#Except instead of being able to filter out what you don’t like you have no real filter and its just awful

[moonilit]

i have been aware of fandom ships and now because of DC i have became aware of something i will call Writers Ships, and they are much worst.

[chososdiscordkitten]

Synopsis: calling the jjk men good boy's for the first time ^-^

Includes: 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐨, 𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢, 𝐍𝐚𝐨𝐲𝐚, 𝐆𝐨𝐣𝐨, 𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢, 𝐓𝐨𝐣𝐢, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐨 >_< Content: GN!Reader, no explicit smut- mostly just soft stuffff, just one dick jump I think..? jjk men being simpppps

MDNI

Choso Kamo

The discovery that Choso liked praise was no surprise. If he had a tail, it would wag whenever you praised him; we know this. 

But finding out he liked this kind of praise- that’s what shocked you. 

It came out of your mouth so quickly. As though you had been calling Choso that more than you called him by his name. 

He was making dinner- pattering around the kitchen with your eyes following his every move. You found it endearing how he insisted he would cook, “All you need to do is sit pretty and wait.” he would demand. 

No objections coming from you, knowing if Choso didn’t cook- you would be eating takeout instead. 

And when he offered you a spoonful to see how it was tasting, you closed your eyes with a pleased hum. 

“Now there’s my good boy.” 

You swore it was instinct- like you couldn’t filter the words that left your lips. 

And as though time stood still- you opened your eyes with pinched brows, and your lips pulled to the side. 

The little glimmer that shined in his eyes was one you only see in wonderfilled children when they see a candy store. 

His cheeks blushed with a little smile forming at the corner of his lips, had his heart beat any faster in his chest you would have heard it. 

“I’m a..?” he whispered, looking at you and wanting to hear you repeat it. 

You got the hint he liked it from the moment you opened your eyes. Blinking innocently as his hand held the spoon tightly. “A good boy.” you smiled, trying to keep the embarrassed blush heating your cheeks at bay. 

“My good boy.” you reiterated, watching his cheeks become deeper pink.

Choso nodded- as though this was some standard compliment that didn’t make the appendage between his legs jump at the name. 

‘A good boy.’ he mouthed with a giddy smile as he continued making dinner. 

For sure this only drove him to keep showing his affection with acts of service- only to hear your lips call him by that little name. 

And you were happy to call him that if it meant he would keep looking at you with the same love drunk eyes. 

After that, he would do a favor to you- not expecting anything in return except the new found pet name he wanted to hear you say. 

So when he would bring you something you had asked for—the TV remote, a charger, or a snack on his way home—his heart would pound just waiting for the little name. 

His head would rest on your chest with your hands rubbing small circles on his back and the other playing with his hair. Intent eyes watching the film you had put on- as though you were able to feel the stiffness of his shoulders. Waiting for the name. 

You placed a kiss on his forehead, “My good boy.” you hummed against his skin- feeling him ease into your grasp with a soft exhale. 

Hiromi Higuruma

You were sitting in the apartment office, scanning documents with hazy eyes till your mouth suddenly felt very- very dry.

But then you remembered you had a perfectly able boyfriend sitting on the living room couches waiting for you to finish working. 

You picked up your phone- swiping through the useless apps and clicking on Hiromi’s contact- hearing his ringtone through the closed door before hearing the dial click. 

Taking on a slightly stern tone, “I’m only a few feet away from you-” he started, only for you to sigh dramatically. 

“I don’t think i've ever been so thirsty in my wholllleee life.” you sighed, pressing your forehead onto the desk and hearing a little chuckle rumble through the speaker. 

You could hear the smile in his words, “That so?” almost sarcastically. 

Humming a lazy ‘Mhm’ “How I wish I had a tall, strong, handsome boyfriend to bring me a glass of water wiiiittthhhh three- no. Four ice cubes.” You exhaled dramatically. 

Hearing another little chuckle, “If only.” he muttered, playing coy to your specific demand. 

You gave a frustrated exhale- “Hiromi, be a good boy and bring me a glass of water.” this time more demanding, no longer having the patience for his game of playing coy.

You furrowed your eyebrows- unable to comprehend just how tired you had to be to say that to him. The silence heard from the phone made your stomach fall. 

Hanging up the phone with a small curse. Wondering if you had crossed a line that hadn’t been drawn by either of you. 

You sat up and started working again- far too embarrassed to go out for your own glass of water and settling on the fact Higuruma wouldn’t bring you one. 

That was till you heard looming footsteps behind the door of the office, hearing the door knob jiggle and widening your eyes at the hundreds of scenarios that raced in your mind. 

There Hiromi stepped- casual as ever with a glass of water in his hand. Unbothered, and cool as a cucumber as he placed the glass on the desk with a little kiss on your forehead. 

This made you think the call was cut out at the perfect moment. 

You muttered a small ‘Thank you.’ still shy from the tired, unfiltered words that left your lips. Hiromi started walking out, his back facing you as he halted his steps at the door frame. 

“Honey?” he asked, not even bothering to turn around. “Did you call me a good boy?” Your heart plummeted to your stomach from the question as your cheeks started warming. 

You parted your lips to speak, watching his neck turn and peer back at you. “Depends..?” you squint your eyes, hearing a little laugh leave his lips. 

Irking his head, almost to urge you to finish. “On whether you liked it or not...?” you whispered, looking at his expression soften. 

His nose crinkled in the slightest- “I think I did.” he whispered back with a little crinkle formed on his nose. A nod from your warmed face in return, mindlessly accepting his confirmation and mouthing a soundless ‘ok.’ 

Turning around and taking a step out of the office and closing the door behind him. Knowing he would have to hear it a few more times to be sure he liked it or not. 

Naoya Zenin

Rare were the times when the want to call Naoya a good boy arose. 

He could be such a cunt sometimes- so the urge never really rumbled in your mind. 

But when he would be sweet- when his hands held a gentle touch when cleaning a scrape you got on your knee. Or when he would gently clasp your necklace on for you- knowing you wouldn’t be able to see. 

He would do those sweet things with a furrowed brow and a pouty lip- sure. But his hands showed his true feelings. How gentle they could be at times- that’s when the pet name would threaten to leave your lips. 

But when you would hold his head in your hands, looking at him like an idiot in love- “My good boy.” you murmered, watching a light grimace form on his face at the name.

“Good boy?” he asked, almost disgusted. 

You nodded your head- so sure that Naoya was as you said. “You’ve never called me that.” 

He was so used to the strange pet names you would call him just to get a rise out of him- and he was sure this one was no different. 

You shrugged, “You’re hardly ever a good boy. But when you are- I should tell you, shouldn’t I?” You murmured, being able to feel the warmth on his cheeks fill your palms- even if his expression said otherwise. 

“M’not a dog.” he muttered. 

“If you were- I would have trained you to be a good boy all the time by now.” 

That’s when Naoya pulled his face from your hands and looked away from you. Not wanting to continue the conversation, knowing his cheeks must be flushed by now. 

And the last thing he wanted was you on a power trip from making him blush. Especially from being called a good boy.

But when you started calling him that—Pavloving himself into thinking the little endorphins that would simmer in his brain would only happen if you called him that. And you only called him that when he was kind.

Naoya warmed to the name slowly- barely even grimacing at the callousness you’d say it with whenever he would be sweet. 

Unknowingly, he was being trained to be nice and polite with one ‘good boy’ at a time. 

Satoru Gojo

The times you would praise Gojo were always met with an, “I know.” smug and cocky in his actions to brush off your praise as just compliments. 

But the first time you ever spoke those words to him- a praise he had never heard before now, and eager to hear it again. 

Satoru had made a stupid comment about how you didn’t show your affections enough- “I’m deprived of kisses.” he murmured, complaining to you as though you didn’t spoil him rotten with your affections. 

And in retaliation, you denied him any kisses or hugs. Show him what deprivation really was. 

You were washing dishes, with a whiney Satoru behind you, his hands wrapped around your waist with his chin on your shoulder. “This has to be considered abuse!” another complaint as you denied his advances. 

“You said I was cold and negligent, so I’m showing you how cold and negligent I can be.” You smiled to yourself, turning off the faucet and drying your hands on a nearby towel. 

Hearing a stifled whine of desperation huff from his nose at your denial. “Jus’ gimme one kiss-” aiming his lips at your cheek only for you to pull away. 

Turning over to look at him- faces inches apart with his hands daring to tighten their grip on your waist. Tilting your head to the side with a snide smile. “Only good boys who don’t complain get kisses.” 

From how close he was- you could see the glimmer in his eyes become blinding at the pet name. 

His features going soft with parted lips- “I’m good-” he choked out, looking at you with goal-oriented eyes. “I’m soooo good-” he muttered, bordering on panicked from the idea that you didn’t think he was. 

Gojo’s hands gripped harshly at your hips. “Have you been a good boy?” you asked, almost sarcastically—as though you were speaking to a puppy. 

He nodded- eager to hear the new compliment leave your lips. Only you nodded ‘no.’

“I don’t think you have ‘toru.” you hummed, his lips coming closer to yours with a sad pout. As though the idea of him being good in your mind was the most important thing he needed to hear. 

He only placed his forehead onto the crook of your neck with a sad puff, your hand going up to his undercut, softly stroking the back of his neck in some feigned consoling. “Tell me i’ve been good.” he muttered quietly.

So spoiled from you caving with a little pout here or there. Practically putty in your hands as your other hand caressed the side of his face. 

Rolling your eyes with a playful sigh, “You’ve been good.” with a half-assed tone, only for Satoru to look at you with sad eyes. Expecting more than what you offered. 

Pressing a soft kiss onto his forehead and pulling away, “You’re a good boy.” you murmured, watching the light return to his eyes in sync with the little smile on his lips. 

Blinking rapidly as though he was trying to blind you, “My good boy.” and that’s when he got his fill for affection for the next few minutes. 

Then came the task of having to call him that whenever he wanted to hear it- looking at him with a displeased look, knowing you’ve created a monster that thrives on that special kind of praise only you could offer. 

Kento Nanami

We can all agree- Nanami is the one who deserves to be told he’s a good boy the most, right?

There were times when the urge blossomed in your mind- at the tip of your tongue and so close to calling him that pet name. But you never did. 

That was, until you got the guts to test the waters. 

Laying on your back, a few minutes before bed and unwinding while on your phone, and beside you; a hazy Kento that was waiting for you to turn off your side table lamp. Always waiting for you to get ready for bed before allowing himself to fall asleep. 

You let out a soft sigh before turning off your phone. Rolling onto your side with Nanami watching you from the side of his vision. Only this time you didn't reach for the little nob to turn your lamp off. 

