#i appreciate the insight a ton though

[theoreticslut]

I’m like 90% sure that robin is in the same graduating class as jancy even if she was born in ‘68 and not ‘67 like them. also it’s normal for people from different grades to have classes together (at least in america). Like when I was a freshman, I had a physics class with seniors 💀

the thing that’s fucked up are the ages i think. which makes me have a headcanon that it’s just hawkins or indiana with a weird law that made kids start school a year later (since jancy were 16 as sophomore, normally people are 15 unless they have late bdays in the year) until mike and his friends start bc their ages sound normal since they were born in ‘71.

See I really can’t tell bc the only times different grades have been in the same class for me (mind you I am also from the us) was for gym classes, extracurriculars (like chorus/band/study halls/&some art classes), AP classes, OR if an older student failed a class - which I think is the case with Steve & Robin & tammy(?). That or Robin has ‘skipped’ classes bc she took them a year early or whatever bc she’s like really freaking smart.

Otherwise it is NOT normal from my high school experience for freshman to have classes with seniors or any variation on that. It could just be the difference in our schools, but mine was kind of set up like a ladder - you have this specific class you take as a freshman, & then this specific class you take as a sophomore and so on and so forth. Like I said, the only times I ever shared a class period with different grades were chorus, gym, & study halls/free periods.

& in my experience the ages are pretty normal. The majority of my class (which is also the case with pretty much every class before & after mine) was averaged 16 in sophomore year. Now obviously some of us had birthdays earlier in the school year while others were later, but on average everyone was 16 in sophomore year.

So I’m not saying you’re wrong in any way, but from my limited experience & understanding, things are completely different (again I am also from the us!) than the way they seem to be portrayed in the show which is what confuses me.

Personally, I’ve just chalked all these little things that don’t seem quite right to me up to the fact that this is just a show & that things don’t always have to be accurate in them. As long as it makes enough sense to be believable than it doesn’t matter whether it’s actually accurate to real life or not.

#holly’s replies #this got long & im so sorry #i hope you don’t think i’m being rude either #i swear that im not saying you’re wrong but my experience was different #& again it could very well be due to the fact that we’re in different locations of the us #ik city schools are far different than the little country school i went to #i appreciate the insight a ton though #thank you!

[mxmmyprentiss]

your ivy grows

Summary: It’s unfair, Emily thought. Emily loves you and you’re in love with JJ. And to make it even more complicated: JJ loves Will but she lives in your bed some nights and leaves you the next morning. Genre: Angst (with happy ending) Pairing: Emily Prentiss x reader ; Jennifer Jareau x reader Warnings: none Word count: 6.6K

A/N: 2 fics in 2 days because my brain is trying to avoid other feelings. Also, this does not follow any canon timeline in the show. All likes, shares and comments are very much encouraged and appreciated. Thank you! Enjoy!

AO3

It all starts when you join the BAU.

You walk past the glass doors and immediately feel eyes on you. Of course, you’re a new face. They have never seen you before. You are instantly intimidated by the suits and the files on the desk and the dark brown eyes staring at you.

“Hello,” A tall raven-haired woman approaches you. The one with dark brown eyes. “Do you need help with something?”

You bow your head a little as a sign of respect. “Hi, I’m here for the unit chief? Agent Aaron Hotchner?”

“Oh, sure. Let me show you to his office. You must be the transferee from the Hostage Rescue Team.” Emily offers her hand for a handshake. “I’m SSA Emily Prentiss.”

You shake her hand firmly and smile. “I’m Y/N.”

“I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“You too.”

When Emily leaves you at Hotch’s office, something in her ribcage hurts and her stomach suddenly feels weird. And when you mouthed a thank you and flashed her a smile that reached your eyes, Emily thought her heart might drop to the floor.

After a short talk with the unit chief, Hotch introduces you to the team. You meet all of them - Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, David Rossi, Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia.

“Where’s JJ?” Hotch asks.

“I’m here, I’m here,” A blonde blue-eyed woman approaches the team. She’s carrying tons of files in her arms. “Hi, I’m Jennifer Jareau, communications liaison. Everybody calls me JJ.”

And the way your eyes twinkle as you and JJ shake hands doesn’t get past Emily’s scrutinizing eyes.

Emily has yet to know why but her rib cage might explode because of how fast her heart goes.

---

Your adjustment with the team isn’t easy at all. They have known each other for years and you’re the newcomer after all. But all of them have been kind and welcoming to you so far.

You are partnered with Emily and Derek most of the time. You spend a lot of time sitting at the back of the SUV and listening to them talk about their theories regarding the UnSub, which you have been fond of because you learn a lot from their insights.

Emily has always been considerate of you though. She always asks your opinions which you assume she does so you won’t feel left out or unheard.

“You can always speak your mind, Y/N. You’ll never know what might help our case.” Emily says to you, tapping your shoulder.

“I will try. Thank you, Emily.”

Emily has never loved her name until you said it and Emily knew she’s a goner.

---

It is the first time you accepted an invitation for drinks from your colleagues. It’s not the first time they asked though. If you’re not wrong, this would be the third. 

Spencer was the first person who invited you but you politely turned down the invitation due to your throbbing migraine at that time.

The second time, it was Emily. She told you the team is gathering for dinner and drinks at Rossi's and everyone would love it if you would come. But you feel something’s off. You didn’t deserve to dance with their victory just yet. You haven’t earned it yet. So, you told Emily you can’t make it because you’re meeting your parents that night and you haven’t seen them in a while, which is technically true. (Hint: Your parents died when you were sixteen.)

Tonight though, the third time, JJ approaches you. Her smile is so radiant that the sun would be so jealous.

JJ sits on your desk. “So … we’re betting who could make you say yes to drinks with the team.” JJ speaks faintly, but still just loud enough for the people on the next desks to hear. “I need the cash.”

You snort. “What’s in it for me?” You ask boldly.

Derek wolf-whistles. Spencer watches the scene unravel. And Emily tries to hide a glare by playing minesweeper on her computer.

“Pasta, wine and my eternal gratitude and friendship.” JJ folds her arms. “So, what do you say? We’ll split the cash?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Deal.” You shake JJ’s hand.

Groans are heard and JJ does a mini dance while collecting 20s from her friends. You catch Emily’s quick stare. She’s probably pissed at you for losing the bet.

---

Since that night at Rossi’s, you and JJ start spending more time together, both in the field and at the office. It’s not your fault though. It’s just something that happens. After all, Hotch declares who goes with who.

During your work travels, JJ always chooses you to bunk with her at the hotels you stay at while the others mix and match with their own roommates. Nobody else complains and so you don’t either. You like spending time with her and it’s not so bad when you hear her sleeping soundly at nights that leave you awake.

You and the team are in New Orleans for a case. New Orleans PD has requested the FBI’s help about a series of murders involving several - twelve, so far - white redhead women.

There’s something reserved about JJ’s smile when she approaches a certain policeman you don’t recognize. He introduces himself as William LaMontagne Jr. and you catch the way JJ’s shoulder brush against his multiple times when he discusses the case.

“He and JJ had a thing,” Emily tells you as you both proceed to the crime scene. “On and off, I guess.”

“Oh.” You frown. You don’t know why Emily is telling you this. Maybe you should try being more subtle.

Emily wishes she didn’t tell you this instead because the frown on your face has been more frequent as the days of this unsolved case pass.

---

JJ invites you to a pub near the hotel. The BAU and New Orleans PD just caught the serial killer this morning and somehow, everything feels right again in the city. You happily accept her invitation and put on your coat, walking past the rooms of your colleagues who must already be asleep.

JJ links your arms together the whole time of the walk to the pub. The only time she lets go of you was when you saw a familiar face waiting for her at the counter.

Will.

JJ kisses him on the cheek and he holds her wrist when she places a hand on his chest.

You want to vomit. Must be the acid. But you haven’t had drinks yet?

You go back to your hotel alone that night. JJ and Will dropped you off at the lobby, claiming they will just take a walk around and he promises to bring her back early tomorrow for your flight.

So now, you’re in the hotel lobby watching people pass by.

“Y/N?” Emily calls you. She’s still wearing her clothes from this morning and from the looks of it, she hasn’t slept yet either. Emily sits next to you. “What are you doing here?”

“Just … thinking.” Emily glances at the way you’re clicking your thumb and middle finger. “I’m okay. I just can’t sleep yet.”

“Does JJ know you’re here?”

“She’s with Will.” You respond impassively.

Ah.

Now, Emily knows why you’re here.

“Do you play scrabble?” Emily asks.

“Yeah.”

“I have one in my room.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

It’s the first time today that Emily saw you smile without restraint.

---

“So, where are you staying now?” Spencer asks JJ one afternoon in the bullpen.

“Well, that I’m still trying to figure out.” JJ sighs. “I might stay here for the meantime.”

“Here at the office? How are you going to sleep?”

“You can stay at my place.” You offer out of nowhere causing your friends to look at you. “I mean, if you’d like. I have a spare room.”

JJ’s eyes light up. “Are you sure?”

You nod. “I’ll help you pack. Whatever you need.”

It happens frequently now - Emily’s heart sinking to her stomach when she thinks about you with someone other than her. She might need to puke later.

Her jaw tightens as she rewrites a finished report. To hell with this paragraph and typo and this ugly font. 

---

The plan is for JJ to stay for three months at your place while her apartment is being renovated. You and the team help her move to your spare room.

You prepare dinner for them and your new roommate. Everyone is taking a look around your place and luckily, you cleaned up yesterday so the house isn’t at all a mess.

Emily joins you and JJ in the kitchen. “Can I help?”

“You can set the table.” You suggest.

“Sure.” Emily washes her hands in the sink. “Where are your plates?”

“The plates are on the drawer beside the fridge, spoon and fork on the next drawer to the left, glasses are next to the water dispenser.” JJ replies.

“You already know your way around here.” Emily states the obvious, trying to mask the pang of jealousy.

“I already slept here a couple of times before.” JJ admits and Emily wants to combust.

“I should have already charged her by the hour for rent.” You joke but Emily doesn’t laugh. She proceeds with setting the table instead.

It takes every ounce of self-control Emily has not to break the plates.

---

You and JJ quickly adapt to living with one another (not together, you cautiously remind yourself). JJ wakes up early and makes coffee. She doesn’t make breakfast though. Caffeine is all she needs in the morning. You, on the other hand, like to cook a little something to start your day.

Since JJ stayed in your apartment, the two of you always arrived at the bureau together. It’s no surprise to the team really. But since you and JJ established that routine, Emily hasn’t smiled much at your arrival to the office like she used to do.

You kind of miss it - being welcomed by a warm smile knowing the day you’re all about to have.

---

“Y/N,” You hear JJ’s voice in the dark. “Y/N.”

Your eyes flutter open and see JJ sitting on the edge of your bed. Even in the dim light, the bags under her eyes are noticeable and her cheeks are flushed.

You sit up. “What’s wrong, JJ?”

“Can I … can I stay with you? Just for tonight. I don’t want to be alone.”

Of course, this would be crossing the very thin line of boundaries you have left with her. If she sleeps beside you, she will be near you and if she’s near you, your thoughts will be filled with more of her and that’s … well, that’s just wrong - harboring thoughts about your friend.

But you are yet to learn to say no to Jennifer Jareau.

So you let her crawl to your bed and slip under the covers. You turn your back on her and face the lamp on the bedside table, praying to a God you don’t believe in to let you sleep without JJ running through your mind.

You wake up to an empty space beside you the next morning.

---

The wall comes crashing down when the thin fine line becomes a teeny tiny dot.

