#i suppose i know a few things.. mostly art programs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pbandjesse · 5 months

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Today was fine overall. I had some big emotions. It was a struggle at times. But I am feeling mostly better. My ear still hurts but I slept better and that made things easier.

When I woke up this morning I actually felt pretty good. I got dressed and put on very warm clothes. I would be outside a lot today and I didnt want to be uncomfortable. And for the most part I succeeded.

James walked downstairs with me when it was time to go because they couldn't find the mask they like to wear for biking in the cold. I knew I saw it in the backseat. They went and looked and then gave up and I opened the door and it was right there. James is not great at searching for things. But we laughed and said goodbye. And I headed to work.

I felt like I was driving directly into the sun both to and from work today. But I was alright. I would survive, I would just complain a lot. Hurt my eyeballs.

When I got to camp I was surprised by how frosty and icy everything was. I drove around making sure everything was set up and good to go. I was a little stressed but was also trying to be chill. I had to make a few drives back and forth from the art building to the lodge but in the end everything got set up by 9 and and I went to the office to have breakfast.

Celia was pulling up the same time I was. We hung out in the warm office until everyone else came through. Elizabeth let us know that the group was going to be running late. Which was fine with me. I didn't mind cutting the fibers program, that's the whole point. That it can be cut if needed. And everyone still gets all the rotations.

So we waited. A little before 10 I went to the lodge to wait for the group and discovered the water was off in the bathrooms?? So I had to call Elizabeth and then do some googling to learn how to turn the water back on on toilets and sinks. So I have that skill now. Neat.

Ceila was waiting at the bottom of the hill to direct the buses but they accidentally went in the back. Which was fine but then when I talked to them they complained that we should really have a sign. And I was like. Well if you would have gone a mile up the road to the entrance you would have seen the sign? I realize now that may have come across more snarky then I meant.

But the group, though very late, was lovely. Super well behaved kids, just a joy even when they were being so bouncy. The teachers didn't have them in groups and I suggested we just go by table but that memo wasn't told to everyone I guess so there was some confusion and pushback but it was fine. We did the intro, they had good questions, and then they were off.

For the first hour I did a lot of rotations. Circling from the lodge to the office to the art building, the Hogan, the chickee, back to the lodge. I was walking to much I got sweaty and had to take my jacket off. The rest of me was fine but the coat was just a bit much. Once I cooled down during the second program I got my coat back on but a few teachers were surprised when they saw me in just my sweater directing people outside. It was truly a wintery day.

Which all things considered was nice. It is a little scary how warm it's been. It is supposed to be cold it's winter! I am glad I get to wear my winter things.

Sarah was running the fire station and right at lunch I noticed there was a concerning amount of smoke coming from that side of camp. So I called her and did not get an answer form her, instead getting one from Elizabeth asking me to head over there. I was a little concerned.

We don't exactly know what happened but the quick log had gone out (it's supposed to be a 4 hour burn) and started smoking like crazy and everyone has to leave the building. We didn't really understand but to try to mitigate she would shovel out the big part while I wejt to find some dry wood she could use after lunch. I had a fire starter on my desk and that seemed to work for the rest of the day.

We walked back to the office together to have a little lunch. And Elizabeth printed the invoice/receipt for the lead teacher. I would go and deliver that and give the group a five minute warning.

Which was also where my water turning off ability came on clutch because they someone overturned the sink handle and the water would not stop. But I turned off the water at the source and saved the day. Impressed the teacher even.

The afternoon went smoothly and I had some nice conversations with the adults. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I would take a little time to knit while waiting for the last program to wrap up. And at the end I was able to say thank you to everyone and talk a little about summer camp with the kids. It was just really nice. A really good day.

It took them a while to get together to leave. But they didn't seem like they were in a rush. After they were all out of the building I went to get my car and drove it over but since the bus hasn't come down the hill yet I waited at the bottom so I could wave to all the kids again. I hope this school comes back for other programs because they were awesome.

I was a little exhausted at this point. I appreciated my coworkers for packing up the materials for me to pick up and put away but they kind of did a messy job and it upset me to have to redo it. I was particularly upset by my organized markers getting messed up again. But I cooled down and things would be okay.

Dad called me to confirm a question I had and get an answer from the financial guy about buying a house. And we continue to move forward with that because we went to look at another tonight.

I was still thinking about the one form Sunday. But something seems to have happened because it was taken off the market this afternoon. Not sold. Just taken off the market. I'm pretty disappointed. I'm trying to not be to sad because that just means the perfect one is waiting for us somewhere.

After eveything was cleaned up I went to vent to Elizabeth for a few minutes. She told me about lotto tickets being a scam. And then she said if I wanted to leave early I could. I had a few things I needed to do first but I was going to take her up on that offer.

She printed a form for me and I worked on filling that out and sending it off. Played with a floor plan for the house, that I didn't get know was not going to work out, and then I headed home.

Again, driving directly into the sun. But it was fine. Minimal traffic. I had a podcast to listen to. I was in a good mood.

When I got home James came down to meet me and bring in some stuff from the car. The last of my market things mostly. And we would go upstairs for them to finish their bread making they had been working on today and pan fry some dumplings for me for dinner. I would also have some roast of their bread which came out really nice! Not as airy as Jess's but I think they are getting better every time.

We would hang out on the couch until around 6. When it was time to drive to Greektown to meet with Harold.

The gps took us a very strange way to avoid some traffic. Which was fine. We weren't in a rush. The neighborhood was super cute but smelled a bit like burning rubber. James said it's from the ports, being near the water. I was slightly afraid living there would give me a headache all the time.

But I really did like the house! I don't think we will move forward with it but it was so cute. So many cute details. And a full finished basement. And two kitchens?? Because the basement was acting as a grandmother's suite. I loved so many of the details but I can't let that cloud my judgement. This was a little more money and a little more out of the way.

We talked in the basement. About the house from Sunday and looking at other things moving forward. I said I think we should make an offer. Harold said he would look into the permits that went into the build to make sure it was all okay before we did that but we left in high spirits.

Which were immediately crushed when in the car ride back I realized the listing has been "canceled" and pulled off the market. I have faith that it just means that wasn't for us but I am a little heart broken. Third house that I was ready to move forward with that didn't work. And James blames themself for not saying yes right away. But we also dont want to rush anything. It's all very hard.

We got home and we were both a little bummed. But pretty quickly I found 4 more in Patterson to look at. And emailed them straight to Harold. Hopefully he can give us some answers and a plan tomorrow.

I went and took a shower and James and me have been chilling in bed. It's cold outside but it's cozy in here. And I know things will work out how they are supposed to.

I love you all. I hope you are warm tonight. Sleep well. Until tomorrow!

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carryoncastiel · 1 year

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I agree with some that AI as a whole is probably not gonna go away. It exists now and it's gonna be used. But I think this will affect mostly professionell, big company spaces. Some art may now be able to be streamlined, done faster and cheaper, than just using an artist for it. Which sucks for the artist(s) in question but unless anyone can shut down AI entirely that ship has probably sailed. That is the capitalist hellscape we live in.

However, the one place I think we all should absolutely stop that shit in it’s tracks is fandom spaces.

Be it fanfic writers or fanartists, these people are the backbone of any fandom. And they absolutely create out of love with years of hard work and skill. Most of the time for free. Fandom would be a boring wasteland without the creatives (shoutout to gif makers for their hard work too. But you don't got an AI coming for your work yet so I'm leaving you out of this topic)

To come into this space and throw out 10 or so pictures some program gobbled together in a few minutes out of the most popular fandom artists style and a shit ton of other artists's stolen art, and at worst having the gall to call that *your art*, is a fucking disrespectful thing to do.

Again, creatives do this all for free, alot of the time while juggling work and other real world responsibilties, to bring all of us fun content. Or maybe this is their work and they do depend on the income. Regardless, any person who has done (or tried to) art or to write a story knows how much time and effort that shit takes. Especially to make it good. What is the point of creating if people care more about the things a machine spat out without any effort at all?

I will say "create for yourself first" any day but people engaging with your work is the whole point of putting it on the web in the first place.

Creatives who do this in their free time cannot compete with a machine plain and simple, no matter how much AI art falls apart once you actually look closer (And that is very likely a temporary thing. At some point we probably will not see the difference anymore). Think of the people who already steal and repost artwork. AI can already immitate people’s art styles so what’s to stop someone from just making a prompt list they can feed the tool to have a new picture to post every single day? The artist whose style was taken could neither compete nor really tell the person they stole from them because techniclally they didn’t, they made something new. And other creatives whose skill might not be at that level yet and/or who don’t post very often can't compete with that either. Most people just physically cannot create a new fully painted and detailed piece of art every single day. If they’d try they burn out fast or actually damage their body in the process. That’s not worth it for something that’s supposed to be fun.

It’s bad enough creative work has become “content” these days and it’s already hard to get your work noticed. Let’s not make fandom even more demoralising for creatives by telling them “I can get cool looking art in a minute with this tool so why should I care about your stuff?”

I fear if we let this slide now we will lose a lot of people’s cool and unique ideas in fandom and it would be a damn fucking shame to have it be snuffed out by a tool that in the long run will benefit capitalism and the people who already see artists as disposable content dispensers that don’t deserve to get compensated for their work.

#ai art #ai art debate #fandom #my thoughts

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alma-andrada · 1 year

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eva noblezada, bisexual, nonbinary + she/they ― hey look, it’s alma andrada! they’re twenty-five years old, they’ve lived in shrike heights for all their life, and they’re currently working at applebee’s, art murmur and karaoke dokie . i heard they’re pretty short tempered, but i think they’re so reliable at the same time. can they make it out alive?

tw: mentions of prison/arrest

hello friends! finally felt a little balanced enough to go for a fourth and like dhruv alma is brand new to me so there’s lots to still discover but there’s a bit (I always say a bit and then write a bunch so here ya go LOL) about them below!!

About Alma:

Born and raised in Shrike to two very in love parents. The youngest of two siblings. She has an older brother who’s she’s grown to have a complicated relationship with for various reasons.

Her family didn’t come from much and relied very heavily on her mother’s job as a waitress and her father’s construction jobs. But both could be unsteady from time to time and her parents did their best to fill the house with as much love as possible. they were experts at making something out of nothing. But towards her pre-teen years they started to struggle more and her father picked up more shifts, more work, mostly work they weren’t supposed to know anything about.

In an effort to help provide for his family, Alma’s father got caught up with all of the wrong people and ended up getting arrested for driving the getaway car during a robbery.

