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redr0sewrites · 2 months

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Red and Green Flags of Some of the Hazbin Hotel Cast

the title says it all! i'm just blurbing about some red/green flags they have when ur dating them :)

🥀Cw: nsfw mentions but nothing explicit, mostly crack and fluff and maybe the slightest angst when it comes to red flags

🥀Pairing(s): Adam x reader, Alastor x reader, Vox x reader

Adam

Green flags

INSANELY loyal. this man was cheated on twice and left for the same guy. if he's in a serious relationship with you i genuinely can not see him cheating bc this man is genuinely so devoted to you and only you. he's had his fair share of hookups but very very very rarely commits to a serious relationship, which means if he does, you're not only very special but he genuinely thinks you're "the one". when it comes to these serious actual relationships (not just hookups or situationships) he's very very loyal and would never think of cheating on you. he also dates to marry when it comes to serious relationships and will genuinely try to make the relationship last. this also means you get to see a side of him that most people don't get to, and he's generally very soft with you. he treats you so much better than everyone else and expects everyone else around you to do the same

adam is very supportive of you- he definitely gives off "THATS MY PARTNER‼️" vibes. while he likes to think he's in charge, if you change your tone towards him he immediately agrees with you like a hurt puppy. if you have any important decisions you want to make he's much more likely to compromise or agree with you than if anyone else was suggesting an idea. adam can be irritating, but when it comes to you, he's absolutely wrapped around your finger. your also the only person who can make him knock it off when he's patronizing someone and you're also the only reason sera has not attempted to strangle him because you've been keeping him in check since you both started dating

adam always has your back and is on your side no matter what. there is no devil's advocate for him, if his partner is in a fight with someone he's automatically on their side. adam is absolutely the type to tell someone off for shit talking you and is also the type to tell you if someone was being rude to you behind your back. he's also not the kind of guy to shit talk you behind your back and gets pissed at guys who complain about their wives and stuff like that. if he has an issue he tells you to your face and doesn't believe in hiding anything in your relationship.

Red Flags

adam is very insecure about his masculinity even if he doesn't want to admit it and this can be problematic in your relationship. he puts on a lot of appearances around others and acts much more confident when he is, and sometimes his fake persona can piss you off a bit because he genuinely treats you so differently in private versus in public. he also very rarely takes off his mask around you, especially early on into the relationship. in reality it's because he's insecure about how he looks, but he'd never actually admit that (at least early on) so you're stuck in a loop of asking him to take off the mask, him making up some bullshit lie about how he can't, you getting pissed at him and the mask, and him getting more insecure bc he thinks you don't like him anymore. eventually it ends with a conversation about how u love him regardless of what he looks like, but it takes time to get there that might be irritating for you

he is INCREDIBLY clingy, and also huge on PDA- but like even if its not the most appropriate time, he's pulling you onto his lap or slapping your ass or something like that. he also will make a lot of lewd and inappropriate jokes in public- we know he's childish and he is the embodiment of middle school boy humor. you guys could be out in public just trying to have a cute date but he always ruins the moment by making it sexual or making a shitty joke. adam is also very unaware of his surroundings and horrible at reading people so you could be extremely uncomfortable and he just... wouldn't notice unless you told him so. adam isn't great at expressing intimacy nonsexually (he was quite literally created for the sole purpose of populating earth, and a part of him still lowkey thinks he's only good for sex ☹️) so he ends up accidentally turning non-sexual moments sexual. he isn't trying to annoy you, but it can seem insensitive.

pisses you off on purpose. adam does care about you and your feelings but he also can be childish. he'll see that your pissed off and will make a joke only for you to get even more angry at him, but he'll get super defensive even if he was in the wrong saying he was just trying to make you laugh. he will feel very bad afterwards tho, especially if you cry or get really upset because, as i said before, he isn't great at expressing himself and genuinely doesn't mean to hurt you sometimes

Alastor

Green Flags

very respectful of your boundaries. relationships are new to him after all, and he isn't the most expressive lover, so alastor knows that dating him can be tough. he never pushes you too hard or forces himself on you, and he takes your opinion into consideration a lot when it comes to decisions or dealing with life in general. he always asks before taking your hand or kissing you, and he initiates most of the courting process, not wanting to put too much pressure on you. when you first caught feelings for him you were genuinely so scared that he wouldn't even want to be friends with you anymore, but once you found out he reciprocated your feelings, at least in his own way, you were elated. this lead to him being the one to initiate most dates and things like that, at least early on, so that he could show you he was serious about treating you well. you definitely recieve top tier princess treatment (regardless of gender)

protective, but not in a limiting way. if you're dating alastor, then you have to have been friends for at least a while before officially getting together, and he also has to trust you a lot. alastor always wants you to be safe, he knows how cruel hell can be, and he knows that others can use you to hurt him. however, he also trusts you and your strength, and he tries to keep a decent balance of protecting you but also letting you make decisions for yourself. you both definitely have conversations about him sending his shadow to watch over you when your away, and he prefers to have you by his side more than anything else

alastor is very emotionally intelligent and is great at reading people. this skill comes to use a lot and you both very rarely argue over anything because he's very quick to notice when something is bothering you. he's also great at communication, and isn't afraid to sit down and have a conversation with you about how you feel about him and how he feels about you. when it comes to your relationship he wants to make sure you both are on the same page, and yall are the type of couple to have monthly check-ins where you sit doen and just talk about what you're feeling. this leads to a lot of open conversations with alastor, and overtime it made your trust for him grow. he would never tell anyone anything confidential about you, and he genuinely views you as his equal.

Red Flags

alastor does not like change, which means he is not great at adjusting his own behaviors. this also means he refuses to catch up to modern technology and trends and is overall very outdated. he'll get irritated with you for using modern slang he doesn't understand, but will refuse to actually learn the slang terminology. while his class and refinement is attractive and well-meaning in most cases, in some situations it can definitely cause some friction between the two of you. he never wants to watch a movie with you, or go to a nightclub, or even attend concert with you because they're all "too modern" for his tastes. then he'll turn around and get pissed if you invite someone else! alastor also pretty much refuses to take photos with you and avoids most technology all together. i genuinely think he does have a phone, but its super outdated and he is the absolute dryest texter. he will just leave you on read most of the time and doesnt understand why its a big deal

he is not very physically attentive. while we know that alastor is definitely not a fan of being touched, there are moments where he will just randomly start being very touchy with you, but won't let you reciprocate. like he will completely invade your personal space at the most random lowkey inconvenient time and start showing you affection, but when you try to reciprocate he just gets icked out and pulls away. alastor doesn't even explain himself either, he will just... walk away. he doesn't understand that you have very different needs than him and is always confused as to why you're so touch starved. he's giving you attention, isn't that enough? he just doesn't get that theres a vast difference between him looming over you and practically leaning on you, and actually cuddling him and showing you affection. he also will randomly just disappear for days on end. like one day you'll be hanging out going on cute romantic dates to cannibal town and literally being fine and then the next he's gone with no note not information, you just wake up and he isn't there. alastor gets better at communicating his absences once he realizes how worried it makes you, but its certainly alarming in the beginning of your relationship because you think he's upset with you when in reality he's just fucking around and finding out doing god knows what. it takes time for the both of you to find a happy medium ground where you can satisfy your own physical needs while he can also take his own space, but once you do, your relationship goes a LOT smoother.

Vox

Green Flags

Very devoted to you. vox is the type of guy to be absolutely WHIPPED for everything his partner does, and he is not afraid of showering you in affection. while he does find public image important, in his mind, you're the most important and valuable thing in his life. he wants the world to know that you belong to him and that he belongs to you, and he is NOT the type of person to be embarrassed about his partners quirks

He prioritizes satisfying your needs and feelings. whether its sexually, physically, or emotionally, vox is always willing to provide you with comfort. he would never want you to be left unsatisfied or needy, and really wants to be enough for you. vox is self aware and knows that he isn't perfect, but he always gives you more than the bare minimum. his work schedule is a little wild and he always feels bad about not getting to spend time with you so he schedules out full days that are dedicated just to you. he's very attentive and is pretty good at noticing when something is wrong, and he has no qualms about approaching you about anything you might be facing.

trusts you. a lot. in the beginning of the relationship less so, but over time he gradually opens up to you more and more. you are definitely vox's favorite person without a doubt, and he makes sure you know it. early on in your friendship, before you even started dating, vox found himself falling for you. he really didn't want to fuck up what he had with you and wanted to make it clear that you meant more to him. in the beginning of your official relationship, especially during the honeymoon phase and first couple months, he's SOOOO nervous. vox very rarely lets his guard down around others, but with you, he feels his walls instantly shatter. he doesn't understand why he's so drawn to you, but he loves you because of it. he finds a lot of comfort in you and your one of the very few people who have seen him at his worst.

Red Flags

vox sometimes thinks he knows whats best for you, and will act on his own accord to make decisions for you, especially early into a relationship. vox knows hell is dangerous and he knows that there are people who would hurt you to get to him, and he wants to keep you safe more than anything. sometimes he'll watch you on security cameras without your consent, or he'll track you on your phone to know where you are. if you ever found out he wouldn't see the issue until you explained it, but if you really, really had a problem with it he'd stop.

he can be manipulative without even realizing it. vox is surrounded by cruel, nasty people most of the time and will take his own nastiness out on you unnecessarily. like you both will be in an argument and he won't even listen to your side because he just automatically assumes he's right. he'll be condescending and try to change your mind rather than hearing you out. this is obviously very frustrating on your end because, while vox isn't always aware of it, he's still treating you like shit and just trying to manipulate you. i also think he'd accidentally hypnotize you sometimes. like you both would be arguing and vox's hypnotism would just start and he wouldn't realize until he noticed that you were just staring blankly at him. he would feel SO guilty about it though, and it would probably eat at him for a while. you're the person he cares about the most and he genuinely doesn't mean to hurt you, and he definitely does not want to hypnotize you without your consent. vox loves you because youre YOU, not because you listen to his every word like everyone else in his life. it honestly makes him insecure, and he starts to worry that maybe it isn't the rest of hell that he should be worried about hurting you, and maybe its himself thats your biggest threat. PLEASE comfort him he has the emotional capacity of a brick and cares about you too much for his own good. over time his toxic manipulation and cruel behaviors stop, especially towards you, but it can be very, very tedious in the start of your relationship.

mansplains. this is moreso a personal pet peeve of mine and as much as i love and adore vox he absolutely would mansplain and would get pissed when you don't listen. he would also get pouty if you already understand what he's talking about or just brush him off. sometimes it can be kind of endearing though when he's infodumping, and over time his mansplaining slowly forms to infodumping to you. its kinda cute how his behavior changed to match yours, and how excited he gets over sharing shark facts with you.

loved writing this sm this was lowkey an excuse to just psychoanalyize my favs- will prob do a pt 2 once i finish all 500 of my other WIPS + requests lmao- this was originally gonna include luci but i couldn't think of enough red flags and i was also very tired so im sorrryyyyyy he'll probably be in pt 2 😭

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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dickwheelie · 3 years

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real quick before pride month ends I wanna post this thing about jon being bi that i've kind of been trying to write for months now. I think I've finally managed to articulate how I feel about jon being bi and how I feel about being bi, and this is very much a melding of the two. a lot of this is very specific to me and I can only hope other people find it interesting, and maybe some of you out there will share some of my experiences. anyway please enjoy, and happy pride all <3

___________

He supposed that there must have been a part of him, deep down somewhere, that had always known. That was how it worked, wasn't it? Something in his DNA, or a hardwired part of his brain; it must have been in there somewhere, all his life.

But of course, in the world he was raised in, he'd never had much of a chance to investigate that sort of thing. Before he went to uni, all he knew was that men liked women, and women liked men, and there was a small group of people somewhere else, off to the side, who did things differently. A strange, exotic group of people that had nothing to do with him.

Uni had been less of a wake up call and more of a gradual rise to consciousness, a slowly dawning awareness that most of the people around him were, in fact, members of that strange group that did things differently. And they were all perfectly ordinary; not exotic at all. Many of them were like him; they went to the same classes, the same pubs, studied the same subjects. He remembered once, in his first year, speaking to a woman he'd sat next to in class for half a semester and being shocked when she mentioned, off-handedly, that she was trans. All he could think for the rest of class was, I had no idea.

He also remembered the first time he'd ever considered that he, himself, might actually be one of these people who did things differently. The thought had never really crossed his mind, despite the fact that he was surrounded by them, and that he felt at home with them, somehow, more than any other group of friends he'd had before. It was shortly after he'd met Georgie, when they were friends but not yet dating, that she was sitting with him in a pub and pointed out for him all the people in the room she thought were cute. She pointed out a couple men, and then a few women, and then someone whose gender was entirely a mystery to him. And then she'd asked him, what about you? And he had looked around the pub, at all the various types and shapes and colors of people, and he'd pointed out a few women, and a couple men, and a handful of people whose genders were a mystery. It was easy, he realized then. He hadn't even had to think about it. It had been there, somewhere deep down, all along.

He didn't tell Georgie right then, but later, when they were together, he'd confess that that was the moment he'd realized. Georgie laughed, kindly enough, and told him she'd been surprised herself. I hadn't pegged you as queer, she'd said, but when you said it I thought, of course he is. I know how to pick 'em.

Which got at one of his problems, post-realization. He wanted people to know, to be seen as part of that group that was once so strange to him, but for the most part, people just . . . couldn't tell. He dressed a certain way, and spoke a certain way, and though he'd never been the most masculine person in the room nobody ever suspected he was anything but a hundred percent straight.

And it . . . hurt, in a strange way. He'd look around at all of his loud and proud friends and classmates, people who dyed their hair and dressed in fantastical outfits and spoke in particular ways, people who you couldn't mistake for anything but who they were, and he would feel somewhat apart from them. Compared to all of their colors, he felt very grey.

He made attempts at flirting with men, but he had never been very good at that sort of thing and none of them seemed to notice. It didn't help that he knew, no matter how good he got at flirting, there was a part of that scene he'd never really belong in. By then he'd discovered that about himself, too, though strangely it was less of a revelation. He supposed some part of him had always known about that, as well.

His attraction to men, he found, was rarer than women, which might have been why he hadn't noticed it for so many years. It wasn't that he disliked men at all, he just found them harder to trust. With men there were certain expectations, of masculinity, of sexuality, of language, even, that Jon couldn't even begin to fathom. It was just easier, with women. He liked the way they spoke, and how they moved their hands as they talked, and all the various ways they'd wear their hair. He wasn't the sort to kiss many people, but when he did get the chance, he liked that their lips were soft and that they often smelled very fragrant.

