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hermitshippingbigbang · 10 months

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What is the Hermitshipping Big Bang? The Hermitshipping Big Bang is a virtual creative event for fans who enjoy the relationships between the characters from Hermitcraft and a variety of other online Minecraft series. In this event, writers will create works of fanfiction about the relationships between these characters, and then artists will create pieces of fanart to accompany each work of fanfiction. For additional information, please see the Rules Page and the Timeline Page. How do I get involved? Our sign-ups will open on June 10. Follow this blog for updates!

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I won’t be able to create fanfiction or fanart for this event, but I still want to be involved somehow. Is there some way I can help out? Yes! There are several ways you can help out, in fact. If you want to give feedback to writers to help them polish their fic, consider signing up to be a beta reader. If you want to help with more behind-the-scenes work and administrative tasks to keep the event running smoothly (and get leadership experience!), consider applying to become a moderator. If you’re more of a lurker (a valuable part of the fandom ecosystem!), you can follow this blog and reblog event posts to help spread the word to other fans. And of course, when fics and art are posted, everyone can read, share, kudos, and comment to spread the love! (To be clear, you can also do any of these things even if you ARE creating for this event!) What do Beta Readers do in this event? Beta Readers will be part of the Discord server and will stand by to offer feedback, proofreading, encouragement, and editing to the writers. You can team up with a writer to be their beta reader across the entire event, or you can just wait for requests. What do Pinch Hitters do in this event? Pinch Hitters are artists who are willing to step up in a pinch to create an art piece for someone’s work. This might be necessary if an artist has to drop out or if we are unable to find a match for some works the first time around. Pinch Hitters always have the option of turning down a request, but once they have committed to doing a piece, we ask that they ensure they are able to do it. How do the art tiers work? Please see the Art Tiers page for more detailed information. Fanfics submitted to the event will be put into tiers based on their word counts (each tier spans about 10,000 words). Even if the final work ends up longer with editing, the art tier will only be based on the word count of the complete draft submitted before art claims. Works in higher tiers will be matched with artists willing to do more artwork or more complex artwork. Where will the final fanworks be posted? All fics will be posted to the Hermitshipping Big Bang 2023 collection on AO3! Art will be either embedded into the fics or linked in the notes. Help will be available for both of these processes. Writers and artists are welcome to also post their finished works elsewhere, such as their own social media accounts. When will the final fanworks be posted? Fanworks, both art and fics, will be posted together publicly for the first time in January. Teams will discuss what posting date works best for them, and then may claim their posting date when Post Date Claims open on November 25. For fanworks that have multiple chapters, the writer may post the first chapter on the selected posting date. The fic must be posted in completion within 2 weeks of the selected posting date, but it is up to each team to decide the frequency of chapters within that window. The corresponding art can be posted on the posting date or with the chapter it is most relevant to.

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poesparakeet-fics · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Caleb Widogast, Caduceus Clay & Caleb Widogast, The Poly Nein - Relationship Characters: Caleb Widogast, Caduceus Clay Additional Tags: Tickling, ler!Cad, Lee!Caleb, Punishment, Injury, Injury Recovery, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Caleb Widogast is a Mess, Teasing, Queerplatonic Relationships, Pinned, Wrestling, Forced Self Love, And for once I don’t mean that in the sexy way., Safewords Series: Part 3 of The Poly Nein Summary:

Caduceus shows Caleb the consequences of dodging a healing spell around people who love you.

This one’s SFW, so please enjoy it here or on AO3!

This is what happens.

They came home battered, beaten and pissed besides. The others hung around for Jester’s prayer of healing, but Caleb slipped away, too full of old wounds and grey memories to give up his new wounds quite yet. His head ached and his side pulsed painfully while he climbed the stairs. He was nearing his door when a great, heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

“Here,” a warm voice hummed from behind him, “lemme get that for you.”

“Oh Herr Clay, it’s–”

Caleb’s sentence was choked out by a sudden sucking feeling accompanied by a sharp sound in his chest as Caduceus’ spell took hold.

*POP*

Caleb froze, then swayed in his tracks. Perhaps the injury had been a little worse than he thought. He turned around to thank his friend, only to see thunder in the firbolg’s eyes and freeze. He had seen Caduceus upset, annoyed and disappointed, but he wasn’t sure he’d seen him furious before. Until now, that is.

“For real?” Cad’s voice was still it’s usual low, placid cadence. He closed his eyes and pinched the top of his nose.

“Wh-”

“That was a broken rib, Caleb.”

“I was just going to bed–”

“You didn’t take a lick of healing from Jester.” He paused while Caleb floundered under a wave of embarrassment, guilt and stubbornness. “Your rib would have been the first thing to heal, since it’s the most life threatening. Unless you had a dagger through your heart I didn’t know about.”

The lie that was ready on Caleb’s tongue died there.

“I… ah… I did not know it was broken.” He finished lamely.

“That is not…” Caduceus closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, “That’s not the point, you… dammit, OK. OK, We’re gonna deal with this.”

His hand closed around the back of Caleb’s coat, and the now-healthy wizard yipped as he was lifted effortlessly off his feet. As easy as it was to forget Caduceus’ quiet anger, it was easier to forget his rarely-used strength.

Caduceus pulled Caleb into his quarters.

“Caduceus, what–”

“It was one thing when you were still too broken to function or believe anyone could care for you. But that’s not what’s happening here, right? You know better than this now.”

Caleb felt a panicked little chill run up his spine as Caduceus carried him like a suitcase.

“Caduceus, just— wait, I didn’t know–”

“Of course you didn’t. That big, stabbing pain in the side of your body, next to all the vital organs? I can see why you weren’t concerned.” He set Caleb on the oversized bed, and used a stern look to him in place. “Take off your shirt, I want to check your other ribs.”

“Caduceus, your spell worked fine…”

The firbolg regarded him with mild astonishment. “You really gonna fight me on this?”

Caleb swallowed, and pulled his coat off, then his holsters and shirt. He sat politely and quietly on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast. Caduceus sat next to him, tugging at his arms to manipulate his torso and peer carefully at him. Eventually he let out a breath.

“It looks like the spell healed all of the physical damage.”

Caleb was just starting to relax with slumped shoulders when one large hand caught him across his chest from behind and pulled his torso across Caduceus’ lap. That gave him a chance to catch the wicked twinkle in his friend’s eye and start fighting, but it was too late at that point. He was pinned with both wrists held over his head by Caduceus’ left hand, his torso stretched over the width of the firbolg’s lap while a heavy right elbow held his hips in place.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Caleb squeaked, legs kicking feebly against the mattress.

“Making sure you remember what happens when you dodge heals from now on. I’m gonna check every one of your ribs, I’m gonna do it until it’s done, and you’re gonna take it because if you bamf away from me, I’m just gonna have to get other people involved.”

With that Cad started to gently trace Caleb’s short rib with a pinching finger and thumb, reaching across the wizard’s body so his arm could block Caleb’s attempts to curl up in a ball.

“Wait, I– Oh, noho!”

Caleb threw his head back to laugh, every squirm just sending him deeper into Caduceus’ embrace. He could feel the firbolg’s mass shaking against his side, chuckling at his reactions.

“One. That first little one looks OK. Is it supposed to be that small? I should really learn more about human anatomy, huh? Two…” Caduceus moved up one rib, and Caleb’s laughter pitched up despite himself, “Hmm, yeah, that looks good too. So, did you think of what could have happened, if you went to bed?””

“Whahat?” Caleb gasped, unable to grasp the question under the onslaught he was suffering.

Luckily Caduceus didn’t need him to. “It could have punctured your lung. -Whoops, there’s three.- It could have killed you in your sleep. Four.”

Caduceus was a good way up his ribcage now, and the precision attacks on every solitary bone under thin skin was escalating Caleb’s desperation pretty rapidly. Being stretched out over Cad’s lap made it feel like his breath was being chased out of his chest by long downy fingers.