It hit her family hard and there was a very quick shift in the house where her brother dropped out of school and started working until Alma was old enough and went to work as well, though she managed to graduate high school before doing that. She’s always generally been a hard worker and juggles a few part time jobs currently to help her mother keep their house. She’s a waitress at applebee’s, a cashier at art murmer (mostly so she can get discounts on art supplies) and has just recently started a part time role at karoke dokie because she felt like she needed something fun in her life.

Alma is the only person in her family who still visits her father in prison. He’s serving a clearly unfairly long sentence and more than anyone else involved but her mom held on as much as she could. Eventually she grew resentful and filed for divorce, started dating again which has only meant the weirdest of men ending up in their household. Her mother is still pretty present and watchful of Alma and her brother but has for the most part lost herself in working and men.

Alma on the other hand, always had a better relationship with her father who she goes to visit on a two hour bus ride there and back every Sunday and she has for as long as she’s been able to. She’s his connection to the world. Always telling him about new music or movies. Writing him letters to hold onto during the week. Keeping him entertained with stupid customer stories and the worst jokes she could think of. She makes sure he has money in his commissary and is trying her best to save up for a good lawyer so she can get him out of there. He’s definitely the one thing she refuses to give up on but she often doesn’t talk about him to people in her life. And if she does she always pretends like he just lives out of state.

Alma and their brother have tension over their own opinions of their father and they stay pretty pissed that he won’t go to visit their Dad. They try to still be their for one another regardless and still care about each other but have overall taken to mostly interacting when it comes to their mom or if one of them is in trouble.

But when Alma isn’t working her ass off or stressing tf out about family they’re spending their time on their truest passion: pottery. As a kid they had the chance to engage in an afterschool program which is where they were first introduced to clay art and pottery. They really took to it and the older they got the more they sought out learning it on their own. They used to save as much as they could to splurge at art murmur before there was an opening there and it became a bit easier. It’s not like they have access to a studio to work in so they do their best in their garage at home in what used to be their father’s work station. They started with little things. Bowls for jewelry, a mug or cup and have since grown into make larger vases and full dish sets. It brings them joy and whenever there’s a flea market or chance to sell their work they’ll take it.

They’re generally handy. Knows how to work a tool set. Their love language is very much “hey alma can you come fix this for me/help me out” especially if it requires building anything and using a hammer. They are all in and will build it well. They’ve been thinking about branching out into furniture making/woodwork but they only have so much time in the day.

Alma isn’t anti-social but mostly relies on work to make friends since her free time is usually spent in the garage, sleeping or trying to keep her fmaily together. But I imagine she has a good group of friends and people she’s known basically all her life. She loves making gifts for the people she loves and is super loyal and will show up when she says she will. But she’s also terrible at letting other people be there for her even if she is 100% a mess 100% of the time.

Possible Connections:

Co-Workers!!

Childhood/Highs School Friends

Best friends (like 1-2??)

Exes ( probably like one long term ex where they ended on not the best terms and one that was more of a cute fling and now they’re friends)

Someone who also takes the bus every sunday but probably to go somewhere different (or not!)

This may sound weird but kids of single dads who may temporarily date alma’s mom LOL that could be interesting

Older brother!! Eventually I’ll put up a WC for that but putting that out there.

Neighbors (i imagine the andrada’s probably live in old shrike)

#shrikeintro #about alma

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drill-teeth-art · 2 years

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you know if you were ever interested in like. making things out for your gamey gifs you could experiment with twine. it's a web app that even larger aaa game studios use that let's you do like a rough wire frame of like, decision trees and stuff that can be really great for doing anything kinda story based. it even let's ya put pictures in and people make like whole mostly text based adventures in it. most ya gotta do is move some tiles around a connect them with (drumroll) twine( ba dum tsh, laughter), like a conspiracy theory board

Thank you so much for the suggestion!!! In fact...I love Twine! Admittedly. It has been a hot second since I worked with Twine.

I suppose my programming experience isn't like full on zero. I have worked in Twine and in Ren'Py for fun in my free time. I haven't made anything fancy by any means, but I am pretty fresh in Ren'Py basics, and reacquainting myself with Twine wouldn't be too bad. Just not the formats I have in mind for this particular game concept. But theoretically. I could program a little Transformers game. Text based story adventure or visual novel, mainly. Perhaps, I will give that a try. Though I make no promises on it as of now XD

Handful of some Ren'Py visuals I made for myself under the cut for fun. Few individual sprites. Few screenshots from working game tests.

I quite love making the sprite art...

#ask #transformers #ocs #danganronpa #fantrolls #what a combo of tags there goodness

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lezziemanville · 2 years

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Janine and Jacob notice the secret glances between Barbara and Melissa so they try to get them to admit their feelings

They’re trying a new system out at Abbott called ‘Peer Learning”. The purpose of the system is to pair older kids with younger kids to help with reading while encouraging a camaraderie within the school. Melissa’s students have paired up with Barbara’s and Janine’s with Jacobs.

It’s highly successful and towards the end of the program, the kids create a series of art to showcase their experience and invite the parents to come witness the program at work in real time.

Janine pops in and out of classrooms rotating with other teachers in order to get a feel how the other classes are operating.

She catches Jacob standing by the wall of student art. He looks like he’s examining the scene of a mystery novel and Janine steps up beside him, tries to see what he’s seeing.

“Uhh Jacob what are you doing?”

“Huh?” Jacob seems to jolt a little in surprise, “Oh, I was just looking at these picture and I noticed… I don’t know it’s probably nothing.”

“What?” Janine doesn’t see anything amiss, just piece after piece of stick figures, blobs and colors.

“Do you notice how in like a lot of these, there’s a darker woman with black hair and a lighter woman with red hair holding hands with a heart over their head?”

Janine raises a brow, studies the pieces a little more closely. He’s actually right. It’s not unusual for children to include their families in their drawings but these drawings seem very school focused and mostly include thinks like desks and school rooms, but in many of the pictures these two characters exist.

“You’re right. Huh, well what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but the first thing that came to mind was Barbara and Melissa.”

Janine looks at a few more, notes the student’s names on the drawings. “Actually that makes sense, these students are in Melissa’s class. And that one there and this guy here - they’re Barbara’s.”

“So… I’m just a little curious by the hand holding and hearts in a bunch of these.”

“Well that could be anything. They’re best friends. I’m sure the kids know this about them by now. I know their classes are working together so it makes sense that the students would depict them, as sort of heads of the household I guess?”

“Mmm, yeah I don’t know. They’re kissing in this one.”

“Where?” Janine immediately zones in on the picture Jacob’s pointing to and is shocked to see the unmistakable depiction. That one even has Barbara’s sweater set and Melissa’s leather jacket.

“You don’t suppose…”

“The kids know things we don’t?” Jacob asks, while crossing his arms and studying a few other pictures a little further down the wall.

“Well, I don’t know about you but I want to find out.”

“How would we do that?” Janine looks towards him, dropping her voice to a whisper. “A stake out?”

Jacob seems to consider that, “but that wouldn’t tell us much, just that they walk out to their cars together. We know that much already. What about… interviewing the kids? But like harmlessly? Just casual questions?”

“We can’t ask the kids. We’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way…”

—

They’re in the staff room, the next day. Barbara and Melissa are seated together. Barbara’s reading a newspaper and Melissa is scrolling through her phone.

Janine looks at Jacob who seems at a loss so she just dives in as casually as she can, “I was listening to a KD Lang album on Spotify earlier. That girl really knows how to express her same-sex feelings so fluidly.”

Jacob winces.

“Do you ever listen to KD Lang, Barbara?” Janine asks, glancing at Jacob for reassurance.

“No.” The answer is short and to the point leaving no chance for further questioning.

“Interesting,” Janine says off-handedly, pretending to flip through a magazine she spies on the table.

“You know, I’ve always been a really big fan of Gertrude Stein. Gone too soon amirite?” She flips a few pages, finally sees something she can use “Oh wow Ellen Degeneres seems like she’s leading a fairly successful, happy life with her wife or as some people in the LGBTQ+ community prefer: life partner—“

Melissa looks up at her on that, raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell us something Janine?”

“What? No!”

“Oh I get it,” Melissa claps her hands together and points at her, “You were playing us with that ‘I’ve only been with my boyfriend my entire life’ nonsense. You’re bisexual!”

“No — that’s not…”

“Now that makes more sense,” Barbara says, only now looking up from her newspaper.

“Right?” Melissa smiles, looks back at Janine. “Hey, no judgement here from us.”

Barbara nods, “Absolutely not. I’m very proud of you Janine for being honest. And I mean, we’re relieved if anything. We really thought you had been serious about the boyfriend.”

“But I —“

“Tragic!” Melissa laughs softly, then stands gathering her things.

Barbara checks her watch and stands too.

Janine looks to Jacob, tries to find a way to walk back whatever ‘coming out’ she’s just experienced, but Barbara and Melissa are gone before she can recover.

“Dang it, Jacob! What happened to the whole partner detectives thing?”

“I didn’t know you’d just start listing famous lesbians!”

“Well, I didn’t hear a better strategy out of you!”

They’re still arguing inside the staff room while Barbara and Melissa make their way down the hallway. Barbara touches Melissa’s wrist and leans in, placing a quick gentle kiss to her cheek before stepping into her classroom.

#abbott elementary #work wives #melissa x barbara #barbara howard #melissa schemmenti #my fic

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lifeline-au · 2 years

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[ Intermission - QnA (1/2)]

What inspired this au? Many hours to ourselves, writing a bunch of drabbles we didn’t see fit to post. We took inspiration from multiple other works of writing, as well as other ask blogs. Personally, we enjoy writing more than we do art. [ ☠︎✌︎❄︎🕆︎☼︎✌︎☹︎☹︎✡︎ ]

Which one of the addisons is your favourite to write?

