#Descriptive and Engaging:

[fly-chicken]

A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

[dealy-health3051]

VigoSurge Supplements-Health

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[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[wiltking]

was looking up paintings by Vicente López y Portaña to try and wrap my head around the insane way he painted lace fabrics and came across La senora de Delicado de Imaz from 1833 which seems to depict a woman with facial hair and i got emotional. art is history and humans have always been beautiful and varied and diverse and check out his lace rendering:

[katakaluptastrophy]

The Nine Houses must be absolutely terrifying to fight.

And not just because their invasions start with a drop ship full of pimply 14 year olds inexplicably armed with zweihanders whose entire remit is to cause a mass casualty event for necromantic purposes...

We're mostly introduced to the schools of necromancy at the beginning of GTN, before we have broader context beyond "ooh, new magic system." But if you think about it in light of what we later learn about the Cohort:

Second House: they can literally drain your life force to power up their cavaliers. "It’s said they all die screaming"

Third House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're being used as a power up. Also, someone's just rearranged your face; your arse is on backwards.

Fourth House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're bombs now. And if you corner a Fourth House necro, they're a bomb too!

Fifth House: at best, they're the weird technicians for the Houses' horrifying blood and monolith based FTL system. At worst, it doesn't matter if you kill yourself to avoid capture or if you hold out under interrogation until you expire, they can still interrogate your ghost.

Sixth House: drop a cigarette or shed a hair on a clandestine operation? These guys now know your age, shoe size, and approximate location. They know what you had for breakfast. They know what you held in the last 12 hours.

Seventh House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're armed and marching on you now.

Eigth House: why is he glowing? WHY IS HE GLOWING?!

Ninth House: the guy next to you's bones just became an IED.

[creativesplat]

My favourite random engage headcannon: Rosado uses Alfred as inspiration for a lot of his paintings

[parisoonic]

i really wish we got the tf2 tv show because i think, about your talk about how pyro ends up being a foil to the other characters, pyro is such a wildcard of a character that if you need someone for an episode to complete a dynamic it's pyro. he's designated driver. he's the mcdonalds employee. he's scout's ma. she's helping miss p dismember bodies. it's coming in through the dog door

your ask got me thinking about how i'd use pyro in a show and IDK if anyone else has seen Solar Opposites but how they split the Pupa's screentime between A + B plots in the first/second season would be spot on the money for me. Pyro could be there, in the A plot, in small ways (like you said, at the back of the bus or en rotue to the episodes mission) but then gets sucked into a 'mundane' B plot for some tonal levity within the episode. Pyro's gotta run that FTSE 500 company! They've gotta seduce the Ballicorn comic writer in order to read the never-published final issue! They've gotta earn an Astrophysics PHD in order to steal their Professor's Pokemon topped pen....that sort of thing. And then occassionaly they can show up with the deus-ex-mechina for the episode with the rest of the team being none the wiser (other than vaguely baffled as their flamethrower could've REALLY come in handy fighting those haunted scarecrows).

[hello-universe-lovers]

Sorry for lack of more art. The poppy thing took a lot more than I realized! But you'd be happy to know the poppy thing wasn't the only thing I was doing! You could Say I was...

Been in the Zone

Yeahhh, zenless zone zero hit me like a TRUCK I have been doodling my voices as characters from it! AND I HAVE BEEN HAVING A BLAST!!

In order of drawing:

- Cold as Alexandrina Sebastiane

- Cheated as Piper Wheels

- Broken as Qingyi

- Hero as Zhu Yuan and Hoshimi Miyabi

- Opportunist as Jane Doe and Nicole Demara

Some bonuses under the cut bc they are other's voice designs (and I may or may not do more bc this has been fun)

((Woo right as I maxed out the photo limit!)

- @neverpathia 's Hero as Seth Lowel

- @nordicfiord 's Cold as Ellen Joe (they were what started this mess lol) and my Paranoid as Corin Wickes

- @phantasmatoucan 's Cheated as Luciana de Montefio

[lockes-woods]

The Proposal

This was a request from a while ago that I've only been able to fully get around to now (Sorry about the wait).

