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johannestevans · 2 months

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Addressing Common Arguments Against “Consuming Harmful Content”

Challenging purity culture in online spaces and their fears of “problematic media”.

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Photo by Ethan Will via Pexels.

Constant and continuous arguments endure on social media about the dreaded and frightening spectre of problematic media — from television shows that supposedly “glorify” unhealthy relationships or “sexualise” and “excuse” abusive relationships; to erotica, adult books, and 18+ fanfiction that supposedly teach teenagers bad life lessons and impact their ethics; to anime and manga that surely must be the cause of child abuse the world over.

I wrote an in-depth essay about the intellectual flaws in these reactionary assumptions, delving into their roots in lacking media literacy and rising anti-sex attitudes here:

The above essay discusses at length many of the fears and anxieties that lead to this reactionary thinking, but does not challenge or explore the echo chambers that can arise in online spaces, particularly in aggressive environments such as Twitter/X, and for young or isolated individuals who are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure and fears of ostracisation if they admit to the “wrong” opinions.

Many of these arguments are used by “anti-shippers” within fandom and online spaces, the term commonly shortened as “antis” — if you’re unfamiliar with the term, these are people who define themselves as opposing one or more specific ships, fandoms, tropes, or kinks, often due to what they perceive to be their “problematic” or inherently “harmful” elements when engaged with or portrayed in various forms of media and art. Because of the virulent and highly aggressive nature of these online communities, these people — many of them young or isolated, often marginalised and disenfranchised from in-person, supportive environments — can become radicalised, and can experience great fear and anxiety at the premise of others holding different opinions or perspectives from the ones these online communities have impressed upon them should be held immutably by all.

In this piece I’m going to be addressing common arguments and assumptions seen on social media one by one — it is not really intended to convert the above, often radicalised individuals, but to provide support and guidance in understanding why their perspectives can be flawed, and how to engage with and deconstruct those arguments.

It is also intended to provide support and structure to begin to engage with and potentially challenge or affirm your own beliefs and ideas about fiction, art, and other forms of media, and the extent of the impact it can have on you or others — this piece is me addressing these arguments with my own perspective, but I would encourage people to disagree with and critique my rebuttals!

The goal here is always more critical thought, analysis, and understanding, and that doesn’t come from automatically following another person’s line of thought or argument just because it’s well-poised or you particularly respect or like them — no matter who that person or people may be.

“Depicting [a theme] in media is the same as glorifying it!”

Let’s first engage with what people might be discussing when they panic about “harmful content” and “problematic” ships or pieces of fiction.

They might worry about people reading or watching works that discuss or depict anything from violence, incest, sexual assault, age gaps, BDSM, kinky sex, child sexual abuse, trauma recovery, rape, rape recovery, drug use, bestiality, to abusive relationships or anything else, will encourage people to think positively about those acts, those traumas, and those experiences.

You might look at the list of things I just wrote there and go, “Um, there are big differences between some of those things and the others!”

And yet the same consideration still applies.

Just because a theme or idea is present in a work, or is depicted in it implicitly or explicitly, doesn’t mean it’s being “glorified” and portrayed as overwhelmingly positive — and even if a theme or aspect is being glorified, this does not mean we shall simply unthinkingly absorb that perspective.

Reading a story that contains something doesn’t mean I’ll automatically think that thing is good or bad, regardless of how it’s portrayed in fiction — the media and art we engage with doesn’t wholly change and adjust our own ethics and morals as soon as we’ve interacted with it.

We might play a videogame and disagree with the way some themes are presented, have criticisms of them, whilst enjoying and appreciating others; we might read a piece of erotica and find some parts about it very hot, but find others disturbing and a little uncomfortable; we might watch a TV show and just think it’s in very poor taste, despite theoretically being up for the premise.

Engaging with media does not turn off and on switches in our brains that make us completely “pro” or completely “anti” one premise or other.

People are more complicated than that.

We have complex and layered feelings about every argument and perspective there is, every experience there is, because human beings are social animals, and we experience very few things through an uncomplicated, binary lens.

For me personally, I often seek out works that cover the same traumas and harms I’ve experienced — why? Because seeking out those themes helps me process and better understand what has happened to me, and how I’ve felt about it, how I’ve responded.

“I don’t have a problem with people writing about certain harmful topics to show them as bad, but some people sexualise or fetishise them!”

I’m sure you’re right.

Some people might write about rape to work out a complex trauma recovery narrative — others might write about rape in a work as kink. An author might well write with both goals in mind in the same work.

A traumatic event doesn’t become less traumatic because it sexually aroused us or brought us physical pleasure — in fact, those feelings can add to the impact of a trauma and the inner conflict we experience in the aftermath.

Some people undercut victims of sexual abuse by saying they “enjoyed” it, pointing out that they orgasmed or showed signs of arousal as signs they “secretly” wanted it, and these feelings can contribute heavily to shame and fear as a victim.

Sexual arousal is a bodily response. It is not consent, and it’s not an excuse for assault or abuse. Moreover, some people might feel arousal or pleasure but not be fit to consent — for example, if someone is underage, or if someone is drugged or insensible with drink.

These people cannot give knowledgeable consent, but abusers might still say after an assault that they “enjoyed” it.

This is purity culture at work — anti-sex attitudes use people’s “enjoyment” of something to undercut their autonomy and right to consent, by implying they “deserve” that abuse — abuse is abuse whether it’s sexualised or not.

But the thing is, the obverse applies.

Just as someone’s mixed feelings or sensations of pleasure during a sexual assault does not mean they consented to the assault, or because someone’s feelings of happiness and love for their abuser does not mean they deserved the abusive treatment they experienced from them, a person writing sexually or erotically about a topic, or engaging with art and narratives about that topic, does not mean they actually want that thing to happen in real life, to real people, or to themselves.

Fiction is not real life.

We watch a horror film, and it doesn’t mean we want serial killers or demons to run amok, killing teenagers or possessing their victims — similarly, just because we engage with porn or erotica that sexualises certain topics doesn’t mean we’re pro- or in favour of those topics for real people.

Rape fantasies are incredibly common, despite being highly stigmatised, and just because someone fantasises about this sort of control fantasy does not mean they actually want to abuse someone or be abused.

“It’s harmful to depict abusive or immoral characters as sexy or desirable.”

If you have never experienced abuse, manipulation, or otherwise poor treatment from someone you thought was attractive, charming, or admirable, if you’ve never been groomed by someone with whom you were enamoured, I’m very glad.

I’m happy for you, honestly.

But many of us have.

People want to believe that all abusers are evil, are ugly, are obvious from a distance, are blatant from the out. People want to believe they can “tell” someone is abusive just from a glance, and write them off — and that anyone who would or might spend time with that person is therefore “asking for it”, or “letting themselves” be abused.

In actual fact, many abusers aren’t.

Many abusers are beautiful and charming — some of them draw you in, slowly bring you closer and closer until it’s very difficult to untangle yourself from your need and craving for their approval. They ruin lives, ruin psyches, and they cause unspeakable damage to their victims.

And yes, victims often feel conflicted in the aftermath of their abuse.

Many of us hero worship or greatly respect our abusers, love them very deeply, crave their good opinion, because we are carefully groomed and manipulated, over time, into relying on their praise and their attention. For victims isolated from other sources of care and support, and especially for young children and teenagers, it can be very difficult to recognise what is happening and has happened to us.

Even after we know and understand exactly what has happened to us, and also internalised that it was wrong, we can still feel conflicted.

We are not retroactively deserving of our abuse because we crave our abusers’ good opinion, or their love, still. This instinct does not excuse or justify the abuse we’ve experienced. Victims of abuse are still victims of abuse even if we go back to our abusers, even if we “accept” or attempt to justify our abuse to others, if we try to excuse it, if we don’t ask for help.

Abuse is never the victim’s fault, no matter how imperfect we are as victims.

“Writing queer characters as abusive is bad representation!”

If we exclusively write queer characters who are perfect and unimpeachable, we’re not letting ourselves write queer characters who are fully human, with all the flaws and complexities humanity comes with.

Queer people are not less deserving of this complex representation than cishet people are — and in any case, the purpose of art and media is not exclusively to provide good representation, or to show good moral examples for others.

We create to express ourselves, to reflect the world, to critique it, laugh at it, commiserate over it, to feel our feelings, to connect and communicate with others through shared stories.

If we only let ourselves do things that might be seen as “good rep”, we rob ourselves of the ability to express ourselves as completely as we might wish to.

“If you write abusive queer characters, you’re just contributing to homophobia and bigotry in art and media!”

Queer people writing queer stories with queer villains is not the same as cishet people including queer people or queer-coded characters just to be villains. The power dynamic is completely different.

Queer writers’ writing of queer villainy is often inspired by their own experiences, including of bigotry, and the harm they might do reflects harm by society, the ways harms might be felt more keenly by their victims.

Writing queer villains as villainous because their queerness makes them (or is used as a shorthand for them being) predatory, cruel, or callous, is homophobic and is often shitty, whether people intend that or not.

But just having queer villains, having queer characters do bad or abusive things, or just have flaws?

That’s as much a part of queer humanity as having queer heroes and having queer characters do good and helpful things.

Why would you read about rape when you could read consensual non-consent?

[Consensual non-consent being a kink wherein partners agree to roleplay a non-consensual situation.]

Rape in fiction is a form of consensual non-consent.

The fictional characters, who are not real and do not have real feelings, are not consenting, but the reader choosing to read is.

In the same way that two people playing a CNC roleplay game in the bedroom might be a safe and fun way of experiencing or re-experiencing the fear and trauma of assault with an escape clause (a safeword), a reader can do the same — they can stop reading.

If a television show, film, or videogame becomes upsetting, again, one can stop watching, stop playing. It is a person’s own responsibility to set safe boundaries for themselves and protect their own mental health.

“Why would someone write about trauma and abuse when they could write fluff?”

Why would someone watch a horror movie when they could watch a romcom? Why would someone eat cheese when chocolate is an option?

People do not have to choose one or the other — many people like both horror films and romcoms, cheese and chocolate, and reading about both horrible shit and positive things.

“You mentioned that people might engage with media about dark topics to work through their feelings from their own abuse. How do I know if someone’s actually been abused?”

Why do you think it’s your right to ask that?

Why are you prioritising your personal comfort and curiosity over that person’s privacy? If your instinct is to try to license who is and isn’t allowed to engage with a piece of art or media, why?

You are never entitled to the details of someone else’s abuse. Your validation is not important enough to potentially trade for someone’s private traumas and experiences.

“If you write or create about certain topics as a survivor, you’re just perpetuating abuse and you are as bad as your abuser!”

Creating works of art or fiction about people who are not real experiencing fictional harm that is also not real, is not in any way equivalent to real people doing real harm to others.

If your support of abuse survivors hinges on how palatable their reaction to their abuse is, and you believe that some abuse survivors “deserve” their abuse for depicting their abuse in art and fiction, you’re not actually supporting survivors.

If you believe that all abuse survivors do or should act the same way, or respond the same way, to their abuses, you are mistaken.

If you are effectively angry at someone for not looking enough like a victim, for being “impure”, and therefore the same as their abuser, that is a form of victim blaming.

Do you hold artists who create media about non-sexual trauma or violence to a different standard than those who write about sexual trauma or violence?

Why? What is the difference to you?

If someone writing about sexual abuse in media is equivalent to real life abuse, is a fictional murder?

“People shouldn’t write or engage with media about traumatic things, they should just go to therapy!”

Therapy is not a moral machine where bad people with bad thoughts go in and good people with good thoughts go in.

Good therapy and counselling provides us with the tools to manage our own mental health, our own emotional and psychological needs, heal from our traumas, and so forth.

Many therapists will actually recommend safe re-exposure to frightening or upsetting topics, and also encourage self-expression on the subject of one’s most impactful experiences, which might include creating art and media to explore and discuss their feelings.

With that said, therapy is as flawed as any other tools for emotional catharsis and healing — therapy and mental healthcare can be very expensive or inaccessible because of one’s working schedule; some therapists and mental health professionals are abusive or bigoted; some people may not be in the right place for MH care or therapy at this time, et cetera.

Therapy isn’t a catch-all for anything you disapprove of in someone else, and it’s also not a punishment to force someone to repent for their sins.

“It’s okay to write a story to cope, but you shouldn’t publish it in case it upsets others!”

So long as the work has appropriate content warnings and/or is published or screened in an appropriate space, it is not inherently harmful. In fact, reading narratives and engaging with those narratives can be valuable for us.

Engaging with media that bears similarity to our own lives, reflects our own experiences, written by other people who we know understand the complicated emotions of survivors — whilst still condemning the actions of abusers or not — can be extremely validating and offer a lot of assurance.

This is especially useful in regards to media that shows victims having a codependent relationship with or still loving their abusers, or where their abusers are shown as sympathetic, whilst the narrative still shows the toxicity and pain caused by the relationship.

Moreover, there can be a sense of reclamation and security in exploring stories about similar harm as we’ve experienced whilst knowing we are now in a place of safety and are free from those past experiences, or that other survivors have escaped and we can too.

“If children read this work or watch this show or play this game, they might think that the things depicted in it are okay!”

Is the work rated G or PG?

Is it shown on a children’s TV channel, or appear in a section that is marked for children? Is it put on a children’s website, where the primary audience is children?

In short, is the work aimed at kids?

If no, then it’s not for kids.

Particularly if a work is marked for adult audiences only, if it’s labelled erotica, if it’s marked M or E or NC-17, if it says it’s for adults or asks people to check a box agreeing that they’re an adult, then the work in question is most definitely not for children.

Everything in the world doesn’t have to be child-safe just because children exist.

