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avelera · 1 year

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"I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

It's been understandably popular to take pot-shots at Harry Potter lately because of JK Rowling's truly disgusting and reprehensible comments lately. This quote above by Le Guin, which I agreed with even while a teenager, got me thinking about my own views on the series and apropos to nothing, I felt this was a better place to expound upon them than Twitter.

I have a knee-jerk dislike of the very human condition of saying we, "Always knew something," after the fact, that we "Always knew" someone problematic™️ was problematic or we always knew this thing that was popular was Bad Art after it became less popular. I find it intellectually dishonest.

So I'll preface all of this by saying: I had minor issues with the Harry Potter series back when it came out that went against the mainstream view of it, in that I thought it had many good qualities as a book series, but not enough to warrant its popularity compared to other, similar YA and fantasy series. I was genuinely baffled by its superstar popularity but as a fantasy book reader in the days before it was easy to access online fandom, I would take what I could get and I certainly didn't mind fangirling about Harry Potter stuff with friends even if it wasn't my #1 favorite series of all time. I enjoyed the fanfic for Harry Potter immensely so that allowed me to sort of blend in with those who enjoyed its popularity. (Special shoutout to MY favorite Harry Potter book of all time, "Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills" by Jocelyn over on fanfiction.net, that was MY Harry Potter series lol.)

So here's the thing, it's easy to say, "I always hated Harry Potter" or "I always knew it was trash" and that's a lie. For me, the truth is:

I enjoyed Harry Potter much like I did many of the fantasy series of its day.

What they had going for them was their pacing, whimsy, and inherent mystery structure in the first 3 books. They're fast, fun, easy reads with a likable protagonist. They are not bad books. But as Le Guin says, they're stylistically ordinary and imaginatively derivative. There's a lot of books like them.

I did not think the books were better than Pratchett, or Gaiman, or Garth Nix, or Dianne Wynn Jones, or any of the many other fantasy authors I was reading at the time. I was confused by their popularity as compared to better books like Pratchett's Discworld which, while popular, never got a theme park made for them in terms of order of magnitude popularity.

Now, JK Rowling on the other hand I had some issues with from the start, if not the ones that emerged later with her being a bigot. It is worth mentioning for the sake of intellectual honesty that decades ago, she gave a lot to charity and was a voice for tolerance in the early 00's when Bush/Blair, the Iraq War, etc were in full swing. It makes it all the more heartbreaking and baffling to see her swing towards bigotry on LGBT+ issues. Truly, a lot of young people first learned to stand up to fascism and be accepting of those different from them because of Harry Potter, just like they did reading the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card, and in both cases it's absolutely heartbreaking and so very confusing to see these authors fall to the very dark side they wrote against in their books. I have no answer for how or why this happened. I don't say this to make an excuse for either of them, simply to express confusion and mourn the loss of someone who was once a voice for some level of good in the world.

Now, my issues with JK Rowling were writerly, and they are the ones I feel somewhat empowered to say I "always knew" and "always had an issue with" and that, like the worst sort of hipster, "I talked about before it was cool".

Really my dislike began when JKR very famously said in the early 00s that she didn't read any fantasy before writing Harry Potter. Considering how derivative it is (heck, Neil Gaiman already had a YA series about a black-haired wizard boy with a scar) it left one wondering if she was lying or she truly was that ignorant in the genre in which she wrote. Either way, not a good look, and it soured me towards her pretty permanently as an author.

Terry Pratchett, the author I would actually follow into Hell, criticized her for this comment and got a lot of flack for it, asking how in the world she could not realize she was writing fantasy. This solidified my opinion of her as something of a hack, even if she had stumbled upon a winning story. Neil Gaiman also chimed in saying he didn't feel ripped off but seemed to tacitly agree with Pratchett that her lack of institutional knowledge about fantasy was odd.

As a big fantasy fan of the early 00s, I can say that fantasy was still a bit of a forbidden genre (at least in the Anglosphere), one not taken seriously. So for JK Rowling to be asked if she wrote fantasy had a layer of nuance, basically she was being asked if she meant to write a fantasy novel, ie, in a "lesser" genre, barely above dime story penny dreadfuls in value.

No one literary would admit to writing fantasy at the time, it was a whole thing where if you admitted to writing fantasy you were "downgraded" as an author in terms of prestige (Stephen King went through a lot of this). BUT, if a fantasy book achieved popularity, it was labeled as "literary" so the literary folks could claim ownership of the quality genre fiction, and never have to admit that "literary" is a genre and not a mark of quality (a deep-seated rage button issue for me and a rant for another day).

So when JK Rowling said, "She didn't know she was writing fantasy." That meant something. And what it meant was she was throwing the rest of the genre under the damn bus. With her visibility she could have helped actively tear down the biases against fantasy (something she did indirectly with the popularity of her books). Or she could have simply had humility and said she wasn't as versed in the genre as she should be given where her book ended up being shelved, but there's a lot of good works there and she's honored to be among them.

She did neither. She stuck to her ignorance (what would become a common trait of hers, apparently) and did very little to elevate others in the genre, or the genre itself, and indeed, seemed to try to distance herself from it in what was the safe move at the time.

I cannot stress enough how intellectual dishonest, arrogant, and safe it was for popular writers who got dubbed "literary" when they were in fact writing genre fiction to cleave to that title of literary, guard it jealously, and refuse to acknowledge that literary is a genre of its own, not a mark of quality. To be labeled "genre fiction" was to be considered "lesser" and that stigma is still out there, though much lessened by the wave that began with the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the Marvel films making so much money and really setting up genre fiction to at least be seen as lucrative if not artistic. We have come a long way from how fantasy was viewed 20 years ago.

JK Rowling also said she wrote no other books before Harry Potter. That's another puzzling instance where either she's lying, sold her soul to the Devil (and hey, maybe she did and he's collecting by making her turn into a frothing bigot), or was simply a more lucky and less skilled writer than people realized. Every writer has a closet full of short stories and novels they've written before publishing their first work. I can't stress enough how bizarre it is for her to claim she never wrote anything else before putting pen to paper with Harry Potter, that simply does not happen. Then again, her later books make it seem more likely that is true.

Writerly aside, but JK Rowling is utter garbage at structure. She lucked into the perfect scaffolding for a basic plot with the Harry Potter school year, but as Fantastic Beasts and her other, non-school based plot structures reveal, she didn't realize what a crutch that was for her because the woman does not and has not learned how to build a plot that isn't strung up on the structure of a school year for building tension and story beats.

Look, JK Rowling has always been a weird author. She really did come out of nowhere in terms of previous works. She doesn't acknowledge her peers in the genre that built her fortune, not even to confess that while she didn't know about them, she's now learning about a wonderful rich genre out there. She went the other direction and disavowed fantasy (it's possible she backtracked since and had nice things to say about the fantasy genre, I'd love to hear it if so).

There was in fact always subtle bigotry and a ton of tokenism in the Harry Potter books. That said, in the 90s, that was pretty par for the course, and she deserved some kudos for making the books so explicitly about fighting fascism, even if I'm not sure she fully understood her own themes.

To say these books were unpopular or that they had no writerly merit at all is intellectually dishonest. They were popular for a reason, mostly because they're fun. However, they were not unique, there were many like them, she got very lucky and it's bizarre how little she's acknowledged this or her peers. Of all the negative tendencies any human has, I'm shocked and dismayed that her tendency to stick to her ignorance like she did with the wider fantasy genre is the one that won out and was transferred to LGBT+ issues, to the point of doing active damage to her works and brand. But as her attempts to branch out from Harry Potter have further confirmed, JK Rowling was always a stylistically ordinary writer. Her mean-spiritedness didn't stand out as much in the 90s but it absolutely does now and it's ugly how she leaned more into sticking with the moral heights she reached at that time rather than trying to learn and grow as a person.

JK Rowling went full Whedon and figured because she was slightly ahead of the curve in the late 90s that she had nothing more to learn and it hurts when people who are creative, people whose job it is to have empathy for other walks of life, never learn or grow and stick to their old laurels that are increasingly out of date. I personally don't think myself as a hardcore Harry Potter fan, I have no horse in this race for the redemption or lack thereof of JK Rowling or the book series. I can only offer my view as a fantasy writer and someone who grew up through the cultural phenomenon of these books.

But, as usual, Ursula Le Guin was right, I agreed with her then, and her words have only borne out more and more with time.

#jk rowling critical #hp meta #hp critical

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yaraaflor · 23 days

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is there a reason you like dickhelena? what's your ideal idea of a relationship between them - a shorter thing or do you see them working out

omg tell me how this ask has been in my inbox a whole ass month and i never saw it... my bad anon i wasn't ignoring you lol i just never get asks ig. anyways! answer got long so it's under the cut.

dickhelena my beloved... well first of all i do NOT see them ever working out as a like. super long-term married couple type thing. i think their relationship could be functionally good in a lot of ways but they will always have a fundamentally different view of killing and the ethics of it. and i don't think dick would ever be able to fully get past that. like... how do i put this... i think he would be able to get over it TO A POINT out of love, but it would always be a source of tension between them, and at some point the issue would be forced, either by helena killing someone or them disagreeing about somebody else killing someone. i don't think dick's no-killing morality is quite as strong as bruce's, but it's not nothing to him. and i also think he would take issue with the why of it all - like helena killing people bc she believes they cannot be reformed, as opposed to like. idk kory who comes from a different culture and has had to kill her own oppressors.

and also i think bruce would be a permanent issue for them. like helena has a super complex relationship with bruce (and ofc dick does too but he's always going to be loyal to bruce, as his father figure), and bruce sure as hell would not approve of their relationship. which, dick wouldn't let bruce just trample all over his love life, but. at a certain point, having your SO and your family at odds with each other can become exhausting.

BUT just because i don't think they would last forever doesn't mean i don't think the relationship would be meaningful. i think they could have a lot of fun together, if they let themselves, and i think they could make each other happy for a time.

i think a key part of dickhelena is, even when they disagree, they're not incapable of understanding each other. they're both children of gotham who have lost a lot to violence and are trying to help others avoid that. and unlike a lot of the other bats, they both try to maintain an ordinary life and job alongside their vigilante work. they both have soft hearts and hard heads. the way they show it is pretty different, but it's there.

and i mean part of the draw of the relationship to me is the complexity of it. of being at odds about one or two major issues, but compatible in so many other ways. of having a kind of love-hate, flirting-fighting dynamic, and a bit of a messy history. but despite that, seeing the good in each other, and still seeing it even when things are over.

there's something to be said, imo, for relationships that don't work out, but don't end with bad blood either. like it's those relationships that often help people learn and grow, and i think they get overlooked in fandom a lot. for understandable reasons! we all have an otp we want to be in love forever. but for dick and helena, i think of them more as like a 'we didn't work out but it's not because the love wasn't there' type thing. love isn't always enough to make things last and that's important to realize.

....looking back i feel like to a certain extent my answer might not be satisfactory here bc a part of my reason for liking dickhelena is like... i just do? lol. like i love both their characters and i like them together and i think they have a certain chemistry that i can't really put into words. and i understand that not everyone feels that way about them which is fine.

but yah. sorry for making you wait for this anon lol

#ask #anon #my post #dickhelena #dick grayson #helena bertinelli

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qqueenofhades · 4 months

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Ask and ye shall receive - how about a prompt around spiced winter drinks? Dealers choice on the fandom, maybe Dreamling or the Ren/Grey/Vargo ot3?

It’s one of the bitterest nights of the dwindling year, the canals glazed with ice and the pale stone warrens of Nadežra filled with eerie curls of mist, and even the altans and altas most dedicated to nocturnal misbehavior are generally inside, bundled up by warm fires or tucked in warm beds, and while Vargo certainly doesn’t have a philosophical objection to either activity (indeed, far from it) it unfortunately happens that he has to fucking work. It seems impossible that the piles of paper on his desk should have sprung to twice their original height in the last three days since he looked at them, but that’s the thing about political independence; it’s decidedly a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you get to arrange your own affairs. On the other, you… have to arrange your own affairs, and since Seterin has sat up and taken sharp notice of all these Vraszenians suddenly running around and exulting in their freedom, it heralds other possible conflicts down the line. That, Vargo supposes, is where sleeping with not just one but two legendary outlaws is likely to come in useful. If nothing else, they do have practice at this sort of thing.

A reluctant smile twitches his lip as he dips his pen and reaches unhappily for the first stack of correspondence. He misses Alsius – well, he always misses Alsius, but more than usual, who would absolutely love the boring nuts and bolts of this stuff, whereas it makes Vargo want to put his own eyes out with a hot stick. He scribbles and mutters and adds up figures, makes note of new requisitions and trade tariffs, ordinances of the freshly expanded Septerat; he doesn’t like it, but of course he didn’t rise to his original position by accident. The candles gutter low into waxy gremlins, and he thinks about drawing a numismata to keep them up, but that would suggest he will in fact be stuck here all night, and that’s a little too depressing to think about. Somebody’s got to do the ordinary grunt work while his dearly beloveds are running around the city in their silly costumes, but by the Lumen, why does it have to be him?

Just then, as he’s massaging the ache in his hand and thinking of some really good curses, Vargo smells a wisp of cinnamon, hears the faint creak of the floor, and turns halfway around, just as Ren leans down and presses a kiss into the side of his head. Voice rich and low with promise, she remarks, “Grey and I both perhaps feel we are being neglected.”

“This is your fault, you know,” Vargo grumbles, without heat. “Making me be the respectable one. And can’t you two entertain each other?”

Ren gives him another slightly wicked smile. “It’s more fun with you.”

Yes, Vargo agrees, it is at that. He vainly attempts to pretend that he will be doing paperwork for a few more moments – then, at Ren’s insistent tug, gets to his feet and lets her lead him down the hall, toward his private quarters at the back of the villa. Halfway there, a terrible thought occurs to him, and he stops short. “Is Arkady here?”

Ren bites a smirk. “She’s asleep. Upstairs. Even formidable knot bosses have to get their beauty sleep.”

“I very much doubt that,” Vargo mutters, since it seems unlikely that the newly-minted Alta Arkady Bones Vargonis has ever thought about beauty sleep in any capacity. But he’s glad to hear that she’s out of the way, after one too many moments when she nearly caught the three of them in flagrante delicto, and if Arkady knows a juicy secret like that, there’s no chance she’ll keep her trap shut instead of gleefully spilling it, if nothing else to see him squirm. It turns out, Vargo reflects sourly, that even without blood relation, his adopted daughter is very much like him in the hellraising department. In fact, far too much so. After all for the Nadežrans, blood is incidental, and secondary to whether an individual is inscribed in the family register. Arkady is, and that makes her as much his own, heir to his means and methods and moods, as if he did sire her in the ordinary fashion. Ažerais help them all.

He feels a sudden warmth on his face as they step into the lowlit sitting room, and gratefully spots the fire – which Grey Serrado is presently stoking, on his knees before the grate like a common scullion, which is possibly one of the less glamorous tasks ever asked of the great Rook. Still, it gives Vargo a certain glow, an inner warmth not just from the fire, and he strides inside. “Well, you two degenerates got my attention. What is it?”

Grey gets to his feet, brushing the soot off, and gives Vargo a ferocious stare that silently remarks he has the hells of a lot of nerve calling anyone else a degenerate. Still, he shrugs, crosses the carpet, and brushes the ghost of a kiss against Vargo’s cheek, while Ren cheerily shoves him onto the settee. Vargo is opening his mouth to ask what exactly they are intending to do to him, now that they’ve lured him here by bribes and trickery, but Grey forces a cup of hot spiced wine into his hand, and Vargo blinks at it. “Ah. What’s this?”

“Drink it,” Grey orders him, with the steely tones of the former Vigil captain, and Vargo fights a traitorous urge to salute. “You’ve been working too hard.”

“I thought you two were going to – ”

“Maybe later.” Ren perches on his other side and gives him another smile – still tinged with dark and wicked promise, the Rose’s thorns, but wistful as well, softer, and just wanting the three of them to have this quiet moment together in the cold winter night. “Drink.”

Far be it from him to refuse an order from Alta Renata and Grey Serrado at once, Vargo thinks, even without their alter egos. And is that not the reason for all the trouble he’s gotten himself into, either in past, present, or future? But there is nothing else he would rather do, and no one else he would rather be with, in all this city of Faces and Masks. He lifts the cup, grins into the brim with a tenderness that seems impossible for his heart to bear, and drinks.

#anonymous #ask #rook and rose #ren x grey x vargo #winter prompts #THANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY ANON #blessings on your house and cow etc

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zeglythofficial · 2 months

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just came back from work and got scared something happened cause your anons were being so dramatic calling R behavior disgusting and out of the blue that I had to check but she only shared a dump of pictures on her IG and clapped back to a a few dumb incels on X 😭😭 y'all truly dramatic cause this ain't serious and it's nothing out of the ordinary for R to do -like, she's posting J, literally fork found in kitchen. I know y'all hate the man for a valid reason but this ain't R problem, not everyone knows about the allegations so they don't find any issues with her posting her man constantly. you guys are kinda hating her for not acting the way YOU want her to, and I want to remaind you she's still by all means a victim and it could take literal YEARS for her to recognize herself as one. We could talk about her acting, her singing, her upcoming projects, fan casts etc if you wanted to ignore her relationship like I always do. It's kinda sad as someone who's been a solo R fan to see anons being lowkey nasty to her. She's being herself and will always remain like that (outspoken, intense, a true homebody and big empath) What you see it's what you get with her, if you get annoyed easily then she's never going to be your cup of tea. I like your blog because your discussions were fun and refreshing but it's starting to get weird and patronizing towards R.

I agree with you somewhat.

1. R is a victim and I’ve never forgotten that which is why I’m still a fan.

2. R doesn’t even talk about her projects so how are we suppose to talk about it lol? I’m not trying to be mean but what’s there to discuss? She literally put out a goodbye letter to TBOSAS fandom yesterday so she wants to move on from this project too. T is the only one actively doing stuff offline which is why his projects are talked about more often.

3. I do think she’s overdoing it with J. It has nothing to do with on how I feel about him but more so, I don’t think anyone should post about their relationship daily. I would unfollow Beyoncé too if she posted Jay Z every other day. I don’t follow R for her relationship. Believe me, I wish her social media was about herself and her daily activities outside of him. And I disagree, she shouldn’t respond to Incel comments. They will only get worse from here. It’s better to ignore it tbh.