“Please! I’m sohohory!” He squeaked, heels drumming against the bed.

“Someone would have found you, cold and dead in the morning. Five. You know, we might have been able to bring you back, but that scar? From finding you? That’s a lot harder to heal.”

Caleb felt a sharp roll of guilt across his stomach. Not that he could express it. “Ahahaha- I-I’m sorry, pleaheeheese!”

“Hm. Are you sorry you did it or are you sorry I caught you? Six.”

“Both!” Caleb squealed, perhaps a bit too honestly.

Caduceus chuckled at him again. “Well, at least I know you’re not hiding things from me anymore. Hmm… where’s seven?”

Caduceus fingers dug around curiously, pretending he couldn’t find the rib he was currently torturing. Caleb thrashed with tears springing into his eyes, but he made no progress in escaping at all. It was like being tormented by a fuzzy mountain.

Caduceus made a frustrated sound, stopping his torment for a second. Caleb sucked in a few deep breaths.

“You made me lose count,” Caduceus explained, voice full of patently false regret, “I’m gonna have to start over.”

“Nein!” Caleb yelped

“You’d better hope you have more than nine ribs.” Caduceus teased, laughing when Caleb let out a frustrated growl.

Caduceus’ fingers returned to his lowest short-rib and started counting them out again, quicker than before. This time Caleb was crying by 3, trying desperately to stay still and expel all his ticklish agony without making Caduceus start over again.

“OK, I found seven this time. Are you ready?”

Caleb sobbed and shook his head no, but Caduceus continued anyway, ignoring his squeal.

“Pleaheeheese! Please, I’m sohohorry!”

“Eight. I do believe you, now,” the firbolg answered, “but the only way you’re getting out of this is to use that special word. And since you’re too stubborn to use that thing when Jester tortures you for fun, I’m guessing you’re not gonna use it now, when you know you deserve it. Not for little old me.”

Little old Caduceus was currently tickling a powerful mage to tears without so much as a bother, but Caleb didn’t have the breath to point it out. The first time Caduceus had seen the Nein really tickle Caleb to pieces, he had broken it up. Jester had to have a patient talk about safewords to convince him it was OK. Now he was wielding it against Caleb, and if he could, the wizard definitely would have pouted about it.

As it was his face was forced into a bright smile that he tried to hide against one bicep, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes to roll past pink cheeks and red ears. His feet kicked helplessly at the air when Cad’s fingers moved again.

“There’s nine. So I think you’re just gonna have to take this, but if you’re cooperative and not stubborn, we’ll get through it quicker, OK?”

Caleb wanted to wail that he didn’t know what that meant but settled for just wailing instead. Caduceus was quickly getting to the ticklish spots that his holsters usually protected.

“Ten. So, are you gonna do it again?”

Caleb felt a flash of panicked confusion before he remembered what had gotten him into this mess.

“Nein!” he wheezed between fits.

“Good to hear. Eleven. Why aren’t you gonna do it again?”

“Bitte! Pleheeheese I can’t” Caleb choked, breathless.

“Oh, yeah you can. Come on, why aren’t you gonna do it again?”

He switched to one finger and a lighter touch, leaving Caleb in hysterical waves of giggles while also giving him a chance to catch his breath a little.

“Because- it would- ahaha- upset theheehee others!”

“Hm. Well, I’ll take that for now. Twelve! Now, what’s gonna happen if you do it again?”

Caduceus had to realize that the shrieking wizard had no way to answer, so he answered for him.

“This is what happens, right? We have a zero tolerance policy from now on.”

Caleb sobbed and nodded in understanding, his whole body bending to try and save the one patch of ticklish skin without any success. Then Caduceus’ hand started to wriggle and prod into his armpit and his whole body jerked like he was electrified.

“AAHahahaha nahahahaha!” Caleb couldn’t get enough of a break to beg for mercy.

“Hmm. Looks like that’s it. Is twelve the right number?”

“Yahahahas!”

“Oh, well, good to know then.”

Caduceus released him, letting the teary-eyed wizard’s arms snap down to belatedly shield his ribcage, his face disappearing into his hands while his body shuddered with laughter.

“Shh,” he soothed as though he wasn’t the perpetrator of Caleb’s state, “ just breath.”

Caleb tried, rolling onto his side to breath into Caduceus’ linen shirt. Hysterical, pitchy laughter jerked out of him when the other man tried to pat his back and immediately stopped with a soft apology.

“You… just… please never do that again.”

“I think that’s up to you, based on the arrangement we just agreed to…”

“-under torture!-”

“… and I mean, it’s gonna happen again. At least one more time tonight.”

There was a moment of heavy, terrified silence.

“…What?” Caleb felt like a cup of ice water had been poured down his back. His eyes went perfectly round.

“I said I was gonna check all your ribs. I feel like if I don’t follow though I’ll set a bad precedent.”

Caleb immediately tried to scramble away from Caduceus, and he would have hit the floor if the firbolg hadn’t reached out to grab him around his middle and hoist the smaller man into his lap.

“Mist! Nein! You can’t, please!”

Caduceus started the patient, gentle work of getting a grip on the wriggling wizard in his lap. He kept his right arm looped around Caleb’s middle, his other arm working to try and grab a flailing wrist. When he wasn’t quite quick enough he made a frustrated sound in Caleb’s ear, right before planting a raspberry between the smaller man’s shoulder blades.

“Hold still!”

Caleb let out a wordless peal of squealing laughter under the onslaught of soft lips, velveteen nose and wooly beard. It bolted down his spine and made his whole upper body collapse.

One big, soft palm gripped his now-limp wrist and heaved it upward, exposing his currently un-tormented right side. Caduceus looped his right arm under Caleb’s captured one, bracing his palm on the back of the smaller man’s head. Caleb’s left arm was pinned against his chest as Caduceus’ other arm wrapped around him to keep him in his seat and hover downy fingers over Caleb’s exposed ribcage.

“Pleaheeheese you’ll kill meeeheehee!” Caleb whimpered through anticipatory laughter, eyes glued on Caduceus’ hovering hand.

“Sssh.” The firbolg soothed into the back of Caleb’s head. “I’m not gonna kill you. We’re just gonna take it really easy, OK?”

His left hand started to rub Caleb’s side in smooth circles, each one climbing higher than that last

“Nooohoohoho!” Caleb whined, eyes squeezing shut as the firbolg’s fingers found his short rib.

“One.”

“Bitte!” Caleb squealed through gritted teeth.

“I want you to repeat after me, OK?”

Caleb tried to turn and look at him, teary eyes astonished, as though Caduceus had asked him to move the moon.

“I -yeeheehee!- I can’t! Please!

“You can, I promise. We’re gonna start off really easy. How about “I deserve to live.”

“Whahahahaat? I can’t–”

“Two.”

“-Aaah! Nohoho! OK, ok, please!”

Caduceus only gave him a moment to take a breath before it spilled out “Ideservetolive!”

“Very good!” The hand holding Caleb in a half-nelson patted his head. “How about ‘I don’t deserve pain.’ for number three?”

“Ahahaa! Says the one torturing meheeheehe!”

“Ha! Are your ribs hurting? It’s a good thing I’m checking on them. Four.”

“Aaahaaa! I don’t deserve pain!”

“See, you’re doing great,” Caduceus praised, “we’ll be done in no time. I know this one’s going to be a little tough for you, are you ready? Five. I want you to say ‘I’m loved and I deserve that love.’”

For the first time that night, Caduceus’ request made Caleb’s jaw lock up.

“Nein— no, aah! I can’t!” He managed to whine through his teeth and the increasingly hysterical laughter that Caduceus was pulling out from deep in his chest.

“You have my permission not to believe all of these for now, but I want you to say every one. Six.” “AhahaHA! Nein, habt Mitleid! Mehehercy!”

Caduceus snorted. “On your ribs or on your low self-esteem? Actually, don’t waste your breath. I already know the answer. Seven.”

