#i need to re read that part

[uku-lelevillain]

i keep seeing posts saying that in the fourth book lockwood catches george and flo making out but apparently i wasn’t paying attention ?? like it doesn’t surprise me at this point but i don’t understand how i could have missed something like that ? at which page/chapter does it happen please

[andstuffsketches]

um, can you play a song with a beat?

[nightblackowlbat]

Did you lose this?

Inspired by this post.

@emacrow

[yrsonpurpose]

"They [Casey] were commenting on all the little idiosyncratic things that Alex does, his little "isms". I had never heard anyone talk about it and I was so grateful that they had said something, because I did re-read the book and try so hard to find those little specific things that Alex would do." — Taylor Zakhar Perez

[a-man-in-the-crowd]

i was re-reading and something i realized about this panel was the judgemental glare will's getting from monty 😭

and the way will doesn't even notice he's just munching away happily

[royalarchivist]

Pac: I'm gonna see if I can manage to... to raise my- my kids [minimes], Fit.

Fit: Ok, yeah yeah! If you need any help with that, let me know, ok? By the way, here– [He tosses Pac some green mushrooms] Take a few of these. You might have to feed those to the kids [minimes], and it's like, a pain in the ass to get, so...

Pac: Fit, are you raising kids, like, underneath a van and giving them mushrooms??? What are you doing!

Fit: [Stammers] I'm a Florida man, I'm a Florida man!

Pac: Ok, yeah. Ok, yeah, you're a Florida man, everything makes sense now. [Laughs] You are a good parent, you are a good dad.

Fit: I try. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much Pac. [He pats his chest, over his heart, and laughs]

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

—

Pac: I'm gonna see if I can manage to... to raise my- my kids [minimes], Fit.

Fit: Ok, yeah yeah! If- if you need any help with that, let me know, ok?

Pac: Yeah! Ok, ok, I'm gonna create the room, and later on we can chat!

Fit: By the way, here– [He tosses Pac some green mushrooms] Take a few of these.

Pac: Oh! Wait, what is this? Mushroom?

Fit: You might have to feed those to the kids [minimes], and it's like, a pain in the ass to get, so...

Pac: You- you have been feeding your kids with green mushrooms? [Laughs]

Fit: Look– they wanted 'em! So– you know? I mean–

Pac: Fit, are you raising kids, like, underneath a van and giving them mushrooms??? What are you doing!

Fit: [Stammers] I'm a Florida man, I'm a Florida man! I'm a Florida man.

Pac: Ok, yeah. Ok, yeah, you're a Florida man, everything makes sense now. [Laughs]

Fit: Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Pac: You just do some shenanigans with them, that's all! Yeah.

Fit: Yeah, exactly, you understand! You understand, yes yes.

Pac: You are a good parent, you are a good dad. You're a good dad.

Fit: I try. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much Pac. [He pats his chest, over his heart] Thank you. [Laughs]

[getosleftarm]

A Business Proposition Sneak Peek

Pairing: Kook! Gn! Reader x JJ Maybank Summary: You're back in Kildare for the summer and your parents are pushing you to date Rafe. You've gotta get out of this somehow. JJ has taken the fall for Pope for sinking Topper’s boat. He’s gotta pay the restitution somehow. And you’re willing to help him out, for something in return. (fake dating au) Set around Season 1’s events. Midsummer will occur in this fic, but JJ already owes 30k restitution. So the events take place after s1xe4. Word Count: 1.5k Warnings: slight mentions of abuse from JJ’s dad/mentions of Luke Maybank’s “reputation.” Fast and loose with the timeline~ sarah and john b are together, everyone knows and is at least semi-okay with it.  There are some allusions and microaggressions against pogues just because they’re poor. It aligns with the themes in the show, and is NOT condoned by me (just to be clear).  But other than that, this is a (dialogue heavy) sfw fic~  dividers by: @bernardsbendystraws

Summer holidays, Easter, your birthday. You only come back to Kildare for holidays. It’s clockwork how distant Kook royalty graces Figure 8 with their presence. A holiday house in the hills collecting dust until one week before you return and the cleaners rush to prepare the estate. 