Request: Dom nico robin x subby male reader please (although I'm only on water 7 atm) (Also maybe some jealousy?? I really liked it in the past fic you did)

Requested by: @l0stkokiri

WARNINGS: Forced Orgasms, Face Sitting, Hand Jobs, Oral (female receiving), Declarations of Love, Restraints, Sub Reader, Dom Robin, Jealousy to Smut to Fluff.

A/N: No joke this has been sitting in my WIPs for months. I was really anxious about writing an AMAB Reader because my reader inserts are almost all AFAB. I hope this is okay; I tried lol (Sorry again for the wait).

“Fuck,” you whined, falling back against the bed, cum splattered across your lower abdomen. You love sat at the foot of the bed in a chair facing you; gaze unwavering. You were beyond overstimulated. The hand of the arm she had sprouted next to your pelvis began to tease your cock’s head, willing your cock back to attention. Tears kissed at the corner of your eyes. While you both knew that you could easily get out of the hold her hands had on your wrist and ankles; you both also knew that you would never try. No matter the circumstances, you’d never risk hurting your love.

“Fuck, Mistress, ngh. Please. I’ll be a good boy.” You pleaded,

“Hmm,” She hummed unperturbed by your state, “Will you tell me what you were doing sneaking around that part of the Island?”

“Mhm,” you moaned, “I-I got lost,”

 “You, Nami’s right-hand man while planning our navigation, got lost?” Robin asked, looking down her nose at you.

“Yes?” you reply before grunting at the sensation of her disembodied hand beginning to once again stroke up and down your cock at a leisurely pace, applying just the right amount of pressure to make you feel weak.

“So, you just got lost and somehow ended up in this island’s red-light district?” She asked, quirking a brow, “And the two sex workers you were talking to were only for ‘directions?’”

“Y-YES,” you moaned, as Robin’s hand began to gain speed.

“If you got the directions needed, how did you end up at that seedy pawn shop?” She continued to question you.

“I was looking for something,” you groaned out, as she teased you by slowing her pace. Even without her suspicions, Robin relished the feeling of control she had over you while you were in this state.

“Oh? And am I supposed to believe that you were ‘searching’ for whatever item you desire when you went and disappeared at the last two islands we docked at?”

“Yes-s,” You answered, a groan interrupting the end of your response.

“So, you want me to believe that you haven’t been pursuing anyone outside relationships? Despite the fact that you’ve been keeping secrets and being more distant.” She asked for the countless time since you got back to your shared quarters.

“No, fuck, Mistress I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.” You gasped out, your response never faltering.

“And what exactly was the item you were looking for?” She finally relented, humoring you. If it weren’t for the fear of losing her altogether, and the haze you were in from your umpteenth orgasm you would have tried to stay strong longer.

“Fuck,” you gasped, rounding the corner on your next orgasm, “It’s in my right pants pocket.”

She gave you a skeptical look before rising up to her full height and stalking over to your forgotten trousers. She made quick work of them pulling a small jewelry box out of your pocket before dropping your pants. She swiftly opened it. It was now her turn to gasp, she covered her mouth in shock, tears welling up in her eyes, before she glanced back up at you, tears now freely falling.

“Marry me?” you asked, with a lopsided grin. In an instant, the hands that had been restraining you to the bed for the better part of the last two hours disappeared as fast as they had come. Before you could process what was going on, Robin was on you, pulling to in for a desperate kiss. All you could do was whine desperately, as the idol you hoped to call your fiancé straddled your lower abdomen. Your now unobstructed hands found her hips as you rubbed soothing circles there while basking in the warmth that was your partner’s affection. When she pulled back, you were shrouded in darkness as her hair curtained around your face; the only light came from the radiance of her lovely blue eyes.

“So?” you asked breathlessly.

“Yes, Yes, Yes,” she replied, pecking your face with kisses. You could only laugh in response before she pulled you in for a loving kiss. As always you let her take the lead.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” you panted after pulling away pushing yourself up on your elbows. Robin carefully dislodged the engagement band, leaving the paired wedding ring as well as your wedding band that came in the set. She slid on the gold band decorated with a jade center that was surrounded by smaller diamonds. Tears now freely fell from her eyes as she admired the ring adorning her left hand.

