#birds do it bees do it even educated fleas do it

[ahalfofoneforbreakfast]

Image ID: A tweet by Brennan Lee Mulligan and two replies. The tweet reads, "While the statement 'even educated fleas do it' may at first seem inclusive, it actually suggests an insect society sharply divided by class, where access to institutions of higher learning is seen as prerequisite to the full range of natural emotions. In this TED talk I will [intentionally cut off]". The first reply, from his boss Sam Reich, reads, "for the love of god brennan it's valentine's day". The second reply, from Brennan again, reads, "Not for working class fleas it's not! #SOLIDARITY".

End ID.

forever fascinated by the many machinations of brennan's mind

[gaia-prime]

it’s so cool how homosexuality is found in every race, religion, and nation, across time and culture, around the world and how we are never going away 🌈

[scriobh-an-iontas]

Something can only be said to be alive when its reaction to something bad is

"Well THAT'S fucking dumb, let's do something WORSE instead!"

instead of throwing up an error signal or looping endlessly.

No I will not hear any arguments against this, good day to you

[nwalthall]

Birds do it, bees do it Even educated fleas do it Let's do it, let's fall in love

--Cole Porter, "Lets Do It, Lets Fall in Love"

[hopelesslysleepy]

Birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

[jess-the-reckless]

I didn't do much work this weekend, because I couldn't be arsed. Instead I wrote some fic, and continued to be amazed how well Crowley and Aziraphale adapt to the role of grumpy, middle-aged lesbians. In this bit they return to the suite at the Savoy where they had a dirty weekend in The Lady Gardener, except now they are hopelessly, aggressively married.

____________________________

Aziraphale went through to the living area in search of the room service menu. It was one of those hot summer days where the river itself seemed to be sweating, casting a fine mist through the heat shimmer bouncing off the Embankment. The last time she’d been here had been spring. The daffodils had been out in St. James’s Park, and she and Crowley had rolled around in the guise of illicit lovers like a pair of happy pigs in poo. Well, sort of happy. There were things she could do now that she couldn’t do then, like knitting Crowley rubbish socks, or saying ‘I love you’, or casually asking at reception if her wife had arrived at the hotel yet.

Crowley, now minus the sleep mask, followed her through the suite. She was still wearing the socks, despite the heat. Below the preciptiously high hem of her tiny nightie her legs were long and brown, tanned from hanging around gardens in very small shorts. “How was your gardening class?” Aziraphale asked.

“Maxless,” said Crowley, tossing herself onto the sofa. “Alison has pulled her out.”

“Oh no. Why?”

Crowley shrugged, pulling her hem up almost to crotch height. By some miracle she was actually wearing underpants, but then again she had only just got here. “Apparently I’m recruiting her to the transgender agenda,” she said.

“And how are you doing that?”

“Not sure. I was just trying to encourage her interest in entomology. Are insects transgender?”

“Oh, probably,” said Aziraphale, perching at the table next to the window, and kicking off her shoes. “I know there are fish that change sex. And reptiles, I think.”

“Snakes, definitely. We get up to all sorts. Do you know there are some snakes that can reproduce asexually?”

Aziraphale looked up from the wine list in alarm. “Crowley, if this is your way of telling me you’re pregnant I’m going to be very upset.” She’d mentally pencilled in a lot of drinking for this weekend, and it was going to be no fun at all if Crowley couldn’t partake.

“Pregnant? At my age? No. I was just saying. Lot of things change gender. Birds do it, bees do it…”

“…yes, even educated fleas, I daresay,” said Aziraphale, mentally meandering into Cole Porter. It seemed an endless source of horror to the Alisons of this world that their child should ever want to change sex at some point, as though that was somehow the worse thing a child could ever want to do with their life, a thing so horrible they had to be ‘brainwashed’ into it. Aziraphale was not clear about how this brainwashing was supposed to take place. According to Louise it could take root if they were exposed to too many rainbow flags, or the wrong kind of rainbow flags. The rainbows were only meant to have a certain number of stripes, apparently. If they had too many stripes then – boom – your child broke out in a violent case of transgenderism and became…something? Rabid, perhaps. Or they turned into one of those monsters who left only one sheet of toilet paper on the roll, strategically wrapped around the cardboard spindle to look like there was more.

