#but I’d need to heavily edit it because what I actually have written down is nigh incomprehensible

[poisonous-honey]

Soul Crushing Guilt

(This is a re-upload: Originally posted to UniverseUchu on December 2nd, 2022)

You've treated them all like toys. In your defence this was just another video game to you a couple of weeks ago, but they're actually real with thoughts and feelings of their own. You don't know how to feel.

Who’s Here! Venti

Contains: isekai reader, Self Aware Genshin (not the Cult SAGAU), Insecurities (reader), Hurt/Comfort I guess it’s called

Note: I will say this takes place in the middle of a story, but it works on its own and I really liked how this turned out. I do have more written, but it's incomprehensible (even after a whole year it's still incomprehensible lmao)

Sitting on the cliffside of Starsnatch is not where you intended to be at this time, but your soul crushing guilt and insecurities have led you here. You needed to be away from all the positivity from everyone in Mondstadt. Their kindness was only worsening your mood. Staring over the edge, lost deep inside your head, you almost miss the way the wind whirls around you before you hear the one person you wanted to avoid the most right now.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Why’d you leave without saying anything? Everyone back at Mond is worried, you know.”

You don’t say anything in response and let Venti walk up and sit next to you. You both stay silent and watch the waves crash onto the beach. Venti occasionally takes glances in your direction, but for the most part his eyes are on the scenery. After a few minutes, he tries asking you again.

“I know you told us that we aren’t overwhelming you, but please, if we actually are-”

“That’s not the reason I left Venti.”

“Then what is it?”

Silence is all that greets him. “Please, we just want you to be comfortable with us. We can’t help if we don’t know.”

Hearing him say that only makes you feel more guilty. They’re all so nice to you, and for what? The pressure and the guilt keeps building and building the more you stay here. Everyone’s been so understanding and kind, but all you’ve done before is use them any which way. You’ve judged them for superficial reasons and have even gotten them killed on numerous occasions. Venti showing up and putting the blame on himself and the others like they’re the reason you left just adds onto your shame as tears start to escape your eyes.

Upon seeing your eyes water, Venti slightly panics. “W-Wait, why are you crying!? I’m sorry for whatever-”

“Venti please stop.”

You turn to look Venti in the eyes, and see the panic and worry etched onto his face. It only makes you feel worse.

“Venti… Why are you here? Why do you keep following me?’ You look away from him, trying to keep from balling on the spot. ‘Why are you so nice to me?”

Hearing this, Venti’s face slowly scrunches in confusion. “What do you mean? Of course, I’m going to be nice to you. Where is this coming from?”

“You were conscious the entire time I was playing. I used you all like you were dolls for my amusement. After I got you, didn’t you feel like I was holding you captive or-or like some sort of toy forced to do my bidding? I don’t understand why no one hates me! I feel so guilty of everything I’ve said and done, but everyone’s apologizing to me like they’re in the wrong, and I don’t get it! Especially you! As the God of Freedom, don’t you hate me for taking away your own freedom from you? I just don’t understand… So why…” Unable to continue, you look away as you try to wipe your eyes and wait for Venti to finally tell you he hates you. That he’s going to stop pretending and get up and leave you alone. In your mind you know he would never, that's not who he is, but fear and anxiety is irrational.

Your breath hitches as you feel his hands land on your cheeks and turn your head to look at him. Instead of the disgust or apathy your heart was expecting, Venti’s face is filled with sorrow.

“I can’t believe you would think so low of me.’ He looks downwards and wipes away a few tears with his thumbs before looking back at you with nothing but care. ‘I guess from your point of view that’s a reasonable assumption to make, but you seem to be forgetting one key detail.”

You stare at him as he proceeds to give you the smuggest look you’ve ever seen on him. “I came home extremely early on my banner, didn’t I?”

What he’s saying doesn’t make any sense to you. He’s already treating you extremely differently than you anticipated, and now his question is putting your already malfunctioning brain into overdrive. What did his banner have to do with anything?

“What? Venti I-I don’t understand. What are you trying to…’ Finally, it all starts to click into place as your eyes widen, and his stupid grin gets larger. ‘You… Did you influence the banner wishes???”

Venti laughs joyously as he lets go of your face. His eyes sparkle like he’s recounting the best moment of his life.

“Why yes, I did! I actually got in a lot of trouble for that! It's part of the reason you lost the next 50/50, but I couldn’t miss the chance to join your team. I refused to wait another second.”

“But why? I still don’t under-”

“I have the freedom to make my own choices, do I not? I wanted to join your team, so I did.”

His expression changes from smug to such a soft look. You have a hard time believing it is being directed at you.

“Why, yes, I may be the God of Freedom, but I’m also simply one of the many characters this game has to offer. I’m one of your many characters in particular. And out of such a colourful cast of individuals, I was your favourite. To be the reason someone even downloaded our game in the first place sends me over the moon. For everyone else, you still give their lives a purpose and have earned everyone’s respect. Sure, you might be a bit crass, but even when you were rude or made a mistake, you still treated everyone with more care than necessary. I especially could feel and hear the level of adoration you had for me through the screen. To me, there’s nothing I want more than to travel by your side for as long as you’ll have me.”

Such a heartwarming and earnest speech from Venti has your eyes start to water again. Not all of your insecurities and guilt have been lifted, you don’t think that kind of guilt will be something you can get rid of, but with Venti here…

“You’re allowed to stay for as long as you want.”

He cups your cheeks again while looking straight into your eyes.

“Then till death do we part, my dear player.”

You break down and cry as Venti pulls you in for a hug. With Venti by your side, you know he’ll help you through your guilt with as much care and love as you’ve given him.

#sagau #self aware genshin #Venti x reader #Genshin x reader #x reader #self-indulgence ftw baby #I don’t know if I’m going to post more of this #If I am I’ll make a header to organize just a little bit #I really love what I have #but I’d need to heavily edit it because what I actually have written down is nigh incomprehensible #Pois.Posts #Pois.Writes

[artsyunderstudy]

Happy New Year! 

I want to open with saying thanks to everyone in this amazing fandom, both the creators and the cheerleaders, because all of you make it an incredibly fun and warm place to be.  I’ve consumed and created so much this year it’s hard to narrow things down to my favorites, but damn it all, I’m going to try. 

We Still Bloom (T, 18.4k)

The Mirrors that Hold Us (E, 70.4k)

Sixty Seconds (T, 2.8k)

What Lies Behind Doorways (M, 10.8k)

A Mild Case of Madness (M, 22.6k, WIP)

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe (T, 4.7k)

Every One With You (M, 5.3k)

What We Crave (E, 9.3k)

Touch Starved (E, 5k)

Here in the Dark (E, 4.7k)

Total: 9 complete fics, 1 fic in progress

Word count: 154k

Favorite story this year?  Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

We Still Bloom, definitely not my most popular but it was my personal favorite.

Okay, now your most popular story?

Sixty Seconds, which was unfathomable to me because I wrote it in two days (though it was HEAVILY edited over a week) and it’s very short, very simple, and VERY fluffy. And I was so terrified while posting it because I didn't know if it was any good at all.  But apparently fluff is the business I should be in because the two fluffiest fics I wrote were much better received than I originally expected.  (The other is Meet me Under the Mistletoe.)

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

I wouldn’t say We Still Bloom is "underappreciated", but it’s the one I’m most proud of but has the least amount of kudos, which honestly I understand.  It’s angsty, its sad and tense the whole way through.   And while I personally enjoy stuff like that, not everyone does.  But I think it’s some of my best writing, and has a really lovely conclusion. The whole point of it was to explore why they love one another, and how. And honestly how hard it is to accept love, sometimes.

Story that could have been better?

I’m generally the most critical of my longer works, because they take a lot of planning, and even if pieces are really good there is pacing and build-up and the overall flow to consider.  So I think Mirrors could have been better?  It was my first long fic for the fandom, and honestly the first long thing I’ve written in a decade, so I’m overall proud of it and happy with it.  But I’m sure it could have been a lot better.

Sexiest story?

Touch Starved is the hottest thing I’ve written, I’m pretty sure.  (Here in the Dark is a close second, they are both PWP lol)  It’s one fic where I allowed myself to go a little darker and filthier, since usually I tend toward tender intimacy/emotions over sexiness.  Though TS has a lot of both, it definitely lets itself just be a horny little fic.

Saddest story?

Mirrors?  Probably?  It depends on what makes you sad, but that story is mired in grief which is sad.  But What Lies Behind Doorways is sad in that it’s about Baz dealing with PTSD alone, and We Still Bloom is about Baz loving Simon without a lot of hope, and breakup angst always hits ME the hardest.  So, I dunno.  Take your pick.  I write a lot of sad shit.

Most fun?

A Mild Case of Madness has been so much fun.  I didn’t think I could be funny.  Like, I’m funny IRL, but I’ve never tried to write anything funny.  It’s not hilarious by any means, but it’s got this sassy energy I don’t think a lot of my other stuff has.  It’s been so much fun to write.  (I NEED TO FINISH IT)

Story with the single sweetest moment?

I have … no idea.  Probably every hug in Sixty Seconds, or the last hug??  The whole thing is about comfort hugs, it’s the definition of saccharine.

Hardest story to write?

We Still Bloom was written very very quickly, but only after MONTHS of fussing over it.  I thought that fic to death, and there was a point I was wondering if I’d ever be able to actually write it, so it was definitely a challenge.  Once I had the plan, though, I feverishly wrote it in only a couple weeks. 

Easiest/most fun story to write?

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe was very quick and easy to write.  It’s just a bunch of kissing! 

Most overdue story?

Well clearly it’s A Mild Case of Madness.

Did you take any writing risks this year?  What did you learn from them?

Everything feels like a risk, honestly.  Maybe What We Crave was the biggest risk, and I still feel really conflicted about it?  It also happens to be my least favorite fic of the year.  If I had known what it would end up being, I probably would have planned more, and maybe I wouldn’t have posted it at all.  I don’t know.  Mmm.  On a more positive note I am glad I took the risk and got outside of my comfort zone. I do think parts of it are really good, specifically the final chapter.

Coming back to edit because I need to add Sixty Seconds, I challenged myself with brevity for this fic and I have to say it was absolutely a great experience even if it felt risky. It taught me a lot about how to make cuts and really narrow down the narrative to its more important components, something I definitely struggle with.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it?

I tend to focus on emotional intimacy in pretty much everything I write.  Most of my stories revolve around the exploration of that intimacy or striving to correct intimacy that’s missing, like Baz finally opening up about his trauma to Simon in What Lies Behind Doorways, or Simon recognizing and pushing beyond his fear of loss in We Still Bloom.  Then, the way intimacy helps them to express themselves and get closer, like the comfort sex in Every One with You, the hugs in Sixty Seconds, and the way Baz touches Simon and allows himself to be touched in Touch Starved.  Intimacy, intimacy, intimacy.

I drew a ton of art this year, so I'm just going to highlight a few favorites. ♥

I just joined this fandom in March and I have read so, so, so much fic. it's not going to be possible to highlight all my favorites in this post, so I just want to preface this by say if I kudosed, commented or bookmarked any of your fics, I loved them. That being said, here are my top 10 completed fics and top 5 WIPS, and my apologies if they weren't all written this year. I tried, but like I said. I read so much.

Completed

Ready or Not by @bookish-bogwitch (E, 20.7k)

Baker boxer teacher grief (Or: The thing that lasts) by @chen-chen-chen-again-chen (E, 21.3k)

Snow, Baz, and the Seven Bunces by LakeWitch (M, 54k)

London Loves Us Only by imjusthereforthefreefood (E, 47.6k)

Restoration Ecology by @captain-aralias (E, 51k)

What's Left by @cutestkilla (M, 133.8k)

when the dust settles (you'll come home to me) by @diningpagentry (E, 65.8k)

Where the Sand Meets the Sea by @amywaterwings (T, 76.5k)

A Light from Miles Away and A Light From Within by @stillmadaboutpetra (T, 67k and 60k)

The Space In Between by @whatevertheweather (M, 101.1k)

WIP

What Remains After The Storm by @hushed-chorus (M, 14.7k)

Depth of Reason by @you-remind-me-of-the-babe (M, 22.7k)

A Dangerous Affinity by @larkral (T, 67.8k)

Every little helps by @nightimedreamersworld (E, 28.6k)

More Than Friends by @fatalfangirl (E, 6.3k)

Comment more and do more fic rec posts. ♥♥

Finish a new fic over 70k

Be kinder to myself and stop being so self-critical. Enjoy the process.

Participate in more fests

Make more fandom friends ♥ There are so many amazing people here and I would really love to get to know you all better.

Here's to 2023! So excited for what's ahead. ♥

#snowbaz #year in review #long post #about me

[trinkerichi]

im thinking abt osomatsu 

he’s almost nobody’s favorite character right off the bat, and then everyone who has him as their favorite is SUUUPER heavily introspective about the show because even though he’s the title character he’s probably the hardest to distinguish from the rest when you’re new to the show. He’s the main guy. he’s the default model and all the others are variations. he doesn’t really have a gimmick or a trope to his personality besides maybe gambling and being a jerk. 

BUT its kinda perfect because he Defines the show. he’s the entire reason the rest of the brothers are the way they are. he’s the leader and they all know it and they can’t escape him. and its KINDA SAD. 

OF course they never dwell or focus on any of the incredibly well built up character traits they establish in this show, i could go on forever about that. But for once I really feel like the majority fandom interpretation of Oso isn’t really reaching at all. He holds onto his childish persona and absolutely refuses to grow from it, because that’s what he’s comfortable with. He has a low image of himself, but doesn’t show it or introspect like Ichi does. I’d argue having a shaky sense of identity is kinda the basis of every matsu’s character flaws, but that’s the most true for this guy. He didn’t have to worry about that stuff as a kid. He was the only one with a personality and the rest just followed along. He didnt HAVE to be anything more than that. If he resented being seen as one of six, he didnt realize it until he grew up, and only now does he realize how much it messed him up. And instead of trying to work on it, he’s just desperately trying to maintain the status quo as long as he can. No matter how much the other brothers try to change themselves and become their own people, in either a jokey or serious way, Oso ALWAYS drags them back down to his level again. Even if it hurts them. 

HE HAS GROWN FROM THIS OF COURSE. Very very slowly over the course of the 3 seasons and the movie you can tell he’s a little more willing to try new things and become a little more mature. I mean he couldnt get much worse than ep 24, actually physically hurting the youngest brothers and completely emotionally shutting down when Choro left. But he still kinda does this in less obvious ways in later eps. 

I really loved the analysis they did with him in the episode where he goes on a date with Nyaa Chan. He was joking like “haha im gonna score with her lol” but then she actually asks him out for real and he’s SO TERRIFIED. and it’s hilarious and adorable he’s just hiding under the couch and they have to drag him out kicking and screaming for an hour. He’s so afraid of change. He doesn’t trust himself enough to be a “real adult” and do all the things he’s supposed to do. That’s why he tries to lower everyone’s expectations of him, but when THAT doesn’t work he has no idea what to do. 