It is the responsibility of parents and guardians to appropriately supervise their children’s online use, and to teach children and teenagers internet safety, some of which includes setting appropriate boundaries for themselves and not seeking out content that might distress them, or to know what to do if they stumble across content that does distress them — namely, to speak with a trusted adult about their feelings and what they can do to manage them and look after themselves, and be looked after.

It’s not the responsibility of random other adults in the world not to make horror movies or watch porn or play adult videogames or anything else, just because a child could potentially learn of their existence.

“But someone else engaging with that work might think the things depicted in it are okay!”

You’re right, they might do.

They might also engage with the work and think things depicted in it are bad. Fiction does not exclusively exist for our moral education.

“It makes me feel uncomfortable or unsafe that people are writing about [a topic] with a tone or in a manner that seems wrong to me!”

Yes, many of us feel uncomfortable with some topics being depicted in fiction, and might find them viscerally disgusting or triggering, consider them to be in poor taste, badly considered, or similar.

This is normal and okay.

It’s perfectly natural to have limits on what one can handle in fiction, or to find your ethical considerations don’t match up with the things other people make.

But it’s our job, as responsible adults who look after our own mental health and consider our own boundaries, to avoid that content.

You cannot control what other people think about, feel about certain topics, or how they portray them in fiction. You cannot control other people.

You can only control your environment, your boundaries, and the works you choose to engage with.

You can limit your time on social media, mute tags or keywords, block particular users or sites, or simply look away or leave the room / close the tab.

“What about rampant problematic works on Ao3!?”

Works on Ao3 are not a real issue.

They are not representation. Fanworks and original works on Ao3 are not the mainstream. They are being read exclusively by members of various internet subcultures who read fanfiction in those specific fandoms, after reading the tags.

This doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t discuss certain tropes and norms in various fandoms — we might address our own biases around race, sexuality, religion, disability, and other characteristics, and how these biases and bigotries can come across in people’s approaches to fandom, the characters and ships they concentrate on, their headcanons, et cetera.

The same can be said of people’s original creations.

Ao3 has a robust tagging system, and allows people to mute and block tags they might be upset or triggered by — and in the event one clicks on an explicit work, a window will come up asking people to consent explicitly to moving through to read the work.

It is people’s own responsibility to set their own limits as to what they can handle in reading fiction — and not to obsess over what other people might or might not be reading, which we cannot control, and is also none of our business.

“What about loli and shotacon? Isn’t that the same as child pornography?”

“Child pornography” is generally not in use as a term — many people who have been victimised find that terms like “child porn” and CP grate, because “pornography” is work made with willing, adult participants.

Videos and images produced of children are instead referred to either as CSAM — child sexual abuse materials — or CSEM — child sexual exploitation materials. CSEM is evil because it involves the unspeakable and agonising victimisation of a real life child or children, being abused and manipulated by adults around them, and worse than that initial victimisation, the recording their abuse is another victimisation in itself.

With every share of a piece of this material, that child or children are victimised another time, made vulnerable to more people, and the creation of this material can create more market desire, meaning that other abusers will encourage further abuse and recording of these children’s victimisation, or for the recording abusers to seek out other children to abuse.

Victims of this sort of exploitation live in terror of the pictures or videos of their worst moments being shared to those they know, of being found by their loved ones, shared to workplaces, disseminated in any community they try to live in and be happy with — it is difficult enough to recover from one’s own abuse without the spectre of it constantly hanging over one’s head.

People’s cartoons or art of fictional children is not equivalent to CSEM, because there are no real children depicted in it.

It’s understandable to find these works disgusting or upsetting, triggering, unsettling — but to say that underage art or fiction is the same as or counts as CSEM is patently untrue. As a victim of CSA, it is galling to be told that choices my abuser made to harm and exploit me are equivalent to an abuser choosing to draw or read a comic about a victim that doesn’t actually exist.

Some final questions to ask yourself:

None of the above rebuttals are intended to imply people shouldn’t critique or criticise different media or their depictions.

As well as the initial essay I linked, I actually wrote a big guide on how to approach close reading of text, and I’m working on another about analysing television and film.

In my opinion, it’s really important to be aware of different tropes and themes that you feel are harmful in fiction and art — racist tropes, sexist ones, homophobic ones, and all the rest.

It’s worth considering how works are harmful, and what you actually want to be done about it.

I personally have criticisms of various tropes in media — I have particular dislike, for example, for the ways in which teacher/student relationships in TV shows and films are portrayed as “forbidden love”, with issue of their positions of power being depicted as one of bureaucracy or technical rules rather than a real power imbalance — I don’t care for the “sexy schoolgirl” trope, and the “barely legal” porn genre unsettles me.

All of the above three tropes often coincide with people’s thinking of teenage girls, especially those in school uniforms, as sex objects, and portraying school uniforms themselves as sexual or deserving of this sort of sexual attention.

Not all depictions are the same — some works subvert the sexy schoolgirl trope by having those schoolgirls be secret monsters than punish abusers, and some works exist that critique teacher/student dynamics.

It’s also important to note audience and outreach — a work that’s put on mainstream television channels or put in movie theatres by huge studios have a very different range of impact than an indie published novella, or one person’s fanfic on Ao3.

Note where you’re holding individual or small studio creators — especially those who are in some way marginalised and are already facing adversity in their work — to higher account than large studios, or fixating on imagined harm their work could potentially cause.

Is a work harmful, or is it just uncomfortable? Is it harmful, or is it just personally triggering to you?

Can the work you’re concerned about do as much harm as you’re envisaging? Is it actually reaching the individuals you are worried might be vulnerable to harm as a result of it? Does the work intend to do that harm or hold those harmful views, and are the authors or creators working to address or apologise for that harm?

Is the work discussing, critiquing, or exploring the emotional impact of the dark themes within it? Does it have warnings or disclaimers before the work begins?

If you’re worried about a work “normalising” or “glorifying” a troubling subject — does the work actually do that? What is your evidence for this, having engaged with the text? Is that thing discussed in the text, argued, explored in-depth, or merely mentioned? Do characters show inner conflict and interpersonal conflict over it? Is it actually portrayed as good or normal? Is your concern the characters’ perspectives within the text, or the authors or creators’ opinions?

Does the work carry ideas that are bigoted or feel like it includes apologism for some shitty ideas or ideology? Is the work a piece of propaganda, or function as propaganda? Do you feel the work is being advertised or pushed to an inappropriate audience for its subject matter?

If you do consider the work to be either likely to be personally distressing or upsetting to you, or potentially harmful because of its troubling or bigoted or just shitty ideas, how do you want to respond?

If it’s the former, you should set your own boundaries — you should use your mute and block functions, you should avoid the work, you should seek out things that will comfort you, and perhaps discuss the distressing topics with someone you trust, whether that’s a friend or partner, a loved one, or a counsellor or therapist.

If it’s the latter, you should absolutely deconstruct the piece in question and analyse the ways in which it’s shitty or harmful, or read essays by those who’ve done that work. You can maybe warn your friends about it, or if it’s a work of political concern — if the harm is being done because the work provides financial support to a hate group or a bigoted public persona, for example, you might perform a boycott, or involve yourself in acts of protest in response to the work or its creators.

If it’s important enough to you and your beliefs that you feel urged to do those things, perhaps you should — if all you feel urged to do is to harass or shout at people online, though, it might be better for your own mental health to take a step back and do something more positive for yourself.

Sometimes, a piece of work or media will be shitty, and shitty people will love it, and that will kinda suck — God knows I’ll see work that’s really transphobic or homophobic or antisemitic, and it’ll upset me that people I otherwise love and respect seem to be enjoying it so much.

I can talk to my friends and my family about it, and I’ll do that — and I can mute and block the topic, and critique it in the right circles, or write essays if I’m really inspired to, responding to the work and what I feel its impact is…

But if my instinct becomes to just snipe at people for enjoying it when they really don’t know what the problem is, or have a go at them when they’re doing so unthinkingly, that’s not really helpful to them or to myself. It’s not addressing the harm I feel is being done, and nor is it really constructive.

I’m an adult, after all — as I’ve said a few times already, it’s our own responsibility to set our own boundaries and consider what we’re doing to safeguard ourselves, and if in setting those boundaries and personal safeguarding limits, whether they’re in line with our own ethics and morality.

We cannot control other people and their feelings, or the works they create, but we can take care of ourselves, including breaking ourselves out of obsessive moral spirals or anxieties about other people’s thoughts — and personally, I think that’s actually a very revolutionary thing to do given that we exist in a world that constantly tries to encourage (and monetise) that sort of aimless outrage.

#musings #proship #antiship #purity culture #purity wank

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mybelovedwoo · 9 months

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song mingi as boyfriend - headcanon

headcanon, romance, fluff, smut

gn!reader x bf!atz

wc. ~0.8k

an: happy mingi day everyone!!

you can request headcanons if you want to (please only headcanons)!! if you want to be tagged in any of my fics you can apply here <3

masterlist

- the type of boyfriend who will be obsessed with you, and his whole personality would be around loving you and being the best boyfriend possible

-his lockscreen is you smiling for a picture he took on a date, he has playlists on his phone made just for you that you listen to whenever you are together and he talks about you all the time, like always has a fun fact to add about you in a conversation "you know when y/n was a child she liked that too" or "my girlfriend can also do that"

-he would give you the entire world if he could, unfortunately, he can't, but he would do everything with his power to make you feel like you are the most important, precious thing in this world (and next to him you actually feel like it)

-he would quite literally take you everywhere with him, to his studio, to dance practices and schedules, and if you go somewhere he would follow you around too, shopping and even meeting up with your friends

-he likes casual dates, like going out to eat (but not a too fancy place, more like a bbq) or going to the arcade or to the movies

-has a list on his phone about the things you like, and every time a birthday or Christmas, or any holiday comes he opens it and buys a thing from the list. looooves to give you gifts, especially clothes that he thinks would look good on you

-incredibly loyal, he will never leave you behind ever, and you can always count on him, he literally would drop everything if you ask him to

-he LOVES to be pampered, I mean he is just a big baby who loves cuddle time, and also appreciates when you cook for him (it just makes him fall in love with you even more)

-he can get very jealous sometimes, he just gets very sulky those times, but you just have to give him attention and lots of kisses for him and everything is okay

-constantly on a mission to make you laugh, but what makes you laugh actually the embarrassing things he does to make you laugh not the actual joke

-he loves to kiss the top of your head when you lean on him, it's a habit of his that he picked up due to his height

-he thinks you are the cutest human on planet earth and you think the exact same thing about him (bc he is)

-he will get all giggly when you initiate a hug or a kiss, but his favorite is when you hold his face and look deep into his eyes, he probably would get a heart attack from that, he can't take compliments either he would blush so hard

-his kisses are very slow and soft, but he would hold your face with one hand a bit roughly just to hold you secure, and the other hand is around your waist to keep you close to him

-he would call you nicknames like baby, princess or his personal favorite pumpkin, which is even your contact name on his phone

nsfw +18!!!

-so I think mingi is a switch, he could be a soft dom (but not as soft as san if you know what I mean), but he's rather a sub, he likes it when you take control, he thinks it's extremely hot, but doesn't mind taking control either if you're in the mood for that

-it always starts out very soft and romantic, just like his kisses. cuddle times lead to sex 70% of the time, he just wants to feel you even closer to him

-other times he is just really horny, but that's a whole different kind of sex, it would be hot and steamy, like when he comes home all frustrated from practice because he was thinking about you the whole time, or when he gets a bit jealous because you got a bit too close to another member

-when he is a dom ohh boy you'll have a long night. he would do literally anywhere, in the kitchen, in the shower, on the couch

-manhandles you shamelessly, pushes you against the wall, and loves to slap your booty (but not in the way it actually hurts)

-but when he is a sub, he is so loving and careful, all light touches and tender kisses, he just wants to be babied at those times

-for positions, sub mingi loves it when you ride him, he loves the view he gets, but dom mingi loves a good doggy, also loves to view from behind

-i think vocally he is a bit shy in the bedroom, wouldn't speak much during it, just groans a lot

-aftercare is really important for him but prefers it when you do it to him, or at least for it together, would be really soft and kinda in a sentimental mood after

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certainlynotasimp · 11 months

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Our Love

(Miguel O’Hara x Female Reader)

A/N: Hey everyone~✨ I’m writing this request thingy after I um had kind of a bad day. Not to get too personal, um parents can suck. Like they can hurt your feelings and not care. So I wanted to write this because I kinda wish that I had parents like Sunny and Miggy tbh. Anyway enough with that~✨

A/N: TikTok spoiled some of the movie for me so I’m kinda mad but I got to think up some more Sunny lore for you guys. This is part 2 of Our Girl and forgive the ending because I ran out of ideas. If you like my work please check out my master list and if you wanna stay up to date with the series, then comment on this Taglist and you’ll be added. To see what’s coming up next then check out my upload schedule.✨

If you are someone who has struggled with Postpartum, Child loss, anxiety with pregnancy, or any trauma related to child birth and child bearing, feel free to skip this if you don’t think you can handle it. Your well being is more important, so go read some fluff, drink some water, and if you don’t have anyone giving you kisses then here: *platonic kisses*

Warnings: Grumpy x Sunshine, Female Reader/Female pronouns, Barely use of (Y/N) ((Sunny is their nickname, not their name)), angst, trauma, mentions of child loss, anxiety around pregnancy, and Google Translated Spanish.

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

The bouncing fear blooms as the repeating drumming of her pacing feet in the confined walls of the bathroom stall. The constant nagging of her god mother comes back to haunt her like the remains of her muffin tries to climb it’s way back up.

The three minute timer on her phone felt like an eternity as the white piece of plastic continues to load up the bullet that will end everything she’s built up for herself so far.