“It’s perfect,” she sighed contently, before pulling you in for another kiss. You groaned into the kiss as you felt her grind against your lower stomach as the skirt of her dress began to ride up. You could feel her soaked underwear slide needily up and down your lower stomach. A whimper escaped you as she slid further down your abdomen catching you cock between her lower lips. You whined at the stimulation causing her to pull back.

“Too much?” she asked, making no attempt to move.

“Yeah, fuck,” you shared a groan as her clit caught on the head of your dick.

“Sorry, love,” she moaned, quickly sliding forward once again and sitting on your lower stomach, “I could get a toy-”

“No,” you quickly interrupted, “I-I mean if you want to you can, but I can think of a better seat for you to take.”

She smiled down at you, gently stroking your cheek. Your shyness when it came to being intimate with her would never get old. She basked in your apprehension around being assertive in all settings, but especially the bedroom.

“Oh? And where would that be?” she asked teasingly, “You're a big boy, you know how to ask nicely.”

“Please,” you began before swallowing the lump in your throat, “Can you please sit on my face mistress?”

“Of course,” she smiled warmly down at you, “You’ve been such a good boy, taking a punishment, you didn’t even earn so well,”

You found your eyes fluttering shut as she positioned herself over your face. You rested your hands on her hips, pulling her down so that her pussy was flush with your face. You smirked into her pussy, as she let out a gasp at the stimulation of her clit bumping into your nose. You quickly began to lap at her seem over her panties. You were able to nose at the offending clothing and open her lips so you could get to her core. You groaned into her as she laced your hair between her fingers, needily tugging at it as you lapped against her entrance teasingly. Your teasing only lasted for a second, before she pulled hard on your hair keeping you flush against her as she began to rock against your face.

“Fuck,” you could hear her moan above you, as you doubled down on your efforts to make her cum. You focused on her most sensitive spots as one of your hands came down to part her lower lips and gave enough room for your tongue to thrust into her. Robin’s reaction was immediate as she began to shamelessly fuck against your face. Your other hand left her hip, giving her full control as you thrusted your fingers in alongside your tongue. Your cock twitched at the sweet moans and whimpers your now fiancé let out. You relished the noise; she was never this vocal. You decided she had had enough teasing as you began to curl your fingers and rub against her front wall as you sucked her clit into your mouth. It was only a matter of seconds before her release splashed against your face. A whine in turn escaped you as she pulled hard on your hair, using it as a lifeline as she fell apart on your face. You fingered her through her release before she fell slack against you and rolled to the side.

“Fuck,” she moaned, as she came down from her high. Your synchronized pants were the only noise to be heard. She had just calmed down enough to recognize your cock was still standing at attention.

“Love, would you like help with that?” she asked, now kneeling beside you.

“Yeah, I’m just really-” you paused letting out a gentle curse as she wrapped her hand around yours.

“Shh, it’s okay love, I’ll be gentle,” she said smiling down at you, “At least for now.”

She kept her promise as she jerked you off with a firm, but light touch. Just going fast enough to ensure your release. While her disembodied hand jerked you off, she slipped off her dress, along with her soaked panties. Robin used her now discarded dress to whip her cum off your face gently, now entirely naked outside of her engagement ring. You came as she pulled you in for a lazy kiss. You panted lightly as she pulled your flush against her chest, pressing a kiss into your hairline.

“I love you,” she said, pulling you as close as possible, legs tangled.

“I love you too,” you sighed contently, “I’m sorry about all the secrecy, I just wanted to find something as beautiful and unique as you are.”

Robin smiled down at you; tears began to once again well in her eyes. She pulled you in for one last kiss before you submitted to your exhaustion and began to drift off to the sound of her steady heartbeat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Now that I was finally able to write this one-shot Imma start working on the celebration countdown. Since it's no longer the countdown until New Year's I am going to randomize the days/write what gives me the most inspiration at the time.

I hope you're all doing well,

-Locke

[dotted-clouds]

Queen Camilla and Queen Ivy for @TheSpiderTamer 💜🩷

[bookinit02]

ran into my first student using chatgpt and honestly i was gonna be mad until i thought harder about Why he was using chatgpt and i was like well. that part of the assignment was kind of useless bullshit anyway so yk what that’s on me. consider it gone.

[54bpm]

Begging the artists joining the platform to not post all their art in the same posts in dumps, give them each their own post and put them in the queue. They will perform SO much better that way.