While the other’s dilemmas are that they HAD no identity until they became adults, and are desperately trying to compensate by roping themselves into tropes that they don’t even really fit, Oso is the only one who’s stuck with the same role he’s always had, and it doesn’t fit anymore. It’s because he’s grown up now, and because the others dont need him to define the group anymore, and being the big brother doesn’t really matter anymore. so who IS he? 

i didn’t have a point or conclusion to this i just think he’s a very developed and interesting take on a grown up version of a very simply written classic cartoon character and the show gives juuuust enough hints at this for me to be satisfied but i want MORE and i want this for all of the characters cuz im in too deep. thank you for attending my ted talk. next I’ll discuss the “jyushimatsu and concepts” skit and how that boy’s secretly the smartest out of all of them ok bye 

*edit: i forgot i didnt even mention Tougou. I mean he’s not canon to the new show so it doesn’t matter but HONESTLY if he was i wouldn’t even be surprised. With all of Oso’s surprisingly intense baggage, him having some kinda childhood trauma would make a LOT of sense. Especially with how clingy he is with his family and how he hates the thought of them leaving. His comfort in dwelling in the past, sabotaging chances to change their lives. IM JUST SAYING it would make sense. 

#trinket rambles #osomatsu san

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

March Writing Thoughts

Well this ended up being a disastrous month for creating. I didn’t really write or design much outside of my required work! I’m trying to not be too hard on myself for it because in the meantime, we did find a new place to move to and moving to a new state is a lot of work. So obviously that has to come first! I also have to be forgiving to myself: I purposely chose to not give myself deadlines this month because I knew I’d be too stressed to follow through. And I was right!! It would have gone terribly! So even though I don’t feel great about it, I have to give myself the grace to accept that it was the correct choice to make.

Main WIP Check In (aka why the hell haven’t I finished these yet)

I’ve seen a lot of others doing this (sorry for tagging anyone specifically), but I thought it was a cool idea! Pretty much go through your current WIPs and figure out what exactly is holding you back and possible solutions. Putting below a read more because I definitely am going to ramble.

Unnamed Collaborative/Celebration AU [status: currently writing, 75% written] – for as far along as I am on this oneshot, it’s taking me ages to get to the finish line. I overall like it but I don’t think it has the energy it should. I think this might be the first fic that I finish writing and then actually have to heavily go back and edit. It needs some more personality! Also it probably has to do with needing a lot more dialogue. That always holds me back.

Bellarke Sci-Fi/Hanahaki AU [status: posted, 2-3 chapters remaining] – the definition of a story where the lore and world building got too big. I also was on such a writer’s high when I wrote the first two chapters, but now it’s been ages and I’m super overwhelmed by what’s left. I also don’t love my meager outlines for the remaining chapters. I think with this one, I need to sit down and figure out the core plot points and work from there. I’m getting too bogged down in little details when I don’t even know where I’m going. I desperately want to finish this fic so I want to make these a priority.

Bellarke Dystopian Mythology AU [status: posted, 3-4 chapters remaining] – I actually have the summary of the story written out pretty succinctly and shockingly like it. I think this one is largely an issue of just sitting down and actually writing it. Since I’m winging some of the mythology already, I don’t think I should get too caught up in the details. The vibes are pretty cool too so hopefully this one won’t be hard to finish outlining and then write!

Bellarke Shadow & Bone AU [status: posted, unknown chapters remaining] – Torn about this one. I like the premise and what I’ve written and the chance to make the Grishaverse interesting to me personally. But... it also doesn’t really spark anything in me. If I’m honest with myself, this is one I want to discontinue and just leave it at that. Writing that out is probably the answer I needed.

Bellarke PNW fluff AU [status: posted, 2 chapters remaining] – Definitely a story I like more in theory than in writing. I think I don’t feel connected to it very much as an actual story. Probably another one that, if I’m honest, I should just discontinue. But it’s also kind of a sweet easy story, so it could work as a warm up? Eh, we’ll see. I feel like my interests have shifted a lot since then.

Bellarke New England Angst AU [status: posted, 4 chapters remaining] – the definition of why you have to pick vibes or story, not both. I feel kind of lost with this one and not sure I can pull of the direction I’d like it to go in. Also a big case of the outline shrinking as it goes on, I clearly don’t know how I even want this story to end. Very much a part of my era of not planning as well, which isn’t something I can do anymore. Who knows about this one.

Bellarke Dark Fantasy AU [status: posted, unknown chapters remaining] – This story deserves SO MUCH better. I have a solid idea for the whole story and where I want it to go. It’s definitely a tone I’m excited by. I just need to approach it with new eyes and a fresh outline I think. I’d love to spend some time diving back into this one even though I don’t think anyone else really cares about it!

Clurphy Pirate AU [status: posted, 2 chapters remaining] – this one was so fun to start?? It shouldn’t be too hard to get back into. I think the biggest thing is to just finish outlining the last two chapters, I have a pretty good idea of how I want it all to go. It is, however, low on the priority list.

Bellarke Guest Ranch AU [status: posted, 2 chapters remaining] – another one that I just don’t think I care about anymore. I’ve really lost interest in strictly fluffy pieces. I even have most of it outlined but eh. I just think it’ll never really grab me again. Might have to Marie Kondo it and discontinue. 

Honorable Mention WIPs:

Nina/Matthias Horror AU for belated Troped: wildly unfinished outline that doesn’t make any sense

Inej/Kaz Ice Skating AU: I just haven’t committed even though I love it

Stranger Things Zombie Rewrite: tbh mainly waiting to see how the final season goes so I can truly flush out the military angle and then fly through it (also I’m definitely doing way more backstory so that takes a while)

A million other plot seedlings that I shouldn’t touch after looking at all of the listed above

If you’ve made it this far, congrats! I think the conclusion is I need to be more honest with myself about when a project should be abandoned and then spend a lot of time outlining. There’s nothing wrong with that! It helped me write a 78k fic because I knew where the story was going!! 

Anyway back to the drawing board, hopefully April is a better month overall.

#boy this got long #kathryn chats #kathryn writes #this was a bit cathartic though?? #I do genuinely feel a bit more organized #and determined lol gotta go decide to officially abandon those fics #that'll probably make me feel even better

[world-cinema-research]

A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day’s Night (1964), was intrinsic to the success of The Beatles. In modern times, they need little introduction, but this film functions as a culmination of their worldwide fame obtained at the beginning of their career. Released four years after their inception, Beatlemania was at its peak, and director Richard Lester’s approach to the film perfectly encapsulates the public attitude towards the Beatles. Being that they were essentially a boy band at the time, and their more complex works from their later years hadn’t been made, the Beatles were prime subjects for a quick, lucrative production. Given that this film was released in tandem with their third album of the same name, A Hard Day’s Night, it’s not far-fetched to say that this film was conventional in terms of its subject matter. The actual style, however, I’d say is fairly unconventional. While most films focused on real musicians opt for the documentary style and stick to actual events, Hard Day’s Night embraces the quirks of the band members to create a hectic and irreverent look into a day in the life of the hottest musicians of 1964. The line the film rides of exaggerating each member to the point it’s almost cartoony and still keeping it intimate, as the dialect of the Beatles themselves is almost impenetrable to an outsider. A lot of the terms used here I had to research, and I appreciated this choice in the long run. It added to the authenticity of the film, which I think is what really stood out to me. 

I was surprised at first to see this film alongside others that are suggested in this course when I learned what it was about. Admittedly I was not expecting what I got, and at the most I thought I’d just be getting an inoffensive and by the numbers movie about the Beatles. How many times I laughed while watching this was definitely unexpected. It kept my interest and comedic visuals and delivery stood out as well-timed and well executed. From what I could find, many critics agreed that this film was more than what it seemed. The Beatles’ debut film, written by TV writer Alun Owen, is well regarded because of its writing.

Jake Cole’s 2014 review of this film brought up an interesting point, as the film’s lack of reverence in how they portray the Beatles heavily benefits the tone. What could have been a cheesy and toothless movie about the squeaky clean and friendly pop icons is instead a satirical look into how four young men navigate a level of popularity that is unfathomable to most. Cole sums it up well in his review, stating “Heading off detractors at the pass, the film answers the question posed by adults, “How did these scruffy, hare-brained vulgarians become so popular?” with “Your guess is as good as ours.” (Cole). This retrospective review echoed my thoughts almost exactly, as Cole also addresses the cinematography in A Hard Day’s Night. The camera work and shot composition does not appear hastily planned, as the fast cuts and sped up montages brought a lot of energy to this film. Many scenes in this film felt like a music video. The stylistic choices in this are described by Cole as “The other great visual sequence, of the band frolicking in a field to “Can’t Buy Me Love,” employs film speeds redolent of silent-era works—not out of conscious effort, but because the camera’s battery was dying and so the frame rate slowed as the operator shot the band.” (Cole). Aside from the impromptu nature of this choice being very fitting for such a scatter-brained film, the style Cole references here was seen repeatedly in French New Wave films at the time. In the NoFilmSchool article, Jason Hellerman breaks down the traits of these movies, as he states “Techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes that allowed actors to explore a scene. The combination of realism, subjectivity, and commentary allowed these movies to have ambiguous characters, motives, and even endings that were not so clear-cut." (Hellerman)

The emphatic cuts and the inclusion of many outtakes and mistakes in the final product in A Hard Day’s Night are reminiscent of French New Wave films. Even the premise can be seen as an imitation of New Wave films, as there is little in the way of plot or intense conflict. At first glance A Hard Day’s Night may seem like a conventional and quick cash-in movie to spread Beatlemania to every corner of the world, but it is a deceptively smart film. The film is refreshing in its self-awareness, and it has aged very well in my opinion. I regret my first assumptions about this film, and I’m happy that I actually found a lot of enjoyment in this movie. A Hard Day’s Night was a nice surprise, and the songs definitely helped.

#Youtube

[the-bi-space-ace]

4 and 9 for the fanfic ask!!

Thanks for the ask!!!

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH THERE ARE A FEW. there’s at least two I have from back when I exclusively wrote in my notes app 🫠 Echo and Rex. My darlings. My lovely boys. They occupy my every waking thought and I am still rolling around an Echo and Rex bonding fic. I’ve written ideas as time goes on but haven’t completely gotten it written. But it’ll get there. Because I can’t stop thinking about it. Always there. Constantly. ALSO. I really want to write an Echo and Crosshair focused fic (shocked, surprised) about them right at the beginning of Echo joining the batch. Some missions. Bonding. A lot of ridiculousness. That idea plagues me at night. I get random ideas for it in the middle of the night and HAVE BEEN for about two years now 😅😅😅 I’m stubborn so I’m gonna write it. I’ll do it. I’m going to do it.

I do absolutely wonder why I’ve never written it and it does in fact cause me existential dread. The wonderful lovely ideas that go to die in my docs bc I lose interest half way through and for WHAT!?!? If you only knew the amount of ideas sitting half thought out in a document that I desperately want to write but just. Can’t. Part of it is because of the long fics I’ve been writing recently. The planning for them has been… a lot. And I’m enjoying it! I really am! It just takes a lot of my emotional and mental energy.

Other thing that you didn’t ask for but I’m saying anyway is that I found a way to start to combat this issue and I am going to share it. I got a project management software website thingy (it’s free and it’s called Trello) and I literally plan all of my writing schedule there. All of it. It has due dates. It’s color coded. I have flags for things that need editing. All of my writing goals for the year are in there. All of my ideas are there too so I have something to pick from when I want to write something new. I write one brand new idea a month. I write two chapters of my long fic a month. And I’ve been succeeding!! It’s only been three months but it’s helping with this process. Those ^ ideas are scheduled. Maybe I’ll actually write them 😅😅😅😅😅

9. in an ideal world where you’re already super successful and published, would you want to see a tv or movie adaptation of your work? why or why not?

Oooooooh I LOVE this one. Not sure if anyone else would feel the same way but I’d have to say no! Honestly! I have SEVERAL reasons. I’ve thought about this a lot.

One is that I am just. So heavily reliant on the ✨vibes✨ I want something to have and sometimes it’s all down to the thoughts my narrator is having or the physical cues and it really builds a scene out for me. I like to get my point across and sometimes when seeing adaptations to film or tv it just… doesn’t work. I’d want my audience to be able to imagine characters and even imagine themselves in that character’s place and sometimes you lose that with screen adaptations. I honestly think that the newest Percy Jackson tv show was excellent at bringing the characters to life from the books I loved so dearly from childhood. They picked perfect actors for the characters and I personally liked changes that they made while the movie from years ago just wasn’t quite what I wanted after loving the books.

I don’t want that disappointment.

I’d honestly be more interested in seeing the fandom create. I might be biased because I write fic but I’d much rather see art and read fics than adapt anything I do into a movie or tv show.

#thanks for asking! #sorry i was late! #Ask Ace

[lorei-writes]

Basic Guide on How Not To: Slavic Characters

Well, as most of you have probably realised by now, I’m Polish. Truthfully, I am quite upset now. I generally tend to avoid most content involving Slavic people, because well, stereotypes are plentiful and I have only one stomach - there is only so much anger I can fit inside of it. However, this time I was merrily watching an episode of a series, for goodnight sleep, and got smacked in the face with just that... So, I suppose, let’s use my anger towards something - hopefully - productive. This is a very hard post for me to write. It may be closer to my personal experience, although I did try to be more general.

Contents:

Where Do I Even Begin or Sad Slav Filter

Common Stereotypes - Professions & Jobs

Common Stereotypes - Characteristics

Few basic issues with languages & names

Where Do I Even Begin or Sad Slav Filter

Grey buildings, empty plazas, ominous blocks of flats with walls up to the very sky. Snow. Gloom faces. Dark nights. Red. Gold.

To start with, be aware that this sort of image is oftentimes not only written into stories or presented in picture-based media, but that I had the displeasure of seeing it being used for cover art for several books.

What I jokingly call sad Slav filter is presenting the reality of Eastern Europe* through, well, pessimistic glasses. The architecture speaks of terror, of being post-communist state, of never having recovered. The streets portrayed in such fashion are gloom, unwelcoming, threatening in a way. Winter is oftentimes the season of choice, to add an extra layer of depressive atmosphere and cold. Nobody smiles. One may say that usage of gold and red brightens the image - however, those connect directly to the communist flag, thus locking the entire space in a rather obvious context.

The reality?

Yes, old blocks of flats built in 60s or so still exist. Some are even grey and in dire need of being re-painted! However... Many are not in such a state. In Poland, the common colours for elevation of such buildings are white, pastel orange, pastel yellow and pastel green, oftentimes put together in combination of stripes or other geometric shapes. What also should be noted is that such estates were designed with plenty trees and other plants around them in mind, as to accommodate for a development of a community - especially for older blocks of flats, those are most likely situated nearby a primary school and a kindergarten, not to mention stores and other services. It is not uncommon for playgrounds to be present as well. You could also expect small flower gardens.

Parks exist here. Architecture does not begin and end at the blocks of flats, especially not in the major cities - most, if not all, have old towns or historical representative streets. Buildings dating back to medieval still do exist in plenty of places. Churches & Tserkovs - those are oftentimes tourists sites for a reason! 

It may happen that the side of a building will be decorated with a mural. It is not very common, but does happen. Here are some examples (from Poland). The designs sometimes relate to other works of art, or to some forms of traditional art.

mural by NeSpoon, a street artist who incorporates motives of koronka ludowa [a type of lace] into her artwork

Overall, I come from a poorer region of Poland, from a small town to add to that. The one thing I would list about it? Flower gardens. All of my neighbours had flower gardens in front of their houses. In the recent years, I’ve seen plenty of new houses being built, plenty of renovations being made. Especially in spring and summer, it is all far from grey. Some major cities started investing in fields of wild flowers, as to aid pollinators. And winters? Well, the way it should be (as climate change shows and I have not seen a proper winter in a while), they should be snowy. Yes, it may involve a rather depressing image, at least in places where snow cannot just rest over the ground and glitter... But I do think it may be the case in plenty parts of Europe, as winter days are overall shorter as well, which hardly helps :”) Eastern Europe as a region is not locked in an eternal winter.

People may not be smiling, but they are not frowning either - it is the... Neutral resting face.

*- that being said, Eastern Europe is not inhabited only by Slavic people, even if it is often presented like so

Common Stereotypes - Professions & Jobs

List of common stereotypical jobs/professions usually performed by characters of Slavic descent:

a member of a mafia (Russian mafia)

a drug dealer

a spy

a prostitute

a maid / a cleaner

As you can see, nearly all of those involve crime, the only exception being a maid / a cleaner (which, I’d argue, speaks of a lower socio-economic status). If you do not plan to have more than one Slavic character in your work, I advise you to avoid those - especially if you wanted to make your character Russian. I do not think I have to explain why representing a group of people nearly exclusively as criminals is hurtful. 

Certain stereotypes exist in media. They do influence the reality. I have seen covers of books about spy programs (non-fiction, referencing an issue from 2000s) which involved clear references to communism (+ used the most hideous Sad Slav Filter I have ever seen). The title suggested all Russians are spies. This is not okay.

If you want to have a character who is performing any of the above, and want to make them Slavic, but then never have their heritage influence anything about them - ask yourself why.

EDIT: Do allow me to also add that being a sex-worker may not be a choice for all Slavic women. Sex-trafficking of Eastern Europeans is a real issue. You should be mindful of that when writing a story - even more so as it affects some countries more than others. Research is due.

Common Stereotypes - Characteristics

Common hurtful characteristics in depicting slavic characters:

uneducated or otherwise stupid

rude, loud, uncultured, violent

an alcoholic / addicted to drugs

extremely conservative / religious

Do I have to explain it? Yes, alcoholism is a social issue, same as addiction to drugs. Yes, some people are conservative and / or religious. However! We are not a monolith! Social issues are not the general rule! 

Scale of conservativeness and religiousness also differs greatly by age group and region. In Poland we have an entire category of practising atheists - non-believers, usually from smaller communities, who appear in church once or twice a year, despite not believing. Due to social pressure. What religion? This differs greatly too! Roman catholic, Greek orthodox, Muslim? Slavic people are not a monolith.

(about women specifically):

beautiful (must put plenty effort in her physical appearance)

looks for a rich (western) husband

submissive

obedient 

Well. This ties into the greater issue of objectification and sexualisation of Slavic and Eastern European women. Admittedly, such portrayal [including all of those] is more so present in online spaces, if you turn a few wrong corners down the roads of the internet :) It is dehumanising.

If your Slavic character happens to be a woman and must be extremely sexy femme fatal spy - this reeks of stereotypes.

Few basic issues with languages & names

As I’ve hinted already, it appears that oftentimes Slavic = Russian. This, however, is not true, both language-wise and culture-wise. Despite sharing some common elements, Slavic cultures do differ. Polish characters, unless they are 50+ years old, won’t generally speak Russian. Czech and Ukrainian are different. Ukrainian is not just another version of Russian.

I decided to single out this paragraph for one reason: authors oftentimes do not bother to check for appropriate names and just use whatever seems right. If you want to write a Slavic character, do make some research. 

The common mess-ups I’ve seen:

inappropriate form of the surname (about Russian surnames in particular; giving a woman a male version of the surname, giving a man the female version of the surname - Slavic languages are heavily gendered!)

claiming a character is of nationality B, while giving them a surname which is most definitely speaking of nationality A (e.g: Polish character with a clearly Hungarian name & surname)

wrong spelling

using very rare forms of names for all the characters written into the story (it sounds very unnatural - in one particular case it seemed to have been done on purpose, as I’ve had to google whether some names were even names. They were used as code names for few organisations during WWII. That sort of uncommon).

nicknames derived from the actual names that would not work at all (Żegota -> Zeg; It just would not work like this. It would be literally more likely for a character named Żegota to be nicknamed/renamed Staszek than for somebody to call him Zeg. It does not only not include the ż sound, but it also ends with g - which a Polish person would simplify to k when speaking. In other words Zeg -> zek. This, meanwhile, is not only not exactly pleasant to say, but it also sounds like a grammatical form of another word, albeit pronounced with a heavy lisp - “river”; It is possible to find appropriate nicknames online).

Also, unless you want for some character to be a dick, do not make them purposefully mispronounce the name of a Slavic character or have them name them after an object/thing. (Calling “Maciej” by “Magic” because they can’t be bothered to learn to pronounce the name or at least try to get it close is not nice).

#lorei spoke #honestly i had to take a couple breaks while writing this #because some of those affected my family living abroad directly and </3 #i was completely not in a mood for any stereotypes today </3

[familyfriendlyweed]

late night snaps (quackity x reader)

a/n : before we get into the story, i wanted to thank you all for such support on my first post - i only posted it yesterday, and got a hell lot of likes and reblogs and even gained 23 followers, which is insane for me (or maybe i just don’t know how tumblr works, haha)! anyhow, i’m really happy you guys enjoyed it <3 

 it was 02:37 and you were editing your newest video. you had no idea it would take so long, though! even if you were used to staying up very late, you knew you have to put away your laptop and go get some sleep. 

 saving the video as a draft and shutting your computer off, you started to blindly search for your phone, since your eyes didn’t get used to the darkness yet. finally finding it, you turned it on to set an alarm for the next morning when you suddenly saw a snapchat notification from ten minutes ago. it was from Alex. you curiously unlocked your phone and tapped the little notification to be led straight to snapchat.

idiota : hello mamacita

 your face instantly lit up in a childish smile. you started to type your response eagerly like it wasn’t 2 am and you didn’t have online classes tomorrow. 

 you : why hello there, el señor

 you saw Alex’s silly bitmoji pop up as he started to type.  

 idiota : what is my chica bella doing up so late?

 you giggled, getting comfortable in your bed - this meant a long chatting session on its way.

 you : YOUR chica bella? when did that happen?

 idiota : ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!! >:((((

 you : fine you big baby, i was finishing editing a new video

 idiota : hmm i see, i see

 you : what about you though? u should get some sleep!!! :(((

 Alex’s bitmoji started typing, then stopped for some reason. you lifted your eyebrow at that. then he continued, but it took a while for him to finish.

 idiota : why, i just couldn’t fall asleep when you were on my mind all the time, mi amor

 your cheeks grew red in an instant. you knew you could handle jokes pretty well, but this was quite too much. Alex never got so far as to actually flirt with you.

 you : eh??? what drugs are u on

 idiota : the only drug for me is you mamacita

 you snorted. you had no idea if he was being serious or not, even if the second option was more likely.

 you : literally go to sleep wtf

 idiota : i’d sleep better if you were by my side ;)

 this was enough for you - you felt as if you got one more message like this from him, you’d die from the hotness in your cheeks. setting your phone down, you made your way to the bathroom before bed.

 you came back five minutes later, only to see your phone full of notifications from Alex. your heart was thumping really hard, you weren’t used to this, but you opened snapchat anyway.

 idiota : mamacita?

 idiota : ....

 idiota : mamacita, don’t joke w me like that

 idiota : did you really just leave me on read wtf

 idiota : i’m sad come back :(((

 and at last, there was a snap from him. you were quite scared at this point. with a shaking hand, you opened it.

 you laughed so hard that you seriously thought you’ll have a seizure. still laughing, you snapped a selfie with a cute filter on (you really thought you looked horrible at the moment), captioned it with “your chica bella had to take a piss u simp” and sent it to Alex.

 he opened the snap almost imediatelly and started typing afterwards :

 idiota : mamacita!!!! you look hermosa!!!!

 you : that’s because i have a filter on lmaoo

 idiota : mamacita don’t let yourself down, you are so beautiful :((

 you started to text a sarcastic reply, but stopped. for some reason, Alex seemed like he was being truthful. he wasn’t joking around when he called you beautiful, that was too affectionate.

 you : ...really?

 idiota : si, si! <3

 you tugged at your lip in a thinking manner. true, you had feelings for Alex, but you never thought he had something similar to you. or maybe... maybe he was just supporting you as a friend. figuring that was probably it, you texted :

 you : thank you quacker B]] ur also v handsome

 idiota : mamacita likes me!!!!!😍😍😍

 you smiled sadly. Alex was definitely playing around. you got lost in thought for a few moments, thinking about how would he act if he was actually in love with someone. would he, perhaps, be more mature? that would be very weird to look at.

 finally coming back to planet Earth, you looked at your phone only to see that Alex has written a shit ton of messages again :

 idiota : i want to see you, mamacita

 idiota : it’s fine if u don’t want to, you’re probably going to sleep anyway...

 idiota : but maybe let’s meet tomorrow?

 idiota : mamacita?

 idiota : ....

 idiota : i’m coming over <3

 your heart gave a leap of embarassment and surprise. why would he even say that?

 you : wait what

 you : wdym “i’m coming over”

 you : no tf ur not

 you : go to sleep

 idiota : doesn’t mamacita want to see muah???

 you : no, that would be awesome, but you should go to sleep, really :(

 idiota : y/n, i already told you, i can’t sleep when you’re on my mind

 you froze in spot, staring at your screen for what felt like an eternity. did he just call you by your name? you knew he only says it in serious situations. deciding to change your tactic, you started texting seriously :

 you : are you like... for real now?

 you : because i know you call me by my name in serious situations, but maybe it’s only a prank, so just answer me truthfully, okay?

 Alex started typing, it took even longer that before, but at last you saw his message, this time without caps, spammed question/exclamation marks, nothing silly at all :

 idiota : i am serious, y/n. believe me, this is not a prank. i just really wanna see you. 

 your heart skipped a beat or two, your face renewed its redness. you felt as if you were dreaming.

 you : okay... i’m really glad. come over, please

 idiota : thank you so much

 you started pondering in your head - how did this happen? how did this silly conversation turn out like this? 

 but what if Alex texted you because he wanted to come over in the first place? after all, he knew how shitty your sleep schedule was. that would be awesome, you thought, a small smile dancing on your lips.

 you checked the snap map only to see Alex about 100 meters from you. wait... what? 100 METERS??? was Alex near your place the moment he texted you for the first time?

 you jumped up, starting to tidy up your messy room up, only to remember you look like poop at the moment - hair messy, face tired, clothes scrunched. 

 exhaling heavily, you tried to change your appearance quickly - you ran into the bathroom, brushing your hair panickily. then you wrenched the makeup bag open and started to rummage through it trying to find some mascara or something...

 ding ding! 

 you froze, your eyes widened. he was already here, what the hell?!

 you quickly put on some mascara, ran into the hallway while brushing your face with your hands from stress (completely forgetting you have mascara on, somehow) and unlocked the door.

 Alex’s figure was dark, since the lightbulb in the corridor wasn’t working, and it almost gave you a fright. but as soon as he engulfed you in a warm hug, the tension in the pit of your stomach vanished. you hugged him back almost unsurely, but smiling.

 “hello, mamacita”

 you giggled. for some reason, you got the strongest urge to cry. probably from happiness, but it still was confusing to you. nevertheless, tears started running down your cheeks, mixing with mascara, probably making you look like you were going to a halloween dress up party. 

 “hey, why are you crying?” Alex asked, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

 “i look horrible.” you laughed, wiping your tears away.

 “nooo, why won’t you listen to me? i already told you you’re beautiful.” he said with a cute pout. 

 “alright, alright, i’m very beautiful, let me down now.” you said, noticing that he was still holding you in his arms tightly. 

 “whatever the chica bella says.”

 he put you down.

 “aren’t you going to turn on some light? i feel like i’ve gone blind!” Alex exclaimed jokingly and you giggled.

 “i’m like a bat, i hate much light, sorry. buuuut i could turn on this little lamp.” you said, making your way to your desk and turning on a cute little lamp the shade of warm pink.

 “perfect.” Alex said, eyeing you in light now. you thought he’ll make a comment about your awful mascara-stained face, but he said nothing, just smiling and looking at you in awe, like you were some princess in a ball dress instead of a tired college student in messy shorts, an oversized t-shirt and two different socks, because you couldn’t find a pair of the same ones.

 “perfect.” he repeated, shrugging with a smile on his face, like seeing you was everything he needed.

 you laughed and hugged him, muttering a “thanks for coming”. Alex didn’t hesitate and also hugged you, holding you as close as possible, as if he let go of you, he’d drown and would never come back to be by your side again. 

 little did you know, he felt the exact same way.

#quackity #quackity x reader #quackity imagines #quackity imagine #dream smp imagines #dream smp x reader #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #mcyt imagines

[theoryofmagick]

Ash's Introductory Witchcraft Reading List: Wicca-Based Edition

These books form a solitary Wiccan or neo-Wiccan-based framework (I'm not Officially Wiccan but I do use a framework based heavily off of both Wicca and modern tradcraft, which - let's not get into the Nigel Pearson style argument about THAT right now, no disrespect to dear Nigel!) This list covers books that come from a Wiccan or Neo-Wiccan reference point beyond the Gardnerian perspective.

Ann Moura's Green Witchcraft series

I've seen some very conflicting opinions on this one, which I acknowledge - primarily either "Moura is totally inscrutable and I have no idea what I'm doing and none of this makes sense", or "Moura covers the basicy basics but is WAY more dense than it needs to be", both of which are admittedly valid; but I've never seen someone just lay it down like Moura. I primarily use one of her practical-instructional books for reference, and it's a good one; just be aware that Moura, like many others, throws intentional curveballs to obfuscate, so break out that pencil and make corrections based on your double-checked knowledge.