Radio is fun to write, and he’s our personal favourite addison. We like Survey as well, though in more of a ‘wow. that’s me’ kind of way. However, we enjoy writing dialogue for Spam much more than both of them combined. [❄︎☟︎☜︎ ☞︎⚐︎⚐︎☹︎ ]

Were you nervous about doing a writing ask blog since it's mostly common for an art ask blog? Oh yes, definitely. We were worried it would not be seen. We did not mind at the time, however it’s very nice to see such positive reception. Perhaps this will continue. [☜︎☠︎👎︎]

So when the Addison's appeared, were they adults, kids, or babies? How'd they find each other? Were they programmed to see each other as siblings, or is it a kind of 'found family' deal? A bit of all three. Related in the same way that all fruits or genres of books are. Not quite related. But also family. Found each other in the Cyber Fields, where we believe all other Cyber World darkners appear. [ 💧︎☜︎🏱︎☜︎☼︎✌︎👌︎☹︎☜︎ ]

You post an awful lot, are you taking care to not over work yourself? Yes. Probably. We’re not sure what ‘overwork’ means in your dictionary, but it probably doesn’t include writing ten paragraphs of words at 11PM in the night. [💧︎☹︎☜︎☜︎🏱︎]

What's you guys' favorite food? Us or the addisons? We believe you mean the addisons- in which case, we suppose Radio might like cotton candy. Video, blue raspberry flavoured anything. Survey, caffeinated energy drinks. Banner, frosted pastries- like cupcake. Spam, pancakes. [☹︎✋︎☜︎]

Why don't y'all believe our warnings? Please consider an intervention with Spam and...HIM before it's too late. I don’t believe you know who you’re talking to. [☞︎⚐︎⚐︎☹︎]

How many arcs will there be? There's of course Fame and Post-Fame, but what else? We have 5 arcs planned. Fame should be the longest- however it’s close competition between Fame and Post-Fame. The last two are a fun surprise. [☟︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎]

Will the story go through like the canon chapter 2 storyline? If it does , will we still be in contact with the addisons and spamton? Yes, it will. However, certain characters may lose contact at certain points. We will notify you when we break the line. [☹︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎]

What size are the character banners? 1062 x 247 pixels. [🕈︎⚐︎🕈︎]

Is it possible for a Lightner to be able to cross the boundary of both worlds and interact with the Darkners themselves if they were able to find the bridge connecting the two worlds? Or, Is it possible that only a selected few can cross that bridge? No. We don’t believe so. Only humans can cross. [ ✌︎ 💧︎⚐︎🕆︎☹︎]

Does a Darkner affect the Lightner world depending on how much their actions changes the surrounding areas or is it just the Lightners able to do that in the Drakner World? Only the light can really change things. [☹︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎]

I like both the concept and execution of this blog! Your writing is really good! Thank you. Your kind words have been received. [⚐︎☟︎📬︎📬︎📬︎]

CONTINUED

#lifeline au #if u saw me send this earlier no you didn't

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tennessoui · 3 years

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if you wrote obikin for #4 with anakin as a single parent and obi-wan as luke and leia's teacher i would simply die happy!!

here it is!!! thank you so much!

4. Teacher/Single Parent AU (modern!AU)(DinLuke shows up as little kids)(2.4k)(whoops)

Anakin stares across the table at Luke, who gnaws on a slice of grilled cheese, carefully leaving the crusts behind. Oh god, he’d forgotten to cut them off of Luke’s sandwich, had cut them off of Leia’s instead, even though she didn’t mind them. And of course they hadn’t told him either. He can’t tell if he’s been forgiven for his error or if it will come back to haunt him later tonight when he tries to put the twins to bed at eight.

“Luke,” he says carefully. “I think I’m just a little confused.”

Leia looks up. She loves when her father is a little confused because it means Luke is probably a bit in trouble and she gets to be the one to set the record straight for him.

Which isn’t to say Leia is a tattle-tale. Anakin’s seen her watch Luke hit another child upside the head with a toy train and then say absolutely nothing when questioned by the daycare instructor.

Daddy’s interrogations are just a special case where she can become a guilt-free turncoat.

“How did you get a Unicorn sticker in art class?” he asks.

The Unicorn stickers, of course, mean unsatisfactory.

He pays extra money for his children to be coddled and kept away from words like Fail and Unsatisfactory, even though that’s what all the parents know the stickers mean. As long as the children don't yet.

“And I don’t understand the rainbow sticker at all,” he continues helplessly, regarding the piece of artwork in front of him, where a handful of dried macaroni noodles are lacklusterly glued to the page.

“The Unicorn sticker means it was bad, but the rainbow sticker means that Mr. Kenobi forgives him,” Leia pipes up, leaning across the table to take the icky crusts from her brother’s plate and dipping them into her tomato soup.

“But it was dry macaroni,” Anakin says incredulously. Luke’s eyes start getting misty as he stares resolutely down at his plate. That’s the last thing Anakin wants. But he just doesn’t understand. Luke’s the most creative of both of his children, has seemed to take after Anakin in that way. Last Christmas, Anakin had given him a model train set that he’d put together inside of a week. If he can do that, he can do a self-portrait in dry macaroni.

“He gave Din all of his noodles,” Leia reports.

“Didn’t Din have any?” Anakin asks, feeling completely out of his element and also sort of like a detective trying to solve a cold case.

“He wanted to save them for his puppy,” Luke mumbles. “They just got him and they can’t figure out what he eats, so Din thought he could try macaroni because I told him I like macaroni and cheese a lot.”

Anakin is on the cliff of despair, but he can’t exactly ask whether or not this Din knows there’s a difference between the dried macaroni from art class and boxed macaroni and cheese from Kraft. He’s not sure he even wants to know the answer.

“And then Luke didn’t have a lot left for his picture,” Leia finishes the story and her soup in one fell swoop.

“Couldn’t you have asked Mr. Kenobi for more?” Anakin asks Luke who shakes his head but doesn’t seem to want to elaborate. Anakin turns only slightly pleading eyes to Leia, who is the expert on anything her brother doesn’t want to say.

“Mr. Kenobi sits at the front, and Luke sat at the back today so it was really far.”

“But you always sit at the front!” Anakin says, appalled. Sure, he hadn’t managed to make it to the most recent round of parent-teacher conferences due to an unfortunately timed shift at the garage, but he knows where his kids sit in a classroom.

Luke mumbles something into his bowl.

“What was that?” Anakin asks.

Leia translates. “Din doesn’t sit at the front,” she says.

Anakin sits back in his chair and runs a hand over his mouth. Luke has a crush. His son, Luke, has his very first crush on a boy and he’s already doing stupid things in order to see the boy. Oh no. Oh god. Of all the things to take after Anakin on, it’s this one.

“Okay,” he says, mostly to himself. “It’s okay. Unicorns aren’t so bad.”

“Way better than giraffes,” Leia tells her brother bracingly, seeming to know instinctively that the gossiping part of this conversation is over. “And you got a rainbow, which means Mr. Kenobi isn’t mad.”

Anakin wonders, with the context, if that’s actually what the rainbow means, or if Mr. Kenobi isn’t just incredibly observant.

“TV time, kids,” he says, only feeling sort of bad about the screentime or whatever, as Luke perks up and runs with Leia into the living room.

After five minutes to make sure they’ve successfully turned on and found a child-appropriate show, Anakin gathers the dishes and loads the washer. Then he sighs as loud as he can without disrupting the kids.

Then he pulls out his phone and the school directory and finds the email for one Mr. Obi-Wan Kenobi, art teacher.

It takes him twenty minutes to figure out an email that doesn’t sound too judgemental, harsh, worried, skeptical, or angry. It takes another five minutes to figure out how to sign off on it. Kind regards? Best? Thanks? Sincerely? What is the etiquette for emailing your son’s art teacher to arrange a meeting because you’re worried your son will fail the class simply because he’s inherited terrible genes from his father?

It takes ten minutes, in the end, for Mr. Kenobi to email back, and he does so with a very straightforward message. He’s available to chat after school hours tomorrow, if it works for Anakin.

Anakin pulls up his work schedule. He’s supposed to work until five in the evening tomorrow, has already booked a slot at the after-care program for the twins. But.

He texts Ahsoka to ask if she could cover the last few hours of his shift. She texts back a string of rather offensive emojis, but settles down when he tells her it’s for his kids. Technically, he isn’t even lying. He’s just being overbearing.

He spends another fifteen minutes trying to compose a response email in between making sure the kids brush their teeth, wash behind their ears, and have their bags packed for the morning. He’s so stressed out by it that he’s not even sure he includes a signature at all before he hits send. God. Meeting Mr. Kenobi had better be worth all of this stress.

---

Finding Mr. Kenobi’s classroom is almost more stress than the correspondence from the night before had been. The only reason Anakin doesn’t sit down and cry against the garishly yellow brick lining the hallways is that he keeps telling himself that if his two seven-year-olds can do this, Anakin surely can.

The art classroom is tucked away in a forgotten corner of the school and it takes three wrong turns and one accidental entrance into a thankfully deserted first grade room for Anakin to find it. He knocks on the open door and then decides he should call as well to announce his presence. “Uh, Mr. Kenobi? I’m Anakin. Skywalker. We talked last night?” He takes a couple of steps into the room, which is lined in children’s art and paint-stained tables.

A man emerges from a backroom, dressed in a very loose and paint-flecked denim shirt over a white tank top and a pair of slacks. He’s wearing a pair of thick glasses that he takes off as soon as he sees Anakin. His beard is neatly trimmed and his hair, a sort of bronzed auburn, neatly combed.

He’s holding a paintbrush in one hand, and still, of course, Anakin’s dumb brain overrides the part of him that’s saying, This is clearly Mr. Kenobi in favor saying, quite politely, “Oh! I’m sorry. Is Mr. Kenobi back there?”

The man who could not possibly be more obviously the art teacher raises an amused eyebrow.

Look. No one told Anakin that elementary school art teachers could be so attractive. He’d not done anything to prepare for this.

“You must be Luke’s father,” Mr. Kenobi says, waving him forward.

“What makes you say that?” Anakin asks, a tad too defensively, thinking of his own self-deprecating thoughts last night about Luke taking after him when it comes to being sort of stupid around people they liked. He’s just being paranoid.

“The...last...name,” now Mr. Kenobi is definitely trying to hide his smile and Anakin wants to die. “Would you like to sit?”

Anakin does so rather graciously, given the circumstances. He even makes sure he keeps their chairs very far apart. Mostly in order to preserve his own dignity, but he thinks he should get credit for his self-control at this spur of the moment single-parent-hot-teacher conference.

“I’m sorry for my appearance,” Mr. Kenobi says, pulling the oversized button up closed over his tank top. “I must admit, I mostly forgot you were coming by. I was working on one of my own projects.”

“You paint?” Anakin asks.

Mr. Kenobi tilts his head slightly and flicks his eyes around the room as if in answer.

Anakin flushes but digs his heels in. “Well, I don’t know,” he mumbles mulishly. “Do math teachers do math in their spare time?”

This startles a laugh out of the teacher, which makes some long forgotten part of Anakin’s psyche sit up and preen. “I’m sure some of them do,” he says. “No, I do art mostly for the town right now. I’m working on a series of pieces for the public library at the moment.”

Anakin tries his hardest not to obviously melt, but Mr. Kenobi has not looked away from his face much so surely he can see it in his eyes.

“That’s quite. Nice,” Anakin says, coughing into his fist.

“And what do you do?” Mr. Kenobi asks in a way that’s just on the other side of polite. Anakin has the strange thought that if they had cups of coffee between them, he’d feel like he was on a very casual first date.

He has to shake his head to rid himself of that idea. “I’m a mechanic,” he says.