You grew up around Keira and Sarah when you were kids, but stuck by kooks when they had their falling out in 10th grade. Staying around Figure 8 was easier. It was clean, safe, and there was no reason to venture to the cut… Sure, you’re friendly with Kie still and occasionally you see her at the boneyard with other pogues, but only coming to Kildare on holidays already strained your relationship. But Kie and Sarah somewhat mended their relationship, and maybe, this summer you will befriend Kie again. 

You came back for summer vacation like always, but this time things are different. Almost 3 months in paradise ruined by one sentence. “You need a date for midsummers.” Both the Cameron’s and your parents have been constantly pushing for you and Rafe to date. With your family’s foot in the real luxury estate business and Ward Cameron’s construction company, both your family’s are primed for a strategic alliance. 

But Rafe Cameron? Rafe. The same guy that’s Sarah’s brother, and therefore like a second brother to you. The same Rafe that bullied you and Sarah since age 6, pulling on your pony tail on the way to the beach, purposefully drawing crude pictures with sunscreen on your back so you burned and tanned in odd shapes. The same Rafe that would point and laugh when you tripped, that claimed you lied whenever you got hurt… The same Rafe… 

Yet, your parents dont see that. And if they do, they turn heads in favour of joining Kook empires. 

That's how you ended up here. Sitting on a large piece of driftwood at the boneyard, you picked at the flaking wood and avoided eye contact with Kie. The other pogues setting up kegs and music. You sit on the large wood piece to stare at the ocean. Kildare feels like a dream, so far away from responsibilities and the real world. You bring your knees to your chest, tucking your chin in. Kildare is becoming a nightmare as pressures from your parents mount to give Rafe a chance. 

The sky is cloudy, overcast. The sun is setting, painting the sky in orange impressionistic splotches. The sky and the ocean contrasting and drawing your eyesight to the horizon. 

“You wanna run away already?” A voice pulls you out of your deep thoughts. Jumping to see JJ Maybank. 

You have known JJ for years, with him growing up on the island and you coming back every year like clockwork. We have known each other forever but not well, just passing glances on the beach, in the waves or at keggers on the boneyard. 

A couple drinks in and you're babbling your mouth off. He’s so easy to talk to, and laughs at anything. You sigh (a little dramatically) about how your summer is ruined because Rafe will be escorting you to all your events. None of your friends will want to be near you if Rafe is scaring them off :((

A couple more drinks in and JJ is suddenly divulging private information about his probation and the reparations he has to pay back to, for all intents and purposes, a total stranger.

“30k…”

“Oh fuck…”

“Yeah”

“Will you be okay? I know that your dad—” you bite your lip to shut yourself up.

JJ raises his eyebrows, “so gossip about my family has even reached the kooks that are only here for a tenth of the year?”

“Jayj… I didn't mean it like that. I don’t… I dunno…”

He shrugs and takes another swig. 

You and JJ spent the rest of the night in silence, other than the sound of his blick lighter zipping as he tries to get the last out of its lighter fluid. Zip, zip. Light the joint. Swish his beer. Finish the joint. Zip zip. Light another joint. Offer a puff. Finish the joint. The cycle kept going the whole night. 

At a luxury boutique on the mainland, your mother picks through dress options with little concern for the items’ prices, nor the mess she leaves behind her. “Honey, what do you think of this?” Your mom held up a puffy dress. A little unflattering but her heart is in the right place.

“Uh what for?”

“Your midsummer dress! Rose and I want to coordinate your dress with Rafe’s tie,” she responds as if it’s obvious.

You unconsciously pull a face, but your mom doesn't notice. She’s too preoccupied throwing dresses to the shop assistants. “Well good luck even getting Rafe to wear a tie, let alone a suit”

“Just let us handle that hon’ now the dress?” She hoists it higher as if to convince me.

“Umm. Yeah, it looks cool… maybe better on someone else though?”