[scribbling-waffle]

I might've just had the single funniest encounter possible in Stardew Valley.

[imaginarypasta]

like let me be clear. it's nostalgia-poisoned market products when they’re bad and insightful uses of adaptation and medium when i like them

[lunar-years]

oh, ”Stay awake.” for the prompt list if you want?

uhhhh. Undoubtedly this was not the fic fill you were expecting for this prompt. i used it very loosely and I am truly sorry for this result...something consumed me.

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

Roy sits on the balcony of his posh fucking rental, staring out at Marbella’s shore. He’s got private beach access here, a boardwalk that leads to the sand and then down to the swirling deep blue, where a person can float and maybe, if they're lucky, forget themselves for a while in its depths. But the waves are too high to swim today, and anyway, it’s getting dark now. 

Beneath him, there’s a massive pool he could swim in instead, if he wanted. Dive in and spend a moment breathless beneath the water. It might do him good, that chance to briefly cut off the oxygen, to move around for a bit underwater, then feel the relief of the first lungful of air when he breaks back up through the surface. He’d do it, if he wasn’t feeling so fucking…stuck. Stuck to this chair, stuck to his stupid life. In need of permanent fissure, that's him. If he could only force himself to walk down to the pool, he thinks, and not look back. Maybe he could drown himself in it, and make it look like an accident. 

He's twirling an engagement ring around in his right hand that's meant to be on Keeley’s ring finger. 

The diamond is light pink and oval and massive, set into two narrow, curved bands of smaller yet still brilliant diamonds. It’s fucking perfect for Keeley. Showy, but not grotesquely so. Colourful and chic. Fun. Roy had it custom made for her. Let the jewelry consultant talk his ear off about settings and carats, then signed his name on the dotted line for the most expensive options on the list. 

Fuck, he’d even showed it off to Rebecca, weeks and weeks ago, before he booked this trip. How fucking embarrassing was that? He’d only just gotten it in from the jeweler, the rock freshly nestled in its deep red velvet box. His boss cooed over it convincingly and agreed that yes, it looked just the ring for Keeley, and yes, the subtle pink hue was awfully inspired, and yes, Keeley would undoubtedly love it. Roy had left her office feeling rather proud of himself, totally oblivious to what she’d probably been trying to tell him between the lines, given the way her eyes went all narrow and her forehead pinched tight right after he’d told her where he was planning to propose, and when. The extravagant trip he envisioned that would end with him down on one knee. 

Rebecca had blinked at him and clucked, with a smile like plastic, Wow. Well, I imagine that will come as quite the surprise! Which at the time felt like praise for his careful planning skills and in hindsight seems more like her small way of warning him. Like she’d known all along Keeley was going to say no. 

Had everyone? Roy had only told Rebecca and his sister about the ring, but maybe everyone else had guessed it, or assumed it was coming. Assumed, possibly, how it would end, because who in their right mind would want to marry him? He was just the sort to do something this pathetic, to propose in a last ditch attempt to save what was already broken. Maybe they all saw it. He swallows down the rising, unpleasant rush of bile in his throat and thinks back to Keeley spreading stories about him around work, how clingy he was and how needy and how he never left her alone. So this wouldn’t be the first time everyone else knew more about his relationship than he did. 

For one fleeting, wild moment, he envisions himself flinging the ring right off this balcony and watching it make its way, impossibly, all the way out to the sea. Gets brief satisfaction at the thought of the ocean swallowing it whole, entrapping it below the waves where he never has to think about it, or look at it, ever again. In his hand, the ring stills its incessant twirling and Roy crushes it under his fingers instead, pressing it so hard against his skin he’s sure it’s going to leave a mark on his palm, and hopes, ludicrously, that it will somehow be permanent. A reminder.

Behind him, inside the villa, Keeley’s asleep on the bed he had covered in rose petals while they were at dinner. Roy thinks he might stay up all night, sitting out here as it gets too dark to see the water below, just to avoid the awkwardness of joining her. Or is he meant to sleep in one of the guest rooms? What, exactly, is the protocol for when your girlfriend turns down your proposal but tells you she does in fact still want to be with you, marriage conversation aside? He’s the only person he knows that that’s happened to; he hasn’t even read about it books.

