#Arden core

[kentnaturaltribrid]

“You have your gallery of rouges, I have my groves.”

Couldn’t think of anything else to add to the already needing some possibly repairs and already sitting around somewhere, so decided to add this third one to the Ivys collection that should by now be sitting in reality somewhere, but for the most part can’t seem to find a good set of three or four of them. Only seem to have found these three so far. The one that I found today, and then the other two in the pile. It’s not much, but these are getting harder and harder to find. Would definitely want to do some bracelets to go with them, if I have time.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

"I wouldn't have eaten the forbidden fruit" yes you would have. Why? Because you do it everyday. Because every character in the bible does it (with a few exceptions) over and over and over again. The narrative uses different ways of talking about it, "taking the fruit", "getting bit by the snake", etc but the real point is that your absolute failure to read the bible as a narrative, and instead to insist on historicity as your primary way of reading scripture, is the root issue here because it causes you to be blind to the actual message of the Bible.

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Melt with You

Pairing: Billy Taylor (The Halcyon) x f!reader Warnings: Smut, oral sex (m receiving) Word count: ~3k

Summary: Snowed in at the Halcyon, Billy and his girlfriend have to find ways to keep themselves occupied. Can be read as a second part to Sweeter Than This, but also works as a standalone.

Author's note: Day three of Smuffmas - blizzard and blow job. No tag list. Follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications.

She has had a spring in her step all day long. From the moment she stepped out of her front door that morning, and felt the first chilly flakes of snowfall upon her cheeks, to the beds she has stripped throughout the day, she hasn’t been able to shift the smile from her face, or the excited flutters from her belly – she has the house to herself this evening, and Billy is coming over.

From the moment her and Billy’s relationship had progressed from friends to something more, they had struggled to find alone time together. With Billy kept busy on the anti aircraft guns down at the army barracks, and her working long shifts at the Halcyon, finding a free moment was almost impossible. Their living situations didn’t help matters either; both lived with their mums. On the occasions when Peggy would work a night shift on the hotel switchboard, she would go over to Billy’s, but their evenings together usually consisted of looking after his little sister.

When things grew heated between them, it was always a stolen moment on a break in one of the rooms she had yet to turn down. They had never spent a full night together, and still hadn’t had sex, though after six months of courting, she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that. Her mind often wandered to the first time he had brought her to peak on his tongue, the memory making her core throb with want and her skin grow heated. Billy had done it twice more since then, and she was eager to make him feel just as good without going all the way. She just didn’t know how.

It had been Kate who had suggested she return the favour. “You know you can use your mouth on him too?” she’d suggested as they had been folding clean sheets and towels.

She’d felt her cheeks blaze with embarrassment as her eyes had widened. “You mean…put his…his thing in my mouth?!”

Kate had laughed, playfully flicking a pillowcase at her. “You needn’t act so bloody daft, you seem quite happy to be on the receiving end.”

She sighed, her hands pausing mid fold and looked shyly up at her fellow maid. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t know how. What if I get it wrong and he laughs at me?”

“Billy? Laugh at you?” she had scoffed, “he would never. He’ll think all of his Christmases have come at once. It’s called a ‘blow job’.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I was seeing a fella who’s a pilot. He taught me how. I can tell you how to do it, if you want?”

She had chewed her lip anxiously, the very idea of discussing something so intimate made her incredibly embarrassed, but at the same time she was curious, and if she was going to do this for Billy, she wanted to make sure she did it right. Finally, she had nodded her assent and for the next twenty minutes the pair of them had giggled and spoken in hushed whispers as Kate had explained precisely what she did when orally pleasing a man.

Tonight, she was planning to put what she had learned into practice. Her mum was working a night shift at the factory, Billy had the night off from the barracks, and Peggy wasn’t working the Halcyon’s switchboard, meaning he wouldn’t be needed to babysit. She was due to finish her shift at 6pm, then Billy would meet her in the hotel lobby and they would walk back to hers. An entire evening together, she couldn’t wait.

She was jittery with excitement by the time she finished for the day, her hands shook as she changed out of her black and white maid’s uniform and into a green, collared dress with an A-line skirt. Kate had let her borrow her expensive Elizabeth Arden lipstick in the shade ‘Montezuma red’, stating “you want his attention to be drawn to your lips, trust me”. She applied a liberal coat to her lips, taken aback by how the bright crimson did indeed draw all attention to her mouth as she stared in the mirror.

She hurried from the staff room in the back, her coat and bag slung over her arm, before she could give herself the chance to change her mind and wipe it all off.

Billy was sitting in one of the foyer's plush leather armchairs as she walked out, and her face lit up the moment she saw him, a wide smile spreading across her face. He was out of his uniform too, having swapped his olive green jacket and trousers for a white collared shirt beneath a grey woolen jumper and brown slacks. His hair was slicked back with Brylcreem, though a few strands had fallen loose around his temples. He looked so handsome, and it was nice that for once they could just be themselves together; her and Billy, not the maid and the soldier.

His jaw fell agape as he finally turned to look at her, his eyes travelling from her head to her toes and back again, before he stood to greet her. “Wow…you look…wow.”

She giggled, glad she stuck with the lipstick as she watched him flush a deep shade of pink. “Ready to get out of here?” she asked, “I know I am.”

He nodded, grabbing his coat from the arm of the chair as she started to put her own on. “Yeah, might have to mind how we go though,” he gestured towards the bottoms of his trousers, which she could now see were damp, “snow was coming down pretty heavy when I walked here an hour ago.”

“You got here an hour ago?” She asked with a playful smile.

Billy busied himself with putting his coat on, an attempt to hide his embarrassment. “Was excited to see ya.”

She’s about to respond, to tell him how sweet he is, when the hotel’s chief concierge, Feldman, walks in from outside, his footsteps clicking against the polished floors. He dusts white flakes from the lapels of his jacket as he walks, stopping when he sees them both. 

“You’re not both going out in that, are you?” He asks, a look of genuine concern causing his brows to pinch together.

She nods. “Billy’s gonna walk me home.”

“In this weather?” Feldman says, “I hardly think so.”

“Just a bit of snow, Mr. Feldman,” Billy retorts, “we’ll be alright.”