“Aaaaii! Please! I c- I can’t remember whahahat I’m supposed to sahahay!” Caleb sobbed, body starting to go limp with exhaustion in Caduceus’ arms.

The firbolg laughed, letting up for a moment to use his sleeve to wipe the tears off his captive’s cheeks.

“I’m loved…”

“I’m… loved…” Caleb panted, his unpinned hand holding on to Caduceus’ currently-stilled tickling hand for dear life, as if it might save him.

“And I deserve that love.

Even breathless and exhausted, Caleb winced like the sentence left a bad taste in his mouth. “I… deserve that… love.”

“Hey, good job. That was one of the hard ones.”

The sound that started to flow out of Caleb was somewhere between a panicked giggle and an exhausted sob. One of the hard ones.

“For this one I’m gonna need the whole phrase. ‘My name is Caleb Widogast, and I am a good man’ Are you ready?”

“No! Please have mercy!”

“Aw, sorry buddy. Not this time. Eight…”

“NIEN, can’t– s'too m-muhuch pleaheese–”

“Nine indeed!” Caduceus chuckled, fingers jolting upward to take advantage of the joke. “It’s not too much. I know you can do it.”

“I c-c- NO PLEASE I can’t while you– CAN’T! BITTE!"

Caduceus chuckled, fingers jumping up to tweak the next rib and yank a short little scream out of Caleb before he stopped moving his fingers and froze, still and menacing.

"That’s ten. Come on. I can’t make you believe it but I’m gonna make you say it.”

Caleb’s weight was leaning into Caduceus’ chest, his head leaning back against one solid shoulder with his eyes closed as he gulped in breaths.

“I'm… a good man.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Caleb Widogast… is a good man.”

“Aw, very good.” Caduceus praised, squeezing Caleb in a small hug. “Ready? Almost finished. Eleven.”

Caleb didn’t even plead this time, he just started to laugh again with his head still thrown back against Caduceus’ shoulder.

“Last one, I promise. I want you to say "I am going to take care of myself for the people who love me, or Caduceus is going to tickle me until I scream. Every time.”

“I CA- I CA- nohohoho! Too lohohong!”

“Twelve.”

Caleb’s back arched and his feet kicked while he shrieked, unable to get even the first part of the sentence out. Caduceus did have a little mercy, then, pausing to let Caleb suck in the breath he needed.

“I'mgoingtotakecare *pant* of myself *hic* forthepeople *hic* who love me or… *hic* this is what happens…”

“Every time.” Caduceus reminded him, tapping his fingers on Caleb’s top rib.

“Every time! Every time! Pleaheeheese!”

Finally, Caduceus let him go, angling himself so the wizard could flop over onto his bedspread. Caleb curled up on his side, face in his hands as the residual laughter started to slowly die down and the shuddering feeling in his bones faded.

“Do you wanna stay here tonight? Least I could do.”

Caleb unfurled with a heavy sigh. “Ja, please."

"Hey Caleb? What time is it?”

“Ah… *hic* probably between 10 and midnight, why?”

“Oh. No reason."

Caleb could see the firbolg’s smug little smile, but was entirely too tired to do anything about it.

Caduceus started to shrug off his outer layers and lowered the lamp while Caleb tucked himself in up against the wall.

"So just to be clear, this is what happens when you dodge a healing spell–”

“Yes! Yes *hic* you’ve made your point!”

“-But it’s going to get worse every time.”

Caleb just whimpered into the pillow.

“I mean,” Cad continued, “getting Jester involved is obviously the last resort. She is the ultimate escalation. And Molly’s not far behind. Maybe Beau first?”

“Nien!” Caleb jerked himself up in the bed in a panic. “Not Beau! She’s right under Molly. Not Beau.”

Caduceus chuckled, sliding himself into the big warm bed next to Caleb.

“So that leaves Yasha, Fjord and Veth. Wanna fill out the ranking?”

Caleb chuckled a little along with him, then whined.

“Nooo. I feel like I’m being made to dig my own grave.”

“If it makes you feel better, you’ve definitely already done that. I saw that reaction to the raspberry. That’s how I’m counting next time.”

Caleb groaned in the back of his throat. The threats felt like they were melting him.

“Mein gotten, to think I used to believe you were the nice one.”

Caduceus chuckled again. He slung one arm over the Caleb ball next to him and pulled the wizard in for a cuddle, rubbing his back soothingly when the other man tensed up.

“Hey, I’m done. For now. Seriously though, who’s most dangerous after Beau.”

Caleb gave a defeated sigh as he relaxed into Caduceus’ soft, solid embrace. The softly lit room took on a golden haze. Caduceus smelled like spices, cardamom and rosemary. Caleb hid his face in one wolly shoulder, his breathing evening out.

“Fjord because he teases, then Yasha because she bites.”

“Heh. So Veth’s the first level of escalation? Good to know. She seems more likely to keep this between us anyway… Caleb?"

The only answer was a snore.

#critickle role #tickle fic #caleb widogast #caduceus clay #tk fic

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

Note

Like idk what you want from me here. If you want to engage me in a specific question about ace/aro identities, as I've said several times and nobody has ever actually done, then ask me the specific question. Don't fuck around with vague gestures at Points of Discourse and then get cross with me because I haven't answered the Exact Question you Didn't Ask But Expected Me To Intuit.

Preface: If you don't want to answer any of these because you are allo/allo and don't have a say because its not your place, say that. In fact, I'm asking these because you seem to do have opinions on things you shouldn't based off things you have said in the past.

I also want to state that I agree fully with your points about Martin- minus the blatant aphobia. Not just acephobia, arophobia as well.

1. Do you think qprs are problematic? I believe you once made a post saying roughly that qprs are just normal friendships, or something like that, that has since been deleted. What is your current opinion?

2. Are het aros lgbt?

3. Are het aces lgbt?

4. Cis aro/aces lgbt?

5. Cishet aro/aces?

6. Do the spectrums and micro identities exist? You've implied in the past they don't, in the post about how they were supposedly created from sex positivity

7. Can aros be in or desire romantic relationships?

8. Can aces have or desire sex?

9. Does the split attraction model exist and does it benefit people?

10. Can teenagers identify as aro/ace or do you think they're too young?

11. Can you be, say, an aroace lesbian, or an aroace gay, aroace bi, etc. Idk how to phrase this one but like can you be aroace and still id with another orientation?

I could send another anon detailing the aphobia in the post, because I at least am certainly not upset about Martin being sexual, rather it was the very blatant aphobia. It could have stemmed from ignorance, and if that's the case I don't mind explaining it.

Ok this is a lot of questions, some with quite involved answers, so I'm gonna answer them chunk by chunk so it's a bit more manageable, and then I might come back to some of the surrounding message. This isn't gonna be an immediate bang bang bang, but I'll try and work through them over the next couple of days.

Question 1

1. No, I don't think qprs are problematic. I don't necessarily understand them but I don't need to understand them to understand and respect that they're a thing that's important to a lot of people. I don't know what post you're referring to, but I'm surprised that you say it was deleted, because I very rarely delete posts except, occasionally, reblogs where people have flagged up misinformation or dogwhistles or which I reblogged by accident. tbh I'm the messiest online presence I'm way too lazy to delete past posts or block people even when I probably should bc I don't like to feel like I'm ~hiding evidence~. So I'm not saying you're wrong, you're probably totally right, but I'm surprised.