She nods and puts it in the rack before trolling through the rest of the store as you trail behind her, thinking about how to bring up your concerns… You look at her from the other side of the rack. Your voice is small, conflicted on how to bring up the situation, “Hey mom?”

“Hmm?” She hums half heartedly.

“I-… I don’t wanna go to midsummar with Rafe”

She barely hesitates. “I know”

“What? Then why? Why are you making me go with him?” you plead.

She sighs and continues looking, “You’re not even giving him a chance…” 

“Bullshit!” She glares at me, concerned about the public ruckus I would be making and the impact it has on our family’s image (as if she wasn’t disregarding the store’s workers) “You know that I don’t want to be with him. Or even around him! Coming back here is meant to be fun! It’s been…” 

Your mom ignores you. Moving to another rack. You follow right behind her, now standing besides her.

Silence

“Mom please! You were the one who always made Kildare a prize for me. Getting good grades, achieving first in any competition, you would bring me here! It has always been a symbol of fun! A-a- a” I stutter “a reward for myself! Rafe ALWAYS made the reward sour! Please mom!”

She snaps, suddenly not caring about if the service workers who were (definitely) listening in. “Fine! Who do you want to go with then? Hmm?” This time, it’s your turn to be silent

“That’s what I thou-“

I cut her off. “JJ”

“Who?”

“JJ Maybank.”

It’s like we take time to stare at each other in shocked silence. 

“Are you dating him?” She passive-aggressively places hangers on the rack. 

Silence

“… yes.”

Silence

“Still no. You are not taking that pogue. It’s beneath you”

“Sarah is bringing John B!”

“He’s not Luke Maybank's son. Big John Routleage, John B’s dad, was a researcher. An accomplished one at that! Luke Maybank is a drunk and a nuisance. His son won’t be much different”

I feel my fists squeezing together for some reason. I barely know JJ. Maybe it’s the idea of anyone being like Luke Maybank.

“Let us prove you wrong”

Clanking the clothes hanger on the railing. your mom sighs, her head hung low and gripping the top of the rack. “Fine. I can’t stop you. I just… Why didn’t you tell me you were dating Luke Maybank’s son? How are your father and I meant to protect you from the… activities those types do?”

“Mom…” there’s a warning in your voice and a furrow in your brow.

“Don’t embarrass us.” For some reason, that… That felt like a threat.

~~~

Going straight to John b's place, you knock on the door wildly. You knock on the doors and windows, waiting for someone, anyone, to open up. You look through the windows and sigh, about to leave when the front door creaks open. JJ stands at the door. His blonde hair is tousled and wet, probably from being on the HMS Pogue. 

“Jeez” he sighs your name, “I thought you were square groupers” 

You rush back to the door, relieved he's here, ignoring his comment. “Date me”

~~~

You settle on the couch at the chateau while JJ paces around you. “Think about it! My mom’s been on my ass about a date to midsummers, and you need cash right? Thirty thousand?” he stops pacing for a moment before sitting next to you on the couch, a little closer than necessary. But it’s JJ - no concept of personal space JJ.

“Look, I’m sorry I just told her we were dating. You were just the first single person I could think of…” You pause. Your voice gets softer as you look down at your lap and pick at your manicured nails.

“I have some savings, and with my allowance… Flat fee, $500 a week, with chances to earn more if you take me out on a date, financed by me of course, I could pay you more”

“I'm not pimping myself out to you”

“It's not like that… It's more of a business proposition. You need money and I need a boyfriend. Not even a boyfriend… a distraction to keep my parents off my back.” You turn your body to him, tucking an ankle under the other leg.

“Please? I’m desperate... and!” JJ looks up at you. At your next words, he grins, “you could really piss rafe off~”

[magnusbae]

Dreamling - Comfort given freely - 691w

Dream has a hard time accepting all the succor he had received from Hob since his return in 2020.

▾▾▾

"Why?” Dream asks.

“I knew you needed it” Hob smiles at him “and I could give it, so what’s the harm in that?”

Dream averts his eyes, pride and hurt fighting inside of him. He does not wish to be so, he wishes not to be depended on anyone’s pity, on anyone’s scrapes of empathy— but oh stars, how he does need it, how much the empty spaces of the fabric of his soul crave it, want it.

