#but it's been like 3-4 months and like damn if they book up enough to stay unavailable for that long/longer then that's worrying

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Really want to get a tattoo from this artist that I've had my eye on for years and I finally found their newer website a few months ago thanks to a follower tip but their books have been closed the entire time since then and I'm starting to think it might be time to look elsewhere 😔

[st4rymoon]

𝘚𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵

*+:｡.｡ Miguel x afab Reader

Summary - Miguel finally had time to visit your universe , little did you know Dr. Strange would stir up some jealousy inside Miguel.

Warnings - 18+, unprotected, language, semi-public sex?, ass smacking, cream pie, jealous Miguel, pet names [doll, sweetheart, honey, good girl], mirror sex. Strange flirts with you in front of Miguel…, possessive Miguel, pussy eating, edging, teasing

Continuation of this series! (Pt.4) → Consequences

Miguel finally worked things out so he could visit your universe, Jessica happily volunteered to take care of everything while he was gone. She was thrilled to finally see Miguel happy, blabbering about you, he wouldn’t shut up about how excited he was to see your life.

You were anxious about him seeing your universe, the both of you have been together for around 7 months. Although you were supposed to take Miguel with you when you first went back, an incursion began to form in another universe but as always, Miguel fixed it.

But now that everything is settled and Miguel finally asked if he could go and see where you grew up you happily obliged. The only thing he was silently dreading was being introduced to Dr. Strange.

You suspected from the first time you met Miguel that he idolized Dr. Strange due to his fascination but it turns out it’s quite the opposite. Miguel knew about the mess other Stranges have caused, yet Dr. Strange was talked about like a cryptid or folktale.

The other spiders claim to have met Dr. Strange yet Miguel doesn’t seem to believe them since he’s never personally met him.

“Ready?” You smiled as you walked up to Miguel. He was tense, he’s done this thousands of times, traveling through the universe was like breathing to him but he felt like his heart was about to explode.

“A little nervous” he chuckled. “Nothing to be nervous about, let’s go”

Once the both of you arrived, Miguel wasn’t as tense. Your universe wasn’t very different from his which he liked. “I have to go check up on my sister, please don’t bring up any of the spider stuff up… she doesn’t know” you awkwardly smiled.

“Of course, my mouth is sealed” he winked as he wrapped his arm around you “Lead the way”

You made it to your sister’s apartment, you could hear her music blasting from inside. Your sister was the wild child, being only 3 years younger than you she got up to much more mischief even with you being a human spider.

You knocked on the door, once, twice, and still no answer. Finally, you knocked loud enough causing the door to fly open “YOU ARE HERE!” She yelled, jumping into your arms and pulling you inside.

“You must be Miguel? My dear sister won’t stop talking about you when she’s here. Always Miguel’s this, Miguel, that it’s annoying” Your sister smiled as she hugged Miguel.

“I’m flattered” Miguel Chuckles as he returns the hug. “Also I forgot to tell you that wizard guy came looking for you, he said to call him whenever you could” your sister nodded.

Your eyes grew wide. Why the hell was Strange needing you? You automatically think it’s something horrible, he usually never contacts your family if he was looking for you.

“Strange came over? Did he say anything?” You questioned “Nah he just said you work for him at his museum thing and he needed help finding a book” she shrugged.

Shit. It must’ve been that damn book of Vishanti he’s been bothering you about. He had you fetch it for him as a ‘sorry I went to another universe and fell in love with another spider’ apology gift.

Strange was pissed when he found out what had happened but surprisingly said it was meant to happen anyways which was something you’ve never heard strange say.

“Hey, sis? Would you mind if I go see what Strange wants? I promise I’ll be back, I’ll even bring you some ice cream” You smiled with a dramatic grin and your eyelashes fluttered as you looked at her.

“Ew don’t do that and yes you can” she shooed you away as she walked back into her kitchen. “Nice to meet you, Miguel!” She waved as something popped into her oven.

“Fuck! My cupcakes” she whined as you closed the door behind you.

“So what do you think strange wants with you?” Miguel asked as soon as you both were out of the apartment “I’m not sure honestly, the only thing I can think of is the book of Vishanti but I’m not 100% sure why” you sighed.

“You’ll finally get to meet him though! He’s um…. Let’s just say passive-aggressive as a heads up” You rubbed your arm as you looked over at Miguel. You couldn’t imagine the disaster that would happen if both of them got into a fight.

Both stubbornness and believing they are always right is something they have in common. “We’ll see how we get along” is all Miguel mutters.

You made it to the sanctum, the giant building standing tall as you look back at Miguel “Ready?” You smiled “Yup”

You walked into the giant building, it was completely silent as both you and Miguel’s footsteps echoed through the building. “Strange what the hell do you want!” You yell as you look around.

“Hey sweetheart” you hear Stranges voice boom from the left. You rolled your eyes as he walked into view with a confident stride. Strange's pet name wasn’t new to you, you don’t believe he says it in a flirtatious way, more of an enduring way. “so this is that Spider-Man right? Are you as annoying as the other spiders coming in and out of there?” Strange teased.

You can see Miguel’s jaw clench tight as Strange walks down “Can you be nice you shit, yes he’s my boyfriend” You scoff as you move towards Miguel.

Miguel didn’t say a word as he stood there, arms crossed and jaw clenched. “Anyways what do you want Strange” you hiss while pointing a finger at him “Just wondered where you were is all, it’s boring around here with no spiders especially when my favorite one disappears for a while, how couldn’t I miss her?” He teased.

“If you went and bothered my sister just because you missed me I can get 5 other spiders here right now if you want, you’ll surely be occupied” You shrugged.

You could hear it in a stranges voice that he was purposely trying to make Miguel mad. “No, but when will I have you back here?”

“You act like you don’t call me whenever you need help, I was rarely ever here. I don’t know if you're acting this way because Miguel’s here but don’t you ever flirt with me.” You hiss.

“Gosh, I’m joking! Wanted to see if this spider had the temper everyone was talking about” Strange laughed out in amusement.

Miguel was silent, you know he was fuming inside by how red his eyes were. “Let’s go” you seethe as you drag Miguel out by the arm.

He doesn’t move. He stands in the same spot, staring at Strange with narrow eyes “Do you have a bathroom?” Miguel blurted out. “Uh yeah it’s to the rig-“

“She can show me” Miguel Blanty replies as he drags you by the arm “Miguel let’s go you can go at my sister's” you whispered.

“Where’s it at?” he asked as held onto you close. “I- this way” You gave a confused look as you pointed him to the restroom.

Before you could turn he pulled you into the bathroom with him. “God he pisses me off” Miguel groaned as he buried himself in your neck. A shaky moan spilled out of your mouth as his actions took you by surprise.

“What’s up with you?” You chuckled as he lifted you onto the sink. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders instinctively as he began to rock into you.

“I don’t appreciate him disrespecting both of us like that” he sighed, his arms running up your thighs as you kissed down his jaw. You had a clue of where this was going and you loved it.

“Think I should fuck you loud enough for him to hear huh? Let him hear how pretty you sound when you're begging me to cum in you? I think I should” he purrs.

You whine at his words, your hips bucking to his as his hand snake onto your throat “yea…” you pant out, already out of breath from how fast your heart was beating.

Miguel knew the power he had over you, he could have you melting in his touch within seconds. You hummed in pleasure as his fingers unbuttoned your jeans “You want it doll? Say it, tell me what you want” Miguel coos.

“Yes” is all you could get out as he tugged your jeans down, tossing them onto the ground “Yes what sweetheart?”

You could feel your cheeks burning in embarrassment. Where you really going to fuck Miguel in the sanctum? It wasn’t professional on your part but you couldn’t help but feel turned on as Miguel whispered dirty praises in your ear.

“Fuck me” it came out desperate and pathetic, Miguel loved it more than you can imagine. He chuckled at your response, obeying instantly as he pulled your panties off.

You were struggling to get his pants off, the need making you jitter while you unbuckled his belt. He leaned in for a kiss, Moaning into your mouth as he tossed your hands to the side and removed his belt and pants in seconds.

“How can I resist something this gorgeous huh? Look at you” he mocked as he held your face up to his and chuckled at how red your cheeks were. He ran two fingers down your folds, groaning at the wet sound of your cunt when he plunged his fingers inside you.

You let out a shaky moan as he shoved two fingers into you, pulling them out with a smirk as he licked them clean “Taste so good” he purred before kneeling to your pussy.

“Miguel please need you inside me” you pleaded “Shh doll you’ll get what you want, patience” his arms wrapped around your plump thighs, tossing them onto his shoulders as he lifted you to his face.

You leaned onto your elbows, staring at Miguel as he stared at your pussy in awe. He licks his lips hungrily before burying his face into your cunt. You let out a loud cry as he licked and sucked on your clit, fingers tangling into his hair as he moaned into you.

Your head fell back onto the mirror, back arched off the counter as Miguel lapped at your soaked pussy “Why’re you covering your mouth huh? Let him hear you” Miguel seethed as he looked up at you.

He ripped your hand away from your mouth, using one hand to keep your hands pinned onto your stomach and the other to keep you from squirming.

You never got tired of the way he held you down so easily, you didn’t know it was possible for someone to keep you still with only 2 hands but Miguel made sure you knew he could.

Your moans grow heavy and loud as you feel your stomach fluttering, the back of your heels digging into his back as your thighs squeezed around his head.

He moaned at the feeling of your thighs locking him in and before he knew it your orgasm washed over you. That little add of vibration of his moan tipped you over the edge causing you to let go.

“That’s right baby, let him know” he mumbled as he pulled away from your thighs. His mouth and chin were covered in your slick, his lips connected to yours as he pulled you onto him.

You pulled at his boxers, dragging them down to his knees causing his cock to spring out onto your stomach. You clenched around nothing as you noticed how big he was on your stomach.

You had no idea how he always managed to fit inside you, even when you felt like he was splitting you in half. Your hand wrapped around his cock, aligning his thick tip onto your hole.

He pushes in softly, hands on your waist as you buried into his chest. Loud groans came from both of you as you wrapped around his cock perfectly, your nails digging into his shoulders as he picked up his pace.

“Migu- mi-“ you stuttered as he looked at you in admiration, his eyes watching the string of spit from your sloppy kiss drip down your chin as he fucks you brainless.

“Yeah doll?”

You didn’t know why you were saying his name, you had nothing to say. You just bounced along with his hard thrusts as he stuffed you full. He switched positions quickly, turning you around and lifting your ass in the air.

“Want you to look at yourself, look at how pretty you fucking look” he hummed. You were met with your own fucked out reflection, cheeks burning red and saliva all over your mouth as you stared at yourself in the mirror.

He didn’t waste any time pushing into you, his fingers digging into your hips as he watches your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes connect to his, a smile formed on his lips as your mouth hung open at his new angle.

Your eyes rolled back, your hands holding onto the counter as he fucked you hard onto the marble sink. “Oh m- my” you moaned out “who makes you feel this good huh? Say it, who?” He cooed, his hand palming your ass before his heavy hand slapped onto you.

You moaned at his smack, your body jerking as the new feeling made you clench. “Miguel” you panted as he picked up his pace “Not loud enough honey” he seethed, earning another harsh slap on your ass.

“Miguel, you Miguel please please I- I’m so cl- fuc” you whine out as his hand snakes onto your clit, his fingers impressively playing your body like he’s done it all his life.

“Huh?��� he grunted “I can’t hear you doll” he clicked his tongue after his words, his pace slowing as he looked as if he was going to pull back “NO! No Miguel please I- Im so close don’t stop pleas-“ you cry out. You were so lost in the pleasure you didn’t realize why you were even fucking in the bathroom.

You forgot about the whole strange situation, your pleads and begs echoing in the bathroom as you thrust onto his hips for friction.

You hated being edged, he knew that but he loved seeing you like this. Fucking yourself onto him when he decides to tease. His eyes burned into you through the mirror, your teary eyes looking up at him as he rubs your ass.

“Good girl”

He thrusts into you once again, this time his fingers playing with your clit with precision. His name spilled out of your lips, your hand wrapping around his wrist as you felt yourself reaching your 2nd orgasm.

His free hand pinned your hands onto your back, giving him a better grip for him to slam into you even harder. The pornographic sounds of slapping skin and moans fill the room as you stare at yourself in the mirror.

Your eyes fluttered as you felt yourself shake, tears streamed down your face as the orgasm hit you hard. Miguel’s eyes watching your tears stream down as you moaned his name was something he could never get tired of.

“That’s it doll, let it out. Let it alll out” he hummed. His eyes glued onto your pussy, the wet sticky slick sticking and stringing onto his lap with each thrust. The white ring forming around his cock made his eyes roll back, he felt himself twitch. “Shit b- ba- doll fuck”

His body slouched forward as he thrusts harshly, his fingers holding your hips as he took in your tight walls. His heavy pants and groans sounded like music to your ears, you lazily looked up at him and his messy strands of hair stuck to his face.

He dropped onto your back, kissing your shoulders as he filled you full of his seed. He stayed inside for a few seconds, waiting to come back to earth before pulling out of you. He watched as he spills out of you, the white warm liquid dripping down your thigh making you shiver as you heavily panted.

Your hair was a mess, eyes puffy and red, and cheeks burning. Miguel looked just as fucked out as you did, his lips puffy from the amount of biting he did, hair sticking to his forehead, and cheeks blushed.