You only stayed on your side with a pensive hum leaving your lips. “Scratch my back Ken,” you muttered, clearly tired with your eyes closed. 

Though you couldn’t see it- or hear it, you knew he had a little smile on his face as he shifted onto your side of the bed. A little shiver ran up your spine when his fingertips grazed the small of your back as he reached beneath your shirt. 

A satisfied sigh left your lips when his barely present nails started circling small scratches between your shoulder blades, your cheeks tingling from the words you dared say. “Such a good boy.” with a little smile on your lips, Nanami couldn’t see. 

Nanami didn’t fully process your mumbled words, only offering a hum in response as he kept up the gentle scratches. 

But when his brain started thinking about what you said- thinking if he misheard you. Slowing his hand with furrowed eyebrows, “Did you call me a-” he hesitated in what he thought he heard. 

“A ‘good boy’..?” bordering on a whisper from the nerves of being incorrect. 

Only the little ‘Mhm!’ that left your lips swatted those nerves away. “You’re such a good boy- always so nice to me.” you hummed, closing your eyes against the pillow with his hand still acting on your demand.

A pensive hum left his lips before slowly dragging his hand out of your shirt. You opened your eyes in dread, thinking he didn’t like it- only to hear him plop on his side of the bed with a throaty exhale. 

“Then be good and scratch my back.” he murmured, clearly too tired to process what he had just demanded- and the tone he used opened a whole other can of worms. But seeing as it was only fair- you did the same. 

Toji Zenin

He had been bugging you to finish your work for a while. Poking and prodding at you to stop working and pay attention to the film he put on to distract you. 

Toji had this thing where he pretended not to care- but you could see that it bothered him with every little side eye he made at you when you would stop typing for even a second. Hoping you were looking up at the TV instead of the screen on your lap. 

But every side eye he would make, Toji would find you still working. 

Going as far as nudging you with his elbow to mutter some bullshit lie he thought up on the spot. 

“M’hungry.” he muttered when you would look over at him. 

“Then eat.”

Only a few minutes of an action movie fight before another useless lure for conversation left his lips. 

“S’cold in here.” trying to bait any conversation he could think of. 

You scoffed, knowing exactly what game he was trying to play. “Get a blanket,” he quickly said, not even wanting to lose your train of thought. 

Then another, and another, and another. Till he finally spilled what he really wanted- “You don’t wanna go lay down or somethin-” with a pouty lip and furrowed eyebrows. You sighed and looked over at him.

“Or something?” sarcasm filled your tone as you looked back at the screen. 

Toji rolled his eyes with an exhale- another sassy trait he had learned from you. 

He parted his lips with an inhale. 

“Good boys wait politely, Toji.” you spat- pinched eyebrows and an avoidant gaze as he looked over to you. 

“When have I ever been polite.” he murmured- barely audible and in an annoyed tone. 

“When have you ever been a good boy?” you retorted, surprised he didn’t catch it the first time. 

He only let out a slight hum at your declaration. 

Toji didn’t really bring it up after that- and neither did you. As though the words hadn't processed in his brain till a week later. 

Looking at you across a metal table at an outdoor cafe- “Did you call me a good boy the other day?” almost with a little grimace on his expression. 

You pursed your lips- making Toji think you were going to deny it. 

“No. I said you’re never a good boy.” 

He only raised a brow at your proclamation- sucking his teeth with an inhale, “That’s not true- and you know it.” dismissing your words before taking a bite of the half sandwich you bought to share. 

Takuma Ino

One of the sweetest boys I can imagine. 

Always would he try to be as gentlemanly as he could- reminding himself that when it came to you, he would bend over backward had you asked. 

But there would be times when it would slip his mind entirely. 

Going shopping with him turned from just a quick pit stop- to an hour, then two hours. 

While ordering boba in line, your hands held shopping bags on each side. Ordering your own drink before Ino ordered his. 

He always found it offensive when you would even think of reaching for your wallet- so he would scoff infront of the cashier before tapping the chip of his card onto the little black screen. 

“How am I supposed to pay you back?” you muttered through clenched teeth, taking a few steps to the little wait area as they prepared the bubble drinks. 

He muttered something like ‘You don’t have to pay me back, what else am I here for.’ brushing you off with a little scoff. 

Ino didn't even notice the bags in your hands- his brain fried from how long you had been in the overcrowded mall. He only noticed when you moved the bags to one hand and shifted your stance slightly.

He looked over at you with a soft exhale- reaching for the bags, “Baby, don't tell me you don't have a ssssuuuuper strong boyfriend to hold these for you.” taking them from your hands and watching your expression soften. 

“What kinda boyfriend would let you walk around holding your own bags-” he scoffed, jokingly making fun of himself as you smiled warmly at him. 

Be it the general brain splitting headache you felt at that moment- or the heartmelting warmth you felt looking at him, “You're such a good boy.” you muttered- bordering on an illegable whisper, but Ino heard it. 

His eyes widened in the slightest and parted his lips at the name. “Me?” Ino whispered back, you only nodded ‘yes’ with tired eyes. Leaning in a little to you ear- too cautious for anyone to hear. “A good boy?” he whispered again. Watching the little smile on your lips widen with eager eyes. 

“The goodest boy.” you whispered with a smug tone- knowing he liked being praised in general. You knew he would like the little name. 

-

(a.n) does this count as smut? kinda a grey area me thinks. Didn't know how to tag it. (p.s) im so hungry rn and need to go spend wayyyy too much money on tile :(

[tearsofastraeax]

hello, i hope u’re doin okay 🫶 i wanted to ask you could u write smth where we have an age gap in our relationship w Simon (legal ofccc) and we’re a bit scared of 141’s reactions ? thank u sm even if u don’t feel like writing this <3

hi, hun. hope you enjoy ♡

⊹ simon riley never made a big deal about you being younger than him. he rather adored how sweet and innocent you were for him. he loved to have you by his side, and so he suggested you’d meet the 141. you were nervous, you weren’t bad with new people, that wasn’t it. but you couldn't stop thinking about what they might think, these guys were such an important part of simon's life, you wouldn't be able to handle it if they didn't like you. and what did your relationship look like to them? him being the older guy that spoils you and you being the bratty younger plaything? they probably wouldn't even take you seriously, maybe they’d see you as just another stupid girl. 

but simon was persuasive, he knew how to convince you to do his bidding. he trailed sweet kisses down your neck, whispering into your warm skin. 'they'll adore you, my love’, he'd say. his hands wandering from your waist to your hips, grabbing you in the sweetest way he could, just hardly leaving bruises behind. 'please come with me, just meet them.' he punctuated his words with a nip on your neck, his teeth grazing your skin, leaving a faint mark behind. you sucked in a low breath, hardly able to focus. his skilful fingers winding their way around your thighs, massaging them, and ever so slowly moving toward your throbbing core. 'trust me, love.' he captured your lips with his, pulling you into a dizzying kiss that left you breathless. you could only nod, barely able to register what you were agreeing to. 

            ⊹ so, the day came when you would meet the guys. with simon at your side, you stepped into the bar everyone had agreed to meet. your heart was beating so wildly in your chest that you were sure everyone would know just how nervous you were by just looking at you. but against your best beliefs, it was nothing like it. first, you met gaz or kyle, how he had introduced himself. oh, and how happy you were he was the first one of the bunch. with his easy smiles, he made you feel so at comfortable. so much so, that it barely shook you when you met the stoic captain price next. thankfully, the short-lived introduction was interrupted by no one other than soap, who with no time to spare swept you up to join him at the bar and ‘get fucking drunk, bonnie’. 

a few drinks and a couple of shots later you couldn't stop yourself, your brain-to-mouth filter having stopped working approximately 3 drinks ago. so you blurted out, 'I'm so happy that you guys like me, you know, I was kind of scared that you would think it's weird that simon and I have such an age gap.' you smiled shyly, immediately regretting even saying anything at all when everyone became a bit quieter than before. now you had ruined it. 

but instead, a low chuckle turned into a laugh. 'no, no, see we're happy for the old man here, getting some fresh meat', soap exclaimed, earning more laughter from the guys and you. except for simon who looked like he was ready to pounce on the poor guy. 

[eoieopda]

[visual content blog recommendations]

we see fic recs all the time, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen rec lists for visual content (gif/art/gfx/etc.) creators! they’ve been dealing with a bunch of shit lately between reposts, tumblr garbage, etc., so i wanna shout-out some favorites. thank you for keeping us fed!!

disclaimer: this is not an exhaustive list!! if you have recommendations of your own, please feel free to expand on this yourself and/or drop some of your faves in the replies for others to see. self-promo is always welcome here, too ✨ p.s. some of these are recent finds for me, so pls expect to see more of them on my blog. eta: i will be adding more as i go!!

[bts]

@yooboobies — réka’s gif sets are *chef’s kiss* and the ART? omg. the talent!!! 😭 we simply have to simp.

@cordiallyfuturedwight — apart from being one of the coolest/funniest people i’ve found on army tumblr, i am a kayla stan because the niche themes for her gif sets (ex. bangtan turtlenecks series) feel like they’re made 👏🏻 for 👏🏻 me 👏🏻 even though they absolutely aren’t, lmao.

@hopeinthebox — the bts as reductress headline + incorrect bangtan series are probably my favorite pieces of content on the entire internet??? also, lizzy is absolutely gd hilarious. tags are 11/10. a blessing upon my dash.

@kimtaegis — i’m not visually artistic enough to say this in a way that makes sense, but annie’s gifs are just… stunning? like, the colors? idk about the process that goes into that, but i imagine it takes a lot of time/finesse to be this vivid.

@kithtaehyung — ryen is the renaissance man of army tumblr, fr. not only can she write (like!!!) but she’s multi-faceted and insanely creative with her graphic design. i want her to tutor me, lmao.

@raplinenthusiasts — ooohhhhh my god. the coloring of their gifs makes my brain go brrrrtttt. this bts x the office set is on my “always reblog” list; i’ll share it every time i come across it.

@heybaetae — this set in particular is on my “always reblog” list, no matter how many times i’ve done so already. also, idk how to describe this, but kelli’s gifs are just…. crispy 🤌🏻 like, so satisfying with the…. texture? filtering? contrast? i’m an idiot re: editing terms, but go peep them and you’ll know what i’m trying to say.

@kth1 — literally who could ever forget maggie’s 100 days of (member) series??? the amount of work that had to go into that? unfathomable.

@jeurias — i want to wallpaper my house and office with their gfx. i’m deadass.

@jinstronaut — emmeline has been doing her “a jin a day while he’s away” series for OVER 250 DAYS NOW. i have never been nor will i ever be able to commit to anything to this level.

[multi/skz/atz/svt/etc.]