Roy’s spent the past three weeks alone here, missing her terribly. Has he now ruined their one glorious weekend together on the first night, before it’s even properly begun?

She’d flown in just that morning. Roy took a car to the airport to meet her, feeling jittery and excited in equal measure, happier than he’s felt for days. It had been a long fucking three weeks on his own, hardly able to find time to even FaceTime with her, what with how busy she was with her new firm. The whole time, her parting words before he left her for sunny Spain—You never know, maybe the time apart will do both of us good, babe—looped through his mind on constant repeat, curdling in his gut like sour milk. 

Realistically, he knows they’ve been on two separate trajectories for a whole now, like rockets shooting off to two different edges of space, nothing but gulf and galaxies between. This weekend was meant to be their way back to one another, the anticipated culmination of their big compromise: Roy would still go to Marbella, alone, and Keeley would make the time to come join him halfway through, just for the few days she could manage with her new job. 

His original proposal plan, the one he told to Rebecca involving a gorgeously romantic six-week couples retreat, had gone out the window the moment she’d turned this trip down, but even so, he’d adjusted it accordingly. Fitted his plans around hers, because that’s what suitable, well-adjusted couples did, wasn’t it? Convinced himself he could be flexible. Convinced himself he could wait. It just needed to happen, he just needed to present her with this ring, and she just needed to slip it onto her finger and say yes—and everything that felt wrong would be fixed. 

He’s a fucking idiot. 

He should have seen this coming. Even their reunion had felt off. She’d stepped through the baggage claim pulling her cheetah-print suitcase behind her, and subsequentially dropping it at the sight of him in order to run over and leap grandly into his arms. When they kissed, it felt just as good as it always did, like puzzle pieces sliding into place, soothing over the open wound inside of him he hadn’t quite realized he’d been nursing, all this time. But the wound didn’t close just because she was there. As soon as she stepped away again, retracing her steps back to retrieve her suitcase, the gulf only seemed to widen. 

So then he'd taken her back to the villa, carrying on about the itinerary he’d spent the first half of his time here perfecting. He’d show her around the place first, give her time to get settled, and after that they’d still have plenty of time to get ready for dinner. He’d booked a private dinner on the water. A romantic, candlelit feast of seafood and drinks and dessert, after which he’d just go for it. He had what he wanted to say all lined up in his head: I love you Keeley. I want to spend forever with you. Then back to their room, which by then would be decked floor to ceiling with rose petals and heart balloons and champagne, ready for their exuberant return.

The first part went even better than planned. As soon as they made it through the front door, Keeley pounced on him, locking her fingers against his back, wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer with all the hunger and passion and desperation they’d had in the beginning; that thing he’d been chasing for months. Passion got pushed aside when there were emails to check and businesses to run. Sex became a bit of a chore, maybe. But not now. Not anymore.

She let him carry her bridal-style to the master suite, setting her reverently down in the king-sized bed, stripping her adoringly, in between frantic kisses. They fucked hurriedly, Keeley’s suitcase abandoned in the entranceway and all thoughts of unpacking and giving a tour through the house abandoned with it. Then they fucked again, with much less haste. Like they’d finally managed to convince themselves the moment wasn’t about to be ripped away from them and were now letting themselves enjoy the thing proper. She was here now. It was all going to be fine. 

After, though. Lying tangled up in the sheets, sweaty and naked and satisfied, Roy said something innocuous about getting up in time for a long shower together before they had to ready themselves for dinner, and the mood in the air shifted. Keeley frowned, “Oh I don’t know babe. Can you still cancel it? It’s just…” she exhaled and flopped her head back onto the pillows, hair splaying everywhere, “I am so fucking tired. That plane was an absolute misery, there was loads of turbulence and this one crying baby who I seriously think might have been possessed by some sort of crying demon, and…God, it really was awful. Also, before I left I had a meeting with my new employees. They hate me, Roy, I really think they hate me. How am I supposed to run a firm if all of my employees hate me?”

