#queueing now!

[sacredsanguine]

pillow talk: ii a joesme flash series | parts (i), (x), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

An early morning calls, generally, for an early night to precede it. The night before the water festival, dinner wraps up early, leaving a quiet conversation on Joel and Esme’s respective early starts the next day for the pillows. That had tapered into wishes for sweet dreams and easy sleep while Joel’s call to Sam’s side and Esme’s return to Shatterlily were still clothed in the far-off rosiness of a dawn yet to come.

The night deepens into the sleepy, liminal velvet of a time moving like dark water in an unlit river, soft and ready to sink into. Sleep, then, should be the logical progression.

Still, doing something against what she should is not unfamiliar to Esme, and as she traces a gentle fingertip over the curve of Joel’s shoulder, navigating by touch and the soft rhythm of his breathing, she wonders if it’s just her, with all the warping she’s grown into at court, who finds something special about this stolen little morsel of time together: of knowing each other in the veiled dark just through touch and the low murmur of being loved in wordlessness, in the slumber-swirled promise of rest, in comfort without need for sight.

“We should get to sleep,” Joel murmurs. The callused fingers of one warm hand brush a stray curl back from Esme’s face and pull the blankets up more cozily over her shoulders, palm flattening for a moment against her back to make sure she’s covered there too.

She nestles close; the terror of it, of trusting this man’s hands and the quiet, unstringed brightness of his smiles, has faded now, though her heart races if she lets her thoughts settle enough to realize its initial slowing. “Maybe I’m just talking in my sleep,” Esme whispers. “I’m dreaming right now.”

Joel chuckles, low and warm, and the faint susurration of it against her hair curves Esme’s lips up into a smile. “Then I’ll come join you.”

They agree that they should both really be sleeping, but below the murmur of that concord is the unspoken, humming agreement to treasure this time together—stolen from its future as it might be, for now it can belong easily to the both of them.

“Good night,” Joel murmurs sleepily; Esme feels but cannot see his weight shifting slightly beside her, arm laying over hers. She had never said anything about it, but now he was always careful to let some part of their bodies touch like this when they shared a bed, a wordless promise that he’d be there in the morning—or if not, that the door would be locked behind him and the covers pulled back over Esme so that she’d wake warm and cared for, not cold and used.

The mere fact that he’d taken notice—that he’d seen signals she’d learnt to ignore in herself the way everyone else seemed to—petrifies her core, teaches sublimity to every fibre of her being as though standing on a precipice overlooking the vastest and most unimaginable of seas.

She looks into the darkness for a moment and imagines that she can see the gentle curve of each long, dark eyelash fluttering with the rise and fall of Joel’s breathing.

“Good night,” Esme whispers back, and for the first time allows herself to think that perhaps even if this is a matter of martyrdom and exchange for him, maybe she is doing the unthinkable. Maybe she is falling in love.

Esme looks at the darkness overhead, then shuts her eyes and looks at the darkness inside them. The warm weight of Joel’s hand decides her: Esme chooses then to put her trust in the hand that holds hers as if to guide her through it: against all else, the history of her senses shrieking caution and shying away from the vulnerability of trust when she knows not where she would be led.

As she falls asleep, Esme thinks it is very nice to stand alongside someone for once, to feel the fear of falling but trust your flight in the strength of your teammate’s word—no slip-ended oaths, no empty almost-but-not-quite promises.

[planetary]

[wardensantoineandevka]

is that piece of media actually bad, or is it just not following the blueprint you projected onto it? is that work actually not good, or are you just demanding something from it that is absolutely antithetical to its themes, genre, tone, and narrative goal? is that story actually poorly written, or do you just dislike that it is not the specific things you wanted from it that it never set out to be, never was, and never is going to become? is it actually bad, or is it actually well-executed and you just dislike the story it chose to be because it isn't catering to your specific desires and expectations?

[nonebinary-leftbeef]

DEVASTATING the lyric you've been mishearing is better than the real one

[utilitycaster]

"why should I get invested in shows if they'll just get canceled" I was deeply invested in Heroes (2006) and it was not canceled, it just got really terrible. I also got really invested in the sandwich I had a few weeks ago despite it only lasting like 15 minutes. You must embrace the ephemeral. You must be willing to love things that may not love you back, that might betray you, or that may die an untimely death. As the great philosopher Mr. Mitchell Lee Hedberg said "I'm not gonna stop doing something because of what happens at the end."

[intheholler]

[unforth]

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

[leverage-ot3]

[khairosclerosis]

🃏 and it's our word,

yes, our word,

against theirs

for curtain call, the ace attorney musical zine!

[heavymilkers]

did you miss my big milkers~😘💙

[daydreamerwonderkid]

I know WFA is too OOC for some people, but I need that shit right now.

I do love seeing the Batfam beating the shit out of each other. I like how messy their relationships are and I have always loved flawed characters.

But idk, man, Batman #138 just really crossed a line for me and I need a reminder that there are other depictions of Bruce that aren't so fucking heinous.

I'll take this shit:

Over this shit:

Any. Fucking. Day.