@starryoong — do not get me started on starry’s paintings, sketches, etc. because i will never shut up. ever. j’adore 🫠 is also a five-star human being.

@irlvernon — my queue is probably 80% max gifs at any given time. god-tier, fr. a must-follow for carats, as far as i’m concerned.

@vcrnons — incredible gifs, lovely human, and also the writer of some of my favorite svt fics??? we stan.

@yelhsaart — i don’t have any words for how much i love their art so please imagine guttural screaming instead. asdfghjkl!!!

@hizuillu — ……breathtaking. legitimately stunning skz art. like…… i have heart palpitations.

@snug-gyu — THE USE OF COLORS. i’m always a simp for pantone-inspired sets; they just scratch an itch in the back of my brain, and BOY HOWDY, is my brain satisfied 😵‍💫

@yunwooz — again, i have no idea what i’m talking about when it comes to the gif-making process, but the colors!!! the COLORS!!! like, taking a mv that’s not super vivid/is fairly greyscale and bringing it to life? ya know????

@booskwan — you want incredible gifs? they’ve got em. you want stunning gfx? they’ve got em. seriously, idk what to tell you except “pause right here and go follow immediately”.

@haechannabelle — listen……. annabelle’s art style is 😗🤌🏻 (that’s a chef’s kiss). the use of color, and the technique, and and and — ! ALSO, i must mention that she took, like, 50 hours to compile a boycott-friendly k-pop playlist. their vibes are simply impeccable.

rev. 4/10/24

[alwritey-aphrodite]

Can you please do Rain through an open window with Jamie Tartt x reader?

2024 Summer Blurbs

The older you seem to get, the less magical summer seems to become. Sure, you get weekends and evenings off to indulge in all your favorite summer activities, but sitting at a desk all day while the weather is perfect seems like a crime. With Jamie’s hectic schedule, you don’t even really have control over your weekends with a handful of exceptions. On those weekends, you make sure to plan out your days to include all your favorite summery plans while still making sure you’ll be able to get your well-deserved rest after working all week.

Unfortunately for you, though, summer seems to revolve around being outdoors, and London loves to rain.

You don’t mind the rain while you’re working, as it seems like the perfect way to rationalize spending all day at a desk, and you enjoy the rain while you sleep, but during the weekends, you want the ability to decide what you’re going to do and where you’re going to go, not wanting to be constrained by the unpredictable weather.

When Jamie returns from his morning run with his hair plastered to his forehead, you know you might as well scrap any plans you’d had for the day that didn’t involve staying inside.

“It’s raining,” he announces when he crosses the bedroom to plant a kiss on your forehead. He doesn’t seem all that bothered by his rare day off getting ruined by the London weather, but he’s always been the type to just roll with the punches and enjoy the ride.

While he showers, you trudge your way downstairs, leaving the comfortable darkness of your bedroom for stormy skies and gray lighting, and you sigh when your sleep-addled brain recognizes that this isn’t a summer rain shower, but a full blown storm. You feel groggy and grumpy, standing and staring at the open fridge while the rain hammers against the side of your house.

Jamie, who’s been up for hours at this point, joins you soon after with a slightly annoying spring in his step, but he just lovingly directs you to the couch while he makes breakfast, knowing that you’re upset about your weekend being ruined even without you speaking a word.

“We’ll get to finally finish that show, huh?” He says with a smile when he brings you your plate, settling onto the couch next to you. With a plate of warm food and Jamie smiling next to you, your mood lifts and you feel much less doom and gloom than you did when you woke up and saw the storm. You dig in, cradling the plate on your lap, but Jamie sets his own food down before standing and promising to be right back, disappearing deeper into the house.

When he returns, it’s with a pile of blankets that he’d definitely taken off of your bed, but he plops them onto the couch with the biggest smile and you can’t even fathom being a little upset, especially because you hadn’t even bothered to make the bed when you’d woken up. You expect that Jamie will finally settle down and pull you in for a cuddle, but instead he turns towards the windows, unlatching and pulling them all open just enough to let the sounds of the rain in, filtering in some of the cool outside air. You hadn’t even realized how stuffy it had gotten inside.

Satisfied, Jamie finally settles next to you, pulling you into his side and covers the both of you in a mountain of blankets, starting up the show you’ve been watching together before eating his own breakfast. It’s probably cold and you know it’s difficult to eat with one hand, his other drawing shapes on the soft skin of your side, but he looks more peaceful than he has in weeks.

Between the blankets and your full belly and Jamie next to you and the gentle noise of the rain just audible with the TV playing, you’re asleep before the first episode ends. Jamie notices immediately, remembering the scene where your eyes first closed so he can go back and watch it with you again later, content to relax and let you sleep with your head against his shoulder. In his mind, there’s no better way to spend a day off, even in the height of summer.

[dragonsdendoodles]

similar vein to that other ask but opposite, what do you think enoch and horace would argue about non trivially, like the worst disagreement theyve had

Oh good lord angst time. Buckle up kids today we’re going over why my friends yell at me. Fair warning this one’s also gonna be long

So there are two scenarios. One where Horace is the one hurt, and one where Enoch is.

I think whatever it is either way, it started small. I think generally they’d be good at communication, having picked that up from Hugh and Fiona, but it was, at the time, a small issue. It was not a stupid issue, because if it were a stupid issue it would turn into an argument about the argument itself.

The two things that made the first scenario significantly worse:

1. We have seen how Enoch is just in general. He has zero filter and he’s a jerk and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes he takes it a bit too far. I think, very similarly to myself, he can’t actually tell. He can tell when he’s hurt someone, but he doesn’t actually know what it was that hurt them. We’ve also seen him argue with people quite a lot, which leads me to believe he can be pretty volatile.

2. My headcanon for Horace being upset is that whenever he is, he gets in his head until he’s convinced himself that if he voices his concerns with whoever upset him (especially Enoch) he’s either going to be yelled at again and it’ll go nowhere or he’ll bother them more by bringing it back up and that combined with blaming himself for the whole thing means that eventually he just kind of shuts down. Stops talking. Waits for it to go away.

Normally, if I were writing them in this fashion (surprise surprise, I have a fic draft where I am,) Enoch would pester Horace about whatever he’s upset about until he fesses up, they talk it out, kiss a little, after an hour of trying to get this out of him it’s over in ten minutes.

However, if they were to get into a Big Actual Fight about whatever it was, I think Enoch would not have the patience to sit and deflect Horace’s “I’m fine/nothing’s wrong/you didn’t do anything/I’m just being stupid”s for as long as he usually has to. If Horace’s stubbornness wins out instead of Enoch’s and Enoch is both upset that Horace won’t ever fucking talk to him and doesn’t have near enough patience to keep pushing the issue to be able to have the information to resolve it, Enoch decides fine. If you’re going to be like this, then I’ll let you fucking be like this until you can be a fucking adult and actually fucking talk to me. Except that doesn’t come out like that, it’s Enoch, so it comes out as insults. Horace snaps back because the insults were uncalled for, Enoch snaps back because oh we’re doing this now, and neither knows who raised their voice first but now they’re both yelling. It gets messy. Someone gets called unreasonable, the other asks why he’s even still with him if he’s so horrible, the first asks why the hell he’d even say that when he knows why (the answer is he’s not, they’re both just pissed off and throwing words at each other to see what sticks,) it goes on for maybe twenty minutes tops. They get tired of crying and screaming at each other so depending on how bad they need one, one of them hugs the other and they actually talk about it or one of them goes away to calm himself down and process everything and then they hug and talk about it. Things are a little shaky for a while, but for the most part they’re just relieved it’s over and for some reason the other is still here and still loves them and isn’t leaving anytime soon. They apologized, they solved the issue by sitting down and talking about it, so for the most part everything’s okay now. There might be a day or so of walking on eggshells for fear of it happening again, but for all the hurt and all the shouting, chances are they don’t even remember what they were arguing about in the first place.

The important canon point and headcanon for the second option: Horace is shown in (at least my reading of) the books to be a bit of a people-pleaser. He does not like confrontation, he does not like upsetting people, he is too anxious and would much rather just Not Deal With That. Because of this, I am of the opinion that when he is in a particularly anxious mood or if he can sense that something is going wrong and he needs to fix it, he’ll make something up to hopefully dissipate the situation. (Think Dear Evan Hansen but on a lesser scale. It would not go farther than one person in this instance.) He knows it’s a terrible habit to have, and he is genuinely trying to fix it, but occasionally something slips out involuntarily and he feels horrible about it.

The biggest problem with that, other than the habit of being a compulsive liar: it doesn’t work. It works on people he doesn’t know, because they don’t know what his face means when he says something and then immediately gets even more nervous, but his friends and Miss Peregrine absolutely do. He knows they can tell and he is genuinely trying to fix it, so he just as quickly apologizes and corrects himself. It still hurts the other person, but it’s better than doubling down, which used to be how that would go because this all started to get himself out of trouble.

It hurts everyone involved and Horace absolutely hates that he does it, but the worst person he could do it to is Enoch. Because now his own boyfriend can’t fucking trust him and if there is one thing that pisses off Enoch more than pretty much anything else, it’s being lied to. And Enoch can and will call him on it. Immediately. Horace is doing his best to stop that from happening and chooses his words very carefully when he’s nervous in an effort to prevent it, but occasionally he gets paranoid that he’s done something Enoch won’t like and then he gets careless and forgets and then it’s just about getting out of this and uh oh.

When that happens, Enoch stops talking to him for a while. If Horace tries to say something, they fight about it and it’s an argument Horace cannot win because Enoch’s right. He should be able to trust and be honest with him, but for some reason he was scared enough to convince himself he couldn’t, and now Enoch can’t trust him. Once Enoch comes back from processing everything, they have a serious talk about why he said what he did and the thought process behind it and why Horace thought lying to him about whatever the completely innocent thing was would be a good idea and this cannot happen again. Horace understands and apologizes and tries to make up for it because that’s all he can do, and Enoch’s still upset about it for a while, but eventually he trusts Horace again and the issue is resolved. Neither of them feel good about the situation until it’s all but forgotten in a few weeks, after they’ve built that trust back up.

In writing this I realized that one can very easily lead into the other, so for all intents and purposes if we start with one and it becomes two, the argument stays two and two cannot turn back into one. It’s no longer about whatever actually caused it, it’s about the fact that now one of us is just saying things to appease the other and that habit happens to be the one thing that had it been literally anyone else that relationship of any kind would have been over.