She was head of the undergraduate at her biology department at NYU and she had stupidly decided to go out to some party with her friends to celebrate the end of the school year. An embarrassing hook-up occurred with her having to sneak out without even getting a good look at the guy. Of course she assumed that her drunken self would have used protection, but unfortunately, alcohol doesn’t always encourage good decisions.

She thought that the sudden spouts of tossing her lunch up was simply due to nerves as she was applying for a work study program with Alchnemax, but the sudden repulsion to her god mother’s cooking is what really set the dread into motion. A dread she swallowed down with a big smile as she pretended her whole life wasn’t changing in an instant. She held onto the hope that maybe it was just nerves bothering her until today.

Her interview with Alchnemax went exceptionally well. The woman was aware that her chances of being accepted were low despite her high academic achievements due to A) she’s a scholarship student, B) she’s some poor kid from Brooklyn, and C) she was an orphan without any cushy family legacy behind her.

Two of the three department leaders of the Genetics department already decided her fate as they had those noses turned up at her, but one just looked at her with kindness. He gave her a chance. And if it wasn’t for that the others wouldn’t have heard her creditials and wouldn’t have looked at her completely impressed. The man who looked at her so proudly gave her a wink as a way of showing he was sure I was gonna get it. Not in the creepy sexually charged man way. But like how a father would their child.

Her first friend here. Dr..

The beeping from the phone alarm catches her attention as she turns to look at the white stick of destiny. Her whole life is forever changing today one way or another….

~~~~~~~~~

“I’m what?” She gasps as she looks up at the red and blue man in a lab coat in shock.

She had just awoken hours after she had experienced the most bizarre incident that landed her in the infirmary. She had met a girl from an alternate dimension where she and Miguel were normal people who had a family together, and their daughter was that universe’s Spider-Woman.

Their Daughter…their baby…

“You’re pregnant, Miss. (L/N).” Spider-Doc says cheerfully as he places a cold device on her stomach. A monitor appears from the small device with a familiar picture of a small little bean inside the black vast of her womb. A baby…

“It looks like you’re about 6 weeks along based on the size of the fetus and it’s a good thing we found out when we did. Mr. O’Hara would have had our throats if he….”

The doctor’s words fell on deaf ears as the woman’s eyes focused intently on the image in front of her. The sounds of their pounding heart beat challenges the drumming of her own as her fingers lightly trace the image. She was so small…so defenseless.

Just like he was…

“D-does Miguel know?”

~~~~~~~

Positive.

The test mocked her as she watched her Godmother hold onto the plastic piece with an unreadable expression. The twist of her dark mauve painted lips causes her glowy skin to crack under her dark eyes. A hand pushes back the freshly installed knotless braids as the clinking of the golden charms twisted her stomach more.

April was the one person the girl could always rely on the most in the world, having raised her since she was eight years old. She was the only real mother figure she’s ever known and always pushed her to her hardest. April always made sure that the two were always fed, clothed, and pampered, and the only thing she ever asked for was for her godchild to bring home all A’s and to have a smile.

April taught her to value education both in and out of school. She made sure she could solve any math problems as best as she could without a calculator and how to make sure to know which doors she can knock on if someone was following her at night. April made sure she knew her Spanish well so she can have bigger opportunities in the workforce and to know respect for the Parra’s down the hallway.

April had a baby the same time as her best friend Maria and promised each other to be each other’s godmothers so their daughters can always be best friends just like their moms.

But, Maria lost her life while April lost her baby.

“How far along are you?” The older woman asks with her dark warm eyes misting over as she looks at her god child.

“I don’t know, maybe a month and a half…” The own girl’s body shaking as sobs built up in her chest as she looks at her now smiling godmother.

“Do you want to keep it?…”

The question hung in the air as the women’s combined shaking forms as the woman honestly didn’t think about it before.

~~~~~~~~~

When the spider got released from the infirmary, she immediately turned off her gizmo as she turned invisible. She shakily avoided everyone she could so she could go to her room without seeing anyone.

She couldn’t bring herself to see anyone. Not with this. She knew if Miguel wasn’t on a mission right now then he would have already been at the infirmary waiting on her, but she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes. It wasn’t fair.

One of her hands rests on her stomach as she navigates the hallways before finally reaching her room. She waited until no one was paying attention to slip in and turn back to normal with a painful sigh. She forgot how painful it was to do that without her suit helping her. Miguel specifically made it so her powers wouldn’t put as much strain on her heart than it already did.

Her back hits the door as she finally collapses with a shaker breath. The reality of the situation was finally kicking in as she placed both hands on her stomach. She was pregnant with Miguel’s child.

Something that definitely wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, she can argue that if the anomalous event hadn’t have occurred and destroyed her dimension , she would have never known about the Spider Verse or even met Miguel…

But she’s accepted that whatever relationship they were in wasn’t going to be able to manifest more than what it was. Two broken people who fell in love and were trying to make the best of their circumstances.

Due to her being from an alternate dimension, there isn’t a canon event that could possibly let her be able to live with Miguel and start a family…it would just destroy every thing…

‘Would Miguel even want this baby?…’ She though as she runs one of her shaking hands over her cheek as anxious tears rolled down her face. ‘What if she has powers like us? What if they aren’t healthy? Would he want to get rid of it because she’s an anomaly….’

She didn’t have the same support system as she did when she had her son, Ben. She didn’t have April who would sooth her anxieties of motherhood and made sure that Ben had diapers at home. She didn’t have the Parra’s who would bring her supper some evenings in exchange for letting the infertile Valeria babysit her boy when her and April were busy. She didn’t have the corner stores where they always hid back some cans of formula for her and gave her son lollipops.

Her son…her baby boy that she failed…

The image of his lifeless little body appears in her vision as she remembers the way his body was limp in her hold. The way his little face was so frozen in fear when he used to always have the biggest smile on his face…

“What if I fail this one too?”

Her thoughts cause sobs to rip from her body as she curls her knees up to her chest as she thought about all of the possibilities that this baby would ruin it…

Then Maria’s face came to mind. The young spider girl that was only a few years younger than she was when she found out she was gonna have Ben.

With the girl’s face burning in her mind, the woman stands up and immediately storms out of her room. Her blurry eyes burned as she made her way to the one place that she knew would have answers.

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

Ba dump ba dump

The pounding sound fills the room as the pair of women stared in awe at the monitor. A little squirming being about the size of her hands shined against the black background of the screen as the OB-GYN wiggles around the cold wand over her stomach.

“Oh my…” A teary smile appears on the older woman’s face as April clenches onto her astonished Goddaughter’s hand. The 14 week old fetus was facing the camera as his little legs wiggled around enough to barely turn him over.

His mother stares at him with such wonder as to how she could have made that.

She knew the whole biological process of how it’s down and what to expect at each step, but just seeing him there, barely even big enough to see him, was her baby.

“There he is. A perfectly healthy baby boy.” The OB smiles at the mother and gently traces his little face on the monitor. “Do you have any ideas for names yet?”

April smiles at the girl lost in wonder and decides to let her have the moment she remembers so well from her own pregnancy. April runs her thumb over her child’s knuckles as she answers.

“She wants to name the baby after her parents. They died in a car accident when she was young. If it was a girl, her name would be Maria and if it was a boy, his name would be…”

“Ben.” The mesmerized girl finishes her sentence as she looks back at the doctor with a bright teary smile. “His name is gonna be Ben.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey boss.” Lyla cautiously calls the man who was frantically trying to find his missing love.

After he returned from stopping a Prowler anomaly, Miguel immediately went to the infirmary to find that she had left hours ago and no one else has seen her since the young SpiderWoman was sent back home.

He thought she was fine when he last checked on her when they shared a happy tear feast over how wonderful their daughter was before she had fallen asleep from crying.

“Not now Lyla. I’m trying to find (Y/N).” He grumbles as his nerves twist his stomach around.

It wasn’t like her to go off the grid like this, not without at least telling Miguel that she wanted some quiet time. He clenched his fist as he feared that meeting Maria may have caused his Sunny to fall into a bad spell of depression since…

“She’s in the observation room looking at the Web.” Lyla answers like she was annoyed that Miguel was listening to her. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. There’s something strange happening to your-“

Lyla is cut off by Miguel turning her off as he speed walks towards the observation room.

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

The tiny wail broke the chaotic tension in the room as tears of joy flood out of the exhausted woman. The squealing babe was placed on her chest as the doctors returned back between her legs to remove the placenta. Her trembling hands came up to soothe the baby boy as his slimy body trembled in the new environment. His dark hair matted to his soft head as his mother placed a delicate kiss on her baby boy’s forehead.

“Hello, Ben.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Miguel storms into the observation room as the target of his search stared silently at the glowing red spiral of webs. The images of the Maria of Earth 1784-B played out on a holographic image as she looks like she was tussling with the two boys he recognized as Maria’s brothers. An image of that world’s Miguel comes up and playfully picks up the three with a stumble before throwing them on the couch with a laugh as his wife comes up and laughs behind him.

The family that Miguel dreamed about every night. The one he tried to achieve twice in different ways before it was stolen from him. The one he can’t help but crave with his beloved but knows it probably won’t happen.

“Cariño?….” His voice barely as whisper as he approaches his lover as she jumps in surprise.

Her teary eyes stared at him in alarm as a protective hand was placed on her stomach.

Miguel ignores that detail, believing that she was just mourning her lost baby boy, and gently placed his hand on her cheek, softly wiping away her tears.

Her eyes shine with untold anxiety as her choked sob caused Miguel to pull her into his chest. “Estoy aquí mi amor. Háblame....” He whispers softly into her hair as he wraps his arms tightly around her.

Her own grip traps him against her shaking body as she cries into his chest. Her worries slowly spilling out as she sobs, “ It’s not fair…”

“I know. “ Miguel mumbles as he rubs the base of her skull softly to provide some relief from the pain. “The universe is cruel…”

“It is…” she agrees as her breathing eventually evens out enough for her to pull away slightly to look up into his concern burgany gaze. “Miggy…Tengo algo que decirte... pero tengo miedo de que te enfades conmigo…” She admits with an unstable edge in her voice.

Miguel frowns at this as he cups her face. His concerned love filled eyes closes as he pulls her towards his lips. He kisses her forehead before resting his own forehead against hers. His eyes opening as an encouraging smile shines at him.

“No, mi sol, nunca me enfadaría contigo. Especialmente si te está causando tanto estrés.” He mutters as he feels his beloved’s hands wrap around his thick wrist, using his pulse to stablize her.

“Really?” She looks for reassurance as her swollen eyes searched his for any doubt.

“Yes. I’m sure…”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, beautiful!” A voice cheers as she enters the hospital room.

The new mother was propped up on a the hospital bed with her newborn son swaddled up in a soft blue blanket. She stops admiring the sleeping babe to smile up as April walks over with a bright smile and a beautiful bouquet of Carnations. Their petals were a soft pink with a baby blue ribbon wrapped around the glass vase. April places the arrangement down as she sits beside the bed.

“So that’s my grandchild?” She asks as she reaches over and gently caresses the bundle. Ben stirs for a moment before settling back down. The young mother nods and slowly moves the baby into her god mother’s arms.

The new grandmother accepts the baby happily as she leans back and gently coos at the sleeping Ben.

“You’re gonna have him spoiled.” She jokes as she admires watching how the older woman’s eyes light up as the baby’s face twitches.

“Grandbabies are for spoiling while children are made for scolding.” April quips back playfully as she giggles at her Goddaughter. “Oh, your boss brought those by the apartment. He said he hopes you’ll bring the little guy by the lab when he’s big enough.”

A confused frown takes over her face before she realizes that her mentor must have been the one she met. Working at Alchemax during her work study and pregnancy allowed her to get close to the board member that gave her the chance to work here. Him being a father himself, he took the pupil under his wing and helped her a lot during this time, even easing her worries with embarrassing tales of his own parenting blunders . He was more of a friend now than her mentor.

As April entertains herself with the infant, the mother reaches over and plucks the card placed on the top of the flower arrangement. She holds the card gently as she read the note, a soft smile.

‘Congratulations, kiddo. You made it to parenthood. You better bring that boy here to hang out with us because I need something more interesting to do than listen to Osborne’s voice all day. Signed, Dr. …. ‘

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

“Excuse me!!” A visual of Lyla appears beside the couple with an annoyed expression. Her irritability can be heard as she stares at the startled pair before glaring at Miguel.

“If you’re done being a couple of cry babies, I have some urgent news!” She snaps before pulling up a familiar red webbing with an odd addition wrapping around its nodes.

Miguel frowns in concern as he sees a blue web intertwining with the red nodes of his canon while his sunshine looked shocked.

This was not a normal anomaly…

“What is that?” Miguel asks while Lyla scoffs.

“Your canon is changing, but not from an anomaly.” She explains. “Your universe is fixing itself.”

“Fixing itself from what?” Miguel growls as he’s growing frustrated at the rude behavior the AI was expressing.

“From the bun in your sunshine’s oven.”

And with a quiet what, the big bad Miguel O’Hara falls over and passes out.

~~~~~~~~

Translations:

Estoy aquí mi amor. Háblame….—-I'm here, my love. Talk to me....

