victoria

 But if you ask people who think about things, the answer is vague. Killing a hibernating bear would just feel… impolite? You can’t fucking shoot a man when he’s sleeping, that’s just fucking rude. It’s just not the right thing to do.

 Long before hunting laws were established in Finland, you couldn’t kill a sleeping bear, and what commands you is something older than law: tradition. Even at a time when hunting was a matter of life and death, and a bear fighting for its life is mainly a matter of death, you just didn’t kill a hibernating bear, you have to wake it up first. Hunters risked their lives, the lives of their brothers and everyone in the hunting party, who were friends, family and men that they loved, to give the bear a fighting chance.

 In the modern time, the hunting season of bears is in the summer, for the warmest summer months. There are many reasons for why they are allowed to tread safely in autumn and to sleep in peace through the cold months, almost all of which are rational and scientific, and do not touch the old traditions.

 Old faith says a living thing has many souls - henki, luonto, itse. Plants only have one - the one that wills them to grow. Animals have two, both the spark of life and nature that enables them to act. A human being also has the third, one that makes them a person, personality, itse, literally “self”. But the soul that travels in your dreams is not the soul that defines a human - animals have that one as well. When your dog runs in her sleep, her soul is elsewhere, where a dog is needed.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with lingering. Lingering is great. But if you feel stuck in a certain scene, consider it like this:

Stories are made up of two kinds of things. (Obviously an oversimplification, but hear me out.)

Stuff happening

Characters feeling some kind of way about it

In the Stuff Happening category, we got: landscapes existing, people getting murdered, pies baking, dogs barking, characters saying stuff, characters doing stuff, the scent of peaches, etc etc and so on.

The Characters Feeling Some Kind of Way category is just their reaction to the Stuff Happening, and, ideally, whatever it is they’re feeling leads them to act, which then becomes Stuff Happening, which they and other characters can have feelings about and react to.

So if you’re writing a scene and you can’t get out of it, what Stuff has recently happened? What is your character feeling about it and why? What does that lead them to do or say, and in what direction does that push them?

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

hotchreid boyfriends who crowd the bathroom, fighting for space, with aaron trying shave and spencer fixing his hair.

hotchreid boyfriends with aaron trying to keep the sock drawer organised by grouping the pairs together and spencer who can't have anything match.

hotchreid boyfriends with spencer who reads every draft of his papers out loud and aaron who lounges on the couch, tea in hand, listening to his arguments and helping him reconstruct them.

hotchreid boyfriends who lay awake at night whispering midnight thoughts about metaphysicality and the nature of the universe to each other.

hotchreid boyfriends with aaron coming home late from the office to find the kitchen smoking after one of spencer's physics magic experiments burning on the stove.

hotchreid boyfriends who laugh over silly science jokes, who debate what state of matter fire is, who spend their saturdays off browsing antique store, who snuggle on the couch watching old french films, who giggle endlessly, sway embraced to smooth jazz, who make pancakes for supper on friday nights, who have standing orders at the indian place down the street, who love each other so deeply it transcends the meta the physical and all of reality.

hotchreid boyfriends who treat each with gentleness, with kindness, sharing space, being goofy and silly and serious and loving.

gay aaron hotchner who feels guilty that he doesn't love haley like he thinks he should. who, over the years, can tell that there's something Wrong but his life is what it is and he can't change it. he doesn't want to. because he has haley and jack and a home and people who love him. and that should be enough. for everyone else it's a dream. but that closed, dying part of his heart aches and aches, slowly killing him.

gay aaron hotchner whose world crumbles after haley's death, the loss of his greatest friend, his wife, the partner he built this life with. gay aaron hotchner who puts everything into loving jack, into raising his son to be the kind and gentle person he is, never letting him see the pain he keeps locked in his heart.

gay aaron hotchner who works cases with homophobic causes that create unsubs or unsubs who take that hate into their own hands. who feels unparalleled rage at the injustice that innocent queer people face, the scorn and judgement society casts on them. but he never thinks of himself as one of them, he never lets his thoughts go there.

gay aaron hotchner who, when jack is with jess, goes on runs and likes the colour of the dog walker's hair at the park. who's eyes follow the backs of the swimmers at the gym before he catches himself. whose dry banter with the barista at the coffee shop verges on something he’s never done before.

gay aaron hotchner who's always understood attraction and beauty but as distant things. who's never let himself look twice at a man crossing the street. until one day, spencer comes into the office with a fresh hair cut and something about it peaks aaron's interest. his eyes follow the edge of his jaw, the curls collected on top, the length of his eyelashes, the bridge of his nose. it's the little things he sees and tries to ignore until he can't anymore. especially not with the way spencer looks at him.

Fandom: Criminal Minds (US TV) Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid

oblivious in that he can read an unsub to filth but he can't understand the sweet smiles spencer constantly shoots his way.

oblivious in that he can decode a serial killers actions, pick apart their motive, but can't understand the hangouts spencer always invites him too.

spencer is always sweet on him. doting in a way that isn't overbearing. he brings aaron coffee in the mornings. not from the breakroom but from his favourite cafe down the street. he checks on him throughout the day, checking to see if he can manage the caseload. spencer remembers the special days. aaron's birthday, aaron's first day in the bureau, aaron's first solved case. spencer remembers it all and brings him a gift for each one.

these things, these acts, aaron can write them off as friendly and professional. a coworker recognising work related days as an acknowledgement.

but, but, there are other things he can't explain.

the quick press of spencer's hand on his shoulder when he passes him in a conference room. the feel of his eyes tracking his walk across the bullpen. the flush of his cheeks when aaron comes in with a fresh haircut.

spencer watches him with an emotion aaron can't identify or understand. it's warm, sweet, kind, and hungry. it's quizzical, inquisitive and searching. it's dangerous and confusing.

spencer whispers compliments and aaron smiles in acknowledgement, thanks on the tip of his tongue. spencer asks to watch a movie with him, to share dinner, to hangout and listen to an audiobook together. and aaron can't figure out if these are friendly gestures or something he needs to make a note of.

no one treats him like this. no one pays him this much attention.

it makes him feel fuzzy, surrounded by warmth and affection. it makes him feel dizzy, weightless with how high spencer lifts him. it's addictive and aaron hates how much he loves it.

he doesn't get it. he can't make sense of it.

he's oblivious. and it's adorable until it isn't.

until the team are tired of watching their leader miss the most obvious signs. until dave and emily pull him to the side, ask what spencer is to him, listen to aaron monologue about spencer's hair for fifteen minutes before grabbing his shoulders and begging him to ask spencer out.

and, of course, aaron will say no. because he doesn't think spencer will ever like him. that spencer can never feel so deeply for him. that all of his acts are ones of kindness and nothing else.

but those eyes, locked on the stretch of his shoulders, and the smirk dancing on his lips.