#ditty-box

[ltwilliammowett]

Paper Wrapped “Nantucket” Ditty Box, by Tony Sarg (1880-1942) 

[jamiesfootball]

Backstory for 'perseverance' (the Rebecca Mom fic)?

Thank yoooooooooou! This fic is dear to me

This one came to life from the dialogue prompt, "When will you learn?" which is such a... almost villainous, gloating bit of dialogue that I wanted to rotate it a bit to see if I could squeeze something different out of it.

So I took the underlying sense of condescension and tried to make it something kind, something that a person might fondly say in response to someone being unreasonable or stubborn-

-at which point Rebecca and her mother slammed into me with the full force of a bullet train.

I've not written much Rebecca pov and that is a shame because she is so fun to write, especially when she's Having a Day

I don't remember where Jamie entered the picture, but at some point very early in I decided that this fic was going to be about Rebecca, Jamie, mums, and the ghosts of dads. Rebecca and Jamie are both such interesting characters who had such similar journeys and it's a complete shame they never got to really interact one-on-one in canon (except for that hug during the montage???)

Another thing that compelled me the more I thought about it - although they don't interact, we still see Rebecca experiencing Jamie second-hand a number of times and making decisions that directly affect him personally. When she watches him with Keeley in season one, when she decides to directly sabotage his relationship with Keeley by releasing photos of Keeley and Ted, when she talks to Keeley about him at the gala, when she talks to Keeley about him again while watching Jamie's beer promotion, when she has Jamie sent away, when Jamie walks into the coaches office because he didn't bring a present for secret santa, when jamie walks in on her and keeley smoking

Jamie is always around and Rebecca is always having some sort of experience either actively interfering with or passively reacting to his life

But from him? Nothing. Nada. We see nothing of his side of things when it comes to Jamie Tartt and Rebecca Welton. In fact, one could argue that he is in fact oblivious to the effect she's had on his life at all beyond being his boss on paper

So that became another layer of the conflict in this fic. Not just Rebecca and Jamie and their individual baggage with their mums and dads and how they're alike, but also how their relationship is fundamentally skewed. They are on uneven footing in terms of what they know about each other, and I wanted to play that up with Rebecca having foot-in-mouth disease and forgetting that Jamie is not in fact this friend of a friend acquaintance that she happens to know a ton about - from his perspective, they're not even that. They're ascended strangers, boss/employee, and they've barely had a conversation before this

Except that's not accurate either, because Rebecca does know him, and she has a better understanding now of how her actions in season one hurt people. So she's trying, she's trying to build that bridge across to reach him, and she's trying to do it by using this sense she has that they perhaps are more alike than they might think

Unfortunately, Jamie isn't ready to hear that, and especially not from a stranger he doesn't trust yet. And Wembley is right around the corner

so yeah, that's the fic

From this ask game

[passengerpigeons]

it's because I'm always on that damn banjo

[blooms-in-april]

I'm thinking sad Jaskier thoughts.

It takes a while for Geralt to realize the music is gone. Oh Jaskier still sings- for their supper, for Ciri when she's sad, to entertain Kaer Morhen on late card playing nights. But the music- the music is gone. No more of the mindless humming as he walks, no more parsing over rhymes by the fire, no more harassing Geralt for his thoughts on such and such melody. Jaskier sings like a wind-up music box, only when requested, cranked for it, and snapping shut into silence like the sharp closing of a lid.

Yennefer snorts at his concern. "It took you this long to notice?"

Geralt grunts. She smiles, sharp and bitter. "You always were slow."

"How do I fix it?" Geralt snaps. He is not here to be mocked or play games.

"Can you fix it?" Yennefer asks. "I don't know."

Geralt doesn't know either. All he can do is try.

One of the mages had left a god's damned harpsichord in their tower room. It takes Geralt weeks- lugging the ornate monstrosity down from the mages tower, finding schematics in the library for the damn thing, undoing by sheer will the rot and moulding of a hundred years on the instrument. He spends his evenings waist deep in the guts of the instrument, swearing over chords and tuning and keys.

Jaskier's silence, now that he notices it, gapes like an open wound, bleeding wherever he goes. It stains memories of years past, of a cheerful smile and conversation given to him so freely, so easily, not a hint of subterfuge or awkwardness or fear. Now Jaskier only says good morrow if Geralt says it first, only speaks when spoken to, only smiles when Ciri is looking his way.

Geralt polishes the harpsichord until his fingers blister and his nose stings from the smell. He paints the elaborate carvings with pure gold leaf. He spends hours tightening strings trying to get the thing in tune. He worries over it like a child, because he doesn't know what else to do.

"What do you think?" He asks Eskel as they carry it carefully down to Jaskier's room.

"It's very nice." Eskel says diplomatically. "I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

"Appreciate it?" Geralt doesn't want appreciation. He wants that soft tone back in Jaskier's voice when he speaks to him. He wants Jaskier to speak to him, to turn to him free and easy with something to say.

"He'll like it," Eskel says, "Just-"

He turns, his soft eyes full of warning. "Just don't put all your hopes on an old harpsichord."

Lambert snorts, "Too little too late!" He laughs. And Lambert has always been hateful, more so since Aiden was lost, but the words feel true.

Jaskier smiles when he presents him with the harpsichord. He exclaims and laughs and claps his hands. He extolls its virtues, coos over its decorations, fusses over it with all the enthusiasm of a performing parrot. He pulls Ciri onto his lap and guides her hands on the keys, composes a little ditty on the fly for Yennefer, plays something sweet and sad that makes Lambert turn his face away. In all the merriment and gratitude and excitement, he looks Geralt in the eyes only once. Once, upon the first shock of the present. Once, with eyes wide and open, like a wound.

Geralt lingers as the others go off to bed, watching as Jaskier slowly fades as his audience wanes.

"Thank you, Geralt." he says. "It is truly a magnificent present. And far more than I deserve."

Do not thank me is what Geralt wants to say. Do not thank me, not when I have done this to you.

"I didn't do much," is what comes out of his mouth. "It was already there."

Jaskier does not look at him. "If this is an apology-" he says, "I do not need it. You were tired and upset. You spoke your mind. And nothing you said was- untrue. From a certain point of view. You do not need to absolve your guilt to me."

"Jaskier," Geralt says. "I'm sorry."

"And I forgive you." Jaskier says "I forgave you even the moment you after spoke. I don't think I would be myself if I could do otherwise."

It is done. The gift given, the apology accepted. And yet the silence still sits heavy in the air. It is not fixed. It is still broken. It is still out of tune and all of Geralt's twisting and tunings have not set the melody to rights.

"Why are you still like this?" He says. Jaskier stiffens. The words are wrong again, he's done it again, and he could scream with frustration, like a child who keeps swinging the sword and cutting himself on the dulled edge.

"Do you know the Countess de Stael bought me a Stradivarius once?" Jaskier said. "You don't know what that is. A fiddle, rarer than rubies. There were only twenty ever made. It sings like nothing else. She presented it to me on a bed of velvet, and told me she loved me. She told me to stay. And I would have."