I'm thinking about what posts I've made that you could be thinking of, and obviously I don't remember everything I say on here bc I say A Lot and I actively post to get things out of my head so 🤷‍♀️ but I do remember making a post a while ago where I said that it was a normal expectation of friendship to have some friends close enough that you'll live with them, raise kids with them, etc, and I'm wondering if that was the post you're thinking of? I did have qprs in mind while writing that to a degree, but only because I think 'you wouldn't do this with your friends' is a very common argument people put forward about qprs and I think it's a weak argument, because many people have different definitions of friendship, and the only argument I think is needed for any sort of I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing is...I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing. Like you can't offer a universal materialist definition of the differences between romantic, queerplatonic, sexual and platonic relationships, because the boundaries are very personal and it's really an emotional and experiential difference. so if that is the post you're thinking of, I wasn't criticising The Concept Of QPRs as much as saying that I thought trying to put hard lines around What Friends Do Vs What QPPs Do was a) counterproductive when arguing with someone who thinks QPR is Just Normal Friendships bc. if they do those things with their friends then saying NO THIS IS A QPR THING just reinforces their existing belief that you're talking about the same thing as they mean by friendships and b) to me seems to set a painful expectation to young people that you can only get these kinds of close friendships occasionally and in the form of a QPR and it will be stigmatised and misunderstood (and depending on how people talk about it, is only accessible to aspec people and allo people should only expect it to come through romantic/sexual relationships), when in fact most people of most ages I know have friends with whom they can share things like housing, deep feelings, futures, finances, who they miss if they don't see for a few days, who are mutually supportive and vital to their wellbeing. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with the existence of QPRs though - like I personally don't know what the difference is between a QPR and a close friendship, but I also don't know what the difference is between a romantic relationship and a close friendship but I know there is one and I know it's not a question of What You Do but a question of How You Feel And Interact, and that's pretty hard to define in unambiguous terms.

Like generally I don't Not Think QPRs exist, and I think it's a dick move to try and tell people they're wrong about how they experience and define their relationships because???? how are you meant to know that better than the person whose relationship it is??? but I do think the way people talk about QPRs (both from the perspective of defending them and from the perspective of attacking them) is pretty rife with problems and I don't think it's invalidating the reality of QPRs to talk about where the arguments and language around them potentially falls down or has unexpected consequences.

On the other hand, I don't know if that actually is the post you're referring to - the reason I'm calling back to that is that that and a few resultant asks are the only time I remember talking about QPRs on here in the last year or so. So like, several of these questions reference past posts, which is very fair, but I do need it to be clear that, since I don't really tag anything and I don't have a great memory, I can only really speak to What I Think Now In This Context, not to what I posted in the past and what I was thinking when I posted it. Like, this isn't too deny responsibility - I reckon I'm responsible for what I post even if I don't still agree with it, which is why I don't tend to delete my own posts on purpose - but just to deny capacity, I guess? I don't really KNOW what I've posted so if you talk about it in vague terms (and I do understand that if it's been deleted there's not a lot you can do but that) I may not necessarily be responding to the part of it that's worried you, so if I'm not speaking to something specific I've said or done, it's not because I Don't Want To, I just don't necessarily know to.

I'm waffling about this because looking through your messages there's a lot of "you said X" and like. given that the intended message of the post that's kicked this off was very different to the message people have taken from it, it feels important to me to know whether if I looked at the posts you're referencing I'd be like "ah yeah I did believe that but now I believe X" or if it's more a situation of "oh right I can see how you took X from that but my thinking was more Y".

(also sometimes when people say "you made a post" they mean "you reblogged a post" and I am a compulsive discourse scroller so sometimes I reblog a random post to bookmark my place on someone's discourse blog or I accidentally longpress the reblog button while scrolling - I try to delete reblogs that I don't agree with but sometimes I miss some, all of which to say if there's a post on my blog that doesn't seem to reflect what I say in my original posts then it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a crypto-whatever so much as I'm very lazy and messy with my blog. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for reblogs but it's useful to know if we're talking original content or reblogs bc I'm unlikely to fully accidentally make a post. but I quite often accidentally reblog stuff. I doubt this is the case with this sitch just bc of your phrasing but I want to cover my bases)

anyway tl;dr: no I don't believe that QPRs themselves are inherently problematic, nor do I think I have at any point believed that, but I do think that a lot of the language and ideas used to talk about them are based in miscommunication or absolutist ideas about relationships and can have damaging knock on effects.

#i recognise that your past ask implied that it was somehow evasive to answer in long form #so sorry but this is gonna get loooong #but I'd rather be long and honest than say something snappy and absolutist that doesn't reflect what i actually think #so yeah this is gonna go ooooooooooon

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sign-from-god-complex · 4 years

Note

Um, so you're like a Tumblr god with writing, so do you have any tips on how to get your stories noticed and out there? Thank you!

ashdgfsdh that’s so!!!! nice!!!!! ty!!! so, to be totally honest, part of my situation is that I got really lucky with one of my fics early on, where it got like,,, a lot of notes and as such I ended up with way more followers but I can still try to give some tips!!!

(this got a little long, so I’m putting it under a cut)

1. Tagging

People (me included) will go through the Sanders Sides or character tags to find stuff to reblog. Only the first five tags you throw in will actually have your work in them (i.e. if you tag ‘1′, ‘2′, ‘3′, ‘4′, ‘5′, ‘6′, the fic will only show up when you search 1-5) and it won’t show up through searches at all if you use certain words (swear words, in particular, I’ve noticed).

Making sure to tag your stuff in a way that people will see definitely helps but also make sure it’s relevant tags. People looking for prinxiety won’t be thrilled to have analogical in the tag they’re searching. You can check my fics for the way I tag them if you want!

And, in relation to a different kind of tagging, use tag lists! I know there’s some general ones online (@the-taglist-repository has a bunch) but sometimes author’s will also just straight up tell you to tag them in stuff (e.g. I love being tagged in aspec or autistic sides content, @/rosesisupposes likes being tagged in superhero AUs, @/sleepless-in-starbucks demands /j to be tagged in all losleep content, etc. etc.).

I would be careful about just tagging people though. I’m, personally, not a fan of being tagged in things that I haven’t asked to be tagged in. It strikes me a little bit as ‘you’re a big blog so I’m just using your followers to try and promote myself’, even if that isn’t the intention.

2. Make content regularly

Now, I get that regularly putting out content is definitely not as easy as just saying you will—life gets in the way sometimes and creativity is stressful—but it definitely helped me when I started writing. I wasn’t doing much else with my time (an unusual circumstance), so I was putting out like,, at least 2 fics a month. In the entirety of last year I wrote 80 fics. But seriously, the more you write, the better your writing will be (practise!) and the more likely people will see it.

You can also try doing writing games like I’ve done for follower milestones in the past. You can find lists of prompts on tumblr, reblog them and ask people to send you a prompt and a ship for you to write a drabble for. There’s also things like Secret Santa (where people trade content for the holidays) and Soulmate September is this month, organised by @tsshipmonth2020! So participating in writing events that you find could also help!

3. Interact with other writers

The biggest thing, I think, personally, to help content creators is for them to work together to lift each other up (sounds kinda cheesy but I’m serious). If you comment on other people’s work telling them how much you enjoyed their fics, I guarantee they’ll be thrilled and you may become friends! (I’ve had,,, several friendships start this way; @/sleepless-in-starbucks and @/max-is-tired, among others).

And you can interact with writers outside of tumblr too! Discord is a super great way to chat with other writers and get your fics out there, I’ve found. There’s even some discord servers dedicated specifically to writing tss fanfics (@potestessemagishomosexualitatis has a great one that I’m in and ik there’s one run by discord user ‘parallelwrites’, though I’m not certain of their tumblr URL).

4. Write what you enjoy!

I guarantee people can tell if you’re writing stuff you’re not enjoying. You don’t have to write only the most popular ships to get notes on your writing (I mean, just look at Lia, who’s basically made their blog on the foundation of losleep). You should write the things you like, even if they’re niche, cause I promise if you want to read it, there’s other people out there who do as well.

I mean, I just read a qpr sleepxiety soulmate AU that the author (@averykedavra) described as ‘self-indulgent’. I’m a huge fan of platonic/queerplatonic sleepxiety but I never see it written! It’s not popular! But Avery wrote it and I loved it. I did not expect so many people to be thrilled about my aroace-Logan coming out story! I wrote it for Me but people really seemed to enjoy it! You never know what people will love.

