#like i can SMELL the pearl clutching from here

[transexualpirate]

(not removing the url because they're deactivated so)

this is so fucking dangerous btw. and like a few words away from actively harming multiple other marginalized identities. just saying

[kidasthings]

Noa and Mae: A Taboo Affair?

Hi, there! Kida checking in again with yet another controversy - you've been warned.

I see a lot of people on Tumblr and Reddit pointing out that a Noa/Mae (#NoMae?) pairing would be at best controversial, at worst beastiality.

I mean, he IS a CGI ape, right?

Not so fast.

I'd like to break down a few points, if I Mae (pun intended!), and address this argument. I'll be using a few of the comments I've seen on the web already to do so, on the part of the dissenters to the pairing.

1st Argument: "Planet of the Apes wouldn't show a kiss between a human and an ape. Ew."

Reply: Oh, they already have, my friend. Not in the full-blown sense, but they definitely did film Zira and Taylor kissing lips to muzzle in 1968. You can view that lovely bit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEp7yunwVF8

I apologize in advance for impinging on your delicate simian sensibilities. #sorrynotsorry

2nd Argument: "Why would they even depict a human/ape couple? Humans and apes can't even reproduce in the franchise."

Reply: They can't? News to me. There was a Hum-Ape written into the early scripts and screen tests for Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970. Seems the Planet of the Apes franchise truly thought it was worth exploring back then. You can read all about that little guy right here: https://planetoftheapes.fandom.com/wiki/Hum-Ape

Aww, just look at that adorable lack of face-fur!

3rd Argument: "The audience of today isn't ready for that kind of thing."

Reply: And the audience in the 1960's/early 1970's was? I didn't know we became even more conservative 50+ years later. I'll be sure to adjust my high neckline and clutch my pearls in absolute horror at the thought of all of those deviant libertines living before me. Excuse me, I must go confront my parents about this.

BUT, before I do, I do want to point out we seemed to accept an on-screen kiss between Goliath (a gargoyle) and Elisa (a human) during a certain Disney children's cartoon show in the 1990's - anyone remember that?

Disgusting. I bet his breath smelled like rancid pigeon.

Additionally, we have more recent films such as Avatar, The Shape of Water - which won 4 Academy Awards, including best picture (not bad for a human and a fish-man pairing), and Beauty and the Beast.

And hey, if a living monster is not your thing, you could always opt for Warm Bodies. Think female human and male zombie. Necrophilia, anyone?

4th Argument: "Okay, fine, I see your point on the Taylor/Zira thing. But that only worked out because it was a human in a monkey suit, and we all sort of knew that. It didn't make it so strange. As for the other films you listed, well, those creatures don't actually exist so it's out of the realm of true possibility anyway. Noa is depicted as a real chimp, and him getting with Mae just makes it hit too close to home for comfort."

Reply: #Ishetho? Let's take a good look at what a "real chimp" looks like:

He's so damn Chimpy.

Okay, now let's look at our leading man--er, ape:

Looks like Chimpy had a love-child with Owen Teague. #shudder

As you can see, the two are pretty different. Chimpy has a true muzzle and a mouth that curves around it. Noa has a flatter, human face with an actual nose bridge and wider-spaced eyes.

And the EYES. My god. If you don't see the humanity in those baby-blues you might want to get checked for psychopathy. Besides that, Chimpy lacks eye-whites and has rounder eyes than Noa. Additionally, that pronounced brow ridge on Chimpy has thunder clouds gathering beneath it. Don't get me started on the ear comparison between the two, I'm sure it goes without saying!

Anyway, I think it can be safely stated that no chimp alive on this earth looks like Noa. He's too physically humanized to resemble an actual chimpanzee of the typical zoo variety. Thus, I would place him safely in the category of fish-man, the tall, blue cat creatures from Avatar, and those barbaric blue aliens that keep cropping up on certain ice planets in books #ifyouknowwhatImean.

---------------------

All that said, everyone can ship what they want. If you want Noa playing house with Caesar, never mind that trifling little timeline issue, you go with your fine self and write that fanfiction. Create an account on DeviantArt.com and fill it with their anthropomorphic babies who eventually grow up to be the first ape astronauts. Someone out there is going to love it and eat it up, I promise you.

For the points above, this is about Noa and Mae. They've got something, something tangible. Whether or not it becomes canon is yet to be seen.

For now, it lives on in our minds. With our inner eye, we can see it just fine.

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

My God I Love This Show

I think I've rewatched that final breakroom scene from Jun & Jun episode 2 at least a dozen times since it first aired yesterday, and I need to rave about it in its own post rather than just tags.

That scene is... perfection.

First, for non-Korean speakers, it's important to note they've already dropped into banmal with each other in private (the most intimate and casual linguistic form of address). This establishes them as societal equals, despite their wildly different social positions as boss and employee. It was an intentional choice by Choi Jun at the end of episode 1, when he took off his glasses, leaned over the seated Lee Jun in his office and greeted him properly with "오랜만이야" (Long time no see.) The fact that he dropped into banmal here was likely a bigger clue to Lee Jun that they know each other intimately than the actual words Choi Jun chose.

So in the breakroom scene. (!!!) Choi Jun is radiating confident dom energy and Lee Jun is INTO IT. He begins by making sure Lee Jun wasn't hurt by scalding hot coffee and telling Lee Jun to take off his shirt. But then he does the most batshit dom thing ever and starts removing HIS OWN CLOTHES. He explains its because he has a spare shirt for himself and plans to dress Lee Jun in the shirt he's been wearing all day. Why? Because he has a scent kink! And he just says it out loud. He wants Lee Jun to smell like he's HIS.

He checks Lee Jun out like a starving man and asks, "would my size fit you?" WHICH IS THE WILDEST BLATANT SEXUAL INNUENDO and Lee Jun KNOWS its innuendo because he clutches his pearls with his hand over his heart and replies "don't people say you worry too much?" causing Choi Jun to call him cute. Lee Jun can't help but smile shyly at the compliment, and Choi Jun pounces, immediately switching gears and ordering him to hurry up and take off his shirt. Lee Jun asks "right here?" as if that's the only weird or concerning thing about being told to disrobe, so Choi Jun takes off his own vest. This man is doing everything in his power to both rattle and comfort his cute former idol childhood bestie, and I AM HOLDING MY BREATH FROM THE SEXUAL TENSION.

And then we get the first truly jaw-dropping scene. Choi Jun calls Lee Jun high maintenance (the Korean phrase is better translated as "You're a handful."). Lee Jun bristles and apologizes. Choi Jun steps closer and tells him he doesn't need to apologize; it's a compliment. He LIKES it when he needs to put his hands on someone to care for them and it makes them smell like him; it makes them feel like THEY ARE HIS. The collar caress!! The neck tie grab and pull!!! The audacity of starting to unbutton Lee Jun's shirt for him since he's taking too long!!!! MY HEAD EXPLODING.

Lee Jun freaks out a little and puts distance between them again, so they have another fun little conversation filled with innuendo about repaying favors American style, which Choi Jun says involves less clothing!

And then we get the second jaw-dropping scene right on the heels of the first. Choi Jun says Lee Jun has grown fiestier (he likes them feisty? just a guess), but that he's still "squishy" on the inside. Lee Jun is already looking 10 times more secure in this conversation, unhesitatingly flirting back through the entire next few dialog exchanges. The eye contact! THE MOST PERFECTLY EXECUTED WAIST GRAB!!

The "you can teach me!!!" The way Lee Jun takes that as permission to manhandle Choi Jun right back, grabbing his hands and moving him around like a marionette!!!!

THE NECK GRAB!!!!!

And that final last line from Choi Jun that sent me SCREAMING INTO MY PILLOWS:

Looking at the rolled up napkin in his hand, "Malleable is something soft..." and then looking at Lee Jun's lips like the very thirsty man he is, he finally makes eye-contact again and finishes with, "squishy is... something sexy?" Lee Jun gulps. Cut scene.

MY HEART CANNOT HANDLE HOW PERFECT THIS WAS. From the dialog to the body language to the eye-work to the kink exposure to the RIDICULOUSLY HOT EXPOSED FOREARMS ON CHOI JUN. I am in awe and Korea is FEEDING ME.

@absolutebl this seems like your jam

[shares-a-vest]

@steddiemas Day 6: Baking and Cookie Decorating (Winter Wednesday)

Sicky-sweet Steddie decorating cookies from Dustin's (very irritated) POV

“Steve! What the fuck?”

“Dusty!”

He stills at the sight of his mother, materialising from behind the island countertop with a fresh tray of Christmas cookies in hand. Yeah sure, they smell delicious but Dustin still manages to make the intended disapproving face at her chiding.

Honestly, the woman swears like a sailor. She’s only scolding him because they have company. That company being Steve, who is currently standing at the counter too, piping bag in one hand and a cookie in the other as he stares back at him like a guppy.

Dustin glares. If he was still going to hang around here so much, why didn’t he just move in with them and not the Munsons when his parents skipped town?

He purses his lips. Eddie.

This all has to have something to do with Eddie. Why else would Steve be standing in the kitchen, wearing a frilly apron and looking far too pleased with himself while he and Dustin’s mother bake what can only be described as an industrial amount of Christmas cookies?

He has that look too, all angelic and innocent and cozy like an absolute dingus. The same look Steve has had on his face ever since he and Eddie announced they were an item.

A sicky-sweet, ooey-gooey annoying item.

Dustin opens his mouth to say all of that but he catches Steve catches his eye and smirks at him. Shit.

He looks at the cookies, smelling a hint of cinnamon.

Steve quickly returns to his task: shakily piping icing onto the cookie in his hand just in the knick of time as Dustin’s mother turns around.

Goddamn it, their aprons match.

Dustin pinches his nose.

“Steve wanted to make some cookies for Eddie and Wayne,” his mother explains, arranging the newly baked tray on the counter in what appears to be her typical assembly line.

“Yeah…” Steve nods, channelling any shred of concentration he has into the wobbly icing he is applying to a tree-shaped cookie a mere inch from his face.

Dustin reaches for the platter plate filled with neatly decorated cookies but his mother waves his hand away.

“I don’t get any!” he asks, “They can’t all be for Eddie!”

“No,” his mother says and he smiles as she gestures to a Tupperware container already filled, “Those are for Wayne to take for his last shift at the Plant before Christmas break.”

“And mine are…”

“Oh, Dusty!” she grumbles, “I’ll make you some another time! I thought you’d be gone all afternoon.”

“I ran out of money.”

“Poured your pocket money into trying to beat the Star Wars Flyer high score again, didn’t you?” Steve mocks, snorting a laugh as he sets a cookie on the Christmas plate.

Steve’s icing efforts are so wobbly and uneven that they look as if he has left them out on his back decking on a hot summer afternoon.

“No,” Dustin lies, “I – ”

The sound of the door out to the backyard squeaks open and Eddie skips inside like he’s a perfectly-timed sidekick from a goddamn TV show.

Dustin glares again. Bingo!

“Ms H.,” Eddie says, giving a faint salute before producing a bag of something from behind his back.

“Thank you, thank you thank you!”

Dustin watches, mouth agape as his mother makes a beeline for Eddie, takes the bag of flour (as the label says) and kisses the idiot right on his cheek.

Eddie smiles, his deceptively cherubic dimples indenting his cheeks as he flutters his eyelashes like the world’s biggest kiss-ass.

He then rounds the counter and slips onto the kitchen stool, practically knocking Dustin off his axis as he goes.