It has become a habit now - JJ crawling to your mattress when she’s sad and scared. You don’t get much sleep from that point forward because you feel her snuggling towards you while she’s asleep and the tiny noises she makes rewires your brain. Only for you to wake up early in the morning with a fixed set of pillows and JJ’s scent on the empty side of the bed where she used to lie.

This leads to you having additional caffeine intake every day.

“That’s your fourth cup today. Are you okay?” Emily asks you in the break room.

You massage the back of your neck. “I’m okay, Em. Just haven’t been sleeping very much lately.”

“JJ snores loud?” Emily jokes but the sharp pain in the pit of her stomach says otherwise.

“She doesn't snore.” You say.

And the pain in Emily’s stomach surges into something else entirely. Because how do you know? You have separate rooms. Your rooms are on the opposite sides of your apartment. You don’t sleep next to each other.

Unless …

“You two sleep together?” The crack in Emily’s voice is enough to make you stifle a giggle.

“Not in that way.”

Emily is tempted to ask in what way do you want to sleep with JJ. She’s also tempted to chug a hot freshly brewed cup of coffee to stop herself from further talking about this. She doesn’t need to know. She doesn’t want to know.

“She and Will are fighting a lot lately. She sleeps next to me when she’s sad, which is every night now I guess.”

Emily’s head is spinning and her ears are ringing and maybe her eyes are bleeding? She’s not sure. But it feels a little bit like that.

You watch Emily gulp her scalding hot coffee then spray it to the nearest sink. You rub her back gently, worried she might have burned her tongue.

---

Your apartment feels empty.

JJ flies back and forth to New Orleans during the weekends and weekends are the only days you can stay at your apartment for longer than a night’s sleep.

It’s too quiet now that JJ isn’t around. Your Law and Order marathon is left on its last episode that you two watched. You have no energy to continue it now.

You lie down on the couch and scroll through your phone. The online scrabble app that Emily installed catches your eye and you open it. Emily is online and you invite her to play. It lasted for almost a whole day before Emily calls you up and invites you to dinner at her place.

You accept.

You show up to Emily’s door 30 minutes later, bringing your promised take-out foods. Emily welcomes you into her home. A black cat purrs on your leg.

“Hi, buddy!” You excitedly pet the cat’s head. “Who are you?”

“That’s Sergio. He’s the boss around here.” Emily chuckles.

“Emily Prentiss, how come I didn’t know you’re a cat person?”

She smirks. “I’ll tell Hotch you need to be re-evaluated.”

You roll your eyes. You pick Sergio up and he doesn’t fight. He settles on your shoulder and purrs. “He’s so cute!”

“And expensive to have around.”

“I want a cat.” You blurt out. “I realize I want a cat.”

“You sure? You can’t take him though.” You and Emily share a laugh.

“Not this guy.” You squeeze-hug Sergio and he meows. “He will miss you.”

“Your apartment getting lonely?” Emily senses.

You nod. “JJ hasn’t been around much. I know she’s not going to be around forever, too.” You swallow, glancing to the floor where Sergio just jumped. “She and Will are working things out, I think. She’s flying out to New Orleans every other weekend.”

“JJ must like him a lot then.” Emily watches your lips purse.

“JJ loves him.” You correct her. And in a way, remind yourself of the fact.

Emily’s eyes dart towards your fingers involuntarily clicking. She observes you a lot of times and she knows your little tics by now.

“Let’s eat, Y/N.” Emily ushers you to her living room where the food is already prepared and the TV is already being set up. “What do you want to watch?”

“I want some light comedy if you don’t mind.”

“Modern Family?”

“How do you know?”

Emily recalls the Claire Dunphy Defense Squad button pin on your shoulder bag when you first attend the team gathering at Rossi’s. “Lucky guess.”

It’s halfway through the sitcom’s season when you fall asleep. Emily gazes at your head bobbing up and down as you try to keep yourself awake and failing. She gently cups your cheek and rests your head on her shoulder. Emily thinks you’re waking up when your body moves but you just shift in a more comfortable position which ends up lying your head on her lap and hogging the blanket you’re supposed to share.

Emily lovingly gazes at you, fixing your hair that falls out of place as you sleep.

Emily wishes this moment will stay forever.

You. Her.

Emily never felt more at peace.

---

“I have news.” JJ announces one morning in the kitchen. You are cooking breakfast for yourself and she’s brewing coffee for both of you.

You raise an eyebrow. “Good or bad?”

“I’m not really sure.”

You scrunch your nose. “I’m not a fan of news like that.”

JJ beams. “I’m pregnant!”

And your world stops.

Gravity is pulling you to the ground. Your feet feel heavy.

You almost burn the egg.

“Y/N?”

A tear falls on the pan. Additional salt, I guess.

You turn off the stove and approach JJ with open arms. “I’m so happy for you.” You hug her tightly. “This is good, JJ.”

“It is.” She hugs you back. You don’t let her go for a while until you can control your tears from dropping. “Thank you.”

You blink rapidly, pursed your lips then smile widely. “Congratulations, Jennifer.”

“I have to tell the team.”

“Of course.”

JJ looks so happy and she’s in a glow you have never seen before. You wonder if it’s the pregnancy or the fact that she’s in love.

Regardless, you’re happy she’s happy.

Even if the weird tightening in your chest says otherwise.

---

JJ announces her pregnancy to the BAU 3 days after she told you. Everyone is excited and happy for her. Hugs are happening left and right from the team.

But Emily is looking at you.

And from the corner of your eye, you see her too.

Suddenly, air is not enough. You excuse yourself from the celebration for a minute. You’re suffocating and you need to breathe.

“I knew you’d be here.” Emily’s voice startles you.

You’re sitting in a block on the rooftop. You don’t respond to her and instead, you light a cigarette from your pocket.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

You frown. “Just when I feel like it.”

“You can talk to me, Y/N.”

“She told me 3 days ago, if you’re wondering why I wasn’t surprised.”

“How do you feel?”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel.”

“It matters to me.”

“Why?”

“Because …” Emily pauses. Overwhelming number of scenarios running through her head in a second. “Because you’re my friend.”

You blow smoke into the wind. Emily smells it.

“That’s what I seem to be to everyone. Just a friend.” You say bitterly. “I mean, I’m not really surprised. I’m basically disposable.”

Emily wants to storm to JJ’s office and she doesn’t care what the hell she’s doing in there, she wants to slap JJ hard; put all the pain you’re going through - because of her - in one hard strike. Sure, JJ is still one of her closest friends and she loves her to death but God -

It’s unfair.

Emily loves you.

If you were ever caught in a crossfire, Emily would come running to protect you in a heartbeat, no questions asked and all orders and protocols be damned. She will gladly take all the bullets for you until she loses her own heartbeat.

Emily loves you.

If anyone ever spoke of you wrong, Emily will be there to defend you with all her might. She will flip tables and look them in the eye and tell them how you're the kindest, most genuine, charming person she’s ever met and they’re lucky to even breathe the same air that you breathe.

Emily loves you.

If you were crying and out of breath, she would drop everything and give you the air she breathes if it means you will be okay.

It’s unfair, Emily thought.

Emily loves you and you’re in love with JJ.

And to make it even more complicated: JJ loves Will but she lives in your bed some nights and leaves you the next morning.

Emily loves you.

And not just as a friend. Because friends don’t treat friends this way.

Emily wants to tell you how she desperately wants to hold your hand especially when it’s cold so she could warm them up, to kiss your lips every time you bite them and every time you don’t, to hold you close when you need to be held, to arrange your hair when it’s turned into a mess.

But the anger and dejection bubbling in her chest take over instead when she hears how you describe yourself.

“How dare you.” Emily speaks in a monotone voice.

“What?” Your head turns to her, confused.

“How dare you call yourself disposable when all I ever wanted was you!” You are both caught off guard by her sudden outburst. All caution is gone now and Emily takes a deep breath in before continuing in a calmer but more desperate tone, “I see you, Y/N. I see you.”

“Em …”

“I see your fingers click when you’re uncomfortable. I see you watch sitcoms on your phone during breaks and once while Hotch was giving the team another talk. I see you care for others. You gave Garcia a unicorn mug just because it reminded you of her. You bring Morgan homemade lasagna when he told us he misses his mother’s cooking. You bought Reid the book he couldn’t find at the bookstore. You drink Rossi’s wine even when you hate it so he wouldn’t feel bad for offering. You fix Hotch’s ties when it’s messed up. For fuck’s sake, you always give me the last piece of pizza every damn time even when you’re still hungry! I see you talk to the victims’ families with so much love, care, and regret that you couldn’t prevent the crimes. I see your nose scrunch when you smell Morgan’s overwhelming perfume in the car. I see you grinding your teeth when you’re in deep thought.” Emily sighs, running out of breath. “The point is: I see you, Y/N.”

“Em …”

“It’s not your fault you don’t see me that way.” Emily walks out and closes the door behind her. 

You hear the strain in her voice over and over in your head and it almost makes you want to jump over the ledge.

---

The past few days have been awkward to say the least.

Emily is clearly avoiding you. She gets coffee a little later than she used to just so you won’t meet at the break room. She sits far away from you during the briefings. When you were lying on the couch in the jet, she moved to the other end so you would be out of her sight. She doesn’t look you in the eye when you have to talk about the cases.

And truthfully, it hurts.

---

You walk into the bullpen and slouch in your chair. Spencer greets you and tells you about the book he’s reading and a fun fact about its author. You smile in acknowledgement but don’t say anything else.

Your eyes scan the room to look for the woman who sits on the desk in front of you.

“Emily’s in Boston for a conference.” Morgan says when he notices your eyes wandering the bullpen. “She might be gone for a few days.”

“Okay.” You lean back on your chair and open the reports you've been working on since yesterday.

It’s quiet, you realize, when Emily’s not around.

She’s the only one who frequently talks to you even when you’re both busy. She brings you coffee twice a day - one in the morning and one before going home - and she knows just how you like it with two teaspoons of sugar and three teaspoons of cream, not milk. She sends you online game invitations through your personal email so you can play them on your computers when Hotch isn’t looking. She sends you playlists based on your mood after each case.

You let out a deep sigh you have been holding back.

It’s awfully quiet when Emily is not around.

---

JJ moves out of your apartment. Derek and Spencer help her and Will with moving and driving to their new place. Will has relocated to be with JJ. Even from afar, you can sense that they’re happy about starting their family and being with each other.

You are happy for her. JJ deserves the whole world and Will gave it to her.

When they leave, you don’t waste time sitting around. You change your bedsheets and pillowcases and throw them in the washer. You vacuum the bedroom, then the living room and the room JJ stayed in. You wash all the dishes and rearrange everything in the drawers and cabinets. You throw all the leftover food from the fridge. You deep cleaned your entire home.

And it feels good.

You feel an overwhelming liberty when you finally sink in your bed, hugging your pillow, and it no longer smells like JJ.

---

Emily comes back from Boston a week later. It felt like months for you though.

You spot her sitting on Spencer’s desk beside Derek. She’s giving out souvenirs she got from her trip and they laugh about something Spencer said.

As you come near to your desk, Emily hasn’t glanced at you, not even once.

You settle down on your chair and it’s Derek who spins your chair around to face them.

“Emily’s got something for you.” He passes you a couple of button pins and a dark green mug with BOSTON printed on it.

“Thanks.” You say.

“Tell her, not me.” He stands up and squeezes Spencer’s shoulders. “Let’s go, pretty boy.”

“Where?” Although confused, Spencer still follows him.

That leaves you and Emily just a desk away from each other.

“How’s Boston?” You finally ask. You couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Uh, the conference?”