Tengo algo que decirte... pero tengo miedo de que te enfades conmigo…—I have something to tell you...,but I'm scared you are going to be upset with me…

No, mi sol, nunca me enfadaría contigo. Especialmente si te está causando tanto estrés.—-No, my sun, I would never be upset with you. Especially if its causing you this much stress.

~~~~~~~~~

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2K notes · View notes

wip · 3 months

Note

Please make it possible to hide users' posts without blocking them. Like, in cases where a person hasn't done anything wrong to be blocked, but you just don't like their posts.

Answer: Hello, @deithwen!

As it turns out, we’ve received this feature request a lot over the years. Usually, it comes in as wanting the ability to “mute” other blogs on Tumblr. While we would love to build it, we’ve balked at it a bit because of its technical and product complexity. Let us explain what that means:

In terms of technical complexity, our current blocking feature is closest to how “muting” would work. Our current blocking feature may seem simple, but it’s very complex because of how big Tumblr is. Every time we fetch a list of blogs for you or anyone on Tumblr, we have to also fetch the list of who you’re blocking, and who’s blocking you, and filter out anyone with that block relationship. This mapping of who’s-blocking-who is stored in a directional way right now, so the “cost” of loading that list gets higher the more people you’re blocking and the more people who are blocking you. If you’re blocking 1,000 blogs, we have to check that list a lot. If you’re being blocked by 1,000 blogs, that’s another big list to check against.

In technical terms, this is a “many-to-many” relationship, which is almost always incredibly difficult to manage while not degrading the experience of using a platform like Tumblr. The more people who are blocking, the harder it is to store those lists in a way that’s easy to check, but we’re working on making it smoother. The vast majority of people don’t block many others, if at all, so it’s never been a huge problem. But the outliers who block thousands of others (or are blocked by thousands of others) can degrade performance for everyone over enough time.

Adding muting would throw on top of that yet another list of blogs to check, increasing the complexity of something that’s already pretty complex. It helps that muting would be one-directional and not bi-directional (as in, it doesn’t matter who’s muting you), but, as that list of muted blogs grows, your experience may degrade further. So we’d need to solve for that, which is definitely doable. It would just take time—and lots of it.

And, as a product, Tumblr is already pretty confusing to people trying to figure out what “blocking” means already, as well as our other filtering options. Up until fairly recently, blocking was almost entirely one-directional, the opposite way you’d expect: blocking made it so the blocked person couldn’t see you, not that you couldn’t see them. We’ve been updating blocking to work both ways instead, which is more common on social media these days. Similarly, the options to filter tags versus content cause a lot of confusion because they don’t work the same way as each other.

So if we wanted to add another filtering option to that mix, “muting” blogs, we’d need to be conscious of how all of those options work together—and are confusing in context with each other. We should really clean up that experience to be more streamlined and simple, not more complex. And I didn’t even mention the oddity of how different settings apply to your primary blog versus your sideblogs if you have more than one blog!

Taken together, it is a great idea for us to clean all of this up, improve our existing options here, and add “muting” for even more control and granularity. Sadly, however, it just isn’t high enough on our list of priorities to tackle anytime soon. We don’t want to simply tack on muting for the sake of doing it—we want to do a better job than that. I hope that makes sense!

Thanks for your question. It was an important one to address. If anything should change here, you will get news through the usual channels: here at WIP, or at @changes.

#feature #dashboard #muting #blocking #account #security #backend #your suggestions

478 notes · View notes

vanteguccir · 2 months

Text

It's noted | Chris Sturniolo

Chris Sturniolo x reader

Summary: Where Y/N is part of the Sturniolo Triplets fandom and makes videos about them on TikTok. After years of creating content, one of her videos seems to catch the attention of none other than Chris.

Warning: None.

Requested?: Yes, from anon.

Author's note: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

PS.: I used this tiktoker as an inspiration for the content that the reader creates on this.

PS. 2: I'm thinking of making a tag list for my Sturniolo Triplets x reader, so if you want to be included in it and be tagged on every Sturniolo x reader that I post, comment here please! 🩷

༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

It was true that the Sturniolo Triplets fandom grew so much in such a short time thanks to the fans themselves, who play a big role in bringing the channel to other people through social media - mainly TikTok. It was also true that, at least 90% of this part of the fandom works with edits of different types of the boys; compilation of parts from a certain video or podcast, edits and even memes.

But there was a small portion that made videos talking about the boys, showing their faces and voices while explaining their content, work and even giving tips on how the triplets themselves could increase their audience or improve their brands.

And Y/N was part of this small portion, having been in the fandom since mid-2021 and not missing any videos of the triplets, she could talk about them for hours on end.

Her biggest hobby was making videos giving ideas for their channel and brands: some brands they could collab with, theme ideas for car videos, topics for podcasts, prints for hoodie sets and t-shirts - both for the triplets' brand and for Fresh Love -, different flavors and themes for Space Camp, and so on.

The girl applied all her love and knowledge to all her videos, editing the backgrounds and explaining her ideas with the smallest details, making them understandable. She had perfect lighting, audio, and set equipment for her work, which made the quality equally good as her content.

Her trademark was her strawberry frappuccino, which she was always drinking every time she turned on her phone camera. Fans joked that her obsession with the drink was like Chris's obsession with Pepsi.

And all that was exactly why fans loved her so much. Y/N had more than 400 thousand followers on her TikTok account and all her videos reached an average of 150 thousand likes, in addition to the many comments saying how smart she was for having those ideas, her kindness in sharing them with the public and even complementing her beauty.

The girl spent hours of her day reading each one of them and interacting with fans as if they were best friends, always being very kind. She laughed her ass off at the comments from people who madly tagged the boys, especially Chris, as it was a well-known fact that he was her favorite - she loved to make that very clear.

Some fans even went so far as to say that if Chris was ever ready to get romantically involved with someone again, they wanted it to be with Y/N. The girl read that type of comment with a huge smile on her face and red cheeks, feeling honored. Although she imagined that the boys would never even notice her, she allowed herself to travel through the world of delusion from time to time.

So it was an understandment to say that she was super surprised when, after waking up on a typical Saturday and picking up her phone for the first time in the day before even getting out of bed - a bad habit of hers -, she saw the notifications in triple the volume of its normal.

She felt dizzy with so much information, trying to find in the midst of so many comments and messages what was really happening.

Finally, after traveling between her TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter for long minutes, she finally found it.

Chris Sturniolo had commented on her last video.

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

It was Friday, and the triplets had just returned home after finishing recording their new car video that would be posted in a few hours.

Chris was currently lying in his bed, the lights in his room dimmed, and the low noise coming from his phone filling the four walls.

The brunette was just getting ready to take a shower minutes ago, having opened his TikTok and scrolling through his For You for a few minutes, about to take off his clothes used in the filming, when a video of an unknown girl talking about himself caught his attention.

It was very normal to have videos of and about himself on his For You, after all, the hours over the last few years that he spent liking one video or another showed the algorithm that he liked this type of content. Edits and memes of him alone or with his brothers filled his app, and he spent enough time watching, laughing, liking, and, sometimes, reposting some of them.

But it wasn't normal for him to have a completely unknown person talking directly about him, with her face and voice exposed for the world while doing it. And what surprised him most was what she was talking about, that specific video being about different prints and colors that he could use in the next Fresh Love collection.

His blue eyes lingered too long on the girl's face, admiring her features, her sweet voice serving as a melody for his ears.

When Chris dragged his thumb from the right to the left of his screen, entering the girl's profile, he finally noticed her name.

"Y/N." His voice came out in a whisper, enjoying more than necessary how the name slipped off his tongue so easily.

His fingers wandered across the screen, going from one video to another, listening to the ideas carefully - even writing some down on his Notes app -, saving some in a separate folder and browsing the comments, only then realizing that practically all of them were from fans tagging him.

Laughter escaped his lips at some of the jokes the girl made every now and then, while fascination filled his eyes with the effort she put into each idea.

The sound of knocking against his bedroom door startled him, his body jumping as he turned sharply towards the source of it, Matt's head appearing between his door and the frame, his eyebrows furrowed as his eyes traveled around the room briefly.

"You've been listening to this girl for so many hours that I thought she was here with you." Matt commented, opening the door wider and approaching Chris.

The youngest of the triplets rolled his eyes, suppressing the urge to lock his phone screen and keep Y/N all to himself, but she was well known in the fandom and her videos were about him and his brothers, the possibility of her content getting to them as quickly as it got to him was huge.

"It's a girl who appeared on my For You today. She makes videos of ideas for our channel and brands, can you believe it?" Chris looked at Matt as he showed his phone screen with Y/N's profile open. His eyes were wide with fascination, and his lips stretched into an enthusiastic smile.

Matt observed him for a few seconds, noticing his body language and the way he spoke about the girl, it was different from all the other times the boy commented about tiktokers or videos others made about them.

"Send me a video of her, I'll take a look later. Now go upstairs, I bought us something to eat."

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

Another Monday had arrived, and Y/N was looking for strength in her body to get out of bed and face another start of the week.

The thought that in a few hours, she would have a brand new Sturniolo Triplets podcast was what made her tackle her tasks.

Her eyes traveled to the time on her phone and to her notification bar every 10 minutes, as if she was expecting Nick to release the podcast earlier than usual - it was obvious that that wasn't going to happen.

After last Saturday, where she had woken up to a comment from none other than Christopher Sturniolo, her weekend was complete madness.

She spent hours staring at the little comment as her mind tried to process whether she was actually awake or still asleep and in a very good dream.

"loved the idea! it's noted ;)"

"it's noted"? What did that even mean? Did he actually write down her idea for future use? Should she be prepared to wake up some other day and see that he has launched a new collection with something she suggested in one of her videos?

And what made her go crazy the most was that Chris Sturniolo had seen her face, and not only that, he found her attractive enough and her idea creative enough to watch it until the end.

She spent almost the entire previous two days waiting for him to comment again, or even like one of her videos, but that didn't happen. Instead, Y/N received thousands of comments from fans going crazy with her about what happened. At least she had a good laugh with them.

Now, she was in her bedroom, the light from the movie playing on the TV was the only source of illumination. Y/N was lying in her bed, already in her pajamas and with her pre-bed cup of cappuccino on her lap, keeping her legs warm, her eyes on the television, but her mind somewhere else.

The sound of the YouTube notification came from her phone and Y/N had never moved so quickly, her hand taking the device out of her bedside table and unlocking the screen while muting the television, clicking on it with her thumb without even looking at the other notifications.

Her fingers worked on increasing the volume and screen brightness, setting it to the best resolution and getting comfortable on her bed, preparing to stay in that position for the next hour.

The podcast was already at minute 35, and Y/N felt her cheeks hurting from how much she was laughing at the topics brought up by the boys. Nick was especially funny that day, making Chris and Matt laugh at every moment.

In addition to the senseless fights that would arise between the three of them out of nowhere, which made Y/N roll her eyes playfully, already accustomed to their way with each other.

Until her big smile was replaced by an expression of a mixture of fright and surprise.

"Can we take a moment to talk about the intense crush Chris developed this weekend?" Nick interrupted Matt's laughter, taking a sip of his Doctor Pepper.

Chris turned abruptly to his brother, his eyes wide at the comment as he shook his head, almost begging through telepathy for him not to talk about that.

"It's true, Chris spent the weekend obsessing over a fan of ours who makes videos on TikTok with different ideas for our channel." Matt agreed, looking briefly at Nick while his hands moved the microphone support, pressing his lips together as he tried to suppress his laughter at Chris's reaction.

"Yeah, she is super pretty, and her ideas are very interesting. I think I only saw her profile once, but I listened to all her videos through Chris's phone." Nick continued, raising his right hand and directing his palm towards Chris, pretending to cover his figure with it and ignoring his desperate expression. "He literally spent the entire weekend watching her."

"Her name is Y/N. Search for her guys. We might even use one of her ideas on our next podcast." Matt added, his voice coming out low despite his mouth being almost glued to the microphone.

"You guys are horrible, I hate you." Despite the distance, the camera lens that focused on Chris's image captured his red cheeks as he tried to suppress a smile at the thought of the girl who took over his thoughts, rolling his eyes to his brothers.

"Now he will be silent for the next 10 minutes." Nick continued, amusement in his voice as he picked up his Space Camp watermelon lip balm, playing with the object in his hands.

"He's in love Nick, give him some credit." Matt mocked alongside the oldest triplet, a small smile on his face as his eyes watched his brother's reaction.

"Okay, next topic." Chris interrupted loudly, his voice cracking with embarrassment. He raised his arms and moved them from side to side exasperatedly, earning laughter from the other two, before Nick briefly passed his eyes on the document open on his laptop, starting the next topic.

"Oh my God." Y/N whispered, clicking once on the screen and dragging the small ball in the bottom bar to the left, going back a few minutes of the podcast and rewatching that specific part.

The girl repeated that action at least three more times, her brain still processing that Chris Sturniolo had been watching her TikToks all weekend - as if she were some kind of famous artist - and that, apparently, he was developing a mini crush on her as well.

Her heart was beating too fast to be normal as her cheeks burned, a red tinge taking over her skin. Goosebumps ran through her body as her fingers trembled slightly. Her jaw was already hurting from the time she held her mouth open, but no sound escaped from it.

A notification suddenly appearing at the top of the screen caught her eye, her right hand instantly flying to her mouth while her left hand lowered her phone, resting the device on her mattress.

