#hopefully i can come back to this blog sometime later | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

silverdune · 5 months

Text

..humbug | prologue.

"please.. forgive the intrusion of us three festive spectres.."

minors dni. ageless blogs dni. blank blogs dni. you'll be blocked.

..humbug masterlist | next ->

character(s): choi seungcheol, yoon jeonghan, joshua hong as the ghosts of christmas past, present and future (ft. you as scrooge, mentioned ?? svt member)

tags: retail worker!reader, reader doesn't like the holidays, 95z are sarcastic and they sorta break-in(??) (it'll make sense), banter, mild suspense, ghosts, reader gets freaked out and questions their reality, retail stores during the holidays, stress, food (eating), christmas music, past relationships/breakups, crying, angst, explicit language

word count: 4.0k

summary: you come home, stressed from your christmas eve shift and three people have shown up in your apartment. they claim they're the ghosts of christmas past, present and future, but a christmas carol is a work of fiction.. right?

a/n: i didn't expect the prologue to be this long haha but here it is. hopefully i can get the rest of this up by christmas, if not, just after?? anyways, i hope you enjoy;

Christmas Eve.

It's always dialled up to eleven on the last day before Christmas. The speakers are only playing holiday music, you've got to wear the tacky sweater and your stress levels are indisputably at their highest.

This isn't your favourite time of year by any means.

Every chance you get, you eye what seems to be the only clock in the entire store. It rings an hour before closing time, and you've got to spend a further hour clearing everything away and shutting up shop before you can spend two blissful days in solitude.

The queue for the checkouts stretches as far as the eye can see. As you pass by to take a stack of baskets back to the entrance, you can't help but take a gander at everyone's trolleys, filled to the brim with their last minute buys. It truly makes you wonder why anyone would wait until the last second to get everything in for the holidays.

The journey is slow as people go back and forth across the aisles, trying their best to gather all the stuff they could possibly need and want. Your mind is ticking over, wishing and waiting for your shift to be done with so you can go home and eat.

The stack of baskets finally end up back in the holder, and you're immediately called away to jump back on tills.

An hour becomes forty-five minutes, to half an hour, to fifteen minutes, to shutters down.

The speakers are turned off and you glance at your co-workers with a heavy sigh. One of them remarks that it's another Christmas Eve over with!

You snort to yourself and say beneath your breath, "Ain't I glad for it."

You get to work wiping down the tills, making sure everything is tidied away, and helping a few other staff members replace leftover stock from customers who could not stomach the neverending queue. Soon enough, it's time for you to go home.

You had exchanged gifts with the rest of the staff throughout the week, and as you head to your car, you wish everyone a happy holiday and new year. They shout back with more energy than your sleep deprived self could manage, and you climb into your car before starting the engine and driving home.

You keep the radio off. You had heard enough Christmas music on this day alone.

Pulling into the tiny driveway of your house sometime later, you clamber out, collecting your bag of presents from your friends at work as well as your shoulder bag. Eventually, you get it all to the front door, and upon entering the code, you almost fall into your abode and haphazardly shut the door behind you.

The bags hit the floor. Your shoes are the first thing to come flying off, followed by your hat, coat and scarf. It had started snowing recently, though thankfully none had fallen so far tonight.

Stepping into your house, you take a deep breath in then turn on all the lights. You then decide to head to your bedroom and get changed into your pyjamas. Much better.

It's almost 10pm when you start preparing dinner. Nothing too fancy or elaborate, just a quick bite to eat before you inevitably get into bed and fall into the deepest sleep imaginable. Slumber had been slipping away for days, you know you'll be thankful for the first good night's sleep in ages.

The house is quiet and still, save for the sounds of the hood fan above your stove, the clacking of pots and pans, the faucet turning on and off as you wash your hands, and the timer on your phone letting you know your meal is done.

As you plate your dinner and toss the pans into the sink, the wind picks up outside. It howls at your kitchen window, startling you a little, before you notice drops of something fall in front of the nearby streetlight.

Immediately, you think it's snow, and a quick poke of the head outside your front door confirms that theory. You hum, then go back inside before your dinner gets cold.

You take the dish into the living room and place it on the table before taking a seat on the floor. Without a second to waste, you tuck in.

The wind gets stronger with each passing minute. You figure the snow could only be getting heavier. Perhaps it's cold enough for it to stick.

Thoughts pass absent-mindedly through your head as you eat. Gotta call parents in the morning. Make sure dinner is prepared. They're coming at around 2pm. I need to tidy up a bit before they get here too.

Finishing up your dinner, you get up to grab your phone from your bag. It lets you know it's just past 11pm and your eyes widen in surprise - has time really gone that fast?

As you re-enter the living room, you ensure you have an alarm set for 9am the following morning, then pick up your plate and take it into the kitchen.

The wind grows rather fierce outside, and the howling becomes.. eerie. A blizzard hails and you wonder when it's going to calm down, if it will at all.

You clear everything up and put everything back, then wipe the countertops down. It's an extra step before you can go to bed, but you know you'll be thankful for it in the morning. Once you switch off all the lights, you head into the bathroom and brush your teeth.

The baying wind causes a noticeable raucous outside as you splash your face with warm water and turn off the faucet. The nature of it is almost otherworldly and it brings you to a halt.

Never before have your hairs stood on head at the mere appearance of a gale force wind.

You pick up your towel to dry your face, now slightly perturbed at just how forceful these gusts are.

You won't lie, it's making you feel uneasy.

Setting the towel on the side, you hurry out the bathroom to switch on one of the floor lamps so you can feel comfortable turning off the bathroom light. You're not sure why the weather is making you feel like this, but the way it's picked up in the last hour is genuinely starting to scare you.

Your mouth is a few seconds ahead of your brain when you call out, "Hello?" You shake your head slightly, unsure of where that exclamation came from.

What, do you suppose there are ghosts here?

A chuckle escapes you - surely not. It is just an incredibly powerful wind, coupled with snow. This has happened hundreds of times before, this is nothing new!

Exhaling, you turn off the bathroom light, turn off the floor lamp, then go into your bedroom. The clock reads just shy of midnight.

For some reason, this makes you pause.

A lump forms in your throat that you promptly swallow. Nothing to fear, you think, and get into bed with the promise of a wonderful night's rest.

You close your eyes, knowing you'll be off to sleep in no time..

Thud.

You jolt upright.

"What the fuck?"

You heart picks up speed. You place a hand on your chest as you try and take the deepest breaths possible.

Your shaky hand reaches out to turn on the bedside lamp. Slowly, you pull back the duvet and get out of bed, grabbing your phone in the process and switching on the torch.

Inch by inch, you trudge out of the bedroom and head in the direction of the kitchen, where you assume the noise came from. It sounded like a clattering of pans.. you don't even know what would've caused it.

But more than that, you are chilled to the bone to discover you can.. fucking hear voices?

Coming to a stop in the middle of the hallway, every sense is on high alert as you point your torch to the floor. What the fuck is going on, and who the fuck is in my house?

Assuredly not what you were expecting in the early hours of Christmas morning.

Nobody had entered the house as you were getting ready for bed. There was no break-in, no disturbances other than the loud wind, and certainly no sign that someone had managed to find another way to enter.

This is truly something else.

And what gets to you more than anything, is that as you start treading carefully towards the kitchen again, the voices become more distinctive.. and there's three of them.

Usually, a more graceful entrance through the chimney would be in order.

But where no chimney exists, the next best option is.. the oven.

"Damn it!"

"Good one, Joshua.."

"Don't look at me, Jeonghan. I'm not the one who decides to get thrown down- or I guess in this case out- first." Joshua picks himself up off the ground and dusts down his jacket. Jeonghan follows suit, then moves to brush off Joshua's shoulders before getting shooed away. "And Seungcheol's going to get a lovely entrance, I bet.."

Much to their shock - and joy - Seungcheol flies through the open oven door and lands with a thud against the kitchen island opposite.

Jeonghan and Joshua both guffaw as the latter closes the oven. "Ah, I'm almost glad I spoke too soon."

"Bastard," mutters Seungcheol beneath his breath, rubbing his head as he scrambles to his feet. "Could've helped me.."

Both Jeonghan and Joshua - whom Seungcheol unabashedly nicknames The Bothersome Brothers - look at one another then turn to Seungcheol in mock sympathy. For dramatic effect, Jeonghan gently covers his mouth with his hand as Joshua shakes his head in shame.

"Oh.. we are so sorry, forgive us, dear elder.." Jeonghan drones, hand now on his chest to feign sadness.

Seungcheol fixes them a less-than-pleased glare and rolls one shoulder back at a time to relieve some tension. "I will roast you both."

The pair fake a gasp simultaneously. "The horror!" says Joshua.

"Couldn't imagine!" follows Jeonghan, back of hand on his forehead.

"Alright, enough you two. We need to figure out where we are and who we're assisting."