Neither of these happens often. They are very good at communication generally, having been friends and best friends long before they were boyfriends, so 99.9% of the time if something happens that would cause an argument, they sit down and actually talk it out and it’s fine. This is just that .1% where it gets pretty bad. They understand each other better than even they think they do sometimes, so they come out okay, if not for a couple bad memories. They do talk about those bad memories sometimes as well, especially if it started with an insecurity of one of them, and they make sure that whatever it was all is forgiven and nothing is permanently damaged. If there’s damage left over, they talk about it immediately and do whatever needs to be done to resolve it. Neither holds grudges against the other.

[thimbledoll]

A Case Study in Ascension

The old machine clicks and whirs as the cassette tape is slotted into the VCR. It’s a miracle they were able to find one of these any more. Digitizing, tagging, and sorting through all these old records was a long, laborious process. You were already on your fifth cup of coffee and it wasn’t even halfway to lunch.

As the display flickers to life, a young girl appears on screen. Her exact age is difficult to make out, given the graininess of the recording, but you’d peg her as approaching her teens. She bounces slightly in the over-large, plush office chair she’s sitting in, her smile beaming brightly.

The much older woman sitting across from her behind a large, oaken desk is quite the opposite. She sits stock still, hardly moving an inch except to make more scratches in the notepad she’s carrying. She barely even looks at the girl before asking atonally, “Now Sarah, you understand why you’re here, right?”

“Yes, miss. Mom and Dad said this was some kind of study,” the girl replies.

“That’s right. You and I are going to get together every couple of months just to talk about how things are going for you. School. Friends. Family. Whatever things you have going on in life. And please, call me Dr. █████. Understand?”

“Yes, Dr. █████.”

“Good. Now, let’s start with how things are at home. Mom and Dad get along?”

“Oh, gosh yes. They’re really happy togeth—”

The girl’s tale is interrupted as the recording cuts to snow and static typical of these older machines. After a moment, a cohesive picture appears again; the same two women sitting in the same office, though the young girl now has the look of a young teenager. The date in the corner of the video indicates that several years have passed between these recordings. The girl’s bounce is notably gone.

“Hello, Sarah. How are you doing today?” the doctor asks.

“Hey, Dr. █████. It’s… fine, I guess.”

“Not feeling too chatty?” It’s hard to see, but it looks like the doctor’s facial expression actually flashed a hint of emotion there, though what emotion exactly was impossible to say.

“I’ve just got a lot going on.”

“So I’ve heard. Your father tells me you were with him when he was served the divorce papers. How are you handling things?”

“I dunno… Like I said, doc, I guess it’s fine. I’ll just have to give a little to help out around the house, y’know? Dad can pull in enough for all of us, even despite everything, so it’s fi—”

The video cuts out again, but rather oddly, the typical VHS static instead sounds like the sizzling and crackling of a wood fire. When it resumes, an even older Sarah now sits curled up on the plush chair, hugging her knees to her chest. The doctor seemingly doesn’t mind that she’s got her shoes on the furniture. The whole image looks odd, like it’s been passed through an image filter or was overly lit while being shot.

“So I hear your dad lost his job? How are you handling things?”

“Look, I… I really don’t want to do this today…”

The doctor pauses a moment to consider before responding. “Sarah, be that as it may, talking about these kinds of events are critical to our study. You do want to continue participating right? I imagine your family needs the stipend now more than ever. Please, how are you handling things?”

The doctor may have been hard to read, but the glare Sarah shot her was anything but. “Fine,” she spat back, venom dripping from her voice. “You want to know how I’m handling things, Doctor █████? I’m being asked to give up any shot I had at a normal social life during my college years so I can work to support my family. But you know what? Like I said, it’s fine. I’m fine. It’ll be fine. I just have to give a little more for them. Once I graduate, I’ll be able to get a real job and take care of them. It’s fi—”

You expected it this time. The screen whites out to that off-kilter static as the next session begins to play. The doctor now wears a pair of sunglasses, the lighting rig apparently becoming too much for her or the recording equipment to handle. Some tech must have gotten fired for this, for sure.

“So I hear school’s not going so well?”

“Dad… needs me to drop out. His health isn’t doing so well. But it’s fine… What’s a year or two? I just have to give a little more. I’ll go back once his health improves. It’s fi—”

CRACKLE

“So I hear your dad’s taken a turn for the worse?”

“I just have to give a little more… At least my sister’s working now. It’s fi—”

SIZZZZZZZ

“So I hear your sister’s gotten in some trouble with the law?”

“I just have to give a little more… It’s fi—”

POP

“Just give a little more… It’s fi—”

SNAP SIZZZZZ

“Just a little more… It’s fi—”

CRACKLE POP

“Just…”

SIZZZZZZ CRACK

“…a little…”

CRACK CRACK POP

“more…”

SIZZZZZZZZZZ SNAP POP CRACK

The recording starts up clear and crisp once more, but it’s just the unnamed doctor this time, looking directly into the camera from where it now sits opposite her desk. Her expression is lively and jovial. Gone is the sphinx-like unreadability and stone-like body language as well the sunglasses. It appears like the lighting issues have been fixed. She now bounces in her chair excitedly, like a young girl.

“We’re close now. I can feel it. It’s taken years of work, but it’s all about to pay off. We now sit on the cusp of greatness. Peak luminosity readings are off the charts. Purpose is clear. We’re experiencing regular equipment issues during sessions, owing to lens or temperature flares. One more push and we should achieve ignition.

“Replicability is still in question, but who cares about that right now? We only have to manage this once to prove that it’s possible. If the field team can orchestrate this last push, by this time next month, nothing should remain of the person once known as Sarah. There will be nothing left of herself to give.” The VCR clicks as the recording reaches its end. You hit the eject button and wait as the machine spins up and spits out the video cassette. Forty eight down, one hundred thirty seven to go. There was no way you were going to finish before the end of the week. You grab the next cassette from the box labeled Project Seraphim and pop it in.

End 🧵

(Originally written for inclusion in Emptied Spaces: An Empty Spaces Anthology, available in digital form on itch.io. Major kudos to Alexandra and her shop, Sapphic Sweets, for making this awesome project happen)

[kelyon]

Hot Cocoa and Stolen Kisses 6: Orange

Lacey and Gold spend Christmas together

Read on AO3

“You don’t happen to have a zester, do you?” Lacey looked down at the bag of oranges sitting on the counter of Roald’s kitchen.

Without missing a beat, he pulled open a drawer and took out a long microplane. He presented it to her with a showy wave, like a juggler.

“Do you think I’m some kind of amateur?” he teased.

Lacey crinkled her nose. “Next you’ll be telling me you’ve got a fine-mesh strainer I can use instead of half a two-liter bottle and a coffee filter.”

“It’s called a chinois.” His hand lingered on the small of her back as he passed her to get  to another cabinet. He retrieved a large, cone-shaped sieve on a long handle. “We can line it with cheesecloth, if the expert thinks it’s necessary.”

She shrugged, mildly amused at him calling her an expert in anything, much less cooking. In the weeks since they’d started dating, Roald had proved his prowess in the kitchen over the course of a dozen extravagant  meals. Lacey had nothing to her credit except hot chocolate. 

It was Christmas Eve and it was the first time Lacey was making cocoa at his place. As well as she knew her recipe, it was a little odd to make it here. Uncomfortable, like brushing your teeth using the wrong hand. She kept having to ask him where he kept utensils and ingredients. This kitchen was pristine, so she was hyper-aware of spills and other messes, along with how many dishes she was dirtying. Ways of doing things that were fine in her apartment suddenly seemed below par for a real kitchen.  

Roald had no idea, of course. He spent the whole evening being lovely. He fetched whatever she needed or told her when it was close at hand. He asked questions and offered suggestions--not as any kind of dig or to prove how much better he was at cooking, but because he was genuinely passionate about this stuff. He wanted her take on things. He listened to her ramble on about her ‘process’ while she tried to make her actions look natural and sophisticated. Like this Julia Child chef he kept referencing--she probably never made a mess in the kitchen. Roald was so sweet, so patient. He deserved the world. All Lacey wanted was to impress him.

Prove to him that she was worthwhile.    

Aside from her ridiculous nerves, it was a beautiful night. Storybrooke was the kind of American small town where it was legally mandated that it snow on Christmas Eve. Earlier in the month, there had been honest-to-God carolers roaming the streets. Every house had a wreath on the door and lights in the windows. None of them compared to all three stories of Roald’s pink Victorian mansion. 

He had hired decorators to fill his house with fresh pine inside and out. There were miles of lights and red velvet ribbons and garlands of real cranberries strung up all over. The tree in his living room was eight feet tall, trimmed with bulbs in every color. There was a turkey in the fridge for tomorrow, to be served with mashed potatoes and oyster stuffing. It was more food than the two of them would be able to eat, but it meant something to him to have too much. 

 He told Lacey he had always wanted to go all-out for Christmas, but never had before. This was the first year he had anyone to share it with. 

She scraped an orange across the zester over a ‘mise en place bowl’--which was just a fancy name for a regular small bowl you could put ingredients in. Frowning, she eyeballed the small mound of orange zest against the dutch oven full of lightly-steaming cocoa on the stove. Should she zest another, or would that overpower the chocolate?

“How much do you like orange, anyway?” she asked Roald. This flavor had been a special request, once she’d finally broken him down to ask for what flavor he really wanted, and not just take whatever nonsense she thought up.

“At Christmastime? I like it quite a bit.” 

He was standing next to her at the counter, close enough that she could see his wistful smile. She knew that look by now, the look of him wanting something but being afraid to have it. 

He used to look at her like that. 

She reached for another orange. “Then I’ll make sure there’s plenty.”  

   After stirring the zest into the chocolate, she set a timer for half an hour. 

“Don’t wanna risk the orange turning bitter if we leave it in too long,” she explained. “We’ll give it a taste when the timer goes off, and if it’s good I’ll strain it out with your shin-wah.” She exaggerated the French word. “Then a quick reheat if we need it, and Christmas cocoa will be yours.”

“Ours.” Roald’s hands were at her waist as he stood behind her. He nibbled on her ear lobe. “I want to share it with you, my Lacey.”  His lips traveled down to her neck. “None of this would happen if it weren’t for you.”

She pushed back against him, grinding her ass against his body in a way she knew drove him wild.  

“That’s just as true for me, love,” she whispered. “If it wasn’t for you…”

“Shh.” He turned her around in his arms, held her close and kissed her. “We’re here now, sweetheart. We’re together. We have each other. I love you.”

In the twenty-three days since she’d first  heard him say that, it still hadn’t gotten old. 

****

The timer was loud enough to interrupt their impromptu make-out session. Lacey shooed  Roald out to the living room while she wrangled the hot chocolate. 