“Boston was humid. The conference was boring.” Emily answers. You see her pick her nails and your hand hovers her hand. She instantly stops. “You’ve been busy?”

You shake your head. “It’s honestly refreshing to not have a case for a while. It’s better than finding dead bodies for breakfast.”

“It is.” Emily agrees.

Then, it gets quiet again. Emily is refusing to look you in the eye while you are hopelessly trying to get her to.

You can’t do this anymore.

You can’t stand having Emily so close and tiptoeing around the thing you need to talk to her about.

“I bought scrabble.” You blurt out. You don’t know why you said that.

Emily raises an eyebrow. “You bought  scrabble?”

“Y - yeah. I did.”

“Okay …”

“Do you want to play?” Emily stares at you. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just … I’m inviting you. If you’re not busy and have nothing to do, that is. I - I -”

“Y/N, breathe.” Emily chuckles. “Are you inviting me over?”

You exhale loudly. “Yes. Yes, I am.” You puff out your chest to gain some resolve. “Do you want to come over tonight? Uh, 8pm?”

You finally meet her eye to eye. Dark brown orbs meeting yours. You’re instantly weak at how soft and gentle she’s looking at you.

“I’d love that.” Emily replies.

---

You leave work earlier than you’re supposed to. You tell Hotch about needing it for personal time. He didn’t pry and let you go, only reminding you that you need to be early tomorrow.

“You going home?” Derek asks when he bumps into you at the elevator.

“Yes, I might have a date.”

“Might?”

“I’m really not sure what it is. I’ll find out. Gotta go!” You press the elevator button to the basement, walking back and forth inside the elevator.

You haven’t thought this all the way through. What the hell were you thinking asking Emily Prentiss over to your apartment? Your fridge is literally empty aside from your stash of electrolyte drinks.

Then, it clicks. You can think when you shop for food. You need to buy groceries.

---

You end up buying a lot more than you can carry.

When you got everything sorted out, you open your ipad to search for recipes. You’re not entirely sure what Emily would enjoy and frankly, you’re just winging it, hoping that whatever you might end up cooking would be good enough for her.

You lay out the scrabble board on the center table in the living room. You also prepared nachos and homemade salsa dip and laid it next to the board game.

When the doorbell rings, you make a startled jump. You peek at the peephole and see Emily standing outside, hands in the pockets of her coat.

“Hi,” you say as soon as you open the door. “Come in.”

“You have -” Emily brushes her thumb against your cheek to wipe the sauce off your face. She licks her thumb. “Salsa dip?”

“Guilty. Let me get changed. I just finished cooking.”

“Okay.” Emily’s eyes follow you to your room. She laughs lightly when she hears you curse because your foot caught a shoe and stumbled.

---

You and Emily sit across from each other at the dining table.

“This looks delicious, Y/N.”

“Let’s only hope it tastes as delicious as it looks.”

Emily hums in approval upon tasting the shrimp pasta you made. “Are you sure you’re not a chef?” She teases.

“You have homemaderecipes.com to thank for that.” You giggle.

The dinner went better than you could imagine. Emily complimented the dishes you made, hinting that you’re trying to make her gain weight with how many dishes you made just for  tonight. In your defense, you like being prepared and having options in case she has food allergies.

Emily insists on helping you with the dishes and putting the leftovers on tupperwares. You tell her she’s a guest and she didn’t have to. But you know better than to argue with her.

“Did you rearrange your kitchen?” Emily asks after opening every drawer and cabinet trying to figure out where everything goes.

“I did. When JJ moved out.”

Emily doesn’t say anything. She places the last fork on the drawer.

“I cleaned up everything after she left.” You continue. You’re waiting for Emily’s response but it doesn’t come. “I changed the sheets and vacuumed.”

Emily is leaning against the countertop, holding the glass of soda she has yet to drink.

“There’s no trace of her left here.” You say confidently.

“Y/N,” Emily murmurs. “I don’t want to be your rebound.”

Your head snaps fast and you stare at her with terrified eyes. “No, Emily, no.” You move closer to her, just enough to not invade her personal space. “It’s not what I want.”

“Good because neither do I.”

“When JJ left, I cleaned the entire house. I rearranged everything, I’m not even sure where everything goes exactly right now.” Emily listens to you intently. “And I didn’t feel sad when there were no traces of her left behind.”

Emily looks at you with a much softer, more hopeful expression on her face. She hopes that you won’t crush the tiny little hope that she’s holding on to.

“I just felt … free.” You continue. “And when I saw them walking to their car, Will had his hand on her belly and I felt genuinely happy for them.” You start to pace back and forth at the kitchen aisle. “But then, this past week without you, I realized that it’s quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“It was too quiet that I could hear myself and Spencer next to me thinking. And you know how he thinks a lot.” You continue your pace, hands flailing uncontrollably at times. “Then I kept seeing the empty space in your desk.”

“Y/N, you make it sound like I left you.” Emily lets out a scoff.

“I mean, I can’t blame you if you did but the thing is: I see it now.”

“See what?”

“You.”

You stop.

Emily stares.

There’s a long pause and though it may be silent, it isn’t awkward at all. Something shifted in the air, you could feel it.

You speak again, “I see your smile light up the room when I come in to work. You didn’t do it as much when I started arriving with JJ. I didn’t tell you how much I missed it. You have always been so welcoming of me, making sure I’m comfortable. You always ask for my insights when I wasn’t confident to share them with the rest of the team. You always make sure I have water and candies in the backseat when we’re investigating. You saved me that one time a police officer tried to hit on me. You leave aspirin on my table when you see me rubbing my head when I get migraines. You know the little things that mean so much to me.” You sigh, shoulders falling. “I see it now, Emily.”

Emily wipes the tear that fell to her cheek.

You take Emily’s hands and grip them, making sure she feels the intensity of sincerity radiating in your body. “And, I think, by now, it’s a reflex that I’d go looking for you in a room full of people.” You tell her. “I’m sorry it had to take not seeing you to actually see you.”

Emily pulls you into a hug. She wraps her arms around your neck and you hear her sobs. You tighten your arm around her waist, giving everything you had to that hug.

Because this, right here, is an entire universe you’re holding.

You stay like that for what felt like an eternity.

Emily is the first one to pull away. She places a hand on your cheek, caressing your face. “We’re going to do this right.”

“We’ll take it slow.” You agree. “We’ll go on dates.”

She nods. “That we will do, Y/N.”

---

It took a month for you and Emily to memorize where things are in your kitchen. Not only that but she has made herself comfortable knowing where everything is in your apartment.

You learn about hers as well.

She has invited you to her place more than a few times over. Her air freshener smells like lavender. Her lamp lights are always cool and never warm, she says it hurts her eyes. Her bathroom reeks of luxurious bath bombs especially during the weekend. She likes having dark curtains in her bedroom and light ones in the living room.

Emily adores Sergio. She has a whole list of reminders about him - his feeding time, vaccination dates, neuter date, etc. - stuck on the refrigerator door.

Emily also doesn’t have framed pictures of anyone at her place but as of two days ago, she has one on her bedside table - a photograph of you and her sharing ice cream from one of your dates.

---

It takes another month when you tackle Emily, your hands protecting her head before you both fall to the ground. The UnSub was taking a shot at her but you got her just in time. You watch Derek and Hotch go after the UnSub, leaving you and Emily on the muddy ground.

“Em, are you okay?” You muffle under your breath.

“I’m good, I’m good.” Emily sits up and checks on you. Her face instantly turns pale when she sees blood flowing on your left arm. “Y/N, you’re bleeding.”

“It’s not that deep.” Emily takes off her FBI vest then her coat. She uses it to put pressure into your wound to stop the bleeding. Curses of different languages leave your lips.

Emily calls an ambulance. She doesn't leave your side on the whole way to the hospital. She waits as the doctor and nurses finish patching you up.

“How’s Y/N?” Hotch asks Emily when he arrives at the hospital with the rest of the team.

“I’m still waiting for an update. She’s still in the ER. Probably getting some stitches.” Emily says, biting a nail.

Spencer puts a hand on Emily’s shoulder to calm her down.

---

The doctor says recovery will take at least two weeks. You wear an arm sling and are stuck at a desk job for the meantime. You don’t hate it. And even if you weren’t a tech genius like Penelope, she is fun and entertaining to be around during case consultations.

But every time the team leaves, your heart sinks knowing Emily might fall into another danger. You worry about all of them, of course, but Emily …

It’s five months later that you’re in the unit chief’s office talking about your budding relationship with a coworker.

Emily has your heart and you will wreak havoc if something happens to her. You wish the universe won’t test you.

---

Emily is sitting on the opposite chair. Hotch is behind his desk.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” Hotch tells the both of you. “I’ll have HR send me the files that you need to sign. It won’t be complicated.”

“Are you sure none of us needs to be transferred?” You ask him again, scared that the answer might change.

“I’ll make sure of it. You’re both an asset to this unit and it would be a damn shame if we lose either one of you.”

You and Emily can finally breathe.

“Thank you, sir.” Emily says.

“Thank you. I promise this won’t affect anything, especially work.” You tell your boss.

Hotch nods. “It hasn’t, so far, and we’ve known for months.”

You choke on air upon seeing Hotch’s smug smile.

“You’d literally take a bullet for her, Y/N.”

“Which I told her was stupid and reckless.” Emily adds.

Maybe you and Emily aren’t so subtle after all.

---

It’s a year later when you and Emily are throwing a housewarming party. The team arrives one by one. Spencer brings you an espresso machine. Derek hands Emily a toolkit in all pink; he gets a jab on the shoulder from Emily. You happily accept Penelope’s cheese board set. Hotch sets up the money tree he bought by the door. Rossi brings white and red wine for dinner. Will, JJ and little Henry arrive last. Will is carrying their son on his arm while JJ brings out their gifts.

“I come bearing gifts,” JJ announces.

She bought a lot of healthy and unhealthy snacks for you and Emily but the personalized cushion for Sergio with I Love My Moms embroidered in it is your favorite. You excitedly show it to your cat and he immediately lies on it.

“It’s Sergio approved!” You squeal.

JJ takes a picture of Sergio enjoying her gift.

“Hi, little buddy!” Emily takes Henry to her arms, cooing the little boy. “God, you’re heavy.”

“You’re a big boy now, aren’t you, Henry?” You slightly pinch his cheeks. “What are you feeding this kid? He grows up so fast.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me I will cry.” JJ chuckles.

Everyone gathers on the table. You and Emily have one rule during the dinner though: No Work Talk.

Rossi compliments your pasta and you thank him. Emily opens the red wine that Rossi brought tonight.

The rest of the night goes better than expected. You have no idea why you and Emily were ever nervous about hosting.

When everybody left and everything was cleaned up, you and Emily found yourselves cuddling in your bed. 

Yours and Emily’s bed. 

“I love you,” you whisper against her chest. Your fingers are fidgeting on the button of her pajama shirt.

Emily’s eyes widened. Everything stops and her heart feels like it’s going a hundred miles per hour.

“I know this is the first time I said it,” you say, hearing how fast her heartbeat is going against your ear. “But I have felt it for a long time now.”

Emily pulls you closer to her, leaving a kiss on your forehead. “I love you too.”

Whatever the future holds, you’ll be fine as long as she’s in it. Everything finally feels good and right in the world.

Because Emily Prentiss loves you.

And you love her.

#jaye writes #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss fic #emily prentiss angst #jennifer jareau x reader #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #jemily #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x y/n #jennifer jareau x you #jennifer jareau x y/n

[nateconnolly]

I made a Patreon lol.

