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gucciwins · 6 months

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Y/N just wants Harry to like her.

Word count: 5964

A/N: Friends!!!!! I am sorry to have disappeared but I am back. Yes, I am aware this is a Halloween/October story but you're getting it now mid November (that has been going by fast). I won't work on any holiday stories because I have no idea what to write. So if you have an idea and want me to write it feel free to shoot me an ask.

Now happy reading! I love you

Many people go to work ready to return home, but not Y/N. No, she walks in every day with a smile and a pep in her step. She greets her coworkers by name and occasionally brings baked goods she knows everyone will enjoy. Y/N loves her job, and she’s happy to go every day.

Y/N went from working in a job she hated because it was filled with men constantly belittling her and gaslighting her that she was doing her job wrong when she was actually excelling. It all got to be too much, and Y/N decided to quit. Thank goodness she did because soon into her job search, she received an email from Carla Crain asking her if she’d be interested in joining her company. Y/N went to the interview, and after basically being pitched her dream job, she accepted and entered as head engineer.

She’d be lying if she wasn’t nervous starting, but the people Carla had hired all shared the same values on work and life. Y/N knew she’d be in safe hands. The company is small but slowly growing. It allows for every employee to get to know each other and everyone to remember that together, they can be successful. Y/N had been at the job for two years and, with time, brought new coworkers.

There is Estrella, who loves to talk to you about astrology, ironically enough. She states that the invisible string theory is real and that if everyone tracked it, they would notice just how small the world is.

Carmy has a tough exterior, but once anyone gets him talking, he never stops. He loves chatting about his family and his pet Pitbull named Daisy.

Maeve is petite, and every other month comes in with a new color in their hair. Y/N enjoys it when everyone in the office places bets on what it will be.

Tatum is from Scotland and loves to remind everyone when they all go out for drinks on the weekend.

Chessy is the only one who works remotely, but when she comes in, she is always laughing in the office. They also all get a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables from her garden.

Overall, Y/N knows she had the best coworkers and wouldn’t change her job for the world, but as their company grows, so does the need in their team. The newest hire is Harry Styles, who has come in as a computer technician to help develop their website and also help with any internal security. Honestly, all she knew was that it was a complex job.

Harry was on the quiet side. She tried to start conversations with him, but he always seemed to brush her off. At first, Y/N wondered if she should take it personally but soon learned he did that to everyone. Even though he didn’t open up to them, they still invited Harry to join them.

The thing was, he rejected all their dinners. Y/N loved going to a Korean BBQ Maeve introduced them to, and Harry claimed not to eat meat (not that she didn’t think it wasn’t true. Chessy was vegetarian, after all.) They would go to a bar and share a few drinks when they knew they would all be having a long weekend off. Harry always claimed he had an early morning. It didn't matter if they offered to meet earlier. Y/N’s favorite nights were trivia nights that happened at a local brewery. Y/N was a beat, especially in history. Harry declined, and this one hurt her the most.

Everyone would ask Harry to join.

Karaoke. Can’t hold a tune.

Bowling. Too loud.

It seems there was an excuse for everything.

Everyone began to stop inviting him out, and while Y/N didn’t enjoy being told no, she would send notes to the office with the time and place of what they would be doing. She’d always keep an eye on the door, but Y/N went home disappointed each time.

The thing was, Y/N was determined to make a friend out of Harry. She soon learned large public settings must be overwhelming for him and decided to find a new way to approach him. Everyone took lunch at the same time in the office except for Harry. Sometimes, they all ate at the sub shop across the street. Most times, Y/N brought food from home, and she cooked. While she liked eating out, Y/N preferred a home-cooked meal. She caught Harry taking his lunch half an hour later than her and used that to her advantage.

They had a conference that always remained empty as everyone preferred the main lounge. Harry went in there every day for his lunch hour. One day, Y/N walks in, smiles at him, and sits as far away as she can. She made sure to only be there for ten minutes. The next day, she stayed for twenty and wished him a nice lunch when she left.

Slowly, Harry begins to spare her glances, but Y/N keeps to herself until the day she sits across from him.

“Hi, Harry. Is it okay for me to sit here?”

No answer.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.”

He fidgets with his fork.

“I saw a lime bike out front. Did you ride that today?”

Harry looks at her briefly before staring back at his plate.

“I’ve always wanted to try one, but I’m honestly scared of being hit by a car. Chessy lets me ride hers when I go down to visit her. She’s got beautiful trails. You’d probably enjoy it.”

Y/N thinks that’s enough for today and excuses herself. She doesn’t realize Harry noticed she didn’t take a bite of her lunch. When she goes back to her desk after using the restroom, she finds three chocolate chip cookies sitting on her desk. Y/N rushes to try one, doesn’t even think of who delivered them or that a green-eyed man was standing right outside waiting to hear her reaction.

With time, it seems Harry is coming to appreciate Y/N’s presence. He has never expressed it, but she knows because he nods when he agrees to something she says or tightens the hold on his fork when Y/N shares something upsetting. Y/N had not gotten more than two words out of him. At this point, Y/N felt like Harry knew everything about her; all she knew was that he had the most beautiful eyes, and his hair always looked soft.

One day, after many lunches together, she finds Harry reading a book. Y/N knows he might want quiet, but her curiosity gets the best of her.

“Any good?”

Harry looks up and grimaces. “Think it’s really boring.”

Y/N laughs because she wasn’t expecting that response. “Then put it down.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t like not knowing the ending.”

Y/N shrugs, “if you don’t like a book, I wouldn’t put myself through the torture of it all. Skip to the end if you're curious.” She understands she spoke too much and excuses herself.

The next day, Harry is sitting in his usual spot, but this time, a new book is in his hand. Y/N bites back a smile.

“What’s this one about?”

“My sister recommended it,” he defends.

Y/N isn’t halted by his harsh tone. “What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s Pride and Prejudice.” He shows her the book cover.

“Like the movie?” Y/N asks.

Harry laughs, and Y/N feels successful. His laughter rings in her ears. It’s a lovely sound, and she wishes to hear it more. “Yeah…I like the movie.”

“Me too,” she gushes. “Do you think I’d like the book?”

He frowns, “if you like Jane Austen.”

“Might have to pick it up next time I’m in the shops.”

Their interactions are solely during their lunches but sometimes spills out during work. Y/N seemed to have an issue with her computer and radioed IT. She needed to submit her document, but her desktop appeared to freeze whenever she opened a new file. Harry knocked on her door, and she welcomed him in. Y/N explained the issue, and Harry was quick to get to work. It was only a few minutes when she noticed that her document was open and her computer wasn’t having a meltdown.

“Thank you so much, Harry!” Y/N cheers, knowing he saved her.

Harry shrugs because it’s his job. “You have a nice photo.” He’s pointing to her picture frame on her desk. It’s a picture of her and a dog in Iceland at the end of her hike. It was taken back when she was nineteen years old.

“Thank you. I took that on my first solo trip.” She bites her lip, hoping Harry takes the bait.

“Where to?” He asks curiously.

She silently cheers, “Iceland.”

“Is that your dog?”

“I actually found him mid-hike and took him back with me. I hoped to see his owner on the trail, but there was no luck. He didn’t even seem worried. Once I returned to the car park, his owner was there. After that hike, I decided I liked the company of a dog and returned home to adopt Tutter, a Jack Russel Terrier who loves to play fetch.”

“Why isn’t Tutter on your desk?”

Y/N feels her face flush, “now, don’t be mean. I love my son, but that trip taught me I can do anything I set my mind to, whether alone or with company.”

Harry gives her the slightest smile. “I-I learned Italian because I always dreamed of having an Italian home.”

Y/N’s eyes brighten. Harry is opening up to her, and instead of pushing, she offers more of herself. “I’ve dreamed of visiting. The Amalfi coast is my dream to swim in. Silly, I know,” she brushes off, trying to downplay her excitement.

Harry doesn’t let her. “You’ll make it.”

He finally excuses himself. Y/N is happy for the rest of the day because she realizes Harry is allowing her in.

September means the preparations for Halloween have begun. It starts with little things, from coasters and mugs to the occasional treat. One day, a tiny spider sits on his desk for a second. Harry believed it was real until it began to glow purple. Harry kept it on his desk next to his sticky notes. He doesn't do anything about it; there’s no need. By the second week, the office is entirely decorated. Harry admits a few decorations have scared him, especially the skeleton in the corner of the restroom.

It’s a quiet day when he’s walking by the break room on his way to the secluded office to have lunch when he hears people talking. Harry pauses because he hears Y/N’s voice mixed in with everyone else.

“But it seems like he doesn’t like us,” Harry hears quietly.

“It’s hard,” Y/N defends. “You’re all extroverts. It can be overwhelming.”

Harry knows she’s trying for them to understand.

“But Carla is all about unity in the office. This is a concern.”

“It’s not, Carmy.” Y/N shuts him down, clearly upset she had to defend him.

Harry decides he’s heard enough and decides to eat lunch alone in his car. He’s thankful it was a sandwich and nothing he had to heat up. For the entire lunch and the rest of the day, all he thinks about are the words of his coworkers.

Y/N looked for Harry, excited to talk about a book she started, but Harry was nowhere to be found. She wouldn’t have been concerned, but it’s clear no one saw him since before lunch. She wishes Harry could confide in her even if a fraction of what she shares with him/

The next day, everyone walks into the office at their usual time, everyone making their rounds together to the break room to prepare their coffees and store their lunch in the fridge. When Y/N walks in, she sees her coworkers huddled around the table and peeks around them to see what has captured their attention. There on the table is a box of Halloween cookies from a bakery uptown with a note attached.

Enjoy - HS

Y/N lets a smile take over her face. She knew Harry cared about them but understood why he finally did something. She tells her coworkers they owe him an apology, and they all agree. Y/N makes sure to head to Harry’s office and thank him for the cookies. Harry tells her it’s nothing. She bounces away to her office, where Estrella, Carmy, Maeve, and Tatum are standing outside her door.

“Can you come with us? Feel like he likes you.” Tatum tells her.

Y/N sighs and tells them to follow her. Once again, she knocks on his door, and they all file in when he welcomes her in. Harry looks at them confused.

“Uh, is there an issue?” Harry asks, concerned.

Carmy starts, “we want to apologize if you overheard us yesterday.”

“Right,” Harry sighs, knowing it might be a good time to share with them. If he trusted Y/N and she trusted them, he knew he could also start to.

“It was wrong of us,” Maeve continues. “Y/N raves about how smart and nice you are, but we don’t get to see that. We’re sorry.”

Everyone else repeats the sentiment while Harry looks at Y/N, who offers him an encouraging smile. She must know his anxiety is through the roof.

Harry takes a deep breath, “right, uh.” He looks down at his shoes, untied lace on his black Adidas. “I struggle with social anxiety and new environments. It’s better than when I was a kid, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed even more when being the new guy.”

“No worries. We get that,” Tatum expresses. “Estrella gets bad migraines.”

“Don’t air other people’s personal stuff,” Y/N reminds them.

“We’re sorry,” they offered one last time. “Thanks for the cookies.”

After that, they hurried out while Y/N stayed behind.

“I wanted to apologize,” he begins.

“You don’t–” Harry cuts her off. “You’ve made me feel comfortable.”

Y/N sighs, letting her shoulders drop. “Not enough, it seems.”

“It can just be too much sometimes.”

“I-I get panic attacks.” Y/N shares, surprising herself. “When I overwhelm myself, it can happen. It’s uncommon and has not happened at work, but I understand.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Harry tells her honestly. “Lunch?”

“See you in a bit then.”

Through September, Y/N and Harry have lunch together every day. They read together, Harry more into classic literature, and Y/N loving to devour a juicy romance that has her pausing every few minutes, trying her best not to scream because the love interest brushed hands. Some days, Y/N will do a sudoku game while Harry does the daily crossword. Y/N likes to solve the Wordle of the day and most times asks Harry for help if she fears she might not get it. Some days, Y/N brings in her laptop during lunch because she is behind and needs to catch up. Harry reminds her to relax. He knows it’s easier said than done, so he tells her about the book he’s reading or asks about her dog and the snacks he eats.

Before she knows if they’ve made it to October. One of the best months of the year. Y/N loves planning events, and this is one she wishes Harry would say yes to. She knocks on his office door, and Harry freezes, staring at his computer screen. He glances at the calendar; it's the first Monday of the month, and Harry knows they’ve planned a fun event.

Harry is practicing his excuse when Y/N walks in with a bright smile, wearing a “Great Pumpkin” shirt with Snoopy and Charlie Brown. She has told him it’s her favorite movie to watch during the month and “The Conjuring” Harry wasn’t sure how the sweetest girl he knew could handle a horror film like that. He had told her she was fearless.

“Hi, Y/N, pretty shirt.”

Y/N looks down at it as if she had forgotten what she was wearing. She beams at his compliment. “Thank you, Harry!”

Harry asks how her day is going and shares how there was traffic on the way down and how she didn’t have time to stop by her favorite coffee shop because there was a line out the door. “Pumpkin spice isn’t even that good, H. I mean, it’s okay, but I wanted my coffee.”

He laughs at her pouting and promises to make her one during lunch. She perks up at his mention of their shared time together.

“Speaking of our time together. We plan to go to a haunted pumpkin patch in the next town over if you want to join us. It’s two weeks from now, so it's the 21st.” Harry could hear the excitement in her voice and didn’t think he could say no to her.

“Everyone is going?”

“We invited everyone, but only Carmy, Estella, Maeve, Tatum, and myself are going. Carla was not for it. Dan is warming up to us but still says no. Though he did agree for trivia next week.”

Before he can stop himself, he says, “yes.”

“You will?” Y/N answers surprised.

