#pls. pls read it if you haven't

[minhtblue]

a few more doodles based on @mymarifae's (post about vbs being best friends)!

[gideonysis]

annabel lee

@bonesoup69

[kyoyasbirkenstocks]

Y'all remember that post manga special where Haruhi dreamed Kyoya was drugging Huni with growth suppression meds?

[pearlynia]

I need a fic rec, that has

jegulus and marylily raising baby harry

Wolfstar and rosekiller as cool uncles

Dorlene and Pandora as the cool aunts

And DRAMAA. ANGST. FLUFF.

And happy ending cuz I can't handle sad endings

[harmonictechnicality]

Eddie's One Rule

prompt: cake | wc: 311 | rating: T (for language) | for @steddiemicrofic's August prompt :)

Eddie had been perfectly clear on the “No Strippers” rule for his bachelor party. Tacky Las Vegas casino? Sure. Concerning amounts of tequila served in glow-in-the-dark shot glasses? Whatever. Karaoke at a space-themed diner?

… Okay. He’ll admit - that last one sounds fucking awesome. He’s been rehearsing a thrashy rendition of Mr. Roboto for weeks now. In all honesty, strippers were his only veto. 

But here they are, standing in a dimly-lit club that’s not even remotely close to the Vegas strip. 

“Low blow, man. Really.” Eddie gestures to the pole in the center of the room, then back towards Gareth. Should’ve revoked his Best Man privileges while he had the chance. 

Gareth ignores him and yells, “Bring it in, fellas!”

“Bring what in-”

The low strums of ‘I Touch Myself’ by the Divinyls flows through the speakers as the backdoor opens. The rest of Eddie’s wedding party begin rolling out a wooden cart with goddamn cake on it.

And it’s not an ordinary cake - not even an edible one. This one is clearly fake and almost six feet tall.

The cardboard lid pops off, revealing Eddie’s fiancé emerging from the top, fucking shirtless (which is the least surprising part of the evening).

His anger dissolves behind the sound of Steve belting the song, head swaying offbeat. Looking so damn happy. Eddie hasn’t made many good decisions in his life, but Steve is by far his best.

“Still wanna marry me after this little stunt?” Steve asks, pointing at the cake structure around him.

Eddie saunters over, rolling his eyes despite that swirling pulse of love in his chest. Steve automatically bends over from the center. Kisses him, still humming the song as their lips meet. 

“Why wait?” Eddie smiles. He brushes a few strands of Steve’s hair behind his ear and whispers, “We’re in Vegas right now, baby.”

[caelysiiium]

TanFang from We Are คือเรารักกัน (2024) + some of my favourite romantic book quotes

[explosionshark]

Title: it's a long ride (tell me you're ready)

Fandom: arcane (vi/caitlyn)

Note: the draft of this fic lived on gdocs as "arcane toxic smut #2" which i think tells you almost everything you want to know. huge thanks to @chiltongirlsdoitbetter for endless patience in helping me get this one into shape, it would not have been as fun to write or as good to read without her

“We can’t stay here for long. They’ll be coming for us.”

Vi pauses a moment. It seems like a bad idea, but she asks anyway. “Your place?”

Caitlyn grimaces, shakes her head, “That’s the second place they’d look.”

“I’ll save us both the trouble of listening to me offer more suggestions you’ll inevitably shoot down,” Vi says acidly, a brief petty thrill at Caitlyn’s answering scowl. “Something tells me you have an idea already.”

Wincing gingerly, Caitlyn blows out a long breath. “I might know somewhere.” - After the attack on the commune, Vi and Caitlyn need somewhere to lay low before they make their next move.

That place ends up being Maddie Nolen's apartment.

They fuck about it.

LINK TO AO3

[theyoungeragrippina]

✨ 15 gentlebeard fic recs ✨

i have spent the last month trawling the pages of ao3 for you, dear reader, to find the best ofmd fics. all the works on this list:

are longer-form (generally 40k+)

have no steddyhands (simply not my thing)

are generally, all around brilliant (well-written, had me kicking my feet and giggling, laughing, or crying)

are complete!

part 2 and part 3

A Heart Unsated by roughwinds

48k, explicit

"Stede Bonnet has just moved into Orange Crescent. There’s a house on the corner, opposite Stede’s own, with a garden full of flowers and a gleaming motorbike on the driveway. He’s forgotten to buy sugar.