Her eyes were now fixed on the wall in front of her bed, as her mind screamed at herself.

christopherturniolo sent you a direct message.

"hey!"

༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

My asks are always open. Feel free to send requests or anything at all 🩷💋

Also, again, I'm thinking of making a tag list for my Sturniolo Triplets x reader, so if you want to be included in it and be tagged on every Sturniolo x reader that I post, comment here please! 🩷

Asked tags: @lustfulslxt @soimightlikeoldmen69 @p1xieswrld @lovrejoana

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cowgurrrl · 1 year

Text

darlin’ i’d wait for you

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (plus platonic Ellie Williams x fem!reader)

Author’s note: Inspired by my real life love for my godchildren. Mis almas, no hay nadie que ame más que tú. Gracias por elegirme.

Summary: “Ten fingers. Ten toes. And even if you had none of them, you’d still be the grandest thing I’ve ever seen.” - Emily Henry, Beach Read aka you and Joel have a baby [3.0k]

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, descriptions of labor and delivery (nothing graphic), swearing, lots of emotions, fluff

"You need to be resting!" Maria says as you pace the living room with your hands on your hips. Ellie is watching you move from her space in the kitchen, her knee bouncing with anxiety as she sits there.

"You need to find Joel!"

"Tommy's getting him right now. Please, just lay down."

"I'm fine," another contraction ripples through your body, and you grip the back of the couch. "Fuck! I can't believe Joel convinced me to do this again!" You yell. The pain tightens in your lower abdomen, and you drop your head to the cushions, unable to focus on anything else. Strong hands press against the small of your back, applying the perfect counter pressure to your contraction. The tension releases just enough for you to pick your head up and find Maria standing over your shoulder, a knowing look in her eyes. No words need to be exchanged for her to know how grateful you are for her presence.

The contractions have been coming and going since late last night, but you didn't think much of it. They were sporadic and not painful enough to make you think you were in labor. You had false contractions with Jane and expected the same thing with this one, except that these contractions became very real very fast. Joel was already out on patrol when you had Ellie run to Tommy and Maria's for additional help because they were getting so bad. This baby is coming soon.

"Do you have a bag ready to go?" Maria asks as the contraction ends, and you nod, pushing yourself up.

"In our bedroom closet, but it's missing some stuff."

"Okay, tell me what you need, and I'll pack it."

"I can do it."

"Honey, if you walk up those stairs, there's no way you'll make it back down." She says, and you sigh. Reluctantly, you list some last-minute things that need to get thrown in the bag and where they'll be. Maria turns on her heels and sprints up the stairs, ever a woman on a mission. Ellie walks over to you as Maria's figure disappears, standing awkwardly near you as you hold your belly.

"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to scare you." You say, wrapping her in a hug or as much of a hug as you can manage with the baby in between you. She relaxes and lets out a big breath as you rub her back.

"I feel like I should be the one comforting you."

"I've done this before. I know what I'm doing."

"Yeah, but that was before," the fear in her voice rattles you to your core, and you pull away to look at her. Her bottom lip is cracked and bleeding from her teeth worrying at it all morning, and she looks like the scared kid you met in Boston. "You really should be on the way to the hospital."

"As soon as Joel gets here, I'll go, okay?" You say, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She shakes her head, and you open your mouth to say something more, but the vice grip returns, and you grip her shoulders. Your head bows under the weight of the pain, and you clutch Ellie like a lifeline.

"Okay, they're getting closer together. Maria!" Ellie yells as she holds you upright. You vaguely register Maria rushing down the stairs and telling Ellie something, but you don't have enough energy to listen. Time could've stopped right there, and you would've had no way of knowing. No stab wound, gunshot, or punch even comes close to this pain level. Your breathing is uneven, and you can feel yourself sweating bullets despite the cool August air. You thought you were ready. You thought you knew what to expect after Jane, but this is different. You wonder why you thought you could have another baby as the contraction fades. Maria says your name, and you pick your head up from Ellie's shoulder.

"We need to get you to the hospital right now. Joel will meet us there." She says, but you shake your head, the lump of panic in your throat tightening. Memories of begging your mom, Jane's dad, friends, or anyone to come to the hospital so you wouldn't be alone replay in your head. You were alone and scared and sixteen fucking years old when you had Jane on a stormy Tuesday morning. The nurses looked at you like a kicked puppy and mumbled, "a baby having a baby," under their breaths when they left you to cry alone while holding your newborn.

"No, no, no. Joel's not here yet. I'm not going without him."

"I promise that Tommy will bring him to you. I'm sure they're on their way back now."

"I'm not going by myself!" The harshness in your tone makes everybody in the room pause. "I've already done this alone once, and I'm not fucking doing it again. So, we are going to wait for Joel even if I have this baby on the fucking floor! Do you understand me?"

"Hey," Ellie says softly. "Hey, you're not alone. At all. We're all here because we love you and want you to be safe. Nobody is going to leave, okay?" She says, rubbing your back as tears fill your eyes.

"I can't do this." without her, you want to add, but you don't. Ellie pushes the sweaty hair out of your eyes and holds your face so you can look at her. Your breath is shaky, and you feel like you could shatter into a million pieces, but her brown eyes are looking into yours so intently that you have no choice but to look back.

"You can. You can do this. You're doing so good. You're going to have this baby, and it'll probably be the cutest fucking baby ever. And we'll all make stupid faces at it and love it even though I don't even think I like most babies, and you'll be okay. Both of you," her eyes don't move from yours as she speaks, even when you start crying. "You're not alone, but I can tell you're in pain, and we need to get to the hospital before it gets worse, okay?" She asks, and you take a shaky breath before nodding. Ellie and Maria seem to let out sighs of relief at the same time, and they start ushering you to the door when it opens.

"I'm here! I'm here! I'm sorry I'm late," Joel yells as he and Tommy run in. He smiles and runs over and kisses you. You have half a mind to smack him for looking so giddy when you're in so much pain, but let him kiss you anyway. "You ready to have a baby?" He asks as another contraction tightens in your stomach, making you squeeze him tightly. You don't get to see your family scrambling to get out the door, but you feel it. Bags and coats find owners as your entourage helps support you down the steps of your home and on the path to the hospital.

Four contractions come and go on the way to the hospital doors, where Maria, Tommy, and Ellie cheer and promise to wait there until you're ready for them. "Almost there, baby. We're gonna get you all the good drugs, okay?" Joel tells you quietly as he flags down a nurse and a wheelchair for you. The nurse asks rapid-fire questions as she rushes you into a delivery room, and Joel does his best to answer them. You curl into yourself the second your body hits the hospital bed, yet another contraction hitting you, but this time with a familiar splitting pain. You're not going to have time for the good drugs.

The rest is a blur of doctors, nurses, questions, and Joel whispering praises into your temple. Your vision struggles to focus on anything as pain radiates from your hips to your back and up your spine. It's excruciating and dizzying, and you think you'd throw up if you weren't so focused on getting this fucking kid out. "One more, baby. One more push, and then it's over." Joel tells you. You don't respond. You can't. All the blood rushes through your ears, and you squeeze his hand hard. For a moment, the whole world stops, and tears fall down Joel's face as the tiny baby is placed on your chest. You gasp and hold them close as they screech, announcing their arrival loudly.

"It's a girl!" Someone announces, and you laugh weakly, struggling to catch your breath. You look down at your daughter and kiss her head as she continues to cry.

"You're okay. I've got you. We're okay, sweetheart. You're safe," you tell her, rubbing her back. Joel reaches out to trace the apple of her cheek and grabs her tiny hand. You and Joel join her crying, everything besides your family becoming obsolete. Joel presses a chaste kiss to your lips and smiles when you laugh against him. "I told you so." You say, and he laughs.

"You were right," he says. "I'm so proud of you." He kisses you again as your daughter cries beautifully on your chest. Jane didn't cry at first when she was born, effectively scaring the shit out of you and everyone else in the room, but when she finally did, it was like you were breathing for the first time, too. You think this may be the first time since her death that you've felt that much peace.

Joel cuts the cord, and the room devolves into a controlled madness with nurses and doctors calling things back and forth to each other. You don't care. The little girl on your chest has settled down and tucked her head under your chin, listening to your rapid heartbeat and recognizing the pattern. "We're right here, baby girl. We're not going anywhere, okay?" You whisper to her, kissing her over and over again. She smiles, and you immediately recognize Joel's crooked smile— nine months of carrying her and a record-breakingly fast delivery for her to be his twin.

"Mama, we're gonna take her to get cleaned up and get her measurements, okay? The doctor's working on getting you fixed up, too." A nurse says, and you nod.

"Just be careful, please. I made her from scratch, and it took a really fucking long time." You say as you pass her to the nurse. Everyone, including Joel, laughs even though you're serious. Joel leaves your side only to follow the nurse to the other side of the room, watching her every movement meticulously. You keep eyes on both of them. She starts fussing as the nurse cleans her up, and Joel reaches out to smooth her hair. He says something to her that you can't hear and watch him start crying again. She settles down again, but Joel is a mess. The nurse offers him a tissue, and you laugh to yourself but don't do anything to get his attention.

Let them have their secret conversation. You have a feeling it will be the first of many.

She's asleep, but you can't stop looking at her. Joel is lying in the hospital bed with you as she rests in his arms, your chin hooked over his shoulder so you can stare at her. The little girl who gave you enough excitement for a lifetime is bundled up in a white blanket with a striped hat covering her dark hair. Her legs are long and skinny, but she's strong, grasping anything within reach.

She has his nose and lips, but your eyes match. Her little chest rises and falls steadily, and little sighs come from her occasionally as she sleeps. Her hand somehow escaped the swaddle, and her fingers flex around the blanket's fabric like she's trying to decide whether she likes it. Joel reaches for her tiny hand and tries to tuck it away again, but she resists, making an angry face until he lets go. You laugh and melt simultaneously at her actions.

"She's perfect," you whisper as you kiss Joel's shoulder. He hums and turns to kiss your temple. "How did we get so lucky?"

"I've no idea," he whispers back. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Her. This. Making me a dad again." His voice is so tender and raw that your eyes mist up again. You sniffle and wipe your eyes.

"Anytime, cowboy," you rest your hand on her chest to feel the little heartbeat you made from nothing but stardust and blood. Her face scrunches up in her sleep before her little fingers find yours. "Well, maybe not anytime, but you know what I meant."

"Oh, 'm ready for another one right now."

"Never in a million fucking years could you convince me to do that again."

"You did great." He says, and you smile. You're both exhausted and should be sleeping, but you can't stop looking at the life you created together. She's not even a day old, and you know you would tear the world into a thousand pieces if she asked you to. You would do anything for her.

"D'you still like the name we picked?" You ask, and he nods.

"Do you?"

"I think it's perfect for her."

"Hey, guys," a nurse peeks her head in the door. "Are we ready for some visitors?" She asks. You nod, and Joel adjusts baby girl in his arms. Her little arm reaches up in a stretch, and she fusses when she loses the grip on your hand. You tell her you're not far, and Joel bounces her.

"Hey," Ellie says softly as she enters the room. You smile and sit up, ignoring the jarring pain in your hips at the movement. "Oh, my God. How are you feeling?" She asks as she hugs you like she's afraid she'll break you if she holds you too tight. You rub her back and kiss her head.

"I'm okay. I delivered pretty much the second they could get me to lay down."

"I knew we should've gone to the hospital sooner!" Ellie says, and Joel shushes her. She makes an eek face as she looks at him.

"A baby's tryin' to sleep here."

"Holy shit," she breathes, taking in the bundle in Joel's arms for the first time. "Girl or boy?"

"I'm pretty sure the Millers are only capable of having girls at this point," you say, and Ellie smiles. "Do you wanna hold her?"

"Can I?" She asks as Joel stands. She's unsure what to do but copies Joel's position and puts a hand under her back.

"Support her head," Joel instructs quietly as he carefully transitions your daughter into Ellie's arms.

"I got it. I got it," she says. Instinctively, she starts swaying back and forth and patting the baby's back. Joel stays nearby, watching as Ellie gets comfortable holding her. Your heart could explode seeing the three of them together. "Who are you?" She asks quietly, pulling the blanket under the baby's chin so she can see her.

"This is Charlotte Elaine Miller," you say. "Charlie, for short."

"Hey there, Charlie girl. My name's Ellie."

"She's your big sister." Joel adds. Even though he's talking to Charlie, he's looking at Ellie. She takes a shaky breath as she processes his words. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and kisses her forehead.

"I'm one of your big sisters," she says. The pregnancy hormones and the day's emotions catch up with you, and you couldn’t stop the tears even if you wanted to. Something about seeing Ellie with Charlie hits you hard. "I've got so much to teach you and tell you about when you're a little bigger, though. There's not much I can do with you right now except, well, this," She shrugs as if to make her point to the sleeping baby, and you laugh. Charlie stretches again, probably getting used to having so much room now that she's out of you, and yawns. "Oh, big yawn. Good job." Ellie praises.

"You're a natural," Joel says, making her smile.

"I dunno about that, but she does like me. Right, Charlie girl?" she asks, and the Charlie girl in question chuffs. "Oh, we're gonna have so much fun together." She says sincerely. Joel meets your eyes, sending you a knowing look and a crooked smile, and you smile back a little sadly. He works at his jaw, and his Adam's apple bobs as his eyes sparkle with tears again. No words need to be exchanged. You know. You may be one of the only people who know. Ellie rambles to Charlie, ever the present audience, and you remember, silent and pious in your devotion.

You think you'll spend your whole life remembering, a constant scramble for pieces of memories that bring her closer. You think you'll find bits of her in music, the summer sun, and your girls' eyes. You think you'll tell Charlie of her big sisters, who were loved and cherished beyond belief, and their shared adoration of Patti Smith. You think you'll be able to find a way to talk about her that doesn't feel like your soul is desperately ripping away from you. For Sarah, Jane, Ellie, and now Charlie, you think you would do anything.

Even after so much loss, destruction, and nights spent hopelessly staring at the wall like it would be enough to start Jane's heart again, you think you would do it all again. The world can be a really shitty place, and you've seen firsthand how horrible people can be to each other. You and Joel have been a million different versions of awful people, and you can never escape that. But you have Ellie and Charlie. And each other. And for a moment, in this horribly lit hospital room, every minute of that misery has meaning.

💓

taglist: @evyiione @nyotamalfoy @abbyhaslongshorts