“Look outside,” the chief concierge tells them, gesturing towards the doors, “there’s a blizzard. We’ve had three no shows already because of it.”

She hurries towards the main doors of the hotel, struggling to push them open against the force of the wind. Peering out, she can see a thick blanket of white covering the entire street, too thick to drive safely in, let alone walk. The wind howls, ushering with it a continuous steady flurry of fresh snowfall.

This is a stark contrast to the light dusting that she walked through on her way to work this morning. She’d been stuck in the windowless laundry room for most of the day, so hadn’t realised how bad the weather had gotten.

Feeling Billy’s presence behind her, his chest against her back as he looks too, she turns to him, her voice dejected as she asks “what are we going to do?”

“You’ll both just have to stay here until it’s safe for you to go home,” Feldman answers for him, “with the no shows due to the weather, I’m sure there’d be no objections to you both taking one of the empty rooms if it ends up being overnight.”

“Thanks, Mr. Feldman”, Billy responds as they head back towards the staff room.

She flops down onto the threadbare sofa of the back room of the hotel, sighing heavily as she shrugs out of her coat. Tonight was supposed to be special and now it was all ruined, thanks to the snow.

“What’s with the face?” Billy asks gently, coming to sit beside her.

“I was really looking forward to tonight,” she whines.

Billy nods in understanding, giving her knee a reassuring squeeze. “I know, so was I. But we’ll still have a nice time, won’t we? Doesn’t matter where we are, as long as we’re together.”

“I’d baked you a Lord Woolton’s pie,” she protests, “and…and I…well, it doesn’t matter now,” she trails off, not having the courage to explain what else she’d had in mind for their night alone.

“It’ll keep,” he says with a shrug, smiling earnestly, “you can bring me a slice down to the barracks.”

She can’t help but smile back, and feel slightly guilty. Here she is, sulking about how things have gone wrong, when Billy is trying to make the best of it, just like he always does. “I’ll bring you the whole thing.”

“Tell you what, I bet the kitchen has some stuff knocking about, I could grab us a few things, and we could have that for our tea.”

She huffs a laugh, swatting playfully at his arm. “You can’t go skulking about the kitchen, Billy, you don’t work here anymore.”

“Who’s gonna stop me?” He asks, getting up and chucking his coat over the back of the sofa, before walking out.

After a few moments he returns with a platter and two bottles of beer. He sets everything down upon the rickety table in front of where they’re sitting; a spread of Spam sandwiches and sponge cake.

“Didn’t wanna take anything fancy,” he explains apologetically, “George was watching me.”

“This is perfect,” she says softly as he sits next to her again.

“Remember these?” Billy asks, picking up a Spam sandwich, “we used to eat them every lunch break.”

She giggles and nods. “I remember you always used to eat my fish paste ones, because I didn’t like them.”

Billy wrinkles his nose in disgust, making her laugh harder, and the two fall into a comfortable silence, eating cake and sandwiches as they sip their beers and watch through the window as the blizzard continues to blanket London in a heavy white shroud.

She stares thoughtfully at him, watching the way the low lamplight of the staff room illuminates the sharp features of his face. Despite tonight being the furthest thing from what she had planned, she still wants to make him feel good; he had been so positive, when she had been all too eager to complain.

“Billy..?”

“Mmm..?” He replies, looking away from the window to where she sits beside him.

“Want to find one of those free rooms?”

“Not time for bed yet, is it?” He asks with a grin.

“I don’t want to sleep,” she says, pushing off of the sofa, casting a knowing glance over her shoulder at him, as she walks away.

“Oh…oh,” his eyes widen in realisation as he almost trips over his own feet in his haste to follow her.

She lets herself into one of the empty rooms - one she had turned down herself earlier that day - and quickly reapplies her lipstick in front of the large mirror that sits atop the vanity, the beer and sandwiches having faded its bright red hue slightly.

The hotel room did make for a more plush surrounding for what she has planned - the cramped confines of her single bed are leagues apart from the opulence of the crisp white linens and velvet lined furniture of The Halcyon.

The moment the door clicks closed behind Billy, he wraps his arms around her. It’s like second nature to him now to do so, though she can still feel the heavy pounding of his heart; he is no less nervous, he’s just gotten better at hiding it.

“I really wanna kiss you,” he whispers, his voice trembling slightly, “but I don’t wanna ruin your pretty lipstick.”

“Didn’t bring you in here to kiss you,” she whispers back.

Billy swallows thickly, a light dusting of pink tinting his skin all the way to the tips of his ears as he grins impishly at her. “Oh right, you want me to…er–”

“No, not tonight,” she explains, fighting the urge to chuckle at the sudden look of confusion that passes across his face. “Tonight, I’m going to do something for you.”

Reflexively, his fingers tighten slightly on her waist. “Do what?”

Mustering more bravery than she feels, she battles to keep her cool as she responds, not wanting to show any hesitation or embarrassment. “Do you know what a blowjob is, Billy?”

His eyes widen as his jaw falls agape, staring at her in utter disbelief. “You…you can’t…I mean, yeah, but you…you don’t have to…”

The stammered display of consideration for her feelings reassures her, quieting any apprehension she had previously felt. She is surer now than ever that she wants to do this for him.

“I want to,” she insists, “will you lay on the bed for me?”

She can see the way his chest heaves with how heavy his breathing has gotten, but he nods, removing his shoes and laying down. She is swift in joining him, her hands moving to his belt.

“Can I?” She asks.

His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted as he stares at her, before nodding enthusiastically. She can feel her own pulse racing, nervous excitement fluttering in her belly. She unbuckles his belt, before working open the button of his slacks and unzipping them. As the material parts, she can see the outline of him through the white cotton of his briefs. She gazes at it, her mouth going dry at the sight. She’d never seen this part of him before, let alone touched it.

She looks up at him, seeing he’s watching her intently, his cheeks flushed. She knows the question she needs to ask, and hates that she has to, knowing it will betray her inexperience. “Are you…are you hard?” she utters meekly, “you have to be for me to do this.”

“Er…only half,” he murmurs, “need you to touch me.”

His complete lack of judgement emboldens her, and she nods, grasping the waistband of his briefs. “I can do that,” she says, tugging them down.