“Mhm…uh, it sounds like fun,” he says unconvincingly.

Y/N’s smile brightens, “I’m not hung on haunts, but they’ve got amazing apple cider you’ve got to try with me.”

“Happy to join,” he tells her honestly. “Let me know the ticket cost or if we need to purchase our own.”

She nods eagerly. It’s clear Harry has just made her day.

The day comes faster than he’s ready, and while a part of him is excited, Harry feels his nerves will get the best of him. Y/N had told them no one was dressing up in costume and even went as far as to send him a photo of her outfit to assure him she wasn’t playing a joke with him. She was wearing bell bottoms with a Mickey Mouse in a pumpkin shirt. She told him it was his favorite to wear each year.

Harry knew it would be cold, so he wore a simple Halloween shirt in his closet and loose-fitting jeans. His jacket in his car he knew would keep him warm throughout the night. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone (only Y/N) but also wanted to look nice outside of the office for once. When Harry parked, Y/N told him she’d wait by the entrance for him, and he couldn’t miss her as she had a cute pumpkin headband on.

It seemed Y/N spotted him, too, because she rushed towards him. “Hi, Harry,” she greeted with a cheery smile.

“Hi, you look lovely,” he offered her a small compliment that made his hands sweat.

“You’re too sweet. Come on, we were waiting on you.” She grabs his hand and pulls him along to where everyone else is.

Everyone offers their greeting, and he receives a few compliments on his tame outfit. It’s an old Halloween shirt he got at a vintage shop in New Orleans five years ago. His sister went on a trip and asked him to join. Harry could never say no to her.

Harry notices everyone begins to drift off into conversations, but Y/N stays by his side. He takes the time to admire her as she looks around at all the decorations. There are a lot of people, but it seems they are heading to the pumpkin patch. There are stalls selling sweet treats, and he keeps in mind to buy Y/N a cider, remembering she mentioned loving it. Harry has always thought being in a relationship to be intimidating. He loves love but struggles to put himself out there, to allow someone else to get to know him, but here is Y/N, who managed to worm her way into his life, knocking down all of his walls.

Harry likes Y/N.

It’s something he took a long time to figure out, but when he realized the excitement of seeing her each morning, he looked forward to it. He let it consume him, but he had no idea if she could feel the same way.

“Did you drive here, Harry?” Y/N asks, breaking their silence.

“I did,” he answers.

“Do you think you could maybe take me home?” She brushes her hair out of her face. “I came with Tatum, but she’s been wanting to take the time to connect with Estella, if you know what I mean,” Y/N gestures to them kissing on hay bales.

Harry had no idea that there were feelings between them. “I can do that, Y/N.”

“Great!” She cheers gratefully. “I owe you an apple cider, then.”

Y/N eagerly walks them to the stand, and before she can pay for both, Harry slips the kind older lady a twenty walking away with their drinks. Y/N stays behind, shocked, but quickly catches up, pouting at Harry. “Harry, I was going to pay.”

He shook his head, “my mum would have my head if I let you pay.”

Y/N bends her head, careful to take a sip of the warm drink. “Well, thank you.”

Maeve bounces over to them. “Hi beauties, we’re ready to start if you all are.”

Harry eyes Y/N, waiting to see her response. Y/N offers her friend a large grin, and Harry agrees he’s ready. He throws away their ups, and once he finds Y/N with the group, he slithers to stand behind her. Y/N offers him a tense smile as the group tries to decide who will lead.

“I can go in front,” Harry offers, sensing no one wanting to make the first move. Everyone thanks him and heads to the first maze. Y/N informs him it’s once based on the catacombs in France.

“There’s a movie based on the catacombs,” Y/N shares as they walk together.

“As Above So Below,” Harry says. “It spooked me.”

“You’ve seen it,” she laughs, holding onto his arm for a second, unable to contain her excitement. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“It’s a good one,” he agrees.

They fall into silence as the chatter of their coworker fills the air. Harry sees Y/N get fidgety, but she’s smiling as she leads the way to the short line. “I’m actually really nervous,” she tells Harry.

“We’ll be fine. I got you,” he assures Y/N.

Harry extends his hand, and she accepts it. He intertwines their fingers and pulls her along as the line moves slowly. Y/N does her best not to think about the feeling of his hand, but it fits perfectly between hers. She feels her hand begin to sweat and wants to pull it away, but Harry has a firm grip on her.

“Is it okay?” Harry nods, gesturing to their hands.

“Safe, uh, I feel safe.”

The worker asks how many, and Y/N peeks behind Harry to tell her six. Harry is grateful Y/N knows when to take charge because while he can lead a scary maze and knows everyone is dressed in costumes, he still feels nervous speaking to strangers. Harry squeezes her hand once in thanks. She gives him two quick squeezes in return.

Harry guides them in. Y/N lets go of his hand to hide behind Harry, her hands on his shoulder as she peeks behind him. There is a group ahead where she can hear the people in front screaming, which allows her to prepare for the scare, if that is even possible.

Her eyes widen in amazement as she takes in the darkness of the building. Everything is covered in black cloth. She can see the spots where actors will jump out. Y/N mumbles an apology to Harry for holding on to him tight. Estella is behind her, screaming at everything that moves. Harry steps through the curtain, and she feels her hold on him loosen. As she is stepping closer to reach him, a man screams in her face, making her rush forward and propel Harry into a wall.

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Y/N apologized repeatedly as Harry rushed them to finish the maze. She felt her heartbeat in her throat and knew she needed to calm down. One look at Harry, and he rushed her to a dark corner, not concerned about their friends.

“Y/N? I’m okay. You’re okay.” Harry tried assuring her.

She repeated it in her head. They were okay. They got out of the dumb maze, and Harry wasn’t hurt. It took her a few minutes to realize she had a panic attack. Y/N had not even felt it coming and didn’t think a haunted house would trip her into one, but with all the overthinking she had been doing, it made sense it led to this.

“I’m sorry, Harry.” Y/N bashfully looks away from him. She can’t believe she embarrassed herself in front of him like this.

“No apologies,” he brushes her off and doesn’t ask her any questions, only to ensure she is okay.

They rejoin the group after ten minutes by the looks of everyone's sympathetic smiles. She knows they saw her freak out, but they’re her friends. She knows she’s in safe hands with everyone, especially Harry.

“What’s the next maze?” Y/N asks cheerfully.

And so they continue on.

The next maze is much smoother than the first. Carmy leads, tucking Harry and Y/N in the middle with Tatum and Estella in the back. That order seems to comfort Y/N for the next few mazes. Each worker makes her scream but then falls into giggles when Harry traces comforting shapes on her hand. It takes her mind off these scarers trying to get her to scream and instead focus on the gentle touches of her crush.

While doing the mazes is fun, Y/N is soaking up talking to Harry in line. They’re in a new environment where they do not need to discuss work. She feels free to ask him anything, but sometimes she is unsure where to start. Y/N doesn’t know if she wants to hear about his weekend plans or ask him about his favorite movie or who his favorite Muppet character is?

Talking to Maeve and everyone else is easy because she’s gone out with them. She knows them personally, but with Harry, he always kept that guard up, and now she’s unsure what to do if he decides to keep it up.

To her surprise, Harry always starts the conversation with her. Harry shares about a new show he started watching and how it makes him anxious for the main character when they do something out of character. When he asks Y/N if there is a show she recommends, her mind goes blank, and the first thing that comes to mind is “Fleabag.”

“It’s the saddest but most comforting show I have ever seen,” Y/N gushes.

“With Phoebe Waller-Bridge?”

“Mhmm…the second season has Andrew Scott. Irish treasure.”

“Paul Mescal,” he adds.

“Hozier.”

“Saoirse Ronan,” they say in unison before falling into fits of giggles.

“You’ve got taste, Styles.”

“As do you.”

The line moves, and they change conversations to talk about the best musicals they’ve seen. Y/N swears “Waitress” is the best thing created, but Harry tells her “Moulin Rouge” is his favorite. Y/N loves how easily the conversation with Harry seems to flow. He feels like a long-lost friend. Someone who once was in her life has now found his way back to her.

Not only is he getting along with her, but everyone is getting to see the Harry she had come to know. The one who makes cheesy jokes and loves to hear every detail of the story being told. It turns out he and Maeve frequent the same record store. There’s a Stevie Nicks vinyl Harry is on the hunt for, and Maeve promised to keep an eye out for him. Tatum learns Harry can play guitar and asks him to show them sometime. Something he agreed to with pink cheeks. Y/N knew tonight was a big step for Harry, and she was glad everyone made him feel comfortable.

As the night was coming to an end, the maze lines got shorter, and the more Y/N screamed. It made her laugh right after, but still not her favorite part of the night. Before the cold can settle in, they all call it a midnight night. Tatum and Estella head out hand in hand. Y/N can’t wait for the details of that on Monday. Carmy is telling Harry a story, so Maeve uses the opportunity to remind Y/N to make a move.

“It’s now or never, girlfriend.”

Y/N rolls her eyes, “please don’t pressure me on this.”

“Y/N that man is, head over heels for you. If I was antisocial this is not an event I would ever do. Unless someone I fancied asked.”

Y/N toes her food in the sand and, in a low voice, asks, “do you really think he likes me?”

Maeve smiles, brushing Y/N’s hair out of her eyes. “That man lit up every time your eyes were on him. I don’t know Harry as well as you do, but I can notice a guy with a crush from miles away. Trust me on this.”

Y/N backs down, relaxing, “okay.”

“Good. Now text me when you get home. Carmy’s got me.” Maeve gives her a tight hug and then pulls Carmy away from Harry.

He walks over to her with a shy smile on his face. “Have a good time?”

“The best,” she tells him. “Though I might need another apple cider. Think my heart needs it.”

“By all means, lead the way.”

After getting one last warm apple cider, they reach Harry’s car. It’s an electric car because he’s conscious of his environmental impact and knows one person can go a long way into the future. Harry opens Y/N’s car door and waits until he sees her seated and buckled to close her door. As he gets ready to drive off, he turns on the heater, knowing if he’s cold, Y/N must be too.

The car ride starts off quietly, Y/N guiding him every so often when to make a turn. Y/N sees her favorite coffee shop and knows she is almost home. “That was fun,” Harry starts. “I’m happy I went.”

“Mhmm…it was a good time. Glad you joined us,” she tells him honestly.

Harry notices at a red light that she’s fidgeting with her hands and thinks he might still be cold. “Do you need me to turn up the heater?”

Y/N shakes her head, “no, sorry, I’m fine.”

Harry drives down a few more streets when Y/N tells him to turn left. “It’s the third one on the right.”

He parks right outside her driveway. From here, he can see her decorations hung up. It’s decorated charmingly. It’s clear no scaring would happen here. She’s got two pumpkins outside her door. One has stars carved all around; the other is a cat on a witch’s broom. Bat lights are hanging up the railing of the steps. She even has a few inflatables. His favorite has to be the one of Mickey Mouse as a vampire.

“Thank you for driving me home. I appreciated it.” She smiles at him, and he returns it. Harry gets out of the car and opens her door.

“Let me walk you up.”

Y/N feels her cheeks burn and leads the way.

“We’re planning trivia soon,” Y/N says, testing the waters.

“Hmm…only if you’re on my team.”

“We would all be on the same team,” his flirting going over her head.

Harry’s face turns pink, “uh, right.”

She laughs, placing her hand on his bicep. “Only joking.”

Y/N pulls him in, whispering good night, except when she pulls away, she locks eyes with his emerald eyes, and it’s like she’s in a trance. She feels herself leaning in closer, and before she knows it, Y/N presses her lips to Harry in an airy kiss.

She pulls back, shocked. “Sorry,” she breathed out. “I-I should have asked.”

“Ask me,” he pleads.

“What?” Y/N isn’t sure if she heard him correctly.

Harry doesn’t care anymore. He raises his hand to rest on her cheeks. “Can I kiss you, Y/N?”

She feels how close he is. She can feel his breath mixing with hers. “Yes.”

When their lips meet, Y/N swears she feels time stop. Harry is starting slow as he begins to learn what she likes. Y/N places a hand on his chest, needing to have a secure hold as she feels him take her breath away. Her emotions are all over the place. His lips are smooth as they move against hers in a dance that feels like they’ve done a hundred times before. Harry deepens the kiss, pushing her up against the door, making Y/N grab a fistful of his shirt, not wanting him to pull away. Y/N lets herself get wrapped up in all her feelings because she knows that a kiss this special means it won’t be her only one, and she finally allows all her feelings to pour into the kiss.

Y/N isn’t sure how long they spent kissing outside her door. It seems she’s lost track of time since she got a taste of Harry. “I don’t want you to go,” she mutters against his lips when she feels him begin to pull away.

“I’ll see you Monday,” he promises.

“Too far.

Harry laughs, “you can call me tomorrow when you wake up.” Knowing she likes to sleep in, he would rather not wake her up.

“Okay,” she whispers in defeat.

“Good night,” Harry takes a step back.

Y/N bites her lip and gives him a wave. “Do you want a kiss goodbye?”

Harry can’t say no.

Monday morning, Y/N walks in with a large smile. It makes everyone stop and stare. She makes her rounds, wishing everyone a good morning, and saves Harry for last.

“Hi, Harry.” She chirps.

“Morning,” he answers timidly.

Y/N pouts because he didn’t even look at her. She wanted to see his beautiful eyes. “So I was thinking…” she trails off.

Harry turns, giving her his undivided attention, and Y/N’s smile widens. “How does a date sound to you?”

“A date?” He echoes.

“With me,” she giggles.

“Best thing I've heard all day.”

Y/N claps her hands together, “wonderful.”

“How does this weekend sound?”

“Too far,” she teases. “Saturday?”

“I’ll pick you up,” he promises.