She hated to admit it, but it was easier to do things without him in the kitchen. Her head was clearer. It wasn’t embarrassing to poke around in cupboards looking for things. She’d get there, she knew it.  Once she understood the layout, she could feel like she belonged in Roald’s space. She wanted to be as comfortable in the kitchen as she was in his bedroom. Lacey grinned to herself at the thought. That would be very comfortable indeed. 

After a bit of rummaging, she found a pot to drain the cocoa into. She put the pot into the sink and set the chinois inside. Then she took a deep breath and braced herself to pick up the hot cocoa off the stove. 

At her apartment, she cooked in a dinky aluminum spaghetti pot, but Roald’s kitchen was equipped with a five-and-a-half-quart dutch oven imported from France. It was sturdy, which meant it was heavy. Even heavier when it was full of a steaming-hot liquid that was currently the most precious commodity in Lacey’s life. She could heft it up, but wouldn’t be able to rest it against her abdomen while she walked, like she would any other bulky weight. This mission would depend entirely on the strength of her twig-like arms. But she could do it.

 Slowly and carefully, with a potholder covering each hand, she made her way from the stove to the sink.

It was unnatural, how happy she was to succeed in pouring the cocoa into the chinois. She didn’t spill a Goddamned drop! That proved it. She knew what she was doing. She was strong and she was responsible. She could be trusted with the thing that meant so much to the man who meant so much to her. When Lacey set down the dutch oven, she was relieved of more than just the weight of enamel-coated cast iron. 

Earlier, Roald had gathered up supplies for serving  the cocoa. Lacey put together a plate of his shortbread biscuits and set it on a breakfast tray. He never ate with her cocoa, he said it didn’t need any accompaniment. She mostly agreed, but buttery homemade shortbread was worth an exception. 

Next on the tray was an eighteenth-century porcelain hot chocolate set. Apparently cocoa had been a big deal back in the day and it needed its own servingware. Details were hazy as to whether Roald had always owned this set or had taken it home from his shop just for tonight. Every piece was glazed dark green and hand-painted with purple thistles. He must have chosen it because it reminded him of Scotland.

The hot chocolate set was distinct from the bone china tea set that was prominently displayed in his dining room. That teapot was squat and round, where the chocolate pot was much taller. More elegant, Lacey thought. The cups were also taller than most teacups. The proportions were more like normal mugs, though made of much finer stuff.  The porcelain was so thin and delicate you could see light shine through them. 

She was exceptionally careful as she poured the strained cocoa into the tall pot and arranged the cups and saucers around it. She tried to tell herself that she was being silly. At this point in the relationship, Roald wasn’t going to call everything off if she accidentally chipped a cup. It would be fine.

Still, she wanted to be careful with his stuff. Because being responsible was important. Because he was important. 

Fortunately, the cocoa tray wasn’t half as heavy as the dutch oven had been. Lacey made it from the kitchen to the living room with no mishaps.   

She wasn’t fucking anything up. 

****

Roald was sitting on the floor in front of the fire. He had arranged an ungodly number of pillows and blankets into a kind of nest with the couch as a back. He turned around when Lacey came in. His eyes were practically twinkling. 

“Hey,” he smiled. “Come sit.”

She set the cocoa tray on the floor by his feet, then snuggled in next to him under a plaid wool blanket. Since they were at home, she had gotten him to put on a sweater instead of a suit. The burgundy cashmere was soft against her cheek. 

“This is very cozy.”

“That’s the idea.” He draped his arm over her shoulder, pressed his lips to the side of her head. “The tree looks so big from down here.”

“It’s a big tree from any angle.”

“Yes, but this makes it feel larger than life. Like…” He looked down, suddenly closed-lipped. 

At this point in their relationship, Lacey could practically see inside his head. Every time he stopped talking like that, it meant he was thinking of something he didn’t want to talk about but desperately needed to. It had happened a few times since they’d started dating.

“Like?” she prompted.

“Like when I was a child,” he finished, still looking away. “We--the women who raised me after my father left--they had an artificial tree, probably less than three feet high. It had to go on a little table in the front room. There wasn’t a lot of space for storage in that house and real trees were expensive, even then…�� He sighed, shook his head. 

She waited. His past was hard for him to reminisce about. From what he told her, it had been hard for him to live through. 

“It was the first Christmas tree I ever had,” he said at last. “I was… seven years old, maybe eight when he left me there, and I had never lived in a place with a Christmas tree.” He gave a laugh, dark and bitter. “God knows Malcolm Gold wasn’t going to sober up long enough to be festive.”

She squeezed his hand, then leaned forward to reach for the cocoa. “Your father is such an asshole.”  

“Was,” Roald corrected while she poured. “I have that much to be grateful for.”

She handed him a cup and saucer, then poured some cocoa for herself. She scooted back until she was next to him again. Roald looked down into the chocolate, but didn’t taste it. 

Oh, he was in a bad way.

“But the Christmas tree?” she asked softly.

At the sound of her voice, his shoulders relaxed. His face lost the grave lines the memories had brought out of him. He brought his cocoa close to his chest, up to the level of his heart.

“That Christmas tree.” His smile was almost too small to see. “That stunted, re-used, five quid, plastic Christmas tree--was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I was… dazzled by it. I’d kneel at the table in the window like it was an altar and look up into a world of blinking jewels.”

His gaze shifted to the tree they had now--the tree he’d never put up, before Lacey had come into his life. Multicolored lights washed over his face. For an instant, Lacey saw the little boy he’d been. A boy who had spent his whole life afraid and unloved but was now, for the first time, coming into a home where he’d be cared for and cherished. 

Lacey had already loved Roald for what he had brought into her life. Now her heart blazed with a fierce determination to bring something into his. She had to protect that little boy, had to give him everything he had ever lacked. 

“I want to kiss you,” she told him. “But I don’t want to spill the hot chocolate.”

He laughed at that, deep and hearty, actually happy. “At least you’ve finally started to ask.”

With one hand, he held his saucer out to the side. She did the same thing, but wished they had put the cups down altogether. As she kissed him, she wanted to press against him fully, get as close as it was possible to be. Not just sex--they’d done that plenty. Lacey wanted to crawl inside Roald’s skin, to burrow into the very soul of him and envelop him with her love.

He seemed to know. He kissed her on the forehead when they broke apart. 

“Thank you, sweetheart. It’s easier to speak of these things with you.”

She sniffled, then tried to pretend that she hadn’t. She straightened up. “You--you’ve got to drink that while it’s still hot, you know.”

He kissed her again, soft and sweet. “As you say, my love.” He raised his cup, and clinked it against hers. “Merry Christmas, Lacey.”

She drew her knees up to her chest to watch him drink. As he inhaled the scent of chocolate and oranges, the years seemed to melt away from his face. All the worry, all the heartbreak, all the loneliness was gone. Lacey’s heart filled, not only with compassion, but with a kind of possessive pride. She had done that, no one else. She had helped him. She made him feel good, feel safe, feel loved. And she was gonna keep doing it, for as long as he would let her.

His lips parted and he let the cocoa wash over his tongue. Then his eyes shot open and his body jerked a little. He covered his mouth with his hand.

Shit.

“Shit, what’s wrong?” Lacey took his cup and put it to the side. “Is it too hot, or did I--” 

Without a word, Roald grabbed her by the arms and pulled her in for a kiss.

It was so abrupt, so unexpected, that Lacey spent half a second completely rigid. Then she sank into him. Her arms went up over his shoulders. Roald held her waist, pressed her tight against him. Even when they broke apart to breathe, he didn’t let her go.

His body shook, and it took Lacey too long to realize he was laughing.

“This is perfect,” he said softly, his arms wrapped around her middle. “You’re so perfect, Lacey.” He kissed her again, covered her face with kisses.

When he looked at her, his eyes were large and moist with tears. His smile was almost too big for his face.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he whispered.

“Oh, Roald,” she murmured. 

Holding his face in both hands, she kissed the tears away from his eyes. She’d never had a boyfriend brave enough to cry in front of her. She’d never met anyone who had as much passion in his heart as Roald Gold.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He held her hand, brought her fingertips to his lips. “I love you more than my own life.”

She had to laugh at that, a short chuckle that would have been a scoff if it wasn’t sincere. She shook her head. “Considering your life, baby…”

“It wasn’t all bad.” He held her in one arm and reached for his cocoa with the other. “I had a few happy years. With oranges and hot cocoa at Christmas.”

“So that’s what it is.” Lacey grabbed a shortbread biscuit off the plate. “That’s why you wanted this flavor.”

“We never had much for extras,” he said. “Though even having the necessities  was more than I was used to with my father.” He sighed. “But at Christmas, oranges were cheap. Both my foster mothers had grown up in poverty, so stockings full of oranges and apples were as much as they’d ever gotten as far as presents.” He gave a small smile. “In a gray Scottish winter, having an orange is like carrying the sun in your pocket.”

“And the cocoa?”

He shook his head ruefully. “It was the smallest extravagance in the world. We didn’t have presents or parties, we didn’t go out on the town--but we had cocoa. And we had each other.”

He took a sip, then sighed. It seemed like a piece of his world had been made right.  

“What happened to them?” Lacey asked. It seemed obvious, but she wanted to hear it how Roald wanted to tell her.

“They died.” He said it simply. “When I was twenty, just before I’d earned enough money to set them up in comfort. I lost them both within six months of each other. First to heart failure, then to heartbreak. You know how it can be with old couples.”

“A couple, huh?” Lacey bit her shortbread consideringly. “So they were elderly Scottish lesbians in--what, the seventies? Eighties? I bet they had stories to tell.”

Roald nodded, but said nothing. Still holding her, he stared ahead into the crackling fire.

“And since then you’ve had no one else in your life?”

“Just heartless girlfriends and shady business associates.” He took a drink, a long one this time. “No one worthwhile--until you.”

Lacey’s face went hot. She pulled away from him. The blanket they shared was covered in crumbs from her shortbread. A mess. Of course she made a mess. She brushed the crumbs away, into the fire.

“I--I don’t know if you’ve thought that part out yet. I mean, sure I make decent cocoa, but--”

“Sweetheart.” He put a hand over hers, to still her anxious cleaning. “Trust me. You’re worthwhile.”

“How do you know? We’ve been dating for less than a month.”

“The happiest month of the last thirty years.” He squeezed her hand, looked into her eyes. 

He meant it. God, he really meant it. What had she done to him?

Lacey sighed. “What if you’re just getting carried away? Swept up in the rush of emotion?”

“Me?” His eyebrows raised. “Lacey, I thought it was understood: Of the two of us, I’m the one far less likely to act on impulse.”

Her lips twitched in involuntary amusement, but she didn’t say anything.

“If anything, I’m sure I’m too deliberative,” Roald went on. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for days and I haven’t determined the best way to start.” 

She rubbed her face. “So you’re doing it now?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” Lacey took a drink of her cocoa. It really wasn’t bad. She had never thought to put oranges and chocolate together before. “What’s going on?”

Roald cleared his throat. “The lease on your apartment is up at the end of the month.”

She gave her boyfriend a look. “Landlord talk? Now?”

“It’s important, I promise.”

She rolled her eyes, but sat up straight and looked him in the face. Apparently this had turned into a business cuddle. 

“I thought my lease was set up to automatically renew. I was gonna go month to month.”

Actually, her original plan had been to leave Maine after a year. She had wanted to see what other states had to offer or maybe head up to Canada. That idea had gone out the window as soon as things with Roald had started to get interesting. 

“I don’t…” He cleared his throat for the second time in five minutes. “You don’t have to rent month to month if you don’t want to.”

Lacey smirked. “Mr. Gold, are you trying to get me to sign another contract?”

“No,” he said. A smile flickered at her attempt at a joke. “Actually, I think it’s bad business to rent to someone with whom I’m romantically involved.”

At those words, some irrational spirit of indignation flared up in her belly. She jerked away from him, started to stand up. 

“If you’re going to break up with me on Christmas Eve, it had better be for a better reason than--”

“Move in with me,” he cut her off. He was still on the ground. His hands reached out to her. “That’s what I’m asking for, Lacey. I would like it if you lived here. With me. As my girlfriend. No contracts, no rent, just… us.”

Lacey plopped onto the couch, so quickly it was almost a fall.

“Us?” she whispered. She looked down at him. “You want us to live here. Together?” 

It wasn’t a totally new concept. They had been dating properly for a month now. They’d spent almost every day at one or another of their places, and just as many nights. And it wasn’t like he was asking her to marry him. This was just a solution to the problem of him being her landlord.

She stood up again.

“Wait, no. Roald, I’m rich. If this is just about business, I can buy the apartment from you for a fair price.”

“That apartment comes with the entire library.”

She shrugged. “My parents always wanted me to read more. They’ll pay for it.” Her parents would pay extra just to see her with a permanent address.

“Lacey, it’s not just about business.” From his place on the floor, he took her hands. “I want to live with you. Every day. I hate every time I say good-bye to you, even when I know I’ll see you in a few hours. I want you in my home. I want you in my life, sweetheart.”

“Me?” She sank to her knees, overwhelmed. “Roald, honey, I-- You know I’m a hot mess.”

He smiled. “And you know I’m a cold mess,” he said. “We’re people, sweetheart. We’re messy. Now, I don’t expect you to fix all my problems, and I know you don’t think I can fix yours--but we can still help each other. You know how much you’ve helped me already.”

She squeezed his hand, shifted from her knees to her butt so she was sitting next to him again. “Yeah,” she said. “And I do love being around you. I do love you! You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“But I don’t want to fuck it up,” she whispered. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.” He leaned in close and started to kiss her. “I know you, Lacey French.” Kiss. “I know you’re adventurous.” Kiss. “And dedicated.” Kiss. “Inventive and intelligent.” Kiss, kiss. “I know I want to have you by my side.” Kiss. “For as long as I deserve you.”

“Shut up,” she nibbled on his neck. “You deserve me. You deserve better than me. You deserve someone like you: Classy and sophisticated. Smart--”

“You are smart, I already said that.” 

Lacey chuckled. “And funny. Does anyone know how funny you are, Roald?”

“No one in this town knows my first name.” He kissed her. “You’re the only one that cared. You’re the only one I want. Just tell me that you want me too, sweetheart. Tell me you want to be with me.”

“I really do.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, straddling his legs. “I do want to be around you. Day and night. For as long as you’ll put up with me.”

“Forever then,” he whispered.

“Or at least til the cocoa runs out.”

“Or you get tired of my cooking.”

“Or the sex stops being interesting.”

“Or you meet someone closer to your age.”

“Or I have a baby and get fat.”

For just a second, he pulled away. He looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Now who’s moving too fast?”

She shrugged. “You still want a family, don’t you? You said you used to want that. I bet you’d love to have a little kid to spoil rotten at Christmas. If I move in with you, that’s only going to be more possible. We’ll have to talk about it.”

“Well, I’d like to be married before I have children.”

Lacey nodded. “We’ll have to talk about that too. We’ll have to talk about laundry and taxes and my parents in Australia and all kinds of dumb, boring, important shit. You know that, right? If I move in with you, it’s real life. It won’t be all hot cocoa and stolen kisses. Do you still want it?” 

He didn’t hesitate for an instant. “Yes, Lacey. I want all of it. All the mundane tedium of life. All of the highs and all of the lows and all of the nothing and everything in the middle. I want all of that with you.”

“Good,” she kissed him. “Because I want it too.” 

[birchbow]

@owl---feathers yeah I've posted about it on,,,, my main and my pale sideblog before, maybe? I wrote some bits in college of a fic where Gamzee gets captured by the Felt, presumed dead--then I forgot about it for years, then a few months ago somebody told me they always hoped to still read it someday, and I started putting in the work trying to get it postable. Ofc now that it has plot, instead of just like 15K words of bad shit happening to Gamzee, it's ballooned to almost 100K words and still isn't done. But that's my trademark at this point lol.

I'm genuinely such a sucker for "the guy I love is back but he came back Wrong but I still love him" and also "this person is deeply traumatized about being A Person and needs to learn how to be a human being that people love again", so.

--

The rest of your team is filtering down after you.  You should be listening to them as they talk, debriefing, talking over your next moves; you’re the leader, it’s your job.  But you can’t.  You can’t do anything except stand at the observation window and stare.

Gamzee was always thin, no matter how much you tried to feed him up, but now he’s fucking gaunt.  The beds in the holding cells are just inset bunks in the walls with mattresses riveted down onto them; the cuffs attached on either side of them aren’t long enough for him to leave the mattress but he’s making a solid fucking effort, thrashing and struggling at them, making vicious, animal sounds of fury.  His eyes are washed over featureless purple, his lips are cracked and chapped bloody, the soft brown of his skin has gone a pale, ashy gray-brown except for the blotchy flush of rage on his cheeks.

“Motherfucking cowards!” he screams, and slams against the cuffs as hard as he can, wiry muscle straining in his arms and chest, tendons standing out in his narrow throat.  “You’ll die and DIE AGAIN, you walking corpses!  My mission is holy!  MY MISSION IS HOLY, MOTHERFUCKERS!  I won’t be fucking swayed from it!  You’ll live to watch my Lord eat the marrow outta your bones, he’ll boil you fuckers alive in your own filthy motherfucking blood—!”

“Fuck,” says Eridan, heavy and thick with horror.  There’s still red smeared across his lips, and he’s leaning hard on Feferi’s shoulder.  “Should’ve been able to take him.  Woulda been able to take him before.  Fuck.”

Gamzee is laughing now, horrible, harsh laughter, like the horrific shit he’s describing is funny.  You don’t answer, because how the fuck could you?  What the fuck would you say?

“This is what they wanted to turn us into?”

“Eridan,” says Feferi, tightly.  

“Fuckin’, berserk murder machines—”

“Eridan.”

Eridan presses his lips together into a thin, unhappy line and looks away, sniffing hard.

“You think I don’t feel you out there?!” Gamzee snarls, and twists, thrashing at the cuffs.  They were made for the others, when they came back from the Scratch—the shed chitin of whatever you’re fused with is worked into them, and they don’t give.  Gamzee howls in fresh rage and stares wildly at the one-way mirror, eyes round and blank, nothing behind them but light.  “Smell you,” he hisses.  “Taste you.  Scared of me, motherfuckers, as well you fucking should be.  Scared what hell you’ll be sent to when I dig your hearts out with my hands and make you fucking eat them—!  Oh I taste it already, brothers and sisters, repent, it won’t fucking save you—”

“I can’t believe that’s him,” Kanaya says—quietly, flat and soft.  “What have they done with him?”

Whatever the fuck they wanted, you guess.  Six years.  Six fucking years.

[storytellingdreamer]

Watching Granada Holmes: The Musgrave Ritual

This episode had a good riddle, but the interpersonal stuff that surrounded the case was hard for me to deal with. Read my other recaps here. 

I don’t like love triangles, sex scenes (no matter how tasteful or hidden) make me squirm, scenes of social awkwardness incite almost visceral dread, and unhappy endings are hit and miss. So this episode was not particularly fun. 

Except for the mystery itself which the episode and story are named after, and pretty much all Holmes and Watson moments. Even if some of them make me Feel Things. 

For example, their first scene. Watson is rather happy to be on holiday. Holmes is miserable.  

Then Holmes distracts Watson by referring to records of “his earlier work”. A nod to the fact that the original version of this story was one of Holmes’s earlier works, told to Watson by Holmes later. The sort of thing that could make for quite dull viewing, so it’s been brought “forward” to the present for the Granada adaptation. 

They arrive, and settle in. For Holmes, to Watson’s dismay, this means using his syringe (probably with a solution of cocaine, as his behaviour afterwards is stimulated, not suppressed). The scene where Watson finds out is just heartbreaking.

Watson knocks on the door, realises Holmes is in the bath, and an impish look crosses his face as he creeps into the room. He’s happy and relaxed and, I think, thinking of surprising Holmes.

Then, after he’s seated, Watson looks around and spots the syringe, and his face just falls completely. After a thoughtful look, he gets up and leaves again. Not wanting to be with Holmes now. 

The next few minutes of the episode are rather excruciating to watch. 

The cocaine makes Holmes act, well, rather out of character. His usual mannerisms exaggerated and amplified by the drug. 

That false, loud laugh that Brett does when Holmes is like that gives me chills - it’s so unlike Holmes’s usual reserve! 

There’s also his behaviour towards Brunton the butler - something about Brunton catches his attention, and Holmes stares at him very obviously, in an almost creepy way. 

Holmes has no social filter at all when he’s under the influence and it’s painful. Not even Watson trying to cover for him by leading the conversation does much to help. 

... this has now given me Thoughts about why Holmes started using in the first place. (I know there are other reasons given in the text, and that I’m projecting parts of my own ND experience instead. Bear with me a minute.) Basically, I can’t help but observe that there’s a difference between not caring about (NT) social things, and being completely unaware of them. 

One is somewhat conscious - you can willingly say, “oh, I don’t care about what others think of me”, and then act like it. 

However, you may well be still aware of the (NT) social norms, and - with a heckton of anxiety and effort, if you’re ND - may be able to apply them if you really need/ want to. 

I would say this is Holmes’s usual behaviour (to an extent), but it’s tempered, as the situation or person calls for it. 

When he’s under the influence of cocaine, though, this awareness disappears, along with any NT social graces. It also means any hidden anxiety about needing to “get it right” disappears, because the drug makes him unaware of such things. 

I wonder if that would have been freeing for a younger Holmes...

The next Holmesian headcanon that the episode points to is something I only realised recently. Sherlock Holmes can easily be seen as dyslexic. It’s relevant here because I’d just seen the post thread linked before I watched this episode... in which Holmes asks Musgrave and Watson to read the ritual aloud to him rather than reading it himself. 

Right, the ritual! 

“Whose was it?” “His who is gone.” “Who shall have it?”  “He who will come.”

“Where was the sun?” “Over the oak.” “Where was the shadow?” “Under the elm.”

“How was it stepped?” “West eight by eight, south seven by seven, west six by six, south five by five and two by two. And so, under.”

“What shall we give for it?” “All that is ours.” “Why should we give it?” “For the sake of the trust.”

I do like these sort of puzzles! “It’s a treasure hunt!” Watson says, excited. 

Note: Brunton’s method of finding out the tree’s height from Musgrave (in the flashback scene) is very similar to Holmes’s method of finding out about the goose in BLUE. Remember, folks, when searching for information... people do like to prove others wrong! 

The height of the elm is given as 64 feet, which of course put me in mind of the “west eight by eight” line above. Unfortunately for me, that thought didn’t go anywhere! Instead, there’s a delightful moment of discovering what the “over the oak” actually means, followed by some deductive trigonometry. 

The set up for the trigonometry scene is delightful. Holmes is back in his element now - giving Mysterious instructions and marching about. 

Don’t feel bad about messing up the answer, Watson, I needed to write it out at first. (Always makes more sense when I can see it...) 

Though once you know, this is a simple one. Basically: what’s six into nine? Two-thirds. So, what’s 64 two-thirds of? ;) 

Then, more marching about, Holmes pointing his stick like an arrow. The rowboat scene, the opening of a door, the search of a room... they are briefly stymied until Watson remembers: “And under. Holmes, you’ve forgotten the ‘and under’!” Got to love it when Watson gets to be the one to Realise the important bit! 

Of course, the cellar is where things get grim again. 

I think the most notable part for me about the next few scenes is Watson explaining Holmes’s methods to Musgrave. An interesting way to introduce a flashback scene. Also a delightful bit of character bonding - Watson knowing Holmes so well, etc. 

Better to focus on that than the flashback scene itself, and its steadily building dread. 

The scenes afterward with Holmes, Watson and Musgrave in their shirtsleeves by the fire, sifting through and cleaning the “treasure” are very nice visually though. 

[Image description: a close up of Holmes’s face as he studies part of the treasure, which he’s holding level with his eyes. / end image description.] 

They don’t quite make up for the sorry tale itself. Especially given the final scene of the episode, as Holmes and Watson leave. What a scene to end on! 

[adultswim2021]

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job #36: “Road Trip” | March 2, 2009 - 12:30AM | S04E04

Tim and Eric very clearly got less and less interested in appearing on camera as this show went on, many episodes from this era only feature them in wraparound segments. Episodes where they actually participate in a non-wraparound sketch become the exception. The show doesn’t suffer for it, really, but the wraparounds definitely feel like they accomplished everything in one take and moved on.

The wrap for this episode is maybe the weakest thing in the episode, but it’s fine! I like it, even! In it, Tim takes Eric on a road trip to Fort Lauderdale where his parents are fishing. The plan is to have a womanless party in Eric’s parents hotel room while they’re away deep-sea fishing. They come back early and start boning while everyone hides in the closet. Inexplicably, they start moaning Eric’s name, which is simply beyond gross. What a gross show!

The first true sketch is Back to Squall, a really good parody of 80s comedies starring James Quall and insufferable retard Jonah Hill. Not only does it do a very good job of resembling an actual 80s movie (on an Adult Swim budget, no less), but it also does a good job at mimicking an 1980s television promo for said movie. For all it's impressive verisimilitude I do have one quibble: briefly being able to see Jonah Hill’s lame-ass tats on his arm. I remember being straight-up outraged in 2009 when I first saw it. I’ve calmed down since then. But I still don’t like looking at it. 

DLH’s hilarious line about dating Barbara Streisand is in the running for one of the most quoted lines in my circle of friends. Also, there are two truly sublime moments that involve James Quall just giving up on life that they intentionally left in the episode. The faux-saccharine line “Of course I hope I never get to graduate so we can always live together” seems to be delivered while James is in the middle of powering down. This is one of my favorite jokes in all of Tim and Eric. Also the callback scene featuring an outtake of James just kinda muttering to himself in response to some off-camera stage directions (I assume) is really wonderful. There is more footage in the Extended Scenes portion of the DVD, featuring more riffing from Jonah Hill and a little more of DLH. In this version, Barbara Streisand is swapped for Geena Davis. 

During on Drawing features a dude who teaches you to “draw” but all he does is apply artistic filters to photos. All the photos are of corpses laying in caskets. Very scary stuff. There’s also a Brule's Rules about using a twig instead of a toothbrush that I mention here only because I don’t want there to be two extremely short paragraphs in a row. 

Cinco Boy is a very memorable sketch, featuring spokesperson Peter Stormare. The Cinco Boy is a synthetic boy that grieving mothers can purchase to replace their dead son. It is constantly replaced with older boys for as long as the mother lives. It’s a very creepy sketch, and has a great reprise where Stormare comes to her window and methodically gives her a thumbs up while she shakes her head in disgust. It’s punctuated by a great synthy musical sting. This moment hasn’t left my head since I first saw it on TV.

This sketch’s initial child funeral scene is also really funny; it features a callback to the drawing guy, seen taking paparazzi photos of the proceedings. Also a commemorative wreath with the bannered phrase “in lovin’ memory” is so fucking funny. Like, literally, just changing “loving” to “lovin’” somehow constitutes one of the funniest jokes ever told.

Also, a piece of pure video art: Mini Van Highway simply features a bunch of older men on old computers singing a electronica song about their minivan. Out of context, this one could theoretically be mistaken for a sincere music video, which is what makes it great. 

The other notable extra associated with this episode is for the opening Road Trip segment: turns out to accomplish the stunt of Eric being hit with a van they actually went through the trouble of casting a plaster cast of Eric’s face and arms because they were dissatisfied with over-the-counter dummies. I accuse Tim & Eric of dashing things off lazily, but I gotta give them credit for this. For some reason

NOTE: THANK YOU TO ANOTHER MAN FOR LETTING ME STEAL A JOKE FOR THIS POST. SOME SAY STOP THE STEAL, BUT I HAVE TO DISGAGREE

[snarkfamily]

The Stranger Things fandom really needs more de-aging content, it has so much potential. The mechanics don’t have to make perfect sense, maybe it’s a side effect of the Upside Down, maybe El does it with her powers accidentally or on purpose, maybe somebody just wakes up like that one day. But there are already supernatural elements happening, why not reverse aging? The possibilities are ENDLESS.

You want funny? Imagine Murray having to take care of a bunch of toddlers. Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Mike suddenly being responsible for the older teens who have been de-aged to 12, giving them a whole new appreciation for Season 2 Steve’s babysitting gig. It’s like herding cats. Responsible Joyce and Hopper get de-aged to teenagers, and everyone finds out that they weren’t always so strict. Erica is left in charge of a bunch of headstrong, sassy grade schoolers and suddenly has more sympathy for everyone she ever spoke to as a kid.

The potential for angst is unparalleled: Jonathan, Will, and El are all canonically abused as kids, and the strong implication is there for abuse or neglect for Steve and Eddie. If any of them get de-aged, the others would be expecting cute and fun! But they might be getting a traumatized child who is wary of adults, and kids have terrible filters, so they could innocently let slip awful details of their lives. With Steve, there could be an added element of surprised because everyone assumed he’d be well-adjusted or bratty, but he’s lonely and seems shocked that anyone cooks him meals. Maybe EVERYONE is de-aged except one or two people in the group, ones who are never in charge, and they struggle with feeling inadequate the whole time, because everyone is vulnerable and how could they be enough? Or maybe the age change is permanent for someone, so the rest of the group has to figure out what to do and how to grieve the older version while caring for the younger version.

But the best, in my opinion, is the fluff! The family bonding, the second chance at positive adult interaction, the ADORABLE interactions. If you like romance, you can have two characters de-aged and fall for each other while tiny, or have regular versions caring for kids together and bonding that way. But El could have better childhood memories, Hopper would be able to take care of some of his adopted kids younger than when he got them, the non-Party members would have the chance to bond as little kids instead of teens, and the whole group could get closer.

[themagikmirror]

Reposting more 2021 content for Review

FIXED SIGNS 🔮

We can’t spend our entire existence questioning (mutable) and changing (cardinal) things. Fixed signs are not here for that. For these folks it’s about getting in where you fit in. If you don’t fit it, just keep pushing through until you find your tribe or fake it til you make it 🤷🏻‍♀️. It’s about being able to outlast all the trends, uproars & fuss. Sometimes you have to blend in to do that, sometimes you have to stand out. At the end of the day though it’s about being true to self & your needs. By simply existing they inspire others. Not everything needs to be done differently, not everything is wrong. Some things are just yet to be experienced. The job of Fixed Signs is to be their fucking selves … Its sounds simple, but for them its a tough inner battle.

🔮 MUTABLE SIGNS  Each zodiac group has a job. Each sign in the group has different tools to get it accomplished. Mutable signs are here to be resources, not to make people look stupid 🤣😅🥲LMAOOOOO Mutable signs are like filters.  They pick up things, but when sharing that information they must check the intent behind it because sometimes, LET’S BE HONEST, it’s mischievous. They also have to learn how to turn their radar off, mind their business and get clarification before assuming things that aren’t accurate. Take a second to think about how those gifts from mutable signs in your birth chart can be better utilized. ♐️♓️♊️♍️

🔮CARDINAL SIGNS

Pay attention throughout the year, you can literally feel and see the change brought on by each energy. They’re in charge of starting and finishing things. The tools they use to accomplish this task are unique, but it’s all about order. (#Capricorn = Winter, #Aries = Spring, #Cancer = Summer, #Libra = Fall) Cardinal signs are a necessary part of our lives and astrological make up, But cardinal signs must be careful of misusing their gifts in ways that seem domineering and controlling. I find, many times, people with these abilities positioning themselves to be on the back burner instead of at the forefront and then get upset when things aren’t going their way. It’s because you’re suppose to be leading silly! and it’s because you’re also supposed to be keeping yourself in order first, not other people. Sometimes the Cardinal signs are trying to control everyone else except themselves. Having Sidereal Cardinal signs in your birth chart doesn’t mean you’re“the best” or more capable… it means that often times you had to be the leading force because you didn’t have someone to do it for you. But know when to reel in your leadership and boss mentality for your own good.

SPRING ZODIACS (Pisces - Gemini) 🔮 Sometimes I like to look at the signs in groups of maturity level. Spring/Early Summer zodiac signs are the most youthful, kiddy vibes ever. People with these placements can make a big deal out of small things that the other signs wouldn’t even blink an eye at or vice versa, they might make light of serious issues. These signs remind us to be fresh, naive, sensitive, yet bold in this world. To not take everything so seriously, but these signs eventually have to grow up though 😩. Here’s some blunt takeaways for each of these babies! How do these signs show up in your Sidereal Birth Chart? 👶🏽👶🏻👶🏼👶🏾👶🏿

SUMMER ZODIACS (Cancer - Virgo) 🔮 As a teenager throughout our early twenties I feel its a time we come into greater awareness of our bodies, emotions, start formulating our own opinions. We start realizing what we’re capable of while still learning more about the world. Of course there’s still opportunities for growth here. These are snippets that quickly demonstrate each of these Sidereal signs with tips for guidance!

FALL/WINTER ZODIACS (Libra - Aquarius) 🔮 These signs are the most mature of the Sidereal Zodiac, but often times maturity comes through harsh and painful experiences. They really don’t have the time or energy to be played with. It can come across cut throat & closed off. But these signs must do some inner work to be open to living life with new possibilities. If you’ve met people with these sidereal placements , they act like they’ve been through it allll, had every experience in the book …. But the truth is… they haven’t. Life just has been tough for them. But they have to understand LIFE ISN’T OVER! You haven’t seen & done everything nor met everyone. Be open! 

[eoieopda]

blog info

⇢ how tf do i pronounce your username?

oy-OPE-da. it’s the romanized version of 어이없다, which is one of my favorite korean words. listen to hoshi scream it here.

⇢ why do you have a problem with minors and ageless blogs?

i discussed this here. as of summer 2023, i am no longer blocking ageless blogs and am instead ignoring their interactions unless and until i have some reason to believe they're an adult. see here for some ways that i (and other creators) approach this.

⇢ can i request to be tagged for new stories or new parts?

i don't do fic-specific tags (with the exception of force quit) because it's a massive hassle. instead, i have permanent taglists which include fics/chapters + drabbles:

multi (for all of the groups listed below)

bts

seventeen

stray kids

ateez

⇢ can i tag you in xyz?

i track #eoieopda archive (and also #eoieopdaarchive because some people use that instead). i don't like to be tagged outright in fics if:

i didn't sign up for a taglist or otherwise consent to be tagged

i didn't beta it or have anything to do with its creation, and/or

we don't know/talk to each other (because i can't vouch for whatever it is you've tagged me in — or you, personally — and don't want to be explicitly linked to it).

⇢ when is xyz being posted/updated?

when i have the brain juice and time and i want to 😌

⇢ why is xyz on hiatus/discontinued?

likely because i, icarus, have flown too close to the sun. sometimes, the idea part of my brain moves faster than the follow-through part; and i need to take a silly little break before i’m able to pick up a story. sometimes, i lose interest entirely and will then remove something from my masterlist + make it very clear that a series is discontinued.

personal

⇢ your real name was leaked — can i call you that?

it doesn't bother me if people use my govt. name when they talk to/about me! my whole tagging system uses my nickname (jade) because my actual name wasn't supposed to get out, so that's (primarily) how i'm going to refer to myself on here.

⇢ you said you were adopted —can you tell me xyz about this entire process, what you know of your birth parents, what you remember about korea, etc.?

no thanks! i know very little about the whole thing because i was literally 18 months old. i've also had experiences on here where users' entire communication with me has been to ask/talk about these things, which is icky at best and fetishistic at worst (whether or not it's intentional).

⇢ i’m not korean — can i call you unnie/noona/hyung?

i don’t have a problem with this, and i actually find it pretty cute. keep in mind that my opinion here isn’t universal amongst koreans; and i did not grow up in my own culture, so koreans that did are entitled to feel differently.

⇢ can i come into your inbox and ask very invasive questions about your personal life and/or spew racist garbage and/or erase your identity and/or tokenize you?

thanks for checking — absolutely not! playing stupid games will win you stupid prizes (aka being blocked and/or reported).

⇢ i’m confused by your pronouns — which should i use?

my gender identity is essentially the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ emoticon at this point, so i use both she/her and they/them. and by that, i mean: pls don’t stick to one or the other (exclusively she, exclusively they) because i am not exclusively either.

i’m comfy with almost all “gendered” terms (sis, bro, dude, girlie, sir, ma’am, gworl, etc.) because i think gender is fake, lol. i do not vibe with “queen”, though, and i don’t know why. #kingjade

⇢ is it cool if i pop into your ask box with random thoughts, memes, tiktoks, non-k-pop stuff, etc.?

hell yeah, brother! let’s be friends.

⇢ you talk so much and it’s clogging up my dash — what do?

check my tag index here and filter shit to your heart's content!

requests (read the rules here before submitting)

⇢ who will you write for?

bts, seventeen, stray kids, and ateez.

i don't write for han jisung, kim seungmin, yang jeongin, or choi jongho as a personal preference. i adore them, but i don't see them in a romantic and/or sexual light.

⇢ are there any requests you won’t take?

i’m open to trying most kinks, dynamics, and AUs, depending on what's being requested of me (and the weather, what i ate for breakfast, the lunar phase, etc.) i'm down with poly!member x reader; and member x reader x member (etc.) dynamics, but i don't currently write strictly member x member.

hard passes:

non-con

anything involving minors

harry potter AUs

⇢ did you get my request? are you done yet?

pleeeeaaaaaaaaseeeee don’t. i did get your request. i’m a full-time attorney with fibromyalgia & ADHD and therefore cannot make any promises that my brain and/or body and/or schedule will allow me to finish things quickly.

i don’t complete every request i receive! sometimes, the requests are too similar to what i’ve done already, they don’t spark anything for me, etc. i reserve the right to pick and choose what i spend my time on.

rev. 12/9/23

[thestobingirlie]

I honestly don't see r*nance ever happening. But I do love a challenge, so I'm writing them in a fanfic. And honestly, it's gonna take a lot of work. Mostly from Nancy, since she's never really had to work for her relationships. And if I make Robin's lack of filter a strength instead of a flaw - 'cause the way she talked about her mom saying that didn't sound hurtful imo - Nancy can be held accountable. (I also believe Steve knows she cheated but blames himself for it, which is a common reaction, so he didn't tell Robin) and I don't think he can find peace with it, unless he can close the chapter on Nancy. I still don't know what Robin could gain but maybe single Nancy can develop into someone good for Robin. For me, they'd have to be a slowburn, maybe not even canon at the end of S5, but more implied that they could get together. It also depends if Nancy can live with Steve being Robin’s #1 priority. 'Cause that's why Robin and Vickie won't work out in my fic. 'Cause Vickie does want to come first, which isn't wrong, and Robin can't give her that. But the main reason why they break up, is that Robin calls Steve family and Vickie says that he technically isn't, which hurts Robin 'cause 1. She's adopted and her parents taught her that it's relatives you can't choose but you can always choose your family. 2. If they want kids, and they pick the donor route, one of them won't be the biological mother, which gives them fewer rights (which is still a thing in 2023, except Robin and Vickie can't marry to change that) And Steve'd have to give Nancy the shovel talk 'cause he's seen Robin get hurt before and would never want Robin to get hurt like he was, even if he blames himself for it.

TLDR; r*nance could work, but it needs a lot of work and I have zero faith in the Duffers' abilities

i don’t think r//nance would ever work, but i especially don’t think it would work in canon. there just isn’t enough time to fit in nancy healing from her barb trauma, breaking up with and getting over jonathan, and having a sexuality crisis. and i would kill the duffer brothers if they wrote nancy emotionally cheating on yet another partner.

good luck on writing that fic! sounds like it’ll take a lot of work. nancy’s relationships are just so unhealthy, and i think it’ll take years for her to have a healthy one. and i can agree that robin calling out nancy’s bad behaviour could be good in the long run, though i don’t think nancy would appreciate it, she doesn’t really like being critiqued, and especially by a significant other.

i could see steve knowing about nancy’s cheating, but not wanting to deal with it. but at the same time, he just has such a volatile reaction to cheating, that even if he wouldn’t blow up at nancy, i think he would tell robin.

and i just don’t think nancy would be able to handle coming second fiddle to steve in her own relationship. one of the reasons she and jonathan argue in s3 is because he doesn’t prioritise her, and i think especially being second best to her ex (especially an ex she broke up with) would just grate her the wrong way.

and i’m glad you’re at least giving a reason for why vickie and robin don’t work, most people just ignore her.

and i think steve’s version of a shovel talk for nancy would kind of end up being him listing all the reasons why they went wrong, and telling her not to do the same to robin. i suppose in a way it would end up being the closure that he needs out of the relationship.

but yeah, r//nance to me is just a relationship that would require so much work and healing, that i just can’t see happening within, like, a decade

[independence1776]

for the fanfic asks: 🏅📥🌝

[Meme questions here.]

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

Finishing my Depa series. It fought me and I wasn’t able to write the grand, sprawling series I’d originally envisioned but I’m happy with it and with where it ended up.

📥 What is your fave fic to receive comments/messages on?

I don’t really have an answer for this. I do have a fave... but I love getting comments for almost all of my fics. (My early 2000s fics are an exception; I literally tagged “don’t read this” when I crossposted/backdated them on AO3 and people have mostly abided by that.) And I don’t want people to feel guilty if they read my fave but didn’t comment or commented on another story instead. Comments are rare and precious nowadays and I treasure them all.

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

That’s a really difficult question. I started going down my mental list and then going, “Nope, written him, written her, written her, written her, written him...” Some of them aren’t posted stories; I write a lot of drawer fic. So at this point, in either fandom, I’m left with OCs. I’m honestly a bit scared to write them because while I’ve noticed far fewer “all original characters are Mary Sues” these days, I have noticed a bit of an uptake in “not going to bother to read them/I’ll filter OCs out of my searches.” I suspect it has something to do with wanting to avoid reader fic because there isn’t (annoyingly) a standard tag for reader fic and some reader fic is tagged with OC instead of reader. And yeah, I know that shouldn’t stop me. Both of my fandoms have plenty of OCs; they’re both expansive canons. But writing is difficult enough that being OC-centric or OC-heavy and knowing the lack of readers is a hurdle that oftentimes makes me focus on my other stories instead.