5. Take care of yourself

This is maybe not so much writing advice as it is a caveat for all the stuff I’ve said here. At the end of the day, writing is fun and getting praise on your stories feels awesome, and I totally get that, but you gotta make sure not to burn yourself out. I went through a period when I started fic writing where I was,,,, a little too dependant on the feedback I got and if I didn’t get what I considered “enough notes” it basically sent me into a downward spiral.

Now, that’s me and I know not everyone will feel that way, but it’s good to remember you have worth outside of what you create. If you can’t manage to write the amount you think you “should” be, that’s okay. If you can’t manage to finish a piece you’ve been working on, that’s okay. If you go for months without writing because of stress, life or simply writer’s block, that’s all okay.

You are the most important thing in your creative endeavours; don’t forget that.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #I'll leave the tagging there since this is #barely tss-related ajhgd #I'm sorry this is so long but also I'm not #if you ask me for advice you gotta be prepared for /advice/#I truly never shut up ajskdhfg #but I do hope this is helpful!#lo speaks #anonymous #ask lo #also! anyone is free to add on if they want

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rainbow-okapi · 4 years

Text

F/O List!

Here”s my F/O list! I know it’s hella long and It will probably get longer the more F/O’s I find or remember because I have a lot and they pop up randomly when it’s convenient for them, but here are some of the extra special F/O’s that resonate with me. I feel kinda embarrassed about being open about them, since I don’t want anyone to get uncomfortable regarding them. Each one has shaped me in some way or another as a form of escapism or motivation; whether they’ve been F/O’s from my earliest memories or some as recently as last week. Feel free to send me any asks you want regarding relationship statuses with them or S/I curiosity. I think I have some asks memes tagged in my blog, so feel free to take a shot at those too. I’m kinda antsy to talk about them, and my S/I’s too!

Last Updated as of 06/08 now with some S/I descriptions

Familiar:

Professor Kukui: Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon: Parental

S/I is a young Sinnoh champion who moved to Alola to start a new life alone

Gabriel Reyes: Overwatch: Mentor/Parental

S/I is a stray Reyes brought in after a raid

Larry Trainor: DC Doom Patrol: Platonic Friend/Mentor

LGBT buddies, talk shit, get hit.

Mumen Rider: One Punch Man: absolutely fluffy platonic soulmates

He also bounces on the line of being romantic but we’re both too self-sacrificing to do anything

S/I has Hanahaki Disease for Mumen that mutated into a superpower so they become a Hero

Yuuri Katsuki: Yuri On Ice!: Platonic motivators

Catch us dancing and sneaking snacks behind Viktor’s back

Izuku Midoriya/Shoto Todoroki: My Hero Academia: Friends

Secret Cuddle Group Therapy

S/I is a little private Hero who has a knack for showing up at the wrong place at the right time

Geralt of Rivia: The Witcher: Mentor/Parental

Introvert Buddies

S/I is a throw-away Witcher test

Roy Mustang: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Handler

Very much so borders on Romantic but for the most part we’ve got this Loyal Mutt/Handler dynamic going.

Romantic:

Joker: Persona 5

He toes the line between Platonic friend and soft romance

S/I wandered into the metaverse on accident

Link: LoZ Twilight Princess: Soft romantic

Bucky Barnes/Natasha Nomamoff: Marvel: Romantic Motivators

Maybe he should have gone in the Feral category haha

Fluffy Squad

Bucky: WE’RE ENGAGED

Nat/Me: IN COMBAT

Tadashi Hamada: Big Hero 6: Romantic

Fluffy Motivation

Villain AU home-brew story S/I is hunting down Sunfire

Dick Grayson: Nightwing: DC: Queerplatonic with some romance

Same S/I with Jason Todd

Ferals/Mains:

They’re in an open-poly relationship with S/I and Jason

Deathstroke/Slade Wilson: DC

He's so complicated but he's a sweetie in his own way

Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane and Keith: Voltron, Legendary Defenders

Usually viewed as a intimate poly relationship

Genji Shimada and Jesse McCree: Overwatch

An open and sometimes romantic poly relationship

Same story as the S/I with Reyes

Jason Todd/Red Hood: DC: Handler

Strength and Softness

S/I has a shadowbox ability and luckily Jason gets to them first

Prince Sidon: Legend of Zelda BOTW: Platonic

Constant competition of who is the biggest ray of sunshine

Hint: it’s him, he always wins. I am very weak

Axel: Kingdom Hearts: Spicy Feral

A permanent F/O since I was little

Sara Smith/Sam Yao: Zombies, Run!: Soft Romantic

Absolute power squad. They own my heart. I’ll always be their Runner 5...

Also fucking hell check out that fitness app pls

Peter Parker/Spiderman:

He’s been my permanent F/O since I was a wee child and while he’s definitely grown with me, It’s more like we’re that soft platonic soulmate trope where everyone thinks we’re dating except ourselves. There’s no pressure and we’re chill.

I grew up watching the old VHS tapes but I feel like Tom Holland really captured how I viewed spider-man when I was younger.

#they speak #self ship #send me asks #pls send me asks I'm lonely #self love #happy #positivity

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aspec-stories-blog · 5 years

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Submission guidelines (post)

**Note that our guidelines may change as we get a better feel for who follows our blog and what they want to write about**

Contents:

Before you click “Submit”

What can people submit?

Topics that we will NOT post to the blog

How do I submit something?

How can I have my submission posted anonymously?

A couple more notes on submissions: our weekly prompts, submitting your own writing prompts, submitting visual works, and community intros

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Before you click “Submit”

Since it doesn’t show up when you submit something on mobile, here is what’s written on our “Submit something!” page:

“Please check out our “Submission guidelines” page before submitting something to us! Then, before you click “Submit,” please do the following: 1. Make sure to include any of the following content warnings that are relevant: body-hatred, eating disorder implication (anything beyond a mention), and gore. Write them in the first line (under the title, before the body of your submission) so that our mods are aware of the warnings before they start reading. 2. SAVE A COPY OF YOUR WORK!!! Tumblr has a nasty habit of eating submissions, and we don’t want it to accidentally delete the only copy of your writing before we can post it! Submitted content that is posted to our blog will be directly credited to the URL you submit from, unless otherwise specified. Thank you! We look forward to reading your work!”

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What can people submit?

One of our main goals here is to help inspire and share writing about and for aspec people, so we ask that authors stick to that demographic as much as possible. And since there’s not a ton of writing out there about aspec people and experiences, there’s so much for all of us to explore! Poems and song lyrics! Short stories and multi-part series! Character ideas and story concepts! Fanfiction and original ideas! Comics! Movie scripts! Whatever you want to create!! Want to write about an aromantic adventurer in a fantasy world? A budding queerplatonic relationship between college students? A demisexual scientist inventing time travel? Do it!!! We’re SO excited to read your works, and we’re sure there will be plenty of others here who are, too! Don’t want to write an entire story? That’s cool, too! You can submit writing prompts; book, fic, song, show, or movie recommendations; writing tips; aspec positivity and support—as long as it’s relevant to the blog and follows our policies, it’s fair game!

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Topics that we will NOT post to the blog

Content warning: there are mentions of many triggering topics in this section.

We definitely want to allow y’all lots of freedom for exploration in your submissions, but also—first and foremost—we want Aspec Stories to be a safe and supportive place for aspec people of all ages, identities, and experiences. To help promote that positive environment, we (the mods) have decided to make all of the following topics off-limits in submissions and on the blog in general:

Animal cruelty

Child abuse

Discrimination or hate towards any members of the LGBTQIA+ community

Explicit* childbirth

Explicit* corrective rape (or explicit rape of any kind)

Explicit* disordered eating

Explicit* experience of conversion therapy

Explicit* gun violence

Explicit* self-harm

Explicit* sexual activity (specifically NSFW content, e.g. no porn, smut, or lemons)

Explicit* sexual assault

Explicit* suicide

Explicit* use of hard drugs and/or illicit substances (with the exception of marijuana and alcohol, though we may choose not to allow them if we feel that your representation of their use is inappropriate for this blog. We will contact you directly if that is the case.)