She stopped just long enough to breathe, or maybe she’d caught the look on his face. “Sorry, I know I swore not to talk about work on this trip.” A quick peck of her lips to his cheek, a little plea for forgiveness. It felt cold. “Just us for the rest of the weekend, I promise. So…dinner. What if we order in, just for tonight? We’ll spend the whole evening in bed, it’ll be fantastic. We can take a lazy nap, and then eat whenever we wake up, fuck again, midnight skinny dip in that fucking amazing pool out back—"

Of course she didn’t know about the candles and rose petals and the ring burning a hole in the safe deposit box in the closet, but Roy still stiffened. “No, we can't nap. We have to stay awake,” he bit out quickly. “We have to go to dinner. It’s already set up.” 

Keeley kept talking mindlessly, even as Roy’s brain seemed to be burrowing itself in the sand, taking his sanity with it. “Well can’t you just call and postpone it? We can do the fancy dinner tomorrow, babe, once I’m more rested.” She was smiling. Her face seemed to say, this isn’t a big deal, babe. 

But it was. Because Roy didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. He loved her today. He wanted this to happen today. The room felt unstable, like the bed was spinning in the opposite direction of the walls. It felt like something was slipping from him that he couldn’t name, even now. He was desperately trying to grasp at it with too-slick fingers even as it evaded his hold. “It has to be tonight, Keeley. There’s a different dinner planned tomorrow,” he snapped. 

She stared at him in alarm. 

“I have different dinners planned all weekend. I’ve put a lot of time into making this fucking—nice for you. For us. I’ve had a lot of time to put it together, since I’ve been here all the fuck alone.” It was much harsher than he'd intended, but he couldn’t take it back once he'd said it, and he didn't try to. The thing he was trying to save dipped further from his grasp. Keeley’s mouth snapped shut. The words hung in the air between them, heavy in the silence. 

“Fine,” Keeley snapped back, eventually. Even her voice sounded more tired than angry, and the guilt gnawed at his chest. “Heaven forbid I want to relax on my bloody holiday. We’ll do it your way, then.” Then she rolled off the bed, shoving aside the sheets as she untangled them from her form, then angrily stomping towards the ensuite. 

He made to get up and go after her, but she looked back at him with steely eyes, stopping him in his tracks. “I’m showering, Roy. Alone.” 

//

Of course it went terribly, after that. How could it not? He should have called the whole thing off, should have agreed to lounge around and eat takeaway in bed and do nothing but fuck in the pool. He should have forgotten about the ring for the evening. 

(He doesn’t think it would have made any difference. That’s almost the worst part.)

At dinner, the tension between them dissipated on the crests of bottomless cocktails and conversation. On laughter. Keeley looked fucking incredible in a flowery sundress. The food was divine. And the first thing they did was apologize for biting one another’s heads off, agreed that it had just been a long day. A mutual peace offering. Roy fingered the ring in his pocket until the time came to sink to his knee. 

When he did, her face shattered. Not in the way he’d wanted it too, the way he’d pictured. Not the kind of shattered that happens when the joy gets so full it could burst. No, this was the same kind of shattered way she’d looked at him when she told him she couldn’t spare the time to spend six weeks with him in Marbella. Like she pitied him, almost. Like she was hoping he’d stop or say it was all a joke. That he’d take it all back. 

“Roy,” she started softly, already shaking her head. 

Already shaking her head. 

“I love you, Roy,” she promised, eyes glistening. The words were a buzz in the background.

(The worst part, by far, is how much he loves her in return. He loves her so much he doesn’t know quite what to do with it. If a proposal isn’t the right place to put it, where is? He doesn’t understand why the love can’t fix them. Why it isn’t enough.) 

“We’re not ready for this,” she continued, openly shedding tears by then. Somewhere off to the side, their waiter was probably alarmed, holding the cake with congratulations! swirled onto its plate in dark chocolate that Roy had paid extra for, unsure what to do with it, waiting for instruction. Roy was too humiliated to check for certain. He was still down on one knee. It was starting to throb. Carefully, he raised himself back up. 

She was watching him with a look of great remorse as she repeated, “We can’t get married right now, baby. It isn’t…I don’t think it’s the answer, yeah? Maybe eventually, but not now.” It sounded exactly the way we’ll be fine had sounded the day she’d packed up her office in Richmond. Like they definitely wouldn’t be fine. Like her answer to marriage wasn’t not now but quite possibly never.

He’d nodded. He’d lowered himself back into his chair, feeling clammy and numb. He’d waved the waiter over to close the bill. 