The two drop the act and instantly shift into gear. "Well.." begins Joshua, putting his hands behind his back and taking a walk through the kitchen, "we're in a house.."

Jeonghan snorts. Seungcheol does not have the patience for this.

"Seriously?"

"What?" Joshua exclaims; Seungcheol's raised brow says it all. "..Fine." Out of thin air, he retrieves a large, ancient book that he opens to about the halfway point. He recites the information within back to the other men. "LN.FN. Late 20s-early 30s. Retail worker. Reason for hating the holidays.."

Shriek.

When you wander into your kitchen, you let out an earth-shattering scream.

You abruptly reach for the nearest light switch and turn it on, revealing three men standing in front of your oven, one of them fumbling to hold onto a giant book as it nearly slips out of his hands.

The flashlight on your phone gets shut off. You stare blankly at the trio, unable to fathom just why they are currently standing in your kitchen.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?" you yell, hoping to God this is either a very realistic nightmare, or that if it is real, one of your neighbours understands there are currently three intruders in your home so they can come and help you.

The man furthest to the right takes a step forward. They are all noticeably just as freaked out as you, and it befuddles you since, you know, they are the ones in your house.

"Our sincerest apologies.." He says it so intently and it's disquieting. "We did not mean to frighten you."

The man in the centre continues, "Please.. forgive the intrusion of us three festive spectres.."

The man holding the book completes the sentence, "You must be N." He smiles, and now you have to try and wrap your head around the fact that he just said your name. "It is very nice to meet you."

You are at a complete loss for words. Everything goes still as you try and make sense of all of this.

You try again with asking questions. "..Please tell me who you are and where you came from." The words leave you in a controlled yet urgent tone.

"Bizarrely, of the two queries, the latter will be the more difficult to understand.." remarks the man in the centre.

What in the- "What in the name is that supposed to mean?" you ask.

Bookkeeper answers, "What he's trying to say is that our method of arrival was both unconventional and incomprehensible."

Your head is spinning irrevocably. The walls feel like they are closing in. Everything about this is wrong and you just want to wake up from whatever sordid dream this is.

"Okay.." You try again, this time with a shaky voice. "I am going to politely ask you- in fact, no, I am going to demand that you leave my house this instant or I will call the police!" Your voice quickly reaches its peak volume and the trio are taken aback.

The first man to speak to you tries to de-escalate the situation. "We can explain why we're here!"

"And how!" says the man in the middle.

Good God, is this nightmare over already?

At that moment, the three men form a line. One by one, they introduce themselves.

"My name is Seungcheol. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"My name is Jeonghan, I am the Ghost of Christmas Present."

"My name is Joshua, I am the Ghost of Christmas Future."

They bow in unison.

You laugh.

They glance at one another as they lift their heads, then look over at you. Both arms are tucked across your stomach and you are fully bellowing out laughter.

Their backs straighten. Joshua tucks the book under his arm. The three exchange another glance before they turn back to you.

Once you have finally calmed down and wiped a stray tear, you come back to the room and say, "Holy shit, that is the funniest thing I've heard all year."

Jeonghan goes to speak, "Um- we're- we're afraid that it's-"

You continue chuckling, effectively interrupting him. "That is quite the cover story."

"Beg your pardon?" Joshua cocks a brow.

"All fun and games, huh? Thought you'd get a last minute steal in, and if I found you, you'd pose as the three ghosts of Christmas from the Dickens novel." A snort involuntarily escapes you at the ridiculousness of it all.

The trio perk up at that. Jeonghan mutters to them, "That author's name again!"

Seungcheol gazes at you. "Um, excuse me? Did you mention.. Dickens?"

You stop. "Yes? His famous novel, A Christmas Carol has three ghosts that show up in it: Christmas past, present and future.." Their bemused facial expressions are not lost on you. "Surely you.. must have heard of it if you're referencing the characters and literally introducing yourselves as them." You are still in disbelief over that.

"Well," Joshua begins, "to be honest, we've only heard of the novel through other visits we've done.."

"Yes, literally everyone we have interacted with has brought that story up in connection to us but we have no knowledge of it!" Jeonghan explains.

"Some have even gone as far as to say we are actually from that novel and we've come to life!" says Seungcheol.

Frozen solid to the spot you're standing on, you take a good look at three men in front of you. They are all wearing similar attire of a vintage persuasion: suits under long trenchcoats with slacks. Their hair is styled in a way reminiscent of the 40s.

This is baffling to say the least.

Festive spectres..

"Jeonghan, is it?"

Jeonghan eyes you. "Yes?"

"You mentioned you were.. festive spectres.. Is-" You cannot comprehend the fact you're going to inquire about this. "Is that.. legit?"

Jeonghan smiles. "Undoubtedly. And if you want to know the answer to your other query.. We entered through your oven."

Your jaw drops.

That's enough.

"Okay!" You enter the kitchen and go to stand behind them so you can escort them out of the house. "Thank you very much for your company, but-"

As soon as your hand brushes Joshua's shoulder, you squeal and step back.

He is frightfully cold.

The men pivot and see you standing on the other side of the kitchen, back pressed against the sink with one hand covering the other.

"Oh!" Seungcheol understands. "Yes, we are.. quite chilly." The other two catch on and nod in agreement.

Your pupils grow three sizes. "Quite chilly?" you scoff. "You're a damn glacier, fuck.."

"Again, apologies," Seungcheol quietly laughs. "Comes with the territory."

You can do nothing but stare at them; this all well beyond you at this rate.

Joshua opens the book again to the same place as before. "Your name is N.. Late 20s-early 30s.."

"Hang on a minute!" You point a finger. "How the hell do you have that information?"

"Oh! When we are assigned folks to visit during the early morn of Christmas day, we're given a basic information log on who they are and their reasons for disliking the holiday season," says Joshua with a grin on his face.

That last part throws you off. "My.. reasons for disliking Christmas?"

"Yes! A few are listed here actually.. The music, working in a retail store, putting up with distant relatives, commercialisation, consumerism, etc, etc.."

The list is all accurate, but something stings in the back of your mind. You ignore it. For now.

"Right and as the self-proclaimed ghosts of Christmas whenever, you're here to try and make me less of a Grinch?"

"Grinch..?" Joshua furrows his brow in confusion.

"We had a few people mention The Grinch, remember?" says Jeonghan, trying to poke at Joshua's memory. "He's a cartoon of a character who hates Christmas so much he tries to steal it."

"And eventually his heart grows three sizes and he learns to love the holiday and be more cheerful," you finish explaining. Now your head is spinning much faster.

It eventually registers with Joshua, "Ah! Yes, I do remember that story now. Not mentioned as frequently as the other one."

"I mean.. no surprise there, you are literally telling people you're three of the characters from that story." You rub your forehead in exasperation. Quite frankly, you're tired, stressed and just want to go back to bed.

"So, I think with all that settled, we should get to the bottom of what really upsets you about the holidays," announces Seungcheol.

Your eyes split open. Huh?

"Excuse you?"

"The real reason for your hurt at this time of year," Jeonghan informs.

"Yeah, I got that part, but the fuck?"

You are yet to find a good explanation for anything occurring right now and these three "ghosts" want to unpack all the problems?

It is still unclear if they are even telling the truth!

Joshua closes the book and sighs. "I listed many reasons, all of which are perfectly valid and understandable, but there's something much deeper."

"It has been troubling you since well.. last year," laments Jeonghan.

"And only when you confront it, can you learn to move forward," Seungcheol affirms.

Your legs nearly turn to jelly and you have to prop yourself up on the side of the sink just to remain steady.

The something much deeper?

The thing troubling you?

The thing you must confront?

You have to turn away from them.

Staring out of the window, all the memories come flooding back.

You had spent three Christmases together.

Everything was going so well. You had considered moving in together up until late last year.

That was when things got worse.

You grew ever so distant in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It was to be your fourth together and yet, by the time December rolled around, you both decided it was best if you broke it off.

No closure. No final words. No cards or gifts or well wishes from either of you.

Truly a lonely holiday.

You had of course spent it surrounded by family, but after almost four years together, it hurt to have an empty seat beside you at the dinner table.

Even waltzing around your own house reminded you of everything you shared. You'd often stay the night at each other's places.

Now it was your second Christmas apart, and despite all the time that has passed, it could still bring you to tears just thinking about it.

You often wonder what he's doing. If he ever thinks of you. It crosses your mind that he clearly hasn't, otherwise he'd pick up the phone, but the hypocrisy would be so loud, and it never stopped you from thinking about him.

With a heavy weight on your shoulders, you take a deep breath in. It occurs to you that the three ghosts have been standing behind you this entire time, and you brush a tear away before turning around.

"Sorry.." you whisper. To them? To him? To yourself? You don't know.

"It is more than okay. We are only here to help," says Seungcheol, gently.

