#ride with the tide

[alchemistc]

"Evan's not here," Tommy says, and Eddie scowls at him as he pushes past Tommy, already aiming for the kitchen as he hitches the six pack he'd brought with him up under his armpit. It'd been a - a thing. A 'my best friend and my new friend are too busy sucking face to spend every spare moment distracting me from my problems' thing, a thing where Eddie sort of finally understood exactly why Buck had hip checked him on the basketball court months ago. He wants his best friend back. He wants the ease of his friendship with Tommy back.

Which is - Christ, he's selfish, is the thing. A month without Chris there to keep him occupied and Eddie has had some startling realizations about himself. ("You're not selfish, Eddie, you're the most selfless person I know." from Buck and "So fix it," from Tommy, a rare night out with the both of them because he'd headed date night off at the pass by asking Tommy to go out for drinks before he and Buck could make plans without him).

"My world doesn't revolve around Buck," Eddie tells him, and screws the cap off a beer to hand it to Tommy. Tommy's doing that judgmental face he gets when he wants to say something bitchy but hasn't put the words in the right order yet. And - Eddie's not lying. Buck is a fixed point, an ever present life-line, but he's not the fucking sun.

Neither is Chris, apparently, which is news to Eddie and he's - spiralling, still. Quietly, calmly, and he's only punched one hole in the wall on a bad night.

"You ever go to Frank?" Eddie asks, like Frank is the only therapist in the greater LA area, and Tommy rolls his eyes, disappears long enough for the muted sound of the television to go quiet.

When he comes back Eddie's reading the label on his beer bottle

"Apparently I resent you," Eddie says, and Tommy chuffs a laugh.

"Apparently?"

"No, I -." The words had been just as hard two hours ago. This little trip was his own design, he'd been told specifically to sit in it for a while but Christ, an hour a week isn't enough time to talk through his issues and it's not like he can tell Buck he resents him for finding something he's happy and stable and solid in. So. Tommy it is. "You and Buck are good together. I'm happy for you both. I am."

Tommy settles against a countertop with his hip digging into the Formica. His kitchen has gained a dutch oven that looks suspiciously like the one Buck has been showing Eddie for like six months that he couldn't justify the cost of because he's not around enough to use it as much as he'd like.

"I'm not usually the one without his shit together," Eddie says.

"No offense, Eddie, but I thought the whole point of therapy was you realizing you rarely have your shit together."

Also true. He's - usually better at hiding it though. Kim was a joker stacked up on a wobbly house of cards and he'd known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she'd bring the whole thing tumbling to the ground. Mass casualty event. No survivors.

"You make each other better people," Eddie says, which is the wrong thing to say apparently because Tommy scowls.

"If you wanna completely ignore all the work we've both put into ourselves," he snipes, and - yeah. Fair. Buck's been in therapy for years now. Every once in a while he'll pull something out of his ass that makes Eddie's skin itch - something so mystifyingly self-aware that it makes Eddie want to claw into his chest cavity and rip out his fucking heart. And Tommy - well, he doesn't know much but it's not like Tommy's the paragon of perfection. He's worked through some shit. Is still working through shit, if the aftermath of his and Buck's first real fight is any indication.

"I've never been with someone who makes me want to work on myself," Eddie admits, and the lines around Tommy's eyes shift. He sighs.

"Never gonna find that if you don't want it for yourself."

Yeah. Frank's said as much. It's just - Eddie doesn't have a starting point. Tommy had the whole hiding his true self thing, and Buck had the dead-brother-shitty-parents thing, and he's whittling them both down to the sharp edges of themselves in his mind, which isn't entirely fair but it's easier than trying to confront what the fuck his own problem is. Dead wife, his kid in another state, a contentious relationship with his father, a whole backlog of PTSD he's never really confronted head on. Weird feelings cropping up about a religion he thought he'd left in the dust and sand of Afghanistan and a hole he's been trying to fill up with other people since - well, he doesn't even know since when.

Tommy's got his dog tags laying in the bottom of an empty fruit bowl on his kitchen table. Eddie's never seen them before, and some part of him knows Tommy'd brought them out for a conversation with Buck he'll never hear himself, and he aches. He doesn't want them, but he wants what they have, wants to be able to talk about the difficult shit without closing in on himself, wants to have someone to come home to, wants -

"I spent six months imagining my therapist's head exploding every time she made me talk about something uncomfortable," Tommy tells him, and takes a long drag off his beer. For the first time since he'd knocked on Tommy's door, Eddie actually feels a little bad about interrupting his night, but that just leaves him spiralling some more because Eddie usually feels bad about everything, all the time, so why hadn't he felt guilty about this until now? And why does he feel guilty about not feeling guilty?