Of course there were exceptions to all of these things, but in general, he found he was more comfortable with women. He worried, for a time, that perhaps he had internalized some sort of heteronormativity from his youth, that maybe liking men was just a frightening discovery about himself that he was still trying to process.

But liking men didn't frighten him at all. Maybe some men intimidated him, maybe he didn't feel entirely comfortable with some of them, but the idea of liking them was . . . it was nice. It made him feel sort of warm, when he thought of it. He'd daydream sometimes about kissing someone with a beard, or a larger hand holding his own.

He never got the chance to do anything like that in uni. He wouldn't get the chance for many years. Instead he sat quietly off to the side, in his grey little corner, hoping that someone would see him for who he was. It was, he would be the first to admit, a poor way of going about things, but at the time he wasn't sure what else to do. The idea of changing his wardrobe was already too much for him, let alone marching around with a flag in his hands. He wished there was some kind of secret code, known only by those who were like him.

Then he left uni, and suddenly all the colorful people he'd been surrounded by were gone, and the backdrop of his world felt as grey as he was. And that was fine. He was an adult now, he didn't need reassurance or external validation. It was fine.

He was working in research when he met Tim, and suddenly there was color back in his life. Tim was like the people he'd gone to uni with, loud and proud, with the hair and the clothes and everything else. He began to feel that strange longing again. I'm like you, he wanted to tell Tim, have you noticed? Can't you tell? He said nothing, of course. It would be weird to say something, and probably inappropriate.

But then a day came when Tim just . . . asked him. They were getting drinks with a few other coworkers and Tim leaned over and pointed out the bartender. He's cute, right? he'd asked. Are you into guys?

And he hadn't known it could be that easy. But it was. It was the easiest thing in the world to reply, Yeah, I like men. Women, too. And yes, he is sort of cute.

It was easy, but it felt unbelievably warm to say aloud.

It didn't change anything, not overnight. There was still that underlying greyness he felt, that invisibility, when he was on the train or standing by the copier or ordering from a restaurant. But with Tim, and then Sasha, and much, much later, with Martin, he felt noticed, and known.

He never did end up marching around with a flag, or changing his wardrobe. Instead he carried it with him constantly, in the feeling in his chest when he saw a pin on someone's bag and in the way Martin looked at him and in the way his coworkers laughed when he made dry little jokes about liking only two things.

Which made sense, didn't it? After all it had always been there, deep down. It had always been his. And it wasn't going anywhere.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #gwyneth writes #i gotta post this before i convince myself not to lmao

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thewistlingbadger · 3 years

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Mixed Signals

Summary: Emily and Spencer are trying to see if Derek likes Spencer. Derek is trying to figure out if he's gay with the help from Penelope. The 4 of them come to the realization that they are NOT on the same page at a club, where Emily and Spencer make out to see if Derek will get jealous.

CW: Platonic Spencer/Emily, friends who kiss, Derek has bi panic, gender non-conforming Spencer Reid, intimate friendship, inappropriate language, kiss in the rain, miscommunication, love confessions, first kiss. Y'all asked for me to post the stuff i got in my notes so here ya go. Enjoy.

Okay. So Emily and Spencer definitely came to the club with something up their sleeve. Spencer had always kept quiet about his crush on Derek. After all, the year was 2008. Gay marriage wasn't legal and if you were out you could be called slurs, or worse. And in the workplace? You could be terminated. The only person he ever came close to telling was Elle, but then one moment she was here, the next, gone.

Emily tried her best to be shocked at the news. It takes one to know one, she told herself. But nevertheless she made sure that he knew she was a safe space and that all she cared about was his comfort. He ranted to her about gender dysphoria and wanting to tap into his feminity, but being too afraid to do so. He asked her if she thought Derek liked him back, and tonight, they would find out.

Everyone knew Emily Prentiss was a lesbian. She made it no secret, while also making sure you minded your own business. She read queer romance novels on the jet, there was a pride flag on her desk and if you asked her what was on her calendar, she would tell you next Wednesday she had a meeting with her local LGBTQ+ advocates and that there would be a march next month, if you wanted to come.

In the same breath, she had no problem kissing Reid. They both knew that there was nothing romantic about the them. Kissing just...helped them both I guess. When Spencer would come over because he was having nightmares, Emily would scoot over in bed and make room for him. When she would get up around noon, Spencer would wrap his arms around her and kiss the side of her head as she brushed her teeth. Or when she could tell he was getting overwhelmed, she'd pepper his face with kisses till he'd be calm again.

Most people said I love you in words but for them, they had heard those words growing up from the mouths that did not mean it. Their kisses were tangible, real. They said I love, care, and respect you without even needing to pronounce a syllable.

Everyday, Derek came crying for help in Peneople's corner. He had never considered being anything but straight but his pretty boy got him second guessing himself. Derek didn't have the luxury of being able to figure himself out while young. And now that he was an adult, an established FBI agent, he feared it was too late. Penelope was his shoulder to cry on, filling his ears with positive affirmations. Giving him flyers to queer support groups and telling him when pride would be rolling into town.

"What if I don't like men and I just like pretty boy? Do I even like him like that? What if I'm just overthinking it?" "Well then you'll find out tonight." Peneople said with a wink. She ordered another round as Spencer and Emily found their way to the booth.

Derek tried to act normal but he couldn't help but notice how smug the both of them. Like they were inside a joke, and Derek wasn't. It made something rise in Derek, he just didn't know what.

Spencer still couldn't piece it all together. The looks, the touchs, the names, they had to mean something. Despite contrary belief, he wasn't all that oblivious. He knew Derek had been flirting with him for years. But why? Derek was always pulling girls whenever they went out to places like this and he never had shown interest in men. So why would he like Reid? Although, thought of Spencer being the only male that Derek was attracted to made his heart flutter, he knew it was unrealistic.

"Hey. Wanna dance?" Emily said putting her hand on his shoulder. He smiled. She always knew how to do that, pull him out of thought. As he got up he started to think about all the things he loved about her. Her gentleness without making him feel babied, her understanding without having the ability to understand what he was going through, the way she knew things about him that he didn't tell her that only he knew.

Like how he didn't need to drink to be a good time. As their bodies pressed together and they moved to the RNB beat, they laughed at each other. "Don't forget the task at hand Spence." She teased. "What task? The task of finding you a girlfriend? Because let me tell you, she won't come if your hair is looking like that!" He started to run his fingers through her hair which just made her laugh more.

Derek was watching them have fun while he was downing his drink. "What's wrong Derek, this is your scene! This is where Derek Morgan is Derek Morgan. And let me tell you, Derek Morgan? He does NOT sit at the booth like a sad puppy when the love of his life is out there dancing! Something that is a rare sight for our eyes!" He sighed, taking another sip from the glass, but he stayed glued to the leather seat.

"C'mon Derek! Do something! If you're not gonna go after Reid go after another dude! Or a gal! Scout out the area, look for someone who seems worth while! There's only one single friend out of the 4 of us and right now it's looking like it's gonna be me because Emily is having a grand old time with Reid."

Glad to know he wasn't going crazy, he responded. "Yeah, speaking of which, since when are they so close? Like you said, we barely get to see Reid dance. Then all of a sudden he's taking Prentiss's hand and they're grinding it up on the dancefloor?" He couldn't leave the irritation of his voice.

"Jealous much?" She wiggled her eyebrows. He rolled his eyes. "Don't you think it's weird?" Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. Of course not dummy! If you haven't figured out what Emily Prentiss was by now, you probably never will! Ignoring her thoughts, she asked "well what do you think it is?" He stared at the pair, trying to get get ahold of what it all meant but he turned away, empty handed.

"Did you see that? He was staring at us for a long time..." Spencer said looking over Emily's shoulder. "Do you think it's working?" "I don't know...he looked upset...he's drinking right now. Mil, I don't want to do this if he's drunk..." Emily could hear the doubt stirring in him. She didn't want to push him but she had the feeling that this would be the only chance. She wouldn't get Spencer to agree with her on this again.

"Hey." She tilted his chin down toward her. "It's your call." She smiled. God, you just gotta love her, he thought. He smiled and went for it.

"Hey, they moved away from the dance floor. Where'd they go?" Derek said sitting up straight searching over the crowd of clubbers. "I don't know..." Penelope now getting concerned. She stood up and-

"oh my god-" "What?! Are they hurt?! What's going o-" his search for them was interrupted by Penelope's hands clutching the sides of his face and directing it to the right side of the room, were he could see Emily and Spencer making out.

They both just stood there, jaws on the floor. "I thought she didn't swing that way..." Penelope said, shocked to her core. "Reid?" Morgan said, not as if he was calling for him but as if he was surprised that Emily was kissing Spencer. Or was Spencer kissing her? Unlike the last time he was staring at them, he was now paying attention to every detail. The way Emily's tight long sleeve shirt left nothing to the imagination and how she was pulling Reid in by the inside of his pants, then feeling him up after. She smirked mischievously into his lips, as if it were just a game.

Reid on the other hand, looked like he was about to cum on sight. He was still playing with he hair like how he was on the dancefloor, but this time his eyes were screwed tight. He barely moved his mouth meaning that A, Prentiss was doing all the work and B, when he did move his mouth it was in the smallest way possible and by god did he look amazing. Holy shit, did he just see some tongue?! Oh fuck, Derek thought, the realization hitting him like a truck. I like both of them.

He continued to watch them. Spence's hair was getting in his face and Emily was too busy teasing him by thumbing the hem of his sweater vest to notice. Derek could tell how much it was bothering him but he also seemed so carefree, so trapped in the moment, the sensations. He moved his head back ever so slightly, as if to ask for more but her mouth never left his.

When they parted, Derek could swear he saw a string of saliva in between them. Damn. This is not what I expected would happen tonight. He thought maybe he'd see a beautiful girl or a handsome dude, giving him an answer he'd been craving; Gifting him the knowledge he had wanted this whole time. But that? Whatever the fuck he just saw? Left him with more questions than answers.

"Derek? Are you okay?" He snapped out of it and looked at Peneople who had a worried expression on her face. That's when he realized that she hadn't been ogling at them the whole time like how he was. "Did that answer your questions?" She tried to approach in a different way. "I uhh." No words could form. "Oh, he's having a gay panic moment-" "No it was definitely for both of them." he blurted without being able to stop himself.

Penelope spit the shot out of her mouth. "You like them BOTH?" "No I-" He was completely out of his element. He started racking his brain, trying to process what he just saw. Why was that so hot? If he had a crush on Reid (like he thought he had the whole time) then wouldn't seeing his boy being kissed make him freak out? But somehow, seeing Spencer being man handled by Emily made him speachless. An "ohhhh" from Penelope was what broke him out of thought. "Well, congratulations Derek. I think you just might like guys and girls."

"Holy shit" they laughed hysterically. Spencer was about to fall to the floor. "What was that?" Emily laughed. "I was trying to make it look believable!" "Yeah by acting like a slut? Okay." She went off in a giggling fit. "Well I think it worked." "No shit?" She asked, looking to the booth. Both Derek and Penelope were standing up. "Well I'll be damned. I don't think I've ever seen him that red." she smiled "holy shit. I did that?" "Hell yeah you did! go get 'im lover boy." He hugged her and thanked her for her help, then made his way back to the booth. He got intercepted by peneople on the way there.

"So. What the fuck was that?" Peneople shouted over the music. "Go ask Emily! I'm going to Morgan." What? "oH!" The pieces somewhat clicking into place. "Oh my god how did I not know!" She gave him a hug. He gave an uncomfortable chuckle "thanks Penelope. But I really gotta go-" "But! He likes you too!" Penelope called after him but Spencer was already too far away to hear. God damn the level of miscommunication that's going on right now! Annoyed at the circumstances, she walked off to Prentiss.

Spencer slid the booth, "Hey." Spencer said. He shifted uncomfortably. A few seconds ago he was having the time of his laughing with a friend. Now he sat across from a different friend, a friend who he didn't want to be friends with. The person he wanted something more with looked down at the ground with a hand over his mouth.

Spencer frowned "what's wrong?" Reaching for the other's hand. Derek looked at him, doe eyed. "Boys." Was all he said. Huh? He had never seen Derek like this. "...Do you wanna dance?" He asked concerned. Derek nodded rapidly and they were off.

Whatever groove Spencer had while dancing with Emily had left because he was back to his normal stiffness. He wondered what was wrong with him but he couldn't decide what it was considering the amount of events that had just occurred. How do I make this less weird? What does he want? Spencer's thoughts reflected on his face.

Fuck. What's going on? Derek wondered. Sure, they were swaying and he had his hands on him, a big improvement on their relationship but he knew something was off about Spencer. So naturally, that's when Derek turned on his profiler mode and started pawing for answers.

"I was watching you earlier, you had some moves pretty boy. Didn't know that about you." There's a lot you don't know about me the genius thought. Instead he responded with "really?" "Yeah. I thought you didn't dance." "I'm not good at it." Spencer laughed. Derek couldn't resist rolling his eyes at the comments. You were practically fucking on the dancefloor talk about 'I'm not good at it.' Boy please. Spencer caught his eyes rolling though. Becoming defensive, he said "we were just being silly. It didn't mean anything." "That make out didn't look so silly. Looked pretty serious from where I was standing."

Spencer was taken aback. Was he mad at him? There was a hint of protectiveness but why would Derek be protective over him when he was with Emily? They've known Emily for a while now, they trust her.

Spencer didn't let him slide away with the snideness. "So what's your problem tonight. Had too many drinks and are now pissed you're not the only one who knows how to have fun?"

"I'm not drunk." Derek grumbled. "Oh really? Derek we've been here 2 hours now and the whole time all you've done is sit down with Penny and drink drinks. And all of a sudden you're acting all strange? How do you explain that hm?" Derek looked away realizing his error, licking his lips.

You're gonna profile me? Two can play it that way. "It's the fact that it's Prentiss huh. Do you like her?" Derek still couldn't meet his eyes. "Or did you just think I couldn't get her?" Spencer wasn't one who got easily mad but the bullshit Derek was pulling was infuriating. Do I just let the cat out of the bag or do I see how he plays it out?There's too many mixed signals going on.

Spencer scoffed annoyingly, letting go of Derek and storming off. "Kid wait!" God damn it Derek this is the one thing you're not supposed to fuck up. Emily stood up from the table that she was at with Penelope. "What's going on?" "I don't know!" They both watched Spencer leave. "Oh no..." "What the f-...he likes him Emily I swear! It's all he's been talking to me about for months! I really don't know what's going on!" Emily tried to make her way through the crowd but Derek was already out the door, trying to reach Spencer.