//

Staring out at the sea that’s gone dark, he tucks the ring back into his pocket with the startling, crippling, clear realization that he's got to break up with her. He feels like his heart has been wrenched out of his chest and stomped on, then shoved back in for him to live with. He feels like she’s right, and it wouldn’t have worked even if she’d said yes. 

He’s such a fucking mess, he thinks, and she deserves better. She’s on top of the world, and here he is dragging her down into the water. Maybe they both know they’re broken beyond repair, just waiting for the other one to call it off. He’s not sure he can do it. These days, he misses her even when she’s in the next room. 

Fuck.

He slides open the door to the balcony and steps back inside after one last glance at the ocean, which he can hear even if he can’t see. Fuck the guest bed. He makes his way into the bedroom and crawls in next to her. A couple more rose petals flutter to the ground. 

“Roy,” she breathes, as soon as he’s settled himself under the thin sheet, the air too hot and humid, even with the AC cranked, to sleep under anything heavier. Her voice is quiet and sad and cracked and small. It sounds like she’s been crying the whole time he’s been outside. 

He shuts his eyes and says, “I’m sorry,” to the air. He doesn’t know quite what he’s apologizing for. Asking her to marry him? Assuming she’d say yes? Even just thinking about breaking up with her just now? Her, the best person to ever happen to him? The best anything, end of. He draws himself closer and wraps his arm around her torso, just to feel her—her skin, the smell of her hair and the dip and fall of her stomach as she breathes in and out. 

It’s its own familiar kind of self-torture, holding something in his hands as he loses it slowly. Like the last year of football, magnified by ten. Waiting for the final hammer to fall as he cradles the thing he loves in the palm of his hand and feels it drip through. 

“Are we still okay?” she whispers, cupping her fingers over his own clasped ones. Maybe he’s not the only one desperately clinging on. 

He tells her yes, but the truth is that he doesn’t know. 

The deeper truth, the one he can’t face, is that he doesn’t think so. 

He thinks it’s already over. 

[knife-em0ji]

When The Moon Hatched is an insane book. It is a fae romantasy but this author went whole hog into building a world that works completely unlike our own, and I can tell she is determined to make it consistent and make sense within her own internal set of rules. I really respect her for trying to do something new, even if the prose is the brightest shade of eggplant I've come across in a while. It's not Good -- the weakness of the prose, especially when she tries a "High Fantasy" tone, holy shit, and the stodgy romantasy beats [even with the twist you can see from a mile away] make this a squarely mediocre read -- but she was definitely ambitious and trying something that puts her work apart from the gazillion other fae romances (there's like, no humans at all in this book, which I respect a lot). She definitely has a Vision, and there's nothing I love more than works produced by self made arteurs with only middling technical skill that are obviously passion projects. Yeah, the story itself is mid and the characters pretty stock when you get down to it, but the world is genuinely interesting and probably the least derivative I've read in any contemporary romantasy. You can tell that she probably read things like Discworld and was like, "I want to do this too! I want to create my own unique planet and then set a sexy faerie romance on it and it'll be my magnum opus."

And you know what??? Good for her. I love that. Friggin large popcorn dammit because reading this feels exactly like watching one of those one-off mid-budget fantasy/sci fi movies from the mid 00s - mid 10s that are firmly mediocre, but still live in your psyche forever. This is truly the Mortal Engines or Chronicles of Riddick -- or, actually JUPITER ASCENDING!!!! -- of the faerie romance genre. I'm only about halfway through, but I'm pretty sure at the rate this is going my opinion isnt going to change much.

Also. People complain that there's tons of made up jargon and they need to consistently refer to the glossary, which I personally don't see because to me it's really quite easy to infer what things mean based on context clues ??????? Like the book never goes out of its way to overly explain what anything is since the POV character has lived in this world for her entire life, so it's all just normal to her, and I very much respect that choice not to exposit more than absolutely necessary. Like idk those 70s pulp sci fi books must have really done a number on my pattern recognition and contextual reading skills, because I'm not having any difficulty at all following and inferring the meanings of the jargon. Like. I really need some of these people who complain about fantasy slang and jargon to try picking up A Clockwork Orange one day. That book is nigh impenetrable with made up slang LOL.