Jaskier plinks a few idle notes. "She kicked me out a month later. Too mouthy. Too tacky. Too gauche. She had found someone better. She took back the Stradivarius and handed it off to her new minstrel."

"What I am saying, Geralt-" He says. "What I am asking- Is that you not do things you do not mean. That you not give me false hope. That you stop trying to make me love you, because I already do. I already do and it hurts. It hurts so much."

[sleepytimestardiamond]

I absolutely adore your Ximena Jayce and Viktor one-shots. They’re so sweet and perfect, like optimally tailored they’re so comforting <3

i’m so glad u enjoy them !! here is a little bullet point continuation of my fic caution: children at play that includes more ximena ! (all you need to know is that regressors are known, the boys regressed at the lab when it started snowing, and ximena is a cg for both of them)

ximena shows up to collect her boys as soon as heimerdinger contacts her; they’ve been entertained by his little ditties and close up magic (particularly jayce) but they’re very happy to have their mami come pick them up

she brings an extra coat for jayce and a scarf and gloves for viktor. she knows jayce runs hot but he’ll be grateful for the physical barrier between him and the snow, and viktor will refuse most offerings but the gloves will at least keep his fingers from getting too stiff with cold around his cane.

viktor’s very excited to tell mami about the work they did and their experiments and how good he was at taking care of jayjay even as jayce pipes up that they were just playing, he’s a big boy, viki didn’t need to take care of him

ximena just chuckles and tells viktor that she’s so proud of him and asks jayce what they were playing, which distracts him long enough for ximena to usher them into the nice warm apartment

she helps jayce with his boots first—hard when he keeps swinging his feet excitedly—and then waits to see if viktor will ask for her help. even regressed, he’s an independent boy, but when he quietly asks his mami if she’ll take off his brace so he can get into comfy clothes, she beams with pride and immediately moves over to help him

jayce is already off to pull out his toy box from under his bed, so ximena can fully focus on helping her older boy with his brace. it’s certainly a learning experience, like adjusting to losing two of her fingers and then relearning how to use her prosthetics, but she’s more than happy to take the time to do it

once her boys are both changed into comfy clothes, she sits on the couch with viktor and massages his leg while they watch jayce play with his cars. a couple times, viktor tries to tell jayce to be careful or not run too fast, but ximena pets his hair and tells him that he can relax now, he doesn’t have to be in charge anymore, and eventually he falls asleep with his head on her lap

jayce, of course, then gets jealous and proceeds to climb up onto her other side and snuggle in close, so ximena puts on a movie for him

he’s out like a light in the first five minutes

so then ximena gets to watch piltover hgtv or food network or her telanovelas til her tuckered out baby boys wake back up :)

[first-edition]

Moon boys (Steven grant/ Marc Spector/Jake lockley X Fem! Reader)

Sum- Night before christmas your husbands give you a special gift.

Warnings- Oral sex (fem recv.), SEX. P-in-V, Unprotected, rough sex, hair pulling, light slapping, squirting, mirror kink (if you squint.), riding, pet names, mention of both male and female parts, cussing, 18+ language and themes, after care, long intercourse, hickies, my ditty google translate Spanish. (Sorry)

SMEI-PROOF-READ sorry for errors (suck it up)

THIS IS NOT INTENDED FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18 READ WITH CAUTION AND HAPPY SMUTMAS.

Sitting on the bed, legs crossed, you watch as Steven feeds his fish the premium fish food he got for christmas. 

“There you go gus…special food.” he says watching him eat it. 

“What are you doing baby?” Marc speaks as he stands putting the food to the side. 

“Nothing.. Just watching you both talk to the fish.” you smile looking up to him as he walks to you standing in front of you. 

“I got all the presents wrapped and under the uh…tree.” you say looking over at the fake little tree that sits on a box in the corner of the room. 

“Hmm. Steven not get a real one this year?” he asks you to shake your head. 

“It's okay though.” you say scooching back onto the bed as he kneels on it the covers dipping under his weight. His lips connect with yours as you both share a passionate kiss. 

His lips move to your jaw line. 

“Fuck…you smell so good.” he grunts into your neck leaving sloppy kissing behind. His hands move under your shirt. You feel his calloused fingers against the skin of your waist moving higher to connect to your breast as his thumb brushes over your nipple. 

“I know you feel so much better.” he says gruffly in your ear causing blush to attack your face your breathing speeding up. You take his face in your hands connecting his lips with yours. His hand leaves your chest and moves to your thigh pulling your legs apart lifting your leg up and around his waist holding onto your thigh before leaning back from your lips and pulling off his shirt. 

His scarred, ripped chest mouthwatering to your sight. He pulls off his belt discarding it and his shirt somewhere in the room. He comes right back to your lips kissing you deeply breathing in your scent. Your hands feel along his skin. Breaking the kiss for s second once more to pull your shirt off your breast free nipple harder from both arousal and cold air. Youre left in your small christmas themed panties. 

“Imma give you over to steven baby huh?” Marc speaks lowly, glazing in the mirror after Stephen was yelling at him to go first. 

“M-marc.” you breathly speak. He kisses down your body since they've learned to shift without it looking like a seizure; it's seamless to his voice shifting into Steven's sweet English accent. 

“I'm going to take these off now, love.” he speaks softly which makes you giggle at his politeness where Mark would rip them off without asking. 

You nod to him and he pulls off your panties, mouth watering at the sight of you always so wet and ready for him. 

Before any other word or action can be done he grips your thighs throwing them over his shoulders and diving face first into your cunt his skilled tounge immedtley finding your clit suckling and swirling. 

“A-ah! f-Fuck! Ste-steven!” you scream out in pure pleasure of a moan as you weren't expecting such pleasure so fast it shocked you. He answers you with a moan, the vibration hitting a new type of nerve. 

Your hand finds his hair gripping his fluffy curls, your other hand gripping the bed sheet under you, your back arching. His tongue dips into your entrance back to your clit over and over as your writhe in pleasure. He will never miss the chance to eat you out so good you go absolutely brain dead for him. 

Marc should be waiting in his headspace but he sits in the reflection with Jake, arms crossed, watching as you moan and whine under Steve's firm grip holding onto your thighs. The sight of his alter makes you feel the best turning him on even more. Making him more excited for his turn. 

“St-steven..ah sl-slow down. Ngh!” you gasp out back arching as you feel your climax approaching. But he does the exact opposite and wraps his arms around each thigh sitting up kneeling sitting back on his heels pulling your body up with him your lower half off the bed. 

You gasp as you make eye contact with him, his eyes dark and lust blows before your eyes roll back cumming into your husband's mouth. 

You grip the sheets tightly as your orgasm washes over you. Giving your cunt one last drag lick of his tongue does he carefully set you down licking his lips before wiping his mouth like he just devoured his dinner. 

You pant fuck out already with out even any dick. Steven glances at the mirror and Marc fronts getting up off the bed pulling off his pants, his already hardened cock leaking and twitching in his grasp. 

“You ready for round two baby?” he asks not really wantign an answer as he’ll fuck you anyway. 