“Good. Good.” Y/N lingers by his door.

“Yes, love?”

Y/N feels her cheeks heat up but doesn’t look away from him. “Are we still on for lunch?”

Harry gives her a dimpled grin, “I’ve got a new book for us to discuss.”

Y/N tells him she can’t wait and walks away. Harry watches her go, and as if she can feel his stare on her, she turns around and gives him a wink. Harry knows he’s way in over his head with someone as amazing as Y/N, but he can’t wait to prove each day to her how much he deserves to be with her.

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles story #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles au #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry story #harry fic rec #harry styles fic rec #harry styles x y/n #harry styles halloween #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles writing #fic rec #harry styles pleasing

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the-curse-of-neoclones · 6 months

Text

Moderneopets Artist Mistreatment

Edit as of 11/16/23 10:40 AM NST:

Removed names where I failed to do so before. I'm very sorry to the affected parties, this snowballed so far out of my intended scope.

Edit as of 11/16/23 5:30 PM NST

Please see this post for a small update.

As of 11/16/23 10:10 PM NST, Hazer the site owner has formally and publicly apologized to myself and Velu, the other affected artist. As far as I'm concerned he has officially handled the situation as best as he could, and I hold no further qualms with Moderneopets. I hope to hear of its management continuing in this direction.

The following post is left up for archival purposes only.

*****

Hello, I’m wren. I'm an artist responsible for some of the pet assets on the neoclone, Moderneopets. I'm just going to get into it.

Hazer was extremely lucky to somehow cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site. When it comes to his own management as a site runner, he’s largely hands-off of the art department, which is a good thing! If he can’t be active in the art panel enough to know what goes on in there, he shouldn’t be running it— we have many strong, capable artists on the team who are passionate about recreating the neopets style, who work together on every pet that has been released ever since critique became a requirement.

It makes sense that, with a project this large, Hazer should have to designate moderators to enforce rules when he is absent. Choosing to bring on moderators was also a good decision. Unfortunately, he chose poorly.

Art panel issues should have separate Art panel moderators to take care of them. People who are not overburdened with generic moderation duties from the many other channels of the server, for example. In the same vein, artists should not be moderators. When an artist has an issue with another artist, who happens to be a moderator (which has happened many times, with many people— If the mods actually open threads for all complaints they receive, they should have evidence of this & if they don’t they are not being truthful), the artist would likely not feel comfortable approaching that same artist-slash-moderator to complain about what happened. It breeds an aura of fear and discomfort any time there is an issue with an artist/mod, and that is why the two moderators on the team should have to choose one or the other if hazer wants to cultivate a healthy atmosphere in his panel.

I’ve created many pets for this website. Neopets has been a passion of mine since the third grade. I’m also one of those professional artists I mentioned— my work is also art, industry or otherwise. I care about breaking neopets down into their core, recognizable shapes. I care about keeping them on-model and in the spirit of the original TNT art team, with improvements made where I and the other panelists think they make sense. I have redlined for other artists to an even greater degree, just as other artists have redlined for me and helped me finalize each pet into something simply good: something that made sense to get put on a little passion project website for other people with a similar passion to enjoy. I found the panel to be a community of likeminded artists with which to discuss our favorite childhood petsite while we made art for a clone, as if we could pretend we were making art for neopets-dot-com. It was nice.

It wasn’t perfect, though. In fact, shortly after I joined in 2021 I took a hiatus because the art panel was fairly dead. I came back a little while later to see we had several new species, as well as an art director, and lots of activity! That was very exciting. Over the next year I would reach out to the panel or, if nobody was sure of how to proceed, I would reach out to the art director to propose ideas for how to make the panel a little more functional; quality of life updates, if you will. I don’t take credit for all of these alone, there were other artists with similar ideas all communicating to the director in private, but some examples:

A designated “collab” zone where artists could seek out other artists to complete pets with.

“The Purge,” in which the team was whittled down to ~25 current, active artists to refresh the team and allow for new artists to join.

“The Approval System,” which I first sat down with in my workshop (public to all artists) to hammer out the details with as many other artists as wanted to give their input— a method for pitching new ideas to eventually break through the “new species/color freeze” that had been plaguing us.

Speaking on the approval system: like most things that required Hazer’s direct input in the art team, it was left without response for a very long time. Artists with ideas for custom species or colors would occasionally murmur about their excitement for the system to get a look-over by hazer, to see if our approval system pitch would be approved. But hazer is busy, as we all know, and the pitch sat for a while. We had new & returning artists on the team to keep everyone busy.

What I would expect from a years-old panel of artists, when new additions arrive, would be some manner of tutorial. New artists would need to know the pipeline (here’s your workshop, you can post WIPs and anything else in there; here’s how you ping for critique, here are the spaces in which to ask for it; make sure you always ping before your work is submitted on-site), and there would likely be some acclimating on both sides. What I did not expect (but should have), was pushback from new artists on things that hadn’t had pushback in a long time. Why can’t [x] color be a posechange? Well, we’ve created many already and none of them were posechanges. Why can’t I use colored lineart? Well, that isn’t in line with the style standards set by this color; see, nobody else is coloring their lineart.

Suddenly there was a divide between veteran artists, the director, and the new blood. The divide felt greater when Hazer came to his new artist’s aid to say, approximately: “Eh, if someone wants to go above and beyond and make better art, they shouldn’t have to adhere to the guidelines.” Then he threw the art director under the bus for not somehow knowing that his intentions were always to keep the panel loose and unstructured. But don’t worry, that isn’t the first bus and won’t be the last.

My personal investment in the panel waned around that time. I think a structured “work” environment with easily accessible rules and deadlines is necessary to any project of this size. If we didn’t want to enforce color standards, nor prioritize certain colors for release, and anyone could just submit whatever Nice Art they wanted, why not open it up so any user could submit pet art? Why have a panel at all? Isn’t Hazer taking any opportunity to dunk on Leopets because he wants his site to be better? How is this different?

But I stuck around. This was a hobby I really enjoyed, after all, and I really believed it could get better. It had a good core, and despite my grievances with individual artists, none of them were bad people.

But I noticed some trends. New artists would receive feedback that they didn’t agree with and retaliate by bringing in their emotions or personal preferences. Any disagreement where multiple veteran artists stepped in to say their piece would escalate to the point of very long messages on both sides, and would need to be left to hazer to give a final input. Often he didn’t come around to it, because he’s busy, as we know. I didn’t step in to every argument; they became cyclical after a while, and I didn’t have the time or energy to spend simply tapping the proverbial sign (or style sheet). I would try to give positive suggestions when I could, for example: I don’t think this color needs another alt for just one single design, but we did talk about eventually making this color that your design would fit into really well.

I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet. I really just want an art environment where the rules are set and people actually enjoy following them, because I do— I see art rules as helpful guidelines at best and obstacles to cleverly navigate at worst, which is still fun. But of course not everyone is going to feel the same way, that’s normal; that’s life.

On 11/9 I was given this message by Hazer:

It reads:

Hello wren,

I am reaching out to you today to inform you that effective immediately you are being dismissed from the Artist and Consultant Panels. This decision has been reached through discussions and based on repeated offences in the form of user harassment and subjecting the panels to a toxic atmosphere, after multiple reports and concerns brought up to us by other users.

While we understand concerns regarding panel management, there is a distinct difference between criticising and condeming the way the panel does things and criticising and condeming users that are on the panel, and we believe this line has been crossed one too many times, further supported by concerns brought to us.

We appreciate the passion and drive of our team—all of them—and we understand you have been very passionate about the panel. Given some of the messages we see, we have also concluded that due to things in the panel not working out as you have wished, it has caused you much stress and upset as well, which we do not want. All in all, we've decided that the atmosphere of the panel and your own enjoyment of the website are hampered by your presence on it. Because of this, we have decided it is best to have you part ways with the staff sections of the website.

Effective immediately after this message, we will be permanently removing you from the panels. While normally we do a temporary removal, in this case we've seen that your compatability with our management and handling of the panel will not improve, and it will just bring stress to both sides.

We understand you have put a lot of passion into the projects you have been working on for release in Moderneopets, and in lieu of that, we offer you the option of having the project(s) still be released even after dismissal. Rewards will still be granted for releases per usual, and credit will still be given. If you decide, due to dismissal, you do not want your unreleased work to be released on Moderneopets, simply state it as such, and we will discard all progress on projects you have been working on to respect those wishes.

This decision is final and will not be revoked.

Best wishes to you,

The Moderneopets Team

[end caption]

My response:

It reads:

No warnings huh?

[end caption]

Hazer didn’t have an answer for me. I was already removed from the panel.

This came as a shock. I’d been there for over two years, I felt I had a good rapport with the other artists, I felt I’d been a helpful and active addition to the team. Like I said, I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet… what toxic behavior? Discussions over style guides? Giving redlines to people with permission? Working with the whole team to bolster several new color releases? I had an entire species that Hazer wanted ready to go since March— I just pushed through the Swamp Gas release, I just created the Mystical alt?

No warnings?

Let me reiterate: I have never been spoken to by any staff about my behavior. Hazer, his then-four moderators— none of them have ever been in my DMs to issue a warning. I have spoken TO the mods about others’ behaviors, and nothing ever came of it. The one time (and I mention this for full transparency only) the art director came to talk to me about something I said, it was stated clearly that it was not a warning, and even so I adjusted my behavior around said issue accordingly. And that was well before the purge.

But, don’t take my word for it. Here it is from hazer himself, speaking over his mods who were busy telling the rest of the panel that they always issue warnings:

It reads:

No in this case I do agree that this has been an abrupt situation and I understand the blind-sided-ness of it. No official warnings were given out regarding the actions that resulted in the removal of artists today and that’s on fault of myself and deebs not working things out properly despite the moderation team bringing issues to a us a few times – also due to our lack of availability recently. [end caption]

So… What happened? Well… here it is from Hazer, in longform:

For those who use screen readers, above are several enormous discord screenshots; I've placed it in a paste bin here: https://pastebin.com/dHLiBRTF

Two other artists immediately stepped down. Hazer admits here in his message that he and the mods had multiple tickets opened about my behavior, that they had known they wanted to remove me. They never gave a warning, never talked to me until the moment of my dismissal, but they had known it was coming for months?

Why did Hazer and his gang of mods let me continue working on art for their panel? Why did they let me work so hard to pull Swamp Gas together for an official release? Why did they let me put together a whole custom Alt and workshop it for so long? I’ve been active this whole time. Why did you let me keep working if you knew you wanted me gone?

I am a professional artist. My work is art. Hazer made the knowing decision to exploit my time and effort for his website. He’s not paying me, he’s not paying any of us. It’s volunteer work. But I did not volunteer to be mistreated like this. To not even be given a chance to defend myself. To him, artists are disposable. To him, if someone has worked on your team for years but speaks up when your friend tries to overturn the system, even civil discussion is cause for disposal. Civil discussion negates years of effort, passion, time and care.

I didn’t have to make art for you, Hazer. And you don’t deserve the team you have. How many artists have voiced their discomfort with your actions? How many artists are taking a break from the panel because of how you handled this? Ah, wait, you wouldn’t know… you’re busy.

Hazer and his mod team are just another corrupt group of individuals unfortunately heading what could have been a fun and promising petsite. Everyone who speaks praise of modneo does it by and large because of the new and unique art. Hazer was extremely lucky to cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site.

If Hazer wants to show any sign of his potential to be a better person, I believe he needs to formally apologize to his site for the misuse of his power and the mistreatment and exploitation of artists on his team. He needs to apologize to you, the players of his game, the subscribers to his patreon, for allowing this to happen under his watch and under his word. You know you fucked up, hazer. You shouldn’t have sided with your friend without any actual evidence of misconduct. You shouldn’t have spoken about me like I was a toxic, subhuman hindrance to your art team. You shouldn’t have treated me like that. I didn’t deserve it. None of us did. You can apologize to me and the other lost artists publicly.

#moderneopets #virtu.pet #grundos cafe #neopets #neotag #modneo #moderneo

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under-loch-n-key · 3 months

Text

Longggg Sherlock & Co plot rant. You have been warned.

I know the creator of Sherlock & Co. found the idea of writing Moriarty into the series intimidating. Plus, not knowing how to do Sherlock's "death" over a podcast and such. But I had an idea.

I love the idea of Professor Moriarty being some sort of hacker/online troll and MORIARTY is the name of a dark web corporation that is trying to hack into the Sherlock & Co. Company to send Sherlock puzzles/cases. You lot know those shady anon hackers on the dark web in films and certain websites? Like that.

I think it would be cool if at first Moriarty leaves hate/weird comments on John's podcasting sites and Watson just thinks it is some hater and thinks nothing of it and deletes the comments. He just grumbles about the comments being a continous thing.

Suddenly the comments stop. Watson isn't complaining about it, he is relieved by that because they were really annoying him. (no matter how many times Sherlock & Mariana told him to ignore them.)

Later on, Watson gets these emails from an unknown email of some shady guy (Moriarty) taunting Sherlock (and the rest of the company) and sending them on goose chase cases (Like the BBC did in that one episode with the phone calls, in a way?)

When Moriarty becomes the main centre of the podcast episodes, instead of Sherlock dying, he gets kidnapped by Moriarty's network. Watson and Mariana embark on and have to solve their most important case yet "Where is Sherlock Holmes?" This would give us some cool dynamics and more screentime between Watson and Mariana.

Watson starts to panick because he thinks he isn't like Sherlock and Sherlock did tell him that he would never be able to figure out stuff the way he could. Mariana is there to support and be there for him. Watson and Mariana have to channel their inner Sherlock Holmes to solve the case.

Idk whether I like the idea of Sherlock expecting this to happen and leave behind clues in some way. I do know though, that I like the idea of the following cases being them trying to work on finding Sherlock.