"I just want him to fix me," Eddie says, and Tommy laughs. Laughs hard and long enough that Eddie's feeling offended. Off kilter and pissed off and -

"You're not a single loose wire, Eddie. Can't just replace a cable and have a clean slate. You gotta change your oil and replace the spark plugs and top up the coolant, over and over again until you die."

It's the sort of metaphor Eddie'd like to lob across the field of engagement just to watch it get shot to pieces. It's apt, though.

"Feels like the whole engines gotta go," Eddie tells him "Transmission's shot and my catalytic converter keeps getting stolen and the mufflers been welded back on so many times that it's half-solder."

"Christ," Tommy says, which. Yeah. Exactly. "Well you can't exactly send yourself to the junk yard for scrap and buy a newer model."

"Buck does," Eddie snaps, and Tommy rolls his eyes. He'd been there the last time Buck brought up his 1.0 days.

"Half the time a system update patches ten bugs and creates twenty more."

"So Buck's buggy, is what you're saying."

He rolls his tongue over his teeth. "You are running off faulty software and you've been refusing to update to the new version because you heard it'd burn the battery faster, is what I'm saying."

Eddie doesn't have a whole lot of charge to begin with. And the metaphors are starting to muddle in his brain, too many different ideas battling around when he's already spent an ornery hour talking to Frank and another trying to convince himself he doesn't resent his best friend for accepting his own fucking flaws and working on them.

Tommy sets the beer bottle down. Eyes Eddie for a moment, and Eddie wonders how often he levels that look on Buck, how Buck feels when Tommy flays him open and digs through his insides. "You wanna go hit something for a bit?" he asks, and Eddie nods so quickly he nearly smacks his nose into the brim of the bottle in his own hand. He's about done feeling his feelings, for the moment. He'll probably end up being annoyed that Tommy makes him wrap his hands before he takes some aggression out on the bag hung up in the corner of Tommy's garage, but maybe when Tommy gets annoyed with him and does that takedown maneuver that knocks the wind out of Eddie's lungs when they're sparring he'll let that go.

Tommy flicks his forehead on the way to grab him something to wear. "That's for calling my boyfriend buggy, jackass," he says, and laughs himself all the way down the hall when Eddie splutters after him.

His bedroom door snicks shut by the time Eddie's recovered enough to remind him that he'd been Eddie's friend first.

[saltandfire-blog]

Lucerys Velaryon

[egophiliac]

So the final character turns out to be based on Ryugen, but it feels kinda weird how there is also one based on Zangetsu and they aren't brothers

Or what if plot reveals they are brothers and he was actually adopted or stollen

I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S ACTUALLY RYUUGEN?! I made a joke about it when Toten got revealed but I didn't actually expect... (I'm counting it as a win though, which means I guessed three out of sixteen! ...given how wacky some of these got, I'm actually pretty proud of that.)

he seems very sweet though! I hope he and his secret hamsters are very happy together. 🐹

(also:

THIS WAS MY EXACT TRAIN OF THOUGHT TOO! either this is an incredible bit of meta foreshadowing, or an incredible bit of Takahashi trolling, and I -- I honestly don't know which is more likely)

[hussyknee]

Tfw your favourite faux-leftist liberal shill turns against you. 🥲

[fairygodpiggy]

Ride the Tide Screenshot Challenge

Day 10 - The Quest for Cheese & Wine

prompt list

[loveinhawkins]

thinking about what would’ve happened if there was a clear rift in the basketball team; we already kinda get a taste of it in the show, when one of the boys is arguing against disdainful talk about the trailer park and drug addicts.

Sure, the circumstances don’t exactly paint Eddie Munson in the best light (understatement of the century), but that doesn’t mean they all just get swept along with Jason’s narrative.

And then, as Jason gets more and more entrenched in bigotry, in a dangerous rage, the murmurs of dissent against him get a little louder.

The doubt grows. Someone voices the thought that this feels wrong, that the way the town immediately assumed Eddie was a serial killer feels too close to ‘83, to when Benny Hammond’s death was quickly ruled a suicide, while his loved ones still insist to this day that it simply could not be true.

Ripples of agreement. A couple stories are shared—nothing major, as none of them really know Eddie Munson, save for his theatrical jibes in the cafeteria.

But a kid mentions that he once sat behind Eddie in History, that they’d swapped seats when Eddie appeared to notice how he was squinting at the blackboard.