“Wh-what?” you ask not to hear him. But before you can decipher the message he pulls your legs again rubbing his tip up and down against your used slit. You flinch in pleasure as he brushes over your stimulated clit. 

“Come here honey.” he says taking your arms placing them around his neck as he allows you to brace for the fucking hes gonna give you. 

He slides in easily as you were well teased before. Bottoming out in you in no time he begins to thrust up into you. 

“Shit…” he groans, feeling you clench down around him. Your nails dig into his skin as he fucks you into the mattress.

“Ma-a-a-arc!” you moan out as he impales you over and over his member is perfect in every way filling you so good. 

“You fucking slut baby, my fucking slut huh?” he groans. 

“yes - ah -y-yours.” you moan uncontrollably as he pulls your leg over his shoulder kissing and marking up your inner thigh. He pants and groans at your pulsing walls as he takes you over and over. 

He leans back slighting allowing his hand to dip between you his thumb connecting to your overly sensitive clit and with a view rubs you cum on his cock mouth opening into an o face beautifully contorting. Your clenching cunt around him makes Marc cum deep into you with a moan. 

He lets go of your leg carefully taking it off his shoulder resting it on the bed making sure to stay in between your legs. He leans down to you kissing your face and neck making you giggle. Marc chuckles into your neck as you wrap your arms around him pulling him down to you.

“Don't say that,” he says. 

“I didn't say anything.” you speak. 

“Mm-mm not you baby, jake.” he says, glancing back at the mirror set up in the corner of the room, a hidden kink between the two of you.

You turn your head, you see you and Marc are still tangled in each other, you smirk before pushing Marc over to your on top of him. You look behind you at the mirror before Marc smacks his hand down on your ass making you gasp and giggle again. 

“Come on Jake, honey, if you got something to say. say it to my face…papi.” you joke the last word. The once soft placement of Marc's hand on your ass turns into a tight grip. 

“I was saying, that if you can smile and laugh you havent been fucked rough enough.'' Jake says you look down seeing your other lover. Hard blush now pasting your cheeks. 

“F-fuck.” you stutter not expecting him to actually front. Out of the three you rarely see jake he’ll only come out when both marc and steven arnt doing well and usually he’ll come out to give you the fucking of a life time. But on rare occasions he’ll join you in the shower just to run his hands along your body, tease you about and then help you dry and dress before cuddling for a bit before you wake up and either Marc or Steven are back. But goddamn is he good at after care.

His arm extends his hand wrapping around your throat snugly before he sits up. Your mouth falls agape. 

“What? No smile for me Princessa?” He says you give a cocky smile before he slaps your cheek, not enough to do any true damage but just enough for you to feel as it goes straight to your pussy again squeezing around his now hardened dick. 

“Smile again.” he says which comes out more like a threat as his lips grazing against your jaw line. You do so and in return get another slap making you giggle which pisses him off more he takes his other hand, the one he slapped you with, and pulls your head back by your hair causing a whimper out of you wiping the smile off your face. 

He takes his handoff your throat and moves it to your hip patting your skin speaking his accent strong. 

“Ride,” he speaks. You don't listen but once he gives a firm tug to your hair you whine and then move your hips forwards and back. His grip on your hair loses but not enough for you to look at him as you still look at the ceiling. 

“Arms behind your back, hold your elbows.” He instructs you to immediately list and put them behind your back, bending them and holding onto your own elbows to keep them there much like how he would time them with his belt. 

“Mm good girl.” he groans as your hips move against you forcing all of him to shift in you. Moving his hand from your hip to your breast he pinches your nipple playing with it while his mouth connects to the other one. 

“J-jake.” you gasp out. He tugs on your hair and bites your nipple. 

“Nuh uh!” he snaps at you. 

“P-papi.” you stutter out. 

He hums loosening the grip on your hair once again. 

“Come on princess, you can ride better than that. Marc and Steven had you being a pillow princess, with me, you're gonna work for it.” he says slowly. You pick up the pace but unfortunately you feel as though you're not going to last long. Not with your clit rubbing against him and his cock hitting the perfect spots. He can feel you clenching around him as your movement becomes sloppy he lets go of you completely and grips both your hips stopping you forcing you to freeze your motions panting in ecstasy. 

Your legs shake under you as your orgasm is put on hold. When your legs stop shaking and your breathing goes back to normal, Jake pats your thigh and lays back. 

“Go again.” he says, your eyes widened as you look at him. He raises his eyebrow at you, tightening his grip on your thigh. 

“¿Hice tartamudeo?” He asks you dont answer having known very very little Spanish or atleast what he's taught you. 

“Did I stutter whore?” he asks again not wanting to ask again. 

“No.” you answer only for a sting to hit your thigh as his hand slaps down against the skin. 

“No papi.” you fix your mistakes quickly. Your hips begin to move again keeping your arms behind your back once again feeling the slow eventual build up of an orgasm. Once again he stops you in your lust filled state feeling your cunt fluttering around him making him go crazy on how you please him with being so obedient to his commands. 

“Again,” he says. You let out a shaky breath and once again continue grinding against him. This time you reach your high faster but Jake can still tell but this time he doesn't stop you as he sees tears threatening at the corner of your eyes and your flushed body and worn out legs. 

You reach behind you taking your arms untangling them and bringing your hands up to his chest to support yourself. 

“Go on. Princessa cum for me hm?” he says as your nails dig into his chest making him groan in pleasure as you fuck yourself on him finally cumming. 

“My turn.” he chuckles and grips your hips and roughly thrusts up into you causing you to scream out a moan. Your head falls forward, your hair falling in front of your face as you take his cock once again.

His hand shifts again to your clit making sure to fully overstimulate you. You hear his moans underneath you as you feel his dick twitch inside you signally he’s close. 

“P-pa-api..ah ah!” you moan out the neighbors surely hearing you. 

“Come on princessa squirt on me! hacer un lío hacer un lío.” he speaks 

(make a mess)

“Agh fuck.” Jake groans out as he roughly thrusts up into you cumming deeply into you once again and as if on cue the last rub of your clit your body does exactly what he demanded. Your cunt squirts on him painting his abs.

He chuckles sitting up holding your head up from the back of your neck. Kissing your lips. 

“Good girl.” he says. Before carefully pulling you off him and setting you down he gets you going to the bathroom turning on the bathtub water before wetting a washcloth with the warm water cleaning off his stomach from you and his cum. Hurryign back to you he sees you breathing lightly fucked out laying on your side nude in bed. You're covered in hickies.

“Princess.” he speaks calmly as he pulls his boxers off the floor pulling them on. 

“Hey” he says moving your hair out of your face brushing his thumb against your cheek. You lean into his touch causing a smile to form on his face. 

“You alright?” he asks you to nod your head. 

“Come on.” he says, lifting you like a rag doll and pulling you up into his arms, lifting you off the bed before taking you to the bathroom to help clean up. He changes the sheets and helps you dry and dress before drifting back off to sleep with you. 

