#Or thinking why i'm not thin

[birdmenmanga]

they are putting yaoi in the city art museum and censoring nsfw content with heat-responsive material so you have to put your hands on it to see dick

[agentark]

see you around, rvb

[housemdork]

so. i know that fighting on the wilson defense squad is a little taboo around here...but i still want to share the germ of a thought that i've had, which i'll definitely expand on in the future.

does anyone hear me when i say that so much of wilson's work is silent and unseen?

i mean this, first, quite literally regarding his practice. it's a rarity, seeing wilson interact directly with his cancer patients without being called in for a consult. we hear about his patients all the time, just not often by name. but whether because we're in house's POV, or because the show aligns with house's belief that "cancer is boring," we don't see wilson practicing oncology that much in the grand scheme of things, even compared to the snippets of ER and surgery life that cameron and chase move on to, respectively.

house pokes fun at wilson's oncology all the time, and pretty definitively in 2x04 when he makes fun of medical specialists. to house, things are simpler for them; house views them as existing in a box, much smaller than his grand purview over things. wilson's work is relegated away from the main text of the show; he operates in isolation, which hurts in the long run.

wilson's own cancer experience is profoundly impacted by the pain of loss he's endured over the years, watching his patients die. he rattles off their names, their cancers, their ages, and the dates they died to house from memory. we never saw these patients. house probably never did, either, so we can only learn of this pain afterwards. we re-contextualize wilson's emotions and behavior after the fact.

finally, the work wilson puts into his friendship with house is often invisible. i won't ever paint wilson as the ideal friend - that would completely ruin any interpretation of his character - but i find it disingenuous to ignore the strain house puts on him, however self-inflicted. what starts out as trickles of jokes and subtle hints (the loans), evolves into the season 3 medical license debacle, which evolves into wilson's repeated responsibility for house's mental health (which isn't even mandated by house, but by those around wilson and house), which finally evolves into house attempting to control wilson's last wishes. repeatedly, wilson is nominated, especially by dr. nolan in season 6 and foreman in season 8, to be house's steward, and who else would do it, but him?

big example: we never see the decision for house to move into wilson's place, but all the energy in the world is put into wilson asking house to leave. it's first presented as a natural assumption, then a mortal sin.

unlike the other characters surrounding house, the origins of wilson and house are usually only hinted at. their history unfolds across the entire show, and that includes the good and the bad parts that are only heard about in passing and in retrospect. at the start of season 5, wilson, at his most honest, breaks the hardest news to house yet - that he's leaving PPTH because of him.

"i've enabled it for years. the games, the binges, the middle-of-the-night phone calls...if i've learned anything from amber, it's that i need to take care of myself."

again, we learn of this long-term pain afterwards, once house takes a beat to digest it. we re-contextualize wilson's emotions and behavior after the fact.

say what you like about what wilson asked house to do in 4x16 (it kills me, personally). i cannot completely fault wilson for telling house this ^. as much as house needs to change, wilson does, too. amber was right about that. we can gauge the strain that house has in his relationships based on how many work out long-term: one.

and later, funny as it is in the moment, wilson is the one to go to physically check in on house in 7x01 when it was VERY apparent that he should not have gone home alone (not to dismiss foreman's attempt in 6x22 to be there for him, though). house's fake voicemail message attests to this: "if this is wilson, i'm fine, not suicidal, not on drugs, coping very well with the loss of my last patient, so feel free to go about your day without worry."

i understand why he crawled through that window! after six seasons of this, i would have done the same!

i argue the same about house that i do about wilson - these 2, despite how messed up they are when it comes to human goodness and love - could not do what they do if they did not have the capacity to love. they're both rewarded in their own, twisted ways; house is gratified that, if nothing else, his brain sets him apart and preserves his sense of self, while wilson gets to feel loved in the way he can never quite fulfill elsewhere. does that cancel out the lives they save and soothe along the way?

all of this is to say that it's easy to brand wilson with a red "morally corrupt guy who pretends otherwise" stamp across his forehead because i think that's what house md tempts us to do by mandating how, when, and what we see of wilson's life. trust me - i'm trudging through season 2 right now and fast approaching his rendezvous with grace. but over time, i think the show invites us to treat him with sympathy and nuance in the same way it does house. if we penalize wilson too much for returning to house, and for needing his neediness, that may just imply that house doesn't deserve that sort of love. and we know that isn't the case.

isn't there more poetic irony than the oncologist getting cancer at hand? what about cancer as the silent-killer? what about cancer eating at every part of the body, slowly, over time? unseen and unheard?

[kedreeva]

Apparently red eggs have been seen in coturnix quail at least once, but I can hardly find any info on it

https://www.pipsnchicks.com/moreinfo/red-egg

Quite honestly, I would be careful with genetics information from that site; not that I think it's wrong, not that I think it's bad, but because I have spoken with this person a couple of times and their understanding of genetics was... a little patchy, at times, and this appears to be pulling from a source that's quite old and possibly not as reliable as it could be.

This is the experiment I assume she's talking about, and by the looks of it, they didn't actually DNA test to find out if it even WAS a real gene or what gene it was, or if it was just a heritable trait they could artificially select for. The study refers to the gene as dominant and recessive in the same breath right off the bat ("the assumption was made that there was a single gene for red egg-shell color that was dominant in its effect" and "were assumed homozygous for the recessive allele")... there was actually a lot of assuming in what I could read of it. Considering the study took place 50 years ago (1975), it's doubtful the gene is still around /at all/. She says that it's "recessive to" the celadon gene, but that's probably only half-true given the way the celadon gene works. It reduces the amount of protoporphyrin applied to the shell; that pigment IS still there, in the speckles, and if there was a gene to cause a variance in the red pigment, that would still happen, it just wouldn't be obvious.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see a red-colored egg, either, considering protoporphyrin ("ooporphyrin" in the study) IS a red pigment technically. We know today that heavy bloom on eggs can change a brown egg to look pink, or a dark brown egg to look purple.

Indeed even the darkest eggs in the chicken world - those from quality BCM hens - are supposed to look dark brown

Buuuut in light can look awwwfully red....

So, again I wouldn't be surprised if there were coturnix who laid eggs whose coating looked more reddish than brown. I'd prefer to see DNA testing for the gene, or even a photo of the eggs (which do indeed appear to not exist, so for all we know it was a HUGE and very obvious difference, or one so minor they could have been imagining it). Maybe it will pop up again in the general population :)

[quatregats]

Thinking a lot of thoughts about Hornblower's relationships with Barbara and Maria as a metaphor for his larger relationship to social mobility and ambition, and I think there's actually a lot there - not sure if it was intentional, but I do think that whether intentionally or inadvertently, Forester did an interesting job with the parallels.

Quick note beforehand that some of this is based on my constant brief paging through C. Northcote Parkinson's Hornblower "biography", which, while I absolutely abhor his interpretation of Hornblower, gives even more food for thought on this point. I'm also leaning more into his interpretation of Hornblower's background and childhood, as opposed to the TV show's, so it might not work if you're coming from the TV show's perspective.

Parkinson takes Forester's comment that Hornblower was a "doctor's son" to mean that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician like in the show. I'm not a historian of the period, so I would be hard-pressed to actually try to fit Hornblower's father within the 18th-century framework of medical practice, but either way, given his awkwardness around upper-class life and that he seems to have grown up in rural Kent, I think that Parkinson's claim that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician, does have some reasonable foundation, or is at least equally plausible (to me) as the show's.

Hornblower struggles with poverty through most of the series, especially the first half, but even when he is barely scraping by, such as at the start of Lieutenant, this does not seem to be an abnormal state; and when he finally arrives at wealth and success, he constantly wishes to go back to the days when he was a penniless lieutenant, so from this we might also surmise that he did not come from wealth. (I'm also comparing especially to Jack Aubrey, who, while he admittedly makes a hash of coming into large amounts of money, and who also lives perfectly happily on very little, is clearly quite comfortable being the "lord of the manor" by comparison.)