#the last of us #joel and ellie #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #the last of us x reader #joel tlou #ellie williams #joel miller the last of us #joel miller fluff #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x pregnant reader #big sister Ellie Williams #there’s such an Easter egg in the baby’s name #first person to look up the name meanings gets a kiss on the mouth #look for the light

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nights-at-crystarium · 9 months

Text

As a twitter/tumblr user since 2010-2011, I believe I have sufficient grounds to say that currently we as a community are living through the scariest, shittiest time yet. This post isn’t trying to fearmonger, no I’m not leaving tumblr until it literally keels over, but I suggest that we don’t put all our eggs in one basket.

If twitter/tumblr stay usable, great! In the worse scenario, you’d have kept posting on a new platform and stayed ahead of the curve.

This post shares my personal experience with three potential “new”* fandom places, and is aimed to help fellow content creators. I’m an artist fully depending on internet to survive, my reasoning may not apply to you if you’re a hobbyist. Do your own research, it’s always healthy. * Pillowfort and mastodon have been around for 5+ years, bluesky is ~2 years old.

Discovering new people to follow kinda sucks on all three platforms, twitter and tumblr are eons ahead, but, given the recent chaos and uncertainty, I’m willing to be patient, keep posting on those, and feel safer than I would’ve otherwise been. More baskets good, one basket bad.

All three have poor visual customization, don’t expect custom tumblr themes.

This list starts with the least popular, but most human and easy to join, and what I personally trust the most. All three allow nsfw if labeled properly.

✦ Pillowfort is a barebones tumblr. Intuitive, cozy, but currently very, very small. Be patient with its clunkiness or lack of some features, it’s made by an AO3-like team. I’d personally love if the fandom crowd managed to redirect its attention to it instead of the sus bluesky.

Joining: is free, invite-only, but the waitlist is nearly instant.

Lurk around on their official tumblr: @/pillowfort-social

✦ Mastodon, for me personally, is impossible to explain directly. I’ll use several comparisons.

- Discord but all servers can interact. You’re still on a server curated by some human(s) that might tell you what you can and can’t post, BUT, if you don’t like that server’s policy, you can move to a new one while keeping your followers. - Email, users A and B may be registered on different domains, still they can talk. It’s a weird comparison, but fediverse (please I’m not explaining THAT but it’s a good thing) in general looks like another email story: unlike big sites that come and go, it might stand the test of time. - Someone compared mastodon’s structure to xiv’s dc and servers, if you look at its domain names that way, it might be easier to understand.

Depending on user, mastodon may feel gatekeepy/snowflakey. I haven’t spent enough time on there to form a proper opinion yet, but a warning’s due.

An actually good and hopeful thing about mastodon AND tumblr: the two might start interacting in future. Ever lamented that your fav asian artists don’t use tumblr? If they use misskey, or any other place on the fediverse, it might be possible to follow them directly from tumblr in future, and vice versa.

Joining: is free, however some servers close for new members sometimes, and have human moderators reviewing your request.

✦ Bluesky is a twitter without Musk: today’s average internet user reads this, drops everything and already looks to register there. It’s still sus, but people flock to it like crazy. Most likely to become the next big fandom place in my eyes, even if I’m not happy about that.

I personally have no good feelings about bluesky. Same as twitter, which I hated even before the 2018 tumblr exodus, yet the crowd decided to make it The New Fandom Place, and, grudgingly, I had to give up and also join them in 2022. During the year I haven’t stopped despising twitter, yet, I can’t deny that it helped me survive. I estimate half of my patrons, and, hell, even tumblr audience, comes from twitter. So, if bluesky ends up being the next hot shit, I’ll have to keep up because internet pays for my living.

Joining: is free but hell, invite-only, the waitlist is a lie, your best chance to join is a direct invite.

This’s all I’ve got to say for now. If you have a correction or an addition, replies/reblogs are welcome!

Screenshots of the current interfaces under the cut, you may spy on my profiles o/

Pillowfort

Mastodon.art

Bluesky

#i grabbed a name on cohost and inkblot too but those interfaces instantly turned me away #also i'm not covering the mobile apps since i'm a pc-only user #social media #pillowfort #mastodon #bluesky #text post #long post #this already started making rounds but i wanted to add about algorithms #all three seem to have no algorithm atm #only 100% about pillowfort tho

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 7 months

Note

I'm a student about to start my second year, and me and all my friends are really nervous. It feels like first year was really rough for everyone all over the place and we're all really hoping for a better second year this year! Have lecturers been noticing that too? Do you think it's because of COVID?

Oh my god yes. Jesus yes. It's absolutely the covid effect, and we're expecting to see the disruption for the next five or so years, tbh - the current 18-21 year old undergrads went through the most important years of high school during a lockdown. That not only interrupted academic development (home schooling during a time of stress, massive disruption to exams and exam-taking skills, etc), it also enormously hit emotional development (mid to late teens have the highest socialising needs of the human lifespan, and no one could meet and interact with each other.) And that latter point is having a much bigger effect than the former.

Current undergrads haven't been able to develop the same resilience, the same approach to andragogic education, the same interpersonal skills for dealing with lecturers/fellow students. University is not like school; in school teachers are giving you the knowledge, and gradually encouraging you to try and use it to formulate your own opinions. In university, we're supposed to give you the framework to then go out and do you own research. The bulk of your education comes from you, not us; we're more like facilitators.

But, we're noticing that there's a far bigger skew now towards needing to get the answer right. Anxiety is higher, and so the fear of being wrong is much more crippling for these students, and that in turn means they're less willing/able to take charge of their own education and are more passive with it, wanting to just be fed the right answers so they can rote learn them and get the Good mark. And the disconnect between that and the reality of what lecturers are expecting is pretty big, it turns out, and is causing even more anxiety and stress. Record numbers of my students have started asking me to give their assignment drafts a quick look over, just to see if they're on the right track. Which, you know, I'm more than happy to do; but I do think it's a notable pattern change from three or four years ago.

If you're worrying on a personal level though, Anon, I have some Handy Tips if they're any use!

Remember: the idea of uni is that you are doing your own research and learning on the topics your lecturers describe. They're giving you the basics, but they're expecting you to look up examples, case studies, other research papers, etc. They want to see analysis. That's what gets you the good marks. If you simply describe the information you got in lectures and don't add anything, you'll struggle to rise out of a basic pass.

What's the fundamental point of your particular course? It's important to know this, because it'll tell you how to focus your assessments and exam answers. Just within the environmental sector, you could have Environmental Science (focus: academic exploration and research), Environmental Conservation (focus: applying the academic research to actual management and solutions), Environmental Impacts (focus: philosophy and ethics), etc. In all three, you might be given a paper about the latest IPCC report, but in the first you would focus on exploring all the research papers that formed the conclusion on climate change, in the second you'd focus on case studies around the world and the applicability/feasibility of the shared economic pathways that are going to fix the problem, and in the third you'd focus on the human impacts of both the problem and the proposed solutions. You may of course include elements of all of those, but your main focus should be chosen appropriately.

Keep your notes with copies of the lecture slides in nice ordered folders. Keep a bulleted list of the topics covered in each. This makes it far easier to go and double check the right info when you're stressed out

On that note, the best note-taking system is to add notes/comments to the lecture slides where you record clarifications and things the lecturer said (INCLUDING CASE STUDIES). Don't bother duplicating effort by writing what's on the slide.

I truly do know this is easier said than done, but don't leave your assignments until the last minute. Are you struggling with motivation? You need a study group. You need to body double.

And finally, the biggest: CONTACT STUDENT SUPPORT IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING. Every time I go to an exam board and we get to a student who has failed stuff, the first question the Academic Office asks is "Has this student been working with Student Support?" Even if they aren't that helpful in your uni, working with them means they know about the things you're struggling with, and that you've clearly been trying to work around the problems. That makes the Academic Office far, far more likely to take a lenient view of a student, rather than going "Well, clearly they just don't care then, withdraw them from the program." Your Student Support should be able to help you with counselling, study buddies, a support worker that can help you organise your time and interpret your assignment briefs correctly and give you interim deadlines, etc.

Oh, and remember to schedule in rest and downtime, just as much as study time.

And... honestly, you learned a lot in your first year. The learning curve is less steep in second year, even accounting for the academic rigour increasing. By now, you're basically used to things like referencing, routines, assignment formatting, etc. There are no more surprises, really. Now's the point you can get the bit between your teeth and run.

Anyway: good luck! And enjoy it as much as you can. University is hard, no doubt about that, but it can and should be fun as well.

#asks #the professional world of careers and tasks

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lechemoon · 1 year

Text

the one where spencer reid doesn't want to be just your friend

spencer reid x f reader

wc: ~1.8k

prompt: "i don't want to be your friend. i want to fall in love with you."

no warnings apply, however if i miss any please let me know :) additionally, if someone is able to identify the prompt list that the prompt is from, i would appreciate it! i can't seem to find the list </3

a/n: still on my slow rewatch, i haven't finished season 5 but i know for a fact that long-haired jesus reid is coming to an end, so this fic is for him specifically hehe

spencer shuts his mouth immediately, and regrets ever having the ability to even speak at all. the way you’re looking at him makes him want to curl up into himself.

“that was rude. all i asked was if you wanted to grab lunch.” you stuff your phone in your pocket aggressively, about facing the opposite direction from him.

“wait, wait, wait.” he grabs you by the crook of your elbow, slightly yanking to keep you from walking away from him but not so much that you tip over and lose your balance. it’s now or never, and spencer will be damned if he lets you walk away without even trying to make you understand what he’s been trying to tell you.

you groan, and he hates that he can hear the frustration and confusion emitting from you. hates it because he knows how it feels- he’s been feeling it for months. along with this gnawing feeling in his stomach and a clawing feeling in his chest and an ache in his heart (but he’ll ignore that for now- he’s got things to do and words to say).

you move your free hand to run it through the top of your head, brushing any stray hairs from your face. you let out a quick breath from your mouth, and turn your head towards spencer. you make your body so that it’s still mostly facing away from him slightly. “what? you’re gonna explain why you’re suddenly just changing it up on me? being rude to me out of nowhere? if we can’t be friends right now then i don’t think there’s a reason for us to talk outside of work-“

“i don’t-!” he clears his throat because he doesn’t mean to raise his voice in the middle of the work day. his eyes scan the room quickly, and he finds himself thankful that most of the floor has gone out for lunch. those that are here still seem to have either not heard him or are choosing to ignore his outburst. “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to shout… can we- can we talk somewhere more private?”

when you don’t show any signs of saying yes, he pulls out the big guns. releasing your arm, he takes hold of your hand instead. gently, unsure. his bottom lip juts out only slightly, just enough that he knows he’s sure you’ve seen it. and he’s sure, because your eyes land on his lips for a second. “please?”

“ugh, fine.” you shake your hand from his. “there’s no one in penelope’s office,” you say as you begin to walk in the direction of your coworker's office. you don’t bother looking back at spencer until your hand finds the door handle. “why are you still sitting? come on! i don’t have all day and i have to grab a snack after this.”

grabbing his bag and getting up from his chair, spencer makes his way (clumsily) to follow you out the door. “i can explain myself,” he says to your back while you both trek your way to penelope’s office.

he practically hears your eyes roll when you respond with, “i’m sure you can.” you turn left because you accidentally lead the both of you the wrong way, so now you’re taking the scenic route.

“i think we took the-“

“i know,” you cut him off, finally reaching penelope’s door. you open it and aren’t surprised you find it unlocked. neither of you are surprised to find that all the computer screens are locked as well. she wouldn’t be penelope if she didn’t secure her babies.

“okay, we have a few minutes before penelope enters her lair.” you turn to him, hands on your hips and tapping your foot impatiently. “well?”

it’s spencer’s turn to brush his fingers through his hair. he knew what he wanted to say before this- had a whole 20 second speech prepared that ended with a small lie of him not actually being hungry. why couldn’t he think of it now?

i’m sorry. I’m not hungry right now so i didn’t want to get sandwiches with you.

i didn’t mean to tell you to leave me alone like that, or use that tone of voice. or to call you nosey.

in fact, i don’t think i ever want you to leave me alone. i’d eat a hundred sandwiches if it meant spending lunch with you.

“spencer?”

when he takes a good look at you, he forgets everything he wanted to say. “u-uhm,” he bites his lower lip. “i-i’m sorry, i usually… i usually don’t forget what i want to say.” not a lie, not a truth. he has fragments of what he wants to say dangling in his brain, but no way to string them all together.

you smack your lips and cross your arms. “reid, really? you tell me to leave you alone, then you tell me to talk privately- why are you pulling my leg?”

it hits him when he remembers you saying if we cant be friends-

“i don’t want to be your friend,” he tells you directly, looking into your eyes. it takes everything in him not to break eye contact. it gets harder to not look away when you’re staring right back at him with eyes expectant. waiting. almost impatient looking.

and they change slightly. now he sees hurt, worry, sadness. your foot stops tapping. “you… you don’t want to be… friends?” you cross your arms, and spencer knows you’re getting defensive and closed-off. you’re getting ready to leave the room.

but his hands find your upper arms and slides down them, releasing you from your knot and landing at your wrist. he turns them upward, and rubs his thumbs against them in small circles. “i-i don’t want to be just your friend,” he says again, but with more intention.

now he sees something new in you- confusion, curiosity. “just my friend?”

“not just your friend,” he repeats. “I feel like… no. i think i-i want to… to fall in love with you,” he says finally, and his face feels hot and his throat feels dry.

shit, he thinks, that’s not what i was going to say. i didn’t mean to say love! like would have sufficed just fine!

what he should have said was that he liked you more than he would any other person, that you made him feel like he was floating or that he was flying.

spencer feels his stomach drop when you don’t respond to him right away, and he lets his hands begin to fall from your wrist. “that came out wr-“