Mr. Kenobi looks interested, of all things. Most people don’t. Most people make some sort of assumption about him, about his life, his ability to parent his children, as if they’re not the ones rolling into his shop at 5:54 pm because their car is “making a funny noise”.

But Mr. Kenobi just looks interested.

“Oh?” He says. “That makes sense. Leia is always talking about how her father can fix anything.”

“Well,” Anakin blushes and looks away. “You know kids. Turn it off and turn it back on usually blows their minds.”

Mr. Kenobi smiles indulgently before clearing his throat. “You wanted to talk about Luke?”

“Oh! Yes!” He had come here with the express desire to talk about Luke with Mr. Kenobi. Not secure a date with Mr. Kenobi. “I saw that Luke got a... unicorn...and a rainbow on his last project, and it made me worry.”

It sounds very, very overbearing coming out of his mouth. This is an elementary school art class. Why did he think that he should come in and talk to a teacher over his son’s bad grade? Especially when it was pretty clear Luke deserved it.

Mr. Kenobi tilts his head in confusion. “Well, yes, I suppose I usually give Luke two suns on his work, so I understand if the change was upsetting to you.”

“And we’re saying that two suns are good?” Anakin checks, feeling very out of his element here.

“Oh, yes, very good,” Mr. Kenobi assures him. “But his last project wasn’t. Well.”

“He says he got distracted,” Anakin mutters, rubbing a hand down his face. “Over a boy.”

“Haven’t we all been there,” Mr. Kenobi murmurs, sounding very amused. Anakin peeks over his fingers at this declaration.

“Yeah,” he says roughly. “That’s sort of exactly what I thought.”

Mr. Kenobi clears his throat again. “Well. That’s why I gave him the unicorn then. It was a bit of bad work, but a very rare showing of it. And the rainbow, to signify that I know he’ll be back to normal again next time. You shouldn’t worry about this one project either, Mr. Skywalker. I do give final grades holistically, not weighted by any one assignment. This is, after all, a children’s art class.”

Anakin wants to thunk his head on the table in front of him. “You do know that all the parents think unicorn means unsatisfactory, right?”

“Why?” Mr. Kenobi has the nerve to look shocked.

“They both start with U, I don’t know,” Anakin says, waving an agitated hand through the air.

“Well, sometimes parents can be quite stupid,” Mr. Kenobi says primly and then looks horrified at himself. “Please don’t tell them I said that.”

Anakin laughs and gets to his feet reluctantly. His worries over Luke have been dealt with, but he finds himself very reluctant to leave.

“Well,” he says slowly, eyes firmly looking only at Mr. Kenobi’s face, “Thank you for meeting with me. I guess you don’t get many frantic parent-teacher conferences over a unicorn sticker.” He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck with his hand in embarrassment. He can admit now that perhaps he had overreacted.

Mr. Kenobi places his hand delicately over the hand Anakin still has on the table, just for a second, squeezing it with enough pressure that Anakin has to look up at him again. “Only the best parents,” he says with a half-smile.

Anakin finds himself grinning back, unwilling to move his hand now that Kenobi’s touching it. “And, um. If you ever take the kids on an art museum tour or something, and you need chaperones….give me a call.”

“Would I have to wait that long?” Kenobi asks innocently.

Anakin’s never shaken his head no so quickly before. “Any time,” he tells the man very seriously, already backing out of the room. “Before you think too much about it and decide not to would probably be preferable.”

Mr. Kenobi laughs. “I’m sure I’ll think about it a lot,” he says as he turns to go back to his art studio. He calls over his shoulder. “In bed, tonight.”

Anakin trips over a child-sized easel with a loud clatter and an even louder curse, and he can’t decide which of the two should be more thankful school is out for the day. Probably Mr. Kenobi. Yeah. Probably definitely Mr. Kenobi.

#asks #my fics #obikin #just fluff #also omg re: my last tagged fic prompt and my gyoza #i was so excited about my gyoza i forgot to add a keep reading cut #so it looks SO long #and i went back and i added it but im also very sorry #i also had three gyoza which was a bit too much for 12:45am #and now it's 3:15 but i finished another prompt bless #prompt fill #art teacher obi-wan au

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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Your Power...Your Theme

This post is born because of @waywardtravelerfart asking about a comparison between Semblances (Rwby) and Quirks (BNHA).

In general, I am not a hardcore BNHA fan, though, so I decided to drag other magic systems in this comparison.

So, I will be comparing...

1) Semblances:

2) Quirks:

3) Nen (HxH):

4) Abilities (BSD):

5) Magic (WHA):

Body and Soul

1) & 3)

Pyrrha: Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there? With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals.

Nen and Semblances are very similar ideas. Both have their root in the concept of aura aka life force and are trained through specific exercises that are based on martial arts.

More importantly, they are manifestations of a person’s soul.

This is why in both series they are linked to one’s individuality:

Ren: A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are.

And both Nen and Semblances grow and evolve with the person.

At the same time, both stories focus not only on the soul, but also on the body.

In HxH Gon and Killua must train their bodies just as much as their nen. No matter how much stronger their auras become, they would still be left defenseless if they forget about basic training and if they do not take care of their bodies.

Similarly, Huntsmen and Huntresses in Rwby have both Semblances and Weapons:

By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting.

Weapons are linked to personalities just like Semblances are:

Ruby: Just weapons? They’re an extension of ourselves! They’re a part of us! Oh, they’re so cool.

It is only through the combination of weapons and semblances that one becomes strong and whole.

In order to experience humanity to its fullest, one needs both a soul:

And a body:

In short, Semblances and Nen are representative of the Soul. They are a physical projection of it. Moreover, they need to be completed by the Body to properly work.

BSD abilities are similar because they clearly symbolize characters’ coping mechanisms.

They are linked to people’s personalities and their effects are highly variegated and impossible to explain through biology alone (for example, a character is able to materialize a whole room in another dimension).

At the same time, they seem to have some physical properties.

For example, it is possible to create artificial abilities and to implant them into people. The process has yet to be properly explained, though.

This can be compared to the research on aura made in Rwby.

That said, this specific research is framed negatively by the narrative because it is an attempt to control what it should not be (a person’s soul).

Similary, in BSD, such experiments are criticized as well because they violate human rights and are an attempt to weaponize abilities, which is an ongoing topic explored by the story.

Quirks are instead framed as the result of biological evolution. This creates an interesting inversion compared to the other stories. Quirks are not simply physical representations of a character’s psychology, but they are a part of the reason why that character develops a specific coping mechanism.

Toga is attracted to blood because her Quirk is about drinking blood, so she naturally likes it.

Shigaraki’s destruction traumatizes him because it leads to his family’s death.

Touya’s weak constitution makes his power difficult to use, hence he develops self-hurting tendencies.

Finally, Magic in WHA is something that exists outside the characters.

It is not something people are born with, but an art they can master through study and dedication.

Its origin is still unknown, but it is explained that it works thanks to specific materials:

And even human blood can be used to strengthen it:

In short, Magic is a human art that makes use of specific natural resources and a specific knowledge to create several effects. In a sense, its logic is similar to both art and programming. It is similar to art because the witches need to exercise on drawing and to be creative on their approaches to things. It is similar to programming because they must use what is basically a specific language made of symbols to create different effects.

So, Magic is not linked to a person’s soul in the way other magical systems are, but a character’s personality still emerges from the kind of magic they specialize in. This is something unavoiable... after all this is how personality works in real life as well... we all have different approaches to problems and beliefs that will emerge in our art and in our jobs.

In conclusion, all these magical systems are connected in different ways to characters’ personalities, to their flaws and to their symbolic roles in the narrative.

In these metas, there are some examples of how this happens for HxH, Rwby, BSD and WHA.

Power and Privilege

3) & 5)

Nen and Magic are similar:

With enough training, both powers can be used by everyone.

However, both HxH society and WHA society choose to keep them secret because the damage that could come from sharing this knowledge is potentially devastating.

That said, both stories also show how there is hypocrisy behind this stance.

HxH does so in an indirect way.

Nen is supposed to be secret, so that dangerous people can’t use its power for wrong reasons.

However, many hunters are not really moral people. If anything many are violent and ready to kill. The exam itself encourages these tendencies since it does not punish murderers. Moreover, it turns out that very dangerous people already know about nen:

WHA explores this theme more directly:

The secret behind magic creates inequality. Magic could be used to help much more people, but it is limited by the law that imposes witches to keep the secret and forbids them from using magic to heal.

The result is an unjust society and a paradox. Isn’t there another way to use magic that it is less elitarian?

2) Similarly, quirks create inequality in BNHA. However, the mechanisms behind it are slightly different.

Not only people without quirks are discriminated, but also people with specific powers are considered less than others.

This happens either because the power is considered weak or lame or because it is considered a villain power.

In other words, BNHA society nurtures a simplicistic and black and white vision of quirks and people. This leads to some being discriminated for their quirks and to others being excused of everything because of their abilities.

4) In BSD, we have a similar yet partly opposite situation.

Ability users are mostly dehumanized and weaponized by society.

Basically the series explores how society makes use of its more vulnerable members and objectifies them.

So, in BSD having an ability is not really a synomim of privilege, but it is rather something that can set you apart and make you a victim of your country or your organization.

Because of this,the characters struggle to both accept their powers, but also not to be defined by it.

1) Finally, the case of RWBY is interesting because even if society is founded on privilege and inequity, semblances are not really a pivotal part of it.

It is much more common for people to be discriminated because of their bodies (like the Faunus) or their social status than for their semblances. Surely, cases like those exist, but they are not particularly explored by the story.

This might be because semblances are just one of many factors that determine a personal’s stance in society. Moreover, it is not even that clear how much common people know about semblances and aura. I would not say it is exactly a secret, especially because semblances can manifest themselves in a variety of situations. Still, it seems to me that they are mostly aknowledged and accepted by common people, but not exactly pursued or studied.

Symbolically, semblances are linked to an ancient magic that has been forgotten by people. This could tie with why some people, especially in Atlas, have been dismissive of them to an extent. Whitley dismisses his own and is not interested in developing it, while Watts is one of the few characters who fight without a semblance.

It might very well be that human technology and dust make so many different effects possible that a semblance, even if important for a warrior’s own strength and individuality, is not really the only factor that determines the place of a person in society.

In conclusion, all these power systems are linked to privilege in different ways. They are used to explore social inequality or parts of the society that are either repressed or not aknowledged.

Choices and limits

1) 2) & 4)

Quirks, Abilities, Semblances and their limits are not chosen. You are born with them and the most you can do is to try and overcome the limitations or to come up with clever ways to use your power.

You can train your Quirk, so that it becomes stronger.

When it comes to Abilities instead, characters usually must train to control what are potentially dangerous powers.