One of the biggest changes in the second half of the series (from The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters onward) is that Hornblower's career comes into fruition; he becomes a decorated Captain, a member of the landed gentry, a Knight of Bath, a Peer, and finally an admiral, and marries into an enormously influential family. He's constantly in conflict about this, until he isn't: he wants to become someone powerful and important, except that he doesn't like the role once he gets it, and constantly wishes about the old days, then feels guilty for wishing for them. Most importantly, he seems to become less and less himself, his mental narrative getting more and more distorted as he tries to mold himself into the person he thinks he wants to be.

I don't think this is a particular novel interpretation, but I think that in light of this, the contrast between his marriage to Maria and his marriage to Barbara is very interesting. If he was an apothecary's son, his and Maria's marriage would make a decent amount of sense - they'd be from similar social backgrounds, and probably a reasonable match, if Hornblower's career had continued as expected. Hornblower feels comfortable around Maria at the start of their friendship and the very beginning of their marriage in a way that mirrors his comfort with the life he's living at that point - which is to say that he clearly knows and understands what's expected of him and how to interact, in clear contrast with later books. But on the other hand, for all that he originally does love Maria, Hornblower comes to find her to be coarse, unrefined, and boring, and feel that she is not good enough for the person he wants to become. It's at the point when he starts to feel that he's moved passed Maria that he begins to take on his new, ambitious, performative persona.

On the other hand, Hornblower feels stiff and uncomfortable around Barbara from the beginning of their relationship, notably for reasons of class, and even in later books, consistently sounds intimidated by her poise and upper-class untouchability. With Maria he doesn't feel enough for her; with Barbara he feels too much, an almost uncouth sentimentality. He craves Barbara's status like a man drowning, but can't hold up under the weight of what it would mean. They have very strong intellectual chemistry, but socially they are a disaster of a couple, and yet nonetheless, Hornblower continues with the marriage because it feels to him like the thing he ought to do, just as he ought to become squire of Smallbridge. He's so viscerally uncomfortable with his position in the later books in a way he wasn't even at the height of his earlier miseries, but he refuses to let himself admit that his ambitions might have led him astray.

I think it's also interesting that the relationship which Hornblower arguably finds the most fulfilling (or rather, it was written very poorly if Forester wanted to make it feel fulfilling for the reader, but nonetheless it was clearly meant to be the most fulfilling for Hornblower) is his relationship with Marie, who sits at a similar odd juncture to him. In the text, Forester says outright that Marie fulfills Hornblower's interest in upper-class women (ambition) while not intimidating him, yet still being a satisfying intellectual partner. Nonetheless, just as Marie and Hornblower can never actually end up together, Hornblower can never actually be comfortable with his position, and no matter how many times he tries to find solace in her, he is eventually forced to continue down the path that he began, making up with Barbara and fully taking up the mantle of Admiral and Peer of the Realm.

In short, I think that watching the way in which Hornblower's relationship with Maria evolves over the course of the early books and the way in which his relationship with Barbara takes up after that ends up being a very neat parallel to his own ambitions and class identity. With Maria he is at home, but bored and restless; with Barbara he gets everything that he wants, but feels like a fish out of water. I think that particular parallel is part of the particular tragedy of Hornblower - he can't ever be satisfied with the person he was, or the person he's become. But I think that adding in aspects of extreme class difference - even more class difference than the general trends of social mobility during this period - also helps to elucidate the fundamental tension which drives Hornblower forward as a character. The world he came from was too small for him; the world in which he moves now is far too big; but there's no in-between option. He has to choose what he wants to be, and sacrifice some part of himself in order to do that, and in light of this reading of him, I think that there's a lot of interesting dilemmas to be raised.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Story Ideas I'm Never Going to Write #1: The Midnight Door

A mashup retelling of "Cinderella" and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"

Main character is a young woman who is heiress to an estate and fortune that can pass down along the female line. Her father has remarried a woman with two sons of her own. Stepmother resents that Cinderella is going to get everything while she has two sons who get nothing.

Cinderella is in love with a seventh son who's also a soldier. An upcoming ball is going to be Cinderella's last chance to see him before he goes off to war.

Cinderella's father disapproves of this relationship, believing the soldier to be a fortune hunter. To keep Cinderella away from him, he forbids her from going to the ball and the family leaves her behind.

As Cinderella is mourning this, she is visited by a fairy who offers to help, giving her a ballgown and transportation to the ball (as well as magically ensuring that her family doesn't recognize her) so long as she returns by midnight.

Cinderella has a wonderful evening, bids her beloved a fond farewell after promises of everlasting devotion, and returns at the stroke of twelve. She thanks the fairy profusely, wondering how she can ever repay her.

The fairy says she'll think of something.

The next night, at the stroke of midnight, a door appears in Cinderella's room. When Cinderella walks through, she finds herself in a magical garden. The fairy states that the door will appear in Cinderella's room each night, which will allow her to come to the fairy's home and complete a few small tasks to show her gratitude for the help she received in getting to the ball. If Cinderella refuses, this will be proof that she is a wicked, ungrateful child deserving of magical punishment.

Cinderella has no choice but to agree. The door appears each night, and Cinderella spends each night completing tasks for the fairy--sometimes ordinary cleaning or gardening tasks that she doesn't want to waste magic on, sometimes on quests into the magical wilds to find items that are best retrieved by a pure-hearted human. Sometimes, the fairy offers magical help with these tasks, which only gives Cinderella more debt to work off.

This leaves Cinderella exhausted during the daytime, and eventually, her family notices. The stepmother thinks that this is proof that Cinderella is living a pampered, worthless lifestyle, and she convinces her husband that Cinderella needs to take up more responsibilities if she wants to live up to her role as heiress to the estate.

Cinderella tries not going through the door a few times, but time always stays frozen at the stroke of midnight until she goes through the door.

Cinderella's father figures out that she's going somewhere at night, but since the magic keeps everyone in the house asleep while she's gone, and keeps her from telling anyone the truth, he's unable to figure it out.

He recruits the help of some eligible young men in the area (hoping that this will also help her forget about the soldier and agree to marry a suitable man). Since the bonds of marriage are stronger than the bonds of gratitude that bind Cinderella to the fairy's service, the fairy gets worried that she might lose the best servant she's ever had, so she takes the precaution of stealing away the young men who try to solve the mystery, turning them to stone, and leaving them as statues in her garden.

The fairy has a brother who eventually comes by and learns about the situation. The brother doesn't approve of his sister's cruelty in general (which is why he interacts with her as little as possible), and he has a sympathy for humans after spending a portion of his young life as a changeling. He learns that his sister has no intention of ever allowing Cinderella to work off the debt, and he tries to force her to set Cinderella (and the stone suitors) free.

The sister is enraged, and with her stronger magic, she casts her brother out into the human world, leaving him weak and nearly powerless .

He's in this weakened state when a soldier comes by and offers help. Taking food from a human will leave the fairy in a debt to him similar to the one that binds Cinderella to his sister's service, but he's too weak to care much.

A conversation with the soldier reveals that he's actually Cinderella's sweetheart, newly returned from the war. The fairy is unable to directly tell him what's happening to Cinderella, but since he's now bound to the soldier's service, it is totally legal for him to set up a situation where the soldier can figure out what's going on for himself.

The fairy gives the soldier an invisibility cloak, and advises him to go to Cinderella's father and offer to solve the mystery. The father figures that this is a win-win situation--either the soldier solves the mystery and they resolve the situation that's harming Cinderella and stealing away these young men, or the soldier will get stolen away and her father won't have to worry about this unsuitable suitor chasing after her.

The cloak and the fairy bound to his service protect the soldier from any detection by the sister's magic, and he follows Cinderella and figures out what's going on. They could break Cinderella's bond of service by getting married, but Cinderella refuses to free herself until she can free all the innocent men who've been caught up in this.

The three of them figure out a way to save the suitors and defeat the evil fairy, Cinderella's father learns the truth and agrees to let Cinderella marry her true love, and everyone lives happily ever after.

[kiwimintlime]

is her name Tina or is it Tiffany, William? because I thought it was Tina but you were calling her Tiffany all episode. so which is it motherfucker

[notonlymice]

I can't believe I have to spell it out but if you really really want to repost something you saw on tumblr to some other platform please credit the original creator??? And no, "credit to the owner" does NOT count 🙄🙃

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

zeddison headcanons because i want them both and i need them back neow

they're both queer (not really a niche headcanon but i'm putting it)

it took zed many months to get over the dog imitation habit

(ignoring the queer headcanon for a sec) addison is the biggest ally to ever ally. like one of those obnoxious allies but it works for her

^full on rainbow cake and celebration when literally anyone comes out, but she'll also be lowkey if requested

they are "me? obsessed with you? yes, yes i am" personified (about each other, ofc)

addison was zed's anchor when it came time to learn how to control his zombie state (similar to kipo and her anchor from kataow)

addison knows enough of the zombie language to have conversations but struggles with pronunciation (i'm slightly projecting with this one i fear)

they're literally always holding hands or linking their arms/pinkies (literally canon)

addison lets zoey dress her up and do her hair, especially after she got her true alien hair

^zed has a whole album of pictures of addison after zoey's makeovers (simply just because he loves them both so much, literally only like 3 were taken for funny reasons)

zed has dyscalculia but thought that it was just a zombie brain issue for the longest time (yes, he's canonically top of his class. yes, i'm giving him dyscalculia. both can be true)

^once he figured out what he had, he had to be practically begged by addison and his friends to ask for accommodations

addison is insanely touch-starved but presents herself like she's not (i definitely feel like dale and missy weren't the most physically affectionate parents, and i assume that angie (her most touchy relative) died when addison was young)

addison is closer to eliza and bonzo than zed is to bree (this is pretty much supported by a handful of scenes in the movies but whatever)

^don't get it confused, zed and bree are still very friendly to each other, as she is addison's best friend and bonzo's girlfriend

addison's baked dessert of choice is muffins, especially fruit muffins

^zed hates the sensation of cooked fruit (we're projecting again) but he eats them anyway to make addison happy

^once addison finds out he doesn't like cooked fruit, she then feels really bad for giving him so many muffins to taste-test and recruits zoey and bonzo instead

zed is greek (at least on his dad's side, due to the "-polis")

zed ends up pursuing a career that does not require more years of school due to his gifted-kid burnout (we all know he has it) being so bad

^addison most likely pursued something in the hospitality industry, became a politician like her mom (but like an actually good one), or became a defense lawyer

^i also feel like addison's the breadwinner of their relationship (not that that matters in the slightest just a thought)

[msnihilist]

Another headcanon for the Monday-verse I have is that, unlike our Doc and Drew, Doc and Drew Monday planned for Zak to be born with his powers.

...If only because I can't think of any other reason why the two of them would have had a child in the first place, especially not continue to keep him around despite the fact that they detest him.

[donttouchtheneednoggle]

don't mind me just dethorning the bramble in my stick insects' cage because a CERTAIN beautiful old lady

managed to snag her wing on one and got stuck there until I saw and detangled her and I am not eager to repeat the experience!!

ALSO I finally managed to get a picture of the whole family as it is now :DDD

1 adult Indian stick insect, 1 adult Pink Winged stick insect and three Pink Winged stick insect nymphs at various stages of development

(I also have an Indian stick insect nymph but she lives in a separate enclosure at the moment and is so tiny getting her out would be way to stressful for both her and me)

[waters-and-the-wilde]

crawling out of my new phone settings covered in blood 'don't worry it's not mine'

[arrgh-whatever]

I love love love your art and im so excuted for the comic youre making and good luck

Thats it i just really wanted to say that lol have a nice day

Thank you!! Have a nice day too :]

[funkytoesart]

you can always tell the people who give social media advice who are naturally or conventionally attractive even without even having to look at a photo of them cause they're always the ones that recommend showing your face in reels or videos to promote your art and it's like,,, talk about pretty/skinny privilege lol

[horrendoushag]

sick of reading webcomics where everyone has the exact same meets-societal-bs-beauty-standards-in-an-averaged-way body type with the only variation being height. where are the fat people. where are the people who aren't fat but aren't thin either. where even are the guys with narrow shoulders or the girls with big curves or the girls with no curves to speak of. where are the fat people. where is the anything. no substance. by being solely beautiful you have become ugly. even the old people have straight backs and flat stomachs. what.

[coldshrugs]

triple play

pairing: io laithe / estinien varlineau setting: modern au word count: 2.2k [divider credit]

February 7th - Estinien

The first baseball game of the season is fast approaching, and the Knights buzz with a mixture of excitement and anxiety.

The locker room is louder than usual, but Estinien doesn't mind. He likes this part. It's the same every year: the giddy tension, the unconditional camaraderie before the finger-pointing starts, the desire to do well and, maybe, catch an eye or two in the process...

Only a week away now.

What he doesn't like is the feeling of Aymeric's glare boring into the back of his head.

"What?" he asks, trying his best to sound even, unbothered, as he puts away his gear.

Aymeric makes an evasive little sound. "Just thinking. Musing, if you will."

He punctuates this with the sharp sound of his locker closing.

Estinien sighs. This is bait. Somehow, this is bait, and he will take it and most likely regret it. He shuts his own locker with a metallic clang and drops to the bench between them.

"Fine. What's on your mind?"

Aymeric tosses a towel around his shoulders, beaming triumphantly and pausing for what Estinien can only guess is dramatic effect. "Did you ask her?"

If Aymeric's stare needled his skin, that is nothing compared to the itch caused by the sideways glances thrown at him now.

This is the same year after year, too—the whispered locker room gossip, all of them eager for some minor detail about so-and-so's tits or who the hookup of the month is. He's never been one to share that much; besides, there's nothing to tell.

Still… another kind of anticipation swells in his chest, similar to the usual pre-game nervousness, but one he doesn't share with the others. He wishes the 'her' in Ayms' question wasn't so readily implied. Anyone else would've needed a name, but after knowing her only a few months, Io is an assumption.

Most of the others are minding their business again, so he answers:

"Yeah." He keeps his voice low. "I asked her. She's coming." Then he adds, "She's bringing someone."

Aymeric leans against the row of lockers. "And? You brought me to her concert. Don't worry too much about it."

But he's not worried. There's nothing to worry about, is there? It's pretty cut and dry. "I keep telling you... me and Io, we're friends. That's all she wa—"

"Io?"

The voice comes from a few people away. Maybe he wasn't as quiet as he thought.

Haurchefant leans past a set of shoulders before pushing over to them. "You know Io? Laithe?"

"Might just be a common name," Ayms shrugs, but anyone can see he's already enjoying whatever this is.

Estinien shoots him a dark look—great, thanks, this is exactly a conversation I wanted to have—then nods to Haurchefant.

"Not super well or anything."

"Oh, come on." Aymeric laughs. "Hasn't known her long, but definitely knows her well."

Estinien wipes a hand over his face. "Don't say it like that. She's a friend from—" Hm, he doesn't want to put her life story out there to some guy on his baseball team. "—we're in a club, I guess, outside of school."

"Oh," Haurche glances between Estinien and Aymeric, and his tension fades when the latter doesn't react. "Sweet. We, uh, dated for a few months a while back, but I haven't heard from her in over a year. After the—" his voice breaks, and Estinien figures he doesn't want to drag her painful history up either. "Well, anyway... How is she?"

For the briefest moment, their eyes lock, and they have something else in common. Something outside of this team. The warmth he felt at the thought of sharing something more about himself with her, that almost pleasant anxiety, it starts to blister, flashing white-hot across his neck and climbing to his face.

His eyes narrow. He doesn't want to say anything.

Io trusts easily, even when she's hurting (especially when she's hurting). If she wanted Haurchefant to know how she was doing, she'd have talked to him by now. There must be a reason she hasn't.

His chest tingles again, fluttering with something tiny and warm—he is the person she talks to, confides in. Sure, they both have Haven, but outside of that... Well, maybe Aymeric isn't wrong for assuming.

Estinien stands from the bench and peels off his soiled shirt. Before he heads to the showers, he gives Haurchefant the only answer he thinks is warranted. "Doing better."

February 10th - Haurchefant

He met Io at a Spring Break party in freshman year, where he spent far too much of the night watching her quietly hold up the corners of some upperclassman's rented condo. He felt like he knew everything there was to know about her right away, a symptom of that bright melancholy distinctly found in art school girls, like she was only waiting on fate to catch up to her. Maybe the reality of her was less interesting than his half-baked conclusion, but god, her smile.

He was so nervous to talk to her.

They hit it off, in a careful way. Started dating, started kissing, fooled around a bit. But it was so... polite. Almost obligatory. Maybe they wouldn't have lasted anyway, but then, whether she wanted it or not, fate caught up to her. Her whole family was lost in the crash, and she ghosted him.

A slow fade.

Haurchefant has never had trouble with moving on. He finds the bright side and forgets the rest. No, this is unlike him, still thinking about something long in the past, even with such a hazy ending.

But Varlineau?

Seriously?

Haurchefant always found him tactless and a bit fumbling. And he had no right to pull his smug avoidance thing right after downplaying whatever point Aymeric was trying to make. A "club?"

Estinien Varlineau is not in a fucking club, extracurricular or not.

Whatever.

Haurchefant pulls out his phone and stares at the long-dead conversation thread between him and Io. He was the last to text, of course. Some cliche "I realize this is over, but I wish you the best" thing. He meant it. He still means it.

And that's why his unsure fingers dart across the keyboard now, typing and deleting the words until he has something fairly neutral.

He's surprised when she replies almost immediately.

HG: hey io. haven't heard from u in literally a year. i've been worried. u okay? IL: haurche, wow. it's actually really good to hear from you. IL: i'm not exactly okay, but i'm trying. getting help. HG: glad to hear it. i'm so sorry for ur loss. i don't think i can say it enough. IL: i think i've heard it enough for a lifetime, but thank you ♥ IL: and i'm really sorry for the way things went down. that was unfair. i think i knew that at the time, even in the depths of the pit. we were only together for a few months. it felt like putting too much on your plate HG: so u took away the plate. IL: so i took away the plate. like i said, unfair to you IL: i understand if there are hard feelings, but it means a lot that you're checking in. HG: no hard feelings, no grudges. i wish u would've let me be there for u, but i guess we won't know just how much my plate can handle. HG: unless... u want to grab coffee sometime? IL: lol, i'm deeply flattered you still consider me a viable dating option after witnessing me in a nearly catatonic state. IL: but i think i might be seeing someone? maybe? hard to say tbh. i've got valentine's plans tho, so we'll see. HG: yeah? we've got the same plans. i play baseball too, remember? HG: listen... just don't make too many assumptions with him. given the context, this sounds shitty, but he doesn't seem super into it IL: okay... thanks for your insight. and for the perspective on who you're actually worried about here. later.

His leg shakes hard enough to quake his bed. Fuck. That wasn't how he wanted this to go.

February 14th - Estinien

From his place in the outfield, Estinien can't make out the faces in the stands. It's something he always tries to avoid anyway. Easier to imagine the crowd as one rippling, noisy entity instead of hundreds of people there to watch them perform. Even better if he pretends they're not there at all.