Here's the free sample post:

THE CREATION MYTH OF KILL 6 BILLION DEMONS

INTRODUCTION

I love fantasy religions. I love it when fictional humans try to understand worlds like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere and Tolkein’s Middle Earth through a religious lens—especially because in those books and in many others, the fantasy religions are somewhat true, and somewhat false. It’s really fun to look at a fictional universe through the eyes of a character who might not see things objectively. Religion usually plays a role in that. But, if I’m being honest, a lot of fantasy religions are just Christianity wearing a fun hat. Don’t get me wrong, I am fascinated by Chrisitianity, and I really enjoy a lot of fantasy versions of Christianity. But it’s a great special treat when a fantasy story goes the extra mile and portrays another concept of the divine. That’s one of many reasons that I love the webcomic Kill 6 Billion Demons. The webcomic’s fictional religion Atru has parallels to Taoism, Gnosticism, Advaita Vedanta, theothanatology, Biblical divine nomenclature, the list goes on. I just threw a lot of big scary words at you, but I promise, this is a beginner level essay. I’ll break everything down into bite-sized pieces. I just wanted to list out some of K6BD’s religious influences to show that they are complicated, and diverse.

This is specifically a essay about the creation narratives. K6BD is an amazing comic—later on, it tackles questions about time, free will, and optimistic nihilism, but I won’t dig into that stuff here. Those things would require their own essays. Here, I’m going to try to explain how the seven-part world came to be. More specifically, I’ll examine the stories that White Chain, Cio, Michael, and the old devil’s tale tell us; then I’ll look at fictional holy texts found in the Concordance.

I’ll also compare and contrast with a lot of real world religion and philosophy. I want to be clear that the creator Abaddon and I have never spoken. I don’t know where he got most of his inspiration. I’m not revealing any information that wasn’t already available, I’m just compiling it and offering my own thoughts. Unless I specifically quote Abaddon, assume that I’m not even talking about his inspirations. I’m drawing parallels because it’s fun, even though it probably won’t give us new insight into how the text was created.

I promise I’m not trying to convert you! I genuinely don’t want to make other people believe the religion that I believe—or any religion at all. I’m just trying to show you how understanding some real world religious and philosophical concepts can deepen your appreciation of K6BD. Obviously, there will be tons of spoilers, so go read the webcomic if you haven’t already. It’s absolutely genius.

Lastly, I want to say I will discuss suicide and murder.

Ok, let’s get started.

PART ONE: THE FIRST AND GREATEST DIVISION

Let There Be No Genesis

White Chain begins the history of the universe with the words, “Let there be no Genesis,” closely echoing the in-universe fictional Psalm I. “For indeed, there was [no Genesis]. God has always existed and has never existed.” As White Chain tells her story, we are shown the god YISUN. This figure is sometimes described with it/its or she/her pronouns, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to follow the example of the fictional Psalm I, and use he/him. I might call him “YISUN” or “God” with a capital G depending on the context.

YISUN was eternal, and the “undisputed master of the entire omniverse.” He predates everything else, and without him, nothing would exist.

YISUN has at least twelve bodies, probably more. Some are smiling, some look mad; some resemble insects or animals; most hold weapons; and all are different colors. The central white body has four arms. Abaddon has said that YISUN��s appearance is directly inspired by the Hindu god Vishvarupa.  Hindu gods are frequently depicted with multiple body parts, an artistic tradition that Doris Srinivasan calls “the multiplicity convention.” She explains some of the religious and artistic reasons that many Indian gods have multiple body parts in her book “Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art.” The tradition of Hinduism is long, and diverse, so the multiple limbs in one text can mean something very different from the multiple limbs elsewhere. Srinivasan closely examines a vast expanse of Indian history, and I don’t have time to present all her ideas. I would like to specifically focus on the interpretation that multiple limbs represent the manifestations of a singular godhead.

Srinivasan writes that “Multiple versions of a myth are facilitated by the idea that there exists multiple aspects or manifestations of a godhead.” Think of the difference between Greek and Hindu goddesses. Bruno Snell suggests “that these four women signalize the four aspects of all womanhood,” but Srinivasan qualifies his interpretation. The Olympian women “are not multiple forms of [one] Divine Woman, as is the case in Hinduism.” Artemis and Athena are different people who are both women, plural. Parvati, Sati, and Uma together are Woman, singular. Zeus, Demeter, and Poseidon are gods, plural. Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna are God, singular. That’s not how all Hindus see things, but it is one Hindu perspective that I find especially comparable to K6BD.

Similarly, the multiple bodies are only manifestations of a single God: YISUN. All of his bodies are a single person. In Hinduism, the plurality of the divine can be seen as empowering and liberating. Multiple body parts signify that the god is a well-rounded entity. But Abaddon makes it look like a curse. He turns the artistic convention around. Using the same symbolism and metaphysics, he tells a radically different story. As White Chain says, “Being was only circular.” “YISUN had no equal… It was a wretched life, without meaning or perception. Imagine infinite stories to tell… and nobody to tell them to.” Perfection is lonely. At this point, YISUN is the only thing that exists, and that can’t be fun. All those arms and heads cannot satisfy YISUN’s need for companionship. It’s fascinating to me that when White Chain says YISUN had no one to whom it could tell its stories, Abaddon chose to illustrate multiple heads right next to each other. Even if those heads told each other stories, the speaker and the listener would still be the same person. Dissatisfaction with isolation is why YISUN created the world.

Although not all Hindus follow the school of Advaita Vedanta, in this case, I think it will be helpful to compare and contrast with Advaita. As Ram Shanker Misra writes in “The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo,” “Brahman [ is] perfect, absolute, infinite, need[s] nothing, [and] desir[es] nothing…” Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that [Brahman] wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible.”

But that’s exactly why YISUN created this world. He wants to gain something that he does not have: companionship.The universe is God’s escape from himself. There was no Genesis, but there was “the first and greatest division: division of self”: “God committed holy suicide.”

2. The Divine Suicide

White Chain’s story is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous claim that “God is dead,” but Nietzsche did not mean God was a real entity that had literally died. He meant that intellectually, it was impossible to continue believing in God, and that all intellectual achievements founded on belief in Him had to be abandoned. Nietzsche’s claim is a famous example of a philosophical school of thought called death of God theology, also called “theothanatology,” which means “the study of God’s death” in Greek.

“Death” can mean a lot of different things in this context. Sometimes it’s metaphorical, sometimes it’s literal, and usually, it’s a very confusing mixture of both.

Nietzsche proposed the death of God as a social claim about humans. He’s talking about what we can believe, what we should do, and what we need to accept. God never really existed, but as religion loses followers and influence, even the idea of God has begun to “die” because it no longer has power over the real world.

“Death” can also mean God exists, but in a way radically different from what people usually mean when they say “God.” The Rabbi and philosopher Richard L. Rubenstein thought God exists as a “ground of being,” but not as a supernatural entity that made a covenant with Abraham. Rubenstein proposed the death of God as an intellectual change in what humans think the word “God” means.

And, finally, “death” can just literally mean “death.” The Protestant theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer wrote “we shall understand the death of God as an historical event: God has died in our time, in

our history, in our existence.” This isn’t a social claim about humans—it’s a metaphysical claim about God.

Death of God theologians usually mean more than one thing when they say God is dead. Nietzsche wasn’t just trying to convince Christians to become atheists; he was also trying to convince many atheists that they disbelieved in God in the wrong way. Altizer had radical thoughts about what human beings are able to believe.

White Chain means that God is dead in the literal sense. She is proposing a metaphysical belief that God, as a historical figure, chose to actually kill himself. White Chain is not rejecting or critiquing religion—she’s asserting that her religion, in which God has died, is fact.

You can see slight parallels to Nietzsche, Rubenstein, Altizer, Hegel, Zizek, and Blake in White Chain’s version of the fictional religion Atru. But there is no better comparison than the king of sad philosophers Philipp Mainlander.

Mainlander was an atheist—but not in the sense that people usually mean when they say “atheist.” Mainlander believed that there was a God at some time, but that time is now over. There isn’t a God anymore. Mainlander is pretty unique among death of God theologians because he explicitly describes God’s death as a suicide. Whittaker explains that Mainlander thought “[a]ll things have their origin in what may be called… the ‘will’ of the absolute being… to annihilate itself.” Essentially, the cause of the universe is God’s suicidal desires.

God was a “real unity,” but his death caused a “collective unity”—that’s the universe where we live now. God had been a total and undivided One, but now the universe is made of distinct parts. God cut himself apart into the pieces of the universe. God created the world by becoming it, and he became the world by dying.

Mainlander said “the knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all human knowledge.” He thought suicide was desirable, and ultimately, he put his money where his mouth was. The biggest difference between Mainlander and White Chain is that she doesn’t seem to think ordinary people such as herself should follow God’s suicidal example. Even beyond the views of a specific character, the story of Kill 6 Billion Demons reads as an affirmation of life’s beauty and value.

But the webcomic clearly argues that making a better world is a bloody project. So it should come as no surprise that making the world itself involved bloodshed. First and foremost, the blood of God. What’s so interesting to me is that both White Chain and Mainlander equate God’s suicide to the creation of the world. Our life comes from God’s death. Creation and destruction aren’t opposites—they’re different ways of looking at the same process. At the end of Book 2, Allison destroys Mottom’s evil tree and a lot of her palace—but this destruction is also part of the creation of a more just and free world.

So, what did God’s destruction create? What came after YISUN?

3. The Duality of Un and Yis

The destruction of the total unity creates duality. I know that’s a little confusing because YISUN had many faces, but remember that behind all of those faces was one God, and only one. Not anymore. “From division was birthed duality. White Un, Lord of empty and still places, master of all that is not. Black Yis, infinite mother of the rampant flame. Master of all that is''

I cannot avoid comparing the White and Black gods to the Yin and Yang—a spinning black and white symbol usually associated with the religion Taoism. Yin and Yang represent a cosmic duality. Yin is associated with femininity, darkness, passivity, and even numbers, among other things. Yang is associated with masculinity, light, activity, and odd numbers, among other things. Mainstream Taoist philosophy asserts that the universe can be understood through duality. So, why are these pairs important? And why do things get paired together in the first place?

As is written in the foundational Taoist text the Tao Te Ching, “Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.” What’s so interesting about the pairs is they “create,” “support,” “define,” and “depend on” each other. Black can’t exist without white, and white cannot exist without black.

As the Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, “...yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world…” Essentially, neither of these opposites are “dominant” or “truer.” Choosing one side won’t help you understand the universe because the universe is their partnership. Their equality gives “structure to the cosmos.” That structure is order, not chaos, but it is differentiated. There are two different things: Yin and Yang. They contradict each other, but at the same time, they make the universe. Yin and Yang are a productive paradox.

I’d like to return to the notion that “being and non-being create each other.” At this stage of creation in K6BD, UN and YIS could not exist without each other. Their very existence is the fact that they are not a unity. If there was only one of them, then there wouldn’t have been a division—and they are nothing more than the product of division. Just like how being and non-being create each other, the Master of All That Is and the Master of All That Is Not create each other. YISUN was characterized by his totality—he was the total sum of the omniverse, there was nothing else. After the division, Un and Yis experience otherness. The first otherness in the omniverse. It’s difficult for them to find balance—in fact, they immediately went to war for seven years. At the end of their seven-year war, Un and Yis made love for seven days.

I want to be very clear that this is not a depiction of actual Taoism. Yin and Yang are not gods with faces and minds. Notably, the Tao Te Ching asserts that yin and yang are “older than God.” so make of that what you will. But I think Taoism is thematically relevant to this era. Two opposites have to come into balance with each other. The whole universe is a duality of interconnected forces.