Explicit* verbal or physical abuse

Extreme body horror (i.e. we define body horror as “altering a character’s body in grotesque or seemingly painful ways.” This does NOT include disabled bodies, burn victims, amputees, or people with scars. It is meant for situations that are out of the ordinary. Please use your discretion—we’ll contact you directly if we feel that you have included body horror that is too disturbing to publish on this blog.)

Hardcore gore (i.e. gore may be included in submissions, but please use your discretion—we’ll contact you directly if we feel that you have included too much or that it is too disturbing to publish on this blog.)

Inappropriate treatment of minors in general (i.e. please use your discretion when writing about characters who are minors, including characters who are canonically minors who you have aged-up for the sake of your story. We’ll contact you directly if we think that your treatment of underage characters is problematic in any way.)

Incest

Hateful slurs

Pedophilia

Racial slurs, specifically

Unaddressed discrimination of any kind (i.e. while discrimination may be included as part of a character’s experience, it should not go unaddressed within the story. We will contact you directly if we feel that any discrimination represented in your submission is poorly addressed or otherwise inappropriate for this blog.)

Unnecessary violence (i.e. violence that seems unnecessarily cruel or seems as though it serves no purpose to the story being told)

We doubt that most of these topics are things y’all would want to write about, anyways, but we want to share this list to let you know that we’re watching out for you! If you think that anything else should be added to this list of off-limits topics, please message us or send us an ask!

If your submission includes any of the above topics, we will NOT post it to the blog. We’ll contact you at the URL that you submitted from to let you know that we’ve decided not to publish your work. Depending on the situation, if you are willing to edit out the off-limits content we may consider reviewing your submission again for posting.

If you feel that a submission that we have already posted on the blog violates our policy of off-limits topics, please send us a direct message and we’ll address it as soon as we possibly can.

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*To clarify on the starred topics: When we say “explicit” we mean “writing (or art) that shows said topic happening within the submission.” Topics such as abuse, self-harm, etc. may exist within your writing, but only indirectly or in mention. For example: we will not allow an explicitly shown or described (NSFW) sex scene, but if characters are talking about their relationships with sex without getting into NSFW detail that’s totally fine (we’ll just tag it as a content warning). Please contact us if you have any questions about this!

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How do I submit something?

If you have something you’d like to have posted on Aspec Stories, read through this list to find out how to best share it with us:

Is it a poem, short story, longer written work, visual art, character blurb, or something of that nature? Send it to us via our “Submit something!” page, please!

Is it a writing prompt, writing tip, some form of media recommendation, message of positivity, or something similar? Also send these to us via the “Submit something!” page!

Do you have a question or comment for us about the blog or one of our posts? Send it to us via the “Ask something!” page, or send us a direct message! We’ll be happy to hear from you!

Want to introduce yourself to the blog’s community? Visit the “A couple more notes on submissions” section of this page!

When in doubt, send it to us as a submission via our “Submit something!” page! Most of the things we post will be user-submitted, and sending us content via our “Submit something!” page is the best way for us to give you credit for your work.

Other than that, please make sure you’re following our policies for topics that we do and do not allow on the blog. Then just follow the final requests that we’ve included on the “Submit something!” page, and click the submit button! We’re excited to see what you send us!

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How can I have my submission posted anonymously?

Step one: please don’t submit writing to us via anonymous asks!! Please!! That could get very confusing for us mods, especially if your work is long and you send it to us as multiple anonymous asks. We might actually cry if that happens. Especially if tumblr eats part of your work. Or you send us 20 asks and we’re not sure what order they’re meant to go in. Please… please don’t make us cry.

Instead, just include this note in one of the first lines of your submission (under the title but before the body of your work): “post as anon”. Easy! When we see that note, we’ll copy and paste the contents of your submission into a brand new post, then tag it as “author: anon”. We (the mods) will still see the URL you submit from in our inbox, but when we post your submission to the blog it will be completely anonymous. And please don’t feel weird about us knowing your URL! We won’t share it with anyone and we won’t contact you unless we need to (like if your submission includes an off-limits topic). And honestly, we probably won’t remember it after 5 minutes. No worries—we promise!

If you’d like us to post your submission anonymously but use a pseudonym instead of “anon”, write the note like this: “post as anon, author: [pseudonym]” (for example: “post as anon, author: Doodleoo McGee”). We’ll do all the same things to post it anonymously, but just use the “author: [pseudonym]” tag in place of our default “author: anon” tag (which will make it easier for you to find later).

**Note that if you use a pseudonym that another person has already claimed, we’ll contact you to ask for a new one. If we don’t hear back from you in a few days, we’ll just add some numbers to the end of your original pseudonym and call it good.

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A couple more notes on submissions

There are a few things about specific types of submissions that we want to clarify!

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Our weekly prompts

Each week (on Aspec Saturday), we’ll post a new prompt that’s meant to help people come up with ideas for submissions. Your submissions don’t HAVE to be related to these prompts—they’re just for extra inspiration! But, to help keep things organized, we’ll be tagging all submissions that we think are in response to the weekly prompts with an extra tag: “weekly prompt # (Month Year)”. All other submissions (unrelated to the weekly writing prompts) will be tagged as “general submission”. Please visit the “Our tags” page for more info about our tagging system!

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Submitting your own writing prompts

You are more than welcome to submit writing prompts for us to share! Usually we’ll just post these as regular submissions with the tag “general submission”. If anyone submits something in response to your prompt, it will also be tagged as a “general submission” (otherwise it would get really tricky to keep track of everything).

If we think that your prompt would be a cool one to use as one of our weekly writing prompts, we’ll contact you and ask if we can save your prompt for an upcoming week. If you’d rather we just post it as a regular submission we will, but if you’re ok with us using the prompt, we’ll post it on one of our Aspec Saturdays! All credit for the writing prompt will go to you as you’ve specified!

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Submitting visual works

This blog will mostly be for sharing writing, but if you’re inspired to create some aspec art, please send it our way! Keep in mind that all the submission and community guidelines apply to visual art submissions just as they do to written ones.

Since we’re working to make this an accessible blog, all the images we post will include written image descriptions. We’re prepared to write these descriptions ourselves, but we would be very appreciative if you took the time to describe your own art! If you’ve never described an image before, it’s easy to get the hang of and very very helpful for people who are blind or visually impaired. And especially if you regularly post artwork online, this would be a good skill to learn!

Here are some resources to help you get started with writing image descriptions, from another accessible tumblr blog: [link]

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Community intros

We’re hoping to gather a community of aspec writers, readers, and artists together with this blog. If you’d like to introduce yourself to the other members of the community—at any time—just send us an ask with a little bit about yourself that you’d like us to share!

If it’s NOT an anon ask, we’ll tag it with “author: [your URL]” and “community intro!”

If it IS an anon ask, we’ll tag it with “author: anon” and “community intro!”

We look forward to meeting you!!

#submission guidelines post #static page

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theclaravoyant · 7 years

Note

also if you're up for it, S1 Skye finds Simmons in Fitz's bed post FZZT and in trying to explain that they are not dating or sleeping together, they end up talking about QPs and aromantic (and/or ace) identities (bonus points if Skye ends up joining them for all the platonic bed sharing feels)

AN ~ Always a pleasure to write for you! Thanks for the prompt

Also tagging @unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot bc they’re always down for QP FitzSimmons. Happy Pride!

(and for those of who who didn’t catch them last year, there’s more QP FS in Birds of a Feather and aro!Jemma (who unfortunately didn’t make it explicitly into this one) in Love is Not an Eight Letter Word.)

Read on AO3 (~1600wd).Fluff! Rated G/K+ for some light/brief mentions of sex.