but you grab his hands into your own before physical contact can even break. “you what?”

“i mean- i did want to be your friend, i do want to be your friend it’s just that i,” he doesn’t know where his sentence is leading but he knows that he wants you to know that wanting to be with you wasn’t his intention at first. “i think… i think you’re great. you’re smart and you’re pretty, and sometimes i notice that you match your socks to your blouse- why are you looking at me like that?”

you're biting your bottom lip to hold back your smile, but the sparkle in your eyes and the crinkle at the corners give you away. you’re happy- nervous, but happy. at least, that’s what spencer speculates when he takes a look at you.

“i feel like i should be mad at you,” you admit, letting go of his hands so that you can rub yours together. penelope’s cave is cold. “liking someone isn’t an excuse to snap at them the way you did to me earlier.”

“i know, and i’m so sorry-“

you cut him off again. “let me finish.” and his lips shut.

not knowing what to do with his now vacant hands, he stuffs them in his pockets and fingers the lint that has made its way into them.

“do you know why i ask you out for lunch all the time?” you ask him, pointing one of your index fingers to his chest.

spencer shakes his head. “because you… like the company and camaraderie?”

“i like your company,” the finger against his chest pushes in slightly, and you take a step back so you don’t have to continue to crane your neck at a weird angle to look up at him. “i like you.”

a confession, spencer thinks to himself, wasn’t on his list of things he expected to happen today. “me?” in attempts to keep a grin from forming, he purses his lips together. it doesn’t help, because now he’s grinning with his teeth in full display.

he tilts his head to the side in disbelief. “r-really?”

“yes, really!” a new third party squeals excitedly from behind.

both you and spencer bring your attention towards the door. spencer shouldn’t be surprised to find penelope in her own doorway, but he is. and so it seems are you.

penelope dances in, doing a happy little shake as she prances past the two of you to set her things and then herself down. neither of your eyes leave her as she settles herself in. spencer feels like his eyes are as wide as they can possibly be and he wonders if you’re feeling the same way, because when he looks at you he thinks that he’s sporting the same look of a deer caught in the headlights.

no one says anything. only the sound of a pastry being released from it’s parchment prison by penelope fills the room until you finally say, “how long have you been standing there?”

the tech beauty of the team rips a piece of her danish to pop it in her mouth and chews on it for a few seconds, exhaling happily when the taste finally hits her tongue. she swallows before she give you her answer. “i’ve been here since…,” she checks her naked wrist as if she were checking the time, and then looks up to smirk at spencer, “since the boy genius said he wanted to- what was it again, dr. reid?”

taken aback by being thrown into the conversation so suddenly, spencer stumbles on his words. “u-uhm, i uh, i said i-”

“ah that’s right,” penelope smiles, setting her pastry down and dusting her hands off. “you said you would like to fall in love with our dear friend here?” she points to you and winks.

if spencer’s eyes could get any wider and if his face could find a darker shade of pink he knows they would.

“so,” penelope crosses her legs and leans back in her chair. her eyes haven’t left you, and spencer is thankful that he doesn’t have to face the intensity he sees in penelope. “i see your dream’s coming true, love bug,” she says to you, and spencer sees you bite your thumbnail to try and hide your smile.

you finally look at spencer, and he feels his stomach flutter. “i really, really like you spencer,” you say to him to finish off your interrupted conversation.

“oh yeah,” penelope adds, nodding excitedly, “she really does, doctor.”

a/n: thank you for reading <3

#spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #my fic #mgg #matthew gray gubler

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griseldagimpel · 6 months

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How to Punish Democrats in the United States for Being Pro-Genocide

I've seen a lot of posts about abandoning the Democratic party. (Because, really, is Be Anti-Genocide really that much of a fucking ask??)

And I've seen a lot of posts about how not voting Democrat means the Republicans will win, which means we'll end up with politicians that are both pro-genocide and a bunch of other awful shit. (Yep. This is true.)

But I haven't seen a lot of posts going around about other things people could do, especially with primaries literally being next year in which the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are up for re-election.

For those not familiar with primaries, they are elections that take place before the general election and are the mechanism for how the general election candidate for a political party is selected. So a primary won't be Democrat vs Republican, it'll be Democrat vs Democrat or Republican vs Republican.

To start, yes, a lot of the below require a lot of time and effort. Yeah, the reality is is that the world's a shitty place because people who want to change it are struggling to exist under late stage capitalism. If there's something on this list you can't do, that's fine. What can you do?

This post is mostly not going to focus on Biden. He's not the sum total of the Democratic party, and if more of the party was against him, he'd have a harder time getting traction. That said, if you do have a presidential primary with him on the ballot, you should absolutely vote against him, just on principle.

Depending on the state, you may need to be a registered member of the Democratic Party to vote in the Democratic Party Primary. And, look, registering as a Democrat doesn't mean you have a legal obligation to vote for a Democratic candidate in the general election. There's no loyalty pledge you have to sign that says you agree with every single position the Democratic Party holds. There's not a membership fee. Literally, all it does is mean that your little voting card says you're a Democrat, which establishes that you want to have a say in how the Democratic Party is run. That's it.

Alright, first step. Who are your two Senators and one House Representative? Here's a link to find that information: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Second step: Are your elected officials Democrats? (Or Independents that caucus with the Democrats?) And are they pro-Genocide?

If they're a Republican, than your goal is to elect an anti-Genocide Democrat. (Or anti-Genocide Independent who'll caucus with the Democrats. Same difference. I'm just going to use "Democrat" from here on out, and you can substitute in "Independent" if it applies.) You still care about primaries, though. It's just that in the General election, the Republican candidate will be incumbent rather than the challenger.

If they're a anti-Genocide Democrat, send them a letter telling them you appreciate their position, and most of the rest of this post doesn't apply to you.

If they're a pro-Genocide Democrat, is there someone running against them in the primary? https://ballotpedia.org/ is a great resource here.

If they've got a primary challenger, is their primary challenger anti-Genocide? If they are, write them and tell them you appreciate their position. Then write to the incumbent and tell them that them being pro-Genocide is why you aren't voting for them in the primary. If the primary challenger is pro-Genocide or doesn't have a stated position, write to them and try to get them to adopt an anti-Genocide position. Pay attention to town hall events, and don't hesitate to contact the campaign. Primaries don't get a lot of attention, so if you can get a primary challenger to switch positions, there's not a big risk of blow back for them doing so. (In a general election, switching positions can get a candidate labeled a flip-flop, so keep that in mind.)

If there's not a primary challenger or if you need a better primary challenger, who in your community can run as one? Check with your local leftist organizations. Check deadlines and requirements to get a candidate on the ballot. It usually requires getting a certain number of signatures on a petition from people in your area.

Now that you've got an anti-Genocide primary challenger, consider volunteering for their campaign. And, something to keep in mind, turn out for primaries tends to be low, and the smaller the population size of the district, the lower that number will be. It may only take a few hundred votes to swing a primary election, if you've got a smaller district.

While all this is going on, you will no doubt be flooded with messages from Democratic candidates begging for money. For each, check their position. If they're pro-Genocide, don't give them money and then call, email, or write them telling them that their pro-Genocide position is why they aren't getting money. If they're anti-Genocide, and you can afford it, give them a bit of money. Yeah, in the bigger elections, there's ridiculous amounts of money in play, but a primary challenger might not necessarily be rolling in it.

Finally, vote in the primaries.

#politics #elections #primary elections #long post #israel palestine conflict #vote these fuckers out

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uhohwhathaveidone · 1 year

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I'm on me knees begging for a Sebastian x Slytherin reader

Your wish is my command <3

Lay Your Head on my Shoulder (S.S)

A fluffy fic, not angst like yesterday! Reader is gender neutral, with no gender roles applied. (No they/them!). No spoilers for this one either! Just three friends being buddies (Two of them are in love with each other and the other one just enjoys listening to them banter). I hope you enjoy! I'm off to grab pudding now <3

The moment you came into the sorting ceremony, hair a mess and outfit covered in dust and dirt, Sebastian knew he wanted to get to know you. How many times do new students show up late for the ceremony? Even more, how many students show up to Hogwarts in their fifth year, and late! He watched you hurry to the front of the room, too busy to see everyone’s eyes on you. He nudged Ominis with his shoulder, whispering, “They’ve got to be a Slytherin. What other house would show up late to their own sorting?” Ominis furrowed his brows in confusion, he didn’t know there was someone late coming in. Sebastian watched, mesmerized, as the sorting hat was placed on your head. He couldn’t quite hear what the hat was saying, but it looked like he was really pondering which house to put you in. “Oh well, it seems like you will be a good fit in Slytherin!” Sebastian smiled in triumph and applauded alongside his fellow students, watching you as you walked down the small steps and following Professor Weasley.

“This is your common room, the Slytherin Commons. Here, you will get to know your fellow housemates. I’m sure you will find what little items you brought with you on your bed.” Professor Weasley said, motioning to the wall. You looked in awe and confusion as the two serpents moved smoothly along the wall and formed a door, welcoming you in. You nodded in the direction of the professor and stepped inside. The room was dim, and the walls were cobbled, like a basement or a dungeon. You looked around, taking in the details around you before making your way to where everyone slept. You passed by a student, who pointed you in the direction of where your bed would be, and you headed over. “What little items you have” was an understatement. All you really brought was yourself and the clothes on your back, but on your bed lay a bundle of green and black, your uniform and robes.

Once you had gotten changed and comfortable, you ventured out and back to the commons, given the task of talking to those in your house. You had only made it to the opening of the big room when Sebastian showed up by your side. “Hello there, I’m Sebastian.” He held his hand out, and you took it. He pointed to the figure behind him, “This is Ominis.” You looked past Sebastian, finding the boy who only waved. You told them your name as Sebastian led you to one of the couches. “So, tell us. Were you actually almost swallowed by a dragon?” Sebastian asks, a smile on his lips. You nodded softly, still looking around. “How did you manage to do that?” You could only shrug, explaining, “It just appeared out of the sky. It chased us and eventually bit our carriage in half and then knocked us out of it.” Sebastian looked at you in wonder, his chocolate eyes twinkling. “How did you survive? Surely you were high up, there would be no way someone would have survived a fall like that.” You shook your head, pressing a finger to your lips. “That’s a secret.”

You became quick friends with Sebastian and Ominis. Sebastian had accompanied you on your trip to Hogsmeade to get new supplies, and even bought you a few items, ones that he swore you needed, but you could tell they weren’t part of the supply list. He even invited you to join his dueling club, after you sent him to the ground during your first duel, one that he called a “Proper Hogwarts Welcome.” You walked over to him and offered your hand, and he gladly took it. In that moment, he asked you to join the club. You had accepted, of course, what better way to practice spells? Sebastian also wanted to help you catch up on all that you missed to make sure you were prepared for the O.W.L.S. That was when Sebastian suggested a study group, and invited Ominis to join you.

You turned the page and picked up your quill, jotting down information that you deemed important as you read. You looked over to Sebastian, who had gone off topic talking about all the times he tried a simple bubble charm, how they would burst within a second, and how he couldn’t figure out how to make it work. “You’d think it would be easy for you, since you’re already a bubble brain.” You joked, putting your quill down. Sebastian turned to you, lips formed into a pout. You were sitting next to each other on the couch, the same one he had sat you down on to bombard you with questions on your first day. He swatted at you, missing as you scooted quickly away. Sebastian turned his head back to Ominis, trying to continue his conversation, only to be met with Ominis silently holding a laugh at your comment. “Not you too, Ominis!” You took this moment to pick your quill up once again, pointing the feather in Sebastian’s direction. Quickly, you jumped him, using the feather of your quill to tickle him where he was vulnerable, his neck. “Hey!” Sebastian proceeded to try to take your quill away, grabbing at your wrists and poking you in the sides, causing you to let go. “Aww, no fair.” You pouted, watching Sebastian place your quill far away so you couldn’t reach it. “This is completely fair, and besides, you started it.” He said, smirking. You huffed in response, “I need that to take notes.” “Should have thought about that before you went and lost your quill privileges.”

You had settled down, stuck reading from your book and trying to memorize what you were reading. You constantly looked over at Sebastian, hoping to find a moment where he was preoccupied so you could grab your quill back. Each time you looked over, however, Sebastian met your eyes. A faint warmth spread to your cheeks each time and you buried your nose back into the book in your hands. Sebastian smiled softly each time you would hurry to get back into the book, continuing to read aloud the chapter you were going over.

“So, this transfiguration spell says that, if used correctly, you could turn a teapot into a…tortoise?” Sebastian read out, confusion written all over his face. You looked around, searching for a teapot. “I don’t see one anywhere. Perhaps we could use something else?” You asked, leaning over Sebastian’s shoulder, to look at the picture on the page. Sebastian was grateful that you were more interested in the book than anything else, or you would have seen his face light up at the sudden contact. “We could use Sebastian. He’s like a teapot, no?” Ominis offered, a smile growing on his face. You nodded quickly, pushing Sebastian against the back of the couch and raising your wand. “Wait! Why me? First off,” Sebastian started, eyes wide. “I am nothing like a teapot!” You raised an eyebrow, “But you made us tea just a bit ago. That’s the same thing.” Ominis nodded, taking the moment to reach for his own tea. “Precisely, this tea in my hand didn’t magically appear.” Sebastian scoffed as he turned his attention back to you. You had stood up and moved in front of him, book in one hand and wand in the other. “Let’s see…so I wave my wand like this.” You flailed your wand up, squinting to read the next step. “Can we just talk about this? I really don’t want to be a tortoise, even for a moment!” Sebastian panicked, unsure if you were actually willing to cast the spell on him.