This is just fucking great. I go out to a club, a place that I already don't like just to try to make a move on some dude, some asshole, and now it's raining. Could it seriously get worse? "Spencer, c'mon man!" Derek heard him curse in a language he didn't understand. "I don't have time for bullshit Derek! Don't waste my time!" He kept walking back towards him.

Derek caught up to him, his feet splashing into puddles. "Look man, I'm sorry. Just let me explain!" Spencer didn't even look at him, he just kept walking. As a final attempt, Derek grabbed his hand, Spencer now facing him. "I'm not trying to waste your time pretty boy. Or bullshit you." The rain drops sliding down both their faces. Despite there being no light other the moon, they looked into each other's eyes. Derek didn't have a firm grip on Spencer's hand, but Spencer didn't feel the need to let go.

"You should start explaining yourself because I don't like dealing with nonsense." His chest rising and falling with every deep breath he took. "For the past couple of months I thought I was seeing you differently so I talked to Peneople about it. She suggested we go to the club to see if I liked you or if I only liked girls or maybe even if I liked men in general. When I saw you and Emily kissing, I- I can't explain it. I liked it. I liked watching you two kiss but then you came over to me and I started feeling jealous and I don't know what's going on with me-" "shut up." Spencer grabbed Derek by the collar of his wet shirt and their mouths smashed together.

It wasn't a pretty sight. It wasn't delicate like how most people want their first kisses to be. But it reflected every emotion that the both of them had felt that night. The rain helping their mouths slide together, the small droplets getting smushed when their checks or chins touched. Derek thought that getting kissed by Spencer looked good but oh man did it feel better to actually be kissed by him. Derek slid his fingers through his hair, imitating Spencer when he kissed Prentiss. The water droplets clinging to the ends of his finger tips. Their bodies closer than Reid's and Emily's ever were.

Spencer pulled away, resting his forehead on Derek's. They both felt the breath of the other, the rapid in and outs trying to get back to their normal speed's. Spencer still had his fingers on Derek's collar, still keeping him close. "Please tell me that that cleared up some stuff for you." Spencer breathed.

"We could be that. Friends who kiss but not romantically." Derek offered. All he knew was that he would die a sad man if that was the only time he'd get to kiss Reid. "If we kiss, I'd like it to be in a romantic way. I didn't spend countless hours watching you go home with countless women to not have you kiss me in a romantic way Derek." Derek laughed at his bluntness. "Alright kid. Good. Because I wouldn't have it any other way." He went in for another kiss, and Spencer happily kissed him back.

"I think it did." Derek panted back. Spencer moved his arms around Derek's neck, pulling him into a hug. "I've had a huge crush on you for forever. I didn't say anything because I didn't think you were gay. Emily and I only kissed like that to see what your reaction would be. I don't like her, she doesn't like me. We're just friends. There's no romance behind it." He explained, still hugging him.

By: Mic

#mic writes fanfiction #criminal minds #cm #spencer reid #moreid #derek morgan #emily prentiss #peneople garcia #emily and spencer #emily prentiss and spencer reid #spemily: friends who kiss #bi derek morgan #bi spencer reid #Derek has bi panic #kiss in the rain #wingwoman penelope garcia #wingwoman emily prentiss #gender non conforming spencer reid

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 4 years

Note

Can i request some jealousy headcanons for Malleus, Azul, Leona and Lilia with a female reader who attends the NRC? What kind of things tick them off and how often do they get jealous? Thanks a lot! P.s. your rules didn't specify any character limit so if you don't mind can i request some more characters in another ask after you're done with this?

Greetings.

I would like to point out that my limit on characters per request is 5 (6 if you include Yuu/MC or the Reader/self insert). Feel free to send in another request so long as it adheres to the character limit and the other rules.

The ask box closes for a month or two in less than 24 hours, so I suggest that if you want any other requests to be looked at that you submit one soon.

Now, the headcanons.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Malleus Draconia

Oh, yes. He gets jealous. Why wouldn’t he? You are the first person in years (outside of his Diasomnia family) to show him affection--so of course he’d be upset if he saw you getting close to other men.

He’s pretty reasonable though, only getting jealous when he senses some red flags--and even when he does get jealous, he’s old and wise enough to keep his calm in most situations.

Malleus is fine if you have friends that are guys, but he’ll feel neglected/jealous if you start prioritizing spending time with other people over spending time with him.

He’ll also get jealous if you mention that you fell asleep at the movie or something because he likes having your cute sleeping face all to himself.

Malleus does not react aggressively--instead, he tends to get pouty and sulk when he’s jealous.

He doesn’t think ill of you, but he does become concerned that you might find someone “better” and leave him.

Malleus gets a little clingy and touchy-feely to get your attention focused on him again.

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul can definitely get jealous--less frequently than Malleus, but he’s also more reactive than Malleus.

Most of the time, Azul is pretty confident and self-assured so he doesn’t mind you being around other guys.

If they start getting a little too close or the topic starts veering toward “inappropriate things”, Azul might interrupt the conversation and change the subject, or he might come in smiling while throwing shade at the other guy before reminding them that it’s impolite to touch things that already belong to other people.

If he’s in a particularly bad mood, Azul will be more passive aggressive with his smile and snippier with his insults.

He’ll pull you aside and gently reprimand you for hanging around such “ruffians” later, then give you a lecture about how to keep yourself safe when he’s not around.

Azul gives you pepper spray/mace.

Leona Kingscholar

The most jealous one of them all. Every little thing pisses this overgrown feline off, including the slightest brush of the hand from a male friend on your shoulder.

He’s so used to having everything he wants taken from him that he’s very possessive of what little he does have--and that includes his girlfriend.

Leona will growl and snap at others that get too close to you.

Stop him before he starts a fight.

He tries to subtly flex his position as your boyfriend by keeping a hand around your waist or maintaining some kind of physical contact with you at all times in public.

If Leona feels like showing off even more, expect semi-rough PDA even if he is a lazy boi like kisses.

He’ll be very irritable and demand lots of kisses and cuddles from you as repayment for making him “tear out his fur” over you.

Lilia Vanrouge

Being as ancient as he is, Lilia is very patient and tends to not get jealous easily. His partner is, after all, a free spirit and able to make decisions for herself--and he trusts her to not cheat and/or intentionally go and make him jealous.

It’s when other people are harassing you that Lilia gets the most jealous since they’re actively bothering his beloved.

He’ll hang upside down from the ceiling to spook off the people bothering you, then swoop down to hug you!

The hug is partly to reassure you and make sure you’re not hurt, and partly so Lilia can reassert his place as your lover.

If someone is getting particularly handsy with you, Lilia drops his carefree pranks and gets up in the assailant’s face.

He’ll smile and show off his fangs and politely ask what’s up--but he gives off this terrifying aura, which chases the person away.

Do not mess with the great ancestor, Lilia. You will die if you try.

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youralternantpersonality · 4 years

Text

Surrender

Paul x Reader short story with the song “Surrender” by Natalie Taylor

Y/n = your name, Y/l/n = your last name, y/h/(t)(c) = your hair (type) (color), y/e/c = your eye color

***

“You can’t hide from her forever Paul. It will consume you. You can’t stay away from her, no matter how hard you try.” Sam said to Paul in front of the whole pack. They all found out the infamous Paul Lahote just imprinted on a girl from Forks. Jake brought her and Bella by one day and Paul just happened to leave Billy’s when he saw her.

“Fuck you, Sam! Just watch. I won’t end up like you and stay trapped in something as sad as imprinting.” Paul argued back. Sam took no offense to it. He knew, just like everyone else, that Paul was going to cave, and they’ll be there to help him through it. So, no one stopped him when he ran and shifted towards the woods.

We let the waters rise We drifted to survive I needed you to stay But I let you drift away My love, where are you? My love, where are you?

Paul ended up at Y/n house in Forks. He wasn’t sure how he knew where she lived but while hiding, he saw her in the kitchen making food for herself and her family with her grandmother. He couldn’t help but watch the y/h/c y/h/t imprint of his laugh and help her grandmother. In his wolf form, he laughed to himself imagining him with them. It was something he craved since childhood. Never receiving that type of love and affection before made him wonder for a second if he’d receive the same thing if he gave in.

But it was only for a second. He shook the thought, growled, and backed away. It was almost like she knew someone was watching her, did she look out the window, unknowing to her, and looked at him straight in the eyes. She knew she was looking at something—it didn’t scare her—but she couldn’t tell what it was. She turned her attention back to her grandmother and put whatever it was in the back of her head. Paul took his chance to leave and go elsewhere. Anywhere away from her.

Whenever you’re ready (Whenever you’re ready) Whenever you’re ready (Whenever you’re ready) Can we, can we surrender Can we, can we surrender I surrender

Weeks had passed, Jacob had fully shifted and abandoned Bella and Y/n. At this point, Paul was out of control. He snapped at everything. If you looked at him too long, if you sneezed too hard if a cat meowed. He would snap. Sam had, had enough of his bullshit. He pulled him to the side to talk to him.

“Damnit Paul stop this shit! Just go to her! Talk to her! No one said you had to be more than friends.” That just pissed him off more. The thought of not being Y/n anything more than friends pissed him off. But being with you did too.

“Why? So, I can be some love-sick puppy?! Fuck that!” He spat.

“It's better than damn nearly killing everyone! Look around Paul! Look at what is the consequences of your action. Without her, you’re not yourself! We all can see it!” Sam looked defeated. “You’re better than this Paul. You said you want to work on your anger, watch what happens when you are near her. You’ll be better in an instant. I can guarantee you that.” He said softly to the hot-headed wolf.

“I’m not a child Sam.” He backed away, “so don’t fucking treat me like one. I can fix my temper on my own. Watch me!” Sam knew what he had to do at that moment when Paul ran. He couldn’t allow this to keep happening.

No one will win this time I just want you back I’m running to your side Flying my white flag, my white flag My love, where are you? My love, where are you?

“Thank you for doing this Y/n. You have no idea how much this will help the boys and their grades.” Y/n smiled at Emily.

“It’s no problem. I’m pretty good at history and English, and I know if Bella would have come, she’d help with the math and science.” You told her, driving in her car to her house. “although, I don’t think Jake would pay mind if she was there.” Y/n gave Emily a knowing look. You both laughed and continued talking along the way.

You were emptying your stuff when you heard Sam and who you knew was Paul. You didn’t see him much when you were in the area with Jake and Bella. But when you did, your heart would skip a beat. You didn’t know what it was about this man, but you could do nothing but think about him. It was the main reason you’d take trips up to the beach by yourself. You did it to get away but also to catch a glimpse of him. But every time you came by, he’d rush to leave. Which left you confused as to why you were tutoring the guys and not someone else.

“Sam, it wasn’t my fault that Embry ran into that tree-” Paul stopped mid-sentence at the sound of your laughter and your fragrance. Pomegranate Mango bath wash with a citrus perfume. Before he could react, Emily spoke.

“Paul! Did you push Embry into a tree, again?” Emily said, scowling at him playfully. Y/n just smiled at her and looked up at Paul. Eyes connecting, stomach flipping, and hearts skipping a beat. All issues and situations, anger and hostilities, sadness, and depression, washed away from him.

“Hey, Paul.” Y/n gave a slight wave and smile. It was then, that Paul surrendered to her. Imprint or not, he wanted her near. For now, and forevermore. He would protect her, even if it killed him.

Whenever you're ready (Whenever you're ready) Whenever you're ready (Whenever you're ready) Can we, can we, surrender Can we, can we, surrender I surrender Oh, I surrender

Paul thinks back on that day and is constantly thankful for what they did. Now he’s watching his beautiful wife rock their third child to sleep. Flora Rylie Lahote was a small little thing. She was a known daddies’ little girl. The only reason she was in Y/n arms was the sole purpose of feeding. Otherwise, she’d be in her father’s arms.

Y/n turns around to notice her husband watching her. She smiles at him and he walks up to her. Wrapping his arms around her waist kissing her softly on her forehead.

“Whatcha’ thinking about babe?” She asks softly, trying to not wake up baby Flora.

“Nothing. Just admiring my beautiful wife.” She smiles and rolls her eyes but says nothing.

“You know, we should try for baby number four,” Paul says, Y/n looks up at him and side-eyes him.

“How about no. I think a family of five will suffice.”

“But I thought you hated odd numbers.”

“I also hate olives, but I ain’t trying to eat them, now am I?”

“That doesn’t make any sense…. How did you correlate having a child to make an even number family, to olives?”

“Let’s not worry about that, shall we?” Flora starts to stir at the sound of people talking.

“Well, it looks like daddy is needed.”

“By who? You or Flora?” Saying with a cheeky smile.

“Highly inappropriate. But to answer, both.” Y/n says handing baby Flora over to Paul.

2 years later

“DAMNIT PAUL!” a choir of “oooh’s” echo through by everyone in Emily’s house from the front door.

“Daddy’s in trouble,” Flora says. Little Paul and Pax grab Flora to get out of their moms’ way. Knowing that their mother just might kill him.

“I didn’t do it, I swear!” The pack watching quietly on the side. Embry, coincidentally grabbing popcorn, watching the show of the year goes down.

“Oh, I’m about 100% sure you did.” In comes Y/n with something in her hand. She throws it at Paul’s head, and it bounces off his large head and onto the floor.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, shut up, that didn’t hurt! What will hurt is me castrating you!” All the guys grabbed themselves at the tone of her voice. You can see the girls in the background holding in their laughter.

“What’s cas-wanting?” Flora says.

“It’s where daddy is in trouble,” Leah says. Flora just laughs and Paul looks hurt at his daughter's betrayal.

“Just tell me what’s wrong babe.”

“Look at the damn evidence Paul Lahote.” Y/n says fuming. He reaches down to grab the object. Noticing instantly what it was and what as on it.

It was a pregnancy test…with two lines. She was pregnant. They were pregnant. He starts smiling looking up at her.

“Oh, don’t you DARE start smiling! We said no more!”

“Technically, you said no more, I said one more.” I choir of “fuck” and “dumbass” was heard throughout the room.

“You’re getting a vasectomy.”

“Ha! Paul’s getting neutered! OUCH! KIM! What was that for?”

“Keep it up, and you’re next.”

“Baby lets be reasonable about this. It’s the Universe saying we are great parents and we needed just one more kid.”

“After this, no more. I’m serious, I’ve already made an appointment for your vasectomy. End of discussion.”

“Come on babe!”

“What’s a vac-test-amy?” Oh, Flora… why must you be so cute?