K6BD repeatedly emphasizes the need for community. As Allison says at the end of King of Swords, “I couldn’t have done this without any of you… We make mistakes. We learn from each other. We all still have so much to learn. Once I saw that as a weakness, now I’m certain it’s not. Someone who lives still thinking like that… struggling to do everything themselves… I can’t help but think how alone they must be.”

YISUN had to do everything all by himself, and we saw that Allison was right—isolation was a struggle, even for God. But the struggle is over, and in its place is duality. Partnership. The first community.

These are the first four parts of a fourteen-part critical essay. You can read the rest here.

Bibliography is on the free Patreon post.

#patreon #nate's writing #original post

[aerodaltonimperial]

Insights I've gotten from my spreadsheets with fic stats I've been keeping since December 2022, but I can tell you, that at least in regards to this fandom:

The worst stats I have are on smut fics - bar none, they have the highest hits, but the kudos rate falls between 5-10% of the current average, and the comment rates will decimate you. People straight up will not comment on them. If you want little interaction and tons of hits, that's what you should post lol or maybe you just need to be better at writing smut than I am HAHA

F/F pieces carry some of the lowest hits (unsurprising...) BUT come with some of the HIGHEST kudos/comment percentages. F/F readers in this fandom are very interactive, though low in number! (YAY LADIES)

From Sept of '23 to Feb of '24, the interaction levels across the board crashed, dropping at least 2-5%. This means that hits remained where they were, but all kudos and comment percentages dropped. I know other authors saw and felt this, so it was definitely widespread; I felt pretty validated when the stats ended up looking the way they did.

I had my fics archive-locked for about 2.5 months. This did not impact percentages. It DID heavily impact numbers overall. Since the percentages stayed the same, I can tell you that guests DO leave kudos in the same ratios that logged in users do. To me, it's worth leaving things open so those readers can still be part of things.

Right now, numbers are back up for me following the big six month low, which is especially surprising given that I have lost 80% of the people who used to read my fic lol

Things to note are: I only track one-shots, because chapters mess with hit and comment numbers, so my stats are one-shot only in terms of comparison. This is good for numbers, because long fics are where my words go to die and not get read LOL.

Also, old fics SHOULD, by virtue of the percentages, have lower stats across the board because people re-read over time and can only leave kudos once. Despite this, my worst stats remain in the Sept-Feb time frame. THAT IS HOW NOTICEABLE THE DROP WAS. I see authors like me talking about this so much, but it was so bad it actually NEGATED the time-induced stat drop that should have happened haha.

Some of the best stats I have are my "one-off" pairings: pairings that I wrote one fic of, that aren't big. Those have the highest percentages (not hit numbers! Just interaction ratios). Good news for rarepair writers maybe?

And I cannot overstate how awful the smut ratios are. Just devastating. It's the thing I am the MOST insecure about (I assume many of us are who write it!) and every time I post it, I remember why I don't write more of it LOL. Like OUCH. People will not put their names to it. I did some sleuthing and apparently this is across the board with fandoms. Readers want smut but don't comment on it, which feels counterproductive to getting more, but haha.

Also, logged in users who leave kudos all the time? I see you!! I recognize your usernames! Even if you don't leave a comment, I know you are there and reading when I see your username pop up!! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I SO VERY MUCH APPRECIATE YOU. 💚 You are by and large my biggest readership. It used to be friends, but it's almost entirely AO3-names-only for me now. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE, I LOVE YOU WITH MOUTH.

#just for fun and profit #have some stats!

[not-poignant]

For the behind the scenes asks 20, 21 & 26 about A Stain That Won't Dissolve please!! <slightly obsessed w it rn

Ahhh - so I have 21 in the queue, it's coming! The TL;DR for that one is 'I didn't expect so many people to apologise for the way the town behaves towards Alex, and it's like watching abuse apologism and self-defense of inaction around familial abuse in real time, which is a weird phenomenon that happens sometimes when you write trauma narratives.'

20. What is something you wish more people noticed about this fic?

Hmm.

I don't know if it's something I wish for, so much as something that I think people don't notice as much and I think it would be interesting if they did.

Things like... it's a shame more people don't realise that the reason Alex isn't a 'good communicator' is because no one in that town is except for maybe Dr Harvey. Even Haley, who is getting better, is a people pleaser who undercut herself and her skills all her life. People can't learn what isn't around them to learn. So when I get comments like 'I wish Alex would just open up to these people in the town' I can't help but always think: 'Why would he based on how the town has treated him for a solid 25 years.'

For me, connecting these dots naturally flows together, but I've had 10 years of practice writing trauma recovery, and 43 years of practice experiencing many different kinds of abuse and many different flavours of trauma recovery and I think, actually, I now have a weird skillset in this area that other folks don't have, or don't even know exist. So it's not something I 'wish' they noticed because firstly it would likely mean more readers who are victims, but secondly, I also appreciate having this be something more subtle, and it's not like I'm upset or angry when people say that Alex is the poor communicator because like, he is. He's a symptom of the entire town.

So it's like, it's normal for people to notice what's right in front of them (Alex not communicating well and then thinking his problems would be solved if he just talked about stuff, because there's this presumption that everyone wants to listen if he'd just...talk), that's actually the fun part of writing? I love the comments people leave so much, and I learn a ton, and I love the insights folks share. I'm sure people are noticing a lot of stuff like this and just not saying so. Especially folks who have lived these situations and just can't be fucked talking about it in comments because life's hard. (And it's also possible to notice that and still be mad or frustrated that Alex doesn't communicate more).

I don't think there's really anything else though. I think that's partly because I'm not... uhhh, sitting there going 'PLEASE NOTICE THIS' because the gift of writing serials for the most part is pivoting when people aren't noticing something subtle, and thinking 'this might be me not meeting the reader where they are, I can step it up in the next chapter.' So, I feel like I flow towards pushing the things I want people to notice or gravitate towards, and as a result, they almost always do.

And with the stuff they don't, there's usually extremely understandable life-experienced-based reasons for that!

...This response is really long x.x

26. Wild Card! I'll tell you a fun fact about this fic!

I have actually always imagined Alex and Sebastian making out together. I imagined it even before I wrote The Wind that Cuts the Night, but Alex/Sebastian fics existed, I didn't like them (no shade to those authors, but I clearly wanted a very specific crunchy kind of angsty toppy Sebastian fic and very understandably no one was writing my fantasies they were writing their own lmao), and I thought Elliott/Alex would be faster to write. (It was).

That's actually one of the reasons I make it clear that Sebastian is gay and topping the farmer in The Wind that Cuts the Night! And also why I felt it was important for Alex to know that. Even back then, I couldn't resist just a little tiny glimmer of some kind of chemistry, even if it was just friendship chemistry.

I find Sebastian really annoying as a spouse. He's one of my favourite NPCs to romance, and my least favourite to marry of the ones I marry. The storyline of Martingale divorcing him is based off me daydreaming about doing that (I can't because it's mean) in one of my farms. I found him cold and detached compared to many other NPC spouses, and too work-focused. So the premise of an older Sebastian recovering from being divorced for these exact flaws was extremely appealing and vindicating to me. Most people don't feel the same way about in-game Sebastian as I do, but I'm like 'you have so much potential and then oh no.' It turned out Martingale felt that way too, and eventually did something about it.

And that gave me a really flawed Sebastian to work with and that's been awesome.

I did always imagine him as being a dominant/top/sadist though. It's actually really hard for me to imagine him as anything else.

I don't think this fact is fun but it is a fact! Sebastian is a character I love but he's also literally 'I can improve him' and this fic is me doing that lol

~

From this meme!

#asks and answers #memey goodness #thespectaclesofthor #a stain that won't dissolve #i like a really flawed sebastian who thinks he's not as flawed as he is #and i like a really flawed alex who thinks he's fundamentally flawed and broken when he's not #and apparently smashing those two together is like sdaklfjsad #just fun right now lmao #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

[saltineofswing]

Hello! I'm the person that made the rant post about my dislike on the lack of natural dichotomy of the Pyramids and Traveler since the introduction of the Veil that turned into a whole thing. You mentioned a lack of pulp in your reblog and it's stuck with me since then. I wasn't familiar with the term and did some research on it, but I still don't think I get what it is. I tried looking it up but a lot of articles and videos I could find explain the history of pulp and its influences in modern day sci-fi but not necessarily what it is, especially in a way that would give me context to better understand your reblog. If it's not too much trouble, can you explain a little more what the "pulp" is that destiny is lacking?

I’d be happy to try and give you a little more insight into what I feel are important tenets of pulp as a genre/concept! I decided this might be a good opportunity to talk a little about it generally because I am really feeling its absence generally in the past couple years, so I included some historical backing which you’re probably already familiar with – hope that’s OK.

I did a little digging personally, for some good places to familiarize oneself with the basics of pulp as a concept and/or genre. It was nice to re-affirm some info that I’ve felt secure in holding as true without a ton of evidentiary support, and I also learned some cool new stuff as well! I think a good place to start would be to link to the TV Tropes page about pulp magazines, which does a pretty good job of explaining the origins and foundational aspects of the concept in a way that is easy to digest. It also has a lot of examples available to peruse. I also found this cool article on the golden age of pulps, which is an interesting read.

This got long, so below the cut!

To reiterate, the original ‘pulp’ terminology and vibe comes from early/mid-20th century magazines, which were cheap and easy ways to access genre fiction and action/adventure stories before comics, paperback novels, and TV/movies were really on the scene. Pulp magazines spanned a very wide array of genres, but because of a lack of appreciation for the medium, a majority of pulp magazines and aspects of what I would consider to be pulp as a genre have been allowed to fall into obscurity. There are places where I feel it is particularly obvious, especially the superhero genre (don’t get me started we’ll be here all week) but also in fantasy and science fiction – a term which was, in fact, coined by Hugo Gernsback, an editor for pulp magazine Amazing Stories.

They were cheap to make, cheap to buy, and easy to serialize; they could be really schlocky, crass, and unpolished. They could also be fucking incredible! The Shadow is a good example of an early pulp property with screaming highs and frankly peat-bog lows. Lovecraft published a lot of what is considered to be his ‘best work’ in Weird Tales! Conan the Barbarian, too! They kind of came out of the gate with a somewhat negative connotation associated with ‘low-brow’ forms of literature like dime novels, but where other magazines of the time tended to incorporate non-fiction articles and photography, pulp mags tended to be fiction stories only – short stories, or longer stories split into serialized chapters. Early on, not many of them had art, though with the advent of comic books that changed (you could argue that books like Creepy and Eerie are direct offspring of early pulp mags). Similar to what Weekly Shonen Jump does with manga.

If you think of a genre as a toolbox, pulp is a box full of tools that function fine alone, but excel at assisting the function of other toolboxes. I would almost liken ‘pulp’ to the concept of ‘camp’, which are also two concepts that can and do overlap with a high degree of synergy. Pulp has its own foundational attributes that are distinct from camp – for example, camp is gay relies a lot more on its self-awareness, at being able to wink at the viewer or participant, and telling you ‘yeah, we know it, but isn’t it fun?’ Pulp, on the other hand, is the (no pun intended) straight man counterpart to this aesthetic sensibility; pulp is at its best when it is being completely earnest. The quippy lines and dramatic proclamations are meant to be taken on their face. Nowadays it’s the kind of stuff that memes are made of – ‘That Wizard Came From The Moon’, ‘I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain’, ‘Whether we wanted it or not, we’ve stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars’. Saying shit that has no explanation with your whole chest. Trying to be cool on purpose, the ultimate cringe move.