She studies his cock with fascination as she takes it into her hand, stroking gently from base to tip and back again, just as Kate had said she would need to. She marvels at the softness of the skin, the way it glides with each stroke of her palm. Billy lets out a soft groan as his head falls back against the pillow and she feels him grow larger, more rigid in her hand. The tip is bulbous, ruddy in colour and she can’t help but wonder how he will taste against her tongue.

“I–I’m ready when you are,” he pants softly.

She nods, drawing in a breath, before delicately wrapping her lips around the head of him, careful not to let her teeth touch him. The taste is musky, slightly salty, yet not unpleasant.

“Bloody hell,” she hears Billy say under his breath as his hips buck instinctively, pushing more of himself into her mouth. She sputters as he hits the back of her throat and he pulls away, uttering repeated apologies. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, no one’s ever done this to me before. Are you alright?”

Though her eyes have begun to water, her heart swells at his admission, and she’s comforted knowing he is every bit as much a novice as she is. She nods, composing herself, before grasping the base of him. “I want to keep going.”

This time, as her mouth envelopes him, Billy keeps still, fisting the sheets either side of him, as she bobs her head, working her mouth up and down his length, watching the obscene red smear that her lips leave behind. Kate’s instructions play on a loop in her mind, and she strokes what won’t fit in her mouth in time with her movements, hollowing her cheeks.

Billy’s pants grow more desperate as he whispers curses, his brow furrowed as he teeters on the edge of climax. She can feel him beginning to twitch, the way his thighs tense.

“Stop, stop, stop, I’m gonna— FUCK!” he cries out.

She pulls off him, continuing to stroke him as she watches spurts of his thick, white release coat her knuckles and his lower abdomen. She lets go, wiping her hand on the bedsheet, when he finally stills, having spent himself.

“How was that?” She asks with a coy smile as she watches him lay there and gasp for breath.

“I think you killed me,” he says, voice hoarse. When he finally lifts his head from the pillow, a dopey grin spreads across his face. “Can I kiss you now? Your lipstick’s all ruined anyway.”

She giggles, imagining what a mess she must look like right now, but knowing there’s nothing she wants more.

Part one | Series masterlist

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Green and Blue are God's favorite colors. *shrugs*

at least the colour green exists

[d-criss-news]

See an exclusive first look at Darren Criss’ return to Broadway in Maybe Happy Ending

The "Glee" actor stars as a Helperbot named Oliver, opposite Helen J. Shen making their Broadway debut as Claire.

There’s nothing new about an awkward meet-cute turning into a love story… But what if that love story is between two robots?

That’s the question posed by Maybe Happy Ending, a new musical coming to Broadway this fall, starring Emmy-winning Glee and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story actor Darren Criss. The show also marks the Broadway debut of Helen J. Shen (The Lonely Few) and Dez Duron (The Voice). Featuring a book by Will Aronson and Hue Park, with music by Aronson and lyrics by Park, Maybe Happy Ending is helmed by Tony Award winner Michael Arden (Parade, Once on This Island), with scenic design by Dane Laffrey (A Christmas Carol).

Ahead of its debut, Entertainment Weekly has your exclusive first listen to the show, with a music video of Criss and Chen’s emotional duet, "When You’re in Love.”

Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen in "Maybe Happy Ending". MAYBE HAPPY ENDING THE MUSICAL/YOUTUBE

The musical — a big hit in its native South Korea, winning six 2016 Korean Musical Awards and the Richard Rodgers Production Award for the English-language version — made its American debut at Atlanta’s Alliance theater in 2019. Now the show is coming to the Great White Way with Criss and Shen as Oliver and Claire, two outcast HelperBots whose initial awkward encounter evolves into an unexpected relationship.

“There's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two,” Criss told EW of the HelperBot romance. “You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss.” Oliver is living the simple life of an outdated HelperBot when the story begins, tending to plants and listening to jazz in his one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Seoul. Then Claire comes by to borrow a charger, and changes everything. The video finds the HelperBots united by emotion, yet far apart as they process the swirling feelings of being in love for the first time. “When you’re in love, you’re never satisfied,” they lament. “The thing you want is always out of reach.”

By the end, they’re piecing together both the joys and painful realities of their newfound feelings. They sing, “Now I’m hoping that you feel all the things I feel / Wishing that you want me to sit beside you /Wanting now to learn all the things you are / Waiting for a chance to invite you in my heart.” If the prospect of seeing two bots find love isn’t enticing enough, Criss jokes that empathizing with the characters will at least give audiences a leg up in the AI apocalypse. “If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover,” he laughed. Maybe Happy Ending begins previews at the Belasco Theatre on Wednesday, September 18. Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning on Thursday, June 6 at 10AM.

Watch the "When You're In Love" music video above and read more of Criss' thoughts on the HelperBot romance below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Can you start by telling me a little bit about Oliver and what's at the core of this character for you? Well, I'll tell you what, this is the first time I'm ever really doing any kind of talking about a show that I haven't had much familiarity with yet. And I'm not saying that to avoid talking about it so much as to highlight the unique nature of my involvement in this show because, at least if we're talking about the theater, specifically Broadway Theater, every show that I've ever done came with something of a legacy and was a show that I would have been very familiar with, and I think audiences at large, for the most part would've had a history with it.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my Broadway debut, massively popular, classic Broadway show, people knew it. Second one was, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I grew up as a teenager loving that show. And then the revival of American Buffalo, that's now a standard contemporary American classic and studied that in drama school and yada yada yada. So when talking about the show, I had a really good handle because the show had lived with me for most of my life. [Maybe Happy Ending] is a brand new show, which is wildly exciting. But I have yet to figure out that answer. I can tell you what his core is on paper, which is that Oliver is a Helperbot, something like a hundred years in the future where our technology helpers — in the way that we have our Alexas, and our Siris, and our digital systems, and our smart assistants — have evolved into more humanoid representations. He is a Model 3 in the world of Model 5's and is very much outdated, and kind of running the last of his powered up life in the world that we're watching him and coming to grips with the things that left him behind.