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hotchscotchh · 3 years

Text

Reimagined; Chapter 2 - Owen Savage

This is so sappy and I’m not sorry. Also, I couldn’t find any gifs from this episode so I made some. I might post the set tomorrow :)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Spencer Reid

Warnings: Mentions of past drug use, mentions of bullying

Word count: 1.8k

Summary: Spencer works through his issues with the Owen Savage case.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1 —— Chapter 3

Based on 3x16 Elephant’s Memory

Hotch wasn’t sure what was going on with Reid during this case, but he was angry, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. He felt bad for the way he had to reprimand Reid, no matter how necessary it was, because the younger man was obviously hurting. He wouldn’t have acted in such a way otherwise. But, Hotch wasn’t about to let him continue to make decisions that were going to put his life at risk.

He knew what Reid had been going through the past year. How could he not? He wasn’t exactly being subtle about it. Hotch had a lot of guilt over not stepping up to help him. Gideon told Hotch that he was handling it, and Hotch fell into the trap of believing it. He didn’t know that Gideon hadn’t said a word to the young genius. Hadn’t helped him in the slightest. He wouldn’t forgive Gideon or himself for that.

“Reid,” Hotch called after they had both stepped off the jet. “Are you going to catch that movie?” Reid put his hands in his pocket, looked down at his feet and nodded. “I think I’ll come with you.”

Reid looked up at that, surprised. “Hotch, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. This is personal, it’s not something you should technically know about. If it comes out that you were aware of the situation, you’ll get in trouble. I’m not going to let you carry that burden.”

Hotch sighed. “Let me at least give you a ride. I don’t need to come with you, I just want to know that you’ve made it there safely. The metro isn’t running anymore anyway. I’m allowed to give my subordinate a ride home, right?”

“I suppose,” Reid answered, a hint of a smile playing across his features.

The ride to Reid’s “movie” was spent in silence. Neither man was ready to broach the day’s incident on a personal level. Reprimanding Reid as his superior was much easier than talking through feelings and past trauma.

Reid silently got out of the car when they arrived, but when the door was about to close, he opened it again and, with a shaky voice, asked, “should I expect you to be here when I come out?”

“Of course, Reid. I am giving my subordinate a ride home, after all,” Hotch replied with a sad smile. He didn’t like that the man thought so little of him that he would leave him here to find his own way home.

When he was gone, though, Aaron couldn’t help but let his mind wander. First to the past few weeks. This wasn’t the first time he’d given Spencer a late-night ride home after the Metro had closed. It almost always landed them going out to dinner, though. It was something that he was coming to anticipate. It was becoming his favorite part of the week. He’d known there was a lot to Reid, but he’d only known him on a professional level. Getting to know him personally was something he could only describe as… titillating. He was also kind of choosing to ignore the extremely inappropriate attraction he was realizing had grown in him.

His thoughts were also wandering to what Spencer could have possibly gone through to make him so closely identify with Owen Savage. He knew about the bullying in high school, that comments about being a “12-year-old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school” had not gone unnoticed. So, he knew, in theory, that Reid was traumatized by the experience, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he really wanted the details.

Aaron knew, from experience, how cruel children could be. He was sure his experience wasn’t nearly as extreme as Spencer’s, but he had been bullied. He’d been bullied because his parents never showed up to school events. Because he played baseball instead of football. Because he was never going to live up to the standards of his father. Not in the community’s eyes, at least. Little did they know what was going on behind those closed doors. But that’s a story for another time.

----

An hour after he left, spencer returned to Aaron’s car feeling fifty pounds lighter. Aaron hadn’t started the car after Spencer had gotten in and put his seat belt on, so he looked over to find the older man staring at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“Feel better?” Aaron asked. Spencer nodded in reply. Aaron waited a moment, giving Spencer the chance to say something (even though he knew he wouldn’t) before speaking up again. “Dinner? There’s an all-night diner a few blocks from here.”

“Okay. I don’t-” Spencer abruptly stopped his train of thought, looking down to where his hands were tracing nervous patterns on his knees. He took a moment to decide if this was really something he wanted to disclose to his boss before remembering that this wasn’t his boss. Not right now. This isn’t Hotch. This is Aaron. The man who takes him out for dinner once a week just to listen to him talk. The man who knows about his addiction. Who wouldn’t judge him, no matter what he said. “I don’t think I should be alone just yet,” he finally finished, voice low as if he thought he might be chastised for his words.

Aaron understood that the admission wasn’t something that Spencer wanted to discuss and started the car without another word.

----

They were seated in the diner, full mugs of coffee sitting in front of them, looking over their menus when Aaron decided to start the conversation they both knew was coming. “Spencer, you know you can call me anytime you don’t feel like you should be alone, right? If you need a ride to a meeting, or even just someone to sit with you, I am more than happy to be that person for you.”

Spencer let out a sigh, the self-incriminating thoughts that had been plaguing his mind before coming back into play. “No, Hotch, I can’t come to you. You’re my boss. And if Strauss finds out that you knew about my addiction and didn’t report it, she’ll finally have grounds to fire you. I can’t let you carry that burden; don’t you understand that?”

Hotch hated that word. Burden. This was the second time Reid had used it in the same argument. “Stop. You’re not a burden, Reid. To anyone. You never have been, and you never will be. And screw what Strauss has to say. I’m not your boss in a time like this. I’m not Hotch. I’m your friend. I’m Aaron.”

Spencer let out a laugh. That was almost the exact thought that had been running through his mind in the car earlier.

“I want to be your friend, Spencer. I want to be there for you, I want to help you through this.”

Spencer looked down at his hands that were, again, tracing nervous patterns on the tops of his knees. He made an attempt to inconspicuously wipe the tears from his eyes, but it didn’t go unnoticed. He hadn’t expected that to come out of Aaron’s mouth. Spencer never had friends, except Ethan, but he was still in New Orleans. He’s never had someone he could lean on; someone he could be vulnerable with.

Aaron placed his hand palm up on the table in an invitation for Spencer to receive some kind of grounding, some kind of comfort. He took the opportunity, lacing their fingers together and looking up to meet Aaron’s eyes. “Spencer, I know you’ve never had a consistent support system, but you do now. You have a family. You can come to any one of us, we won’t judge you. Will you tell me what bothered you so much about this case? I’d like to know, as your boss and your friend, so we can prevent another big blowout like that in the future.”

So, he told him. About the goal post. About how his mother would leave visible bruises sometimes and no one would say anything. About how alone he was. About the guilt he held for institutionalizing his mother. The biggest issue, though, was how he thought most people just used him for his brain. Once the flood gates opened, there was no going back.

“Oh, Spence,” Aaron consoled when the words finally stopped flowing from Spencer’s mouth. They were both openly crying at this point, the waitress had decided to stay out of their way. The conversation was visibly intense. Aaron stood from his seat in the booth and slid in next to Spencer, pulling the hurting man into his chest and just letting him cry.

“Spencer, there are so many amazing things about you. I don’t think I could even name half of them, but your brain isn’t at the top of the list. You’re amazing because you’re you,” he said with a breathy laugh. “You do magic tricks in the bull pen just to make the girls smile. You have all this amazing knowledge that you could’ve put to use in so many ways, but you chose the FBI. You chose to help people. To stop killers. To save lives. That’s why you’re amazing. Sure, your brain is too, but you’re so much more than that.”

Spencer wanted to be embarrassed. He was causing a scene. But the comfort he was receiving from this was ridiculous. After a few minutes he managed to sit up and place a hand on Aaron’s chest. “Thank you,” he said, softly and sincerely. “Sorry about your shirt. And for causing a scene.”

“Don’t worry about it, Spence,” Aaron answered, a small smile returning to his face. “You obviously needed that.” Aaron returned to his side of the booth and held a hand up to flag down a waitress. They ordered milkshakes and enjoyed them between idle chatter that flowed freely between them.

Aaron stood up saying, “it’s my turn to pay,” and holding a hand out to help Spencer out of the booth. Spencer let a brilliant smile take over his face and it made Aaron stop for a moment. This was what started his attraction. That damn smile. It was all consuming.

----

Spencer fell asleep in the car on the way to his apartment. It hadn’t taken long; they were both exhausted. When they arrived at Spencer’s apartment, Aaron softly shook him awake. The words that came out of Spencer’s mouth next surprised Aaron.

“Will you stay the night? I- I just don’t think I should be alone yet.”

“Of course, Spencer.”

Spencer’s couch was comfortable. That night, Aaron dreamed up Spencer. Mostly about that big giddy smile that lit up his face that made him so beautiful. He woke up smiling, but confused. When did “Reid” become “Spencer?” And when did the adjectives he associated with him change from “smart” and “amazing” to include “beautiful” and “perfect?”

#aaron hotchner/spencer reid #criminal minds #hotchreid #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #david rossi #jennifer jareau #aaron hotchner x spencer reid #Derek Morgan #Penelope Garcia #Owen Savage #tw mentions of drug use

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mendespideys · 4 years

Text

the intern ▿ pt. IV

Pairing: reader x ceo!tom holland

Summary: you’re finishing your last year of university in london, and what better way do to that than with an internship at holland and osterfield’s?

Warnings: language, mentions of drinking, partying. also tom being a cheeky bastard

a/n: i received a message about this chapter not working because of inappropriate content and it turns out that it was flagged. i have no idea why and i want you guys to be able to read it, so i’m reposting it. this is not the re-written part, but those will be up soon!

You groggily sit up in your bed at the sound of the front door slamming shut. The light shines through your blinds, and you realize it’s more than likely later than you had first assumed. Throwing the covers off your body, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed and make your way out to the living room of the small apartment.

Cecelia is in the kitchen, her heels and purse scattered on the floor, as she pushes the button on the coffee machine. You yawn, your bare feet padding against the hardwood floors as you walk closer to her. Grabbing a hair tie from the counter, you quickly wrap your hair into a messy bun, sitting down on the bar stool.

“How did your night go?”

She turns around to look at you, a wide grin plastered on her face. You chuckle, picking at the flaking nail polish on your thumb. You watch as she adjusts her dress before leaning on the counter, getting ready to recap her entire night for you whether you want to hear it or not.

“Despite my head killing me, it went very well,” she starts, her eyes meeting yours. “But I wanna hear about yours. How did you get home if you didn’t have your wallet on you?”

You groan, looking at her pleadingly. She just shakes her head, determined to get the story out of you. As soon as you had texted her last night to let her know you had gotten home safe, you knew she was going to ask the moment she saw you. You had hoped she would be too drunk to remember, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“Tom.”

Her eyes widen at the same time the machine beeps, signaling that the coffee is ready. “Tom? Your ‘one-night stand turned internship boss’ Tom? Ooh, do tell.” She pours herself a cup of coffee, a gleeful expression on her face, which makes you want to punch it away.

“I called him. He picked me up and took me home. There’s nothing more to the story,” you shrug innocently, hoping your lie is solid enough because there had been way more to the story.

“Hello?” Tom’s voice is hoarse it crackles through the receiver on your new phone. He’s silent for a second before continuing, sounding more awake now. “Y/N? Are you alright?”

You sigh softly, hating how comforting his voice sounds. “Um, hi, Tom. Did I wake you? I’m really sorry- I just, uh,” you stutter, trying desperately to stop your teeth from chattering.

“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

You tell him the cross streets and he promises he will be there as soon as possible. You wrap your arms around yourself, attempting to keep the little body warmth you had left. You consider going back inside to wait, but the loud music and drunk teens seem less tempting than the sobering cold. Several young adults join you, but they quickly jump in taxis or friend’s cars. Next time I’m bringing a jacket, you think to yourself, watching as a car pulls up to the curb next to you.

The passenger window rolls down, and Tom’s face appears, looking at you with concerned eyes. You ignore him, jumping into the car, welcoming the warmth with open arms. You kick your heels off, curling your legs in your seat to warm them. The window rolls back up as you buckle in, still not looking at Tom, scared of what might await if you do.

“Are you fucking crazy? What are you doing out here, in the cold, dressed like- dressed like that?”

“Forgot my wallet,” you mumble weakly, leaning your head against the door and closing your eyes. “Can you just drive me home, please? It’s freezing.”

You can hear him rummage around briefly, but you don’t have to open your eyes to investigate because two seconds later, soft indie rock fills the car. He doesn’t say anything, just putting the car in drive and as the car moves, you feel the exhaustion of the long day take over. You can’t bring yourself to stop it, the quiet music and steady heat lulling you to sleep.

The sound of a car door being shut wakes you up. You moan quietly, not wanting to open your eyes. The car beeps as it gets locked, and you sigh contently, nuzzling further into the comfort surrounding you. Your head hurts already, and you know you’re going to have a long day tomorrow.

“Darlin’, I need you to tell me what floor you’re on,” Tom’s gentle voice makes your eyes shoot open, suddenly realizing what is going on.

“Second. 2B,” you mumble, lying undeniable still as Tom carries you effortlessly up the stairs, your bare legs slung over his arm. “I, um, I can walk.”

Tom doesn’t say anything, placing you down gently when you reach the door of your apartment. You don’t dare look at him as you search through your purse, a small aha escaping you as you grasp the keys and pull them out. You unlock the door, the click of the lock turning echoing through the empty hallway. Reluctantly, you turn to look at your savior.

“Thank you,” your voice is raspy, so you clear your throat. “I’m really sorry I woke you up.”

Tom hands you your heels back, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweats. Another look you hadn’t seen on him, but one you knew you could grow to love. You take them, shooting him a small smile, but he just nods.

“’s alright. Just don’t go outside by yourself like that again. I’ll see you on Monday. Night.”

You watch quietly as he walks back down the stairs, the hood of his sweater bouncing. You mumble a response, fully knowing he can’t hear you. Sighing, you step into the dark apartment. Two minutes later, you’re wrapped in the covers on your bed, willing yourself not to think about how Tom had immediately responded to your call of help, or how he had carried you upstairs, letting you sleep for as long as possible. Eventually, you’re able to fall back asleep, the smell of Tom still lingering in your nose.

“So he just picked you up and dropped you off? Nothing else happened? Bollocks!”

“I swear, nothing happened. He drove me home, carried me upstairs and then he left.”

“He carried you upstairs?”

You groan, realizing your mistake too late. Cecelia raises her eyebrows multiple times, teasing you. You shake your head, picking up your phone from the counter. Turning it around, the screen lights up at the motion, and you notice you have an unopened text message. Your pulse immediately quickens when you see his name.

“Shut up,” you mutter, a small chuckle escaping you as well, knowing she means well.

Let me know if you ever forget your wallet again. I’ll add chauffeur to my resume

Cecelia notices your sudden silence, grabbing the phone from your hands before you can stop her. You watch her as her eyes trace the words of the simple text. She whistles, handing you the phone back before taking another sip of coffee. You pull your leg up on the chair, resting your head on your knee.

Fuck you, Tom Holland.

“He just loves teasing you, doesn’t he? Cheeky bastard that one.”

