 

“You’ll be okay son, we all got your back. The only person here you need to impress is that guy.” Mav pointed at a younger man, taller and somehow more menacing looking, manning the grill. 

Declan took a hard gulp as Astrid finally approached him, grabbing his hand and dragging him down the stairs of the deck towards a gathering of 3. 

“Dec, This is my Auntie Nat, Uncle Bob, and Uncle Mickey.” 

“Guys, this is Declan Belmont, my boyfriend.” 

“Nice to meet you Declan.” The woman greeted him. 

The shorter man with wire framed glasses simply smiled and nodded at Declan in greeting. 

The final man, seemed to be of hispanic descent with short buzzed hair. 

He surprised Declan by pulling him into a hug. 

“Its nice to finally put a face to a name!” Uncle Mickey beamed at Declan. 

“We all know how picky our Atty can get, so you must be something special.” 

Uncle Mickey pulled back on hug before throwing an arm around Declan’s shoulders and pulled him aside from the group and whispering. 

“ I want to know everything, do you know what you want to do after graduation? Anything you’re thinking of studying? How did you and Astrid meet? Do you love her?”

“Uncle Mickey!”

“Fanboy!” 

The other members of the group obviously heard everything from the forced huddle despite Mickey’s attempt at whispering. 

“We’ll reconvene later.” He gave a final whisper before turning back around to the rest of the group. 

Declan found purchase by Astrid’s side one again wrapping an arm around her wasit. 

“Oh no you won’t Uncle Mickey.” Astrid glared at Fanboy. 

“Yeah leave the damn boy alone.” Phoenix added. 

Bob stood silently in the middle amusement clear on his face, holding in his laughter. 

“But mija, How am I supposed to find out?”

“Fanboy, the boy has been here less than 5 minutes and you’re already giving him the third degree.” Phoenix rolled her eyes at her frend. 

“I just wanna get to know him better, see why Atty likes him so much.” 

“And don’t act like I’m the only one who’s curious” Fanboy pointed at his friends. 

“You know what, you’re right!” Bob finally spoke out. 

“I do wanna know.” 

Natasha stared at her friends in disbelief, before her face released its scowl in a look of agreement with the two men. Crossing the middle and standing by the two male daggers. 

“Traitor!” Astrid frowned at her aunt. 

“Sorry kiddo, Fanboy’s got a point”

Astrid’s face turned red in embarrassment. 

“Y’all promised to be cool.” Astrid pouted. 

The three aviators shot her an apologetic look with a shrug. 

Declan felt so much warmth and joy from watching his girlfriend interact with her family, despite their antics they all clearly deeply for one another. Almost made him forget about the menacing man across the yard watching his every move. Especially at his hand placement.

He quickly took his hand off of Astrid’s waist. Which took her by surprise, and made her think that he was horrified at her crazy family. 

“I am so sorry about them Dec. I asked them to be normal ” Astrid turned to him with pleading eyes.

Declan was confused at her uneasiness

“Don’t be! I think they’re sweet.” He replied joyfully. 

“And I will be happy to answer any and all questions you all ask me.” Declan announced to the three before distractedly looking off to the distance back to the man by the grill. 

“Then why did you..?” Astrid began to ask but trailed off as she followed her boyfriend’s line of sight, her aunt and uncles doing the same. 

“Ahh, the big man.” Mickey deduced. 

“Him? A Big Man?” 

“Are we looking at the same person right now?” Phoenix raised an eyebrow at her friend.

“I mean yeah he’s not a big man to us, but imagine how Declan feels right now.”

“Guys, you’re not making it any better.” Astrid sighed. 

“Don’t worry about him, he only looks like a grizzly bear, in actuality he is a big soft teddy bear.” Phoenix reassured the boy. 

Declan was still frozen in his place, feeling smaller he’s ever felt in his life. 

“He’s gotta meet him at some point kid, go rip the bandaid off.” Phoenix reminded her niece. 

“You’re probably right Aunt Nat.” Astrid sighed. 

“Come on Dec, lets go.” Astrid grabbed Declan’s hand and dragged him towards the grill. 

“Dad!” Astrid exclaimed as walked towards the aviator, with Declan in tow. 

“This is my boyfriend Declan.”

Declan felt frozen in place, never feeling quite as intimidated as he had in this exact moment. He outstretched a hand, a gulp trapped in his throat. The older man gave his hand a firm shake, his grip tightening and holding Declan’s in a steel grip, staring him down. 

“Dad, stop it.” Astrid chastised the man after several agonizing seconds that felt like hours to Declan.  

“But its so funny.” 

The man released his grip and his entire demeanor changed in that exact moment, like a light switch being flipped. The stoic look on his face changed to a dopey grin. 

“You should’ve seen your face! You look like you’re gonna pee your pants!” The older man chuckled. 

Declan laughed awkwardly alongside the aviator. 

“I’m sorry Dec, my dad thinks he’s funny.” 

“You used to think I was funny.” Astrid’s dad pouted.

“Yeah when I was 4”

“When I also used to think mac and cheese and mashed potatoes mixed together was the greatest food to exist.” 

“But Atty…you still think that.” Declan muttered. 

The two men maintained eye contact with one another, their grins slowly getting larger before bursting into laughter. 

Astrid stood still in her spot, a frown planted on her face. 

“Come on babe, just joking around with your dad.” 

“I think I liked you better when you were afraid of everyone.” She glared at her boyfriend. 

“Sir, has she always been this intense?” 

“Yup, even when she was a little girl, terrifying minimum wage teenage face painters who merely suggested to paint her as a butterfly, insisting yoshi was cooler.” 

“Please tell me you have a picture sir.” 

“Come on.. You know I do.” Both men laughing with one another once again. 

“I can’t believe you two are ganging up on me!” Astrid exclaimed.

“And I still stand with that previous claim, Yoshi is cooler than a butterfly.”

“You’re just further proving our point babe.” Declan smiled, reaching for Astrid’s hand once again, now feeling more comfortable. 

She dropped his hand in a huff, folding her arms across her chest. 

“I’m not a big fan of whatever.” 

“This.” waving a finger between the two men 

 “Is”

“Come on Little Chick! I thought you wanted me to get along with your boyfriend.” The mustached man pointed out. 

“Well the two of you can get along all you want in this corner, I’m going to talk to Uncle Javy and Uncle Reuben. At least they’re nice to me.” Astrid pouted as she walked away from Rooster and Declan.

Declan had the biggest smile plastered on his face watching his girlfriend walk away. 

“She’s something isn’t she?” Rooster referred to Astrid’s retreating figure. 

“That she is.”

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Declan was honestly having a really nice time. He couldn’t remember the last time that he was at an event with extended family. It was just him, his mom, and his brother (sometimes his aunt and cousin) for as long as he could remember. Large in part due to the divorce and his dad constantly traveling for work. So it meant a lot to him that Astrid’s family welcomed him with open arms.

He had spent the better part of the hour asking Astrid’s family members funny embarrassing stories from her childhood, and he also got to meet Astrid’ Uncle Javy and Uncle Reuben, with a few more attendees joining. 

Declan was currently helping Astrid’s dad with the grill, with Mav often coming around to nitpick  the younger men’s work. And Rooster telling him to “fuck off, old man”, with Astrid and Penny laughing at their antics. 

What confused Declan was the lack of appearance from Astrid’s mom. Astrid had never mentioned having a single father so Declan knew that she probably had a mom. 

He was about to open his mouth to ask when he was interrupted by the sound of the backyard fence opening and his girlfriend’s booming voice. 

“Daddy!” 

Daddy? Wasn’t Declan already standing next to her dad?

An older blonde man dressed in service khakis had arms wide open for Astrid as she ran towards him nearly knocking him over. 

“Bagman!” Astrid’s (other?) dad exclaimed. 

The other attendees of the party approached the man. 

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Phoenix smirked

“We thought you’d be out in the Pacific for a few more weeks.” Payback commented. 

“Well y’all know me, I get shit done.”

“Plus, I missed little Pixie over here.” He answered hugging his daughter once more. 

How did Declan not know that his girlfriend had two dads? How heteronormative for him to assume that his girlfriend had a typical nuclear family? Then again she’s never mentioned too much of her family. 

The aviators threw greetings and questions at Hangman, with the man in question trying his best to answer them all. 

Declan stood at the edge of the crowd, bewildered at the new addition. Jake noticed the unfamiliar boy amongst the group.

He parted the group stopping all conversation and made eye contact with Declan. 

“Now, whos this?” Jake asked walking towards the boy. 

“Oh, daddy this is Declan. My boyfriend.” Astrid smiled introducing him. 

“Boyfriend already?” Jake turned to Bradley. 

“I thought we had more time.”

“Thats exactly what I was thinking, I was not ready.” Bradley clapped jake on the shoulder. 

“I am 16. I am more than ready. You should be too” Astrid rolled her eyes at the two men. 

“As long as you’re not ready for other things.” Bradley raised an eyebrow at the girl while Jake gave Declan a death glare. 

Astrid’s cheeks turned bright red. 

“Dad, Daddy, you’re embarassing me!” She was mortified at their behavior. 

“We just wanna make sure this boy is not gonna pressure you into something you’re not comfortable with.” Jake explained. 

“I would never sirs!” Declan interjected. 

“I can vouch for him Hangman, hes a good kid.” Bradley responded. 

“I’m going inside, this is mortifying.” Astrid ran into the house. 

“Do you need me to-?” Decaln started to follow behind her before being stopped by Jake. 

“She’ll be fine son, you stay right here.”

“ Rooster might’ve vouched for you but I’m still gonna take a peek under your hood. Make my own conclusion.” Jake led Declan to the outdoor seating beside the deck stairs. 

“So Declan right? You got a last name?” Jake asked as they both sat down.

“Belmont sir.” 

“Belmont? As in Vice Admiral Richard Belmont?” He inquired. 

“Yes sir, he’s my father.” 

“I know your dad, he works right under me, good man, dedicated to the work, dedicated to his country.”

“He works under you?” 

The pieces finally connected in Declan’s brain. Astrid Seresin. Seresin. Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Jacob Seresin. 

How did not put that together before? 

Declan stood up abruptly, assuming a salute stance. 

“I’m sorry to be disrespectful sir, I did not know you were THE Admiral Seresin.” 

“My father taught me better than that.”

“At ease son, no need for all of that.” Admiral Seresin chuckled

Declan dropped the salute but still remained standing in stance. 

“Did Astrid not tell you?”

“No sir, we did not speak too much about our families.” 

“Well if you’re really afraid of being disrespectful, kid, you gotta know that all of these people are decorated officers.” 

“Them right there are Captains Avalone, Lennox, Lee, and Bassett.” He said pointing to the men and woman that Astrid introduced as Uncles Billy, Brig, Logan, and Auntie Callie.

“Maverick was also captain before he retired.”

“Over there are Rear Admirals Floyd, Garcia, Finch, and Machado.” 

Uncle Bob, Uncle Mickey, Uncle Reuben and Uncle Javy. 

“Finally, Old Rooster and Phoenix over there. Vice Admiral Trace, and Admiral Bradshaw.”

“Holy Shit.” Declan gulped. 

“So you better treat our Astrid right, if you’re smart you can forsee how people with our experience can ruin your life, in more ways than one.” Admiral Seresin warned. 

“Understood sir.”

Declan shifted in his spot, desperate to change the subject from the possible harm that would befall him if he ever made the mistake of hurting his girlfriend. 

“So my father works under you, sir? Last I spoke to him he was stationed to the Pacific.”

“Yes, that’s where I just returned from. Your dad is still out there though.” 

“Yeah I figured, I reckon he would’ve called by now.” Declan tried to hide his disappointment. 

Jake read him easily however. He quickly remembered his absence from his daughter’s life earlier in her childhood. Immediately feeling sorry for the boy, he motioned for him to sit once again

“I get it, it's hard, I wasn’t around much for Astrid’s childhood, I was too focused on getting to.. Well here.” 

“Was it worth it sir?” 

“Not sure I can answer that, I missed a lot, but I was lucky enough to have someone who understood my ambitions.” 

“I don’t know how y’all did it sir, especially since you being the Commander of the Pacific fleet and Atty’s other dad also being an Admiral.” 

“And especially with the stigma you two had to face with the Navy.” 

“It was a little weird and difficult at first. But Astrid made it worth it. And Bradshaw has been a big help.”

“Well you two raised an amazing daughter. How long have you been together?” Declan inquired, knowing about the rampant homophobia that still unfortunately plagued the military branch. 

But seeing how well respected and high in rank the two men were he knew that couldn’t have been easy, but now they’re both in positions where no one would dare to criticize them.

“How long have we..? Wait. Do you think me and Bradshaw are..” Admiral Seresin broke out into boisterous laughter.

“Hey Rooster! Get over here!” Declan looked at the older man in confusion as the second Admiral made his way to the duo. 

“What’s up Bagman?” Rooster responded as he halted his jog. 

“Come and give me some sugar.” Jake chuckled as he brought Bradley into a tight embrace planting a wet kiss on his cheek.

Declan felt his face heat up at the PDA presented in front of him by his girlfriend’s fathers.

Bradley stumbled back after Jake released his hold, a look of amusement on his face. 

Hangman threw an arm around the other aviator. 

“Not that I’m complaining, but not sure how my wife is gonna feel about you planting one on me Bagman,” 

Rooster laughed.

Wife? Now Declan was even more confused than before. Astrid’s dad has a wife and is also with her other dad? Is the wife okay with this? Is the wife also with Commander Seresin?

Declan felt a migraine coming on from the heavy wheels spinning in his mind trying to piece together his girlfriend’s interesting family dynamic. 

“Nicholas Bradshaw! If you don’t stop running right now, you’re not getting any Ice cream!” 

Declan’s thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a woman that looked like a more mature, not necessarily older version of his girlfriend making her way down the deck, running after a little boy that looked like a miniature version of Admiral Bradshaw.

Is this the wife? She was very beautiful.  Admiral Bradshaw is a lucky man. 

Declan had so many questions. The boy he gathered was Astrid’s little brother. And then the woman , possibly her mom??? Declan just became more confused with every passing minute.

Both Admirals stared at the woman in adoration as she chased after the boy.

“But Momma, Uncle Jakey is here!” The boy ran into Admiral Seresin’s arms who picked him up with a chuckle. 

“No love for your dad buddy?” Rooster feigned hurt. 

“Uncle Jakey. Toy please.” 

“Ouch! Little man, and here I thought you were just happy to see me.” Jake answered also feigning hurt.

“Sweets! Come and meet Pixie’s boyfriend.”

“Sorry for messing with you Dec, you just made it too easy.” 

“Now who’s this?” The woman approached their chattering.

She had kind eyes and a beautiful smile. She was dressed in a sundress that almost mimicked the one his girlfriend was wearing except in an emerald color. 

“Declan, Ma’am nice to meet you.” Declan nervously held out hand to the woman who shook it gently.

“I’m Astrid’s mom, y/n. And you must be the boyfriend we’ve hardly heard anything about.”

That one annoying song that his sister used to sing non-stop, Stacy’s Mom he thinks it’s called, never made more sense to him than at that moment.

Don’t get him wrong, Declan loved Astrid, more than anything. But in some kind of alternate universe where they weren’t together and he didn’t know her and her entire family. He would proudly declare her a MILF, but at risk of pissing off his girlfriend, her grandpa, godmother, her large array of uncles and aunts, and her dads who also happened to be top ranking navy officers, he would never admit it to another soul.

“So where have you been hiding?” Astrid’s mom asked jokingly.

“Mom! Dad! Daddy!” Astrid shouted as she exited the house and jogged down to the outdoor furniture.

Astrid slid into the gap between Declan’s arm and torso, laying a hand on his chest.

“Stop giving him the third degree.” She glared at her parents. 

“Hey! I was just introducing myself to Declan here since you refused to give your poor mother anything.” Her mom pouted while poking Astrid on the tip of her nose. 

Astrid stuck a tongue out at the older woman.

“Yeah okay mom, stop acting like you didn’t grill me about Dec last night.” Pointing a finger at y/n.

“It’s not cute, mother.” 

“Your mother happens to be very cute.” Bradley wrapped an arm around the older woman planting a kiss on her forehead. 

Jake nodded in quiet agreement, but Declan noticed a glimpse of sadness behind his eyes. He wonders what’s that about.

“Ewww Mom and Dad, can you please not do that in front me and Dec.” Astrid exclaimed, further burying her face into the crook of Declan’s neck. 

“How come you two can have PDA and me and your dad can’t?” Her mom responded. 

“Because you’re old.” 

“Don’t listen to her Sweets, you’re as beautiful as the day I met you.” Jake chuckled. 

“Atty!” A small voice originating from lower ground whined. 

“Oh her buddy!” Astrid kneeled down to her little brother’s height. 

“Did you have a good practice?” She asked grabbing Nick’s little body into her lap tickling his neck and making him laugh hysterically. 

“I want kiss!.” He shouted through his giggles.

“Anything for you Goosey!” Astrid covered her little brother’s face in kisses. 

“Momma too!” 

“Oh of course my little goose.” Y/n laughed as she kneeled down to the same level as her children. 

“What a lucky little dude.” Bradley smiled. 

The two other men chuckled watching the love fest before them. 

“Not to interrupt your little family time but since you were distracted Bradley, I took it upon myself to cook the steaks PROPERLY.” Maverick shouted across the backyard. 

“Come and get your steaks!” 

“Oh sweet, steak grandpa mav style is my favorite.” Astrid exclaimed picking up her little brother and making her way to the grill, Declan close in tow. 

“Yay steak!” Nick cheered

“Is it ‘Hurt Dad’s feelings day’, Little Chick?” Bradley groaned as he followed the rest of the group to the food. 

Jake hung back watching the sight before him. His daughter, so grown up, so beautiful, smart, and headstrong. Just like her mother. 

Jake thought back to Declan’s earlier question. Was it all worth it? Those 4 years where y/n and Astrid away was some of the loneliest of his life. He honestly took that time to take every deployment, work every detachment, and because Y/n needed time to think, he for that time being never felt guilty for his ambition.

.Y/n could never be malicious enough to keep him away from his daughter. She gave him every opportunity to be involved.  Of course, he visited his daughter as often as he could. But it definitely was not often enough. His work was all he had, he thought, so he threw himself into it completely. Up to the point where he finally surpassed Rooster. 