We got a little taste of it in the music video, but what do you think it is about the Oliver and Claire relationship that people will respond to? Or what did you respond to? There's nothing like being able to look at ourselves by looking through the eyes of things that aren't us. I find the most I'm ever moved about the human experience comes from animated films where you have non-human characters trying to figure out human emotions. It's a really great way for audiences to subconsciously look at their own experience objectively. It's funny that it takes inhuman characters to examine humanity in a way that feels somehow accessible. If you see yourself up there, it maybe hits too close to home. But you might think about it a little differently if you're suddenly looking at things through the objective lens of a true outsider — be it a cartoon fox or a mermaid wanting to be human.

So having said that, this is a story about two HelperBots, two robots “falling in love." Of course, they're not human, so they can't physically, literally intimately actually fall in love, but they have to sort of figure out what that means by way of how they've experienced human beings themselves, by cues they've gotten from their own owners and from the world around them. And when you start examining things like love, things like loss through the eyes of non-humanoid things that are trying to computationally analyze and synthesize those things, you sort of start to look at them in a different way. There are many things about the show — the premise was very interesting, and I think the design is exquisite, it's a wonderful theatrical experience. Getting to work with a longtime friend, Michael Arden is such a joy, and there's so many things about that that make this appealing to me. And of course the music is fun, and it's cute, and funny, and charming. But there's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two. You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss. And how do we deal with that? How and why do human beings willingly enter this contract if we know that on the other side of it, there is something that will hurt and that can hurt because love does come with loss, whether it's loss of self, loss of wholeness.

And this show really shows a really beautiful balance of these beings trying to suss out thousands of years of human meditation — of all the hundred thousand songs and poems and stories that have tried to help us understand this balance of love and loss, and the highs and the lows of it are pretty profound. er. In “When You’re In Love” there's the sentiment that being in love is the loneliest you can be. Is that something that you immediately connected with, or was that surprising?

I think that song's very interesting because it's them putting the pieces together. Many lines in the song that talk about how being loved does just constantly leave you with a sense of longing. Which I think goes back into the main thesis, which is love in many ways is loss. They kind of coexist in this yin-yang. It's just one's much more fun and more accessible to talk about, but they kind of come hand in hand. Again, the systematic exploration of all of the ones and zeros of what love is — it's a lot of ones, but it is also a lot of zeros, and one of those things is being lonely and the feeling of not being whole without a certain thing. Which I think is a really good connector to what this show talks about, which is the function of the things in our life that we lose. It is funny that we are getting closer and closer to the realities of what this show presents and suggests. The idea that Siri could be a person in a hundred years isn't absurd, it's not a crazy idea. Even talking about things like robots or artificial intelligence, it's an immediate thing that is part of the cultural fabric and a continual discussion about how and where and why it's going to be part of our life.

But even without talking about those sort of more sci-fi leaning things, technology is in many ways, like people in our life. I mean, people treat their phones like babies. We have attachments to our phones and the way that we need them in our lives and the way we care for them and the reliance we have on them. And the idea of shelf life and things being outdated, we're pretty comfortable with. It's more comprehensible with tech and objects. But it's funny that we have this cognitive dissonance between that and the idea of things being outdated and out of its prime is harder to grasp and a harder pill to swallow with people, and it's a harder journey to go on with people. But what happens when our objects become closer in likeness and experience to people? How are we going to wrap our brains around that and how will they wrap their brains or their programming around that? And how will they feel? Will they feel at all? How will they feel about their impermanence as it relates to ours and vice versa? So there's a lot of really, really nice questions being asked in this show.

Are you finding that it's changing your relationship to Siri and Alexa and your technology? As of now, absolutely not. Well, maybe in the future. Maybe. I'll bite my tongue… In a few years, who knows? She's listening. I'll be nice to you Siri, I promise. As long as you're nice to me when you decide to take over the planet. Well, after you've played a Helperbot, you've got an in. Hopefully that'll soften the AI takeover, they'll let us loose. If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

In this house, we do philosophy in the kitchen, theology in the bedroom, and mysticism in the garden. As God intended.

[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

and my body remains (but the person is gone)

Chapter 1: if i should drift away (please don't revive me)

Ao3 | 4.3k Words | Gabe Shaw's POV

Asher was, at his core, friendly. It was a dangerous thing to be for someone who looked like he did. He had his mother’s fiery hair, his father’s striking eyes. His boyish features gave him a soft, approachable look. Tall and slender, all of Asher’s strength was hidden. He was shaking up to be a handsome young man. Gabe didn’t worry about David, not in this way. Not even Milo, a whole foot shorter than David, sent off alarms in his head when around strange adults. He worried about Asher the way he worried about Amanda and Arden.

-

It's the last week of David and Asher's sophomore year. Gabe is woken up at midnight by a panicked call from Asher, asking for a ride home from a party. Things go a bit sideways after that. It takes Ash some time to recover.

Please mind the tags on this one. It is really rough.

TW: sexual content, rape, attempted rape, drugging, date rape drugs, violence, murder

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

I wake up, at sunrise, in a cottage filled with books about the mysteries of the universe and divinity and nature and humanity. My window is toward the east so I can see the sunrise from inside, but I'm going to get up anyway. I wake my beloved up. Takes a while because they love to sleep, but eventually they do (they have such kind brown eyes). We get up and watch the sunrise before taking the flocks to browse among the lilies in the garden-forests and green pastures and still waters, all the while we eat fruit from the trees and write/read poetry together

Also we laugh at the king a lot because lmao you wish you were us get rekt fool

Your Tumblr username decides your profession. How is your first day at work?

[graveyardviolence]

arden minyard core

[capitalisticveins]

Shaw Pack Headcanons Part 4 i think (INVERSION EXCLUSIVE EDITION [Ft. Sam])

I only listened to each Aftershock video once bc they make me cry so if any of these hcs were debunked in those vids PLEASE tell me

Also in another part of these hcs I said that Baaabe and Angel carpooled to the stadium so that’s why all four of them drove back in the same car okay enjoy

- Christian wholeheartedly believed he would die during Inversion.

- Tank was doing security during the Inversion, but they were scheduled to work inside the school, so they heard what was going on via Lasko’s announcement

- When they heard, they ran to the ward while shifted, and headbutted the ward. They kept punching and clawing at the ward while yelling incoherent words. It took Milo and Sweetheart pulling them back and explaining the plan to calm them down. By the end of it, their knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and tears were flowing down their eyes.