There are also abilities that help other people to control their powers and modify how these powers work. For example, there is a character whose ability is about summoning a fighting avatar. However, to do so, she needs to be called on a specific phone and it is actually the one calling that commands the avatar. Still, thanks to the influence of the above mentioned ability, she becomes able to summon the avatar at will and does not need the phone anymore.

Finally, in the case of Semblances, you need to meditate and to train your semblance, so that it can evolve. At the same time, though, semblance evolution can happen also because of specifical psychological conditions.

For example, Ren’s Tranquility both activates and evolves not because of physical training, but because of stress (the first time) and emotional growth (the second). This is fitting because his ability has mostly to do with emotions, so it is telling that it evolves as he grows emotionally rather than physically.

Ruby’s semblance is instead a physical one since she is super fast. So it is fitting that it mostly manifests and evolves with her training at using it.

Finally, when it comes to semblances, you do not really choose how they evolve and what new effects you gain. They are mostly an unconscious part of yourself that grows with you.

3) & 5)

The kind of magic you specialize in and the nen power you are gonna have are things one chooses.

To be more specific, they are influenced from one’s talents, but then they evolve according to a person’s choice.

For example, the protagonist Gon has an aura which is particularly good to strengthen things, so he chooses to use it to strengthen his punch. Moreover, he really likes Jankenpon, so he comes up with a power that uses this game. It is a technique that creates different effects depending on what he chooses to “play” (scissors, rock or paper).

Similarly, Coco is good at drawing straight lines and this makes her good with basic magic, that she uses in original ways because of her thinking outside the box. Her teacher Qifrey instead specializes in water magic because he used to be scared of water when he was little and wanted to overcome this fear.

At the same time, both nen users and witches must face limitations.

Nen has limitations that are self-imposed and decided by the users.

Magic has limitations that are imposed by society and codified through law.

Nen works with the idea that the stronger the limitation you set, the stronger will be your power. Similarly, if you sacrifice something, you can obtain a more powerful effect.

For example, another character called Kurapika creates chains with different powers. One of his chains has the limitation to only work on the members of a specific criminal group. Moreover, if Kurapika breaks this rule, he’ll lose his life. Since the sacrifice Kurapika has decided is pretty extreme, that chain is basically impossible to break.

Of course, limitations do not need to be so extreme. The protagonist’s jankenpon is limited by the fact he says out loud the name of his technique and takes time to use it (both goes against him, since it gives his opponent time to prepare). In this way the power gets stronger.

Magic is a very dangerous force, so it is prohibited to use magic on people’s bodies. This includes the idea that you can’t heal bodies directly or that you can’t change the way you look. It also forbids people from using blood to make magic stronger and to put glyphs on a person’s skin.

These limitations challenge the characters and force them to think outside the box. For example, Coco wants to save her mom who became a stone. The best way to do so is to use magic on her, but this is prohibited hence Coco keeps brainstorming about how she can do it and even thinks about breaking the law multiple times.

In conclusion, powers are often linked to the self and the degree of control and choices characters have on them is symbolic of which part of the self we are talking about.

In the case of semblances and abilities, they mirror an unconscious part.

A Quirk is a biological factor that influences one’s self instead and that everyone can try ot develop in a way they like.

Finally, nen and magic are a conscious part of the self that still mirrors unconscious tendencies.

Not only that, but abilties have limits that come from either outside the person or inside them.

POWER SYSTEMS AND THE FIVE KINDS OF CONFLICT

In stories, there are at least five types of conflict.

1) Man vs Self

2) Man vs Society

3) Man vs Man

4) Man vs Nature

5) Man vs God

The magic systems we explored are linked to at least three of these five types.

Man vs Self

Supernatural abilities are linked to a person’s interiority and personality. Often they are representative of the character’s flaw and their limits can be overcome only by the person’s growth.

Man vs Society

Power systems end up being influenced and influence fictional societies.

They can represent privilege or some wrongdoing in society itself.

Alternatively, they can be limited by society’s rules and imposed laws.

Man vs Man

It is not uncommon to have special powers used in fights. In this case, they become symbolic ways to explore characters’ relationships, themes and different value systems.

This is something that BSD, HxH and Rwby do a lot. WHA has had less fights as for now, but it is definately something that has come up and will come up more in the future. Finally, I am not too much into BNHA to comment on the series, but I would be surprised if it is not the same there as well.

In conclusion, I do not really have much to say on the onthology of powers in different narrative worlds and tbh I do not think this is really what many writers think about when they design them. I think what writers focus on is how to make interesting powers that convey a character’s personality, can be used to explore the world and give life to entertaining fights.

#hxh #bnha #rwby #bsd #wha #waywardtravelerfart #meta #my meta #magic system

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pbandjesse · 2 years

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I feel very tired. It's mostly because my allergies have been going crazy all day and which always knocks me off my feet. But it wasn't a bad day at all. I wish I made more art but it's fine. It will be okay.

I woke up this morning and felt alright. I slept in just a little bit. And that was good. I had about an hour and a half until I was supposed to go meet Jessica. So I got up and got dressed and did a little cleaning. I texted with James. They let me know a package came and it was a stuffed raccoon they got for me. Me yelling about being impervious to raccoons is even funnier to me now.

I tried very hard not to be weird about when it leave to meet her. The place is only 10 minutes away and I didn't want to be really early. And I would end up being five minutes early still. But that was fine.

The place ended up being closed anyway. For vacation. Ah well. The cafe next door was also closed on Sundays. So I texted her and suggested Pepe's restaurant because they have good omelettes. And would meet her there.

I ordered my food at the counter and waited for her. My food got there a few minutes after she arrived. And she ordered an omelette too. And it was a good chat. She works for the national guard doing child programing for the kids of the people who work there. And she wants to bring me in as a contractor essentially. So it would be four weekend classes. We talked about what classes could work, timelines, proposals, lessons plans and stuff. I will work on that this week but I'm excited for another little gig. Especially since I don't plan on doing the science center this year.

We would talk about wedding stuff, she's a good friend of James's so she is invited, and she just had her sister's wedding recently so it was just really nice to hear someone who recently helped plan a wedding. Felt a little more secure. And then we would say goodbye and headed out into the world.

I went to the closest pet store to look for another Betta. And it was only like 10 minutes away. It wasn't the newest store but it was fine.

They had some interesting Bettas but not many. Honestly their water looked pretty dirty. But the thing that got me was that three of them were huge?? Like at least three times larger then the other Bettas but in the same size cup. I was not thrilled with the store and wasn't going to get one but then I knew I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it. I could only get one but I picked the most lively one. They reminded me of a bucking bronco. They were really flipping around. I have named them Bruce.

I also got 8 shrimp, 4 for each tank, and two snails. A rabbit snail and a blue mystery snail. The rabbit snail is super cool and seems really active. And the ghost shrimp I got were $1 each and are also pretty fun to see in the tank.

I went home after that and got everyone in their tanks. Bruce seems a little scared of the shrimp and has mostly been hiding behind the filter. But I'm sure he'll be okay. Everything else went great and I'm really excited.

I spent the rest of the afternoon chilling. I vacuumed and swiftered the floors. I trimmed my bangs. I chose an outfit for tomorrow. I watched videos and had some pie. It was a good day.

James would come home. My allergies had started to kick up again after calming down for a while. And James would hang out with me and it was so nice. We would try to work on our banner for a bit but I started feeling dizzy so I went and laid down. Where my allergies sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I couldn't sleep but I also couldn't breath right. I wasn't having fun.

Meds and a very good quesadilla helped a lot. We would work on planning our mini honeymoon trip for the Sunday to Tuesday after the wedding. We keep changing our minds. But I think we are going to go to DC. No driving, free musuems, just getting to have fun and be together. I'm looking forward to that.

I took a bath and now we are in bed. I am looking forward to sleep. I hope tomorrow is great.

It's the last week of camp. And I'm sad about that but it will be a good week. I can feel it. I hope you all have a great night tonight. Take care of yourself. Good night!!

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specialagentsergio · 3 years

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all we can do is keep breathing || chapter two

summary: Spencer’s doing better, but recovery isn’t linear, and some scars run deeper than either of you knew.

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

category: angst (eventual happy ending)

content warnings: swearing, drug abuse & addiction, substance use disorder, ptsd, descriptions of panic attacks/ptsd episodes, recollection of past bullying, unhealthy coping mechanisms, yelling/fighting, negative feelings towards other team members, body image issues

a/n: i was so taken aback by the response to chapter one--i didn’t think anyone would even read it tbh. thank you all and thanks for being patient with my lack of an upload schedule. i'm so sorry the word count is massive again. you get tummy appreciation, though, because 1) we all love spencer’s tummy, and 2) i personally gained weight when i was in residential treatment and it can be a bit of a mindfuck lol.

a/n 2: repeated disclaimer that i'm not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, etc., just a direct care staff, past rtc patient and trauma recovery enthusiast. the horse therapy is pretty much entirely based on my own personal experience from nearly a decade ago, so don’t expect it to be an accurate portrayal of equine-assisted psychotherapy.

word count: 7.3k

song: you will be found from dear evan hansen

fic masterlist || masterlist

He’s been looking forward to the start of equine therapy since he got a spot in the program. But instead of being excited the morning of, Spencer ends up crying for an hour straight.

The day started off fine. It wasn’t hard to get up with the horses to look forward to, and he was able to get an extra plate at breakfast, so he could keep the pancake syrup from touching the eggs and sausage. Art therapy was a few hours later. He’d started to actually enjoy the pottery project—the recreational therapist had brought him a box of disposable gloves to use so the feeling of drying clay on his hands was no longer a problem.

Everyone’s projects were coming out of the kiln today and the next step was painting them. He’d been planning out the design and colors he wanted to use since the project started and was excited to finally start applying it.

Then he dropped his item, it broke into pieces, and he burst into tears.

He’d fled the room on instinct alone and curled up in a corner of the hallway, pressing his knees to his forehead. He was upset about the pottery, and upset that he was so affected by it breaking. He felt stupid and silly for crying over it, which only made him cry harder.

He heard distant laughter and he clapped his hands over his ears. He was being laughed at again for being a crybaby. He didn’t want to be a crybaby. He wanted to stop crying, he just couldn’t. The goalpost was cold against the bare skin of his back, and his wrists were starting to burn from the ties.

I want to go home. Just let me go home, please, I’ll do anything. Let me go, let me go--

“Spencer, it’s okay. You’re safe here. Can you repeat after me? I’m safe here.”

Safe here. Safe here.

Art therapy was over by the time he came out of it.

He has lunch at his therapist’s office instead of with the group. Lara asks what his flashback had been to.

He picks at his food. “It happened a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Alright. Can you tell me how it felt instead?”