“Dusty,” he quips, straight in his ear.

“Piss off!” Dustin curses, flinging his arm through the non-existent space between them to shrug him off.

“Dusty!”

Eddie raises a hand to his chest, clutching his proverbial pearls, “So rude of you to speak to a guest like that, Dustin. And in your mother’s home!”

Steve barks a laugh, squeezing his piping bag enough that a great blob of icing plops onto a bare cookie.

“Oh, no,” he mumbles, looking down at the spillage utterly shell-shocked.

Eddie plucks a cookie from the Christmas plate, and Dustin folds his arms with a huff as he watches him hold it up without any protests from his mother.

He holds the cookie up, examining it carefully.

“Did you make this all by yourself, Stevie?” Eddie feigns wondering aloud, using that tone he does with Steve that is all flirtatious.

“With Claudia’s help,” Steve replies, smiling all sickly sweet it makes Dustin want to barf.

Again – ooey-gooey and just so goddamn annoying.

Claudia elbows Steve in the side and chuckles, “I only provided the recipe, really.”

“You’re giving away family recipes now!” Dustin complains.

“I’d hardly call Gan-Gan’s recipes sacred,” his mother defends, making a face, “In fact, I’ve changed them so much over the years, they are more mine than hers, so I can give them to who I damn well please.”

Eddie leans forward, pointedly looking at Dustin and nods in condescending agreement, his scraggly hair flopping in his face

His mother doesn’t catch it – she never does – and simply turns back to the oven. Meanwhile, Steve reaches for another cookie and hands it across the counter.

Dustin perks up until he bypasses him and hands Eddie another treat.

“Here,” he says with a flick of the wrist, “Try this one.”

Eddie again scrutinizes the treat, pouting and all considerate with the typical level of dorky theatrics Steve seems to go ga-ga for.

In rolling his eyes, Dustin regrettably glances at Steve, who is biting his lip with anticipation.

Eddie takes a bite, humming loud and rather obscenely and yet, once again, Dustin witnesses no scandalised response from his mother.

“You like it?” Steve smiles.

“Takes as good as you, sugarplum,” Eddie hums, dropping – and spitting – crumbs everywhere.

“Guys!” Dustin begs, fearing his eyes are going to roll into the back of his skull and never return, “Stop it!”

“Dusty!” now his mother stands to attention, “You can stop being so rude!”

Eddie snickers and hops up from his seat to stand impossibly close to Steve at the counter. Steve hands him the piping bag, the pair grinning at each other as they set about decorating yet another tray of Christmas cookies.

Dustin stomps his foot and marches out of the kitchen, ignoring the chorus of giggles behind him.

[lottiecrabie]

you know how lorde brought jack out at one of her shows and he played the guitar while she sang and they were very touchy feely and just gazing at each other the entire time? imagine a blurb like that on gto readers tour when her and matty are just friends now but there is still definitely underlying tension the entire time

i Know where this blurb idea came from I see you🫵

the screams rain over you, a torrential wave of love that you can’t help grinning at. you sit there, legs hanging off the stage, gripping your mic in silent awe. the world ripples in front of you, bodies of people — real, tangible, knowledgeable of your lyrics better than you sometimes — face you. the room seems larger, like entire cities could fit between these walls, like everyone you’ve ever known could be smiling back at you.

you use the energy like fuel. pretend your heart isn’t racing up your throat as you tilt up the mic. ‘i have a surprise for you guys,’ you say, teasing, confessional. another wave of screams, delighted in just being special. you laugh. ‘there’s a really special person here tonight. the producer of this album, my dear friend—‘ you barely need to let the name out, high-pitched cries already drowning it out, but still; ‘matty healy!’

he comes from backstage and he cracks the world open. stagelight transforms in soft sun rays, shining over your head until sweat pearls your forehead. strawberry ice cream lingers on your tongue. the faint smell of cigarette comes through, burning in the heat. he’s summer, even in the thick of this december month. you have to blink away, blind.

there’s a part of you way that will always be in august, and it throbs when he’s around you.

matty sits down beside you, offered a guitar by some worker. he waves to the crowd, working his charm easily. you have no sun to blame this flush on. you hope the stage makeup hides it, stop yourself from pressing the cold microphone to your cheeks and draw attention to it.

‘hello,’ you say. ‘not too tired?’

‘never,’ he answers, though it’s lost to the ears of the crowd, micless that he is.

‘i warmed the crowd up for you.’

‘you’re—‘ you aim the mic his way, graciously allowing the public into this moment, ‘—too sweet.’ you want to laugh. your chest tightens, in the habitual ways it still hasn’t learned not to.

something in you is angry that he’d dare say it here, in front of anyone, in front of everyone. not because he’s sharing anything personal, anything momental; because he’s not. to him, too sweet is any other phrase, and you’re left reeling from the slap he doesn’t know he gave.

‘we made pygmalion two summers ago, in this very city,’ you say conversationally, addressing the crowd. ‘i lived here for four months and so, forever, london will be the intrinsic pygmalion city. i don’t think i can walk any street without being washed with it.’

‘i live here and there’s still places i can’t visit without being reminded of pygmalion,’ matty says in the cadence of a joke. you chuckle for him, ever gracious.

‘there’s still wines i can’t drink,’ you attempt to volley back, but it starts feeling a little too raw, a little too real. you get the uncomfortable impression of being under a microscope, and you clutch the microphone with the need to swallow it all back.

matty steals the mic from your hands, eyes wrinkling with mirth. ‘this one used to say she didn’t like red wine.’

you roll your eyes, taking it back. ‘yes, well, i just—‘

again, matty’s fingers brush yours, angling the mic back to him. ‘—never drank the correct sort, yes, i told you so.’

‘stop taking my mic!’ you laugh, giving a look to the public as you gesture to him. ‘it’s a wonder we finished any song with all of this.’ you sit up straighter, attempting to put the show back on track. ‘and yet we did. you might know this one, it’s called galatea.’

again, a new wave of excited screams wash you. galatea is always a highlight of the night. the broken lyrics that come back to you, sung and cried, tears filling the eyes of the first row until you have to look away. this time, you don’t even attempt to watch them, instead turning to face matty, crossed-legged.

his fingers strum the chords familiarly; you croon the first words. you get projected on a sofa, red lights drenching the two of you, the stars shining just for you. he’s so known you might choke up. you have moved on, you promise yourself you have, but what can you do with all the knowledge you gain of someone? where do the memories go when you’ve stopped needing to play them back every night just to fall asleep. they can’t cease to exist, yet they can’t fit in the palms of your hands either.

his eyebrows tilt as he concentrates, bobbing his head. a curl strikes his forehead and you stop yourself from reaching up and brushing it away. parts of you wake up, called to attention. the need to wish and hope and yearn; to exist in the possible, nearly-not but just enough that it’s exquisitely painful. you think of new lyrics, you hate yourself for it.

the chorus cries out of you. you scoot closer, sing it to him. you’re back in a booth, angry eyes pinning him down vengefully. matty glances up and there must be something in you that has quietened, that has folded over and surrendered. he doesn’t look away from your stare. he doesn’t get overwhelmed with the weight of it.

your hand flies to his knee, as if to make sure he’s real. he is; flesh and muscle and that stubborn heart of his, beating somewhere far away from you.

for all the sun he represents, he doesn’t burn anymore. it’s a soft sting, like another memory buzzing in you. your fingers retreat. mournfully, you sing the next lyric.

you whisper the last words out, smiling faintly. his fingers halt. he stops suddenly; he’s there and then he’s not, per usual. the cries roar back to you. for all the worlds that exist in this very room, they always seem to cease when he’s beside you. a summery cocoon you craft out of nothings, one that’s off somewhere in a london apartment.

you turn back to the crowd, remind yourself of everything that is real too. ‘thank you,’ you whisper to them, a hand to your chest, vaguely bowing. thank you for being there when the ground doesn’t seem to hold you up anymore. you look at him. and then, a grin, waving an arm to him. ‘matty healy, everyone!’

[goodmode]

This sounds stupid but if ants had swear words what would they be about

I LOVE THIS QUESTION i get to use it for worldbuilding while i have fun with it. here

ant poop is called "frass". which is a great word because it's short and snappy and begins with F and has ass in it and a nice sharp sound. you bet they are saying this word in every context. this is the go-to curse word

corpse pheromones. there's a scent ants give off when they die that tells other ants to pick them up and take them to the trash/graveyard, for good housekeeping. if a live ant gets the smell on them they'll go hang out in the trash because they're like well i smell like a dead ant so i guess i belong in the trash. i think it's probably common to slander things by saying something that literally means "covered in corpse smell" and figuratively means it belongs far away from the colony/is undesirable. that or to call someone out for being deliberately useless/unhelpful/lazy by saying "do you smell [dead ants] on yourself or something"

death spirals/ant mills. (link has a gif of real ants doing this, fair warning for anyone reading this who doesn't wanna see bugs). can be co-opted to talk in angry or hushed tones about anything that's badly informed, unwise, or crazy. but it's considered kind of crass and insensitive to use the word that way. i.e. "her plan is stupid. if you ask me she's leading a mill" "omg you can't say that...."

when it's alate season, male ants will apparently often mount the female in the air and then they'll finish that business on the ground. i bet you £50 there are words for skyfucking (kinky) and groundfucking (ordinary)

trophallaxis (the sharing of food/pheromones/etc via the mouth) is a normal thing they do every day all the time so i also think it would be funny if you could say "wouldn't kiss him if he was starving" and have other ants clutch their pearls at the insensitivity because it implies "wouldnt care if he dies lol". (and bonus points if "kiss" has absolutely no romantic connotations)

i'm at work or i'd keep going. maybe i will later. also please take my ant facts with a pinch of salt because there are a zillion types of ants and not all of them have the same ecology etc

[thetomorrowshow]

Joel thinks it’s stupid, really.

Once they figure it out.

Soulmates, Grian messages them all. I think it’s soulmates.

Which makes sense, with the random pains shooting through his legs that he feels on occasion. He’s sharing a life with someone—or, three lives—and they feel each others’ pain.

Which is dumb. Because Joel doesn’t need or want a soulmate, and he doesn’t care much for the idea of having to share his life with someone and make sure they’re safe. He’s not here to be babysitting another player.

That’s what he would be doing, he’s sure. Babysitting someone. Not that everyone would be, of course—there are some players that he knows instantly will be paired up, because if such a thing as real soulmates exist, they would be them. Grian and Scar. Scott and Jimmy. Bdubs and Etho.

No one for him.

No one for Joel because he’s always been a loner. For as long as he can remember he’s been on his own in these games—in the first one he had his cottage on the hill (so long ago that he can barely remember what it looked like, he can only remember it burning and the flames licking up at him and melting his skin and the smell of his hair and he has to put it out—), and in the games since, he’s been alone. Alliances that last little more than a week, here and there, and somehow he always ends up at Grian’s side at the end of things, but he’s never actually teamed up with anyone else.

He doesn’t want a soulmate. He doesn’t want another player going through his things, walking through his space, just being near him when he’s angry and needs time alone to cool off.

But there’s a morbid curiosity, he supposes. Because he can’t help but wonder who on earth the universe would think to pair him with.

So every person he sees, he socks in the arm (and if he hits a little harder than is considered friendly, he can blame it on adrenaline).

He actually witnesses a soulmate pair find each other before he finds his own.