- They were more angry with themselves than they were with anyone else. They were the one who volunteered to work inside the school, and they were slacking off. They keep cursing themself out for sleeping under the staircase while their entire pack and Sam were fighting for their lives. They believe they could’ve done something, or protected more people if they were inside.

- David considered disbanding the Shaw Security company, Angel had to convince him otherwise, because he’d regret it in the end.

- Sweetheart thought Milo would die when he used his core to break the ward.

- When Tank and Sam got home, he broke down immediately in their arms. They spent that night on his reclining chair just staying in each other’s embrace.

- Christian and Arden refused to split up. No matter how many times they were told they’d save more people that way, neither budged.

- Sweetheart tried to phase through the ward to see if everyone’s okay, but couldn’t.

-David and Asher tried to text Baaabe and Angel, but the messages couldn’t go through. It wasn’t until an hour after everything happened that Baaabe and Angel got the text, and they nearly cried reading them.

- Baaabe bought the wedding ring 2 days after the Inversion. They never wanted to lose the chance to propose again.

- Sweetheart broke every traffic law possible when Milo called all panicky.

- Angel cried so much when they saw David made it outside the ward that they couldn’t see and drive back home. Baaabe had to drive the car with Asher riding shotgun.

- Tank saw the Closeknit ad before Milo told them about it, and broke their laptop in half midway through the ad.

- Kelsey wasn’t with the pack during Inversion, so when she heard about what happened, she immediately booked a flight and called Christian and Arden non-stop.

- Angel strained their voice and had to drink tea for a week with how much they were yelling.

- Baaabe was crying too, but it was easier for Lasko to comfort them because they were more willing to listen.

- When the ward fell, Baaabe and Angel stuck together and ran into the crowd, asking if anyone saw any wolf shifters around that were a part of security.

- Tank refused to show up to the award ceremony for the Shaw Pack. Half was for hatred of the Department, the other half was them believing they didn’t deserve it.

- Baaabe found Asher’s chest scars endearing about 7 months after Inversion. It reminds them he’s still there.

- Angel was making cupcakes before they got Milo’s call, to celebrate a “successful job for the Shaw Pack”. When Angel and David got home they told him they had to fix something in the kitchen before they’d join him in bed.

- They threw the cupcakes out the window and sprayed Febreeze everywhere.

- Bailey felt horrible that she wasn’t there for them when Inversion happened, -and didn’t go to any pack meetings or Solstices the next year.

- Milo was worried, she went NC with everyone, and he had to find out where she lived to talk about it.

Taglist: @vidiawinter360 @ilovedavidshaw

[not-poignant]

Hi, Pia! I am in love with FFS. Was there anything written from Arden’s point of view? I think it would be interesting to hear Arden’s perspective on some of the events. He is such an interesting character.

Hi anon!

Nothing has been written officially from Arden's POV yet (though I have started working on something small idk if I'll ever finish it).

That was actually fully intentional. It's always a conscious choice as to whether I split the POV between the two main characters (like in Underline the Black) or if I only have one POV in a story (like in Falling Falling Stars) and it's always because I believe the story will be stronger with or without that second POV.

In Falling Falling Stars, it was more important to Efnisien's story and his arc to have someone comforting and strong in his life, and that was part of the wish fulfillment of his arc.

But Arden is someone with quite severe ADHD as well as PTSD and his mind can be pretty intense. His POV itself I didn't think would feel very relaxing to read, and would detract from the core purpose of the story.

The thing that makes Arden so interesting and tantalising is partly that we never see things from his perspective. And I've noticed over the years this happens with a few characters I specifically chose not to share a POV of because it makes them more interesting not to share it (the Raven Prince, Arden, Ash, Raphael in Palmarosa, Hank in Eversion, even Temsen and other side characters).

In that sense often your imaginations are doing a much better job of what I'm doing, and sometimes that's...very deliberate in the sense that I made a choice that a character would be more hooky and interesting if we didn't see inside their head.

Now that a lot of time has gone by, I've considered Arden perspectives a bit more, in the same way that I've started writing Ash perspectives etc. in the original Fae Tales universe. But they aren't specifically perspectives on previous events.

I think I'll always leave that up to folks imaginations. I spend a lot of time before a story thinking which way is best - both or one POV, and I usually have a pretty lengthy pros/cons list that still leaves me on 'it's better to not see Arden's views on certain events!' That doesn't mean he's thinking bad things, but I always have to consider the function of the whole story aslkfjdsa and sometimes that means omitting things that would be interesting to read in favour of things that I think are more interesting and/or become more interesting because they're omitted. :D

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

I love when my mutuals just get me.

hope is a skill

[boywonderloverr]

thoughts on the word fat

I've been fat for my whole life and when i was a kid, i couldn't even say the word. I mean it. in any context, I physically couldn't bring myself to say "fat." i felt like if the word was uttered in my presence that everybody would look at me; I thought I was the first connotation in everybody's minds. to say it out loud filled me with unbearable shame. fat was an ugly word.

as I got older i was able to say it on occasion, but only in a self deprecating way. id call myself fat and mean it as an insult. sometimes if i did, I'd get the very typical response of someone who means well but doesn't know the best way to go about it: "you're not fat, you're beautiful!"

and for a while I really loved when people told me that because in my mind, fatness meant ugliness and ugliness meant worthlessness.

changing my mindset around the word fat changed my life, i think.

because at some point i started to ask myself why, if i never thought that other fat people were ugly or somehow of lesser value than thin people, did i think that about myself? why on earth would the way my body looks change my value as a human being? getting more comfortable with the word took time. it's hard to unlearn that feeling of shame. my whole life i was told that fat = bad, and it took a while to start thinking differently. I took baby steps. started with the terms plus size or chubby. those are still wonderful terms to use. but i wanted to be able to say more than that.