Edward Teach has his morning disturbed by his new neighbour. Enamoured at first sight, he invites Stede round for a chat, and then another, and then another.

This is the story of them."

man i normally avoid fics with lots of alma and louis in them because its just not for me, but literally every second of the family bonding in this was so wholesome i was forced to change my entire mind.

all you left me was a pearl by @sightofsea

88k, mature

"1717. The Golden Age of Piracy. Stede Bonnet sets about wooing the love of his life through any means necessary.

Things do not go as planned."

every day i wish for a precise memory erasing potion to be invented so i can read this again for the first time. i would devour like 2000k more words of this if it was offered to me. brilliant.

forgive & forget by @fool-for-luv

44k, mature

"It hits him then, like a wave breaking on sand, loud as thunder when it crashes, then trickling away into little rivulets flowing back home, murmuring one word over and over and over. Ed.

The problem is, Stede doesn’t recall ever having met anyone named Ed."

so sweet and wonderful, and i wish there was more.

#gentlebeard is trending! by regional_catastrophe

41k, teen

"In which Stede accidentally convinces the pirating world that Gentlebeard (or Blackbonnet or Stedward; there's a poll) is canon, reunites his crew, and gets his boyfriend back."

hilarious & silly & great, but also the most compelling notes of any fic i've ever read. a proper learning experience.

if music be the food of love (then darling, you're a feast) by @fool-for-luv

107k, unrated

"“Hey, so, those two, right, they get together in the end?” Ed asks.

“I would protest spoiling it, but I think it's rather obvious, isn't it?” Stede says. His nose wrinkles as he smiles. “The tension is certainly there from the beginning. It just takes them a while to get there.”

“Good. Would have been a shit story otherwise.""

i love sassy stede and i love ed who is a grump and i love that they share one single braincell at any given time.

If You Were Mine to Keep by @mysterybees

162k, explicit

"Caught between the gallows and the end of an English sword, Ed accepts the Act of Grace: marry into the aristocracy, leave the English ships alone, and live to sail another day. But who in their right mind would ever agree to marry the mad devil pirate Blackbeard?"

Worth every second of tiredness I felt after pulling an all nighter to finish reading.

It's Only Right by hexuponye

53k, explicit

"A modern AU based on Imagine Me & You, in which Edward is a florist who does the flowers for Stede's wedding."

mary gets to be a little silly sometimes too as a treat.

pliocene by unfortunatelyobsessed

75k, mature

""man, it's just ocean for miles.” Ed motions out to the waves, where there is no sign of any sort of ship, their small dinghy pulled far up on the sand. “I told you when the clouds look like seagulls you take fuckin' cover. Goddamn ocean mutinied me.”"

william golding wishes he did something this brilliant and significant when he wrote Lord of the Flies. the best deserted island story.

quite a career shift by @stedesparasol

157k, explicit

"Stede's been posting book reviews on Youtube for two months now. It's taken him that long to finally get a comment, and the person it comes from is rather unexpected."

rip stede you would've LOVED booktube. furious i can never really watch his content.

Semaphore by komodobits

124k, explicit

"Talking things through as a crew is easier said than done, and honest communication has never really been Stede’s strong suit. When it comes to Ed, he is willing to try."

so good that i was properly and truly laughing and gasping and 'oh no-ing' out loud while i read it.

Such Joie de Vivre by @louciferish

94k, explicit

"Professional thief Edward Teach is tired of hole in the wall apartments, shitty pub food, and skipping town every few months to keep the cops off their tail. He’s well past the age he meant to flee the country and retire, and all he needs is One Last Job to set him up for life. When he hears that some rich bastard outside of town has just the sort of treasure he’d trade his good knee for, Ed sets out in disguise to get the lay of the land."

i (so so foolishly) avoided reading this for a while because i simply didn't think i was one for nanny aus. i was so, terribly wrong. don't make the same mistakes i did. showstopping. incredible stuff.