Peas in a Pod

It was the morning after the scariest day of her life, and Skye woke with her heart pounding heavily in her chest. She couldn’t remember if she’d been dreaming, or if so, what it had been about, but in her state of panic she remembered the way her heart had dropped, her mouth had gone dry, her every thought had turned to death death death when Jemma had jumped. She would have survived and landed and gone on, and her friend would be dead. Gone. Forever. She’d never been that close to it before.

All of a sudden, she felt an urge to see Jemma’s face. Or Fitz’s, which if nothing else, would remind her that they’d come out of it after all. So, still in her pyjamas, Skye bolted across the hall and knocked on Jemma’s door. No answer? She tried Fitz’s instead, her whole body starting to shake, just in case, but then –

“Yeah, come in.”

Not screamingly enthusiastic, but definitely not the voice of a man who had lost his best friend the day before. Relieved, Skye pulled the door open, and yelped.

“AH! NO!” She spun on the spot and covered her eyes, unsure where to look or not look. Unsure what she had just seen or not seen.

Jemma laughed and sat up, Fitz’s blankets pooling around her, now revealing most of the Sci-Tech Academy logo on the shirt she was wearing.

“It’s okay, Skye,” she assured her. “We’re both decent.”

Skye settled, and dropped her hand from her eyes. Fitz had crossed the room as if to open the door for her, and was frowning a little, confused by her reaction.

“It’s cool,” Skye said, shrugging to recover her casual exterior, though she was still a little flushed and breathless. “Extreme situations give rise to new relationships. All the time.”

“New relationships?” FitzSimmons shared a glance, and then snapped back to Skye, in unison.

“This is a new thing, right?” Skye checked, waving a finger between them. She may not be a long-time trained spy, but she wasn’t that thick. Besides, it had only been yesterday (such a long day) that Fitz had been snorting and guffawing and denying his chemistry with Jemma and even – if Skye was not mistaken – flirting with her instead. With no real reason to keep a secret from her – well, not one like that – the only other conclusion Skye could draw was that the two of them had finally been driven into each other’s arms by the previous day’s near-death experience. It happened.

It happened, but it was not what had happened here.

“Oh,” Simmons said, as if explaining aside to Fitz. “She thinks we slept together last night.”

“What?” Fitz baulked. “No! Of course not! I mean we slept but we didn’t… sleep…”

“Fitz and I aren’t together,” Simmons explained, cutting him off. “Well, not by your standards, anyway.”

“’My standards,’” Skye repeated, confused. “As opposed to what? Your standards? What, are you guys aliens or something?”

“What?” Fitz was momentarily alarmed.

“What?” Skye locked her eyes on his, wondering if she’d actually managed to catch him out. She’d always felt there was something weird about this place, and about FitzSimmons. And with everything that had happened recently, aliens wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, to be honest.

But Fitz seemed just as keen to catch her out as she was him, and so they stared each other down for a few seconds until Jemma waved them off again.

“No, I just meant… most people don’t understand the nature of our relationship.”

Skye snorted.

“Alright, Ms Grey,” she teased. “Now I know that can’t be as kinky as it sounded just now, so I’m curious. If you two aren’t aliens – which I’m not entirely sold on, by the way – what am I? What do you mean ‘my standards’?”

“I didn’t mean to offend, Skye,” Simmons apologised. “It’s just a little obscure. Fitz and I, we’re in what’s called a ‘queer-platonic’ relationship. It’s like, well it is friendship I suppose, but it’s… deeper than that. It’s like, friendship with the commitment of a romantic relationship. But without the actual romance.”

Skye frowned.

“Isn’t that just like, really good friendship?”

“Well, in a way, yes,” Simmons explained, and then took a deep breath that warned Skye she was in for an info-dump.

“But also, no. See, the term ‘platonic’ has its origins in Ancient Greek and could actually be used refer to any non-sexual non-familial love. It simply means ‘confined to thought and concept, and not resulting in action’, which in this case would be sex. So technically, non-sexual romantic acts are also platonic. Well, they were. I mean, the evolution of language does have to be taken into consideration, obviously, which is where the ‘queer’ part of it comes in. It doesn’t refer to Fitz’s or my orientations but rather, to the relationship itself - ‘queering’ the definition of platonic as we know it today, to make it more resembling of the older, wider version. At least, that’s how I see it.”

Skye blinked, speechless for a moment.

“Cool,” she said slowly, once she had run it over in her head and absorbed it. Fitz shook his head, and simplified.

“Skye. When you first met us, did you assume we were friends or a couple?”

“… a couple?” Skye confessed.

“When you found out we were ‘just friends,’ did that make sense to you?”

“Of course!”

Fitz and Jemma glared a little. Skye rolled her eyes, blushing with chagrin.

“Alright, I still wanted you two to get together and I still thought maybe you had or should have had something going on. But that happens to loads of friends, right?”

“Sure, probably,” Fitz agreed.

“Especially those of different sexes,” Simmons put in.

“But for us, we like to have the label,” Fitz explained. “It’s a different type of companionship, that’s all. It’s a very deep, very special connection that we share, that’s different to how we relate to other people. Some people might experience something similar and call it love; other people might call it friendship. We call it queerplatonic. It’s our special balance, that’s all.”

Skye frowned, still absorbing. It made as much sense as it didn’t make, and strangely enough, it seemed like a perfect concept to describe a relationship such as theirs. Two people who insisted they were not in love even though, by all accounts, they appeared to be. Perhaps they were not in denial after all, but simply, in a balance?

“Tell me more?” Skye requested.

“Of course!”

“We’d be glad to.”

Excited to share this oft-undiscovered part of their life with such an open mind as Skye’s, FitzSimmons beckoned her further into the room, so that all three of them sat on the bed – it was too small a space otherwise, anyway.

“Are you guys exclusive?” Skye wondered. “And, do you – you know – have sex? Or could you? Is queerplatonic a Thing? Do other ones work like yours?”

“It’s the same as with all relationships,” Fitz explained. “No two look exactly the same and like I said before, one person’s queerplatonic might be another’s romance or friendship or friends-with-benefits-ship. There are lots of different arrangements. Like, homosexual QPs exist too, and some with more than two partners. It all depends on the people.”

“As does the sex,” Simmons put in. “Some QPs have it, others stay away from it, for various reasons. Fitz and I, for example, we probably wouldn’t have sex because Fitz is ace.”

She gestured to him to explain, but before he could open his mouth, Skye exclaimed an interruption.

“Oh! I know that one!” she cried. “Not a fan of sex, right?”

She high-fived him, quite pleased with herself, and continued.

“I get it. I mean, I don’t get it because sex is The Bomb, but I respect it. What about you, Simmons? Are you two exclusive?”

Simmons shrugged.

“At the moment, we are,” she said lightly, “but that’s just by default. We haven’t really talked about it either way.”

“Well, you should,” Skye suggested, “because your boy’s been flirting with me and I’m not entirely sure he knows that’s what he’s been doing but maybe it’s time to get your chips in order.”

Fitz blushed, chagrined. Simmons blinked at him, a little surprised.

“By the way, sorry man,” Skye continued, “you’re a good guy but you’re just not my type. In case we’re getting our wires crossed here.”

Fitz raised his hands in surrender.

“I understand. No crossed wires.”

“It was worth a shot. I appreciate the appreciation.”

“My pleasure.”

“You’re a good guy and you’ll find a real romantic partner someday, if you want one,” Skye continued, putting a sympathetic hand on Fitz’s knee, and Fitz laughed.

“Is this a breakup speech? You shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, you’re my friend, and I’ll wingman you if you want me to. The offer still stands – I mean, if it’s okay with Jemma, I guess?” Skye glanced between them, still not sure exactly where the line lay on this sort of thing. Simmons waved her back to Fitz, who shrugged, and then put an arm around Simmons’ shoulders.