I remember the first time I called myself fat and didn't mean it in a negative sense. i was fourteen, hanging out with friends in their backyard. and my girlfriend at the time was quick to 'correct' me. "you're not fat, arden. you're beautiful.'

and for the first time in my life, that response didn't make me happy, it made me confused and angry. and that emotional response shocked me to my core, and spoke to how much progress I had made in terms of my own self image. for the first time i could actually recognize that fat and ugly are not synonyms, fatness and beauty are not exclusive from one another.

it's been a while and I still struggle a lot with my body image and sense of worth. i still have days where I feel worthless or unlovable because of how I look. i am still very young and still have a long ways to go on the journey of self acceptance. but honestly, reclaiming the word fat has helped me so much. it helps me every day. when I felt bad about myself, I'd call myself fat as a way to degrade myself. now I call myself fat to uplift myself. i tell myself that I'm fat and that's okay. I'm fat and worthy of love and friendship and acceptance. I'm fat and beautiful. I'm beautiful because I'm fat. I'm fat and strong, I'm fat and healthy, I'm fat and i take care of my fat body, I'm fat and i don't need to change to be better. I'm fat!!!

the word fat, to me, used to be an inherently bad word. fat used to mean ugly, unworthy, wrong, a flaw, something that needed to change. now, fat means confident, it means authentic, it means self acceptance, it means beauty is not determined by what we look like. we are all beautiful no matter what we look like. and simply changing the intention of a word can make a big difference.

[thetypedwriter]

The Bear the Nightingale Book Review

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden Book Review

This book is so different from what I would normally read. 

I was browsing the shelves at Barnes and Noble as I’m prone to do when I picked up a YA book with a beautiful cover.

I don’t recall what the book was, but I decided to check out the reviews for it on Goodreads to determine whether I should purchase it or not. 

On Goodreads, the overwhelming statement being made about this forgotten YA book was that it was the poor man’s version of The Bear and the Nightingale. 

Intrigued, I wandered a shelf or two over until I found The Bear and the Nightingale itself and decided to buy it. The Bear and the Nightingale at its core is a novel steeped in Russian folklore.

It tells the story of Vasilisa Petrovna, a young girl with the powers to see spirits and otherworldly creatures. 

Starting from Vasya’s birth up until she’s on the brink of womanhood, you learn about Vasya’s mother Marina, who dies in childbirth, all of Vasya’s siblings, her father, Pyotr, and their small Russian village on the outskirts of metropolitan cities like Moscow and Vladimir. 

The plot revolves around Vasya’s deep connection with the spirits and guardians that live in and around her home and the disturbance that shakes them and the village with the arrival of a priest, Konstantin Nikonovich. 

Father Konstantin thinks that Vasya’s village is backwards for their savage reverence towards the old gods and sets the village and its people on a path of devoted fear and cruel judgment. 

Soon enough, everyone thinks Vasya is a cursed witch and the people who once loved her now cast her aside, both out of cowardice and obedience from Father Konstantin.

However, the person who hates Vasya the most is her stepmother, a righteous, pious woman who is the only other person in the village who can see the spirits. 

Unlike Vasya, who sees the creatures as guardians, Anna sees the creatures as devils out to damn her and her daughter, a curse she has borne to bear and has never been able to get rid of. 

As the village falls away from the old, traditional times, the spirits grow weak and infirm. From this fragility and vulnerability, the devil, Medved the Bear, grows stronger.

\With his newfound power, he turns the dead into upyrs, brings about bitterly freezing winters, dry summers, and poor harvests, cursing the people of the village slowly but surely. 

The only one who can stop Medved is his brother, Morozko, the winter king known as death himself. Teaming up with Morozko, Vasya must fight back against the evil that threatens her village, putting herself and her loved ones in perilous danger. 

I feel like there’s more to this plot and yet, this is the best summary I can come up with. At its core, The Bear and the Nightingale is a retelling of the Russian fairytale of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon.

In the fairytale (which Vasya’s nurse Dunya tells her at the beginning of the story) a witch-girl from the village comes across Morozko, who is so taken with her beauty and courage that he gives her a bountiful dowry upon her return home. 

Arden takes this classic fairytale and turns Vasya from a beautiful damsel into a fierce witch that refuses to marry, be sent off to a convent, or be shackled in any way to God or to man. 

The most astounding part of this book for me was the Russian folklore influence. Folk stories of any kind have always been fascinating and it’s always so intriguing to learn about myths and stories from other cultures.

I’ve never heard of the Frost demon and while Arden turns the story contemporary with Vasya being an independent woman, the rest of the story is steeped in Russian lore, language, and history. 

The way that Arden wrote this book reads like a fairytale. With a lot less focus on dialogue and traditional methods of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, the book rises and falls like a fairytale would. 

It was a lot of telling not showing, which I’m usually fiercely opposed to, but in this case, it was inherently intentional. It’s as if, Dunya, Vasya’s nurse, was telling the story the whole time, from start to finish.

It reads in a lyrical, poetic way, very different from other novels and a breath of fresh air for pure ingenuity. 

The characters themselves were also good. Just like in a fairytale, they don’t have the deepest of characterizations, but that’s also not the point. They’re archetypes, lessons for young ears to hear and heed.

I find it a bit strange that Vasya had the mentality of a young woman growing up in the year 2024, but it’s also forgivable. Arden wasn’t trying to create a fully functioning fairytale that’s wholly accurate. 

There are some other critiques I have, especially towards the ending. It felt like the climax came out of nowhere, with not much of a build to hit the ground running as a reader, and the death of a certain character was inexplicably vague and unimportant. 

But Arden’s decision to base Vasya’s story on a fairytale, twist it with modern sensibilities, and sprinkle in some magic and poetry—is a concoction that clearly worked as the book is a national bestseller. 

Recommendation: Overall, I enjoyed The Bear and the Nightingale. While it’s not something I would usually read, as stated at the beginning, I liked the reset. Every once in a while it’s refreshing (and needed) to get away from the typical YA love triangle or slow-burn romance, from the humdrum fantasies and the summer flings. 

It deepens my appreciation for literature, expands my horizons, and teaches me something new, which—isn’t that what we’re always looking for as readers?