Another boy quietly mumbles that he’d once arranged to buy weed from him but decided against it at the last minute, and Eddie never once complained, never held it over his head.

Maybe it’s even more scary, how Jason Carver can whip the town hall into a frenzy, even though not everyone’s convinced. Not everyone needs to believe in the Devil, after all, for the fear to be a threat.

But maybe, much later, it could be enough for Eddie Munson to know that the hatred isn’t universal. That there’s people out there who he barely knows, who barely even know him—but they’re still certain that he couldn’t be capable of such evil.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: A HALF-BUILT GARDEN by Ruthanna Emrys.

[shochmonster]

Finally done with Rising Tide, and there are just two things that stick out to me. [STOP READING IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS] One, are we not going to talk about how everyone in Mysidia does an approximation of the prayer hands from FFX. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Also, was anyone else crying into their controller during the baptism ceremony with Clive talking about death and returning to the sea? I AM NOT OK.

[meteorstricken]

I still need to grab a screenshot of this, but something very interesting that happens during the events of The Rising Tide is that if you look at the Grand Cast back at the Hideaway, the red line indicating a state of animosity between Clive and Ultima turns to a neutral white one, because they both agree (albeit for their own reasons) that what's happened with Leviathan is *absolutely fucked up*. For a brief episode, they're on the same page, and it's during this that you can also see Clive's faith in whether or not the world can or should be saved waver a bit. He has to focus on just doing the next right thing...which, in this one case, also happens to be exactly what Ultima would have him do as 'the servant of god'.

[minorgoddess-majorfun]

I had a good pickup line ready to go, but you're so good-looking I'm literally speechless. -@ride-the-tide

Tove giggled, fluffing the mass of hair she had over one shoulder and dislodging a few flower petals in the process.

“Well, it’s a new dress. I’m glad I didn’t waste my money. What a sweet talker you are~”

[desperatepleasures]

major W for doth tonight lucy always takes requests and she ACTUALLY did The Tide for me which is an ANCIENT DEEP CUT and also a MASSIVE BLORBO SONG 👍

[intertexts]

OK. OK OK OK. HI. IM AT WORK NOW SO THIS IS GONNA BE DISJOINTED AND NOT MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE BUT IM COOKING SO THIS REQUIRES AN ASK AND NOT A REPLY BC THOSE HAVE CHARACTER LIMITS (cooking both metaphorically and literally because it's 95 degrees outside at 9am and it is so so so so fucking humid) oh god get me out of the kitchen before i start burning things!!!

this could be Nothing. bc again I desperately need 2 learn more about cauldron and their motivations and such. BUT. going back to the tide/leviathan comparisons because they're making me kind of insane and i want to give him a Complex about it. because if we're not going to lobotomize him I need 2 hurt him in other ways (sorry dad)

so. this doesn't EXACTLY work 1:1 because there are only 3 endbringers and only 2 of them seem to be element-focused as far as i know. but if we have tide as a comparison to leviathan, we also have MAGMA who could be a comparison to behemoth if my thoughts are correct and behemoth is . big fire guy (he sleeps in a volcano so. I'm assuming.) . granted we also have like. whirlwind and shockwave and seismic who are the other elementals and they don't actually have an endbringer counterpart BUT IM !!!! going a little crazy thinking about like. if tide + his siblings are artificial capes, what if they (or at least he and magma because I'm kind of thinking abt them as the older ones. havent listened to the oneshot in a while so this may not be accurate) were given their powers SPECIFICALLY to be counters to the endbringers. or at least in an attempt to make a cape equivalent of the endbringers to better like... study their powerset or something. (I keep saying cauldron studies things bc I said that with david too and this really just comes from my inherent need for a big evil science team. in worm it seems like they're more capitalism focused but let a guy dream here)

this also brings up an interesting point with Elle who i know u don't know yet but she could be an interesting counterpoint to simurgh? Who as far as I know now isn't necessarily elemental but . neither is Elle really!! and that creates the big disaster in the oneshot bc she can't control her powers and goes kind of nuts about it.

anyway anyway anyway. tldr; tide and magma were specifically created as parallels to leviathan and behemoth, this wouldn't really be common knowledge to the rest of the capes bc of cauldrons secrecy BUT i think ppl would definitely notice the similarities in their powersets and that makes a subconscious fear response in people who have seen an endbringer attack firsthand (I believe in scary intimidating tide supremacy but then you talk to him and he's the sweetest human being in the whole world) . tide and magma both know this and have complicated emotions about it. I think tide has a very bad reaction to the leviathan attack if we are keeping that as an event that happens.