[gearbroth]

twitter meme

[starrletnight]

irresponsible dad teaches his kids howw to say swears

[vampyfrnk]

revenge era photoshoot my beloved.

[flamingpudding]

Triple Identity Crisis

Danny had a problem. If it was a big one, he couldn't tell yet but he was partially sure Clockwork was at fault for this. Or at least he wanted to blame his ghostly godparent who most likely just wanted to cause some chaos for entertainment with the pretext of helping Danny. Which was a very likely reason for why Danny had a problem right now.

As it was the former Fenton now Fenton-Wayne boy was pacing his room in the Manor trying to think what is next step should be, because as it was his 'new' family –Did new still apply if he was living with them for a little more than a year now? – knew him under three different Identities now. And to top it all off they were not aware that the three identities were all pretty much connected as one.

For one. His family, knew him as Danny, the space obsessed kid, who became a meta because of his ectobiology science obsessed parents and his teenager recklessness. A kid that was actually a genius if you gave him enough time for school and could make you anything out of a ancients be damed toaster. That was the Danny they mainly knew. The Kid they took in, let in on the family business and then chose, to the happiness of Alfred and dismay of some of his 'new' siblings, normal life over vigilante life.

Then they knew Phantom. A dead ghost hero that was helping the Justice League and Young Justice to help them deal with the aftermath of the huge fallout caused by the GIW, Guys in White or rather Ghost Investigation Ward. And while Danny didn't know he had apparently worked with nearly his entire family and that time he knew it now. Which was awkward because he had pretty much pestered one of his elder brothers about his condition until Red Hood, aka Jason, let Phantom help him. Ancient, things might get awkward if that secret is lifted. He had done a lot of things Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Orphan and Robin had scowled him for. Thankfully they only thought of him as a dead teen hero and didn't know what a Halfa was. So they didn't make the connection, and he had yet to meet Signal, aka Duke as Phantom.

Now came the third identity, which totally did not happen by his choice. After all officially he hadn't accepted the throne yet and would only get it once he was dead dead not half dead. To bad ancient texts don't care about formalities. So when trouble hit the fan really hard the Justice League Dark had the bright Idea of getting some other worldly help. Which in other words was summoning the Ghost King. Oh boy, was it fun to learn that way that Danny could get summoned against his will. Clockwork did not give him that warning when he told him about the future of his afterlife. But best of all? Oh he doesn't get summoned as Phantom which would have made things maybe a bit easier, oh no. Life wasn't easy. He got someone's in some as a super weird black-green mass of a formless eltrich body with sharp teeth, claws and glowing green eyes with no pupils or irises. Hell Danny even scared himself when he saw his own reflection in a window and he didn't have a single idea how to change his form.

Let it be known that Danny acted then on purpose like he didn't know a single person in that room he had been summoned in right out of his bed and that he wasn't staring at his adoptive father like he needed help who interpreted his stare as the ghost king sizing him up. And Danny knows this because Dick had a good laugh about that at the dinner table with the rest of his siblings.

Now a smart person would probably come clean to his family and explain to them the three identities they knew him under and how they are connected.

To bad Danny wasn't 'smart' when it came to things like that. No in his panic and newfound awkwardness of the situation of what he had done on separate occasions with his identity as Phantom AND Ghost King, he decided to keep acting like he didn't knew them personally like the truely does. Really how hard could that be? Besides he liked the way his family treated him now. He didn't want to get treated differently because he was half dead, or a Ghost King. He liked that his family was treating him as plain old Danny who had an obsession with space and was their quirkily little brother with powers.

So that gave him even more incentive to keep the act up. Even if it was hard at times, especially if he got summoned out of nowhere. It would be easier if he could get a hang of the duplication power. He even had played with the thought of getting one of his ghost rogues to help but his family was perceptive. Maybe not perceptive enough to realise that all three identities were one and the same person but they would notice if Danny acted just slightly different or if Phantom was more of then usually. But somehow he still managed to keep it up.

But it was the hard way that he learned, Danny was bad at doing the 'talking' and realized that maybe Jazz was right and he was going to slip up one day causing huge misunderstandings like right now.

He stared down at Batman and Nightwing in his Ghost King form. Red Hood had his guns pulled on him, Wonder Woman and Superman looked like they where going to try to pull back Batman any second now while Nightwing, maybe at first was going to try to calm down the bat but Danny was pretty sure the eldest bat kid was now fiercely glaring at him too. He was also pretty sure the only reason he didn't see Red Robin or Robin threaten him too was because their super friends were somehow holding them back. For their own or his safety he doesn't know at the moment.

Because apparently the Bats did not fear fighting otherworldly beings to protect one of their own.

"What did you just say about Danny Fentons death?!" Batman grunted out and Danny just knew his adoptive father was glaring at him. Ancients Danny cursed his brain to mouth filter right now. As he had the collective hero scene before him staring at his Ghost King form. Would this be a good or bad moment to come completely clean or maybe he should find some kind of philosophical bullshit of 'All things death belong to him'....

[cypressure]

Maysozoic #11: Irritator challengeri