Score: 7/10

[film-in-my-soul]

One Glimpse of Relief | 909 | dalearden / @dale-arden

Summary: Yet from the moment he took Jake into his bed, Bradley knew something had changed. There had been a shift in the atmosphere, a force feeling like some kind of gravitational pull, guiding him. The knowledge he was always meant to wind up here is an awesome weight on his heart and Bradley allows it to crush him, the power of it not even a little painful like he fears it should be.

twist the knife (salt in my cuts) | 1,313 | ropememory

Summary: Bradley ignores Jake, traces a finger along the outline of a rib on Jake’s chest. When he speaks, it’s low and hoarse, more a byproduct of what’s going on in his head than disuse. “I want to try it. Tonight.” Swallowing, Bradley meets Jake’s confused look, shys back a little in response without giving up any of his leverage over Jake’s body.  Processing Bradley’s words shouldn’t be this hard, they’ve barely started doing anything and Jake’s frustratingly still got all his wits about him, but there’s a long list of things they’ve talked about trying over the past few months, and Jake’s at a loss to pinpoint the specific one Bradley’s talking about.

taste of eternity | 1,415 | res_judicata / @res-judicatas

Summary: "Jake, I was thinking about you when I thought it was all over." "Why the fuck would you say that," Jake wants to scream and cry. Because Bradley talks a big game, but of the two of them, he's the one who flies like he's got nothing to lose. Between his mother and dad... every time they take to the air, Bradley is the one who Jake thinks is really suspended between the sky and the ground. The one who belongs to both. The one who they should be worried about not coming back down. 

looked into your eyes (saw a world that doesn't exist) | 1,480 | ropememory

Summary: Jake glares up at Bradley. “I’m only doing this to show you I am the best. And to haunt your fucking dreams, because it’s never happening again.”

Haven't you herd, I rather love you | 1,578 | Fuddlewuddle / @fuddlewuddle

Summary: Bradley knows Jake loves him, he just never expected the man to arrange a herd of cows into the shape of a heart for him. Being honest, he probably should've done.

take my soul (wipe it clean) | 1,659 | crueltether

Summary: “You wanna come by for a drink?” Bradley asks. His question is innocent enough, but he’s also already opening the passenger door of his Bronco. Jake rolls his eyes. “I dunno,” he says, but he’s tossing his bag onto the floorboards and getting in. “I might.” Bradley hums. “Okay, Texas. You think it over. I’ll drive.”

The Better Wingman | 1,871 | Cat2000

Summary: Set after the events of Top Gun: Maverick. Rooster and Hangman figure things out

Please see below for more recommendations!

fly me home | 2,136 | vannral / @vannral

Summary: “You look good, Rooster,” Jake manages to rasp out and Bradley can hear how much his voice is fraying, carving down to the very bare core of it all. In which Jake and Bradley immediately act on their feelings after landing on the carrier. Involves flirting and sex and doing things in the wrong order but mostly reassurance.

you got me (fucked up) | 2,318 | cloudburst

Summary: “You lookin’ to stay behind me, Rooster? If you’re staring at my ass, you’ve just gotta ask,” he says to him, turns around from where they’re running laps, punishment for arguing in the first place. He loves to rile him up, make him verbalize his frustrations. Hangman–because it’s Hangman, now, stopped being Jake a long time ago–doesn’t always mean to flirt with him, condescend to him in the same breath but when he does it sure is fun. Bradshaw’s breathing a little heavier, maybe, but cuts him off anyways. “As if. You wish.”

The mandatory 5+1 fic | 2,610 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: 5 times Rooster thinks there might be something between him and Hangman; and 1 time he knows for sure.

Everything's Waiting For You (Downtown) | 2,692 | xo_em / @jakeseresins

Summary: When Bradley’s breath catches, in a way it hasn’t in literal years of bartending, he’s a tad shaken.

white picket fence | 2,938 | res_judicata / @res-judicatas

Summary: Whenever anyone from the kids’ school asks, Jake always just smiles politely and explains that his husband works for a big international company and that’s why he’s overseas a lot.  He doesn’t say that Bradley is arguably the ‘director’ of said company, nor that the ‘company’ in question is the Mafia. He knows a few of the other parents have their suspicions and that he and Bradley are the subject of their fair share of rumours and gossip. Jake just doesn’t let it get to him, he has his beautiful family and gorgeous husband, the nosy PTA mothers can go fuck themselves. For every, oh my, how can your husband bear to leave such a lovely husband at home with the kids for so many months of the year, Jake can read between the lines.

Honey-coloured Ramparts at Your Ear | 3,270 | xo_em / @jakeseresins

Summary: “You know he loves you, right?” Jake sucks in a breath. “The color of your hair’s got nothing to do with it.” And well, it sounds really idiotic once Javy says it out loud.

the machine of a dream | 3,937 | thereisnocowboyemoji

Summary: Jake reads Bradley like he’s his favorite book and Bradley loves that. He does. But. He doesn’t love it right at this particular moment. Because right at this particular moment he’s trying to keep a very big secret and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to pull it off.

The Christmas Bob outdid himself | 4,090 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: Bob organizes a Secret Santa among the squad. Jake's nervous, because he's never had to gift anyone anything before. He's even more scared when faced with the gifts he receives. He shouldn't be either of those things...

sour apple baby (you taste so sweet) | 4,600 | attolians / @maroonmorons

Summary: Bradley and Jake became friends with benefits...but neither of them know how to do it right.

you drew stars around my scars | 4,761 | ginnydear

Summary: “I can’t… I can’t do this if it’s going to be like the last time.”

softest hands to hold you | 5,231 | ginnydear

Summary: “You aren’t the first person to think I’m pathetic and weak, something to be used and not loved.”

Four Letter Word That I Don't Have the Guts to Say | 5,444 | Earthangel_44 / @yikes-00

Summary: Bradley doesn't talk much. But what he does say is never what he means. The story of how Bradley gets tattoos and learns to love.

time and time again | 6,318 | andthentheybow / @andthentheybow

Summary: Rooster wakes up on the third April 22nd in a row covered in phantom explosion burns and with the concrete knowledge that this mission is going to go terribly, horribly wrong.

Don't leave me, please | 6,357 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: When Jake learns that Rooster's plane went down and he may not make it, he goes into shock. Then he decides that he WON'T let Bradley Bradshaw bail on him. No matter what he needs to do to make sure he wakes up...

Like They Do in Texas Please | 6,506 | Renai_chan

Summary: The team play strip poker. Jake is not good at it.