“Don’t you look pretty?” He coos as he leans forward to grip your face, teasingly moving it side to side as your droopy eyes stare at him through the mirror. You chuckle at his actions, slumping completely onto the counter as you eased your heart rate.

“You okay?” He smiled at you as he lifted you back up “mhm” you nodded as he pulled you into a kiss.

Miguel grabbed some paper towels, turned on the sink, and cleaned you up. He cleaned himself up soon after, collecting his leftover seed and shoving it inside you with his fingers before putting on your panties “Make sure we don’t miss any” he cooed.

You stood up straight as he buttoned your jeans back up, you held yourself onto the counter as you watched him buckle his belt. “I need to fuck you in front of mirrors more”

You stood anxiously as the actions you both did sink in. You just fucked your boyfriend. In your boss's bathroom. Well, could you call him your boss? You didn’t know but you considered him one.

“Hope he heard all of it” Miguel chuckle as he wrapped an arm around your shoulder before pushing the door open. As soon as you walked into the hallway your eyes darted around, waiting for strange to appear and say something.

Both of you walked to the stairs, seeing Strange walking over awkwardly as Miguel smiled at him “We found the bathroom, thanks. Nice meeting you” Miguel cockily smiled as the both of you walked down the stairs.

“He knows you’re mine now”

Tag-list: @tati-the-fangirl @mxtokko @taleiak @zelzablues

[i520u]

long distance ༘⋆

first time doing hc’s so it MIGHT be a little awks… 😢 also i’ve been losing the idgaf war with jiwoong lately he’s been so damn fine

ricky x gn!reader, fluff, point form

masterlist

request is open!

personally i think he’d get reaaaaaaallllll clingy

especially if you have different timezones like oh he’d definitely stay up all night just to talk to you

the grabby hands thing that he does whenever he doesn’t want someone to leave?? he’ll do that every single time you tell him you’re gonna hang up

jokingly calls you his discord kitten 😐😐😐

STUDY CALLS ARE A MUST.

ricky would be struggling with his upcoming exam while you’re out there enjoying your semester break and he’d get soooo jealous

asks you to facetime him while he finishes up on his assignment but then he gets distracted by your voice and there’s 0 progress on his work

ricky’s an art student 100%

a lot of his artworks that he needs to do for his assignments are inspired by you tbh 😞 like he misses you so much that he decided to revolve his schoolwork around you

i think at first he would’ve been really reluctant on doing long distance with you

but he also loves you too much so he was willing to try it out

he never gets used to it though. like he just wants to be with you physically every day. but he understands that he can’t just do that

he loves to send you surprise gifts too. maybe in a month you’d get 2-3 gifts delivered to your house by an ‘anonymous sender’

you obviously know who the sender was

ricky LOOOVES it when you immediately facetime him to show him that you’ve received the gifts he sent you, even if it was 4 in the morning for him

ricky likes sending you tiktoks that reminds him of you while you’re asleep so when you’re finally awake you’d have like 53 notifications from him

you’d get a call from him sometimes and it’s usually over something really trivial like him wanting you to experience the first snowfall of the year with him

or him showing you a random street cat that he found and saying that the cat is “soooo you”

girls tried hitting on him once. as a result he made sure his lockscreen was you, his wallpaper on his laptop was you, and like i said HIS ASSIGNMENTS were inspired by you

with that being said, one time his friends saw his lockscreen and called you hot and he got super jealous

(he wouldn’t admit it though)

one time ricky was eating a local candy that was not available at the place you lived in, so he decided to buy a dozen of them, put them in a box and shipped them to you

you cannot go on with your day without texting him good morning. one time you forgot to do so and he started overthinking about your wellbeing

even called your mom and your cousin to make sure you were ALRIGHT

those monthly ig story photodump thing? he always makes sure to include a photo of you and him (even if it was an old picture) in every one of his dumps!! he loves u so much!!!!!!

he’s rich so the first thing he would do is book a flight straight to your place as soon as his sem break starts <3

“ricky you should use your sem break to travel to other places”

“they don’t have you in other places, so why should i?”

when it’s time for him to go back to his place, though, ohhh he’d cry so hard in the plane

he promised you he wouldn’t cry but he never keeps his promise

gives you the longest and sweetest kiss ever before the airport staffs starts scolding him to check into his flight

if the long distance relationship lasted long enough he might actually just pay for your flight and expenses so that you could live with him tbh

[irisbleufic]

Of all the current Devil’s Minion writers your playlist is the one I want to see. Do you have one? If not, are there particular songs you’ve been listening into to while you write? The vibe of your prose with them is hypnotizing like the short story about them in the books, it’s impressive, and does your music also inform this choice if at all?

Intense question, anon. Fourteen-year-old me fucking hyperventilated after reading the DM chapter in Queen of the Damned (me, on the floor of my bedroom at 3am because I don’t want to get caught reading this book, staring dazed at the ceiling; me, now, three weeks ago, sitting shellshocked on the sofa after watching S1 and S2 over two days as a binge; me, over two of those weeks following the binge, rereading the first half of the Chronicles and starting to see double, tilt the prism, see what happens when the narratives are overlaid and blurred), and it still feels like that. Likely my prose turning out the way it is in these stories is about 90% my giddy teenage self having access to my adult self’s writing experience to finally write this beloved pairing without fear of litigious letters (IYKYK, my fellow elder Millennials in the fandom). I don’t often love film and TV adaptations of my favorite books, but I adore this show. It’s flawlessly transformative; its improvements only make the resonances and overlaps that much more meaningful. No notes.

However, I have been listening to the same small handful of songs on repeat for 6 days as I write these pieces. I imagine they are affecting my sense of scansion at points; my writing life didn’t begin with fiction, it began with years of poetry before I ever tried prose. These tracks are as meaningful to me as poems as they are songs. It’s as good a starting point for a playlist as any; I’ll keep adding and put it together on Spotify at some point.

1. Vesuvius - Sufjan Stevens

Vesuvius, I am here

You are all I have

Fire of fire, I'm insecure

for it is all been made to plan

Though I know I will fail

I cannot be made to laugh

for in life as in death

I'd rather be burned

than be living in debt

This song was my entire first 72 hours of writing. I’m that Autistic weirdo who will listen to a single song on repeat for a month and think nothing of it. Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii being the nexus point of their love story from beginning to end in QotD, this is everything to me; I was never going to be able to write about the show incarnation of them without integrating this location and this imagery in the most reverent love letter I know how. This is why my series title for these stories is Caldera. Volcanic crater blowout if ever I saw one; I ran with it.

2. I Forget Where We Were - Ben Howard

Hello love, my invincible friend; hello, love, the thistle and the burr. For you, I have so many words—and I, I forget where we were. I haven’t known this song for all that long in the grand scheme, but it found me via Spotify shuffle in 2022 right after something awful happened. The longing in this song hinges on one of the lovers in it waking up to something they’ve forgotten about their relationship, something precious, and I’m thrilled to finally have a fandom application for it.

3. Make You Better - The Decemberists

I sung you your twinges

I suffered you your tattle-tales

and when you broke sideways

I wanted you, I needed you, oh

to make me better

Oh, to make me better

But we're not so starry-eyed anymore

like the perfect paramour you were in your letters

And won't it all just come around to make you

let it all un-break you to the day that you met her

No excuse for this one; it does a great job of speaking for itself. Front-man Colin Meloy is one of my all-time favorite songwriters, and his work is frequently dark, creepy, and/or gothic enough in flavor that I could find a few more.

4. Song to the Siren - Elisabeth Fraser & This Mortal Coil

On the floating shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

till your singing eyes and fingers

drew me loving to your isle

and you sang, “Sail to me,

sail to me, let me enfold you—

here I am, here I am,

waiting to hold you.”

This cover of Tim Buckley’s folk masterpiece completely transforms the vibe of the song, and in the kind of way you need for this pairing. This one is at responsible for the events and imagery in my “Still Life with Sunken Treasure.”

5. Hal - Yasmine Hamdan, Only Lovers Left Alive OST

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اطلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي شرّفي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وطلعت يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اتريحي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتلحلحي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وسمعت يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اتفرفشي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي قربي

لأ ما أقدرشي

فرشنا يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اقلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتجرأي

لأ مش ممكن

شلحنا يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اتغندريله

يا حبيبتي اتذوقيله

افهمي يا سيدي مش قادرة

وطبعا تقنعني مش واخدة

ايه يا عزيزة؟

ايه اللي إنتي عملاه ده؟

يا يا يا راجل يا هوه!

مش عيب عليك اختشي ونو

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اخلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتشخلعي

لأ مش ممكن

يا خيبتي يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اتبغددي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي جربي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وجينا يا ناس، غلبنا يا ناس

جينا يا ناس، غلبنا يا ناس

I don’t think the Arabic justified to the correct side when I copied this, but the translation is very easy to find. I don’t speak Arabic, but honestly the English translation is dull compared to the beauty of this language. If you haven’t watched Only Lovers Left Alive, what the hell are you even doing with your vampire-loving, monster-fucking life? All the tracks on it have the right vibe for DM, really.

[shitpostingperidot]

Carol Danvers’s Bookshelf

Thanks to the Ultra HD digital edition I have now identified 4/6 books on Carol’s bookshelf in The Marvels! There are several small piles of books scattered around various other surfaces, but no luck yet with them.

From right to left in this screenshot (it’s blurry because the camera’s focus was on the Monica and Maria pics just to the left):

1) The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov (Panther Science Fiction 8th printing from 1974). I love this choice for Carol because it’s about McCarthyism, resource-motivated imperialism, and manifest destiny (but in space). I also love the idea that Carol might have read this as a teenager and returned to it as an adult who has actual experience with space imperialism. (Thanks to my friend Mara for help identifying this one!)

2) 1999 Yearbook of Astronomy, edited by Patrick Moore. This is a guide to astronomical phenomena visible from Earth month-by-month in 1999, plus a section of essays on astronomy. In my opinion, this is proof that Carol returned to Earth in 1998 or 1999, since there’s no reason to get this book if you can’t use it to stargaze. It could also have been given to her as a gift from someone who had been to Earth, but let me have this.

3) A Manual for Being Human by Dr. Sophie Mort (published July 8, 2021). This is a pop psych and self help book about how our pasts affect us and how to create change in our lives. I’m obsessed with this choice for Carol for two reasons: the hilarity of poor awkward Carol being like “damn you’re right, I do need a manual for being human,” and the heartbreak of her still, after all this time, struggling to connect how her past has shaped her. Also, proof that Carol stuck around long enough to go to a bookstore or receive a gift when she went to earth for Maria during the Blip.

4) I am really not sure that there is enough info to go on to identify this book, and I’m considering emailing the production designer because this is really truly keeping me up at night. All I got is the book is tall, the spine is dark gray, and there’s half a face on it.

5) The Sporting News Official NBA Register 1998-99. This one was SO HARD to identify but I think the folded hands of that person sitting courtside are a smoking gun. I don’t know very much about the NBA, but interestingly, the 98-99 season didn’t even start until February of 99 due to a lockout. I wonder which team Carol likes; maybe the Celtics since she’s from New England? Anyway, to me this is further proof that she went to Earth in 1998 or 1999.

6) I got nothing and it’s killing me. No text I can make out, just some cartoon people floating around. Is this even a book?

One other fascinating thing is that in the trailer, the books have been digitally replaced with new text on similar spines? The Martian Way becomes “Lunar Mystery” for instance. I have no clue why

Thanks for coming to my Carol Danvers psychoanalysis hour. Should I email the production designer about the two unidentified books? Vote now on your phones

[redgoldsparks]

March Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 4 by Ryoko Kui

I'm reading these books so fast I can barely remember which parts of the plot happened in which volume but know that I am still having a great time!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 5 by Ryoko Kui

Oh, this story has taken a darker turn, and also just introduced a whole bunch more characters. Will I be able to keep track of them all? I hope so!

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb, read by Anne Flosnik 

Unfortunately, this is definitely the weakest Robin Hobb book I've read so far. I was expecting to like it less than the glorious, 5-star previous trilogy, but I actually think I'm going to skip the rest of the Rain Wild Chronicles and read summaries online to get to the next Fitz books. This book follows five main POV characters. This works fairly well for the first half, when the characters are all in different physical locations. However once all of the characters meet up, we start getting the same scene from multiple different POVs, which feels extremely repetitive. Also, almost EVERY SCENE includes a flashback, often a lengthy flashback, sometimes to something that happened only the previous day and could have been told as present-moment action. This writing choice baffled me. It's something I can't remember struggling with in any of Hobb's previous books, but by the end it was driving me up a wall. The book also moved very slowly; the stakes feel lower, and the character far less emotionally true than in the two Fitz trilogies. Disappointing, but I will keep moving forward towards the next part of the series I want to read.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 6 by Ryoko Kui

Damn, a lot of characters get murdered in this volume! Good thing almost everyone who dies in the dungeon can be revived. Also, very excited to finally meet the cat ninja I've been seeing fan art of since before I even started the series :3

Delicious in Dungeon vol 7 by Ryoko Kui

I am still completely caught up in this series. I love the glimpse of Senshi's past revealed in this volume, and the lore of the dungeon that is still being revealed. There was a line in here about how the dungeon leaves you alone if you don't ask much of it, but that if you have strong desires it throws even more obstacles into your way. Our heroes have such big goals right now, but they're marching ahead regardless!