When they do, Sherlock is banged up and Sherlock tells him "I trusted that you would find me, Watson. You really are a persistent fellow."

And Watson just runs up and hugs him and Mariana joins in and they are just mother henning him like crazy.

Watson tells Sherlock "Don't do that to me again. Don't disappear on me again, you hear?"

And Sherlock is like "It's not like I was expecting to kidnapped, John. Besides, your podcast wouldn't last without me."

Watson just huffs and tells him "No, no, it wouldn't. Just come here," and then goes to hug him again.

Mariana pulls away from them both in realisation and she tells them "Boys, I don't mean to break up our moment, but we still do have one problem."

They both look at her and Sherlock nods and says "Moriarty. He's still out there."

I want it to be implied that they came face to face while Sherlock was kidnapped.

"He? Sherlock, you saw him?" Watson replies.

"Indeed, Watson and I think I know where he'll be waiting next."

*cue Sherlock & Co. End of episode music.*

Anyways, then we get to the episode of the Reichenbach fall, they have their final facedown. Sherlock doesn't die, but Moriarty does fall.

Watson would 100% be grumbling about how he can't pick up any audio over the sound of the falls.

Sherlock and Moriarty would begin fighting and Watson would start describing the scene in a panicked tone.

Sherlock calls over "Not helping, Watson!"

After more sounds of fighting and nervous ramblings from Watson. Sherlock & Moriarty turn the corner of the falls into a blind spot.

All Watson hears and sees is a cry and someone fall and crash into the water.

Watson panicks and shouts "SHERLOCK!" then dashes up to where they were fighting. Sherlock is sitting down and catching his breath.

Sherlock would probably make a smartarse comment like "Ah, John. Glad you make it. Help me up will you?"

"You're not dead."

"Clearly, or else we wouldn't be speaking. Now, would you please help me up?"

"Right, yeah." Watson helps him up.

"So, you, erm, you killed him?"

"I did. His baritsu was lacking, so his demise was inevitable."

"You're a clever, bugger, mate. Now, lift home?"

"Yes, of course."

I think it would be funny if the episode ended like this. They get home and Mariana starts mother-henning them both and she is scolding them both in Spanish about being more careful, how much she cares for them both, etc. Then she hugs them both.

Later on, we cut to them sitting in their chairs and talking about, well, everything.

"It's good to have you home, you know? I- well, Mariana and I both missed you."

"Mm. It's good to be home, Watson. I prefer the smell of our flat to the vile odour of where I was."

"Do you want to talk about it? Because, I, erm, am always here if you need a good talk."

"Not at the moment, Watson, but I will keep that in mind."

Long pause.

"So, Moriarty's network.. is it?-"

"Gone? Mm. No, but it will be taken care of."

"How? They are bloody HUGE, Sherlock. Shouldn't we, I don't know, contact Lestrade? Actually, the whole bloody Scotland Yard?"

"They're useless here, Watson. I'll leave this to the government."

"The government? Sherlock, we both know what they are. The government is not reliable in the slightest."

"Mm. The government you are discussing, yes. They are indeed unreliable, but in this instance I am discussing a WHO not a what."

"Friends in high places?"

"No. Much much worse."

"Oh, erm, an enemy then?"

"Mycroft is not an enemy, but certainly not a friend."

"What the devil is a 'Mycroft'?"

"My brother."

There's a long silence in the audio

"YOUR WHAT!?"

*Cue end of episode music*

I think this concept would be a cool way to be introduced to Mycroft, Watson realising his capibilities since meeting Sherlock, more screentime with Mariana and John's friendship, a way to do the podcast without killing Sherlock and having the time gap between Sherlock's "death" and resurrection, etc.

If you made it to the end of my Sherlock & Co plot concept ramble, good for you. Lol. Anyway, I just thought this would be a cool concept. The rant kinda blended into a fic, but oh well.

Do you lot like this idea? I thought it would be neat.

If John (or even the creator of Sherlock & Co) sees this ever, I will spontaneously combust. 😳

Enjoy my story/plot rant-

(Sorry for any typos, I am sick and half-asleep)

(I am so normal about them, I swear-)

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acewithapaintbrush · 1 year

Text

I'm in love with @ashwii Celestial AU. I wanted to write something poetic and beautiful but instead it turned into silly shenanigans between astronaut April and the Disaster Twins. I hope you get a good chuckle out of it at least.

*****************************

"Wait! Hold on! Rewind! Humans do what?"

April grins and adjusts her grip on the outer hull. She briefly gestures with the screwdriver before plunging it back into the innards of the space station she is going to call her home for the next few years.

No matter how much she'd trained for and anticipated this mission, the idea of spending years alone on a space station to research the effects of long term exposure to low gravity had been as exciting as it had been scary. All that scientific and psychological mumbo jumbo aside, she'd been convinced that 'going space crazy' would be a given and had noted it down in her mission log on the very first day (something Ground Control hadn't found very funny, weirdly enough).

She thought the loneliness might kill her before any asteroid or technical failure could. But now here she is, floating in her super advanced space suit in the vast nothingness of space and talking to a floating humanoid turtle who is also apparently an embodiment of all the stars in all the galaxies and who is named like a renaissance painter even though April had to explain what a renaissance painter even is and…

Maybe she has gone space crazy after all?

Leonardo proves that he is not merely a figment of her imagination by tapping one of his fingers against the face shield of her helmet, an action that had scared the crap out of her the first time he'd done it. Not anymore though. Her new friends won't let anything happen to her.

"Hello? Stars to April!"

"Yes Leo, I heard you." She can hear him loud and clear. She wonders if he can too or if her voice sounds muffled to him through the helmet. "Don't know what to tell you, dude. It's just a silly thing humans do. There are websites where you can buy a star and give it a name and then give it away as a gift."

"A gift?" Leo clutches at his chest like an old lady might clutch at her pearls. He floats backwards a few feet. The trails of his mask flare and tiny stars follow his movement, surrounding him and sparking briefly like small explosions before fading away again.

Oh, how April wishes she could touch them. Would they be cold or hot? Would they pass right through her or settle on her skin like a thousand little fireflies?

They don't know if Leo and his brothers can enter the station without harm to them or the ship and April knows that they are too wary to try. Yet.

Which, yeah. Fair enough. Maybe one day.

"A gift!" he repeats. His voice cracks and he looks genuinely distressed. April would feel bad for him if she wasn't trying so hard not to laugh. "How dare you humans sell pieces of me as a gift!"

"Hey hey, calm down. It's not real. No one can really buy a star. It's just… make believe."

"That's besides the point!"

In that moment Donatello joins them, alerted by his brother's shouting and gesticulating. He's been keeping an eye on the two of them from a distance. The moon turtle is the slowest to warm up to April, although her willingness to show and explain to him the various uses of her NASA approved equipment has gone a long way. April is determined to win the celestial being over with her charm and wit, just like she did with his brothers.

"What's all this racket about?" Don looks and sounds tired. It's a waning moon and his arms are already more black than green, his eyes vaguely distant. The black mass traveling up and down his arms like the insides of a lava lamp should look creepy but it's actually quite mesmerizing. April could watch the dance of darkness and light for hours, but Donnie gets testy when he catches her staring so she refrains. Barely.

"Donnieeeee!" Leo wails and throws his arms around his brother's neck. Immediately the stars on his skin brighten. It's fascinating: The darker Donnie is, the brighter Leo shines. The closer they are to a full moon, the more subdued Leo's glow becomes. Neither state seems to affect the other negatively. Rather, they seem to gravitate towards each other even more frequently during full and new moons.

Donnie smiles softly in the face of his brother's antics and April catches herself thinking that it's probably a good thing both of them don't shine at the same time. That might just blind her.

The moon turtle catches her staring and just like a switch being flipped his smile turns into a scowl and he pushes his brother away.

April smirks. So predictable.

"Nardo! What is it?"

Leonardo waves his arms around. Streaks of light paint waves into the space between them. "April just told me that humans buy stars as gifts!" He shudders and hugs himself. "I feel so violated."

Okay, that is so not fair. Now April feels really bad. And it's got nothing to do with the glare Don sends her.

"Hey man!", she says and gently bumps her fist lightly against Leo's shoulder. It feels just like any other shoulder. Corporal and squishy. She wonders if it would feel different without the glove in the way. "They only do that because stars are beautiful. You buy a star for your loved ones, to show them how important they are to you and because you want to give them something unique and lovely. Gifting someone a star is like, the most wonderful thing you can do on earth, y'know?"

She is mostly talking out of her ass right now. April never got the whole 'gifting a star' business. To her it's mostly a scam, just a very expensive piece of paper. No one owns stars so no one can sell them either. But she does acknowledge that it's a cute idea at least and that lots of people are really digging it.

Leo stares at her with, excuse the pun, stars in his eyes. "Really?" His attitude does a complete 180. He twirls in a circle, throws his glowing mask trails around and blows his brother an exaggerated kiss. "You hear that, Dee? I'm the most wonderful gift, ever. Humans pay lots of money for a piece of me. You all get my company for free, be thankful."

Donatello rolls his eyes. "Oh, joy. Though I wish I had paid some money. At least then I'd have a receipt and could return you for something cooler."

Leo only laughs good-naturedly, but April mentally rubs her hands like a villain.

She really shouldn't aggravate the guy. She does want him to like her, after all. But Donnie just offered her the perfect opportunity for some light teasing. And she did promise to teach the boys everything she knows about earth and human customs. She's got a duty to fulfill, doesn't she?

Ah, well. They can become best friends later. After all, she'll be around them for many years to come.

"Oh Donnie!" she drawls and floats closer to him. He eyes her with the usual distrust and she smirks in anticipation. "Did I ever tell you about this thing humans do, where they buy land on the moon?"

#rottmnt #rottmnt fanfiction #rottmnt celestial au #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise leo #rise april #rise donnie #rottmnt leo #rottmnt april #rottmnt donnie #I will write something beautiful and poetic for this au #mark my words #But for now have some shenanigans #I love this au so much

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ltwharfy · 2 months

Text

Recently, I was looking over my list of stories on AO3 and I realized that today is the first anniversary of when I published my first "Bob's Burgers" fic, "Surely It's Okay If I Just Tell Pancake?". In some ways, it's sort of weird to think that was only a year ago; in others, it seems weird that it happened at all.

I never thought I would write "Bob's Burgers" fanfic. It had been maybe 15 years or more since I had written any fanfic or any completed fiction writing.

Then one day I just woke up with the idea for this story in my head. Maybe it's not that surprising, since I at the time I had recently come up with the idea of rewatching all the episodes with Rudy in them. Which led to me wanting more content about him and Louise. Which led to me looking at "Bob's Burgers" fanfic and fanart again for the first time in years.

So, maybe it's only natural that I would come up with my own idea. But then I wrote it down. And shared it. And some people actually liked it.

And since then I've written 16 more "Bob's Burgers" stories. And I sometimes think about writing fics for other shows or writing original works. I've discovered that writing can be a creative outlet I enjoy again, not just a thing I have to do for work.

And then I joined this silly website, and found out how wonderful the "Bob's Burgers" fandom here is. And I've got a bunch of cool mutuals. And even made some really meaningful friendships.

And, when I was writing that first story, I found myself having a surprisingly strong emotional reaction when writing one line, which lead to me to examining what that was all about, and led to me actually addressing some stuff in my own life that I'd been ignoring for too long and hopefully growing as a person. (Which seems like a weird thing to say about a story that can be summarized as "9-year-old boy talks to stuffed fish" but I'm mentioning it because it matters to me.)

And for all those reasons, I'm so glad I wrote this story.

Finally, I reread the story for the first time in months and, it's still one of my favorite stories! I might be biased, but even after writing more stories and the show adding new details about Rudy- I still think this story is cute and sweet and captures Rudy's voice really well.

So, happy anniversary "Surely It's Okay If I Just Tell Pancake?", and thank you to everyone who's read, kudosed, and commented on it over the year!

#fic stuff #about me #personal

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keshetchai · 7 months

Note

Heyyyy do you have any advice for a potential convert/person exploring Judaism going to services for the first time. I have big anxiety and want to show up respectfully but not totally sure what to expect and how to approach it.

Sure! I definitely have advice.

First, like I said recently, we're currently still in the month of Tishrei, and every Jewish professional is absolutely drowning because this month is jam packed with the high holy days, & Hebrew school/Sunday school is starting back up. This is the absolute busiest time of year for anyone who is a "professional Jew." (Rabbis, cantors, synagogue front admin, etc etc).

What that means is this: I strongly recommend waiting until after October 15th (which will begin the Hebrew month of Cheshvan) to try contacting anyone about conversion. You're just much more likely to be able to get in touch with someone, send an email or make a phone call and get a timely response and/or someone with enough bandwidth to really engage with you.

I'm not saying they'll ignore you right now, or to stay away! Just that your email could end up lost or the people in question might be hard to reach because they're doing 50 million things right now. And I wouldn't want you to think that was personal or to make you anxious!

Okay so, the list looks like this:

Try reaching out after Oct 15th this year (when Tishrei is over).

A good basic book you might be able to find in a local chain bookstore is Anita Diamant's To Choose a Jewish Life which is all about conversion! She is a liberal Jew (reform) and the book leans that way, but it does just cover some general considerations and topics as a good starter.

You can try browsing myjewishlearning.com or watching Bimbam videos (youtube) for basic 101 concepts.

If you've found a local synagogue you would like to try visiting, go to the website. See if you can find the admin assistant email or the rabbi's email. Then send an email explaining you're interested in exploring/learning about Judaism and have considered you may be interested in converting and would like to attend a shabbat service for the first time. This is basically all I did! I sent an email to two rabbis at two synagogues I was considering, and one of them replied immediately and I went that very week.