He cannot face this man, cannot look him in the eyes and let him know that he had won. Won where others did not. Many had gained his affections, some had gained his love, but Hob....Hob had won his trust. He had won his trust and he had won him over.

He has the power over him, one of the Endless.

Something that should not be, shouldn't have happened.

“Morpheus?” Hob asks, a short silence, and closer “Dream” he says, gentle, gentle as if talking to a wounded thing, a hurt thing.

Is there no end to this man’s pity? 

Dream’s insides twists, for he knows that Hob is honest, and that Hob is true. He knows that he means it, means this care of his. Dream wonders if he should leave, if he was mistaken for questioning it. Perhaps he should accept it, allow his pride some rest. And yet—

“I love you.” Hob says.

Dream looks up, sharp, alert. 

“What?” he says, though he had heard him quite well. 

“I love you.” Hob says with a shrug, kind eyes looking sad “You don’t need to think so hard about it, there’s nothing to it other than that, I love you, I love you and I’d do anything for you” Hob finds his eyes, and smiles again, there's a deeply rooted fondness in that look.

For a moment, Dream's shadow distorts, the lights in the room flickering. He notices that as he notices the heat in his chest, at his neck, on his face. This body of his, this image he presents to the world, should not do things he does not choose to show.

Words that are his to command, that come so easily to him at most days, are lost to him now as he opens his mouth and no sound comes out in response to Hob's confession.

Love. He knows love. Bright and passionate, strong and wild, worlds consumed, galaxies worth of feelings— love is not this, not the calm patience of a friend, not the endless devotion, not the... soothing safety he feels in Hob's presence.

“You confuse.” Dream answers at last.

“No I don’t” Hob’s light reply comes without a hint of argument.

“Hob Gadling, you—”

“—love you?” Hob completes, this time smiling. 

Annoyance ignites whitin Dream, the heat on his face deepening. 

“Do not mock me.” he starts, voice raising a fraction, deepening a bit. He will not allow this. He will not stand here as a mere human makes mockery of—

“Dream, I don’t.” Hob reaches a hand— hesitates only a second— and takes a hold of Dream’s tense hand. “It’s okay if you don’t, I don’t expect you to, but this..” he presses their joint hands across his own chest “...is how I feel. I’d do crazier things for you than just care for you, " he stops as if he swallowed one last word, looking mildly bashful but with an unashamed smile on his lips. “tis just how it is” he says and squeezes Dream’s hand firmer against his chest.

Dream can feel the quick rhythm of his heart, can feel the roughness of his hand, can sense the human warmth of him— he can feel his love.

"I...understand." he says, and this is not true, he does not.

He does not understand this form of love. Does not know how to experience nor how to express it. Yet he finds himself wishing for it. Finds himself wanting not for the scorching heat of a dying star but for the soothing tranquility of a spring lake. Something calm, something without waves to drown him under. Something...safe.

Something that might just be Hob Gadling.

[demon-defender]

Anyway. Au where, instead of finding Baal, Kirio bumps into Balam, whose immediate reaction is "how in Satan's name did this toddler return to origins this is BAD". So by the time Kirio manages to enroll in Babyls, Balam reaches out to him. Kirio eventually admits that he wanted to find demons that were "messed up" like him, and Balam responds with "oh, people used to think I was weird and messed up too but I eventually found demons that genuinely loved me as I was and that helped a lot" or something like that. And yeah basically Balam looks after Kirio and actually helps him deal with his trauma instead of saying "you're fine, become a terrorist"

Kirio is still very fucked up and a weirdo but he's happier and healthier and makes weird art instead of bombs

[honeycreammilkshake]

Sukuna told Yorozu she could do with his body whatever she wants if he lost. Yuji could perfectly eat sukuna and he will just go with the flow

ahhhhh that's such a good point, anon!

technically sukuna lost so if that same outcome applies to yuuji, he's entitled to devour sukuna just like he did at the start. i think sukuna would resist a lot at first though... but yuuji won't let him back out of a promise like that.

interesting thoughts! i hope you're right!