4. I’ve only followed her on social since Oct? I don’t remember her always talking and posting J like this. Correct me if I’m wrong though.

5. Nothing wrong with her being intense, empathetic and a homebody. I would love to see more of that. I want her to sing, post about her dog, going for walks and cooking. She used to do that a year ago from what I remember. That R was fun!

6. I think a lot of anons are coming from a good place. It’s frustrating seeing someone we support getting groomed. It’s also frustrating because she shouldn’t be talking about her relationship more than herself.

7. I miss the funny and refreshing moments on this blog too. R was a huge part of what made this blog fun imo. She posted fun stuff all the time.

#my answers #about r

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fizzigigsimmer · 1 year

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The power of narrative empathy.

This is kind of a strange post about Billy, but I’m just gonna let it flow. I’m gonna start with this, I am a Billy Hargrove fan. I am a black, queer, female abuse survivor and I make no apologies about loving this character. Also, none of what I just said matters, I just think it’s important to note that we are out here. Even if I wasn’t those things I would still have the liberty and hopefuly the empathy to feel for his character. Today I want to talk about how Billy was written, why I think that’s dead wrong and damaging to those of us who survive abuse without a halo, and I am going to use another beloved fictional victim to do it. He also happens to be one of the world’s most iconic and well known villains. Yes I am going to talk about Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, and how his story is real. How it happened to me and it’s happening to someone else right now, and how I see evidence of the same societal failure shown in the films playing out in real time every damn day in the Stranger Things Fandom when it comes to Billy Hargrove. So here we go.

For a highly condensed slightly satirical recap: The genocidal tyrant formerly known as Darth Vader started out as Anakin Skywalker. A gifted child slave whose only living family was his mother. If the words child slave didn’t clue you in, let me just tell you that my ravenous consuming of any and all Star Wars companion novels confirmed that Anakin regularly suffered abuse and was put into life threatening danger by a greedy master because he was a protege pilot. As a result, Anakin learned from a pretty early age that how he used his gifts might literally be the difference between whether he and his mom survived. Fun shit like that.

Despite all, Anakin was a good person. Yeah he was a little rash and a little angry sometimes, but he was also kind, brave, and loyal and had all the makings of a great person - in other words he was an ordinary child who just happened to have a special power that gave his FEELINGS agency in the world.

Enter the Jedi Knights, literal space Knights, and fellow feelings practitioners. They’ve developed a truly insane way of dealing with the fact that their feelings are a literal force in the world, by forming a kind of religion around not allowing themselves to feel very much at all and keeping the peace. They’re the ultimate good guys whose reputation proceeds them and our enslaved child instantly looks up to and idolizes them as heroes. He’s willing to put his life in danger to help them even when there’s literally no gain in it for him and then they happily use him in order to get some parts they need to get off the planet. He’s 9 by the way.

But Anakin isn’t risking his life for nothing nothing. Jedi master Qui-Gon Jin has seen Anakin is a fellow feelings user and immediately thinks he’s the prophesied “Chosen One”, who is supposed to bring BALANCE TO THE FORCE THAT GUIDES THE UNIVERSE. Based on literally nothing nothing and possibly an immaculate conception. Anyway, he’s convinced. Even though he already has an apprentice/surrogate son, he immediately starts love bombing this slave child and filling his head with promises that he’s gonna be freed from his horrible life and trained to be this great Jedi - promises he has no idea whether he’ll be able to keep by the way. So Qui-Gon buys a child and calls it a rescue, and tells him he’s going to have to leave his mother in bondage and cut off all emotional ties to her. Like he can never see her again or even feel too strongly about never seeing her again because Jedi’s aren’t supposed to love. Love is too strong a feeling and it leads to all the other BAD FEELINGS. So the nine year old child slave is told to be brave and start acting like a Jedi already and stop with the whole being scared/guilty about leaving his mother thing.

The nine year-old child slave who has just been separated from his mother for life, does not do that. In a turn of events that should really shock no one, instead he immediately trauma imprints on the first girl who shows him empathy after he opens up about his EMOTIONAL PAIN. He then spends the next decade fixated on this girl and crying out for help because he can not just turn off his emotions. He is constantly criticized, demeaned, and treated like a pariah for not just being able to magically rise above his trauma or control his trauma responses, in order to become the white knight he’s supposed to be for the republic. Side note, when I say dude was erratic AF and crying out for help AF, I mean that. There are several Youtube Psychologists who have done reactions to this character and an interesting theme throughout all of them is how Anakin displays all of the typical indicators for Bipolar Disorder and Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s interesting, and I’ve linked a favorite.

So back to this child slave who is either the victim of a three movie long mental health crisis or the Worst Writing Syndrome (I’ll take both for 300 Alex). Obi-Wan, Anakin’s big brother/father figure has no idea what the hell he is doing or how to help him, because he hasn’t processed his own trauma. Time for a side note about Obi-Wan’s former master Qui-Gon. He was an overly critical and emotionally unavailable teacher/father whose teaching style was essentially to give out tiny scraps of approval every now and again just so Obi-wan didn’t decide to swallow his light saber.

So there was Obi-wan, 25 years old, still out here trying to get daddy’s stamp of approval so that he can be a real man who has MASTERED HIS FEELINGS, but he’s being told he’s not ready and reminded of all of his short comings on the regular. It’s Tuesday in other words. But then dad finds this new kid and literally just stops caring about training Obi-wan. He tells Obi-wan it’s time he moved out and got a job with zero notice.

Qui-Gon announces to the Jedi Council that he wants Anakin as his apprentice. Which is super awkward because his actual apprentice is standing right there. When they point out that he’s already got one, he’s suddenly all ‘oh Obi-wan is ready to be a big boy now’. Obi-wan was rightly jealous, hurt, and low-key pissed off, but Jedi’s aren’t supposed to let FEELINGS get the better of them so he swallows sadness.

Qui-Gon might be a bit of a dick but he is still dad, so when he tragically dies right in Obi-wan’s arms and uses his very last breathes to beg him to train Anakin, this fresh as fuck Jedi-Knight suddenly becomes a father figure to a traumatized slave child. And the saddest thing is Obi-wan is a better man than Qui-Gon. He has every reason in the world to hate this little twerp, but he tries so hard to break the cycle and he be the father figure Anakin needs.

But the thing about breaking cycles is someone has to teach you how to do it. The Jedi Council is not out here encouraging Obi-Wan to be emotionally present and empathetic to Anakin’s unique struggles and challenges. And LOLS do he have them. In fact Obi-Wan is constantly in the council room defending Anakin against their prejudice for shit Anakin can’t control, and is often being criticized himself for being too soft with his apprentice. Like they would literally sit him down and essentially tell him to stop being an Anakin defender and apologist 😂.

So the end result was Obi-wan landed somewhere in the messy middle between the dad he promised himself he wouldn’t be and the one he wanted to be, and the child slave’s mental health continued to decline (surprise surprise) until he finally met a creepy groomer who manipulated him by VALIDATING HIS EMOTIONAL PAIN. Nobody intervened, although there was ample opportunities to do so. Anakin was literally as well as figuratively crying out for help the whole time. He didn’t get it. He was told to just stop being afraid. Just stop being angry. Just stop loving your mother and don’t think about what may or may have happened to her. Just stop and do the savior thing okay? JUST GET OVER YOUR FEELINGS ANAKIN.

And the rest is just tragic history.

I took the time to write all that because I have been in Anakin’s and Billy’s figurative shoes. I was abused more ways than I want to recount here, and I’ll just say it. It messed me the fuck up. I know what it’s like to cry for help, over and over again and never get it. I know what it’s like to be blamed for blowing the whistle the same day you’re blamed for behavior that stems from the rage of utter helplessness. I know what it’s like to break shit and hurt people who don’t deserve it because that’s what you know. And I know what it’s like to be told I have to break the cycle somehow, even though you wouldn’t know the first place to begin even if you were in a place safe enough to start.

I aged out of my abuse. Nobody rescued me. The systems failed me. I simply got old enough to move away from my abusers and then after considerable self harming behavior I got lucky and broke good. I reached my lowest low and realized I did want to live and that I had to fix my shit in order to do that. I started going to therapy and working to build the life I wanted. And in case this isn’t clear enough I will spell it out. The world did not look at me, an abuse survivor and empathize. There was not a reliable support system, no heroes in capes. I’m here, stable, loved and in a good place because I survived long enough to buy the help I needed. That’s it. It’s fucking tragic and as a society we have a lot to be ashamed for. We fail.

I empathize with Billy Hargrove because his story is my story. Right down to societies response, and the way his writers decided to condemn him from conception.

As terrible a writer as George Lucas may be that is the one thing he did not do. He could have condemned the character of Darth Vader with his narrative, but instead he wrote what is essentially a redemptive six part epic about an abuse survivor that the ENTIRE GALAXY FAILED. Anakin’s story is a text book case for why it is fucking awful to look at an abuse survivor and put the burden of healing on them. Like they’re just supposed to be organically “resilient” to the shit that you claim you wouldn’t even know how to survive, in order to be some virtuous example to others about how to “stay good”.

People expect that of characters like Billy Hargrove because that’s what people expect of real victims too. You’re only worthy of empathy if you somehow survive the unsurvivable mentally and emotionally intact. That’s how the Duffer brothers related to Billy’s trauma. In their own words, he’s not written as what he is (an abused child) he’s a villain whom they wanted to look like a real boy so they gave him trauma. He’s written to be judged, hated for his inability to just magically STOP, and then die so that the story can plod forward.

And just in case you don’t yet see why that matters, just stop and think about how people are more accepting of the character who literally decimated planets and slaughtered children, than the teen who was abused and then possessed. Anakin is allowed to have fans who empathize with his struggles, who dream of the better life he might have had. Anakin’s sacrificial death is allowed to be the redemptive moment that it was, and he’s literally allowed to shed the name of Darth Vader and be remembered as the friend and brother that Obi-wan loved within his own narrative. Because he’s written with empathy.

And society responds to that empathy. I have never, not once, been shamed, ridiculed, or called a child murder apologists (or what the fuck ever) for loving his character.

Billy isn’t real, but the people who empathize with and see themselves in his character are real. Nobody’s required to like him, love him, or even want to think about him for that matter but this drive some people have to blanket judge other fans and start calling people weirdos and monsters for feeling anything for him that isn’t disgust - that’s what can stop. You can literally just stop. Back away from the keyboard and take a deep breath. Agree to disagree. Feel how you feel. But don’t go fucking far out of your way to tear strangers down over the internet.There’s no justification in the world for it. I promise.

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#Billy hargrove #looooong meta #I really had to get this off my chest #feelings have bee brewing for awhile #maybe it will resonate with someone else #Youtube

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aquietwritingcorner · 19 days

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The Tot, The Vigilante, and the Laundry

Title: The Tot, The Vigilante, and the Laundry Fandom: TMNT 2003 Word Count: 3270 Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl Rating: G/K Characters: Donatello, Casey Jones Warning: NA Summary: Casey is babysitting Little Donnie. Nothing can go wrong with this, right? Notes: Part of the Little Don AU, an AU I’ve had forming in my head where, during a crisis with the Time Scepter, Don sacrificed himself to save everything. Instead of it killing him, though, it turned him into a baby, and his family has needed to raise him all over again. ff.net || AO3

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The Tot, the Vigilante, and the Laundry

“And you’re sure that you’re good?”

Casey rolled his eyes and huffed, holding the nine-month-old Donnie in one arm. “I told ya, Leo, it’s fine! I know ya think I ain’t got any experience with babies, but you ain’t seen all the cousins I’ve got. I can handle one mutant turtle baby for a few hours.”

Leo looked at him a bit uncertainly, but Raph leaned forward and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Come on, Leo. Case has this. We’ll be gone for a few hours and then we’ll be back again. It’s supposed to be a quick, in and out ceremony.”

Leo looked at Raph, and then back at Casey. “If we’re not back, then you have enough to take care of him, right? And April will be back to help you?”

Casey nodded. “Yeah, Leo, I got this. Ape and I keep stuff for Donnie stocked here, and we know where you guys keep it and where to get it. ‘Sides, like you said, April’ll be back later tonight. She’s out with some girl friends of hers from college. They ain’t gonna stay out too late.”

Leo still looked a little uncertain, and Casey really couldn’t blame the guy for being protective of Donnie, but it was getting kind of old. Finally, he nodded, and let Raph pull him away. They disappeared out the window, and to wherever, Casey assumed, Mikey and Master Splinter were getting the ritual to go to that Battle Nexus place ready.

Donnie watched them go, and then turned big, uncertain eyes on Casey, even as he chewed on his fingers. Casey grinned at him.

“Doncha worry, little man. You and me, we’re gonna have a lotta fun!” Casey said. “I gotta be a fun uncle, after all.”

“Aaahp.”

Casey grinned. “Glad you agree. Now let’s see ‘bout getting you some toys out, a’ight?”

When they had realized that this change was permanent, April had set about finding Donnie some of the best baby toys on the market. She’d researched and compared and criticized, intent on finding Donnie the best brain stimulating toys that existed. She’d even pulled Leatherhead and that robot professor guy in on it, and they’d debated, found, and even created some toys for Donnie that were supposed to help with his brain development, motor skills, and language acquisition. They’d presented them to Donnie—to the guys, really—proudly.

And then Donnie had played with the tissue paper and boxes instead.

Maybe Casey had laughed a little too hard at that, and maybe he’d slept on the couch for a few days, but it really had been funny to him. Don had been a guy that could make things most people couldn’t dream of out of garbage when he was, like, fifteen. He took things apart just to see how they worked, and then looked at ordinary objects and saw new ways for them to work. It only made sense to Casey that Donnie would be the same way. The toys were nice and all, but he wanted the stuff that he could take apart and the things he saw others using.

So, when he went to get toys for Donnie, he didn’t pull out any of the fancy things they had. Instead, he gave him an old water bottle with a lid too big to choke on, a couple of boxes, some tissue paper, those stackable rings, some balls, and some blocks. He settled Donnie down in the middle of them, and Donnie immediately reached for the tissue paper grabbing it and shaking it around.

“Alright, little man, let’s watch some hockey and play,” he said with a grin, turning on the TV.

For the next couple of hours, Casey played with Donnie in the floor, letting the little turtle crawl all over him—something he’d started doing a lot earlier than human babies—lightly wrestling with him, yelling at the TV together, and just generally playing with the boy. It was actually a lot of fun, and Casey honestly enjoyed it.

Eventually, though Donnie got cranky because he was hungry, and Casey took the tot to the kitchen to feed him some food. That was, as usual, a messy thing, as Donnie, while able to eat solid foods quicker than a human baby, was still just as messy as one. That, of course, meant bathtime afterwards, and Casey had learned that bathtime with a baby turtle was a whole different thing.

Donnie loved being in the water, splashing and playing, and holding his head under the water for an uncomfortably long time. He squealed at bubbles, and used cups to pour water, splashing with the boats that were floating in the tub. Casey got almost as wet as Donnie did, but he didn’t regret it, even if he wished he had thought to at least take off his shirt first.

Still, when the water cooled, Casey finally bathed the small turtle, stopping the games, and pulled him out, drying him off. There were some pajamas that could be used, if it looked like Donnie was getting cold, but it was well known amongst the family that Donnie tended to just pull off the clothes as soon as he could.

Casey stripped himself down to his boxers, taking his wet clothes to the laundry room, Donnie tucked in the crook of his arm.

“You got me almost as wet as you were,” he said, teasing Donnie a little. Donnie grinned at him and giggled, and Casey, emptying his pockets and tossing his wet clothes down, tickled him. Donnie laughed, and Casey grinned. There was something about that laugh that just made everyone smile.

Casey glanced around the laundry room, looking at the piles of clothes lying in it. “Huh. Looks like there’s enough here to do a couple of loads,” he said. He checked the dryer, seeing some clothes in it, and turned them around for a few minutes. “I’m gonna let those warmup, and then I’ll take ‘em out and put what’s in the washer in there,” Casey said. “But while I’m doing that, wanna help me sort clothes?”

“Ah!” Donnie smiled, waving his hands around, and Casey grinned, getting to work.

The two of them had fun with it, Casey sitting Donnie down on the floor, and tossing clothes out. He’d toss some on Donnie, and the baby would squeal and pull them off of his head. He would, though, to Casey’s amusement, crawl over with the clothes to the piles and sit there, before trying to put the piece of clothing he had in one of the piles.

Unsurprisingly, he got it right most of the time.

It didn’t take Casey long to have the clothes sorted, and switch over the loads. The ones from the dryer went in the basket. The ones from the washer, went in the dryer. And the ones from one of the piles on the floor, went in the washer.

He turned when he closed the lid on the washer and looked back at Donnie. The little boy was clinging to the side of the basket, curiously petting the clothes in them.

“Yeah, they feel all nice when they’re warm, don’t they?” he said. He scooped Donnie up and put him in the basket, to which the baby laughed, and carried it and the child back to the living room. He laughed when he saw how Donnie had buried himself inside the basket, churring, and let the tot stay that way for a bit, while he put himself on some new, dry clothes, and picked up the living room a little, leaving Donnie’s toys out. Then he fought a surprisingly determined toddler for the cooled clothes, folding them up.

Casey reached down and rubbed Donnie’s shell when he was finished. He could tell that the boy was getting tired, but he wasn’t quite ready to go down yet. “Alright, little man. Hows about you stay here and play with your toys? I’ll go put all of this away and work on the kitchen. And then, after that, it’ll be bedtime, alright?”

“Ahabahabaha,” Donnie said.

Casey nodded. “Glad to know we got an understandin’,” he said.

He put Donnie in the middle of his toys again, and stood up, putting away the clothes and taking the laundry basket back to the laundry room. By that time, the load of towels was dry, and he piled them in the basket for later, before transferring the laundry over and starting a new load. He checked in on Donnie, who looked back at him, curiously, before heading to the kitchen. The kiddo was okay, so he could take a few minutes to clean up the mess in the kitchen.

It, of course, took longer than a few minutes, but Casey got it done relatively fast. The living room had gotten quieter, and Casey wondered if maybe Donnie had fallen asleep. It’d be fine if he did. He’d just bundle the little turtle up and put him in the pack’n’play in his and April’s room.

Drying his hands on a towel, Casey walked into the living room, expecting to see a sleeping turtle—and stopping short when that wasn’t what he found. Sure, Donnie’s toys were still out, but he couldn’t see Donnie anywhere. Keeping himself from panicking, Casey looked around the living room.

“Donnie?” he called. “Donnie, where are you?”