But today he can't keep his eyes from darting around the stadium in his downtime, hoping to catch a flash of deep blue. It's a distracting task, one that oppresses the next crack of the bat and when he sees the ball going long it's almost too late.

Oh, shit.

Shit, fuck, shit.

He tears after it. Faster. Faster than that, until he's feet away from the wall.

One more look up. He dives with an outstretched glove…

He crashes into the padded wall and doesn’t give himself time to react to the sharp little aches burning through his muscles. The weight in his gloved hand is all he considers—it’s an out. He slings the ball to Haurchefant at third and they take a second.

Now there’s time to feel it. His lungs are on fire. There’s a dull throb in his shoulder that will show as a bruise tomorrow. This game is the same as any other, he reminds himself while he catches his breath, hands on his hips. Doesn’t matter who’s watching.

The next batter is their third out and they’re off to a decent start. They run in, and there she is, grinning brightly as she waves to him.

Io sits next to Thancred, hands cupped around his mouth so his cheers carry farther, and something like relief swells in Estinien’s chest (not that he has any reason to be relieved). Estinien’s met him once, decent guy. One of her close friends.

He smiles back, throws his hand up as he heads into the dugout.

The rest of the game feels too long, but his focus returns. They win by two runs and it feels good to start the season on a high.

Afterwards, Io waits on the other side of the chainlink fence. She’s wearing a red flannel over a black dress and boots up to her knees, her hair falls messily out of its bun. He walks to meet her, lungs burning like he’s running again.

“Hey,” she says with a smile, elbows against the fence as she leans into it. “You were awesome out there.”

Estinien shakes his head. “We did alright.”

“You don’t like compliments.” Not a question. Io pauses, eyes darting around the stadium for a moment before falling back to him. A strand of windblown hair catches between her lips (he doesn’t look at her lips), and she pulls it away. “Thanks for inviting me. This was fun.”

“Yeah, I liked seeing you here. Thanks for coming.” He shifts his weight, leans against the fence next to her. “Where’s Thancred?”

“No idea. Probably saw someone cute with no Valentine’s date and decided to shoot his shot.”

Oh, god. Today is…

Estinien reigns in his expression before glancing over to Io. She doesn’t seem any different than the other times they’ve hung out. Her smile is as soft and warm as ever. As usual, her presence is comfortingly familiar, and just looking at her causes the sudden spike in his anxiety to ebb away.

Then her eyes flit down. 

He doesn’t think about why.

He can’t assume anything. That’s not fair.

He opens his mouth to ask if she wants to get out of here, grab some food, let him show her around his campus—anything—but someone walks by. Too close. Close enough to be on purpose.

“Varlineau,” Haurchefant grunts as he passes, and Estinien ignores a flare of annoyance in favor of a nod. Then Haurchefant's gaze slides to Io and darkens. “Io.”

“Hi Haurche,” she sighs, watching him go. The mood shifts, like all the warmth has been sucked out of the air around them, but he can't figure out why. If personal interactions were as easy to call as baseball, he’d guess she just lost this one.

When Haurchefant is gone, she stands from the fence. “I think I need to get back across town. Just remembered I’ve got a quiz due by midnight.”

“Oh,” he whispers. “Yeah, sure. Don’t drop the GPA on my account. I’ll see you later this week?”

“For sure. And this weekend, too, if you want to catch that movie I told you about.”

“You said I’d hate it,” he laughs. 

Io shrugs, walking backwards. “And don’t you want to prove me wrong?”

He shakes his head again. “No, I know you’re right. But whatever, we can watch it.”

“Nice. I’ll text you.” She beams, and that tightens his chest too. “It’s… not a date, right?”

Estinien watches her go, and maybe the little rush he felt before Haurchefant passed by was a fluke. The adrenaline after his win tangling with the weird sense of contentment that comes from simply being around Io. Those things must conflict somehow.

“Right,” he says to himself, resting his head against the cold metal fence (and there’s no reason to be disappointed).