"And if you'd like us to, we can guide you through these three different times," follows Jeonghan. "But it is up to you."

"If you wish us to leave, we shall," Joshua vows on behalf of all three of them.

Something uncanny twists in your stomach. You are unsure of when or how the atmosphere shifted but, you find yourself unable to do much else but choke a sob. They watch on sympathetically, unable to conceal their sorrow.

"How do I- kn-know that you're really those ghosts?" you sniff.

"Well, aside from the temperature, does this help you?" wonders Joshua, before he levitates the book above his palm before throwing it into the air, causing it to vanish.

You blink. "W-Wow.."

"And perhaps.." Seungcheol backtracks out of the kitchen, subtly guiding you towards the standing mirror in the hallway. You follow, and once you're standing in front of the glass, it reveals zero reflection of the man beside you.

"Oh, shit-" You can't see, but Seungcheol smirks behind you. You lift a hand to the mirror and gulp. "Okay.. So.. How would you plan on guiding me through these times?"

"I answer your question with another: who do you see before you?"

".. Not you," you joke. The trio chuckle. "But, seriously.. myself, of course."

"Yourself, when?"

"Now. Today."

"And what year is it currently?"

"..2023."

"Correct. Now.." Seungcheol lifts an arm, then moves his hand in a circle motion, causing a spiralling ripple effect on the mirror.

Your mouth gapes open and a gasp escapes. This is insane, how is this even real?

Seungcheol eventually lowers his arm. "..What do you see?"

The picture clears. You say what you see. "Christmas lights.. That's the front of my house! It's snowing.. There's someone laughing-"

The words get caught in your throat.

Wonwoo.

Your ex.

"That's.." You struggle to say his name. It's like you haven't said it in years. "..Wonwoo."

The name tastes of salt on your tongue. Or maybe that's the tears that have since started shedding with reckless abandon.

"Your ex-boyfriend, correct?"

You swallow thickly. "Y-Yes.."

The picture starts to change. It becomes so much darker. The tone is shifting. It was only a vignette of the past and yet you wish you could hold onto it for dear life.

The world becomes foggy. The words are mumbled and the voices are not defined. You shudder in your own living room, wiping your cheeks free of tears.

Seungcheol stands before you and holds his hand out.

"I stood you before the mirror, as while it does give you your reflection at present, it can also reflect so much of what has been left in the past. It acts as a window to everything that has transpired to make you who you are."

You look at him, then the mirror, then back at him.

"Take my hand, if you wish to revisit the past."

Pushing your shoulders back, you take a moment to consider whether this is a good idea.

In seconds, your hand ends up in his.

He guides you through the mirror, and as the door closes, your living room is shrouded in darkness.

Jeonghan nudges Joshua, "Admirable."

Joshua nods. "I do hope this brings them some much needed closure."

× tristeetconfus (ave). do not repost. ×

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #seungcheol scenarios #seungcheol imagines #jeonghan scenarios #jeonghan imagines #joshua scenarios #joshua imagines #words.(ave)#fic: humbug

16 notes · View notes

fereldanwench · 2 months

Note

Hiya Wench! <3

It's me, the chick who always wants you to explain things xD. I have another polite request (won't be upset if you decline, but I have to try).

I had an epiphany about my posts today - I tag for other people, not myself (twitter influence). And I realized I don't even know how to quickly get to some of the older posts.

And then I remembered your page and how it's all neatly organized xD I previously haven't realized all your tags were actually separating your posts into categories and such... I love it. I had some big brain moments today xD

Would you please have any quick tips (perhaps you already do have them on your blog, I just forgot how to display the blog with the template on) for how to get started with your own template and neatly organized posts you can always find? Maybe even some template creators and such?

I used to do HTML & CSS back in the day, but it's been a long while, I don't have that much time to do trial and error anymore, and any actual coding is out of the question for me. It's gotta be user-friendly. (Free would be best, but I'm ready to reward the work done.)

I'm loving it here now and I post A LOT... I'd hate to reach a point where I don't even know what's on my page anymore.

Thanks! <3

Hi, bb! 💙

I've been asked about this a few times, and I honestly never feel I have a good answer for it, haha. I just like organizing and categorizing things, honestly. Best I can do is share my thought process and a couple of handy tools--Hopefully that'll help give you some inspiration!

My tagging habits actually come from ancient Tumblr functionality--Back in the day, the search function didn't exist as it does now (in which it will (theoretically) scan the body and tags in the post), and you could only find posts if they were tagged in a certain way. Sometimes I wanted to post about game stuff, like Dragon Age, but I didn't want my post to appear in the main tag (because of fanwank hell) BUT I also still wanted to be able to find it later because my blog is for me first and foremost.

So I started using "s: dragon age" to gather all things related to Dragon Age (in which "s" in my mind stands for "series") and "g: dao" for posts specifically about Dragon Age Origins, "g: da2" for Dragon Age II/2, and "g: dai" for Dragon Age Inquisition. And if it was a post I did want to go into the main tags, like a GIF set or fanart, I'd use both the default tags (Dragon Age, Dragon Age Inquisition) and my personal ones for my own blog cataloging.

Tumblr search hasn't worked like this in years, but by the time it changed, I was already in this habit for a while so I've just kept doing it. I do change the way I organize stuff from time to time, and there are some tools that make that easier:

Xkit Rewritten This is a life-changer and has a ton of great features to improve your Tumblring experience, but the "Tag Replacer" specifically is awesome if you realize you want to change a tag en mass.

Tumblr Tag List Generator And this is really helpful if you need to do some tag wrangling and figure out what tags you've used. I periodically run my blog through this to catch inevitable typos in tags so I can change them, and see if I can consolidate any similar tags (e.g. catch if I was using both "g: da2" and "g: da ii" so I could figure out which one I liked more.)

As far as the organization itself and how I choose the categories, it's just vibes, haha. It's just how I catalog things in my brain. Which I know is probably unhelpful. Prefixes like "inspo: ###" and "shows: ###" are pretty self-explanatory. "extras: ###" is for the random stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else, like shitposts and cute animal pics. "topic: ###" is for more serious subjects and discussions, like LGBTQ+ issues. "mine: ###" is for the stuff I've made.

Two things I wish I had done a better job of is 1) organizing other people's OCs by fandom (if you visit me on Pillowfort, you'll notice I use tags like "other's ocs (cp77)" instead of just "other's ocs") and 2) separating my edits tag into a gifs and virtual photography tag. Calling all video game imagery "edits" is also sort of a holdover from Tumblr days of yore, but I wish I had made a distinction there. (I had never even heard the term "virtual photography" until about 2022, though, and I've been on Tumblr since 2010 so yanno. Whatever. This blog in particular is 8 years old, and I'm not sifting through thousands of posts just to amend that.)

And this is a mostly comprehensive list of all the tags I use, if you wanna see the categories and whatnot in action.

With regards to blog templates, I've actually decided to stop focusing on that here because Tumblr has increasingly become a more app-driven userbase, and the pretty blog templates are only visible on desktop. Tumblr also nuked a lot of functionality of the custom pages you can make, which is where I used to keep my tags displayed. I still have a custom theme, but it's pretty bare-bones compared to what I used to do. (Now I get my CSS fix working on my Neocities website, although that is very much still a WIP.)

But there are fortunately still a lot of folks keeping the custom Tumblr themes alive! You can browse some of my personal favorites under my tumblr: themes tag, and @theme-hunter is a fantastic resource to find free user-made templates.

Oh, and because Tumblr is pushing more for a generic and uniform app experience, you do have to opt-in to activate your custom blog. It's this option under your blog settings:

And if you want to view someone's custom blog (if they have one), you'll have use the https://fereldanwench.tumblr.com/ URL. If you want to view the dashboard-like version of their blog, you'll have to use the https://www.tumblr.com/fereldanwench URL.

Hopefully this made sense and can give you some ideas to get started!

#t: wench.txt #tumblr: new users guide

6 notes · View notes

frodo-with-glasses · 1 year

Text

✨ Happy Birthday Frodo-with-Glasses! ✨

He’s gonna kill him.

One year ago today, on December 7th, 2021, I posted the Frodo-With-Glasses timeline as the official first post of this blog. The blog turns one today! Were it a baby, it would probably be toddling around on its little feet by now, and it would no longer conveniently stay in the same spot you left it.

Y’know how youtubers do that thing where they say “thank you guys so much, I never thought we’d get here”, and all that sentimental nonsense and nobody buys it?? Well, that, but sincerely. When I started out this blog, I expected very, very little to come out of it. I was just re-reading LotR for myself, and live-blogging my reactions and doodles for fun. I never expected my audience to be anything more than just my friends, and maybe a dozen random strangers who found me through them.