Nowadays I think that this kind of thing has mostly died out of modern media, but the counter-motion is still prevalent in mainstream superhero movies. A good example is the ‘Would you have preferred ~YeLlOw SpAnDeX~’ line from the OG X-Men movie. Hey dickhead! The yellow spandex is cool if you, the guy making the movie, believes its cool! Crucially, while a lot of modern superhero stuff is quippy and irreverent, it often uses these tropes in a self-aware or cynical manner – afraid of being earnest, committing the aforementioned cardinal sin of trying to look cool on purpose.

(God damn it, I’m talking about superheroes again. Sorry. Before I get back on task this is why I loved the recent Moon Knight run so much; Jed MacKay is NOT afraid to have the characters say some absolutely batshit thing but it comes off as so, so cool. And yes, a little cheesy.)

And then, where modern sci-fi typically has an ultra-detailed explanation on-hand, I think a lot of early pulp stuff just… didn’t. Ask a sci-fi property for an explanation on, oh I don’t know, ‘where did these super-humanoid sapient machine warriors come from’ and it will likely have a molecule-deep explanation of how those unnamed machine people were created. Ask a fantasy property for an explanation on the same and it might say, ‘no’. It’s not that a pulp-leaning property won’t give you the answer to that question… it just might not have it. The ‘why is it/how is it’ is not as important as the ‘what is it’ and ‘how is it relevant’; a writer had a limited amount of page real estate, as multiple features were typically crammed into a single magazine. Even if a feature was serialized, much like television episodes (before the binge trend), one had to keep information digestible, and not too reliant on a prior or later edition that a reader might never see.

Explanations tended to be in service of an emotional beat, or to a theme, versus as a grounding agent to immerse a reader in the world. For the record I don’t necessarily think of either method as being better or worse, and heavy worldbuilding can still utilize pulp as a veneer or filter to engage audience expectations in different ways. Pulp stuff relies a lot on suspension of disbelief without utilizing a rigid lore-based framework to – though, you know, your story/setting still has to have its own internal logical consistency.

(I feel that it is important to note, as a partial consequence of the time period in which these magazines were being made, and when pulp fiction was most heavily consumed, xenophobia and racism are also heavily present in pulp works. I think everybody knows at this point about how much Lovecraft sucked but it’s a valuable example of how a lot of ‘fear of the unknown’ in that time was transliterated into ‘fear of the different’, in general but especially relating to genre fiction. If you decide to explore material in this genre, in this time period, be forewarned! Some of it was pretty glaring!)

So, let me tie some of this stuff to my previous statements about Destiny. I think that Destiny is an excellent example of how pulp tropes, aesthetic, and genre conventions can be used to enhance and streamline a setting… and how stripping too much pulp away can have a detrimental impact on the depth of a narrative.

The original narrative and worldbuilding of Destiny drew very heavily on pulp aesthetics to create a foundation, both in its appearance and its lore. The ‘Golden Age of Science Fiction’ was a period of time in the mid-20th century that sort of transitioned sci-fi out of pulp magazines and into its own thing, but the foundational structure of science fiction at this time was still heavily pulp-influenced. I think this is very well-represented by the portrayal of Venus as a ‘garden’ (jungle) world, very lush and with sulfurous and sometimes acidic rains. Before advancements in astronomical technology went and fucked everything up for us writers, Venus’s opaque cloud-covered atmosphere was impenetrable enough that there could be anything under there – and a popular portrayal of Venus was a muggy, humid, rain-heavy world that sometimes also included lush jungles. In Bradbury’s short story The Long Rain (WHICH ran in Planet Stories, a pulp mag, by the way!) this portrayal is a central obstacle to the narrative; it’s also used in Heinlein’s novel Space Cadet.

The color scheme that Destiny uses for Venus also matches a common color scheme for Venus in this era – see this cover for Fantastic Adventures. Visually, I think that this comparison between the postcard that went out with the D1 limited/collector’s edition and this Planet Stories cover for The Golden Amazons of Venus demonstrates the influence, at least regarding terrain and biome.

In fact, I think that you can see from this Eververse postcard – which could have been peeled off of any era-appropriate paperback novel – that the influence goes bone-deep. Destiny even refers to humanity’s halcyon age as ‘The Golden Age’.

(Below: Is this image from Destiny dev, or a science fiction paperback from the 60s? Who knows! I know. It’s Destiny.)

In the modern era of Destiny storytelling, though the visual elements of the universe remain largely rigid relative to this early framework, the pulp underpinning of the narrative has been largely left behind. The original game’s story, and the stories of subsequent DLCs, felt very pulp-inspired – this ranged from ‘sort of effective’, like in House of Wolves, to ‘game-savingly effective’, like in The Taken King. Pulp lends itself to straightforward conceptual executions, and brisk narratives, because of its roots as short-form literature. The narrative of D1 was simple and to the point; Light good, Dark bad, humanity is in the shit, think you can kill a god? The surrounding world scaffold was rich but not deep. As I like to say, sometimes a river can be wide but shallow. This is not a commentary on its quality – something can be good but not complex, and IMO, sophistication is not necessarily synonymous with complexity. Destiny managed to pull off a trick that many high-quality pulp stories employ: it made the river look deeper than it was. This is the whole reason that Lovecraft’s oeuvre has the staying power it has: other writers got to play in the space because it felt very deep, even though the stories themselves were fairly straightforward.

I also don’t mean to say or accidentally imply that ‘morally grey storytelling cannot exist within pulp stories’, because that would probably get me torn apart; that’s just not the kind of straightforward foundation that the original Destiny was built on. ‘It is what you see, but what you see could be anything’, you know? The problem that began to muddy the waters in the Destiny narrative is that they started to say, ‘You know, actually, it ISN’T what you see’.

Tentpole narrative additions to the Destiny 2 game employ varying levels of pulp. As I said in the other post, the Hive have a potent pulp influence built into their foundational coding, and so subsequent portrayals of the Hive as a main antagonist have higher degrees of pulp genre naturally present in the narrative – it’s hard to separate the two of them. Shadowkeep and The Dark Below draw strongly on the ‘sword and sorcery’ convention, a subgenre of fantasy that is a heavy (perhaps 1:1) blend of fantasy and pulp; think Conan, or Elric of Melniboné (who, hey! Showed up in a novella feature, in an issue of Science Fantasy magazine, named… THE DREAMING CITY). The Witch Queen leaned away from pure sword and sorcery and more towards noir/detective pulp – though, I think, TWQ is a good example of the pulp slippage in its narrative, resulting in some more bland moments and things that feel ham-fisted in a bad way. Part of it, I think, is the need to make these expansions ‘long’ and complicated without making the player feel like they’re slogging; in a more pulp-forward TWQ narrative, the reveal that Savathûn is actually NOT evil-aligned and is a potential ally would come much earlier in the story, and the central mystery would be MORE about ‘what the fuck is she trying to do/prevent’, leading to the Witness reveal as the centerpiece of the finale and the ‘solution’ to the central mystery.

The decision to start retroactively appending more complex connections between disparate pieces of content naturally leads to a reduction of pulp prominence, in my opinion. If you imagine Destiny as a vessel that is mainly full of three component liquids – Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Pulp – you can say that adding more of one genre pushes out another to make room. You can always pour more of one genre in to re-balance, but in response to increasing levels of sci-fi the narrative seems reticent to reintroduce pulp back into the mix, instead favoring fantasy. But another problem is that once you take it out, Pulp is really hard to put back; once you solidify and unionize world-lore, every subsequent retcon risks diluting and destabilizing that world-lore until a) nobody cares about it anymore and b) it stops being mutable at all, and becomes sludge.

The lore behind the existence of the Exo was originally very pulp, with no real explanations given for exactly what they were and where they came from, and how they attained sapience. Early hints that Cayde and a few other Exo having once been human didn’t preclude other Exo from having other origins – for example, implications that Exo war-frames eventually achieved sapience as a result of the ‘Deep Stone Crypt’, and that they were originally simple AI-equipped warriors designed and overseen by Rasputin to minimize human casualties. This early mystique around the origins of the Exo is classically pulp: we don’t need to know how the hyper-advanced robots were made, we just need to know what they are, why they are relevant to the story. It allows You, The Player, to engage with it at whatever level you want. In a game where You, The Player, are also being asked to step into the role of You, The Protagonist, this is beneficial to engagement for people (like me!) who like to think too much about the backstory of the your-name-here protagonist on-screen. It is also beneficial to not distracting the player with conflicting information, or accidentally contradicting previously-established lore.

Enter Big-Head Bray. The Beyond Light-era explanation of why Exo were created and how they were made is a retroactive nuclear strike on the Exo lore; it strips away a lot of flexibility and thematic richness from the concept of the Exo, shoehorns them into a single narrow use case, and directly conflicts with early-game Exo lore implying their connections to Rasputin (which they then had to go back and hastily shoehorn back in later) or existence as war machines for the Collapse. If D1 lore is wide but shallow, the D2 lore is narrow but deep. Just because something has a lot of ‘depth’, I.E. many layers to traverse before you reach foundational bedrock, it doesn’t make it good.

Same thing with the Fallen. Season of Plunder felt to me like an attempt to reintroduce pulp genre back into the setting, but it fell flat because of two reasons: it didn’t really want to be pulp, and it was more concerned with its tethers to the science-fantasy exterior world than it was with creating its own cohesive narrative. Why was Mithrax doing evil pirate shit when he was young? Because he comes from a race of fucking evil space pirates! It Does Not Need To Be More Complex Than That! But the exculpation of pulp from the D2 narrative means that if Mithrax doesn’t have a good enough reason, WRT the larger narrative, it would be a glaringly obvious plot hole. By Plunder, Destiny had already undertaken the task of filling out the Eliksni lore with sympathetic science-fantasy excuses for why they were trying to exterminate humankind – the more earnest, pulp-forward explanation would just be that desperate, hurt, suffering people will do desperate things, hurt people, and may perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

Oy. There’s a lot you COULD get into. How the Destiny macro-narrative seems to be decaying the rigidity of good and evil in its original lore vs. how the micro-narrative is obsessed with trying to recapture that good/evil dichotomy in order to give players a reason to like the main characters. How the determination to connect and explain everything has resulted in a general flattening of the background lore, and the subsequent trivialization of many things the game included in earlier iterations of the narrative/lore. How the narrative has basically nothing to do with the Vex because they wrote themselves into a corner by trying to explain them too much while simultaneously not altering the foundational lore of the race, meaning there were too many things they can no longer do without retconning again.

Overall, I guess I will just end by saying that many of the things that Destiny is CURRENTLY doing, feels like the game is straining to rip the part of it out which proudly asks its audience not to think too hard about sweeping, dramatic statements that built a lot of the things people love about the game’s setting and narrative… and in doing so, is just ripping itself to pieces.