Not a peep.

His fear starting to grow, Casey started to look for the little turtle in earnest. He hadn’t crawled under any of the furniture in the living room, and he wasn’t behind the TV or in the curtains. The staircase still had the baby gate up, and it didn’t look like it had been messed with. Nothing looked as if anyone had broken in. But Donnie wasn’t in the living room.

His panic starting to grow, Casey quickly searched through the other rooms in the apartment. Nothing. He didn’t think that the little boy could have gotten down the stairs that led to the shop, or out of the door to the stairs in the hallway, but he ran down them, checking both of them out, too. The doors to the shop and the outside were still both locked, so no one had gotten in. And Donnie wasn’t in the basement, either.

Casey’s panic multiplied, and he raced back up the stairs to the apartment. Donnie had to be in here. He had to be in here somewhere. He was little and he was smart, and Raph was always saying that they found him in the oddest of places. He had to be somewhere in the apartment. With his panic leading him, Casey tore the apartment apart, looking in every nook, every cranny, pulling out everything from any place that the small turtle could be hiding. He called for the baby but got no answer.

He went back downstairs, to the shop, treating it similarly, not caring about how angry April was going to be with him. That wouldn’t matter if he was killed by three angry brothers. No—Casey wouldn’t even make it that far. Master Splinter would get to him first, and that would be the end of it. And Casey would deserve it for losing Donnie.

Casey searched from one end of the building to the other, turning every space in it upside down and inside out. There was no sign of the child on any floor.

He was going to have to call April.

He was a dead man. April would kill him before Splinter did, just because she’d get to him first. And Casey wouldn’t even fight her about it. He trudged back up to the apartment, trying to think of what he was going to say to her.

He reached in his pocket for his phone, only to realize it wasn’t there. Cursing to himself, he tried to remember the last place he had it. Maybe the laundry room? Yeah, he’d emptied his pockets out there, so that was probably where it was.

Casey walked into the laundry room like a man condemned to die and spotted his phone on top of the dryer. What was he going to tell April? “Hey, babe, listen, I know I said I’d be responsible, but I lost Donnie and I’m telling you first, so you can kill me before the ninja master rat can?” Yeah. That’d go over well.

The dryer was still warm, the load in it having just finished, and Casey, trying to think of what he was going to say to his wife, opened it, taking out the laundry and plopping it in the basket.

The basket that churred.

Casey froze and looked back at the basket of towels and now-warm clothes. No. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

Casey turned and started to carefully pull the clean laundry out of the basket. There, buried halfway down and covered in towels, was a small, curled up, mutant turtle baby, yawning and whining a bit as Casey let in the cool air that the towels had been insulating him from.

Casey sat down hard.

“Oh, man, oh Donnie,” he said, reaching in to pull the baby out of the basket. Donnie made a displeased noise, and Casey reached for one of the warm t-shirts to wrap around the child. Donnie chirped again, settling in and Casey laughed, relief filling him. “You got no idea how bad you scared me, Donnie,” he said. He leaned back against the dryer. “Oh, man.”

April walked quickly, heading towards her building. She’d been out much later than she’d planned on, and she hoped that Casey was doing alright with Donnie. She’d not gotten any calls or text from him, so she hoped that was a good sign. She was just walking past her alleyway when she saw a flash coming from it. Curious, she peeked in, only to see a glowing blue portal on the wall, three turtles and one rat emerging from it. Smiling, she turned to join them.

“Hey, guys!” she said. “Just getting back?”

“Yeah,” Leo said. “The ceremony went on longer than we thought.”

“Who knew that every Battle Nexus Champion there would have to give a speech!” Mikey said, grinning.

“A speech?” April said.

“Don’t ask,” Raph said. “Numbskull didn’t completely embarrass us, a least—but it was near thing.”

“We are fortunate that Michelangelo has the gift of spontaneity, as well as speech,” Splinter said. “Unfortunately, his gift of social cues comes and goes.”

“What?” Mikey protested.

April shook her head and started to fish her keys out of her purse. “Well, sounds like it was entertaining, at least,” she said.

“How was your night?” Leo asked. “Aren’t you getting home a little late?”

“I am,” April said. “But we started talking and just having so much fun, that by the time we realized what time it was, well, it was late.” She paused, putting the keys in the door to unlock it. “And I made sure all of my friends had a safe way home. Not all of them have the advantage of being trained in ninjitsu by actual ninja, you know,” she said.

Mikey laughed as April opened the door to her shop. “And don’t forget—training by the Battle Nexus Cha—whoa!”

Mikey cut off as April flicked the light switch, and they all saw her shop. Furniture was turned over, drawers were pulled out, cabinets were open, clothing was strewn about. The place looked ransacked.

“Donatello,” Splinter breathed, and as one, they all raced to the circular staircase, running up it to the apartment above.

The apartment was in no better shape, with things overturned, taken out, strewn. It was clear it wasn’t just in the living room, either, but in all the rooms. Donnie’s toys were scattered, and the TV was still on, but there wasn’t a sign of anyone around.

“Casey!?” April called, fear clear in her voice.

“In here!” Casey called back. His voice sounded soft, weak, and no one took that as a good sign.

They all rushed towards where his voice had come from, alert for any enemies. They didn’t find any, but they did find Casey, leaning against the dryer, with a towel wrapped Donnie sleeping on his chest.

“Hey guys,” Casey said, keeping his voice soft so he wouldn’t wake Donnie. “Welcome back.”

“Casey, what the shell is going on?” Raph demanded.

Casey blinked at him. “What—oh, right, the apartment!”

“The apartment, the store,” Mikey listed.

“Ah… yeah,” Casey said, “about that…” he rubbed the back of his head. “So, it’s kinda like this. See, me and Donnie, we had a good time, right? Played, watched some hockey, stuff like that. Then we ate, and he got a bath, and I started some laundry. Little Man was getting sleepy, so I set him to play with his toys while I cleaned up the kitchen. Only when I got back, he was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Leo said, an edge to his voice.

“I mean, he wasn’t where I left him,” Casey said. “And he wasn’t anywhere in the living room. I looked. I looked everywhere, and then I looked again, and then I looked again,” he said. “I was gonna call April, let her be the one to kill me for loosing Donnie before the rest of you could, when I found him in the laundry basket.”

“The laundry basket?” Mikey questioned.

Casey nodded. “Yeah. I think he liked the warm towels or something, because if he starts getting fussy, all I gotta do is pull a new warm one outta the dryer, wrap him in it, and he settles right down. We’ve uh, been sitting like this for a couple of hours now.” He looked at the baby in his arms. “After losing him, I kinda didn’t want to let him go.”

For a moment, there was silence, with the exception of the small churrs coming from Donnie, and the sound of the dryer.

“Let me get this straight,” April said. “You lost the baby, ransacked our apartment and the store looking for the baby, found the baby, and then sat here holding the baby.”

“Uhhh,” Casey winced. “Yeah? And I kinda ransacked the whole buildin’ so…”

April stared at him, and then let out a breath. “To be honest, I don’t blame you,” she said.

Casey blinked at her. “Uh… what?”

“Thank you, Casey,” Splinter said, reaching out a hand to rub on Donnie’s head. The baby churred contentedly. “Although I am not happy you lost him in the first place, the fact that you would go to such lengths to find him is appreciated.” He looked back at the other three turtles. “Come, my sons. Let us help April put her home back together.”

The other three turtles nodded, and headed out, while April leaned down and put a kiss on Casey’s forehead. “If you take this good of care of Donnie, I can’t imagine what a great father you’ll be one day.”

Casey stared at his wife as she sauntered out the door after the rest of their family, then looked down at the still sleeping Donnie. “Huh,” he said. “That… wasn’t how I was expecting that to go.” He shifted a little, making sure Donnie was still comfortable. “Well, I’m gonna guess they’ll let me babysit you again,” he said.

“You’re on probation!” Leo called back.

Casey looked up, and then grinned. “Yeah, okay. On probation. I can live with that, little man, if you can.”

Donnie simply churred and snuggled deeper into Casey’s hold.

#tmnt #tmnt 2k3 #tmnt fan fiction #tmnt fanfic #tmnt donatello #tmnt casey jones #tmnt 2003 #tmnt AU

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iconuk01 · 8 months

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I've just seen it announced that Peter Vaughan-Clarke has died, at the age of 66.

Those of you who don't know who that is, who i suspect will be 99.78% of the people reading this, he was an actor best known for being Stephen in The Tomorrow People, not the US reimagining, but the original British early 70's version aimed squarely at kids.

The show was a contemporary show about the spontaneous appearance of the next step of human evolution, with powers emerging at puberty. They were gifted with powers of telepathy (only for communicating with each other, they couldn't read other minds), telekinesis, and teleportation (or "jaunting" as they refer to it), which for anything other than line of sight, required the use of a technological addition, the jaunting belt, a quintessentially 70's design.

There were only a handful of them (Less than a dozen across all the various seasons) and they operated out of a converted disused London Tube station.

At the behest of the Galactic Federation (Earth was not a member, but Tomorrow People appearing suggested it might be, one day) who loaned them some tech (including TIM, their self aware computer) they sought to help protect Earth from external threats, and more importantly, help other Tomorrow People as they emerged because the "Breaking Out" process was potentially very dangerous, as their mind had to cope with adjusting to telepathy (it was implied you might go insane if it didn't progress properly and develop mental shields) and teleportation (some people simply vanished and were lost forever in hyperspace). Tomorrow People were also genetically hardwired to be non-violent.

It had a budget that made Doctor Who look generous, and some of the performances were… not good (producer Roger Price deliberately cast untested actors for most parts, which worked in some cases, but not others). He was also committed to having non-white actors in lead rolds (Which for the early 70's wasn't remotely guaranteed). There's a fun article about some of that here. and another here

Stephen was the audience identification character in the first season. He was the average, everyday kid who "broke out" and was introduced to the weird world of the Tomorrow People.

He's a case where they got VERY lucky with casting. PVC (as he was affectionately known) ensured Steven was a delightful character.

He was funny, snarky, brave, eager, but not foolishly so, and still getting used to his new world. He still had to go to school because he was an otherwise ordinary kid, but would still jaunt to go swimming in the Carribean after school, because who wouldn't? He was the sort of guy you'd WANT to be friends with at school, even if he wasn't a Tomorrow Person.

And even very little icon-uk (I wasn't even upper case in those days) could see that he was a good looking kid, even if I was more interested in how cool telekinesis was as a power, and more importantly, how I could get hold of a jaunting belt)

That last one is a space suit... the 70s were weird for fashions, but not THAT weird.

David Bowie met him when the show was filming and mentioned later that he was "a pretty little thing", and I know from talking to people that he was the catalyst for more than one young lad realising that they might be more interested in other lads than girls.

After the show, his TV career petered out, bur he still did various stage work, acting, lighting tech and the like. He remained in touch with the fandom, appearing at conventions, and when the DVD's came out, he and co-star Nicholas Young did a serisouly outrageously good commentary tracks, simultaneously fond reminiscing, utter piss-take, giggling at the props and effects and pondering why a couple of the directors insisted on dressing some the attractive young actors in as little as possible. (Nothing untoward or disturbing appears to have happened to the cast, I hasten to add, but that director's predelictions do raise an eyebrow)

#peter vaughan-clarke #in memoriam #the tomorrow people

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magpiefngrl · 29 days

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do you think writer's block is an actual concrete thing? / what is writer's block to you?

Hey anon! When I wrote the post seeking asks, I'd added writer's block to the end of the things I'd like to chat about, and then deleted it because it is included in woes. But you read my mind!

This is going to be looooong. I'm putting it under a cut x

I've had debilitating writer's block in the past. Debilitating. I used to write and post fic regularly back in 2017-18--and then I stopped. For a time, I'd write but would hate everything. I'd feel empty of ideas and robbed of the ability to convey thoughts on page. I'd cross half my sentences out and doubt every word.

And then: I couldn't look at the page. I would think about opening a doc and I'd immediately distract myself with something else. The dishes, the cat, a new tab. It was like even the idea of writing touched some wound inside me and I'd flinch, I'd get that visceral reaction of "ouch, avoid avoid".

So, for me at least, writer's block is a real thing. It happens, it affects people, and it is so prevalent that thousand of articles have been written about it.

I've come to realise, though, that writer's block doesn't exist on its own. It doesn't just come at someone randomly like an unwelcome lottery ticket. It's an indication of something else.

(a pause here to say that writer's block isn't the time when a creative brain needs to rest. The fallow periods. That's normal, esp if you've overextended yourself. Pushing yourself to write at that time might make the brain rebel, and you might think you've got writer's block when all you need to do is take some time off and fill the creative well with fun activities.)

So what might the writer's block indicate? Anything from fear of failure, to insecurity, to perfectionism, to depression. When I'm depressed, I don't write. I have to treat the depression to get rid of the block. That's easy, in the sense that I know what depression feels like and I know how to deal with it. Or at least I know that it passes.

But fear of failure? Perfectionism? These aren't as easy to pinpoint, not for me, anyway. Also, those of us who have posted fics in fandom have the added stress of disappointing readers/followers. You've no idea how terrified I was about finishing my WIP, 9 1/2 days. I was sure that readers would be like "it's been years in the making so the story must be extraordinary" and then they'd read my normal, totally ordinary story and feel let down. At other times, I'd mentioned/promised birthday gift fics to people and I felt the pressure of time passing and me having nothing to show for it. So much stress.

We say that fandom is a fun place and we're here for the joy of being a fan, but this excessive positivity often doesn't allow for the negative feelings of having a story you're proud of go unnoticed. It happens. To all of us. It hurts like fuck. It hurts to see rec list after rec list and not see your name on it. And you feel like a dickhead for feeling resentment and anger about it, because you're not here for the stats, you're really not, but fucking hell--you thought that was a pretty good story and if no one really agreed, then you're not a good writer, right?

Why does writer's block come after you've posted ten fics and not before the first one, when you're a lot more inexperienced and new at this? I guess, higher stakes. Also, times of vulnerability come and go. Once, during my writer block years, when I was trying to get over it and go back to writing, I received a piece of feedback that devastated me. It hurt me so incredibly much that I couldn't (and didn't) think about a certain story for over six months. It was like this person, unwittingly, reached inside me, found where I was hurting, the soft, wounded part of me, and stabbed me right in the middle of it. It was a good lesson in learning to protect myself when I feel vulnerable emotionally.

Imagine trying to write, worrying that you'll let your readers down, certain that your best story is in the past and you've peaked already, anxious about making little progress and falling behind, upset that no one recs or talks about your latest fic--in other words it was a massive failure--(all of these were things I experienced at multiple times) and that's on top of the author's normal worries about trying to figure out the plot and the characters and whether this POV works for the story. Who wouldn't get blocked?

I'd better stop around here, this is something that I could discuss forever. My leaving thought would be that to treat writer's block one should:

first, see if it is writer's block and not burnout or fallow period, in which case: REST

second, try and reflect on what the block is hiding, and then deal with that.

third, care a lot less. I think, at the end of the day, writer's block comes because we care so much about writing a good story that it becomes an impediment. It helps to care less. I've been posting stories unbetaed in the last couple of years. It's a deliberate decision to take back the sensation of being an amateur writing for the fun of it.

send me an ask!

#writer's block #inbox #this was therapeutic wow #writing

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shattered-sparks · 1 year

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Tomorrow is when the giveaway ends and I pull out two users to draw for, but before that I just wanted to get something out there since there’s been a lot of negativity going on in the SAMS fandom.

Users complaining, hate being thrown towards places, and in general a lot of not fun stuff going on. Seeing all this happening in real time sucks. And I don’t want to sit by and do nothing about it. I’m heavily into SAMS as it is a series that helped me threw a traumatic experience in my life. Helped me through a lot of stress and helped me cope. It’s very close to my heart and so I’m not leaving anytime soon.

Why I bring this up is because I’ve seen some stuff being brought up on losing followers and sub counts due to taking a break from making SAMS content. I’m not going to name names or users or anything like that. That’s not the point I want to get across. The point is when you create fan content it’s out of love and genuine passion. You want to share this thing you like with others. Make friends in said space. Making fan content should never be done to gain numbers and a following. If this makes me enemies with some then so be it. I don’t really care. Just don’t be out here looking for rising numbers. It’s a unhealthy mindset and a path straight to burnout. And this goes out to everyone in this fandom. As for a more negative thing I’ve seen around is the demonization of the SAMS fan wiki and the people who work on it. Go into the discord server and it’s not hard to spot someone making the wiki out to be bad for “Sun character assassination” And before you start getting onto me about being biased cause I just joined the wiki in helping. No, I’ve seen it happening for a while now. It’s just at the tipping point that the people who work on the wiki are scared. I don’t tolerate things like this. Dislike the wiki all you want but don’t use that to hate on the people who work on it for free. They are not paid. They are not out here for fame. They’re genuinely trying to make the wiki the best they can out of love. “But they got Sun’s character wrong” Please tell me where they got Sun OOC, please. I’ve personally read the personality portion of the wiki page and there is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s just a straight cut out of how Sun is as a character. In the end I want to be a light in this weird place in the fandom. Someone who can show that there is good here. Genuine love and care. I just can’t sit silently watching the fans get disliked for un-following and for people becoming stressed over a character page.

#SAMS #TSAMS #Coyote Noises #Long post #SAMS Thoughts #the sun and moon show

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sharkneto · 2 years

Note

Did you see the script of the scrapped Hargreaves 23rd birthday episode? I think it's called "Happy Twenty-Third." If so what were your thoughts on it? Especially curious about what you think of Five parts.

I did! I enjoyed reading it, was fun to get different glimpses, but I'm not sure how "scrapped" it is versus one of the writers wrote some official fanfic. Which is still lots of fun! But it didn't feel... polished enough, to me, doesn't fit in right with S1 to have been anything that was going to be Official.

Loved the Allison bit, how she struggled so hard to not Rumor and her facing a bit on what people thought of her. I do think S3 Allison might not have had such a terrible backlash if there had been some more overt showing of her behavior pre-redemption; it was always a bit of a choice to start Allison's arc at her redemption, rather than that being a full arc we went on with her as the audience. But I do appreciate S1's subtlety in how they hint and drop at How Much Allison Rumored before then (as if "I Rumored my daughter constantly" wasn't enough).