Well, one year, 950 posts, a few viral hits, and over 800 followers later, here we are! I don’t think I can overstate how wild it is that this blog grew so quickly in the span of just a year. It’s a marvelous testament to the power of Lord of the Rings—and the love it’s created in this fanbase—that some random moron from Nowheresville, USA can just pop on the internet and start talking about LotR and people will flock to it.

Lord of the Rings has given me hope and courage in what would otherwise be a difficult part of my life. It’s given me the much-needed nudge to venture outside my comfort zone with my art, and because of that, I’ve acquired new skills and improved in leaps and bounds since this time last year. I’ve made new friends, tried new things, and learned so much about art and this book and myself thanks to this blog, and people like you.

Thank you. I mean that sincerely. Though I know more than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve, you guys are what made this blog what it is. Would I still be posting doodles if you weren’t around? Absolutely! But it’s more fun with you here. So, thank you. ^-^

So what happens next? Well, I still have about half of Return of the King left to go, and a few epilogue-ish comics that I want to draw. After that, I plan to go back through LotR again, reblogging old art that still holds up, redrawing old art that doesn’t, and even drawing new things for parts I neglected (like the Mines of Moria)! I’m hoping to get a shop set up sometime next year so that those of you who wish to own some of my art can do so. And when those projects are completed to my satisfaction, you can expect to see the patented Lady Glasses treatment given to a read-through of The Hobbit, called Bilbo-With-Glasses!

Until then, here’s to you, and here’s to one year of Frodo-With-Glasses, and hopefully many more!

#blog birthday #milestone #featuring:#frodo baggins #peregrin took #pippin #other people’s art #fig tree au #lady glasses speaks #my writing #the drawing up top was actually a birthday present from lovely local velociraptor redbootsindoriath #my birthday is not the same as the blog’s birthday #but i’m not gonna tell you when my birthday is :-3 #it was……..sometime this year #that’s all you’re getting LOL

65 notes · View notes

theabyssinyourcloset · 2 months

Text

The shortfin mako

Last time (over a month ago, oops) I talked about the goblin shark. There has now been a request (can I call it that?) by @surprisemice to do the mako shark next, so here we go!

So, the scientific name for the shortfin mako (also known as the shortfin mako shark, blue pointer, mackerel shark and bonito shark) is Isurus oxyringchus. There's also a longfin mako shark, which is its own separate species (Isurus paucus). Although both are commonly called makos, the shortfin is better known, and so I will be introducing it first (I'll write about the longfin in a separate post sometime later). The shortfin mako is an endangered species, along with the longfin.

The shortfin mako shark typically inhabits tropical waters all around the world, far from land, at around 150 metres (490 ft). It's an endothermic species (one of the very few) that isn't typically found in waters colder that 16°C (61°F).

The species was first discovered around 1810. Unfortunately I did not find where that happened. I also cannot find any information about how old this species is. I seriously don't know how I was able to dig up so much information about the goblin shark :/ well, I'm going to tell some other cool facts about this species instead (once we get there)!

The shortfin makos are typically a colour of dark blue on the top. The colour turns to metallic blue, before turning to white on the bottom. The sharks typically have around 6-8 teeth on their upper jaw, but overall they have 12 sets of them. Quite a lot. Not to mention that they're razor sharp. These sharks also have around 50 teeth that are not in use. They are possibly only there, at the back of their mouths, to intimidate other predators (mainly other sharks).

The shortfin mako usually grows to about 2,5 to 3,2 metres (8,2 to 10,5 feet). Females are typically larger in size than males. They normally weigh around 60–140 kilograms (130–310 pounds). The longest verified length for an individual was 4,45 metres (14,6 feet), and the heaviest was around 600 kilograms (1 300 pounds). Those two were separate cases, though.

Now, some fun facts. The shortfin mako sharks are the fastest species of shark (I like the fact that this shark was used as a mascot for @surprisemice's old swim team, you people must've been good), reaching up to speeds of 80,47 km/h (50 mi/h). That's quite fast, I must say. Also, what I find even more cool is that these sharks can jump above water, at heights of 9 metres (almost 30 feet). I just searched that up and I'm not going to lie, my jaw dropped open. So glad I'm doing some random shark posts like these, I get to learn cool stuff.

Another fun fact: the term 'mako' comes from the Māori language (or its different dialects), with mako meaning shark or shark tooth. Idk why but I just find that cute.

So, in conclusion: The shortfin mako shark is an endangered species of shark found all around the world in tropical and overall warm waters. They're also currently the fastest shark species out there.

Below I have provided images of this beautiful species:

The shortfin mako shark.

Another image of the shortfin mako shark.

The shortfin mako shark jumping out of water (impressive).

Gif with a good view of the teeth of the shortfin mako shark.

Hopefully this was enjoyable to read! I'd be glad to receive feedback on my info posts, if anyone has any. But that's it for today, have a great day/night/whatever time it is there where you are (here it's basically midnight *cough cough*)!

I'll make a separate post about which shark species' I want to write about, eventually crossing off the ones I have written about. (That isn't that important right now though)

I have once again forgot to cite my sources. Fuck me.

All sources read/visited on 4th March 2024, by The Abyss In Your Closet

#mako shark #shortfin mako shark #isurus oxyringchus #blue pointer #sharks #shark #save the sharks #hell yeah sharks

4 notes · View notes

loupy-mongoose · 1 year

Note

Are you by any chance willing to offer your thoughts or suggestions towards someone else looking to start a Mew/Mewtwo-focused blog? I keep second-guessing my idea a lot, and I worry it might get viewed as too much, I guess... and your concept just seems so fun and unique that it makes me still want to try, but I don't quite know where or how to start.

I'll try my best! (This ended up being quite the read, hoo boy...)

I'll start by saying that I got remarkably lucky. I don't know why people took a notice in my blog, and the last thing I want is to get a big head over it and become some out of reach hot-shot on a pedestal. I aim to treat others with respect, and hopefully earn respect back. (And if I ever fall short of that, I'm sorry!)

It may be worth noting that I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil (/crayon/marker, whatever came first), which has led to me getting T O N S of practice, both traditional and digital. And I do recommend practice, if you want art to be a part of your blog. Study references, draw what you like, draw dumb stuff, have fun! And don't be afraid to let the way you draw things change, because that definitely happened to me!

I realized recently that having this blog has mitigated a bad habit of mine, and that's the habit of endlessly tinkering with my ideas. I can hold back on sharing my ideas when I feel like they need to be "ironed out" or "made better". And yeah, some ideas, especially if they're brand new or just came to you, they need to be refined.

But sometimes it's possible to just put the raw or underdeveloped idea out there and expand on it later.

I know it can be very scary to put ideas out there and "set them in stone". There may come a day I re-visit an idea and think "I don't want this to be like this anymore". I don't know what I'll do if that happens--Will I keep it, or retcon it, or meet somewhere in the middle? I don't know, but the fear of being in that position will keep me from posting anything at all!

I also recommend giving your characters history. A life behind them that led to who they are today. When I started my blog, I had a very vague idea of a history, but enough to give me a sense of who they are as people. It's another example of raw ideas being expanded on, because a LOT of my characters' history has been made up since I started this blog.

I know this is getting a bit long now, but there's one more silly little thing that came to mind that's purely an assumption on my end. As a fellow second-guesser, I tend to feel the need to apologize a lot. Try to resist doing so; think about if you truly feel sorry about it, or if you just want to appease whoever you're apologizing to. Ultimately what you do with your art and blog is up to you, so a lot of the things you may want to apologize for really don't deserve an apology.

#Ask #Very wordy this time #I used to hate writing essays for school #why do I have such a rambling habit now??

35 notes · View notes

ed-recovery-affirmations · 8 months

Note

idk if ur gonna see this or anything but i fully relapsed pretty bad into my ed about two months ago. I've had god knows how many recoveries and relapses and I always seem to end up back in. i want out this time and i want out for good, i don't want to spend the rest of my life doing this. any advice?

Hi there, anon! I did see this. I get to everything in my askbox eventually, if it's something I'm able to put on my blog.

I'm sorry to hear you've been having so much trouble staying well. I don't know exactly what you've tried so far, but here's the advice I can give:

Are you surrounded by supportive people? If you can, find friends you trust to confide in about the issues you've been having. Think about what they can do to be supportive, whether it be reminding you to be soft about your body image or reminding you how they hope you are healthy and eating well. We all need to learn to love ourselves, but outside support from the right people can give us a big, big boost when we find ourselves needing it most. Building a support system also gives you people to reach out to when you're struggling. That can be hard and scary, but it can also be a resource.