Spencer isn’t really hungry, but bites into his sandwich to stall for time. She doesn’t rush him. Eventually, he asks, “Do you know what alexithymia means?”

“No words for feelings,” she replies.

He nods. “That’s all.”

Lara opens one of her desk drawers and pulls out a composition notebook, which she then hands to him.

“What’s this for?”

“I want you to start trying to notice your feelings and sensations throughout the day. Make some kind of note, even if you don’t exactly have the words to describe it.”

He sighs. “Why?”

“Just noticing what you feel can help you develop emotional regulation,” she explains. She’s always been honest with him about the why of what she wants him to try and do. “It’s going to help you stop ignoring what’s going on inside you.”

I don’t want to do that.

“I know you don’t.”

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” he blurts. “That either. I—god.” He quickly takes another bite of food before he can say more.

“It’s fine. I didn’t expect you to like it,” Lara says with a small smile. “I’m sure the thought of confronting what you’ve been suppressing and avoiding is scary. But getting better requires you to do a lot of scary things.”

Spencer wants to protest. Being strapped to a chair in a shed and dosed against your will is scary. Your mother being diagnosed with Alzheimer's is scary. Being sent to prison for a crime you didn’t commit is scary. Feeling things? That’s not scary.

Isn’t it?

He tries not to think on it too much.

Despite the unpleasant thoughts running through his mind, Spencer finds himself nodding off on the van ride to the horse ranch. His eyes unfocus, his blink rate slows… and then he jerks back awake at the sensation of his head falling forward.

A frustrated noise escapes the back of his throat. He’s sick of feeling tired all the time. He’s getting enough sleep in theory, but still finds himself drowsy at least once a day. It’s to the point that he’s regularly wearing his glasses instead of his contacts to keep his eyes from feeling quite so dry. He pushes them back up now as he tries to tune back in to his surroundings.

“… don’t get how seeing some horse is supposed to make me feel better.” That’s Aiden’s voice. He’s Spencer’s new roommate. He wasn’t happy when he found out he was getting a new one, having much preferred having the room to himself, but it’s been okay so far, mostly because they keep out of each other’s way. Aiden seems uninterested in making friends, and that suits Spencer just fine. Lara’s been encouraging him to talk to fellow patients instead of just the direct care staff, but he’s resisted it. The last time he befriended someone, they ended up--

Spencer’s fine with the two of them keeping to themselves.

Melanie, one of the staff accompanying them, is leaned over the back of the middle seat as she talks to Aiden. “Well, I couldn’t tell you why exactly, but I’ve seen this program help a lot of people in my time here,” she says. “Spencer?”

“What?”

“You’ve been reading a lot about horses, right?” At his nod, she continues, “What have you found out?”

“Equine-assisted psychotherapy lacks the rigorous scientific evidence to demonstrate if it provides benefits in mental health treatment. Horses have been used to aid in psychiatric treatment since the 1990’s, though,” he says. He intends to stop there, but can’t stop himself from continuing. “It doesn’t necessarily involve riding, but may include grooming, feeding, and ground exercises. The goal is to help the client in social, emotional, cognitive, and or behavioral ways.”

He can feel Aiden’s eyes on him and takes a breath before meeting them. He knows all too well that his infodumps aren’t always well received. He doesn’t want to be friends, but would prefer for his roommate to not view him with disdain or annoyance. But Aiden looks interested, and says as much--”that’s interesting.” He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t, and there’s silence between them for the remainder of the drive. It’s not uncomfortable, though.

When the van pulls into a parking spot and everyone starts to get out, Spencer begins to feel nervous. He’s read everything he could get his hands on, but as a relatively new therapy, there’s no standard program; it varies by facility, so he doesn’t know exactly what to expect. He’s been looking forward to this, but what if it turns out to be a bad fit for him? What if the people here don’t like him? What if the horses don’t like him?

He hangs at the back of their group of ten—six patients and two staff—as they’re led to a shaded area. They’re introduced to the program director and assistants, and are given an overview of what they’ll be doing over the next six weeks. They won’t be riding the horses, just doing groundwork (he’s not sure if he feels relieved or disappointed). Then he learns that intention of this specific program isn’t just for the horses to help the clients—the clients are to help the horses as well. The animals all have the gentle temperaments suited for therapy, but also have their own struggles. A lot of them were adopted out of poor situations.

They’re led to a circular corral next and spaced equidistantly around the edge. Spencer’s heart rate picks up as the horses are brought in—the animals will be picking their therapy partner, the director says. As they’re let off their leads a jolt of anxiety runs through his body, making him twitch slightly. This feels uncomfortably familiar to school P.E. when teams were picked. No one wanted him then. What’s gong to happen if none of the horses want him, either? He looks down at his shoes.

But just a few moments later, he hears his name, and looks up to see one of the horses approaching him. “Looks like you and Chance are our first pair,” the director is saying.

First?

Chance is almost entirely black, save for a spot of white between his eyes and above his nose. His size is a little intimidating, but his demeanor is gentle. One of the assistants comes up to Spencer and instructs him to hold out his hand so the horse can sniff it.

His hand trembles slightly as he lifts it. Warm breath hits his fingers as Chance sniffs at it. Then the horse presses his nose completely against his hand. The moistness would usually bother Spencer, but for some reason it doesn’t. Instead, a smile slowly spreads across his face. The assistant tells him he can pet Chance now. He runs his hand up and down the horse’s snout, and despite the slight coarseness of the hair, finds it soothing.

The horse shuffles closer when Spencer is given his lead to hold. A startled laugh escapes him when Chance presses his nose into his neck. He pats his head a few times, then takes a tiny step back. He’s thrilled that at least one of the horses likes him, but feels a little crowded by the large animal. To his surprise, Chance seems to understand, and takes a step back of his own.

He absently pats his horse as he watches the rest of the group pair up. He still can’t believe he was picked first.

The rest of their time with the horses is very simple. They’re taught how to lead them, and after practicing in the corral, they take the horses back to their paddocks. Spencer’s disappointed to say goodbye already, but understands the need to not overwhelm the horses or even themselves. “I’ll see you next week,” he finds himself whispering to Chance.

There’s ten minutes left in the session, and it’s spent with the director telling them more about each horses’ specific background. Chance was poorly treated by his previous owner, mostly kept locked up in a small barn and not properly cared for. He has many talents and abilities, the director says. He needs to learn that he didn’t deserve to be treated the way he was, and be told that he is brave.

Spencer rests his chin in his hand and stares out the window on the drive back to the treatment center. He knows from his reading that horses are emotionally intelligent creatures, but he’s still… well, amazed by how the horses all picked who was most similar to them out of the group instinctively.

He feels more understood by an animal he’s interacted with for twenty minutes than he has by a person for months.

Before bed that night, he chews on the stem of his pen cap, thinking over the events of his day. Slowly, in a manner that could almost be described as cautious, he picks up the empty composition book Lara gave him and opens it. His hand hovers over the blank page for a few moments, then he puts pen on paper and begins to write.

---

You made dinner reservations for his visit this Saturday. You’re getting ready for it when there’s a knock on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Spencer calls from the living room.

You return to fixing your hair up. You’re not expecting anyone, so it’s probably just a package or a neighbor. But just a few moments later, you hear Spencer raise his voice.

“No! No, I don’t—don’t touch me, please.”

You’re only half dressed, but hurry out to the living room anyways. When you round the corner, you immediately see what the problem is: JJ has dropped by unexpectedly.

It’s not that Spencer doesn’t want to see his team. They just bring memories with them, and he had decided shortly after his birthday that he wasn’t ready to confront that yet.

He’s standing a little ways back from the door, staring at JJ while she looks back with hurt on her face. “Spence--” she starts before she sees you.

At Spencer’s side, you place a hand on his arm and he takes a step behind you. “JJ, what are you doing here?”

She struggles to keep her eyes off of him as she answers. “(Y/N), I’m sorry, I just—Will and I made cookies with the boys today and we had a lot of extra, so I just wanted to drop some off for you. I—I didn’t know Spence was here. I didn’t mean to--”

You hold up a hand to stop her. “It’s okay, JJ. You couldn’t have known. You were just trying to do something nice.”

She nods, relieved at your understanding. “Yeah. Yeah, I….” She blows out a breath, then holds out a plastic wrapped plate of cookies to you. You take it from her with a quiet thank you. Then she looks back to the man that’s essentially hiding behind you as best as he can, despite how tall he is. “Spence, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you wouldn’t want me to touch you.”

There’s a tug on your clothing as he curls his fingers into the fabric on the small of your back. You tilt your head to look at him, but his gaze is on the floor. “You…” he glances up once, then looks back down. “You should ask next time,” he says quietly.

“Okay,” she replies, just as softly. “I will.”

You bite down on the inside of your cheeks to hold back a smile. Spencer often struggles to advocate for his needs, especially with his friends and colleagues, in fear of being a burden or more of a nuisance than he thinks others already perceive him as. He did it a lot with you when you first started dating. It took a lot of time and reassurance that yes, you really did want to know his wants and needs, for him to open up. Telling JJ to ask before touching him may seem small from the outside, but it’s a big deal for him.

After a rather awkward silence, JJ speaks again. “Well, um, I should get going. Just… let us know if you need anything, okay, Spence? We—the team, we’re all here for you.”

“That’s rich,” Spencer mutters behind you and you freeze. You recognize that edge to his voice. It’s usually accompanied by sharp words and remarks that he’ll regret later.

Please please please tell me JJ didn’t hear that.

“I’m sorry?”

Fuck.

“I hate to rush you out, JJ, but we have dinner reservations, so--” you try to interject but Spencer speaks over you.

“I’m just saying, why should I believe you’re here for me when you weren’t last time?”

JJ’s eyebrows come together. “I… don’t understand, I’ve always--”

“No, you haven’t!” It’s like Spencer can’t get the words out fast enough, the way he keeps interrupting before either of you can finish a sentence. This is clearly something that’s been weighing on him. You just wish he was unloading it onto his therapist rather than poor JJ, his best friend outside of you, who’s just trying to be nice. “Ten years ago I was shooting up in police station bathrooms and Emily is the only one who said a damn thing.”

His grip on your clothes tightens, forcing you to take a step back. You move the plate of cookies to one hand and reach back with the other, circling it around his wrist. “Spencer.”

Realization dawns on JJ’s face and she crosses her arms. “Spence, I couldn’t--”

“You couldn’t.” The little laugh he lets out derisive. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

You don’t know where all this is coming from or what he’s referring to, but JJ does, her expression hardening.

“You know what would have happened if the higher ups found out,” she says. “I was protecting your job. We all were.”