The Chains of Flowers are Fragile Things by @grandmastattoo

62k, explicit

"Stede can't see the shop he's inherited from his late father as anything other than a burden, another insult added to a life that's going nowhere fast. Then he meets the charismatic man who owns the tattoo studio next door, and Stede finds himself forced to consider the idea of home."

maybe i love tattoo shop owner ed fics, sue me. i love this stede and i love his embarrassing mistake tattoo.

The Love Experiment by karawrites

65k, mature

a married at first sight (aus) au. i didn't know i needed it until i read it.

Water/line by @the-gentleman-mermaid

60k, teen

"During a raid on a smuggler ship, Ed finds a merman named Stede locked in the hold."

So good that I would actually pay the author real person money to do a similar story but where Ed is the mermaid.

Where the Daylight Begins by @xoxoemynn

116k words, explicit

"Modern day AU slow burn featuring a pining Ed, a clueless Stede, found family, roughly a million animals, and a very magical house."

This one sort of gave me House on the Cerulean Sea vibes; it was so much fun and genuinely necessitates a proper use of the word whimsical.

[catofoldstones]

The Ashford Theory and my patience running thin

Welcome, welcome my guys, gals and non-binary pals, to another scream into the void that the Ashford theory is, in fact, very jonsa

On to the arguments!

1. The suitor has to have the correct last name, not family, look at Joffrey Baratheon, you stupid jonsa

Hypothesis - the suitor has to have the corresponding name, not family, and because Jon is a Snow he’s out of the running. The other prong is fAegon who is actually a Blackfyre and not Targeryen, who can also be the suitor.

Thesis - Joffrey is the only other suitor to have a different name. Joffrey and Jon have also been set up as foils from the start of AGOT. Joffrey is a bastard masquerading as the rightful king and Jon is the rightful king (thrice crowned) masquerading as a bastard. It makes sense that they are the only two suitors to have the wrong name as this establishes them as inverses in another way. The last suitor being the foil of the horrible first suitor thereby showing character growth, and plot progression and resolution? Count me in.

As for Young Griff being a Blackfyre, here’s a meta or two, maybe even an argument, for him being the real Aegon VI Targaryen but take my personal fav evidences of Tyrion figuring out that Young Griff is Aegon VI Targaryen and then, Varys literally telling a dying Kevan Lannister about the true Targaryen prince and why would you lie to a dying man? How does that serve your purpose?

This is literally grrm telling us who Young Griff actually is, though this does not count him I out of the contenders, it reduces the weight of him being the fifth suitor, due to story arcs and well, his doomed fate.

Conclusion - While Aegon VI is a strong contender, there is much, much more literary weight and nuance with Jon being the Targaryen suitor.

2. Lady Ashford was not crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty by any champion!!! Take that jonsas

Hypothesis - tQoLaB is a title analogous to a betrothal/love interest

Thesis - there have been no allusions to the title of tQoLaB while trying to foreshadow a relationship, except for a really, really bad one (r + l) that plunged the whole realm into a civil war and we should not take that as a good sign

Conclusion - we’re grasping at straws here besties

3. Dunk disrupted the Ashford Tourney, therefore Sxndxr will disrupt Sansa’s prospects and other things

Hypothesis - Dunk & Sxndxr are are analogous and since there was no conclusion to the Tourney we can safely assume that it’s sxnsxn foreshadowing

Thesis - Brienne is the Dunk asoiaf corollary, not Sxndxr. Brienne is theorized to be Dunk’s descendant. She even has her shield painted like Dunk’s, apart from their striking character parallels and being a true foil to all the other knights in the story. Mr. Gravedigger is just tall :/

“Your door reminded me of an old shield I once saw in my father’s armory.”

Brienne II, AFFC

Brienne has Dunk’s shield in her family home possibly because she’s a descendant of Dunk but then goes ahead and gets her shield painted exactly like this one

“[The painted shield] was more a picture than a proper coat of arms, and the sight of it took her back through the long years, to the cool dark of her father’s armory. She remembered how she’d run her fingertips across the cracked and fading paint, over the green leaves of the tree, and along the path of the falling star.”

Brienne II, AFFC

Secondly, just because the tourney did not have a (satisfactory) conclusion does not mean that the tourney did not exist to serve a purpose. I doubt grrm would likely give out his whole story as early as 1998.

Conclusion - BRIENSA 4eva!!!!!