XXX

You had left the text unanswered the rest of the weekend, having no clue what to say to him. He hadn’t followed up on it either, so you figured the whole situation would remain a secret between the two of you - well, three if you count Cecelia.

You desperately hope so as you enter the building of Holland and Osterfield’s on Monday morning. As you walk up the stairs, you re-read the email you had received from Harrison late the previous night. You double check the information and the time, nodding pleasingly when you realize you’re on time. You stop on the third floor this time, taking in the unfamiliar environment. You stop in front of the meeting room Harrison had told you to go to, knocking quietly.

A woman you have never met before opens the door, and you realize you’re the last one. You smile sheepishly, stepping into the room, trying to ignore the questioning stares of some of the workers in the room. Your eyes involuntarily find Tom immediately, sitting next to Harrison who is standing at the head of the table opposite from where you’re standing. Harrison glances up as the door is closed behind you and smiles.

“There you are! Everyone, this is our new intern Y/N. She’s helping us out with marketing for the next six months.”

The small crowd murmurs a few greetings, and Harrison tells you to sit down and comply. You aren’t sure exactly why he had invited you to the meeting in the first place, but you tell yourself it’s a great way to learn something new. Placing the laptop bag in your lap, you give Harrison your attention. When he starts talking, you briefly let your gaze flicker to the left to look at Tom. He doesn’t seem to notice it, staring down at the notes displayed in front of him.

You notice he isn’t wearing a blazer today, only a faded charcoal-colored button-up shirt. A black tie dangles from his neck and you wonder momentarily if he hated dressing up for work as much as you do. He shuffles the papers a little, the shirt tightening around his bicep as he does so. You instantly look away, not wanting the sight to stay in your head longer than it had to. Returning your attention back to Harrison, you listen as he talks about the charity gala they are hosting in a few weeks.

“Um,” you speak up quietly, instantly regretting interrupting him. “I think it would be more beneficial to personally invite the honor guests and then advertise through newsletters and e-mails.”

Harrison purses his lips, considering your suggestion. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, I assume the honor guests are well-established business owners, politicians, you know, the usual. I also assume most these people are older than all of us in this room. I think they would appreciate the gesture of a personal letter in the mail. With all due respect, Mr. Osterfield, most people didn’t make it as young as you and Mr. Holland. I just know that my grandparents would respond better to a letter than an impersonal e-mail.”

You hear a few other people mumbling agreements. You meet Harrison’s eyes for a moment before looking back down at your hands, reminding yourself to apply a new coat of nail polish when you get home. There is a brief silence, and you wonder if maybe it had been a bad idea to speak up like you did.

“I think she’s right. Let’s send the honor guests invitations and we’ll notify the other businesses through e-mail like planned,” Tom speaks up and you immediately look at him. He just nods at you, and you give him a small smile.

“Okay, that’s settled then. Y/N, would you help me with those invitations later?” he asks, looking at you expectantly and you nod hurriedly. “Now, let’s talk about the next marketing campaign.”

Harrison’s words drown out, and you glance down at the papers in front of you. You stifle a yawn, suddenly wishing you could cuddle up in bed with Tom. You shake your head, needing to get rid of the thoughts. That doesn’t work as well as you hoped it would when Tom takes over his portion of the meeting. His words are impossible to comprehend, the thoughts in your head taking over. You quickly excuse yourself, opening and closing the door before anyone can say anything.

Hurriedly, you make your way upstairs and toward your desk, scolding yourself the entire way. You had never crushed on anybody this way before. Does it count as a crush? Your thoughts are messy and most of them unwelcome as you plop into your chair with a loud sigh. Pulling out your computer and earbuds, you welcome the loud noise of the song as you press play. You try your best to focus on the lyrics, pulling up the chat window and clicking Cecelia’s name.

you: dude i just interrupted harrison in a meeting and tom stood up for me and i wanna kms

A few minutes pass by and you pray that your best friend is on her computer, needing someone to vent to, or rather, someone to help you make sense of your jumbled thoughts. A small icon pops up, notifying you that she’s writing and a relieved sigh escapes you.

cecelia: bollocks! tell me what happened

you: tom isn’t wearing a blazer today and he looks really good and i just. ugh. f*ck me

ceceilia: i bet that’s what you were thinking when looking at him

you: shut up. i gotta go. i ran out of the meeting because i couldn’t stand it and i have to do my work

You exit out of the chat window, pulling up the document you started on Friday. Harrison had asked you to compile a list of potential businesses to contact in regards to the gala. You finish it faster than you would have liked, but you attach it to an e-mail and send it to Harrison anyway. He responds not even five minutes later, asking you to meet him in his office.

You unwillingly get up from your chair, making your way down the hall. You attempt to ignore your increasing heartbeat as you get closer, not knowing what to expect. You had interrupted him and caused quite the scene as you ran out of the conference room. You definitely didn’t earn any more respect points by doing that. Your knock on the door is timid but he appears to hear it anyway.

He tells you to come in, so you open the door cautiously, a nervous smile dancing on your lips. Harrison is sitting at the chair behind his desk when you close the door behind you, but your eyes are more focused on Tom leaning up against the desk. He looks at you quizzically and just for a moment you think you see a form of concern in his eyes. Harrison clears his throat and startles you out of your moment with Tom.

“Are you alright, Y/N? You seemed to leave us in a hurry? I know meetings can be boring but...”

You quickly shake your head, meeting Harrison’s eyes. “No. I’m sorry. I, uh, stomach bug. I wasn’t feeling too hot.”

Your excuse is so weak that you don’t even buy it yourself but Harrison just nods. “Okay, well, I hope you feel better. Why don’t you, uh, take the rest of the day off? You can work on those personal invitations at home and send me a few different versions, and then we’ll pick the best one. I saw that you’ve done a fair share of graphic design.”

You nod slowly, wondering if your face betrays how confused you feel. “I can stay-”

“I’ll take you home,” Tom speaks up for the first time since you entered the room, giving you a tight-lipped smile.

“O-Okay. Um, I’ll get right on those invitations, Mr. Osterfield.”

Tom walks you to the elevator, neither of you saying anything, the only sound is the elevator jostling as it moves. The ride back to your apartment is just as quiet, the radio making the tension a little less awkward. You hadn’t talked to him since he had dropped you off at your apartment, and you weren’t quite sure what to say.

“Thank you,” you state suddenly, deciding to elaborate after receiving a look laced with confusion from him. “For taking me home on Friday. I never really thanked you. I don’t wanna think about what could’ve happened if-”

“Yeah, I don’t want to think about that either. Don’t understand why you’d be walking around in a dress like that anyway,” he interrupts, not taking his eyes off the road once.

“Oh, shut up, like you were complaining last week. That dress wasn’t any better.”

You pause momentarily as the words leave your mouth. That was the first time either of you had mentioned your night together after the interview. You glance over at him, noticing the way his knuckles are turning slightly white from gripping the steering wheel. He doesn’t smirk like you had expected him too.

“Well, I was there to take you home that night. To make sure you were okay and no one touched you. I watched you from the moment you walked in,” his words are stern, almost slightly possessive, but then a smirk finds its way to his lips. “Besides, I don’t recall you complaining either. Unless you count complaining about me taking too long to-”

“Okay, okay,” you grumble, feeling your cheeks heat up at his words. He chuckles just as he pulls up in front of your complex.

You unbuckle slowly, grabbing your bag in one hand. There is a slight pause in the music, which makes the sound of you opening the door appear even louder. You slide out of the car, your heels clicking against the cobblestone of the street. Slinging the bag over your shoulder, you dip your head back in to take one last look at him. He has a confident grin on his face now, the seriousness of his voice totally gone.

“You didn’t run out of the meeting because of a stomach bug, did you?” He raises an eyebrow mockingly, almost knowingly, as you shut the door. You watch in slight horror as he takes off, the sound of his car accelerating bringing you back to reality. Ignoring your flushed cheeks, you trudge toward the entrance of your complex. There was no way he knew why you had run out. He couldn’t know. Could he?

#the intern #ironwriting #the intern ch 4 #tom holland #tom holland ceo #ceo!tom holland #ceo!tom #ceo au #tom holland au #tom holland imagine #tom holland series #tom holland x reader

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the-courage-to-heal · 4 years

Text

25 Signs of a Bad Therapist: You Deserve Better

Some signs of a bad therapist are easy to spot. If your therapist insults or shames you, it’s time to find someone new. Others are more difficult. The therapist might encourage you to blame others or become overly defensive about a criticism. These issues may not hurt your feelings, but they hinder progress in therapy.

This guide will help you spot all the signs of a bad therapist. That way you can avoid bad therapists and find the quality therapy you deserve.

To make the guide comprehensive and inclusive, we included all of the mediums for psychotherapy. This is crucial because some red flags only apply to in-person therapy but not online therapy. Think about how a therapist eating during an in-person or video session would be rude but would not matter for texting therapy.

A Quick Note of Consideration for Your Therapist:

It’s important to catch warning signs, but remember to cut your therapist some slack. They are only human and are bound to make some mistakes. If you only see one of these signs and it doesn’t bother you too much, consider chatting with your therapist about it. The two of you might be able to work on it. If you like your therapist, it would be a shame to quit over something you could reconcile. Think about whether the therapist is a good fit for you. Signs a therapist is bad are different than signs he or she isn’t the right match.

Signs That Apply to All Forms of Psychotherapy

1. Not Listening or Responding

This is the most obvious one. Therapists need to listen and respond to what you’re saying. If they are clearly not making enough effort to understand you and provide guidance, it’s time to bounce and find someone better.

2. Judging You

Judging clients in a way that shames them is hurtful and hinders progress in therapy. You should not have to experience this.

3. Telling You What To Do

It’s OK for therapists to share their thoughts and opinions if you ask for advice, but they shouldn’t be ordering you around. Therapy is supposed to empower you and give you the cognitive skills to make great decisions. Telling you what to do defeats that purpose and is an ethical grey area.

4. Imposing Religious, Spiritual, Political or Social Beliefs

Therapists should respect your religious, spiritual, political and social beliefs. That means not imposing their beliefs on you. If a therapist is opposed to abortion for religious reasons, for example, he or she has no right to raise that during treatment or use it as motivation to advise a client on issues related to an abortion.

If a therapist is opposed to abortion for religious reasons, for example, he or she has no right to raise that during treatment or use it as motivation to advise a client on issues related to an abortion.

Even if you sought a religious counselor so you could discuss religious issues in therapy, your therapist should not impose any belief. A religious counselor is only someone who is more likely to understand a religious perspective.

5. Not Being Sensitive to Your Beliefs or Background

Therapists need to respect differences between themselves and their clients. Their guidance should account for your beliefs.

6. Breaking Confidentiality

A therapist is legally bound to protect your privacy. He or she should only share confidential information if it is necessary to save a life.

7. Encouraging You to Blame Everyone for Your Issues

You want a therapist to be on your side, but they won’t help you if they encourage you to blame all your issues on others. Therapy is supposed to empower you to take responsibility and live a better life.

8. Shaming Mental Illness

If you have a mental illness, your therapist should accept that part of your identity. They shouldn’t treat it like something to be ashamed of.

9. Talking Too Much About Him or Herself

It’s OK for therapists to talk about themselves a little. Sometimes it helps build a strong therapeutic alliance that increases positive results in therapy. The vast majority of therapy should be about you, though. That’s what you’re paying for!

10. Pushing You to Talk About Something You Don’t Want to Talk About or Aren’t Ready for Yet

You’re paying for therapy, so you should decide where it goes. Therapists need to respect that and be patient with issues. They can guide you, but they shouldn’t push an issue if you tell them to change the subject. If it’s too important to ignore, they should wait and gently, gradually guide you back to it.

11. Rushing a Diagnosis or Overdiagnosing

Not every problem needs a clinical label. Sometimes rushing to diagnose someone can result in a false diagnosis or overdiagnosis. It can be dehumanizing, too. A therapist should treat you as a person first, then your mental health issues. Unless you ask for a diagnosis immediately, it shouldn’t be the first part of your therapeutic experience.

12. Becoming Overly Defensive About Feedback or Criticism

If you tell your therapist he or she has made a mistake or needs to fix an approach to an issue, he or she should respond calmly and maturely. On the other hand, bad therapists will lose control of their emotions, become overly defensive or criticize you.

13. Pushing Therapeutic Approach Too Much

Therapists shouldn’t put everything you are dealing with in the context of a therapeutic approach. If you pour your heart out about a childhood trauma, your therapist’s first response shouldn’t be, “Let’s see what Freud would have to say about that.”

14. Trying to Be Your Friend

Your therapist should not ask you to hang out as friends. It can interfere with being objective during therapy.

Signs That Only Apply to In-Person Sessions

15. Checking the Clock Too Much

Once is OK, but several times is rude. You shouldn’t feel rushed out the door.

16. The Therapist Is Constantly Buried in Notes

Eye contact and body language are one of the main benefits of face-to-face therapy. You’re missing out on this benefit — one you might have paid a lot of money for — if your therapist spends the vast majority of the session scribbling in a notebook.

17. Eating, Grooming, Primping or Checking Phone

These are rude and there’s no excuse. Lunch breaks exist for a reason.

18. Inappropriate Touching

A therapist should not initiate any form of physical contact other than a handshake or pat on the shoulder. Anything else is a grey area or unethical.

19. Not Giving You the Time You Paid For

If you’re on time to your session, you deserve the amount of minutes the therapist is charging you for. A therapist might need to start late because the client before you was late. That’s OK. But if you start a 30-minute session at 4:35 p.m., it should finish no earlier than 5:05 p.m.

Signs That Only Apply to Live Video Chats and Video Messages

20. Looking or Clicking Around Their Desktop or Phone

During a video chat, you can see a therapist’s eyes wander constantly if they are multitasking while chatting with you. It’s a sign of disrespect.

21. Too Much Background Noise, Not Enough Privacy

If there is a ton of background noise during your scheduled live video chat, it shows the therapist didn’t care or wasn’t organized enough to find a quiet space for the chat. Environments like this risk other people hearing what the therapist is saying. This can violate your privacy.

Signs That Apply to In-Person and Video Chat Therapy

• Not Giving You the Time You Paid For

• Checking the Clock Too Much

• Eating, Grooming, Primping, Etc.

• Constantly Buried in Notes

• Checking the Clock Too Much

Signs That Apply to Phone Calls and Audio Messaging

The signs are the same as the video chatting ones: lots of background noise that shows the therapist didn’t try to find a quiet space, eating while talking, etc.

Signs That Only Apply to Asynchronous or Live Text Therapy

22. Taking Forever to Respond

If a therapist consistently takes a more than five days to respond to each one of your messages, they aren’t trying hard enough. Responding that slow defeats the purpose of text therapy.