[rustedleopard]

Everybody who's played Undertale/Undertale Yellow knows that in order to get through fights without hurting/killing monsters, you need to use ACTs. What you might not know is that (at least in UTY, I don't recall if this is a feature in UT) what Clover does when they ACT and how the enemy responds changes if the enemy is hurt enough to display their injured sprite.

Usually it's nothing too crazy. For example, Clover (hypnotizing +) singing to an Insomnitot will meet its SPARE conditions and have Insomnitot remark that Clover is a good singer, whereas if Clover first injures then sings to an Insomnitot, it will be too distracted to notice Clover's little ditty and will also tell Clover "You need vocal lessons." Or doing 'ACT: Touch' on Cactony will have Clover give Cactony a careful pat in-between two spines, but doing 'FIGHT: ACT: Touch' will have Clover prick their finger on Cactony's bristles. It's a fun little detail that most wouldn't notice because people generally either choose to focus on only sparing or fighting the enemy instead of trying to "play" with the enemy when they're injured.

It does fall apart a bit when you come across Sousborg in the Steamworks in a Neutral/No Mercy Run. Sousborg has a unique gimmick where, in order to meet his SPARE conditions, you have to instruct him on how to cook an egg. Unfortunately, the devs likely weren't expecting someone to do the whole "injure then ACT" deal with Sousborg*. As a result, these injury ACTs don't fit the actions that Clover can choose from the menu. For example, doing 'ACT: Crack,' which would normally have Clover instruct Sousborg to crack the egg on the edge of the pan, will instead display the text "You toss Sousborg's cooking into the garbage." which... has nothing to do with cracking anything.

The ACT menu will still progress as though Clover instructed Sousborg on proper egg preparation if they choose the correct prompts (Crack -> Fry -> Season). Some of the lines for the instructions will even be the same as they were if Clover didn't initially injure Sousborg. Sousborg also doesn't try to fight back either if Clover is ACTing against him. It's just a fun and interesting thing I noticed. Here's some screenshots from the fight, as well as what ACTs yielded which results.

An example of an ACT (Bake) displaying the same exact text that it would if Sousborg wasn't injured and Clover attempted the ACT. No egg was ever cracked, so there is also no "puppy" to throw into the oven.

This is what Sousborg's bullet box looks like when Clover does an "injury ACT." It lasts long enough for him to say his line, but once you press X to progress the text, it disappears and he doesn't try to attack you.

Another example of a selected ACT not displaying the correct action for the prompt chosen. Nothing about choosing 'ACT: Boil' should have Clover toss Sousborg's cooking into the garbage.

All the ACTs from this battle that I noticed. Note that the text in parentheses is what Sousborg responds with. Unlike other enemies where their response directly correlates to what ACT Clover chooses (even if injured), robotic enemies (when injured) will always respond with a random line that doesn't have anything to do with the ACT that Clover chooses. Like they're defaulting to programmed responses. For example, choosing ACT: Bake can have Sousborg say "D../inner _:wiLl be <r-Ready .> Soon." or "Sw/>.eet _or SAVory?" at random (I just put down the first one I noticed when I was fighting him).

*Or perhaps the ACTs that Clover could do were supposed to change entirely if Sousborg was injured, which differs from the ACT options in the other battles. Usually the ACTs stay the same but change how Clover performs those actions. I speculate if this was the intention, then they might've said something along the lines of "Wash" and "Toss," to fit how Clover can either wash Sousborg's oil off their hands or toss his cooking into the garbage.

[courtingchaos]

An Excuse in the Form of Pie

Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Summary: A little Thanksgiving ditty for you, just a few days late. This is in my Rent universe but you can just read it on its own if you’d prefer. Takes place like a year into them dating.

Warnings: Sex

NSFW 18+ No Minors

Oh they shouldn’t have trusted either of you two to do shit asked of you. All Wayne had to do was huff at the cardboard box that he was unloading onto your mom’s counter and Eddie was at the front door with your hand in his.

“What’d you forget?” He asked it too enthusiastically, earning a hard side eye from Wayne.

“The buttermilk pie.”

“We can go grab it.” Eddie already had the door open with you nodding along behind him.

“It’s not a two person job.” Wayne’s gaze never falters off his nephew or you, just a raise of his eyebrows while you two practically jitter out of your skin.

“What if my hands get cold? We can share the load, right Samwise?” Eddie has mischief all over his face when he glances at you over his shoulder. It’s in the dimples on his cheeks and the crinkles around his eyes. Those shine with giddiness that he’s been trying to tamp down all morning.

Wayne relents wordlessly, a toss of his hands upwards and another huff. “Nothing wise about either of you.” Muttered as he turns to help your mom with the unwrapping of casseroles.

Your aunts came in two days ago and he hasn’t had a moment alone with you since, all of it spent at your place in your mom’s living room listening to three middle aged women gossip. It was fun for the first day but when he realized you were essentially being held hostage and he couldn’t get even a quick feel up in the hallway without someone calling for you. A trailer not much bigger than his own and it was swarming with people and you kept getting lost in the throws.

“How long before they send out a search party?” Eddie asks while stomping up his front steps and unlocking the door, everything done in a rush like he’s running from your extended family.

“Well bud, I think Wayne already knows.” Your laugh follows him into the dark trailer before he yanks you in with him.

“Bud?!”

“Yeah, my buddy that I sleep with.”

“Is that all I am to you?” He pulls you against his chest in the midst of giggles and a tangle of feet trying to rid themselves of shoes. “Just a warm buddy you can take advantage of?” He asks like he isn’t the one manhandling you down the short hallway to his room. Your protests fall on deaf ears though as he nods along all aloof like and blindly slaps around behind his back for his doorknob.

“Seriously Eddie we gotta be quick, I don’t want Wayne marching over.”

“Hey.” He pulls away to point at you. “You don’t get to make fun of me when it’s over in under a minute, capiche?”

You laugh into his mouth while trying to kiss him and also trying to pull at his belt. His hands immediately find their way under your blouse, a lavender colored satin thing your mother forced you into that morning. He’d made a comment about you looking like one of those sad porcelain clowns and you’d thrown a serving spoon at him.

Now though you can’t get enough of his teasing mouth. His teeth that nip and pull away to draw you closer to his bed, his tongue that sneaks out to lick at the corner of your lips.

“Eddie c’mon.” You whine when he dips his head to kiss under your jaw, his hands still skirting the edges of your bra under your shirt. “Get me out of this stupid thing.”

He’s already plucking at the covered buttons before you finish your sentence. “Say no more.” Undone, just like your bra apparently, his little magic trick he’s perfected in the almost year you two have been together. He tugs you with him to sit on the edge of the bed and with you barely in his lap, the phone trills from the kitchen.

“There’s that ten minute warning.” Your hands slow down on the zipper of his ‘nice’ jeans, coming to terms with the fact you weren’t going to get anything you wanted this week.

“Well fuck their ten minutes.” His hands are rough on the wool of your skirt where he pushes it up your thighs, fingers sneaking under the silky lining to find the crease of your hips. “It’s not like we’re eating pie first.”

“You might be.” Your laugh is soft between you. Breath pushed out from the tickling movement of his fingers along sensitive skin. He gets a grip on you though and rolls you onto your back, your legs kicking around until he settles between your knees.