“You shouldn’t have!” he cries, emotions other than anger seeping into the words. “This damn job is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me! I got anthrax poisoning, I still have issues with my knee from being shot. I nearly died from a shot in the neck, and let’s not forget, I was framed for murder by a psychopath I arrested, who then kidnapped my mother while I was in prison! Oh, and what else? Oh right, this job is the reason I’m a fucking addict in the first place!”

JJ’s clearly trying to hold back tears now, but one slips out and your heart aches for her. You close your eyes briefly and take a deep breath, then speak quietly but firmly. “Spencer, you need to leave the room.”

You can hear him breathing shakily behind you. “(Y/N)--”

“Now.” You squeeze his wrist and he finally lets go of your clothing. He takes a few steps away, stops, turns back and opens his mouth to say something, but at the look you give him, shuts it and continues on his way out.

A sniffle draws your attention back to JJ, who’s looking up at the ceiling and swiping at the tears sliding down. “Sorry,” she mutters. “I shouldn’t have come by without giving you a heads-up. I’ve just made things worse.”

“No, JJ, don’t be sorry. It--” There’s thumping noises from further back in the apartment so you step forward and shut the front door behind you. She has her arms wrapped around herself when you turn back.

“It’s not your fault,” you continue. “You were just trying to be nice. You’re a good friend to him. He’s just… everything is really raw for him right now, if that makes sense?”

She nods, wiping at her eyes again.

“It’s, uh, not an excuse, though,” you clarify. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. You didn’t do anything wrong. That was all him, so please don’t blame yourself.”

JJ is quiet for a bit, staring at the floor. Then she says, “I should get going.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” you agree quietly. Realizing you’re still holding the plate of cookies in one hand, you lift it slightly and add, “Thanks for these. And, um… I’m so sorry about that.”

She shakes her head and glances at the door. “Don’t be. Like you said, it was all him,” she murmurs.

You know she’s right, but you’re still barely able to stop yourself from apologizing again as she descends the stairs. You can’t help but feel like you should have done more, stopped him somehow, even though you don’t know how you could have. The way his behavior changed… it was like he wanted to get it all out, and when Spencer Reid wants to say something, it’s nearly impossible to get him to stop.

The apartment isn’t quiet when you walk back in. There’s the scraping and clatter of a desk drawer, followed by frantic footsteps and the thud of books falling off the shelves. You know what he’s doing, and you know he won’t find anything, so you just lock the front door and continue on to the kitchen to put the cookies away.

You lean on the counter and cover your face with your hands. It doesn’t matter if you mess up your hair or face, or anything, really, because you’re not making it to dinner anymore.

You stay like that for a while, eyes closed, trying to think of a place to even start with Spencer after all of that. When the sounds of him tearing through the apartment stop, you lift you head back up and promptly jump—he’s staring at you from the nearest doorway.

“Jesus, Spencer--”

“Where’s my stuff?” he asks, and the seriousness in his tone of voice makes your anxiety spike. You know exactly what he means by stuff.

“It’s gone. What did you think was gonna happen?”

“Yeah, but it’s…” he trails off and his expression puzzles you. It almost looks like he’s confused. “It’s all gone.”

Ah. “Yeah, well, I know you think you’re sneaky, but you’re very much the opposite when you’re not sober,” you reply. “Finding your hiding spots wasn’t hard.”

He drops his gaze to the floor, frowning. “I don’t like it when you move my things,” he says quietly.

“I don’t like it when you use,” you counter.

He visibly flinches, then his hand tightens on the door frame. “I’m not going to—to take it, I just want to hold it. Where’s my stuff?” he repeats.

“Holding it, right,” you sigh.

“It’s comforting,” he argues.

“Even if I believed that, it wouldn’t matter, Spencer. I threw it all out. There’s none here.”

The humming noise he makes is angry, and he rocks back and forth on his feet in an agitated manner. “You shouldn’t… I don’t….”

I don’t have the energy for this. It’s a thought you feel terrible about as soon as you have it, but it’s the truth. Lara had cautioned you before his first visit that he was going to be hypersensitive to disappointment and frustration until he learned how to cope with the feelings he’d been using the Dilaudid to block out. Unfortunately, the information, while useful, didn’t always make his emotional extremes easier to deal with.

You run a hand down your face. “Spencer…” you start. You’re not sure what to continue with, but you don’t have to—for whatever reason, that sets him off.

He tears his eyes away from the floor to glare at you. “Don’t—don’t touch my things ever again!” Then he turns and all but runs to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

You suck in a breath and drop your head to the counter. The marble is cool and you thump your forehead against it gently a few times, focusing on breathing in and out slowly to calm down. When you’re ready, you walk as quietly as you can to the bedroom door and press your ear against it to hear the unmistakable sound of Spencer sobbing into his pillow.

Part of you wants to go in and comfort him, but you suspect that you’d just make it worse right now since some of his frustration is directed at you. And truth be told, you’re frustrated with him, too. So you retreat to the living room, flopping down on the couch and pulling out your phone to call the restaurant to cancel your reservations. Doing so is more upsetting than you expected; a few tears of your own slide down your face after you hang up. Before you know it, you’re calling Tara.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asks you.

“I…” You swallow down the lump in your throat. “Spencer’s… we’re having a bad day. If you’re not busy, can I talk to you about it?”

“Of course,” is her gentle reply, and you pull yourself to your feet, moving to the farthest point away from the bedroom in the apartment so Spencer won’t overhear.

“He got angry when you told him you got rid of everything?” she guesses when you reach that part.

“Yeah. He told me that he doesn’t like it when I move his things. I already knew that; that’s why everything else is where he left it. I think he was mostly just caught off guard that I knew all his hiding places.”

“If he’s having a trauma response to seeing JJ, he’s not going to be thinking clearly, either,” Tara points out. “I wasn’t there, so I could be wrong, but from what you’ve said, it sounds like she was some sort of trigger for him.”

“That’s more than a fair assessment. It’s just… confusing,” you say. “He wasn’t like this with her when he first got home from prison. He actually spent a lot of time at JJ’s house before his relapse. He’d go over and hold Michael when he couldn’t sleep. Why is seeing his best friend suddenly such a bad thing?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t have to make sense to us. It only has to make sense to the traumatized part of the brain,” she explains. “He may not even know why himself.”

“Hmm.” You ponder it for a moment. “I think I’d find that interesting if I wasn’t living it.”

Tara laughs out loud at that. “Yeah, I’ve found that to be rather commonplace sentiment in the field of psychology.”

You take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling calmer. “Thanks for listening,” you say. “I feel better now.”

“Anytime, (Y/N).”

You exchange goodbyes, making plans to catch up properly over lunch next week. You hang up, then tiptoe back to the bedroom door. It’s quiet now; Spencer seems to have stopped crying. You knock softly. “Honey? Can I come in?”

When he doesn’t respond, you try the door handle. It’s unlocked, which is a good sign—he’s upset, but not upset enough to completely shut you out. You open the door just enough to look in.

Spencer’s on the bed as expected, huddled under his weighted blanket. His back is to the door and you see his shoulders shuddering in the little breaths that follow him crying. In your experience, he usually seeks out comfort before this stage, often having the breakdown itself in your arms or stumbling into them halfway through. This is a bit of uncharted territory. You know that after outbursts of negative emotions, he tends to need reassurance and touch from someone to help him decompress and feel better. You just don’t know if that’s going to hold true for this kind of reaction. A trauma response, Tara called it. You hope it will, because you don’t know what else to do.

“I’m going to come in now,” you tell him before taking a step inside. You leave the door open behind you so he won’t feel trapped, then slowly approach him, looking out for signs that he doesn’t want you near—tensing muscles, slight rocking, shaking his head—but he stays still.

Once you sit down on the edge of the bed you can see his face. His eyes are puffy and his cheeks are red and raw from wiping away tears. A few are still slipping out, sliding sideways down his face and dropping onto the wet patch on his pillowcase as he stares blankly at the wall across the room.

Hesitantly, you reach out and touch his arm as lightly as you can. He takes in a deep breath, but does nothing to suggest that he wants you to remove it. After a few moments to ensure that he’s okay with touch, you start running your hand up and down his back. He whimpers a little in response, closing his eyes and titling back into your touch.

“Are you okay?” you ask softly.

You don’t get a straightforward answer. He chews on his bottom lip for a bit before speaking in a scratchy voice. “Can you…?” he mumbles, lifting his head up slightly from the pillow, then dropping it back down. You don’t know what he’s asking for until you see some of his fingers poking out from under the blanket and the stroking motion they’re making.

You maneuver across the mattress to sit against the headboard, jostling him as little as you can, and he shifts to place his head in your lap. When you start carding your fingers through his hair, his eyes flutter closed and he lets out a little sigh.

“What’s going on?” you ask once the tension has faded and his body has settled fully into the mattress. He just shrugs and you press your lips together to hold back a sigh. You’re familiar with him going nonverbal and you know that he can’t help it, but it’s discouraging. One of the main things he’s been working on is being more open about his emotions. It’s been a welcome change to not have to pry things out of him. But he seems to have gone right back to old habits tonight and it’s… well, it’s disappointing.

The silence carries on for a long time as you continue to run your hands through his hair. He’s so still and relaxed that you think he may have fallen asleep until he takes in a deep, shuddering breath and clears his throat. “I… I want to go back,” he whispers.

“Back whe--” you start, then your heart drops as you realize what he means. “Oh.”

Your hands fall to your lap as he sits up and clambers out of bed, muttering, “gonna get changed.” He shuts the bathroom door behind him—for whatever reason, he’s not always comfortable with you seeing him changing or in the shower anymore—and you sit still for a few moments, processing what he just said. After over a month of listening to him express his desire to come home—begging you, even, in the beginning—you were unprepared to hear the opposite.

You shake your head slightly to try and clear it, then follow his lead, leaving the bed and changing out of your fancy clothes, trying not to think about how much you had been looking forward to wearing them to the restaurant.

Spencer remains quiet for the drive back to his treatment center, staring out the passenger side window, legs pulled into his chest. He mumbles a quick “bye” to you when you check him back in—no hug or kiss on the cheek like you’ve grown accustomed to. Instead he turns right back to the nurse and staff member running the process and asks, “Is Matt working tonight? I need to talk to him.”

At least he wants to talk to someone, you tell yourself as you leave, trying to soothe the sting caused by the fact that the someone isn’t you.

---

The next time you see him is six days later, on Friday evening. You’ve only talked once since Saturday, over the phone on Wednesday night, and it wasn’t a long call. He was upset about the horse therapy appointment being canceled that afternoon because of the weather—it had rained hard all day—and didn’t say much else. He ended the call before the ten minute mark, saying that he was tired and wanted to go lie down.