The stuff with Klaus in jail felt fitting - loved that he got to use his Umbrella training (I feel like fandom likes to forget that he does have training and can hold his own in a fight when he wants to), loved that Leonard was lurking in the background of all those scenes. Interesting choice to have that be when Ben shows up, sixish years after he died. Klaus' conversation with Viktor was a lot of fun but---

Viktor felt... too fulfilled in this. Yes, he's coming off his success of Extra Ordinary but that he was in a serious relationship? With a woman? From how I always interpreted S1 Viktor, my understanding was that he had Nothing going on (because he couldn't because of how much the pills subdued him). The most boring, blandest life. That he was in a serious relationship, not just a couple dates in an attempt for one, and that it was with a woman felt like too much. The intensity with which he falls for Leonard (six years after this script takes place) always felt like, to me, that this was the first time someone showed him genuine interest and the first time, because no pills, he was really able to reciprocate. His fling with Sissy also felt like it was supposed to be interpreted to be his first time falling in love and having a relationship with a woman. Viktor before this point was too suppressed to explore his sexuality or gender. He couldn't until he was off the pills and found Sissy. So the fact that he was apparently in a then-lesbian relationship when he was 23 feels... off. That said, him finding out he was cheated on on his birthday felt Spot On for his life (rip, sorry Viktor). His conversation with Klaus was a lot of fun, too. He really did not hold back in Extra Ordinary, guy pulled no punches. But we already knew that Viktor has a vindictive streak a mile wide.

Not a lot to say about Diego - I always like Patch, his rivalry with the other cop felt fitting, I like it when the show lets him casually use his powers and remembers it's anything he throws and not just knives.

Same with Luther - he was Real Dumb but also 23 and really under Reggie so I can give his characterization benefit of the doubt. A fun nod to the Murder Magician with that plot.

And, now, the guy we're all here for: Five. Loved what he had going on with the Handler, I'm obsessed with their fucked up relationship. I think S1 handled it perfectly, hinting at things and letting viewers interpret to what degree of Fucked Up it is. I think him having a moment to himself with the woman in the bar was nice, good to see he's sort of living what little life he has. I haven't decided how I feel about her being named Delores. On one hand, a cute way to have caught his attention and shows he's thinking about his plastic wife. On the other, in light of S3 (which maybe isn't a fair thing to compare to because this is a S1 based script), I'm wary of casual references to Delores. She was treated so much as a joke in S3 (all the references to mannequins to Five, Five running down the hall with mannequin limbs) when in S1 she was the gorgeous, poignant piece of Five, this person he made for himself that was the best of him and he loved because he had no one else to love. So having the woman be named Delores also feels a little cheap. But nice for Five to get to have a normal moment, a human connection before he goes and murders and then comes back to try and continue that connection before the Commission intervenes (S1 Commission, my beloved). And then he gets to see Diego and he immediately fails the test that it is because of course he's going to fail anything that involves his family. That was great, and followed by a creepy, rather overt moment with the Handler? Excellent. Overall, good Five times.

So... where does that leave us overall. Did I enjoy reading it? Yes. Did I gain a better understanding of the characters and wish it was official? No. I feel like we already knew everything we get from the script from S1 and that S1 does it in a tighter way. Do I still want to watch Five having a nice time and dancing with that woman in the bar? Yeah, yeah I do. Old Five always deserves more love and I won't say no to more Five bits with Sean Sullivan, he's delightful.

#that script was a fun read #some good angsty bits #some good character moments #but - to me - it reads very much like fanfic (official fanfic! by a tua writer! but still fanfic)#which isn't a bad thing - i am obviously pro fanfic and enjoy it #but it's also not something i'm going to pay attention to in my understanding of the characters or show #thank you for the ask!#tua #shark's tua thoughts #ask response #long post

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flydotnet · 1 year

Text

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled).

Papa’s a liar.

New fandom, new bazillion questions I ask myself about whether or not this is even worth finishing - and thenI do anyway because I'm stubborn and my card looks prettier with one more character on it. I'm not sure how I can still stress myself out over my characterization being at least serviceable when - and I counted - this is the fourth time I'm writing a new fandom with this card alone*. At this point, it's just to cause myself issues. Anyway! I love Twilight/Loid. He's the best spy of Westalis but he's also the dumbest idiot I've ever seen. My man buys his daughter a dog first because she wants it and then because something something Operation Strix. It was also funny to remove like 70% of his agency but that's because I'm a horrible person. And also it's fun. The prompt itself wasn't very fun up until I realized I could use "Crutches" as in both the actual item and emotional crutches - aka Anya and Yor, who are absolute units at disarming a spy, apparently! Have I mentioned I love this manga yet? I hope I don't regret this fic man

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Break a Leg, See If It Brings You Luck

Summary: It’s a good thing the only bullet he took was in the leg. It’s an easy thing to take care of and hide for the most part – far easier than on the chest or back, at the very least – as long as one finds a way to justify the slight limp it may carry with it, they’ll find themselves doing just fine.

Except this just had not to be an ordinary gunshot wound. No, the bullet just had to strike in right the perfect way to fracture the femur.

This is going to be a very long month.

Fandom: Spy x Family Characters: Loid, Anya and Yor Forget, the whole fam’s here (with a cameo from Bond too!) Ship: The eternally mutually pining TwiYor, you know how it is

Wordcount: 2.5K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version.

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Getting shot at is nothing new. It comes with the job, one could say: dismantle a smuggling network, or fight off human traffickers and you have a good 90% chance to get attacked with firearms in retaliation. In fact, it’s an exception when you’re not – which has also happened to him, of course – so you must be prepared to patch up a gunshot wound in case thing take a turn for the sour.

He’s not above admitting, at least to himself, that he’s sometimes not been able to avoid bullets as well as he should’ve. Most of those times are so long ago that the details of it are starting to lose their edge (kind of like him, at the moment, and he still has to take care of that issue too…), but they’ve all reminded him that, in the end, they’re simply bigger flesh wounds: they merely require a bit more tending to than your regular scratch or cut.

A bullet fracturing the femur is a new one, though, even to him.

What’s also new to him is the dependency that comes with such a fracture. Despite his best efforts, he didn’t manage to pretend like it didn’t exist in front of his fake family. He should’ve seen it coming, in retrospect, considering how much of his edge he keeps losing in front of both fake wife and fake daughter – but to Anya’s credit, she seemed to have realized on her own even before he could lie to her about this not being a big deal.

Sometimes, he wonders about the sharpness of this little girl’s instincts. For a child whose grades in school are nothing to write home about, she’s able to get through most of his smokes and mirrors, as if she could read what he meant to hide behind them. It’s… surely just his edge getting dull, though. What else could it be, huh? Surely this child who he found in some dump-like orphanage that barely deserves the name of one doesn’t read minds.

(If she somehow does, then Twilight must apologize, because exposing such a young girl to spy affairs could be considered child cruelty, he’s certain).

At least, it’s perhaps the easiest gunshot wound in the world to explain. After all, breaking a leg can happen for a wide variety of reasons and he doesn’t have to blame a crazed patient to get away with it. It made him look somewhat stupid when he had to tell both Anya and Yor that he had tripped in the stairs because they had just been washed and he had conveniently forgotten about that, slipping on a step and tumbling down the stairs. (As long as neither of them sees the bullet-shaped hole under the cast, it’s fine).

On the flipside, it’s handicapping him more than a regular bullet hole in that area. A bone takes longer to heal back to usable capacity than flesh and skin. That’s not even getting into the fact it’s his right leg that he can’t walk with: it means he’s even limited in his movements. A broken arm, as bad as it is, at least doesn’t prevent him from running and shooting; a broken leg, on the other hand, severely limits his options for walking and, by virtue of doing so, also prevents him from using his arms when moving around.

Crutches are a pain. How did he even forget?

Having to use both arms to move an immobile leg means he can’t even take care of chores at home, despite those being the only thing he has to worry about at the moment, aside from Operation Strix: WISE, for once, gave him time off from his usual missions, albeit only because he physically can’t handle them, he’s sure). He can’t cook dinner, he can’t walk Anya to school, he can’t walk the dog—

“Papa, can I walk Bond today?”

He jumps – he really needs to stop losing himself in thoughts, this is smoothing his edge – and faces a concerned-looking Anya.

“We should wait until your mother is home, Anya. You’ll get carried away by his strength.”

“Mama said she’d come back super late from work today,” Anya replies.

That’s true, yes. Yor proposed to stay home and take care of housework for him, but he refused. His broken leg shouldn’t impede on her professional life. Still, this is an issue, and the fate of his undercover operation relies on Bond being happy… Right!

“I could ask Franky to take care of Bond.”

“Yay, Uncle Scruffy to the rescue!” Then Anya freezes. “But, Papa, how are you gonna use the phone? You can’t stand up and use the phone at the same time!”

Dammit, she’s right… Well, partially, at least. He’s not that powerless, is he now?

“I assure you, Anya, I can maintain my balance on one foot and use the phone with my available hand.”

“That sounds dange’ous, Papa.”

Well, it’s not like he didn’t portray himself as a klutz no later than yesterday, he supposes.

“It’ll be fine.” She looks around for a moment, then walks to the phone. “What’re you doing, Anya?”

“I’m calling Uncle Scruffy!”

“What did I just—”

Anya, ever the free soul, grabs a chair and, with every single fibre of strength in her tiny body, puts it next to the phone.

“Papa?”

He sighs as he grabs the crutches at the foot of the couch.

“How do you use a phone again?”

With an annoyance he can’t even bring himself to hide (he doubts Anya would be convinced he doesn’t hate having to rely on sticks to walk around anyway), he gets up, sighing. Walking on those things is more tiring than it should be allowed to be.

“Let me at least input the number before you try calling at random, Anya.”

This is going to be a very tedious month, he can already tell – and it’s only been two days.

If you put it in a certain way, this entire fiasco benefits Operation Strix. Sure, it’s at the detriment of every other mission WISE is on, which means it’s detrimental to the peace between East and West because he’s stuck on pretending to be a psychiatrist (driven to work by his wife, of all things) and paperwork duties; but it means he can decipher documentation that may’ve taken longer to getting understood and he can watch over Bond. After all, the dog is part of the family, so taking care of him and making sure he’s well-fed and happy is of primordial importance.

(Maybe less so than Anya’s grades or his cover as a psychiatrist with patients so violent one has to wonder how it’s even possible, but important nonetheless).

Anya seems happy that “Bond has a friend”, at least, and to be fair, at least, the dog doesn’t ask about if he should be moving around the place, unlike Anya and Yor and every single one of his fake and real workmates. Maybe, if he could talk, Bond would ask to; but as it stands, Twilight doesn’t speak dog and Bond doesn’t speak human, so it’s fine.

In that way, it makes interacting in woofs a much better thing than constantly telling Yor that, no, he’s fine, just moving slowly compared to usual (and not having his hands free for most of it).

Do crutches really make you look that much like an invalid? When he listens to her, Twilight can’t help but think he’s actually lost his damn leg when, no, Anya just keeps asking if she can draw on his cast –he keeps telling her no, but each time comes out with less strength than the previous one, it’s a war of attrition and the child is winning – and it’ll be fixed. He’s not even tried walking on the damn thing (from experience, it only works when you’ve got enough adrenaline to cover up most of the pain).

Since coming back home with that gunshot wound (which, he’ll admit, he did underestimate quite a lot), Yor has been more insistent than ever on handling any chore that isn’t cooking, insisting she must get the groceries and see Anya off every day to school, among a shopping list of things Twilight isn’t even sure they’ve actually done at (Loid Forger’s) home like dusting bedsheets outside.

Yor’s help at home, as excessive as it is at the moment, is good for Operation Strix: it makes their fake marriage seem this much more realistic to outsiders, as Yor is regularly seen shopping for groceries with or without Anya, while giving him more time to gather intel for other WISE agents. These past few days, he’s been able to crack about a dozen ciphers that had been bothering the agency, catch three secret correspondences between Ostalian pro-war factions and repair very exactly fifteen tears in Yor’s and Anya’s clothes.

This is less of a net negative than expected; Twilight’s sure of it.

Still, he should set things straight with her again, and he has the perfect opportunity: Anya is sleeping at Becky Blackbell’s mansion today, which she referred to as “a mission for Papa’s peace” (she really must love spy cartoons), so it’s only Yor and him at home tonight. He was supposed to have a side-mission, but it got cancelled due to those same unforeseen circumstances that have been biting at him all week – and no matter how much he tried to insist, Handler refused to let him take care of it. Training to be able to conduct an operation while having one leg amputated really had no use, it seems.

Yor is also available, which is very convenient, in this case. They decided, like most of the time these days, to order something and eat it at home. To his misfortune, and almost as a bad omen, as soon as he goes to grab his crutches from the side of the couch, Yor picks him up like a glass statue of some kind and sits him to the table, going as far as to slide the other side to put his leg on another chair.

This really isn’t starting the right way.

They both pick at their dish until, finally, he decides enough is enough. He won’t be dependant on human crutches, be it a young girl or a strong woman who can absolutely bench-press over twice his weight.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with doing everything around home, Yor,” he tells her in almost a clinical tone.

She, however, stares right back to him like it wasn’t obvious.

“But you’re…”

“Partially incapacitated, I know. I wish to assure you, this isn’t as cumbersome as it looks.”

She looks down, eyes fluttering and cheeks reddening.

“But, Loid… I’ve seen how frustrated it’s made you to… have to compose with this.”

“It’s nothing I can’t manage, I assure you.”

A heavy silence settles between the two of them, only broken by bites of food and sips of water. It’s a deeply uncomfortable one – which Twilight rationalizes as silence never being a good sign for spies. Something about calm itself being a sign a threat is hiding beneath the surface. Yes, something like this, not about how he seems to have let Yor down or made her feel uneasy… (Uncertainty is also a lethal enemy).

In the end, she breaks the silence, fiddling with the hem of her red sweater (which matches her eyes oh so well – no time to think about that, Loid).

“I don’t mind, you know… In fact, I really like it! I’ve always liked helping people, I suppose, but it feels… different, when it’s you.” Her cheeks grow red as a poppy. “U-unless you really mind, of course! Then I can just let you be or wait until you really need something from me!”

Loid sighs. How is he supposed to say no to this, really? This is going against everything he’s ever learned, and yet he finds himself walking headfirst into it. Dangerous business, really. (The blur of mask and reality should worry him much more than that).

“I’d usually prefer handling myself, but if you say it doesn’t bother you, then I don’t think I can quite go against it.” He clears his throat to regain some seriousness. “Albeit, I don’t want it to be a burden on you. Think of yourself first.”

“Oh, of course! You’ll probably still have to at least help with dinner, but don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything else!”

She didn’t quite get what he meant, he’s pretty sure, but she’s got the spirit.

Crutches really are a spy’s worst hurdle to overcome.

There’s this one sentence that keeps getting on his nerves, no matter how he thinks about it.

Oh, no, let me take care of this for you!

And there’s this other sentence that triggers… something within him that he doesn’t quite get, but which doesn’t feel bad per say.

Oh, no, Loid, let me take care of this for you!

…wait. They sound the same.

Yor is nothing if not well-meaning (and a special brand of impossible not to stare at) but having to rely on her has felt horrible all week and he’s not sure of how much longer he can last with her insisting to do anything for him, from cooking to taking care of Anya, without forgetting driving him up to work (and that still stings). The feeling grows worse with each day passing too: like a poison, it sinks into every last cell it touches, no matter how unrelated, and it makes hard to focus on ciphers and intel gathering.

Loid Forger’s a lucky man, Twilight supposes, to have such a caring spouse ready to help him with so much for something as little as a broken leg and what it causes. Loid Forger, in fact, must absolutely relish in being able to take a break from violent patients and working graveyard shifts every single night of the week. Twilight? Not so much.

He thinks.

Maybe.

Okay, truth be told, he needed the break from the late-night, about-to-get-shot-multiple-times missions. He had already thought about it even before getting shot in the femur, but this has only confirmed his need for a breather, no matter how short. This, of course, comes at the price of his peace of mind, because he shouldn’t be taking it easy while WISE is going through such an intense staff shortage, but it does come with the main perk of not wavering on his feet so frequently.

Relying on civilians still doesn’t sit right with him but considering he too can’t sit properly at the moment, it may sound hypocritical of him (who is he kidding? He’s always a hypocrite, it comes with being an undercover agent and like a second nature to him). Some part of him doesn’t even hate it, per say; being able to spend time with Anya and Yor, not having to manage everything, taking his time… It doesn’t sound so bad. It goes against everything he’s ever known, but it feels… maybe not quite right, but quite agreeable. Or, at least, less uncomfortable than anticipated.

He’s even sure letting Anya draw on the cast was a good thing for Operation Strix. It makes him look like a good family man, which he needs for the sake of the mission.

This… might not just be about Operation Strix, though.

Just might.

#bad things happen bingo #spy x family #loid forger #anya forger #yor forger #crutches #dont be scared by the tag this is fluff #bthb #this is all for operation strix y'all

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valleyrunearchives · 2 years

Text

Binary

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Fandom: Boku No Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Pairings: Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Chapter 2/?

“Binary code is a series of zeroes and ones strung together in a specific sequence. On paper, it’s useless. Annoying. Worthless. But put that same string of zeroes and ones into a computer, and suddenly it’s a language far more complex than the human mind can comprehend. I was the same way. The world decided I wasn’t good enough in the physical plane, so I went digital. That’s why I chose the name Binary. And you should be very,” He smirks at the underground hero on the screen, “Very afraid of the reach I have here. Aizawa Shouta.”

Midoriya Izuku is tired of the world treating him like nothing. So he decides to becoming a hacker to show the world that nothing can be anything.

Featuring Midoriya Izuku as the Genius Hacker Aizawa Shouta as the problem child wrangler Yamada Hizashi as the moral support to his husband Tsukauchi Naomasa as the man who needs a long vacation PLEASE Shinsou Hitoshi as the intentionally adopted one Toga Himiko as the unintentionally adopted one Dabi as the really didn’t want to be adopted one but he guesses this is his life now and Nedzu as the Rat God of UA

<=Previous | Next=>

Click here to Read on AO3!

Aizawa Shouta is having an average patrol night. Nothing too out of the ordinary has happened so far. He honestly thinks it’s going to go smoothly enough that he’ll be able to leave on time. Which is why he knows he jinxed himself when he walks into the police headquarters and Tsukauchi comes rushing up to him. That usually means a case but the amount of urgency lining the man’s face is certainly concerning. “We may have a problem,” is the first thing the detective says to him when he approaches.

Oh fucking hell… Can’t he have just one night?