[ourlittleuluru]

_(:з)∠)_ It's a holiday today and even when I'm out for errands, Xavier still worms his way into my brain...

Ramblings about Xavier and his red collar ahead~ (story spoilers, be warned) Apologies first. I'm not the best with words or saying things out from my brain... so It might be a bit jumbled, or I might've missed some things <( _ _ )>

I'm not going to be talking about anything new. Theories and such be everywhere already, all that's been speculated is all out there ><;;;

It's just my brain, earlier in the day, decided to re-frame my thinking about the collar a bit and just letting all these thoughts out somewhere that isn't inside my brain... moving on ➡➡➡

So... what we DO know about the collar is that it's something restricting Xavier in some way. It's just not clear HOW it's restricting him.

Collar is also something of the Ever Company's property, most likely. Since there's an icon on the collar that belongs to Ever Company. At most, I would think it's from the Ever Company that is from the time during Anecdote 3. (What if... Xavier is the son of the Ever Company president in Anec3... 🤔 I mean he's got men in suits tailing him all over... but that's a thought for another day)

Up to today, my guess is that the collar restricts his use of his Evol, on top of other things. Restricting his Evol, in a way, makes him "weaker". Xavier is very good (I would guess) at using his Evol and it's powerful enough to cause huge light explosions too. So he's dangerous (to the people that wants to control him) and restricting him in that manner helps to keep Xav in check.

Unsure if the Evol Resonance here being strong is due to Xavier's Evol itself already being very strong... OR... that the two share a deep bond since times of yore and she was just able to resonate much easier and stronger with him.

Okay. Main thoughts and speculations down below 😂 I dragged this long enough, and I'm rambling on a bit much...

The collar, restricts Xavier's Evol and...

Xavier, always overdoes it and uses his Evol past the allowed limit.

It hurts him in return, but he usually doesn't care any ways. If it's to save people and MC especially, he WILL do it

He can choose to ignore the limiter, but it will only cause him to use even more of his Evol just to overcome the limiter AND do what he needed to do

So to explain, an example in terms of MP from RPG games: His Light Explosion usually costs 50MP. The Collar restricts his MP to be only 40MP. Now, for Xavier to use his Light Explosion skill again, he needs 60MP instead of the usual 50MP the reason for my above thought is simply because BOTH his Hunter's Watch AND Collar were warning him in his Myth

This makes him even more spent, makes him use 2 syringes to recover... and potentially speeds up whatever process is causing the BackTrackers on Earth to turn into Wanderers (???)

If he were to resonate with MC however, maybe he can bypass the limiter, me thinks. But obviously he is very aware that he can't abuse this.

There's a possibility that he will still get the side effects after that, maybe in a smaller amount... and it's also to protect MC herself

Uh... I feel like I had more thoughts to blurb out... but after this many hours I think I might've forgotten them... 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

~+~+~+~+~

And... this is how many times (that I managed to catch, that is) his collar has flared up: 6 times

(it'll be 7 if one assumes that when we meet Xavier, and he's sleeping... during that time he has already overused his Evol which caused the Metaflux explosion and was sleeping to "recharge", that his collar definitely flared red at that time)

Who knows how many more times before the Main story at this point in time (22 May 2024. Dating this just in case lol. Tumblr doesn't really show timestamps on the dash) that he's used his Evol til the collar turned red... and how many more times he is allowed to keep using it like that...

This feels to me like an unbreakable cycle at this point for Xavier... T-T

Both him and MC being each other's greatest strength and their greatest weakness 😩🥺👌

Ughhhh I feel the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF FEELS AND ANGST COMING WITH THIS MAN 😭😭😭😭 Please let this bebe live!