4. Valarr Targaryen died of a sickness and Aegon VI is doomed to die and is connected to a sickness, are you looking at the nerves popping out of my thick, brainy skull

Thesis - the fifth suitor is 100% Aegon and there’s no one else

Hypothesis - there is a Targaryen.. currently dead.. in the books… (thnk u @istumpysk for ur galaxy brain). The plague in the story serves to connects Aegon more to Dany than to a northern girl he doesn’t know about and might not like since she’s a Stark and his mother is Elia Martell.

Conclusion - jonsa

5. This is all a coincidence & u jonsas are reaching as always

Hypothesis - though george is known to tie every deep end, every crack theory, even farfetched ones that the readers have not caught, this one thing completely skipped his notice because exceptions are always there

Thesis - yes, because this is acotar & not asoiaf and he’s not grrm, i am

Conclusion - JONSAAAAAAAAAAAA

[abby118]

[stargirl230]

First (official) day of college!

super nervous haha, wish me luck

(no reposts!)

[revasserium]

lie to me

harrison; 1,872 words; fluff and a bit of angst; fem!reader a/n: in which harrison tells you five lies and just as many truths

01.

“lie to me.”

“i love you.”

“ah, but that’s an easy one — how could you be in love with someone you just met, right?”

you smile, lacing your fingers under your chin as he looks you over, the smile on your lips simple and sweet and somehow unsettling in its simplicity. there’s something hidden there — he knows it. he just doesn’t know exactly what it is yet and… that in and of itself is intriguing enough to warrant a second glance, a second’s pause.

“go on, isn’t this supposed to be what you’re good at?” you ask, cocking your head, your eyes never leaving his.

harrison feels himself being drawn into you, the unflinching way you meet his gaze, the seemingly indomitable nature of your curiosity, your striking, painful honesty. ah — so is that what it is? has he gotten so used to the truth hidden beneath the lies that seeing truth hidden behind another veneer of truth has become strange? certainly, it’s not something he sees everyday but…

“alright then — i don’t love you, but i think that maybe i could —”

eh?

you blink, but harrison is already pursing his lips with a shrug, pushing up from where he’d been sitting across from you, your coffee mugs still steaming.

“there, ponder that one for a while, hm?” he grins, shooting a lazy wink your way, “and… that confused look on your face… i don’t hate it, y’know.”

02.

“lie to me.”

“my favorite color is yellow.”

“well, mine’s green.”

harrison looks up at you from across a piece of perfectly buttered toast, his mouth halfway open, watching as you slather your slice of toast in a truly impressive amount of jam. you’re humming to yourself and when you glance up to find him watching you, you shrug.

“what?”

harrison smiles, shaking his head, “nothing. just… ah — nevermind.”

“no, tell me.” you take a huge bite of toast and he can’t help the way his eyes snag on the smear of jam on your lower lip or the way your tongue sweeps out to lick it up.

“nope. don’t wanna.” he takes his own rather large bite of toast, washing it down with a sip of coffee that’s just a bit too hot.

“even if i say ‘please’?”

harrison pauses, considers. and then he smiles.

“for a second there, i just thought you were… cute.”

your blush makes something warm and tight unfurl in his chest. but you narrow your eyes and the tension inside his chest lightens ever so slightly.

“saah… was that a lie or was it the truth?” he muses, reaching out to tap a finger to the center of your forehead, making you blink, “well, you can believe whatever you want to believe. i don’t mind it either way.”

03.

“lie to me.”

“i actually don’t really like lying.”

you pause over the still-warm cranberry scones, your hand hovering over the butter dish.

“then why do you do it?”

harrison licks his lips, his eyes fixed on yours. he feels the beginnings of something cresting from his stomach up into his chest, over his shoulders, down the length of his back. it’s a strange thing, a nearly foreign sensation. but it leaves his whole body a mess a livewire tingles, and it makes him wonder about stupid things like truth and trust and belonging.

“because… it’s easy, i suppose.”

you nod, slowly breaking off a corner of a scone, and applying a liberal amount of butter to it before offering it to him. on the windowsill, there’s a vase full of bright yellow tulips, freshly picked and watered.

“my parents always said that if you tell a lie enough times, it starts to sound like the truth.”

“hm… they sound like smart people.” he reaches out to take the bit of proffered scone, popping it into his mouth and savoring the sweetness.

you watch him with a grin, “they were.”

a moment passes, and then another; harrison reaches for the sugar bowl at the same time you do and your hands brush. you pause; so does he. and then — laughter, as he pushes the bowl towards you and you shake your head, nudging it back.

“three sugars, right?” you ask, watching as he drops the cubes into his coffee and stirs.

“what can i say? i’ve got something of a sweet-tooth.”

“yeah. i know you do.”

04.

“lie to me… please — t-tell me everything’s gonna be okay.”

there’s blood everywhere, and the world is around you is a blur of rain and shadows. the streetlamps cast the air in a hazy glow and it would be beautiful, if it weren’t so deeply, horrifyingly terrible.

you cradle harrison to your chest, a hand pressed to the side of his stomach, where a sickeningly hot stream of blood is pouring from a bullet wound, your other hand holding his head upright.

“i — i think i’m gonna die,” he says, forcing a weak smile as he raises a hand to cup your cheek.

“h-harry! that’s not — that’s not funny —” but you can’t help the watery laugh that bubbles from your lips.

“you — you told me to lie to you… right? so…”

you bite back a sob even as it rips itself from your throat and you shake your head.

“y’know… you’ve gotten s-so bad at this…”

harrison’s own laughter is stuttered through with coughs. more blood, painting the soft of his lips so bright it almost looks like lipstick or strawberry jam. you reach up your hand to wipe it away, smearing the red across his cheeks.

he catches your hand in his, and the cliché of the moment hits you like a runaway train, veering off it’s tracks — the rain, the blood, the falling in love.

“what… at lying? ah… i guess that’s true… hey… look at me…” he presses his blood-stained lips to your hand before resting it along his cheek, holding it there even as more blood gurgles out of the side of his mouth. you try to tug your hand to wipe it away but he holds you tight, holds you dear.

“there you are…” he says, his eyes flickering over the plains of your face, “i su-suppose you might make an honest man of me yet…”

you shake your head again, fervent and desperate.

“no — i d-don’t want that — harry, please — you can’t —”

“m-my favorite color… didn’t used to be yellow… but now it is… and… i never did like lying… but i hated doing it to you… and… i never thought i could fall in love but… here i am… so there — i — i think that’s most of them —”

“harry, what are y-you doing?”

“i’m… telling you the truth. now… your turn — lie… lie to me.”

you let out another sob as you see the light from his eyes slowly fading, even as the distant sounds of shouting alert you to the ambulance racing your way.

“i-if you die, i swear to god, harry — i’ll chase you right into the gates of hell and pull you back with me —”

harrison laughs, his hand falling from yours, his lashes fluttering as his gaze goes wide and glazed.

“now that’s a lie… i’d be happy to believe…”

05.

when harrison next wakes up, it’s to a nearly pitch-black hospital room and a solid weight somewhere to his right. he lets out a soft groan and looks down to find… you, with your face pillowed on your arms, fast asleep by his bedside.

“she’s been here for three whole days.” victor’s voice is light but for once devoid of it’s usual levity.

“ah… of course she has.” harrison reaches out to run his fingers through your hair, a smile stretching his lips at the way your brows furrow slightly, your body shifting as he traces a thumb along the contours of your cheek.

“try not to excite her too much… she’s barely been eating or sleeping so who know’s — her heart might give out if you give her too big of a shock.” and with that, victor tips his head and slips from the room, leaving the two of you very much alone.

harrison revels in the quiet, in the patient pace of your breaths, the rise and fall of his own chest, his own miraculous heartbeat mapped in bright green spikes on a screen to his left. and he wonders briefly how quickly it’d have to beat before it would alert the nurses but —

“h-harry? oh… oh my god — you’re awake!”

“hm… really? ah, and here i was, thinking this was all a dream.”

you bury your face in his chest, gasping when he winces, but he chuckles and tugs you back towards him, his seafoam eyes so bright even in the relative darkness.

“i — i thought…”

“what? that i was dead? c’mon… i’m not that easy to get rid of.”

you bite your lips, shake your head, your eyes welling up with tears as you once again bury your face in his chest, this time careful to avoid his still tender wounds. he hushes you as you hiccup, running a soothing hand through your hair, down the back of your neck.