23. Their Messages Are Too Short

When you send a therapist a huge paragraph with important thoughts, their response should be more than a word or two.

24. Not Trying to Convey Tone

Therapists need to write more during text therapy so they can convey tone. If they don’t put in that effort, the therapy might feel incomplete.

25. Tons of Typos

If messages are riddled with typos to the point where you can’t understand what the therapist is trying to communicate, it means he or she didn’t take the time to edit the message.

Signs You Are Ready for a New Therapist

If you have encountered some of these signs, don’t worry. There are good therapists out there who will fit your needs and preferences. If you still want to improve your mental health, you’re ready for a new therapist.

source

#therapy #psychology #self help #emotional abuse #healing

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meme-loving-stuck · 3 years

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In light of Some Guy On Youtube #465826 being outed as a sexual predator, and the HUGE INFLUX of nerds defending him, here are 2 small tips on how to actually "engage with content critically"

1. First: instead of saying "Creators are PEOPLE too!!" Get used to the FACT that "Everyone does shitty things."

They're just people. And people make mistakes. But people ALSO have the capacity to be really, purposefully shitty & manipulative to others. Is this creator or group an insanely popular page? Then chances are they have done MORE harmful, shitty things than the average bean, and people have either not seen it, because they're only in the spotlight for all the Cool Good Things they do, or their peers and/or audience let it go.

Why? People who get to FAMOUS levels of internet-popular are especially likely to be on this level of charisma or cunning, so as to be very easily forgiven for Shitty Things they've done.

2. Have they crafted the persona of an "underdog" somehow? Do they use the excuse of being "awkward", "nerdy", or "not well socialized" as an excuse for inappropriate or bigoted behavior? Red flags.

People seek community, it's a normal thing. You may be consuming content critically in your own head, but you gotta understand that after a certain number of followers, MOST people are only filming, commenting, posting a persona. They may not be who you and their ENTIRE fanbase thinks they are.

No this doesn't mean every creator is a total phony or that their whole personality is fabricated. It means you don't KNOW them. You only know what you see on the screen. It doesnt matter how down-to-earth they seem. When someone gets THAT popular, they have to stop trying to befriend their audience and keep strangers at arm's length.

Especially on a small scale like this, they kinda have to become their own PR team. If you think tumblr is hostile once you become "popular" here, imagine what youtube and twitter comments & inboxes look like once you say something your sizable audience doesn't like.

Now imagine the effect that might have on you if you decided to make vlogging your primary source of income. These big, popular creators know that their image is EVERYTHING. So once they know how to use that, and to hide behaviors & ideas their audience doesn't like, they do it.

And sometimes, they mean the apologies. Sometimes it's a meaningful thing that really comes from the heart. But pay attention to how things are phrased:

"I/we dont want to ALIENATE that part of my/our FANBASE."

So many creators and "influencers" have adopted this phrase. Does it sound a little weird? A little too formal? That's cause it's corporate talk, my dudes. It's the easiest way to NOT have to specify whether they actually CARE about the bigoted thing they said/did, or who specifically they hurt.

Sometimes this is just to avoid getting too far into a subject they are uneducated about but have genuine interest in learning & being better.

Other times? They really, truly don't care. They just don't want to lose that part of their audience. Because then they lose money.

Sometimes, that creator that you've been watching since you were 15 isn't a good person. Sometimes that group you loved was actually full of toxic people manipulating eachother and filming staged behavior for money. For popularity. Being HUGELY popular for years and years CAN and DOES corrupt.

It can and does result in people learning to hide their shitty behavior and get really, really good at lying.

They're entertainers, after all!

They aren't your friends. They have just as much capacity to be bad people as anyone else... with the addition of drastically reduced tangible consequences for it.

Stop idolizing creators you don't know. Stop defending their despicable choices.

#BLOGGING LOUDLY #long post #this is meant to be a very broad universal thing btw not just this one guy #ok to rb #actually if you consider yourself in any youtubers 'fandom' i encourage you to

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random-imaginess · 4 years

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Too Nice

Requested Ransom Drysdale prompt Fic - Part One

A/N: I had gone back and forth so many times on whether this should be in two parts or just one, but I decided on doing two. I would write up a summary, but I don’t exactly know how to form one, but we see a bit of a different side to Ransom than what we might be used to.

Part two will be posted soon.

You had been under the employment of the Thrombey/Drysdale family for a little over four years. You started out as a house keeper for Harlan and gradually moved through the family as they needed you. Sometimes it felt a bit odd if you let yourself think about it, but the pay was incredibly well so you weren’t complaining. Ransom was one of the last ones to ask for your services and had been working as an assistant for him for the past year.

You were very aware of his reputation of being an asshole who constantly talked down to people, so at first you were a bit terrified to accept the job. But eventually you did, and to your amazement, he wasn’t really as bad as you were expecting. Granted, you knew first hand what he was capable of, what the whole family was capable of, while helping out with social gatherings and family get-togethers. But to you personally, he wasn’t as harsh.

His tone was always firm and direct, and he acted differently around his friends, but when it was just him, he was almost normal.

It was another family gathering, speckled with some of their closest friends. After a certain point you stopped asking what the occasion was, not that it was any of your business anyway, you were just there to serve.

You eyed the groups of people as you made your rounds collecting empty glasses and plates. Joni and Richard were in some kind of political debate, Jacob was sitting alone in a dark corner, the glow of his phone screen illuminating his face, and everyone else was off in their own conversation.

Ransom was surrounded by some of his friends. A blonde gripped tightly to his shoulder as she tossed her head back and laughed at something Ransom had said. Clearly she was trying too hard because no one else in the group found it as funny as she did.

Reluctantly you made your way over to collect their plates. You reached around them as swiftly as you could, trying not to interrupt their conversation, but when you went to grab the blondes’ glass, she stopped you, forcing you to look up at her. “I’m not finished.” She told you, disgust in her tone. Looking back at the glass, you could see that it was pretty much empty, just a sliver of a drop left at the bottom of the glass.

“I’m sorry, I’ll come back for it,” You went to leave but she stopped you. “I want you to wait.” She picked up the glass and laughed a little as she brought it up to her lips. You didn’t understand what the point of this was, if she was trying to show off or just waste your time for the hell of it, and you really didn’t care, all you could think of was how bad your feet were hurting and how badly you wanted to sit down and rest.

She took her sweet time tossing the glass back, like it was going to make any difference of how much wine would come out of the glass, which really wasn’t even worth all that trouble. She just looked like an idiot. That thought must have read on your face because when she was done, her smile faded, and as she went to hand you the glass, she let it drop before reaching your hand, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. “Oops.”

You stared at her in shock for a moment before turning your gaze to Ransom, almost expecting him to say something, but he didn’t. “Well, don’t just stand there, clean it up.” The blonde scolded, acting like she was the one you were working for. You wanted to scratch that smug smile off her face but forced yourself to turn instead, heading to the kitchen to grab a rag.

Setting the small tray down to the side, you pressed your hands on the counter top to take a moment to collect yourself. Hearing the door swing open, you opened your eyes to see Ransom walk in and you instantly stood up straighter. “I’m sorry, I was just heading back out to clean up the mess.” You explained, hoping he wouldn’t yell at you.

Instead he raised his hand to stop you. “Don’t worry about it, someone else is already talking care of it,” he informed you, walking towards the counter and standing opposite of you. “Sharon can be a bitch sometimes, I wanted to make sure she didn’t get to you. It looks like maybe she did.” You couldn’t quite figure out what his expression was. Was it concern? Trying to seem genuine? Maybe he was.

You cleared your throat and shook your head at his comment. “No, I’m fine. Thank you. I should really get back out there.” You left the towel on the counter and made your way past him to the door, but he reached for your arm and pulled it lightly so you’d stop and look at him. “They have it covered, really. Why don’t you clock out early and we’ll go grab a drink or something. I know you’re probably dying for one.” He showed off that confident smile of his and it briefly caught you off guard.

It was ridiculous to even consider it for a second. “I can’t, but thank you.” It was so easy for rumors to get started about people like you sneaking around with people like him. Only wanting him for his money, or rumors about you sleeping together. You didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of running with what they thought they knew. And you were respectable. You didn’t want to tarnish your reputation of being a hard worker who rightfully earned what you deserved. Plus, Ransom was technically your boss. It would have been inappropriate to go out for drinks. Right?

You made another attempt to leave, but he stopped you once more, which only started to slightly annoy you. “Come on. It’ll be real quick. I think you deserve it.” He tried to coax you, but you caught on. “Why? Why are you being so nice to me?” You snapped defensively. You shifted slightly, not meaning for it to come out so harshly. But you knew what this had to be. The only reason he was talking to you like this, offering to take you out for drinks and not taking ‘no’ for an answer was because he wanted something from you. Maybe to get inside you pants? It could have been anything, really. Why else would he be trying so hard to get you to say yes?

He chuckled slightly at your question, like it was a ridiculous thing to ask. “I’m always nice to you and you know that,” he let out a sigh and smiled softly. “I just thought you deserved a break. You do so much for all of us, and after tonight, I think a drink would take the edge off. That’s it. No funny business, I swear.” You paused momentarily as you eyed him. He held his hands up as if surrendering and raised his brows briefly before letting his hands fall to his side. “What about Harlan? I can’t exactly ask him to let me off early just to have drinks with you. Besides, this would be highly inappropriate. I ca-” “Before you turn me down a third time, don’t worry about my grandfather. You just get changed and I’ll take care of everything else. Okay?” You hesitated again as you thought about it. A drink really did sound nice, and to be able to get off your feed and relax instead of being here all night cleaning up after everyone left sounded even better.

“Okay,” you agreed softly. But only one drink.” He gave a smirk and nodded. “Fair enough, one drink it is. Now go change and meet me by my car.” He ordered before disappearing out of the kitchen. You started at it swing a couple times before letting out a scoff and slipped out one of the other kitchen doors to head to the guest room that you had planned on sleeping in tonight and changed.

Ransom pulled up to the bar and you both walked inside, finding a table towards the back. You told him what you wanted and he went to go flag down a bartender. After a few minutes, he reappeared and set down your rum and coke in front of you, as well as a shot of tequila. “What’s this?” You asked, pointing at the tiny glass before you. Ransom just grinned. “It’s just an opener. That drink you ordered is not going to loosen you up on its own. We’ll do it together.”

He took his coat off and sat down, pushing up his sleeves a bit before picking up his shot. You eyed him nervously as you watched him start, following his lead. Lick the salt, take down the shot and suck on the lime. Your throat burned as the liquid ran down your throat, your face contorted slightly at the taste. “Those are so awful.” You laughed as you took a small drink of your coke to try and sooth the burning. Ransom laughed. “It’ll definitely do the trick, though.” Yes. The trick to getting you drunk. You knew better, though. You weren’t going to give him what he wanted.

#ransom drysdale imagines #ransom drysdale x reader #random-imaginess #chris evans imagines

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shades-of-grayro · 4 years

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Thoughts on “queeragamic”

So, I initially wasn’t going to weigh in on this, but it seems there’s been some community conflict surrounding it. The current conversation seems a bit unproductive, and I wanted to weigh in with a more middle-of-the-road opinion to hopefully help us work towards a solution.

To be clear, I’m only interested in good-faith efforts to listen to what others have to say, share thoughts and feelings, and look to how we can improve things moving into the future. If you’re interested in anything else, this is not the post for you.

Synopsis

Synopsis of the conflict below. Note that I’ve paraphrased a bit of it, but please read people’s own words and don’t assume that my paraphrasing is exactly how they would characterize the situation themselves.

@queerplatonicpositivity coined “queeragamic relationship” to mean “non-sexual queerplatonic relationship.” This was received negatively by alloaros, including @quiet-times [here] and @aro-allo-positivity [here], because they felt that this word was created due to not wanting to be associated with alloaros. @queerplatonicpositivity responded to the criticism here, here, and here.

Summary

I think this was handled badly on both sides.

While I believe that people have the right to use whatever words they’d like to describe their relationships, the wording of the original post coining queeragamic did have echoes of exclusionary rhetoric, and it is important to address that. However, the response trying to address this issue definitely crossed a line.

Is queeragamic harming people who have sex?

Does @queerplatonicpositivity have the right to call their relationship whatever makes them feel most comfortable? Yes. If this were framed as “I recently realized that I need a word to call my relationship that is explicitly non-sexual, and so I’ve coined a word for it” then I’d have zero issue with it. But it was framed as “I’ve just realized that people use this word for their relationships that are sexual, and that makes me uncomfortable” which echoes a lot of other exclusionary situations I’ve seen.

Here are a couple examples:

When that person tried to create a new aro flag because they didn’t like that the actual aro flag had a grey stripe that explicitly included people under the grayromantic umbrella.

I once had someone tell me that they felt excluded by the definition of asexuality that says “a person who doesn’t experience sexual attraction and/or desire” simply because it includes people who identify as ace due to not feeling sexual desire, when they do feel sexual desire, but not attraction.

There’s a pattern here of feeling excluded because others are included, and your post read really similarly to these things, even though I don’t think that’s what your intention was. Not to mention the context of aces feeling uncomfortable in shared ace and aro spaces due to allo aros simply existing.

You can’t remove yourself from this context, and the way your post is written certainly looks exclusionary. I’d consider re-writing it using a different framing. As I said before, something like “I recently realized that I need a word to call my relationship that is explicitly non-sexual, and so I’ve coined a word for it.”

On calling the criticism “hate”

Several criticisms addressed the fact that @queerplatonicpositivity called their responses “hate.” And I feel obligated to point out that “hate” can be based on legitimate criticism. What makes something hate is not the criticism necessarily being invalid (though it sometimes is), but rather the tone and method of addressing the issue.

Sending anon messages that start with “do you hate [identity]?” is definitely hate. Using a belligerent tone might suggest that something is hate. Posting something knowing your followers are also going to send anonymous angry messages to the person is hate. Anything where your intent is to make the other person feel bad rather than understand what they did wrong is hate.

Addressing an issue in a way that is not hate looks like:

Explaining why you feel hurt by the other person’s words with the intent of them understanding your side

Listening to how the other person feels, and trying to help them find better ways of expressing those feelings in the future

Ceding on points where the other person is right

Possibly having this conversation privately if possible.

And even if you still object to the word “hate” to describe this, I’m sure we can at least agree that it’s not a productive way of fixing the problem.

On “Oversharing”

I think the above section addresses most of my issues with the way this was handled, but I also want to address these points made by @aro-allo-positivity, in the context of listing things that are “wrong” with queeragamic:

“Needlessly gives other people private information about your sex life”

“Needlessly telling people it’s not sexual enforces the exclusionist rhetoric that aces overshare about their sex lives”

“Coiner also said something along the lines of being tired of having to explicitly state that their qpr isn’t sexual. Which like. You definitely don’t have to do.”