OR IT COULD ALL BE COINCIDENCE AND THIS IS NOTHING. but until i learn more about cauldron I am choosing to view them as my favorite trope of big evil science corporation <3333

OHH U R FUCKING COOKING DUDE YEAH <333

it is. so hard whenever u r talking about cauldron.... mallard conway ass levels of "oh okay i literally Cannot talk about this or else im accidentally gonna say spoilers." but. i DO think this goes so hard & conceivably makes sense for cauldron to do...... man one day in the far future we're gonna have to sit down and talk about if cauldron even would exist in this au. but. for now. hehehe :33 & i will say!!! i will say!!! research is. involved, in what they do. you are not off the mark.

ANYWAY. love this for him so much..... the way he moves and acts in a fight echoes leviathan.... does he have that water afterimage too??? when he's fighting?? because that shits cool as hell he should have it. i'm always just really ill over someone made to be a weapon who never wanted to be one.... tide you have to be at the leviathan fight but you shouldn't be :(((

i gotta listen to the elementals oneshot i have it downloaded rn.. i wanna know elle's deal because you have just said something unwittingly extremely funny & i need to know What happens to her before i comment on it!!!! anyway!!!! thinking abt tide lambert forever & always...

[eye-in-hand]

There really is no getting to these people why am I even on this website lmfao

[headspacedad]

The Sea Wolf

when I was a very little kid, still in the single age digits, I found a poem I half memorized in a book at the library. 

Then, for the next thirty years or so I never saw it again, not even when I put the lines I remembered into internet search.  A few years back - I finally found it.  I still have no idea who wrote it but here it is:

The fishermen say, when your catch is done And you’re sculling in with the tide, You must take great care that the Sea Wolf’s share Is tossed to him overside.

They say that the Sea Wolf rides, by day, Unseen on the crested waves, And the sea mists rise from his cold green eyes When he comes from his salt sea caves.

The fishermen say, when it storms at night And the great seas bellow and roar, That the Sea Wolf rides on the plunging tides, And you hear his howl at the door.

And you must throw open your door at once, And fling your catch to the waves, Til he drags his share to his cold sea lair, Straight down to his salt sea caves.

Then the storm will pass, and the still stars shine, In peace-so the fisherman say- But the Sea Wolf waits by the cold Sea Gates For the dawn of another day.

[citrine-elephant]

"fuck it we ball" -> can't focus on one thing rn, we ball @ drawing this abduction spider and scribble ideas for leon's POV

[fairygodpiggy]

We're officially less than a month away from Ride the Tide!

So what is it all about, anyway?

Ride the Tide is a Summer festival celebrating XIV's player community 💙

Hosted by The Aetheryte Plaza, we bring together a wide variety of venues and performers across ALL North American Data Centers to provide fun and entertainment with La Noscea's coastal backdrop.

We first created Ride the Tide in April 2020 as a way to share cheer, company, and community in the midst of the pandemic lockdown, and we've been carrying on the tradition since!

(more info below the cut vvv)

Do you need to be an RPer to attend?

Roleplay is always welcome, and the staff will gladly roleplay - but it is not required! This is an event for everyone, so even if you don't RP, you are welcome!

What kind of activities and contests are there, and how do I participate?

We have a wide variety of games that will be offered. I'll be making posts in the near future that highlight each booth; but to summarize, there will be cooking challenges, fishing, fighting contests, cliff diving, scavenger hunts, card games, fortune telling, and fashion contests!

While most of these require you to simply go to the respective booth and tell the staff you wanna do the thing, certain activities (like the fashion contest) require you to sign up well ahead of the festival so you can plan your glam and how you will impress the judges!

Keep an eye out for further information in case you want to sign up!

What if I just want to vibe and enjoy the atmosphere?

That's fine! There is no one way to enjoy the festivities. So long as you aren't being disruptive or mean-spirited, you are free to engage with the festival in whatever way that you're comfortable with!

What about the giveaway?

We have a pool of prizes for the grand giveaway - from special dyes and minions all the way to mounts, game time cards and even artwork and custom screenshots!

To be eligible to win, you must have an active subscription to FFXIV and be a member in The Aetheryte Plaza discord - since we'll run it in the server. Winners will be announced in discord at the END of Ride the Tide.

You do not have to be at the festival in game for the entire time if you are not able to stay.

Can trial accounts enter the giveaway?

The reason we can only allow subscribed users to enter is because 98% of the prizes offered are in-game items that require being traded. Trial accounts are not allowed to give or receive trades, send or receive mogmail, nor can they access the marketboard.

These are the more frequently asked questions, but if you have any others, you're welcome to send an ask or DM me!