School Trip by Jerry Craft 

A satisfying new installment in the New Kid series from funny, talented, charming Jerry Craft! I appreciated how this volume started to complicate some of the students who had been left a bit one-dimensional in previous books. Several people stood up to and called out a bully; new friendships were built; and Jordan Banks left Paris even more inspired than ever to follow his dreams of becoming an artist. This series has a lot of jokes, but also a lot of heart!

A Frog in Fall (and Later On) by Linnea Sterte 

Minor frog is less than a year old, and is dismayed when winter begins to steal all of the light and warmth from his world. Instead of bunking down safely with his mentor to wait for spring, he sets out on a journey with two vagabond toads passing by on a quest to make it all the way to the tropics. They tramp through the Japanese countryside, encountering tree spirits, new friends, dangers, and views the likes of which minor frog had never even imagined. This is a gorgeous book; every page worth pouring over, an economy of line and detail building a beautiful and mysterious world of talking animals and miniature packaged foods. Made me want to draw.

Dark Rise by CS Pacat read by Christian Coulson 

In 1820s London, orphaned Will tries to earn enough as a dockworker to survive- and evade the killers pursuing him. Violet dresses in her half-brother's clothes and sneaks onto a ship in the Thames to watch a man be branded with his master's mark. Katherine excitedly anticipates her engagement to one of London's richest and most mysterious lords; his gallantry nearly makes up for the fact that he's twice her age. And in the bowels of one of that lord's ships, James tortures a man for information. All of these characters are 16 or 17 years old, but all of them are tangled in an ancient conflict between the Light and the Dark which stretches back into an age of magic before history. This is CS Pacat's YA fantasy debut, and it contains a lot of tropes very familiar to both YA and high fantasy- there are shades of both Tolkien and Rowling in this. Its fast-paced and action-packed, but especially in the first third of the story, the characters all felt fairly thin. None of them have quirks, hobbies, career hopes, relationships outside of immediate family, school, or work; or much more than a brief sketch of past. It took until the mid-way point for what I consider Pacat's major strengths as a writer to emerge: intense, homoerotic interpersonal sparring between characters operating under major power imbalances. Every scene in which the seductive, manipulative, powerful evil gay faced off against the good boy chosen one crackled with energy. Unfortunately, there were only four of these scenes in the whole book. It ends on a cliff-hanger, because of course it does, with a tempting set up for book two; but that doesn't entirely excuse the fact that the first 50% felt like set up. I will definitely keep reading, but long-time Pacat fans should take note that this is toned down version of what I expected based on Captive Prince.

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (re-read before event)

What an accomplishment! I savored every page of Feeding Ghosts, absolutely floored by the labor and courage that went into the writing of this book. The inking is gorgeous, the history is clear, digestible, and devastating. This book threads the line between honesty and compassion in a way that I appreciate so much in any memoir, but especially one dealing with family. Hulls lays out the story of three generations of women starting with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who faced intense persecution during the rise of Communism in China, who penned a popular and scandalous memoir and then suffered a mental breakdown. This left her only daughter, Rose, a student at an elite boarding school with no parental figures and no other family to lean on. Eventually Rose earned a scholarship to an American university and in the end moved her mother into her California home. Sun Yi haunted that home during the author's own childhood. The unexamined trauma and codependency of Sun Yi and Rose drove the author to the extreme edges of the Earth, seeking freedom from their ghosts. But in the end, she stopped running from her family history and turned, instead, to face it. Shelve this book with Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis and The Best We Could Do. Re-read it for a second time and got even more out of it on a second pass.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 8 by Ryoko Kui

Laios and company realize that their encounter with changling mushroom rings had more consequences than they'd realized- its the body swap episode! This visual humor is contrasted against increasing dangers from both above and below, as nastier monsters and political machinations begin to close in on our heroic adventuring party. I'm now over halfway through this series and almost feel like I should start reading it more slowly to savor it, but I'll probably just keep devouring it instead.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham

High school senior Val grew up knowing her family was unlucky in love; for generations, relationships in her family have ended in heartbreak. Her childhood love of Valentines Day ends with a shocking family revelation and what feels like the beginning of a curse. Then her Vietnamese grandmother sweeps her off to a Lunar New Year celebration in downtown Oakland and a pair of cute lion dancer boys catch her eye. Could one of them break the spell on her heart? This story offers a classic and satisfying rom-com, with Val torn between an outgoing, rich, but flaky boy and a broody, shy, loyal one. The story takes several kdrama style twists and includes ghosts, saints, red envelopes, confessions, fights, reunions, tears, and kisses. For a comic, its wordy; the pages are dense with small panels and thick with dialogue, but also illustrated with such warm, humor, and realism. I really liked that the story included as much of Val's relationship with her family and best friend as romance. And the lion dancing scenes practically leap off the page with color and energy!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 10 by Kamome Shirahama

This series remains as visually stunning as ever but I'm struggling with how every single book expands the cast. There are so many characters now that I don't care about that much, and have trouble remembering from volume to volume. I wish the story line would stick more closely to Coco, her classmates, and their main mentors!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 9 by Ryoko Kui

Oh the stories are all converging! The savior at the bottom of the dungeon is probably a demon! Ituzumi saves the day! I am still having a great time reading this series.

A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson read by Abby Craden 

A short, very queer, very poly retelling of Dracula focusing on his coven of enthralled lovers. I liked the way the book breezed through history, as the dysfunctional little family moved from one major European city to the next, with snatched moments of glittering joy interwoven with violence and plague. The story is fairly simple, and has a happier ending than I expected, or honestly think the characters deserved.

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

I DNFed the previous book in this series and just read a summary online before skipping ahead to this one. I think that was a very good choice for me. This third one was more engaging and a bit more action packed, with some cool discoveries about the city of Kelsingra and the nature of Elderlings. But the Rain Wild Chronicles as a whole do not stand up to the quality of the Farseer books. There are so many POV characters that a few of them get only two or three scenes in this whole book. I don't feel that I deeply know any of these characters; while at the same time watching Hobb pair them off at an extraordinary rate- in the last book five sets of characters got together and in this book an additional two couples are developing feelings for each other. Between this and a kidnapping, a birth, a murder, and a lot of blackmail, this series feels like a soap opera.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 10 by Ryoko Kui

Almost two TPKs in this volume, yikes!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 11 by Ryoko Kui

You know shit's getting serious when the character who has been the series main villain up until now is partially devoured by a different, worse villain. Exciting changes coming to this dungeon under it's new lord and master!

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

When Becca gets invited to sit with the popular girl clique at her new high school, she's thrilled. But the friendship turns bloody and complicated when she learns that her new friends are actually werewolves who need to kill and feed on a human once a month. If she joins them, Becca will gain superhuman strength and a pack; she'll never have to fear a male predator again, because she will be a predator herself. I loved the queer rep and the twist on werewolf lore; I wish it had been a little longer and more developed. Give me multi-page transformations sequences!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 12 by Ryoko Kui

I love seeing all these plot lines come together! Building towards a wild climax.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 13 by Ryoko Kui

I went out and *bought* vol 13 of this series because my library didn't have it yet, that's how hooked I am. And now I have to wait until JULY for the final volume! (But also, thank goodness I didn't get into this series any sooner or I'd have a much longer wait).

[belaofarc]

Couch endeavors ౨ৎ

ೀ Stepdad! John wick x reader pt 2

Summary: after last week's encounter all you can think about was how it all started between you and your step dad John. (5k words)

TW: Stepcest. Strong language. NSFW. Large age gap.

Note: hii lovies <3 I know it’s been a long time, but who knew applying to college would be harder and more tiring than ACTUALLY being in the college smh.

It’s been months since you and your now step dad have started the problematic relationship between the two of you. At first you hated him… but now… all you can think about is that fateful day

when it all first started…

….

you had just got out of school.

you and your best friend Cassie, were walking out of the school building waiting outside to be picked up by y’all’s respected parents.

The wind is blowing , making you shiver a bit.

“I’m so damn happy today is Friday, what are you doing tonight?” Cassie asked while staring at the other kids walking off into each car.

“I don’t know honestly, probably playing sims 4 all weekend… the usual”

you say as you sigh.

“I know it’s like we are finally in high school and there are no parties to ever go to when you need them.”

Cassie complained whilst checking her phone.

You scan the place before speaking.

“I know right, like you see in every teenage movie they have some sort of glow up and go to a party and somehow end up almost sleeping with their crush until the nerdy boy they hated then befriended is there somehow, and they decide to run off with him.”

you ramble on about whilst still standing there waiting to be picked up.

“No cause it’s the fact you know the plot of every 80s movie by heart”

Cassie says as you chuckle.

“I guess it’s another win for the virgins this week”

Cassie says sarcastically,

You start to tap your foot while analyzing the kids going in and out the building, as you feel a bit antsy at the thought of finally going home.

you see a black car pull up and instantly realize it’s your stupid step dad. Only one person has that type of nice car you just can’t not remember.

Ever since your mom started prioritizing your step dad over you, you've disliked the man ever since.

John wick… what a name… rolls right off the tongue if you think about it hard enough…

you let out a big sigh and roll your eyes.

He finally pulls up,

“Bye pookie”

Cassie says as you lean in to hug her goodbye.

You start walking over to the car,

“Text me!!” you called out one last time while getting into the passenger seat,

your step dad pulls off, as you're still situating yourself in the seat.

You throw your book bag in between your legs.

“Hey John…” you said awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

“Hey kiddo, how was school?”

He asked while patting your thigh.

you freeze a bit, your thoughts racing as you realize what he just did.

His huge muscular hands compared to your thigh.

you instantly start to blush and turn your head towards the window so he can’t see your whole face lighting up in embarrassment.

you didn't want to admit it but you kinda liked the attention….

“ NO! You can’t…

You can’t… you hate him… but do I reall- yes you must ! It’s because of him your mother never has time for you anymore”

you thought to yourself, trying to reason with yourself whether you should like John or not.

“Wouldn’t you like to know…”

you replied with a scoff, and continuously stare out the window trying not to pay any attention to the man.

He sighs, opening his mouth preparing to speak…

It takes a few minutes for him to reply, you could see the sadness in his expression.

“I… look… I know you're not happy your mother and I are getting married but I promise I’m not trying to destroy your relationship with your mother… We both care about you deeply.

I just wish you’d open up more,

Now that I’m your step dad I just want what’s best for this family.”

He lectured, while continually driving.

Where? God knows.

you rolled your eyes, and scoff turning your head to look at him.

“Since you wanna know so bad, it was pretty okay. Kinda boring but other than that, I got a 98 on the math test we took today.”

you replied without giving any thought to what he had just said.

“Good job, kiddo” he gave you a small grin, and patted your upper thigh.

you couldn’t help but feel some sort of energy … not the normal kind.

But you decided to just shrug it off cause it’s out of your reach, you’ll let this pass.

“ how about we go get something to eat to celebrate, a little father and daughter bonding time. it’s on me.”

you nod your head as a response and pop in an earbud.

You connect your earbuds to your phone and turn on

“Swallowed my key” by slater.

32 minutes later y'all end up at The Cheesecake Factory.

You sit there in the parked car registering how and why your step dad whom you hardly know just took you to your favorite restaurant,

You both step out of the car and start walking towards the door.

He ends up at the door first and opens it for your.

“Ladies first!” he chuckles.

“You’re such a geek.” you scoffed and walked inside.

you walk over to the desk waiting to be seated,

John followed close by.

It turns out John was taking y'all there anyways and had already called ahead for a reservation.

He tells the desk man his last name, the waiter picks up two menus and tells y’all to follow him.

y’all finally arrive at the table.

Yall both sit down and the waiter pulls out his notepad, placing 2 straws down on the table.

“What would you two like to drink?”

Asked the man with a big grin.

“I’ll have a water with extra lemon”

Replied John with a sour face.

“I’ll have a sprite”

You answer while playing with the straw on the table.

“Perfect, I'll have those out as soon as they're done!”

The waiter turns to look at you and winks.

He finally walks away.

you could tell John saw what the waiter had done and now he’s all pissy.

“Sooo… what cheesecake do you want when we’re done ?”

John asks awkwardly… trying to break the ice.

“Oreo…”

you say plainly scrunch your lips up, and look around at your surroundings.

“Great choice!”

He replies with a reminiscing grin of assurance.

you could tell he wants to get closer to you but you just can’t… you hated how he came in between you and your mom.

You’re spaced out in Thought until John broke the silence by clearing his throat and stroking his beard in thought as well.

you were a bit startled but you couldn't help but stare at him… the longer you observed him the more reason you understood why your mom wanted to bag the man, I mean Christ…. His phyzic, his raven black hair… his dangerous ey-… you shake your head at the thought of you starting to like your step father…

“I mean yeah he was handsome, but… maybe… just maybe I was misjudging him… “

He finally realizes you are staring at him, he flashes you a bright smile.

you decided to flash him one back.

“You know… your a very pretty girl”

He compliments you while chuckling and looking away from your eyes in embarrassment.

You could tell his cheek were red and flushed,

“Thank you…”

you honestly started to blush until you realized he’s literally your moms fiancé, and your step dad.