He sighs out deeply through his nose but obediently follows Tsukauchi to his office without complaint. As soon as the door closes, he asks, “What’s going on? Has something happened?”

The detective walks over to sit at his desk, a box sitting open on top of it, "This box was sitting outside of the front entrance last night after a freak power outage occurred that was about five blocks wide all around headquarters. The secretary on duty thought that maybe it had just been dropped by the postal service and kicked into the open by someone passing by in the sudden darkness, so she brought it in. It was addressed to me."

"Okay, and?" He prompts.

"The contents were… somewhat shocking," Tsukauchi holds out a piece of paper. He takes it and looks at the contents on it.

[Thought you could use this, detective. Try not to wait too long to follow up on it. I don't know how long it'll be before this info isn't valid anymore. Have fun! - With love, from Binary]

"Who's Binary?" He asks.

"Don't know. Never had any contact with them before this. That's not what concerns us, concerns me, though." He turns to his computer and types at the keys on the keyboard. He also clicks on something before continuing, "In the box along with the note was a flash drive. The content in the drive was especially interesting to us." The underground hero raises an eyebrow as Tsukauchi motions him around the desk. Aizawa rounds the desk, leaning against the top of it with one hand to look at the screen of the detective’s computer. His eyes slowly widened at the contents, "Is that-?"

"The Yamaguchi Brothers and their new syndicate? Yep. One of our tech guys verified that the videos and photos are legit and the flash drive it came on wasn't bugged or filled with viruses. It contains their hideout location with visible landmarks around plus coordinates, some photos of some of the crimes they've recently committed, and even photos of their cars license plates along with who owns them. There's also a list of identities and known quirks amongst the group as well as the best heroes to bring to apprehend them. This ‘Binary’ managed to solve one of our highest profile cases in the course of a night as well as put together a practically full proof plan to apprehend them."

"And all of it is legit? Every single piece? Nothing’s been tampered with at all?" When the detective hums an affirmative, Aizawa furrows his brows, "Well that's too convenient… anyone spotted after the box was left?"

"Nope. Just some kid waiting for his mom to pick him up after gymnastics class apparently. Secretary on duty said she felt bad for him because apparently his mom couldn't come get him and he had to walk alone in the dark. Said he was pretty freaked out about it but got embarrassed when he noticed her. Also," Tsukauchi reaches over and grabs something off his desk. He passes it to Aizawa, "We did a bit of digging and found that the power outage that occured? It was planned. Something pinged in the system at the same time that the power went out. It was gone by the time the power was back on."

"Sounds like a hacker then. So… Whoever Binary is, they found out information on one of our most dangerous criminal groups, planned a - however large wide five blocks is on either side of the station - power outage, and then, under the cover of that darkness, placed down a box of sensitive information addressed to you specifically so that the police would get it?" He reads over the report from the power company, noting that the foreign intrusion on the power grid was only there long enough to spot it but not track or trace. Binary wasn't just good at what they did, they were phenomenal at it. Probably had years of practice under their belt.

Tsukauchi nods, "Seems like it. Can't confirm if it's a hacker with a quirk for it though. Could possibly be someone with an intelligence one that picked up hacking as a form of entertainment for themselves."

"Can't confirm anything at all until we can find an identity for them, right?"

"Correct. I was also questioning myself as to why me," the detective leans back in his chair.

"Why you? What do you mean?"

"Yeah well... Why address the box to me? Was there a reason? Is it random? Should we expect the MO of them to be that they'll always contact me somehow? Either via a box or otherwise? Or will it go to anyone in the station?" Tsukauchi questions.

"And what other information will they be sending? Will it all be major crime group info like this or will info on petty crimes or even info on A list villains come through as well?" Aizawa adds, puzzle pieces appearing in his mind but none of them lining up with each other.

Tsukauchi grins up at him, "See, this is why I wanted to consult you and ask if you wanted this case! Do you want it by the way?"

Aizawa sighs as if being put out, “Yeah, I’ll take it. I’m sure I can find out who they are eventually. Maybe get a meeting with them and talk them out of their hacker ways.”

“Thanks Eraser!” The grin then drops from his face into a frown, "What about what we do when we find who this is?"

"Don't know. Offer them a job as a tech analyst for the police?" Aizawa gestures to the monitor with his hand, "This is good info, after all. Especially for a freelance hacker."

"Haha…" The false laugh is accompanied by a deadpan stare. Tsukauchi sighs deeply before shrugging, "Guess we'll just have to wait and figure it out when we catch them. I don’t think a job will be an option though. I don’t know if jail time would be either though. Maybe just a fine for hacking into the power grid and traffic cameras? Oh well, I’d better get started on the Yamaguchi Brother’s arrest plan."

Tsukauchi turns back to his desk, picking up his phone to start coordinating the necessary heroes for the Yamaguchi Brothers’ case. Aizawa mentally catalogs all of the evidence about Binary that they've already collected. He’ll get a physical copy anyway but it’s good to commit it to memory in case he needs to recall it at any point while he’s investigating. He moves his gaze down to the note in his hand and he glares at Binary's name. They better watch out because Aizawa’s about to start hunting them down.

______________________________________________________________

Izuku lets out a snort as he comes awake suddenly, shooting up from where he was slouched against the coffee table. Goosebumps ripple all along his body. "What the fuck…" he mutters to himself, looking around for any kind of danger. His brows furrowed as he didn't see anything immediately around him that was wrong, "... Am I missing something? Did I forget to do something? … Did I forget to do my English essay that's due tomorrow?!"

He looks down and thinks. Then pouts to himself, "No wait. I did it back when it was first assigned at the beginning of the year… I even went three pages over the required limit…" He shrugs dismissively after thinking about it a bit more, "Eh what the hell ever. I'm going to actual bed this time." He stands up, grabbing his phone.

"CATRA, get the lights please," he calls out in a yawn as he slinks into his room. The lights to the apartment cut off behind him with a small meow sounding after he closed the door to his bedroom.

#bnha #bnha fanfic #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfic #mha fanfiction #hacker!izuku midoriya #izuku midoryia #aizawa shouta #naomasa tsukauchi

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scuttling · 3 years

Text

Happy Accidents

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 6,300 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Art, Neighbor Hotch, Shy and Oblivious Hotch, Flirting, It's soo sappy I'm sorry, Oral sex, Unprotected sex Summary: Aaron's new neighbor is out of his league for so many reasons: she's young, beautiful, artistic, unique, free-spirited, the kind of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. It's no wonder he ends up falling in love with her. *Requested by anon Link to A03 or read below! Against all of his better judgement, Aaron is kind of creeping on his new next door neighbor.

He is absolutely the type of man, any other time, to approach a woman he’s interested in and introduce himself, look for a way to connect, some common ground, but this is no ordinary woman.

She is out of his league in so many ways: young, beautiful, unique, free-spirited, the type of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. There’s not a chance in hell she would look twice at an old, stuffy, monotone suit with a seven year old son and perpetual bags under his eyes. That’s not him feeling bad about himself, it’s just the way the world works.

The first time he saw her, she was getting on the elevator while he was getting off of it, and they’d bumped into each other; she was wearing a short, flowy dress, and she’d smiled at him, apologized, eyes sparkling, smelling like she’d spent all day in the sunshine. It was the only time since Haley he’d ever entertained the idea of love at first sight.

She keeps to herself most of the time, gives off the air of being really cool and mysterious; their paths have crossed a few times since then—at the bank of mailboxes downstairs, in the hallway they share, once during a false alarm fire alarm—but he enjoys watching her paint more than anything.

They have balconies next to each other, and one night when he was tending to his herb garden—Jack enjoys watching the plants grow, and picking the herbs, Aaron likes to eat them—he spotted her standing on hers, facing away from him, in cut off jean shorts and a baggy t-shirt, barefoot. She’d been painting the city, the sky, with the sunset glowing behind her like she was the work of art, and he actually felt an ache in his chest, the feeling of missing someone he’s never really met.

Since that night, he’s started taking his work outside in the evenings after Jack goes to bed, and sitting in near silence while she paints, hums—sometimes songs he knows, sometimes songs he doesn’t. The first time he goes out before she does, she says hello when she drags her easel out, so he starts to say hello to her when she beats him there, too, but that’s pretty much the extent of their interaction. One evening when Aaron and Jack are getting home from dinner, she is lugging a canvas bigger than she is through the hallway and Jack almost runs headfirst into it; when he looks up, he exclaims about how big it is, and pretty—it’s covered with colors, something abstract and cheerful, and even if he’d seen it on the side of the road, he would have just known that she painted it. (That may be a good indicator that he’s getting in a little too deep.)

“Wow, that’s the biggest painting I’ve ever seen! And so many colors,” Jack says, awed. Aaron puts his hands on his shoulders to keep him out of her way; they’re already bothering her enough, when she’s clearly trying to get that giant thing home.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I carry bigger pieces around at my studio, believe it or not,” she says to him, poking her head around the side to look at him.

“You have a studio?” His eyes are wide with interest; his favorite subject has always been art, as evidenced by their refrigerator, which is covered in drawings. She offers him an even brighter smile.

“I do! It’s not far from here; it’s called Live in Color. There’s a big rainbow painted on the side.”

“That’s so cool; it must be awesome to have your own studio.” Aaron loves that Jack seems to be so passionate about this, but the way they are obviously holding her up has him feeling awkward; he tugs gently on Jack’s backpack.

“That is really cool, bud, but we should let her go. I’m sure that’s heavy.” She smiles, shrugs.

“It’s no trouble. Hey, actually, we have some children’s art classes at the studio, and you look like you’d fit right in with the Green group—ages 7-9?” She looks up at Aaron, who nods. “Maybe we can talk dad into bringing you down sometime. We do painting, drawing, and crafts, it’s really fun.” She’s still looking right at Aaron, gives him a little wink, and he swears to god he gets butterflies in his stomach.

He’s a grown man. A federal agent. With butterflies. It’s insane.

“Oh man, dad, please? Can I take classes at her studio pleeease?” Jack tugs on the sleeve of his suit, and he nods, smiles down at him.

“Yeah, absolutely, Jack. We’ll go down and get more information tomorrow?” he offers, to both placate him and finally free the poor girl from the conversation; he nods excitedly, and she smiles, looks sweet, genuinely happy Jack is so excited to take the class.

“Cool, I look forward to seeing you guys there. Actually, if you give me one sec, I can grab my card for you.” She passes them, carrying the canvas and looking effortless while she does it; she props it up against the wall to get her keys out, unlocks her door and heads in, pops back out with a business card in a vivid watercolor yellow. “It has the address and phone number for the studio on the front, and I put my cell on the back; I figured it couldn’t hurt, considering we live next door to each other. Now you know who to call if you ever have an art emergency.”

He takes the card from her fingers, flips it over just to see the handwritten name and number; he knew her script would be lovely, and it is, easy and flowing and natural. It suits her. He tries not to grin, or flush, or otherwise be awkward about the fact that she just gave him her phone number, however innocently.

“Thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” They turn to head for their apartment, and she clears her throat; he smiles a little, turns back, and she’s leaning casually up against the canvas with her arms crossed.

“You know my name now. What’s yours?” She’s just being polite, but he gets the goddamn butterflies again.

“Aaron.” She smiles, something beautiful and a little wild.

“Okay, Aaron. See you outside.” From then on, most of their free time, be it evenings or weekends, is spent at the studio. Aaron isn’t the only parent who sticks around—it’s an art class, not a daycare, he doesn’t feel right just dropping Jack off and leaving him there—and he’s also not the only parent, it seems, who is aware of his beautiful young neighbor.

“She’s incredible, right?” another dad says to him one evening, over by the coffee. Aaron looks him over briefly—it’s a job hazard, he sizes up everyone, but he already has a weird feeling about this guy. “I’ve been bringing my kid here for a month just to look at that little ass running around. My wife just thinks our daughter is just really into art.” He says it with a laugh, like that’s a ridiculous concept. Aaron feels himself start to boil.

“You shouldn’t be disrespectful. She’s doing a great thing here, for the children; she’s not doing it for you to ogle her.” He feels a little hypocritical, because he is also looking, but not like this guy. He knows guys like this. He puts away guys like this.

He glances over at Aaron, looking a little taken aback that someone actually commented on his behavior, then rolls his eyes.

“She doesn’t need you to defend her honor, buddy. She wouldn’t run around here in those overalls if she didn’t want us looking. It’s job security.” She’s wearing the overalls tonight, denim shorts with one of the straps unhooked, a t-shirt underneath, but it’s not as if she’s performing a striptease. She just looks like an artist, covered in drips of paint, smiling as she looks at the kids’ pictures over their shoulders. Aaron really, really hates this guy.

“In my experience, women usually dress for themselves; they probably have pockets, easier to keep things at hand that she may need, and it’s warm in here, so she’s likely dressing for comfort. She’s certainly not dressing for you.”

As if she can sense the tension, she looks over at them, flicks her eyes over Aaron, then the other guy, and walks over with a soft smile on her face.

“Hey, Aaron, Jack really wanted you to see what he’s working on.” She reaches out a hand, wraps it around his wrist and guides him over to Jack’s table. “I figured I’d save you,” she says when they’re out of earshot. “That guy sucks. He’s always saying creepy things to me and Alaina.”

“You should ask him to leave if he makes you uncomfortable,” he says, looking down at her with worry. “I can do it.” She shrugs.

“I would, but his daughter really does enjoy the class, and it’s not fair to her that her dad’s disgusting. It’s nothing we can’t handle.” She squeezes his wrist lightly. “Thanks, though. Hey Jack, show dad your project.” He peers over his shoulder, and it’s a pink and orange skyline, much like the one he saw her painting that first time on the balcony. “I asked the kids to paint my favorite thing today, and that’s sunset.”

“I saw you painting this one night,” he says, and then he feels abruptly like an idiot. She just smiles at him though, nods.

“Yeah, I’m a sucker for a beautiful sunset. It makes you feel like, just because the day ends, it doesn’t have to mean things are over; it’s just one of life’s beautiful natural transitions. And the colors are to die for: peach, coral, jasmine, rose, tiger’s eye.” He finds himself unexpectedly touched by her description, smiles softly to shake himself of the emotions.

“The way you see the world is extraordinary. To me it’s just kind of… orange.” She returns his expression, but softer, and squeezes his wrist again; he didn’t even realize she was still holding it.

“Sounds like you need some art in your heart. I give lessons for adults, too; you could even come over and paint with me on my balcony, some time. Special neighbor privileges.”

The thought of being with her on her balcony while she paints is almost overwhelming, which he finds funny, considering he currently sits no more than twenty feet away. There is an intimacy about it, while they both do their work in the cool, quiet breeze, but standing like this, close enough to touch, with the late day sun on her face while she talks about colors… he’s not sure he could handle it without falling in love.

She pats him on the back, moves on to another child, and he tells Jack what a great job he’s doing; his face is lit up, so happy, and regardless of the neighbor, he’s glad they stumbled upon this hobby.

When they pack up to leave, the jerk from earlier comes up to him, leans in to speak in a hushed voice. “You should have just told me you were fucking her. I would have backed off.” He blinks, but the guy and his daughter are walking out the door before he finds himself able to do more than that. About a week later, he goes over for that lesson almost by accident. Jack is at Jessica’s for the night at his request, and Aaron was planning to order takeout and have a paperwork cramming session, but when goes out onto the balcony, phone in hand to place an order, his neighbor is standing on hers like she’s waiting for him.

“Hey. I saw you don’t have Jack; I made some pasta with vodka sauce, if you’re hungry. I always prepare too much.” He sets his phone on the table, walks over to the railing to get a little closer.

“Uh. Sure. I have fresh basil growing here; trade?” She smiles, nods.

“Yeah, sounds delicious. I’ll be right back.” She ducks inside, returns a few moments later with two dishes of steaming, saucy pasta, sets one down on her table and gets right up against her railing, hands the other over to him across his. “That one’s for you,” she says, handing him an orange plate, and he sets it down, picks a few good looking leaves from his basil plant and tears them up, drops them on top. “And this one’s for me.” She reaches, holds a green plate over the gap between their porches, and he adds some basil to it before she pulls it back, takes a deep sniff. “God, it smells so good and fresh. Thank you, Aaron.”

“Thank you, it looks great.” He goes to sit at his table with it, but she scoots her chair closer to the railing, closer to his balcony, so he does the same. They make easy small talk while they eat, mostly about Jack, a little about her studio and his work.

“FBI, huh? I can definitely see that, with your suits, and your… neutrals.” She cringes when she says it, and it makes him laugh.

“I’m sorry I can’t wear paint covered overalls to the office,” he teases, and she shoots him a playfully affronted look, grins.

“You love my paint covered overalls—and for the record, you’d look great in them. You should find a pair. Preferably not black.” He flushes a little at that, but she doesn’t notice, just finishes up her pasta with a sigh of contentment. “That was so good, thanks again for the basil.”

“You’re welcome; thanks for feeding me something other than the takeout I planned to have.” He stands up, gestures to his apartment. “I’ll wash the plate and then hand it back over.”

“Why don’t you just bring it over and come paint with me for a little while? If you want,” she tacks on, and for the first time she seems a little nervous. “I’m not trying to be pushy, I just think it would be fun.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want to; it would be amazing to watch her paint up close and personal. He’s just also afraid he’ll pass the point of no return if he does it, and he can’t handle any more heartache. He only very recently got to a place where just waking up in the morning no longer causes him agony.

It’s the look on her face, though, soft and sweet and open, that makes his decision for him.

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” She grins.

“I’ll unlock the door.”

She’s dragging out her easel when he walks through the door; her apartment is stark white walls with vibrant furniture, artwork, canvases propped up against every bare spot along the wall, paints and brushes and charcoal and pencils on every surface. It’s exactly what he would have expected, warm and lived-in and comforting, very unlike the mostly black and gray interior of his own apartment. She smiles when she sees him.

“Hey! Can you grab that tray of paint on your way out?” she asks, and he picks up what looks kind of like an ice cube tray filled with many different colors, carries it out to the balcony with him. She has a canvas propped up, a little larger than a computer monitor, and she’s gotten started, but he can’t tell what it’s going to be just yet. When he hands her the paint she looks down at it, peers around the edge of the canvas like she’s comparing something. He’s so intrigued, curious about the way her mind works, what she’s thinking.

“What are you painting?” he asks when she picks up a brush, sets it down, picks up another. She smiles at him.