“Unfortunately no.” His fingers hook on your underwear to pull them down quickly. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to sneaking away later for a slice.” He vaguely pushes his jeans aside, finishing the job you left undone. The phone stops finally and Eddie grins down at you looking flushed and disheveled and wanting. He wants to get you out of your holiday finest and keep you in his sheets while the sky is still grey with rain. He doesn’t want to make this quick just because he’s missed you for a few days but the ache in his boxers does make a persuasive argument.

“What are you smiling at?” You ask him, trying to reach out to pull him closer. He gets the idea and drops down on his elbows to crowd into your space, nose running down along your cheek to plant a kiss on your earlobe.

“You. I miss you.”

“I know. The aunts will be gone by Saturday and you can have me all to yourself till Monday.” You run fingers through his tangled hair and he sighs, taking the moment for longer than he should. This was supposed to be a quickie after all.

“I’m gonna hold you to that-“

The phone rings again and he could swear it sounds more insistent than it did two minutes ago. “Fuck me.”

“I’m trying.” Your giggling does him in. He sits up with a rough yank of your hips to meet his and he works himself out of his boxers. Doesn’t give you more than a second to realize before he rocks his hips forward and makes you gasp through your smile.

The shriek of the phone echos through the empty trailer and it sets his teeth on edge, anger a whisper on the back of his thoughts “I swear to god I’m gonna graduate this year.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Yup.” He grabs your leg to sloppily kiss your knee and keep your hips open for him. “I’m gonna get the fuck out there so we can get the fuck out of here.” His other hand sneaks between your legs to find your own ache, thumb rubbing circles over that bundle of nerves. The leg in his hold jumps and he laughs through his nose at the way you squirm against his onslaught. “Have our own fucking Thanksgiving.” His hips pound a rhythm against yours. “And I’m unplugging the fucking phone.”

Your laughter turns to moaning that you don’t have to keep hidden and Eddie’s eyes roll in his head. These are the daydreams he gets lost in during biology, ideas of you two living on your own anywhere but here. A place where you don’t have to keep quiet due to thin walls and family ever present. Eighty five is gonna be his fucking year if it’s the last thing he does.

When one call ends and immediately picks up into another loud ring, Eddie drops his head and focuses on you. “Come on baby, they’re gonna send out the sheriff soon.”

“I don’t-fuck I don’t care!” You give him a show with your head thrown back and your hands pawing at your own chest, one of your nipples pinched between your orange painted fingers. His hips snap in an uneven rhythm while he tries to hold off until you break, always trying to make you break first. Eyes screwed shut, back arching off the bed suddenly, he feels you clench around him and he buries himself deep to ride out the feeling with you. His movements stutter and he mumbles his love at you, babbling about next year in your own shared place. In your own shared bed.

There’s no room for basking in the afterglow and when Eddie finally lifts his head you’ve already rehooked your bra and started buttoning your shirt back up quietly. “I’m sorry this was…well, this.” You look around you sadly and spot your underwear on his crowded floor.

“Don’t be, I got to steal you away for a bit.” He’s redoing his belt but leans down to kiss your forehead. “And maybe later we can sneak out back and have some quality neckin’ time.” He wiggles his eyebrows at you and the phone rings again and he turns unceremoniously out of his room without another word.

He tears the phone of the cradle and immediately hears Wayne, exasperated on the other end, asking where in the blue hell you two are. “Hello!” Eddie twirls the wire around his finger, his irritation clear through the line. “No we didn’t get lost, I was looking for something in my room.”

A moments fucking peace, he thinks to himself.

“Yeah, I see it. No I’m literally staring at it right now. Yep, she’s picking it up and we’re walking out the door.” You’re strolling into the living room and picking up your shoes and his, waving them at him. “Yes Wayne, I know. I’m sorry. Uh huh. Well…oh.” You’re watching him as his face softens and he smiles. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“What’s up?” Your hair is stuck up around your head and after he hangs up he reaches out to smooth a hand over the flyaways.

“He said he was stalling for us.” A blush creeps into the tips of his ears at the thought of that. A sweet gesture but still something he wished he could have kept to himself.

“Well that’s sweet of him. Told you he knew what was up.” You hand him his shoes that he drops and shoves his toes into while you grab the homemade pie out of the fridge. “You ready?”

“I was serious, by the way.” He doesn’t look at you while he locks the door and makes his intentions clear.

“About what?”

“The getting us out of here.”

You wait at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him warmly with the glass pie dish tucked up against your chest. “I know.”

He has a hard time meeting your eyes sometimes when he tries to talk about the future. “I mean, if that’s anything you’d want anyways.” He keeps his gaze unfocused while you both start back off to your trailer and your full family.

“Getting out of the trailer park?”

“Yeah.”

“Getting out of Hawkins?”

“That too.”

“Getting away with you?”

“That’s the part I wasn’t sure about.”

You find his hand swinging between you to grab it tight, lacing your fingers together. “Eddie, I’d love nothing more.”

[ltwilliammowett]

Sailor's ditty box, 19th century

Along with the box comes a variety of sailor''s tools & accessories including two fids, glasses, three serving mallets, a wood cased compass, two leather palms, and more.

[bitchslapblastoids]

TIT But You’re Fake Avoiding Spoilers Which Just Means You Kind Of See Everything But Also Have No Context For Anything

(this is my understanding of the show at present time)

Dan and Phil run out and wave in every direction hey hi hello hi hi in the back hello hi

Straight in with stories of their lives with hyper realistic set designs and barbies that they make fuck with increasing degrees of intensity

You think you know us now do you? WELL.,,,

Conspiracies debunking segment (boring snooze honkshoo switch it up fellas give us something fresh)

Ok Somehow Phil is a now linguist and dan is a lawyer they do some random mad libs style alternative universe shit. fans shout out meme-y nonsense as a PA tries desperately to spell things correctly for the big screen.

They sit on stools and calmly yap for 5 minutes straight about some random ass topic to prove the point that we…like them and think they’re funny? Ha ha you sure got us with that one boys!

Intermission?

They sing a little ukelele apology ditty Dan seranades phil on one knee except also sometimes he twerks at his face? Then they smash the ukelele??

Phil has a sad but ultimately uplifting monologue about privacy and coming out and people sending shit to martyn about him and dan?? But now it’s all good bc now he’s out and we helped even though we ruined his goddamn life too but shhhhh he loves us yay pandering crowd pleasing positivity yay! Meanwhile: dan is sweatily yassifying backstage.

Sister Daniel comes out and does confessions and a horny little dance and grinds up on Phil who puts on a priest costume that Dan has thrown at him as he sits bamboozled in a chair

Somehow this transitions into Dan and Phil wrestling? boxing? Ultimate Dan vs Phil? it’s horny and insane and dan gets gagged with the llama hat while they back their asses up into the other. Not sure whose ass is backing up into whose and when. seems like both and always. Some poor referee is somehow involved.

They chase eachother around the aisles?

They perform a euro pop banger it’s suddenly a rave where’s the molly at the phannies are bopping but oop the lyrics are heartfelt but oop it’s the Dan and Phil HOTTOGO dance oop Phil is so behind in the moves isn’t he don’t look at that though confetti lasers strobes (we said no strobe lights but PSYCH THERE’S ACTUALLTY A WHOLE RAVE OOPS)

The end you’re all sweaty and shellshocked and crying happy tears.

[justforbooks]

Dame Maggie Smith

A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter

Not many actors have made their names in revue, given definitive performances in Shakespeare and Ibsen, won two Oscars and countless theatre awards, and remained a certified box-office star for more than 60 years. But then few have been as exceptionally talented as Maggie Smith, who has died aged 89.

She was a performer whose range encompassed the high style of Restoration comedy and the sadder, suburban creations of Alan Bennett. Whatever she played, she did so with an amusing, often corrosive, edge of humour. Her comedy was fuelled by anxiety, and her instinct for the correct gesture was infallible.

The first of her Oscars came for an iconic performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Miss Brodie’s pupils are the “crème de la crème”, and her dictatorial aphorisms – “Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life” – disguise her intent of inculcating enthusiasm in her charges for the men she most admires, Mussolini and Franco.

But Smith’s pre-eminence became truly global with two projects towards the end of her career. She was Professor Minerva McGonagall in the eight films of the Harry Potter franchise (she referred to the role as Miss Brodie in a wizard’s hat) between 2001 and 2011. Between 2010 and 2015, in the six series of Downton Abbey on ITV television (sold to 250 territories around the world), she played the formidable and acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lady Violet, a woman whose heart of seeming stone was mitigated by a moral humanity and an old-fashioned, if sometimes overzealous, sense of social propriety.

Early on, one critic described Smith as having witty elbows. Another, the US director and writer Harold Clurman, said that she “thinks funny”. When Robin Phillips directed her as Rosalind in As You Like It in 1977 in Stratford, Ontario, he said that “she can respond to something that perhaps only squirrels would sense in the air. And I think that comedy, travelling around in the atmosphere, finds her.” Like Edith Evans, her great predecessor as a stylist, Smith came late to Rosalind. Bernard Levin was convinced that it was a definitive performance, and was deeply affected by the last speech: “She spoke the epilogue like a chime of golden bells. But what she looked like as she did so, I cannot tell you; for I saw it through eyes curtained with tears of joy.”

She was more taut and tuned than any other actor of her day, and this reliance on her instinct to create a performance made her reluctant to talk about acting, although she had a forensic attitude to preparation. With no time for the celebrity game, she rarely went on television chat shows – her appearance on Graham Norton’s BBC TV show in 2015 was her first such in 42 years – or gave newspaper interviews.

Her life she summed up thus: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.” That was it. She first went “public”, according to her father, when, attired in pumps and tutu after a ballet lesson, she regaled a small crowd on an Oxford pavement with one of Arthur Askey’s ditties: “I’m a little fairy flower, growing wilder by the hour.”

Unlike her great friend and contemporary Judi Dench, Smith was a transatlantic star early in her career, making her Broadway debut in 1956 and joining Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre as one of the 12 original contract artists in 1963.

In 1969, after repeatedly stealing other people’s movies, with Miss Brodie she became a star in her own right. She was claiming her just place in the elite, for she had already worked with Olivier, Orson Welles and Noël Coward in the theatre, not to mention her great friend and fellow miserabilist Kenneth Williams, in West End revue. She had also created an international stir in two movies, Anthony Asquith’s The VIPs (1963) – she didn’t just steal her big scene with him, Richard Burton complained, “she committed grand larceny” – and Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater (1964), scripted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Penelope Mortimer.

Before Harry Potter, audiences associated Smith most readily with her lovelorn, heartbreaking parishioner Susan in Bed Among the Lentils, one of six television monologues in Bennett’s Talking Heads (1988). Susan was a character seething with sexual anger; the first line nearly said it all – “Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.”

And the funniest moment in Robert Altman’s upstairs/downstairs movie Gosford Park (2001) – in some ways a template for Downton Abbey, and also written by Julian Fellowes — was a mere aside from a doleful Smith as Constance Trentham turning to a neighbour on the sofa, as Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello took a bow for the song he had just sung. “Don’t encourage him,” she warned, archly, “he’s got a very large repertoire.” Such a moment took us right back to the National in 1964 when, as the vamp Myra Arundel in Coward’s Hay Fever, she created an unprecedented (and un-equalled) gale of laughter on the single ejaculation at the breakfast table: “This haddock is disgusting.”

Born in Ilford, Essex, she was the daughter of Margaret (nee Hutton) and Nathaniel Smith, and educated at Oxford high school for girls (the family moved to Oxford at the start of the second world war because of her father’s work as a laboratory technician). Maggie decided to be an actor, joined the Oxford Playhouse school under the tutelage of Frank Shelley in 1951 and took roles in professional and student productions.

She acted as Margaret Smith until 1956, when Equity, the actors’ union, informed her that the name was double-booked. She played Viola with the Oxford University dramatic society in 1952 – John Wood was her undergraduate Malvolio – and appeared in revues directed by Ned Sherrin. “At that time in Oxford,” said Sherrin, “if you wanted a show to be a success, you had to try and get Margaret Smith in it.”

The Sunday Times critic of the day, Harold Hobson, spotted her in a play by Michael Meyer and she was soon working with the directors Peter Hall and Peter Wood. “I didn’t think she would develop the range that she subsequently has,” said Hall, “but I did think she had star quality.”

One of her many admirers at Oxford, the writer Beverley Cross, initiated a long-term campaign to marry Smith that was only fulfilled after the end of her tempestuous 10-year relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, with whom she fell in love at the National and whom she married in 1967. This was a golden decade, as Smith played a beautiful Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello; a clever and impetuous Hilde Wangel to first Michael Redgrave, then Olivier, in Ibsen’s The Master Builder; and an irrepressibly witty and playful Beatrice opposite Stephens as Benedick in Franco Zeffirelli’s Sicilian Much Ado About Nothing, spangled in coloured lights.

Her National “service” was book-ended by two particularly wonderful performances in Restoration comedies by George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (1963) and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1970), both directed by William Gaskill, whom she called “simply the best teacher”. In the first, in the travesty role of Sylvia, her bubbling, playful sexuality shone through a disguise of black cork moustache and thigh-high boots on a clear stage that acquired, said Bamber Gascoigne, an air of sharpened reality, “like life on a winter’s day with frost and sun”.

In the second, her Mrs Sullen, driven frantic by boredom and shrewish by a sodden, elderly husband, was a tight-laced beanpole, graceful, swaying and tender, drawing from Ronald Bryden a splendidly phrased comparison with some Henri Rousseau-style giraffe, peering nervously down her nose with huge, liquid eyes at the smaller creatures around, nibbling off her lines fastidiously in a surprisingly tiny nasal drawl.

With Stephens, she had two sons, Chris and Toby, who both became actors. When the marriage hit the rocks in 1975, after the couple had torn strips off each other to mixed reviews in John Gielgud’s 1973 revival of Coward’s Private Lives, Smith absconded to Canada with Cross – whom she quickly married – and relaunched her career there, far from the London hurly-burly, but with access to Hollywood.