And, strangely, it’s Bdubs and Impulse.

For a moment, he thinks that can’t be right—he can envision Bdubs with Etho, or Cleo, but not Impulse. And while Impulse is easygoing enough, Bdubs is a wildcard. Impulse’s sense of order is going to be completely upturned by Bdubs and his harebrained ideals.

Maybe. It’s not like Joel actually knows either of them very well.

And then they’re all mining together, and Etho trips.

And Joel feels his knees sting.

-

Joel doesn’t want to settle down anywhere, at all ever, but after a bunch of fooling around with Grian and Scar (soulmates, just as he’d predicted, of course), he starts. . . .

Not laying down roots. He really ought to get something started, just like everyone else, but that’s just it: everyone else has something started. Everyone else has planted crops and fenced in some animals and set out to get building blocks.

Prime opportunity for raiding some new farms, and to his surprise, Etho absolutely agrees.

For a moment, Joel can forget that they’re linked—he’s just hanging out with a group of friends, laughing at Jimmy, stealing a bit of wheat when nobody’s looking, the norm. Then Etho takes an absurd amount of damage—Joel definitely doesn’t fall back against the crafting table they’ve set up for making armor, definitely doesn’t gasp and clutch at his chest, like he can stop his heart from leaping out of it—and he’s rather rudely reminded that his life isn’t solely his own.

Oh, he hates this already.

Etho calls an apology, but Joel can’t see him through the woods—if they die here and it’s Etho’s fault, he’s never going to forgive him, soulbond or no—so he heads forward, only to find Etho panting beside an enderman in a boat.

“Tricky getting him to walk into it,” Etho says offhandedly, and this could be ender pearls for them if they play their cards right.

Ender pearls are perfect for quick escapes, and if they decide to go with Scar’s absolutely insane plan of trying to take over that outpost, he and Etho are going to need an escape.

He swings with his axe at the angry creature. Easy. Easy pearls, the thing stuck in the boat like a sitting duck.

And then he swings again.

And he hits the boat.

Within seconds, he’s dead.

It’s dark at spawn, and Joel can barely keep from crying in frustration. The enderman had been in the blummin’ boat! All he had to do was hit it a couple of times and they were set!

“I’m so sorry, Etho,” he says, and he hates it. He hates that he has to say that.

He’d been worried about having to babysit another player, keep his lives safe in their hands, but here he is, having stolen a person’s life from them.

He lost Etho their first life, smart Etho who would never mess up killing an enderman in a boat, and now he has to own up to it and live with it.

“I know I messed up first,” Etho says, his eyes crinkling a bit in a way that, combined with the flat tone of his voice, tells Joel he’s definitely frowning. “But I think you messed up way worse there.”

Joel’s familiar with anger—very familiar—but it feels foreign coming from Etho. He ducks his head, runs back through the darkness to wherever it was that they’d died. Something akin to shame is curdling in his stomach, and it’s his fault that they died and Etho’s being weird about it and not yelling, meaning he’s the type to go all cold and calm with anger.

They gather their things from Impulse and Bdubs, then mess around a bit with boats—and maybe he’s just hiding it really well, but Etho doesn’t seem angry, it’s the strangest thing and Joel almost dreads the moment they’re alone together—before joining Grian and Scar on that horribly stupid plan to take over the outpost. It fails, of course, but no one gets seriously hurt and they get to lure a bunch of Pillagers into Bdubs’s stupid little house that he’s building for Impulse.

They hop around for probably a week, never alone, just watching everyone else start on their bases, before they finally set down a couple of chests and furnaces and get to work.

And Etho . . . isn’t mad.

In fact, as Joel starts laying out the foundation for his—their base, Etho comes up beside him, silently surveying, hands in his pockets.

“I don’t blame you for us being Yellow, by the way,” he says casually, and Joel almost chokes on his own spit.

“Sorry, what?”

Etho shrugs. “It was going to happen to one of us at some point,” he says. “And in my eyes? Better you than me, ‘cuz now I get to tease you for it.”

Is that. . . .

Was that a joke?

Etho leaves, and Joel’s left alone with his thoughts and a bunch of wood planks.

He’d thought Etho was boring. He’s always been the quiet, redstone-y kind of guy that Joel can’t stand—not that there’s anything wrong with that! Joel just needs somebody fast-moving, on his level, ready to burn down a building without questions or hesitation.

It’s just one joke. Anyone can make a joke, that doesn’t mean anything about their personality or character. For instance, Joel makes jokes all the time, and he’s a total jerk.

Etho can’t be likable. Sure, he was fine to wander around with for the past couple of days, causing general chaos, but he’s a bore and likes redstone. He won’t be able to keep up with Joel.

But Etho hovers there while he works, occasionally giving little suggestions to the build, and after he wanders off for the afternoon, he comes back with his eyes crinkled over his mask and bragging about some wool farm he’d built.

He doesn’t need help to build this ship. He doesn’t need to depend on anyone to get wool. He especially doesn’t need to depend on Etho, all dry looks and gloating and frowns.

Joel works alone. He always has.

But his indifference to Etho isn’t making him leave, so Joel decides to do what he does best.

Be annoying.

-

“I’m his biggest fan,” Joel boasts to anyone who’ll listen. “You guys know I looove redstone. Just like Etho. He’s perfect.”

Grian gives Scar a look. Scar doesn’t notice.

“We’re very happy—we have a lovely ‘Relation’ship, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re the best pair on the server, actually.”

Scott gives Cleo a look. Cleo does notice.

“Etho’s probably the best at everything in the world. He’s so good at . . . redstone. And . . . all the stuff you do with it. That’s why we’re practically made for each other.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you, you sound kind of. . . .” Jimmy trails off, glancing over at Tango for support.

“Like you’re compensating for something? Unhappy? Inadequate?” Tango suggests helpfully.

“A-absolutely untrue!” Joel sputters, then clears his throat and turns away, nose high. “I’m going to get back to working on me and Etho’s perfect ‘Relation’ship, thank you very much.”

“You’re short!” Jimmy calls as parting words. Joel ignores him.

In total opposition to what he’s been spending the past couple of days declaring, once he finishes the bedroom space of the ship, he places his bed and Etho’s bed on opposite sides of the room.

“You stay over there, and I stay over here, all right?” Joel says that night, pointing to their respective beds. “I’m not a cuddler. I don’t like people in my space.”

“But Joel, I thought you were my biggest fan!” Etho wheedles. There’s a glint in those crinkled eyes that tells Joel he’s heard the stuff Joel’s been saying.

Which is frustrating, and immediately takes all the fun out of it. He’d wanted Etho to be mad about his obnoxiousness, to refuse to speak to him, to mock him in return until their partnership inevitably dissolved.

But Etho—his eyes are crinkling, the way they did back when they first died and when he finished the wool farm and then later, when Joel showed him around the ship’s process and he silently nodded before walking off.

“It’s okay, Joel, I know you love me even if you need space,” Etho tells him now, mirth clear in his voice, and Joel realizes that maybe that look isn’t one of anger or disapproval, as he’d first thought. Maybe Etho is . . . smiling.

That’s not good.

It’s not good at all, because if Etho likes him, then Joel. . . .

Joel has to at least try to like him back, doesn’t he? It’s not like he’s the worst guy to be around, after all. He was actually a lot of fun in that first week, running around and stealing and bothering people together.

Maybe he was wrong.

-

As it turns out, when Joel decides he can like Etho, Etho becomes a whole lot more likable.

Etho’s brave—he goes out and enchants his stuff, and Impulse tells the story of them being chased by no less than three Wardens and Etho somehow surviving (Joel’s heart skips a beat in his chest at the most tense moments of the story, and Etho casually slugs his shoulder when he looks up to check his soulmate’s okay). He’s strong—not everyone can just run around the Deep Dark all day in full armor and live to tell the tale.

And he totally gets Joel’s sense of humor. He snorts at Joel’s contrived puns, mocks Martyn’s house relentlessly, finds Jimmy’s failures just as hilarious as they actually are.

Joel can’t remember, in recent memory, ever having someone like this. Someone he actually enjoys the company of, someone whom he appreciates and who appreciates him in turn. Someone to talk to, to listen to—and while Etho is a bit quiet, it’s not because he’s boring and isn’t thinking about anything. Joel thinks he just forgets to speak sometimes, and will gladly talk about anything if Joel asks him to.

Sure, he’s had friends. He’s always gotten along with Grian and Jimmy and, really, everyone on the server, when pressed. But none of them are Etho, exactly.

Which is bad. It’s bad because Joel is getting attached, he’s getting complacent, he’s getting happy—

That’s dangerous. This is a death game.

And maybe all that emotional-friend-love stuff works for the likes of Scott, but that’s just not Joel’s modus operandi. He can’t—he can’t be like that. He can’t get close.

“Redstoners and builders don’t work out together, you know,” he says to Etho early one morning. They’d both risen before the sun, for some reason (anxiety, perhaps, as more players become Yellow and fire proves to be a very useful tool) and had decided, without discussion, to sit in the crow’s nest, legs swinging in the air.

Etho hums quietly in that way that means he’s listening, the way he always does when Joel comes over to bother him. Patient, mellow, waiting to see where he’s going with it.

“Seriously, it never works,” Joel continues. “Their brains are too different. You’d think they’d work well, ‘cuz they cover different bases and all that, but it’s the opposite. They just butt heads all the time. It never works.”

“What about Bdubs and Impulse?”

Joel shrugs. “I mean, they both know a good amount of both, right? That’s different.”

There’s a smile to Etho’s voice when he speaks. “Tango and Jimmy?”

“Only if you’re calling Jimmy a builder,” Joel snorts. “In which case, you’re dead wrong.”

Etho makes a show of thinking—he props his chin up on his hand, taps his finger against his cheek. “Hm. You must be right. I can’t think of any other redstone-builder pairs.”

For some reason, something painful sinks through Joel’s stomach. He swallows it back, lets triumph color his tone. “Exactly. They’re too different.”

Etho drops his hand, lightly elbows Joel in the ribs. “Except for you and me, of course. We’re the exception.”

Joel’s mouth goes dry. He clears his throat. The pain vanishes, healed over with hope, surprise, a desperate need for attention filled—and he can’t even make himself disagree and argue, like he’d intended. Instead, all he can do is repeat it.

“We’re the exception.”

As he goes about his day, he barely even processes his actions—Etho thinks they work well together. Etho thinks they’re a match. Etho likes him, and his company, and his building skills, and his humor, and his bluntness, and everything about him.

And Joel’s really starting to think that he likes everything about Etho as well, as hard as he’d tried not to at the beginning.

They go down to the Deep Dark together the next day, and Joel’s trying very hard to ignore whatever his feelings may be on Etho. They can just—they can just be friends, right?

Friends who install proper stairs, of course. The way down takes forever.

“Creeper, behind you!”

Joel spins around, axe up, ready to defend—nothing. Etho huffs a little (again something now familiar that Joel had once taken to be a sign of disapproval), eyes crinkled almost all the way shut when Joel whips back around to him.

“Just kidding.”

“Oh, you cheeky devil—we need to trust each other,” Joel says, no real anger behind the way he shoves Etho lightly.

His palms seem to burn at the contact.

“I just need to make sure you’ll pay attention to me,” Etho says, and Joel has to wonder for a moment if he’ll ever have the problem of not paying attention to Etho again.

He doesn’t think he’s properly ignored his soulmate once all game, and in recent days, he can’t seem to pay attention to anything but Etho. He feels like he’s constantly thinking of him, wondering whether or not he’ll like the touches on the ship, wondering if he’s safe and who he’s with and if he’ll come home all right.

He hopes, a little enviously, perhaps, that Etho has similar worries.

“I am paying attention,” Joel says, and it’s perhaps the most honest thing he’s ever said, in all the games. “I always pay attention.”

When Etho responds, the mirth feels forced, and for a moment Joel feels almost as if he’s seeing Etho without his mask on. “You won’t ignore me in our ‘Relation’ship?”

“No, no, no. I never do.”

It’s true.

It’s so true, it hurts.

Joel—he doesn’t trust people. He can’t. And he’s sick of having to tell himself it again and again, but this just isn’t meant for him.

And then he forgets about it all, because they go into the Deep Dark and it’s bloody terrifying.

(Well, mostly forgets. Because he does walk behind Etho most of the way through the city and Etho—well. It’s a good angle for him, is all.)

That night, Joel lies in his bed on his side of the ship, and stares at the other side of the room. Etho’s sleeping—he hopes, at least—curled up on his side, a blanket pulled up over his head despite the summer heat.

Etho’s always cold, it’s practically his trademark. He’s always got that coat of his on, and gloves, and a mask.

He doesn’t wear the mask to sleep—Joel’s caught glimpses of his face while getting into bed, but he always looks away quickly—, but Joel has no clue if he wears the rest of his ensemble. Just the covers alone ought to be sweltering. Imagine a coat on top of all of that.

If they shared a bed, Etho would have to do away with that extra blanket. Joel could maybe tolerate a bedsheet, that’s it.

If they shared a—where did that thought come from?

But . . . well, Etho’s asleep. And thought isn’t a crime.

So Joel lies there, staring across the room at his soulmate, and wonders. Wonders about what it feels like to hold Etho in his arms, whether his elbows and knees are as bony as they look. Wonders if his hair is quite long enough to grasp between his fingers. Wonders if he’d still be all smooth words after Joel pulled down his mask, grabbed his jaw, and kissed him on the mouth.

Joel falls asleep a little red in the face, and the next morning when Etho does that silent crinkly-eyed laugh, he can’t help but stare and turn red all over again.

He pushes it out of his mind, and it’s through a feverish haze that he even gets through the week, even as they sneak around looking for sugarcane and messing with Scar and running from a Warden on the surface, of all places. He’s really quite occupied, but none of it quite computes when Etho’s right there, being devilishly handsome with that quirked eyebrow and white hair ruffled by the wind.

And the night after they’ve run from the Warden, Joel comes in a bit later than Etho—he’d been out gathering wheat a bit longer—to find that his soulmate has pushed their beds together.

His brain short-circuits as he blinks at the sight: Etho, one hand on the back of his neck sheepishly; the other still holding the blanket he’d been throwing across both beds.

“Is this all right?” Etho asks. Joel turns his blinking gaze toward him. “I just. I wouldn’t mind a bit of cuddling.”

There’s something in the way his eyebrows raise that tells Joel Etho knows exactly what he’s saying, exactly how Joel feels. The part of him that realizes that, that knows that Etho knows, wants to clap and holler and kiss that sexy man.

The rest of Joel, the main part of him, is trained to survive.

“Sure, whatever,” Joel shrugs, trying to affect an air of nonchalance. Etho can’t know. Etho can never know—and not that Etho can’t know just because he has a crush and it’s awkward, but because liking Etho is a weakness and Joel doesn’t have weaknesses, thank you very much.

And if Etho’s shoulders slump a bit at the response, Joel pretends he doesn’t notice.

And then the problem is, Etho doesn’t stop.

Joel makes it clear that he wants his space in bed, and Etho doesn’t encroach on that. But he does steal bites of Joel’s food, and sling an arm around his shoulder when they’re visiting the others, and boop his nose playfully when Joel starts to get angry at Grian for hoarding the sugarcane, and slowly look him up and down with a wink whenever he gets up for breakfast—

It’s maddening. It’s maddening, and every single night Joel lies there stiff as a board, inches away from Etho, trying to not let his thoughts wander to where they have so many times before.

He’s right there.

Every time Joel gets away on his own, he lets out a short, frustrated scream. And then he jumps off a hill that’s maybe a bit too high, if only to try and get Etho back for his teasing.

-

The fishing rods are possibly the stupidest thing they’ve ever done.

Not surprising, seeing as Grian’s at the head of this whole thing.

But Joel’s never been one for playing things safe, so he stabs the hook through the back of his shirt (he tugs on the line a few times, just to make sure it’s secure), then waits for Grian’s signal.

The first time is thrilling. The first time he flies up into the air, lands hard and laughs from the sheer adrenaline. Then he hooks Pearl, and Pearl hooks Etho, and they go up—

And Joel knows he’s in trouble for a split second before he’s dead on the ground.

He wakes up gasping, and there’s fire in his veins, there’s fire spreading all across his body and he wants—he needs to kill Pearl, needs her blood—

He rolls out of bed, scrambling for his chest and spare stuff, and then he hears someone else roll out of bed with a groan.

Joel turns, and Etho’s there, hungry fire in his eyes, and Joel needs him.

He practically tackles Etho, yanking down his mask—his lips are pink and soft and hot against Joel’s mouth, molten and perfect and everything he needs to stoke the burning inside—

Etho pushes him off (gently, somehow), and holds up a hand. Joel, somehow, manages to hold himself back. Etho’s—Etho’s right there—

Etho takes in a deep breath, and when he looks up, his eyes are crinkled in that perfect way and he’s smiling.

“Took you long enough,” he teases, and Joel lunges for him again.

-

Their next kiss is slower than that.

After they kill Pearl, and the pounding bloodlust in his head has quelled a bit, Joel leads the way back to the ship. He leans against the railing—and Etho leans next to him—and they  kiss.

It’s lazy, Joel thinks he would say. But not lazy in the way he might be with a build—skipping details and panning over mistakes—, lazy in a comfortable, staying-in-bed-late kind of way.

He kisses Etho, lazy and lovely, warm in the evening sun. And he really, really doesn’t care if anyone’s watching.

Let them watch, he thinks, with an almost vicious pleasure. Etho’s mine.

That makes something deep in his chest silently purr, almost, and when he pulls away to breathe, he clears his throat in a contented kind of way (not a growl, not a purr, but the closest he can get without outright embarrassing himself). Etho perks up at the sound.

“I forgot to tell you, I figured out what that sound you make reminds me of,” he says, and even the excited way he speaks sounds lazy and perfect.

Joel clears his throat again—and yeah, he does do it a lot, come to think of it. “Yeah? What’s that?”

Etho sighs a little bit, tips his head onto Joel’s shoulder. “A tiger. Have you ever heard a tiger chuff?”

Joel laughs at that—his soulmate thinks he sounds like a tiger chuffing, and it’s the most stupidly adorable thing ever.

“Why are you laughing?” Etho asks playfully, nudging Joel. Joel doesn’t answer, just chuckles and clears his throat—or, chuffs like a tiger—and plants a kiss on Etho’s head.

“We could go threaten Scar,” Joel offers after a moment. His blood is starting to boil again, and he knows from lonely experience that only violence can scratch the itch.

Well. Probably only violence. He does notice that it’s a decent bit quieter when he’s aggressively kissing Etho.

Etho stands up straight—taller than Joel when he does that, which is blummin’ obnoxious of him—and slowly, gently, lazily kisses Joel. It’s warm and measured, his tongue teasing at Joel’s slightly parted lips, and it seems to Joel that he only pulls away when he’s memorized the feel of Joel’s lips.

“That sounds like a good date,” he murmurs.

Joel grins, and Etho grins back, his eyes all crinkled, and Joel takes off at a run to swing himself over the opposite railing and climb down the ladder.

Etho catches up moments later, mask fixed back on his face, and Joel pulls out his spyglass to check out where the residents of that giant cake-thing are.

They’re right beside it, as it turns out.

“Scar’s holding a flint n’ steel,” Joel warns, shoving his spyglass in his pocket. “He already took down the Ranch, we might want to be careful of that.”

Etho only scoffs. “If the ship burns, everything burns.”

Unsurprisingly, Joel finds he agrees with that—not that he can ever imagine disagreeing with Etho. He nods.

“If the ship burns, everything burns.”

-

And after everything burns, they burn too.

They’re dying, Joel had come through the portal to find lava and pain, and he screams for Etho to turn back but even if he had they’d still be dead—

He doesn’t even have the chance to glance back at his lover before he burns.

He drifts for a little while, the bitter disappointment of his loss somehow distant when compared to the loss of Etho. The next game will start eventually, and when it does, there’s no way of knowing that Etho will even be there. After all, it’s picked up new players and dropped others as time passed. Joel can’t even remember the original line-up, it’s shifted so much and so many times.

When he lands in the next game, he doesn’t even check his comm before punching apart a tree.

The gimmick isn’t soulmates again, he knows instantly. He’d grown so accustomed to the pull in his chest of Etho that it aches now to not feel him.

(Or maybe that’s just his heart. Same difference, really.)

So Joel tries to put Etho out of his mind and move on with his life. They were never meant to last, anyway. That’s the thing about redstoners and builders—they never work out.

He knew that. He knew they never work out, and he tried to do something with Etho, anyway.

It had been fun while it lasted, of course. It had been . . . perfect, even.

But Joel’s always been a loner, and now that he’s got that Green-life clarity, he can go back to it.

He takes down another tree and has a crafting table and some basic tools put together when someone clears their throat behind him.

Joel jumps, spins around—

Etho’s there, leaning lazily against a tree, and—his eyes are crinkled in that way—

“Miss me?” he teases, and Joel barely has time to drop his wooden pick before he’s storming over, pushing Etho against the tree, tearing his mask down—

The kiss is hard and messy, teeth clicking together and lips sliding apart, and when Joel pulls away to gasp in some air, Etho’s cheeks are flushed and lips bruised and he’s still got that blummin’ smile.

“Right,” Joel breathes.

“Wanna build us a house while I go mining?” Etho offers, and forget whatever loser thoughts Joel had been moping about with! He’s got Etho, there’s no need to be on his own anymore.

Maybe they can even win it, this time. After all, they’re together from the start here. No more acting like an idiot about wanting to be alone or whatever.

Joel watches Etho head off into a cave, stone pick hefted over his shoulder, and can’t help the way his heart skips a beat.

Etho’s his, and when everything burns, they burn together.

[raccoonfallsharder]

go to frickin' bed ✩࿐࿔ (the captain says to)

hey kiddo. snuggle up in your favorite blanket. drink some sleepytime tea. stop doomscrolling. let rocket put on his dad-glasses and read you a bedtime story. captain's orders.

in honor of it being finals season for many of you, i'm resharing the go to frickin' bed already drabble/minific from ✩࿐࿔ take what you need here, in full. ao3 version here.

fluff | gn reader | no use of y/n | drabbles | word count: 737.

You almost don’t hear him at first.

“Hey.” Rock snaps his fingers at you. “You with me?”

“Mmm?” You pick your eyes up from your work, and you’re surprised by how much they weigh. “Sorry? What?”

Rocket’s standing next to the couch, staring at you. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just catching up on some stuff,” you tell him, grimacing down at the Terran laptop cradled on your thighs. You close your eyes in annoyance, and wonder if you can get away with just, like, not opening them again.

“You look like shit.”

“And you know how to turn on the sweet-talk,” you say mildly.

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

You frown and reach for your coffee mug - take a sip before you realize it’s room-temperature, and grimace. You set the caffeine back down. “I don’t know. Like…” You try to calculate when you went to bed, then adjust for the time you probably spent scrolling on your phone, and compare it to when your alarm went off this morning. “Like, maybe fourish hours? Could’ve been five, but I woke up in the middle and it was hard to turn my brain off.”

His carnelian eyes narrow, and his ears flick toward you. “Aren’t you Terran humies supposed to get, like, seventeen hours of sleep or something?”

You choke. “What? No. That’s, like, cats or something. What the hell?”

“Well, how many, then?”

“Like - eight. Ideally. But I think some people need more and some need less.”

He eyes you witheringly. “I can tell you right now, you ain’t one of the ones who needs less.”

An exhausted laugh stumbles up your ribs and over your lips. “You’re such an ass.”

His eyes are still narrowed, tracking you. He pulls a thin piece of tech out of his pocket, then looks at you. “When d’you gotta get up tomorrow?”

You pull up your calendar. “God. Uh. Probably in like – ten hours?”

He holds up a clawed finger. “I’ll be back in one. Then I’m taking you to bed.”

You clutch imaginary pearls. “Buy me dinner first, dude.”

“Ohhh,” he drawls. “I see. You got jokes.” He’s still brandishing that single, sharp-clawed finger, extending his arm till it’s an inch away from the tip of your nose. “One hour. Get your shit together and in a good place to stop by then.” He snags your coffee mug. “And no more of this frickin’ poison tonight.” He gives you that stupid wink of his and turns to swagger away before tossing over his shoulder, “Captain’s orders.”

“Geeezus,” you groan, but as soon as he’s rounded the corner, you start trying to figure out what you can do before it’s time to wrap up. When Rocket gets an idea in his head, it’s not like you can do anything to stop him.

Sure enough, he’s back – too soon. You’d lost track of time once again, which is probably why you never go to bed at a reasonable hour in the first place.

What’s surprising isn’t that he’s back, but that he has a mug in his hands. From here, you can smell something peppermint-sweet, and you know it’s the Usarkian bedtime tea that Mantis brings you whenever she passes by Knowhere.

“C’mon,” he says impatiently, and you sigh and close your laptop. He stops you before you can bundle everything up in your arms, soundlessly handing you the tea while he collects your belongings and gestures for you to follow him with a brisk nod of his head. You sip the tea carefully as you trail after him – but he waits while you drink it, while you brush your teeth and get changed. “In,” he orders.

You want to tell him, This is fuckin’ ridiculous – but it’s also kind of nice. Meekly, you slide into bed, and he fully tucks you in, pulling the blankets up to your chin. Your eyes must be huge, but you let him, and you might think you had already fallen asleep and that this is all a dream – except he’s scowling and grumbling I gotta take care of everything around here while he fusses with the blankets, and that’s how you know he hasn’t been bodysnatched or something.

“All right,” he says gruffly. “I’m turnin’ out the lights.”

That brandished claw is back.

“And put your frickin’ phone-thing away, or I’ll turn off the Terran internet. You know I will.”

remember: brains don't retain jackshit without sleep, nutrients, and moments of rest.

you got this. you're gonna win your finals.

check the ✩࿐࿔ take what you need masterlistfor more self-care reminders, including eat somethin, take a fuckin study break, and drink some goddamn water (yeah that still means you).

[scyllas-revenge]

I've been encountering post comments of people flipping out over the Bridgerton S3 teaser clip where Anthony sneaks a kiss on Kate while dancing in front of the ton. It made me realize that Boromir was quite bold and brazen with the way he interacted with Reader (Aerdis) in "Breathe".

Getting so close and intimate, publicly, with a lady who was not his wife or even anything?? All the pearl clutching!! 👀😂

Real question, though: what are your thoughts, opinions, or headcanons about social protocols and restrictions in Gondor/Minas Tirith regarding interactions between unmarried men and women? Do you see it as a climate similar to the Regency Era, or something less restrictive? I guess it wasn't super conservative, considering the Farawyn public canoodling... unless that was a great scandal in itself. 😂

Oooh I love this question! (and I'm so excited for Bridgerton S3!!) Here are entirely too many of my thoughts XD

You know how much I love your Breathe fic, and I think acting a bit outside of social norms fits Boromir very well- he seems like the type to feel every emotion very intensely, and while he's very aware of social norms, he's not going to let them get in his way for long. (be still my heart, fetch me my smelling salts at once)

That being said I don't personally imagine Gondorian society to be quite as restrictive as regency-era England, just because the regency era was SO restrictive. There were SO many social taboos and particular ways you had to navigate social settings, and while I'm not an expert on them all, a lot of aspects of Jane Austen's books still stand out to me as just insane, like never referring to your spouse by their first name, even when you're just chilling at home with your kids. No hand touching if you're not wearing gloves, no dancing with someone more than twice in one setting (unless you're making your intentions VERY clear), etc. And alongside that, you get a lot of class restrictions too, like only certain pastimes being considered "proper," and everything from manners of speaking and sitting and chewing your food can mark you as uncouth and poor (I'm thinking of Emma here, and all the minute ways Emma has to teach Harriet to be an upstanding member of society. It's exhausting!).

I think some of these taboos would carry over to Gondor, like needing a chaperone to hang out with a person of the opposite sex before you're engaged, and minimal touching or displays of affection (and yes, I think the Farawyn kiss was VERY scandalous, people were probably gossiping about that one for ages lol). But some of the smaller more restrictive social norms of regency society probably don't apply (unless I want them to, for heightened drama).

Overall, I'm going to say that 1. social norms probably are bent out of whack a bit both during and a while after the war, just because people had more important things to worry about, and 2. Boromir and Faramir are a half-step away from royalty in Gondor, so their behavior probably gets a pass most of the time anyway.

As for the class restrictions, I think once again Boromir gets to bend a lot of rules here- he's probably very aware of how other nobles behave vs commoners, but I don't think he cares much and is probably a bit sick of all the hoops higher-class people have to jump through just to navigate a basic social situation. I also think that, because he's a soldier, he's more attuned to the rest of his citizens than other nobles might be. Plus he's had to cook his own meals, take care of his own horse, clean and sharpen his own weapons, mend his own clothes while on the road, etc. Nothing is beneath him by now. That was probably true for a lot of people during the war regardless of wealth or class, so I'm imagining a bit of the class division kind of dissolving, at least temporarily, after the war. Everyone emerged from it in different places with a different view of the world than when they started.

Finally, I personally really like the idea of some Ancient Roman influence on Gondor (they have aqueducts, I just know it! And I love the idea of Gondorian women wearing those Ancient Roman woven hairstyles) but unfortunately I haven't been able to find much on Ancient Roman societal norms online outside of how they approach meals (which we can tell from the books and films doesn't really apply anyway). So that idea might be a bit of a dead end.

Anyway, thanks for the ask!!! And sorry I wrote such a long rambling response, but you hit me with such an interesting question XD I couldn't help it!

[owladaptive]

Man I am just absolutely in love with this au. Couple more questions:

Is Huey still super-involved with the Junior Woodchucks?

Does Daisy ever make her way into the family?

Yes and no. And here's the explanation why!

Anybody who's watched the OG Addams Family sitcom from all the way back in the 60's might remember the episode "Morticia and the Psychiatrist". That episode is memorable because it featured one of the children, for once, stepping away from the Addams lifestyle to try out - you guessed it - the boy scouts. I just think it's too perfect not to replicate for Huey.

There comes a day in McDuck Manor when Dewey and Louie come sprinting downstairs in a panic because "something's wrong with Huey!!". They are beside themselves with worry. And once the whole family peeks one by one through the bedroom door, everyone else is worried too. Huey has discovered the Jr Woodchucks and is learning everything he can. He's going outside in the SUNLIGHT. He's helping old ladies cross the street! He's playing (*clutches pearls*) Base. Ball.

But because this is the most loving and functional family in the world, they agree to support Huey in his new hobby for however long it takes for him to snap out of it. It takes far too long, the adults having quiet, intense, whispered conversations behind closed doors questioning whether they're doing the right thing for him. And the kids try in vain to get Huey back to jerry-rigging dangerous machines and chewing up the curtains like he used to. But it's for nought, to everyone's despair, and eventually Huey goes away to camp leaving everyone at home to dab at their eyes for their poor, obviously sick boy.

This is where the narrative of the sitcom ends, though. Because when Huey gets back from camp, a whole week early, he's deeply upset. He had been shunned and treated badly by everyone at the camp! He hadn't even done anything bad, he cries! He had only bitten a few kids, lit some uncontained fires, hotwired a truck, wrestled some wolves and rigged an explosion to go off in the lake!! And they responded by punishing him, banning him from the Woodchucks forever, and sending him home. All while the rest of the kids called him names!

Needless to say the family is relieved. And OUTRAGED!

2. Yes, Daisy comes around.

Like everyone, she's much the same character. Not quite a Morticia, but a woman who knows what she wants. Turns out she's really into slightly crazed sailors that smell like fish and kelp who fall MADLY in love with her. I'll talk more about Daisy in the other ask I got about her, since this got a little long. But thanks for asking!

[errorryx]

the lamb & the knife

read on ao3 | limited life, pearl & cleo, 1.8k words

a gratuitous fanon interpretation of cleo and pearl's sixth episodes based on this post, because i was feeling silly. cleo summons a war goddess for revenge purposes, and pearl isn't willing to sacrifice her cat.

warning for brief gory/visceral descriptions (i put the zombie in zombiecleo)

“Just a heads-up,” Cleo called across the small canyon between their bases. “Tonight I’m going to summon the goddess of war to my service.”

Pearl had been watching them approach from the top of her hastily-constructed stone wall. She’d never heard of a goddess of war, but it might explain the war paint Cleo had been sporting the last few days. “What does that mean, exactly?” she asked.

“Oh,” Cleo said, tilting their head. “You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t.” It felt like a trap, but as usual, Pearl’s curiosity got the better of her. She hopped down from the wall, ignoring the pain of impact in her soles as she climbed up the tiny gorge. “Can you tell me about it?”

Cleo grinned sharply, like she’d won something. “It’s very simple,” she said. “At moonhigh, I’ll call on the goddess of war to take over my body and enact my revenge. I’m going to draw a circle, make an offering, and win her favor.”

“Right,” Pearl said, as if this was all very normal. Maybe it was. Maybe she’d been out of the loop this whole time, while people had been summoning goddesses left and right under her nose. “What kind of offering are we talking about here?”

Cleo barked a laugh, making Pearl scowl. “If you’re thinking of trying it for yourself, Pearl, I doubt you have the sort of thing she’s looking for.”

“Which is?” Pearl pressed.

“Spoils,” Cleo said. “Yours or another’s.”

Spoils. Pearl frowned. “How am I supposed to get spoils in a game where people don’t drop their stuff when they die?”

“Oh, not that kind of spoils,” Cleo said dismissively. She rested her hand against the awful crevice in her side, then began to slide her fingers in. Pearl quickly looked away. “This is exactly what I mean. If you can’t even look at what I’m trying to show you, you don’t have much hope of obtaining a war goddess’s favor, now, do you?”

“Did you already forget who won last time?” Pearl asked. “I’m not sure why you think a war goddess would give you the time of day when I’m here. How many people have you killed again?”

Now it was Cleo’s turn to scowl. “We’ll just have to see who’s got the better offering, won’t we?”

Pearl lifted her chin. “I guess we will.”

“Between you and me…” Cleo took a step back, still clutching her side, and slowly began to draw something out from within—some kind of awful blackened tube, smelling strongly of rot and mildew. Pearl nearly gagged when she finally figured out what it was, but she pressed her lips together and held her breath instead. “I think I’ve got the upper hand,” Cleo said. “That’s what a goddess craves, you know. Carnage.”

She turned on her heel and walked back to the clock tower, her own entrails dangling in the dust behind her.

Pearl made a sputtering, disgusted noise, scrambling back to her tower. If Cleo was going to make an offering to a goddess, she’d just have to beat her to the punch.

She ran down the stairs of her strip mine, pausing at the spot that led to the ravine where she’d killed Jury—Judge Jury—whatever stupid name Jimmy had given the frog. She didn’t remember. All she remembered was watching the poor stupid creature fall to its death when she’d kicked the ground out from under it. She hopped down to the floor of the ravine, digging around in the rubble until she found—

Nothing. The frog was nothing but dust. Bodies rotted so fast in these games, she doubted she’d be able to use anything from another player, not unless she happened to kill them right in the center of her circle and do the ritual immediately after. Or maybe she could do it while they were still alive, but she’d have to find something that would sit in her circle long enough to make it work.

Pearl grimaced. She knew exactly what she could get to sit in the center of her circle and not move, but she didn’t like it. She went back upstairs to draw her circle, making it as even and symmetrical as possible, then starting on the inside. Summoning circles were meant to have five-pointed stars inside them, weren’t they? She started on the first point of the star, dragging her stick of chalk almost all the way to the center, before realizing she needed a reference point in the middle. She drew a tiny circle and connected the edges of her first point, then started on the other four.

Once she was finished, Pearl set down her chalk, dusted off her hands, and looked over at her unsuspecting cat, who watched silently from across the room. “Pspsps, Froggy,” she called quietly, “come here, baby.” Froggy’s head perked up, and she delicately rose to her feet and trotted right over to Pearl’s side, curling up in a ball at her feet. “That’s right,” Pearl told her adoringly. “Such a good kitty.”

Froggy gave a gentle purr and closed her eyes. Pearl scratched gently at her kitten’s ears and under her chin, watching Froggy’s breathing gradually slow into sleep.

Pearl sat back with a sigh. It would be a simple task to nudge Froggy into the circle, but she still couldn't bring herself to sacrifice her cat. Besides, there was a decent chance that she’d done something wrong, or that Cleo had made the whole thing up just to mess with her. She got to her feet, letting Froggy rest. “Goddess, if you’re listening,” she said, “could I get some kind of sign that I’m doing this correctly? Anything, really.”

She took a look at her circle. From this angle, her improvised pentagram didn’t look much like a star after all. With the smaller circle in the middle, it more closely resembled a flower with five pointy petals.

Maybe it was a sign from the heavens, or maybe it was just her habit of lunacy when the moon was high, but Pearl was struck by sudden inspiration. She climbed up the ladder to the chest room.

BigB was sound asleep on the floor above her, and Pearl could just barely hear his quiet snoring. She tiptoed over to one of the chests and lifted the lid as slowly as she could so as not to disturb him. For a moment she contemplated drawing a second circle, right around BigB’s bed, but she decided against it. Maybe as a last resort.

She only found three flowers in the chests: a poppy, a rose bush, and a lilac. If she were a goddess, Pearl didn’t think she’d be very impressed. Since there were five points to her star, she grabbed a couple dark oak saplings to complete the set. Somehow it just felt right.

By the time she returned to the ground floor, she’d developed a recurring yawn and her eyelids were growing heavy. Pearl never seemed to get enough sleep in these games, and this time was no exception. She knelt down in the center of the circle and arranged the flowers and saplings, one at each point of the star, leaving a space for herself in the center without really thinking. With a shrug, she lay down and stretched out across the stone and gravel floor.

If the goddess wasn’t impressed by the flowers, maybe she’d be impressed by Pearl offering not just some useless internal organ, but all of herself.

Or maybe it would just get her killed. Pearl didn’t know what to expect, but either way, she’d made her peace with it. She was much too tired to stay awake until moonhigh, but she hoped the goddess would accept her offering anyway.

She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

—

“Cleo.”

Cleo grinned, looking up from where she knelt in front of her meticulously-drawn summoning circle. “Hi, Gem.”

“Cleo, what is wrong with you?” Gem stood in the center of the circle, the partially-decomposed intestine dangling from her pinky finger. “Why did you give me this? I don’t want this! Couldn’t you have slaughtered a fattened calf or something?”

“It was just to get a rise out of Pearl,” Cleo said. “Who may or may not be attempting her own ritual tonight, so you’d better hurry up and grant me your favor before you get pulled off to her place instead. Knowing her, her offering might be even worse than mine.”

Gem wrinkled her nose. “Alright, you’ve got my favor, then. Who do you want me to kill? Pearl, I’m guessing?”

“Eh.” Cleo shrugged. “Pearl’s not a priority. It’s Etho I really want dead.”

Gem’s eyes lit up and her hoof stomped eagerly against the ground. “Say no more.”

“He’s also my husband,” Cleo warned. “Or ex-husband. It goes back and forth.”

“Horrifying.” Gem stuck out her hand, and Cleo took it, rising to their feet and stepping within the borders of the circle. “You’ve got a sword for me, right?”

“Of course.”

Gem embraced them, folding into them until she disappeared completely. When she next spoke, the words came out of Cleo’s mouth.

“Then I’ll be sure to collect child support,” she said. “One way or another.”

—

BigB woke in the middle of the night from some sort of humming sound downstairs that shook the whole tower. He jumped to his feet, immediately searching for his sword, before looking across the room at Pearl’s bed, empty and untouched.

His shoulders sagged with relief. If Pearl wasn’t asleep yet, it probably meant she was the one making the noise. But he just as quickly tensed up again, because he couldn’t think of anything she might be doing that would cause it. What if she was in danger? “Pearl?” BigB called, beginning to climb down the ladder. “Where are you?”

“Down here,” chirped a voice from below that was definitely not Pearl’s.

When he got to the bottom, BigB turned around to see Pearl standing in the center of a large flower drawn in chalk on the floor, with flowers in her hair and a very peculiar sparkle in her eyes. “Pearl?” he asked hesitantly, backing up a few steps.

“Not quite,” Pearl said, her lips moving in time to the voice that wasn’t hers—a voice that, now that he thought about it, sounded familiar. “Come on now, BigB. Don’t you recognize your queen?”

—

if you read this all the way through and enjoyed, please consider reblogging!

[dragonflylady77]

a frankly ill-timed visit

Remember The Harringrove Husbands text post? And the teaser I posted after?

Well, it's time. I just posted Burrito Steve on Ao3 (or you can read it below the cut).

Oh and it's a present for @shieldofiron <3

Steve's parents show up unexpectedly and Steve can't be bothered dealing with them and their endless questions

Steve stretches as he wakes up, arm reaching beside him to find the bed is cold. He knows it’s not very late by the way the sun doesn’t quite reach into the room yet. Billy always gets up so early, even when they’re up half the night making love to each other.

Steve yawns and stretches as he finishes waking up. His body is sore in that pleasurable way that says ‘I had a really good time last night’. He can smell the enticing aroma of fresh coffee and slowly realises that the noise he can hear coming from downstairs is actually voices.

Plural.

Confused as to who would show up this fucking early on a Sunday morning, he gets off the bed and casts a quick glance around the room for something to wear. His pyjama pants are nowhere to be found even though he remembers placing them on the chair by his desk the previous morning. They undressed each other on the way up to the bedroom last night so for once there are no clothes on the floor. Not in this room anyway.

He catches his reflection in the mirror, taking a second to admire the trail of hickeys Billy left on his skin. They start by his collarbone and disappear in the hair covering his chest to reappear along his ribcage and down to his hip bone. Steve smiles as he remembers what happened after Billy reached there, a shudder of desire for the other man going through him like lightning.

He needs to find Billy. They need to christen the kitchen all over again. Billy will probably take some convincing because breakfast is like the most important meal of the day or something but Steve is pretty sure he can derail Billy. A morning blowjob should do the trick.

Simple plans are usually the best.

The voices coming from downstairs are getting louder so Steve pulls the white sheet off the bed. Wrapping himself in it, he heads out of his room and down the hallway. He stops at the top of the stairs, shocked when he recognises the voice of his father.

“What the fuck?” he whispers to himself, slowly making his way down the stairwell, staying close to the wall so the people in the kitchen can’t see him, listening intently.

“For the last time, you need to leave, right now, or I will ring the police and you can explain to them what you are doing here.”

“I have told you already,” Billy says, his tone very flat. “I live here.”

Steve is very proud of Billy for not raising his voice but he can hear the thread of anger in his love’s voice.

“This is ridiculous. I think I’d know if someone like you lived in my house!”

Billy snorts and Steve knows he’s rolling his eyes. “I’ve been living here for three years and we’ve never met. No disrespect, but I don’t think you have a clue, sir.”

Steve bites his lips to stop a laugh at the way Billy says ‘sir’ because there was nothing respectful about it, and why would there be. Steve’s not sure what exactly his dad meant by ‘someone like you’ but it’s clearly nothing flattering.

“That’s it, I’m calling the police.”

That’s my cue.

Steve pulls away from the wall and enters the kitchen, clutching the sheet around his waist, trying not to trip like that other time.

Billy, wearing Steve’s missing pyjama bottoms and nothing else, grins when he spots him then goes back to pouring them a coffee, totally ignoring the older man in a suit who is still glaring at him.

“Dad, I would appreciate it if you could refrain from calling the police on my husband.” Steve uses his more boring tone and it has the desired effect.

His father’s hand stills on the screen of his extremely expensive cell phone and his face turns pale.

“Steven! What do you mean, husband?” Mrs Harrington exclaims, clutching her pearls and, oh my God, could she be any more stereotypical? He wonders how he never noticed before. Oh yeah, because his parents are never fucking there.

Steve walks around the kitchen island to come stand next to Billy. His golden skin is equally marred with hickeys and Steve’s heart fills up with pride.

“How-how long have you two been married?” Steve’s mother asks while his father is still staring, looking like he might pass out.

“What’s the time?” Steve gratefully takes the mug of coffee that Billy hands him and gives him a quick peck on the lips. Proper kissing will have to wait until his parents are not in the room. “Thanks, babe.”

“Eight a.m.” His father slowly puts his phone back in his jacket pocket and turns fully towards Steve and Billy.

“So that’s…” Steve tries to work out how long since the ceremony the day before but maths was never his strong suit.

“Sixteen hours, pretty boy,” Billy says, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Thanks baby,” Steve says again, smiling at Billy before addressing his parents. “We’ve been married for sixteen hours.”

“Steven MiddleName Harrington, explain yourself.”

Steve bristles when his father uses his full name. He’s not a fucking child anymore. He sees Billy rolling his eyes behind his parents and bites his lip to stop smiling. He tightens the sheet around his waist, boner a distant memory. Ugh.

“We met, we fell in love and yesterday we got married.” Steve takes another sip of coffee. Billy makes it perfectly every time, just like he likes it, three sugars and a dash of milk.

Steve makes an appreciative noise, absently scratching his chest with his free hand. He looks up when he hears a low groan to find Billy’s eyes fixed on him.

He stifles a laugh. Billy has been obsessed with the thick mat of hair growing on his chest since he stopped waxing it once they finished high school.

“Since when are you gay?” Mrs Harrington asks, a confused look on her face, bringing Steve back to the present.

“I’m bisexual, actually, Mom,” Steve corrects her without offering any other clarification.

Like Billy said, it’s been over three years since he saw his parents in person, a bit less since they talked on the phone so Steve reckons that doesn’t give them any right to pry into his life.

“I’m gay, though,” Billy adds because he enjoys stirring the pot and Steve loves him for it.

Steve glances at Billy who does that thing with his tongue and Steve wants nothing more than to bury his hands in Billy’s curls and pull him in for a kiss.

“Yes, Billy’s gay.”

His parents turn an interesting shade of green.

“Why are you here?” Steve drains the last of his coffee and wonders whether his parents would fuck off quicker if he dropped the sheet and bent Billy over the kitchen counter.

“We missed you.”

“I haven’t seen you in three fucking years, so try again, why are you here now? Today, of all days?”

“Steven! Language!”

Steve rolls his eyes at his mother, putting the empty coffee mug on the counter. He’s had just about enough.

“I’m twenty-three, Mother, and your frankly ill-timed visit is getting in the way of my morning after fuck fest with my husband.”

The Harrington couple gasp at their son’s words and Steve decides he quite enjoys shocking his parents. They kinda deserve it, he reckons.

Billy walks over to wrap his arms around Steve’s waist and pulls him close, dropping a noisy kiss on his neck. “Awww, Stevie, you say the sweetest things. I was gonna make breakfast for you.”

Steve feels his cock starting to react to Billy’s closeness. It’s time to wrap up this shit show.

“Mom, Dad, I’m gonna take my husband upstairs now, we’ll get dressed and get out of your hair. We’re all packed up anyway, shouldn’t take too long.”

“What do you mean, packed up? Where are you going?” his mother asks and Steve turns to her with a happy grin.

“I’m moving out, of course. You can hardly expect me to live in my parents’ house with my husband.”

“Were you going to tell us?” His father’s tone is brisk and cold.

Steve doesn’t care what his father thinks of him anymore.

“I figured you’d find out eventually.” He shrugs and leans back on Billy, tightening his grip on the sheet he is wrapped up in because Billy is pressing his erection against Steve’s ass and it is taking all of Steve’s tenuous concentration to pretend it isn’t happening. “Now if you’ll excuse us…”

Steve grabs a laughing Billy’s hand and pulls him away from the kitchen, ignoring the outraged cries of his parents.

Billy laughs even louder when Steve drops the sheet on the third step and they race each other up the stairs and down the hallway to Steve’s childhood bedroom.

Taglist because I forgot: @robthegoodfellow

@prettyboybillyhargrove @cieldepeanut @lovebillyhargrove @every-dayiwakeup @ouizzyharringrove @ringringbitxh @persephone13

Let me know if you wanna be tagged and I'll add you (I'm not sure how to do this properly but I'll work it out)

[diaaatv]

Days of you and me

Pairing: Jackson! Joel x F!Reader

Inspiration: Future Days- Pearl Jam

Warnings: TLOU 2 SPOILERS, just sad as fuck tbh.

You could feel the sun dancing through the window of your home. The wind gently rustling the trees outside. In all senses of the word, it was a beautiful day. A proper spring day. Not too cold. Not too hot. Perfect. Rolling over to face the window, you swore you could hear the sound of a guitar playing outside of the small suburban home. Getting up out of bed, your bare feet padded across the hardwood floor as you approached the window. As you looked outside, there he was, perched on a spare log, strumming away at his guitar. Smiling to yourself, you gently placed your palm against the glass, simply admiring for all that he was.

A living, breathing work of art. The entire world went still as you watched your husband do what he did best, simply living. Unable to contain yourself. You grabbed his coat and made your way down to the kitchen and grabbed two fresh cups of coffee. Warm and rich, just like him. All bundled up in his coat, you made your way outside, making sure to keep your eyes on the mugs and the ground as you walked so you wouldn’t be the victim of a stray rock or twig, and go tumbling down. Keeping your breath steady, you followed the sound of the guitar. However, as you made your way over to him, you began to hear his voice in the wind.

“If I ever were to lose you

I'd surely lose myself…”

You have always admired Joel’s singing voice, it was rich and deep like Tennessee whiskey. It was home to you. The scent of coffee filled your senses as you followed his voice, still not yet looking up, for Joel had always been your Compass. Something to follow when you felt lost. The light you looked for in the darkness, despite your version to the fireflies.

“Everything I have found dear

I've not found by myself

Try and sometimes you'll succeed

To make this man of me

All my stolen missing parts

I've no need for anymore.”

You always knew that Joel sang the song for you. It was his way of expressing how much he loved you, even when it got difficult to verbalize his feelings. However, these moments where you got to see Joel vulnerable, filled your mind, body and soul with pride. Pride in the life you had built with him. Joining in, you felt your chest swell with warmth.

“I believe

And I believe 'cause I can see

Our future days

Days of you and me”

You felt the way that Joel’s fingers masterfully worked the strings of the guitar. The one he had made. With your back turned to the log he was sitting on, you stared back up at the house. The place you had built your entire life. A rebirth of the one you lost on outbreak day. Before you knew it, you felt hot tears begin to stream down your cheeks as you hugged Joel’s coat closer to your ever freezing body. In that moment, you swear you felt his arms rap around you. A sensation you had lost that day. The day that Abby took him away from you. Oh, how desperately you wanted him to kiss your forehead and tell you it was going to be all right one last time.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re still here…”

You whispered, the autumn wind, carrying your voice and fallen leaves in a lovesick dance. Almost as if the wind was delivering a message to Joel. Reaching out to him. Looking towards the horizon, you swear you could smell his cologne on the breeze. Deep down a part of you knew he never truly left you. You know that he couldn’t do that. For all of the time you two had spent together, he was all over you. He protected you from the hell outside of Jackson. He had given you a life. Opened himself up for you to love him. Before you knew it, your sobs echoed through the silent Autumn air as you clutched hugged yourself, wearing his coat. If you listened hard enough to the wind, it was as though he was reminding you that he was there and that he loved you.

You stayed outside for several hours. Sipping a coffee like you would when he was still here. Before that day, the two of you had made it a point to spend time together in the morning. To wake up together. To live together. To honor him, you didn’t let that time in the morning go to waste. Grabbing his guitar, you immediately remembered that he taught you how to play future days. How to play your song. Taking a deep breath, you gently placed your fingers on the fretboard and began to play, your soft voice echoing through the backyard.

“Back when I was feeling broken

I focused on a prayer

You came deep as any ocean

Did something out there hear?

All the complexities and games

No one wins, but somehow, they're still played

All the missing crooked hearts

They may die, but in us they live on..”

As you sang, you heard the back door open. Glancing over, there she was. Ellie. Clearly exhausted from her lack of sleep, she wordlessly sat down next to you and rested her head on your shoulder. You knew Joel would’ve been beyond ecstatic to see her. You knew deep down that Ellie considered him her dad, and Joel considered her his daughter. It was beautiful.

“I believe

And I believe 'cause I can see

Our future days

Days of you and me

When hurricanes and cyclones raged

When wind turned dirt to dust

When floods they came or tides they raised

Ever closer became us

All the promises at sundown

I've meant them like the rest

All the demons used to come 'round

I'm grateful now they've left

So persistent in my ways

Hey angel, I am here to stay

No resistance, no alarms

Please, this is just too good to be gone

I believe

And I believe 'cause I can see

Our future days

Days of you and me

You and me

Days of you and me”

As you strummed the final chord, you felt Ellie’s ever silent tears soaking your shoulder. Gently setting Joel’s guitar down against the wood, you wordlessly wrapped your arms around her.

“I miss him…”

She whispered, her voice dry and soft from the sheer amount of crying she had done in the past several weeks.

“I know, honey. I know.”

You spoke softly, gently stroking her hair. And in that moment, you swear you heard Joel’s voice.

“I love you, sugar…”

You smiled softly as you imagine him sitting with his arms around you and Ellie. His arms around his girls.

“I love you too, Joel.”

[tactician]

OCS + Associations

thank you bree @sangre for the tag :3 hugging hugging hugging

im gonna do this for reides, my dnd oc!

animal

seahorses! symbolically, they are linked to balance and adaptability, which i see a lot with reides in regards to how he navigates both the lands and seas. they're also associated with freedom and creativity, which are major themes to reides' character as a whole. plus they're so cute and reides is cute, too. teehee.

colors

blues, silvers, light purples! and, of course, green... his older brother calls him seaweed-head, so there's gotta be a green association in there... DFJKDJG

month

january! the first month of the year; cold, but in a renewing and refreshing sort of way. a new beginning!!! a new experience!!! and so many new possibilities existing in front of you!!! the level of expectations placed on january also aligns with the sort of burdens that reides had placed on him as well.

songs

chasing kites - ​iamamiwhoami! over the ocean outcast, with nowhere to go / a brighter forecast, new winds will blow / the storm that's drawing near / it calms and the air is cleared. i have a huge playlist for reides which can be found here too.

number

16! he was born on firstlight 16 so that might be where i get that association from lmao.

plants

lotus flowers! i think lotus flowers really suit reides. even the way that they grow - rising out of water to bloom; existing in that beautiful margin between the aquatic and the earthen - is so... him. they also symbolize rebirth, which i think is very much aligned with the sort of stuff that reides went through when he initially ventured to the surface world (and kind of ties into the stuff i talked about for the month portion of this too!)

smells

i'm aware that it's a slight cop-out to say the ocean, but, like, heres the thing: the ocean! LMAO. that salty sort of kick is super reides; the scent of the sea at dawn, that crispness, not dainty or elegant but effortlessly evocative... yeah. that's reides. he usually smells like that naturally. like the sea, plain soap, and ink.

gemstones

larimar, pietersite and pearls as well! also, i know they're not gems per se, but i also associate sea glass with reides a whole lot. they're gems to ME!!!

time of day

dawn! the very moment that the sun starts rising; when stars and maybe even the moon are still visible in the sky. as you can see, i really like associating reides with existing in between or on the border of various things fdkjdljg. i also think reides stays up really late typically so he's no stranger to being awake at this time LMAO

season

winter! ok im a little weird with this one so bear with me...... i really enjoy associating reides with coldness since he's such a sweet, passionate person and i like the idea of his optimism existing alongside the cold; i like the idea of the cold being a comfort instead of depressing or stoic or serious. bc for reides, the cold IS a comfort!!!! it gives him clarity and energizes him. it reminds him of his home seas and it empowers him.

places

on the beach, skipping alongside the waves; laughing, with a book clutched to his side; fingers stained with ink and hair windswept from the briny breeze!

foods

oysters, mussels, all of that sort of thing - juicy seafood that tastes best when you eat it with your bare hands. salty, rich flavours!

drinks

a nice rum with lime mixed in... that's reides right there. blue daiquiris are these things and also, as the name suggests, blue - and that's fun and would delight reides, so i think if he was a cocktail he'd be that. as for his taste in drinks... reides loves sweet ones the very most - rip currant wine from his home seas is his fav - but he has a soft spot for firewhiskey, too!

element

WATER, BABY!!!!!!! i dont think lightning technically counts as an element but that as well!

seasoning

SEA SALT, BABY!!!!!!!

sky

i think this ties into the time of day prompty really well so i'm pointing up there again hehe.

weather

stormy weather! >:) he is the storm prince, after all... for all his kindness, he is tumultuous and brings change. there's a lot of power to be found in storms, and that power is something that reides is learning to embrace. when he hatched, it was during a crazy storm that really wracked his home seas - and, sometimes, the people there maintain a superstition that baby-reides actually absorbed that storm's power. it's simply wack poetry stuff (that, frankly, used to freak reides out as a kid lmao) but what if they're right. what then.

magical powers

reides is a wizard who specializes in evocation magic, so you know he loves to harness da power of da elements... he especially loves ice and lightning magic. again, if something sounds stormy, he is probably tapping into that power and trying his best to let it surge through him.

weapons

reides' weapon is... the power he extracts from the weave teehee. he has a purple conch shell from home that serves as his arcane focus for all that! but, his magic aside, reides also has a dagger that was fashioned from the pelagic ore of his home seas and a crossbow that he named 'harpoon.'

candy

it's gotta be salt water taffy! reides' fav candy as well as the candy that embodies his nature the absolute best :3

methods of long-distance travel

reides loves boats so much. big ships fascinate him endlessly. he wants to go on them all the time. he fantasizes about being at sea with aske (his boyfriend who is also a sailor / fisherman) all the time.

fear

to let down his people and be an outcast amongst them; to prove that all the people who pelted him with insults were right; to lose his home; to lose his freedom

mythological creature

merfolk is a laughably easy answer I KNOWWW so i will choose something else even if they're by far the first thing my mind leaps to for reidesy DFLDKGDKFH i think selkies are cool too given the nature of their shapechanging o: reides' identity both above and below the seas is something that is fun with me thematically and i think selkies kind of offer a physical representation of that

piece of stationary

a page of a sturdy tome that has notes written all over it!!! and doodles!!! and some of the ink on it has been smudged too!!! yay research!!!

three emojis

🌊⛈️✨

celestial body

reides is definitely a star! shining resolutely through the darkness of night... ✰ i also associate him with the star tarot, so that ties in nicely.

[fizzigigsimmer]

Imagine a modern AU where Billy is an actor and Steve is the frontliner in an indie band called the Demo Crew. They’re not superstars or anything but are pretty blessed to have a really committed fanbase. Demo Crew is contracted to do the soundtrack on Billy’s latest film which is another huge step for them because of the exposure. Steve tweets about how he is awed that any of those studio suits even knew their unusual music but is super grateful for the opportunity and having a blast, and his fans notice that Billy’s official account likes the tweet. But things really heat up during the press tour when their mutual fans start noticing that Billy talks about the films music whenever he can. He’s always bringing questions back around to how the music makes the film and the scenes what they are etc. “It would have been a totally different film without Steve, Eddie and those guys.”

People start to notice things, like the way Billy rarely just says the band’s name but instead singles out the band members or sometimes just Steve. Like he has a personal relationship with them or something, and the (until then) niche Harringrove Shippers come alive like Muchu. They smell a story and they’re on the case. Somebody digs up old photo and video of Billy’s metal head days before he was famous and a whole theory is making the rounds about how he’s behind a certain avatar on the official fan forum “flayed club” and his publicist is forcing him to hide it for the sake of his clean cut image. Somebody else recognizes a bunch of blurry pins that look like they might be ones from the bands merch store in a couple of more recent photos. Controversy starts heating up between the shippers and some of Billy’s more conservative fans because of the dark themes in the music.

“I loved the soundtrack for the film, but lets face it Demo Crews ordinary stuff is kinda twisted. I just don’t think Billy’s the kind of guy who would be into that.”

“Can someone open a window? I can smell the bullshit moral panic from here. Look it’s obvious that even if Billy isn’t behind “Master_Puppet that he is one of the flayed, and you know what? THAT’S OKAY. It’s insane that in this day and age he’s being told he has to hide his interests just to make himself palatable to a bunch of pearl clutching PTA moms.”

Billy speaks up for his poor management team at the next interview. No he’s never been told he has to hide any part of himself and he’s lucky to work with a really great team who look out for him and always encourage him to be true to himself even when that’s hard for him, but he appreciates how passionate the fans are. He only knows a little about it but Flayed Club is a great space and he loves the energy and creativity happening there. Oh of course Jimmy, he’s a huge fan of Demo Crew. Funny story, he’s known for forcing new people he meets to listen to his favorite album. He thought he was taking a shot in the dark when he suggested that their vibe would be perfect for the project, but it turned out Jan over at the studio was also a big fan. Steve likes and reblogs the interview clip and captions it with “best reference we ever got”.

The fandom is on fire. Master_Puppet confirmed! Also Billy is basically the reason the band got hired. Everyone is rabid to know if/how/when Billy met his favorite band, also if he and Steve are friends. I mean, people would ship them anyway because they’d look gorgeous together but really it’s the way Billy always says Steve’s name first and the way he says it. It’s the way that as Billy opens up more on instagram about his past struggles, and why he relates to certain lyrics, that it just seems so in sync with the things that Steve has said about why he wrote them and why the band chooses to explore such dark material. Mashups and compilations with #soulmates trickle from the flayed club out to twitter and tik-tok, until it feels like the whole world is shipping them. “I know they probably don’t even know each other but I just think they’d be perfect together.”

“But isn’t Steve dating @RockinRobin? 😂 I mean, they live together!!!” The hetero police come out in full force to defend Steve’s assumed hetero, offended at the very idea that someone could think two men might get on well together. Robin would never fan a fan war online, Steve, she’s far too busy and adult for that. But she does make a point to dig up the taco earrings Steve got her for Christmas once and wear them with her Lesbi-Honest T-shirt and take a bunch of selfies for the gram. #theothersoulmate

So it’s pure carnage online. Some people are still convinced that this confirmation that Steve and Robin are partners while others are sure she’s directly referencing the flayed and #soulmates. Robins not the only one who seems to like teasing the fans. They’re always hungry for new Harringrove proof and go crazy when Billy and Steve like each other’s posts or interact at all, and sometimes it feels like Steve’s band mates and Billy’s friends will post deliberate references to the soulmate theory. TikTok queen ElevenEmpirePenguins makes a viral video captioned “When all of your friends know you’re in love with them before you do” with a clip from some rom com Billy starred in, and Max puts it on her twitter. Steve’s band mate Eddie comments “Blue Jean Rhapsody” a popular track on their second album under a picture of Billy and his costar Heather. Which leads to fans lamenting that there’s no music video for that song already and theorizing that maybe the band is going to collab with him to create one because that song was like, made for Billy.

There’s fireworks the first time Billy and Steve publicly meet. It’s during awards season, when Billy and the band are both guests on a talk show. Body language experts are popping out of the woodwork to analyze every look and gesture, down to how close they sat together on the couch. Billy looks at Steve like he wants to lick him up and Steve’s got like no chill. He was either just struck by cupid’s bow or possessed by the spirit of a blushing love bug.

“Whoa. Did we just watch Harringrove become reality in real time?!!! 😍”

When the host asks if they’re aware of the soulmate theory, Steve stays on flustered and Billy gets coy. “Oh yeah, well it’s been a whirlwind and there’s not a lot of time to focus on much outside of work. But yeah it’s great. I think people just love to be in love and if it makes them happy to play matchmaker, well that’s fun. As long as it’s not hurting anyone do what makes you happy.”

[faeromancenovels]

Bodies Call (2024) Part Three

“I told you you could talk to him.” Miani swirled her wine in her glass, smugly looking at Aira as they made their plates.

“We barely talked.”

“He ain’t spending that money on just any ole’ body and you know it.”

Her eyes shifted from Mia to Zen, already in the conversation pit rolling up while Johari told another one of his stories. She felt that jealousy again, the wine letting her mind wander so far that she barely noticed their eyes meeting until Mia said her name. 

“Oh bitch.” Miani clutched her pearls, quite literally. “You know I ain’t stupid, right? Y’all fuck before you got here?”

“Mia! No!” The two whisper yelling broke their eye contact. “I swear we didn’t, he waited downstairs.”

        If she had, Aira was sure she wouldn’t have shown up. She reached for a chocolate covered strawberry, biting into it to settle her nerves. 

“Well, you need to handle that, it’s like I can smell the horny in the room.” 

“You’re the one who requested red wine.”

The night carried on harmoniously. Everyone was stuffed, drunk and on their second jay, enjoying the music and each other’s company. The other two guys, Roman and Derek, Johari’s friend’s from back home, were playing uno on one side, and Mia was busy entertaining Kia and Isabella.

It was then that Zen leaned over and passed the jay to her, his hazy eyes slipping down to her lips, a moment she caught. She took it from his hand, muttering her thanks and looking at him with shy, but equally hazy eyes. The smoke in the room made his skin look like velvet, and as soon as he looked away long enough, she took her chances eyeing his lips in return.

Another hour went by everyone eventually getting sleepy, the blankets and pillows coming out of all sorts of storage containers. Aira got cozy on the far end of the pit, pulling her bonnet over her curls and pulling out her phone to scroll on for awhile. The cushions next to her sunk down, and her eyes yet again met Zen’s.

“You hitting this?” She didn’t understand how he rolled so quickly, she couldn’t get the hang if it.

“Sure.” She sat up, letting him sit closer to her, Zen taking his chance to get comfortable, his arm thrown over the back side of the couch while he lit the third and last jay of the night.

  Aira sat quietly, admiring the amount of heat coming off of him.

“You really ain’t got a man?” The question caught her off guard, turning more to face him.

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

He smiled, took a drag and passed it to her before he looked at her and muttered,  

“Just surprising. I thought you had one.”

“What’s surprising about it?”

“I only ever see you with Miani. You don’t go out or somethin’?”

            Aira passed the jay back to him, watching him take a longer hit than she had. She could’ve sworn he was getting closer, feeling their sides meld together, she realized he had. 

“Sometimes. I don’t come over on your side of the city that often though.”

“Mm.” He took a moment, blowing the smoke through his nose,  “Slide with me tomorrow night. Miani’s already coming since Johari’s going.” 

“Where? The club?”

“Yeah. Come out, I gotchu,” He passed it back to her, a small smirk on his face, to which Aira looked away from his eyes. 

“You don’t have to do all that, I can pay for my drinks.”

“I know, but I aint ask.”

    She paused, her eyes meeting his again, half of her was a little turned on by his assertiveness, and the other half didn’t want him to know that. She took a hit, maybe two before she spoke again, trying to put her words together. 

“Okay, I’ll go.”

“Here, put your number in my phone.”

Zen wasted no time, and Aira felt a wave of confusion as she took his phone and put in her number. When she handed it back, Zen handed it back again.

“If you don’t gon head and save your number.”

Their silence was, surprisingly, comfortable. Aira felt the space fill with his cologne, sandalwood. She picked the scent out quickly, having recognized it from her  childhood. He always smelled so good, she hated that she broke her neck every time he walked past her.

She hadn’t noticed his eyes on her, a smile on her face that seemed almost accidental.  She couldn’t deny it, she felt the tension between them building, but she wouldn’t make a move, opting to test the waters by leaning into his side. 

  His arm dangled down from the couch, fingers grazing her shoulder before they came to her arm, a new type of heat emitted from her face. The wine was catching up with the weed, a yawn coming from her.

“You mind, if I stay over here?”  

Aira shook her head, closing her eyes for what she thought was only a second.