“i’m just… so glad y-you’re alive…”

harrison grins, cocking his head as you pull back to look at him, your eyes wide and watery and so, so beautiful. it’s unfair, he decides, that you should still look so daringly beautiful like this.

“come here… there’s something i need to tell you…”

you blink at him for a moment before allowing him to beckon you closer, to wrap his arms around you and skim his lips by your cheek till he’s whispering in your hear —

“i… i don’t love you… not even a little bit.”

and for a second, you freeze, your whole body going cold, but when you pull back, there’s a smile on harrison’s lips that makes you roll your eyes. you let out a soft little sigh, pillowing your cheek on his chest as he absently brushes a strand of hair behind your ear.

“wow… when did you become such a terrible liar?”

at this, harrison laughs, and he hisses at the pain but he doesn’t stop laughing, and a moment later you join him, and the pair of you fall into the waves and waves of laughter until he tilts your chin up to press his lips to yours.

“if i had to guess…” he muses as he pulls back, running the pad of his thumb along your bottom lip, his eyes flickering from your kiss-bruised mouth up to your shock-widened eyes and back down again, a distinctly fox-like grin stretching his lips.

“i’d say that it was the day that i met you.”

[chamomile-soup]

on the run from shinra going camping! (this is about the fic Son ) (time travel fix its my beloved)(what if the world gave you a second chance. what if you shared it with someone who never had a chance at all.)

[panelshowsource]

who do you think is an underrated panel show guest? like someone who doesn’t appear on them very often but should

ohh fun question... y'know the thing about panel shows these days is they're sooo so so comedian-centric and really a lot of the same people again and again — which i'm not complaining about! i think they're the funniest people in the room and understand the dynamic of a panel show better than anyone else 99% of the time! but when it comes to people i find underrated in the most exciting way it's usually the semi-rare non-comedian who just...gets it. like, back in the day it was people like john barrowman, martin freeman, josh groban, mark ronson, chris o'dowd, christopher biggins, professor green, a couple of the spice girls (they actually run in comedian circles, interestingly)... they just fit into these shows and dynamics so well!

most of the people who have really surprised me in this regard in the last 5 or so years (bc i don't wanna reach back to, like, 2012 for this hahaha) have been on celeb juice or something like graham norton, the last leg, etc. for example, i had no idea will mellor could really hang, take jokes, dish out jokes, and do physical comedy until i saw him on juice. i think that kind of discovery is so fun!

100000% the uk drag girls (the viv being the one we see the most, love her to death and GET HER ON TM!!) NEED to be on more panel shows, jordan north (and get william hanson on SOMETHING this MINUTE), shirley ballas, ronan keating is actually a laugh, a lot of the reality show people (MIC, TOWIE, etc) who do what they do because they don't take themselves too seriously really do Get The Vibe (this is how we got rylan hellooooo), maggie aderin-pocock is an angel, ore oduba, jordan stephens, judge rinder hmm

comedians-wise (ik the drag girls often are comedians, but otherwise), people we've seen a little bit who we should be seeing more of in the name of comedy — alasdair beckett-king, kiri pritchard-mclean, paul foot, larry dean (whoever has the ‘X days since panelshowsource has mention larry dean’ sorry but you gotta reset), glenn moore, amy gledhill, morgana robinson

+ they're not underrated per say but just people i'd like to see again/continue seeing more often include ivo graham, guz khan, chris addison, holly walsh, robert webb, elis james, catherine tate, jess hynes, josie long, peter serafinowicz, humphrey kerr (we haven't seen him in a minute but i always thought he could have developed more of a place in panel show culture), and ffs can we bring back angus? should we? but could we? can we? just for one episode idk? also graham norton get your ass on tm this INSTANT new years

these types of asks always drive me crazy for the rest of the week bc i'm like "ahh i forgot ____!!!" hahahah but lmk what you think too!

[seraphicloves]

girl i accidentally/got semi forced into revealing i have a tumblr for fanfics to my cousin im in an awkward place with 😭 then she asked to read my stories and i had to be like "no sry" as my sister was reading my fanfictions 😭😭