[galacticlamps]

Six: In Conclusion, The Differences

[Context] // << previous part

Of course, the Two/Jamie // Edwin/Charles parallels don't always shake out exactly along those lines - and frankly, the task of comparing them is more interesting for it. For much the same reasons that it's exciting to talk about how Victoria seems like she's in tune with Jamie - until she isn't - or Zoe appears to mirror the Doctor - until she doesn't - looking at the points of divergence between Jamie & Charles or Edwin & the Doctor sheds just as revealing a light on the specifics of their characters, considering those previously-acknowledged ongoing similarities in their external situations.

Charles may take to being a ghost just as quickly as Jamie does being a time traveler - but he can hardly be said to keep pace with him. Obviously Jamie isn't from present-day earth, but he's still got some pretty solid connections to it, and he happens to be a companion at the time when the show first pulls the 'hey, out of all of time and space, we sure do seem to land on your earth a lot!' card it's now famous for - it's fairly familiar territory for him, and definitely closer to a world he'd still call home than his alien companion can. Likewise, Charles gets to witness, without interruption, the full and gradual shift the living world goes through from 1989 to 2023. Considering Edwin had a rather more drastic leap to make, popping down to hell in 1916 and not returning to earth again until 1989 - and how dense the global, cultural, and technological changes that 73-year span encompassed were - you might well expect Charles to continue to follow Jamie's lead and mirror his famous adaptability, his easygoing, down-to-earth skill at taking the years in stride and not letting the differences rattle him too much. But in the dead boys' case it's the opposite - Edwin is the one more in the habit of adapting himself to suit the altered world around him (certainly as the character whose personal arc was more directly focused-on in the one season that now comprises the entire show, he had more opportunities to demonstrate this), while Charles struggles more obviously with feeling left out of things.

This is probably because Edwin, for all the horror he endured, at least got a cleaner break from the world at his death, and consequently seems to think of himself as more separate from it anyway - a different problem to solve, surely, but one that seems to protect him from aching every time he can't connect with it the way Charles clearly wants to. And perhaps Jamie would be much the same as Charles is on this front, if he had to kind-of-but-not-really live through the 35 years immediately following his own home era, looking in, but still always separate from it in some crucial respect - though I still find it interesting that even in-universe, characters seem to expect Edwin to be the one of the pair more averse to change. "I know you don't like to try new things" Charles says to him, very early on in the show, and Edwin looks skeptical - understandably, I think, because all he does is try new things & step outside of a comfort zone that most things are decidedly on the other side of, but that he really never lets get in the way of him taking a crack at them anyway - a rather more Jamie-ish behavior, if anything.

Similarly, although Charles is - unsurprisingly - the one to insist upon associating with the living more, dragging Edwin into the world, and outright suggesting they add Crystal to the private space of the detective agency they've shared alone together for so long, it's never Jamie but rather the Doctor who brings the companions they pick up together onto the Tardis. That might feel less shocking since the Tardis belongs more specifically to him than the agency could ever be said to be Edwin's alone (though it's funny how the one chair at the main desk seems so exclusively his) - but Jamie doesn't just fail to invite Victoria or Zoe to travel with them, waiting for the Doctor to do so out of courtesy. He flat-out tells Zoe, when she tries to come with them at the end of Wheel In Space, that it's "impossible" after previously struggling to explain to her that there are "two different worlds" - hers, and the one he and the Doctor share in together. On Skaro, he actually needed to be told Victoria was joining them seriously, despite the obvious lack of other options available. For all his friendliness and tendency to befriend the people they meet on their adventures, Jamie clearly thinks of his life with the Doctor as private and not open to new additions, no matter how much he liked them personally already, or how glad he is to have them once they're there.

There are many, many more things to be said about both sets of characters and the shows that enabled them to become what they are - this post has already become several times the length I imagined it would be (literally) and still, I only let it get this long in the first place because I knew it was still technically the 'shorter' version, that it could've wound up even longer, if I actually cited every example of what I meant, and elaborated on every interpretive claim that I made. As it is, I did not know a shorter route than this that still felt like an adequate explanation, and perhaps that's my fault for not having enough conversations about Dr Who recently - hopefully this is the beginning of rectifying that - but we're here now, either way.