I have anxiety too but it was extremely easy for me, and I'm pretty lucky that my rabbi is pretty familiar with converts and conversion. Not every rabbi has had converts or even a fair amount of converts though, so some of them might be navigating a new thing to them too!

What made my first shabbat really easy was this:

- basically the response email answered my dress code question, assured me I was welcome to join the next service as a guest and he would be happy to meet/do introductions, and then he gave me the name of someone at the synagogue who would be a great community member to sit with/who could help me follow the service, and said he'd introduce me.

So like, to me, that was the most helpful part, which was that when I arrived a little before the start time, we got to say hi and then he introduced me to a woman who sat with me and was able to help me gain a footing. Or at least who could help me when I was totally lost lol! If no one suggests it to you unprompted, you can always ask if there's anyone in the community they'd recommend you sit with to help you acclimate. It's also totally okay to sit in the back.

You won't know everything the first few times! There's also no musical notation if people sing (so it doesn't matter if you read music or not)! I can't guarantee the synagogue will have full transliteration into English for the service! There's a whole other language you probably don't know being used. Lots of people who show up could do the service with their eyes closed. It is OKAY that you don't start there! It's okay to have no idea when to bow or to not know every prayer ahead of time!

Don't worry that you're not sure what's happening. Most of the time people will be super friendly! They'll also want to know all about you. You can either tell them you're wanting to convert/learn more or you can tell them a limited truth.

If I don't feel like explaining my whole backstory to someone, I usually just say "oh, my parents weren't really/super religious." (This is true for me! my parents werent super religious! But they are christians who aren't super religious. I usually just say I converted nowadays, I don't feel a need to hide it if pressed, but yanno. Sometimes I didn't want to have to explain I never went to Jewish summer camp to a stranger at a random event who wants to play Jewish geography)

Anyways most people will probably be very friendly to a new face/stranger and want to know allll about you at oneg (usually like, snacks after shabbat service) if they don't recognize you and you seem alone. (it's also highly likely there will be a lot of regular people who are a lot older than you, so don't be surprised if you basically get treated like a visiting grandkid. It's kinda great.)

Eventually you learn a lot just by immersion and showing up again and again. There's a pattern you can pick up. Tunes to songs may change and eventually you'll come to recognize the most common ones.

I know it's hard to like hear "hey it's okay don't worry too much" if you have anxiety, because, well, I have anxiety! I know you can't just turn it off! BUT I assure you, if you are made to feel unwelcome or bad, then that just isn't a good synagogue to be going to anyways. It's more likely they're just not a good fit for you than anything wrong with you, yanno? And the first rabbi you talk to may not be the one you want to stick with. That's okay too!

I was extremely nervous my first few services, and honestly everyone was just really nice and helpful. I think the other rabbi I emailed didn't end up replying to that email (it probably got lost!) and it ended up being fine, I stuck with the one who replied right away because we got along and clicked.

My last piece of advice is to go ahead and buy yourself a notebook/journal and keep a book for yourself.

This book can/should be any number of things!

For some inspiration, this book can be:

A journal about your religious journey prior to this point and currently

Write about what you believe now, what you think, what you aren't sure about

Write down the books you're recommended, given, or borrowed

Write down questions you have

Write down the complicated or uncomfortable things you worry or think about

Write about experiencing x or y thing for the first time and what you were interested in, confused by, etc

Cut out/copy down Jewish recipes!

Note things that you find joy in or are confused or bored by!

Take notes during classes/readings of books/etc

Write down notes during meetings with your rabbi!

Torah study notes! What'd you learn? What'd someone else say you found interesting? Questions? Thoughts? Etc.

It's a big process! A lot is going on, and it's worthwhile to record your personal feelings and studies in some way! It doesn't have to be a serious diary or a really studious study notebook, it can literally just be...a catch-all book and it is for no one but yourself to benefit from, so it doesn't have to look any which way. But it's very worthwhile, even if you later change your mind and don't convert, you'll still have all that spiritual exploration journaling and notes for yourself as part of your growth!

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use-your-telescope · 1 year

Text

Writing Snippet/Preview

OKAY OKAY OKAY, so I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing some snippets from the very long (very, VERY LONG) LokixOFC fic that I’ve been working on for the over a year (The fic’s working title has been the Trickster, but it very well may change UPDATE - IT HAS AN OFFICIAL TITLE! It's called "When Everything's Made to be Broken") ... And uh, well, I’ve officially caved. Snippet sharing time below the cut! Context: This takes place in an AU where Loki survives the Thanos attack, joins the Avengers, and they defeat Thanos at the battle of Wakanda. No snap happens. The Avengers are both superheroes and public figures, almost like celebrities? Avengers tower still is a thing because, well, it’s convenient.

This is from Chapter 3, which is based on the song “Some Nights” by Fun. This is when the Avengers first meet Theo (OFC), told from Loki’s perspective. This is only part of the chapter. Warnings... uh, snark. Lots of snark. Maybe some swearing?

The lead up to the scene: Mysterious shadow beasts have been attacking Earth, and because Theo has experience with the creatures and magical powers, she is pestered by Nick Fury and Maria Hill to help the Avengers get rid of the creatures. In turn, they promise her that they will help her reunite with her family, who Theo had presumed were dead for years. Up until this point, she refused to join the Avengers and kept her magical abilities under wraps, instead working as an Emergency Medicine doctor.

Disclaimers: No, I don’t own Marvel. Do not translate this fic or repost it on any websites/blogs/anywhere other than here; I have not posted this on AO3 since it’s not actually finished yet.

be nice please I haven’t posted fan fiction in eleven years but I wanted to test the waters

I’m Still Not Sure What I Stand For

“Dr. Theolene Amaris,” Nick Fury’s voice rang out in the meeting room as a picture of a lithe woman appeared on screen. “ - also known as the Silver Shadow, the Celestial Phantom, and the Cursed Moon.”

It was only a few hours earlier that everyone was notified of the mandatory briefing, which was described as “urgent.” Moments before, Loki found himself pondering the nature of the briefing while everyone packed into a bright conference room. In front of each Avenger, a manila file folder sat prepared for them with information related to the subject in question.The faces of his team members shifted as they developed their first impressions on the subject of their briefing, her likeness blown up on the screen at the front of the room.

Despite exceeding the capacity of the space, Loki managed to secure his usual seat in the back, conveniently located near the door for an easy escape. It was a habit that lingered from his earlier days in the tower, but having an easy escape from what were normally tedious meetings was still a benefit that Loki took advantage of more often than not. Even better, there was an empty seat next to him, lessening the otherwise inevitable sense of claustrophobia that would have eventually reared its ugly head.

She really didn’t look like much. The only noteworthy feature in her appearance was the thick mane of silver hair that tumbled down her back, stopping just above her waist. Otherwise, she appeared to be like any other Midgardian: clad in all-black, a beanie atop her head with black sunglasses obscuring her features as she walked down the street. If Loki passed her in real life, there was no way he’d offer her a second glance, or even a first.

With that in mind, it was safe to assume that in this first image, she was practicing urban camouflage – blending in with her surroundings by altering her appearance and attire to mimic those around her. The less attention she drew to herself, the easier it would be to slip in and out unnoticed; it also created an additional challenge if anyone sought to locate her. As someone who’d had plenty of experience with stealth, Loki already had an idea of what her skill sets may include.

Stark studied the first image of her, brow furrowed as he spoke up. “Hell of a name, but she doesn’t look like much. What’s her doctorate in? Bad poetry? Sad music? Scaring parents?”

“Emergency Medicine.” Fury glared at Stark while Agent Hill changed the display to a second photograph. “Assuming she isn’t a serious threat is both the first and last mistake you’ll make about her.”

The second image must have been captured in combat. She crouched down as though she just landed from a maneuver, the hood of a cloak masking the top half of her face as she held a black longsword composed entirely of what appeared to be magic in one hand. Her other hand glowed black as it touched the ground, ready to launch some kind of spell. Some blood was smeared across her jawline, a scowl across her lips as a pair of corpses lay in the background. Unlike the first photo, now he could see a scar that ran down past the bottom of her lip, almost giving her the appearance of a permanently split lip. A second scar cut through the outside edge of her eyebrow, angling out towards her temple.

One detail piqued his interest: of all the realms that Loki had visited, he did not recognize where she was. He had to give it to Fury – this picture certainly made her appear far more intimidating.

“She specializes in shadow magic—“

The room erupted as all the Avengers fired off questions at the director.

“Shadow magic? Wait, is she the one behind those shadow beast-things we’ve been fighting lately?”

“What does she want?”

“Is she working for Dr. Doom?”

“Did HYDRA give her those powers?”

“What kind of villain studies emergency medicine?”

“Maybe this will help explain things.” Agent Hill tapped a screen as the image before them went to a video.

Loki had seen this video before - it was nearly impossible to miss, having been plastered all across the news for weeks. A Midgardian woman single-handedly eliminated an entire swarm of the shadowy monsters that had plagued New York City recently, all while in a subway car. Somehow, no one knew who she was or the methods used to exterminate the pests. It was obvious from the video that it was magic of some kind, though it was different from any magic Loki had ever encountered in his life and it did not resemble anything he had ever studied. Though he hadn’t admitted it to anyone, he was curious to meet this Midgardian and learn her abilities for himself.

Of course, that was assuming she was Midgardian. There were many species who appeared to be Midgardian, though biologically they were different. Usually, it was easy for Loki to sense if someone was Aesir, Midgardian, or otherwise; however, no indication that she was anything extraterrestrial revealed itself to him.

No, this woman must have been Midgardian.

“That’s her?” Romanoff inquired, arching a perfectly groomed brow at Hill.

“Wait wait wait, I thought she was the bad guy, but she’s killing the shadowy monsters here…” Wilson said, gawking at the screen. “Unless she’s really crazy and likes killing her own, this doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m telling you, if she’s the big bad and studied Emergency Medicine, she’s definitely got a screw loose,” Barnes said, “and that’s coming from the guy with a vibranium arm.”

“This incident was weeks ago - how is it that we are just now learning of her identity?” Rhodes interjected.

“She is not our enemy,” Agent Hill finally explained, raising her voice over the incessant chatter. “She has agreed to help the Avengers find the root cause of the shadow creature problem and exterminate the beasts.”

Stunned silence permeated the room. The ticking of the clock above Fury’s perpetual scowl only emphasized the blaring lack of sound.

Loki could count on one hand the number of times he had ever witnessed total silence from the group; to see the group go from so animated to so silent nearly gave him whiplash.

“She’s joining the Avengers?” Stark’s disbelief was painted all over his face. “Emo queen Rapunzel is joining the Avengers?”

“Not exactly,” Agent Carter said, “She is coming on board specifically to help with the shadow creatures.”

“If she’s so powerful, why isn’t she already a part of the Avengers?” Banner asked, leaning in as he met Fury’s glare.

“This is a temporary arrangement.” Fury crossed his arms. “We struck a deal with her.”

“So she comes in and helps with the shadow creatures, and then what - she just disappears?” Rogers pressed, “Don’t you think someone with expertise in shadow magic should be kept under close watch?”

“You’d be a fool to think she hasn’t been on SHIELD’s radar for a long time.” Fury crossed his arms and glowered at the group. “She turned down past offers to join the Avengers. Your mission is to convince her to stay.”

“Convince her to stay?” Romanoff shot Fury a wary glance, while others regarded the director as though he grew another head.

“Assuming all goes well, we want her to remain on the team after the shadow creatures are eliminated,” Agent Hill explained. “She is highly adept in both physical and magical combat, and she has expertise in stealth operations. She fills in some key areas of the team that have been lacking, while her versatility allows her to fit into a variety of smaller teams with ease. However, we need you to convince her to stay.”

“Dr. Amaris cut her teeth in a different realm,” Fury added. “She has trained with threats far more powerful than what we have encountered here on earth, and fought to survive in far worse scenarios. Her experiences and insight would be invaluable in our operations.”

“Okay, but if you had to strike a deal with her, that still raises some questions…” Banner hesitated, raising an eyebrow at Fury. “It makes it sound like she wasn’t exactly keen to help protect the world.”

“Her skills are far too valuable to be left unutilized.” Fury glared at Banner. “What I was going to say before someone interrupted my briefing is that she is also an incredibly powerful healer.“

“How do we know we can trust her?” Wilson asked. “I’m no wizard, but shadow magic sounds like trouble at best.”

Barton agreed. “Besides, Nat has us covered in stealth.”

“You know how to make a woman feel appreciated.” Romanoff coyly winked at Barton.

While Loki wasn’t one to regularly agree with Wilson, for once he made a good point: this was something Loki was unfamiliar with, and at the very least it sounded dubious.

“Because if I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.”

Every head in the room snapped towards the entrance, eyes wider than dinner plates as they gawked at the source of the voice.

Leaning against the closed conference room door was the subject of their briefing.

In real life, Theolene Amaris was smaller than Loki expected - not short by any means, as she appeared to be slightly taller than Maximoff and Romanoff; she was probably the average height for a Midgardian woman. However, she was lanky, with elongated limbs and a slight figure. She carried her head high with relaxed posture, one leg crossed in front of the other as she leaned on the doorframe with hands loosely tucked in her pockets. She didn’t seem to be intimidated by the strong personalities in front of her, even as she crashed their briefing.

Dr. Amaris sauntered into the room, eyes scanning over each of the Avengers with a smirk on her face. When she reached Loki she paused, quirking her head to the side as the curl of her lips increased. “Looks like one of us might need to change.”

At first, Loki was perplexed by her remark. Upon a second glance, it became obvious. They both wore almost identical outfits: black button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, tucked into tailored black trousers that showed a bit of ankle, and black Oxford shoes.

He couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, a smile creeping across his own features as he allowed his shoulders to relax. It was unusual for someone to make him laugh, especially on a first encounter. And to shock the Avengers in such a way? Well, he certainly was intrigued.

“It seems we have similar tastes in apparel,” Loki commented coolly, wondering about the nature of her remark.

Just then, Theo pulled a hand out of her pocket and snapped her fingers, instantly changing her outfit into a pair of ripped black jeans, a faded gray vintage Queen shirt, and a pair of black sneakers.

Loki could feel the magic pouring off of her - while she was no god, it was apparent to him that Fury wasn’t kidding when he said she was much more powerful than she let on.

“There, that’s better.” She dropped into the seat beside Loki, leaning back and kicking her feet up onto the table before sticking out one hand. “You must be Loki?”

“Indeed, and you must be Dr. Amaris.” Loki offered a wry grin, shaking her hand with a firm grip. “A fellow sorcerer, I see.”

“You could say that,” She winked, returning the gesture with a firm grip. “Call me Theo. Dr. Amaris is what my residents call me.”

From the opposite side of Theo, Thor beamed at the sight of his brother being surprisingly friendly to the Avengers’ newest addition. It took every ounce of self-restraint for Loki to prevent himself from rolling his eyes at his older brother.

“Pleasure to meet you, Theo.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas with Rapunzel here, Reindeer Games.” Stark warned, clearly having already settled on a nickname for the newest team member.

Loki’s attention diverted to Stark, sending invisible daggers at the man. Even though they had come a long way from the distrust present when Loki first joined the team, there were certainly still moments where Stark got on his nerves.

This time it was Theo’s turn to snort.

“Rapunzel? That’s the best nickname you’ve got, Tin Man?” Theo cocked one eyebrow at the billionaire as she laughed, brushing a piece of hair over her shoulder. “I may have long hair, but good luck with trying to lock me up in this tower.”

“Watch out, or I might invent something so I can–”

“-- Then again, you named your AI system FRIDAY, so I shouldn’t be surprised,” She continued, unfazed by Stark’s threat. “Seriously, what the hell kind of name is that?”

“Says the person named Theolene...”

“First of all, I just told you - I go by Theo, not Theolene. Second, I can’t help it that my mother has terrible taste in names. Third, Loki’s helmet has horns, not reindeer antlers. For a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, you should know the difference.” Theo turned to the other Avengers. “And while I’m correcting people, I don’t specialize in shadow magic. I specialize in celestial magic, of which shadow magic is a subset. Dr. Doom is a joke, HYDRA wishes they gave me these powers, and my refusal to become an Avenger has nothing to do with a lack of desire to protect people, it’s because I don’t want to spend my time playing superhero when I can be more useful as a doctor. Although whichever one of you suggested I had a screw loose - Bucky, I believe - was probably right. At least, my cousin would agree with you. He’s pissed that I agreed to this.”

If there were two words that best described the collective response, “utter bewilderment” would be Loki’s choice.

“Wait a minute—“ Wilson blurted out, “How long have you been listening to our briefing? Have you been here this whole time?”

“Long enough to know you are just as skeptical of me as I am of you. It’s nothing personal, I know - I would be skeptical of me too! still, this has been enlightening.” Theo rose to her feet, gliding back to the entrance. She spun around, bowing with a dramatic flourish while flashing a cheshire grin at the crowd. “See you next Monday for your press conference!”

With a flick of her wrist, a series of black runes appeared all over her arms, flowing down her limbs like a stream of water. When they reached her fingertips, they rose into the air and evolved, surrounding her until she was obscured from view; in a flash of white, she disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint shimmer. The entire process took at most a few seconds, but the effect lingered far longer.

It was a finale to the encounter that was almost as dramatic as her introduction.

If Loki’s instincts were correct, she was just getting started.

#my writing #Fic preview #loki x ofc #lokixofc #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #e writes stuff #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki mcu #marvel fanfiction #loki x ofc fanfiction #lokixofc fanfiction #shit I don't know what else to tag this with #When Everything's Made to be Broken #WEMtbB

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twinklelilstarkey · 2 years

Note

Dad Rhett! His daughter gets their first period and his wife and Cecilia aren’t available to help him. And his daughter is still elementary age & they haven’t given her the talk yet. Like the scene in My Girl. Fluff and hilarious ensues. 😊

A/N.: Thank you so much for requesting. It means the world to me! Hope what I wrote is good enough <3

Slow Internet - Dad!Rhett Abbott

Words: 1.7k+ Type: Fluff Summary: [What's on the request] Warnings: Mentions of fem!reader [as in 'mom'; no mentions of the mom having a period, either]. Mentions of a period and its symptoms, as well as why it needs to exist. No mentions of the daughter being biological. A panicked father and clueless uncle.

“Okay, uhm…”

Rhett stares at his screen as the website loads. He has no idea what to do. There have been many times where he could’ve, maybe, educated himself better on the subject. Taken the time to do the research so that when this day would come… this wouldn’t happen.

To make things worse, the internet is slow. He has been staring at the loading symbol of some sort of health website for minutes. Long minutes. All while he feels himself almost reaching the state of complete parental panic and frustration in inhumane highs.

You’re on your way from work, already. But, if things couldn't be worse, you will take at least half an hour to get home. Lunchtime is not exactly a time easy to run out of work and even worse to find empty streets. It’s god damn impossible.

“Still nothing, honey. Just a few more minutes.” He tries to tranquilize his daughter from afar.

A sigh is heard from the inside of the bathroom, and Rhett tries to, yet again, refresh the page in hopes of it finishing the loading. The brunette lets his head fall back against the wall. How is he supposed to get anything done with this slow of a phone? If only he had gotten prepared…

Before his mind could make him beat himself up any longer, the sound of moving around in the kitchen reawakes him to reality.

His phone hasn’t started vibrating with a call from his mother. His other (possible) savior. He has nowhere to run for help. He sure isn’t going to ask for help from his dad. Gosh… Would he even know what to do?

A fatigued Perry appears at the end of the hallway, snatching Rhett’s attention from his scolding and mental planning of routes to follow. His brother is breathing heavily and is holding his phone in his hand. Rhett had hoped that it was their mother who called them, but his hope evaporated.

“They say everything is fine on the internet.” Perry exclaims, making his way to his brother, “Did you hear, honey? You’re fine!”

“I am dying!” She screams.

“You are not dying.” The brothers say at the same time.

Rhett hears yet another sigh of defeat.

The small voice mumbles something into the small bathroom, but from the way every sound echos and bounces with the room's tiles, Rhett cannot understand what she's saying most of the time.

“Who’s talking?” She asks, louder this time.

“Uncle Perry, honey.” Rhett answers his daughter.

“When did he get here?” Confusion and frustration were clear in her voice. “Where’s mom?! Or grandma?”

“On their way.”

Silence follows his words right after. And this is when Perry decides that it’s a nice time to read out loud all of his findings. He had climbed the kitchen table to get better reception or better internet. He was ready to say everything out loud.

Rhett watches as his brother walks over to the door of the bathroom and crouches. He then leans in and begins to speak.

“It says here that it’s totally normal for a girl of your age to have it. Some even have it younger- The youngest was 5 years old.” Rhett can’t even hold himself back from sending a glare at his brother. Why was that fact even necessary? “And this is something called... a period.”

There’s a pause, and Perry uses it to check on his brother.

“Are you going to join in, or…?” He asks Rhett.

“Wait for her mom to get home. She’ll explain it.”

“You’re the dad.” Perry leans in to emphasize. “You should be a part of the learning session too.”

That seemed to be convincing enough for both to now be beside one another. Each of them takes a seat in front of the bathroom door and stares at it. They take turns on who holds the phone that has the information and who speaks it.

There were no sounds in the bathroom after each of their long and simple sentences explaining the natural phenomenon until…

“EVERY MONTH?!”

It’s a scream verging into a worded squeal. It penetrated the thick wood of the door with extreme ease. The same door the men have been screaming at for her to hear them this entire time. Both of them share a look before continuing on with no regrets.

“From 3 to 7 days.” Perry prefers to be the one to continue.

“Uh?!”

It's the sound of pure confusion and unacceptance of her new reality. Rhett buried his head in his hands for just a few seconds, and then Perry gave him the phone once more.

“You should be the one telling her this.”

Rhett wasn’t even sure what was the worst part he had to mention. His daughter is in elementary school for god’s sake, and now he had to mention how this not only will involve pain from cramps, but also continuous days of blood. Oh, and yeah, he also has to do the breaking of the news about “it means that you have babies.”

The poor girl doesn’t even know kids aren’t taken to their parents by storks yet. He is not the right person to work these things out with her. He knows it.

“Can you at least open the door?” Rhett asks as he faces the tall wood surface before him.

“No!”

“Please?” He tries with a softer voice as well as with a little worried tone. She has been closed in there for the past 20 minutes. Of course, he's worried.

There is a long silence, and Rhett doesn’t let his hope grow with it as he doesn’t hear her walk around. At least she could be considering it, so, he doesn't let his hope die down right away.

“Why don’t you want to come out?” He tries.

“I don’t know.” She says softly, “I feel embarrassed.”

Perry stays silent as he looks between his brother and the door.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, honey. It’s normal.” He emphasizes the last statement.

“How can this be normal?!" She squeals once more.

Rhett sighs and looks at his brother for help. Perry has a daughter too but he didn't have to worry about this with her. His mom was home right when she got it and he wasn't. He really only got the news when arranging the table for dinner. The lucky bastard didn't have to deal with any of this.

“It is natural for you to have it. You're supposed to have this.” He tries to continue with an even softer voice.

“But I don't want it.” The small girl answers back.

“I know.” He answers, “But you'll get used to it. I promise you... Mommy can explain everything better when she gets home, but you have to believe me. Nothing bad is happening, and you're okay.”

Rhett waits for a few seconds for her to move inside of the bathroom, whether to open the door or to just, well, walk around. Perry is quiet, and Rhett swears that he forgot his brother was there for a good bit.

His brown eyes look through the phone and its bright screen. He reads a few words automatically as his eyes hover over the website on his brother's phone. He reads more of the same details that he was able to explain in simple words "it is natural." and "you are not dying".

There are two words that appear in front of him that make his mind light up with an idea.

“There's another thing.” Rhett starts again, breaking the silence.

“What?” She answers right away.

“You can eat all the chocolate you want when you have this.” He offers her her favorite food.

It is an easier way to say to the little girl that she can very much do what her food cravings will ask her to do. She doesn't even know what those are, but what he did just now are the words his daughter had been dreaming of hearing for a long time.

She doesn't speak, but she doesn't stay silent either. Both Perry and Rhett lift their eyes from the floor back to the door when they hear shuffling inside the bathroom. Unexpectedly, the lock clicks out of place and the door opens ever so slightly. The small little head of Rhett's daughter peeks out, and her eyes find his.

“All of the chocolate I want?” She repeats his words.

Perry almost interferes, taking the wording a little too literal. You're not going to like this.

“All of it.” Rhett repeats.

The door opens more, and she walks out entirely. His dad is just 2 steps away from the door, she could reach for him with no worries, but she's hesitant.

“You okay?” He asks her, and she takes in a deep breath.

A car is heard pulling up by the house, and Perry disturbs the moment to get up and check on who it could be. Rhett and his daughter look as he walks down the hallway with speed on his steps, ready to have someone better at the job at hand with them.

Rhett looks back at his daughter when Uncle Perry is out of view, she looks at him as well, taking a small step. She is distancing herself from the bathroom and walking closer to him. They had been playing just like every other day simply a few minutes ago, and she is not exactly proud of screaming at him.

“Are you feeling better? Calmer?” Rhett tries to get a response.

She nods this time. He offers her a grin and lifts his hand to lay it over her back. It's a comforting touch, his hand moves upwards and downwards slowly, but isn't exactly enough for the girl.

She walks on closer and wraps her arms around his neck.

“I'm sorry for screaming.” She whispers, ashamed, on the crook to his neck.

Rhett wraps his arms around her too, pulling his small girl into his arms after so many minutes of her screaming at him. She sure has the same pair of lungs as when she was a baby.

“It's okay.” He whispers back into the fabric of her shirt.

There are footsteps going throughout the house and, soon, you appear at the end of the hallway. The small girl detaches herself from her father's hug and looks at her mom, already searching for all the answers she needs. Rhett can't wait to see your face when he tells you what made your daughter get out of the bathroom.

I hope you liked this <;3 Feel free to request!

#rhett abbott #rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott imagines #rhett abbott imagine #rhett abbott oneshot #rhett abbott one shot #rhett abbott fanfiction #outer range fanfic #outer range #outer range imagines #outer range fanfiction #outer range fic #rhett abbott fluff #rhett abbott fic #dad rhett abbott #lewis pullman

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sparkedblaze · 4 months

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*chanting quietly* modern au! modern au! modern au! modern au! (maybe some katherine stuff?)

I need everyone to remain calm as I try to work through these like 50+ asks (idk if there's actually 50, it just feels like a lot)

Kath in the modern au!!

I haven't thought much past the basics, so here have some stream of consciousness ideas that will come to me as I type (probably)

So, I don't know if/where/when I posted the basic stuff I had written for her, Sarah, Bill, and Darcy. So, here that is:

Katherine

Advocate within the gay community. They regularly picket and protest and refuse to back down even under threat of being canceled or arrested or their channels and socials being deleted. They. Don’t. Back. Down. Gay News: Joint youtube channel with Sarah, Bill, and Darcy. They each write on different news in the LGBT community, and essentially have a news cast (except it isn’t lame and boring like normal news channels. They make it fun and interesting) They do skits and challenges to deliver the news.

It started as just LGBT, but then it branches into more and more, because there's so much bad happening in the world, and it all needs to be talked about.

Katherine is the main point of contact if anyone wants to do like a partnership or anything, any kind of business transaction with the channel has to go through her first (it almost always goes through all four of them anyway, Katherine just likes knowing where and when everything is happening).

They start off just doing silly skits about some of the ridiculous things going on in their city. It soon expands to all of New York, then to the United States, and eventually they go international.

She, Sarah, Bill, and Darcy split the cost of rent for a two bedroom house. Could she, Bill, and Darcy have used their fathers' legacies (tbd, but they're still higher class and well off) to afford something bigger? Something flashy and telling? Yes, they could have. But, Katherine is the kind of person to want to make it on her own. She wants to blaze her own path through the world.

Katherine writes most of their stories and scripts. She's the one up late into the night at her desk with a tea (Sarah made her stop drinking coffee that late) typing away at her computer.

If you're curious, Bill and Darcy do their website and merch design (when they become popular enough for merch) and Sarah does their costuming.

Katherine meets Jack and The Gang™ when they're younger. Her father was doing some charity work at the biggest orphanage in the city, The Refuge. Katherine started writing about the experiences she'd hear from the kids. That's what made her a journalist. She would hear all these horror stories from the kids in there, and never saw anything done about it.

She was a part of their school paper with Bill and Darcy, and they became close. Even more so when Sarah and her brother joined. Sarah insisted it was because David needed extracurriculars and refused to come alone, and this was the only one they could agree on. She neglects to mention that she'd seen the redhead around and needed an excuse to talk to her.

They raise money for different things. If there's nothing big happening, they'll raise for the underfunded foster system. They raise for Palestine. They raise to help LGBT adults to move to safer states, and LGBT youths to have resources and travel to access those resources.

They have a segment at the end of every episode for happy news only. Their viewers send in some good news they got that week. About anything. Something as small as "I brushed my teeth today" or as big as "I came out to my family and it went really well"

This is all I can think of for now I hope you enjoy ily mwah

#newsies #livesies #92sies #newsies modern au #katherine plumber #sarah jacobs #bill hearst #darcy reid #sparky thoughts

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kiigan · 1 month

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canon questionnaire.

what made you pick up this character?

Itachi was actually my first ever rp muse! Allllllll the way back when, when we didn't even know the truth about the massacre and Pein was only a silhouette and believed to be Minato but actually called Uzumaki Arashi. Good ol' days. But also - I picked him because I was just so drawn to his backstory, or lack thereof. At the time we only knew he was Sasuke's older brother who apparently had gone psycho out of the blue, and I just had this hunch that there had to be more about that mess. Also because, honestly, do you realize how cool Itachi's first appearance was.

how did you get into this franchise/fandom?

I got into Naruto because my first boyfriend was a big fan and introduced me to it lmao. And then I introduced my best friend and we started writing together just for funsies, and then suddenly our whole group of friends joined in and it became a glorious mess and so much fun.

what’s the best thing about the show/series/books/comics/etc.?

I mean... it's the typical shonen anime? So it provides super cool battles and action sequences, as expected. But, not to be biased, I totally am the Akatsuki are one of the coolest antagonist groups ever created. I put them on legendary levels such as the Ginyu Force from Dragon Ball.

what’s the worst thing about the show/series/books/comics/etc.?

Probably the ungodly amount of fillers. I understand why they happen but, personally, I would much rather wait and go for a few months without content than to be presented with low-effort ideas and plots that, often, only ruin the pacing and even provoke continuity errors. And I gotta say, Kishimoto's treatment of female characters is questionable at best.

what’s the best thing about the fandom?

The fandom itself! Fandoms are what we make of them, and especially on a website such as tumblr where you are responsible for curating your own dashboard experience (...if we do not count the stupid tumblr ads and recommendations). Meeting new people with similar interests, the possibility to make friends that live literally on the other side of the world, getting to write with super talented people that develop your own muse so much, watching people get passionate about their muse(s) and creating such wonderful headcanons and metas.

what’s the worst thing about the fandom?

Again, the fandom itself. There are nice people and toxic people everywhere and that's unavoidable. In my humble opinion, what matters is to focus on the good ones.

what’s the best thing about the canon you are writing?

Itachi's whole story breaks my heart. At the same time, there is A LOT about him that was never disclosed in canon (even with the Shinden novels) and I love to explore those parts. I love to imagine stuff like what would his hobbies be, how would he react to [insert situation], how would he get along with [insert character] if they met. One of my favorite things, at the moment, is to create headcanons for my post-war verse and to create my own canon about how Itachi would adapt to things such as now being practically blind, having to properly monitor his illness, his thoughts and emotions about returning to Konoha, how to try to fix things with Sasuke, etc etc - it's been so much fun!

what’s the worst thing about the canon you are writing?

Uhhh nothing really? I mean, there are the general issues about Naruto as a whole, but regarding Itachi specifically I can't really think of any huge problems right now. Other than him being dead T-T

have you tweaked the character from canon? if so, what did you tweak?

No and yes. No, because I try my best to be as in-character as possible and to be faithful to Itachi's nature as a character. But, yes, because I write a lot of canon-divergent verses and those obviously require adapting. Even in purely canon settings, I'd say I tweak some stuff in that, for example, I love writing Itachi as a quirky child (and then teen and adult) and as a very caring and nurturing person, even when he cannot openly show it. It's totally fine if not everybody agrees with my interpretation but, to me, it makes a lot of sense and gives me a lot of joy to write.

are there some things you dislike about how the show/series/etc. portray the character you have picked up? if so, what?

I wouldn't say I dislike... but also because, all in all, Itachi doesn't have much screen time lol. So there isn't much of a chance for Kishimoto to screw him over. I would, however, have loved a chance to see Itachi ponder on the circumstances that led to the massacre - for example, does he grow to regret his choice as he gets older? He does this reflection a bit when talking to Naruto during the Edo Tensei period, but that wasn't enough for me damn it! Also, while we're here, I'm gonna be forever salty that, in that same period, we were denied a chance for Itachi to reunite with Kisame and with Shisui.

what would you say is the most unique trait about your character?

Itachi has a lot of idiosyncrasies, which is one of the reasons why I love him. Little quirky nerd weasel~ Perhaps the most unique trait, however, is his idealism. He was severely traumatized by the third war and that is the basis for his idealism but, at the same time, he truly believes in what he preaches. He truly believes that he can get strong enough to make this world a better place and this is the sort of undying motivation to do good that, for example, I only see in Shisui. Of course, a lot of other characters have their own strong motivations (Naruto himself being the easiest example), but these two Uchiha idiots are mostly the ones who commit to the there's some good in this world and it's worth fighting for mindset.

are there any other characters from the franchise you’d like to play?

On discord, I have written little bits and pieces of Kimimaro, Temari, and Rock Lee.

are there some characters from the franchise you can’t stand?

I can't stand Danzo for all the obvious reasons, but that's also exactly why I love him as a villain. And, um... the same applies to Hiruzen, in a way. I do believe that Hiruzen is a man with good intentions, but he always falls victim to his own passiveness. The way Itachi goes to him after having literally just murdered his parents and traumatized his little brother for life and all Hiruzen can say is I'm so sorry this happened. Hiruzen is just a gutless Danzo, resting on the laurels of the whole Will of Fire spiel.

what are your thoughts on the canon ships for the character, if any?

Honestly, I'm not even sure if Itachi has a canon ship? Izumi is supposed to be his girlfriend but at the same time it can easily be taken as Izumi having an unrequited crush. Personally, I think they are very cute together but I would have loved to see more development other than to make it like "let's give Itachi a gf because he's cool and needs a girl to dangle as a trophy".

what is your personal ship bias for your canon character?

I am dying on the Kisame/Itachi hill and unapologetically so. Their bond is so special and precious to me, the way they grow from not-so-veiled death threats upon first meeting to genuinely respecting each other. The way Kisame, known as the Monster of the Bloody Mist, lets this scrawny Uchiha kid take the lead and trusts him without reserves. The way Itachi cares, even if he must keep up his detached psychopath persona, and keeps Kisame out of harm's way whenever he feels a battle won't go in his favor. THEIR MATCHING RINGS, IN BOTH THE FINGER POSITION AND THE SYMBOL MEANING. And the way Itachi is literally what Kisame thinks of as he's about to offer himself to his sharks. All of this is so *CLENCHES FIST*

are there any ships you can’t stand, why?

...Um. Sasuke/Itachi.

how long have you been writing the character?

Technically, for almost two decades. Not continuously so. If we are talking about this blog only, then it's been since January 2024.

should people get into the franchise you're writing from, yes or no?

I mean, sure? If they like the franchise and have characters they would like to write? I don't see why not.

if you could sum up your character with one sentence, what would it be?

I already did it above, so: Little Quirky Nerd Weasel

which song do you feel describes your character the most and why?

I have a few, actually! For some examples: "Gasoline", by Halsey, "Second Chance", by Shinedown, "The World of Mercy", by DIR EN GREY (this one is particularly👌👌👌for my villain verse). I think they're very Itachi-coded in both lyrics and melody. And, of course, the song in my pinned post: "Scarlet", by Yamaoka Akira. This song is peak Itachi vibes, especially when you look into his eyes. And, uh. Generally, almost all DIR EN GREY songs inspire me a lot to write his replies, because a lot of them are also the songs that I started writing him to, all those years back.

tagged by : @sagemom ♡ tagging : if you're reading this you're tagged by default~

#[dash games]#[ooc] i hope itachi is having a good day #[queued post]#long post

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damnfandomproblems · 1 year

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Below the cut is all of the responses that were in the inbox related to Fandom Problem 3954 and the subsequent asks. These will be all of the ones that were sent as anonymous.

The following ask came in on April 19:

I just want to say I appreciate the DID asks on this blog. It was a nice sanity check for me. One of my friend's kids who is in high school got sucked into it, he started "switching" at 17, and she's getting him to go to therapy to find the source of the problem, but he's apparently really argumentative with the psychologist and keeps insisting he only has DID, for very wrong reasons. Symptoms that don't match any kind of DID I've seen. His mum was really careful to find someone who was familiar with DID, I know she wouldn't send him to someone who doesn't know what they're doing because shes amazingly good with google-fu, so it can't be because the psychologist doesn't know what DID is or how to spot it. For a while the whole thing made me feel a bit crazy because his obviously fake symptoms and onset (?) didn't match how adamant he was that he had DID, I was starting to believe him too. I want to thank the asks for resetting my perspective. He certainly needs help it just isn't going to be help for DID.

Here are the ones from April 17 and they are out of order because of how I added them from the inbox:

I'm in college and know multiple people who are barely even minors anymore who just started faking tourette's out of the blue. One day they just showed up and started doing tics. Obviously fake tics for that reason, also because it's obvious they have a brief "wind up" period before them when they look like they're contemplating just how to pull off tics. They're all neck tics and arm tics too, nothing is ugly or painful. So I can confirm a lot more people are faking these things than people think. Dhar Mann even made a good skit about it because it's such a popular thing for kids (even college age adults who have trouble making connections and getting attention) to do

Oh god this is syscourse

It shows up on my dash once in a blue moon and I never have any idea that the fuck people are taking about. All I know is it has two sides who both despise each other and years of grudges

just wanna say that i'm glad most people here seem to have sensible takes regarding the "DID" boom online

As someone who knows someone who uses a system and has DID, the anon that said they were not responsible for making someone feel safe in the discord server is awful.

That anon makes my blood boil because it literally happened to my friend who has a system. My friend's fictive is part of who they are, and it is them. They have the right to feel uncomfortable when people do strange things with the character the fictive is.

In my friend's case, they had been in that server before the rper had joined. But the server mods decided to take my friend's "character rights" away since they said "technically you aren't rping as the character, so someone else can have them." Would you all agree with the mods in this case?

Y'all saying people with systems who are uncomfortable with how people portray characters that are their fictives should just accept it do not get it.

Would you be okay with someone portraying a real life person in a different way?

Would you be okay with people rping as real people?

If the answer is no to both of these, then y'all should understand why people with fictives feel uncomfortable with people portraying their ficitives in such ways.

Replying to a comment on 714814266546470912: "that doctor literally took videos from their tiktoks without permission" Bruh, first off, someone does not need permission to share something that was posted publicly on a public website. Once you post something to the internet, it's fair game. This is why adults tell you to never put something online unless you want it to be there forever, because once it's up, it's up for good, and people can save it, share it, edit it, however they want. If someone has posted selfies on the internet, someone has probably saved them, for whatever reason, because they thought the pictures were cute, because they're collecting dirt on them, etc, and even if that's not the case, the data will always be there. Maybe it's not pristine ethics to share videos of minors, young adults, etc with mental disorders (not DID, obviously they have something else like factitious disorder), but it's not illegal at all. And if you actually watched the video (which I doubt), you would know the doctor, faculty, etc had covered all legal bases by repeatedly saying they cannot diagnose anyone over the internet or thought videos. Repeatedly. And they were strictly looking at the behaviors which they see regularly in people who fake, behaviors which are a strong indication (but, again for legal reasons, not a guarantee) someone is faking. They said this. You really need to brush up on your knowledge of laws, most of all in medicine, research, studies, etc and actually using nuanced thinking.

Sorry to add to the fire but in my fandom I see LOTS of "traumagenic systems" (DID) who also claim to "support endos". That raises so many red flags too because if someone really did have DID and was well educated on it as a result, they would know how DID really works and they wouldn't in a hundred years support people who are pretending to have something with totally wrong, obvious fake symptoms and consider them "part of the community". I guess it makes it easy to know who to block though?

I want to thank the person who sent 714815628520898560 for sharing that video, I watched it this morning during my shift and it was really insightful!! I learned a lot :)

I’m thinking about Roman genius and Juno spirits, and also of the post made by EarlGrayTay about how the English language struggles with nuance, when it comes to degrees of intensity.

We don’t have a word for something between having some tulpas and having DID, and so people are saying they have the latter even when they don’t clinically qualify. I do think that in most cases people who self diagnose with DID are more likely to be closer to the tulpa end than the disordered end.

Also, as memory stuff is part of it, it’s entirely possible that the apparent excess of people with DID in fandom is because the nature of the internet allows for pseudo-sockpuppeting, with multiple personalities creating different accounts, potentially unaware of what the others, as memory is a big part of the diagnosis

714820580417863680 2% of the world's population as of 2020 is 156 million people.

Say that again, slowly.

156 million people do not have DID.

10:

These asks are wild lol. My thoughts are, fine, maybe "endogenic systems" exist in the context of not being actual DID, but if someone really thinks they can have multiple identities or parts without having trauma to predicate that, well, I hate to say but that's basically a religious belief at that point, and not even remotely related to a medical disorder. The human brain usually has one continuous, cohesive identity. Unless, like someone already mentioned, you experience harrowing trauma in your early childhood. You can call yourself a tulpa, you can call yourself endogenic, you can believe you have fifty fictional introjects, five different Resident Evil characters living in your head, but that doesn't make it science. If you want endogenic systems to exist, call it what it is: a religion. And stop trying to bully and force your way into getting medicine to accept these ridiculous things, because it will never happen

11:

Got diagnosed with did in my 20s. Here’s a thing most of the issues I’ve had with the online system community in general. Also this phone im typing on doesn’t show text cause tumblr so ye spelling mistakes a plenty.

1: the whole community regardless of endo or traumagenic is kinds crap. Came to it for resources on how to manage things like persecutors and understand wtf was up. Covid was a wild time. Therapist officially diagnosed me in 21. Why is this important, cause the whole ass community hted endos or trauma or whatever and all unanimously hated tiktok

2: the whole fictive debate became even more dumb when there were 50 different i ndividaula claiming to be a fictive from genshin. Really weird. Cause the peeps in multiple communities threw a fit making those name close cultures. Personally i think it was due to so many fictives or some blue haired guy?

3: the fact people treated it like fictionkin something i thought i had because yknow issues with dissociation well the fictives got treated more like kinning

4: the biggest thing is the community allowed delusional attachments to become such a common place thing. I get it identity be fucky but its an issue when delusional attachment’s cone into play. Mainly cause most if not all system communities used carrds and tiktok as resources.

5 or 6? Cause phone be fucky: despite claiming to hate endos the community was nothyper critical to self dxing without reseach and minors self dxing. There’s a lotta reasons why it normally os pouring gasoline on a fire.

Finally most system communities are primarily white and it shows cause of how much they prioritize racial relations and closed cultures along with treating introjects like shit.

So the submission about bein a fictive whos tired of people treating em like they’re gonna be identical as the character iscorrect. Rampant problem

12:

Re: all this DID stuff and certain people digging in in the comments to defend what they're doing, I think it's interesting to contemplate not just why people do this for DID delusions, but also for fandom things in general because I think it applies to both (and to keep things a little more on topic, ha). I read a comment recently where someone was talking about personal truths, which are subjective feelings and beliefs, and social truths, which are laws and social constructs. When someone loves themselves and has confidence, they're able to maintain personal truths that may differ from other people without feeling threatened, and they can maintain those personal truths or values. This is what happens when someone has strong feelings about characters, or identifies with a character, but is able to witness people sharing opinions without going to war over them.

On the other hand, people who have insecurities and a lack of self confidence (or worth) will fight to make personal truths into social truths, to make up for that self loathing. They feel they can force society to accept their personal truths to make them feel comfortable, because they can't derive any actual comfort from simply existing with their personal truths that differ so much from social truths. This is what happens when you have, like a lot of confessions lately have mentioned, people bullying others over headcanons, calling them bigots for not sharing a gay ship or something. Or when people have low self-esteem and might be struggling with mental health problems, and are trying desperately to find answers and find self-worth, but have accidentally opted for something that is not a social truth, but a personal truth (believing they have DID when it is very obviously not), and so they fight tooth and nail to make that warped version of DID into something officially recognized. That is the only way they can get validation beyond their bubble. I think it's a growing problem not only because it seems like the world is kinda imploding right now and people need some kind of stability, when personal truths may not suffice for that because of the above issues with self-confidence or insecurities, but also because we've reached the point where kids are growing up without ever NOT having known social media, and they have near-constant access to that social media, which makes for an increasingly bad precedent. Not just for kids, adults with underdeveloped coping strategies are susceptible too.

13:

I'm pleasantly surpirsed by the convo around DID here, because I read the post and was half expecting a horde of endogenic or willowgenic or (word)genic systems to come stampeding in here calling everyone ableists lol, I'm kinda relieved there hasn't been a bunch of that

14:

Honestly laughing at how a word like sysmed exists. Are people "sadmeds" or "anhemeds" for telling someone they're faking depression? Are people "schizomeds" for saying people are faking schizophrenia? This is absurd and it's ao fricking offensive to compare the above to being a transmedicalist.

#fandom problem 3954 #response to previous ask #response to previous problem

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kcthefirebreathing-bitchqueen · 2 years

Text

Sexual Selection

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 coming soon

phdstudent!reader x professor!reid

summary: Reader is a phd student at the college i her city. Her friends convince her to download a dating app for "self proclaimed nerds and geeks," and who does she meet through this site but Spencer Reid. Little does reader know.. she might have to interact with him more than she anticipated.

warnings: small age gap, mentions of childhood bullying, slight social anxiety, i think thats it so far.

A/N: Inspiration struck for this very swiftly and I have not been able to rest until it was out of my brain lol so enjoy.

Seriously WHAT were you doing. A little under a year after a rocky break up, your friends convinced you to download a dating app.

At first you strongly protested due to your severe lack of social skills and crippling fear of messing up socially, being too strange or a "know-it-all", as so many of your classmates called you in grade school. Your friends often described you as "intelligent in the way that makes you just a little socially awkward."

But you should've known that your fellow phd candidate friends would figure out a solution, which they did. You were adding the final touches to your "Zazo" account, a dating app for "self-proclaimed eccentrics" as the website advertised. You filled out a bunch of questions, some surface level but some with more depth. The last thing you had to fill out was a "pet peeve" question, to which you responded "People using improper pipetting techniques in the lab". Which hopefully would lure in the right crowd.

Your issue was that even though you should have known the app would draw in the people slightly on the other side of weird, you were still disappointed to not find people you had any interest in. Almost at the point of admitting defeat, you were swiping through the profiles so swiftly that you almost absentmindedly swiped past "Spencer, 29" whose first picture gave you pause.

He had this shaggy dirty blond hair that hung around his face in loose, relaxed waves that you immediately want to run your fingers through. But his face. He was nothing short of beautiful. You swiped through his picture and were surprised as warmth spread in your chest at his wide toothed grin as he held a puppy.

Good Lord, you thought to yourself, this deserves a superlike. Thats a thing right? You really had no idea. So you just casually indicated your interest, not wanting to be over eager.

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

You left your phone in the kitchen of your apartment while grinding out a few hundred words toward your thesis paper and came back awhile later to a new notification.

*Zazo*

2 new notifications

Your phone recognized your face and then your heart bottomed out.

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

You've matched with Spencer ---------------------------- Spencer sent you a message ----------------------------

You stared at it dumbfounded. It was easy to be bold when Spencer didn't know you existed. But now you need to INTERACT with this intimidatingly handsome man. And somehow convince him to find you interesting. There was a reason you saught out a dating interface for essentially weirdos, and you were hoping it was the same way for him.

Spencer Hey! I see you're very passionate about proper pipetting techniques. I think it's so fascinating that roughly 65% of errors in a lab setting can be attributed to human error so its great that young scientists know that and want to improve it. Looks like you're not just a pretty face ;)

This is why you wanted to join a weirdo dating app because you're pretty sure you just found your soulmate.

You Yes! Thank you! Finally, someone who understands! Maybe you and I should stand on soap boxes in the street together and preach about proper lab technique.

Spencer I think I'd like that :) Market St. Saturday 5 pm?

You

See you then ;)

What the hell just happened.

chapter 2

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #phdstudent!reader x Spencer #criminal minds fic #mggs hands #college

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spurious · 11 months

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⭐️⭐️!

(fic writer commentary asks)

me: getting this ask and going back and forth for three hours about whether it's too much to just go off on a fucking dissertation about O I Think We Should Be Brethren

actually, you know what, fuck it, we ball!!!! i'm extremely proud of this story and i can allow myself to talk about it.

For the moment I'm just going to talk about chapter one, because I started writing my thoughts and it got.........................................long, but if anyone's actually interested in the following two chapters I am fully willing to get into those as well.

ALRIGHT BUCKLE UP.

Walt Whitman's Live Oak, With Moss #4 reads, in its entirety, as follows:

This moment as I sit alone, yearning and pensive, it seems to me there are other men, in other lands, yearning and pensive. It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, France, Spain—Or far away in China, India, in Russia—talking other dialects, And it seems to me if I could know those men I should love them as I love men in my own lands; It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands; O I think we should be brethren—I think I should be happy with them.

So my initial notes for this were the sort of vague idea of exploring my headcanon of John being gay, and wanting to sort of chart some of his experiences with finding/looking for/failing to achieve a queer community? And how that would intersect with his having, you know. Joined the military, traveled to exotic locations, met interesting people, and killed them (as they used to say). This is also how I ended up starting to read that fascinating book about gay us military history, because I really just had no frame of reference for what John's experiences might've been like.

Anyway, I wrote the first paragraph or so one night when I couldn't sleep and was just laying in bed mentally writing lines (honestly good job to me for not thinking I'd remember in the morning and then...not lmao).

Initially I just started writing, thinking about this kind of...handful of formative queer experiences that John might've had, and then after a while it became evident that this was gonna be...kind of long...so I made a separate note attempting to diagram out the different biographical beats I wanted to hit (thanks stargate wiki and also so many information websites about the US air force). So I just sort of ending up writing my way through these different points of John's life, through the twin lenses of loving flying and loving men, and all of his understanding of the tension that existed there; all of which leads him to learn that his feelings need to be sort of ruthlessly compartmentalized for, essentially, his own safety.

Also while writing the first chapter of this fic I had a week or so where I just vivid-dreamed about airplanes and flying? Literally never happened to me before but ok

I think one of my favorite bits in the early section of the first chapter is John driving down to Edwards just hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the test flights. There’s something just really pure and sweet about it to me, and it sticks out as an impactful moment even though nothing really happens.

The section beginning with In Asia, John learns a few more things. is where I really think I started to hit a stride in terms of the overall voice of the story, the sort of barren sadness of it all, mixed with that quiet desperate little spark of hope.

Writing directly about John's relationship with Nancy in a story where he's explicitly, textually gay was an interesting exercise. My read on the whole situation is that he did care for her, and that he thought, to some degree or another, that he could make it work--that maybe friendship would be enough, that he could give her what she needed, and anyway, what the hell else was he going to do? Live his truth?

So the bit with Nancy is where I ended up getting into the sort of recurring motif of marriage vows (the playlist for this fic being called "till death" and all that). In terms of writing the breakup, I tried to use the small amount of screentime we get of Nancy, where she just seems sort of...sad, for John, like that he's like this? And idk, she probably could've, would've been angry, but she strikes me as this very in-control woman who would have planned out this conversation beforehand, not really wanting it to devolve into a whole..."scene", or whatever (since I tend to imagine Nancy is of a similar WASPy stock to John, iykwim). And John, I think, would just go along, because like, that's how he ended up in the marriage in the first place, for one thing, but again, I believe he cared for her and he'd, like. Want her to be happy?

The divorce is fast, and John finds out that, for all that the brass loves a family man, there's plenty of room in the chain of command for an unattached loner who doesn't care if he dies.

This is just a line I like. Like, John knows exactly what his value to the military is, I think.

So anyway, then I proceeded to give myself several million feelings about John and Holland? Honestly from Phantoms I immediately read the relationship as a romantic one, at least on John's end. Like yes it's a showing of his usual Sheppardian recklessness when someone important to him is in danger, but...I just think he's in love, it makes sense to me that he would've had this just absolutely fucking devastating experience? That he would've fallen in love with this sort-of-mostly-straight guy and convinced himself he could live on these little scraps of affection, and then it ends with the person he loves just fucking. Dying? That's how you end up depressed in Antarctica!!!

I spent a lot of time reading transcripts and rewatching snatches of episodes while writing this (mostly ch2, but) and when I got to this bit of Phantoms I just fucking lost it:

HOLLAND (weakly): Sheppard, when we get out of here, I'll make sure I say something really nice at your court martial. SHEPPARD (smiling): Yeah. Come visit me in Leavenworth, huh? HOLLAND: No. It's way too depressing. SHEPPARD: Yeah.

And it's EVEN FUCKING WORSE in the actual episode than it is in text. Like it seems as though Holland's trying to make a joke when he says no, but John just...takes it? Like yeah, of course, you wouldn't want to do that for me. About this guy he's sacrificing his career and his life for? He just goes, yep sure wouldn't expect you to put yourself out even a little bit? IT IS JUST DEVASTATING. AWFUL. Fucking horrible and absolutely perfect angst content for me and my fic lmao. god. I cannot believe how sad that exchange is.

Soooooo you know. I think John went into that rescue thinking he would either save Holland and get a court martial, or he would die. And I think for quite a while afterward, he believes that he should've died in that desert, and everything afterward is extra innings he didn't really deserve.

#ask meme #fic rambles

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