Witchcraft on a Shoestring - Deborah Blake

This is a lighthearted, informative, and fun little book that details some of the "practical" elements of witchery popular on Tumblr, and how you can use household objects, create items, or otherwise budget-cut to achieve the same result. Contains masses of lower-case C craft knowledge, and I still, to this day, use the budget Sabbat feasting recipe book in the back - tomato pie for Lammas, anyone? This book doesn't contain anything spiritually instructional - if you know how to use a wand (or know where to learn it) but can't afford to buy one or don't know where to begin with sourcing and prepping your wood, here's a good beginner's guide.

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today - Margot Adler

Though this book was written in the late 70's, it provides a fascinating insight into witchcraft history and the active sects and practitioners of magic during that time. Astute readers will probably notice some similarities between Adler's groups and some of the groups mentioned in the appendix of Buckland's book! Things during the 70's were a bit "wild west" in terms of Western witchcraft, so you'll encounter some appropriative practices, but it's a very thorough history.

Titania's Book of Hours - Titania Hardie

All right, all right - this is a beautiful coffee-table book about the passage of magical time, listing important days, quarters and cross-quarters, splitting things up by week, and is generally a lovely introduction to the Wheel of the Year from a not-entirely-Wiccan perspective. A thing Hardie does is also include sections for the seasons, so it breaks down quite nicely and is an excellent introduction to the concept of time and holidays ("holidays"! - Sabbats and Esbats and the big Wheel days, more like!)

Almost-But-Not-Quite-Making-the-Cut:

Scott Cunningham's works, especially Wicca and Living Wicca: Okay, by now you've heard the Cunningham criticism, but let me lay it down for you: Cunningham massively appropriates Native Hawaiian culture and spiritualism. He's a big ol softy in that hippie-ish way where he swings right back over to cultural appropriation. He's got that "new age" sting that you prooobably shouldn't replicate. And, from what I hear from die-hard Wiccans, he's out there watering down or sometimes misunderstanding the core Gardnerian principles - but the book doesn't purport to be Gardnerian, so there's that. I'd say it's still a simple and solid general introduction to neo-Wicca and those principles; it has some solid info you can take and use in building your own practice; the consecration rituals for altar tools in particular are ones I still use. Living Wicca if I remember has the better appendix, but you can get a combo-set of both books plus the Herbal, which.... might warrant another post, because it's more than a bit outdated in its safety info!

Judika Illes' gigantic Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells: This is like the "Joy of Cooking" of spellbooks. It includes a huge amount of spells, divided by category, from an array of cultures and traditions. I think it's an amazing encyclopedia, but I'd also caution readers from accidentally (or not so accidentally) using a spell from a closed tradition or culture, and for that reason, I'd not recommend it to true beginners until they have a grasp of their own culture and craft, and understand whether it is or is not appropriate for them to use spells from, for example, hoodoo or rootwork. That said, if you're a multicultural witch, or researcher, or actually FROM the culture and traditions, it's a great simple resource. I've found some traditional Chinese spellwork in there, but I've ALSO gone through and crossed out with a big red pencil anything that's just obviously jacked from a closed tradition to me.

Not a Wicca book at all, but a Tradcraft book, but I'd be remiss to mention the jab I made at the beginning of the post was towards Nigel Pearson's Treading the Mill, a book I love, but whose second edition (imo) reads way better, including a funny and sheepish intro by Pearson himself where he takes the mickey out of his old "Wicca is for softies! I've never used a single Wiccan idea! It's a compass, not a circle!!" ways, which just makes me love the book more.

#witchy books #witchcraft books #book reccs #witch books #neo-wicca #witchcraft #witchcraft 101 #book recommendations

[writing-in-april]

The Five Stages of Grief

Stage five: Acceptance (5/5)

Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Spencer’s POV)

Thanks to @zhuzhubii who helped me so much with this series and made this gif for me 🥰

Summary: Spencer going through each of the stages of grief after the death of the reader. Stage five is acceptance.

A/N: Can’t believe my first series on here is done!!! I’m not gonna lie you guys this chapter is super emotional for me- I no joke cried the whole time while writing it and while rereading to edit. I basically have been going through the same thing recently with my Nana. This chapter is very close to my heart and is definitely the most personal chapter for me. The whole series is actually heavily inspired by season 3 episode 19 -one of my favorite episodes of criminal minds- and I also used elements from season 3 episode 15. This also kinda helps explain a lot of my writing choices throughout the whole series if you’re curious. I did my first real attempt at foreshadowing in this series, I hope you all enjoy it! Thank you for all the love and support on this series- with a special thanks to @spencerreidsmiles and @andiebeaword -you all have been so lovely and amazing.

Warnings (All warnings for the whole series are on series Masterlist): Sad Spencer, References to past drug use, References to past suicidal behaviors, Small panic attack, Hopeful Spencer, Unreliable narrator (much less so in this chapter)

Main Masterlist | The 5 Stages Masterlist Word Count: 3.5k (longest chapter)

It’s been a year; One full year since they had died in my arms. One full year since they had been shot so cruelly by a heartless unsub in an alley. One full year since I had been graced with their presence and the sound of their voice.

The elements of my emotions were extremely complex according to my therapist, and surprisingly I found myself starting to feel the benefits with them more every time I went to an individual session or a group session. It was hard for me to realize that I would have to learn to accept my situation.

It was hard to learn how to understand my own emotions when I had been so willing to shut them out, to try and convince myself that they didn’t exist.

I had begun to learn that I carried around the water that felt like I could drown in, the fire that burned so hot that anyone near it would get burned, the earth that I had wished would bury me with the pebbles I had chosen to cope with, and even the polluted air of my sadness around with me everyday. But, now I somewhat accepted the fact that they would always be with me, or at least I was trying to.

I had to learn to accept.

Even if it hurt I had to learn to at least try.

The next goal I had been given by the therapist was the most daunting of my tasks yet in my opinion. Trying to convince myself to open the boxes in the corner of the bedroom I had once shared with Y/N was harder than trying to get clean. The thought that had propelled me forward into getting clean was that I felt as though I would be disrespecting Y/N by not staying clean. They had been the reason all those years ago that I had spilled the clear liquid down the toilet and I needed to do it again, if only for them.

The boxes were something that were easier to ignore. I could ignore them by turning my back to the stack of boxes, choosing instead to stare at the painted walls of my apartment instead. There was no reason for me to stop ignoring the boxes, no one was trying to pressure me to open them besides my therapist. Everyone else in my life had no expectations for me to open them at any time, if ever, including Y/N’s family.

But, it had begun to feel like maybe I could try to attempt to open the boxes. I wasn’t sure what had finally prompted my brain into thinking that perhaps it would be a good thing to stop ignoring it. I stopped trying to understand why my mind works the way it does long ago, I had poured enough time into my life thinking about that.

I had felt this overwhelming urge to be able to look back at things that once belonged to them with some semblance of peace. I wanted to enjoy the memories we had together once more. I was tired of letting the memories get soiled by the unsub, I deserved to still think back on the one that I loved with a smile. I deserved to be able to preserve their memories with happiness and not let them sour with sadness. I wouldn’t let the unsub be able to kill something else while he was behind bars, my memories.

I was ready.

I was ready to open those boxes.

I was ready to at least try.

I was ready to try and look back at the memories.

I wasn’t going to let their memory die too.

My first attempt to open the boxes in the corner of my bedroom consisted of me staring for two hours at the stacks. I knew that I at least wanted to try to attempt to open a box, even if it was the smallest of the bunch.

That day I had gotten the lid of one of the boxes open. That was as much as I could handle emotionally in that moment. There was a small part of myself that wanted to push myself to look inside the box, but I couldn’t do it that night. That night I laid down on the bed, again facing the wall, unwilling to look at the boxes. I knew if I did I’d feel as if I had failed and I had to keep trying to convince myself that small progress was still progress.

I tried again despite the swirling anxiety in the hole in my chest.

I was still willing because I still wanted to have my memories unsullied by sadness.

I still knew that I deserved that despite my volatile elemental emotions threatening to push me into another toxic loop.

The next time I tried to look in the box I had previously opened just a little I immediately got choked, recognizing the contents sat at the top surrounded by other smaller insignificant items. I only managed to grab one of their old tchotchkes that used to sit on their desk in the bullpen. It was insignificant enough of an item that it didn’t make me fall into an endless loop of my emotions. I clutched it all night while I tried to sleep, though I still faced away from the boxes.

I hadn’t given up yet I still wanted to try, if only for them.

I would still try for them, even if I didn’t succeed, I still felt better for trying.

It had taken me awhile to muster up the courage to look at the box again, even though I still wanted to try I was scared that the contents would be too much for my fragile psyche. What I had gotten a glimpse of at the top of the box was something that used to be important for Y/N.

The next time I tried to look I successfully managed to pick up the item that had triggered the painful memory in my mind. It was ironically, it was another box.

The box wasn’t something that was explicitly tied to memories that we shared together. I knew it to be a music box from their childhood, given to them by someone that had meant so much to them. Out of curiosity I cranked the knob on the side and slowly opened the lid, wondering if I could handle the sounds of a song that I had often heard every time they had opened it to listen to the twinkle of the box they cherished.

As soon as the beginning notes of Swan Lake floated into the air I slammed to top shut, unwilling to open up the box of my emotions all the way just yet. I knew I couldn’t get rid of it, it was too important of an artifact in Y/N’s life. Though I knew that this wasn’t something I could keep to myself, this belonged to Y/N’s family. I clutched the box for a second in my arms when I came to the realization that the trinket should be with someone else as if it would be cruelly ripped from my arms right then and there. I felt a little fire being stoked in my belly at the thought of people taking it from me, even though there was no one there in my lonely apartment with me.

I started a breathing exercise that my therapist had told me to use when I felt like this. No matter how much it pained me to admit it, it did help immensely in snuffing out the emotions when I could feel them begin to spiral out of control.

I couldn’t let myself fall into an endless loop of volatile emotions again. I had worked hard to get clean after I had started to write my amends. It had been a hard uphill battle even after I had written down my amends, my grief hadn’t magically gone away that day. Getting clean had been much harder without my rock and the person who had helped me get clean the first time around. I wouldn’t disrespect their memory by going back to dilaudid again.

Once the initial fear began to fade and my breathing had grown steady I forced myself to loosen my grip on the music box. I then carefully set it down in a place that would be suitable enough for a stack of things I’d pass off to other people that had been important to them. I hoped I’d soon be ready to make a donation pile despite that I despised the mere thought of giving something away that belonged to them to a mere stranger.

It was already too much for today, I could only bear looking at the one item. I didn't know how I’d be able to handle it if the box was filled with more trinkets that were important to them. I did however find myself thinking when I laid down on my bed for the night after a hot shower to relax my mind. I found my mind thinking about the trinkets they’d had an affinity for collecting. It still brought tears to my eyes to think about giving away their stuff, even if it was to people who also mattered in their life. But, I found myself thinking about their old cute little trinkets without as much pain, though it was definitely still there.

Maybe tomorrow when I try, I’d do better.

The small box that I had begun to unpack over a series of days didn’t hold anything else seemingly important to Y/N’s life. Besides the music box I had found prior, the small box was only filled with unimportant trinkets that thankfully didn’t spark much meaning in my mind. It was obvious that when the team had initially helped me to put their stuff away until I was ready that things had been put away in a slight haste. They must’ve done it so quickly as a way to try and help me. The animosity that I had held towards my team for the last year because of Y/N’s death had been slowly melting away over time. I still wasn’t as friendly as I had been before, but I knew my frigid nature after the event hadn’t been justified. I knew now that they had only my best interests at heart, even if they didn’t always pinpoint what they were correctly. I had even begun to regain some of my desk duties once I had gotten clean. It had felt good to feel somewhat normal even though the sight of their desk directly across from mine and their still empty round table chair still made my heart pang with grief.

I had even begun texting them more frequently again, though I was still aversive to text, so I guess it still wasn’t that often. Some things really do never change despite the fact that my life had turned on its head in the past year. I had even begun to write letters to my mom again.

I knew I was lucky to still have people by my side, even if it wasn’t the one I knew deep down I still wanted with me.

I thought I could have at least done the box without crying anymore.

That was until I found something at the bottom of the box that made the dam holding my memories back in my mind break to flood my mind. The book would probably seem inconsequential compared to the rest of the items that I knew sat in the other boxes. Most people would assume after just looking at the surface level what items of Y/N’s meant most to me, the ones I wanted to keep. The black paper back was well worn around the edges, almost like if I read it too frequently and I wasn’t too careful that the spine would break. I ran my fingers up and down the battered book as I began to willingly reminisce. To other people the book would’ve looked beaten already beyond repair, maybe as if it had not been loved enough, battered perhaps because of neglect.

But, just like me I knew that Y/N had loved the book more than most people would be willing to.

I knew that I wanted to keep this book, no matter how painful I knew their contents would be for me. I hoped that I’d be able to read it so much that I’d be afraid for the binding of the book, just to be able to feel close to them again. Though I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to dig up this particular memory, it might still be too painful for me.

I remember they had bought this book for us after I had connected with a grieving father on a case. He had specifically quoted a poem to me that stuck with me for weeks after. Once I had told them of the excerpt quoted to me they had immediately grabbed a copy of where it had originated from, a long Wordsworth poem. The book “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” became their favorite quickly, in fact it used to take residence in the top drawer of their nightstand. They had often loved to read me their favorite excerpts at night just before bed when my eyes couldn’t stand to focus on the pages anymore.

When I opened the well worn book it flipped open to where they had set their bookmark last, I recognized the excerpt immediately. My breath got caught up in my throat when the words danced around in my vision. I wasn’t sure if I could face this specific excerpt quite yet, or even be able to read any part of the poem. The book held so many memories of them. This specific poem held so much meaning to the both of us.

However, there was something in me that wanted to try. I wanted to be able to read the poem again and remember the memories we shared fondly. I wanted to be able to enjoy my memories with them. I had come to realize over the past year that their memory deserved to be nurtured with fondness not overwhelmed with sadness.

So, I decided to try.

The memory’s attached to the excerpt immediately began flooding back even as soon as I read the beginning words. The bookmark had landed on the page that had been quoted to me by the grieving father, the words holding even more meaning in my life now than ever before.

“What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my-“

The tears in my eyes blurred my vision, so much so that I had to stop reading for a moment to wipe my eyes. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue, just those first few lines were already weighing heavily on my mind. I was already focusing on the radiance that had left my life forever. A radiance that was once so bright, but was now snuffed out, forever taken from my sight. My sorrow was creeping in with small little waves in my mind, I just had to hope that it wouldn't drown me. I didn’t want to get stuck on an endless loop of emotions again, I had just gotten fully clean a little while ago.

Even though I was feeling intensely emotional over just the first few words I wanted to keep trying. I wanted to read this poem and smile. I wanted to be able to look back at our memories with love, to take back what had been polluted by the acts of a heinous man. Once I had somewhat collected myself and my thoughts I began to read again from the beginning of the excerpt-

“What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,”

My entire being could not help but ache as I read the words, still aching for the presence of the one who had been forever taken from my sight. When I reached that part that I remembered asking the grieving man about all those years ago, the words held an even deeper meaning to me now than I ever thought possible. There was nothing I could do to bring back the hour where I was still in my lover’s embrace. I wanted to be back in the moments of splendour in the grass and glory in the flower, I knew that soon I’d have to fully accept that it wasn’t possible.

Again I had to wipe tears from my eyes before continuing to read the stanza. This time a few tears dribbling down onto the pages, marking them with my sadness forever no matter if it dried into the parchment or not. I continued to read the page despite the saltwater that continued to drip down my face,

“We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind”

I felt a small watery smile creep onto my face, it had been so long since I had remembered to smile with sincerity. I was thinking about some of the times they had read this to me as I tried to drift off into a most likely restless sleep. Though I had always slept better when they read to me. At the time the words hadn’t meant as much to me as they did now, I now had a permanent connection to the feeling of grief that would never be erased. For the first time in a long time thinking about them didn’t hurt as much for a moment, I actually smiled, even though it was rather watery. No matter how small or sad the smile was, I was still smiling. And, I knew in that moment that Y/N would’ve been proud of me.

I pondered on the stanza’s meaning in a deeper way than I had done before. The things stated in the stanza about how I would gain strength from this situation made me contemplate what Y/N would’ve wanted me to do after their death. They wouldn’t want me to give up as I had done before, they had always wanted the best for me. They would want me to gain strength from the situation.

They would want me to grow from the pain that sat in my chest.

They would want me to move on, to accept.

I didn’t know if I’d ever find someone else that I’d ever love as much as I loved them. I didn’t really ever want to, I had found my true love already. Maybe one day I’d find someone to fall in love with again and if I did I knew they would be happy that I was able to move on with someone else. Even if I ever did move on with someone else there’d always be a part of my heart that belonged to Y/N. For now I was ready to move on in a different way. I was ready to live my life without them, by myself.

The trauma of losing them would always weigh heavily on my soul, I’d carry that with me until I rejoined them in the earth. But, I was now ready to keep living, if only for them. I felt less guilty now since I had grown to realize that they’d want me to try and live the rest of my life as fully as I could. They’d want me to try and find happiness. I didn’t know if I would ever truly find it again, whether it was on my own or with someone else.

They may have been forever taken from my sight, but I found comfort in the fact that the radiance they brought into my life would always reside in me. Instead of letting the deep hole in my chest gape until the hour of my death, I’d let it fill with the radiance of their memory.

I was ready to try.

I was ready to try even if I knew the water that felt like I could drown in, the fire that burned so hot that anyone near it would get burned, the earth that I had wished would bury me with the pebbles I had chosen to cope with, and even the polluted air of my sadness around with me everyday would sometimes take ahold of me again no matter how hard I tried.

I’d always carry those emotions with me, but I knew I was ready.

“Nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.”

I knew I was ready because their memory would always be with me to give me strength and to guide me. They’d always be there to help me try to live the rest of my life peacefully.

When I slept that night I faced the boxes while clutching the book to my chest.

Even though it still would always hurt on some level, I was ready to live in a reality where I could accept.

—-

Tag list (message me if you want to be added):

All works:

@shotarosleftpinky @oreogutz @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar

Spencer Reid/CM:

@calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss @slutforthegubes

5 stages of grief:

@joonie-centric @tatesimper @half-blood-dork @mcntsee @illuxions-x @rainsong01 @nomajdetective @loveheathens @day-n-night-dreamer @reidbuck

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid series #criminal minds #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler #5 stages of grief series #5 stages of grief

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Summary: Just based on “Baby It’s Cold Outside” 

Warnings: Written quickly and with little editing so I’m sorry if it’s not up to normal standards! No actual bad warnings! 

Word Count: 1700

_______________________

You curled into Tom’s warm body while you sipped what remained of the hot chocolate that you had been enjoying throughout the Christmas movie you and Tom had been watching. It didn’t take much convincing to get him to give into watching your favorite holiday movie. 

Tom was a sap when it came to the holidays. Holiday movies, Christmas music, baking cookies, excessive amounts of hot chocolate, driving around just to look at Christmas lights, and building snowmen were just a part of the holiday season with him and you loved it. How could you not? Especially when it meant you were snuggled into your boyfriend’s body with his arms wrapped around you and a ridiculously fluffy blanket cocooning the both of you. 

The credits had begun to roll though and you sighed, enjoying where you found yourself on this wonderful night. Tom clicked off the movie and tightened his arms around you, taking a big inhale of your scent that he wished he could be shrouded in for forever. He glanced down at your wrist, which now bore the beautiful bracelet he’d given you just earlier that night, a simple thin silver chain with small pieces of your favorite gemstone. Your eyes lit up when you opened the long box and you had thanked him repeatedly before he saw the panic flash in your eyes when you made a comment about how much it must have cost him. Tom had reassured you that it really hadn’t set him back much at all, which wasn’t a lie. He wouldn’t have cared if it did, though, because there was nothing that he could give you that would show you how much he loved you. 

“I don’t want to go home.” You groaned, burying yourself impossibly further into his hold. 

He chuckled, pulling you tighter to him, “Then stay.” 

You began to run your fingers over the top of his hand, tracing each knuckle gently, “I wish I could. I promised my parents I’d stay the night at their house tonight. Besides, I don’t want to drive in the snow this late.” It was Christmas Eve and your mother wanted to open presents first thing in the morning, just like how it was when you were little. She had been emotional and nostalgic this holiday season, the reality that her babies had grown up getting to her, and had made plans to make Christmas as close to how it was when you were children as possible. You really didn’t mind much, though. You only wished it didn’t mean you had to leave Tom’s loving embrace. 

Tom sighed and shifted as you stood up heavily. He took out his phone and tapped the screen a few times and the beginning notes to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” began to play from the small device. You rolled your eyes and laughed, “Are you serious?” 

He stood up beside you and captured your body in his arms, as if he was going to begin a waltz with you. One hand rested on your waist and the other held your hand gently, “Very.” He smiled, looking down at you as he began to sway your bodies side to side. 

“You’re ridiculous.” You giggled in disbelief that he was pulling this card. “I really can’t stay.” You sang along with the music when the lines came up. 

“But baby it’s cold outside.” Tom sang back in response. 

With a chuckle, you pulled away, Tom’s grip on your hand tightening as you tried to walk away. The music continued serendipitously in the background as you laughed at the cheesiness that was your boyfriend. With a small tug at your arm, you spun into his body where your hand came to his chest, enjoying every bump and dip under his shirt.

My mother will start to worry

Beautiful, what's your hurry?

My father will be pacing the floor

Listen to the fireplace roar

So really I'd better scurry

Beautiful please don't hurry

Well maybe just a half a drink more

I'll put some records on while I pour

“I love you but I really have to go.” You pouted, leaning your head against his chest as you let him hold you just a little longer, “My mom is going to think I’m dead or something and then my dad is gonna kill me for making her worry.”

Tom kept his grip on your body, using his large hands to sway your bodies in time with the music. “Can’t you tell them you got stuck in traffic? Or maybe you just drank a little too much and didn’t feel safe to drive!” He wiggled his eyebrows, hoping you’d take his offer. 

“I can’t lie to them on Christmas!” You laughed, side stepping in time with Tom. 

He let go of you only long enough to sprint to his kitchen, “You don’t have to lie! I’ll make you something right now! I got beer, gin, vodka...” 

“Tom!” You chased after him and stood off to the side with your hands on your hips while you watched him mix a drink together, “You’re going to end up on Santa’s naughty list for trying to get me drunk.” 

Tom only shrugged, “I already have what I want for Christmas.” He put the finishing touch on the mystery drink he’d mixed up for you and handed it to you proudly.

You raised an eyebrow at him, looking down at the drink that appeared to be a mixture of a clear alcohol you hadn’t paid attention to and cranberry juice. He nodded his head a little, silently insisting that you take the drink. “You think you’re so charming.” You chimed, teasing being the only weapon you had against his powerful spell on you. With an eye roll, you took the drink from his hands and swirled the liquid around. 

The neighbors might think

Baby it's bad out there

Say what's in this drink?

No cabs to be had out there

I wish I knew how

Your eyes are like starlight now

To break this spell

I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell

Why thank you

I ought to say no, no, no sir

Mind if move in closer?

At least I'm gonna say that I tried

What's the sense of hurting my pride?

I really can't stay

Baby don't hold out

Baby it's cold outside

Keeping eye contact with him, you sipped the cocktail and sputtered when the fiery liquid went down your throat, much stronger than you’d expected, “What the hell is in this?” You asked through a mixture of laughs and coughs. Usually you were alright when it came to strong drinks but this one just took you off guard. 

“Nothing you don’t like!” Tom defended, knowing how you liked your drinks mixed. He had been in a rush though and had accidentally been heavier handed with the liquor than intended. 

“I have to drive. I’m not going to finish this.” You insisted, setting the glass on the counter, “Though your persistence is charming.”

“Is it working?” He asked, hope in his voice. 

You feigned a look of ponderance before taking off in a playful run back into the living room. Your keys were on the table and just when you bent down to pick them up, Tom grabbed you by the waist and pulled you down to the couch on top of him. “Mind if I move in closer?” 

You laughed as your body gave into Tom’s every touch. You didn’t even try to escape his clutches this time, only held onto his strong arms that were wrapped around your torso so you could touch him in some way. Your head rolled back onto his shoulder, eyes sliding shut, “You know my weaknesses.” 

“Of course, I do, darliing.” He gave you a cheeky smirk. 

The two of you snuggled into each other’s embrace. Tom was so comforting, even when he was being a pain in the ass like right now. The way his scent enveloped you - clean but warm - made you never want to leave this spot for as long as you lived. “At least I’m gonna say that I tried.” 

You gave into Tom’s efforts for a while and laid there with him, the music playing in the background and the fireplace roaring. Your eyes opened again and you watched the snow fall outside, Tom’s breathing, the flames, and the music creating a perfect ambience for your moment of weakness. 

Your phone buzzed on the table and groaned, reaching out blindly to grab it. It was your mom, of course. “Who is it?” Tom questioned. 

“My mom. She’s asking if I’m okay.” You read over the message before glancing at the time, “Shit, it’s already almost midnight. I really do need to get home.” 

This time, Tom reluctantly let you sit up to type your reply. “Fine.” He whined, though not actually trying to make you feel bad. He totally understood why you needed to go home. He was just having fun messing with you tonight. 

You stood up, grabbed your keys, and made your way to the front door where you slipped your boots on. Tom came up to stand beside you while you were bent over and you came face to face with him when you stood up. He had a mischievous smile on his face that took you a moment to process until you realized his arm was outstretched above your heads. In his hand was a small sprig of mistletoe. With a little laugh, you leaned up onto your toes and pecked him on the lips, “You know you didn’t need the mistletoe for that, right?” 

Tom tilted his head back down again for another kiss, “Yeah, I know, but I figured it would add a nice touch.” 

“Merry Christmas.” You wrapped your arms around him one last time and looking up into those beautiful brown eyes that you got lost in. 

Tom’s lips turned upwards, almost like elfishly so, “Merry Christmas, love. You’re still coming over to my parents’ for Christmas dinner tomorrow?” 

You nodded, “Yes, I will be there tomorrow night with pumpkin pie.” You pecked him on the lips just one last time for good measure, “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland one shot #tom holland x reader #tom holland christmas #christmas imagines #christmas fics #baby it's cold outside #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker one shot

[dgcatanisiri]

I won’t say this is my last word on the subject of Legendary Edition bullshit, because... Well, I know myself enough to be able to say that I NEVER have a last word, I’ll always want to rant again later on. But let’s just make this a sort of master post of the issues overall.

So... Is it fair to hold a game that is a good roughly fifteen years old to the standards of the present? Not inherently. So if the games were being produced in any sort of unedited format, that it was a strict translation, 1:1 ratio, of the original to the remaster... Honestly, I’d still be bitter as all get out, for reasons I’ll expound on in a minute. But it could at least SEEM justified. I could consider it the kind of thing that would be expected - if KOTOR got a remaster today, I would not expect that Carth and Bastila would be made into bi love interests, or Juhani would have her romance patched up so that it has the same level of detail and attention as the het romances. If Jade Empire were remastered, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sky or Silk Fox’s same sex romances adapted so that the straight romances had to be closed out first. That is the kind of thing that, on a functional, practical level, I could understand. Doing a translation from old hardware, the old engine, I get the PRACTICAL reasoning for not making things better. I still object to this on the moral level, to say nothing of the representational one. But PRACTICALLY, I see why - y’know, there’s only so much financial resources going in, and changing things like romances, even if justified, means doing new writing and getting the voice cast back in, which has complications the longer since a game’s original release - actors retire or even die, the passage of time changes voices (like listen to the difference of the exact same lines by James Earl Jones between both versions of the Lion King). Even without those complications, that means paying them, which, in the production of video games, for everything that goes in, something else must go out. So that is the practical argument.

BUT!

But.

But, the thing is, even apart from everything else that I’ll get in to shortly, is that there have been a lot of claims from BioWare about inclusion. There have also been A LOT. of homophobic bullshit from BioWare and Mass Effect. And yes, I’m calling it like I see it.

Because we had the game that followed Jade Empire, with a M/M romance option, be Mass Effect, with NO M/M romance option (but FemShep and Liara could bang - the writing obviously favored the MaleShep portrayal, given that there was no marketing use of FemShep until ME3, and we had ME2 give priority to having loyalty conflicts between MALE Shepard’s romances, but not Female Shepard’s, and we even had BioWare hem and haw about how “well, the asari are monogender, so they’re not TECHNICALLY women, so it’s not REALLY lesbians...”). Because the official claim is that they just “didn’t think about it” in time to have these options included in Mass Effect 1. Because we’ve had writers now come out that Jacob Taylor was originally written as a gay man, but in the game itself was a straight man. Because there are plenty of women who throw themselves at Male Shepard, and Shepard is animated with having Significant Looks™ with these women, but not a single man who expresses any interest in him, until ME3 finally offers SOMETHING, which came to just Kaidan and Cortez.

Because we had one of BioWare’s heads, one of BioWare’s founders, say in an interview right around the release of Mass Effect 2 say “Shepard is too predefined a character to be gay.”

That is what I mean by homophobic bullshit.

And I haven’t even started on Mass Effect Andromeda.

And I’m gonna start on Mass Effect Andromeda now.

So after ME3, after Kaidan and Cortez were actually romances, we honestly gave them a lot of faith - they got the message, we said. They understood that they couldn’t just cut out M/M romance in the game, we said. They didn’t need to have the constant observation that demanded they provide good representation, we said.

And then they cut Jaal’s bisexuality, leaving him straight on release, without even a chance to flirt and be turned down, the bisexual male character who did remain not only was planet bound, he also is a character who a solid argument can be made that he falls into the trope of the Depraved Bisexual, a trope that over in Dragon Age, Patrick Weekes specifically said that they wanted to avoid and so didn’t make a character bisexual because of that. And the gay man is not only almost totally disconnected from the game (aside from one point in the plot, he can be avoided entirely and is not included in almost any other group setting among the Tempest crew), he is also an accessory in his own plot line, which was also heavily criticized for being intensely homophobic. And of these, the only thing BioWare deigned to change was Jaal’s bisexuality. (Which, personal note, I’m uncomfortable with personally, because as it’s implemented, it just feels kind of afterthought-y. Much like Kaidan’s in ME3, being unchanged from a new FemShep romance, despite the active inability to romance him in ME1.)

So it is not just a matter of “you have the ability, you’re changing other things, you should do this.” I mean, that is absolutely there - the mods exist for the original game, to the point of being able to even get the romance scene to fire right without Shepard’s gender magically changing once the clothes come off. (I have a vague memory of, at some point, probably around the “too predefined” comment, that being another excuse, that there was difficulty with having the models play nice with one another in that scene.)

But this is about addressing a pattern of behavior on the part of BioWare, that they have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the bare minimum that their own statements on matters of representation and inclusion claim they aspire to. That if the fans are not actively holding their feet to the fire, they are GOING to take their fans for granted - “you don’t get better quality content elsewhere, we’re your only choice!” But “only” choice is not a “good” choice. It’s not a choice with quality.

So if we don’t make a big damn deal about this now, when they have a chance - when they have a CHOICE - to make things better, to provide better representation, to correct the mistakes of the past... What will we get in the future? How will they backtrack on this in the future? How will they exclude us in the game they just announced a few months back? How will they continue to tell us that they don’t want gay people in this setting?

Look, I don’t use these words lightly. But that is, whether it’s a conscious attitude at all or not, what they are telling us. By not including us, by making us optionally involved, by making us disposable within our own stories, by cutting out our content, they are saying that they do not envision a world, a future, that includes queer men.

And anyone who does not speak up, does not condemn this, does not demand that they DO. BETTER... That is tacit approval and agreement. Because you’re saying that things as they are now - the removal and undermining of our content, of our EXISTENCE in these games - are perfectly fine and acceptable.

And yeah, I’m sure that reading that has probably made some people mad, believe I’m being unfair by saying that, because it’s going to push away allies. Thing is, and this is one of the things that always comes up in anything even tangentially activism related... THIS ISN’T ABOUT THE FEELINGS OF THE ALLIES. This is about listening to the people who are being hurt and saying “you don’t deserve to be hurt this way, things need to change.”

BioWare needs to change its approach. And, as we have seen, it does not come just because of a handful of angry queers, demanding to be represented in their games. It comes because of the community at large calling them out and saying “this isn’t right. What you have done is not right, and we are calling on you to fix it. To do better.”

Don’t just stand there and shrug this off. Because evidence tells us that if they aren’t called out on this now, the next game will not be better. And we will be in this exact same place, having this exact same argument, all over again, in a few years when the next Mass Effect game comes out. When the queer men are given the shortest end of the stick again, and people who are right now saying “what do you expect from a remaster?” will either suddenly turn around and go “I don’t know why BioWare would do something so homophobic” or, worse, “well, it’s something, I don’t see why you’re upset.”

We’re upset because we keep having this argument. And we are going to keep having this argument until people are willing to actually DEMAND that things be better. This is the chance to make things better now.

At this point, a post-release patch that includes a Male Shepard/Kaidan romance in ME1 that is tracked through to the following games is a bare minimum fix, a change done to make it clear that BioWare understands their mistakes in the past and want to make things BETTER.

It may not be easy, but genuinely fixing problems never is. But it’s work that needs to be done.

#dg rants #bioware critical #mass effect #mass effect critical #dg gets pissed #another angry queer rant

[radramblog]

What happened to Dirk in Homestuck^2?

Why am I doing this to myself.

I memed a little yesterday when I was posting that article around social medias about Homestuck jokes, because once again we are in lockdown and I am therefore Stuck at Home. Canned laughter goes here. But there’s a topic related to the comic- or more specifically, its aborted sequel, Homestuck^2, that I’m interested in delving into a little bit. I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers as much as possible, but considering said comic takes place not only after the events of the massive sprawl that is Homestuck but also the more linear but still messy Epilogues, some amount of sus shit is inevitable.

Anyway. Much maligned is what the Epilogues and 2 did to everyone’s favourite decapitation target, Dirk Strider, and I have a theory as to why it happened this way.

To begin with, let’s summarise what and who Dirk is through the course of the comics. Fair warning from me, though, it’s been a while since I read through this.

Dirk Strider is a teenager who grew up in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, completely devoid of physical contact with other people and only really ever gets to talk to 3 other people, only one of whom is in anything remotely resembling a relatable situation. He struggles with self-identity, having created numerous robots including an artificial intelligence based on his own brain, aka Lil’ Hal. He’s somewhat of a control freak, and a bit of a cold aloof asshole, but means well, and is pretty gay. NBD. The kinda guy to set up a plan meticulously and thoroughly, not informing any of the moving parts even if said parts are his friends, and often involving some form of self-sacrifice.

Throughout the comic he further reckons with self-identity problems and his own self-loathing including entering a relationship with Jake which doesn’t go well and he eventually breaks off since he knows his overbearing and manipulative behaviour is Not Cool and Pretty Toxic but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Eventually he reaches the God Tier as a Prince of Heart, gaining the power to literally annihilate souls, which he never actually uses since he gets yeeted into deep (Paradox) space and then everything goes to shit. Except none of that happens because of the Retcon (aside from the God Tier bit) and we don’t actually see how that shit progressed in the canon timeline. I think. Dirk’s arc, as it were, doesn’t really come full circle- while he does assist in Dave’s character…growth? he really isn’t the focus of that conversation. This immediately precedes the action climax and there isn’t literally any dialogue after that so that’s what we’re left with.

I like Dirk in Homestuck a lot. It’s hard not to, considering the flashes heavily featuring him (Unite/Synchronise and Prince of Heart: Rise Up) are genuinely excellent, along with many of his music themes being absolute bangers. He gets to interact with Caliborn a lot, with a pretty great banter, there, and the whole splintered personality thing is a really interesting hook for a character. I think he’s my favourite of the Alpha kids, a controversial pick considering I know everyone loves Roxy so much. I think, I’m not as in tune with the fandom as that statement implies I am.

And then the Epilogues/Homestuck 2 came.

Now I read the Meat half of the epilogues first, but that’s more interesting, so we’ll tackle Candy first (this is going to get real confusing for those who haven’t read this comic, huh).

In Candy, Dirk almost immediately kills himself, citing the irrelevance of the timeline as cause, an act considered by whatever mechanism governs God Tier deaths to be Just because he hates himself (and also bc of things we’ll get into), so it actually sticks. This isn’t super relevant for the discussion, but that’s just kinda so unbelievably fucked up? Entirely? I’d imagine if you read Candy first you might get entirely turned off by this, which I’m sure a lot of people did.

Meat is where the, well, meat of post-canon Dirk is. You see, a concept very quickly introduced in the tail end of the original comic is the Ultimate Self, an idea where you somehow encompass every different timeline iteration or alternate version of yourself. This was pretty clearly tacked on to make it so characters whose arcs all happened in the retcon timeline could have their not getting an actual arc explained away, but it didn’t land then and it sure doesn’t land for me now. Anyway, in Meat, Dirk becomes his ultimate self, making him near-omniscient and able to control the fabric of the story himself- for much of this story, he is the narrator. And he uses this power to fuck with all his friends really distressingly without their knowledge (or consent), including breaking up a marriage, in order to further his own goals which largely appear to be just keep the story going so to not fade out of relevance. It’s a plot that makes no sense with his previous characterisation, but I guess now that he’s the Ultimate Self he’s a different person? But I liked old Dirk, and I don’t like New Dirk. He’s a villain now, but he made a much better anti-hero.

But this would be fine if he (or the epilogues, or Homestuck^2) were written well. But they aren’t. Dirk’s dialogue is long, painfully drawn out, with tangents that tend to amount to pure wank, misused literary references and pointless metaphors that go on and on, filling the screen with a bright orange screed that hurts to look at as much as it does to comprehend. It’s not fun. And we’ve seen Dirk communicate before, obviously, the story of Homestuck is built around chatlogs, but it wasn’t like this. He was sarcastic, dryly witty, blunt at times. Even when he was literally talking to a different version of himself it didn’t get that masturbatory.

I was so confused about what the hell happened to Dirk, because I had no idea what the hell someone writing this character was thinking when they turned him into this. And then, the 21st page of Homestuck^2 dropped.

And it all came together.

What Ultimate Dirk and Terezi are referring to is Pony Pals: Detective Pony, a children’s book about some girls who hang out with ponies and solve a mystery. It’s a real book, buy it for your 5-year-old.

Except they’re not referring to that, they’re referring to the Homestuck Canon version of Detective Pony- a birthday gift from Dirk to Jane, heavily edited and to be much more obscene and eventually developing into it’s own story, stated to be “tough, emotionally draining, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible”.

Except the quote “Remember Longcat, Jane?” and references to philosophy, dead languages, and ancient earth culture aren’t referring to the three pages of the Dirk-edited Detective Pony we see in the actual comic itself. That quote doesn’t appear there.

That image is from Detective Pony, by Sonnetstuck- the 40,000 word fanfiction from 2014 that serves as a completed version of Jane’s copy of the book. An expansion of what we see in canon. And it’s a tough, emotionally draining read, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible.

It’s a very good fanfiction.

In the later bits of Detective Pony, we can start to see the origins of what would become Ultimate Dirk’s signature style of writing. Long blocks of rambling text, orange dripping down the page, references to philosophy and history and language that go on and on. And it probably does look familiar to those who read the Epilogues and ^2. 

But there are a couple of key differences here. First of all, it’s just better written? The way these rambles circle back on themselves is so excellent, the absolute absurdity of this being written on top of a pony book for little girls, the humour (beyond some of the more immature stuff), it’s just a really well-written piece of fiction. Hell, you don’t even need to be familiar with the character of Dirk to enjoy it. It’s a harrowing piece, but it’s also self-aware- because it’s not supposed to be tough, draining, cathartic etc. just for Jane- it’s clearly that for Dirk himself.

The second part is, of course, that this is a fanfiction. It’s not canon, it’s not official, this is by someone who really likes Dirk for people who really like Dirk. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so if you bounce off it (and I’m sure a lot did), then you don’t have to keep reading it, it’s fine, thanks for playing. As much as Homestuck^2 tried to doll itself up as “dubiously canon” it’s still the official continuation of the story, and that means if it’s as difficult to get into as Detective Pony, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of people.

The other part of it is that Detective Pony’s exploration of Dirk’s character is, well, in character. When the man himself steps in as a character in his own book, the explorations of what he is as an author, who he is as a person, make perfect sense for what we see of him at the start of the comic. He is that manipulative, blunt person, and he is aware of his faults. He’s the kind of person to hide a lamentation on his own failings inside an impenetrable maze of a story layered on top of a book about fucking ponies. Ultimate Dirk does not act like Dirk, outside of the “manipulator” angle, something that Dirk was aware of and trying to improve in the comic. But I guess people don’t have arcs, right?

It’s so interesting to see the seeds of Homestuck^2 laden within Detective Pony- because the meta angle that and the epilogues take is also represented in said fanfiction. While the nature of canon is a facet of the work, the idea of authors and narrators fighting for control of a story, different ideas in mind for the characters, one being more personally connected to them than the other, it’s all there. When I wrote about Fallout 4 in the past, I mentioned being worried that Bethesda took the wrong lessons from Skyrim- seeing something successful and trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. I think Homestuck^2 is an extreme example of this- the writers of the comic saw Sonnetstuck’s masterwork and thought, yeah that’s great, we can do that. But they just can’t. And with the comic crashed and burning, the probably won’t ever get a chance to. Dirk is forever stuck as this amalgamation of himself that looks nothing like any individual version of him ever did.

At least we will still have Detective Pony, and many other excellent fanworks, for actually good Dirk content. I admittedly haven’t looked into much fanfic written during/post-epilogues, and I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll see- I can only hope the fanbase didn’t take the same wrong lessons as the official team did.

#ramble #honestly more of an essay #homestuck #homestuck 2 #dirk strider #ultimate dirk #just ignore me accidentally posting this to the wrong account and having to reup it

[bixbythemartian]

you know, I never can tell when I’m going to release a story and it’s going to do numbers, especially one with a readmore, but the daycare one is doing some numbers

not exactly what I expected publishing a story at like 9 pm on a Tuesday

before I get on with this long ramble, I want to thank everybody who took the time to make a comment on this when they reblogged it, or replied to it. there’s enough that I can’t reasonably respond to them all, but they’ve been universally lovely. for those who this particularly resonated with because you work with young kids: I was thinking of people just like you, and I’m glad this story found you.

I wanted to talk about my writing process on this one, because it was actually kind of interesting. if you’re not interested, just scroll on baby, I’m rambling to myself as much as anything.

this story is like many of the other prompts I’ve written, finished and unfinished- I picked it because I knew how the next bit went. the ones I finish are because I know how the next bit goes until I have said what I wanted to say, which is mostly because I figured out what I wanted to say by the time I’ve said it.

the thing about this one in particular is I wrote it all the way through with a much more traditional narrative style, and then the ending just wasn’t working so I deleted most of it. I’ve heavily edited a lot of them, but I haven’t completely rewritten them in a more experimental (for me) style.

I kept getting bogged down in the details, the transitions between the things I wanted to say and the things I had to say to get to the things I wanted to say, and I was worried that to tell it properly it was going to have to be much longer. so I started over with the bit I was certain came next, those first couple lines.

I wanted to keep the immediacy of the first person present tense that it started with, and tried to think of how she would say that first line ‘my mom has been texting me...’

I realized her voice was low, she was almost murmuring. why is she talking so low?

she has a voice recorder. she’s talking into a voice recorder. she’s in a closet or a bathroom, away from the kids so they don’t hear her.

why does she have one of those? 

she uses it to manage forgetfulness, so she has a habit of talking to it when stuff happens she wants to remember later, and over time it’s turned into more of a journal kind of thing.

once I had that, then I had the framing. I didn’t need to write transitions, I could boil the story down to strictly character moments.

what’s that thing about ‘to make an apple pie, you first have to invent the universe’? I think it’s a science related quote, actually, but I’m really feeling it at the moment.

my biggest struggle once I found the framing was how much to describe her voice and crying and such, and I ended up deciding to leave it more vague.

that made more sense for a transcript style, to me, and also left room for your interpretation of her voice, but I was worried leaving it too vague would mean the emotions would not be conveyed as strongly. there’s always a trade off between authorial intention and leaving room for reader interpretation. too much stage direction can ruin things, so can being too vague.

by the reactions I’ve gotten, I hit a sweet spot, but that was the part I was the most worried about.

I cried almost the whole time I wrote the second version, btw. And, to be clear, at this point I’d written the whole story. the substance barely changed between drafts. I already knew the day was saved. I had shed some tears writing the previous version, as well, so if you shed some tears whilst reading it, let it be known that I was fucking waterworks writing it.

here’s some quick fun facts

just thinking about the part where she worries about making sure they don’t eat too much pizza and candy so they’re not sick or hurting when the end comes is still fucking me up

so is the part where she’s reflecting on them having a good day, feeling inadequate, completely unaware of what an amazing thing she has done

the guy who brought the pizza had stolen that car and was joyriding, and encountering Addie changed his life forever, and I may tell that story, too, at some point, if I figure out how the next bit goes

the second draft I actually composed every line vocally and typed as I spoke, the dashes are where *my* voice cracked and I stopped speaking. I’ve never written quite this way before, it was interesting, might try it again.

I deliver pizza until like 2 or 3 am so it’s normal and reasonable for me to still be up at 5 ish am my time, if you are doing the math and are concerned.

I’m mulling over doing an audio version of this post. I kind of want to, but I don’t want to fuck it up. 

#28th #October #2020 #October 28th 2020 #readmore #talking about the process and such

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

#the love it takes series #to exist again fic #to become a man fic #dem speaks

[that-sarcastic-writer]

Once upon a time in NYU- MGG AU

Fandom: MGG, Criminal Minds

Pairing: College!Matthew X College!Reader

Summary: you couldn't stand Matthew, and he couldn't stand you. But you couldn't say the same when you were in his bed

Warnings: alternative universe, enemies to lovers relationship, cursing duh, hair pulling, fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, bad writing basically

WC: 6.1k 

A/N: so I saw I think it was @eideticmemory​ write an enemies to lovers college fic and like a light just went on in my head, and I really wanted to that because I've always wanted to, but also give it my own twist and touch of course, so I guess this my attempt at writing a multi-chapter Matthew fic. Will I succeed? Probably not. But it's a good excuse to write smut after a year so we'll see. ALSO HUGE TW I understand posting this now might be a bit of a bad timing. So if you think that reading this will trigger you in any way, just go ahead and skip this one. I dont want to trigger anyone in any way, I just want to entertain you guys and myself in the process so yeah, read at your own risk and please please stay safe. And this is going to be a bit long so strap in yall and enjoy the poorly written sin. 

Andddd huge huge thanks to my friend Kara (idk if shes reading this but yeah) for helping me edit this, she helped me make this so much better for you guys and she literally so amazing for actually spending the time to help me. So yeah, 

You know when something bad happens, you’re always told to see the bright side of things? That maybe that unfortunate event isn’t as bad as you feel it is? Yeah, well, that doesn’t always apply, and it certainly didn’t when I found out I was partnered with the one person I was hoping I wouldn’t get paired with for my end of the semester film project. 

Seriously, out of the nearly hundred students that were enrolled in my film class, I had to get paired up with him, him out of all people, literally the one person I was praying wouldn't get paired up with. Not only because I was forced to work with someone, because honestly all I wanted was to work alone, I had to get paired with Matthew fucking Gubler.

You know when people say God has his favourites? Yeah, well I certainly wasn't one of them.

Now, I didn’t necessarily hate Matthew Gubler. I didn't hate him for no reason, I didn't just wake up one day and decided I was just going to hate Matthew. There was a time where I actually liked him, I liked him more than I'd like to admit, deep down I still did. And I knew he liked me too, he did then at least. And we were good together, it was fun, we had a fun first couple of dates. To this day, they were the nicest dates I ever had, because he knew just how to make them special. I mean, when a guy takes you to the Neue Galerie here in New York and have nice long walk through Central Park, a walk filled with laughter and bliss, it has to be special, and in a weird way, he was special too. 

And as much as I wanted more than just two or three dates, I would've been perfectly fine if he had told me what he wanted from the start. If he had suddenly changed his mind about me, I would've accepted it, and I would've been able to live a happy life as his friend if that's what he wanted.

But he didn't, and instead I found out he had other interests. And I didn't hear it from him, I heard it from my friend. She didn't even need to tell me who it was, because the minute she told me where he took her, I knew. He took her to the same place he took me not even two weeks later and then acted like I was nothing the next time he saw me. And my god did that fucking hurt. It hurt me in a way I had never been hurt before, because I thought he was different, I was hoping he was. And convincing myself that I hated him was much easier than facing the fact that it hurt. And I never addressed it ever again, not that Matthew cared enough to actually talk about us, or, whatever we were. So instead we just made each other's existence miserable.

No, what I felt for Matthew wasn't hate, it was just the strong need to stay ten feet away from him so I wouldn't shove a five foot pole up his ass. That's how I felt about Matthew Gubler.

And now, here I was, aggressively shoving my laptop and notebook into my bag so I could leave the auditorium as quickly as possible, or at least quick enough to avoid Matthew, because knowing how he was, he would come straight to me to rub our partnership in my face. And I was right, because the minute we were dismissed, I spotted his lanky frame starting to come down from the top rows where he usually sat, and he was headed my way.

Screaming a big nope in my head, I strapped my bag over my shoulder and headed straight for the exit. I knew I couldn't avoid him forever, especially now but, I just needed a minute to mentally prepare myself to deal with him, a minute and probably a bottle of booze. But I didn't get either because the minute I was out those doors, I heard the unmistakable sound of his voice calling my name. 

Great.

"Y/N! Y/N wait!" I heard Matthew call out, followed my rushed footsteps coming from behind me.

"Hey, partner, I'm glad I caught you before you left. You weren't trying to run away from me were you?" He teased, throwing one of his particularly long arms over my shoulder.

If I had rolled my eyes any harder they probably would've gotten stuck there. I groaned, grabbing a hold of his arm and unwrapping it not so subtly before dropping it beside him, "first of all, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't touch me,  and second of all, just please go away, Matthew. I have a class I have to get to." I muttered, walking slightly faster and keeping my gaze forward, refusing to even look at him.

If there was something I've learned about Matthew in the two long years I've known him is that he usually goes away on his own if I don't give him the attention he wanted. I was hoping this was one of those times, because I was not in the mood to deal with him right now.

But alas, he didn't, he walked faster, staying beside me the whole time. "But I wasn't even doing anything. I was just saying hi." He defended, and I could just hear the smile on his face even when I wasn't even looking at him. 

I rolled my eyes harder, letting out a small breath through my lips, "what do you want Matthew?"

"When can we meet up? I already have an idea for our project and I think you're going to love it."

I chuckled sarcastically, finding his words actually hilarious, "If you came up with it I seriously doubt it." I sighed heavily, digging my teeth into my bottom lip before speaking, "tonight after I finish my shift, I guess. The quicker we can start, the quicker we can get it over with, soo..."

"Great. It's a date then, see you tonight, sweetheart." He hummed, ghosting his lips over my ear, his lips smacking loudly as he pretended to kiss it before he quickly took off in the other direction before I could even say anything.

This fucking guy.

~~~~~~~~~~

"I seriously do not understand how you fucking dated this guy, he's so obnoxious and annoying, how could anyone want to date someone like that." I complained to my friend and roommate Liz. I met her for a quick lunch break before my afternoon class and I just had to let her know how unhappy I was about my partnership with Matthew. She was amused to say the least.

"You make it sound like we dated for years, we dated for a few months, but he's not even that bad." she argued.

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest and leaned back into my seat with an unamused expression, just waiting for Liz to bury herself further up Matthew's ass. I always had the feeling she still had feelings for him, as much as she insisted it was just a meaningless relationship. And as much as they were just friends now, I just knew she wanted more with him. But it wasn't really my place to question that, not that it mattered to me anyway.

"He's a pretty cool and fun guy to be around, you just never gave him a chance. You've hated him ever since you met him for absolutely no reason, you never gave yourself the chance to get to know him better." Liz insisted, she always did. She always insisted Matthew was such a great guy I never gave the change to get to know. 

I had let out a heavy sigh in annoyance of her defense of Matthew before responding, "yeah well, it doesn't really matter since I'm being forced to anyway. And he's coming over tonight to start our project. Can't fucking wait."

I could've sworn I saw Liz's expression change into a mixture of surprise and something I could've easily confused with jealousy. She pursed her lips together and her eyes darted everywhere, like she was avoiding making any kind of eye contact with me.

But, it couldn't be jealousy? What even is there to be jealous of? Her and the whole world knew how I felt about Matthew, her out of all people knew it better than anyone.

"Oh, he is? Well, I'm not really going to be home tonight, I would've given you company so it wouldn't be so awkward with him." She frowned, she sounded disappointed, angry even. She looked uncomfortable, like she was deeply bothered by something, by something I said.

It was weird, I wasn't exactly sure what to say, I wasn't really sure why my news seemed to bother her as much as it did. It's not like I was going to sleep with Matthew while she was away or something. It didn't really matter though, I didn't have time to answer. Thank God.

"I'm sorry Liz but I have to go, I have class in like ten minutes." I excused myself, eating whatever was left on my plate in a matter of seconds before I stood up from my seat and gathered my belongings, "I'll see you later and wish me luck." I said quickly before taking off, not giving her the chance to respond.

~~~~~~~~~~

Usually, I pray for shifts to be over as soon as possible, for it to be slow so I can go home early. Today though, today I prayed for just the opposite. I was hoping the end of my shift wouldn't come, and when it did, that it would be too late and I would be able to cancel my meet up with Matthew.

But like I said, I wasn't one of God's favourites. And today out of all days, it was the slowest it has ever been and my shift ended rather quickly, quicker than I had hoped.

Groaning loudly at the evening that awaited me, I walked down the long halls of my floor, standing outside of my dorm room, dreading my evening already.

Figuring I should just get it over with, I went to get the key on the lock of my door, but noticed it was already unlocked. Liz probably forgot to lock the door, again. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at my stupid roommate before turning the knob, opening the door. And my jaw dropped the minute I stepped into the room, not believing what my eyes saw.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

"Matthew, what the fuck are you doing in my dorm and in my bed!? How did you even get in here?" I nearly screamed at the tall brunette that was carelessly laying on my bed with what I figured was one of my books in his hand.

Matthew turned his head towards me, a carefree and calm look plastered all over his face before his eyes went back to the pages in front of him., "oh, well, Liz let me in before she went to work. I hope you don't mind." He responded nonchalantly, continuing to flick through the pages of the book he had in his hand.

I stared at him with absolute disbelief and a loud scoff left my lips as I slightly pitched the bridge of my nose, trying not to throw the nearest object at his face, "yes, I do mind, in fact. You can't just come into somebody's dorm, lie on their bed and go through their stuff. Seriously dude, what is wrong with you?"

I just couldn't believe this guy. He just knew how to get on my nerves without even doing anything. 

Matthew, of course, couldn't have cared any less about whatever I was saying. And it wasn't that he wasn't listening, because he was, he had that stupid smile on his face that proved he was in fact listening to every word I was saying. He just didn't care, or he did, but he just liked getting on my nerves. He loved pushing every single one of my buttons until I snapped. And I had no idea why. I had no idea why he liked annoying me so much.

I exhaled heavily through my nose, closing my eyes slightly as I ran a hand through my hair exasperatedly, "I just can't fucking deal with you. I can't." I huffed, dropping my bag from my shoulder and walked to the opposite side of my room, facing away from him, not even wanting to look at his face.

"Tell me something, sweetheart," Matthew spoke, curiosity and a slight bit of amusement lingering on his words.

"What."

"Why do you hate me so much? You've hated me ever since I dated Liz back in our first year of college and I never truly understood why," he questioned with genuine curiosity, but there was also a certain playfulness in his voice. I opened my mouth to answer, still not facing him, and I was so ready to tell him off, god knows I've been wanting to but he cut me off. "Is it because I never slept with you?"

My eyes instantly widened at his words, a clearly offended scoff leaving my lips as I turned around to face him, "what? No, of course not, I—" my words got caught in my throat when I saw his tall frame towering over me, my eyes getting stuck on his chest before they traveled up to his face, and he was close. Extremely close. I swallowed thickly, feeling slightly cornered by his significantly taller frame so I stepped back, trying to create some kind of distance between us, but he simply followed me. "I, uhm, that's not why I don't like you, Matthew. I don't like you because you're an insensitive asshole and—"

"Oh, I know why you hate me," he cut me off again, slowly running his tongue to wet his perfectly pink lips. "You hate me because I dated Liz and not you."

His proclamation made my eyes grow even wider and my mouth hung open as I stammered for words. I wanted to disagree, I truly wanted to tell him that he was wrong. But honestly, he wasn't altogether wrong. I couldn't say some of my resentment didn't come from a deep rooted feeling of rejection. Because while most of that resentment came from that place of genuine hurt, my resentment was fueled by frustration and a shameless sense of envy.

But it was just easier to convince myself that I hated him than to admit that I still liked him and that it hurt me that he chose my friend over me.

But of course, I would never admit to that, especially not to him.

Avoiding eye contact, I looked down and shook my head, running my tongue to wet my suddenly dry lips, "of-of course not. Why—why would I care about your dating life? You can fuck whoever you want, I don't care." I wish I sounded more confident when I said that. But my stuttering words and my unsteady legs gave him exactly what he wanted.

And the bastard actually chuckled. He fucking chuckled.

"But you do, you do care. You care because you haven't stopped thinking about us and me since our first year." He grinned, digging his teeth into his perfect lips as he brought a hand to cup my face, lifting it so I had no other choice but to look at him.

And I was fucking gone.

It was like, all of that anger, frustration and hatred just vanished and instead turned into longing want. Want for him to just take me and do whatever he pleases with me. I was practically nothing in his hands, and I was nothing waiting for him to make me something. Waiting for him to make me his.

And that absolutely delighted the bastard. He found amusement in having the power I never allowed him to have. But right now, I just couldn't fight it.

I always knew that if I ever found myself alone and in this situation with Matthew Gubler, I would lose, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise.

And he knew that too.

"That's it, isn't? You want me to fuck you like I fucked your friend." He smirked, almost like he was proud to say it. And he stared, his usually soft amber eyes now brown and darkened with want.

Who the fuck was this guy and where did Matthew go? Matthew Gubler was the most awkward and disgraceful guy when it came to women. The poor guy couldn't even flirt his way out of a wet paper bag. And yet, somehow, here he was, with this new found confidence and the ability to turn me into a shaking and stuttering mess. Who fucking knew.