Hopefully, the point still stands that these two shows (or one show, and the hallmarks of a specific era of another & the pairing that defined that) remind me of one another in both broad and specific ways which I was surprised and fascinated to find present in Dead Boys, because so many of them played such a large role in making the Second Doctor's era - which I consider to be a unique, well-crafted, and exemplary piece of scifi tv and speculative fiction in general - more appealing & richer to dive into and discuss and think about than an awful lot of other stories, including ones that have had more typical elements in common & looked more similar from the outside.

Despite how long I've taken in making that point (and whether you're counting in time or in words, I come out of it equally badly lol), I still think it's simple enough one that even I couldn't obscure it underneath like 9k of ramblings spread across 8 different tumblr posts. I'm a bit envious of anyone that could've done it more efficiently, but one series has been out for a year and the other for rather longer than that, and on top of not having seen anyone else make the same argument yet, even in passing, I mainly needed to get these thoughts quasi-organized and out from existing exclusively in my own head at some point, and I've done that now so I can't be too bothered by anything else.

Since I've literally written shorter fics than this before, it doesn't seem inappropriate to say the usual, especially since it's truer than ever: Thanks for reading this far & if you have any thoughts on anything I've said at all, however ridiculous, I'd obviously be delighted to discuss them!

[Context] // << previous part

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm becoming unhinged about Transformers again,,,

[eddiestightywhities]

When there's now this thing in your life, a new thing between you and another person, a thing you can't quite put your finger on to be able to try and describe it.

When you start to become so comfortable with this person that they start to become your person, and before you're really aware that anything has changed between you, you've just suddenly become one hundred percent theirs.

When you then get so close to that person that you don't really realise that things have shifted so significantly between you, because it's so infinitesimally and yet so dramatically all at once, and because everything just feels so damn right all the time and exactly the way you feel things are supposed to feel, so why would you ever think about changing it?

When it dawns on both you and that person—maybe one of you gets there before the other, maybe both at the same time?—that the two of you have moved on from being just friends and are morphing into something else, so seamlessly and with such ease that you don't have to question it, because it is just a thing that sort of is now.

When your touches become lighter, lingering things, softer and warmer and more frequent than before, and occurring much, much more and in a very different way than with anybody else in your life.

When you and your person and this thing that you now share become more wanting and more needy, and yet somehow so unerringly steady, and also so wonderfully and assuredly grounding and immovable, all as one, all at the very same time.

When together, you become more.

When you find you have found your way to your person, and to this thing, the thing that you now mold and nurture and that molds and nurtures you, slowly; unwaveringly; absolutely; discovering that it's helps you to move in new ways and to unfold as a person, to breathe, to settle into yourself.

When you have this thing (all of these things) in your life and realise that this is it, this is the thing they've been writing about throughout the ages.

When you realise that this thing—your thing—is a thing called love.

[dandelion-wings]

also I wrote it ages ago but I do still really love the contrast between Jean's first appearance at the start of Chapter Two (before they get into really serious matters):

The powdered tea that one of them always brews and passes out to the group, the last cup always to her so that she can see them sip theirs first, makes this more skin-crawling, not less. Monsters shouldn't indulge in something so mundane. And yet it's not the false hospitality she'd thought it was at first, not only done to set her at ease. Some of them seem to take true pleasure in this simple human gesture. As always, they drink before they speak. The Herald who brews it, the one who calls herself Persephone and always takes human form to do so, insists that it's only civilized.

Where, however freaked out she is, they're essentially having a tea party, and Kaeya's first appearance:

Gradually the coming-and-going hilichurls begin to bring things in. A few crates and barrels that they stack in a corner near the door; standing torches that they set around the room, lighting with their own burning clubs, so that they're no longer all standing in the dim glow of one club and the samachurl's glowing staff. An old, rusting metal tub full of water that takes four of them to carry. A wooden cage of the sort that they keep captives and food in, before the slaughter. That's nice. Kaeya would hate to spend the *entire* rest of his life on this slab.

Where Kaeya has already done the calculations of circumstances + location + enemy count + position and gone, oh, okay, I'm going to die here. Understood.

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: the final wip wednesday :’)

bonus: