#i move in less than a week!

[wanologic]

sorry danny, sam will never think you’re cool

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Yiling Band Tour!

[tea-cat-arts]

Girl help- why are some of y'all acting like Li Haolin kills off every woman he writes. Like, I'm not here to defend him on everything in regards to how he handles women cuz I do have my own minor gripes, but that thing in particular isn't true. Plenty of the Link Click women lived/got a happy ending and there's still women who are major characters who haven't died yet, so uh- for those not familiar with his other works, please don't fall for some of the doomerism going on about tbhx women who haven't even showed up yet.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Hello! I've been trying to get into Brandon Sandersons books but I haven't known where to start. Is there any specific book or series that you'd recommend? :)

I've actually got a suggested reading order that I put together!

Mistborn Era 1 (The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages)

Elantris

White Sand if you can find it. It's a comic book and not a novel or short story.

Warbreaker

Stormlight Archive Era 1 (The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Edgedancer novella, Oathbringer, Dawnshard novella, The Rhythm of War, Wind and Truth)

Mistborn: Secret History (you can read this any time after Elantris if you want, but its basic premise spoils parts of the Stormlight books)

Emperor's Soul short story

Mistborn Era 2 (The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, The Bands of Mourning, The Lost Metal). At the very least, do not read W&W book 4 until you read everything above this on the list. It's a very Cosmere-heavy book.

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell short story

Sixth of Dusk short story

Tress of the Emerald Sea

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

The Sunlit Man

Sunlit Man's kind of an odd duck because it takes place long after Wind and Truth (and pretty much everything else on this list) but was published before it, almost as a sort of teaser. If you want more "Oh, so that's what that meant!" moments, move Sunlit up and read it just before Wind and Truth. If you want more "Hey, it's that guy!" moments, save Sunlit for last.

[kirby-the-gorb]

[septimusmoonlight]

Good news and bad news!

Bad news is that I've decided that Patreon is no longer a good platform for me, given the recent TOS clearout and their general hostility to monsterfucking (they won't even let me put werewolves on there. whats the point. werewolves are borderline vanilla by my standards). Current supporters can stick around for as long as they'd like, but there's not gonna be any more exclusive posts, and I'm eventually gonna delete it altogether.

Good news is that the formerly Patreon-exclusive pieces are going to be put up for free! Likely on AO3, since almost anything is good to go there as long as you tag it properly. This won't happen right away, 'cause there are 125+ of 'em (plus some alternate versions) and I have a lot of shit going on in life rn, but be on the lookout for those within the month. hopefully. i'll make an announcement post and add the link to my pinned whenever that happens.

Anyway hi yes i'm alive. sorry i haven't been awake for like a month i promise i'm still horny. plgease dont forget about me 🥺

[koko2unite]

grateful but also sucks that twitter is still the place with the most engagement I got from people and now its a nazi-infested shithole... my tumblr pretty much dead, my bsky is dying, my FA pretty much invisible, nobody uses Itaku... oh well

[hyperfocusthusly]

Finally starting for feel more like a human being after a rough couple of weeks 🫶🏻

[ninihowlter]

and when the pride merch is a top that says "hard launch"

[naivety]

only took me 5 years to hate my fucking job so. not too shabby 👍

[spocksgotemotions]

my mom tried to baby trap me … with my sister’s baby. She said maybe my plans had fallen apart and changed so I could keep living at home and help take care of my sister’s baby. My sister. Who lives an hour and a half away.

[thisfairytalegonebad]

out of the frying pan (apartment hunting) into the fire (moving)

[lilacxquartz]

moving out this week so some stuff might be delayed !!

[evansbuck-ley]

hate hate hate HATE packing

[mangofresca]

zephyr | 18+

ii.

“We could leave, y’know.”

Romano startles, head turning over his shoulder as if he were searching for a spy, a conspirator. Sometimes, that’s not unlike how Portugal feels here, always a little too relegated to the outside for comfort, too close to the inside for tranquility or freedom.

He shakes the thought away, eyebrow raised in question at the only other person here who hasn’t exhausted him yet.

Romano’s eyes flick from his face to the windows, to the rain pelting the windowpanes, and he scoffs. “And do what? Get soaked?” His fingers tap the glass in his hand, and Portugal watches with muted disinterest as the wine rocks back and forth, back and forth, an ocean all its own, confined and confined and confined.

“Better than staying here.” Staying here and playing pretend with a government who can only just tell him and Spain apart, and Portugal doesn’t have the stomach anymore for the accent or the language or the face of it all.

Romano tsks, and, for some reason, this infuriates him, as if Romano is content to sit here and be lessened, nothing more than a jewel on a crown on a head who so blatantly picks favorites. Like they’re above it all, the two of them.

He turns, and he leaves, and he doesn’t care enough to see if anyone watches him go.

vi.

“That was–”

Portugal is already pushing up off the bed, flicking hair from his eyes. “Want a drink?”

“Obviously,” Romano snorts, but he sounds like he’s amused, and when Portugal turns around to look at him, all he can see is the way Romano’s lips curl around his teeth, how his cheeks look when he smiles.

ix.

Romano snores when he sleeps, raspy and rough, and when his hair falls in front of his eyes, his nose crinkles with the tickle of it, too deep in dreams to bother moving it away.

We shouldn’t be doing this, Portugal thinks, because things are messy, only getting worse, and he doesn’t understand how Romano doesn’t grow restless beneath a thumb that demands obedience, that is all too comfortable pressing down on the pulse of their throats, hard enough to feel it beating, not hard enough to choke.

“I wish this was easy,” he says instead, and his skin goes cold when he realizes he means it, green eyes already looking down at tanned legs tangled with his, errant curl brushing his collarbone.

He’s gotten used to that, too.

iv.

Portugal can see him on the docks again, hair just as windswept as that first time, waves falling over each other to brush against dark eyelashes, to curl into knots at his hairline.

Spain’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, smile tipping into something that more resembles a bridler than a brother. “You look like you’re thinking hard,” he says, and Portugal hears the warning in it like a bell tolling within his head. “Everything all right?”

“Fine,” Portugal replies. The weight on his shoulder feels suffocating.

vii.

“We should have sex here,” Portugal says, out of the blue and apropos of nothing, voice hushed into a conspiratorial whisper when he leans himself into Romano’s ear.

Romano coughs, splutters, eyes narrowing when Portugal only grins at him.

“Not now, obviously,” he continues, because his brother is here, and his—their, because God forbid any of it is really his—government, too, and he isn’t stupid enough to try anything here, now.

Romano wipes the coughed wine from his lips, arm crossed over his chest as he settles back into the wall behind him. “Please,” he says, and he already sounds scandalized and petulant, “as if I’d settle for anything less than a bed. You think I’d let you fuck me on a settee? Not a chance.”

“I think,” Portugal replies, smiling, “you’d let me fuck you anywhere I want you to.”

Romano scoffs again, furious and blustering, but his shoulder brushes Portugal’s arm, and he doesn’t move it away.

v.

Lively doesn’t adequately describe it when it finally happens.

Romano has him pinned up against the library wall, holding Portugal’s wrists against hand-bound books and shelves which haven’t been dusted in God only knows how long, but all Portugal can think is how difficult it is, when kissing Romano, to push him away, to have him be the one pressed between linen and literature.

He manages, only just, and the heady, groaned gasp of surprise he receives pleasantly makes it worth his while.

x.

Portugal can see him on the docks again, hair wind-knotted and wild, exactly like it was that first time, exactly like the second, like every other time, every other time.

He can’t discern the expression on Romano’s face, too far away for detail, sunlight blinding on wave-crested waters, but he can see him turn around, see him walk away, back to that house and that voice and that hand and that crown.

He almost regrets leaving without a goodbye, but he knows, is certain in the knowledge, that expectation for their kind is the heartbeat of disillusionment, and he doesn’t have it in himself to be disappointed by someone so supine as to find comfort here.

Nothing ever gets resolved with avoidance and shame, but their arrangement never really did have room for much else, anyway.

iii.

He has a dream, then, that lingers worse than a bad hangover or a bloody wound. Maybe it’s years after their last conversation, or maybe it’s days, or maybe it’s hours; he can’t be bothered to keep track, not that their kind usually does when it comes to time.

(Hard. He wakes up hard, and that’s not how his dreams usually go—or, not the ones with Romano, at least.)

Romano was over him, or under him, maybe—not that it matters, because it doesn’t matter, not really. What matters is that Romano was close, breathing against his neck, sighing his name, and it’s—

It was slow, the way they moved. Tender, close.

Odd.

viii.

He’s gotten used to it—the way Romano’s voice hitches, goes taut, tight as his white-knuckled grip on pearl-hued sheets. He’s gotten used to it.

He’s gotten used to it.

i.

They meet officially, formally—and notably without supervision—on the docks of Almería, both windswept and water-worn, and it makes Portugal wonder how long Romano had been standing there for him to look like that, like he himself had blown in with the breeze of the ocean, side-swept bangs tangling into soft knots at his temples.

He is sure he himself is no better, likely worse—a ribbon can only do so much with the whipping winds that dance themselves through his sails—but he doesn’t bother brushing his hair from his face before approaching, grin ticking at the corners of his lips.

Romano blinks at him, hazel eyes owlish before settling into something calmer, almost bored. “Oh,” he says, “it’s you.”

Portugal smiles and tips his head. “Hello,” he replies. Always best to start with hello.

[finnlongman]

I have three chapters left of this redraft of The Animals We Became, which I began last Monday. Can I finish it today? Should I finish it today? (Possibly not.)