No matter how much you couldn't stand either of them you would never…

Maybe… just maybe…

Y’all sit in silence until the waiter arrives,

And place the bread and drinks in the middle of the table.

“Are y’all ready to order?”

The waiter announces while holding onto his notepad and pen waiting to jot down the orders.

“Uhhh yes”

John mutters then tells the man his order.

you could tell John was staring into the poor man’s soul with Ill intent.

you couldn’t lie, it kinda made you blush at how possessive he was over you.

You kinda liked this side of him.

you thought to yourself until you realized the waiter had handed a piece of paper to you.

John quickly snatched it out of your hand and crumbled it, placing it in his pocket.

He places his knuckles in front of his mouth and clears his throat.

“You won’t be needing that...”

you wince at John with confusion and anger.

He’s already taken plus he’s not even my real father… Why does he get to play god with my love life?

Just as you started to open up he pulls this.

you got annoyed and hesitatingly tell the waiter your order, as he’s jotting it down,

He then walks off with a confused and frozen face.

“Why did you do that… he could’ve been a nice guy.” you complain to John while pouting.

“You don’t need distractions from father and daughter bonding time.”

John replied with a smile and pats your hand which was was reaching for

a piece of bread.

“If you saw so..”

You roll your eyes at his reply.

He got sick and tired of the silence between you too so he decided to ask you random questions about yourself to break the ice.

“What’s your favorite artist…”

you looked him dead in the eyes and you realized he’s serious about this.

you sigh and comply with the chitter chat.

“Lana del Rey, maruex, the smiths… the usual.”

you reply, trying not to sound too boring.

“Ahhh yes the smiths that brings me back, I actually met Johnny murr”

He replied while reminiscing.

“No way!! That’s so cool…. I hope that didn’t sound sarcastic”

you giggle

“But genuinely that’s cool as fuck.”

He chuckles and tilts his head.

“He was a pretty cool guy not gonna lie.”

He replied

“What’s YOUR favorite artist?”

You asked whilst staring into his beautiful dark brown eyes.

you wanted to know about him… you hated to admit it but the fact he’s actually taking time to know you actually makes you a bit sympathetic again.

He was so perfect, so mysterious you couldn’t even be mad at him for too long.

Also not to mention I’d be awkward to make a fool of yourself…

“Why do I care about this all the sudden…”

you thinks to yourself, a bit conflicted at how you feel about the man.

“Well… it’s a pretty hard question but probably… the talking heads…”

“Amazing pick choice !! I love their one song,

psycho killer, but once in a lifetime is also really good!”

you enthusiastically replied, you could never pass up a good conversation about music you enjoy.

“You have amazing taste sweetheart.”

He grinned.

you instantly started to blush, you can’t believe he called you that, I mean he’s your step dad of course it has no romantic meaning behind it… but you kinda wish it did.

“Favorite show?”

He asked, tilting his head and clearing his throat yet again.

“Ermmm probably what we do in the shows… it’s my favorite!! I always loved the thought of vampires”

you replied while smiling at the thought of him being so interested in your interests … you hated it but he had this.. energy when you’ve been around him long enough,

Almost like you're hypnotized.

The waiter finally came back with the food.

About time…

After eating your meals and taking your desserts to go y'all finally walk out of the restaurant,

As you're going down the steps he reaches to grab your hand.

You decide to comply not to make it an awkwardly uncomfortable experience.

He digs in his pocket to grab the car keys to unlock the car,

he walks you over to your side of the car and opens the door for you.

you couldn’t help but smile at the gesture…

It’s the small things that count.

you hop in and wait for him to get in.

“Thank you John…”

You smile while buckling in your seat belt.

“Your welcome princess.”

The way he says it comes naturally off his tongue.

“Can I play some music?”

You tilt your head as you ask.

“Yeah sure go ahead, princess.”

He replied handing you the aux cord,

You instantly pull out your phone and connect it, it takes you a while but you then decide to play,

“Burning desire” by Lana del rey.

About 30 mins later y'all arrive home, you get unbuckled and grab your stuff to exit out of the vehicle, when he grabs your hand and pulls you to stay in the car a bit longer.

y'all sit in the car for a bit in silence for what feels like forever, you could tell John wanted to say something but was nervous to say it.

Hell It made you even more nervous.

He sighs and turns his head, taking initiative and leans in to kiss you,

After a bit You realize what’s going on, the cute pet names, the way he was so protective, it finally all made sense.

You snap out of it and realize this is real… you're actually kissing your hot step dad, you decide to deepen the kiss.

John puts his hand to cup your cheek.

He finally breaks the kiss and looks at you, staring at him always gives you butterflies now you're only inches apart.

you're dazed… did you really just kiss your step father… outside of the house… what if your mom saw!?

“I’m sorry… I just had to let that out.”

John confessed while looking straight ahead trying to not look at you, he felt a little bad for the sudden kiss but he just wanted to let you know how he genuinely felt.

The passion he felt for you all thought he knew it was wrong.

“… honestly I liked it…”

you confessed sheepishly, still shocked at the encounter.

You grab his hand before he could move once more, you decide to quickly reach over to his side to kiss him one last time on the cheek.

“John… we should really get inside before mom gets suspicious.”

He lifts his hand up to his cheek to where you kissed him.

In a bit of a daze he smiles at you.

He looks around for a bit, still a little nervous on what his next move was.

John grabs both of your food and opens his door to hop out.

You collect your items and open your door making your way to the house door, you stand there waiting for him to follow.

John grabs the keys from his back pocket to open the door, the jiggling keys making you wish you had him all to yourself.

No stupid mom to take him from you.

He finally gets the door open,

your mom comes from the kitchen and greets y’all, she walks over to John.

“I hope you had a good time baby!”

She exclaimed to you whilst grabbing onto John.

You look back and realized they are kissing and laughing,

you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

“What if that was me…”

you couldn’t get the thought out of your head.

you head up the stairs into your bedroom.

you trip over a cord and turn on the light.

Plopping onto the bed and pulling out your phone and started messaging your friends about the encounter.

They all agreed it was extremely strange but whatever he’s hot …

you get up off the bed and decide to shower, after today's endeavors, you need to cleanse yourself.

You pull out your boom box and connect your phone to it,

You turned on

“Les” by childish gambino.

Turning up the volume to half way to not get yelled at by your parents.

You go over to the sink to brush your teeth,

Now going over to the shower.

you start to undress and hop in,

And start doing your routine.

finally done, you decided to turn on some Jonathan Bree to get you in the mood to be alive, you feel numb, the feelings you have for your step dad is not normal but… you can’t help but feel angry, resentment, jealousy, all consuming you.

you dried off and put on a white colored lacy nightgown that went down to your knees.

you go back to the bathroom to do your nightly facial routine.

Until you hear a knock at the door, it’s your mom.

“Hey honey.”

She spoke softly.

“Hey mom…” you replied back awkwardly,

Ever since y’all been distant it’s been so strange to speak to your mom like how you used too.

“How was dinner with John?”

You stopped what you were doing to look at her.

“It was nice, he’s very kind.”

You turn back around and continue your routine.

“I know it’s been a while since we last spoke alone, and I didn’t know how to tell you this but I’m going out of town for a couple days for work. And I want you to be good while I’m gone, it’s only gonna be you and John here. And if anything happens please don’t be scared to tell me.”

You nod your head in agreement.

She walks over to the door

“I love you honey, goodnight I’m going to sleep. Have sweet dreams.”

You nod and

She finally walks out the door, closing it behind her.

You put away your lotions and walk over to the door to

headed downstairs to get a glass of water.

Every step makes you feel weightless just thinking about you and your step father alone all weekend.

you joilt up when you realized your step dad is in the kitchen as well.

He’s leaned against the counter drinking a glass of what looks to be tea.

you walk in, and when he sees you he snaps out of his thoughts.

“Hey…”

He says clearing his throat after taking yet another sip.

“Hi”

You replied monotone.

“What are you doing up so late kiddo?”

He asked you curiously while stroking his beard.

“Grabbing some water…”

You say as you grab a cold water bottle from the refrigerator.

“It’s always good to stay hydrated…Your gown is very pretty.”

John says as he walks closer to you.

“…Thanks…”

you could tell there is an awkward feeling in the air from earlier, you hated it but what’s done is done.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

He asked, looking at you curious with his eyebrows furrowed.

“…. Uhhh sure…. What about mom?”

“Trust me, when she’s sleep, she’s dead asleep.”

“Oh”

you say as you take a sip of water,

John grabs a bag of popcorn and tosses it into the microwave.

you decided to walk over to the couch and take a seat.

He waits for the popcorn to get done and pours it into a bowl, he finally makes his way over to the couch and sits down to the left side of the couch and scoots a bit closer to you.

“… sooo what movie are we watching?”

you grab a bit of popcorn.

He reaches for the remote and turns the tv on flicking through the movies.

“I was thinking of a scary movie.”

“Sounds good.”

you continue to reach for the popcorn.

About half way into the movie y’all both find yourselves cuddling next to each other.

His hand on your knee while your leg is stretched over his lap.

You had the urge to just lean your head up and kiss his handsome face.

But you fight it off, find some dignity you thought to yourself.

you instantly snapped out of your thoughts when you realized there's a sex scene on the tv.

you can’t help but feel awkward at the thought

Of watching this whilst you're sitting next to your step dad of all people plus ealiers encounters, you decided to excuse yourself to the restroom.

As you walked into the downstairs bathroom, you stared at yourself in the mirror feeling a bit nervous and awkward to even step a foot back into the living room.

you couldn't help but wonder what the sex is like between him and your mom, it makes you sick.

you turn the faucet on and cup the water to splash onto your face… you still feel like you're on autopilot.

Dry heaving over the sink.

A couple minutes go by and you finally talk yourself into heading back, until you realize he paused the movie.

Right in the middle of it.

you awkwardly sit on the end of the couch not wanting to be too clingy, or show any attention to yourself.

He then pats the couch at the spot you were just in to signal you to go back to cuddling with him, you decided to comply and Scoot back and go back to the usual position but this time it was different the air was thicker and you noticed his hand was positioned on the upper part of your thigh instead of your knee.

The sex scene plays out for what feels like forever.

You could tell he was thinking about something the way his breathing is shifted, and heavy.

He starts rubbing your thigh up and down, causing you to freeze.

you looked down and noticed he has a bulge, you couldn't tell if he’s hard or what but the light from the tv screen lights the curve perfectly.

Curious, you decided I’d be a nice idea to tease him, and placed your hand near his boxer shorts.

He adjusted a bit, you look up and notice he’s a bit flustered.

you decided you wanted to see if he’d bite, you just wanted to know if your mom married the sweetest, most faithful man in the world, you wanted to break him, you wanted to see his dark side for once.

you peeked your head up a bit to kiss him on his cheek.

“Thank you for suggesting we watch A movie… daddy.”

He looks at you a bit puzzled, he tries to speak but starts to choke instead.

“I-I”

Was all he could stutter out, the random change of emotion from you was very noticeable and confusing.

you could tell he’s flustered at the nickname.

you decided to go even deeper and placed your hand above his boxers… slowly making your way to his bulge and caressing it.

you couldn’t help but blush at how huge it felt.

He takes a deep breath, you could tell he’s getting even harder just by your touch.

He understands your memo and drags his hand up your body onto your chest, trying not to be too fast, he decides to rub the lower part of your breasts.

At this point it’s driving you crazy, you need him… every inch, you could feel yourself getting wet just thinking about it.

you then made your way back up to the top of his boxers and placed your hand inside gently rubbing his cock, your eyes still on the movie.

you made your way to the tip and you realized he has pre cum already and you haven't even done much.

you bit your bottom lip at the thought of his cock being in your mouth…

“Fuck~” he gently moans, as he tilts his head back.

He finally reached inside your nightgown, flicking your right nipple, every touch making you get wetter and wetter,

He starts making circles around the sensitive buds, causing you to jolt.

Making you want to break down right then and there and drop to your knees.

So you decided to do so, at this point there's no point of return yall both knew y’all had this chemistry.

This secret y’all both could just share… between daughter and step father.

you stands up and gets onto your knees, looking up at John with pleading eyes.

His head nodded in agreement.

you then pull his boxers down to his ankles,

His cock springing up as it’s finally freed from the torture of conseslment.

your eyes widen at how huge it is…

Just earlier you were plotting his murder now you're on your knees begging for your step fathers cock.

you lean in to give the tip of his cock a kiss, your hand grabbing not even nearly the entire thing.

you then make your way to the base and lick it all the way back to the tip, every inch making you crave more.

You start to make out with the base of his cock, the taste driving you crazy, wanting nothing more than to just have his cock be yours and only yours forever.

You then lift your head up a bit to get a good look at it, the thick veiny cock towering over your face, intimidating yet breathtaking.

Losing your virginity to your step father was definitely not on this year's bingo card.

you then place both hands on each side of his cock jerking up and down in soft motions,

Placing yet another kiss on the tip.

Finally opening your mouth to take in his huge length, hardly getting past the tip you're already concerned about how it’s all gonna fit but this is what you wanted… you can’t back away now.

Still placing both your hands around his dick to cover the parts you couldn’t fit around your mouth, you start bobbing your head up and down the length you can take.

Turning him into a groaning mess.

you take it out and let out a soft moan, your left hand tight around the base as your right is pumping it up and down.

your mouth is all covered with spit and pre cum.

His cock was so big you didn’t even know if you could fit it inside your cunt.

Wondering if y’all would even be able to go that far without one of them getting hurt and or getting caught at some point.

you spit on John's cock while continuing to pump his it up and down, he raises his hand to caress your cheek as you slide your tongue along the side of his thick cock.

Savoring every inch,

“Good girl.”

He praises you as you continue to slurp up and down.

you couldn't get enough of it, you just wanted it all to yourself, at this point you resented your mother, how lucky you were to have such a handsome and loving husband but also a big dick in bed and loads of money.

you then take his dick whole again but this time attempting to push yourself further along it, until you're a gagging mess and can’t go further .

He then places his hand on your head and grabs a bit of your hair, forcing you to go up and down at a faster pace, tears streaming down your eyes.

The way he’s looking into your eyes, you could tell he was starving for more… he wants you… every little moan from your pretty little mouth.

He finally let’s go and you pops his cock out your mouth,

Absolutely drooling and mesmerized and heaving for air.

you wanted nothing more but for him to cum deep inside you.

Babies ? you didn’t mind at this point,

Whatever you could do to keep him in your life as much as possible.

“Get up princess”

John ordered.

you obeyed and got up onto your feet, he signals you onto his lap.

you dropped your panties, and slipped out your nightgown.

You climbed onto him placing one arm around his shoulder, the other one caressing his face.

His hands were placed on the sides of your hips.

The movie still playing in the background,

He leans in to kiss you, placing his tongue onto yours.

The taste of each other's saliva combining was enough to make him combust right then and there.

you become more hypnotized as you moan into his mouth, and place sloppy kisses all over his face, he instantly starts groaning whilst grabbing at your ass. And places soft yet firm slaps onto it.

Each bounce makes him wish he could take you right then and there without caring what your mother thinks.

you pause and look into his eyes with despair…

“I need you …. John… please…. Please daddy.”

you beg as you place another kiss onto his lips.

“Are you sure.., what if it hurts… your only so young”

He questions in a worried voice.

“Please...”

He sighs but he complies, he takes his cock and starts gliding it along your wet cunt, causing you to jolt at how good it feels.

The thought of losing your virginity to your step father was just enough to drive you crazy, what would your mother think if she saw y’all like this… she’d be furious.

But fuck it… it’s too late.

John then lines his cock along your tight slit, causing you to cover your mouth from the pain.

He isn’t even half way in until you start biting your lips from how much the pain was.

He decides to leave it there, until you get more comfortable with the length and decide to move on your own.

He didn’t wanna hurt you, that was the scariest scenario to him, not wanting to scare you but also wanting to absolutely destroy your cunt.

He places a kiss onto your forehead.

“You're so beautiful…. ever since I first met you that day, I’ve wanted you.”

He confessed while caressing your cheek with his left hand whilst the right is on your ass.

“To be honest… I resented you because I thought you were trying to steal my mom from me…

But now I can understand why she was so obsessed over you”

Y’all both start to giggle and share another kiss with one another .

“I could never do that to you princess…”

He whispers softly.

you finally decide you are ready to take his full length or… at least try?

As you glide down you can’t help but tear up a bit, whimpering at the pain, John then starts to coax you to make you feel better.

It hurt so bad but felt so good you just couldn’t stop, every inch filling you up in all the right places.

Due to the exstacy all you wanted to do was moan as loud as you could, fuck your mom and her sleep.

John realizes you're too hypnotized to snap out of your own world. He places his mouth on yours, so you’d be able to whimper and moan into his mouth not to wake up your sleeping mother.

you finally reached the end of his full length, grateful that you made it this far, but now you have to go back up.

your eyes tearing up a bit,

Dreading but also enhanced at the feeling of it.

you sit there for a bit just staring into his beautiful dark eyes, whilst rubbing the side of his face.

“You're so handsome…”

you confess.

you then lean in for another kiss,

Your tongues exploring each other yet again, every time making them feel pure bliss.

The way his warm mouth mixes perfectly with yours, was enough to drive you crazy.

You raised his hand up to your left boob and start playing with the bud,

Causing you to moan a bit louder into his mouth.

Saliva dripping from your mouth from the sloppy make out.

You pause and look at his lips how perfectly crafted they are.

How his features just compliment each other so well.

Until you speak.

“Daddy…”

You looked at him with soft eyes.

“I don’t think I can take it all.”

“Shhhh”

He hushed as he reassured you it’s all okay, and you can start when you're ready.

Taking initiative, you lean in for another kiss and start to lift your body up his cock, every part making you teary eyed yet satisfied.

“Oh daddy…”

Y’all start groaning in unison as the friction causes y’all to heat up.

He notices your hair in your face, and moves it aside.

He grins whilst staring at you, you can’t help but blush, the way his eyes Pierce into your soul.

you lead back causing your head to fall back whilst closing them at how good and stimulating it felt to have his cock finally satisfying your urges.

The way it’s so lengthy and huge makes you feel like the luckiest girl in the world, you can’t help but feel like it’s a dream from how too good it is to be true.

you fasten your pace, your mouth half way open and drools dripping from your pretty mouth, causing him to groan at the sight.

He makes his hand down to your thigh and reaches your clit, rubbing circles along the sensitive buds causing you to jolt and instantly place your hand on your mouth to stop you from moaning too loud.

Your muffled moans causing him to want nothing more than to cum inside that pretty tight cunt of yours.

The way it’s so wet, you can hear the noise it makes as he’s entering you.

Each flop caused you to Shriek at how he was bruising your young cunt to no return.

“I love you so much daddy”

you say as your practically out of breath panting from the increasing of your pace,

“I love you too kiddo”

He breathlessly blurts out as he’s in pure bliss.

Every thrust made him fall deeper and deeper into lust.

He leans his head towards your chest to

Take one of your nipples into his mouth, causing you to moan, you practically looked mindless the way you were relentlessly riding his cock, mixed with the stimulation of his mouth in your nipple.

Every thrust caused him to want to release his load.

He starts humming to the Rhythm that you created between y’all two.

“Please daddy… fuck…”

you whispered in his ear causing him to close his eyes at the blissful sound and sight of him fucking you.

The sound caused you to become nervous from how loud it was but also not caring anymore.

The ending credit song in the background was just the icing on top.

Times like this you wanted nothing more than to just stay at home for the rest of your life.

you make your way to the base yet again but this time they’ve reached their breaking point, you realize y’all both are finally reaching the point for y'all to both climax you instantly lift yourself off his thick cock, causing him to then cum on your back.

Y’all sit there, dizzy and light headed.

Your brains still foggy from the climax,

John leans in for another kiss, you complied and kissed him yet again,

The way they connected so perfectly melts your heart.

He finally breaks the kiss and peepers one onto your forehead.

“Smart girl…”

He whispers as he gently traces his fingers along your face.

you kiss him softly on his cheek and yawn.

John then realized the movie was finally over.

He picks you up and Carries you up the stairs to your room, he places you onto the bed and cleans you up.

He sits on the side of the bed and leans down the kiss your head,

“Good night princess, have sweet dreams my love.”

He peppers one last kiss and gets onto his feet to head out until you call out for him.

“Please lay with me for a bit… please John…”

you say as you ruffle around in your sheets.

John, with a sigh, makes his way over to the other side, scooting closer to you to cuddle under the covers.

you turn over and look at him, his warm embrace giving your butterflies.

you starts playing with his hair,

“You're so handsome John…”

“Thank you princess.”

[knivestothroats]

novel edit update. i am working on it approximately once every, idk, 3 months. but i rewrote a scene i didn't like that i had been kind of stuck on. i still want to rewrite the party chapter but i also dont want to rewrite the party chapter because i rewrote it like 3 or 4 times before i even posted it on tumblr.

i have also been thinking about the sequel enough that i almost have the whole thing figured out. still not writing it though. but i will come up with things that i'm like oh i should go back and establish that in the first book.

been working on fleshing out buck's character since i recognize he was pretty flat in the original. hey speaking of if you've read this far into the post - buck's dad took him hunting when he was younger. do you think buck killed an animal? i have it kind of ambiguous right now.

mostly making this post bc i rewrote a scene last night and i'm like, i don't really know if this, specifically, is good bc it's my first pass, but i think the extra dimension i added to it has the potential to make the novel a lot better than the tumblr version. not just that scene on its own just as an example. so i feel a little encouraged. i also started antidepressants or some shit for the first time in my life maybe two weeks ago and idk maybe it's working hard to say. also any time i'm like damn i need a second income i'm like. i should get that book published.

[fishmech]

It's just like, damn man communication and getting info cost so much around 2000.

You wanna look up some information on the phone so you can call someone that isn't in your phone book? That's like $4 in modern money.

You wanna call your aunt who lives a couple of states away and you're not paying the extra monthly landline cost for unlimited long distance? $15 in modern money for a 10 minute call in daytime hours, still like $3 nights and weekends, and these are both like "you got a pretty good deal" cases. Worse for most people.

OK so you just want to call your buddy who moved like 25 miles away? Maybe it's free cuz you lucked into still being in the same local call zone, but maybe you're still paying $3 in modern money for a 10 minute conversation because you managed to hit through two long distance zones. Especially if you're on opposite sides of a metro area or something. And if he had a cell phone you were calling, it might mean you paid even more because it registered as a further call.

But that's landline, let's say you were going cell. You might be paying the equivalent of $50 a month in modern money for 120 minutes of call time and no included texting. This service would likely charge you extra for "roaming", that is being out of your designated home calling area, as well as exceeding 120 minutes of talk time (and you would be billed a full minute minimum for any call that connected, mind), and texting once might be 75¢ in modern money on a cheaper provider, as much as $2 modern on others. Your excess call minutes might cost between 50¢ and $3 in modern money per minute and roaming calls would cost similar amounts even when you were within your plan. And on such a plan there was no cell data service so it would be an addon around $5 a month in modern money to have it at all - and prices of between 35¢ up to $5 in modern money per kilobyte transferred. Even if you were using strictly plain text that piled up quick.

You could of course move up to significantly more expensive plans per month in fixed costs to have much bigger pools of call minutes, freedom from roaming charges texts, and data. And to have significantly cheaper per-unit overage charges if you exceeded those. But that would quickly take your bill beyond $100, even $200 a month in modern money for a single line.

And of course if you wanted a couple songs from favorite singer? You ain't streaming it on a cheap monthly plan or likely even paying individually: your ass is paying nearly $38 in modern money for the whole album on CD, maybe $23 in modern money if you got a good sale price. And the artists still got a fraction of a penny off it cuz music royalties have been fucked forever. (of course you could pirate it probably... If you had internet service, if it was fast enough, if you could afford it for generally $36 a month in modern money for slow dialup, often much more if you had broadband available at all)

You wanna watch TV shows? Well like now you could watch the over the air stations for free. With tons of ads on the non-public stations ofc. But this is generally pre digital so there's much fewer stations on the air.

Or you could pay around $85 modern a month to get a pretty decent cable or satellite package and well you know, hope the time the shows you like line up with your schedule and of course it's full of ads too. Maybe you will setup a vcr or DVD recorder to catch what you couldn't be around for, and if you're not willing to wipe your old recording then you're going to need to drop serious cash to have fresh tapes and rewritable DVDs to keep that stuff around.

You want the higher end cable/satellite stuff? Well HBO alone back then was like $28 in modern money for a month on top of the rest of your bill - and most other similar no-ads premium channels were similar.

And let's not forget that this was still a time where getting official copies of shows on any kind of media often just Didn't Happen. Or they'd do it but they'd only put out random single episodes, maybe one full season on a multi season show. You might easily pay $26 in modern money for two half hour episodes or one full hour episode on a tape or DVD. Maybe you'd get lucky and instead be buying a whole season set for $75 in modern money, admittedly a much cheaper price per episode. Otherwise though, it's record it yourself in often pretty bad quality or trading and copying recordings from other people who liked that thing, if you got in touch with any.

And on-demand cable/satellite was just getting started and often required upgrading to a higher package, including paying more to rent a higher end TV box, with miniscule libraries. And the pay per view costs were often like $5 modern to watch a single movie squished to fit your TV, sometimes up to $35 modern for "new releases". Similarly, typical rental store costs were in the ball park of $7.50 to $30 in modern money per item, depending on overnight versus all week and sometimes old release vs new release. That shit added up quick! And Late fees could easily double up or triple up in just a few days.

And of course newspapers and magazines and books all cost money. We generally expect most of these to have some at least limited amount of free access on demand today, whether it's the free few articles a month before the paywall or getting free access digitally through your library. But of course back then, that's no such thing. A lot of online versions of publications were strict pay only, others only posted summaries for free, and that's if you were even online. It may not sound so bad to shell out 65¢ to $2 in modern money for a newspaper issue, or $4-$15 in modern money an issue for various magazines, but you'd be buying them pretty often if you wanted to keep up with things in more detail than they got into on TV. Even if you subscribe and get that discount for everything in a year, that's like maybe $90 a year in modern money for a major city paper, or $70 to $150 in modern money for a magazine depending on its frequency and size and content.

Shits just so fucking easy and cheap these days for real. You want to call someone you don't think about distance charges or roaming, you just fucking call. If you're calling overseas you probably use some app or program on a computer to call for free. A text message does not cost more than sending actual mail, it's nothing. Even all those stupid streaming services, which I don't use personally, you can have like 5 of those damn things, have way more to watch for less than cable back then, let alone modern cable prices, and have somewhat more reliability in what will be available next month!

Even when you're stuck on something like a strict budget, using prepaid cell service with blocks of minutes now, like some Tracfone "I only can afford $15 a month" stuff? It's like shlt at least that's 500 minutes/texts/megabytes of data. Like you're still getting screwed but it's much less so than what you got for that 10 or 20 or 25 years ago, and a lot more places have wifi you can use to stretch your data usage out.

[avelera]

So I’ve gone back and I’ve been reading some Old Guard fic (as I try to get motivated to write the last damn chapter of my one damn TOG WIP finished so I can finally moved on), and I must admit, one silly and very minor pet peeve I have in some Nicky/Joe fics for the Old Guard that explore their Crusader days is the trope of having them go a really long time without being able to understand each other. Because based on Nicky’s path as a Crusader even getting to the Holy Land, and the various hints we have that Joe has a pretty worldly background, I would suggest they should have had a baseline to communicate already when they met and that bridging the gap would have gone very quickly for one or both of them once they committed to learning.

There’s a few reasons I find them going a really long time without speaking each other’s language (most likely Nicky picking up Arabic) somewhat implausible:

- First, just based on my own personal experience: I went through a full language immersion experience myself and yes it was painful and yes, having textbooks and classes certainly helped, but all told it was 3-4 months from almost zero before I could start doing normal things for my age group like read simple books and do homework. However, the most effective language learning program in the country, Middlebury, does a full immersion program that gets people to baseline functionality in 6 weeks. Yes, learning a language is hard and I will be the first to say that mastery takes years and mastery without immersion is nearly impossible, but if you’re completely immersed there, without options, it goes much faster. You won’t be fluent of course but you will be conversational. Also, by all accounts, being illiterate or otherwise not bothering to learn how to read and write at the same time and ONLY going for verbal communication actually makes things go even faster.

- People who pick up by speaking (rather than reading and writing) and people who speak multiple languages already tend to pick up other languages even more quickly. Once you learn one or two, a lot of polyglots don’t stop there. There is that old joke: the word for speaking three languages is trilingual, two languages is bilingual, and speaking only one language is American. Which is to say I think native English speaking writers might be the ones underestimating how quickly a language can be learned (at least to a conversational level).

- Now throw in the fact that both Nicky and Joe have been recently in multilingual societies or organizations as a requirement of their meeting during the First Crusade, no matter how you slice it. Either as both coming from a merchant trading backgrounds traveling across international (so to speak) lands, or Nicky being part of the pan-European Christian army where multiple languages would be spoken across the camp, to him possibly having a priest background which would mean Latin as well. Not to mention Greek if Nicky picked up anything while in Constantinople (if he came over land). Nicky also would have been on the road to the Holy Land, if he went overland, for as long as 3 years and in Antioch before Jerusalem.

- Now, as an admitted caveat to all of this, I’ve lived overseas and it is absolutely common for expats to live in a country for years without bothering to pick up the local language at all. There were cultural and societal reasons that European Crusaders and the Egyptian Fatimids who lost Jerusalem wouldn’t bother to learn each other’s languages or any of the common merchants tongue or other common languages like Greek to bother to talk to each other. That’s absolutely fair to invoke for why they wouldn’t have a single word of any language in common.

- However, I will say, once both or either of them decided to try, I think some writers don’t give enough credit for how quickly one or the other would pick a language up, especially if it’s the language of the country they’re in (basically, I think once he tried, Nicky would pick up Arabic very quickly if he’s still in the Holy Land by the time he and Joe start trying to communicate). Effort plus full immersion is probably the single fastest way to learn a language, you’d be able to have rudimentary conversations within a few months at most. Really from there it’s just a question of whose country are they in once they start talking and stop trying to kill each other.

TL;DR I will be the first to say an author should go with what makes their story work best BUT there’s plenty of historically backed reasons why Nicky and Joe should have been able to carry on a basic conversation with each other from when they first met, and not be completely stymied in communicating with each other because of a language barrier.

[karuvapatta]

next part of Untitled Jonelias Magic AU, enjoy!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

***

It was getting late. He really ought to have been readying himself for bed right now, or doing something otherwise productive. Yet there he sat, staring at nothing, with his arms looped loosely around his legs and a blanket pulled around his shoulders.

The books and journals he had read on the subject hadn’t been particularly helpful. Prolonged use of restraints, particularly in the developmental age, had been reported to have adverse effects, the long list of which Jon had jotted down in his notebook and underlined those which – he felt – applied to him. But all experts in the field stressed that the response could be varied, and unique to each case, and… well. He wouldn’t know until he tried, would he? It really boiled down to that.

He felt for the clasp on his inner wrist. The bracelet – it seemed to him, now, that it peeled away from his skin like a living thing, that there were fine, linear strands of silvery white that had burrowed their way inside his body, and were reluctant to let go…

It slipped down onto the floor. Jon shut his eyes and held his breath.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened, nothing would happen, if he could just—

His lungs needed the air, but each muscle in his body remained seized with tension. Nothing happened. Nothing was going on, just this—this feeling, he could get through it. He would—he would—

The pain was getting worse, burning in his chest, even as it felt like great pressure was squeezing it from every direction. Could he not breathe without the damn thing? Was it a side-effect of the bracelet, or was he just doing it to himself? None of the literature mentioned suffocation as the possible cause of death…

Jon gasped. The air rushed into his chest, blessedly cool. Strangely enough he felt like he could taste it, static electricity on his tongue, pinprick sensation on his fingertips, ringing in his ears. And his vision went blurry, or—no, he could see well enough, colours and shapes and light and darkness, but they did not add up to anything he might recognize, no patterns, no objects, nothing, just an endless, incomprehensible stream of sensation.

There was—the window, he had left cracked open. The street outside, two men arguing, their voices muffled but somehow perfectly clear, adding to the cacophony in his ears. And the walls, which, which he could see right through them, the kitchen on the opposite side of the wall that wasn’t his kitchen, Mrs Calloway preparing dinner for her husband and children, who were waiting in the dining room, always hungry, always waiting, always wanting… the man in the apartment upstairs whose name Jon didn’t even know, who lost his job a month ago and had been slipping further and further into darkness and apathy with only liquor to ease the way… Mr Patel downstairs, who had received the diagnosis two days ago and was wondering how to break it to his wife… and others, others, so many others, their voices slipping through the cracks, a hundred thousands secrets and tragedies, in this building alone, and even more of them outside these walls, pressing in from every direction, relentless, a tidal wave of human misery that was threatening to swallow him whole…

He barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. He knelt on the floor, heaving, hands holding onto the porcelain, clammy with sweat. He didn’t want to know these things about his neighbours. He didn’t want to know them about anyone. And now his stomach hurt, and his chest hurt, and his mouth tasted vile, and he could smell vomit, but at least—at least he knew where he was. He knew who he was. He knew all those things and more.

The tiny bathroom flooded with light. Jon looked up, uncomprehending. The electric lightbulb above his head flickered, shone brighter, searing white across his vision; and then it shattered, raining down glass, and he was plunged into darkness once more.

For the longest time, Jon could hear nothing but his own laboured breathing. Eventually, he tried to push himself upright. His arms were trembling; his legs felt too weak to carry his own weight. He clung onto the doorframe and waited for his head to stop spinning.

The lights were out in the living room. Hadn’t he left them on? No, he was pretty sure he had. Good lord, his head ached like it might split open at any moment. It was difficult to form coherent thoughts—

Someone was knocking at the door. Jon—Jon looked, and looked, and tried to think, but it was increasingly difficult to…

He opened the door.

“Mr Sims?” asked the man outside – Calloway, his name was Calloway. He had a torch. He was pudgy and balding and worried that his wife had an affair, it’s been so long since they—no, this wasn’t—this wasn’t right. Jon shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts. They weren’t his.

“Mr Calloway,” he said, rubbing his face. “Has something happened?”

“Power is out. The fuse blew out in our apartment. Yours too, I’m assuming. I will have to go to the basement and check on the switchgear…”

The ringing in Jon’s ears persisted. But there was something comforting about the darkness, now that Mr Calloway pointed the torchlight away from them both. Jon didn’t have to look him in the eyes anymore.

“What happened?” Jon asked.

“Probably the kids down on the second floor, mucking about with magic again,” Calloway grumbled. “I shall have to speak to—”

Magic. Oh—oh fuck.

“Excuse me,” Jon said weakly. “I—I really don’t know much about electricity at all. Would you like me to call the company?”

“Call them how?” Calloway said after a pause. “No, it’s no trouble. I will take a look.”

“Thank you,” Jon said. “I—I shall go and. Look for candles in the meantime.”

He shut the door and exhaled, a slow, measured breath. All right. The bracelet was still on the floor by the couch, where he had left it; it reached out to him in some intangible way, its silky strands weaving themselves around his limbs. And—it was worrying, strange, how readily they pulled him back. How they wrapped around him in a cocoon, shielding him from the world. Shielding the world from him.

All in all, this attempt could have gone better.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] Multifaceted - Part 6

Or: The 5 Times Laxus Learned of a New Skill Freed Possessed, & The 1 Time He Fell Victim To Them

Summary: For the rest of the world, it had been seven years. For the members of Fairy Tail it had all been in the blink of an eye. But, for Laxus, that was more than enough time for his closest friend to seem like an entirely new person. This self assured, competent Freed was something new to Laxus, and he found himself enjoying it. Perhaps a little too much… Note: The last chapter. There’s seduction, there’s kissing, there’s mentions of misusing chocolate. It’s got it all. Hope you all enjoy. Links: Ao3, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

+1: Seduction

Laxus had gone through all possible ways that asking Freed out could go wrong. He could say no. He could laugh. He could be injured. He could reveal that he'd been seeing a man in secret for months now; he had been spending many of his evenings out of the apartment and wouldn't tell Laxus why. Laxus could end up making a complete fool of himself, and he'd never be able to think back without cringing to the point of screaming.

But not once had he anticipated this!

Who could have guessed that their apartment would have been robbed before he got the chance to do it!

That had to be what happened. He'd come back from a weeklong mission, resolute that he would stop bottling these feelings up and do something about it, and yet had unlocked the door to an empty apartment. The armchair was gone, the scattering of books that Freed had slowly been collecting were nowhere to be seen, and the kitchen was entirely devoid of anything at all. He stormed into the bedroom, to see that the bed was gone. After poking his head into the bathroom, even the shower products had been taken. The only thing left was the dining room table and chair, which had been the only thing not to belong to either Laxus or Freed.

There were no signs of a fight, so Freed couldn't have been there when it happened. But, well, if Freed had been there Laxus very much doubted the robbers would have managed to leave with all of their limbs attached, let alone the damn bed! Fuck: they didn't need this. Sure, Fairy Tail was getting more and more jobs, and they were starting to pay better, but there still wasn't enough to go around. Even with the money Freed made with his infrequent roles in the Ballet Society, they didn't have enough to cover the losses.

Groaning, he spun to look around the room. HIs gaze caught on something; a little hook on the back of the front door had something soft and colourful looking hanging off it. As he approached, he saw what looked to be a crocheted log cabin, with an envelope tucked behind it. He removed both, toying with the yarn creation as he opened the letter.

Map coordinates, written in Freed's handwriting.

Okay, so they likely hadn't been robbed if Freed had done this; unless of course Freed had lost his mind and been the person who had robbed them. Not entirely impossible, he could be eccentric when he wished to be. Laxus walked into the hallway, locked the door as if there were anything left to take, and started on walking to where the coordinates stated. That was one perk of being a mage; you had maps embedded in your memory. Freed was calling for him to go to one of the wooded areas outside of the town, about twenty minutes' walk away from the new Guildhall.

As he travelled, Laxus found himself absently playing with the yarn house. Its intricacies were well crafted, and Laxus wondered if maybe Freed had gotten better at crochet over the last few months, or if maybe this house just was his way of showing off. He pulled out the lightning bolt from his pocket - Freed had casted a rune on it that gave it a protective shield, and it was never off Laxus' person anymore - and compared the two. He preferred the lightning bolt. That was his and his alone. He had no idea what this little cabin meant.

When he arrived at the coordinates, he understood. Because, tucked in a halo of trees, was a large, lavish looking log cabin almost identical to the one Freed had made. Laxus gaped at it, then at Freed, who was sitting at a small patio table, whittling. Freed apparently whittled now, too.

"Freed," Laxus said cautiously, eyes flicking back to the cabin and not leaving it. "What the fuck is happening now?"

"Well, we're standing in the woods, there's a gentle breeze-"

"Freed!"

"I was sick of our living arrangements, and as such I've amended them," he gestured back to the cabin.

Laxus looked it all over again. It was two stories high, and pretty damn big. It had more space than anywhere Laxus had ever lived, with a balcony on the second floor. It was picturesque and idyllic and amazing. And it was also seemingly made entirely out of wood. Laxus couldn't help but think back to the few times he'd seen Freed doing any kind of DIY, and he always favoured using wood to fix whatever problem they were facing. He had even made his snappy little innuendo about being masterful at handling thick, hard wood. Or something to that meaning anyway; every time Laxus thought back to it he multiplied how filthy it had been, so the original phrasing was lost.

"If you're about to tell me," Laxus began slowly, walking towards Freed, "that you have built a house, then I'm not only gonna call bullshit on that, but I'm also gonna call bullshit on each and every one of these skills you've been showing off. Every one of them."

"Including the two examples of it that you're currently holding?" Freed mused. Laxus huffed, shoved his lightning bolt into his pocket and threw the yarn cottage at Freed's face. Freed caught it with a laugh. "No, Laxus. I did not build this house."

"Then... what the fuck?" He waved a hand at the building.

"I renovated a nearly dilapidated structure into something liveable," Freed pulled out some documents from his own coat pocket and placed them on the outside table. Laxus looked down at them - they were land and property ownership details - and gaped at the image. It was the same building before him, but covered in plants, with broken glass and large holes in the wall. Laxus might have got caught up on the difference between the picture and the reality of the building, but then he caught sight of how much the rundown cabin had cost.

"How the hell did you afford this?"

"I've placed myself into a sort of debt," Freed explained, and Laxus frowned. That didn't sound good. "Oh, nothing to worry about. The Ballet Society has plans for a new show, The Sleeping Beauty. There's a role in it - Prince Florimund - who is notoriously difficult to do. Their regular male lead isn't confident he can do six shows a week without burnout, so I've agreed to perform twice a week in exchange for them paying the costs for the house."

"You..." Laxus gaped at him, words failing. "You..."

"They've been very good about it. It doesn't need to be strictly twice a week, but instead average out into two sevenths of the shows, so I can still go on missions without trouble," Freed continued. "And it looks to be a fun role, rather challenging."

"You made this," Laxus pointed to the picture of the rundown cabin. "Into that?" He gestured to the luxury looking cabin. "On your own? Single handedly? Without anyone knowing, while also going on missions and dancing whenever they call you. You did that?"

"I tend to get restless," Freed shrugged, then turned and walked towards the open front door of the cabin.

Laxus followed, eyes flicking over the front of the building as it got closer.

Once inside, Laxus had to halt. He'd walked into a large living room with a spiral staircase leading up to the higher floor. It was only partially furnished, with two sofas - the frame made out of wood, but with large cushions for comfort - facing one another, with the media Lacrima between them. The coffee table that Freed had made for their apartment had been duplicated, so there was one next to either sofa. There was also a shoe holder, coat stand, and key holder beside the door. Laxus gaped as he looked around, his shoes clunking against the hardwood floors.

"I do like materials other than wood, I swear," Freed promised as he hooked a key on the hanger. "When we have the buying power, I anticipate we'll buy a lot of rugs and furniture that doesn't come from trees, but I'm best at woodwork and had more than enough wood left over after I cut some of the encroaching trees down."

"You cut them down?" Laxus gaped. "You know how to do that, too?"

Freed shrugged. "I can't begin to detail how bored I can get when I'm not working," he walked towards the staircase, and Laxus dutifully followed him. It was a sturdy thing, and Laxus assumed that Freed had made it. He might as well assume Freed had made anything and everything Laxus would see for the rest of his life, given how proficient Freed seemed to be. "There's five bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms. Only one has access to the balcony, and I've decided that I deserve it, so that's not up for debate."

"Seems fair," Laxus shrugged. "I assume you put in the bathrooms yourself after taking night classes for plumbing, right?"

"I was tempted," Freed laughed, showing Laxus to the hallway of six doors, with a large window at the end of it. "But, believe it or not, I accessed outside help. There's a tradesperson's school opened in town, and I contacted a teacher. I allowed five of their students full control over the bathrooms as practice, and they agreed to cover the costs. Juvia helped, too. Held back any wayward water when they made mistakes."

"It must have really hurt your pride having to let someone take control," Laxus teased, reaching for the closest door and opening it. A large, vacant room was shown, with a further door which must have led to the bathroom. "Five bedrooms?"

"And a closet," Freed nodded to one of the doors. "It used to be a vacation rental, before the owner let it go to hell. That's why there's bathrooms for each bedroom, I think. It works well for us, though. One room for each of the team, and a spare room. I thought either a guest room, or perhaps a gym when we can afford the equipment. But by that point, I expect the house will be more communal and I won't have unquestioning authority. I'll miss it."

"So, Bix and Ever are moving in too?" Asked Laxus, and Freed nodded. Laxus would like that. He'd miss having his own space with Freed, though. "Well, show me your special bedroom then, don't wanna walk in by mistake and have you pissed off at me."

Freed laughed, walked to the door on the far left and opened it, motioning for Laxus to walk in. It, like the living room, was barely furnished. The bed they'd been sharing was resting against the wall, facing the large wall of glass that led to the balcony. The only other thing was the armchair, which looked ugly and out of place in the modern room, and yet Laxus wouldn't want it removed nor improved. It felt as though Freed wanted a reminder of their time together and had decided his room would be a reflection of their apartment.

Or maybe Laxus was overthinking things. That was possible. Likely, even. That's why Laxus said what he did next. "Wait, you get the bed and the chair? Where the hell do I sleep tonight?"

"I've heard the floor is wonderful for posture correction, and you do tend to slouch," mused Freed as he looked around. Laxus knocked him on the shoulder, and Freed smiled to himself. "I've planned for that. Follow me."

Laxus did, though was surprised when Freed didn't open any of the doors to the bedrooms. They went back downstairs, and only when they were back on the floor and at the same level did Laxus see that Freed was fiddling with the palm of his hand. His fingers were twitching and playing around, scratching against each other in small, purposefully subtle movements. Laxus had seen Freed do that a few times throughout their time living together: the morning of his first rehearsal with the dance troupe, the day when Freed had first cooked for the guild, and the moment when they realised when their best hope of living anywhere was sharing a crappy apartment. It was a nervous tick. What did he have to be nervous about?

Freed went to push open one of the doors off the living room but stopped himself and turned to look at Laxus. Laxus halted, concern clearly filling his features. Freed was such a steadfast person, it took a lot to rattle him. He looked scared.

"There are a few things I need to say before I-" he cut himself off, took a breath, and met Laxus' eyes. "This house is unconditional. You live here no matter what. I need you to know that first," the intense look on his face made Laxus nod. "Good, please believe that. Next, there are no expectations of you. Not a single one. Whatever happens-"

"Freed, you've gotta tell me what you're panicking about."

"Right, yes," Freed nodded slightly, placed his hand on the door again. "Dammit, I had this planned out to be much more romantic, but, well, we can only go onwards I suppose."

Laxus' brain snagged on the word 'romantic' and stuck there, but as Freed opened the door, all thoughts died away. It was an open plan kitchen and dining room, with an open fireplace. The fireplace was lit, crackling and warm as it brought orange glow to the room. The small dining room table was lit only by two large, red candles that flickered gently. The table was decorated with a white vase filled with a range of yellow, orange and red flowers. Two cloches were placed either side of the table, and the smell of rich, wonderful food permeated.

Slowly, Laxus walked into the room. Romantic? That's what Freed had said. Right after Freed had assured Laxus he would always have a place to live there, unconditionally, Freed had mentioned romance. Now, he had walked into a candle lit dinner, which Freed had prepared himself.

That was another situation that Laxus hadn't planned for: Freed beating him to the punch.

Wordlessly, he turned to Freed, who was standing half way through the door, looking more unsure than Laxus had ever seen him.

Unacceptable.

Laxus felt a burning passion, exhilaration and need rush through him with a fury he'd never experienced before.

He was walking towards Freed before he could stop himself and brought his hand up. He wrapped it around the back of Freed's neck, clasping it firmly as he got in Freed's space. Their chests butted slightly - Laxus had misjudged how far Freed was - but he didn't care. He tilted his head, closed his eyes, and gave Freed the kiss he'd been wanting for all those months.

Fuck.

Oh gods.

Laxus was actually weak at the knees. The feeling of Freed's lips against his own, his tongue against his own, was breathtaking. Laxus pulled Freed close, feeling the man against him in a way he'd never had before. There was a closeness, an intimacy he'd never thought he'd know. Freed was strong and firm and practical and caring. He kissed with authority, and Laxus would always happily defer to it. He wanted to collapse into Freed, to be consumed by him. By the kiss. By the man he loved.

When they pulled away, their foreheads pressed together. Laxus smiled, a dopey and silly smile, as he whispered, "You're good at that, too."

Freed snorted a shaky laugh, and oh damn did Laxus love that moment of inelegance. "You're rather good yourself."

They laughed into another kiss, and Laxus found his hands lacing their way through Freed's hair so he could better cup the back of his head. Freed's own hands had found rest at Laxus' waist, and Laxus could have groaned at how they anchored him. This kiss was shorter, gentler, but no less passionate. Laxus found himself scratching at the back of Freed's head, and all but beamed when Freed leant into it.

Energy was buzzing through Laxus, and as hypnotising as the scent of the food, or the lure of Freed's lips were, Laxus felt the need to move. To move, but not without Freed. He'd fight the damn gods themselves if anything tried to get Freed out of his arms. It was only then that he realised there was soft, trilling music playing through the room. Laxus smiled, ran a hand down Freed's side and ended up taking Freed's hand in his own. They intertwined their hands without questioning nor discussion, and Laxus was in awe at the gentle friction between their skin.

"Dance with me," he demanded in a whisper.

"Really?" Freed asked.

"Yeah." Laxus smiled. "But go easy on me. No lifts."

Freed laughed, and then they danced. It was nothing to be impressed by - nothing more than swaying in each other's arms - but Laxus felt this meant more to him than any performance could mean to any professional. The ability to stand with Freed in this way was a privilege and yet a natural state of being for them both. They were so close. Their hands were intertwined, their waists pushed together, and at one point Freed rested his head against Laxus' chest and Laxus all but cried.

They stayed like that for a while. Freed's head moved to the crook of Laxus' neck, and they swayed in each other's arms. They had time to think, and Laxus was consumed by how entirely right this felt. It wasn't odd. It wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't anything other than the logical next step.

"You wanna eat?" Laxus eventually asked. "Don't want your hard work going to waste."

"Certainly not," Freed agreed, though neither moved to detach from the other for at least two minutes.

When they eventually did, they sat either side of the table, which was narrow enough for their feet to knock against each other. Made silly by the rush he was feeling, Laxus made an effort to nudge and play with Freed's feet with his own. He caught Freed's barely hidden smile; which was so honest, just a little shy, and was accented with the nicest little blush. Freed really was lovely.

They removed the cloches, and Laxus beamed at what had been served. Barbecue ribs and nearly a bucket's worth of fries covered in cheese and bacon sauce. This was the meal Laxus always had when he was too injured to work for a while; indulgent, against his diet, and delicious.

And, decidedly not a typical first date meal.

"Not a salad," Laxus teased, "so you can show off how elegant and sophisticated you are."

"You already know how sophisticated and elegant I am," Freed hummed, taking one of his own cheese covered fries and eating it.

"I also know how much of a deranged animal you can be with certain foods," Laxus grinned.

Freed huffed, "I dispute that whole heartedly."

"Roast chicken."

Slamming a rib down on the plate, Freed stared down Laxus' grin. "I had been captured and tortured, I had not eaten in four days, and I was hungry. That was four years ago, let it go."

"You nearly choked on it," Laxus beamed. "That was so sexy of you. Really a turn on."

"Hush."

"I think that's when I first noticed you were a man, not just some brat, Y'know."

"Oh be quiet," Freed huffed. "And we both know that, when presented with a certain brand of Black Forest gateau, you make Erza's sweet tooth look positively rational. I wonder how she'd react if I told her. She's never been one to stand for such a flagrant display of hypocrisy."

"Truce?" Laxus asked, and Freed smiled at him. Laxus grinned, took a bite of the ribs, then groaned. He caught Freed's grin. "So, speaking of dessert, is that gateau part of your seduction methods? Because it'll work if it is."

"I considered it," Freed mused. "But I thought stripping naked, dripping melted chocolate over my body, and having you lick it off might serve my purposes better. Thought?"

Laxus choked on his food, coughing out a "Fuck!"

"And now the truce can begin," Freed beamed at him, and Laxus couldn't help but match it; once he'd finished coughing, obviously. "And I hope you notice that, when you choke on food, I don't claim that it's sexy, a turn on, or that this is the first time I see you as a man. It takes very little effort not to say those things."

"Ah dammit, you're cocky in a relationship too," Laxus playfully groaned. "And here I thought I'd turn you into a mewling little kitten of a man."

"I may be, if I'm in the right position," Freed purred, running the toe of his shoe up Laxus' leg.

"You evil bastard," Laxus laughed. "Serve up my favourite food and then give me something even better to look forward to." The glare Laxus sent Freed's way was filled with heat, but certainly not anger. Freed matched it with a flirty little smile, his foot not stopping its teasing drag. Laxus felt his trousers tighten a little at the crotch, then remembered something. "You said you'd sorted out where I'd sleep. Then you took me down here to seduce me. Are those two things connected maybe?"

"Are you trying to imply that I'm so arrogant that I believe all I'd need is some dinner to get you into bed?"

"Yeah, I think you're exactly that sure of yourself."