Speaking of resources, is therapy open to you? I don't know if you're able to access therapeutic resources, but a therapist might be able to help you develop coping mechanisms for the issues you might be struggling with that keep you coming back to your ED. I'm also going to preface this next statement by saying that I am not an expert on DBT, and that what I'm going to tell you next is just something I heard during a brief overview of DBT during a training we had at work recently. However, apparently a big premise in DBT is about learning coping strategies to get through those moments of crisis we experience without resorting to the destructive impulses we may have. "Whatever you do, don't make it WORSE" is an excellent thing to remember in crisis. Sometimes you can just...do nothing, and ride out the feeling until it passes, and then work through it later. Or use a coping strategy. Once you've practiced that, maybe you can learn positive responses to your moments of crisis to help you deal with them productively. That way you may learn to better resist urges to relapse - or to pull yourself out of a lapse before it becomes a full relapse. (Be honest but kind to yourself when doing this - shame may only make the lapse worse! Those of us with EDs are often prone to using shame as a motivator, which can sometimes work well in the short term but is terrible for us in the long term.)

It's hard for me to give specific advice without knowing what your ED is like, but perhaps you can use timed reminders to hold yourself accountable to consistently practicing self care before, during, and after eating. Especially when you're going places like - out to a restaurant with friends and family, event where surprise food might be offered, holiday party, etc. Self-care can be whatever works for you - writing down positive affirmations, meditating, taking a long hot bath, taking a little walk and moving your body, gently reminding the bully in your head that what they're saying to you is not helpful to you in the long run, doing some stretches, creating some art...literally whatever self-care looks like for you, but create a self-care regimen around eating properly. Create a self-care regimen for lapses, too. Hopefully you won't need it, but understand that self-care means investing in resources and safety nets for yourself in the event that you might have a hard time, rather than punishing yourself by letting yourself fail. Think about it in advance so that you are not struggling to come up with a self-care plan when you're already in crisis: what are you going to need in order to help gently pull yourself out of a lapse? Failing is human and struggling is common in eating disorders. Learning to be kind to yourself when you fail and growing from your mistakes is a huge part of ED recovery, since we tend to be big self-punishers.

Hope this helps! You can tell me a little more about your ED for more specific advice if you want to, but you don't have to. I hope you find your way back to your own healing path, anon. <3

#ed recovery #advice #long post #self love #self care #ed cw

10 notes · View notes

lynne-monstr · 19 days

Note

hello! I'm the anon who's stopping by, I hope you're having a nice weekend! things over here are a little better. well the situation hasn't changed much but I'm slowly coming to terms with it, which is all I can ask for. and a few weeks ago we had some lovely, almost summer-like weather, which was super nice!! unfortunately this week it has been snowing (absolutely insane to me that it's snowing in mid April, as someone who has always lived in warm places until now) 😭 I was looking forward to finally wearing spring/summer clothes, but back to scarves and gloves it is. I hope the weather is nicer where you are!!

I've started watching leverage for the first time, which I wanted to let you know since I'm pretty sure I first heard of it years ago on your blog. I'm loving it so far!! I finished season 2 yesterday, and I'm excited to see where season 3 picks up considering how s2 ended! and I've really grown attached to all the characters! I love them all but Parker and Eliot are my favourites <3 Parker is just so delightful and relatable, and Eliot.... well let's just say I'm not immune to a character whose purpose is basically to defend and protect his family, to the point of self-sacrifice if needed. that always gets me. how about you, who's your favourite(s)?

I hope things continue to look up, as always I'm sending you lots of good vibes!! have a nice rest of the weekend!!

hi anon, nice to see you again! i had a nice, relaxing weekend where i took some classes at the gym, read a lot of fic, and didn't do much else! we keep getting teased with nice weather and then it immediately gets chilly again. but no snow over here thankfully! snow in springtime should be illegal lol. i got a really cute denim jacket for spring and i still can't wear it, but hopefully that will change soon!

i can totally relate to "it's not getting better but i'm learning to live with it." sometimes, that's really all you can do. i think it counts as a win for both of us.

sending lots of good thoughts your way.

oooh leverage, how exciting!! i love leverage! what a great show and with great characters and such wonderful storytellng! leverage has a special place in my heart! and yesss parker i love her a lot! she's out there making family and jumping off buildings and being the best thief ever!

while i was watching the show, eliot was my favorite (and side character quinn who barely appears at all, but i love him a lot). but it's kind of funny, because looking back on the series, if i was going to watch it again for the first time ten years later (and me being ten years older) i think i would lean more towards sophie. something about a middle aged woman who gets an arc about finding herself is very appealing. also she's so hot send help.

i hope you have fun watching the show, it's one of my favorites!! have a great rest of the week! <3

#anonymous #thanks for the ask!#stopping by anon #💙💙💙#i've been a bit low energy these past few days so it took me a couple days to get this on paper <3

3 notes · View notes

thereallivingded · 25 days

Text

8 months

Nearly 8 months have passed since I blogged. Damn.

I apologize profusely if anyone was interested in my ramblings. I have zero excuses other than life got hard. Full time job. Which I hated profusely - not that I'm not going to be working full time again soon - tends to bring on crushing depression when I feel stuck in it. Which I did, and I was. When you are paid bi-weekly and you see that entire paycheck go to your cost of living.. well. It doesn't do good things to your psyche. Energy levels get low and all that extra you had energy for before gets used up with day to day survival. Getting out of bed. Getting to work. Feeding yourself. Cleaning your house. Squeezing in workout (a thing I do now).

It's not all bad I suppose. I've finally been able to interview for and obtain a position that will not only net me a raise but be closer to home. Hopefully, that should get me more free time to pursue the things I actually enjoy.

I'd like to say that in this time I've been able to tackle my backlog of Steam games. But. Well. BG3 happened. And I spent even more time in the game than I had in early access. It's maddening how much time I've sunk into Faerun. I have no regrets though.

The only thing really that's kept me from finishing my campaign - as I am in Act 3 - is my computer. I haven't upgraded the beast since 2020 or 2021-ish. And it's starting to show. My mobo is acting extraordinarily peculiar. Sometimes I'll walk away from my computer to come back a couple hours later and find it stuck in bios. Super fun. The connection to the mobo gets wiggled a little and everything pops back on. Super. However, anything heavy to run - like BG3 - tends to get very crash-y.

Again. Super.

T.T

AND. Due to my financial constraints because of the job I recently left, I was completely unable to fix this. I'm hoping with the advent of the new job, getting a few paychecks in to stabilize, I can rectify the problems. Hopefully.

I started a couple of fanfics for the first time ever. I am ridiculously shy about them. My writing skills have become so sodding rusty. The stories came to me while I was playing BG3 and I was compelled to write them down. Note now, that the frequency of updates directly reflects the time I have to invest in them. So keep that in mind.

Be gentle on me here lol!

I have been able to get some gaming done. I have ceased playing Back 4 Blood, as it became no longer supported by its dev team. A sad move really. The gaming industry as a whole has become this parasitic beast. Devs work on a game for an extremely limited amount of time and abandon it the moment it becomes less lucrative than their board of directors care for.

There is a trend towards monetization of minutiae and online play in inappropriate genres, that has become an insidious infection in the game industry. It robs us of good game development. There's this mentality of more, more, now that's just slow poison to the whole beast. It makes everything very same-y and boring.

Which is why I strive at this point in my life, to not give money to the companies which I feel are most guilty of this. The only way to make these corporations listen is to hit them in the $. As such I will probably be carefully curating any games I discuss or mention on this blog from here on. My next post will likely be discussing a visual novel I've spent some time in that I equal parts enjoyed and became frustrated with. So that's in the pipeline. Until then keep to the lights lovies. <3

#gaming #gamer life #pc games #gamer problems #steambacklog

2 notes · View notes

masterwords · 2 years

Note

Can you write Hotchgan in the beginning state of their relationship and Hotch has a meltdown, which catches Derek off guard because he didn't know about the autism? 👀

If you aren't comfortable with this its no problem, don't worry💗💗

Oh, hey YOU. Okay, I really hope I did this some justice...I scoured @eldrai's blog for inspiration and cues. It got long, way out of control, and it was partially inspired by a scene at the end of 10x05 - Boxed In on the jet and of course I took a lot of inspiration from Lo-Fi/Mayhem too. But this jet scene...

Something about everyone sleeping, and how close to home that case was for Hotch, and the way Morgan stands up there to look at him in the dark but gives him space...ANYWAY. I hope this is okay. <3

4.1k words | Hotch/Morgan | Derek figures out how to help when Hotch has a meltdown.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and stared hard at the file, willing the words back into focus. He could finish the whole thing before they landed, and with any luck, he could keep the noise at bay. Or keep them from noticing when it got too loud. The pressure built in his chest and his pen worked faster.

Sometimes it caught him off guard, things fell into place too quickly for him to perform his carefully curated damage control. And sometimes it was a slow burn, a gradual undoing of the threads that kept him in one piece. A pot of water coming to a low, rolling boil over dying embers. When he looked at Mary and told her she couldn't blame herself for what her son did, something had hitched in his chest. Some little warning bell, an alarm. He was seasoned enough to know his triggers, so he trained his eyes on his feet and walked one foot in front of the other toward the vehicle. His job here was done.