Once again, I stammered for words, I truly wanted to tell him otherwise. I wanted to scream in his face and push him away, but I couldn't. Not that I wanted to.

He took my lack of response as the answer he was looking for and brought his other hand to my waist, backing me up against the nearest wall, caging me between the hard surface behind me and his body, which right now, seemed so much bigger than mine.

My breathing instantly skyrocketed as I felt the same hand that was on my waist sneak its way past the ends of my dress and up my bare thighs, ones that shook like an earthquake as the pads of his fingers slowly rubbed the tense skin. Like he was testing the waters. Testing how well my body reacted to his touch.

And it wasn't subtle. At all.

"W-what—what are you doing?" I almost squealed, my voice practically betraying me.

"Oh? Well, I'm just giving you what you wanted. I'm giving you what you've been wanting for years." He stated so casually, like he had no idea what he was doing to me. And just as casually, he slowly ran a finger over the thin cotton fabric of my underwear, touching me, but definitely not in the way I needed to be touched.

I wished my body didn't betray me like it did though. I couldn't even hold back the breathy moan that escaped my lips when his fingers made contact with the thin material. But Matthew certainly loved the response I gave him.

"Because this is what you've been wanting, isn't it? You've been thinking about how my fingers would feel buried inside your little cunt. Or how good you would feel around my cock." He taunted, it was almost cynical just how easily those filthy words rolled off his usually reserved tongue. "I'm not gonna lie, I've thought about it too, you have no idea how many times I've thought about having your filthy mouth wrapped around me. Or how pretty you would look begging me for more." 

I opened my mouth to speak but my words instantly got caught in my throat when the sneaky bastard pulled the fabric to the side and dipped his fingers into the soaking mess that was my core.

And if there were any rational thoughts still hanging in my head, all of those just went straight out the window when another moan erupted from my throat and my head fell back into the wall behind me.

"See just how much easier things are when you just shut the fuck up and stop fighting so much?" He almost whispered, his lips ghosting over the skin on my neck as a lithe finger gathered my wetness and spread it over my clit.

Despite being a complete whimpering mess at that point, I managed to spit out a surprisingly harsh, "fuck you." 

It was a pretty convincing retort. One that didn't exactly have the effect I hoped for though.

I could feel him smirk into my neck as his lips left wet and sloppy kisses into the skin before he pulled back, just so he could see the look of utter want and frustration on my face.

"Hm, sorry sweetheart, I can't do that. I'm too busy trying to fuck you instead."

I swear to god, he was the biggest asshole I have ever met in my entire fucking life. But he was an asshole who immediately slipped two of his sinfully long fingers into my dripping core. I instantly choked on my own breath as he began working his fingers around the muscles, stroking the digits inside me at an agonizingly slow pace.

"Because that's what you want don't you sweetheart? You want to me to fuck you into that mattress until you can't keep your eyes open?" He continued, his filthy words making me pant like I ran for fucking miles. "I do too, trust me I do. And I will, I promise. But I want to make up for all of the lost time. Don't you?"

I wasn't even paying attention to whatever filthy proclamations were coming out of Matthew's mouth, with my eyes nearly closed, my mouth slightly open and my mind only focusing on his fingers working diligently inside me, how could I?

But Matthew was expecting an answer this time. Because I could feel his darkened eyes glare into my face and his fingers immediately stilled inside me. Earning a loud whine from me.

"I asked you a question, answer me."

It took me a minute to remember his question before I quickly nodded, "yes! Yes! Is that what you wanted to hear?" I nearly screamed at his face, my hands coming to clutch his shirt, needing something to relieve some tension.

"I want to hear you say it. Say it, tell me you want me." He demanded, his eyes locking with mine as he waited for what he wanted to hear.

He wanted me to beg, he wanted me to give up that control I never allowed him to have. And was I going to?

Absolutely.

I needed to.

"I want you, Matthew, I want you to take me and fuck me into that mattress until I can't walk straight. Please."

I guess that was the answer Matthew had been looking for because his fingers immediately began to work diligently inside me again, stroking the digits until he had me whimpering and begging for release.

It wasn't long before my head started to spin and stars began to blur my vision. Words were no longer an option at that point, nothing would come out, not even Matthew's name. All I could manage to let out were pathetic, strangled moans. But he could tell I was close, or I figured that much because his fingers only worked faster around my tightening walls, determined to finish me.

"C'mon sweetheart, come for me." he encouraged through gritted teeth as his fingers were anything but still inside me and his palm applied a crushing pressure into my front. And even when my eyes were half closed and my mind had turned into dust, I could see the look of utter determination on his face, his eyebrows were furrowed as his teeth dug into his perfectly plump lips. It was like his only focus was on driving me over the edge. And he succeeded.

The second his fingers curled, I was fucking gone. My orgasm hit me like a tidal wave. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as I cried out his name like a praise, my body nearly spasming against the wall. But his fingers didn't stop until my whole body shook to the point where my legs no longer supported my weight and I practically slid into the wall as I tried to catch my breath.

It was almost dizzying just how quickly Matthew withdrew his fingers from me and hoisted me up on his slim torso. He wasted absolutely no time in striding over to my bed across the room. My whole body collided with my bed so quickly and forcefully it knocked the air out of my chest.

Matthew was practically ripping away his clothes before I could even sit up or catch my breath. Like he had this urgency to do what I've been avoiding for the past two years. Like he needed to do it, right now, like something would happen before he got the chance to.

"Matthew—"

"Shut up, I've heard enough shit from you for the past two years, and I'm fucking tired of it." He almost growled, his usually soft voice coming out so low and dark it actually stroked fear in my heart. It was scary just how quickly his demeanor changed.

Matthew didn't really waste much time in discarding his clothes, he was down to only his boxers and was on top of me before I could even blink. He brought a hand to my chest and he pushed me down until my back was flat on the bed, but his hand stayed there, pinning me there as he hovered over me, trapping my significantly smaller body under his own.

He wasted no time in grabbing a hold of my dress and pulling it over my head. And I could've sworn I saw pure awe and infatuation flash through his eyes as they shamelessly eyed over my newly exposed skin. Come to think of it though, this was the first time I was this naked in front of him, and even then, I wasn't fully naked. Not yet anyway.

After a good minute, his eyes flickered back up to meet with mine, his previous look of awe quickly replaced by this feral look of want and pure desire. And I couldn't say it didn't excite me to see it.

He brought a hand to my face, running his smooth fingers over my face with a surprising amount of delicacy before he deep rooted them into my hair and slightly tilted my head back before he brought his face into mine, our lips crashing into a deep fervent kiss. I didn't realize we have never actually kissed. No wonder there was so much desperation and hunger within that kiss. We've been wanting this ever since we met, and ironically, I wanted it more.

His mouth was harsh and fervent against mine, his tongue wasting no time before it quickly slipped between my lips without much of a warning. His tongue explored every inch of my mouth and took as much control as he wanted to as he brought one of his hands to discard my brassiere, he struggled a bit at first but he managed to unhook it and discarded the flimsy material along with the rest of forgotten clothes. He pulled back to capture the image of my newly exposed skin. And he wasn't subtle, at all.

I almost felt intimidated under his deep and penetrating gaze as he shamelessly ogled my exposed body. I was completely exposed to him, completely vulnerable and right now, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with me. And that scared me, it scared me just how quickly he took control over me after years of fighting against it.

With a hard swallow and a bob of his Adam's apple, Matthew slowly licked his lips, scraping his teeth against his slightly swollen bottom lip in a way that almost made me roll my eyes back into my head. But I didn't, instead I just locked eyes with him as he brought his face down and wrapped his lips around one of my breasts and his tongue swirled around the sensitive bud almost expertly, using one of his hands to toy with the other.

"O-oh fuck." I couldn't help but helplessly moan into the air as my hands found their way into his mop of brown curls. This reaction certainly delighted the bastard above me because I could feel his eyes burning into my face and his lips curving into a smirk around me before he slowly pulled back, latching on to my nipple as he pulled off it.

"You have a very filthy mouth, jeez." He tisked, slightly shaking his head disaprovingly but still had that fucking smirk of his.

Clearly, I wasn't amused, in the slightest, so his stupid comment earned him a nice and concise, "fuck you." 

But then again, it didn't have the effect I hoped for.

"Mhm, yeah, you're about to." He retorted one last time before bringing his face back up to mine, capturing me in a heated and messy kiss that only worked as distraction from the journey Matthew's hands took down south. I was only brought back to reality when I felt my underwear being ripped away and the cool air hitting me. And he was quick to pull down his own boxers and allowed his length to spring free. And I couldn't even play off the fact that I had to stare, my mouth slightly hanging open at the sight of him.

"You're so cute when you stare." He taunted, his words being fairly tame in contrast to his very dark and not innocent tone. The sound of his voice made me flicker my eyes to meet his face. Big mistake, because the borderline devious smirk on his face didn't help, at all. And it certainly didn't help when he positioned himself between my legs, rubbing himself on my already dripping heat.

"You do have condoms here, right?" He asked, but I wasn't paying attention, with him rubbing himself on my slick, I couldn't really pay much attention to anything. "I could just fuck you bareback, I'm clean, so I don't care. But it's up to you." He spoke again, slightly teasing my entrance with the tip of his length, hoping to actually get my attention, and I actually listened this time.

Biting my lip, I mentally cursed at my lack of sexual activity because it just so happened that I had no condoms. Matthew gave me an expectant look, not to pressure me, but just waiting impatiently. I knew if I told him to stop he would without a second thought, but he would just leave. I wasn't going to make that mistake twice.

"I'm clean too, just," I chewed on my bottom lip, already shuddering with anticipation as I hooked my legs around his slim torso, pulling him closer, "just take me, please just fucking take me already."

I didn't have to say it twice.

Without a second thought, he propped himself up on his arms and pressed his face against mine as he slammed into me in one swift motion. A strangled moan erupted from my throat as he buried himself to the hilt, stretching me open at once. And fuck, the feeling of him inside me was intoxicating, addicting even, I don't think I've ever felt like this before.

This was so fucking wrong. So wrong, so wrong to be fucking the guy my friend dated, so wrong to be fucking the guy I swore to everyone I hated. It was just wrong. So why the hell did it feel so right? It was so perfectly right the way our bodies felt together, like they simply belonged there, buried deeply within one another. I never wanted to stop feeling like this.

It was almost dizzying just how good he felt. And with the quick and fervent pace he set for himself right from the start, I knew I probably wouldn't last long. With my eyes rolled into my head, my open mouth and my body sprawled out on the bed as I tried to find something to hold on to, he probably had one hell of a view. And he enjoyed it too, because his thrusts only became harsher.

"Fuck, sweetheart, you're so fucking beautiful," he cursed through gritted teeth, his hands holding my hips down with a vice like grip, making sure I couldn't move. And it wasn't for lack of trying. My body shook and shuddered like a fucking earthquake around him but he simply held me down as he continued.

"You feel so good too. I can't believe you made me wait two fucking years for this. Fuck." He nearly shouted, slamming into me with an insane amount of force and clenched his eyes shut, almost as if the thought made him angry, "two fucking years to take what was mine."

His. He called me his.

Fuck, I wish those filthy words didn't have such a strong effect on me, but boy did they make a number on me. I couldn't even hold back the guttural cry that erupted from my chest as I nodded feverishly, not really realizing what I was nodding to. 

"Yes! Fuck yes, Matthew, I'm yours!" I almost screamed, saying whatever incoherent thoughts flashed through my mind, letting the whole floor know just how much fun I was having and with whom. And with my mind and thoughts being too clouded by the feeling of him, I didn't even think about what those words entailed.

But it didn't matter because they served their purpose regardless. I wasn't expecting just how much the words actually affected him, because his hips began to falter, his thrusts becoming longer but impossibly deeper. And I could see how concentrated he was, with sweat forming on his forehead, his teeth digging into his bottom lip and his breath was hard and short, like this was a task he was determined to finish. He was determined to ruin me.

Letting out a guttural and nearly animalistic groan, Matthew grabbed a hold of my hips and raised them so that each thrust would make him bottom out inside of me, knowing just how close we both were to our release. "Yeah, that's right, sweetheart, let the whole floor know who's making you feel this good," he growled as he gave one last final but brutal thrust, digging his fingers into my hips so tight I just knew I would have bruises tomorrow as he held me down on him, "let the whole floor know you're mine."

And just like that, my orgasm crashed into me, Matthew's harsh words of ownership sending me into a euphoric state of pleasure, my lips chanting his name like a mantra and my walls tightening around him as he came deeply into me, my own name rolling off his tongue in a quiet praise. And the utter and absolute look of ecstasy on his face made up for the bruises I would have to hide for the next few days and for the two years we've made each other's life a living hell. Because right now, seeing that look of being completely fucked, I just wanted nothing more than to just stay like this.

The second we were no longer blinded by our highs, he fell forward, nearly crushing me under his weight as he struggled to get himself up. Yeah he looked fucked alright. Despite knowing damn well he could've easily rolled off me, he didn't, he simply rested his head on my chest and closed his eyes like he was just going to sleep there. A small smile made its way to my lips at the sight of his tousled brown curls on my chest, ignoring all logic, I ran my fingers through the messy locks, and they were in fact as soft as they always looked. 

Realizing just how bad this was for me, and just how vulnerable I actually looked, I smacked his forehead, successfully earning a glare from him once he lifted his head, looking dead at me with his now soft amber eyes.

"You're crushing me, you ass, get off." I breathed out and rolled my eyes, being too exhausted to try and get him off myself. And knowing just how easily he corrupted me, I didn't need another thing to make this harder.

"Okay, okay, jeez." Matthew rolled his eyes, letting his head back into my chest exhaustively and groaned tiredly into my chest before he gathered just enough strength to roll off me and collapsed beside me, his reddened and sweaty chest still rising and falling unevenly as he was still trying to steady his breathing. And I was trying, too. And we just stared, we stared at each other, saying nothing. There was nothing to be said. It was better that way.

After a long long while of silently staring at each other, he brought a hand to my face and rested it there, his thumb mindlessly rubbing over the warm skin of my cheek and he smiled, he simply smiled. And it felt good, it felt comforting, sweet even, it was a funny contrast after what he just did to me.

"So.. About our project.."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag list:

Matthew Gray Gubler

All- @aberrant-annie @marauder-exe @vquezada84 @boiled-onionrings @writeronkeyboard @l0ve-0f-my-life @mariaramz @soederberg

OUaT in NYU-

So I'm starting a tag list for this fic because it will be a mini series so let me know if you'd like to be added to the once upon in NYU tag list

#criminal minds #mgg #spencer reid #mgg x reader #mgg smut #mgg fanfiction #matthew gray gubler #matthew gray gubler x reader #Matthew Gray Gubler smut #x reader