#I’ve been waiting to have time to post this for days

[biasbuck]

BiAsBuck’s ficrec Fridays

Happy Fraturday everyone. I've not had much time for reading this week, so a smaller buddie focused list (and a little late after yesterday's grass touching) but back again with another round of the fic I've been reading this week. You can find previous rec lists here.

29 June 2024

Descendants of Cyrano by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels was so much fun, and upped the romantic ante so well. Bobby ropes the 118 into practising DMing for Harry's D&D game, but they soon get into it. No more than Buck and Eddie, who find themselves roleplaying a slow burn romance with their characters...but of course, what's a little D&D emotional therapy and wish fulfilment between friends? Love it when obliviousness meets pining in a game of 'who can roleplay harder without realising why'.

Vary My Days by @ponyregrets is a post finale buddie/buckley diaz family fic. 'After Christopher leaves, Frank tells Eddie to get a hobby. Eddie picks Legos, Buck picks crochet, and they both wait for Chris to talk to them again.' There's a moment in this that made me pause and have to take a walk because I probably shouldn't have been reading it at work when I was about to be smacked in the face by lego flower induced feelings. 😭😭😭

sweet cheeks by @itsactuallycorrine 'It starts as a joke before they’re even together. Or, at least, before they realize they’ve probably been together in the most meaningful ways for a long time.' Buck coins a teasingly affectionate nickname for Eddie...and then puts his mouth where his money is. Honestly so impressed with how well this fic threads the needle on using petnames without becoming saccharine, it's hot and romantic and sweet AND funny. That denouement *chefs kiss*

Jello Body by @semperama 'I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man turn a woman off with such skill.' In which Buck find's Eddie's trick to relax the woman in 7x01 much more compelling than he's willing to admit. Something he ends up exploring at home in private. Because what he really craves is someone he can relax with...and he realises just who that person is to him. Just truly excellent voice kink fun with wonderful characterisation and a boatload of feelings.

some things fall when they're meant to fall by @sibylsleaves Eddie POV realisation fic through season 7, in which he breaks things off with Marisol but then Buck and Tommy start dating. '“Kinda makes you wonder what else you might’ve missed, huh,” Hen says. Eddie’s not thinking about it. He’s not.' Such an excellent take on what happens when your whole perspective shifts in a moment.

Happy reading!

[hunxi-after-hours]

hello everyone I'm having too good of a time with 《禁止存档》 Save Files Forbidden by 年终 so I'm planning to bring everyone else down with me into the death swamp :)))

tag will be "(corrosive) bog days of summer" because it's been 90 degrees for about a week straight now and even I, a 铁打的Californian, am beginning to melt a little

general premise under the cut, but let me just take a moment to say that neither the title nor the summary on jjwxc prepared me for the ultimate genre of this book (workplace comedy between two people who are so aggressively responsible that they've tricked themselves into thinking they're just friends)

ok ok so in chapter 1: your main character is one of the best players in this post-apocalyptic immersive video game, but he’s decided that after ten years, it’s time for him to retire after this one last mission

the video game — corrosion — is famous for 1) not being a PVP video game, but more collaborative (teams work together to help purify a corrupted apocalyptic wasteland), and 2) not allowing save files. If you die in this video game, you’re out of the running for the rest of your life. so the fact that our main character has been in this for ten years is genuinely very impressive

anyway! he’s like. well I’m outta here after this mission, I’m gonna go find my internet friend who I’ve been in love with this entire time and confess to them. I’m prettttttyyy sure that my internet friend is a quiet, logical girl who moonlights as our team strategist via chat, but if they're a guy I’m not opposed to trying it out!

ofc complications in last mission results in him doing a ~ great heroic sacrifice ~ and so he ends up flinging himself into a corrosive death bog, whereupon he's like. ah well, we had a good run! time to go back to the real world and confess to the love of my life

and as he sinks into the corrosive death bog he’s like. hey. hey wait a minute. why isn’t the death sequence loading

anyway he wakes up in chapter 2 like “godDAMMIT I’m still stuck in this stupid game. I’m gonna sue the hell out of this video game company” and goes off to find some NPCs who’ll help him contact customer service

he finds some NPCs. he walks up to them like "hiiiiiiii so I don’t know what bug in the system is preventing me from logging out but I’d really appreciate it if y’all—" and then they open fire on him

TURNS OUT!!! he is now video game monster to everyone. more specifically, he is now a walking death bog (jazz hands)

MEANWHILE FROM THE INTERNET FRIEND’S PERSPECTIVE

first of all, he is a man. this is a danmei novel after all

second of all, he is the? (a?) high general of post-apocalyptic human civilization. of course he is, but more importantly this also explains why he’s good at strategy

third of all, he’s talking to his ex-girlfriend (who is a lesbian; they were dating to get both their families off their backs, and now that their families want them to get married they’ve broken up). and high general man is like “hi so something definitely went wrong with the love of my life. I’m gonna go look for him. in the meantime I need you to do some investigation”

and she’s like “I canNOT believe you made me ditch my date for this. fine” and as she walks out the door he stops her and is like “remember. whatever you do. make sure that when you interact with the players, that they don’t realize that their world is the simulation, and the world they think is a video game is actually reality” and she rolls her eyes at him like “yeah yeah don’t die” and walks out

SIKE

THIS IS A POST-APOCALYPTIC SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

and it keeps going from there :)))))))

[gay-little-axolotl]

despite being interviewed individually, all four gave the exact same response

[heartstopperthoughts]

[mattodore]

pay attention to theo’s beautiful face and not whatever matthias’s arm is doing... i liked the lighting more here than against the wall

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Expect clip posting to slow down due to irl nonsense.

Also from the 11th to the 18th I won’t have any computer access and very little internet access but I’ll schedule a couple clips beforehand for that week 🫡

[simgerale]

me after attempting to get back into sims and realizing i had a lot more to do than play the game

[floral-hex]

So this chick has been on-and-off again stalking me since high school. I could go into paragraphs of detail (I was about to), but no one wants to read all of that. Suffice to say, I guess she’s had some kind of crush on me for about 15-20 years or so (why??), and every few years it seems she pops up somewhere contacting me to try to persuade me to give her a chance. I should mention we never talked in high school, I actively avoided her, told her I didn’t like her, etc. nothing doing.

Anyway, somehow she’s been on one of my social media pages and saw I was having a hard time lately, so she found my phone number (what?? I hate that you can just find that online) and texted me out of the blue yesterday. Usual protocol is ignore and block so I don’t piss off an unstable person, but they decided to be gross, so

I wasn’t planning on posting anything about this before. If they were creeping around on my pages, mentioning it would only feed into them. Maybe. I don’t know. But this just kind of made me really uncomfortable and their response was shitty. I could have been a lot meaner. I wanted to be. But whatever, that wouldn’t have helped. So I just blocked them and hope that this time it sticks. If they see this, then hey… not cool.

[whumpacabra]

Halfway

Past trauma, headache, referenced medical treatment, implied past illness and injury, antibiotics mention, neonazi mention

[Directly follows The South]

Easton Howard. That was his name now. It didn’t sit well on his tongue, foreign in his mouth, but that was his name now. Jackson had an awkward smile as he handed over the fresh ID card.

“I’m terrible with names - we can change it later when you’re ready.”

(The Wolf wasn’t sure he would ever be ready. If he would (could?) ever unbury that box of secrets in his skull.)

That had been this morning, as they left the clinic. Dr. Ashford explained things about his injuries he already understood. (It helped that he had been sick long enough for the worst of it to heal.) But he promised her he would keep taking his antibiotics until they were gone.

Jackson’s explanation of his situation was…wanting, but East (the two syllables of Easton didn’t sit right in his mind) wasn’t going to complain. He was healed. He was healthy as he could be. His handler was dead. He didn’t really care what happened next - nothing and no one could be as awful as Smith, and he was gone.

(No one else could break him again, because he was already broken. How Smith loved to laud that over him, that no matter what it was he who had broken the Wolf - )

“I trust Nate with my life, Easton. I want you to trust him too. He won’t let anything happen to you.” Nathan. Right. Jackson’s contact at this…place he was taking East. Something about ex-felons and employment. East was far worse than any of them, but they wouldn’t know that.

“Yessir.”

“Hm, about - did you read the file I faxed over to Nate?”

“My name is Easton Howard. I’ve recently been released from Blackwater County prison. Five years ago I committed assault and burglary. I’m out on parole on account of good behavior. The Holloway House will give me an opportunity to find employment and become a contributing member of society.” East memorized the file before the car ride began. He was so happy to have a script to follow. At least when he was the Wolf for the volunteers, he could pretend he wasn’t hurt or afraid. (He could turn his resentment on the innocent, the weak, the powerless - for once he was the one in control.) “Don’t worry, sir. I’m a good actor.”

“Huh. If you say so.” Jackson looked at East out of the corner of his eye, clearly unconvinced. Somehow, it didn’t look like failure to East, and he was able to crack a smile and relax his brow. He was a good victim, a good monster, and now he had to play the part of a good civilian.

How hard could it be?

—

Hard. It was very hard. He didn’t realize how distressed he was until he was left alone in his room. Introductions had been a blur of nodding, half smiles, and a facade of boredom.

The Wolf - no, no he was East. Don’t break character on set. (He was always on set here.)

East sat with his back to the foot of his bed, staring at the closed door with his knees drawn to his chest. There was a lock on the inside. That was somehow the most unnerving part - that they gave him the illusion of power, of locking someone out instead of him being locked inside.

(Nathan had a set of master keys, for emergencies. The Wolf tried to forget this fact.)

His breathing was shaky as he tried to reign in his thoughts, reviewing the information rattling around his skull.

Nathan was the head ‘supervisor’ in the Holloway House. He was Jackson’s friend. Dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed - but his presence was undeniably bright.

Nathan had asked East about ‘himself’ and he answered as accurately as possible, both with regard to himself and the man in the file. He didn’t have a gambling or addiction problem. He didn’t smoke, but wouldn’t mind a bit of drink. His employable skills were…lacking, but he was a hard worker.

(He didn’t want to share a room. He didn’t want a shared bathroom. He didn’t like to be touched.)

“It’s a bit unorthodox.” Nathan had said, scratching his bearded chin. “But even though you’re new I think we can squeeze you into one of the singles upstairs.”

The room was tiny - smaller than his room in the bunker. A bed that barely fit his bulky frame, a desk and chair with barely enough room to sit at wedged on the wall opposite the bed. An overhead light and fan. A cramped bathroom - toilet and sink, no shower unfortunately.

(But the Wolf would take whatever scraps he was given and be grateful for them.)

Introductions to the other residents was…fuzzy. Jackson had left at that point, reassuring East that he was in good hands, and as much as he wanted to believe Jackson, his brain could not shut off its hypervigilant paranoia.

Tierney was the youngest - scruffy, 22, and freshly on parole. Drug trafficking charges. Jacob was the oldest - late 60s, weathered by war and time, and evidently uninterested in getting acquainted with East. Nathan had informed him it wasn’t Jacob’s first stint at a halfway house.

There were a smattering of others - Ice had little skin visible beneath a tapestry of tattoos that ran up and down his arms, Mac and Tav had run in the same gang, and Alister…

Alister kept quiet, to the back of the group. Expression open but not smiling. Words gentle but unfriendly. He was tolerating East, or in the best case scenario, humoring him, testing the waters. It was a half whisper from Ice that made East’s blood run cold and stomach sour. Something about Alister being a skinhead prick.

And for some reason that vague knowledge had him mutter halfheartedly about a headache and needing some sleep. (He needed some time alone.) Nathan seemed disappointed for a split second but understanding as he herded East upstairs to his room.

There were only three private rooms in the house - his own, Nathan’s, and Alister’s. East pressed his still tender back against the cool wood of the bedpost, trying to ground himself. He focused on the soft patter of snow outside, January chill letting the flakes fall heavy.

Jackson couldn’t come back soon enough.

[Before Façade]

(Part of my Freelancers: Changing Tides series)

Taglist: @stargeode @sacredwrath

[sualne]

been looking for jobs for three years and in the past two months ish I’ve gotten for the first time my first job interview and for a different job my first job essay.

(I did have an actual job as a comic colorist for like six months but nobody around me considered it a Real Job so I feel like I just never have a job even though I very much did.)

and each time, during the interview where I know realise I was kind of being explained the whole time why I wouldn’t get the job and at the end of the essay(which might not be the right word, like a day we’re your try out the job to see if you can do it) one of the reasons given why I wouldn’t be taken it was ‘we need people who can smile’.

(there were actual argument like being ‘too introverted’ and ‘not dynamic enough’. That last one is funny because i had another ‘almost pass out for no reasons’ moment right for break time (genuinely perfect timing) during the essay and while I was cold sweating and going blind on the bathroom floor I realised, if anyone ever know I have health issues I will never get a job. So being told I wasn’t dynamic enough a fourty something minutes later was straight up comedic).

Back to the smiling, my entire life since I was a literal baby I’ve been told I wasn’t expressing the Right Way. ‘If you feel a specific way you Have to emote this specific way, act this specific way and not do anything else otherwise you’re not actually feeling what you say you’re feeling, it means you’re actually lying, faking it or don’t know what you’re actually feeling because your not showing it the Right Way’ and obviously I’ve dismissed this my entire life because I was sure it was obvious and everyone knew that everyone exist differently and people don’t act the same. I kind of assume everyone that ever bothered me about it was some flavor of 1 having a day and decided to being weird about it to me or anyone else that was also not existing the correct way. 2 just kind of an asshole and therefor they’re opinion didn’t matter. 3 just kind of strange about thing and so be it, ´not my problem tho’ I thought.

But seeing how it’s an actual argument people have use twice now to refuse me a job I’m kind of being thinking, it might actually, for real, be a thing people actually are worried about, actually. Which is wild, but also make sense because people have very much for my whole life, to me and to a ton of strangers, made comments on folks not existing the proper way. Like how in horror someone being slightly off, slightly wrong, a little bit not how it usual should be is the trope of all time. And I love this trope, someone who’s voice is in differed from how they mouth work, someone who seems to not walk directly on the floor but just slightly above it. It’s fun and interesting.

Anyway, real life stuff, being told I’m not smiling enough is wild, like yeah I don’t smile much at all that’s a fact, and both job were about interacting with people and every time you go to a restaurant you’ll ear someone saying out of nowhere mean thing about people who work there. Insane things like ‘I don’t like the way they’re standing’ and over analysing someone expression and body languages when they’re literally just doing their job.

This post is kind of a mess but I had a point which was, I don’t understand people and why are so many mean for no reasons but I wanted it to sound less like a kid complaining and be more verbose about it.

And (this isn’t over yet) I did force myself to smile, like I very much did, I tried my best to be as pleasant and polite as possible. And being told again, this isn’t enough, just suck. Like I have to mask and hide and deal with so much I kind of expected that of all thing I was allowed to keep my face. Like people have bothered me about it my entire life and I’ve dismissed it my entire life because it just did not make sense and I couldn’t make it make sense(still can’t). But I’m genuinely at lost at what to do about it, if apparently I also have to change my face to get a job, that I need to exist the correct way in order to have the damn job in order to exist at all is all so, Not Good.

[arthur-r]

(wrote this song before i left for college but it’s sure applicable to life right now!!!!)

lyrics: falling from grace, i’m a rusting lace artifact / tears down my face as i break my immortal pact / trust me, i want to be healthy / trust me, i want to be special and loving and sweet / trust me, i know that i’m broken / please, i just want one more chance to prove that i could be the— / best friends know how to reveal me / best friends know how hard i try to have something to say / best friends know that it’s not helping / can i just go far away to where there’s nowhere else to— / turn around, up and down, i’m melting!!!! / turn around, i have something to say!!!! / color bleeding, heartbeat leaving, need a place to lay my head / arms are folded, fine print bolded, everything is overloaded!!!!!!!! / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue, i’m coming undone / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue, i’m coming undone / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue / trust me, i want to be healthy / trust me, i want to be special and loving and sweet / trust me, i know that i’m broken / trust me, i know that i’m broken….

[biblically-accurate-soup]

working in mental healthcare sucks sometimes

[saturnsuv]

.

[rexferguson]

I know it’s been nearly three weeks but from enjoying my vacation to my flights being delayed last week until Sunday to my first week back at work being absolutely hectic and finding out I have a hairline fracture — I’ve made the decision to wait until Sunday to post the next chapter of OOTW. I really, really tried to be able to have everything completed for today and I’m so, so close but it’s for the best. 🩵

I’m so excited for y’all to read this chapter though. In my opinion, it’s worth the wait, and I hope you think it is, too.

[tintedglasses]

.

[spoofyleaf]

To make it worse I hike in flip flops/ slides,, which apparently makes people very upset

Trail that’s marked closed for the season bc snow, ice, and flood season: pls don’t enter, there’s other trails tho :D

Me, gay and determined: no I want to watch the waterfalls go brr, if I slip and fall, so be it