The feared consequences were never entirely clear, but they never were with these types of moral panics. Aziraphale had seen it all before, too many times, and while she wasn’t that deep into the lore of this new derangement she thought she knew the root of the anxiety behind it: the children were not listening to their parents. It always happened, and it had to happen, because it was normal and natural for them to do so. But letting them go? Letting them go off and do their own thing and make their own mistakes? Yes, that was terrifying, and that’s where the Alisons came in useful to the Louises, who knew how to poke at those natural parental anxieties like a demon goading the damned. Alisons, in their own way, were as dangerous as the Louises. It took a wolf to frighten the sheep, yes, but a stampede of sheep could still make one hell of a mess.

That village needed a sheepdog.

“Hmm?” said Crowley, getting to her feet. Something rustled, as though she’d been sitting on a shopping bag, and Aziraphale glanced back at the sofa, half hoping that Crowley had popped into Coco de Mer for old times sake. But no. “What are you on about?” said Crowley, meandering to the window. “We’re not getting a dog.”

“Who said anything about getting a dog?”

“You did. Just now. You just said ‘that village needs a sheepdog’ while fiddling with the backs of your earrings, and staring out at the river.” Crowley’s arms slithered around her from behind. “Are you all right? You’re not going to start turning London landmarks into vaginas, are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Aziraphale. “Just thinking aloud. You know me. I’m very old, and my mental processes are opaque at the best of times.” There it was again. The rustle. Like the scrunch of a plastic bag, but wet somehow. “What’s that noise?”

“Traffic. You know – that thing they have in London?”

“I know what traffic sounds like, Crowley. And it doesn’t squelch. Is that you?”

“Oh. That. Yeah. I’ve got Vaseline socks on.”

Aziraphale leaned her head back into Crowley’s chest and looked up. “I’m sorry – what?”

“It’s a thing,” said Crowley, taking a seat at the table. “Like, yes, I know Louise is a creature from Hell, but Olga told me she has this hardcore method of moisturising feet, and you know me and feet. I’ll take any help I can get. You cover your feet with petroleum jelly, put a sock on over the top, then let it just…sit. Marinate.”

“I see. Won’t you get Vaseline all over your socks?”

“No. That’s the clever part, see. You put a plastic sandwich bag over the Vaseline, and then you put on the sock…”

“…and rustle and squelch strangely all over a nice suite at the Savoy?”

“Yes.”

“You’re entirely bizarre,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley wriggled in her chair. “You love me,” she said, running a socked and sandwich-bagged foot up the back of Aziraphale’s calf.

“I do, but please attend to the foot situation before we go any further. I’m sorry, but I can’t get amorous when you’re roaming around with your feet done up a la Louise. Just the mere thought of that woman is enough to render me parched to the knees and beyond.” Aziraphale reached for the wine list again. “Shall I order us some champagne?”

“Surprised it took you this long, actually. I was beginning to think you were ill.”

[roughentumble]

i have like. words stuck in my head and its

*game show host voice* "birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, what is it?"

*too close to the mic* "get chlamydia"

[hazbinsandweirdos]

And that's why birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain, the best upper sets do it

Lithuanians and Letts do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

[saa-na]

sorry to be gross but pooping is so crazy like our bodies process all the nutrients in food and produce ... that? and birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. the dutch in new amsterdam, not to mention the finns.

[trickstertime]

🎶🎵 Birds do it 🐦😳

🎵🎶 Bees do it 🐝😏

🎶🎵 Even educated fleas do it 😅🤓😮

🎵🎶 Let's do it 🙈😘

🎶🎵 Let's fuckin die

[metamelonisle]

birds do it bees do it even educated fleas do it

let's do it

lets sneak up behind the unsuspecting officer and grab his service weapon

[hollowknightinsanity]

after seeing your post about Holly walking into a sliding glass door I had a completely normal thought about a completely normal post I saw a while ago:

birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let's do it, let's go hurtling straight into a sliding glass door and die *can't remember the source

HAHAGSYAGJDYSGDJYEABDJYEABC

[toesuckler]

just found out where "birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. lets jump into a glass window and die" is from. what the fuck.

[catty-words]

So, I was scrolling in your ao3 profile for the thousand time, as one usually does, and playing with the filters to see if there was any nhie fic I hadn't read before or if I was in the mood to reread any of my favs, when something kinda surprised me: apparently you wrote 34 nhie fics and devi is a character in 29 of them and ben is a character in 30 of them, even though you claim devi is your fave. Just wanted to point that out cuz it made me laugh, especially bc my mind immediately pictured them bantering about it like ofc they would bicker even about who is the most featured character in cori's fics xD

so many points i want to respond to. first - someone suggesting that my bestest blorbos, ben and devi, would care about being the most featured in my fics is possibly the cutest thing ever said to me. top contender, for sure!

second - gahh, i know, i haven't posted anything since last fuckin year, and even then, late last year was pretty quiet on the fic front. i haven't been reblogging prompt games or indulging any of my 'quick' one-shot ideas because inspiration has been very touch-and-go for the last year and i am stockpiling it for 'a lie away from getting you into the mood', the longer installment of the bitty spark 'verse. at the pace i'm moving now, there's a reasonable chance i'll start posting around june. which probably sounds like a long ways away to you, but will be a monumental feat of will on my part - if i pull it off.

thank you for reading my work. thank you for rereading my work.

third - the implication that devi being tagged in fewer of my fics than ben points to her not being my favorite character is reductive. the context matters.

that said, the opportunity to be obnoxious about my fic catalogue is invaluable to me. again, i thank you.

forth - let's get obnoxious!

fics tagged ben but not devi:

- double vision, in a rose blush (three times ben unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of a daydream about devi and the one time it makes perfect sense to him)

- birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it (howard gross does two things right: eats pussy and gives useful sex talks)

- (you have become a) constant (without headphones and a proper distraction for the bus ride home, ben compiles a list of weird things he easily might have said to devi while drunk on grigio)

fics tagged devi but not ben:

- are you sure you want to delete this photo? (cute af daxton prompt fill)

- meet me where you are (on top of the world) (another prompt fill, one that asked for kamala & devi, but then mr. k spilled all over my inspiration)

fics not tagged with either of them:

- the two fabiola/eleanor ficlets i've written

what does it mean what does it all mean: devi's still very much a part of both 'double vision' and 'constant', but she's not tagged because the version of her that we're seeing doesn't exist outside of ben's head. i mean, that's truer of 'constant' than 'double vision', she honestly could have been tagged in the latter, and the devi that lives in ben's head is still very much a real aspect of devi. but since she's not devi on her own terms, it felt/feels disingenuous to tag her as a character in either fic.

so, that makes 'birds do it, bees do it' the only ben fic in my catalogue that doesn't have anything to do with devi. both of the devi-not-ben fics have nothing to do with ben.

if we're going to take away anything from this exercise, though, let's appreciate how my first fic ever, my entry into writing for the show - 'constant' - is about examining devi from ben's pov. it felt/feels most comfortable to me because i'm just as in love with her as he is. because she is undeniably my favorite character.

[roughentumble]

fic referenced "lets fall in love" by cole porter and my brain decided that the best way to react to this, obviously, is to come up with a shitpost audio of a gameshow host going "birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, what is it?" answered with a much too close to the mic deadpan of "get chlamydia"

[adelleandlaura4ever]

Let’s Do It!!

But that's why birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

In Spain the best upper sets do it

Lithuanians and let's do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it

Not to mention the Finns

Folks in Siam do it

Think of Siamese twins

.

Some Argentines without means do it

People say in Boston even beans do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Romantic sponges they say do it

Oysters down in oyster bay do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Cold Cape Cod clams 'gainst their wish do it

Even lazy jellyfish do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Electric eels, I might add do it

Though it shocks 'em I know

Why ask if shad do it

Waiter bring me shad roe

.

In shallow shoals, English soles do it

Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

The dragonflies in the reeds do it

Sentimental centipedes do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Mosquitoes, heaven forbid, do it

So does every katydid do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

The most refined ladybugs do it

When a gentleman calls

Moths in your rugs do it

What's the use of mothballs?

.

Locusts in trees do it, bees do it

Even over educated fleas do it

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Let's do it, let's fall in love

Let's do it, let's fall in love

.

Songwriter Cole Porter

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Laura, my beautiful girl!

Let’s Do it!

Let’s Fall in Love!

.

I am so in love with you, I could do it

Over and over and over with you, do it

Let’s do it,

Let’s fall in Love!

.

You are all I need, I just must do it

Even fully clothed, do it

Let’s do it,

Let’s fall in Love!

.

Don’t let me stop, oooh we must do it

Even my perky nipples say, let’s do it

Let’s do it,

Let’s fall in Love!

.

Our love is forever, so let’s do it

Every day, cum what May, we’ll do it!

Let’s do it,

Let’s fall in Love!

.

Deep in my heart, our love says, “let’s do it!”

Tell me you agree, say “let’s do it!”

Let’s do it,

Let’s fall in Love!

…..

You are my everything Laura!

I love you deeply my Love

@dreamiingofher

@adelleandlaura4ever