This was a slow burn, he recognized it, but he could put it out before it became a blazing fire.

Breathing got him through it. Closing his eyes, blocking out the crime scene, he managed to put it back where it belonged in order to drive he and Dave and JJ back to the precinct. He drove, because if he drove, then he could also decide to pull over. He was in control.

He took the banker box of information for the reports so he had something to keep his hands busy and his mind quiet on the jet. He was in control.

He poured a cup of coffee because if he slept he might slip into a nightmare. He was in control.

On the jet, everyone visited quietly about saving that boy. Finally a good outcome. A happy ending. Sure they'd all missed Halloween, but a little boy would go home with his parents and hopefully, after time, be okay. Derek kept looking back at Hotch who had seated himself completely on his own in the back with the remaining work. For Hotch, the case wasn't closed, it wasn't over, but he could make it go fast. Each time someone looked like they might talk to him, Derek drew their attention back to him, back to the conversation at hand. He could see the wild on-the-brink look in Hotch's eye and knew that he was one drop, one ripple away from losing it.

Right now, he was in control.

“Hey Hotch? What did you say to Mary back there?” JJ asked, craning her neck over the top of the seat. He glanced up at her and blinked slowly, his eyes faraway and coming sharply into focus. Derek watched the change happen. The shadow that fell over his features, and his lips formed a grim line.

“Later, Jayj,” Derek said, patting her on the leg. “He looks like he's in the zone there. Unless you wanna get stuck with that paperwork, we should let the man focus huh?” Draw it back to work. She shrugged and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, yawning.

“You don't have to tell me twice.”

Hotch looked back down at the report, but it had all gone fuzzy and he wasn't getting it back. He was no longer in control.

His glass pond was full of ripples, rings growing bigger and more violent by the second. His heart was thundering. There were no more words on the page, just splotches of bright white and kaleidoscope colors dancing in his vision. He clenched his fist against his thigh, dug his fingernails in until they cut crescents into his palm and couldn't seem to make himself stop. Instead, he pressed harder and harder, his shoulders shaking, muscles coiled tight all the way up into his jaw. His hand felt wet, blood pooled against his fingertips and he squeezed harder. Like a tea kettle with a steam release, he was waiting for it. The pressure was still building, though.

And the noise in his head was so loud.

The world around him was quiet, so many tiny people fluttering through their lives below him and though none of them were anywhere near him, he felt their electricity crackling over his skin. He became a lightning bolt. Everyone's goodness, their evil, the words, the expectations it all flowed through him like a current. He thought about how he'd yelled at the unsub, he heard the words he said and felt them thunder through his chest. Pulling the child out from underground, that family's generations of evil manifesting into a squall in his head. It hurt to hold it in, it hurt but it was in there so tight he couldn't let it out, it just raged inside of him beating against the walls of his being until he thought he might just come apart at the seams.

His face gave no real sign of any of this, but the muscle that twitched just beneath his ear was a dead giveaway to Derek.

Derek watched him cautiously. Everyone else was sleeping, or close to, and he was caught somewhere in time wondering what to do. How to help without drawing attention...attention would undoubtedly make it worse, but Hotch was no longer in control of much. He could see the quiet primal fury boiling there. He stood up, glanced at Hotch staring so intently he thought he might burn a hole into the page, and then turned to head toward the back of the plane. Hot water on tap gurgled and growled into a mug, Hotch's favorite mug, and then a bag of chamomile tea was plopped inside. He grabbed himself a cold water bottle and felt around for a moment beneath the seats for his headphones. He liked to keep them right there, easy to grab, easy to lose himself in.

Careful not to startle Hotch, he crouched in front of him and waited to feel those amber eyes on him. Desperate, a silent plea for understanding, and Derek nodded before holding the headphones up. Hotch didn't back away, didn't flinch or move. He just stared helplessly. Unable to speak.

This was always hard for Derek, knowing that someone who valued control so much could lose it so completely, so vastly and not even afford themselves the grace to let it happen. Ride the storm without the shame.

There was no shame, but Hotch simply had never given himself the freedom or the kindness to try and see it that way.

At first, Derek had tried to comfort him through it. He was never one to shy away from an emotional situation, and Hotch so seldom showed him anything like that...he really thought he was doing the right thing. He was doing what he would have wanted, were he to find himself in that situation.

But what he thought was going to be a simple thing turned out to be anything but. He didn't know what he was seeing. Hotch was so good at hiding himself away, so in tune with his triggers that he never showed that side of himself...until New York, until a car bomb ripped his feet from the ground and took his hearing and his relationship with gravity out in a ball of flame. He found Hotch in the hospital, tearing an IV from his arm, desperate and concussed and bleeding. His eyes were so wild with terror and he was shouting...he'd never heard Hotch shout at anyone like that before. Part of it was his hearing, the shouting because his world was unsettlingly quiet when he knew it should have been anything but...and yet the noise in his head, the ringing, was so loud. He shouted and Derek froze for a moment. This wasn't an unsub, it was a doctor and a nurse, people who wanted to help him, to care for him. Derek managed to get them out of there, pressed his hand to Hotch's chest first and felt the hammering of his heart against his sternum. “Hotch,” he said quietly, his hand moving to settle over the bleeding on Hotch's arm and he tried to pull him back in. He squeezed it, tried to stop the bleeding, and something about the pressure seemed to snap his focus onto Derek. It seemed to quiet him a little, but that despair, that fear and wildness was still there.

And Derek couldn't touch it.

“Hotch, your go bag is on it's way...” Relax, he meant to say, but he could see that feral spark in his eyes that told him that would be a step too far. That word was wrong. Hotch was barely holding something together, barely holding his tongue, his fists. He looked around the room desperately, saw the mangled sheets, the bed at an odd angle and tried to picture the rampage he'd only just missed.

As Hotch came down, a deep sadness and shame filled his eyes, but he forced himself to talk only about the case. It became his only focus as he regained some semblance of control, and Derek longed to ask him about what had just happened, but it felt dangerous, so he didn't, he followed Hotch's lead. They talked about the case, they waited for the team to arrive, things got worse instead of better, but he was in control again. At least for the time being. The pressure had built and released, and now it was building again.

He managed to find his way to a bed, to sleep, before he lost anything again.

That night, after the unsub slit himself ear to ear in front of Hotch, after the news of Kate, after Derek blew up the ambulance...he and Spencer met up in the hotel bar for a beer. Well, Spencer ate a plate of french fries and had a Coke, but Derek went for the beer he'd decided against the night before. Ice cold Stella Artois, he could drown himself in its amber depths. As quietly as he could, he spoke to Spencer about what he'd seen at the hospital while Hotch did his best to sleep off the day. “I've never seen him like that before,” Derek confessed, and Spencer nodded solemnly. He'd always had a feeling he knew Hotch better than any of them and he felt vindicated, but he wasn't about to overshare, not something so deeply personal. Instead, he offered what he could in a roundabout way. Things that might help.

“When I feel like everything is out of control,” he started cautiously, really focusing on his word choice and holding Derek's eye contact. That part was the hardest for him, he longed to look somewhere else, anywhere else, but Derek needed it. He knew that, in order to know this was a moment to take seriously. For the sake of his relationship. “When everything is building up, things are stacking up too fast...it's hard to hear people talking to me, even if they mean well. It just makes it worse. What I need is...a buffer, I guess. A way out. My voice, in here,” he indicated his head sadly. “It's too loud and anything added to it just increases the volume until I think I'm going to lose my mind.”

“Are you saying...” Derek stared and Spencer raised his hand briefly, begging him to stop. To just listen. Not to ask questions that Spencer had no business answering.

“I'm only saying maybe there was too much going on. He was in an explosion, Derek. We saw the footage. And everything else this week...then that...I'm just saying that what happened in the hospital was...” he paused, he could feel himself getting worked up, dangerously close to just blurting something out that he had no right saying. “Listen. It was probably just too many things that happened too fast. And even if that one last thing was a good thing...like a doctor trying to care for his injuries...it was still...” Too much, even for a person who wasn't autistic, that was what he wanted to say, but Derek interrupted him and stopped him just in time.

“Overwhelming.” Derek finished the sentence, and thought he caught more in what Spencer didn't say than in what he did. But now Spencer looked exasperated and a little wild, so Derek just shrugged and told him he had some thinking to do but he appreciated the help. They didn't speak about it the rest of the night.

It gave Derek a lot to consider, and a conversation was looming just out of reach. One he wasn't sure he knew how to navigate. It was just that he thought the one place Hotch should be able to be himself, and lose the mask, should be with him, right? He was so sure of that, but there was a little voice inside that said it wasn't inherently true. Unless he wanted to. It was Hotch's decision. Derek struggled with that.