“Well, we’re painting that.” She points to the street, where there’s a rusty, pale blue antique car parked—he says that loosely, because it looks broken down—in the alley. Aaron chuckles softly.

“We’re going to paint that? It’s a little… grim.”

“Yes. It’s part of a series I just decided to create: ‘Beauty in the Ordinary.’” She sighs, and he’s surprised to see that her eyes are a little wet. She wipes the back of her hand over her eyes. “You know Bob Ross, right? Everyone knows Bob Ross.” He nods.

“Yes; the guy who paints the happy trees on PBS.”

“Right. I used to watch him growing up, and I vividly remember something he said once, about needing both darkness and light in life and in painting. ‘You have to have a little sadness once in a while to know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.’” She sniffles, exhales softly. “I’m waiting on the good times too. Sometimes looking at things like this car, and forcing myself to find something beautiful in it, is the easiest way to get through the day. Does that make sense?” He swallows hard when she looks up at him, because aside from Jack, she has been the lightest part of his life since the first time they passed each other on the elevator.

“Yeah, it really does.” She shoots him a soft, slightly sadder smile, and then explains about the paints a little, shows him the difference in the brushes, lets him feel the weight of them, the textures of the bristles.

She starts painting the car—the background is mostly finished—and he’s more than happy to watch, to hear her talk about her process. She asks if she can use his forearm to mix paints, and he turns it over, wrist up, tries not to smile too hard when she puts some dark blue on him, then white, mixing them and then comparing them to the car on the street. He looks down at her, the concentration on her face, the softness in her eyes, and is met with the sudden desire to brush a line of paint over her nose and make her laugh and kiss her breathless.

“Okay, your turn,” she says when she’s about halfway done with the car. She puts her hands on the backs of his arms, pulls him in front of the canvas so she’s between him and the railing. “You’ve been watching me, so you know what to do.” He has been watching her, but not necessarily for her technique, so he’s a little nervous; he dips the brush in the blue paint but hesitates to make a stroke. “I have faith in you, Aaron. Here.”

She wraps her fingers around his hand, guides him toward the canvas, and together they make a wide, curved line, rounding out the bumper. It doesn’t look half bad.

“It gets easier once you understand the relationship between specific paint, specific brushes, and your hands,” she says softly, and she helps him paint another line. “Are you having fun? You look stressed,” she teases, and he makes it a point to relax his face.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” he says, looking down at her; they make eye contact for a long moment, and she leans a little closer, and he leans a little closer, and then he accidentally dabs a blob of blue onto the canvas. He pulls back, grimaces, deflates. “I made a mistake. You can’t erase paint, right?” She laughs softly, takes the brush from his hand.

“No, you can’t erase paint, but as Mr. Ross would say, ‘There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.’” She gets her fingers close to the tip of the brush, makes a few quick movements, then grabs another brush, dips it in green. When she pulls back, there is a little blue flower growing out of a patch of grass where his blob used to be. He exhales, a little amazed.

“If only the mistakes we make in life were that easy to fix,” he says, and she nods.

“Yeah, that would be nice, but a lot of the time we find a way to turn them into beautiful things eventually. Are you willing to give it another shot?” He says yes, and she guides his hand for a while, then just hovers near it, then just instructs him on what to do. It’s dark before their painting is finished, and she carries it inside to dry, then takes him to the kitchen sink to scrub the paint off of his arm.

“Thanks for having me over; I had a really good time,” he murmurs as she dries his clean skin. She looks up, smiles softly, nods her head.

“I had a really good time too. I’m glad you came over; you’re welcome to join me any time.”

He says goodbye, heads home, looks at his stack of work with a groan, and brews a pot of coffee. He’s in for a long night, but he wouldn’t change his evening for anything. Life is much the same for the next few weeks: school and work, Jack’s art class at the studio a couple times a week, painting on the balcony on the weekend, with and without Jack. When Jack joins them for the first time, she pulls out a big box of markers and thick sheets of paper and he draws elaborate scenes while they talk and paint together. When Aaron makes mistakes, she’s never upset, just turns them into perfect little details that end up being his favorite parts of the paintings.

“What ever happened with your ‘Beauty in the Ordinary’ series?” he asks one evening while they’re painting some ocean waves. “Did I cause you enough trouble with the car to give up?” She looks down at the ground, looks a little shy, then shakes her head and smiles.

“No, you didn’t make me want to give up. I’ve been working on it at the studio. You’ll see it when it’s all done, I plan to hang them there.”

“Looking forward to it,” he tells her, and then Jack tugs on her shorts, shows them the picture he drew of the ocean, too.

Later that week, the team takes a case, and on the day he’s set to come home, Jessica drops Jack off at the studio with the plan that Aaron will pick him up when his flight lands. Due to some weather between where the team is and home, they get a little delayed; he doesn’t want to make Jessica head back out that way almost immediately after dropping him off, but he’s not sure who else he could ask to pick Jack up. It’s almost a stupid length of time before it dawns on him to call the studio.

“Life in Color, this is Alaina.”

“Alaina, hi, this is Jack’s dad—” He has his whole spiel prepared, but she cuts him off.

“Oh, sure, hang on a sec, she’s right here. It’s Jack’s dad,” she says, but it sounds further away, like she’s trying to cover the receiver. After a moment, his neighbor picks up.

“Aaron, hi. Jack said you were working.”

“Yeah, I was, and I’m supposed to pick him up after class, but our flight was delayed.” He doesn’t know how to ask for help with Jack; even with all the time they’ve been spending together, she still makes him a little nervous. Luckily, he doesn’t have to figure that part out on his own.

“Hey, that’s no problem. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just take him home with me. I’ll order pizza, we’ll draw, and you can just stop by when you’re home and pick him up.” He breathes a sigh of relief, runs a hand over the back of his head.

“That would be perfect. Thank you—I’ll owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Hanging out with your mini me is reward enough; he’s painting something special for you today, won’t let me see it.” That makes him smile, and he feels so warm at the prospect of picking him up from her bright apartment, seeing his artwork, her smile. After a long, draining day like this one, it’s exactly what he needs.

“I’ll have to remain in suspense until tonight, I guess. Can you let him know I said hi? And thank you, I’ll see you later tonight.”

“Of course. We’ll see you then.”

It’s late, after nine, by the time he makes it home. He doesn’t even take his bags inside, just drops them outside his door and knocks softly on hers. She answers with a smile, ushers him in, asks him if he’d like a drink and gets them each a beer.

Jack is in her room, asleep, so they have a little time to chat; she asks about his flight, his case, and he asks about the studio, and she gets a little shy when it comes to that topic, clears her throat.

“Um. I have Jack’s secret project, if you want to see it. He said I could show you.” He’s not sure why that would make her nervous—at least, until he sees it.

The background is all watercolors, a gradient of rainbow colors starting with pink at the top and ending with a soft purple at the bottom. Over that, in black marker, he’s drawn the three of them, with a big heart around them.

“Tonight’s theme was the thing that makes you the happiest, and he said he’s the happiest when the three of us are on the balcony together. It was… really, really sweet.” She looks up at him, brushes a hand over the crown of her head. “If I’m being honest, that’s when I’m the happiest, too.” He takes the picture from her hands, runs his fingers over it, and smiles, feeling a warm ache in his chest—not like before, not like losing someone he’s never really met, but like finding something he never really planned on.

“That’s when I’m the happiest, too,” he agrees, and when he looks up, she looks determined, like she does when trying to find just the right shade of paint. She takes Jack’s picture out of his hand, sets it on the counter, and then pulls him down by the lapels of his suit, kisses him long and slow. His hands move to her waist, keeping her close, and eventually she pauses for breath, looks at him again, and then wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him some more.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the first time I saw you—tall and dark and serious, striding out of the elevator. So intriguing, mysterious,” she breathes when they separate again. “I wanted to know everything about you.”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, huffing a laugh. “I’m boring, but you are so vibrant, so full of life; I felt like you were everything I wasn’t, and I wanted to know you so badly.”

“You know me now; would you like to keep getting to know me?” It’s one of the easiest questions he’s ever been asked; he nods, and she beams, and he lifts her into his arms and carries her to the couch, drapes himself over her while she leans back against the cushions, pulling him closer.

They make out like neither of them have a care in the world—god, how long has it been since he’s made out with someone?—her fingers scraping through his hair, his hands on her bare waist when her shirt rides up, and she’s in the process of pushing his jacket off his shoulders when they hear a sound from the other room that startles them apart. Jack.

“I’ll go check on him,” Aaron says, and when he goes into her room Jack is still snuggled up on her bed sound asleep. It looks like some canvases fell over, though, and he stoops to pick them up, then spots the car they painted together. He turns and she’s right behind him, skids to a stop. “I thought you said these were at the studio?”

“They were,” she says, and she looks nervous again. “But I changed my mind about hanging them there. They felt too personal.” He runs his hand over the car and sees where she’s coming from; this one feels personal to him, too.

“Can I see the rest?” he asks. “Only if you want to show me them.”

“You’re the only one I want to show them to,” she says with a soft smile, and she grabs a few more canvases, carries them into the light of the living room. “Beauty in the ordinary, remember.” He remembers, could never forget.

She turns one over, and it’s a kitchen sink, and in the kitchen sink is an orange plate with a fork resting on it—like the plate she’d given him with the pasta on it. She turns one over and it’s a man’s hand, holding a paintbrush, with pale blue paint on his forearm. The next one is a little herb garden on a balcony; the next one is a view from above, of a sandy haired boy with markers all around him. The last one is an open elevator—ripe with possibilities.

When he looks up at her, she’s got tears in her eyes, and one slips down her cheek.

“So, I think I’ve found my good times.” She smiles through her tears, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses the salt from her lips. “I love you,” she says when he pulls back to wipe her face with his sleeve, and he kisses her softly, again and again, and tells her he loves her, too. The next weekend, Jack is at Jessica’s for a sleepover, and Aaron has been enlisted to help with an art project. He walks next door, knocks lightly, and enters the living room; he is met with a very deep, passionate kiss and a smile, and instructions to help move the furniture out of the way.

“I’m really curious what kind of art requires this much floor space,” he says, shoving her couch back against the wall, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, a move he has been unable to resist since she did it the first time they had sex. She knows it’s a weakness, exploits it, and he loves every minute of it.

“You’ll see, but I promise you’re going to like it.” When they clear the floor, she grabs a large, rolled-up fabric canvas and lays it out in the middle of the room, then drops three bottles of paint—one is yellow (jasmine), one is orange (peach), and one is kind of pink (coral? He’s still not sure.)—onto it. “You can obviously say no if you want, but I wanted something over my bed with the sunset colors, and I found this…” She steps closer to him, runs her hands down his chest, guides him down for a kiss so delicious he loses his train of thought. “It’s sex art; we put the paint on the canvas, and on ourselves, and… you know, go at it. What do you think?”

He thinks he really, really loves art now, even more than he thought possible.

“So we have paint-covered sex and then you just hang it on the wall? Like regular art?”

“Yep, I got the supplies I’ll need to hang it; letting it dry will probably take the longest. I figured we could shower while it’s drying, maybe go for round two, if you’re up for it.” She moves her hand to his waist, slips it inside his shorts, and he pulls her closer to his body. “Are you up for it, Aaron?”

That is an understatement.

Undressing happens extremely fast, because this is really sexy and they’re kind of in a phase where they can’t keep their hands off of each other anyway. She pulls her hair up onto the top of her head to try to minimize the amount of paint in it, and then she pours paint on the canvas, turns around and drizzles some on his back and tells him to lay down.

“I think we should probably change positions often so we get a lot of motion on the canvas; I apologize to your old knees in advance,” she teases, but she soothes the sting of her words by pouring paint on herself and then laying between his legs and licking at his dick. “Do some stuff with your hands; I want to see those big handprints on my wall,” she murmurs, and he groans, puts his palms down in the paint and drags them through it.

She leans up a little, sliding her knees through some yellow paint, sucks him fully, deeply into her mouth for couple of minutes, and then stretches forward and puts an orange hand right in the middle of his chest; the look in her eyes is playful, and he reaches out with one finger, hooks it under her chin, and guides her off and up so they can kiss.

“Your turn,” he says with a smirk, and then he gets her onto her back and ducks between her legs, hopes she doesn’t grab for his hair like she usually does. He rubs his pointed tongue over her clit, waits for the mmm it always elicits, and looks up at her, covers each of her breasts with a paint-covered palm and squeezes. “Leave handprints for me,” he leans up and reminds her, kissing her stomach, and she plants her hands, then presses up and grabs his shoulder, smearing pink down his back. “Oh, you wanted more of that?”

“Don’t tease me, the paint will dry,” she whines, and he spreads her thighs wider with his elbows and licks her pussy quickly, until she’s squirming against the canvas and panting for more. “Come here, come here.”

He’s not ready for that, though, paint or not, wants her to come from this; he takes his hands off of her, dips them in the paint again and presses down, then puts his hands under her ass and brings her closer so he can fuck her with his tongue, quick and deep and slick.

“Aaron, Aaron, god.” She slides her hands down his arms, over his neck, digs her nails in when she comes moaning like music.

While she catches her breath, so gorgeous, she sticks her arms out like she’s making a snow angel, and he catches her while she’s off guard and turns her onto her stomach, puts his hands on the smears of paint he’s already left on her ass, and slides inside.

“Oh my god; I was trying to impress you with this sexy art project, but you’re rocking my world.” She’s breathless, pressing back into his thrusts and painting with her entire body. God, he loves her mind.

“You know I always take your projects very seriously,” he says, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, and she groans, laughs.

“Yes you do. From the side? Let’s lay diagonally.” They shift, and he hooks his chin over her shoulder, kisses her neck and huffs hot against her hair. “Hmm, love it like this,” she sighs, and she reaches back to press her hand to his hip, holding him while he moves inside her. “I love you.”

“Love you. I want you to finish on top of me,” he instructs with a wet kiss to her throat, and she nods against his lips.

“Yeah, next; I’m getting close.” A few more strokes and she gets up onto her knees, lets him lay back, propped up on his arms, and climbs on top of him; she kisses him slow and dirty and then runs her hands over him, sits back on his dick and glides up and down. “You wanna come like this too? I owe you a little world rocking,” she says with a flick of her tongue over his bottom lip, and he nods, squeezes her thigh.

“It’s the least you can do after making me move all the heavy furniture.” She rolls her eyes but kisses his chin, down his throat, and bounces harder on him, all delicious eye contact and moans. “Mmm. Just like that, baby, come for me.”

“Fuck. I will, I will.” She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, kisses him kind of rough and with lots of tongue, and then tips her head back and climaxes, clenches, wrings his orgasm out of him so quickly it’s almost jarring. “Oh, yes Aaron. So good,” she mumbles, and then he lays back, out of breath, and she slides out of his lap and lays beside him, out of breath too.

After a moment, she looks over at him, smiles, and swipes a pink fingertip over his cheek.

“This is the hottest thing I’ve ever done with anyone. I’m glad I got to do it with you.” He rolls on top of her, presses a kiss to her nose, and nods.

“Me too. You know,” he adds after a moment, “my bedroom could use some artwork, too.” She grins, wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight.

“You’re right; I think we should do yours in blue: liberty, that’s dark blue; periwinkle, that’s light blue; maybe steel gray, too.”

“You’re the expert. I’m just your paintbrush.” Her hands smooth up his back, and contentment washes over him like a warm breeze.

“Hmm. I like the sound of that. Want to get cleaned up?”

Cleaning up is almost as fun as making the mess, because they’re well and truly covered, and when the canvas dries, the sunset colors are almost as beautiful as the ones she used the first time he ever saw her paint. Taglist ❤️: @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x female reader #hotch x female reader #hotch x reader #ask answered #anon #prompt

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oonajaeadira · 3 years

Text

Have Any Interesting Dreams? (Thief x Locksmith 5)

Fandom: Casillero del Diablo Wine Commercials. You heard me.

Pairing: The Thief x f!reader (the locksmith)

Rating: T

Warnings: This might be confusing and I apologize for any pain it might cause.

A/N: Okay. So there’s a lot of metaphorical walking forward while looking backward here and this installment certainly won’t make any sense on its own. There are a lot of references to little moments from the commercial and to previous chapters (especially 2: I Know You Can Do It, aka the opera heist). I took a lot of threads and decided to play with them until they ended up in knots. Apologies for any clunkiness you encounter; I stretched my skills to the limits here and things kinda derailed. But eff I had fun. Hope you do too.

The extended commercial is here.

The unintended Thief x Locksmith series is here:

What Do You Want

I Know You Can Do It

Come With Me

Let Me Show You Around

Summary: It’s time to find out what your Thief wants from you, what the key is for, and you have nothing but your own smarts and his memories to light your path.

(gif by magsam)

When you arrive for breakfast, he’s already feasting on a scone with jam and cream, his plate piled generously with bacon and eggs, surrounded by a dozen covered dishes scattered all over the huge table at one end of the open hall. He hums an urgent note of acknowledgement when you approach, folding what he was reading and standing to pull out a chair for you.

“Good morning, Angel. What are you hungry for? Anything you want.”

As he pushes you into place, you scoff. “Anything I want? I doubt any of these cloches are hiding adequate answers.”

Bending over you to reach for the carafe, he places a kiss to your temple and speaks softly at your ear while he pours a cup for you, “Let’s start with coffee. Maybe some eggs.”

It’s an odd breakfast for such a sumptuous place. The plates all hold something to tempt you, nothing out of the ordinary for a breakfast you might like. But it’s all set up over what had been on the table previously--scattered blueprints and charity pamphlets, timetables and show programs, a stack of books shoved to one side, a letter opener stuck into the tabletop, spearing down the plans for this very estate. The table itself doesn’t sit in a dining room--or any room--but near the staircase into the main hall, a big open space spilling out behind your Thief littered with unhung portraits and scattered relics, the white stone figure of Pandora and her Saxon crown overseeing the procedures.

“So,” he sighs, sipping his coffee, burying his nose in a set of folded blueprints, emulating a businessman with his morning newspaper, “did you sleep well? Any...interesting dreams?”

You let out a slow breath, prepare your strategy, and take a sudden, focused interest in the pile of toast. “I slept as well as a girl can in a room decked out like a cloister on loop. The sheets are nice though. I took your suggestion about forgoing nightclothes.” You avoid his eyes but see them flick to you in your periphery. You’re not sure if it’s a reaction to the image you’ve just laid down for him or if he’s noticed that you neglected to address his inquiry about the dreams. Hopefully both. You tap the locket nestled close to your breasts. “Just the sheets and this.”

The locket. Let’s see if I can do this right.

He tries to hide a soft clearing of the throat. And fails.

You’re no dummy. You spent enough time researching alchemy and magick and demonology to know that someone under contract or pact can’t speak about it at all. Sometimes they are physically restricted, sometimes they’re given free will. But if they crack--if they willfully tell someone about their curse--they run the chance of losing everything.

However. If the human in thrall is clever, they can talk around it.

You learned last night that answers come not when you ask questions, but when you listen carefully. And you learned equally... that you must speak carefully.

“It’s nice to have a vacation for a little spell.” The spell. “Lately it’s just been a string of setting locks and the usual Tuesday afternoon visit from the cops. You realize that they won’t stop questioning me about that safe I gave you the combo for, right?” The Lewiston safe.

Pride gleams in his eyes as they lock to yours. You’re playing the game and he understands you perfectly. “I’m not apologizing for that, you acted under your own free will. Although, you’re easy to manipulate. I can read you like a book.”

And now you catch his meaning. Possibly. Not completely sure. Unfortunately, this is how it has to be--speaking in riddles and codes. He can’t tell you about it or lead you in any way. If you can guess, that’s acceptable, but there must always be some doubt. Another mortal fully knowing the details of his supernatural deal will breach it, and not in his favor.

Keep it cool, casual. “Well, I”m not so complicated that you’d need to study a whole book. Maybe just a few pages.” Your fingers play idly with the locket as you sip your coffee.

Or not so idly.

His nod is heavy, understanding, but with a hint of warning. You may have been a bit too literal with that one. Careful, his look tells you. And you spill a small, coy smile of apology over your lips. I’m doing my best.

You shrug it off. “Although, one glass of wine and I’d do whatever you ask.”

“Like Blackwell at the Opera.”

Like Blackwell at the opera. Like Blackwell at the opera. What does that mean? I’ve lost the thread. “Hm? Like--?” It must show on your face.

“Speaking of study,” he sidesteps your confusion to fall back a few paces in the conversation as he starts pulling papers and plans together into a neater pile, “why did you ever give up yours? Seems you were on a path to unlocking the great mysteries, and you gave it all up to unlock car doors and the errant bedroom handcuff?”

It’s a slap to the face that zings straight to your heart. That..was a low blow. It’s impossible to eat with your lips pressed together, so you stare hard into your coffee instead. You have half a mind to ruin everything right here. Because you killed it for me. Because you walked off with my book; that was supposed to be my trophy and my livelihood. Because you took up with a demon and got yourself wound up in something too big for you and now you’ve come pulling me out of my just-fine life to bail you out of it, you incredible ass--

A fingertip hooks itself under your chin, guiding your face to his as he stands above you. Oh God, those dark eyes, eyebrows arched in care.

It’s maddening how he can melt you with a look, how tapped in he is to your feelings, and it frustrates you how he can parent them better than you can; why they’ll listen to him over you, you’ll never quite understand.

His serious look tells you to steady yourself. That you’re strong enough for this. To look past anything he says that is hurtful and to listen. That he needs you. It’s you he...it’s you he--

“Angel.”

You love him too. And you can’t fucking help it.

He watches as you hold onto your hurt, but let go of your wrath and continues. “I just know you enjoyed your books so much. I thought maybe you’d like to visit my library while I’m gone.”

“...Gone?”

He hauls you to your feet and folds you in against himself, fanning you with the stack of blueprints. “I have a job to do. I apologize that I’ll be out all day, but lunch will be waiting here for you when you want it and Pandora,” he nods to the statue, “will be happy to keep you company. She has at least one good story to tell. I should be home by dinner.”

And now you let go of the hurt as well, follow his lead in a slow dance. He turns you, silently swaying and guiding you around to his side of the table. Just inches apart, he willfully keeps your lips free from his, although you cannot say the same for his eyes--their gaze drips over your mouth as he pulls you along.

“In the meantime,” stopping at the villa map peeking out from under the butter and jam, he indicates, “the library is here.” He doesn’t point at the location as much as stroke it...and even then, not at the middle, but off to one side near the window.

The smile spreads over your face like a slowly creeping wine stain. “And every book is stolen?”

A matching spill, this one upon his own lips. “Every book is stolen.”

A long kiss is pressed to your temple, carrying warmth and breath and closeness, conveying praise and good luck and deep gratefulness...and then he’s gone, his working shoes making no sound on the stairs on their way down to the garage.

Time to get to work.

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

The library is a hike from the main hall, but you managed to put away a good breakfast to fuel your way here. It’s exactly what you expected in a place like this--bookcases all the way up to the vaulted ceilings filled with beautifully bound volumes, two tall multi-paned windows along the outer wall framing the central fireplace, a large ornately carved table and lamp, scattered plush reading chairs. The fireplace is ample, and of course the fire is lit, waiting for you to find something worth reading and claim a warm spot nearby.

Shit. Even if he indicated a section of shelves for you to focus on, there still has to be thousands of books in this area. You’re fairly certain of what you’re looking for, but if he was smart--and he is--yourThief would have had it rebound and either left it untitled or given it one himself.

The book he stole from you was bound in black leather. You can start there. Rolling the ladder around to this side, you begin pulling out and scanning all the black leather volumes, making your way from bottom to top, an hour of nothing but first editions, old bibles, and illuminated manuscripts.

As you search, your mind churns through the dream you woke from this morning and the few clues you could give him as to what you discovered from it.

The locket. The spell. The Lewiston safe. Just a few pages. The wine.

________________

Gloved hands stretch out before you. Your hands, but not your hands. They’re sturdy, long and wide, thick fingers, making quick work of the three dials of a grey safe.

The Lewiston safe.

These are your Thief’s hands. You’re seeing what he’s already seen. You’re watching from his vantage as he uses your combo to break in.

The safe is lined with stacks of bills, a number of watch and jewelry boxes, a few gilded objects, and some large file envelopes. His hands leave all the valuables alone and sift through the envelopes, opening each until he finds one containing three leaves of folded greying paper, all of them torn on one side.

Three pages from a book. Three pages from YOUR book.

________________

No luck with the black leather books, although you’re hardly surprised.

So it’s been rebound then. To keep it hidden. But if you’re meant to find it, then it’s hidden to everyone but you. How would he make it stand out for you specifically? Think.

Scanning the shelf, your eyes are drawn here and there to those books bound in your favorite color. A preference of yours that he would know.

Once you’ve solved that piece of the puzzle, it doesn’t take long to find it. Halfway up the shelf, clinging hard to the ladder, you read spine after spine until the intentional typo catches your eye; The Book of Angel’s.

Not plural. Possessive.

Clever, my nameless Thief.

It’s wedged in tight, on an intentionally packed shelf. Remove one book and the rest will breathe and expand...and easily shift so that nobody might know that a book had been taken.

Wrenching it free and hefting the heavy volume down the ladder, your breath pulls heavy through you, your fingers tingling as they clasp the spine, growing excitement coils in your ribcage. After all these years, the book is here in your hands, the book that you spent half a life tracking down through undermarkets and whispered rumors, the book full of spells and secrets and instructions for obtaining everything you’ve ever wanted, the book you had planned to use to build yourself a better life. Only for it to be stolen from you. By the man you loved. By the man you wanted to start that better life with. The nights you spent in your bed, staring at the ceiling, planning your acquisition of this book, and then, after it was gone, the nights you spent cursing it and him….

Your fingers trace idly over the cover. The new binding is taught and slick, not soft and supple like the old black leather.

You could just ...take it. You could just tuck it in your bag and walk out and away down the forested driveway, leave him to his fate.

But he’d find you. It doesn’t end that easily. You have to break his hold on magick. Which means you have to break her hold on him. It was a spell in this book that summoned the demon, so if you’re going to help him, the answers have to be in here.

And it’s impossible to think you could just walk away and leave him to her.

Sitting on the floor by the fire and opening the book to the inside cover, the familiar family tree greets you, one you know and never gave much thought to. The name of the book’s original creators gracing the thick trunk, that family long gone, their line grown out.

There’s a smudge on one of the smallest, far-flung branches, a clan that briefly married into the root family at least a dozen generations back and then just as quickly split off. The name seems to have been scrubbed out or somehow blurred, like the ink decided to feather and bleed in just this one spot. Something tells you that you should know what the name was.

At least you have an idea of whom it might belong to.

And there, on the opposite side, another family name that dipped in and stayed at the edges….your own. It is this small vine in the tree that allows your claim on the book in any way.

He probably felt the same claim.

But there are more prominent offshoots here you never noticed until now.

Lewiston. Blackwell.

The Lewistons you know. They wanted nothing to do with the book outside of the few pages they’d stashed away, and you’ve already helped your Thief to recover those.

But Blackwell. Huh.

Like Blackwell at the opera.

Blackwell at the opera.

Blackwell is still a mystery. The dream last night had no Blackwell revelations in it, although the rest of it did take place the night of the opera...

________________

Suddenly you’re in your home. No. HE is in your home. You can just see him out of the corner of your eye in your bedroom mirror, greying temples and red velvet jacket. You see what he sees as he lays a garment box on your bed. There’s a black satin dress inside. You know, because you’ve already worn it. This is the night of the opera heist; you’re seeing his memory of it...

Then he’s at your jewelry box, delicately pushing trinkets aside until he comes out with your locket, all crystal and gold and glinting in the low light.

Coming back to the living room, he assembles objects from around your home--a few candles and matches, a kitchen knife, a glass of wine. And from his inner vest pocket he pulls the three greying pages obtained from the Lewiston safe.

One of them contains instructions. A spell.

Candles are lit. A quick altar is laid. The locket is placed among the objects. And a ceremony begins. There are words and offerings--a finger is pierced and blood drips onto your necklace and into the wine....

The dream jumps, the sun slanting much lower through your windows now, and you’re looking at...you. In your bedroom, searching your jewelry box. “Then why is there a necklace missing?” You shout and then look over your shoulder to meet your eyes...or, rather, his eyes.

Procuring the locket from his pocket, you hear his voice in your ears, “Because I want you to wear this one tonight.”

________________

And that exhausts what you could learn from the dream.

The locket. The spell. The Lewiston safe. Just a few pages. The wine. Like Blackwell at the opera.

Shit. What does this all mean? Breathe. It’s all here. Somehow it’s all here in front of you. Like deciphering the tumblers in a lock. Get everything lined up, and the puzzle will spring.

Tracing the family tree with light fingertips, you have two names. Blackwell must be the old balding man from the opera that night, the one you spilled wine on, the one your Thief marked to steal something from. A member of the old family of this book. What did he take? Unknown at this time.

Lewiston. And from their family safe your Thief took...three...pages….

You’re immediately and madly flipping through the book, looking for loose papers, remembering when you first acquired it that there had been pages missing, torn out, not uncommon for a tome this old, but as you paw your way through, you find all pages intact, nothing free or floating, no torn stubs.

That can’t be right. There had been torn pages. How--

The new binding.

Clapping the book shut and tipping it up to look at the signatures binding...there it is. Three stripes of blue distributed within the grey. Using a fingernail, you carefully discern the refreshed leaves.

Three different spells, all of them supreme level, the ones that cost blood and expect a high grade of working to cast, valuable information the Lewiston family seemed eager to keep for themselves even if they denounced the rest of the book.

One for protection against evil.

One for the manipulation of time.

And the final one…

A spell for the confluence and relay of dreams.

The locket lays heavy on your chest. He obviously charmed the pendant the night of the opera so you’d be able to see his memories and dreams, so he could give you answers and clues via this somnambulant route, a shortcut, a loophole.

A beautiful, glorious cheat.

Oh, he’s clever and wonderful and you grip the locket, pressing it to your lips, understanding now why he wants you to wear it always--even when you sleep. But.

You could try to ignore the plummet of your heart, try to brush it off and put emotion aside, but here it is…. There’s a little pain knowing he had the means that night to endow it with protection from evil and that wasn’t his first choice, that he gave it the enhancement that served his needs first and foremost.

It hurts. But then. Desperation makes us all a little selfish. You can hardly expect anything else.

________________

Pandora stares down on you with blank, white marble eyes as you take advantage of the lunch spread out on the table in the hall. Rich lobster rolls, perfectly fried chicken, a mountain of falafel and hummus, creamy tikka masala, cold sushi in a rainbow array--at least a dozen different savory offerings for you to choose from or mix and match, far too much for you to eat by yourself, but enough of everything that you might choose one and have a satisfying meal.

It was all here when you arrived, no staff to be seen.

The flowing silk dress you’re wrapped in--not one you’d packed, but one that came out of your bag anyway--the fireplaces lit in the rooms where you’ll be spending time; the house is full of mysteries, not really that surprising in a place frequented by demons and curses. You’re being provided for, no need to ask by whom or how.

No matter. There are bigger knots to untangle.

After pouring through your book and coming to a dead end, you’d brought it back to your room of saints and tucked it away in your bag for safe keeping--deciding against better judgements not to run off with it--before making the trek back down to the main hall.

Now what are you supposed to do until he comes back to dinner to give you more hints? This is maddening; you’re anxious to know what’s next. Did he really think it was going to take you all day to find the book and the answers there? You live your life walking through mental puzzles and finding the right keys for things, you’re a damn locksmith for heaven’s sake--

The key. That’s the next piece to all of this, yes? What does the little key on your necklace open? You don’t have anything to work with, but you can sure as hell start looking around and getting acquainted with the objects and doors in the house.

Determination winning out over food, you leave behind half a stuffed crepe and give Pandora a little salute before heading off down through the east wing to explore.

There’s the beautiful clock under glass--no discernable keyhole that you can see--several lacquered jewel boxes--all open, their treasures on display--music boxes, ancient instruments, intricate suits of armor, glass cases full of decorative weaponry, armoires whose keyholes are much too large stacked with furs…. You even start to look at the paintings for any signs of locks or keys, you run to your room and check the reliquaries and statuary to see if there’s something that’s been placed in your proximity, then back to the east wing to inspect doors and cabinetry, studying patterns in the tile and carpet and wallpaper, anything, anything that draws the eye to something secret, something hidden. But everywhere you turn there seems to be a possibility of mystery, that anything beautiful can be hiding a solution, and yet, none of them definitive or fruitful.

After hours of wandering the halls, fatigue starts setting in. You’re nowhere close to an answer, you don’t even know the question anymore. The villa is huge; all you need is one little crumb, anything to just point you in a direction. Any direction at all. It’s like searching for a tiny, specific needle in a haystack, except the haystack itself is made of needles.

Don’t give up, maybe check the paintings again. In the east wing hall, you find yourself squinting at the images. The light is fading, the day is late. A clock chimes somewhere from a far off room.

Speaking of crumbs….Dinner time.

Even though you’re weary from the search and walking room to room through the afternoon, you quicken your pace toward the main hall. You’ve pressed yourself hard today. Giving in to hunger and frustration, the promise of another meal and more information waits.

The table is almost as you left it--covered in food and blueprints. The blueprints are the same, but the offerings sitting atop them are new. Beef Wellington, beet and truffle salads, Lobster Thermidor, stuffed dates, paella, soft patés and cheeses, the flatware is gold, there’s a massive candelabra, wine of every color, the table is almost overstuffed with beautiful and delicious delights, almost as if it is consciously making up for the one thing that’s disappointingly missing….

Him.

Okay, so he’s a little late. He’s most likely changing clothes and since you happened upon the table first, the food is waiting and ready for you. You can start without him, right? A well-timed rumble from your gut gives you permission and you reach for the serving spoons.

By the time your plate is almost empty, so is a second glass of wine.

And his chair is still unoccupied.

You’re lightly pressing the back of a golden spoon to your lips while you fume, every once in a while turning it and putting it in your mouth to tongue at the smooth, tasteless metal even though you really feel the urge to throw it.

It’s not even that he isn’t here to guide you to the next step, it’s that he isn’t here, period. The miles of walking, the mental work, nothing to keep you company but the echoing click of your shoes on endless tile and the snap of flames in a few fireplaces; really what you yearn to do is hole up in that little sitting room you saw last night, forget all this, curl up in his lap by that pleasant mantle, after spending a day in cavernous rooms and halls, just to have a warm corner in close proximity to broad shoulders and big arms, a soft cheek on your forehead….

Tossing the spoon down and replacing it with something crunchy from one of the salads, you bite hard into the snap of the vegetable, no longer hungry, but feeling the need to clench your teeth into something.

What are you even doing here? If he wants you to help him, he could at least give you the gift of his company.

“How dare he. How dare he, Pandora?” Leaning a cheek in your hand, chewing on the veg, you whine up at your dinner companion as she gazes blandly down at the table, not even having the decency to give you any indication of empathy or pity.

You contemplate the statue with misdirected irritation. Feh. She looks so calm. Should she? Didn’t Pandora let all the evils of the world out of her box? Shouldn’t she be more ashamed? Dismayed? Perhaps she’s comforted by the hope she found at the bottom--

Pandora will be happy to keep you company. She has at least one good story to tell.

You stop mid-crunch, his words from last night lighting up your synapses like a starfield.

Pandora. Best friend I have in the house. Good listener. Has full dominion over the main hall. Holds things for me. Not many people trust her after the whole loosing evils unto the world thing, but she can’t get into much trouble out here. Keep mysterious boxes out of her reach and no secrets should tumble out, am I right, Pandora?

You drop the veg and take one last desperate draining draw from the wine glass as you scramble to rise, presenting yourself in front of the girl, gawking stupidly. Why didn’t you notice it before? A statue of a beautiful woman, gesturing with delicate open palms, wearing the crown that your Thief has bestowed upon her. She could be anyone, any goddess or myth, any queen or muse. You would only know her as Pandora by her signature box of evils.

But her hands...are empty.

What would a box of evils look like?

Would it fit in her hand, thumb crooked delicately around an object that was not there?

Would it be patterned gold to match her crown?

Could it possibly have a porcelain top painted with devils?

You’re crossing the hall to the frosted glass doors without telling your feet where to go. The cozy sitting room is overwarm with the fire blazing in the hearth, the mantle still piled with books and little objects, but your eyes and fingers go instantly to the only one that matters.

As you pick up the ornate jewel box, a light burning sensation pinches at the nape of your neck and you turn to the doors, expecting to see your Thief’s eyes boring into you again. But the threshold is empty, the firelight reflecting off the glass.

The little box in your hands doesn’t open. Because it is locked. The keyhole is tiny, set in a pretty filigree circle on the front.