Ominis took a sip of his tea, brows furrowed. “There’s another spell about it, so we should be able to turn you back pretty quickly.” You nodded as you turned the page, looking for the other spell. “Hmm. No, that’s how to turn a teacup into a tortoise. I don’t think you can actually turn the tortoise back into a teapot once it’s done.” You spoke, looking closely at the page. Sebastian sighed in relief. “Oh well. We could keep him as a pet.” You said, closing the book and readying your wand. Sebastian had to think quickly, it didn’t seem like you were pretending anymore. Quickly, he lunged forward and grabbed you by the waist, throwing you onto the couch and stealing your wand. Ominis sat there, tea still in hand, listening to the commotion, not quite sure what was going on, but the shriek you let out and the sound of the couch being disturbed told him you probably had been taken down. “I refuse to be your pet tortoise!” Sebastian shouted, throwing a pillow at you. Covering your face, you shouted back, “We would feed you three times a day! And make sure you actually took baths!” Sebastian paused, another pillow in his hand, raised. “What do you mean “Actually took baths”?!” You laughed to yourself, finding it rather funny that he took offense to such a small statement. “Probably because you smell like ash. All the time. Like you take ash baths or something.” Ominis quipped, placing his tea down. Sebastian scoffed, dropping the pillow. “I’ll have you know that I do bathe. I just naturally smell nice!” He sat down, arms crossed. You sat up, moving the pillow he threw at you and putting it behind your back. “Sure, you do.”

You grabbed your book once again, flipping to the page you were on. “Hey, Sebastian?” You asked, looking over to the still pouting Slytherin. He huffed in response, turning to you. You put on your best smile, and used your favourite tactic against him; puppy dog eyes. “Can I please have my quill back? Please?” You asked, looking directly into his eyes. He stuttered, and you could have sworn he blushed, but that meant that it was working. “Uh- you- yeah, sure.” He handed your quill back and you thanked him, patting his head teasingly. Ominis hid a smirk, knowing exactly what had just happened. You happily held your quill and began writing down information once again. Sebastian sat, stunned. He cleared his throat and turned back to his own book.

You had been going through the chapter for what seemed like hours. Your eyes had begun to get heavy, and you stifled a yawn as you put your quill down. Sebastian had begun trying to explain another spell, which was puzzling him, yet again. Another quiet yawn, you scooted closer to look at his book instead. Sebastian didn’t seem to notice. Your eyes grew heavier as you struggled to keep them open, opting to rest your head on Sebastian’s shoulder to keep you upright. Sebastian noticed this and stiffened up. This could be one of your pranks, he thought. He continued to read out the spell incantation.

“Titillando, says it’s a tickling hex. You better watch out, you never know when I’ll hit you with it now that I know it.” Sebastian joked, raising the shoulder you had rested your head on. You didn’t respond, shifting a little bit instead. Sebastian waited for you to say something back, the only sound now was the crackling of the fire in the hearth. “Hey, did you hear me?” He asked once again, titling his head to hit you with his own. You sniffled in response, burying your nose into his robes. Truth be told, Sebastian was probably the one that made you fall asleep. Not because he was boring, oh no. He had a calming voice, and although you had teased him earlier about baths, you had to admit that he did smell nice. Those two factors, paired with the mixed warmth of the fire and body heat from Sebastian, knocked you out in minutes, breathing softly as you dreamed about whatever your mind could come up with.

Sebastian froze, now aware that you were asleep, worried that any movement he may wake you. As if headbutting you didn’t do the trick, surely if he even breathed too hard, you’d wake up. He took the moment to look at your face. He watched as the light from the fire danced on your skin, and how your cheek had squished against his shoulder, the sound that you made now that you were practically suffocating yourself after shoving your nose deeper into his robes. He let out the breath he was holding, slowly relaxing his shoulders. He took a final look at your face before turning his head back to Ominis. “Asleep, typical.” He said, turning the page. “Anyway, where were we?”

The next morning, you met Sebastian and Ominis at the door of the common room, ready to make your routine walk to the dining hall. Sebastian led the way, not taking much of a moment to look at you. Still groggy, you brushed it off, walking next to Ominis and yawning. “For someone that fell asleep in the middle of our study session, you still seem to be tired.” He stated, smiling. You furrowed your brows, “I fell asleep during our study?” Ominis nodded, pointing to Sebastian. “I’m pretty sure you fell asleep on Mr. Tortoise. He had to carry you up to your bed last night.” Your dormmates must have helped him find your bed; your cheeks heated up at the thought. You thought back to before you fell asleep, a foggy image of leaning on Sebastian to look at his book forming in your mind. Your cheeks grew hotter at the realization. You were quiet the rest of the walk to the dining hall.

Taking your seat next to Sebastian, you reached for something to eat. The food of your choice just so happened to be on the other side of Sebastian, and you took a moment to formulate a plan. You could just ask Sebastian to grab it for you, or just get up and grab it yourself. Or, you could be annoying and try to reach over him, in turn causing you to probably embarrass yourself, and probably Sebastian. It was the perfect plan. Taking a breath, you leaned up against Sebastian, reaching across him. He stiffened, eyes wide as you turned your body and put your head back on his shoulder, using the arm that was now next to Sebastian to reach farther. You smiled and hummed in triumph as your fingers curled around your target, retracting your arm and turning back in your seat. Sebastian stood there, stunned. You continued to smile as you began to eat. Regaining his composure, Sebastian fixed his robes and cleared his throat. “If you needed me to grab something for you, all you had to do was ask.” He said, keeping his face turned from you to hide the red that had taken over his whole face. You hummed in response, taking another bite. “And miss a moment to have a pillow? Not a chance.” Sebastian shook his head and finally turned his head towards you. “You can just ask, you know?” You titled your head and raised an eyebrow. “Ask what?” Sebastian took a moment to collect his thoughts, before finally breathing out, “To lay your head on my shoulder. I won’t complain.” You smiled, taking the moment to do just that.

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow imagine #sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x reader #x reader #slytherin reader #ominis gaunt #hogwarts au #hogwarts legacy #harry potter imagine #harry potter #fluff #for some reason spotify wanted to play ALL of Taylor Swift's songs while i wrote this #i stimmed quite a bit writing this #writing fluff just makes me giddy for some reason #Thank you steven for stepping on my laptop while i write this

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55sturn · 2 months

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.𖥔 ݁ ˖ SNAP OUT OF IT: CHAPTER 0.01

↳ series masterlist! ↳ main masterlist!

↳ summary: in which y/n receives the news of her life and she feels on top of the world, as if nothing could bring her down, until she meets her dorm mate, rather, until she re-meets him.

↳ pairings: matt sturniolo x fem!reader [eventually, in this chapter, they are not friends]

↳ warnings: swearing, mentions of death, cigarettes, drug usage [weed], alcohol consumption, cocky!matt, flirting, bitchy!reader.

↳ important notes: i’ve been so excited to post this! this is going to be slow burn, and updates will be slow as well while i’m in the process of deciding what i want done with back to december, povs will change regularly between reader’s pov, matt’s pov, and third person pov, each pov is vital to the story and each character’s internal battles throughout the series.

↳ playlist for this series! song below for this chapter below!

READER’S POV

my hands shook as i held the letter that determined whether or not i’d have a chance at landing a job in screenwriting or directing, or literally anything the film industry would give me. landing a spot in this course, was extremely tough. it was only open to twenty five students, and there were thousands of applicants to rifle through each semester. it was a prestigious course, and if you excelled in it, the professor would consider sending out a letter of recommendation to any companies he knew were offering an internship. it was such high demand because the professor had a lot of sway when it came to massive filming and production companies, and would often land one of his students their big break.

but in order to apply, at least three years of training under some sort of local theatre was mandatory, the applicants needed to prove that they understood how screenwriting, production, and set or stage management worked, and there was still more that we needed to cover but those were top three areas of experience this course looked at. each applicant needed to prove that they were completely fit for this course and that they genuinely wanted to pursue a career in this field, and if you didn’t show it well enough, you weren’t even added to the consideration list.

it was a tough spot to land, and i would give anything to land a spot in this course. i had fought tooth and nail throughout all of high school to get grades that proved determination and hard work, the only university i ever had in mind was harvard, and if i didn’t get in, i wouldn’t know what to do with my life.

so here i was, freshly twenty-one, and finally holding the letter that led to the rest of my life, good or bad.

“come on you pussy, open it already.” jocelyn groans, she had been my rock throughout the entire application process. she’s been my best friend since we were six and bonded over having the same pencil case when she moved to boston in first grade. however, she’s been a bit callous to the idea of me being nervous about reading this letter. she was the type that barely scraped in high school, and she had decided pretty early that she didn’t want to go to any college or university. she excelled online and had amounted a huge following.

“joce, i love you but please shut up. this is the most important letter i’ve held in my entire life. i’m scared, what if i don’t get in?”

“please bitch, you’ve worked harder than anyone i know, i’m sure you’re going to get in.”

“thanks joce, but i genuinely don’t trust your judgement after the last guy you hooked up with. so i am going to take a shot and then open it.” i laugh, walking over to the cupboard above the fridge, grabbing the bottle of tequila we had bought in preparation for this very moment. i also grabbed two shot glasses from the mini bar-cart we had beside the fridge of our shared apartment, and began pouring a shot for the both of us.

“oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god!” she gasps from behind me, making quickly turn around, only to see that she held the open letter in her hands.

“what?”

“you fucking got in!” she exclaims, causing goosebumps to rise along my skin as i stand and watch her eyes dart back and forth along the page, reading the words aloud.

“dear miss l/n, i am pleased to inform you that the committee on Film and Visual Studies has voted to offer you a place in the Harvard class of 2025. dude you did it!” she beams, her voice full of pride and excitement, causing tears to well along my waterline as i stare at her.

“oh my fucking god, i did it.” i sob, feeling genuinely accomplished for the first time in my life.

“however it does say that the only available dorm situation is co-ed, since you had applied for on-campus living.”

“that’s fine with me honestly.” i shrug, wiping the tears, unable to rid my face of the smile that resides on it.

“alright, let’s take some shots and then start packing the rest of your shit. i can’t believe i’ll be living without for so long, i can finally walk around naked.” she hums, wrapping her arms around my shoulders as i sigh, my arms winding tightly around her waist.

i let out a loud laugh as i grab the bottle of tequila, followed by the two full shot glasses, sliding jocelyn hers as i stare at her.

“you’re acting as if you don’t already do that.”

“touché, however, here’s to my bitch starting her dream career.”

the next few days blew by in a blur as jocelyn and i finished packing everything i wanted to take. she was going to help take my stuff from boston to cambridge. the eight hour drive was going to be brutal, but it was completely doable, especially know that she’d be along the way. instead of driving sixteen hours total, she was going to spend the first night with me, she also wanted to scope out my dorm mate to make sure they’re not a total freak.

“i can’t believe i leave tomorrow.” i sigh, resting my head on jocelyn’s shoulder, the two of sitting on our balcony while she puffed her joint. jocelyn stifles a laugh before straightening out her expression, and turning to me.

“your mom would be so proud of you.” she says, her face blank as the absurd comment leaves her mouth.

“as fucking if.” i snort, rolling my eyes, taking the joint from her fingers, taking a small hit as she laughs.

“she’d probably ask why it took so long to get a response and then tell you that you didn’t try hard enough and that your acceptance letter was a pity letter.”

“probably.” i whisper, handing the joint back to her as i watch the setting sun, feeling a strong tinge of hurt swelling in my chest at the mention of my mom.

her and i never really had a steady relationship, when i was younger she was never really around, she was a big part of the film industry, quite the requested screenwriter, and was always in high demand which meant she didn’t take time to nurture me.

when she was alive and around more during my high school days after she was forced to retire from the spotlight due to her cancer, she was constantly berating me, the high ninety grades and constant participation in local theatre was never good enough. she always said i wasn’t shooting high enough. but she fell deathly ill my senior year, and that was a rough patch for us. i had snapped and told her that i hope she regrets the way she’s treated my entire life, and that i won’t be found at her deathbed. but when that time came, i was the first one to hold her hand and tell her i love her, but the reply never came from her, she just stared at the wall blankly until her boyfriend showed up and then suddenly she was lively as she could be while dying.

but i’ve moved on from that year, and it took a long time and shit ton of therapy to realize that i was never going to be the daughter she wanted, but my dad and my step-mother, melissa, have been as supportive as they could. they’ve been with melissa’s mom in maine for the last two months, helping her with everything after her husband’s passing.

i sigh again as i look at jocelyn, leaning my head back on her shoulder.

“we should probably head back to bed, we’ve got a long ass drive tomorrow.”

“yeah, wanna eat some ice cream first?”

“sure.”

after our ice cream, we finally crashed, both of us only getting about four hours of sleep after having to wake up at nearly six in the morning. we quickly got dressed, and grabbing the last few bags and boxes that needed to be packed into the car before leaving to grab food and drinks. after that, we finally started on our way to cambridge.

the drive was full of numerous stops, causing to get at the dorms around four in the afternoon.

“alright you stay with the cars while i go to the admissions centre and grab my key and i’ll go unlock the door and then we can start.” i hum in joce’s direction through her open window, grabbing my bag off the front passenger’s seat while jocelyn nods, climbing out, and stretching.

“i hope you get a hot roommate, you need a boyfriend.” she calls out, rolling my eyes, and flipping her off.

“i’m walking away i cant hear you!” i call back, following the signs that direct me toward to admissions office, as i enter i nervously approach the lady at the front.

“hi i’m here to pick up my dorm keys, room 496, y/n l/n.”

“here you go! so you’ll want to turn right, then take two lefts and follow the numbered plaques on the wall to the co-ed section of the dorms! and lastly, welcome to harvard!” the older woman chirps, flashing a warm smile that eases my nerves just the tiniest bit as i begin following the directions that she had called out.

as i reach my door, i fish the key from my pocket, quickly shoving it into the keyhole, wanting to get into my dorm as quick as possible. as i’m about to turn the knob, someone clear their throat from behind me, causing me to turn around. and once i meet the eyes of the person standing behind me, i immediately wish that the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

“what the fuck are you doing here?”

“this is my dorm?” he coughs, making my skin crawl at the idea of sharing a dorm for a year with the one person that i genuinely wish didn’t exist in my life.

“there’s no way in hell i’m sharing a dorm with you, matt.”

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