#More lore! MORE LORE! #dinklebot sitcom #northbot sitcom #destiny 2 #Pulp genre #Genre discussion #Sorry this got so long! I’m not used to writing this kind of big essay #it may not be super coherent but whaddya gonna do

[trans-axolotl]

I'm a psych survivor & want to find community in general or join conversations on here but it seems like no one really cares what I have to say & a lot of the conversations on here about mad liberation etc. are so academic that I feel alienated & shut out by them, and afraid of being talked down to & made fun of, even though I was (barely) able to master's degree and thought I was fairly intelligent. it seems like the academics mainly want to talk amongst themselves. idk. it's like the more I try to connect the worse I feel. I guess you probably don't have an answer to this but I appreciate your blog & how accessible your writing is

💜💜💜anon i think you have SUCH an important point. for me, the most meaningful mad community that i've found has always been when I've been institutionalized and just talking with other mad people, where most of them don't have any experience with mad liberation politics or antipsychiatry or any of that vocabulary. But like--time and time again those are the people who just get it the most, and are some of the most insightful people I've met. And I know that if some of my psych survivor friends came on tumblr, I think they would be judged for not having the "right" language or not communicating clearly enough or whatever. Which makes me so fucking mad, especially considering how many of us are disabled in ways that impact our communication, processing, and language. and how to me, it feels like such an important value of mad liberation to celebrate different styles of communication and all the different ways we're going to show up and exist as mad people! I'm sorry that you haven't been able to find a lot of welcoming community on tumblr--I know how exhausting and isolating it feels to not be able to connect with the people that are Supposed to actually understand and support you.

and it's not that I hate academic stuff about madness--I'm currently at university studying disability studies and really appreciate disability scholars. I think it's super fucking important + there's a lot of really talented people doing cool work. But I think that especially in disability studies, there needs to be a LOT more of an effort put in to actually make research + writing accessible. If half our community can't access any of the writing about our community, that's fucked up, you know? I'm always getting into arguments at university lmao when I talk about how we should do more to translate academic work into plain language. especially since i think it's a form of injustice when we are kept away from resources and knowledge that would let us build a political understanding of our experiences. it just feels super important to me to think about accessibility and what that means in mad spaces and psych survivor spaces, and who feels welcome to participate in our spaces and who feels left out of them.

and i also don't really have answers or solutions for How to Make That Happen on Tumblr--if you or any followers have any suggestions i would def love to hear them. i know that a lot of people are going to come on tumblr to do a lot of different things and that some people see this mostly as an academic space for them, where some people just come on here to talk or create art or a million different things.

For me, I use tumblr as a space where I want to talk and connect with a lot of people about all kinds of topics and hear psych survivors opinions on a ton of stuff. a lot of my posts are pretty casual, but when i make longer educational and political posts i spend a lot of time thinking about the best ways to translate really academic concepts to a wider audience. when i sit down to write out a long post i try to incorporate as many accessibility features as possible like using bullet points, putting in summaries/ Tl;DR sections at ends of posts, adding in real life examples when I'm defining complicated technical concepts, adding content notes, and more. Before I post, I read through my posts and highlight every time I use a more academic or technical term. Then, I think through whether that vocab is necessary for people to understand the post, or if there's better language I could replace it with. A lot of times I do end up keeping in some technical terms in my posts because it is honestly the most direct way to explain some of the stuff I want to talk about, but it's been super valuable for me to go through and really think about it, even when some terms stay in my writing. that's just my process and what works for me and I really don't think that other people need to write the same way I do lmao, but if anyone ever wants to talk about writing in plain language & easy read PLEASE come into my inbox bc i love talking about this and want to chat about it with more people.

other things i'll say is that i've found that virtual/in person psych survivor/antipsych support groups are often times a lot more welcoming and accessible and are just like, people talking about things and hanging out together. I've heard really good things about Wildflower Alliance's support groups, and also recommend the Hearing Voices Network. Project LETS has been running an exceptional psychiatric survivor support group for almost a year that is more casual and is a really great community, I'm hoping that they're going to open up availability again in the spring so that might also be worth checking out in the next couple months. Campaign for Psych Abolition in the UK runs a mad art space that seems super fun. i wish there were a lot more existing groups cause it sucks how few things there are tbh.

anyway, know that you + anyone else are always welcome to chat in my inbox or on any of my posts and you will not face any judgement from me. i genuinely love talking to other psych survivors so much and want to hear what people have to say. the only people i get annoyed at on my posts are psych students and other mental health professionals who leave really bullshit stuff on there lmfao.

sending you all the solidarity, anon <3

#asks #psych survivor #surviving psych #psych abolition #mad liberation #accessibility #sorry for going on a tangent about plain language in the middle adsfjkhjkfsh i just like. am very passionate about plain language writing #and tumblr is one of the main places in my day to day life where i practice writing in plain language #i am not perfect at it but i really enjoy doing it and keep wanting to get better at it #also want to get better about writing in easy read. i'm not very good at that at all yet #ik that wasn't like directly related to your question tho so sorry!! i started getting excited about plain language #and then was like no okay i should just go post about plain language on a diff post that isn't ur ask askfdjhfjdkah #ANYWAY. sending all the love u way anon

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

hot take: nothing happened in india, nothing happened in the new york apple trip. paul didn’t reject john and john didn’t reject paul. there was no great conversation that led to a rejection. and john was not checked out of the band in 1968 even if he did bring in yoko to the studio. like even in get back, he does not seem checked out at all. a bit strung out and without sleep, sure. but like this man had energy, he was about playing with his boys. im not saying he completely liked being a beatle. there were things he was completely over with, as were all of them including paul. the mega pressure they were constantly put on, they were all tired of it, and it didn’t just come from one band member. mlh for example kept on emphasizing this the whole way through, im sure that was a burden for all of them - plus he would never shut up about it. even george though everyone likes to pretend he was done with the band too. there’s literal interviews of him in 1970 and 1971, heck even in 1973 talking about playing with the group. can we stop pretending paul was the only one who cared about the group and affected? i see this on twitter and tumblr, from old heads and newer fans and if you really look into it, read the interviews, watch the videos, it’s a completely different story altogether. now if you want to say they were tired of the format they’ve been operating under for the past 8+ years, yes completely I’ll give you that, but even paul was at that point too, it’s why he suggested to go back to the small intimate venues, get back to performing live. john was even discussing doing something similar in the early 1970s even though he called paul daft about the idea lol.

i guess i’d just like more nuanced takes on this site, and i feel like we had it on here in past, but recently it’s been more biased or geared towards the overly looking at everything through a shipping lens. but i just feel we lose some great insight when we do that. and people can post what they want, sure, but then when a post gets passed around like it’s gospel and makes it’s way to twitter or some other site like it’s facts, i just don’t see the point. like that one post about the mclennon hug at nme and paul shrugging john off. it made it’s way to twitter and i had a friend of mine ask me was paul always such an ass to john? what?

sorry for long post. you said hot takes and i just kind of went with it. appreciate your thouhhts!

Oh my goooooooood re: the NME hug thing. Also love that twitter is still copying tumblr though, we are the moment <3

I agree with most of your points. I do think India represented some shift to John, but I don't think that means anything specific happened with regard to Paul. Like, maybe! He definitely upended his life almost directly after returning from that trip and seemed disappointed it hadn't fixed his problems, and Paul could easily have had something to do with that (because Paul was important to John and a big part of his life!) but that doesn't necessarily mean a specific thing happened between John and Paul. I do get how that one convo in Get Back could be indicative of something. Generally I think the usual McLennon interpretation of that dialogue is plausible enough, but it's just by far not the only possible interpretation (and also people like CONSTANTLY forget Paul was always scheduled to leave early. maybe that upset John, but still).

I think the shipping lens is a worthy one to consider, but usually this stuff has tons of facets and I agree with you that it seems we're seeing less and less of those other facets and also more and more sharing of context-less factoids. It's hard because you don't want to barge in on every post and "spoil the party" (haha !) but it's also frustrating to see people sharing unconfirmed stuff as if it's a fact. And some people just don't take this stuff very seriously, I know, but, every time you check the notes, it's clear some people really do.

I think the number one thing I wish we had more of is interrogation of sources. Honestly, one of the least compelling pieces of "McLennon evidence" to me is people super peripherally involved with the Beatles or even biographers comparing John and Paul to a married couple. It's interesting and worthy of examination that John, Paul, and Yoko made this comparison; it's somewhat eyebrow-raising that Francie Schwartz, who got to watch them from up close for a short period but also clearly had an axe to grind + comes across kinda self-important, made this comparison at times; on the other hand, I literally Do Not Care if Bob Spitz or Ruth McCartney invoked this image lol. That's barely worth more to me than someone on tumblr posting a pic of John and Paul and saying Don't They Seem Gay Here?

ANYWAYS, is there any particular topic you think would be worth a more nuanced discussion, anon? :)

#ask #discourse #anon #meta #jp speculation

[theoreticallycatholic]

Introduction to my Bible study

First things first, this is the translation I'll be reading:

I sure hope it's a decent one because it cost me $62. 😅 Although occasionally, if I have the energy, I might compare and contrast to other translations I have like the RSV and NAB.

Honestly, I only chose this one because it was the only single-column copy of the entire Bible I could find. It's a lot easier for me to read this way as opposed to the standard two-column.

I didn't realize this until after I bought it, but the books are not in order. I don't know the order of the Epistles off the top of my head but I do know for sure that the books of Maccabees are typically the last books in the Old Testament (I…think. I am pretty out of practice.), and here they are not. The Old Testament is organized with all the historical books first, and then the poetry books, and then the prophets.

Part of me is wondering if that's, like...allowed...? Lol I've never seen that before. But on the other hand I was actually already planning on reading through the historical books and the poetry/prophet books at the same time and this will make it much easier to keep track of that.

Another thing: I will have a ton of super in-depth theological insight on roughly the first half of Genesis. Though I attended public schools from kindergarten through 11th grade, my senior year of high school was completed at a Catholic school, where I took a Sacred Scripture class with the best theology teacher I could have possibly asked for. He spoke Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and had more insight on scripture than anyone I've ever met.

Unfortunately, the class was only one semester and we ended up spending a ton of time on the first half of Genesis and then rushing through the rest of the Bible, so I have a lot of weird gaps in my knowledge. So, prepare for me to sound like a professional scholar for a bit and then suddenly switch to sounding like an idiot who knows nothing...

Although, I will be looking for additional resources to help me gain a more thorough understanding. Any and all suggestions are very much appreciated!

I do plan on reading the entire Old Testament before starting on the New Testament. I have a couple reasons for this—one of them is simply that I'm already very familiar with the New Testament. I have read the entire New Testament before by itself; now I want to gain all the context of the Old Testament before I read the Gospels and Epistles again.

I will aim for 4-8 chapters every day, but I'm going to be honest with myself and say it's unrealistic to expect that level of consistency from me. I will try my best, but I won't beat myself up about it if I miss a day or two.

I'm very excited to start on this journey with all of you!

#bible #bible study #christian #catholic #christianity #catholicism #sacred scriptures #theology #faith

[fernandezology]

fragments of us - part one

pairing : christian pulisic x reader

summary: “you think okay i get it,i’m prepared for the worst, but you hold out that small hope, see, and that’s what fucks you up. that’s what kills you.”

warnings: mentions of infertility

author: i already have ideas on how to continue this series so if you liked this one and want more parts let me know! any feedback is appreciated and thank u for reading, i hope u will like it <3

We had a lot of dreams in place. Reflecting on it now, we took for granted the control we had. Unfortunately,we didn’t even think that some things were out of our control.

Two years ago, when we sat on your porch discussing our future,we thought we had all the time and possibilities in the world. In the beginning,you were hesitant to mention one specific dream of yours.

Then one night,you were stroking my hair and I surrendered to your soft touch,my eyes were getting heavier by your every touch. My eyes were closed,but I was still awake because I wanted to savour every moment.

Your soothing voice made it really hard to not drift off. I immersed myself into every story you told me.Particularly the ones that included me,that included us,even though I already knew where was story going. At least from my perspective.Our perspectives weren’t different. At the time, we rarely fought.

Your stories gave me insight into the world through your eyes.Insight into how you’ve seen me and your actions aligned with your words and, how could I ever ask for anything more?