He also didn’t request a visit for the weekend—he either didn’t think his treatment team would approve it or he just didn’t want one. So you’re visiting him at the center today. You’ve brought dinner with you—you cooked one of his favorites yourself—but before you eat, you’re having an appointment with him and his therapist.

Spencer glances up only briefly when you enter the office, quickly looking back down. One of his knees is bouncing.

You sit down on the other side of the couch, looking between him and Lara in the chair across from you. “So, um, what’s going on?” you ask.

Spencer looks to Lara and she gives him an encouraging nod. He takes in a deep breath before speaking. “I… I wanted to talk to you about what ha—happened last week,” he says quietly, keeping his gaze on his lap.

You don’t know why exactly he wants to do it here, with his therapist, but wanting to talk about it at all is a good sign.. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“Right, um. Seeing… seeing JJ, it--” he stops abruptly, and his hands tremble slightly as he runs them down his thighs. “Sorry, doing… doing this is making me really anxious.”

“Take your time,” Lara says and you nod in agreement.

“Okay.” He runs his hands through his hair a few times before continuing. “Se—seeing her brought up emotions and, and memories I wasn’t ready to, um, confront. It… it really tri—triggered me.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” you say quietly.

Spencer grimaces at the words. He lifts his hand, puts it back down, then lifts it again and rubs at one of his eyes. “I…” he starts, then fixes his gaze on the floor and goes silent.

“(Y/N).” You tear your eyes from him and look at Lara. “Is there anything you’d like to say to Spencer about Saturday? Maybe what it was like for you?”

“Oh. Um.” You chew on your bottom lip for a moment. You’ve worried about how what you say could effect him since his relapse—one of your biggest fears is saying something that would drive him to use. But it’s stressful to keep up with, and with his therapist is probably the best place to start ridding yourself of your new habit of… well, of walking on eggshells around him.

“I think it would be good for him to know,” Lara says.

“Alright.” You lace your fingers together in your lap. “I guess it was just… startling to me. JJ’s your best friend and you’ve never acted that way to her. Or anyone, really, other than your father.”

Spencer stays silent, but flinches at the mention of his dad.

“Do you have anything to say to that?” Lara prompts. He shakes his head, so she looks back to you. “How did seeing Spencer like that make you feel?”

You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly; you’re a little scared to say, not wanting to make him feel worse. “It was… distressing. Especially when he got mad at me for getting rid of his Dilaudid. I know he doesn’t like having his things touched without permission but I don’t think it was reasonable to expect that I wouldn’t have done that.”

Lara nods. “That makes sense. But our feelings aren’t always logical.”

“Yeah, I understand. I guess I just wish he would have told me what was wrong instead of being silent--”

Spencer finally speaks up then, in protest. “I couldn’t help it!”

“I—I know that,” you argue back. “I just—I’m just telling you how I felt.”

He looks away, folding his arms and sinking further into the couch.

“Spencer,” Lara says gently. “You wanted to know how (Y/N) felt, remember? And we talked about how you were probably going to hear things you wouldn’t like.”

You blink, taken aback that this was his idea. And with that comes the realization of just how long it’s been since he’s asked how you’re feeling. Thinking back, you realize that the last time you had a conversation that wasn’t only focused on his feelings and well-being was the day you found him asleep and tied to his mother. This… it’s Spencer before prison.

You’re drawn out of your thoughts by him sighing and muttering, “Yeah, I remember.”

“Alright. Anything else?” Lara asks you.

There’s a lot else, you’re discovering, but you’re not sure you can unpack it all right now. “Maybe…” you say. “Maybe he could just tell me what I can do to help when he’s… triggered?”

“I don’t know,” he says dully, and when he catches the small frown on your face, insists, “I don’t.”

“Yet,” Lara adds.

He sighs again. “Yet,” he repeats.

“I know it’s frustrating,” she says. “Your solution to these kinds of feelings before was denial or using. A solution, not just a problem,” she emphasizes. “I want you both to try and think of it like that, and get comfortable with the fact that it’s going to take awhile to overcome those habits.”

A solution, not a problem. It’s… weird to think of his addiction that way, but you can try, so you give her a nod.

“Yeah, yeah,” Spencer mumbles. But behind the defensive body language, he just seems tired.

He seems to relax a little when the meeting wraps up and it’s only the two of you in one of the rooms used for visits. He remains quiet, but when you place the plate of food you dish him across the table from yours, he slides it back and sits in the chair beside you. “Sorry,” he whispers as soon as you take a bite of food.

“For what?” you ask once you’ve swallowed.

“For yelling at you on Saturday,” he says quietly. “I was upset but I shouldn’t have yelled.”

His leg is bouncing under the table; you put your hand on his knee to still it. “Apology accepted,” you say softly.

He shakes his head slightly. “You don’t have to. I was awful to you on Saturday.”

You frown at his skewed interpretation of events. “Spencer, you really weren’t. You yelled at me, yes, but other than that, you were fine.” And you’ve said much worse when you’ve been high.

“I ruined dinner. And don’t say it’s not a big deal,” he adds before you can speak. “You mentioned it every time we spoke in the week leading up to it. You were really excited about it, and I ruined it.”

Spencer’s read you like a book—that was exactly what you were going to say. “Yeah, I was really looking forward to it,” you admit. “And it sucked to have to cancel the reservations. But there will be other dinners, and it’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“But what if I did?” His voice is so quiet that you wouldn’t have heard him if he wasn’t right next to you.

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean…” he rocks slightly in his seat, which you immediately recognize as one of his self-soothing behaviors. You move your hand from his knee to his hair, lightly running your fingers through the curls covering the nape of his neck to try and help. His head tilts forward a little at your touch and after a brief silence, he continues. “I just mean that self-sabotage wouldn’t exactly be something new for me.”

“Oh.” You take your time considering it; he won’t believe you if you give in to your knee-jerk reaction to protest the negative feelings he harbors towards himself. But he grows agitated at your silence, rocking a bit harder and rubbing at his eye. You tug his hair lightly without really thinking about it in response.

“I’m just thinking,” you assure. “You deserve an honest, thought-out answer.”

After taking a deep breath, he nods. “Okay. I understand. Maybe you could just, uh… to help c--comfort…” He swallows and his voice drops back to a whisper. “Could you do that again?”

“Do what?”

“Um, pull… pull my hair. You did that a few moments ago. Please?”

You almost want to tease him—a year ago, you would have. But he’s been so timid and unsure when asking for any intimate touch other than cuddling since he got back from prison. You don’t want to discourage him from asking any more than he seems to be discouraging himself.

“Of course, baby,” you answer softly, and do just that. He closes his eyes and drops his head onto your shoulder. “As far as the self-sabotaging goes, you’re… not good at lying to me,” you muse. “And after six years with you, I feel like I’m pretty familiar with all the ways Spencer Reid self-sabotages. This never even crossed my mind until you brought it up, so I don’t see that as being what happened.”

You can’t tell if he believes you. A neutral “okay” is all you get from him, but at least he’s not outright disagreeing.

You gently pull his hair a few more times. “You should eat before it gets cold and we have to heat it up again.”

He takes the suggestion, picking his fork up, but you’ve never seen him less enthused about eating one of his favorite foods. He’s only cleared half of his plate when you’re done with all of yours.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

You can’t help but sigh at the habitual response, and consider your next words carefully. “Spencer, I don’t mean to be pushy, but you told me you were working on not dismissing people’s concern for you when they express it.”

“I am,” he mutters, but doesn’t say anything else, just continues to push his food around his plate aimlessly.

“Well, is something wrong with the food?” you ask. “Did I get the texture wrong, or--”

“No, no,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “It’s not the food. The food’s great. It’s… it’s me that’s the problem.”

Your eyebrows come together. “I don’t understand.”

“I…” He starts to blush. “I’m not eating it all because I think I need to lose some weight.”

“Don’t you dare,” you say immediately without thinking. He makes a startled noise at the same time you clap your hand over your mouth. You definitely don’t want him to lose weight, you just hadn’t meant for it to come out like that.

On the day he came home and agreed to treatment, you’d seen just how underweight he’d become as you helped him unbutton his shirt. The stark outline of his ribs against his skin had been scary, and you had no desire to see that again. It was a relief when he started to gain back what he’d lost in prison and afterwards. And you were happy to see him continue to put on even more than that.

You clear your throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. You were just so skinny when you got here. You look good like this.”

“I’ve never weighed this much before,” he says, and the distress in his tone makes you think that this is a fact that has been bothering him for a while. “Some of my clothes are getting too tight.”

“We can buy you new clothes.”

“But we don’t know how much longer the insurance will cover my stay here. Residential treatment is expensive. We don’t need to be spending extra money on clothes when I could just lose the weight instead and not need them.”

“Hey.” You put your hand on his cheek. “I don’t want you to worry about money. The insurance is covering it for now. If they stop, that’s a problem to deal with when we get there. Just focus on getting better.”

He looks away from you, down to his lap. “I should still lose some weight,” he says eventually.

“Have you medical staff told you that?” you inquire, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” he admits with a sigh.

“Then you’re not allowed to worry about it,” you say firmly. “Finish your dinner.”

Spencer hesitates, but picks his fork back up. The corners of his mouth turn up just slightly when he starts eating again, telling you that despite his fretting, he’s happy not to stop himself from eating as much as he wants.

He seems to be in a much better mood at the end of the evening than he was when you arrived, though a bit more subdued and quieter than normal. He also appears to be very tired. It’s only 7:30 but he keeps yawning. He denies dozing off with his head on your shoulder while you were talking after dinner, but you’re sure he did.

During your parting hug, he nestles his face into your neck just like he always does when you’re sleeping in bed together. “Try and get some good sleep tonight,” you encourage, smoothing your hands down his back. “And Spencer?”

He pulls back to look at you and you settle your hands lightly on his waist. “I meant it, you know.” You squeeze slightly. “When I said you look good like this.”

It takes him a few moments to catch onto what you’re implying; when he does, his eyebrows shoot up and his breath catches. “Oh. O—okay. I’ll, um…” he glances down shyly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You better.” You look over your shoulder as you leave, and the small smile he’s wearing prompts one of your own.

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

tell me what you thought here!

i'd like to put it out there that i don’t hate jj and i really hope it didn’t come across like that. i hadn’t even planned that scene; it just wrote itself. i promise it’ll be resolved before the end of this fic.

another shoutout to the book The Body Keeps the Score for helping immensely with the planning and writing of this. i literally have pages of notes from it.

you can also find irl pictures of spencer’s therapy horse here.

all we can do taglist: @thatsonezesty13 , @jhillio , @elitereid

general taglist: @calm-and-doctor

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid #angst #my fic #tw substances #one day i'll write something that's short

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