She played not just Rosalind in Stratford, Ontario, but also Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra to critical acclaim, as well as Judith Bliss in Coward’s Hay Fever and Millamant in William Congreve’s The Way of the World (this latter role she repeated triumphantly in Chichester and London in 1984, again directed by Gaskill). But her films at this time especially reinforced her status as a comedian of flair and authority, none more than Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978), in which Smith was happily partnered by Michael Caine, and won her second Oscar in the role of Diana Barrie, an actor on her way to the Oscars (where she loses).

Smith’s comic genius was increasingly refracted through tales of sadness, retreat and isolation, notably in what is very possibly her greatest screen performance, in Clayton’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), based on Brian Moore’s first novel, which charts the disintegration of an alcoholic Catholic spinster at guilty odds with her own sensuality.

This tragic dimension to her comedy, was seen on stage, too, in Edna O’Brien’s Virginia (1980), a haunting portrait of Virginia Woolf; and in Bennett’s The Lady in the Van (1999), in which she was the eccentric tramp Miss Shepherd. Miss Shepherd was a former nun who had driven ambulances during blackouts in the second world war and ended up as a tolerated squatter in the playwright’s front garden. Smith brought something both demonic and celestial to this critical, ungrateful, dun-caked crone and it was impossible to imagine any other actor in the role, which she reprised, developed and explored further in Nicholas Hytner’s delightful 2015 movie based on the play.

She scored two big successes in Edward Albee’s work on the London stage in the 1990s, first in Three Tall Women (1994, the playwright’s return to form), and then in one of his best plays, A Delicate Balance (1997), in which she played alongside Eileen Atkins who, like Dench, could give Smith as good as she got.

The Dench partnership lay fallow after their early years at the Old Vic together, but these two great stars made up for lost time. They appeared together not only on stage, in David Hare’s The Breath of Life (2002), playing the wife and mistress of the same dead man, but also on film, in the Merchant-Ivory A Room With a View (1985), Zeffirelli’s Tea With Mussolini (1999) and as a pair of grey-haired sisters in Charles Dance’s debut film as a director, Ladies in Lavender (2004). Smith referred to this latter film as “The Lavender Bags”. She had a name for everyone. Vanessa Redgrave she dubbed “the Red Snapper”, while Michael Palin, with whom she made two films, was simply “the Saint”.

With Palin, she appeared in Bennett’s A Private Function (1984), directed by Malcolm Mowbray – “Moaner Mowbray” he became – in which an unlicensed pig is slaughtered in a Yorkshire village for the royal wedding celebrations of 1947. Smith was Joyce Chilvers, married to Palin, who carries on snobbishly like a Lady Macbeth of Ilkley, deciding to throw caution to the winds and have a sweet sherry, or informing her husband matter-of-factly that sexual intercourse is in order.

She had also acted with Palin in The Missionary (1982), directed by Richard Loncraine, who was responsible for the film of Ian McKellen’s Richard III (1995, in which she played a memorably rebarbative Duchess of York) and My House in Umbria (2003), a much-underrated film, adapted by Hugh Whitemore from a William Trevor novella. This last brought out the very best in her special line in glamorous whimsy and iron-clad star status under pressure. She played Emily Delahunty, a romantic novelist opening her glorious house in Umbria to her three fellow survivors in a bomb blast on a train to Milan. One of these was played by Ronnie Barker, who had been at architectural college with Smith’s two brothers and had left them to join her at the Oxford Playhouse. Delahunty finds her new metier as an adoptive parent to a little orphaned American girl.

She was Mother Superior in the very popular Sister Act (1992) and its sequel, and her recent films included a “funny turn” as a disruptive housekeeper in Keeping Mum (2005), a vintage portrait of old age revisited by the past in Stephen Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary (on television in 2007) and as a solicitous grandmother of a boy uncovering a ghost story in Fellowes’s From Time to Time (2009).

As this latter film was released she confirmed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone an intensive course of chemotherapy, but had been given the all-clear – only to be struck down by a painful attack of shingles, a typical Maggie Smith example of good news never coming unadulterated with a bit of bad.

Her stage appearance as the title character in Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 2007 was, ironically, about death from cancer. She returned to the stage for the last time in 2019, as Brunhilde Pomsel in Christopher Hampton’s one-woman play A German Life, at the Bridge theatre, London.

Cross, who was a real rock, and helped protect her from the outside world, died in 1998. But Smith picked herself up, and went on to perform as sensationally and beguilingly as she had done all her life, including memorable appearances in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films (2011 and 2015) and two Downton Abbey movie spin-offs (2019 and 2022). Her final film role was in The Miracle Club (2023), co-starring Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.

She had been made CBE in 1970 and a dame in 1990, and in 2014 she was made a Companion of Honour. Her pleasure would have been laced with mild incredulity. A world without Smith recoiling from it in mock horror, and real distaste, will never seem the same again.

She is survived by Chris and Toby, and by five grandchildren.

🔔 Maggie Smith (Margaret Natalie Smith), actor, born 28 December 1934; died 27 September 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[focsle]

The seachest is home with meeee. I carefully sit in the worn and warped spot where he sat for years. I sit across from it and play it little ditties on the concertina. I stick my head in there to smell the camphor that still lingers after 170 odd years. I put an antique fid in the till because I think they both might appreciate the proximity. I hope it’s happy being here with me. It has such an overwhelmingly warm and loving energy that really has surprised me because it’s not the vibes I expect from a seachest tbh. Every time I go near it it feels like a hug. I feel like whoever this belonged to had a family who really loved him, who he loved in return, because that is the strongest emotion I feel attached to this beautiful little box.

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

WIP Wednesday Whenever

Apologies again to @becausedragonage for tagging me at a reasonable time on a Wednesday and only getting a response a day later. I'm struggling to find time for creative ventures, folks! This week has been so busy! Ahh!!!

That said, the extra time did give me a chance to unearth an old attempt at a prelude for my original story idea, and I'm keen enough on it that it might survive in some capacity when I give the story another go. We'll see! For now, take some unedited Seven Cities after about a million years.