That night when you thought I was asleep,you confessed something you were afraid of when I was awake.You always wanted to have “Christian Jr”. It took everything in me to not laugh at your confession. I still remember how flastered you were when I told you I wasn’t asleep. At first,you thought I pretended I didn’t hear you because that’s not a dream we shared.

A feeling of relief washed over you when I showed you my list of names I loved because who doesn’t have one?

Today is the day we didn’t see coming. But yet, I think we both have seen it coming. For all the foresight I had and the fears we quietly admitted to,the doctor’s words hit me like a ton of bricks.

They made our worst fear official. Lists of baby names won’t ever be used. There is never going to be mini you or mini me. I hope and I pray that someday, our dreams will be realised. That we will find our promised land and taste the sweetness of milk and honey. Until that day,can we promise to love each other as we have been loved?

#christian pulisic #fragments of us series #christian pulisic x reader #christian pulisic imagines #football imagines #chelsea fc #borussia bvb #usmnt world cup #world cup #premier league #imagines #fic update #fic rec #infertility #infertilityquotes

[historical-fashion-polls]

That makes sense that posts breaking containment affects the results, especially since you're asking "which would you rather wear" and not just "which do you think is prettier/better" -- general audiences are probably more hesitant to wear the "weirder" (aka more fun💖) styles.

Related, I like historical styles but it's still very true that the outfit I'd rather wear isn't always the one I actually like best as an object. It's interesting bc it makes my hangups very apparent lol -- like with a lot of the 1920s dresses my first thought is 🚫DROPPED WAIST UNFLATTERING ON ME🚫 which doesn't happen when I'm just looking at historical dresses without thinking about wearing them.

hello my dear!

thank you for this lovely message! 💕💕

to be totally honest, I just started asking the "which outfit would you rather wear?" question on my polls back when I had like five followers and then just never changed it lmao 😅 I truly did not expect this blog to get as big as it has so I just didn't really put a ton of thought into how I framed the question 😅

I'm super happy for people to interpret it however they want though, and I'm even open to changing the question if folks are interested in that! ☺️☺️

I really appreciate this insight tho, and I do love when people provide little explanations in the tags of why they chose what they did bc it's just so fun to see everyone's little quirks and preferences 🥰🥰

thank you again for the message and I hope you have a fantastic day!! 💖💖

#the curator speaks #curatorial correspondences #curatorial updates

[bcolfanfic]

you might find interesting for young vets au is theres a limited series called Inside Combat Rescue that aired back in 2013. It followed medical evacuation helicopters in Afghanistan. I remember watching it back in the day and its a really good insight into what they were dealing with on the daily.

thank you!!! if anyone else has suggestions for stuff like this i'd super appreciate anything <3 (though video media or podcasts is my pref over books, am in law school and dont have a ton of time to read for fun)

#young vets au

[flightfoot]

Do you have any advice for commenting on fics? I really admire how active you are in the ML fandom, and I'd like to follow in your footsteps with that regard, but where do I start? How do you find fics to read/comment on, especially considering there's so many? Do you focus on new/underrated authors? How do you make time to read/comment? I feel like sometimes I don't have the energy to write out my thoughts the way I'd like to, so any advice would be helpful <333

Awww thanks! I know a lot of authors appreciate getting comments, so this would be great!

I'll start with your more specific questions:

How do you find fics to read/comment on, especially considering there's so many?: I go through and check ML's AO3 page several times a day to see if any new fics or updates have been posted that I'm interested in. I've been doing this since 2019, so you'll see lots of comments from me going way back.

Do you focus on new/underrated authors?: Not particularly. I won't shy away from them, but I don't have a preference for them either. I just read and review SO MANY ML fics from so many different authors, that I end up reviewing a lot of fics from lesser-known authors as well.

How do you make time to read/comment?: Honestly I get a lot of it done even while I'm at work, I can usually keep up with most of the fic updates/new fics I want to read that come out during those 8 hours or so (unless someone drops like, a 50k chapter. Yes, that HAS happened), just by reading and reviewing during my breaks and lunch. I also check AO3 quite a bit while I'm at home and have free time, or even just when I'm using the bathroom.

As for advice for how to comment, it varies. Generally I'll start off with a generic "Awww this is adorable!" or "This is great!" or something of that sort, and if it's a really short fic (like under 1000 words) I might not say much more than that, especially if the fic itself is kinda generic. I don't always have a ton of stuff to say about every fic.

Then, I'll try to single out at least one part that I especially liked, like how much attention the author paid to Alya's thoughts, feelings, and problems, or how clever a Lucky Charm plan was, or how well the writer demonstrated Gabriel's manipulativeness during some particular section, something like that. I've even copied down a line or two from the fic itself and given commentary on it in particular. It's often not that insightful though, like I might just say "I'm glad Adrien got a hug, he really needs it!" or something like that.

Asking questions can also be a useful way to come up with something to write for a review, like if there's something you're wondering about concerning the fic. Like whether Adrien's a sentimonster in this fic because if he is, that's gonna recontextualize him submitting to Gabriel's orders.

There's also "live-commenting", which takes awhile and is more work than regular commenting, but I'll sometimes do when I really want to show authors how much I appreciate their writing, particularly when they're regularly dropping really long chapters (like, over 5000 words typically). I only do this when I'm on desktop and have a lot of bandwidth. I'll pull up two tabs with the chapter in both of them, and I'll read from the first tab and type up my commentary for the chapter on the second tab. This is helpful for getting out all your thought for the fic without forgetting anything. I'd only advise doing this on fics that you're pretty certain are going to be... if not "good", at least ones that you can trust the author isn't gonna do anything to piss you off. When I first started doing this back in 2019, I tried doing it on just any random fic I ran across at first, and quickly figured out that was a bad idea when one of the fics turned out to be a saltfic and I needed to abandon the review, and all the effort I put into it, because my commentary at that point would just be me getting mad at the author's choices.

Does anyone else have particular tips or tricks? I've been reading and reviewing fics basically since I started reading them fifteen years ago, so while I'm experienced in reviewing them, I'm not all that familiar on the hang-ups new prospective reviewers might have, as I just... never really had them. I've never exactly been shy.

#ask #ao3 #archive of our own #reviewing tips

[world-of-wales]

I’m planning a visit to Switzerland this year, but the only downside for a royalist like me is that there is no monarchy😄 As a student I will have to keep a tight budget, and I live half the world away from Europe so travel costs will be high getting there, which means I don’t think trips to Belgium or the Netherlands will be feasible (or the UK, but that requires a separate visa anyway so it’s out for me). So then I thought about Liechtenstein!! Very close to Zürich, on the Swiss transport and currency system so all good, but the only problem is that I can’t find out much about the royal family there itself. The castle in the capital is their private family home, so not open to the public (though you can walk up to see near the outside), and I couldn’t find any details on public appearances, and apparently they’re quite private, so not much is known about them in general. Do you (or anyone on here) know more about their public roles? Do they have engagements, or annual functions (something in the vein of Trooping) that I can make a point of seeing? I know the country is tiny, but surely they have some sort of public-facing role as the royal family? Any sort of insight/advice is appreciated!!

Ooh that sounds exciting. I'm not very sure about Liechtenstein like all the specifics you can do but I don't think there would be a ton to do if you are planning to a longer trip however since you are thinking about Switzerland, there are planned day trips to Vaduz and the nearby areas from Zurich, more information should be available on them online. Also while you can't visit the castle but you can have trips around the castle and of Vaduz. Ooooh and every year the Royal Family has a garden party for the public at Vaduz Castle, on their National Day. That's attended by all the royals. You can look for dates to visit coinciding with that if you want to attend it. It's on August 15. Unfortunately that's where my knowledge of Royal events at Liechtenstein ends however if someone else knows better, maybe they can elaborate.

#ash's asks #info #Liechtenstein

[gendrie]

I feel extremely like the odd one out as an Arya fan who kind of likes the idea of world traveler Arya? LET ME EXPLAIN pls- there’s an enormous world out there to see and she will be like 12 by the end? Winterfell/the north will always be her home obviously, but why couldn’t she explore for a few years and then return home, enriched by her new adventures instead of traumatized? It almost feels tragic to me to think that she’d never leave home again for the rest of her (hopefully long) life.

I also feel like there are more inventive ways of her achieving power and influence without becoming a Lady specifically (even though that’s of course a possibility, she has tons of queenship foreshadowing etc). I just kind of feel like she’s going to rise above convention and society.

Does that make any sense? Anyway, you’re my favorite Arya blog, I always appreciate your insights. ❤️

oh, thanks! thats really kind of you to say…………………..esp since we disagree on this lmao. i understand what you’re saying in a generic sense, but when you apply it to arya, specifically, i don't think it works. for me its simple: what does arya value more: exploration or community? and its an easy answer tbh. arya shows very little interest in traveling unless she's literally coping with a POW situation.

arya is a socially orientated character. this is her most consistent trait. arya is the only stark child who recalls ned’s “the pack survives” and “know your men” lessons too. why would she take everything she learned from him on the road rather than helping rebuild the north? arya is a stark. she has a responsibility. arya has already interacted with northern lords and the northern army and the northern people and other northern based institutions (ie: the NW) too. her connection to the people of the north, high and low, is significant and thats despite the fact she hasn’t stepped foot in the north since her first chapter.

thats not even getting into all the skills she has acquired elsewhere. i cannot believe arya spent 2.5 books learning to control every muscle in her face and hear if people are lying just so she could become a world traveler. i think its a strawman to frame it like she’d be chained to winterfell too. yeah, that would be her base, but whos to say she wouldnt travel to oldtown or starfall someday? she would have to network in the north too. unity is one of the biggest themes in asoiaf and arya’s arc in particular. arya walking away to be a “lone wolf” rejects that entirely.

arya ruling in her own right instead of as an extension of a man is rising above convention imo. “lady” is just a title. arya staying and challenging the misogynistic ideals attached to it is far more compelling (to me) than leaving and everything staying the same. arya is one of the characters poised to change the world. her leaving changes nothing. all it says is that there is no place in her society for girls who are different. THATS tragic.

#ask #asoiaf nonsense #i genuinely hope this isnt harsh! #im not trying to be an asshole lol #but i clearly disagree and im sure you already knew that

[cerastes]

Hey not trying to push project moon on you or anything. Not having any attachment or opinion of it is perfectly fine as you said. But the last ask you said bothered me because it's imo a bad faith reading of a character that ignores nuance. So here's a list of things I feel are good about project moon game that you or other people might like maybe.

-great integration of story and gameplay mechanics: almost every gameplay mechanic has a place in the story and is meaningful.

- Good character moments

- People do awful things out of good will or trying to find themselves

- self realization is one of the most important themes in the games.

-Fucked up women. lots of them. I love to see it. I gather you do too.

-great music (this one might be subjective but I haven't heard anyone say otherwise)

- every game is a different genre so far. Though ruina and limbus share some mechanics.

-a ton of literary references if you're into that.

I'm not very good at reading comprehension or at explaining things and I don't understand all the nuances. But imo reducing it to "white woman makes everything worse for everyone" is unfair.

Anyway sorry if this was uncalled for. If so feel free to let me know somehow, I'd appreciate that. And I don't mean to use your askbox as a soapbox to push the games so feel free not to answer this. Anyway have a good day.

Oh I doubt the anon was trying to read the white woman in bad faith as much as they simply decided to say something laconic like that for comedic effect.

Nonetheless, thanks for the insight!

- People do awful things out of good will or trying to find themselves

- self realization is one of the most important themes in the games.

These two points in particular sound interesting to me.

#rinrinette