“No thanks.” He grinned. “I think I’ve got everyone I need right here.”

#fitzsimmons #fsfic #ace!fitz #thefitzsimmonsnetwork #aospositivitynet #prompt me stuff #brot3: bus kids #clara's fic tag #buskidsburgade

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violetemerald · 7 years

Text

So my queerplatonic partner just broke up with me as I was trying to go to bed at 10pm and now I’m still awake… typing on my phone and posting this near midnight EST… I can’t tell if me still being awake is necessarily his fault but I think it is. When he broke up with me the first time (in June last year) I was a crying mess. This time I’m just… I’m not crying. I’m upset but it’s more anger and frustration. I hate that I kinda saw this coming but was afraid to let myself go here. I hate that I made up countless thoughts in my head about what my future with him would look like and now it’s all a ridiculous waste of mental energy and I hate how much I was counting on us working out. I really hate that he tricked me into at least thinking he was invested in us lasting through August given the specific events he planned to go to with me and bought tickets for and this and that. Like why did he do all this and now… are we going to do any of it? Am I gonna have to do the walk for suicide prevention next month ALONE because I didn’t sign up for that and ugh should I immediately be looking for a team to join?? That might be better anyway, I might have a better experience overall, but like…why is he torturing me like this?

Why get back together with me while he was in Afghanistan, only one month in to a 6 month deployment, and insist he regretted breaking up with me, and insist he did want the same future I wanted fostering and probably later adopting kids and all of the rest of it… and so many other little things in these 5 months… and then he saw me again for the first time since he’s back and his deployment ended. Both Saturday and Sunday. And then… he avoided responding to my texts Monday asking him how the end of Sunday went since I had to leave early because I injured my eye and… telling him I was taking a sick day and not going in to work because of it. And when he finally gets back to me. It’s JUST like when he broke up with me before. We have plans to go camping soon AND and to do something next month (last time it was yes, camping then too, and also his sister’s wedding, this time it’s the Overnight Out of the Darkness Walk) and I’m talking about those plans (last time it was buying a new dress for it probably that coming weekend, this time it was making sure to get my medical waiver turned in before the May 19th deadline) and he just… he’s… he’s not who I was convinced he was. I don’t even know. He’s. He’s “I can’t do this relationship anymore” and it’s not like there’s a good reason for it that he can pinpoint, but he insists it’s nothing we can fix even though this time I’m… I’m more confused than ever how he can be right back where he was breaking up with me before, because he explicitly changed his mind and regretted that and stuff??? And like…

I really kinda saw it coming, like way more than last time, although I was uneasy last time too.

I love him. I hate this. I don’t love him that much right this moment but…

I really wish this wasn’t happening. Yeah now I’m finally kinda crying a little.

I hugged him when I first saw him. He’s taller than I remembered, kind of. My face was in his chest. For a second. Too brief a time really. It was really nice. For one second. And I felt like he was pulling away too quickly even then. We’ve never been much for physical touch as qpp’s but still.

I should’ve known – i did know, honestly, i really did know – that he wasn’t as committed to this relationship as me when he started shopping for houses with his parents as soon as he got back from Afghanistan. He wasn’t… including me. He wasn’t really acting like I’d you know… live there one day. He was telling me everything but he… it was weird and I knew it and I didn’t want to admit it to myself. He wanted me to be happy for him. I want to be happy for him. But it’s hard when he’s… he’s shattering all my plans for my own future I was so clearly imagining for myself, and now I have to start from scratch all over again. I’m an asexual person who wants to foster and adopt kids with a co-parent I click with and I’ve never met anyone I click with the way I click with him, at least not who also wants children in the way I do. I don’t know how to begin looking for someone who wants to coparent foster kids and who will jive with me as an atheist (and this is actually kind of a big thing in some ways), me who doesn’t want to even so much as kiss anyone and is definitely not having sex in the future… me who has a fine job that is a bit too low paying and which just isn’t the career I want long term because it’s not nearly challenging/stimulating enough… and if I do decide to adopt or foster on my own, I can’t quite picture how it would work. I kinda feel like I *need* a partner.

And it’s just… I want to be DONE with him AND YET I want to try to convince him to go back to his thought process while he was on that civilian contractor deployment. I want him to be back to imagining a future with me the way I was with him. I want him to be happy when he’s around me and it was killing me this past weekend because I could tell that he just… wasn’t. And when I tried to talk to him he was so… closed. Quiet.

I want to move on but I don’t know how to begin. I want to be able to be friends with him but that is painful to think about, like real friends who hang out and have all our mutual friends in common still and still could potentially do some of our planned things together?? Like in some ways it’s easier to imagine never seeing him again.

And yet I wasn’t even done talking to him when I said goodnight and went to bed. I know we’ll text more about… everything. I’m sure we will. We might even see each other again soon. Idk what he’s fully thinking.

I really really am upset. I’m in my twenties, there’s still a lot of my life left, but I feel too old to be this lost with no prospects for finding a new qpp, on top of everything else. When I was with him I felt like everything was going right but near the end of his deployment, maybe even the whole last month, or two?? … It stopped feeling that way. But idk 3 months of it feeling perfect was still cruel to tease me with while none of it was real, not really, because we were so long distance and… why did he get back together with me?? That’s the part I really can’t believe. Why did he do this. I’m… now it actually is midnight, great. I need to go to sleep or at least do something to distract myself from these feelings. This isn’t productive. I’m waking up in 6 hours to go to work.

I just needed to get all this off my chest and maybe someone here would be sympathetic. (I think I crave validation that it’s fair to be this upset. Because my stupid EX queerplatonic partner… he’s basically acting like it’s not going to hurt me this much which is the absolute worst part of it all. How can he not GET this at this point, how huge of a deal this is, that telling me this right AFTER I say I have to go to bed is… like beyond… I want to say cavalier! I don’t want to forgive him for *this*, especially, which is petty probably and stupid but like I was resenting him for a long time for what he did deciding he wanted to get back together the day of my probably most extreme grief of my life when I was convinced he knew I was grieving… I only was able to mainly forgive him by realizing I didn’t want to be a person that expects people to read her mind and maybe I was overly confident in how well I’d conveyed my emotions, after all it was all only in text form and even my family I live with kind of missed how much I was a complete wreck… But yeah I’m back to resenting him I think. I can’t help it. It’s so hard. I feel so frustrated and exasperated and overwhelmed and disappointed and not in the mood. My grandmother is coming to town Friday. I need to be in a better state of mind for this.

If I am so lucky to enter a new qpr one day, or maybe even a romantic relationship idk… I’m not gonna let these things build the way I did this time. I’m not gonna worry about the state of my relationship or what the other person is thinking but keep all those things to myself. I… I’m kinda hoping I can have a queerplatonic relationship with a woman or nonbinary person next time actually. If there even is a next time. I really don’t see that as… well as a given. I imagine it’s like 50/50 whether I’ll have to give up on that dream. I could do it with someone of any gender but there’s something about the past 6 months… or more… that’s really got me latching onto femslash when it comes to fandom and the like and idk… I hate so much passing as straight?? Not as much as I hate not being in a relationship with my queerplatonic partner anymore of course but I think I’d rather be falsely assumed to be gay than straight at this point in my very asexual life…

The past… almost two years, like 22 months since I’ve known him, have been a little bit of a roller coaster, mostly happiness, and I have a lot of good memories and he’s… if not “the” love of my life, (which of course is a lame thing for someone on the aromantic spectrum to say… I’m sorry) he’s been “a” love of my life for sure. He’s been such a hugely life changing relationship and it’s…

I don’t know.

I’m gonna tag some people. Sorry this is long and super personal and I’m such a mess. It’s 12:30 AM and you all mean so much to me and know parts of this part of my life already.

@purrplelace @bookgirlfan @notrocketsurgery @quarticmoose @peppersandcats @supsi85 @aceadmiral @only-fragments

Tell me, please, if you read this? Thanks.

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