“Especially to people who didn’t ask.”

“How weird would it be to introduce a romantic partner to someone and then say “we don’t have sex” like………”

This is entirely inappropriate. You are not ace, and the only one reinforcing exclusionist rhetoric that aces overshare about their sex lives is you.

Some aces are uncomfortable with people assuming that their significant relationships are sexual, and there is nothing wrong with those aces making it clear that their relationships are not sexual. Yes, there is a time and a place, but nothing about this particular situation says “wrong time or place”.

When we respond to hate, we need to make sure we’re not doing it on the aphobe’s terms, or we’re going to accidentally end up hurting people. The reason this is wrong is the same reason it’s wrong when allo aces respond to aphobes by saying “asexual doesn’t mean aromantic.” In this situation, it’s bad that aphobes conflate identifying as asexual with sharing about your sex life. It’s ALSO bad that they’re saying that it’s always wrong to share that information.

That’s the dangerous trap with responding to aphobes or when talking about stereotypes in general. Stereotypes are always bad for two reasons 1) they make a generalization, and 2) they imply that the stereotypical trait is a bad thing (it’s not, in most cases at least). A lot of people accidentally perpetuate part 2 when trying to address part 1, and I think that’s what happened to you here.

I suggest thinking about how you wish allo aces would make amends when they do something similar, like saying “asexual doesn’t mean aromantic” in this type of context, and correct yourself the way you wish they would.

And also, calling people weird is just generally not a good thing, and if you’re about to say that in the future, I’d take a second look and make sure you’re not hurting people with what you’re going to say.

Other thoughts

I do have a few other thoughts about the word “queeragamic”. Disclaimer that in this section I am not trying to tell other people how they can label themselves, but I also just don’t like the word.

First, I just really don’t like the word itself. Like, I absolutely hate that the word makes direct references to asexual reproduction on purpose. Also, the word “queerplatonic” comes from “queering” the “platonic”, so… this doesn’t follow that format? So I’m confused as to why the prefix “queer” is there. Because “agamic” isn’t an existing social structure that you could “queer”.

Second, I do have some concerns about reasons why people want to use a word that means “non-sexual qpr”. Sometimes people in qprs make the mistake of assuming that their partner is on the same page as them with regards to what activities they are going to do in their relationship. It’s important to talk about boundaries in relationships and make sure you’re on the same page as your partner! I’m vaguely worried that people will use this term as a replacement for actual communication - no single word will ever be able to communicate exactly what you want in a relationship, so make sure to talk about whether you want sex, hand-holding, or anything else in your partnership regardless of what you call it.

Also, genuine question: is there a reason it’s important to have a specific name for this rather than just saying “non-sexual qpr”, which is much more likely to be understood without giving a vocab lesson (where you’ll end up saying that anyway), and relatively short as well?

#queeragamic #queerplatonic #intracommunity issues

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

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You Asked, I Told

(Note, if this post shows up twice or massively delayed or just looks weird, it’s because it was flagged for adult content [??!] because I had a picture of Willem Dafoe’s face in a gif. I am not even kidding. Do with that information what you will. I’ve removed it and I still don’t know if/when this can be publicly viewed, I’m kind of lolling. So if you see a blocked out photo that looks like porn in your post, I swear it’s just a gif from The Lighthouse!)

Hello, amazing people. This weekend, I’m putting the final touches on my last draft of Baghdad Waltz Chapter 39, which will then go to the beta for one more round of edits. I imagine I will have the chapter posted in 1-3 weeks, which is close to record speed for me, especially since it’s around 30k words. I’m going to be talking about my writing process (at unfortunate length) for one of the asks, for those who are interested.

Please forgive me. I’m feeling quite verbose and a little squirrely. I blame living alone during lockdown.

It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which is when we are meant to honor those who gave their lives in military service to this country. This is often confused with Veterans Day (November 11), which is honoring anyone who has served in the military and is no longer serving. This gets further confused with Armed Forces Day (rotating date, May) which is to honor those currently serving in the military. I know, super confusing.

There’s a wide range of opinions on how Memorial Day should be commemorated, which often involves gathering with friends and family for a barbecue or some other social activity. It’s the first major holiday after a huge holiday drought throughout the late winter and spring, which often makes people look forward to it immensely. Some people feel it’s inappropriate to celebrate Memorial Day with barbecues and fond social gatherings because it’s dishonoring the memories of those who can’t be here, people don’t take time to remember those who have died, people have no idea what the day is actually for, etc. Others, even some very vocal veterans, maintain that people died so that we could be here to celebrate in freedom, so why not relish this life we have? Many offer the caveat that it’s appropriate to at least acknowledge the purpose of the day, even if it’s just in a few minutes of quiet reflection.

Anyway, I offer this as a little food for thought for this upcoming long weekend.

(And in case you missed it, I posted a BW Timeline for your reference.)

Contains spoilers through Chapter 38.

[Takes deep breath]

I’m so glad that you are enjoying the read and that you’re finding it inspiring for your own work. I think my dedication to research for BW is threefold. 1) As this story evolved, I decided that I wanted to create the most realistic depictions of military, civilian, emotional, and physical life that I reasonably could. I will fully admit to lapses in this, deliberate and unintentional, because sometimes the plot just needs to go and I can’t wait around for a year-long medical discharge process for my character. 2) I’m in an academically stringent occupation, and because research is such a prominent part of my work life, it’s bled to my hobby. (IS THIS EVEN A HOBBY ANYMORE?) And 3) I get very easily and passionately obsessed with things and delight in getting “into the weeds” with a subject. Almost every research divergence usually takes me off track for at least an hour. And you will never catch me without an MTA subway map open in at least one tab.

But that wasn’t even your question! Sorry. Are you beginning to get a sense of why BW takes me so long to write?? I cannot keep my shit on track. As for the bibliography, YES! I plan to include that in my author’s note at the end. I wish I had kept better track of all of my works consulted over the past three years, but I will definitely discuss the importance of some of the main ones. I’m so thrilled that you are interested, and I’m excited to share them!

Thank you. This is such a kind thing to say, and I’m humbled and delighted to hear it, especially because our fandom is so blessed with some AMAZING fics. And asks certainly don’t have to be questions! I appreciate them all (except the flaming bag of dog shit ones, which I haven’t had in a while, hooray).

(Re: Chapter 37) Good question! I imagine Claire would want to keep the 1:1 conversation somewhat limited, as she is treating the couple as a patient rather than them as individuals. If anything, she might have somewhat superficially checked in to see if he was okay rather than dive into anything regarding the relationship with Bucky not around. That could be seen as a betrayal of trust to Bucky and could be interpreted as favoritism, which Steve craves and which Bucky is probably terrified about.

I am always pleased when people re-read and enjoy it or get new things out of it, even if it’s sometimes a re-read is a function of my slow-ass writing. I really want a story with good re-read value.

You make an excellent point about Bucky’s relationships. His friendship with Jack also had no real closure. Sometimes this is a factor of circumstance and sometimes it’s because of his avoidance, like a self-fulfilling prophesy almost. He’s learned that people betray you, either by hurting you or dying, so he creates conditions sometimes (often unwittingly) for things to go sour and end poorly, or he will simply make himself disappear so that he’s not hurt and doesn’t have to wait to see if he will be abandoned or betrayed. He’s not a guy who is good with goodbyes.

As for Thor, I totally see how it would read that way. I think Thor started out fishing for longer-term possibilities in a romantic relationship but then realized Bucky is really not a guy who is comfortable settling (which, as we can see, is true). As for why it seems more serious, one thing is that Thor still wanted Bucky in his life as a friend, possibly one with benefits. They have a lot in common, and it’s hard for veterans - and, more specifically, special operators - to find people in their lives they can relate to with these very intense life experiences. I wanted this to be a real relationship, but maybe not necessarily one that was bound to become a RELATIONSHIP. I think Bucky was very intriguing and attractive to him, and he very well may have struggled with his own vacillation between whether to take it seriously or whether to remain friends+. This can lead to mixed messages.

And we also have to remember Bucky’s notoriously unreliable narration, where he will see what he wants to see. Our perspective comes from him. We see the details he zooms in on, miss the one he ignores, view the relationship through the lens of his own contentious desire for a real relationship, even as he consistently demonstrates the lack of capacity and his fear about getting serious. I imagine Bucky has having an extremely poor ability to distinguish friendship from romance, and why wouldn’t he, given the most recent bit of history we have learned about him with Jack? He’s had a series of friendships become sexualized, and I think this affects his capacity to be discerning. Bucky’s radar for relating, whether friendships, romance, or potentially dangerous sexual situations, is terribly mis-calibrated. How confusing for him and for the people in his life. Of course, everyone is free to interpret the dynamics of any relationship however they choose. These are just some of my thoughts.

I really appreciate observations from the re-read! Thank you!

I watched the video and you are right! This is definitely a Bucky song. Bucky’s sense of self is by turns profoundly distorted and lacking in grounding, especially now that he’s not in the military. He’s been in a low key existential crisis since he was a kid and has turned to drinking and sex and war to fill this horrible void, and although I can’t speak for what the artists here intended, I certainly sensed those elements here for sure. (Also, what an interesting choice for a music video…)

Thank you for sharing! I’ll add it to the unofficial BW playlist in the author’s note, which consists of various songs people have associated with BW and shared with me.

Good question! I started off this story picturing the actors who represent the characters in the MCU, because I figured we’d be picturing that when we read the fic anyway (though my beta told me she doesn’t see them as the actors, more like artists’ renderings of the characters, which I find interesting). So when describing their physicality, I tend to refer back to the MCU, since this is technically an MCU AU. But the longer I go with the story, the murkier the resemblance feels to me, especially when I think about Bucky, IDK why. I have also been considering doing something more with BW after I finish it (i.e., converting it into a proper not-bajillion-word novel, sunk cost and whatnot), in which case I would definitely change the characters’ appearance, names, cut MCU Easter eggs, etc. So when I try to think of who these people might be in future iterations of the story, things get even more blurred in my mind when I imagine them.

I wonder how other people see them??

So, with regards to PTSD clinical teams, there is some variation across VAs in the system. Some focus more on military-related trauma, whether it’s war, military sexual trauma, accidents, etc. as a way of concentrating their services and managing supply and demand. From talking with providers in these kinds of systems, sometimes you just NEED a military-related trauma, but you can be treated for, say, a childhood trauma if it’s more pressing. Other VAs are very open in their criteria, and you can see them for pretty much any kind of trauma that qualifies diagnostically for PTSD (or sub-threshold PTSD) without question. That’s why I love the expression “If you’ve been to one VA, you’ve been to one VA.” That said, it kind of doesn’t matter what kind of PTSD clinical team is at the VA in Manhattan, because Bucky has so much military trauma that he would very likely qualify to receive services in any PTSD clinical team. They just might focus on childhood stuff (if Bucky actually let them, which is another matter entirely).

This is a great question! Thanks for asking.

I love a snarky asshole Bucky so much, and I’ve tried to temper this version of him with enough hard-earned genuineness to offset it a little bit. It’s such a tender balance with him, because if you back him too far into a corner, he’s going to let you have it. But if you give him too much space, it’s hard to pin him down and wring something honest from him. He’s definitely learned to use humor and sarcasm to deflect from painful or uncomfortable situations, and it’s a very adaptive short-term strategy that makes him both endearing and infuriating to others.

But ugh, yeah, shit gets so rough around Chapter 28/29. I don’t know how to feel when people have really strong emotional reactions to this story, because one part of me doesn’t want to contribute to the crappy feelings people may already be struggling with — especially in the times of COVID — but I don’t want to be afraid to dive into the hurt these characters are experiencing. That’s why I recommend checking in with oneself before reading to get a sense of how much emotional bandwidth is available to manage the immense problems of two people struggling so much. I also think that for some people it can be cathartic or otherwise not-bad maybe (?), based on the feedback I’ve received. I also really try hard to balance out the painful stuff with growth, even though it can be terribly difficult to locate sometimes.

In comments to folks, and here, I often talk about adjusting the ticks on your measuring stick for progress, where instead of leaps of progress over feet/meters, we may be observing things on an inch/mm scale. This story is my most sincere effort at a “recovery is not linear” narrative, which I think is so much more reflective of real life for a lot of folks than a straight upward trajectory. Humans are such creatures of habit, and the lessons these characters have learned through their lives about themselves, trust, relationships, and how to manage emotions are very deeply ingrained — often through traumatic means. These are the lessons learned the hardest, with the greatest perceived consequences for change, and it takes real courage for us to be able to try new things even once, let alone to establish a reliable pattern of behavior. This can lead to a lot of frustration for us as readers/writer, and I come from a place of this being okay, because we are encountering a parallel process with the characters, who are frustrated with each other and themselves about the same things. I do hope the pain/progress/joy ratios are not horribly out of whack most of the time. That’s another reason I like long chapters, because if this was just blips of sometimes terrible episodes in shorter form, I think it would be very challenging to not lose hope entirely.

But I’m so glad you’re finding the read meaningful, even if it’s sometimes painful and difficult.

(YES.)

And FINALLY -- (this is all soooo long, I’m so sorry.)

Oh, thank you for this question! My spreadsheet ended up getting too difficult to manage, and I actually had a small crisis six months ago about how the fic was going to end, because it just didn’t feel right. I had to scrap it and go back to the drawing board and really ask myself - what would these characters really do? Naturally, as a factor of their psychologies and circumstances, how will they bring this story to an end? Some advice I once heard about a “satisfying” ending is that it’s the place where there’s simply nothing more to say about the characters. There’s no more story to tell. I had to abandon all of my desires and ideas for a particular ending or concerns about making people sad or happy or excited or disappointed. I know that the only ending that will be satisfying is one that makes sense for these people. Anything contrived or backward-engineer-y wouldn’t feel right to anyone. I do have a couple of specific character arc things I want to happen, so I set those down as touchstones and said, okay, what would happen next? What would Steve do with this? And what would Bucky do with this? And what would they do with the thing the other person did? I take a very psychology and prior-behavior-based approach to plotting, almost all character driven. The rest is just figuring out what is supposed to go where and how to organize it.

I’ve converted everything to a Google Doc and have a very basic outline where I write plotty-plot stuff. I also have a “garbage dump” doc where I write certain lines I want to use or certain details I want to include somewhere. When I get into a new chapter, I’ll check the dump doc as I outline and write to see if I want to pluck anything from there. I have my outline open regularly to add to it. Sometimes I write scenes out of order, dialogue first, but that’s only if I really am excited about a particular scene and cannot contain myself. Otherwise, I write completely chronologically and have no buffer. I post things as soon as I write them.