“Aaron,” he'd started on the long ride home from New York, unable to sit in the silence any longer. He had to know. He was desperate for answers. But Hotch was distraught, in and out of some kind of fitful sleep, deeply uncomfortable now that his body had time to come down from the shock of the night before. The intensity of the pain kept him pinned in place while his mind spun out of control. He couldn't have talked about any of it if he tried. He'd already been on the precipice of another meltdown all morning, he'd snapped at Derek over trust when he hadn't ever meant any harm, and now he was barely holding it at bay. One more thing.

“Derek please,” he started, his voice nothing but a whisper. “Not now.”

“Okay,” was his reply, hearing Spencer's voice in his head. Adding one more thing...he didn't want to do that. That wasn't his goal, it wasn't ever his goal. “Soon?”

Hotch nodded, and let his hand cross that invisible barrier, over the console, to rest against Derek's thigh. He rubbed fingertips over and over in a quiet rhythm with the grain of the denim and closed his eyes against the throbbing in his head.

By the time the conversation actually happened, by the time Hotch actually used the word autistic, Derek had figured out everything he needed to know on his own. It was probably better that way, it didn't feel so much like a confession or Hotch being on center stage and more of a simple acknowledgment, a mutual understanding. Derek had already proven he could be trusted with such a deeply guarded part of him that Hotch didn't find it hard, one night in bed, to just lay it out. He no longer feared that the admission would come with an end to something good.

“Am I that obvious?” Hotch asked, seriously, once the rest of the conversation, the hard parts, were out of the way. Derek smiled and he could feel the warmth of in the dark. The sincerity was almost overwhelming.

“Something like that.”

He'd learned to read the signs, until he was no longer caught off guard. To anyone from the outside, the way he would press his fingertips to his forehead, or pinch the bridge of his nose a little harder than seemed necessary, it might look like he was nursing a wicked migraine. And sometimes he was. It was hard to tell the difference, the way he'd taught himself to react was jarringly similar. And that had always worked for him, no one could tell the difference and really he preferred it that way. No one could fix a migraine any better than they could this, that was his thought. This was like his body's alarm system screaming that he was at capacity, and he had to release it whether he was in the right place or not. His father had tried to beat the "fits" or "tantrums" out of him, that sure as hell didn't work, especially when he was big enough to lose control and fight back. Now everyone offered him a wide berth and a quiet room, it really was as good as he thought it was likely to get.

Dave and Gideon had figured out the difference and mercifully kept it to themselves. They would make sure he was given some space, and often Dave would make a sort of show of it. Bring Hotch a cold can of coke and an ice pack, a wet rag, some Tylenol...something that might scream migraine to anyone whose eyes were keeping a little too close a watch. And he would always come out looking tired with the Coke opened, the Tylenol stashed in his pocket, and a half-hearted exhausted smile on his face meant for a good friend. And with as long as the aftershocks lasted, it really played perfectly into the migraine mask.

Derek quickly discovered he couldn't do much. Hotch didn't want physical attention; he didn't want a hand in his air or on his shoulder. In fact, those things often made it worse, made him retreat further or react with more intensity than if they'd just left him alone. And while Dave had more than once confided in Derek that he had something that would help, Derek wanted to do more. The migraine thing worked in police stations, at Quantico, in the courtroom. But that was only helping him hide it, not through it. And Derek didn't want him to feel like he had to hide it. Especially not with him.

Dave was a friend, and he was a good friend. But Derek was more than a friend, so he should be able to do something more, right? It was hard knowing that the answer to that question was likely a resounding no. This was something Hotch had to weather on his own, ultimately. And what Hotch wanted was space, really, but he also needed something Derek figured out how to provide anyway.

He figured it out sort of by accident. He thought about Reid talking about how loud his inner voice got and it gave him an idea, something he tested out one day at home when it came out of nowhere and somehow...it worked. It didn't fix anything, but it helped and that was all he'd been hoping for. Hotch needed a buffer between himself and the rest of the world, and if there was one thing Derek understood, it was that. Throwing up walls, creating barriers. Cultivating quiet. He'd become skilled at that at a very young age, and while he didn't hold on to most of it as he'd aged, he retained what it could do for his own well-being.

After every case he pulled out his headphones and lost himself in music for the hours on the jet.

Music reminded him of good in the world.

Music reignited the parts of his soul that might wither and die after what he saw every day. A good drum beat could teach his heart how to do it's thing. A good guitar riff would make his blood rush. A thumpy sexy bass could cure everything else and by the time the jet landed he felt like himself again.

Hotch liked music differently, and Morgan spent hours and hours of his life trying to educate Hotch on proper music. Really, truly good music. Gospel, deep raspy blues, outlaw country, things you wouldn't find on the radio. Hotch was a Top 40 kind of guy, a classic rock guy at best, before Derek showed him the treasures. Things you had to dig properly for. Hotch, it turned out, loved Muddy Waters. Something in the harmonica, the rhythms, the sad wisdom in his voice.

So, he slid the headphones gently over Hotch's head, pressing them firm against his ears to make sure the seal was in place and placed the mug of tea down beside him. Satisfied with these little things, he walked away into the darkness. He'd created a barrier between Hotch and the world, and the hardest part for him to learn was that that barrier had to include him too.

Hotch closed his eyes and let the weight of the oversize headphones on his head distract him from the noise, let his fist slowly un-clench and pressed his bloody palm flat against his thigh. He'd dug deep this time, he could feel the crescent gashes throbbing, he'd need to cover them up with bandages and he knew Jessica would have a flurry of questions but...not now. The music started low, the volume so quiet, and in trickled the harmonica and the guitar. It painted his senses and he struggled against his body to pull in a breath, just one. The world's noise melted away from him as his focus was drawn to Muddy's voice. She moves me, man...

None of the songs were in order, except by order of what Derek knew Hotch's favorites were. He began with quiet, just a soothing voice and a simple melody. He selected each song while his eyes flicked up and read the situation from the other end of the plane. To anyone else, in the dark, it would look like he was just playing around on his phone, solitaire or a word game with Garcia (and he was doing that too) ...not playing personal DJ. Guiding Hotch through the winding path of his mind from afar. It was like holding his hand without ever touching him.

Hotch's hands, trembling, hugged the warm mug of tea and his features softened slowly over the course of the trip until he leaned back and let his eyes close. The muscle in his jaw throbbed when he released the tension there. He would pay for it with a headache later. But for now, the case file could wait and he could breathe. Derek kept it up for the duration of the flight, one song after another, lulling Hotch into a space of comfort, of eventual peace. It may have been fleeting, but it was undeniably good.

It didn't fix him. In the car, he was pensive, exhausted, painfully quiet. Derek knew better than to ask questions, he didn't need answers. The case was hard. Sometimes these things didn't have triggers that were obvious to him, but Derek knew this time. It was clear as day. JJ said some things to Hotch that she had already mentioned feeling bad for, foot in mouth statements she wished she could take back but knew had already done their damage. She told him what Hotch had said to the boy, how he'd been with the mother afterward even though she couldn't hear what they spoke about...it was a perfect storm. Past colliding with present.

He'd said things to that boy, channeled some long-buried words in a voice that didn't sound at all like his own. He jumped into that hole, pulled that little boy out, and that should have flooded him with joy. He knew that, but it didn't. Because as he watched that boy's parents rush toward him with all the love in the world, he knew that had never belonged to him. He wished, briefly, that his mother had loved him well enough to do what Mary had done and that made him feel worse. More of a monster. To wish harm because he was harmed. He had never been a believer in an eye for an eye, but that moment, he felt some little piece of him snap.

“You can't blame yourself,” he'd told her, but did he really mean that? He chewed on that for much of their drive home. Did he mean that at all? He blamed his mother, and shouldn't she too blame herself? Isn't that how blame works? It isn't subject to logic. It doesn't bow to facts. It swears fealty to despair and desire.

“Derek?” Hotch asked, sliding his sliced-up hand over until it rested against his thigh. He rubbed at the seam of Derek's pants, pressed the thick denim between thumb and forefinger to ground himself, and released a long and weary breath. The noise in his mind was fading and leaving something else in its wake. Some desperation for comfort. A way to release it all before walking through his front door, something to help him find his smile for Jack. “Would you mind stopping for a milkshake? My treat.”

Derek grinned and nodded. “I thought you'd never ask.”

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #spencer reid #criminal minds #hotchgan #fanfiction #autistic hotch

58 notes · View notes

rahleeyah · 9 months

Note

Do you think that by killing off Kathy instead of a divorce between her and Elliot, that El is still not "choosing" Liv? That when EO get together it's more of Elliot being "well my wife's dead so I guess I'll be with you". For many fans the choice of killing her off was not the best choice for the reason I state, and cause to fridge a female character is gross too.

What are your thoughts? Hopefully you understand what I am saying.

No, I don't think that.

I know a lot of people feel that way, but as we've discussed on this blog before I really do feel that Elliot couldn't choose Liv over Kathy while Kathy was still alive, not least bc Olivia wouldn't let him. And yes, of course, he could've gotten divorced from Kathy and then turned up looking for Olivia - and it would've been interesting to see Olivia be able to really vent her anger at him in those early days - but there's something....off, if Kathy's still around. She's still such a source of insecurity for Liv - does Elliot really want Olivia more, did he only come to Olivia bc Kathy finally got rid of him (which is essentially the same as only coming to Liv bc Kathy died, maybe even worse), has Olivia taken something from Elliot's family, do the kids resent her, etc - and Olivia's own reticence I think gets in the way too much if Kathy is alive. Olivia has been telling herself that Elliot is someone else's husband for so long that even a divorce isn't enough to nudge her, I don't think; it certainly didn't the first time. And yes the first time they were still partners but this time he's left her for a decade (why is he only coming back now? Isn't Liv still a consolation prize in this version?) and if she leaps straight into her anger without those months of caring for him maybe they don't ever recover.

And like what's the timeline. Elliot comes for the ceremony while still married to Kathy and Liv is furious and he leaves Kathy? Idk about that. Elliot gets divorced and only then turns up? Yeah I don't love that either.

And yeah, obviously, fridging is a serious issue that we do need to talk about but also characters have to die sometimes. We can't just never have a character die, never have the other characters experience loss; that's ignoring a whole vast swath of human emotion that does need to be explored in media. And if you're gonna kill someone off so that you can talk about grief and trauma and love and healing, pragmatically you're gonna kill a side character. Bc you want to keep your mains around for later. You need your mains. They're the story.

On the one hand, it would've been nice to see Kathy stand up for herself and go out and make a new life and not be beholden to Elliot. On the other hand, life doesn't give us all happy endings. Kathy had just as many choices as Elliot did. She asked him to come to bed, she asked - pushed - him to come back to raise Eli. She was happy in Rome. With him. Maybe Kathy didn't want another life. Maybe she wanted her husband - she worked hard enough to keep him - and maybe her ending is tragic, but life is tragic. A man looking at his cell phone while driving hit my mother head on and we spent a week in the hospital with her, jumping every time her eyelashes fluttered even tho we knew there was no activity in her brain. In the perfect story, her eyes would've opened. She would've woken up. We wouldn't have lost her. We did. The story doesn't have a happy ending. We stumble thru our grief. I kind of like it when the stories I consume reflect things I've felt in my own heart; it helps learn to name my emotions, and find connection and solace in the knowledge that I am not alone in feeling them.

Not every story has a happy ending. Kathy's didn't. That's not a crime imo.

#anonymous #e.o asks #s.vu

7 notes · View notes

redbloodprose · 2 years

Text

oh boy hopefully third time's a charm! i keep leaving and then coming back but with the closure of my favorite writing discord, i’ve really missed having a writing community so here i am.

i’m kian! i’m 24 and use they/he/it pronouns. i’m bi, aspec, and transmasc with a gender that can best be described as “slutty eldritch abomination”. i’m also an enfp and libra sun, scorpio moon, cancer rising.

i’m very neurodivergent (and so are a lot of my characters). while i’ve been on tumblr for far too long and this blog is a few years old i still struggle with even online social cues sometimes, so if i do or say something weird i apologize lmao.

the contemporaries i enjoy are very few and far between, but i love pretty much every other genre. my heart will always belong to fantasy though, and honestly the weirder the better.

when i’m not writing (which is more often than not unfortunately) i’m probably watching youtube or tv, playing video games or dnd, reading, cooking, making elaborate playlists, and just generally wasting time online.

i’ll make an intro post later and link it but my current wip is a ya dark fantasy about a teenager who reunites with their childhood best friend to create an unkillable frankenstein thing and take the throne from their cousin. also they all fall in love with each other.

this post is kind of a mess but i’m really excited to be back and making more friends. i’m very open to asks, dms, taglists, etc, so please feel free to reach out and i’ll do my best to do the same!

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writeblr introduction #ahhhhhh i'm bad at these lmao #i always sound so stiff and formal #i SWEAR i'm just a little weirdo

61 notes · View notes

skania · 11 months

Text

Replies to ONK Asks

If you've sent me an ONK-related message these past two days, the reply is below the cut!

Since ONK is taking over my blog, I'll work on a Masterlist so stuff is easier to find. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to use the search bar at the top of my blog to check if I've already replied to a particular topic!

Indeed, the fandom at large seems to be hit with a very serious case of confirmation bias. It doesn't only apply to the ships, either. For example, those who want Aqua to be Light-lite will let this bias cloud their interpretation of Aqua's every action lol

The obsession thing is genuinely hilarious though because of the cognitive dissonance 😂

You and me both! If Akane has to play one of the B-Komachi members, it would be nice to see Kana sharing her experience with her so Akane can understand her better. I'm also curious as to how their dynamic will be affected now that Akane has hardened up. I don't even know if Kana will be able to get a rise out of Akane anymore, but I kind of hope she does because Akane has been looking so stoic lately 😭

Aka's pacing is a hot mess. Sometimes the story moves at a snail's pace, and sometimes it moves at the speed of light lol

I'm glad we're finally diving deep into Ruby's mental state and her past as Sarina!

Thank you for this first ramble! I'm glad it worked 😂 I completely agree with you, the intimacy between Aqua and Akane really stands out and it's difficult to ignore. I think this is precisely why some feel the need to deny as much of it as possible: they have convinced themselves of the outcome of the manga, but still feel threatened by Aqua and Akane's dynamic. So, they try to explain it away in a fashion that won't question their desired endgame; hence all the bad takes about how Akane was just a tool to Aqua, etc.

I get how frustrating it can be, but I think that at the end of the day it's up to Aka to prove these people wrong, not us. All we can do is try to provide our perspective, but some people won't change their minds unless Aka delivers an Aqua/Akane ending. And even then, some people will still be in denial until the end of time lol

Re: your PS, I think that if Aqua/Akane happens, Aka will necessarily have to revisit their relationship before then, so people will be able to see it coming and will have time to come to terms with it. I imagine the 2nd Season will help as well because it's the Akane season, so anime-onlies will realize things aren't as set in stone as S1 may make them seem.

Hi there, anon!

On Akane and Ai

On Akane and being "obsessed" with Aqua

I haven't written anything on the third reason because I've thankfully never seen it, but I agree with everything you said!! Besides, the manga itself explains that Akane is hit harder than your average person because of how earnest she is. Instead of tuning out those messages, she felt like it was her duty to face those comments head-on. If anything, I feel that this only makes her even more amazing because she was able to come back from that stronger than ever 😭

Not at all anon, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! ❤️

I've given my opinion on the former here and here. As for Aqua's happiness being "fake", the lie lies in the fact that Aqua was building his happiness on running away from the truth. Aqua's "freedom" period and his relationship with Akane during it is something I'd love to write about properly later though, so I'll make a mental note to address this then!

and what's your opinion about people saying akane is crazy which is why she's "flawed?"

My opinion is that this hot take is not worth engaging with 😂 It's funny to see people wasting time with made-up flaws instead of discussing Akane's actual flaws though.

I imagine they'll announce S2 next week, so hopefully they also give us a tentative release period! I don't mind waiting for a bit as long as the quality is as good as S1's. If they go for 2 cours this time, Season 2 will truly be the Akane season.

I think the confirmation bias is likely even stronger in manga readers because they've been along longer. I've practically stopped checking OnK out in social media because some takes are just way too bad lol

Hi anon! I'm sorry, I left out the Kishimoto-related stuff because I didn't want to get sidetracked 😂 but to be perfectly honest with you, I'm not an Aka expert. I've only read one other work of his, Kaguya. I have no idea of whether he can be influenced by popularity or not because, in Kaguya, the intended ships also happened to be the most popular ones. The closest thing to a love triangle was pretty much just a distraction and a means for him to explore admiration and unrequited love lol

I do think that Aka is the type to go with whatever suits his vision/fancy best, though. I think he is more likely to be influenced by his own wants rather than the fandom's.

As for the anime, I'm honestly not sure how the merch gets decided. My best guess is that this season they're focusing all the marketing on the "Idol" side of the story, while next season the marketing will highlight the "Acting" side of it. There's no denying that it's pretty disappointing to see collab after collab with no Akane in sight though. I also think they shouldn't have added the recap episode right in the middle of Akane's arc; they should've waited and aired it one episode later. I feel that it kind of stalled the momentum Akane was building with the anime-only fandom, but that may be just me lol

However, what we need to pay attention to is how the anime handles certain scenes. The music cues. What they add, what they cut, what they change. Aka is the type to work very closely with the anime team and to give them information about the story in advance. So if they highlight certain scenes or make them more/less impactful than they were in the manga, it could mean something.

#onk asks convos #and I've caught up!#thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts with me!

17 notes · View notes