The Exes of Texas Are Upon You | 7,047 | chase_acow / @cowsalot

Summary: While trying to enjoy their day off, a bet comes back to haunt Hangman forcing Rooster into a tight spot.

fever started a long ago | 8,020 | vannral / @vannral

Summary: 'Okay, Bradley has to admit, this wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. He should’ve stayed home, taken some ibuprofen and just sucked it up and passed out but no. He had to push it. And here he is, dealing with the consequences of his own stupidity.' In which Bradley gets sick, Jake gets jealous of a guy at the bar and takes care of Bradley. They’re both pining for each other and are even worse at hiding it.

miles to go | 8,566 | Notchka88

Summary: Truth be told, Bradley hadn’t been expecting to be team leader. Given Maverick’s continued criticism of his flying and the shit Bradley had said to him—it had startled him to be Maverick’s choice. It had startled Hangman too, judging by the way his jaw had tightened and how he’d looked away, avoiding Bradley’s eyes during the briefing. Bradley should have been ready for Hangman’s reaction after everything that had happened between them, but it had still stung.

for the fatherless | 8,729 | Bartonfink

Summary: a fic about family. and maybe a little about falling in love.

Burned on the back of your eyelids | 12,883 | The_Splendid_Wren

Summary: They say when you're near death your life flashes before your eyes and he's had a long, complicated life. The first time he remembers trying to etch a memory on the back of his eyelids he's eight years old. His mom uncovers the piano in the living room and begins tapping at the keys, the notes to a song he's long since forgotten echoing around the living room. He can hear the melody as the wind whips past his ears and the wreckage of his plane crashes far below on the ice mountain side.

you hang me up, unfinished (with the better part of me no longer mine) | 13,140 | un_familiar

Summary: There are a million things standing between Jake Seresin and his soulmate–gender, Jake’s tendency to overthink and run his mouth, the fact that his soulmark is high up on his ribs, hidden, the bruises his dad leaves, but the biggest one is probably the simple fact that he has no idea how to love.

And You Said That I Was Done (Well, You Were Wrong) | 14,228 | lemons2llamas

Summary: It’s not supposed to be like this. Lt. Jake Seresin, call sign Hangman, is a Naval aviator. One of the elite. He's the youngest winner of the Top Gun trophy since its inception, holds six course records, and is the team leader of the now permanently established Dagger Squadron. He’s young. He’s in his prime. He’s supposed to be invincible.

Callsign: Rooster | 14,649 | Valkyrie_the_Bogwitch

Summary: Callsigns are a tricky business, both ultimate weakness and greatest strength. These are some loosely connected vignettes around how Rooster earned his feathers, for the good and the ill of it.

soar with me | 14,899 | vannral / @vannral

Summary: ”You – so what was it, you were trying to help me or something?” Bradley stammers, his whole perspective reeling off its axis at the revelation. Jake looks up, and his eyes are piercing, but there’s something raw, vulnerable underneath it."

one foot left, and then we're going down swinging | 15,944 | SaintClaire / @radpeacharbiter

Summary: “I’m still here.” he says, because it helps Bradley to be reminded sometimes. For all he’ll mouth off about Jake never shutting up, the sound of Jake’s voice can get him to drop the rigid set of his shoulders and relax, sit a little easier in the cockpit. “Still on your wing, Roo, just a little further away than normal.” Jake gets shot down on a mission, tracker blown to smithereens and on his own in enemy territory. The thing about Hangman is that he might be a damn good pilot but that means he comes with the bloody-mindedness to see his shit through. He's got a family to get back to.

unsportsmanlike conduct | 16,871 | ginnydear

Summary: He didn’t expect there to be highlight reels of him and Jake Seresin arguing and jawing at each other after their first game against each other. His Uncle Mav’s recorded it, saying it’s the beginning of his long, successful career - to have a rival. Bradley thinks it’s a pain in the ass.

When Jake Met Bradley | 17,163 | infinitejaust

Summary: They annoyed each other, then they were friends, and then they were more. All it took was fifteen years.

A girl, she once told me I'd be happy again… | 17,777 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: Rooster has gotten himself into a bit of a predicament. If only because he agreed to be Hangman's fake date at his sister's wedding, when they've just barely started considering each other friends. Nothing can go wrong, right?

I need attention (and I need it all from you) | 19,291 | haridwar

Summary: “Mom and I agreed I wasn’t gonna enlist Mav.�� Bradley had been reluctant to remind him while also trying not to sound too heartbroken. He didn’t want his mother feeling guiltier than she already did when there were more important things to be thinking about. “You promised your mom you wouldn’t fly, that you wouldn’t be a fighter pilot. There’s so much more to the navy than just that kiddo.”

The Best the Galaxy has to offer | 20,141 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: To vanquish the Empire and hopefully put an end to the War, the best X-wings pilots in the Galaxy are called to the mother ship Top Gun. Among them, Bradley Bradshaw, who has a lot to learn and a lot to face; but also a squadron of former Stormtroopers…

I used to hate you | 21,707 | AnadoraBlack / @anadorablack

Summary: When Bradley Bradshaw and Jake Seresin first meet at Top Gun, they immediately decide that they hate each other. It takes a looooooong time for that to change...

How do you like your coffee? | 23,360 | WaffleToaster

Summary: Javy receives the first call after Jake makes an emergency landing on the tarmac and Bradley has to deal with the complications that arise. “Do we get along now?” “We do, yes. We’re.. good friends.” “That’s good. Cause you seem like a nice guy, Rooster.”

invisible string | 28,042 | ok_thanks / @galchenyuks

Summary: Jake being traded to San Diego should definitely not cause Bradley to feel so unhinged. Not at all. He can be teammates, they've done that before, except that Jake is just as annoying and attractive to Bradley as he was when they were younger.

Dirty and Sweet (Get it on) | 38,451 | MadeItUp / @gothampot

Summary: As things wind down after the mission, Rooster struggles with a need for something a little dangerous. That something absolutely should not – cannot – be Jake Seresin. But a little friendly competition and a lot of alcohol can go a long way to changing a man's mind. Hangman eyes Rooster’s empty beer, then his own. “How about that second shot?” “You tryna put me off my game?” “I don’t need you drunk to beat you, Rooster.” “What do you need me drunk for?”

Master Reclist · Personal Masterlist · Blog Nav.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Oh my goodness. I haven't seen this yet thank you!