"Hm," Freed hummed. "Well, all I'll say is this: you've witnessed my proficiency in varied skills over the last few months, yes? My talents in bed make everything else I do look sloppy to a near Neanderthal level. I'm that good." He retracted his foot; Laxus missed the touch almost too much. "Eat your food, dear. You'll need the energy."

"Cocky mother fucker," Laxus growled.

He stood, leant over the table, and pulled Freed into a deep kiss filled with promise. Promises that Laxus knew Freed could keep.

[soleil-read]

The last installment of The Reluctant Male Bridgerton Re-watch.

We sat down and binged the last 3 episodes as he was busy on Thursday evening and leaving on Friday morning. So here's the recap until season 3 (in no particular order)

1) "these two have the best chemistry. Much better than the first couple. But i think cuz one doesn't look so young. I have no idea how anyone will beat them." Kanthony for the win!

2) "they tease each other like brothers, they did great casting." A/B/C

3) "ooh, someone is scheming the other one. Is he playing her or is she playing him?" Lord Featherington and Portia

4) "I think Edwina has the right to be pissed. But how are they gonna fix it so those two can marry?"

5) "uhh, Eloise keeps going back to this guy. Remember when I thought it was gonna be the Footman? Oops, got that one wrong!"

6) "so Colin is starting to like Penelope now heh? it's good to see that cuz he was so hung up on the other one, I couldn't figure how he was gonna start liking Penelope but I can sort of see it happening now." Said after the cake-purpose scene. But he unfortunately changes his tune at the end of the episode.

7) "the acting is much better this season. Like everyone is good. I think the Bridgerton mom is really good. And the Queen is good too."

8) "I predict Portia kills Lord Featherington during the ball." Haha! What a scandal that would have been!

9) "I like that there are so many unresolved storylines going into season 3. Like the art guy and Penelope and Eloise. Like it's not just gonna be about a couple, other things are happening. Season 2 was better than season 1 for that too."

10) "not gonna lie, I like this over Pride and Prejudice. It has funny moments and more drama. I'm not as bored. I'll watch season 3 when it comes out." So another Bridgerton fan was made in less than a month, nice!

11) "I like that those two fought. Like it made them interesting, but I think they'll make up, before Colin and Penelope at least." Gosh, I really hope Peneloise are back in season 3.

12) "ouch, she's had a rough night. I thought he was supposed to be kind to Penelope? But I guess that's the way guys are, all talk and everything is for laughs. But the way he says it, I mean, damn!" He actually read the scene as Colin making fun of Pen. I wont post what he actually said cuz I vehemently disagreed that THAT is how the show meant for Colin to perceive Penelope. And I was a bit shocked he viewed it that way. Anyway, he thinks Penelope shouldn't forgive and move on. I spoiled him about the books and showed him the Season 3 pics in hopes to turn the tide. It's interesting to note that his view of Colin hasn't been overly favorable whereas I think Colin is a great character. More impassioned and impulsive than the books but overly a good guy. His views on Penelope aren't as clear. He loves her reactions mostly. Although he says she's a better character in season 2 over season 1.

13) "geez, this show sure likes to show the guys going downtown on the ladies. Its like the Bridgerton sex trademark!" OMG, 🤣

14) "Okay, is everyone just watching these two make out? The moms are right there!" Epilogue, haha

So that's it. It's been a lot of fun watching through the eyes of a non-Bridgerton fan. Kept me more honest. Both Colin and Penelope are not perfect, but I can't wait to see them grow and develop as individual characters and as a couple. Season 3 cannot come soon enough.

Thanks for sticking around! I encourage everyone who can, find a reluctant male (it doesn't have to be your spouse, mine was my ex) and do your own re-watch. We could start a series, lol!

[abalovesfic]

Gonna talk more about The Book of Bill in this Ask. As well as ur answer to my 1st Ask:

"1. Preorders start today actually!!!!! It’s a really great zine and I’m excited to have been a part of it."

Nice!

"2. I do plan on finishing at least The Helpful Lie, I think I owe the fic that much and I have so much of it mapped out. That being said…"

I really do hope u will at least finish this fic someday. As well as Illumine and Cosmic Twins. And etc. I love these TAU fics dearly after all. However, I can wait. I have waited years for more of something, and I can take a long to post and stuff myself. And I can do the same with these things.

"3. Spending time in the Psych fandom has been so rewarding. This was the right time for me to transition into something else. I’m gonna put this vaguely for privacy’s sake— I needed a new fandom if I was going to engage healthily again. And honestly, I think in 7 months Psych has given me more support and community than 12 years in Gravity Falls ever did. (But that’s luck, considering I went to Psych con and met the people who live in my phone.) (And probably also demographics.)"

I am sad u feel like the GF community couldn't always give u the stuff that the Psych community did. I have had great times in the GF fandom(s) myself personally. Saying that, I am happy Psych and it's community is is making u happy right now.

"4. Obvi Gravity Falls and TAU are still the loves of my life and rn there’s this beautiful meld of Psych and Gravity Falls coexisting in my brain. Book of Bill was great and it reinvigorated something in me. So yes, I’ll come back eventually and write more but for now, I’m invested in my little queer detectives"

And I hope to see u and I am excited to see u come back more in/to the GF and/or TAU fandom(s) someday (like new chapters and/or fics. Etc.), but like I said, I am happy you are having fun with Psych right now. And/or having fun with a blend of Psych and Gravity Falls in ur mind.

Also, "Book of Bill was great and it reinvigorated something in me",

Cool!

Gonna talk more about this, but I will save that for it's separate Ask.

Thank you for ur Answer to my previous Ask.

:)

1/?.

Oof. Uhhhhhhhh.

I think it’s just the helpful lie I’ll be finishing. (Maybe cosmic twins.) I can’t go back to Illumine. I do not like to contradict canon and though I didn’t know Book of Bill would be a thing a the time, I still don’t like that my story arc was off and the fic is too far gone to change anything. I won’t delete it but I’m not finishing it.

I love the game of canon too much. I like having to work within its confines even if I’m going off the rails with an AU. It challenges me as a writer. So Illumine has lost its appeal, but The Helpful Lie has certainly gained some. I have thoughts about my dumb triangle son…

And ok ok… it’s not that Gravity Falls/ Tau wasn’t a great fandom with tons of love and support. It is! And forgive me if this gets TMI. But I felt like I would never be good enough for this fandom. All of my fic, cosplay the freaking fanzine I started, my whole thesis, every single academic conference I went to specifically to talk about the show, all of the work I put into to Gravity Falls: I was essentially destroying myself for a fandom that wouldn’t love me back with the same passion. I still LOVE Gravity Falls with my whole heart and soul. But that burnout still hurt me.

So this step back has been good.

And Psych is oddly different. I think the fandom is old enough now to be kind of its own thing— but going to Psych con was the eye opener. I was worried about being the new kid on the block in this fandom from 2006. But complete strangers have shown up for me, tried to help push my academic career by promoting my writing and trying to get me celebrity interviews (which didn’t work out but damn— I’ve never had folks do me those favors before just because they want me to succeed), among other things. It changed my perspective a lot to have total strangers hug me and tell me I had done so much.

That was very ranty and emotional because I’m super sleep deprived (Bill my son please hop into my brain and joy ride me around, leaving me to wake up in a Taco Bell and with half a chalupa. This flesh puppet is ripe for the takin’). But things have been good different in this new corner of the internet. And when I’m ready I’m gonna finish the helpful lie so that I can feel good about it and not like I’m jumping through hoops.

Oh and the blending in my brain looks like memes

[carica-ficus]

"Nona the Ninth"

08/07/2024

Reading progress: 116/477 (24%) Read through since last update: 116

And I'm off with Nona! My boyfriend got me the book about a month ago, but I haven't had the time (nor the mental capacity) to pick it up back then. But it's summer and I just finished my last exam, so I decided it was finally the right time to continue the series. I know this book is only an intro to Alecto and offers something a little different than Harrow and Gideon, but I'm welcoming this change with open arms and am very excited to see what Muir's got in store for me.

Ok, enough yapping. Time for the commentary:

Starting off: background for John. Interesting, but I hate that it's so short and vague (in the best way, of course. I'm excited for it to be revealed later on.)

I'm concentrating SO HARD on connecting the pieces from Pyrrha talking to Cam (Palamedes). It's been a while since I've read Harrow, so I'm struggling to connect the dots. Although, I realize much of this is also just new info, so I don't particularly mind. I'm just making sure I don't skip over something important (i.e. I'm doing very active reading).

Yeah, I wouldn't wanna eat those nasty looking eggs either, Nona.

I like how Muir gave Nona a down-turned smile. That's such a cute addition to her design. (If I understood that part about that description correctly.)

Not gonna lie, the part where Nona's difficulty with controlling her body was mentioned was so heavy...

Yeah, no. Everything linked to Nona's disability is incredibly raw. It's filled with sadness, but also compassion and love. She allows herself to be proud of her progress, no matter how small it is, and I love that Muir decided to give her the space to do that. ❤️

One day when I re-read the series (because I will), I'm going to pay special attention to the character's relationship to sex. Or maybe I'm gonna read up on someone else's analysis. Because I find it really interesting how Muir approaches this subject, especially considering many of her characters are on the verge of adulthood and are suddenly entering a world filled with things they know nothing about (or very little). They've all been forced to grow up so fast, but had no time to actually develop into functional, grown adults. Idk, I just find all of this very interesting.

Nona not feeling any hunger? Also resistant to drinking bleach? Ok, so she is definitely immortal and I'm excited to find out why. (I.e. the whole truth about her identity.)

John, I'd laugh at your Coke Zero joke. Then make fun of you for drinking such a shitty drink.

Incorrupti? There's no full stop at the end of the paragraph, so it's obviously cut off. Strange...

I like how the parts are numbered. it's a count-down. And I love how Muir uses this trope. Just when you forget about it, you get reminded and then you think to yourself: shit.

I love the way Nona gets dressed. It's described so well. I have a clear image of her trying to both free herself from her pjs and put herself into her dayclothes. It's such a funny scene.

A CHEESEBURGER WITH TINY LEGS! CUTE!

HHHHH CAMILLA AND PALAMEDES MY BELOVED!!! They're so fucking cute.

Also, yeah Pyrrha's right about the letters. Knowing Palamedes is actually not opposed to writing pornography... 👁️👁️

Damn, Honesty's got balls. That was such a wild mission.

Of course the Convoy is transporting something, but what are those creatures (people)? Hm hm hm. They're cooking up something.

NOODLE IS WEARING BOOTSIES!!!!!!!!!

HE SOUNDED LIKE ONE AND A HALF HORSES!!!!!!!

I LOVE John's titles!!!!!!!!!!

BRUH

BRUH

What is chapter #9?????

I literally inhaled it.

Bruh...

Cam and Palamedes though 😭😭❤️❤️❤️😭❤️😭❤️😭❤️😭❤️❤️❤️😭😭

How am I already at 1/4 of the book? It's been 3 days!! Guess it goes to show I wasn't in a reading slump, but was just reading boring books.

[linesonscreens]

Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – May 1954

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

May 3, 1954

~tugs collar~

Yeah... About that.

May 9, 1954

Aw yeah, here we go! I was wondering when this would pop up.

May 15, 1954

1) That's not a joke

2) Yes, Violet. I got that from him kicking the radio.

Also I hope you enjoyed this strip because “Charlie Brown doesn't like coconut” is now a running gag.

May 16, 1954

This definitively proves that adults exist in the Peanuts Cinematic Universe, they just happen to be 20 feet tall for some reason. Or maybe the kids are like 2 feet tall? It depends on how you look at it I guess.

May 23, 1954

Oh man! What's going to happen!? I'm freaking out!

May 24, 1954

Lucy is so unbelievably awful to Linus in these early years. Granted, she's literally four(?) years old so I can cut her a bit of slack but god damn do these kind of interactions not endear you to her.

Weirdly enough though, I actually like that the strip doesn't punish her for doing stuff like this. Others have made this observation long before I came along but the fact that Schulz is willing to just sort of... let bad things happen without immediately having the universe make an example of the perpetrator or teach them a lesson is one of the things that sets Peanuts apart from the competition. Life just kind of be like that sometimes and it's OK to show it.

May 30, 1954

(No, really. That's the last one)

Thoughts:

The golf tournament arc is kind of notorious and nobody really knows what the hell is up with it. You have continuity in the Sunday strips (very unusual due to how they are made), weird off-model art, the cast acting out of character, and of course, on-screen adults. Then it all just kind of... stops. It's very odd.

I've heard people speculate that this might actually have been ghost drawn (is that a term?) by another artist but I'm not sure if I buy that. The art is a bit different but it still very much feels like Schulz to me, particularly in how he draws his backgrounds. I ~do~ think there might be something to the idea that this is a repurposed experiment from another project though.

What this feels like to me is Schulz experimenting with “bigger” stories, perhaps something intended to be sold as a proper comic book rather than just a collection of strips. The art looks different because he's trying to set it apart from the strips by adding more detail and action (kind of like when an animated TV sitcom gets a theatrical movie).

As for why it just ends like that? Well that's a sort of punchline Schulz does in a lot in his daily strips so it's not actually that weird if you think about it. I think he just didn't realize that this kind of anticlimax punchline works with a 4-panel strip but not a 4-page event comic.

There's no official word on the matter though so your guess is as good as mine.