Reaching up behind your neck, your fingers fall on the clasp of your necklace and the delicate key there, warm, as if it had been hanging by the fire.

Or...magically telling you that it is in proximity to its lock.

Fumbling with the clasp, swearing at your shaking fingers as you work to remove the chain, you finally get the key inserted. And twist.

You’re not sure what you expected to find inside. But it certainly wasn’t this.

Sitting down in the chair by the fire, you stare at the little box and try to make sense of the contents. You’ve gathered that he gave this key to you to hide it away from the demon, that she was out in the world looking for it, meaning the box it opens is precious to her, that there must be some heavy spell on the container that she could not in all her demonic influence open it without this one key.

Rings. The box contains at least a dozen, crammed in, a jumble of gold and silver, each of them set with some large, chunky, precious gem. A ruby here, a sapphire there, sparkling, well cared for….but, at the end of the day, just...just rings.

This is what she is hell-bent on recovering? Why? Think. Think. They must be enchanted. Or cursed. You’re smart enough not to touch them, not to try them on as much as you’d like to, to festoon your fingers with their chunky sparkle. Instead, you close the lid of the delicate box and contemplate the painting on it, the demons dancing in their hellfire. You can guess at the rings’ significance all you want, but you need more information...and your mind is exhausted.

And you’ve had a couple glasses of wine.

And it’s very warm in here.

And it’s easy to doze off.

_______________

From his eyes, you can see yourself, resplendent in black satin, sitting next to him in the opera box, the hum of an audience at intermission buzzing around you both, the chandelier light playing on your hair....and you’re PISSED. Do your eyes always spark fire like this when you’re irritated? You’re terrifying and, you have to admit, the fury makes you beautiful.

“You little shit. You brought me on a HEIST? I cannot. Believe you. Right now.” You close your eyes in a huff, trying to calm yourself.

And when you do….

His hands reach out and deftly spring the clasp on your necklace, lifting it away from your breast. You don’t even notice because he reaches out at the same time to poke your earring playfully and set it swinging.

“I know you can do it.”

From here, behind his eyes, you see the next few minutes play out. How he sends you off with a glass of wine, watches from behind his opera glasses as you make a scene with it in the front row, spilling it all over the older balding man. Then the thief is up and moving to the lobby, waiting patiently at the men’s toilet, catching your eye and giving you a wink just before he follows a gaggling group of red-jacketed valets ushering the wine-soaked man into the privy.

This is the part you didn’t get to witness that night.

As the valets swirl around the man, doing their best to dry and placate him, your Thief reaches into his own pocket and retrieves your necklace, slipping the tiny key into the locket and giving it three swift cranks, its exquisite gears spinning within its crystal housing….

And time...slows...to an ooze….

Everything happens incrementally. The hurried valets now taking an eternity to blink, their flapping hands reduced from butterflies flitting about to snails trailing heavy through the air, but your Thief’s capable hands move at their normal pace, reach out and cup the man’s face and he mumbles some Goetian words you don’t quite catch.

The balding man startles, coming into time and, noticing the thief now, settles into recognition. “You.”

“Hello, Blackwell. Don’t have a lot of time, even if it is slower. Try not to move too much. You know what’s happening here?”

Blackwell’s eyes dart around as the thief lets him go, assessing first the situation, then your man in front of him, regarding the thief with a mixture of apprehension and spite. “What do you want from me? I’ve got nothing left to teach you, you selfish--”

“Shhh. I’m here to give you a present.”

This raises a scoff from Blackwell, trying not to let it rock him on his feet as a towel in a valet’s hand continues to drift minutely closer to his wine-soaked chest. “Something you stole, no doubt.”

“Of course.”

The thief is looking at Blackwell. You can’t see what he’s holding in his hand.

But his companion can. The man’s eyes round out and his sneer slides off his face. “That’s...that’s my…”

“I’ve been watching you, Blackwell. You must be counting your remaining days, trying to get in good with the choirs upstairs, taking all that mysteriously acquired wealth of yours and spreading it around, anonymous relief funds, scholarships, medicinal research and degenerative disease eradication. Generous. You’ve been busy.”

The man’s eyes begin to well as your Thief recounts all of this in his most soothing, sonorous tone. A tear spills over and runs down Blackwell’s doughy cheek before dripping off his chin and barely missing the hand of the valet, now nearly in contact with the wine stain dampening his shirt. “Thank you,” he whimpers, “oh, God, thank you.”

“God has nothing to do with this. Now listen. I give you back your soul and my debt to you is paid. But it also means your contract with her is broken. You know what that might mean. You still want it?”

Blackwell goes to nod, but remembers just in time not to move too much. The valets are still crawling through time around them, still moving in micro beats but starting to gain more speed now. Best not to cause a blur by moving too fast for them to see.

“I understand. I want it,” the man swallows thickly, trying not to sob. “But...you could just let me suffer. Why are you...doing this?”

“Because,” the thief looks down at the ring he holds in his palm, gold, the older man’s soul looking for all the world like a large, rectangular emerald, “I’m hoping someone will do the same for me.”

As the scene around them slides back into time--a slow stretch followed by a gradual quickening and then a snap, the same momentum as the next tear that stretches from Blackwell’s jaw before breaking free--sound pops back to rights and the red-jacketed men are swirling around the balding man, patting and blotting and apologizing, but his eyes are still locked to yours, that is, to your Thief’s.

The man you love holds up the ring, putting on his best impression of opera quality service. “Sir, I believe you dropped this.”

Blackwell nods with shaky breath, just barely choking back a cry. “I thank you.”

From here, your Thief makes his way back to the box seats, taking off his red velvet jacket and leaving it on a bannister along the way. By the time he returns to you, the second half of the opera has started. But he hangs back for three, four songs in the shadow of the curtain. He doesn't even look toward the stage.

He simply watches you.

As a casual observer to this purely sensory memory, you can’t know what he’s thinking, can’t feel what he’s feeling, but you can see what he sees and what his eyes follow is the line of your neck, the curve of your ear, the bounce of light off your shoulders.

Finally, after making his way around and taking his seat closer to the stage, he runs a finger around your ear, pushing a lock of hair back into place, tapping the earring to set it swinging again.

Your eyes are so transparent, a straight window to your heart as he bends a knuckle under your chin to take you in. He watches as your mouth curls in a whisper, “Get what you wanted?”

“For now.”

“I can’t believe you made me do that. You could have hired anyone else. Someone more savvy.”

“It had to be you,” he whispers, and, as it had lately happened in the men’s room, time comes to a grind, just as your brows lower and your lips come into a pout.

You watch now from behind your love’s eyes as he reaches up and quickly returns the necklace to its home hanging just above your cleavage, its elegant gears glinting in the low light as they spin out the time.

He doesn’t bring you out of it with his Goetic words, doesn’t do anything but drag fingertips lovingly down your cheek before settling in for long minutes of stretched time, using the stolen moment to be still and study you from this angle, the stage lights making a soft spectacle of your features, keeping his gaze trailing over nothing but you, you, you until everything finally slides back into his momentum.

You cannot tell what he’s thinking or feel what he’s feeling.

But you have a good guess.

________________

It’s disorienting, having just come from his eyes as he surveys you in the dark opera box to being back behind your own as they open, finding him lounging in the stuffed chair across the fire from you.

“Sorry I was late,” he says sweetly, his smile soft, but his gaze drilling into you. “Have any interesting dreams?”

Everything comes rushing in as you take up the little box in your lap, scrambling to open the lid and jingle the rings around, looking for….looking for…which one? Which one was it? A flash from your own memory, the night the demon took him...

The malicious curl of her red velvet lips. The winding of her other arm as it comes from between them and around him, a finger now bearing a ring with a russet stone.

The jewels rattle and glint in the box, but no sign of that particular stone. No. No. It’s not here. It’s not here. “Dammit, it’s not here!”

“Shhhh. I know.” Sitting calmly in his cozy chair by the fire, he stills you with a small, sad smile. Lifting his fist and opening it, your locket tumbles out, yanking to a stop on its chain that’s looped around a finger. “I believe you dropped this, my brilliant Angel.”

You’d taken it off to unlock the box...it must have slipped off your lap as you slept. But he’s not admonishing you for it.

He’s summoning you to come and take it back.

Leaving the demon’s jewel box behind and crossing the distance between your chairs, you slide yourself gracefully onto his lap, knees clamping around his hips, arms around his shoulders, shivering a little as he feathers his hands around your neck to replace your trinket. “I thank you.”

His sable eyes flash when you echo the dialogue from the memory. Then they dance for you as you run the clasp around on its chain to fit the key into the locket. He smiles broadly as you twist--once, twice, three times--a smile that broadcasts how proud he is of you, a smile that suspends as the flames in the fireplace slow to a sliding glow, a smile you indulgently kiss four times while he can’t get away from you.

Once, for imbuing the locket with the ability to circumnavigate the rules through dreams.

Twice, for placing upon it the power of time you anticipate needing for a final, dangerous task.

And another, because you’re sure now, if he took the time to put two enchantments on it, then he would not have neglected to add the third, spilling more blood to ensure that you are protected from harm by a little heart made of crystal and gold.

The last kiss though, the last you take for yourself, your reward for picking the lock of this puzzle and for enduring whatever undertaking is yet to come. You lay claim to him until the fire crackles to life again, until his lips slide out of the smile and meld gratefully into your own.

_______________

Final Chapter: Share it With Me (Thief x Locksmith 6)--->

LOCKSMITH SERIES MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST

Tag list: @14mcmd1122 @adriiibell @allthe-ships @amb-bam @amneris21 @bison-writes @blackmarketmummy @c-a-v-a-l-r-y @cannedsoupsucks @chatterbean @deadhumourist @deberiaestarescribiendo @dihra-vesa @elegantduckturtle @eri16 @extraterrestrialdork @ezrasbirdie @feralhotmess @fromthedeskoftheraven @galaxyofmando @goblinsimp @gracie7209 @greeneyedblondie44 @grogusmum @grumpymuffinmama @hauntedmama @heavenseed76 @honestly-shite @hopplessdreamer @horton-hears-a-honk @hypnoash @janebby @javierpinme @jediknight122 @jitterbugs927 @just-here-for-the-moment @justreadingthings @kesskirata @kirsteng42 @kotemorons @likes-good-reblogs-even-better @literallydontlook @liviiii98 @lorecraft @lowlights @luthientinu @luxmundee @magpie-to-the-morning @maievdenoir @mando-amandk @midnightartemis @mostclevermiss @mswarriorbabe80 @mylovelycomandante @neonvagabond @ohlawdthebirds @pbeatriz @pjkimrn @princessxkenobi @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @quicksilvermad @radiowallet @raspberrymama @recklessworry @red-velvet-panda @seasonschange-butpeopledont @sheahoneygoth @solemnlyswearss @spacenerdpascal @stevie75 @sugar-foxx @tenderwhat @the-blind-assassin-12 @thirddeadlysin @thirstworldproblemss @thisisthewayyy @thisshipwillsail316 @tintinn16 @toomanystoriessolittletime @trash-dino-5000 @writeforfandoms

#the thief #thief x locksmith #casillero del diablo

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mohluskiepedard · 4 years

Text

Rating ATLA Characters literally only from what I’ve seen in fandom

or: posts that probably shouldn’t be on my writeblr except I don’t have a sideblog

the context here is it’s half midnight and I have never seen ATLA except I have opinions now apparently so here we go whoop de do-

I’m also not actually rating them like numerically that’s too much work i’m just stating opinions I know I’m a fraud

AANG

- A child? - A son? - he is Baby. but also. he has had It Rough - would make the updog joke - has unspeakable power or smth and everyone says he’s better than the Korra girl who comes after him but honestly tastes like sexism to me - doesn’t kill people because he’s like twelve, right? he’s like twelve so he refuses to kill people - I stan honestly - less twelve year olds should kill people - Some people say his name WRONG and they are BAD but i don’t actually know what the right way or the wrong way is so. have fun w that yall - lived in peace unTIL THE FIRE NATION ATTACKED

KATARA

- She is also like twelve??? - Is everyone here twelve - Cortana?? Katana?? Catbug?? - She has good hair, - Her mother is dead??? her mother is dead n she has a brother but she cares about her mother being dead WAY more than him (or apparently the entire fandom??) - Badass - She seems soft. good. sweet - she’s a water breather or whatever??? her brother is NOT but he is a meme - I love her

SOKKA

- NGL looks like a fuckboy - The meme brother! does not do the water things, but he has an aXe??? - dates BAMF lady - ngl until I talked to my ATLA watching friend I thought he canonically dated Zuko - kinda mad he doesn’t - I haven’t actually seen anything about him except like. in zuko ship posts and also Suki appreciation posts - joined the white lotus not-a-cult by accident??? - dark ATLA tumblr show me more Sokka posts - is his name prounounced the same way as Soccer or isn’t it I need to know - HIS FIRST GIRLFRIEND TURNED INTO THE MOON - (AND THAT’S ROUGH, BUDDY) - He and Suki are a good ship, but also, Sokka Has Two Hands

SUKI

- the BAMF herself - she says STOP in that photo but also to sexism - Rlly all I see of her in fanon is abt her teaching Sokka to drink his respect women juice and I appreciate her doing that but also it’s sad she never gets talked about outside of what she did for a man - I hope she has other badass moments w/o him it would suck if she didn’t - she is NOT the girlfriend who turned into the moon, she is the one who didn’t - I don’t know much else about her ATLA Fandom y’all should appreciate her more

ZUKO

- Look at him... my son... - He has a good redemption arc - he and his sister are evil lesbian and redeemed gay guy??? - has a straight canon ship but should’ve been with Sokka this boy is gay - I Want To Protect Him - That’s literally it - he has a cool uncle and his dad sucks - people ship him with Katara and I Do Not Get It that’s his sister in law except not really - “We don’t trust Zuko’s change of heart” [the next day] “so Zuko is my closest friend now,” - His dad was like “fuck up the avatar to prove your worth to me” and Aang was like “counter argument you already have worth and we should fuck up your dad” and I think that’s beautiful - he becomes the fire man and he’s very good at it - Zuko for President 2020 - in the words of myself, half an hour ago: “ I was like "that kid with the burn on his face seems like a sad but then happy mlm who needs found family" and I was RIGHT” - took too long to find a happy picture of him :( Zuko rights NOW please - His mother’s story got compared to an OC of mine and all I can say is oh no and they deserve better based on that alone - I have had Zuko for five minutes but if anything else happens to him I will kill everyone in this throne room and then myself

TOPH

- She is badass but like also will murder you while laughing maniacally? - for some reason reminds me of Nott from Critical Role, another show I Have Not Seen - Is blind but gets more out of making jokes abt being blind than she would from being able to see - “Sight is just a cheap tactic to make weak benders stronger!!!” - Literally the opposite of Aang and has killed many people?? - She Can Tell When You’re Lying. But I do not know how and Am simply mildly threatened by this - Therapist: Toph’s ability to know if you’re lying isn’t real and can’t hurt you. Toph’s ability to know if I’m lying: - She and Zuko.... buddies??? - if not they should be - tiny sad boy needs friends like toph

AZULA

- Evil Lesbian Culture - [BDG Voice] You committed a war crime! Oopsie! - took be gay do crime too literally - her and Zuko have accurate sibling writin except instead of “you ever want to murder your sibling for breathing in the same space as you,” being a Joke Azula took it seriously - okay but with a name like azula she should be the blue bender this ANNOYS me she should NOT be red bender - AZULa - AZUL - IT MEANS BLUE - She was half of y’alls gay awakenings and it SHOWS - Should have maybe been redeemed too??? Jury is out no one knows - Was she gay for Ty Lee or wasn’t she I can’t tell how much of that Audio is a joke - IS SHE ALSO TWELVE??? IS EVERYONE HERE TWELVE?? IS THIS TWELVE YEAR OLD COMITTING ATROCITIES?

UNCLE IROH

- A Good Man - Finally, Some Good Fucking [Adult Figures] - he has the tea. literally and figuratively - Ozai is like “and I will permanently disfigure my son and throw him out” and Iroh is like “What The Fuck, Ozai,” thus voicing the entire audience’s thoughts - Literally the only adult in this that I trust - I? I love him. this is all I have to say. my love for him is unending. Some1 protect this man from all harm - he’s Zuko’s uncle (and also Azula ig) but he does not seem related to Ozai. is it just a theme in this family that one sibling is chill and one sibling commits horrendous atrocities against your fellow human beings or - something happened to his son???? :((((( I Don’t Want Him To Have Suffered Like This

OZAI

- A BAD MAN - Uh Oh (stinky) - THE WORST OF THE MEN - I do not like him - Bastard man. nasty. committed war crimes and then went “but what if - get this - i also abused my son,” - I would like him to Not Be Like This - by Like This I mean present and alive - :/

TY LEE

- She’s NOT the There Is No War In Ba Sing Se lady and I don’t know why i thought she WAS but until I looked up her photo I thought that was her - She looks like a sweetheart tho - I hope nothing bad happens to her???? - talks about auras??? or smth??? let her vibe - She would talk animatedly to me about warrior cats if she was in my year seven class and I was sat alone and I would understand none of it but appreciate her anyway - if azula bullies her I’ll be :( at Azula and Azula will not care because she has Mommy Issues and therefore is slightly unhinged - She seems like that one kid with no trauma vibing at the edge of [every other kid having trauma] and not really getting it but trying her best - Is she also twelve?????? She maybe looks twelve

CABBAGE MAN

- HIS CABBAGES - fulfills my favourite trope: ordinary person repeatedly has life disrupted by the inconveniences of relying on actual children to save the world - probably has a campaign post canon for letting trained adults fix the worlds’ problems in the future - or sets up the Very First Cabbage Insurance Company - look at him. he loves his cabbages so much. you go you funky lil cabbage man

ALSO THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES MOMO

- LOOK AT HIM HE’S SO GOOD - small. fluffy. big ears - Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty: his Momoness - a Good Boy...

APPA

- he looks so soft... - he can fly but he just does it by??? vibing through the air?? motionless??? iconic - I saw that one post about mishearing it as Abba and thinking he was Aang’s dad and he looks like he would be a good stand in dad ngl - he’s so LORGE - a chonky boy - love him

that is everyone I have heard of it and if I left someone out it’s a sign that y’all should talk about em more bc I have no clue they exist put more ATLA On my Dash ig I’ll do Legend of Korra ig maybe apparently that one has canon wlw and i love me some canon wlw

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