As for your specific questions, I do have a “process” for getting into my characters’ heads. It helps to know them so very well and to have a firm sense of their idiosyncrasies and patterns of behavior. As you may have noticed, they repeat their patterns all. the. time, as humans do, but I also want to have them change their behaviors a little as things go and they progress. So I may wonder what they could do a little differently, why they would WANT to behave differently, and imagine what they would need to do to change their behavior. Do they need to take breaths? Do they remember the last time some shit went down? I really try to think of the “how” and “why” of every single action - from big blowouts to eye rolls.

So once I’ve figured out what they are going to do, I try to pinpoint the associated emotions I want to highlight. This is a whole separate process, because I have to think also about their internal versus their external emotional states. Steve, for example, will often have a discrepant inside and outside, because one of the truths about his character is that he is a chronic suppressor. There is also the issue of unreliable narration and interpretation of behavior. Steve might do something in a scene, but that doesn’t mean Bucky is going to interpret it the way it was intended. I have to think about their individual filters, which often reflect their internal beliefs about themselves. Bucky is more likely to read Steve’s actions as reflections of how BUCKY feels about HIMSELF (e.g., he’s disgusted by me because I’m disgusting) rather than imagine what Steve is really thinking based on his own experiences and beliefs about Bucky. I also attempt to convey some of the more second and third layer emotions that people have in situations, rather than only highlighting the primary emotion. Sad things don’t always just make people sad. Powerful emotions, for example, might make Steve feel out of control of himself, which could generate secondary emotions for him like frustration because he’s losing control. Part of the process in the construction of the narrative is also scrubbing what I’ve written for POV, because Bucky’s word choices aren’t the same as Steve’s, and in order to try to preserve the “voice” of each character, I often have to change the words I’ve opted to use, as well as the syntax.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of layering that is happening all the time. As for the dialogue, I have no compunction about saying the lines aloud, “acting” them to see how they sound, to get a sense of what tone I want them to say things in. Now that I think of it, I do a bit of movement-based stuff, thinking about how people sit and stand, figuring how many steps it takes to get from A-Z, what it would look like to lean against something, how it would feel on the body, etc. I try to get the most felt sense of things as I can. If I’m imagining a scene, I try to put myself in the shoes of the characters to the point where I feel the emotions, just so I can know how it reflects in my body and my mind and behavior. I have more than once gotten drunk and drunk-written drunk Bucky then gone to clean it up later, as drunk writing can generate some great content I never would have been able to come up with sober, but the form, grammar, spelling, etc. is often rubbish. I also talk a LOT to my beta about all of this stuff, and I have certain friends and acquaintances in the fandom who are my consultants for various things.

So, I’m somewhat method I guess?? Is that a thing?? I dunno. It’s not hard to do when you live and breathe a story. It’s required a deep level of interest in - quite possibly an obsession with - the characters and their lives. I adore my characters, not in a self-congratulatory way, but because they feel so real to me. So it’s a joy to plan and write -- though I do hate first drafts with a passion.

OH - I also sometimes fast-draft chapters, which I did for 39. That is, write as FAST AS YOU CAN with no regard for how shitty the writing is. I wrote 10k words in a week, which was a finished fast-draft for me, and thus I had a very good felt sense of what was going to happen in the chapter, which felt amazing. It requires intensive outlining before, and nearly every word had to be rewritten, but one of the greatest frustrations of a story for me is having blank space ahead. Re-writing is way more fun than first draft writing. I have fluffed it up twofold with higher quality content, which I did all in less than two months…!!

-------------------------

Well, this is surely my most unnecessarily yammering YAIT in history. But I hope it at least conveys my enthusiasm for these wonderful asks! It’s so lovely to hear from all of you, even if I take an eon to get back to you. Hang in there, everyone!

@grimshady @hutchhitched @b0n3l3ssm1lk

(And thank you to @bae-buckyaboveeverything for the shout out. You made my day<3)

#you asked #baghdad waltz #asks

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divine-crossroads · 3 years

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begonia, mint, rose <3

Botanical Headcanons ( Currently Accepting ! )

BEGONIA - How cautious is your muse? Are they prone to noticing red flags, or paranoid to the point of untrusting most everyone? Why or why not?

Yotsutsuji is fairly cautious - because he must be. He was born and raised in the midst of a world war, went on to work in war zone hospitals that could be - and were - targeted by terrorist organizations or radical military groups. The war took from him his parents, and gave to him another. The war took his ability to walk, which he had to relearn. It took a lot of things from him, which he had to regain, and it was out of fear for losing them again that he had to learn what was safe and what was not.

He has an analytical mind, and approaches things as such. If something someone says or does comes off as unnatural or inappropriate for the situation, he sees it as a red flag and looks into things. He researches and researches to assure that he just isn’t imagining things.

He is not so much untrusting and paranoid, so much as he is cautious and careful, assuring that he and the people around him are safe first and foremost. Even if it means looking into those that might be considered friends or allies.

MINT - Does your muse view themself as virtuous & moral? What do these words mean to them?

This is a complicated question. Yotsutsuji sees himself as a rational person, who acts in terms for what leads to the greater good. He compiles information and scans it over, assessing and reassessing what leads to the best outcome.

While he sees his actions as good and just - completed for a solid reason - he doesn’t particularly see it as virtuous. Looking into people can lead to digging up some unsavory secrets they might not want others to know, after all, and it can hurt those around him.

He does not mean to hurt - but he is cautious by nature and does what he thinks it the best to do. Perhaps it’s something that is more virtuous in the outcome than it is in the process.

ROSE - How much does your muse value other people? Do they wish to have many friends, lovers, and/or associates? Are they an easy person to love?

Yotsutsuji values other people above his own well being, first and foremost. He is constantly looking out for his adoptive father, assuring he has the information and materials he needs to be successful. To have the motivation needed to keep moving forward. His interest in medical studies was for the same reason - while it certainly started as simply wanting to be more useful for Jakurai, he does enjoy it all quite a bit and has hopes of becoming a doctor one day as well so he can continue helping people.

He doesn’t feel he needs a whole army of friends or lovers or anything along those lines to be happy. Just a select few people who make him smile and laugh are all he truly needs - and he’s happy to have those people by his side. In terms of loving him, well...

He’s never asked.

He doesn’t know if he’s an easy person to love or if he’s a difficult one to love. What he does know is that he tries to make himself an easy person to get along with. If this works or fails, well...it doesn’t really matter either way, really.

#amaikus #✑ meme friday #✑ asks #baby ur my angellll #i love this son boy so much hhhghdfsg

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graceful-storyteller · 4 years

Text

BABY BLUES - VIRUS

Being in the middle of a pandemic I, naturally, was inspired to write a sick!fic. Warnings for sparklings being unwell and anxious parent Starscream. Unlike in the real world EVERYONE gets better.

The worst part, for Windblade, was that she missed it.

In her defence, she'd had other things on her processor at the time. The final vote on her tax reform bill, a meeting with the Mistress of Flame, a damning media piece on fuel poverty she was still trying to get properly fact-checked. When you ran a planet things like making sure the sparklings were ready for the Education Centre on time were rarely at the top of her priority tree. That was Starscream's job as primary caregiver; a phrase which still caused minor processor errors to those outside their inner circle. For all his selfishness and ruthlessness Starscream was...an adequate caregiver. There were still times when Windblade caught him being highly inappropriate around the little ones, but he'd never put them in real danger. As much as he (loudly and regularly) complained about the sparklings most of it was for show. He cared about their little ones just as much, if not more, than she did.

Which was why Starscream was the first one to realise something was wrong. As Windblade was rushing around their apartment gathering her things and downing her morning fuel, Starscream was stood staring critically at Turbulence. She wasn't refuelling, she wasn't talking, she was just sitting quietly and staring at her untouched energon. Something was definitely not right.

“Goodbye everyone,” Windblade said as she pressed a kiss to the sparklings' helms and one to Starscream's faceplate. “I hope you all have a good day.”

He turned to watch her head to the balcony. He waited until she'd transformed and flown out of sight before moving to loom over Turbulence. She looked up at him with sad, unusually dim optics.

“Are you malfunctioning?” he asked tersely.

At half her normal volume she murmured, “My tank feels funny.”

“Is that because you've been eating rust sticks when you're supposed to be recharging?”

She shook her helm.

Starscream released a frustrated ex-vent. “We're going to take Moonshot to the Education Centre and then we're going to see a medic. If this is a ploy to avoid a test I will not be pleased. I have better things to do than waste my time going to see Flatline.”

She nodded, still looking sad and tired.

The walk to the Education Centre, painfully slow for someone who could fly there in a fifth of the time, was even slower than usual until Starscream lost patience and decided to carry Turbulence. She clung tightly to him and he tried not to notice how unusually warm her frame was.

“Is she broken?” Moonshot asked, half concerned and half curious.

“No,” Starscream replied. “She probably just has a virus. We're going to see a medic after; he'll make her all better.”

“Good,” Moonshot said. “It's weird being able to tell a story without being interrupted.”

Starscream couldn't help but smile at that. His smile died when he arrived at the Education Centre and the instructors were not as sympathetic towards Turbulence's plight.

“She's probably faking,” the obnoxious little kettle decided. “Give her here, I'll set her straight.”

Starscream glared and resisted the urge to kick him. “Are you a medic?”

“No, but I know Turbulence, and she-”

“Is a melodramatic little diva when she scuffs her paint or is in any other way injured. The fact that she is quiet should be a glaring red flag to anyone with a processor. I'm taking her to a medic. If you have a problem with that you can raise it with Windblade.”

He'd stormed off without waiting for a reply. Turbulence had remained worryingly silent.

Starscream had double-timed it to the med-centre and forced his way through reception to find Flatline in the treatment rooms. The former Decepticon had grumbled and griped about Starscream jumping the line, but he'd dealt with enough overly-anxious (and overly-armed in some cases) creators in the last few years that he knew better than to try sending him away. He'd ordered Starscream to put Turbulence down on the berth and begun his examination. It didn't take long for the grumbling to be stopped dead in its tracks.

“Nurse! I need a space clearing in Intensive Care ASAP!”

That was when the panicking started.

“What?! What's wrong with her?! Hey, I'm talking-”

“Starscream,” Flatline said as slowly and calmly as he could, “you did the right thing bringing her here when you did. It looks like Turbulence has a virus, but she doesn't have the right software to counteract it. It's standard software for you and me – but the sparklings weren't created in the same way. I'm putting her in Intensive Care to be safe and to isolate her from anyone else who might not have the right software.” His optics brightened as a thought occurred to him. “Wait, you have two sparklings right?”

Starscream grabbed his arm. “Moonshot.”

“Bring him here, just in case. With any luck we can download the software before he starts exhibiting any symptoms – if he has the virus at all.”

Starscream didn't need to be told twice. He flew as fast as he could to the Education Centre, barely slowing as he raced through the halls to Moonshot's classroom.

The doors opened. The class turned to look at him. Moonshot wasn't among them.

“He's down the hall,” said the instructor. “He started crying uncontrollably a few minutes ago. I sent-”

Starscream didn't wait for him to finish. He kept running until his audials captured the faint sound of his sparkling in distress. He kicked the door open, startling the room's occupants.

“What in the blazing inferno do you think you're-”

“Star!” Moonshot cried, reaching for him imploringly. “I don't feel good!”

Starscream pushed the instructor still attempting to berate him out of his way, picked up his sparkling, and rushed out of the Education Centre without a word. It wasn't until he handed his still sobbing sparkling to a medic and was ordered to wait outside until the assessment was complete that he noticed Windblade was trying to contact him.

He answered the comm with a wry, “Do you want the bad news or the worse news?”

After finding enough people to delegate the co-ordination of a response to a public health crisis to, Windblade allowed herself the luxury of collapsing in a chair beside her sparkling's berth. It was lucky, the medics said, that they'd been alerted to the virus when they had or the whole Education Centre might have risked overheating and spark failure. As it was all the sparklings were currently receiving an update to their software centre to prevent further transfer of the virus. Turbulence and Moonshot's classes had been admitted overnight as they had all been infected, although many had not yet started to show symptoms. The two sparklings were in a private room, recharging, watched over by their creators. Flatline had given them the necessary antivirals and was hopeful they could be discharged after a further day's rest and observation.

Even though her sparklings were no longer in danger Windblade had no intention of leaving their side anytime soon. She stroked Turbulence's helm with the hand not held in the sparkling's tight grip. Beside her Starscream was running a soothing palm over Moonshot's wing, his own occasionally twitching and making contact with Windblade's. It was more reassuring than irritating.

“Stop fretting,” Starscream groused without looking at her. “You heard Flatline; they're going to fine.”

“This time,” Windblade muttered.

Starscream twisted in his seat, a frown marring his features. “What are you talking about?”

Windblade sat back in her seat. “I didn't notice. I couldn't tell that Turbulence was ill. Her change in behaviour didn't even register. What if next time I don't notice something until it's too late to get her treatment? What if she gets permanently hurt because I'm not paying attention? What if-”

“It really galls you that I'm the better caretaker,” Starscream said with a wide smirk.

“Excuse me?!”

“Look at you – all wound up because I was the one who realised our sparkling was ill. You were ready to chew me out because I was rude to the instructors but I was actually doing the right thing. You're mad that you were wrong.”

“That is – no! I am not-”

“Windblade, Windblade, Windblade,” Starscream cooed condescendingly. “It's alright. I promise that when you admit I'm superior you'll feel much better.”

“When Turbulence lets go of my hand I'm going to slap you,” she threatened.

“If you think that will make you feel better you can try,” Starscream said pityingly. “Deep down, though, you know it won't. You won't feel better until you acknowledge you are limited. Limited by your inability to rule a planet and micromanage your family. Limited by your need to take responsibility for everything and everyone. Limited by your belief you can have your rust cake and eat it. You can't bring about a new Golden Age of Cybertron and be creator of the year. Something has to give. Better it's this than allowing some warmongering psychopath to steal your crown.”

For a long moment Windblade was silent as she digested Starscream's words.

“You know, even when you're trying to be supportive you're an aft.”

Starscream continued to smirk as he returned his attention to Moonshot. Windblade rolled her optics and turned back to Turbulence.

After a moment of silence Starscream extended his leg, nudging her ankle-strut. With a smile she nudged him back. They remained linked by that small contact until the position became too uncomfortable. As they shifted their wings connected and remained together, causing Windblade to smile.

“Thank you Starscream. You are a good caretaker,” Windblade muttered.

His wings twitched in acknowledgement, but for once Starscream was blissfully silent.

#baby blues #starscream #Windblade #windscream #fanfiction

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