Despite every scrap of evidence to the contrary, the prevailing theory was that Alex Sheffield had deserted his Service vessel for a simple lack of anything better to do. His hammock had been discovered swinging gently on the gun deck early in the morning, empty save for the folded squares of his scrubby work shirt and the oft-patched breeches that were still holding on by their threads. These were provisions of the slop chest, owned on paper but rented in spirit, and so had been left behind, tucked neatly beneath a thick nest of threadbare blankets; but his boots, his coat, and the tiny ditty box that he had scrounged for months to buy had all vanished into the night. Or, as one of the younger sailors had been quick to point out, into the sea — the whole homely little scene swung beside a propped-open gun port, the only one in that state, which led out into the grimy blue-green waves lapping rhythmically against their hull.   “He wouldn’t,” Bryce had argued instantly, in the voice of a man trying very hard to be certain of himself. “What cause would he have? Only a madman makes for open sea in the dead of night, a dozen ship-lengths from shore, carrying all that he has along with him. Only a fool does it a single night before leave is granted, before his pay is shared out! That is —” “That is Alex Sheffield,” had come the reply, rising from the grumbling night watch who had been roused by the commotion. “And no surprise for it. His was always a cat's loyalty, lad — kept around by the promise of meat and of a warm bed only. If he finds it agreeable to spit on the old man’s charity for some unfathomable scheme of his own design, then let him go, says I. And take his shirts.” Tahir, from his place perched against the long guns, had only been able to agree with the unfathomable scheme bit. Little madman in the making though he was, Alex had also been in the best of their captain’s good graces. He had been receiving personal instruction on the makings of a Navy sailor many times his senior for the better part of seven months now, and had taken to them with the sort of relish that Tahir had thought was reserved exclusively for street kids around a sweet jar. He had, by cleverness and luck alone, reaped the sort of status and high regard that you could not buy with charm or money, and from one of the few men in the world that Tahir thought was worth it.  And, perhaps most importantly, Alex Sheffield couldn’t fucking swim. So, he hadn’t just tipped himself over the side. So, he hadn’t decided on a whim to thumb his nose at the old man’s time and effort. It was something closer to survival that sent him scuttling away from the last five years of his life — or at least, something no less than a threat to it. But saying that out loud would be giving away the game, and Tahir barely knew the rules yet: so, instead, he sat by quietly as the morning watch worked themselves into a frenzy over the news, and then joined the first scouting party that was allowed leave to scour the shore.

Tagging: @girlwonderers, @dalish-farther-roam, @dragonologist-phd, @llesbianwrites, @nuclearanomaly, @bladeverbena, and anyone else who'd wanna join! I just threw a few tags out of folks I know to have done this sort of thing in the past so no pressure to do it! (But if you do...I wanna see...)

[senor-plume]

Checkmate

How do you kiss The unkissable?

How do you say goodnight To a woman Whose beauty makes you nervous And you Can't Look her In the Eye ?

I am overwhelmed by this Young lady And her mad chess skills But She is too beautiful For me To make a move on

I'd get shot down And humiliated In front of a woman Whom I desire More than any other

So…I will keep treating her to Movies and chess games Here at my place And give her a distant wave goodbye As she stands at my door Twirling her car keys In her fingers

Waiting?

Naw….what could I Possibly give her That she could not get From another man …A handsome man With more than a five spot In his wallet

So, I lock the door behind her And fall into my couch Groaning a bit and Wishing I had Some guts Man

So…the chess board sits All lined up And ready for our next battle As I sit here Waiting for an email Or The ringing of the telephone To hear that She will be Stopping by again… Someday

She is too beautiful for me …And I know it

I pull the blanket up to my chin And let out an audible sigh Picking up a copy of my book And reread poems that she had mentioned The night before to me… The ones that she really dug And how cool is it That such a fine lady Would be reading My stuff In her gentle bed Late at night When sleep cannot crash on top of her …Knocking her into a blissful state of peace

I read with my finger Following along The bottom of the letters And I feel like a third grader again "Check this box if you like Kevin…" "Check this box if you don't like Kevin…" And so on

It would simplify things a bit

So in a fetal position I stare at my fingers And wonder if I could Write her a song… A poem or two Something to show her that Hey I may not have the looks But hell…I can write the girl a tune

So I grab my guitar and strum And as her face dances around my eyes I mellow out And a melody begins to rise And soon I have a happy ditty Which will have matching happy lyrics And I am going to Write them now

…This is me… On The case To win her Love And who knows If I'll ever Be able to Kiss her goodnight But For right now I am pleased to Create something Fresh for her And I will take it Smiling

[dreamspring]

@unmaskedcardinal tagged me in this game!! pick something to steal from my room :))

no pressure tags :) @lunar-lumi @elephanttheft @aroace-spaceboy @invixtus @lovebotomy

[aerosolsprite]

SHITTY COMIC ALERT!

@moosemann404 part two will be uhhhhhhh soonish ENJOY MY HORRID ART ABOUT THESE TWO FELLAS! also i kinda wanna write it as a written thing but you didnt hear that from me…

transcript:

wheatley: *yapping*

doug (cutting him off): ballroom dance? you? i find that hard to believe…

wheatley (playfully miffed): “what’s that supposed to mean?”

wheatley: “but yeah, my mum and dad enrolled me for a while. to help with the clumsiness i suppose.”

wheatley (quieter, to self): “lot of good that did…”

doug (deadpan): mhm.

wheats: “fine, i’ll prove it to you. turn on that radio over there, and if you can get it to play something other than that jaunty little ditty, i’ll tell you what dance it is! go on!”

radio: *click*

wheatley: “oh, this one’s easy, mate.”

wheatley: “a waltz!”

doug: okay but

doug: let’s see you actually do it

wheatley: “easy!”

wheatley: *hop*

wheatley: *grasp*

wheatley: “1… 2… 3… 4… 1… 2… 3… 4…”

TIME SKIP

wheatley: *panting*

wheatley: *sighs and drops to the ground with a fwump*

wheatley: *rambling internal monologue that get cut off by realization*

wheatley: “oh. that’s the word i was looking for.”

wheatley: “love.”

wheatley: *shoves self up*

wheatley: “there’s still a chance. until i find his corpse there’s still a chance.”

wheatley: “c’mon, me.”

wheatley (looking badass): “we’ve got a scientist to save.”

FUCK TUMBLR FORMATTING IN ITS TIGHT JUICY HOLE anyway bonus panel and ramblings under the cut!

i really, REALLY wanted to fit this in but it didnt flow… just know it was there. IN A WALTZ YOU DRAW BOXES WITH YOUR FEET I HAD TO INCLUDE IT OKAY

wheatley’s dialogue is meant to be like how i imagine his handwriting

the brush i used for the portals is legit so cool im mad

doug is depicted like how he draws himself!

my usual art style is NOT like this but i wanted to give the vibe of the comics a little

doug’s dialogue is meant to look like his wall writings

the not-so-subtle companion cube thing is meant to look like feet dragging through the dust bc yk. its not there they drew it with their feet. except for the heart obvi.

leave it to me to leave the part i really wanted to articulate for later…

the “click” is meant to look futuristic

wheatley’s sound effects are in his handwriting

all other handwriting is sadly my own

i am FUCKING PROUD of that last page

i may redraw the bonus page once i gain actual talent

the “jaunty little ditty” is the standard radio music from the games

i KNOW wheats is being a dumbass in some of this. thats him being a dumbass, not me. mostly.

there’s dialogue i was planning to alter but didnt get around to. this will be fixed in the theoretical fic.

the “theres still a chance” bit is about finding doug and warning him about Her btw. because of where the good fic this is based on left off.

THE TRANSCRIPT WAS ORIGINALLY IN CHAT FORMAT BUT THIS WHOLE POST ACCIDENTALLY GOT POSTED IN COMMUNITIES BY FUCKING TUMBLR SO I HAD TO COPY PASTE IT