When those four years were up it was clear where his priorities lied, and in a way he understood what Y/N said before. He was selfish for making her take a back seat to it for so long, when she and their daughter deserved so much more than that. 

It honestly didn’t surprise him when Y/N chose Bradshaw in the end, he was there for Y/N and for Astrid when he couldn’t. It didn’t make it hurt any less though. He definitely had some dark years after that. Years where he would go months into his work, not bothering to keep in touch with his ex-wife and daughter. 

No one heard from his for an entire year after he caught wind of their wedding and Bradshaw legally adopting his daughter. 

All he had was his career, his ambitions, it was the only thing keeping him going. He thought that’s all he needed. It should have been enough. His lifelong longing should it been quenched when he was promoted to Admiral, a full 4 years before Bradshaw. He finally won. 

But did he really? 

He threw himself into a drunken stupor at the Hard Deck, ‘happily’ celebrating his promotion. Alone. Completely Alone. 

But Y/N, sweet and strong Y/N, walked into the bar. And dragged him to his feet pulling him to his senses. 

“I gave you space all these years Jake because I thought it was what you needed. I know the news about me and Bradley was not going to bve easy for you so I stayed away, I didn’t want you to think we were rubbing it in your face. I didn’t say anything when you went years making Astrid feel like she didn’t have a father, Bradley stepped in because that is the type of man he is and he loves her. But that deosn’t change the fact that you’re her father, she still looks for you every birthday, checks the news to make sure nothing bad has happened to you, still tears up whenever she sees or hears Pixie Sticks. We may have not worked out Jake, but that doesn’t mean you abandon her.” Jake hadn’t seen so much pain in your eyes since that final night before you left. 

“She doesn’t want to see me. You left me.”

“Exactly. I left you Jake. Your daughter didn’t.” 

“ And all she wants now is you to show up and apologize for the years you missed and eat the cake she baked for you for your promotion, instead of sitting here wasting away alone”

“She baked me a cake?” Jake asked his eyes filled with tears and hope for the first time in over 7 years. 

“Yeah she did. Even wrote “Congrats Daddy” on it with light green frosting to match your eyes.”

You nodded. 

“Okay, take me to see Pixie.” He smiled. 

That was 5 odd or so years ago. It took a lot of work but through endless groveling, apologies, and carefully curated gifts. Rooster finally forgave him. 

Just kidding, Astrid forgave him. Of course she says that there was no forgiving needed to be done in the first place, the young girl knew that her dad had things to work out on his own before he was ready to come home to her. But Hangman knew better and he made sure to make up for the 7 years of missed birthdays, holidays, and just regular Daddy-Daughter time, and as an admiral he had more leeway to pick his schedule and deployments. 

Things with Rooster also got better, despite his years of resentment towards the man, he definitely appreciated the care that he gave you and your daughter in his absence (even if he didn’t appreciate the way it begun). After a couple years of awkwardness where the two men couldn’t be left alone in a room together, they found a mutual respect and admiration for both of their work and dedication to the Navy. 

The two were definitely more alike than they realized, it just took an intense rivalry, a couple of punches thrown, a few black eyes, a pair of bruised jaws, a divorce, a wedding and adoption, and a couple of years of close proximity to unlock.

From there bloomed a friendship that can’t be described by anything other than a total “bromance”.

As he stood in the yard contemplating his journey to that moment, he was pulled out of his thoughts by your hand caressing his cheek. 

“How you doing Zuko?” You smiled at him with bright eyes. 

“I’m doing good Sweets.” 

“Just thinking about how fast time has passed.” He explained.

“It has been a wild ride hasn’t it?” You responded, dropping your hand, placing it back to your side. 

Jake felt cold from the removal of your hand, his body still searching for your warth even after all these years. He tried to hide his disappointment from his face but you knew him better than that. 

“You know I will always love you, right Jake?” You smiled at him sympathetically. 

“We’ve been through so much together, and even though it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, I will be eternally grateful to you.” 

“You gave me her.” Your eyes twinkled looking at Astrid. 

“And you know I will never get over you right?” Jake responded, his voice thick with melancholy. 

“Maybe…” You began.

“But I hope someday you will. Our love, our connection was so filled with fight and fire, and I loved it… I loved you. But after all of that, we were just left with ashes.” You looked at him, your smile bittersweet. 

“You taught me how to love Jake, and loving you, prepared me to love him.” You gestured to Bradshaw. 

“To love them.” 

You looked lovingly at your family, your friends, your husband, your children. 

“Promise me Jake, that when the time comes. You will take that love, the love you had for me, the love we shared, and you will use it to love someone who deserves it.”

“Because you deserve someone amazing, someone who will love better than I ever did.” 

You walked backwards towards the others, flashing him that same smile that started all of this, before turning around and walking away. 

“Okay.” He smiled to himself, joining the rest of the party. 

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#hangman x y/n #hangman x reader #jake seresin #jake seresin x reader #top gun #hangman #jake hangman seresin #rooster #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #hangman angst #rooster angst #hangman x reader x rooster #rooster x reader x hangman #top gun maverick #rooster imagine #hangman imagine

[swordcreature]

hiiii its the same anon who requested positive tav snapping! you did such a good job I've re-read it like. 5 times already ♡♡♡

I have another request regarding the origin companions, if you're up to writing for them again. though non romamced this time.

how do you imagine they'd feel about a middle aged female elf tav who very clearly has maternal feelings for all of them? like she fully takes on the role as group mother. I think itd be 50/50 who accepts it and who fights it at first.

thank you so much if you decide to write this!! ♡♡♡

hi again sorry this took so long and thank you for sending another request!!!!!

i kind of struggled to write this because so far i've only ever written romanced characters but it was a nice change of pace

these are more like a small series of drabbles but i hope you like them!!!

Shadowheart, Astarion, Lae'zel, Wyll, Gale, & Karlach - Maternal Tav

This is not gender neutral per the request, uses she/her pronouns

How the companions react to a Maternal Tav

Astarion: 

Astarion fights it at first, like he fights most feelings about him that aren’t sexual. To digest the fact that another person could care for him, consider his wellbeing, support him – it's nearly incomprehensible. Because that would mean that for the past 200 years, he was capable, deserving even, of being loved but no one bothered enough to do so. No one’s cared enough to care. So he pushes back, lashing out at Tav with a forked tongue that cuts like a blade. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s how to hurt people. If Tav wants to put a mirror to his face (metaphorically speaking of course) to show him that the lie he tells himself at night – that a monster like him isn’t worthy of love – isn’t true.... well, he’ll just have to break her down. But Tav is unrelenting, somehow always knowing when to catch Astarion with open arms and a shoulder to lean on. And eventually he slips up, allowing himself to indulge in Tav’s comforting presence after a particularly rough day. It’s the crack in the door that Tav needs to stick her foot in and break the damn thing down. Soon, Astarion is allowing himself to be tended to after fights, comforted after a nightmare – he even lets Tav embrace him tightly when the stress of their journey is too much for him to bear. It’s a strange sensation for him – another person wanting to share the weight he bares with nothing, not even a kiss, in return – but one that he ultimately comes to crave more fiercely than anything else in the world.  

Gale: 

Gale already has a mother, thank you very much, so why would he need someone looking after him like that? Of course, he hasn’t really enjoyed his mother’s presence since he obtained the orb, but he did have Tara. And so what if Tara wasn’t here right now? That still doesn’t mean he needs to indulge in the comforts of a maternal figure just because life is less than pleasant. Well, he does need someone to bring him magical items, so he allows Tav to take care of him in that regard. But that is it, he swears!  Though there is something very endearing about the way she's willing to listen to him complain about his day despite going through the same exact hogwash herself. And he’d be remiss to pass up the opportunity to educate someone on the finer points of the Weave; Tav always seems to ask about it when he’s outside his tent plucking strands of the Weave like an instrument. Okay, fine, maybe it is nice to have someone who is there to give advice when needed and to compliment him when he’s feeling down! But he hardly needs such coddling, he’s a grown made for Hells’ sake. That’s what he tells himself, at least. The others just laugh and roll their eyes. Because if there’s one person who has taken to Tav’s maternal nurturing, it’s Gale.  

Karlach: 

Karlach thinks Tav is so awesome, she can hardly believe her luck. Fresh out of the Hells with a heart that is stable enough to survive the night and she’s met the nicest, kindest person in the entire Sword Coast? It’s a fuckin’ miracle! And it’s what Karlach desperately needs. After 10 long years of demons and devils and wretched souls, the comfort Tav offers is a balm on her scorching heart. It makes her feel alive again, like a real fucking person and not just a dispensable agent of some power-hungry bitch. Her life still isn’t her own, not really, at least until her heart is completely fixed, but Tav will be there the entire way. She knows that for a fact. And although the thought of returning to Avernus makes Karlach’s blood boil – or, rather, boil more than normal – the thought of having Tav by her side makes it almost worth considering. Not quite, but almost. When Dammon, the cute bastard, gives her the ability to touch again there is no one else in the entire universe that Karlach wants to hug more than Tav. A hug doesn’t begin to cover what she owes to her, but it’s a start. And after so many long, rough nights with no physical comfort, Tav’s arms are more than tempting to get lost in. Karlach squeezes her with as much force as Tav’s body will handle. She may have lost her parents when she was taken to the Hells, but she feels her mom’s spirit in Tav. She’s sure of it. 

Lae’zel: 

No one in their right mind would treat Lae’zel of Creche K’liir like a child if they wanted to keep their head on their body. And even though Tav does have an illithid tadpole lodged in her skull, she should know better than to be so patronizing. Lae’zel is more than capable of meeting all of her own needs, she does not need their leader for anything other than another body to wield another blade. Another means for safety. Though, Tav may be the only one in their group of infected to see the sense in seeking out the nearest creche for cleansing and so Lae’zel has to give her some credit for that. Perhaps she isn’t completely dull like the others. She fights rather well too. And Lae’zel does come to find other uses for Tav as their journey moves forward. Their leader is knowledgeable about this land in a way that Lae’zel is not, able to point out plants that cannot be eaten or animals not worth the effort to kill for food. One day, she even showed Lae’zel how to fashion a small sling to throw rocks from the leftovers of a boar carcass. The way Tav was determined to use every last piece of the animal, not letting any bit go to waste, reminded Lae’zel of her of her younger days being honed into the warrior she is today. A small part of her thinks she underestimated Tav and her eagerness to show what the others call affection. She might just have to try one of the older woman’s ‘hugs’ someday. 

Shadowheart: 

Shadowheart is more akin to a stone wall than a person when she first meets Tav. Not fully by choice either – there's nothing to tell Tav if she doesn’t remember anything herself. But it’s easy to see that even the things she does recall, she holds close to her chest. So Tav doesn’t pry; she doesn’t force Shadowheart to tell her anything she isn’t comfortable sharing. In fact, she shares her own secrets more readily, showing Shadowheart trust in hopes of earning it back. Faster than Tav ever dreamed, it begins to work. Small memories return to Shadowheart who then promptly confides in Tav, sharing bits and pieces of who she used to be, who she may still be. And Tav listens with open arms should Shadowheart need the embrace. She hardly ever does and Tav respects that, but the offer is always there. When Shar is feeling particularly petty and searing pain flashes in shades of purple against Shadowheart’s hand, Tav is there with a hand on her shoulder, offering a nod to let her know that she is not alone. It’s not much – and to be honest Shadowheart isn’t sure that she would tolerate much more – but it’s enough to make the loneliness she feels bearable. Shadowheart may never remember her whole life; parts may forever stay secret to herself let alone Tav. Still, she knows that whatever secrets she is willing to share will be handled with the care and love that she has been missing since she was a little girl.  

Wyll: 

Wyll never had a mother growing up and his father... well his father is a complicated subject. Which leaves his feelings about Tav a little muddied. He’s the Blade of Frontiers, a hero to folks all along the Sword Coast – he takes care of others, they don’t take care of him. It’s been a long time since he last took from someone instead of gave. It makes relating to Tav so easy: they’re both givers, both caretakers, both instinctually loving towards those around them. But it doesn’t make accepting Tav’s motherly affections any easier. To be fair it isn’t that Wyll doesn’t appreciate her – no, quite the opposite – he’s delighted to have someone so kindhearted to call a friend. He just finds it hard to let himself relax, to let someone else cut the firewood on a night where the wound on his shoulder hurts so bad he could cry, to let another person listen to and calm Gale’s worries about arriving in the city, to let Tav take on the burdens of the camp. Tav never gives up though – just another way they are kindred spirits. She takes care of Wyll’s chores before he even wakes up on days when he’s too sore to move properly, she mends his clothing when he tears a hole with his newly acquired claws. She even pretends to be thoroughly interested in his campfire stories, though he knows he’s probably told them all once or twice over at this point. Sometimes it all feels too self-indulgent, like he’s partaking in a too-big piece of dessert, but is he truly living a hero’s life if he doesn’t relent every once in a while? 

#bg3 #bg3 astarion #bg3 gale #bg3 karlach #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 wyll #astarion #gale dekarios #karlach #lae'zel #shadowheart #wyll ravengard #bg3 tav #my writing #requests/suggestions #anon

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hello, my dear friend! 😎

I hope you're having a wonderful day. I've come to fulfill my noble quest, as promised.

So, we've already had pregnant MC, which I adore and cherish, like all your works. What you do is amazing, and I hope you know that. You bring the kind of joy into our lives that I think does wonders for our weary souls. On top of that, you're one of the kindest souls I've ever met, and I'm lucky to have you in my life and be able to call you my friend. Seriously, you're a miracle and you make the world a better place.

But to my actual request. Could you please do headcanons about the M6 being pregnant? Seahorse dads are very much encouraged 👀 I often think about having children with Nadia, but I don't really like the idea of being pregnant myself (although our dear Countess does make me want to consider it every once in a while. The baby fever is very strong with her.) Plus, I'm certain there are other people like myself who prefer not to get pregnant or they simply can't for various reasons.

Thank you! Hugs to you and much love 🤗❤

Ps.: I'll kiss you if you do it (in a friendly but still very gay way)

The Arcana HCs: When M6 get pregnant

@theintrovertbean I'm here to collect my platonic but still very gay smooch, please :3 (In all seriousness though, I keep rereading your kind words and trying not to cry, that means so much to me. I'm so glad I get to call you my friend too!!)

-- CW for mpreg (obviously). for headcanon purposes, all members of the M6 want to have a child with MC and are happy with being the partner to be pregnant. whether this happens by natural means, depending on what reproductive system you headcanon them as having, or by *magic*, said baby is 50% your DNA and 50% theirs. --

Julian

Did the two of you take active steps to make it possible for him to carry your child? Yes. Did he think he would be fortunate enough for it work? No. Is he surprised now, even though it's planned? Yes

The most freaked out about what his body is in the process of doing. Again, this is something he agreed to and genuinely wants, but it's just so surreal to him that he keeps needing to rationalize it

His way of rationalizing things is to study them

This does not help his ever-present anxiety, especially when he has to limit his caffeine intake and his mood swings are even more intense than normal. He is going to bury himself in research

And then completely freak himself out with the assorted random weird facts, unhinged medical theories, and pregnancy horror stories that he encounters. Which isn't good for the baby

Speaking of, he keeps swinging wildly between being hyperaware of the tiny creature he's growing and completely forgetting about his state. Suddenly his self-care directly impacts someone else

Spending nine months with limited caffeine intake and 0 alcohol was actually very good for him. (even if it made him cranky at first)

The overall process was fairly smooth for him - he didn't have a lot of awful symptoms, and the only health scares were his own anxious "what if" spirals after reading horror stories before bed

Kept working the whole way through (though with considerably fewer hours so he could get more sleep), and generally did a great job whenever he wasn't thinking too hard about it all

Asra

They never actively envisioned this happening in their future, but when you brought up having kids in the first place they were already fairly open to the idea of being the one to carry the baby

There was definitely magic involved in the conception. He's too extra for there not to be (plus, a little boost never hurt anybody)

For such a normally chillaxed person, they did not take this decision lightly. Everything from planning, to conception, to preparing to raise a kid is full of intentionality

He wants to ensure that his kid gets a childhood that lasts as long as they need it to and a happy, safe environment to grow and explore. His baby fever wasn't intense but his nesting habits are

They get in several last crazy adventures before they start to feel the pregnancy and then spend the rest of it either sleeping, getting the baby's space ready, or eating the most unreal food combos

Seriously, you expected weird cravings, but considering how unusual his tastes already are you didn't think it could get much weirder. It can get so, so much weirder (he even managed to finally pry open that jar of kool-aid pickled garlic and put it in custard)

Between their parent's enthusiastic support and Nadia and Julian providing full medical backup, they are well looked after

Not to mention the pregnancy glow. He makes it look ethereal

They aren't fond of physical discomfort, though, and it makes them unusually broody and cuddly. Please give them snuggles

They spend weeks creating the most whimsical nursery

Nadia

She was actually the one to bring it up when she started talking about her expectations of marriage with you after proposing

For how strained her own relationship with her family is, she's more excited about starting one of her own with you than you expected. When you tell her that you want kids too, she's all for it

Sets a rule as soon as she tells her family that she won't be accepting more than two visitors at a time. Namar nearly revolts

Her pregnancy was not easy, at all. It was months before she could keep a full meal down, she was in near constant pain, and the fatigue was unrelenting. And she never let on in public, at all

Seriously, the only people who knew how hard it was were her close friends, trusted Palace people, and doctor. From the outside it was as if she couldn't feel it at all and life carried on as usual

The biggest noticeable difference (aside from her growing bump, which she somehow managed to make her draping clothes look even more regal with) was having Portia deliver speeches for her

Towards the final few months, it caught up to her enough that she couldn't be nearly as active as she used to. She turned one of her side chambers into her office and took all her meetings there

It also became evident how much the Palace staff loves their countess - the cooks worked tirelessly to find easy meals for her (and satiate every craving beyond the laws of culinary art)

Not to mention that the garden was immaculately kept

The amount of gifts for the baby took up several small closets

Muriel

He didn't bring it up. No, you brought it up, because of how out of hand his baby fever was getting. He'd gone from begrudgingly letting kids climb on him to actively offering to help watch them

Which turned into a lifestyle - he started spending all his free time carving toys so he could carry them in his pocket in case some shy toddler looked like they wanted one. You're running out of firewood

He offered to be the one to carry the baby, if you didn't want to

The psychological aspect of it is much harder for him than the physical. He knows his own body, he knows his strength and capacity for survival, and he's comfortable with what he's doing

But that is a whole other person-to-be he's growing, they deserve the best they can get, and he's not convinced he's the best

Is this ... selfish of him? Is this greedy? He knows he'll put everything he is into being a good parent, but what if someone else's best is better than his? MC, what are we doing??

These anxiety spirals happen frequently, either when he's gone too long sitting by himself or when the pregnancy insomnia makes it impossible for him to sleep the amount he normally likes to

On the plus side, the mood swings actually make it easier for him to express what he's feeling (and for you to know what's going on with him) so that you two can navigate it together

Asra is so excited to have a nibling that they stop by almost every day with baby gifts (and supplies from Nadia, once she knows)

He full body freezes every. single. time the baby moves

Portia

Oh, she's wanted to have a house full of kids since she was a kid in a house full of kids. She brought this up with you as soon as she started talking about a future together and she is so pumped

Literally nothing about the concept of it fazes her. She's helped with plenty of pregnancies and births, she's seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, and she is fully confident with you by her side

In her mind, this is the first of many (assuming all goes well, which she fully believes it will) so this is her chance to take things as they come and note them down for future reference

Keeps a daily journal with all her pregnancy observations, plus doctor's notes from weekly check-ups and plans for the baby

You didn't know pregnancy could make somebody more powerful but somehow she's done it. You expect it to catch up to her at some point and for her to take time off to rest, but she doesn't

The pregnancy glow is real and it is named Portia Devorak. You've never seen her hair so bouncy and full (shedding increases x10)

The biggest downside is that she can't stand the smell of cooking or baking anymore, which has long been one of her comfort activities. You'll have to manage meal prep (or partner with a chef)

Speaking of, half the Palace is asking for updates on a daily basis (which she happily provides). Nadia's showering her with more supplies and maternity leave than Portia wants to accept

Julian panicked about being the doctor until Mazelinka shoved him aside and took over as midwife. Portia's in skilled hands

Lucio

This was not planned. This was a happy accident. (Though Bob Ross never painted such a surprised, panicked, violent tree)

Whether because protection didn't work, or because Lucio saw a glowing orb in a weird dream and decided to mess with it while he was sleeping next to you, neither of you were remotely prepared

It doesn't really compute for him at first. The growing thing in his stomach is about as real as the tooth fairy - it's a concept that people tell him about before he goes back to daily life

It's a concept he's fiercely protective of and wants the best for

On a practical planning level, you two take advantage of his relatively easy first few months to take on a bunch of high paying jobs and revisit villages that seemed like a good spot to stay in

He's almost symptom-free until the bump really starts growing and his body starts adjusting for the extra weight. Thankfully by then you've found a place to settle down and reliable income

Lucio, understandably, becomes a complete diva once you do

He's pretty darn proud of what his body is doing, and he's relieved beyond words that he's having an easier time than what his mother described, but he does not like the way he looks

Or the aches and pains, or the breathlessness, or the way his whole body feels swollen and sore. (at least his hair looks nice)

You've never had such a hard time keeping him to his intended budget. He sees one (1) baby item and his wallet flies open

His sweet tooth gets 1000 times bigger than it already is

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #the arcana game #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

[gageblackwood]

A Rough Transcript of James Somerton's new video

For those who don't want to watch it, I grabbed the auto-transcript of the video, and then honestly spent way to long cleaning it up. There are a few editor notes that are just attempts at clarity, and punctuation and line breaks added as best I could guess them. Here it is:

"uh just a disclosure this video is monetized but revenue from it will be sent along to H bomber guy's team to be dispersed to the people whose work I plagarized.

uh if his team won't accept it I'll be making monthly donations to Wikipedia and trans Lifeline going forward.

uh you may have also noticed that a few of my past videos have gone up on the channel again and revenue from those as well will also be sent, along with the revenue from this video.

over the last couple of months I've been getting in touch with the people who I plagiarized to apologize one-on-one instead of a mass apology.

it's a bit difficult because many of them don't have public email addresses so I'm still working on it but it is a top priority of mine.

I've heard back from a few of them and they were actually incredibly nice, um accepting my apology and just imploring me to do better in the future, so I want to thank them publicly for that.

there's plenty that I haven't heard back from and I completely understand that in many cases.

uh I wouldn't want to talk to me either.

I also want to apologize to my audience.

though you trusted me to be a good representative of the queer community and I was not that, I tried to be, I tried to be a voice for every member of the queer Community but that was a failed Endeavor before it even started.

I'm a CIS white gay man no matter how much I try to be a good spokesperson I can never really truly understand the life experiences of other far more put upon members of the queer Community.

this is one of the reasons that I would use the their own words but I should have made it very clear that that's what I was doing.

I never, ever thought that I was the only voice out there as some have said but being a CIS white man I thought I might be able to win over some people who wouldn't otherwise listen unless it was someone who looks and sounds just like them, and so I tried speaking for everyone and this was a horrible mistake.

what I thought was being inclusive ended up leading to a lot of people feeling left out and even offended.

this fell upon Nick as well as a non-binary person on the ace spectrum.

they wanted to include asexuality and non-binary representation in our videos but because Nick's experience is not Universal, there is no Universal experience, people felt that we were dealing legitimizing (editor: likely de-legitimizing) their own experiences because we focused on Nicks.

and I apologize for that and I'm sure that Nick does as well.

um I'd also like to extend a personal apology to Jesse Earl, better known as Jesse gender.

out of everyone that I spoke to who was also a YouTuber Jesse was by far the kindest person.

I think Jesse might be one of the kindest people I've ever met or ever encountered.

we never actually met in person because of my hot headedness.

I drew her into just this anger spiral of mine that was unwarranted and absolutely ruined a possible friendship.

Jesse was actually doing her best to kind of mitigate my frustration and and everything and and

uh at that moment and I just wasn't allowing her to do that and I really truly honestly want to apologize to her for that again.

if if you ever get the chance to speak with Jesse one-on-one or if you have gotten the chance you'll know just how nice she is and how kind and I was a a real, for uh dragging her into my reactionary unwarranted frustration.

we, obviously, we haven't spoke since all of that happened um but Jesse if you are watching this video um I do want you to know that I am honestly sorry for that.

I hope truly, honestly I hope everything goes as well as possible for you because you deserve all of it.

there was a misunderstanding between Jesse and I.

um after that happened, that I do want to clear up where someone who at least claimed to be a fan of Jesse's, you know did an internet and threatened to kill me.

which is, you know, being a person on the internet death threats are unfortunately not uncommon.

at the time though, uh I was in a very panicked State, and so I did report it to the police.

I did not report Jesse to the police which is the misunderstanding that people um came away with.

I did not report Jesse to the police.

I would have no reason to do that, and it did end up that this person had a prior record with the police um of violent acts and they actually lived quite near me, um so the police took it very seriously.

they took it so seriously that they implored me not to speak to, to Jesse.

which I took their advice on which I shouldn't have honestly I should have at least clarified to Jesse what was going on and not just left her hanging.

and so I want to again apologize to Jesse for that but in that state I listen to the police.

which is, you know, maybe not the best decision all the time because the cops don't usually have the best interests of people at heart.

so Jesse I want to apologize for that and everything else that happened.

completely understand why you would not want to speak to me ever again but I just want you to know that I am sorry.

but now back on the original topic.

the work Nick and I were doing on the channel.

we wanted it to be you know for everyone.

we wanted it to be a channel where every queer person could feel welcomed and we failed at that.

that is something that in hindsight I think is impossible to create and that's why it's important for there to be many different queer voices in spaces like YouTube.

and there are, what's more important is that those voices are discoverable which is something that I should have been helping with.

I often shared other queer creators on Twitter but this was when I only had you know 800 a th000 (editor: a thousand?) Twitter followers and these creators usually had a whole lot more than that.

it was a weird thing because usually they would have infinitely more Twitter followers but a whole lot less YouTube subscribers.

I'm not sure what created that dichotomy but something was definitely off with the algorithm there.

there is a part of my brain that says YouTube kind of went oh you know white male queer let's push him and you know ignore everyone else in the community.

whereas people were able to actually discover uh other queer creators on Twitter and then make their way to YouTube, but the YouTube algorithm, kind of, that's the most negative interpretation I have of it.

which unfortunately may be true.

uh in any case I should have done more to share the voices of other queer people, certainly the people whose works I used both credited and plagiarized in my videos, but also just other creators on YouTube.

it's important for us as a community as vaguely defined as we are to support each other and I didn't do that nearly enough from day one.

I was very taken in by the idea of being a YouTuber.

as soon as my videos started to get recommended by the algorithm, after not releasing a new video for like two years I felt like I had a short period of time to get the next videos out as soon as possible.

which is why so little work was put into the writing of them and so much was taken from other places, plagiarized early on.

I thought crediting authors in the opening credits alone was enough, especially since the videos weren't monetized early on, but I understand now especially after speaking with some of the people who were, who I did plagiarize that that was just, I was wrong.

that was not the way to go about it, they should have been cited properly within the text of the video video, they should have been called out in the video at least once verbally as well as you know having citations on screen.

if there were a whole lot of them, like with you know one of the examples that H bomber guy used in his video was the Deep Cuts video there were a whole lot of people who I, you know, credited in the opening credits but really it's plagiarism, they should have been cited on screen with actual citations of, you know, links where you can find this stuff.

maybe there should have even been a bibliography that you could have gone to like on a Google drive or something like that.

because you know although I might have stated that the scripts were based upon the work of these authors it in many cases wasn't just based on their work it was their work word for word.

in some cases I did get permission like with the Evil Queen's Disney video.

I'll put the email up on the screen that I got from Sean Griffin, um where he did give me permission to publish the video.

I sent the finished video to him and he watched it and he gave me permission, but in most cases I didn't get permission and thought that just putting the author's name in the opening credits was enough.

I was much more interested in the production of the videos than the writing of them at this point so after three or four videos I brought Nick on as a main writer for the channel.

the idea is that they would write the vast majority of the scripts.

I would film, voice and edit the videos and we'd split the money that came in.

we were roommates at the time and Nick didn't have a job, so I figured it would help both of us.

this is actually when we had some of our biggest videos, uh like the ones talking about Wiccan and hulkling, where we lucked out because it came out right in time for Wan division (Editor: Wandavision?) to hit and then the killing stalking video which became our biggest video by far.

uh the sadism of class was another one.

these videos weren't plagiarized and we loved making them.

uh it didn't take long for the channel income to start growing.

lucky timing really because this was around the same time that I was laid off since the company that I was working for, downsized once Co hit its second year.

Nick and I had both grown up poor, so we started doing what we could to try and stabilize our income as much as possible.

this meant putting out more videos which meant I had to take over more of the writing duties, but since filming, editing, usually doing multiple edits because of YouTube copyright issues, as well as managing the channel and dealing with my mom's recent cancer diagnosis, all of that was already taking up so much of my time and attention.

this led to a lot of copy and pasting blocks of text into scripts.

my intention at the time was to use these as a jumping off point once Nick and I sat down to edit the script, because that's what we would do.

I would sort of put in my parts, Nick would put in his parts and then we would sit down at a table read through the whole script and kind of try and make it seem cohesive.

but, and here's something I'm sure a lot of people will call a excuse, I have memory issues because of a head injury from when I was a child.

uh they're actually getting worse.

I've talked about it on streams and in videos, so yes it is real, but some people will call it a excuse.

Anyway the head injury is actually what led to me having epilepsy, which is why I can't work in any job that involves physical labor.

employers can't get insurance for me to, like lift things or operate vehicles and stuff like that.

I actually did marketing for a restaurant group for a little while but got let go when they found out that I was epileptic because, at least according to them, I couldn't be insured to be in the kitchens where I needed to be to film videos and take photos and stuff like that.

but anyway, when it came to editing the scripts I couldn't remember what I'd written and what had been copy pasted.

we should have just chucked out everything that I had put into the script and filled them in with wholly original thoughts or I should have been taking notes on where things came from so that we could at least site them in the video if nothing else, but I never did that.

according to my therapist, my not thinking to do that probably stems from my recently diagnosed ADHD, but I don't know if I'm willing to say that really.

maybe it was or maybe it was just plain laziness.

maybe I thought that this was somewhere that I could cut a corner because I was torn in so many other directions.

honestly I can't remember, like I said memory issues.

but yes we should have just thrown out my contributions to the scripts and filled them in with original writing but we felt like we had too much of a time crunch.

we felt like we had to get videos out more often to feed the algorithm, and then my mom died and I became completely useless.

I couldn't think straight at all so Nick had to completely take over writing duties while I dealt with things you deal with after a person dies.

my dad you see he can't read or write uh he was very po poor when he was a kid so he had to leave school really young to work in order to feed his many brothers and sisters.

so I had to deal with all the legal stuff after my mom died as well as making sure that all my dad's bills were paid and whatnot, especially after his income was basically cut in half.

there was supposed to be a buffer here Money Wise as my mom had a life insurance policy that was going to be split between my dad and myself, but the insurance company, RBC Insurance so if you have insurance with them maybe rethink that, uh refuse to pay out the policy because my mother never mentioned that she had family with diabetes.

she didn't have diabetes but because she didn't think to mention that she had family with diabetes it apparently voided the policy.

all they did was refund a Year's worth of premiums that she'd paid even though she'd been paying them for about 15 years.

one of the things, the main thing really that I was supposed to do with my portion of the insurance money was, I was supposed to make a movie.

these were direct instructions from my mom herself.

she'd been very much behind me when I decided, when I was about 10, that I wanted to be a filmmaker and she wanted me to finally have the opportunity to do that even if she never got to see it.

so when the life insurance went bust I decided to try and crowdfund it.

at least enough to make a short film or two this is what teos (Editor: Telos) grew out of.

so what happened with Telos, let me break down the timeline.

when we launched the campaign in February of 2022 we hoped to raise $3,000 to produce a short film that we hoped that we would then use as a sort of proof of concept to attract investors, either private public or through Canada's telefilm program, to produce a feature.

some people online have stated that $3,000 never would have covered the cost of a short film but these were not going to be unionized movies and we were very clear about that upfront.

we wanted to be able to pay actors as best that we could but we never expected to be able to reach typical union wages.

the crew was going to be made up of people that I had gone to film school with.

everyone, including Nick and myself we were roommates at the time, living on the East Coast were more than happy to work behind the scenes for free.

we planned on writing a movie with a small cast and only one or two locations, ideally ones that we could get access to for free.

again we assumed all the money would go to the actors.

uh we kind of looked at this is a sort of Community Theater troop but for film making.

after the campaign launched it did infinitely better than we could have expected and our Ambitions grew.

we started planning to make a feature instead of a short film and the plan was to take this around to, uh film festivals.

the feature we settled on, entitled final girl, was about the Lone Survivor of a slasher movie type Massacre 10 years after the fact, as she was publishing a book about her ordeal, drawing attention from people online convinced that she had actually been the killer all along.

in the end we would find out that the killer was the boyfriend of the girl who the main character had secretly been dating at the time of the killings and most of the people he killed were, in his eyes, collateral damage as he made his way to our main character, because he was not happy that his girlfriend was cheating on him with a girl.

and to those who say that I plagiarized the plot from the novel Final Girl Support Group by Grady hris (Editor: Hendrix), read the book.

it's nothing like the plot of the movie and the final girl is a Trope in horror movies, so if using the Final Girl trope is plagiarism then basically everyone who's made a slasher movie since Texas Chainsaw Massacre owes the Toby Hooper Estates some money.

but anyway Nick and I planned out the movie, but I didn't want to start writing it until the campaign ended and the money was actually deposited.

uh after the insurance debacle I didn't want to count our chickens before they hatched.

when the money was officially deposited I immediately began work on the screenplay.

I finished it that summer.

soon after Nick had left to spend two months at home in Ottawa, Ontario with family.

I sent the script to him to read right away because I was proud very proud of it but Nick didn't want to share his opinion on it until he got back to the east coast so in the meantime I put out a preliminary casting call on local job boards.

when Nick got back, uh he believed that the script needed a page one rework.

this is also when he told me that he'd be moving back to Ontario permanently soon, as he wanted to live closer to family and live in a bigger city with more opportunities.

this was a punch to the gut for me.

we' been living together since 2015 and had become quite dependent on each other.

I felt like there was no way that I could make this movie without him and since I had received not that many replies to the initial casting call I took this as a sign that Ontario would be a better place to launch Telos, even though all my professional professional film connections were on the East Coast.

that was a mistake.

there I had free access to the campground that would serve as the setting for a good portion of the movie, as well as easy access to any number of houses, apartments and even offices that friends of friends would let me use to shoot.

in Ontario I had none of that, which immediately put the breaks on Final Girl since there was no conceivable way of filming in it, at least not within the budget that we had.

after Nick and I moved to the Toronto area he decided that he actually wanted to move home to Ottawa, uh to the Ottawa area about 5 hours away, at least for a little while.

in the meantime he would take a train to the GTA the crater (Editor: greater) Toronto area once a month, uh to work on YouTube videos for a few days and then head back.

this went on for a little less than a year so I began brainstorming new movies that we could film in Ontario.

this is where the multiple posters and teaser trailers came from.

I was trying to create something tangible to show that work was still being done with Telos.

I wrote multiple treatments for movies over the next few months and Nick and I eventually landed on one, called antisocial: a murder mystery, about a former social media click (Editor: clique) who had gone their separate ways on very bad terms and they were coming together for a reunion at a sort of VidCon event.

um they were all sharing a house and then some of them were going to start showing up dead.

around the same time, summer of 2023, uh Nick had moved to the GTA full-time.

uh he and I spent weeks working out exactly how the murder mystery would parse out in the movie.

we had a bunch of whiteboards up on my wall and we were just breaking it down piece by piece.

uh I'd put out a new casting call in the GTA and received hundreds of responses so I was planning on casting as soon as the script was finished but after trying to work out the numbers as far as paying actors went, Plus locations, food, costumes, as well as the equipment that we'd already purchased and the legal costs of setting up Telos as a business, we realized that we'd gone way too big with this movie.

uh the movie had too many characters and too many locations and it was just way too complex to be able to pull off with the budget.

so I started working on a script for a movie called The Listener, about a true crime podcaster focused on the mysterious deaths of homeless gay men in his City.

I was a fair way into the script when we realized it' be about a year before we could even film anything since winter was on its way and the story relied heavily on a summer setting.

so we went back to the drawing board yet again, finally settling on a modern-day adaptation of The Vampire based on the book by John Palador (Editor: capitals added, also it's Polidori).

uh it's one of the original works of published vampire fiction.

it's never received a proper film adaptation and was in public domain so we thought it would be a great choice and the cast could be kept down to basically five characters, with only two of them being on screen most of the time.

Nick and I both wrote treatments for it which we plan on, planned on melding together into a final treatment M that we would write the script based off of.

we'd had a meeting about it and we were talking about how best to move forward, how fast we could get the script written, how long it would take to cast, how soon we could start shooting.

we knew that it had been a while since the initial funding of Telos came in and we wanted to get something concrete out as soon as possible.

after the meeting we went to dinner and while at dinner I started getting messages about the H bomber Guy video.

we were in over our heads once we left the East Coast but the intention was never ever to Take the Money and Run.

I was so insanely excited about getting to make Telos a reality.

I was excited about getting to make a short film, let alone a feature.

it's always been my dream to make movies so Telos meant and means the world to me.

for Nick it was a very exciting project but not his passion.

Nick wanted to write novels, he still does.

Nick looked at this as a good creative outlet that was way more fulfilling than writing video essays.

I should have stayed where I was and not gone to Ontario.

the move uprooted everything that was solid about Telos and it took a whole year to get it back onto even anything close to stable footing, but I am working with the producer now so you can expect an actual product from Telos this year.

it will likely be a short film to start off but there is going to be something coming out of Telos this year.

I know I've lost your trust but I will make nothing financially from this project.

the money that is there will go wholly to paying queer artists to work on a queer film.

I am not nor have I ever intended to be one of the people paid by Telos, neither was Nick.

we made this very clear to everyone who asked.

during our work on tellos (Editor: Telos) is also when the YouTube channel started getting sponsors which as I said as someone who grew up poor I basically accepted all of them except for a few that I didn't think lined up with the message of the channel or had some bad news surrounding them.

there were a couple that had some anti-tr (Editor: anti-trans?) stuff going on in the news and I just didn't want to associate with that.

but by accepting as many sponsors as we did, which became very important when Nick and I started living apart, and suddenly had two rents to pay we ended up needing to produce even more videos, which along with the work on toos (Editor: Telos?) and making sure everything was okay with my dad while living thousands of kilometers away, meant I had even less time for writing, putting more stress on Nick and leading to even more copy pasting from me.

that's what led to us putting out, I think, six videos in one month at one point.

it might have been five, but in any case it was way too damn many videos to go out in one month.

we tried to take the summer off from YouTube in 2023 to work on Telos exclusively but even that went up in smoke because my housing situation.

just, I won't go into it here, I've talked about it at nauseum (Editor: ad nauseam) on streams and stuff.

if you followed me on social media you know the cluster I ended up in that led to me moving twice in two months.

in the last couple of months I've received a lot of emails, as you can imagine, uh many from people who were rightfully let down.

some from people threatening everything from doxing to violence Because the Internet, some with the kindest words of support I've ever heard and others simply asking why I made it so difficult to contact me and if I was okay.

they wanted to know why, as they put it, I nuked my social media presence.

(Editor: Warning for talk of suicide)

to be frank it's because I didn't want to exist anymore.

if you watched my honestly horrendous apology video Back In December you know I tried to make that happen, the not existing thing, but it was more intense than taking too many pills.

it's not that I didn't want to be alive anymore it's that I wished I'd never existed at all, that everyone I'd ever known would be better off had I just never been there, very George Bailey which is fitting given that it was Christmas time.

it's only thanks to some very very dedicated doctors and nurses and one very good friend that I'm even here able to film this right now.

I'm not going to name her because I don't want to expose anyone else to the small but seriously unstable group of people who watched the plagiarism and YouTube video and thought, well he should be dead.

like I said it's a it was a very small group but when they find out your address and some of them are actually in your city they can be terrifying, and they did find my address and at least a couple of them showed up while I was at the hospital.

um my neighbors did report them to the police, uh and I I won't go into any more details than that.

I'm not sure if I legally even can but there's a reason I left Ontario within a week of getting the okay to do so from the doctors.

so what's next then?

like I said you'll notice that a few of my videos are live again on the channel, these ones don't come from plagiarize content and for the most part are written entirely by Nick.

Nick lost three years worth of work when everything on the channel was taken down and that's simply not fair to Nick.

he worked hard writing those videos and deserves to have something to point to when he's looking for new writing work.

I've also done some heavy editing on other videos that did contain other people's writing, um breaking it down to only original content, again so that Nick has an actual portfolio of work.

as mentioned at the beginning of the video revenue from these will be going to the H bomber guy team, to be sent out to the writers I play R (Editor: plagiarized) from or donated to charity, however it works out in the end.

these edited videos will be going back up on the channel in the next few days I think, um along with two completed video essays that we didn't actually get to release before everything happened.

there's also some recent videos that didn't have any plagiarism that the sponsor asked to be taken down and their ads removed, um so they'll also be going back up without the sponsors obviously and soon I will be releasing a new video written entirely by me properly cited with all sources credited.

maybe no one will watch it but I hope you do.

I want to prove that I have the ability to do this without abusing other people's work.

it's a very different kind of video than I used to make though, I'd say it's more of a documentary than a video essay.

you won't find my opinions anywhere in there just cited facts.

I'd like to keep making videos like these new ones about people and events in gay history and definitive gay movies that you maybe never heard of, stuff like that.

it's actually something that I planned on doing this year anyway.

there would be two videos a month, Nick would write a video essay and I would write one of these documentary style videos that would fulfill the two videos per month sponsorship deal that we had at the time.

I have no sponsors now so probably not going to be two videos a month, it'll probably just be the one which will give more time for research and citation and crediting and making sure that there is no misinformation in the videos, uh which I know, I know that misinformation made its way into, uh our past videos that was not something that we intended.

in some cases it was information that I was told by people that I considered experts, um in other cases it was information that we had researched, uh in other cases it was things that Nick had learned in University, the point being it was never malicious.

we didn't, we weren't trying to lie about things despite what a lot of people think.

we were not trying to spread misinformation that was not ever Our intention and that's something else that I want to apologize for.

as for my patreon everyone can stop worrying about me relaunching it right in time for a billing cycle, that will not be happening.

I don't want anyone who either doesn't know about the plagiarism or simply forgot to unsub subscribe to get build (Editor: billed) so I'm going to start from zero.

I have put together a new patreon account so if you want to support my documentaries about gay history, fantastic, honestly your faith in me after everything means the world to me.

if not I completely understand.

like I said I've lost your trust.

I'm going to work my ass off to earn it back though and I know for some of you I'll never be able to do that but I'm going to try anyway.

you know there's a link in the description to the patreon if you want to join it, where you'll be able to see the to yet to be released videos right now, as well as, you know, take part in other stuff that will be on there like a book club podcasts, uh voting on upcoming videos, all the usual patreon stuff.

but this video is not about promoting myself this video is about me apologizing and I am incredibly sorry.

it was never my intention for anyone to feel hurt or left out or excluded, it was never my intention to spread misinformation and I'm really really sorry that that happened and you know as as much as I've tried to explain myself in this video, you know the memory issues, ADHD, um the personal things that were going on in my life with my mom getting sick and then dying and trying to make sure that my dad was okay following that and everything, those aren't excuses.

there is no excuse for what I did.

there are lots of people who make videos on YouTube, there are lots of people who make podcasts, TV shows, movies, documentaries who have going on in their lives that's very stressful and they don't plagiarize people's work.

there is no excuse for what I did.

for everything that happened, whether it be with my mom or the memory issues, there was something I could have done to mitigate that.

there's nothing I could have done about my mom getting cancer but knowing my patrons as I did, in hindsight I'm pretty damn sure that if I had said, guys I need to step away for a couple of months to deal with this, I don't think a whole lot of people would have fled the patreon.

a part of me thought they would at the time because I catastrophy (Editor: catastrophize?), I, but I really don't think that would have happened.

even in the very beginning when I was like, oh I got to get as many videos out as possible, if I had said to those people who subscribe to the channel early on, you know for the next video I want to make sure that it's fully correct and I want to make sure that you know it's as high quality as it can possibly be, I, I don't think anyone would have, you know unsubscribed or not watched the next video because it didn't come out a couple of weeks after the algorithm decided that I was important.

for some reason I convinced myself of these things but I don't think, in hindsight, looking at it I don't think any of that would have happened and so there is no excuse for the misinformation and there is certainly no excuse for the plagiarism.

I up bad I stole people's words and thoughts and opinions, that they worked incredibly hard writing and Publishing and finding someone to publish their thoughts and opinions and research, hard research that they had done and, you know, in some cases, I put them their names in the opening credits which I thought was fine, but like I said I've spoken with some of these people now and I understand why that was not okay.

because putting someone's name in the opening credits, you know, okay here's a list of people, here's, you know, seven or eight people who are, even if it was you know everyone, even if it wasn't, you know, taking giant chunks of their work, paragraphs at a time, even if it was just a sentence here or there, putting their name in the opening credits doesn't tell anyone where their work is in the video.

nobody can say, oh I really like that opinion, or wow that's a really, you know, smart observation, I want to read more from this person, and then, you know, to find something you found interesting you have to go play detective and so yes, just putting their name in the opening credits was wrong.

I thought it was cool and you know cinematic, but it was wrong.

citations should have been done properly, there should never have been just chunks of text being put into videos.

there were times like with, uh the queer history of Hollywood videos, that I released this past spring they were based directly on the Celluloid closet by veto (Editor: Vito) Russo, the book not the documentary.

I expanded on it quite a bit but it was based directly on veto's (Editor: Vito's) work and I credited him in the opening credits and I thought it was okay to just do that, because the book was out of print and veto had passed away unfortunately from HIV complications, due to HIV and AIDS and I looked at it more as extend in his legacy, making sure that people knew about the work that he did but I don't think I ever mentioned his name in those videos.

he was crit (Editor: credited?), like I said his name's in the opening credits but I don't think I ever verbally mentioned his name, someone who I have so much respect for who, kind of an idol of mine and I never mentioned his name.

it wasn't because I didn't respect him or anything like that and it also wasn't because I wanted people to think that this was all me again, if, if that was the case I wouldn't have put his name in the in the credits.

I never wanted people to think that this was all me, so that's actually one of the videos I want to make.

I want to make a documentary style video talking about vetto (Editor: Vito) Russo and his life and everything that he accomplished, because he didn't just write the Celluloid closet, he did a lot more than that.

he's someone that people should know about.

obviously people can research him, uh there's books about him but I know, you know, it's easier to sit down and watch a 20 or 30 minute YouTube video than it is to read a book.

I'd like to make a video about VTO (Editor: Vito) Russo, properly cited and not just, you know, copy pasted from a book.

I want to do the work, I want to prove, not just to you, but to myself that I can do the work and that's why I've started making these documentaries.

working on these I can't, I can't really put into words how sorry I am.

I've tried, I've tried writing like a blog entry to say that I was sorry for about two months now and I just can't.

I can't get across how sorry I am and I know actions speak way louder than words and I hope with my actions that I can show you that I am sorry.

I'm sorry to everyone I play Dr (Editor: plagiarized?).

I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt.

I'm sorry to people who feel lied to.

I'm sorry to people who feel like I abused the queer Community, was never my intention.

again I'm sorry to Jesse.

There were actually several other YouTubers who, uh were very nice to me but I feel like with everything that went down Jess, Jesse is the one that I should apologize to the most.

I'm sorry for the people who felt scammed, who thought that Telos was a grift.

it was not it is not I am very sorry and I hope given time and my actions proving it that you can believe me."

--------

I hope my restraint in not adding personal commentary is appreciated, as there were times it took heroic effort. There are several places I deleted comments I typed at first, mainly along the lines of "You sure as fuck shouldn't have, buddy!" virtually whenever he said he shouldn't have done something.

To end on a lighter note, I did almost lose it at the end with the typo VTO Russo. I had just been wading through so much, and suddenly, there was Vertical Takeoff Russo.

#James Somerton #H bomberguy #long post #Also youtube auto transcript is poop #spend some of your ill gotten $ on a transcriber would ya?!

[nakuzendara]

As this year is coming to a close, let's take a step back to reflect on what we've experienced💙

This year for me has been eventful, to say the least; it has been full of drama, misfortune and joy. Although I did obviously enjoy the more significant things, I want to take a moment to appreciate the smaller things that keep me grounded and that I usually take for granted.

First of all, here are my favourite photographs of Ludwig I've taken this year:

Ludwig has been my travel buddy for a good year and a half now. I'm a very anxious person, so having him in my pocket to keep me company and distract me from any negative thoughts is very soothing. I'd like to thank him for always being there for me and for being such a good model when I'm taking pictures💖

Secondly, my favourite pictures of my cats:

My cats Bonkers, Meowza and Link are some of the most special people in my entire life. They're a great comfort to me as I'm not the best at socializing. I'd like to thank them for watching films with me, eating my dinner when I'm not looking, and snuggling with me in bed during the cold nights💝

Thirdly, I want to thank my family and friends for being there for me despite my flaws. I adore them all very much and cannot express my gratitude for your unconditional love. I'm aware that I'm not the easiest to be around and can be quite callous at times, but you just being there means the world to me💙💙

Finally, I want to thank the people on this platform. I get very nervous about asks and such, so I'll take the opportunity to thank my favourite people in particular (not in any sort of order):

@thekoopalingsandstuffs (and all of your other blogs)

@thedeitywhoplayedwithbricks

@sabbracadabras

@maggie4thewin

@aron-q

@crossycrosserog

@askthekoopsandjr

@koopaling-au

@mookmayor

@thecrypticshyguy

@fridaverse

@spritesitrus

@hopusthebrainlessfloof

@skratchytheclown

It may not mean much, but your artwork is truly amazing and always brightens my day. I find it hard not to go on a giant ramble about all the things I love about your art. You're all so inspiring and some of the kindest people I've ever met. I genuinely hope the next year brings nothing but good fortune, happiness and ease becasue you truly deserve the best.

I'd also like to mention how grateful I am for all the people who enjoy my art. I honestly thought I would just make an account and post a single photo (due to being peer pressured by my sibling and friend) but to my suprise, I found myself continuing on Tumblr for a while now. I thought that if I made even one person happy from my art, I would be content. Seeing people like what I do after being alone for so many years is genuinely overwhelming (in a good way), so I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Have a wonderful new year, hopefully I will work on my confidence so I can post more stuff about the stories I have🌙⭐

#ludwig von koopa #super mario bros #happy new year #ramble #cats #hopefully next year won't be as busy as last year🥲

[moshieee]

Hello it is I, random anon who does not know you and has never interacted with you before, what is your opinion of your mutuals?

Oh hi @bixell-pixell I'll include you even if we're not mutuals I think you're pretty chill all things considered

That's kinda it idk you that well

Anyways

You didn't specify so I'm going to list all my mutuals in the order of oldest to newest on my following page that I remember sorry of I missed anyone and for the @ s

*inhales*

@e-the-village-cryptid (I don't have a tag for e yet but it would probably just be E)

Not only the first person who I became friends with here but also the first one I ever started sharing my stories with, even if we don't talk too much I'm glad Every time we do and I see them on my dash, (they bring some of my favorite posts and when I do send posts sometimes I mix up and send them their own reblogs) I'm so glad we're still friends, thanks for letting me ramble about stuff for 6 hours hehe

@jaqofallgenders (no tag for jaq yet either)

my in person friend and the longest friendship I've ever had with someone, love you 🫶. I'll be more specific on Monday if our ADHD doesn't kick in and make us both forget

@strawberry-seal77 (seal-berry!!!)

Hi hi hi yellows my friend 👋 the person I consider to be the second ever friend I made on here, a lovely person as well and wait waaa and an amazing artist too 👀??? Love you silly goofball and the amazing posts and jokes you have we should chat more often I thinkith.

@rabid-mercenary16 (Rabid jumpscare)

Hey hey hey .... BWAMP! Hope you feel better soon

I probably have the most to say about Rabid but all try to make it a bit shorter. besides being the first artist to do art jokes and include me, with we also became mutuals and interacting around a time when my life started to get a lot better. Even if she's not the only factor in that I definitely associate her with stuff improving, and she did play a big factor in it (I already explained a lot on my Valentine's Day gift to her and the others). Also she's just an awesome person to spend time with and be goofy, amazing sense of humor and I just love being friends with such an awesome person and artist.

@dia-smthidk (Dia fren)

I'm assuming you don't want a bowl of soup

I also said a lot about them in my Valentine's Day gift, but we've become closer friends sense then even if we don't get to chat as much as I'd like to. I relate a lot and am surprised how we have so much in common. Amazing artist and person as well and I wish we could hang out more, idc if they think they're bringing down the mood when/if they bring stuff up about irl, and maybe I won't figure out their timezone but oh well, please take care of yourself gender sibling.

@bunnybunnsowo (BUN BUN BROTHER!!)

little brother 🫶🫶💝💞🫶✨👋❤️!!!

(I could have sworn we became mutuals before Dia?)

another person I shared a lot about with the Valentine's Day gift, I love you my little brother! Seriously one of the kindest people I've met and I'm so glad they have bug in his life. Bun deserves the world and they keep sending me opposum images!!! Gona die from cuteness and his kindness one of these days istg

@spookykittyzzz (greaah why don't I have a tag for you???)

A very kind person and artist I don't know too much sense we're not that close yet but love the few chats we have had so far. Hope we get to hang out more even if I'm awful at reaching out to others and saying hi.

@glitchyk (goop buddies)!!

Nooo the parallels

One of the first people who was interested to deep dive into my creations and ask about my stories and worlds They're probably competing with Rabid with how much I have to say about her/silly. Seriously it's incredible how much we have in common and now I get to share and collaborate our sonas stories together it's amazing. And as someone once said "you can yap for hours". I love how creative and clever they are, I just wish they would be kinder to herself. One day I'll make glichy see how awesome she is.

@unfunnyaceartist (Floridian disadvantage) I feel like I should change that

When I say I was shookith when ace asked to be friends I mean I was shookith first person so show up and ask that (the others kinda just happened). Amazing artist and don't believe her lies she is funny. I'm so heckn glad we're friends., love the goofy and silly idc if she's a bit of a simp they've helped me a lot start to understand slang and references I'm supposed to understand shhshsh (such is the curse of how I grew up) we need to make our mafia sonas interact at some point I can already imagine the chaos /silly

@neptunestoast (plushy slime)

Hugs hugs hugs*

Trying my best not to baby talk I swear. amazing person first person to show up and be like "hey I Wana do something for you and your friends". Love their humor and another gender sibling!!! Hugs for ever for as long as they're ok with it. I love their creativity as well and Noodle is so adorable. I just want to pick them up in a hug so much. Kibbity/silly

@ner5y (no tag woops ill figure something out)

What are you doing here??? How are we friends???

I was absolutely confused and startled when they followed me especially since it was during a spoons argument . Amazing artist like holy heck I wish I was allowed to curse on this blog. Their humor also took me by surprise when I got invited to the discord, and even if they doubt how well they're running it I think they're doing amazing. And I love our silly interactions like this one

@vexation-816 (chaotic ADHD buddy!!!)

Why did it take me so long to follow you istg

ADHD ADHD ADHD my buddy oh pal we both got that and it's driving us insane/silly. Love how creative he is and the ideas for his sona and character lore. Also one of the first people who shared a character they added to my nightlight au. This is getting twords the end and I'm tired of whiting so much and am on a timer oh no. But your amazing dude don't ever forget thag

@butlerbugbunny (anxiety bunny buddy)

This is why I didn't respond to the DM yet hshsh

New friend who I feel anxious talking to sometimes but a wonderful kind bunny who I'm also incredibly happy to be friends with. Love his art so much it's amazing (shoot shoot timer is going off) I'm glad he's their for bun and wish them the best I possibly can 🫶.

@lilithloves-you (lillith my be-loathed?) need to change that

Don't you dare bring up grilled cheese

Glitchys friendo who I'm also friends with now. We don't interact too much but I've sent her on missions to go hug glitchy (to help both of them feel better but shhh). I hope we become closer friends in the future.

#god this is a lot anyways im off to the store now #mutuals #E #seal-berry #Rabid jumpscare #bun bun brother #dia fren #goop buddies #Floridian disadvantage #plushy slime #anxiety bunny buddy #Lilith my be-loathed?

[nekrophoria]

Happy Birthday to one of the kindest, strongest and just all around most awesome people I've ever met on simblr!

@drawing-way-outside-the-lines

I hope you have a good day and that this year everything will work out for ya!

Thank you for being you and for being such a good friend 💙

I wasn't able to make the present I had in mind. Which would have been actual story scenes with our two idiots. Soo..i made the next best thing and just spun some ideas around and played with some netflix templates. I know it ain't much but I hope you like it nonetheless.

#Sims 3 #Kinda #Drawing way outside the lines #Caspian Jacob D'Angelo #Oc: Mabon Au #I still got the Adrian and Andy Gorillaz drawing on my list xD #Gotta make that for you some point #Blood tw #murder tw #I absolutely suck at writing summaries of any kind so don't judge too hard ^^;

[noodyl-blasstal]

We Got Boned!

I got brainworms from @taakosleftshoe's post this morning and now we're here!

Lup's upset about Lord Artemis Sterling paying his way into a permit to acquire some human remains he definitely shouldn't be using as a jigsaw puzzle in his stupid rich people museum. But it's okay, they're gonna write a book about it.

Read below or on Ao3

-

"I've been thinking."

"About the bones?"

"About the bones."

"I don't like it…" There's a pause. "The bones that is, not the thinking."

Lup appreciates that Barry doesn't ask the usual questions the, "is this because of the… you know?" Followed by a vague gesture which she guesses is supposed to somehow encapsulate the 9 and a bit years spent cradled in her own corpse's hands as the meat sack she lived in decayed.

"I think we can do something about it."

Barry sets his book down. "I'm listening."

"We're writing a book."

"Oooh, that ticks off some of the research requirements at work too."

"See, chagirl's not just the hottest elf you ever met."

"No, you're also the smartest and the bravest and the kindest…" He says it with such fondness, eyes crinkling at the sides, the lines by his mouth falling into place as he smiles. She's glad she got to add to those laugh lines before they gave up on the whole ageing schtick.

"Damn straight."

"...and the second best chef."

Barry's ducking even as she swings herself round to grab a cushion to throw.

"So, we're writing a book." He says evenly as the first pillow bonks off his back.

"About bones." Lup says cheerfully as she flings the next one.

"In general?" Barry asks as it baps harmlessly into his unguarded ear.

"About being bones."

"Oh. Oh that's good!" Barry looks up just in time to get a face full of the squishy fire patterned pillow.

Lup decides that’s enough violence. “It is, right?”

“An autoethnography of bones. No one’s done it before.”

“They sure haven’t."

“Have you got a name?”

“Not yet, I thought maybe you might have a sugg…” Lup’s not even done by

“We got boned!” Barry’s positively gleeful.

“Taako’s going to hate it. It’s perfect.”

–

"I love the way you wove your narrative in with Hodge's theory." Barry looks so proud, she fizzes from the inside out. She found someone who’d read what she wrote, who’d appreciate it.

"Thanks! This chapter about the rituals of death juxtaposed with the time I carved your leg bone is brilliant." She loved reading Barry’s work, he always found interesting ways to guide the reader to conclusions so naturally they’d believe they thought of it.

"You're only saying that because carving a ring out of your dead husband's thigh bone is, and I quote, “fucking rad” and you're glad people are going to know about it."

Lup admires the ring on her finger. "It's also very well written. Stuff can be two things."

"Stuff can be two things." Barry nods in agreement.

Lup reaches out to touch her hand to his.

It was fun to research together again. There were opportunities at the university, sure, but this was different. This was late nights and ad hoc meals, it was falling asleep on the sofa nose in a book, mussed up Barry waking her gently and leading her to bed so they didn't wake up with bad backs. It was exciting, being on the edge of discovery again, being part of the science of it. They lived it, maybe it could make a difference. And if not, the heist would.

Shit! The heist.

"Hey Bear. Did I ever mention why I wanted to write this?"

"Education of the masses?"

"Sure. Yeah. That. But also…"

"Lup?" Barry's doing the fake frowny face, if she waits too long he'll start laughing.

"There might be a teeeeensy heist."

Barry raises his eyebrows and blinks slowly at her.

"Just a little one, honest."

Barry waits, because he's glorious, he's perfect, he's always game for good reasons crime.

"I'm in."

"You don't have questions?"

"Not really." Barry looks thoughtfully down at her, hand still idly stroking her back. "I assume you have the how and I already know the why."

"It’s just a tiny backwards Indiana Jones."

"We're gonna steal the artefacts out of the museum."

"We're save the life-challenged people from the basement."

Barry snorts at that one, exactly like she hoped he would.

"So the book was for the book launch?" Barry asks. Smart man, excellent man.

"Where else would we hold it?"

"Can't think of a better location.” Barry says, nodding.

"Taako's doing the artefact levitation, Magnus is muscle, Merle’s on healing duty, and Krav's there to ensure they're actually gentle."

"You thought of everything." Barry says, and kisses her fondly on the cheek.

–

"So, I forgot about the security." Lup announces to the table.

"Mmhm." Says Kravitz, lips already pulled tight in disapproval. "Have you considered maybe not doing a crime and writing to ask them to release the remains instead? Maybe a petitio…"

Taako drowns him out with a loud raspberry. "You're embarrassing me, Bones. If you don't wanna come it's fine, just means Magnus and I can be faster with the dead dude jigsaws." Taako winks at Lup as Kravitz's eyes widen in alarm.

"No wait, crime's good, I love crime actually. I just forgot."

"Is it even really a crime if he was only allowed to exhume the bodies from the black glass because he bought the permit for it?" Barry asks.

"Yes." Says Kravitz too fast, then winces in pain as Taako definitely kicks him in the shin. "But, er, actuall… oh fuck it. You know what, yes, it's a crime, but I think the Raven queen will approve of this one."

"I'm also slightly concerned about the legality, Dr Lup."

"Who brought the baby?" Taako rolls his eyes.

"Why you did, Sir, remember, I live at your house, you drove Mr Kravitz and I here, you made me the bag of car snacks, remember?"

"It's our house, Agnes, we've talked about this, and we also talked about being cool." Taako hisses.

Lup snorts loudly. "You don't have to be involved, Angus, it's okay."

"Thank you very much Dr Lup, but I think that I might be able to help with the security. There's only two of them, I went to check yesterday, and I think they'd both find a distressed little boy very difficult to cope with."

"The perfect role for Merle!" Magnus says brightly. "He's the right height."

"I thought I might do it, Sir." Says Angus before Merle can reply. "I have…" Angus starts to sniffle. "I have been so looking… forward to a… a chance to act… you see… but if you think Merle would… be a better choice..." Tears leak down his cheeks and he looks so utterly forlorn that Lup's halfway to scooping him into a hug when he smiles. "Acting! See! I'm perfect for the role."

"And the moral conundrum you were wrestling with mere seconds ago?" Kravitz cocks an eyebrow.

"I just thought it'd be funny if Mr Taako thought he was living with two squares, Sir." Angus smiles brightly enough to get away with it.

"So if I'm not the kid, what am I doing?" Merle asks.

"You're our medic. Anyone gets knocked down, you make sure they get up again." Lup replies.

"They're never gonna keep us down." Deadpans Lucretia.

There’s a booming “HA!” from Magnus in recognition.

"Davenport, do you need anything?" Lup already knows the answer. Davenport's already prepared, Davenport was ready for this heist before Artemis Sterling took the bones for his stupid rich person museum.

"No thank you, Lup. I have the plans, the van, and the magnetic signs are ready to go. I thought a cat salon would work well."

Perfect.

"What do we do with them once we've got them?" Lucretia asks.

Lup's got this covered. "Where would they least expect?"

"Back in the basement!" Magnus yells immediately.

"Nope."

"My greenhouse!"

Taako grimaces at the thought. "We don't know if they were over 18, there's no way they're allowed to spend time in the cesspit of sin."

Angus thrusts his hand into the air, bouncing in his seat. Lup cannot believe they raised such a nerd. He's perfect.

"Ango?"

"Where they came from, Dr Lup." He grins, proud of himself. She's proud too.

"Right! What idiot's gonna steal something and put it back where it came from?"

"These idiots!" They chant in unison.

–

The thing about being one of the saviours of the universe and having your lives pumped into everyone’s heads is that no one can dispute it when you write a book about what it’s like to die. They know about every single time already. The falling, The Sword Cupboard Incident, the going-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory, the stabbed in the back and trapped for a decade. No publisher was going to say no, especially not when they realised it wasn’t a hinky memoir - there was no point in that. Everyone already knew. What they didn’t know though, was how to be science, but Lup and Barry? They breathed it.

It turns out that when you’re the saviours of the universe it’s easy to pick where you launch your book, you’re fighting the offers off. When you’re the saviours of the universe you can even get a guided tour in advance, you can bring 5 of your closest friends, and the world’s greatest detective, and no one questions it. Lord Artemis Sterling will give you the tour himself, let you know exactly how little he thinks of the people he stole, reinforce exactly why you’re definitely not planning on stealing any of his collection - cross your heart and hope to die.

When you’re the saviours of the universe no one can tell you that you can’t wear big stompy boots with a cocktail dress for your book launch, or that a denim suit isn’t “fitting” for the occasion. Lup has checked thoroughly, actually, and it’s fitting Barry very well if she does say so herself.

When you’re the saviours of the universe people who don’t give a shit about your book will show up for the launch just to put a sight on you. Just to say they saw the lover and one of the twins, they’ll hope to see the others. They won’t, of course. Apart from Lucreita. The lonely press release writer, noting down the events of the evening for posterity.

When you’re the saviours of the universe, you can get away with a lot.

–

The sound of metal pinging against ‘the nice glassware’ sets Lup’s teeth on edge. Being adored is great and all, but couldn’t it be quieter?

Chants of “speech!” chorus around the room, so she and Barry nod at each other, he pulls the cards they prepared from his inside pocket, and they walk slowly to the podium. Angus smiles beautifically up at her as she passes, this is his cue, she already knows he’s going to shine.

“HELLO NEVERWINTER! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?” Lup yells into the mic, covering the wailing sound of Angus’ performance beginning as the door swings shut behind him. The audience looks at one another, there’s a single cough.

“I said, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?” Lup repeats, revelling in the sea of horrified faces in front of her. She throws in a high kick, you know, just because. It’s important to keep all eyes on them and a boring speech is not going to cut it.

“Yes!” Lucretia shouts from a distant corner of the crowd.

“I suppose we could?” Someone else says.

“Great, that’s the kind of energy we love and were hoping for.” Barry says, adopting his very best patient teacher smile.

A small “woo!” comes from somewhere in the mass of people.

“Maybe we’re ready for just the rocking no rolling, Lup?”

“Well, we can certainly show you a medium good time this evening.” Lup smiles and nods at the smattering of polite laughter. The crowd seems slightly relieved she’s turned the energy down, more fool them.

“Have any of you ever been bones?” Barry asks the crowd.

“Yes!” Lup snorts loudly at Lucretia’s interjection.

“How was it?” Lup asks.

“Bad!” Lucretia shouts back. “I was dead.”

“You sure were! And did that mean you wanted just anyone to take your bones and do all sorts of bullshit with them?”

“No!” Lucretia replies, giving Lup an encouraging thumbs up.

“No.” Repeats Barry, solemnly. “And that’s how Lup and I feel too. Every bone, you see, has a story.”

“So when we got boned, it was hard.” Lup says.

“Really hard.” Barry adds, trying very hard to keep his face straight.

Lup notices his mouth twitching and decides to go for broke. “There’s no need to boast Barold.” She whispers, nudging him. He turns a delightful shade of pink. “But what felt best…” Lup says, talking into the mic again. “... was when I was treated with respect. There’s nothing like your own brother stealing your stuff and cheesing it to make you feel like an object, not a person, even though it definitely wasn’t his fault because he couldn’t remember you.”

There’s a loud “Ha!” From a man in the front row, the person next to him elbows him hard in the ribs.

“No no, go ahead, that’s a good one, honestly. Just wait until we get to the bit where I made this.” Lup holds up her hand to show off her shiny white ring and grins wide. There’s a groan from a woman on the left. Lup hopes there’s at least one terrible first date happening here tonight.

“Bones, by their very nature, were part of a living breathing being.” Barry starts to work from the cards. He’s right, of course, they probably shouldn’t stray too far from the plan, shouldn’t front load too many of the anecdotes. “But once flesh leaves bone, we often forget the humanity of them. We don’t look at a person any more, we look at an object. An object to be taken, studied, stored, or displayed. We don’t often consider who they might have been, which grave markers we have taken them from, or whether there are families missing them.” Barry takes a moment to look out across the crowd. “When is it okay to take a body?” He asks no one and everyone all at once.

They wait.

Someone always cracks, eventually the heat of the silence will get to them and they’ll popcorn their way into an answer. It never fails in class.

Lup nods encouragingly, makes eye contact with anyone stupid enough to look up in this moment.

“After a thousand years.” Someone shouts up.

“Yes, so the historical argument is a good one. What’s the point in the militia looking at a skeleton from thousands of years ago? Why shouldn’t the remains become an artefact, each bone catalogued and recorded.”

“Yeah!”

“I’ll ask another question, what makes a person?”

There’s a longer silence.

“Who are you?” Lup asks. She loves it when people have to think about this. It’s rare they consider what the stuff of them is, beyond a name or a place or a purpose, the context of their lives.

“Lucretia!” Shouts Lucretia.

“You sure are. And who’s she? Is she books and journals and learning?” Barry asks.

“Fuck off Barry, I learned to fight! I made a second moon!”

“You did.” He says, voice softer for a moment. “But how would we demonstrate that in a museum?” He looks patiently around the room again.

“An information board?”

“What would we put on the information board?” Lup asks the room, they’re getting bolder and she’s delighting in it.

“The stuff about the moons.”

“And?”

“Her name!”; “The fighting stuff!”; “Journals on display.”

“All good suggestions, but how much of that context can we give? And how do we get it from some bones?”

“Research ‘em.” Lucretia’s beaming. Lup needs to bring her to more conferences to heckle.

“Research them!” Barry agrees, happily. “We wrote this book for multiple reasons, we wanted to share our experience because it’s important to encourage learning, but we also wanted to help people think differently.”

Angus sneaks back into the door, flaps his hands in a complex circle motion and purses his lips. Lup assumes he’s doing the bird call he practised earlier, thankfully him arriving back is all the signal she needs.

“Anyway, the main thing we want you to remember is that skeletons are people too. Thank you bye!”

Lup drops the mic.

Barry, many years deep in his conference circuits with Lup, reaches out to catch it before it fully leaves her hand. “Thank you for your time, please remember to buy your copy of “We Got Boned!: an autoethnography of death, respect, and being rad litches who can’t die.” Have a lovely evening and enjoy the canapes.”

Lup’s glad she didn’t knock the softness out of him, glad that the years apart didn’t take it either. She hopes people do buy the book, that people do care. But most of all she hopes that the people below them are currently speeding to freedom in the back of a ‘cat shampoo’ wagon.

Angus sniffles and grabs her leg. She bends to comfort him. “The mongoose have left the nest, Dr Lup, I repeat, the mongoose have left the nest.”

“The otters have built the dam?”

“Pardon?” Angus looks up at her his adorable little face scrunched up with confusion.

“Just messing with you Ango.”

“Oh. I… I knew that. Good one, Dr Lup.”

She winks at him, then scoops him up onto her hip - the next part of the plan was flawless, no one could argue with kid tears. “You ready?”

“I was born ready.” Angus replies, tears already welling in his eyes. “I was so… scared.” He wails. “I thought… I’d… never… see you… again.” The sobs are coming thick and fast.

“Oh no, don’t worry little man, you’re back now, but what have I told you about wandering off?”

“That I shouldn’t do it.” Angus says through his tears. “I’m going to be in so much trouble with Mr Taako and Mr Kravitz.”

“It’s okay, pumpkin, we don’t have to tell them.”

“I already did, I messaged them on my stone and they said I have to come home right away?”

“Right now, Angus?”

“Right now. I have to go home right now.” He wails loudly.

“Oh dear, well let’s go find Barry, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Angus is shaking against her shoulder and Lup has no idea if it’s with laughter or the best fake-tear education Taako could give.

“Oh no, what’s wrong Angus?” Barry’s face is lined with concern as they approach him.

“I have… to… go… home.” Angus snuffles out between sobs. Lup tries to mop at his face, but soon realises he’s already soaked his hanky through. Incredible.

“Do you have a…?” She waves Angus’ handkerchief at Barry.

“Of course, oh dear, poor thing.” Barry hands over his denim pocket square. “I’m so sorry everyone, this was a fascinating discussion, but you can’t argue with that face, it seems like we’ll have to be off.”

“Surely you don’t both have to go?” A tall man with a well waxed moustache asks.

“I… miss my Grandpaaaaaaaaa.” Angus wails.

“Oh buddy, I’m so sorry. What can we do to help?” Barry asks.

“I’ll never be… able to see him… again because he’s… dead…” Angus is definitely reaching now, but thankfully everyone looks alarmed enough by the invocation of a dead grandfather that they’re not going to question it. “... but I’d like to… go home.” The sobs are thick and fast now.

“Oh Angus, of course we’ll take you home.” Lup pets his hand lovingly. “Won’t we Bear?”

Barry nods.

There’s grumblings around the circle, but no one is willing to outright tell a crying child no, especially not when Angus sobs even harder and reaches for Barry. If he’s not careful the kid’s going to give himself a nose bleed and Taako’s never going to forgive her if Angus gets hurt on her watch. Barry grimaces apologetically and takes Angus from Lup, who simply shrugs the universal ‘what can we do?’ at the group.

“Angus, you’re a genius.” Lup whispers to him as soon as they’re safely bundled in their coats and waiting outside for Barry to bring the car.

“Thank you very much Dr Lup, I thought my performance was excellent. You should have seen the guards.” He whispers back.

Lup dabs at his dry eyes with a fresh handkerchief from her pocket, just in case anyone’s watching.

–

“There’s pizza.” Taako waves his hand lazily in the direction of the kitchen. He’s strewn across Kravitz’s lap feeding him bites of cookie.

“Did you cater the heist?” Barry asks, as if he hasn’t been part of this family for years, as if he hasn’t heisted with them before.

“What are we, animals?” Lup and Taako ask together.

“Yeah, okay, I walked into that one.”

“So we’re all good?” Lup asks the room.

“We were so respectful.” Magnus shouts, appearing from the kitchen, mouth half full of pizza.

Lup glances to Kravitz, he nods subtly. That’s good enough for her.

“Everyone stashed safely?”

“I organised some plant cover to be extra safe.” Merle lounges on a beanbag there’s no way he’s getting out of without help.

“Organised or organ-ised?” Barry asks. “Wait, actually, no, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”

“Too late, let me tell you about the dwarves and the ivy.” Merle crooks a finger and smiles his dirtiest old man smile.

“Pizza you say, Taako? In the kitchen?” Lup grabs Barry’s arm and pulls him out of danger.

“Thank you.” He squeezes her hand.

“No no, thank you.” She replies.

Lup hops up onto the counter, grabs a pizza slice with one hand and uses the other to pull Barry closer.

“We did it!”

“We did it.”

He kisses her, she kisses him right back. It’s only illegal if someone catches them.

“None of that on my ship.” Davenport shouts from the hallway.

Lup rolls her eyes and kisses him one more time anyway.

–

Lup huffs and throws the paper down.

“Still nothing?” Asks Barry.

“Still nothing. They didn’t even notice.” She doesn’t mean to take it personally, it’s good really. The longer that it takes for them to realise the bones are gone, the less likely it is to be linked to their event, but still, still. He cared enough to steal 12 year dead bodies from their graves, surely he wanted them for more than just the prestige? Infamy? Lup didn’t really know what the term was. Maybe he was just rich and bored and fancied trying his hand at archaeology. Either way, he hasn’t worked it out yet.

They’ve been scouring the paper for weeks, asking Krav to ask Sloane to ask Hurley if there’s anything rumbling, but there’s no word that Artemis has noticed the much emptier basement of his “museum.”

“Did I tell you that Lucretia found another family?” Lup asks.

“You did!” Despite hearing the news before, Barry sounds just as excited as she does. The relief has been palpable every time they’ve facilitated a reunion. Questions answered, a family able to care for their loved one in the proper way.

“I saw you matched another few sets of bones too.”

“Yeah, he jumbled them down there, hadn’t preserved them properly either, but I’ve been working on it. I’ve been talking to them while I work, it’s nice when they help out, makes it easier too. I’m glad they approve.”

“Who wouldn’t want you pouring over their bones? Handsome nerd paying endless attention to my body? Sign me up!”

“You can have that any time you’d like.” Barry says. He winks, corny enough to unbalance the smoothness of his words.

She loved him endlessly. Perfect, wonderful man.

#Bone! Heist! #The Adventure Zone #TAZ Fic #Blupjeans #Barry Bluejeans #Lup Tacco #Lup #Noodyl Writes

[scholastic-dragon]

hey!! is it alright if i asked for like a fluffy 'nd angsty kinda songfic with the reader referring or viewing the bay!tmnt with the lyrics, "your beauty never, ever scared me." by Ghost's Mary On A Cross? (bc im pretty sure they all share an insecurity abt their specie and physical appearance yk but reader loves n reassures them ,, thank you!!! <3)

I absolutely agree, they definitely have a lot of insecurities about how they look.

I'm doing this as a Turtle of Choice thing, so you can imagine your favorite dude <3

This is heavily inspired by @turtle-babe83 post about insecurities but for the S/O not from the boys. (Please click the link her works are so good!)

Turtles x Gn!reader

Beauty

Word Count: 822

Warnings: insecure turtles, them being soft bois, established relationship, first "I love yous", spelling mistakes

Summary: after hearing a lyric from your favorite song, your boyfriend opens up.

Spring cleaning.

Worst time of the year because it comes right after seasonal depression and cabin fever which beat your ass. Every. Single. Year.

But now you had a boyfriend to help with all your chores and keep you...mostly...on track.

He offered a helping hand when needed, willing to do anything and everything you asked. Even if it was just sitting on your bed whole you folded laundry.

He knew you struggled a lot and if he could help you in any way he would.

Now it was late evening, the sun was setting, turning the sky pink, orange, and purple, and small stats were appearing in the sky.

You two were washing the dishes, listening to your favorite Playlist. You would scrub and rise the dishes then hand them to him, he would dry them and then put them away.

It was a perfect system, keeping you focused but making it a little fun. You'd tell him about your day, why this plastic cup was your favorite, or why you loved a certain song.

He found it so endearing listening to you talk about your interests and to do simple mundane things with you.

"Oh, I love this one!" You happily start humming and mouthing the words.

It was cute watching his face try to figure out if he knew the song and try to hear the words. His brows furrowed and he gently swayed to the music.

"It's from tiktok," You lean in, whispering as if it were some great secret.

He nodded, the gears finally clicking in his head.

"I would've gotten it," He mumbled, drying off a glass cup and putting it in the corner cabinet by your side.

"Eventually," You add, nudging his arm playfully. He laughed, taking the plate from your hands.

"Oh, this line reminds me of you," You gently touch his arm. He lowers his arms, still holding the towel and plate, listening to the song coming from your small speaker.

🎶"Your beauty never ever scared me," 🎶

You saw the moment the words registered in his mind. The way his mouth opened slightly, his eyes going slightly wide, the sharp inhale.

"That-that line?" He asked, cautiously. "Reminds you of me?"

You nod, as if it were something simple.

"But....But, I'm, well you know," Setting the plate down he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

"What? Incredibly handsome? Yes I know,"

"No, I mean," You could tell from his tone he was being serious. You turned off the sink and set your dishcloth down.

"I'm not human, Y/n, I'm a...I'm a turtle and I can't ever give you things that normal people can,' He held up his hands, fingers splayed as if he didn't recognize them.

"You've given me more than I could ever want," You gently touch his forearm, meeting his eyes. "More then I've ever gotten from a "normal" relationship, you're my everything,"

"But I-" He tried to fight again, feeling his stomach and chest tighten with anxiety.

"You are the love of my life, my best friend and everything I could ever want from a partner. I don't care that you're a turtle, I don't care that you're green or have two fingers or a shell. You have a massive heart and one of the kindest souls I have ever met. You have an amazing family that loves you dearly and you make me so happy." Your hand came up, two fingers pushing his lips together to stop him. "I love you and I couldn't imagine my life without you,"

Your voice cracked, lowering your hand as he exhaled.

"I love you too," He was quick to respond, leaning in and pulling you in for a tight embrace. "You've given me everything too,"

Burying your face in his neck, you both stand there for a moment, just enjoying each other's warmth.

"How about we make a deal," You offer, pulling away from him slightly, still in his large arms. "I promise to work on my insecurities, and you promise to work on yours as well. Because we don't have to do this alone and we can rely on one another for whatever we need," looking up at him you press your chin on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

"Deal," He leaned down, you pressed up on your tip toes and gave him a big kiss. Showing him how much you love and care for him.

"Hey," He pulled away, rubbing his nose against yours.

"'Hey' what?" You ask, pecking his lips then the tip of his nose.

"I love you," He murmured, giggling softly.

"I love you too," You laugh with him, kissing him again. And again. And again.

You kissed him enough times to wash away any and all negative thoughts he'd ever had. Reminding him how much he meant to you. How much you cared for him. How much you loved him.

#tmnt #tmnt boys #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #tmnt bayverse #bay!turtles #tmnt donnie #tmnt leo #tmnt raph #tmnt mikey #tmnt headcannons #tmnt imagines #tmnt x reader #tmnt leo x reader #tmnt raph x reader #tmnt donnie x reader #tmnt mikey x reader

[rainypebble07]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ME!

Today, August 30th, is my birthday and (conveniently) also the day I posted my first fic, It Wasn't A Bad Thing (Do not read it, read the rewrite), on Ao3 and entered the Byler community as a writer and eventually artist.

It's strange to think that I've been here for 365 days now. I mean, that's a lot of days, but it's honestly been so fun to get to know some of the people here and I just love you guys. All of you. Seriously.

As a birthday gift, maybe read one of my fics and leave a fun comment (I have them all listed in my pinned past, but I recommend the superspy, pirate, and zombie Will ones)! If not that, give me a silly drawing request I'll take days to finally get around to or even just a fun little ask!!

And I love to talk about myself, but over the year, there have been some very impactful people I've met on this site, and I'd just like to thank all of them for being so wonderful (if you're not on the list, I still love you, I promise. I'd name every one of my followers if I could), so without further ado...

Rainy's Thank You List of Very Awesome People:

@foodiewithdahoodie you, my friend, are the best. One of my first ever followers, even before I was an artist. I've had your support since day 1 and I'm so grateful to call you my mutual!! You're seriously the kindest ever <333

@microwaveonwheels You're just the most fun person, my favorite kitchen appliance. You've got the best (and sometimes the most challenging) drawing requests and you never ever fail to make me laugh with your tags. Keep your energy forever and ever, my biology genius mutual :)))))

@sillylittlerock If I have one fan, it's you. If I have 100 fans, you're one of them. If I have no fans, you have left the building. SILLYLITTLEROCK you are THE ROCK and genuinely the sweetest person ever. Absolutely my favorite and I hope you have the most beautiful of days. Rock gang, rock gang.

@callmetheidiot I hope the ex fight was worth it, you've let me become a wattpad fiend (jkjk I haven't even touched wattpad in over a week). You are the kindest and most wonderful of people, callmetheidiot. And I would never ever call you an idiot bc you are the absolute definition of the opposite.

@th3-third-duffel-bag You're the coolest ever. And it makes me laugh when you leave angry comments on my Ao3. Much, much love <333

@cringengl I don't interact with you much, but every time you like one of my posts, I feel like you're saying it's cringe and it makes me laugh every time. Have the most amazing of days today! I love you!

@runninguplenorahills If I had to have my first pointless internet beef with anyone, I'm glad it was you. I'll admit, I was wrong about the barbie movie thing. I'm just stubborn. I think you're awesome though, even if we're worst enemies now. (jkjk we're not enemies... unless...) (no jk again) Have a wonderful day!!!!

@elsbianism You know what? I just think you're neat. Even before I started following you I was just like gee, they're pretty neat. And then I did follow you! And now we're mutuals! And you're still the neatest person here, El, so congrats on that one.

@miaisagirllover MIA I LOVE YOU! Thank you for helping me to break the barrier between dimensions. I look at your pinterest every day like ahhhh my stuff. And you've just got the best takes, I'm sorry so many people like Billy. I'll try to stop them. Have a lovely day, friend!!

@chaoticbyler Just had to give a quick shoutout to my pinterest spy on the inside. Never would have even known my art was breaking barriers without your help. Thanks, soldier. I owe you one.

@midget-is-a-simp I don't think I have one post you haven't liked. And I've had minimal interaction with you, but if my life was a TV show, you'd be the character who showed up once a season and you're somehow everyone's favorite character.

@yearninginblue you are my superspy buddy for life and I love you so so so much <3

@phaniella your comments make my day and I love you for it <3

@howtobecomeadragon IDK HOW I ALMOST FORGOT YOU OMG YOU'RE THE BEST. BEST FOR LAST, I GUESS. YOU, my friend, are the sweetest ever and I'm so happy to be your mutual. The fact that you like dragons so much is so cool. Never ever lose your passion! Dragons are awesome (and so are you)!!

Alright, sorry it's long, but I had a lot of people to be thankful for (and, trust me, so many more who I couldn't fit to the list). If you see this, just know I love you more than anything and I hope EVERYONE had the best day ever.

Bye-bye for now,

Rainy Pebble

#stranger things #byler #byler fanfic #BIRTHDAY TIME #YAYAYAYAY #one year anniversary!! #that's just so cool #thank you all for making it such a good experience

[watatsumiis]

Ah, greetings, dear author.

I noticed that your work suggestions are open right now and since i love your writing, i thought about giving it a try. But if smth not to your liking, feel free to ignore. Ill respect your final decision regardless.

So, suggestion itself is, maybe you wouldnt mind writing for a tall reader that looks intimidating and acts like it, but inside they are really sweet? Im not sure about exact idea, but maybe how characters would defence/comfort reader when somebody says bad rumors about them? Or like, they say really mean things cause of their apperiance?

I wasnt been able to find any rules for such asks, so ill undertand if u would want to change smth here.

So, character wise, maybe for Albedo, Xiao, Aether(?) and Wanderer(?) ?

By the way, hope ull have a nice time of the day.

Hi there!!!

Thank you so much for your kind words about my work, it really does mean the world to me, every little comment does <3

This is such an interesting request, I’ve been sitting on it for a while and I just hope I can do it justice! Disclaimer though, I’m the shortest and least intimidating person ever, so let's hope I can channel my inner tallscary (/lh) and go off of that :3

I added Heizou and Venti too so this could just be a fun little Anemo boy (+ Albedo (and -Kazuha I forgot him I'm sorry)) miniseries (and since I know you also like Heizou!) :D I haven't really written for Aether or Heizou before (and very minimal amounts of Scara) so here's hoping I've done alright! 

Content: Gender neutral reader who is described as being tall and intimidating. Nameless characters spread mean rumours/say mean things (nothing explicit is mentioned), some hinted violence in Xiao and Wanderer/Scara’s sections (because of course there is)

Aether is like a sweet little golden retriever from day one. Despite your intimidating looks and stature, he follows behind you and dotes on you until your hard outer walls crumble and he can waltz on in like he owns the place. He always believes in the kindness of people, so no matter how many times you push him away or try to intimidate him, he’s always back for more because he just knows you’re a softie on the inside - and he’s right! He’s delighted to have been correct and will be all smug and happy with himself because of it. 

If others were to insult you and talk badly about you behind your back… Aether will take it personally. He can be a bit overly-empathetic at times, and if he ever catches anyone saying something mean about you, he'll tell them off, only to get himself so worked up that he ends up in tears as he continues to scold the person who did it. He doesn't care about his reputation or causing a scene, he only cares about defending his friend from some big mean bullies. Once all is said and done he'll reassure you so many times that you're one of the kindest and loveliest people he's ever met and anyone who says otherwise is obviously someone so miserable with their own lives that they take it out on others.

Albedo may approach you with some caution at first - not because of your appearance, more because the signals you give off make it seem as if you don't want to be talked to. Once he's realised that's just one of your normal mannerisms, he disregards it entirely and will happily work to befriend you. He may sometimes ask you to help out around the lab (usually getting things off high shelves for him) and will use that time to get to know you better, away from prying eyes and people that may try to interrupt your budding friendship. It fills him with accomplishment to realise that you're letting your guard down around him and exposing your softer side - it may not seem like it, but he does keep note of a lot of your actions and behaviours and documents any changes.

At first, Albedo is rather puzzled when he hears about the unkind rumours going around about you and your 'unfriendly' demeanour. It's just not something that's ever occurred to him and he simply doesn't understand why people would be wasting their time spreading such obvious lies. He doesn't hesitate to point this out, blatantly calling people out in such a deadpan and genuine way that there's not much anyone can say to him that will convince him otherwise. He'll go into this psychoanalysis of why humans tend to gossip and encourage them to take up more productive hobbies instead while they just stand by, gobsmacked at his audacity. Once all is said and done, his way of 'comforting' you is still rather detached. He'll just smartly inform you that these assumptions people make based on your appearance are 'illogical and shallow' and encourage you not to worry about it. If you're still upset 

Heizou often sees people as a puzzle to be solved, a mystery box to be poked and prodded at until they give up all their interesting little secrets, and you're no exception. He's not put off by your appearance in the slightest, approaching you almost every time he sees you to ask questions and try to find out more about you. No matter how you react or push him away, he bounces back nearly immediately and continues to test your patience as he tries to get you to let him in. He knows there's an aspect that you're hiding, and he wants to know what it is. Once you've revealed your softer side, he may lightheartedly tease you for it, but never in a mean way, and if you seem upset, he stops right away. He revels in being one of those stubborn enough to have befriended you.

Heizou hears a lot of rumours in his day to day life - most he tends to disregard unless they're useful to him. When it comes to you, however, he will matter-of-factly correct each and every person he overhears speaking about you, backing his arguments up by citing times he's noticed you being nice to others (and to him of course), refuting every argument that people may make until they're stuttering and stumbling over their words, absolutely turned around on themselves because of how thorough he is in his dressing-down of them. It's like watching a court case. If the person continues to be nasty, he might just dig up some unpleasant dirt on them and pass it on to a known gossiper and watch it pan out from there. One way or another, he'll make sure your pride is avenged, and will always comfort you if you happen to hear anything that upsets you.

Scaramouche is flighty around you, especially at first. He isn't quite sure how to act, and vacillates between trying to antagonise you and essentially clinging to you. He'll push your boundaries time and time again, waiting for you to snap, but you just… don't. It frustrates him to start off with, the fact that you seem so unshakeable, but eventually it becomes a source of comfort for him, especially once he picks up on your softer side shining through. Of course, he's as stubborn as anything and will completely deny the fact that he draws any comfort from your presence, but there's no mistaking the way his shoulders relax and his breathing slows when you're nearby. He quite likes having a tall, 'intimidating' friend to scare off all the goody-two-shoes that seem to be drawn to him. 

Upon hearing the rumours about you circulating, Scaramouche is furious. If there is no one there to stop him, he is throwing hands the moment someone says your name in a vaguely disparaging way. He'll puff his chest out and walk right up to them, growling at them to repeat what they said one more time. There's no doubt at all that he'd be ready to fight someone on your behalf and kick up a huge fuss. He’ll make a big scene and is probably more upset than you are by the whole debacle. He has his own signature way of comforting you if any of it gets you down that consists of him grumpily insisting that none of this should get to you and that you should ignore all the idiots.

Venti has no qualms about approaching and befriending you - he’s not one to judge based on appearances or outward attitudes. He’s very good at reading people and picking up on how they’re feeling, so from day one it feels like he understands you on a deeper level than most people do. He sort of hangs off of you in a way reminiscent of how birds linger around tall trees, and will use you as a springboard if he needs to get to something higher up, just grabbing you and pulling himself up easily. He’ll also ask you to carry things for him so often that it just becomes second nature for you to hold your hand out the moment it seems like he’s unsure of what to do with something he’s picked up. 

Venti isn’t really one to police people on what they can and can’t say, but he just can’t stop himself  when it comes to you. They’re so obviously wrong and just being mean for no reason that it makes him physically hurt if he doesn’t correct them. There’s just such a sense of wrongness that seems to claw at his chest and throat that even if he’s long since passed by he’ll do a 180 in the middle of the street to go talk to the people he heard. He’ll keep the tone of the confrontation pretty light and jokey, but to anyone who has known him for some time, it’s not hard to tell that he’s genuinely pretty upset on your behalf. He may get carried away and say some pretty coldhearted/downright cruel things to people (still in that same light and airy tone) if they continue to insist on spreading mean rumours. 

Xiao is wary of anyone and everyone, so of course this includes you too. Your height and general demeanour mean nothing to him, he’s more focused on whether or not you’re an impending danger to him or anyone he cares about. He methodically observes you on and off for a while (sometimes you can catch glimpses of him following you, or perching on high places near your usual haunts to keep an eye on you), peeling away your tough outer layers until he’s able to get a look at the softness beneath. Once he’s deemed you to be of no threat, he drops it for a while and disappears back to his usual duties, but soon begins to notice that his days feel almost… empty, in a way. It doesn’t take him long to gravitate back towards you, but now he’s keeping a lookout for you, not because of you. It’s a little flattering, really, and he’s much like a bird in the way he may pick up things you’ve dropped or lost and leave them at your doorstep for you to find. He’s much too shy to approach on his own, but if you catch him on a good day, you might be able to exchange a few words, and he won’t immediately dismiss you if you come to visit him while he’s keeping watch off of his favourite balcony in Wangshu Inn. 

Though Xiao doesn’t directly interact with humans unless the situation directly calls for it, sometimes he does listen in to their conversations, just so he has a good idea of the goings on in the areas he guards. If he happens to hear your name, he might just go out of his way to figure out why. With all of his observation of you, it doesn’t take him long before he figures out that they’re just spreading nonsense rumours. It’s not something he really takes into consideration as something that would be upsetting - he’s had plenty of rumours about him passed around. But the moment you express any discontent at people saying these things about you, any future offenders may just happen to find themselves in a rather… misfortunate situation the next time they’re wandering around the wilderness. Nothing lethal, of course, but enough to scare them out of their wits. Xiao isn’t very good at comforting people, and the most he can offer is his company and some reassurance that those people are wrong and that they likely have many more skeletons in their closet than you ever have or will.

Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites (without credit + permission).

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #genshin self insert #my writing #genshin headcanons #genshin fluff #platonic genshin x reader #aether #aether x reader #albedo #albedo x reader #heizou #heizou x reader #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #xiao #xiao x reader #asks #requests #tallscary reader series #<that is what this is called now. i dont make the rules sorry #i really do hope i did these guys justice ack !!!! i. am not familiar with writing any of them except xiao and venti OOPSIES #venti #venti x reader

[saintqueer]

I'm sorry you got harassed again just from a simple post with a (imo pretty valid) opinion. If that person is the same that answered your post by reblogging and repplying on their blog with unnecessary hate (apparently queer but a solo louie) then it's the one I just blocked. I love to currate my experience in this fandom. Anyway I just wanted to say, I used to love your posts in this fandom! I lost track of your blog and thought you'd disappeard. I'm glad to see you're still on Tumblr and enjoying other fandoms. I'm well aware of how toxic this fandom can get (between the hets, the solos often queer themselves but hating on queer larries and more, to many groups to count tbh, louis' attitude on social media ect), especially when you dare to voice an opinion, which I'm mostly don't lol. I'm staying for the art, the fics, the great memes and ofc the music and the people. You're "y'all" made me think 'I Hope she still got good times and friends out if it. I made some great friends in the larries bunch myself. Anyway sorry for the rant, I lost track of what was my point here. Just was happy to see you pop on my dash through a mutual and wanted to say so I guess?? So once again thank you for the fun times I had reading your posts back in the days; have a great time out here, enjoying your favs fandoms, you do you! Sending love xx

so i was trying to avoid posting any anons regarding prev fandom discourse but i opened this one and read it through and it was just so amazing i had to respond, not just in tags 🥹🥹

of course, it's lovely to hear that you liked my posts on fandom back in the day etc but what really got me was when you wanted to make sure i still got good times and friends out of it, that nearly made me cry

because YEAH I FUCKING DID 🥺😩🥺🥹🥲

blue ( @wastelandbabyblue ) is literally one of the coolest people i've ever known while also being one of the kindest and funniest. id literally kill to meet her one day in person. i still keep up with brenda and several others i met in her og discord, some of which are the only remaining 1d fandom blogs i still follow here - they are so kind and funny and i still talk to them occasionally in a fandom discord i stayed in because i didn't want to lose touch with them.

and 🥹🥹🥹

i met 8 of who i would consider my closest friends in the whole world through fandom. through the most insane wild and unruly fandom discord drama, i literally located my found family: wedo, nino, iza, katja, olia, hanis, chloe, and su

we talk everyday still even though we live all over the world and we talk about nearly everything except fandom nowadays and they've helped me survive living day to day through some of the worst moments of my life. i don't know what i'd do if i didn't have them in my life

last night, i had a bit of a shame spiral thinking about all the time energy money i devoted to the 1d fandom. i felt embarrassed for being so loud about something that ended in so much disappointment. it wasn't fun and i know it was probably triggered by being involved in some discussions i hadn't been in so long

so when i opened this ask, anon, it reminded me so much that whatever was lost from that time, so much more was gained. the embarrassment of remembering dancing around like a fool with a rainbow flag for someone who couldn't even say something as simple as "look at all those colors" pales in comparison to the lifelong friendship i gained with these 8 beautiful women all across the globe

nothing will ever compare to the people i met and the way they feel closer to family than any of my blood ever felt

i'm glad that you found so much goodness as well and thank you for reminding me that it was all worth it for what i got

#anon

[princessconsuela120]

Chapter Three: Hello My Old Heart —✧

Series masterlist

Chapter Warnings: Cursing, mentions of abortion, mentions of sex.

Author's Note: I've started to add my own songs that display the story, since this is also a partly different storyline. Also, side not I love Kenny so much, their friendship is just "Mwah.” And depending on certain chapter some may have a different art heading. For example, this lovely art by @silvell shows the picture Juno has hanging in her car, that is said in the chapter. Enjoy you guys!

—✧

I HATE DRIVING THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING. My old and practically broken truck seems to be even louder when no one else is around. It smelt like leather in here, from my maneuver i'm assuming. It was way too early to be on the road. The polaroid picture Kyle gave me dangled from a loose string tied to my mirror, a small pile of empty Diet-coke cans and Sunny D bottles clang together on the floor of the passenger seat, filling more of the quietness along with the squeaking. When it came to being that my brother could finally drive, our parents were skeptical on what to do. We owned a nice car to give to one of us when we were ready, but the two of us couldn't share anything for shit. After a long 15 round game of rock paper scissors, I had lost the car. But my parents felt bad for me, so my dad gave me his old weed van, usually used for moving weed, that was now used for moving living room sets while I was accompanied by my childhood Garfield plush.

A loud sigh left my chest as I parked the car, taking a full 15 minutes to collect myself before walking to the entrance. I was surprised to see my brother’s girlfriend, and my close friend Wendy Testaburger standing at the door, protesting?

“All babies want to get borned! All babies want to get borned! All babies want to get borned!” She shouted, holding a sign up in the air, one I could tell she drew by the large cute eyes she gave to the baby.

“Hey, Wendy.” I greeted, smiling at the brunette as she lowered her sign.

“Oh, hi, Juno. How are you?” She said sweetly, giving me a kind smile, one that seemed to calm my nerves about being here. Wendy Testaburger was one of the kindest, most welcoming people I have ever met. I was relatively close with her ever since kindergarten, and happy that if my brother dated anyone it was her. She was wonderful, and never failed to make me feel important. And she wasn't judging me for being here of all places, you could tell she wasn't.

“You know, pretty solid. You’re a protestor now?” I asked, causing her to look down at her sign with a chuckle.

“Yeah well, PC principal said we could get extra credit protesting for a cause and well, you know how much I love babies..” she said awkwardly, not expecting to see a classmate during her protest.

“So did you write that paper for Worth's class yet?” I asked, and she nodded her head as she let her sign drop completely at her sides.

“No, not yet. I tried to work on it last night, but I'm having trouble concentrating.” she explained, making me nod.

“Oh, well, I'll give you some of my Adderall.” It's not like I'd be able to use it for a while anyway.

“No, thanks. I'm off pills.”

“That's a wise choice, because I knew this girl, she had this crazy freak-out… Because she took too many meds at once...And she just ripped off her clothes, dove into the fountain at Ridgedale Mall...And was like, "I am a kraken from the sea!"” I explained, chuckling at the memory as Wendy gave me a strange look.

“Juno, that was you…i was there..” she said softly, making me nod at the awkward silence before making my way inside.

“Well, it's good seeing you, Wendy. I’ll probably see you later at the house.” I said as I left, but Wendy didn't let up.

“Your baby probably has a beating heart, you know.” She shouted after me, causing me to sigh as I kept walking. “It can feel pain. And it has fingernails!” I stopped, turning to look at her with furrowed brows.

“Fingernails? Really?” I asked, not really directing it to her either, mostly just surprised at the revelation . I continued my way inside, being greeted by a strange looking girl sitting at the reception desk. Considering the knowledge I had gained from when Stan went goth, I think she was goth as well. She was adorned in black makeup, and as pale as snow, and had silver and black jewelry covering her body. Yuo, definitely a goth. Probably forced into this job by her parents, because she didn't seem to want to be there anymore than I did.

“Welcome to Women Now, where women are trusted friends. Please put your hands where I can see them and surrender any bombs.” She said in a low monotone voice, not once looking up at me from her computer.

“Hey, I'm here for the big show.” I joked, earning a glare from the receptionist.

“Your name, please?”

“Juno Marsh.” I said, handing her my printed paperwork from the previous night. She glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. She thinks I'm using a fake name, like Gene Simmons or Mother Teresa. SHe let her eyebrow fall back to its normal spot, before handing me even more paperwork to sign below my already printed paper.

“I need you to fill these out, and don't skip the hairy details. We need to know about every score and every sore.” She said, before gesturing to the jar full of individually wrapped condoms. Kinda like how hair salons have a jar of lollipops, the abortion clinic had condoms. It really helped with the scenery. “Would you like a free condom? They're boysenberry.”

“No, I'm off sex right now.” I replied, taking my paperwork. I don't think I'll ever be “on” sex again if I'm being honest.

“My boyfriend uses them every time we have intercourse.” she said with a smirk, finally looking up at me again. “They make his junk smell like pie.” I didn't look back at her, simply giving a look as I walked away, handing the paperwork in as I went to sit down.

I think this was the first time in a while I was aware of the fact that I was biting my fingernails. Fingernails. Damn you Wendy Testaburger. My eyes shifted back and forth around the room, the noise of nails scratching against magazines captivating my mind. I looked around at the other women, then at their fingernails, most of them being picked at or anxiously scratching against some kind of surface, and that's when I broke. I bolted for the door, ignoring any looks I may have received, and I ran for Kenny’s house not too far from the clinic. Wendy sent me a proud smile, shouting at me that she was proud of me before I ran out of her view.

—✧

“Dude, what are you doing here? I'm supposed to come get you at 4.” Kenny said, greeting me at the door, confused by my anxious pacing back and forth. I stopped, slapping my hands to my side as I looked up at him.

“I couldn't do it, Ken. It smelled like a dentist's office in there.” i began pacing again when Kenny came fully out of his house. “And there were horrible magazines with water stains. The receptionist tried to get me to take condoms that look like grape suckers… And just babbling away about her frigging boyfriend's pie balls.”

“Sick..” Kenny mumbled, making me roll my eyes as I stopped pacing. My eyes widened as I ran through the events in my head.

“And Wendy Testaburger was there. And she was like, "Oh, hi. Babies have fingernails." Fingernails!” I shouted, shoving my fingernails in his face, causing Kenny to push my hands down gently, pulling his hood off to address the seriousness of my outburst.

“That's gruesome. Do you think the baby can scratch your vag on the way out...?” Kenny teased, making scratching motions as I groaned, running my hands down my face. I take a moment to collect myself, before making direct eye contact with him.

“I'm staying pregnant, Kenny.” I grumbled, making Kenny look around, coming up to me and holding his hands over my mouth dramatically.

“Dude. You gotta keep your voice down, okay? My mom is inside. She doesn't know that we're sexually active.” He said anxiously, causing me to raise an eyebrow at him. Now since he's my best friend I can say this, but Kenny Mccormick is the biggest horndog on planet earth. He was getting blowjobs before I even knew what those were. I love him to death, he's my other half and all, but there was no way his mom didn't know she gave birth to a monster. He sighed at my questioning look.

“Okay, maybe she definitely knows I'm sexually active, but if she hears you she’s gonna wanna talk to me about it and I can't deal with that shit dude.” He whined, grabbing my arms and pulling me to follow him to the park nearby, to our spot.

“What does that even mean? I've been thinking. I was thinking I could have this baby and give it to someone that totally needs it. Like a woman with a bum ovary, or a couple nice lesbos. Maybe Big Gay Al and Mr Slave want a baby, they seem like they'd love a nice jewish redheaded child.” I said, and he gave me a look, his face scrunched up with disgust at the thought of me being pregnant.

“But then you're gonna get huge, and your chest is gonna milktate...And you're gonna have to, tell people that you're pregnant. And you won't be able to smoke for a while.” He explained, and I found it hard to argue, but still I tried.

“Maybe they'll canonize me for being so selfless.”

“Or maybe they'll, like, totally shit and be really, really mad...And not let you graduate or go to the Springs for spring break.” Somehow I had ended up hoisted on Kenny's back, getting a piggyback from the boy all the way to the park. I honestly don't know how he held my weight up sometimes, but Piggyback rides were just something we did.

“I was gonna go to the Rockies’s with Kyle anyway.” I said nonchalantly, not seeing the smirk that formed on Kenny’s lips at my words.

“You should look at adoption ads. I see them all the time in the PennySaver.” He offered, making me laugh slightly.

“They still make a newspaper?” He shook me, trying to get me to fall off his back before I giggled loudly, pulling myself back up.

“Shut up, you know I can't afford tv news.”

“They really have ads for parents?” I asked, and he nodded, detouring to grab a newspaper from the park entrance.

“Yeah. "Desperately Seeking Spawn." Right next to, terriers and iguanas and used fitness equipment and stuff. It's totally legit.” He took a newspaper, and carried us to our park bench, carefully dropping me onto it.

Somehow, after hours spent reading the newspaper, Kenny and I had ended up grabbing slushies from the convenient stand, exactly what we needed in the 20 degree Colorado weather. My legs were over his lap as we laid messily flipping through the news.

"Wholesome, spiritually wealthy couple have found true love with each other." All that's missing is your bastard.” Kenny read out loud, nudging me when he looked over at me laying my head back, not paying attention.

“I want a parakeet.” I mumbled, the sunglasses I was wearing being pulled from my face as Kenny tried to get my attention.

“You're totally not even listening to me.”

“No, I heard you. I don't wanna give the baby to a family...That describes themselves as wholesome.” I explained, taking a long swig from my slushie as Kenny sighed with defeat.

“Why?”

“I just want something a little edgier.” I explained, sitting up in my spot. Kenny kept scanning the newspaper.

“What did you have in mind exactly?”

“I was thinking more like a graphic designer, mid-thirties… With a cool Asian girlfriend who dresses awesome and rocks out on the bass” I explained, turning to see Kenny giving me a look that said ‘are you serious right now.’ I smiled at him, my now blue lips widening. “But I don't wanna be too particular.”

“Okay. How about this? "Educated, successful couple seeking infant...To join our family of five. You will be compensated. Help us complete the circle of love." That sounds great.” He seemed to hesitate on saying they were ‘great,’ and I can see why.

“They sound like a frigging cult. They already have three kids. They're just greedy little bitches.” I groaned, feeling the defeat of this search, wondering why I didn't just go to Unplanned parenthood and drop off my fetus for them to grow themselves.

“Juno, how about this one?” Kenny shoved my arm, a sense of excitement as he handed me the newspaper. They were Mark and Vanessa Loring...And they were beautiful even in black and white.

—✧

“Where the fuck have you been!?” Stan shouted, not allowing me a moment of peace. I swear the second the front door opened he was screaming. I do love my brother, he was quite literally me with a penis, but that didn't change the fact that I really hated him sometimes. The fact that our parents were out to dinner right now didn't help the volume of Stan’s screaming.

“Out.” I grumbled, placing my keys in the key holder before trying to walk away. I needed a drink, damn you alcohol blocking fetus.

“Right, of course. You were “out.”” Stan scoffed, making me roll my eyes as I turned to face him.

“What do you want, Stan?” I asked coldly, and he just sighed, taking a second to look at me. Then his eyes trailed down, and he looked at my stomach. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…he knew. How the fuck did he know. God damn my life.

“I know okay? I saw the fucking papers on your bed.” He said, throwing the crumbled up abortion document at me. I wanted to cry, I could feel angry tears pricking at my eyes, and a burning bile forming on the back of my throat.

“You had no right, that was my fucking privacy! You just can’t mind your own damn business!” I shouted, pointing a shaky finger at him, trying desperately to hold back my tears.

“You got an abortion Juno! An abortion! Without telling anyone, do you understand how fucking insane that is!” He shouted back, and I sighed, trying to calm myself and Stan.

“Yes, I do and just listen to me okay I think that..” he interrupted.

“What the hell were you thinking!? What if mom found that paper, what if dad did!?” He continued shouting, his face turning a deep crimson as the oxygen was cut off due to all his screaming.

“I know I know, just listen to me…” He interrupted again.

“That’s so dangerous Juno, what if something happened, regardless of the fact you’re fucking pregnant, what if you got hurt?” He continued rambling, about to keep talking before I grabbed the napkin holder off the table, chucking it at him angrily. He ducked, letting the holder hit the wall as I began speaking.

“I didn’t get an abortion okay! Because your dumb girlfriend wouldn’t shut up about how my fetus has fingernails. Fingernails!” I shouted back at him, holding my hands out, before sighed and held a hand over my chest. “I'm sorry, you know I love Wendy I just, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” Everything seemed to dawn on me at that moment. He still didn't know it was Kyle’s. He didn't know that a part of his best friend was growing inside of me right now, and he was already this angry. And this isn't even the worst of it all. I still had parents to tell, and classmates to find out, and a whole life that I used to have that was now gone. I couldn't help but feel my chest closing in.

“You are fucking insane you know that?” Stan hissed, and I simply rolled my eyes, holding a hand on my chest to keep back my panicked tears.

“Oh please, you’re a seventeen year old alcoholic, but I’m the crazy one.” I laughed bitterly, hunching over on the table as I heard Stan huff behind me.

“You’re seventeen too Juno, you’re fucking seventeen, and you’re pregnant! What are you even gonna do? This is beyond irresponsible, you’re never getting your life back after this!”

“God stan I know okay! I fucking know!” I shouted back, Stan staring back at me with empty eyes. “And, you yelling at me isn’t making it any fucking easier. I’m so scared shitless and I just, I need my brother. I need..” My breathing began picking up, as I knelt down to the ground, closing in on myself. It was like something clicked in Stan's mind, that I was still his sister. His baby sister, who was losing her breath on the ground.

“Hey, hey I’m sorry.” He said softly, kneeling down and pulling me into his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s okay Junebug, I’m right here.” he reassured, holding me close as I sobbed into his chest. I pulled away, sighing as I wiped my tears.

“I-i have a whole plan. Kenny and I found this couple, in the Penny saver. I’m gonna go and meet them, and hopefully give them the baby once it’s born. I just, I need your help telling mom and dad.” Stan nodded, pulling me back into his chest, his heart racing just as fast as mine.

“Of course Junebug, I’ll be there.”

#south park x reader #kyle broflovski x reader #kyle broflovski

[writer-in-theory]

wishing on dandelions — spencer reid

prompt: “are you trying to impress me?” “is it working?” summary: spencer likes you, you like spencer. the problem is? neither of you know it. luckily, you both know just how to show it. pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader category: fluff content warnings: language word count: 2.6k a/n: this is for foxy's ( @foxy-eva ) 500 follower writing challenge. this was a wonderful prompt to write for and i'm so excited to be able to celebrate your wonderful achievements. you're seriously one of the kindest, most remarkable people i've gotten to meet here and i am so so thankful for you. thanks for being you, and a huge congratulations!

masterlistwanna join my taglist?

“What are you reading?”

Even before you answered, you knew Emily would give you Hell. It wasn’t like you didn’t deserve it either, considering the light headache already beginning to run through your temples as you forced yourself through the book in your hands.

“Nothing,” you answered quickly, shutting the book too fast to consider the fact that you hadn’t slid your bookmark into place yet, preferring instead to shove it into place and shove the drawer closed with a harsh slam. You’d curse yourself later when you were flipping through the pages to find the spot you’d left off, but for now, you could only sigh in relief once the novel was out of sight.

“I imagined the book in your hand?” Emily asked, an amused look already taking over her expression. She knew something, and even worse she looked like she was planning something.

“Yep, you must’ve. I don’t read.”

“Now I know you’re lying,” she laughed.

“Fine,” you conceded, even if you knew she wouldn’t have pressed further if you were truly uncomfortable. “It’s Great Expectations.”

“I thought you hated Dickens. You went on a rant about him last month.”

“Did I? Maybe I just wanted to try something new.” It was then Emily’s entire face lit up with recognition before settling into a smirk.

“Or you wanted to try someone new.”

Of course, you knew what she meant. You could’ve predicted that was the way the conversation was going—considering just last week she’d accused you of ‘staring longingly’ at the man in question. There was no longing stare to be found, to be clear, but your friend hadn’t taken that answer well.

Maybe that was because Emily Prentiss was one of the best profilers you’d ever met, and she could see in your eyes that you were full of shit.

Because the truth was, you were truly, madly, deeply in love with one Dr. Spencer Reid. How could you not be? When Penelope had recommended you to fill the open media liaison position, she’d even warned you about the man. This unassuming man with curly hair, the widest doe-like brown eyes you’d ever seen, and a smile that could light up the room if only he allowed everyone to see it. He would be reserved until a topic of interest came up, in which his entire image changed as he began waving his hands about and talking excitedly to whoever would listen.

You loved listening to Spencer talk about what he loved—which was, seemingly, everything. Not everyone did, and while you understood to a point you couldn’t imagine how anyone could be annoyed by the sweet man who found joy in teaching others all he had learned already. Because over the months of being on the team, you’ve found how each member showed how much they cared despite never once taking a profiling course.

Hotch told you to take the next morning off after a particularly brutal case whose victims reminded you a little too much of family. Penelope would give you the most comforting hug you’d ever experienced, making you wish you could stay in your friends’ arms forever. You knew Morgan loved you when he began to tease you in the same way he’d tease the others—always playfully and never without any true malice. JJ would bring a snack over to your desk when you’d been working too long, setting it down and reminding you that taking a break sometimes helps you re-attack old problems with new solutions.

And Spencer, darling Spencer, would tell you all about the historical context of a book written a century before. You rarely knew what he was talking about, preferring instead to read more recent books with language more easily understood. That never stopped you from smiling and nodding along, paying more attention to the corners of his eyes that crinkled up when he got to a particularly interesting point than any words he was saying.

Though Spencer loved telling people all he knew, it was a sight to behold when he found someone who shared his interests. There was the kid on a case that was trying to learn magic—you were sure nothing could beat the sweetness of Spencer knelt down closer to the ground, excitedly showing the kid simple magic tricks to keep her thoughts off of what was happening to her family. His entire expression lit up when someone countered something he said with anything resembling recognition.

And, frankly, you couldn’t be that person for him as much as you wanted to. You’d never been interested in magic, or history, or even literature that didn’t include a steamy makeout scene. But you did like reading, and so maybe if you forced it, at least this once, you could see that excited expression for yourself.

“I wanted to be able to talk to him about this book,” you admitted when Emily showed no signs of leaving, “but, damn, do I not love it.”

“What’s so wrong with it?”

“For one, it’s practically written in Old English. I’m having to reread almost every sentence just to keep up with what’s going on. I lo—Spencer’s great, but I’m seriously questioning his taste in books right now,” you groaned, half-teasing considering this book was considered a classic by most of the world.

“Then don’t read it,” Emily told you simply, shrugging her shoulders. “You don’t need to force yourself through a book to get Reid’s attention, you already have it.”

“I don’t think so,” you answered quickly, head tilting down in an attempt to hide whatever evidence your rapidly heating cheeks were revealing. “We’re good friends, that’s all.”

“If that’s really what you believe, maybe you should be reading that book,” Emily teased before making her way out of your office, giving only a small, knowing smile as a goodbye.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean!” you called after her, sighing when there wasn’t any response.

You got your answer the next weekend at the park.

The team was given the weekend off—and expressly told not to step foot in the office or face Hotch’s protective wrath—so you decided to relax in the place you were most at ease. Though instead of being out on the soccer pitch like you normally would on your days off, this time you’d found a bench not far from them to read your book. Maybe it would be easier like this, in the outdoors in the place you were always comfortable in.

It must’ve been a correct assumption too because by midday you’d made it further through the novel than on any other day prior. It wasn’t so bad once you got used to the style, but even still you couldn’t imagine willingly searching out another of its kind anytime soon.

Just when the inklings of a focus headache began to settle over your mind, a rogue soccer ball came rolling to a stop by your leg.

“I’m sorry, I’m new to the sport and—Y/N?” the voice rambled nervously as you bent down to retrieve the ball. It was only when you looked up to hand it to the owner that you understood the shaky way they’d said your name.

Because there was Spencer, sweating and panting in front of you. He wore an old CalTech t-shirt and shorts that were far too short for either of your own goods. You flushed, eyes averting back to his glistening face if only to not focus on those damned shorts.

“You play soccer?” you asked, tossing him the ball and smiling when he fumbled it before holding on tight. 

“Um, yeah, yes, I’ve been playing for years,” Spencer told you and it was your turn to seem surprised, an eyebrow lifting as you took in his almost fearful expression.

“I thought you just said you were new...?”

“I did? Oh right, that. Well that was, that was clearly about this park. I’ve never played here, and the fields are different from the ones I’m used to.”

Spencer was a terrible liar, but at least he was cute while doing it. It wasn’t clear why he would lie, but maybe he was just embarrassed about a kick so rogue that it had knocked the ball into a bench a few yards from the pitch.

“Want to scrimmage then?” you asked, sliding your bookmark into place before placing the book on the bench beside you.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re busy reading...you read Dickens?” Spencer's face seemed unsure at first, eyes flitting between you and the book before settling on the space just between.

“All the time, he’s one of my favorite authors,” you lied, hoping your voice was steady enough for him to believe you.

It seemed you’d gotten away with the lie because then Spencer was beaming as he asked, “What’s your favorite?”

“Oh, well...” you stalled, searching through your mind for any other title you could give him. The answer came from a Muppets special you watched at the same time every year. So as you silently thanked Miss Piggy for providing the answer you’d desperately needed, you told Spencer, “it’s hard to beat A Christmas Carol.”

Spencer’s laugh was like a bell. You didn’t get to hear it often—the man usually preferred to give tentative smiles rather than anything so uninhibited—so when you did, you couldn’t help but laugh along.

“You’re right, there’s no better one than that.”

“So that scrimmage?” you countered, hoping to switch to a topic more your speed. If you were going to talk books with Spencer, then you’d need far more time to prepare than what you had now. Luckily, Spencer agreed with you. He nodded, handing the soccer ball out to you hesitantly before following you out to the center pitch. “Best of three?”

Spencer nodded, eyeing the ball like it was a gun rather than anything fun. He made the first move, reaching out to kick at the ball. It was easy to counter—Spencer never kicked it with any force and could hardly keep it near him. Before you knew it, you were launching the ball solidly into the net on Spencer’s side of the pitch.

You thought it would be fun to play with Spencer. After all, this was the sport you usually spent your time off of work playing. You’d been playing ever since you were a kid, nailing down your skills until you were one of the best in your league. It was where you got most of your stress-release from—never feeling more like you belonged than when you at a soccer ball at your feet.

“You said you’ve played before?” you asked, jogging back to the center where Spencer was standing with something that looked scarily like awe in his eyes.

“It’s been a few years, but yes.”

“Spencer,” you began slowly, not wanting to offend him but definitely wanting to know what was going on, “I mean this in the best way, but you play like the tots I teach every Thursday.”

“You teach kids soccer?” Spencer practically gasped, a smile threatening to lift each corner of his lips. If you didn’t know any better, you might say the look in his eyes was one of pride and awe.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Well technically, I have played before. My Dad used to try to get me to like sports as a kid, there was one summer he enrolled me in a soccer league,” Spencer explained with a huff of shaky air, “I haven’t played since I was young.” 

And that, well, that explained everything. You smiled, feeling more at ease now that the puzzle was beginning to come together. “You could’ve told me that, you know. I don’t mind if you’ve never played before, and I could’ve scaled back so it was more fun for you.”

“You don’t need to scale back, it’s nice seeing you do something you love,” Spencer told you sincerely, his expression softening as he seemed to consider the idea. “I didn’t expect you to be here. I was trying to...”

“What?” you pressed gently when Spencer didn’t continue. Your mind flashed briefly back to the book left abandoned on the bench beside the pitch, to the words Emily had told you a week before. You already have Spencer’s attention. 

“Spencer,” you started, taking a shaky breath to steel yourself for what was to come. Who knew if he would take this well, or if your friendship would be ruined forever. So instead of looking at him, your eyes focused on a small patch of dandelions growing beside the pitch. As a kid, when you sat on the bench during games you used to pick those little weeds up. You’d hold them tight and blow on them, to wish that the kid you had a crush on would like you back. You wondered if it actually worked, and if it was a good sign you stood in a patch of them now.

“Yes?” he asked, sounding nearly as breathless as you.

“You learned to play soccer because you knew I liked it,” you explained slowly, as though you were giving him a chance to deny it. When he didn’t, you added, “Were you trying to impress me?”

Spencer stood still then, hardly even blinking as he watched you. His eyes tracked to what you were staring at and smiled when he found the little weeds growing near his foot. 

“Is it working?” he asked, voice steady as his confidence returned. His eyes met yours for a brief moment and you’d swear the man smirked.

“Not in the least bit,” you laughed, stepping closer to him, “but luckily, I happen to like you already and don’t need impressed.”

“That’s very lucky,” Spencer breathed, watching your lips as you stepped into his personal space, one hand tentatively resting on his upper arm. It was unbearably hot out, the sun shining down on both of you, but you didn’t care because you were here with Spencer. You were with Spencer, who wanted to see you play soccer not because he enjoyed it but because he enjoyed seeing you happy. Spencer, who talked to you about books and never once minded if you had no intentions of ever reading them.

It was you who kissed Spencer first, gripping onto his old t-shirt to keep him close. Spencer once complained loudly to the team about being near someone when they’d been in the heat for too long, but instead of pushing you away, he melted into your arms.

He kissed you back, and it was perfect.

“I was trying to impress you too,” you admitted breathlessly afterward, not wanting to let go of him just yet.

Spencer let out the loudest laugh yet—head tilting back a little and eyes crinkling in a way that made you smile. “I know, Y/N. You said your favorite Dickens work was A Christmas Carol.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s not,” Spencer conceded, “but I know you read modern works. I’ve never once seen you with anything of that type before.”

“And you won’t ever again,” you laughed. “I’ll still to soccer from now on if you stick to telling me all about these books.”

“Deal.” 

That kiss was somehow sweeter than the first.

GENERAL TAGLIST@samuel-de-champagne-problems @silverhetdanes @ssawonderland @reidsbookclub @katymarie @mrsobrien888 @writingquillsandpainpills @fightingdragonswithreid @lil-stark @sweetandsunny @stillsleepynat @this-is-doctor-and-its-calm @givemeth @foxy-eva @lilibet261 @kateyee @exhaleli @m-mhotchner @darkeunology @nomajdetective @fairyellieee @meggie-m00n @twofacesoftheworldbutnotsome @kaitieskidmore1 @delicatespencer @serenity-lattes @goldentournesol @rexorangecouny @sultrypotter @tanyaherondale @reliefplease @lcveandrea @1-800-brain-and-heart @thisiscalm-andits-doctor @nani-2305 @betharios @mente-sindescanso @girloncorneliastreet @reidselle @pygmygoat-bicyclehelmet @just-a-lone-writer @jj76889 @luna-novae @maltamurdock @folkreid

ONESHOT TAGLIST@multixfandomwriter @justreadingficsdontmindme @natashxromanovfreads @nano-noa @tisi25 @cheshire-spiral-eye

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x y/n #spencer x reader #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #spencer reid self insert #jay writes in theory

[btscontentenjoyer]

It was my one year blog anniversary today (or technically yesterday in my timezone as I post this) and I'm feeling sentimental 🥺

So I just wanted to reminisce a little and more importantly say a huge thank you to anyone I've ever talked to on here for always being so warm and lovely and kind to me 💕💞💕

I've actually never been part of an online space for a fandom like this before, or at least, I definitely haven't been an active participant in one. I've always been too scared, or thought myself too shy and introverted, and since I've never been too creative either, it didn't feel as if I had anything to contribute.

But then again, I've never been made to care so deeply about an artist before BTS either, so I guess it's no surprise that exactly my love for them would inspire and give me a final push to join an online space like this and be an active part of it.

And this experience has been so overwhelmingly positive for me that I can't help but gush about it a little now. I swear I'm not being overly dramatic when I say that being a part of this community has opened a new side of me that I honestly didn't know existed to this extent. A side of me that's much more empathetic, gentle and kind. One that gains joy from sharing in other people's happiness. Seeing people openly express so much emotion and love and praise, both for the people they admire and each other, and bond over all of that has been incredibly healing to me.

Now I know this is just the beauty of fandom in general, but as I said, my experience before this was only watching from the sidelines. Being involved is entirely different and much more fulfilling of course.

Through all of this I've met the most talented, kindest, understanding, funny and wonderful people. I cherish every single interaction and friend I've made on here and I can't wait to meet more lovely people. So yeah, I just wanted to thank the wonderful people on here for being who they are and thus shaping this community that I'm so glad I'm a part of 💞💕💞💕💞💕💞

#don't mind me just feeling sentimental and rambly as always #i feel like i could say more but i need to go to bed lol #also ngl these past couple of weeks being on here has been a little overwhelming and at times exhausting too #but for me the positives have always outweighed the negatives when it comes to my experience on here #there's a lot i can say about those too though but this is a positive post!! #anyway if you read all of that i love you <3 #personal